Advice

[aerobicpledge16]

I am safe, and I have no plan or intent to die.

I am selectively mute, autistic, obsessive-compulsive, and I’ve had suicidal thoughts for the past ~3 months.

Burnout has ruined my life. I used to be so bright, and I don’t know where I went wrong. Nothing brings me joy anymore. I’m going to a concert of one of my favourite artists tonight, and I’m not even a little excited about it. Everything has simply gotten too difficult for me to hard for me to manage, and I absolutely disgust myself with how little I actually do in a day. My mum thinks I’m lazy, “wasting my life”, and I need to “put in effort” to “change my symptoms”. We have been clashing way too much recently.

It’s getting to a point where I think she would have been better off if she never had me.

I don’t think she was prepared for what a load having a neurodivergent and mentally ill child would be as a neurotypical parent, and I don’t think we’re able to meet each other's social, emotional, and mental needs.

Outside of that, I don’t see myself having a place in the world. I can only imagine myself either homeless, lonely and unsatisfied, or dead.

No remedies have been able to fix me. I started taking antidepressants again, and no improvement. I started going to therapy again, doing all of these exercises, and I feel like my emotional regulation has actually declined.

I can’t feel anything without an underlying urge to harm myself. I’ve tried sleeping earlier, working out more, eating healthier, nothing has relieved the amount of stress I feel on a daily basis. My mind is unbearably overactive.

I hate these thoughts, and I really do want to change. They bring me extreme shame, but I have yet to find anything that could help me overcome them, and i’ve lost so much hope.

If there is anyone who has been in a similar spot, what kept you going? What makes life worth it for you? Did it ever get better?

Anyone with any knowledge on these topics, what else can I do to help myself?

Thank you so much for reading.

[Eagle Ray]

Dear aerobicpledge16,

I can really hear it has been such a struggle for you, from the feeling you and your mum are finding it hard to meet each other's needs to not getting much help from antidepressants, therapy and exercises, to the mental overactivity.

I was listening to a podcast last night that was an interview with a therapist who is autistic and they were mentioning how autistic burnout is actually like an inflammation in the nervous system. It made sense to me as I have had autistic traits all my life but not had a formal diagnosis, and it certainly explains how my nervous system feels. It's sometimes referred to as neuro-inflammation. I just wondered if understanding the exhaustion and struggles you are experiencing from this perspective may help?

I thought if you can move from viewing yourself as needing fixing and failing to succeed, to someone with particular neurodivergent challenges who just hasn't found the right help yet, then that may help to not feel shame, because you really have done nothing wrong and there is nothing shameful about the challenges you've been having. You have not failed - rather the things on offer so far have failed to help you.

I am wondering if you have a really well-informed therapist? There are some neurodivergent therapist out there now and I have found people who have the same sorts of experiences are usually the most helpful as they get things from the inside out. I am wondering if tracking down someone who is really attuned to you would be helpful? One of the things that can help with emotional regulation is co-regulation with another human being, but that human being needs to be on our wavelength and sensitive in a similar way. So it may be that finding someone who really gets you may be the beginning of turning things around.

I have gone through similar feelings to you including fears about homelessness, loneliness etc. I have gradually found though that connecting with people who are more understanding of my experience has helped. I listen to podcasts on topics relevant to me and try to self-learn as much as I can, which I have found empowering. Just hearing other people speak about experiences that resonate with me has helped me to feel less alone in the world, and that in itself can be regulating for the nervous system.

The overactive mind I can relate to. Until pretty recently my mind did things like obsessively construct lists of things for no other reason than to create a list on a certain subject matter. While I don't have OCD, I had some OCD-type thought patterns which I can see now were a coping mechanism, a way of coping with my dysregulated nervous system and trying to gain a sense of control. But as my system started to become more regulated in the last few years this lifetime pattern of obsessive thought finally started to dissipate and now rarely happens like it did before. I have done quite a lot of somatic processing work, so working gently with the body in an intuitive, non-controlling way - more in a kind of letting go, allowing way - letting the nervous system begin to recalibrate. It's a bit hard to expand here without going over word count but can say more in another post if you would like.

I guess I am trying to say that there is hope even though it can feel hopeless at times. I feel you just haven't had the right help yet. It is not you, it is that the approaches haven't been reaching you and meeting you where you are at.

Take good care and I'm happy to chat further if you would like. Sending kind support,

Eagle Ray

[smallwolf]

Hello and welcome,

First, I don’t really have any answers, but I just want you to know I’m listening... (not helpful, I know)

But some of what you wrote does/did resonate with me... a few years ago  I couldn’t even get excited about things I used to love, like going to football games. It took a lot of therapy and medication and, honestly, just time for me to notice things starting to shift. And chatting here also helped me!

I know it doesn’t solve anything in the moment, but I wanted to share that things can feel different eventually, even if it takes a while.

[therising]

Hi aerobicpledge16

My heart goes out to you so much, it really does. It sounds like an intense learning experience for both you and your mum. Being a mum myself to a 20yo guy diagnosed with level 1 autism and 22yo gal diagnosed with ADHD, I find it's a combo of 1)learning how a specific brain works (that computer or processor up there in our head) and 2)learning about the nature of a person. How we work under the best of conditions and the most challenging of conditions is about coming to know ourself, something Eagle Ray touches on.

I'm wondering whether it will help to address the word 'disorder', for a start. Nothing wrong with being on any kind of spectrum unless it's creating stressful or upsetting levels of disorder in our life. So, nothing wrong with being on the autism spectrum and nothing wrong with having an attention deficit or a productive level of hyperactivity. Also nothing wrong with being obsessive or compulsive in some cases, as being so can help us stick to solid day to day routines. When any of these spectrums lead us to great challenge, that's when issues can arise. Then it can be a matter of ASD, ADHD, OCD, AuDHD. The D points to a level of disorder or lack of order that can make life challenging.

When certain abilities create a kind of 'hell on earth', sometimes it's the abilities that need addressing. I'll offer a few incredible abilities that can make life intensely challenging for people with a certain nature

• While the ability to actually feel sound is incredible, it can also make life incredibly tough under certain conditions
• While the ability to clearly and vividly see into the imagination can be outstanding, unless it's managed carefully/strategically, such an ability can be incredibly taxing and time consuming if not mastered
• While the ability to hear inner guidance can be unbelievably helpful, if not mastered it can become unbelievably stressful at times. It's one thing to be able to hear our inner sage, another to constantly hear our inner critic

So, we could be a feeler, a seer and a hearer without any solid training in how to best manage feeling, seeing and hearing.

With the OCD factor, both my kids struggle at times. While my son's imagination can lead him to see the worst case scenarios playing out if he doesn't perform specific tasks and my daughter's inner dialogue can lead her to hear and carry out certain habits in precise time consuming order, their ability to see and hear can definitely challenge them at times. In my mind, this is who my kids are. They're natural feelers, seers and hearers in the process of self mastery and in a world that doesn't necessarily accommodate such people all that well at times.