#autism notes

[retracing-my-steps]

I was diagnosed as autistic right before these became popular So I was telling my family about looking for stimming toys. Because a lot of autistic people stim so I figured maybe it would be helpful for the anxious energy.

So my dad had got me a fidget cube (which I was excited about because I had seen the Kickstarter and totally was tempted), and then eventually a fidget spinner. I was like ‘well this is kind of weird but it should be a good addition to my new arsenal of stim junk’

So it kind of cracks me up how it just suddenly became huuuuge. And how bothered people are lol

I just feel like— mwahahahaha My mentally ill ass is ruining your liiiife~ Spinnahhhhs!

I don’t even really get it, but I can see why kids like it. For me I need something more constantly interactive.

But I was cracking up because my boyfriend has one now. He tried mine and he’s been jones'ing for some of that fidgeting. 😆 awesome

[retracing-my-steps]

-me weightlifting- -brain screaming the entire time-: we aren’t drawing! We aren’t drawing! We won’t have time to draw! We aren’t drawing! It’s almost time for bed! Ahh!!

-me drawing- -brain screaming the entire time-: We aren’t weight lifting!!! We’re going to run out of energy! That was a commitment! You’re going to disappoint yourself! It’s almost time for bed and you should be weight lifting! Ahhh!!!

[retracing-my-steps]

Brain: AhhhhhhHHHH 😫 Me: What? Brain: I need to do all the things! Me: ..Well, uh- which of all the things? Brain: I don’t know!!!! All of them?? Me: Ok well… can we start with this one then? Brain: NO Me: but… Brain: NO, ALL of them! Me: but we can’t finish any of those unless we star– Brain: AHHHHHHHHH

[retracing-my-steps]

Perhaps my ADD means gripping onto every train of thought like holding an intense focus while crossing a tightrope- and feeling very apprehensive switching from that thought into an active task. Because I feel certain I’ll drop the thought. And it makes me uneasy because it always feels I’m on the edge of forgetting something important

It’s hard to have schedule. Parameters. It’s hard to let go. As it is, autistic people seem full of words. ADD people too. So both at once, am I just always full of words, and constantly forgetting why I opened my notes, why the pen is in my hand, what important insight I wanted to message, what I was in this room for or why I got up… while simultaneously deeply analyzing everything all the time and constantly reflecting…. So really, the words never stop, and when could they? How does one know a safe stopping point when there is never a pause?

Perhaps in being autistic, the act of reflecting itself like some sort of safety blanket I carry around- Because understanding feels like control

But you need to use both hands to get most stuff done. And I don’t wanna set the safety blanket down.

So it’s a fight to do anything. It’s so hard to know when it’s safe to set my thoughts down long enough to execute anything, be it eating or exercising or going to bed.. Without creating havoc and delay in my confusion, when I try to resume my thoughts again.

[retracing-my-steps]

I don’t want my life to just be obsessing about perfecting eating and always eating enough and always sleeping enough and always exercising

But I feel like if I don’t master those things, it will guarantee my life will only be obsessing about that Because I will always have to do it from scratch. I will never have a handle on it. I will never have control. Because ADD, if not autism, makes that impossible. I will always be lost and always scraping by trying to pull it off, frazzled at thought of groceries and ingredients and calculating if I have time to eat successfully and also sleep

So I have to master it. So I can move on. So it feels.

[retracing-my-steps]

Mastery out of necessity

In the end, I try hard because I want to be my best. It bothers the fuck out of me when I'm frazzled. When I'm unreliable. When I'm late. When I have no energy to be anything but just around. I have a lot of interests. But even if I had time, there ends up being no energy. And the time becomes an issue because I can't time manage. Every action feels done in the least time efficient way possible, every day anew. Each time I make a recipe, it's like having to do it the first time. It takes me a very very long time to flow. And anything that is only practiced sporadically just remains that way. Every recipe is a unique thing to practice. So every time I cook I have to read it just as carefully. It would take years. I try because I just hate suffering constantly like I do. There's so much tension to this constant game of forcing myself to eat and forcing myself to sleep and trying to pack a lunch when my brain is screaming that it's too complex to think of more than one step at a time and can't remember what to do next. So for that reason I'm always fighting to streamline my life. Because... I.. cannot... relax and improvise. I cannot relax if I have to improvise. I can't think that way. It burns through my brain and leaves me with nothing. It uses up all I have. It leaves me tense and confused. And that is my day to day life. Which is the thing I want to change. So other people get to relax and accept being a bit of a mess, a bit unpredictable. They can be a bit spontaneous. They can think of what to eat an hour before, without using a fourth of their energy of the day on completing the task. I guess that's why I work so hard at this. It's not that way for me. It burns right through me. But it's incredibly frustrating. Because it's fucking hard. And I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. Or it's so hard to tell. I'm so hung up on it because I want to have days that aren't so gratingly difficult to balance. I want to have time to enjoy stuff too. To not always have to be thinking of the next step.

[retracing-my-steps]

Day to day to day

I have this idea like people have their shit together, when really they don’t. People improvise like everything, constantly. And taking good care of yourself is really hard in a society where people work long hours for not enough pay. So it’s not the norm to have well-rounded sleep and eat all the meals, homemade each day..

I suppose they just don’t care. Mostly. And are ok with that? I’m not ok with it for some reason. So I stress myself out, in ways maybe other people don’t agonize at all.

I think what it comes down to is this:

I am autistic and have ADD. I have a very very uneasy feeling when it comes to my self-control and ability to trust myself. Things I do take a lot of effort and I tend to interrupt myself and things take a long time.

Planning and coordinating, time management, and making the steps flow is incredibly hard for me.

Also, things take me a lot of energy. I have managed to get 8 hours of sleep over and over lately. 9 sometimes. I never feel rested. I always feel burnt out mentally. Just from small things. Small actions. Just trying to decide what to eat for lunch makes me feel confused and tired. So balancing my life around work is very scary for me.

So while I might be doing just as well, if not incredibly better in my day to day life compared to some or most people… I always feel like I’m going to slip and lose any and all progress at any moment and then no longer have the momentum to try

Basically becoming a vacuum of depression and eating myself out of house and home* … and then anxiety keeping me awake and feeling like I can never claw my way back up

*(I could eat myself out of house and home, since I have only the money to really cover half of my life despite working nearly full time, [and my hours got cut so it got tighter] since rent is impossibly high here– so I have to stay very strict within my half-my-life budget, I can’t get stuff like out-food)

So for me there’s a huge feeling of dismay and anxiety and uneasiness surrounding my day to day life. Because my brain is already built to run in circles. It’s very hard to go forward.

I think what’s hard is, I must have killer motivation. But damn if it isn’t frustrating as all hell to not see myself ever successfully making it forward and staying forward.

Life is up and down up and down and that’s how it is. But I can’t really feel or sense that graph slowly bobbing upward overall.

Trouble is I micromanage down to the day. Every day feels like a day where I can feel ok or a day when I can’t. A day where I managed or a day where I didn’t. It’s hard for me to see life in a bigger scale. To have trust and patience that my effort adds up. That I put in enough that my life could get better. That I’m not just burning myself out on all this want.

People don’t really care. They survive. They half-ass their days and survive. They improvise. They get through.

But the thing is, it always feels like my exhaustion follows me day in and day out. Like it cumulates. And I don’t know how to fix that. So I feel more and more scared when I can’t take better care of myself. When I can’t seem to get it down. When I fail, the next day is impacted. And the next. And the next. I miss a meal. I lose a couple hours of sleep. The next day I’m more confused. More tired. And fail more.

And then it feels like it just leads straight down to that hopeless mess of losing momentum and depression.

How does one loosen their grip when they are convinced they probably have no grip at all?

I drag laundry to my family’s house every week to dodge paying for laundry here. I just read online that you’re supposed to wash your exercise clothes after every use. That makes me want to panic lol. I only have like two pairs of sweatpants so.. how..?? And I only have time to do laundry once a week.

So it’s just very… ??? Idealisms… I can’t have it all so what matters most? What do I need most?

And can I even pull -that- off?

Will my trying amount to something? Is there a way to let go without losing? Can I do this slowly and will it work, will I be able to eat enough and sleep enough and have more energy someday if I’m just patient through the very slow process of making that work?

Who knows

[retracing-my-steps]

The irony becomes When I'm burnt out I don't function well. Things don't ever happen quickly. Just imagine half asleep person with ADD. That is myself. Autistic ADD and tired yeah? So my capacity to put two and two together to actually string a list of commands is challenged Like imagine a Sim (The Sims. The computer game). And you keep issuing commands. And keep x'ing them out and issuing a new command just as the Sim begins one. (And like the Sim starts freaking out because oh god no what am I supposed to be doing ahh I can't pick that up that's blocked by a door---) Just imagine me kind of like that. So the irony is The anxiety builds all evening, about not being able to do stuff to prepare for tomorrow being ok. And then. It keeps me up at night. And maybe if I slept better, I wouldn't have this problem