Born 2b me

Dead Intentions

21 Jun 2011 33 Comments

by Bruce (born 2b me) in Asperger's, Asperger's Syndrome, autism Tags: Asperger's, Asperger's Syndrome, autism, intentions, regrets.

The following is straight out of my Morning Pages of today (I removed names). Morning Pages are an exercise in stream of consciousness writing. I found it in The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. One keeps the pen moving and just lets the words flow. I write three pages longhand (cursive) in a spiral bound notebook upon arising each morning.

So I got hooked on Aspie videos on YouTube again last night in spite of my intention to be in bed by midnight. I was up until almost 3:00 am! Is this poor executive functioning? I notice (name) in (blog) needs help from others with reminders to tidy the apartment and to take a shower. Maybe I shouldn’t be down on myself for my apparent difficulty with following through on my intentions. Intention is something that interests me because I have noticed that my intentions easily get forgotten is I get sidetracked on the internet or in daydreaming. It can be difficult for me to follow through on my good intentions. For instance I still have a “get well” card I purchased for (a neighbour) last February but never got around to mailing. Part of the difficulty is fear of failure I would suspect. I have had so many rejections and “failures to please” that I am hesitant to do anything even as simple as sending a card. I am frozen by perfectionism and the measure of “perfect” isn’t my own internal standard — it is the unknown standard of others, a standard that appears to me to shift and is very baffling — an apparently moving target whose mysterious motions are not controlled by me.

My pen has stopped so I must get it moving again or I will be lost in a daydream. Lost in daydreams is where I spend a lot of time. But here I am back writing so I escaped that one! Perhaps because I am writing of my tendency to avoid tasks I am more aware of that tendency and caught it in action just now. I am good at spontaneously going for a drive, but that feels so good and like such a relief because in my car, my privacy capsule, I cannot do any of my list of good intentions. I am relieved of my responsibilities and I can enjoy the moment. Hence I often find a drive through the countryside to be actually energizing, whereas sitting in my house can be very draining due to all the backlog of things I should be doing but can’t get myself going on.

I think this speaks to my struggles with posting and commenting as well.

So does anyone else have good intentions not acted upon? Is this an Aspie/autie issue or just a problem I need to fix?

photo: ConanTheLibrarian via Flickr.