Too much

This leads me with an unknown and lots of what ifs. Will it be convenient with work? Will they remember to rebook it? What do I do if it doesn't get rebooked. How long do I give them to rebook it - particularly with it being Christmas?

I hate when this happens, the uncertainty is horrible. In these situations I've taken to asking "How long should I wait before contacting you again if I don't hear from you?". That way I know that I can contact them in a week or whatever if I've heard nothing, otherwise I'm left hanging wondering what the acceptable time to wait is.
Also if it's a large company they often have their own policies specifying their response time so when you contact them again you can start off with "I was told I should contact you again if I'd not heard anything in 2 working days" or whatever.

I heard on the radio the other day that farmers used to start their "new year" in spring.  Makes more sense to me to do so.  From a perspective physiologically about daylight and stuff that makes sense to start it at winter solstice.  In respect of regeneration of plant growth then early spring.  Every moment is the start of another journey around the sun.  So when thought about that way there are an infinite number of opportunities to start afresh. 

Agreed the internal and external inertia to start again can confound this - so starting in small ways might be wise to start with.  ( I write knowing how flipping hard this can be)

If you're worried about whether they'll rebook then maybe you could do something to shift the odds to ensure that will happen.  E-mail a quick summary of what happened requesting response etc blaming whatever you like for why this is necessary...  Do this and mark it off as having been done with a date for when you'll chase it up maybe?

Hehe the probably like me you'll move on to something else to get "head stuck" on...

maybe if the likes of you and I keep practicing that sort of thing we might get less "head stuck"?

best wishes

Yes completely. Same as people insisting they'll start something new on a Monday. Once Monday comes it has gone out the window.

I feel like that aout new year resolutions, if the energy to do something is with you in late novemeber why wait another few weeks? I think things like resolutions are a way of setting ourselves up to fail and feel guilty for the rest of the year. I know some people are very goal orrientated, but most of us set unrealistic goals that really we know we won't be able to keep.

I struggle. Luckily I always go to the same area for these appointments, even though they can be with different people, and it's very near the entrance to the hospital so I don't have to go far. I've previously got very lost in hospitals, I don't know how anyone knows where to find things. I did have a different appointment recently that was on the same grounds as the hospital but in a completely different building and I really struggled to find that. Luckily I was very early and managed to ring and the secretary was very nice talking me through how to find it but I was on the brink of total meltdown.

I will look into the health passport.

ah hospital's I cant navigate them independently at all. i'm sure someone was talking about health passports on one thread. maybe this is something you could look into?

but you're probably right about other stuff adding up and making it harder. I think they call this anxiety stacking

I just really wish I was better equipped to navigate these things.

Thanks. It's a good idea but it's in a hospital so I just don't know how well they'd do at seeing that. They didn't seem hundred percent sure what clinic in the department I was actually supposed to understand, let alone what my needs are. I usually manage ok but the waiting room seemed particularly busy this morning and I think I was already heightened by the other stuff. It being cancelled just wasn't needed. I see different staff every time so I can't really speak to anyone about it.

if it's any consolation you handled that Drs thing really well. I can't cope with a busy waiting room and the longer I'm in there the less capable I become of dealing with the unexpected. If theres someone you trust at the clinic it might be worth letting them know how difficult you found this. At my GPs they know me, I sign in and then go outside to wait. There's also a pop up note when they open my file that warns I'm easily spooked. (i'm pretty sure it doesn't actually say "easily spooked" but whatever it does say, when I dont know how to handle something I tell them to look at the pop up and that seems to make a difference as to how things are resolved)

It's really awful what happened with your appointment and I would have been highly stressed too. And the misunderstanding at work, I understand it. I used to be in various such situations and in some cases got tortured by these thoughts for weeks till I resolved it or at least tried but it got worse. I don't really celebrate Christmas,  I just gave my daughter a little Christmas tree to decorate and she was excited so I had a bit peace, but I have no guests no party, these days will be quite usual.  I used to have guests and parties in the past, when I lived with my parents. I always had to take breaks or dissappear in the middle. 

Just reminders of how inaccessible the world can be for us isn't it. It really does seem like things are against us sometimes. 

The thought had crossed my mind. Haha.

I think I could have dealt with the change better if they had been able to offer a solution. The next appointment the receptionist could book was in March and she said that wasn't ok before I could even respond. But then there was a big back and forth between the receptionist and the person that had told me of the cancellation. This leads me with an unknown and lots of what ifs. Will it be convenient with work? Will they remember to rebook it? What do I do if it doesn't get rebooked. How long do I give them to rebook it - particularly with it being Christmas? I don't actually expect you to answer these questions by the way, that is just what is going through my head.

As a teenager I spent christmas with family and new year with friends. As an adult I just don't have anyone to spend new year with. I don't really have any friends. I think this is part of why I hate it so much. It just highlights one of my big difficulties. I also don't have much time for all the new year, new me stuff. It's just the next day. Nothing changes because the numbers we write at the end of the date have changed.

Hey that appointment-incident sounds really ***! It’s exactly the kind of incident that throws me completely off. 

I am in the same boat as you with hating the autism at the moment, had a situation the last weeks where I ordered medications for pick-up and the pharmacy never processed my order. So a week goes by, I am completely out of ADHD-meds and the order just doesn’t get processed. Asking the pharmacy chain per chat what the hell is going on, but the can‘t help me, saying: „you have to contact your local pharmacy and ask them directly“, hell to the no - I would rather eat glass. Then I asked if i can cancel the order instead so I can just go to another pharmacy and pick it up, but still „you have to contact the local pharmacy and ask them directly“. Toal meltdown follows and several days with sky high stress, and feeling small, dumb and weak. I think I still didn’t fully recover from the whole situation. 

Anyway just wanted to say that I feel you, and I know it sucks so bad!

Maybe some time spent in the toilet could be your new best friend? A bit of diplomatic tummy trouble, lol.

I do a lot of over thinking too with situations like your's, it could be that the person you were supposed to be meeting fell down the stairs or something and couldn't call earlier or had an emergency appt themselves? 

I'm not a fan of New Year either and haven't been since a teenager, when I was younger xmas was spent with families and friends at New Year, now I just can't wait for everything to get back to normal.

It was 9am. It seemed the receptionists were not told of the absence until after this time. I would have thought their policy would involve staff calling in sickness much earlier than this so it seems a little poor to me.

I'm trying to tell myself there's nothing I can do and that there will be support to sort it out but my brain keeps circling back and I tend to default to worst case scenario. I'm hoping that although I'm anxious about Christmas, it will be a distraction and hopefully break the loop at least temporarily. Although on the flip side of that, I really struggle with New Year

My difficulty with the big Christmas is that there will be quite a few people that I do not know very well and a couple that I do not know at all. This is uncomfortable for me. It's also not the same person hosting Christmas as usual so I don't know what order things will happen in etc. I may be able to retreat a little when overwhelmed but I know my mum will interpret this as rude. She doesn't really understand.

I'm sorry to hear you're feeling so wretched, the cancelled appt seems to have been really confusing, I'm guessing it was an early morning one? The work thing, I can understand why thats going round in your mind, it would mine too, can you tell yourself that theres nothing you can do about it right now and it can wait and you don;t have to think about it?

A big xmas can be really good, but it can also be really overwhelming, can you ask whoever's hosting is theres a quiet space you can go to for a few minutes when you feel overwhelmed? I'm really looking forward to having a big family xmas with a table full of people, but I was also relieved when I heard they'll all be gone on the 27th. It's really weird, I wanted this, I organised it all, I've done loads of prep and cooking for it and I'm starting to feel overwhelmed already.