I have a tendency to push myself beyond my limits for people when they ask me to do things. Like, they’re not asking me to hurt myself but it doesn’t occur to me to say that I can’t do the thing. It’s ... kind of hard to explain? Today in the first session of my kickboxing class I worked myself into an asthma attack rather than sit out or modify a drill where the group did jumping jacks while one member did a set of exercises until the whole group had a turn. I did the modified version of an earlier exercise when it was offered but even though I remember thinking “oh, I can’t do jumping jacks that entire time” it didn’t occur to me to ... stop? Do something else? Part of it was that the instructor said “if you stop I’m going to make someone on your group go again” (to the whole class, not to me specifically) and I didn’t want people to be upset with me... Afterwards the teacher said to stop or lower the difficulty when I’m having a problem but I don’t know if I can. Past examples: Saying yes to activities with my roommate (dinner, grocery shopping) when I didn’t want to. When she noticed I was uncomfortable she said things like “it’s okay if you don’t want to, you can say no” and I would say “yeah I don’t feel like it tonight” and that was fine with her. Going to a therapy appointment whilst quite sick. About halfway through, when I mentioned I hadn’t been feeling well, therapist was like “yeah, you look really rough. Do you want to go home and rest? We can reschedule” Going to a volunteer activity while sick and almost passing out in a corner, so the coordinator came over and asked if I was ok and sent me home. In high school, I occasionally went to an aikido class and one time I did something similar to today where I kept going and gave myself an asthma attack rather than back out of a competitive group activity. Very early example: my mom says that when I was in grade school and being screened for the gifted/accelerated program my teacher had been giving me progressively more difficult assignments to see what level I was at and I kept completing them but I was coming home a complete mess, totally stressed out and crying. My parents came in to talk about it and the teacher reportedly didn’t realize anything was wrong so they had to be like “no, they’ve hit their limit. you need to stop” So basically the problem is a combination of not being able to sense and judge my own internal status well enough to know I need to stop and not being able to tell people that I can’t do something or need a break. I don’t want to bother people or make them think I’m lazy... If the person offers a way out or asks if I want to stop I can say yes (although I might protest “no I’m fine” if I think the task is something I should be able to do, whether or not I really can) but otherwise... I kind of let people unintentionally push me past the breaking point and then when something bad happens (getting overwhelmed in a store, asthma attack, etc) it’s much more of a hassle than a simple interruption or refusal earlier would have been. I know it isn’t exactly fair to the other person either because I can’t expect people to read my mind and know I can’t do what they’re asking/what I previously agreed to do. And it’s not other people’s responsibility to monitor me and keep me from overextending myself to the point of harm. I don’t have this problem as much when shopping anymore... all it took was one pushy person scamming me out of a significant amount of money my first year at college and I became willing to walk away when money is involved, although I am probably still a bit easier to talk into purchases than the average person. I can also usually tell people no over text most of the time and I have scripts for turning down an invitation (when I remember to use them) but once I’ve agreed to do something I feel... locked in? Which I know intellectually is not true but... still... Does anybody have tips on a) recognizing I need a break/to cancel an activity and b) saying that?
...I have a similar problem with exercise, although not to that extent. With regards to recognizing you need a break: do you know your physical limits, can you recognize the signs of starting to get close to an asthma attack? Going to a party/the store: are you thinking about the trip with dread, are you thinking more about all the overwhelming things (lights, noise, people, etc) than the positives of such an event? As for refusing, is the problem letting other people down or not being able to recognize when you've gone too far? If it's partially the first one, remind yourself that the people in question wouldn't want you to hurt yourself. The locked-in feeling is difficult to cope with, and I haven't found a solution to it other than "just say the thing," unfortunately. I hope that's not entirely useless. Stuff like this tends to depend heavily on the individual.
With the exercise thing let your trainer know that you have asthma and have trouble recognising when to stop. It doesn't mean that they'll pick up that your flagging but they might be able to keep an eye out/remind you. Hopefully a combination of you trying to stay aware of your limits and being reminded will help prevent you overdoing it. In terms of not overloading with activities I find it helps to keep close track of what what i've already agreed to and how much time it's going to take to get it done. Then if someone asks I can easily have an indication of time left to do that thing and whether it's feasible. Of course this requires an initial idea of how much you can handle which I think can really only be ascertained through trial and error. And yeah seconding what was said above about just having to say no even though it's hard
