Monday, Oct 15, 2018

I’m on my second 15-minute break at my warehouse job. Ironically, even though this is a public blog, I’m posting on it through a VPN. I’ll likely be quitting this job soon. In 3 hours and 40 minutes, I will smoke marijuana while my wife drives us home. Currently, I would rate my emotional state at around a 4 out of 10, large numbers representing a healthier mental state. 4 is pretty much par for the course at this job, especially on a Monday. The transition from weekend to weekday is not a gentle one, especially for someone with autism.

Every day I’m learning something new about my autism specifically, autism in general, and myself in particular. The insights that I’ve gained in the 2ish months I’ve known I have autism are among the most influential and life-changing that I have ever experienced. My daily struggle is to try to contain myself and hold everything together mentally and emotionally. I go to work because I must work. The alternatives are far inferior to going through all this while being away from home for 10 hours a day. However, the cost for me is high. Trying to act like everything is status quo while simultaneously weathering what I can only describe as an emotional typhoon…it can be…taxing.

The first time I went back to work after being formally diagnosed with autism, it was too much. I heard my coworkers’ tones of voice – they weren’t happy the weekend was over, but their level of stress and mine were as different as they could possibly have been. They were inconvenienced, tired, and crabby. I was in my own personal hell, a whirlwind of sudden impulses, sensory sensitivity, emotional vulnerability, and mounting anxiety. My wonderful wife faked an illness and we got the hell out of dodge.

Since then, I’ve gotten a better handle on my mental state, thanks in no small part to my new therapist. She’s the one who diagnosed me with autism, and I’ve been seeing her once a week. She fully authorizes my use of weed as a coping mechanism, citing my years of trauma and continuing difficulties meeting the expectations of daily life. It is my hope that continuing this path of self-discovery, therapy, adaptation, education, and healing will yield greater and greater outcomes. So far, since 2006, it’s been a wild ride, but it has been more than worth the price I’ve had to pay. In short, it is better to know you’re drowning than to gasp for air and wonder why. I still wouldn’t mind breaking the surface sooner, rather than later, though. The salt makes all this taste terrible.