Feeling like a failure

Oh I teach adults! Couldn't teach kids.

Kate Kestrel said:

There are some environments I’m really suited to things like deserted Moorlands and mountains even when it’s wet and cold and windy

A girl after my own heart. Give me rainy Scotland over a sunny beach any day of the year.

I've said for a while that neuro divergence will eventually become part of the accepted differences of life like lgbtq+ has.

I couldn’t cope with teaching - all those unpredictable and loud children! I have such admiration for teachers (the good ones anyway!).

When I was at school I had a couple of inspirational teachers who genuinely changed my life.

Sorry to interject. I have a strong interest in drug science as well as autism. I do love david nutt. His most recent podcast has an interview with melanie sykes. She talks about her recent autism diagnosis and also medical cannabis.

After previous really (really really!)  bad experiences with prescription medications I am very nervous about taking anything (apart from alcohol) - but I’ve heard such good things about cannabis for anxiety. The last time I had cannabis was about 23 years ago - a colleague of my husbands gave him some as a thank you for a favour he did them. However it was incredibly strong and freaked me out a bit to be honest. We were smoking it though. When I had cannabis as a student it was no where near that strong. 
I’m definitely going to look into this though - thanks for the advice. Love the idea of cannabis sweets! 
I’ve used alcohol to calm my anxiety for years. Thankfully my tolerance for alcohol  is quite low so quantity wise it’s not been too much of a problem. I used to drink Campari and Prosecco cocktails but after I was ill last year I got out of the habit and when I tried it again I didn’t like it so much. So at the moment (of an evening I mean!) I’m drinking spiced rum - which is really lovely. Lots of vanilla flavour running through it :) 

I’ve tried lots of herbal things for anxiety - without much success. I’ve considered HRT but again I’m worried about the risks of that. My mum had breast cancer when she was 38 - so I’m a bit paranoid about that. 

Generally I like to take the natural route if I can with these things. I don’t think there’s exactly anything wrong with me in essence - I just think life has thrown some pretty challenging experiences my way and that anxiety in response to that is not surprising. I was so seriously ill last year and because of that my perspective on what is worthy of my worry has completely changed. If it’s not disease or death then frankly it’s not worth it! 

I so want myself and my family to really enjoy life again. Like so many others we’ve had a rotten couple of years and I want us to move on, and be happy again. 

Jenny Butterfly said:

he went into teaching, with disastrous consequences for his mental health. 

Is he autistic? I think teaching would do anyones mental health in. I'm also a teacher and altho I'm very experienced and cope with it better, have had more mental health difficulties since I started in this work. 

Apart from his Youtube videos and website, Kieran also contributes to the North East Autism Society conferences and the videos from this are on the NEAS website.  Chloe from Aucademy is there too. :)

www.ne-as.org.uk/acceptance-matters-2022-links

Ah, it's six online sessions, if I remember correctly.  They send out the link each week and you also get a recording afterwards.  I'd recommend attending the live webinar though because the recordings don't have the Q & A section and Kieran is very generous with his time for these.  Plus they have regular free "graduate" sessions, although I've not yet attended any of these. 

TBH I'm thinking of attending it all again later this year anyway.  Well worth the money, I think, especially compared to other courses.  And Kieran seems to have read just about everything there is on the subject of autism.  I can't recommend it highly enough!  

It sounds as though many of our experiences are very similar.  I can remember us taking our older son to a pantomime and having to leave early because he just couldn't stand it.  Plus, looking back, I think that it was also quite obvious that he's hyperlexic.  We basically had a pre-school child covering his ears, panicking and stating ever so loudly that, "I don't like audience participation!"  (This reminds me of another little story which I've already related on these boards of me, as a very young child, waiting at the bus stop with my parents when an older woman tried to engage me in conversation, inviting me to admire the pretty blue flowers across the road.  "Yes", I said, "They're delphiniums!")  And there was that fireworks display where our younger son clutched his chest and said the noise was hurting him.  We had to go home.  There's loads more but you get the picture.

I'm really hoping to be in a position to help to build us all back up and move towards being the people we were meant to be, but really there's an awful lot of trauma and we're at our wit's end.  Stepping into the wisdom afforded by the neurodiversity paradigm has been a revelation for us, but I think we also need some serious bridging work before we can really experience the positivity that stems from it.  If only we could have know all this 25 years ago! 

On the subject of cannabis, my knowledge has built up very gradually, without that much effort on my part and mainly because our son ended up relying on it to get through university (which still went very badly but he reckons using it has saved his life!), which prompted me to attend a local cannabis club just before lockdown.  I simply wanted to source a safe supply at first and was almost quaking at the knees when I went along.  But I forced myself and am very glad I did. 

Many of the people there had long term conditions or disabilities, absolutely understood what I was looking for and were more than willing to share their knowlege.  I came back with a few products for when our son came home but, once home, got tempted by some blackcurrant candies I'd bought and decided, in my usual tense and anxious state, that it would be a sound parenting move to at least try just one before passing them on.  And my positive experience with the candies was a real turning point, in sharp contrast to my decades-long efforts with prescription drugs, OTC remedies and self medicating with alcohol!  And once I got wind of the Sapphire Clinic I registered as soon as I could - unfortunately lots of paperwork involved but totally worth it and I now get a monthly prescription delivered to my door (wonder whether the delivery man knows what's in there!).  

BTW, on this score I'd recommend Prof. David Nutt's book, "Cannabis, seeing throught he smoke" .  Hope I'm not info-dumping here but I do find it all very interesting.  :)     

Looks well worth £40 of anyone's money. I've listened to that guy on an Academy video or two (think it was him) and he seems to have a lot of interesting and useful insights to share. Maybe I'll book in for the Sept one when I can afford it. Is it a one day thing?

Thanks so much for this link, a really good reminder of how to orient one's thinking around being autistic - 'disabled by my *environment*' is such a key phrase, a great recognition to keep in mind. 

Yes, it does get to the heart of the matter and a paradigm shift is what's needed. 

I think my husband would have also liked somewhere isolated, wet and windy for his work but, instead of becoming a lighthouse keeper or a weather station monitor or anything like that, he went into teaching, with disastrous consequences for his mental health.  So earlier information about neurodivergence and other possiblilities could have really helped.  

And these days we just avoid shopping centres and parties.  A cuppa in the back garden, a good book or a walk somewhere remote is much more appealing.

If you haven't already done Kieran Rose's course, I would also strongly recommend it.  Obviously we needed it decades ago, but better late than never.  So much better than some professionals assessing me for all my deficits!

theautisticadvocate.com/.../ 

Wow Jenny - this is so interesting! 
I used to take my youngest to other kids parties and dread that point when the party entertainer would say “I can’t hear you!” and get all the children to shout louder or whatever. At which point my little boy would become terrified and start crying. At these parties they were always encouraging the children to be louder - as if that was proof everyone was having a great time. Nightmare. 
I should have given up on all that much sooner. Like you though - I felt it was good for them and that they’d get used to it and benefit in the long run. Without knowing about autism though how could we know how misguided we were? 

What I did have the confidence to do was to take them out of school for family holidays. We all hated visiting places when they were busy (still do) so we’d pretend they were ill  and go on holiday when things were really quiet in all the places we loved to go to. Also go off season - camping in Cornwall in April and loving everywhere being half empty :) 

I’m sorry that you’ve experienced so much distress and breakdown in your family. We have had a similar experience. It all takes it’s toll. However it sounds like you’ve accumulated a lot of wisdom and experience along the way - and that’s what will help you and your family now (and in future) to create a life that works better for you all. That’s what I’m hoping for for my own family. 

I’m glad that cannabis is helping your anxiety. I keep meaning to properly investigate this but I just haven’t had the mental energy to take it on. It requires a level of research etc that I’m just not up to at the moment. 
Anxiety is the hardest thing! My last few months have been totally ruined by my anxiety. I don’t want to give up though - I’m determined to be there for my youngest son as I know he needs me. 

Thank you for sharing your experience - it’s been so incredible to join this forum and read stories that so mirror my own. It’s making such a positive difference for me - I feel amazed to suddenly be able to relate to so many people! 

I only wish I’d come on here 25 years ago (though it probably didn’t exist then!). 

Thank you - I’ve just watched it - it’s excellent isn’t it?! It’s a brilliant approach and I agree with her. There are some environments I’m really suited to things like deserted Moorlands and mountains even when it’s wet and cold and windy - environments that many people would struggle with. I can happily manage without much food for ages, or modern luxuries like hot water or dishwashers or fancy clothes. What I struggle with are things like parties and busy shops! It’s just difference - it’s not necessarily ‘less’ or worse. 
Good heavens though that statistic about life expectancy she gave is horrendous. Just appalling. I can totally see why though - I feel worn out with stress and anxiety over decades, and I have a lot of difficulty accessing healthcare due to anxiety. So it sadly makes a lot of sense.

Thank you for sending this to me - I feel her message is ultimately very positive and important. 

Yes, it's really interesting and helpful to talk things through here and know that we're amongst others who understand. 

Within my own family I feel as though we've spent a long time out in the cold, seeking help from professionals who either didn't understand or weren't well enough trained.  And yes, we also have a long history of issues that have just kept re-emerging, from one generation to the next, for the main part without ever understanding that we're neurodivergent.  :(

We actually did the party thing with our sons - parties, sleepovers, activities etc - simply because I falsely attributed my own difficulties to having had a very isolated upbringing with little-no chance of developing decent social skills.  So my sons started going to play group from very early on and I forced myself to keep taking them to whatever there was, just to help to "socialise" them and ensure they had friends.  I thought I was making a better job of things than my own parents did. 

Unfortunately what I was actually unwittingly doing was trying to train them to be neurotypical and adding to their trauma.  And although they seemed to willingly go along with it (possibly because they thought they had to) and even to enjoy it most of the time, underneath all of that something very different was happening.  Our younger son explained much later on that his friends weren't really friends and that, "I always felt different inside" and our older son said he just felt out of his depth and going to these things just emphasised to him how different he was.  To my credit, I did let them stay off school for occasional days when they seemed to need them, including avoiding "reward days" when they insisted that the best reward would be not to go, but overall I now see that I was just basing all my parenting on a very surface understanding of our family and when I thought I was helping I was actually damaging them.   

It's really only very recently that we've been doing things differently but this all comes in the wake of major breakdowns and distress and we're not sure whether the damage can be repaired.  Our youngest age of diagnosis is 26, our younger son is done with services and won't now have an assessment at all, and I myself was only diagnosed a couple of months before my 56th birthday.      

So yes, all the signs can be there but without the knowledge needed to interpret these.  And now I really need communities like this to help me to make up for lost time.  Plus, as you'll have probably noticed in other threads, I've now added medical cannabis into my lifelong efforts to manage anxiety.  

I've just watched this ted talk and thought you'd like to see it (and other people would too).

It doesnt give practical advice but has very positive messages https://youtu.be/A1AUdaH-EPM

Thanks Jenny - I will check these things out :) 

I too have come to the conclusion that autistic people are very good at understanding and supporting autistic people - I suppose it’s obvious now I think about it! Although in terms of parenting I feel it’s helped me understand and empathise with my children (both autistic - one with a diagnosis and one on the waiting list) - but looking back I realise their were some failings in my parenting due to me being autistic. I was uncomfortable with social situations so my children attended less social situations - even though I did try my best to make myself take them to parties etc. However they hated other kids parties - so they didn’t even want to go! Eventually I thought “why are we forcing ourselves to go to these things when NONE of us actually want to go!”. So we stopped going. 
For a few years I didn’t even know we were autistic - my youngest son wasn’t diagnosed until he was 10. He developed Selective Mutism when he started school at 4 and a half and the school etc just focussed on that - only later when it clicked with me that he was autistic was that addressed. This is a boy who had (I then realised) a STACK of signs of autism! He was seen by Ed Psychs etc - nothing done or mentioned! Quite extraordinary. 
Sorry - have gone on a tangent there! 

Thank you for all your help today - and all the interesting references and links - it’s been so helpful! 
My anxiety has been dreadful - and engaging with the very interesting conversations on this community forum is the only thing that’s brought my mind to focus on something. 
People on here seem to speak the same language as me - if that makes sense? 

best wishes and thanks x 

thank you so much for your very kind words   x 

I agree with all your wider points about society and how we treat each other. We are a long way from that  now - but who knows, maybe one day?!  It’s not impossible that things could profoundly change. Looking at history though there is not a huge amount of evidence for it! I always think Buddhism gets part way there - but look at what happened to Tibet……

I hope you enjoy the remainder of your weekend :)    X

I completely agree with your sentiments. I'm not going to get started on politics otherwise that will be me here till bedtime! Of course healthcare needs more investment but I think we need to start at the individual level. If we could build more understanding, acceptance, compassion and empathy for ourselves and each other this would be the starting point we need. Im talking about anyone and everyone for each other regardless of our differences. This is probably a very roses tinted view but it'll never happen while we have a society which chases wealth, status,  power and unrelenting quest for happiness. Because you have to tread over others to get there.

So we need to teach others how to swim, find new ways to swim if you've only got one leg, or share armbands, or help the ones in the shallow end and be kind to the ones who just want to sit on the side with their toe in.

In a kinder society we would look out for each other more and take care of each other better. People help the people. Of course there are others who'd need more significant help.

We are totally disconnected from the world, nature and each other. 

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm rambling but the bit you said about a good society set off this chain of thought. 

This week sounds difficult...remind yourself you've probably had equally if not more difficult times before so you'll get through it. Quite often I get anxiety that I will induce more anxiety on myself. 

For what it's worth, I really value your comments, kindness and insight on this forum.

Yes, I've long believed that the "unhelpful help" out there can really set us back and make us feel much worse.  More than that, I think it can compound the damage we've already accumulated over the years as we get edged by various pressures and prejudices into feeling different (in a bad way), marginalised and excluded - and this can be interpreted as another failure.  After all, they've given us all this "help" so we should have been able to use it and get better!

Then, when I was watching one of the Ausome Training videos, I heard Evaleen Whelton also refer to "unhelpful help" and thought, yes, this is a very common experience.  I'm not alone.  We're clobbered by society and then take another few rounds from services.  "Seek help" we're told.  And we do so.  Again and again.  :(     

So these days I tend to come here and also to listen to autistic-led training and resources because these leave me feeling bolstered, not eroded and unheard.     

I wonder whether Hans Christian Anderson was autistic.  I can see shades of the Ugly Duckling, the Princess and the Pea and the little boy in The Emperor's New Clothes in many of us.  We're different (in ways that often turn out to be good), we're sensitive (so irritating peas won't pass unnoticed and we can alert others to dangers) and we're perceptive more generally (we don't just go along with the general mindset when it's wrong, wrong, wrong!). 

The Nagoski sisters can sometimes be a little sciency and chirpy for me, but they definitely have a place in my thinking. They actually wrote a book on burnout before they realised that they're autistic, but there's a whole cluster of videos from after that realisation.  I wish they'd bring out a second edition of their book in the light of that.

 www.youtube.com/watch