Just when I think I am getting my life together, everything goes wrong. I feel like a capable adult, I think like a capable adult. I make complicated plans; based on a broad knowledge and intelligent reasoning, I have the skills to do many things extremely well. But I never get anywhere. I can’t get past the smallest hurdles and I absorb help like a ravenous blackhole; where the efforts of professionals and amateurs alike are crushed to a nothingness and disappears forever as if it had never existed.
I’m starting to believe that I am living in a parallel universe; my knowledge doesn’t apply, I seem to misunderstand what is being communicated to me, I am often misunderstood, I see, hear, taste, smell and feel differently to those around me. Am I perceiving one world while I am being perceived in another? Intellectually I probably understand humans better than they understand themselves; psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, education, history, archaeology, body language & philosophy. But the real truth is I don’t understand people at all. Maybe I understand how they should be or I can analyse with hindsight; but I can not predict or even keep up with human behaviour and how they communicate with each other.
I have written before about Scholastic Book Club; the book fair etc. But I have been too ashamed to admit what’s been happening. I have not been able to contact my rep, meanwhile she has been reporting to others I am not contactable, I was contacted and had a productive call with her one day substitute, but I’m not really sure what’s going on. This has also meant some information & papers are sent to me & some to my predecessor which is very confusing for an autistic control freak. Keep in mind I am a volunteer who receives absolutely no tangible benefit from my involvement, in fact there are expenses I have to cover. Unfortunately I have no proof but worse than that I have let the anxiety & confusion of dealing with this woman paralyze me and thus slow me down, bringing on guilt and culpability. My hands therefore aren’t clean so I don’t feel I can complain. I have now been publicly humiliated by this woman who has contacted my colleagues & customers and told them I am not contactable. So in a typical Lisa move this news combined with the bereavement this all became too much; so I withdrew and became uncontactable for about 4 days. I am the incompetent she has always thought me to be. I lose!
No matter how old I get I still respond to confrontation with withdrawal, not always a long withdrawal and much shorter if I’m defending a third person and there is no confusion involved. So even if initially she was wrong my response was inexplicable and worsened the situation.
I have been considering leaving the P&FA (Parent Group) for sometime. I love the people, I enjoy the work, but I end up standing around not knowing what I am supposed to be doing, the combination of guilt (not helping enough), frustration and the sensory overload of being in public in brightly lit conditions is not good for my health. I just don’t get it, they seem to be able to anticipate and work with each other so well, I don’t fit in. But they are such nice people they try to accommodate me, I am extremely high maintenance.
After failing to fulfill my duties in a timely manner after all their help I can not face those people again! Issues with both my younger daughters and the school I can not face those people again! It was good while it lasted but my latest experiment has as all the others before it failed. We have reached the point of diminishing returns actually we’ve passed it.
The sooner I can get it through my thick head that I can not & will never be able to function in the real world the better off I will be.
Don’t worry I don’t want to die or anything drastic. I just realise that I cannot work with normal people on an equal footing. Writing circle (kind of like being a student), therapists and blogging circle (I’m hoping I haven’t been burned yet) are all okay; but not volunteering or committees or anything professional.
For God’s sake, what am I missing? How do even stupid (the 10% of low achievers I am not saying all NT’s are stupid) neurotypicals understand and work together? I have studied and I work on it!
I Give up!
I’m Out!
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