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Rigid or Black and White Thinking, Anybody?

LostInSilentHill

LostInSilentHill

Terrible Gaurdian Angel
This is kinda hard to explain but hear me out.

So, I consider myself as someone who can see the grey area's in life, but during the last few arguments with my friend, she said that I'm either one way or the other. Um, let me try to explain.

So we fight sometimes and it's usually because I get confused. I follow the rules in the house, but I have a hard time when those rules are flexible. I can't seem to think of an example, though it happens a lot. So I tell her that I just won't do that thing again, but she gets angry. She says I'm either at one extreme or the other, but how am I supposed to know that? How do I change that when the rules change or there are unspecified conditions? How can you properly judge a situation like that? I guess it is an NT thing, to be able to know everything.

It seems like it would be better if I just never did that thing again since I seem to get it wrong a lot. She said that wasn't the answer, but I have no idea how to fix this issue. I really wish I could think of a single example, but my mind is a complete blank.

How does other ASD get past this black and white thinking?

Also, I get quite confused when she keeps repeating what I did wrong, even though I acknowledged the problem and said I would try not to do it again. When she repeats herself I don't know if it means I'm wrong about the issue, but I don't seem to be. Why does she do that? Is that an NT thing?
 
NTs and their rules are highly confusing to me as well. Most of the time I just nod and say that I'm sorry, though of course it never works well. 'You're always sorry but you never change!' and all that stuff. Oh well.

Does she know that you're on the spectrum? Did you talk to her that you simply can't understand and asked her to give you an answer? The most helpful for me so far was to find one moderately or more accepting NT and run to them every few times I get confused... Because if I went to her with all my questions it would become soon a full-time job.

What I learnt is to be compliant, friendly and listen to instructions, though it's most connected to workplace areas. I have an NT roommate though she's rather quirky for an NT, so not everything she tells me is right for an average one. Why does it have to be so complicated. Give me the task to design a smart-hub greenhouse with the use of golden ratio, sociology and psychology of shape every day but give me a smiling or scowling NT person and I'm at loss of what's going on.

Black and white thinking is not bad. The question is simple and the answer is simple. But for NTs an answer to a rule is not yes or not but 'maybe', 'only at times', 'in the winter evenings', 'when Venus can't be seen from the orbit' or whatever other bs they can think of. Frustrating, unlogical, annoying.
 
onlything said:
Does she know that you're on the spectrum? Did you talk to her that you simply can't understand and asked her to give you an answer? The most helpful for me so far was to find one moderately or more accepting NT and run to them every few times I get confused... Because if I went to her with all my questions it would become soon a full-time job.
Click to expand...
She does and is usually very understanding, but I think it is getting frustrating for her. The fact that I make the same mistakes bothers her. I think she wants me to try and work on it but I have no idea how.
 
LostInSilentHill said:
She does and is usually very understanding, but I think it is getting frustrating for her. The fact that I make the same mistakes bothers her. I think she wants me to try and work on it but I have no idea how.
Click to expand...

Tell her. Ask her. 'How do you want me to behave, then?' 'What have I done wrong, what should have I done and when do the rules change?' I know it's easy to say but between NT and ASD the only thing that can help with misunderstanding is a clear verbal communication. Hopefully it'll get better between you.
 
Feeling confused is never going to solve the issue. Perhaps when you are both calm - and not mid argument - you can raise the incident(s) and say you are still confused. Tell her how you see it from your side and ask for her feedback. Writing down your thoughts to keep on track might also help.
 
How do you mean that?

Black and white visual images?

Or.....thinking about situations in 'all or nothing'/yes or no terms?
 
What do you mean, you don't know?

In your first post you said: "I can't stop thinking in black and white..."

Were you saying that because you are well pleased with your thinking?
And you just wanted to point it out?

Or are you saying you think there are subtleties that you may be
missing with this sort of thinking style?
 
For me black and white thinking is like such:

Either the person/situation is right or it is extremely wrong and I AM not having any of that. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE.
 
tree said:
What do you mean, you don't know?

In your first post you said: "I can't stop thinking in black and white..."

Were you saying that because you are well pleased with your thinking?
And you just wanted to point it out?

Or are you saying you think there are subtleties that you may be
missing with this sort of thinking style?
Click to expand...

no, I made the post, because it's bad, and I think all or nothing...
 
I think in black and white too, particularly when I don't know something and need to ask questions or learn information. Even when I ask questions, I will normally propose two of the most contrasting options. I expect either they confirm the first option, or confirm the second option, or explain a third. It feels a little stilted sometimes, but it's what I find comfortable, and nobody has mentioned it being bothersome, so I'm not too worried about it.

I don't always think in black and white though. Sometimes I get myself entangled in grey areas and find it impossible to revert to a simpler way of thinking. I hate those moments.

What's really annoying is that my mind, which favors black and white thinking, will tell me that a black and white style is better for this situation but a grey style is better for another situation. In reality, there is a little black and white, and a little grey, in almost everything, simply because of our imperfections as human beings and the world we live in. When I came to this realization, I thought I was crazy, but once I mulled it over, the world suddenly became a little less confusing. Not in any obvious way, but it gave me the sense that nothing is as definite as I once believed it should be, and it gave me some peace. this article, which I read while writing this post and making sure I was on a sensible track, delves into this a little more. In short, I feel like whoever wrote it tapped into my mind and used it to come up with the ideas expressed in the text, so I think it's a nice read.

The impression I get from your posts is that you think black and white is bad. I think it only really is bad when you become so black and white that you become closed-minded or gravitate toward extremes of everything. Or on the other side, where your thoughts are so grey that you can't commit to anything for fear that it's not considering all the grey fluff. Really, you need a little of both styles of thinking. What I've been trying to do lately is flip-flop between black and white thinking and grey thinking, until I can at least tentatively commit to a decision.

What's even more important though is keeping an open mind, regardless of your preferred thinking style. Even a black and white thinker is very subject to the possibility that things will not go as simply as their thoughts went. If it helps, I'll illustrate all of this with a decision I had to make recently. It's not a life-changing decision but is one that came to mind.

A friend asks me if I want to attend their 50th birthday party.
Grey area approach (the one I may start off with if a black-and-white answer isn't intuitive yet): Will it be awkward when I'm there? Will I like the atmosphere? Will everyone get filthy drunk except me? Will I know anyone? Will this turn into an all-day/night thing? I don't feel I have a meaningful gift for them, will that bother me while I'm there? (I try to weigh and answer all these questions and more, in the hopes that a yes or a no will show itself. In the end, it really wasn't successful in this case.)
Black and White approach: Yes because I'm excited, bored, or curious/eager to answer my questions. Or no because I'm busy, I don't feel like it, I'm tired, or I'm not up to dealing with the uncertainty.

For the record I ultimately decided yes I would go, because I was bored and curious. I knew that a lot of the answers to my grey area questions would be negative, and I was very close to saying no in the end, but my curiosity got the better of me and I went anyway. And I actually did have a good time hanging out with some people I knew, and many I didn't. People got filthy drunk but I didn't care that much so long as they allowed me to just quietly sit in a corner and seek out people who seemed a little more level-headed for my liking. The atmosphere was loud, but I was able to handle it much better than I thought. And I didn't feel as awkward as I thought I would. I socialized some, kept to myself some, and on the whole people seemed to appreciate my being there, which at the end of it all was most important to me, though I didn't quite realize it at the time and initially thought I was just making people happy by showing up. Would I do it again? That's another grey question. If I had to answer it right now, I'd probably say yes because it's always easier the second time, and I brought home more good memories than bad ones.

So, just keep an open mind and think however you want. If you feel it is causing problems, problems you want to solve, just focus on working through those problems and your thinking will slowly improve. At least that's how I've handled it, and it has definitely made me feel better about myself.

Hope this has helped someone!
 
agree with @musicalman. I don't only think in black and white, everything I do is black and white, and I mean EVERYTHING.

I rarely get ill, but when I do get ill, I get seriously ill and end up in hospital! I can't just get a little bit ill!

I don't have many friends, but the ones I do are like blood sisters and I'm completely obsessed with them! I can't just have a casual acquaintance.

I have a desk job by day, I can't just "do" anything. I have to either do it brilliantly and be foremost in the world or not do it at all.

I don't like food, I either love it or hate it.

So everything I do and everything I think is either all or nothing. I force shades of grey sometimes, for instance I will say hello to my neighbors. I'd rather either ignore them or get to know them thoroughly, but I now recognize that neither is appropriate and so I force the "middle ground" where I simply smile and wave.
 
Yes, I do tend to have a all or nothing approach to things, but not as much as I used to when I was younger. When things go wrong, it feels like a complete disaster, the worst thing in the world, when actually it might not be that bad. Or I decide I like something, I love it and want to have it all the time, it can do no wrong. I want to do things properly or not at all.
 
For me, I tend to think in an all-or-nothing way but then there's an area in the middle that both sides want to pivot around. It gives me comfort to define that pivotal point but sometimes I just can't. So I generally stay on one side or the other when I can. The funny thing is, I'm really bad at being decisive when people outright ask me to make a decision. Go figure!
 
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