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silveradept[The December Days theme this year is "Things I Used To Fully Believe About Myself." Some of these things might be familiar, some of them might be things you still believe about yourself, and some of them may be painful and traumatic for you based on your own beliefs and memories. The nice thing about text is that you can step away from it at any point and I won't know.]
#27: "I'm Not Trustworthy."
Well, would you trust someone who doesn't remember things unless they're prompted to remember them? And even then, doesn't always remember them fully on a prompt, even if it's something that you've been trying to get them to remember for a while? Even if they can manage to recall so much useless trivia or other strange things.
It's not cognitive decline, certainly, because that, too, has been tested and it was fine, but more how memory is encoded for me is much more situational than it might be for others. I think Pina Varnel got it pretty good with this series of comics explaining the disconnection between short and long term memories. And while it's geared toward autism, another neurodivergence, Understanding the Spectrum does a good job of showcasing how even two people with the same general category of neurodivergence may have different needs for accommodation, as well as the dangers of making the spectrum linear, rather than, well, spectral.
So it takes more times, more situations, to make some of those things stick where it might do much better for someone with a more typical brain makeup and chemistry to have something happen once or twice and then it sticks for them. For someone who knows this and has people willing to work with that particular neuroatypicality, it's not a major issue. (Please write things down. Please set reminders. Please send written things telling someone else to set reminders). Understand that externalizing memory is one of the most effective ways of making sure that things get remembered, and be willing to work on the principle that things that don't make it into the reminder system don't get done. All of this knowledge is gained from significant hardship and a lot of situations of trying to figure out what is going on with me and to see if there's another system that I can put in place to make sure that whatever blip just happened doesn't happen again. Except, of course, as you might realize, forgetting "simple" things or not coming through on the small things is a well-worn pathway for triggering someone's RSD and tendency toward self-flagellation. I viscerally understand the spiral that Magritte goes through in this cycle of comics, because, as the other person tells her, it's "the shit that your parents and teachers and such yelled at you growing up." Although I don't remember it being a thing from parents and teachers, it certainly was a thing from myself and my ex and my first manager. Even if there wasn't so much yelling, as Magritte says, "I can literally feel your disappointment." That's all that was ever really needed in any of those situations for the weasels to bite. (If you have someone whose weasels are biting them in this way, it's still a good idea to say the supportive things and to try and help them out of the spiral, but understand that sometimes you're not going to get that. It's not your fault if it doesn't happen that time. If you can keep the message consistent and keep trying to help someone get perspective, it'll help. And they'll appreciate you for doing it.)
With enough times where executive dysfunction fires and things like forgetting the tickets because you put them in the wallet but then forgot to put the wallet back in the bag where you expect it to be, it isn't hard to jump up to the conclusion that no person should trust you to do anything, ever, that isn't something that you can immediately do. And should not trust you to remember anything, ever, whether it's the details or the important things. Which, in a further aggravation, makes those feelings and those situations much easier to remember, because one of the things that still does work with regularity in terms of recall is if there are strong negative emotions attached to what needs to be recalled. I can remember many things with clarity, even many years after they happened, because I remember (and sometimes, re-experience) the emotional states that come along with them pretty clearly. You would think that this would apply equally well to the happy experiences of my life, but the happy experiences of my life are conditional. (See #21 and #24, among others.) I have trained myself not to be unabashedly happy in many situations, even ones that might deserve it, because I am still thinking about whether being fully happy would be too loud, too weird, too nerdy, too arrogant, too inconsiderate of others who aren't happy at the moment. This pulls in nicely with a need to keep the unhappy emotions under check as well, because those can also be loud and inconsiderate, but the unhappy emotions are more familiar, more well-worn pathways, and because of the regulation difficulties that have come with my variable attention, they're also more prone to exploding once there's enough of them. Which in itself sets off a cascade of negative emotions and memories that are easy to recall. (Selection bias? Sure. Also, survival tactic.) Once the spiral gets wound and set in motion, it's going to spin for a very long time without an outside force stopping it.
Even when the outside force does stop it, though, there's still plenty of things going on underneath the surface that will have to be dealt with, reassurances that may have to be given to assure me that this mistake is not going on a ledger somewhere to be brought back out if I have Big Feelings in their direction about something, that the severity of the situation is being accurately reflected back at me and that someone is not hiding their real feelings about it because they want to spare me the true amount of disappointment or upset or anger they are feeling about the situation. I will tend toward trust and forgiveness and all of that grace that I can extend to others about things, which will make it hurt that much more if I find out later on that someone else was not being completely honest with me about their feelings when it came to something that was my fault or something I did. And, once betrayed, it will be extra hard for me to believe anything else is genuine in this regard. And that will cause a whole lot of additional questions and checkins and making sure that this person is not telling me what they think I want to hear again. And even then, I might not believe them if there's any sign I can detect that they're not telling the full truth.
Even apart from the whole "tried to get me fired" thing, my bad manager torpedoed any trust I might have had in her, and dragged the trust of the entire workplace with it. Any time that there's a "hey, this is a thing that happened" from my supervisor that makes it clear someone has said a thing to the supervisor directly without asking or talking about what's going on with me, that makes the entire trust in the workplace suffer. Even if it is something that I can see the perspective of the other person with, or it's something that's easy to fix. (Sometimes, especially if it's easy to fix.) I would like to believe that I'm trustworthy enough for someone to come to me with concerns that they might have about behavior, perceived or actual, and if it comes through my supervisor first, even if that might be the right way to go, it reinforces for me that I'm not actually a trustworthy enough person to talk it out with someone. (Of course, at least one of the people who seemed to be looking for an excuse to complain also told me that she wasn't the one who was trying to get me in trouble with the managers. Which, even if true, only means there were two of them that were trying to get me in trouble. Not exactly the ringing endorsement that she was hoping for.) And my ex was very much untrustworthy about some pretty major things, it turned out. But since I was used to blaming myself for everything, and because other people did blame me for things, warranted or no, and because I'm watching myself have trouble remembering what seem to be the simplest, stupid things, well, yeah. I wouldn't trust me, either.
This one is not believed fully, because the definition of "trustworthy" is flexible, and there are probably people who think I am trustworthy because I've kept confidences and secrets of theirs for when they needed me to, and others who think so because I've been solid at getting their correct forms of address correct, or at least avoiding making the mistake repeatedly after correction. There are some that find me trustworthy because I deliver on the things that I promise, even if it does mean having to make it work with my systems and their associated quirks. And, for all I know, there are people who find me trustworthy because they see that I'm trying to be aware of myself and my limitations and work with them, instead of pretending they aren't there or that they are things that can be fixed with sufficient application of willpower (even if I occasionally would like for that to be true. It would be so much easier if it were just a matter of application, rather than a matter of brain chemistry.) Or they see someone who is doing their best to be Good, in a compatibly virtuous way, and they think I'm woth taking a chance on. And lots of people trust me professionally to know what I'm doing and to help them and make it possible for them to do what they want to do, so there's that, too. It's another difficult core weasel, though, so while I don't believe it fully, it's not going to go away any time soon.
#27: "I'm Not Trustworthy."
Well, would you trust someone who doesn't remember things unless they're prompted to remember them? And even then, doesn't always remember them fully on a prompt, even if it's something that you've been trying to get them to remember for a while? Even if they can manage to recall so much useless trivia or other strange things.
It's not cognitive decline, certainly, because that, too, has been tested and it was fine, but more how memory is encoded for me is much more situational than it might be for others. I think Pina Varnel got it pretty good with this series of comics explaining the disconnection between short and long term memories. And while it's geared toward autism, another neurodivergence, Understanding the Spectrum does a good job of showcasing how even two people with the same general category of neurodivergence may have different needs for accommodation, as well as the dangers of making the spectrum linear, rather than, well, spectral.
So it takes more times, more situations, to make some of those things stick where it might do much better for someone with a more typical brain makeup and chemistry to have something happen once or twice and then it sticks for them. For someone who knows this and has people willing to work with that particular neuroatypicality, it's not a major issue. (Please write things down. Please set reminders. Please send written things telling someone else to set reminders). Understand that externalizing memory is one of the most effective ways of making sure that things get remembered, and be willing to work on the principle that things that don't make it into the reminder system don't get done. All of this knowledge is gained from significant hardship and a lot of situations of trying to figure out what is going on with me and to see if there's another system that I can put in place to make sure that whatever blip just happened doesn't happen again. Except, of course, as you might realize, forgetting "simple" things or not coming through on the small things is a well-worn pathway for triggering someone's RSD and tendency toward self-flagellation. I viscerally understand the spiral that Magritte goes through in this cycle of comics, because, as the other person tells her, it's "the shit that your parents and teachers and such yelled at you growing up." Although I don't remember it being a thing from parents and teachers, it certainly was a thing from myself and my ex and my first manager. Even if there wasn't so much yelling, as Magritte says, "I can literally feel your disappointment." That's all that was ever really needed in any of those situations for the weasels to bite. (If you have someone whose weasels are biting them in this way, it's still a good idea to say the supportive things and to try and help them out of the spiral, but understand that sometimes you're not going to get that. It's not your fault if it doesn't happen that time. If you can keep the message consistent and keep trying to help someone get perspective, it'll help. And they'll appreciate you for doing it.)
With enough times where executive dysfunction fires and things like forgetting the tickets because you put them in the wallet but then forgot to put the wallet back in the bag where you expect it to be, it isn't hard to jump up to the conclusion that no person should trust you to do anything, ever, that isn't something that you can immediately do. And should not trust you to remember anything, ever, whether it's the details or the important things. Which, in a further aggravation, makes those feelings and those situations much easier to remember, because one of the things that still does work with regularity in terms of recall is if there are strong negative emotions attached to what needs to be recalled. I can remember many things with clarity, even many years after they happened, because I remember (and sometimes, re-experience) the emotional states that come along with them pretty clearly. You would think that this would apply equally well to the happy experiences of my life, but the happy experiences of my life are conditional. (See #21 and #24, among others.) I have trained myself not to be unabashedly happy in many situations, even ones that might deserve it, because I am still thinking about whether being fully happy would be too loud, too weird, too nerdy, too arrogant, too inconsiderate of others who aren't happy at the moment. This pulls in nicely with a need to keep the unhappy emotions under check as well, because those can also be loud and inconsiderate, but the unhappy emotions are more familiar, more well-worn pathways, and because of the regulation difficulties that have come with my variable attention, they're also more prone to exploding once there's enough of them. Which in itself sets off a cascade of negative emotions and memories that are easy to recall. (Selection bias? Sure. Also, survival tactic.) Once the spiral gets wound and set in motion, it's going to spin for a very long time without an outside force stopping it.
Even when the outside force does stop it, though, there's still plenty of things going on underneath the surface that will have to be dealt with, reassurances that may have to be given to assure me that this mistake is not going on a ledger somewhere to be brought back out if I have Big Feelings in their direction about something, that the severity of the situation is being accurately reflected back at me and that someone is not hiding their real feelings about it because they want to spare me the true amount of disappointment or upset or anger they are feeling about the situation. I will tend toward trust and forgiveness and all of that grace that I can extend to others about things, which will make it hurt that much more if I find out later on that someone else was not being completely honest with me about their feelings when it came to something that was my fault or something I did. And, once betrayed, it will be extra hard for me to believe anything else is genuine in this regard. And that will cause a whole lot of additional questions and checkins and making sure that this person is not telling me what they think I want to hear again. And even then, I might not believe them if there's any sign I can detect that they're not telling the full truth.
Even apart from the whole "tried to get me fired" thing, my bad manager torpedoed any trust I might have had in her, and dragged the trust of the entire workplace with it. Any time that there's a "hey, this is a thing that happened" from my supervisor that makes it clear someone has said a thing to the supervisor directly without asking or talking about what's going on with me, that makes the entire trust in the workplace suffer. Even if it is something that I can see the perspective of the other person with, or it's something that's easy to fix. (Sometimes, especially if it's easy to fix.) I would like to believe that I'm trustworthy enough for someone to come to me with concerns that they might have about behavior, perceived or actual, and if it comes through my supervisor first, even if that might be the right way to go, it reinforces for me that I'm not actually a trustworthy enough person to talk it out with someone. (Of course, at least one of the people who seemed to be looking for an excuse to complain also told me that she wasn't the one who was trying to get me in trouble with the managers. Which, even if true, only means there were two of them that were trying to get me in trouble. Not exactly the ringing endorsement that she was hoping for.) And my ex was very much untrustworthy about some pretty major things, it turned out. But since I was used to blaming myself for everything, and because other people did blame me for things, warranted or no, and because I'm watching myself have trouble remembering what seem to be the simplest, stupid things, well, yeah. I wouldn't trust me, either.
This one is not believed fully, because the definition of "trustworthy" is flexible, and there are probably people who think I am trustworthy because I've kept confidences and secrets of theirs for when they needed me to, and others who think so because I've been solid at getting their correct forms of address correct, or at least avoiding making the mistake repeatedly after correction. There are some that find me trustworthy because I deliver on the things that I promise, even if it does mean having to make it work with my systems and their associated quirks. And, for all I know, there are people who find me trustworthy because they see that I'm trying to be aware of myself and my limitations and work with them, instead of pretending they aren't there or that they are things that can be fixed with sufficient application of willpower (even if I occasionally would like for that to be true. It would be so much easier if it were just a matter of application, rather than a matter of brain chemistry.) Or they see someone who is doing their best to be Good, in a compatibly virtuous way, and they think I'm woth taking a chance on. And lots of people trust me professionally to know what I'm doing and to help them and make it possible for them to do what they want to do, so there's that, too. It's another difficult core weasel, though, so while I don't believe it fully, it's not going to go away any time soon.
