Tonight I was sitting with my family, going through the week to make sure we knew who needed the car -- where people were going, what needed to be done. Logistics sort of stuff.
Something came up that my daughter had forgotten about. Then my son added two things later in the week. Then my wife had three things to add to the schedule tomorrow. I think by the end there were eleven events or to-do's that had been added that weren't there when we started. Then everyone else got up and left, and I was at the table kind-of in shock.
I got my formal diagnosis a month or so ago. Tonight is the first time I've consciously recognised the effect of autism in the moment -- desperately wanting/needing the routine to stay the same, having that fall to pieces, feeling sluggish and heavy-brained, stimming to self-regulate. Everyone else was just fine with this and zipped right through. It's seriously taken me two hours of gentle self-care consciously not thinking about any of it to feel like I can manage it. Now I've made a list, and have a calendar, and can put all these things together so they make sense for me. Life will be ok.
It sounds so simple. But it seems like an NT superpower, being able to process stuff like this in seconds.
I'm looking for suggestions how to deal with routine changes -- both managing them personally, and letting NT folks know I'm struggling.
I think Neonatal talked in another thread about being up-front about it -- being self-aware enough to know when we're having "autistic moments" and just saying so in some way or another, so everyone's aware. I can see how this would disarm the hidden-problem sort of social dynamic completely. But I find that I'm terrible in the moment at finding the right thing to say. Maybe I need to script something.
Any thoughts, either on 1) letting the NT folks know I'm not keeping up, or 2) managing routine changes yourself?
Something came up that my daughter had forgotten about. Then my son added two things later in the week. Then my wife had three things to add to the schedule tomorrow. I think by the end there were eleven events or to-do's that had been added that weren't there when we started. Then everyone else got up and left, and I was at the table kind-of in shock.
I got my formal diagnosis a month or so ago. Tonight is the first time I've consciously recognised the effect of autism in the moment -- desperately wanting/needing the routine to stay the same, having that fall to pieces, feeling sluggish and heavy-brained, stimming to self-regulate. Everyone else was just fine with this and zipped right through. It's seriously taken me two hours of gentle self-care consciously not thinking about any of it to feel like I can manage it. Now I've made a list, and have a calendar, and can put all these things together so they make sense for me. Life will be ok.
It sounds so simple. But it seems like an NT superpower, being able to process stuff like this in seconds.
I'm looking for suggestions how to deal with routine changes -- both managing them personally, and letting NT folks know I'm struggling.
I think Neonatal talked in another thread about being up-front about it -- being self-aware enough to know when we're having "autistic moments" and just saying so in some way or another, so everyone's aware. I can see how this would disarm the hidden-problem sort of social dynamic completely. But I find that I'm terrible in the moment at finding the right thing to say. Maybe I need to script something.
Any thoughts, either on 1) letting the NT folks know I'm not keeping up, or 2) managing routine changes yourself?
