hsphaven

As I wrote in my video about ASD, Asperger’s is like being a selkie. I live in two worlds. I am most at home in the sea, but can also (though with great difficulty) live on the land with others.

Being highly sensitive and autistic, everything is too much. For me, the world is experienced as a particularly violent place. I am a porcelain doll, easily broken. I am assaulted by noise, crowds, smells, lights, even internal sensations (my head has been buzzing for years now, ever since I was given an antidepressant called Effexor). Yesterday I wore a dress I bought second hand online. It ponged of perfume. I made the mistake of sitting on my bed wearing it as I listened to music and watched Chicago Med on my laptop. Then when I went to bed the smell lingered. It had got into my hands and my bedding. The smell tormented me so much that I ripped my sheets off at 3am and remade my bed. It was exhausting, particularly as I am recovering from the flu. It was also difficult as I sleep on a mattress in an enclosure my dad built around my bed to block the neighbour’s noise. We call it the “igloo”. It was dark and there wasn’t much room. My sheets needed changing anyway though. I had been putting off changing them for almost half a year now because it is such an overwhelming task. I put on another set of bunny flannelette sheets. I have three sets as I love them so much and I do not like change. The smell is much better but I still get whiffs of it. Maybe I am imagining it, but it seems to have got under my finger nails, and even a swim in the ocean and a shower can’t get rid of it completely.

I am incredibly misanthropic, and find myself pissed off at everything and everyone right now. I hate the vast majority of human beings because of their disregard for their fellow co-habitants on planet earth. I will never forget the time I was in hospital and asked if I could be let outside to relocate an ant. Then one of the other patients came along and squashed it. I was mortified. Sometimes I forget that not everyone has the same level of empathy that I have. It is soul crushing living in a place that does not respect other forms of life or even their own species.

I am becoming more and more nihilistic. I am starting to feel like everyone’s care is fake, especially those in the so-called “caring” profession. Hospitals, therapists, they have all abandoned me, turned me away when I’ve needed them the most. I am communicating my frustration to my psychologist. The following is a message I left on their phone in the middle of the night:

“Do you even care anymore, or have you both schemed to not take phone calls from me anymore as you don’t want to deal with me?”

I’m sick of the breadcrumbs of care I get from mental health professionals. I’m sick of feeling like I only deserve care from people who are being reimbursed to care for me. I wouldn’t be surprised if my psychologist has instructed the receptionist to ignore my calls, and I will be confronting her about this tomorrow at our “family planning session”. It hurts to have people around me instructed to stay away from me like I am a bad person, as has been the case all my life (I shared my story in my post, “An invisible scar“). It hurt when I told my psychologist I had found her on Facebook, and she then not only blocked me from her profile but also her partner’s, as though I was some dangerous criminal. She even mocked me, changing her profile name to “U cant find me”. I still have not quite forgiven her for that. My previous therapist just brushed it off when she found out I’d found her Facebook profile. It really wasn’t a big deal. That is what people do these days when they are interested in someone; they search for them on Facebook. She was a lot more mature about it.

I am hoping things are on the way up with this flu. I have had it pretty bad. I think I’m getting better but then get another wave of it. The other day I had a bad headache, was dizzy, breathless, weak, couldn’t see anything when I got up at one point and thought I was going to die. I didn’t know if I was having a panic attack or whether something really was wrong with me physically. I thought about calling an ambulance, but decided sleep would be the most healing thing for me (and I probably wouldn’t get much of that in the ED). So in the end I took some sleeping pills and when I woke up the next day I felt better.

Two of my favourite items right now, which are helping me feel better, are the 60cm Coco Faux Fur Pink Cushion from Kmart, and an aromatherapy oil by Springfields Aromatherapy called “Love”. The oil consists of Ylang Ylang, Lime, Rose Geranium, Orange and Patchouli. The thing about being highly sensitive is that we are sensitive to nice smells as well as irritating ones. I thought I’d finish on a more positive note for once. I keep meaning to write a happy post with a list of my favourite things such as shampoos, books etc.