So, a lot of things are racing through my mind right now:[br][br]1. omg what am I going to do without those things I left at my mom’s?  It’s my curling iron and my facial cleansers. The curling iron I’m not so bothered about, because I can just put some curling gel into my hair and put it in spirals for a few days, if need be.  The cleansers, though…it may sound really simple, small and pathetic, but seriously these things are a lifeline for me.  I just don’t know what to do without them. They’re the only thing that keep me feeling like just maybe I’ve managed to heal my face a bit, that maybe the marks are fading and the dead skin is falling off.  I just cannot stop tearing up my skin, and these cleansers keep me feeling more sane, human.[br][br]I mean, even just packing to go to my mom’s, I only went for one night and I wound up taking three bags!  And it’s not because of fussiness at all. I think half that space was taken up with cleansers.  I couldn’t believe it. How the hell did it get this out of control?  But it’s not just an OCD thing, it’s like every problem I have causes me to destroy my skin, and I just can’t stop it, and I need these things to heal it, because even just knowing I don’t have them right now is making me feel hideous.  I just went into the bathroom a bit ago and looked in the mirror and suddenly I could see all these terrible imperfections that I’m pretty sure weren’t there this morning, and I realise this has to be just my brain, but I can’t make it stop and I feel like I’m in the middle of a meltdown, but I’m suck in an office for the next five hours, and I nearly wrote ‘five years’ there, I guess that was a Freudian slip, because it really feels like it’s going to be forever, like I won’t make it through the day.  [br][br]And my hair, too, it just looks all wrong, everything about me is wrong today, I keep ducking my head when people come in because I don’t want anyone to see me, I don’t know what I’m making them think by doing this, but I can’t seem to stop myself, and you know my mom last night was telling me she’d just sat through ages of me throwing abuse after abuse upon myself, and she wondered how I even functioned, basically, with that kind of distorted image of myself.  And I don’t know…hearing someone else say that to me…okay I can’t talk about this, obviously, because I’m about to cry again, and I can’t do that, I’m in an office.[br][br]2. You know what else my mom said? She said she’s slowly coming to terms with all this new information, all these new diagnoses (I keep having to demonstrate to her examples of why it’s all true and I’m not just a hypochondriac, but I think it’s finally sinking in), and she said she noticed something about me when watching me…and before she could finish her sentence, I instantly knew what she was going to say: ‘I never smile.’[br][br]The WEIRD bit is that I’d never had this thought before in my life, and yet yes, I knew exactly what she was going to say.  I really don’t smile. I’m deadpan and the bottom half of my face doesn’t move when I talk.  As my mom pointed out, though, I do get animated. She said anyone who’s convinced I’m expressionless and dispassionate just needs to get into a proper conversation with me about music.  But really…yeah…autism…25 years and I don’t smile. I can fake it.  Like, I noticed some years back, when looking at photos of me with my friend Courtney, that I didn’t smile in pictures.  I think I’m smiling, it feels like a huge gesture to me, but I get the evidence back and I look really bored.  So I practised in a mirror for ages until it finally sank in that, in order to do a normal smile, it had to feel totally exaggerated and unnatural to me.  So now, when people take pictures of me, I really put on what I feel is cheesy, but it comes out nicely.  Little do others know just how forced it feels to me.  Not the emotion, but the gesture. Because when people think I look bored or pissed off, I’m always baffled because actually I might feel quite happy.  But people can’t tell.[br][br]And I hate this! Because I can’t change what I am, but I’m becoming increasingly self-conscious about it.  I hear my voice, I catch my face, and you know every time I see myself on video I HATE myself, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear knowing that’s the image others see of me…when inside this shell, my self-image is so different, is so much nicer.  I’m not actually insecure about who I think I am. I’m insecure about who I seem to be, from the outside.  I hate her. I absolutely f*cking hate that Vrinda.[br][br]Okay, I’ve got to stop this train of thought too, because again, I’m just about to cry.[br][br]But I mean…it’s like being told at work all the time that I’m so aloof and disinterested and I look pissed off when asked to make drinks, even though it’s in my job description, I don’t care, I’m not pissed off at all, I don’t mind!  Everyone ignores me, because they think I’m anti-social, and yeah I kind of am, but not like they think, and in school and at home and growing up and all the times I was told I was arrogant or distant and even George doesn’t seem to understand me half the time, and I just feel like I’m fighting everyone all the time about everything and I’m so f*cking sick of doing it, I just want to run away, I can’t stand being me anymore, I just want to leave for God’s sake just let me leave this body….