why i think WP should be used in moderation.

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yes, that's what it is...but it will all get better ....i'm feeling nostalgia for something that never was. i'm totally emo lol....it feels nice to have such support

Moderation...what's that? I think that I'm going to fall flat on my face like the 60s generation that I identify with.

I lived in France for a while and found it very hard - particularly as a foreigner who had problems learning the language (great with the grammer, writing and reading, but unable to process what people said for years) and couldn't adapt to the social structures which were different from those I was used to (and hence better at). I also ended up with a not so pleasant experience of the French psychiatric services.

Basically, when living in France I gave up - tried to socialise as much as I had previously, ended up losing the friends I had made to start with. Everything became too much effort. I discovered WP when I was there and it was a lifeline. Since coming back to the UK I use WP less, but have become more my normal self in my daily life, and find that in fact I seem to socialise more than I ever used to when I lived here before. People seem to like the real me better than when I used to hide everything and be afraid to speak. WP and a potential (albeit nonofficial) diagnosis of AS has given me more confidence to be myself. Knowing that other people act like me and that it isn't my fault makes me less ashamed. I have also realised that I seem to have other attributes that make people like me, which can compensate for the lack of social ability. Maybe I am not viewed in the same way as other people, and I am never going to be the person people turn to in a crisis (thank goodness), but I do feel accepted (most of the time) and I am proud of being myself and will refuse to act otherwise just to fulfill some arbitrary social expectations. My general impression is that France is not a nice place to be for an Aspie, particularly one who has not had the social rules drummed into them from birth.

i'm not totally sure i understand but...are you asking for a definition for moderation? i might have used the wrong word, english is not my language.....

Actually, I did manage to cut my time here in half, over the summer.

merrymadscientist: what were your experiences with french psychiatry? my son is going to be diagnosed, and i'm worried about this. i'm having nightmares to be honest.

Bejesus, why is France so difficult for aspies? I would have thought the opposite but am only guessing.

french people are terribly judgemental. they have a short window of what is considered "appropriate "and it doesn't include giving a sandwitch to your kid EVER, for fear of seeing social services at your door lol....i'm not joking here. i got a bad look from a teacher because my son said he had had pizza.

I already use this site in moderation anyway. It's been natural for me to come on here whenever I feel depressed about my AS or whatnot or need to gather some information on stuff. I will usually spend a few days on here, get distracted with other stuff, and then eventually come back around.

There are other forums, however that have greatly consumed my life in ways you wouldnt imagine.

what's wrong with sandwiches and pizza?

Absolutely. Being in "normal mode" is exhausting--I need a break.



That's exactly how I felt when I found out.

On reflection, I think I know what's going on with you.

It's like when I run. I'm not very good, but as long as I don't stop, I can go... a short distance. But after I stop once, I can't start up again. The exhaustion just catches up with me. I think that's what's happening to you.

I have been wasting a lot of time here. I do think it can give a false sense of belonging. But, mostly I see it as another form of procrastination for me.

If you can just use WP as a place to recharge your batteries or to escape for a little while, then you can better deal with daily stresses. They say one way to help with ADHD executive function difficulties is to use a timer on your daily tasks. If you limit yourself to a set time and enforce it, then you shouldn't feel sucked into the WP world, since you will have a sense of control over it. It sounds to me like France isn't very tolerant. I hope to travel there one day, but it is good to know to bring my NT hat.

Well, the negative experience was being hospitalised for three weeks. I have been hospitalised once in the UK and found it to be a lot of support, nurses trying to engage me, activities etc. In France it was pretty much like being put in prison for three weeks (in fact fellow 'inmates' were saying that the food was worse than prison!). I was in theory voluntary, but once I was there they confiscated my keys and bank card (for safety apparently - true there was a kleptomaniac on the ward) and I had to ask for special permission to leave for a visit home, which was denied if they felt I wasn't well enough. All the wards were locked wards and there was nothing at all to do apart from watch the one TV, play some old board games or pace the courtyard (my main activity as I was missing my regular exercise and the weather was lovely, as always in Nice). Rather than being a place for people acutely ill to get well, it seemed to be a depositary for anyone not fitting in - there were autistic and mentally disabled people, people with dementia and one person (if what he said was correct) who was serving time for criminal offenses provoked by mental illness. Not a single nurse once came to talk to me about anything - they seemed to be there more to administer medication and physical help to people that couldn't do things for themselves, and when they weren't doing that or administration, spent time in their own social room chatting amongst themselves. So different from the UK. Some relished their positions of power and I felt humiliated on a couple of occasions being treated like a child rather than a 30 year old woman. And to be honest I think that being a foreigner meant that they didn't feel able to restrict my freedoms as much as they did those of others.

But the main thing that I don't like about the attitude of France to mental illness (and I think other illnesses too) is over medication. I was put on full doses of three different medications including an antipsychotic known to cause severe weight gain despite saying I was sensitive about my weight. The eventual side effects debilitated me more than the original symptoms had done (in terms of being able to work and do things I was interested in), and when I finally came off them all I became more profoundly depressed (admittedly in a different and less unstable way) than I had been before - still getting over that after two years and I feel it has changed my personality and my whole outlook on life and possibly destabilised me more for any future stresses. Whilst I was there I was horrified to see a quiet, calm patient who was refusing medication (understandably) be surrounded by 20 nurses, escorted off to the locked room on the ward and emerge 2 days later as a drooling zombie. Another patient who had previously emerged from that room had been tied down to the bed around his wrists and ankles until they became sore (only reaffirming his belief that he was God). Most people were so medicated that they slept practically all the time.

I will admit that when I left hospital the support was better than I had had in the cash strapped NHS (where I got to see my own GP once a month and never ended up having another appointment with a psychiatrist again). In France I got a 10 min appointment with a psychiatrist every month until I came off medication and he was a good doctor (I think it does depend who you get). He was sympathetic, he helped me reduce the medication that I couldn't stand to be on and understood when I decided to stop taking one of them, then realised when there was a problem again and prescribed another, very reduced dose of an antipsychotic that genuinely helped me (other doctors might have had me hospitalised again as I was having violent thoughts towards someone else). I think that it really depends who you get. The other good thing is that psychiatric treatment seems to be independent of the social security system (maybe because many users are not paying into the system) and was all free at point of use (I had private health insurance as my salary was initially contribution free, and then in the last 9 months the law was changed and I was in the social security system - actually a disadvantage as I had to pay 30% of my medication cost whereas before the insurance had covered it all). But it was good that money or social security cover wasn't an issue for seeing the psychatrist - I think my health insurance would have only covered the first 3 or 4 months. The only negative with him was that as soon as I was off medication he signed me off and that was when my mood just dropped to its lowest extent for a couple of months. Not surprising if the brain has got used to accumulating serotonin for 15 months.

As the mother of your son you should be able to advocate for him if he needs help - it seems that in France a lot of people get admitted to hospital involuntarily because their relatives say they should be and a doctor agrees (here in the UK it is only if two doctors and another mental health professional say so). I did mention once possibly having AS, but noone seemed to know what on earth I was talking about. It is frustrating that in hospital they seemed to be expecting me to become 'normal' with medication (more sociable - ironically I did feel very sociable because I got along with the other social rejects there better than I did with the normal people I worked with, but clearly this wasn't enough), which obviously was never going to happen. Try to avoid having meltdowns in front of doctors, as it probably puts your case back (hard I know when they are accusing you of deliberately shirking medicines that are supposed to 'help' you, yet are in fact causing you bizarre and distressing side effects which are NOT part of your illness).

I don't know how old your son is, but if a child and if autistic, then try not to allow him to be over-medicated. Autistic people are more sensitive to medications in general (I did much better on 10% of the normal dose of antipsychotic than the full amount) and I would be very wary of putting a developing brain on any psychotropic medication at all, particularly as people know so little about causes of illnesses and effects of medications. Inform yourself about autism, whatever else your son may be diagnosed with and any medications he is prescribed/ that you think might help.

that's exactly the feeling, actually. as long as i was listening to my ipod and unaware i was running, i was fine. right now i just feel like i fell into an armchair and never want to get up again.....
merrymad scientist: that's quite frightening. but yeah, nobody knows much about autism here. some associations are more advanced than our doctors. my son is 9, and i suspect all they will do is put him under medication for adhd or something. i will contact an association before i take him to a pedopsychiatrist, , maybe get some advocacy in there you never know.

i feel more alienated on WP than i do in real life. in real life, i do not expect anyone to understand my curious ideas, and when i started on WP i did expect people to understand.

but on WP, everyone seems to be very interested in displaying their plumage, and in real life, people are just trudging along with their day.

there are so many things about myself that can not be conveyed in just my written words, and i have come to understand that here on WP, i am not seen for anything other than what i express in words.

the nuances of my personality, and the slight expressions on my face, and the things i choose to look at in the real world that attract people to want to look at me being me, are not conveyed here on WP, where only words can be seen.

i realized after a few months of being here, that a description is worth 1/1000 th of a real life experience with me.

people may say "hmmm...that was well worded", but they will never say "wow! i relate to the way you see the world because i see how your personality bends and stretches with the convolutions of daily experiences".

so i have almost retreated from WP, because it is a grind of words and phrases, and those that can stamp out a well worded post that captures their mood at that instant of time are the ones who will attract a following of people who are interested to hear what they will say next.

my mind is always in a flux state, and i can never state exactly what my personality is at any given instant, and so my posts are largely ignored.

WP has taught me that the real world is so much more promising of satisfaction derived from people who "know me", because all the time i have been on WP, all i have managed to do is write lots of stuff which is a snapshot of one aspect of me, and it is not very attractive to read because it is not a moving drama, but a slice in time.

in real life, i do not have to say anything. people look at me and they know the flow i am in, and they can flow with me.
i may screw my face up and shake my head and say nothing at something i see, but it will make many people who see me understand where i am coming from.

here on WP, i must write a long winded description of an instant in my flow, and if people like what i wrote, it means little because what i am thinking 2 seconds after posting it is a whole new story.

WP has taught me that the real world is so dynamic, and it contains the possibility of anyone ever really knowing me in the flow of time.
on WP, all people see of me is what i chose to write in one instant like a snapshot of a sequence.

anyway that is all i have to say about that in words, and the rest of what i feel will remain with me.