What We Know (So Far) About Autistic Inertia
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- Опубліковано 15 лют 2023
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Have you ever been able to focus on a task for hours, while also experiencing difficulty with starting said task?
If so, you may have experienced the increasingly-researched phenomenon known as “Autistic Inertia”. It’s the name given to the commonly-experienced difficulty in starting and stopping tasks, especially in neurodivergent individuals.
Recently, a research publication explored autism and inertia and has given us a better understanding of how autistic people can work with their differences instead of against them!
See the original article here: www.neurodiverging.com/what-w...
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Danielle Sullivan is an autistic parent, a certified positive psychology coach, and the host of The Neurodiverging Podcast.
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I have two modes: On/Off. Once, after a devastating flood, I spent 62 straight hours, on my feet, saving property. There was nowhere to sit. I saved hundreds of flooded photos. I was all alone, with no distractions. What a gift.
I had a really frustrating one. I was going to go on holiday with my parents and they wanted me to book the time off at work. It took me WEEKS to build up myself to actually DO it! I just got more and more annoyed with myself and anxious about it. I was almost in tears about not being able to do something so simple!
Looking back I think that doing something that involves talking to people is anything but simple for me. I also had to keep working in the mean time, so the added pressure didn't help.
I think I picked Nightmare difficulty when I was born
I'm sorry you had so much trouble with this task! You're definitely not alone with it. A lot of us procrastinate due to a mix of inertia, executive dysfunction, anxiety, and other challenges. Sometimes breaking it down into itty-bitty tiny steps and/or getting a friend to sit with you while you do it can be really helpful. We also have a podcast on executive function support that might help: www.neurodiverging.com/executive-function-automation-the-activity-partner/ Take care!
I relate so hard to this. It can take me weeks to months to be able to do a task like this where I have to make a phone call. It's awful and the whole time I know I need to, and I just can't do it. I don't know how to start, I get awful anxiety and stress from it. I try to research and look up and ask people I know what I should say, and how I should say/do it to be able to have an understanding of how I can actually accomplish the goal of making the phone call. So far with mixed results, and I eventually just reach a point of being so pressed for time, with so much urgency that I have to just do it, and it's difficult to do, because I end up fumbling trying to know stuff I don't know to get what I need from the phone call, what I need usually not being clear/super well known to me, I just know that I have to do something. I am the more functional between my partner and me in many ways, and so I have to figure the stuff out or doom us both, and that extra pressure and need to take care of another person definitely moves me to action at least. But yeah, agreed, Nightmare difficulty.
Picking 'Nightmare' difficulty made me laugh
Working with it insted against it is the best advice for autistic people
I'd really like to see more association of inertia with ADHD. Autistic folks I talk with seem to be more likely to be aware of it, especially those diagnosed with both. But non-autistic folk with ADHD who I talk with are usually not aware of this useful concept. Helps describe loads of relatable experiences and provides a useful frame for looking at them.
I do see inertia-like symptoms in my clients with ADHD as well as autism. Though both can look similar, often the ADHDer's inertia is more related to a dopamine issue or procrastination, whereas the autistic's is pure anxiety. I'm not aware of any research that's been done on ADHD and inertia, but it would be interesting to look into further!
There's so much overlap in traits, and so many people have both.
Why ADHD? Why not just plain ADD??
@@SandraCat22 Well, cause I was born in 1992, and my understanding is when I was 2 years old the consensus in the medical community was to combine them in to a single neurotype/diagnostic label. So, really, it's what I've grown up with as common knowledge. If you find separating them useful for you or simply prefer the term ADD, I can't see a reason you should stop. But when you hear people use just the one term, at least now you know why. About 30 years of practice.
@@kimberleyedwards833YES
Autistic inertia explains why changing schools as a kid was rough. It would literally take the entire first year to pass before i finally became ok with being there.
It also explains why when I'd change jobs, it was very challenging to adapt to not being there anymore. It would take at least 6 months until my mind could begin to come to terms with the fact I'd left the previous job.
Basically, it seriously affects my life and the ability to transition. My mind cannot shift for a very long time after the thing has ended. It's exhausting, and super annoying for me but also the people in my life who have to hear about it because I need to talk about it.
Right now I need to do a lot to tidy up my house and life routines. What does my brain think is important?
Combing my UA-cam playlists for Deleted, Private, and Unavailable videos, searching my previous captures of the playlists and my Browser history, and attempting to find replacements or reposts to reconstruct the playlists. AND going through my old 2014 to 2020 Blog looking for broken links, spelling mistakes (rare:-) and newer info.
Meanwhile, I can't even get my recycling from the house to the bin, nor fix a simple non-functioning phone jack.
This video is me.
As an ADHD ND, we call it deficient task initiation.
I don’t know whether I am on the asd spectrum, but I definitely do feel that I operate on a kind of cognitive inertia on a daily basis.
It doesn’t seem to affect me at work or when I’m with friends almost at all, but when I’m alone I often find myself in a state of avolition where I just lay around thinking of all the things I should be doing, or should have done a month ago, or that I know I would enjoy if I started.
It doesn’t matter how easy the task is or how much I know it would improve my life to do it though, it’s like the part of my mind that contains that information is completely disconnected from the system that makes decisions and determines actions.
Inertia is what I see in my neurotypical friends, who are masters of small talk, social vibing, sarcasm and humor , but who cannot produce any interesting, original, coherent idea or thought in hours, days or months of convivence.
Holy crap do I ever feel what you mean when you said " but who cannot produce any interesting, original, coherent idea or thought in hours, days or months of convivence." It is seriously one of the big things I've noticed lately about NT's, they sure have the social game of small talk down pretty good, it's almost as if the people who were the least smart intellectually gathered together for strength and unity. It seems as well that they view smarter people as a threat to their resources and dominance over their little patch of power on this planet.
@@djomegaminus T'seems neutrotypical extroverts live for grouping up and the narcissistic supply of attention they gather, from no matter how stale their: punch lines, sarcasm, belittling small talk, vibeing and intoxication are .
They spend hours of talking about nothing significant, of substance, importance, beauty, originality.
It is then is autistic people who are inert? I wouldn't exactly call Tesla, Einstein, Newton, Fernando Pessoa, Kierkegaard, and etc, all of which were in the spectrum, inert.
This explains problems I've had so well, it was always hard to explain to friends why I have issues starting tasks that I ACTUALLY enjoy, like reading
Transition activities work really well for me, usually when I have to do a new task I start by playing an instrument for like 10 minutes to start getting into my focuse mode, it clears my brain of its incessant thoughts and helps me stop panicking about all the things I have to do.
Interesting see how many people are having nearly the reaction as I am. OMG! She's talking about me and there's a name for it! I have a feeling of relief and maybe a little hope.
My hair stood on end when I heard the intro...
I became aware of inertia in myself about a year ago
my experience of autistic inertia: as a kid I was always upset and hesitant whenever we had to go to someone else's house to visit, but by the time it was time to leave, I was the one who wanted to stay and play longer and didn't want to leave
I'd suggest an additional strategy. If you have a general class of things you need to do, but find difficult to start due to lack of interest or demand avoidance, you could try finding a larger task that you actually are interested in and associate that task with it.
Example: I wanted to learn how to build a Mongolian yurt from scratch, but couldn't motivate to learn it. Then I decided to bring one with me to live in at burning man, and suddenly it was far easier, and I completed it in plenty of time. Since then I've built 4 more!
I experience something like this with any new change like starting a new job. And also when I was doing my research thesis, it took days or even weeks to get enough wind in my sails to do anything, but then once I found the wind, I would instantly snap into working 12-14 hour days, struggle to stop, work until 2-3am... I knew that once I stopped it may be hard to start again, and so that definitely added to the difficulty in stopping because of fear...
All my life happening this and hearing about this at my 50s.
Inertia is a big problem for me. Thanks for these great tips!
I hope they help!
I'm Audhd (diagnosed ADHD, undiagnosed ASD)and my mind is blown with this video. I thought my inability to start something (I get anxious) was my ADHD and my inability to stop once I'm doing something was my OCPD/OCD. But this sounds to be spot on to myself.
Damn we’re similar lol
Same, Diagnosed adhd, but the more I research autism after my son was diagnosedI’m blown away.
Update:
I was officially diagnosed ASD last July (2023).
So I am officially AuDHD. And having both is not fun, not fun at..all 😆🫣. It's so confusing not knowing if something is being caused from the ADHD or autism 😵💫. And when you have a trait that's in both of them, WoW they're a doozy 😆🫣. 🩷
Oh, I definitely experience this. I have ADHD and I suspect I might also me on the spectrum.
Lordy, you know! I burned out or crashed completely 18 months ago and have had an almost fatal time recovering - though tiny progress time to time. Thank you for saying, even when you didn’t, “it is ok!”
It is okay, and it's even normal! I know it can still suck, and I'm so sorry you've had to deal with burnout! Please take care.
I look at some of the things I've done, like learning an incredibly long series of notes played in a variety of ways or modifying a video game which is a long laborious process and the work involved seems INCONCEIVABLE to me now. Yet all I had to do was start and it was quickly done...
Your video has opened my eyes to my entire week at work. There are people who are not accepting or understanding of this inertia trait. The other thing is that if I’m already set off on a focus session and cannot disconnect, there are other people who do understand that. It’s been an exhausting week. But this video has helped me. Thank you 😊
Curiously, during a time of personal health and long-term unemployment emergency and having too much time to think led me to analyze long-term behavior and observe I got into larger patterns of behavior that didn't seem to have an emotional reason to compel me to act that way, where I got stuck in such a pattern, either in action or not, to recognize I should avail myself of my church's family counseling services to get out of what I termed inertia going in.
A bit unexpectedly to me, I got diagnosed with Asperger's in late 2002 as a result. But, it appears I'm also ADHD (got told that a few weeks ago), besides adding dyslexia and dyspraxia as fun bits combined with various sensory issues. What's funny is I have an older autistic sister, she's not as independent and doesn't have a chance of masking (I'm not persuaded I do it well, either, I'm male) and I'd not fully recognized before then how similar we were in some aspects.
So, it's useful to know terms in order to search for useful information, though it's frustrating how deficit-based it's all referenced as by those not neurodivergent.
The proper questions aren't how "normal" you can be and how to do that but instead to master your nature and what you can do all by yourself, versus needing assistance, even if it's just prompting by someone or something else (I'm in software development so there are thoughts I can try).
Wow... so now I have an actual name for that inability to restart a task once interrupted
Thank you for bringing this up via video! Inertia can hit quite hard and take a lot of time away, frustrate the self and others.
I struggle with getting into the shower, starting stuff in general that involves self care (brushing teeth, care for dry skin, get new contact lenses, get new lymphoedemia stockings (is that the correct phrase, no idea), get a replacement water tank for my cpap, buying new underwear (that noone will see anyway, really). And I struggle starting tasks I am not interested in that much, be it at home or at work. For example, the shower cabinet needs to be scrubbed thoroughly once in a while, even though we have someone cleaning the house (just the basics, you know). And I got a brush upstairs that has been lying there for months now because I actually want to clean it and be done with. New strategy now is that I just clean a small portion every time after I took a shower while I am still there. Works so far, only now I have noticed it might be better to get some cleansing liquid, too, to have reasonable effect on the stains... well, I need to try to get it upstairs from the cellar/basement and hope that I will be able to get it soon.
Being stuck in inertia for me is like having a locked joint or something, only mentally. You know, if your joints etc. are not working properly you might not be able to lift your arm (to a certain point or at all), so you are stuck. No getting anywhere even though you want to. So you have to try to make it work in another way, or treat the stuck joint, or you just don't do it. Your arm is still there (aka you understand the implications and consequences etc), but you just can't use it for that. Imagine getting cussed out or yelled at or getting snarky comments because your arm does not move beyond a point. No, you won't, but for your inertia you have a good chance of all that. People will think you are lazy or do not understand the task or are not interested in consequences, even though you are trying hard to make yourself do it. Unfair.
I’m desperate to conquer inertia. I feel like I’m sleepwalking through my own life. There’s so much I want to do, that I make time for, that I’ve tried so many strategies to make work and then can’t make myself do. There’s no pill for this. It feels like trying to run on broken legs. It’s devastating.
For anyone who is struggling to focus on the video because they're trying to figure out whether it's a cat or a small dog and came to the comments to find out: it's a cat (see 10.17) 😅
(This is absolutely not a request for catless videos by the way - on the contrary, I'd encourage showing more of the cat! 😄)
Thanks for this video - I have saved it and will check out some of your others
His name is Leo! He's a 15 year-old mostly black sweetheart of a cat. He makes many guest appearances on the podcasts and is almost always in the patron blogs.
@@neurodiverging I must confess that I'm a bit obsessed with black cats! Have now subscribed for both cat and neurodivergence content 🙂
Wow…..curtains lifted….age 71!
And I’d like to vote for less cat because tbh it’s just a crushing reminder that even in neuro diverse communities I still can’t belong because everyone just cares about the fucking cat
I have severe allergy to peoples’ living stuffed animals and how fucking sick they’ve been to me for this makes me understand ND people suck ass too
Please tell me, is this the same or different from pathological demand avoidance? I can't get things started even though I want to and would enjoy it once started. But the element of not being able to do it because others want/need me to, or expect me to, or might be watching me to see if I do it, is often there too. On other sites, I've seen this referred to as PDA. You are the first I've seen to say there's a thing called inertia. My daughter had this worse than me, she couldn't start anything, initiate anything, choose anything. It made her schooldays very difficult because it impacted on others, (like in team sports), and they made their displeasure very clear. Please explain to me if there is a difference between the two things, because it is crippling.
Thanks for the beautiful message. We do need to have compassion for ourselves
I have been using the term 'inertia' for myself for many years. I thought it was just me. I always think it is rather strange.
So did I! I thought it was just me and that the word inertia was the best fit to describe my troubles. I’m glad it’s not just ne
Thank you for making this video. To get to know that this is a thing helps already. This encourages me to make a task card for a day when I am out of my routine.
Not knowing how to begin, not accepting when to quit. The solution to the former is a process of thought, the answer to the latter is an act of will. These are two poles of the same process (Aristotle elucidated this in his Organon). One wills to begin, but must deliberate the order or processes involved, then after that, must simply reverse the order of operations back to the will to begin, without the thought process involved except as the executor of the protocols of order. All this goes in the reverse order as the process must come to an end. It requires conscious awareness of the process and the "will to discipline". There are several main aspects of how these processes are disrupted, and the speaker here has covered them very well. These issues apply to all people, it's simply something we see stated "in bold" in cases usually considered to be "autistic".
i felt like an adult at 3... and like the teacher in kindergarten....but i felt like a 5 year old in adulthood...
This is such an accurate description of me, and it is indeed validating to have it labelled. Thank you. Subscribed.
Thank you so much, steve. We appreciate it!
Thank you
I like your describing it as an action block
Your right just having a name for it is a relief.
Neurodivergent here. Hi. I got what I needed from the first 40 seconds of this video. Thanks! 👍
Glad to offer some language/labels!
A fine pair of ears contributing happiness
Thank you. ❤
You just described my work style lol.
Very interesting, and helpful. Seems I have developed most of the strategies listed and yet the missing ‘peace’ was feeling bad when I compared myself to others that do not depend on strategies for productivity, or even basic functionality.
So glad to hear this was helpful, Shawna! I think many of us struggle with comparing ourselves to others, despite knowing rationally that we have different brains, different needs, different backgrounds, different goals...it can be a very hard habit to break.
@@neurodiverging And when my autistic brain was not recognized until age 61, just last year there is a lot of reframing to absorb.
I looked it up and in general inertia has a negative definition as in avoidance. So this definition you presented in neutral and encouraging.
I wonder how could I call this inertia like trait without mentioning autism, Id like to know of an alternative term so that I could reveal this tendency of mine to others when inquired on the topic without sparking a conversation about autism.
Depending on the audience, you might be able to use something like "executive function challenges," as autistic inertia does seem to be related to impulse control. This trait is also common in other neurotypes, likes folks with ADHD, depression, anxiety, bipolar, etc.
Shout out to the kitty at the bottom left of the video to add to the overall engagement of context lol. Happy distraction...
What have you found to be the best time workflow approach for you? Typical brains from my research suggests 90 min cycles or 25 min cycles with varied break times based in different theories and been researching to find answer while building a routine best I can with what I feel is lack of actual efficiency due to lack of my own knowledge and currently the information I could find online.
What I know from working with almost 200 clients at this point is that there's no best workflow for everybody. It's really individualized. Paying attention to what works for you and replicating that as often as possible will usually work better than trying to replicate whatever your friend or your parent or a coach on the internet says :)
@@neurodivergingi like how you take the time to respond to good questions
Fudge, so the episode is here but doesn’t appear on Apple Podcasts yet - any idea why? (Had planned on Downloading it to keep me company on a potentially stressful outing today.)
It looks like there was an error on our distributor's side, so the podcast went out to Patrons and UA-cam, but not anywhere else! Thanks so much for saying something, and apologies for the trouble. It should be fixed now. Good luck on your outing!
Why can't hear it
I can hear the videos today 😊
Moving cat ear distracted me what did you say?
I’m not autistic but I do suffer from inertia.
A lot of what is being talked about are symptoms of ADHD. Nothing new here, just some people discovering that ADHD and ASD are a spectrum and have overlap in their symptoms.
Yes, absolutely a lot of autistic folks are also ADHD (like 50-80% from the little research we have). However, there are plenty of autistic folks who have no ADHD symptoms and still experience inertia, so there's something additional/ different happening here, probably with the same impulse control executive function, but a different mechanic.
Task paralysis is what it's called and it's an ADHD symptom. What you're calling autistic inertia is simply task paralysis.@@neurodiverging
I'm curious how Autistic Inertia is any different to what seems to be a description of very common symptoms of ADHD?
Absolutely a lot of autistic folks are also ADHD (like 50-80% from the little research we have). However, there are plenty of autistic folks who have no ADHD symptoms and still experience inertia, so there's something additional/ different happening here, probably with the same impulse control executive function, but a different mechanic.
Very informative but that opening music literally hurts my ears!
I want to know the physiology of how a neurodivergent brain functions
oh don't we all !!
When i listen what is problem for westrner autist its not strange you became collectvist feminists,Im from central Europe many times i think i Die but it makes stronger after time even my 12-16 years students bully school was a lesson(its was too much off that lesson for some suiciders so that wasnt perfect lesson) but now even here in Poland all become soft and easy to control by deep covered state,Its covered also in peoples minds when they dont know source
I don't get it. Reluctance to get down to work is a universal phenomenon. ... [listening] ... ah I get it now - you just said "it's not your fault" - that's the new ideology
Isn’t this basically ADHD?
Our govt is ripe with this inertia. It's rocketing into russia
Dude I enjoyed your message, I was diagnosed with Asperger’s,adhd and giftedness in January of this year, I turned 53 in April.Can you PLEASE do something about the cats ear in the lower left of frame,it was REALLY distracting,😬😬sorry ❤️❤️
Especially distracting to neurodivergent people.
inertia is not fun