Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone,
I’d be really interested to hear your experiences please. I ask because I have a number of health problems and the health services available to me only seem able to deal with one problem at a time and saying to them, “Yes, but I also have X, which means I can’t do that,” just gets you a disparaging look and labelled as uncooperative or a time-waster. I am certain I’m not alone in this, and I’m certain also that looking younger than I am and lacking mature social skills only makes their criticism more likely.
In addition to Asperger’s, I also have ME, endometriosis and chronic vestibular migraine. Here a few ways in which it’s a pretty toxic combo:
1. Asperger’s and ME
- Once my brain is interested in something, it can keep going and going, and I don’t notice my body fading until I completely crash and end up bed-ridden for days. I then get so frustrated with my body getting in my way that I self harm.
- Unexpected interactions with people make me so anxious that my legs give out. The situations don’t necessarily involve people at the time, such as a letter through the door, but require fighting my corner with someone to resolve. E.g. I received a letter from HMRC on Monday fining me for something I haven’t done; it’s now Thursday and I’m only just starting to be able to walk again, but just writing about this I can feel my legs giving out again.
2. Asperger’s and endometriosis
- I worry constantly about getting my period because sometimes it comes on heavily and suddenly and soaks through my clothes. It’s disgusting and embarrassing, I hate how I can smell the blood on me even when no one can see it, and the pelvic pain makes me feel poorly generally. Even on the pill, my cycle has been all over the place, and with my ME I often don’t have the energy to clean myself up and do other basic things like feed myself, so I always end up suffering one way or another.
- I’ve always hated having to go into work on period days; my stress and anxiety levels are always off the scale and masking that impacts on my ME, so I basically end up eating, sleeping and washing, with no energy for anything remotely enjoyable pretty much all month long. I know it’s an overreaction but hey, I’m autistic.
3. Asperger’s and migraine
- Chronic vestibular migraine is weird because you experience dizziness and nausea/vomiting rather than the classic pain. The ‘chronic’ bit in my case means ‘constant’; that is to say I am never symptom-free, I just have different degrees of bad. Meds haven’t worked, and one of them actually made me suicidal. It renders me housebound and is the reason I lost my job and my business a year ago. I was earning pro-rata £95k a year as a self-employed business analyst up to that point (I say pro-rata because the migraine started only 10 months into my first year of trading).
- Makes the Asperger’s worse because I struggle to mask now, and the extra struggle when I really have to mask makes the ME worse, and the stress of knowing I struggle to mask makes the endometriosis worse (more random bleeding throughout the month).
- Since being out of work with the migraine, I’ve been told I’m not entitled to any benefits. I don’t have the physical or mental energy to fight this at the moment so I’m sleeping in my living room and renting out my bedrooms to pay my bills and mortgage. Both lodgers usually work long hours, but occasionally, randomly come home early, and it completely freaks me out. My home was my one safe place in the whole world and now I cower here like a terrified prisoner. If they come home early and I haven’t had my dinner yet, I just go to bed hungry rather than risk bumping into them in the kitchen and being forced into small talk, which just wipes me out. If I wake up in the night and need to pee, I just lie there for the rest of the night with my legs crossed until they’ve both gone to work. It’s easier on the weekends because my boyfriend is here and I can deflect things onto him, but I’m now constantly anxious in my own home which I hate. I also have noisy neighbours which I can’t get any respite from and makes my stress, anxiety and migraine even worse, and impacts on the ME too.
Sorry this is such a ridiculously long post but I’m really hoping it resonates with other adults with ASD, as it would be good to know how you cope (or don’t, as in my case).
This rings lots of bells for me too. i have had ME and also have vestibular migraine. In fact a lifetime of problems of my brain communicating with my body and sending incorrect signals. it may be somthing to do with the fact we have around 60% more dendrite connections when we are born but not enough research on it so say how this influences health long term. Most of the women with ASD I know have chronic health problems and often have to confront an attitude of " What are you doing to make yourself have so many problems" which is pretty soul destroying. On the positive side we tend to be information orientated so if anyone is going to figure out how to do something about it, we will. Reducing stress is a big one and everyone talks about reducing stress, they just don't explain how to do that in a world that demands the same of us as neurotypicals. The main thing i have learned is stress is the enemy so make solo time a big priority even if it means earning less. Take magnesium, it helps. Dont drink and dont smoke and cut chocolate and coffee. Then replace them with other things you like. These seem to be the main triggers for vestibular migraine. Hope this helps.