Reasons why my boyfriend is the best ever...


-- When I say something is too hard, he finds a way to make it doable.

-- When I say I can't do something, he believes me unquestioningly and takes care of it if he can.

-- When he sees that I am upset, he comforts me and tries to remove the stressor even if I am being completely irrational.

-- He is always on my side.

-- He always thinks I can do more, and is there to pick up the pieces when I can't.


He is obviously meant for me. I just hope I can contribute to his life as much as he has to mine.

It is nice to have someone, an NT even, who I can be around without feeling autistic.

So this week I started working with my school's "academic coach," which is essentially an executive functioning coach provided by Services for Students with Disabilities. She is really cool and she is helping me prioritize my work, and I email her every night to let her know how it goes. She is the assistant coordinator of the office so I get the impression she knows her stuff. I think it will be really helpful. Though on Friday she asked me to start charting out how I spend my time and I forgot about it until now. Um. Oops. Go figure. But it is nice to have someone hear how hard managing my life is for me and how RIDICULOUSLY hard I work to compensate and actually believe me. It is really disheartening to constantly be accused of making excuses, always having a "reason" for everything (as if that's a bad thing), refusing to cooperate, not acting my age, etc and so forth. Nobody but my boyfriend and this woman have ever really seemed to believe that I always do the best I can to do the right thing for myself and for others. Nobody else believes how hard I try to not piss anyone off or to take care of what needs to get done. And when you're going to get yelled at anyway, why bother trying? I do still keep trying but it's not as if I need my life to be any harder. Nobody ever seems to understand how hard I try. Every moment of every day I am fighting just to get through to the next moment without making any mistakes or upsetting anyone, and I just CAN'T do it. Nobody sees that. But my coach seems to understand that I need some extra consideration and some help, and that is a relief. At least someone gets it, and has the skills to provide support.

She told me that an aspie student she works with has a therapist who contacted her about starting a support group at our school for students with asperger's. I told her to let me know if there is anything I can do to get that started, and at my next appointment with her I am going to bring it up again. That would be awesome in about four different ways. I am really excited about it and hope it can start up well before I graduate so I can take advantage of it. That would just be so great, to not only have a support group but one specifically for students at our school. Apparently there are loads of us, and I bet it's not just me who's walking around friendless feeling like a misfit. Maybe I could make friends that way or maybe I couldn't, but at least I'd meet people like me FOR ONCE. If I must be an alien from another planet, it'd be nice to meet other aliens once in a while at least.

I wonder how long it is going to take my mom to realize that saying, "but you're 21 years old!" doesn't make me any less autistic when she is asking me to do something I apparently "should" be able to do but can't.

Ohhh well. I am getting my wisdom teeth out on Monday. I really don't want to do laughing gas but I will probably need to. I am not pleased. I need to get ahead in my work between then and now so I can afford to be in a vicodin induced stupor for a couple days.

ADHD

I just found this MARVELOUS post by a woman with ADD. Hopefully she doesn't mind that I borrowed it, or alternatively doesn't find out at all. XD

"I had to return to Adderall after trying to function without it and I was seriously enraged at the scrutiny that my Dr.’s office put me under. I now at least understand where the concern is coming from.
I’m old and my first diagnosis for ADHD was before we got a label. My pediatrician at the time did not want to put me on Ritalin because my dream was to work for NASA or join the Air Force and prior use of Ritalin was flagged for pilots. He had my mother give me Sudafed, 2 tablets twice a day. My teachers were great and made exceptions for me that didn’t help me “fit in” but that kept me from getting suspended. My chair would be removed so I had to stand in the back of the class but it kept me from leaning back in it and rocking excessively and in between recesses and lunch my teachers would just point at the door when I was getting wound too tight and that was my signal to take a lap around the track and come back.

I am anti-drug and if my need wasn't so great, I would avoid it all together. Because I am responsible for the wellbeing of my family, I am medicated.

For those of you that are “taking Adderall when needed” or are complaining about “feeling it” I would like you to know that for me, there is no “feeling it”. I take 60mg-90mg daily and religiously and my heart rate never increases, if I sit still for too long without some form of mental stimulation, I can fall asleep one hour after taking it. My “feeling it” is when I don’t take it. Residual ADD/ADHD is not just the inability to stay focused or one’s desire to overachieve. I fear myself when I am not medicated. I will start a bath and then agree with the kids that we should bake a cake- put the cake in the oven and realize that the bathroom is flooded- go to the garage to get the fans and heaters and be reminded that the cake is done----by the smoke alarm. I have left my truck running all day because I wanted it warm when the kids and I went to the store. Since the Tinker Toys were next to my car keys and the kids were in an awesome mood, we sat and played with the damn Tinker Toys until we were hungry for lunch---in our winter coats and scarves because we were going to the store---to get the bread for lunch. This is where the depression associated with ADD/ADHD comes in. Symptoms will often be listed as “accompanied by depression or low self esteem”. How worthless as a mother would you feel? So when I can be consistent with my medication, it is not taken “when needed”, used because “I have to work 2 jobs”, “be a domestic God”, “shred every other Scout or soccer mom”,” loose weight” or “recover from a late night of partying” it is so I can get from A to Z without blowing up B through Y in the process. So, please leave my drug alone before your recreational use leads to even stricter distribution protocol or before the medications become black labeled all together. If you are getting wired from the stuff, you have been misdiagnosed or you are over medicated. As for the recommendation of Benadryl, Nyquil, Tylenol PM and whatever else was listed above- please know that you are playing with your brain’s chemistry and those A’s that you recreational users are trying to achieve won’t be any good when you give yourself schizophrenia. Spend a few minutes with Google and look up the rates of amphetamine induced psychosis related to withdrawal and maybe common sense will set in. Maybe."


YES! Finally someone else who gets it.