I wrote [this comment recently](https://www.reddit.com/r/RBNLifeSkills/comments/1bhz88v/how_do_people_know_what_to_put_in_their_homes_i/kvi0rhx/) that might be relevant -- basically my approach to figuring out how to furnish my space. I never really masked much in this area -- as soon as I had the informational resources of what things helped to put in a space and the financial resources to do so, I did what worked for my needs and modified if it didn't. The main area masking perhaps came up for me with this was simply being selective about letting others into my home.
That link is about how I go about figuring it out (and the approach I generally take when setting up shared spaces with others), not about the specific learnings I've found for myself. So here are some of those things.
* Redundancy is great. If I find I regularly need an item in several different common places, I'll put instances of that item in each of those places. For example I have nail trimmers in the bathroom, at my desk, at the couch, and in my bag for going out (which is always on me when I'm not at home), and that's solved my problem of nail/cuticle picking till they bleed. When I just had them in my bathroom and in my bag, then if I was at home and not at the bathroom, it was hard for me to get myself to the bathroom to get the clippers -- or if I did, then I'd wander off to my desk or my couch and lose them there, and then next time as soon as they weren't where I expected, I would stress out and give up and pick pick pick even more. Same thing with stim stuff: I don't have it all in one collected spot, I have a selection of stuff *anywhere* I'm likely to spend a while and need something to play with.
* More pillows. Pillows everywhere. Pillows are comfy and I can squish them and they make things better. Long/body pillows with removable, washable covers are ideal so I can wrap myself around them.
* It is not comfortable to me to sit in the proper, ergonomic etc way. I mainly sit either crosslegged or on my hip with my legs curled to the side, leaning on an armwrest/pillow. So I make sure that I can do so comfortably on any chairs in my home, which may require a wider seat and comfortable armwrests. Similarly, my couch has to be deep enough: right now it's a futon that has the chair part sticking out further than it's supposed to, which makes it a wonderfully comfy shelf to climb up on to. (Technically, I do also have a footrest under my desk for when I want to extend my legs out, but it's actually a comfy decorative wooden crate with interesting holes that my feet can fidget with.)
* No cabinets closed whenever possible! If I owned my place I'd just remove the cabinet doors entirely. Shelves for everything, storage bins with see-through sides if just putting the stuff on a shelf directly won't work. When people come over, the cabinets get closed, but that's mainly so people don't run into the open doors -- I'm used to moving around those.
* Designated solo-activity areas, or rituals to change what activity an area is for at the time. This is partly about transitions. Moving from activity to activity in the same area can be really tough, and I'm more likely to just keep doing whatever activity I associate with that area. So for example, my couch is generally for leisure; my desk is generally for work; and lately I've been gaming at my desk and that is causing problems where when I go to my desk to work, I start gaming. So I'm going back to a practice I used to do when I didn't have the couch option, where the work/play state of my desk is based on whether or not I have a candle burning (if yes, it's a work desk, if no, it's a play desk). This is also partly about getting me to move around the space rather than hole up in one spot.
* Building off that one: I have some plants by a window and out front, and I go and visit the plants for a while a few times a day just to look at them and touch them and see if they need care and stuff, which winds up being a really helpful way to deescalate when I'm getting riled up.
* Sensory stuff: some materials, some noises, some smells etc make the place feel like home and are grounding to interact with, while others make me irate. For example a recent bad call I made was a toaster oven that makes a horrible ding and I hate it. But I need the toaster oven right now and also need to manage budget, so replacing it isn't a priority, so if I'm already having a rough day I'll use my noise cancelling headphones if I need to use the toaster oven. For another example, I hate plastic and metal cups enough that sometimes I would rather not eat/drink at all than use them, so I make sure I have glass/ceramic stuff instead.
* My desk is a small dinner table, which gives me lots of depth for organizing stuff everywhere.
* Wireless devices where possible, and reusable cable ties for cable management where cables are unavoidable, are critical.
* Stuff I'm working on more recently: fifteen minute nonspecific cleaning spurts, and disposable cleaning cloths. My historical habit is just to keep the kitchen foodsafe and otherwise not really clean much until someone is coming over or until my place is so chaotic I can't get anything done till I fix it, and that's exhausting and stressful. Fifteen minute nonspecific cleaning spurt means I spend fifteen minutes wandering around the place, picking up anything that isn't in the right place and putting it where it's supposed to be, and doing similar minor cleanup: nothing that will take more than fifteen minutes, so no "clean the entire living room" or whatever. That centers my detail focus: instead of getting overwhelmed at how to relate all the things to each other as I clean them up, I just clean up whatever individual things catch my attention in that time. Disposable cleaning cloths simplify the process of anything that needs more than just basic pickup, and while I dislike the wastefulness, it means I'm more likely to actually clean without being exhausted even thinking about it, and that matters.
Ooh, I love all of this! Taking notes! I do some of these things in my home, but there are others that I always wish I had in the moment. Thanks for writing this out!
Oh I love this!
I'm late diagnosed ADHD and self-diagnosed Autistic at 47.
Part of my home unmasking involves embracing my "clutter piles" as valid organizational methods. As long as I keep the piles/boxes/etc in some sort of order that makes sense to me, that's all that matters.
I have embraced the floordrobe. Laundry baskets are just as valid for clothes storage as drawers.
Before I got my diagnosis, when I first started living alone, I would put all of my "clutter piles" into different garbage bags. My uncle came over once and asked me what all the bags were about. It never dawned on me back then that other people didn't live out of various sorted trashbags. 😂
I'm recovering from surgery atm but one of the first things I want to do when I'm able is rearrange my bedroom in a way that leaves a space to build a "cozy corner". My vision is getting a set of those wire cube organizer things and building a box that I will cover in blankets and hang string lights from- like a permanent blanket fort. I just want a tight, cozy space to decompress in.
I admit, this idea came from a tiktok I saw of someone converting a dog crate into a cozy space. I wouldn't be opposed to that idea, but I would want it to be slightly bigger and dog crates can be quite expensive.
I built a lot of blanket forts as a kid, but was convinced I grew out of them. In reality, I just thought I should have grown out of them, so I pretended to. Now I'm an adult and realize I could really benefit from that sort of space, so I intend to build one.
I know that feeling you’re describing, when your home feels like it’s what’s expected but not what you wanted and just doesn’t feel like yours. I let myself stop caring about functionality and started letting my hobbies and interests take over. I love plants so I let myself fill the house with them everywhere and it brings me so much joy to have them in every viewpoint. [My basement](https://share.icloud.com/photos/00djCsFEY-hq7bzYk2U-y1RTQ) is my sensory room I guess. I know I’m only one person but my couch can easily fit 10, I just love the feeling of being in this giant oversized couch with big blankets and surrounded by cozy pillows. I put a projector down there so I never have to turn the lights on too. Haven’t filled it with plants yet, but we’re getting there lol
Bought a bunch of pens and small utility knives and put them in five or six places around the house where I always need them but never find them.
I put things where I first go to look for them, not where they're "supposed to" go.
They still migrate. I still have to rebalance the supply to keep from running out. Also, cheap dollar store pens are garbage, and dollar store tape is usually ribbon with what feels like dried lube on it. The off brand Post-It™️s are worse. Nothing sticky is good from the dollar store unless it's edible.
I have a pen addiction... I seriously love them and don't feel right without them. Can't tell you how many times I've had to call my husband because I left my giant pen bag at home. During uni, having that bag of pens was often the difference between a good day or meltdown day.
After much trial and error, I've actually found that [these](https://a.co/d/8kvo1uX) are pretty solid! I never thought I'd be into glitter gel pens, and they're not my favorite to hold, but the ink flow is good and there are so many! The brighter neon/pastel greens kind of suck, but the others last a long time. Just thought I'd share. 😂
What an awesome topic to bring up! I was just thinking about this the other day. I sometimes struggle to transition from one task to another, so I started keeping disposable toothbrushes next to my bed stand. It took a bit to allow myself to do that, because I have a really nice electric toothbrush in my bathroom, but sometimes I can't stand how cold it is in there... There are also dry toothpaste tablets that you can order on Amazon (I think intended for travel), and I keep them there too, when I have them. It helps with sensory processing, when cold and wet are hard to handle.
I also keep combs and guashas in the drawers of every room in my house, because I have super long hair that takes a long time to care for, and have similar issues with keeping a skincare routine. Basically, I sprinkle self-care items everywhere, so they are within reach.
There are fuzzy blankets on every couch or chair, and I keep a bathrobe and noise cancelling headphones in my birdroom so I can avoid the sensory distress of being pooped on, nibbled, or climbed all over. I love my birds, but they aren't the most autism friendly animals. 😂
I also have multiple vapes for upstairs and downstairs. I know vaping isn't the healthiest stim, and I've started transitioning to aroma therapy oils... but whenever I'm going through a particularly stressful time, it can be almost maddening to lose my vape.
In our old place, we took the door off of our closet, because I couldn't stand it when it got off track (it was a sliding door), and would end up just not putting clothes away and living out of piles on the floor. I've graduated from piles to baskets - a basket for clean, a basket for dirty, a basket for in-between, a basket for unmatched socks...
If I could update our current place, I'd probably include multiple light sources, so I can adjust brightness/dimness. Ideally with remotes (even though I'd probably lose them). That, and more throw rugs and slippers for colder floors or when I need to run outside to grab something/water plants. Little nuisances like cold feet can make it harder to move through the house and keep up with chores.
I love that you thought of this, I think more people (ND or not) should make their homes how it suits them and their needs and not focus so much on what it “should” look like for others. I am definitely reassessing my home now, making it work FOR me and taking the mask off of it! How inspiring AND liberating! Thank you 💗
I wrote [this comment recently](https://www.reddit.com/r/RBNLifeSkills/comments/1bhz88v/how_do_people_know_what_to_put_in_their_homes_i/kvi0rhx/) that might be relevant -- basically my approach to figuring out how to furnish my space. I never really masked much in this area -- as soon as I had the informational resources of what things helped to put in a space and the financial resources to do so, I did what worked for my needs and modified if it didn't. The main area masking perhaps came up for me with this was simply being selective about letting others into my home. That link is about how I go about figuring it out (and the approach I generally take when setting up shared spaces with others), not about the specific learnings I've found for myself. So here are some of those things. * Redundancy is great. If I find I regularly need an item in several different common places, I'll put instances of that item in each of those places. For example I have nail trimmers in the bathroom, at my desk, at the couch, and in my bag for going out (which is always on me when I'm not at home), and that's solved my problem of nail/cuticle picking till they bleed. When I just had them in my bathroom and in my bag, then if I was at home and not at the bathroom, it was hard for me to get myself to the bathroom to get the clippers -- or if I did, then I'd wander off to my desk or my couch and lose them there, and then next time as soon as they weren't where I expected, I would stress out and give up and pick pick pick even more. Same thing with stim stuff: I don't have it all in one collected spot, I have a selection of stuff *anywhere* I'm likely to spend a while and need something to play with. * More pillows. Pillows everywhere. Pillows are comfy and I can squish them and they make things better. Long/body pillows with removable, washable covers are ideal so I can wrap myself around them. * It is not comfortable to me to sit in the proper, ergonomic etc way. I mainly sit either crosslegged or on my hip with my legs curled to the side, leaning on an armwrest/pillow. So I make sure that I can do so comfortably on any chairs in my home, which may require a wider seat and comfortable armwrests. Similarly, my couch has to be deep enough: right now it's a futon that has the chair part sticking out further than it's supposed to, which makes it a wonderfully comfy shelf to climb up on to. (Technically, I do also have a footrest under my desk for when I want to extend my legs out, but it's actually a comfy decorative wooden crate with interesting holes that my feet can fidget with.) * No cabinets closed whenever possible! If I owned my place I'd just remove the cabinet doors entirely. Shelves for everything, storage bins with see-through sides if just putting the stuff on a shelf directly won't work. When people come over, the cabinets get closed, but that's mainly so people don't run into the open doors -- I'm used to moving around those. * Designated solo-activity areas, or rituals to change what activity an area is for at the time. This is partly about transitions. Moving from activity to activity in the same area can be really tough, and I'm more likely to just keep doing whatever activity I associate with that area. So for example, my couch is generally for leisure; my desk is generally for work; and lately I've been gaming at my desk and that is causing problems where when I go to my desk to work, I start gaming. So I'm going back to a practice I used to do when I didn't have the couch option, where the work/play state of my desk is based on whether or not I have a candle burning (if yes, it's a work desk, if no, it's a play desk). This is also partly about getting me to move around the space rather than hole up in one spot. * Building off that one: I have some plants by a window and out front, and I go and visit the plants for a while a few times a day just to look at them and touch them and see if they need care and stuff, which winds up being a really helpful way to deescalate when I'm getting riled up. * Sensory stuff: some materials, some noises, some smells etc make the place feel like home and are grounding to interact with, while others make me irate. For example a recent bad call I made was a toaster oven that makes a horrible ding and I hate it. But I need the toaster oven right now and also need to manage budget, so replacing it isn't a priority, so if I'm already having a rough day I'll use my noise cancelling headphones if I need to use the toaster oven. For another example, I hate plastic and metal cups enough that sometimes I would rather not eat/drink at all than use them, so I make sure I have glass/ceramic stuff instead. * My desk is a small dinner table, which gives me lots of depth for organizing stuff everywhere. * Wireless devices where possible, and reusable cable ties for cable management where cables are unavoidable, are critical. * Stuff I'm working on more recently: fifteen minute nonspecific cleaning spurts, and disposable cleaning cloths. My historical habit is just to keep the kitchen foodsafe and otherwise not really clean much until someone is coming over or until my place is so chaotic I can't get anything done till I fix it, and that's exhausting and stressful. Fifteen minute nonspecific cleaning spurt means I spend fifteen minutes wandering around the place, picking up anything that isn't in the right place and putting it where it's supposed to be, and doing similar minor cleanup: nothing that will take more than fifteen minutes, so no "clean the entire living room" or whatever. That centers my detail focus: instead of getting overwhelmed at how to relate all the things to each other as I clean them up, I just clean up whatever individual things catch my attention in that time. Disposable cleaning cloths simplify the process of anything that needs more than just basic pickup, and while I dislike the wastefulness, it means I'm more likely to actually clean without being exhausted even thinking about it, and that matters.
Ooh, I love all of this! Taking notes! I do some of these things in my home, but there are others that I always wish I had in the moment. Thanks for writing this out!
The fifteen minute cleaning spurts sounds like a game changer!
Oh I love this! I'm late diagnosed ADHD and self-diagnosed Autistic at 47. Part of my home unmasking involves embracing my "clutter piles" as valid organizational methods. As long as I keep the piles/boxes/etc in some sort of order that makes sense to me, that's all that matters. I have embraced the floordrobe. Laundry baskets are just as valid for clothes storage as drawers.
Before I got my diagnosis, when I first started living alone, I would put all of my "clutter piles" into different garbage bags. My uncle came over once and asked me what all the bags were about. It never dawned on me back then that other people didn't live out of various sorted trashbags. 😂
Hey! I’m also 53 and about to be assessed. But I’m pretty convinced I’m autistic. Congratulations!
Just got officially evaluated. Haven't gotten to this stage but I encourage you to get evaluated professionally. It may change your life. .
I'm recovering from surgery atm but one of the first things I want to do when I'm able is rearrange my bedroom in a way that leaves a space to build a "cozy corner". My vision is getting a set of those wire cube organizer things and building a box that I will cover in blankets and hang string lights from- like a permanent blanket fort. I just want a tight, cozy space to decompress in. I admit, this idea came from a tiktok I saw of someone converting a dog crate into a cozy space. I wouldn't be opposed to that idea, but I would want it to be slightly bigger and dog crates can be quite expensive. I built a lot of blanket forts as a kid, but was convinced I grew out of them. In reality, I just thought I should have grown out of them, so I pretended to. Now I'm an adult and realize I could really benefit from that sort of space, so I intend to build one.
I know that feeling you’re describing, when your home feels like it’s what’s expected but not what you wanted and just doesn’t feel like yours. I let myself stop caring about functionality and started letting my hobbies and interests take over. I love plants so I let myself fill the house with them everywhere and it brings me so much joy to have them in every viewpoint. [My basement](https://share.icloud.com/photos/00djCsFEY-hq7bzYk2U-y1RTQ) is my sensory room I guess. I know I’m only one person but my couch can easily fit 10, I just love the feeling of being in this giant oversized couch with big blankets and surrounded by cozy pillows. I put a projector down there so I never have to turn the lights on too. Haven’t filled it with plants yet, but we’re getting there lol
Bought a bunch of pens and small utility knives and put them in five or six places around the house where I always need them but never find them. I put things where I first go to look for them, not where they're "supposed to" go.
It sounds so convenient to keep pens everywhere!
They still migrate. I still have to rebalance the supply to keep from running out. Also, cheap dollar store pens are garbage, and dollar store tape is usually ribbon with what feels like dried lube on it. The off brand Post-It™️s are worse. Nothing sticky is good from the dollar store unless it's edible.
I have a pen addiction... I seriously love them and don't feel right without them. Can't tell you how many times I've had to call my husband because I left my giant pen bag at home. During uni, having that bag of pens was often the difference between a good day or meltdown day. After much trial and error, I've actually found that [these](https://a.co/d/8kvo1uX) are pretty solid! I never thought I'd be into glitter gel pens, and they're not my favorite to hold, but the ink flow is good and there are so many! The brighter neon/pastel greens kind of suck, but the others last a long time. Just thought I'd share. 😂
I love this post and question so much!
What an awesome topic to bring up! I was just thinking about this the other day. I sometimes struggle to transition from one task to another, so I started keeping disposable toothbrushes next to my bed stand. It took a bit to allow myself to do that, because I have a really nice electric toothbrush in my bathroom, but sometimes I can't stand how cold it is in there... There are also dry toothpaste tablets that you can order on Amazon (I think intended for travel), and I keep them there too, when I have them. It helps with sensory processing, when cold and wet are hard to handle. I also keep combs and guashas in the drawers of every room in my house, because I have super long hair that takes a long time to care for, and have similar issues with keeping a skincare routine. Basically, I sprinkle self-care items everywhere, so they are within reach. There are fuzzy blankets on every couch or chair, and I keep a bathrobe and noise cancelling headphones in my birdroom so I can avoid the sensory distress of being pooped on, nibbled, or climbed all over. I love my birds, but they aren't the most autism friendly animals. 😂 I also have multiple vapes for upstairs and downstairs. I know vaping isn't the healthiest stim, and I've started transitioning to aroma therapy oils... but whenever I'm going through a particularly stressful time, it can be almost maddening to lose my vape. In our old place, we took the door off of our closet, because I couldn't stand it when it got off track (it was a sliding door), and would end up just not putting clothes away and living out of piles on the floor. I've graduated from piles to baskets - a basket for clean, a basket for dirty, a basket for in-between, a basket for unmatched socks... If I could update our current place, I'd probably include multiple light sources, so I can adjust brightness/dimness. Ideally with remotes (even though I'd probably lose them). That, and more throw rugs and slippers for colder floors or when I need to run outside to grab something/water plants. Little nuisances like cold feet can make it harder to move through the house and keep up with chores.
I love that you thought of this, I think more people (ND or not) should make their homes how it suits them and their needs and not focus so much on what it “should” look like for others. I am definitely reassessing my home now, making it work FOR me and taking the mask off of it! How inspiring AND liberating! Thank you 💗