What I Suck At

What do I suck at, you ask? Okay you didn't really ask, but I'm telling you anyway. Don't worry, I'll make it quick, even though I could write a thesis on this topic. 

At the top of the list I would have to put blogging. I never seem to get my act together for these linky things. Case in point: on Monday I finally got around to writing my I Must Confess post after dinner, only to somehow manage to accidentally delete it  before I posted it. Genius.  I can't remember a word of it but I’m sure it was BRILLIANT. I can say that since no one will ever know. Ahem...

What I really, really and truly suck at is being organised. In every conceivable area of life I am woefully and abysmally disorganised and forgetful.  The only things I remember are eating and the words to every Carpenters song. I can assure you that this is definitely not helpful in life. Well, eating is somewhat helpful in order to survive. Eating cakes the size of your head isn't. Not that I would ever do that. Especially when I can eat cakes twice the size of my head. I'm classy like that. 

The thing is, I got my diagnonsense  diagnosis of Ass Burgers  Asperger's a few years ago and that’s when I realised that I have significant impairment or issues with what is referred to as Executive Functioning.

According to Tony Attwood’s Complete Guide To Asperger’s Syndrome the psychological term executive function includes:

• Organisational and planning abilities
• Working memory
• Inhibition and impulse control
• Self-reflection and self-monitoring
• Understanding complex or abstract concepts
• Using new strategies

I may have burst into tears upon reading this section. My tears miraculously disappeared as I read on and discovered Tony Attwood’s absolutely brilliant solution to these issues.

He says: one solution to reduce problems associated with executive function is to have someone act as an ‘executive secretary’.

This is the Reader’s Digest condensed version but he then goes on to add:

I encourage a parent or teacher to take on this very important role of executive secretary. We hope that this will be a temporary appointment as the person with Asperger’s Syndrome achieves greater independence with organisational skills. However, the executive secretary mother may not be able to resign until her role is replaced with an executive secretary wife.

Upon reading this sheer brilliance my tears just evaporated.  Now I felt like killing someone. I was INFURIATED by this advice. What I would like to know is: where the FUCK is my executive secretary wife?

Oh wait. All I have to do is grow a cock, divorce Micky Blue  Eyes,citing irreconcilable cock differences, ask a well-organised woman to marry me and be my executive secretary. Easy peasy. Why didn't I think of that? Any takers out there, pending my sex-change?

No? How rude. Hmph. Oh well, I can always get a cheapie sex-change operation overseas and then place an add on E-Harmony:

Middle aged woman turned pretend man with a pretend cock seeks executive secretary wife because Tony Attwood says I need one. You will need to be extremely well-organised but clearly insane and have a striking resemblance to a pre-anorexic Karen Carpenter; she is the only woman I could possibly consider 'turning' for. 

Then I would just sit back and wait for the eager responses to come piling in. Done. 

Meanwhile, I am left not only cock-less and executive secretary -free, but I have conveniently backed myself into a corner where I am expected to be not only my own executive secretary, but also to my three boys who all would appear to need one as well. And I suck at it. Did I mention that? 

Other things I suck at:

• Parking
• Talking
• Cooking
• Sewing
• Craft
• Team sport
• DIY/Decorating
• Art
• Dancing

And almost anything with an 'ing’ on the end of it. Except catastrophising. I’m brilliant at that. Gotta be gifted at something. Right, that’s me. I’m off to grow a cock. Cheerio. 

Linking up with Robomum for The Lounge

                                                     What do you suck at?
                                                     

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I'm Not Spotless, I'm Clueless

Being a Boganville Housewife Extraordinaire supposedly means it is my job to keep the Bogan Box in a reasonable state of cleanliness and order. It's only a small house, as the word Box would suggest, so therefore you'd think it wouldn't be too difficult.

Wrong. I simply do not get housework.  Anybody who walks into my home could be forgiven for thinking that I am a lazy, feral sloth creature.  That all I do all day is sit on the computer posting boring as batshit blogs and Facebook updates.  And I would never do anything like that. Ahem. Mainly because I can't now. But that's not the point.  I do have one. I promise. I will get to it presently.

The truth is, I have tried so hard to be a Domestic Goddess. To de-clutter, organise and have everything gleaming and perfect.  Or, if not perfect, at least somewhat presentable. 

Inside the Bogan Box. This was a good day. Oh, shut up.

I have purchased all the gear. The mops, brooms, tubs of Gumption, bleach and Pledge Grab-Its.  I even purchased that awful smug book called Spotless. And the even smugger (is that a word?) Speed Cleaning, which promised I could have a spotlessly clean house in 15 minutes a day. Uh, yeah right.

 I thought I would finally find the secret answer and knowledge that everyone seems to have but me.  Apparently it's bi-carb and vinegar, according to that book.

Bi-carb and vinegar fix everything.  So I bought those too. But somehow, my house still isn't gleaming. Not even remotely. It smells really vinegary though. Sigh.

The problem is, I can't even logically work out how to go about all the tasks I need to do.  If I have say, ten things I know I need to do (it's more like 17 million on any given day, really, but I condensed it) I can't work out how to prioritise them in a completely rational, logical way as most people seem to.  I feel bewildered and over-whelmed before I even begin.

"Write a list. " Mick tells me.  I've tried that too. Lists and I don't get on.  I either forget the list, lose the list or have a lovely list of the things I failed to complete that day mocking me from the fridge door.

This picture does not accurately reflect the amount of washing
in our house, which would actually be enough to fill the Indian Ocean.

So I'll just plough in and start doing something, usually folding washing. We always have mountains of the stuff.  Something or someone ends up distracting me. It could be the phone ringing or Mick talking to me. Mainly it's the boys.  Or I'll just walk to another room to put the clothes away, become completely distracted by something that needs doing there and end up totally forgetting the piles of clothes back in the other room I still haven't put away.

This leads to Micky Blue Eyes finding the piles later, and becoming annoyed thinking that I deliberately left them there for him to put away.  I never do.  I just simply forget. The truth is I am just a very forgetful and easily distracted person, especially when it comes to housework.

On the surface it appears that I don't care about this. About the state of my home. That I am deliberately blase about cleanliness and order. Thoroughly relaxed and unconcerned. On the inside, however, this is not the case whatsoever and it actually causes me a great deal of consternation.  I've spent nights unable to sleep going over and over it. Truly. Feeling bad about myself because I don't seem to get something so seemingly simple. I mean, it's not Rocket Science is it?  These are routine, menial tasks.

To make matters worse, we never invite people over, simply because I am too ashamed.  The shame and guilt eat me alive some days.
It also appears that I am the furthest thing possible from a perfectionist.  Judging from the perpetual state of my home the idea is truly laughable and absurd, I realise. However, I struggle with the belief that I should be perfect.

Not only should I be a perfect Domestic Goddess with a gleaming home looking like something straight of a Home Beautiful magazine, but I should also be the perfect mother.  Able to cook exquisite meals which are promptly served at 6pm every night.  Have my boys into a strict routine.

 But even that's not quite enough. I think I should also be able to make time not just to get a bit of exercise, but to literally train almost to the degree of an Olympic Athlete. Oh, and since we are living in Boganville, if we wish to have any hope of making it to Boganville Heights, I really should be working outside the home and earning money. 

In addition to this, I feel I should really make time to be a creative genius with my writing.  A boring as batshit blog isn't good enough. I should have been able to have whipped up a best-selling novel, you know, by lunch time. Yesterday.

I think I see where the problem is.

I'm not a perfectionist. I'm a should-ist.  I think I should be perfect, and therefore because I fall so glaringly and pathetically short of my list of shoulds I constantly feel like a useless failure.

These feelings don't work for me.  There is no pay-off for me, in cleaning all day.  I can't seem to find any positive feeling of a job well done or pride in my home.  I just feel like I'm repeatedly failing at something that is supposedly easy or menial. So, the more I think about it, it actually makes sense that I  would eventually feel like giving up on it. It's not that I'm lazy. It's more like it just doesn't work for me, there's no pay-off, so I might as well be blowed and forget it and do something else that does work for me. Like writing this blog .Even if I feel like I should be doing something else.

After a diagnosis of Aspergers last year, I'm pretty sure it's time to let all the shoulds go.  Maybe there are some Aspergians out there who are thoroughly logical, clean and ordered. I am not one of them.

 One of the traits of Aspergers can be reduced Executive Function, which refers to a lot of the things I am talking about. Like prioritising tasks, working memory, switching attention between tasks and organisational and planning abilities. There is a lot more to it, but it's too dry and uninteresting to bang on about too much in this blog. The upshot of it is, as I heard author of The Complete Guide To Aspergers Syndrome, Prof Tony Attwood succinctly describe in an interview, a lot of us Aspies "Couldn't organise a piss-up in a Brewery."

 It's true. For me. I really can't.  And, I guess it just has to be okay. Sure, I don't want to fall into the trap of using my Aspergers as an excuse.  It doesn't mean that I can just throw my hands up in the air and say I give up, and we live in a feral pig-sty. Even though it seems like it on some days. It does mean that I accept that it won't be as perfect as I'd like. 

The fact that being an Aspie for me, means I crave order and routine in my environment and surroundings, while simultaneously being completely clueless about actually creating it for myself and my family, is just another one of those little tragic ironies of my life that I have to live with.

And the only other thing that I should do, is throw away that bloody Spotless book. See? I'm de-cluttering.

And then promptly stop using the word should.

Linking up with Kirsty from My Home Truths for I Must Confess.

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