i am impossibly lonely lately and i don’t know what to do about it. i’m not alone but almost everyone i love aside from my wife is in another country and when my wife is at work or when she goes to bed early and i can’t sleep, it feels like my entire life is being her tag along. like i just spend my days waiting for her to get home so i can have a few hours feeling less alone before bed. i love her so much but this isn’t any way for either of us to be. but damn if i know how to fix it given my current circumstances.
am I sick from anxiety or am I actually physically ill? a memoir by me
am i lazy or horribly depressed: the sequel
does everyone hate me or am I just very insecure: the completion of the trilogy
It’s autism 🙃
wish allistic people would understand that when i say i’m overstimulated and need to have some time where i don’t need to socialize that it means we can exist in the same space but please stop talking to me and expecting me to interact and especially to stop being offended when my voice comes out snappy because they’ve not stopped
and very, very often, self care is not plants and ice rollers and fluffy blankets of peace.
it’s standing over your kitchen sink and crying while doing the dishes because you just want to go back to bed but the dishes need done. and you don’t know why you’re crying but you’re trusting you need it. and you aren’t listening to the music that pulls you into a spiral; you’re listening to some cheerful shit your friend sent you. it’s getting up and staring at your fridge and closing your eyes and then cooking yourself food even though you hate it and it’s miserable. because you know that you’d cook for your friend, and you are trying to befriend yourself. it’s dragging yourself into the shower because you know you’ll feel better afterwards. it’s doing mundane tasks with patience, cursing under your breath, trying desperately to give yourself grace. grace is the beginning of care. care is the beginning of love.
we think it’s supposed to be peace and yet the most powerful self care moments are when we hate everything but especially ourselves. and life does not feel worth the loving.
to look into that pain and yet choose to care for yourself in however many pieces you are — that is care. love. grace. trust. belief. it hurts because it’s love where there was no love before. it heals because it believes there will be love, one day, soon.
“If you have time to be on social media, you also have time for…” “If you have time to watch Netflix, you also have time for…” Yeah, but do I have the energy for it? Do I have the emotional and mental capacity for it? Am I pain-free enough for it? Can I focus on it? Can I do it without leaving my bed? Can I safely do it without risk of (physically or emotionally) injuring myself by pushing past my boundaries?
Actually I DON’T have time.
I need insane amounts of rest to function. There’s a good chance I’ll also be on tumblr, chatting to a friend, listening to podcast etc. during that resting time.
But I can’t use that time to do whatever I want, whenever I want, because pushing myself past my limits will make me feel like crap for days.
So technically it’s NOT free time.
This is a very helpful way of putting it. Recovery time isn’t free time; it’s for RECOVERY. And if you’re neurodivergent or chronically ill or anything in that register, it becomes even more mandatory because your mind and body will punish you that much more severely for neglecting recovery. (Though, uh, that is definitely a thing that will happen to you even if you’re Perfectly Normal And Healthy, it just probably won’t be as immediate or obvious! so you may not even notice it until it MAKES you neurodivergent or chronically ill!)
Your brain is a machine. Schedule downtime and maintenance, or it will be scheduled for you.
Nobody talks about the hard parts about autism.
Nobody talks about not knowing when you need to eat, drink or pee. Not knowing when you’re in pain, or why you’re in pain. Not being able to communicate what you need.
Or when change is so hard to deal with you have meltdowns and outbursts. When you can’t control your anger and hurt yourself or others. When you can’t emote unless you’re breaking down.
Or when you can’t understand what someone is saying, what you’re reading, anything. When you can’t even try because trying makes it worse. When you ask for help but not getting what they say just makes you more frustrated.
And so many more difficult experiences we have to deal with that no one likes.
Can people stop treating autism like some horrible illness and start realizing that most autistic kids aren’t suffering because they’re autistic, but because they’re bullied not only by peers, but parents? If you want to woobify us autistic people, imagine how sad it makes you feel to have your own mom as your first bully because sometimes loud sounds are too much for you. The problem isn’t us, it’s the world we live in not caring to accommodate us. Speaking as a person who was kicked off an “inclusive” team for “lack of communication and disability.” I had one time I couldn’t talk because I’m verbalflux.
They knew that.
Inclusive, my ass.
(This is just my experience, autism is a spectrum, don’t kill me if you’ve had a different experience, rather, I’d like to hear about it!)
i don’t care if i’m a grown-ass adult and my interests are “childish” let me have my autistic joy dammit
hate when ppl only view being autistic/adhd/neurodivergent as a bad thing
bc yes i will have a breakdown if it is to loud or a noise is to high
but also the other day i listened to a song and it triggered the happy chemicals and spent thirty minutes jumping around my room and spinning and stimming and it was literally the happiest ive ever been in years
