Being Aspie and Dealing With Change

Today I had a complete breakdown. Thankfully it happened as a result of a text, not in person or on the phone, and thankfully my boyfriend was with me and helped me calm down but it was pretty rough there for a while.

What caused such a breakdown, you ask? Surely something horrible or tragic? A death? An accident? A betrayal? No, it was a schedule change. Specifically I found out that our school (or maybe the whole district or state? No one seems to know) is dropping double block reading and moving to only single periods.

Please, keep reading to understand why, as a person with Asperger's, this felt like a death blow.



My first reaction to the news was indignation on behalf of my students. These kids are in high school and reading at the elementary level. Many of them need to make 5 to 10 years of growth to be on level. The least you can do is give me two years worth of time with them to try to make that happen. Plus our school is on alternating block schedule, so now I'll only see them every other day instead of every day. Grrr.

But at least that response was logical and (I think) justified. I then spent a good hour depressed, frustrated, and occasionally crying because I was overwhelmed. The worst offense of all in my mind was that my co-teacher Janice and I literally met yesterday for hours, planning out the year, including a good chunk of time working out our daily schedule to try to cover as much as possible. Just before getting the Text of Doom, I was heading to the computer to start typing up plans.

Then there were the logistics of the change. This switch means I'm teaching 4 classes instead of 2 doubles (plus a period of ESE test coordinating), some without my co-teacher, and there are a total of 6 classes taught in our classroom instead of 3.

My mind swirled with thoughts (most of which are frivolous now that I'm thinking rationally):

• We'll need a new Turn It In Bin with 6 drawers. Or should we just get a second 3 drawer bin? Could I find the same drawer we have now so they match?
• What colors will be use to represent each class? Our class theme only has 4 contrasting colors. Can we really use brown for one? But that won't stand out from the walls. And who wants to be brown? And what about the last class? What other colors exist? What colors of paper do we have? Are we really going to run 6 paper chains across the room?
• How can I mentally switch between co-teaching and single-teaching for different classes?
• Crap I have to be in charge of remembering to take attendance
• Will we have enough notebooks? What about highlighters? DID I BUY ENOUGH HIGHLIGHTERS?
• I need to plan a new planner. I just figured out my planner. And plans. Now we have to redo our plans. How the hell do you track alternating plans? How do I get them organized enough to turn in to admin?
• Seriously though, 6 colors. Think! What other colors can we use? What colors do we even use now?
• New routine. We need a new routine. We didn't have enough time in double block, how do we make a routine with enough time in single?
• Should I print my own planner? Buy one? How do people do this?

All of that (and an assortment or thoughts in a similar vein) ran on repeat, punctuated by an occasional sob.

And this is how my disorders can affect my teaching.

First, let me be clear that-

[at this point I got distracted by my dog (hello ADD), started searching about font formatting on blogger, then accidentally removed my last blog post and spent half an hour redoing it]

Ahem, as I was saying:  First, let me be clear that I have never had a breakdown in front of my students. Typically I handle things well, and when I do get overwhelmed I can retreat briefly and be ok (Janice calls it going under the dome). Today just hit hard because it touched on some of my weak points.

The first is an unexpected change of schedule. This is a struggle for most people with ASD. We like our routines; we plan things out ahead of time and don't like when reality doesn't match the picture we had in our minds. Like I said, we had just made up our schedule and routine for our classes and the next day they were smacked down. I perseverated over that a lot.

The second was feeling betrayed by someone I trusted. Growing up I was bullied a lot, and learned not to trust people. Even if someone was nice to me, I assumed it was some sort of joke. As a adult I have grown past this for the most part, but that underlying fear of finding out people aren't really my friends is still there. It was a good friend of mine who texted me about the change and my mind immediately associated her as the cause of it. In reality she was being a good friend by giving me a heads up about it, but I couldn't see that at first.

The last trigger I can clearly see (there may very well be others I'm not cognizant of), is being forced into conflict. I HATE conflict. I avoid it like the plague. I don't stand up for myself. I don't argue or complain. I practically hyperventilate if I have to call a company about an issue, and spend half an hour psyching myself up before I do it. 99 times out of 100, I will put up with something rather than face the conflict of addressing the issue. So today I was put in a situation where I had to stand up for myself, my co-teacher, and my students, even though I didn't feel comfortable doing it. Even as I was arguing against the change, I was apologizing for saying anything about it. Those conflicting emotions of feeling justified and unreasonable at the same time can be very distressing.

In the end I argued my case, then accepted that I couldn't change things and, for the most part, was able to let it go. Even now though I feel agitated thinking about it, and spent the past several hours working on this post instead of planning because I can't face thinking about that right now. By tomorrow I'll be fine and start obsessing about putting together new plans (and color schemes), but for now it feels good to just get this off my chest.

Thanks for sticking with me through this whole post. I hope I've given you some insight into the Aspie mind. If you've got any suggestions for me, feel free to leave me a comment below!