

Autistic inertia is common but little-known and poorly understood. It lies somewhere on the borderline between catatonia and executive dysfunction.

Inertia doesn’t mean laziness, or not wanting to do things, or procrastinating – although it can look like all of those things. But sometimes it also looks like mania, obsessiveness, or even a burst of motivation. Because inertia just means difficulty changing state, and that original state can be anything. The simplest explanation for how inertia looks and feels: sometimes an autistic person ends up doing something they don’t want to be doing, or not doing something they do want to be doing.


There are a lot of different possible causes and contributing factors for inertia, and they can be different for everyone.  Part of what makes it difficult to understand or explain is that there can be endless possible causes, which can all lead to apparently the same result. I’ve been thinking carefully about this for a while, and I’ve come up with a list of the most common causes for me.

Energy levels. This is the most catatonia-like one. It’s hard for me to switch from low-energy to high-energy activities, or vice versa. This is part of what’s happening when I’m sitting at home and I need to get up and go out. My brain is stuck in low-energy mode and I can’t properly imagine or work out how to switch into high-energy mode. It’s also what happens when I start doing something like tidying up my room, and I end up spending hours frantically cleaning and organising things. In that situation, I’m stuck in high-energy and it’s easier for me to switch to a brand new high-energy activity, than switch to low-energy mode and take a break.

Time anxiety. I have trouble describing this, but it’s a really big thing for me. I think I have trouble with medium-term time perception. I can abstractly imagine periods like months or years, and I can instinctively understand very short times like minutes or seconds. But in-between lengths of time like hours or days are difficult for me to get my head around. So if I need to start an activity that is going to last for a medium-term amount of time, I can’t properly imagine how long that is. Which makes me really anxious and confused, and so I can’t start the activity because I can’t imagine it.

Decisions. This is probably the most obvious executive function-related cause. Sometimes it’s just really difficult for me to make a decision. Especially if the choices are arbitrary, or uncertain, or I feel like I’m missing information, or any number of other things. One obvious example of this is when I have a chore to do which has an unspecified time limit. For example, I know that I need to wash some laundry at “some point today”. But because it’s not specific enough, and there’s no other way to make the decision, I end up not doing it at all. I can be thinking “I need to wash laundry today”, and sitting around doing nothing, but it’s still difficult to actually make myself do it even with nothing else in the way.

Memory. Another definite executive function thing. My working memory is disproportionately weak, considering my long-term memory and general abilities. If there’s nothing to prompt or remind me about a task, I will often completely forget about it. This can even happen with things that I really want or need to do. It’s not that I deliberately ignore it or pretend not to think about, so that I can avoid doing something. It’s just that it genuinely doesn’t cross my mind unless there’s some kind of external cue.


The simplest and most obvious thing that affects my susceptibility to inertia is general stress. Stress from overload, anxiety, tiredness, or any of the millions of things that can bother me. When I’m stressed for any reason, I’m more likely to have trouble with all of the contributing factors to inertia. Executive function and memory gets harder because I have less cognitive resources to spare, it’s harder to handle any additional anxiety because I’m already anxious, it’s more difficult to override my instinctive energy level sticking when I’m busy stressing about other things.

Having other people around can also sometimes make things worse. I’ve written before about how other people overwrite my edges very easily. When I need help to get something done, that’s great. But when I need to do something a specific way, that’s a problem. If I want to do some university work on the dining room table, and someone else is tidying up – I can get ‘stuck’. Instead of my own energy level getting stuck, the other person’s energy level gets in my way. I have trouble doing a low-energy activity like sitting and working, if there is someone doing high-energy things around me.


I don’t have any easy solutions (sorry, if that’s what you were hoping for). The first step is to accept that inertia is a thing that happens and can’t be completely solved or taken away. But there are two main things that help stop me getting stuck, or get me un-stuck if it happens: prompts, and planning.

Prompts. This one can help with all the causes to varying extents, but most significantly problems with memory. I leave reminders for myself when there’s something I need or want to do. I write lists of things I like doing, to check on when I’m bored. I conscientiously keep a to-do list for even minor tasks. I am in the routine of automatically looking at the calendar when I go into the kitchen. All of these help me dodge around the fact that my brain isn’t very good at remembering things by itself.
Other people can be very valuable prompts, too. They can remind me of things, and can be very helpful when I’m stuck on a decision. If a decision is completely arbitrary, then often the easiest solution is to just get another person to make it for me. It’s not mentally taxing for them, and it makes whatever I’m doing much easier.

Planning. This is really important to help with making decisions, and also the mysterious ‘time anxiety’. When I need to make a decision, I work through it as systematically as possible. I break things down into small parts and logically figure out the pros and cons and the best solution. Doing that helps me avoid the fact that I’m not very good at: a) knowing what I want, or b) instinctive or common-sense decisions.
Planning helps with time anxiety by breaking things down into small enough parts for me to imagine. If I’m going to be spending five hours at a family gathering, I get as much information as I can about exactly what will be happening. That allows me to imagine things in smaller parts, like “half an hour in the lobby with drinks”, and “the speech will last ten minutes”.


Inertia is a weird and subtle thing. It was yet another trait that I didn’t initially realise that I had. But realising and accepting that I do experience it has helped me deal with it. It’s never going to go away, and I probably wouldn’t want to – sometimes it’s handy to accidentally spend all day cleaning! But at least I can now understand what’s happening when I don’t seem to be doing what I want to be doing.

19 thoughts on “Inertia

  1. Wow this is me…how can you tell the difference between stereotypical procrastinating and autistic inertia though? It seems like a lot of this could be mistaken for procrastination…is autistic intertia a type of procastination, or is it seperate, or is it a cause of? Thanks for your article :)


    1. Good question – the short answer is, I have no idea! But I think that procrastination tends to be more anxiety-driven. Things like “I’m scared that task will be too difficult, so I’m going to avoid it”. Whereas autistic inertia seems to be less about difficulty or fear, and more about executive function. Things like “I want to do that task but I can’t figure out how to get started”. That’s my experience, anyway!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Hmm, okay, cool idea. I guess with the amount of people who are autistic but are neurotypical passing, it’s highly likely that a lot of people complaining about inertia are actually just displaying an autistic trait. I do think the anxiety driven form of procrastination exists too.


      2. Sometimes I procrastinate because I don’t want to do something. Sometimes I have decision paralysis because I’m anxious or perfectionist. Sometimes I have the executive deficit difficulty working out what to do or how to start. Sometimes I have depression and can’t get up the motivation to do anything. And sometimes I have difficulty switching my attention from one task to another.

        All of these could be variants on inertia, but what I have – what is wrecking my life – is none of those. It’s an inability to move at will. Sometimes I can do fine, especially when prompted by an outside force, but sometimes I just sit and wish that I could do something but I am not able to take action to do it. I want to do it, it’s easy enough, I know where to start, I’ve done it before, it’s simple, not doing it is uncomfortable (e.g. being thirsty or bored), I care about doing it, but I still *can’t move*. I think that’s where it crosses the line into the realms of catatonia, even if it’s a very mild variant compared to getting stuck mid-movement.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. I’m bipolar, and I go thru the same. I thought I was autistic, but the docs say no.

        For those of us that can’t express ourselves well, thank you.


    2. Inertia is sitting plastered to your couch, almost paralyzed, for weeks because you need to complete a task (writing a paper, cleaning your house etc) and you can’t manage to get yourself to do it but you also don’t feel like you can do anything else either. People who procrastinate usually don’t experience the paralysis, are more likely to procrastinate by doing other things instead, and procrastination is usually shorter and doesn’t destroy your life. Someone who procrastinates might put something off (cleaning instead of doing a paper) but will eventually complete the task at the last minute. People with inertia often cannot will themselves to do it at all. Maybe it’s just because, for me, there is nothing subtle about my inertia (it’s horrible and life destroying) but it’s always been clear to me that it was something deeper than procrastination.


      1. Sometimes it’s impossible to move or do anything it all, but it’s also quite common to be able to do low threshold tasks. That varies from person to person, but it usually is something that doesn’t require moving from one place to another, but may use smaller movements. E.g. someone could be in bed, urgently needing the toilet and increasingly and uncomfortably thirsty, finding themselves unable to get up or even reach out for a drink, yet playing puzzle games on their phone. That’s part of what makes it so hard to understand and explain.

        (I’m researching this for my PhD. Mine, too, is life destroying and unsubtle in its impact, but still often invisible to observers.)


        1. Yes, exactly. I can play on my phone while plastered to my couch all day lol but Ill fail class even as a “gifted” student because I literally cannot do what I need to do but I also cant do anything else productive either, like cleaning. Its hell. I always imagined I would go to grad school and become a professor but I’ve come to realize thats a literal joke for me. It’s unbelievably depressing.


          1. Unless you are over 70 years old, don’t give up. I thought I would not be able to do a PhD because it’s so unstructured, but I am so driven to study this topic and get it known about that I am trying it anyway. One of my research participants is also a very inert postgraduate student. So it’s possible, but I am 45 and when I was 25 it would not have been even close to possible.

            I had an end of first year oral exam recently and one of the examiners asked whether I wanted to be an academic. I said I am not at all sure it’s possible because of my disability, but my research is its own reward, so I am happy to take things one step at a time.


  2. +1 – agree with all of this. A good explanation of how it feels.
    I really suffer from the prompt issues – unless I am specifically prompted *at the right time* I am unable to remember mid-term minor jobs, like folding up the washing or cooking dinner *before* people get desperately hungry.
    Stuff like the tidying the garden are low-priority tasks that will take >1hour – meaning that it does not happen and does not even register as not being done. It’s not that I procrastinate (thinking about it occasionally but avoiding the task) – it is completely gone unless externally prompted.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. OMG I really needed to read this today. Thank you so very much for sharing! Your blog is really helpful so far what I’ve read! You definitely have a supporter here.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Whatever I start out the morning doing I will find myself doing all day. I absolutely have to start out active in the morning or I will spend all day being inactive. Coffee helps with getting going on this. I have struggled with this my entire adult life. The worst thing is road trips. If I take a road trip and have to sit in the car for a long time, it will take almost two weeks before I am able to self-control my way back to my former activity levels. It’s not laziness — it’s just that I get internally focussed on stuff inside my head — ideas — and as the ideas get more complex, it gets harder and harder to break away from that and get up and do stuff. When I wake up in the morning, my mind is pretty clear, like a blank slate, and the house is quiet, and it’s a lot easier to focus on boring physical tasks like dishes and housework.

    Liked by 2 people

  5. Reblogged this on amiemaybe and commented:
    This is me through and through I saw all this before but never had words for it and always feel defeated often by it but maybe now I know it’s a thing it may help me stop fighting myself and getting upset with myself?!


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