what is your Autistic "why did I wait that long" epiphany?

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Can you remember an occasion where you caught yourself taking way too long to take care of something, then once you did so, it was such a relief, that you asked yourself "Why did I wait that long"?

I'll give an example to start. I was super relieved when I got a decent router a few months ago. Really decent routers have always been around, but I was too cheap and Scroogely to get one. Now I have a really affordable one that can do 60MB/sec over wireless, 112MB/sec wired. As I copy lots of data around (never at like 6 or 12MBsec any longer, as was the case before), I throw up my hands at how much faster it is, and say to myself: "why did I wait that long"?

It takes me months sometimes to make a large purchase, meaning something say over $200(outside of bills of course) unless it's totally necessary. A couple exceptions were, A few years ago on my prior car, I took it into the shop because the brakes felt funny and were grinding. Ended up being a $1200.00 repair, I had to pay it because it was a safety issue. Same thing when I had to go to the ER this past December, I put it off and hoped my issue would get better but after days of pain, I had to go but knew it would be multiple bills after.

So an example of putting something off was I had this crappy laptop that was slow and would freeze a lot. Also, had a big crack in the plastic housing. It was frustrating to use but it got to the point where " the blue screen of death" came up quite a bit, so I gave in and bought a new one. Within a day, I had wondered why I waited so long.

Another was getting a new refrigerator at my current house, the old did the job but was slowly dying, the temperature adjustment had to be set higher than you normally would and it took forever for stuff to get cold. I got sick of it at long last and bought a new one. With my new one, it's amazing how fast it cools off.

I think for me, it's feeling guilty about spending money at times, even though I feel I spend too much at times. My mothers side of the family were notorious cheap skates, The great depression had everything to do with it but they honestly got carried away with it at times.

I don't think this is a specifically ASD example; glasses.
just staying with my old old pair out of habit, spoon deficiency, stubbornness, laziness or ... and then finally getting the new pair on my nose and looking through them: "Why did I wait this long!"

About 22 years ago, finally got a gasoline powered lawn mower after years of telling myself I could get along just fine with the corded electric mower I inherited from my father.

I kept putting off the covid vaccines until I was convinced by the media and by everyone who said "it'll be fine, you won't regret it" to have it, then as soon as I had it out came the conspiracy theories - by some of the very people who were all for the vaccines at one time.

Trying hormonal birth control pills for hormonal issues. Without any prescription or a green light.

It's something I should've taken at age 20, as soon as I've gotten my first salary than at 28.

But nope.
In my head, I need more research and with the pros and cons along with potential risks. Or the affirmation that I should need one beyond it's contraceptives use.

And because that I deemed myself "too young" for that. It took 8 more years because I no longer considered myself "young" at 28.



Before that -- colored lens glasses and earplugs.

I didn't knew I was actually photosensitive after basically a decade long of habit of walking outdoors, and then one day realizing why I kept looking down instead of ahead.
The need for earplugs? It's complicated. It's a mix of not knowing that my tolerance is higher than my thresholds, to "breathing through the nose is one of my triggers".

Or even realized that I may not even relying too heavily on sight and hearing at all.
That those major basic senses are more like support than the primary means to navigate environments.
Maybe that's why I more or less neglect it?

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