This post I will talk about the different types of reactions that I have in everyday conversation. The first one is the classic overreaction.
Overreaction
I think it stems from trying to attain a sense of calm and predictability with any particular tasks that I have to perform during the day. I need to have a routine and I need to know what my duties are throughout the the day. I do not like surprises. I find that my stress level goes way up when I have to deal with sudden change. Today was a perfect example when my shower curtain fell down. My wife and I had to replace the shower curtain last week and this involved a trip the store to get a new one. I absolutely hate going shopping but I did go and we did find a new shower rod, the one that fell down today. It was one of those spring rods that are easy to put up, but it just doesn't have enough spring to hold up our shower curtain. This is what is frustrating about it exactly. We spent time and money to get the shower rod. It is brand new and should operate as advertised, that is what we bought isn't it? I spent time putting it up with my clumsy hands. When it fell down while I was stepping out of the shower this morning all of those thoughts went through my head. It pissed me off and when I went downstairs my wife was the unfortunate recipient of my colossal rant. I said things like "Why did you have to add the cover, it can't support the weight?" "It's so frustrating, we buy something that is brand new, and it doesn't work!!!?" "Why the fuck doesn't it work?" "It should work!" The anger comes from me realizing that I have to go through the whole process all over again, finding a new shower rod, paying for it, putting it up again, spending time away from other more interesting things that I could be doing.
My wife bears the brunt of this kind of stuff all the time. I am absolutely ashamed by it. It isn't normal to have such a visceral reaction to such a small incidental thing. People replace stuff like this and perform maintenance on their homes all the time. For me, taking care of my home is not the top of my list. Having a routine is, and this disturbed my routine. Nevertheless, do I think I have the right to talk to my wife like that. Definitely not. There is nothing sexy about having a hissy fit about stuff like that. It demeans my wife and I sometimes wonder what it is that makes her stay. With AS I understand that sudden changes in daily routine can form a great deal of stress and because I find it hard to express myself verbally, I overreact or perhaps even have what is known as a meltdown. I have always told my wife to call me on such stupid behavior, and I am always deeply apologetic afterwards. I cried on my drive to work today because I feel that I can't stop myself from reacting this way. I called her when I was at work and apologized profusely, and she accept my apology. I reminded her that she should always "correct" me on such behaviour and that she has no reason to be afraid of me. I told her that I knew I was wrong and that I have no right to make her feel upset or fearful of me. Knowing that I have Asperger's Syndrome helps me understand why I react like that, but it will never be an excuse to act like that. I have the ability to think and reacted logically to this kind of stress.
No Reaction.
OK, this one is a little less embarrassing to talk about. Even though it is still not good, in my view it isn't nearly as bad as the yelling, heavy breathing, jumping up and down that happens while overreacting to something as simple as a change in routine. For me, the "No reaction" response almost always happens when I am deeply focused on something and I am interrupted. I can focus on one thing for an extremely long period of time and I get frustrated when it comes to an end. I will talk about special and obsessive interests in another post. My wife gets really frustrated with me when my time comes to an end our time is about to begin. We are married and we love each other, and we do need to spend time together. So what happens is that I am doing something on the Internet, playing a game, listening to something, and instead of responding to her request for attention, usually something like "Can you go get the movie in the DVD player?" I would ignore it. I just continue to do what I am doing and know that I will perform my wife's request in a minute. But I don't say anything. I have no reaction. She hates, and I can understand why. She has let me have my time, whether because she was at work or it was something else, like the night when we do our own thing. She tells me that when I don't answer her, it is my body language that is the most annoying to her. I can't hide my frustration about being interrupted. Just like the classic overreaction, I am ashamed of this type of behavior, and I have improved a lot in this since I have become aware of my AS. In this case, AS is not an excuse for this behavior, I am aware that I do the behavior. My AS merely lets me understand why I do the behaviour. It is definitely not that I want to ignore my wife, not respond to her, not spend time with her. I love her and I enjoy spending time with her. I think that it has more to do with the interruption of my interest. I find it very hard to refocus my thoughts on something after being interrupted, and it is very difficult for me to focus on more than one thing at a time. I always want to only focus on one thing at a time.
Opposite Reaction.
Unlike the "Overreaction" and the "No Reaction" responses, I feel this one is a little less in my control. Perhaps 50/50. I have a classic opposite reaction from my past that happened before I even met my wife. It involves the classic "Girl that got away" scenario. Although I wasn't aware of my AS at the time it seems to fit spot on. I had always admired her, and I had always wanted to ask her out. Other aspects of AS made this impossible for me, fear of rejection, failure. That kind of thing. The day she told me that someone asked her to marry her was devastating to me. I mean, of course this was devastating to me, but my reaction was to try to express happiness for her. This is definitely a forced response, but my fear was that I would say something that make me look stupid. I mean, she is getting married, the last thing I want to show is jealousy, and so I overcompensate and show happiness. I acted happy and I displayed happiness. A perfect example of acting the opposite of what I actually felt.
Life goes on and I did eventually meet a beautiful woman and I did marry her. My wife puts up with a lot of bad stuff from me, but fortunately, I think she gets a lot of good stuff as well to balance it out.
Delayed Reaction.
This reaction is definitely because of my AS. I have no doubt about that. It happens when I am engaged in conversation with someone and I am just trying to sell myself as neurotypical. The irony of course is that when you have a delayed reaction to basic questions that often occur during small talk it appears to be anything but neurotypical. The reasoning for this lies between the difference between intuitive thinking and non-intuitive thinking. Using your intellect to come up with an answer to a question like "How are you?" is a lot slower than using your intuition. I have talked about the difference between the two ways of thinking in my post about nonreciprocating conversation. Rehearsal of typical answers to common questions is a compensatory tool that I use to avoid the delayed reaction response. I also imitate the answers that I hear other "popular" neurotypical use in everyday smalltalk situations. I basically lie. For example, my favourite answer to "How are you?" "It's the best day of my life!"
The delayed reaction creeps up often when I am under a lot of stress. Job interviews come to mind. Sometimes I have even asked for time to think to very basic questions. This of course would look very odd to the interviewer. I am not very good at selling myself in a job interview, I absolutely hate them.
Throughout this post I have used AS as the initials for Asperger's Syndrome. Sometimes it would be accurate based on what I have written today that they can also stand for Asshole. I will reiterate that I believe that AS can provide an understanding to why I react the way I do in certain situations. It is not however an excuse. I do have to get better.
For an example of a good overreaction check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jyCfRHumHU
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