I've hit the wall of despair

Yep. Can't shake us off that easy

I'm pretty sure we understand, do what's best for you. We are here.

Hugs welcome. Thank you. I will get round to talking about it but quite hard to do that at the moment. 

I'm so happy to see you Misfit, I've been worried by your absence but didn't want to say anything to pressurise you. You have our support and ears any time you want it. Give yourself a hug from all of us. x

x

We're all here and thinking of you and missing you. We've all had our up days and down days..we've all been that guinea pug under a newspaper tent x

Thanks. I  seem to have gone mute both inside and out. Everything feels a bit strange at the moment. I'll get back to joining in more I'm sure.. reassuring to know you're all there. 

Missing you lots Misfit x Good to hear from you and gang in there. Talk if you need to. it us fine if you don't. 

Hello Starbuck. I have hit the wall of despair too and no energy for joining in but just wanted to say thank you for writing what you did. I'm glad you have Gp support. And also to say Hello to everyone sorry I haven't been posting lately. 

And a 4th Yayyy

So happy you have had a positive experience with this! I am glad that your diagnosis has carried some weight, as it should do! Its also good to know you can log the letter with your OH, but you still don't have to tell anyone else if you do not want too! And they shouldn't broadcast it out either!

Hugs and best wishes from everyone I think!

Third Yayyyy!!!!

Now make a careful note of the doctor's name and try to book any follow up with them. I hope it's a doc who's planning to stick around in your community.

The OH letter is a great idea. If you do decide you want to complain to the OH person's employer and her professional body, I'm happy to outline the process... unfortunately I've had to become good at complaints to get my little family much needed care...

I second the yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!  So glad to hear you had a positive experience with the GP, I've had my share of unhelpful and traumatic experiences with various healthcare professionals so know how that feels.

If communicating by writing is the only way we can express some of how we feel and think, what is wrong with that?  It's the conclusion I'm coming to, it's still hard to open up and be vulnerable but it starts to feel possible to be optimistic.

I was mute too for a period in my twenties and it was a horrible place to be and it's been looming over me again lately.  With hindsight what I was presenting with then was utterly autistic but I just got the classic 'depression and anxiety' label again. Joining the conversations here when I can is definitely helping and it's really nice to know that we all managed to help you a little.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Well done for being so brave..it sounds like a good outcome...

best wishes

Ellie

Well what a day.

I managed to pluck up the courage to visit the GP and took everyone's advice to print off what I had written here.  It was a new doctor who I hadn't met before, but I manage to explain myself as best as I could without needing written aids.  That's a big improvement for me, so I am pleased with that if nothing else.

I'm starting to think finally having a diagnosis is paying off as for once I felt like someone was listening to me and I didn't get the usual approach of having medication thrown at me.  I am very hypersensitive to medication so have to be very careful what I take.  The GP didn't think medication was the right approach due to these sensitivities, but instead talking therapies, such as counselling, will help me get over this initial blip so that I can put my strategies back in place and pick myself up again.

For me that feels like the right choice for the time being and it felt reassuring to have a GP and medical support backing me rather than fighting against me.  My experience with GP's in the past has been awful and traumatising to be honest.

At the end of the day we are all human and we just want to live our lives as best as we can, it's just that we need a helping hand along the way from time to time when we stumble and fall down.

The GP kindly offered to put my diagnosis in writing as well so that it can be logged officially in my HR files at work, due to this being questioned by OH.

Working from home today has helped, if only to have the quiet and lack of constant distractions that are rare in a busy open plan office.

I just need to keep my positive head on now so I can continue battling on.  Thank you everyone for you help and advice.  

Hey Starbuck

good to hear that you are fighting hard and trying lots of different strategies.....I just worry that it might make you every more worn out. You are such a fighter!

have you braved making an appointment? I imagine you have a fairly good idea of the structure of the appointment and the questions asked. Are you able to write down the questions and answers and have them to hand just it same you shut down? I take it a phone appointment won't help lesson the stress?

thinking of you 

Starbuck, with your GP, would they be amenable to you giving them something written? 

The reason I'm asking is we are dealing with SD16 unmedicated for significant anxiety alongside her ASD (long story about why, not relevant to this). Anyhow, we've moved a significant amount of the conversation to Skype Messenger because it gives her processing time and helps her articulate the issues. Might even help you communicate with your partner too.

In practical terms, the most important thing my doctor ever gives me is enforced sick leave. In 2013 I also had a bad bout and my GP signed me off two weeks. Then I had to see him again and I said I could go back, so he signed me off a further two weeks. When I objected he told me that I was only going back out of guilt so it was too early.

All ND people have to make a judgement call on medication. We are not like NT folk, we can get odd reactions. It took 7 different meds before we worked out my "least bad" option. That kind of GP care is rare to find.

If you do decide to go the meds route its worth starting on half the usual starting dose. My SIL is ND and a doctor and often treats ND kids. She's found through practice ND people are sensitive to meds and get benefits if there are any on low doses.

I like Maslow's Hierarchy too. My current mind workout is trying to get SD16 doing basic self care. I think I might also use Maslow's Hierarchy as a starting point.

Thank you all for your kind comments.  I needed a bit of space yesterday just to get my head around things.  Last night I convinced myself I would see my GP today, but now I am in two minds about it.  It's like you said QuirkyFriend, it is very hard to ask for help (this is an ongoing problem for me) and when you do ask for help, you don't really know what help you need.  I hate getting that dreaded question from a health professional - "So what do you want me to do for you then?"  Surely if I knew the magic answer to prevent getting in this situation, I would have tackled that myself?

My biggest problem is I struggle to communicate things verbally, in that I can't talk about my emotions, thoughts etc as I just go mute.  There has only been one time I have managed to open up a bit and that was with a psychotherapist I built trust with over a prolonged period.  When I have multiple episodes, then my speech can disappear completely for a few days or weeks, although I haven't been that bad for a long time now.  I guess I will have to portray what is going on in writing as it's my best way of communicating, but there is the fear of being judged or not believed.  Hopefully, now I have a diagnosis, it will help to alleviate this problem.

Thank you for suggesting the Maslow's Hierachy as well.  I am building a planner (new special interest) that focuses on self-care as I am not very good at it generally.  I am going to include this as part of my planner as a reference.  I have also been advised to make an emergency box.  Has anyone else created one of these?  It's a box to put soothing relaxing items in that are personal to you, where you refer to it in a  crisis. 

Thank you for finding the information that will be useful for HR as well.  I can suggest it to see what they say, but I think they are waiting to see how the next 4 weeks play out for me.  The biggest problem is I am good at masking and pretending I am ok, unless I hit the point I did yesterday or the fatigue creeps up on me, which it has been doing.  I haven't tried the NAS helpline, but may consider it in future.  I have to use helplines or call someone before I get to severe as the muted speech issue becomes too much to overcome.

My partner is helpful in as much as he can be.  He does help with chores and food prep, but he also feels helpless in some ways and I don't help by not being able to communicate how I feel or what is really going on.  I just brush over things or appear to be sulking.

http://www.autism.org.uk/professionals/training-consultancy/employment/assessments.aspx

This is what you need but it's really expensive :(

I read this earlier and it made me sad as you sound so distressed, but I had no idea how to help but I've been thinking.  Perhaps you could read this link;

http://www.personneltoday.com/hr/manage-autism-workplace/

It might make you feel a little more sure of your position as you seem to be rapidly losing self confidence.  I'm sure when you first posted you said that you had worked hard to get where you are and are good at your job, with a supportive manager?  I think the ignorant and wrong Occupational Health person that you were subjected to has done a lot of harm to your confidence and optimism about changes to help you keep working to your strengths whilst decreasing anxiety.  I was looking to see if there are private OH services and there are, but mainly for kids I think, also I don't see why you should have to go private but you need an advocate.

Could you go to your GP and explain what has happened with this incompetent OH person and see if they can refer to an autism specialist for help?  I wondered if you could print any of that article and show it to your manager and HR?  Could you show them what you've written above, more or less, have you been able to explain to any one at work the extent of your distress?  Have you tried the NAS helpline?

Objectively it doesn't sound like reasonable adaptations are being made on the strength of an unfit for purpose OH worker and if you don't get a break you are going to end up being off sick which is to no one's benefit?

Could your partner do some of the food prep and chores to lighten the load for a while?  Hope you can feel a bit better.

Spotty x

Hi Starbuck,

I can empathise with that sudden anxiety nightmare! When I was younger I would go into 'hermit' mode and hide away. These days that's not so possible, and I find loud music and playing guitar whilst shouting or attempting to sing (Which is basically shouting anyway) to help. Once a month I go to a music night in my village. There are only 5 of us, so I don't get 'crowd anxiety' but it is so therapeutic to have a completely different focal point (Playing along and trying not to play the wrong thing)  compared to my everyday life of work and children. At the moment I am debating upping it to every 2 weeks as once a month is not quite enough now. 

Hang in there!