Hello

Hello everyone,

I am so sorry I didn't respond to your responses to my initial post 2 yrs ago. I had intended to reply to your kind and supportive comments but my horrible dad reported me to MH services and then I was detained to a MH unit. It took some time to get back home. It was awful in there, the worst time of my life. I'm back home again now though and things are a bit better than they were.

I was 18 when I joined here and I'm 20 now and I'm starting to see a future ahead of me, there's a lot of confusion as well, but I try not to overthink things like I was. An unfortunate side to autism is over analysing absolutely everything whether it's big or small. As soon as my brain focuses on it I've no chance of focusing on anything else. This was one of my problems before, detaining me made it worse it turns out but I've managed to help myself since then and now I am better and controlling what I focus on. I still focus on the bad stuff and get terrible anxiety but I have good distractions in place, fun hobbies and things I do to help myself break free from the negative cycle.

It doesn't always work but it does more often than not.

Life has improved since the terrible day I was detained. Being detained taught me some things, one is that I know medical professionals know nothing about autism and their approach to treating it is terrible - support is what we need! Not treatment! - and I know now my dad doesn't care about me, as I always suspected to be honest but at least I know now. Once I got back home I got myself together as much as possible and gradually started to do things that might lead to something big leading hopefully to a better future for me. A lot of it didn't work, I tried looking for jobs, no one ever got back to me, I wrote books and sent them to publishers and did self publishing and met some success... but not enough to be able to support me.

At last I found what I was looking for in YouTube videos. I started of doing videos just for fun, about my dedicated interests, about music, celebrities and then I started doing a video journal about autism, how I was detained and it suddenly grew and grew until finally I found my niche. In my local town and village I go to autistic events when they're on, spreading awareness and offering support - this requires masking though, I really couldn't talk to anybody without masking but I like that I'm hopefully helping someone.

Sometimes just one person taking a stand and being there for others is all it takes to make a difference. I'm hoping I can eventually get bigger and make a difference that will impact the entire world positively for autistics young and old. That is my mission in my life now.

I still don't have any friends LOL, some things never change. But to be honest I don't mind as much now. I like what I'm doing for work, I like doing things for the autistic community and I enjoy my hobbies and interests.

Suddenly life is feeling and looking a lot better and I'm so glad that I can see things in a positive light again. 2 yrs ago I never saw myself where I have got now.

I'm sorry I didn't reply before. I had always intended to but after being detained I completely forgot about the forum and the thread I'd made. I got a notification that Queen had mentioned me in a post this morning but there were no notifications to any replies to this thread. I remember the notifications never worked before. Funny how that's still the case!

Funny to see the spam bots are still around... 

Thank you Queen and thank you all for your kindly responses and support to my original post. It really means a lot that so many people cared and still care.

Thank you! :-) 

Now I'm back I am hoping to be active here again and participate amongst the other threads.

Thank you for this - an interesting read - you have been through the mill.

R said:

Suddenly life is feeling and looking a lot better and I'm so glad that I can see things in a positive light again.

I'm very glad to read this and it's great that a bot and Queen jointly brought you back

Thank you for this - an interesting read - you have been through the mill.

R said:

Suddenly life is feeling and looking a lot better and I'm so glad that I can see things in a positive light again.

I'm very glad to read this and it's great that a bot and Queen jointly brought you back

Thanks Queen :o) 

It was a tough time but I'm glad things have improved and hopefully they will continue to improve as I get older. I'm so glad to be back again. It's weird to think that if the email notification hadn't come through or if I'd changed email then I wouldn't be back here now. Really glad I got that notice this morning.

I'm very glad to read this and it's great that a bot and Queen jointly brought you back

I will quickly interject and confirm that I do NOT have anything to do with bots and it was sheer coincidence that a bot and I summoned an old member back to the flock.

R so sad to read what you went through but I'm glad you're in a better place now and can see better times ahead of you. Welcome back. ️