What I Mean When I Say I'm Autistic: Unpuzzling a Life on the Autism Spectrum

by Annie Kotowicz

Procrastination One big clue that something drains my energy is if I procrastinate doing it. When I try to follow anti-procrastination tips from someone whose mind is very different from mine, it’s less likely to help, because procrastination is an outer behavior, not an inner experience. On the other hand, I’ve learned a lot from people whose motivations for procrastination are similar to mine. Here are some of those motivations: • Aversion: I put off a task because I expect it to feel unpleasant. It helps to combine it with something I enjoy, like music or tea. • Inertia: I put off a task because I’m caught up in another activity, like I mentioned in the chapter on Quirks. It helps to set a timer, but instead of stopping right when the timer goes off, I use that as a cue to choose a logical stopping point in the current activity. • Catatonia: I put off a task because I feel physically stuck when I try to begin. One of my autistic friends breaks out of this feeling using a method she calls “non-repetitive stimming,” which looks like trying to wiggle around in a random way. It helps her to speak, and it helps me to get up off the couch when I don’t feel like doing the dishes. • Overwhelm: I put off a task because I don’t know where to begin. The classic advice for this is to break the task down into smaller steps, but what if I have no idea what the first step should be? I find it helps to create a list of any specific questions I have, so that I can search for answers...