How qigong helped me through autistic burnout: The movement practice that helped me be more present

Originally published on Medium

I wrote about the books and tools that helped me through autistic burnout last week. One of the tools I briefly mentioned that was (and still is) a big help was my qigong practice.

I found qigong on accident.

I was looking for a movement activity to loosen up my tight muscles. I had tried yoga before but it didn’t help much. I did it for about a year and my muscles remained stubbornly tense

I wanted to try something else. I’d heard about tai chi but the few videos I tried on YouTube were too hard to follow. I needed a version of tai chi that was for old people.

So I Googled “tai chi for old people”.

And that’s how I found out about qigong.

I found the YouTube channel Qigong for Vitality and did the videos, usually in the morning. I did the 5 minute Qigong warmup video almost daily and surprisingly that short video helped my tight muscles relax. I eventually bought the membership to access the 30+ minute videos.

The slow movements helped my mind reconnect to my arms and legs, hands and feet. Before, I had to literally put a hand on my limbs to feel them in space. With qigong, I eventually was able to sense them without touching them.

Like yoga, Qigong can be exercise but it’s more a meditative practice. Sitting quietly to meditate or pray usually required a huge effort from me to focus. Performing the slow qigong movements gave my mind something to focus on and it learned to be quiet. After a long time, I could quietly meditate and feel refreshed afterwards.

When explaining qigong to friends and family, I said it helped me calm my overstimulated mind and body. Later, I learned about polyvagal theory and realized that qigong was really helping my vagus nerve. A sign of vagal nerve stimulation is yawning and I yawned A LOT practicing qigong. Sometimes I yawned so much, my eyes were full of tears.

Qigong helped get my body out of flight, fight, and shutdown mode and be more present. Instead of mentally withdrawing in social situations, I was mentally present. I started to notice in real-time how I felt. And I started to notice how often I felt drained around certain people. I started to notice who my body didn’t like being around.

My body was talking to me and I could finally hear it.

Books and tools that helped me through autistic burnout: Because therapy wasn’t for me

Originally published on Medium

Most of my professional help as a late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD woman came from books. I love learning from books. I can focus on the book’s message, stop reading whenever I’m inspired to think or write or act, and even quit the book if I don’t want to finish.

I wanted professional help like therapy or coaching to work for me. But it wasn’t right for me. I did one intro therapy session once. And, after getting diagnosed, I tried a coaching session for autistic/ADHD adults. The therapist and coach were nice people.

The problem? I couldn’t turn off my social mask setting. I kept trying to match the person’s energy and anticipate the best way to answer questions. I couldn’t let myself be me. The social aspect was too distracting for me to let them help. I didn’t want to force it, so I didn’t schedule more sessions.

Thankfully, I still had books.

These are the books that helped me go from “What’s wrong with me?” to “Am I burned out?” to “Ohh! I’m autistic!” to my current “Okay, I understand I’m autistic. What now?” phase.

Oh, and this list is not all in chronological order. My memory isn’t that good. I also linked to the book or tool on Amazon (except for two), so I’ll earn a small commission when you click those links.

Permission to Feel by Mark Brackett

This book taught me that emotions are important. And explained their importance in a way that made sense to me.

And I realized I had no emotional intelligence. Yes, I could write you a scene about a character experiencing complex emotions. But identify those emotions in myself? Not really.

I didn’t like that. So I used the book’s emotion grid (link to image of grid) to practice identifying emotions. It was SO HARD. At first, I identified if I was feeling red, blue, green, or yellow. Then I used the grid to name that emotion.

Emotion Magnets and Mood Tracker

The emotion grid was great but I wanted a more tangible way to practice. So I bought these emotion magnets (not an Amazon link). I put the magnets on the refrigerator for easy access. I liked to figure out my emotions in the morning or after being around a lot of people.

I worked backwards and used the “I want to feel…” prompt to see how I wanted to feel. And then that clarified how I was actually feeling — the opposite. And sometimes, I carried the magnets in a tin in my purse to practice on-the-go.

Like I said, emotions are hard. I needed a lot of practice.

So I did more.

I really really wanted to understand emotions so I bought a Mood Tracker planner to track emotions. The patterns showed me I felt annoyed or upset more than I realized. It gave me the hard data I needed to make changes to feel better.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk

This book taught me to get out of my head to heal.

What stuck with me: Trauma lingers in the physical body. Moving the body helps release the lingering trauma. So I needed to connect more with my physical body. Not easy. I didn’t feel my arms and legs in space. I had to concentrate on them or put my hand on them to feel them as connected to me. Guided somatic meditations and my qigong practice helped with this.

Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect and Running on Empty No More: Transform Your Relationships with Your Partner, Your Parents and Your Children by Jonice Webb

These 2 books were external validation that I didn’t get needed emotional support growing up. And that’s a generational problem, so it wasn’t my parents’ fault. They didn’t get what they needed either.

But it happened and it affected me and that is a real problem. I needed this external validation since my internal validation wasn’t enough at the time.

When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection by Gabor Maté

This book taught me that ignoring the body’s needs can manifest as serious physical illness.

I kind of already knew this. Every time I missed too many hours of sleep, I got a 24-hour cold that resolved if I slept all day. My body always forced me to rest before I missed too much sleep. This book made me think: I need to listen to my body’s small warnings now before they become more serious.

Looking back, I see my answer to healing was in my body, not my mind. I had to quiet my mind to hear my body’s urgent warning:

We’re tired. It’s time to rest.

Edited to add: I added the article links to one webpage. See them here: https://healingresources.my.canva.site/

Saying hello in the park isn’t easy for this autistic woman: Why politeness requires prep work

Originally published on Medium

I’m walking in the park. There’s a person ahead walking towards me.

My muscles tense, preparing to walk past them and acknowledge their presence.

And today I have a new thought: What if performing polite social acts, like saying hello to a passing person, happened automatically?

Well, I might enjoy them more like some people do.

Instead, what actually happens is this:

I’m tense and waiting for the right moment to acknowledge this person walking past me.

Oops, I made eye contact too early. They’re too far away to say anything to or smile at.

I focus on the horizon while simultaneously tracking their approach with my peripheral vision.

I also try to figure out what they’ll do. Will they say “Good morning?” Or make eye contact and smile? Or will they walk silently past my anticipatory smile?

And — now I’m just thinking ahead — if we pass each other again, do we need to do this all over again?

My tense muscle are thankful that there’s only one other person walking the path today.

If these moments of social connection didn’t require so much prep work, I could truly enjoy them.

But I’d honestly rather use that energy to enjoy my walk.

Sometimes a language barrier is an accommodation: Communicating and traveling while autistic

Originally published on Medium

The question I heard often after traveling with my husband in Southeast Asia for a few months was “Is the language barrier hard?” “How do you handle the language barrier?”

And my first reaction was “Uh, no?”

But then I thought about it more. And ended up writing this to really figure out why.

Because, honestly, it’s not easy looking for something to eat when no signs are in English and the menus don’t have pictures.

So the language barrier is hard.

But.

But it’s a simple-to-understand hard for me because I grew up obsessed about communication. And then communication literally became my job when I was an ASL interpreter.

So I’m always thinking about being understood, no matter what area I’m in.

How do we eliminate a language barrier? Learn a new language. Simple solution.

And with a language barrier, people expect miscommunications. It’s not a surprise. We work together to reach our conversational goal. It’s a good feeling.

But what about when the barrier is not language-based? What about when we speak the same language, same dialect, but still experience miscommunication?

That’s more complex.

There’s no one simple solution.

That’s what I experience in my home country.

People expect to understand me here. They make assumptions about the meaning behind my words, my gestures, my silences, even when there’s no hidden meanings.

People who speak my language are surprised when miscommunication happens. And I feel the responsibility to manage the conversation to reach understanding.

It’s not easy.

Speaking the same language is no guarantee for a great social interaction. Sometimes the opposite is true.

One of my favorite Southeast Asia interactions happened in a Bangkok coffee shop. The owner was an older woman, a grandma watching her grandson for the day inside her Instagram-post perfect coffee shop. She knew a few words of English and I knew a few Thai words. But I ordered a drink and asked for the wifi password and she responded. We understood each other perfectly well.

Speaking a different language is no guarantee for miscommunication.

Sometimes it’s an accidental accommodation.

How this autistic decides where to sit: Spoiler -It’s an involved process

Originally published on Medium

I’m done ordering my milk tea with boba pearls. I turn away from the counter and exhale. Time for the next hard part.

Where do I sit?

This is a new boba tea shop so I don’t have a favorite table yet. I look at the empty tables. It’s a weekday, early afternoon, so the place is mostly empty except for 4 people sitting at a table by the front door.

I walk to my first option, a table in the corner. Why is there a bright light hitting my face? I look up and see why: a light fixture shines aggressively on the table.

No good, this table is too bright.

I walk to the table behind it and feel goosebumps. The air conditioning vent is pointed right at the table. Cold air plus the cold room plus my cold drink? Too much cold.

No good, this table is too cold.

I go to try the opposite corner, walking fast. Gotta pick somewhere to sit before they finish making my drink!

The table in the corner has good lighting and temperature but it’s too close to the chatty group and their conversation overrides the fun song playing right now. I’d rather hear the music than them.

No good, this table is too noisy.

Feeling desperate, I look back across the room at the one table I haven’t tried yet. It had seemed too close to the front counter earlier. But now, it’s my last hope. I don’t see a bright light, so that’s promising. I walk back across the room and stand there, evaluating.

No AC vent is blowing here.

The chatty group’s noise stays on the other side of the room.

I can hear the shop music clearly.

This table is just right.

If you want to read more writing about experiences as an autistic woman, check out my profile.

Local woman wrecks conversation: The too-real experience of conversing while autistic

Originally published on Medium

Local woman apologizes for derailing your intended conversation. She promises to play her role as conversational partner correctly but requires a script.

Or an outline. Prompting. Any type of feedback that she’s doing what you expected.

Do you want to be congratulated about having 10 kids? Understood. She will definitely not pause awkwardly, silently consider how an old man ended up with 10 kids, then eventually say “Wow, that’s a lot of kids.”

And when you share the 40 year age difference between your kids, she definitely thinks she missed vital stage direction about what to do next. She tries a response: “Wow, that’s a big age difference.”

That wasn’t quite right either, huh?

She also avoids commenting when you compare yourself to Abraham. Abraham didn’t have 10 kids but Jacob had 12 sons. Abraham’s sons did have an age gap, though, but not a 40 year gap. Or maybe you weren’t being literal at all. She wouldn’t normally be so picky about religious similes but you’re a pastor so this is your specialty.

Oh, and she wants to see photos of the other kids, not just the photo of the full-grown daughter holding the baby son. She’s still wondering why you skipped sharing the other 8 children’s photos.

None of that was in your script, huh?

Are routines possible with Autism and ADHD? How I built change into one routine

Originally published on Medium

Being autistic and ADHD is like babysitting 2 bickering kids with completely different interests.

They don’t get along.

ADHD wants to experience something different everyday. It complains “Do we really have to wake up at the same time everyday??” Autism glares and snaps back “Yes, we feel better when we wake up at the same time everyday.”

ADHD rolls their eyes at that. “Well if we feel better, then why do we spontaneously decide to skip our nighttime routine and undo all our hard work establishing a routine in the first place?”

And Autism looks away because darn it, ADHD is right. Why can’t we stay consistent?

And nobody wins. I can make one or the other happy, but both? Impossible.

Or is it?

I achieved one truce by building change into a routine. And that makes me hope I can do it again.

Let me explain.

One of my favorite routines is drinking boba tea at a cafe. I look forward to the familiar routine of ordering my drink, paying, sitting down, getting the drink, and enjoying it in a cute little cafe. It’s a familiar routine and feels good.

And when my ADHD gets the itch to break my routine, I make space for that. Tired of going to the same cafe? Let’s go to another one we like. Need more change? Let’s find a new cafe (after checking all the reviews and menu ahead of time). Tired of the same drink order? Let’s order our other usual drink. Need even more change? Ok, let’s order a pastry with our drink. Or let’s visit the cafe at a different time than we usually go.

These suggestions sound silly but they satisfy a need for both change and routine. For me, regular small change is easier to handle than one overstimulating large change that requires more recovery time.

So Autism and ADHD getting along is possible!

Here’s the not-so-great news. I wish I could say that this works for all my routines. But it doesn’t. My morning routine still hasn’t recovered from introduced change.

If I figure out how to create more routines that accommodate change without getting destroyed, I’ll let you know.

Until then, I enjoy this one boba tea victory.

Overthinking is trying to solve the wrong problem: How I (kind of) stopped overthinking everything

Originally published on Medium

Hi, I’m Aneisha and I’m an overthinker.

My husband watched me type this sentence then nodded and said “Yep, that’s very true” which ruins my next claim that I’m a reformed overthinker.

Okay, truth? I’m not as bad an overthinker as I used to be.

So how did I go from a chronic overthinker to a part-time one?

How I stopped (mostly) overthinking

I realized my overthinking focused on problems with no resolution.

My brain would think over a problem, sure it would eventually find the answer if it kept clicking to the next page in the mental Google search. And when it found nothing, it returned to the first page to restart. It didn’t make any changes, just kept restarting over and over.

And then my math tutoring experience inspired me.

As a math tutor, I saw that the students who were able to verbalize or write down the actual problem hidden in a difficult word problem were halfway to the solution.

But it’s not easy identifying the actual problem. The quicker students tried several different times before they figured out the real problem. Once they did, though, they could work step-by-step to find the solution.

I applied this to my overthinking problem. Maybe overthinking was a complicated word problem I didn’t understand yet. So instead of trying to solve the same problem over and over, I could try a different one?

And that worked.

An example of changing the problem

For example, I commonly overthink about why I have a hard time walking over to someone to say hello.

Before, I would think: Why can’t I just get up and say hi? Just go now. Okay, now. Okay, let’s do it, step by step. Just stand up! Darn. Too much time has passed, now it feels weird. I never found an answer to why sometimes I could do it and sometimes I couldn’t.

And then I changed the problem. Instead of seeing the problem as Why can’t I walk over to say hi? now it’s Do I want to go over and say hi? Simpler, right?

Sometimes the answer is no, I don’t want to. So I let myself not go and it’s not a problem anymore.

Sometimes the answer is yes so I can keep digging to find the answer. Why can’t I go say hi? Do I want to go now or later? If later, do I want to say hi one-on-one or with other people? And eventually I figure out the problem is (for example) I always see this person with my sisters but my sisters aren’t here right now. So how do I say hi alone? And that’s a simpler problem to solve than the more critical Why can’t I say hi problem.

I still overthink, though.

The difference? I indulge in overthinking now. I ruminate over an unsolvable problem, clicking through obscure mental Google search pages curious about what I’ll find.

A recent overthink? A fellow passenger introduced herself to me on the plane. It was a first for me and I had a nice time overthinking my feelings about it. Was it nice? Should I also do this? How common is it?

When encouragement isn’t encouraging: This neurodivergent woman’s internal motivation is loud enough

Originally published on Medium

Pickleball made me realize how irritated I get when people cheer me on during a game.

(I’m unsure if this is a me thing or a neurodivergent thing. Do you have the same reaction?)

I first noticed this while playing board games and video games. My husband wanted to be encouraging so he would say things like “You can do it!” or “You got this!” Positive, supportive comments that I’ve always heard other people say to each other.

But the encouragement didn’t help me do better. I hypothesized that the interjections were distracting me so I asked my husband to stop saying them. He could encourage me silently or congratulate me after I did the thing.

And then I felt like a horrible person. Other people seemed to thrive off encouragement. Why did it affect me differently? Maybe I’m unused to this because I never did organized sports as a kid?

And then, years later, I started playing pickleball. I’m not great at it. I can return the ball but my serve is consistently inconsistent.

I seem athletic until my awkwardness emerges. I think this inconsistency confuses actual athletes so they give me unsolicited advice on how to improve that I accept with an outward smile. But inwardly?

Internally, I fight my old people-pleasing urge to follow their advice and perfectly play, knowing my actual skills will be the same once they stop watching me. I remind myself that it’s better for me to take it slow and build a solid foundation for better future performance. I don’t do miraculous training montages. It’s a slow journey.

Also, we’re playing for fun. I’m not aiming for professional level skills.

When their advice doesn’t work, teammates and friends focus on another tactic: encouragement.

They cheer me on personally, by name. After I mess up, they say “Good try!” or “Almost!” After I do well, they cheer “Good job!”

And that’s when I realize: I’m not getting used to it. The personal encouragement is actually irritating me the more I hear it. (The few comments that don’t make me cringe are observations or surprise like “Wow! The ball made it over.”)

I don’t think my irritation is the encouragement’s intended goal.

Imagine this specific situation: I served the ball but it’s out. My team loses the point. I realize I didn’t swing from my feet like before and that’s why this serve failed. Next time, I’ll stand like this I think and shift my feet, trying to memorize the feel of the stance. Then I shake off the disappointment and prepare to return the next serve, ready, excited to play. And then I hear:

“Good try!”

I try not to make a face and show my immediate reaction of Please don’t do that. I breathe a couple deep breaths and bounce to release my suddenly tense muscles. I half smile in case someone is looking at my face so I don’t look mad.

Because I’m not mad. It’s just…How do you tell someone that what they think is helpful is actually doing the opposite?

And then I start thinking: Am I playing that bad? My teammate deserves a better partner. Oh my god, should I be encouraging my teammate? Is it too late to say “Good job?” My playing becomes a performance.

I don’t like when that happens.

I appreciate the intent behind this encouragement. I want to be a good teammate so I remind myself to vocally support others during games. I’ve thought hard about why I react so negatively to in-the-moment encouragement and I think it’s because my motivation is internal not external. I’m my own biggest cheerleader and we like our cheers silent.

But after the game? After we end for the day and gather to drink water and rest? I can take in all the feedback and encouragement then.