Colors

Based on my explorations, I have begun making more intentional imagery related to the challenges of Autism. The first thing I am doing is working with colors artistically that I feel aversion to. At this moment I have challenged myself to make images I enjoy from the color combination of red and yellow. This is a combination that I have the most difficulty with that drove part of my eating disorder and food-related behavioral issues as a child. I ask myself, will working with these colors together help me adapt or even begin to love the combination? How will I change, if at all? This concept depends of course on the nueroplasticity of my still-young brain.

Service Animals


I’ve been training my dog as a service animal. We noticed early on that she would pay attention when I was “rumbling” or having a meltdown. We started rewarding her for it. Now she will come right up to me and lick my hand or face if I start being upset. I’ve trained her to sleep with me, and if I wake up late night she comes to me and sits and I can talk to her and be comforted.

I’ve also trained her to stay asleep with me. She isn’t like typical dogs who demand food or walks early morning, she will wait for me to get up, which is really useful if I haven’t slept well and need to stay down. Sometimes she lays on me or partially against me, and it’s so soothing, especially if I’m curled up and she lays against my back, warming me.

There are other tasks we are training her for. I never had a dog and never liked them much. IDK if this dog is unusual or what, but she isn’t like any dog I ever spent time with. It’s like she was magically sent to me at one of the worst, weirdest times of my life to help me.

I spent a week away from her this fall when Jason and I broke up briefly and I thought I was going to die.

Masking

Masking

After many years of doctors, books, bad meds, weird tests, lost jobs, failed degrees, broken bridges, heartbreak, anguish and struggle, I was officially diagnosed as Autistic, explaining many elements to my life and personal experiences that had always been an enigma. At 40, there isn’t much hope for me now to get where I want to be, but it’s nice to finally understand myself, even if no one else does.
I spent most of my life hiding myself and got pretty good at it by my 20s, copying everyone around me, especially after bring called bipolar or borderline and realizing what a stigma those labels carry. I worked many jobs with many people who never knew I was labeled at all or looking for more answers. Went to universities and just tricked most everyone into thinking I was eccentric if I saw they wouldn’t be comfortable confronting mental illness. Here and there I thought I found places I could be more honest but discovered that usually the people who boasted loudly about acceptance and family and community are the worst judges, with the most cruel punishments and I was never safe. Not even in the art world, where I was often told I was too weird or extreme, or it seemed I had nothing to say that wasn’t already said (the pitfalls of mimicry I guess).
Since i was a baby I’m used to not fitting in and being ridiculed. It’s how my whole life has been. I don’t mean to be a victim here, like, literally, I only know instability, mockery and condescension from 99 percent of my life. I was so used to it by adulthood that I accept it from intimate partners, bosses, coworkers and “friends”, mocking and degrading myself or swallowing my opinions. What else can you do?
Well…this thing called masking… a lot of asd peers won’t like me saying this, but, I know there are many who will understand that I find it necessary for survival. I need to work, I need to help my father, I need to hang on to Stonington. I need to survive. What I’ve learned the last 10 years especially is no one cares about anything but their own perspective. Most people are looking for control. Lots of people enjoy cruelty. Unmasking is just offering yourself up for abuse.

Don’t do it.

Employment


One of the reasons I have been so transient in my careers…I didn’t even know it until a few years ago. If I had, maybe I’d have found stability a decade ago rather than bouncing from one desperate attempt at being normal to another without any understanding of why I can’t just deal.

It’s also why I loved being a vagabond. Without material things, I don’t need a job to pay for it…

I realized that working terrifies me. Every time I step into a new place I have to navigate it all and act as normal as possible. It’s exhausting and I last maybe 6 mos before I just get totally lost and overwhelmed. But this transience is a vicious cycle because by constantly starting over, I’m exposing myself to the same awful struggle over and over.

I work hard and I’m a good person but I feel more and more that it’s impossible find a company that sees supporting their employees as an important part of healthy workplace culture and reducing turnover. This is worse since covid. So many places are still understaffed and need people who can do everything, so trying to remain singularly focused on one task is frowned upon. Worse, I noticed that I never get a job if I notify them of my ASD, so I hide it as much as I can. In cases where I don’t hide it, there’s always someone ridiculing or doubting me, which brings out even more stress.

I end up worked to death while my small needs for consistency, clear direction and single-tasking are completely ignored or belittled and I find myself flailing to survive.

Bottom line, as much as I love bartending and the money that comes with it, I need to get out of restaurants. I wish I could have capitalized on my photos on the road somehow but I just don’t know how. It’s a great failing of mine that if I don’t have clear directions on everything in life, from basic hygiene as a kid to professional goals as an adukt, I don’t know how. I just feel lost all the time.

Misdiagnosis

Misdiagnosis

I have been called Bipolar and/or borderline since my early twenties and mistreated as such. I have tried every medication and therapy there is to “fix myself” putting my health and well-being at risk of dangerous possible side-effects hoping to escape whatever is wrong with me. This is becuase ASD is not even on the table as a consideration when psychiatrists evaluate adults. ASD, bipolar and borderline, as well as other disorders like OCD, can share traits, however there are also radically different symptoms to that docs should start looking for.

In the twenty years that I have been struggling with this, I was misdiagnosed over and over again, which led to mistreatment and mis-medicating, which led to more maladaptive behaviors, anxiety and meltdowns, which led to further mistreatment. I was stigmatized and ostracized by friends, partners, family; I was wrongfully arrested, hospitalized and doped up several times. All these experiences added trauma onto the pile and affected me profoundly as a human being.

Since I was re-diagnosed Autistic, I have been released from the limitations of bipolar/borderline, which means I can try anti-depressants for the first time. My doctor gave me Lexapro and said give it a few weeks and I slept through it. One day I woke up and felt better and I know it’s artificial but it’s a relief not to feel so bad, and I hope that relief will help me in the long run. Already my stimming behaviors have eased along with the lessening anxiety. I have been able to cope with some serious family problems that have come up. The meltdowns that arise just before my period like clockwork have disappeared. In general, my meltdowns are more under control. I spent twenty years on the wrong meds, treated by doctors who just didn’t pay enough attention. The thought that I could have been on effective anti-depressants this whole time, but for misdiagnosis, is the most painful ache in my heart because I wonder how different my life would have been. That goes for this diagnosis in general.

But we can’t live in the past, right?

Social Skills

Social Skills

I always felt like I was missing things, like i had one foot in and one out and not understanding the entire social “dance”. I solved this by seeking out strange people like me so that I didn’t feel so “outside”. It’s getting harder as I get older. People don’t want to make new friends or they are as screwed up by life as I am.

This summer I realized how depressed I really am and for how long, and hiding it or gaslighting myself about it has made me a very reactive, mistrustful, and paranoid person, it’s taken away a bit of openness in me I used to have, it makes it harder than ever to be myself and make what few friends I can. I don’t like this version of myself!

It was as easy to hide from it on the road, distracted by all the sights, successes and challenges of such a long journey. Meetings with new people were brief and fleeting, so it didn’t matter what they thought of me. But being in one place brought out some issues that I can’t get away from. Memories of things I failed at which I wanted so much and the reasons why, people who bullied or shunned me in California and brought up so much childhood pain. Jason’s family’s hatred of me, people who only know me through his brother’s narrative. My own father’s recent rejection of me, the distance I feel between myself and the one person that carried me the most in life. Two old friends dying in far away places.

I felt all those things at once this year surrounded by new people at a new job, again an outsider. I realized how deep my fear of strangers has become. This fear does not serve me.

Stimulation

Stimulation


“Overstimulation” is a common and funny word to me in all this relearning I’m doing. Im not sure about this word. But its what normal people understand so I use it.
It’s not like I don’t like to feel or experience things. I don’t need to be in an isolation room to be sane. I like my senses. my intense sensitivities are what make my life really cool in ways I never thought about. Music is such an experience, I physically feel it. So loud music doesn’t bother me, which is why I love nightclubs. You just dance and feel the music. Its simple and very pleasant. Even sexual 😋

What happens bad is when everything starts in on me at once and I can’t get away. When I am mentally taxed in social situations, like the job I have now, I have and then all my senses are stimulated. Sight, smell, sound, even touch; from other waitstaff or the pain in my feet, or hot water in the sink.
Last night I got really confused. There was too much happening at once and I couldn’t keep up. I got a traffic jam in my head.
When this happens then i need time to reorganize or I really lost track. but its not normal, so people get frustrated with me and become demanding, which slows down my executive function even more. Things get really loud, I get disoriented and then suddenly everything is super amplified. Every touch is like getting punched, every voice is through a bullhorn, faces look at me all crazy and i feel crazy. People don’t know how to leave each other alone, they start piling it on by following me and trying to solve my problem. Some people want to touch me. But I just want to stop adding and let things calm down. Maybe I want touch, but only from a specific person, who is likely absent.
It’s like having a bad trip. I want to scream and run away or break something, including myself. And sometimes when my will power is ground down, I do one or all of those things. Then i sleep for a long time. When i wake up my mind is quiet again. But I have to face the consequences of the things i broke, the job I lost, the relationship I ruined or the bruises I left on myself.
Knowing this won’t necessarily make it stop. That frustrates me the most.