u/Fabulous_Act_4141

My job ended a few weeks ago (it was a year contract). Now I’m jobless and living in my mom‘s basement. I feel like I’m drowning in negative emotions: fear, sadness and shame mostly. I’ve had multiple health problems and mental health problems since puberty. I’m also quite sure I’m autistic. I am applying for jobs and have an interview for a temp job tomorrow. I even set up a date on a dating app, but I’m feeling very nervous and unworthy. I set up my first doctor appointment in like 7 years because I have a major fear of doctors and also haven’t had insurance, but I found a sliding scale clinic. my next goal is to go to a dentist which is one of my other major phobias. I’m also scheduled for a food stamps phone interview, which I found out they now have a work requirement for, but only after 3 months so hopefully I can find a job by then. I grew up in poverty and I’ve never been able to hold a full time job because I get way to overwhelmed and quit, so I’ve just scraped by on part time jobs. I’m so scared my life will keep being this hard and I feel like I can’t even allow myself to consider that or I will give up. I also joined this church that seems a bit culty, but I really need the support because I have trouble making friends, and my family mostly just makes me feel worse. I am really trying to take positive steps and get to a place where I feel okay. like I don’t need to be super happy, but I just want to not feel like ending things.

Throughout my life I have been a magnet for sexual predators. I think my parents were a bit neglectful and naive (they might be autistic too), and I started experiencing sexual advances from men as a child. I feel like I was conditioned by church and family to always be nice and not have boundaries. I experienced the first serious assaults (that I can remember clearly) in high school, like people touching my vagina without consent (and breasts and butt). My first week of college I was raped by this guy from my dorm because I was just trying to make a friend. I think I was really naive and just didn’t even think it was possible. Like I could tell he was aggressive, but I didn’t think he would rape me until it happened. After that this became a pattern in my life. I was overly trusting and nice, and I kept getting raped. Like I thought this guy from a party was cute and he kept handing me shots and I kept taking them to impress him. About 7 shots in he offered to walk me home, he had to hold me up because I was stumbling so much, and he took me to a bathroom and raped me. It was one nightmare after the next. Like a guy offered me a ride because I was walking in the pouring rain, and I accepted it, and he took me to a hotel and raped me. Then there were guys from tinder who gave me drinks that would make me immediately sleepy and out of it and they would have sex with me. I studied abroad and a guy I had seen a couple of times invited me over and held me down while anally raping me. Then my host brother while I was studying abroad pinned me down and raped me without a condom and came in me, like he was trying to impregnate me. A guy I went on some dates with raped me and then cried to me about it and said he felt so bad and he just did it because of his bipolar disorder. Another guy raped me at a party at his house and covered my mouth with his hand so his parents wouldn't hear. After college, I was dealing with chronic fatigue (probably a result of all of the trauma). I went on some dates with this older guy and he ended up raping me because I was too tired to do anything or get away. And then a guy I dated for a couple of months raped me, because we were hooking up and I started dissociating so I told him to stop, but he didn’t want to. Besides all of the rapes, I’ve been verbally harassed at least a hundred times, chased by men, groped in all kinds of settings like on the street, at school, at work... I had to leave a dance community I loved because multiple men in the community had touched my genital areas without consent.

The first time I was raped I reported it to my school and it was a hellish experience. I even attempted suicide because of how traumatic it was going through the process that took a year and a half. After that I didn’t really have it in me to try and do anything. I started to think it was my fault, like I attracted sexual violence. I have always had a high sex drive and I am bisexual. I’ve had plenty of consensual sexual experiences with men and women. So every time I was raped, even though I was saying no or trying to get away, I blamed myself. I think I am fairly attractive, like slim with a big butt and big boobs, and a sweet, innocent looking face. I think I dress pretty normal, like sometimes sexier and sometimes modest or boyish.

I don’t know what exactly happened. Like I think there are a lot of men who are capable of rape, especially if they are sure they can get away with it. I think because I am a nice person and had low self esteem it made me a good target. I also think autistic traits made me a better victim: being naive, not reading cues that could be red flags, wanting human connection so deeply, not being good at making or keeping friends that maybe could’ve protected or supported me…

I also think because I came from a dysfunctional and impoverished family I was always looking for someone to like save me/accept me/love me/affirm me and I feel like I was tricked into bad situations when I was seeking this out. My entire life I felt lonely and like I couldn’t connect to people and I think this led me into dangerous situations. Also I’m extremely sensitive to substances and my guard is easily lowered from things like alcohol.

With many years of therapy I learned more about boundaries, self-worth, red flags, etc… I am much more guarded than before and I’m not automatically nice to people. To be honest I think I’m overly guarded and overly afraid of people now. I wear baggy, boyish clothes a lot. I don’t engage with men as much. I am a bit agoraphobic and have to force myself to go out and do things.

I wasn’t sure what the right page to share this on, but I thought maybe some people out there have had similar experiences? I know autistic people and lgbtq people are more susceptible to sexual violence. If you have been a victim of SA I wish you healing ❤️‍🩹

I am about 3 months off coffee, still drinking matcha. Matcha gives me a smooth chill energy, however I am pretty sure I am nowhere near as productive as I was on coffee. I see so many positive changes with switching, but this is the hardest aspect for me. I had a part time job and it ended and now I’m so unmotivated and I just spend so much time laying around and consuming random videos, and have barely any motivation to do anything else. My circumstances could be worse of course, but they aren’t great. I’m 30 and I just moved into my mom’s moldy basement, I’m driving a junky borrowed car from my dad, I have unaddressed health issues, the house is pretty cluttered and dirty because my family members almost never clean. When I drank coffee I was motivated to do things like clean the house, do shitty jobs, go to the gym, etc. But now I don’t have that. A few days ago I went to starbucks and got a decaf latte, which I guess still has caffeine, and within a couple hours I had written a resume and cover letter and applied to multiple jobs. That was more productive on the job front than I’ve been in two months on matcha (when I still had a job, but knew it was ending). My self esteem is plummeting. Like I’m calmer, but my life is nearly unbearable.

Also now I’m extremely tempted to keep getting “decaf” coffees from Starbucks, which is how I fell off the wagon last time I tried to quit..

So I know a lot of people on here believe in zero caffeine, but I’ve seen a lot of benefits from switching from coffee to caffeinated tea. Like pretty much every symptom that was negatively affecting me with coffee is better. I’m less anxious, my digestion is better, my pee isn’t so urgent, my skin is clearer, my teeth are less sensitive, my sleep is better, I feel more energy throughout the day, and I can nap or meditate if I feel like it. I feel like the tea is just a comfort thing and keeps me from returning to coffee. My willpower to stay on the path is being tested because I just moved back in with my coffee addicted family, but I’m hoping I can stay strong and inspire them. Anyway, I’m feeling really proud of myself and like I made a big, positive change in my life. It’s been 2.5 months since I quit coffee. I’d say one of the biggest changes for me is the slower energy in the morning and a calmer energy during the day. Which feels so much healthier. Also I wanted to share that I was going through a severe depressive episode about a month into quitting, to the point that I called a suicide hotline, but since then I’ve just been getting better. I think walks in nature have been the best medicine.

When I wake up I don’t feel the same urgency to consume caffeine. I wake up feeling more relaxed and less shitty. I usually have breakfast and then have some matcha. Something I am realizing is how normalized this concept is of waking up and drinking a substance (coffee) that will make you overly alert and awake right away. Instead of waking up and slowly adapting to a new day. I think it’s normalized in western culture because people really value productivity and making money, and they look down upon rest and perceived laziness. I’ve been working on deprograming myself from this mindset. Like if I rest and relax and have a calm nervous system, that is a good thing, not a moral failing.

I am a bit concerned about my new reliance on matcha because originally I was going to use it to cut down to zero, but now I feel reliant on it. It doesn’t jazz me up like coffee, but for some reason my mind tells me I need it to get going. I honestly don’t even like matcha that much, like I need to add milk and sugar to enjoy it and even then it’s kinda meh tasting. It’s interesting to me because I loved the taste of coffee, and in the past I have done this same thing of switching to matcha, and then going back to coffee for the taste. I don’t want to do that again. I think I am much healthier mentally and physically without coffee. Would love to hear any thoughts?