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Captain's log, personal entry.
Jan. 28th, 2014 04:06 pmSo I guess this blog is pretty much only for my personal stuff now. Okay then. Fine by me. People change and move on. Nothing wrong with that. Fanstuff on tumblr, personal on DW. Goodie. That settled...
After a few nightmarish months with physical illness followed by a mental drop, I'm finally clawing my back to status quo. I've had talks with both my social aid person and my supervisor at the place where I go swimming 4 days a week, and they both had some thoughts I'm trying to get straight inside my head.
Thing is, that all the way through the shitstorm of depression and anxiety that is my life, I was told repeatedly by doctors and various health professionals that this would definitely not be a permanent illness. I would get over it. Definitely. With the correct treatment, they could fix me right up. But as I look back on it, I can clearly see how they slowly backpeddled, getting more and more hesitant to promise anything as help options dwindled. After they cut me off completely I floundered quite a bit, unsure what to do next. Going by old recommendations I got the social aid thing and otherwise went right ahead to assume that all I needed was a little push and then I'd be able to have a normal(ish) life.
But going by experience, it looks an awful lot like that's not gonna be an option. There's still hope for a higher level of self-sufficiency, but to hope for actual independence and a life closer to the social norm is probably naive.
I had a plan to get re-diagnosed in the hopes of finding better methods of treatment, but only very recently did I realize that there's an option I never even considered. I could be diagnosed with something there's no cure for.
I tripped over a list of symptoms or common traits in adult women with Asperger's, and it is downright eerie how much it could be a description of me. If I have Asperger's, the best I can hope for is a social effort. Which I'm already getting. At best we might be able to tweak my aid slightly, but bottom line there's not much to be done about Asperger's. It would explain a million things if that's what I have. But even if it ends up being something else, it opened up the possibility of there not being any help to be had. Indeed, it could just pile on yet another diagnosis the county can use to keep Pea from coming home to me.
Also, my social aid person sort of cautiously suggested that maybe the reason I keep having these mental crashes is not because I'm not good enough at talking about my problems or whatever guilt trip reason I give myself every time. Maybe I'm simply trying to push myself beyond my limits. Maybe these 2-4 hours of activity a day is simply all I have to give, and trying to do more wears me down until I crash. My supervisor agreed, and following these talks I accepted their recommendation of being referred to a psychologist. I have been to so many in the past, so I am predictably a little hesitant, but waiting to get better before trying some kind (any kind) of treatment is probably never gonna get me there, I might as well take the offer. It's only 5 sessions and it may or may not end up with another trip through the healthcare system. But I won't know that until I try, and if I just keep hoping I'll find the energy, I suspect half my life will go by before that happens.
So this is me slowly trying to reconcile myself to the idea of the rest of my life with an actual disability. I might get better, but I'll probably never be normal. It's a really tough pill to swallow.
After a few nightmarish months with physical illness followed by a mental drop, I'm finally clawing my back to status quo. I've had talks with both my social aid person and my supervisor at the place where I go swimming 4 days a week, and they both had some thoughts I'm trying to get straight inside my head.
Thing is, that all the way through the shitstorm of depression and anxiety that is my life, I was told repeatedly by doctors and various health professionals that this would definitely not be a permanent illness. I would get over it. Definitely. With the correct treatment, they could fix me right up. But as I look back on it, I can clearly see how they slowly backpeddled, getting more and more hesitant to promise anything as help options dwindled. After they cut me off completely I floundered quite a bit, unsure what to do next. Going by old recommendations I got the social aid thing and otherwise went right ahead to assume that all I needed was a little push and then I'd be able to have a normal(ish) life.
But going by experience, it looks an awful lot like that's not gonna be an option. There's still hope for a higher level of self-sufficiency, but to hope for actual independence and a life closer to the social norm is probably naive.
I had a plan to get re-diagnosed in the hopes of finding better methods of treatment, but only very recently did I realize that there's an option I never even considered. I could be diagnosed with something there's no cure for.
I tripped over a list of symptoms or common traits in adult women with Asperger's, and it is downright eerie how much it could be a description of me. If I have Asperger's, the best I can hope for is a social effort. Which I'm already getting. At best we might be able to tweak my aid slightly, but bottom line there's not much to be done about Asperger's. It would explain a million things if that's what I have. But even if it ends up being something else, it opened up the possibility of there not being any help to be had. Indeed, it could just pile on yet another diagnosis the county can use to keep Pea from coming home to me.
Also, my social aid person sort of cautiously suggested that maybe the reason I keep having these mental crashes is not because I'm not good enough at talking about my problems or whatever guilt trip reason I give myself every time. Maybe I'm simply trying to push myself beyond my limits. Maybe these 2-4 hours of activity a day is simply all I have to give, and trying to do more wears me down until I crash. My supervisor agreed, and following these talks I accepted their recommendation of being referred to a psychologist. I have been to so many in the past, so I am predictably a little hesitant, but waiting to get better before trying some kind (any kind) of treatment is probably never gonna get me there, I might as well take the offer. It's only 5 sessions and it may or may not end up with another trip through the healthcare system. But I won't know that until I try, and if I just keep hoping I'll find the energy, I suspect half my life will go by before that happens.
So this is me slowly trying to reconcile myself to the idea of the rest of my life with an actual disability. I might get better, but I'll probably never be normal. It's a really tough pill to swallow.
