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.

Appointment afterthoughts.

I'm bad at this. :v I talked the lady's ear off the entire time, she got to meet my bf and learn a bit more about me. She got to see all my nervous stims in person, including how I tear my nails apart and wring my fingers n such together. I told her about how I obsessively think over things, and she understands how having knowledge can lower anxiety but how there's better coping skills that i can learn and use. I explained a little about my obsessive interests though and how I'm generally happy about them. I did forget to mention that those include weather and music. I'll have to go back and detail it some more. I'm so exhausted right now though.. I'm probably going to go to bed and just sleep all night. :| Socializing is so difficult..

Short post for tonight, maybe longer one to come tomorrow if I remember enough.

When anxiety leads to negative obsession.

As if it's not already obvious by my other posts, I struggle with anxiety. Day to day basis, to be honest. There's not more than a few hours a day that go by without me anxiously worrying over something or another. I don't get the physical symptoms daily unless something comes up (such as needing to leave the house and interact with people), but I'm constantly worrying and obsessing.
But these aren't the "good" obsessions. They're not the fun obsessive interests that calm me down and let me feel like me, or that get things done. These are the ones that tear me apart inside. I will obsess over the tiniest of details leading up to an event until it actually happens, and only then will I either calm down or go into overdrive and near panic mode. Usually the latter, I've just gotten a bit better at masking it over time. If I don't obsess, then I am much much more likely to break down or meltdown into a full anxiety attack. Hyperventilating, sobbing, stimming and difficulty speaking included. Feels like I got run over by a truck.
Let's take last week as an example. I was referred to a therapist for my social anxiety, but we had to sit down and talk about what exactly my anxiety encompassed. I had no clue what to expect when I got there. I was referred to see someone named 'Travis', but I ended up getting 'Autumn'. I didn't know if the lady I briefly talked to on the phone was going to be my therapist. I assumed she was a secretary.

I knew I wanted to bring up the Aspergers thing with the therapist (which I had thought was an actual psychologist until I got there.) So I proceeded to obsess over what I needed to bring, knowing that I could go partially verbal at the appointment, or stim so much that I'd be barely understood. I ended up printing out over 20 pages of material (Basically the Autism Quotient test and the Aspie quiz from rdos, with my results included). I then sat there and commented on every single question, giving examples of situations where this or that happened. How I react to certain things. How this trait or that trait displayed in me. I then obsessed heavily over how it was going to happen. I talked to a few people, panicked on them, and went back to my hidey hole and continued to obsess. I didn't listen to their advice because I was scared and couldn't handle it. I created scripts in my head of what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. What their response would be, and then my response to their response. I fell asleep thinking these things, even. I obsessed over how the room would look like, if it'd smell okay or if I'd be gagging from a strong fake scent. If the person would have an accent or not, if I'd be able to open up to them, etc etc etc.
And by the time I got there, I was such an anxious ball of a mess that when she called me in I immediately tripped over the chair's footrest and then sat there shaking. I couldn't lean back and relax if I even wanted to. I bounced my leg nervously. I wrung my wrists, chewed on my fingers until they were raw. My fingernails barely exist at this point. and it felt like there was peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth when I tried to speak. She said I seemed very articulate, ironically enough. I guess all the years of practicing and hiding might've paid off, or hindered me. I hope not the latter.

I ended up not even using the papers at all. I will save them for a later date. I am not too good at answering questions on the spot, so some of the questions that were asked I feel that I didn't answer correctly because of the pressure. I have had physical symptoms related to my anxiety. I get upset stomachs frequently, bowl issues, and headaches almost weekly. I've had my own weird version of panic attacks ,where I either shut down and am unable to do much other than say a few things and pass out in bed for hours, or I break down into a meltdown and end up crying and stuttering so much I'm stuck just repeating the same phrases over and over. I don't have the typical panic attacks where I feel like I'm going to die or pass out or something. But I do end up having a reaction to a peak in anxiety that I can't control. It's difficult to explain in words.
I will be seeing the therapist again next wednesday...and I have things to bring up again that I forgot about last time. Maybe I'll just bring this post in.

Oh, and what happens if I don't mentally prepare for all these things? Then we get me sitting there in front of the person trying my best to not breakdown into an anxiety attack. Like what happened when I had to go get an ultrasound to check for cysts. *sigh* It's difficult..