How we heal from our trauma isn’t anyone else’s decision but our own.

It’s been a while since I’ve logged into this account. I’ve spent the past year or so finally in a space where I could work on the trauma from my past.

It took me getting to 46 to find a psychologist who actually wanted to help me work on it, who wasn’t afraid of my intensity, because let’s face it, we Autistics don’t exude watered down emotions like neurotypicals do.

A lot of the stuff from my past that I hadn’t dealt with was either because I wasn’t allowed to work through it, I wasn’t in the right space, or I just wasn’t able to mentally look back on the stuff that happened and I was hiding from it.

Not allowed to work on my trauma? Who wouldn’t let you not be able to heal you ask? Well anyone with trauma can answer that easily enough. It’s the people who caused the trauma that won’t let you deal it or move past it. Because you talking about it might mean that they have to confront what they did to you to cause the trauma, and they’re either ashamed of it, or scared of what backlash they’ll have to face.

So when I finally got to the stage where I wasn’t afraid of facing certain aspects of my past and was brave enough to face them, I started making actual progress. I had, for my own mental health and wellbeing, removed certain people’s from my life so I could even do something about it. But even after I did it still took a few years to start the work.

Now there are 2 major people I had blocked. The other others were for the most part, collateral damage. I didn’t want those 2 main people to have any kind of access into my life by going through anyone else. Because of gossip. These 2 are huge lovers of gossip. Except of course if it’s the truth about anything that doesn’t make it entertaining. So they have to twist and alter events to make them more interesting to them. Do they realise that those actions actually bring pain and harm to the person they are gossiping about? Yes they do. But that fact won’t change their actions.

Every person who heals from trauma does it in a way that helps them.

It’s about them, not anyone else, and no one gets to tell that person how they heal. At all. They don’t get to tell the person they’re making it up, that the events they’re talking about are in their in head, they don’t get to gaslight the person trying to heal. Just because they’re uncomfortable or in anyway threatened with what that person is talking about.

When I started talking about the things that happened to me in my past, I did it with TikTok. I did live videos. I had a community of people I would speak to, and even if more often than not I might be speaking with one person, and a different person every time, being able to talk to a phone screen made it so much easier to start processing things, because I could then take that to my psychology sessions and get more out of those sessions.

I found that with each awareness of myself and how I handled things, I was even able to help a small amount of people. To show them with my journey that they could do the same.

I didn’t just talk about trauma of course. I spoke about a myriad of things, including Neurodiversity, assistance dog training, art, life in general, listened to metal……I didn’t have a specific niche. But I had a small group of regulars that would pop in and say hi. I was able to reach my community. Which for the last 3 years has been very difficult due to lack of a car and a few other things.

I had started learning more about my ancestry and the roots of the clan I was born into , and from there I started looking at what spirituality and deities they worshipped and went down a rabbit hole to where I now practise Scottish Folk Magic, Paganism, Witchcraft, Shamanism etc. And even there I’m not set in one niche.

I started doing shadow work in line with the therapy, which had me doing all manner of spells to cut the past away. Everything helped. It helped me. One spell I did in particular had such a dramatic end to it, but I felt so different afterward. I felt lighter. With each step I gaining a confidence I hadn’t ever been allowed to have or was allowed to nurture.

Even before I received my autism diagnosis at 11, I was a project. Something that needed fixing and controlling because I wasn’t “normal”. I didn’t fit. What was me was too much for people to handle. My emotional capacity alone was too much.

So when I did get that diagnosis what did that mean for me? The fix me effort went up in volume. I spent more time being taken out of school to specialists and doctors and put on fad diets, I got mum’s brand of aba without actually having aba. Anything that was even mildly me must be quashed. I must do as I was told, not do as I witnessed. If I tried to say I was in pain I was putting it to get out of school. If I said I was being bullied I was imagining it because we all know I’m not “normal” like everyone else and I’m not seeing how people actually are, and they’re such nice girls, I don’t believe that they’d bully you. I had no body autonomy. I wasn’t allowed to be uncomfortable. I wasn’t allowed to say no.

As you can imagine having no body autonomy and not being allowed to say no led me down a path of sexual abuse when I was older. I didn’t know I could say no. I too afraid of getting into trouble.

Did I go to a private school and go horse riding, yes. But does that mean that anything I experienced growing up was all in my head? That because of my own life choices I’m trying to find someone else to blame for them? That I’m just an ungrateful person and only want to hurt someone else because my life is miserable?

To those that have experienced trauma in their childhood, or trauma at all, who experienced anything that caused you mental pain, are you only trying to blame others for your own sins? Does the status of your parents finances mean that everything you went through all in your head and you’re just ungrateful?

I know what the answer to that is.

For people who know autism exists, and know that not every autistic person is the same or functions the same, but then accuse autistic people of just being horrible selfish humans who make up the pain they experience to blame others and say they only take and take and take till they drive everyone away…..Do you say that to every autistic person or just the ones you’re related to?

To the autistic people who have to fight so hard to even get recognised as human, who have to fight for every single right they have, who live in fear of police because we know what police are like to autistics, who have to fight for validation and every accommodation, who know who they are but have every single aspect of their personality eviscerated by those who are supposed to know you better, the gaslighting…..You know it. You felt it. Are feeling it. Are going through it right now.

I see you. I see you fighting. I see your struggle. When your own family tries to pull you down because they can’t stand the thought of you being strong and your own person independent from them and not what they tried to make you, I see you.

I fought for a long time. I am not the person my family knew. The push over. The door mat. The one who apologise for things she didn’t even do. Who would make peach with the people who caused her pain. When I started saying no more, when I started walking with my head up and not cowering and darting out of the way of others even at the shops, when I saw people have to notice me and make way for me, when I refused to be disrespected anymore and started speaking about my past, MY past, my eccentric blocking of family members, and leaving mainstream religion (which a whole other story) wasn’t just a funny story to talk about behind my back. Now I was a problem. I was a trigger.

Not every person who grew up in the same family had the same upbringing or experience.

If anything of what I was talking about was a lie in anyway, I would have just been ignored. It just would have been silly old me doing her eccentric things again. Isn’t sad she’s this, isn’t it sad she’s that.

I had effectively, or so I thought, blocked these people from my social media. I blocked people just so they couldn’t see me through anyone else. I did a huge culling on fb and insta. And no one from those accounts even knew I had TikTok. Till one day while blocking trolls from following my accounts I saw that my sister had started following me. I immediately blocked her thinking that would be it. It stupidly didn’t occur to me that she could easily view me through someone else accounts, or even make another one.

But over the last 9 months at least, I started getting alerts that someone was watching me. It was confirmed a few months ago after an event at home, when my mother messaged my son out of the blue knowing what was going on. I confronted my father about it because I had specifically asked him to not tell either my mother or my sister anything about me anymore because I was sick of them gossiping about me behind my back. I didn’t deserve it. And since he was the only one left on my fb I didn’t think it could be anyone else. He denied it. But I knew someone was watching what was going on with my life because there is no way my mother would have know otherwise. But again I thought it couldn’t be my sister because I had blocked her.

I sent a message to my mother telling her since she had years with which to contact her grandson, and I wasn’t stopping her from doing so, she didn’t get to pick a difficult time in his life with which to do it just so she could have gossip fodder. She hadn’t cared about him before then so why pretend now. I didn’t get a response.

I kept on my healing journey. I kept working the past, and was working toward trying to pay a huge debt after my assistance dog in training got sick and died at only 2 in a horrible way (again another story). There was a lot going on. I kept doing live videos and I was talking about the things that happened in my past. MY past. I didn’t at that time mention names. If I referred to my sister I called her the crotch goblin, and no one knew my mothers name. I didn’t give out those details. But my lives were getting spam reported for the most ridiculous reasons. Like nudity, or I was talking about abuse that happened to me and I was reported for hate speech. Things like that.

Then one day I sent a message to my father to say hi. I don’t talk to him much because it’s not always comfortable and I was always being accused of asking for money. Which I wasn’t. Not even hinting at it. I mean just because you speak about difficulties you’re having doesn’t mean you’re implying you want money.

We got through the pleasantries, then he said, oh and i know what you’ve been saying on tiktok too.

Now as soon as I started getting more suspicion about someone watching me I started revealing more things. I wanted. to draw out who ever it was.

So when my father said this I said, so you do have someone watching me. I said it’s my sister right. He diverted from the question. I asked for the usernames of who ever it was, either one person or however many, I just wanted the usernames so I could block them. Not a hard ask right? I was refused. I messaged my mother and also emailed her. I was going with under the belief at that time that it was my sister. I mean it couldn’t possibly be anyone else. Mum sent me through a huge reply. I got through the first part where she denied my sister had a TikTok account and didn’t read the rest because I knew it would be the same gaslighty bullshit it always was. I in response sent her a screenshot of the one account of my sisters that I knew of.

I asked on multiple occasions for the usernames so I could block them and that this stalking would cease, I finally said, look I’m happy to just start talking about more stuff that I wouldn’t have otherwise if I don’t get those usernames. I don’t deserve to have this going on. I haven’t done anything to any of you. No one listened. So I started talking about more stuff that happened. All of it stuff that happened. Whether it was to me directly or just stuff that happened in the past. I was booted off the live and restricted. I did a video outing my sister with a screenshot of her profile on TikTok (a public profile) where her profile pic is snapchatted so no one would even know who it was, and part of her maiden name, and a screenshot of a message she sent me back in 2019 that was so horrible I couldn’t even process and hadn’t showed it to anyone even after she wrote I should share it with all my social media friends. That had her last name on it. I didn’t share anything else about her. I didn’t share her phone number or address because I don’t have them, and even if I did I wouldn’t share them.

Next thing you know I’m at home on a friday afternoon in the middle of a training session with my dog, when I get a knock on the door. It’s the police. I’m naturally confused. They had gotten a report that I was trying to kill myself. Then a giant ass ambulance, not one of the small ones, a giant one, reverses into my driveway. The few neighbours who had come out to see why the police were at my house multiplied to every neighbour who could even see my house and then some. I was a spectacle to my street. The neighbours who already thoguht I was weird were really getting a good show.

Of course I thought it was a bit too coincidental that this happened now. There is an internal investigation going on to find out wtf.

I then did a video about wtf. It got reported and taken down first for threat of suicide and then for bullying and harassment. I then sent my sister an email asking for to back off.

She responded and then I responded and you can imagine how it went. In the end she kept denying her involvement saying some random person came across my TikTok and somehow knew I was her sister and then screen recorded most of my lives to send to her and that’s how she saw what I was doing.

Quick aside….who here actually believes that?

She also said my father never actually said it was her. No he didn’t. But given the facts, and my deductive reasoning abilities, it couldn’t be anyone else. And when I directly asked my father he again sidestepped the question. If it wasn’t her why allow me to continue to say it was? It didn’t make any sense.

In the end after the last correspondence from her I blocked her email. It was just nasty and she did everything in her power to try and take. medown, to make me question my reality, to make me sound like a crazy person who had the most amazing and marvellous upbringing and was spoilt and got whatever she wanted and I’m just ungrateful and want to take people down for no reason other than I’m miserable in my own life. She refused to call me by the new name I taken (I legally changed my name in the effort to move forward and cut that person I was from my life), said my new name was shit…..It just went on. The most discriminating, ableist fuckery I’d read. And after being in the autism advocacy role for a few years, I’ve seen a lot . It’s also why I had to pull back from it.

I’m also at this time not going to hold back from sharing it, and my reply if I feel the need.

In the end all this effort to take me down, undo all the work I’ve done to get past the trauma that almost destroyed me, that impacted my life in so many ways that the fact I’m still alive after getting through some of the stuff that was done to me is a frickin miracle, it’s not going to work.

Did it cause me to stumble? Yes it did. I found myself back in that same frame of mind I’ve fought so hard to get out of. Questioning everything about myself and my actions, questioning my reality and my own experience. Doubting myself AGAIN.

But is any of this going to make me stay silent? No it’s not. Not one but me gets to decide how I heal or how I do it. My experience is my own.

To those reading this, if you take anything away from anything I’ve said, take this: The people who tell you to just let it go and forget it, who tell you talking about the past won’t fix it, the ones who say that are the ones who cause that pain, if they’re the ones who did it to you, or they do it to others. They don’t want you to shine any light on their actions because they don’t want people to see them for who they really are.

The more they react by what you reveal, only shows how much it’s triggering them. If you were lying about your past, they wouldn’t have reason to be so upset. Would they?

To those people who were involved with stalking my social media: If I was just making up stories, why are you so upset by anything I have to say? Why not just scroll past or block me? Or is the thought of taking someone down who is in anyway threatening to you just too big of an opportunity to pass up? Why spend so much time time screen recording my lives (because downloading someone else lives is not an option) and sending them on to my sister (if that is how it happened)? How does any of that make sense?

What is so deficient about a human that they’re so threatened by the progress someone has made to heal themselves and their life, that they have to spend so much time and effort to destroy all that work? How is that considered “normal” human behavior, but the things we autistic people do to get through each day of our lives is abnormal/wrong/selfish/narcissistic?

For people who would fight to the death anyone who tried to take their rights as humans away, or tried to dictate how they processed events that happened in their life to the point they would start a march or a protest to complain about it, how is what you’re doing by telling someone else they don’t have those same rights, or telling them anything they experienced in their in life totally is invalid not something that makes you a shit human being?

In the end it won’t matter anything I say to any of them. Anything I have to say will always be wrong.

I spent so long coming to terms with the fact that I would never be able to change my mothers opinion of me no matter what I did and that the years I spent trying to “fix” our relationship by taking her with. meto psychology session was just a waste of time. It wouldn’t ever change. I would just have to rationalise it as much as I could in my head and the put it aside. I thought I had managed that. I actually said to my psychologist, I wonder who it will be next that I have to process? Usually I would get a dream about someone and I’d take that as a sign from my brain that it was ready to deal with that. Then my sister popped up and all this shit happened. I actually thought. I was done dealing with her. She was the first I cut off. I had to. I don’t regret it. I then cut my mother off when it was clear that she had no respect for me at all if she was going to keep justifying all the attacks my sister made to me that she herself initiated with gossip. What made it worse is that they were both there for a lot of what happened so they know the truth.

I was just trying to live my life. I’m still just trying to live my life.

In everything that has happened not once have I asked anyone to take my side. They weren’t there for it. They only have what I say to go on. It’s also why I won’t ever take sides with anyone in an argument with anyone else. Not unless I know that person and I know their pattern and know for a sure thing wtf is going on. I wouldn’t expect anyone else to anything different for me. A person tells their truth in their pattern. Even the most unpredictable person has a pattern.

If someone else is in fact screen recording my lives or sharing the videos I make to give to my sister, they’re going on only what she has said. They don’t know me. The stereotypical story of the the charming man, or wonderful woman who never hurt a fly, and their whole family knows what a lovely person they are etc, but behind closed doors….. Everyone has heard that story. It makes for entertaining midday movie material. And the person at the brunt of their actions gets painted as the crazy person.

Oh and stalking someone online is still considered a criminal offense.

Why am I like this?

Ok so, all this ADHD med trialing is bring A LOT of stuff from the depths of my brain hole up into glaring light for me to see and remember.

I don’t this. I’m not ready for dealing with every single traumatic event from birth to now. Not all at once anyway. Thanks brain.

Meanwhile I have all the aspects of my personality shifting. Well it feels like it’s shifting. Changing.

I know that I am never going to be the person I was “supposed” to be before it all. That person has ceased to exist.

But what am I becoming?

After years of being the person that who ever was in my life or around me at the time wanted me to be, I’m in a place where I’m allowed, where I have given myself permission, to be who I want to be. But who is that?

Or am I just a chameleon, doomed to have no character of my own other than what I suck up from humans? Like a character vampire.

I like that term. I’m keeping it. I made it and it’s mine.

I’m in the usual state I’ve been stuck in for so many years I think it’s just part of what I am now. Flight or fight. Except now there is more fight.

I’m saying and doing things that I wouldn’t have even dared to say and do before for fear of repercussions. Standing up for myself and what I think and feel. Not just letting people walk all over me. Learning how to say no. Telling myself that I am allowed to say no. I’m allowed to say when I don’t agree with someone/thing. I’m allowed to say when someone is hurting me.

But the wall that I had erected to protect myself is getting thicker and higher. I have this HUGE suspicion of EVERYONE. I trust no one. Why should I be so foolish as to trust humans who have done nothing but cause me pain and misery?

I was watching a movie with my kid last night as is our routine. Super Intelligence with Melissa McCarthy. Great movie. Very funny. But I found myself thinking as the AI. Should humans be allowed to continue on this planet? If I was a super intelligence, or an alien from another planet, knowing what I know of humans after living among them for this many years, would I, given the power, let them live or destroy them all? The main character was saying that humans deserve a chance, That there are good people on this earth, and I was thinking, but are there? Really? Actually good people left on this planet that didn’t have a hidden agenda or a selfish desire, or wouldn’t throw their own children to the wolves to save their own skin if given the chance?

I don’t know anyone that is just purely good.

Yes I’m thinking of the support workers that come into our house and help us and take us out to where ever we need to go, but they’re paid to do that. Would they stick around and still be friends with us if they no longer worked with us? No they wouldn’t. Another lesson I learned from experience.

I am so untrusting and suspicious. I know this about myself. I’m not denying it to myself or anyone else anymore.

My son has also unfortunately learned this lesson very vividly. Especially over the last few years.

Those that know us, family or friends, who know that we are who and what we are, still will make us feel bad and accuse us of doing or being a certain way that we literally and figuratively cannot help.

My mother who constantly accuses me of not caring about her or the family because I never keep in touch or listen to gossip about everyone’s lives. The guilt trips and gaslighting. I feel it so much more intensely of late. That she hasn’t seen or noticed how hard I worked to keep in touch with people who never reciprocated or would complain when I did call. So I then I stopped and I’m still the bad guy.

My son who would never remember to keep in touch with anyone, even his own father (when he didn’t hate him and the fact that he is genetically related to him) is not left out of the guilt trips.

Not remembering that object permanence also extends to humans that we aren’t constantly around.

I have SO much anger and frustration. I hate it. I want to not feel like this.

I’m too scared to feel happy. I’m too scared to feel hope. Any time I let my guard down it’s something else that happens to make remember why I have the wall.

The fact that my brain is wired for pattern recognition and seeing all the little details is the reason why I appear to be so negative and pessimistic. I see from the data I have collected over all the events and years to know what the outcome of a situation is going to be. It’s worse that it’s rare that I am ever wrong.

And through all of this my consciousness floats deep in an existential crisis of what, who am I and why?

No I am not that sweet loving little girl that my mother once knew. That little girl was a fake. She was designed and created by a mother who had to have complete and utter control of me for fear of what she thought I’d become and fear of what I was. That little girl lived in constant fear of getting into trouble. She lived watching while her mother drew a live between her sister and her, and me and my father. She drew that line. She gave all that motherly attention to her perfect not Autistic child and blamed me for it, that I didn’t want to be hugged or touched so that naturally meant I didn’t want any kind of motherly affection of words of approval or ever told I was enough or perfect as I was. I was meanwhile shipped from doctors to specialists to therapist to fix what was broken.

I would NEVER ever be that kind of mother to any child I would have. Never. I worked constantly to make sure that I never become that.

She’s drawn that same line between my son and her grand daughter. The offspring of her perfect child.

I know why I’m like this. I am what I was made. And now I must learn to own that and make what adjustments I need and want to make to turn it into mine.

I’m Saoirse now. And I am breaking free.

It’s been a while.

It’s been a while since I last blogged.

I used to be so great at keeping journals and writing down everything of the day, poems, and all the jumbled mess that was my brain.

But then life happened. Health conditions worsened, mental health worsened.

2 years ago I had ADHD added to the list on top of the ASD and the EDS and the fibro…….I was collecting an impressive list of letters after my name that would make a doctor jealous……If they were something like MB/ChB/MBBS instead anyway.

I have known for years about the ASD, though it was’t until my kid was born that started learning more about it. That I wasn’t “wrong” or “broken”, just different. Different wiring in my brain.

Over the last few months I’ve been trying to learn more about the ADHD side of my brain. Where it starts and the ASD stops. But there is so much overlap that it can get confusing.

I did learn that when I was little I was diagnosed as hyperactive, but this was in the late 70’s early 80’s so bupkis was known or understood about any of that stuff. I was prescribed these tiny little red pills that I still remember the look of and how they tasted. My mother said they made me like a zombie so she stopped them. But other than putting me on god knows how many fad diets, nothing else was done about it.

So I’ve spent my whole life unmedicated for a medicate-able condition. Not getting help for something I could have been getting help for. It was a miracle I was even diagnosed Autistic since it was thought to be super rare in girls.

So for almost a year I have been trying to find a medication that can help me get some control in my life. Some order in my brain. But thanks to my health conditions I don’t react well to medications. The first 2 almost landed me in hospital as I reacted badly to them. The second one I had to wean off slowly so I wouldn’t get so sick, but I was still laid oud out for days with withdrawals.

Then I started trailing Dex. I was honestly scared to try it considering my track record for med reactions, but by this time I was pretty desperate for something to help me.

Back story time

Ok so most know that a few years ago I started making work mats for assistance dogs that I named after my assistance dog, Kobash. It took off pretty fast and the mats became way more popular than I ever thought they’d be. I was self taught at sewing as well. From the mats I started making gear as well. I had so many ideas for dog stuff. I loved doing it so much. That this was something that came from me. Me who was the failure at life. I felt like I was giving back. I never really made anything from making the mats. After the amount it cost just for the materials I could never justify charging enough to make a profit.

Through 4 years I was doing it alone. A few times I tried to find someone to come in on the business with me to really try and make it something, but never could find anyone.

Then I got separated. A crap ton of stuff happened including my dog dying (not Kobash), my back dislocating for 6 weeks, getting scammed….you named it it was happening to me.

2020 rolled over and after it starting with losing what I thought was a friend to a woman I thought was becoming my first girl friend, I got conned by a used car salesman, and then covid hit.

Shipping anything during the start of a pandemic was impossible. But people wanted fabric for their mats from the one place that I had to order from overseas. The delay in materials to make the orders, my worsening health conditions, dealing with a divorce and that ex spreading rumours I had to also deal with, my kids dad throwing his crap in to the pot and the any rhythm I had in production came to a grinding halt.

When things settled enough and I could start sewing again, my brain and my body had had enough. I’d wrecked my shoulders, one was now frozen, I was in and out of a wheel chair, my brain was giving me all the anxiety and melt downs and panic attacks and anything else it could throw at me…..I had to announce the closure of Kobash Mats.

I’m still behind on like 6 mats including gear. It’s been a year. I get panic attacks even trying to walk into the work room. I have half finished orders sitting on the table. I hate myself.

I’m battling ADHD paralysis, executive dysfunction, ASD burn out…. While my frozen shoulder is now thawing I’ve also managed to hurt myself in other ways. My harmful stims are out of control.

I had to fight through a massive phobia about medications to even make the step to trying to get the ADHD medicated. So having such severe reactions to the first two, I was terrified to try anything else.

The last time I saw the shrink and she gave me the prescription for it including the directions on how to take it, months had gone past as I was detoxing off the last medication. I spent days not getting off a chair, showering properly, doing anything to manage my life without a ton of support. I had to pysch myself up to it but I picked a day I knew I would have a support worker, filled the prescription, and took the dex. The bottle said to take 1 pill. I took the one pill….

Everything was weeeeeeeee! Headspins, giggling, a whole conversation about farts in Bunnings with multiple people I will never live down. This was on a Friday. I had to planned to not worry about taking the meds over the weekend as I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere anyway and had nothing to do. When the dex left my system there wasn’t a dramatic difference as I was expecting so that was good. But that night I didn’t sleep. The whole weekend I felt so DARK. my thoughts, my feels, everything was dark. I felt like what was the point to anything? And at the same time I felt like if one more person tried to fuck us over I’d punch them in the face.

Now I might rant and be very expressive in my emotional output, but no matter how angry I “look”, I’m not a violent person. But I actually felt like I could punch someone.

Naturally I was too anxious to try it again when Monday came. By Tuesday I was still feeling meh but I had a doctors appointment so went to that. I told the doctor about my first experience with the medication and he looked at his computer and said, you know you were only supposed to take half a pill right??

Um….no. I forgot. And the pill bottle said to take 1 pill. So I did that.

He said try the half pill as the shrink said the next day. I was scared, but so desperate to get some control of my brain, that I did it. I took half a pill.

I noticed that what happened the first time was dramatically reduced. I took it from Wednesday to Friday and again not on the weekend. That weekend past as did the last, with dark thoughts. But I found if I took it early enough in the morning I could get some semblance of sleep at night.

Another week, this time Monday-Friday, and again not on the weekend. But here is where I really started noticing a difference physically as well. All through the week I had found that buried thoughts and memories were starting to surface. Things I didn’t really want to remember. I was still dark as all the stuff that had happened I’m my life, all the trauma, was pushing itself right in my face and I felt why the point of anything. People suck. Everything sucked. My emotional reactions to things when it was out of my system were more dramatic or at least more noticeable to me. I was less able to do the things I needed to do as a single parent in the evenings. Trying to multitask was impossible.

But that second weekend I felt the physical difference. I have learned in my knowledge for the workings of ADHD, that it’s common for headaches, neck pain, joints, muscles etc. I have had pain most of my life. Pain is not unknown to me. But now I was feeling it in a more intense way. I was more aware of it. I mean I was still driving with a dislocated back and that didn’t stop me! My brain was getting used to finally getting some dopamine that when it was out of my system my body was WTF?! I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t move my body the way I wanted to move it.

So I decided that I couldn’t stop taking it on weekends even if I didn’t go anywhere. That made a difference.

When I went back to the shrink to give her an update she was honestly shocked I had even tried the dex considering the way I reacted to the other two meds. To help me get through an evening better she upped to dosage.

I do feel like it’s helping, and will be great once the dose is right. I mean I feel like it’s done more than anything else has.

But I’m also getting a lot of moments of existentialism, why anything, too much sucks, I’m sick of humans, family issues are more in my face, the repressed memories I have to now deal with, and after a lifetime of being controlled by one person after another from the time I was born, I’m finally, in my 40’s, asking who the fuck am I?? I honestly have no idea.

But I feel like I’m starting to figure that out.

Once I’m actually able to walk into that work room and finish what I need to finish, and close up Kobash Mats, I’m going to do all the things need and want to do. Help my kid finish up his last year of home ed, get our comic/cartoon released, all the advocacy and education stuff I’ve always wanted to do, including all the things the ADHD side of my brain wants to jump down the rabbit hole into, focus more on training my pup to be my next assistance dog, and learn more about Celtic things as I have this weird connecty vibey feel toward it.

And hopefully in the process find me.

If you would like to help my pup Luisneach become an assistance dog you can sponsor her at https://linktr.ee/PlanetAutistic on the PayPal link. She also has a wish list on amazon. You can also check her out on TikTok @this_is_just_me_genx

Blog of the life and times of a technically adulting neurodivergent human.

It’s my goal to write more about life as a neurodivergent.

There are many stories of late life diagnosed people, but I don’t see as many from those that were diagnosed young

and in the 1980’s.

So I want to talk about what life was like growing up being the odd one out. The wrong one. The left of centre.

And how my upbringing directly influenced my adulthood and the resulting trauma I now fight with everyday.

I feel like my life is a cliché or a midday movie.

I try also to educate where I can about life as an Autistic, and now also more about ADHD as I’m learning more about

side of my neurology as well.

I also have succumbed to the TikTok. I know, I’m lame.

I’ll also talk about training my German Shepherd pup Luisneach as my next assistance dog as Kobash has now

retired (link to sponsor Luisneach for her assistance dog training: https://linktr.ee/PlanetAutistic)

Thanks for tuning into this bat station.

Fool me infinity shame on me. Fool me the last time…..

I have learned a lot over the course of my Autistic life.

Mostly about who I can and can’t trust.

Unfortunately I’ve learned that I can’t trust anyone.

After spending the entirety of my relationship life with people who were abusive and toxic, I had built up a very big wall for self protection.

After I finally succeeded in removing the last abusive one from my life (for the most part) I spent many months in a state of shock and trying to come to terms with a lot of traumatic things that then proceeded to occur directly after it.

When I started to come out of it months later and get to the point where I could start taking steps in actively repairing all the damage that had been done over many many years, I met a person who I really wanted to believe was the friend I’d never had.

Never had.

While I was taking steps to work through PTSD and a whole mess of other issues (changing my name was one big step I took. Leaving the past with my old name that was associated with all the trauma) this friend appeared to be right by my side.

The meeting was quite unexpected. I had recently made my debut into the lgbt world, and met this person on a new group I had joined on FaceBook. This group was completely out of my field of experience. I had till then only been in groups for Autistic people and those from the assistance dog community. I was used to the dynamics in those groups. I knew how they worked.

But this group was way out of my known social interactions.

Then up popped this person who I had actually known from the beginning of my Kobash Mats adventures. I hadn’t met her in the flesh but now she lived not far away.

We started to hang out. I was not used to having a friend mind you. All my social interactions were online. I had put up a guard against friends after suffering some very nasty things at the hands of people who said they were my friend.

I was still guarded. But over the months of spending time with this woman who was a personality the polar opposite to mine, I started to let that guard down.

This woman was vibrant. She was concentrated orange juice. Completely undiluted and on the go. She had suffered her own loses and traumatic events. So I felt assured that she would be able to relate to mine even if they weren’t the same.

I found myself stepping out of my comfort zones and into things I wouldn’t have been pushed into doing before.

Every now and then I would get the niggling thoughts. I’d see something that wasn’t quite right, a reaction to something, the concerns would hover just in my field of vision to torment me that things were not going to end well. I brushed them aside. Like I usually did when I really wanted to believe in something.

I hate that my mother was right.

She warned me.

But here’s me at 44 years old. I’d suffered enough. I was prepared for anything. I was an old hat and discerning.

I was a fool.

I joined an app (yes one of those apps). I was on the full go and on the mission to make new friends (and maybe something else) and get to know this whole new life I was embarking on. I was ready to push past the trauma of the past and the people who had hurt me. The friends who weren’t friends.

I started chatting to this one lady. After a slow start, one day the messages came on more and more. I thought I was being careful.

Her attention of me, and the flattery, the sweet words and the consolations, the anger at those that had hurt me and her admonition that I was safe with her, that my son was safe with her. I wanted to believe them.

Thoughts of Brian Lumleys dreamworld books with the undead pirate princess, sweet and lovely on the outside, but death and corruption and ooze just beneath the surface…….

Those are the visions that played in my mind upon hearing those words.

I thought I was being over careful. But again I didn’t listen to my instincts.

Things became intense very quickly. And the while my friend was encouraging me and pushing me, “your girlfriend this, your girlfriend that”…..We had by this time gone out a couple of times. For coffee, the movies. When valentine’s came around my friend pushed me to give this woman a gift. I wasn’t ready for that and I thought it was too soon, but she insisted and said it was the right move. She even bought me the necklace with which to give to her.

My friend asked if I wouldn’t mind if she sent this woman a friend request because she said she wanted to suss her out. I didn’t think anything of it and thought she was being protective. I thought it was sweet.

During this time my friend had been going through relationship troubles of her own. I felt so bad for her but had no idea how to help.

After a particularly troubling time there were concerns for my friend as she also had a history of suicide. And when she went quiet all of a sudden I sprung into action.

I have a horrible fear of driving on the highway. My peripheral vision is really wide, and with the constant flickering going past that field of vision and the hyper vision at the front, I get quickly overloaded to the point I can actually feel my eyes start to shut down and I panic.

But I smashed through that and drove over 40 mins down the highway in the rain (I couldn’t even see the road) just to get to my friend in the case she did something.

I don’t even know how I made it there. But I did. I told her she was coming back with me so she could hang out. She didn’t have to talk if she didn’t want to. She could drink or do whatever, but she was coming with me. I brought her back to my house where she did drink and then I drove her home. At night time. With the headlights to blind me and my vision impaired. But I did it because she was my friend.

I almost didn’t make it home. I almost died running off the road I couldn’t see anymore. But I did it. I wouldn’t have done it for anyone else.

We all hung out one afternoon and evening. It was fun. Just having a few drinks (for me it was the first drinks I’d had in years as I’m not much of a drinker and don’t like the taste). After hours of talking and just sitting on the living room floor, my friend dozing on the couch behind us, and us watching tv, she leaned over suddenly and laid one on me out of nowhere. No build up or anything just bam. I was shocked as I didn’t expect it. This was a first kiss. My mind was already whirling from the unexpectedness of it, but then she put me on the spot by pressing me as to what I thought of it. I had no idea what to say. So I fumbled and said it took me by surprise. Which it did.

Of course I started over thinking things again. My past was quite religious so thoughts of damnation were swirling through my head. I was also terrified of the thought of stringing this woman along because of the abuse from my past because I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever be able to have a physical relationship with anyone. I was really trying to force myself through that past and fighting it. One half of me wanted to take the chance that not everyone was out to hurt me. But the other half was just waiting for it to happen again.

I tried to talk to my friend about how I was feeling but I didn’t feel that she heard me.

Then a couple of weeks ago an event happened which my girlfriend (which I believed her to be by this time) actually saved the life of a young man.

Boy was I so proud of her. She was amazing. Not only was she super intelligent, but a hero as well. I bragged.

Of course up to this point we had stuck to text communication because I don’t do well on the phone. I can’t concentrate on what the other end is saying and I lose the conversation. The day after the event the gf asked if she could call me. I said yes.

She was very upset about the events following what had happened to the young man outside her apartment building, the cover up by the council and police of what had actually happened. She was ranting on the phone. But I let her. Even when my brain was struggling because she was so angry and getting more and more agitated and the energy coming through the phone was so intense. She was getting more riled up and then said she needed to calm down. I had no idea how to help her. It was late in the evening and being a single mum I couldn’t just leave my son and go over to her place. I was racking my brain trying to find was to take some of this agitation away from her.

I thought, I’ll distract her with something funny. That sometimes helps me when I’m angry and upset. Maybe that will help her.

I had the perfect funny anecdote that was fresh and I was still giggling over it. I thought that will certainly distract her so she can calm down and the be able to process things better.

Now in my Autistic mind this was the perfect thing to do. We suck up everyone’s emotions and energies and after already being overloaded by own concentrated versions of those energies, our brains just don’t cope with them and we have no idea how to help when we see someones who really needs our help.

I started to relate her the funny anecdote. I didn’t get very far before she started yelling at me over the phone. It got louder and louder. She yelled at me for pandering to idiots, she yelled at me for not picking my battles, she even started yelling at me about my sons dad and court and a whole bunch of other things totally out of nowhere.

I went into shock. I do not ever cope with being yelled at. I spent my whole relationship life being yelled at.

My brain started to shut down. I tried to interject a couple of times to make a correction or to stand up for myself, but she would just yell over me to be quiet.

The she stopped. A few more words were spoken and then she hung up after getting me to tag her in a link on fb.

I was completely stunned. I was in total shock. I started going down a ptsd spiral and I fought to not get drowned in it. But for anyone who does suffer ptsd you know it’s not that easy. And it doesn’t take much to send you into one.

The next day I battled with my brain to be able to send her a text saying it was not ok that she yelled at me. She had actually sent me one first to say she knew I was cranky at her and that she wasn’t trying to be hard on me.

I wasn’t cranky. At all. I was shocked. I sent through that I was processing to which she replied she’d leave me alone then. I  was still as I always am, afraid that I would be seen in the wrong light. So I pushed myself together to write the text in defense of myself and that it wasn’t ok what she did.

She said I was right and that she shouldn’t have yelled. I said thank you.

I was full of adrenaline and emotion. I knew that she had just had a bad event happen. I was feeling so guilty that I was going through a ptsd episode and having all these thoughts rushing through my head.

I hate playing games. And I don’t like it when people just stop communicating. So she messaged me I still responded. I couldn’t get out more than one word here and there, but I still responded. She accused me of playing games and playing the silent treatment. I defended myself and said I don’t do that, and I was actually in and out of appts with doctors and physio that day as well.

She then dropped out of contact.

The next day a post popped up on my fb feed. She was over at my friends house having drinks. Just the two of them.

I was stunned. I really was. But I was telling myself that I was being an absolute tool bag and no way anything was going on.

I called my friend to see what was up but she didn’t say anything about this woman being over there but told me to come over. So I did. I drove down the highway in peak hour traffic telling myself over and over what an IDIOT I was being.

When I got there they were having drinks and playing a game of jenga. I felt like I walked into something. But I stood there like an idiot because my brain decided to work against me. Should I sit next to the woman? What if she didn’t want me to? I got the feeling she didn’t want me sitting next to her, but she was wearing the necklace I’d given her whatif she got angry if I sat next to my friend? I went back and forth like this for what seemed like an eternity. Feeling like I an idiot. Am I standing normally? How do I put my arms? My feet? What is a body supposed to do???!

In the end I pushed myself in the woman direction. Did she just move away a little or did  imagine it? I felt this intense energy that she didn’t want me there at all. And after being there for about an hour and the feeling getting worse and worse I made an excuse and left.

I felt like a complete fool.

The next afternoon I still hadn’t heard anything from her so I made the first move and said I was sorry for being weird on the weekend.

She ignored the text.

But the next day she sent me a message saying she’d been doing some thinking and……..I hope we can still be friends.

What are else are you supposed to say to that but ok? Even if you don’t mean it? I mean all the talk of wanting to get to know my son (she sent him a friend request without even asking me), all the sweet words of what she wanted to do with me, that we’d travel, the road trips….. All stopped.

Of course all the little things that niggled at my mind started coming to the surface, remember this thing that happened that time? What about that time we all hung out and she kept moving toward my friend, that wasn’t in my imagination….I remember at the beginning of it all when she said the end of her past relationship was her fault. I had “forgotten” about that. Even when she started telling us about what a nasty person her ex was.

The inconsistencies built up. I tried to talk to my friend about it. I really wanted to talk to her about it. But she said she didn’t want to get in the middle. I was stunned. I was there for her when she was having issues with her girlfriend. I sat and listened even when she kept repeating herself because that’s what friends do.

That’s what upset me the most about the whole thing. The fact that I couldn’t even talk to my friend about it.

I sent her a detailed message about and I thought she finally heard me and that everything was ok. But now this woman is hanging around her with her. Alot.

I spoke to her about it. I asked her if there was something going on with them and she said no. But she’d video chat me and she was sitting right next to her acting like it was perfectly normal. Was it just me that gets upset by this? I posted about it on my autism group. Every single one of them told me it wasn’t in my head. They told me to delete both of them. But I didn’t because something was going to happen. I could feel it and I was worried for my friend. I thought this woman was playing games.

After calling and telling me she was coming down and we’d hang out, and I’d wait around all day, my friend wouldn’t turn up.  Then a post would pop up on my newsfeed and she and that woman were together. But my friend would tell me that she got tired early and went to sleep.

I knew something was going on. But another friend we had in common was assuring me that no way would this friend go out with her. She wasn’t like that.

Then yesterday morning I got a message. It was from that woman and she said she had something to talk to me about. Of course the adrenaline set in. I was already having a potsy day and the palpitations were wreaking havoc on me. But they amplified. I spent half an hour debating with myself on whether or not to respond. In the end I did and said, what is it?

She replied I think you can guess. I really couldn’t guess. I already “knew” that there wasn’t anything going on between her and my friend so it wasn’t that.

I replied, well my empathic abilities don’t extend to telepathy so you’ll have to tell me (smiley face).

I was standing in eb games when her reply came through.

Poodle and I are together.

BOOM!

I could feel my brain explode. I lost the ability to speak. I ran out of the shops (well I limped as fast as i could). My son knew something had happened. He asked me was I upset and I said yes. He said let me guess, they’re together?

I was stunned that he had picked up on it. My 16 year old who is also Autistic, who I thought was oblivious to this stuff had already known. I sat there blinking at him. He said, it’s ok I didn’t like them anyway.

I tried to call my friend to see if it was true. No answer. I messaged her. No answer.

Another message. I hope you can be happy for us.

I felt like I’d been punched in the face. My turned back on and I replied, what do you honestly expect to happen? I talked about all the sweet words, I said it was only one event that I didn’t react the way she expected and it was over. How did she think I’d react that she’d gone to my friend?

That was my one fear about all of this. Not that I was single again, but that I was going to lose this person who I thought was my friend over it.

But that’s exactly what happened.

The other woman then started on the attack. I have no idea what it is to be an empath. During that nasty event that happened to her all I did was force my own agenda and talk over her so she couldn’t speak.

Hang on. That’s not what happened. My memory for these things is a steel trap. I remember everything. Well I don’t remember that we’re out of toilet paper and there’s a pandemic where if you have toilet paper you’ll die from coronavirus.

But I remember all that other stuff. I can’t ever forget any of it.

I said I barely got a word out before you started yelling at me. I did the only thing I could think of at the time to try to help you calm down and I got yelled at.

She said she wasn’t going to go into it with me because, she isn’t going to let me ruin what she has with my friend….. But I’d blocked her by that time. I wasn’t going to let her play that game with me. I wasn’t going to let her gaslight me into thinking I’d been the wrong one during it all and that I saw it all wrong…..no way. Not again.

Gaslighting is an all too common occurrence for Autistics. We are a target for it because all we really want to do is help. We want to take the other person’s pain away. But when we try to defend ourselves, our over thinking minds are a prime target for gaslighting.

 

Of course during all this my friend stayed silent.

I was completely crushed.

The one best friend I’d ever had in my entire life was gone.

That is the thing that tore at me the most.

That out of all of it I saw the friendship in a way she obviously didn’t.

Our intense feelings of loyalty don’t extend to those outside of the Autistic community.

I had let myself me vulnerable to another human and it cost me. Again.

 

What has all this taught me?

To not trust anyone else. That Autistics should stick to their own kind because no matter how nice someone appears to be, no one else but our own kind will EVER understand us. I know we still have issues within our own community as there are in every other one, but at the core…..

Others will force their own agenda while accusing you of being the one doing it.

Whether be it passive aggressive or not.

I won’t be letting anyone get that close ever again.

 

 

#planetautistic

#actuallyautistic

Processing

How does anyone else process things? Events, situations, life changes. Huge changes…..

This year has been a never end rollercoaster of just about everything. Somehow I stepped into the twilight zone and my life turned into a loop of This is the days of our lives.

This had built up over a very long time and by the end of January this year my marriage was over. It was for lack of trying either. I had never worked so hard at anything in my life. I really thought that reason and logic would prevail but in the end it didn’t. I already was no longer the person I was. Other stuff was going on there too.

By February my much loved Greyhound was dead. She got sick and just nose dived down hill. The vet used the words “internal disintegration” and that is a phrase that will forever haunt me.

My assistance dog Kobash was badly affected by how she went. Right after she did he got sick as well with a nasty skin flare up and double ear infections. He also developed anxiety about being an only dog. The stress of the first couple of months of year were taking effect. I wasn’t sleeping, was too scared to sleep. Every light in the house was on because the anxiety I get at night had kicked into hyper drive  and was kicking my arse.

The time frame for Kobash’s successor was sped up. My health had gotten to the stage where I need a mobility dog. Now I am not a short person and a mobility dog needs to be 30% of your height. But finding a large breed dog that has the abilities and qualifications to be an assistance dog is anything but easy. It also takes a long time to train and you can’t mobility training til they are fully grown so it would be past 2 years of age. So many factors all including the cost. Being limited means there was no way I could afford it.

Then I was approached by a lady who offered to donate me a pup from the next litter of dog she breeds for assistance dog work. I was stunned. Completely stunned.

I was also at the stage in my life I was starting to fully fear anything good happening at all because even with the littlest thing something really bad happened after it.

Too much to process. The dread and anxiety were with me constantly and I was just waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

I had been scouring the internet trying to find a dog suitable to foster. I had the abilty now. I wanted to foster a Greyhound in Nova’s memory but it wasn’t to be. No one would let me as I have cats. But I was confused as I had seen others fostering Greyhounds while they had cats. I also wanted Kobash to have a companion no matter for how short a time as I was trying to find anyway I could to help his anxiety. The vet wanted to put him on anti seizure medication for it but I refused it as the side effects were too great. I went another way which has since proved to show success.

The troubles with my sons dad were never ending and were escalating because my son had for the last few months flatly refused to see his father at all or ever talk to him or acknowledge his existence.

In my efforts to help them repair their relationship I set up a psychology appointment for them to talk it out. My son really balked at that idea. There was much conversation about it. He had massive anxiety about it. He finally agreed after I promised him that we would go to the pound afterward to have a look around. I told him I am not getting him a dog as I can’t afford it but we will just have a look as he was asking me if we could and the psychologist office wasn’t too far away.

The appointment went horribly. My son refused to even verbally speak to his father and would just text me. His dad spent the whole session telling us that I have no idea how to raise an autistic child as I am also autistic (……) and then comparing him to other kids (all of one child he actually knows) who does sports and  stuff and why isn’t his son like that?

So off to the pound we went. It was afternoon. I don’t do well in the afternoon. I really start wearing down, my ability to process information isn’t as good, my pain levels go up, I hadn’t eaten lunch and the lack of sleep was a constant hover.

After repeating the “not buying a dog”, my son made a bee line for one enclosure. One. The dog inside made a beeline for him and only him. It plastered itself against the cage mesh and tried to morph itself in to my son.

So naturally that dog came out for a play. I was talking with the staff about fostering, Kobash had started playing with this dog named Han ( I really wanted to foster a girl if possible as I like to keep a balance at home). It was the perkiest I’d seen Kobash in ages. He was really enjoying himself playing with this giant pup who they said was a wolfhound mix and just 6 months old. He was the same size as Kobash.

This was where my boy started the pressure. It was pressure I could not take. I was so tired. I was standing there watching them together, this giant puppy following my son around like his shadow and then darting off to play with Kobash. The staff member was giving me the details about how this pup had been dumped and I was looking at this fuzzy face giving me the “eyes”. You know the eyes? The ones that make you go aww and give them whatever they want? Well this dog is a genius at it.

I was so tired. I was so hungry. I was in pain. I wanted to sit down. The staff member and my boy took good advantage of this condition and pushed further. Now I didn’t think anything would come of it. I had no money. At all. I was lucky to have enough fuel to get home which was over an hour away. It was really getting late as well. There were mosquitoes everywhere and I just wanted to go home. So I said, look I’ll call grandpa and see if he will loan me the money.If he said no then that was it and there was nothing I could do.

Well guess what cooperative person said he’d loan me the money?? I was not expecting it. I was fully expecting him to say a flat out no. Then I could home and eat and collapse.

But he said yes. Sigh. I had screwed myself over with that one. I don’t break promises. I do what I say.

So then I spent the next 2 hours filling out paperwork, the pup had an infection of something and had to be vet checked, this had to be signed that had to be signed, the rest is a blur and we were going home with another dog when I had no intention of it.

Now I had at some point intended to get my son a dog. He has his own issues but I wanted to wait till he was older to get him an assistance dog of his own. And this was the only way it would work out. If this dog became an assistance dog. He appeared to have some potential in the regard.

But it was a wait and see. I had no idea how he’d work out.

I had a 2 week trial period. And man were those 2 weeks hell. Issues arose. He was not good with cats like I’d been told. He had food anxiety which was displaying as aggression. He had separation anxiety and we went out he trashed the house. I really thought he’d be going back. I had a lady come and do emmett therapy sessions on him and behavior stuff and she regarded him as a foster dog because I really honestly thought he’d be going back to the pound. More of this dogs story came out and why he had the issues he did. I figured by this stage if he wasn’t going to stay then he would go to a foster place or we’d foster till another more suitable home was found. So much work went into him. And money too.

I had been put onto a dog training place that actually allowed me to pay off classes. These trainers are excellent. They helped me to see Jonah (as he was now named) for what he is. Just anxious. Just adjusting. Still growing. Logic and reason were still in there somewhere.

He was going to stay.

He is the smartest dog. He is so in tune with my son and they have such a connection that it’s like they are each other in dog and boy form. And both just as gassy. He is hyper aware of everything that goes on around him. He’s is a giant.

During all this life was still kicking my arse. My business Kobash Mats was being attacked and slandered which still does not compute. I mean I make work mats for assistance dogs. I don’t much for it financially and it all goes back into the mats. I will never break even. It mostly comes out of my pocket. But I liked the fact that I was helping other handlers in some small way. Making work mats for their special dogs. So when it all got attacked it really threw me. I was just about ready to give up everything.

I had a huge falling out with my mother that was long time coming and another story altogether. My central nervous system was so screwed up I was seeking the most extreme ways to regulate it.

I was a step away from really hurting myself. Not the bad kind where you end up dead. There is no way I’d ever do that. Ever.

But I wanted the screaming in my body and my brain to stop. Too much was going on, I was having autistic burnout and shut down and break down. My ability to cop was shattering. My hyper senses had gone up to another dimension and everything was up in mega volume.

I got a tattoo. The sharp feeling on my skin shocked my central nervous system like banging on a tv to make it work.

It didn’t last long though.

Then my car died. Completely died. There was no way for it to be fixed. I knew this was the case and was coming for ages. But then I got abused by one lady who accused me of only saying no to any suggestion she offered and she cut herself from me. I thought she was a friend. In fact all the people I thought who would possibly help me if it came down to it completely backed off. they were all connected to my mother. I had no way of leaving the house. My physical condition means I can’t catch a bus ( I can’t even read the time table it may as well be in french). Taxis are expensive. i can’t catch Ubers everywhere. We missed the last dog training class as I had no way of getting there and we can’t even get to a back up class. He didn’t graduate.

I’m still getting abusive texts from the ex husband and he off spreading all sorts of rumors about me to anyone who will listen.

Are you tired from reading all that?

There is no way I’ll ever get a car as being on a pension I can’t get a loan and couldn’t even pay it off if I did. It’s so fun being stuck here (no it’s really not).

I have struggled for many years over who I am. I know I’m autistic and I have no struggle with that. I also recently found out I have ADHD, OCD, social agoraphobia, extreme anxiety……..Not depression though. Just all the other stuff. I thinking about trialing adhd meds and hoping it might help the executive dysfunction.

I had also been freaking out about how to make a really long trip to meet a possible pup. I don’t travel well. Yes I had before in the past but I did not do well. Now going I don’t fly so I had to find other methods of transport. All of which would take two days and I would have to stop midway or really suffer the consequences. It was going to cost a fortune and I also had no car. I also couldn’t find anyone to come with me.

Then circumstances changed yet again. Kobash’s successor won’t be happening any time soon over a situation I can’t do anything about. I won’t go into the details. But I was left with the inability to defend myself and my situation again. Of yet again being viewed as something I’m not and being helpless to do anything about it.

But I’m too tired to defend myself. I have spent my whole life defending myself from being seen as something I am not. If anything I’ve been accused of being too honest for my own good. And I’ve always been a chronic oversharer.

But I can’t, and have no ability to change anyone’s mind about any of that. I  am constantly waiting for the next bad thing to happen. I had not being talking about the pup or any details behind it because I was honestly afraid if I did it would go poof.

In the end I don’t have to freak out about travel anymore. I really don’t think I would have coped with such a long trip. The only thing I am really upset about is being seen as something I am not. One thing my life and especially this year have taught me is that no matter how hard I try or what I do I never have closure over anything of the things that have happened to me.

Yes I should move on. But any other autistic person out there can tell you that is easier said than done when our brain will hold on to every single little thing with a ferocity and fierceness that nothing can match. We suck it all up. And we fight so hard to process it all. Just processing every day is a struggle as it is without the drama of life being tossed on top. Processing words and conversation. Processing the environment we are in. The weather. The pebble in our shoe. The way some person blinked us at a shopping centre back in 1985. It’s all there. And there is no closure which would make moving on more of a possibility.

I’m definitely not processing this year at all.

And this year has taught me that I can complain really well. I’ve gotten really good at it. I’ve also gotten really good at being constantly frustrated. The one safe stim I had of driving my manual car with my music blaring is gone. Life has become one ludacris event after another. I am stuck in the outer limits in a never ending episode of this is the days of our lives.

I still don’t sleep.

reciprocate

Goodbye to Real Food Kitchen

I know it might sound a little silly. Saying goodbye to a cafe. And for those who don’t know me and my boy I could understand that confusion. But for us, it was literally the only place anywhere that we could actually eat something. Because of our intolerances and allergies and my stupid health, it was impossible finding anywhere that met all of our requirements.

Till we found The Real Food Kitchen.

When we first found it was called the Paleo Cafe. Around that time we had basically switched to paleo (for lack of a better word) and I’d given up ever finding anywhere where we could ever eat out again. It had already been 5 years since the last time we had. And I was thoroughly sick and tired of having to cook I can tell you.

After driving past several times I finally psyched myself up enough to go it. I was with my boy the first time we went. Of course me being the giant chicken that I am with trying anything new and always scared to because of one reaction or illness after another, I thought I’d try the coffee first. Other than remembering the feel of a burnt tongue the memory that stuck with me was the look on my sons face when he was brought out his drink. A giant iced chocolate. His eyes grew 10 times the size including his smile and that drink lasted all of 10 seconds too and was gone in a slurp of the straw.

The chocolate brownie didn’t last long either.

Our visits there became more frequent. Usually on a Thursday when I had my support worker with us. At first it was just because I wanted my son to be able to know there was a nice place for us. Then it became about the coffee for me. For a long time that’s all I had there, The first thing I had to eat was the brownie. Warmed up with whipped coconut creme. It was just like eating a hot chocolate cake! Of course I went back for more. And oh my goodness the chocolate caramel brownie cake!

Over the past few years it wasn that cafe that became my place to escape to when things were bad at home or I needed to have time to myself. It was my son’s and my special place. And we got attached to the people there. It might not have been the most quiet of places. Many times a screaming kid drove me out or had me scrambling for my head phones. But I knew that it was a safe place for me. It was my spot.
I spent many Saturday or Sundays when my boy was at his dad’s, sitting at my favourite table with my coffee and sweet potato chips, watching the world go by, feeling the breeze and smelling the salt from the beach just  down the road. In summer when it was so hot it could melt concrete, the breeze from the ocean, and the over hanging trees were a welcome escape. It was my spot. It was my son’s and my spot.

I don’t think anyone will ever understand how special that was to us.
Being autistic its so important for us to have our safe places. Our bolt holes. For me it’s supposed to be home. But most of the time thats not the case. The amount of times I went out when I was in so much pain either physically or emotionally, just to go to my special place, exposing myself to more overload and more than likely more pain when I should have stayed at home, I’ve lost count. It was my routine for the last 3 1/2 years.

I’ve been bracing myself for over a year now since the boys at the cafe first told me of their plans to sell. But as the months went by I pretended that everything was ok and that they’d always be there. They just had to be. Now I completely understand why they needed to, if I think logically. The boys have been through such a hard time trying to keep things running. But the way the world works……..
Unfortunately being autistic I also react emotionally to change. I don’t cope with it well.
I’m not coping well now. I’ve spent the rest of today, their last day, editing a video of how special that place was to me. My boy was quite upset today at having to miss out on the last day as he was with his dad.

It was just me alone today.

I don’t know if that was a good thing or not. Maybe it was. I know the kaleidoscope of emotions I’m going through will take some weeks to process as I’ve spent the time leading up to this day trying to be strong for my boy. Trying to be positive that will be other places that we can go to. Even though inside the both of us are skeptical about it and pessimistic.

I am grateful though to have the sense memory that I have. I will always remember the smell of the coffee. Always remember taking that first sip, that first smell that went straight to my brain and woke me up. The first sip I could feel opening up the blood vessels in my neck and up into my head and would ease the headaches or neck pain I get. I always knew by smell who made the coffee, and I’m pretty sure the new guys would always dread me coming and rating I’d give them hahaha.

We were spoilt too much there so its even harder to let it go.

It was our spot.

It was my spot.

We’ll miss you guys. Thanks so much for looking after us. I hope the next stage in your adventure brings you much happiness.

I’m too hard.

I don’t know about other auti’s out there, but I’m finding it more and more difficult to hide the feels I get when other people find me too “difficult” or too hard to handle just because I’m autistic and I have chronic health issues.

Its frustrating.

I didn’t ask for the super sensitivities and need for things to be a certain way like my life depended on it. I didn’t ask for the sense of smell so powerful I can smell a flea’s fart. And hear it too.

I would dearly love to be able to go out without the need for someone to be with me. To go to the movies and enjoy it without going deaf from how loud it is or get sick because someone decided to bathe in Lynx that day.

I’m tired of not being able to eat what ever I like.

I’m tired of feeling like all I ever do is complain.

I don’t think people realise how embarrassing to have to share your medical history or other issues with strangers just so you can get support. I hate that I have to have support. And I hate having to listen to people talk about issues that I’m having just so I can get support, especially if they relaying the wrong information because they’re too embarrassed by having to explain it.

And even though I hate having attention drawn to me, and that is one of the reasons why I have an assistance dog, I end up having attention drawn to me because of him. Which is funny.

It’s funny because I have turquoise and purple hair and an undercut but its still Kobash that draws the most attention.  

 

Side track: At the earth markets the other week and this couple were standing in the same position for like 10 minutes just starting at us. Dog, me, dog, me, dog, me……. I turned to my husband and whispered loudly “its so weird they’re staring like that, how rude is it??”They must have heard because they started moving.  I turned to try to go down another aisle to avoid them but they separated with the guy going one way and the woman another. Dread feels. I’d have to past one of them. The guy approached me and asked about patting Kobash and I said no, you can’t pat a working assistance dog or distract them.He mumbled something and stood back and continued to stare.  I could see the woman out of the corner of my eye waiting to see if she could come and pat the dog. The guy continued to stare at us until I finally couldn’t handle it anymore and said “please stop staring at us. You’re making me uncomfortable”. Thankfully he backed off and went to his wife.

I have to deal with instances like that the majority of times I go out.

I’m finding myself less tolerant of it. And I’m ranting a lot about it too which can’t be just annoying me 😛

Being autistic I really find people staring or drawing any kind of attention to myself completely anxiety inducing, and would much rather jam a cattle prod in my eye than deal with it.

Yes, it is ironic that I hate that and yet I have purple and green hair. I’m aware of the irony.

I love irony.

I don’t love stares.

Anyway……The reason for this rant, which I must type out because I’m actually fighting a melt down, is the being slapped in the face again with the realisation that people find me too hard to deal with.

Too accomodate. To get to know….

We were planning an outing. Its one we do every year. The stress alone of the travel and having to get ready in time and then the sensory overload from it has me recovering for days after. And with my health getting worse wreaking a heavier toll on me each year. But the outing is good. The program is always excellent. Up building. But because of my worsening health, my sensory issues are so exaggerated now and I’m so sensitive to  everything, and my executive functioning is so much worse that the build up to this outing is causing me to freak out. I spent $30 at the physio to get my back taped up just so I could handle having to sit all day. The only thing that was enabling me to be able to go was being able to sit in one section of the hall. Only one. I have to have a wall behind me because I can’t handle people sitting behind me. I can heard them breathing and chewing and blinking and whispering….I am incapable of tuning it out. The light from the curtain-less windows shines in and blinds me even with my irlen lenses (which need adjusting) so my eyes get heavy and then I’m fighting to stay awake. The fact that people drench themselves in enough perfume or hairspray to last 3 people a 1000 years and the face mask I have is powerless against it. The sounds of candy wrappers and chewing gum, and babies crying and everyone talking and breathing and the sound system up so loud I’m surprised Uruguay hasn’t called in a noise compliant. All that to deal with. And then the car ride up (an hour and a half drive) and back again on the highway I have a phobia about (I Know. How weird is it have a phobia of highways? But I see everything and my brain is doing the worst case scenario of that truck driver going over the sped limit having a blown tyre and then……yeah I’ll stop now). And then recovery time. But I can’t make it if I can’t get that special spot up the back of the hall. Right next to the sound booth (so if its too loud I can maybe ask them to wind it down a little so I don’t feel like my skull will burst) where I have a shield from the windows on that side and far enough away from the windows to combat sun blindess. Right next to a door for a speedy exit.

But then being told its too hard to save those seats and it was a battle even trying to save other ones last year. Why don’t I wait and see whats there when we come up and if those seats are gone then you can always go home……. Even after having to embarrass myself by explaining the reasons why.

Because its too hard.

Or is it just me?

I need a coffee.

 

 

Neuro-cultures.

I wake up every morning and make sure my son is getting himself organised for the day, getting his breakfast, shower, teeth etc, prodding him along when he gets distracted (which is all the time), all while trying to get myself organised and breakfast ready (all before coffee mind you). Its not an easy task to get ready for the day. Why? Because executive dysfunction sucks big time. And both my boy and I have difficulties with it.

We each have our own strengths and weaknesses as Autistic humans. But I don’t tend to focus on the “weaknesses” of our neuro-culture. I don’t get up everyday and put my boy through hours of ABA or other type therapies. I don’t subject him to all the so called “treatments” that they put our kids through in the effort to purge them of being autistic.

I actually love my boy the way he is. He was born this way for a reason. I was born this way for a reason. To see the world differently. To experience it in ways that others sadly lacking our neurology will never understand or experience. See more colours, feel emotions so intensely. Move with the rhythm that the world around us has like a boat bobbing on the waves of the sea.

Yes the world around us can loud, and too bright, and too in your face. Yes it can overload us and cause us to shut down or meltdown or close ourselves off. But if I had the choice to be anything other than what I am would I?

No. Immediate. Resolutely. Undeniably no. I would never give up seeing and feeling things the way I do. To enjoy the little things so much I flap and jump or skip. To see my son laugh so full bodily to anything that strikes his funny bone. So completely and enjoyably. I would never give that up.

Yes this world frustrates me to the point of apoplexy, the way most “normal” people treat us, see us, abuse us. Why they don’t see that they are different too. That they have the same issues that we have (if at a different scale). Why are we the only ones to have to suffer all the therapies and treatments? Do their children not also have social issues and have to put up with peer pressure and bullying? Do they not also feel like the odd one out or alone or find it hard to make friends? YES they do.

SO if this is the case why are we the ones that are “wrong’? Why is our existence so bad that you would force your children to suffer electro shock therapy? Chelation therapy? Bleach enemas? You think your child enjoys all that? Why are we the ones used for fodder for comedy shows? Does it make any sense?

No.

It doesn’t.

So I go about my day making it through the best I can when it wasn’t built with us in mind. I love and care for my son the way any good parent would love and care for their child, without restraint or limitations. Because to me regardless of this culture, his neuro-culture, he’s a human being. I am a human being.