The only way out is through
The 3 of swords :: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED On JUne 24th 2024
Dear soft heart,
I’ve been a- strugggggling. Mostly I’ve been at various body work clinics to treat my injury from falling down the stairs at the end of 2023.
Turns out, I did not just have a sprained wrist from the experience, but also, I had 3 dislocated ribs, as well as an AC joint sprain - which is the joint that connects your shoulder blade and your clavicle. Ouch.
If you’ve never had rib pain, I wish you to never have any. It is by far the worse pain I’ve ever had. I still cannot believe ribs that are either dislocated or fractured can feel this way. And then when they are not fractured or dislocated, they are just chilling there, simply with not one problem in sight. I didn’t even think about my ribs much before this experience. I knew about them related to breath work, as in my rib cage, and sometimes I had muscles in my rib cage area that were very tight or sore related to hypermobility, but other than that, I totally took their general normalcy for granted. Putting those back in place was a wild experience I hope to never ever live again. Now 2 out of 3 of them are back in their proper place. And the last rib we are working on is tricky, but we’ll get there.
Rib dislocation feels like a literal knife digging in your back and front every single time you breathe, and I was just tolerating that for months before going to get treatment for it. Once treatment began, it hurt even more at first when they were put back in their place. I have been reporting my progress to the professionals by describing the severity of the pain in knife metaphor.
First, we started with very serious steak knives piercing the entire left side of my upper body as my injury is there. I fell straight on my left wrist, with an extended arm breaking my fall, my shoulder and ribs also taking the shock, in my stairs. These knives felt like they were piercing the front and the back around my heart each time I took an inhale and exhale. Then, with a few treatments and a few weeks going by, the knife changed a bit. Now it was a bread knife. Slowly, I started feeling 2 out of 3 of them as butter knives. Then two knifes started fading into plastic knives, soon plastic spoons, and now there is only one lone knife remaining that is something between a bread knife and a butter knife. All in all, at the time of writing this, I am reporting a 65 % of amelioration since treatment began.
The 3 of swords from the traditional rider waite tarot deck
Perfectly enough, it has been the 3 of swords that represented my pain the most, the card of great heartbreak and sorrow, and of grief and loss. It’s wild too that I felt the sensation of 3 knives in my back and chest, surrounding my heart (the 3 dislocated ribs). This card has come up for me countless times in the past months.
The 3 of swords tells us that we have been hurt. Any situation that emotionally really rocks us brings out the 3 of swords and asks us to take great and delicate care of ourselves, first by acknowledging the loss, betrayal or heartbreak that we are experiencing. When the 3 of swords comes up, I always suggest that we don’t try to get on with it as though we are not hurting. Making space to process our hurt actually is what will pull the knives out of our heart and clear the storm above us. Going on as though nothing is happening or like it’s not that bad keeps us from our healing. The 3 of swords suggest we face the hurt to move through the other side. It is truly the card that teaches us, “The only way out is through”.
The 3 of swords finding me from different decks
I’ve been to 38 appointments in the past two months. This is including xrays, blood tests, the doctors, the chiro, the physio, the osteopath, acupuncture, the massage therapists. It’s been a lot.
Oh! I also went to the dentist, because get this, I was grinding my teeth so hard that I chipped a tooth, presumably at night when I was not noticing. So I must have swallowed a chunk of my own tooth? When asked if I was stressed, I exclaimed that actually, I was grinding my teeth because I was in so much pain, literally, bracing due to pain related to this injury I was carrying around. I had noticed that in my waking hours, so it must have been worse during sleeping ones. I had to get my tooth fixed of course. More stimulus. Eeep. And that was before I even got my ribs put back into place.
I have gotten shock wave therapy, cupping, hooked up to a tens machine several times, done electric acupuncture points for pain. There’s been so much. As an autistic person in burn out, while I am deeply grateful to be able to access this health care, it is safe to say I am not thriving despite the gratefulness that I am finally getting treated for this pain.
I’ve had many shutdowns following appointments, which have included loss of speech. And some of my acute burn out symptoms that I had shed since March (for example, I was starting to be able to make more meals for myself or sleep a bit better) are back from the experience of masking, being shuffled from one appointment to the next (demands) and sensory overload. It sucks. But I’ve been really trying to not beat myself up for not being able to keep up with much other than my appointments, and just needing to spend the rest of the time I am not in clinics mostly resting.
Source: @sickeningshawty on instagram, I think found by me months ago via a delightful Sophie Strand meme dump
My acute burn out in general has led to skill regression, including a regression in organizational skills I had - very good skills I might add - that are now just often… gone.
I’ve noticed that my attention to detail is in regression (devastating for someone who has been largely self-directed since a young age and usually extremely meticulous - except for when in autistic burn out). For example, I realized I sent out the draft of a letter to you in May “I read the wheel of consent and wrote a cliffsnote version 4 u” that had many errors in it days after it was already sent. Oups. And not just typos – I don’t stress over typos much. This was developmental and content errors around the proper names of things as it’s presented in the book, and ideas I had read about weren’t fully developed in my draft or were missing pieces.
*FACE PALM.* Skill regression feels embarrassing and it’s tough to be with a version of you that doesn’t always feel like you in autistic burn out. Alas, I updated the post and you can read the proper final version sans fautes here: I read the wheel of consent and wrote a cliffsnote version 4 u
But that’s not all, I no show’ed to an appointment a few months ago, I also forgot to pay a bill on time around that same time, both things I’ve never done. I can’t keep up with texts, calls or friends the way I used to. Throughout the winter I also killed 10 out of my 30 plants in my house. Now for someone who does not love plants like I do, this might be normal. Everyone kills house plants. But for me, it is one of my most special interests. I literally feel so connected to my plants that I dream of them telling me they want a new spot for some reason and then I put them there and they thrive better. To just let 10 plants die that I’ve kept alive for years is… sad. And also completely unheard of for me. Every little mistake feels so catastrophic. Did I mention my anxiety is bad right now? This is also a part of autistic burn out - heightened anxiety.
Acute autistic burn out for the last 9 or 10 months has been rough. At times, traumatic with co-occurring health issues and especially more complicated with this injury I’ve had since November, which in my next piece you’ll see is actually related to the acute burn out - our proprioception (balance) can suffer in autistic burn out and thus falls and/or injuries are more likely. Thankfully I have given myself plenty of time to write my pieces on autistic burn out that will come out soon in a two part series.
You’ll see in my autistic burn out series what has been going on with my brain and nervous system and body. I have generously written the pieces as representation to the discussion of autistic burn out as these pieces from other writers have been lifesavers for me in the past months. I may pay wall some of the content, where I am including more personal pictures and vulnerable moments, where it’s less about education, simply because damn I think these are going to be the most vulnerable things I’ve shared with the internet so far for me, and yeah, all of the internet feels too big right now. I wrote a post last year about how to decide what to share in your writing here:
On if you should write something publicly or not
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JANUARY 30, 2023
I’ve debated whether to share the actual behind the scenes of autistic burn out and particularly acute autistic burn out publicly or at the very least in full with paid subscribers. I have gone through the risks of this. I was worried for example about sharing the gruesome reality of the disability in terms of alienating future employment opportunity for example. In this series I am sharing a lot of my own private medical information that is not necessary to share with anyone. I’ve written it in a way that makes me comfortable, but it took many drafts and a lot of labor to arrive here. Including having two people I love very much go over my work for support. And doing a lot of anti-ableism work within myself about myself. Ultimately I landed with the fact that this is a real thing I have experienced and am still currently navigating coming out of. Writing and publishing these pieces will help dispel the shame of the experience of autistic burn out. Something I’ve carried ever since I’m in my teens when my first one occurred. Part of the reason that is even possible is because people have shared their experiences and their tips and their recoveries with me, whether they know it or not (if I integrated their media after they shared it live), they have saved my life. We need wise ones who know what to do when autistic burn out strikes because they’ve been through it. We need autistic self-advocates and peer to peer support to share their experiences to feel like we are not alone. If sharing my experience does that for at least one other person, then that’s worth it to me. I hope those who read it will see this vulnerability as a strength and not a weakness, because that’s what it is and how I aim to see it as well. Write to you soon. In the meantime, I shall be working on trying to get to 70 % recovered from my injury. I am sending you love for whatever it is that you are only way out is through’ing it at the moment.
Love,
Emily