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Feeling of not doing enough

Anselm

Hi all,

I’m Anselm, new to the community, and currently living in SE of England. Since my late teens and early adulthood (I’m nearly 40 yo) I’ve been often wondering why I feel a bit strange, different from my friends and colleagues. Some time ago someone commented that I have autism. I decided to read some articles about it and although never diagnosed with it, I thought it must be it.

I’m often struggling to be interested in anything and I constantly feel like I haven’t done enough. Even though I go to work for 8 hrs and follow my daily routines religiously always having something to do after work, still in the end of the day I feel like I haven’t done enough. I also find very difficult to relax, I don’t know how to relax, I feel like I must be performing and accomplishing all the time. What makes it worse is the thing that I don’t know what to do in life. I don’t know if this is something to do with autism or is it some other type mental health issue? Does anyone else feel this way? And how do you cope with it? Thanks

Parents

  • That sounds hard, if you are working and not getting any fulfilment out of it?  It's a kind of constant worry and guilt, to think you should always be doing something useful. I know I struggle to relax. Have you read up on executive dysfunction and autistic inertia? If I am on my own (my husband is doing something else), I can sit there thinking about relaxing and doing something, but fail to actually do anything then it's time for bed.  

    Trying to take it easy on yourself, and if you need routine, try actually schedule in some specific time to do things to relax on different days (do a puzzle, watch a show, play games, whatever you feel like)? It sounds silly, but if you know before hand what you are going to do to relax it can help, and if you want to do something else you can allow yourself that? (I've done this my son who doesn't like deciding things, and it did help for a while, though now he has a different routine that works for him)

Reply

  • That sounds hard, if you are working and not getting any fulfilment out of it?  It's a kind of constant worry and guilt, to think you should always be doing something useful. I know I struggle to relax. Have you read up on executive dysfunction and autistic inertia? If I am on my own (my husband is doing something else), I can sit there thinking about relaxing and doing something, but fail to actually do anything then it's time for bed.  

    Trying to take it easy on yourself, and if you need routine, try actually schedule in some specific time to do things to relax on different days (do a puzzle, watch a show, play games, whatever you feel like)? It sounds silly, but if you know before hand what you are going to do to relax it can help, and if you want to do something else you can allow yourself that? (I've done this my son who doesn't like deciding things, and it did help for a while, though now he has a different routine that works for him)

Children
  • in reply to Cinnabar_wing

    Yeah, worry and frustration used to be much worse, I just couldn’t figure out what’s wrong with me. And I’ve had dozens of different jobs already that usually last max. 1.5 years then I have to quit otherwise I’ll have burnout. My current job, I started last September, is okay. Not something I’ve dreamed of but it’s better than any other job I’ve had before. I think I haven’t heard about executive dysfunction or autistic inertia, I’ll have a look.

    From today onwards I not going to have anything in my calendar for at least for next few weeks. Maybe I add something fun, I just need to be careful as I often end up overdoing something until I hate it. Thanks for your advice, I appreciate it.