Stream of Consciousness: Stress and Dependability

Introduction

I'm running pretty ragged lately.  I have a lot on my plate.  Some of it's new stuff, stuff I haven't had to do exactly like this before.  That's hard.  But it's doable.  It's not what's running me ragged.  I'm fairly flexible for being autistic, and I've walked on the razor's edge of "way too much to do in way too little time" before.  I didn't break then, I probably won't now.

But this situation is different than anything I've had to deal with before, in one very major way: a lot of the involved forces, actors, etc, are partly-to-completely unreliable.  And that is messing with me, big time.

The last time I was pushed to a bleeding edge like this, I was in college.  Freshman year, second semester.  I had a ton of projects due in finals season, and of course the finals themselves.  I'd been thrown out of a group project for being autistic, more or less, and suddenly had to do the whole project by myself.  My boyfriend at the time assumed I would crumble under the pressure at some point, and he would have to clean up afterwards.  I still kind of resent that assumption.  But I get to resent that assumption because I made it work.  The deadlines were set in stone.  The projects had nice, clear descriptions.  The finals had dates and study materials.  All I had to do was be the superwoman of time management and prioritization, and survive until the end of the semester.  I did that.  It wasn't pretty.  I had some crying fits in between studying.  I was religious about my planner and my whiteboard of projects.  I may not have eaten terribly well.  But I did it.

Turns out real life involves a lot more cooperation with other people.  In college, it was mainly me I had to rely on.  Group projects were a thing, of course, but there weren't that many of them that semester, sans the one I got thrown out of.  I think I prefer college.

I am presently trying not to fall to pieces, in part because I'm not meeting my own standards for this blog and its posts.  In part because I don't seem to have enough time to spend on creating an interesting fantasy world for my friends to enjoy.  But really, other than detracting from my self-image and self-esteem, those are manageable.  What's really got my goat is the self-advocacy group I joined over a year ago.

People Aren't Dependable

I've heard it said that working with people is rather like herding cats.  Maybe that's true of people in general, but it's not true of my parents.  When they say they're going to do something, they do it.  They think carefully before accepting a position, or signing up for an event.  They're on time to appointments.  So that is what I consider normal.  I found, growing up, that I was happiest that way: being dependable, and people being dependable in turn.  Since people often give what they get, it worked out fairly well, for a while.

That dependability is important.  I make assumptions and plan my life around my calendar.  If I've been invited to a party, and I find out two hours before that the party is canceled, or worse, its location has been moved to a location an hour away, I'm going to get upset.  My careful planning and preparations for going to said party have been wasted, and I suddenly have to re-plan and re-prioritize what I'm doing with that time.  

Suddenly, I have to plan on twice as much traffic and more gas to get from where I was before plans changed.  Suddenly, I have to live through my nerves shredding as I apologize to a friend for having to leave early from our social time.  Or suddenly, I have to plan on being half an hour late and suffering that anxiety because I can't possibly make my schedule work.  The sudden shifts upset me, and I flail and panic until I can get my calendar re-organized to work with the new plan.

If I can't reorganize, it shreds me up emotionally and mentally.  I waste of a lot time and energy spinning my wheels and trying to make the situation work. 

I know, of course, that life happens.  Car trouble happens, for example.  You can yell and scream all you like at a flat tire, it's not going to re-inflate or replace itself with a new tire.  Same with someone getting really sick.  But there's a difference between that and plain forgetfulness.  

Forgetfulness, you see, is preventable.  If you have a smartphone or a computer or even a paper planner, you have no excuse for being forgetful.  Simply write down the event, and refer to your planner.  Heck, you can even set your smartphone to remind you, repeatedly, that an event is going to happen.  My particular calendar will remind me the day of, an hour before, a half hour before, 15 minutes before, and even 5 minutes before if I care that much.  I have a hard time forgiving habitual forgetfulness, because of how easy it is to counter.

I am dealing with a lot of habitually forgetful, disorganized people at this group.  I'm leading a committee for the board of directors, in a second committee, and trying to work with a third group that's just me and another person to host an event. I have tried to make all the meetings for these groups, tried to keep in contact with the people involved, to set dates that work with their schedules, etc.  

And I'm getting back... indifference.  Silence.  Excuses.  People are abandoning my committee.  As far as I can tell... because I'm requiring them to do a half hour's worth of work, once a week.  I ask if there's anything I can do to make it easier on them.  What the best way to contact them is.  I get nothing.  Or I get worse than nothing: unreliable info. 

I am literally going to be running a two hour meeting for self-advocates in just over a week, and I have no idea if the other person is even going to be there.  In the meantime, I'm supposed to be advertising (I hate advertising) and arranging for food for an unknown number of people (I've gotten no RSVPs). And now the support staff have also told me that apparently I need to have a presentation ready on a relevant subject, to share with the group.  I think I glared bloody murder at the email that informed me of this fact, for about ten minutes.  It beats crying, screaming, and smashing things into my desk.

My doctor tells me that I look "puffy," which she tells me means my system is inflamed from all the stress.  All my cells have puffed up a bit.  I have kind of noticed I've put on weight, or thought I'd put on weight.  My baggy shorts aren't so baggy despite my 3 day a week exercise program.  I have no idea if this happened to me before, but I think I've seen something similar in one of my family members when he was having a really rough time in life. 

Handling It

High stress situations are kind of the story of my life.  Sudden noises startle me, triggering stress reactions.  Babies crying, or children shrieking outside, fray my nerves.  Social interactions, especially unexpected ones, throw my analytical brain into high gear.  Situations where people are relying on me stress me out, too, because I'm afraid I'll fail them, disappoint them, and disappoint myself.  Life itself is unpredictable. 

What I'm saying is that I have a pretty high stress maximum.  So I'd actually be kind of curious to see what would happen if I had a blood test for stress hormones or whatever, right now.  Likely, the results wouldn't be pretty.  

I go into avoidance mode when the stress goes over a certain threshold.  So I've been reading a lot of a favorite book series.  To the point, unfortunately, where I haven't been reading books I should be for the blog, or doing things like writing blog entries or planning the next parts of my life.  

I've been doing all that pleasure reading because I literally can't focus anyway.  And at least sometimes, the book series makes me smile.  And it always has a happy-ish ending, for each book.  Real life isn't that polite.  Sometimes the hero fails.  Sometimes, cartoonishly evil and egotistical people sit in power, shoved around by more subtle, competent evil people.  And they use that power to oppress and destroy the weak and powerless, all for a smidgen more power in their vast array of power.  

At times like that, you find out that life doesn't end.  It keeps marching right on, heedless of your anguish and pain.  And the due dates keep coming, and they also don't care about your anguish and pain. 

So I have my books.  I have a little indoor fountain thing that lights up red and blue and makes semi-soothing water sounds.  I have sugar-laden snacks and calorie-intensive foods that taste good and make me feel better in the short term. And I have what little routine I can manage.  

But mostly, I have the vast amounts of unreasoning stubbornness that both my parents gifted me with.  It's why I got through that semester in college.  Maybe it'll be enough to get me through this.