Not Lazy, Actually Neurodivergent! It's not an excuse, it's a REASON
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- Опубліковано 15 жов 2024
- Today we talk about executive dysfunction, laziness, internalized ableism, hygiene struggles and how they all relate to Autism and ADHD.
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#autism
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I tried to explain this to my doctor a little while ago when it came to working out. To other people it's just 1 step; a block of time that's "work out." To me it's about 800 different steps that I have to fight to do. It's very difficult to just up and do things when each "little thing" automatically becomes an Exploded-view diagram of miseries and maximum effort actions in my head. It's not just hopping in the shower. I have to psyche myself up to do it, I have to psyche myself up to take my cloths off, I have to deal with the noise and the wet, I have to plot out what I need to do against the energy I have vs the amount of hot water left, I have to resign myself to getting out and dealing with the cold, the drippy hair, slimy moisturizer, finding clean cloths that are comfortable, dealing with everything sticking to me. It's exhausting on the best of days.
I hope doc got it, even a little bit. 💙
I needed to hear this. My parents keep saying that it’s just that I’m not trying hard enough. It’s so irritating. 😑
same boat 💛
@@zidanidane ❤
The curly hair struggle is so real! The process of washing, conditioning, styling, and diffusing takes so much energy that I already feel tired and overwhelmed just thinking about it!! I just went 9 days without washing my hair because I was so drained from other life stuff. Finally had a good day today and got it washed. Thank you for sharing and making me feel so much less alone. It's always good to be reminded that I'm not lazy, it's just executive dysfunction.
Not lazy! 😁❤️😁
Thank you so much for posting this!
My daughter struggles to get a shower. She told me she doesn’t like the way the water feels on her skin. She knows that her long curly hair..will take a long time to wash and rinse. She doesn’t like dealing with her knotted hair.
She has told me that she feels claustrophobic in our shower.
A few days ago, she said she wanted to wash her hair but not get a shower. Her scalp was so itchy! She tried to figure out where we could do it.
She basically did most of the shampooing and rinsing her hair. When she finished she said I feel so much better.
My husband still doesn’t understand how difficult it is to get a shower.
Have you done the Curly girl method with your daughter? My tangles are almost non-existent since I started using that method of hair care.
For a few months I washed my hair in the sink, I really liked keeping it separate from my shower. I may go back to doing it that way.
You're right. Thinking about taking a shower is overwhelming and so exhausting. It takes at least a week to psych myself into it; then afterwards, it takes a week to recover from it.
A lot of people ask "Why can't you do the thing?".
Yep, I wish for more understanding.
I appreciated hearing you talk about this - I just lost my job after going on medical leave for mental health stuff including autism symptoms/burnout and I've been experiencing so much internalized ableism and shame about not being able to "just do it" like other people can.
I'm sorry you lost your job. I hope you can find time to recover and have support in doing so. ❤️ The world has so much to learn. We have so much to contribute, but we need to do it in our own way.
It is wild how this happens! It is like, no matter how much I want to do something sometimes, even something I like or a basic thing I must do, my brain says “no.” Just no. Like a wall to climb. Usually it is worse when I’ve been overstimulated or have something that will be overstimulating on the horizon.
I need frequent periods of low stimulation to transition tasks and do anything socially, mentally, emotionally, sensorily, or creatively demanding. Otherwise I end up in a shutdown.
Being called lazy for it really sucks, and I am glad I could finally let go of that criticism. We have to work with ourselves rather than against.
This is so relatable.
Thank you
My routine when I was last working:
1. Set multiple morning alarms including one that is literally in another room soI can't turn it off and fall back asleep.
2. Finally drag myself out of bed for the final alarm
3. Get dressed,which is usually quick if I planned outfit the night before (unless it gives me sensory ick). May take 20 mins if I have yo decide on the spot.
4. Pack my lunch and make tea and coffee to go and tea in mug. Drink mug tea. Take vitamins. Put on deodorant, run fingers through hair (very short at that time).
5. If not time to leave yet, try to eat a little bit. It's hard for me to eat too soon after waking so often I'd eat breakfast on midmorning break instead.
6. Run out the door trying to get to work on time
I was always exhausted because work started at 8am and I have a late sleep rhythm which means my best sleep schedule is from 12-8. So I was constantly under-rested since I can't sleep earlier. It sucked!
That routine usually took about 1 hr (including 15 min to walk to work) and didn't include hair washing/bathing, which I generally did at night. If I absolutely had to do an impromptu sink hair wash in the a.m. I might not have time to prep lunch and would have to buy it.
I totally get it. Every day I'm like, ok I'm gonna do some art today but end up doing nothing or something completely different. I wanted to record my first full video a few weeks ago and still haven't done that. But I did put everything ready so that's something. 😊
Babysteps! Gathering all the stuff is an accomplishment! Breaking the task into smaller tasks.
Hi, Amanda I am fortunate in that my hair drys very quickly, but otherwise this described my experiences quite well. Thank you for this video and all you do. Nancy
You are right. I am autistic and as for my executive functioning too imprecise to fit in desirable activities into time-slots, as I barely even perceive desire or will per se, handled as given by typically developed adults, though I am a jurist and keep any date as normatively required. In personal life though norms are disintegrated. What has helped me a lot to go through with academics and all was the occupation with bodybuilding content following the lockdowns, when I had to countervail the commute to uni, which escalated. Turns out sports adds a lot to neuroplasticity in general and executive functionality in particular. Your mind becomes more effective and direct, too, if your body is more athletic. It’s one a thing I hold a grudge for against the parents and their slacker relatives who raised me, that they shewed me not to put in effort, due to the neurotypical bias that everything just works.
I have never worried about having dry hair to leave the house. I have very long straight hair, and my hair takes hours to dry, and I guess I also get bored using a hair drier because it takes sooo long to make any difference, and is loud and the hot air eventually starts getting to me.
During the week I will usually shower and wash my hair at night, and plait it if it isn’t dry before I go to bed then it will dry wavy (although it doesn’t always dry by morning if I have the shower too late and it is too wet when it is plaited). I can’t imagine having the time to shower before work, I struggle to get out of bed until it is almost too late to get up and then cram all of the getting ready tasks into 15 minutes, and am lucky if I don’t leave later than I want, very happy to have flexible work hours.
others have already commented what i feel so this one's for the algorithm; this video makes me feel seen!
☺️☺️☺️ Thank you, it does help! Also, so glad you feel seen. I'm glad I decided to show up with wet hair. 😊
Thank you! ❤
I will echo the gratitude for this post, Amanda! I finally got my (usually weekly) shower done yesterday and then ran a simple errand, but there was a lot of traffic! After lunch, I was getting after myself, "ALL I've done today is shower; I HAVE to get some laundry done!" I did get 2 loads done which is my personal goal when I begin a "laundry day," and then I had to make dinner for my family, as well. 😌
When I came across your videos again, this one was profoundly topical for me. Thank you! You make me feel so NORMAL. 💞
I'm so happy! We all need to work on reframing our experiences as neurodivergent people separate from capitalistic neurotypical society! ❤️
Me and my afro hair every wash day 💯 it's not easy to manage with auDHD.
So hard, but I love my curls!
When i was a little girl I hated showers. They terrified me. My mom would force me to shower and have her bathe me. This went on until I was about 11.
Because Iwas born insulin resistant I have darkening in the many folds of my body, my mom didnt know this and just thought I was really dirty so she would scrub me and scrub me and I would cry and cry. It was so scary and my mom just expressed that I was ridiculous for feeling that way, disrespectful to her for "helping me", ungrateful, and something was wrong with me that I didn't like it.
I have not been diagnosed with Autism officially, I can't afford the evaluation because it costs 1600$ US dollars.
I know what you're talking about about the discoloration. I'm sorry that made showers traumatizing! The unaccessiblilty of ASD diagnosis is why self identified autism is accepted in the community ❤️
@@i.am.mindblind I so appreciate that. Thank you for your great videos. I relate to so much of what you say, and how you say it. We are about the same age I think, and I'm a mom too.
I'm really glad you started this channel, I enjoy your way of communicating.
☺️ Thank you for saying this. Being an Autistic momma isn't easy. We struggle to regulate our nervous systems along with our kids!
@@i.am.mindblind every day, multiple times a day. My daughter is 19 months old and sometimes I get so incredible touched out, the sensory input just overloads... it's so challenging, but my daughter is worth it..... and I want to make sure I handle her sensory issues with the kindness and understanding that I didn't have growing up.
Thank you for sharing your story. So many of your viewers hear it echoed in our own experience.
Really need to hear this. At impossible to shower times I use baby wipes then deo over my whole body. Fortunately, My little dog Nico is great at getting me out of bed. Thank you for your courage.
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Great video!😁
☺️☺️
Thank you so much for posting this. I was in tears because I relate to so much you were talking about. I would add that when you talk about our brain not letting us do something like taking a shower, for me I have often found that PDA is sometimes the root cause. It's like if society says I am supposed to take showers most every day well, then I am doing the opposite. I feel like I have to want to take the shower and not because society or someone says I need to. It's not always the case for me, but sometimes. Other times, it can be that I want to do other things more like watch videos or just sit in a chair. I can say to myself I will just do it later till its too late because either its bedtime or I have just done other things to waste time until it was too late , unless I would actually want to take a shower at 2 am in the morning. Basically, it's time wasting by my brain. I could rationalize in my mind that I really needed to take a shower, but my brain could come up with reasons not to at a particular moment. I totally get the under-employment thing. For me, I have severe social anxiety, so I worked at a grocery store bagging groceries because the job itself was easy, even if I felt it was a pretty degrading job and I did have to deal with a fair amount of people, which wasn't great with my social anxiety. I was treated like a peasant or someone with little intelligence by customers and my supervisors. I initially planned to be an optometrist, so I figured I will be doing better for myself in the future. Later on I did make it to optometry school, but unfortunately couldn't handle the workload in school. I tried for many years to get a degree in something, but just ran into different road blocks, especially with having to do presentations in class and my social anxiety. I also have dyspraxia, so that was an issue in learning to be an optician and I get left and right mixed up in my brain for some reason. Sorry, I am just rambling at the moment like I do sometimes. Neurotypical people just don't understand what we go through in our heads. You really hit home on a few topics as it relates to being Autistic. Take care and much love to you. 😊❤
Yes, thanks for adding PDA to the conversation, it can make task switching and execute dysfunction even worse.
So very true, thanks for letting people know this!
I like the octopus.
Thanks! He's so cuddly, I meant to show him to the camera better at the end, but forgot
I discover myself with you and you validate me.. Thank you for making this video ❤️
❤️❤️❤️
i love your videos so much. admittedly i watch them once in a blue moon due to the fear of committing 20 mins to something im not completely sure of and used to but when i do i can't ever say i regret it. i should get over that fear, i know i did one time
I'm glad you watch whenever you're up for it and glad to know you get something out of it. 💙
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Your channel is amazing.
I’d be interested in how you handle praise from a PDA perspective 😅
A lot times I'm impatient with compliments. I do like compliments on my mind, but like you pointed too, sometimes they can feel like a demand. Like keep up this level of work.
Thank you for the video! It was very helpful. Getting ready for work in the morning was a big cause of thoughts of "Well, I must just be incompetent/incurably lazy". Those thoughts have decreased since I started working on the Maybe-I'm-Autistic hypothesis. I still need reminders sometimes, though...
I do my shower first thing in the morning before I'm fully aware 😆 I do tend to space out in the shower and then suddenly realize that I have no idea how long I've been standing there or where I am in my shower process.
I was very lucky with my job when office was a thing - I didn't have to interface with clients in person so I was allowed to show up to the office with damp hair and make tea and breakfast at work and eat at my desk. And start and end of day is flexible, as long as I do 8 hours and start by 10am. I also learned that I just have to set my alarm for about an hour before I actually had to get up to give myself time for my brain-gears to get set up and turning enough to get me up and stumbling to the shower.
When I shower without washing my hair, I have to have it in a braid and pinned up because loose dry hair on wet skin gives me the heebie-jeebies. My hair is dead-straight and it's long enough that I can sit on it, so if it contacts wet skin, it makes a lot of contact.
Oh man do I know the zoning outing in the shower problem! I have to keep a clock in my bathroom or I'll completely lose track of time!
I did the same thing as you did, but I was a dog mom. I don't know how people produce and raise human children. yikes. dogs were enough for me.
THANK YOU!!!! I have *hated* taking showers for yeeeeeears -- most of my life -- and only recently learned that it's part of my autism. I *hate* that SHOCK of the water hitting my skin getting in, and I HATE being wet and drippy getting out. I HATE the feeling of trying to drag clothing over a just-showered body, the way it Velcros to my skin and doesn't want to go on, and I'm standing there shivering with cold or just need to get on with my day and the !@$^! clothes are sticking to my skin everywhere....ugh!!! I just hate it, hate it, hate it. I have to wash my hair every other day because if I don't it gets greasy (even though I'm older) and makes my head itch, but ughhhh how I avoid it as long as I can. There are other tasks that I avoid much in the same way, for other reasons -- like housecleaning, because I know that, due to my proprioceptive issues, it's going to HURT, literally. Every single time I clean house, even if it's just wiping down the kitchen counters, I hurt myself. I end up whacking my hand/fingers into the toaster or the back of the stove, etc. If it's vacuuming, it hurts my back, even using the extension attachments. Daily life just *hurts*.
Oh, and another thing I utterly hate but have to do: brush my teeth. Ohhhhhhh the struggles with nasty, foamy toothpaste!!!! I've had many dental issues because I avoided brushing my teeth when I was younger, but at the time I didn't know I have autism and I didn't know about non-foaming, flavorless toothpastes (which, tbh, may not have even existed back then). The struggles of just getting through the day as an autistic person would be simply incomprehensible to a neurotypical person who doesn't have these issues.
Ugh, thanks for this one.
Need to wash my hair today.
Biggest task - noone understands...
thank you
I can't help you other way but I always like and let the ads go till the end.
That's more than enough. Thank you. ❤️
I am lucky it takes about 15 mins for my hair to dry....
That is nice!
Hmmm. It's funny how things work out. Way back when, I did summer stock theater. You HAVE to put makeup on, because the spotlight would otherwise wash out your features. Especially from the back row of the audience! Now, night after night of wearing makeup completely took away ANY desire to wear makeup in the future! Now, I'm a CNA. The people that I work for don't care an iota if I come into work without makeup on! They care about having their needs met.
I actually prefer to go out with wet hair. I have to wear a back support at work, and steel bones hold in your body heat. And, no one likes cold showers! Going to work with wet hair can be a Godsend! Lol!
...I suppose, in its way, the decision to NOT wear makeup was kind of foreshadowing. I wouldn't consider myself a people pleaser. People's approval is fickle, so if they choose to not accept me as I am, its up to them. I think it is better to just put yourself out there without any pretenses. That way, when people DO accept you, and are there for you in return, you know that the friendship is real...
You have twins?! Me and my husband have twins! They are 11, and they are becoming more like teenagers every day!
Take care. Thanks for making this video! Susan
I wouldn't wear make if I didn't want to, but I actually enjoy putting it on most of the time. I wish I wasn't so sensitive to make up, like I have to test eye products out because they often will make my eyes red, itchy and watery. But I've found some that don't.
@@i.am.mindblind I suppose, for me, it is a time management thing, too! Given the choice, if its between getting the kids ready for school and putting makeup on, its going to be getting the kids cleaned up! 🙃 Lol! ...I must say it! When I was pregnant with our twins, I read an article that said that "sexy" was going to come to mean that you found time to wash your hair!!! Lol! SOOO true!
Lol on the sexy thing. I'm a momma of twins too 😊
@@i.am.mindblind That is so great! We have a girl and a boy! I have no idea if you have watched the series where Leia from Star Wars is 10 years old. Baby girl has Princess Leia's independent, wise beyond her years personality! And, Mister Man really is a miniature version of Mommy! It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if he grows up to be a heyoka empath. What are your twins like? Susan
You make it sound as if you didn't make your point across, but you actually explained it very well and I admire how you can thread all of this in... Was it one take? Do you even have a teleprompter setup? It looks like you don't. 😵💫
I'm a stream of consciousness girl. I do almost all of my videos in one take unless I have some technical issue. I want to be unedited and unfiltered as my true authentic self.
👍🏿
I don’t like washing my hair because it falls out and then sticks to my skin which irritates me.
Yes, I hate hate hate wet hairs stuck to my skin!
Uk government have just announced they want 80% of disabled people in work (whatever is wrong with them) So the war on disabled turns up an extra notch. Also they are trying to change disability money into vouchers. Where you get a voucher for mobility equipment instead of cash. It's looking really bad for us here please spare a thought for us here or if you pray please pray these things don't happen thank you.
Just to clarify I'm not a troll this is a genuine problem from Nottingham UK.
That sounds awful. As a society how we treat our disabled reflects on everyone in the society.
A colleague asked me why I arrived with my hair wet. I said if I dry it I'm not on time. End of conversation.
Perfect. 😁 Glad you did what you needed to do, and have a job that doesn't mind if you show up with wet hair!
Relatable af
I think it is possible that you overestimate the importance, to most other people, that they do not see you with wet or damp hair. If you are not working as an actor or photo model, it's just hair. Please try going shopping, or to group events with wet hair, sometimes and don't volunteer an explanation. Make them be rude enough to ask you why your hair is wet. Wet hair is a style choice.
I'm not sure I fully understand your comment. Are you suggesting I go out with wet hair? I do sometimes. I'll go out to the store for instance with wet hair. Even the doctor. But my point is, most places of business would not accept wet hair. It's a social construct that can effect people's jobs.
@@i.am.mindblind I'm not arguing with you. I agree that it is just a social construct, but one that is due for a change. I think you are an agent for change.
I was just asking for clarification and then taking a guess at what you meant. I appreciate you saying I'm an agent for change.
I dont like wet.
14:48 I'm unemployed my whole life, aged 47 now. Back in my 20's, I spent four years job hunting with the idea that, looking for a job was like a job, so I worked five days a week to fill out applications and job hunt... and nobody hired me. I had found my dream job in those years (in the art industry), and they didnt hire me either. I'm stuck depending on government services which are severely lacking in autism acceptance.
Most of these services I depend on to accommodate the needs of society (where I lack personal ability to adapt/do) in my State of California USA, isnt even set up for autistics, but are often used to provide support for old and/or incompetent people, and I feel often humiliated at how I'm treated as if I were ten years old.
I say "accommodate the needs of society" is where I feel most of my autism is a disability... The time keeping, the social performances, deadlines, expectations, communications, etc. if it werent for the way society is, I would not be disabled. But unfortunately, I cant change how society rolls, and they way they roll is difficult to impossible for me to keep up with. I been out-of-sync with the pace and style of society since the day I was born.
Under employed? Feels more like under appreciated.
I dont like being treated like i'm an incompetent child/senior.
I need my autonomy (my choice for what I do) to get my mental state out of hating life.