autism
Why I don’t like breaks from school/ Asperger problems
Our host (and possibly other alters as well, who knows) suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, which can make long breaks from school a pain in the ass. Now, don’t get me wrong, we enjoy being able to sleep for as long as we need, and yes, being free to do whatever we like instead of what we have to is great. The problems start when we are away from school for more than a week or two. Here’s the deal: We have a very, very hard time figuring out what to do, and that’s a very common problem for people with aspergers/autism. We aspies (generally) like our routines because figuring out what to do instead is just way too difficult. I understand that many people face this problem, but please remember that in our case, it’s actually part of our disability. Not only that, but finding it very difficult, if not impossible, to get started once you’ve figured out to do is also very common. Again, many have the same problem, but for us, it’s due to our disability. In fact, here in Sweden, people with Aspergers/autism can get help from the state with these kind of problems. You could, for instance, get assigned a person that you meet a couple of times a month and basically hang out with.
With no routines and an inability to entertain myself, I get very bored. And when I get bored, I start obsessing over my problems. I start researching mental health conditions, taking online screenings and getting myself all worked up about disorders that I may or may not have. It’s just ridiculous and unhealthy, quite frankly. Or, I just get low and sad due to lack of stimulation. And that is why I don’t like breaks from school. It’s hard being an asperger kid sometimes…
/ Phemie
New mini-series about Aspergers coming up
This weekend I felt the urge to talk about how my aspergers has affected my ability to cope with the trauma I’ve been through. What I realized is that for you guys to really understand, I’d need to explain the condition in detail and I can’t do so in just one post.. So I’ve decided to start a little mini-series explaining Aspergers syndrome kind of in-depth!
If you guys have any questions about Aspergers or high functioning autism and what it’s like to live with it OR, if you want to share your experiences, please leave a comment below or send an “ask” on my tumblr !
What to do?
So the 10th of October is world mental health awareness day and I thought I’d do something a little special to acknowledge and celebrate this. I was thinking of making green ribbons (mental health awareness-ribbons) and giving them to people on the street for free, and ask them to kindly wear the pins and explain to anyone who asks what the hell a green ribbons represent that it’s about those invisible conditions that affect about one in every four people, worldwide.
Also, me and a friend of mine are talking about getting together and celebrating our mental health (or the lack of it)! Do you guys have any ideas on how to acknowledge this day?
Getting better and new thoughts
I’m finally feeling better, yay 🙂
I saw my psychologist today and we talked about how some of my alters are kind of sabotaging my therapy, about their specific problems and the fact that I’ve become way more forgetful lately.
First thing’s first: the last couple of weeks have been difficult, and I’ve always left my psychologist feeling triggered or just very low. A friend of mine told me that every time I get back to school after seeing my psychologist, my eyes were completely blank and that it scared her. My psychologist told me that she feels like every time she suggests something I could change, I just shut down and I totally agree. It made me realize that I have about three alters who don’t want to cooperate, for reasons that I haven’t fully figured out yet. While I don’t have a real solution to this problem, I still feel calmer knowing this. And honestly it has helped me not feel so guilty about being reluctant to really give therapy a try because I now understand that it’s not my fault and that the alters who don’t want to help have their reasons.
It felt so good to be able to talk to her about their problems because I have sometimes felt as if she doesn’t want me to explore my alters but rather I don’t know… not accepting them? I’m pretty sure that’s not what she meant, but that’s just the feeling I got. Anyway, it was such a relief 🙂
We also spoke about my forgetfulness and how it’s gotten worse the last couple of weeks/months. I remember having trouble recalling things and dissociating more heavily certain periods of my life, were I would be “gone” for a few seconds or a minute or so (not sure) and then wake up and realize that I have no clue what the people around me were talking about or what they’ve said to me. Now, I’m also starting to have trouble remembering what I’ve done certain days, like for instance, I know that I saw my psychologist three times two weeks ago, but I can’t remember being there at all. There’s just nothing and it kind of freaks me out a bit. My psychologist had a very interesting theory, she said that memories a linked to emotions. The times that I had been seeing her, but am unable to remember, she got the impression that I wasn’t really there emotionally. She said she simply couldn’t get to me, that I was too detached somehow. I think it makes a lot sense because it recently dawned on me that whenever the rational part is out, the depersonalization get much more intense- I just feel far away and untouchable, like this body isn’t mine, nothing matters to me or affects me and almost as if I’m some sort of alien who has nothing to do with life on earth, you know what I mean?
I was also introduced to another quite interesting theory, coming from my mentor at school. He said something like that my alters kind of represent what I actually want to do. I think there might be something to it. When I grew up, there was no way for me to explore the world and myself because abuse restricted me from it. Instead, I was forced to spend every day fighting for survival. It seems logical that I had a lot of fantasies about what I wanted to do, both in terms of how I wanted to fight back but also in terms of finding out who I am and what I like and so on. I never really had the chance to stand up against my abusers and what they put me through, and also never had the opportunity to live a normal, happy life. I never really could act on those fantasies, so maybe I created people in my head who could. And maybe those people went from being surrogates for me to being their own and being alters. A theory certainly worth considering.
Don’t forget, if you have any questions or things you want me to write about, please leave a comment or go to my tumblr wemethem and ask away! 🙂
Shit hit the fan yesterday
I had a major relapse yesterday and just thinking about it upsets me…
[Trigger warning: self-harm, anger, suicidal thoughts]
I was doing fine until I saw my psychologist. We talked about the fact that I worry a lot and that my worries sometimes become very far-fetched. Especially my fear of making others angry with me can become almost absurd. So she suggested a coping strategy called “worrying time”. The basic idea is that you try to “make an appointment with your worries”, or in other words, you try to put your worries aside until a particular hour, like 3-3,30 pm for instance. During that time you’re allowed to worry as much as you like. That’s all fine and dandy, but it triggered me and it wasn’t until I left that I could figure out why: fear and worry has always been my only motivation to get out of bed in the morning. Hell, I would have killed myself years ago if it wasn’t for the fear of making others angry and disappointed. Worry is what gets me through the day. And I don’t think anyone understands that my entire life and being is based on worry and fear. I’m sure some people think that I enjoy life, or that I’m ambitious. That’s not the case, I’m just terrified. It kind of pains me to realize that the worry and fear is so deeply rooted in me that it doesn’t show on the surface. I just feel like if I was to put aside my worries, I’d stop functioning all together. I probably wouldn’t even bother to get up in the morning.
To be fair, my boyfriend motivates some parts of me. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to keep me functioning. Sad, isn’t it?
So like I said, I was very triggered by this and therefore very upset when I got back to school. I was way to pissed off to talk to anyone, at lunch I could barely stop myself from using the fork to scratch up my skin. When I was finished eating, I had calmed down a bit. So me and my friend headed back to our classroom, as I walked back to my desk I felt a classmate of mine hit me with a ruler. It wasn’t hard and it didn’t hurt at all but it was enough. Phemie turned around and looked him dead in the eye for a while, as I was trying hard to stop her from hitting him. I almost lost that fight, but I managed to walk away to the basement. Now, this is were it gets a bit blurry, but I called my psychologist but I just got that tone telling me the line was busy, I texted my boyfriend and then I did something I hadn’t done in years: I bit myself. Last time I did it, it lead to my first hospitalization. Well, I never bite hard enough to penetrate my skin, but the pain really helped me to focus. So I got up, meaning to find my mentor and tell him that I need to go to the hospital ASAP because I was really feeling like hurting myself badly or trying to kill myself. Unfortunately, he was stuck in a meeting. Now, Phemie was going to just walk in there and drag him out but social anxiety got the best of us so we waited outside, at the entrance of the cafeteria. Time passed, I was freaking out but waiting patiently. I five minutes late for class, but since my mentor was still in that meeting (and it was his class I was late to so I wasn’t missing out on anything) I waited. That’s when one teacher passed me and decided that my business was his business. He asked me what I was doing there, and I told him that I’m waiting for my mentor, and he was like: Well, he is in a meeting so you’ll have to wait (In my head: WELL NO FUCKING SHIT SHERLOCK DIDN’T I JUST TELL YOU THAT I’M FUCKING WAITING FOR HIM?!). You should go to your class and wait there (YOU NEED TO SIT YOUR ASS DOWN. HAS NO ONE TOLD YOU THAT TALKING ABOUT STUFF YOU HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE A STUPID ASSHOLE? GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE). I was unbelievable angry, but being conditioned to not piss others off, I said that I wanted to wait here. He walked away, and I had had it. My boyfriend was telling me to come home to him. After the incident with the teacher (this was not the first that that particular teacher triggered me by the way) I told my boyfriend that I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I was honestly close to doing something really bad. Instead, he urged me to come home right now, so I took off and e-mailed my mentor on my way back instead. While I sat in the bus home, I couldn’t stop myself from biting my arm some more. Seeing the marks on my skin was so satisfying and comforting and.. addicting. When I got home, me and my boyfriend laid down on the couch, he took me in his arms and we talked about what had happened. I tried calling my psychologist several times more, 12 times in total but always got the busy-tone, which was weird. I think I calmed down pretty quickly though, or maybe I was switching to Wynn or so, I’m not sure…
My arm is bruised, but that’s okay. I’m better now, at least for the moment. I still am easily triggered, but I made it through school. I’d be proud of myself if I knew how to. It’s so frustrating when all you want is a quiet, happy life but then people get all up in your business and face, questioning your every move and making you feel like shit all over again. As if I haven’t had enough drama and trauma for a lifetime. You know what I’m talking about, right?
What Phemie kind of looks like
Once again: these are just pictures I found on the internet, I didn’t make them and I don’t own any rights to them.
It’s pretty hard finding pictures that fit Phemie’s description, so I’m guessing I’ll have to split it up into her appearance, her clothing style and the way she does her makeup.
Here we go, starting off with her looks:
She has brown hair, slightly curly hair that goes to just below her shoulders, and she has pale, olive-skin. Her eyes are brown or possibly green. She is fairly short and neither skinny nor curvy. She will often look indifferent or gloat over others bad luck. And, believe it or not, she is a Mila Kunis look-alike. Kind of like this:
Both her fashion and make up choices are grunge-ish. She wears mostly muted or dark colors, preferably checkered shirts and gray jeans, boots and little to no accessories. Like I mentioned in an earlier post (These past couple of days part 2) she will usually wear makeup. Most of the time she will wear fairly dark, brown or wine-red, eye makup, dark rouge and nude or dark wine-red lipstick. It sounds pretty dramatic but she keeps it quite natural-looking. This are some outfits she would wear:
And her makeup looks a little something like this:
So I hope that was interesting and that it helped you get an idea of what Phemie looks like!
These past couple of days part 1
Hello everyone, I hope you are doing well. While I still am pretty unstable, I do feel like I’ve been sort of okay yesterday and today (so far). I haven’t been very active lately due to me being unwell, so I thought I’d try and give you an idea of what these past couple of days have been like for me.
[Trigger warning: self-harm]
I guess I have felt gradually worse for a few weeks, but it escalated last Tuesday. I want to see my psychologist to talk to her about when I got badly triggered on a camp I had been to the weekend prior to that Tuesday, and I talked to her about how I felt like no one was taking me, or more specifically the angry man (see “about me”) seriously. Unfortunately, her response was to try to normalize anger and rage to lessen my shame. It backfired, to say the least. The broken child got triggered out, the angry man was furious and I was caught in between. She obviously saw that I was very upset, but we had to end our session because the patient after me was waiting outside and we were already taking up time from her session so I went home (I was too upset to go to school). When I got to my apartment at the boarding school, I could feel my body moving towards the drawer where the knifes are. I opened it, and felt sick so I shut it again and took a few steps away from it. Again, I felt my body almost being drawn back to the drawer, I opened it and picked up the knife. I got these images of me cutting myself, it made me nauseous, reluctant, terrified but whoever steered my body apparently didn’t give a crap because it put the knife to my finger. It turned out to be too dull to cut with, which was both a relief and a annoyance. I was so disappointed in myself, and I still am. I called the psych-emergency room (I didn’t tell them that I had tried hurting myself though. I don’t know why I didn’t tell them, I juts couldn’t bring myself to do it) who told me to call my psychologist. I did that, got to her voice mail and left her a message.
Then, while I waited for her to call me back, I got a weird urge, which I followed through with: I wanted to hide in a blanket fort. I cleared my desk, put a sheet on it and a blanket under it and crept right in. I still felt the need to self-harm, so my body (I say “my body” cause I’m not sure who it was but it sure as hell wasn’t me) picked up my phone and started watching a video of a person showing his/her self-harm scars on Youtube. I felt so sick that I had to turn it off. I am not that easy to put off but there is just something about injuries that just makes me so sick. I couldn’t even read the descriptions of what happens when you sprain your ankle in biology class. So anyway… I stayed in that blanket fort for about four or five hours, with a few short breaks in between. I texted my boyfriend telling him what happened, and after a while I was able to calm down. My psychologist called me a few hours later and gave me an appointment for the next day.
Quick update: not doing well
[Trigger warning; mentioning of self-harm]
Hello everyone.
I have been quite unwell these last couple of weeks, really, but it’s gotten a lot worse the last few days and a lot has happened. I’ve been very depressed and low, feeling this urge to hurt myself (which i nearly did). A few memories have come back, I’ve discovered more about my history of mental illness and I’ve also become more aware of what’s going on in my system (a system being all the alters and their respective roles) and realized what probably needs to be done to get better and more stable. Of course I’m going to tell you guys all about it when I get a little better. Also, me and my boyfriend are moving in together tomorrow, so it might take some time to get settled and stuff.. Yeah, just wanted to let you know what is up and that I’ll be back as soon as I can.
I hope you’re all doing good
Me, we, them 