increasing disorganization as we aspies age

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^^^if you don't mind, what are "rotary classes"? google pulled up "rotary club."

Agreed.
They don't accelerate kids here, except in very exceptional circumstances.
There's no way I would have fit in with kids a year older.
I had enough trouble with kids my own age, even though I was born mid-year.

My brother had to repeat sixth grade.
I was devastated for him.
I still wonder how that affected him psychologically.
He kept the same friend group and was always a year behind.

i was told i was held back a year before kindergarten. i always towered a head taller than my classmates.

Rotary classes means, instead of staying with one teacher all day for all of the different subjects (Primary school), we went to different teachers and classrooms for each subject. We rotated (insert visual of me doing a pirouette.) It was too start-and-stop for me. I couldn't function on a schedule like that, and changing classrooms meant I needed to adjust to a new sensory environment every 45 minutes. I was used to my hippy-dippy primary education which was in a giant pod classroom with pillows and beanbag chairs. Suddenly I was in the real world with ticking clocks, desks, bright lights, and metal chairs.

we didn't have rotary classes until middle school. we did have year-round schooling which was its own form of hell.

Mine started in middle school too. When I refer to Primary school I mean Kindergarten to sixth grade. Those were all in my hippy school where I excelled in being a bookworm, and reading upside-down on beanbag chairs. Seventh and Eighth grades were pure hell because I tried too hard to be cool and fit in, plus all the nonsense of rotary classes and bright lights. I was set up, bullied, and ostracised by the end of eighth grade and I never recovered from it. I never made friends again, meaning I went to high school (9th grade) hating myself and hiding in the library because I was so scared. The rest is history, I guess. I always wonder if my life would have turned out differently if I had a smooth transition into middle school and if someone took the time to teach me organisational skills. Maybe I would have kept some friends and I wouldn't have spiralled into who I am today - the weirdo rebel outcast freak who's perpetually 14, even according to my doctors. It's like my life and my development stopped completely in October 1982 during Grade 8.

Year-round school would have killed me, even with the short breaks. Summer holiday was a lifesaver because I could hide in my bedroom for two-months straight, without anyone reinforcing how strange I was.

Yeah, rotary classes started in 5th grade for me too (our program skipped 4th). Before that it was partial rotary. 1-3 we had a separate music teacher, separate gym teacher, and a separate computer class teacher (we were taught some primitive algorithm concepts). I was doing poorly with unfamiliar teachers, and had a lot of anxiety finding classrooms when the full rotary started.

They started that rotary thing when I was 7. Just to add to the fun, it was also the first time I'd encountered male teachers, and they were quite nasty to us. My class teacher (and old woman who taught us the core subjects without us having to walk around the school) was herself quite strict, but at least she explained her expectations clearly and we got on quite well. The men, though, used corporal punishment without warning for things that often couldn't be helped, such as laughing "inappropriately."

in elementary school not only did they whack us with malice aforethought, but they sent nasty letters home telling our parents that if they don't spank us more, they would expel us.

I was moved from a "regular" school to an "alternative" school around 3rd or 4th grade (age 8 or nine).
The new school was a "Extended Montessori" school, which meant that they tried to take the Montessori ideas (usually for younger kids) all the way up to 6th grade (maybe it was 8th). From then on I always moved from classroom to classroom and each room was dedicated to a different subject. Everything was very hands on - I still don't understand how other schools can teach math without "Manipulatives".

My middle school / high school was the "hippy dippy school" with the beanbag chairs. In the Percy Jackson books every book starts with Percy getting thrown out of a new school. They are all alternative schools. I tell me my kids I went to a "Percy Jackson" school. Started in 6th or 7th grade (age 11 or 12). In one class the teacher told us we could sit anywhere we liked.
I took one of the folding chairs with plastic seats and managed to wedge it on top of a filling cabinet 4 or 5 feet tall. He was OK with that and that was where I sat for the rest of the year. I liked both schools and most of the teachers but had a very hard time connecting with my peers. I usually played alone on the very edge of the playground or blacktop-and-chainlink-fence play yard. The high school had more bullies. I alway has one or two friends but no more. At both schools I was allowed to advance in some subjects (beyond my same-age-peers) where I could, and my mom tutored me and "helped" with my writing (half helped, half ghosted). I took a college computer class in 11th grade, then another in calculus and went to college full time in 12th. Frankly it wasn't until college where I started liking my peers. Academics actually seems like the focus there and not establishing a pecking order.

My EF seems to be getting worse as I age. I sometimes think of trying to get my thoughts, or tasks into some kind of order like building a pyramid of marbles on a dining room table. Start with three at the bottom and put one on top. If you hold the three at the bottom they will all stay in place. You can add three more in a row at the bottom and then add two above and one on top and again they will all stay if you hold the bottom in. Eventually if you add too many the pyramid won't stand. And when it doesn't it won't be just one or two marbles that fall they will all scatter in every direction and start falling off the table. And my thoughts seem like that. I am afraid that one day they will all scatter and never get back together. I guess you might call that "loosing my marbles". But it really feels like that could happen at any time. I read a book by someone who suffered with bi-polar. Her description of her first true psychotic episode reminded me of my mental marbles.

I am out of work now. I couldn't focus after a while with all the COVID-19 social distancing removing any external structure that work had provided. Companies where I have worked will sometimes fire all the project managers and middle managers as a cost saving mechanism. Some computer professionals seem to even prefer this. I fall apart when the structure is removed.

all these comments remind me that what is very important as us spectrumites age, is that we simplify our lives in a systematic way so as to lessen the cognitive load on our already overtaxed/overstimulated brains, give our frontal lobes more breathing space as it were.

This seems a good descriptor of how some of us manage into older age.i think if we are facing cognitive decline ,
But have managed to pick up neutroopics as a special interest almost by accident, not saying i have nearly amassed all the info about them but a bunch of self experimtation , seems to have paid off But only marginally helped me de-clutter . It seems there is some disparate orginization in my clutter . In which only I seem to know and use in a overall productive manner. although Some items take years to matriculate into complete processes or projects that
i assemble. ... And things that are deemed not helpful can be in danger of getting tossed out , but that can be a 20 year process it seems. When you are faced with varying potentialities. Everything seems to have value ?
Just as those of you with older parents, might find in those peoples hoarding practices during the Wartime years.
I wonder if Aspies have also had their futures,by virtue of how they were treated growing up. Might have insecurities about their futures aswell? Who would keep an old worn old car tire, just laying around .eg. But the 1960s hippies turned them into soles of their sandals they might wear. But in a throw away society,where does this end and begin ?
And varying circumstances means varying potentialities , to me.

Last edited by Jakki on 02 Jan 2023, 10:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't really clear up anymore because it just gets messy again, what is the point? Life is too short to be constantly clearing and washing and cleaning things. My house is messy but not unhygienic so that's fine by me. There are far, far, far more interesting things to do all day than bl00dy clearing up! My brain needs more stimulation than cleaning and housework.

I make sure I wash the dishes, take out the garbage, do laundry, don’t leave used food around the house.

Someone once told me about the three back method.

Take three big bags (like extra strength leaf bags) and make three piles of "stuff".

One pile is called "throw it away" the next is called "give it away" the next is called "keep it".

The rule is that the piles have to be (nearly) the same size.

Each pile goes in one of the bags.

Yes ..yes .. indeed , i am thinking these are minimums to get by with and adhere to . Best try to add in keeping
oneself clean within reason . Including caring for teeth . if for no other reason than to avoid dentists chair.
Am discovering a few mice have moved in for the winter . Paying no Rent ! Wm furious with these freeloading vermin . And have had very little luck with eviction process. i think they are gathering secretly and laughing at my mouse traps of varying types .