Naturalist
Well-Known Member
Over the past year I have managed to significantly reduce my rage meltdowns, which were often tied to stress and feelings of rejection / persecution. To achieve this my therapist has helped me to become more relaxed about myself, accepting my own identity, and giving myself permission to be quirky and imperfect on occasion. I have even settled on a few semi-acceptable stims (or at least ways to avoid calling attention to said stims). All these are good things, and I haven't had a rage meltdown in many months. And I feel very calm and occasionally quite happy. People can like me or not, and it doesn't matter as much which they choose, because I really enjoy being myself now, most of the time.
However, I have noticed that my eye contact has gone even further downhill (it was already bad, but at least I could fake it to a degree--now it just makes me physically sick to try), and my verbal ability has gone from unpredictable to... predictably BAD. I can't seem to think of words to fill a sentence any more when I speak. I have never struggled so much to speak to people; if anything my conversational style had been nerdy and rambling, but seldom at a LOSS for words. Now, my job is getting really difficult because I have to teach, but I can't find the right words to discuss the ideas that I can visualize in my mind. It has always taken me a long time to get to my point, but not because I couldn't start a sentence! I don't see the same difficulty in my writing. I can write quite a lot, with great ease, for hours at a time.
Has anyone else found that improving on one symptom of AS causes others to become more pronounced?
However, I have noticed that my eye contact has gone even further downhill (it was already bad, but at least I could fake it to a degree--now it just makes me physically sick to try), and my verbal ability has gone from unpredictable to... predictably BAD. I can't seem to think of words to fill a sentence any more when I speak. I have never struggled so much to speak to people; if anything my conversational style had been nerdy and rambling, but seldom at a LOSS for words. Now, my job is getting really difficult because I have to teach, but I can't find the right words to discuss the ideas that I can visualize in my mind. It has always taken me a long time to get to my point, but not because I couldn't start a sentence! I don't see the same difficulty in my writing. I can write quite a lot, with great ease, for hours at a time.
Has anyone else found that improving on one symptom of AS causes others to become more pronounced?