Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all
I mentioned I might try to get something off my chest here. I'm a bit worried that I might go on too much or ramble, or get emotional, or probably worst of all, still not be understood. So I'll try to keep this first post a reasonable length. Although as I hope to explain, that may mean that I go on for ten pages.
Where to begin? And then where to go? Well, there's so much jumbled up, different ways of seeing things: focusorganisationsatisfactionselfdisciplineselfawarenesscuriosityheadacheplanningachievementmotivationintroversionrelectionattentiondepresionobsessionsleepmissingmeaningfatigueisolationlaziness
And that's just part of it. Maybe sleep, then. I'd said only a few months ago that my sleep was normal. But the last few weeks the pattern has been intending to get to bed 10-10.30 and read, often staying up past midnight, get to sleep immediately, wake up at 3am, can't get back to sleep again, feel very tired, mess around a bit trying to relax, microsleeps, try to snooze, get a few minutes, restless again, get absorbed in something online by the morning, then something else, still hoping to catch up on sleep and nodding off, put off what I was meaning to do because I'm not feeling energetic enough and I'm not really thinking about it as immersed in finding something out and digesting it, most of the day's suddenly gone, get frustrated, try to do one basic thing, intend to get to bed 10-10.30, repeat.
It seems that my brain doesn't really shut off, although I have tried meditation (running while just accepting sensations seems to work better). It always has to probe and assess and conclude and often comes up with sensible plans. But actually carrying out those plans can get put off for weeks or not happen at all. What's the point of a to-do list when I seem unable to force myself to get started? And sleep makes things worse. It's like the curiosity is there all the time, but any sensible motivation to do the washing or ring the bank or act on one of my ideas is much reduced. That's kind of expected when you're tired, but shouldn't the dratted mental processing give up as well? Can't I just watch a crap film? No, I just think about how crap it is (Sicario 2 not recommended: if you're interested wait for it on TV with subtitles).
So, is there anything I can do about the sleep? Could it be worse this time of year because of the early dawn? I'm not sure, I can't tell. Maybe I should get heavier drapes for my bedroom, but that's another thing I've been putting off, as has registering with a GP. Could it be depression causing early waking? Well, I don't currently feel anywhere near as depressed as I have, but then one of the main virtues of this diagnosis has been not feeling obliged to feel anything. It's autism meaning something affecting my ability to connect to people, but with main features being 'alexithymia' (not knowing what you're feeling) and poor 'executive function' (getting stuff done). It's not that I don't understand feelings, it's that unless very depressed I can override or ignore them and usually do. They're secondary to a rational understanding. This is why I have problems with 'How are you?', and maybe have problems just making friends by liking people, being fundamentally convinced I should really like everyone. It also makes it hard to make decisions. Given what someone else wants, or somehow getting committed to a task, I can work out how to do it (so it's not executive dysfunction in that respect, it's more 'autistic catatonia'). But faced with having to have a preference, I'm consumed by the future of the planet in millions of years. My usual tricks for decisions include: a quick pro-con, if I can think of two reasonable-sounding causes for action, I take a particular path; or I try to evaluate things ethically; or both; or I flip a coin. I also try to apply myself in whatever seems the right way at the moment - if an intervention is waiting to be made, I make it. Or not if something more important-seeming comes up. But that's not great for accomplishing a daily plan, or a life plan. Most people don't have such a thing as a life plan, I'm assured. Although wouldn't it be good to share dreams?
So one day this week I just didn't go into work. I was expecting myself to. It just didn't happen. I can't explain it, and people seem to know me so well they haven't disciplined me, or have their own ideas of the reason. Maybe I'm demotivated and need a new job. I may benefit from people around trying to motivate me, and am a bit adrift in life. They say the mind is a millstone, and when it has nothing to grind, it grinds itself. Well, I spend too long on the web on sites like this, and that provides constant grist, but what for? I know I need more meaningful real-world relationships and mutual collaborations. I think it's because of my alexithymia that firstly I can't explain my own actions, secondly I'm in the habit of believing I will find the motivation soon, so put things off. Sometimes I really try to force myself to not procrastinate and knuckle down, but somehow can't. It's a very frustrating block that I can see reasons to overcome, but just end up getting stressed over my internal conflict. Maybe alexithymia means I think I intend to do honourable or useful things, but really my motivation is just to sound off and eat pizza. But people assure me I'm not lazy - when I'm started on something I'll work 12 hours or more. I just can't predict what that will be. Is trying to force myself a bad thing, because if I fail I get into bad habits of failure? You'd think I might have learned all this being more than halfway through my life, a life that doesn't seem made by choice. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
I think that will do for now.
Morning all !
I had not read this post as the words seemed to much for me to digest and theorise on.
Having read all the replies I would like to say “YES” I experience a lot of the difficulties in accepting I need to sleep.
I have never actually seen why I should get ready for bed and climb into bed lay back and tell my brain to stop! My brain doesn’t just stop on demand, I lie awake with my head spinning, flitting from one subject to another, add anxiety to the mix of how will I cope the next day and I am more tense and unrelated than when going about my business during the day.
running out of words now, Cassandro you put into words what I experience all my life. I sleep when my body can no longer keep going, I crash, then no amount of shaking or shouting will wake me,
The INTP-T part struck a bell as I only did the character test yesterday.
As you can tell I am still struggling in my head, short sentences of dialogue but sudden switching to some other relevant point I feel suddenly comes to mind, as with your other thread my finger pauses each time I go to tap in a word as there are many,,,too many things trying to get onto the page,, all the things I want to say to each reply that mean something to me, I am spouting mixed thoughts as best I can , overwhelmed by to much information, to many theories bouncing off the sides of my skull, argh sums it up very well I think.!
Must stop I have lost ability to go back,, delete,,rethink, re order,, sort,, and make this into a half readable item,
This is raw me struggling, I fear failure and strive for perfection in all things in my life, I try even find myself trying to compete with all of you! In that I see your amazing abilities to explain using words and quoting various knowledgeable people. I am a basic model who has spikes of articulation but more often it seems I struggle just to put a sentence together that actually is readable.
I must stop!!! No more ability to formulate my words, a mess of jumbled words, mixed, confused,
sorry cassandro it was Graham who started the post I referred to as (“with your other thread my finger pauses each time I go to tap in a word as there are many,”)
Thanks, Lonewarrior,, fellow autistic INTP.. No need to attempt a reply as long as my original post.
I think there were some similarities with Graham's early morning state of mind, but in both cases being on the laptop at 4am may have been part of the problem.
The real world doesn't come in the same order as things in one's head.
I did try writing down what popped into my head with my eyes closed as a kind of alpha-wave diary (I think Ellie suggested), but it could probably produce pages of random stuff per hour, like some entirely invented interview with a generic scriptwriter about how they cope with casting changes (not a metaphor, just a random example).
I need to get some kind of determination and real-world order from somewhere. There are things I should do. This forum is rather a distraction. It would be good to feel things were going to some kind of plan, if only on a short to medium term. No one's ever really helped me with long-term plans, and that may be why my life has gone nowhere as regards careers or relationships.
BTW for BlueRay 'I should like everybody' is less of a rule, than an impersonal way of seeing the world. I think it is, anyway.
Anyway, thanks everyone for the replies, and I am processing this all slowly.
. said:You come across as very goal centric and seem to rate achievement and thereby success in that way. Who is writing the success criteria? You, or an NT society?
OK, this is a key question and prompts much thought. I'm kind of the opposite of goal-centric in my behaviour, but yes, I do want the right outcome for me and everything else. (It's that INTP description again.)
I have learned acceptance, I did have daydreamy ambitions as a kid, and I still want to make a difference, even though doing a bit beautifying gardens is also something I can be sort of content with. But given some of my self-taught skills, people may think I choose to sit on my a*** all day. My 'success' in life (still living like a student in middle age) is some evidence of neurodivergence to me, and as such I can accept it more. Religions often say not to be too attached to worldly goods, and I'm not sure I could be if I tried. Is an NT society writing the success criteria? Yes, and I question that, but in an Aspie utopia would no one work or have a relationship?
I may come back to what I really want... no time now.
Now, to put another monkey wrench in which goes against your brain wiring.. are you able to seperate and simplify what you are wanting to achieve? The image you post is very telling re your brain wiring in that I perceive it as the view that everything connects to everything else so you have the burden of carrying a “whole” mass of brain at all times and are unable to disconnect one thing from another easily to examine each thing as a separate entity in its own right.
synapsing always firing...a pulsating cortex..working and at risk of burning itself out.
just for fun...
“But—let me tell you my cat joke. It's very short and simple. A hostess is giving a dinner party and she's got a lovely five-pound T-bone steak sitting on the sideboard in the kitchen waiting to be cooked while she chats with the guests in the living room—has a few drinks and whatnot. But then she excuses herself to go into the kitchen to cook the steak—and it's gone. And there's the family cat, in the corner, sedately washing it's face.""The cat got the steak," Barney said."Did it? The guests are called in; they argue about it. The steak is gone, all five pounds of it; there sits the cat, looking well-fed and cheerful. "Weigh the cat," someone says. They've had a few drinks; it looks like a good idea. So they go into the bathroom and weigh the cat on the scales. It reads exactly five pounds. They all perceive this reading and a guest says, "okay, that's it. There's the steak." They're satisfied that they know what happened, now; they've got empirical proof. Then a qualm comes to one of them and he says, puzzled, "But where's the cat?” ― Philip K. ***, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
“When INTPs are particularly excited, the conversation can border on incoherence as they try to explain the daisy-chain of logical conclusions that led to the formation of their latest idea. Oftentimes, INTPs will opt to simply move on from a topic before it’s ever understood what they were trying to say, rather than try to lay things out in plain terms.
The reverse can also be true when people explain their thought processes to INTPs in terms of subjectivity and feeling. Imagine an immensely complicated clockwork, taking in every fact and idea possible, processing them with a heavy dose of creative reasoning and returning the most logically sound results available – this is how the INTP mind works, and this type has little tolerance for an emotional monkey-wrench jamming their machines.”
Hope I’m not coming across as an “emotional monkey wrench”... more a humanistic elephantine claw hammer..
You come across as very goal centric and seem to rate achievement and thereby success in that way. Who is writing the success criteria? You, or an NT society?
“So what is the slump about? It seems to be the effect partly of natural changes in our values. We begin adulthood, in our 20s and 30s, ambitious and competitive, eager to put points on the scoreboard and accumulate social capital. In late adulthood, after midlife, we shift our priorities away from ambition and towards deepening our connection with the people and activities that matter most to us. In between, we often experience a grinding transition when the old values haven’t brought the satisfaction we expected, but the new values haven’t yet established themselves.
Surely, if we are lucky enough to have put lots of points on the board by 40, achieving or surpassing our goals, malaise won’t strike? Wrong again. The most perverse effect of midlife malaise is that high-achievers are especially vulnerable. The reason is what researchers call the hedonic treadmill. To motivate us, youthful ambition makes us unrealistically optimistic about how much satisfaction success will bring. Later, when we meet a goal, our desire for status and success moves the goalposts. Despite our objective accomplishments, we are not as satisfied as we expected. We wonder, “How come I’m not happier?” As this cycle of achievement and disappointment repeats over time, satisfaction comes to seem forever out of reach.”
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/21/midlife-crisis-myth-life-gets-better-after-50
does that make any sense?