My Head Is A Mess

also fawning - agreeing with other people about reality - even when I didn't see it the way they did

Hi NAS66392 Please accept my apologies for the delay in response.

Where to start?

I was told that the quote "the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step" is a mistranslation.

It perhaps should be "journey of a thousand miles begins underneath your feet"

So where to start 

one can only start with where one is at the moment :-) 

So this is also something from me to apologise about further.  

I gave the implication that one needs to reach out for support.  Personally I firstly found it necessary to acknowledge and accept the support that I already receive - in my case this meant acknowledging family, friends and to a certain extent the wider social network that provided me with support.

From this I then allowed myself to accept myself as vulnerable and allow myself to grieve.

Word of caution in this - the existing support network found it hard to take this - I was apparently getting worse.  In reality i was dropping some of the masking/pretence of capability that I had portrayed to others and also had self-deluded myself with.

From this sense of vulnerability the opportunity to identify situations where I meet find the right support significantly improved.

I found that even simple conversations with people I met when out shopping, or with people who I knew and normally encountered became possibilities for support.  (one needs to be careful of course as they are human too)  And yes eventually trained therapists can be found with strategies and tools that they're used to sharing.

Funnily enough the greater acknowledgement of support from non-human aspects of existence like my pets or even the plants and soil i work with at my allotment played crucial part for me.

Likewise the support that I am able to gain from research via the internet and chat rooms like this.

I found gaining interception about what my body was telling me especially useful.

So I guess what I am saying is that where one starts with is with oneself.  In a sense, the capacity to alter one's perspective.  To think outside of the box of one's prior experience and expectations.  To start with this is mental heavy lifting. Just as it is hard to lift and carry something physically it is even harder to carefully place it somewhere else.  So is it in respect of changes one's perspective mentally and see things from a different place.

By this means anything can be therapy for one's distress.  I started with small changes in perspective.  Small wins like simply getting on top of my clothes washing etc. and then moved to the heavier and bigger ones as my confidence and ability improved.

I advocate that if there's a knock-back use the energy of of it to spin into another conformation and approach and keep on trying

This is almost a leap of faith into the possibility that one may get better - which I know is hard when one has had experience of things being tough and maybe even getting progressively tougher.

Everyone has the potential to learn to be their own best support through this process I believe.

keep trying

It's working for me and I believe it can for you too.

Best wishes and sorry again for the delay in responding.

That is a fantastic comment and makes a lot of sense. How do I do that focus without becoming a professional victim? I watched clips of Gabbie Hanna and I do not want to be like her.

I don't have a lot of experience with therapy myself, I tried a bit of counselling but found it hard (private not NHS). I think if you are in England, you can refer yourself to NHS talk therapy if you find going through the doctor hard?? I think you want to tell them your are autistic and ask for someone with experience in it? Maybe someone else knows more. I'm in Scotland so it's not the same here.

But yeah, you really need support and to perhaps learn some coping strategies to deal with it and the stress you are put under, as it's not nice at all.

Nobody talks about bullying in adulthood.

The ignorance and apathy I received daily for the first part of my life is a joke. Its still there and I still do but the difference is I largely choose not to listen to it. Its a narrative which supports the continguency of type which have outgrown their use -so these people attempt to disrupt all areas of life. Even if I didn't acknolwdedge it then, people treating people badly for so long tricked my brain into thinking the problem was me and because of me. Understand we (here) are largely in the same boat. 

At work I can perform well be kind and courteous to others but I am got rid of and up paid because it is a system that doesn't support me (at the moment). I try not to let it bring me down becasue I am looking for solutions and share clarity of my thoughts with people here. Even if somedays I struggle myself.

The solution I see at the moment is raising awareness to the subtle and underhand discrimination that is going on in society towards neurodiverse people. Neurotypical people trying to control time by wasting everyone elses. This is largely what I have observed. If you don't engage, which lockdown has shown us we don't and can work from home then the world becomes a more level playing field. This can be done in all areas of life. It doesnt have to be in a way thats difficult for you.

Overwhelming feelings and emotions can scramble thoughts so your unable to process them fully. It becomes like a loop.

The start is to pull back and focus on you, going to see a therapist has really helped me. 

Would you know where to start? Autism can be a marathon so I don't know where the right support would be.

Like fight, flight or freeze? If yes then I get that a lot.

I'm not sure which therapies to use, as I seemed to have the wrong one in the past. I think when it comes to flight, fight or freeze I tend to freeze, just as you said when names paralyze you into inaction. I get that a lot.

when I say emotions - I mean unresolved distress that kind of kicked me into living my life in survival mode most of the time if that makes sense

I recognise what you write about from personal experience and I suspect many others on this site may do too.

I'd like to back up Cinnabar_wing as talking therapy helps me at present from similar circumstances. - took a while and some effort to get to someone who could help and also for me to get to the point where I could be helped.

First thing they did was to make me accept just how vulnerable I may be and acknowledge how emotions have lead impacted how I have been living my life.

Getting on with being autistic is a bit of a marathon challenge.

By identifying what you have and seeking support I reckon that you're going in the right direction even tho' times are still hard.

Best wishes

Can you get referred to some sort of taking therapy, as it sounds like you could do some help to pick apart the issues? I think you have a lot of complex stuff going on don't you? (I think I saw your other post but don't know much on housing issues), but it doesn't sound like you are getting supported.

Being called names doesn't help the situation, for me at least it would paralyse me more to inaction, so it really isn't helping matters. Maybe if your GP could refer you for some therapy to work through this and get into a more positive mindset, it might help you find the strength to address the things you need to do.