Yes: memes, rants, screaming into the void, unhinged unmasking, formal diagnosis, self diagnosis, questioning, infodumping
No: neurotypicals
Guidelines so we can have a good time:
If the sponge is too gross to touch, throw it out.
If you have the means, a countertop dishwasher may seem like an expensive item, but it'll use <10% the water of washing by hand, save you from needing to buy gloves every time, and if you're like me, rinse aid will stop your glassware from getting that chalkboard texture. (A refurbished one from a decent company will set you back at most 200, well worth it if you're living alone and not doing a household worth of dishes)
Reminds me a couple years back, someone suggested a clothes washer that you can put in your bathtub. Expensive, yes. But worth every penny
If you're living in a small space and dont need to wash a whole lot / want to save on the cost of installing and plumbing in white goods that's all kinds of genius.
Am I picky about using a dish brush instead of cloth/sponge because of neurodivergence or because they’re fundamentally gross?
Hm. That’s food for thought.
Might not be ok for you but if I use soap and water and just bare hands it doesn’t trigger me. Because the soap makes it clean and I rinse it all off. But the sponge is dirty and I can’t wash it all off. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh man, brush is the best.
First used them in a restaurant and it opened my eyes. We'd brush off what the sprayer couldn't get, then run dishes through the sanitizer (commercial dishwasher).
At the end of the night the brush was one of the last things to go through the dishwasher.
Now use one at home because it's so much better than sponges, and only use sponges for the abrasive portion for things the brush just won't get.
Am I picky about using a dish brush instead of cloth/sponge because of neurodivergence or because they’re fundamentally gross?
Does it matter, tho? I'm not saying this as a judgement about what is important to you or your way of thinking. I guess I'm just sharing that for me I've found it useful to let go of expectations of what is normal and just focus on what I could use to get to where I need to be.
I hear you. If I found myself in this situation and had fresh sponges to switch to, I'd still have to go get one which can feel impossible at the moment. It's not as frequent of a thing that I store them under the sink, for example. It would just be bad timing/luck that my capacity to go get another spounge is shot because of everything else going on.
For me the point of these struggles is that in the moment no advice is good advice. All the thinking about options (executive function) needs to be done before shit goes wrong because at that point I don't have these skills any more.
Further, a lot of advice relies on skills I fundamentally don't have. And when I explain, no that won't work for me, I'm just being difficult.
No, I'm not projecting about a situation in my life. Why would you say that? 🫣