As I said in my previous post I used to be interested in managing my emotions a lot in the past. Not that I noticed it brought me any benefits. At the same time I learned already that denying having difficult emotions is going to make me feel worse. Have anyone heard about emotional intelligence for autistics? If you do, please let me know, I’d be happy to find out more.

I noticed in the past that if I feel anxiety before an event or starting a new job for example, it’s better to give in to it when it comes. If I do that, I am much more in control when I’m finally in the situation I was anxious about. While, if I try to control the anxiety, I start experiencing it even more when the event is happening, I am then much more likely to say inappropriate things or even not say anything when asked a question. Which, in turn, makes me even more anxious, because I see how badly I’m doing.

I’m not sure the same applies to sadness. Should I check? If I stay indoors the entire day feeling sad (except for a quick shopping trip), will I feel happy and energetic tomorrow? I’m going to work in a new care home tomorrow and the day after and being in a good mood would certainly help.

For now I’m wondering if possibly I’m sad because my mum died? Last week I think I was still in a lot of shock. I felt bitter but I didn’t feel sadness. Possibly feeling bitter and focusing on how other people annoy me kept me away from experiencing more authentic feelings? But then, how do I know if that’s true? Do neurotypicals experience their emotions differently? Do they feel sad straight away when a close family member dies? Even if they know that it was kind of time for them to go? I don’t understand that. And anyway, is comparing myself to neurotypicals going to help?

Why do I have emotions if I don’t understand them? I don’t even know if I feel sad because my mum died, because of what John said, because my brother is not someone who could support me in any way, because I don’t feel like I can be myself with my strange eating habits, or maybe even because I don’t have permanent job? I guess I’ll wait for all of this to pass. It will eventually.

Or maybe I should force myself and do something productive? Maybe that would help? But then, I’d need to push my feelings aside. Should I not try to understand them?

I don’t know. I realised, however, that due to my emotions I forgot to submit my timesheet before 10am deadline today. So I don’t know if I get paid this week. That’s where the attempt to understand my feelings brought me. Fantastic, isn’t it?

It’s 12.04 now and I’m thinking, if I submit the timesheet now, it will be like if I’m demanding to still be paid this week even though it was me who was at fault. Should I not just wait till later during the afternoon and say that I understand if I have to wait next week for my wages? Still, it’s not like the agency is going to process all the timesheets straight away so I guess a little delay shouldn’t be a problem. But it was my fault, wasn’t it?

I feel like having pancakes for lunch, but I don’t have any jam (that’s how we eat pancakes in Poland – with jam or possibly with curd cheese). I keep forgetting to buy one. If mum was here, she would be more than happy to go to the shop and then even to make the pancakes for me. But she’s not. She never will be. I’m all by myself now. Although John could possibly make me some waffles, which is close enough, but then we broke up, didn’t we?

I’m sad and I don’t want this life. I want a different one.