Other What's ruining your life right now?

I would be amazed if Byron is neuro typical. In fact, a long time ago when I was diagnosed I linked to an aspie test and he was as non NT as me. And quite a few people here did it too.

That said either way at least then like, you know.

 

Yup.

When I was finally diagnosed and assessed in 2008 when we were under labour I went to Brighton for my final assessment. Where they told me "you may hear from the govt in 5 years but going on your diagnosis and issues we doubt it".

I wasn't assessed again until the Tories got in. Like, at all. Then? The "award" is 2-5 years. And, you can bet your ass they now assess me every two years just to check if Biploar 2, Autism, Agoraphobia and social difficulties are curable /roll eyes.

Now thankfully I live with a trust now who does all of it for me, as I've ODed twice because of the stress it used to cause me.

Oh and they've stopped forcing me to go 50 miles to an assessment centre because I had a meltdown last time and started lobbing chairs. Four months of terror and stress, an OD, and when I got there "oh sorry didn't you get the message? The doctor has called in sick you'll have to come back again"

They even stiffed me the £60 in cab fares.

 

I was framing my response not so much at Byron specifically but as one of the reasons pursuing a diagnosis might not be helpful; you could be left feeling worse than when you started (and two grand lighter!).

Again, I'm trying not to come across as an ass here, just that I can see DeanSUNIAIU's standpoint.

 

I can't see his standpoint at all tbh.

In a way it is similar to a broken leg. IE, it needs treating and proper care. Autism is the same way. Every one I live with is medicated. I've not been told what, as obviously my care worker would break the law by telling me, but yeah we all take pills that help us drastically. Mental illness is pretty similar to a physical problem. It needs treating, and etc.

I guess the same can be said for women that feel inside that they are men, and vice versa. Whether there is any actual science to it? I don't know. What I do know is when you know you are different finding out why can be enormous. It's not just that either. It's changing your entire lifestyle in order to cope. Note that word, cope. It took me 40 years to figure out what I could cope with and what I could not. Like, I can cope with a couple of things to do a day. And I like it, I am far from lazy. However, give me anything else? and I will end up in a serious panic. My mother, for example, for 40 years, would start barking instructions at me as soon as I awoke. Do this, do that. She didn't realise how ill that made me. Instead now she has calmed down A LOT, and has finally understood the order of importance that I have in my brain. IE? banging on about it won't get it done any faster, it will just cause me to explode and start screaming and shouting. As such? she now has finally learned if she just STFUs I will do it. Even if it's at 2am, it will be done. It actually causes me anguish and mental pain to do something in my day out of the sequence I have it in. And that causes me to go into fight or flight, and I will then react with anger. Because it's f*****g me up by doing it that way.

Can you imagine the hell I had trying to hold down a job with people barking instructions at me all day? it wasn't pretty. At all.

However. Now that I have learned who I am, and learned that I can indeed cope alone with a eeeny weeny bit of help? I kick ass. That said, until I knew who I was? pissing in the wind. That was what my life felt like, just pissing in the damn wind.

I now take pills for the OCD, pills for depression, pills for psychosis (I have had one meltdown in 5 years, which is crazy given I would explode about three times a day !) and am getting on with my life one day at a time, one task at a time, in my own time. Because? that is literally all I can do. No pressure, no stress. Just pick, things off one at a time and take as long as I damn well please to do it. Because there is no other way. However again, I had no idea that it was like that. None at all. I spent 34 years going around just effing everything up and trying as hard as I could just to fail. It was no life.

Learning about autism, how it works, how everything works differently? has helped me no ends. Now I would tell Byron to start studying, but once again we come back to diagnosis. All it will do if you try and learn to live as someone with autism if you are not autistic is F you up, because you still don't know who you are. Kinda like people with gender issues I guess.

Most of us know who we are. We know what we want and we know how to get it. Whilst some of us? don't have a clue until we learn how we need to get it. If that makes sense.

Oh, and not being manic off my tits at 4am and wandering 4 miles from home with no recollection how I got there or what had happened in the interim helped too. But of course they can't prescribe you anti psychotics if, you know? you are not diagnosed as someone who becomes psychotic and suffers from memory loss and etc.

Diagnosis = treatment. They go in that order, and no other way. You can't get treated until you have been diagnosed.

Now sure, Byron may not be autistic (I know one when I see one, but hey we will see.....) but it could even be something else. Borderline personality disorder? etc etc etc. Do you see what I am saying? if you are sitting there thinking "Hey man I don't feel right and I think there's something wrong" then there is something wrong dude. And Byron has been persistent pretty much since I knew him that he was having issues.

 

Man I'm glad it's working out for you like that. I'll give you a paraphrased version of my diagnosis:

"Doctor, I'm really struggling with stress, it's all too much for me and I can feel I'm about to pop"

"Have you tried relaxing?"

[I leave the doctor's office and can't stop laughing, I've just told a medical professional that I'm on the ****ing limit and he's been so unhelpful it's been detrimental, I've gone briefly manic]

About six months later I pop, Laura makes an unreasonable request of me and when when she keeps insisting at it I fly off the handle at her, then take to bed in a fit of depression. The next day I call the doctor again and speak to someone else, suddenly I'm playing a game of "be open enough to get treatment but not so much that it causes other problems". This time, the best advice I'm offered is leaving my wife.

A few months down the line, another event that causes me to fly off the handle (I can't tell you how out of character this is, but stress changes a person). My jaw hurts most days from clenching it all the time.

I call back and this time I get referred, I spend an hour on the phone to a professional, and the upshot is "yes m8, you're stressed to ****". The treatment? An online course about avoiding known triggers. This is useless, as it's my infant children that I'm unable to cope with. Perhaps I should have left my wife?

Time is passing and it is getting easier, but there is no doubt I'm a changed man (by far for the worse), she'd like more children but it will honestly kill me. As it stands, I'm doing ok, surviving, but when you say diagnosis=treatment it's not always that simple. Honestly the only thing speaking to the doctor has given me is the knowledge I've done all I can.

 

I have to say, finding out why I was doing what I was doing, 13 years ago, was certainly useful. Knowing that there was a good reason, that I wasn’t just a lazy b@stard, made a big difference and led to me being able to get some help. It also helped my wife to understand me..

 

@ElThomsono
Sorry to hear this is happening, do pop over for a chat sometime, I'm only 20 mins away.
I really mean it, being a Dad can be the toughest job ever and there's no training or a Haynes manual.
I've had troubles and looking back, they were not great times, but things change and you manage better.
PM me any time

 

Actually https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dad-Manual-Brilliant-Father-Haynes/dp/1844254437

But you're right, hardest job in the world, fumbling from one potential disaster to the next, it does get easier, not easy, but certainly easier

 

Cheers, a good few people have helped me along and it really does make a difference. By far the biggest was going back into the office, I get respite by doing that, makes things far easier. You don't notice it at the time but being constantly wailed at and interrupted really grinds a man down

 

Exactly. My family are very outspoken and have always called a spade a spade. Problem is they didn't realise I was a garden fork.

Not only does the diagnosis help you it massively helps those around you providing they care enough to learn. Seriously I don't even remember the last time mum and I had an argument. And my mother's a stubborn old goat but she's not heartless. Understanding is key. We've always been incredibly close but there's been a lot of tears along the way.

 

Yup we need to get him out next year. Just not seafood (aka rubber) at the Thai place lol.

 

Oh don't get me wrong dude it's not been flowers and rose gardens it has been hell. Mostly through every psych wanting to diagnose you differently in some sort of pissing up the wall competition and thus being given the wrong meds that send you to hell. It's been a 14 year fight, but for the past year I feel like I have been winning at last.

I know every one seems to be like, "Anti pills" but seriously there is absolutely no chance I would still be here typing this if it wasn't for them. And I have been that way since I was 13 and started smoking cannabis. Which I stopped when I was 21, but again without it I know for a fact I would not have been here today. Those were the self medicating days. I also quit school when I was 15 because I just couldn't do it. It had been like a 10 year prison sentence for me. Which again I still beat the **** out of myself over, but then I know I would not have been able mentally to cope with the exams any way. Absolutely no way.

My shrink under labour? would give me anything I asked for. Now? ffs I feel like I have mugged them when they hand over a mild anxiety pill change ffs. Again, that is under instruction. The Tories are as tight as a gnat's chuff and don't want to have to pay for it. Everything is "oooo ! addictive!". Who effing cares if I am going to pop my cork without it FFS?

Oh and the teeth thing? that is why I have half of mine gone dude. I don't grind I bite, HARD. To the point where my teeth crack and just cave in. Apparently, again (and I didn't know this !) that's autism at play. Which again helped me, because I finally said "F teeth" and got half of them pulled. Can't destroy what isn't there.

Living the way I am has been utter hell. Not only for me but for the people around me, prior to 2008. TBH? half of the pills I take now I don't even take for me I take for them. Because I know how I can be (angry, screamy shouty) and I know I'd be an eternal dick if I didn't fix me for them. However, even though I have the scars I am so happy with the person I am now. Like, beyond happy.

I know every one deals with this completely differently. Had my father lived? I would have ODed in a squat many years ago. He, as much as I love the earth he walked on, would not have been able to deal with it and would have kicked me out. And I suppose that is why things have gone the way they have. Like, mum always encouraged us to talk, and I do, but my brother? is the polar opposite of me. Never opens up, never talks about his feelings, and thus tends to suffer in silence. I guess his suffering just isn't the same as mine, but I know from the grapevine he has taken ADs before. I think he is probably the least "hardest hit" from where it all stems from, my dad's mum. Who would often spend two months in Springfields in Tooting when I was a baby. "Manic depressive" they called her. AKA Bipolar. I think the autism came from my grandfather. But yeah, every single one of my cousins all have similar issues and serious mental health problems.

Just hang in there until labour get back in. Then seek help. All the tories will do is push you to go online and etc and pay for your own help. Disgusting, TBH.

 

I appreciate you posting openly and honestly, but could you please stop being so relatable? You're worrying me

 

I'm trying to follow their logic. Ask for a replacement as it's obviously damaged but you can't have a replacement because it's damaged?!?

Glad you're getting a replacement though. Should I say 'glad'? Maybe 'good luck' would be more appropriate.

 

I've had to chase birds in my house for two days in a row. Two different birds. How do they get in there, you ask? The gaping holes in the roof and side of this place. We're hoping to make it through the winter (we have power, (cold) water, and refrigerator/coffee maker/microwave/toaster oven, we're not bereft of everything but I'm paying off a bunch of loans and if we can handle it through January we will free up $707.47 a month extra to get a newer camper. We're content with camper life, just not this camper.) Days like this just make everything harder.

We essentially own the land, we ran water and power, and we had a septic tank on the lot. It's just trying to make it long enough to replace this camper. I'm just frustrated, and I need to vent.

 

Hang in there Gareth, you'll make it just like I will.

 

spent 7 hours at the hospital yesterday to be told that I've got concussion