@dave@autisticnomad.social
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

dave

@dave@autisticnomad.social

Autistic digital nomad, ADHDer, optimist, lover of learning, tinkerer, CTO of a startup.

I live in an RV and travel around North America

Header: Large bus-sized RV with a small blue car parked in front. Palm trees in the background stand tall against the early glow of a sunset.

Profile: Man with glasses and reddish beard standing on a suspension bridge over a gorge

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alexstandiford, (edited ) to Travel
@alexstandiford@fosstodon.org avatar

Our winter home has been damaged, and it's unclear if we're ever going to live in it again. As a result, we find ourselves making due, but we're asking for help.

https://www.casualweirdness.life/articles/personal-updates/our-camper-has-been-severely-damaged/

dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@alexstandiford WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

Holy shit...I'm so sorry this happened to you guys. That's unreal. Hope you're able to get it sorted out without too much hassle.

dave, to digitalnomad
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

Drove the RV in to a truck repair shop this morning. It took us about an hour to drive 4.7km 🤦‍♂️

Going 10km/h I kept hearing a repeated banging noise. Pulled over on the side of the road and found out pretty quick that the entire exhaust system, including the muffler, had completely come off its mounts. It was dangling by its connection to the engine on one end, and a clothes hanger I used on Friday to keep the tailpipe attached. The muffler was hanging less than an inch from the driveshaft that runs to the rear axle.

Had to jury-rig a solution by using another clothes hanger to wrap around the muffler mounts to keep it away from the driveshaft. It worked well enough that I was able to go 15km/h at most.

That could've gone a lot worse, and I'm really proud of myself for being able to recognize the problem and juryrig a solution. I'm not an automotive expert but my generalized understanding of how systems work really helps me in areas I'm not super familiar with.

That's an win IMO

Sitting at the repair shop now and I'm nervous and anxious. Can they repair it? How much is it gonna cost? How long will it take?

This is the downside about living the RV Nomad life: when your home needs repairs, you gotta find somewhere else to stay.

dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@alexstandiford More like, I broke it 🤦‍♂️

dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@alexstandiford Yikes.

This past summer I literally split the steel on our tow hitch where it attached to the frame of the RV. I attached a dual receiver to it and added a cargo rack. Didn't exceed tongue weight but because there's such a large distance between our rear wheels and the tow hitch, there's a lot of up and down movement over bumps.

Had to get it replaced. Yeesh. Fun times 😀

dave, to random
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

I called the repair shop earlier this morning and they said they were looking into finding a replacement part.

I just prepared a script for when I call them back. It's formatted as nested lists, and I've planned out all the ways the conversation could go and how I'd respond to it, with the singular objective of getting the repair done today so we can be on the road tomorrow.

I've written it out in Obsidian, and I've got a plugin that allows me to expand and collapse nested lists, so I can collapse the whole script and only open the necessary parts as the conversation progresses.

How did I ever doubt I was ? And also, how did I ever get by without doing this? 😂

Oh, right, I just was rarely assertive and accepted whatever people told me until I had time to process it afterward.

This feels so much better.

alexstandiford, to Travel
@alexstandiford@fosstodon.org avatar

I just did the single longest drive with a camper in-tow we've ever done. We went 680 miles, starting in Hartwell GA, and parking for the day in Lafayette, LA. I do not enjoy staying in Mississippi Alabama, or Georgia based on previous experiences in these places, so we decided to rip off the Band-Aid and skip all of that in our drive to TX this year. 10/10, would drive again.

https://www.alexstandiford.com/micro/2566

dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@alexstandiford Wow that's a long-ass drive. How long were you on the road?

dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@alexstandiford Wow. That's incredible. I'm wiped after 9

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dave,
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@CynAq

I've had the same playlist on repeat for the last two weeks while in a very stressful and chaotic situation, and I think it's one of the few things that has kept me semi-regulated.

I do fall asleep to music sometimes, but it's usually to block out the noise of the TV if my wife stays up longer than me. Otherwise I always have white noise to sleep with.

The times I fall asleep with music, it's usually low key sleepy ambient music. It gives me something to focus my brain on.

@actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd

JeremyMallin, to random
@JeremyMallin@autistics.life avatar

A fair number of mutuals from the old platform are now mutuals on here. I'm really glad about that, but I still miss some of the ones I remember from before who aren't here yet. I wonder how the missing folks are doing sometimes.

dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@JeremyMallin

100% hard same. Not all the time, but I go through periods where I do this.

@actuallyautistic

Cassandra, to random
@Cassandra@autistics.life avatar

It's harder than I would like to learn how to hear my own needs, after a lifetime of being told they were irrelevant or wrong.

dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@Cassandra For me, it was like... whoa, I have needs? Beyond food, water, housing and sleep? 🤯

I remember hearing another people use the words "need" or "can't" - like "I need some space" or "I can't deal with this right now" - and I always thought that was such a weird thing to say.

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dave,
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@JeremyMallin

🙋‍♂️ Absolutely. I can't remember ever lying - or even "playing up" - in any of those use cases.

I've always been very concerned with honestly and accurately representing myself on a CV or resume.

@actuallyautistic

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dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@theautisticcoach

I've noticed that I start to feel fluttering in my chest, like I'm anxious, but I don't know why. Like I've drank too much caffeine, but I haven't.

It doesn't mean that a meltdown is imminent. It's more of an early warning sign that, if I don't do something different, I'm headed towards a meltdown.

@actuallyautistic

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dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@seanwithwords

I've always thought meltdowns had to be very outward: I would've described them as similar to a temper tantrum - yelling, screaming, throwing things, hitting yourself, etc.

Which also meant that I thought I didn't have meltdowns, which contributed to my sense of imposter syndrome. Meltdowns are so fundamental to being autistic - it's not a trait that only some have - that, by not having them, I had a hard time fully accepting I was autistic.

But, you're right. Meltdowns don't have to be so outwardly volatile. For me, it's a very internal thing. It's really hard to put into words how I feel on the inside.

The last meltdown I had - and the first one I had after realizing what they were - I was alone and in bed. I cried. I stimmed like crazy. I banged my head on my pillow. I couldn't sit still. I just felt so incredibly overwhelmed. My nervous system was... well, literally melting down.

I found this video really helpful in better understanding what internal meltdowns look like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTzUbe5hoI8
@actuallyautistic

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dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@actuallyautistic

Wow, didn't expect this prompt to blow up so quick 😀 The responses here have been so comforting to read.

For the last week, I've been staying in my adult kids' apartment in Toronto because my home - my RV - has been in the shop for annual maintenance.

This used to be my daily life. Living in an apartment with my wife, kids, dogs. Dealing with life in a high rise apartment, in a densely populated neighbourhood: elevators, people, traffic, noise. Going to work every day, being around people every day, etc.

I'm really struggling with it now, whereas it used to be my daily life and I just managed somehow? But it feels different now. I feel less able and capable of dealing and managing. I felt like I was doing a pretty decent job being mindful of my needs and giving myself lots of space, but I still wound up having a meltdown last night.

And part of me is still thinking: stop being so dramatic. You're blowing this out of proportion. That wasn't a real meltdown.

dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@Jobob @IzabelaKaramia

I've seen this pattern emerge in quite a few responses to this post...

"swallow down my discomfort"
"internalising any discomfort"
"used to talk myself out of my own feelings"
"get used to ignoring our own needs"
"disassociating and tbh lying to yourself"
"all the defences I didn't even know I had crumbled and fell"

I relate to so many of these: like I was so very good at suppressing and distracting myself away from my feelings, at talking myself out of my feelings, and not allowing myself to feel them. But now I feel them all too well. I attribute this to both being on ADHD meds and learning I'm autistic.

@actuallyautistic

dave, to random
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

Finding that listening to music from my childhood and adolescence, when I started developing my own music tastes, is very emotionally regulating.

I need that right now.

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dave,
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@CynAq

I don't understand how those are examples of PDA. Would you mind elaborating?

@actuallyautistic

dave,
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@CynAq

That is super helpful and oddly familiar 😂

@actuallyautistic

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dave,
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@CynAq

It blows my mind that you can remember enough of your life before 6 to conclude it was amazing before and hell after.

I'm also 38 and I can barely remember my 20s. My memory of my life before 30 is very scattered and piecemeal.

@theautisticcoach @actuallyautistic

dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@CynAq

Wow... that's just nothing short of genuinely shocking and amazing to me.

I have memories from that long ago, but it's a struggle to recall them, and it's very scattered. Even the events I can recall, there's rarely a feeling attached to it. It's impossible for me to say a certain period in my life was great or awful, because I just don't remember the feelings.

There's a few exceptions that stand out. But relating the events to ages or dates is likewise not something I'm easily able to do. My entire past is just a random jumble of scattered events in my mind. I can break some of it down into broad groups - like which grade I was in, or if it was elementary or secondary school - though if the memory isn't directly related to school, it's more difficult even to narrow that down.

If I had to guess why that is, I would say that it's because I had a tendency to live in my own head, and being not fully engaged with the world meant that I wasn't paying enough attention for those events to get committed to memory.

Huh. That's really interesting.

@theautisticcoach @actuallyautistic

dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@CynAq

I did @theautisticcoach's coaching workshop for newly-IDed autistics and one of the questions from the first session was something like, "who was the weird kid before first grade?"

That was almost 2 months ago and I still haven't answered that question 😂

@actuallyautistic

dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@CynAq

I appreciate the clarification! What you described is pretty much what I was interpreting from what you said.

My memory is neither continuous nor fairly expansive, nor holistic.

Instead, it's very fragmented. My memory of my life is more like a movie trailer than a full-on scene from a movie: there's glimpses of people (me or others) saying things, of surroundings when those things were said, and the odd exceptional time, a feeling.

But more often than not, it's a quick glimpse, with not a lot of context.

As an example, I remember a time I was swinging on a tree in my friend's backyard. I slipped and fell flat on my back and had the wind knocked out of me. I couldn't breathe. I felt terrified. I tried to scream out but couldn't. His mom gave me a very "well, that's what you get" kind of attitude. And that's all I remember of that.

I don't remember sights or smells. I don't remember who was around except for the mother. I don't even think my friend was there, which is kind of odd? I don't remember anything about the backyard at all. I think his mom was barbecuing.

All of this talk about memories makes me want to write down every memory I can think of and construct a timeline 😂

@theautisticcoach @actuallyautistic

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dave,
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@essie_is_okay

My wife has MS and we're also in the middle of a family emergency. Her brother passed away unexpectedly 3 weeks ago and she's been the sole strength for the whole family.

Her advice: rest when you can, 10-15 minutes at a time, take a hot bath, talk, scream, throw things. But most importantly talk to someone to get it out. Try to delegate what you can. Don't hesitate to delegate or be afraid to put things on other people. It's okay to care for yourself through a challenging time. Much love and best wishes 💚

@neisvoid @actuallyautistic

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dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@theautisticcoach

Being on the open road in my RV.
It's also incredibly overstimulating but I manage it pretty well with my Loop earplugs :D

@actuallyautistic

theautisticcoach, to actuallyautistic

As many of you here, and as all of you who have met or worked with me, know, I am an Israeli.

I’m also a life long peace activist for Israel-Palestine.

Unfortunately, MANY of you have taken the last few days to attack me, call me a murderer, lecture me about the world I grew up and lived in for 35+ years of my life, dare to speak down to me and over me, erase my history and lifelong dedication for Palestinian rights, and even wished me to die.

Others of you have taken the opportunity to call me an antisemite, a race traitor, a horrible person, a hypocrite, a terrorist, and erase my history and lifelong dedication to Jewish life and making Israel a better place to live.

Yet, VERY FEW of you have asked how I am. How is my family? How are my friends? How are YOU?

Well, no. I have my family & friends in deep crisis. Many have lost their own other family and friends, parents, siblings, kids and lovers - some by bullets, others by fire, others by kidnapping. A comrade of mine lost his parents. An other had their 16 year old son taken into Gaza. Too many people I know or am connected to have been murdered or taken. And I use the word murder, not killed, because sleeping civilians in their home or at a party are not military combattants. Babies aren’t targets.

I also have Palestinian friends who have lost families in Gaza from the bombs currently falling from IDF planes. My heart aches for them too as theirs does for me.

But many of you only care about death when one side fits your own narrative and unformed and ignorant beliefs.

So no, I’m not OK. I’m not OK at all.

Keep reading in the next post

@actuallyautistic @mazeldon

dave,
@dave@autisticnomad.social avatar

@theautisticcoach

Fuck yes. ✊

@actuallyautistic @mazeldon

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