Sometimes when I face a task that I know I should get done, I first put on a background video of some kind of rail journey (Think unedited cab ride). For me, just having that video on subconsciously keeps me focused on the task as I now feel a need to finish it before the "train" reaches its final stop. I'm curious to know if anyone else has tried a similar strategy.
I’ve been thinking lately how I just don’t actively seek pleasure if I don’t have any tasks I need to get done. Its like I finish a difficult task and instead of feeling relief I just feel like I want to go to sleep. The problem is after that I don’t really seek any pleasant activities afterwards, I just exist.
For taking breaks between larger tasks it makes sense for me as the thought of leaving an important task unfinished just gets to me, and I feel like if I stop a task then I won’t be able to start again. Of course I struggle to even start complex tasks in the first place due to their complexity, leading their deadline to weigh heavily on my mind. The problem for me is when I have no such tasks to worry about and I still don’t engage in any pleasurable activities.
Does anyone else experience this issue?
Been desperately applying for jobs to no avail. I just want to know what work I qualify for so I can focus my search. (Side note, yes, I know Excel is misspelled.)
I struggle to get even the most basic tasks done. If there is a task I want to get done, then I will always put it off, even if it is simple. Basically, anything beyond just moving is going to be a struggle for me to get started on, and the more complex a task, the more I end up putting it off. College was definitely the worst point for me, since I had so many complex assignments, so I constantly ended up putting them off until the last moment and then the fear of failing if I didn't do my work ended up overpowering everything else, leading me to finally finish my assignments. The problem there is I never felt any satisfaction when I completed my assignments, just relief that I no longer had to deal with them.
To add to this I just struggle to break tasks down at all; I see a task and I can't see any steps, I just see it unfinished and then finished. For me, breaking down tasks is a task in and of itself, and it's something that requires active effort which I just can't put in.
It's gotten so bat that at this point I don't live, I just exist. I wake up, get some food, I want to do something, I find it too complicated, even if it's just moving, put off what I want to do, and end up wasting most of my day, even if the desire is there. Even if I manage to do something, I don't feel any satisfaction, I just go back to existing. I feel like there's a physical disconnect between my desires and my action.
The worst part of this is that I see no way out of this. In my most recent therapy session, my therapist suggested that I needed to start building a routine so that I could build up my executive function, but clearly that hasn't worked for two reasons; I grew up having a routine and I still ended up where I am now, and also building a routine requires active effort, which doesn't work for me because of the disconnect between desire and action. So I ask, how bad is my case, and is there any way out of my case that doesn't require effort on my part?
Been unemployed since graduation Literally every application I sent out has gotten no response. Need to know what work I qualify for.
No matter what, I can't seem to do anything. My day often starts between late in the morning and early in the afternoon because I can't bring myself to go to bed until between 4 o'clock and 5 o'clock in the morning. There are times where I genuinely struggle to get dressed in the morning. I make a simple breakfast and coffee because those actions are simple. I oftentimes sit for hours on end looking at my laptop or pacing and stimming around my room.
The times I leave the house are often purely just to get groceries for my family, which they pay for, as I have no job. I will do household chores, but they often get held up by hours because I just find them too complex. I haven't played any new videogames even when I had income because they stopped providing me with any sense of enjoyment. I will often stay up well past midnight pacing and stimming simply because I have nothing to do. And the cycle keeps repeating itself.
I try to apply for jobs, but so far, every single application I have sent out has been either ignored or explicitly rejected. I go months at a time without applying for a single job simply because the application process is too difficult. I don't know how to edit my resume to be more employer friendly because I can't read things beyond their face value, and I need to be explicitly told what to write down if I want to get through.
I have always struggled to get things done. In elementary, middle, and high school, I would always put off assignments because they were "too complicated" for me to properly break down into their constituent parts. That continued into college, where I would always put off assignments until they were almost due, oftentimes leaving me to deal with them at the very last moment, even for topics that seemed genuinely interesting. As a result, I barely passed and even had to take a summer class just to graduate college. Now, I can't even research topics I find interesting because the research process is far too complicated for me.
My social life is no better. In group situations, I am *NEVER* one to initiate. I'll chime in if I think I have a relevant piece of information to give, but otherwise, I just stand there and exist. I have made no new close friends, only acquaintances. I think I have maybe *one* person that I would consider a close friend, and that was all the way back in elementary school. A big part of this is that I just *can't* initiate or approach people. They always have to be the ones to initiate.
The thing is, I didn't used to be completely like this. I was able to maintain a regular sleep schedule, even when I wasn't in school. I was able to go to sleep and wake up at a reasonable hour on the weekends and during the summer. I took interest in issues, I became invested in topics, I was able to find new media to consume, I was able to meet people that I considered friends. I still struggled with assignments, but I at least had something outside of my school life. Now, I have no investment in any issues or causes, I keep just going over the same set of media that I've consumed for years, and I barely talk to my friends anymore.
Making to-do lists doesn't work, I'll often just ignore the list. I'll oftentimes not even make a list to begin with because I find the task too complex. I can't break things down into smaller pieces either, so making outlines for work is something that is impossible for me to handle. Socialization is awful for me because I just cannot do small talk. I don't know if that last part is because of autism, which I am diagnosed with, but it still fits into the larger puzzle.
The truth of the matter is that I don't want any of it. I want to be productive, I want to find new media to consume. I want to research topics I find interesting, I want to socialize, I want to be active. And yet throughout my life I have always felt like just a passive observer. I feel like the only thing that would help me would be for someone to do literally anything I find hard for me. Like, I need to be forced to get up and get dressed, I need someone to find new media for me to consume, I need someone to arrange conversations for me, I need someone to do any research and writing for me, I need someone to schedule therapy for me, I need someone to apply for jobs for me, and frankly, even show up and do the work for me, because I fear any work would be too complex for me to handle.
What hurts me the most is that I genuinely feel alone in this matter. I see other posts on here about how they struggle with executive dysfunction, and yet so many of them have jobs, so many of them have hobbies that they partake in, so many of them have multiple friends, and so many of them even have WIVES AND CHILDREN! I see that and think "HOW?"! I do not know how they are able go to those insurmountable lengths when I can't. Is it because my condition is uniquely bad, or is it because *I* am uniquely bad.
I keep thinking back to when I was with a different therapist. It was long before I understood executive dysfunction, and I never learned what it was until *after* I had stopped seeing him. During our sessions, the main thing I was focused on was trying to actually be able to initiate and perform complex tasks in a timely manner. This had been going on for a few years at this point, and I had made no satisfying progress since we started. I often expressed my frustration that none of the techniques he suggested would help me, such as meditation and exposure therapy, were completely ineffective.
My therapist suggested that constant exposure to difficult situations would make initiating difficult tasks easier, and that satisfaction would make me more motivated to push through further, in short, just power through it and it will get easier. The problem was that while I did desire to do tasks, no matter how much I wanted to do something, if I tried to power through my mind often pushed back harder, and when I did manage to power through them, I was just left wanting to never do it again. I constantly brought up that I just could not power through things, and my therapist suggested that it was because I didn't really want to be productive, which I knew was false because otherwise I wouldn't be attending therapy if it was the case.
I kept insisting that I couldn't just power through my difficulties, and that the only explanation that made sense was that there was something physically wrong with me. That therapist dismissed my claims as "That's not a response, that's a cop-out.". I know that statement is false, especially now that I've since learned about executive dysfunction, thus proving me right, but the words that therapist said still reflect thoughts that I've been having about my situation. I see people who supposedly have the same condition as me, and yet they still are able to get a job, move out, have a family, all things I wish I could have.
As of the time of me writing this, it has been roughly 14-15 months since my cousin took his life. He was about my age. Before he took his life, my uncle talked about how he and my cousin would regularly go out for trivia nights at their local bar. My cousin was able to have a strong circle of friends, many of which showed up at his funeral. I bring this topic up to say that even in a state where he ended up taking his own life, he still was able to function to the point that he was able to have a life outside of obligations. Me, I don't have any such life, I just sit around, or I pace and stim.
I don't have any support network I can rely on outside of my parents. And even threats are not enough of a motivator to get me moving; if tomorrow, my parents passed away, I would be faced with homelessness, and that would not be enough of a motivator to find the kind of work to keep me housed. I would not have any guidance in this world; I would not have any support needed to find the proper therapist. I would be out on the street, not even being able to scrounge through garbage.
I bring up the death of my cousin because my own struggles, and the fact that I feel nothing right now that has led me to times where I have considered taking my own life in the past. I obviously never followed through because any process was too complicated. In other words, the executive dysfunction that is also causing my desire to end my life is also the thing keeping me from taking it. Now I don't want to take my life because I love my parents and refuse to hurt them like that, but if they were gone, then I honestly don't know. I genuinely have thought about just laying down one day and starving myself to death because then I don't have to do anything else.
The thing is, I don't want to take my life, I want to actually have a life, but no matter how much I want to live life, I just can't move. Supposedly I have a common disability, but I still see people who supposedly have the same disability, but are still able to get jobs, homes, families, and interests, while I have none of what they have. I don't know what their personal situations are like, but their outward lives are still far more fulfilling than mine. So, I again ask, is my condition bad, or am *I* bad?
I ask because I am currently unemployed. I have been searching for work for years now with no result. The thing is, I often go months at a time without applying for a single job. I’m fine since I live with my parents, but I still want work so I can get health insurance, and thus get the therapy I need to get my executiv dysfunction treated.
I was talking to my father tonight. We were talking about trying to improve my resume so that I would have an easier time looking for work. During this conversation, I brought him a resume that I had made using AI, and compared it to one that I made by hand. I noted how different the two resumes were, and how the AI resume was supposed to be more effective than the handmade one because the AI resume was skills based, but the handmade one was just listing out duties I had performed.
I felt ashamed and guilty that I spent years working with a faulty resume when there were known alternatives available, and I felt disappointed with my father that he didn’t help me build a more skills-based resume from the start. When I brought this up to him, my father said that he did offer help, but I just refused it and walked away. I retorted by saying that I never remembered him offering to hep build a skill-based resume, and also said that if he ordered me to let him help me, I would have accepted. This exchange, however, brought up the uncomfortable truth that since I was a child, I ALWAYS struggled with asking for and accepting help.
For me, for some reason if I was offered help I would always feel uncomfortable like I was being watched. The same thing with struggling with a task, I would always feel the need to retreat into my comfort zone rather than step outside it by asking for help, or accept help if offered. At the same time, I remember that if I struggled with a task, the form of help I would often ask for someone to flat out do the hard task for me. Of course, that was very often shot down, leading me to struggle with tasks even more.
For me, it’s the awkwardness of asking for and accepting help that makes me feel like it has to do with autism. At the same time, I also feel like my struggles with getting tasks done may have inadvertently led to me developing severe task paralysis in my adult life. That last part has more to do with executive dysfunction, which I am diagnosed with, and which is a known symptom of autism. What leaves me worried is whether this is common for autistic individuals, whether its not except for very severe cases, or whether it is my own personal failings. Please let me know how my experiences compare to yours.
I’ve been struggling to find work for a while. Literally every application I have sent out has either been ghosted or rejected. A few months back I posted my resume on this site and a major point of feedback that I got was that my resume read more as a list of things that I did rather than any notable accomplishments that could translate to meaningful employment. Is this something that is common amongst autistic folks, or am *I* the problem?
I’ve been struggling to find work for a while. Literally every application I have sent out has either been ghosted or rejected. A few months back I posted my resume on this site and a major point of feedback that I got was that my resume read more as a list of things that I did rather than any notable accomplishments that could translate to meaningful employment. Is this something that is common amongst autistic folks, or am *I* the problem?
Been unemployed since graduation Literally every application I sent out has gotten no response. Need to know what work I qualify for.
Basically, where you just show up to a job, do what you're told to do, and then leave without any interaction whatsoever. That's how I feel I've been throughout my entire educational and working life. The problem I find is that so many jobs are gotten through networking that life is now rigged against me and others who are like me.
So I've been unemployed for a while, have sent out over a thousand applications, and gotten no response. Been considering using a staffing agency to find permanent work, but I have several questions I want answered before I consider proceeding (This is for the US, BTW):
1: What share of job seekers use staffing agencies to find permanent employment?
2: What are the odds of finding permanent employment the longer one stays with a staffing agency?
3: Should staffing agencies be the first option for someone who is newly unemployed?
