As someone with a partner who has …

Mm, so you don’t personally know what the experience is like. I have a partner with chronic pain, and though I can see what she does to handle it and get by, that doesn’t mean I know what it’s like. If I were to tell people with chronic pain, “Oh, it’s manageable, I know someone with it and I see them get along fine, so you must not be trying hard enough,” it would sound awfully insensitive, wouldn’t it?

That might sound like a far-fetched comparison, but if you understood what experiencing executive dysfunction felt like, you’d know just how disabling it can be. Good on your partner, I’m glad they’ve found a solution/system/medication that works for them. But ADHD is a spectrum just as autism is. Even though I’m AuDHD, I know the things that help me aren’t necessarily things that others would benefit from, because these conditions are highly individualized. To know one individual with one of these conditions and assume everyone else must be the same is beyond unhelpful, verging into offensive.

Username checks out. I find that better situational control has come with age, for me. I sure can put on the charm and be sociable, but it’s contextual. I can function well at work, as I’ve developed a “work persona” that helps keep me on the level, but once I’m clocked out it’s a different ballgame. I have to conserve my effort for the times I most need to focus, and doing the thing that brings me income, well, that’s a top priority. I spend a lot of “time off” alone recharging.

If you’re being a slob

Although I don’t expect you’re intending to carry on ableist rhetoric, the implication that someone with ADHD is a “slob” implies a misunderstanding of why we do what we do. What someone else might call “disorganized” could actually be organized in a way that facilitates our daily lives. Sure, I could keep my medicines in a cabinet, but when I see them on my nightstand I am far more likely to remember to take them. Sure, I could put away all my art supplies when I take a break from a project for the day, but then I’ll lose track of what I was working on. Every time I “tidy up” I end up spending a significant amount of time trying to get back into my normal rhythm afterwards.

People will use words like “slob” even though there’s no trash lying around, I keep the floor swept, I wash my dishes immediately, etc., all because surfaces are covered in items that I actually use. My private space is for living in, and it reflects that. If someone else doesn’t like it, well, that sucks for them, but to imply that we’re “slobs” for finding ways to make our daily lives run smoothly is an unfair characterization.

I might try to get a couch with my next paycheck. This is all really good to know, thank you. I’m saving your comment for reference when shopping.

Right? It’s such a petty thing. Yeah, I get not wanting to touch the toilet, but I don’t understand why the burden should be 100% on either gender. Just pay attention to the seat before you use it (regardless of which direction it’s going), do your business, keep it clean, replace the toilet paper when it runs low/out, and we’ll all be fine.

Edit to add. My ex’s ex made a huge deal about the toilet seat. When I first moved in with him, there were stickers that said “PUT THE SEAT DOWN” on the bottom side of it. I thought it was humiliating. I bought some Goo Gone and removed that shit.

It’s because a lot of women “hover.” They don’t want to touch the seat, but also don’t want to use seat covers or lay down toilet paper. Instead, they squat and hover over the seat, which leaves a gap for piss to spill onto. Then for some unknown reason, they don’t take some toilet paper and clean up the pee they leave.

It’s terrible and I can’t understand it.

I’m a woman but I grew up with guys, so I never understood what the big deal was. It’s ingrained in me to check the seat before sitting, as well as to check the amount of toilet paper before going.

Guys have to lift the seat, I have to put it down, so what? I’m washing my hands when I’m done anyway (and I hope others are too), and I’d rather just have to put a seat down than have to wipe someone else’s piss off it (which I have to do in public restrooms, because some women are straight-up animals there.)

I remember back in high school, hearing how some classmates filled up their metaphorical plate with activities. After a full day of school they’d have clubs, extra-curricular classes, sports, sometimes jobs. Just thinking about their lifestyles makes me anxious. I can understand wanting to set yourself/your kid up for success, but having a bit of down time can be just as crucial to developing one’s self.

Personally, I enjoy a number of hobbies, but none of them are requirements. That’s what makes them work for me. I like that I can pick up and put down the scarf I’m knitting when I feel like it. I like that I can paint if the fancy strikes me, but I’m under no obligation to complete it (and every bit of practice helps.) Every so often I’ll complete something, and that definitely feels good. But keeping them in the realm of “optional” goes far toward letting me create without feeling pressure about it.

As to low-demand lifestyles, I think a lot of people here have already said some great ideas. For me, I dedicate a lot of time to myself. I feel most demands from other people, but when I’m alone I can breathe. Yeah, my apartment’s not sparkling clean. Yeah, some days off I won’t shower. Maybe I’m late to take the trash out, or I tolerate some light hunger because I can’t be arsed to cook something yet. I eventually get around to these things, I just do so in my own time. Executive function difficulties can be as much a spectrum as autism itself, though, so your mileage may vary.

If something’s really important, I’ll set up multiple alarms (as others have stated.) I have to repeatedly be reminded when I have obligations some days, lest I slip into the timeless void and realize too late that, oh snap, the bank (or whatever) is closed. I also have an aversion to alarm sounds, yet that helps me too - I’m more likely to remember to do a thing just because I want to avoid having to hear my alarm.

It’s somewhere on Pornhub, probably

Now I’m picturing Bob Ross painting Uranus.

I quit a job in part because they started edging the line of ethics every day, and I reached a point where any day I could be asked to do something unethical, and not wanting to be put in that position, I decided to quit without giving advanced notice, just an email one night where I highlighted reasons for it.

The HR guy emailed back, accepting my resignation, but included a dig that it was “also unethical” to leave without giving 2 weeks notice. 😂 Dude, 2 weeks is a courtesy. If the company had responded to issues earlier, perhaps I would’ve considered staying another 2 weeks. But we were being asked to do things that may even have been illegal, and I was not about to stick around until something went wrong.

I’ve got a friend who throws great parties. All around the house, she has dishes and cups filled with pre-rolled joints anyone could just pick and light up.

I’m excited to go to her birthday party coming up.

It sounds like you’re doing well on learning your adult skills. You should be proud of the independent things you’re learning to do! I like that you reward yourself for doing things, even if others don’t - that’s a part of the “self care” that a lot of older adults have to teach themselves.

Yes, it’s normal for those on the spectrum to not line up with their age bracket. I was the opposite as a kid, always seeming older than my age. Nowadays (in my mid-30s) I’m often mistaken for somebody much younger. I often find adults to be tiring and boring, but children are full of curiosity - just like me.

It took decades to learn the social skills and emotional regulation that I didn’t have in my youth. I imagine you’ll probably learn a lot over the coming decades as well. Don’t worry too much about matching with your age - getting along with people who are different from you is a special trait. When I was your age, I was the youngest person in my workplace, and my favorite coworker was the oldest person there. At first I felt weirded out by people my age (since I wasn’t into partying and drinking and drugs, like they were.) But I’ve grown to understand them, even if I never got into their lifestyles.

Coloring is an activity that many adults have gotten into as of late as well, or at least that people talk about more. My girlfriend has coloring books. When we’re together, we often get creative and do crafts, but she has the coloring books for when she wants something that requires less cognitive energy (you don’t have to plan out as much on a coloring page than when drawing from scratch.) If that’s what makes you happy, go for it! They make adult coloring books for a reason.

I’d also say, you don’t have to give up on your dreams of being an educator. However, taking the time to learn life skills for yourself is a prerequisite. I work with autistic preschool and young elementary school age kids today, but I wouldn’t have been able to do this at your age. The years of learning how to handle myself mean that I can now “pay it forward” for the kids I work with, to teach them things that I had to learn the hard way. Learning psychology has gone a long way as well, as I have more knowledge of techniques that help guide little ones toward the right decisions.

Anyway, my comment’s kind of all over the place, but I have to leave for work in a few minutes and just wanted to reassure you. You sound ordinary for a fellow spectrumite. Keep doing what makes you happy, but keep educating yourself as well. Good luck. :)

Don’t they already have shadow profiles on all of us, even if we don’t use Facebook? I long ago figured that they’re able to get ahold of all the info they want on us without our consent. Is tracking our habits and relationships not enough? Even if the idea is to use this as age verification, I highly doubt Facebook’s as clueless as to not have a ballpark estimate on all of us by now. (Or did the introduction of AI break things so bad that they can no longer deduce the sort of data they want? Hey, I can dream.)

This is what sold my friends on meta.

I haven’t been to Facebook in a while, but I do remember it mostly being shit. I guess some things haven’t changed.

Off topic, but I want to say that I appreciate you explaining your downvote. Some of the downvotes on here seem entirely senseless and definitely make one wonder, “Why would anyone downvote that?” When people explain their reasoning, not only are they contributing to Lemmy in a more constructive way, but it helps other commenters gain perspective. Thank you for adding your thoughts.

And of course especially in moments in high emotion everyone is TALK TO ME

Ugh, this is the worst. Like, I don’t want to appear snippy to those who are trying to help me, but insisting I talk in that moment is going to guarantee “an attitude” in my tone and words that don’t make sense (and that I can’t explain in the moment.) As well, every word I utter will feel “wrong” in my heart, only being emitted due to coersion, soon to be followed by regret. All because language production in my brain has checked out - my mind’s too fogged to edit my speech properly, and I can’t access the words that fit appropriately. So any word salad that comes out will be more confusing than silence.

Then when my tone is off, I feel bad for making other people feel bad, and it’s a vicious cycle of stress and self-disgust.

After the event mentioned in my last comment, the upper management directly asked how they could help me in those times. I said, “Don’t try to make me talk. Instead, get me somewhere where I can be alone for a few minutes.” So that’s the plan in place now.

It especially sucks when there’s only a particular energy range in which you can control your tone and volume. If I’m too tired, distracted, or stressed, people think I’m upset at them. If I’m excited (usually when around a friend I’m in-tune with), I become too loud. I often don’t notice these changes. When I’m excited, I appreciate someone politely informing me that I’m being too loud. But when I’m stressed, I don’t have the mental bandwith to modulate my tone. Harping on me about it, or holding it against me, is only going to escalate the issue.

I’ve learned to outright tell people, “Don’t worry, I’m not upset at you. I’m just stressed.”

Unfortunately, when I’m past my limit and I desperately need help, I can barely communicate at all. This came up a few months ago at a new job. I was having a shut down and barely squeaked out an, “I need help” while looking at two managers. They looked me in the eye, then completely ignored me. After that I took heavy breaths to try to regulate myself. Unfortunately, the managers mistook my behavior for impatience (they even called my breathing “huffy”), and shortly after they wrote me up for “unprofessionalism.”

I was so upset, when I went home I wrote my perspective of the situation. I even included a comic that illustrated what it’s like in my brain when I get overwhelmed. I presented it to the top management in my center in an emotional roller coaster of an essay, where I explained that I can’t always control my tone, and how I can lose the ability to speak if the stress gets too high. Thank goodness, they were receptive!

Later that same week, we had a meeting with the entire center. The topic was “Professionalism.” At first, my heart sank, expecting to feel horrible all over again.

But to my incredible relief, “helping a teammate who’s struggling” was highlighted as a core pillar of “professionalism.” I was shocked to be vindicated. I’ve never had someone stick up for me like that, it’s still kind of hard for me to believe it happened.

if you ask in a tone of voice that sounds like you are asking because you are impatient

I don’t want to hear this crap in an autism community, and I doubt I’m alone in feeling that way.

We are well aware that our “tones” are misinterpreted. We frequently either cannot recognize or regulate our tones of voice. For some of us, this lifelong issue has hurt us to the point of trauma. I can still hear my mom, denying me because, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it,” while she’s still unwilling to admit or unaware of the fact that sometimes, changing my tone is an impossible task.

I don’t want to be upset, but this is absolutely a sore spot for me. I’d be shocked if I were the only one here that gets triggered by this ableist talk.

Sometimes I debate on making a comment, and sometimes I simply don’t have the energy to complete one. But sometimes, I think, “every comment grows Lemmy a little bit more” and decide, fuck it, I’ll say something. People might like it, people might not like it, but you never know what can grow from such a little spark.

I appreciate Lemmy in this regard. We live in a world with many voices trying to drown out each other for a bit of public attention. It’s enough to make some people think their own thoughts aren’t worthy and to stay silent, discounting their potential contributions. Having a platform that’s low-stakes, where people aren’t chasing internet fame, gives many of us an opportunity to express ourselves for the sake of expressing ourselves. Having this outlet is vital for many of us. I’m glad to be a part of this community, and it is truly a community. I have no idea if anyone recognizes me, but I definitely recognize other frequent commenters. It’s almost like we’re neighbors, not in physical proximity, but with a shared gathering space to meet and share our thoughts.

And I love that.