Too much in my head

Hi Daniel, 

I found life at your age difficult - feeling judged, feeling lost, feeling that I hadn't achieved much. I had to really think about what I wanted in life and how to achieve it. In my 40s and 50s I did so much more than I had in my 20s & 30s - I gained Accountancy and Social Sciences diplomas and an English Language teaching certificate, learned how to use excel spreadsheets, did training in communication skills, assertiveness, team leadership and presentation skills, and travelled to various other countries on holidays.

Is there anything you can think of that made you feel alive in your past? Or something that really engrossed you and helped you "switch off"? Sometimes people stop doing things when they are older that might be seen as "childish" such as playing videogames, reading comics, Lego, jigsaw puzzles, building model.railways, etc. But if you enjoy doing something like that, just do it - your happiness is more important than what society thinks.

Autistic people are often self directed learners, so you might enjoy an online course you can do at home at your own pace, and there might be one which interests you that could give you useful skills or knowledge to help with starting a new career.

If you want any feedback on ideas, post them here and we'll do our best to help.

Daniel said:

I even don’t feel comfortable sharing with my counsellor.

Then change to a therapist - get someone who understands autism well and that you feel you can trust and they should be able to help you through this.

Therapists should be bound by an oath of confidentiality (with some exceptions if you are a risk to the lives of others I think) so discuss this with them and make sure you know what the limits are.

Once you have that relationship you can open up and this should help you reconnect with what is below the blockage and feel more complete again.

31 is quite a common age to start to feel this sort of mid-life crisis however. You are no longer young but probably don't feel you are where you thought you should be in life. You are not old enough to feel it is pointless doing anything about it - you are somewhere in between and feel stuck.

My advice (other than getting a competent therapist) is to start to mind map. Look up the technique and use it to capture al your thoughts on paper then expand on them, treating it like a project on how to get where you want to be and break it down to tasks that can be managed.

It is like the old question - "how do you eat a whale?"

The answer is "one bite at a time".

Unless you are a vegetarian in which case you now have a rotting whale carcass in your kitchen, but I diress...

Capture those thoughts, dreams and plans on paper. Rationalise which are possible, actually still desirable and then start to work on what you can control or influence.

The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. The sooner you start the better and it will take you away from the smell of the decomposing whale.

ahhh 31...... 31 is when i turned my life around and magically got a job and magically my crypto which i put my previous jobseekers in had exploded and gone to enough to get me a home deposit... the combination created a normal life and put me ahead of everyone who had worked all the time, where i was unemployed since leaving school up to 31.

it can all change just like that... like magic... in no time. one year you could get job a house and a life and be propelled beyond people who have worked for years to try to achieve that but they havent even got it yet. anything can happen.

Dear Daniel, 

We are sorry to hear that you are going through a difficult time at the moment. 

You may like to have a look at the mental health section of our website which has useful links to information and advice about a range of mental health issues: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/mental-health 

If you feel that you might need some support with your mental health, you can find advice and information on how to go about seeking help, including links to other resources and details of helplines and listening support services, here: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/mental-health/seeking-help. 

You may find the mental health support lines listed below helpful:

The Samaritans also provide confidential non-judgemental emotional support, 24 hours a day on 116 123, or by email on jo@samaritans.org.   

Another source of support you may like to consider are Shout 85258 which is a free, confidential, anonymous text support service. Should you wish to contact someone, I have popped a link to their website here for you: https://giveusashout.org/get-help/   

Kind Regards,

Rosie Mod

This is a safe space to write it all down! Sometimes we need to just feel heard. And even though we don't actually know one another, feel free to speak here and practice getting the stuff in your head on to something others can see. You may have to over-explain. Do that. You may not be able to say what you mean, that's ok, too. Many of us also have difficulty with finding the word which conveys the thing or system or thought or image in our mind :)

I know exactly what you’re talking about I feel it too.

I can so relate to this.. it’s how I’ve been feeling recently. My dresms feel somewhere in the distance & I feel unable to connect with them or anything tbh. Struggling to find people who understand, I want to feel more alive too, I not sure where to start 

I feel your pain but hopefully it will pass and you will emerge from the cloud into the sunshine. You have done the correct thing as we are all here to support one another.