Mistrust and details in converations

[Prototypian]

I've always thought my uOCPDw would make a great prosecuting attorney.   Full disclosure I have Asperger's and didn't realize that until late in life so I tend to take most statements as just statement without intent.  I would never have made a good statesman and I would have probably made the constitution say something like "a bunch of us think we should be allowed to do our own thing without having to ask permission" and been good with it.   I do love the version we have though and I'm glad smart people wrote it to be better than my version would have been.   My spouse only trusts details as very very exact.   The exact verbage and statement matters to her.   But in ways I don't expect.   Our oldest talks to me about her college, college job, etc.   I listen, give thoughts when the kid has questions and figure that in 20 years none of this will matter much anyway.   My spouse will spend hours deposing me as though I'm a defendant in a trial trying to understand everything that was discussed.   I am not a detail oriented person.   "Something for dinner" can be ok with cereal, grilled chicken or coq a vin.  My spouse would want to know how someone chose a type of cereal and how much was spent on that cereal.   

I often have no idea why this level.of context or detail matters to anyone.

[square]

I'm guessing it's a (poor) way to manage anxiety - through control of the world.

[JustKeepTrying]

jsinjin,

my xOCPDh did the same.  Anyone I talked to - kids, friends, neighbors or strangers - I had to completely debrief him on - if not it could be anything from scary anger to cold shoulder.  In the last decade, there were very few people I spoke to - including my own kids - i was so afraid of the cross-examination.

I don't understand it either.  I don't need all that detail - perhaps a bit more about dinner to only know how hungry I need to be - but otherwise, I wanted to trust my partner to share what needed to be shared and proceed from there.  Sure it's great to get details sometimes, but not always necessary.  I always found it odd.  very very odd.

one of the biggest fights was when I didn't tell him our neighbor stopped to say hi to me while I was weeding the side lawn.  I think the exchange lasted a total of six lines and totally banal - and my ex went ballistic and I was totally floored.  it was one of the first times I began to really suspect something was wrong with him

It's not you or the aspergers.  this is on them.. 

[SonofThunder]

Jsinjin,

I am surely a details person, and I pay attention to the specific words used in documents and books.  I am grateful for my trait and also for others that pay attention to the details, as i believe its important.  At the same time, i do believe that all humans were created with this detail focused high radar and I can appreciate balanced humans on both sides of the focus/no-focus traits.

I do not believe though, that my traits are off-balance, delving into the spaces of a disorder that causes me to need hyper-organization or hyper-focus to understand, trust and/or control the details (or persons) of everything in my life to not mentally fall apart.

I understand your struggles in this area with your spouse and im sorry you suffer in living with a disordered person and with Aspergers.  I personally believe that if my mind operated in the manner that you describe regarding your spouse, i would live in constant paranoia and constant internal concern of losing my sanity over my constant need to be in control of all details just to keep me from losing control. 

Again, im sorry you and your children are subject to a disordered spouse/mother in this manner. 

SoT

[Prototypian]

Thanks all:

I think it's why I would not make a very good lawyer.   I'm also ok that people care a great deal about the way that things are discussed for the purposes of contracts or patents or trade negotiations.   I also have a belief that certain interactions are just casual exchanges.  I am not the Fed chairman where my thoughts on the weather being hot or cold could be taken to change the price of commodities for a year.   

I was a professor and in one of my courses called materials science and chemistry for first year engineers I was teaching the class at 8 am MWF.   I had learned that the Nobel prize was awarded that morning to Jack Kilby who invented the 3D integrated circuit at Texas Instruments.   Since these students were potentially studying things in that field, I got up early and prepared a significant set of information to highlight the achievement and foundational effort.   A young man in the front row raised his hand and asked "this isn't covered in the syllabus, will it be on the exam?".  I was taken aback and said, I guess not and he asked "will there be anything from the exam materials covered?"and I said "I don't know probably not because I wanted to share this information with you and discuss the relationships between circuits and lithography and etching" and he said "just to make sure you and everyone know, this material will not be ont he exam" and he packed up his books and left.   I've been shocked ever since that day because I never treated my course materials as a legal document.


I don't think that day to day interactions need to be part of a system of record.  I couldn't imagine being president or a CEO where your very appearance is looked at to define an interaction.   I have no social media except for LinkedIn to remain connected professionally.   My uOCPDw often reviews my "likes" or posts and lets me know what people could perceive but I just don't see things that way and I think she perceived all through the lens of the worst case scenario.  She has said "if you say something you must mean it" but I do rough drafts of my publications all the time and I give all of my lectures and presentations without notes so they don't sound canned.  I can not believe that everything that people say is rehearsed discourse that they have deliberate intent with absolute meaning.  When I say "how was your day?" it is intended as a greeting and an empathy of wanting to relate without any other subtext.   I have noticed that people I believe are PD will answer that question either as a "whh are you asking, are you trying to learn something about me" or will answer it carefully as though they want to be exact and very specific like my question is intended to try and trap them with saying something that is not factual.  "Not bad" or "fine" or "it hasn't been great thank you for asking though" are all ok answers to the question in my opinion.

[JustKeepTrying]

You can be detail oriented and not be a pd.  I believe that this is a skill like SOT and very valuable in certain areas.  People like me, undetailed oriented, need those people in our lives.  They provide balance.

But it sounds like your spouse takes it too far and uses it as a weapon to keep your life unbalanced.  To the point where it appears you question every move.  That is manipulative and cruel.

As for your student, I find that sad.  Those lectures and classes that diverged from the syllabus were the most valuable to me.  That step from the path is where I found the most interesting, creative and engaging content that pushed my mind and forced me to look at info diferently.  I found my greatest breakthroughs off syllabus.  That is what you were trying to achieve and that student lost out on a great opportunity.  How short sighted of him.  How sad for him.

[SonofThunder]

You can be detail oriented and not be a pd.  I believe that this is a skill like SOT and very valuable in certain areas.  People like me, undetailed oriented, need those people in our lives.  They provide balance.

But it sounds like your spouse takes it too far and uses it as a weapon to keep your life unbalanced.  To the point where it appears you question every move.  That is manipulative and cruel.

As for your student, I find that sad.  Those lectures and classes that diverged from the syllabus were the most valuable to me.  That step from the path is where I found the most interesting, creative and engaging content that pushed my mind and forced me to look at info diferently.  I found my greatest breakthroughs off syllabus.  That is what you were trying to achieve and that student lost out on a great opportunity.  How short sighted of him.  How sad for him.

Fully agree with all this. 

*A correction needed on my previous post.  "At the same time, i do NOT believe that all humans were created with this detail focused high radar and I can appreciate balanced humans on both sides of the focus/no-focus traits.

As JKT also stated, theres a great balancing effect of the inclusion of detail-oriented and non-detail oriented in society.  But JKT accurately uses 'weaponizing' which imo is correct with regard to PD people. 

My uPDw is not a detail oriented person and she fully understands that I am.  I have stated this before on another thread, but the difference between the 'emotionally immature' and 'disordered' personalities is that the disordered are 'predatory'.  They intentionally  +feed at the -expense of others.

I do not ask my spouse to be detail oriented.  I respect she is not.  But I also respect and boundary-protect my detail oriented traits. My wife purposefully sabotaging my details is predatory.  Therefore I believe the opposite is true as well. 

SoT

[1footouttadefog]

I think that scientists tend to be very precise in their communication.  I admire the ability of many science lecturers to make statements with such clarity and nuanced precision,that a PD person or a lawyer cannot twist those words if they wanted to.

I can relate to the scenario you relate about the student getting up and leaving.  I was a natural science major and encountered many such students in classes.  I was unfortunate to have one as a lab partner once.  I remember a chemistry course with several of these students in it.  I seek to recall the were all planning medical careers and were very intent on making an A at any cost. 

We were working on gas laws and such as that and programmable calculators were the lastest thing.  They were working in the background to figure out how to program theirs so they only had to enter the variables and they were good. 

The professor wrote an exam such that there were not quantities or values given in many questions.  The correct answers would be qualitative.  Answers like the volume will  increase or The temperature will decrease where what was sought on many problems

These punks all flunked the exam.  They were furious and said the professor did not teach and had no understanding of what then needed to make it through medical or dental school.

He went to the board and wrote his name followed by PhD, MD and a couple more.

He then asked them what they plan to do if they encounter problems and don't know how to think.  He asked if they encountered an appendix surgery and found it was not on the right side were they going to clumsily cut until they found one or pull their programmed calculator out, or were they going to think.  He asked them if there was an equation programed in their calculator for an aneurysm in a tooth they were drilling into.

I did not fully understand what NPDs were at that time but my soul was gleeful at seeing them put in their place. 

Your wife's need for control is amazingly strong.  I am sorry she is so mentally ill.  I am sure it is painful so see someone you care about in such a conditionand at the same time need to extract yourself.