7-8-17

Psychiatrist list; my issues: in People suck. Cats are awesome. Dogs are alright.

•  July 8, 2017, 3:28 p.m.
 
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• Public

My therapist said: “When you go to see a psychiatrist, they may diagnose you with anything. They may diagnose you as antisocial. But I think your biggest issues are ASD and grief-related PTSD.”

I’m very sensitive to sound. Especially high pitched, loud, children; and women. It literally gives me a headache, very quickly. I carry earplugs, earbuds with comply foam tips, and Howard Leight L0F gun range earmuffs. - Even with all of that, it’s uncomfortable to leave the earmuffs on constantly, so every trip out of the house is a nightmare. - I have to have earplugs in, or the earmuffs on, to feed all of my animals, or all of the meeping and whining drives me crazy and I start yelling, and slightly shaking. - I wear earplugs at home MOST of the time, because of the dog, and her constant sounds. (Thumping, tapping, panting, etc.)

I upset my husband when we’re in public together because I say things that embarrass him; and I never understand why. It’s always been a problem; all of my life; even with my parents when I was a kid. There is literally not a time that we’ve gone out together anywhere, that I haven’t said something to someone and he huffsat me because of it, and I always say “what?”, but he never explains it. - My mother used to be the same way, when I would go shopping with her, “Cindy! Why did you say that?!” (Most recently when a bus driver asked how I was, and I said, “Overwhelmed by that screaming child and hoping that she doesn’t keep it up all the way to the restaurant.”)

I think the vast majority of our arguments can probably also be attributed to this inability to communicate. I frequently answer his joke questions, (like when we’re watching t.v., and he’ll say “What did he think was going to happen?”, and I’ll tell him what I think the character’s motivation was), thinking they’re honest, real, questions; then figure out maybe thirty seconds later that it was a joke, and then I feel stupid.

I have been through a LOT of crap. - I already have all of that written out, and I remember it far too well to require typing it out again here. - Consequently I am a very generally angry person. - I used to be strictly depressed and often suicidal; and I still am, especially in the middle of the night after I wake up from a nightmare. - But sometime when I was working at Buy-Low, knowing that I HAD to keep going back to that job or lose my house, my cats, and everything; and knowing that I was bullied and picked on EVERY DAY there, and knowing that NO ONE in my family would help me, and that I had NO friends, - At some point the horror and despair just broke me. I thought, “this isn’t my fault”. And I started hating everyone else; even more than I hate myself; for doing this to me. I went from just thinking about killing myself, which I’d been doing since I was in eighth grade, (or maybe younger), because school was HELL, to thinking about killing everyone else, too. (I didn’t, obviously. But if I’d lost my cats, I would’ve tried. They’re the closest thing to “family” that I have.) - But I hate even having to talk to anyone anymore, ESPECIALLY people who remind me of family members or old coworkers. Every time I leave the house I feel like I’m on guard. - I lost the ability to fake being friendly, like I used to. I remember, at my jobs before my Dad died, I got compliments for being so polite. And I can’t do it now. It’s like people have proven to me, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they are malicious; and I face people as if I were facing some dangerous animal. I don’t care whether anyone likes me or not, because I know they’re not going to, no matter what; so it doesn’t matterwhat I do. (A recent example is the fact that I have to go out the back door and down the alley every time I leave the house now, because if I see the neighbor outside, I’ll tell him off to his face. If he were to talk back to me, and escalate it, there’s the genuine risk I could go to jail. Because he came onto MY property, and killed my vine, and I have no self control of my anger. It’s like he tapped into all of those gaping old wounds, and he shouldn’t have done that.) - It was an act, pretending to polite, and cheerful, and patient; - and I just can’t do it anymore. People suck too much.

Recurring nightmares: Every night that I remember my dreams, I have nightmares that involve me looking for my family, and not being able to find them. Sometimes I go to my parent’s old house, and all the lights are off except for a little nightlight in the kitchen, and my mom is standing there, leaning on the counter like she used to, smoking a cigarette; and she tells me that I can’t stay there. Sometimes I’m running down the street looking for someone, yelling for them, and I never find anybody. Sometimes my parents show up, sometimes I find just my mom; but every time I dofind her, she tells me that I can’t come with her, or I can’t stay with them. - And it always leaves me with just this empty, pointless feeling; like why do I even bother going on. - Which is why I take benadryl and melatonin every night, otherwise I just dread going to sleep so much that I can’t sleep at all. - It sucks!

The anxiety tremors: I’ve had mysterious shakes since 2000, or thereabouts. I would get a little shakey at work, go to lunch, eat, and it would go away. So, having no way to see a doctor, I just presumed that it was sugar related. As the years passed it got worse, and worse, and in the last few years it’s gotten to the point that sitting down for half an hour and eating wasn’t helping. And it was the WORST when it was hot outside, I’d get so weak and shakey that I could barely move, and my heart would just be pounding. I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance on myself last summer. - But now I’m in Ohio, and I can finally see a doctor. So I had blood tests, and the doctor said that my lab results were better than his, and sent me to a neurologist. The neurologist put me on propranolol, which gets rid of about 95% of the shakes. - I still get shakey, but to a lesser extent, when I’m very stressed out. When it’s very hot and I can’t get away from the heat, or when the Male is yelling at me about something, or when the dog pees on the carpet, or when there are screaming kids and I can’t get the earplugs and earmuffs on fast enough. That kind of thing.

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I have a separate list of ASD traits that aren’t really a “problem” to me.