Welcome to Gaia! ::

Mine aren't nearly as severe and as much as yours.. but talking to people, internet, gaming, working to the best of my abilities and to some extent yes which causes me great anxiety.

Not so much anymore, I use to be extremely shy about posting but I've adjusted some what I appreciate you're understanding you sound really nice. c:

I have Autism, ADHD, and Juvenile onset rheumatism. But my Arthritis isn't that bad, mostly just in bad or cold whether and aspirin takes care of it. Most of my pain has been emotional. Just learning about my autism has helped a whole lot, you see when I was young Asperger's syndrome (My form) wasn't even on the books, and most doctors would do everything in their power to avoid diagnosing milder cases of autism because of the stigma attached to it, if they even knew about it, many didn't because it was so hushed up. so I spent a whole lot of my life not understanding WHY I was the way I was and what was wrong with me.

Now that I know I know I am not crazy, and I am not bad. So many people thought I was being 'bad' on purpose. I still don't know why I was considered bad, except for the melt downs, which I really couldn't control. Meltdowns are indescribable painful emotionally and exhausting, it's even worse that they look like tantrums but you really can't stop them. But now that I know what a melt down is I can try to avoid situations likely to lead to one or leave if I start to feel overwhelmed. (Or at least apologize and explain what the hell just happened.)

I think maybe in part because I sometimes can come across has rude because I didn't naturally pick up social skills like a neurotypical person and can't read people. If they smile, I can't see that it is fake and they are secretly angry with me, I assume it's genuine. I since I don't always smile I don't see the lack of a smile as a signal something is wrong. Unless they tell me I won't know I've messed up until they scream at me. (which usually triggers a melt down or a complete shut down)

But you know what, I wouldn't change a thing about my autism. It was painful when I didn't know, there were many nights I cried myself to sleep. But it is a part of me, and many of the characteristics I love about myself are due to my autism. My obsessions which bring me so much joy to study. (science, history, and animals mostly) My ability to truly enjoy watching the same movie everyday for a month. I truly love stimming (repetitive, soothing behaviors), especially flapping and rocking. I like being an individual who can (has to) walk to the beat of her own drum. Autism isn't all pain and gloom like certain groups would have you think, it has its good points to. I just wish I'd known earlier, I could have saved myself a lot of heart ache.

I'm going to answer these in reverse order if you don't mind. :3

3.) The invisible disabilities that I am facing are ADHD and Anxiety. I've always had problems dealing with certain things that I find out or learn about from the news or whatever. Even though no one would figure out that I had anxiety, I have it quite bad. Only my boyfriend knows the full extent of my anxiety. I would endlessly worry for weeks on end and this anxiety really isn't just worrying, to be honest with you, I would have weird irrational thoughts, fear of my medication, crying spells that would last almost all day, and I would research what ever I am worrying about until I get tired, or something. Sometimes I would forget to eat. ^^; I've had a doctor label my anxiety as borderline obsessive, and severe.

As for my ADHD...I have combined type. I have all of the symptoms that you could list. No one could understand that I had ADHD, so when ever I had extreme difficulty understanding something, people would get angry with me and sometimes yell at me or give up explaining things to me just because I couldn't get it right off the bat. This would, in turn, trigger my anxiety...that no one would be aware of. I also have difficulties staying still and handling stress and pressure because of ADHD, my threshold for those kinds of things are abnormally small (I hope that's the correct word for it) so I tend to flip out easier when placed in a very difficult situation. People wouldn't understand why I did such things. Either that, they were dead set on telling me that nothing was wrong with me, which really pushed me over the edge some days...Oh, I feel as if I am just rambling now, sooooooo...I'm going to end it right here and answer the next question. Sorry.

2.) Yes. I have tried to make PLENTY of adjustments to my lifestyle from...controlling what I read in the news, to attempting to control how long I spend online. (for my Anxiety)...all of which ended in failure. For ADHD I tried controlling my impulses, to taking some time to gather myself in a situation where I am very upset...just so I wouldn't hurt the person standing before me (I have a tendency to hit things when angry...either solid objects or people.) These methods helped me control my ADHD when I am not on medication.

1.) Hmmmm...ADHD really doesn't give me any sort of physical pain. . .but Anxiety and stress does, if that counts. You know, the Anxiety Attacks or Panic Attacks that come in that package? Well, whenever I have a Panic attack, and I am suffering from the symptoms like racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, headaches, intense fear, etc. etc. I try to take deep breaths and assure that I am okay. I'll do things to take my mind off of it, which could be playing games, playing my clarinet, listening to music, or get my boyfriend on the phone to converse with me. Or just talk to my grandmother and get her to make me laugh. A lot of the times it'll work. The only times I couldn't do this is when I have panic attacks in my sleep. Then I am kind of stuck because these would happen 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. I attempt to do everything in my power so that I don't have to resort to medications to resolve my problems with anxiety, though that's....kind of not working as my anxiety slowly grows worse.


I hope I didn't write too much. ^^;

Thank you for sharing your story. I hope you find an office job soon. Spurs are painful from how my mom describes them. I'm glad you are feeling better and hang in there with the extreme lows and high temperatures. Yeah I've learned to take life one day at a time.

All of my disabilities are invisible.

I've had epilepsy since I was three years old, and I'm 24 now. My epilepsy is well controlled, and I haven't had a seizure since about 2006. It sucks having to take medication all the time for it, especially since it's my most expensive medicine to take. And I also fear driving because I'm afraid of having a seizure while driving, and do not want something bad happening if that happens. I completely black out when I have them sad

I was also recently diagnosed with depression and anxiety, yet, I know that I've been suffering with this for quite a few years now, maybe even longer than that. It's hard to make people understand how I feel, and why. Even though there are times when I cannot explain why I'm suffering so much mentally, which then affects me psychically as well when it gets bad enough.

Also I have a feeling I'm starting to develop carpal tunnel in both of my wrists, and something in my knees as well because of my line of work D: (but I haven't seen a doctor about this yet, I have too much on my plate already to be dealing with this)