A Life of My Own

As an Autistic adult in my thirties, recognizing that someone dislikes me, especially when they're making a point of it, is basically free comedy.  (This has nothing to do with my previous post, lunch with my cousins is still pending.) Telling my partner "that person dislikes me" and them disagreeing,  feels a lot like the repetitive nature of Wiley Coyote's inevitable demise. After all these years, my partner has to know going into this conversation that I'm going to have a whole PowerPoint presentation of evidence, and I do.  I guess allistics would say something like that because they want reassurance/disagreement/consolation, but I'm not like that. Even if I was experiencing Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria from it, no amount of logic would cure the mess that is my neuro type on a bad day. Also, RSD is incredibly rare with people who dislike me because ✨️Autistic Pattern Recognition✨️ told me ages ago this person wasn't gonna be one of mine to begin with....

I've always had interoception difficulties- I don't know that I need to pee, that I'm hungry, etc the way that others do. I've never had a medical professional explain it, but I'm pretty sure it's tied to my masking and Autism. After all, if I'm not supposed to express emotions, why would I be expressing other needs? Enough years of ignoring the signals made them fade to background noise, I guess.  Saturday, I woke up in unusual levels of pain. When I went to the bathroom, I was passing more blood than urine, and I had to go more than every 5 minutes.  The labs were dramatic- my red and white blood cells in my urine sample were both in the thousands, and the normal range was 0-2 or 0-5. The infection was all the way up into my kidneys, and I hadn't had any symptoms that would have pointed me in that direction, despite having had urinary tract infections on and off throughout my entire life.  So my entire life has been rearranged for the month- I can'...

Since I was very young- elementary school age, if not earlier- I felt drawn strongly to keeping my hair/head covered. I loved the photographs and occasional IRL viewing opportunities of people who veiled.  Sikh people, Muslim hijabis, Rastafarians wearing their locs up inside a rastacap, Orthodox Jewish women in their beautiful and diverse tichels, even the nuns (who terrified me because Catholic school) in their habits- it has always been beautiful to me in a very specific way. Even people who wear head scarves for non-religious reasons, as varied as those may be, have always been of special interest to me.  Now, knowing in no uncertain terms that I'm Autistic, I wonder how much of this fascination relates to my Autism. Since all of me is Autistic, there's no way to even begin to figure this out, of course. Maybe it's sensory issues, since I hate hair on my skin. Maybe it's some sort of special interest. My lifelong interest in paganism ties into all of this, as well. ...

I've taken Adderall three different days now, skipping two days between days two and three because of scarcity anxiety.  I'm Autistic and ADHD, formally diagnosed, which is still a stunning fact for me to consider after decades with neither supports or medication.  Taking Adderall with the Bacopa I was previously taking for ADHD brain support produced a ton of brain fog, though it didn't even come close to undoing the effects of the Adderall. Things became extremely boring, and it was very clear to me when I simply didn't want to be in a place or doing a thing anymore- something I usually struggle to identify.  Taking Adderall without caffeine or Bacopa (I frequently take Genius brand extended release caffeine, highly recommend) feels like I'm mostly watching life happen. I can act on impulses without task paralysis/executive dysfunction getting in the way, which is nearly impossible otherwise.  Beyond the medication aspect, the diagnosis alone feels like it gave me...

Ten years feels as long as twenty, and I imagine thirty or forty years will, too. Ten years is simultaneously a lifetime and a single moment. Somehow the last three years feels longer than the last ten, though, so what do I know?  I wonder if feeling constantly liminal, never really occupying any one identity fully, always being too much of one thing and still not enough of another, is a personality trait, a circumstance, or just another expression of my Autistic brain.  Being formally diagnosed later in life makes even being Autistic feel liminal- like somehow I would be "more Autistic" if I had been diagnosed as a young child. Paradoxically, I may have had access to some sort of resources,  if that was the case, and early intervention may have minimized some of the Autistic behaviors that were amplified by being without supports for so long.  I recently learned that there was an Autistic retreat at least once, that appears to no longer exist, and imagining experien...