Something scheduled. I am useless in the lead up because “I have to be ready”
Even a Teams call where I know what to do and say and am fully versed in the topic. The whole day I’m like “got that thing at 11, can’t miss it”.
And then I randomly start doing something else and forget the really important appointment or meeting anyway
10:58 waiting with the Teams window open, might just check my email
11:17 oh no
AuDHD gang.
Turns out the Sword of Damocles is not a parable about the precariousness of people in positions of power, it’s just a first hand allegory of a neurodivergent person with a scheduled phonecall in the the afternoon.
YesNo, but ya also that, sorta
Something scheduled that gets canceled 5 minutes before it’s supposed to happen.
God thats the best feeling
I had an in person meeting that did that recently. I’m wfh most of the time, and this really soured me
So much this.
omg 100%. if I have anything going on at all, even if it’s just a fucking delivery, it ruins my whole day
Opening the post to comment an afternoon appointment…. Yeah.
“Hey, let’s meet up later today and do something fun!” Instant anxiety for the rest of the day. Plan changes are bad and worse if they are non-specific. There’s a reason I don’t cultivate friendships anymore.
Maybe try to find people who are on the same page? What if someone just wanted to visit you and shoot the shit? Would that be anxiety inducing?
It would absolutelybe anxiety-inducing. But if they said so up-front it’d be less bad than my, deliberately keeping-it-vague, example. That said: I don’t want anyone that “just wanted to visit” and “shoot the shit” in my life. I want to plan social encounters at least a week in advance, longer is better.
Especially if you have one of those friends who invites you to do something, and then they “just have to do a thing real quick” and you end up going with them while they do a bunch of random chores in various places.
If someone does that to me, I’m not seeing them again ever.
Any big event in the afternoon/evening will just completely ruin my morning, as I will be unable to think about anything else
I have this friend that I invite over sometimes, but he has this habit of extending that invite to mutual friends without telling me, and so I’ll suddenly have 2 or 3 people rocking up to my place unexpectedly.
It drives me absolutely bananas. It was supposed to be a low-key hang out and now I have to come up with group activities on the spot.
Id fucking convulse. Props for keeping your head
That is unacceptable behavior, and I am quite sure many neurotypicals would also agree, even though it definitely depends on the cultural context as well. At least here it is just extremely rude to bring more quests without asking the host first, or at least telling them beforehand, unless you specifically have that type of relationship, or the invite was clearly open. That is like intentionally trying to embarass you in front of their other friends, as you might not have enough food, or drink, or other things prepared. That person would not be my friend afterwards.
Yes one quest is enough thank you very much
This is insane
Oh my god, this resonates hard. When I go over and the plan is to play board games but somehow it ends up having a group of 7 where the ideal group is 4 and I don’t have 7 Wonders to play. It always ends up just drinking and talking because the group is too big to do anything.
7 ppl is just 2 games happening at the same time.
Surprises or a change of schedule/unplanned activity, basically spontaneity is guaranteed to mess up the rest of the day.
When someone interrupts you in the middle of doing something to talk about something and they keep talking on and on just repeating themselves bringing no new information.
When my workflow is repeatedly interrupted by a stupid notification, request to “log in your Microslop account” or the OS hanging a few seconds after every use input on the Windows computer that I am forced to use for work. All unnecessary hurdles that interrupt my ideal workflow are the worst.
When you’re working in something that requires you to concentrate and you are being repeatedly pulled out of this state of concentration by people who bug you about things. If it happens too many times in a row you end up with a huge headache and need a few hours of rest before you can concentrate again.
Getting interrupted “real quick” while I’m in the zone.
To not understate, everyone hates that, yes, but I am actively done for the day. I don’t want to talk to anyone anymore, I lose my appetite, I don’t want to play my games, I don’t want to finish work.
I’m done, and the task that I was doing is at an extreme risk of never being completed ever again.
I make my space to be “in the zone” with so much effort, don’t break it, it’s sacred to me.
Imagine watching a magical 3 hour movie and 2 hours in somebody cuts the power, and if you want to watch it again you have to start from the beginning
I hear ya. I have a ballooning collection of unfinished games because I lost that “zone” for too long or was interrupted too frequently.
Exactly. I mean, I know it’s a first world problem but I suffer being both a completionist and neurodivergent.
Not being on time to a planned event. I want to be slightly early/on time. For reasons unbeknownst to me, when I say “we need to leave at 35 after to get there on time”, the people I’m going with aren’t ready until 50 after. Drives me absolutely bonkers.
I hate not being on time. It gives me mad anxiety. I’m usually 10 mins early and then everyone else is late (which I’m surprisingly ok with - I just don’t want to be late myself).
I can completely understand how anxious and upset you’d be if someone made you wait so you were late to an event.
One time in high school I was supposed to go to a movie with a friend of mine, she was supposed to come to my place first and we’d leave from there. She never showed up (and it was the 90s so no texting) so I was just like “okay” and went about my day. Two days later she randomly showed up at my house and asked if I wanted to go. I said no because she was two entire days late and now I’m doing something else, and she got annoyed at me for not dropping everything and going.
I do not understand this.
I’m in Autistic burnout… the slightest stress - just about any official letter, appointment with benefit agency or sometimes just something nasty on the news - can lead me straight into dissociation or shutdown. Occasionally, just having to concentrate hard can also wipe me out in a similar way. It usually takes at least a few days for me to recover.
I’m nearly 60, and this is new to me - I mean, I’ve had bouts before, but never as debilitating as this. I used to be able to cope with these things, even if they darkened my day.
Whooof.
This also describes our state, and it sucks.
Solidarity. You’re so right. It’s a wild ride, but I’m charting my symptoms, and they ARE improving - I hope the same is true for you. U had to make some big changes, cutting out energy drains, and then cut more and more. Self care is the most important thing in burnout, but learning what you need to do to provide yourself care is the hardest.
Two related things: people commenting on my tone of voice, and people assuming my emotions (usually because of my tone of voice.)
I’ve got a lot of trauma related to my tone. I’ve been punished so many times for it without having any clue what people were talking about, and now whenever someone brings up that word, all the deep-seated pain immediately rises to the surface. The only way I’ve found to get by is to heavily mask - if I’m clearly cheery, nobody can accuse me of having the wrong tone or attitude. Problem is, masking takes effort. When my energy is low, I can’t self-monitor the way I’d like to, and people start to think I’m upset because my tone reverts to the way I naturally talk. I’ll be happy, just a bit stressed or tired, and people will start saying shit like, “Calm down,” or “Do you need a break? You’re upset, go take a break.”
Then when that happens, it’s like my battery goes from 20% to zero. It’s so hard to self-advocate when others think they know what you’re feeling better than you do. When you can’t control your vocal tone, people will assume any response is proof that you were upset in the first place (instead of a sign that their assumptions just sapped the last bit of energy out of you.) It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, upsetting me when I wasn’t upset before, even if I was feeling great beforehand.
I wish neurotypical people could understand that not everyone expresses their emotions through tone, that sometimes it’s a matter of energy being diverted from masking and into more crucial, pertinent tasks. Honestly, I wish I didn’t have to mask at all, but I know that if I didn’t I’d get a lot more comments and assumptions thrown at me. In the end, letting the mask slip results in punishment. Talking the way I naturally talk is punishment-worthy. That’s a lesson that keeps getting reinforced every time I dare not put effort into masking and tone-modulation first and foremost.
Oooh and it’s a double edged sword because people assume that your cheery mask voice is your default, so when it slips because you’re tired, they assume that must mean something is really wrong because you are normally all cheery.
So sorry this has been used against you in such a horrible way
I have a naturally resting bitch face, and the tone of my voice can sound pissed off even when I’m not. It really boils my piss having to justify myself when all I’m doing is happily being somewhere in my own head minding my own business
My wife leaves her sunglasses on the dashboard of her car and they slide to the left or slide to the right when you go around a corner.
A few minutes of that is enough to ruin my day.
You just very clearly identified sonething that I have spent the past decade suppressing being annoyed about in our shared car.
Gift her a little magnetic or button thing that holds sunglasses and clips onto her sunvisor.
Have a social plan that I agreed to months earlier
There’s something about waking up that just ruins everything.
We make a plan where you tell me Xyz, but don’t mention other important factors to the plan. What I expect to happen doesn’t happen. instant mood shift into anger mostly because I should have asked more questions and you should have planned better.
Someone existing in the same space as me can have nothing to do with me and I’ll still find them distracting. Somehow they’re sitting quietly by themselves talking but that chatter makes me want to turn my skin inside out it’s so distracting.
This question, but everyone has to sit in a circle and share their answer plus repeat the answer of everyone that went before them.
