The road goes ever, ever on

Much has happened since I last filled in one of these.  And in fact my last post abut chutney should have given a clue about my emotional state. When I am upset I cook.
So I suppose I should fill in a bit more background not just dangle that in front of you.  But since we last spoke I have made not just the runner bean chutney

but also plum jam

greengage and cherry jam

and another chutney that we decided to call roger.  Roger is a red tomato and ginger chutney that is so popular it disappears almost instantly.  I may post the recipe for Roger at some point but as with all Inky cooking its a bit  chuck it in and see.

The holiday with Foal was a massive strain.  I hope she enjoyed it, but it really was tough to get through.  After I came back...well stress stress stress.

A lot of this is caused by my Apsergers tendencies.  I still haven't had a full diagnosis yet but the more I read about it and the more Aspies I talk to, the more it fits. So I am almost certainly on the spectrum somewhere , though it may be PDD NOS.  Which means Murmur was right.  Murmur is a sometime commenter on here who comes from another e-place.  I always think of him as a badger in an old fashioned nurses uniform.  For some reason this upsets him.

Mrsinky and I had argued before I went because I chose the wrong time to have a conversation.  To my Aspie brain it went: this is a conversation we must have, this is the last time we can have it before holidays so we should have it.

The fact it was her first day in a new job, she had toothache and whiplash and a bunch of other stuff going on didn't enter my brain as relevant because that was just emotional stuff. This blog post says quite well how my brain works.  I automatically suppress emotions, and regard any emotional decision as suspect if not de facto wrong.  I respond to people in distress by trying to help them rather than comfort them. See here for why.  This isn't a choice, I genuinely do not know what people want if not help.

It is worse than that of course.  I find expressions of emotions in other people at best troubling.  I literally do not speak that language.  So when  friend tells me that they love me (platonic) I have no idea what to do.  I have the same problem with my parents and siblings.  Their expressions of affection have puzzled and bothered me for a long time.  I have just about worked out what to do when being hugged ( I have a strong dislike of invasions of personal space of any kind, and hate anyone touching me unless we are shagging.  I am hypersensitive to some touches and textures.  Get me to furnish a house and it would be chrome, marble, gloss paint and glass) but find the myriad verbal expressions of emotion...well what are you supposed to say?  How are you supposed to act?  You end up running down a horrible decision tree of responses trying to work out which one will not hurt their feelings or sound weird or whatever.  And that is positive emotion.

Negative emotion is worse.  I had a primary school headmaster whose facial expression, to me, looked like a smile when he was angry.  This led to me being slippered at least once because I misread it.  When someone shouts at me I sit there and take it silently, unless I really need to defend a position.  I respond that way to challenge. I do not enter into competition...in planning meetings or research I give my opinion.  If someone disagrees with it I leave it up to them.  When they find out they are wrong they will be back.  But I won't fight for it.  It is there, take it or leave it.

On the whole I dislike many TV dramas etc. because they insist on focussing on peoples relationships and feelings rather than the plot.  Once you fast forward past these the program becomes quite short.  It is easier if it is well written or funny, so I could watch Buffy in full, as the writing was good.  Except for the bits where she was moping or Angel was brooding, because who cares.  Similarly I think Lois and Clark ruined superman because it became about them having a relationship rather than anything interesting.  But brooding drama...it has to be really really good before I can stand it.

Musicals used to frighten me as a child.  You would have people talking and acting normal then all of a sudden they would start singing and dancing.  It was like they had caught a disease or something.

I could never watch Eastender's or many other soaps.  To me they are all about shouting and anger, and they make me uncomfortable and anxious.  Anger and sadness in others is the worst.  this actually hurts.  It is a mental pain that will not stop until the source of distress is dealt with.  And it is not just one hammer blow it is a constant mounting pain.  The longer I spend with someone showing negative emotion without being able to help them, the more it hurts.  This is why my response to a crying MrsInky is always an offer to help sort out the problem.  What she actually wants tends to be sympathy, but as in the link above I don't know how to do that.  She finds me trying to sort out the problem irritating.  But the thing then is that I have a person in front of me who seems to want to torture me.  They are causing me real distress by radiating negative emotion, and refusing to let me help it stop, which is the only relief from pain I can get.  To my brain telling someone abut a problem without letting them help is cruel.  You are making them miserable as well.

Aspies are known for meltdowns, and yes I show this too.  Negative emotional stimuli like the above are cumulative.  So stress builds.  You can relieve it by doing something, work or a workout or whatever.  But it builds up.  If you then go into an argument or an emotional situation this can overspill.  You meltdown.  This can take many forms.  With me the first thing is a desire to run.  I have to get out of the situation, away from the stimulus.  I go into a room and shut the door away from whoever it is I am talking to,  Of course this sometimes makes them want to follow you to continue the conversation/argument/interaction.  I have been known to end up sitting in a room with my back against the door with other people shouting through it. Sometimes all they are trying to do s see if I am OK but my brain cannot process this and just needs them to stop emoting at me.

Seriously people your emotions are deafening.  Please turn down the volume.

If the stimulus keeps up I will end up self harming in a non premeditated way.  This might be trying to break my hand bones by punching a wall, hitting myself on the head with a rock, trying to stab myself.  Whatever. It is always, always directed inwards at me.  I want the pain, or indeed death to make the emotions stop.

If you know an aspie of course you may want to help them in a meltdown, but seriously what they almost certainly need is an absence of human stimulus.  person dependent, of course.  Ask them.  But I am betting that's what they need.

Now at the moment I have got so much stress on my plate that a meltdown is always about a minute away.  And because I am depressed that takes a different form, like hysterical weeping or suicidal ideation so loud I have to turn  up the ipod to max to drown it out.  The only thing that helps is getting Spock to find something to do.  Do jobs.  Focus focus focus.  Repress.  That is fine until someone asks me how I am, for example.  Or there is a trigger like the final scene in When Harry Met Sally (one of my favourite films.  I think I can never watch it again).  

Anyhoo, am still taking Bupropion.  Annoying Psych doubled the dose because no effect.  I am not sure now what it is doing.  the dose is split morning and evening and frankly I think it is stopping me from sleeping.  I certainly need chemical assistance to do so.  As for effect I am having crisis after crisis.  I am arranging jobs.

On Tuesday I attempt my CBT for motorbike which I am hoping I will pass.  Brrrm.

I am also planning an attempt on the Cape Wrath Trail.  I decided on this pretty recently, and I have therefore imposed on MrsInky by leaving the childcare etc. to her for 3 weeks.  I feel bad about this.

I do not know if I will be able to do it all.  I am in remission at the moment but my joints are susceptible to damage.  And I am wrong in the head.  And that trail is ROUGH.

But it has things I need.  A challenge to make me feel like a man (horse) again.  I have had all the trappings of manhood stripped from me.  It has space and mountains, which I miss very much.  It has a lack of people, which I feel I need right now.  And it has mortification of the flesh, which might sort out my head.  And given the vagaries of my EDS carpe diem, it may be my last shot.

As I say I may drop out early.  I know many people do and there is no shame.  But lets see.