To Change or to Change Up

Of all the contradictory traits I witness myself exhibiting, my relation towards change fascinates me in a most consistent matter.

If autism refers to a state of mind that is clinically recognised to be different from the world outside of it, any influence towards it is greatly significant and an inherently sensitive act.

Disrupted routines, sudden alterations to a planned out day, added factors, an accident or an unforseen dip in the energy level can set of unfortunate series of events which can rarely be handled gracefully.

On the other hand, I am known to be different for a reason: Because I do many things differently and I like to invent new ways and happily challenge the rules and barriers I learn about.

I noticed two types of change, which are as far apart from each other as represented on my scale of likeability:

• I fear, despise, loathe and avoid change

• I love, enjoy, thrive on and sometimes more or less quirkily impose upon others changing things up

So, what sets them apart so distinctly?

It is the source of the change and how it is being introduced into my own world.

There are always rules and boundaries and goals and reasoning. So everything I do must have a reason, naturally.
This need for a reason is something I have always been extremely sensitive about. If I can not see a reason for something, I would react in unsuitable ways. Luckily, my parents shaped a world for me that provided tangible reasons and an explanation for practically everything.

So if my day or a certain period of time is all set up, it means that my reasons and all the contributing factors are aligned and balanced out to enable myself to be functional.

Enter a change: This one comes from the outside and if I have no prepared way to deal with this change (filtering out the entirety of the impact, having thought out the possibility of this exact scenario, having allowed for unforseen events already), I will have to realign from the top.

I will have to evaluate the nature and the size of the change against my whole stack of reasons, beliefs, goals great and small, my relation to every factor involved (living or no) and I will try to rebalance all those as quickly as possible, in order to be functional again.
And I better have a good reason WHY I would like to be functional..!

Examples for this: A spontaneous change of seats at the office, more people than anticipated come for a visit, the Deutsche Bahn crumples the itinerary, the chosen beforehand foods are not available at the restaurant, someone offers and makes you select a drink when you didn’t expect it.

On to the nicer side: If I see a good reason to do something differently, of course according to all current beliefs, known rules and ideas that are inside my mind, I just love to change it up and make life somewhat easier, funnier, more meaningful.

As much as I am thinking inside boundaries and search for fixed things, as much I am able to notice what is outside those borders and where the rule has no backing at all.

One thing wants to hold me back plenty of times, which is my routines. Those play a HUGE role in making myself functional to begin with.
To change up a routine, even in a small way and for the better, there has to be a certain buffer in the energy levels, beside all the reasoning.

A good reason can also be someone we trust. As long as we are convinced that they do have good reasons themselves. This gets harder when you become an adult. Who will tell you what to do in a world that spins uncontrollably?
You will tell yourself. Only the seperation of powers inside oneself is naturally weak, which then reflects onto the executive functionality…

I would love to clone myself into another being that tells me the right things and I just do those and live a happy life. But that has to be done all inside. Maybe noone knows how it is done, really.
It is like those psycholological tricks, where you are made believe that something is your own decision, so you feel good about making it. That is what must be happening inside our head at all times.

Without the vast amount of energy I am saving by my new way of working and the many solved questions over the past year, I would have never been able to change up my living situation with all the fun little changed up things inside. Yet I still fear any change that comes at me that I could not control.

I might appear courageous, but it is only the sufficient amount of known things and enough excess energy that lets me do greatly. If those are not present, I stick to my routines and live the old life, where there wasn’t much chance for change by choice.