Organising oneself.

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Do you have problems with being or getting organised in certain ways?

Also do you tend to lose things a lot?

Yep!

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Autistic dad to an autistic boy and loving it - its always fun in our house

I have Autism. My communication difficulties mean that I sometimes get words wrong, that what I mean is not what comes out.

My Executive Function score said I was worse the 90% of the population so that is a yes.

Wow yes Worst is that I hate chaos. I recently tidied my room and am in the process of organising everything away in boxes folders dedicated draws etc. I feel dreadfully uneasy when I see things out of place. Eventually however something will happen and it'll all fall apart and the cycle repeats.

Yeah I would be interested in a link to the EF test as well. I'm horrible at task switching, and when instructions are vague or when I have to abstract the details, everything just takes a long time. Would be interested in my score.

I have a lot of problems with that, especially when I get stressed.

Yes -- I have a very hard time organizing and remembering things.

Yes, I'd consider my bedroom "organized chaos" at best: there's some clutter, but it isn't that bad...

I do also lose things sometimes, and have a terrible memory.

Just the other day, my mother misplaced her keys...

@quaker
@devark

You can download (free) the computarized BRIEF (Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function), but you won't be able to use it because it needs a level B license (not free, and requires 4-year college in psychology or training in psychological tests). Also, the age range for this test is from 5 to 18 years old.

I am currently under a pile of clothes and books on my bed. In addition to that I often lose my iPad (not a mini) in my bookbag. In conclusion, I am a disorganized mess.

Yes. Because to be organised I need to able to put categories on things, and sort them into groups, and I get caught with things that I can't easily categorise, and thus the clutter continues.

and I die a little more inside because it was ground into me as a child that disorganisation and clutter were bad.

"A place for everything and everything in its' place".

But then I can't find a place for things, and I cycle out... :/

I always need my items in my room organized to feel like I have a safe and normal life for me. In the past way back, I was very unorganized. Finding these unorganized items or folders way back in the crevices of the boxes in my room or the numerous folders on my laptop is a bother.

Thank you Neobluex

The reason I'm curious, is that in every possible area where my autism effects me, I have over the years become obsessive compulsive and in some cases developed crippling OCD, in my desperate attempts to over compensate for my areas of weakness.

My adapted skills were born out of severe trauma and of being mocked and humiliated for my unusual aspie quirks and eccentricities. Consequently, I became chronically depressed, so much so that I had to be hospitalized as a teenager.

Nothing was understood about HFA when I was growing up, and even if there was the understanding that we have today about the spectrum, my complex and extreme ways of concealing and adapting would have camouflaged my neurological difference.

Im going a long way around saying that because I have a brain that seems not to filter anything out, this results in me being bombarded with stimulus that often leaves me overwhelmed. Consequently, I superimpose extreme over compensating strategies that have in themselves become problematic.

It's like there is the natural autistic (everything is coming at me at once brain) living alongside the Perfectionist Policeman.

This dichotomy, this internal civil war has gone on all my life. And only since after my dx with HFA six years ago was I able to start the process of befriending and living less at war with myself.

These days I am happier. Allowing messiness has been part of my therapy at the maudsley hospital.

The enormous irony of many in the spectrum, has been the 'success' of their highly adaptive skills. This 'success' has, like myself come at a cost.

I have a much more balanced and kindly approach to life these days. Mindfulness practice is central to my life these days.

I have never seen my diagnosis with HFA as a label, but instead a moment of enlightenment, whereby I can learn to live life more creatively and compassionately within my limitations......For me, allowing myself to be messy is heading in the right direction.