Published on 12, July, 2020
Now, I know many of us struggle with emotions and understanding them at the best of times. My emotions are generally all over the place like I'm on some insane car journey and they are driving and I'm the passenger handing on for dear life! At the time, when asked what emotions I feel I can never answer because it's such a complex question for me - but when I'm on my own in the safe haven of my bedroom I can sit and relax, close my eyes and answer a question like this. When I'm with other people my brain freezes, unable to process the answer.
For me my most common felt emotion is tension/anxiety/panic, whatever you want to call it. At times I am calm, that's the second one I feel and recognize most of all. I'm sure there's others but I don't really understand them so can't say what they are. Rarest emotion for me is probably anger, I don't get angry much, usually if I start to get angry it turns in to overwhelming sadness that hits me low for a bit. Anxiety is definitely the emotion that I'm always having to deal with, and it brings with it so many side effects. It can be quite overwhelming at times. I've tried medication to help but then I often think you can't treat and cure an emotion, so I think a lot of it's got to come from within me.
I get a lot of anxiety but I do feel happy and calm most of the time. Life is hard but I make the most of it because having lost family I know how precious life is.
I used to be very sad and anxious, but I am content and happy now, have been for a few years now, because learning to overcome issues in an autistic-friendly way that works for me now means whenever bad stuff happens it's not an unpassable obstacle in life.
Glad that you have reached such a place my friend. This is ultimately what I'm aiming for in my life, where obstacles don't stop me in my tracks and tear my life to shreds which they still tend to do.
I know everyones road map to a healthy frame of mind isn't the same. But I know what worked for me was having someone I could confide in who was %100 non judgemental, I went through a string of mainstream therapists and not all of what they said worked for me but I took all the little bits that did work and basically said to myself okay how do I make this work for me. So one of the things I did for example is a kind of exposure therapy of my own devising, the things that gave me the most anxiety I would prep like heck for and then make that jump to go do it, but most importantly I gave myself permission to fail. And almost ironically the more I unlearned being a perfectionist and allowed myself to fail without beating myself up I got less anxious and more confident the more I did stuff and as a result I actually failed less. Which was great for my self esteem. And I started putting my creative problem solving to good use to be able to achieve the same effect of functioning as an allistic person but by doing things in the non conventional ways that worked better for me.Ofc all bets are off if I'm physically worn out but then I also accepted that modern hustle culture is pretty toxic and you can't work yourself to death. I gave myself permission to rest when I got worn out so I could pick up and go again rather than just totally burn out and quit. I do loads of stuff now I never used to be able to do, I no longer have agoraphobia or suffer from learned helplessness from my cptsd, and it's because of the radical self acceptance and realise okay I have some deficits but I also have strengths others don't too and if I use my strengths just so it can plug a lot of the hole where the deficit is if I just don't give up and try new ways to do things until the perfect way for me clicks. Like 10 years ago I would never have been able to be in and out of the supermarket unaccompanied and get everything on my list in under 20 mins, and I didn't get better functioning by trying to be less autistic but by using my autistic strategizing brain to do it. It's why I say I don't think functioning levels are set in stone but variable. Because having high IQ never equated to ability to function for me when I was younger because I was still trying to be a NT when I never would be. And I couldn't leave the house back then, now I go out and do things and work with, not against, being autistic and it's been the key to my liberation. Anyway sorry I'm info dumping because the journey has been such a whole thing. I wish I could wave a magic wand and give everyone else that key to their brain, but I know ofc we all have to find it for ourselves. Ofc a bit of love and support also goes a long way. I think really if you are not talking to a therapist give it a try, and you can take what works and leave what doesn't as a good starting point. And if you think your current therapist is naff then line up another one to switch to without leaving gaps. I "cheated" on my therapists by having 2 from different sources running in overlap for a while because I just didn't accept a gap between support services.