This week on my blog we have been focusing on shutdown and sleep. Related to that is the necessary to sometimes for autistics to take a break and recharge our batteries. Sometimes we just have had a full palate of a day whether that is at the day program or working a job that consumes a great deal of our energy because of our sensory overload, attention to detail, the working of our keen minds, whatever it may be.
Sometimes the work can not be grueling. For example, I mopped a great deal of floors at the day program along with a host of other laborious activity, but when I got home, I did not require a nap or time to recharge my batteries, so to speak. However, today, while less laborious when I got home, I got a few affairs in order and I crashed on the bed for almost three hours, which was surprising because I hadn’t done nearly all the great things I did before. I personally believe that doing three days in a row going out right now during the pandemic is too much on my sensory palate. I had thought this before this week, this just confirms it.
Partially luckily due to the impeding snowstorm, we were dismissed from the day program an hour early today, which got me home an hour early and after tying up my affairs and sleeping made the time be 6:00 PM, which I didn’t eat since 11:30 AM. So, I knew I should probably eat something. I didn’t really want to order out as I just got a pizza yesterday for National Pizza Day, so I fixed a Cube Steak and Cleaned it up after eating. I knew I needed to do some housework, and since I was full of energy, I decided to along with going to the basement to do some laundry and catch up on some of my email and social media while the clothes were washing. To be honest, It feels so good when you are cleaning up or washing clothes or doing housekeeping that makes your environment be a better place to live where you can take pride in it.
So, medication time came around as it does every evening. I for a minute contemplated, should I pass on a dose on the medicine that makes me sleep, because I slept all those hours this afternoon? Well, I thought about it for a little bit and decided to take it. Why? Because NOT taking it makes me manic and out of sorts, it starts a path of destruction that isn’t good for me, I stated yesterday that medicine isn’t the solution for everyone to get to sleep, but for me it is. It also aids other elements of the autistic mind like irritability and it just helps me get the sleep I need, whether I want it or not, I know it is needed.
NOT taking my medicine at regular intervals, makes me a monster, until last year I spent the past year and a half flirting with disaster and potentially ending up in either the psych hospital or jail. It wasn’t pretty, and I could have thrown any potential that I may have had of getting my life back on track away. I was discussing last week in my psychotherapy session if I had still lived with my parents. I probably would have ended in the psych ward or jail, although I love both of them dearly, being in close quarters with them was posing challenges on my psyche and well being and the ability to be myself. So, I think the call for my current home came at the right time because I think the lid was going to come off the pot if the need wasn’t address.
I realize that I am lucky to be on my own, many may never have the opportunity to do so and I sincerely feel for them. I have the “world by the ass” as my parents say and they are so supportive although I sometimes have a blind eye for that detail. I know I need to take my medicine because it makes me be a well-rounded person and someone who is a joy to be around. When I don’t want to take my medicine, I have to just remember the times that my mom had to summon my therapist, for if it wasn’t for her de-escalation over the phone, who knows where I could be at this very moment? Likely not here!
Dustin's Dynasty 