I’m a person with both autism and ADHD that is currently unemployed. As I wait for my lease to run out in April, I have been working on building my brand as a freelance musician, because one day I’d like to provide for myself without having to work a job that doesn’t accommodate me. So far, I’ve been learning to write music, code my own website, write blog posts, and document my progress.
I worked on my website for 4 hours today. Knowing that I was about to do a lot of work that was going to require me to lock in and hyperfocus. I did smoke a little tiny roach that I had left over. The “gardening” did help me hyperfocus on my task. I kind of got tunnel vision. I just got really lost in it. I took some small breaks in between to get some food and some coffee, but I’m really proud of the progress I made today.
I worked on my website for 4 hours and then I took a nap for an hour. I found that allowing myself to take naps during the day is a great way to reset my energy levels. I find it really hard to put myself to sleep when I have so many things I want to do, but near the end of my 4 hour session working on my website, I was yawning a lot and I was having a hard time reading what I was putting down on my screen. So I thought to myself “yeah, I think my body's telling me I should go take a nap”. So, I listened. A great way to accommodate yourself is stepping back and noticing the different cues that your body is giving you. In this case, a yawn is your body telling your brain to sleep.
After my nap I got up to make dinner because my body was sending me a lot of hunger cues. I wanted to wash the dishes and I always really struggle to wash the dishes. So I made food first, and while I ate my food, I had a little elastic rubber band on my finger to remind myself that after I eat, I'm going to wash the dishes as a promise to myself. So, I think it did help. I had to take it off before I started washing the dishes because it started to feel really uncomfortable. I didn’t force myself to keep it on while I set myself up for washing dishes.
I put my noise cancelling headphones on. I put a video on, something engaging to make the task more bearable, but not too engaging to the point where I can’t take my eyes off of my phone. It has to be something I can glance at from time to time, but mostly just listen to as I work around my kitchen. Today’s video was Bob the Drag Queen and Kory King recreating each other’s makeup looks. I love listening to people talk to each other while I clean because it feels like I’m hosting a dinner party and I’m listening to the conversation in the other room.
I made sure to empty the dishwasher and empty the dish rack before I started cleaning or putting any dishes in the dishwasher, so that my space was clean and I could rely on the dishwasher to automate most of the cleaning. I only had to clean one single pot by hand. I always wear gloves when I'm washing dishes by hand. I personally don’t trust that a dish is clean unless it’s rinsed in scalding hot water, so not only do the gloves protect me from gross foods that would give me sensory overload, but it also protects my hands from the hot water.
I originally tried to create the script for this article by speaking it into my phone so that I could type notes while I played it back, but I found that my speech got incredibly jammed. I would start a sentence, start a different sentence, then go back to the first sentence and forget about the second one completely. There were a lot of “um”s and “uh”s. Trying to convey my thoughts orally/verbally actually hindered my ability to access my conscious thought. I wrote the rest of this article in complete silence, and I can actually reach those ideas that were blocked when I tried saying them out loud. I’ve also never been the greatest at writing, so I inputted my first few paragraphs into a screen reader and listened back with my eyes closed to make sure all the sentences made sense.
It is very important to know that a neurodivergent brain needs different things than a neurotypical brain does. The biggest way to accommodate yourself as a disabled person is to forgive. Forgive yourself for making food that isn’t very nutritious, at least you’re eating something. Forgive yourself for skipping the gym that day, you’re giving your body the rest that it needs. Forgive yourself for needing to sleep for a few hours during the day. Our minds put up a lot of resistance navigating through day-to-day life, so being kind to ourselves prevents even more resistance and difficulty from building on top of it. Listen to your body, be kind, forgive, and do whatever weird thing makes you flourish!