The dreaded ROUTINE

At the very CORE of my Asperger's syndrome, front and center (mostly center), lies the dreaded ROUTINE.  The routine is the thing that gives me the most frustration.  For one, if it gets effed, my attitude becomes very, very bad.  Temper-tantruming, reduced to a 3-year-old girl, outta my way, buster, bad.  As you've probably guessed, this and parenting do not go together.  The routine plus STEPparenting....even worse.  My day-to-day has a plan.  A very strict and rigid plan.  I can change the plan with a slight head pain, as long as another plan is replacing it, but if someone ELSE messes with my plans, it's like a drill bit pushing slowly through my head.  The more the routine is changed, the angrier and more irrational I become.  Lord help the person who changes my plans and gives me no backup instructions.  It goes a little like this:

"By the way, I know you weren't supposed to have the kids today, but their usual care provider is busy, so you'll have the Little Man for the rest of the day."
"Um.....I have PLANS!"
"Sorry.  Just found out about it ten minutes ago."
"But....what am I supposed to DO?  I have the day PLANNED."
"I don't know.  Figure it out."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! *TAZMANIAN DEVIL SPINNY HEAD MOVE* AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!"

Then I'm a totally frazzled jerk for the rest of the day.  No one can speak to me.  Little chatters and giggles make me what to ram blunted sporks into my eyes, and that's on a GOOD day.  If whining, fighting, purposeful annoyance of a brother occurs, it's over.  Everyone (including me) is in time out for 2 hours.

It builds, as well.  If the routine goes bad one day, it sucks.  If it goes bad two days in a row, it's a nightmare.  If I don't get back on track more than 2 to 3 days in a row, I begin to implode.  The inevitable temper tantrum rises up, and *poof* I need to hide in a sound-proof bathroom alone with things to throw.

The dreaded ROUTINE is something that I can't really explain.  "You can't plan every minute of every day of your life, Karen."  Sounds simple, yes?  NO.  Maybe I can't do it, but I NEED to do it.  In fact, I DO do it.  I plan exactly what needs to happen the next day in my head before I go to bed every morning.  So, I CAN, in fact, plan every minute of every day of my life.  It's when it doesn't go according to that plan is when the problems start.

I just realized that I'm only wearing one earring.  Eff it all, I just bought these, and now I seem to have lost one.  How does someone not notice a neon green earring falling out and onto the ground?  Seriously!  I suppose this blog is over.  I need to go look for the damn thing now, and I can't solve my stupid routine problem, anyway.