I just found out about the freeze loop today. (Basic description video here:
)
Boy am I glad I discovered this aspie subject and started to explore this because just an awareness of what's going on in my head rather than it all being a series of frustrating mysteries seems like I might be able to figure out how to actually navigate through obstacles when they come up.
I still feel pretty stupid for not having considered that I might have Asperger's before now, but better late than never. The subject of a freeze loop is a huuuge deal for me. I have been frustrated for years that the best I could achieve in life is a job as a maintenance machinist when an I.Q. of 135+ should have resulted in something much deeper and advanced. I just figured it "wasn't in me" for some mysterious reason. I like my job fine, and I guess wondering "what might have been" is certainly not limited to aspies, but what a shame to have lost so many decades of possibilities to struggles I couldn't even see.
It seems evident that one of the biggest problems with anything where your brain is in the way of your success is the stuff that's in your own head is, more often than not, invisible to yourself. Being trapped within your own perspective is more limiting than people realize (aspie or not, of course). It's just written off as "habit" or some such similar, which is like building a fence around the problem. The fence get's stronger all the time while the problem stays guarded from exploration.
I experience a lot of frustration even in the middle of retreating into my "intense interest" hobbies. I certainly feel this when I'm working on a house project, and this happens at work too. It goes like this:
I am chugging along just fine and making some progress, but run into a slight problem which causes me to just quit for a significant time to go off and reboot or something before finally settling my mind down and digging back in. This happens often a dozen or so times in a day or even part of one. For example, I work on my house all the time and build things constantly. A classic example is to have to gather up a few tools and/or set up a machine or something to do some next operation before I can move past it. Almost without fail, the necessity of "changing gears" in my head so I can just keep working on my project will cause me to quit and take a break when I am not tired or otherwise need (or even want) to take a break otherwise. When this happens so often, I obviously get a lot less accomplished than I should. This happens every time and on pretty much everything I do. I guess it happens a bit less at work since the process is more organized and well-tooled, so I've worked through it quite a bit more than at home. Even the need to change directions is more of a routine there.
Anyway, the "resistance to change" seemed a bit too much like just naming something while not offering reasons or solutions. It occurred to me that the difficulty making a change seems (to me) to be explained in terms of why and what to do about it in the freeze loop video linked above. It's just a basic description though so only points to something I need to research more. I'm not positive, but it seems likely that the freeze loop issue is closely related to the problem I have with breaking routine.
Yeah I know I'm pointing out something you all already know well. Articulating it here clarifies it a bit for me though.
Boy am I glad I discovered this aspie subject and started to explore this because just an awareness of what's going on in my head rather than it all being a series of frustrating mysteries seems like I might be able to figure out how to actually navigate through obstacles when they come up.
I still feel pretty stupid for not having considered that I might have Asperger's before now, but better late than never. The subject of a freeze loop is a huuuge deal for me. I have been frustrated for years that the best I could achieve in life is a job as a maintenance machinist when an I.Q. of 135+ should have resulted in something much deeper and advanced. I just figured it "wasn't in me" for some mysterious reason. I like my job fine, and I guess wondering "what might have been" is certainly not limited to aspies, but what a shame to have lost so many decades of possibilities to struggles I couldn't even see.
It seems evident that one of the biggest problems with anything where your brain is in the way of your success is the stuff that's in your own head is, more often than not, invisible to yourself. Being trapped within your own perspective is more limiting than people realize (aspie or not, of course). It's just written off as "habit" or some such similar, which is like building a fence around the problem. The fence get's stronger all the time while the problem stays guarded from exploration.
I experience a lot of frustration even in the middle of retreating into my "intense interest" hobbies. I certainly feel this when I'm working on a house project, and this happens at work too. It goes like this:
I am chugging along just fine and making some progress, but run into a slight problem which causes me to just quit for a significant time to go off and reboot or something before finally settling my mind down and digging back in. This happens often a dozen or so times in a day or even part of one. For example, I work on my house all the time and build things constantly. A classic example is to have to gather up a few tools and/or set up a machine or something to do some next operation before I can move past it. Almost without fail, the necessity of "changing gears" in my head so I can just keep working on my project will cause me to quit and take a break when I am not tired or otherwise need (or even want) to take a break otherwise. When this happens so often, I obviously get a lot less accomplished than I should. This happens every time and on pretty much everything I do. I guess it happens a bit less at work since the process is more organized and well-tooled, so I've worked through it quite a bit more than at home. Even the need to change directions is more of a routine there.
Anyway, the "resistance to change" seemed a bit too much like just naming something while not offering reasons or solutions. It occurred to me that the difficulty making a change seems (to me) to be explained in terms of why and what to do about it in the freeze loop video linked above. It's just a basic description though so only points to something I need to research more. I'm not positive, but it seems likely that the freeze loop issue is closely related to the problem I have with breaking routine.
Yeah I know I'm pointing out something you all already know well. Articulating it here clarifies it a bit for me though.