Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 205 , Tuesday 21/05/2024
TL:DR Late up today , so was more or less ignored. Clues to whether I’m AuDHD & if I’m going thru a burnout period came to light from fellow ND Peeps.
I had a somewhat enforced lay in this morning, in that I was so exhausted that I simply slept thru all the noise that would usually wake me up.
I finally got up around 07:30. Life obviously went on without me, even though Mrs S. was working from home.
Me: I’m a total introvert & wish to be alone.
Also Me when wife zones me out because I was late to get up: I’m so lonely !!!
Is the mind of an ND bananas or what ! (Possibly some for of nut in my case 🤦♂️ )
I risked a ‘proper’ breakfast this morning - I seem to have survived it 😊
I would normally have cleaned the bathroom today, but because I’m not feeling so good that didn’t happen. I know from past experience it won’t get done until I feel well enough, be that days or even weeks 🙄🤦♂️
I wrote a little while back , when I got the results of my assessment thru , that the Consultant Psychiatrist had suggested that I be assessed for ADHD too. That is currently on hold.
But , & here’s the thing I read a toot ( linked below) from @ashleyspencer that totally spoke to me & I recognised EVERYTHING she was talking about !
Well call me a Squirrel & bounce a walnut off me ‘ed !
I number of other folk on here have suggested that I had ADHD symptoms , but I could never put the whole package together in my own head to the point that I ‘felt’ it!
Maybe I need to pull the whole ‘getting ADHD assessment’ off the back burner ?
I also realised ,based on a toot from @pathfinder (again see the link below) that I may well be experiencing a period of autistic burnout - it seems to be so similar , in key ways to where I am at the moment. No wonder I’m struggling!
Got back into the post-apocalyptic world of Fo4 this afternoon, I had forgotten how enjoyable this game is.
Final Thoughts.
I am struck once again how much I am coming to depend on the @actuallyautistic community to help me progress on my ASD journey and understand more about me!
Special thanks to Ashley & Kevin for pointing the way today. 🙏
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 205 , Monday 20/05/2024
Was up till the early hours of this morning with stomach cramps after last nights daring attempt to eat scrambled eggs & beans for tea.
Spent the day getting lots of exercise up & down the stairs to take a pew, if you get my drift.
Attempted to interact on here a couple of times but my brain is apparently on sick leave so it didn’t go exactly to plan 🙄🤦♂️
Hopefully tomorrow will be better !
Final Thoughts.
Is the babel fish truly a fish if it spends most of its life out of water ?
This & other great questions of our age will have to wait until I can think straight!
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
Sorry wasn’t ignoring you, just behind on catching up !
Interesting questions !
I imagine that as far as colour goes it was a predator / pry thing . As with so many other adaptations (hearing for instance) those that can recognise either prey or predator quicker get to survive to procreate.
Deep sea animals use color (red particularly) a lot for just this reason.
BTW Mantis Shrimp have the greatest range of wavelength recognition of any animal (I believe) , no-one quite knows why it needs to be so extensive !
For me (& any number of experts will beat me to death with a kipper for saying this I suspect) the brain doesn’t process light, anymore than it processes sound, or taste - the organs convert the signals into a brain compatible signal & the brain processes that . I do know that it’s an RGB signal mixed with light n dark (rods n cones in the eye).
As to how it processes the received signal , that is a whole other kettle of fish !
Oh I love easy questions like what is consciousness 😆
I could wax lyrical on this , but it’s an area of interest so I’ll get hyper focused & we’ll be here till Xmas !
Burnout is a bitch. I think all of us who have experienced it, or are experiencing it, will agree with that. But, how it presents and how long it maintains its hold over us, seems to be as variable as so much else about us.
I can now recognise the many times I have experienced burnout in my life. Each one marked by my constant refrain of, "I'm just tired" and with me doggedly plodding on with my life as best I could. Even now, in the deepest and longest burnout of my life, I am still doing the same.
Of course, I at least know to try and pace myself now. To let the unimportant things slide until their time comes and to spread out what has to be done, to the best of my ability. I know to dedicate time to self-care, to rest and recreation and to acknowledging my needs as an autistic person. This much, realising you are autistic can teach you. It can also help you to spot the signs of burning out sooner and hopefully mitigate its effects that way.
When that's possible, of course. For what caused my current burnout was unfortunately a series of overlapping events that I could not avoid, or do anything about. It was almost as if life chose to keep throwing things at me, each more intense and impossible to avoid, until I broke. But then life can be like that sometimes.
Autistic burnout is, of course, different from normal burnout, in what causes it and how it presents. It is, more often than not, a breakdown of our ability to cope with the demands being placed on us and not with how much we can carry. We are used to carrying insane loads and with having to work so much harder than most other people, just to keep putting one foot in front of the other through life. In fact, I know that I never really rest, not even now. My life is one long and continuous assessment and checking on whether the routines I have in place are being maintained. Whether I have done everything, on what needs to be done and finding new ways to blames myself for why it hasn't been done yet. There is no such thing as not working as far as my brain is concerned. And because I never stop, I don't know how to stop. How to heed the signals of tiredness and exhaustion and how to not knuckle down and continue anyway. It has been the story of my life. In work and everywhere else, always push, push, push.
And perhaps this is why autistic burnout is so common and possibly even inevitable. The sheer effort that life already is. The constant raggedy edge we walk just to get through a day and how in doing this day after day, all we end up doing is teaching ourselves to ignore the warning signs and that our needs are even important. And end up learning instead, that all that really matters is the next plodding step, no matter the load we are already carrying.
You are pretty much my ASD guru & I’m so very much at the start of my journey learning how to cope (also btw , just realised that ,despite my previous doubts , I am probably AuDHD ) so I’m at a loss when it comes to supporting others at the mo.
That said:
I totally recognise where you are because I now realise that is where I am too at the mo.
I’m not sure if an autistic burnout shared ½s it but maybe there is some vague sense of comfort in sharing the struggle?
I will help in anyway I can , even if only as an additional someone to vent to.
You’re in my thoughts my friend , I hope that you (well ‘we’ if I’m being honest) pull thru to the other side of this soon!
Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 201 , Friday 17/05/2024
The number of things that trigger me that I have to keep bottled up , for the sake of a quiet life ! l
Like her taking just the stuff out of the dishwasher she needs (sometimes moving other pots out of the way & then putting them back in the dishwasher ! ) & just the stuff she needs - generally to make her morning snack, which she then leaves for me to tidy away!
It’s even more triggering on days when she is working from home!
No wonder all motivation is dead well before mid-day!
Once upon a time men were criticised for going to work & leaving everything else to their wives, well I have news for the world, that never went away & has achieved true equality! Certainly in our household!
It’s 09:12 & my day is fecked & I still have the dishwasher to empty, her dishes to wash / put in the newly emptied dishwasher & then hang out the laundry.
Don’t get me wrong I fully appreciate that I have to contribute , but I never signed up for this & I don’t know how to tackle it.
GP suggested marriage guidance - yeah sure that’ll work well with my autistic nature & dislike of humaning !
Sometimes it’s all too much & I just want my head to explode & get it over with !
Oh now I’m coughing & aching all over, gimme a break !
Seems I’ve come down with another bug ! Achy, stomach rebelling at the thought of lunch, freezing cold - got a warm top on and wrapped in a blanket. Had a warm Ribena™ (my hot drink of last resort) which appears to have helped a little.
Is it normal for hot drinks to mean you feel colder when you initially drink them - my body thinks so at the moment!
Ahhhh !!! I cannot get a break this year !
And another thing my tinnitus is so loud ! *grumpily snuggles deeper into blanket.
I refuse to go to bed at 13:54 on a moderately sunny summers day !
I shall kill baddies instead & hope I don’t die too much.
Ok it’s 18:30 I’m on the brink of falling asleep.
No appetite , which is a damn shame it being pizza night!
Final Thoughts.
I’ll be the one at the taxidermist….
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 203 , Saturday 18/05/2024
Ruff as a bears bum today, no energy, no appetite, everything I do hurts.
It’s probably only man-flu again, I seem to catch every bug going at the moment & regular Squirrel Spotters will be aware that I’m a bit of a wuss when it comes to common or garden illness. 🙄🤦♂️
I keep plodding along, hoping that I catch a break at some point.
I am better this afternoon, this morning I felt like death warmed up, lunch was 5/6 of 2 rounds of toast - don’t ask - & tea will be venturing into the dubious gastronomic delights of a can of tommy soup.
I am a little brighter & well enough to write my diary, so that is an improvement.
Final Thoughts.
Please can someone hail a Delorean to transport me back to my 40s ?
I have to say that I am in total awe of those folk I know who live with chronic pain, chronic depression is a walk in the park in comparison, you peeps are the bravest folk I know!
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖