Recognition

 I am beginning to recognize that I am not always aware when I am unregulated and should take care to not participate in activities that may overwhelm me. I think this is because I want to be something that I may just not be.

I want to be able to handle any situation with grace and poise. I don’t want to become so overwhelmed with anxiety that I cannot function. I want to be someone whom others can point to as an example of how to do things the right way.

I can’t and I’m not . I can absolutely hide the feelings of anxiety from others but it still exists. That’s not to say I can’t excel . I have a lot to offer society but poise , grace or patience isn’t something that I can offer.

I have an ability to figure out a problem in front of me. This typically isn’t done with any workable knowledge of the problem or more than a basic understanding of physics ( the natural world and the laws that govern objects interacting).

This is a sort of reverse engineering of whatever problem may be in front of me. At my age (52) I have much experience but I can’t always access that through recall. More times than not I seem to  just figure it out. This , ofcourse ,is with physical objects , not people.

I usually have no idea why a person does or says what they do. I can’t figure out how to fix relationships . Most times I’m either unaware of a problem with a relationship or fighting a battle with a person in my head that they are totally unaware of.

This is because of the rules. The natural world is governed by rules that can’t be broken . Gravity , mass , inertia, these are things that are what they are and can’t be anything else. 

People , on the other hand, can pick and choose what rules to follow in relationships.

When a bad person has bad intentions towards you they will lie to hide their intentions and say the same things that a good person would.

I cannot tell the difference , just can’t . That’s because I’m autistic , a better explanation is surely to be had somewhere but not from me.

As a result I am always having to consider that a person has ill intentions towards me in an effort to protect myself from any ill intentions I may encounter.

Always trying , and failing , to figure out a person’s intention towards me leaves me in a peculiar state. To be certain it’s not an even state. I have peaks and valleys of anxiety but it is ever present. 

Being in a continual state of anxiety seems to leave me unaware of when I may be in danger of becoming overwhelmed. Overwhelmed seems much too simple of a word to describe what happens when it all becomes to much but I will stick with it for now.

Yesterday was a rough day. I had an appointment for an MRI . I’ve had MRI’s in the past and on a couple of occasions I’ve had to come out before completion because the anxiety of the situation became overwhelming.

As I said I have had trouble with MRI’s in the past but I thought I would be able to handle it well before the appointment started.

Upon reflection I realize this wasn’t the case. The previous night I had gotten little sleep due to pain in my legs and shoulder. I have alot of arthritis and it’s very common for me to have aches and pains. The lack of sleep may be a part of why I panicked in the MRI. I went in and within two minutes was demanding to be taken out.

Another reason, again in hindsight, is that the particular tech that was administering the MRI is the same tech from another time when I couldn’t stay in the MRI.

She is very curt with her language . This may just be her personality but my mind has to consider the possibility of her behavior being intentionally aggressive towards me. She literally has my safety in hers hands while I’m trapped in the MRI with my head strapped in a type of cage.

The lack of sleep, the constant pain of arthritis , the perception  the person administering the MRI may be biased against me are all things that I did not recognize could have me in a vulnerable state. Again , the fact that I do not want to be “that guy” may have helped hide my current state of mind at that time.

So , I left the building hurriedly , ashamed that I could not perform the simple act of lying still.

I went home and discussed the event with my wife. As is her gracious nature, she was understanding . She suggested that I try and reschedule the imagining in an open MRI.

So that was that. I decided to run an errand that would have me drive across town. About 10 minutes into my trip my wife called me to inform me that our son had hurt his wrist at school.

I had taken off work for the MRI yesterday so I told my wife that I would pick him up from school and take him for an X-ray.

My wife is typically the one who takes care of such events so I was glad to be able to take care of this one.

Too many details to list but after much run around and visiting two different clinics we were referred to the ER at our local children’s hospital.

 At this point my wife decided to join us. She did so because she is a wonderful mother and wanted to be with our son during his time of need but I can’t help suspect that part of her reason for joining us is because she was worried about my ability to handle the situation.

 If that is the case I am understanding of her reasoning . I have always been able to handle situations concerning my children , there’s nothing more important than my children and I would never chose to have them witness an autistic meltdown. There have been occasions when my perception was that not enough was being done to safe guard my children and have responded with aggression towards the perceived threat or problem. So I do understand if my wife had reservations about my ability.

So there we were. In the ER. It was decided that a bone in my son’s forearm where it meets the wrist needed to be reset. I’m sure any parent would feel the same way as we did about this .

I remained calm and reassuring for my son. I held his hand and comforted him when they numbed him with a painful injection to the wrist . I had him focus on me when the doctor and an assisting nurse both grabbed his wrist applying pressure in the opposite direction to set the bone. Despite the numbing injection this was still very painful for my boy.

His mother cringed and looked away when the doctor’s and nurse’s action created an audible crunching sound but I remained resolute in reassuring my son. It simply hurt my wife too much to see that.

After another night of limited sleep I am feeling surprisingly well regulated this morning. Just like I felt yesterday morning before my appointment for an MRI .

I have always been able to recognize when I have become  overwhelmed and headed for a meltdown but am often caught off guard when the overwhelm begins. It’s like I start grasping for metaphorical things to hold on to in my mind but the situation often slips beyond my control . Despite the fact that I’m aware of an impending meltdown access to my upper cortex is limited (look it up) and I’m unable to avoid the tilt into that spiral.

I’m beginning to recognize that the event horizon of an autistic meltdown is much broader than I was previously aware of. Events , seemingly harmless to my psyche, play a role on the amount of stresses that I may be to handle at any given time.

This has me wondering how I am today. How will I react to the next bad thing? I feel tired but able to handle things.

Autism is a different way of thinking than the typical individual. My mind forces me to consider so many scenarios that typical people seemingly do not have to. 

I don’t know how to change it but I think I should be a little guarded in any attempts to tackle stressful situations today.

How to relate this to other people in my environment is something I can only describe as beyond my current abilities. Having tried so many times without success to explain how autism affects me I know it’s not something I have in the ole tool box.

I recognize that I am autistic and others may not be able to comprehend that fact.