DAE experience unstoppable energy drain from being perceived
in my past crusing thru autism posts on the bad site, once in a while somebody would post something talking about this and it was like reading my own experience in somebody else's words.
for those of you who read the subject line and know exactly what I'm talking about: can you also never shut off masking except when alone and in fact can't even relate to the concept of being able to "not mask" around others? or maybe around 99.99999% of the human race apart from a few people you know well and have known for years?
I've found (thru being homeless and couchsurfing starting well into adulthood haha do not recommend) that I can't live with most people, even introverts, because their activity pattern is not like my parents that I grew up with, and so my brain fixates on what they're doing and then I hear every. human. sound. in the house. at full attentional processing. every waking moment of my life. forever.
this decimates my ability to work because I touch computers for a living an
what's crazy is when I was in DBT I met somebody actually diagnosed with ASD who shares a lot of the same auditory sensitivities I have, but like... way worse. and with misophonia and such. the sensitivity scale goes way higher than most humans will ever understand.
are you being distracted by their quiet but active activities or something?
correct, I got the "no perceptual filter for anything happening inside the house," "can never stop masking unless alone" autism combined with being homeless and thus crashing on a couch with no door I can close
how🥲🥲 is this 🥲possible?? ? 🥲
until the last several years of my life I had no good understanding, and then what I suppose must have been my bad karma ripened and the Universe decided to teach me over and over and over again:
it is 100% possible to be an introvert who prefers quiet activities, and also be a motor-driven, always doing something Type A personality who has no concern whatsoever for stillness
I thought I would be okay living with introverts 🥲 but in practice after ending up with ones like this, nothing could be further from the truth 🥲 it is literally destroying my life while shortening my lifespan 🥲
every month, I need to fill the same prescriptions I've had for between 10 and 20 years.
every month, one or more persons whose job it is to get those pills into my hands without interruption, fucks it up.
as a result, the stash of critical medication which I jealously hoard as a hedge against this exact problem (as well as natural disasters, etc) grows smaller. I now have about 7 days remaining. I will rapidly become sick and then completely nonfunctional if I miss my meds for even a day.
it's now crystal clear that the American health care system is not designed to help me with this problem, and that it has no intention of ever doing so.
thank you for doing the work to offer these services :)
oh, you also got the "can never, ever, ever 'tune out' any type of speech sound" autism? it's currently destroying my life and has been doing so for nearly a decade btw 🥲
Permanently Deleted
Melatonin is a clock-setting hormone, not a sleep aid, and most of the supplements on the (US) market have waaaaay too high a dose. I get excellent results from 150ug (0.15mg) taken 4 hours before bedtime at the same time every night, and I suffered from delayed sleep phase syndrome for decades before figuring this out.
Dumping an entire bathtub full of melatonin (relatively speaking) into one's brain leads to more problems than it solves, and it's not even a very good sleep aid on top of that. Because its actual function is as a clock-setting molecule.
Industry also causes air pollution and plenty of it. It's more visually segregated in developed countries. But as an example, have you ever explored the Pakistani factory video genre on Youtube?
I also know not everybody will be fine and be able to cope better if left alone. I will, but it was a long damn journey to get to where I'm able to say that with confidence. If you're somebody who needs to be alone but won't be fine if you are, I see you too.
being deprived of solitude long enough will eventually kill me.
I can actually vibe quite bigly and be very animated/engaged, but at the end of the day, I am an introvert, and a certain amount of mental recharge time is absolutely 100% required or my mind will stop working right.
What I mean by that is, if I am continuously exposed to the presence of "incompatible" human beings (the "compatible" ones seem to be a subset of people with ADHD / ASD / mood disorders), I will literally start showing symptoms similar to dementia, I will progressively lose my ability to speak and understand language, I will eventually start having (boring) hallucinations, etc. All of this is reversible if I am subsequently left the fuck alone, though the cognitive effects can persist for weeks or months after a bad episode.
In part because I do tech work which requires keeping a lot of information in mind at once, the above issue renders me unable to work during acute burnout, and unable to predict when or how much I'll be able to work during chronic (but not acute)
Sony's current cheap models are a lot better than the XM3s. I know that pressure sensation, I'd given up on all noise canceling headphones because I hate it, but tried a pair of (cheap!) Sony WH-CH720N and that sensation is 98% reduced, it only appears a little if there's a ton of bass noise in the environment. But even then, it's not nearly as bad as most other (older) NC headphones I've tried.
Aka "musicians earplugs" ... which can be premade, or if you actually want the best fidelity, custom molded to fit your actual ear canal! Had a gf who was a post-punk musician once, she absolutely swore by her custom pair.
Hi, I would recommend the Sony WH-CH720N as punching way above their weight for a $100 pair.
I am someone who didn't like noise canceling headphones which I tried before, since older models all seemed to cause a sensation of "pressure" on my eardrums which felt like having dead meat behind saran wrap smushed up against them. The Sony WH-CH720N have about 98% removed that sensation, which means I can actually wear them for more than 10 minutes.
The noise canceling feature isn't perfect - you can of course still hear some noise - but it's about as good as the Bose Quiet Comfort 3 pair which cost a LOT more than the Sony.
They feel the same about me when I decline the opportunity to get shitfaced drunk and banter over 17 games of "Mexican train dominoes" for the 59574th time.
The only person I have to babble at has level 2 autism and can only process a finite (and very small) number of words per day before she combusts 😭
emergent properties of the syndrome
who else has the forbidding and incomputable Pile of Mail 💀
mood: currently opening mail 1 week to 4 months old because I know there's a $7 check in it somewhere that'll pay for gas money for my friend to drag my ass around town and to the pot shop
when self-hating people who've learned a little about genetics and evolution pipe up with "why are we even still in the gene pool" sadposts ... this is why. overall, this style of thinking is a net positive to the proliferation of Homo sapiens, and every now and then even a net positive to the people who embody it.
Noise-canceling headphones have improved.
I'm crossposting this widely because every single person with a noise sensitivity who previously tried noise-canceling headphones and found them not useful should know: it might be time to give the technology another shot.
This is a plug for a product. I'm not getting paid for it. I'm actually broke and couchsurfing and unable to work (until now maybe????) due to noise sensitivity, so if this info changes your life, I will put my tip jar in my profile after I post this :)
I got a pair of Sony WH-CH720N for Christmas this year.
I had noise-canceling headphones on my wish list, but very low down, as previously I'd tried a couple pairs, including the expensive and highly-rated Bose QC III, and found them very lacking.
My experience with older headphones: the noise canceling was pretty good, but they caused a pressure sensation on my ears which I can only describe as like having a piece of meat behind saran wrap pressed against my eardrum. They also used to be a lot heavi
the sensation of being unable to contain the knowledge in my head
What is this??? I know some of you have experienced it, because on very rare occasion it's come up in the past on other autism discussion groups I've been a part of. Sometimes somebody will make a post about burnout and say something like "the knowledge just fell out of my head" when talking about trying to work/think about complex topics while burnt out.
In my case, once I get too burnt out from overstimulation or nonstop social exposure, I get cognitive effects that last for days or weeks afterwards. In some sense, I get "dumber." But this isn't that, exactly, though I'm sure it's related.
Background, and an example: I do web & software development for work. I also live in a place which is a poor fit for my sensitivities, so I've been in chronic burnout for years, and I'm pushed further into acute high-intensity (as in, I become "lower functioning") burnout a few times a year.
I find that once I pass a certain point in burnout, I get to the point where I need to do a complex task,
This study, called for by autistic people and led by an autistic researcher, is the first to explore ‘autistic inertia,’ a widespread and often debilitating difficulty acting on their intentions. Previous research has considered initiation only in ...
This study is unique in considering difficulty initiating tasks of any type in real life settings, and by gathering qualitative data directly from autistic people. Four face-to-face and 2 online (text) focus groups were conducted with 32 autistic adults (19 female, 8 male, and 5 other), aged 23–64 who were able to express their internal experiences in words.
[...] Participants described difficulty starting, stopping and changing activities that was not within their conscious control. While difficulty with planning was common, a subset of participants described a profound impairment in initiating even simple actions more suggestive of a movement disorder. Prompting and compatible activity in the environment promoted action, while mental health difficulties and stress exacerbated difficulties. Inertia had pervasive effects on participants’ day-to-day activities and wellbeing.
I realized that I do the 'tell everyone' stage because I'm trying to recruit a body double so I'll stick with the project 😅
Because at the moment: I cannot process what I see. I have visual snow. I can't understand what people say. I am unable to do anything apart from...
shout out to anybody facing homelessness due to neurodivergence
cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/5546920
As someone facing homelessness myself due to issues beyond my control, I just wanted people to know they're not alone.
These conditions are real, and people's misunderstanding - and willful refusal to understand - wrecks lives.
I hope you can get to a safe place where you can exist in your own skin in peace.
shout out to anybody facing homelessness due to neurodivergence
As someone facing homelessness myself due to issues beyond my control, I just wanted people to know they're not alone.
These conditions are real, and people's misunderstanding - and willful refusal to understand - wrecks lives.
I hope you can get to a safe place where you can exist in your own skin in peace.
try 25 virtual desktops running 2 browsers, one of which with multiple profiles for various broad topics ... my "main" session alone has 75-80 windows at present 😃
edit: installed an extension to find out: in main session, 378 tabs across 84 windows. seems like a low number of tabs per window perhaps, but I organize topics into a window, then related topic-windows into a dedicated browser profile session if they're long-lived, and windows/sessions are grouped into virtual desktop by top-level topic more or less ... so my fediverse/threadiverse session has 35 tabs in 7 windows in only 1 virtual desktop.
edit 2: I theme each browser profile differently to (mostly) tell them apart by eye
consensus/discussion driven to a fault?
cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/5236945
I'm curious if anyone out there reading who lives with ADHD and/or ASD w/executive dysfunction ... when it comes to tasks that aren't just your own but that involve (or are needed by) others, for example household tasks when living with others ... do you find that you actually need consensus and/or discussion on the topic of tasks in order to get them done?
What I'm realizing is that for me, part of executive dysfunction means I don't have the internal watchdog that keeps track of stuff I need to do in relation to others, and just personally speaking I cannot rely on (or be tormented by) guilt as a way to work around the lack of a watchdog.
The one thing that does work for me is talking about it with the people involved, especially if they are people I respect or care about. Either coming to consensus, or at least maintaining shared understanding of the shared space / task list / etc. For some reason, the pro
consensus/discussion driven to a fault?
I'm curious if anyone out there reading who lives with ADHD and/or ASD w/executive dysfunction ... when it comes to tasks that aren't just your own but that involve (or are needed by) others, for example household tasks when living with others ... do you find that you actually need consensus and/or discussion on the topic of tasks in order to get them done?
What I'm realizing is that for me, part of executive dysfunction means I don't have the internal watchdog that keeps track of stuff I need to do in relation to others, and just personally speaking I cannot rely on (or be tormented by) guilt as a way to work around the lack of a watchdog.
The one thing that does work for me is talking about it with the people involved, especially if they are people I respect or care about. Either coming to consensus, or at least maintaining shared understanding of the shared space / task list / etc. For some reason, the process of coming to a shared-state perspective on shared effort, and und
This is because most therapists (in my loooooong experience) have absolutely zero understanding of executive dysfunction :|
Not the guy you're responding to but I made a comment upthread that I found success by developing interlocking habits, or in some cases it's fair to say rituals rather than habits ... little sub-habits that guide you to the main one you want to develop, or briefly reward you when you've completed it. Items or processes in your environment which cue you and remind you that the habits you want to do even exist.
For example, 2 sub-components of what finally got me to remember to meditate (or skip, but intentionally 😒) were writing a brief journal entry of my observations after each sit with a piece of chocolate, and having a couple little succulents with a light on a timer by my altar, so that every time I'm in the room during the day the altar area, with a couple plants I need to keep an eye on for their health, is lit up to draw me in if I'm ready.
Doing things this way is very intentional and thus exhausting, and it requires a lot of trial and error to figure out the little sub-habits that all work together and that actually work for you (since some inevitably won't), and hell as somebody explaining it I've only had a couple big successes with it because I often don't have the energy/brainpower to figure all this out ... but man when I can pull it off, it works sooo well.
I'm a huge believer in "prosthetic environments" which I believe is a concept Dr. Russell Barkley came up with, he annoys me a little but as an ADHD research he's like 85% dead on target about this stuff, and thinks deeply about it.
Good luck!
I've been trying to develop this habit for 7 years because I know how good it is for me :(
I'm the same way. It's ironic given that I posted this meme, but when I can use them lists really help.
In my case, if I travel somewhere for 3 days, when I get back, many of the routines I had at my original location will have evaporated no matter how long I had them, so I made a list, and have been trying to build a routine-recovering routine. It's slow going for other reasons but I've been very slowly working on it for 5 years now and it has helped at times when I've needed it (and remembered it exists).
Here's my additional tip to OP's tip: if you are someone who holds habits like a sieve holds water, you have to be even more intentional about forming habits, and form multiple interlocking habits that cue you. I'm at a very stressful time in life right now so it's hard for me to remember details but like, I wanted to develop a daily meditation habit. But what I had to do in order for it to actually stick, was develop a ritual out of interlocking habits: getting my tea, lighting some incense, doing the actual meditation, once finished immediately having a rewarding sip of tea, dusting off my cushion, writing a brief journal entry afterwards (this is the one that tipped it over the edge for me for some reason) with a piece of dark chocolate. I also put little succulents by my altar with a lamp on a timer that comes on in the morning, so just the lit-up presence of plants which I need to tend every few days draws me toward the altar if I've forgotten or postponed my sit.
You have to be like this with everything that doesn't come naturally. Yes, it's extremely intentional, which is exhausting. Yes it's a lot of hit or miss, trial and error, because of all the little sub-habits I just described above, there will be a number you try which end up not working for you. So you have to be persistent at messing around with your habit-sculpture long enough to find a permutation which works for you, and being persistent at things like this can be very difficult for people like us. In that case, I recommend sheer desperation, it helps with the persistence.
v thoughtful suggestion, I had not considered
who else's brain takes a long time to "warm up" or stabilize after waking?
I suspect this probably varies across the entire population to some degree, but for me it feels like my senses and my mind aren't fully "bound together" properly when I wake up, and it takes a while of being conscious, QUIETLY, for them to come together and be functioning right. This process takes far longer if I'm in a state of serious/chronic burnout, up to several hours.
If I skip it and jump directly into activity, things usually stabilize quicker, but in a crappy muddled way, and much of my day can be off, I feel dumber, forget things, lower threshold for confusion/distress from random events, etc.
the experience of being perceived
I've been lurking/participating in forums for people on the spectrum long enough that I see "issues with being perceived" type posts pop up every so often. This is relieving to me because I have issues like that, and they are difficult for anyone who doesn't experience them to understand. So it's nice not to feel alone in that way.
I have noticed a definite pattern after months of reading every one of these posts I came across. I think there are two forms of "my desire not to be perceived is causing me distress / avoidance / ineffective behavior" and would like people's thoughts on this.
anger as a reason to avoid meditation
Please forgive me if this is not a proper space to discuss the long journey from starting point (no meditation) to desired goal (daily meditation 80% or more of days) for someone living in an individualist and undisciplined culture;
Like many others in such a situation I suspect, I go thru spells where I don't meditate. I'm still trying to understand why, in order that I can eventually stop doing so. Even right now I'm playing a game of some sort with myself by making this post, but that's actually beside the point.
I finally noticed one correlation: the spells line up (sometimes) with periods where I'm "angry at the world" in some sense ... feel bitter disappointment at dreams which didn't come to pass for some unjust or unaccepted reason, etc etc etc. This turns into sullen (or hot & fiery, depending) resistance, and then I don't meditate for a while until I get over it. But sometimes this takes months, and anyway, it's the exact opposite of what I need to be doing in such a si
wish there was more traffic??
I encourage anyone who wants to see more traffic, and has the resources to do so, to create a throwaway account and confess some personal shit on here!! chances are if you do, somebody else out there will end up feeling less alone. that's exactly what I'm doing 😃
before realizing I'm on the spectrum I've been to some support groups for other conditions as well as going thru DBT, and one thing I realized is that sometimes it's cool to have a space to just put your stuff on the table, and everybody else has done so to some extent as well, and you can approach each other as human beings with less pretense because they already know your stuff unlike everyone in "real life" who you're trying to impress.
anyway. try it out! and then ghost the account in a few days/weeks/months, or don't.
but we all know adults on the spectrum have basically no resources. getting some traffic going here could turn this into one.
anybody else realize decades later you can't tell whether people like you or are just pretending?
I think in my case this is a combination of 2 factors: having very self-absorbed parents (I would classify one as non-N and one as N) who really just didn't give a crap about my interests or inner life most of the time, plus one symptom of my being on the spectrum is that one very specific input wire is pulled and I have trouble 'just knowing' whether somebody likes/dislikes me assuming they have any talent at pretending to be friendly and want to hide any dislike. Like I think most people have a built-in that does that for them and mine is unplugged.
Also my parents were very intelligent, and unlike a lot of Ns or N-adjacents, they were nice enough to pretend to give a crap when they were being nice, and like .......... now I can't tell when other adults of sufficient intelligence are doing it these days? and I don't even have a warm/cold sense unless they give clues, and it takes a whole lot of effort to watch for them and doesn't come naturally?
Does this make sense? It sounds lik
Even noises that manifest the presence of other people in the house. Edit: oh my god so many people, but how do you live like this?? I definitely...
Self-determination Theory (SDT) is… — a model, a macro theory, of human motivation. It’s one of several models of human motivation, but it’s one that has been confirmed over and over by current research. The base assumption of SDT is that human beings “have natural, innate, and constructive tendenci...
Self-determination Theory (SDT) is… — a model, a macro theory, of human motivation.
Interesting article (granted with perhaps a bit of academic idealism) with a number of interesting links branching off.