Today is a wading-through-metaphorical-treacle day. A zero executive function day. A day where I keep finding myself motionless, staring at the items on the supermarket shelves and the world seems distant.
Only the items on the list are bought, and the ones that left any room for interpretation are left unbought, because I don't have the capacity to make decisions about what to buy. The shopping has been brought into the house, but not yet put away because I just don't have the spoons. Having dealt with the full-change-of-clothes nappy incident at the beginning of the shopping trip, we also had to make another toilet visit before home time to deal with my anxiety digestion.
It's the end of what I'm affectionately calling Stressy Season - the longest of my calendar-based trauma triggers - which spans six weeks through September and October. This year I finally have a name for all these things that happen to my body and brain when it is reminded of certain past events.
PTSD is not just the curled-in-a-ball-on-the-floor-crying-rocking-unable-to-speak-occasionally-with-screams-coming-out-or-hurting-of-self panic attack after the fire alarm. It's not being able to concentrate on what you're doing, it's dread when you look out of the window, it's feeling irritable at the slightest thing, it's going to lengths to avoid places and things that make you remember, it's feeling sick all the time and wild bowels, and so much more.
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| Dem autumn leaves are well threatening... |
Autistic people are more likely to get PTSD and are less likely to have it identified correctly. We are both more likely to end up in potentially traumatic situations and more likely to be traumatised by experiences not traditionally seen as traumatic. Because of this and our neurological differences we are less likely to see and be understood by professionals who deal with PTSD and thus also less likely to receive helpful support (which again may or may not differ from traditional treatment). I'm thankful that a year after one misdiagnosis I was able to access a second opinion, and that this person understood and was able to explain to me all of these things about autistic processing and so forth, helping me to understand and accept that this is a box that applies to me despite "nothing traumatic having happened" (I did tell the first person nothing traumatic had happened, so I guess it's no wonder they thought nothing traumatic had happened...). I'm not just making a fuss over nothing; my brain is trying hard to do a job.
The lady in the supermarket who commented "Don't worry, I'm amazed how well you're managing it all" when I apologised for forgetting to put the little divider at the end of my shopping on the conveyor belt (another sign my brain is not doing its job) had no idea what "it all" really was. To be honest, a baby in a sling, who was by that point sleeping, is no trouble at all, unless maybe she had clocked the previous blowout scene. I didn't even have Pre-School Peggy with me. "It all" for me this morning was PTSD and the fact that I had to collect my brain repeatedly on my circuit of the shop and coax it into doing enough of its job to get us by. Everybody has an "it all" every day, and maybe that lady realised.
Be kind, you don't know what "it all" is going on for those annoying people you meet.
