(no subject)

[unicornduke]

 I spent a long time telling myself that I wasn't 1000% sure I was autistic and I obviously was handling life fine and didn't need any more coping mechanisms because I was fine. 

Let me tell you, wearing noise cancelling headphones in a grocery store is the best damn thing I've ever done.

And also things keep popping up where I go: well, I guess I might actually be autistic for realsies 

Comments

[graydon]

Hurrah improved mechanisms!

Thing about coping is that (in this one specific "what do I want to do?" sense) it's all wasted effort; you could have been doing something you wanted with that spoon, but no, you had to use it to bail the swamp.

I mean, you get to have a functional life, which is sorta meta getting to do what you want to do because without that you can't get anything done, but in the specific instance it can seem like pure expense.

Anything that keeps or improves the life-handling characteristics while reducing the number of spoons going into the swamp is a win. An improved mechanism that seems like it's got a negative cost -- there are more spoons! -- is a large win.

I'm highly sympathetic to not fussing about diagnosis if it won't solve some specific problem (because it will for fair and certain create some others) but that's not a reason not to steal other similar people's useful coping mechanisms. (Do I know for sure the reason this works for me and for them is the same? Nope. Do I observe that it works? yep. Yay, utilitarian viewpoint!)

[unicornduke]

Yeah, it was 50 bucks! Some money! But I don't come out of grocery stores exhausted and panicky and given grocery stores are necessary once a week, it was such a good thing to do.

Because I could cope with all the noise, I could! But it was so hard, like you say, bailing out with a spoon.

I won't ever get a diagnosis because I don't need it for official accommodations at work. But only because I found people at work who just deal with how I am as a person and are cool with me. I'm not the only absolute weirdo on the team so it's nice. But borrowing techniques and things really works well anyway, no matter what. If only the rest of life were so accommodating (cough cough fucking apartment).

[graydon]

Presuming these particular headphones last a year, that's a buck a week. Easy to justify just on time not spent recombobulating.

Yay! work. It's good when there's no organizational drive to enforce a norm. (this is surprisingly difficult to get in general.)

There's a sign up next door which makes me think it's going to get torn down and turned into town homes, which is another reason I need to get out of here. Kitchener has various older apartments but the prospect of noise management doesn't much appeal. Have to stop waffling pretty soon.

[dragonlady7]

oh man i keep finding things that are Classic Symptoms of ADHD that are things I thought I was a freak for having to exhaustively train myself out of doing so like. solidarity.
(brought to you by a twitter thread yesterday about yet another Hey, That Weird Thing You Do That's Super Embarrassing That You Had To Carve Chunks Out Of Your Personality So You'd Stop? Super Normal Symptom Of That Disease The Doctor Laughed At You For Asking About! with literally five hundred replies of "OMG!" after it to which I appended yet another fucking "OMG".)

[unicornduke]

was it the body focused repetitive behaviors thread? because omg yes. I think there's overlap between ADHD and autistic symptoms in women, and I hella have the BFRB. Can't train myself out of it really.

always: omg

[dragonlady7]

it was that thread!!
I was thinking about it today as my high-energy niece climbed repeatedly up and down a wall while chewing her shirt, as she listened quietly to a book I was reading her, and I thought, child, I hope society lets you keep doing this. When I was in kindergarten I fidgeted so much that I would regularly move the table at which I sat several feet over the course of a day. Now I have trained myself so well not to move that I'll get stuck in one place and not be able to get up even to do something I want to do, like go pee. (Which isn't just training out the fidgeting, but it's overlapped into the executive function problems that are getting worse as I age.)

But like. How I couldn't stop picking at my split ends from ages 13-22? I finally figured out hairstyles that prevented it, because otherwise I would get absorbed in doing it to the point that I couldn't, say, do normal workday tasks because I was so absorbed in picking at my hair. I think I damaged my eyesight doing it. Sigh.

[unicornduke]

I mean, hopefully kids are able to move around more, and maybe the Montessouri school helped with that?

I used to fiddle and braid my hair when it was long, and like you pick at the split ends (picking so long and so focused that it felt like eyes were permanently crossed, yeah?), and I got yelled at a lot for doing it in school. I then started picking at my skin and I can sometimes fiddle with a pen to not pick or buttons on my shirts if they have them. I also chew on my cheeks and lips and chewing gum helps with that. But sometimes it doesn't. shrugs. Sometimes I also just lock my hands onto something like a belt loop or something and don't let go because that will keep me from picking.

I'm so so glad I don't work mostly in an office environment because farm work super helps with everything. I find I do these more when I'm not moving around much during the day.