Self-control, impulse control

[Kalinychta]

Struggles with self-control and impulse control are symptoms of executive dysfunction, as most of us know. I’ve had tremendous problems in this area for all of my life.

Do you struggle with impulse control? How so? How do you deal with it? Or do you feel out of control much/all of the time?

 

[translucent_jon]

I feel that I do struggle with controlling myself/impulses but I would even more if I didn’t have my wife to bluntly tell me what she needs me to do when my momentum goes in the wrong direction. I guess it also helps that the noises I make that other people can notice bug her too.

Publicly, I used to feel pretty controlled because I felt that I masked fairly heavily and compensate with humor when I could, of course for the past few years I haven’t had to really do anything publicly so that has helped me mentally to some degree. When I worked, I had coworkers and an environment where I didn’t necessarily have to restrain myself so much and still find a way to get the job done.

Sure, I made nontypical choices in how to accomplish tasks when something was given the opportunity to be open ended or ambiguous but I’d just get the old “Work smarter, not harder Jon” and have a laugh.

Sorry, I don’t suppose much of that was actually practical advice...

 

[Misery]

Impulse control? None whatsoever. Particularly when it comes to buying things.

As a rule I tend to just do whatever I feel like at the time. But, I am at least not one to ever do dangerous or risky things, so that's good at least.

Still, when combined with terrible memory and general airheadedness, it can be a problem.

 

[translucent_jon]

Impulse control? None whatsoever. Particularly when it comes to buying things.

As a rule I tend to just do whatever I feel like at the time. But, I am at least not one to ever do dangerous or risky things, so that's good at least.

Still, when combined with terrible memory and general airheadedness, it can be a problem.

Good point, I forgot about memory...err... the role memory has in accomplishing tasks

 

[Kalinychta]

I feel that I do struggle with controlling myself/impulses but I would even more if I didn’t have my wife to bluntly tell me what she needs me to do when my momentum goes in the wrong direction. I guess it also helps that the noises I make that other people can notice bug her too.

Publicly, I used to feel pretty controlled because I felt that I masked fairly heavily and compensate with humor when I could, of course for the past few years I haven’t had to really do anything publicly so that has helped me mentally to some degree. When I worked, I had coworkers and an environment where I didn’t necessarily have to restrain myself so much and still find a way to get the job done.

Sure, I made nontypical choices in how to accomplish tasks when something was given the opportunity to be open ended or ambiguous but I’d just get the old “Work smarter, not harder Jon” and have a laugh.

Sorry, I don’t suppose much of that was actually practical advice...

So you have support - as in, you have someone who pretty much keeps you in line, right? Who doesn’t allow you to lose control in any significant way.

 

[Misery]

Good point, I forgot about memory...err... the role memory has in accomplishing tasks

Yeah, definitely a big role in that. Tends to be worse even when you've got a tendency to be spacey and get a bit confused.

The example story I always tell is the time I was at this hotel, right. Was there for a convention, had just finished a long drive to get there, was taking my stuff from the car to the room, which is usually this long stupid trek.

I get to the room door, go to open it... nothing. Try again, nothing. What's with this? The key doesnt work! Again... nothing.

5 minutes of this, and finally, the revelation dawns on me: car remotes dont work on hotel doors.

Just one of many, many examples.

 

[translucent_jon]

So you have support - as in, you have someone who pretty much keeps you in line, right? Who doesn’t allow you to lose control in any significant way.

Yes. I think that I would survive without support, but not thrive

 

[Kalinychta]

Impulse control? None whatsoever. Particularly when it comes to buying things.

As a rule I tend to just do whatever I feel like at the time. But, I am at least not one to ever do dangerous or risky things, so that's good at least.

Still, when combined with terrible memory and general airheadedness, it can be a problem.

So you do feel that you have some impulse control? I guess I’m talking about really bad executive dysfunction, when it comes to risky things and petty things and all kinds of things. I mean like, really consistent executive dysfunction.

 

[translucent_jon]

Yeah, definitely a big role in that. Tends to be worse even when you've got a tendency to be spacey and get a bit confused.

The example story I always tell is the time I was at this hotel, right. Was there for a convention, had just finished a long drive to get there, was taking my stuff from the car to the room, which is usually this long stupid trek.

I get to the room door, go to open it... nothing. Try again, nothing. What's with this? The key doesnt work! Again... nothing.

5 minutes of this, and finally, the revelation dawns on me: car remotes dont work on hotel doors.

Just one of many, many examples.

If you had finished with “That’s when I remembered that I had put my room key under the tongue of my shoe ,because that would surely irritate me enough to remember where I put it” I would have related even more than I already do.

 

[Misery]

If you had finished with “That’s when I remembered that I had put my room key under the tongue of my shoe ,because that would surely irritate me enough to remember where I put it” I would have related even more than I already do.

Nah, if I'd done that, I'd have to have gone to the counter to get a new room key. And the first one would be forever in the shoe.

 

[Misery]

So you do feel that you have some impulse control? I guess I’m talking about really bad executive dysfunction, when it comes to risky things and petty things and all kinds of things. I mean like, really consistent executive dysfunction.

Nah, it's mostly that it genuinely doesnt even occur to me to do risky things. There's no element of impulse control to stop me from going bungee jumping, because the very idea seems like silly nonsense in the first place.

But, other things can happen. I've done things like walk into a Walgreens in full cosplay mode, simply because I'm already wearing it at a convention, have decided that I need to go to the Walgreens to get milk or something (there's almost always one of those or a gas station immediately near a hotel), and I have zero patience and changing would take effort and dagnabit I wanted the bloody milk *now*, not later. Fortunately at conventions I'm never the only one doing things like that (you should see what a McDonalds is like when a con is going nearby, it's not every day you walk into one and see a booth with some ninjas and a guy wearing armor made of Mountain Dew boxes), but that doesnt make it less totally ridiculous.

Those people do it typically because they're very outgoing/extroverted. I do it because I dont give a #$(&. Just no control whatsoever.

 

[Aspychata]

This is a sensitive issue because this cuts to the core of inappropriate behavior. Since l have been dealing with some issues in my life, l notice l need to stay mindful no matter how tweaked l am. However- l needed to learn this over a period of time. Most of my lifetime, the rat race left me alone. Only as a senior citizen - did l start dealing with random foolishness. So now l stay focused and mindful. Yes, you can't give in to uncontrolled impulses no matter how beaten up or how wronged you feel. Society will not tolerate this.

 

[SDRSpark]

Nah, it's mostly that it genuinely doesnt even occur to me to do risky things. There's no element of impulse control to stop me from going bungee jumping, because the very idea seems like silly nonsense in the first place.

But, other things can happen. I've done things like walk into a Walgreens in full cosplay mode, simply because I'm already wearing it at a convention, have decided that I need to go to the Walgreens to get milk or something (there's almost always one of those or a gas station immediately near a hotel), and I have zero patience and changing would take effort and dagnabit I wanted the bloody milk *now*, not later. Fortunately at conventions I'm never the only one doing things like that (you should see what a McDonalds is like when a con is going nearby, it's not every day you walk into one and see a booth with some ninjas and a guy wearing armor made of Mountain Dew boxes), but that doesnt make it less totally ridiculous.

Those people do it typically because they're very outgoing/extroverted. I do it because I dont give a #$(&. Just no control whatsoever.

Everything you've said in this thread sounds a lot like me LOL!!! This is all something I would do.

You could say I seem to have no situational awareness whatsoever. My mom used to call me "space cadet" and someone I worked with accused me of "chasing butterflies". (In fact I have more situational awareness than I'm generally considered to have, though not as much as I *should* have, and I'm super aware of the fact that people occasionally treat me like I need a babysitter and it gets under my skin in the worst way.)

I do the ditzy things too...at one point I was recruited to drive someone to a local gas station to get change (it was during a fundraiser, we ran out of change for the cash box and I was the one with a car who was not pre-occupied with some vital task). My friend went in to get the change, and I switched off the engine and sat there with the key in accessory position listening to the radio. It took about 10 minutes to get the change as I recall, and when she got back, there was something horribly wrong with the car- no power, hard to steer, I'm freaking out because my car was fine a few minutes ago and now it's very clearly not driveable and I have no idea what's wrong. Turns out I forgot to start the engine. Yep. I'm a ditz. (These same friends took full advantage of that fact in order to successfully pull off a surprise party later. Some people don't take advantage of your weaknesses for evil.)

 

[Aspychata]

Guess this is a scary thought but l meander thru the best l can. Most of the time, I've got game. But my tongue can fall into executive dysfunction. I would really like to say things but l know l can't. But sometimes my masking loop verbal tape runs dry. I can only loop so much on masking then it sputters. But l have learned not to be upset with myself.

 

[Fino]

The moment I'm in distress, I begin to lose all self-control, which historically has been a problem in terms of drug and alcohol abuse, self-harm, suicide attempts, promiscuous sex, saying awful things to people, making major life changes without consideration, etc. This is why my medications are all geared toward making me calm. My life is all about preventing distress. Other than medication, a close friend of mine has been invaluable. We have a rule where I talk to him before I'm allowed to do certain things, such as self-harm. But the medication works well.

 

[Trophonius]

My biggest issue related to impulse control is to keep silent when someone else is saying something unbelievable stupid. But I'm also in a position that because of my lack of conversation skills, whatever I say will be dismissed in favor of the one my more charismatic, albeit ultracrepidarian relatives.
This does not occur when a person simply says something which is not the case, but when I have to hear a 30-minute talk of complete nonsense.

I don't have a solution for the very impulse to call out on people who say stupid things, but I can avoid it by avoiding people like that.

Stress also can play a major role, in that I think I lose control more easily than most people. This can happen when I'm busy and I'm interrupted. No solution for this issue while I lived with someone else. Now if I'm doing something my phones are turned off as well as the internet (if possible) — some people seem to resent this, but they've gotten used to it at this point.

 

[Creep]

Struggles with self-control and impulse control are symptoms of executive dysfunction, as most of us know. I’ve had tremendous problems in this area for all of my life.

Do you struggle with impulse control? How so? How do you deal with it? Or do you feel out of control much/all of the time?

I’m lucky to have family support (even though I moan about them all the time.) Being able to talk a situation out instead of stuffing it down has been beneficial to me. I don’t get into the deep stuff with them though. We all have our limits.

 

[Kalinychta]

I’m lucky to have family support (even though I moan about them all the time.) Being able to talk a situation out instead of stuffing it down has been beneficial to me. I don’t get into the deep stuff with them though. We all have our limits.

I’ve often thought that no matter where you fall on the autism spectrum, family support is vital. It’s the difference between thriving and dying pretty much, for an autistic person.

 

[Gracey]

Mostly memories of consequence or uncomfortable feelings help me regulate or control myself.

I think generally, I'm aware of what's acceptable in public and what isn't.

For example, several hours in a police cell isn't something I ever want to experience again.

I understand what put me there.

I'm unlikely to repeat those actions. I'm likely to use techniques to re frame the situation and focus on calming myself instead.
- because I'm aware of one possible outcome, due to experience.

When younger, I don't remember being cautious or considering what could happen if ...

If the gang I hung out with climbed around the outside structure of a high bridge, just for fun - rather than use the perfectly adequate footpath over the bridge,

I knew I could figure out the way to climb around the outside structure,
That was my focus,
and not consequence, safety, legality.

 

[SusanLR]

It's hard for me to not let my temper get the best of me and not retort.
This happened today and is a good reason not to get too involved with someone who
is supposed to be in a professional relation with you.

My massage therapist whom I've known for 5 yrs now, started out almost immediately wanting
to strike up a friendship instead of keeping it business.
She wanted me to go to lunch and shopping with her sometimes after the therapy.
I had no real want to, but, I gave it a try.

Problems started when she would insult me in a passive/aggressive sort of way and it always
revolved around politics. She always started the put downs as we are like polar opposites in that area.
Now we are under a mask mandate in public where I live. She is a health care worker in close
physical contact and refuses to wear a mask and starts in on my views. She knows it all.
I think everyone has their limit and today I reached mine.
Time to find a different therapist.