3am worries

You wake up in the night and remember that thing that happened the day before. Or the week before. Or in some cases the year before. Perhaps you gave a presentation at work. 99.9% of the presentation was fine – possibly even excellent. But you tripped over your feet on the way to the podium. Or got your boss’ name wrong. Or didn’t know the answer to a question. You accidentally clicked through two slides at once. Something trivial that in no way invalidated the excellent presentation. BUT. At 3am all you can think of is the burning shame and embarrassment of the thing you did wrong. Your colleagues all saw you trip over – they’ll never be able to take you seriously again. Or your boss now thinks you’re an idiot because you got her/his name wrong. That stakeholder will never believe your organisation again because you couldn’t answer his/her question. That skipped-over slide contained the answer to all the world’s problems and because you skipped over it the world will end and be taken over by aliens/zombies. Does that pattern of thought sound relatable? Because I do it all the time.

It seems to be an autistic trait to beat oneself up over the slightest thing. Of course many people do this and not just autistics. The best example I can think of is of a non-autistic (so far as I know) colleague who is capable of doing something amazingly brilliant to universal acclaim and deciding because the font was wrong, or something equally unimportant, that he’s useless. He may well read this and completely fail to recognise himself because he can’t believe he’s brilliant. Sigh.

The autistic case is particular tricky though because we can find things hard to let go – such as things going wrong. And we can be overwhelmed with the distress of having to apologise for a mistake because of the social awkwardness. So that a perceived mistake can build up to something impossible to ignore or forget in our minds. And the mistake then takes up so much brain space that it prevents any thought about the things happening now. So more mistakes happen and the whole thing spirals out of control.

How to handle it then? Well I’ve learned that anything that I may happen to be thinking at 3am is pretty certain to be unproductive. That’s allowed me to wake up in the night fretting and tell myself “oh yes – this is a 3am worry again – it’s not properly rational”. That’s really hard to do the first few times but the more you get into doing it the easier it becomes. I’ve learned that anything in my brain at 3am is unlikely to bear much relationship to real life and so can be discounted.

In the heat of the moment slips can also become overwhelming. In the case of a presentation with minor flaws, I now know that when I make a slip up it’s vitally important not to waste any brain space on worrying about it because it’ll detract from the quality of what follows. Again, easier said than done, but it gets easier with repetition.

After the presentation (or whatever) I will look back on it, fail to notice the 99% that went right and focus on the 1% that wasn’t perfect. So far so human. But to get out of the autistic cycle I sometimes have to remind myself that I may not be being rational. After a stressful period of time at work I may be feeling overwhelmed so that my emotions are a bit muddled up. If I fail to come out of a presentation feeling great, it’s not necessarily because my performance was bad, but just because I feel bewildered and disconcerted because I’m tired.

If you’re autistic it can be difficult to recognise what the real (emotional) problem is and try to fix it with logic and practical action. Remembering to pause and check in whether the problem really is a something that went wrong that needs fixing, as opposed to an emotional reaction to 3am or tiredness, is really important to me.

Today is the second Sunday after Epiphany – a period when Christian people think about the way Jesus was revealed not only to his own people but to foreigners as well (the Three Wise Men). Other relevant themes are light and clarity (the star leading the Wise Men) and revelations and new understandings. I’d like to tie the idea of improving understanding of what’s real and what’s the darkness of unnecessary worry, with the light and revelation of the season. The Collect (special prayer) for the Second Sunday after Epiphany also talks about seeking peace; how needful that is not only all our lives, but most especially at 3am.

This post has been brought to you by the collect for the Second Sunday after Epiphany:

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who dost govern all things in heaven and earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and grant us thy peace all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.