Fear (Or Another Four-Letter F Word)

Posted on by Astrid

Fear. I’ve used this word as a starting point for my writings many times. The idea comes from Mari L. McCarthy’s journaling prompts. The idea is to pick a four-letter F word and write about it or use it as a prompt. Well, I’m doing that now, but I doubt I’m actually going to write about fear. I honestly don’t know what to write at this point and am not feeling anything in particular. That is, I guess I “should” be feeling something, but I don’t know what. Alexithymia. That’s what I believe this is called. Any emotional state for me is “good”, “bad” or “neutral” like right now. I don’t ever feel totally relaxed I believe. There’s always some level of stress or anxiety or fear in my body or mind.

My movement therapist tries to tell me that my body needs to get used to the feeling of being relaxed, because due to my early childhood trauma, it never learned to trust this feeling. That makes some sense, in that I almost always feel like I’m on high alert even when I’m half asleep. Is that even possible? And if so, isn’t it just normal? Do I even know what “normal” is, being that I’m autistic and otherwise neurodivergent, multiply-disabled and a trauma survivor? I doubt it. But if I’ve lived my life like this for nearly four decades, is there any way of changing it? I hope there is, because this feeling of always being on high alert is exhausting.

This is another freewrite I originally typed up in Google Keep, then finished here.

Am I a Monster?

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’ve been struggling really badly once again. Nearly three weeks ago, I had an outburst that caused the second staff so far at this home to request to the team manager that she not be required to support me for a while. This staff used to be one of my three assigned staff. Another was a student and has since left this home to continue her education at the intensive support home I used to live at. The third one is still my assigned staff, but she only works a day or two a week.

With the staff who previously requested to not support me for a while, I’ve since talked things over, though she still refuses to be honest about the thing that got me to be angry with her, ie. her using literally every opportunity to assign me a temp worker. Because of this, I’ve felt like I had to apologize for my anger (which I see is necessary) but she wouldn’t have to apologize for or explain her behavior that upset me. With the current staff, I don’t have this issue, but I do mistrust her for having pretended to have talked it over then decided she couldn’t handle it anymore a few days later.

I realize part of the problem is my attachment anxiety. As a result of this, I mistrust people who try to come close and be there for me, because I know that if they truly knew me, they’d reject me. Which is, of course, true in theory at least: no-one in life is there for anyone else unconditionally. And, given that I sometimes don’t know who I truly am, I worry that I’ll be worse than even I can imagine if I let my guard down.

Of course, it’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy, as you can see from the fact that two staff in the past year have already rejected me. The current one even claimed she wouldn’t.

Even if I’m in the midst of severe self-doubt, I am (almost) certain that I won’t become physically violent if I let my guard down. The problem is that words hurt too, and I can unfortunately say quite nasty things even without meaning them. I mean, there’s been one instance, back at the intensive support home, when I hurt someone’s feelings with a literal personal attack: I said that it was her fault that she got hurt during a fellow client’s outburst. This staff never requested to not support me anymore. With the two who so far did here, my comments weren’t intended as they came across and, while they could literally be seen as hurtful, I didn’t mean them personally and had no bad intentions whatsoever.

I struggle intensely with this knowledge, that I don’t intend to hurt people but that I do it nonetheless. I also struggle to figure out a way to stop this. After all, they are not insults that caused these staff to reject me (though I called them both bad names too). If they were the insults, it’d be doable to erase these from my vocabulary, as I’ve mostly successfully done with certain other words. However, like I said, they were their interpretations of my comments about how they don’t know me that hurt their feelings. This is harder for me to process, as it means being aware of every possible interpretation of something I literally say. This is quite hard for me as an autistic person with virtually no cognitive empathy.

Besides, as I now realize, I probably have low emotional empathy too, as I wasn’t able to predict that the staff was just going through the motions when I thought we’d talked things over. She in fact supported me through an intense movement therapy session and I didn’t pick on her struggling at all. This makes me feel even worse than the fact that I didn’t realize at the time that my words were hurtful.

This low emotional empathy realization makes me feel like I’m a monster. Aren’t autistics supposed to have high emotional empathy? Aren’t psychopaths and narcissists the ones with low emotional empahty? I mentioned possibly being a narcissist to my wife and she denied I am. Then again, aren’t narcissists masters at making their loved ones believe they are the victim? Is all this my attachment anxiety talking, or is there some truth to the idea that I don’t deserve to be supported?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (July 5, 2025)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m once again joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. I just had my last cup of coffee for the day and probably won’t finish this post before I have my evening soft drink, but I might be able to get my staff to prepare me a cup of green tea at around 9PM. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. Oh my, has it been hot! On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had daytime temps of 36°C. The weather has been more bearable later in the week and tomorrow, we’re finally supposed to get rain. We were supposed to get a few thunderstorms on Thursday too, but thankfully not.

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you that I did manage to meet my movement goal on my Apple Watch each day this week. Not by walking on those hot days, of course. That is, on Wednesday evening I did go for a short walk. On Tuesday, I stayed indoors all day and got my exercise by dancing. I did walk on every other day.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I talked about exercise with the movement therapist on Wednesday. Next week, she’s going to come up with some exercises that I can do on my fitness mat.

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you that my best friend and I went out for dinner yesterday at the Thai restaurant we took my parents to for my birthday two years ago. I had chicken with black pepper, garlic and vegetables and of course rice that was enough to feed a family of four. I loved the food, but I did feel pretty overloaded afterwards.

If we were having coffee, next I’d moan about my day schedule. It’s still frustratingly unclear. This got me to have an outburst on Wednesday, because of course it was too hot to go for a walk and the staff assigned to me couldn’t do dice games. It all boils down to the fact that I feel overwhelmed by all the activity options and then I end up doing nothing. I’m really unsure as to how to solve this issue and sometimes I feel like a nagger.

If we were having coffee, finally I’d tell you that, thankfully, I’m still able to appreciate the little things in life. Like the green tea I mentioned above. On Wednesday, I was talking to my best friend, who was having a cup of tea at the time, and this got me thinking that even though it was 9PM, no-one said I couldn’t at least ask for a cup of tea myself. I prefer plain green tea, so I went to the living room and asked the staff for a cup of green tea. She was okay with this, so the next day, when she worked again, I decided to ask her for green tea at 9PM again. I’m seeing this as a treat. Same with my extra cup of coffee this morning when I woke up. Of course, people living independently might take their tea or coffee at the time they wish for it for granted, but I don’t.

Therapy, Counseling and Coaching for Mental Health and Personal Growth #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today for my letter T post in the #AtoZChallenge, I want to talk about therapy and other forms of support when you’re dealing with mental health problems and/or when you want to grow as a person.

Generally speaking, therapy isn’t for personal growth, although as a person you may grow when overcoming mental health problems. What I mean by this, is that your therapist isn’t just a sounding board and they aren’t your friend. If you’re feeling pretty good overall, formal therapy at least here in the Netherlands isn’t what you should be looking for. After all, therapy is aimed at helping you, in as little time as possible, to overcome your mental health problems. Here in the Netherlands, in fact, there’s a limit on the number of psychotherapy sessions you can get covered by health insurance. Of course, you could pay out of pocket for more, but if you’re reasonably well-adjusted, why should you?

Coaching and counseling are much more affordable and accessible because anyone can call themselves a counselor or coach. This also means that you’ll find coaches or counselors who align with almost any spiritual or psychological teaching. There are Enneagram coaches, for example, even though the Enneagram is actually nonsense. Did I, a person who frequently writes about herself as an Enneagram type 4, just say that? Yes, I did.

There are, of course, also coaches or counselors who do work within the framework of science-based psychology and education. For example, many people call themselves ADHD coaches and they do (I assume) have some knowledge of the current ideas surrounding ADHD.

Psychotherapy is, here in the Netherlands, often heavily protocol-based depending on your diagnosis or main problem. This is also what I’ve often found frustrating. Like, when I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, my psychologist wanted to do schema-focused therapy, but the modes and all that didn’t fit in with my experience of being plural.

At other times, therapy didn’t suit me because, while I sort of understood the theory, I wasn’t able to apply it in practice. This is why I eventually stopped doing dialectical behavior therapy.

I personally don’t do well with therapies that are merely focused on skill-building or that are primarily verbal (talk therapy). I have had the most success with art and movement therapies. I currently do movement therapy based on the Sherborne method. This is a sensory and attachment-based therapy approach. For example, today my therapist brought a multisensory tool called CRDL. When both of us touched the tool with one hand and touched each other’s hands or arms, the CRDL made different calming sounds. This is helping me regulate far better than any DBT skill helped me.

My Hopes for 2025

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s January 1 and I am absolutely not motivated to set resolutions or goals for the new year. In fact, I think calling them “hopes” like I usually do, isn’t doing the trick either. I’m too scared that voicing my hopes is tempting fate. However, I’m going to push through anyway and write them down.

1. Be more aware of my eating habits and eat more healthily. I am still within the agreed-upon weight range for my dietitian (or was when I last weighed myself, which admittedly was before Christmas), but barely so and I’d really like to lose some weight. More importantly though, I need to make sure I’m making healthier food choices.

2. Find a physical activity other than walking that I will be able to do regularly for a longer period of time. I tried swimming, but it’s rare that a staff who can meet my needs is assigned to me during the time the pool is open for me. I’m thinking of going to a gym.

3. Give movement therapy (Sherborne) a fair chance and make some progress on it. I do think I gave play therapy a good enough chance, especially since my first impression of the therapist was already quite bad and I went nine times or so. However, I really do think I need to step out of my comfort zone in movement therapy if I want to make it work.

4. Further taper my medication. This needs a caveat though, since I need to really be aware of whether decreasing my dosage is a wise decision and, if not, what the alternatives are.

5. Remain relatively stable mental health-wise. I have been doing okay over the past month or so and my staff say that certainly after my last med taper, I’ve been relatively stable. Like I said, I’d really like to taper my medication even further, but it’s a priority for me to stay within an acceptable range with respect to mental stability. Although I feel that meds are for me, not anyone else, I don’t want to become an unmanageable monster.

6. Work on self-improvement in the areas of communication, mindfulness and distress tolerance. This is a biggie, but I feel that I really need to work on better interpersonal skills.

7. Broaden and deepen my creativity. I may want to explore hobbies that I have tried before but thought unsuitable, such as jewelry-making. I also hope to develop my skills further in the hobbies I already pursue, such as polymer clay, smoothie making, etc. I hope to do more baking and cooking too.

8. Blog and write more regularly. I wrote 110 posts over 2024, which is a big disappointment for me. I hope I’ll be able to blog more often. I also hope to write more regularly in general.

9. Stay at this care home. I’m really hoping that I won’t make another stupid mistake and end up moving again, either because the powers-that-be think that I want to or because the staff consider me unmanageable.

What do you hope to achieve in 2025?

Movement Therapy Again

Posted on by Astrid

It’s incredibly hot (yes, it’s *still* incredibly hot) and I’m not too motivated to write. However, we had movement therapy again today and I feel pretty much obligated to share about it, since our last session didn’t go well.

I was feeling somewhat stressed but also capable of communicating my feelings at the start. I explained about having fought with the therapist about her asking for Astrid to come back. I just realized yesterday how unhelpful this can be on several levels. It’s not just that it creates a fight between us and the therapist. If the one who thinks she’s truly Astrid truly appears, she’s often quite disoriented. Yesterday she did after Marieke tried to be open about herself. I don’t know whether she’s truly the core or just a part who denies our existence. I like to view us as a system as altogether Astrid, but this Astrid part is clearly not us as a whole and can still feel quite dissociated. But I digress.

I told the movement therapist that I’d prefer her asking us to get back into an adult state if we seem to dissociate. This was fine by her, so when this had been cleared up, we could proceed with the session.

I disclosed that our mind was quite full of thoughts. Actually, it was several others chattering but I didn’t say so as to not start another argument. We then did a concentration exercise. We had to move a one-meter-long stick that was standing up from one hand to the other without dropping it. Then from one finger to the same or next finger on the other hand. This was quite a challenging activity and we liked it.

After that, we did a sensory activity with a spiky ball. I was out in the body but Marieke and Suzanne were close by. I chatted to the therapist while they felt and enjoyed the ball. After this, we did a ball-throwing activity. This was definitely calming and enjoyable. It helped that the others had already had their time close by the front, I think.

Consultation Meeting Today

Posted on by Astrid

This is Clarissa, but a lot of us are near. I just had the meeting with the Center for Consultation and Expertise (CCE) consultant this afternoon. The CCE is an organization that helps in complex care cases where a client with a disability or illness gets stuck due to “severe problem behavior” and their quality of life is at risk. We originally started this consultation last May because we had to leave our current day activities due to our challenging behavior and were stuck in the process of finding a new place.

Now that we’ll start on our new place next week, we decided to go ahead with the consultation anyway because we still lack perspective in many respects. For one thing, we’re struggling to live independently with our husband. For another, we’re unsure as to whether the treatment we receive from the mental heath team is really the best for us. We do dialectical behavior therapy because it was recommended to us, but we really struggle to apply its skills in daily life.

One thing in this respect which the consultant said, was that maybe all this treatment isn’t working because we talk too much and do too little. Or something like that. She didn’t mean that we don’t move our arse. What she said was, our treatment is based on a borderline personality disorder diagnosis while in reality our autism, which can’t be treated, is more relevant. As such, we might do better living our life with enough support rather than constantly needing treatment.

Wow. This had us thinking. Could we really live our life without a psychiatrist and other mental health professionals on board? Sounds really dependent as I write it now, as if we depend on our mental health team, whom we mostly see every other week, to keep us functioning. But the truth is, do we really need them?

Most of us are so excited at the prospect of just being allowed to be ourselves. As it is now, we need some mental health staff for support when we need to talk and our support worker isn’t around. However, it doesn’t really take a mental health degree to help us in most of these cases. Other than that, we go to the obligatory DBT sessions with our nurse practitioner and to movement therapy, neither of which we feel is terribly effective and both of which are temporary.

I will have to give it some thought. We really most likely need support for the rest of our life, and that’s okay. Our need for an on-call support worker (now that’s a psychiatric hospital nurse) will most likely not vanish if we finish DBT. And yet our “prescription phone call” service has to be renewed every six months. If my husband and I move closer to a supported housing facility, and/or we get access to a non-psychiatric support phone line, wouldn’t that be far better? I’ll really have to discuss this with the consultant when she visits our home on August 14.

Movement Therapy Yesterday

Posted on by Astrid

Trigger warning: strong language.

So yesterday we had movement therapy. We feel it’s really helping but we also switch a lot during this type of therapy. We’re not formally diagnosed with a dissociative disorder. Were formally diagnosed DID but that got changed to BPD five years ago. Our current mental health team’s opinion is that the “pieces” are allowed to be there but there’s no need for a dissociative disorder diagnosis or any form of specialized treatment. We do DBT individually with our nurse practitioner (not in a group because we’re autistic and would be overwhelmed by a group) and the movement therapist tries to incorporate some DBT too. We really try to fit our “pieces” into the DBT model of emotional/rationa/wise mind (we purposefully avoid the word “alters” as to not suggest we self-diagnose, as our former psychologist believed we made up the DID).

The thing is, Astrid is rarely out. That is, always when we think we’ve found the core or “real” Astrid, we realize it’s yet another alter. We don’t mind as most adults can present as Astrid and act pretty much normally. However, yesterday in movement therapy Katinka was out from the start (she’s one of the main fronters). Then for some reason Suzanne popped out and the therapist called for Astrid to come back. Katinka came back with some difficulty and explained that she’s fine being called Astrid but she isn’t Astrid. The therapist insisted that she may be Katinka now but Astrid was out at the beginning. It was quickly time to end the session and we were still pretty spacey but didn’t say so. To be honest we didn’t feel fully safe to go home yet (one of us was having destructive urges), but we didn’t say anything and managed to go home anyway.

Now some of us are thinking of quitting movement therapy or the whole mental health treatment altogether. We’ve run into just a little too many disagreements with our treatment team. I mean, they’re overall good people, not like our former psychologist who just was one giant bitch. We don’t need a fucking DID diagnosis (we’re not fully DID actually). We’re fine calling ourselves pieces or whatever, but we’re not going away. Now we’re pretty sure we’re going to be taken out of movement therapy for it destabilizing us. Well, whatever. If the goal is to keep us acting apparently normally all the time, then we don’t need nor want no fucking mental health treatment for that.