Out of Order

How my day got totally derailed when I was not able to stick with my routine as an autistic woman and what I did to salvage it.​

I’ve been sharing my experiences in these posts for about six months now, almost every single week, and this is the first time I have encountered writer’s block. So I ask myself—why is that? And the answer is right there. I just forgot about reality for a minute, but I’m back now.

I always write on Fridays, and it is Friday, but this Friday was different. I had to get up really early and take a ferry to the mainland to go to the chiropractor. That took 5 hours (I live on a small island). And now, someone is in the living room (where I usually write) working on our piano and so I am in my bedroom instead and I can’t focus.

I mean, how could I possibly focus with the whole day so completely out of order? With a stranger in the other room the whole afternoon? It seems so obvious to me now that this would throw me off, but at the same time it seems incredible to me that I am so completely derailed. I feel like I can’t do anything.

These days, since I am able to stick with my routine the vast majority of the time,  it is easy to forget just how thrown off I get when that order gets disrupted. When it happens I always get so surprised (like today) until I remind myself of how much I rely on the structures I have put in place in my day-to-day life. On the other hand, I have no problem recognizing the exact same kind of rigidity in some of my other family members who seem completely unable to change the order of anything they ever do. To be honest, I get frustrated by their rigidity and can be oblivious to my own.

I struggle with this reality both in my own life and as a coach, because ultimately I would love for us all to get to a place where we have some cognitive flexibility. Oooooooh, wouldn’t that be nice…to be able to make some adjustments in the moment when the day gets tweaked (because there are always some days that are going to get tweaked).

But while that may be an end goal, it is not my current reality. So my first step is acceptance. Acceptance of what this day has been and what it means in terms of my to-do list. I am not going to be able to write the article I had planned.

But as you can see…I am writing. I did a little experiment here. When I thought about writing the post I had scheduled, what felt the most impossible about writing it is having to look up all the sources to back it up because it was that kind of article. Lots of brain science kind of stuff. Today, it exhausts me to even think about having to back up every sentence I write with some hardcore science. Meh.

But as it turns out, just checking in with where I’m at and then writing about my experience does not feel hard. And the fact that it even occurred to me do it shows a kind of pivot that I don’t think I would have been able to make in the past. Perhaps I am getting some cognitive flexibility after all!

I am choosing to celebrate that as a small win for myself. And come to think of it, it is also a win that I did not push myself to write the other post when it truly was optional (this is my own blog after all—there is no employer pushing their agenda down my throat). Again, in the past I absolutely would have pushed myself to stick with the plan at all costs. But why? I think I get afraid that if I change anything in my structure, everything will fall apart. But it’s just not true.  So it’s time for me to change that narrative.

This is going to end up being a shorter post than usual, which initially sent another flashing red light to my nervous system, but I’ve decided to override it. A shorter post doesn’t have to be a problem if I can simply embrace the reality of the moment, celebrate my choice to stick with honesty and real experience, and accept that it is enough.
​
We are always enough. Life continues to be challenging, and some days get derailed, but it’s ok. We are always enough.

​Would you like these posts delivered directly to your inbox each week?
Subscribe for free on Substack: arikarapson.substack.com