Needing explicit permission for everything

People often think I’m dumb because i don’t know if I’m allowed to do something unless I’m told i can. I can’t even go to a friend’s house and sit unless they tell me I’m allowed to sit. At parties, i dont get food until im told i should/can get food even though the host isnt around and everyone else was eating. At some point the lines between basic manners and common knowledge gets blurred. I don’t “take initiative” at work because i havent been given explicit directions that I can start whatever task even though i know that task is supposed to get done. My boss rolls her eyes and sighs at me all the time because sometimes i don’t get things done because I’m not told I’m allowed to. It’s stupid because it’s simple logic; task needs to be completed, i should do it. But I’m always scared i misunderstood directions or confused one task for another and one wasnt actually supposed to be done. I work in retail. Anytime we get a shipment we put tags and it immediately goes on a rack to be sold. This applies to *every* shipment and i know i should start processing everything immediately because thats my job, but what if this is a shipment that isn’t actually going to be sold/displayed. Whenever my english classes in high school started reading a book, it was always common knowledge to get the book from the shelf in the classroom when we enter. Whenever i was one of the first few people (which was often), i would wait for enough people to get the book before i was sure it was what i was supposed to do. Same thing during art class when we were supposed to get whatever project we were previously working on. It genuinely makes me feel so stupid. It doesnt help that I’m also generally forgetful and clumsy and naive and accident/mistake prone.

danny02

Date posted: Yesterday

This is interesting. You are not stupid, doubt seems to be the boss of you. You seem to have insight in what you know you need to do but doubt stops you from doing it. ITS TIME TO JUST DO IT! Take the risk. Be brave ❤️

Avitabile

Date posted: Yesterday

You know what’s interesting, I’ve never heard this before and I’ve never explicitly thought this, but in reading this, I realize I do this sometimes. And I’ve experienced it with work too. I’m not sure exactly what I’ve done to combat this, but I think in making a mental checklist of what I need to do, I look at the tasks that maybe I wasn’t told specifically to do but know that I should do, and I label them as part of a group. And I say, well they have told me to always do things in this group, and the task is in this group, so they told me to do this. It’s kind of like, they’ve already given the instructions to do things in this group, whether months ago, so as long as I label it with that group name, then it’s been explicitly told to me to do it. Maybe visualizing it like folders and files on a computer? They may not have told you to do the specific file, but they told you to do everything in the specific folder, so visualizing the file getting put in the folder moves it to a location where the instructions have already been given. I’m not sure it’s the best advice, but I feel there’s a way to visualize it to help perhaps.

sick&tired

Date posted: Yesterday

Have you read up on autism? It was suggested to me a couple times before I finally got an assessment and diagnosis years later. Of course I’m not a professional I’m just sharing based on my own experience and some of the things you mentioned made me think of it.

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