Can't go anymore

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At work I don't even get cubicle walls... everything is out in the open and people are wandering around talking everywhere around me and if I wear headphones someone will sneak up on me and I'll want to strangle them and I'll have to *somehow* keep from snapping at them. Oh yeah, and I have to write some code while I'm at it.

Executive function is crap. Trying to do a multistep process, I'll get stuck after the first or second step and then waste huge amounts of time staring off into space or wandering around the internet. Can't stop myself. Sometimes even moving seems hard, like I'm constantly about to bump into something and have to be extra careful even walking around.

I'm married with kids. I've got no place to rest. Weekends, the family wants interaction whether I'm burned out or not. Get through the weekend, back to work on Monday feeling even more run down, then I have to get through work and... well, you see the trouble here. I can't keep up with my life. I've been doing it for years, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but right now I really can't keep up and I'm feeling really run down.

Something's gonna have to give soon. And I don't even know if resting will help... if I do get time to myself, half the time I don't manage to feel any better afterwards, so I don't even want to ask for time to myself and then not be able to do anything better afterwards.

Now, hopefully your wife can accept the fact that your aspie or at least different. And that there's two sides of the coin, many of your positives in certain situations can be negative, or vice versa. For me, it's like I have a different laser. I can really focus in, including on an interaction with another person, but then I need a rest.

Maybe if your wife and kids understood that when you first came home, you need to be by yourself, maybe for a hobby. And, if this alone time only "works" fifty percent of the time as far as letting you decompress and rejuvenate, so be it.

With work, well, people should not be sneaking up on you. Maybe if you politely and matter-of-factly tell them two times, then snapping at them is not such a bad thing. Of course all depends on the work place.

If you get there consistently ten minutes early and leave on time, that kind of insulates you from criticism. And with creative activity, I think just the nature of the beast sometimes a person has good flow, sometimes it's stop and start and ragged work, and 'normal' people take all kinds of breaks, too.

There is a way to half-quit a job which I think is like having an Ace in the hole. A person just says, 'There's a family situation I have to take care of. I have to take two days off, maybe more.' If they ask, no I can't tell you more about it. If they push, you can just matter-of-factly say, family comes first. I think this is a much more mature way than calling in sick. And it has the advantage of allowing you to take as little or as much time as you need. Plus, even if they partially see through this, the face-saving aspect and the fact that it's unstated, they might realize you're a good employee who they do not wish to lose. Or, not. Please be aware that this is half quitting and that the job might go away. But I think it's an Ace worth holding and at times worth playing.

All very good. I don't think she'd take it well if I took a day off from work without telling her or spending it with her, though. Anyway, a good card to keep in my back pocket.

Last I heard, everyone thinks I'm doing well. I may have leverage to get a few small accomodations if I play my cards right. Negotiation is really hard for me, but might be my best bet. I don't know for sure - I hate not knowing for sure...

I took her shopping for clothes for me (she insisted on tagging along)... she got agitated because the way I move gets her nervous. This has got to be a big part of what keeps going wrong. We've got to find ways around this... we can't avoid each other all the time, and I can't move "normally" without making myself extra nervous and exhausted.

My workout schedule is back on track... that might help. I also got another bottle of multivitamins (I ran out a couple of weeks ago and forgot to get more). I hope to God something helps... I hate being like this, really hate being semi-useless.

Oh, Wow, she needs to accept you for the way you are, although it might take a while and it might need to be in steps. I don't know where you are in your diagnosis process. Myself, I am self-diagnosed and that is plenty good enough for me for the time being, esp since I have a healthy skepticism towards so-called mental health professionals (some of whom are excellent, but a lot are not and I have not exactly had the greatest experiences). What Asperger's / Autism Spectrum gives me is kind of a conceptual whole which explains a whole lot about my life. It potentially gives me a tribe, and I really hope political activism down the road.

Maybe tell your wife in steps, 'beginning to think . . . ', that kind of thing

And if you need alone time for walks, for browsing bookstores by yourself, for listening to music by yourself, as I do, she just needs to understand that, all in good time. For me, I like other people just fine and I like intense time, but then I've got to have time to myself.

About work, in a business book, I read about what I think is called the Ted William Paradox, which means that we tend to discount the things we are good at, and think more highly of the things we are not. So even with breaks and executive function issues, you might have some real skills at programming, matter-of-fact documentation, the main narrative thread of what the program is trying to achieve, trouble-shooting the broader system, etc, etc. And these might come so easily to you that you think these are relatively easy skills, but I guarantee they're not. And that is the Ted Williams Paradox. The only thing I don't like about this is the emphasis on superstar. I don't need to be a superstar. I can just be a plain ol' regular person and that should be good enough. And if more of our institutions, esp education and employment, were multi-path rather than single-path, the world would be a far different and better place.