Thoughts

OCD

Yesterday I lost an earring. In addition to ASD and ADHD, I also see signs of OCD in myself (like not walking on the intersection of tiles and the like). And so… I had two earrings. One was mine, the other was my ex’s. I had one in my ear and one in hers. I asked her to return it, because… it’s personal first of all (allocation of one’s own person). Second… there should be two of them! That is, you understand, right?..TWO! And she gave it back to me. And I had two of them! And now one! And she was my favorite. And I thought “I need to pierce another hole in the right one so that…

Wearing 2 pairs! TWO! PAIRS! And now the second pair is gone.
I should suffer for this. A lot. I planned to throw the one that was left in the Desna River. So that someone, in a month, would write somewhere in Kyiv “found an earring…maybe someone lost it?..” – a joke, when what. But I really thought “why do I need one?..”
But I resigned myself. Because well..one is better than nothing. Because only by moving away from the “typical reaction” can we, at least partially, suppress what we are…come to terms with ourselves. Learn to live…

Small steps, little by little…

Bastion of stability

I thought that with my ASD/ADHD, a partner is…first of all, one of the pillars of stability. That is, I feel comfortable that there is a person nearby with whom I can talk, share something with him/her, help with something. It is not for nothing that I have always perceived the very idea of ​​relationships as a partnership – when each complements the life of the other and saturates it with their part of life. When you run to the store once again so that the other does not have to go for groceries, or you pick up something at auctions that might make him happy. And you know that this person will be pleased with this very thing.

My perception of being able to be with anyone is not that you don’t care what the person is like – but you don’t want to get tied down to something that will be the same “red flag”. Age, children, mortgage debt, etc. – you don’t care, because you are ready to close the person’s issues and help them in their life for the fact that they will give you the same sense of stability. Understanding what your home is, and what components it has.

That’s why you highlight among the qualities – that the person hears you. That all important issues are discussed. And not to hide something, because it creates discomfort in you. So it’s better to deal with any problem than to hide it from your partner.

Perhaps this is the simplest and most understandable relationship that can exist. Without the need for someone to constantly cook, clean, etc. But you also don’t want to carry it all on yourself. Because you’re tired of it all your life. You want to share life, not be its basis or main link.

The simpler what you need, the harder it is to find it.

Self-Isolation

Over time, you come to understand that the nature of the lack of fear of external stimuli (arrivals, alarms, war) is based on the fact that you are more internal stimuli. To put it simply, you are more afraid of yourself than of a conventional missile. Because a missile is conventional, and you are always with yourself. You do not know in what state you will wake up tomorrow. How you will relate to this or that person. What trigger will work and in relation to whom/what. And that is why in your life you are most afraid not of missiles, but of yourself.

Trying to come to terms with yourself, finding ways, negotiating. You are trying to put yourself in a “controlled state”, in which it would really be easier for you to be distracted by “general” problems, and not your own internal ones. But the war will end. And you will not. What is in the war, what is outside it – you have to learn to live with yourself. Find a comfortable job. A comfortable distance with people. A comfortable distance with the world. The whole world around you.

Don’t ask

Listening to Okean Elzy’s “Don’t Ask,” I remembered a trip when one person disappeared from sight for a bit, and it was unclear whether a drone had flown over their factory or something else had happened. There are words in this song: “I just want to be where you are.” And, accordingly, I thought about the fact that recently another person said to me: “What about you? We just met. How can you want something right away, some kind of relationship or something else, if we haven’t even seen each other?”

I thought that for a person with ASD and ADHD, you want to see stability even in the fact that you are getting to know someone. That is, at the initial stage of getting to know someone (if the person responds, if you have reciprocity), you want to see stability. You perceive that this is already technically the beginning of a relationship. You are no longer looking for another person, you do not think that there is someone else, you delete your profile from applications. That is, you have already chosen a person because you are so comfortable. You are comfortable building a relationship with this person who has reciprocated you.

Yes, maybe something won’t work out for you. Maybe something won’t work out, but it will later. When it doesn’t work out and suddenly it doesn’t work out, then you will perceive internally that it didn’t work out. But at the stage when you start communicating like this, you see reciprocity, you believe that this is already the beginning of your relationship. And, accordingly, you get used to the person, you perceive them as something that you are building together with them, that there is already something between you.

For normal people without this ASD and ADHD, in this sense it is easier. They perceive it somehow easier, simpler – that it is just communication. You can flirt, you can somehow discuss there. There are some things that may be, may not be. You simply perceive that person as something like a story from a book.

You take it very seriously. That is, if a person says: “We’ll go to the water park there someday,” you think about how realistic it is, what is needed for this. You don’t just go to buy tickets, but at the same time you start planning internally, because your comfort zone is always when you control the situation, when you understand what will happen next, what will happen tomorrow and all that. That is, your world can exist in comfort only if you understand where you will be tomorrow, in a sense, where you will live tomorrow, with whom you will live tomorrow, what will happen between you and in general.

It’s not hard for you to accept that a person may have children or someone else, or some problems, debts, and so on. It doesn’t matter. You just accept that a person has all this, and you just think: “Okay, we’ll deal with this, yes, we’ll deal with this, yes, and with this we’ll do this, this, and this.” That is, roughly speaking, when a person says that they have children, you start thinking: “Okay, how can we find our mutual understanding with their children? Is it to take some game that you will play with them together, that is, get to know each other through the fact that you are playing something together.”

Accordingly, for people like me, building relationships is a little different than for people who met at a bar, hung out, and, accordingly, today they slept together, tomorrow they broke up, and the day after tomorrow they’re nobody.

And in my opinion, for something to be sexual between you, you have to have some kind of emotional connection. If there is, it’s about one thing. If there isn’t, then sex is not interesting, it’s not perceived as something that you want to share, to be for the person. You need a feeling that you and the person are together, you are on the same wavelength, you are about one whole. It’s not about “ownership”. It’s about you just knowing that you have each other.

Google OK. Stability

The stability of my condition depends on…several things.

The first of them is dialogue. There should be a constant dialogue with a person. If something is wrong, I’m not okay. If a person disappears, I’m not okay. It’s great when a person says, “I’ll be gone for 3 days.” It’s even better when they show up after 3 days. It’s generally great.

The second is the volume of communication. It’s not okay for you when you write a lot, and the person gives you 2 words. When you dump a bunch of text. It’s not okay for another person who is not used to such a volume of text. So if you are different in this sense – don’t even try.

Third interest. Not only should you ask. They should also ask you. Clarify. Interrogate. When you “play interview” – it quickly exhausts. So don’t play. If the communication is one-sided – it’s sad, but end it.

If any of these three points is “not” – everything will be a fiasco. But the problem is not that there will be a fiasco. Even on AD, even “controlling the amount of text” – it’s still a fiasco. Because the real “connection” happens when all three points are in effect. Otherwise, any “breakdown” will lead to a fiasco again. Therefore, the option of “constantly on AD” is so-so. Therapy? Who knows… but in the state that is – you should always remember the three points.

Flat world

There are people with a flat world. There are a lot of them, actually. They are ideal workers. Because they have a direction that they have to cope with – and they are perfectly realized in it. They are ideal workers in the factory. They are ideal workers in the store. They are ideal mothers. They are ideal wives. This does not make them worse than anyone else. You just, in the same way, should not expect from a person what their inner world is not adapted for.

Likewise, from the opposite, I didn’t know many genuinely creative people who would be ideal mothers. That is, they, without any problems, provided for the child’s basic needs, but no more. Children of such people grow up very independent. Because otherwise there is no way. Again, this is not about their minus. It’s just about the structure of their inner world.

The stupidest thing you can do to anyone, be it the first or the second person, is to reshape them into someone else. Someone they are not.

I am a creative person. I am interested in creative people. I am not interested in monotonous, monotonous work, because I get tired of it quickly. That is why I am engaged in chimneys, and in the repair of transport/equipment, and in computer maintenance, at the same time I like the fragile images in the photos that I create. But this is me. Others do not have to be the way I am. Simply because they are different. And this must be accepted. That you choose “either-or”. In order not to be a monster in the life of another person.

Looking for someone

You should first of all look for a friend. A person with whom you will have mutual support. But you should remember that not all people are capable of being friends. Not all people are capable of returning the warmth that you give. And not all are capable of appreciating each other, even in difficult times.

When asking yourself what you are looking for in another person, the first word is “warmth.” Because that is what we often lack. Warmth is not about everyday life. It is not about “who washes the dishes.” It is about an inner sense of peace. That is, for the most part, everyone is now looking for a “home” in another person, where they will feel comfortable. And only then everything else.

But not every home you enter gives you a sense of peace and comfort. So, technically, all single people are “tenants” of this world. Who are simply looking for a place where they will be comfortable. Despite everything that is happening outside the window…