I finally found a job so I am going to move out of my parents’ house soon, in order to live in the large city where the job is located with my gf. I should be happy about finally becoming independent and being able to see her every day, however I only feel dread about the transition, the lack of free time for my interests (probably intensified due to my shit executive functioning) and the fact that I will miss my family. How did you handle such a transition?
Moving out doesn’t mean that you can’t ever go back and visit your parents, even if it’s something that can only happen on the weekends. If it makes the transition easier then spend a fair bit of time at your parents house as you grow into your new home at your own pace.
If you’ve got the capacity for it, I would recommend you planning things out. Doesn’t even matter if those plans fall through.
Prioritise what’s important to you - is it food, is it having an organised space, is it art and displaying your collections… and so on.
If you’re a same-dinner-every-night neurodivergent then you don’t need to put effort into creating structures for a sense of stability and security around your meals and your shopping; buying a week’s worth of chicken tendies and mac & cheese doesn’t require much forethought. On the other hand, if food is really important to you in a different way then maybe plan out some simple weeknight meals for yourself.
Draw up how you will arrange your furniture in your new place.
Create timelines for unpacking and setting up your spaces, allowing plenty of downtime to recuperate and adjust to the new environment.
Make a list prioritising the basics of what are essential for you to function with regards to work and with regards to meeting your needs. Obviously that looks different for each person but maybe a sensory chill out space is super important to your wellbeing so you put that way high up on the list so that you can unpack, organise, build furniture, shop, clean etc. until you hit your limit and then you can just retreat to your sensory space to decompress for as long as you need before you launch back into it. Or it might be setting up the minimum requirements necessary to get through the first week of work so you can deal with everything else once you reach the weekend.
Use stuff like Google maps to familiarise yourself with getting to and from places (public transport, the local grocery store, the journey to work etc.) so it’s less stressful when it comes time to venture out.
It’s very much a personal affair but try to build in structure and familiarity in ways that address your needs and where you feel most insecure - if you’re fine with transport then you won’t need to figure out the landmarks on your way to important places, if you don’t have room for a sensory space maybe pack a specific box or bag that has some of your basic sensory tools so you have that on hand rather than needing to dig through boxes to find that stim toy or your noise-cancelling headphones, if the lack of structure and routine is the most troubling thing then schedule out your first week in your new place to a level of detail that satisfies your need for structure, etc. etc.
Also try not to pile on too much judgment or expectation about how you “should” feel or how you “should” cope with this major life transition. Idk your particular flavour of neurodivergence (although I really should by this point lol) but if you’re autistic/suspect you’re autistic then life transitions are especially stressful and demanding, so it’s okay to feel a sense of dread or anxiety about it all and it’s not going to do you any good if you start shaming yourself for not being excited “enough”; you’re allowed to feel how you feel and forcing yourself to try and conform to neurotypical standards for even your own emotional experience is kinda a recipe for disaster. Even if autism doesn’t apply here, the same could be said about just about any type of neurodivergence that I can think of tbh.
Edit: Shit bro, read the damn title of the post. (I’m having a bad ADHD day - can you tell? It’s pretty obvious what flavour of neurodivergent you are because you literally put it in the title of your post 🤦)
I actually have the whole autism/OCD/ADHD package. I think the obsession with my emotions and whether they are correct or not is a an OCD thing. The main thing that’s worrying me is whether my relationship will weather the transition to cohabitation or not (especially given that we are probably both neurodivergent in different and often conflicting ways, for example I am hyperactive while she can get overwhelmed and needs to stay still some times), and about being able to juggle the responsibilities while working, paying my bills etc with my interests.
Following the spirit of your advice, I guess the important things to do are to use a scheduling app extensively to manage not to forget things, to make time for my interests and to find a house with many rooms so that we both can decompress in our own way if needed (this triggers me to no end sometimes, because neurotypicals wouldn’t need to do it, and would consider it a marker of a failing relationship).
I definitely remembered the OCD bit but I wasn’t certain about the rest.
It would make sense that the obsession with your emotional state being “correct” or not is an OCD thing but I’d gently argue that this is also pretty common especially for autistic folks - a lot of autistic people, especially when they are young, end up going through a social gauntlet of being admonished for not displaying enough emotion or for not displaying the “right” emotions.
It’s definitely one of the deeper levels of masking where an autistic person feels a disconnect from their emotional experience or that they act like a watchman over their own emotional state while trying to “correct” it based on external, neurotypical standards. Not saying that all autistic interoceptive struggles are inherently due to social conditioning or masking but I’d venture a guess that it’s a major factor a lot of the time. (Speaking as an armchair expert tho.)
That’s valid.
Moving in with someone is a big test of any relationship and it’s super normal to feel concerned about whether it’s the right move or if the relationship will be strong enough to manage the change.
One thing is that if it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be; you’re only responsible for half of the relationship and sometimes you or the other person isn’t going to be at a point where they’re able to make the compromises necessary for it to work. No amount of forcing things is going to change that. The best you can do is to communicate, plan, set boundaries, and negotiate on your different needs etc. (You know - all the typical healthy relationship stuff.)
I can imagine that reading this might aggravate the worries but it’s also important to remember that relationships get strengthened by overcoming adversities together and by working as a team to achieve things - that includes living together and making it work well for the both of you. Sure, things might not work out but there’s just as much of a chance that this move will strengthen your relationship too, so try to allow space for this possibility.
With regards to dealing with conflicting neurodivergent needs, communication is exceptionally important here. If you need to infodump but she needs to space out and not think, for example, then you need to build a language together to communicate and prioritise these needs - you can probably hold that infodump in for a more suitable time, or maybe you can write it out or unleash it online or call someone instead, but if she needs to zone out then (as long as she tells you or you have identified this need) she probably just needs to zone out then and there.
Likewise for your need for activity - it might be a matter of her telling you that you need to go for a run to burn off some energy or maybe you can set up a treadmill or a rebounder or some weights so when you’re feeling that urge but you know it’s going to clash with her needs then you can just go into the other room and do what you need to without disturbing her.
What else?
Without knowing what your relationship is like, generally I’d recommend getting used to parallel “play”/body doubling sorta stuff, however you want to refer to it - work on existing in the same space but being completely comfortable in your own world doing your thing while she does the same. If your relationship is such that she can just lay on the couch next to you while she reads or something and you can game to your heart’s content without either of you putting any demands on the other for interaction then it will make living together much more manageable for the both of you. Try to build a language together around this so that you both feel comfortable telling eachother when you need an hour or more of “me time” or like “necessary-communication only” mode, where you will ask if you can change the lighting in the room or if the other person is hungry for dinner etc. but there’s a moratorium on all other communication. You get the idea.
Yeah, I get you.
Please don’t take this as me being glib and being like “Just don’t even worry about it, bro” but really the only people who matter in your relationship are the people in it.
It’s your relationship, not the rest of the world’s.
If neurotypicals had the monopoly on The One True Way™ to have a functioning relationship then they’d need to account for the sky-high divorce rate, y’know? If you are happy and safe in the relationship, and the same goes for her then who’s to judge?
One person’s idea of a satisfying relationship is being at home, dressing in a leather suit, donning a dog mask and having their partner put them in a crate for a few hours. That’s not for me personally but if that’s what fulfillment looks like for someone else then that would be fine by me, if I had any say in the matter (which I don’t).
When it comes to taking on board other people’s expectations, especially for this kinda stuff, I try to weigh it against certain criteria:
How important they are to me
How supportive they are of me
How well they understand my circumstances and needs
The higher they rate on those scales, the more stock I put in their opinions and expectations.
For example I might have a dad that knows me very well but is really unsupportive of me and who has never learned what my needs are so if they tell me that my relationship or living arrangements are weird then I’m basically going to give myself permission to discard his input; of course how I choose to live my life is going to seem weird to a person who doesn’t understand my needs or circumstances and I find it helpful to put that sort of opinion into a category - they don’t understand me, they tell me my relationship is weird for whatever reason - that’s really nothing more than them reinforcing the fact that they don’t get me. I try to consciously weigh up whether things are you-problems or me-problems. Don’t get it? Don’t understand me? That sounds like a you-problem!
“I would never be able to have a relationship where I did the things that you do in yours.”
“Cool, didn’t ask. You’re not invited anyway. 🤷”
So yeah, try to carve out a space where your partner’s needs and your needs are the primary concern; your relationship is not a spectator sport.
You’ve got this comrade 💪
Thanks a ton, this must have taken a ton of time to write. We are definitely getting better at the parallel play thing (it’s me who took some time to get adjusted to not getting all the attention from my gf after the infatuation phase of the rel) so I don’t worry about that anymore. And we are communicating things that annoy us, hurt us etc so we will be OK on that front. I guess I am overthinking things as usual.
Are you a therapist by any chance (if you don’t want to answer for opsec reasons it’s OK obviously)? Because your answers are more empathetic and helpful that the professionals I have been to. I think you would be really good at it
Thanks, that’s very kind of you to say. I’m not qualified as a therapist nor in any sort of related profession like psychology.
I have worked in paraprofessional roles that are either explicitly peer work or that I have kinda implicitly made into peer work roles because I’m going to bring myself to those roles and there’s not a damn thing that anyone can do about it lol. (I have worked in the youth/mental health/disability/community sectors in different capacities.)
I think a lot of it is just having been through a lot of shit and having sought out ways to turn horrible personal experiences into something that makes a positive impact on the world in some small way; I’ve had more than my fair share of bad times, and for a lot of them I don’t really see me ever truly making sense of them or being at peace with them, but if I can draw upon that shit to make something good out of it then it helps to give purpose to what I’ve been through - and maybe that’s the best outcome I can reasonably expect.
The other aspect is I’m some sort of weird nerdy autodidact creature that just pours themselves into subjects and absorbs information like a sponge, and I’d say that it’s mostly out of sheer luck that I ended up with the right combination of things that makes this work for me. I can usually hold my own when it comes to matters of psychology or social work or whatever, although I’m no expert.
I think in the next year or two I’m either going to get back in the saddle with this stuff or otherwise I’m going to throw myself into party work/work that’s parallel to a party but I’m not quite at that point yet.
Sounds like you have done a lot of good. I hope you end up doing something to your liking