I will be honest, finally, to myself… I am not doing OK. Many of you who have been following my posts here may have known for a long time, I guess. And, to be fair, I knew it too. I have written about the emotions, grief, guilt, pain, nightmares, struggles with my recovery, exercises, and weight… And I have tried to find solutions. I dove into all the into I could find about autistic burnout, so that I could find a wat to deal with it and so, hopefully, recover.

And I feel like the burnout bit did recover for a part. But, the symptoms that remained, those became stronger and more controlling, instead of also slowly becoming less. They became more overwhelming, more powerful, and way harder to deal with. My sleep started getting less good, I had more flashbacks and nightmares, I felt like I was unworthy, I didn’t feel like it (life, I mean) had any use at all… Some of my muscles have forgotten how to relax, causing me much discomfort. But whatever my PT and I try… They remain hard and tight, as the nervous system keeps the muscle contracted as a guarding reflex. So yeah, I am definitely not doing fine, whatever I may say or try to act as… And now, it is time to learn more, and then, be brave enough to ask for help.

Many times where I asked for help, I felt like I wasn’t really heard as a person. When the “usual treatment” of the therapy wasn’t helping me, I often felt like they thought I wasn’t trying hard enough. Like I wanted an easy solution that required as less effort as possible. They never seemed to realize that I tried to hard, because I wanted to “get better”, or “understand it more”. It took a lot of me to ask for help, because I always tried to find all the info to deal with things on my own. So, reaching out to others, which made me more vulnerable and anxious, was a big and hard step for me to take. And I wanted so badly to get help with my issues. But often, I didn’t feel seen, heard, taken seriously. Often, I felt like they thought I just didn’t care enough to put in the needed effort. And, instead of helping me go feel better, often I ended up feeling worse… Like a big failure. Which, of course, made reaching out for help even harder to do. 😔

In my youth, I’ve been bullied a lot. Not just with words, but with actions as well. Physical abuse, stalking, stealing from me, threatening me to hurt me more if I would speak out… And the worst thing is, the people that should have protected me where it mostly happened, teachers at school, they often blamed me for it, rewarding the bullies. They told me that I just had to ignore it. That I should leave them (the bullies) alone. But, it’s hard to ignore someone that’s pulling your hair out. It’s hard to ignore a group of kids, when they are holding your arms and slapping your legs with a twig until there was blood visible in my pants… And even then, I didn’t feel seen. So I guess that’s what has been a recurring thing throughout my life: me being in pain, in difficulties, and the ones that should help you just tell you what you did wrong. Which, to me, felt like they were saying that I deserved to be treated like shit…

What happened about 21 weeks ago… It was very traumatic. I didn’t have time to deal with one thing before the second thing hit me. And as muxn as the first thing hurt and traumatized me, the second part was the one that hurt most… Losing my gall… 😢

I thought I could deal with it if I gave it enough time. If I were kind to myself. If I allowed myself to grieve. I went through an autistic burnout, where I dealt with several meltdowns as well. I researched the bits and bops, and found some things that should hopefully help me to feel better again. I worked on that, and slowly, I started to feel like I was doing better. But… Some of the symptoms stayed. And… They even got worse! It got so much harder to deal with them, and I felt worse and worse… That’s when I started to realize that these traumatic events, combined with all the things from my past, were leading to one “conclusion”, one “thing” that seemed to fit my current situation best: I was dealing with cptsd…

I know that ptsd is in the DSM, and that cptsd isn’t fully recognized yet as a separate condition. So I guess it may be harder for me to find help with this, especially as my trauma may need to be dealt with differently due to my neurodiversity. But still, even though I haven’t had the best results from therapy, even though I am afraid that it’s gonna be something that I’ll just have to learn to live with, I know I need to try to get help. I’m slowly drowning here and I am getting too exhausted to keep treading water to hold my head up high enough… 😔

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I guess I could have had a higher score of I had not doubted some of the questions. In some situations, I wondered if it was as severe as it was, or that it could become worse still… I guess that’s what is making test like these harder for me. I always wonder if “things could get worse”, so maybe my experiences aren’t the worst they could get. I struggle to accept that it’s about how I perceive it now, and not how worse others think it may be. If that makes sense… 🤔 I found a list of the most common symptoms of cptsd, so I’ll share that here as well.

The symptoms of complex post-traumatic stress disorder are too many to list in the scope of this article. However, the twenty-four most common symptoms are listed below:

• Reliving the trauma through flashbacks and nightmares
• Avoiding situations that remind them of the trauma
• Dizziness or nausea when remembering the trauma
• Hyperarousal
• The belief that the world is a dangerous place
• A loss of trust in the self or others
• Difficulty sleeping or concentrating
• Startling easy by loud noises
• A negative self-view
• Emotional regulation difficulties
• Problems with relationships
• Thoughts or actions of suicide
• Fixating on the abuser or seeking revenge
• Losing memories of trauma or reliving them
• Difficulty regulating emotions that often manifest as rage
• Depression
• Sudden mood swings
• Feeling detached from oneself
• Feeling different from others
• Feeling ashamed
• Feeling guilty
• Difficulty maintaining relationships
• Seeking out or becoming a rescuer
• Feeling afraid for no obvious reason

Source: cptsdfoundation.org/2019/09/30…

I guess when you read all these bits, and if you’ve been following my posts here, you’ll see that many things that I wrote about are also mentioned in this list. 😔

I wish I knew what to do to feel better. But I guess the thing to do now, is to schedule an appointment with the GP and hope that she will be able to help me get access to the GGZ (mental health care). I am a bit afraid to do this on my own. I may need to find someone that would be willing and able to support me with the first few appointments, should I get the referral (and should the waiting list not be too long)… I wish it were easier for me to get help, the struggle to get it is almost enough to hold me back from doing it. If that makes sense 🤔.

To be continued… I guess… 🍀

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Please be wise and stay safe! I hope to see you back real soon again, feel free to drop in anytime! Wishing you all the best. With love, Cynni 🌹

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