Hey folks,
Well, let me tell you a bit about myself. I am 28 and trying to go through university (which I am taking a leave of absence from and will likely have to step away from). For most of my life I have felt out of place, unlike the others, and have struggled socially and in group environments. Heck, I don't know if independent living is possible for me at this point.
I lived in some sort of a fantasy world for much of my childhood to the degree that I grew to enjoy it more than interacting with actual people. When I tried to exit that bubble I failed miserably and first discovered how much different I was from other people. I managed to go back to school, got stellar grades, got into a graduate program, racked up a lot of debt...and I'm thinking that it was for the sake of fantasies of what I could be rather than what I actually was capable of doing. I've never been able to really hold down many jobs and felt so much more different than the others around me all the time. I was called clumsy, slow, lazy, incompetent etc.
When I was treated it was for depression and anxiety problems...I didn't even know about the autism spectrum until recently, and though a number of people mentioned that I might be on it I didn't want to take their advice. I talked to my parents (who may both be some undiagnosed degree of ASD themselves) today about potentially being on the ASD spectrum and they mentioned that in the past, medical professionals and teachers had suspected that I had some or many learning or developmental disabilities. They chose to ignore or get upset at this advice.
Right now I'm 28, have never been in a relationship, am only living independently off of student loans, am struggling with basic life tasks and realizing that I don't really know how to pay bills, find an apartment, manage paperwork and other basic tasks that would be expected of an adult my age. I am terrified of change. I've never been diagnosed with anything other than severe depression and anxiety...and don't really know how to get myself checked up on for things like dyspraxia, face-blindness and other sensory disorders (which I'm sure I have). At least I have a home to go back to...
I'm sending out a message asking for advice, because with the extra confusion that depression's bringing on I really don't know how to navigate the whole process. Where should I go from here? I think that the debt can be written off or written down...it's finding medical help that I'm worried and somewhat clueless about. I've been wanting to check into a psychiatric hospital for a while but don't know if they will take me seriously and believe that I could have slipped through the cracks. Heck, I don't even know how I managed to slip through the cracks.
11 Feb 2011, 10:23 pm
