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This post, that I discovered via Inner Aspie, rings very true for me.
Once again, I’m wandering round the house on my day off, feeling jittery and close to tears, my skin prickling. I can’t listen to music because I can’t take the additional sensory load. I can’t cook because of the smell. I can’t work in the garden because the sun is too bright. Of course, I could force myself to do all these things,, but you know what? I want to do them and enjoy them, just like any non-autistic person would. I don’t want to push myself through things that should be pleasant, colouring them with overload and formless anxiety.
The only good thing to be said for this is that at least I now have an explanation. I’m not a useless procrastinator; there is something happening that makes me feel this way. Of course there’s also this, the knowledge that things aren’t going to change, the infuriating knowledge that whatever I do I am going to waste a lot of my life like this.
I was educated in a tradition that said that if you don’t have something tangible to show for your efforts at the end of each day then you are a failure. Try as I might, I cannot shake off that lingering voice in the back of my head. Look at that weekend, it says. You spent half of it sitting on the sofa reading, when there was all that stuff needed doing. You have a long list to get through and you’ve barely touched it. You are a failure.
I’m still adjusting to this knowledge of my difference. I’m still holding up my experience, examining it, asking is this autism? or is this just me being a failure? and trying not to conflate the two.
But I have stuff that needs doing, and this damn sensory overload is standing between me and getting it done…
Again, {Virtual Hugs}
Personally, I count having read as a tangible thing, but that’s probably because I spent so much of my life buried in books.
I’m trying to remember what my psychologist said about procrastination / being lazy – because I’ve ended up wondering the same thing (“Is this because of my autism, or am I just being lazy?”). Unfortunately, I can’t call it to mind right now, but what I do remember of it is that she managed to reassure me that there were definitely valid reasons (i.e. *not* laziness) why I was doing the things I was. (Partly because of an appointment shared with my parents, where we discussed some issues – and found more, but that’s another story.)
As far as I can tell, from everything I’ve read and everything that people have told me, wanting to enjoy what you’re doing is a part of the human condition. (Therefore, yes, we are human.) And perhaps you can tell the voice in your head the following, when it goes at you like that:
So, you want me to exhaust myself fighting with sensory overload just to get something done that will take a minimum of about three times as long because of that overload, and then end up too drained and even more overloaded tomorrow and the next day, and so not be able to do *anything* for another two to three days? Whereas if I have the chance to relax now, it’s a lot more likely I’m going to be able to do more tomorrow. (:P)
*shrugs* Some thoughts.
(BTW, I will respond to your comment to my post about Effexor – you’ve got a good point there – I’m just thinking about it.)
Yup – I finish work at four and I’m home and in bed by half past five – I had to stay awake on Thursday evening, and had a meltdown at work on Friday afternoon where I hid in an empty room for twenty minutes, sitting on the floor with my eyes shut. I’m measuring my energy out in small doses, and what NTs fail to understand is that although they might find it bizarre and irritating, they don’t find it half as irritating as I do!
I wasn’t trying to criticise your post (well, not much
), but psychologists, physicians and psychiatrists who make blanket statements about ASD put my back up. Partly because it’s not true, and partly because I suspect a tendency to reduce us to one anonymous, homogeneous mass which will then allow our individuality to be dismissed.
Didn’t think you *were* trying to criticise my post much, so don’t worry about that. No, I just need to think a bit more about it. (Partly because this weekend is *going to be* a full hibernation weekend for me, with Monday and Tuesday off as personal care days, to try to deal with my own overload and threatening burnout at work. So I’m not thinking overly much about anything, as much as possible.) And yes, I can understand why that would put your back up.
And yeah, I know what you mean about crashing right after getting home. That’s what I’ve been doing on Mondays – crashing from when I get home until dinner, which is usually 1-1/2 to 2 hours – because of sensory and emotional overload from where I work on Mondays. (And this past week, because Mom picked me up and took me grocery shopping right after work – we needed to get clarification of something at the pharmacy. Would not have survived if I hadn’t spent the entire afternoon shut away in the wellness room, working on my laptop from there.)
{More Virtual Hugs!} (Just ’cause.)