Dissociative Autopilot

Today isn't the best day for me. Forget the messed-up sleep patterns due to neurodivergence or the grinding of teeth in my sleep thanks to anxiety. Today, all my spoons fell to the floor, forming a pile of unexpected depression.

I do my best not to let things get to me and try to stay in a positive mindset as much as possible. That's worked for me in the past, but even when I do there is a breaking point every so often, and then everything eventually spills out all at once.

Most of the time in the past this was due to me working too hard, or being forced to mask day in and day out. Now that I don't need to do that all the time, I have gotten used to a comfortable unmasked state. It has been a while since this happened, today just happened to be an exception.

While I am in a great place with wonderful people, there are so many things on my plate at this point that I need to take care of medically. In turn that reflects stress in my life financially. Being the people-pleasing, independent, and neurodivergent that I am, I do my best to minimize all of my needs.

This is something that I am still trying to unlearn.

The worst of my stresses today is my chronic pain and dysphoria, the former ramps up the need for accommodations, which in turn just makes me feel like a burden. It also takes a toll on my body to deal with the constant dull ache of arthritis in my bones on an average day, but today it feels like sandpaper or glass in my joints.

Add in my scoliosis getting worse. Pain pills don't help, CBD can maybe manage to take the edge off for a time, but when that stops working I get swallowed by another wave of unrelenting torture. Kinda like mental waterboarding. Sometimes it hurts far more than it did before I took something to help with the pain, and that is just a new level of personal suffering.

This makes it harder to deal with my brain's dysphoria and autistic chaos. I already have a riot of sensations fighting over space in my brain, so I get burnt out and overwhelmed so much easier. Thus the intrusive thoughts come marching in.

I feel powerless to tackle even the most basic of things, and since we’re getting ready to move, there are a lot more than basic things that need to happen. That mental checklist I have is weighing heavy on me and points out just how many spoons I do not have at this point. Deadlines are damned, my motivation looks like the dog sprawled out on the floor in front of me snoring.

Most of the time I can ride on this dissociative autopilot, like a cushion keeping me safe from feeling turbulence. Right now though, even that seems impossible to activate with how little energy I have. It feels like all the flashing lights and alarms are going off inside my head, and all I can do is curl up and wait for it all to stop.

As I sit here and write this I can feel things starting to right themselves, so maybe that autopilot is reengaging finally. Maybe I can manage to get some food service now. Either way, my mind is both screaming out for help, and trying to shut everything and everyone out. I am so tired. I just want a comfort snack, a long nap, and to not feel like I’m spiralling into some dark abyss.

To anyone else who might be having one of those days…

I love you, you’re not alone.