Mental health

LOTS OF US HAVE THIS PROBLEM. And having it as sticky recurrent thinking which is difficult to distract from is even worse.

Hopefully you can find a positive direction. For me this id trying to develop a suicide prevention app, specifically for autistic spectrum people, based on lived experience of what we have found helpful.

Making a contribution to help others, helps me feel better!

What would you like to happen??????

Hi Emily,

Thank you for sharing this. This is a question and a situation that I also have been struggling with.

I have talked with a lot of different therapists over the years. Some help, some make things worse. I know that it's terrible to have to go through your history with every new therapist, but in my experience, "shopping around" until you find someone that you click with can really help. One of the aspects about depression that really sucks, at least for me, is that I have to advocate so hard for myself, when I'm so exhausted to begin with. How long until uni starts up again?

Best of luck I hope your appointment went well.

Agree with all of the above. You make excellent points.

Hi ninja yeah I think your spot on. It's like it builds and builds and then suddenly explodes but I don't notice it until it's way to late and then I don't know how to get back in control. Like being in a tornado spinning round and round and I can't get out. 

Hey nice guitar is good, a good way of unwinding. I used to play a few years ago I played love story by taylor and was learning Romeo and Juliet by dire straits. I understand when your overwhelmed and anxious tho makes it hard to play.

Your doggy sounds so cute! I'd love a dog for support and company but it's not possible at this time. The last pet I had died and it was kind of my fault so I avoid animals and pets at the moment.

What songs do you play on your guitar and what do you like to sing? 

For me, the $150-$200+ per hour psychotherapy fee is for a transaction for which there’s only one party that is always a winner — the therapist’s bank account.

Regarding skipping high school classes, I recall attending maybe half of Grades 8 and 9, both of which I despised and just barely passed. I then left regular high school and completed my GED in a separate program. 

Perhaps not surprising, I'd like to see child-development science curriculum implemented for secondary high school students, which could also include neurodiversity, albeit not overly complicated. If nothing else, the curriculum would offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally/mentally compatible with the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood.)

When around their neurotypical peers, young people with an autism spectrum disorder typically feel compelled to “camouflage,” a term used to describe their attempts at appearing to naturally fit in, which is known to cause their already high anxiety and/or depression levels to worsen. And, of course, this exacerbation also applies to the high rate of suicide among ASD people.

my mental health is constantly decreasing. I started feeling this way 3 weeks ago - my anxiety is getting worse and I feel more tired every day. Yesterday wasn't a good day- a bad thing at school happened and it gave me the coup de grace. Today I skipped school because I'm feeling really bad, but I feel pathetic and a bit useless: everyone goes to school even if they feel bad, why am I so sensitive? Am I too weak? Yeah- I feel like ***. The only good thing is that today I'll finally take an appointment with my therapist (it's the first therapy session I have), so wish me good luck!

To Emily:

Since so much of our lifelong health comes from our childhood experiences, childhood mental health-care should generate as much societal concern and government funding as does physical health, even though psychological illness/dysfunction typically is not immediately visually observable. Also, if society is to avoid the most dreaded, invasive and reactive means of intervention — that of governmental forced removal of children from dysfunctional/abusive home environments — maybe we then should be willing to try an unconventional proactive means of preventing some future dysfunctional/abusive family situations.

Being free nations, society cannot prevent anyone from bearing children; society can, however, educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those high-schoolers who plan to always remain childless. One can imagine that greater factual knowledge of what exactly entails raising and nurturing a fully sentient child/consciousness in this messed-up world — therefore the immense importance and often overwhelming responsibility of proper rearing — would probably make a student less likely to willfully procreate as adults.

It seems logical to me that if people have their ACEs, etcetera, diagnosed when very young, they should be better able to deal with their condition(s) through life. I have a condition I consider to be a perfect storm of 'train wrecks' — with which I greatly struggle(d) while unaware (until I was a half-century old) its component dysfunctions had official titles. I still cannot afford to have a formal diagnosis made on my condition, due to having to pay for a specialized shrink, in our (Canada's) “universal” health-care system.

Within our “universal” health-care system, there are important health treatments that are unaffordable thus universally inaccessible, except for those with generous health-insurance coverage and/or a lot of extra doe.

Furthermore, Canada is the only country with "universal" health-care coverage that fails to also cover medication. Not surprising, a late-2019 Angus Reid study found that, over the previous year, due to medication unaffordability, almost a quarter of Canadians decided against filling a prescription or having one renewed. Not only is medication less affordable, but other research has revealed that many low-income outpatients who cannot afford to fill their prescriptions end up back in the hospital system as a result, therefore costing far more for provincial and federal government health ministries than if the medication had been covered.

Also, I don't believe it's just coincidental that the only two health professions’ appointments for which Canadians are fully covered by the public plan are the two readily pharmaceutical-prescribing psychiatry and general practitioner health professions? Such non-Big-Pharma-benefiting health specialists as counsellors, therapists and naturopaths (etcetera) are not covered a red cent.

P.S. I tend to get agitated when I receive a strong suggestion from the media, however well-intentioned, to 'get therapy', as though anyone can access it, regardless of the $150-$200+ per hour they charge. For me, even worse is the fact that payment is for a product/transaction for which there’s only one party that is always a winner — the therapist’s bank account.

This seems to be a multifaceted problem, it would be very hard fod me to imagine what you to go through.

If I would make a guess from my experience about the conditions you face, I think autism can play a role where you might be less aware of your feelings until your conditions flares up from a compulsive trauma response, so you feel less in control.

Does this sound right to you?

I hope you’re ok.  The things you write about are what helped me being diagnosed with ASD. I’ve learnt what helps me.. for example my guitar, but sometimes I’m to overwhelmed and all shakes.. then I walk the dog. This helps me a lot.. owning a German shepherd is social distancing and space is given, I pull all my thought into him because I have to.. pulls me back to reality.. but normally my guitar.. I also have a playlist on my phone, called depression change.. it’s hyper nu-metal and it works no matter what. But I’m a loud singer ha  sorry to ramble on

I'm sorry your mental health is like that but totally understand. Mine was as well but the last few years its been down and hasn't really come back up much, maybe it will soon. Not sure.

I've got official diagnosis which was in April 2011. Answered a lot of questions, especially for my parents. Did for me as well though sort of explained why I'm so different.

Thanks. I do call Samaritans a lot actually and if things got really bad I have my mental health team but I try not to call them because if I do I get assessed and usually end up in hospital so I'm trying not to go back there anytime soon :) 

Thank you for your reply.

There's a number of things that commonly occur alongside autism. I am autistic and share a lot of the same problems as you (some diagnosed, some self-diagnosed). My mental health fluctuates regularly and I think most people here will relate to what you are going though to some extent.

If you haven't had an autism diagnosis it's worth trying to get one if you think it might apply to you. If you're not sure, ask your doctor for an Autism Screening Test to see if it's likely. Autism itself can't be treated, but a lot of the other problems that regularly come with it can.

In the meantime, if you are really struggling with your mental health then please do call the Samaritans or another mental health crisis line. They are really useful for when you are caught up in your own thoughts.

Hope you're ok.