How to Stop Getting Railroaded

21 comments

1. I don’t have much advice, but that I can definitely see myself in this post. (Also autistic)

   In regards to the doctor, the first thought I had was that this doctor did not know the numerical odds and was thus unable to answer you, and instead of saying such, decided to act that way

2. You’re not treating other people’s time/knowledge/baseline way of thinking with respect. Paperwork lady you needed to diffuse with a joke and make a show of reviewing the paperwork as quickly as possible. Doctor you should have asked if they could point you towards any sources or literature you could review to make sure you have a full understanding of the situation rather than expecting them to have that at their fingerprints (even that is pushing it honestly) and at all times you need to be more gracious and understanding that high IQ does not equal ‘automatically better way of thinking’ and these people are probably all responding negatively to your perceived arrogance

3. Neither of those scenarios have you being “railroaded” by your definition of being dominated. In the first one, you needed to sign typical health related paper work that typically is signed fairly quickly as they are standard forms. You did something out of the norm to insist on reading everything. While within your right to do so, you must understand it is atypical, thus she asked you why. You were not “railroaded”.

   In the second speaking with your doctor, you wanted a hard number on the chances of X thing happening, which to have that information would take survey data in the thousands for your particular case to apply to you, which may not even exist. And in general, doctors don’t give those kinds of “odds” for the very reason you wanted it, cause people like to gamble instead of taking available treatments. Again, you were not “railroaded”.

   If you do have a 170 IQ, you have to make sure your ego does not dictate your behavior. Because people asking you questions to understand your behavior is not railroading you.

4. I don’t really have advice but I wanna thank you for sharing all this. As a fellow autist reading it has been like looking into a mirror, and in a way it makes me feel heard and understood.

5. We live in a “good enough” world. Many things could, and often should, be done better. However, there is an opportunity cost to doing things very precisely, as it takes time and money and mental energy to do those things. Time, money, and energy that could be used for other things that benefit humanity, the 1%, or individuals more.

   As for the individuals’ behaviors, I’d say it is status quo thinking… system justification.

6. I think you fall into the trap of thinking your IQ means anything. Plenty of stupid people have high IQs and plenty of intelligent people have low IQs. This sense that you have of thinking rationally instead of emotionally is wrong. You are an emotional creature and think emotionally, primarily, just like the rest of us. Your post comes off to me as someone who thinks they are better than other people and are frustrated that they don’t just trust immediately anything you say. As you mention trust, there actually isn’t a boundary between trust and distrust. You either trust what someone is telling you, or you don’t.

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   As for your first example, it is normal for people not to read forms. You need to sign them for treatment anyway so the contents don’t really mean much. You could take the time to read them, but what do you intend to find? And if you found something that you didn’t like, what would you do to resolve it? From a normal person perspective, you are just wasting everybody’s time. It is still a good idea to read whatever you sign, and I commend you for doing it. You are just going to find resistance from people who aren’t used to it.

   For the second example, nobody memorizes the probability of illnesses or survival rates. That information is esoteric, can be looked up, and your doctor has enough things to know that it isn’t worth their time studying. Even if they knew it, it generally isn’t best practice to give people statistics about anything since most people don’t understand them, including statisticians. What does 1 in 12344323 really mean? People are naturally very bad at understanding probability and likeliness, and it would be bad to just give someone untrained numbers to misuse. Those that are really curious can generally look it up or ask the doctor where they can find more information. You really don’t need to do risk analysis in a field you don’t understand, and your doctor was offput by your attempt to do so. You are paying the doctor to do his job and are implying he can’t be trusted.

   Neither of these scenarios involved you being railroaded. They involved you feeling hurt that what you thought was normal, wasn’t. You are hurt that you were rejected and made to feel smaller than you think you are. We all go through it and it sucks, but nobody in these scenarios is a victim or a problem. It’s important to recognize that you are an emotional person and that you need to allow yourself to trust others. You are not better than those people around you and your IQ means absolutely nothing at the end of the day. Even if it were to mean something, a baseline inherent advantage in intelligence won’t make you competitive with someone who has studied and trained at their profession.

7. This is so relatable. People are use to “social pleasantries” and that fake trust that usually results in “but I never would have suspected x y and z” even tho all the observable signs are there prior to those incidents happening.

   They’ve given nothing to indicate for us to blindly trust them, yet they take it as a personal offense that you don’t blindly trust them. They fail to realize this is major red flag behavior, and when they throw in emotional manipulation it becomes extremely problematic.

   It’s my personal belief that society enables bullies and forced victimhood of those who are more aware and question things. When you aren’t interested in “belonging” and being part of the invisible herd, you automatically become problematic. You are a free thinker, not swayed by the opinion of someone you’ve been groomed to trust by society.

   I’ve always struggled with “being human” I didn’t understand things as a child bc I observed contradictory data, and then the patterns and mini experiments to test my theories. I found ways to adapt as best as I could, but reading posts like this makes me aware that maybe there’s an actual reason for why I am.

   I always thought it was the trauma and just trying to survive, but maybe I’m a high functioning autistic person with social anxiety and CPTSD that find a way to stick around in a world that doesn’t like people like us: whether we like something or dislike it is irrelevant, we want accuracy, we want truth, we want to understand so we can make the best choices for ourselves in our given situation.

8. Yeah dude you should have a therapist to go over this shit right after it happens. Like the doctor thing, most doctors don’t like to “give odds” because most patients are super fucking bad at interpreting stats. Also, maybe he didn’t have the odds readily available and got aggro because like, who has hard numbers for every disease of every patient just like at the mental ready (no one). If you had a therapist you could have written an email WITH THEM to the doctor right away and straightened it all out.

   It’s good that you’re trying to do work on how to prevent and solve this kind of thing but I think the right forum is with a regular therapist not just a bunch of randos. Good luck tho

9. You can’t be smarter than everyone while simultaneously being socially inept. Think of how much less you would get done.

10. It sounds like you may have an advantage when it comes to understanding logically and legally focused conversation. While this could make some people feel uncomfortable, you should be confident in the fact that you don’t have to compromise your principles in order to have a conversation. If someone is trying to railroad you, try your best to politely assert yourself and explain why a particular situation needs further discussion or review.

11. I agree with a previous poster that you weren’t being railroaded.

    In the first example, the lady was probably just annoyed the process was taking so long. Very few people read the paperwork they are given in detail since it takes longer, most just sign. She wanted to know “why” you wouldn’t just sign it and make her job easier. I might have said something like “answering questions means I won’t be able to read as fast, give me a minute”. But probably not, since even though I’m a speed reader with a high IQ I mostly skim health related paperwork instead of reading in detail. It’s normally pretty standard boilerplate about hippa, privacy, billing responsibility, etc.

    In the second example, I’m going to say the doctor didn’t know the exact odds. I’ve tutored a med student in statistics before. Most people don’t understand statistics and risk analysis. I also like to know the odds of things. Is this more likely than being hit by an meteor, being in a car accident, etc?

    Also, some people including drs hate being questioned and get defensive. Their ego gets in the way when they feel like someone is questioning their knowledge or competence. My favorite drs will admit they need to go look something up or that they “learn so much from their patients” and are involved in teaching or continuing education. Also drs are expected to spend only a certain number of minutes per patient and some may feel stressed when exceeding their given time limit.

    I might be tempted to switch drs or get a second opinion in this scenario, but if most of the time the doctor has been helpful I might stick with current dr. I would absolutely have grilled the dr in same situation.

    The flat affect is probably throwing people off too. I know when I am fighting a migraine people often assume I’m mad when I’m just in pain and not smiling or having much facial expression. I’m not sure what a good work around for that could be. Questioning with a smile, or just smiling when saying give me a minute, can change the tone of an interaction.

12. I know me saying this doesn’t help you at all, but I just wanted to say that reading this post and then the comments afterwards is *terrifying* me. Because these two things sound exactly like things I would do and be equally confused by. In fact I AM confused by them. What would be so wrong about them saying “Just try to be as quick as you can, I have other patients and a schedule” or “I couldn’t give you an exact number, but say closer 1 to 100 in 1 in 1,000,000, so not that bad, considering”? I would have just googled it right there in the room if it were me, whether I were patient or doctor.

    And I would consider both your responses to be completely “normal” and certainly reasonable. I feel like I’ve almost struck the balance between emotion and logic – almost, but yet so far away! – and I would have had the same query/response in mind. 65 pages is an ABSURD amount of paperwork in my eyes, maybe in the medical field it’s considered normal, but if my doctor, however many times I’d seen them previously, started nagging at me and passively pressuring me NOT to read the fine print, don’t *both* “emotion” and “logic” bring up red flags? What do they not want me to see, I’d be thinking. Whether that worry is off base would be less relevant than the fact that a *trained medical professional* caused the worry, in my opinion.

    I guess my point here was, you’re not alone. But I’m autistic too, so maybe we’d just both be labelled annoying robotic freaks.

    Which, there’s a point, does that doctor know you’re autistic? You’d think if that information was available to them they’d be at least slightly more accomodating…

13. You definitely aren’t being railroaded. You’re just giving off an air of arrogance, whether intentional or not.

    Inherently, whether you like the fact or not, your beliefs and intentions mean jack shit. At the end of the day, reading the documents and grilling the doctor for chances were (and still are) unnecessary.

    In your 1st example, if you found something in those documents you didn’t like or thought was a red flag, the only solution would be…to not sign the documents. There’s no actual alternative. There’s nothing gained/lost if there aren’t any negotiations. Take pictures and read on your own time so you know what you signed. But again, if it was necessary to sign, you don’t have an alternative. Otherwise, you’re wasting everyone’s time, which is probably the least logical action.

    In your 2nd example, again, if the treatment was necessary with no alternatives, what do you gain from asking? It’s like asking a chess player, “What’s your chances of winning?” When its very clear, they’ve already been cornered into making very specific moves.

    You aren’t thinking “logically” because “logically” you would’ve picked up on the fact that you probably don’t have any alternatives and you have no power to negotiate either. You’re thinking with your emotions and forcing the people you interact with to accept and accommodate your perspective, regardless of how pointless it is, how degrading it makes them feel, or how much time you might be wasting of theirs. There’s a balance that has to be struck, and you clearly aren’t striking it.

14. Therapy might be a huge boon for you in figuring out how to bridge the gap between your logic mind and your communication skills. I’m also very sorry for what’s happening with your child, and therapy might also be helpful to process what I’m sure has been a very overwhelming and stressful experience. I hope they’re doing well now, or will be soon.

    Edit: deleted a bunch because after reading your replies, I think you’re a lot more self aware than I originally realized.

15. Drink a beer or two, relax.

16. 1. Dont talk logic to someone who want you to sign 65 contracts. Just say I want to review them and start.

    2. Dont ask odds to doctors. They dont know. The few I asked so.e basic bayesian principles while pregnant, they did not understand.

17. Those examples happen to pretty much everyone. It’s a them problem. You were being completely reasonable and they were being unprofessional as many in their professions are unfortunately.

18. There are so many examples of “fill in the gaps and attack”, which isn’t helpful, and you asked for help.

    I’ve learned a lot from reading these posts. A lot of people assume a lot of aware intent from words and phrases. In reality we balance time/energy and accuracy… and sometimes we don’t think of the best word choice. There is so much nuance to everything. You could have written a million caveats to explain the situations and your thinking and feeling more thoroughly and to account for all the different possibilities in intrupreration. But with wordiness you risk people not reading everything, assuming paranoia, and sometimes more words = more misinterpretation. People ignore this fact and don’t give you the benefit of the doubt.

    In summary, I don’t know how well most people understand the depth of nuance and the inaccuracies of words. I think if they did they’d be paralyzed, and so to live their lives they assume quite a bit. And ultimately, I think this is what you’re running into… we all are, but deal with it differently, with different levels of awareness… and that results in living, effectively, by different rules and realities. So it is a clash of negotiating reality and how to deal with it…. oh the humanity

19. Very interesting conversation here. I think it’s your right as a human that (especially in the doctor case) is depending on another human’s actions, that you pay by the way, to ask all questions you want and to read all contracts they want you to sign.

    It frightens me how people respond here. This is why society gets taken over by idiots so easily.

    This are just my guesses, so not scientific in any way: To move outside the “normal” behaviour is of course annoying to others, cause it takes extra energy to deal with it. This is the main reason why “short cuts” like not reading a standard contract form has been built into the communication system – this way people can interact quickly instead of taking a huge amount of time for every single one. This huge amount of time is often not available. This might be an explanation why you will annoy others.

    But, and this is a big BUT.

    It should never be sanctioned in any way! Ever! when you question things. If so we would live in a believe system like a religion instead of a science based society. And in a religion you have to believe whatever others tell you. This would be a very toxic dependency. You go to a doctor and not to a priest in the church 🤷‍♀️.

    But this is just my opinion. Others might see the whole thing different.

20. Been in both these situations and the answer is to not take the bait. In situation one I would try to cut the conversation short by saying “this is how i feel and i don’t think i can give you an explanation now please give a minute to review what i am signing “
    Here’s the thing, these kind of people are not asking “why “ because they wanna know why. They want bullet points to argue you off of. But if it’s non negotiable, which it often is for me, i avoid the bait

    In situation two i start throwing out numbers myself if they won’t get specific, i’ll say something like “rare as in one in 10?”

    Oh of course not

    1 in 100?

    And i keep at it until I’m satisfied. I have cancer so i do this a lot. It really helps me make decisions to have data and information

21. From a read of your post and responses, I think the trouble you are running into happens because you are sometimes seeking details which may not exist or cannot be easily provided.

    Tbh, I don’t exactly know what the form lady’s problem was. It is possible she was trying to be empathic and save you the burden of reading 65 pages by listening to your concerns and relaying any information you may need. Beyond that i dont think you should gaf what she was on about. This comment is for everyone that isn’t OP: READ WHAT YOU ARE SIGNING.

    As for the doctor, there may be specific legal reasons why she did not want to commit to an odds ratio. If your child had complications the Dr was unaware of that increased their risk, she may be exposing herself to a legal or licensing scrutiny for unknowingly providing misleading information. Naturally she needs to provide you with enough information to make an informed decision, but I can understand her discomfort with wanting to commit to a number. Even within academic literature on well researched topics, there isn’t often a concensus on things like risks and outcomes. These numbers can vary wildly.

    My first job after uni was working at a complaints department, and I came across a lot of interactions from people with behaviour like your own. I am also autistic so I have empathy for where it is coming from, but sometimes the logic driven details that a person is demanding simply do not exist. For example, I would often be asked questions like “what are the odds my complaint will be successful if I were to file one”. I could provide a general figure like 75% of complaints lead to an outcome, but there are a range of factors which impact interpretation of that figure. For example, it may be that for those 75% of cases, an unknown X% have an outcome that the client is not satisfied with, so having an outcome may not = success from the perspective of the client (and therefore the true odds of success are unknown).

    Basically, part of the reason why people might be reluctant to meet your requests, and are instead railroading you, is because you are requesting something they cannot or will not provide you with. As the recipient of such requests, I sometimes felt like the requestor was seeking such details to use as ammunition against me, should the odds not work out like I had indicated, and this can naturally make the recipient of these requests feel a little hostile.

    So I think a couple of things are happening. You are seeking details which may not exist or are not on the table for providing. The people you are conversing with may not want to tell you they don’t know or will not provide you with those details, and instead launch into other details that they feel should be sufficient for you.

    If you are repeating requests for information that someone has (indirectly) indicated they won’t be providing, it is likely causing discomfort or offence to whomever you are speaking with.

    My recommendation is that you may need to accept that you will not always be provided with the information you request, and (unfortunately), the person you are speaking with may not expressly tell you that they won’t be providing that information, and why they won’t be providing it.