Published on 12, July, 2020
...of being autistic.
Just finished a short online meeting, where I didn't have to do much except say one thing for AOB at the end. Thankfully meetings are rare in my job, just every couple of months. But by the end of this thing, I was so tense in my core that I had to lie on my bed for five minutes to relieve the intense pain. Never sure if the online ones are better or worse than in person. Maybe better. I don't have to repress a stim, it's out of frame!
For reasons of anxiety, I need soothing music at this time so I paid £12 a month for Youtube Premium, which allows me to play music even when I'm not on Youtube. Paying £12 solely for this feature seems expensive to me - but what I can't comprehend is my thinking that £3 per week is cheap. I can't bridge the gap between these two confusing thoughts, and just uselessly frown when I think about this.
I had that this morning when my electrickery supplier emailed me to say that there'd be a 14% increase to 33 p extra per day. Sounded cheap put like that. Then I thought, 'wait, a normal person would be spitting their tea out at that. That can't be an insignificant realisation'. So I did the maths and when I realised it's £100 per year more I suddenly found myself thinking 'oooh, that's pricey'.
Adjacent to that kind of 'how it's put' not hitting my neural wiring right....
Sometimes there'll be posters up in work or other public spaces. Intended to promote environmentally responsible behaviour (of course a good thing), a fact will be stated like...
'Did you know that if you leave a tap dripping, in just one year it will fill an entire bath' And I know I'm supposed to go 'Wow!' but unstead I just visualise that bath and 365 days if extremely incremental filling and think 'Well, that doesn't sound like much'. I still take the point on board - don't waste water. But the 'this will blow your mind' fact usually has the opposite effect on me. 'If you took the stairs instead of the lift you'd have burned five calories - think on that!' - that kind of thing.