Multitasking

please elaborate about the successful job situation.

Hi to both Iain and humane and thank you for your time and writing.

the job was shorter order cook, pub restaurant and bar food. So lots of mixed grills, general pub grub, alongside restaurant. Sometimes 30 covers, or tickets, waiting or in process of being cooked. Never felt flustered, calm, in control, np panic. Yes…hyper focused sounds accurate description and interesting that short tasks would allow for that, Iain. Almost danced around the kitchen. Very enjoyable. I sometimes find myself doubting myself which is distressing since my life is so chaotic and non functional in terms of managing life…paperwork of any kind, house duties…I have total isolation, no people in life, not seen anyone outside of two interactions with mental health services since first week November. But then able to multitask in this job so began obsessing over autism…feel quite crushed at times, don’t think it should be this hard, life. Why is it so important to have and accept a diagnosis, why can’t we just be who we are. Thanks again gentle people, much appreciated x

Hi to both Iain and humane and thank you for your time and writing.

the job was shorter order cook, pub restaurant and bar food. So lots of mixed grills, general pub grub, alongside restaurant. Sometimes 30 covers, or tickets, waiting or in process of being cooked. Never felt flustered, calm, in control, np panic. Yes…hyper focused sounds accurate description and interesting that short tasks would allow for that, Iain. Almost danced around the kitchen. Very enjoyable. I sometimes find myself doubting myself which is distressing since my life is so chaotic and non functional in terms of managing life…paperwork of any kind, house duties…I have total isolation, no people in life, not seen anyone outside of two interactions with mental health services since first week November. But then able to multitask in this job so began obsessing over autism…feel quite crushed at times, don’t think it should be this hard, life. Why is it so important to have and accept a diagnosis, why can’t we just be who we are. Thanks again gentle people, much appreciated x

Sam said:

I feel in some ways that the testing is subjective and some reliance is on the experience and life experience and even personality and personal views of the person doing it.

The person doing the test on you should be a trained professional with a lot of experience in the field, so they are trained to take the personal views element out of the test.

I think it is proabably a bit like something akin to a driving test - you get some examiners who are stricter than others, but all have to meet the same basic standard.

Most of the autism tests also use the likes of a RAADS test to take out the human element as well, but as some people are not entirely truthful when taking the tests there needs to be an element of using each of the main pillars of the assessment to see it they have a quorum to reach a conclusion.

This means you can lie in the test or hide things in the face to face assessment or gloss over your history - so long as 2 of these are in agreement then you should get the "pass" for a diagnosis.

That was a compliment by the way

Thanks juniper, and it sounds like you must do something brainy x

Thank you very much for your reply. I feel in some ways that the testing is subjective and some reliance is on the experience and life experience and even personality and personal views of the person doing it. I don’t need pip, but although don’t really agree with diagnosis in a lot of ways I need it to feel validated. It is like having to prove you are gay though, and to someone who isn’t gay themselves. 

Sam said:

Why is it so important to have and accept a diagnosis, why can’t we just be who we are.

The diagnosis has 2 key benefits:

1 - it confirms that the condition is present. If it is present then you know more about the causes and can look for effective ways to deal with these. Knowledge = power.

2 - It provides you with a label as being disabled. If you suffer really badly from any of the autistic traits then it opens doors to get things like "Reasonable Adjustments" if you work or possibly PIP to support yourself.

We can only ever be what we are - getting others to accept it one thing but making the world better for us is a completely different kettle of fish.

Chances are that one thing that is bad for one autist is good for another - and we are such a mix of different traits at different levels that you never get a "typical" autist - therefore trying to accommodate for us is nearly impossible,

The best we can ever really hope for is a better understanding of the condition and more acceptance by the wider public in giving us reasonable adjustments where practical.

In brief, the multi-tasking is often attributed to ADHD. Autism will create difficulty with Neuro-Typical forms of communication or social-linguistics. Both will have executive function difficulty, but from my own research, it appears this is linked to heavier Right-Brain 'thinking' (and it may be that you cannot have it both ways?). But it also sounds like you were able to hyperfocus. uninterrupted in Project-Mode with a thing you were knowledgeable with and excelled at. 

Becoming highly skilled at any job takes mastery of a million small things building on each other. We multi-task in many ways we don't often think about, the brain is a complicated system and our attempts to recreate what a human can do into a robot is poor at best. Often, Autistics can be robbed of the ability to even be able to master one small thing. There is a lot of difficulty sifting the trauma from what is autistic. 

The human brain has been found to do a few things which make sense of our differences. One is "borrow" power from one area to support another. So, like a library with automatic lights which dim or shut down when you leave one room/section. Another thing that's been found has to do with how we can allow certain connexions to 'wither away' like dead vines while reinforcing others (an analogy from a neurosurgeon I know). This apparently happens when creating a new habit in place of an old. Now, re-wiring takes all kinds of mental work, so if you had 20 years to do whatever you wished, perhaps one could make all kinds of adjustments, but usually we only have time for a few big things like fixing an auto-response to rejection or quitting an unhealthy habit. 

I cannot socialise and also work. I need isolation to be able to focus and take the occasional tea break. I work for myself which means a decadent amount of introverted time and did have to learn that it's much needed. In some ways, all humans are quite skilled at a thing and useless at others, which is why the perception of Autism as a 'super power'. the same could be said for those "ultra-organised weirdos" (I'm attempting humour) LOL