Autism, ADHD, Complex PTSD and Getting Stuff Done: The Charity Shop & the Hoarder metaphor.

I've struggled my whole life to understand why, in spite of my love of learning, doing and investigating, I get lost, stuck in a loop, overwhelmed or frozen all the time! It happens when I embark on a course, take on new projects at work, join a club or group and even when I sit down to 'switch off' with a movie or book. I just can't seem to get the balance right, enjoy one thing at a time or participate on a piece-by-piece basis. In this video I explore this reality through metaphors. The metaphors I use came to me when I was trying to make this video earlier in the week. I realised while making that first video that I was onto something important for me, something that needed a deeper dive but that I didn't quite understand at that time. Since then I have met with my therapist for our scheduled monthly catch up, had a couple of good nights sleep and had time to explore these metaphors more deeply. This video is the result of that. In the video I reference an article about the research into Autism and Hoarding behaviour by Olivia Handako 'Does Autism Lead to Hoarding. An Exploratory and Reflective Blog... I don't know what Olivia's qualifications are but her blog post did make sense of the scientific studies I'd read on the subject since Monday hence why it's referenced here:   / does-autism-lead-to-hoarding-an-explorator...   Background on my metaphors. Hoarding - I find this interesting as I am not attached to stuff at all so it felt like a juicy unexpected clue that my brain threw out at me and I love the novelty and intrigue of clues like that. I was interested and somewhat alarmed to find the metaphor way too accurate after diving in and looking around... Charity/ Vintage shop - My favourite kind of store and places I can relate to both on a internal and external level. There are ideas that stem from this exploration that I'd like to develop for my business and home life as well as a synchronicity that explains my current stuck-ness, depth and value. So this doesn't just make sense in the abstract, it could very well make sense for me in the concrete sense too. A mini metaphor in the video describes my Complex PTSD as the barnacles on my boat. I haven't fully explored this metaphor but I am, at present finding this a useful way to think about the habits and patterns that I've adopted and that live with me but that don't serve me. My final core metaphor is of a tree - I've always thought of myself as a tree but when I'm struggling I tend to forget that trees move, grow and change, focusing only on the fact that they are rooted and must endure. The tree metaphor serves me well as a way of integrating the Complex PTSD with my core values. I hope you enjoy this video and the beautiful way the weather manifested what I was saying in a way that only weather can - and yes, the IPad survived the shower/ thunder :)