The artist for the above image is @Kayas_Kosmos.
Yesterday/Early this morning…
I gave myself a mild concussion yesterday.
Unfortunately I got prodded with a few too many forks doing Autistic research. Which is all terrible still – 95% of it is the most stigmatising and harmful science – based on handful of disproven theories.
There was one particular paper on Adverse Childhood Events which wasn’t ableist or horrible, but unfortunately contained a checklist of memory priming for cPTSD triggers. I read this late at night – around 9pm.
I don’t check my phone often – I checked it to see that WINZ (NZ Social Security provider) had sent a message at 8:30am informing me that I had to be at a seminar on “How To Get A Job” (despite being on a medically exempt benefit for seeking work – and the fact I’ve worked for 18 years – they want me to attend a group session which I’ve been to twice already in my life) at 10:30am that day – I live 40 minutes from the location it is driving. I didn’t have access to a car because my wife was out at that point anyway. I have to fight against this on Monday as they will try and sanction my benefit for not attending.
This unfortunately triggered PTSD – and intense emotional overwhelm of the “burden” narrative that destroys me constantly. I was already weak from research and it was the final thing to break me at the end of an already long day.
As a result I meltdown, and ended up hitting my head pretty hard on a wall and gave myself concussion. I don’t know why I do this, but at the point where everything feels like utter pain – it seems to relieve it. It’s not healthy and I usually try and write through it – it sometimes doesn’t work.
As a result of always downplaying injury I decided not to mess around – as I had some of the symptoms of a serious concussion that say you should get checked – so I went to hospital – nothing this time luckily, just ‘mild’ concussion.
This meant I got home at 5am. I’ve had no sleep and I am not allowed to have sleeping pills until midnight tonight – I haven’t been able to sleep unmedicated most nights since June last year when I started burning out. I’ve been trying to ween off sleeping pills but if I trigger PTSD they don’t even work.
Hospitals suck for Autistic people – bright lights, lots of noise, tons of sensory overwhelm, lots of forced social contact – luckily my wife was with me so she could do most of the talking – hospitals should have special rooms that are far more respectful of Autistic people’s needs – with low sensory overload. My Doctor at least was respectful – and I had headphones to drown out the sound.
Anyway… I am not going to actually do an Accommodations blog today – but thought I would give background as to why – I am confused still – I am without sleep.
Accommodations
I did write an article for The Spinoff in New Zealand that does talk about some things to make some of our lives easier – you can read that here:
Ten things everyone can do to make Autistic people’s lives better
Daily blog challenge
I will be writing every day on being Autistic for April using this list of prompts:
Alt-Text Format with links to other blogs – Autistic Acceptance Month – 30 Days of Acceptance and appreciation:
- Day 1 – Introduction
- Day 2 – What I love about being Autistic is…
- Day 3 – My diagnosis/discovery story
- Day 4 – Reactions to “coming out
- Day 5 – Special Interests
- Day 6 – Supports and Appreciation
- Day 7 – The Autistic Community
- Day 8 – Favorite Autistic Blog
- Day 9 – Favourite Autistic-owned Business
- Day 10 – Sensory Life
- Day 11 – Stims
- Day 12 – Favorite Autism-charity
- Day 13 – Family
- Day 14 – Routine
- Day 15 – Everyone should know…
- Day 16 – Work/School
- Day 17 – Accommodations
- Day 18 – Someday…
- Day 19 – I hate it when…
- Day 20 – Communication
- Day 21 – One thing other people don’t understand
- Day 22 – Dispel a myth
- Day 23 – Can’t live without…
- Day 24 – Political Issue
- Day 25 – Symbols!
- Day 26 – Favorite Autism book
- Day 27 – Identity Language
- Day 28 – Dealing with meltdowns
- Day 29 – Famous Autistics
- Day 30 – Acceptance means…
