Cutting the fat - week 2

Week 2

Loss – 1.5 kg.

Yes, I am aware that this was a very long week.

Unfortunately due to a nasty case of the flu I was out of action for a few weeks, and I wanted to save the updates until after I’d managed a full week of being able to eat and exercise properly.

This is a good loss, but I’m not sure how my being sick factors in here.  My diet wasn’t perfect this week, but it was better, so who knows.  We’ll just have to see how I go next week.

Getting back into the exercise after such a break was also a challenge.  They say muscles have memory but that sure doesn’t seem to apply to me.  I’ve taken a few weeks off, and it’s like starting at square one again!  I couldn’t even do a single push-up.  It was like a terribly sad scene from the Biggest Loser, a fatty in her tights and singlet lying spent on the ground after doing half a sit up, with out the benefit of a super hot personal trainer yelling “C’mon Voyager, don’t be beaching yourself now!”

In this exercise routine I devised for myself I did allow for situations like this – somewhat – and I took them.  I really wanted to stick to it though; otherwise I’ll just keep doing less and less until I give up.  That I did – gave myself one day off this week, but otherwise I got through.  I had to take a lot of breaks, so it was slow going, but I feel better for it, and will try and go harder next week.

I’ll be aiming for another half kilo next week.  Can I do it?  Of course.  Will I do it?  Errr…

Well, keep thinking positive thoughts,

Voyager

Thoughts on an Aspergian friend - Limited by ourselves

Recently my Mum ran into the mother of a friend from school.  I hadn’t seen her for awhile, but at the time we and our parents had bonded over the fact that we were both on the spectrum.

We were similar in a lot of ways.  We had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome around the same time in year seven.  Both of us were gifted academically but struggled with our concentration and motivation.  We had no idea how to deal other teenagers, and were each others only friend, ostracised and bullied by all other students and teachers.  Then from about year nine onward, we drifted apart.  Personality wise, we were chalk and cheese.  She was happy to languish in her anxiety and depression problems.  She never wanted to go out, talk about positive things or put effort in her schoolwork or relationships.  She saw no reason to be giving back to the world that had hurt her so much.  As for me, I wanted to try and fit in, learn how to study properly and create a network of neurotypical friends.  She saw my foray into the world of ‘normal’ people as a betrayal and I thought she was being a coward.  After high school, we lost contact.

I knew that we graduated from our respective university degrees at the same time, and I was worried about her.  I can’t see her having the presence of mind to search for jobs, practice for interviews or take the time to write a professional looking resume.  It doesn’t help that she has graduated from a program that has very few jobs available, and I just don’t know how she would handle the corporate world.

As Mum relayed back to me what her mum had said, it seemed my fears were accurate.  Turns out her lack of pro-activity was not just a phase.  Seven months out of the degree, she is unemployed, living at her parents’ house, with no car, no money of her own, and no friends.  The problem, her mum lamented, is that she really isn’t qualified for her dream job.  Her grades were not good enough to get into the post graduate program that she needs.  But she won’t consider another direction, or get a lower position to work her way up.  She did take a counselling job, but she kept getting in trouble for discussing her own mental health problems with clients.  She was told to adhere to the guidelines set out for her, she refused and they let her go.  Her view of life is just too rigid.  Modifying her behaviour would help her out of her rut but she won’t change.  If I’m a Voyager, she’s more of a Houseboat.

Let’s look at where I am comparatively for a minute.  While I feel like I’ve learned some life lessons that she has yet to realise, I would not say I’m faring a whole lot better than her.  Since my early teens I’ve tried denying I had a problem, desperate to live the ‘neurotypical dream.’  The result was a breakdown in which I was forced to face the reality of my disability, and get realistic about my future.  The Houseboat – yes, I’m making that stick – needs to start thinking this way too, hopefully sans nervous breakdown

Having Asperger syndrome might have seemed quirky and subtle while we were at school but both of our futures are in question now.  All of the other kids with AS that I know are still in school, so I can’t compare any further.  In the meantime, I worry.  We may be intelligent, and certainly capable of being valuable employees.  But are our impaired social skills preventing this intelligence from being applied to finding and keeping a job?

I want to change to become easily communicative.  I want to change her so she wants to change her outlook.  But longing to be normal has done no good for me in the past.  All I can do is hope that somehow, someday, we’ll find a way to be ok.

Voyager

Depression strikes - Are you Prepared?

Sooo…I didn’t up this morning.

I woke up at ten, when my alarm went off.  I wasn’t really interested in going back to sleep but I didn’t get out of bed.  I didn’t do anything, really.  I just kind of lay there, not thinking, just sort of taking stuff in like my morning backache, the rattling sounds of my roommate cleaning and the neighbours mowing their lawn.  Eventually I was forced to leave the bed when my need to use the bathroom overcame my need to be stationary.  I happened to glance at the clock to find it was already 2pm.

What the… how do I blow four hours by doing nothing at all?  Was I sleeping?  Probably, intermittently.  But usually when someone becomes aware of morning, it does things to them.  It makes them think about food, exercise, clothes.  Start getting ready for work, or if they don’t have work, they remember all the friends and housework they need to catch up on.  This sort of stuff  isn’t moving for me sometimes. 

These episodes of nothingness happen to me a lot, at least once a week.  Even if I have made plans that day I will not be moved until a urinary tract infection threatens, and often receive calls from confused and angry friends and family demanding to know why they have been stood up.  It upsets me that they are upset, and I have no solid reason to placate them with.  But really burns me up that even the concern for people around me isn’t enough to shake me out of these lengthy and, let’s face it, self indulgent episodes of inactivity.

I can’t talk to anyone about it, no one understands.  It sounds so idiotic:

“so you were in bed all morning?”

“yeah.  Just lying there, doing nothing.  Couldn’t get up.”

“why?  Were you sick?”

“no.”

“have a big night out?”

“no”

“did your alarm go off?”

“yes”

“so why couldn’t you get up?

“I just couldn’t.”

“Why not??”

“I. just. Couldn’t.”

Even I’m confused.

I know what causes it, of course.  This happens as the black dog begins to gain on me, getting in close enough to bite.  I start to hear things and think things I normally try to keep my distance from.  He tells me its worthless getting up, because I’m worthless.  I have nothing to contribute.  I’m leaching off the government, no – one likes being around me, people are just putting up with me.  Getting of bed would mean inflicting the burden of my personality on the world, and what on earth did the poor world do to deserve that?

Lately, a combination of severely injuring my ankle and my employment contract ending means logically that I should be prepared for these sorts of feelings to increase.  So I have a plan.  I already have a list of things to do for when I do get up.  It’s quite generic – housework, cook dinner, go over notes, that sort of thing – but I find that having to decide how to fill up my day tends to prolong my episodes.

This plan is a long term one, because depression never goes away.  It can let up for awhile, but having the best job, relationships and drugs will not protect you forever.  So I would be stupid to throw out my list when things turn around for me.  The dog will return, he always does.  He returned today, but I was prepared.  If I wasn’t, I would probably still be in bed.

Voyager

Useful links

Slowly, ever so slowly this blog comes together.

I've started adding links with some useful information on the right.  It's looking awfully scant at the moment, but I'll add more links if I find some good ones.  So far we have:

http://www.anxietyaustralia.com.au/ A support site covering a variety of anxiety disorders, including panic, social phobia and PTSD.

http://www.aspia.org.au/ Resources for those in a relationship with someone with an autistic spectrum disorder

http://www.autism-help.org/ Info for parents of an Autistic child

http://www.autismspectrum.org.au/ Home of the Aspect organisation.  Lots info for people with ASDs, their families, friends, educators and health professionals, support groups, fundraisers, conferences and social events.

http://www.beyondblue.org.au// Beyondblue is a mental health awareness organisation.  Has info about support systems available for those living with mental illness in Australia.

http://www.livewire.org.au/ An online community for people under 21 for people living with chronic physical and mental health issues.  Also has support sites for family members.

http://moodgym.anu.edu.au/welcome Personally I'm not a fan of self help, but if you don't want to pay $200 a session with a psychologist for Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) then this program is for you. Can be done wherever you have a computer. 

http://www.wrongplanet.net/ Thought of as a community for people with ASDs but all 'neurodiverse' people (Tourettes, Bipolar, Schizophrenics etc) can find something here.  Plenty of resourses and people prepared to share their live lessons.

http://www.ybblue.com.au/ Sister site of BeyondBlue.  Provides mental health awareness for school age children.

Now, Voyager!

Realising you need to change is often a harsh awakening, but that's just momentary.  Enforcing the change is often a long, uphill process.

Welcome to the journey of defeating the dog.  I realised I needed to change last year.  I have four defined conditions - anxiety/panic disorder, asperger syndrome, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder.  As a result, the first 20 odd years of my life have been a tumultuous tale of confusion, discouragement and unhappiness.  As far as mental distress goes, I got pretty far.  Several doctors, psychologists and hospital stays later, I found myself exhausted with life.

After my last discharge from hospital however, exhaustion gave way to movtivation, finally.  I was motivated by the fact that quite frankly, I was a loser.  I was in my twenties but I was not living like a mature adult.  My hospital stays had left me a bitter, angry person more than willing to take this anger out on the innocent bystander for the slightest offence.  I was fat and my memory was shot to shit so I couldn't work or concentrate on my studies.  I had to live at home with my family who were resentful of me for all my disability, illness and money wasted on medical bills had put them through (their words, not mine.)

I could have put up with this. I could have drifted through life, uneducated, unemployed, proved my family, the kids at school and the self rightous hospital staff right.  But as Oprah Winfrey said, success is the best revenge.  So I started trying to life like an adult.  I returned to uni, moved out of home and joined a few sports clubs to get fit and get out of the house.

This is just the beginning though.  Depression and anxiety don't magically go away when you leave hospital or come off your meds.  OCD isn't gone when you learn to control it.  Asperger syndrome never stops sabotaging you, never!  My journey will have many parts.  I need to get a job when my studies are over, make friends and keep the friends I have happy.  I have to navigate a world that I don't understand and am afraid off when all I really want is to hide in my room watching anime for all eternity.  But the responsible adult does not do this.

I'm going to try.  It will be difficult but I've got no choice.  So journey on - whether you are neurotypical or also 'unique-minded' the world doesn't stop just because you do.

Voyager