I'm terrified of both being homeless and being abused in whatever home I might have when I get older. I'm 51 as of this posting, and I have a history of having been abused by various people in my childhood and early adulthood. I'm also Trans, and I have fibromyalgia and PTSD. The more marginalized groups a person belongs to, the greater the possibility of experiencing things like homelessness and abuse. So, being both disabled (especially cognitively) and gender variant really doesn't help my situation any.
My therapist agrees with me that probably most Autistics who don't have really progressive parents and circumstances growing up likely have PTSD. I think Gaslighting is probably a serious part of the cause that, so it's hard to be trusting about the future, especially knowing I have as much difficulty as I do figuring out social stuff, communicating clearly when something is wrong, and having the confidence to know when something is wrong so I can try to stand up for myself at all.
My life is very good right now, but I'm always afraid things will change and rip this from me, sending me back into the world of pain and confusion inflicted upon me in the past, even though it's been years since I suffered so horribly. The bad old days were what I knew as normal for so long, and I fear once again being told bad things that people do on purpose aren't really happening / are by accident / aren't that bad / are my fault and therefore can't be avoided and/or are deserved. Now that I know this fear is a result of gaslighting and is part of my PTSD, I think I'm on my way to keeping myself more balanced and preventing spiraling so far down into negative thinking. But I still know I have a very realistic fear of the future concerning this, and I don't know what I can do to prevent it. It's hard to find the line between what's reasonable and what isn't regarding this, and the lack of clarity really doesn't help. Also, not knowing how to plan effectively makes it hard to let go and think about other things.
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Life is a classroom for a mind without walls.
Loitering is encouraged at The Wayshelter:
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