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telashar · 7 years

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Better help post to my counselor 7-29-2017

I am so sorry about how long this is. Once written I thought about not sending it to you or somehow boiling it down for you. But I think I really needed to get all this out. But I think I also really want someone to understand me. So I have decided to send the whole thing to you. I know it is long and most likely a big rambling that in the end you might not get anything useful from. But I kind of hope you do. So good, bad or ill here it is. (oh and I certainly don’t expect quick flash of insight, brilliant, glib or other response that deals with all this. Though brilliant flash of insight is always welcome.) ……….. I have been busy and thinking. In part I tried a council before you and that was not work. I takes quite a lot for me to talk about thing for a few reason. First is the whole exposing yourself thing, revealing inner personal things. 2nd It take quite a bit of effort to even think of what to say and how to express it. It all becomes jumbled and confused, it’s hard to explain. I know believe this is related to the autism. So first I have to figure out what I need to express and then I actually have to explain it in such a way to minimize confusion. It can cause confusion when people expect to hear one thing and you're saying another. For example there are times what I feel in response to a situation is not the same as what most people generally feel. For example after I learned my husband was cheating and we were breaking up, came over to get some of his stuff. When he was leaving his car got stuck in the driveway (lived in Michigan and it was winter.) Well he was trying to get it out with no success. I couldn’t stand watching him struggle, so I went out and helped him push the car out of the driveway. Everyone one of my friend were totally surprised I did this and everyone of them said they wouldn’t have gone out and help him. And I understand their responses, I mean this is the time most would be throwing his stuff out in the snow, yelling and screaming at him and in general doing whatever to express their hurt, anger and pain at the person that just hurt them in the worst way. So how do I explain to them what I did? So it was very hard to explain to them how it was far worse for me to watch him struggling then to just go out and get him out of my driveway. Of course it can be explained and expressed but it take more effort than if I had just left him in the driveway because that is what people expected because they understand anger far better than anxiety. And anxiety is what was more powerfully me at that moment. 3rd There is the actual communication issues. When writting I am a horrible speller and I tend to think far faster then I write so I can end up something hard for the other person to read. If I am talking I have issues with eye contact, stumbling over words, not hearing tones correctly, not speaking in the correct tones because I don’t hear them. All those typical autistic kind of issues. This all mean even the act of seeking help can greatly increase my anxiety and I can will hit a point of burn out where I need to withdraw. And the last therapist didn’t work because I would go through all this and she responded with the equivalent “un hun, go on” We that doesn’t work for me, I need more feedback, more direction in the feed back. For example she might respond, ‘That is to be expected, as it is normal to feel that way.” but a response like that can leave me dangling. I may not actually know what feeling she is referring to. Also I believe most people feel comfort in feeling like the herd? but I don’t get any comfort from that. Knowing others feel the same can help me in understanding others and that can be helpful when dealing with others but it doesn’t help me in dealing with me. (This is one of those areas that is very, very hard to explain. I have found other autistic people get what I am saying but i find more atypicals don’t.) I spent a long time not even understanding this myself. I only learned I was autistic when my son was diagnosed in his senior year of high school. So I have only known for like 8 years, which might seem a long time it really isn’t. Everyday I still learn of new ways I am not like the majority of people and how it impacted my life and still does. You know how teens feel like no one understands them, they are different, a freak, all those normal growing pain kind of things. Well that is how my whole life has been. I now know that is how all high functioning autistic people feel. In some ways I am fortunate in that I recognized the fact that I was different from most other people early on (I think 6th grade is when I really, really understood that fact.) I didn’t know how I was different or why I was different but I knew for a fact I was. And because I knew that was a fact I was able to accept it. In some ways that made my teen years easier than some of my friends. I didn’t feel I fix in any better then them but I had accepted it so I didn’t even really struggle with trying. Instead I just looked for those that I would naturally fit with and be myself in many way. (When starting a new school which I did a lot, I just looked for the freaks and geeks and found friend actually pretty quickly.) So how does this matter today? in many ways. It is far harder to find the “Freaks and geeks” at 51 then 16. All my peers are not gathered in one building for me to observe and spot the individual i can relate too. And those I might relate too are most likely high functioning but selective in where they hang and who they hang with. So if i go to a meet up that is focus on exercise I am less likely to find a kindred soul then if I go to a game convention. But at a game convention most of the people are going to be half my age. Now I am not opposed to young friends but does present it’s own issues. In fact I do have one friend I see once a month or do. She is my daughter's age but we click very well. But she is harder to hang with because she has a far more active lifestyle. Also it hard to talk with her about thing like my kids or even my divorce because she is at the beginning of things and I am at the end. She in the flowering of her marriage and I have suffered the devastating end of mine. Of course all the communications issue listed above make things challenging as well. I only figured out recently that even though I might my time at the meet-ups I have been attending, they were still causing social burnout because they also generated a very high anxiety state. So I might have a great time but after say three event I would be burned out for a week or more. This week was a good week. Your response helped and seems to be the kind I am looking for, that is a positive. I have finished 2 big projects at work, lowering stress levels, I went to fun game previous friday and then another on thursday. Went to the water park with my daughter (I love the water.) I had lunch with my co-works this just past friday. But still anxiety is up and this morning i woke up all emotional. I was crying and obsessing about all I had lost. My friends, my husband and the life I knew and understood (or at least I thought I did.) I now know this is a response to anxiety. So I have to step back and re-coup at home. I also have to watch my buying habits because of late I think I am internet shopping in response to stress. What I don’t know is how long it will take me to re-coup. It can also make planning future events hard. If I plan things but then end up burning out an cancelling that really doesn’t help much. I am also not sure how much is going to lead to burnout. New activities are certainly going to cause more anxiety than things I know but I really am not at the point of having any routine activities with other yet. The only one I really have is once a month i go to an autism for adults support group. So far it is the only activity that really, really helps me. Even when there are issue at the meeting I still feel “at home.” I don’t feel like a fish out of water there. And I can really be myself in many ways I can’t anywhere else. This all started with me wanting to just explain why it was taking me so long to respond to you. I don’t even know if i have succeeding in do that I do now know I really needed to explain all this stuff to you. I have spent lot of time trying to get help in the past but because I didn’t know what what my needs and challenges were and those trying to help didn’t understand a lot of time was spent spinning wheels. Like with the last councilor. I would tell her I was frustrated, that i didn’t know how to proceed, etc… but she just didn’t get it and couldn’t find an effective way to connect with me and thus couldn’t help. I can say that at least at this age I have learned to spot spinning wheels quicker. When I was 19 I spent a month in a nice psyche ward. No one there had a clue of what to do with me and how to help, myself included. Very typical, especially in the 80’s that no one recognized I was a high functioning autistic, mostly because I was female because I had a ton of red flag. But it did mean that everything, including the med medication they finally settled on for me (we went through at least 4 different kinds) didn’t help me at all. What did help and why I finally showed signs of improvement was simply the time out for a month. I really suffering from extreme burnout for anxiety. So having a month of being pretty free from most social interaction and l social interaction that did occur were very structured and controlled, it allowed me to destress enough to somewhat deal with the real world again I saw the same kind of thing happen with my son. If I had know we could have gotten him better help and I think he would be at a better stage now. If nothing else his high school like would had been better, I am sure of it. So now I know not to wast time in a pointless direction or worse a direction that will only make things worse. I also think you should know how I found your response helpful and makes me hopeful. You gave me something concrete to research, learn about and explore in maybe understanding myself better, (The of needs i didn’t know about.) You asked direct question? It gives me a way to respond when i am at a lost. Direct question also tell me if you're getting what I am really saying or if some form of miscommunication is going on. Just restating what I said doesn’t mean someone is getting what I said but if they ask question about it I can then get a clue i they are in the same ball park as me. Finally, I promise some more direct answers. meet-ups I have attended: DFW gamers social happy hours ( like these as it is fellow gamers meeting at various bars, just hanging and talking geek stuff. I like these but they are random on when and how often they occur. Plus most have been on the dallas side of area, a bit far for me.) Beginner meditation: Was good but organizer ended it and I haven’t found a replacement like it. Barnes and Noble board game meet up: Again like it, have been to one so far but it is only monthly autism adult support group: Best for me but only meets once a month (really wish it was more often.) Shadowrun roleplaying game: Just been to the first one, it went well and it meets twice a month. It is a new group of people for everyone, so traditionally it really need to meet at least a few months before you know it it will continue or fall apart. (private home) DnD league playing at Game Store: This meets every thursday and i have been to 4 of these. It is going well, so far it has been the same players and same GM. (this means it socially stable for me.) Events like this can be trying for me on a weekly bases if games, players or gm change all the time, like they can at this kind of event. i have been looking for some kind of craft class or group I could join but so far I haven’t found one. Mostly it has been an issue of time and/or focus. A lot of them meet during the day, while I am work. And focus is often for young mothers learn crafts for kids and that kind of thing. But I am still looking. REVIEW OF GOALS It is very hard for me to give you things I want to do or achieve. As one of my big issue is that I really can’t find much that motivates me anymore. Though in you asking it did make me suddenly realize in part why my creative energy is so low. It that I have no one to share with. Sharing creative energy really gets things cooking and I really do thrive in bouncing around that energy but currently I am doing everything in a vacuum. I post to FB but get little feedback that way, usually some “like” hits. But no really exchange on the project. I thought maybe it was praise I was lacking but now I know it’s not that at all. It is that back and forth, that sharing of excitement, of developing and growing the ideas that I am missing. So when my battery runs out I have nothing to plug into and recharge it with. I really, really like what I do for a living. I don’t always like the job but I like what I do. I don’t want to move up because that changes what I do. I don’t want to manage people or even project. If I get bored in my career it is usually be cause what I am designing I can do in my sleep and it isn’t innovate or teaching me anything new. In that case I usually have to move to a new job. (If a company builds widget A and that is all they do, there comes a time you have to go to a company that builds widget B.) Currently I work for a company that does almost all custom work so all my widgets are different to some degree. Plus it is in a growing field/technology so there plenty to learn and grow with, without going into management. Though I love to learn and I am always open to going to training, classes, and self learning I see no benefit to a higher degree at this stage in my life. In general I have enough work experience that a higher degree give me little career benefits (unless I want to move into management, which I don’t) So from time to time I will take a college course for personal interest but it’s not a goal thing. I thought about traveling, but to be honest my social anxiety is so high these days travel something I dread more than look forward too. I have a passport so if there comes a day the bug bits I think I could just take off but for now it just make me nause to think about going abroad. I use to love camping but Texas has some many things that can kill you, snake and the like I am not sure I can reconnect with nature here. (I have always really, really hated snakes but at least in michigan if I encountered on I didn’t have to worry about any real danger. Not to mention scorpions, and the like you have here.) So day trips are about all I am up to these days. Plus camping is more fun with people and I have no one to camp with. I have thought about volunteer work but again couple of issues. 1st Social anxiety high so this could just ramp that up. And there are thing I am not emotionally ert ipped to deal with. for example I love animals but things stay with me. so if I offered to help with the local reque I would have to deal with the emotional trauma of the evil, cruel and sad thing that happens to these animals. But those things stay with me, I mean really I will remember them for life and they will haunt me. 2nd There is a jaded factor in me that I don’t know if i can get over. I have volunteered for various organizations in the past but over time I have become somewhat embittered with them. I see the waste and cons going on and find it hard to ignore. Basicly I find I can’t drink the cool air any more. For example I was a girl scout from 11 to 18 and then I was a Troop leader. But as a leader I was the national council push cookie sales like made. Basicly a troop meets 9 months out of the year. The second month in the council will start the campaign at the leader meetings to get the girls ready for cookie sale. Troops will then spend almost 2 months in cook sales and orders. then when orders comes in they will spend another month on delivery, rewards and booth sales. After that the council then spend at least another month debriefing leader on the sales. So for the girls a min. of 3 months out of 9 are focus on cookie sales. For leader the focus is at least 5 out of 9. What really kills with this is most troops could make more money in just 1 alternative fund raiser, like a 1 day bake sale. Most of the money still goes to National and mfg. As for national then spending the money back on the troops, well 5 months of that support is spent on cook sales promotion, paper work, and distributing. They do help fund the camps but Girl Scout camp really isn’t any cheaper than other camps I sent my children too. Plus only a small percent of girls actually go to the camps. They don’t supplement the price of uniforms and badges like boy scouts do. In fact you can often buy the uniform cheaper at a local walmart then you can from troop stores. As to the so called skill the girls learn selling cookie. Most could and more could have been learned by organizing small local fund raisers like a car wash. In fact cookie sale has devolved into shelling to friend and relative and those in turn taking form into work. The girls are not suppose to do door to door sales. The forms are just line item fill so not really math or account skills are needed. National supplies all the promotional and marketing. So what I was a corporate level organization getting a free sales force, giving back the mim it could. It had nothing to do with the girls. And there is a lot of pressure for leader to play ball the national way. So after a year as a local organizer I gave it up. I have encounter this with several volunteer organizations and I am now jaded about them. I think it is because i trust and really believe in the good work line and i don’t know how to deal with realization that maybe the good work isn’t as good as I thought or the fact that those higher up are lying to those below. I just don’t know how to see past that and believe once I see the neg. A very long way to say, if I found the right kind of volunteer opportunity I would be for helping but I am not driven to find one. Love: I am not driven to find a love of my life. I thought I had that and then after 27 years I learned, not so much. In fact not only was I not the love of his life he was able to lie to me, accuse me of things I never did, make me feel ugly and double who I am even down to the core of my feeling. As far as I can tell the love of his life is a woman 10 years younger then me, slightly dumber than me (barely graduated high school), into kinky Daddy/little girl S&M, her goal in life is to be a stay at home mom (yet when she had a baby, by her first husband, was willing to let the baby sit in a stinky diaper for ½ hour waiting for her husband to come home and change it and she ordered delivery pizza for her lunch on a regular basis), Knows how use makeup, wants to do craft things but doesn’t does none of them. I know in the end he dumped me because she gave him kinky sex and made him feel all manly because she would never beat him in anything he did with her. But do you know how hollow that make one feel. I mean if you meet my X you wouldn’t think he was that kind of man. You wouldn’t believe he need a woman who can be perceived as less than him is what he needed to feel better about himself. And on the face of it all it seemed like we were a good match and happy with each other. It wasn’t just me that was fooled to believing otherwise. I use brag about him at work, saying how I choose wisely. When I had a job with an hour community, he would make dinner. He didn’t get on me about doing thing like house work. In fact once a friend commented on the messy house and he pointed out that he was currently unemployed and by all right the messy house was his fault not mine. We did fight but no all the time and all the big stuff we seemed in agreement, religion, politics, money and kids. We shared the same friends. We did things together all the time, weekly games with our friends. Social parties and hangout with them on regular basis. Time to ourselves, dinner, movies, occasional weekend trips. Separate activities and interests, like I crafted and he liked to play Wow and civilizations, paint miniatures, read some of the same books and read different ones and share. The one failing most likely was sex. Supported him in all he wanted to do. First Navy, then school to get his journeyman but when he discovered he really hated that kind of work I support the change and he went back to school and got a degree in English. I didn’t look down when he was under employed for 2 years and then unemployed for another 2 years. I support the change to becoming a casino deals, which he was very excited about. But that too changed and he found it soul sucking so he took a temp job tech writing. I think he finally found a job he liked (unfortunately temp) so there were period of unemployment but I didn’t give him crap or blame him. An I would encourage his writing fiction which I truly liked. But he never was motivated enough to sell it. I personally think in the end he would have been happy as an editor but he has never pursue it. We had a sex life but I could have put out more often I just found doing it three times a week a bit hard because I was so tired after work. but I was willing to work on it. He said he was too but by the time we got to that point I didn’t realize it was too late because he really wasn’t interest in fixing things with me. I of course didn’t know that. I even did the Daddy/little girl thing with him. there were some things I rather liked, really but what I could do was be manipulative. I have learned that in the SM world the true power in the Daddy/Little relationship is in the Littles, they are very manipulative. It is there way of making the dominate feel in charge and in control but really it is all about them the submissive. This is something I am really, really bad at. So even if there were thing I enjoyed I couldn’t really give him what he wanted. He wanted to feel in charge of thing without really being responsible for anything. An example is an effective Little know when their Daddy wants sex and when they don’t (that in itself was hard for me to know.) The Little will then pick her time for approaching. See because the Daddy can turn the Little down but the Little can never turn the Daddy down. Also with en effective Little the Daddy never has to ask for sex either. So the little knowing the Daddy wants sex will ask before he might desire too. The turnly manipulative part is when she doesn’t want sex and the Daddy doesn’t she should then ask for sex knowing the answer will be what she truly wants. But this also give her banked credit. So down the line if there is a time she really wants sex but think the Daddy doesn’t she still might get sex because he will recall the times he has turned her down. But what about when she doesn’t want sex? Well in truth they are some of the best fakers and most likely the masters of fake it until you make it. Plus they seem more driven in keeping the Daddy under control that weather they really want it or not matters little to them (kind of like a porn star). Now this may not always be true but since this is what my x was into and I was willing to give it a go. I did a lot research, so I read it over and over on the porn/daddy/little blogs and the like. I also saw in person with other couples he introduced me to and I even saw it with him mistress in person with him. ( spent a year of crazy trying ot make things work and agreed to a three way relationship. Yeah stupid, big mistake but I really, really was not in my right mind. My friend really should have stepped in and discouraged it. Many knew but I think in their own way they really couldn’t believe it and want to see us work. They were open minded enough to see it possibly work but really didn’t look at if it was a healthy choice I was personally making.) Logically I think what really killed out marriage was all the years we didn’t understand I was autistic and he has borderline personality disorder. On my side it means I could perceive myself but was poor as expressing how I perceived him. I am guessing he saw me as cold at time but I didn’t even realize this because I could not tell and he didn’t say anything. There were likely times my tone of voice alone might have cause him to take hurt and I didn’t know it. By the same token because of his BLPD he was looking for me to be a mirror, to reflect back how I saw him so he could know who he was but I was a poor mirror. I remember reading up on BLPD and crying because they would give examples how best to communicate with someone with BLPD and I didn’t see how I was going to do it. It would be like telling me to save my marriage I had to keep eye contact with him all the time when talking but because of I am autistic eye contact if very hard to do and actually it can make it harder to listen to people. So I could keep eye contact but not hear what was said or hear what was said but the person wouldn’t feel like i heard. So lose, lose for me. This is the kind of issue I think lead to the down fall without me even seeing it coming. I don’t think he saw it either in the end. He was all emotion and reaction and that is why he really didn’t even want to try once he found someone that could meet reflex back the Big Strong man image he so wanted. So again a very long way of saying I am very, very damaged from my divorce and can’t see trusting anyone, let alone loving anyone again. Other goals It hard to come up with goals because I don’t know I am. This is really hard to explain with proper impact. I have always as far I can remember to the age of 4, known who I was. I have self identity, self away, what I liked, what I thought, what i cared about and what I didn’t care about, how I thought and why. I was sure of all these things, always. What I didn’t know was how I fit in the world, I often didn’t understand the world or the people in it. It was something the doctor had a hard time with whenever i was in therapy. Even when I hospitalized for that month after attempted suicide. They would talk about self esteem, confidence, blah, blah. The self harm really confused them back then (though I think they may understand it better now.) As a cutter they believed it had to be from some form of self hate. But it wasn’t, it was about anxiety relief. Somehow feeling physical pain and seeing the red blood soothe ed me. I would physically and mentally relax. (of course back in the day I didn’t understand what drove it and I still don’t fully understand it, especially the addictive quality to it) but they really didn’t get it. I liked myself, I thought I was a good person, a good friend and not to hard on the eyes. Yeah I was fat and wish I could lose weight but certain not worth killing myself over. (What is was overwhelming burnout that drove me to want to die. It was just to hard to do anything to the point the thought of nothing was stronger thing living. Again something I know know but I didn’t then and none of the doctor knew either.) But now after 46 years of know who and what i was at the core of my being I don’t know. It is one of the most disturbing things for me. I feel no really joy though I have had happy or content days now. Food overall is bland to me, which is a big improvement from the ash it use to taste like when my world first fell. We discussed the craft things, I not driven or excited by any project even when I do get an idea. I mean how do I set goals when I don’t know what I like or enjoy? I can only guess and take a stab at it. I guess in the end that is the overall goal. Know myself again, know my center so I can move outward and onward. GOALS I DO HAVE: BUILD SOCIAL NETWORK KNOW WHO I AM AGAIN FEEL JOY AND PASSION AGAIN

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