General
For people who aren't particularly on the autism spectrum, there's a bucket-- "Bucket A"-- which gets filled up with obligations and tasks-- as the duties pile up, stress increases. As the tasks are completed, stress levels go back down again. It's maybe mildly more complex than that, but it's the basic operational picture.
If "Bucket A" becomes full, production ceases until the person can empty it to make room. If they persist anyway, the bucket will overflow and splash onto the sensitive electronics below, causing a short-circuit: i.e., burnout.
For people on the spectrum, these same rules apply-- except there is also a second bucket: the stimulus bucket, or "Bucket B". Every time an autistic person has to task switch, read the body language of a bunch of people at once, is in a noisy or busy setting, or myriad other things, "Bucket B" fills up.
The only way to empty "Bucket B" is for the autistic person to engage in uninterrupted special interests, be in a quiet place alone for awhile, stim, and so forth. For an autistic person, if "Bucket A" or "Bucket B" are full, production ceases. If "Bucket B" overflows, there's diassociation, insomnia, psychsomatic problems, and so on.
The key for an autistic person then is to be able to bail out "Bucket B" faster than it's filled. If this ratio is positive, life is sustainable. If it's negative, the person will eventually disintegrate.
In trying to be helpful, which I really do appreciate, people keep telling me to not commit to so many things-- "you're too busy". This is because they are only aware of "Bucket A": the only one they have, in most cases! Ergo, if I'm stressed, it must be because I have too many obligations.
The real issue for me over the past six months isn't that "Bucket A" is full: it's that my "Bucket B" is completely filled up by about the end of Tuesday, maybe Wednesday if I'm lucky-- and I can't bail it fast enough to keep it from dumping water all over my circuitry.
Emptying "Bucket A" of obligations doesn't resolve the bottleneck.
To further explain the dynamic, a lot of my church involvement lowers the water level in "Bucket B", even though it's nominally an increase in "Bucket A".
To be fair, it's not one hundred percent incorrect either to be wary of too many obligations: leading up to Holy Week, for example, I did not have enough time to engage in "Bucket B"-emptying activities, like reading books or playing video games. But that admission in hand, "too many obligations" is not the proximate cause of my issues.
The best approach to get me back on track would be a mix of slowing the rate of water flow into "Bucket B", in concert with increasing the rate of flow out of it.
I ran this model past my sister-in-law who is also on the spectrum, and she found the abstraction as a super helpful way to explain things to others-- so hopefully it can be of assistance to the rest of you, as well.
God bless!
If "Bucket A" becomes full, production ceases until the person can empty it to make room. If they persist anyway, the bucket will overflow and splash onto the sensitive electronics below, causing a short-circuit: i.e., burnout.
For people on the spectrum, these same rules apply-- except there is also a second bucket: the stimulus bucket, or "Bucket B". Every time an autistic person has to task switch, read the body language of a bunch of people at once, is in a noisy or busy setting, or myriad other things, "Bucket B" fills up.
The only way to empty "Bucket B" is for the autistic person to engage in uninterrupted special interests, be in a quiet place alone for awhile, stim, and so forth. For an autistic person, if "Bucket A" or "Bucket B" are full, production ceases. If "Bucket B" overflows, there's diassociation, insomnia, psychsomatic problems, and so on.
The key for an autistic person then is to be able to bail out "Bucket B" faster than it's filled. If this ratio is positive, life is sustainable. If it's negative, the person will eventually disintegrate.
In trying to be helpful, which I really do appreciate, people keep telling me to not commit to so many things-- "you're too busy". This is because they are only aware of "Bucket A": the only one they have, in most cases! Ergo, if I'm stressed, it must be because I have too many obligations.
The real issue for me over the past six months isn't that "Bucket A" is full: it's that my "Bucket B" is completely filled up by about the end of Tuesday, maybe Wednesday if I'm lucky-- and I can't bail it fast enough to keep it from dumping water all over my circuitry.
Emptying "Bucket A" of obligations doesn't resolve the bottleneck.
To further explain the dynamic, a lot of my church involvement lowers the water level in "Bucket B", even though it's nominally an increase in "Bucket A".
To be fair, it's not one hundred percent incorrect either to be wary of too many obligations: leading up to Holy Week, for example, I did not have enough time to engage in "Bucket B"-emptying activities, like reading books or playing video games. But that admission in hand, "too many obligations" is not the proximate cause of my issues.
The best approach to get me back on track would be a mix of slowing the rate of water flow into "Bucket B", in concert with increasing the rate of flow out of it.
I ran this model past my sister-in-law who is also on the spectrum, and she found the abstraction as a super helpful way to explain things to others-- so hopefully it can be of assistance to the rest of you, as well.
God bless!