Alive but unwell

ACF85 said:

I've benefitted from posts that I just can't find the right words to reply to but they have helped me to see things from a different perspective.

And so have I, so I completely agree with you on this.

I admire your active approach to seeking solutions to problems and I thank you for sharing your experiences of this.

I send you my very best wishes.

Number.

Dear ACF85,  

Thank you for posting and telling the community what you are going through. We understand from your post that you are currently receiving support from a mental health hospital. It is good that you’ve let us know what’s happening and how you feel. Many people have similar thoughts when coping with so much and we hope you’re okay.     

The National Autistic Society does not currently operate a crisis or emergency service. We advise you to contact 999 or any of the mental health crisis lines listed on our Urgent Help Page if you are at risk of immediate harm: https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/help-and-support/urgent-help  

You may also find the following NAS resources useful:  

• Mental health advice and guidence: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/mental-health 
• Information about suicide: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/mental-health/suicide 

Help for anyone struggling to cope:

• Samaritans: Call 116 123 for free, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  

• Mind Infoline: 0300 1233393 for information and signposting (9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday)   

• SANEline: 0300 304 7000 for anyone experiencing a mental health problem or supporting someone else (4.30pm to 10.30pm, every day)  

• Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM): for men 0800 58 58 58, (5pm to midnight every day).    

• Shout 85258: a free, confidential, 24/7 text messaging support service for anyone struggling to cope.  

We hope this is helpful to you.  

Kind regards,

Rosie Mod  

I just wanted to say thank you for your replies. They do mean a lot and they do help. As with any forum/online community, I think also of those who can benefit from reading the exchanges without replying. Often I've benefitted from posts that I just can't find the right words to reply to but they have helped me to see things from a different perspective.

Initially, when I was really struggling to make sense of why university life and the prospect of getting into a professional career in my late teens/early twenties seemed so hard and unlikely, I read into social anxiety as I did into autism. I spent some time on a social anxiety disorder forum and felt a connection with other people's experiences on there. I still feel the symptoms of social anxiety in me, namely the feeling that I'm being observed, analysed and judged in some way by others, even to the point of reading my mind - although this doesn't quite become delusional, but does border on paranoia. So hopefully reading into experiences of social anxiety (neurotypical or neurodivergent) and being more open with this anxiety with the psychiatrist here can be beneficial. Otherwise I love being around people. Just when it comes to 'connecting' with people, I always feel so out of my depth. Like a voice in my head just saying: 'no, that's not for you...you're different'. And being in this half in love with life/half resenting life state of mind, feeling trapped in it, generates panic (as if I were actually caught between a physical as well as a metaphorical 'rock and a hard place') and despair just seems a more natural, default response to the pain and frustration of being 'on the outside'. 

I like watching the film 'Adam' (2009), which I kind of assume is known in AS circles. The part where he is breaking down in tears because someone is asking him to come out with him and he seems so visibly torn between his fear of the unknown and his need to feel loved and accepted. It got to me, that part. I watched it with my then-wife, who was later given her AS (ASD level 1) diagnosis. All the re-lived pain through the years seemed to be settled with her beside me. Now I'm still living while always trying to make sense of why I ever walked away from her. The re-vived pain of now being a soul torn from a soul-mate. I must move on somehow but it's so, so hard. If I had of had an outright affair and/or been abusive, it would somehow have made more sense in that I have received my just desserts. But it has been my sense of morality and a yearning to do the right thing that leads me to the place I am now at. And I know that no-one can possibly get close to despising me as much as I do, and this is because I just don't care about myself anymore.

Yet in saying this, I feel the void/the abyss inside me widen and shrink uncontrollably in fluctuations that come and go. My despair relents before returning to torment me. So I'm just as clueless as ever, really, in using my logic to work out what is wrong with me. Mood disorder (bipolar, cyclothymia or otherwise) or the way in which a man with AS deals with the existential angst of his mid-life crisis? Both seem true in their own ways - classic 'neurosis' even without the 'psychoses' that others around me share. If medication can help, so be it, but AS can't be medicated for. It seems like it's just the way I am. 

So, I've rattled on for more than I intended, as always, but I shall end on a positive note. I'm in a terrible storm, sometimes in the eye of it, sometimes caught up in a 'twister', but I do know that it will pass - 'this too shall pass'. Suicidal ideation and then actualisation is very real but if I can fight it, I believe that anyone can. And I cannot begin to express how little self-esteem and self-belief I have. Somehow I just know that faith, hope and love somehow do remain. Somehow I just know that tomorrow, whenever it comes, will be a brighter day. 

A

I too tried doing a teacher train course and it almost killed me. I think it is not a job for people on the spectrum. Lots of noise and stress and dealing with kids, most of whom don’t want to be there. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Use this as an opportunity to move forward and have a look at other potential careers that are more suited to you. I am also middle aged and have tried numerous jobs but failed in most of them due to one reason or another. But don’t give up. There is a life out there for everyone, you just need to find it. 

The system failed us. However, you shouldn't fail yourself.

There is so much, out there, trying to destroy us. But once we find something worth living for, we cling to it; for inspiration.

Hope is quite the addition to my life. Pets are ideal. They provide unconditional love.

God bless you A. Good to hear from you again on this forum. 

ACF85 said:

Access to occupational therapy here is useful and I am treated well by staff and even try to socialise with other patients on my ward and those I meet in therapy. Pathetic yet charming, I imagine it must seem.

Sounds to me that even at your lowest points you are thoughtful and considerate of others. No need to see that as pathetic - it's charming and humane. 

I'm approaching middle age, am autistic, and frequently live with despair. The question 'is this really worth living' appears a lot with me; I don't always have an answer, but there is usually something of interest that I can engage with which I didn't know before. And that adds meaning to my life (and to others.) I hope you too give yourself the chance to witness these things. 

ACF85 said:

My future is laughable in its negligibility.

That's how it looks like now, at this immediate moment, but you really do not know. Depression and anxiety - sharing my experience - can make things seem very bleak and small; this is your current perception, but this can greatly change. There are countless things that could appear in your future. (For me, when all I see is darkness, I try to find a book I haven't read or a topic I know nothing about) There will be a different logic that will become more visible with recovering. 

Not sure how helpful this reply is, but I hope to see you here again.

ACF85 said:

If this is autism, it has broken me as much as it has defined me.

It can suck to be autistic at times, but I found it helps to not try to compare our ambitions to those of neurotypicals as we are quite different.

For example if a neurotypical tried to do the same course as you were while raising a 2 year old child, caring for an elderly invalid parent and writing a novel in their spare time then they would quite naturally probalby do badly at all these often and have a breakdown when it all gets to much.

We have a different threshold when it comes to the things we can manage to do, but on the plus side our hyperfocus can often lead us to do some tasks exceptionally well.

When we encounter stumbles like this in life it is good practice to pause, get your energy back up to a level where you can revisit your dreams and practical plans and try to learn from the lessons of the past

What worked well, what was a major trigger for you and what were the warning signs to look out for in future. Learn from it this way and keep a note of it so you can look over it periodically to remind yourself what to look for in case you are at risk of another meltdown.

ACF85 said:

Is this really worth living?

Yes. It is what you make of it but you need to be smart in how you do this. You can have a quality of life but don't try to consider yourself as if you were a neurotypical. You are different to them but still can work, love, achieve and enjoy in ways you just need to discover.

Keeping a journal is a good start and will help you distill out the things that work best for you for the long term, so my advice would be to try this, get a therapist if you can afford one (one with lots of experience of late diagnosed autists) and focus on developing a plan over the next year or two to get you where you ultimately want to be,

I was a teacher for 32 years. I did not learn that I was autistic until I was 60. This was four years ago. 

My dream of becoming a teacher crashed and burned as I have now officially been withdrawn from my training course.

This is not an end. It's a break. There's no reason why you couldn't resume teacher training at some point in the future. 

If this is autism, it has broken me as much as it has defined me.

Build on your strengths and come up with coping mecahnisms for areas of weakness. I for example, am extremely well organized. I hold three college degrees because of my ability to schedule as well as my ability to follow the schedule. Long before I was diagnosed with autism, I created all sorts of ways to offset my areas of difficulty. 

Like other people with autism, my great weakness was interpersonal communicatoin. To compensate for this, I learned to mask and aopted scripts for most types of social interaction i.e. if a person said, "How are you?" my reply would be, "I am fine." 

Please note my experience of living with despair.

You might benefit from chatting online with a mental health AI. Here is one site that you might find useful. 

ACF85 said:

Is this really worth living?

Yes.