It's a strange feeling being autistic sometimes. There are times I need to explain my very specific experience and I've never heard of anyone irl understanding what it means for me, let alone have just a vague idea. Maybe it's the ignorance of other people, yet I doubt that the concept of my mind having different modes for certain purposes is that strange.
What I mean is, my brain focuses on certain functions like absorbing information, processing information, giving input away. All of these "modes" are triggered by specific conditions. Usually, they're intertwined so that the switch between them goes smoothly as I need it in my day. Since my burnout, I struggle with these transitions. Instead, once a mode is triggered, my brain runs this program until it decides to switch to the other one by itself. Do you also notice that loss of control over my own mind? I've never had full control over it (e.g. I can't control or influence interests, when it happens, it just does, and if I don't follow it, I'll regret it later) but it's never been worse. I can't consume media whenever I want anymore, I have to play around with my mind and hope it'll trigger the other mode (absorbing information and later processing it in silence when wanting to interact with media and when I want to share my thoughts on it -> giving input away). And what can these triggers be? Well, I'm still trying to figure that out bc my old techniques don't apply to me anymore. It's one of the reasons why things have been out of control in my life. If necessary, I can force these switches, yet they always come with consequences I'd rather avoid for my wellbeing. By forcing it instead of guiding my brain to another mode, I start using my emergency save of my energy (+ it increases my stress level). If that runs out, I'm risking my performance in longterm. And by all means, I don't want to reach the point of the end of last year where I was genuinely in worst condition imaginable.
