There are times when I have a meltdown in my head. It’s hard to describe the feeling, I kind of internalise the meltdown and run it like a film in my head. Of what I truly need to do – but can’t. A film, running with me screaming my head off, ranting out all the words I want to yell at the situation or person. Imagining it like an alternate universe scenario.
I am having one right now. Wow, how can I type up a blog post and meltdown at the same time, you might wonder. I wish I knew. It’s a horrible feeling. Containing this humungous explosion that really, really needs to come out. I always was the passive autistic sub-type. The internalising type. There is some crap in life however, that makes it so hard to remain passive.
Like when the system is so obstructive, so resistant, so customer unfriendly and unhelpful, that just keeping an autistic child managing, just coping, becomes impossible. There is no autism awareness. There is no putting the wellbeing of special needs children first, no caring that the family are the ones suffering as a result. Never mind supporting autistic parents by simply making reasonable adjustments and doing what they can to help a situation.
Inside my head, I’m crying. I’m raging big-time. There are a fair few ‘F words’ flying. The average special needs parent will feel such frustration on a regular basis of course. Imagine being autistic though and restraining a meltdown in that situation. A meltdown is a loss of control. Imagine masking that. Because you know that if you allow it out, those very professionals who are obstructing and resisting complying with the law; being flexible and actually doing their job properly, would use it against you in a heartbeat. You would be labelled as mentally unstable and aggressive, the consequences of that could of course be huge. As a parent, my own needs and difficulties must be suppressed.
So I fight it. I fight it with everything I have. I try to ride this feeling of compulsion, like someone with Tourettes trying to restrain their tics. Like a mega “premonitory urge” before the tic comes. Imagine sitting on that. I feel like I want to burst. Something’s gotta give of course, so in the end, of course I will just cry. Cry at the injustice of it all. Cry that so-called “professionals” can be so cruel without a second thought. Cry that I’m forced into fighting the system when it’s the last thing I want or need. Cry that as an autistic, I can’t be myself, I have to pretend the whole time. I have to force myself into being a robot for the sake of society and ‘the system’ and what it deems ‘acceptable’. I’m living a lie. But I don’t have a choice.
This mask has become so heavy, it’s almost crushing me.
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