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alluringoneirataxia · 4 years

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Long Winding Road Stay Strapped My Dude

By: Astoria Cathryn Andromeda

Alrighty, this is a long one boys. So I touched briefly on this in my Welcome to Literally Everything post. No worries I'll recap you, so you don't have to switch back and forth. I just diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and then ADHD when I was 18 years old, and even then I had to fight for it after countless hours of research. See, there seems to be a wee bit of misogyny in the neurodiverse diagnoses. When I say a wee bit, I mean that scientists used to think that only boy could be autistic or ADHD. They only studied autism in males. Fortunately, nowadays we know that girls can be autistic and/or ADHD, but we present the traits differently than boys, and a lot of our traits are played off due to gender roles in society. For example, being overly talkative in girls is called chatty, whereas boys who can't sit still are sent off for testing immediately. This also causes problems for the boys, because little Johnny gets put on Adderall at the ripe age of 6 years old, just because he can't sit still for 8 hours straight, which by the way should not be expected of any elementary school kid, By the time, he's 25 he's 1) completely dependent on amphetamines 2) his body will stop producing dopamine due to being on the medication for so long. Nicht Gut. Generally, boys who are on the spectrum get picked out earlier due to late speaking, or lack of social skills. This is the one thing that girls happen to do better than boys. Girls are good at masking, which is basically taking social traits, phrases, personalities, demeanor, and copying them. In public, they put on a mask and at home, they have a meltdown. Girls are still not picked up as being on the spectrum, because shyness is called being 'ladylike' and 'dainty', and having a meltdown is just because :( girls are oh-so emotional, boohoo. Anyways tons of women do not get diagnosed with autism until they are well into their adulthood, I actually can be considered lucky to have technically still been a teenager when we finally got all the pieces together.

Alright, let's start with I don't know me as a baby. I did not speak until I was 2 years old, and then it was immediately full sentences from then on. I didn't do the babbling thing, which I don't know how impactful that really is to the topic. I was a very shy little girl. I was teeny tiny, we didn't know I if I was going to make it to 5 feet tall until I had a big growth spurt in 7th grade. I am 5'2 now and definitely done growing in case you were wondering, so not that short anymore. I did not like talking to adults, especially strangers, especially men. I did not look anyone in the face, and I will always hide behind my parent's legs when they would try to introduce me to people. I am an only child, and I spent a lot of time entertaining myself. I always had seasonal affective disorder, where my grades would dip in the winter. My parents knew I had a timer, they had 45 minutes from the moment they stepped into a restaurant before I would start breaking down. If I got off schedule as a toddler in any form, it was a catastrophe. Or this is what my parents and family tell me. I didn't really notice. I did not like being out in public a lot, I was a very picky eater, and I was extremely hyper. I was a very eccentric child, I only had 1-2 close friends and they were always a very well-liked outgoing girl who I just followed around. Looking back, I don't know how we missed it. I was shy because I didn't understand how social interactions worked, I was anxious about it because I didn't understand, I had sensory overloads, routines, and a very bland diet with a safe food which was ketchup. I put that shit on literally everything, eas, apples, mac and cheese, pizza, all meat, anything something forced me to eat that I did not like. But because I could sit still in class, and because I could zone out and daydream all day through school and still make A's nobody ever flagged me for anything and how I was supposed to know that not everybody just copied other people, scripted things before they talked, and could never pay attention. My mom always required me to be in a sport, and I was a gymnast and a swimmer for a long time, two very high-intensity sports, to help lower my energy levels, and because my mom has mild depression and she knows that exercise does help. Skip to middle school, my mom tells me I'm being bullied at church. It's not that I wasn't observing my surroundings I knew I was being excluded, but I didn't understand vindictive behavior, I thought it was my fault. I had zero friends in 8th grade until I sat down next to a random acqutaince I had gone to school with since I was 4 and the same gymnastics place. Then we were immediately attached at the hip after that. She is my best friend due this day and definitely got me through high school. Led me through so many social situations without either of us knowing. I had a very close friendgroup in highschool, all of them were on the drumline which I met through my best friend, and my first boyfriend was my best friend's neighbor. I ended up playing bass guitar for my high school's indoor drumline, and it was the best experience ever. I love my friends, but I had really bad depression when I was 15-now:) jk It's better. I didn't really realize I was depressed, I just didn't want to go to school, or swim practice, or do anything so of course, my mom noticed, and then once it was pointed out to me it got worse. My severe anxiety spiraled with my depression. Senior year of high school, my boyfriend and I were like toxic star crossed lovers, hurting each other over and over again without meaning to. My friends and I were self harming, all my close friends gad some demon going on. I finally decided to try therapy again after the disaster of being forced to go when I was 15 and the lady told me I wasn't depressed because I had a boyfriend and good grades. It helped a bit, I was able to get my panic attacks under control. Then I went away to college and stayed dating my senior high school boyfriend, we were just up and down as always, but with slightly better communication. My freshman year of college I joined a fraternity, a research lab, and my first hs boyfriend/ex/best friend and I went to a Christian campus place. By second semester, I had a lot of people who knew me and talked to me, but I didn't have any close friends, and even less close friends who were girls. All my close friends who were girls were at another college. My parents were worried about me, so they made me rush a sorority, which I knew was never my scene, but my parents made me join and I found a few girls I liked. Soon I was going to 6 classes, fraternity chapter, research lab meetings, christain crash group meetings, soriorty pledge meetings all on every Tuesday. I was different person at each of these events and wore a different mask. I was having what I know now were autistic burnout meltdowns every single day on the phone in my crusty dorm's stairwell. It was not cute. His mental health had always been bad too. Finally I decide I need to try a psychatrist and go back to therapy, and then he broke up with me. Then I made my first close friend, a guy who was in 3 of classes, and I took him to my fraternity's formal, and then coronavirus happened. Rona kinda saved my grades, and mental health by sending us home event though it did suck. I got on anti-anxiety meds and things went up, but I was still having what I thought were panic attacks, they were austistic meltdowns. My psychiatrist, he's kinda an asshole, he diagnosed me with Obessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. I'll insert definition here: (OCPD) is a personality disorder that's characterized by extreme perfectionism, order, and neatness. People with OCPD will also feel a severe need to impose their own standards on their outside environment.> Basically hr told me I had rules for everything like how everyone drives on the right side of the road, but nobodythinks about it andwhen I broke one of my rules I got depressed, and when wasn't perfect I got depressed, and when I made an A I was relieved not proud. The diagnosis seemed to fit really well, and my therapist and I started working finding my rules, and getting rid of the bad ones, and making the others less harsh. I had thought every once and in a while in my life when I was really upset, what if I'm on the spectrum, because I just felt so hopeless for social interactions and I didn't understand. I always felt like I was a very specific person, but after the ocpd I started thinking more and more, and I saw a tik tok of a girl with lae diagnosed autism basically describing me and ranting about the misogyny. I did more research and I decide, yea I'mm gonna bring it up to mypsychatrist well he's a dick, so he was like um you don't act like sheldon cooper from the Big Bang theory,and I was like wellI just I have always thought I might have adhd like be neureodiverse, and he was like your grade point average in hs was a 97.8%, you're not adhd. I immediately cried, because I can't handle when anyone says anything in a even a slightest stringent tone. I'm baby, I know lmao. It made me angry though because I felt like he just brushed away all of my struggles I had in my whole life. I spent hours researching and typed up a 47 page document on evidence for why I was on the spectrum, and had my parents help will some of checklists to make sure I was getting outside perspectives. I rally my parents to be my back up and next psychiatrist appointment we actually talk about it and he asked my parents questions about when I was young and such and finally he was okay you're on the spectrum. I felt so validated and like I could start being myself. I slowly got more and more confident, changed my style of clothing, and researched more about adhd pushed to be tested, and oh look at that I also have ADHD. So basically discourse: "I feel like as a child I coded a machine to do life for me so I didn’t get bothered except I didn’t know about the machine I thought i was the machine and now I’ve become self aware and I have to learn how to read the code and rewrite the code because it’s dysfunctional because I’m not functioning well as a human being. I was really shy as a child. I would turn beat red when people talked to me or looked at me so I think I started cookie cutting situations and using them over and over again because they worked until I accidentally hard wired these expansion rules and expectations for myself. I didn’t may attention is class ever I just day dreamed and if I got good grades i wouldn’t be bothered i could just stay in my head and if I did my sport well my parents didn’t bother me. I was never asked if I did my homework I just did it so I wouldn’t be asked and have to deal with that situation. I would cookie cutter situations in class that would draw the least attention to myself.

I feel like i don’t have friends I just fulfill the expectation like a side quest on video games" I wrote this down pre autism confirmation when i just thought I had ocpd. Now I don't directly identify with ocpd, but I definitely think I developed that personality disorder a bit from living with undiagnosed autism. I am linking below the very informative Tik Toks by the lovely Paige on autism in girls. The imposter syndrome one really hit home. I had had so many panic attacks about thinking I tricked people into being my friend, or thinking I was smart.

I highly suggest watching these short tik toks, you'll definitely learn something

https://vm.tiktok.com/wVvcYA/

https://vm.tiktok.com/wqRRUf/

https://vm.tiktok.com/wnqhvX/

https://vm.tiktok.com/wqeyYg/

https://vm.tiktok.com/wnoE7u/

https://vm.tiktok.com/Kas6gB/

https://vm.tiktok.com/owM9hs/

Imposter syndrome

I am also linking an article about Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory and Autism that explains why my psychiatrist was wrong, and also I am a girl and the spectrum is called a spectrum because it's a fucking spectrum no two autistic people are exactly the same it's like a color wheel.

http://www.autismsupportnetwork.com/news/problem-sheldon-cooper-and-cute-autism-387783

Here is a fun comic about the spectrum and how to view it.

https://the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/

I am still learning about myself, and how to be me, and how to be myself but without breaking bad social rules. It's quite humorous though because I'll learn something is related to autism and I'm like oh shit again, like still, like, we're still discovering things.

"Tu ne me manques pas"

Bis später,

Astoria.

#asd #autisminwomen #autism #actuallyautistic #aspie #aspie memes

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barrettablog · 6 years

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Revelling In Rideshare (Spiraling Story)

I love working in Ridesharing. Usually when I drove alone or with friends, we would bump today's new age rap and rock. Music littered with profanity and drug use. I realized from the jump I couldn't listen to that or being toying around on Spotify with a passenger in my car. I turned to simple radio music as the answer to fill the silence. I use to listen to the stations that played today's hits, but I stopped when it was clear other passengers weren't feeling it. Eventually I found a radio station where there's classic rock and old songs from the 80's my mom use to play. I'll be on the highway or cruising through the city listening to Journey at a respectful volume and gaze at the outlying mountains surrounding Phoenix. MJ classics while I drive past cacti in the ghetto. Tears For Fears' "Shout" would carry me through college campuses. Entire car ride would feel like the end credits of the movie that was my life.

Zen as fuck.

I'm from Michigan but moved to Arizona with my lady. I started ridesharing about a week and a half after we got settled into our apartment. I'm a stranger to Arizona but I'm slowly getting a feeling of it from driving around so much. I'm finally confident at driving now, considering I drove 25 hours straight from Saint Louis MO to Phoenix AZ. A lot of people ask me why I didn't stop or why I drove so long. I was on 5 hours of sleep and 20mg of IR adderall (total). It was the last of my script and I wouldn't be looking at a refill for another week. In hindsight I definitely should have stopped and slept some part of the way. Instead I did none of that and let myself drive till my arms went numb. A wild mix of music carried me the whole way. Works of Halsey had me reminiscing on past events while J.Cole kept me whipping down route 66. Sometimes the turns were weird and I had trouble seeing. There were one or two close calls, but nothing bad enough to make me pull over in that moment. I pushed through, just to prove I could.

I'll tell you why I dedicated myself to this.

January 2018 I suffered my 2nd car crash. I was hit 45mph driver's side by a pickup truck. At the time I was driving a small dodge sebring. The truck hit me in my back left passenger door, about 1-2 feet from my driver's door. It was incredibly scary. It was clear that had that truck hit me 2 feet left from where it did, I would be dead. It was such a mind fuck. As you go about your daily life, toiling over bills and bullshit, you never think for a minute it could all be over. I was working 3 jobs at the time, trying to save up for a mortgage down payment so I could get into real estate. I had woken up 7 AM sharp, still hungover and craving weed. But no time for blunts, it was time go to my shitty retail job as a CVS cashier. I was truly in a complete different mindstate. I clocked in on average 60 hours a week. I kept my job at CVS as my main gig, but held a multitude of jobs to get extra cash. I did everything from working at a bank, Texas Roadhouse, Papa John's delivery and DJ for weddings. I would usually pick up the side jobs and lose them because I would slack off. Partying all night after working 12 hours doesn't really go well with me being punctual. In between these jobs I was a small time plug as well. I hated that last gig most of all. Usually everyone had a weed guy, so I didn't want to waste my time with that. My last experience selling pot ended with having a constant flow of annoying idiots asking me to drive 20 minutes for a dime bag. All the people buying bigger either had med cards or serious plugs who could cop pounds. No, I was making a name for myself and was viewed in a very different way. When people wanted off the wall shit, or shit they couldn't find anywhere else, they came to me. It became a skill to get what others couldn't and provide top quality. Living in the suburbs let me set my own price for a variety of products and my phone would blow up when people knew I was back selling. My mind would race in paranoia and bliss from the profits. It was unhealthy, but it was from my dissatisfaction of this that I was able to leave dealing behind. This was one of those times where I had plugs willing to cut great deals, people looking to buy, but I refused to act on it. I could work at CVS, bust my ass working Papa John's, bus tables at Texas Roadhouse and do this shit the RIGHT way. Sure I could make 200 in a good night's flip, but what's the point of that if you risk your freedom or future?

Is there any pride pushing poison? Would I want my kids to follow my same behavior and action? No, I can save money the right way, I can make my parents proud and do ri-

BAM.

I've had my conscience mind snatched away from me plenty times before in multiple occasions. But nothing was every as abrupt like that. I haven't ever remember something so vividly as that crash. I was able to recall the immense pain that still stings in retrospect. I turned left out of my neighborhood in the freezing Michigan snow. A large truck let me pass, but I wasn't able to see as many as cars coming from the other lane. I looked as much as I could and decided to go turn left. Surely no one would speed in this shit weather, right? Flash forward 5 seconds and was hit 45mph in the fast lane. Car was completely fucking totaled. I called my mom hysterical. I hadn't had that car for longer than a year. I could tell immediately after the crash something was wrong. My brain just fucking hurt. Apparently I was screaming and going off. My cursing and shouting became so irate that the lady who hit me was afraid to get out of the car. This part of my story I have very little recollection.

For you see, I had a severe concussion.

It was my third one so far. Not many people have had severe concussions because most people act like it's not a big fucking deal. When you hear about a football player killing his whole family or MMA fighters losing their fucking minds and going apeshit, a majority of that was because of concussions. A serious trauma to the head left me feeling empty almost. I didn't feel right, my train of thought was off, and I lost any previous control I had over my anger. Following the accident, I refused to take any left turns out of my neighborhood. I didn't care if the roads were clear. I would rather go right and drive another five minutes than take the risk of a left. After I got my new car I would have to pull over at times and heave deeply. I had never had panic attacks that debilitating before. I would spend months after the accident taking fish oil and reading books. I felt my cognitive abilities improved after I read. I put so much focus on reclaiming my lost brain matter I let it affect my work. My manager would often yell and belittle me in front of customers because I focused more on reading and trying to retain focus than helping people check out.

Shit was just swimming in my head before. My longing to go back to the lax life of hustling, fear of my real estate career falling to shambles, my utter feeling of loneliness. It stewed in my mind like storm clouds. But none of that shit matters when a truck hits you at a speed most people would deem "fatal".

None of that matters at all.

Life is meant to be lived now. The minds and bodies we have been given are blessings bestowed upon us as part of a great design. We are the universe experiencing itself. This life has valleys and mountains, but you don't decide when it ends.

The good times and bad times are what they are.

Time is a privilege, not a gift.

So get behind the wheel, buckle your seatbelt and take your lefts till it feels right.

If you Rideshare, consider giving your driver a tip.

It might be more work for them than you realize.

#uber #ridesharing #story #spiralling

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