Australis13

I hear you! Getting the balance right is very challenging. One of my approaches has been to try to set up systems to make day-to-day stuff easier to do, which means I have more bandwidth for work and hobbies. But that in itself can be a real challenge, as those sort of systemic “upgrades” are often big tasks that take a lot of time and energy to implement.

About the only time I’ve been told I’m unpleasant to be around is if I’m having a meltdown or highly agitated (so near a meltdown).

The average person whom I mask around never sees an issue.

Fair enough, and I’d agree that the sense of “zoning out” is more prevalent in the ND community.

I guess my main reluctance here is that whilst the effects may feel the same for some people, I’m skeptical that the underlying mechanism is (beyond the aforementioned increased risk of sleep issues), and wanted to ensure that headline-only readers didn’t think this article was necessarily representative of autism.

Thanks, I appreciate the different perspective. As some who has experienced autistic burnout and also has sleep challenges, my personal experience is that the impacts are different, but that’s just me.

Interesting but I don’t think it’s necessarily related to neurodiversity. The article is talking about severe sleep deprivation; it suggests that the brain is attempting to conduct activities usually reserved for sleep (e.g. clearing out waste materials via cerebrospinal fluid) whilst you’re awake, resulting in those loss of concentration moments.

Now, sleep is more often troublesome for neurodivergent individuals (particularly autistics), so some degree of this effect is potentially seen with greater frequency in autistics, but I would be hesitant to point to this as the main driver of attention-related difficulties without further data (especially when we know that there are other factors that influence attention regulation in neurodivergent individuals).

I can’t really offer much advice with the family dynamic, but I can share my experience with a septoplasty.

I’ve had a septoplasty. It would take me 2-3x as long to clear a cold than everyone else and I’d come down with at least one sinus infection every year until I had the surgery. By the sound of it, if your ENT (Ear-Nose-Throat specialist) has recommended one for your symptoms, it is worth doing. It has made a big difference to my quality of life.

You can explain to your ENT that you’re nervous about the surgery. In my case (because I am terrible with getting an IV/drip for anathesia) they used nitrous oxide to knock me out so they could get the IV in for the surgery. Last thing I remember was breathing it in; then nothing else until I woke up in recovery. If you’ve had past surgeries involving anathesia where you’ve unexpectedly woken up, make sure you tell the ENT and anathetist beforehand so they can take appropriate action. If you’ve had no problems, though, you can remind yourself of this to help reassure yourself that you’ll get through the surgery fine.

If you’re used to constant congestion and other nasal issues, then most of the post-surgery period is not going to be any worse. It’s really only the first 2-3 days that are particularly uncomfortable with the inflammation, mucus and post-surgery bleeding (there shouldn’t be any significant bleeding after the first night, especially if you follow your ENT’s post-surgery advice - usually regular nasal/sinus rinses which helps flush out the mucus and muck). Even then it’s still possible to get some sleep; you’re unlikely to be falling asleep randomly the next day but will feel pretty tired and sore. Plan to have a slow couple of days relaxing (e.g. watching TV or reading), and allow for the possibility of taking a nap in the afternoons, just in case you need it. That way you have more control over where you sleep if you need to.

That’s my point. I feel like they have been sitting on this for a while and didn’t release it ages ago because it would be one more thing to reduce the odds of people shifting from 10 to 11.

Right, so they wait until just after Windows 10 reaches EOL to release the patch for this annoying bug. Typical. They’ve probably had the solution ready for ages.

I can empathise. Pumpkin is a particularly strong flavour/smell, and even today I cannot stomach pumpkin soup.

Glad she was able to recover and finish the design. It’s an impressive (suitably creepy and terrifying) result.

That’s quite possible, unfortunately…

I have several use cases, a big one being that it gives me an alternate storage medium for backing up home photos and videos. Obviously there’s caveats on how long BD-Rs last (although M-discs should outlast me) and the issue of needing a player in future, but it gives me more peace of mind knowing that I can backup these sorts of things to different storage types (external hard drives are all well and good until they’re corrupted by power issues or user error, or you want to keep a copy at a relative’s place and it’s a multi-hour trip… with optical media you can just keep adding discs to the offsite backup as needed and update the external HDD less frequently).

The other major use case I have has already been mentioned - backing up Blurays that I’ve bought (or, in the case of a few shows I like, being able to compare the DVD vs Bluray frame by frame).

Interesting to see that demand for optical drives is increasing, although apparently it’s only in Japan: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/optical-drive-demand-surges-amid-windows-10-retirement-japanese-users-switching-to-windows-11-are-buying-up-blu-ray-drives

Still, hopefully that means Bluray writers stay on the market for a bit longer.

I’m sorry to hear that. It’s not your fault, it’s that whoever assessed you did not have a good understanding of autistic masking (nor how difficult it can be to stop masking once you’ve been doing it for decades - it’s not like there’s an on/off switch…).

Physio = physiotherapist, myo = myotherapist. Here in Australia they’re separate professions, but I understand in the US there’s an overlap.

Can you describe the pain? For me at least, muscle pain generally seems to be an ache or there’s a pulling sensation as well as the pain (indicating muscular tension), whereas if it’s nerve pain it can be a burning sensation, really “sharp” pain, or even just “pure” pain.

Also, can you tell us what exercise activities are you trying that cause this pain? Not all exercises work for everyone (e.g. I do not jog or run because I have foot issues and even walking around for a few hours, despite my orthotics, leaves my feet really sore; on the other hand, I enjoy cycling… when I have the time!).

One suggestion I would have is to see a physio or myo if you can afford it and get checked out - see if they can help you identify which muscles are particularly weak and where you tend to carry tension (depending on how well your interoception works, you may not even be aware of it). Addressing those types of issues can help make exercise a lot less painful (particularly if you have muscular tension issues in certain areas, since that makes the surrounding muscles overwork just to compensate).

Oh, I definitely agree. We need better privacy and data protection laws here in Australia too. In the meantime, however, I do what I can to minimise my footprint. I’m well aware that other people are going to be the weak link!

Fortunately not… I’m generally the one responsible for IT maintenance with my parents’ as they get older. Disabled OneDrive long ago since they don’t use it.

Probably right on the money, sadly.

If I hadn’t abandoned OneDrive already, this would make me do so.

I wonder if the concept of identity has anything to do with it (see https://neuroclastic.com/the-identity-theory-of-autism-how-autistic-identity-is-experienced-differently/ )? If advertising focuses on NTs and social/relational examples for the product, perhaps that is why it is less effective on autistics?