Is it my fault?

regretfully I feel I have to be good at everything I get involved with aurelis - maybe a trauma response from being shown my limitations or as I suggested not wanting to give anyone an excuse to express the sort of biases that being autistic can lead one to experience.  Maybe also the sense of knowing I'm fortunate to have some gifts and yet never really achieved as much as I reckon I should have for the effort I give.

Funny thing is "being present" is like trying to hold sand in a fist - the harder one tries the more it escapes perhaps?

The fragments are hard to connect for a lot of autistic people as I understand it.  "Weak central coherence theory" is about "seeing the trees but not noticing the forest" and like you say is closely akin to tunneling and monotropism maybe .  I do a lot of "bottom-up processing" like this myself.  Has it's advantages and disadvantages in my experience.

mind maps, checklists, etc to make a substitute "virtual forest" can help in my experience

best wishes

What’s the thing that you feel you have to be really good at? It’s something I feel, as if I need to be so good with my thing (music) but because of that I end up in my imagination of how good I need to be and don’t feel as present in trying to work on it. Sometimes I can’t quite tell reality between imagining how I’ll fit in once I complete the knowledge I need vs actually doing.

thanks for sharing this. Interesting you mention about tunneled focuses. I would describe my experience with life as many small fragments. Those fragments feel like small tunnels but they don’t feel like they’ve completed. 

Thanks for sharing this. It’s been hard to not beat myself up when I compare to neurotypical, especially when I look on social media. I get really scared that because of my autism I’ve missed opportunities to grow that I could’ve if I wasn’t so stuck in myself and not being more open minded.

ill try that Oxford to do list. That sounds helpful. I’ve got a dump list at the minute and using that to help keep hopes to try things in the future. Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m choosing to do it to be more interesting or because I’m genuinely curious. Like fishing for example.

Thanks for sharing this, do you ever get the chance to be freely autistic with anyone in your life, and what does that look like for you?

I can relate to a lot of what you’re saying. I’ve found focussing on the finer details harder to adjust. I always did too much on certain assignments in school and uni then get disappointed when they wouldn’t get the top marks. simply put, I was not hitting what was being looked for.

Ive tried doing a dump list this week. Any idea I get goes in the dump list. Anything at all. I’m trying to see if it helps me to have my idea still a thing I can explore, but dumping it somewhere I’m hoping helps work against feeling I need to take on a new idea right there and then.

Ive been diagnosed all my life but yet I’d say past couple years I’ve really burnt out, and I’ve lost my sense of self. I’m sorry you’ve lost interest in things. Who beats you with that stick. I’m probably fortunate and unfortunate that it’s only me that beats myself with that stick.

I don't and have never used social media apart from here and one other small site that's now closed, so I'm afraid I couldn't really comment, I don't even know what 'grind culture or maxxing' are. From what I've been shown of people who call themselves influencers is that they're like the popular kids at school, who are all "look at me, I'm wonderful and if you dont' want to be like me me then then you're worthless, sad and in need of bullying".

How people define self worth has always varied across time and culture and of course class, but if there's one thing the British excel at it's eccentricity, so being interesting different has always had a certain cachet, as long as unappologetic for it, think Quentin Crisp, Oscar Wilde (yes I know he was Irish), Vita Sackville West and many other pioneering weirdo's who are now celebrated and some who are still living as National Treasures.

Other culture's look at British fashion and wonder how we can pair a floaty, flowery summer dress, with a pair of docs and get away with it? But it's what we do!

Hi, I can relate to how you are feeling, I seem to work very hard and not earn very much, I have learnt that concentrating so hard on the fine details of something uses a lot of energy. I keep working 7 days per week, I thought if I do this, then I could achieve the work rate of what I would call normal people. The result is going to bed at 8pm exhausted every night.

I'm a bit older than you, I’ve watched some of my peers from school go on to have nice cars and holiday homes, I was supposed to be the bright one and have just struggled.

I find a lot of crossover between autism and ADHD, I can concentrate but really struggle to hold that focus, there’s always masses of thoughts all going on at once. I seem to start different projects and finish none. The key thing I really need to do is to not people please anymore and realise that we use energy up at a very high rate. I don’t actually enjoy anything anymore and that’s another stick I seem to get beaten with.

I feel I’ve been in burnout since the time I first realised I’m autistic, my mindset seems to have changed, it’s as if I have freed the genie from the bottle and now it won’t return. I thought a diagnosis would answer all my questions, it seems to have created more. I would most probably cope better if I could be freely autistic and not use so much energy hiding it every day.

I find that observation really interesting. When I watch old sitcoms from the 70s it appears that the world was much less career driven than it is now, you worked to live rather than live to work, unless you were in some high powered Jerry Ledbetter type job of course. People wanted to enjoy and experience life and work was what enabled that, rather than work being your life and the thing that defined your happiness and self worth. 
Modern society, since the 80s and the whole yuppy, Thatcher revolution, seems so much more career focused, like a successful career, a constant march towards promotions and advancement is what life is about. This has become even worse with Instagram influencers, grind culture and "maxxing". 

Id be really interested to get your perspective on all this 

Thank you for posting this. This is exactly how I have been feeling lately and I haven't found other people who relate. 

I don't know if its a neurodiverse brain thing but I jump from project to project on an almost daily basis, whether its journaism and writing, digital marketing, trying to learn how to fix cars, anything. I never seem to actually make a success of any of these things and I think it might be cos I don't stay on any of them long enough. I always have at least 5 ideas bouncing around my head at any one time

I don't have any solutions for you but I just want to say you are really not alone with this and please don't be so hard on yourself, its how our brains are wired and it doesn't mean your not an adult or that its your fault. We cant judge ourselves by the way other people do things 

One thing that might help, I have recently started using an Oxford To Do List notebook planner, it helps me pick one of the 5 ideas bouncing around my head and focus on that just for one day and then if I want I can focus on a different one tomorrow but it just helps me plan out what I can do for that idea each day and helps with the tangles in the head 

Do you think you enjoy the process more than the end result? I know I often do, I loved doing my degree, but was upset when it finished, because I could no longer be in what to me was such a special and precious environment, where I could stretch my intellectual wings. Everyone else was really happy with their results, I felt totally flat.

Baking is a life skill and one that takes a lifetime to perfect, its ab it like gardening you never stop learning and its never finished and always changing. I'm sure that nobody cares if your cake is a bit wonky, they'll be far more interested in eating good home baked cakes, I mean it is cake. It's easy to look at someone like Mary Berry or Nigella Lawson and think they never have accidents, that their pastries never have soggy bottoms, and their cakes never sink in the middle, but they will, but we won't see it because its telly. If you watch Bake Off then you'll see how many people can make a cake look great, but it has no flavour, often they're among the first to go home and people who's bakes taste good but don't look so good make through to the end.

Does it actually matter if you bake for something to talk about or because you enjoy it, do they have to be mutually exclusive?

That being hard on yourself seems to be something a lot of people I've encountered in this chat group are too.  I certainly am regularly upset with myself when i don't meet my personal expectations of myself.

I've reasoned it this way:

I've got to be really good at what i do in order to not get picked on and/or hide my autistic differences in society so that life is less stressful.

I've invested so much time and effort into what I'm doing that if it goes wrong it seems like a disaster rather than a simple human failure.

I've kindoff lived for so long with a possible acquired sense of "wrongness" in/from society that I've picked up on it and internalised it.

So in short that's me and I don't want to inoculate you with pessimism. For what it's worth i'm 62 and a lot of the time haven't a clue what I'm doing and a lot of people who I meet who say they do are self-delusional at least to the external observer.  I don't think you're alone in feeling how you do. 

solutions...  well I think you're probably on the right track by voicing and sharing how you experience things at present as that can give a base line for noticing and adjusting - also sometimes things make more sense looking back on them then when we're doing them at the time.  

I've read that sometimes autistic people struggle to see the bigger picture and experience life thro' lots of intense "tunneled" focuses - I certainly do that a lot and so can end up struggling to get a balanced perspective .  Maybe what this ends up doing is the equivalent of gathering parts of a metaphorical jigsaw puzzle that will some day come together as a bigger whole?  Maybe people like us are already doing the things that we think we should be and if in some way it was easier to explore bringing them together would help realisation and "personal development"?

I’ve composed classical, electronic stuff, jazz, hip hop, musicals , a range of things! I recently composed for a indie film and that’s been an interesting experience, it being my first one. I’ve not found what I really enjoy composing yet, but I’ve had quite a broad exploration dipping my toes into different ones

Thank you for this comment. I had decided to lean into teaching more and consider more getting work with my saxophone as it provides a clear opportunity to play for weddings and at bars. Besides that I might be stubborn to find other work, but it might also be because I’m still living at home.

i think that I catch myself fantasising of being a doctor or a lawyer, and the stability and social reputation I would get from this. I even consider getting training in something like music therapy. 

I’ve been thinking about where that thinking has come from to have to be doing something. And have to do it exceptionally. It’s been interesting as I’ve been getting into baking, and wondering whether I’m doing it to have something to talk about or because I actually want to give it a go.

ive found the process fun, and it’s been rewarding to lean into making to then give to my friends. And I find just the process of making has been fun. When I’ve set myself too much high expectations in the name of having to do it, it’s put me off so much. When things don’t go quite right, I take it harshly, but it might be the whole point of making.

Oh, cool!! What kind of music did you compose!?

I've often wondered if being taken to so many classes and groups to "do things" and never having free time to just be is a good thing or not? I think this in itself is a pressure, social media only adds to it. We're not allowed to be good enough any more, we have to be exceptional or a failure, what about just enjoying the process and not caring so much about the out come?

Personally I've often been cross and confused by people telling me I can be or do anything I put my mind too or want, its just not true, I couldn't be a fighter jet pilot, my legs are to long, I'm never going to be a great musician, even AI sort of gave up trying to explain the simplest of musical things to me, like what a beat is. Some things, I think I'd quite like to do, I couldn't because my body wouldn't allow me too, or I'm simply to old to do the amount of learning I'd need to do, a phd or two.

I don't know about you but when people tell me I can do and be anything, its like a great yawing chasm opens up and I'm one step over the edge and just able to pull myself back.

If anyone asks you what you're doing with your life tell them you're being a human being not a human doing

I don’t know exactly where it comes from. I’ve been taken to many different activities when I was younger, and as I got to about 17/18, I started to think that I need to be exceptional in these things. That also included a lot of social media comparison. Obviously from school to uni, the world gets bigger, then from uni to the real world, the world gets bigger, and I believed I could get bigger with it (taking literally that you can do anything if you put your mind to it). In all of that, I’ve felt this pressure to have a story to tell, and so I’m looking to try and have an interesting story to tell.

i told myself I wouldn’t be a teacher until I’ve lived and travelled and then have the experience grounded to really take into a classroom. Then, when I was asked to teach at my music service, I just agreed in saying yes because I also believed I needed to be busy to be directional. There’s a lot of misunderstandings in all of that.

its left me bitter towards my uni experience, especially since being a student during COVID, and I didn’t used to be so like that. I think I’m scared of being how I currently feel, a wanderer trying to plant ground and missing the soil every time i try to break ground. I’m scared of being asked “what are you doing with your life”, and saying “I really don’t know, I don’t quite feel connected with anything”, it feels humiliating.

i think you’re right, it’s a lot of pressure as children, and it feels that if you don’t hit the mark in the most critical period of development, childhood and adolescence, you’re stuck floating forever. Maybe not a true perspective, but I do find myself often dissociating from this reality to a reality where I’m younger, and not autistic, grabbing at every opportunity and living life.

Musician, composer, music teacher. Sometimes do some photography.

You are being hard on yourself, BUT, there are huge expectations placed on us that we are born knowing what we want to be when we grow up and slowly work towards it and have a career, house, get married, have kids and all the other stuff advertisers sell as a dream. It is a dream, many people sort of fall into doing a job or having a career and don't really think about it.

I'm 64 and I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. When I was a young woman we had jobs, if anyone had asked us what career we wanted, we would have looked at them like their heads did up at the back! You just had a job and if you didn't like you got a different one, or worked as a temp, via an agency, you didn't often find what you did want to do, but you found out what you never wanted to do again.

Have you asked yourself where all this judgement comes from because if you can answer that you may be able to be less hard on yourself and give yourself some breathing space?

Which creative jobs? Do you mind me asking?

It sounds like you're pursuing various things that you can do and which interest you, and that's a lovely thing to do. It also sounds like you want to make more money, which usually means sticking to one thing that will give you a career, as it's becoming better in one thing that often increases income, which is basically what a career is. If you want mor emoney, pick the thing that brings in most money and stick to it, and do the other stuff you like as a hobby. Or you can find an entirely different career outside the creative industry, and do creative things in your own time.

Lot's of people just do what they can to get by, so you're not alone in that, or less of an adult. Is the stuff about not being adult coming from others? Many people don't view creative jobs as real, in some sense. Perhaps it's because there's so little money to be made at the lower levels of any of the creative arts.

Maybe you're being hard on yourself because you're torn between doing what you want to do and earning more money. It is tough. I liked to write, but it doesn't earn enough, so I had a day job like most writers. I couldn't afford to go into journalism (too many people looking for too few jobs and too many jobs going to the children or children of friends within the industry).