If I Slow Down Any More, I’ll Be Dead......but wait, there's more.

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People keep telling me to rest.

Slow down.

Take a break.

As if I’m some over-caffeinated hamster sprinting on a wheel instead of a human being who spends the overwhelming majority of her life sitting very still in a chair.

Ma’am, if I got any more rested, I’d be a corpse.

So let’s talk about what people actually mean when they say that—because it sure as hell isn’t about physical activity.

Sitting Still Is Not the Same Thing as Rest

Here’s the first truth most people can’t hold at the same time:

You can be physically still and neurologically on fire.

I’m not running marathons. I’m not out five nights a week like a lonely Amway salesman chasing connection in hotel ballrooms. I’m home. I’m seated. I’m quiet. I'm probably watching Downton Abbey for the 3,542nd time. 

And yet—my mind is working continuously.

Tracking patterns. Holding timelines. Anticipating outcomes. Connecting dots other people don’t even see yet.

That isn’t busyness. That’s high-density awareness.

Rest isn’t about posture. It’s about whether the nervous system ever gets to stand down.

Mine rarely does.

Why People Keep Telling Me to “Slow Down”

Because they’re reading the wrong metric.

People are trained to evaluate effort by visible motion. If you’re not running around, they assume you must be resting.

But when your awareness stays sharp—when you’re perceptive, alert, articulate, and unsedated by distraction—it makes people uneasy.

So they reach for the closest socially acceptable explanation:

You must be doing too much.

No.

I’m seeing too much.

And that makes people uncomfortable.

Stillness With Intensity Breaks People’s Brains

Here’s the part no one likes to admit:

Intensity without motion doesn’t fit the cultural script.

We understand exhaustion when someone is visibly overworked. We understand burnout when someone is clearly frantic.

But when someone is calm, seated, observant—and still intense?

That reads as “too much” to people who rely on constant distraction to regulate themselves.

So they try to soften you.

Not for your benefit.

For theirs.

The Nervous System Doesn’t Care That You’re Sitting Down

If your perception is always online— If vigilance became a survival skill— If your mind learned long ago that staying alert was safer than relaxing—

Then rest isn’t going to come from naps, couches, or well-meaning advice.

You’re not tired because you move too much.

You’re tired because nothing ever fully discharges.

Awareness stacks.

And no one teaches what to do with that.

This Is Why the Advice Feels So Wrong

“Slow down” assumes speed is the problem.

It isn’t.

Density is.

Pressure is.

Compression is.

When perception has nowhere to go, it turns inward—and that’s when people mistake clarity for stress.

They see sharpness and call it strain.

The Truth They Don’t Mean to Say Out Loud

What people are often reacting to isn’t your exhaustion.

It’s your presence.

Your awareness. Your refusal to dull yourself. Your ability to see clearly without chaos.

That kind of still, unsedated perception is confronting.

So they tell you to rest.

They mean:

Please be less intense so I can feel more comfortable.

That’s not care.

That’s self-regulation by proxy.

The Real Question Isn’t About Rest

The real question is this:

Where does awareness go when it has nowhere to move?

Not more activity. Not more people. Not forced cheer or performative “self-care.”

But purposeful release.

Expression. Integration. Translation.

Something that lets perception move instead of pile up.

That’s not slowing down.

That’s metabolizing experience.

The Truth

I don’t need to slow down.

I need the world to stop confusing stillness with rest.

I need language that understands that sitting quietly can still be hard labor.

And I need fewer people trying to sedate sharp women with soft advice.

Because some of us aren’t exhausted from movement.

We’re exhausted from seeing clearly in a world that prefers numbness.

And no amount of sitting down fixes that.

The Part Where I Name It

Here’s the ending people always want wrapped in a bow.

I’m neurospicy.

I’m autistic. I have ADHD. Surprise. Didn't catch me off guard when I got the diagnosis last year. Actually made sense to me. 

But I'm Neurospicy. Not in the TikTok way. Not in the aesthetic way. Not in the “quirky superpower” way people like to sell when they’re trying to make other people comfortable.

In the nervous-system architecture way.

In the way where my brain does not idle. In the way where perception stacks instead of dissipates. In the way where sitting still does absolutely nothing to turn the volume down.

So when people tell me to slow down, what they’re actually doing is misunderstanding how my system works.

They assume rest is physical. Mine is neurological.

They assume motion is the problem. Mine is compression.

They assume stillness equals peace. For me, stillness often means pressure.

Why This Matters

Because autistic and ADHD nervous systems don’t regulate through collapse.

We regulate through movement with purpose. Through expression. Through pattern-making. Through translating what we perceive into something that can live outside our bodies.

When that doesn’t happen, awareness turns inward. And that’s when people mislabel clarity as stress and depth as overload.

I don’t need sedation. I don’t need softening. I don’t need to be told to lie down.

I need places where perception is allowed to move.

Reframing the Advice

So the next time someone tells me to slow down, I translate it accurately:

I don’t understand your nervous system, and my own feels unsettled around your intensity.

That’s not cruelty. That’s honesty.

And honesty lets me stop taking advice that was never meant for me in the first place.

Final, Final Truth

I’m not failing at rest.

I’m autistic with ADHD in a world that only recognizes exhaustion when it looks familiar.

I’m still. I’m observant. I’m metabolizing far more than most people ever notice.

So no—I don’t need to slow down.

I need language, space, and permission to let awareness do what it does best:

move, translate, and release.

That’s not dysfunction.

That’s how this nervous system survives—and tells the truth.

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