So many awful feelings so often.
I do not have the ‘happy’ emotion, or maybe I do and don't
know it. Probably not though.
I always have a full
spectrum of anxious to panic attack.
I so badly want to be able to talk to people and go out and
do things but anxiety holds me back.
I get asked if there are times when I am not anxious, like
when I am riding or doing something else I like. No, there is not a time when I
am not anxious. When I'm on the horse, I may not be worried about my usual
things, but there are other worries:
Other riders. What if I fall? What if the horse falls? Indoors or out? So many things to worry about!
At times, the anxiety is so bad it becomes like a depression,
it can get worse from there, and I can get suicidal thoughts. Because I struggle
so much with spoken communication, I don't say much when I go to the
psychiatrist, social worker, or support group. Maybe one day, I will be able to
try the horse therapy that Micah is doing.
She says it is helping, although I haven't noticed a difference other
than when she is at her regular riding lesson. It is important that the
improvements carry over to the rest of her life.
I find that because I have constant low/mid-level anxiety,
the slightest thing will make it worse.
Small changes in plans, cancellations, different locations.
Most people can take those in stride but many of us Autistics struggle with
change.
I really misunderstand prosody and other people's intentions
so I constantly feel that people are mad at me or don't like me because I don't
really know by the way they sound or look (I am also slightly face blind). Sometimes, people just say or write things, which don’t really seem to me
to be a reason, or I just never hear back from them. They can say they are not
mad or that they like me, but how do I know it's true? People lie all the time. I get very anxious
when I get disappointed about something, wondering what I did wrong to cause whatever was
supposed to happen not to happen-like having a meeting set up with someone and then it not happening.
Many times, I wonder what's wrong with me.
Both my husband and my daughter (and probably many other people) get frustrated trying to
explain things to me. Many times, I feel dumb when I'm around other people.
I know so many people who have been diagnosed Autistic
recently who seem so much more successful and able than me.
I’m aware that I don't really know what goes on in their
lives and that they're probably not successful at everything but they seem to
be able to do so much more than me.
What is wrong with me? Why can't I seem to do anything?
Why do I feel like such a failure?
How can I help my daughter get over her anxiety and PTSD if I
am such a failure at it myself?
As you can tell from my writing, things aren’t going well
right now. Some weeks are worse than others
are. Some days I ‘just am’, other days I
have severe anxiety, and still other days I'm in between.
I have been like this most of my life. Will it always be
like this? Probably.
I don't know how long I can handle living like this, but I’ve managed
to get through this many years so guess I will get through the rest my life.
It sucks!
Some days I don't know why I bother writing this blog. Does
anybody actually read it?
I would hope there is something somewhere in one of my blog
posts that could be helpful to somebody.
Obviously not this one though!
When things are this bad I have to wait it out. I know it
will end eventually and the anxiety levels will go down a bit. It's hard to get through it because sometimes
it can take weeks and lots of tears.
I guess that’s it for now.
Hopefully the next post won’t be as bad.
