Venting Emotional Whiplash

[dogteeth]

Rambling, hypocritical, nonsensical vent.

My last few days have actually been ok. Less suicidal, more energy, activities that I used to enjoy were finally fun again. I could make plans past a week without feeling stressed out about having to be alive that long. I was feeling cautiously hopeful this morning.

Then a bad conversation and I'm back in the pit. I can't stop crying and thinking a person like me isn't supposed to be alive.

I've always been socially awkward and a lot of the mental health professionals around me suspect autism as well but I haven't had my assessment yet; still on the waiting lists.

I used to not be aware of how odd I am. I used to think I was a bit shy but "normal". Now I'm painfully aware of how I come across to people. And it is literally painful. It is painful to know this about myself and yet not be able to change it.

Sometimes I am able to forget what I am. I walk around as if I'm like everyone else. That's how today was going.

Talked to my psychiatrist. Told him I was feeling better. "Great to hear! Now what about that eye contact, why is it so hard for you to do that, try looking in my eyes, what's making you look away?"

I don't fucking know. I don't know.

It disgusts me. It makes me feel shameful. It makes me feel as if I've been forcibly stripped nude in front of a row of voyeurs. The more I fear a person, the farther my eyes drift. At that point it's not even eye contact I struggle with. I can't have any part of their body in my visual field. I pretend they're disembodied voices. Being aware of their physical presence disgusts me, I need to be away from those bodies with brains in them. Disgusting.

I wish I was alone in the world. I wish everything and everyone disappeared. I think I could be content then just being trapped inside my own mind. Quiet. Existing within myself.

I am just so disgusted by the detail of the world and that humans exist. It's just too much. We are too complex and the world is too complex. I feel completely overwhelmed by the world. The stuff that makes up everything feels like it's rubbing my brain raw.

God I hate existence.


And yet, I'm still trying. I'm still here. I am lucky enough to have people around me that care about me and not my lack of eye contact. I live for them. I am living for them. I would have been dead long ago if it wouldn't be for the pain my death would cause them.

I am also lucky enough that the only thing that makes me want to die is myself. My circumstances are fine. I have no major trauma. I'm physically healthy.

But I'm still haunted by my failures. The fact that whenever I'm around people I'm failing to function as I'm expected to as a social being.

It's like I'm a method actor and my role is an amalgamation of all the most socially competent people I've met. The show runs 24/7 and the crowd is boos the entire time. And I can't blame them, I'm not doing it right. I mean who would consider someone who has to stare at the ceiling for an entire conversation socially competent?

And that's so exhausting. And it wears me down. And it brings me right back to the pit I'm wallowing in right now.

 

[dogteeth]

Ok I think I'm doing better.

It's so awful how being in a bad headspace makes me feel like everything is bad and everything was bad and everything will be bad.

I'm just so forgetful. When I'm good I forget the past pain I had too. But I think it helps sometimes because it makes me the generally optimistic person I am.

I've been logging my mood over the last 8 months and I think I would have come to the conclusion that I haven't had a day that was even close to neutral in that time. But I can clearly see, there was a stretch of time in August where I was doing ok or at least getting close to doing ok.

I hope these next weeks continue to be better, and I hope I can hold on to hope when the despair hits again on one day or another.

 

[timf]

You might have Aspergers. Today they lump it in with autism which is not very helpful. It is a normal neurological variant that has a neurology that is faster, more sensitive or more complex. This can cause a person to have to process an avalanche of sensory and cognitive information such that things like looking at someones eyes can be overwhelming.

It is a difference (like being too tall or short) that can cause one to be seen as "different". However, it can be useful in helping to avoid people who are unsettled by differences. There is a web site called wrongplanet that people with Aspergers can share their experiences navigating the world of NT (neuro typicals). However,by now almost everyone calls it autism.