reedbend

I can actually vibe quite bigly and be very animated/engaged, but at the end of the day, I am an introvert, and a certain amount of mental recharge time is absolutely 100% required or my mind will stop working right.

What I mean by that is, if I am continuously exposed to the presence of "incompatible" human beings (the "compatible" ones seem to be a subset of people with ADHD / ASD / mood disorders), I will literally start showing symptoms similar to dementia, I will progressively lose my ability to speak and understand language, I will eventually start having (boring) hallucinations, etc. All of this is reversible if I am subsequently left the fuck alone, though the cognitive effects can persist for weeks or months after a bad episode.

In part because I do tech work which requires keeping a lot of information in mind at once, the above issue renders me unable to work during acute burnout, and unable to predict when or how much I'll be able to work during chronic (but not acute) burnout.

Because of this, I am (by some definitions) homeless, don't control my living environment, don't even fully control my diet for various reasons, etc. I'm actually writing this post as a tangent from looking up diabetes warning signs and discovering I have a number, all consistent with each other, all of which slowly got worse at the same rate over the last 5 years of chronic burnout. This is a result of not being able to control my diet or my exercise level (wayyy too fatigued from overstim most of the time).

But it's all, 100% of it, a carryover effect of not being able to get enough solitude that my mind can self-regulate sufficiently to be able to do paying work on a regular basis.

I lost my home a few years into the burnout and wound up bouncing thru a series of friends. Every single household had human factors that drove me into burnout. It's people who don't know how be still, who are always Doing Something even if they are sitting still - I can never stop perceiving them or being "on guard" in a house with them. It grinds me right down to the bone and then some. Anyway it was just dumb luck of the draw - some percentage of the population I can live with just fine. 3 years into this phase I ended up in an area that's very sprawly, did get a car for a while but not one I'd trust to take more than 10 or 15 miles, you should have seen this deathtrap, it was like a sitcom car, and anyway it died last year. So, I can't just walk to town and work at McDonald's or whatever. Camping options (uninhabited woods) exist but camping in them is illegal (which I've done on a couple desperate occasions).

I'm not entirely sure why I'm even posting this, other than to say I made a friend diagnosed with ASD a few years back who has a very similar symptom profile to me, but who is even more sensitive than me, and trapped like this with her own family. I know y'all are out there. You're valid. I know you're trying even if you've been so goddamn tired your eyeballs could melt for a month, 6 months, a year, 3 years.

I don't know about you, but I literally just need to be left the fuck alone and I will be fine, and able to pull myself out of the hole in 6-12 months. But that's the problem, this is America, nobody gets that kind of runway unless they're rich (or young and middle class with nice and/or indulgent family).

I don't need to be alone, but with 4 alcoholics having a rager in the rest of the house.

I don't need to be alone, but with occasional random people in and out of the house.

I don't need to be alone, but for only 24 total hours each week in irregular intervals.

I need to be able to access solitude / the company only of people who don't fixate my attention with their human presence, whenever I need, for as long as I need. Period.

Anyway, I'm legit thankful to live in a society where this is even fucking possible. I'm in North America and I know how to tickle computers. I've been on my ass for a literal decade, but if anybody can finagle a way back from it, it's me.

There are a lot of people who started off like I did - lower middle class with bright parents - and who ended up like I did, who beat themselves up relentlessly over it. I went to support groups and I saw how bad they hurt. Fortunately I don't have that problem, but I like to keep myself from developing it by doing shit like meditating, and watching videos of South Asian metalworking factories where dudes pour molten steel into molds while barefoot, and don't wait for the dust to settle in the lead oxide ball mill tumbler before opening the door and taking in a nice big lungful.

Eh, that's probably enough for now. I see you and love you, obligate introverts.

Background: I've been in burnout at some level for 10 years. Chronic the whole time, sometimes also what I would describe as semi-acute to acute for many periods as well.

My current situation is that I won't have a place to live in about a month, and I need to raise my income, but I can't predict or guarantee that my brain will actually be functional enough to work. (I do tech stuff... right now I'm a web monkey but I'm trained as a software engineer, haven't written nontrivial code in several years tho)

In my case I'm worried that getting a job and then losing it because my brain went on strike for a few weeks/months could potentially kick off a blockbuster depressive episode. I get those lonnnnnnng slowwwwww deep shutdown, lose 50 IQ points as you stare into the deadlights depressions. One more of those could quite literally kill me. That said, my med stack works and my mood is controlled better now than at any point in my life, so, I need to worry about this less.

My current income is thru gig work and I want to increase that rather than get a "job," but here it's the same problem, if I land a client and my brain goes AWOL, it's going to be a problem. I have put a ton of work into my hardware+software stack though, and self-host nearly all my own shit, which is a big advantage when you're permanently overwhelmed, because you save big bucks on hosting bills, and the open source upgrade treadmill is a lot slower than with corporate software.

Anyway, enough about me. Anybody want to share stories or tips?

who else has the forbidding and incomputable Pile of Mail 💀

mood: currently opening mail 1 week to 4 months old because I know there's a $7 check in it somewhere that'll pay for gas money for my friend to drag my ass around town and to the pot shop

I'm crossposting this widely because every single person with a noise sensitivity who previously tried noise-canceling headphones and found them not useful should know: it might be time to give the technology another shot.

This is a plug for a product. I'm not getting paid for it. I'm actually broke and couchsurfing and unable to work (until now maybe????) due to noise sensitivity, so if this info changes your life, I will put my tip jar in my profile after I post this :)

The story

I got a pair of Sony WH-CH720N for Christmas this year.

I had noise-canceling headphones on my wish list, but very low down, as previously I'd tried a couple pairs, including the expensive and highly-rated Bose QC III, and found them very lacking.

My experience with older headphones: the noise canceling was pretty good, but they caused a pressure sensation on my ears which I can only describe as like having a piece of meat behind saran wrap pressed against my eardrum. They also used to be a lot heavier than the WH-CH720N is. Both these factors made them very hard to wear for any length of time (for me) and greatly limited their usefulness.

So, I put the Sony model on my wish list more because I need a solution for wireless-from-my-laptop Zoom calls and don't have one, and less for the noise canceling feature.

My experience

I'm really impressed with these headphones, especially at the $99 price point.

The noise canceling feature isn't an absolute miracle, but it's very very good, equal or better to the Bose QC III which retailed for more than 3x the price back when it was new.

The weird ear pressure sensation is drastically better than with older noise canceling headphones. It's not nonexistent, and it does tend to flare up with certain bass sounds (like people stomping on hardwood floors), but it's waaaaaaaay better than older models I've tried, to the point where I can wear the Sony model for hours without fatigue from ear pressure.

The WH-CH720N headphones are not durable. They do seem a bit delicate. This is their weak point. But they are very lightweight!! This makes it much easier to wear them for extended periods. If you need to carry them around, maybe there is some kind of headphone case that can be found? I will be looking, and if I find one, will post in the comments on the orig post at lemmy dot ml slash c slash autistic_adults.

So anyway. Hopefully this helps somebody out.

Personally, my noise sensitivity is destroying my life - keeping me penniless and semi-homeless due to inability to work - and getting these 'phones for Christmas changed my entire idea of how noise canceling tech might help me out of this situation, after previous disappointing experiences.

What is this??? I know some of you have experienced it, because on very rare occasion it's come up in the past on other autism discussion groups I've been a part of. Sometimes somebody will make a post about burnout and say something like "the knowledge just fell out of my head" when talking about trying to work/think about complex topics while burnt out.

In my case, once I get too burnt out from overstimulation or nonstop social exposure, I get cognitive effects that last for days or weeks afterwards. In some sense, I get "dumber." But this isn't that, exactly, though I'm sure it's related.

Background, and an example: I do web & software development for work. I also live in a place which is a poor fit for my sensitivities, so I've been in chronic burnout for years, and I'm pushed further into acute high-intensity (as in, I become "lower functioning") burnout a few times a year.

I find that once I pass a certain point in burnout, I get to the point where I need to do a complex task, such as some web dev work, or for another example, filling out a bunch of government forms to keep some critical benefit or another flowing while I figure this all out. And I get inertia. But the inertia feels different than the usual inertia. The only way I can describe it is that it feels like in order to do the task, it's going to "rope in" knowledge of so many related things, that my brain realizes it's going to become overloaded and just sort of freezes up and deadlocks at the prospect.

These are tasks that require a good deal of focus and thinking, but which are well within my ability when I'm able to meet my sensory needs.

Anyway ... just wanted to make a thread for speculation and chatting about this, I guess. What is it? Demand avoidance? Conditioned response? Creepily accurate emotional representation of some kind of actual brain overload failure condition??

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/6713283

This study is unique in considering difficulty initiating tasks of any type in real life settings, and by gathering qualitative data directly from autistic people. Four face-to-face and 2 online (text) focus groups were conducted with 32 autistic adults (19 female, 8 male, and 5 other), aged 23–64 who were able to express their internal experiences in words.

[...] Participants described difficulty starting, stopping and changing activities that was not within their conscious control. While difficulty with planning was common, a subset of participants described a profound impairment in initiating even simple actions more suggestive of a movement disorder. Prompting and compatible activity in the environment promoted action, while mental health difficulties and stress exacerbated difficulties. Inertia had pervasive effects on participants’ day-to-day activities and wellbeing.

This study is unique in considering difficulty initiating tasks of any type in real life settings, and by gathering qualitative data directly from autistic people. Four face-to-face and 2 online (text) focus groups were conducted with 32 autistic adults (19 female, 8 male, and 5 other), aged 23–64 who were able to express their internal experiences in words.

[...] Participants described difficulty starting, stopping and changing activities that was not within their conscious control. While difficulty with planning was common, a subset of participants described a profound impairment in initiating even simple actions more suggestive of a movement disorder. Prompting and compatible activity in the environment promoted action, while mental health difficulties and stress exacerbated difficulties. Inertia had pervasive effects on participants’ day-to-day activities and wellbeing.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/5546920

As someone facing homelessness myself due to issues beyond my control, I just wanted people to know they're not alone.

These conditions are real, and people's misunderstanding - and willful refusal to understand - wrecks lives.

I hope you can get to a safe place where you can exist in your own skin in peace.

As someone facing homelessness myself due to issues beyond my control, I just wanted people to know they're not alone.

These conditions are real, and people's misunderstanding - and willful refusal to understand - wrecks lives.

I hope you can get to a safe place where you can exist in your own skin in peace.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/5236945

I'm curious if anyone out there reading who lives with ADHD and/or ASD w/executive dysfunction ... when it comes to tasks that aren't just your own but that involve (or are needed by) others, for example household tasks when living with others ... do you find that you actually need consensus and/or discussion on the topic of tasks in order to get them done?

What I'm realizing is that for me, part of executive dysfunction means I don't have the internal watchdog that keeps track of stuff I need to do in relation to others, and just personally speaking I cannot rely on (or be tormented by) guilt as a way to work around the lack of a watchdog.

The one thing that does work for me is talking about it with the people involved, especially if they are people I respect or care about. Either coming to consensus, or at least maintaining shared understanding of the shared space / task list / etc. For some reason, the process of coming to a shared-state perspective on shared effort, and understanding how my responsibilities impact others and at what time others need me to have completed them, is like sprinkling magic pixie dust on the task-item in my brain that allows me to remember it exists at all once it's 5 days later in the week or whatever. I still suck at scheduling and prioritizing and whatnot, but at least I remember the damn task exists and am trying to get it done!

The reason I've figured all this out is kinda grim, long story short I ended up on my ass about 10 years ago, and lost my home about 7 years ago, and then people took me in... and those people don't do the above. They don't discuss things and they don't build consensus or shared state, they just do stuff. And it's utterly and completely paralyzing because I spent the first 3 decades of my life living with people who did discuss things that affect others around them, and now my entire repertoire of human behavior is based on the premise that people attempt to keep each other informed like this, and that's just not the case for a great number of people.

And that process of communication or shared-state rehashing, which I thought all humans engaged in because both my parents did and almost everybody I lived with early in life did, is absolutely critical to wallpapering over my lack of ability to keep track of / remember that tasks exist, especially as my level of overwhelm gets high or my energy gets low.

What really made this sink in was remembering that my dad had endless conflicts with a kid of his from another marriage when he would go to visit, because she also doesn't communicate like this, and just like me, my dad was also absolutely critically dependent on it in order to be able to do anything at all really. In fact that's how I realized that he had a very similar neurological profile to me. In some ways our behavior is starkly alike and now I understand why.

BTW, that dad who almost certainly would be diagnosed with the same dreamy 'primarily inattentive' adult ADHD that I have today, got a Ph.D., retired as a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force, and went on to lead a small college language department and then have a long retirement doing occasional work in advanced linguistics. He later decided to learn Italian, and succeeded, in his 70s. Every time in his life when he had either autonomy and resources to do his own thing, or external structure + social glue that agreed with him, he was able to excel. Without those conditions, he would drift badly and become depressed. Understanding this has helped me understanding myself. My dad was a poor parent in a lot of other ways, but his ability to succeed when he had enough pieces of the puzzle does give me hope.

I'm curious if anyone out there reading who lives with ADHD and/or ASD w/executive dysfunction ... when it comes to tasks that aren't just your own but that involve (or are needed by) others, for example household tasks when living with others ... do you find that you actually need consensus and/or discussion on the topic of tasks in order to get them done?

What I'm realizing is that for me, part of executive dysfunction means I don't have the internal watchdog that keeps track of stuff I need to do in relation to others, and just personally speaking I cannot rely on (or be tormented by) guilt as a way to work around the lack of a watchdog.

The one thing that does work for me is talking about it with the people involved, especially if they are people I respect or care about. Either coming to consensus, or at least maintaining shared understanding of the shared space / task list / etc. For some reason, the process of coming to a shared-state perspective on shared effort, and understanding how my responsibilities impact others and at what time others need me to have completed them, is like sprinkling magic pixie dust on the task-item in my brain that allows me to remember it exists at all once it's 5 days later in the week or whatever. I still suck at scheduling and prioritizing and whatnot, but at least I remember the damn task exists and am trying to get it done!

The reason I've figured all this out is kinda grim, long story short I ended up on my ass about 10 years ago, and lost my home about 7 years ago, and then people took me in... and those people don't do the above. They don't discuss things and they don't build consensus or shared state, they just do stuff. And it's utterly and completely paralyzing because I spent the first 3 decades of my life living with people who did discuss things that affect others around them, and now my entire repertoire of human behavior is based on the premise that people attempt to keep each other informed like this, and that's just not the case for a great number of people.

And that process of communication or shared-state rehashing, which I thought all humans engaged in because both my parents did and almost everybody I lived with early in life did, is absolutely critical to wallpapering over my lack of ability to keep track of / remember that tasks exist, especially as my level of overwhelm gets high or my energy gets low.

What really made this sink in was remembering that my dad had endless conflicts with a kid of his from another marriage when he would go to visit, because she also doesn't communicate like this, and just like me, my dad was also absolutely critically dependent on it in order to be able to do anything at all really. In fact that's how I realized that he had a very similar neurological profile to me. In some ways our behavior is starkly alike and now I understand why.

BTW, that dad who almost certainly would be diagnosed with the same dreamy 'primarily inattentive' adult ADHD that I have today, got a Ph.D., retired as a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force, and went on to lead a small college language department and then have a long retirement doing occasional work in advanced linguistics. He later decided to learn Italian, and succeeded, in his 70s. Every time in his life when he had either autonomy and resources to do his own thing, or external structure + social glue that agreed with him, he was able to excel. Without those conditions, he would drift badly and become depressed. Understanding this has helped me understanding myself. My dad was a poor parent in a lot of other ways, but his ability to succeed when he had enough pieces of the puzzle does give me hope.