The Quest for Humanity

Work got worse before it got better.  I got a talking-to from Chris because I was crying so much.  I had tried to implement my plan from before but it didn't work so I made a new plan.  I would be totally subservient.  I'm not very good at that so I wore a "reminder bracelet" made out of bright orange paper for a few days.  It helped me change my behavior.  So then I was really miserable and crying a lot and Chris called me into the conference room.  I figured that was the end of my employment.  But he told me how I was being perceived and have always been perceived by at least him and probably lots of people.  Since I'm so bad at social stuff, I had no idea.  I wish someone had made me aware of this stuff earlier.  Apparently I'm anti-authority.  In reality, I respect authority and have an irrational fear of being in trouble.  I try to do everything correctly and/or the way my boss wants me to do it.  Others think I have no confidence in my ability to do good work.  I know I do good work but I always try to do it perfectly.  If it isn't the most perfect, I need to improve.  I'm afraid that if I acknowledge my strengths too much, I'll be proud or cocky and that's one of the worst things that you can be (in my brain).  Others think I have a bad attitude.  I've always known that I'm perceived that way.  My whole life I've heard, "You need an attitude adjustment."  Trust me, if I had any idea at all how to do that, I would be the first to make it happen.  How does one adjust an attitude?  Am I supposed to act happy?  I can't do that.  I am what I am.  If I'm upset, you know.  My face looks upset.  My posture looks upset.  If I'm not upset, I have a neutral face.  If I'm happy, I have a neutral face.  Apparently, having a neutral face and stating problems factually and offering suggestions for improvement means I have a bad attitude.  I think it means I'm a member of the Autism Spectrum Community, but whatever.  Also, my lifelong struggle with depression is difficult to mask.  I think Chris/people misinterpret my depression as a personal attack on them or the way things are.  When I try to say the right things and have a happy face it comes out all wrong and it looks and sounds really sarcastic and I get in even more trouble.  I guess others know how to do that better.  When I am genuinely happy I am more lively and it is easier for me to smile at things and have a pleasant tone to my voice.  My coworkers seem to like me that way but some of the examples that Chris gave were from times when I was genuinely happy and I had thought I communicated effectively and had a really good attitude.  Guess not.  I must not know what the definition of attitude is.

So Chris said I deserved to be fired 20 times over (during my time there) but my work quality is really good and he believes I have the ability to change how others perceive me.  That causes me to have lots of overwhelming and conflicting emotions.  I feel ashamed and thankful and indebted and hopeful and lots of things that don't have names.  He recommended I read "How To Win Friends and Influence People".  I don't really want more friends or to have lots of influence but I'm hoping that the social truths outlined in the book will help me with my goals.  Basically, I need all those unwritten rules of human behavior to be written down.  I don't intuitively know that stuff. Mom had to teach me about personal space when I was a teenager.  I have to study others very intensely to unravel their behavior so I can emulate it.  I can't just act like them; I have to break everything down into it's components and analyze them before I can put them back together in my own body.  Eye movements, hand positions, posture, face muscles- all of it has to be worked with seperately.  When I was a kid, I even had to practice the component parts of behavior separately so my muscles could learn what to do.  Does everyone do this or is it just me?  I have no idea.  I only know my own internal experience.

I remember practicing pain tolerence.  As a kid I had no pain tolerence whatsoever.  I had to learn that even though I feel pain at a low threshold, I can tolerate high levels without hysteria.  I've always been a scientist.  I needed a way to administer controlled amounts of pain so I could practice feeling the sensation and not reacting.  We had an old porch swing in the yard.  I would hang from the top bar and let the swing hit my shins at slowly increasing speeds until I had built a pretty high tolerence.  Then when I experienced other pain I could channel my coping skills and tolerate the sensations.  It sounds really horrible but would it be better for me to be screaming and throwing fits at the tiniest twinge as an adult?  I used the knowledge and tools I had on hand to acheive more social normality, even though the methods were not normal.  I did the same thing with sound.  I used the loudness in band to train myself to tolerate loud noises without reaction.  I learned that when I was part of the noise creation, it didn't hurt as much.  I remember times when I would hear something loud and I would yell or scream along with the noise so my ears didn't hurt so bad.  I don't have to do that now, fortunately!  But I do still experience more noise pain than others seem to.

The other day I accidentally let both my legs fall asleep.  I take care to not let that happen normally.  It took a good 10 minutes to get the pain to a tolerable level.  When I was younger I would have been freaking out.  The pain was significant, some of the highest levels I've experienced in recent memory.  So I stood in the doorway, holding onto the doorjam and rode it out.  I couldn't move or sit.  I thought about falling over but the risk of other injury was too high.  But I did a good job; no one noticed that I was writhing in the doorway to the supply room for 10 minutes.

So it is time for another phase of my attempts to be like a normal human.  I have been looking for an opportunity to stretch myself and have challenges, but this isn't what I had in mind.  I was hoping to transfer to the mailing department.  But I do think it is a good thing.  You can't always get what you want...but sometimes you find what you need.