Let there be light

After getting the farmer to cut the hedge on Monday, today Richard finished the bits the tractor couldn't reach.
I'd started cutting the hedge quietly with my own human-powered tools but had to admit defeat and let the big guns in.
The end result is evening sunshine for a bit longer than previously and far fewer brambles to hurt ourselves on.
I wouldn't have got this shot at the same time yesterday evening. There wouldn't have been enough light.

I've had a difficult few days, aspie-wise. It's tricky to see how/where/why it all started and just why I feel so overwhelmed and bombarded. I just know I feel like I need everything to come in a queue and take its turn and I can't cope with more than one thing at a time. For instance, I've only just started writing this because Tess has gone to bed, Richard's taken the dog out and I've turned the sound off the TV. Five minutes ago I was sitting here willing everything to stop and give me peace.

I feel negative about myself when I'm like this. I feel like I'm a burden and awful to be around. I get deeply worried that I'm a bad mother and a bad wife and that everyone must surely be feeling as negatively about me as I am about myself. I realised I'd hardly spoken to Gemma when she came home last night and regretted that and wondered if she'd gone away again wishing her mother was less hardwork, and less neurotic. Fortunately, shortly after worrying about her she sent me a really cheery text and I felt much better.

I really don't know how much I bother other people. They don't tell me I do. I bother myself, I guess and I assume that must mean I'm as bad as I feel I am!

Anyway. It's a heavy place to be, so I decided to write a few words down while I was in the throes of a bit of awfulness this morning because I knew something was wrong even if I didn't know what or why: Under Attack: the meltdown phenomenon. Even that is hard to do when Aspie-overwhelmedness is upon me because words don't seem to be right or accessible. They're just not there.

Anyhoo... Despite wanting to run in circles screaming swearwords, and then fall into a heap and sleep for a week, I didn't. I went for a walk and did a bit of gardening and cooked a nice meal and behaved myself.

So however crap and rubbish I am and difficult to be with, I was my very best nicest and hardest working, full of good intentions version of crap and rubbish today because I love my family and I want them to love me too.

Going to bed to cry into my pillow now.