this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
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Autism
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I've seen a lot of adults thinking like this, but when I ask them to list the things they do daily, Is an enormous list. People just don't realize how exhausting it is to take care of yourself, your house, a family, your aging parents, your work, trying to still have hobbies, etc. All that while you have no one to help or take care of you.
I cut that list down as much as I can by ignoring stuff until certain days and batching tasks, but still, I feel exhausted lately.
some of it is how I'm approaching sleep. some is diet. some is just not following through on getting out and doing stuff. and some is just how much there is to deal with. cutting down on hours at work helped quite a bit - 50-60 down to 40 is a big change. still, I don't get how people have kids. or rather, I do, and the lack of sleep / down time seems crazy to me
I finally finished off wiring some pot lights I began installing half a year ago (was too hot to crawl around in the attic, tbf), which meant I could clean up some of the project stuff I had out, and damn did it ever feel good to finish something off lol
most of my hobbies have been set aside again recently though due to lack of motivation
We neurodivergents have it even harder than most people, and the "simple" things we don't do as teenagers but are obliged to do as adults can be extremely overwhelming. Don't be too hard on yourself, and I'm glad you managed to finish your pot lights.
I wish I had some useful advice to give, but I confess I say this out of a sense of selfishness; if I had some wisdom to offer you, it would surely mean I'd not be languishing in the no-motivation pit beside you. Alas, I have no bright ideas on how to get out of this myself, so I have little to offer besides solidarity. For my part, I'm glad to have good company in my misery, at least. Makes me feel less broken when I see how many of us are struggling together
I've read that the reason why holidays are so exhausting is because when you're on holiday, you have to make loads of decisions about everything — you don't have your regular routine to rely on, and this leads to decision fatigue. Even though regular life isn't as bad as this, it's still way more than what most students have to deal with. The little tasks can really drain your executive function if there's enough of them
Sometimes after a long day of work, my wife will come and ask me a simple question like "which of these two colours should we get for the new curtains?" And I'll respond, "I don't know, I can't decide right now, I'm out of mental capacity", she'll push and say "just choose one", and I have to explain "seriously. I physically cannot. I've spent all my decision making quota today. It's not possible for me to make another decision".
Yeah, I relate to this so hard.
I find it weird that your wife pushes you on this to the extent that you need to explain. I don't mean this in a judgemental way at all — I'm just confused and wondering whether people like your wife don't experience this same kind of decision fatigue, which would suggest that our experience isn't universal. I've also known people who similarly seem to not understand how it feels to literally be unable to make decisions due to exhaustion. Those people are baffling to me, but I seem to be equally baffling to them
The example I gave with my wife was a superficial hypothetical scenario to illustrate my point. She usually doesn't actually push back on it, she has been married to me long enough now to understand my neuro idiosyncracies.
I'm ASD and ADHD, so I've been told that decision fatigue is a common symptom. But I also know neuro typical people in my field who experience the exact same issue.
There's a lot of factors that go into it, and everyone will have a different experience. There are some people who make an average of zero decisions in their normal day. There are some who are required to make hundreds of decisions per day. There are some people in highly stressful jobs who need to make very important decisions. Some people have naturally higher capacity for decisions than others.