Disorganisation

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You made it sound pervasive to the point of impairment. If it doesn't impair her, then her disorganization is not in fact like what we're talking about in this thread, and bringing it up at all was completely irrelevant. If someone forgets her purse or is occasionally late or doesn't perfectly clean up every single day, I don't really think that's a sign of anything. If someone - like, say, me - has managed to lose her purse multiple times, in her bedroom, leaving it on the bus, leaving it where someone could steal it, forgetting to put important things in the purse like keys, cell phone, money, who was so frequently late to one job that she ultimately lost that job because no matter how hard she tried she could not manage to be on time, whose organizational abilities are so impaired that she can only manage serious cleaning if there is a deadline and potential consequences, and otherwise it just takes far too much energy to just break even, then that could be a sign of ADHD. Heck, that's only a fraction of what I deal with. I lose my sunglasses every few days and only the sheer fact of repetition makes it easier for me to find them, because I tend to leave them in a limited number of "wrong" spots when I forget about them. That's still barely scratching the surface again. In school, my desks were always messes. My locker was always a mess. My bookbag was always a mess. My room was always a mess. When I had a job with my own desk, my drawer (shared the desk) was a chaotic mess of notes, notebooks and office supplies, and I had to straighten it out at least once a week, and it would get right back to the mess stage within two days.

Do you have any friends or family who have disorganization problems like that?

Anyway, I wasn't trying to diagnose her with anything. I wasn't explicit enough with my point, which was the above overly long paragraph - if your aunt is as disorganized as people are talking about in this thread, she almost certainly has something diagnosable that causes it. Or she is just so lazy and careless that it doesn't matter.

Oh, and what I described above is not any autistic trait as far as I know, it's my ADHD.



I don't think that that everyone here thinks NTs are perfect and flawless and that people here define everything they experience here as an autistic trait. It seems to me that you are invested in this interpretation to the point of almost randomly correcting people even in threads where no one has claimed that the topic is a specifically autistic trait. I've also seen posts where you have corrected people who were talking about actually autistic traits (oh, and I would be one of those people, incidentally) because NTs may do similar things, even for similar reasons, even though in their case it is genuinely an autistic trait.

Yes, some people do position NTs as people who don't have any problems, and some people blame every little thing on their autism, but that is not everyone, and that is certainly not me. I know many NTs with whom I have far more in common than I ever will with you and several other autistic members of Wrong Planet, and these NTs certainly have their own substantial problems, and I have commiserated much with those I know best. I have no illusions about "NT perfection." There are so many ways people can have so many problems, whether personal, social, medical, or any combination of the three and any other category I forgot to include.

And yes, some people here to blame some fairly strange things on being autistic. But every thread in which someone talks about actual difficulties that are actually associated with being autistic doesn't need a correction that NTs also deal with the same problem.

I'm extremely disorganized, however I'm always on time for everything. I tend to loose things all the time and if I can't find something I will get upset sometimes to the point where I start hitting myself.

But yea, I just moved to a new apartment a month ago with my fiancee and we were joking about how we are always going to seem to have boxes still laying around after we move. Funny that we are both extremely adhd (she was in special ed classes while I was in the lower level reading classes).

I never said everyone with ASD blame everything on Autism. I just said some people with it do. I usually blame a lot of things on being a human, and only blame the most common traits on AS what match the Autistic criteria.

And I don't correct people. We're all entitled to our own opinions. We are all different. I don't write, ''no, wrong, you shouldn't have said that....'' I just like to look at things from a different perspective sometimes. I sometimes forget that things cause arguments - I don't intentionally want war on WP forums.

I'm just saying I see disorganisation everywhere. At work the desk in the office is untidy and full of stuff like pens, papers, folders, and even money lying around. It's not up to me to clear it all up, but sometimes I think, ''oh!'' and walk back out, because just looking at it gives me a headache. I have a lot of NT friends and cousins, and their rooms are a terrible mess. Well, not messy messy, but things are just put untidily, and thrown about the place. My boyfriend's lobby bit in his house is a terrible mess - shoes and bags piled up, coats not hanging up on the pegs, and you could hardly see the telephone on the little table because it's covered with all sorts of stuff like keys, tissues, bus tickets, pens, sweets, ect.

But I see your point about the habit of leaving your bag where someone could steal it - I have this aswell. At work I sit and eat my lunch then get up and put the rubbish in the bin then start work without putting my bag back in the locker, and it's just left sitting there by the door for all to see, and anyone could just walk in and grab it. I have got told off for leaving my bag unattended like that, and it's made me feel stupid because putting their bag away is the first thing others will do.
But with untidy rooms (and I don't just mean bedrooms) sometimes can just depend on your personality, NT or NL. My mum is a very tidy person, but her dressing table drawers are full of make-up and medicines, ect, and she starts getting angry when she can't find something in the drawer, because there's too much stuff in there.

But I can see how it's common in Aspies to forget important things like personal belongings, which are stuff what most NTs would worry about. Sometimes I don't really care about leaving my handbag in front of the door, even though I can't bear to have my MP3 and mobile phone stolen. Is that an Aspie trait? Not caring, but not intentionally not caring? Because I'm like that a lot. Sometimes I forget to care.

Last edited by Joe90 on 20 May 2011, 7:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

I believe the key to overcoming this problem is to reduce the amount of stuff you have. I'm working on this slowly.

It does help to an extent, but we all need some stuff.

I'm finding I don't attempt interests that require a lot of 'stuff' to do. That's partly for financial reasons too.

I'm obsessed with minimalism. But yeah, get too minimal and you don't have everything you actually need.

Yeah, being messy can be a personality thing, but it is also a disorganization thing. Like it's the difference between "could, but do not want to" and "wants to, but can't manage it."

And yes to the forgetting to care. I've lost too many things this way. I don't know if it's an ASD trait or not, but it's one I have and wish I could get rid of.

Also, I am sorry for mischaracterizing you as correcting people. I was a bit frustrated

Yep, I should have thought of this before starting climbing. Same thing with painting, the arts and crafts cr*p that litters my life is unbelievable; it has been accumulating since the age of 13. I also have too many maths books; I buy them for my courses and develop an attachment to them.

I need to have an orderly, structured environment in order to function properly. As a result, most of the things I do follow some sort of system. Books are alphabetised, items are placed on certain shelves on the basis of category, daily activities are planned ahead, my bedroom is ludicrously tidy...

I'm very organised with some things like planning my day and sticking to it. But I lose stuff all the time, i don't trust myself with anything.

I like this! This describes me a lot. I thought there would be a separate thread on this in particular .

I'm a ''wants to, but can't manage it'' person. I care about my looks. I want to have nice hair like other girls. But the problem is with adding extra tasks to my routine is that I will forget to do something to my hair, like I'd probably get up late only to realise that I forgot about giving myself enough time to straighten my hair. And wit the make-up - even if I just put mascara on every day, believe me I will probably forget to clean it off before I go to bed, then wake up the next morning with sore eyes (because that can happen if you forget to clean off your make-up).

My aunt who I mentioned earlier (the disorganised one) loves her make-up, and can't go anywhere without it. She would never forget to put it on or take it off, and she does it all spontaneously. She even re-does her make-up before getting out of her car. I want to wear make-up as much as she does, but it's the management of it what will probably stress me out.

I've even wrote a list of things to do in the mornings, like ''wash face'', ''clean teeth'', ''put dirty clothes in laundry basket'', ''have a drink'', and ect. If I didn't have this list, I would leave the house for work forgetting something minor but important. All these minor but important things seem to come naturally to most NTs, even if they are forgetful. So I can see where you're coming from, Verdandi. an NT can still be scatty, forgetful and disorganised, but they still seem to remember to go out looking nice (unless they don't want to go out looking nice, but that's not what I do. I want to look nice, but forget to do it).

I often lose things---and there is almost always something important that I can't find. I usually do know where most things are even though some might see my stuff as cluttered. But, if I try to straighten stuff up I tend to lose more things.

Yes, that is it.

And I am similar, although I never thought to write the list down, so I always forgot things. I did have a strict routine when I went to school or had a job, and everything was somewhat easier to manage (except my hair - hair and I have never managed to get along). Once the routine went away, my ability to maintain many of those things went away. Spontaneously? Hardly. I am not spontaneous like that.

Oh, and thanks - your example illustrated everything nicely!

I'm working on this myself. I have too much stuff, but I can't tell what I should keep and what I should toss.

It's frustrating.

I'm getting a hard ass neatnik organizer type person to help me (not a professional). It's funny, it's so hard to get rid of stuff but once it's gone I don't give it a second's thought.

I should get my Aunt the anal retentive neat freak to help out. hehe

Seriously though, I border on being a hoarder. I always obsess over things long after they're gone. Sometimes years later. Even if it was completely useless when I tossed it.