Hey, it's been a while. There's kind of been a lot happening. I haven't been able to sit down and write just because I haven't had the energy or drive to. My drive to write in this blog usually comes when something happens, and I guess that's no different today...
So a few days ago, on thursday/friday ish of last week, I made a pretty serious (social) decision. It's something that I only decided to do because I already was feeling pretty good and had a decent amount of social battery to spend. The next few days dealing with it were slightly hectic internally. Communication stuff not going through, many concerns, but most of all certain feelings I have just being in the new social situation I created. I didn't realize how badly it was going to weigh on me.
It seems like the amount it's been weighing on me has been increasing a bit every day. I didn't realize this was happening. All it took was that and two or three other social things happening at the same time and yesterday I depleted my energy reserves.
I don't want to go into specifics of what's bothering me, that would be disingenuous to everyone who's been putting trust in me. That's also not the point. I want to write here about why I feel this happens.
As a (cat)person with pretty noteworthy autism, I have certain quirks... things I can't control. Behaviors, rituals, ways of thinking. My brain works differently than the majority of other people's, so it's no surprise. But I think here it's pretty important for two reasons:
- I seem to be unable to tell my spoons are depleting while it's happening... I noticed this only after I ran myself dry yesterday. I put forth all my effort into being there socially for others and the amount of pressure just boiled over on my head. The stack of books fell over, so to speak.
Like, it's hard to explain... I feel these feelings welling up in my gut, but - depending on the context anyway - I often decide it's worth the slight mental toll to push through for the sake of a friend or whatever else. I know better than to do this constantly, but, it was really only one or two times yesterday that I noticed this feeling, I think?
- It all just comes crashing down, like what happened yesterday. And when that happens, my headspace just goes nuts. I start yelling internally about wishing I was the only person in the world or everyone else would leave me alone, and such. Obviously this means I wore myself thin, and I should've stopped it somehow. But that's the problem.
Even if I knew I needed to stop draining myself socially while it was happening... I feel an inherent guilt or shame when I do so. I tried it yesterday when I told a friend I didn't have the energy to listen right now - a harmless statement and they weren't offended - but I felt this immense dread when I went through with it. It's really hard to explain. It's a gut feeling, not a thought or emotion, so I think it's more to do with my autism than anything...
This one's even harder to explain, but, even if I've decided to not interact with someone or something, knowing what they're saying or going through, or just seeing or hearing from them at all, trips something in me. That itself takes mental space, takes spoons. I had a talk with a friend recently who explained this is probably hyper-empathy due to my neurodivergence and such. That makes sense... but regardless of what it is, I can't turn it off, and that's a huge problem. It effectively means that there's almost no way for me to give myself breathing room short of going complete radio silence.
I also want to talk a bit about my inclination to hear people out. While it is nice, I do generally like it, and my friends consider me a very kind and caring person... it has to be said that this is also automatic and something I can't seem to turn off. There have been times that I've been confronted by someone who is making me immensely uncomfortable, being aggressive or otherwise, and just... despite feeling pain and anguish in my gut and heart, knowing I need to defend myself, 90% of the time my guard doesn't come up. I find myself frozen in place, unable to. Even if I try to think of some kind of comeback or defense, my brain goes blank.
In other words, I can't help but give everyone the benefit of the doubt in a conversation even when I don't want to. There's a sort of existential question to be asked about if my personality would be radically different/my friends would see me differently if I didn't have this... but I don't really care to explore that.
But the reason I bring it up is, I think I have a hard time saying "no" even to people I care about. Granted, yesterday, I did do that several times to several different people. I made an effort to stand up for myself and advocate for my emotional state. But, well, it wasn't enough. The act of doing so still left me drained. In a way, it takes an amount of spoons/energy to do this as well.
So what am I going to do about it?
The thing about autism and neurodivergence is there isn't really a fix. You just learn different ways of coping, different strategies, different ways of living. If you're going to suggest I see a therapist or counselor, don't - I'm not willing and won't get into that here. The only person who knows how I live is me, and only I can decide what to do, I guess...
I've decided to spend today mostly isolated/offline. It's not gonna be 100% - it never is - but I just need to wait and see how I feel soon. I took my meds today (which is something I forgot to do yesterday) and while I feel slightly better (aside from the chronic sinus headache) I still am not there yet. Time will heal me, but I don't know how long I need or any more specifics.
This isn't even the first time this has happened. Although, in the past, it's usually been to one or two specific people. This time it was more spread out among several people and just socializing as a whole. It really goes to show this is more of a "battery" situation than a situation caused by specific people.
