An unexpected confrontation at our garden club’s assembly led to an avalanche of thoughts, introspection — and, ultimately, code-level debugging of my own behavior.

Introduction

I was planning to write — and publish — a blogpost every so often. Maybe 3 or 4 times a week at most.  There’s just so much to write about! And as the days go by, I find myself enjoying the process more and more.

So why am I really writing this? Because something happened. And it shook me — in a good and bad way.

Please bear with me,  the introduction to this story is quite long.

Context

Yesterday we had the annual General Assembly for our Garden Club. Because I’m part of the “garden committee”, a group of volunteers, who do some extra work on and around our premises, I also had an active role yesterday.

Try to imagine an older lady in your neighborhood — the kind who knows everyone and everything that’s going on.

Also try to imagine that I created a report for the general assembly, describing what we did, what we didn’t do — and why — as the garden committee last year.

And combine the two together and you can imagine that both already knew everything we did, what we didn’t do, and why we didn’t do the latter part.

And for the last piece of context, yes I know, this intro is getting longer and longer.

We had a list of tasks we intended to do but had to change priorities during the year. Our drainage was not working properly which had to be fixed. And on top of that we had to up our safety on and around our compound. Similar gardens in our vicinity suffered from vandalism and even fires while our garden was unharmed.

So back to the main point: they already knew all of this — and it was all written down in our report. And just to make it extra clear: guess who wrote all the newsletters (yup, me…) — and included all that information there too.

So that should be it right?

You guessed it…

NOPE!

Taking the stage, part #1

When the agenda item passed about the garden committee I got the stage from the chairman, stood up and the fun started.

I asked all the members if there were any questions about the report we wrote. And yup, there she was, she had a “question“. (Basically a rhetorical one!).

Her question was: “You promised a lot of things last year — like doing chore A, B, and C — and none of those were done. Why is that?” She already *KNEW* the reasoning behind all the decisions! She was trying to pull some nasty trick and throw us under the proverbial bus!

For once I came prepared, I could handle her question perfectly. I stated that everything was in the report why it wasn’t done. And explained it again to the whole group.

Then she came with another passive-aggressive comment that it might be an idea to inform all members about the changes.

I surprised myself in that moment. Normally I would clam up, but I actually had an answer ready, the newsletters, remember :-), which shut her up.

Taking the stage, part #2

At the end of the meeting, during the “Any other business (AOB)” item, she had a question / remark addressed at the chairman about possible manure pollution and possible overfertilization, yup, this part is boring as f*ck, pardon my French :P.

Because I’m part of the garden community group I responded that she has a point, while trying to acknowledge her concern, but that there is no easy solution. We don’t have rules for it, the law only states limits per hectare and the limitations in time as everyone is a volunteer, let alone that sampling certain areas of the garden will cost money.

Then the fun started. She interrupted my answer several times and made a nasty remark that I basically stated “tough luck, live with it!”, which was NOT what I was trying to convey!

My take on it: She was trying to gaslight me.

So I repeated my answer again, she interrupted me again and again, and yet again…

But then, unexpectedly, I did something I did not expect to do!

“Hey. When you talk, I listen and when I talk you listen. Could you please give me that courtesy!”

Like… whut!? I wasn’t expecting that reaction from myself — but weirdly, it felt kind of… right? ”

Then the turmoil inside started, and now I’m finally, yes finally! at the point where I wanted to write about.

What an intro Brain!

Turmoil

Yeah, that’s when my brain really kicked into high gear. It did what it always does: It started almost all processes it could find, all at the same time!”

A part of the processes that kicked into gear:

• introspection.init();
• retrospection.init();
• researchprocess.start();
• guiltprocess.init();
• recursive_almost_endless_reiterationprocess.start( depth -> unbounded );
• fawnprocess.init( feeling_guilty -> true );
• external_affirmation.ask( numberofpeople -> alot );

“recursive_almost_endless_reiterationprocess.start()” is a famous one. Its sole job is to replay the whole sequence of events over and over and over again, trying to find answers and points that could have been done differently. Probably very familiar for people on the autistic spectrum I guess.

But above is not all of it, besides all the processes that started there is another process that I did not mention yet.

• questionprocess.start();

With questions like:

• Did I overreact?
• Was that response appropriate?
• What will all the members think of me?
• What will my wife think of this?
• Was I overreacting? ( yeah twice! )
• What will “subject” think of me?
• Should I make my apologies?
• How do I feel about this?

And the list goes on.

So yes, I asked a few people what their thoughts are, including my wife. We talked about it at home but it didn’t really help.

Put in code:

checksums.checksum_guilt = guiltprocess.calculate_checksum.fetch();
checksums.checksum_research = researchprocess.calculate_checksum.fetch();
checksums.checksum_fawn = fawnprocess.calculate_checksum.fetch();

IF ( checksums.match() == FALSE )
THEN
   debugger.start();
END;

Debugger

This process went on for the rest of the evening, me trying to find answers inside my brain — and not finding any.

Somehow my reactions this evening felt right, finally standing up to these bully-like types and setting boundaries.

On the other hand — when I also take into account that encounter with the door-to-door guy, I think I overreacted a bit. I’m noticing changes in my behavior, on the one hand I think I like them, on the other hand what will people think of it.
So yeah, the fawning process is hard at work.

When I woke this morning, earlier than expected, the process mentioned above immediately kicked in again. And… I still haven’t found any answer.

Moral of the story

For me, actually thinking in these kinds of processes gives me better insight into how to actually process events more effectively. And writing this blogpost also helps a lot!

And it also gives insight into how a so-called “normal” response to a nasty situation still triggers an avalanche of mental processes.

So now you know a little more about how my autistic brain handles these kinds of situations — and what the aftermath looks like.

One thing is certain though: This is going to be one hell of an internal code change — and the changelog is already filling up.

Brain out

Changelog

** Changelog version 0.48.04.02beta2:

[CHANGED] assertiveness.module updated
[CHANGED] fawnprocess.priority lowered
[STABILIZED] boundarycheck finally triggers during hostile input
[IMPROVED] response_time in conflict situations (-200ms latency)
[KNOWN ISSUE] guiltprocess checksum mismatch may persist on reboot

One more thing

If the aforementioned “elderly lady” happens to recognize herself in this blogpost, here’s a question for you:

Do you ever reflect on your behavior — and how it affects others?

If so, you know who I am and where to find me.

I’m curious…
(Though to be honest, not exactly hopeful.)

I do honestly hope, though, that you’ll be able to find your own introspection and retrospection processes — like I did.

This article can also be found on medium.com: https://medium.com/@martin_68191/i-surprised-myself-and-then-spent-the-night-debugging-it-2980e41da1a9