AutisticBurnout

I must start saying that I hate to be superstitious, but when I had a great Friday last Friday and a really positive feedback on my uni grades, my mind was prepared that something bad would come. I just didn’t want to acknowledge what I knew would come.
I had an opportunity, a job interview, and I thought I was great, finally able to have a good set of responses, and the vacancy was targeted to autistic people, so I thought it would be easier to not be discriminated.
They didn’t pass me to the last interview step. I don’t know why, I don’t know if it’s distance from my house, or my lack of expression, or being a higher level on support needs, or having an overqualified CV or just sucking at it all.
I’m not very religious, although I am a polytheistic believer and incline my beliefs to natural and spiritual powers. But sometimes it just feels like, if there’s a God, am I here on earth just to be the burden to my family? Am I here just to teach people around me that disabilities are a thing? Am I here just to suffer and be the black sheep?
I feel awful, and worse is that I study a lot, this week alone I’m doing 3 courses of different subjects, Thursday morning and I join the online meeting basically telling the teacher “if I sound a bit off it’s because I’m exhausted” and he agreed that I look terribly exhausted.
And I just want to cry and be like Mirabel and sing for a miracle, I don’t know really.

Just taking everything of the week off and mentioning today, I had breakfast really early, my grandparents were so okay with what they ate while taking my mum to an endoscopy that I ate instant noodles for lunch and when I went upstairs thinking the great smell I felt would be a nice dinner my grandma said without any consideration “I ate the rest of the chicken with your grandpa and I think your grandpa already took the pots upstairs” then I said “okay” hiding how hurt I feel with this kind of lack of consideration. She said “take some coffee, there are some biscuits in the cupboard”. I took the coffee, I sleep better with coffee due addiction to caffeine, but that hurts so bad. I made an agreement with my grandparents to eat at their house giving a small amount of money from my income since I don’t receive enough to live, just to have them not worried if I’m eating well, on the contrary, they love body shaming me.

Wednesday is a rough day for me because I go to the other side of the city to see a psychologist of a blind institute here, I barely ate yesterday. And I’m suffering, I eat there but don’t like most of what I eat because textures or being something I don’t particularly like, but I eat because it’s what I have, but low on vitamins and probably accelerating my loss of vision because of that.

This month I’ll have to literally make a financial miracle to be able to pay everything I have to pay. All of that for not being accepted anywhere for a job.

I honestly don’t even know what to write, so much is in my head and articulating it just hurts and it’s so much stuff that writing a post on everything will probably take me a considerable amount of time. Just for now being 12:27AM and I need to wake up at 6:30AM so I can again study and be exhausted.

Honestly? I want to die. I’m holding on for those I love, for those I care, my cat daughters, my partner, my mum… but I just want to be free from this.

I've written before about how I was misdiagnosed as bipolar for a few decades, and the therapies and various prescription medicines never helped me. In fact, they nearly killed me.

In my last year on the meds, I got lithium toxicity, and was rushed to a trauma center a hundred miles from home, and spent a week in ICU. That was the autumn of 2021, and I am still recovering now in February 2023.

Yesterday I saw my third psychiatrist in a row who told me I had never been bipolar, but I am Autistic. This time he put it all on paper, and entered it into my medical records. I guess that means it's official. Or maybe 'I' am official? Nah. I'm still just me.

I never had an inkling that I might be Autistic before sometime last summer, when I read a story in The Mighty by someone who found out accidentally that she was Autistic while she was having one of her children tested and assessed. When she described her life and her challenges, she sounded to me like she was describing my own life.

From that point onward, I started reading everything that I could get my hands on about the Autism Spectrum.

Then there were the internet tests, the books with tests, and finally talking to doctors and to Autistics.

Eventually, I was convinced beyond any reason of a doubt that I myself was, and am Autistic. Thereafter, I brought it up with my psychiatrist, and it took off from there.

That brings me back to yesterday, and the third psychiatrist to agree, and who added it into my medical record.

Now if I can get my General Practitioner to remove the bipolar label from my record there, I will feel like I can finally relax a little.

I don't have a problem with bipolar in itself. I just have a major problem with being misdiagnosed for decades and spending the bulk of my money on therapy and prescriptions that kept me physically exhausted and in a heavy mental fog for decades, and didn't help me in any way. I feel like the majority of my life was wasted.

So to have the label removed from my records is removing a constant painful reminder of all the life that I missed in my youth and middle age.

I am going to spend the rest of my years as a happy, grateful Autistic old dude. Peace be with you all.
♾️♾️♾️
🖖

#Autistic #actuallyautistic #audhd #ADHD #Autism #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #AutismAcceptance #Stimming #Dysgraphia #dyscalcula #pathologicaldemandavoidance #PDA #AutisticInertia #AutisticBurnout
#EFD #ExecutiveFunctionDisorder #executivedysfunction #RejectionSensitiveDysphoria #RSD
#ReactiveAttachmentDisorder #rad #MajorDepressiveDisorder #MDD #Dysthymia
#Hyperfocus #hypervigilant #SensoryOverstimulation #SensoryIssues #SensoryPain

It really sucks being mostly bedbound during my favourite season (fall). Looking forward to this season is what got me through the summer, with its intolerable heat and sun, the constant sweating, all of it. But now I can’t leave my house except for appointments, and I’m too ill in those moments to really enjoy much of anything. I do take photos though, every time I go for an appointment I take photos of all the interesting or beautiful things I see on the drive. I’ve now got lots of pictures of beautiful foliage, and it makes me happy to look at them.

We do have a view of some nice foliage from our apartment, but I can’t see any of it when I’m in bed (which is most of the time), just rooftops. It’s sad and disappointing , but I’m really trying not to dwell on what I can’t do. Instead I’m focusing on way I can enjoy fall right here.

I’ve been watching cozy fall movies and spooky shows, drinking apple cider, wearing soft sweaters when my temperature allows it, doing fall and Halloween related lists and things in my bullet journal (I keep my markers and journals by the bed), and looking at images online of cozy fall things.

It’s not much but so far it’s doing the trick.

Does anyone have other ideas of how we can enjoy the season from our beds or couches?

#bedbound #housebound #ChronicIllness #ChronicPain #DistractMe

I didn’t have the spoons for everything yesterday, but what I COULD do was organize the list of numbers I had to call with any details that I could find. And today? I feel up to doing those calls after work.

Don’t let yourself beat yourself up. Your pace is the RIGHT pace for YOU.

#CPTSD #Anxiety #Depression #ADHD #Autism #AutisticBurnout #burnoutrecovery

I will forever cherish this spot, the porch where I have sat for months examining and restructuring life. I am living in my partner's aunt's house after a cyclical bout with autistic burnout, and while I do wish for more autonomy at this point in my adult life, I must remind myself to look at what I do have: A loving partner, a roof over my head, affordable rent, and a porch where I can sit for hours, thinking, stimming, and daydreaming about how I can restructure life to better suit my Spirit. I am thankful for this time and this place. #Autism #Autism #Mindfulness #Burnout #AutisticBurnout