Adult With Autism: Sleep Problems

I have had problems with sleeping my whole life, it’s something that is one of the few constants in my life and I’m pretty sure it’s something that is going to always be a part of my life. I have gotten used to it and the persistent state of tiredness. Mix that with (currently undiagnosed) ADHD and you have a recipe for disaster.

Well, not disaster as that would mean actually having the energy to create something diastrous!

My current phase of sleep is that I am not tired at night (or my mind is refusing to admit I am like some 5 year old fighting against bedtime) so I don’t get to sleep until around midnight. Then I wake up anywhere between 5am and 7:30am. 7:30am is when my alarm is set so I at least know I am not going to oversleep. Then I spend all of my day feeling exhausted, not getting much done, not being able to concentrate on anything etc. Seriously, I nearly poured half a bag of sugar into my cup of tea instead of filling up the sugar pot a couple of days ago and then I got myself comfy and ready to attempt some writing, went to drink my tea but it wasn’t there and I had actually left it in the kitchen. These little incidents happen nearly daily for me now.

And the problem with me actually getting to sleep is something I have struggled with all my life. I appear t be the only person I know, although I don’t know a lot of people, that has to concentrate to get to sleep. I envy those people that can just shut there eyes and drift off, the people who are asleep within a minute of closing their eyes. My boyfriend is one of these people and, during moments of sleep-deprived jealousy, I have often felt like flicking his nose or something to wake him up. If I can’t sleep then you should keep me company! (I joke, I would never do that, he needs his beauty sleep).

My method for getting to sleep is something that has evolved over the years from an exercise I remember my mum helping me with (I’ll have to ring her and clarify when she taught me this as it is a distant memory). I have to close my eyes and concentrate on blocking out any background noise so that I am forcing myself to hear nothing. Then I needed to think about something that made me happy. It’s a more detailed, slight variation, of counting sheep. Instead of the counting, which would make me more awake, it’s remembering something happy and going over the details of the happy memory. At the time, as a young child, all I thought of was birthdays. I have always enjoyed birthdays because I got cake, would see all my favourite people, and do what I wanted practically all day and then be exhausted at the end of it and be able to sleep. So thinking about a day that would exhaust me also made me feel exhausted and I would be able to get to sleep. Somewhere along the line the memory disappeared and I end up picturing a black background and the word ‘birthdays’ instead. I have to concentrate on this to be able to get to sleep, without doing so I can not sleep at all.

Then we move onto when I am actually asleep. My mind doesn’t shut off like a lot of peoples do. This means when I am sleeping it is still firing away as though I am half awake, resulting in bizarre dreams and, even worse, terrifying nightmares. Some nights I am lucky and I don’t have either of these but that’s less nights than when I actually do have them. Sleeping doesn’t provide me with the amount of rest I need meaning I usually need to sleep more than 8 hours to be able to get anything done in a day and I am tired constantly. I can’t actually remember the last time I didn’t feel tired.

At this point in my life I haven’t found a viable solution. One previous visit to a GP had them contact the sleep centre and I was sent some very strong tablets. I never tried them as I needed to take a week off work and have someone with me for as much as possible as the side effects when first starting them could be quite severe and I wasn’t able to do that at the time. No other solutions have ever been given to me despite my many conversations with various Drs, counselors etc. I have looked into the possibility of taking melatonin and I actually meant to mention that to the Dr last time I spoke but, in a wonderful storyline plot twist, I forget because I was tired!

For the moment I enjoy the days I am in so much pain that I need to take co-codamol as they are so strong they make me fall asleep without having to try or the nights when my anxiety is high so that I can take one of my anxiety meds and that helps me fall asleep. I hope t have some update in the future that will include a breakthrough moment and I will have this sleeping malarky cracked.

 

This weeks One Awesome Autistic YouTube videos:

An update vlog as thinks are starting to happen in my life: https://youtu.be/ryuaznZ-59U

Previous weeks videos:

Getting to know me vlog, I answer 10 questions: https://youtu.be/RViPjlVohsY

All about Echolalia: https://youtu.be/IYtsJz55lhs

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Adult With Autism: Obsessions

I don’t know if it is a personality trait that I am just destined to be an obsessive person but it is something I have to work on quite a lot of the time.

Sometimes my obsessions are unhealthy like obsessing over money so I’ll live off 14p noodles and cheap sandwiches to try and scrap every penny together and I’ll constantly check my bank account. For this reason I barely look at my bank account and I rarely splurge on anything.

Luckily some obsessions can be a little more positive, such as a special interest. I have delved back into the true crime world and I have ended up listening to the Murder Squad  podcast, which asks people to get involved in the cases they are talking about.

I can see this being a slippery slope for me.

After spending two hours looking at the Doe Network website to try and help identify possible victims of a serial killer I realised I was back in obsessive mode and turned my computer off before two hours turned into an all-nighter. Instead I am trying to stay within my special interest in a healthier way. I used a gift card to buy a couple of books I wanted and I am all caught up on the podcast, meaning that it’s now only part of my life one day a week instead of 10 or more hours a day every day.
It took a long time for me to realise how obsessive I can become over things and it’s a continue struggle to put things to the side and concentrate on other things before it consumes me.

This is just a short and sweet one from me this week as I’m struggling with illness and can’t think straight but I still wanted to get something written so that I stick to schedule.

Im glad that there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel with quarantine. I’m looking forward to being able to visit family after not seeing them for nearly 6 months.

Adult With Autism: Lack of routine and how it is affecting me

The title of this piece is pretty self-explanatory and, if you follow my blog, you will notice that I usually post one blog every Friday. Today is Saturday. Last week the blog went out on Saturday.

I haven’t had anything to keep me in any form of routine since I came out of employment. There’s nothing to differentiate any day from the next for me, even watching weekly released shows on Netflix aren’t helping because I have no way of knowing it’s the next episode unless I go on Netflix (which I’m not currently doing regularly as I am watching Amazon Prime shows).

And this lack of routine means my forgetfullness has become more pronounced. I have to keep reminding myself multiple times a day what day it is and what needs to be done today. I don’t have many tasks during the week that are tied into a particular day. Bin goes out on a Thursday night (binmen come really early so it’s not plausable to put it out on a Friday morning), YouTube needs to be published on a Wednesday and Saturday, and then the blog goes out on Fridays. And yet I still manage to forget to get some of these things done on time!

I find it easier to stick to getting the YouTube work done and I think that is because it requires more work put into it and it reminds me that I need to do more stuff. If I have forgotten to write any scripts but I need to film a video then I can usually get it all done within a day. I’ll have a look at my ideas list and pick something I want to talk about, do an hour of research, write the script and then film and I am all done.

Maybe because I don’t need to put as much research into the blog posts that I forget them easier, who knows. I have found that I am becoming more complacent with my routine as well and I think it is because I have gotten too used to it and it has become too easy and boring so I am going to start changing up my routine a little bit more. If I change when I write the blog to a Monday (but schedule it for a Friday still) then it’s not as big a deal if I forget or I’m not feeling well and can’t type.

I have managed to get the vlog for Wednesday filmed already today, making me ahead of my current schedule, that’ll give me chance to look at my schedule over this weekend.

I have spoken to someone at the job centre in a routine catch-up phone appointment and they’re going to help me get into working at home and they’re recommending that I don’t go back into a workplace for the foreseeable future. Hopefully that will give me some more routine to help separate the days more.

This weeks YouTube videos:

Is Penelope Garcia autistic? – https://youtu.be/6TZmPonH0bs

The Everything Went Wrong Vlog – https://youtu.be/cY_Dy86u_Z4

Adult With Autism: Mandatory Face Masks on Transport

On June 15th it became mandatory to wear face masks on public transport but it isn’t mandatory to wear masks anywhere else, only suggested we should.

Now what does this mean for the Autistic community? Especially for those who become extremely distressed with something covering part of their face.

At first the announcement said that children and disabled people were exempt but there was no clarification on what would be classed as an exempt disability. Immediately I saw people panicking in Autism groups online on what this would actually mean for them. I am one of those people. If I cover my mouth and nose I can’t breath and get extremely distressed so I haven’t been wearing a face mask this whole time. Instead I have limited the amount of time spent outside the house, especially in areas where there are other people. I have been washing my hands all the time as well. But being stuck inside the house most days and only seeing the same products in the same few available shops is starting to have a serious detrimental effect on my mental, and physical, health.

By the time of the announcement I hadn’t been on public transport since the beginning of March and I was really itching to go somewhere different. I know that doesn’t exactly qualify as essential travel but we’re not limited to essential travel now that non-essential shops are open. But should I be going out if I can’t wear a face mask?

Yes, yes I should. I am taking all the same precautions as I was before. I have not shown a single sign of having Corona and the chance of actually getting it is extremely low for me. But what should I do about the whole mask thing?

For starters there are print-out exempt cards doing the rounds of various social media platforms that can be shown when using transport. If you are exempt from using a face mask then no transport staff member has the right to challenge you about it or demand any form of proof.

I contacted the Department of Transport and received a reply from them that confirmed that you only have to tell transport staff you’re exempt, you don’t need anything to show it if you can’t get hold of an exempt card, you don’t need to provide proof and you have every right to use transport without being challenged, harassed or denied entry to transport.

I finally managed to get out the house recently and I went on a bus to a local town. This was a great way for me to be able to find out first hand what the experience would be like for an autistic adult trying to use an exempt card. The bus I got on to get to where I needed to go was the most uncomfortable for me. The bus driver simple said ‘mask’ to me (which I only knew because he gestured when he spoke and I guessed what word he said because I actually couldn’t hear him because of his own face mask. When I can’t hear I also can lip read at times but couldn’t do that in this case either.) so I showed him my exempt card. My card simply says ‘I am autistic and exempt from wearing a face mask. Thank you.’ and yet he scrutinised it and eventually let me on. An old couple got on the bus a minute later and, despite sitting a few seats in front of me, decided to spend the majority of the bus ride turning round and staring at me. Luckily on the bus ride back home the driver simply let me on and I wasn’t glared at by anyone.

So, if you can’t wear a mask for any reason you can use an exempt card to use public transport or you can simply tell them you’re exempt. And you have as much right as anyone else to go out if you need, or want, to.

I’m going to start linking the weeks YouTube videos at the bottom of each blog post as well so it’s easier for you guys to find the things I have been upto during the week.

Saturday video on stimming – https://youtu.be/vtGBqJEBpcg

Wednesday vlog: Day in My Life – https://youtu.be/xXUaCq7w2Kk

What Do We Actually Know About The Myka Stauffer Adoption Controversy?

I am coming into this whole story as someone who had not previously heard of Myka Stauffer before the story of her ‘rehoming’ (what a horrible term) her adoptive son after three years because she couldn’t handle his disabilities.

But what do we actually know about this whole story? There are a lot of opinions and various news articles quoting each other  floating around but there doesn’t seem to be many facts.

On May 26th Myka and James Stauffer released a video on their YouTube channel after their adoptive son, Huxley, hadn’t been seen in their videos for about 5 months and their fans had been asking where he was. The tearful video is very vague on the details but they hint that Huxleys needs were a lot more than they expected and that he had started to become violent towards their 4 biological children. They claim that they worked with medical professionals to try and help Huxley as much as possible but that a mutual decision had to be made to give Huxley to another family who are in a better position to give him everything he needs.

What has been reported, based on their previous videos and social media posts, is that the Stauffers crowd funded for the money to adopt Huxley and that they purposely wanted a disabled child from another country (Huxley is from China). It was also reported that they were warned about the extent of Huxleys disabilities (including Autism and brain damage) before going ahead with the adoption but seemed to not care and would e able to handle it. This is information that is doing the rounds in news articles and I don’t have anything to prove if this is true or not.

They filmed Huxley over the course of three years and those videos would have earned revenue for the family. I have taken a look at the viewing figures for the Stauffers YouTube channel and the channel alone would be earning a pretty penny. However, with 700k subscribers, they were also earning money from sponsorships and likely from Affiliate Marketing. Considering they have four children and it appears that Myka doesn’t have a regular job I think it is safe to assume the figure would be more in the thousands than the hundreds.

In some news articles it was reported that Huxley was also suffering with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), which can be seen with some adoptive children due to feelings of abandonment. However, this doesn’t seem to have come from any reliable (or named) sources as of yet and a lot of the signs of RAD are overlap considerably with the signs of ASD (which it seems Huxley was diagnosed with). As Huxley is a non-verbal child it might not have been very clear if RAD could easily be diagnosed. Also, children suffering with RAD can turn their behaviour around with relevant help and support from the household and medical professionals.

In the video the Stauffers talked about how they worked with medical professionals and Huxley to find the perfect family for him and that that family had been found. Buzzfeed news quoted the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office in saying that they were investigating the situation but that Huxley wasn’t lost and they also quoted the Stauffers lawyers in saying that he had been placed with a family with the help of relevant medical professionals. So it does seem that he has been adopted by another family but that it has been done privately rather than with the help of an agency. Private adoptions still have to abide by the same laws as adoptions via agencies so the adoption is legitimate.

I don’t think the video that the Stauffers released has done them any favours as this video has been the cause of all the backlash. They come across as selfish and uncaring, everything in it is me, I and we and very little about Huxley. It is edited to appear to cut off Myka crying but we only ever see one tear roll down her face. I don’t know about you but my face doesn’t look that pristine when I am, or have been, crying regardless of how much make-up is caked on it. We can see her hands clearly and there’s no tissue. For some reason that was a big red flag for me. If you cry you get snotty, you need a tissue. There’s no puffy eyes, no blotchy make-up from were tears have been rubbed away. Whether she was genuine with her upset or not these things just make Myka come across as fake and cold. Even her husband, James, talks about how hard Myka tried to get Huxley the help he needs but doesn’t say we as though he wasn’t there for any of it and had no part in the previous three years of Huxleys life. No wonder the poor boy had issues if there was a detached ‘dad’ in the household. They also were so cut up about the decision to give up Huxley they went on a lovely holiday to Bali not long afterwards. This doesn’t come across as the kind of behaviour of someone distraught by the decision they have had to make.

Also, the video was released reactively rather than pre-emptive. If they had gotten ahead of this, regardless of their pleas for privacy (you can’t put your whole life online and then preach about privacy) it would have seemed more genuine. Instead they waited until their fans were pleading to know what had happened to Huxley before they released anything. Even the videos of Huxley weren’t actually taken off their YouTube channel until the backlash from the general public. They were still making money from these videos even though Huxley had not been in the household for at least a month at this point. This did not do them any favours in the court of public opinion.

The video has raised a lot more questions than answers, such as why wasn’t Huxley placed into  specialised school or someone brought into the household to help rather than giving him up? Why did it take three years to work out that your family was not the best fit for Huxley? Surely, this would have been something that would have been known about a lot earlier. If Huxleys behaviour was so demanding and you couldn’t handle it why did they go on to have more biological children? If this had been one of your own biological children would you have given up on them so easily?

If what Myka Stauffer claims is true and they made the decision to give up Huxley to another family was due to the advice of medical professionals then you can’t really blame them for going along with what they are being told is the right thing to do. I don’t feel like that is the issue with this whole controversy. The problem seems to be that they refer to Huxley more like he is an animal by saying things like how he has been ‘rehomed’. Another big problem is that it seems like the whole facade the Stauffers seem to have built in their videos, their online life rather than reality, has been exposed. They’re not perfect people and they’re not the perfect family like they like to portray themselves as and they appear to be more upset about that than losing a child. They’ve also been exposed as a family who have adopted a child purely for money and tried to continue to make money off of after they had given up all rights to Huxley.

Have the Stauffers gone about this whole situation the right way? Absolutely not.

Has the video they released help them in any way? No, it’s probably do more damage to them than good.

Is Huxley now in the right place? I hope so. I’m glad that Huxley is no longer in the Stauffer household as that would not have been the right place for him in the long run.

Myka Stauffer has since started to be dropped by her sponsors as they want to distance themselves from this negative press but they still have 700k subscribers on their YouTube. 700k people think that this kind of behaviour is ok, what does that say about those people? and the current ‘influencer’ culture we have at the moment?

Adult With Autism: All or Nothing

I have what other people might think to be an extreme personality, I am an all or nothing type of person.

My latest thing is wanting to move to a new property. The house I live in has a lot of problems and the landlady is side-stepping having to the things that are neccessary. There’s damp and mold everywhere, no underlay under the carpets (and the carpets are not properly fitted and in poor condition), huge gaps along skirting boards etc etc. Luckily my tenancy is up for renewal in September so I can start looking for a new place in July but I have obviously already started looking, even though it is pointless right now.

I have already made a list of what I need to be looking out for in a new property (the thing I won’t compromise on) and I have been obsessing over packing.It’s too early to pack but I have planned out how I want to pack and I have even made a list what needs to be packed into what, what’s going to be getting moved using my mums car, what needs a van and what I could simply carry round to a new place myself.

I have even been looking at properties online to see what is available in the area and affordable, although having a cat drastically limits the amount of properties to look at. I have even been looking at properties that are for sale when I don’t even have a deposit and would never be able to get a deposit while being on benefits but I can dream (some billionaire may just randomly deposit the £200k I would need to buy a house, pay fees and do any work needed into my bank account, it could happen right?).

I have always been like this. When I get an idea into my head I go all in with it or I don’t do it at all. I trained and qualified to be a teaching assistant because I got the idea in my head that that would make a good career change, it wasn’t unfortunately (I end up with the same problems as working in retail). It makes it increasingly hard to concentrate on anything else until I have completed the task, which means nothing I need to get done actually gets done.

Doing the YouTube videos has also been like this but I have managed to make myself back off a little before it burns me out. I spent the first few weeks doing nothing apart from working on it, researching information for scripts, writing scripts, filming, learning how to edit, uploading videos and obsessing over how many subs and views I was getting. I was doing this from 8am -10pm every day with hardly any breaks to actually eat and drink anything.

And this obsessive nature can also spill over into other aspects of my life, particularly relationships. When I like someone then they’re all I can think about and I can’t get things done until I can see them again. I have learnt to also take a step back from this as well using other things to distract me or obsess over.

Since learning I have ADHD I am guessing this is an aspect of that, possibly with a little of my personality mixed it.

Now I just need to find something a little healthier or more productive to obsess over for now.

Autism and CBT

I’m one of the unfortunate ones, one of the people that just lives in the wrong area. Because of where I live there is no support for autistic adults. After weeks of reaching out to various places I was given two places to contact by my dr, these places are counselling though but the nearest I could get to any kind of help. I figured I would give it a go because maybe I could get something worked on and make my everyday life a little easier.

I contacted one place and was lucky enough that I had a phone appointment within a week. I got over the usually anxiety over speaking to a stranger over the phone and did the appointment. Only it wasn’t counselling, it was CBT.

I have done CBT in the past and didn’t have a particularly positive experience with it. In polite terms I think CBT is a load of rubbish and should be scrapped from the NHS. So when I learned my appointment was CBT I wasn’t exactly hopeful and, after two appointments, I wasn’t disappointed on how rubbish it was going to be.

Ive been told to keep a ‘worry diary’ and write down what it is I worry about and when. I can do this by reflecting on the day every couple of hours. There are problems already with this. 1) I forget almost everything straight after it happens because I’m so used to the thoughts being there they simple disappear from memory. For example, almost every time I pick up a cup that hasn’t been turned upside down I worry there’s a spider in it but because I think this every time it now has become more of a reflex than a thought that stays in my head. So I forget about it almost immediately after it happens. 2) I won’t  remember to stop what I’m doing every couple of hours, this just isn’t how my mind works at all. Within the first week I didn’t rewrite anything down and I could hear her frustration through the phone. She wasn’t exactly polite to me in the second appointment.

And now she wants me to completely change what I do in a day. Like a complete overhaul almost. She wants me to go outside for 20 minutes every day to get sunlight on my skin (she guarantees my anxiety will start to improve immediately) and exercise 3 or 4 times a week. She did recommend that I could combine the outside and exercise by jogging or trying something like the couch to 5k challenge (which does not sound like fun). I wasn’t exactly on board with the plan by this point but then she said I could use the time to explore the area I live. That’s when my brain hopped out of the conversation.

You’re asking an autistic person to try something new? Lady, you must be crazy.

Difficulty with task transition and an aversion to any kind of change is part and parcel of being autistic. And yet these are the things she is suggesting to help lower my anxiety. By the time I put the phone down my anxiety and never been higher!

After asking other autistics online about CBT there seems to be a general consensus that it just doesn’t work on us. I mean it only appears to be a short term solution anyway. How can 6 weeks of this kind of thing change decades of thought processes, habits and other problems for people with a neurotypical brain, never mind a neurodivergent one?

If I want to turn round and say this doesn’t work for me then I feel like I need to have a solid argument to back it up with and so I will give it a try. However, if I am worse, having meltdowns or anything else then it’s going to be stopped and my next CBT appointment will be my last.

Today is meant to be the first day of this new change but all I see outside is clouds and trees swaying in the wind. I don’t know how I’m meant to get sunlight on my skin when I won’t have any skin apart from my face exposed to the little bit of weak sunlight that there is today. Maybe I’ll just start it tomorrow….

Adult With Autism: Headaches, PIP, Counselling

This past week has been quite a rough one for me.

Firstly, I keep getting terrible headaches that only powerful tablets, such as co codamol, will help with. As I’m writing I’m waiting for tablets to kick in after I started with a headache yesterday and is still lingering about quite painfully. These headaches are almost crippling when they occur. It’s always the right side of my head but they also affect that side of my face as well, which means wearing my glasses is impossible because it hurts more. These headaches always seem to come about if I get too hot, too cold or I’ve not quite drunk enough fluids but I can never tell beforehand if I’m doing enough to keep them at bay.

At the end of last week I received the results of my PIP assessment and they scored me 0. Anyone who is diagnosed as autistic can not possibly score 0 on a PIP assessment, the very definition of our diagnosis contradicts a 0 score. I’ve ranted about this a lot in other places as well. I wrote a 6 page letter and opened a mandatory reconsideration and now I have more waiting for the results of that. Luckily, I currently have some fight in me so I will fight this all the way as I can’t survive without the financial support while I’m unable to work.

I had my latest appointment with my Dr over the phone and she was really great with me. We talked about my anxiety and I have been given tablets that I just take when I feel anxious rather than every day so that I don’t get stuck with the side effects constantly. She also recommended that I self-refer for counselling so I got on that straight away. I figured there would be a backlog and I would get an appointment for months possibly but I was wrong. I was called the beginning of this week and my appointment is less than an hour away from the time I’m writing this. Unfortunately, it’s a telephone appointment. Talking to a stranger on the telephone is my idea of hell so I need to talk to them about putting off this counselling until I can see someone face-to-face or the appointments are not going to be beneficial at all, the may even make me worse.

I’m also dealing with confusing emotions this week due to stuff happening in my family. My dads dad passed away a couple of days ago and I don’t know how I feel about it as he’s not someone I was particularly close to, I haven’t seen him for a few years. My dad is my step-dad and has been around since I was 18 so his parents are not people I grew up with or have a strong bond with. I feel like I should be more upset than I am but maybe it’s also because I’m stuck at home and can’t visit that it almost doesn’t seem real. My grandad (mums dad) is also extremely ill. He’s been sent home from the hospital to be able to pass away more comfortably and it’s a matter of when rather than if. I grew up with my grandad taking my brother and I out on the weekends and I have lots of childhood adventure stories from these times but we haven’t been close since I grew up. He wasn’t really interested in spending time with us when we grew up and were too old for adventures and he has even passed me on the street without even recognising me. So, again, I don’t know how I feel about losing him from my life when he hasn’t been part of it for quite some time now. Because I live far away from my hometown I won’t be able to attend his funeral when he does pass away as I wouldn’t be able to travel there with the restrictions that are currently in place.

Today will be spent mainly catching up on reading so that I can try and relax and not have to wear glasses, as well as drinking as much as I possibly can to try and shift this latest headache.

I hope anyone reading this is having a better week than I am. Stay safe.

Adult With Autism: I Don’t Cope With Grief

As usual I’m writing this blog in advance as I typically write when the feeling takes me or if I have something important I need to say. Today I’m writing it just after midnight, the early hours of Saturday 2nd May as my partner snores beside me and my kitty happily sleeps in front of the warm radiator. As Friday 8th May approaches I know my mind will be chaotic because every 8th May, in my heart, my grandma dies all over again.

It will be 15 years but it always feels like yesterday to me as I have never learnt how to cope with emotion. I have never been shown and never been taught. I gave up on counselling after losing trust in the people who were meant to help me (one because she fell asleep during a session, another because he didn’t appear to listen and gave vague advice that sounded more like he was reading my horoscope).

I haven’t yet learnt the ability to move on and this has made me cling to grief like a harmful safety blanket. Even as I type tears stream down my face and my heart feels like it is breaking all over again. Sadness fills me up but I don’t know how to expel it.

Grief isn’t the only feeling I don’t cope with, I don’t really know how to deal with any emotion as I usually feel them in extreme ways. I’m never a little sad, I’m depressed. I’m never a little happy, I’m ecstatic. These feelings and emotions are overwhelming and they can change as quickly as clicking your fingers. I’ve often been very excited over something and the smallest dent to that excitement will make me plummet into despair.

Currently, I can’t get any help with dealing with these things as my gp needs to have received my diagnosis report first, even though I have had my copy for three weeks now. Their hands are tied with giving me any help without diagnosis (officially).
For now that means I am left to try and get through my life day by day, surviving and not yet living.

Changes in the Adult With Autism World

Since starting my YouTube channel I have found myself to be more productive than in the previous few weeks, it seems to have given me more focus and more to aim for. I have also found tasks to be less daunting and have found a more lets just get it over with mindset rather than putting things off until the very last minute.

YouTube seems to have become my new special interest.

I have always been fascinated by statistics, even though I hate Maths! YouTube gives me a reason to be able to obsess over stats because of all the analytics that go into videos, such as how over 50% of traffic to my videos actually comes from Facebook and what people searched for when they came across my videos. I just find it addictive almost.

I have also done something I never thought I would be able to do and I have learnt how to edit on my Ipad, something I thought this 30-something technophobe would never be able to do. Once I got started I have found it quite straight forward. Luckily, I am the type of person who learns by doing rather than reading manuals so I soon picked it up after having a play about with an old video.

Because of all this I have decided to add a weekly vlog to the channel, something that gives more insight into me and my life.

 

Hope everyone is staying safe.