Overcoming Black and White Thinking

A useful strategy to see how some things are 'in the middle'.
(useful links below)

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[braziliaan]

I understand you 100%. I used to think “black and white” and followed the rules too hard. After having so much trouble and challenges I realized the practical life is a little different from the theory.

[AllanMacBain]

The 'friends' greyscale has tripped me up *my whole life*! 😭
Thank you for that particular 'lightbulb moment '. 👍

[rachelleandrichard]

You are a great communicator. I have found your videos so helpful to understand myself. Thanks 😊

[EllaChinoise]

I don't have many good friends. And I am reluctant to make more friends recent years. Because in the past every few years there were always people whom I thought were my good friends said something very mean or do something mean to make me feel that they detrayed me. I learn the way...friendship is not forever. Human connections are in the grey area.

[laralynnenabozny]

I can appreciate your point of view... here’s another tilt from a fellow aspie. For me Black and White equates to right and wrong. The so called “grey” is when emotions become a variable in a situation... which of course I’m not great at reading, but can only logically deduce the emotions that come to play based on the other variables in the equation. I think the problems arise when an NT expects a certain emotional reaction from me, but they either see none or one that may be completely unexpected.

[JoseMeeusen]

Only once in my life someone gave a positive comment on my black/white thinking. In a meeting he said: " Your putting things so black and white provokes a discussion!" I always remember that when others "accuse" me of being b/w.

[dend]

The mind thinks in extremes. Everything from desires to fear to hypothetical situations. It's always pointed, amplified and simplified. The mind is imagination at it's core. Reality is nuanced, ever changing and generally calm and pleasurable without the extra meaning the mind attaches to everything

[Aspie]

Aspies have a mindset for logic and routine. Furthermore we are not designed to be around people and socialising. So many adults I find only make it harder on themselves when they try and resist how the brain is wired as an Aspie. THe problem with the world is that people don't always say what they mean.

[jliller]

Regarding friendship being a black & white situation, this troubled me in the past, until I concluded that what most people call "friendship" is actually several different categories: family, work family, acquaintances, friends, close friends. People can move between categories over the time you know them.

[diamonddog]

Good tools are:
- work on assuming the other person's perspective. Ask yourself "why do they feel this way?" "Why might they be right?", "What if I'm wrong?"
- Find a therapist trained in Dialectic Behavior Therapy and learn new skills for resolving conflicts and see other people's perspective.

[ladyamalthea]

The more i listen to you the more i can understand myself and my aspie friend.

[isaq]

Thank you so much for this video! You choose the very right words and examples to explain how it feels to be us. I have a lot of problems trying to translate what goes through my brain in an effective way, and knowing how to say it out loud is really important, not only for therapy but also for simpathy when talking to neurotypicals. I was recently diagnosed in the spectrum and I went through you channel. It feels so good to know I'm not alone in this, and that I can learn from other's experiences to seek out for a better "mainstreaming". The diagnosis sets you free but that freedom brings you a feeling that you're lost, and founding a community has helped me re-encounter and respect myself the way I am. Thank you.

[CB]

I never realised I was a black and white thinker until today. My strict adherence to social expectations and the anger i feel when others don't has been driving me mad for decades! It's the "rules" and if you don't follow the rules youre a "bad" person. Crikey this sounds like its been with me since i was a child!

[DanChr]

Your videos have been the biggest help for me, felt so lost after my diagnosis, they just diagnosed me and let me go, then I had no idea what too do, your videos is life changing for me.. Thank you 🙏

[charleskingsley]

Hey thanks for making these videos, they give me some amount of comfort. Your detailed explanations and thorough examples of strategy are particularly helpful.

[Rebecca-ozfu]

It is unbelievable to me how helpful this explanation is. Explains so much of my own experience and thought processes. This was posted five years ago, but it is definitely something I needed to hear today. Paul, you’ve come so far, and I thank you for all that you are doing and have done. Stand Strong.

[orbismworldbuilding]

I never really went with the black and white thing with anything, just observing, comparing, and testing combinations of rulesets/concepts, thus developing my skills of seeing the "colorful" (to use a metaphore) nature of it. One of my special interests is exploring things and sort of deconstructing and expanding the entirety of a structure. Another thing is, a lot of things are granular (made of parts and of varying rigidity).
So, essentially I do have black and white thinking (on vs off) but only applied to granules of a situation/system/concept etc, and then I just assume some room for error (it's likely to be black, but it might be white).

Anyhow for an example of how to see things as "color":
Pleasant, Painful, Boring. Add up and remove different granyles of those, and see how it abstractly describes an experience. Painful doesn't always turn into Pleasant, because a lack of it can also be Boring. A lack of Boring can be Painful or Pleasant, and so on. Essentially use a measurement, a grain of on-or-off, and then stack them up. And instead of using singular types of grains, use an odd-numbered set of them and see how it shapes things. That's how to see beyond black and white, and even beyond grey.

[WhoAmIYouNow]

Wow... I used to think the SAME way about friends. It made me feel really lonely. I just got diagnosed last month, and everything makes so much sense.

[Ind-eb]

3:45 “It’s a little bit wrong to say a tomato is a vegetable. It’s a lot wrong to say a tomato is a suspension bridge.”

(great example from Big Bang Theory)

[stevenwarner]

Sounds like you had a very similar experience to me in terms of how we categorised things and people. I was a very black and white thinker through my teens, but had some guidance from my father on thinking more in shades of grey as he noticed what my attitude could be like and we have always had a great relationship. He was somewhat similar when he was younger, but neither of us knew at the time that I had autism (only found that out properly in July this year before turning 30). Reading into critical thinking, philosophy, psychology, and trying to recognise what the most important thing might be in a given context helped me to become more balanced in this respect. My problem was largely considering too many people as friends when really they were more like good acquaintances, and often sharing too much information.

I now have somewhat of a routine where I might read something and get an immediate emotional reaction, but step back and consider the possible subtleties and points of view. Luckily, this has largely become part of my subconscious processing so I don't immediately jump on something as being "wrong". It has also helped me feel a bit more emotionally stable, as I am not reacting to everything as strongly as I had when I was younger.

Keep up the great work with your videos; I look forward to seeing more.