Hazel

[tall gate]

There is so much going on in my head and I feel like it’s all connected and interwoven and I can’t seem to straighten it out.

Autism/PTSD
I recently got diagnosed with autism. Level 1. It’s seems to be most prevalent in my social engagement. The surprise for me wasn’t the high anxiety and social anxiety, but the high scoring of PTSD.

Looking back on my relationships with family and friends and significant others I can see how these micro traumas all added up to PTSD. I knew I had an anxious attachment style. Which is something I battle all the time with friends and in dating.

Currently I am taking it slow with someone and he knows about the autism which he has ADHD so I wasn’t worried about scaring him off. But today I told him about the PTSD and he made a joke about hiding it and I was like no I just didn’t know you wanted to know everything. So I kinda talked about it bit. How pattern recognition with the autism is high so I can tell something is off and when I ask people and they lie about it but it comes out later that I was right. The lying part is the kicker to the PTSD.

In the moment I thought he took it well. He is big on honesty so and he was like that makes sense. But now I can’t help but think he will lose interest because of it. Which just gets added onto because I think he is way out of my league and I’m horribly scared that I’m just a joke or he just likes the attention. Other than him being slightly flakey on phone calls and FaceTimes and the time between his texts sometimes he has done nothing to support that train of thought.

The pattern recognition in conjunction with the PTSD is going to be the death of me.

I want someone to see what I see on a day to day and tell me which parts my autism and PTSD are skewing and making a mountain out of a mole hill. I want to learn to do this myself but I need someone “normal” to guide me for awhile.

Work
Yeah. Work. Well I basically think that I’m being held back because I don’t fit in the community that’s prevalent in this area. I have also realized there is no place for me to go in the company so I need to look elsewhere. Looking for a job and going through the process is like standing up and saying hey look here. Judge me. Surprise surprise I don’t enjoy that.

Having to navigate a new social arena also sounds awful. Refer to autism and social anxiety.

I am too smart for what I do and I am tired of babysitting grown adults who get paid more than me and can’t seem to grasp the simplest of concepts.

Relationships
Ha what a joke. Uhhh on top of being cheated on, manipulated, used and lied to more times than I can count in several relationships in my life. I also just generally feel worthless.

Most recent ex boyfriend- I know what everyone is gonna say. “Girl you got involved with a diagnosed psychopath how did you think that was gonna go?” And honestly it was the least traumatic of my relationships so say what you will. LOL. He was so accepting of me but I just couldn’t like feel the connection. Like I couldn’t feel intuitively his feelings for me. I just had tot take him at his word. And his life was chaotic and unstable not like in a truly unstable way but just in ways that my routine 8-5 self couldn’t work with. Also after 2 years I expected progress in our relationship and it just wasn’t happening.

Current man I am talking to- see his intro in autism/ptsd. He is sooooo out of my league but checks so many damn boxes I am like seriously scared. Scared because there is distance. And he said let’s take it day by day and I’m like okay cool but inside I’m like holy crap he is perfect. He is gosh. I am just so taken with him. Everything is just on point and that scares me. He thinks he isn’t interesting and he has never had someone find him as attractive as I do. Which how that’s possible I don’t know. I basically drool over him anytime I see his face. And interesting? He makes everything interesting. But for real I am TERRIFIED.

Family
Yeah. Uh. Well. Really only family I have is my parents. And that’s complicated. Not only are they who I got my autism from because yeah I see it in both of them. Umm they have contributed to the PTSD. My dad had a tumor for a decade that changed his whole personality. Quick to anger. And just mean. Mean mean. And that’s what I grew up with. Always walking on egg shells. Always trying to apologize quickly to head off the yelling and aggression. Always fearful when I had any kind of mess up or mistake. Like getting a speeding ticket. Always trying to not have any emotions because that would only make it worse. I was “overly dramatic” and “emotional”.

My mom is well fragile. Sensitive. She is difficult for me to deal with emotionally. She just isn’t as smart as me and she is sensitive. She is soooooo creative and artsy and I love that part of her but she is a handle with kid gloves kind of person. And well according to the psychologist I lack empathy.