I was diagnosed at a young age and this isnāt 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 itās okay to take breaks but I sometimes lose HOURS at home because I just donāt do anything and it isnāt 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 itās just anxiety to do something because āis this the best use of my time?ā (in general I often have time anxiety)
It drives me crazy because I will have a plan of things to do thatās 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 Iāve 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?
This is interesting but inconclusive by itself.
Thereās potentially a few different factors at play here. One is that overachievers very often hit the wall where their natural aptitude is eclipsed by academic demands later in their educational career and they havenāt built up the study habits necessary to get them through the next phase of education so they tend to go from aceing everything to dragging themselves through on a C average or just dropping out entirely.
Another factor is that as you progress through school it becomes less structured and more self-directed and open ended which can be extremely difficult and stressful for autistic people.
Last of all, as you progress through your academic career, the demands on you increase in other aspects of your life - you take on more responsibilities, relationships get more complex, you will take on employment etc. and this can mean that the monotropic autistic brain just feels like itās perpetually overextended which can lead to a decline in performance and academic outcomes.
Thereās a whole lot to unpack with PDA and my own hot take on it but in short I think that PDA is too loosely defined and, ironically, it has a tendency to pathologise things like burnout so Iād approach this label with caution and healthy skepticism. Not saying that it doesnāt exist or that itās āwrongā, just that it can fit a lot of different experiences and itās important to be judicious with how we use the label.
What Iām getting at here, in a metaphorical sense at least, speaking as a person who has been diagnosed with chronic fatigue who is on the path to getting POTS diagnosed is that we need to approach a diagnostic label very cautiously because if itās inappropriately applied it can serve to obscure the nature of what youāre dealing with, which is counterproductive.
So this definitely points in the direction of either burnout or undiagnosed ADHD. Or, worse yet, both.
This one is super interesting. If you literally feel like thereās some sort of physiological or psychological āblockā that makes you sort of freeze up or buffer, particularly with transitioning between doing things and especially between physical āboundariesā like crossing through doorways then this is a really big indicator of catatonia, which is very common in autism and itās astoundingly lacking in research and general awareness, even within psychiatry itself.
This sounds a lot like burnout.
Iād be looking at interception here and Iād try some behavioural interventions like having some snack food like trail mix on hand at school constantly while making a habit out of eating a little bit throughout the day or scheduling in mandatory eating breaks in whatever way structures it well for you - it might mean setting a specific alarm on your phone with a label promoting you to eat or it might mean blocking out eating times in a digital calendar or it might mean literally scheduling in what youāre going to eat and when for your daily agenda - find something that āfitsā how your brain works and run with it.
Iād also consider scheduling in downtime and alone time to decompress throughout the day. Like library time or spending break time away from others by the pond on campus or putting on your noise cancelling headphones and listening to calming or soothing-stim music. That sort of thing.
Lastly itās worth examining your āsensory dietā.
Iāve written comments about this elsewhere and Iāll link to a good comment here in the edit once I post this one and dredge up the right one Iāve made prior (Iām currently on a mobile device so itās not conducive to this stuff.)Edit: Okay I found what Iām looking for here in this comment but at the risk of seeming self-congratulatory, I found a couple of other good ones that are also worth reading here (itās specific to misophonia but the advice can generally be applied to sensory processing more broadly), and one here (skip to where I start with āthatās a big questionā and I start discussing habit stacking/habit advice for neurotypical people vs neurodivergent people, although the rest of the comment may have stuff that is tangentially of interest to what Iāve mentioned here in this comment).
This too points towards burnout but it could also fit within ADHD struggled with task initiation and within catatonia so itās inconclusive.
Sounds very much like burnout or ADHD. Hard to tell.
Just fyi this is not intended to be diagnostic of ADHD, not that Iām qualified to diagnose anything anyway, but thereās enough in what youāve said that would make me want to look at whether undiagnosed ADHD is at play here and to go through an actual diagnostic process to either rule it in or to rule it out.
Oh yeah, and thereās a big discussion about whether autistic burnout is in any way different from a form of autistic catatonia (or if parts of autistic burnout actually overlap with autistic catatonia). Thereās an entire effortpost which is calling my name on this topic.
Oh boy, thatās a lot to read⦠I will just type out whatever comes to mind.
So, first off: what is āautistic catatoniaā? I have never heard of this or even just āplain catatoniaā.
Thatās basically where Iām already at regarding possible ADHD. I started the process at looking at counsel or whatever means of support available, so I want to get into that too. If only the municipality will get back to meā¦
I must say that I took your examples of crossing physical boundaries metaphorically: making that first step towards doing something is often scary to me, because it means Iāve committed to it and have to walk the path with uncertainty. I donāt experience it in the literal sense, except when itās tied to such a moment, like leaving bed.
Other people here suggested timers and such. My mind worries that Iāll eventually start ignoring them anyway, but I should at least have tried it.
As for my āsensory dietā, I argue I have not enough stimulation, leading me to get lost in my own head in search of something to do.
Lastly, I want to say that Iāve grown up to be scared of negative reactions / criticism, in particular from my mom: she has quite unfiltered reactions and when I complain successfully places the blame on me. I think her + my autistic perfectionism has contributed the most to a fear of trying or not doing things perfectly.
Iām gonna try and return to this comment but in the meantime I just wanted to reply with a couple of quick thoughts:
If that description of literally feeling a sort of block doesnāt fit then that makes catatonia less likely. It doesnāt rule it out entirely but it isnāt a flashing neon sign screaming out ācatatoniaā either.
Have you come across the concept of maladaptive daydreaming before? I wonder how closely this might fit your experience, or maybe part of it? Just mentioning this because I know itās gonna a slip my mind if I donāt ask now.