Here's something that causes friction between me and my family.
Someone asks me to make a decision about something I don't have a strong preference, but they want me to have a preference.
"do you want x or y? "
Saying "I don't care" comes across as rude, and even softening it as "I don't really have a preference" or turning it back to them by saying "what do you think?" isn't appreciated. They want me to care.
I understand that they want me to choose so they don't have to do that emotional labour. That's fair. But often when I do choose (at random), they try to change my mind, and then I'm back to square one because I don't really care, and I don't want to lie!
A honest answer would be "I'm depressed, I don't want to exist. Putting on a polite face is taking up all my effort, expecting me to actually care is beyond my capacity"
But that's too heavy for most interactions.
I'm not sure what I'm asking for here, just writing it out.
What usually causes the friction in my house is when I have a strong preference against something, but can't articulate a reason why. I'm just not up for it right now. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, but not right now.
@Zumbador @ScottSoCal @actuallyautistic it's not a popular sentence for me as parent when what my children don't want is things like, say, to eat (ever again). Yesterday's theme as it were... I don't quite know how to properly articulate to them fully why sometimes its a true sentence, but we have to do the things anyway. Other times, yeah, ok, let's not do it.
There is another half to this that I've never seen/heard articulated eloquently in context.
@ScottSoCal @actuallyautistic
My therapist taught me that "I don't want to" is a complete sentence. But that's not always a popular opinion with everyone else.