back again...and violently inertial...advise?

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joined some time ago...then went stealth, then went away. i'm back (and tippy-toeing out of the lurker closet) because i am drifting aimlessly toward a very rocky shoreline. get up each day intending to go look for a job, but agoraphobia reinforced by being overwhelmed by stimuli-what my wonderful NT brother calls "the world being too much with me"-keeps me from making any directed progress that isn't crisis-driven. no, i'm not clinically depressed, though there are spasms of anxiety and periodic bouts of "i'm a hideous failure". you'd think being unemployed and living off of disability would be a crisis, and thus would drive me-nope. apparently fear of getting my phone shut off was crisis enough for me to spend 2 1/2 hours on the phone with AT&T disputing the bill and arranging a payment plan. apparently an ear infection became enough of a crisis when blood and foul-smelling liquid began pouring from my ear-i finally got to a doctor. apparently running out of cigarettes can send me on a walk to the store. i mention these to show that my priorities are a bit inexplicable. maybe it's the ambiguity...there is no reason to think that looking for a job will bring a result, michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the nation. but why can't i seem to fill out the tax forms for my "economic stimulus check"?
how do i become more effective? i once held a job as a prep cook. lots of noise, but i was so focused in on the action...i actually enjoyed it. right now, i'm doing a whole lot of zoning and not much else. maybe it's the change in environment...but i moved from alabama to michigan last november. it's a big latitude shift, but i've been here almost a year. i can intellectually realize that in all probability this is an emergency...but i can't seem to ACT. does this make sense to anyone? i'm so easily driven into inner space these days...don't know what to do...

It sounds like depression to me. I'm sorry. Life can be so hard sometimes.

cheer-up

you have friends here to listen

welcome back to WP

I fear I will not be able to get a job when the time comes to it, anyway welcome back.

leila: yes, it sounds like depression...and there is probably an element of that. but i feel more disconnected than depressed...so hard to tell, sometimes. i've got to hook up with mental health at some point, my doctor's office doesn't want to continue doing what they call "prescribing psych meds without a license". when i point out the inherent illogic of that, they say my need to be overprecise is an indication that i need to see a psychiatrist...so exasperating.
the problem with mental health is that they don't always (frequently don't) put much credence in my take of what's going on in my head. for example, i convert low-level "noise" into "signal"...dishwasher or a/c hum into voices, complete with occasionally understandable words. of late the words i am not actually hearing are my roommates saying critical things about me...but since once i move around and locate the "noise" the "signal" stops (recognize the dishwasher, no longer hear phantom speech); i regard the words i don't actually hear as a message from my own head. but in the past psych pros have regarded what is actually pareidolia (an actual word exists for hearing meaning in ambiguous stimuli!) as hallucination and paranoia. i sooo do not want to deal with that.
bradleigh: thanks for the welcome back...and if it helps, that fear is common to NTs your age too...though being like we are adds a different set of fears, i must admit. could you be more specific about what scares you? (if you want...if you like...)
ironangel: thanks. at least here people "get it"...
i'd like some counseling, because though i'm good at processing through writing and sketching and just plain daydreaming it out, i seem to be circling right now. but therapists, though they enjoy my verbal virtuosity at first, seem to interpret me eventually as either more ill than i am or as a malingerer. the first is dangerous to my freedom, the second has endangered my life, both are annoying and humiliating. i've had a few excellent therapists. well...i've had three. and one was actually a nurse practitioner who scheduled me for thirty minute instead of fifteen minute sessions because she was the only person at that mental health center who i was able to build any kind of rapport with. most have done well to do no harm, and that they managed because i'm very protective of my innerspace. still recall the therapist who called me at home and asked if i was having suicidal thoughts and was shocked when i told her that was a bit too personal. she said: "i'm your therapist!" i told her that if i called her, she was my therapist. if she called me and it wasn't a callback, she rated a half-step above a telemarketer. sue me, i'm a smartass. i'd canceled appointments with her because i couldn't stand her intrusiveness (and told her that, that she was trampling my boundaries), and was awaiting reassignment. so she decides to call me in the interim to ask me about suicidal ideation? was there something about the word "intrusive" that she didn't understand?
and...i'm ranting. question is, how much do i tell of what symptoms? no matter what i do or say, some people will see as symptom what is simply...me. my level of social connectedness (not very) is comfortable for me, and thus not a psychiatric issue or symptom. i've been pressed to be less "isolated" before...hard for some people to get that "less isolated" translates to: "drowning in a sea of overstimulated neurons" for me. i am NOT going to get used to gatherings of people. exposing myself to social gatherings will NOT help me "get past it"...i don't have a social phobia, i just can't take the clatter of the IRL-RPG. work is different, when i'm working. i have a focus, everyone else has a focus-and it's not me, and they don't expect it to be them. but multiphasic social interaction? i can't do that dance. i will never learn the steps.
i need to be more active than i am. i need to get moving. i need to figure out what's blocking me. but how do i get from where i am to where i need to be?

To WrongPlanet!! !

Welcome to WP!

Welcome to WP!

I admire the fact that you could be a Prep Cook, memorizing all those orders! With those skills, you could become a Court Stenographer. I can never do either, no matter how much bills are piling up. Perhaps you could get a "temp" job doing data-entry typing, something I've been doing for 27 1/2 years?

I, obviously, do not know you. However, it seems to me that you know about cause and effect (e.g., one must make money to buy cigarettes!) That is the first step on the road to recovery: insight! I don't believe you're as unhealthy as you think you are. There are many people who lack the ability to see cause and effect.

There MUST be a way for you to break that Berlin Wall preventing you from accomplishing much. If I knew you better, perhaps I could come up with a solution. However, hope should never be lost; there's too many beautiful things out there for us to see. And many require the bucks to get there!

I would bet you have the intelligence and the wherewithal to come up with a way to break that wall YOURSELF! I believe sometimes one must think in ABSOLUTES, rather than RELATIVITIES. I believe this is the case here. You must tell yourself that you MUST place metaphorical dynamite upon that symbolic wall, and BLAST IT TO SMITHEREENS! The MEANS might be metaphorical, but I believe the END RESULT would be clear and tangible, not symbolic. It woudl mean rising another level on the road out of Purgatory, to the point where you could EARN A LIVING FOR YOURSELF.

I hope I'm not too long-winded (a salient characteristic of Aspies). But, truly, I've had to use my Will on a number of occasions to change my ciircumstances of living; it was painful, but it was rewarding in the end.

Again, Welcome back to WP!

ah yes...donkort, i do tend to get lost in the relativity of things, because for me that is the reality of things. no absolutes (a paradox i love to bother people with: "there is absolutely no such thing as an absolute") and duality is an illusion...
but the imagination coupled with the WILL can be a powerful force. visualization has been proven to improve performance in actual fact. so perhaps if i visualize myself doing what i need to do, see it clearly...?

Someone who can write forum the posts like that can't be depressed. Depressed is like, staring at ceiling and not being able to do anything. I get that sometimes, and I feel like, "Oh I need to see a doctor!... Nah, forget it... But it's serious!... Yeah, right..." You're just feeling disconnected, and that's understandable. It goes away in time. Distract yourself. Just do something fun, assuming you still find some things fun. Otherwise, there's really nothing left to do but stare at the ceiling.

Dear echokynthei,

What does your name mean? (not the terri one). Does it have to do with something about repeating Cynthia?

I just posted my profile and found yours nearby and read it and thought, wow, I'm glad like someone like you exists and female too. I never thought someone who posts like you do really exists...you aren't a chat bot are you?

I'm disabled too...70% and going for 100% but haven't made it yet. My rules with the system are: 1) don't lie or cheat and 2) take whatever take whatever the system wants to give you that you want since the system will inevitably waste it in some other way.

I happen to have a Master's degree in psychology, no lie but I do have one fault in that I do lie sometimes. I'm not lying now though....well, I don't care if you don't believe me because I'm not your therapist anyhow.

Anyway, I don't think that you need me to tell you what to do or something because I don't think that is really what you want anyway.

Thanks for posting. It made my day.

I just like talking with you because your thoughts have a familiar ring to me and so maybe I just enjoy the echo in a narcissistic kind of way.

"echokynthei" is my little portmanteau creation, one part english word/greek myth, other part gaelic.
"kynthei" means "kin" or "kindred" in gaelic.

so you tell me, frogman52...are you kith & kin to echo(es)? there's a definite narcissistic element to my choice, as "echo" is an actual nickname for me, IRL...weirdly, it's part of my actual name...echoes have followed me throughout my life, but i have to say unrequited love has never been much of an issue for me...um, yeah right. could our two posts be a BIT more self-referential? ah well. i enjoy strange loopiness, and as nietzsche said: "without chaos in your soul you can't give birth to a dancing star"

am i here for someone to tell me what to do? not exactly. i've hardly provided enough information for that, anyway. mostly i'm throwing a segment of my various issues out there, and hoping to get a clearer view that way. sort of achieving clarity through paralallax.

Have you considered looking for a therapist with experience treating people with AS and autism? I get the impression that the people you've been seeing just don't get the whole sensory overload thing.

Since you're agoraphobic, have you considered teleworking? There are a lot of companies out there that allow their employees to work at home. Also, you might want to contact the ADA to see what advice they might have for you. They should be familiar with what accomodations could be made for your disability.

You can do all of this online.

An honor to meet you, echokynthei. Hang in there, friend.

You know, I read this as a post that is a couple months old, but since I can identify with it, I decided that I would write just to say, well, I'm the same way. It is not depression, nor any typical clinical sort of thing where someone should write you something for it and you'll be all better. I take nothing except for my asthma and thyroid condition,but I have that inertia problem. I'm a writer, and it takes me forever to finish something, forever to find markets and to get a story or poem ready to send out. I accept now that to get through some task, it takes me quite a while. A schedule helps me out quite a bit, and I have had to learn the discipline to get through my own schedule that I made for myself. It takes a lot just to get to the point where I could say, I need to do this. But I can get through something only if I take big breaks where I lay on my futon and zone out completely. I've read where other writers and poets are the same way, but I don't think its exclusive to being a writer. It's how we deal with the world. Your own system telling you it needs a break from the world. But you can accomplish stuff by learning to set just one thing to do and then doing that. Next day, make it two things. Once you're system learns to make it through each new task before taking a break, you'll be on a very long path to learning how to get around the need to tune out. It takes a long time; it's do-able. Be patient with yourself. You are all you've got.

Inertia is a common Aspie "symptom"

don't worry about it too much, worrying makes it worse