Enjoying my routines

I have several routines that I try to follow on a daily basis. This may seem boring to some, but for me it is a great help in getting through the days OK. I don’t deal with surprises well, so knowing what I’ll do and when I will do it is a big comfort. Plus I can prepare for it in time, releasing the “last minute stress” by a big load…

I can get groceries when people come over and make sure the apartment isn’t overrun with Arwen’s happy (hairy) glitters. I can make sure I will not have anything planned when people come over. If I know they are gaming friends, I make sure my controllers are charged.

Being too hard…

…being too soft

For me it’s often one of the two extremities. I either punish myself so hard it may scare some people… Or I’m so incredibly forgiving that I feel I’m not myself. Because I usually am hard on myself. Years of hearing “I’m not fast/smart/handy/good enough” by many, I have started to believe this. And it made me incredibly hard on myself, where I always want to push myself to prove those people wrong. Of course I often failed due to the very high pressure, making their point time and again…

I’ve been trying to work on that. I’ve written about these struggles before. And I feel I’ve become a bit more mellow with myself. But there are still times where my “old instincts” take over and where I, again, visit the extremely hard punishments over myself. But I’m recognizing when this happens and I’m trying to learn how to counter it. Slowly it goes…

Me and numbers…

…numbers and I!

I’ve always had something with numbers. I could remember some of them all too well. I could see patterns in them. I could count with money at age 4 and know it’s value. I’ve always been enthralled by numbers I guess.

During my testing for ADHD (which also showed I am Austistic), the love for numbers sprang out and my psychological examiner said it could be an autistic treat. I have had troubles with numbers as well. Even though I can be good with them, I’ve also made huge mistakes with them, costing me money, getting me into trouble.

Back to the routines

I crave routines. I thrive on them. They have kp me function better. It may be predictable or even boring to some, but it helps me.

Partially due to my autism, and I do believe my ADHD also has profits to my routines as they make my brain a little more organized 😊. 

As some of you know, I just came back from an almost 3 weeks long vacation. A short time span in which I needed to form temporary routines. And now, I have to switch back to my usual ones.

Autism – Loneliness & Friends

I have a few friends. I had more but they weren’t all real friends as they believed bad lies about me that my ex happily told them when she tried to hurt me during the divorce. If people just accept something about you without checking, I don’t need those people in my life… Still I was very hurt as I had invested in them and they dropped me like a cow let’s drop some dung…

So I tried my best to keep the few friends that I still had. But I’m so bad in keeping in touch. I always feel my texts to them bother them. Like I’m intruding their busy lives. I know they would not mind hearing from me. I know they’d reply when they can. But it’s just so hard for me to reach out. If they text me, I find replying so much easier, because I feel the expect my answers then. If this makes any sense…

Being autistic

I wrote about this many times. I wrote how others can get angry when you write anything but “I’m autistic”, like living with autism, being on the spectrum. I never thought those words being wrong as to me they mean just the same. That I’m neurodivergent and that I live with myself seeing and experiencing the world in a different way from the gross of people thar are neurotypical.

If you get peeved with people saying they sometimes suffer from their autism, please just stop reading. While I do believe my autism is a positive thing, as it shapes me to be the special person I’d like to think that I am, I do believe I’ve suffered because of it as well. So I’ll write about that. It may trigger some people, so here’s the warning. 😊

Trying to change in so many ways – too many at once?

Good day, thanks for checking in! 😊 If you’re new to this site, I’ll share a short recap before I dive into this. If you’ve been following my posts for a while, you may be able to skip a bit.

I have been stuck in a negative visceral circle. I had never learned to love me. I had never learned to trust in myself. To believe that I could! I often set myself up so I would fail, which then enhanced my negative feelings towards myself again. I never really thought of me doing this to myself. I was often angry at others for treating me badly while at the same time, I was doing this to myself. Kind people pointed this out to me and I started reading up about it. And now, armed with some new knowledge, I’m attacking my bad circle and routines and trying to live a more positive life.

The little things

With my hyper-focus, I sometimes lose sight of the whole picture. I only see one thing, most often the “end goal”, and I lose all sight around me. It had lead me off my path many times, it has made me fail a lot of times as well. And I always blamed myself for being such an idiot. After I learned that this hyper-focus was happening due to my autism and adhd, I started to understand myself better.

Often when I want to set a goal, these days, I need to make smaller steps. This prevents me from focusing too much on the end, making the steps I need to take more visible to me. I often tell others of my plans, of my goals, and I hope this way they will keep an eye out for me. I never notice I am going into the hyper-focus of it, until I fall off the path. And that’s always when I mess it up, often big time.

Leaving the old me behind

I’m someone who loves routines. Who loves to know about the happenings of a day. Who loves something if it feels right and who really dislikes any changes to the right thing!

I thought my marriage was right. I was too distracted to see it wasn’t. There were many signs and I just ignored them as I was happy enough as it was. I thought it would last and that made me feel secure.

Losing my “biggest love”, losing my home, one of my dogs, my security, my routines… It was too much for my autism to handle so I handled it very badly. Which of course only proved “what a bad person I was”.

Autism and Empathy

This is something I’ve always struggled with. Also feeling happy for someone when they were happy about something I could not relate to. I always felt like I was unkind when I want able to mean it when I said I understood or that I was happy for someone. Not because I don’t want others to have something, to do something, to be happy about something. But because for some reason, I could not understand why they were excited or happy or… Whatever they were experiencing. I never talk about this much, as it’s something that gives me a rather large feeling of shame. 😔