So I have a lot of trouble with being a functional person in like any way and I could really use some help with coming up with new solutions. Warning for discussion of bodily functions and suicide. My main struggles are: Terrible sleep patterns. I've gotten to the point where I am pretty reliably in bed at 11, but for some reason I will habitually wake up anywhere between 2-4 am and be unable to return to sleep, and then crash around 8-9am. This morning I woke up at 3 am, and decided to sleep instead of going to the pool this morning, which was bad. Melatonin does not help; it helped get me to the point of a reliable bedtime, but appears to have no effect on whether or not I can sleep through the night. There does appear to be a strong correlation between bedtime sex and sleeping through the night + early wake up time, but my partner is not down for sex every night, so this solution has limited usability. Related to terrible sleep patterns, I am a night owl through and through. However, between work and school, I need to be starting my days no later than 7 am. This is hell. How do I make this more manageable? (I don't want advice about figuring out how to restructure my schedule to allow me to wake up later. I've done the best that I can, which is that I can afford sleeping in to about 8 or even 9 am some mornings, but day in day out, I am stuck with an early rising time.) Food! I get nauseous from over eating very easily because I guess I have a tiny stomach. A medium apple plus two or three ounces of cheese will fill me up. I also don't really have any hunger signals, except for "so hungry I am now sick to my stomach and can't eat" but am terrible about proactively remembering to eat food before I get to that point. Food tracking may be helpful in this area, but I really need to avoid anything that tracks calories. The last time I used mfp, I was sent into a two month period of eating between 500-700 calories a day at best, because my brain sees calories and immediately goes "We should be eating the smallest number possible, right? :D :D" New bullet, but same topic as above, my solution in high school was to break up eating into five or six small "meals" a day, but I have gotten out of the habit since then. The prompting myself to eat on a schedule is the part I really struggle with. General hygiene! I am terrible at remembering to bathe or brush my teeth or even change my clothes. (Left to my own devices, I will wear the exact same clothing for days in a row.) Again, prompting me to do these things is what I struggle with largely. However, executive dysfunction or lack of spoons will kick in when I do remember to do the things. Bathing is particularly difficult (it has too many steps). I have considered getting wipes to try instead of bathing from time to time but like. I am actually not clear on the steps involved for that also? (And also I am v anxious about it because I have been told that I don't wash myself correctly, and what if I do this wrong too.) I am not actually sure how to deal with my tendency to wear clothes forever. In particular I would like to change the fact that I will regularly wear the same pair of underwear for a week or more at a time, which is apparently Bad. Uh this part is gross. Bodily functions. I assume it's an autism thing, but much like how I don't really get hunger signals, I also don't get signals about when I need to go to the bathroom. As in like I woke up this morning and an hour later ended up peeing myself because I had no idea until immediately before that I had to go to the bathroom. Additionally, when I do get signals before it's doomsday, I will very easily forget? My solution right now is just regularly trying to go the bathroom every few hours (good in theory, but I am bad at executing, see: executive dysfunction) and not drinking a lot of water ( Bad Bad Bad). Water. My pee is consistently a color that indicates I am approaching severely dehydrated. However, water tastes bad unless it is either filtered and very cold (which can make me sick) or flavored. Also, as with most things, I am bad at reminding myself to drink until I am very very thirsty, and usually only consume water with my meals. I am not sure what to do here, because I have tried the "having a huge water bottle I'm supposed to drink by the end of the day" thing, and what invariably happens is I just leave it somewhere while I'm going through my day. Tbh the goal isn't to achieve not being dehydrated at all, I just don't want to be in the "severely dehydrated" category any more, at least right now. Part of the problem is that I am scared that if I start drinking enough water, and thus have to pee more, I will also pee myself more. Emotional regulation! This one is like an autism + adhd combo and I hate it. Time doesn't exist, the future doesn't exist, how I feel right now is how I've always felt and always will feel (this is in part why I struggle with trying to kill myself so much). I can like rationalize things and am apparently well organized (??) and good at planning things, especially far ahead (???) but emotional I am a toddler. The current main problem I'm having is that when I get very upset and start approaching meltdown, I yell at my partner and that. That needs to stop. I think I am probably fine with accepting that my emotional baseline will always be a toddler, but I could use more methods of dealing with it the split second after I have my emotional reaction. Most everything I've found is either geared for small children (which I find largely unrelatable) or people with bpd (which can be pretty relatable, but I feel bad consuming a resource meant for people who are clearly not me). Meds! I am good at making sure I take them "once a day." I am not so good at taking them at the specific time. I used to be really really good at taking them regularly last year, but then I got out of the habit because summer depression, and I don't know how to start again. The current solution for several of these has been putting my partner in charge of managing me. This actually works really well for every place that I've told him I need help with (mostly food, hygiene, and meds. He helps with clothes somewhat but I haven't asked about it and I haven't told him about the peeing myself, though he is aware I struggle with bodily signals.) We plan on living together post college and again, I think as long as my partner is comfortable with helping me keep track of eating and drinking and bathing, we're pretty good. However, my partner is a year older than me, which means he graduates this year, which means I'm on my own next year. He's also going abroad for his master's, and I will not be following, so I am looking at at least one year if not two post college of living by myself/with roommates. I have no idea how to be a functional person as soon as this support is gone and I am very very scared when I let myself think about it. Also like there's a whole lot of anxiety that I have about asking/letting my partner manage these things because while I do really like it and think it works, I'm always very scared that he's going to turn around and say this is too much and also he keeps suggesting things that would basically be me being independent from needing this, so I feel like his end goal is stopping supporting me like this. (I have directly asked and he's said it's not??? But he still asks about ways to taper of support??? I don't know what's going on with that.) So yeah. Open to advice, will also be using this as a way to make goals/track progress/talk about what has worked and what didn't. The current goal is "make a schedule" but outside of keeping to going to all of my classes and every shift I'm scheduled at work, I have been failing at that.
Initial advice is to tackle one thing at a time, namely the thing that you deem most important. I would think that bodily functions is a pretty good one to start with, because it has immediate not nice consequences if you don't realise them. How are you with phone reminders? I used HabitBull for a while because I seriously needed to remind myself to go to the bathroom. I was so busy with other things that I just put it off way too long.
So I can't find a source right now but drinking enough water shouldn't increase the frequency that you need to urinate. If anything I think it may help decrease the frequency but don't quote me on that. Would an option foodwise be to put together a lunchbox with enough calories to get through the day? Then you can graze when you see it there and don't have to expend any extra effort other than when putting it together. With the sleeping it's possible that doing exercise later in the day could help. 2-4 is probably a bit early but it's possible there's sunlight coming in and waking you up. I'm probably more of a morning person than you but my advice for sustainably getting up earlier is don't sleep in. Instead try to go to bed earlier to get enough sleep but, for me, sleeping in always made the next few days much harder to get up at the normal time.
Hmm, okay. Personal ranking of importance is the emotional regulation one because my partner's own trauma and brain weasels means that yelling at him is really really not something he can handle. So at least getting that very specific issue (how to refrain from yelling when it's all I want to do) is priority right now, though other emotional regulation issues are secondary. And yeah, after that, dealing with the peeing is priority because yesterday was awful and humiliating and I really hate that I can't do something that literally every person I know over the age of four can. Gonna try using habitbull. As for food, I spend most of my time in my dorm room, so I'm working on having more low spoons food available in the room for me to eat? I might also try setting reminders of "if I haven't eaten yet, I should now." Part of that is waiting on my paycheck so I can go grocery shopping though. I like doing my exercise in the morning because, when I get up to do it, I feel more awake and alert for the morning. When I don't, even when I get up on time, I'm really groggy until anywhere between 9 and 10 in the morning. I don't know what else to say here so I'm just gonna post.
As a person who spends far too much time dehydrated and occasionally manages to ingest the correct amount of liquids over a sustained period of time, usually right after I've gotten the correct amount of liquid into my body I have to pee so often it feels like I'm going every half hour even though it's probably only every hour or so at most. This goes on for maybe half a day before I return to usual bathroom habits. My hypothesis is that my body is changing out the fluids all at once because it's been having to hold onto older fluids longer than it should, due to there not being enough fresh fluids readily available to it. But again, after it's finished this (or whatever it's doing) I don't have to worry about it again as long as I sustain my liquid intake. If I reduce it and then have to increase it again I have to go all over this cycle again. @idiomie Do you think wearing an adult diaper would help you at all? At the very least it would mean if you don't manage to get to the bathroom you won't have to change your clothes.
My first suggestion would be phone alarms. If you think it's too hard to make individual alarms for everything, see if you can spend one time just making a list of them, one for each hour of the day or half hour if you're ambitious. I have an android and I have one alarm that repeats daily for meds, one that repeats weekly for therapy, and one that is designated for one-time things that changes depending on what I need to set it for. (You may need several of these.) It can help to set a different ring tone for each so you can tell them apart without looking at your phone. You could use this for example to remind you to go to the bathroom every few hours. Try to remember or ask your partner to remind you to put long term plans in your phone calendar the moment you make them. If you can, set it to give you a reminder the day before so the event doesn't surprise you, and then a couple hours before the event again. Here is what worked for me, but obviously people are different so...don't feel obligated to try everything. Spoiler A calendar with large spaces for each day, like a paper desk calendar helps. I was never able to keep planner books because I'd forget to check them. If you have a bulletin board or something you can tear out the current month (or next 2) and put them up on your wall where they are very visible. Like if you spend a lot of time at your desk put it right there. Pick a day you don't usually have a lot to do and designate it as your day for filling out the calendar for the next week. Things I do with calendar: put down everything, including fun stuff like plans to hang with friends. When I make a doctor's appt I take a reminder card and just tape it to the calendar so it's very visible. Can use different color pens/markers for different categories of things. Most important things in red (It's the color you tend to notice first.) Fun stuff in a color you like. Doctors appointments are green for me (bc my association w/ green=healing from video games) but whatever works best for you. In terms of time blindness: I haven't yet tried this myself but I saw it suggested that an analog clock with a third hand to measure seconds is helpful because it makes the passage of time more tangible. If you can't stand the ticking noise I think there are clocks specifically built to be quiet. as for wipes, there really isn't a "wrong" way to do it. In terms of priority, I'd say armpits>face and neck>back/underboob if you have it>crotch area>p much anything else. If you're super low spoons just do the first 1 or two areas if you can manage, you don't actually have to clean your entire body every day. There's baby wipes and some places have wipes for adults that are flushable, either should be fine. (I'd say baby wipes if you have sensitive skin) You really only have to pass it over your skin once or twice to get most daily oil and dirt off. I'd say my biggest piece of advice is...try to be forgiving of yourself. Learning new habits is hard *without* various brainweirds to deal with. Take it one thing at a time. If something doesn't work the first time, try not to hammer it in as a personal failure. You're trying to find something that works for *you*, whether or not other stuff works for other people doesn't matter. I know it's easier said than done.
@Existrum Yeah that makes sense with my experience of "drinking more water => peeing every half hour" though I've never been able to reliably sustain drinking water for more than about three days, so I wasn't aware there was a drop off point. I have considered wearing an adult diaper, but am avoiding it right now because tbh the level of shame and humiliation the thought fills me with is not exactly helpful. I'm aware this is a pretty obvious solution, and I do have some for when I am very obviously struggling to get up in the middle of the night to pee, but that's about it and I generally view them as a last resort. Yeah, I make liberal use of phone alarms. My bigger issue is setting them up rather than following them. Using the habitbull, which sends an alert to my phone, seems to be working reasonably well right now. I also have alarms on my fitbit for wake up, meds and bedtime. I'm really good with calendars and stuff, actually! I have been told that I am apparently well known as someone who is v good at the planning and organizing end of things. I have a daily planner that I check daily, except on weekends, where I might only check it once and, if the weekend doesn't have any plans, might not check at all. I'm actually really invested in using a bullet journal because I love the organization and the aesthetic, and in general am good about taking note of things. Hmm, okay. I will look into it and see if it works. The bigger struggle is more when planning things, my perception of "two weeks away" isn't actually any different than "ten years away." I just put everything in the correct place in my calendar and everything usually works out okay, but if I'm waiting for something that I'm excited about, and it gets delayed, I'm prone to meltdowns because "it's never happening ever" is what my brain assumes is happening. A delay of a few hours feels like having to wait a century. Basically, I'm trying to work on my perception that having to wait for something, and especially any kind of delay in something happening, doesn't actually mean the thing is never happening. Plus eventually the whole "if a thing is happening, and it stops, it's never happening again." Other time blindness issues (being late, missing important dates) it's largely solved by a gratuitous number of alarms and a calendar, so I'm less concerned with that. (Now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure this can be called a time blindness issue, at least purely, but I'm not sure what else to call it.) Cool, thanks. Yeah, this is the part I really struggle with.
I probably could have put this in the same post as the replies, but oh well. The habitbull app is working reasonably well. I don't listen to it 100% of the time (I have five alarms set, regularly end up skipping either the second morning one or the first afternoon one, it varies) but I'm trying to not go "i'm not doing it perfectly, it would be better if i didn't try at all" so. I guess that's okay. Haven't had any accidents since starting, which is a relief because I was in a streak that was like four or five days long at that point? Don't know if that can really be attributed to the reminders though, but not gonna stop. Also, working with my therapist on the emotional regulation part. I now have worksheets and have been advised that I should probably try meditation. (I hate meditation, but okay. It is probably actually good for me.) Not sure how to start on that though. I'm still not taking my meds at a reliable time (though at least part of that is my schedule) but my partner has been really great about reminding me and having me take it as soon as he notices that I'm late, so that's been okay. I want to work on being the one who remembers to take my meds instead though. Food, sleep and waking up will be dealt with after these.
To be honest, I mainly suggested it with the hope it would have the opposite effect, so this really completely defeats the purpose IMO. I hope the app is still working out for you.
