SO! Working on The Neurodiversiverse led me to writing again, and writing those stories led me to Devon Price’s Unmasking Autism, which in turn led me to realize I have undiagnosed social anxiety disorder with autistic / ADHD / OCD tendencies.
“Unmasking” is an important process that autistic people can elect to undergo where they stop putting so much effort into conforming to neurotypical expectations – “masking” – and start building a life which is built around how their bodies and minds work.
While unmasking can be risky, with a real threat to life, limb or livelihood even for autistics who are privileged, much less people from other disadvantaged groups, it often comes with great benefits – not just to mental health, but physical well being.
But, if you know one autistic person, then you know one autistic person, and advice that helps one autistic person may not help another. So I found some of Price’s advice to be helpful – even as I had to subvert it for my own use case.
In particular, one thing many autistic people who are stressed out by trying to keep up with neurotypical expectations of cleanliness is to stop worrying so much about it. The thinking goes, if it stresses you out to put clothes in a hamper, who cares? Just change clothes in the same place and let them pile until you take them to the laundry.
But what I realized is that I was unconsciously doing this – letting mail, dishes, or laundry (cleaned or dirty) pile up until I had enough spoons to deal with it. My thinking went, if I am doing my work and keeping the lights on, who cares if the mail piles up for a few weeks? I’ll get to it when I deliver what I am responsible for.
But what I realized was, this was hurting me. The bigger the piles were, the more intimidating they became, and the more I put off dealing with them – a vicious cycle. But when I finally was forced to deal with one of the piles, I found myself infinitely MORE stressed than I was taking care of things a step at a time.
A habit I had adopted to deal with one aspect of my undiagnosed neurodivergence – a possibly autistic avoidance of organizing chores in favor of focus on work that kept the lights on – was really messing with another aspect of my mental makeup: an obsessive-compulsive need to have everything organized and in its place.
I went through this before with the library where I’m typing this; it used to be so disorganized that I didn’t want to spend time here, but once it was organized, I loved spending time here. So I am rewarded to expend this effort.
So, in an effort to go easier on myself, I have started being harder on myself about piles. Not letting them grow; dealing with them right away, before they become intimidating. The hope is, if I can keep the space around me organized, maybe the stress I feel about dealing with piles will fade away, and I can really focus on the work I want to.
Let’s see how it goes.
-the CentaurPictured: The afternoon lunch-and-read habit, featuring Unmasking Autism.
