DziadekMick

vger , 1 day ago to ActuallyAutistic group

@actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd

A week ago, I've got my official Autism/ADHD/AuDHD diagnosis. during this week, I've been thinking of one of my problems that has the biggest impact on my wellbeing: hobbies.

For this example I will focus on my hobby of computer gaming, but it happens with pretty much anything. My brain works the following way: I see a new game which I immediately want to try out. I buy that game, play it, have lots of fun with it, but after about 10-20 in-game hours, I lose interest. I happen to watch gamers on YouTube or Twitch, so my brain sees the next game it wants to try. I buy it, 10-20 hours later its uninteresting. This behaviour of seeing new shiny games continues to happen, but heres the actual problem: I've now accumulated several hundreds of games, with a few dozen favorites.

My brain now wants to play a particular game I already own and then starts an internal discussion, why it wants to play that game, and not another one. My ADHD argues, that it would take many hours to continue that game and I would not have enough time to play other exciting games (no matter if I already own them or not). But my Autism wants to fully focus on that game and also on any other game I find exciting. This internal fight causes a lot of stress and I pretty much just burn-out by not playing any games, but just debating which one I should play.

Like I've said, this affects any other hobby as well. So it's not just the internal debate on what game to play, but also what to do besides gaming. I see new interesting stuff: I want to try it out. And when I want to try it out, it's always "all-or-nothing" for me. I want to fully engulf myself in that new hobbie and try out every aspect of it. But the sheer thought of going through it and not having time for other exciting stuff burns be out and there are weeks where I end up not doing any hobby. And when I do that, I get depressed because I didn't spend time with my hobbies.

I'm not sure what I'm asking here. This feels like a really big problem to just take some advise and find a solution. After all, I've had this for the past 10+ years. But after my diagnose it feels like the first time in my life that I have an explanation for this behaviour. My current strategy is finding out which type of games I really enjoy and then just have one or two games per genre that I can play when I have an itch for the genre. But hey, guess what my brain does instead: it starts an argument about why I want to play this genre and not that genre.

Do any of you have similar problems?

chevalier26 , 26 days ago to ActuallyAutistic group

@actuallyautistic #actuallyautistic Any tips on how to deal with imposter syndrome? 😅 It's really been affecting me lately, and I'm not sure why.

I feel like I can never quite be certain that the things I KNOW are true about myself are actually true, like my brain is willingly playing tricks on itself.

Zumbador , 27 days ago to ActuallyAutistic group

@actuallyautistic

Here's something that causes friction between me and my family.

Someone asks me to make a decision about something I don't have a strong preference, but they want me to have a preference.

"do you want x or y? "

Saying "I don't care" comes across as rude, and even softening it as "I don't really have a preference" or turning it back to them by saying "what do you think?" isn't appreciated. They want me to care.

I understand that they want me to choose so they don't have to do that emotional labour. That's fair. But often when I do choose (at random), they try to change my mind, and then I'm back to square one because I don't really care, and I don't want to lie!

A honest answer would be "I'm depressed, I don't want to exist. Putting on a polite face is taking up all my effort, expecting me to actually care is beyond my capacity"

But that's too heavy for most interactions.

I'm not sure what I'm asking for here, just writing it out.

#ActuallyAutistic

sebwhatever , 1 month ago to ActuallyAutistic group

@actuallyautistic tell me you are #actuallyautistic without telling me you are autistic. #askingautistics