We Love Esmeralda Weatherwax

Post Reply New Topic

Seconded. I am hoping that the upheaval was related to the PTSD stuff I was doing - it involved reliving a lot of stuff I didn't want to live through the first time around, and I was really worn thin, so I didn't have much resilience.

I'm amazed at how fast things moved, though, and I do feel massively better. Thanks Blabster!

prego time just flies by people of our vintage, no?

Yep...lots of people dug you here.

One of the nice things about being "antient", as my Dad liked to put it, is the perspective. Which can be very healing.

I've been reading back and I've seen that some folks missed me which is not something I've been accustomed to - not recently, not after my last workplace. I was lucky enough to work in good places when I was younger, though, where people cared about me even though I was eccentric; now that I've been retired for three years my god, the good memories are beginning to supplant the ick. Hurrah.

I do feel bad for anyone hurt by my absence. For that I do apologize, it honestly (because of the ugly nasty workplace) did not seem likely to me but I know better now. And how healing is that...

well today's a new day, and tomorrow's a new new day.

Esme, I was thinking about you yesterday and voila you appear!

Glad you are back here and feeling much better.

You are one cool chick

indubitably.

Too cool for my bad self

Welcome back, Esmerelda, it's lovely to see you here again.

Being "worn thin" is something which makes it hard for me to participate in these places too sometimes, whether it is from something "IRL" or just fatigue from reading so many tales of other people's difficulties, which can sometimes reinforce my depression - or even that WP has sucked me in to the extent that I think I might be getting rather too addicted! I always feel a certain trepidation upon deciding to return after weeks or months of absence, but here and elsewhere, I've usually found that people are very understanding of the need to take a break every once in a while. I'm glad to hear that you're now feeling so much better, and long may it continue!

'Autistic Inertia'? It is a neologism to me, but I understand the definition very well (which reminds me, it is "chores day" today, so I really should be getting that housework done that I've been meaning to start all day! )

Well argggh poo and rats... as if IBS weren't enough along with Asperger's, I also have a few remaining kidney stones and one of them has been annoying me this week. I am "lucky" - I have less pain than most people, with this (although still some and occasionally a LOT)

but I get crashing waves of overwhelming fatigue that hit at totally random times when this is going on. (The fatigue disappears completely between episodes, and I've been assured that this whole problem is finite and won't do permanent harm, all of which is good.)

The point of which disclosure is that I am about to fall asleep right on top of the keyboard because of kidney stone crash fatigue that just landed on me like a small asteroid, so even though I just showed up, now I have to sign off. I hate this.... arrrggghhh... I did read your post, Trog, and as soon as I can stay awake I will reply.

IRL when this level of exhaustion hits I look and sound punchdrunk. Can't believe I can type coherently. Speech slurs, and I tend to walk into doorframes. So good night all.

(hugs all around) Esme

^^^nighty nighty and may the pain relief kick in quickly

^^ Thanks Blabs I actually got *some* restorative sleep, woke up a bit logy but not totally frazzled. Progress, won't complain.

Man, you are burning the candle at both ends and the middle! Don't neglect your own sleep, bro.

I have a laundry list of herbal stuff I use so that I don't need Rx painkillers more often than every few days, even at the worst of it. Some of it works for joint pain too: if you can tolerate Indian food, try a riff on Indian coffee?

Put a teaspoon of turmeric yes turmeric in the cup, then add a couple shakes of cinnamon, likewise nutmeg, and a dash of clove and ginger. (When I was still employed, a grocer put cardamom on sale, half price. I loaded up and have the spares sealed down in the dark, that stuff is EXPENSIVE but oh it's lovely in coffee). Pour your coffee on top of this pile of spice, stir, add sweetener if you use it, add milk or cream or soy milk, stir, sip, be transported, sigh. Pain relief in about ten minutes with this, and sweet sleep if you've used decaf.

OTOH, being hit by a fatigue asteroid generally puts me out like a light. Can't recommend it, though.

[Edit in: works just fine if all you use is the turmeric with cinnamon and nutmeg, too. For kitchens with limited spice racks and cooks on budget, which I am too now. The turmeric is key, and it's still not too pricey.]

Trog: Asperger's inertia. I think this is part of the thing that keeps some of our friends here in frustrating traps, traps they can perfectly well see and feel helpless to escape. You know what to do, you have plans even, and you just... can't... budge. It's not just depression. It's not just learned helplessness (which I saw someone refer to once as "taught helplessness", since abusive people and systems do seem to deliberately cultivate a sense of helpless futility in those they abuse). It's an "activation energy" problem and it is real.

I actually found a halfway decent article about the learned helplessness part, which provides some guidance on ways to overcome that, and has the further plus that it doesn't blame the sufferer for "creating a negative reality" or similar nonsense. It does assume that therapy is available and that support can be found - but it's explicit enough for someone to use as a guide even if those things aren't so easy to access. Which is true for most adult Aspies isn't it. Ignore the "Woo woo" title - self-empowerment is such an annoying buzzword - and note that the author actually understands that people can be subjected to very destructive circumstances through absolutely no fault of their own.

https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arab ... ower-back/

This next writer is a clinician who works with autistic adults, shock, and is of course nowhere near either Trog or Esme, no surprise, story of my life, yours too sounds like, but at least she has a blog. She focuses on the hidden depression element but has a much more benevolent attitude than many:

http://www.aspiestrategy.com/2013/04/ad ... ssion.html

Sadly, all these guys seem to think one just snaps one's fingers and a good therapist magically appears, though. I finally understand what the young folks' phrase "check your privilege" means...

Me, I've got a stubborn streak a mile wide and have used it strategically before, and it's been easier than I expected to deploy that against the inertia now that I understand what the inertia is. Funny - I had a mental trick I used when I was a kid facing chores or homework: I mentally rolled up my sleeves and washed my hands to get ready to work. (If I had actual sleeves, up they went.) Somehow I lost track of that trick, but it was there and waiting for me and for me at least it does help.

... and that's my cue. It's been soaking wet here in the Cumberland Valley area of MD-PA, very frustrating for gardeners and roofers and everyone but the farmers who really needed the rain. And I have to get out and do a bit of necessary shopping, much as I want to stay here and visit around. (And brother, do I!) And then I have to cull and remove my spring daffodils' wilted tops so they don't go moldy and mess with my roses and dwarf spruce, even though it's soggy and icky out. Joy, joy... roll up those sleeves, madam.

Do you have to let kidney stones "pass"----or is there some sort of noninvasive surgical treatment for them?

Euch.... the treatment is worse than the disease. Shock lithotripsy. They stick you in a tub of water and blast you with sound waves. The theory is like chemo - that they shatter the stones before they completely homogenize your kidneys. It ain't necessarily so... and then they put a stent in you to keep everything wide open so the stone fragments pass. Which is absolute agony, from the descriptions I've read by those who went through it.

Fortunately mine are small enough to pass on their own; I just have to drink a lot of fluids daily. Also fortunately a urologist who cared more about people than money discovered two things: (1) citric acid dissolves the monsters, and (2) a daily dose of B-6 and magnesium (100 mg B6, 200 mg Mg) prevents new ones from forming - if you make oxalate stones. Some people have a hereditary condition and make other stones. Those poor souls have no option but the shock tx.... god love 'em.

So I drink a lot of lemonade and Sprite and I take the B6-Mg combo too. And when I really hurt, I take pyridium - AKA phenazopyridine - which is what they give to the poor souls who've been blasted and stented, for their pain.

Now off I go, but I'm glad I caught your post, Kraftie