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Screen Time Escapism

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Escapism

“Habitual diversion of the mind to purely imaginative activity or entertainment as an escape from reality or routine.”

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I can often identify if my neurodivergent self is stressed out by the sheer amount of screen time I’m consuming.

I’m a late diagnosed autistic. I’m still learning how to identify what I’m feeling and notice said feelings before they hit a 7. It’s hard to regulate your stress if you aren’t totally aware of it in the first place. Recently I’ve started to notice the pattern; stress leads to more screen time; excess screen time leads to more stress.

This blog post is about my personal experiences and is not professional medical or mental health advice.

As a child, my escapism was my imagination; daydreaming up stories and acting them out. Later it was devouring books instead of doing schoolwork (algebra could wait, I needed to know how Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ended). When I acquired my own laptop and near unlimited screen time as a late teen, I binge watched YouTube until 3 am. Now I binge and rewatch my comfort shows, sometimes all day. While I don’t think there anything wrong with finding comfort from these things, it has become a bit of a problem.

Mainly the frequency is interfering with day-to-day life. It’s hard to do things (like writing this blog post) while my brain is craving the next episode of a show. To watch it right now would feel so good; but I’ve already watched an entire season today.

It’s also a short term escape from stress and just delays what what needs to be delt with. The moment I turn off my tablet the feeling of numbing bliss turns to wanting more, all while being stared at by a growing to-do list. Plus, it doesn’t just put off doing important things to the last minute, it sucks up time better spent on my interests.

If binge watching was a full-time job, I would be set for life.

But why do I need escapism at all? From sensory sensitivities, forcing eye contact, to fears of contamination and random death, life has been inherently uncomfortable and confusing for me. But now that I’m aware of it, I have a chance to change and adapt to my needs instead of cramming myself into box.

I would love to know what your early signs of stress are and what (hopefully healthier) strategies for relief you use.

Houseplant Collection Reset

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I’ve been pretty busy, or at least my recovering-from-autistic-burnout brain thinks I have.

Which has meant a slump of low motivation, passion, and energy. Unfortunately that means my houseplant collection has been rather neglected. I kept saying “I’ll do it tomorrow”; tomorrow turned into a month.

I tend to get stuck, thinking I have to do everything at once which leaves me with a sore back and an overwhelming mess. (An example of my autistic black and white thinking perhaps?)

This time, I’m going to take it slow and try not to create a mess tornado in my bedroom and bathroom.

Day 1

First, everything needs to be watered. I also need to deal with the spider mites and thrips that have made themselves at home on my stressed plants.

I started by taking 3 plants at a time to the bathroom, drowning them in the sink, then spraying them with diluted rubbing alcohol in the shower. I left them there for about 30 minutes while I did other tasks or took a break. I picked one side of my window and slowly worked my way over.

Today I threw out 2 plants (I had healthier duplicates) and watered and sprayed 12 others.

Day 2

Now that I’m thinking of it, I should be using a box to carry the plants to the bathroom in groups; less work.

I watered and sprayed 24 plants today (I have more in another room)

I also took down my hanging plants, while they look amazing it’s harder to take care of them up there.

Day 3

After watering and spraying my last 3 plants (for a total of 39), I started pruning.

I focused on removing damaged leaves to help remove thrip larvae.

The tradescantia plants needed a hard prune to keep them bushy.

I pruned 25 plants.

Day 4

I bought some fertilizer, epiphyte fertilizer, yellow sticky fly traps, and a new air plant to replace one that died (Tillandsia capittata peach)

Day 5

I’ve never fertilized my air plants beyond soaking them in my aquarium. I grabbed an empty 4 liter bottle, labeled it, and mixed the fertilizer in it. I soaked the air plants and put the leftovers in my watering can for later.

I was trying to make an air plant wreath, but I kept forgetting it existed. So now I’m keeping them in a tray in my window.

Day 6

Lastly I have some cuttings to pot up. Most are being put back into the mother plant pots, but a couple are for making new plants. I also topped up a couple pots low on soil. I used a crochet hook to poke the cuttings in.

My plant window now looks really nice and satisfying and I’m getting that itch to buy more plant things again…

Notes to self:

  1. Use a container, box, or tray to move plants in groups
  2. You don’t have to do everything at once!
  3. You can never have enough plants

Executive Dysfunction: Cleaning Tips That Don’t Work For Me And Why

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I’m a late-diagnosed Autistic adult and I’ve always had a difficult time keeping my space tidy. Which is ironic, because I need a clean, organised space in order to focus.

I’ve tried a lot of general advice and different systems, but they’ve never really stuck. But since getting my diagnosis, I’ve been learning how my unique brain functions and how to work with it.

My main difficulty with cleaning is likely from my difficulties with executive function:

 The group of complex mental processes and cognitive abilities (such as working memory, impulse inhibition, and reasoning) that control the skills (such as organizing tasks, remembering details, managing time, and solving problems) required for goal-directed behavior

“Executive function.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/executive%20function. Accessed 14 Sep. 2025.

It’s not uncommon to have difficulties with executive function (aka executive dysfunction) as an Autistic person.

One way to think of it is that the skills I use to keep organised and focused don’t work in the “normal” or “typical” way. Before knowing this, I’d try to make what appeared to work for everyone else (aka neurotypicals) for me work. Which always ended in frustration, and honestly still does, because I was trying to force myself to fit into a system that was not created for my brain.

“Just clean up as you go!”

I simply do not have the awareness of my actions to do this.

I’ve tried this many times, usually as a New Years resolution, and ended tired and stressed out. Doing this uses up SO MUCH mental energy. I have to stay aware of what I’m doing, while making tons of small decisions. It can also involve frequently switching between tasks, which can be irritating for me.

“Create a strict routine stick with it.“

I have lots of reasons why I’m unable to keep up with a stricter routine; chronic illness, burnout, scheduling etc. Plus I’m very good at forgetting to clean, via being focused on something else. I always end up falling behind then feeling bad about.

I also trend towards black and white; all or nothing thinking. If I can’t do it perfectly, why do it at all?

“So what does work?“

Fortunately the more I figure out what doesn’t work, the closer I become to finding out what does. I’m someone who really learns well by doing.

I know now when I set up cleaning routines, I need to be flexible. I need to do what I can with what I have (energy, executive function that day etc.). I don’t do well with strict set times, but looser ones can work. I do better batching my tasks and I try to do a small room reset in the evening as part of my winding down routine.

Done is better than perfect and doing something, anything is better than nothing.

Aquarium Diary: August 2025

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It’s now September and the aquarium is doing well! Steve the mystery snail had a rapid growth spurt, likely from the heat wave we’ve been experiencing. I haven’t seen Bob the bladder snail in a long time; I believe he has passed. Though Bob’s hundreds of children, the Bobettes, live on to carry his legacy. The shrimp are seemingly happy, mindlessly munching away on algae, veg, and bug bites. They have all successfully molted multiple times which is encouraging.

This month I did light maintenance. I didn’t add liquid plant fertilizer, root tabs, and kept the water changes to a minimum, to let the shrimps adjust in peace. Since my aquarium has a large amount of filtration (bacterial, mechanical, plants) I only do a small water change about once a month. I spot cleaned occasionally with a turkey baster covered in a net (so I don’t alien abduct the Bobettes). I also cleaned up some hair algae with my hand (it’s easiest to roll it into a roll to take it out) and scrubbed the glass with a magnetic scrubber.

I do want to start working on the aquascaping part of my tank. I gave the plants 2 big chops this month. Well, mostly I trimmed the Jungle Vallisneria. While I love these plants, the 5 foot leaves are a bit much for my 10 gallon setup. I’ll think I’ll just keep one around and sell the rest for now.

I think I’m getting the hang of using my camera (Canon Powershot G16), some of my photos are actually in focus!

Tiny Tweaks #3: Removing Clothing Tags

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I’m an Autistic adult and this is a small thing that makes my life just a little bit better.

I have some sensory sensitivities around clothes. Some are constant, and some come and go depending on my capacity that day. A constant one that bothers me is clothing tags. I just can’t stand something lightly touching me on my back of my neck.

Fortunately it’s an easy fix. I use a stitch ripper, a tiny pair of scissors with a sharp point, and tweezers to take them off as needed.

If a piece of clothing has specific instructions I need to follow, I just take a photo of the tag and put it in a folder on my phone.

This sensitivity is one I’ve always noticed, I just didn’t do anything about it. I think it’s because I wanted to fit in, and everyone else seemed to tolerate tags just fine.

Plus it just felt wrong to cut the tags off. Or when I did, bits were left behind and felt even worse (hence the tweezers! You can get all the bits!).

If You Think Your Plant is Dead, Try Moving It!

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I’ve had this happen 3 times now; I thought my plant was dead, put it somewhere else, and voila! Now it’s thriving.

I’ve read countless forum posts where people banish their “dead” drama queen plant to the back porch and it comes back and thrives, seemingly just to spite them.

In my case, it has been with ferns. A maiden’s hair fern, rabbit’s foot fern, and a Pteris fern to be precise.

My main problems have been with light and watering. I have 2 places I can put plants in my house; a south and a west facing window. At the south window, depending on where you position the plant, it either gets blasted with light or near complete shade. The west has privacy glass that filters the light, but the light varies a lot depending on the time of year.

I started with the ferns on a shelf just below the south window, where they were behind and underneath some other plants. That was WAY too much light still. Plus, there is a heat vent right above there and they were drying out faster then I could keep up with.

I tried putting them in the full shade spot, but that wasn’t enough light.

So now they had dead or damaged leaves, and at one point I thought each of them might be dead.

Some people banish their “mostly dead” plants the back porch, I banish mine to my laundry room with the west window.

And they ALL came back! And are the happiest I’ve seen them. I honesty wasn’t sure what was going on with the Pteris fern, because it was getting covered in little black spots and the new growth looked awful. Turns out it was also too much light.

I’m definitely leaving them there for now. I’m curious to see if they will like it all year round there, as I think they will get a loss less light in the winter.

My rabbit’s foot fern and Pteris when I bought them, verses now on the right.

Should have moved them sooner, but I honestly forgot that window existed. I just banish my plants there because that’s where I keep all my gardening supplies.

Wednesday is Blue

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I’ve always associated numbers, letters, and days of the week with colours. I didn’t realise until recently that not everyone does this or understands it.

I was showing someone a meme, it went along the lines of “What do Halloween, 7×7=49, 7:00 pm, and Thursday have in common”.

It makes absolute sense to me! But the person I was showing it was genuinely confused. For me, most of the items in the meme made me perceive the colours of Halloween.

It’s the reason I do my laundry on Sunday. Sunday is a grey-lavender colour. I associate it with linen, so I do laundry on Sunday. Same with when I water plants, take care of my aquarium, or clean the bathroom.

While I do strongly associate colours with numbers and letters, for me it doesn’t really go beyond that. Though I’ve read about people who can use it to memorise things like names, phone numbers and math equations.

From what I understand it’s a type of synesthesia and it’s certainly something I want to learn more about.

I Remember When I Started Masking My Autistic Traits (The Cookie Story)

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I’m a late diagnosed Autistic woman. This is about the first time I remember noticing that I was different and started learning to mask my Autistic traits.

I was really young, like maybe 6? I don’t remember where I was, or who I was with but I was at someone’s house with a group of people. It might have been a potluck.

I was watching the other kids, when a girl went up to an adult and left with a cookie. It was one of those hard oatmeal cookies you get at the store. I wanted a cookie too, so I went up to them and asked for one.

This is the first time someone gave me what I ominously call “The Look”.

I felt like I had done something wrong. Their reaction was not what I was expecting and I was confused.

I did get my cookie and went back to observing the other kids. I started to notice when they asked for things, their voices had a different inflection and intonation. They also added a lot of pleases and thank-you’s (e.g. “Can I pleEEease have a cookie?”). My voice was flat and fast; straightforward – “Can I have a cookie.”.

It was after that I started practicing speaking. Under my breath I would repeat phrases again and again with different inflections, intonations, trying to make my voice sound less “flat”. I wanted my voice to fit in.

This was also something people noticed, because I was walking around whispering to myself all the time. If I got a positive reaction, I would repeat it back to myself to memorise the tone. If I got a negative one, I would carefully listen to other people speaking and start practicing it again. Over time, I learned how to make my voice sound more “normal”? But sometimes my tone still came out completely wrong and people would misunderstand what I meant.

Now that I’m working on unmasking, I don’t worry about my voice so much. If something comes out in the wrong tone, I say so and laugh.

(P.S. I find it hilarious that I was just sitting watching everyone. Knowing what to look for now, I was so obviously autistic. I did play with other kids, but I didn’t know how to join in without being explicitly invited to.)

Making a Basket With Dandelions

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I found out recently you can use spent dandelion flower stems to make cordage. I’ve made baskets with pine needles using the coiling method before, so why not dandelions! It’s difficult to forage for natural materials where I live, but dandelions grow everywhere. At least until the city sprayed all the ones in the parks. . . but I still got a backyard full to work with.

I have this cordage I made last week. I’m wetting it with a spray bottle and damp towel to make it less brittle.

I trying some cotton embroidery floss from the dollar store. Which I later regretted. It was only 2 ply and it snapped multiple times. Because of this I couldn’t pull my thread as tightly as I like.

I tie a knot onto start of the cordage (where the twist starts making a loop). Then start wrapping the thread.

Once I’ve got enough, I start to coil it. I pierce through it with a needle (using pliers as needed) to start a base. Then start stitching around it.

3 episodes of The Simpsons later and I got a nice disk for a bottom. Then I start shaping the sides, making it steadily narrower.

A couple more hours and I got a little basket! I backstitched along the top to help keep it secure.

Now to make a lid, which every tiny whimsical basket needs. It’s a pain to make, but I included a little handle.

I triple knotted the ends, trimmed any stray bits and it’s done!

Unmasking Adventures: Stimming at The Self-Checkout

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Since I got diagnosed a year ago, I’ve been working on unmasking my delightful Autistic self. A big part of that for me is stimming freely. Whether I’m excited, nervous, happy, or just vibing; I stim. It’s simply how I regulate my nervous system.

People sometimes assume a lot when they see me stimming in public. I’ve had complete strangers come up to me and tell me to breath when I’m just doing my thing.

A month ago I was using the self checkout and it took me a hot second to scan my lip balm. I was just vibin’, doing my finger-flicking and nail rubbing stims.

The employee managing the self-checkouts instantly materialised and told me how to scan it. Which is totally fine! But then they started guiding me through scanning everything.

“Just turn it that way a little more, here let me- oh there you got it!”

I was done scanning and went to do the rest of the buttons. This person stood watching over my shoulder and started coaching me on what buttons to push! They reacted if I pushed one they didn’t tell me to “Oh wait, oh okay, you sure?”

I wanted to get the hell outa there so I said I didn’t have a membership card.

“Oh, wait wait wait! Here (pushing the back button); Isn’t that your mom? Maybe she has a card you can use.” Then they went over to my mom, got her card from her and scanned it for me.

Maybe they were just a really friendly, helpful person? Yeah they certainly could be, but I was the only one they interacted with like this. I wasn’t struggling and I’ve used this checkout dozens of times.

This behaviour isn’t helpful to me. It’s the opposite! It’s overwhelming and stresses me out. I don’t always have the words to communicate “Thanks, but I’m good now” or “Thanks I’ll ask for help if I need it” which is frustrating.

These kinds of interactions leave me feeling conflicted. I understand they are trying to me helpful and kind, but I don’t like that the assumption that I need help. Plus, their tone of voice and the way they went about it felt kind of infantilising (and maybe a tab ableist?).

Please don’t automatically assume I need assistance simply because I’m stimming; just ask me!