Flat Tires and Frazzled Transitions: Navigating Autism, ADHD, Trauma & Task Shifts

I’m learning how to restructure my life to support my brain — not fight it.

My Autism craves structure.

My ADHD thrives in change.

And my trauma needs calm, predictable safety.

It’s a daily tightrope walk — one I’m finally learning to navigate with a little more compassion, and a lot more pause.

Executive Dysfunction: The Invisible Disconnect

We hear the term executive dysfunction thrown around a lot, especially in neurodivergent circles — but let’s break it down in real terms.

Executive function is the part of your brain that helps you plan, start, maintain, switch, and finish tasks. So executive dysfunction? That means it can feel impossible to:

• Start a task, even when you want to

• Shift focus from one thing to another

• Organize priorities when everything feels equally urgent (or equally unimportant)

• Finish something once the mental momentum is gone

  
  

For me, the hardest part isn’t the doing. It’s the starting — or the switching between tasks that are vastly different in sensory or mental energy.

I could fold laundry for two hours straight and be fine. But going from laundry to studying? That’s where my system stutters. My brain hits a lag — like a buffering wheel of doom. And if I push through it, I feel it: the tension in my shoulders, the rise of anxiety, the heat under my skin, the inability to focus or breathe deeply. It’s not laziness. It’s a short-circuit.

Why Transitions Are So Jarring in Autism

Autistic brains often rely on predictable structure and sensory regulation. Routine isn’t just comforting — it’s grounding. It’s how we maintain control in a world that often feels too fast, too loud, too fragmented.

Now imagine suddenly pulling that structure out from under someone. You’re watching a video, and someone changes the channel mid-sentence. No warning. No closure. No buffer. That’s what a harsh transition feels like in my body — abrupt, disorienting, and anxiety-inducing.

Add ADHD to that? You’ve got the impulsivity and restlessness pulling you toward everything, while your Autism is begging for consistency and space to mentally land.

It creates a very specific kind of overwhelm. One that doesn't always look like a meltdown (thanks masking) — but feels like one internally.

How I’m Learning to Transition with Intention

So here’s where I’ve shifted: I stopped trying to jump between tasks like a neurotypical robot on espresso.

Instead, I now treat transitions like their own mini-task — something that deserves time, preparation, and softness.

I started building intentional transition blocks into my day. Just 5–10 minutes between major shifts.

Here's what that looks like:

✅ Body Check-ins: “Where am I holding tension?” My jaw, my stomach, my back? Bringing awareness to the physical makes it easier to ground the mental.

✅ Stretching or Movement: Sometimes just standing up, rolling my shoulders, or walking to another room creates enough of a pattern-interrupt that my brain takes the cue: “We’re shifting.”

✅ Breath Work: Not anything elaborate. Just a few slow, focused breaths. In through the nose for 4 seconds. Hold for 2 seconds. Out through the mouth for 6 seconds. Let the body catch up - you need longer exhales out of your mouth than in through your nose to signal to your parasympathetic nervous system that you're not in danger.

✅ Audio Anchors: I talk to myself. Yep. Literally.

I say: "I’m done with writing now. I’m going to eat lunch.”

"Okay, I finished the dishes. I’m going to rest for ten minutes."

It helps bridge the internal gap — like giving your brain GPS directions.

✅ Gentle Pacing: If I feel the anxiety rise in that space between? I stop. I pause. I don’t “push through.” That’s where I used to crash. Now I let my nervous system breathe. I do more grounding. 5-4-3-2-1 sensory grounding. Belly or box breathing. Lying down for a moment and doing a full body reset. Whatever my body needs, I try to listen to it.

You Wouldn’t Drive on a Flat Tire

Anxiety, when it flares up during transitions, feels a lot like a flat tire.

It starts small — a little resistance, a little wobble. But if you ignore it? It blows. And when that tire blows, you don’t just keep going. You stop or you crash.

That’s why I don’t white-knuckle my way through transitions anymore.

I patch the tire.

I breathe.

I pause.

And only then do I move again.

Healing the Nervous System Means Slowing the Hell Down

Here’s what I’ve learned the hard way:

• You don’t heal by speeding up.

• You don’t “beat” executive dysfunction by getting mad at it.

• You can’t override a dysregulated nervous system with willpower alone.

  
  

What you can do?

You soften.

You structure.

You pause.

You create little bridges between the parts of your day that used to feel like cliffs.

And you stop pretending you’re a machine.

If transitions are your hardest place — if anxiety creeps in during the “in between” — you’re not broken.

You’re just trying to function in a world that rarely honors how deeply we all need space.

So build your space.

Talk to your body.

Breathe through the shift.

Patch the damn tire.

Then keep going — gently.

Optional Resources if you're trying to navigate ADHD, Autism, and/or Trauma

1. ADDitude Magazine: What is Executive Dysfunction?

2. Autism & Transitions - National Autism Society (UK Friendly)

3. The Body Keeps the Score - Book by Bessel van der Kolk (GREAT book!)

4. How To Work with A Dysregulated Nervous System (Polyvagal Theory 101)