Rambling through No Mans Land

Hello, 

I have posted before but did not really say much about myself-if I remember correctly.

I still have not hasd the official diagnosis but a doctor at my surgery seemed reasonably convinced that I am Autistic, I gave him a copy of my life history which I had just knocked up for a counsellor.

He said it was as much the style in which I wrote which indicated Autism as actual detectable symptomatic behaviours.He is expediting my diagnosis, as he seems to think I am a bit of a mess overall and the sooner they work out a bit of whats going on, the sooner they can get to work.

Anyway, all that aside, I shall soon start therapy sessions.with an Autism/Aspergers counsellorI am really looking forward to it because for the first time in my life I have been able to descbe what goes on up there in often excruciating detail.. When I cried as a child, I used to feel a sort of stinging sensation on my face and eyes , a degree of tension in my throat and then the tears would flow. I have all of the sensations but the tears remain locked up.I have not cried for many decades now, I would like to as there is a mountain of emotion locked up which would be great to unload..

I hate expresing emotionin front of others, it seems to exert a demand upon the person witnessing it, due to another aspect of my childhood which i will not go into here the thought of anyone acting with pity towards me makes  me want to die,

In the writing of my life history I had to revisit certain deeply unpleasant memories of an abused childhood-not sexually,but physically and psychologically. I realise that these have been burning away all this time when I thought I had been through it all and explored every nuance in an attempt to fully understand what had occurred to reduce the pain, The stuff we bury never ceases tio eat away at us, we may not even have tried to bury itbut instead have left it out in the open, possibly hoping that the light will enable us to make sense of what has been happening. Often this never happens and we are left stumbling around in the rubble of past failures, breakdowns, misunderstandings and missed opportunities.

I am depressed now because these things ae still going hrough my mind about the past and they are fighting for space with the normal day to day maddenings.and I ave no way of processing all the stuff which is going on up there, its all getting too much and I have the great fear that this is another of those false dawns i have been squinting through the cracks for al of my life..

Who do you think I am? What sort of person do I sound like, where do I come from?i guarantee that you would not rcognise me in the street if we met, I don't look remately like I sound, here I am articulate and sound-with a favorable wind, reasonably intelligent. as a person in the real world I am shy, didffident, softly spoken and always anxious to get away, if nervous my throat locks up and Icannot speak. I used to pass out in the supermarkets at checkouts for some reason. I would stop breathing and then keel over..People are always regarding me as a combination of stupid, Lazy, sly ,dishonest, probably a paedo, etc,etc.whereas in fact Io to great pains to be the very opposite of what i perceive to be the negative reactions of others. I have no criminal record the only crime I evercommit is the occasional bit of cannabis consumption.) psychopathic("psycho"used to be a nickname of mine- I thought they were being ironic but some of my colleagues actually thought I was dangerous!The only damage I ever inflict is upon myself.

 I say all this because if you are thinking of a responding-not that you have to-you would be addressing a person who only exists in the form which you are able to perceive with your eyes on the screen ere and now.
the real me is a framentary construction, I am very similar to my father and as I feel I have good reason to detest him, if I ever have a feeling or a motivation which I can attribute tp him, I ruthlessly expunge it. This takes energy and the process gets in the way of living which is already precarious and haphazard..he other side of it is that, however repugnant each aspect of my father is to me, his attributes constituted part of a whole human being, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, removing unfavoured ones leads inevitably to gaps which can easdily be identified by others but which remain invisible to me, they are major chinks in my armour and have been the target of bullies my entire life..

No Mans Land,as my identity is not one contiguous wholeI wonder what will become of the person I roughly think I am> will any therapy I undertake cause me to discard this outer shelland return to some basic core personality? Will that person be the father I have been trying to strangle out of existence or the one I believeI should have been?

I am building all of this up because I am scared. I believe that if I were actually clinically diagnosed as AutisticI woulfd et a lot of answers-and a growing list of possible confirmatons.

If I am NOT Autistic though, who or what the hell am I?The quest will begin again but with fewer places to seek answers from, I am 59 and would like to get a few tears of an improved stae of mindbefore I am too senile to enjoy it.

So I am this siide of the process, it wont begin until Aprill and I feel lost, I have strated something but have no control overevents so the thing just hangs thereabove my head all day.I will survive I know, but surviving does not come free, something has to be surrenderedwhich is difficult to replace.

Parents
  •  I'm currently waiting for a full psychological test for Aspergers. I have so far seen my doctor, 2 Mental Health Nurses and another clinical psychiatrist. I have (in the past) been diagnosed with Severe Depression, OCD, PTSD and have even been sent for an MRI scan to look for the signs of early onset dementia.

      I'm in my early 50's and it now looks like I could have been living with UN-DIAGNOSED Aspergers for many years. Doctors in the past have put all my problems into the 'it's down to depression' box. I have severe short-term memory problems, cannot travel on public transport by myself due to people entering my personnel space, have difficulty communicating with people on a face-to-face level and have been told I lack empathy especially to family members.

      Thankfully the last Mental Health nurse I saw very quickly realised that many of my daily problems were down to an underlying and ongoing condition. The problem I now have is that I am researching everything I can find about Aspergers and panicking more and more.

      I've got an appointment this Friday with my new Mental Health nurse and hopefully she can put my mind at rest on some of the issues I have. Yours Paul

  • Hi , I feel bad about posting that the other day, I wa sfeeling especially bleak that day and don't go on and on like that normally.

    Why are you panicking over a possible Aspergers diagnosis? I am undiagnosed as yet but believe strongly that I am somewhere on the spectrum and as there is that great opportunity to get answers and explanations for some of the problems I have been having my entire life.

    It could well be viewed as a great opportunity for you to get to ubderstand yourself better and learn how to deal with everyday lifemore confidently-this is what I am hoping for, I am older than you and heve fewer years to mess about with so I want to pack as much into my therapy as possible.

    Why don't you drag yourself away from your reaearch into Aspergers and start writing your life story? if you ever underwent therapty, provided you were entirely truthful and omitted nothing this would be a very valuable aid to the therapist as well as being helpful to the writer when evaluating their lives and the effect that their condition-whatever that may be- has had on their lives. It would save hours teasing out recollections when some significant details could be identified early on by a trained professional and worked upon right from the start.

    You have my very best wishes!

Reply
  • Hi , I feel bad about posting that the other day, I wa sfeeling especially bleak that day and don't go on and on like that normally.

    Why are you panicking over a possible Aspergers diagnosis? I am undiagnosed as yet but believe strongly that I am somewhere on the spectrum and as there is that great opportunity to get answers and explanations for some of the problems I have been having my entire life.

    It could well be viewed as a great opportunity for you to get to ubderstand yourself better and learn how to deal with everyday lifemore confidently-this is what I am hoping for, I am older than you and heve fewer years to mess about with so I want to pack as much into my therapy as possible.

    Why don't you drag yourself away from your reaearch into Aspergers and start writing your life story? if you ever underwent therapty, provided you were entirely truthful and omitted nothing this would be a very valuable aid to the therapist as well as being helpful to the writer when evaluating their lives and the effect that their condition-whatever that may be- has had on their lives. It would save hours teasing out recollections when some significant details could be identified early on by a trained professional and worked upon right from the start.

    You have my very best wishes!

Children
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