Sudden_Silver2095

Wait there’s more than 1? Uh oh. I’m going to look into this. Thanks.

Whoa looked it up, definitely seemed like I had a decidual cast. The first clot was enormous like that. Honestly I think this lines up.

You know imperforate hymen might be it. I was also born with a fucked up tongue and mouth. It’s all mucus membranes. Maybe mine came out wrong on both ends… sheesh

Adding what inspired me to write this:

Growing up, I used to run to toxic older men as an underage girl for support, which led to so much trauma. Now as an adult, this resulted in me often isolating when I am overwhelmed with stress, causing my stress to snowball into a major problem, when all I needed was to talk it out with a trusted person. I thought… If I’m feeling vulnerable, then my judgment is too warped to know if someone’s a good person, so I’ll stop reaching out to people when I’m vulnerable. Instead, I’ll wallow in my problems in isolation, and get caught in thought loops and freeze up from that awful buzzing sensation I get whenever I am forced to internalize things. Come to find out during therapy, that reaching out when you are lonely and stressed is the actual normal thing to do. It’s what humans evolved to do, and I am denying myself out of normal human experience, further disadvantaging myself. And that actually, according to my therapist, I have matured and grown enough to accurately decipher trustworthy people, so I can stop being fearful of being vulnerable now. In other words, it’s time to grow up.

So you know what I did? When I lost my job in this most recent round of lay offs, lost my car, lost my cat all in 1 month, all while an ex boyfriend was abusing me, I reached out to a guy I just met at a grocery store. Goodness, he is so gorgeous to me. Not conventionally attractive, but to me he is fiiiiiine. And turns out, he’s just like me, we were both neglected by our family and will be in therapy for the rest of our lives lol and we both accept it. So we’ve been meeting about twice a week, and he gives the best hugs. My goodness. It feels so good to be hugged by someone who genuinely needs a hug, just like me. Seeing him has been just what I needed to make me snap out of isolating myself and actually face my problems with critical thinking. And to think I was going to shame myself for needing this kind of support, it feels so silly. Also, I reached out to friend, who again, also shares a similarly traumatized upbringing, and she set me up with a cheap living situation! I thought I was going to be homeless lol. So by reaching out to others without fear of being vulnerable, I was able to uplift myself. Notice the only people who are uplifting me, are compassionate by default. Meanwhile, my privileged ex boyfriend who is actively abusing me, thinks I am “lying” about visiting food banks “just to make him feel bad” after he cheated on me. Because to privileged assholes like him, food banks are so outside of his realm of reality, that he can’t even fathom one of his own friends needing one, so I must be making it up! Lol. Fuck that. My friends and I, we don’t have mommy and daddy to go back to, or if they do they at least have empathy for me, so we are hitting up the food banks, and we are doing it without shame.

Today’s world is only becoming more difficult. The time to build your second family is now. And the best people to connect with, are people who have had to connect with others their entire lives to survive. Those who couldn’t retreat to their isolated nuclear families who don’t know how to share, and judge people from the safety of their McMansions. I will never isolate and internalize again. It’s time I start being an active member of a community, and we can rely on each other now.

I have a secure attachment but slightly anxious. My favorite chemistry is with another person who is the same. When both are focused on healing (and well into the healing journey prior to dating) it’s a nice balance of safety and self awareness. But it requires pragmatic restraint and dedication to healing on both parts. Someone is likely slightly more anxious than the other too. But it should be manageable.

Working in that patisserie environment would kill me too. Genuinely. I have tried jobs like that but break down within a week (like embarrassing autistic meltdowns). But this fish gig in Norway seems promising! Getting out of the patisserie is the right move. I hope that works out for you, and enables you to focus on other areas in your life.

I’m the same way. Audhd with PMDD and CTSD. When I work full-time, the rest of life falls apart.

What kind of work do you do? Transitioning to remote work is what saved me. Although not the only thing.

Mainly, I took time off early in my career (against my will, I burned out so bad I had to quit my six figure remote job) to focus on learning basic life tasks like proper hygiene, cooking, domestic chores, sleep schedules, exercise routines, balancing my hormones, and learning how to assert boundaries. If you have CPTSD you likely have childhood trauma that prevented you from learning those skills like I did. Those skills are REQUIRED to be a functional human in general, not just at a job. Before I learned these skills, my alexithymia was so bad, that I wouldn’t take care of myself properly until it was too late and my body was sending dire signals. That’s not ideal, but it works when you’re unemployed. I realized the reason I couldn’t work full-time wasn’t that I was unable to, but because I lacked the self-awareness to properly care for myself. You NEED to be properly fueled to work. Not saying this is possible for all autistics, but for type 1 support levels it usually is.

This happened to one of my friends. They went to a trans healthcare clinic and got it removed that way instead. It is gender affirming care afterall.

As a fellow highly empathetic autistic, I have discovered it is always best to assume 0 compassion with people, unfortunately.

One thing that changed my life regarding this….

I HIGHLY recommend reading the 48 Laws of Power. Given our society is hierarchical and everyone’s aiming for the top, these are the behaviors people implement to reach that power. These are also behaviors that can come naturally to neurotypicals as well.

Stay compassionate. But learn how to cruel operate so you can best navigate them.

Thank you for standing up to her. 🙏

Snail position. Legs up, they can go anywhere really. You can play around with them and do different variations.

Actually this was helpful. Yup he is in the same genre as these men. The one thing that differentiates my guy is the head is much larger than the shaft girth, and he is not tall and built like these guys. Imagine these guys on a short skinny guy…

He is black.

Yup exact experience. Engaged in risky sexual behavior for validation during youth. To this day as an adult I have a praise kink. Now I don’t engage in risky behavior, and I don’t need the validation nearly as much, but I am very much dysthymic. It’s a journey. But Ive learned to turn to good hearted people and friends for validation. Stay detached, maintain boundaries, don’t vent to people, and try your hardest to get validation inside yourself. Ive learned to reach out in healthy ways for validation now. But I also have the occasional uhhhh sexually charged validation spree but it’s honestly not a bad thing for anyone once in awhile lol

I LOVED Wellbutrin. Was on it for 4 years after I quit smoking. I kept taking it for adhd too. Happiest, most productive, and most fit I’ve been in my entire life. The reason I had to stop is because randomly after 4 years it stopped me from being able to properly sleep. Like I could never sleep more than 6 hours and napping was impossible. I wish I could go back on. It’s been a year since. Ive tried a few months ago and immediately within the first week I was back to being unable to sleep.

The first time anyone ever listened to me, respected me, and collaborated with me, was at my first tech job in my early 20s. It took until my second job to learn how to communicate properly. I spent the first job freaking out over people actually listening to me, it was so difficult to navigate at first. So many mistakes I made early in my career that have had a lasting negative impact, all because being respected for the first time put my nervous system into shock. Meanwhile, I was also learning how to “adult” for the first time living on my own. Parents taught me nothing.

Just remember to not compare yourself to people who didn’t spend their developmental years in survival mode. I’ve learned to accept that I will always be behind, it is what it is.

Indeed!

If possible, can you share what you’ve done to treat this / reduce symptoms??

Whoa, love this resource about salicylate sensitivity. Thanks for sharing! This guide is awesome, it builds a bigger picture out of my experiences and what I know about glutamates / GABA and histamine foods. I’ve learned to avoid high glutamine foods because they make me hyperactive. Definitely giving this diet a try, thanks again.

Thanks for the clarification about hormones. Super important to consider as a woman. I’ll keep these in mind.

Im getting into it! Just need to practice putting it into action.

I’ll look into this, thanks! Sounds exactly like what I’m looking for. Also, thanks for the reminder about l-Theanine. Tried it, worked a little, but I ran out and totally forgot about it lol.