#allaboardtheangstexpress

[astramthetaprime]

Smoke & Mirrors

When I was eight years old, my mother started taking me to a psychologist.

Each Tuesday morning for I think a couple of years, Mom would wake me up early so I could go in to work with her instead of sauntering my way around the block to school. It was fun for me, I got to help her firm’s mailroom girl on her rounds through the partners’ offices delivering the morning’s mail or copies of the Wall Street Journal. I got to buy sausage biscuits from the food truck parked just outside the building’s front door on our way into the building. Then at some point during the morning, Mom and I would leave to go several blocks away to the psychologist’s office for my appointment.

I remember I asked Mom once why I was doing this. I distinctly remember her saying that it was because I wouldn’t keep my room clean.

I took this at face value. It seemed odd but okay, I’m going to the shrink because I wasn’t keeping my room clean.

You take a lot of things at face value when you’re a kid, especially when it comes from your parents. Mom probably could have said it was because I had green eyes and I’d have shrugged and gone with it.

And that’s how it stood, for close to fifty years. I went to a psychologist for a couple years as a kid, nothing ever came of it, and it was largely forgotten. I’ve been to a lot of other therapists since then, with no substantial results.

A few days ago in another incidence of re-processing my past and present, I finally realized what was really going on.

I was in 4th grade, that year I was eight years old. As such, I was under the care of a saintly teacher by the name of Mrs. Covington.

I remember her very vaguely as being white-haired, wearing large glasses and probably long since past retirement age. I realize now that she must have had decades of experience as an elementary school teacher and had seen probably thousands of children of all stripes. She was “oldschool” in the truest sense, with a kind and perceptive soul. What she must have seen in me was an odd little girl with an obsession for Star Wars who awkwardly tried and repeatedly failed to make friends, who was good at spelling but rarely spoke, who spent a lot of time staring out the nearest window. Mrs. Covington must have realized there was something wrong with me, but had no specific word to call it and no idea what it was.

This was 1977. We wouldn’t know the word “autism” in the United States for another seventeen years. And I wouldn’t be officially called by that word for another thirty years beyond that.

But Mrs. Covington knew there was something wrong, and that little girl desperately needed a friend. So she took another little girl in the class aside and asked her if she would make friends with the odd, quiet little girl that nobody liked.

We were best friends – she was my only friend, and became so much more, things I am still discovering – until graduation and college and the sharp words of hatred separated us twelve years later. I’ll call her here by the nickname I gave her, Ace.

What I’ve only pieced together in the last few days was that Mrs. Covington must have spoken to my mother, told her there was something wrong with me, and urged Mom to take me to be evaluated by a child psychologist. Mrs. Covington must have been the source of those Tuesday mornings when I thought I was going to a doctor because I couldn’t keep my room clean.

In actual fact, I was going because my father had developed Multiple Sclerosis, my parents had abruptly divorced so he could get financial assistance so he could get into a nursing home, I’d become a latch-key kid and beyond all that I was too quiet and too strange and could not make or keep friends.

Mrs. Covington had done God’s work, she’d seen a little girl in trouble, and alerted my Mom to get me help. Mom tried, she’d done what she thought would help. But it was the beginning of that long road of wrong answers that never satisfied the questions.

And that little girl Mrs. Covington asked to make friends with me? That’s the funny thing. She was an answer that didn’t get realized until another set of dots connected. I didn’t have the words for that either back then, I didn’t even know it was possible for two girls to be in love, I didn’t even know it could be possible until decades later. But the emotions were there long since. I loved her desperately – but in true autistic style I didn’t realize she hated me until we graduated high school together.

Sometimes I don’t see the forest for the trees.

Ever since I was diagnosed I’ve been furious that no one ever realized there was something wrong with me. But someone did. Mrs. Covington saw I was in trouble, but she had no way of knowing what it was because we didn’t have words or concepts for it yet. You can’t know what you don’t know. It wasn’t malice. It was simple lack of knowledge. Mom knew there was something wrong, but the shrink couldn’t call it anything but depression. Given what was happening to me at the time, it wasn’t even an unlikely call. But it was wrong.

It was dumb, blind luck – a random YouTube video and increasingly frantic web searches – that gave me the right answer. The real answer. The answer that finally, decisively fit.

[astramthetaprime]

The Quiet of the Storm

On December 16th, 2024, my mother was one year gone from this world.

This Christmas just past was my first Christmas completely alone.

I broke off contact – as the kids say these days, I went no contact – with what remains of my family on January 14th, 2024. I haven’t spoken to them since and have no intention of ever speaking to them again.

There are many reasons a person may go no contact. No one does this on a whim but out of nothing but dire circumstances and profound reasons. It often takes a supreme act of will and a monumental courage. You’re standing up for yourself against not only whatever reasons precipitated it but against the judgment of society at large. And if you think that’s an easy thing, you know absolutely nothing about being either abused or a persecuted minority and should sit down and shut up.

And some folks are doing it not for themselves but for their children as well. I’ve never had kids but I get that – nothing in this world can give a woman courage like the fear in her baby’s eyes.

But in my case, it was entirely for myself.

To be honest, I don’t often see any reasons to stand up for myself. Even before I knew it was Autism, I knew I was Weird. I was Different. I was Not Like Other People. And consequently, I was Not Worth Bothering With. In my reasoning, if no one else thought I was worth a damn, why should I? I went to my room and played with my comic books and listened to my music and typed furiously on whatever waste of time was flavor of the week. To this day I have trouble claiming what self-esteem I can muster. I can’t believe in my core that I am Worth Bothering With.

But this past year, the planets seemed to come to a metaphorical alignment for me. That Sunday this past January coincidentally happened to fall on the last day of ChattaCon. The Saturday night before, I’d left my dearest friends ensconced at a table in the ConSuite, laughing over jokes told around the table as they sat with drinks in hand. Three old men that I adore, who are my anchor and my strength and my companions on this long road to mental health I seem to be forging.

I showed up to an empty room with my mother’s ashes in a box on a table and as my blood family arrived I watched the battle lines be drawn. I watched my aunts and uncles verbally sniping at each other, I watched my cousins pretend I wasn’t there, I watched my cousins’ kids run around after each other screaming because no one cared enough to rein them in. No one said a word about my mother. No one said a word to me about my mother or otherwise, until one uncle tried to convince me to give him my mother’s ashes “to bury somewhere decent” because he and my stepfather hate each other.

And that stepfather? Didn’t bother to attend the funeral.

I’m nothing but a rope in a years-long tug of war and a garbage disposal for holiday leftovers. An unpaid therapist without portfolio when it’s convenient and a neurotic wet blanket whenever I mention anything about my own problems.

I made certain the funeral home director knew not to release my mom’s ashes to anyone except my stepfather, and I left.

I honestly thought I wouldn’t grieve for my mother. We hadn’t ever seen eye to eye about anything, she didn’t know me either really. And at the end, like my father, I doubt she even knew who I was anymore.

So this year has been quiet. I worked. I took care of my dog. I got my inheritance and paid off my house. I spent almost every Saturday with my dearest friends playing Dungeons and Dragons. I lived.

Sometime around September, I put Mom’s picture next to Daddy’s picture on my Buddhist altar. I lit the candles and incense and I chanted a few mantras and I prayed.

The most unexpected thing about this year is that I miss my mother.

The Buddha – that most peerless of teachers – works in mysterious ways.

I was alone on Christmas. I’ll always be alone now. But I took out some pans and some ingredients, and I sliced and sauteed and simmered. I boiled some egg noodles. And for the first time in decades, I made the stroganoff that I remember watching my mother make countless times as I grew up. I remember sitting at our dining room table, my Daddy to my right and Momma to my left, eating that same stroganoff.

“I remembered to turn the heat off before I put in the sour cream, Momma,” I called out after the first bite. “And damn, it’s still the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.”

I miss them both. We should have had decades more time. But we didn’t, and I have to go on with what they left me – Autism, a love for the stars, a soft heart for animals and a love for good food. I have to go on, because they would have gone on for me. And because they loved me, I have to love myself more. I have to protect myself as they would have wanted.

I have so many reasons to live.

[astramthetaprime]

How about a Switchback?

So yeah.

Mom's back at the nursing home.

Another round of Covid went through last weekend.

I went to see her on Sunday.

And so now we both have it.

It's been mostly just annoying to me, but I'm (relatively) healthy. I do worry about my mother as she's hanging on by a thread at the best of times these days, but I haven't gotten The Call again so I assume she's still on this side of the life line. Admittedly, my normal life consists of spending the vast majority of my week here at Casa Proton, I really only go out on the weekends to get groceries and to have my one meal out a week and to go see Mom. So none of that is happening this weekend but I'll be going to pick up my groceries at WallyWorld later today. The dog needs his food and treats even if I feel completely blah and have no motivation to figure out my menu for this week. So I went with the lowest hanging fruit and it's going to be hot dogs and pizza this week. It'll make a nice change from the hamburgers and pizza it's been the last few weeks.

Autism is all about the safe foods. Not the healthy foods. The safe foods.

Moving right along, y'know that job I trained for 5 weeks for? Yeah. We finished all that work. And now they have me doing something else for which I had half a day's training. Unexpectedly. Then two days later said "nope, need you to go back to the other" and it took me over an hour to remember how to do the original job. Bad with unexpected transitions doesn't even begin to cover it. But this is the real world, right? This is how things work in today's modern offices, it's pivot this and agile that and multitasking and moving onward and upward.

Is it too much to ask to work one job, continuously, for a few years? Like 13 years? Long enough that I can retire?

My mom did the same job for 34 years. I did the same jobs with the Postal Service for 14 and 10 years respectively, data entry and then clerk.

At least I'm working at home. I cannot tell you how beneficial that is from an autistic standpoint. The lack of stress from not driving downtown to work, the lack of danger to myself and my irreplaceable car, the time saved, I log off and in two minutes I'm out in my front yard throwing balls for my dog. I can listen to music or podcasts or audiobooks during work just as I used to do back in my early days at the PO and I'm so damned grateful for that. So grateful.

I know I just have to suck it up and deal -- I haven't said anything to my supervisors. What could I say that wouldn't make me sound like I was whining or demanding special treatment? This is business, this is how it works these days, you either deal or you fall off the wheel and end up homeless and starving on the street. I don't have the leeway to make choices yet. I may never have that luxury, I may inherit nothing from my mother after all is said and done. It's so damned ghoulish to think that way. Anticipating her death so I can benefit from it. We all like to think we're good and moral people but this socioeconomic paradigm makes people inherently greedy. What is "moral" when you can financially benefit from your parent's death?

When my Daddy died, I inherited $6,000. I bought my first real computer and modem. A 286 Bondwell B-310V laptop with a black and white screen and a 2400bpm external modem. This was pre-Internet. I was dating a hacker at the time and he gave me a copy of a dialing program called Telex that let me call up BBS systems. And a copy of WordPerfect. And I was off to the races.

So yeah, kids, I'm older than dirt. Modems used to make noises. Your brain started equating those noises to joyful experiences and fun and suddenly you get dopamine from hearing the most godawful grindy modem tones.

The crazy thing? I still do.

This is still the sound of joy.

[astramthetaprime]

Reversals

Saturday night, the doctor told me that very likely my mother would die on Monday.

They were going to take her off the ventilator, and she showed no sign she'd be able to breathe on her own.

Sunday, I came in to her room to find her awake, off the ventilator, breathing on her own, and talking.

They'd gotten the results of the EEG and she'd been having apparently continuous low-level seizures. They started giving her seizure medication and she woke up. They took the ventilator out, she kept breathing on her own.

I came in to the room and my mother was still there, looking at me, talking. She's no better than she had been at the nursing home, but she was still alive.

And they're going to send her back to the nursing home tomorrow.

I don't .. I don't know what to do with this.

What do I do? I was preparing for her death. I was intending to spend yesterday watching her die. I took off work for that, because my aunt and uncle would need me. But now ... I don't know what to think, or what to do.

I don't know what to do.

I don't do sudden reversals well, even positive ones. I'm autistic. I work best with routines, planned transitions, laid-out plans, known quantities. Not "your Mom's scheduled to die Monday, psych! We lied! She's fine now!"

So I worked today. And stayed home after work. And wrote a scene on Pathfinder . And I'll be going to bed in a few, and hopefully do it all over again tomorrow.

Clutching at normalcy like a scandalized grandma clutching at her pearls.

[astramthetaprime]

I’ve Just Got That Face

“You do NOT have Autism, you’re an Introvert.”  

Such comforting words, coming from a cousin I probably held as a baby.  

It’s truly the first time I’ve had to confront blatant, in-your-face ableism.  And she insisted on this even after I’d told her I’ve been professionally diagnosed and can show her my scores on two of the primary tests used by those professionals to diagnose ASD.  Incidentally I also took the Aspie Quiz during that round but I didn’t include it in my post because it’s so granular that the post would have ended up being thousands of words and nobody ain’t got time for that.  The RAADS and CAT-Q were enough to prove my point.  I’ll cover the Aspie Quiz at a later date.

Which did absolutely nothing to convince my cousin.  

Given my problems in talking face to face with people, I stumbled and stuttered through whatever it was I said to her in answer.  Honestly it just hit me so hard, getting outright negation from a member of the family.  She wasn’t just going to ignore it like everybody else, she outright denied it.  

My relationship to my family is complicated.  As they’re really the only people I have extended contact with on anything like a regular basis, I mask like Tony Stark in the Hulkbuster suit.  But this particular cousin I rarely see, really only at Thanksgiving / Christmas.  So since I realized she likely hadn’t heard about it I mentioned I’d been diagnosed as Autistic.  And got the above reaction.  

There was an argument, which I am bad at.  I have real problems talking face to face with people if the conversation is not predictable.  I used to be a window clerk when I was working for the Postal service, and that was easy enough since it’s largely scripted.  People are there to get stuff done, they’re not going to be sitting around arguing at you, so to speak. But realtime, fraught communications?  Can’t think past my nose.  So it didn’t go well.  

But this was my first encounter with actual ableism directed specifically at me.

To be fair, she did come apologize to me afterward, when I was gathering up my stuff to leave.  I actually got on my Tumblr here and read her the scores.  I need to scan in my diagnosis letter as well, so likely will do that this weekend.  But I did after the fact show her the actual scores from actual ASD diagnosing questionnaires.  

No idea if it will change any minds, but ya know, I believe in data.  

What she said, it doesn’t change what I am.  I can’t un-be Autistic.  If all it took was her unbelief to correct 53 years of failed relationships, perpetual misunderstanding, endless alienation, and all the botched interactions... well, she’d be the richest woman in the United States, I reckon.  

But if I didn’t have autism, I wouldn’t have the universe in my head.  I wouldn’t have the graceful turning of rotating habitats, the deadly glow of supernova remnants, the deceptive serenity of Neptune’s racing depths, or any of the characters that have come out of my hands all these years.  All these imaginary people that have kept me company in this empty life. 

So yeah.  Thanksgiving in the South, y’all.  One hell of a good meal, it’s the conversation afterward that’ll ruin your day.  

[astramthetaprime]

The Balance of a Hair

On August 12th, I woke up at 5 AM and lay there a few moments before I smelled the most horrible nauseating smell.

A moment later my mind shorted out and for at least a couple minutes I lay there not able to fit thoughts together, not even enough to know what was going on around me -- not my dog beside me, the ceiling over my head, the blanket across my chest.

It passed after a couple minutes.

And I got up to start my day an hour earlier than usual since there was no way I could get back to sleep.

This has been happening since about 2021 or 2022. It's inconvenient since it usually happens several times over the course of a day, but happens in no discernible pattern over the course of months. It doesn't seem to cause any permanent damage, has no cause I've been able to determine. Just the horrible vomit-inducing smell and dissociative episode, lasts a couple minutes, might make me almost throw up, might make me kind of shaky after two or three times in a day. But then it's gone and I go on with my life.

I hadn't been paying much attention, because it did no lasting harm.

But now, I'm working outside of the house and having to drive to work five days a week. And on the 12th, it happened while I was driving on one of the busiest roads in my city, surrounded by early morning rush hour traffic.

I'm all right. I didn't hit anyone. But the very real possibility that I could have easily killed myself or someone else crossed a line and once I got to work I called my doctor to make an appointment.

They managed to schedule me fairly quickly and I went in this past week. I'd written down all I could piece together about the incidents and gave it to my NP.

She completely ignored the parts where I dissociated in the middle of rush hour traffic, claimed it was just acid reflux, and prescribed Pepcid for it.

Then, out of left field, she wrote a referral for an ADHD assessment and a prescription for Adderall, when I had said nothing about that and hadn't asked for it.

She just ... threw an addictive stimulant at me. Because, y'know, nothing bad ever comes of easy access to addictive psychoactive stimulant drugs. ( /sarcasm )

Throughout my life, I've avoided drugs at all costs whenever I could. Some drugs are beneficial, I'm on three without which I would be dead. But for several years in my 20s I was on Paxil, an SSRI anti-depressant. They tell you it's non-addictive. The hell it isn't. You build up a tolerance for it and have to keep upping the dosage to get the same effect. And God help you if you're forced to give it up cold turkey. Ask me how I know.

(Pro tip, if you have to give up Paxil cold turkey, it makes your head spin like a top, to the point of vomiting. Keep a supply of motion sickness meds at hand -- Dramamine -- and keep on it until you're clean of the Paxil. You're welcome.)

Beyond this, it is strongly implied now that I'm considered to have both ADHD and Autism. I didn't come to the ADHD conclusion myself. I'm still really coming to terms with being Autistic. But now, ADHD and substances I am not sanguine about allowing into my body. It's a matter of agency, of bodily autonomy. I didn't consent to this, really. I was told out of the blue that I would be assessed for ADHD when I hadn't asked for that and hadn't been prepared for it.

Another pit opened beneath me, and I don't know who I am anymore.

I can't see by this new light.

The edit for my manuscript came back on Monday, it's Friday, I haven't even been able to open the file to start on it. $1600 for that edit, I haven't even been able to open the file.

But by God two nights ago I did a solid two hours on Ember Star because I took an Adderall at noon and nine hours later I was still going strong.

Am I being played by my NP because she has a quota to fill? She's short on her Adderall scripts this month and there's crazy old Aunty Proton, Autistic as fuck, we'll just slap down that referral and a script and hey we're up by one. Latest statistics say 70% of Autistics also qualify as ADHD, she probably is, we'll just get the cart before the horse and throw drugs at a problem that hasn't even been diagnosed yet.

No one seems to see me here, losing all my concept of who I am.

There's probably a drug for that too.

[astramthetaprime]

Harbor in the Storm

I've reached a harbor where I am -- for the moment -- not afraid.

I've had a second "warning" at work. They seem determined to get rid of me one way or another. I cannot learn the job if there is never any work to allow me to practice. We've had some this past week, I've done what was given to me and made corrections on work done previously. All with the constant help of two of my coworkers who see what's going on and are determined to help me remain.

That care in itself, that simple human kindness of seeing that I'm being scapegoated, has kept this situation from being a complete shambles. They've kept me from feeling isolated. My birthday was this past week and I wasn't expecting anything, I did my thing by myself this past Sunday. But there was cake. Unexpected cake. And women I consider to be good friends now.

I went to the doctor for my routine yearly visit and she asked if I was still going to therapy. I explained that I'd been dropped from the schedule with no warning or explanation. My NP is a good egg. She asked if I wanted her to get me back on the schedule. I said no, I don't have the time now.

No one has time to take care of themselves anymore. But revelations happen anyway.

Food should not be the only form of comfort that a child has available to them. There should be loving parents, or loving grandparents. There should be a loving somebody there to see the child's difficulties, to be a shoulder to cry on, to speak to teachers when there are bullies, to see the child safely to a counselor or a doctor or someone who can help. But when there is no one, the child wakes up to an empty house and comes home from school to an empty house. The few moments the child has with the parent are filled with resentment and anger day after day. The only sure and steadfast source of comfort is to open the refrigerator and eat.

It's the wrong solution. It doesn't solve the problem, it doesn't answer the unvoiced grief, it doesn't make clear any confusion. All it does is overstuff an already full belly, because the interoception issues confuse depression and anxiety with hunger. The only thing that happens is that the child gets fat. So on top of the unvoiced, unacknowledged wrongness of autism, there's weight issues and all the attendant bullying and health problems it brings.

So decades later the child realizes they were encouraged to be a garbage disposal, because "eat that, I don't want to put it in the refrigerator" and "eat this, it's about to go bad."

Eat that, eat this, and by the way you need to do something about your weight, you're a fat cow.

There's no one to take to account for this now. They're dead and can never answer for what they put me through. And I don't speak to the ones that are left.

If the only path to peace I am given means I walk alone, then I will. But then I look at my dear friends around the table on a Saturday morning, rolling dice and fighting imaginary monsters with me. I look at my friends at work who know I'm being screwed and are doing their best to help me. I look at all of you here on Tumblr who share this path with me. I am not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not alone.

[astramthetaprime]

Year of the Jackpot, We Ain't Done Yet!

Okay I'm about done with this shit.

Had an hour-long meeting with my two immediate supervisors today, apparently I'm on the verge of losing my job. Due to "too many errors". On a job with no established training regimen, a "you'll pick it up" mindset, and procedures that I was told to do which hey guess what we don't do that!

So I have one week to "shape up" or I'll be fired.

Well.

They'll have to fire me, I'm not going to be frightened into leaving. If you're going to throw me out, I'm claiming the unemployment.

So I'm once again in that in-between state where I don't know what to plan for.

I've got the developmental edit for Telaon coming up, that's going to be $1600, at the first of August. Should I cancel it since I may be out of a job and I need that money?

I've got the $1200 vet bills for my boy Genji that I'm planning to pursue legal mediation to recover, should I forgo that since it could mean legal fees I may or may not have soon? That's 1200 clams I'd be leaving on the table that I may need soon! Beyond that, I can't and won't let my neighbor get away with attacking my dog!

And I may be looking for a job again in a couple weeks. I was planning to get myself something for my birthday and go on my usual steak dinner. I'm planning to get myself a Lenovo tablet, maybe $150, should I do that?

And on and on and on ...

There is no stability in my life anymore! There hasn't been for the last year and a half and counting! My anxiety is through the roof, I'm expecting disasters and pain at any moment, I'm surprised I haven't had chest pains or had a stroke!

Things were just starting to get good. And now, I don't know what I'll be doing next weekend.

One thing good has happened. This house is paid off. It can't be taken away from me. I won't be homeless.