Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello.
I am a 44 year old who is attemting to go through rehab from adddiction to benzodiazapines (the latest in a lifetime of drug problems) that I feel have been my attempt at dealing with undiagnosed Autism/Asperger's. While my GP is a very understanding about the benzos and is tapering me off them I have also been shunted off to CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) for the second time. The first time I just agreed with everything they said so I could get out as quickly as possible.
This time around they know about the addiction but basically CBT does not even remotely deal with whay I feel and have felt my whole life. I've been sent there probably because they think it will help me deal with panic attacks and social anxiety. But it goes way beyond that. I have almost no friends and i have no desire to make any, they just want or expect me to do things I will hate. I can't even manage visiting my own family, I know I should want to but i don't. I just want to be left alone. I am supposed to go to my Dad's tomorrow for christmas dinner, but I won't.
I get incredibly anxious and irritated if I have to spend any time away from home, If I have to spend a night away at family I am annoyed by it and consider it a waste of my time that I should be doing something else with. Recently the demands put on me in that regard have been too much to handle as my stepmother was in hospital for 3 months and I felt I had to make weekly visits. I was worried about her as I don't want anything to change but I resented having to visit all the time and my use of benzodiazapines increased dramatically as a result, leading me to where I now find my self.
I tried to go on holiday with my brother and mum and ended up buying a flight home after 3 days as I couldn't cope with being away from home. They try to understand but I don't think ,they do. I just want to stay at home and be left to my own devices. I hate any break in that routine whatsoever. I barely manage to hold down a part time job at a casino and have just enough money to survive, but that is fine. I have to no children, no wife or girlfriend and no desire for one... in fact the idea seems utterly abhorent.
I want to approach this with the GP or maybe even the CBT therapist to stop her wasting her time because the goals she sees me achieving are something I just don't want. I don't want to meet new people, they'll just expect things from me that I can't give them. I just don't know what is the best way to go about this because at the moment I need to get free of my adiction, but long term I know that I need to get a diagnosis so that people will stop trying to turn me into someone I am not and do not want to be.
Sorry for the rant but it's all getting a to much right now.
Bilsner
Hi Bilsner
Your post has caught my attention, thanks for posting it.
I am 67 years old (68 in Feb) and have only recently acknowledged I suffer from emotional deprivation and have been behaving incorrectly towards women most of my life. I am incapable of forming any kind of meaningful relationship which would satisfy a partner as a result. I now see that and it explains why all my previous relationships have failed because I am not capable of reciprocation due to my autistic characteristics. A recent approach from an old school friend for instance who found me on facebook caused a bought of panic and anxiety and guilt which made me reject the approach and offer to meet up. Baggage from the past I want to drop if I can. I feel I failed before.
I have been confusing love with sex and have never found the first emotion at all.
So this Xmas I made a point of watching all the American smaltz films on TV including the classics like Wonderful Life and Home Alone and also the British Classic Love Actually. I find I can get emotionally moved by those films and they do make me cry.
So it seems given the right triggers I can get emotionally connected. Why not in real life? Of course those films are fictional fabrications and merely represent our dreams of perfection. The life we would aspire to live? I am not attractive nor talented nor particularly altruistic yet I still can get sucked into the emotional smaltz of the films.
It is of course the hidden persuaders in the films which can hook me into connecting with the supernatural messages they contain. Unfortunately I am an intelligent atheist with a good scientific education. But why do I still cry as I watch them?
There is a saying "ignorance is bliss". I once told a methodist minister "I envy you" and he tried to convert me to religous faith for the next three months (unsuccessfully). Of course he misunderstood what I meant by what I said. I was called on by two women from the Jehova's Witnesses recently who also tried to convert me to their particular faith. I explained I am autistic and she replied "we are all autistic". Probably just trying to ingratiate herself to me to get inside my head? I am not sure.
So where am I trying to get to with this story.
I am addicted to nicotine and moderately dependant on alcohol I now acknowledge although I no longer smoke tobacco thanks to vaping technology. So drugs are an important part of my life. I recently discussed this with both my GP and a psychiatrist and the reaction was as I predicted a negative one. You must reduce your alcohol consumption by 50% they said. My reply was "you are asking me to reduce my satisfaction from life by 50% ? No way I said.
So I am beginning to make sense of addiction and how it affects humans, from food to retail therapy, to drugs. If the fiction of the films and adverts was really achievable then perhaps I would not need alcohol to keep me satisfied with my life.
My point is therefore drugs should not be considered as inherently bad things to be avoided (unless others are disadvantaged or hurt by me taking them) and I think can allow me to lead a reasonably fulfilled life.
So perhaps regarding the drugs you are addicted to as giving you a better quality of life is the way to look on them rather than as inherantly bad things to "get off of"
best wishes, take care, Laddie.