Days in my Life

[UberScout]

So last night my mother and little sister and I went to Food Lion to do some grocery shopping. I'm pretty tough when it comes to anxiety at the store, usually anyway, but for whatever reason last night we were halfway done shopping when without any warning, I started feeling just like I do when I have a panic attack: I take longer to breathe normally, colors appear to move around in my eyes and become more vivid, processing information about the world around me takes twice as long and I have to think before speaking even simple generic phrases.

Therr were maybe four other shoppers in that whole food lion, five people working the register and zero things to be that anxious about overall, and yet I had a Level 2 attack in there (read: there are four main "levels" to my panic attacks, level 2 refers to the aforementioned explanation) despite having zero reasons to do so. I didn't even set an intention to do so or make that happen. I did not fire any code in my brain to trigger that to happen, it just did so completely on its own.

This has me seriously worried because now it has me guessing whether my autism is at its "peak" or not. I've been in this shopping situation a thousand times over with and without my daily medication with no incident, and now only last night does it happen for the first time in 16 years.

I was allowed to get some lavender oil and an air freshener with Lavender, and I slept like a cat on the beach with it last night when I put some on my pillow, but what if this happened in another mundane situation like a trip to Game stop or something?

 

[Neonatal RRT]

There may be other stressors in your life, nutritional/antioxidant deficiencies, hormonal changes,...and a long list of other things that may have your brain "on edge",...and then the trip to the store just gave you that tiny little push into an anxiety attack. "Autism burnout" can sneak up on you.

 

[Thinx]

Hey there's a lot of background stress at present from the covid situation, that could be part of the reason for you having a shorter fuse for your anxiety, it's been a tough time. Maybe allow for that for a while, like it's easier to get to Level 2 because of background stress, maybe take precautions and prepare yourself mentally, I think that helps.

 

[GadAbout]

You're worried over nothing. Now if this happens 3 or 4 more times, all unpredictable, then you have a pattern, and you can start analyzing it. And if it doesn't happen again? If you worry, worry, worry, in that scenario you would have worried about nothing.

 

[Markness]

You could be picking up on other peoples’ vibes and absorbing bad morphic fields. I am sorry this happened to you. Is the weather in your area bad, too?

 

[_eri_bellehumeur]

I had an experience like this recently myself- literally abandoned building on campus with one other person walking in the hall, and I had a panic attack. I haven't had a bad one in a while, but I've found I'm a lot more susceptible to them when I haven't eaten, or slept properly. Your experience may have been a situation like that, where your body wasn't getting a particular need met and so was stressing out.

I know that a lot of people take comfort items and stim toys with them everywhere to help with things like this as well. If you don't already do so, keeping things on your person that can distract you from excess external stimulus may be helpful for this. I wear an absurd amount of jewellery that I play with constantly in public, and it has been incredibly helpful. If you are magically minded and ascribe protective, calming or healing properties to particular materials then this may be of use for you.

 

[UberScout]

You could be picking up on other peoples’ vibes and absorbing bad morphic fields. I am sorry this happened to you. Is the weather in your area bad, too?

...Actually yes, it is... Freezing rain over here, right now as I type this actually. I'm a starseed so i've always known I have powers like empathy and the ability to pick up on people's energies, see their auras etc. But I didn't know it was that strong.

Could it be that I was recieving a psychic attack?

 

[UberScout]

I had an experience like this recently myself- literally abandoned building on campus with one other person walking in the hall, and I had a panic attack. I haven't had a bad one in a while, but I've found I'm a lot more susceptible to them when I haven't eaten, or slept properly. Your experience may have been a situation like that, where your body wasn't getting a particular need met and so was stressing out.

I know that a lot of people take comfort items and stim toys with them everywhere to help with things like this as well. If you don't already do so, keeping things on your person that can distract you from excess external stimulus may be helpful for this. I wear an absurd amount of jewellery that I play with constantly in public, and it has been incredibly helpful. If you are magically minded and ascribe protective, calming or healing properties to particular materials then this may be of use for you.

I have a jade crystal that's been needing a cord to tie with so I can wear it as a necklace, but I dont have any cords...

 

[SusanLR]

The most calming crystal for me has always been clear quartz.
I carry small marble sized crystal balls in my pocket or purse.
They are also great for stimming. Rolling one around in you hand and between your finger tips.
I have so many crystals and necklaces I wish I could teleport one to you.

You may be an empath if you see auras. And there are people that are psychic vampires.
They pull energy from others and that can be draining.

Hormones and natural physical causes can cause panic attacks to come out of nowhere.
I went through a period of many years not knowing when one would happen seemingly from nothing.
I haven't had a high level attack in about 20 years now.
Guided imagery, self hynosis and meditation keeps them away.
There are relaxation techniques I learned for this too. Ambient music can stop them also.

Practice now what works for you. I would not want anyone to just get them out of the blue
and not know how to handle it. They limited me for a long time until I found ways to
prevent them or stop them quickly.

 

[UberScout]

So I have my Binaural beats app set to trance because this day has been just all over the place ever since Maddog woke up. He let me finish a whole bowl which was cool of him, because I made the mistake of getting a coke made with coffee at the store (yes that is a real flavor) when I went to get cigarettes for them, and while it was a nice little math buzz itt made me anxious afterwards, so after I got high with M.D. I got an idea, what would binaural beats do to me while high? So I set my app for binaural beats to "trance" and....i need to start using this app more often. I closed my eyes for a minute and almost fell asleep, but I had to remember where I was for a second and what was going on. That actually wasn't a bad thing because in doing so I forgot i was getting worked up over something.

If I get in chat acting spacey later now you guys know why.

 

[UberScout]

I never asked for my life to be this dysfunctional.

I never asked to be born autistic. I hate it. My IQ has gone down at least forty points since I turned 23.

I never asked to have this timeline of events occur in the way it did. I never asked to be homeless before, yet it still happened, six different times, and each time it happened we struggled so hard for so long and in so many different ways that we never once deserved; the next time it happens I'm just going to save my collective physical energy and let starvation take over because at that point i'm gonna be so burnt out that getting up to go to the bathroom will feel like climbing a mountain and i won't care how much Maddog cusses me out for doing nothing but stay in bed because nothing will phase me except dying.

I can't remember anything about my previous lives except my time on Avalon, and being Koluu looked so peaceful when I was hypnotized for seeing what living as Avalon!me was like. Koluu had such a peaceful life, seeing him stressed out was rare (i could tell when he was when i was looking through his eyes in the induction; his skin would start sparking like electricity and he'd be shouting to...something to "make them let go of me! Make them let go of me please, my mind is in agony!! Agagi agagi! Agagi madaa!")

I'll never know why i was sent here, especially to be born autistic...but i've had enough, i've had my fill. If killing yourself didn't send you to hell i'd gladly do so.

 

[SusanLR]

@UberScout How do you know it does send you to hell?
I'm just a coward.

 

[UberScout]

@UberScout How do you know it does send you to hell?
I'm just a coward.

Because i've had Christianity shoved down my throat as a youth, and every pastor i've talked to about it always seems to focus more on a topic like "Hell is a real place" and less on a topic like "These are reasons why you should pray to God"

Funny how my uncle would force me to go to a church full of people who are such big, avid fans of God but then when we sit down for the sermon, the projector screen is blasting us with paintings of demons eating people's legs off, children burning alive and tortured souls being sent to fall off a cliff by archdukes. Then when we're making our way back to the truck he'd ask "was that a good sermon? Any questions?" And i'd be like "Yeah I have one, why did Satan look like a Monty Python character?"

Then i'd go back next sunday asking my pastor what i'm supposed to do about bullies at school, only for him to give me that "turn the other cheek" bullcrap. Yeah sure, turning the other cheek and killing them with kindness as they say works wonders for people who steal important school supplies off your desk, grab your backpack and run down the hall with it, and write false rumors about your autism on the bathroom stall! Oh, but i'm never supposed to take matters into my own hands when all this is affecting me on a psychological level, no sir, that's NEVER an excuse to be angry or solve the problem yourself when everyone in charge just stands around doing nothing, and its even LESS of an excuse to be depressed about it!!

Please take these scars away. Somebody.

 

[SusanLR]

Everyone is told what to believe, depending on what part of the world they are in and their culture.
And what is taught will vary from place to place.
These are subjects no one really knows the answer to, but, they try to make you believe they do and
mold you into thinking they are correct.

I always took in what people say or books on such, but, never took them literally.
Since I don't know the answers to these questions either, I started thinking for myself.
What seems sensible to me? Mentally tearing apart belief systems, trying to find the truth.
Some of it can't be answered, so put the pieces together for yourself.
Just keep your nose clean when it comes to the law. We are ruled by others in higher command.
That's how the world runs.

 

[UberScout]

Am I becoming bipolar or schizoaffective?
If this is actually happening to me, then that is not good at all!

Let me go through a list of what is going on with me mentally at the moment so you can see where my suspicion is coming from:

1. The noise/ambience of the world around me is bothering me more than it should. It's not even noises that are annoying, it's just people talking outside and going through the motions of their day, and yet it feels like the words people are speaking, the nature of all those noises, the way everything about life is just mingling together, colliding with each other in such an intangible way, it's like the mental factors of all those things are just burrowing into my mind, demanding my constant attention... Even though its not required of me to do so, it is now impossible for me to ignore.

2. Even though I have no qualms about paying attention to something like Sophia showing me a game mod for some trendy game she likes, or some video Maddog wants to show me (some of the stuff he finds is actually pretty funny), sometimes Sophia's demand for my attention and Maddog wanting me to see something he found happens together because of crappy timing, and I have to spend just as much mental energy to act calm as I do telling my brain to pay attention to everyone, and it's just as bad as 1. Above...

3. Because of 1 and 2 above, I'm seeking out snacks and junk food like an amateur treasure hunter, and i think this may be exacerbating 1 and 2, and i've noticed Maddog has these symptoms when his bipolar disorder acts up, and now that these symptoms are just now happening to me you can see the reason for my suspicion.

4. I've been looking forward to weighted blanket naps more often than I usually do and i've even started making wishlists of stimming toys from online shopping, much more so over my usual anticipation of getting, say a C64 Mini or some other form of gaming console, while I'm proud of myself for looking forward to something that's not a game, I'm not so proud of clamoring over it so hard.

Am I really starting to develop what Maddog has?! You know that South Park episode where Cartman was making fun of people with Tourettes syndrome and mocking them, then he started faking it himself and he did it so much that he actually started to develop it?

Whatever's going on in my head, this is kinda starting to feel like that.

I'm so worried about this and it's freaking me out! Is it because i've been around Maddog so long? Has that even been scientifically proven to be true?

If i've been bipolar/schizoaffective this whole time and it just didn't activate until today, or if I actually am developing this somehow, what do I do?!

Somebody please help me out!!

 

[MyLifeAsAnAspie]

It all sounds like typical ASD stuff to me.

 

[UberScout]

Yesterday I was finally able to get my bloodwork done and I was able to get my medication again. I only got two of the meds i take but these two are the most important in my regimen and they're all i need right now until I get the rest (read: Adderall & abilify).

Before we got home with it, though, Maddog and I decided to stop by our friend Steven's place. We visited him and talked for a while...then Maddog mentioned he was having trouble getting a kidney stone to pass, and Steven gave him a shot of vodka; now, how this evil concoction of the devil got his body to cork out a kidney stone fast enough to crack a mirror, that's beyond me, but Mad's shot glass hadn't even so much as grazed his lips before the drunken shaming and insults started.

I love my stepfather with every bit of my heart. He's probably the only person on Earth willing to put up with anything I do, let alone even tolerate the sight of my face. He's saved my backside more times than I can count, he's pulled miracles out of his ass for both me and my mother, and including Sophia, when we were at our lowest, I'm lucky the guy even said I could come home when I text my mother from Gastonia at 3 AM that fateful morning.

But if there's one thing i will not do, it's sit and listen while somebody I love and care about gulps down the devil's nectar and says things like "you're not my real son" and "being soft means you're just weak". Of all the times he's told me to shut my g--d--- mouth while he does this, Steven, one of my best friends in the world, sat and watched and listened, and i wanted so bad to just scream "You see what he does, Steven? I deserve none of this and it's all because he can't stop having kidney stones, and he can't pass them unless he's drunk! If I had a say in anything right now i'd gladly pour every drop of that shot down the sink!"

But I couldn't. I had to be silent and let Mad's drunken toxicity poison my mind. Because he said so.

Now this morning, I woke up and first thing out of bed sure enough he's scowling at me. He told me its because I made a scene at Steven's place. Then when I had to wash dishes, and *earn* my breakfast this morning, he taught me how to cook hash browns...now, during this particular moment he doesn't seem so angry, but it isn't until I finish cooking them and I sit down to eat my own serving that he shouts me upstairs with it.

At that point I wasn't even hungry. I just sat on my bed and cried until i couldn't breathe. I put on some music by Two Feet and started to fiddle around with a knife that was in my room, contemplating just doing everyone in the house a favor and getting out of everyone's way. Nothing changes, nothing improves, nothing gets better with me or anybody else here no matter how hard I try to improve, regardless of how much effort I put into it; I take all that time and go out of my own way to try my new strategies of communication and approaching Mad or my mother, being very steady and open-ended with it, but in the end all that aggression just springs back into place and we're back to square one again. If doing all that work to improve myself and be better to my parents is just going to be tossed out the window at the end of the day, what is the point? In the end, I'm just doing nothing but taking up space, eating and getting fatter, getting in everybody's way.

I'm better off just living in my bedroom. Maybe one day my family will forgive me for being in the way.

 

[UberScout]

I know I'm a boy, but I feel a lot like a girl.
I know what you're all thinking seeing this. "Scout, what the [bleep] do you mean? Of course you're a boy!"

Well yes...

But young men like myself don't usually express so much emotion. "Other" young men don't cry in a generic state of sadness, other young men don't milk the extent of a negative emotion till it's bone dry.

Despite how negative this sounds, I am actually okay with this because [WARNING: VERY BIZARRE CONCEPT AHEAD!!!] when I was five, I started wondering what it's like to be a girl. I used to think; what would it be like for me to be Autistic as someone else besides a kid who foams at the mouth over the newly-released sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, or am I crazy for imagining an alternate timeline where I WAS born a girl?

Seriously, am I crazy because of this?

I harbored that mindset all my life, and now it just feels as though I'm one half boy, one half girl, and at 25 years old, I find myself thinking almost entirely primarily like a female mind.

What the heck is wrong with me?! I can't help feeling this way; I just like feeling and/or being soft and trying to be the most approachable, empathic person I can be, with a soft spot on the side.

Maybe it's cause I just got a Kirby hat and my autistic brain is going "Oh yay! My head is shaped like a friend!" Help...?

 

[UberScout]

I HAVE OFFICIALLY LOST CONTROL OF MY DISABILITY!!!!!

FOR TWO DAYS NOW I HAVE BEEN RAGING AND HAVING PANIC ATTACKS AND IT'S ALL BECAUSE NOBODY IN THIS HOUSE KNOWS HOW TO SIT DOWN AND TALK THINGS OUT!!!!!!

MADDOG IS ON THE BLEEDING EDGE OF SENDING ME TO EITHER A GROUP HOME OR A MENTAL HOSPITAL!!!!!

I HAVE LOST CONTROL OF MY WHOLE LIFE AND I FEEL SO SUFFOCATED AND RESTRAINED AND IT FEELS LIKE I HAVE ABSOLUTELY ZERO CONTROL OVER ANY PART OF IT!!!!

I ALMOST HAD A HEART ATTACK TODAY!!!

I JUST WANT TO DIE!!!! I WANT TO DIE SO I DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PLEASE SOMEBODY FIND ME A WAY TO END THIS ETERNAL NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!

 

[Skittlebisquit]

Breathe. Focus.
Say "calm thoughts,relax"
Breathe slowly as you can
In the nose out the mouth
Repeat