5 Steps to Overcome Autistic Inertia and Achieve Your Dreams

How hanging a tree hammock made me feel more hopeful about the future.

The view from my hammock

In 2020 I bought a tree hammock. Green canvas with a mosquito net covering, I dreamed of lying inside it, swinging between tree trunks, listening to birdsong or reading a book. A year later, I still had never put it up.

Sure, I took it out with me a couple of times, but there were too many steps on the way and I just couldn’t manage to hang it. Eventually, last winter, I tidied the tree hammock away in a box not easily in reach. I felt low-level frustrated with myself - a very familiar feeling - because it wasn’t only the tree hammock.

Lacking follow-through has been an issue all my life. Frustration around this passivity was one of the main things that drove me to get sober. I was determined to make my own dreams come true. But five years sober, my inertia still thwarts me this way!

Why is doing things SO hard?

Before I was diagnosed with autism, I thought it was because I was lazy and weak, but recently I discovered that autistic inertia is a real thing that many of us struggle with.

Quincy at Speaking of Autism… explains it well here:

“Autistic inertia is the tendency that autistic people have to want to remain in a constant state. When we’re asleep we want to stay asleep, when awake we want to stay awake, when we’re working on one thing we want to keep working on it, when we’re doing one thing we want to keep doing that one thing, etc. Now, yes, this tendency exists in everybody but you must understand that this is often significantly more pronounced in autistic people. This can also (at least in part) be due to executive functioning struggles.”

I relate to this so much. Whenever I get into a car, I don’t want to get out again. Ever. Even if the destination is the most exciting place in the world. I want to stay in the car for always. This is why I hate leaving my flat, generally, too. Getting me in the car in the first place is difficult. Then once I’m in the car, I don’t want to get out again.

Yep. Inertia sounds about right.

Autistic people can be difficult to get started on a task and we can find it difficult to stop doing a task once we finally get started, too. This is because starting a task, switching tasks and stopping tasks entails various different executive functioning skills, which honestly I’m not going to explain here because I don’t have the executive functioning skills to nail it. : D

So how do we get around this pesky situation? Are we doomed to leave our tree hammocks and [insert neglected dream here] to gather dust in out of reach boxes?

I think not! Reader, I recently had success hanging my tree hammock, and I’m here to share it with you.

Without further ado, I give you, The Story of the Tree Hammock. (Fanfare.)

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My dad was a tree surgeon and in my imagination, I am an equally wild woman of the woods. I think nothing of filling a backpack with the basics for survival and spending the night in the wilderness because I’m just so au fait with nature.

In reality, I am more like a koala genetically spliced with Cabbage Patch doll, most likely to be found under a blanket with a hot water bottle whether November or August.

Shout out to my partner for his commitment to taking embarrassing pics of me

This reality never stops me from buying cool adventuring kit.

#capitalism

So, last week, I was on leave from work, and it was due to be sunny, so a little voice inside my head chirped up to suggest we take the tree hammock to the woods.

Pa ha ha! I thought. Hilarious.

Because this idea has occurred to me literally hundreds of times before, and I NEVER DO IT.

Only this time something was different. I’ve broken it into steps so you can try it for yourself.

Step 1 - Recognize your inner child’s presence

In a moment of clarity, I understood that it was my inner child who wanted to go and play in the woods, and that I, the adult with keys to our body, was withholding that experience from her.

Okay, baby girl, I told her, because she likes that nickname. Let’s do it.

Step 2 - Tell someone your plans for accountability

I Whatsapp-shrieked my plans to a friend for accountability and began to gather together the things I needed for this Epic and Mighty Adventure.

I watched some videos about how to install the tree hammock, then abandoned them when the knot tying still looked too complicated after rewatching the clip dozens of times. I made a sandwich and a flask of honey chai, and headed out to get my bike.

My version of Blue Steel

I set out for Paradise Bottom, which is a real place in Bristol, I swear, and driving past overgrown arches I communed with my recently passed dad.

“Look Pops, I'm a man of the woods!” I told him, and he was made up for me. I pedaled and cried and made up a song about how being alone is a great way to spend time with your dead dad. (He was really impressed.)

Step 3 - Don't overthink it

Forty minutes and a few false starts later, I arrived and finding nowhere else, but determined not to give up, I locked my bike to some honeysuckle wrapped around a tree trunk.

Is this secure? Probably not.

Step 4 - Stay within your limits

And being careful not to activate my directional insanity I found the perfect place to hang my hammock (aka in view of my bike).

So. Much. Green.

Step 5 - Bask in the wonder of making your own dreams come true

My inner child was so happy. I had even packed a picnic for her! I ate a sandwich, did some writing on When the Earth Could Breathe, had two magnificent naps and sketched my view.

Leaf shadow heaven

Do you think this could work for you? Could you harness the power of your inner child to help you move out of autistic inertia? Worth a try, I reckon.

Here are the steps again.

Step 1. Recognize your inner child is begging you to make their day and accept the invitation

Step 2. Tell someone your plans for accountability

Step 3. Don't overthink it when the inevitable obstacles come up

Step 4. Stay within your limits

Step 5. Bask in the wonder of making your own dreams come true

That’s it!

Thanks for reading, I hope my story helps.

Chelsey x

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Have you got any tips for overcoming autistic inertia? What dreams (large or small) have you made come true? What dreams would you like to make come true? I am happy to be your accountability partner, just tell me your goal in the comments. : )

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I’m also starting an autistic agony aunt column and I need your most pressing questions. I promise to keep your identity anonymous and to find answers from the most informed professionals if I have no idea what to recommend. Relationship, family, work, whatever you are struggling with, just hit reply!

Read

Task Initiation, Executive Functioning, and Autistic Inertia by Quincy at Speaking of Autism…

‘We don’t need to be cured or fixed’: writers speak out on autism in the Guardian.

Watch

Non-verbal autism documentary The Reason I Jump ‘game-changing’ for the community

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You can connect with the Autism community on Twitter. If you have a question, use #ActuallyAutistic or #AskingAutistics (or both). You can also visit The Autism Self Advocacy Network and the Autistic Not Weird Facebook page and website.

Chelsey Flood is the award-winning author of Infinite Sky and Nightwanderers, and a lecturer in creative writing at Falmouth University. She writes about freedom, addiction, nature and love at Beautiful Hangover, and is also working on a non-fiction book about getting sober, and a new YA novel set in the forest.