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The last few years, my mental and physical health
a year ago
It's been a strange few years. It's been a strange life really, I'm not sure where to begin, or even how much I even want to say or if I want to say it at all. Some things in this journal may be disjointed or flow oddly but I’ll do my best to keep it in some way organised.
Perhaps I should start with the most significant thing I've realised and come to accept over the last couple years, that I'm autistic. I'm not bitter about this realisation, I'm ok with it and it has helped me better understand myself. I'm on the spectrum enough that it affects my everyday life, and has affected my childhood, education, relationships with family and friends, how I act in social situations, my mental well being and the way I do or don’t look after myself. Though I am able to manage the day to day things for the most part, there are things I often neglect, and I struggle with the things of real consequence and responsibility.
I had constant trouble in school, was made to take a 1 to 1 anger management class in the last few years of my high school education, I have had panic attacks and breakdowns, losing jobs because of such and changed direction in life multiple times, I've been on SSRIs on a few separate occasions. My family, despite suggestions from teachers that I needed help thought I just needed a firmly guiding hand, occasionally sometimes applied at speed. I will say the anger management actually helped me gain a sense of self and awareness for myself and others that I may not otherwise have had, and I believe benefited me greatly as things could and would have been a lot worse for me without it. Turning freelance, doing commissions has also worked wonders for me, being able to manage my own time, routine, and be my own boss. I love doing this job, don't expect me to stop anytime soon.
My ability to focus seems contradictory, I am either all over the place, or I am laser targeted on something, and distraction from these things can be jarring. My senses are practically always active and in overdrive, sight, sound, touch, smell, I find it difficult to filter out extraneous information from all of these and to pick out the important parts. It is possible to do so and I can manage, but everything is interesting, everything needs equal amounts of attention and there's a bottleneck in processing. Situations that others seem to deftly and effortlessly navigate require effort from me to stay focused on. If you’re telling me what I should be doing in a raid in Destiny then you’d better bullet point the important things for me and cut out the flowery descriptions that I might otherwise normally enjoy, all that extra detail is something I have to filter to get to the meat of what you told me. But once I know and understand what I’m doing I will do it well.
Multitasking can be difficult. If music is playing too loud then I can struggle to do basic math. This goes for conversations as well. I enjoy discussing and talking with friends, but can spend so much time trying to absorb what's said and filter out what's important, that I can often miss something in the moment. Conversations in groups can be especially busy, I'm often only listening and fail to add anything of my own as a barrage of back and forths go between friends. Even 1 to 1 in text, if chat is going quickly I can end up responding to something that was said several lines ago only after getting a moment to register its meaning and come to a conclusion.
The result of all this information drives me to need time to myself so that I can think through and organise all that has happened. It can get to a point that I have so much in my mind that I am only reacting, and so far that I even stop reacting because I have no mental capacity left to do so. And then the times when there is so much, I am no longer able to process, stuck in a loop and mental playback of things without coming to any conclusion or understanding.
This happens to varying degrees, and it is dependent on mood and overall situation. If things are good in general and I have things in hand, if I have gott'n into the rhythm of the social dance then I can follow and bring a back and forth with ease. If not, then I shut down and it's like getting blood from a stone in responses from me, and for the most part this has been me for the last couple years. This isn't to say I haven't been feeling good or struggling to enjoy myself, it's not even to say that I don't enjoy spending time with people and partaking in a good bit of banter. It's just a big rush of information that I am not always able to or ready to engage in, especially in my rougher moments. And if I'm quiet, it's not because I'm not interested or don't care.
And then there are the things that I focus on with ease, and I forget the rest of the world exists. Like when discussing a topic of particular interest to me, or I binge whatever game I’m obsessed with in the moment, examine the ins and outs of the mechanics, lost to the world, forget to eat, don’t hear messages, and oh my god it’s 5am where did the time go?
This is all very simplified, I've barely scratched the surface, I'm glossing over experiences and reactions, there's caveat after caveat and every manner of ifs, ands, or buts. Yeesh, I could keep going on and on but I'd rather not write an autobiography. Suffice to say I've got a lot of stuff going on in my head, and along with the methods I already developed to manage over the years, I'm now gaining insight and so becoming better tooled to help myself in future.
Everyone is different, and my experiences with autism will not always match up what another person has. Autism has particular things that can be affected but not all are, a spectrum in all cases, and to different degrees and even opposites or extremes. For example, those that are overly sensitive to particular stimulus such as myself; a slamming door is too loud for me, a single percent in volume adjustment can mean the world of difference. And there are those that are less sensitive, in which they don’t realise how much noise they make, slam doors, like their music top volume and think you’re crazy when you ask for that single percent of difference quieter, not even believing that there is any difference.
Another example which has a common misunderstanding is that those with asd don’t understand sarcasm, or emotions, this might be true for some, but there are those that use sarcasm expertly and are extremely aware of others emotions. Even if they themselves are difficult to read by others and don’t show on the surface, they can still very much have a sea of broiling emotions underneath.
Ok enough of that, again I could go on and on. On to the physical side of things, which I had neglected because I was too stuck to do anything about it. I had physical problems for ages and despite knowing I should do something about them, it was always ‘I’ll do it another time, it’s fine’.
I moved to my current home around 3 years ago, and I only just in the last month actually managed to sign myself up to a GP and dentist. I had a filling fall out 1.5 years ago, was eating with only one side of my face since. My physical symptoms for the last 5-6 years had the possibility to be problems with my kidneys or liver, or other life threatening things. I have now in the last week gott'n a new filling, and had blood test results and a discussion with the GP to rule out the life threatening problems, I have started receiving treatment for less concerning and manageable issues.
Despite having confidence in myself and my abilities, I have had anxiety to the point I had secluded myself from friends, family, and had reduced my friends circle ever smaller, not intentionally and consciously but through an ever increasing desire for peace and quiet. I only managed to get myself to finally do these things after asking help from a family member when I had finally accepted the invite to visit them.
Having actually gotten the ball rolling on these things, accepted that I needed help and actually followed through with that, I am starting to feel better. I am looking into counselling, and have applied for an official autism diagnosis, though from the response I received my first assessment is 18 friggin months away.
Oh well, that’s fine, I’ve gotten things moving, and that’s what matters.
Perhaps I should start with the most significant thing I've realised and come to accept over the last couple years, that I'm autistic. I'm not bitter about this realisation, I'm ok with it and it has helped me better understand myself. I'm on the spectrum enough that it affects my everyday life, and has affected my childhood, education, relationships with family and friends, how I act in social situations, my mental well being and the way I do or don’t look after myself. Though I am able to manage the day to day things for the most part, there are things I often neglect, and I struggle with the things of real consequence and responsibility.
I had constant trouble in school, was made to take a 1 to 1 anger management class in the last few years of my high school education, I have had panic attacks and breakdowns, losing jobs because of such and changed direction in life multiple times, I've been on SSRIs on a few separate occasions. My family, despite suggestions from teachers that I needed help thought I just needed a firmly guiding hand, occasionally sometimes applied at speed. I will say the anger management actually helped me gain a sense of self and awareness for myself and others that I may not otherwise have had, and I believe benefited me greatly as things could and would have been a lot worse for me without it. Turning freelance, doing commissions has also worked wonders for me, being able to manage my own time, routine, and be my own boss. I love doing this job, don't expect me to stop anytime soon.
My ability to focus seems contradictory, I am either all over the place, or I am laser targeted on something, and distraction from these things can be jarring. My senses are practically always active and in overdrive, sight, sound, touch, smell, I find it difficult to filter out extraneous information from all of these and to pick out the important parts. It is possible to do so and I can manage, but everything is interesting, everything needs equal amounts of attention and there's a bottleneck in processing. Situations that others seem to deftly and effortlessly navigate require effort from me to stay focused on. If you’re telling me what I should be doing in a raid in Destiny then you’d better bullet point the important things for me and cut out the flowery descriptions that I might otherwise normally enjoy, all that extra detail is something I have to filter to get to the meat of what you told me. But once I know and understand what I’m doing I will do it well.
Multitasking can be difficult. If music is playing too loud then I can struggle to do basic math. This goes for conversations as well. I enjoy discussing and talking with friends, but can spend so much time trying to absorb what's said and filter out what's important, that I can often miss something in the moment. Conversations in groups can be especially busy, I'm often only listening and fail to add anything of my own as a barrage of back and forths go between friends. Even 1 to 1 in text, if chat is going quickly I can end up responding to something that was said several lines ago only after getting a moment to register its meaning and come to a conclusion.
The result of all this information drives me to need time to myself so that I can think through and organise all that has happened. It can get to a point that I have so much in my mind that I am only reacting, and so far that I even stop reacting because I have no mental capacity left to do so. And then the times when there is so much, I am no longer able to process, stuck in a loop and mental playback of things without coming to any conclusion or understanding.
This happens to varying degrees, and it is dependent on mood and overall situation. If things are good in general and I have things in hand, if I have gott'n into the rhythm of the social dance then I can follow and bring a back and forth with ease. If not, then I shut down and it's like getting blood from a stone in responses from me, and for the most part this has been me for the last couple years. This isn't to say I haven't been feeling good or struggling to enjoy myself, it's not even to say that I don't enjoy spending time with people and partaking in a good bit of banter. It's just a big rush of information that I am not always able to or ready to engage in, especially in my rougher moments. And if I'm quiet, it's not because I'm not interested or don't care.
And then there are the things that I focus on with ease, and I forget the rest of the world exists. Like when discussing a topic of particular interest to me, or I binge whatever game I’m obsessed with in the moment, examine the ins and outs of the mechanics, lost to the world, forget to eat, don’t hear messages, and oh my god it’s 5am where did the time go?
This is all very simplified, I've barely scratched the surface, I'm glossing over experiences and reactions, there's caveat after caveat and every manner of ifs, ands, or buts. Yeesh, I could keep going on and on but I'd rather not write an autobiography. Suffice to say I've got a lot of stuff going on in my head, and along with the methods I already developed to manage over the years, I'm now gaining insight and so becoming better tooled to help myself in future.
Everyone is different, and my experiences with autism will not always match up what another person has. Autism has particular things that can be affected but not all are, a spectrum in all cases, and to different degrees and even opposites or extremes. For example, those that are overly sensitive to particular stimulus such as myself; a slamming door is too loud for me, a single percent in volume adjustment can mean the world of difference. And there are those that are less sensitive, in which they don’t realise how much noise they make, slam doors, like their music top volume and think you’re crazy when you ask for that single percent of difference quieter, not even believing that there is any difference.
Another example which has a common misunderstanding is that those with asd don’t understand sarcasm, or emotions, this might be true for some, but there are those that use sarcasm expertly and are extremely aware of others emotions. Even if they themselves are difficult to read by others and don’t show on the surface, they can still very much have a sea of broiling emotions underneath.
Ok enough of that, again I could go on and on. On to the physical side of things, which I had neglected because I was too stuck to do anything about it. I had physical problems for ages and despite knowing I should do something about them, it was always ‘I’ll do it another time, it’s fine’.
I moved to my current home around 3 years ago, and I only just in the last month actually managed to sign myself up to a GP and dentist. I had a filling fall out 1.5 years ago, was eating with only one side of my face since. My physical symptoms for the last 5-6 years had the possibility to be problems with my kidneys or liver, or other life threatening things. I have now in the last week gott'n a new filling, and had blood test results and a discussion with the GP to rule out the life threatening problems, I have started receiving treatment for less concerning and manageable issues.
Despite having confidence in myself and my abilities, I have had anxiety to the point I had secluded myself from friends, family, and had reduced my friends circle ever smaller, not intentionally and consciously but through an ever increasing desire for peace and quiet. I only managed to get myself to finally do these things after asking help from a family member when I had finally accepted the invite to visit them.
Having actually gotten the ball rolling on these things, accepted that I needed help and actually followed through with that, I am starting to feel better. I am looking into counselling, and have applied for an official autism diagnosis, though from the response I received my first assessment is 18 friggin months away.
Oh well, that’s fine, I’ve gotten things moving, and that’s what matters.
Hope things continue to improve but even if theres another rougher bit, its an ongoing fight not a one loss and done thing. Keep going and keep teying. You'll get there.
Good going and I hope things improve further.
We're here for you all the way.
Also, thank you.
We love that all stigma against meds and therapy is gone.
it's great that you come out and describe your experience, because i'm sure many would relate -- i definitely relate to the anger issues when i was younger, and the ability to focus (or more specifically, no focus at all or hyper focus with no in-between)