That Executive Dysfunction Thing

Lately, I’ve noticed quite a few posts about executive dysfunction disorder in autistics. It’s caused me to think about my own. It’s not something I normally talk about much, and I think it’s the same for others on the spectrum, because why would you want to talk about something that makes you feel a failure?

But now it’s coming out of hiding, and I think this is good. The more we air our difficulties, the more we can accept it as part of our autistic nature, and learn to work with it rather than bash ourselves up for it. We can stop feeling like there’s something ‘wrong’ with us because we ‘can’t get our lives together’. It’s both a practical thing and a self-esteem thing, in other words.

For me, it was an issue long before I had any idea that I am autistic, or that there was a name for my disorganised state. Though my house is (usually) tidy, it being really clean is, shall we say, a less frequent occurrence. Dishes pile up, floors get grubby, the toilet needs cleaning, dust balls threaten to mutate into a different lifeform. Then I will have a sort of mad dash around, cleaning and scrubbing and washing and vacuuming, ending up exhausted, but feeling pretty virtuous!

In the past, however, these cleaning jags often meant I’d start cleaning one thing, say the bathroom sink, then I’d notice the mirror was dirty too, and start on that, and then think ‘Jeez, I should really do the bathroom cupboard’, and empty it out, but before I finished that, I’d see that the wall above was dirty… And then I’d go to fetch something for cleaning it, and notice that the wastepaper bins needed emptying, and while I was doing that, I’d see something else which needed doing, but in the middle of doing that, I’d wander by the bathroom and remember I hadn’t finished that either… before I knew it, hours would have gone by, and I’d have half a dozen incomplete tasks, stuff lying around everywhere, and be too drained to finish any of them.

I’d also often forget appointments, uni lectures, etc, or have a mad scramble to get to them on time. I would frequently arrive late, all sweaty and anxious, feeling like a fool, and never quite recovering my poise. Then I’d go home and crumble into tears, vowing to ‘do better next time’, without having the slightest idea how. I often felt like I was stumbling from one disaster to another, like a firefighter battling summer drought fires - as soon as you put one out, another starts.

And now? Over the years, I’ve learnt a lot about self-management. Appointments go on my calendar, hanging in a prominent place. I have a daily ‘to-do’ list whiteboard, another on the fridge for the shopping list, and I could really do with a third for the ‘weekly to-do’ list. I also have a whiteboard by my desk, for writing and other creative tasks. I have some fairly rigid routines around evening tidying-up, so that I don’t wake up to a mess. I use my cellphone or my bedside clock as an alarm, and a kitchen timer. I work hard on staying on track.

And yet. I sometimes still arrive at things late. I don’t necessarily get around to finishing my ‘to-do’ lists. Things get shoved to the next week’s list, and the next, and the next. I forget to use my various devices. And so on. Not to mention that I have CFS as well, and other health issues, that make cleaning even more difficult than it used to be.

And one thing I’ve never managed to do much about is erratic sleep patterns. Just last week, talking to the dietician (I’m pre-diabetic), she was talking about the importance of ‘getting back’ to regular sleep habits, so that my meals get regular too. I was too embarrassed to admit that I don’t really have regular sleep patterns to get ‘back’ to! I might be up till two am one night, sleep in till ten am, then crash early the next night. I force myself into ‘proper’ bedtimes when I have to, but I never seem to be able to keep to them for long.

On a daily basis, keeping myself ‘on task’ means, even now, with all the ‘box of tricks’ I’ve garnered, a constant jarring wrench of my attention back to that task, over and over. And, I must emphasise here, I don’t fit the criteria for ADHD/ADD. At all. It’s just that, well, I see things, or I think about things, the state of the nation, the state of the world, the future, or ooh look at the pretty butterfly, or the lovely pattern of the leaf shadows outside, or God that wall is grubby, and should I clean it now, or, or, or… and then I have to remind myself - hey! You’ve got a job to finish here! Pay attention! Repeatedly.

It’s rather like you’re trying to go for a walk, only you have a ‘gammy’ leg which means you keep staggering off the path. But a friend keeps dragging you back on. Except the friend is also you. Imagine how difficult your progress would be, or how little you’d make. That’s what it feels like.

But I’m not sharing all this for sympathy, or hints, or anything like that. No, the point of this post isn’t really any of that. It’s about my amazement at people who don’t have EF issues. I’ve been watching them my whole life, and I still don’t know how they do it.

You know the sort of person I mean. The flatmate whose room is always tidy, or the workmate who effortlessly completes their daily assignments. The neighbour doing garden work at ten am Sunday, chatting to a mate or his wife at the same time, then going out for the afternoon. The relative who goes shopping without even a list, and yet never seems to forget anything important. They just… do things. One task, after another. After another. All day. Every day. Without any seeming effort or trouble keeping themselves on task. With no jarring or dragging. Huh.

Sometimes I’ve seen such people complain about getting ‘distracted’ or feeling ‘scattered’, but as far as I can tell, it’s NOTHING like what we experience. (I’m sure that there must be some NTs who have serious EF issues. I just don’t know any.) (I’m sure there must be autistics who don’t have EF problems either.)

How DO they do it? How does it feel to be like that? I have no idea. I look at them and know I can never be like them, live like them, and it adds to my already strong sense of alienation from the vast bulk of humanity. As if I needed anything to increase that.

And given my age, and how long I’ve been working on this, I don’t think it will ever be any different. The only thing I can do is to continue to work on self-management, and on self-acceptance. Not to mention throwing off the judgements of others.

Because the judgements we place on ourselves are hard enough to shake off. We really don’t need more of that, from people who just don’t understand, as it only makes our lives even harder, and doesn’t solve ANY of our problems.

What NT's Get Wrong About Us - Or The Art of Tightrope Walking

It’s become more and more obvious to me that many NTs really DON’T understand those on the spectrum. Even when they think they do. They misinterpret us, usually to our detriment and their puzzlement. This isn’t always entirely their fault, as often no-one has really explained to them how our minds work.

But other times, and all too often, it’s because they try to interpret us according to NT standards of behaviour, ie they see us doing something, and assume that we are doing it for the same reasons, and in the same way, that they and/or other NTs would do it. It’s an unconscious assumption, but a crucial one nonetheless.

A typical example is the many possible reasons why we don’t make eye contact. It’s very rarely for the reason that NTs assume, ie that we “aren’t interested in other people”.

But a bigger and far more important fallacy is the one surrounding social skills. There seems to be this underlying assumption that once we learn social skills, we’re set. That it’s like learning to ride a bike, or read, or bring a spoon to your mouth – ie, a skill almost automatic once learnt.

When actually social interaction, for us, is more like tightrope walking. By this I mean that even when the skills are thoroughly learnt, we still have to pay 150% of our attention to the task throughout, or risk one heck of a fall. Literally every step has to be made v-e-r-y carefully, total concentration, often difficult when there is lots of ‘audience noise’ (eg background chatter). It is, in essence, a performance.

This means when I’m interacting with NTs, I have a kind of running commentary inside my head, something like this – “Oh, they’ve said hello, okay, say hello back, they’re looking at me expectantly, oh yeah I say xyz next, phew, that went over okay, oh now they’ve replied, what do I say next, try abc, oh and remember to get the body language and voice tone right, yes, that was right, cool, and they’ve replied to that, here we go, try this…” And on and on, a pretty much constant and conscious process.

NOW do you understand why autistics describe social interaction as ‘hard work’?!

I don’t in fact think of  these tactics as ‘social skills’. Rather, I think of them as ‘scripts’, rather like those an actor uses. Inside my head, I have a sort of mental library or vast filing cabinet, called “Appropriate Things to Say and Do, and How To Say and Do Them”. It’s full of ‘folders’ for each situation or context, and I am constantly accessing the scripts they contain.

There are few situations now that I have absolutely no script for, and if faced with one I can usually cobble something together from other scripts. And yet I still get it wrong, many a time. When I do, it’s usually because I’ve accessed the wrong ‘folder’, usually through tiredness or stress, though sometimes it’s because I’ve misread a situation, or simply don’t get the body language etc right. And sometimes I just forget, and blurt out stuff without putting it through the mental filter first.

And remember that I’ve spent decades polishing my social skills. When I was younger, and probably for many autistics now, the internal dialogue went more like this – “Oh they’ve said hello, okay say hello back… uh, now what… *BLANK*…. Oh yeah say how are you…. *BLANK* …Um, um, um… *BLANK BLANK BLANK*…. *blurt out something stupid*…” And so on. My mental filing cabinet was small, and with very few folders in it.

Another comparison I sometimes use is to the task of someone negotiating their way through a minefield. Once again, even if well-trained and with the right equipment, 100% of concentration is required, or something will blow up in your face.

And I can’t emphasise enough that this has NOTHING to do with whether or not we like someone, or like people in general, or want to get to know them or be friends with them or not. It’s simply a matter of how polished our scripts are (or how good our mine detection skills are), what scripts we can access easily or correctly, and what might get in the way of using those scripts the best we know how.

So I say to NTs – if we make a social mistake, please don’t get hostile. We’ve accessed the wrong script, or don’t have one for that situation, or something is interfering with our ability to use what we do know. Please, don’t jump to assumptions that we’re doing it for the same reason/s that you or another NT would.

And to other autistics I say, don’t beat yourself up if you make a social blunder or don’t know what to say or do in any situation. We can’t use what we don’t know, or use what we do know well under stress. And honestly, apart from the basic stuff of politeness such as hello, goodbye, please, thank you, waiting your turn etc, I really don’t think we should be putting TOO much effort into learning these skills, unless you really want to of course. I did so for too many years, and it really didn’t help me that much in the long run.

Social skills can be useful, but they’re not the be-all and end-all of making our way in the world. We have far, far more important things to focus on, than whether or not we say ‘hi how are you’ in the right place and the right way.

Computer Games and Life - Revisited

A while back, I wrote a post about how the computer game Solitaire is a lot like my life. More recently, I’ve been playing a lot of FreeCell, and you know what? I’ve realised it’s pretty much the same.

Sometimes, for instance, I seem to be doing okay, but then I suddenly reach a dead-end, there’s nowhere to go, nothing more I can do. Or I have this troubling feeling that I’ve gone wrong somewhere, only I’m not sure where…  So I go through it all again, move by move, but I’m rarely able to figure out where I went wrong. I’m always left with this feeling like there is One Key Thing that I’ve somehow missed.

If I can’t be bothered with that, I restart the game, or abandon it and start a new one. And yes, that means the ‘this counts as a loss in your statistics… (you loser!)’ message popping up. Again, and again, and again. Like I need reminding. 

Repeated failures usually only mean that I become reckless, and lose all the faster, and more decisively. Sometimes, I feel like I can’t win at all. Sometimes, I even become cynical, and feel like the games are rigged, or that they’re somehow getting harder and harder.

Part of my problem, I’ve realised, is that I tend to become too obsessed with ‘tidying up this part here’, or ‘what’s happening in this corner’, and neglecting the bigger picture. And I don’t learn from my mistakes either, because every game feels different. It’s like walking into different rooms, with different people, indulging in different antics and power plays, and you have to figure it all out anew.

So often, I wish I could just once go straight through a game, without hesitation, backtracking, second-guessing, and blind trial-and-error. And when I do finally win through, the feeling is “Duh, but of course, it’s done that way, how else could it be done?!!” And feeling like Everybody Else would know this, and wonder why I couldn’t see it.

Small wonder then, that I’ve always seen myself as stupid.

In fact I never really ‘get it’, and I never will, I see that now. And I’ve realised that with this game too, there are ones I shouldn’t even start. Trouble is, it’s hard to spot them. A game can seem welcoming, promising, but then a while into it, suddenly, you’re in the swamp up to your neck, and with no idea how you got there or how to get out of it, other than just walking away.  

And what does it mean, to walk away? Do you forswear all games, or just start an entirely new type, hoping that this time it will work out okay? Not likely, when you’re just as ignorant, just as hopeless outclassed, as you were the first time you played.

Of course, technically I could stop playing games altogether, and find something else to do. But life itself is a series of games, and you have to play one or another, in the end.

On Making Mistakes

I've been thinking lately about how we aspies absolutely hate to make mistakes. It can be anything from a social blunder to driving down the wrong street to making a slip-up at work - the type of the mistake doesn't seem to matter as much as that we've made an error at all. It triggers our anxiety and autistic shame, and we can get very upset, even have meltdowns, or angst for hours, days or even weeks over something that an NT either wouldn't fret over, or wouldn't do so for long. We just can't seem to let mistakes go.

I have struggled with this issue myself for most of my life, and have won only a partial victory over it, and so when I see other aspies/auties doing it, eg in my Facebook autistic groups, I feel a strong empathy for their pain and confusion. So I'm going to try to analyse why we react so badly to making mistakes. Bear in mind this is not a definitive or 'final' list, more of an attempt to open discussion, sort of like lancing open an infected wound so that it can begin to heal.

So here's why I think we react so badly. I've listed them separately, but of course they are often entangled and influencing each other hugely.

1) Fear. We have usually learnt to fear other's (often forceful) negative reactions to our mistakes - their criticism, disapproval, anger, hostility, jeering, or even outright abuse. So when we make a mistake, we cringe in shame and perfectly understandable dread. It's possible that this could even be the biggest reason for our dislike of mistakes, or at least the one that first makes us aware of them.

2) Orderliness. We live in a confusing, overwhelming, constantly changing world, and so we need to create our own order, those routines and habits that help us manage our lives. A mistake (eg forgetting to set an alarm clock) can disrupt this order, make us feel like everything's falling apart, and send us into a tailspin as a consequence.

3) Perfectionism. Any perfect pattern or order, whether we create it or not, is soothing to our often jangled nervous system. We like to have things fixed in place, and an error disturbs that perfection. We get upset when others disturb the perfection we've created, but perhaps we get even more disturbed when we do it, because we feel we should "know better". We can hold ourselves to even higher standards than we do others.

4) Low self-esteem. This is common amongst autistics, caused by a lifetime of criticism and other bad experiences. We often have to "try twice as hard to feel half as good", and so any mistake, however small, can cause us to beat ourselves up emotionally as a result. It's sad, but true, that sometimes we even self-criticise worse than others have done to us.

5) Catastrophising. You all know what I mean by catastrophising, I'm sure - that horrible negative spiral of thoughts we can get into, where we make 'one little mistake', and before we know it, we're imagining our whole world unravelling, our lives ruined... And afterwards, when we realise that our worst-case-scenario thinking was totally unfounded, it makes us feel (yet more) stupid and ashamed. I'm really not sure if catastrophising is a cause or a consequence of our loathing of making mistakes, maybe both, but I do think that a fear of triggering it would make us hate mistakes even more.

6) Perseveration. We have a tendency to go over and over events endlessly and at times obsessively in our minds, unable to let them go, and when we do that about our mistakes, it almost always leads to that catastrophising. And reinforces the low self-esteem, the self-bashing, the desire for perfection, etc, etc...

So what can we do about it? How do we stop doing this to ourselves? Perhaps we might never be able to entirely stop, but we don't have to suffer in silence forever either. I can only offer a few points that have helped me, I'm sure others will have other methods, this is, as I said, hopefully the beginning of discussion, not the end.

a) Accept that we can't prevent ALL mistakes. We are human, and therefore will blunder sometimes. Socially, we will blunder more than most. It's important to remember NTs make mistakes too - and because their memories don't seem to sear into their consciousness the way ours do, they also forget (and forgive) much quicker than we do, ie make a mistake one week and they'll have forgotten about it by the next.

b) Share with other autistics. Sharing with NTs usually only gets us more upset, because we end up feeling stupid and ashamed for feeling that way in the first place. But other autistics understand where we're coming from, and can offer solid advice and support. I've often felt much better after sharing with other aspies, and I've noticed other aspies seem to as well.

c) Get support in learning what we CAN prevent. What support you have will of course vary, but use every means possible, including any supportive NTs, to 'fill in the blanks' of your knowledge of the world. You'll be less likely to make mistakes if you're less ignorant of a whole bunch of stuff, including social rules and what's considered 'proper workplace behaviour'.

d) Stop with the negative self-messages. Stop the spiral of angst and self-hatred, preferably before it gets properly started. Meditation has helped me a lot over the years to get out of the "Oh God I'm so stupid" thinking and into a more rational space, a lot faster and quicker. For some, medication may be necessary to cope with their anxieties, but it's important to remember all medications have side-effects, and sometimes become less effective over time.

e) Have a Plan B. This is essential for when we make mistakes in our daily routines or travel. If we miss the bus to work for instance, perhaps we could catch another, or a train, or get someone to drive us... there's always another way to get our routines back on track. So always have a Plan B - and if need be, Plans C, D, E and F as well!

f) Dump your toxic connections. Wherever possible, dump those negative people, especially the downright abusive types and the just-don't-understand-or-want-to-understand-autism types. Yes, even if they are family. When you're trying to repair your self-esteem, you don't need anyone tearing you down again. Be ruthless. Press the dump button on them.

g) Above all - forgive yourself for making mistakes. I know this is easier to say than do, but if we can perseverate over our mistakes, then we can turn that to perseverating over not perseverating! We need to stop beating ourselves up for our mistakes - they usually aren't worth it, and we deserve better than all that angst. You're worth that, each and every one of you.