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L_Holmes
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13 Sep 2014, 7:39 pm

People think they somehow know my situation, and they think they can tell me, order me, to do things because they think they are right.

Just now, my friend (I'll just call him Dan) was talking to me on the phone. We are both members of the same church (Mormon). Somehow the topic of working on Sunday came up. His opinion on it is that he refuses to work on Sunday, and if an employer schedules him on Sunday he will not show up. He says it is illegal for them to fire him in for that.

I am not the same. To be honest, I have been having so many problems lately that it seemed too much of a hassle to try and bend my employers to my will and give me all Sundays off, when I am so preoccupied with issues that are more immediate. Because of the problems I am dealing with, I am usually preoccupied at church and don't get much out of it, so in my mind it isn't high on the priority list.

It's not that I question my belief about it, or that I even dislike going. I just feel like I am not getting much from it, because I have a hard time relating others' experiences to my own and taking their advice. The stuff they say doesn't help me, and sometimes has even made me feel worse (not intentionally), just because I have different struggles compared to most, and their words are targeted at the majority of people and their problems, not mine. And I'm not saying that to sound whiny, because it makes sense that they would do this. But right now I am at a point in my life where it just isn't that important to me to go to church, just for the sake of going to church. I want to go for the right reasons, not because others have told me they think I should.

But back to my friend. Somehow we got on the whole subject of employers and working on Sunday, church, etc. etc. etc. And at some point it escalated to an argument, because he was basically telling me that I need to go to the boss and tell him I want all Sundays off, no matter what. When I started working, I originally did not put down Sunday as an available day, because I don't want to work on Sundays. It isn't explicitly stated anywhere that it is bad to work a shift on Sunday, it's more of an unwritten rule, but most people follow it. He told me that he would give me the Sundays off that he could, but at the time I was hired they were pretty short on workers (and still are). So I agreed, not hesitantly, that I would work the occasional Sunday if needed, it seemed reasonable to me. The other part of that was if I asked for another day off in the week, I'd also probably work Sunday since someone has to be there to cover my shift. I've had a doctor's appointment almost every week as of recently, so I need these days off, and as a result I get scheduled for Sunday.

Dan was telling me that basically I should march in to them and suddenly have this new expectation that I get every Sunday off for church. It escalated to an argument, because basically I was trying to explain myself (which is really hard to do, even here, so obviously it's going to be pretty freaking hard on the phone) and he kept talking over me and interrupting me. I started to get fully angry at some point because of this, and when he finally gave me time to talk it was when all the information he forced me to listen to was already blocking my own thoughts out. He told me I was making excuses, and that "it's a dog eat dog world" and I'm the "dog being eaten". Then he insulted me even more by calling me stupid, said I was "on drugs", and hung up.

Now, what I'm wondering is, what the heck do I do that makes people think they can treat me like that? He's barely older than me, and he doesn't have any real idea of what life has been like for me, yet he thinks he does know. He literally said that he knew the situation. If there is one thing I can't stand it is when people make assumptions, about anything really, but especially about me. The real thing about me not going in and asking for this, is that I've been told countless times growing up that I didn't need help, and I didn't deserve it either. Anytime I got in an argument with a parent it was 100 percent my fault, even if I was simply wondering why they thought a certain rule was necessary out of genuine curiosity. No, this is apparently disrespect so severe it can't even be put into words. I couldn't ever ask for help because that made me lazy. All the time I heard them talking so badly about people who take advantage of others' assistance. If I ever dared to suggest that maybe my issues weren't because I was lazy, and that I had a legitimate reason for my problem, I wouldn't hear the end of it for hours. My mom would get blamed for putting ideas in my head, and basically messing me up as a kid. I have a strong aversion to asking anyone for help, or advice, or really anything because of this, especially when it comes to my parents or other authority figures.

I don't like birthdays, I don't like getting awards, or gifts, or recognition. I can hardly even accept compliments without deflecting them or finding all the reasons they aren't true. It makes me feel like I will have to owe others, and that they will use it against me like they did all the time growing up. If I learned one thing growing up, it's that my opinion does not matter to anyone, especially not to someone in a position of authority over me, whether it be parents, employers, adults with "more experience", and on and on. I do not deserve a thing from anyone, ever. If someone gives me something, anything, I must thank them profusely or else I am rude. My parents were so gracious, letting me stay with the rest of the family that I was apparently not a real part of. How could I be so ungrateful, when they rescued me from the evil that was my mom's home? They didn't need me there, and they could easily send me off if I didn't stop causing so much trouble for them. I needed to march to their tune, because I had no power and they had it all. I was and always will be wrong about everything, simply because they are in the position of power over me. That's what I learned. And now they probably wonder why I'm not very comfortable talking to them.


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starkid
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13 Sep 2014, 7:53 pm

Maybe Dan's behavior is not primarily about you and he is just too fundamentalist about religion to see or care about how he was treating you.



L_Holmes
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13 Sep 2014, 8:09 pm

starkid wrote:
Maybe Dan's behavior is not primarily about you and he is just too fundamentalist about religion to see or care about how he was treating you.


I think you are right about that. He told me afterwards that he reacted that way because he just didn't want me to leave the religion. He has a very strong belief about it. Me, I feel like it makes sense, logically. but I've never felt any strong emotion or connection with it like so many seem to have.


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AspieUtah
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13 Sep 2014, 8:18 pm

Because the First Amendment to the Constitution for the United States of America prohibits Congress from making any "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof[,]" there are no laws which prohibit employers from requiring Sunday work from their employees. Your friend wasn't just wrong about his statements, he was hostile and rude to you about your opinions about the arrangement that you and your employer have about working Sundays if you don't complete your duties during the week (which I agree is probably temporary and reasonable for both of you). I would explain to your friend that employers can't be prohibited from assigning Sunday work to employees, even though yours is willing to work with you as best he can.

But, I would also explain to your friend that you have a developmental disorder, not an intellectual disorder. Ask him to learn about both so he will know the difference. I had a similar experience this week when my mother told my uncle (her brother) about my AS/ASD screening tests. He proceeded to tell me all about what AS is (as if I hadn't already read the tests' Cambridge research papers and textbooks about the subject) and how to spot "them." He wasn't angry, but I can imagine how he would have sounded if he was. I sat there with a grin enjoying his mistaken claims about something I have and he doesn't. I guess all I can say is that some (many?) NTs exhibit the truism about how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Good luck working this out with your friend. Like my uncle, your friend probably meant well. But, he should also know that you didn't ask for his advice or his opinions about your work life. By the way, if the LDS Church made Sunday work a mortal sin, there would be a lot of excommunicated, but employed, college students running around Utah. Hehe.


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13 Sep 2014, 8:35 pm

First of all, I hear your pain and I am sorry for it.

Next, your friend Dan is wrong. If your employer made it clear that working on Sundays was required when you were hired and you agreed to it, then he/she can terminate you if you don't come to work as scheduled. Unless Idaho has some legislation at the State level that says otherwise. I doubt they do.

Lastly, I have found that there are certain people in life who are just not worth arguing/debating with. You will never win and they will never change their mind. When people like that give me advice, my response is always "thank you for your concern and advice. I will consider it." Then I consider it completely irrelevant to me and discard it. I don't explain. I don't debate. I thank them and move on.

The good thing is that you are now a young adult. You can acknowledge the chains that your childhood has placed on you (and it sounds like you are doing a decent job of doing that) and you can either choose to continue to be held back by them or you can choose to break free. I chose to break free, but I was older than you when I did it. It takes courage and it takes strength, but it's possible. It also takes a lot of work because you need to re-write the narrative that plays in your brain.

Regarding why people treat you like that: because they can. You allow it. A lot of people might think I am wrong to say that because they see it as "blaming the victim" but I don't see it that way at all. I see acknowledging something like that as empowering. Because you cannot control other people. No one can. But you can control who you allow to have significance in your life.

Good luck to you.


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13 Sep 2014, 8:53 pm

Long winded post removed. :oops:



Last edited by sharkattack on 13 Sep 2014, 9:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

sharkattack
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13 Sep 2014, 9:04 pm

Getting and maintaining employment while on the spectrum can be a challenge don't mess up your job by marching into your boss making demands that somebody else has pressured you into.

That is my opinion but make up your own mind.



Last edited by sharkattack on 13 Sep 2014, 9:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

AspieUtah
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13 Sep 2014, 9:09 pm

[Removed by author]


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Last edited by AspieUtah on 13 Sep 2014, 9:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

sharkattack
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13 Sep 2014, 9:14 pm

Point taken I will delete that post.

Any chance of you deleting the quote?



AspieUtah
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13 Sep 2014, 9:17 pm

sharkattack wrote:
Point taken I will delete that post.

Any chance of you deleting the quote?

Thanks, and done.


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Diagnosed in 2015 with ASD Level 1 by the University of Utah Health Care Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinic using the ADOS-2 Module 4 assessment instrument [11/30] -- Screened in 2014 with ASD by using the University of Cambridge Autism Research Centre AQ (Adult) [43/50]; EQ-60 for adults [11/80]; FQ [43/135]; SQ (Adult) [130/150] self-reported screening inventories -- Assessed since 1978 with an estimated IQ [≈145] by several clinicians -- Contact on WrongPlanet.net by private message (PM)


sharkattack
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13 Sep 2014, 9:20 pm

AspieUtah wrote:
sharkattack wrote:
Point taken I will delete that post.

Any chance of you deleting the quote?

Thanks, and done.


Thanks I am humble enough to say sorry when I am wrong and I like people forgiven enough to accept an apology. :)



AspieUtah
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13 Sep 2014, 9:23 pm

sharkattack wrote:
Thanks I am humble enough to say sorry when I am wrong and I like people forgiven enough to accept an apology. :)

You are a gentleman.


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L_Holmes
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13 Sep 2014, 11:45 pm

InThisTogether wrote:
First of all, I hear your pain and I am sorry for it.

Next, your friend Dan is wrong. If your employer made it clear that working on Sundays was required when you were hired and you agreed to it, then he/she can terminate you if you don't come to work as scheduled. Unless Idaho has some legislation at the State level that says otherwise. I doubt they do.

Lastly, I have found that there are certain people in life who are just not worth arguing/debating with. You will never win and they will never change their mind. When people like that give me advice, my response is always "thank you for your concern and advice. I will consider it." Then I consider it completely irrelevant to me and discard it. I don't explain. I don't debate. I thank them and move on.

The good thing is that you are now a young adult. You can acknowledge the chains that your childhood has placed on you (and it sounds like you are doing a decent job of doing that) and you can either choose to continue to be held back by them or you can choose to break free. I chose to break free, but I was older than you when I did it. It takes courage and it takes strength, but it's possible. It also takes a lot of work because you need to re-write the narrative that plays in your brain.

Regarding why people treat you like that: because they can. You allow it. A lot of people might think I am wrong to say that because they see it as "blaming the victim" but I don't see it that way at all. I see acknowledging something like that as empowering. Because you cannot control other people. No one can. But you can control who you allow to have significance in your life.

Good luck to you.


Thank you. I can see what you mean by me allowing it, and that I can basically just cut them out of my life if they don't respect me, or at the very least just listen to what they have to say, and keep my disagreement to myself to avoid the conflict.

But what I am really wondering is why do they have no respect for me to begin with? I always try to at least give someone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to personal issues, because you can't know everything about their situation. But nobody else seems to do that, not for me at least. The thing that I realized irritates me the most about people is that they assume things, all the time. They think they know things, and they don't. They just know what someone else told them, who has supposed credibility; or they know their own experiences. That's it.

At home, school, even church, there were countless times where I tried to voice an opinion, and all I wanted was at least the respect that others get, that people at least acknowledge I can have my own opinion, but it's like they literally thought I have no right to my opinion, that my opinion was actually wrong. Everyone would suddenly feel the need to start repeatedly asking questions and interrupting before I could answer. And then when I'd start losing my patience and getting annoyed, that made me more wrong, which they would tell me, because supposedly getting mad in an argument makes your idea wrong. I just want to freaking speak! Today when this happened with Dan, I was over and over telling him that he wasn't letting me speak and was interrupting me. But for some reason people don't feel the need to be reasonable with me. I finally got him to stop, but only by yelling "STOP!". By that point I was so flustered though, so I lost what little ability I have to organize my thoughts into words.

The thing is, I don't ever see this happen to others. If I did, I would defend them. I don't think it is really because something I do allows them to do it. It seems more like people just assume I am a stupid kid, or maybe something I said sounded stupid because like I said, I'm horrible at clearly communicating my thoughts to others. It seems like people think they need to "put me in my place".


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14 Sep 2014, 5:04 am

I have found this in my life too.

The one thing that is clear reading your posts is that you have a will of your own.

I have found being on the spectrum we can come across as weak and unsure of ourselves to others this might be the part of the reason people feel like they can talk to us like children.

If your really strong and stick to what you want to do people will start to respect you.

I had years of my brother and sister doing the same thing to me but I put them in their place.



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14 Sep 2014, 6:50 am

sharkattack wrote:
I have found this in my life too.

The one thing that is clear reading your posts is that you have a will of your own.

I have found being on the spectrum we can come across as weak and unsure of ourselves to others this might be the part of the reason people feel like they can talk to us like children.

If your really strong and stick to what you want to do people will start to respect you.

I had years of my brother and sister doing the same thing to me but I put them in their place.


Recently I have been trying harder to make it clear to others if I feel they are disrespecting me, and that they can tell me what to do but ultimately I am not obligated to listen; so treating me like a child isn't going to work in their favor. I have a feeling that at some point I will have a discussion with my parents that will go the route that it always has, with them basically using the "we're older and have more experience, so we're automatically right" argument. And I will finally be able to state my real opinion, and they won't be able to threaten me by saying they'll kick me out, or insult me by saying they don't need me, because I don't need them or their opinion either.

I probably seem kind of bitter. I don't hate them. I just am kind of shocked how insensitive they were, some of the stuff they said was kind of cruel. They never said they hated me or anything like that, but they seemed to have no problem threatening to kick me out for any reason; they'd often make it seem like I was somehow breaking apart the whole family because of how "contentious" I was. I think they were just being careless with what they said, not intentionally mean. But still, after all that I do find it hard to feel much affection for them. I never even felt like part of the family, I felt like I was an outcast. I literally felt like they were just annoyed by everything about me, they told me all the time I was annoying. One time they made me go live at with another family's house, they were friends of the family. But they told me it was basically because with my dad deployed I was going to be too much stress for my step mom and I needed to be sent off; I really don't see how they didn't think that might be kind of offensive, but they made no effort to explain it in any other way than that I was just a pest. By the end of my stay there, it seemed they'd also had enough of me there; I overheard the dad multiple times saying how ungrateful and basically annoying I was. Of course they didn't consider the fact that I had no choice in the matter, I didn't ask to go there, and I did try my best to be as not annoying as possible. I never brought that whole thing up with my parents to this day, I know they'd say I'm whining or something. I guess most of the direct meanness was from my step mom, but I still feel like it came equally from my dad simply because he did nothing about it, just because "it isn't right to disagree in front of the kids". Maybe about something that doesn't involve the kids, yes, but I was clearly being blatantly insulted in front of everyone, that seems like a family issue to me.

Anyway, I'm starting to rant; I know there's nothing I can really do to change what's happened. I think they do want the best for me, but what bothers me is that they treated me like they don't care at all, like that would discipline me or something. I will explain myself to them in the future if they ask why I don't really talk to them much. I just don't know how much our relationship could improve at this point sadly.


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AspieUtah
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14 Sep 2014, 8:52 am

sharkattack wrote:
...I have found being on the spectrum we can come across as weak and unsure of ourselves to others this might be the part of the reason people feel like they can talk to us like children.

If your really strong and stick to what you want to do people will start to respect you....

Exactly!


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Diagnosed in 2015 with ASD Level 1 by the University of Utah Health Care Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinic using the ADOS-2 Module 4 assessment instrument [11/30] -- Screened in 2014 with ASD by using the University of Cambridge Autism Research Centre AQ (Adult) [43/50]; EQ-60 for adults [11/80]; FQ [43/135]; SQ (Adult) [130/150] self-reported screening inventories -- Assessed since 1978 with an estimated IQ [≈145] by several clinicians -- Contact on WrongPlanet.net by private message (PM)