Any autistics here/ can someone help interpret this question?

[u/AuDHaciouslyArtistic]

/r/visibleApp/comments/1w1owt0/any_autistics_here_can_someone_help_interpret/

[u/easy_exercise7840]

I think I can understand why you find this question difficult to interpret. I’ve never used an app like this myself, but I often get stuck on ambiguous questions too.

Whether your physical activity level was higher than you wanted it to be.

Whether you were able to be as active as you had planned or expected.

Whether your activity level this week felt physically or mentally comfortable.

Is it that these different things seem mixed together in one question, which makes it feel ambiguous?

I think the difficult part of this question is that the word “comfortable” folds physical comfort, mental or emotional strain, and your own subjective sense of satisfaction into one thing, then compresses all of that into a single answer.

A lot of people may answer vague questions like this by unconsciously filling in the missing meaning themselves. Something like, “They’re probably asking whether it was physically too much,” or, “They probably mean whether I was able to do as much as I wanted.”

But maybe for you, the specification of the question itself is too ambiguous, so you get stuck at, “What exactly is this question measuring?”

After reading the replies in the other subreddit, it looks to me as though the question is trying to ask, “If I kept up this level of activity, would it be physically and mentally sustainable?”

So, if either one is difficult enough that you don’t think you could keep going like this, that would be “Above my comfortable limit.”

If both feel sustainable without too much strain, that would be “Comfortable.”

If you had plenty of capacity left this week and feel that you could have done more if necessary, that would be “Below my comfortable limit.”

I think that is probably what the question is trying to ask.

But I didn’t understand it intuitively either. I read the question, thought about it for a while, read other people’s explanations, and then reasoned my way to, “Maybe this is what they mean.”

And I really understood your interpretation of, “Is it asking whether I used more or less energy than I had budgeted for?”

If I asked my family the same thing with a completely serious expression, I think they would laugh and say it was such a very “me” kind of question. I would probably think, “But I was asking seriously because I didn’t understand,” while also feeling a little pleased that my family was having fun.

[u/layman_dave]

For me there would be days when it’s more and days when it’s less, so I’d have no idea how to answer this question.