The Suicidal Thoughts You Keep Fighting Everyday PART 3 - Medication Problems , Financial Stress & Feeling Scared

Hello everyone , I hope everyone is well and looking forward to there weekend.

 Personally the past couple of weeks have been mentally draining and in my last blog post I talked about how I was struggling to cope with my anxiety and that I made the decision to go back to the doctors and ask for help. 
The outcome of that was that I was put back on anti-depressants venafalxine  , however I reacted to the medication prescribed and ended up been taken into hospital in an ambulance , which I am still struggling to understand why I reacted to it when I had venaflaxine for years but stopped taking them when I found out I was pregnant with my eldest daughter. After my hospital trip I went back to my doctor and he agreed medication would not be best for me , especially when my anxiety revolves around what is put in my body it is just going to cause more anxiety and distress.
I am trying to get through each day , I feel mentally , physically and emotionally drained. 
Financial stress and worry is not helping my anxiety either. My husband and I are struggling financial , struggling to pay bills and to put food on the table each week. There is sometimes weeks we avoid food shopping because we know we cant afford it , we always make sure are children are fed and there is always something there for them but there is times were we have skipped meals so there is enough food to last the rest of the week. The financial stress is causing arguments between us which I suppose finance is one of the most common things couples fight. It is just constantly one thing after another money wise , there is more going out than there is coming in. 
My anxiety is making me want to hurt myself because that is the only way I can feel any release from it. I am scared of myself and I sometimes think I am my own worst enemy. I feel nothing but hate towards myself at the moment , I sometimes feel like I want to run away and hide but I know my babies need me even if I feel like the worst mum in the world. They are the reason I am still here fighting everyday. Any happiness I feel , a constant unnerving  feeling of guilt always seems to be in the my stomach. It is a constant vicious circle....




I am going to leave today's blog post there and continue with updates.

Thank you for reading 

Love Ava

xox

Autism... The Difference Between Hypersensitive And Hyposensitive ( Sensory Stimulation )

Autism is such a variety of a spectrum , every individual is different and unique meaning each individual will react in different ways to sensory stimulation to each other. The two common responses to sensory stimulation are categorized into " Hypersensitive "and " Hyposesitive ." A person with Autism will often be either hypersensitive or hyposensitive , although that does not mean that an individual can not have characteristics of both categories , like myself! I have Autism and I have characteristics that are in both hypersensitive and hyposensitive. 

Hypersensitive 

Hypersensitive means that an individual with Autism will over react to specific sensory stimulations which a person with Autism would not be affected by.

An individual will often avoid the sensory that causes them distress and discomfort. The sensory that an individual can find sensitive can be anything related to sound , sight , touch , smell and taste. For people who do not have Autism or do not understand Autism the individual with Autism's reaction to a specific sensory may come across as over dramatic " Diva" or arrogant behaviour , without actually understand that the sensory distressing for the individual can sometimes be physically painful especially if the individual has a sensitivity to sight or sound.

Things I am personally sensitive too 

Sight : I am sensitive to specific colours such as bright yellow and orange. I find them painful and uncomfortable to look at. Which means  I often find it difficult to be out in the sun for long periods of time as the brightest is too painful and overwhelming. 

In my room I have dimmed lights because the bright lights are too much for me to handle and the same with the living room lights I use a lamp instead of the main lights.

Sound : I am sensitive to sounds such as a clock ticking , the radiator making a noise , scratching on clothing , paper and surfaces as well as tapping on surfaces , alarms and bells , lawnmowers or somebody making noises with their mouth. All these sounds often make feel very uneasy and distressed. 

Touch : Certain textures can make me very anxious such as suede , silk , dry skin , felt , crepe , wool and fur. 

Smell : Cleaning products , meat products or fast food smells can make me feel sick and I find it difficult to handle being around the smells. 

Hyposensitive 






Hyposensitive is the complete opposite to Hypersensitive , meaning the individual is under sensitive to sensory stimulation and can often be unresponsive to sensory. For example an individual may crave certain hot and spicy foods , but they have no awareness of the temperature of there food , which a person without Autism would be fully aware that their body would not be able to handle that temperature of heat , whereas a person with Autism who is Hyposensitive would not understand the danger of that. Another example is an individual with Autism who is Hyposensitive may not hear things being said verbally or sounds and noises such as alarms , loud music , doorbells , hoovers or lawnmowers and banging of items . Although there is nothing actually wrong with the individual's hearing in itself , but because of the abnormal information processing in the brain the individual may not be able to pick up on certain sounds and noises , which would make them appear unresponsive. 



Things I Can Be Under Sensitive Too




Sound - Although I am sensitive to certain sounds such as a clock ticking , the radiator making a noise , scratching on clothing , paper and surfaces as well as tapping on surfaces , alarms and bells , lawnmowers or somebody making noises with their mouth. I am very unresponsive to verbal communicate , I often can't hear people talking to me and I look to others ( My mum most of the time ) to try and explain what they have said because I can't physical hear them. Sometimes I don't even hear my mum or family members talking to me , or I only tune in at the end of what they are trying to tell me. My mum use to joke that it was selective hearing ( That is often how it can appear.)



Touch - I am fairly tolerant to psychical or self inflective  pain , as someone who use to self harm from being depressed I use to cut my wrists often and it wouldn't hurt even though wrists were a bloody mess , I wouldn't psychically feel " Pain " as such it was more a " Release" or "Relaxed " sensation. 



Body Awareness - I often rock and swing on chairs without realise I am doing it or fidget in a seated environment. I can be oblivious to peoples person space such as standing to close to them or unaware that I am in the way of them.

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Love Ava 
xoxo

   

The Struggles Of Autism ( Living With Autism )

Autism is a spectrum disorder which means it is greatly varied and affects individuals differently. People who do not understand Autism have a misconception of understanding the spectrum disorder , people often assume that Autism will affect individuals in the same way and that everyone with Autism is the same. 
       Every person with Autism is different and unique , but can relate with each other with the difficulties we face everyday. I myself have Autism and find things daily to be difficult , although the struggles and difficulties I face may vary to another individual with Autism. The daily battles with face everyday will of course differ for everyone depending on how mild or severe they are on the Autistic spectrum. 


   The Three Main Traid of Impairments We Struggle With  

. Social communication and interaction 

. Verbal and non- verbal language 

. Thinking and behaving ( social imagination ) 

How Autism Affects Me In Daily 

. Communication - I find it difficult to communicate with people face to face , speaking over phone and even understanding the contents of emails. I find it uncomfortable to speak to people in person , I feel anxious, stressed and eye contact can often be physically painful due to being overwhelmed by the situation. 

Coordination - I often find fiddly things difficult to coordinate , for example organising books or files might take me longer than somebody without Autism to do , or even tying  or untying things can be complicated to do. Dropping things and bumping into things is a fairly regular thing for me. Clumsiness is very common for somebody with Autism. 



Lack of understanding people's langue - People with autism including myself can often be very playful and sarcastic , however we find difficult to understand other people's sarcasm or humour. We find it difficult to read if somebody is joking and we often take things literally , which causes use to be very sensitive around people as we tend to take everything personally. 




Sensory sensitive - Every individual with Autism finds something related to either sight , touch , sound , smell or taste very sensitive to cope with. For example certain colours can be sensitive for an individual with Autism for me personally I am sensitive to the colours orange and yellow , which both colours can often be painful for me to look at and can make me panic. Sounds such as scratching on surfaces like a table , pieces of paper , a chalk board or even a pair jeans can be overwhelming for me to heard and I often become anxious. Even noises such as somebody mowing the lawn or an alarm going of can be disturbing. Certain textures can make me panic especially " terrycloth". Even when I was a little girl and my mum would touch me on the hand and when she had dry skin on her hands I would start to scream because the texture of the dry skin would make me uncomfortable. 




     

Routine  - Like most individuals with Autism I have a routine in my head of how I do things daily and the timing of those routines. If my routine is changed or disturbed I can become very anxious and uncomfortable. I can become very frustrated with myself because everything becomes out of order or out of place. A slight change or unexpected events that may occur can mean I wont settle for the rest of the day and become uneasy. 





Repetitive patterns - I can often be fidgety such as when sitting on a chair rocking back and forwards or fidgeting about. I always have to check things are switched off 3 times ( ALWAYS 3 ), such as the oven , fireplace , light switch , water tap or making sure the front and back door is locked. I tend to repeat stories that I have already told without realising I have already told them. Constantly fixing and rearranging things like if I am out shopping and a food tin or jar is facing the wrong way I have to fix it ( most of the time I don't even realise I am doing it ). I am always fiddling with objects around me as I tend to be intrigued by objects even if it is just an empty bottle. 









Every individual with Autism is different but we can all relate to each other on some level. People often misjudge Autism because of there lack of understanding about the condition and sadly the media does not raise enough awareness about the condition. In actual fact the media often presents Autism to the public in a negative light by publishing incorrect information about the condition based on one incident that may of happened . For example a shooting that happened not so long ago in the United States, and the gunman happened to have Autism. The media portrayed Autism to be a dangerous and fearful condition based on one individual. When in actual fact  97%  of people with Autism would not hurt a fly , they are most likely to end up hurting themselves out of  frustration or suffering with depression rather than being a threat to the rest of society.  








Unfortunately these are some of the headlines and comments we can often see the media portraying Autism : 



" Parents just letting there children misbehaving , pure laziness! Just give them a good smack "


( Actually children with Autism can not control misbehaving because they don't understand what is going on and why everything seems so difficult. They " misbehave" out of frustration at themselves. 



" Autism wrecks lives"

( Yes , Autism is difficult for an individual and their family but the only person it affects is the individual themselves. Often families are very supportive of a person with Autism and learn to adjust to there needs because it is what families do for there loved ones. Everything might seem 10 times harder for an individual with Autism but that doesn't mean they are incapable of having a life.) 


" Autistic people are violent and dangerous "

( Autistic people are far from dangerous , we wouldn't hurt a soul intentionally. We have so much love to give people but because of our communication and social skills we don't know how to show that love. Our brain is different to our heart. It doesn't quite work together.)  



" People with Autism don't feel emotions "






( We actually feel a lot of emotion that is often overwhelming for us to handle because we feel some much emotion at once.) 







 Thank you for reading 
xo



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Love Ava 
xoxo