The journey begins ... or continues ... articulating the rollercoaster that is my life

[somerandomguy]

That's fair! She's been horrible to you - why would you like her?

 

[Freida]

nd I've decided, I don't like her. I just don't like her.

You do know that's ok right? To not like her?
Or is there a thought that you have to like everyone to be "better" than you are now? As part of the healing process?

 

[mumstheword]

Brain fried again today. It's like I can be social one day, but the next I'm useless.

My head hurts, I m excessively tired,
grrr.
It's annoying.

We went out to see my lovely friend, in this town. I know her from playing (music that is, in a band) at a festival she organised, in another town, quite far from here (hours away not days away).Then we met again in a choir we both sang in. She was really the only friend who was there for me, other than my guy, when I had the big total breakdown in 2010 and ended up homeless and no hospital would have a bar of me, even though I was desparately ill and would have died (I know it, I had some "Spirirual assistance" though). She took me in, even though I was cracked and internally bleeding (literally and figuratively).

She is my best woman friend in.this town.
Also HFA (high functioning autistic). She has a great place on the edge of town.

She is permaculturing the shit out of it.

My town is famous for parmaculture and it's something we Aussies came up with. I've met one of the originator guys and my mum told me she dated him once. We used to sing about parmaculture, in the band I was in with my ex.
My town has a "permculture burb" as in suburb. I'm kind proud of that and it's my kinda burb. My friend lives on the edge of it.She has fruit trees and gardens everywhere, and a pond and lits of wallabies all over the place. I love it. She's says I'm welcome anytime, even if she's not there

 

[mumstheword]

You do know that's ok right? To not like her?
Or is there a thought that you have to like everyone to be "better" than you are now? As part of the healing process?

I don't though.
I feel awful and wrong for not liking her.
She's my guy's friend and I don't want a bar of her.
Honestly? We've fought about her, more than anything else this year. Yesterday we touched on the edge if it, but luckily we had some repair guys in and they distracted us from getting into the conflict.
I don't like it when.he tries to bring me into his relationship with the neighbors. His has been positive, but it's because he is so helpful to them. Mine hasn't. He is useful to them, and yeah, they like having someone they can call on for all manner of jobs.
I'm still upset over being in the hospital, knowing our baby was dead, and having him tell me they wouldn't help him get in to see me.
I had to do it all alone. That still hurts after my lifetime of that kind of crap.
The next miscarriage I didn't want to go to the hospital and do it all alone again, so I stayed home. There was soooo much blood loss. I could've died. I did collapse, fainting, a couple of times.
So you see? I don't have any reason to trust or like the neighbor. But it's not supposed to be an issue. I'm supposed to be "over it". That upsets me. It only happened last year.

 

[Freida]

I don't though.
I feel awful and wrong for not liking her.

nope -- there is no rule book that says you have to like everyone who crosses your path. Sometimes I have to struggle just to be polite. (no rule book rul on that either)

I'm still upset over being in the hospital, knowing our baby was dead and having him tell me they wouldn't help him get in to see me.
I had to do it all alone. That still hurts after my lifetime of that kind of crap.

Have you told your guy this? I mean really sat him down and told him how it made you feel to go thru this alone because of HER.? I'm wondering if he has missed that connection and that's why he doesn't understand why you get upset. I love men, but they can be kinda stupid sometimes
Not SRG of course but... :)

 

[mumstheword]

nope -- there is no rule book that says you have to like everyone who crosses your path. Sometimes I have to struggle just to be polite. (no rule book rul on that either)

Have you told your guy this? I mean really sat him down and told him how it made you feel to go thru this alone because of HER.? I'm wondering if he has missed that connection and that's why he doesn't understand why you get upset. I love men, but they can be kinda stupid sometimes
Not SRG of course but... :)

I've told him, but he just blames himself; that he should have been more insistent, or hitched in to see me, even though he is a very tall, bald, white man, who, somehow, seems to look scary to people, so hitching is really hard.

He won't accept that she is responsible for her choice and it was a mean, uncaring choice.

I said yesterday, just before the repair guys distraction, that "You can only take responsibility for your actions, not her's".

He gets upset when I talk about it. He feels bad for how painful and traumatic it was for me; to be left to do that alone, but, he refuses to acknowledge how the neighbor's actions and choices caused me so much pain. He just tells me to "put it past me" "move on" and "let go of it".

I would and could if she stopped coming over for stuff, especially at 10 at night, well, anytime really. And if he stopped trying to talk me into enjoying having them as neighbors, just because HE does.

 

[mumstheword]

I figured out a way that my autism impacts on me, separate to how PTSD impacts me.

I can only focus on one thing at a time.

More than that, I get overloaded.

Once I get good at something, it's not so bad.
When I write here, a lot, it's because I'm putting all my energy and focus into that.
If I'm doing uni or something, I have to put all my focus into that.
If I'm parenting; same. It's very tricky, because I have 7 children.
I can only focus on one at a time.

It's also very draining being social.

I need a lot of time out.

I don't have meltdowns very often anymore, but that coz my life has to be planned to be low stress, low pressure, now.
It's a good thing. :)

 

[mumstheword]

I am deeply distrustful of other humans, unless they prove trustworthy. Few do.
It's one reason I have been going up to the psych hospital, to learn that people are not as scary and hurtful and uncaring as I've been led to believe (except my guy, of course:)).

 

[Swift]

You're allowed not to like her, mums.
Frankly I never got the impression you did.

Giving yourself permission to not like another human being doesn't mean you have to treat her terribly - distance is a valid choice.

Why in the hell would you like this idiot?
I don't like her.
I don't even know her, but I don't like her.

 

[mumstheword]

I

You're allowed not to like her, mums.
Frankly I never got the impression you did.

Giving yourself permission to not like another human being doesn't mean you have to treat her terribly - distance is a valid choice.

Why in the hell would you like this idiot?
I don't like her.
I don't even know her, but I don't like her.

I don't treat her terribly. Unless you consider complete avoidance terrible.

I am autistic, I know that now. I've done f*cking amazingly, considering. But I still don't know how to handle being around people who've been awful to me (anymore, been there, done that).

I can't do "complicated relationships", anymore, other than my 7 children. That's my limit and my capacity.

Otherwise I reserve my social energy for people who I know respect and care for me, or people who are paid to treat me with respect and care.

I am cut and dried like that. Put it down to my ASD, I don't care anymore. I tried to be a very "unconditionally nice and caring person" I got used up. Like Henny Penny, I found people didn't want to.be bothered to care for me or help me but were more than happy ro recieve my care and generosity.

I give MYSELF much of my own kindness and consideration now, and anything left over, goes to my adult kids, coz I'm running at a low ebb, these days.

I'm learning about reciprocity these days. I like it.
That's what an eye for an eye really means. It's not vengeful, it's just.

I am a typically clunky, clueless, niave, highly inadequate "theory of mind" type Aspie. I just study people, ethics, culture, art forms, psychology, that sort of thing, to help me figure out how to be a social human, otherwise I am clueless and empathetically "locked in" or devoid of discernment and suffer the consequences.

Now that I don't perform musically, I struggle to know how to "show myself" to people out in the world. So I am spending lots of time alone, participating in this and the autism.forum so that I can keep practising "social".

I used to be a stoner too, that helped (or did it? I think I was too stoned to know, most of the time) ...

I have to practise, practise, study, practise, fail, pick myself up and practise some more. Hospital will be good. More practise, in a safe environment.

 

[Swift]

Didn't mean to suggest you did, quite the opposite.
Sometimes I get scared of disliking people because I'm afraid I'll treat them the way that people have treated me.
I just have to give myself the reassurance that I don't have to like them or help them, and that doesn't make me a bad person.

And I dunno about highly inadequate unless it's a tech term I'm unfamiliar with.

I'm glad the Aspie thing is making sense to you :)

 

[mumstheword]

Didn't mean to suggest you did, quite the opposite.
Sometimes I get scared of disliking people because I'm afraid I'll treat them the way that people have treated me.
I just have to give myself the reassurance that I don't have to like them or help them, and that doesn't make me a bad person.

And I dunno about highly inadequate unless it's a tech term I'm unfamiliar with.

I'm glad the Aspie thing is making sense to you :)

Huh, my bad with the wording thing. It's just realising I'm naturally shit at "theory of mind" stuff. I've worked really hard at it, and maybe not so shit at it, as I was, but yeah, I'm not confident about getting people, in general.
Yeah, fortunate or unfortunately, the Aspie thing makes too much sense, since I looked up female "Aspies" HFA Women on the spectrum, etc. It was a light bulb moment.
Now I'm a bit obsessed about it.

I'm sure I'm being boring going on and on about it, but it's like seeing myself and my difficulties through a lens that makes absolute sense.

Absolute sense is a thing I appreciate.
A lot.

It's made me even angrier at my mum, but I guess she couldn't have known, well, she doesn't seem.to give a real shit about me anyway, anytime, but, yeah, no wonder the life she put me through was excessively hellish. And she was always going on about how like my father I am and he's Aspie as f*ck. I used to think "Well you don't like my Dad so you mustn't like me" but I don't think she likes anybody, really. Poor old, sad, sick, frightening, frightened mummy.

I just feel like I found a vital peice of my own treasure map, it doesn't make things shitter, it makes things make more wonderful, beautiful, sense. My sheer "freakishness" explained.:)

Self discovery is a beautiful thing, in a world where people make so little sense to me. Making sense of myself is brilliant.

Humans are disconcertingly obtuse, strange unfathomable creatures. In general, for moi.