Woolly Bear Happy! (Pyrrharctia isabella)

Hello!! I will upfront here, I am almost in a panic attack. My chest is heavy, I am having a hard time breathing, and my head is spinning … Panic, panic, panic! Is soaring through my head. I was doing fine only moments ago, so I thought. I was able to pull out of my irritable mood from yesterday, but today anxiety is all-consuming. There is so much to do and I cannot get my mind to focus on anything. I am freaking out because it looks like we will only have help moving on Friday for a few hours. It is these times that it can suck only having virtual friends – I LOVE my virtual friends, but I really wish some of you lived closer so we could help each other out in the physical world.

It would be nice to have a person here who could just “understand.”

You know what I mean? Not necessarily help move, but have understanding eyes – someone who could relate to why I am almost on the verge of tears feeling utterly OUT-OF-CONTROL! I know I will be fine – I am riding (writing) out the anxiety at the moment. As I write, my breathing is getting in sync with my typing. Only seconds ago, the typing was rapid and furious, I can feel myself typing slower and calmer … with huge deep breaths I am finding my calm. However, the tears are coming and I cannot stop them. I suppose, I should just let them go.  As my body and mind go through its course of release, I see this as an opportunity to change some negative thinking.

I hear the many questions of “Why?” bombard my mind.

Continued ... Woolly Bear Happy! (Pyrrharctia isabella)

Chaos! Stress! Chaos!

I am processing a lot in this post – I hope to calm myself a little. I feel as though the world is ending – everything is exploding all around me and negativity is trying to consume my thoughts. At the same time, I am excited, full of joy, and quite giddy. I tend to have no sense of awareness of my stress. I do not feel stressed, however, when I watch a comedy show with friends gathering together calling for Holiday lights to be turned on and I begin to tear up I know something is wrong. Only a couple of weeks ago, David said that we needed to buy a new Christmas tree because ours is ruined from the leaking garage here.

My response?

“I do not want to waste any money on a tree. We do not have money for that.” David’s response, “I want a tree and the kids really like having a tree.” In my ever so understanding voice, (not really) I said, “We’ll just get a stick from the yard and put some tinsel on it.” I did immediately, realize how ridiculous that was, but a tree is not a priority to me. Um, yeah we will be getting a tree.  I share that to give you some insight to how much I am not the decorating Christmassy light type of person so for me to tear up at friends trying make Holiday lights come on and be all winter fest cheery is not something that moves me.

My moods have been floundering all over the place the past two weeks.

Continued ... Chaos! Stress! Chaos!

Making Friends With Triggers II (repost)

I believe that those of us who are on the autism spectrum are possibly more susceptible to more traumas on a daily basis. Our intense sensory issues, and if you have synesthesia like I do the sensory world is like being plopped into a whirlwind of emotional and sensory chaos pounding in, through, and out of your body constantly. It can make for traumatic experiences that others would never think of. Even if you do not have synesthesia, sensory processing issues can cause your world to be painful, confusing, and/or scary. Social confusion can cause your world to be emotionally painful, anxiety filled, and scary! Imagine how scary and traumatic this world is when you have no clue that you have sensory issues, social confusion, synesthesia, or that you process very differently from your peers, and others.

Traumatic. 

It is a little different for those on the autism spectrum because sometimes the tiniest thing could be traumatic. For those of us who feel, and experience intensely because of the way our brain is wired, something that is seemingly harmless to the average person may think our feelings of trauma are senseless. Possibly even made-up, irrational, foolish, stupid, attention seeking, annoying, and bothersome. I could add a plethora of adjectives to this list, but I think you get the point. (A side note here,  no one should downplay trauma. Every person is different, the same goes with stress and anxiety, these feelings are real for the person feeling them, whether you believe it are or not. Validate and help, you should not judge and condemn what you do not understand.)

They are none of the above. Continued ... Making Friends With Triggers II

Faking Happy I (Repost)

David made a statement to me the other day that shook me quite a lot. I cannot recall his exact words for the whole statement, but it was something like: “You have the ability to stay in long-term relationships completely unhappy, and no one knows it except for you. You assume that you have voiced or expressed your unhappiness clearly, but in reality you seem perfectly fine.” I felt the tears well up in my eyes, as I stared at him feeling the truth of those penetrating words. Those words have been swimming around in my head since he spoke them to me. My thoughts have been filled with the pierce of what those words meant to me. He was not being mean to me — he was stating the obvious to me. I thought that I had been expressing myself all of these years. I assumed that others knew that I was in emotional pain, angry, or frustrated. The revelation of people being unable to read me did not hit until he said that.

My best friend that I mentioned in a previous post, I was not happy with.

She and I were not good together. It was a clear co-dependent relationship that manifested because she wanted to escape her home life and I wanted a live-in person that I could talk to all the time. I was a teenager in desperate need of a person to help me with social situations. I did not know what a friend was either. I had damaged many of my friendships with my quirks and oddities or social confusion, and shutdowns where I would cut them off completely. Or my so-called friends treated me poorly, and eventually I figured it out and cut them out of my life. I did not know what friendships were supposed to look like. I did not have examples of healthy romantic relationships either. I assumed that since these people were with me all the time that they knew how they were hurting me, and that brought about feelings that they were doing it on purpose (some actually were). I would then take on the responsibility for their mistreatment thinking that if I could only do better or be nicer then they would stop.

I assumed if you were good and nice, you would win people over. Continued ... Faking Happy I

Unexpected Emotions

The other night Ariel and Joshua surprised me with drawings. I wondered what was going on when Ariel asked me, “Mom, what is your favorite thing in the whole world.” My response was, “My kids.” She skipped out of the room and a several minutes later came in with a picture of her and her brothers, a panther, some flowers, my breakfast, and of course my other most favorite things 8′s and infinities. I was taken aback by it. She had never created a picture for me that like that. She had created pictures for me before, but they normally had to do with her emotions and the things that she liked.

A little while later, Joshua handed me a picture too. 

He wrote out, “I love you mom and dod.” He did it all by himself! (He meant dad, he could not leave dad out.) He has such difficulty with handwriting and spelling so I was ecstatic that he did all of that on his own. It was extra special because I know how hard he had to work. He drew a garden, different colored lines to represent each of us in the family, some eights, and infinities too. He told me that the blue line was him and the purple was me.  I was surprised by the emotions that I had felt. I was overwhelmed with feel goodness and a moment of appreciation. I have expressed my feelings of not being appreciated or “seen” to David on several occasions. It has come up on Mother’s Day and my birthday each year.

Not because of me, but because of David’s own triggers with those days. 

Continued ... Unexpected Emotions

Happy Sunday!

Hello folks! I am just now sitting down from a full day. I wanted to make sure that I wrote about last night because it was a good one.   Yesterday, after my Kravfit workout (kicked my butt with an obstacle course then, boxing, then ab workout that included martial arts moves – I did 60 burpees and 150 jumping jacks just to give an idea of the fun stuff.) my body and mind crashed on me. It just said, “Nope, not gonna let you do a thing.” I had an entire day of cleaning and packing all planned and I did not get to it.

I decided that I should probably listen to my body.

The week before I was feeling really down and struggling with depressive thoughts, Daniel was (still is) struggling with anxiety. It is the same anxiety that I am feeling – we are moving in a few weeks YAY! WAIT! Oh, my gosh! Everything is changing, things are being moved in the house, and there are boxes everywhere, my routine keeps getting messed up, change, change, CHANGE! When Daniel is having this type of anxiety he panics if he does not know where I am at or does not know what I am doing at all times. If I take too long getting back from working out or the store he begins to ask David repeatedly, “When is mommy coming home.”

If I am not in the same room with him he gets nervous.

Continued ... Happy Sunday!

Freedom To Cry or Not Cry

I have had people say to me that I am an “Ice Queen.” They have called me “cold”, “harsh”, and even “uncaring.” These people were supposed to know me and love me. I have thought about this for some time and in the past I thought, maybe I am a cold-hearted b!@$#. I found it so confusing because they would say those things yet, they would also say things about how loving, caring, and compassionate I was – even expressing that I care too much about people and things. They would claim that I was TOO sensitive. See my dilemma? It did not make sense, how could I be a cold-hearted b!@$# and an overly sensitive compassionate person?

After this morning, I finally understood that the people were speaking out of emotion.

I am not sure why it all clicked for me this morning, but it did. They were speaking their words of anger toward me because I was not responding in the way that they expected or wanted. I had flashes of certain events and realized that at the time the person was trying to make me cry – they were trying to get some sort of emotional response out of me. When people become emotional, especially if they are angry I shutdown and lose my words. I have so many things rushing at my sensory system, mentally, and emotionally – the violence of the words literally feels as if I am being beaten against my flesh. Harsh words thrust at me cause me physical pain. I go into a similar state when people are sad or emotionally hurt. When they are physically hurt I feel the pain intensely, but I go into “help” mode and it trumps the pain that I am feeling because my main concern is to help them.

It is interesting that I have a high pain tolerance for myself.

Continued ... Freedom To Cry or Not Cry

Great IEP Meeting

I have not had a moment to share what occurred during the IEP year review for Daniel. November 11th is going to be Joshua’s first IEP meeting I am not sure how that is going to go or what to expect. However, going through all of the evaluations and Daniel’s IEP stirred many emotions and anxieties in me that I had not expected. The emotions with Daniel were full of excitement from all of the progress he has made in the last year. The main reason that I am so excited is because Daniel is so much happier.

He has gained a new confidence and expression of identity.

At times, he gets very frustrated with not being able to get his words out, but he has learned new ways of expression when the words cannot come. The one thing that has helped him the most during those times is repeatedly reassuring him and letting him know that it is ok. During those times, he now allows me to hug him, squeeze him, or give him some sort of deep pressure to bring comfort – that was not an option many times in the past. There are still times when it is not an option and that is ok too. Many things have changed for the better with Daniel and me. He has progressed and so have I! I think that my healthier state of mind has helped him in many ways too. I believe another contributing factor is that Daniel and David have started to have a relationship.

It makes a difference in Daniel to have communication and relationship with his daddy. 


Continued ... Great IEP Meeting

I Am Not Being Snarky

I have a question (or few) that I would like to ask, but I am concerned that people may feel that I am being snarky, or offended when I ask. I want to be clear that I am not – I really do not understand and I would like the input from others. I will share some of what is on my mind and then, ask my question(s). If you have not read my post about Daniel being a cat you can read it here for more context. However, I will share what happened on this past Saturday. I take the kids to the YMCA every Saturday morning.

if you have been reading my posts you already know this – sorry for the repeat in details. 

While Ariel and Joshua are doing gymnastics Daniel and I go off and play outside, walk the track, and/or go to the activity center to play for a while. This last Saturday, I caught a woman glaring at Daniel. Thankfully, he did not notice and I would not have noticed either had I not happened to look in her direction. I looked back at Daniel to make sure he did not see her and he had not. He and I were laughing and talking having a grand ol’e time. I wondered what on earth was her problem then, it occurred to me Daniel was dressed up in his halloween costume from last year.

Last year, he wanted to be a bumble bee!

Continued ... I Am Not Being Snarky

Things That I Tuck Away

I tuck many things away in the back of my mind. They hide, lurk, and appear suddenly from triggers or anxiety. I have some great days when I feel strong, mentally, physically, and emotionally healthy. Then, there are other days. Those days the things I have tucked away can well up at times through tears and I find myself shocked as to why I am feeling so down or crying. I touch my eyes and say, “Oh, my what are these salty secretions and why do I have them?” There are times when I can systematically go through and figure out how I ended feeling this great sadness.

Some days I am confused and I have no idea why I am feeling this way or even other emotions that may not be sadness, but anger. 

I am not confused today. I know exactly why I am extremely fatigued, mentally exhausted, and physically just want to sleep. I know that there are multiple factors at play. However, even with understanding I still need to process the emotions otherwise, I become fixated and ruminate on different thoughts or past experiences trying to make it stop. It does not stop – I loop. It feeds my anxiety, it stirs cognitive distortions, it fuels negative thinking, and trips me into depressive thoughts. I have a lot spinning through my head and at the beginning of this month, I started to have those things that I manage to tuck away on a daily basis, start to creep into my daily thoughts. I did a fabulous job at stomping on them, covering them up with other thoughts, filling my mind in order to redirect, but that only helps for a while.

When there is too much to process my mind and body retaliate against all of my efforts. 


Continued  ... Things That I Tuck Away

“What is Autism?” Good Question!

Daniel asked me “What is Autism?” about two weeks ago. Ariel and Joshua have asked me several times on multiple occasions which is why I went in search of age appropriate books on the subject hoping that it would help – they did for about two seconds, but then after those seconds came floodgates of questions from each child. I wrote this post “Am I Autism?” back in June with the many resources that I gathered then trying to help my kids accept themselves and understand themselves. All three of them have a sense of not being like other children, while at the same time being completely unaware of their differences – it is our “normal.”

I tend to fall into this too even with all of my years of being acutely aware of how different I am I still have a certain unawareness.

I am not sure if others have this same experience or not. I did not really have an understanding of this until the last two weeks with all my observing, thought wrestling, pondering, researching, reading, and connecting other thoughts/self-awareness. I have a challenging time with explaining Autism to myself. My research is to help my kids and myself try to understand our world better. It takes time to shift from thinking “there is something wrong with me” to discovering “There is nothing wrong with me at all.” However, it is a continual challenge for me when I read other blogs, books, and various types of resources where there is frustration, sadness, annoyance, or even anger at what their Autistic children/adults in their life are doing …

I do it too! (and so do my kids) 

Continued ... “What is Autism?” Good Question!

Good News Post!

I just wrote a long post, but I have found myself too exhausted to edit it. I spent a couple of hours outside trying to clean up the mounds of leaves that are falling. I am not a fan of cleaning leaves. Instead of that post, I will share this one with some good news. We got the house and the funds came today! Woot! We signed our new lease on Saturday and we did not have any problems with giving our notice for our current house. We are out of here the first weekend of November!

Yay! Happy dance ~wiggy, wiggy~

I spent the day getting Daniel caught up on lessons because he was several behind too, my brain feels kind of fuzzy – that was forewarning in case I go off on some tangent. I do not think I will, but just in case.  While I am elated at the move I cannot help but jump to thoughts trying to prepare in great lengths to help everyone transition well. One thing that will help ease the kids a little is that they went to the house with us. They walked through the entire thing, picked out their bedroom, and became familiar with the surroundings. All of them loved the house, which I hope will make things smoother.

I created a detailed moving plan for the next several weeks to help me.

Continued ... Good News Post!

A More Positive Environment?? Still Hoping …

This is another processing post and maybe a bit venty. I think I may have a few processing posts because a lot has happened this week. I have a whole lot to process from visiting with my family last night. It actually went REALLY well, but I can feel the conversations soaring through my head and the questions like, what did they mean by that? Did I say something wrong? Why did they look at me like that? Normally, I run with those thoughts – not today. That is also, another reason why I am not writing about it yet. I do not want to feed those thoughts. I know that I missed a lot of underlined social stuff, but I enjoyed myself and so did the kids so I want to focus on that and not feed my negative thinking patterns.

Yesterday, by far was one of the best days of this year.

First, we found out that we were approved for the house that became available last week, which is a little smaller than this, but not by much, the floor plan will suit us well. Then we found out that we are supposed to be receiving the funds next week in order to make the move. Two major obstacles have been overcome a house (that is cheaper rent and utilities) and the funds. Any sort of decrease in our spending is a huge help for us. Also, getting into a home that is much more positive for us in the sense of sensory, (Major issue with this house is acoustics it is very loud because of the floors.) that includes sounds on the inside and outside, as well as many other sensory issues. Anxiety and stress from the maintenance of the house and landscaping.

David described the yard as a park that needs to be maintained to the property manager.

Continued .. A More Positive Environment?? Still Hoping …

Processing Post – Pink Pantie Humor

I have no great insights about Autism tonight nor do I have any other great insights this evening. My mind just needs to process and I need to write out things to help me find balance. That being said, this week has been A LOT – many tests and evals for Joshua as well as his schoolwork. The poor guy is exhausted. I have not pushed him too hard, but he still has had to keep up with much of his work.

We have been going places all week or I have been on the phone/email setting up appointments.

Ariel and Daniel have had a lot of portfolios and end of unit tests this week too – assignments that they turn into their teachers to be graded. These are the only “homework” that the teachers actually see. I think I would have soared in virtual school! I wish they had it when I was a kid, ESPECIALLY in junior high and high school. OK, anyway this week has been exhausting and full of socializing for all of us. Tomorrow will be packed with all sorts of social too first; I go to the Y at 6:30 am (my workout will help with some of my anxiety) then off to the store.

Back home to make snacks (I do breakfast before I leave.) and get everyone ready to head back to the Y for Ariel and Joshua gymnastics.

Contiued ... Processing Post – Pink Pantie Humor

Preparing For Fall (Winter) Time Blues

Around October, I always start to feel down. The depressive thoughts creep in before I even know what hit me. I love fall, but for some reason I am saddened by it as well. When the rush of the cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin spice smells fill my nostrils the gloom begins to cloud into my brain. The sight of pumpkins and gourds trigger emotions from my past. However, at the same time the beginning of fall is a great joy to me too. I enjoy Halloween’ish type of things. All the magnificent colors and the breezes that cascade over my flesh feel so wonderful. I like the things that lurk in the shadows, LOVE black cats, (used to have two) full moons, bats, and all the other sorts of things that pop into one’s mind when thinking of “Americanized” Halloween celebrations. 

My happy-sad state stays throughout the winter.

Then, around March I start to feel a little bit of my chipperness come back. When fall ripples through I begin to see the world differently – literally my eyesight has like a nostalgic haze that covers everything. There seems to be a slight buzz as though the colors all have come alive in some new way. Their sounds become crisper and louder. They move in slow motion type of tracers (no doubt my synesthesia plays a role in this.) and my days feel like I am in a movie all the time. The state of feeling like nothing is real, but it is utterly real simultaneously. I find it difficult to describe. I have tried on several occasions on here, but I still have not found the most accurate of ways to explain it. I do know that part of this could be from the MANY triggers I have from the holidays.

They assault me in all directions sensory, emotionally, and physically!

Continued ... Preparing For Fall (Winter) Time Blues