What do you struggle with most day to day?

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Since my flood:

Having heat in the house, but no water (5 nights)
Having cold water, but no hot water (2 nights)
Having all water but no heat in the house (3 nights)
Having all water and temporary heat, but no laundry (4 nights)
Having no power in the house (1 night)
Having strangers in my house to fix things (12 days)

On a musical-chairs basis. ^

Every day has a new delight.

Executive processing

Organization

Sleep problem

Emotional overeating

Emotions

Small talk

Easily startled

Don't know how to cook or fix appliances

"Miscommunication"

I'm pretty sure most of my struggles can be lumped together under the headings 'deficit of executive function' and 'mood disorder'.

The way the former plays out day-to-day:

short attention span
intrusive thoughts
fixation
difficulty maintaining focus on complex tasks, instead getting distracted by the elements of them or the planning required to complete the task
endless knight's move thinking
being prone to constant daydreaming unless a situation involves an immediate existential threat and only responding to threats of that nature due to being frustrated over their intrusion
constant need for stimulation to maintain focus
procrastination
difficulty considering approaches that involve receiving help from others, i don't ask for help and rarely even conceive of it being an option for me even if i also understand that it both should be and is an option for others
prone to misplacing things, forgetting things, having routines breakdown very quickly, ritualizing elements of tasks without ever considering if that element is no longer needed
struggling to make use of strategies and tools for offsetting some of those weaknesses (I had a whiteboard, never really used it and then lost it as an example.)


As for the latter:

cycling between depressive, manic and mixed states makes it difficult to accomplish most mundane day-to-day tasks either because i have no interest in living and thus can't justify the effort in building the infrastructure to support long-term living, or because I'm too distracted by grandiose ideas that typically involve either far more work and effort than I tend to be capable of, planning on a level that I am unlikely to be able to follow through on or social networking that exceeds my abilities, or some combination of those three, or that I'm recovering from being exhausted after the last bout of that

apathy/detachment
prone to black-out rage
vindictive nature
combative, combative without concern for the opponent's place in any relevant hierarchies
the constant sense that i shouldn't exist
anxiety
poor emotional regulation
i fail to form emotional bonds with people
i struggle to interact with people without the underlying assumption that they'd prefer to have the interaction over with as quickly as possible
everything becomes a debate all the time

Being patient with myself and others.
Asking for help.
Not automatically leaping to the worst case scenario.
Believing that everyone is doing the best they can, me included.
Taking time to relax, and not feeling guilty about it.

I had good balance but not so good lately.I also have trouble with instructions especially oral.

How has the current pandemic changed day-to-day challenges?

Personally, I sense that the 'stay at home' and 'social distancing' directives are like a two-sided coin - that is I'm meeting important, and necessary challenges readily. Yet, I still sense some of the familiar struggles.

Other people - more specifically, social situations

Not so much a problem at the moment

physical pain
technology barriers
disappointments
trauma memories

The being confined to the house is somewhat a struggle,the other day my wife wanted me to open a jar lid and I worked with it and had no success she picked it up and was able to open it.Now had I loosen it? But dose give the support that I require.

I forget to eat a lot, and I struggle with time management. I also struggle with making myself leave the apartment to go do things, including grocery shopping.

That new med which is Seroquel/Quetiapine is helping me not snap/yell even thou I'm very annoyed sometimes. However Seroquel is screwing with my sleep. I was suggested by my psych to try it at night but switch to the morning if it messes with my sleep. My problem with sleep now thou is that I sleep for over 10 hours. Then when I'm up I don't feel tired for like 18 hours cuz of how much I slept before so it's like I'm on a 28/30 hour schedule instead of a 24 one. I cant wake up for more than a few minutes to turn off my alarm or cuz Cass tries to wake me up before I fall back asleep & I remember none of it. Cass has been a bit upset with me cuz of this. She wants me up during the day incase she wants to do stuff but she doesn't know when I'll be up during the day which makes it hard for her to plan things. She also doesn't like me being awake while she's sleeping & sleeping while she's awake cuz I'm not spending much time with her & my typing in our bedroom disturbs her sleep some. Cass likes to blame my sleep schedule but she doesn't have a very consistent one either but I cant change my sleep schedule to accommodate her changing one like I used to. I like Seroquel otherwise thou except for the bad dry mouth I had for a while but my dry mouth seems to be a little better now than it was. I decided to try taking Seroquel when I won't be going to bed for a long while & I've been getting up easier the last couple days. My sleep is still screwed up in other ways cuz I've been going to bed after my lunch & then waking up to eat supper. I need to change it where I go to bed after my supper so I can sleep for 8 hours & then take Seroquel after I wake up. I'm not sure if Seroquel is making me tired when I stay up after cuz I'm probably already tired from having a bad sleep schedule. The only other way I could try making Seroquel work for me is maybe by trying the extended release version but I'm gonna try taking it in my morning a while 1st.

It hasn't really changed anything for me since I don't have a job and can't drive in an area where pretty much my only option for public transportation is Uber and the like ($$$). Really the only difference is that we're not occasionally going out to restaurants like usual, though we sometimes get takeout now.

Sensory issues are a big one for me, mostly sound and touch.

Showers are a sensory nightmare for me and I don't enjoy baths, either. As a result, I often put them off for longer than I should.

Frequent shutdowns, especially when in public places like restaurants or grocery stores (though it's not as bad as it used to be before I got my service dog).

Selective mutism.

On the other hand, I also have trouble keeping from gushing about my special interest(s) that no one I'm talking to shares, or sometimes even have heard of.

When interacting with multiple people, usually the others get into a good discussion and I just fade into the background. If I try to contribute, they just let me talk and then carry on as if I hadn't said anything. I call this "social invisibility" - I'm visible enough that people don't walk into me or anything, but otherwise I may as well not be there - I'm kind of like a potted plant or something.

Major memory issues. I forget a whole lot of things, it's so bad that I can be actively watching a show or movie and forget what's on during commercial breaks. Also misremembering and "remembering" things that didn't actually happen. I really can't trust my memory for much of anything these days. And I have the unfortunate habit of forgetting that I forget everything, so I don't bother writing things down or anything.

If left to my own devices, I don't eat.

Chronic insomnia, which means I'm almost constantly tired (withiut meds I'm lucky to get half an hour of sleep and often get none. Even with meds I sometimes get none, like the night before last. I probably get around 6 hours of sleep a night with several wakings.)

I have trouble recognizing that I have to pee until it's an emergency.

And as of two months or so ago, lots of dizziness, lightheadedness, muscle weakness in my arms and legs, frequent muscle twitches, and occasionally things that might be seizures, all because my iron level is extremely low (I just got the first of two iron infusions today (if my iron was one point lower, they would've given me a blood transfusion ), then we're going to wait two weeks to see how I'm doing and try to determine why it's so low, and still decreasing after I started taking iron supplements).

Procrastination is also an issue for me.

Essential tremor makes it very difficult and frustrating to do anything that requires precision.

Extremely passive, letting others make most decisions and doing everything I can to avoid upsetting people at all (though I think I sometimes do that simply by existing), trouble making choices myself, can't make any decisions that will affect anyone more than just me.

Second (and third, and fourth, etc.) guessing myself.

Perfectionism (but only for myself, not for others)

Comparing myself to others and beating myself up over what a failure I am.

Feeling completely worthless.


That's all I can think of right now, though I'm probably forgetting something(s). Gosh, I'm a mess

Initiative. Except for when at work I truly feel there's no harm in doing most things tomorrow, or the day after... Now if something needs to be done I have no problems.

How many feel that the experiences of a pandemic may help (albeit slightly) issues related to executive functioning?

The current pandemic might just serve to help those with AS/HFA in accepting challenges.

I have a list of daily hardships:

1. Sleep apnea keeps me tired all the time.
2. Bad knees, so I have trouble and pain getting around.
3. Getting to the toilet on time. I use disposable undies, so they help with this issue.
4. Having to spend a lot of time on the toilet. When I want to get up I find I still feel like I have to poop again, so I have to stay awhile till I poop again, then I feel like I have to poop yet again, and so on, and so on, etc. until I can finally escape from the bathroom.
5. Other health issues that make it difficult to get chores done, so they tend to pile up. Just had a paid cleaner in here last week, to help out. I have her in every few months.
6. Executive Function Disorder. I am very disorganized.
7. Some of my allergies cause terrible phlegm issues, which cause me to cough a lot to clear out my wind pipe. I used to treat it with just menthol cough drops, which helped a little, but several years ago the problem got worse, so I started taking an over-the-counter allergy med to help with it, and it did, but lately I've been having a real flareup of excess phlegm, so a couple of days ago I started taking the allergy med more often, and that's helping more now. I still take the menthol cough drops too, to help boost the effect of the med when it's starting to wear off.

There's other problems, but these are the main ones.