u/catinthesea

I was diagnosed with AuDHD some years ago, in my early fourties, to the complete surprise of others but not really myself. It has been interesting to realise that many of my 'quirks' are not really quirks but the basic architecture of me.

Anyway, like many of us, I found out that my inability to do any completely normal routine task, such as cleaning, is not me being lazy but some combination of reward system and executive function differences.

Cleaning also usually leads me to some existential crisis, questioning why I am cleaning, and from there it is only a short way to the meaning of life and the pointlessness of existence...

I also found that the weird bursts of restlessness and energy are also probably AuDHD. Often I do not know what to do with myself, or I am angry, I cannot focus, I want to do something but I do not know what.

So now when I feel this happen, I put on some appropriate music, personally I find that angry music is very effective, and I just start cleaning. It is a perfect way to get the house clean and get out of this feeling! I can clean for hours dancing around listening to music. No existential despair, just me and the vacuum cleaner and Green Day having fun.

Recently our eight year old twins both felt hot at night. In the morning, I sent a message to school that they were ill. When they woke up I told them they could go back to sleep. Usually this would be met with enthusiasm, but not that day.

As it turned out there was a party for the end of the year where they were going to the playground. They were also going to sing a goodbye song for the teacher. They practiced a lot with their friends memorising the lyrics, and were singing it at home so much that it was permanently stuck in my head.

I told them they can go to school if they do not have a fever. I was going around the house trying to find the thermometer, and when I finally found it the girls were sitting nicely on the sofa waiting for their temperature to be taken. It was a perfect 36.8 and 36.7. So they hurriedly got ready for school and went off.

Parents were also invited to the party. They sang the song, it was very cute. I was talking with some of the parents when I saw that one of the girls was crying. I went over and she said she wasn't feeling good. I put my arms around her.

A friend of her was next to her and told me that he knew the girls' trick. I was like, what trick?? After some convincing he told me that the girls drank some cold water before I took their temperature, so that the thermometer would not show that they had a fever. My daughter started crying. She asked if I was angry.

I did not know what to say! I was ... very impressed. I was not sure if telling her that would be the best parenting decision. But I thought that she was experiencing the consequences of her actions already by not feeling good. So I told her I am very impressed, it was very clever, but that it probably would have been better to stay at home. She agreed, and hugged me.

I was in the drugstore. I took a basket, since this specific drugstore is known for its discounts, and I love a good discount. I filled up my basket with good deals, paid, and transferred the items to my shopping bag.

My next stop was the supermarket a short walk away. I was feeling faintly pleased with my purchases but had no other thoughts since it was very hot. There is a heatwave in the Netherlands. It was so hot that I could not really think, I was kind of in this halfway zone between a functioning human being and an overheated, sweaty blob. I almost reached the supermarket, when I realised something was hanging off my arm. The shopping basket!

Now the thing is, this particular drugstore, is not exactly known for its restrained marketing. The brand colour is bright red and so are its shopping baskets. So apparently I had walked all the way to the supermarket with this bright red basket hanging off my arm, without anyone blinking an eye. Or maybe eyes were blinked, I was just oblivious due to the heat.

I returned the basket. Its absence apparently was not noticed, and again nobody blinked an eye when I walked in and put the bright red shopping basket back in its place. Order was restored to the suburban shopping centre.

I would apologise for this pointless story but I guess that's what this sub is for :)

Last autumn my daughters collected some acorns and of course just left them gathering dust in a corner. Whenever I saw them I planned to throw them out. But I never did.

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Then spring came, and finally intention and opportunity collided in a way that I picked up the acorns to throw them out. But then I saw a pot that, as a result of a previous failed plant experiment, had soil but no plant (not unheard of... many of my plant experiments fail). So instead of throwing the acorns in my hand out, I pushed them into the soil.

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Then I forgot about them. Until one day I was watering my other plants, and I disposed of the remaining water in the acorn-contaning pot.

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And ... A week later, small leaves came up! I could not believe it! I started obsessing over them. Now, more than two months later, I have two small acorn trees in pots. I have become very attached to them. They seem very happy so far!

I work for this Large Corp with typical Large Corp problems. The rules set by Large Corp are not always leading to the desired outcome, sometimes tragi-comically so.

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For example, there is a limit on the period an external can be hired. The reasoning, I guess, is that if an external is needed for such a long period then an internal should be hired.

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However, of course, due to many reasons, specific externals stay for a long time, and the longer they stay the more needed they are, and then, when it is entirely impossible to do without the experienced external, the time limit is up.

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So someone somewhere, came up with the brilliant idea that these externals can still be hired, in another country, since the internal policies are different. The precious externals, that absolutely cannot be missed, become foreign remote workers that just happen to be located in the HQ's country. Their laptop is sent by post, so they never even have to show up in the foreign subsidiary.

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This works nicely, until a laptop break down. The foreign subsidiary helpdesk requires employees to physically come into the office. Which is a flight away. There is not even a phone number. And the HQ's helpdesk is not allowed to touch the foreign subsidiary's laptop. So while various departments are explaining to each other why they cannot fix the issue, the expensive external is waiting, and drinking coffee, sometimes for days or even weeks until somehow an agreement is reached on who is allowed to touch the laptop.

Hi!

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Ever since I can remember I have sat in any other position than what is considered normal. I like to sit with either my legs up or cross-legged. Preferably on a soft surface such as a sofa, but any chair with a reasonably large seating surface will do. I dread small hard chairs where the only option is normal sitting :)

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In the office for example I always used to sit cross legged in my office chair. When I was younger this was probably an endearing quirk to my colleagues, but now that I am middle aged it is not so cute anymore and probably just weird :) It is one of the many reasons I avoid the office (but what do I tell my manager ... I don't come to the office because I do not like sitting in a chair ... ? ).

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Anyway I always thought I had just trained myself to sit like this, and it was an item fairly low on my priority list to try and train myself back to normal sitting. But it seems to be an autism thing? Related to proprioception and different muscle tone? I was diagnosed only a few years ago so this never occurred to me.

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Does anyone else do this too?

My mother was recovering in the hospital after an operation, and she needed to walk around to exercise a bit. So my mother, my twin girls and I were exploring the quiet hospital.

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The girls were discussing how they could not do a cartwheel. I said I could. They did not believe me. I said really I could. They asked me to show them. So I did :) I performed a pretty good cartwheel, for a middle aged woman.

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That's it. I did a cartwheel in an empty hospital. Absolutely no point to this story.

Recently I found myself in a hospital restaurant and I wanted a treat.

A lifetime of being indoctrinated with calories and such made me hesitant to buy a _real_ treat, and if I eat a _real_ treat, I would not want a sad hospital cookie or muffin.

So the reasonable choice seemed to be a semi-virtuous nature bar. Fully expecting it to be a nice sugary pretending-to-be-healthy snack.

But no! IT WAS A REAL F...G HEALTH BAR! Zero sugar! No chocolate! Only nuts and cranberries!

I felt so cheated. Who wants an actual f...g nature bar? Do they not exist to make us feel better about our nice and sugary snack?!? Apparently not!

I have a job, I pay a mortgage, I sort my rubbish, I tell my daughters to eat their vegetables. Somewhere along the way I guess I stopped pretending to be an adult and I actually became one?

But tonight, I am home alone. It was dinner time an hour ago. I was very hungry, so I devoured a piece of bread with some butter, without even getting out a plate. Then, I made hot chocolate, because I love hot chocolate and I fancied it. Then I was still hungry... I had crackers straight from the bag. A banana. Some greek yoghurt. Pistachios.

Now I am on the sofa eating chocolate, feeling fairly pleased with how this evening turned out. Tomorrow I will eat vegetables again.

My daughters are scared of spiders. We live in the Netherlands, where only small and harmless spiders live. I tried in various ways to alleviate their fear but no success.

Recently, in another attempt, I named a spider in a corner of the living room Sonny. They love it. Whenever someone visits they proudly show Sonny the Spider.

Sonny the Spider has now moved to the ceiling. I'm not sure this is still Sonny the First, but continuity seems more important than the truth in this case.

Sonny the First, or possibly the Second, is small and mostly just sits there minding his own business. I point out how he doesn't really move and how useful he is because he catches flies.

The girls are now completely at ease with Sonny the Spider. Only Sonny. They are still afraid of all other spiders...