"Get over it"

Post Reply New Topic

It's late, no one seems to be awake, and I need to vent. I hate how I often don't realize the full extent of something that was said to me until much, much later. I feel gutted, but first, I never did make a proper intro.

Feel free to skip around, I get to my point eventually. I know I'm wordy, but this is very cathartic for me, to write so much, please forgive me...I broke it up as best as I could to make it easier on the eyes,

Hi, you can call me Luna, I'm 37, and I was diagnosed as being autistic when I was 12. but I was unaware of this until recently because it was apparently something that incited anger and shame in my father, who is a textbook undiagnosed Aspie, and was never to be spoken of again. I was diagnosed again as an adult, with Asperger's, after suffering from a worsening of autistic behavior that was first perceived to be mental illness.

My "regression/burnout" began shortly after the birth of my son and six months before my diagnosis of two autoimmune disorders/thyroid diseases (Graves and Hashimoto's). What my doctors called"panic attacks", "somatic events, induced by anxiety", or "syncope" were actually about a dozen severe meltdowns that culminated in a variety of frightening episodes that involved smashing my head off the wall repeatedly to relieve the tension/buzzing/frustration, not realizing I was injuring myself and the wall, OR dropping into seizure like convulsions, OR holding a non-lethal but sharp object to my forearm, not to kill myself, but to escape somehow (?), and receptive speech shutdowns, stuttering, tremors, uncontrolled crying/yelling/swearing, and a surge of adrenaline always accompanied said events. Mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, SSRI's? Allergic reactions. Useless. Ineffective. I wasn't manic enough for the bipolar label, not depressed enough to be really suicidal, and I definitely didn't fit the BPD descriptions either. The motivations were all wrong, I had none other than relief and peace and quiet, and my issues have always been there, since toddlerhood. And then there's the sensory issues, obsessions, hyperlexia, scripting, stimming, what I called "social retardation" and a naivete that I find shameful in retrospect. I've got the guilt complex in spades. I always wondered WTF was "wrong" with me and modern psychiatry was NOT providing answers.

Then I was made aware of signs of autism in my son right around Thanksgiving, and while discussing this with my therapist and later a friend who is the mother of 5 children on the spectrum, they both pointed out it was a distinct possibility because Mommy appears awfully autistic herself. I'm grateful to them both for leading me on this path to self-discovery and awareness. One month after the obvious was pointed out to me, my social worker and I presented my case to my psychiatrist, including the mounds of info I printed out that included essays on how each diagnostic criteria applied to me, interviews with family members and VHS video footage displaying various autistic traits, He told me he was shocked I stayed under the radar so long. Then I told him about how I did make a blip once, but it was rapidly silenced. He said that was enough evidence for him. I get a more official evaluation next month, but the diagnosis is already in the system. As for my son? Time will tell. He's got proactive parents on his side, unlike I did. He has a speech therapist and teacher thanks to Early Intervention.

Being the typical Autie/Aspie child I was, I suffered quietly through countless instances of abuse and bullying, including sexual assault/oral rape committed by three boys when I was only 13. This particular abuse went on for almost a year before my favorite drunk uncle caught me fleeing the woods after a particularly ugly assault. He immediately put a stop to it. He died this fall. I feel like it didn't hit me until a couple weeks later, then the loss left me feeling as vulnerable as a child abandoned in the woods, to be eaten by wolves. I felt like I deserved what happened to me, and questioned if I wanted it, but I clearly remembered crying and begging and that it was horribly unpleasant and a couple times I vomited everywhere and got kicked for it. I was so terribly naive and confused and terrified they might kill me someday. (Like that movie Stir of Echoes. I learned what an awful trigger that movie is the hard way thanks to my obsession with paranormal films, books, activity.)

I told my best friend what happened to me and she called me a slut because she had a crush on one of the boys. Told everyone in school I was a slut. It never occurred to me that I wasn't, that I was raped. Then followed more ugly memories I had once thought dead and buried, like the box of s**t that the same "best friend" gave me in a gift wrapped box, or the club of mean girls she formed whose sole purpose was to torment me, or those times she bullied me into fooling around with her when I was only 9 and she was 10, and I wasn't sure if I wanted that or not either, but I did it willingly because I loved her and wanted to make her happy even if it did feel like an awfully twisted game of doctor. I cry thinking what must've been done to her to make her like that, and I hate her for how she tainted my innocence and all the cruel things she did to me, but I can forgive her more easily than those boys. There were also boys who would punch me in the face in gym class for no reason, or ambush me after school. Girls who would call me ugly and ret*d and sing Pretty Woman in a mocking voice while I hunkered and ran naked in my towel through the locker room to take a dreaded forced shower. You failed gym if you didn't shower. Until I was a teenager, I was able to retreat to the woods on my beloved bike, riding for hours, or blazing paths by foot and building bridges and cabins or just finding a nice place to read and/or play with bugs, search for signs of unicorns, swim, or find the juiciest blackberries.

Then those boys chased me down one after another in those woods. They took advantage of how off guard I'd become in my safe places, because at school I had become hyper-vigilant. I was naturally high strung, sensitive, and paranoid, but once kids started beating up on me in middle school, I learned to keep my guard up real quick, but in the woods, it was down. I started finding new safe places, but one of those boys would eventually hunt me down. It was a very small town. It was a game to them. I started riding my bike up the mountain and to the next town over. That's when they started ambushing me after school. I was bottling up a ridiculous amount of shame at this point. After being called a slut, I didn't speak of it again until October of last year. Well, I'd share a glorified "But I fought him off and then my uncle saved me" story, but after repeating that lie often enough after he passed away that month, the actual events of that day pretty much forced their way into my head and I was given no choice but to face them. I finally talked about it in therapy and to my boyfriend, and then my mom, but thanks to my inability to communicate effectively in real time, I'm not really getting anywhere in the healing process, I don't think, in therapy, and it really disturbed my boyfriend, and my mom's reaction? You need to find a way to get over it.

"Get over it."

Every time I visit my hometown, my PTSD flares up. My mysterious gut issues worsen. Meltdowns are imminent, but I stuff them down, stuff them down, and stim as much as possible in as acceptable way as possible, but then all hell breaks loose when I get home. "Meltdown imminent!" as I return home, a fair warning, and a preventative measure I have taken. I often shutdown. My dad could be a verbally abusive (or maybe just cruelly blunt, arrogant and derisive), immature, controlling, angry prick sometimes, but 75% of the time he was pretty okay, funny and smart and cool because he watched cartoons and went on Calvin and Hobbes like adventures with me, he read the best comics and had books EVERYWHERE (I was reading by age 2) but his approval rate dipped to 25% of the time when I became a teenager and he lost his job and was always yelling at me about my grades and grounding me for months on end, and once he beat me into submitting to a spelling bee where I'd have to be on stage in front of the whole town, then I became ashamed of my body due to the sexual abuse and my dad's repeated jokes that insinuated I was fat at 5'7" and 125lbs max. NOT fat! I just used his swing shift work schedule to my advantage and avoided him a lot when I grew into an angry, confused, naive, socially awkward, hurt teenager who still had no real friends to speak off, except that other weird girl who never talks and reads a lot and always gets carsick and pukes in the back of our Buick. As for my mom? Sweet, kind of distant, but still loving. Maybe even a touch of AS herself, but I would call her a plain old introvert. She had me at 16, my dad was 20, and they've been married since my sixth month in utero. She speaks up for herself a little more now than she did 10 years ago,, but she mostly puts up with my dad's bad behavior. I honestly do forgive him for how he's hurt me, now that I understand how he and I both work now. And the way I see it, he treated me better than his father treated him or any of my uncles or my aunt, who my grandfather molested for many years. My dad gave me a better life than he was given. I can forgive his mistakes. Living so far away makes that easier. He's now usually in a good mood when we're around, because it only happens once a month or so, BUT he still has a way of pushing my buttons.

I always thought of my mom as my best friend, my REAL best friend. Then she wrote me a letter about how hurt she was by a post I made online in a support group that wasn't the private one I thought it was.

I ended up in the hospital last night after a fight with my boyfriend led to waves of severe nausea and then a spell of dry heaving violent enough I went into convulsions. Afterwards, my legs wouldn't work. I could feel them, no pins or needles, but they cramped up so violently when I put weight on them, I collapsed. I couldn't stand up and walk for an hour or more and had a friend take me to the hospital. I was lucky enough to get a very informed and comforting doctor. He and I both have a theory that the Graves antibodies are to blame for the my increased autistic-ness, my worsening sensory issues, and probably for the convulsions too. Graves encephalopathy. He directed me towards some studies to share with my doctors, and ordered an EKG and CAT scan to rule out anything life threatening. All clear. So I went home and delved into research and sought out assistance on a Graves support and research group I'm a member of on Facebook in my long winded way, sharing personal details about my autoimmune issues and recent reconfirmation of autism. I thought it was the private group I'm a member of, but it wasn't, and I was too drained to double check. FAIL.

First I was embarrassed to learn a friend I'm not THAT close to had read it. Okay, definitely awkward since we spent the afternoon at the museum with our boys (another meltdown beforehand, did NOT want to go, but did it for my son) and I was already stressed out and exhausted, but then she seemed to handle it okay and invited me to talk about it. I still intended to delete it immediately upon returning home. I figured few would bother to read something that long anyway, so maybe I could pretend this never happened. Well, my mom read it. Even after I tried to fix things, she still seemed cold and hostile. What offended her? That I wrote this...

"Why am I so desperate for answers? So I can be the best mom I can be, maybe not neurotypical, but 100% functional for ME, or at least 95% on a bad day, and a mom who will live to watch him reach a happy adulthood, maybe even be gifted with a grandkid, and most importantly so I can make sure he won't end up untreated and mistreated, unassisted and misunderstood for 37 years of his life like I did."

She took that as an accusation of abuse against her and my father, and a "How dare you, we did the best we could" stance, then she'd cry and say "Now I know why you moved so far away as soon as you were able," (age 21, only because I had a boyfriend to move in with. Yay codependency. -_-) "you hate us!" Then she asked me if this is why I won't move closer to home, why I won't accept their offers to help us by letting them move us in their backyard or something, why her grandson won't be able to ride his bike to her house like I was able to ride to my gram and pap's, and so on and so forth. Here's more things to feel guilty about, as if I didn't already, being their only child living with their only grandchild 215 miles away. I explained to her that the main reason I won't move back to my hometown is not my dad, not really (okay, maybe that's a little lie, but I hated hearing her so hurt and I was so raw from my episode the night before), and certainly not her, the supportive, comforting parent, but because no where outside their home felt safe to me. As in, I felt I had nowhere to run when my dad would rage. I explained how it triggered my PTSD to walk in all my formerly favorite places, to visit their favorite swimming hole. I reminded her that I was freshly revisiting these events, and while they may have happened 25 years ago, that wound is just as raw as it was the day it was first inflicted because I never dealt with it, faced it. Sure, I was referring to how I was untreated (true, sorry, blame dad), but the mistreatment I was mainly referring to was the bullying and assaults, unassisted because I couldn't cry for help, and misunderstood because I WAS, all teenagers feel that way, but especially autistic teenagers! I explained to her how extremely painful this was for me, as best as I could, and she says in a stone cold voice dripping with hostility "So you're going to let it keep you and my grandson from (living closer to) us. That's not right. You need to get over it."

I started crying and she said "Well, you wanted me to tell you when you said something hurtful."

NOT RIGHT AFTER I GOT OUT OF THE EFFING HOSPITAL FOR ANXIETY INDUCED ISSUES!! !

Three hours later and the magnitude of what she just said hit me in the gut, I went from sobbing and hysterical because I hurt my mom's feelings, to pure clear minded rage when I realized what she said.

"Just get over it. It was a long time ago."

I want to scream and cry and scream and cry some more, but my sweet smiling boy is sleeping and now I'm so exhausted from all this typing, I'm going to sleep as long as my boyfriend lets me tomorrow, and he promised it would be as long as I needed.

I won't even get into our issues. I did that elsewhere on this forum already. They come and go. He's trying to understand. Right now I'm just feeling...so much TOO MUCH, I don't know what to do with it. I can feel the anger wanting to rise again...

So I write. And sleep. And hopefully won't collapse again. Tuesday therapy can't come soon enough.

Thanks for "listening."

You've been through a lot, and of course it's not something to just "get over". Your mother's answer struck me, because her response seem to only reflect her wishes(seasoned with a guilt trip) instead of being a two way dialog seeking understanding. You're doing what's best for you and yours, which should be recognized and honored.

Wow, that's pretty awful coming from your mother. I really hate it when you try to give people the tools and information to understand you better and they twist it around to serve their own selfish ends. ('You wanted me to tell you when you said something hurtful.) Maybe you could tell her that if she wants to have her grandson closer to her she could 'just move.'

Its probably quite different with different people, how one comes to terms with traumas and resolves them to the point they do not hinder you unduly. One thing I would say is focus on yourself and your own issues and leave others to themselves as the main point is having your own functioning life and hopefully gaining some contentment/satisfaction.

Bad things happen to everyone, but some get much more then their share. There is no reason for it, and nothing you did to bring it on. Theres just this random series of occurances. Parents are the luck of the draw, as are people you come in contact with and what and where you intersect with bad events.

One thing one is able to do, is to learn to read and understand the situations and avoid and minimalize the bad ones. You do try to work with those you care about, but you don't let yourself be mistreated or dumped on. So like with a Dad acting out a certain bad behavior you say something like, 'I love you Dad but homie don't play that s**t, and I am not going to hang out with you if you start that up.' or something like that anyway.

You are entitled to your feelings. Don't let anyone convince you you aren't. It's disrespectful of her and she seems to have no regards for your and your experience. She may not understand how you experience things but who is she to tell you that your experience is invalid- why can't she just take your word for it? I hope you feel better soon and find some healing.

I know we are supposed to encourage people to talk about how they feel here, but I want to encourage you, if you can, if it works for you, stop. Breathe. Don't let the words keep flooding out over and over. You are right in what you think and what you feel. We believe you. And that you have family who do not is sad, is awful. When I am flooding about people hurting me stopping, breathing, it's all that helps. Maybe it can help you as well.

I was so sad reading your post. The only other thing I can offer is that I still have trouble sometimes can't recognize when someone is being sarcastic or even bullying me. From the outside that might look like I want it. That isn't the reality, though. One needs to understand that another person is intent on causing harm, or at least does not care to avoid this, in order for wanting or contributing to something bad happening to be at all relevant. I've blamed myself, too, when something bad has happened. But try not to add more pain to your mind---the inability to understand what is happening socially means you deserve protection, not pain. It was never your fault people hurt you----because no one deserves that!

I'm sorry the three boys were such bullies and idiots, and I'm sorry it went on for so long. And I'm glad your uncle was able to put a stop to it.

I can see how his death might hit you hard.

Maybe he carried a certain sadness and drank because of that. But whatever the reason or reasons for his drinking, he sounds like one of the few adults who actually acted like an adult! He was alert, and he acted to be a protector.