Hi CZ

September 30, 2001

Hi CZ, How are you doing??? Long time no hear! Hope you are doing better then when I last heard from you. How is your tummy pains??? Have they gotten an answer for you yet???

{{{ Concerned Hugs }}}

Helen

I try to read all the posts when I am well enough, including yours. I do notoften write posts or reply because I am bad at communicating with people andI do not do well with nice fuzzy supportive things to say. Which importantpost are you referring to, ? I hope I got your name correct. Sorry ifI seem rude when I do not say much. I often sit and watch or listen topeople without interacting.Take care of yourself,CZ

December 2, 2001

Hi Helen.

" Hi CZ !!! I was about to ask how you are, hadn't heard from ya in a while

!

is your tummy acting up again ??? How are you doing ??? Keep me posted

when

you can!!! I do worry "

I had a big disruption to my routine when I was in hospital for just under a

week. I cannot think right now exactly how many days, but I was discharged

last Monday. I am being referred to a HomeCare agency to help with

housework, gardening, shopping and planning a daily routine that is not too

taxing but still get done what needs to be done. In hospital some of the

things that my high functioning autism causes problems with were very

obvious and could apparently be classed as OCD if I was not autistic. I have

been put on a medication called fluvoxamine to help with " major depression "

and these " obsessive-compulsive " behaviours. One thing that really irks me

is when people try to fix or treat my autism as if it is some curable defect

or illness. It is just who I am and I am different from most people, but

that does not mean I am broken or in need of fixing or being taught to " fit

in " with others.

I do not find the idiosyncratic behaviours to be very disturbing at home, as

they have been a part of my life since I can remember, although sometimes

they do get irritating for me when I have to accomodate a change in routine

or need to go somewhere or do something quickly that I had not planned for.

Evidently they are disturbing for me and others when I am in a situation

with a lot of people around me and I am not sure who touched my things or

who would accidentally touch or be intrusive with me. If I want a chance of

success at uni next year, I am going to have to get used to not being in

control of my environment and not having everything in it's routine place.

Changes in routine are one of the hardest things I find to deal with, along

with sensory overload which will also be a problem at uni.

I hope this fluvoxamine does help me, but I do not see how a pill could

change things that have been a part of me since my earliest memories and

probably before then. Anyway, it will be good to get home help. Living at

home with no external help and no car to get to the shops is difficult,

especially since because of my autism I have not got a " social network " and

if something goes wrong there is literally nobody to help. On the other side

of that, I like not being forced to have social interaction and life is a

lot less stressful since I have been allowed to be on my own almost all the

time.

I have been sleeping better since taking the medication, but other than that

there is nothing noticeably different. I think I might be getting a cold

because around my nose hurts and my head hurts and in the morning when I

wake up there is yucky stuff in my nose and throat and I cough for a while.

I am not sure if it is hayfever or a cold, but I will find out and I hope it

goes away soon. My tummy has been better except when I first started

fluvoxamine I felt sick for a while, but that has gone now.

I got my Irlen lenses and they have made it much easier for me to sit in the

room with the light on and to read without my monitor dimmed and the

background colour changed to grey. I also did not find the shopping centre

as bad as usual when I went there for half an hour to look around and see

how I would go without my walkman.

Take care,

CZ

_________________________________________________________

December 7, 2001

CZ Wrote:

<< I hope this fluvoxamine does help me, but I do not see how a pill could

change things that have been a part of me since my earliest memories and

probably before then. >>

Hi CZ,

I'm new, my name is Kris. I am on fluvoxamine and wondered the same. It has

worked for me to a degree, I think if I still could get out when I wanted,

and have some personal freedom, then it would work better. But because I'm

stuck at home...well...I like things a certain way! I'm the one who has to

put up with it all day! I don't ask for much, just coffee, creamer, sugar,

coke classic, ice (not homemade I like the bought variety) and my cigs and a

functional lighter, and of course, my PC. These help my bleak existence, or

distract me from it. For instance, I am sitting here rather um...well, I

need a bath so hold your nose for the remainder of this post lol. I can't

take one till hubby gets home, might fall. So I sit and type and smoke and

try not to think about it. At least I have the little stuff I have, you

know? So I think the fluvoxamine makes me *less* OCD, or rather, *tolerably*

OCD.

praNayena (out of love),

··º¨¥¨º··{DizzyKrissie}··º¨¥¨º··

" To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a

thousand heads bowing in prayer. " -- Gandhi

December 8, 2001

Hi Kris.

" I'm new, my name is Kris. I am on fluvoxamine and wondered the same. It

has

worked for me to a degree, I think if I still could get out when I wanted,

and have some personal freedom, then it would work better. But because I'm

stuck at home...well...I like things a certain way! "

I do not like going out of my house very much. In here I control what

happens and where everything is and when I do things. I find that changes in

my routine make me very uncomfortable, and that includes unexpected outings

or people around me. The noise and visual stimuli caused by going out are

too much for me to cope with other than very short or necessary outings

(such as grocery shopping). Some of the noises which hurt me are not noticed

by my Dad. But, I find human voices difficult to understand when there is

background noise, so that was often confused with me being " hard of hearing "

when I was a child. My " OCD " symptoms (which are not actual OCD, they come

under my diagnosis of HFA according to my psychologist) are much more

noticeable and disturbing when my routine is changed.

" I'm the one who has to

put up with it all day! "

I have said similar to my Dad when he complains about my mess or habits. I

live here, he does not. Therefore I can have my house and my life the way I

want it.

The main problem with my house is that I get ill periodically and cannot

physically do what I need to do to maintain the place in the condition that

I like it to be in. I probably have CFS, and my doctor agreed that this is

quite likely a cause for my illness, and that gets very frustrating. I

thought I was getting a cold a few days ago, but the sneezing and head cold

symptoms cleared up very quickly. I still have pain and headaches and I

still have a slight fever, but the tiredness and inability to think clearly

enough to study is happening again since Thursday, along with the usual

pains that resemble influenza pains but go on for weeks to months sometimes

and make living an active life during those times impossible. I start my uni

course in less than a month and I really do not want to be in the middle of

one of these " flares " for that course, because if I am then there is no

possible way that I could travel an hour each way to uni every day on public

transport and do a full-time study workload with the physical exhaustion and

mental haze that happens during these times.

" I don't ask for much, just coffee, creamer, sugar,

coke classic, ice (not homemade I like the bought variety) and my cigs and a

functional lighter, and of course, my PC. These help my bleak existence, or

distract me from it. For instance, I am sitting here rather um...well, I

need a bath so hold your nose for the remainder of this post lol. I can't

take one till hubby gets home, might fall. So I sit and type and smoke and

try not to think about it. At least I have the little stuff I have, you

know? "

From what I have read in your posts since you joined, I would not want to be

as ill as you are. You must be a strong person.

" So I think the fluvoxamine makes me *less* OCD, or rather, *tolerably*

OCD. "

How long did it take to make some difference to you? It has helped me sleep

better, but that is the only thing I have noticed that is very different

since I have been taking it. I have been less irritable than I was before,

but I am not sure if that is just because I am sleeping better most nights.

I know that my psychologist and other people who I have discussed this with

say that obsessive-compulsive symptoms are common in autistics (and that

includes high functioning ones), so I am not sure how a medication could

change something that is part of my HFA. And if it is a separate problem,

then how can I tell what is part of HFA and what is an illness that needs

fixing.

Since I am almost completely a recluse (other than regular visits with my

Dad), it is hard for me to know what " normal " people are like and whether my

" idiosyncracies " are illness or just part of me and whether they need to or

even can be fixed. Somebody recently asked me " If you were given a choice to

be cured of autism, assuming that there was a cure, would you want to be

cured? " . I answered no. It is who I am and although there are many problems

caused by it (especially living in a society where people with social skills

and other NT attributes are generally better treated and more successful in

life), but there are also many things which I like about my autism and which

give me the ability to do and learn things that perhaps I otherwise could

not. I am glad that I am high-functioning, though. I am lucky to have a good

enough level of intelligence to learn how to get by in this society, even if

I generally avoid people. I do not think I would like to be LFA and reliant

on carers all my life and unable to enjoy researching my perseverations

(intense interests in sometimes unusual topics and often to the exclusion of

the more normal things people do in life).

I did not mean to write so much. I never know what to say to people about

their problems even if I do read and understand a lot of it, so I rarely

post replies to anything that is not directly about me. There are exceptions

to that, but I tend to be a " lurker " most of the time. This list has

provided me with a lot of interesting medical information to do further

research on. I like finding out new things and when I joined this list, I

could hardly understand any of the medical terms used. But, usually when I

encounter something that I do not understand but interests me, I find

somewhere to look it up.

Take care,

CZ

_________________________________________________________

December 8, 2001

Hi CZ,

I am easily overloaded too, and don't like my routine disrupted, so don't

feel bad. I was on fluvoxetine about 2 months before I started to notice

anything, and even still my pdoc said that it's not a magic pill, which is

true as I still do exhibit some of the symptoms. Good luck at uni, may the

wind be at your back. )

praNayena (out of love),

··º¨¥¨º··{DizzyKrissie}··º¨¥¨º··

" To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a

thousand heads bowing in prayer. " -- Gandhi

December 9, 2001

Hi CZ... Glad to see you posting !!! Also glad that your glasses are doing you some good... Are you feeling better now??? Take Care.

{{{ Special Hugs }}}

Helen

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February 20, 2002

Hi Helen.

> How are you doing CZ ??

I think I am getting 'flu.

> Are you coming along alright in your study's ???

I am doing a double major in Computer Science and Internet Computing. Taking

three units at the moment but I will probably withdraw from one of them. It

is too much to travel every day to uni and my health is not particularly

good lately. I have been having some problems with OCD although I am not

sure that I have OCD as such and my psychologist so far has just said that

it is a normal part of autism, although I have not read anything written by

other autistics describing the degree of it that I get, but what I get is

much less severe than some things I have read by people with OCD minus

autism. Anyway, that is for another mailing list. For anybody who might

recognise me on different lists under different email addresses, that

is because of the high volume of mail and how I sometimes do not download it

all for a few days which would mean it would bounce if I used only the one

address. I like to read information and I am on quite a lot of lists, but I

only post to three of them including this one (and not very regularly at

that). I prefer getting individual emails to digests or web only, since the

latter two I find to be a pest.

> Are

> you feeling better than you were a month ago when you were getting ill???

No.

> Did

> you pass your class so that you don't have to be there as often now???

Yes, I received an offer into Computer Science. I have less time there in

terms of hours, but I still have to go in for lectures (and I am yet to find

out when two of my tutorials will be) every day except for Tuesdays, and on

Tuesdays my home help lady comes (she started last week and so far I like

her) and she was going to be coming on Thursdays but that had to be changed

because of my uni times so she wants to come on Saturday mornings instead.

So, I still have a lot of travel time but less time on campus in total.

CZ

_________________________________________________________

February 21, 2002

You sure do have a lot of traveling back and forth to do...I'm glad that you passed and got into the class...I'm glad that you like the home helper that comes and helps you, that must be a great help for you...Can't someone help you get back and forth to class so it doesn't tire you out so much??? I worry about you CZ...

You were talking about flu like symptons last time also ( Did the Dr. ever say that you had Fibromyalgia for sure???

Please take care and write when ya can...

((( Caring Hugs )))

Helen

Re: Hi CZ