Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Retired at 23 and in a 5 year LDR

Heeey!

I hope kinda combining them is fine haha
I'm am retired due to disabilities, and have been in an LDR for over 5 years! so feel free to ask stuff!

Hope you're all having a nice day

Thanks for allowing us to ask questions

Do you have a daily routine, and was it hard adjusting it to retired life?

And what is your best tip for keeping a healthy LDR?

Hi!

I don't have a routine currently haha, and actually having the retirement is quite new, but it has been a bit weird. Not having to worry about having to do meetings about trying to work on being able to have a job, i can take it completely at my own pace now! Since i will be allowed to work a few hours still, i hope to get to do that eventually, but definitely won't be in the near future.

Good question! I think communication is very important, but that counts for any relationship, in my opinion. Being able to talk about how you're feeling and listen, and try calmly come up with solutions or ways to work around things has helped us a lot. And giving each other space. Even if we are very close and in a commit relationship, we do have very seperate lives being so far apart, and there needs to be space for that, even if it means we can't always spend much time together.

What are the circumstances with your LDR. For example, did you meet in person or online?

I'm not fully sure i understand what you mean with circumstances. But we met online on discord(yes xD) and just instantly clicked. Then about a month later we met in person while both on vacation! and since then we've seen each other 1-3 times a year! I also once was at their place for a whole month^^

Can I ask what country you are in where you are retired due to disablities, and how you have been treated with it?

Yes^^ really good question actually

I'm in Denmark, and in many ways that is probably considered a privilege but it obviously has it's flaws.

I am autistic with adhd, anxiety and depression diagnosed so far

So in short.. I have not exactly been treated well. And i will warn that what i'm about to say can potentially be a bit triggering for some people, but i'll try avoid those things as much as possible

And also sorry it got really long! But i just cannot figure out how to shorten it lmao i'm perhaps a bit too open xD
Really hope i kept it within the rules though, obviously left out a lot.

---

My mom knew since i was a few weeks old that there was something, cause i was quite unusual. I would cry if she held or touched me lol but the nurses just dismissed her concerns due to being a new mom.

I had issues in kindergarten, visits from psychologists and stuff. Then school, I was bullied in the first one, even by the teachers cause they didn't understand me.. a teacher even bruised my arm(i was like 8 ) which caused my mom to immediately move me, but the issues kept going and getting worse, so even more psychologist talks.. yet they kept blaming my mom, saying she was raising me wrong, or that it was because my dad wasn't really in the picture..

I finally at 14 got an autism test, but nope, i knew how to do eye contact so couldn't possibly be it lmao
Mean while i was barely participating in school

Then the municipality finally got involved.. yet the blame still went to my mom.
I finally at 16 got my first diagnosis(autism) after begging my school psychologist multiple times to please refer me to the psychiatric thingy for kids i dunno the name for in english.

After that it went even more down hill very fast. I became bedridden. At 17 i got diagnosed with depression, got handed some pills and sent home. Surprise they didn't work. I guess luckily? I don't remember much of it.

At 18 the psychiatric place just let me go, i was without help again. And i stayed bedridden. At 19 i couldn't take it anymore. I asked my mom to please do something. She got her psychiatrist to take me, and help with medication. Which surprise again, i'm very intolerent to meds! So can't get much help from them lol

Anyway.. the municipality kept pushing for me to find some form of school or work to do to be self sustaining i guess you could call it. I couldn't do it, every time it would send me further into the hole i was in. Did they care? Not really.
At 20 i moved out to a place i in english tend to call supported living. There was staff. (My mom and i could not make it work at home) That place was awful and well 90km from my family and people i knew.. and with my anxiety(includes agoraphobia) that was not helping.
Finally after about 1,5 year i got my caseworker to move me closer to my family. Which is where i am now, first time i really felt like i was being met, understood and getting help.

I still kept being pushed to go do something, but when it at the beginning of this year became clear to my caseworker(It has not been the same from the start, i have probably had like 10+ or something) that it was not going to work out, she suggested applying for retirement. So i agreed. It went through without any issue luckily, and the people who had to decide has basically written that anything done from now on would only be to improve quality of life(it included a doctor aswell)

So that's where i am at now, finally got some peace from that part of the system. Now i'm just trying my second attempt at getting a service dog! And waiting for a potential diagnosis of fibromyalgia <-> which both things i should know this month!

What happened with the first attempt at getting a service dog?

The way it works here is either you fully pay for one yourself, or you apply through the municipality you live within where they can pay for one for you if they decide it's a good idea. You can do that with other things aswell like wheelchairs and even earplugs or a weighted blanket. Some easier to get than others, this one being a very difficult one.

Servicedogs are very expenssive so my only option is to go through the municipality. And i got a no, cause unfortunately i moved during the process, and they quickly took that and went "well we don't know the effects of the new place, we can see it could help you though, but we can't give you one."
So i waited about a year and applied again(mostly cause the helpers i have had to get to know me better before they could really give a proper opinion and get involved.

Ooh, I guess that makes sense? I hope it goes much more smoothly this time though!

Thank you! I hope so too