Executive dysfunction comes from a lack of available dopamine. Common advice is wrong. You need to provide your own dopamine before you can start. Otherwise you're trying to run your car on empty.

"But what if I still don't do it" well you already weren't getting it done anyway. Now you have a little treat. Try again later.

You deserve kindness and care even when you aren't being productive.

When I went up to claim it the plane man, clearly unable to throw off the shackles of his training in the procedure of asking for people’s full names and birthdates when they come to claim wallets, said “wait no, first tell me what color it is so I know it’s really yours”

He seemed to realize this was stupid directly after saying it and kind of smiled like to make it a joke but the joke was on him bc I Described the fucking rock to him for like 30 solid seconds

cheeto doesn't normally go on anyone's lap (has rly only been on mine) so it's very nice.

expect when im trying to paint something that's worth a bit of my grade for english. then it Isn't nice. it's also absolute MURDER on my legs.

(yes that weird worm thing is the painting. it's not finished . or close to being finished either.)

-will

Today is Lou Sullivan's birthday

getting up from bed cheats

getting up from bed codes

it took me asking three more times before she finally told me she wanted me to leave the fans where they are instead of moving them to my room or something. and I said oh! I had no intention of doing so but thank you for letting me know what the expectation is.

"You left your dish in the sink." > the hidden request is "please clean your dish, preferably right now." since it's phrased as an observation, I don't immediately intuit the request and instead think my housemate thinks I forgot about it. so I reply "oh, I know." housemate thinks i'm sassing her and gets annoyed with me. only then do I realize she was asking me to do something about the dish in the sink.

"There's hot soup on the stove." > said to me while I was preparing a sandwich. the hidden request is "please eat the soup." since it's phrased as a statement of fact, I don't immediately intuit the request and instead think my mom thinks I didn't see the soup. I did see it, but I wanted a sandwich instead. so I reply, "I saw it, thank you." mother thinks I'm being rude and gets annoyed with me. only then do I realize she was asking me to do something about the soup (and furthermore is offended I am eating a sandwich instead).

"Your bread is on the counter." > the hidden request is "please remove your sliced bread from the counter and store it elsewhere." since it's phrased as an observation, I don't immediately intuit the request and think my roommate thinks I meant to store the bread elsewhere and forgot. when I reassure her I know it's there, she gets annoyed. only then do I realize she wants me to do something about the bread on the counter.

"You can turn up the heat, you know." > said to me while I was scrambling eggs slowly over low heat. this one really confused me because of course I knew I could turn up the heat, but I had no reason to as I was only cooking for myself. when I ignored the statement because I was focused on my task and had nothing to say, my mother added, "the eggs will cook faster if you do." sure, I'm aware of this too, but I don't want to cook them faster. I won't get the texture I want. when I reply, "I don't want to, though," mom thinks I'm being rude and gets irritated, then asks me how long I'm going to take. only then do I realize she was telling me to cook faster (because she wanted the stove), instead of simply informing me I could.

"There are donuts in the break room." > a more benign example, but similar outcome. once again I hear this as a piece of information being given to me, and thank my coworker for telling me. when I don't immediately leave my desk to get donuts because I'm finishing a task, my coworker hovers and says, "well? aren't you getting some?" only then do I realize there was actually a hidden invitation, and I was supposed to respond to the hidden part and say, "I'll come get them in a minute," or "no thank you I don't want any."

as I said, I've learned over time this is something many allistic (non-autistic) people do (as well as high masking autistic folks who have learned the social rules and wear themselves out following them rigidly). despite what I've learned, my default autistic response is pretty much always to take the words at face value (especially when I'm distracted or multitasking), before remembering I have to translate them. and while I can make a decent educated guess in most cases, sometimes I just cannot and simply ask, "what are you asking me?"

unfortunately, many allistic people suffer from an inability to take words literally just as much as they struggle to speak literally, which can further obfuscate communication. this is why I emphasize gentle reassurance that you are not criticizing them, but asking them to help you, a person in need, by clarifying their intent. people generally like to be helpful and I have had moderate success with this approach.

@dissociating-or-just-my-reality hello! autistic OP weighing in here. if your housemate is on the spectrum, then yes, this is probably too indirect. when somebody says "you can do x this way," without either explaining why that way is better or outright telling me to please do it that way, what I end up hearing is a mere suggestion, which I can take or leave based on my own judgment. since it's apparently up to me, if I don't see the point of doing it your way, I will keep doing it my way. (this was much more of a problem when I was younger. nowadays, I know to respond with "do you prefer I do it this way?" and ask for the why, instead of assuming one way or another.)

I remember seeing a tumblr post about this some time ago from an autistic poster, where OP's mom would say "if you leave the window open, rain will get on the windowsill." OP kept leaving the window open because 1) they didn't hear the implicit command to close the window, and 2) they liked the rain on the windowsill and didn't understand why it might be a bad thing. once their mom explained that a wet windowsill will attract mold which can make you sick, so please close the window, OP closed the window.

This is my favorite thing to hear.

Thank you for writing a book! I love that not only can I see yours and others art and work here, that I can go to my local library and share it with the small one. She absolutely devours books and loves graphic novels. There’s so much more of them, especially at her level, out there now than when I was her age, and I’m so happy for her.

For the uninitiated, this is the throwaway gag from my book, Baggywrinkles: A Lubber's Guide to Life at Sea, that sparked the sale of a three-book trilogy of seafaring capybara graphic novels written by my pal Kate Milford:

Joke's on me, I guess. You do find a lot of them at sea.