INTJ

To What End?

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Every now and then, I start a post on one site and end up putting it on another. Sometimes it’s an accident that I twist toward the particular site, like I did with ‘To What End?‘. That was actually supposed to be here, but I had already written most of it when I glanced up and saw it was on KnowProSE.com – but since it went with productivity, I rolled with it.

In essence, it wasn’t worth the time and energy to move it over here – which would have been a few clicks – when it works just as well over there with a few tweaks.

What I didn’t mention over there is that the real reason I was writing it was also related to some other stuff my psychologist and I had spoken about. It relates to unraveling myself, and to some degree it falls into the same category. Some questions are worth pursuing, some not.

One of the questions I’m considering is taking a consult to go talk to someone else to see if I score on the autism spectrum. Many people over the course of my life have suggested that, but I filed that away under consistently testing as an INTJ over the course of the decades. Laypeople can’t really tell the difference largely because both personality types and autism are so popularly misunderstood.

So here’s the thing. I’m comfortable with my psychologist, and I’m not sure going to talk to someone else for a few sessions is what I should do, and the question is – to what end? I’m already in my 50s, so it’s not really going to have an impact on anything. To what end is knowing that? How will knowing that help with anything? I am who I am now, who I have become.

That’s where, “To what end” is really supposed to go – yet I started writing about that stupid parking thing and how idiotic it was to waste so much time over one incident, which is funny because I wasted even more time on it. I spend a lot of time laughing at myself. Try it.

I’m not sure that seeing if I’m on the autistic spectrum has value to me. Of course, I researched it, and Autism Speaks had maybe not too much to say about it. That’s fair. It’s not something that should be marketed. This article was a little more helpful, Autism in Adults: Recognizing the Signs, Living with a Diagnosis, and it has some benefits but also some coping strategies that might just work anyway.

I generally have plans for things, and I suppose when my psychologist suggested looking at a formal diagnosis I didn’t have a plan for that. I don’t have a plan for a positive or negative diagnosis, either. Not having a plan can be exhilarating. I love new problems, new knowledge, new systems… but this, for some reason, has me a bit anxious and I don’t know why.

I’d be interested to get some feedback from people who got testing and how it went either way.

“Please take a seat”

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She asks me to sit down. This is, of course, innocent and polite, but the system itself has done this to me one time too many. I was here for my contacts, I’d been through the testing, I’d been through two aftercare appointments, and every wait starts with, “Please have a seat in the waiting area.”

I’d been told on Monday that they would order the contacts, that they would be there on Thursday, and when I asked if they would call me I got an uncertain look about it which told me, “Maybe”, which tells me, “Probably not”, which I infer as “No”. While it’s nice to assume good, when it comes to systems of bureaucracy, unless you get a confident ‘Yes’, the answer should be taken as ‘no’.

I tell her, “No, I’ll stand right here. This should not take long; either you have them or you don’t and if you don’t, there’s no reason for me to linger.” She gives an awkward assent, scurrying to the back, this poor young girl used to the domestic herbivores who do as they are told when they are told because they are told.

I drift to the back, watching as people awkwardly come to the front desk looking around at the room full of employees, trying to decide how to politely get someone’s attention. One bearded fellow adjusts the stapler, ignoring the people at the desk. These are the same people who would call me twice when I had an appointment, to my annoyance, to make sure that I would be there – and here they were, unable to deal with the asynchronous.

As it happens, they didn’t have my contacts – it took 3 people to tell me that, a symptom of disconnected systems, of silos. The second one asks me to take a seat again, “No, I’m tired of sitting in here over the past few months.”

She tries a joke, “Well, we don’t have an option for people to lie down.”

She wriggles away under one of the looks I give people when they say something stupid and I don’t want to be a jerk. There was a time when I would just look down and shake my head, now I make eye contact and let my mask fall away. More than one person, even friends, have said that this is uncomfortable.

The third woman cuts in quickly, having dealt with me before.

“Did someone call you about them?”
“No; On Monday I was told they were ordered and would be here by Thursday. Today is Saturday.”
She properly apologizes, double checks. “I will personally call you when they come in.”

“Thank you.”

None of this required me to sit down. None of this required an elaborate process where I had to be handed off between people. And I’ve found, as much as I hate it, by unleashing myself just a little bit – just enough – they learn to adapt when they see me.

But the first pass is always so annoying.

Grim Joy

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ 1 Comment

Grim(3) Happiness
Blood, sweat, dust, grime.

This is me in the flow as I put a foundation under my future. This is the happy face I have seems to prompt people into asking me, “What’s wrong?”

Nothing’s wrong. Maybe it’s being an INTJ, where I’ve worked out how not to cause people to question me on what’s wrong, so they don’t normally see this face.

But it’s who I am. Today, I got the grading done of a hill while I dulled my cutlass – my 3 canal – on things that needed to get chopped down to clear my path.

Progress comes, though. Slowly. But it will happen.

Tomorrow, more battle with bactris major, this weaponized chlorophyll that I will not have in my eyesight. Much less my skin.