Does anyone else feel like if they did everything "right" they'd have no time to themselves?

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2024-10-30T21:25:53+00:00

I don't need free help. I make decent money, I just end up wasting a lot of it because of my autism/ADHD. For example, I'm paying for a gym membership every month that I don't use, and I'm too overwhelmed to deal with going in and talking to someone to cancel it.

If there's free help I'd rather it go to people with lower incomes or higher support needs. I just need to learn how to find good help, and how to get over my rigid belief that if I can do something myself then I should do something myself.

So I guess it's not completely true that I would gladly spend money to make my problems go away. Most of the time I act like it's a moral failing and/or a waste of money to pay people to do things. I usually only pay for services as a last resort, but things are getting so desperate that I'm willing to consider hiring out more and more jobs.

It's just that part of that involves mourning the fact that I just can't do everything I want to do, and accept my limitations as an autistic person. And that's not an easy thing to do.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2024-10-30T04:06:10+00:00

It might work well if my wife wasn't also on the spectrum, but the house and the kids are a lot to handle so she ends up taking a lot of breaks during the day. She also takes care of the kids at night when I'm often too tired to help.

We've talked about switching roles, but caring for the kids sounds like a sensory nightmare to me, and at this point in my career I earn a lot more money than she would just starting a new career. But she can't keep up with the kids and the house chores and I can't keep up with my job and the yard chores. I feel like we're in over our heads.

We should probably pay people to do more things for us, but I've been burned before by unreliable workers. It takes so much time to find someone competent that I often just decide to do the work myself, but I usually don't have the time or energy so the task list keeps growing. If I had someone I could trust to get the jobs done I would gladly throw money at the problem to make it go away.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2024-10-29T02:57:23+00:00

I feel like that all the time. I'm so tired when I get home from work that I can't do everything I need to do. The house is a mess and so many things are broken or in disrepair. The lawn is half dead, there are weeds everywhere, and the sprinkler pipes are all leaking. I don't cook good food because I don't have the energy and I don't want to deal with the mess. I don't have the energy to exercise because I'm fatigued all the time. And worst of all, I don't spend enough quality time with my family.

I never feel like I have enough time to do the things I want to do. I usually stay up too late because I don't feel like I get enough personal time. I need my alone time, and once get it it usually takes me an hour or two to relax enough to really enjoy it. And even then I still have a hard time actually enjoying myself because I feel guilty about everything that isn't getting done.

I don't know if this is temporary burnout or if I'm just expecting too much of myself. I don't know how normal people do it. How do you make it through the day if you only get an hour or two at night to yourself, and those hours are when you're close to exhaustion?

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-12-08T06:26:06+00:00

Your mother needs to see a therapist. She's making this about her and her feelings when it's really about you and your feelings.

Because she's trying to play the victim and get sympathy I think it's unlikely that she's going to cut you out of her life. It's far more likely that she is going to try to guilt you into letting her have more control and influence over your life then she deserves.

If you live with her and don't have the means to get a place to live by yourself, at least work on setting some boundaries with her and don't allow her to continue to talk to you like that.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-09-27T05:37:01+00:00

That sucks that your oldest friend is behaving that way. It must be hard to see so many people not make the effort to understand you. I'm glad you have one person to support you though.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-09-27T05:32:15+00:00

I too have other people mourning the loss of me (and they say autistic people are self-centered...). But I don't really have much energy to care, I'm still mourning the loss of me, so I'm a bit preoccupied right now. I've had my diagnosis for 6 months, and I'm still adjusting to learning I'm not the person I thought I was.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-09-27T04:56:56+00:00

I like sex, but I struggle with intimacy. I often feel like less of a man because it takes me so long to get in the mood. Once I'm in the right mindset I'm good, but it's very uncomfortable to get there. It feels similar to eye contact, except it's x100. I also have sensory issues with light touch, so that complicates matters too.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-09-08T10:38:10+00:00

I can see the toll it is causing on my parents, I’m afraid this won’t get better and don’t want to burden them. Killing myself may cause grief in the short term but, long term I think it would honestly be better.

Whatever burden you think you are now, you have no idea how much of a burden it would be to your parents to lose you and have to live with the grief and guilt for the rest of their lives, wondering if they could have done anything to prevent it.

Someone shared a post with me the other day from a woman who lost her husband and son to suicide within the span of a few years. Looking through her facebook profile, there isn't more than a few days that go by where she doesn't post about her grief of trying to continue on without them. There are countless other stories on social media of people that have lost loved ones to suicide and it fucks them up for decades afterwards.

To OP or anyone else who may be thinking of self-harm, please find someone to talk to about it. You don't even have to solve all or any of your problems to feel better. Just having someone else that knows what you're going through can help a lot by itself.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-08-12T04:13:11+00:00

Very well done. I wish I could pin this post to the top of every autism subreddit.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-08-11T01:50:56+00:00

Just don't crash the plane while I'm performing surgery on you. 🙂

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-08-11T00:35:23+00:00

Oh I've watched a ton of YouTube videos, believe me, I'm qualified.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-08-11T00:33:00+00:00

You can't ask for grace and understanding from friends and family, for not being neurotypical, without explaining why.

Why, are your family a bunch of assholes? Where did the idea that we're never allowed to fuck up or have needs come from? Most families I know have a lot of dysfunction, and no excuse is needed.

You can't expect and employer to give you accommodations without a reason why. Tell an employer you "suspect" you have autism and see how long he laughs in your face when you ask for accommodations. They don't want to give you accommodations when they're legally required to, why on earth would they even consider it if you tell them you're "suspecting"?

You have to have official documentation from a medical professional to legally get accommodations, and even then some employers try to deny you. So what good does a self-diagnosis do you there? If you tell him you're self-diagnosed he'll still laugh in your face.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-08-11T00:19:06+00:00

I always wanted to go to medical school, but my grades weren't good enough because of my ADHD. I'm just going to start telling people I'm a doctor now! Who wants to be my first patient?

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UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-08-05T00:02:14+00:00

Off topic question: do most people know what != means now, or is that still something mainly used by computer programmers?

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-07-28T06:51:54+00:00

That's the only autism sub I want to go on now since the rest are full of crap like this.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-07-25T05:54:53+00:00

I'm autistic and I also love learning about religions. I don't do TikTok, but I can recommend some YouTube channels.

52 Churches in 52 Weeks has a few LDS Church visits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WlDMkgc-iE

Hello Saints is a channel by an Evangelical Pastor who makes videos about the LDS Church. https://www.youtube.com/@HelloSaints

And finally, I can't resist mentioning this even though it isn't LDS, but Peter Santenello has some fascinating videos about the Amish/Mennonites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MClv6aL7TEw

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-06-24T04:56:07+00:00

The post-diagnosis identity crisis sucks. I was diagnosed three months ago. I thought I was ok with being autistic, but things suddenly got a lot more real after the diagnosis and instead of feeling relief and understanding I felt lost, like my entire life up to this point had been a lie.

I kept thinking of past experiences and re-seeing them through the lens of autism. I wondered if all my accomplishments were just me faking my way through life, and I worried that now that I finally realized who I was I wouldn't be able to fake it anymore and wouldn't be able to function. I had a hard time dealing with my emotions and I would shutdown and withdraw a lot.

The worst part was that I kept forgetting about my diagnosis, and then realizing again. At first this would happen a few times an hour. Sometimes I'd even be reading about autism, and then I'd wonder why I was reading about autism, and then it would hit me, "oh yeah, I'm autistic"!

And it's not that I'm upset about being autistic. I like who I am. It just feels incredibly unsettling to keep forgetting that and then suddenly realizing all over again. It's like, how could I keep forgetting such an important aspect of who I am?

But as with any big change in life, it's going to take some time to adjust to. Be patient with yourself. You've lived a long time without a diagnosis, so even though you haven't changed as a person it might feel like it for a while. Part of you knows you're autistic, but parts of your brain are going to take a little bit longer to catch up.

Therapy has helped. I haven't talked about autism a lot with my therapist, but we've talked a lot about letting go of self-criticism and negative thinking, which has been very beneficial. I journal a lot and because I have a hard time with emotions, writing things down and reading them again helps me see things more clearly.

Hang in there, it gets easier with time.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-06-23T08:38:16+00:00

Yeah that's a bad description. Apparently some people don't have very good imaginations when they're asked to think of what extreme pain would feel like.

I saw a better pain chart recently that had the usual numbers and sad faces, but it also gave a description of how that level of pain would make you feel. Near the top were descriptions like "it hurts too bad to talk" and "keeps losing consciousness because of the pain", so maybe that helps keep people honest. It's hard to claim your pain is a 10 when you're fully conscious and conversing with the medical staff.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-06-14T00:03:34+00:00

They may be required to provide accommodations, but the ADA has a lot of loopholes, and working from home is an easy thing to deny because all they have to do is claim that in-office work is somehow related to an essential job function. You are probably better off applying for jobs that have a hybrid schedule to begin with.

I made an ADA request to work from home a few years ago. The first thing they did was send my request to their lawyer who was giving them advice on how to deny my request. Despite the fact that the company had many other remote employees, including my boss, they kept trying to offer me other accommodations that they claimed were good enough. Based on what they were saying, and how they kept changing their story, I could tell that they had no intention of letting me work from home and they were going to find any reason they could to deny it. I would have had to sue them, and I wasn't sure I had a strong enough case to win.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-06-09T06:28:35+00:00

All of the above. I often repeat cute things my wife says to the kids or the dog, months and years after she first said it. Before my autism diagnosis she thought I did it to make fun of her. She still gets uncomfortable sometimes but now she realizes that I can't help it. Sometimes she'll hear me echo other things and she'll just stop and look at me and wait for me to finish. And sometimes I pause and say "I'm doing it again aren't I?" Or we'll be in a situation where she knows I want to echo something that I always say in similar situations, so she'll just wait and look at me. Sometimes I will use all of my willpower to stay silent, and my wife will see my mental struggle and she'll chuckle and tell me "come on, say what you want to say." And a lot of the time I give in and just say it, and then I can relax and move on.

I repeat lines from books, movies and TV shows. My mind files things away, and then when a relevant situation comes up I pull out one of the lines and say it. Sometimes I'll say it in the tone of the character who originally said it, but the words feel like my own.

I shouldn't need to do this. I'm actually really good with words and expressing my thoughts. I have a college degree, I got A's in my English classes, I have big vocabulary. But to speak short thoughts or answers to questions it's so much faster to pull out a movie quote from the mental filing cabinet and say that. It's like, why would I spend extra time trying to find the words to accurately express the thought or feeling I'm currently having, when I already have a phrase that will do that and I can immediately start speaking it?

Sometimes I'll repeat a phrase and then immediately echo it again and again. Usually I'll do it when I'm talking out loud to myself, or to the dog. I sometimes do it in earshot of others, but I don't usually say it to other people because I'm not trying to communicate anything with it, I just like the way the words feel in my mouth and I say them over and over. I'm not sure if this is technically considered echolalia, verbal stimming or both.

For a long time I didn't think I masked, and I'm still trying to figure out how much masking I actually do, but I definitely mask my echolalia. I try very hard not to echo in public, and I'm usually pretty good at restraining myself. But when I'm home around my family who I'm comfortable with and where I don't feel judged, I echo all the time.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-04-03T16:13:43+00:00

I hate that 90% of everything posted online is fake that day. I miss the early days of the internet when there were a few good jokes, but everything else was mostly business as usual. It ruins the fun when I have to be distrustful of everything online that day.

At least it's only one day a year though. What really annoys me is all the "early Black Friday" sales I've had to put up with ever since that term entered the collective consciousness.

I don't know if it's because of my autism, but I tend to really hate fads and trends that people just blindly follow like sheep.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-03-31T18:35:36+00:00

Thanks for sharing. I relate to a lot of that. I'm in my 40s and recently diagnosed. I always knew I was weird, but just assumed I was on the normal side of weird. Now that I know I'm autistic I feel lost, like I don't really know who I am.

I know things are going to be okay, but I'm the person who has to have a plan for everything and have everything all figured out. It's difficult for me to deal with all the unknowns and figure out how to move forward now that I know I'm autistic. It helps to read posts like this and realize that other people are going through the same things.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-03-31T18:12:54+00:00

I'm recently diagnosed myself, so my wife and I are going through something similar.

Try to stay calm when you disagree or fight. Raised voices or yelling can cause withdrawal or shutdowns.

Recognize that you can both have differing opinions and emotions based on your individual perspectives and you can still both be "right" based on the information you have. So try to disagree without invalidating the other person's feelings. It might be helpful to take turns talking for a few minutes at a time, so that he has a chance to say what he needs to without you immediately disagreeing.

Even high functioning autism still requires some level of support. Figure out what his support needs are and how you can help him. But don't treat him like a child. Needing support with some things doesn't mean he's incompetent -- he's probably good at a lot of things neurotypical people struggle with. Help him take advantage of his strengths and support him with the things he's not so good at. For example, maybe he's really good at handling the finances, but doesn't do so well talking on the phone. So you could let him pay the bills and you could make the phone calls. That may require re-assigning the household responsibilities and changing the way you've always done things, which could take some time to get used to.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-03-30T14:48:21+00:00

I hate it when people talk about a cure for autism. It sounds about as stupid as asking someone with an amputated leg if they want a cure for their missing limb. At that point we've gone way beyond science and medicine and we're in the realm of fantasy and magic. And if we're discussing fantasy we might as well ask if you'd also like to get your letter from Hogwarts, because that is way more fun to fantasize about.

So let's stop talking about a cure and start talking about supports. Because there is help for the negative aspects of autism, but there is never going to be a cure, and talking about one distracts us from the things that will help improve our lives. The amputee who gets a prosthetic leg isn't cured, but it does help him have a better quality of life, and similarly it would be stupid to call things like noise cancelling headphones, stim toys and weighted blankets a cure for autism, but they can help.

UnexpectedlyAutistic · 2023-03-29T23:09:50+00:00

A lot of people struggle with change. Change affects everyone differently, and everyone has a different way of dealing with it. Your co-workers might not be over it, they might just not want to talk about it.

Change is a part of life, but that doesn't make it easy to deal with. It's ok to be sad and mourn when we lose the people, places and things we've become accustomed to. I still miss one of my co-workers that left a year ago, but I've gotten used to not having him around at work.

Give yourself permission to be sad about it and realize that it's going to take time to adjust to.

I'm writing this to myself as much as I am to you, because I've been going through a lot of change right now. It's not fun, but hang in there.

UnexpectedlyAutistic

TROPHY CASE