My last post was about how I always exist in a grey area between “OK” and “Very Bad”. I don’t feel my body in the same way others do, nor do I really understand my own feelings when I feel them.
I need time to analyse myself before I can fully understand both my physical condition and my emotions and feelings.
When I am in pain, I don’t register it before the pain is so bad that I cannot handle it. It’s not that the physical pain is not there before, I just can’t tell you what level of that it is. People often say, “on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is the pain?” My scale doesn’t have 10 levels though. It’s 1 and the straight to 8, 9 and 10. Everything between 1 and 8 feels the same.
The shift from 1 to 8 can happen in a single second and from one moment to the next I break down. Emotionally it’s very similar. It’s takes a long time for me to understand how I feel, so often I won’t actually know if someone hurt my feelings until quite a while after it happened. When I am clear about my feelings, however, I have no doubt at all. Of course, it does takes a long time for me to get to that point.
I either know my feeling or I don’t. It may seem like a very black and white way to think about it, but it’s really more like grey and white. If I have any doubt, even the tiniest bit, then I won’t feel sure and I would always say that I don’t know. Because sometimes, that little bit of doubt turned out to be something that was very influential in how I understood my own feelings – and consequently myself and those around me.
In the beginning, I had no idea that everyone wasn’t the same as me. I didn’t so much think of myself as different by nature, but more like I was not strong enough or broken in some way.
Of course, I knew since I was 10 years old that I was different from others, but I had no idea that it included how my body registers pain as well. I thought some things has to be the same, right? Pain is the same. Someone hits you on the head, you hurt. If he hits you hard enough, you’ll bleed or worse. We all bleed the same, so I thought pain was the same too.
Having been through surgery, frozen shoulder, and physical rehabilitation, I have been asked about my level of pain a lot. It was never easy for me to answer that question.
It was during this time that I truly started to understand just how important it is for me to learn to read the signs of both my mind and my body.
I’m currently not medicated for ADHD, but I’m being examined so that we can figure out if I need to be. My mind is always moving and never linearly. My mind is more like a spider’s web, strings and ideas connected to each other in many different ways all at the same time. Pull one string, all the connecting one’s tingle.
I never expected that exercise would help quiet my mind, but it does. I used to love exercise when I was younger, but in the years before I had surgery I was less and less able to stay active because of the pain and the fact that it didn’t take much for my shoulder to get dislocated and that, dear friends, is not fun.
Since I had surgery, I started rehabilitation, but none of the physiotherapists really knew anything about autism spectrum disorder and communicating with them was close to impossible. I was repeatedly pushed beyond my limits and it hindered my rehabilitation far more than it benefited anything. It wasn’t until I had a really terrible physiotherapist who pushed me into a full-on meltdown that I realised enough is enough. If I couldn’t get the help I needed, if no one would take me seriously or listen to me, then I would handle it myself.
And I did. I also now realise what was wrong. I wrote about this in another post, but it is so essential to bring someone with us when we go to such things. Someone who can explain what autism is in a way that neurotypicals can understand – and I am clearly very bad at that.
I think, I could properly do it on my own if I could write a long e-mail or something like that, but face to face interactions are just not easy. I panic and then I start babbling and then I can’t stop. I talk because I’m nervous or scared, not because I’m happy – except for very, very rare occasions when something has happened, and I cannot contain the feelings inside. This doesn’t happen very often though.
I did bring someone, but unfortunately we didn’t communicate very well and sadly it only worsened the situation. I wish someone could have come with me and explained what autism is like, so that I could have got the help I needed, but I am also happy that I didn’t get help.
Why do you think that is?
I have learned so much about my physical body and my feelings over these lasts months and it has taught me about my own physical and mental limits – and, it has taught me how important it is for me to pay better attention to myself.
I have tested out different forms of exercise and found what works for me. My mobility in my shoulder is constantly improving and recently I’ve been told that due to my recent progress I can expect a full recovery within the next year.
I still struggle with pain, but I don’t fear or hate my pain anymore. I try to feel it. Yes, it sounds odd. Why would you try to feel your pain more than necessary? Well, because it helps. I need to know my pain to be able to recognise it, I need to figure out why it’s there and what I can do to alleviate it. Sure, sometimes I take painkillers because I don’t enjoy pain and that’s okay too.
Over and over again, these last months, I have discovered my own limits and adjusted my exercise and my daily routines accordingly. It helps, even though progress is slow, it is none the less progress.
This is going to be my advice to you. Do you struggle with not understanding your own physical and mental limits? Do you constantly exert yourself beyond what you can handle?
Exercise. I am not saying you need to become a star at your local gym, not at all. You need to figure out what works for you, of course. But, if you want to know the physical limits of yourself, you need to use your body actively and regularly.
If you love basketball or volleyball, start practising. If you like running, start running. If you like playing golf, play golf. Use your body and most importantly, adjust it to suit you. You do that by actively paying attention to how you feel both physically and mentally.
I made a lot of mistakes at first. I exercised too much and hurt myself. I didn’t exercise enough and didn’t improve. I still haven’t found the right balance, but I am closer than I ever was. I exercise just enough to improve, but not enough to break. Sometimes, I probably still don’t do enough and sometimes I probably do too much – it is all fine, though. It’s about getting to know my own limits, it’s about self-improvement and more importantly than anything else – it’s about happiness. Your happiness.
If I push myself too far, I’m not happy. If I don’t know my own limits, I often push myself too far.
If you don’t use your body, how will you know when too much is really too much? How will you stop in time?
My mental state has greatly improved with exercise too. I simply think less when exercising and it gives me a much-needed break from my overactive mind. This is important because I can’t pay proper attention to my body and my mind when I think five thoughts at the same time as I’m trying to figure out if I’m hurt by something someone said or if my arm hurts so much I ought to take a break from whatever I am doing.
I still have many thoughts at the same time often, but it gets easier to focus all of them to something related to the same thing.
Of course, many things influence every situation and sometimes we end up pushing ourselves too far in spite of all the things we do to avoid it, but I honestly believe that being aware of our physical body and our mind helps us notice the subtle changes and make sure we can protect ourselves when we need to and that we can only really do this by getting to know ourselves better. Using our physical body in a safe environment and through safe activities can help us learn more about ourselves and our limits. Exercise can help us learn about our limits safely.
Hiding away or never exercising will only leave us without any well-known clues as to how to read the signs our bodies are sending us when we push ourselves too far and it will leave us no way of safely protecting ourselves when we do. When we’ve pushed ourselves too far enough times in a healthy and safe environment, and again we shouldn’t push ourselves beyond our limits on purpose, but when it happens we will know ourselves well enough to know how to act in such situations.
We can either react without purpose or act purposefully.
We want to act practically and protect ourselves until we can recharge on our own, not just randomly react in those situations, because in my experience, if often makes it worse. Knowing and understanding my own reactions makes it easier for me to both forgive myself when I push myself too far and make sure that I can protect myself when I need to.
