Yes. I have posted about this in another thread recently. I have extreme issues with fatigue. I always have done, since early childhood. When I am tired my brain feels like is is full of mud, my thought processes slow down, my usually superior problem-solving and reasoning abilities go out of the window, I get a low mood and I feel like crying (or do cry).
Social situations exhaust me the most, but my present job is still far too much for me even though it is relatively undemanding socially.
I've never been able to understand how - or why - people are expected to work for 8 hours a day. No sense to it. None. And not only are people expected to work for 8 hours (and travel at both ends) but they are expected to come home afterwards and do housework, and be friendly with their partners and children, and phone their friends, etc, etc ... The ability to do all this in a day is an aspect of life that I simply do not get, cannot do, and will never understand. I believe it is part of my disorder.
Occasionally I wlll work for 8 hours straight, if I'm really into some particular task. But if I do that, then I am doing NOTHING ELSE - no housework, no socialising, nothing. Even then I can only keep it up for a few days and then I will have to lie in bed for at least a day to recover.
Most of the time I can work for up to 4 hours and the rest of the day I'm just waiting to go home - even if the thing I'm working on is extremely interesting. However much I like it, I simply dont have the energy to do it. If I try, my brain feels like it is crawling through sludge. I make mistakes and miss details, and this can cause serious problems as we all know.
I think people with AS focus intensely when they work, and tire themselves out. I do as much in 4 hours as an average person does in 8. Why sit around in an office wasting time? Go to work, focus, work till you cannot focus any more and then go home - why isn''t that the norm? It should be!
12 Feb 2010, 7:41 am
