Out to lunch

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A lot of the time when it's time for me to wake up, I am totally "out to lunch". I have to literally be pulled out of bed, taken to the toilet if I need to go and then be dressed. I can do those things by myself, but a lot of times it takes me forever. Like will get checked up on dressing myself a half hour later and I just have one sock on. It's just something I'm thinking about since going back to school is coming up and I'm turning 15 in three weeks. I know I have disability. But still needing to be taken to the toilet and dressed at 15? I'm not stupid, how can I break past being like a 2 year old when it comes to that?

Maybe you could have an occupational therapist come to your house and help you get faster at these tasks?

You are certainly intelligent enough to really improve in lots of ways.

I have an occ therapist but not at home. But my mom and dad have spent a lot of time over the years asking questions and getting advice from therapists and psychologists, so they probably know as much as an occupational therapist by now. Also I can be really hard to manage in the morning too sometimes, can get uncooperative and put up a struggle. It's like being two different people.

Are you getting enough sleep? People can get very irritable and vacant minded in the mornings if they didn't sleep well. How many hours of sleep do you reckon you get each night?

From the thread-title I thought it's about visiting a restaurant or something, but then I looked up the expression out to lunch and it's clear now.
If it takes you half an hour to put on a sock, what do you do in the meanwhile, do you fall back to sleep or is your mind preoccupied with something else?
I am as well pretty much out to lunch when I have to do certain things, like cleaning something or packing a bag (when I went on vacation lately it took me 4 days to pack the bag), and what helps me is when I try consciously to "turn on" a verbal voice in my mind telling me "and know you do this, go and do this (eg. now you go to the dresser and open it, now you pull out the drawer, now you take out the shirt...).
It's because I am very much thinking in pictures in my mind, but the mind is so big and often not attuned to what should be done.

In the summer I get a lot of sleep, like 10 hours total. On school nights I usually get at least 8 hrs and often take a nap when I get home from school. I remember seeing a video once of an autistic boy about 12 being woken up and gotten ready for school and it was basically the same as me. The dad kept saying "so far so good" so I'm guessing sometimes it goes less smoothly like with me. I'm not severely autistic, but am level 2.

This might be something to work on. It might be tough at first....but if you really try hard, you just might succeed.

You know what they say? "The first step to solving a problem is having insight into the problem."

You're growing up. So you might be better equipped to handle this sort of change.

I think you are inspired to change.

I forget what I'm doing or get distracted. I go faster if being given verbal directions like "put on the sock, now the other sock..." Also there are PECS cards around the house to remind me of procedures. It just bothers me. My cousin who is my age lives with us and he's up and dressed in a flash and then has to go through the routine of getting me up and ready.



Yeah I'm wondering if it has started on becoming dependent on a routine and maybe even some laziness. Or maybe executive dysfunction along with the cognitive impairment. Next thing to work hard on I guess. Perseverance in speech therapy sure improved my ability to talk. Not sure if I posted my last one where I read out a list of words, got through the list much faster and smoother http://vocaroo.com/i/s0qLiaU5v1zx

You must develop to give this instructions by yourself.
What I sometimes do is humming in a certain rhythm like hm-hm-hm--hm-hm-hm just to keeps focused on a task and not get distracted.
If you are not able to talk yourself through it.
Or do you know the beep-beep-beep sound of a truck driving backwards?
Like using that sound to try to take and put on the sock in maybe 20 beeps.
Mayking another beep or sound to remind you on the second one.
repeating.
The thing is, that you need to develop an automatism, and you can't do that when you interrupt each action too long.
I don't know if difficulties in developping automatisms is due to autism or due to executive dysfunction.
I have both and difficulties in developping automatisms.
And once I have developped once I do not want to deviate from it because it is so hart to develop one in the first place.

I am and always have been very slow to get going in the mornings. It is as though my body is slow to clear-out those sleep hormones or something. I recently saw where a correlation was noted between genetic mutations associated with altered circadian cycles and autism. Over the last couple of months I have been refocusing on my sleep hygiene with some modest but worthwhile results.

I second what Eloa says. I have this sort of imaginary person in my mind telling me what to do next for some things and at some times. That is something very, very helpful.

Another option for that is to perhaps have your mom or dad audio record your morning routine, like have them help you telling you what to do and stuff while you do it. Then you can replay that recording in the morning for yourself without them so you and they can be more independent. Perhaps over time you'll be able to listen to parts of it and do what it says but then mute the recording while it is still playing and fill in the gaps yourself. Perhaps until you can replay the recording yourself in your mind.

Another way might be to imagine your task as a shape. Put each task on a small card and then lay them out on the floor in a shape that makes sense to you and then do those activities, making the shape in your head as you do it.

I sometimes have trouble recalling words for objects when I am going about a task. If I am not talking and am just in my own head and stuff I know the words for things. But if I am having to talk about things or answer other people's questions or tell them what to do, especially in a non-routine task I am doing, I forget common object words. I can say the color of something and can describe something but can't think of the word. This depends on environment too. You read those words really well and I am glad you are better able to do that. When you do that, have you looked at multiple examples of the objects at the same time and tried to make the letters form the shape of the object in your mind or made the sound of the word conform in some way to object. Take for example the word cup. This could mean a drinking vessel or "cup your hands". For the drinking vessel, you could "cup" your hands around it. Picture that. Or for the drinking vessel you can imagine a very tiny person sliding down into the cup and up the other side, like the u in the word cup and the "hole" in the cup are the same shape. Another way for cup is to put your hands in a cupping position then bang the pinky sides of your hands together. It makes a sound like cup. I also think the sound of setting an empty cup on the cabinet sounds like the word "cup".

Maybe I am getting too complicated but this is kind of how I learned words I think.

Another thing I have considered doing is to just sitting in the places I get messed up in especially the kitchen and naming the items out loud just to reinforce the connections between seeing them, picturing them, and saying them.

That reply was posted at 12:00 my timezone and I believe you're on west coast USA so correct me if I'm wrong but was that posted at 4 AM? If I have been stupid in that calculation or if you're not on the west coast please correct me. But if you can it may help to fall asleep earlier and wake up earlier and try to stay asleep the whole night. I know that's all far easier said than done. But it does help by not using electronics like phones and laptops before bed. Could try, if you don't already, not using them after 8 PM and at all during the night even if you wake up.

I sometimes set alarms half an hour and 15 minutes (2 alarms) before I get up, and a third one for when I need to get up. Just works for me. Gets my brain working. I get up, go bathroom, go back to my room and put the light on and lie on the floor and think about what I'm going to do. The thinking gets my brain to wake up. Doing all this does mean I wake up 2 hours before I need to go out but I can do this because I go to bed at 9 and fall asleep as fast as I can... so maybe an hour or so, try to get asleep before 10. It's harder in summer because the damn sun never sets and it just keeps me awake.

But different things work for different people so I hope you do find a way to make mornings easier.

Sleep in your clothes! Get dressed the night before, when you're all clean from your bath, and wake up ready to go. Or, drink some caffeine as soon as you wake up--that's how grownups do it.

Last edited by arielhawksquill on 04 Aug 2015, 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

It's about 7:30 AM Pacific Time. If you're in England, it would be 3:30 PM (15:30). I'm in NYC, where it's 10:30 AM.

I'm lost. His reply to my comment says 12:00. 12 subtract 8 (they're 8 hours behind aren't they?) is 4... making it 4 AM when his reply was posted? Or have I been really stupid?

You have to adjust your time settings in WP. It's 11:05 AM in NYC now, and 4:05 PM in England.