Structured Success

Co-regulation often involves the same skills as self-regulation, but in a collaborative, sometimes in a fun way.

Breathing exercises are a hallmark self-regulation skill, whereas 'competing' to inflate a balloon with the fewest breathes or to keep it aloft with only our breath, are co-regulation

ADHD impulsivity makes it more likely ADHD'ers act in ways that don't fit our personal values.

The emotions, sensations, and thoughts we experience when this happens aren't wrong though. Instead, understanding the underlying emotion is a really important step toward positive behavioural change

This is an impact of impulsivity, or weakened response inhibition.

For NTs, impulses are often followed by an inhibition response which tells them not act on them. For ADHD'ers though, inhibition is less reliable, so we can pick up an emotion and run with it before we even process what's going on

We all know that ADHD'ers tend to have big, fast emotions. (We do all know that, ...right?)

But having big, fast emotions also means that ADHD'ers can be more susceptible to emotional contagion, where we catch emotions from other people around us

Executive function is not just one skill, it's MANY. Different people can be strong at some areas of executive functioning and weak at others.

ADHD'ers often struggle with many of these skill, and the differences between strong and weak executive function skills can be particularly stark

Negative experiences with judgment, stigma, and discrimination are powerful predictors of how much neurodivergent people feel the need to mask.

Reducing these negative experience through, say, accepting neurodivergent people has LARGE impacts on community health and wellness

Having an organized space reduces visual cues and can help ADHD'ers reduce overwhelm. However, putting everything away has consequences for our memory.

This means it's much more important to be intentional about how we use our space rather than to be organized for organization's sake

Being able to accept our struggles and weaknesses, rather than feel guilty for them, is such an important part of self-improvement.

Feeling guilty, cringe, or ashamed of our struggles or the process to overcoming them encourages us to avoid rather than accommodate, grow, or learn

Emotions can be so irrational, especially ADHD emotions, but that doesn't mean we can just turn them off in favour of
"rational", "higher-order" thought.

Emotions demand to be experienced and accepting them as part of us is an essential part of navigating and regulating them

Yeah, me too. As well as "done is better than perfect" or, from my grad school days "the only good thesis is a done thesis"

...now if I could just get myself to listen to that advice lol

I hope that you can find a place where you can safely experience those emotions in the end. Holding in that emotional tornado can do so much damage over time

When I feel the most empathetic, I'm generally trying to deeply understand another's experience and see things from through their context the best I'm able.

That takes more time and energy, but it also doesn't seem to be considered empathy by some people or in some situations, and that confuses me

This pretty much matches my experience as well.

I have often found what's considered empathetic to feel almost performative and shallow. Like loudly acknowledging the emotion is more important than feeling it or understanding it.

I also hope your 15 year career has shown you how very few non-autistic people take the time to understand autistic people, deeply listen to us and trust what we say, and meaningfully support us in even tiny, no-cost ways.

If more people did, the world would be a lot easier to be autistic in, imo

I'm glad to hear that you feel like you've been able to empathize with the autistic experience!

I hope it's led you to understanding your own social, sensory, and executive functioning support needs and being a great resource for others in your life :)

Completely agree. Empathy is not a characteristic to determine autism, one way or the other.

There are other criteria that diagnostic that can impact how we experience empathy, but "too much" or "too little" empathy itself is not diagnostic

"Autistic people lack empathy"

Oh? Then show me how good you non-autistic folks are at empathizing with the autistic experience. I'll wait.

Also, here are some resources that might help :)
embrace-autism.com?s=burnout

leedsautismaim.org.uk/wp-content/u...

The world is so loud and overwhelming, and autistic burnout comes from needing to constantly regulate that. If you can reduce that as much as possible, that'll help.

That also means when you do it to yourself! Do the low energy safe foods for a bit. Drop any guilt about eating 'healthy' or whatever

What this means in practice for you is going to unique to your experience, but some examples are:

* Setting up a sensory nest with all the good sensory experiences and none of the bad ones and hanging out there.
* Limiting contact with people you need to mask around (both online and in person)

It's a really tough place to be, and there isn't really a generally applicable answer that I can give that you probably haven't heard.

The general rule is: Do less. Expect less. And find/relish safety.

To expand on that, you need more time in places where you don't need to mask or struggle

Both viewing neurodivergent traits as pathological deficits AND viewing them as superpowers misses the mark, imo.

Differences in neurology, behaviour, or sensory experience do not need to be good or bad, better or worse. They can just be, and we can respect them and the people who have them

Neurodivergent support needs are real and important to address and accommodate, AND that doesn't make the underlying trait is pathological.

It's 100% possible to recognize different brains work in different ways without making a value judgment about whether one specific way is good or bad

Ah... the relief of hyperfocusing to completely plan out a project.

Now that it's planned out, I'll definitely start it tomorrow, right?

...right...?

Other forms of burnout, such as occupational burnout or caregiving burnout, are serious conditions in their own right.

But because the cause of autistic burnout is the world generally, it can have a much larger and long-lasting impact on all aspects of our lives

Burnout is caused by chronic stress, overwhelm, and unmet needs in one or more areas of our lives.

When this chronic stress, overwhelm, and unmet need is from being autistic in a world not designed for us, the resulting autistic burnout can be magnitudes harder to identify, prevent, or avoid

a muppet with red hair is sitting in front of a curtain Alt: a muppet with red hair is sitting in front of a curtain, a piano falls on his head

INCOMING 2am hyperfocus!

The individual journey of self-improvement is an important one for a lot of autistic and/or ADHD people, but it isn't the only possible intervention.

Community building, advocacy, and changing disabling social conditions, even in really small ways, can massively improve our wellness as a community

Its just constant, eh?

Yeah :(

I like to delude myself into thinking that people really do understand it when they sit and think about it, but they so rarely have the opportunity to sit and think about it.

The cynic in me though does not believe that at all