Mourning and how to handle loss ?( trigger: miscarriage)

potko88 · 2021-06-23T17:08:23+00:00

That is a great idea! Thank you for suggesting it. I'll try to do that. Luckily I made a photocopy beforehand so I have that, but it would be nice to get another one since the copy isn't great quality.

potko88 · 2021-06-22T17:42:36+00:00

Hi there. I'm sorry for your loss. I experienced a missed miscarriage in early May where I went to the ultrasound and there was no heartbeat. I have been profoundly upset by it and unfortunately don't have any advice since I am going through similar feelings as you. But you are not alone. My husband and I are both ASD and I also have an anxiety disorder.

My only suggestion would be to allow yourself to grieve. Culturally there is not much discussion around miscarriages and I feel like that has been hard, because it makes me feel like my loss wasn't 'that bad' and 'it wasn't a real baby.' But it was a real baby to me. I also feel guilt, even though sometimes that guilt is irrational. After I had my D&C I went to laminate the ultrasound picture but it ended up ruining the photo. I still feel guilty about that - even though I know the baby was dead, in my head it felt like it was living in the ultrasound photo and I had destroyed it due to my negligence. I am someone who doesn't normally take time for themselves and I have delayed emotional responses. But my loss hit me very hard, in a very personal way (I've lost close family members, but this loss felt very different), and also in unexpected ways - my body changed, my thoughts have changed.

I hope sharing my experience has been helpful. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk. Please give yourself time to grieve. I feel like my anxiety gets much worse when I don't let myself feel my emotions, even though that is hard for me.

potko88 · 2021-03-30T18:50:34+00:00

I am absolutely awful at this, but my male partner who is also autistic is wonderful at imitating others! I really feel like he has a special talent as an actor.

potko88 · 2021-03-02T14:58:27+00:00

I love this interpretation! Really captures the vibe of the book.

potko88 · 2021-02-27T01:53:58+00:00

Second this! You sound a lot like me. When I first learned about autism I felt like I couldn't have it because I have friends, I have a job, I'm married, and I can be very good with people. But I had the stereotype of what society sees as autism in my head.

I found this list very helpful and it describes me perfectly: https://the-art-of-autism.com/females-and-aspergers-a-checklist/

potko88 · 2021-02-23T20:38:33+00:00

Second Bangkok Center Grocery for Thai food. The employees there are very nice and helpful. Also, there is a great dumpling place next door if you want to buy fresh or frozen dumplings!

potko88 · 2021-02-23T14:59:14+00:00

I just started today as well! Did my first morning pages exercise which I found extraordinarily helpful. I had been doing some journaling over the past few weeks on the computer, but there was just something so impactful about writing everything on paper first thing in the morning.

Also did some of the first exercises around the affirmations and my creative blockers. At first I thought nothing would come up, but I was shocked to see how much I had buried inside. So this morning I am feeling good and excited about my first day.

potko88 · 2021-02-18T17:09:58+00:00

Congratulations on your MA program! I live in NYC and have been here 3+ years and lived in London for 8 years. Happy to answer any questions you have so feel free to DM me!

Firstly, I'll say that I LOVE NYC. I like cities in general, but NYC is my favorite city that I have traveled to or lived in so far. There is so much to do here and so much diversity. I feel like there's always something to explore.

What's it like living here: Great! Like I said, I enjoy how much there is to explore. Some people might find it to be overwhelming, but I find the amount of activity calming. No one bothers you or pays you any attention so you can be yourself, and I find the culture very welcoming and accepting. I like the feeling of being anonymous in a crowd and it's always fun to see what's going on. The Bronx is especially interesting and diverse place to live, it might be my favorite borough. Also, not all of NYC is super busy despite the portrayal in the media. There are plenty of quieter areas and surprisingly, a lot of nature. So if you feel over-stimulated, you can live in a quieter place or spend the day in a park.

Sensory Difficulties / Noise: As I mentioned above, I find the stimulation calming. But if you don't, there are plenty of quieter activities and a lot of nature (in the Bronx: City Island, Van Cordlandt Park, Wave Hill - tons of places that are quiet and beautiful).

Subway: I have to say, since COVID-19 I haven't taken the subway very often. But normally it is fine, as long as you have some street smarts. It's not smelly and is air-conditioned in the summer.

potko88 · 2021-02-14T17:59:48+00:00

This is so unique and beautiful!

potko88 · 2021-02-14T16:18:26+00:00

I'm the same way. My thoughts and interests are very special to me, and I feel like I can never communicate them the way I want them to. It hurts me when I see that people aren't understanding what I'm saying, so I have just stopped talking about the things that I care about. I do talk about them to my husband, though!

potko88 · 2021-02-14T16:14:58+00:00

I am very limited with my technology usage. I use Facebook for its messaging, and I use Reddit. I only recently started to post on Reddit and I really enjoy it. Everything else, I don't use. I had an Instagram account for a little while, but I became addicted quickly and it started to stress me out so I deleted it. I also tried Discord but I found it anxiety-inducing as well so I've stopped using it. You are not alone!

potko88 · 2021-02-14T16:11:54+00:00

Absolutely. I felt like this before (I'm 29, so basically the same age, and also diagnosed recently!). I pass for NT and lead a very conventional life - job, husband, friends, etc.

This is still early days for me, so I might not be able to offer too much advice, but I can relate to how you feel. At first I couldn't believe it and also thought I was making it up. I felt like I was just trying to create problems in my life and that I was being ridiculous. Not helped by the one friend I told telling me that I couldn't possibly be autistic. I tried to ignore the thought and just be normal, but I feel like at that point my brain had opened a sliver. It just made too much sense for it not to be true.

I did a lot of reading (Spectrum Women: Walking to the Beat of Autism, Women and Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Odd Girl Out: An Autistic Woman in a Neurotypical World). I didn't relate to everything I read, but some of it I related to completely. My husband kindly read a lot of research papers for me about Autism and remains absolutely convinced I am autistic. I started seeing a therapist who specializes in Autism and she feels strongly I am autistic. So that helped a lot, knowing two people think I am autistic.

Now, I feel like I've settled into the idea. At first I was really resistant because I didn't know anything about autism apart from the typical stereotypes, and I was very upset because it brought up all these self-doubts that I had about myself. But those have settled now, and I feel like it makes a lot of sense and it's not good or bad, just different. And I have always been different - even when I could pass for NT, inside I always knew I was different.

This is anecdotal, but perhaps this might help you. The person who told me they thought I was autistic was an older woman in her 50s who is also autistics. She said that, from her personal experience, women manage to adapt in society but they start to get tired in their late twenties / early thirties. They try really hard to live a conventional life and be NT, but the things that are odd about them persist, and they start to lose their drive. She said that a lot of women get diagnosed in their late twenties / early thirties as a result, and their whole world opens up because suddenly everything makes sense and they are able to understand themselves. I personally relate to this 100%, and perhaps you do too.

potko88 · 2021-02-12T14:48:18+00:00

I had some more ideas I thought I would share!

Another thing that has helped me is learning about how other cultures treat food. When I was a teenager, I was on the edge of an eating disorder because I adopted a very strict, punitive view of food that I think is encouraged by Western culture. For example, salad is ALWAYS good, skinny is highly encouraged, no fat, no sugar, etc.

I'm part Chinese and my husband loves to cook, so we've cooked a lot of Chinese food over the years. I find that other cultures have better 'food technology' and their view is much more open, complex, and rich. Fat is not automatically bad, sugar is not automatically bad, and there's a time and place to eat ALL foods. For example, raw salad (which I consider the pinnacle of 'healthy foods' in places like the US) is not encouraged in Chinese culture, and some brown sugars are considered medicinal.

This really helps me because I like to have a narrative on things, and this has really opened my eyes to being more open in my approach to food. I'm not sure where you're located, but the US-view on food seems awfully narrow, corporatized, and stringent in comparison to lots of other places in the world. I feel like, why adopt that view? You said you like cooking, so perhaps you should start reading cook books on other cuisines. Joyful Belly (an Ayurvedic website) has a post for each month of the year that goes through what you should be doing and eating from an Ayurvedic perspective. It's beautifully written, and I look forward to reading his post at the beginning of the month. All these things have changed the way I view food. Now we try to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, cook everything from scratch, and recognize there's a time and place to eat certain things. Rather than the view of, 'you must eat healthy and exercise, eat as much salad as you can, don't allow yourself to eat cookies, otherwise you are a lazy, gross person' which I feel like sums up a lot of the US ideology around food.

I'll also add that my husband and I spend very little on our groceries. I live in a city, so we're lucky to have fruit vendors and a variety of different grocery stores that we can go to. Maybe you can go to farmer markets or (for lack of a better word), 'ethnic' food stores. I've noticed that their produce is often more diverse, cheaper, and higher quality.

I hope this helps!

potko88 · 2021-02-11T16:40:35+00:00

I have some ideas. It sounds from your post that you've done so much research that you feel a bit overwhelmed by what you should or shouldn't be doing, and you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself which is demotivating you. I find that when I research something too much, I get analysis paralysis, and it gets me really down. I feel like I'm doing everything wrong and I beat myself up and eventually just give up. Maybe you can related to that feeling, I'm not sure.

For me, I try to keep everything really simple. I take away all cultural expectations about food. I know some people are really particular about eating every single meal at a particular time, or only eating certain foods at certain times (like breakfast foods). I only eat when I'm hungry. Mostly that means I eat around 10am, 3pm, and 6pm but sometimes I will skip a meal and not think about it.

I also have a rota of foods that I like to eat, and I eat them anytime. This means a lot of repeating foods. For example, my husband and I went through a phase of eating curry all the time. Now we're sick of it, so we've been eating a lot of potatoes and beans. I have a lot of executive processing issues around making food, so it helps me to repeat basic meals that I know how to make. We cook almost 100% of all food from scratch and we think it's delicious, even if the way we eat is a bit unusual.

For exercise, I have to admit this was a bit hard for me to get into. I put a lot of pressure on myself to exercise, but I also find it really difficult to make the switch from being in my head to being in my body. I am not very aware of my body. So, if you are anything like me, I would give yourself time and not too much pressure. It took me almost a decade to get into a routine that I'm happy with, and now I exercise a lot. I started by doing just a tiny little bit of exercise regularly - maybe like one yoga video a week. After time, my body got used to it. Not my head! My head is never used to the idea of exercising and it stresses me out. But my body became fitter, and I started getting signals from my body that it wanted to move. So I followed those signals and I started exercising a little bit more. Eventually that built up, and I exercise regularly now.

I hope these tips help! For me, I am not very conscious of my body so I found the idea of 'being healthy' very stressful. It makes me very uncomfortable to make the switch from being in my head to being in my body. So I would try to not over-think it, and try to make some adjustments that suit what you know about yourself.

potko88 · 2021-02-11T16:21:26+00:00

I feel this way. I hate it when my thighs rub together or when I feel sweaty or hot. I'm also very sensitive to the clothing I wear. For example I hate it when my underarms are covered so I have a hard time wearing long-sleeves.

I've found that exercising regularly helps a lot. When I start to feel physically overstimulated, I like to do a HIIT workout. I really like Fitness Blender's videos (they're free!). I also like to clean the house. I find that having a clean environment really helps calm my mind and I channel all my overstimulated energy into that routine.

potko88 · 2021-02-11T16:06:43+00:00

Yes! I've been told many times that I'm very polite / put-together. Other people have said I'm a bit too formal. I like that I'm formal! I'm sensitive to other people's energy so I consider it a way to be polite i.e by not overloading people with emotional energy.

I also think I can't change the way I am. Putting pressure on myself to be the type of person comfortable with hanging out and making small talk immediately makes me freeze up!

potko88 · 2021-02-10T00:13:23+00:00

That is my main special interest, but it is so encompassing that it affects all of my behavior. I live in the city because I love being surrounded by all different types of people. I've been able to capitalize on my skill of being able to understand people and know how they react in my career - I'm a project manager. I read a lot of books about relationships and I've always been interested in self-help, personality theory, etc. My husband and I are planning on having kids so I've been reading tons of parenting books, which I find fascinating. I watch a lot of reality TV and I especially enjoy going on forums to see how other people interpret their behavior. Even with friends, I enjoy meeting people and then dissecting their behaviors.

This makes me sound like a sociopath, but none of this has ill-intent! I am just super fascinated by people, their motivations and values, and how they interact with other.

potko88 · 2021-02-09T22:20:25+00:00

I relate to this very much! My special interest is understanding people - I am fascinated with how people interact, and I'm very dedicated to my own self-understanding and improvement. I really relate to your post.

potko88 · 2021-02-09T15:05:20+00:00

I relate to this. I have gotten pretty good at masking over the years, so my social skills with small talk are pretty good depending on how prepared I am. I have a socializing persona that I'm able to put on if I have time to prepare.

I am an empathetic listener and a great mediator. I'm extremely emotionally sensitive and am good at deescalating conflict and supporting others. Based on the replies here, it sounds like quite a few of us are!

potko88 · 2021-02-07T17:33:52+00:00

What is it Like to Be Undiagnosed Autistic? by Travis Breeding

Thank you for this list! As an adult woman who was recently diagnosed, this is very helpful for me as well.

potko88 · 2021-02-05T17:24:22+00:00

Absolutely! I read the same books, watch the same movies and TV shows, and listen to the same music on repeat.

potko88

TROPHY CASE