This study is unique in considering difficulty initiating tasks of any type in real life settings, and by gathering qualitative data directly from autistic people. Four face-to-face and 2 online (text) focus groups were conducted with 32 autistic adults (19 female, 8 male, and 5 other), aged 23–64 who were able to express their internal experiences in words.
[…] Participants described difficulty starting, stopping and changing activities that was not within their conscious control. While difficulty with planning was common, a subset of participants described a profound impairment in initiating even simple actions more suggestive of a movement disorder. Prompting and compatible activity in the environment promoted action, while mental health difficulties and stress exacerbated difficulties. Inertia had pervasive effects on participants’ day-to-day activities and wellbeing.
This phenomenon, evoked by Too Much Shit Going On Around Me, is in some sense destroying my life.
I mean, the alternate path I’ve been on because of sensory sensitivity + autistic inertia has taught me a ton of valuable shit over the past half decade, so if I ever manage to get into a better situation I’ll be so much better prepared than I ever was before, now that I understand this stuff… but I’m trading years of my life for the insight, years spent locked in by inertia for a great portion of almost every single day… plus a not-small measure of damage to my health from all the fucking drugs I have to take in order to not go absolutely insane, become completely dysregulated, be constantly highkey suicidal etc in such a scenario.
Also, a tangent, but I really wish there were fewer typos in this paper, this kind of research is utterly critical to getting a better living situation for millions of people on the spectrum, and the typos don’t help that. K, done complaining about my pet peeve.