executive ordering dysfunction and AS

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This matches my situation, except for having lived on my own. The closest I have come to that is when I went away to college, and the meals were provided for me there. I did do a short Summer term in which I had to come up with my own food on weekends. One week I nearly went hungry for those two days because I completely forgot. I found one dollar in my wallet that I had forgotten about and got to eat ramen three times a day instead (which beat the alternative). I am not at all sure I'd e able to survive on my own. I never have held a job. I did manage an AA degree after 11 years of wandering from interesting class to necessary class. My counselor seemed to think I had wasted my time in them which I found insulting. Higher learning is a waste of time if there's no payoff on paper? Stupid.

But I digress.

I am a stay-at-home mamasan with 3 kids and I can't go anywhere fun this Summer (without another adult anyway) because my executive issues have run blunt-end up against my son's impulse control problems! I have a 3-year-old who has more self-control and who is more reasonable than the 7-year-old. The place is in a sort of perpetual disorder and I feel fortunate if I have managed the essentials... clean clothing, clean dishes (enough for now, anyhow), garbage taken out as needed and the kids fed and changed also as needed. Yes, very fortunate. And I also feel like it is a constant juggling act. It makes me want to scream often. I have acouple of friends who, like many parents, say much the same thing, about how it's hard to keep up with everything, and yet my standard of what is necessary has had to be set so much lower than theirs! My husband is the type who just gets the job done. He doesn't enjoy it and yet he does it anyway! It's boggling. So I feel guilty all the time because I feel like dead weight around here. It's hard to tell yourself that you have strengths in other areas if you're constantly falling down on the job that must be done and done by you. I swear there's babysitters who get around the tasks at hand better than I do.

What's more, my daughter is a mess, too. She's 11 and her school stuff is getting worse and worse. I can't believe how much crap they load on these kids, just drop it in their laps for them to handle, and then blame the kids for not keeping up. If there's a kid who keeps up with all that school and home work without any trouble, the kid's either a genius or a very scary kid indeed.

I've got to go field yet another kid's random surprise request. I hate it when they spring things on me.

Thanks Aimless for bringing this up. It's an aspect of AS that had never come quite clear to me before, but explains a great deal. Now I understand why I can write fictional scenes with no problem, but my head explodes at the thought of outlining the plot for an entire novel. And like several others here who have managed the family-and-kids thing, I frequently find keeping it all together to be too much for my fragile brain to juggle. This is precisely what I've been attempting to verbalize in order to explain why AS is in fact a genuinely handicapping disability when it comes to functioning adequately in the real world and being able to carry on a 'normal' and independent existence over the long term.

So, can it be said that executive ordering dysfunction is a usual part of AS? I'm wondering if the diagnosis of co-morbid ADD is just redundant. Are there aspects of straight up ADD that you don't find with AS?

I'm thinking there is difference between AS executive function problems and ADD executive function problems. As someone on the spectrum without ADD I don't have trouble focusing once I get into a certain mode. It's just slow getting the ball rolling. Then once I'm doing something I can't be interrupted or I have trouble getting back into it afterwards. I lose all my enthusiasm when rapid transitions are forced on me.

That clarifies things a bit marshall-I definitely have trouble with all of it unless it's a special interest. I might have a real hard time getting a painting started (it's been years) but as I recall once it's going and going well it's all I think about and I'll even get up in the middle of the night to paint because I can't stay away. I miss that feeling. I'm mentally working towards making art again.

I think that executive dysfunction is one of the core parts of ASCs. I think that we don't always realize how important it is and how much trouble we have with it. It affects everything, from nonverbal communication to adaptive functioning to academics. It is perhaps my main problem. I spend SO MUCH TIME actively managing myself. It's absolutely exhausting.

But one of our strengths, as autists, is systemizing. This can appear to compensate for executive dysfunction. I'm very interested in how the two of them interact.

Almandite wrote:

What do you mean exactly by systemizing? I'm really bad at keeping things in order.

I have known straight-up ADDers who did not seem to have such severe executive functioning issues as I do...then again, they were more-often-than not on meds....but I think that ADD can manifest without executive function difficulties...just as AS can..(or can it?)..(is executive dysfunction More of an AS thing?)

Their ADD manifested as a sort of intense impulsive energy..and that is what they seemed to face life with...but they also managed to "Keep it together"...hold jobs..drive cars...not live in a pig sty..etc...

ADDers without AS..most particularly ADHDers ...um....might have social problems, but often these might extend from being overly sociable...I have known some ADDers who were very intensely socially driven...in a way you might not find with AS....(though I have known some pretty gregarious aspies)...

I think perhaps that we co-morbid types might have more difficulty with systemizing than other aspies...

poopylungstuffing wrote:

Never in my life have I felt intense impulsive energy-I'm happy to get through the day without a nap.

Non-AS ADDers exhaust the hell out of me usually...at least, the ones I have known have.

I went through a brief phase of "hyperactivity" when I hit adolescence..it was awful...I was so annoying... and so oblivious to how annoying I was....not saying all ADDers are that bad..but I certainly was.

Wow, does this ever describe how I work! I procrastinate and procrastinate and procrastinate about often the simplest things, but once I get rolling, I'm completely unstoppable if left to my own devices. This must be why I will clean for hours one day and not clean at all for weeks in between.

While I can't associate with many of the more common AS traits (I don't know about ToM, flat effect, or depression), this one really hits home for me.


I think systemizing refers to coming up with a system for dealing with something. For instance, when I do laundry, one of the ways I know which laundry is dirty and which laundry is clean is because dirty laundry always lives in the wicker hamper while clean laundry always lives in the plastic laundry basket. If I put dirty laundry in the laundry basket, I get really confused and bent out of shape. My wife thinks this is weird, but it works for me, and the laundry gets done.

Is that what you meant, aimless?

Once again, Yes, yes, yes to everything said here. In fact, that bolded section describes a major problem for me. I always had that feeling to a pretty large degree, but it's at a point now where my self-esteem is way into the negative numbers. Something about standing in the kitchen doorway with your tail between your legs while you husband finishes preparing a meal that you couldn't manage because it required too much multi-tasking---it just doesn't feel so great. He manages to cook all these different things (everyone in the family has a different food issue, so we can rarely just make one thing that everyone can eat and enjoy), and it all comes to the table HOT and looking appetizing. It's all I can do to get a few properly cooked chicken nuggets onto a clean plate. If I try to get creative or nutrition-conscious and serve some peas and potatoes alongside the chicken nuggets, then forget it. Something will end up burned, or dropped, or undercooked. My husband just takes all that in stride. If the potatoes are overcooked, he makes them into mashed potatoes, and everything still comes out even and nice. No tears. No freaking out and yelling at people (well, once in a while when my AS son gets REALLY insistent about asking constant Starcraft questions). For the most part, it just happens.

Oh and of course, the reason for my problems is that I have low self-esteem and expect to fail. If I could just muster up a better attitude, then I could accomplish anything. Right? People have said that my whole life, so it must be true. Pity it doesn't actually work. (I just want to add that my husband is one of the few people who doesn't say that...at least not often.)

There are two ways to relate to the world. Empathizing--feeling, or Systemizing--putting order into the chaos that is the world. It's the difference between relating to people instinctively and trying to govern your behavior with social rules.

One must be in pretty bad shape if one has troubles with both..

That's what I'm thinking. I just re-took that EQ-SQ test, and I score way below average on both systemizing and empathizing. In the end, I was called an "extreme systemize" (like 0% of other women, by the way. lol)

So, I'm an extreme systemizer who can't organize a carton of eggs. Very sad indeed! Ha ha!