Hi everyone, I've joined this community out of being diagnosed about a month ago and needing to do some research. I'm an 18 year old female who also has OCD, has had an eating disorder, depression, anxiety and PTSD. Even though my family and friends have been supportive, I don't have anyone to who I can relate to, so I wanted to explain it here.
When I was little I was always told to be very smart, shy and mature for my age. I succeeded academically. It's weird because I don't remember having much trouble with socializing either, in fact, I was lucky and very liked by my classmates, but my language with people was through teaching. I would always finish faster and help the ones who didn't understand the task. And the rest of the time I liked to observe a lot. It is true that I hated eye contact even if I forced it, wasn't much of a hugger, had difficulty understanding sarcasm, was hypersensitive and had big hyperfixations/obsessions and could spend endless hours talking about it without knowing when to stop.
It wasn't until my last childhood years that my mental health started to get bad. After some years of psychological abuse my concept of family and life routine absolutely broke and PTSD kicked in. I was anxious, had constant nightmares and in need of stabilty. I got through it studying, working out and having time to dive into my special interests, among other things. But everything fell apart in the middle of my teenage years with the pandemic.
The pandemic was the start of the second worst years of my life. So, losing routine again, fearing stepping outside and the possibility of dying from COVID-19, the stress from studying and not being able to exercise was very hard. It lead me to isolate in my room and only stepping outside to take food, as I was also dealing with binge eating. I was in a shutdown for months and when we got the "new normality" phase I wasn't able to mask my autistic traits as I did before.
My post-pandemic years got even worse. I was still succeeding academically at a very high cost of my mental health. I had hyperfixations/obsessions that occupied my day (obsessions with people, the eating disorder and, the good one, guitar) and stressed out because I hadn't studied so slept an average of three hours daily to study at midnight. I dind't understand why it was so hard to organize or prioritize tasks. My days were waking up, highschool, obsessions and isolation, late at night studying and repeat. The only thing that kept me alive was writing. In 2022 I had an injury that kept me away from my obsession. I was dealing with so many things and I skipped so much school I didn't know if I'd finish it, but it didn't matter to me as I had lost my will to live. Which lead me to my psychologist (I had other ones before but stopped going when I was fine, big mistake).
After finishing my highschool years with honors and starting to work with my psychologist, I got help with the eating disorder and OCD, and had the first acceptable summer in years. But that, as I discovered during my post-compulsory education, wasn't enough. I thought I was doing great, but as fast as I got back into studying I felt the anxiety coming from not knowing how to organize, prioritize and losing track of time with my hyperfixations. I wanted to do it perfectly and put so much pressure on myself but if I gave everything one month, the next one I was in a complete shutdown unable to function in any aspect of my life. I started self-harming as a coping mechanism and somehow finished the first year of this course, but decided to drop out the next. I stopped studying and started working meanwhile I decided what I wanted to do. For a whole year that's the only thing I was able to do. (Apart from hobbies or special interests).
And this september I finally decided to get back to finishing the second course, because it was short and wanted to finish it. This time I really thought was it, the perfect timing, and after giving everything for a month and a half and losing the ability to balance my responsabilities and hobbies, I shutdown completely, again. First I started having meltdowns and then I shutdown and spent almost two months in my room, unable to speak even. That lead me to miss lots of my exams and failing half the subjects. The burden, guilt, shame, fear and hopelessness I felt was the biggest I had felt. It felt like proving, once again, that I am a failure. As I have always felt, because I have been unable to be consistent with anything in my life, I don't have big achievements and I may not even finish this course. And now I have to study, in less than two weeks, five subjects and be able to function.
But after this, at least, I got diagnosed. And it felt like a relief and a curse at the same time. Not because being autistic is a bad thing, it isn't, in fact it is a superpower in lots of things that neurotypical people can't see, but it also means that I will struggle in certain things forever. And that really sucks. I want to be able to study because I love it, in spite of everything. But I don't know how to do it without pain and difficulties. I don't want my life to be a roallercoaster, I don't want to be in a total shutdown every two months. I want to be functional, I want to be consistent, I want to achieve things, I have lots of dreams. But right now the only thing I see is failure and darkness. I feel that the only energy I have goes to recovering from a shutdown instead of achieving things. And I want to hope I can do many things in life, but I don't know if I believe I can do it.
Writing helps me process, but I think I need tools to manage studying, processing being autistic and understanding it better so I can achieve things in the way that I need it.
Thank you for reading, I know it's a long story. Very much appreciated if anyone has advice.
