Day to day functioning!

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I am an aspie who finds it really hard to function in day to day life.

What can i do from here to improve things?

I think paranoia, obssesive compulisve thinking and anxiety make it very hard.

I find that it's a number of small and medium 'tricks' (okay, methods) rather than one big something.

I'll try and share some of them.

getting out of the house early, but also getting back relatively early to shower, dress nicely, etc.

brief journaling mid-morning (don't overdo, and not every morning. As with much of art, this is truly a case where 'less is more')

maybe with bills, a session 45 minutes before a favorite TV show, as much as you can do, then heck with it, enjoy your show. And then maybe a wrap-up session the next morning.



I struggled with long showers (as much worried about 'chemical contamination' as germs!) in my late teens and early 20s. On this one, actually learning some real medicine and thinking about going to medical school helped me more than anything. For example, influenza (plain ol' common flu) occasionally lead to pneumonia. And the standard advice is, if you start having trouble breathing, get help pronto. Well, I did not know that. Or, I did not know that as emphatically as it's spelled out. It is common sense. But they are giving you permission to go ahead and do it energetically. (and calling the doctors office, the word 'pneumonia' and in 'possibly pneumonia' might work better than profanity) So, I now know one more useful thing (which I can also share with others, and which is not the least bit embarrassing).

If a person is under 30 years old, I really encourage them to think about medical school. Yes, you, too. The OCD worries add a certain ballast. Maybe read medical school biographies and see what you think. It is a gift to yourself even to consider medical school

and if possible, get a doctor you can halfway talk with, who's willing to have a respectful back-and-forth conversation even briefly (sure, doctors are pressed for time), who can listen and respond, no, I don't think this is something I would worry about. But who also realizes that even someone with health worries certainly can get sick and should be taken seriously.

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and perhaps most important.

Add good things to you life even during hard times. For example, if you've thought about learning guitar, jump in, experiment, have fun Don't wait until things are perfect.