Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi All,
I was diagnosed with ASD as an adult just a few years ago and I never understood why I have this issue. I don't have ADHD and I can focus on things well when at work but I have noticed once that structure is not in place, I have a very hard time being productive as if my days just flew by without doing much. My "daydreaming" is always the same thing, just repetitive thoughts, not something that helps me in any way and the worse I feel, the more time I need to spend in my autistic bubble. I guess it's a kind of coping mechanism. I would really appreciate it if someone could give me some advice. Is there a way to learn how to decrease the amount of time wasted on this?
While lacking structure may be part of it, its also a response to boredom. I spent maybe 4 years daydreaming about living the life of a person in an anime series I watch. I would do it whenever I was alone (and sometimes it would happen when I wasnt) and had a boring or simplistic task to do. I could hyperfocus my way out of it if I wanted or needed to. it began to affect my work sometimes so I stopped doing it, but replaced it with pacing. Sometimes I would re-organise things at work, alphabetically, numerically, height, width, weight. That got me in a lot of trouble (since I worked in warehouses).
I think its almost our way of disassociating from things we have no interest in. you can bypass it to a point by maybe hyperfocusing on something, but you will eventually fall back into doing it.
I dont stop myself doing it anymore. Sometimes my brain just needs to daydream, or maybe contemplate all scenarios that could affect a specific situation. As long as im not hurting anyone else while doing it, I have no issues with it.