change averse

Autistic types do not like changes, from what I can gather. Everyday transitions can be difficult, like going from laying in bed, to getting up and moving, or going from clothed and dry to naked and surrounded by water. I hate to admit that it took me way too long to learn to bathe regularly. I'm still working on getting up in the morning. Sometimes it takes me all day.

Routines help a lot. We shower every morning before going to do the things we do every day, or we shower as part of the ritual of getting ready that we perform before going anywhere. When transitions are routine, they become a lot easier. So, the fact of the matter is that I do not bathe regularly because my mental health is better - I bathed regularly because I've learned to incorporate it into my routine. Which is to say, if I'm forced to abandon my routine, I go right back to being itchy and smelly, and inexplicably procrastinating the whole thing.

My mental health hasn't improved, per se. This is how my brain works. It doesn't get better. Whatever caused my problems when I was younger is still the same old problem. It's my strategies for living with it that changed. I've learned to manage my aversion to change, such that I can function, or even thrive, or at least properly bathe, but I still go through all sorts of hell if you make me change my plans, such that my routine is thrown all askew.

How do you think I'm going to feel having my whole life turned upside down and having no choice by to go live hundreds of miles away, where I can't keep doing any of what I was doing? I can keep doing some of it here, except no I can't, because none of this is routine. All my strategies have been completely demolished. It was routine to go socialize, for fucks sake. Now what the hell am I supposed to do? 

Adapt, form new routines, no big deal, right? Yeah, well, big deal or not, I've been failing at it. I can't even get to the gym. It's a completely different gym. I didn't form these routines overnight. I can't rebuild new ones overnight. It's a constant shuffle of baby steps and setbacks, plagued by anxiety and failure, as I start doing things regularly, only to have other people constantly trample all over my efforts just by existing. Solitude helps a lot. Everything is easier alone. Living with others has always been a problem.

While I know that this is what I need to do, I also know it's going to involve lots of not doing it.