ASD Toshiro – Oh So Close, >.<;

Written version of video:

Hi everyone, this is Autism Toshiro Hitsugaya, or ASD Toshiro for short.

The subject I’ll be focusing on in this audio video is how unfair it is to get so close to finding a solution, only to have it snatched away. This section is about the unfairness of getting close to finding a solution to the lack of understanding from those around me, getting to know someone a little more, and my pain. I’ve been so close on each regard, only to have it snatched away by whatever means.

One of these moments was in 2013. It was actually during the wake of my late grandmother. A relative of mine came to visit, someone who doesn’t really know me, other than what my mother explained to him. He apparently worked helping people on the spectrum, but something rather odd happened when I met him. He has Tuberous Sclerosis, but something told me he has autism as well. Why? Well, from what my family told me, he had sustained injury during his birth and this can result in autism. I’ve found out through research that Tuberous Sclerosis has a risk of causing autism.

I found that he was the first person in my whole family, apart from my mother, who understood me. In fact, he understood me better in that short time than I ever expected him to. I was incredibly nervous about the wake and all the people around me, however; when this relative started to relate to what I was experiencing, I felt the icy hold of my anxiety start to slip. That is very unusual and never happens to me, certainly not without some time of getting to know them till I feel more comfortable.

Anyway, what I mean is that I wonder if he is also autistic as well. I don’t think his parents would agree, but I think he has.

What took me by total surprise was his confrontation with a relative of mine, who is around my age. A relative who has never understood me at all, no matter how many times I tried to explain it to her. This visiting relative counteracted this relative that has never understood me. It was epic, I wish you could have seen it. He was explaining about my autism and how it affects me. My other relative didn’t understand and kept going on about potential, her new favourite word. I was saying basically that there is a constant misconception about autism, people either think you have to be Kanner autistic or Einstein, but people like myself that fit between the two keep falling through the net. Which is what has happened with me. My distant relative agreed with me, but my other relative couldn’t think of a comeback, and just broke. It was so strange. It was like she was shattered before my eyes, broke into tears and stormed out of the house. I couldn’t believe it, someone was defending me from my hostile relative, and it was working.

Unfortunately, this relative had to move away again since he only came for a visit and lives far away. This, however; is a good proof that support from someone who’s autistic or very much like it, does exist, if you can find it. I felt exhilarated to see someone other than my mum fighting on my side, who could see the world and the people around me the way I did. It was so unusual as that never happens, certainly not to me. However; when he moved away again, I was back to square one. I found a solution, but it was unfairly taken away from me. This is a good proof of something I know will help me as it already has, if only briefly, but finding a permanent version is the difficulty I have.

Another experience I went through involves my Facebook friend. Well, I’ve already explained that one in a previous blog entry. Basically, she was starting to open up to me, towards the end of our friendship before everything turned sour because of her friendship with a bully of mine. I could notice her messages were starting to change, she started to open up to me about subjects she never talked to me before, like she began to trust me. I was so close to getting to the next stage of friendship, it felt like a door was beginning to open, like I was moving onto the next level in a video game, but it was cruelly snatched away from me. I couldn’t continue when she was accusing my autism for taking the bullying I’ve been through too seriously. It’s like the game crashed and I lost the saved game I worked so hard on, leaving me having to start from scratch, and I lost the game itself so I’ve had to find a replacement, >.<;.

Not only that, but I was inspired recently by a suggestion that sounded hopeful, it gave me an adrenaline rush, I felt this power I’ve never experienced before. I felt this intense energy burst, like I had a goal that was reachable and I needed to do whatever I could to make sure I could succeed. I felt so much strength and drive that gave me a boost. I was determined to get a task done, I was working hard at it. That’s when all of a sudden, I’m told, that they couldn’t fulfil that suggestion. I felt like I just received a 1000-ton weight on top of me, I just sank. I dropped down lower into depression than I was before. I was so hopeful, thinking that at last something really good would happen and I wanted to make an effort until I realized, “No, of course not, you’re fooling yourself to ever think you were going to succeed! You’ve got no hope! There’s no point anymore, everything just keeps crashing! One minute it’s there, and you know it would help, the next minute it’s all taken away from you.”

You know, as I’m experiencing these answers that come ever so close, but are taken away, I feel, is there someone up there playing tricks on me, giving me a taster of what will help, yet denying me the right to a permanent answer. I know what will help me, I’ve witnessed it myself, but getting a permanent solution it’s like reaching for the stars. You climb a mountain to get closer, you see it clearer, it’s brighter, but it’s leagues away. You can’t get there as it’s just too far out of reach. You can climb a mountain, but you need a spaceship in order to make the distance.

It’s cruel to face that answer and have it nabbed away before you’ve had the chance to feel it’s full effect. It really does feel like someone toying with me, messing me around, getting some kind of enjoyment out of watching me suffer. Why is it that the answer is too far out of reach? Why? Why can’t it permanent? Why can’t I find an answer that lasts? I need to find the answer to my goal, and I’ve been searching for so long, and I’ve faced trauma along the way. How much more do I have to endure until I find a permanent solution?

Anyway, that’s it for now, I wish it didn’t have to be ‘it’, I still need to find an answer. ‘That’s it for now’ is a poor choice of words, I guess I should say, “this is the end of the audio video or written blog, but the continuation to find answers, at least I hope I’m successful”. “I can only hope that some miracle will come down and make life feel worth living” my inner heart is telling me, …… “As if that’s ever going to happen. You’d have a better chance winning the lottery!” my critical inner mind tells me, -_-. The battleground between mind and heart. See what I mean? Inner turmoil, which isn’t helped if I’m treated badly by others as explained in my previous blog entry, ‘Abuse from ASD Forum’, :(. It fuels the feelings of worthlessness, like I don’t belong on this planet, like I was never meant to be born.

Well, thank you for listening or reading, :).

ASD Toshiro – Abuse from ASD Forums

Written version of video:

Hi everyone, this is Autism Toshiro Hitsugaya, or ASD Toshiro for short.

The subject I’ll be focusing on in this audio video is the abuse I’ve received from ASD online forums. Now, this is something I feel very strongly and angry about, and is evil targeting the most vulnerable through total lack of understanding and care. I wrote on forums in the past, and I’ve been hurt by them. In the private messages in a UK forum, I was told I was ‘childish’ because of my triggers involving an educational environment.

On one worldwide ASD forum, I can remember being told that the others on the forum were in a better position than myself. So, basically, trying to write on the forum, I’m not going to find others that can understand where I’m coming from? So, it’s hopeless? After that comment, I thought, what’s the point?

On another worldwide ASD forum, I wanted my mother to write on my behalf to try to find someone willing to write to me. I kept an eye on the responses until I saw very hurtful ones. They started to abuse my mother across the internet! So, no one is safe from the onslaught then, huh? I went onto the forum, and made my own response, and although it seemed to ease up a little, all of a sudden, a couple of people were accusing my mother saying that my writing was from her, imitating myself, >.<;. I felt very angry at that, I couldn’t sit by and watch her suffer at the hands of those brutal responses, I put my heart and soul into the lengthy response I made that spun 5 pages across Microsoft Word. I worked so hard on that, and they accuse me of being ‘fake’, of being a ‘troll’. To be insulted so badly by the autistic community on a forum, from being called ‘childish’, to being told I’m fake, like I don’t even exist. Like I didn’t get that type of treatment from school. It’s responses and moments like this when I wonder why I even bother writing on the internet at all, >:(. It makes me very angry. I try my best, I put everything I can into my writing and still no one understands nor cares, and on top of that, abuse me. Autistic people on a forum, a forum that is supposed to be ‘supportive’, abuse other autistics, it’s a joke. Only a sick one.

They were even implying that my mother needed to seek psychiatric help for helping me to find someone to write to from the forum. I was abused in private messages on an ASD forum before by a man in his 40’s calling me ‘childish’ due to my triggers involving an educational environment. I didn’t want to have to face that again, so I needed my mother for support, but instead they chose to accuse her!

It hurt me so badly to see them treat us both that way, it drove me near to the edge. It cut me so deeply to be abused by people I thought would understand where I’m coming from. That abuse, how evil can they be?!? This is coming from the autistic community? I don’t understand it. How can another autistic person abuse another? There’s something clearly wrong with this picture. They’re pinning autistic people against each other. It’s evil and abhorrent.

In fact, my response to that abuse, was the following:

‘I put my heart and soul out there, and I am constantly abused. To say that I am my mother, you have no idea how hurtful your words are, :(. I have put so much effort into writing online, and to face that type of abuse is abhorrent. I feel ashamed to think that there are those on the spectrum that enjoy to see another suffer because of their trauma and accusing them as if they don’t exist.

You nearly gave me a heart attack with that response. That was so hurtful, :(. My heart is beating nine to the dozen.

I’ve had enough of that from my school life, I don’t need that type of abuse now in my present circumstances, especially from the autistic community. This is exactly why I find it so difficult to write on the internet, to face abuse like this is sickening. I don’t understand how an autistic person can say such abusive comments to another. It’s absolutely beyond me.

I’m already feeling uneasy about writing on here, particularly facing abuse like that. I have PTSD, do you honestly think I need to hear comments like those ?!? I feel so, so angry right now. I feel like my soul is reaching out of my body and rising above my head, :(.

It is only my mother and I, she already told you our family was unlawfully and wrongly split apart. My mother is the only one that I can turn to in my family and trust. I live with my mother not my father, and soon after he found out I was on the spectrum, he didn’t come to see me anymore. I tried to send him a letter and a Christmas card I had made from my photographs, but he had moved without telling me his new address. He died a year or two later, and we only found out from one the relatives, and they told us he never received my letter or card. My sister ran away when I was 7 years old, not from my mother, but my father.’

It’s times like these I wonder why I even bother. What is the point when all I receive is hurtful responses that take no consideration to what I’ve written? I did the best I could. I put everything I can into what I write, but maybe that’s it, maybe putting my heart on the line leaves me vulnerable. I can’t help it; I need to be able to get across my feelings because otherwise how else would I be able to find people who’d want to write to me. Surely I have to be myself, no?

I wanted my mother to begin writing on the forum on my behalf because of the shear abuse I received before, but I wasn’t going stand by and watch as my mother was being abused across the internet before my eyes. How can they do that? It hurts me so much to cause us more suffering than we already have. What gives them the right to hurt us this way?!? Should I even continue, is there any point? Am I going to keep receiving that kind of abuse across the internet? I can’t take much more of this; it cuts me so deeply. I wish people knew and cared about the pain these people online are causing, or do they even care? I have to find someone willing to write to me, but do I have to be abused along the way? Why are they doing this to my mum and I? My mum is the only person I can trust to help me, and when she tries, she faces abuse as well! If you abuse my mother, you also abuse me as well since she is my support. How can it be right to abuse a mother trying to help support a son on the spectrum by helping me to find someone to write to? I’ve been on forums before, and I didn’t want to face that abuse again, but I didn’t realise they would turn that hostile towards my mother. They were like a pack of wolves striking upon anyone that was vulnerable, and my mother and I were prime targets!

What did they honestly think abuse like that would do to a person affected by ASD and PTSD?!? Do they want me to feel worthless, like life is hopeless, like I don’t have a hope in this hell of a life? Do they want to see me suffer? Do they want me to sink into deeper levels of depression? Do they enjoy torturing my mother and I? Do they get some sick pleasure out of it?

I still can’t get those hurtful words out of my mind, :(.

What gives them the right to treat us that way?

I’m sorry for that outburst, :(, but it just enrages me so much that there are those on the spectrum on forums out there that can cause so much abuse to others on the spectrum in vulnerable situations. I don’t see how I’m going to be writing on a forum, not when I receive that abuse, but where can I go? The internet is the only way I can cope with to socialise, and I’ve been hurt many times by it, is there nowhere that’s safe for someone struggling to socialise on the spectrum like me?

My whole sleeping pattern has gone upside-down again all due to that abuse. Meltdown during the night, went to sleep about midday, the following day, and got up the day after around 4:00am. I’ve at least skipped a day. It took me a while to get back into sync in order to get this done. You should have seen the meltdown that ensued after those evil comments. It felt like they couldn’t have cared less if I lived or died! Bullying at school is one thing, but from the autistic community on a supportive forum, what the hell is going on in this world?!?

Anyway, that’s it for now and thank you for listening or reading, :).

Tidal Wave of Anxiety

Anxiety, ha ha, well, this is an intensive subject and spreads in many directions for me. Social is the direction I’ll be focusing in this blog post.

The tidal wave of anxiety, well, I remember feeling this on the three times I met my old friend from primary school with support from my mother, when I was writing to her on Facebook, before everything flipped up on it’s head and I lost her friendship, tragically.

I always feel this gigantic immeasurable level of anxiety build up inside of me. It’s so intense I find it too difficult to get to sleep the closer the deadline is to meeting. Then the day of meeting comes around, and I have just moved into hyper anxiety. I’m worrying constantly, “Oh God! What do I do?!? I hope everything goes alright! But, what if ……, or …… happens, what then?!? Ahhhhh, I can’t think straight!”. That’s just before meeting. When the time comes and I’m there, if it’s my first time seeing them, I freeze and can barely string two words together. It was lucky that my mother was there so that she could talk for me because otherwise I know I’d be sitting there simply responding to questions saying, “Yes”, “No”, “Maybe”. Not to mention, I’ve always felt this aura around the few females I’ve ever spoken to over the years. It feels like they are monuments and I’m a tiny little mouse barely able to string two words together.

You see, you can see me writing like this, but when I come into contact face-to-face, I’m a complete nervous wreck. It’s only when I get used to their presence that I start to feel a little braver to express myself, and it especially helps when I know that I’m being listened to and feel I’m understood. I cannot when I am communicating to someone completely uncaring, unfeeling and hypocritical, but of course that should go without saying. With people like that, I’d either burst out in tears like I did at school, go through instant meltdown. I go through meltdowns because of other people, their treatment of me, watching time slip by me as others are progressing in my peer group, feeling lonely, feeling depressed, or due to painful triggers that remind me of previous pain. Triggers can come from almost any source, from an advert or programme on TV, on movies, out in public or in a person’s words or writing, and they can take me right back to the source of that pain. This can be especially true when it involves emotional or educational. Emotional pain on the spectrum has proved to be absolutely devastating, and educational makes me angry that I still haven’t found the best way that I can cope with learning since my statement of special educational needs ended unfairly when I became 19 years old.

Anyway, after I would come back from meeting someone, that’s when that gigantic immeasurable level of anxiety building up is released, but it isn’t released and gone, oh no. It becomes a tidal wave. This tidal wave sweeps over my mind like an uncontrollable force of energy. From the moment the front door is opened and I’m passed that threshold to the feeling of finally being home, that’s when it instantly hits me. This immense wave immediately makes me feel weak at the knees. I can barely walk, and my thoughts and words are constantly saying, “Did I say the right thing? Was I understood? Did everything go well? What do I do now? What if they didn’t understand me? What am I going to do?”. I go over and over this for the whole day, and it lingers for days until the wave of anxiety returns to it’s usual level, worrying over every message I may or may not receive.

I’m in a constant influx of anxiety, but the moments where I meet someone in terms of socially, as rare as that is, and believe me, that’s never happened since that time, I’m hit by that wave of anxiety.

This is what I mean by the Tidal Wave of Anxiety, and it can be practically a nightmare to meet someone face-to-face, but I need to try. I just know the only way I can cope is by expressing myself to the other person for a long time first, getting to know them by writing to them, and the possibility of making short videos of each other to feel more comfortable, before the possibility of Skype, and then in the future, to perhaps meet in person. It takes time, but I’m willing to try. I just need to find someone I can trust and who understands me to get to that stage with.

My battleground puzzle mind

The writing below was the first post I made on an ASD forum, and it was my code message way of explaining my worries about a friend (someone I knew briefly from primary school) I was writing to on Facebook for about a year.

‘My mind and heart are on a constant battleground, neither has a greater majority over the other, they are in constant conflict. I am never able to settle on something, when something is resolved it reminds me immediately of something else. There are puzzle pieces in my mind; I am never settled until the puzzle has been worked out. I have no other choice but to complete the puzzle. I am held at gunpoint by my mind. I need to find the answer, if it is bad it is overwhelming, if it is good I can rest on that particular subject. If I am lied to and find out later, it feels much worse. My mind is like a computer and my heart is human. My head is telling me to face the answer whether I like it or not. My heart is telling me to avoid it, and don’t find out, but it is so pained by dismissing the truth. This is my battleground. This is what I have been faced with since primary school. It is not easy, but just the same it is uncontrollable. I am just the person sitting in the background, I am not able to intrude into the conflict inside of me, but oh, how I try, :(.

I feel I always need to pursue a problem, no matter how it may harm me. When I obtain puzzle pieces my mind automatically feels pain, I feel if I do not resolve an issue I will be stuck with the pain, but if it’s true I could be causing a greater pain. It is always a risk. It is horrible, I am in an ever growing cycle of depression.’

AS and ASD – Building Bonds Forum

I’ve recently set up a forum for people on the autistic spectrum who wish to find a community to make friends in the United Kingdom.

I would love for others on the spectrum to join my forum and make friends. I wanted to create a social community in the UK to talk about whatever interests them. I feel that there aren’t enough social forums in the UK for people on the spectrum. I find it difficult to make friends and I wanted to create an online forum that is specifically based on building friendships and stronger bonds.

I welcome all to my forum, from whichever country, but I personally come from the UK, and the experiences I’ve been affected by are as a result of the system in the UK. I just fear I may be misunderstood in relating my experiences in the past to others in different countries since the systems for those on the spectrum may be different.