I was diagnosed at a young age and this isn’t new, but I have become more and more frustrated with it: getting to do something often happens slow. In the gym my exercises are often interrupted by many minutes of getting stuck in my head, being distracted.
People talk about how it’s okay to take breaks but I sometimes lose HOURS at home because I just don’t do anything and it isn’t resting either because my head keeps churning without a goal. I call it a limbo between activity and resting. Sometimes my phone or another means of distraction is to blame, but other times it’s just anxiety to do something because “is this the best use of my time?” (in general I often have time anxiety)
It drives me crazy because I will have a plan of things to do that’s totally reasonable and achievable, but then I only achieve a small part of it because I keep wasting so much time, I then procrastinate on the rest. This mainly affects activities/plans I’ve set myself, those set by others let me just obey and not have to overthink as much.
Does anyone else relate and can they share means of dealing with it?
What if the answers are yes to these?
It depends because there are a few either-or questions and I’d need a bit more of a thorough description of what these questions prompt in you and your experience of it all but basically I’m assessing whether it’s burnout, undiagnosed/unmedicated ADHD (it occurs at a rate of about 40% of autistic people), executive dysfunction, problems to do with task breakdowns and establishing routines as well as the autistic need for certainty and predictability, and autistic catatonia.
I can confidently say it’s not burnout, at least. I have indeed considered if I might also have ADHD, but I haven’t looked into that yet. But what is “autistic catatonia”?
There’s no way I know of to word this in a way that doesn’t sound like I’m being arrogant and debatebroing you into some trap but I’m too autistic to know how to avoid coming off that way so I’m going to rely on your autistic traits to interpret this exactly as it’s worded without reading into the (unintentional) implications but:
Can you tell me why that is?
I’d definitely put this high on the list of things worth looking into because it might explain a lot.
I wrote this post about my own internal experience of auDHD because the combination can feel and look qualitatively different to either autism or ADHD independently and there’s very little discussion about what it’s like with the two conditions when they co-occur. Note that this is absolutely not diagnostic in any way so even if that post resonates with you, don’t assume that it’s definitely the same as what’s going on for you but instead use it as a guidepost that either points you towards auDHD or, conversely, points you away from it.
This demands its own post tbh and I’m about to be preoccupied with other demands on me so I’m not going to be able to do it justice but autistic catatonia looks like burnout, shutdowns, and an entire breakdown or collapse of functioning (depending on the severity and nature of the catatonic episode) which is precipitated by being overwhelmed, including on the level of your nervous system or on a sensory level, but it can look very similar to treatment resistant depression or executive dysfunction or chronic fatigue and other similar conditions.
I’ll try to get myself to sit down and bash out an effortpost on autistic catatonia in tjr coming days (also note here that I have huge amounts of sympathy for your situation since it parallels what I’m struggling with lol).
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure it isn’t myself. My reasoning was that I can function normally most of the time and that the “buffering” isn’t that severe.
Your description of catatonia sounds familiar, I’ve definitely experienced it a few times, usually lasting a day or two. I had a severe case almost two years ago halfway in my first year at university: I couldn’t push myself to do things for school anymore and felt doomed to be incapable to manage adult life.