Brain turns to treacle

My husband was sitting up when I got to the hospital last night. He didn’t look happy. I asked him how his day had gone, “terrible” he said. I asked him why.

He started by describing the difficulty he had going for a cigarette; he was going to go on his own, but was threatened with being sectioned off he didn’t return, so he had to go with a chaperone, which meant waiting for somebody to be ready.

Then he started talking about us and that he’d been thinking. I really want prepared for a conversation so intense, not yet, not then, not there. On a ward with four other patients and their families. Anxiety, which is noticed steadily rising as I approached the hospital, skyrocketed. My brain turned to is usual treacle when faced with difficult conversations, uncomfortable feelings, and let’s throw in there now, an environment that just felt unsafe.

Give me a meeting about a software problem (and assuming I’m not anxious or stressed about it), I can engage and chatter and my brain works. Ambush me with emotional issues that directly relate to me and it’s like my brain goes for a walk (you can talk about how person x has pissed you off just fine, but if person x is me, then we have a problem).

As I mentioned, it turns to treacle: is it that my thoughts slow down, or that the conversation moves faster than I can process? He pauses for breath and before I’ve marshalled my thoughts and decided what he meant and how I feel about it from the umpteen different possible feelings and their corresponding responses, he’s continued, it worse, started on something else.

It is quite plain that he does not believe that I’m autistic. He thinks I’m putting it on our being persuaded by what I’m reading. It’s impossible to talk about it to him.

These are the sorts of complaints that he’s made over the years:

• He objects to special interests or hyper focus; I read in small bursts on the toilet. I set an alarm so I don’t practice piano to much. I used to collect books, but I’m only allowed so many.
• Even when I disappear for the small bursts of reading, he complains “here he goes again” he’ll say.
• He has constantly criticised my way of listening.
• He complains that conversations are all one sided.
• He complains if the “check list” he needs to complete before speaking to me to make sure that I can concentrate (I’m not hungry, thirsty, tired, stressed, and others)
• He says that I’m driven by routines, going to the gym at a fixed time, taking lunch at a fixed time, having tea at a fixed time, a fixed time for the dog walk, we always have sex on the weekend never in the week, I always go for a run on a Sunday
• He hates that I need to go to bed at a fixed time and have a specific wind down routine
• Commenting on my occasional strange use of language “who uses words like that?”
• He has the TV on way to loud for me, but he can’t hear it it is at a level that’s comfortable for me
• “You’ve always had a problem with life” he says

Was far as I can see, these observations are at least consistent with ASD, and he has suggested that I may be “on the spectrum”. I don’t see why he won’t at least consider the possibility.

After the conversation grinding to a halt because only he was saying anything, we went outside for a cigarette. (He wanted one, I was just the chaperone this time).

Being unprepared for the conversation and the unfamiliar and anxiety provoking setting, I really struggled to stay present. The pattern of the bricks in the pavement became even more fascinating, that some areas had a clear pattern and others did not. The black gum on the floor. The white bird poo. I noticed a child that had fallen on its bum and I remember thinking “isn’t it strange how babies have such short legs”. I had a sense of panic wherever anybody passed us.

I know that I said that I thought that he needed to move on, or words to that effect. I know that I said that I was surprised that I liked flat; I hadn’t expected to.

I strongly feel that unless he is willing to help me live with whatever it is that is ruining my life, that I don’t think we can be together – all the effort, all the years were a waste of time.

Just as I was walking him back to the ward he said, “if you’re interested, I’ve had the results of my tests back – I have a black mass on my lung, it’s pneumonia, and they are monitoring ‘the markers’ and won’t discharge me until they’re happy”. I knew that he had a pneumonia, which was worrying at the time, but I’d thought that was gone because they’d discharged him from intensive care. I was gobsmacked. And he throws this in at the end.

He says goodbye and went into a toilet just outside the ward. I wasn’t sure what I was allowed to do, so I hesitated a little and I could see that he looked impatient or angry; I hugged him anyway.

I sat in a little waiting area nearby and cried for a while.

I truly believe that my brain works differently from most people – from his – and that all my life, all the time we’ve been together, it has impacted on me, on us.

If my self-diagnosis is correct, then I have optimism for the future – I am excited for the future.

If my husband won’t work with me on this, then I am afraid that my future won’t include him – that is devastating for me.

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Prepared!

Having had such a difficult time last night, I was a bit more prepared for an uncomfortable time tonight. I was in a better space in any event – light and sound wasn’t painful tonight. This last week every light burnt my eyes; every sound rent my eardrum. It’s interesting how my sensitivity to the environment changes depending on my own mental state. I wonder if that’s normal?

For a start, husband was in a better mood, which helped me to relax just a little. He suggested that we go outside so that he could smoke. Another great idea – having a load of strangers around in the ward while we had a domestic was never going to work, so outside was a great idea.

Just being outside was better; I’ve been in hospitals so many times that I’m already tight as a drum when I go in.

We seem to be quietly agreeing that the house is no longer a home to either of us. He feels it since I first started this crazy adventure and he became aware of how precarious his home actually was – he thought he would have to be the one to leave.

I have felt it since I came back from Mexico and I spent a week in the car, then later I was asked to go and stay in a hotel for a few days, finally getting asked to go and live in a flat. Actually, the finally is having the door slammed in my face when I came to check on him and walk the dog.

He is telling the hospital and the mental health people that I am his ex. I was a little afraid to ask whether that was how he sees me – although it is a question I just ask. He’s telling them that so that they do not assume that he is going to be getting help. We both think that the services all assume that I will look after him.

He also seems less opposed to the idea that I might be autistic; he says that he’s trying to ground me and that he’s glad that I’ll be speaking to the doctor. He does think that I’m reading this book and just applying everything to me. I don’t believe that’s what’s happening, because there are chapters where I identify less than others.

I think I managed to communicate a little more of what my brain is like to him: the hundred browser tabs, the music playing without knowing where it was coming from, the constant distractions: ooh look – lady in pink leotard, I wonder what trees those are, oh there’s ICU that I couldn’t find, what’s the that kid doing on those crutches, and so on, and so on, all the while I’m trying to concentrate on what he’s saying. I changed the subject twice without realising that he wasn’t ready to, which always irritates him.

He did comment that low T will be accountable for some of my anxiety and depression. I said that I have always felt anxious, I just cannot defend against it any more: I am burnt out.

I did relay an event today where my boss had called out of the blue and disrupted my already fragmented concentration, forcing me to attempt to jump mental tracks – which I struggle to do. I thought everybody struggled with it – turns out that some people are fine with switching focus quickly like that. I commented that I’m addition to all the things he’s ever commented on about me, there’s all this stuff with the way I see the world, how I experience it, that is different from the norm – that is always assumed that either I was just weird, or that everybody saw the world this way and just didn’t talk about it.

He admitted some jealously that I’ll be meeting a friend later this month; building another connection while he continues to feel locked out. I am still struggling to share myself with him: there’s the fear of his meltdowns, and fear of his anger. And his skepticism.

He commented that at the end of last night, when I went to hug him, that he could see the list child in me seeking solace – he says that it near broke his heart.

The hug at the end of this night was a much more relaxed than yesterday: I didn’t need to sit and recover afterwards.