Opinions on looking after yourself

Post Reply New Topic

I've heard it said that often, ASD people are haphazard at looking after themselves, whether personally or financially/in the greater world. I never thought I counted myself amongst them, but recently I've started to wonder. I've been working hard trying to make this new job work so am always busy, and realized when I actually caught my reflection in a mirror today (I'm probably odd inasmuch as I don't really look in mirrors) how thin I've got. I hadn't noticed. I thought about it and realized that often, unless propmted, I'll neglect to eat. My family ask "how long since you've eaten anything?" and it'll take me a while to actually think about the last time I ate. I also heard it said that ASD folks tend to be inattentive to hygeine - again, I didn't think this included me, but I realized that unless it's required, such as needing to look and smell acceptable for work, I'll overlook that, too. If there's no one to complain at me about it, it loses its significance. These sorts of things put together with a certain carelessness for my own safety seems to convince others I need to be managed. That I can't take care of myself and need help.
Which is irritating, as I'm someone who hates the very idea of "help." It usually involves others controlling me and creating an excuse to stick their noses into my business, when I'm customarily a very private person. How do others go with taking care of yourselves, whether it's personally such as hygeine and eating and protecting yourself and so on, to being able to manage in the world?

Lists, routines and timers work for many. Also see the thread on inertia ( http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt152361.html ) for more ideas.

On the notion of help, yeah, I don't like people interfering either. What's interesting is that it seems to be cultural:

http://urocyon.wordpress.com/2010/02/27 ... and-abuse/

The problem is that in being helped, you're giving power to the other person, so that even if you tell them to stay back, they might not respect your wishes (at a critical moment). Sure, you could fire them afterwards, but what if the replacement isn't any better? How much trouble in getting people to give good help is the help worth?

I'd rather sort these things out on my own.

OMG... all these things are SOOOOO me. You can learn to do everything you need to do to care for yourself. I have complete systems set up for eating (I have to log what I eat to make sure I do it) and I make check marks for bathing. I seriously used to think everyone had these issues.

While I don't forget to eat, I do forget to bathe, use the restroom and take my medication. A tactic which helps me enormously with these things is pretending that my imaginary twin sister, Alice, is reminding me to do them.

I can't say for sure whether its the aspergers or the severe depression that has more of an effect on this for me.....I try and shower like every other day but sometimes I forget. Or other times I know i should take a shower but i am so depressed its really hard to get up and go take one....so I just end up putting it off. As for eating I never used to have any trouble with that but for the past few months I've not had much of an appetite, and sometimes I have to force myself to eat. Not sure why that happened.

I manage to meet social expectations for cleanliness and hygiene mostly because my wife won't let me out of the house looking like a freak, I suspect it would happen often if not for her.

I have serious trouble in all of these areas, and do need help with them.

That's practically the story of my life.
Best line I've seen for this (from a post on WP) was "a life in free-fall". I've managed to clutch onto a few ledges and branches during the fall and gained a few wins, but it's largely chaotic and seemingly outside my control.

Eating? Unless I force myself to stop and get a meal, I don't. I just forget or put it off.
Once I did it to such an extent that I was given a bit of a talking-to by my doctor, who I'd gone to see about something else. Apparently I was getting seriously underweight and he'd spotted it immediately. I hadn't.

Hygiene? When absolutely necessary, like I'm going out or something. I have to force myself to attend to this too. Fortunately my apartment is fairly well soundproofed and I've recently discovered the joys of taking a shower at 03:00 - because I have to be up and about somewhere by 07:30 that same day.

Which brings me to -
Sleep? Only when I really can't continue what I'm doing through tiredness. I'm currently on a 1 day a week work cycle (normally it's 4) so I've dropped back into my typical routine of working until 04:00 and getting up at 10:00. I can't manage it so well these days but when younger, I'd go without sleep for 2 days at a time and sleep for 4 hours or so at the end of it.

Cleaning home? Er, I don't. Or at least I do for the organic stuff (plates & cutlery thoroughly washed, no festering food remains etc.) but the dust just gathers and I simply stop noticing it. Piles of books, photographs, CDs and technical journals all over the place. I'd said in another thread "It's horizontal, therefore it must be a shelf" - and that about sums up the tidiness around here.
It's quite strange because anywhere else but home, asymmetry drives me mad and I really want to line things up and be tidy.

My blood sugar gets whacky so I make sure to eat (plus I like food.) I don't eat at regular times though.
My personal hygiene is OK except I haven't been able to afford a dentist in a long time.
My home is periodically clean in some areas and a complete disaster in others.
My financial situation? Forget about it. I'm going to be working poor for the rest of my life.

Same here, same here. My high-flying, big money-earning days have probably ended.

i'm glad all you good people are around.