An Autistic Experience

Photo by rocknwool on Unsplash Something about me is that my hands tend to always be moving. Because of this, I picked up the habit of picking at my skin when I am bored and/ or anxious. This leaves me with many scars on my face and my fingers being infected most of the time.  To try and counteract the skin picking, I try to have some type of fidget in my hands. My favorite fidget that I have found, though, is to knit. I have done it for long enough at this point that I don't really have to look at my hands or think about it as long as I am not doing anything too complicated. This makes it work great for fidgeting.  Another benefit of knitting is that you can make your fidgeting productive. While you are in a meeting or just sitting somewhere waiting you can keep your hands busy while making a sock, a hat, or anything else. You could give away what you knit if you want, but I have discovered that my favorite socks to wear are the ones I knit myself. I also enjoy wearing the h...

Photo by  Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 vi Unsplash Do you ever feel anxious all of the sudden, and for seemingly no reason, at the end of the day? And when you try to solve it using your usual tools it doesn't really feel like it helps? I had this problem for a while, almost every workday around 9pm, I would begin to feel what I thought was anxious. After thinking about it for a while and talking about it with my therapist, I began to realize how regular it was and realized that the problem wasn't anxiety, my body was trying to tell me that it needed to stim! I had been masking all day and now that I was home in a safe environment it was telling me to move.  The main thing that has helped me to reduce the feeling is to stim more, both when my body needs it and throughout the day. I have found that big movements are the most helpful, such as walking or pacing around the room, rocking, or even running on the treadmill.  Somethings that have helped me to get that evening feeling...

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash Have you ever had something you really needed to get done, such as an assignment for school (me most of the time) or a task for work? This task looks super  boring, but it needs to get done for one reason or another. Trying to even start it feels like torture, and avoiding seems like a much better option.  Well, I have this happen quite a bit to me, especially with class work for my college classes. The following post is going to detail several strategies I have come up with that can help.  Solution #1: Deadlines and Impending Disappointment One of the most reliable solutions to this problem for me begins before the task is even assigned, and that is to have a deadline. And for some people, this means that they can just make up a deadline, maybe set a reward for meeting it, and complete it no problem. This strategy tends to not work for me because I know who made up the deadline (me) and they are full of shit.  What does wo...