Undone. Unfinished. Incomplete.

This post is just going to sound like its title: undone, unfinished, incomplete.

Undone.

I have about 30 27 unwritten drafts.

Unfinished.

I buy books which I don’t have time to read.

Incomplete.

I still have a dream, incomplete. Far from complete.

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WHAT ARE YOUR EXCUSES? (Go away, you are interrupting!)

These are my reasons:

Executive functioning

My nemesis is sneering the very same time I mentioned executive function. It has been a while since she showed up in my posts. I have been putting off writing this post in part because I know she would pop up in a topic like this. She is a firm believer of if there’s a will, there’s a way and if you haven’t succeeded, you are not trying hard enough. (And she just made me type this to prove that she is right and I’m doing as told so she will leave me alone to write this in peace !!!)

Executive functioning 

(Hey you! Yes, the one sniggering in the background! Since you aren’t going away, I shall address this directly to you.) Believe it or not, research has shown that individuals with Asperger have impaired executive function. Executive function includes skills such as organizational and planning abilities; working memory; task shifting and flexibility; time management and prioritising. Individuals with autism tend to experience difficulty with tasks which require them to problem-solve by planning before acting and to identify the subgoals needed to reach an end goal. Another feature of impaired executive function is difficulty switching attention from one task to another. The person with Asperger usually has considerable problems switching thoughts to a new activity until there has been closure.

(References: Tony Attwood, The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome; McPartland, Klin & Volkmar (eds.) Asperger Syndrome: Assessing and Treating High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders)

Fatigue 

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?” Ernest Hemingway

Leaving executive function aside, I’m really tired physically, emotionally, mentally. Just the thought of all the work, personal and household chores that has to be done is exhausting. I’ve been consumed by fatigue since my graduate days. Dealing with a mental health issue is a constant struggle, it is exhausting, it eats away your interests and passion, and it feeds on your soul and mind, then slowly into your body and manifests itself physically.

EVERYDAY’S SPECIAL
Depresso & Anxietea (with unlimited refill)

It’s a misconception that depression is all about insomnia, it could be hypersomnia. Always tired, this is who I’m, even though I’ve had 8 hours of sleep, or more. Having said that, I seldom sleep through the whole night, I get woken up by my neighbours’ foot-steps in the morning and I dream in my sleep, nothing horrifying, but anxiety-inducing dreams where I’m always running late on time, running about frantically or packing in the last minute. In fact, when I was a child, I always had a recurring dream of pushing a shopping cart in what seemed to be like a dark, abandoned store. The dream would begin with me walking slowly while pushing a cart. My pace increased faster and faster as I moved down the aisle to avoid the goods that were falling from the shelves, eventually I started to run until I woke up. Even stranger, the dream would reappear in my head during the day time as racing thoughts. I stop having that dream when I reached adolescence but it was such a strange experience it became stuck in my mind.

http://humberto-milanez.deviantart.com/art/Abandoned-supermarket-03-291338150

I’m too tired to even elaborate on the association of fatigue and autism. There is a great post about it here.

And how can you not mention LAZINESS and LACK OF WILL!

Alright, I’m just going to include for the sake of inclusiveness, laziness. But lack of will? Do I not have a strong motivation to work harder? If the prospect of a better environment doesn’t motivate me, I don’t know what else will.

I have a dream that is too big for a mind that is too tired.

THE END