Just had an #anxiety overwhelm moment while looking at my to-do list, so I put it down and found myself looking around my room. I had to stop myself from doing that and just close my eyes and curl up instead, because every object in my room is automatically linked to multiple thoughts and associations, many of which are Things I Should Do.
I found myself thinking of a past therapist who often encouraged me to do a ’name five things you can see' activity to deal with anxiety, and how unhelpful I found it.
A strong pattern with my #autism is getting caught up with and overwhelmed by my own thoughts, which can certainly run wild on their own but are also easily triggered by things I perceive around me, and I wonder if anyone else #actuallyautistic can relate to this and find commonly recommended sensory grounding methods, presumably helpful for many people, to be totally useless or even harmful.
@actuallyautistic
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from samiam@lor.sh
@samiam
I know the feeling... The worst thing to do when task saturation sets in is to look around and notice more open tasks. Depending on what else is going on around me, the threshold for task saturation can be remarkably low - leading to something that could easily be misread as anxiety. Trying to deal with it as such is a bad idea, though. The only thing that helps is to focus on bare essentials and leave everything else for a later time.
@actuallyautistic
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from DL1JPH@sueden.social
@samiam
The thing about task saturation is that it mostly gets talked about in the setting of high-stakes activities such as diving or flying a plane. However, it seems that monotropic thinkers in general are more prone to having the same issue in daily life - it's a diagnostic part of ADHD and a lot of autistic people describe similar experiences, though usually in very different terms (look up spoon theory).
@actuallyautistic
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from DL1JPH@sueden.social
@samiam @actuallyautistic I hear this. In a moment of overwhelm, a list of 5 of this thing, 4 of that thing, etc... is way too much. I just need ONE thing to focus on - even better if it's a familiar, safe object with proven history of regulating me.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from _Lou@mastodon.social
@samiam @actuallyautistic I'm not sure how I would remember to focus on five things when I'm in anxiety overwhelm.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from BernieDoesIt@mstdn.social
@samiam @actuallyautistic
Do you find it difficult to get rid of things because the stuff you need to throw out •has its own emotions•? ... Like, WTF is wrong with my brain? ... But my house is getting junky and it gets more paralyzing the junkier it gets, and now I know how people unintentionally become hoarders.
Anyway, I find it hard to kill things that aren't alive and so I'm the one suffering.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from roldan_belenos@mastodon.social
@roldan_belenos @actuallyautistic I have feelings about objects that make it hard to get rid of things, but it's not exactly a sense that they have feelings. It's more of depersonalized sense that things should be appreciated and used, that they deserve to be useful and by throwing them away I'm doing something wrong. I might describe it as what the objects "want" but I don't literally of them as though they have feelings or a personality.
It's possible that I used to do that as a child but it's very deeply buried...
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from samiam@lor.sh
@roldan_belenos @actuallyautistic now I'm having more thoughts about this. I think that overcaring about the feelings of objects is one of several "mental traps" that I identified as very real threats to my sanity and functioning back when I was a child. I have long since built very robust safeguards into my thinking, which at one point felt healthy and helpful, and then for many years passed entirely out of my conscious awareness, but have lately resurfaced and now I have a faint inkling of a sense of an idea that I would "naturally" care about these things a great deal, but I've essentially dehumanized them (you know, like humans sometimes do to other actual humans) so that I don't have to care.
I am not ready to look very closely at that, though. Yikes 😬
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from samiam@lor.sh
@samiam
Empathy for inanimate objects seems to be a common theme... I'll absolutely talk to my plushies (they're sharks, they won't answer) and there's definitely a more general sense of objects having something of a "personality" - not necessarily the same way a human would, but not something to be entirely ignored either. It's very obvious when I'm talking about machines doing what they do, to the point where most people around me have picked up on it.
@roldan_belenos @actuallyautistic
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from DL1JPH@sueden.social
@roldan_belenos @actuallyautistic I've heard that hoarders have a feeling like the sentimental attachment that might prevent someone from throwing away a small but meaningful trinket, but that feeling is dialed up to eleven and is triggered by literally every single thing they own. I don't know for sure and I haven't ever had occasion to directly discuss it with someone who has experience, but if that's reasonably accurate it feels very understandable to me.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from samiam@lor.sh
@roldan_belenos @actuallyautistic I'm trying to say that the feeling that I imagine can drive people into deep hoarding is one that evokes a sense of sympathy and understanding in me, not that I experience it or claim to know what's the experience is really like for others
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from samiam@lor.sh
@roldan_belenos @samiam @actuallyautistic This is really common: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30101594/
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from sejarnold@sciencemastodon.com
@sejarnold @roldan_belenos @actuallyautistic oh man. Now I have to read it 😭
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from samiam@lor.sh
@sejarnold @roldan_belenos @samiam @actuallyautistic
.
So what’s the opposite trait? DGAF about mere “things?”
.
We look at the world and we think caring about “things,” is some weird trait? Why are we talking about the carers, is what I’m saying, why is that a thing, and the opposite isn’t?
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from punishmenthurts@autistics.life
@roldan_belenos @samiam @actuallyautistic
Had 24 years of that at our previous house. Then we got a huge industrial sized rubbish bin delivered. It took some time to conquer the emotional attachments, but once I started tossing stuff into that bin, it became easier to decide what was going to be taken to our new house.
It's a refreshing experience, and somehow easier to fill a large dump bin sitting outside the house, than trying to pick things to cart off to a refuse station in your car.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from lesf@mastodon.nzoss.nz
@samiam First time for me to read how I feel to: “because every object in my room is automatically linked to multiple thoughts and associations, many of which are Things I Should Do.“ 🫂❤️
And I don’t know how to deal with that? I have no idea if it’s autism and/or ADHD, and what to do. The 5 things trick is so unhelpful for me too…
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from adelinej@piaille.fr
@samiam @actuallyautistic
Trash loves to go in the trashcan and hang out with its trash friends! And recycling with their recycling friends! (Though both groups get along with each other and will gladly hang out together, if you're not sure who is who - they know its often only a difference of municipality)
Papers know that whatever they have printed on them can be helpful, but don't mind being blended up to be a new paper with new information. Its exciting!
Clothes love to be worn, and to hang out in the closet or dresser, and to take a tubby in the washing machine!
Being donated is a brand new adventure!
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from heavenslittlebastard@sunny.garden
@samiam I had an awful time with one recently, a "leaf on the water" meditation. Not sure why exactly, but it went wrong so fast.
I find pressing my feet into the ground helpful
@actuallyautistic
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from willaful@romancelandia.club
@willaful @actuallyautistic noticing that I didn't reply but had thought about it.
I think it's unfortunate that mediation is seen as universally good and utterly harmless. I am not opposed to mediation in any way, but if it can effectively alter brain function for the better as many believe, it seems there must also be potential for bad reactions or side effects. I have no data; they may be rare, and I'm not trying to inflate them -- but they deserve some mention in any introduction to mediation, and there should be some discussion. And if different neurotypes might be found be seen to have different profiles for response to different mediations (a thought I have with admittedly no backup), ignoring this is downright abelist.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from samiam@lor.sh
@samiam Yes, that's a very valid point.
@actuallyautistic
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from willaful@romancelandia.club
@samiam
Conflating meditation with talking to God would be a huge downside.
It's probably like sleep — no physical downsides.
@willaful @actuallyautistic
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from mrblissett@mastodon.social
@mrblissett @willaful @actuallyautistic no idea what "god" has to do with this??
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from samiam@lor.sh This content has been proxied by September (3851b).Proxy Information
text/gemini