(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.