Dispatches from The Pit: I
Hello again everyone, and thanks for tuning it to another episode of bad mental health management!
Write what you know. What you live, what you can relate to, and what your truth is! Right? Right?! Huh. I don't know, I sometimes feel like I'm flogging a dead horse sometimes with posts like these, but you know, it's Tuesday and I need to write something. I think what I'd like to focus on this morning is being afraid. Obviously this is some kind post about anxiety. I have that (what seems to me) standard high-functioning autism problem to be afflicted by mental health problems but have the wherewithal to see that it isn't entirely rational some or even most of the time, like some kind of intellectual fortitude to know a priori that it's okay and I can leave the house and make a valid contribution to the socio-economic position I have in my working life and be okay and manage... While in fact, my actual experience is feeling completely trapped within myself, wracked by doubts and fear. This leads me to blame myself for this, even though there's no deliberate action to do so (more on that to follow), which only really makes things worse.
However, as I say, it is Tuesday; I must write and post.
My biggest fear about talking about, or to anyone, about my health is that I will not be taken seriously and believed. That's it. It's crippling. I don't really look after myself very well - I can feed and clothe myself perfectly fine (in fact I'm very good at both), but caring for my mental state? Pfft. Forget it.
Somehow, by some miracle, I managed to phone in to work and say I wouldn't be coming in because I didn't feel well enough to leave the house and that I should try and look after myself. No, really. There have been several occasions since Christmas where I have wanted to throw the towel in and haven't, not because I thought I could really do it (turns out I managed to limp through but let's not kid ourselves here folks), but because I thought it would be less stress to go in and possibly die of anxiety at the desk than ring in and face stony disbelief. It's happened before, and it'll probably happen again. It's tiring. Even thinking about it makes me anxious for the future. It makes me feel ashamed for having to ask for the help of having a day off, and I also feel that I do not have the adequate tools to put my point across, especially in the workplace. I'm unbelievably bad at asking for help in any form, and think that this avenue is cut off is not helpful.
As can be expected, I run my life to a number of routines, sub-routines, habits, compulsions and superstitions. Over the years I have expanded (or perhaps more crudely, 'blown apart') these routines to allow for more change - kind of like an IFTTT but with more permutations. I'm trying to write this down in a way that doesn't seem written or preachy or unhelpful but it is quite difficult. Basically, the way I live my life doesn't necessarily make sense to other people. This should be fine. But when people think they have got hold of my routines and management and I do something they don't expect... It doesn't go down well.
Let's see... I am famous for having texture problems with food, another kind of "standard autism" thing. Although I have been making great strides, I never ever mix wet and dry textured foods as a basic rule. Except now, curry. Meat and veg in a rich and spicy gravy is wet food, while rice is dry food, right? I'll happily mix the two of them no problem. Perhaps that's a convention I've managed to learn though - curry means meat and veg in sauce mixed with rice. That's basically a fact as far as I'm concerned and a few experiments with mixed grills or naan bread, while pleasant and delicious, have left me unconvinced as to what I consider the "true" curry. Look, I digress, I know. I just needed to find something that made sense to me.
I work an office job where I answer the telephone and greet people and take messages all the time. I hate all these things. I need this job though, because I need the money, and it fits in with choir and having time to manage the other things in my life, like ironing. I find this job extremely tiring and quite difficult sometimes. People often shout down the phone because that's how they conduct a phone conversation, and it takes me longer to recover from that than a seasoned 25-year office professional would. There are certain points of the year when I will be asked the same question an unreasonable amount of times a day, or the same pointless corny joke will happen - this will be new to them but to me it is another worthless chunk of small talk. It takes me longer to deal with these things, let alone the people who decide to shout the odds at me or try to barge in to the building, because I have problems with sensory overload. Sometimes any noise is too much noise, and the constant ring of a telephone is right up there on the bad scale. Don't even talk about the building work that's been happening in the connecting building.
All of these things are difficult. I am told that "lots of people" find these things difficult as well, but in that explanation there is precious little room for what makes it harder for me to deal with, or why my strategies to manage it don't come into the argument.
I feel as if I'm on the back foot always, that there always has to be some sort of proof that I'm ill or it isn't real and I'm tired and I guess that's it, really? God alone knows how I might have fared if I'd kept going in to work when it turned out I had pneumonia, so at least a horrid fever is good for something at times. I even feel that the derogatory effects of my life-ruining digestive complaint ("just" lactose intolerance, don't worry) isn't taken seriously unless I go into unnecessary detail about bowel movements and stomach cramps.* It makes me angry. I have nothing to gain from taking time of work except trying to recover my health, and work up the mental strength to leave the house by myself, for myself. I don't want to be ill.
As I mention above about my digestive intolerance, it seems that crude and brutal honesty is the only way forward. I use the phrase "I don't feel well enough" to try and stop myself falling into the trap of being even more ashamed - mental health problems not being "real" health problems, an unsurprisingly unhealthy attitude that still survives. All health problems are legitimate, and should be treated as such. I am tired of being ashamed of myself.
*I take lactase tablets to aid my digestion at times, so I can maybe eat a medium sized pizza or a brioche bun (and the like), but it's normally something I do on the quiet so it isn't often observed, and if you didn't need to do it you would never think of it, right? Also, seriously, there seems to be an awful amount of Chorizo in this country that has lactose in it - can someone tell me why?
Write what you know. What you live, what you can relate to, and what your truth is! Right? Right?! Huh. I don't know, I sometimes feel like I'm flogging a dead horse sometimes with posts like these, but you know, it's Tuesday and I need to write something. I think what I'd like to focus on this morning is being afraid. Obviously this is some kind post about anxiety. I have that (what seems to me) standard high-functioning autism problem to be afflicted by mental health problems but have the wherewithal to see that it isn't entirely rational some or even most of the time, like some kind of intellectual fortitude to know a priori that it's okay and I can leave the house and make a valid contribution to the socio-economic position I have in my working life and be okay and manage... While in fact, my actual experience is feeling completely trapped within myself, wracked by doubts and fear. This leads me to blame myself for this, even though there's no deliberate action to do so (more on that to follow), which only really makes things worse.
However, as I say, it is Tuesday; I must write and post.
My biggest fear about talking about, or to anyone, about my health is that I will not be taken seriously and believed. That's it. It's crippling. I don't really look after myself very well - I can feed and clothe myself perfectly fine (in fact I'm very good at both), but caring for my mental state? Pfft. Forget it.
Somehow, by some miracle, I managed to phone in to work and say I wouldn't be coming in because I didn't feel well enough to leave the house and that I should try and look after myself. No, really. There have been several occasions since Christmas where I have wanted to throw the towel in and haven't, not because I thought I could really do it (turns out I managed to limp through but let's not kid ourselves here folks), but because I thought it would be less stress to go in and possibly die of anxiety at the desk than ring in and face stony disbelief. It's happened before, and it'll probably happen again. It's tiring. Even thinking about it makes me anxious for the future. It makes me feel ashamed for having to ask for the help of having a day off, and I also feel that I do not have the adequate tools to put my point across, especially in the workplace. I'm unbelievably bad at asking for help in any form, and think that this avenue is cut off is not helpful.
As can be expected, I run my life to a number of routines, sub-routines, habits, compulsions and superstitions. Over the years I have expanded (or perhaps more crudely, 'blown apart') these routines to allow for more change - kind of like an IFTTT but with more permutations. I'm trying to write this down in a way that doesn't seem written or preachy or unhelpful but it is quite difficult. Basically, the way I live my life doesn't necessarily make sense to other people. This should be fine. But when people think they have got hold of my routines and management and I do something they don't expect... It doesn't go down well.
Let's see... I am famous for having texture problems with food, another kind of "standard autism" thing. Although I have been making great strides, I never ever mix wet and dry textured foods as a basic rule. Except now, curry. Meat and veg in a rich and spicy gravy is wet food, while rice is dry food, right? I'll happily mix the two of them no problem. Perhaps that's a convention I've managed to learn though - curry means meat and veg in sauce mixed with rice. That's basically a fact as far as I'm concerned and a few experiments with mixed grills or naan bread, while pleasant and delicious, have left me unconvinced as to what I consider the "true" curry. Look, I digress, I know. I just needed to find something that made sense to me.
I work an office job where I answer the telephone and greet people and take messages all the time. I hate all these things. I need this job though, because I need the money, and it fits in with choir and having time to manage the other things in my life, like ironing. I find this job extremely tiring and quite difficult sometimes. People often shout down the phone because that's how they conduct a phone conversation, and it takes me longer to recover from that than a seasoned 25-year office professional would. There are certain points of the year when I will be asked the same question an unreasonable amount of times a day, or the same pointless corny joke will happen - this will be new to them but to me it is another worthless chunk of small talk. It takes me longer to deal with these things, let alone the people who decide to shout the odds at me or try to barge in to the building, because I have problems with sensory overload. Sometimes any noise is too much noise, and the constant ring of a telephone is right up there on the bad scale. Don't even talk about the building work that's been happening in the connecting building.
All of these things are difficult. I am told that "lots of people" find these things difficult as well, but in that explanation there is precious little room for what makes it harder for me to deal with, or why my strategies to manage it don't come into the argument.
I feel as if I'm on the back foot always, that there always has to be some sort of proof that I'm ill or it isn't real and I'm tired and I guess that's it, really? God alone knows how I might have fared if I'd kept going in to work when it turned out I had pneumonia, so at least a horrid fever is good for something at times. I even feel that the derogatory effects of my life-ruining digestive complaint ("just" lactose intolerance, don't worry) isn't taken seriously unless I go into unnecessary detail about bowel movements and stomach cramps.* It makes me angry. I have nothing to gain from taking time of work except trying to recover my health, and work up the mental strength to leave the house by myself, for myself. I don't want to be ill.
As I mention above about my digestive intolerance, it seems that crude and brutal honesty is the only way forward. I use the phrase "I don't feel well enough" to try and stop myself falling into the trap of being even more ashamed - mental health problems not being "real" health problems, an unsurprisingly unhealthy attitude that still survives. All health problems are legitimate, and should be treated as such. I am tired of being ashamed of myself.
*I take lactase tablets to aid my digestion at times, so I can maybe eat a medium sized pizza or a brioche bun (and the like), but it's normally something I do on the quiet so it isn't often observed, and if you didn't need to do it you would never think of it, right? Also, seriously, there seems to be an awful amount of Chorizo in this country that has lactose in it - can someone tell me why?
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