Autistic Superpowers Don't Mean Anything When You're Living in Perpetual Spoon Debt
Autistic superpowers, while not the same thing as special interests, definitely have some overlap. My own special interest areas of writing and content creation are in many ways benefited from my analytical mind and pattern recognition skills. With streaming and web design, I almost prefer the analytics to the actual creation. Some days, I probably do prefer it. Analytics don't require social interactions—they don't require spoons. I get to interact with numbers, bars, and data—three things I like more than interacting with people.
But there are days where I feel like I cannot extract the joy from these things like I usually do. I noticed it a few days ago, where turning on my Xbox became a chore. I thought it was because I was obsessed with Transport Fever 3, but it turns out the ferrying of oil to a refinery, then sending via rail the fertilizer to the farms, the chemicals to the plastic factory, and the fuel to the cities before winter sets in, all while bussing in the workers from the city of Kornic—Kornic is the name of every fictional city I've built since the original Sim City on SNES—to run the supply chain at 136% efficiency, was my autistic brain drowning in perpetual spoon debt.
This morning, I sat at my computer at 10 AM and got up at 2 PM, having accomplished nothing. I had intended to write, edit, and post this article. I sat at the dreaded blank page for hours, knowing what I wanted to write, but being unable to put it into my hands and onto the page. Finally, hours later, I'm sitting down to write, listening to my Thunderstorms and trying to get the words out before I have another shutdown.
Now, my post title says perpetual spoon debt but I want to carefully clarify what I mean by perpetual, because Merriam-Webster defines it as continuing forever and you can work your way out of spoon debt with enough work. The problem is whatever brought you into debt is most likely keeping you there. So it is perpetual, until you break the cycle or go into burnout and burn everything around you (metaphorically, of course).
It's a weird feeling, to see my superpowers working but being unable to focus them or use them in the way I want to. I became hyperfixated on a game about transport where the difficulty ramps up as you do better, creating additional complexity and challenges you to add to what is probably a spider web of railways, highways, and waterways while also managing the pollution, noise, happiness, and transport needs of half a dozen or more cities who, apparently, rely entirely on you to solve the problem of noisy trucks, even when your noisy trucks are only contributing 25% of the problem and 60% is residents' vehicles so how is this my problem to solve and when I move your houses to make noise-proofing main roads so the trams have a quieter way into the neighbourhoods, the city turns on me like I'm chopping down BC's old growth to build gas pipelines. Little bit of a local reference there.
So I need to get out of spoon debt, and that means I need to take it easy this week. I need to forgive myself for not getting things done that should get done—and praise myself for getting the things done that need to get done. I should go to sleep earlier and wake up on time. I should set a routine this week, which I can really adhere to and follow closely.. and then do it.
Hopefully, I'll be able to come back later this week with some new writing. I need another guide, and that means I need to take some screenshots.. there might be something there.
Ozject is an autistic content creator with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and a Master of Business Administration. He streams on Twitch; produces videos for YouTube and TikTok; and writes blog content for other autistic content creators on the OzHole.