My silent battles

@Blackcloud sorry to hear life has not been being kind to you and you are struggling with different things.

Im here if you want to chat or vent. No pressure. One favour, please let me know at the start if you are venting.

hoping these bring you some smiles and laughter

Hi @Chasingsunsets things have been bit chaotic recently. I’ve been using most of my free time to find and post the items on the thread about Autism, ADHD etc. also been using that to distract my mind and keep it doing something positive.

next four weeks I won’t have much time to me. I already had variety of things on including appointment with psychologist and cardiologist. This morning I managed to get appointment with GP brought forward from 14 May to today. GP happy with sound of my lungs plus I no longer have the very unpleasant cough I had. GP has approved for me to go onto B12 injections (instead of tablets) which is one good thing, appointment for first B12 injection in 2 days time. Appointment made for flu shot plus referral for shoulder ultrasound all done. Appointment for ultrasound booked for 1week time.

at this stage, 4 weeks today will be my first day in hospital for next infusion through pain management firm. Need to get the all clear regarding my lungs before I know infusion will go ahead. I’m dealing with various levels of pain in a lot of joints every day now, desperately wanting to get green light to have the infusion

hoping all went well with your surgery. How are you feeling post surgery?

well don’t for saving the fish and tadpoles. 💐💐

hi @Flutterbug9 thanks a lot ❤️ and I'll remember to put the reminder of letting you know I'm venting at the start if I am gonna vent, I appreciate you for letting me know 😊

a bit of a vent I'm gonna share/write on this post...

I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed over the fact that I can't seem to have an opportunity to be able to do and experience other things in life (that other people seem to be having) other than just having to do the stuff I do every single day in my life...like going out for walks where necessary, going to places where I can do my assignments at, eat, lay in bed...you know the usual...and the thought about having to do these same boring and non-entertaining things everyday has been lowkey driving me nuts a bit 😂😂 I often question why I can't have and experience the same type of things that other people seem to be having in terms of entertainment hahaha

I can't see the pictures yet, but I'm sure and hope seeing them later on will help cheer me up a bit and lessen my negative feelings about life ☺️ I know watching videos of pets is one of the things that cheer me up ❤️ they're really cute to look at!

I read your post on the other thread about just wanting to talk and not have things said as “problem solving” @Blackcloud and thought I bring our chats over here.

I try not to go down that line as, as you already know, I don’t like it done to me. My previous psychologist used to problem solve things for me by telling me directly I should do certain things or think certain way. My current psychologist is so different. The following is something my current psychologist put to me after I mentioned similar things as in your post

do you think there is a way you could do something different ie do something you want to do that currently don’t?

please don’t feel you have to provide an answer to this question. I’m leaving it with you to think about.

I will try to remember about animals and humour. Animals can be so cute and at same time be so funny.

Hi @Blackcloud

you mentioned assignments, what course are you doing? Was that your first choice of courses to do this year?

Is it a topic that you have an interest in?

how do you feel you are going with the course?

how do you feel about the assignments? Eg do you feel you enjoy doing them or do you feel they are hard work and not capturing your attention and interest?

one thing you may notice with my posts is I don’t use bold or capital letters (unless very small number of words for emphasis). Is something Jynx, Glisten Alwaysmyself and I talked about over couple of threads. Using lots of bolder words or words in capitals within any type of message is viewed that the writer is yelling/screaming the words. When there is a word/s I want to put emphasis on to I change the font colour to blue, underline the word/s or type it in italics.

Hi @Flutterbug9

Oh definitely!! I also don’t aim to go down the line of using the pathologising approach as I know that that kind of approach is harmful and unhelpful for us neurodivergent folks 😊 the pathologising approach is a lot like the CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) which you remember me saying that CBT is not a helpful type of therapy for neurodivergent brains that unfortunately every mental health professional that goes by the traditional way of therapy uses.

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do you think there is a way you could do something different ie do something you want to do that currently don’t?

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Yeah there’s a number of things that I think I could do something I want to do that I currently don’t. I think a lot of the things that fit into that category are mainly due to my limitations from ‘wanting to do them’ due to my long-term mental health issues and personal experiences with relationship and friendship issues (literally everyone in my life not giving me the treatment I deserved) and how that all has led me to develop the mindset of ‘I can’t’, ‘it’s not possible’ etc. ever since I was a primarily schooler.

One of the things I can think of wanting to do that I currently don’t is putting myself out there to socialise with people and make connections in real life — this one’s been something I’ve struggled doing ever since I started developing selective mutism whenever I was in school back from when I first started childcare. But also, it’s not possible for me to be able to do this (despite wishing for it if I wasn’t ND) considering how selfish and cruel people in general are. That’s why I think animals are 10000000000x better than humans.🌿💗 The other one would be that I would like to start doing taekwondo classes, but because taekwondo classes are generally in a group setting, I unfortunately can’t do that without being worried and feeling really anxious about being in an environment with other people in it. I wish martial arts was something that my parents would consider on taking me to as a kid, but because my parents have been relying on Centrelink ever since they immigrated here before I was born they couldn’t afford such things.

I’ll answer your second post a bit later ☺️ sorry for the long post!! but feel free to let me know if reading this gets a bit or too overwhelming for you 🍃

yes I would love for you to provide me pictures of animals whenever you can at anytime!! ☺️

All good with your post @Blackcloud

I definitely agree with pets verses humans.
I also find it fairly easy to remember names of animals. Names of humans takes my ages to remember them.

I can understand to some degree with somethings you mentioned. My mum stopped working around the time they got married, my dad being the sole income earner. As a preschooler, my mum wanted to have me go to dancing classes as from a toddler I used to dance around the house. My dad said no, that was the end of that. Same thing happened when I was early primary school and said I wanted to learn highland dancing. To my dad, dancing classes were a waste of money.

there are things I have wanted to do and never could. Physical health restrictions and limitations being the main reason. For me, main thing is horse riding. Last time I sat on a horse I was about 10yo.

One of the reasons I moved to where I am is due to social activities available to join. First couple mths weren’t too bad until my social avoidance fully kicked in. My people pleasing led me to continue playing croquet once a week and isolating rest of every week. psychologist I was seeing at that time used to tell me I had to get involved in activities which made me not wanting to do anything.

when new psychologist heard I was in one activity only they said to me, “do you think there might be one other activity you think you might like to do”. Words felt so different. Still struggle to physically get to the activities, enjoy the couple that I now do.

its horrible when our own bodies, brain etc fight against us. Having had negative experience with friends etc from a young age definitely makes things really difficult. From memory snippets I have of my childhood, I was on of those kids that never felt they fitted in

Hiya @Flutterbug9 thanks for you tag 😀, I have enjoyed your autism/ADHD thread. You have done a great job with it, thanks!!

You sounds very busy with a lot of appts. Hope they go ok. B12 injections sounds like a win for you? Power up the levels. A lot less painful that when they use to give iron injections into big muscles. B12s are a dream in comparison 🙂

Hope the process of your next hosp stay is going ok and that your lungs have the tick of approval by the drs. I hear the infusions you have been having are very beneficial for you so I have my fingers crossed for you that’s it’s smooth sailing to your admission 🤞🤞

Yeah had mine just recovering now, thanks for asking 🙂. I am ok not feeling the greatest but you get that. The follow up appt was good everything healing which is good.

Oh yeah the fish and tadpoles what a drama 😆🙊

My regular pattern of doing things is completely out of whack which is leaving me feeling on edge and unsettled. One more week before my nervous system and pattern of doing things get back on track @Chasingsunsets

B12 injection went well. felt a fool as forgot to get script filled first, nurse was very good and understanding. yesterday one of my croquet team quit without any warning, badly rattled me to point I felt I was shaking. flu shot this Saturday which will be end of first week.

infusion I have in hospital enabled me to be pain free from arthritis pain for approximately 4months. This time next week I will know if plans for next infusion in late May will go ahead,

that’s great to hear you are recovering from surgery.

hoping you are back to 100% soon.

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@Flutterbug9 wrote:

Hi @Blackcloud

you mentioned assignments, what course are you doing? Was that your first choice of courses to do this year?

Is it a topic that you have an interest in?

how do you feel you are going with the course?

how do you feel about the assignments? Eg do you feel you enjoy doing them or do you feel they are hard work and not capturing your attention and interest?

one thing you may notice with my posts is I don’t use bold or capital letters (unless very small number of words for emphasis). Is something Jynx, Glisten Alwaysmyself and I talked about over couple of threads. Using lots of bolder words or words in capitals within any type of message is viewed that the writer is yelling/screaming the words. When there is a word/s I want to put emphasis on to I change the font colour to blue, underline the word/s or type it in italics.

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Hi @Flutterbug9

just providing my answers to all of your questions. I've highlighted all of your questions in italics, let me know if that's ok 😊

you mentioned assignments, what course are you doing? Was that your first choice of courses to do this year?

I’m doing a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) and the Certificate IV of Mental Health Peer Work but I do both in part-time and just studying 1 unit/subject from each of those two courses. Yeah both of them were my first choice of courses to do this year. The mental health peer work one was because the organisation I currently volunteer at is an autistic peer led organisation, and they offer student placements which I didn’t know about until then so I was really eager to apply for the Cert IV and do my placements with them 😊

Is it a topic that you have an interest in?

Yeah, everything that’s related to psychology is something I’m interested to learn more about. It’s been my field of interest for a while.

How do you feel you are going with the course?

I really enjoy both courses as both fit my field of interest and I really like learning more things about such topics that I have not known about until then

How do you feel about the assignments? Eg do you feel you enjoy doing them or do you feel they are hard work and not capturing your attention and interest?

The assignments for the Cert IV are generally more easy to do as they’re not at university-level so I find that I’m able to do and complete the assignments with no issues. The teacher for the Cert IV is a great person and is always willing to offer us help when we need it 😊

the assignments for the bachelors though is something else hahaha😅 but I’m coping ok with it despite facing all the difficulties and the mental and emotional drain of it. 🫠It is hard work, so I find that when I can’t come up with my own knowledge/answers for particular sections or questions that I need to write about in the assignments (which for me is 90% of the time lol) I find that using NotebookLM to be helpful when it comes to it analysing articles and stuff for me that can at least get some ideas of and write it in my own words.

I really appreciate that 💗 (the last part you mentioned) as that allows me to remember and be aware of whenever I reply to you and other users. 😊 Thank you for letting me know too.