#feeling very vulnerable and tired now ufgh

[mrghostrat]

i was hoping to stream this afternoon but i woke with my shoulders hurting so bad that i have absolutely zero capacity for anything. to the point where i experienced my first autistic rumbles in the supermarket 🥸 but i have adhd meds now so maybe we can try tomorrow.

zita's suspected i'm on the spectrum for a little while now, but i've always been on the fence about it. there's a lot i don't relate to. but most of that is bc i have so much learned behaviour, and i mask really well. when i try to break down how i think for autism diagnostic quizzes, my gut reactions DO fit the bill, but they are so so so buried under 30 years of life experience that feels like it comes naturally.

but i am an introvert. an extreme introvert. even while living alone with my best friend, who i get on perfectly with and feel zero need to mask around, i still need to excuse myself and be left alone in my room from 10pm at LEAST.

so i only really unmask when i'm dead alone. even though i dont feel like i'm putting up any kind of front around of zita, i still do, automatically. the only time i see myself completely bare is when i'm alone and it's silent and there is absolutely nothing challenging my comfort.

sooooo hoooooo boy waking up in pain, with zero capacity to even finish a thought, still empty of ADHD medication because of the fuckin manufacturing shortage (thankfully today's trip into town was to finally pick some up! but that wasn't until noon), i got to see a side of myself i don't know if i've ever actually seen before? maybe as a kid but i can't remember specifically that far back?

i've been short tempered and overwhelmed and exposed to sensory nightmares whilst home alone before, but it's usually so quick bc i'm at HOME and i can adjust the situation and i never think much of it. i felt like a bluescreen at that supermarket today, popping in for less than 10 things across 3 aisles.

it was so busy. there were so many people. i felt dread just to walk through it, so aware of my own body and the space i had to inhabit. but par for the course so far. what was less par for the course was having to stop and look at my list every 3 steps, unable to put together a course of action in my head: chicken is on the far left, so we grab that first and get broccoli on our way to the soup aisle. but the broccoli is right there. do i grab that first, go get the chicken, but then double back from where i just came? i might get myself some bananas too, how do i fit that into my path—

i had to keep stopping and looking at my list because every item i thought of made me forget the previous one i just looked at. eventually got fed up with myself and went to the closest thing and started there, regardless of whether i'd have to double back or not. that's what trips me when i take these quizzes n shit. i can get over the hump and do the task in the end, so that must mean i'm totally allistic! no autism here.

i remember thinking "jesus christ this is bad" when i was on my way to get zita's soup (if you've read this far, thank you and kisses to you, pls send some loving vibes to zita by reading her fic i just reblogged, bc she's got a cold and is miserable today) so i was kinda aware i was having a bad sensory day. as expected: there were a lot of people there, and i was in pain. but i just short circuited looking at soup. zita gave me the brand name and soup type of 3 cans she wanted. and i went to the aisle i've been to a thousand times, found the brand, and just stared. it was all stew. all chunky brothy things with bits in. not a single creamy soup in sight, so, the soup must be somewhere else.

i came to that conclusion immediately but i couldn't. process it? or like, what to do with that information. the soup is somewhere else. OR IS IT? keep looking at this shelf to make sure, your eyes are tired, you might've missed it. there's like 20 different cans of campbells here, just keep reading them left to right until soup appears. still no soup? read them again, you might've missed it. maybe campbell's is out of soup? read every other brand here until you Don't see soup, then you can walk away and try somewhere else. but if you don't see any soup, read it again because you might've missed it.

thankfully it took all of 30 fuckin seconds for a store employee who was shelving next to me to see my glazed fuckin stare and ask if i needed a hand with anything. and i stammered through some "haha my silly eyes today!! haha thanks! sorry, thank you!" as she happily pointed like 3 metres down the aisle for me, while my internal monologue immediately raged like "wtf why would they put the soup that far away but also barely far away at all, what's the point, bad design 😡"

got soup. check list: packet of gravy. zita told me the gravy was in the same section as the soup. it was not. i walked up and down that aisle five times and there was no gravy. i just. i had completely forgotten how to problem solve. it was the strangest, most frustrating experience. like i was looking at an empty word document in my brain, with a little flashing cursor and everything, so i knew it hadn't frozen over. it was just empty.

i even had the thought "just walk up and down the aisles until you find gravy; you have to do this all the time" and even had ideas of which aisles to start with. but my brain said no. we're not going to walk around aimlessly, even if we have a neat little structure and path to follow. we were told (by myself, too) this would be a quick in out trip, pluck the known items off the shelf and beeline straight for the checkout. so meandering down aisles was for some reason non negotiable. i wasn't in a rush. i had nothing to do today. i barely even felt a rush to get out of there, as busy as it was. it just wasn't an option.

so rather than start solving that problem i just jumped to the next thing on the list. strepsils. text to ask what kind she wants, have a whine about my broken brain, ask if she knows where the gravy is. remember when i pass the hair brushes that i broke my hairbrush this morning and need a new one!! oh and i've been wanting new hairclips too. look at me picking a new hairbrush and poking through the hairclips for one that i know will feel comfortable against my scalp, i'm not autistic because i can change my plans and make decisions on the fly.

oops didn't mean for this post to be an entire play by play of my thoughts through this extremely bland grocery shop. i cannot believe how long i stood there choosing soup. the line at the self checkout was so long and i felt the dread kick up again. barely/silently whispered "oh god" to myself when i realised the line, but repeated it about 20 times to feel the tap of my tongue against the roof of my mouth before i realised i was doing it. stop that, don't mutter to yourself. but i'm standing still in a line and there's nothing left to (ineffectually) problem solve, so the second i stop i notice a weird little slice in the plastic around the trolley handle that i can't stop flicking my thumbnail against.

OK. we need to stim. heard, chef. just click your piercing ffs. your mouth might look weird when you do it but at least everyone can see you're just clicking your teeth against your piercing, rather than talking to yourself or damaging public property.

something made a noise, can't even remember if it was a child or a trolley or what, some loud sharp single high pitched screech a few metres away, and i jolted so hard i thought i felt like i was going to throw up. finally think, fucking hell i'm autistic today. my back hurts. which is making my head hurt. i want to go home and take my vyvanse.

#ghost scribbles #autism #extremely long unimportant recount of my day #but it was quite cathartic to write #feeling very vulnerable and tired now ufgh