I suppressed a meltdown yesterday …and it went about as well as you might expect!
I’m fortunate.
I not only recognised what was happening, I forced the reaction back down into myself so I could function in public. A lot of ASD folks simply can’t do this. But even as I did it I literally said out loud “I’m going to pay for this later”.
Anyway, to backtrack! Yesterday, I had to pay a credit card bill. Simples, right? Well actually no; it was for the large car repair I needed (or rather my car needed!) last month, and was compounded by the discovery that the cheque I’d sent for the previous month’s bill appeared not to have arrived. Normal person would call the bank, discuss the situation and pay over the phone, or even never have the situation in the first place because they have apps and things. But no. And since the bank my credit card is with closed their Stowmarket branch a couple of years back, I had to go into Ipswich.
This was okay so far. I’d been in the Ipswich branch once before, and I knew where it was. I knew the layout . These were All Good Things. However, the previous time I’d been there it was a ghost town – two bored assistants practically falling over themselves in their excitement to help me. This time there was… A Queue!
It’s fine. I can do queues. I can do waiting. I can see there’s a chap coming over and helping folks so they don’t have to queue for so long. I can cope that I might not be going to that counter which I was expecting. I can definitely do it without panicking for absolutely no discernible purpose… breathe…and… Ah. No, it would appear I can’t.
(Readability analysis hates the previous sentence. Readability analysis is a moron that has never heard of anaphora)
The joys of suddenly not being able to speak!
Nice chap comes and asks me what I want to do, I open my mouth and recognise the block. I literally cannot talk. I am, for the moment, non-verbal. This increases my panic because I know I have only seconds to explain, but I grab a pen and paper out of my bag (I later find I’m writing all over my credit card bill, but never mind…) and scribble
autistic
gone non verbal
pay credit card
I absolutely hate doing this because I KNOW there are many people who struggle way more than me and the very fact I drove myself to the bank surely means I should be able to deal with it myself, right?
If only life was that easy…
But its okay. I’m now sitting in a nice little cubicle and have managed to convey to the chap that just because I currently need to communicate via a combination of written word and interpretive mime, he doesn’t need to do the same. This turns out to be a Good Thing because
it’s okay YOU can talk 🙂
Is amusing enough that the block breaks and I can bark single words. Unfortunately the next difficulty presents itself – apparently I cannot pay this bank using my debit card because it belongs to a different bank. I could put my debit card into their cash machine, withdraw the cash and hand that over, but the bill is more than my daily withdrawal limit so…
Now, up until this point
all would have potentially been okay. But Chris – I’m going to use his name now – suggested I nip across to the other bank and do a transfer from there. A simple and workable solution but this was the point at which my brain short circuited. Poor Chris was doubtless wondering why HE had to get the customer who a) couldn’t speak to him b) was staring fixedly at the desk instead of him and c) now burst into tears when he provided a solution. I managed to explain that I was panicking at the prospect of A New Thing. He offered to walk across to the other bank and tell them what was needed.
Just read that again. How amazing was Chris? Never mind those huge banking CEOS with their massive bonuses, Chris deserves a six-figure bonus all of his own this year.
Unfortunately, I was full-on sobbing and what I actually needed was ten minutes to calm down in a quiet room with absolutely no stimulation. But this is where I Can Do Normal kicked in. I literally talked myself down in under thirty seconds. Claimed I was fine to go to the other bank now.
And all went well. Arun (I think) at the other bank sorted everything for me. He expressed amazement that I have my 16-digit credit card number memorised (doesn’t everyone? 😉 ). Less than five minutes later all was sorted. I went back to previous bank to show them the printout so they could confirm I’d done it all correctly. Proud of myself for this – I was removing a source of anxiety later (my brain would doubtless start nagging “What if you paid it into the wrong account?!” or somesuch nonsense).
The rest of the day was lovely.
But there were warning signs. After a lovely meal out with Mum (fish and chips, and a lovely baked alaska cheesecake for dessert) I was ready to fall asleep. But I was at my parents’ house, so I ignored the urge and instead chatted for a bit and headed home. Pottered around and actually did a bit of housework, then David came over around 6. We picked Soph up and went to see friends for the evening to celebrate the Spring Equinox.
Warning Sign Two: My face had stopped working. Yup, just as it sounds. I was literally staring fixedly at a point in the wall, not even blinking.
Warning Sign Three: I also had t-rex arms that refused to unbend, and flappy fingers (I almost never have noticeably flappy fingers!).
Warning Sign Four: David suggested I get my cross stitch out, but I couldn’t work out how to do it. I don’t mean I couldn’t remember how to cross stitch, I mean the necessary movements to pick up the bag and extract the sewing was absolutely beyond me at this point.
The oddest thing was that I felt absolutely fine! Happy, relaxed, glad to be there… and it was a lovely evening. I may have eaten slightly more cheese than was sensible, but never mind!
Got home absolutely exhausted and said cheerfully “I expect I’ll sleep until about nine tomorrow morning!”
Reader, I did not sleep until 9 this morning
I did not sleep until 8. Or 7.
I woke at 4am with slight indigestion. This was not a problem. Couple of rennies, bathroom visit, back to bed. All sorted.
Reader, it was NOT all sorted.
It was Payback Time!!!
I spent the next hour having a panic attack which refused to abate. I detest nighttime panic attacks most of all because i’m too tired to get up and do anything else. All I can do is lie there and repeat meditations and affirmations and wait for morning to come.
I was relatively lucky, I managed to doze a little, and when I woke again there was light outside. Not much light, but enough that I told myself out loud “Look! You’ve survived the night!”
Then, because the panic attack is a git, we went and threw up a few times. Unfortunately I’d brought FreyCat upstairs to keep me company, and he was curious to know what I was doing.
At this time it was a quarter to six. Frey and I went back to bed. He helped again by standing on my stomach and purring loudly. I attempted to go to sleep for a couple of minutes, but then had a thought – my body is in fight-or-flight mode. Why not try the flight part?!
And so it came to pass that I got up, dressed, and at 6:20 this morning left the house with just my phone, a few quid in one pocket and a bottle of water, and…
Took a five mile walk!
And my goodness, it was about the best thing I could have done! I headed down to the river and walked along the bank to begin with. Counting steps all the way because a) I’m curious about such things and b) it means I don’t have the extra space for the anxious thoughts to intrude. 3,500 steps in, I saw a kingfisher! My first of the year, and a couple of minutes later, a pair of grey wagtails landed on the river bank right across from me! At this point I started keeping a list of birds on my phone.
I had another idea – I wasn’t going to walk back along the river path. I was going to go up to Combs wood and then head back through town. By the time I reached the wood I was on 5,500 steps and actually starting to feel hungry. In my pocket was the chocolate mini-egg from last night’s ritual, so I ate that whilst sitting on a tree branch. At this point, I really wanted to climb a tree, but there weren’t any suitable ones around.
Anyway, this post is already ridiculously long so to cut it a bit brief, I made it back home at 8:30am, with all my 10,000 steps already done for the day!
I’ve got a songwriters listening party about to begin with COMUSO any minute now (Robbie’s just getting a coffee!) so I think I shall finish here with a list of all the birds I saw:
- Blackbird
- Robin
- Bluetit
- Crow
- Woodpigeon
- Wren
- Great tit
- Chaffinch
- Little brown thing in the reeds
- sound similar to Cetti’s Warbler
- Moorhen
- KINGFISHER!!
- Grey wagtails
- Magpie
- stuttering Chiffchaff
- Rook
- Long-tailed tits
- heard woodpecker drumming
- Pheasants
- Starlings
- Collared dove
- Dunnock
I suppressed a meltdown yesterday.