phobia

My problems with toilet habits turned out to be a lot bigger then I thought.

Ever since I started this blog at the beginning of this year I’ve been surprised by the amount of knowledge you need if you want to write an article about something you don’t know and how much you must understand if you want to write an article about something you don’t understand. This means that I not only have to solve problems but I also have to figure out what the problem was so I can write about it.
That seems like a lot of extra work but actually it’s a good thing.
I’ve been taught to try to find the easiest solution for problems and go for it. I’m not sure whether that is one of those things you learn by accident or that it actually does work for people who aren’t autistic.
Although this doesn’t work for me I tend to forget. I work very hard at solving a problem the hard way and then at some point I realize what caused the problem and within 30 seconds it’s gone.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about the problems I have had all through my life with toilet habits. I told that it had come to a crisis and that I had to take some sick leave. But I had gotten a handle on things and was planning to go back to work in a few days.
Sadly I didn’t. I couldn’t.
A few minutes before I should have been picked up by the mini van to be brought to the shop in Capelle I felt some bowel movements. Not knowing what these feelings meant I called in sick again. Which turned out to be a good decision. If I had gone I would have had an other crisis.
After that I stayed at home for a few weeks. Thinking I should first learn to distinguish between the different feelings I have in my bowels.

Two weeks ago my counselor came by again.
We talk al lot about the toilet problems I had been having and he pointed me to something that I hadn’t noticed for some reason.
I was getting afraid to leave my house.
To go down town I have to cycle down a 2 kilometer long narrow road with water on both sides. When going down town I was getting afraid that I might accidentally drive into the water. Strangely enough on the way back I didn’t have this fear although I cycle down the same road.

Thinking about it some more I realized that I never had a problem with toilet habits. It always was more of a phobia and although it has something to do with toilet habits it’s more of a fear of travel. Since fear cause diarrhoea it’s an easy mistake.
The best way to deal with fobia is to face them right on. The more you think about your fear the bigger it gets. If you just deal with it usually it passes.

I went back to work last Tuesday and had two anxience days in which a took I lot of anti diarrhoea medicine and had four very frightening travel experiences.
On Thursday some one asked me what exactly scared me. Not something I wanted to talk about because I thought that my fear would increase if I thought to much.
But the opposite happened. I realized that I wasn’t afraid that I would soil myself. I was afraid of the feeling it self.
The moment I realized that the fear was gone.

BTW I read that some autistics are afraid of public toilets.
Although I never feared them I do have a problem with a lot of public toilets.
There are two types of toilets. In homes you usually find the type with a plateau on which the stool comes to rest before you flush it down.
In public places you tend to find the type with a watery hole in which the stool disappears.
I’ve always had the problem that I couldn’t feel my stool coming. I still have the problem that I can’t feel how big the stool is.
To know if the rest of my day will be “save” I have to look down. It’s quite scary when that isn’t possible.

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It’s difficult to judge how long you’ve been suffering from phobias if you’ve never been able to recognize your feelings. But judging by the types of behavior I’m learning to recognize it must be for years.

When I started with drawing at the beginning of this year I figured that I would learn a lot. But I didn’t figure I would learn more about myself then about drawing. (Although I might still become quite good at drawing )
The last few weeks I’ve been reading and working out off the book “Drawing with the right side of the brain” and it works. Doing the exercises seem to have made it possible for me to use the right side of my brain much more then I have the last 30 years, or so. As a result I’ve almost entirely stopped thinking in words.
I’m getting feelings and thoughts back that remember me of myself 30 to 40 years ago.

When I started this I expected that it would enrich me. I didn’t expect that I would have to deal with a large amount of fear. I’m now noticing that I have so much fear that it’s becoming ever more clear that I have to deal with it.
I have to defeat it or it will defeat me.

The coming few days, or possibly even weeks, I won’t be doing much drawing. For one thing because that too begins to scare me. But mainly because I’m busy sorting through half forgotten memories to figure out when fears and phobias started and how I will deal with them.
For one thing is clear. I’ll have to do something.
When your really scared of something you’re tempted to curl up in a little corner but if you do that you only get more scared and at some point you’ll never come out of your corner.

I’ve seen that happen with a friend of mine who gets an anxiety attack every time he wants to leave his house. The last time I saw him was about a year ago. He was in the middle of an anxiety attack. He told me that he always got them when he had to go out to do his shopping or to visit his psychiatrist.
That was all he had left. Visits to his psychiatrist and doing his daily shopping. The rest of the world scared him to much.

I don’t want to become like him. So I’ll better deal with my fears.

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phobia

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