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It is clear to see why people have fears of abandonment and also why change is so hard when it is not maintained. Life is so fast paced and early behaviours get so ingrained into your subconscious that noticing them is hard, let alone acting on them.

Making time for myself, maintaining healthy changes and trying not to hyperfocus on future outcomes has been my main work; though I have (unsurprisingly) found it hard to remember to do the coping mechanisms when overwhelmed.

My brother noted that I have more nervous energy than usual and I look like a wreck, which is always nice to hear. It was especially notable because it did not feel obvious to me, I knew I was quieter than normal but I did not realise how outwardly visible troubles can be. Admittedly, I can be screaming/singing and crying in the car for 30 minutes on the freeway the day before so I am not sure why I was surprised.

What I Have Read

- Self-care for autistic people– I bought this book to be delievered as soon as I landed in the UK because I believed that I needed something to give me practical work and tips to do when I was spinning out. In retrospect, it was maybe not so needed but it came with a lot of therapy concepts reimagined for those on the spectrum and short, sharp sections with implementable actions was nice.

- The Autistic Survival Guide to Therapy – An audiobook that I powered through during a few long drives and, while it is mostly anecdotal, it does show the need for self-advocacy and provides some powerful examples of how Autism can be misdiagnosed as many other disorders, significantly impacting patient's lives and the paths they take.

- But You Did Not Come Back – Listening to this on the coach trip to Auschwitz felt necessary somehow and allowed me to feel closer to the author and to try to fully grasp the scope of the Final Solution; from the zoomed out genocide perspective to the individual lives impacted.

What I Have Learned

This is something that I feel can be broken down into a series of quotes, maybe that is how I create context or maybe these quotes were significant enough to stand out.

I am not a passenger

Finally watching the movie, Supernova, after years on my watchlist, the scenery is as stunning as the soundtrack. Emotionally, the tone of the movie feels disparate but a quote that stood out was one of the characters, suffering from dementia, saying that they have become a “passenger in their body” but “they are not a passenger”. The pain and fear of losing your mind and fragments of time is not something I can imagine but they said it with such conviction that it felt like they were

Labels are solely for guidance

Since all of this, I have looked for labels, for clarity to understand and explain why these things have happened. This has sent me down rabbit holes on co-dependency, complex trauma, borderline personality disorder and maybe some of those apply.

But why am I looking for another label? I have been handed “autism” so why should it be anything else? I think the dismissive response from previous therapy (and people) has also made me dismissive of it. This prevented me from embracing useful self-care techniques, or looking for therapy that is catered to someone who is neurodivergent.

A key example of this is this: I have spent years working through mood journaling, body scans, emotional colour wheels to try and determine what I am feeling. Except it never took into account that maybe I do not have that skill. Maybe I cannot select emotions from a list of 60 emotions.

The Arousal-Valence model is a way of identifying emotional state based on physical state and is based on 2 criteria (sadly, this is very academic in its design):

1. How energised/calm I feel

2. How “good” I feel

That is it. For those with Autism, or Autism and Alexithymia, this is infinitely more simple to detect.

- Energised + Bad = Anxious/Stressed/Overthinking etc

- Calm + Good = Happy/Content etc

Such a simple approach compared with forcing myself (or even being recommended) to sit and try to visualise movement of breath through my body and what it may look like. It also makes mood logging easier and self check ins can be done in seconds.

Avoiding Rejection Obstructs Connection

This was mentioned in the “Secure Love” book and it was the most relatable thing that jumped out at me. I may not always know my emotional state or even if I feel more “on edge” than normal but I typically know if I am trying to avoid a conflict or rejection from someone I love. Doing that is harmful for me and them but, most importantly, it creates the distance I want to reduce; pushing them further away and dooming myself to repeat the same cycle. This, in itself, can be caught and known early enough to increase communication and way before any negative urges to self-sooth arise.

What I Am (still) Learning

What my are my needs?

As I tend to veer towards the negative, I typically view my own thoughts and needs as something I do not deserve. This is obviously even more valid when it is coupled with shame and harmful actions. Accepting that I cannot always recognise my own emotional state, it is only reasonable to assume that I do not know my own needs straight away as well; this is certainly true as I try to learn behaviours anew.

Living in vs/ Living with Uncertainty

This whole month in the UK has been a boiling pot of reflection, catching myself in a state of ennui and brief moments of confidently feeling good about the future.

Handling the unknown and uncertainty of the future certainly feels more doable now, as I have been doing it each day, and knowing what mechanisms have worked (or not) for me is priceless. These reflections, for example, are much harder to do as time goes on; not only because of life getting in the way but the realisations and processing is more complex. Before the openness, I had my internal shame and I had my own narrative, reasons for everything and lived in a shell of “I have the answers”, which maybe protected me from further reflecting on my actions (and possibly justified them somehow as I “knew the reasons”).

What to do with all this?

This is not a journey/process that “ends” and having answers does provide comfort but comes with the caveat that they may change. I have always believed that the primary sources of my fears and negative actions came from a learned fearful-avoidant attachment style and a strong defense mechanism built to avoid feeling the pain of loss like I felt when my father died.

Reading “The Autistic Survival Guide to Therapy” indicates that may not be true and the autism label might be more prevalent in my life than I allowed it to be. It also highlights how traditional therapies (even those adapted for neurodivergence) may do more harm than good and how important it is to acknowledge that during a therapeutic process; something I need to ensure I am doing moving forward.