• Replies 6 replies
  • Subscribers 79 subscribers
  • Views 2059 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Is it a trait of autism to find very simple or mundane tasks exhausting?

NAS68076

When I speak to my autistic relative, she will often describe how she, for example, went to the bank yesterday or ran some errands, and now she needs a few days to recover. She speaks very passionately about how much she resents having to do errands because it uses time when she'd rather be doing other things. She says when she finishes such tasks, even if it's just picking up a few things in town, she is completely frazzled and needs to recover, sometimes even for several days. It's something I really struggle to understand, because there are all sorts of tasks I dislike, but I hardly think about the fact I dislike them. I just know they have to be done, and they usually don't drain me so much that I need a day to recovers. Is this a trait in some autistic people, to find such tasks exhausting and overwhelming? No judgement here, I'm just genuinely curious and want to understand her feelings better. 

Parents

  • Yes but everyone is different and will have different stress levels and depending on what the activity is. There's every chance that something with ASD could struggle with just one normal activity

    Something like shopping is easy for me but sometimes I have been stressed because I have to have a haircut, dentist, shopping, job centre 1 hour meeting, new car tyres put on and the post office all on the same day but when I think about this it's still less effort than when I used to work for the whole day. I think the most stressful thing for me is having to make phonecalls

Reply

  • Yes but everyone is different and will have different stress levels and depending on what the activity is. There's every chance that something with ASD could struggle with just one normal activity

    Something like shopping is easy for me but sometimes I have been stressed because I have to have a haircut, dentist, shopping, job centre 1 hour meeting, new car tyres put on and the post office all on the same day but when I think about this it's still less effort than when I used to work for the whole day. I think the most stressful thing for me is having to make phonecalls

Children
  • in reply to NAS62563

    Sometimes something which seems normal can be a struggle if it isn't a usual part of our routine and is an unexpected change. Tonight I went to Sainsburys and they had closed the self-service aisles and all the workers were in a group talking. One of them said there's a till open over there so I walked over and there wasn't anyone at any of them so I kept walking then she said come over here. She asked do I need a bag and I said "no" then asked if I have nectar card and I said "no" and I felt like I was being rude by the way she looked at me. Then it was an awkward rush to get everything into the bag at the same time they wanted me to pay. I didn't expect to have to deal with an awkward social interaction like this I just wanted my usual self-service machines LOL