Tim McTuffty 🌶️🐿️Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 3 Wednesday 1/11/23
TL:DR Sometimes all it needs is 1 extra straw to break the camels’ back!
I woke this morning at 4:30am , this is not a regular occurrence but as regular Squirrel fans will know it’s not unusual either.
It was dark, it was throwing it down with rain & I started thinking of the situations that could have played out differently had I not been autistic.
The first ones were laughing at inappropriate moments as a child & not really knowing why it wasn’t funny. That got me a detention & the smack from Dad on the relevant occasions.
Then there was the classic , sat in a small night club somewhere in the vicinity of Formby, aged 19 & chatting to 2 lasses from Preston Polly & then being invited back to their static caravan for ‘coffee’ . My autistic brain (not that I realised it at the time) saw the prospect of a 3 some as a social no no & thus I missed out on any junior adult males most treasured dream (certainly back in the eighties) !
It was in the heyday of my professional life that my ASD would truly short circuit my life. (Not that I knew that it was ASD at the time obviously.)
I got head hunted for a job as a Pre-Sales consultant for a small but well known (in certain circles) tech company . This seemed like a god send, however, as anyone who knows anything about Pre-sales will tell you , it involves people, LOTS of people , in lots of social situations . I could have picked a worst job I suppose , possibly unqualified neurosurgeon?
To say this was a mistake is up there with saying that building a racing yacht out of blotting paper is a world cup winning design!
I lasted 9 months then got sacked (the 1 & only time I was sacked from a job ) for lack of revenue generation. It was never the technical side, I had that off pat inside the first month , & the presentation skills. It was the social side that killed me every time!
This killed my mental health & my professional career! I would never again work at the top end of Mainframe support or have more than a week without some sort of MH issue. At the time I & I suspect my parents just thought I was a failure, know I realise it was, at least in part , down to the ASD!
These & similar thoughts , mixed in with my GPs failure to get to grips with the referral process & call me back yesterday as promised , led to me crashing this morning , it’s that final straw that breaks the camels back.
True the grey grisly day, stamping hard on the SAD trigger, & the daily dealing with household frustrations didn’t help , but that last little straw blew my morning out the water!
I am so lucky, because I have SO many friends on Mastodon who actually care , not only if I am present & correct of a day, but actually functional, that picked me up, cheered me up by main force & had me back up & running by lunchtime !
So I leave you with this thought, be careful what stones you lift when going back to examine your life thru the lens of your ASD, try not to run at 99.5% capacity & if you are lucky enough to have any form of support structure then you will overcome!
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