We Can't Always Be "Fine"

 The reaction from my psychiatrist when I told him the results of my ADOS: 

"Everyone's a little bit autistic. It doesn't really affect you. You got a PhD. You're fine."

Ah the joys of living in an Asian society!

Jokes aside, I have noticed that people desperately want to believe that I am "fine" - that I am cured of all ills, that I have somehow beat the odds, that I have somehow trained myself to be perfectly healthy and neurotypical. That would be convenient. Any kind of abnormality makes other people uncomfortable.

The truth...goes back to how we view education. We set definitions of what is an "A", "B", "C"...what "learning outcomes" are, what metrics to evaluate on. As long as students perform or demonstrate excellence, that's all that matters. Effort or distress doesn't matter - this is something mirrored in the rest of society.

What I'm realizing now is that performing at "A" level doesn't really mean much if the effort and distress involved is unsustainable. If anything, you end up disappointing people more when you can't repeat your performance. That's basically how it feels right now. I feel like I overcompensated trying to just get a "C" and now that I accidentally got some "As" and "Bs" that I can't go back to comfortably getting a "C" especially when I see how happy it makes other people.

I guess that's why I like skateboarding so much. I can be an "F" student and still be accepted. That's all I ever wanted in life. To be accepted regardless of my achievements. To make friends with people I could trust and respect even if they are penniless or deadbeat because they are good at heart and in action. Apparently those two things are hard for people to do regardless of their privilege.

Everything I've ever known about the world and how it works has been thrown into question. Things like visas, closed borders, etc. make it more complicated. Living in the USA, I never worried about these things. I never imagined the need to live abroad. Now, it's started to dictate a lot of my long term decisions.

2021 is supposedly here, but I suspect that it is waiting until Chinese New Year to really wake up.

Time to rise from the ashes...

 On January 9, 2021, I went in for an adult autism spectrum disorder (ASD) assessment. I left with the missing puzzle piece to my life, the reason why reaching stability with bipolar disorder (BD) still hadn't solved certain challenges in life...I wasn't a willfully bad or broken person. I was just literally wired differently, both in the brain and the body.

Being a geeky type, I looked it up and yes, ASD and BD can be co-morbid. Add in that fibromyalgia and BD can be co-morbid and that dietary recommendations for ASD and fibromyalgia overlap...okay, yes, everything makes sense there. It was explaining why I felt like such a fake in life and wanted to give up everything to go live like a hermit in a forest. Why contact improvisation jams are just so darn scary!

But most importantly - for the first time in a long time - I no longer felt the sense of being suicidal. This is significant because I usually get suicidal around my birthday (which is coming up soon). No, this time, I got ANGRY.

Why?

1. I was angry because most of my misery in life came from not understanding how the world worked. 
2. I was angry because I was being blamed or ostracized for my weird way of trying to make sense of this world.
3. I was angry because this society is not designed for people with conditions like mine (although it's admittedly gotten better over the past 20 years).
4. I am angry because well-meaning people would say "Oh don't let a label define you" - newsflash: people will label you anyways, so at least I want to have agency over which one and its accuracy.
5. I am angry because well-meaning people would say "Oh don't tell anyone because it's too personal" - newsflash: this is why stigma exists. Comfort for the masses at the expense of the minority.
6. I am angry because people would say "Oh but you function so well and look fine and are perfectly nice" - newsflash: this is called "passing" and there is a price to pay in order to "pass" so that everyone else feels comfortable. 

There are many other things, but the last item is probably what has landed me in hot water. The reality is that for all of my conditions, the only real solutions are lifestyle management, having control over my environment, and learning behaviors that help you get through society. There is no magic pill or cure. And all of this generally sends the message that general society is not comfortable with aberrant or erratic behavior coming from the non-privileged/non-elite.

Before receiving the ASD diagnosis, I got a lot of criticism, concern and general exasperation from those around me. It made me think that I was a bad person and that I needed to become some kind of role model BD patient. I chalk this up to the model immigrant mentality that was imposed upon my parents and many others in the the USA. I was managing to pull it off with some very creative scheduling, explanations, and other random strategies. This lasted for about 3-4 years until I started my new job. Then everything started falling apart again.

So - now I know that I'm not just selfishly sensitive or unable to adapt. My brain is now doubly confirmed to have trouble with certain situations. My nerves and body cannot handle sitting at a desk from 9-6 in a small room shared with two other people, including my direct boss. My sleeping habits have trouble with such a schedule. I can tone down certain things, but it's looking like I would need to do nothing but sleep and work if I want to maintain my stability. As much as I enjoy my job, it's not THAT satisfying.

Add in my addictive tendencies and you get a recipe for disaster. I've started developing alcoholic tendencies (not in terms of quantity but in terms of purpose). I'm struggling with some other addictions. When this happens, I know that I'm super distressed. This makes me really question whether having professional prestige and a good salary is really worth it. When I have enough time and control over my settings, I don't need much in life. But when I lack time and control over my life, I keep needing to compensate with things that drain my financial and other other resources.

2021. Year of the Ox. A good year for Rats. I finished my bucket list, so I have nothing keeping me tied to anything. External debts have been paid off. No other major commitments keeping me bound to anything - divorced, childless, so on so forth. I have no intention of harming anyone else with my behavior - no crime sprees, no hateful speech, etc - but it's clear that I have a toxic relationship with Life. 

Time to make like a phoenix and rise from the ashes...

A New Approach to Birthdays

It's been almost a month since my meds adjustment and things have been functioning much better than before.  I can't say I have a burning desire to live but at least I don't have a burning desire to die.

I recently celebrated my birthday in a much quieter way than in the past.  Part of it was out of respect for my mother, but part of it was because I realized that a birthday is like a personal New Year's.  It's a great time to contemplate, reflect, and create a plan for the coming year.  My approach wasn't to create resolutions so much as to identify all the things that I have coming down the pike in the next 12 months, lay out all the factors, then decide what I could realistically handle.  I'm sure that therapists would applaud and cite it as a common mental health exercise; I really don't care one way or another so long as it gets me through the year without a crisis.
***
On a different note, I have to say that what I really hate about my mood stabilizers is that I can't get the least bit hypomanic.  I seem to kick into the worst part of mania, where you have no idea what you're saying, your brain is going a million miles per hour, and there's a slight sense of desperation.  It would be nice to have a slight period of hypomania, just so that I could have a little fun once in a while.  Lately, if I'm calm, I just want to sleep.  There's just nothing to get excited about.

A New Year

Stress. Bereavement. Lack of sleep.  An anniversary of a suicide attempt.  

Not a good mix to start the year off with.

I recently saw my shrink to get an adjustment in my meds; I almost missed my appointment but got whisked in after derangedly telling the receptionist "I'm having a suicidal crisis."  It wasn't a lie either - earlier that morning I had been sitting on the couch with a knife contemplating the most effective way to use it.  Wrists? Or Japanese style disembowelment?  As it turned out, I was too exhausted to try anything and went back to bed.

I went up from 200mg of Lamictal (lamotrigine) to 250mg of Lamictal with the heavier dose at night.  Bam! Out like a light and sleeping like a baby.  During the day I would have an anxious, suicidal or other thought bubble up only to have it slammed down or wiped blank by an unknown force.  It was almost literally a physical sensation.  The psychiatrist was thrilled by this and suggested I take it further by consciously learning "thought blocking" (a CBT technique) from my therapist.  It was all well and good but I still have to say it's very disorienting to have such a physical experience.

Oh well - at least I'm getting some sleep, right?

Mourning vs. Meds

My mother passed away a week ago.  I don't know if it's the meds or me, but all I can feel is numb and suppressed, almost happy, as if didn't happen.  Except for the immense physical exhaustion and pain and general moroseness and tight anger and occasional desire to cry into my soup.  The last one is kind of scary given that I wrote a poem earlier this year that included the lines

"Staring at my bowl of oatmeal, I wonder
Staring at my bowl of oatmeal, I cry
Staring at my bowl of oatmeal, I remember
(Staring at my bowl, I sigh)"

I wonder what will win out, the meds, me, or the grief?

Shrinks, Meds, and Weight Gain, oh my!

I keep meaning to make a new post but it always flies by...

Anyways, in a nutshell, I've finally found a new shrink, have an appointment with a therapist lined up, and had a change in my lithium dosage.  Unfortunately, that has translated into rapid weight gain in my midsection.  It's almost comical in a sad way given that my limbs have stayed fairly muscular and my ribcage still sticks out but I have a really flabby potbelly.  From a health perspective, though, adding 2 inches to one's waistline in a week is really bad.

I've also started a new job which promises to add lots of stress - the commute alone makes people cringe.  We will see though - it's for a greater cause than myself and I've become too reclusive as it is.  Here's to hoping for survival and a reduction in lithium dosage!

A Solitary Crisis

For the past few weeks I've been battling a combination of anxiety, depression, and infected bug bites.  That last one might sound unrelated except that when your entire forearm or calf or foot or [whatever] is swollen, you can't exercise vigorously.  And we all know how important exercise is to bipolars.

Did I mention that I also sprained an ankle?

Right now, I'm not sure how safe I am.  I had brief episode of racing thoughts last night which resulted in a "mad scribblings" session despite an exhausting day.  Then my husband woke up at 3am to leave for a business trip, mentioned that his car might have been broken into, and then left.  I think it took me 2 or 3 hours to fall asleep again.  Even better, my first news of the day was "Your last bug bite had a bacterial infection." 

I wish I hadn't gotten out of bed.

Part of me wants to smack myself on the head and say "Snap out of it!"  I have a pretty comfortable life - not luxurious but then again my idea of luxury is going out for tea everyday instead of 1-2 a week.  If I stopped caring about how others perceive me, I could have a lot of fun working on my own projects.  Instead, I dread doing housework, I feel unattractive so I hide in sweats, I get stressed out by social interactions so I stay home, I worry about money so I avoid going out, and I don't have anyone local that I feel comfortable turning to in this state.  Common sense would say to call a hotline, take more meds, go nap, go to the ER, so many things.  But I'm getting so sick of all that.  I just want to take a knife and cut off this chapter of my life.  I swear that 2012 is out to get me - I experience bad things every 3 years - and I refuse to let myself give in.  Yet giving up is so tempting...