Do you find that as you get more burned out or overwhelmed, it's harder to keep explanations succinct and to-the-point?
I am finding my writing becoming really... suboptimal as I am under increasingly awful amounts of stress, and I have to edit a lot more than I once had to just to make myself understood.
is there an established phrase or term for the phenomenon where, if you do something when low on spoons/energy, it actually takes MORE spoons and energy than if you rested first?
like, one very able-bodied neurotypical strategy is "clean-as-you-go," for example. the idea is that if you put things away immediately after using them, there will be much less cleaning to do later on.
but for my neurodivergent and disabled brain/body, i can do twice as many chores for half the energy on a good day than i can "in the moment." there is a very high penalty for forcibly directing my ADHD attention to a task it won't naturally go to, or for pushing my tired body to rinse and wipe a bowl and put it in the dishwasher as opposed to putting it in the sink to wash another day.
i don't like having a sink full of dirty dishes, but it is completely true for me that it is in fact MUCH easier to do an entire sink full of dishes once a week than to wash each dish one at a time as i use it—especially given the implied effort of having chosen and prepared a meal just before.
but is there a shorthand phrase or term for this concept???
i don't think i'm referring to post-exertional malaise, which is a specific symptom of ME/CFS (and absolutely does adhere to this concept). burnout doesn't seem quite right, either. and it's not unique to illness or neurodivergence—ANYONE who doesn't get enough rest will ultimately be much less productive for much more effort.
The advice to “fake it till you make it” works if you could succeed at a task but lack the confidence.
However, if you don't have the skills, it's a setup for failure and reinforces the idea that the problem is with you and not skill acquisition.
It can also be used by others as a way to get out of teaching you skills that they don't really know how to teach because they learned them intuitively.
I am trying, I really am, but I am never going to have the spoons to get all of this shit together.
A few months ago, after a lot of suspicion, I did talketo a psych who does autism evals, but there was a four-month waiting list and I have to get a doctor's referral AND they demand to talk to someone who has known me my whole life (I guess I could ask @QuishaQ if she'd be willing to Zoom in, but they are looking for even earlier than middle school and I'm 51 and don't talk to my parents!).
There are probably other routes here in CH, but even then, my family doc knows almost NOTHING about me. My weight doctor does - maybe she'll get me a referral, but man... still a fight, and if my problem is not having ANY spoons, how am I supposed to get this shit together, especially since I know waitlists in CH often just point to /dev/null?
And the thing is, I am not even sure what help I get from that.
The facts that I know are that I cannot work full-time and take care of an #AuDHD teen full time alone as a single parent and keep our fucking house and life in order.
I am doing my best, and I usually push the chess pieces around into the least worst position, but the fact is, I've already burned out once. I'm burning out again. At some point, my poor amygdala is going to say "fuck you" and explode.
It's not having a disability that bothers me. It's not possibly having multiple disabilities that bothers me. Like most folks with disabilities, it's not that I don't want to work.
But I cannot keep on like this.
Neuronormal parents with a family and village backing them struggle in this situation.
What about ND parents with no family and no village? The only answer the Swiss state (and probably many others) gives is to only handle things after they've burned down!
I don't want things to burn down. I want my daughter and I to thrive as independently as we can, but I think some of that is going to mean I have to admit to a certain level of disability on my part and fight for it, and Christ, I do NOT know how.
i suddenly realized that microblog social media is so intoxicating to me because it's bite-sized socialization that i can just. pop in and out of at my own pace.
i get to feel community without hitting social exhaustion so quickly. no extended, real-time conversations unless they're wanted. no (well, fewer) fast-moving chats i can't keep up with.
it's truly so nice and i'm so happy to be here :birb_heart:
#NicheSupportGroup Idea: support group for people who want to get more active together but aren't Intense about it or want to run marathons and shit because our childhood traumas made us very conflict avoidant
"... it seems to me that if anyone has a disorder, it is the people who plod along paying close attention to every little speck and crumb, every little detail and rule, every minor policy and procedure in every miniscule manual. I think these are the people who have a disorder. I call it Attention Surplus Disorder. They did exactly what they were told as children, told on others who did not, and now make a living doing what they're told, telling others what to do, and telling on those who don't."
@actuallyautistic
Glossy cover versus matte. I hate the feel of the matte and my spouse loves it. I’m not sure which is better for the majority of us. Matte is what’s up on Amazon for now, but the color saturation of the glossy one is so appealing. #audhd#adhd#autistic
I'm #AuDHD so my autie 'special interest' is affected by hyperfocusing on not getting things done in a very thorough way.
Case in point: This A.M. I was trying to focus on work. Instead, I got distracted by this film frame because it says FOCUS and I felt compelled to colour-correct and restore it. #autism#adhd#asd@actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd
Pondering whether it's a neurodiverse thing or long-term childhood poverty thing that finds me consistently going through all of my shoes and cleaning and polishing and repairing them each season. Either way it makes me feel calm and well taken care of. I know when I put my feet back in my boots next fall there will be new warm insoles waiting for me inside of them.
I once saw a great analogy about sensory issues that used some sort of silos or tanks for the different senses and how they overflow into the other once they are full. Can't find it again. Anyone know what I'm talking about and can point me in a direction? #SensoryIssues#Autism#ADHD#AuDHD
Do you have more sensible days where your sensory issues are worse? I just had my sensory issue cup overflow by being thirsty. 🙈 #ADHD#AuDHD#Autism#Neurodiversity