Secondly, I am a very "agitated" person, and I tend to shift constantly while standing and pick up random objects and play with them. This does not mean that I am not paying attention to what my teacher is trying to tell me. I don't know how to communicate this to my teachers. I don't know how to communicate that I do not intend to seem like I am not paying attention. I am paying attention quite well. It's just that I move a lot and have to, well, do something with my hands when I am watching something.
Whatever. Of all the feelings that I thought I would experience, frustration--at least this kind--is not something I thought I would experience. I don't even know how to handle it. Maybe it's just me running into the kind of world that just doesn't care about accommodating me, one that I haven't really handled until now. And I am aware that complaining about this doesn't mean anything to the people who really matter.
I want to explain that I am not being malicious or trying to escape responsibility by falling asleep at the bench or by walking in small circles while my teacher is giving a demonstration. I just honestly didn't think it was a problem.
Again, now that I know it's a problem I won't do it anymore. I just did not understand how, well, stringent this world would be. Again, I expected to be accommodated, at least a little. Or at the very least I want to be able to explain that I am trying my best here and that, though I may not be perfect at the moment, I am willing to make changes to my actions that will foster a better workplace.
It's just that no one wants to hear why. "Oh, you're walking in small circles while I try to show you something? You're not paying attention! Oh, you grab for things instinctively before I'm ready to hand them to you? You must not be paying attention! Oh, you're tapping things with that plastic hammer? You must not be motivated! You must not care!"
I do care! I care deeply! But the problem is that I have some sort of ... Thing, inside me, that just makes me behave differently than, well, the most professional of people. And what I hate the most--in fact, this is the thing that makes me frustrated more than anything ever--is when people assign deliberate malicious noncompliance to my mannerisms. I can't help it!
When I stand, I have to rock back and forth. I automatically grab at things that other people are holding without thinking if I am interested in it. If I see something pokey right next to my hand I will poke things with it.
In fact, I am deliberately trying NOT to do these things. It takes a considerable amount of effort! Every time I catch myself doing this--up to ten times an hour--I will stop! But apparently, that's not enough. No one cares that I am trying hard to pay attention and stay awake and do what I am told and not grab for things or spin in tiny little circles while I watch my teacher work. Instead, they assume the opposite--that, because I am doing these things, I must NOT be trying--or even actively DECIDING to not pay attention.
I am trying! Very hard! The amount of weird goofiness that I exude is down ninety percent of what it could be!
I just don't like it when no one will listen to me when I say I AM TRYING. Instead of taking my word that my little quirks are innocuous--or even listening at all to what I want to say--they just assume I am delinquent. I don't even have a chance to voice my opinion back to them.
Yes, I am trying. It takes a significant amount of conscious effort to NOT spin in little circles when I am watching my instructor doing something. I feel like I am not even in my own skin when my movement is restricted; if I am unable to move while standing.
Is this a medical condition? I don't know! I can't help it! If I were to force myself not to fidget or spin or fiddle or walk in circles or sway back and forth I would feel extremely uncomfortable.
I don't know. I can't say these things because everyone thinks I am making malicious excuses that are intended to divest me of responsibility for things that are easily controllable by neurotypicals, and because of that, are interpreted by those same neurotypicals as being indicative of something lazy, inattentive, or unmotivated.
I do not even know myself if I am lazy, inattentive, or unmotivated. But I do know that I really want what I am working for and the thought that I may be kicked out after failing probation simply because of my unstoppable urge to fidget and grab and twiddle makes me afraid.
Maybe I need to see a doctor. Hell, I've seen enough of them in my lifetime. I feel like a caged beast who is roaming his cell trying to escape and knowing that his roaming is being interpreted as bad, bad, bad.
I will continue trying to work with this, and I have enough mental force of will to just eat this situation and force myself to not fidget as much as possible, but I would like to be understood, as it is the thing I hate most to be viewed as actively malicious or unconcerned or inattentive when I am actually the complete opposite. I am trying hard and no one will believe me.
Sigh ... Whatever. What happens happens. If I'm not suited to something because of my fidgety-ness, I'm not suited to it.
It's just that me and some types of people don't get along well. I wish my current instructor would stop being a perfectionist and start, just, empathizing a little bit.
Blegh.
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