As I stated earlier I had a lovely time with John and we’re all good again. Also, I felt really relaxed and had no reason to worry about anything. After he left in the morning (he still has work to do around the house) we exchanged a few brief but sweet emails and it was all good.

Yesterday he at some point admitted he deleted my number from his mobile when I broke up with him so, when I remembered about that, I texted him and I didn’t get a reply. That was after I made the previous blog post, so I started worrying that, perhaps he’s not that happy about me blogging, even though he seemed fine about that just two days ago.

After two hours I emailed him to ask if he got my text and he replied that he didn’t and gave me choice of Easter eggs using those words:

Madagascan dark chocolate (66%) with delicate fruity notes and a sweet cocoa aroma or Ecuadorian dark chocolate (70%) with an intense cocoa flavour and a subtle floral aroma?

I emailed him saying three choices are too many. He replied saying those are two choices only. I got really confused but looked at that text again and realised my mistake. It was just a misunderstanding but it affected me for longer that I thought it would.

As we didn’t know why my text didn’t get delivered I called him and I quickly realised I am trying to find a hidden meaning in every single word he’s saying. Pizza, mushrooms, bacon? What does that mean? Tidy up the house? Wipe the sides? What is it that I am not getting? Do those words add up to anything? I was really focusing trying to work out what is behind that and the more I couldn’t see anything the more confused I was getting. And finally I realised this is silly and I had to stop, but I couldn’t. The only way for me to stop that thinking was by finishing the phone call.

It was not emotional insecurity on my side but confusion about what messages I am not getting: first my text didn’t get delivered, then I misunderstood the part about chocolate eggs, is there anything else that I’m missing?

I wonder if the same would have happened if Home Group drama didn’t take place? The realisation that there is in fact something going in the world that I am not getting was really difficult for me, and I made a conscious decision to work it all out by logic. But I guess the traumatic events at work made that even worse. It seems now, when I get stressed, I am completely unable to prioritise situations where hidden meanings can take place and those where they don’t, or are insignificant.

This is disabling me even more than just being autistic. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I’m awaiting for my PIP decision but there was no section to describe this phenomenon, it didn’t fit anywhere. Yes, I can do a lot of things, pretty much everything for myself and this is what PIP assessment is based on, but how long for if this is not going to go away?

And I’m not psychotic. I’m just trying to focus on what it is that I may be not getting. Why no one ever mentions that as a side effect of autism diagnosis? Whenever you read anything about autism diagnosis as adult, it’s all very positive and it apparently prevents everything: from mental health problems to goosebumps. Why this is not my experience then?

I feel really scared now.