Managing energy levels while autistic is really hard for me. When I'm doing things that I *have* to do I'm too stress-focused to notice that I'm overwhelmed. When I'm doing things that I *love* I'm enjoying it too much to notice. Either way, as soon as I take a break, I start crashing hard.
1/2?
I've been overwhelmed for a month. At first I was just getting lots of things done, which felt great. Then those things started needing a lot of immediate management. Then several urgent and draining things cropped up. I knew I was overwhelmed, but I didn't have any way to manage it because there was too much.
2/3?
Through all of it work has been approaching a deadline. I legit love what I'm working on, and as the deadline gets closer it's gotten easier to just let myself put all my energy into it. I didn't really notice that I was dead, even in the evenings when I was. well. dead. I mean, I knew I didn't have energy to do anything and was frequently going nonverbal, but that didn't inherently set off any alarm bells. And it's frustrating af.
3/4
Anyway, I'm past the bulk of the deadline work now and hopefully recovering. I'm taking a breather to reflect, and I'm starting to notice how I've been totally exhausted for like a month. I've got therapy tomorrow (with my autism-aware therapist), so we'll be talking about it. Hopefully we'll also talk about how to not overwhelm myself seeing long-missed sweeties now that I'm vaccinated.
4/?
I think the quick takeaway is that I need better tools for checking in on myself and preventing myself from getting there, and I feel like my therapist and I can work those out. I welcome suggestions.
But there's another layer, and it's why that happens in the first place. Like, I don't think it's *just* interoception difficulties, though that's part of it. I feel like more and more I'm noticing a common thread underlying a lot of my struggles.
5/?
Ultimately I feel like so many of my struggles come back to focus. When I'm doing something, I don't always notice other things. I don't notice my needs, sure, but also, I don't notice *that there's anything to notice*. And if I do notice the stimuli, I don't notice that I could shift focus to address them. I'm focusing, so those stimuli are just The Way Things Are.
6/?
I feel like it's a super subtle point, and I'm not sure how to describe it to NTs. I wonder if other autistic folks see it similarly.
When I'm nonverbal, it's not that I've forgotten how to talk. It's more like I'm not paying attention to the fact that talking is a thing I could conceivably do. Other things have my focus, either because they've demanded it, or because I'm enjoying that focus being there.
7/?
When I'm not keeping up with dishes or laundry, it's not that I've forgotten how to do them. It's more like Dishes and Laundry Are Behind is the normal state of things now. It feels like it ties closely to the local/global precedence thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_precedence : That falls quick;y into part of the background global pattern, which I shift focus away from to whatever local pattern I'm focusing on now.
8/?
Hungry? Tired? Quickly becomes a global pattern that I can ignore for the local one. Local patterns--whatever I'm doing right then--I have more immediate connection to. I have some control over them, or I'm enjoying experiencing them.
And it's not just the object of focus that gets that treatment: It's patterns and habits and options for how I can engage with those global patterns.
9/?
I don't forget that I can talk or eat or sleep. Those are abstractly out there as things I could probably do. I forget that they're worth doing because I'm focusing on this other thing right now thanks.
And if it's something that has other initiation costs? Other things I need to learn, or physical difficulties? Why even bother? Who has energy to learn a new thing when there's this *other* thing I'm doing and can keep focusing on.
10/?
So like, I have some pretty restrictive food sensitivities. I *could* learn to find a way to like mayo. But that requires learning more cooking techniques. Probably a lot of them. It means learning more recipes. It means figuring out which of those work for me. Each of which is actually a *ton* of work for me, and all of that has to happen while I'm in the middle of the sensory assault of gross mayo. What's the point? I can just. not.
11/?
To me, that feels essentially the same as the "forgetting to eat" thing. Or the "words are hard" thing. It's not that I can't. Often it's not even that I carefully considered the cost/benefit ratio and judge it unworthy. Mostly it's that my attention is where it is. It's using the patterns that it's using. And even the idea of considering maybe changing them just. doesn't occur to me? And if it does, it sounds like a ton of work and probably not worth it.
11/
And when I think of skills I've never had, it's even bigger. I'm out of shape. I might never even stop to think how other people just *aren't*. It's global context; my local experience is that I'm just who I am. If I even notice at all then getting from here to there looks like it'd take a lot of effort. I get overwhelmed and don't bother.
12/
And then I imagine an alternate world where I'm a kid with a brain like this who who didn't start talking when I was young. Why? I dunno, maybe there's some physiological or neurological thing that makes it harder than average.
But what if there isn't? I probably know that other people around me are making mouth-noises. Maybe I know what those sounds mean.
12/
Does it even occur to me that I'm like them and could maybe do that too? Why would it? I don't seem very much like them. They don't treat me like the other thems. Them making mouth-noises is global context. I have these other things I'm focusing on right now. Maybe at some point I'll get around to figuring out if my mouth can do that. But right now these toys could be aligned, and that pattern sounds good.
13/
And if there are actual physiological differences making talking hard for me, that's just another barrier emphasizing the idea that the global context of people talking is far away from my local context of patterns that I engage in. And if I weren't smart (I am, whatever), that's just another huge barrier preventing me making the logical leap to recognize the global patterns in the first place or what I could conceivably do about them.
14/
Anyway, that's me speculating, but it feels hella parallel to my actual experience. The parallels make a *lot* of sense, and it feels like soooo much of it comes down to this one notion of focus, uniformity of experience and action, focus extending to patterns of interaction with the world, global vs local precedence, all of it together.
And I wonder if other autistic people experience that. And I wonder if it's a useful theory for understanding ourselves.
15/15
gettin' schooled 
Kaz 🏳️⚧️