I'm Tired

xx_Max_xx said:

I wish I wasn't born this way.

Hello Max, I'm sorry you are struggling with this.

The hard truth is that yes it sucks to be autistic a lot of the time but you are right, we cannot change it so what can we do about it?

For me the answer was accepting it - it is a fundamental part of who I am and what influences how I interact with the world and other people.

Then came understanding it - I read up on it starting with the Dummies Guide To Autism and got a therapist with skills in this field and talked through how it affected me. What was most illuminating was how much my childhood experiences were laced with trauma that I had largely buried long ago - bullying, rejection, isolation and social ineptitude.

By looking back at all these events (unpacking them in the therapist terms) and seeing them through the lens of realising I was autistic then I learned to see the roots of my defence responses and forgive myself for feeling I was somehow defective or broken.

This is an important part to learn from the mistakes of the past and begin to weaken the hold of trauma I understand.

The next phase was to see how the autism still affects my everyday life and begin to formulate strategies that help me cope more effectively. Knowing where to put up resistance to others demands on me was one part as was knowing when to take myself out of situations that were creating a lot of stress. Not easy when my job involved having to fix situations where the tensions were already high because something had failed and most people were both demanding and stress causing...

That was my experience anyway but if you can I recommend getting a therapist with experience helping autists to spend some time with you and they can show you the pain you are feeling can be managed and that the outlook if much better once you start to take control.

Is a therapist an option for you? If you cannot afford it privately can you ask your GP for a referral? By using language like you have here I think it should persuade them.

I'm just some random from the Internet so don't take my non-professional advice without doing your own research please.

xx_Max_xx said:

I wish I wasn't born this way.

Hello Max, I'm sorry you are struggling with this.

The hard truth is that yes it sucks to be autistic a lot of the time but you are right, we cannot change it so what can we do about it?

For me the answer was accepting it - it is a fundamental part of who I am and what influences how I interact with the world and other people.

Then came understanding it - I read up on it starting with the Dummies Guide To Autism and got a therapist with skills in this field and talked through how it affected me. What was most illuminating was how much my childhood experiences were laced with trauma that I had largely buried long ago - bullying, rejection, isolation and social ineptitude.

By looking back at all these events (unpacking them in the therapist terms) and seeing them through the lens of realising I was autistic then I learned to see the roots of my defence responses and forgive myself for feeling I was somehow defective or broken.

This is an important part to learn from the mistakes of the past and begin to weaken the hold of trauma I understand.

The next phase was to see how the autism still affects my everyday life and begin to formulate strategies that help me cope more effectively. Knowing where to put up resistance to others demands on me was one part as was knowing when to take myself out of situations that were creating a lot of stress. Not easy when my job involved having to fix situations where the tensions were already high because something had failed and most people were both demanding and stress causing...

That was my experience anyway but if you can I recommend getting a therapist with experience helping autists to spend some time with you and they can show you the pain you are feeling can be managed and that the outlook if much better once you start to take control.

Is a therapist an option for you? If you cannot afford it privately can you ask your GP for a referral? By using language like you have here I think it should persuade them.

I'm just some random from the Internet so don't take my non-professional advice without doing your own research please.