My aspergers makes it really hard to do something I don't want to do. I default to instant gratification.

Also I'm obsessed with uniformity. I buy everything in multiples of 2 or 8 depending on how expensive it is. I like even numbers and having a not uniform amount of possessions bothers me.

I've also been diagnosed with disorganized complex thoughts, but I am not a hoarder and I feel most comfortable in tight places with organized limited possessions.

My boss is very nice and forgiving to me. I told him I was tired at work and he beneficially told me to "work through it." I cannot work without him watching me as the only thing that motivates me is the instant gratification of him telling me that I'm doing a good job.

I tried so hard my whole life to do a good job at everything because I wanted praise, but if I am not being praised, for instance, when my mother, brother, and uncle told me I had no hope, I was going to fail, I wasn't ready, it wouldn't work, I am not a good person, I immediately stopped trying. They don't see how serious of an effect discouragement has on me, and apparently they aren't as effected by it.

I concluded that in order to switch tasks I would have to deliberately do things that I don't want to do. I started listening to music that I didn't want to listen to and watching media that made me uncomfortable. This allowed me to switch tasks more frequently through the day.

I am trying to desensitize myself from the extreme pain I feel when I do something uncomfortable, which makes me light-headed and pass out, but it hasn't worked yet.

I get a deep intolerable cringe when I try to do something I don't want to do and my brain shuts down making me extremely exhausted and feel like throwing a tantrum.

I feel like these things do not benefit me because they don't make me feel good. They make me hurt. But I know hurting is the answer if I could keep myself from cringing so hard that my brain shuts down or the light headed passing out when I try to accept it.

The answer would be acceptance. To change who I am and my sense of stubborn destiny. I would have to settle for an alternate reality and the destruction of my current destiny, if only I didn't pass out.

I know I've described myself as a fitting child and I often see myself this way. If only I could accept things I could get off my dad's paycheck. But it's very difficult to accept everything because it makes me feel guilty for being passive, something my mom always yelled at my dad for.

My allegiance to my mom is too strong and she was a very violent parent, chocking me and nearly cutting my head off with an axe. She told me she would "break my will" and she did. All I wanted to do was hang out with friends on high school.

It sounds sissy that I wanted the friend scene and it also sounds sissy that I respected my mom so much. I'm deeply confused as to how to not be sissy.

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Hi JBartram,

I don't know if you will check for answers so many months late, but I'll offer you some thoughts just in case.

As I read through your post, about halfway through I was inclined to tell you about a specific type of autism spectrum classification I've come across. Then I got to the bottom of your post, where you talk about your difficult upbringing and the way your mum 'broke your will'. This called into question for me the idea that your diagnosis 'explains' your behaviour. That's not to say you aren't aspie, you may well be. But I would be very cautious about attributing every one of your behaviours to it.

Most especially, I'd be wary of attributing your inability to cope or change to aspie-ness, where you express that certain things make you hurt, but you cannot do otherwise. I feel there may be an element of nurture rather than nature in this: as an aspie child you may have learned to adhere even more strictly to your very natural rigid patterns of action and of thought, perhaps augmenting them even beyond your own nature, in order to cope internally with your mother's treatment, and perhaps sometimes to escape or tolerate physical punishment. Each person's patterns, autistic or not, are their strengths, so it is only natural to rely on them and build them up to provide yourself with resilience.

Often as children we adapt to difficulties by changing ourself in some way, just as a flower will grow a crooked stem to make its way past a cobblestone to reach the sunlight. But where there is open air, the flower is then free to grow straight. As humans, we are not so simple as flowers and we sometimes continue to follow old coping schemes, rather than grow freely. I am brought to thinking this because my understanding from your post is that some of your own patterns and choices feel limiting and painful to you. If aspergers were the only explanation, I think they would feel natural, and forcing yourself to behave differently would feel painful instead.

Some of the rigid patterns and preferences you report do sound like your own nature... wanting multiples of things, preferring organization and small quarters, needing to do things you want to do. The latter may suggest demand avoidance autism subtype but I am no expert.

However, I see a sharp contrast, IMHO, between this autism profile, and no particular link to autism-specific traits, with the fact that you are so strongly respondent to demand in function of positive reinforcement. This is unsurprising given your parental influence sounds filled with negative reinforcement. You may have a deep and insatiable thirst for positive reinforcement. This is not dependent on autism at all, but on the fact you were deprived of a primal need as a tiny human. CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) is something you could look at to help address behaviour related to self-beliefs and negative self-talk. However, given how deep these wounds may be for you, CBT may be too short-term and too superficial. You may need to work with a psychodynamic or other emotional healing therapist to explore the hurt and trauma you experienced, redress it, and grow from it, before CBT can have a lasting benefit.

As an aspie, you'll always have some differences from others, and indeed your thinking may be rigid in some ways. But that does not mean you cannot be hurt. And where you were hurt, you can heal, and become a happier Aspie. What this will look like is wide open territory, but you may find that some of the rigidness melts away. This is my personal thought, that perhaps you were clinging hard to parts of your own identity, almost digging your heels in if you will, trying to assert your own life, just to survive, due to the difficult circumstances. With healing, and better circumstances, this digging of heels may not be needed, and you may find you can be lighter, and you may be able flourish rather than just survive.

Best wishes to you

~ waves ~

p.s. I am grateful for your boss. Take heart, luckily the world does have him, and other humans like him.