There are two basic styles of dealing with problems, to my understanding: proactive and reactive. Proactive people go out of their way to think up what problems might ensue from a chosen course of action. They then plan how to deal with those problems before they happen. Reactive people choose a course of action and then deal with any problems that actually crop up, rather than taking the time to plan for problems that may never actually occur.
For example, a proactive person may say, "I'm going to a meeting with Steve, Jimbob, and Leslie. The meeting is about fire hydrants, so I should be prepared to talk about fire hydrants, but I also work with Jimbob on electric pink paint, and Leslie on sirens, so maybe I should bring materials for those things as well." They then do so, and are hopefully prepared for any eventuality at the meeting.
A reactive person might say, "I'm going to a meeting about fire hydrants. I should be prepared to talk about fire hydrants." Then when they get to the meeting, Jimbob might want to talk about electric pink paint. The reactive person may well be able to talk about electric pink paint as well, but they won't have materials to show.
You'd think being proactive, then, would be the best course of action in all cases, for all people. Being prepared for reasonable possibilities is wise, after all. Well, it may be wise, but it isn't the best option for everyone out there. Let me explain.
There's a thing in psychology called mental energy. It's rather like the body's energy, but not as easily measured. A mother who has to deal with four screaming children will have much less of it than a person who's spent their time watching TV, or reading a pleasant book. It's related, I think, to one's store of patience, but not directly comparable. You spend a small amount of energy every time you make a decision. What to say next in a conversation, how to drive to work (and other drivers in traffic), how best to proceed on a project... all of these take mental energy.
Planning for many possibilities takes a lot of this mental energy. You have to use your imagination to decide what might come up at the meeting about A, based on who will be there. This is a relatively small amount of energy used in a single decision, but if all your decisions throughout the day are planned in the same way, you use up a lot of energy fast.
The more economical way is the reactive path, which takes less imagination beforehand and only uses the mental energy when needed. I think some people have larger pools of mental energy to draw on than others, but everyone is familiar with the feeling of being mentally exhausted. You don't have to do physical exercise to be tired out, after all.
My path is a blending of the two approaches. I mostly react, but after the problem is dealt with, I use my imagination to prepare for other, similar probabilities. So if I were going to a meeting about fire hydrants, I would be prepared to talk about fire hydrants. But if Jimbob wanted to talk about electric pink paint during or afterwards, I would remember that and plan accordingly next time. Perhaps I simply don't see Jimbob that often, so he snatches any opportunity to catch up, or perhaps Jimbob is a very communicative person and constantly wants updates. Either way, now I know to prepare for Jimbob next time.
In some cases I'll take my reaction a step further. Say a rampaging turtle has gotten into the meeting room and is upsetting the proceedings. The simplest solution is to remove the turtle, of course, so the meeting can proceed. That can be the end of it. But a better solution is to remove the turtle, then patch up the hole in the wall by which the turtle got in. That way no more rampaging turtles will disrupt the proceedings in the future.
This approach took time to develop, and it's not perfect, but it does get me through the day. Every day can be exhausting for a person on the spectrum. As I understand it, neuraltypical people have an intuitive sense of what to say, when. Things like knowing to start a conversation with small talk, or asking after a person's family even when you've never met them and don't care, or what comments and reactions to express when someone tells a story. Obviously no one is perfect, and even neuraltypical people have off days, or are bad at small talk, or just can't figure out what to say for some conversations.
For me, every conversation is a complicated decision tree, where the tree keeps changing as the conversation progresses. I can mostly assume my boss wants to talk about work, and passersby in the grocery store want to talk about the weather or some other inane topic.
Even with conversations that simple, though, I have to watch my eye contact (don't stare, but don't look away too much, the percentage is about 75% eye contact to 25% looking away). And I have to watch my tone of voice, because how you say things can make people think you're bored, interested, faking, or sincere. I can sound like a machine if I'm not paying attention. What's worse, I'm not an actor with a library of tones, accents, and facial expressions to choose from. I stumble through each and every conversation I have, trying to express what I mean with word choice and whatever clunky body language I can pull together.
I think my stumbling has become more adept as time passes, but I often end a conversation seemingly calmly and politely, then spend the next five minutes suppressing the desire to flee the area immediately. When that amount of effort has to be spent on each conversation, and there are many conversations throughout a normal day... the stress builds fast.
I'm not sure whether I simply have very little energy to draw on, or whether living my life is simply that exhausting, but I usually end up pretty tired at the end of the day. Or even in the middle of the day. It's functional, mostly. And mostly, it's the best I can do right now.
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