Therapy again, doing better.

Back from therapy, feeling so much better tonight too. I forget just how understanding she actually is. She encourages me to write my feelings and thoughts out throughout the week and email them to her. She even understood when I told her that I really need her to help structure the therapy with me, I can't just go in blind because then I'll not get anything done. So we're working on goals, she thinks me working on the social anxiety primarily will be the most important thing, then a few other things on the side but whenever they come up. (Learning to accept emotions and learning how to handle them instead of detaching, learning to not be dependent on others emotionally but rather enjoy the give and takes of relationships/friendships, etc).

Productive day overall and I'm glad. She's also very sensitive and wants us to work together when things get rough, and if we hit a topic I can't talk about right then and there, we can move on to a different topic together.

My homework for the week is to identify as many personal triggers as I can, especially for my anxiety. This will be a very hard week but hopefully helpful. We touched upon a few rough moments, but we also had our fair share of funny ones too.

Depression hits again. Hard. (WARNING: triggering possible..)

(Warning ahead of time, this post is going to be relatively heavy. I'm going through a tough time and I'm not going to lie or sugar coat the situation. There's talk of abuse, suicide, and self injury.)

Over the past week I've had a lot of time to just sit and think about things after my friend dropped contact with me. The past, the present, my feelings and thoughts. For as long as I can remember I've "coped" with things by just distraction or distancing myself from my thoughts alone. When that fails, I do fall and my mood crashes. Before I had people in my life to help me, I used to get really low. I never considered self injury or suicide because of my morals and goals in life. I've used distraction for years to handle so many things, such as getting depressed.


When I was in counseling as a child I remember shutting down whenever I was asked how I felt about the abuse, or about my dad being gone, etc. I ended up changing the subject and talking about whatever was easier- at the time that was playing with Uno cards or something else. I often avoided the topic because it was too hard to talk about, and I never felt I could trust any of my counselors. I lost track of how many counselors I had.

Fast forward to now, and I had almost convinced myself that I put it behind for good, that it didn't hurt anymore and I escaped unscathed. I thought I had won the inner battle, basically. But now that it feels like my friend betrayed my trust and abandoned me, it opened up the wounds again. I'm terrified of being abandoned by people, especially once I get to know them and love them. She was one of the few people I felt that I could talk to about anything, and I did. I managed to tear down emotional barriers and finally felt comfortable, and then this has happened and I feel depressed. It brings me back to all the times I've been abandoned by people who I trusted...namely my dad who broke every bit of trust I ever had in him. (And then proceeded to figuratively rip my heart apart again when he sent me a birthday card on my 16th. It basically told me that writing him letters back was more important than me struggling to keep myself sane in school, on top of trying to learn how to make friends and keep my grades up. That's a whole other story..)


I thought, Friday, that I'd be able to put it aside and move on and just wait it out, see if she'd come back. But after my party on Saturday, things calmed down and I had more time to just sit and think and so I'm feeling down about it again. :( I'm feeling upset partially because of her, but also going back to the abuse. I never talked to anyone about it really, any more than i was made to. It's always hurt too much, and I used to break into tears by just thinking about it. I feel like I've distanced myself from my emotions over time, and I never learned how to handle it.

I don't know what to do. :( I have until Wednesday for my therapy appointment and I'm not sure what my therapist will want to say or talk about.

Unreal.

I just realized this.

I'm finally heading down the path that I've been wanting to take for years.

YEARS.

Years ago I wanted to get evaluated for ADHD. Years ago I wanted to find out what was "wrong" with me. I wanted help but I had no clue how to do it.

Years down the road, here I am. I have a therapist, and I'm going to have a psychiatrist soon. I'm going to be getting an evaluation for ADHD and an official evaluation for Aspergers, I hope. I want official records so that I can get the help I need. Confirmation is nice and all, I already know that I'm on the spectrum- there's no doubt about it. But I need the services.

And yet here I am, I'm going to be getting an official evaluation. Possibly further therapy, possibly medication, to finally combat all that's given me hell and held me back.

It's unreal that I've even made it this far, let alone farther.

I'm almost afraid of what my potential is, when i'm not held back as badly by my attention span, my anxiety, my constant on the go mind. it's scary to think about.

More on meltdowns. (As well as falling behind)

I meant to post this last night but I forgot. Below it is today's post, combined into one because I didnt feel like spamming.

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Everyone grows up faster than me. I've felt like this before, like people grow up, and like I don't, and I get left behind. I don't know how to adjust to adult life. When I was younger, I was known for being particularly mature, now, as a young adult, I feel trapped between being a child and an adult, where other people my age are making this transition, and I'm stuck behind, unable to follow.I don't know how to take care of myself. I don't know how to do things that others find simple. As I've been getting older, my challenges have been becoming more apparent, because being in school was easy for me, but this isn't. And watching around me, other people aren't having this. They went through, they had discomfort as a teenager, they are still not entirely settled as young adults, but they are settling into adult life, getting jobs, and taking care of themselves. They're growing up.I'm not. I'm stuck here. And I'm left behind.I've felt left behind here at a few points in the past - I didn't grow up the same as other already. My friends from high school grew up before me. They grew up when they went to college in ways I didn't, and when they made new friends, I only found Bob, and when they started jobs, I hadn't, and they're ahead of me in life.

Mostly copypasted from a friend's blog because of how much I relate to it. Changed up a couple things, but the base remains.

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I finally decided to write up a post describing the differences in meltdowns… The newest one is copypasted from a letter to my therapist, so keep that in mind as you read:
http://puzzlepiecesofsila.blogspot.com/p/meltdowns.html

Most people when they think of meltdowns think of the temper tantrum-like meltdowns their children give them, or the sensory based ones. Here is my view on 2 other types of meltdowns other than sensory based. These are the most problematic for me and prevent me from doing a lot of things others my age can.
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The 2 most common causes for me to meltdown revolve around the inability to prioritize or organize thoughts, tasks, and emotions well and emotional overload.
Being unable to organize my thoughts or tasks (basically executive functioning) can be very problematic but isn’t as common lately since I haven’t been in college for a few months.
When they do happen, it’s usually related to having a big task ahead of me, but having a difficult time figuring out how to start on it. Sometimes I’ll manage to begin but I’ll start breaking down in the middle of it because I get confused or distracted a lot and lose my focus and train of thought or pattern/routine. (A good example of this was how putting away laundry took me several hours, because I couldn’t figure out where to put certain pieces of clothing at or how to fold them right. When there was leftover trash and misc objects laying around the floor, I couldn’t start picking it up until my friend came in and helped “jumpstart” the process.) I’m a smart person, I know this, but I have issues organizing my thoughts, starting on tasks and following through to the end. This becomes a HUGE problem when I’m in school. I become completely unable to retain information that I learned that day, and I’ll spend hours on a single question for homework until I’m up at 7 a.m trying to finish a worksheet due the next day. Combine that with anxiety with asking for help and I start “melting down” and breaking down into tears in frustration. These happen frequently when I’m in school and are problematic because it becomes a catch 22.
The emotional based meltdowns occur when I get overwhelmed from feeling my own emotions “too strong” and instead of being able to calm down and focus, I’ll get overloaded/overwhelmed by them and breakdown. I can’t easily organize my thoughts and calm down before I get to the breakdown point. When they happen, they’re incredibly hard to rebound from.
Usually during these, my ability to talk kinda diminishes. It becomes really hard to communicate verbally effectively. I end up repeating the same phrases over and over, and any attempt at really speaking gets muffled out by the tears. These are most likely to happen during my therapy sessions, and I’m very scared of them happening because of how bad they feel and how vulnerable I feel during them (it’s not even an issue of trust at that point, I just hate feeling that low.) When and if it happens, moving to text-based communication will greatly help and likely reduce the duration of the worst part of it.

For sensory based meltdowns in first person view click here.

Meltdown.

Saturday night. I had a full out meltdown/anxiety attack over thoughts that creeped into my mind...Thinking the worst just because no one contacted me. Mom went to go meet someone new an hour and a half away, but didn't call me at night to tell me she was okay. Over time I started to think the worst...so I called her phone literally non stop for at least an hour. When she never replied I ended up breaking down sobbing...Bob couldn't console me, no one could. I started to think about what would happen if anything happened to my mom... Where would I go, what would happen to me... I can't make it out there alone right now. I wouldn't be able to. I'm still very much so dependant on my mom, and I don't even know if she realizes how much I do actually love her. It's difficult to express it right. I find hugs to be awkward. Saying 'I love you' is meaningless to me. It's just 3 words, how do they carry meaning? It's actions that do it for me. But I can't even do those 'right'. Ugh. At least she finally called me and I was able to settle down.

Transitions

Friday night, Oct 5th:
We're finally moving back into my bedroom. I'm up at 2 a.m still, not sure if I want to try and sleep or not because my room is organized different now. Bob decided that he wanted a visual change and so we moved the bed away from where it used to be. And we have a different dresser in there too. I might just stay up until my mom wakes up and I'll steal her bed for the night. :/ If I go to bed in my room, I'll need melatonin to get to sleep. Otherwise I'll be up tossing and turning and my mind will be going a million miles a minute until I pass out from exhaustion, only to wake up a few hours later. This is how it is with me and transitions. I wasn't expecting to suddenly move into my room in one night. I wanted to stagger it over the course of a few days. But Bob doesn't work like that, and he moved everything in already, so I just have to deal with it.

edit: 2:43 a.m: I'm too tired to stay up. Too hot to stay clothed. Gunna go in my room and crawl under my weighted blanket and try to sleep. Why must transitions be so difficult? :c

Goals, moving forward.

Had another talk with my therapist tonight. Things are going over pretty well actually. I discussed my plans for going back into college and she's very supportive. She thinks that we can go to the student disability center and have them help give me the aid I need. Written notes, a quiet section to study at, a way to ask for help without needing to verbally ask, and a reduced course load.

I really drove in the fact that I have very sensitive hearing, above all other sensory issues. My hearing is the most affected. When I explained that I get distracted by the simple sound of someone writing on paper, that even with noise reducing earbuds I was able to hear the sounds of machinery and conversations in mcdonalds as well as hear the radio and pick out what song was playing. I can get headaches from the noise of the dishwasher and hear it across the room even. She said that it's no wonder I have anxiety issues, the constant fear of noises definitely doesn't help.

I explained the difficulty with transitions, and how anxiety about certain situations will linger even after the moment has come and gone. She seems really interested in that, and wants me to write down any specific transitions that I handle and wants to know just how I handle it and how i react.

Overall I think things are going to work out well in the long run, it's just going to take a while to really overcome some of these issues.