...

I must begrudgingly admit that going outside today, even just in the garden, has improved my mood. I'm dead tired (being in the sunshine does that to me for some reason), but I feel a bit more balanced and less hopeless.

I finished an audiobook today - Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin. It was like listening to all of my thoughts said back to me, even the ones I thought no one would ever understand. I'm only sad that I didn't write the book myself. That and that even this protagonist, despite her anxieties, was more social and adventurous than me - I'm rarely able to leave the house and find it difficult to make and keep friends.

I met my new support worker this week. She's also autistic, but she was so much more personable than me and made conversation easily. I barely said anything because my brain couldn't keep up - I had too many thoughts going through my head, and by the time a thought made its way to my mouth, the moment to reply had already passed.

Between that and my partner's smarts (they're also autistic), I'm starting to feel I might have higher support needs than I previously thought. I feel really stupid, slow and sensitive. It's fine to be those things, but it goes against my understanding of myself. It also makes me feel even more self-conscious when interacting with others; the gap between me and them feels even bigger.