Healthy vs unhealthy challenges

[daniegirl6224]

What are your healthy versus unhealthy challenges for your autism? What determines whether a challenge is healthy or unhealthy? I think unhealthy is when it causes too much stress without enough benefits. Curious to hear your thoughts.

My Healthy Challenges
Change location of med container (my partner chose a location that makes more sense but broke my routine)
Not getting upset if I don’t complete my to-do list, not being so rigid
1:1 socializing

My Unhealthy Challenges
Choosing meals for my partner and I
Shopping in unfamiliar grocery stores
Cooking

Undecided
Big social events
Loud/crowded events
(I want to like them, I want to be included, but it causes so much overstimulation that I don’t enjoy myself)
Sex talk (do others also struggle with this??)

 

[Judge]

One unhealthy challenge comes to my mind more than anything else.

Constant rumination of the distant past. Often over wanting to rectify social situations that went sideways that can never be fixed. At a time when I had no idea I could be autistic.

The one thing I'd call a real challenge given I can't seem to stop. Yet I feel like I've reviewed my past so much that when I die, I need not relive it all in the event that is in fact part of the dying process- to relive so much of your life up to the point where you expire.

LOL....though I have to admit, struggling to find what I need in a store I'm not familiar with can make me a little crazy. Worse when it's a store I'm familiar with where they have relocated things to boost marketing what I don't want or need.

What healthy challenges do I have or want? Trying to remain calm whenever I don't immediately locate or see my parked car. To avoid the usual PTSD associated with my OCD. A "work in progress" I suppose. (I had a car stolen many years ago.)

 

[Misty Avich]

Unhealthy challenge - masking. I can no longer do this around people, only to a small extent (like everyone does). It's so difficult to mask my emotions in most situations. In public places I feel I have to mask emotions because strangers immediately label anybody expressing too much emotion as "demented" or "insane" and could even call the police or an ambulance. Or they just stare at you and laugh. So I have to be this cool, calm robotic clone of everyone else and act nonchalantly. I hate being in public for this reason.

 

[Outdated]

I'm mostly fairly well settled and have a very sedate pace of life that really suits me, for the most part I'm pretty happy.

My challenge is to start cooking properly again. I like cooking and I'm pretty good at it but the wheels fell off that a few years back and I need to get back in to it again. It's a great way to be healthy and save money at the same time.

Here's something for you to watch out for in life, or perhaps it's an oversimplified explanation for questions you may already be asking yourself. It's partly to do with having routines and things you're used to change, but it's also partly to do with the emotional responses we have regarding unhappy experiences.

An extreme example - I had a big argument with the Australian Taxation Office 20 years ago and I haven't submitted a tax return since. I even made sure that I had overpaid taxes for a few years so that if they took me to court it would work out that they owe me money and they'd look just a little bit silly. I told the lady on the phone back then "I'm terribly sorry but I no longer wish to subscribe." and hung up on her. Haven't had to deal with them again for 20 years.

My current issue with cooking is from having my little gas stove taken away from me. It was a type of camping stove running on a 20 Kg propane cylinder, it had 2 burners on top and a small oven. I loved cooking on that, I used those little stoves for years. Because the oven was only small it was incredibly cheap to run, I was using it on average 5 days a week, baking or roasting is a lot healthier than frying. I love my own cooking.

I live in social housing and they regularly conduct inspections. After I'd been living here for nearly 3 years one of the rental management ladies realised I had a propane gas cylinder here. They're banned in social housing because of the fire risk and I was forced to get rid of it. That was about 2 1/2 years ago now, I still look at the electric stove with dread and I hate it.

 

[thejuice]

Unhealthy Chanllenge: Compulsion to get high scores in games despite the stress and exhaustion. I enjoy problem solving bit though.

 

[Metalhead]

My job has offered me the unhealthy challenge of overcoming my social anxiety by calling everybody who signed up to be on our call list, and I have had people hang up on me because the excessive nasal tone of my voice led them to believe I was a prank caller.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

To avoid the human brain's negative bias, I will interpret all of my challenges as "healthy", to create a positive perspective. After all, in my mind, that is the context of a challenging one's self. Positive change.

For perspective, I am 58, so I have had a bit more time to adapt and overcome than some of our younger folks.

1. Professionally: I've recently, a few days ago, taken on the additional role of a pediatric transport therapist (ambulance, helicopter, airplane), after some 30+ years of doing neonatal exclusively. This means taking on additional responsibilities outside of the neonatal unit and engage more in pediatric units. I will looking forward to updating my knowledge in this area.
2. Financially: I am about 4 years out from retirement and still need to make those last final preparations and plans to set myself and my wife up for financial success in our retirement years. We will build our dream home and travel.
3. Mental health: My journey with using therapeutic doses of psilocybin and Lion's mane mushrooms to not only help prevent age-related cognitive decline, but to make new neural connections and improve my autism symptoms is showing some positive results.
4. Physical health: Continue to be aware of what I eat, the level of physical activity I have, and my body weight and composition.
5. Marriage: Continue to be as loving and supportive to my wife as I can as she goes through her health issues.