Executive Functioning (and other struggles)

Let's talk about executive functioning and how this impacts us as autistic people.

🔗 Mentioned in the live: 🔗

[KristenMiner]

Something I think when I'm cleaning is "I don't have to do everything.... Just do something" and it helps me start

[persephone]

I’d say the executive dysfunction is worst part of ASD, not social difficulties. (For me at least)

[mishapurser]

Autistic inertia is something I've struggled with all my life. At university it resulted in an anxiety panic attack. I took too much on and it all caught up with me. I'm on a break from university at the moment and looking forward to go back with a better understanding of what's happening. Thank you so much for your videos on this topic!

[etymological]

I think one of my biggest issues when estimating how long a task might take is that it can vary wildly for me. Some days I'm able to start something and finish it in one go, uninterrupted, and maybe it'll take 10 minutes. Other days - when I'm tired, stressed, overloaded, or my brain just won't work - that same task might take an hour or more as I zone out, get distracted, forget what I was doing, whatever.

I also have almost no useful internal sense of time, so 10 minutes or an hour might feel exactly the same. Because of this, I try to overestimate and round up if I need to be on time, but that also means it's hard to do stuff before appointments or work because I feel like I'm going to be late the whole time.

[eaglebreath]

I listened to you while making dinner, cleaning the kitchen, disassembling lego and not eating the food I made. I appreciate the time you take to livestream even if I can't make it on time.

[samanthamedina]

Hello Sam,
I myself find a relief in minimalist life style and aesthetics, for functional home execution, I never knew how to explain it or why, until now as an ASD, I see hoarding and responsibility for every possession at home overwhelming and confusing, it’s visually exhausting and therefore a mental burden beside the actual responsibility, I imagine with children it’s 1000 times harder, since I implemented a minimalist lifestyle, my life it’s a lot easier, I just made a capsule wardrobe that helps to not even think about my outfits anymore and focus only on the important matters ( I know I’m not Steve Jobs or MZ) but I still struggle to make good decisions or to complete tasks, so this is very helpful... maybe the konmari method could help you to make a start.. good luck!

[roadrunnercrazy]

Yes! Figuring out how to start is a big problem! And heaven help anyone who breaks my momentum once I've gotten going on a large or difficult project.
This video is so helpful for me. Thank you.

[staceyruwoldt]

I find my executive- functioning presents itself in the form of struggling to keep up with the pace♡♡♡♡ When I get ready for work in the mornings; no matter if I start early and give myself a bit of time, I still fall short where I end up being a little bit late to leave the house still; even though I didn't start get organized late; I still just end up leaving the house not early enough to get to work ❤💜 xoxo

[Catlily]

Hyper focus is sometimes painful because I cannot stop when I want to. I once painted for 15 hours without stopping to eat or use the bathroom. When I finally stood up all my muscles were locked in place and hurt a lot. Now I am scared to do art at my apartment.

[meganeff]

I literally waited for this livestream & kept checking in, but then I forgot when it actually went live. UGH. If that isn’t the epitome of executive functioning issues. YAY FOR DISCORD! I kinda just touched on my struggles with executive functions in one of my recent videos.

[IExpectedBSJustNotThisMuchBS]

I almost always go into hyperfocus when I get started. Drives me crazy. I drive me crazy.

[loganskiwyse]

Thank you for doing that live chat. Was my first experience being in a room of "US".

[ApacheMagic]

Tip for cleaning kitchen- start from the top down. So any wall wiping/high dusting first. Clean the sink so it’s good to use. Then clear the benches (this means dishes etc get put either in washer or sink). Then wipe downs. Then all your detritus from high falls on the floor; so vac and clean floors last.

[deskotjes]

I am currently binging your videos because I somehow found myself on the suspectrum... and it’s scary how absolutely I can relate to some things I learned from this channel and others. And here I learned that I‘m sometimes kinda afraid and overwhelmed by the „superpower“ of hyperfocus. I had an idea why I procrastinate and avoid pointless or unpleasant tasks but I never knew why I avoid *pleasant* things. I now noticed that I might avoid them because I’m a little afraid of the hyperfocus mode I fall into. And the consequences of forgetting other things and it being super hard to stop. Wow, that was a revelation! I don’t yet know what to do with it, but I’m thankful I now understand!

[stefanietorreele]

I am curious how everybody's meltdowns look like... overwhelmed? depressed? crying? want to be alone?

[IExpectedBSJustNotThisMuchBS]

Get everything in the sink and put away that which needs put away (I often do this at night right before bed and save the cleaning for the morning because I hate cleaning dishes right after dinner--plus it allows pots to soak), put away the things in the dishwasher, wipe down everything except around the sink, load the dishwasher, wash that which you don't put in the dishwasher, wash the nasty things last, empty strainers into the compost, wipe sink and around the sink. Tasks done. That's my order. How to keep up with house work below

How I finally managed to keep the house clean without descending into filth or hyperfocusing and cleaning for 8 hours (after years and years of that) and while leaving my weekends FREE. I made a list for each day of housework (Monday - Friday) to do before going to work in the morning and I ONLY did what was on the list. (I'm a bear in the morning so doing these tasks woke me up so I was more pleasant when I arrived at work.) The list included laundry (but with US machines where washing didn't take so long). Some days were 20 minute cleans and others were 50 minutes (with laundry going in first so it could get done--I hang dry most clothes unless they're items that I can throw in the dryer the next day and not care that they're wrinkled like towels). I did my grocery shopping on Thursday nights. On the mornings where I had the 30 minutes to spare, I read. Reading is my special interest and I'd rather do that over anything and so it was a good motivator. I wasn't allowed to read in the morning before work (essential for my mental health) unless I did the tasks. You could substitute any special interest / guilty pleasure as a before work reward.

Finally, for the first time in my life my house was clean, my evening only involved dinner and grocery shopping one night, and my weekends absolutely free. Doing this work in the morning didn't affect my workday; however, trying to clean after a full day's work felt impossible. Why it took me so long to organise that and stick to it, I don't know.

Also, a five minute house pick up before bed, keeps the house picked up, making cleaning so much easier.

[jamesbuckingham]

Couple of years late to the game, but Youtube just decided to throw your entire playlist into my recommended. About Myers-Briggs, I'm glad that its' pseudoscience is being more widely recognized (though like astrology, it's still incredibly popular.) I won't go into all of its flaws other than to observe that the closest either of them had to a background in psychology was Katharine Cook Briggs' apparent fascination with Carl Jung. What I find personally amusing is when someone asks what my type is and I tell them something like ALMC, and a lot of them will just accept it. And the ones who do challenge me (yes, I've easily been asked over a dozen times) will frequently accept an explanation of "Haven't you been keeping up? They've been continually refining it and over the last few years have added several new types." Then I realize they believe me and have to explain it was a joke. (Also a not-infrequent occurrence.)

I'm pretty sure there were some other comments I wanted to make, but they didn't stay in my working memory and got dumped. An analogy I like to use to describe between neurotypical and ASD brain is that mine is kind of like a computer with an over-clocked CPU, an under-powered PSU and a corrupted user interface. Should probably wrap this up, already took up most of my lunch hour. 5 minutes of writing and 40 minutes of research making sure I was factually correct (and falling down the rabbit hole of related topics).

[saharaalberto]

1. Autistic inertia - difficulty getting started in things. This is not laziness. An autistic person makes a lot of plans before starting anything! It's knowing where to begin that is difficult. Once they get started, they might find it difficult to stop.
2. Difficulty in paying attention - tends to happen when the autistic person is not interested in the topic. The opposite is 'hyper-focus', which is being able to pay close, sustained, intense attention on a topic of interest. Burn-out can be a result of prolonged hyper-focus.
3. Estimating how much time to assign to tasks - autistic people tend to over-estimate how long something will take them. They may arrive early to appointments.
4. Prioritizing tasks and doing tasks in a logical order - autistic people may struggle with accomplishing tasks when they involve many different mini-tasks and require multiple decisions. (For example, cleaning a dirty kitchen)
5. Working memory - or short-term memory. An autistic person may have a deficit in short-term memory or else they may try to hold too much information in their working memory at once.

[AuntyM]

Many thanks for this. It explains everything about how i function. I do use a large white board calendar. So i break the tasks down by saying on Monday i need to etc. Now i know what is it called. My attention is terrible especially when i am tired or not interested.

[simplyonemortality]

Thank you for uploading Sam, unfortunately I missed you live but I will try again to catch you next time!

You bring up quite a few very relevant points on executive functioning here so thanks for covering this topic more in-depth.

The issue with hyper focus unfortunately is that in the long run there’s a high probability of burnout and so basically it in the end, it ends up being to my detriment, as you mentioned regarding when you did your book. It is as if you are completely depleted and things just don’t “work” or your mind doesn’t work in the way you expect or have became accustomed to it usually functioning (a bit like trying to drive an automatic car when you only know how to drive manual or vice, versa - only its your brain and you cant take it out or switch it. Ha! THE THOUGHT). For me anyway thats how it feels now, but I’m not strictly / potentially talking about autism as a stand alone here as there are comorbidities and often its hard to pick things apart as they cross over so much “on paper” at least.
Also I find criteria on multiple conditions can basically be interpreted the same way sometimes, it’s as if the sentence is just worded differently (seems in DSM/ICD, but maybe thats just me and my perception), and so it’s a bit like playing a game of “how many potential ways could you interpret this statement... COME ON DOWN!!”. To me it’s about the thought process behind why someone behaves how they do and ten different conditions at different times/presenting certain symptoms can LOOK the same. Slightly worrying especially when to me certain professionals haven’t seemed very thorough, but quick to offer what they think the presenting “case” is.

In relation to working memory, and holding things in it, I used to be quite good at that however now I really struggle to remember basic stuff and I am trying to find strategies to help with not forgetting things. I believe before I possibly held on to too much in working memory and, as you speak of Sam there are some issues in relying on it so much.
As of the past few years, my memory’s capability has became more complicated however; I’m actually forgetting things whilst trying to make notes of what I want to remember (trying to find a way to cope or help with such changes, because I’ve realised it’s not just going to “pass” now - a frame of mind I got to after being exhausted from research it/fix it mode), or I will go to walk somewhere - say a room - and then I don’t know what the reason was I was walking there in the first place was. This is sometimes to the point I actually get to a room and question if that was even the intended room to go to (‘sorry, but, what month are we in again?’). This is super frustrating when it happens multiple times a day over various things/in different ways, and super exhausting too.
It’s also rather upsetting especially when I look back at a prior time and see I was able to function much better, or not have so many issues with memory; in essence, comparing myself to the me “before”.
I don’t know if anyone else has themselves experienced a decrease in functioning like this? If so it would be nice to hear about how they experience such.

In someways I think some health care professionals think that you just have to adjust and start over for what you are able/working with now. I get the logic in that as there is the propensity to go around in circles psychologically, but its difficult to accept when everyday it feels like there are multiple, constant reminders that you aren’t as capable as you once were and even when your trying to apply strategies to help with said functioning issues, that brings up more problems to deal with. Of course, I’m not the best at adjusting to having to accept it either lol. Unless I’m in a bad place and just numb to it all and switch off or don’t want to be here if this is what I now have to adjust to and all the implications of said “new me” (and I don’t mean “2020 me” haha. Phoenix from the ashes).

If your mentally and physically depleted it just gets to a point where it seems it’s as if it’s impossible. Usually, I’m very persistent and good with “delayed gratification” or focusing on the longer term implications / outcomes of persisting, but the persistence requires energy that you have to have reserves of in the first place for.

I would love it if you could do a video on black and white thinking and actually how it can at times be more shades of grey.
I often wonder if its a black and white neurotypical who interprets us as black and white thinkers. I mean, they ask us yes and no questions and expect the answer not to seem that way. Projection!?whoah...I better be careful lest to dare to question someone who’s a “professional” and their logic/working’s out.
Although, I can see from the “stereotypical” presentation why they may think that is the necessary presentation (some seem to), because it’s not wrong, but at the same time it’s a narrow view in my opinion.