undiagnosed autistic people will be like "I don't get upset when my routine changes though!!" and it's because they've built a set of if-then loops in their head to pick from one of 6 different strict routines and they do get incredibly upset when they're unable to keep to any of the 6 scripts. I'm john normal
This is called a fault tree. You will always know how to act if your fault tree captures all possible scenarios. In NASA Mission Control during mission critical events like landings there are huge binders with fault tree protocols, kind of like choose your own adventure books except youâre not the one making the choices, the universe is making them for you and youâre just trying to keep up.
The engineers who develop fault trees, I am told, often imagine new ways for their precious spacecraft to die (new branches on the fault trees) either while in the shower or lying awake at 3am, because human
Fwiw I'm thinking about this post again this morning and hopefully it's fairly clear to everyone that the above behaviour is at least adjacent to an anxiety disorder. Due to the nature of living with many ADHDers over the years i've been forced out of this pattern and it actually works much better for me at least if you just accept that you're gonna get stressed out by changes of plan sometimes and build in some time to regulate. bring a fidget bring a comfort thing and genuinely when some new random bs comes up go ok gimme 5 minutes to be dysregulated about it and then we can go, and then go rock and fidget and put a favourite song on for a bit and then go do the thing.

















