My blog is a good record of an autistic mind going through a period of transition, I believe. Although maybe not everyone shares that view as the number of visitors to my blog shrinked recently, however that could be because of Easter and weather getting warmer? But then, reduced number of views could have been also caused by those posts about Mr Henderson and Mr Scope – how do I know? Anyway, I promised to myself that the blog is to record my thinking process so if I think for a bit longer about any of those two guys I need to include that, right?

So, anyway, shortly after publishing the previous post I realised I actually did the right thing by not mentioning the issue I have with dresses on the radio yesterday. If you didn’t read that post yet you may want to go to it first as this one won’t make sense to you otherwise.

So first I need to explain the situation with that ex colleague who made that insincere comment. She wasn’t THAT colleague from Home Group, and it wasn’t even Home Group but a different company. Let’s call that colleague Ann. Me and Ann didn’t really get on, I don’t know how she felt about me, I was quite neutral about her, it’s just that I could never had any conversation with her. Everything that she ever said to me when we tried to have a chat was making me not to want to say anything in response. I presume that could have been caused by our views on life being completely different, but maybe it was something with how she formed sentences?

And that’s where my autism diagnosis could have made the situation worse between us. How? Because I could have a conversation with everyone else, not a long one, but I was ok to talk for a good few minutes every couple of days with other people. While our chats with Ann were like 30 seconds or so.

If I didn’t have autism diagnosis me and Ann would be two people who don’t get on, not a big deal, it happens. But the fact that I had the diagnosis and got on with everyone else probably made her feel uncomfortable, like if it was somehow her fault that we can’t have a chat. She was making an effort every now and then to be nicer to me and although I could see that from her gentle body language and tone of voice, she was saying exactly the same things as always and my perspective was that our chats just didn’t add up. And then, who knows, possibly she was just getting fed up with the situation and maybe that’s why she would make those unkind comments? That would make sense, wouldn’t it? But anyway, she wasn’t giving me any real trouble like talking about me behind my back, or anything similar.

But her comment about dresses made me really upset, and it turned out I still remember it. And I probably will to the end of my life, lol.

And I’m thinking now, is that not how so many autistic females get diagnosed with PTSD? Reliving negative experiences is a symptom of PTSD, but is that not just how our brains work? It was the first time yesterday I was on a live radio show, with two ladies that I didn’t know. It was stressful and pretty scary, let me tell you! And I think what happened was, my brain just finds it very easy to connect to negative experiences from the past when I am already stressed due to other factors. Possibly this is not how neurotypical people think but for me it is not uncommon, and it doesn’t feel like PTSD. PTSD was when I had panic attacks every evening and a suicide attempt because I was scared of going back to where I made my home to be.

Home Group gave me PTSD. Ann didn’t, she was just annoying, that was it.

Anyway, what I realised about the show yesterday was that if I felt stressed and wasn’t sure about my emotional reaction I did the right thing by not commenting on the dress issue. Saying ‘it’s more about where the waist is than anything’ would be ok, but then I didn’t know those ladies and couldn’t predict how the conversation is going to unfold and if I can easily change the subject later so not saying anything was actually a good choice, just in case.

And the thing is: I made the right choice in a stressful social situation but felt emotional about all the new things happening in my life and as I saw the comment on Instagram stating that we shouldn’t be ‘shrinking’ I somehow managed to connect it with my dress issue from yesterday and decided it means I’m hopeless because I didn’t say what I really meant, when it wasn’t even important because the show was about living in Swindon.

Can life be more confusing than that? I really hope it can’t. I don’t know if I’d be able to stand that.