Wednesday 31 October 2012

Clothes



Hey everyone! You all probably wondered where my blog posts went to. Someone already asked me if I wasn’t feeling well or something like that. It’s true that you can sort of read from the amount of blog posts that I write how I’m feeling. Lately my head is way too full with information, I have zero confidence in my theoretic driving exam (don’t try to cheer me up on that one, I’ll just feel worse when I fail the exam. Don’t add to the amount of pressure please), I still have no idea how the upcoming year will look like… My mind is so full with things that I’m stressing about, that I can hardly get myself to writing blogs. Sorry if you’ve been waiting for my blogs. But let’s get to the subject that I wanted to write about.

Recently I’ve been shopping for shoes and a jacket. This shopping trip has been an event on itself, as I usually hate shopping. There aren’t that many clothes that I like in the stores and I’m sensitive to any additions on the clothes. I’m talking about buttons that I feel way too much, any pieces of string or cloth meant for decorating that touch my skin, etc. Also, I’m a small person with small legs, but with big hips in comparison to the rest. This usually makes it hard for me to find a pair of pants that look good on me.
All this usually causes for me to shop for hours, just to end up with one set of clothes. This annoys me to no end. Some people love to shop for hours. I don’t.

A few weeks ago we suddenly found some pants with elastics, so no annoying buttons, that look like regular pants when you put a shirt over it! And they were in different colors! I bought three of them, so that quickly got me three new pair of pants. I was elated! No more trying on pants for hours just to end up with one. I immediately got three, in three different colors! I also found a new type of t-shirt, that’s small at the top and a bit wider at the bottom, but with a cool print on it. So it’s comfortable, but it looks pretty cool! (at least, I think so…) This type of t-shirt is being sold a lot now, so this also got me a few of those.

I have too many old clothes that I kept wearing for years as I don’t grow that much, so I really needed something new. Simply because those clothes got too small and they started to rip and things like that. That’s how much I hate shopping: If I don’t have to do it yet, I simply won’t. I’ll keep wearing those old things until they rip and/or get too small. Also, there’s the matter of change. I don’t like to change my style, because that’s ‘not how it’s supposed to be’ and I won’t feel like myself anymore.
But with these new clothes I didn’t feel like I changed myself, even though I slightly changed my style. It was a weird new thing! I had to get used to it, but actually liked it!

Well like I said, recently I had another day of shopping, for shoes and a jacket this time. I walked into the shoe shop and my mother and I immediately went for the type of shoes that I aways wear: black sneakers, maybe with a bit of colour stripes or something… I tried a few of those on, but they didn’t fit me that well. Also, those type of sneakers aren’t being sold that much anymore. I did some thinking and suddenly remembered that a Cosplay (costume) that I have, had some cowboy things to it, which actually suited me pretty well. I told my mum and softly said that I wanted to try something like that. Cowboy-like boots or something… My mum looked at me surprised and I was surprised with myself! That’s a big change for me! Then my mum smiled and quickly went to find a pair.

She found a pair and I tried them on. They actually suited me pretty well! Suddenly I got restless. This never happened to me before! I wore sneakers all my life! This was a change I had trouble accepting, but I liked the boots. This caused an inner conflict and I kept looking in the mirror in shock. What to do? What to do? This isn’t right, but it looks so good… What to do??? Then I decided I just had to do it. I told my mum: “Buy it! Quickly, before I change my mind! I can’t stay this strong for too long!” She bought the pair for me and now I have a pair of boots… Actual boots… I’m still a bit in shock because of this.

After that we went shopping for a winter jacket. We went into a shop and quickly found a good looking jacket. I put it on and suddenly… (fake) fur! There was a strip of fake fur around the whole neck, which was supposed to keep the neck warm. Usually I’m okay with fleece or something like that, but those ‘hairs’ were way too itchy! They itched under my chin like there was no tomorrow and my whole system was instantly overloaded. All I knew was that I wanted the itching to stop. I quickly got out of the jacked, threw it on the ground and told my mother to get it away from me. Was I being childish by just throwing it on the ground? No. I was simply so overloaded, that my whole body just screamed ‘get me out of here!’ and that’s what I did. I got out of there. Or better, I got out of the jacket. I couldn’t think beyond that. I couldn’t think about neatly hanging it back where it was. All I wanted was to get that fake fur away from me.

We did learn from this though. We now knew to search for a jacket which has no itchy things around the neck. I’ll wear a fleece scarf if I want my neck to be warm. This limited our options though, as a lot of winter jackets have something itchy around the neck. But two stores later we actually found a great jacket, which I love. In one of the stores where we couldn’t find a jacket, I actually found two new vests which look a lot cooler than the ones I already have.

So no, I didn’t have any big changed, except for the boots. I still have simple shirts and pants. But it’s the style of those shirts and pants that I changed. There’s more colour and they have a cooler style to them than I normally wear. This may seem minor and not even very noteworthy to most people, but to me it’s a big change and I’m very proud of myself.

I’ve always had problems with clothes. Most people don’t notice it, because they just see me in daily life and I already have the right clothes then. But one day you might see me when I’m wet from the rain and I’ll feel terrible. Most people think I overreact when I try everything I can to get into dry clothes, or dry the clothes that I’m wearing. “You won’t melt from a little water, will you?” Is usually what people say to me with a smile on their face. Of course I won’t melt from a little water. It’s not the water that’s bothering me. If that was the case, I wouldn’t be able to swim either. It’s the clothes sticking to my skin that’s bothering me.

I’ve always had this problem. When I was a child I was even more sensitive to wet clothes and it was such a problem, that I would run to my mother crying and I couldn’t be comforted until my clothes were dry. Now I’m not THAT sensitive to it anymore, but I still can’t ignore it when my clothes are wet. I can’t get used to the feeling. I keep feeling it and can’t relax until I put on some other clothes or until it has dried. Some people think that I overreact, but I don’t. Wet clothes are a really big sensitivity issue for me. There isn’t much that bothers me more than wet clothes. So much even, that I rather wear short clothes in the rain, than wet clothes, because then at least there isn’t so much cloth sticking to my skin. I can dry my skin with a towel. Drying clothes is harder.

I know that some people with Autism are even more sensitive to clothes than I am. There’s a lot of prejudice against this. Some people think that this is just because they are spoiled, but that’s not true. Being that sensitive to something is terrible. Imagine having ants running all over you all day long. It’s a terrible feeling. That’s exactly the way it is.

Sunday 21 October 2012

A turbulent week



This week was supposed to be a calm and quiet one. I didn’t have that much planned and my parents were on a holiday to France. That means that I was alone with my brother and sister, meaning that I could play my music without headphones when they were out and I could have friends come over and things like that! Sounds fun right? I probably had a blast right?? Nope.

If you have read my last two blogposts (http://thedailydaysofanasperger.blogspot.nl/2012/10/the-flu.html and http://thedailydaysofanasperger.blogspot.nl/2012/10/agreements.html ) you would know that I was still recovering from the flu and that my Monday didn’t start out that well. This trend continued.

About an hour after I posted “Agreements”, I went to the kitchen and scrambled some eggs to put on a sandwich for breakfast. While scrambling the eggs, I saw some children from the school across the street picking on another child. They weren’t just calling names (which they were also doing by the way), but they were pushing and pulling him and things like that. It was awful. They were probably in the 5th or 6th grade (for Dutch people: Group 7 or 8) and I’m a short girl and they were with about 7 or 8 of them, so I was contemplating whether or not to step in. There were no teachers or parents around at the time. Then they started choking him with his keycord and I drew my line. Enough was enough, I wasn’t about to just stand there and watch this happen.

I left my eggs (they weren’t in the pan yet, don’t worry) and stepped outside, yelling for them to stop. They didn’t hear me in the noise they were making themselves, so I stepped very close to the girl leading the whole thing and told her to quit it again. She quickly hid the keycord behind her back and said “Oh, it’s just a game ma’am.” Yea right! If there’s a game where a group of children pushes and pulls one kid while calling him fatty and then start choking him, then it’s a terrible game. No, I wasn’t buying it. I told her I’m not an idiot and that she had to give him his keycord back. She went on with her lies, asking me “What keycord?” I said: “You know what keycord, give it back!” Then the kid who got picked on felt supported and said: “Yea, give it back.” She finally took out the keycord from behind her back and responded with “Fine.” She gave the keycord back and I went back inside, furious about the whole thing.

After I got inside, I went back to scrambling my eggs in the kitchen. Suddenly one of the kids outside grabbed something from the ground and got prepared to throw it through the kitchen window, towards me. The rest of the group quickly grabbed him and yelled at me “He’s got a rock! Get away!” I got scared and quickly got to the couch on the other side of the house. All my memories from the bullying from my past got back at me and I had a panic attack and started crying. I had a quick look outside, saw the whole group walking towards the school, then I quickly went upstairs to my sister who was still in bed (but awake).

Later in the day I was a bit more calmed down and called the school to tell them what was going on. The woman on the phone almost wanted to tell the class I called in and to tell them what they did was bad. I told her that’s not a smart thing to do, as I already almost had a rock through my window and didn’t know what they would do if the woman would point out that I called in. She said she then didn’t know what to do and that she would speak with the school board the next day (the school board wasn’t there at that moment).

The next day I got called by the school and they said there were more complaints by neighbours about lack of respect by the school kids. So the school decided to make a school project about how to treat the neighbours. They asked the children to think of activities to help the bonding with the neighbours.

This doesn’t really help the kid that got bullied in my opinion, but I do think it’s great that they got the children involved in thinking about activities to help bond with the neighbourhood. At least, when the children respect the neighbourhood more, it’s easier to help keep an eye out with these things and we can feel a bit safer.

The rest of the week went fairly calmly, but I wasn’t feeling completely recovered from my flu yet. Because of this I kept on coughing the whole time, I shivered at even the slightest cold and had so little energy, even doing something like going to the supermarket drained most of my energy. Of course I had no energy for having fun with friends or something like that. At one moment I seemed to be getting my energy back and could even walk around in the city a bit. Then, on the night from Thursday to Friday, my temperature shot straight up again. The whole of Friday I felt terrible again. I did go to the Weekly Autism Meeting, but I got in a little later and didn’t do much. I was mostly there for the company and some supervising.

Yesterday (which is still today to me, as I haven’t gone to bed yet. But I’ll stick to the clock time now, as most people will read this during the day) I felt a little better. I’m still coughing a lot and I haven’t got all my energy back, but it’s still better. But my parents would be coming back from France around 16:00 (4 pm) and because my brother was busy with school, I was sick a lot and my sister can’t do everything on her own, the house wasn’t in its best shape. So I used all the energy that I could spare, and so did my sister (my brother was out for the day), to clean up most of the things that we couldn’t do last week. We did do housework, it’s not THAT bad, but there were still a few things that we were behind on.

After that was done, my energy for the day was gone. The rest of the day I simply watched some television and surfed the internet.
So that was the week that was supposed to be filled with tons of fun. Let’s hope next week will be better. I’ll have more planned, so I’ll be busier, but on Thursday I got a day to an amusement park with my sister planned and on Friday evening we’ll have a big Halloween party at the Weekly Autism Meeting. I’m looking forward to those two things!

Monday 15 October 2012

Agreements



Whenever someone makes an agreement, may it be a promise or an appointment or whatever, to me it’s important that person does everything to follow up on that agreement. If the agreement can not be followed, there should be a very good reason (like: The train was delayed, the alarm clock didn’t work, a lot went wrong on the way there, someone died, someone had big issues that had to be dealt with, etc.).
This rule doesn’t just apply to others who make agreements with me. That would just be hypocrite. This obviously applies to me too.

Today I woke up by the sound of the front door bell. I quickly got into a bathrobe (something just as quick and easy wasn’t nearby) and went downstairs. Luckily it turned out my brother already opened the front door. Suddenly my driving instructor was there, ready to pick me up for a driving lesson. But I was sure my driving lesson was planned on Wednesday! I told my driving instructor that and confused she showed me her scheduling. I showed her my agenda on my smartphone. She asked me to check my e-mails with the planning in them. I checked those e-mails and they agreed with me. I said I would be fine with quickly putting on my clothes and have a driving lesson anyway, as I was clearly in her schedule. She said that wasn’t needed and drove off.

I was confused. She knows agreements are important, as she’s trained to work with people with Autism. I can’t remember her ever making a mistake in the scheduling. I went to sit on my bed and checked the conversation e-mails between her and me to see if I missed anything in there. Suddenly I found the e-mail where she rescheduled the meeting.

There was no excuse. Upon reading the e-mail I remembered seeing this e-mail before. It should’ve been in my agenda, but I didn’t put it in there. I simply forgot. There’s no excuse for this, I should’ve put it in my agenda the minute I saw the e-mail. Simply forgetting isn’t a good reason for forgetting an appointment to me. Especially not since this is costing her and me money and I already had to cancel the previous appointment due to being ill. People on Twitter are now telling me that such a thing can happen. I know that, but still… I shouldn’t have forgotten this. I feel bad about this.

Sunday 14 October 2012

The flu



You might have noticed that I haven’t updated my blog last week. The reason is that I fell ill on the night from Monday to Tuesday. At first I was so restless, I thought I had a bad response to the new asthma medicine, but then my temperature went up and I got some other symptoms and it turned out that I simply got the flu.

Last Friday evening was the first time I was able to get out of the house again. At the moment I just have a bad cough, my throat hurts a lot and I don’t have much energy. I don’t have much to tell about last week, as I was mostly bed/couch bound. I felt so bad, I couldn’t even browse the internet on my laptop. My days were mostly spent tossing and turning in bed during the bad moments, and watching some television and checking some stuff out on my phone for a minute every one in a while during the good moments.
So yea, this is a very short blogpost as I don’t have much to say about the last few days. I simply had the flu.

Saturday 6 October 2012

It works!



On the night from Thursday on Friday I was very emotional. My emotion led me to stress out too much and have a mild hyperventilation attack. After that I went to bed, feeling awful. When I woke up, I still felt awful. I had trouble breathing, was sweating, was dizzy and I had very little energy.

Don’t worry, I’m used to that. Whenever something big happens, it can drain all my energy and make me feel awful. I figured it would be the same as usual and I just had to ride it out. During the day it just got worse and I hated my day. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to go to the weekly autism meeting. Around 16:00 (4 pm) I suddenly had an idea!

I was out of breath right? Hyperventilation attack made it happen… What if it’s the mild asthma that made my response to my emotions worse? What if that was causing those hyperventilation attacks all this time? Wasn’t I supposed to inhale some medicine whenever I felt out of breath?
So I tried to take the medicine that would widen my throat in order to breath easier… and it worked! Slowly but surely I started to feel better.

Now I wonder… How many of my bad days are caused by the mild asthma, and how many aren’t? I think I’m going to pay attention to this. If a lot of my bad days are caused by the mild asthma, I might just be able to reduce my sick days significantly!
But I can’t cheer too early yet. Let’s first see how big of an impact this is. If it’s not that big an impact, I might just be too disappointed… So I’m being careful on getting my hopes up too high. Fingers crossed though…

Thursday 4 October 2012

Answering Questions - Less tired



Today I continue with my ‘Answering Questions’ section. If you have a question about my Autism or my Chronic Fatigue, please ask me. I’ll try to answer it in a blogpost if possible.

The question that I’ll be answering is: “Do you notice any difference between your energy since you just got Chronically Fatigued and now?” The easy and quick answer is: Yes.

Getting Chronically Fatigued happened gradually, it didn’t just happen overnight. Only at one point it got too much and I collapsed and couldn’t finish my school year. This is when I started going to a psychologist and had several medical tests. I’m going to use this point as my starting point, as this is where it was at its worst.

At my worst I couldn’t even go to the supermarket normally. Just so you know: There’s a supermarket just two minutes cycling away from my home. I can even walk that if I want to. Just going to the supermarket was already bad enough. Then I didn’t know how to get back, as I didn’t have the energy for it. I would end up sitting on the side-walk, regaining my strength. One time I even went to the snackbar next to the supermarket. Not because I wanted an unhealthy snack, but because I needed quick energy and a better place to sit, so I could rest up. All this, for two minutes of cycling.

As a way of recovery my mum once took me to a place that sells plants and other garden stuff (I have no idea how to call that). This was a twenty minute bike trip. She would let me rest up on the side of the road whenever I needed to. Getting there and back took all day long, because I needed to rest up so much. It did get me out in the open air, which was very good for me. (because I had so little energy even on good days, I had plenty of days that I was bed bound. I didn’t get much fresh air because of this. This is why my mother did this.)

Now I’m about seven years later or something like that (I might be off on this one. I didn’t keep track.) and a lot has happened since then. I learned to spread my energy, I got physical therapy, I now know that I have Asperger’s Syndrome and how to deal with it, I got vitamins that I take, I have less hours of work in a day (What most people always forget: School is an average of eight working hours a day!), I have better guidance, etc.
All this helped in getting me more energy. Every single thing is a small thing, but together they changed a lot.

I’m still Chronically Fatigued, but I have come a long way from where I was. Because my life is now better organised and better suited to my needs, my fatigue got a lot less. First I couldn’t even go to the supermarket. Now I help run events and go to LARP and things like that. I still can’t go on for many hours on end and I always need a lot of rest after an event. This is also why I still can’t hold a job, because it still wears me out too much. But still, I went from not being able to go to the supermarket to being able to help for a few hours with something before I need rest. So yes, my energy got a little better in the last few years with the help of many small things.

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Answering Questions - Directions



Lately I’ve noticed that I’m pretty good at explaining my own actions, but that I’m terrible at coming up with a good subject. The reason for this, is that I take a lot of my own actions for granted. It isn’t until someone comments on it, or until someone responds in another way, that I realise I’m doing something out of the ordinary. This is also a good lesson for myself, to get more aware of what I’m doing differently, so that I can take into account that the other person with me probably needs an explanation sometimes about my actions.

So, for the first question. A friend of mine, who is autistic herself, asked me if my navigation skills are as bad as hers. Yes. My navigation skills are horrible. No, beyond horrible. My parents always joked (don’t worry, all in good fun) that I need a navigation device for all purposes, even walking and cycling and inside of buildings. Well, let’s just say ‘hurray for smartphones’!

I’ve had this problem all my life. One day at primary school the whole class went on a trip somewhere by bike. Because I didn’t exactly get along with my classmates, I drove in front with the teacher. On the way back the teacher suddenly had to turn around to correct a few students who were up to no good. He did this right in front on a piece of road that went straight and also had a turn left. I didn’t know where to go, so I panicked and simply went on the straight road, hoping for the best. The rest of the class laughed at me and took the left turn. Some said, while laughing “We went on the same road on the way there, you dummy! You didn’t even remember this?” No I didn’t.

Whenever I go somewhere, that doesn’t mean I can go there again. Even when I learned how to get somewhere, that still doesn’t necessarily mean I can find my way back. Sometimes I even hurt someone with this. I have people who I’ve known for years, who still need to pick me up from the train station, because I have no idea how to get to their home. I even have no idea how to travel the last part to a guy I dated for over 4 months. This surprises a lot of people. I’m not doing it on purpose though. I seriously tried to remember it.
If you want me to remember the way, you have to give me the time to process every little part of the road, walk over it a lot of times with me, back and forth, then let me try it again another day with you next to me. Why with you next to me? Because when I get lost I panick.

Getting lost is a whole problem on itself. When I get lost, with nothing to guide me back, I have a big problem. If I’ve crossed a few crossroads, I can’t remember which one I passed and which turn I took. Also, I can’t remember which general direction I came from. I follow certain set roads, I don’t have a map in my head.

To me (correct me if I’m wrong, this is still a big mystery to me) it seems like most people have a big 3D map in their head, connecting everything. Much like Google Earth. Whenever you learn two pieces of road which lay close to each other, you can travel in-between these roads too. (right? Am I wrong?) I can’t do this. I learn one straight road and end up where I need to be. When I turn around and want to find my way back, everything looks different. Did I take that turn left? So I should go left? Wait no, opposite, so right… Or did I take that turn right?

Whenever you try and teach me to find my way back and you let me try for myself first, you’ll probably catch me turning around a couple of times. This is because I try to remember how it looked on the way there and then try to mirror that in my head by turning back and find out where I came from. This isn’t because I’m stupid, or because I never learned to read a map. I did learn to read a map and I’m not stupid. Things just work differently for me. I don’t have a 3D map.

Rather, a city is like a big puzzle to me and all I have are separate pieces. Even the same piece turned around doesn’t look the same to me. So, what is a piece? A piece is one road. For example, the road to physical therapy. Suddenly I cross the road to physical therapy in my driving lessons from another angle. This gets me confused. Usually this leaves me exclaiming to my driving instructor: “Oh! This is where we are! I see!” Then we drive on and I’m lost again.

One time we drove from my physical therapy to a school that I know the way to too. There was just a small, easy to remember, piece of road between these things. Suddenly two pieces of puzzle connected! But just those two pieces. I know that other buildings that I know the way to must be somewhere close to physical therapy too, but I can’t drive from those building to physical therapy. I never learned about the roads in-between. I would have to go back home, then take the familiar road to physical therapy.

Someone once showed me the map of my city and showed me where all my familiar points in the city were on the map. That person then smiled at me and said “This would make things easier right??” It didn’t. So, okay, they’re there on the map. But when I’m there, things don’t look like a map. I can’t follow the little line to my direction. I also can’t remember all those lines on the map and where they went. In order to use this information I would need to take this map with me at all times and turn it around while walking.

I have the same problems in certain big buildings. Especially when they’re big with many hallways leading to the same things and some having a dead end. I would have a tour of the building and then just know that one route. Usually a tour is done in a circular way to cover everything, so I would have to make a circle in order to get to where I need to be. A lot of people look at me like I’m crazy and ask me “Why didn’t you just use this *points* road??” I can tell you why: Because I honestly didn’t know that was a possibility.

Then – many people ask me – why don’t I explore more? Because I would get lost! And getting lost equals panic. Panic makes me cry, makes me even more unable to assess the situation, gives me a headache, takes away all my energy (which I already have so little of) and can even cause hyperventilation. This would mean that I’m not just lost, I now have many medical problems. So no, random exploration isn’t a good thing to do. The one time I ever did that without panicking, was at Abunai (Anime/Manga convention), which has a building with many roads going in squares. This is a kind of circular motion too, which would just lead me back to a place I know. So no worries. Unfortunately this isn’t the case in most places. There are a lot of squares in the city, but they lead to many more squares, which just lead me further from my destination. Some cities don’t even have squares or circles. I was once lost in Amsterdam with the battery of my phone dead… Don’t make me talk about that please…

So please, don’t just laugh at someone who gets lost easily. This person might actually be really scared of going to new places because of this. Maybe this person also thinks in one-direction-roads and pieces of puzzles and isn’t just dumb. Stop laughing and start helping.

By the way, this is the reason I rarely travel without my phone nowadays. My phone is a smartphone, which has navigation, train information, bus information, etc. Some people think that I’m addicted when I panic when I don’t have my smartphone with me when I travel. That’s not true. I panic, because my smartphone is the sole reason I started to dare to travel on my own in the first place. Without it, I would be back to where I was before. Getting lost all the time, and because of this not daring to go anywhere alone. Confined in roads I know, because I would get lost if I would travel out of known areas.

If you know anyone like this, don’t laugh. Rather help this person get out of their prison of unknown roads. They will probably thank you for it.

Do you have a questions about my Autism and/or Chronic Fatigue too? Please ask me, even if it’s really personal. I will try to answer it and maybe even make a blogpost out of it. Thank you in advance!

Not my day - 2



You might be wondering "Number 2? Was there a number 1? Did I miss a blogpost in a series?" but no you didn't miss anything. This is just a day that is just as bad as a day that I wrote about in another blogpost, so I decided to make it a sequel. Here is the other blogpost: http://thedailydaysofanasperger.blogspot.nl/2012/06/not-my-day.html

Today was NOT my day. It already started right after I woke up. As I only had one appointment at 15:50 (4:50 pm), I decided to sleep in a bit. Only I didn’t remember that it was the first Monday of the month, which is important in the Netherlands. So I woke up just before 12:00 (noon, 12 pm) and was greeted by the monthly air alarm test. There is something in the sound of the air alarm that I can’t stand. It makes me feel very uneasy. When I was young it actually bothered me so much, it made me cry. I’m over that now, but it still has a weird and huge impact on me.

After the air alarm was done, I went downstairs, just to find frozen bread, which was just taken out of the freezer. Up until now the inconveniences have just been minor and I was a bit cranky, but I was sure everything would be alright. To feel a bit productive, I decided to contact the Fatigue Centre about their e-mail which wasn’t functioning and to still get the answers I needed. They said their e-mail should be functioning now, if it didn’t I should contact them again, and that the people they needed for my answers weren’t there.

Still cranky, I decided to send those e-mails later in the day and go out in the city to get some fresh air to lift my spirits a bit. I forgot the bus stop that I needed was under construction and I got dropped off a stop further. Because of this, I had to walk back to the stop that I needed before I could walk into the city.

After that, I went straight to the place where I worked as a baker, as I was promised a letter of recommendation and I was told the person that I needed was mostly available on Mondays. I asked some old colleagues of mine where this person was. They said they saw him earlier that day, but that they didn’t know where he was now. I waited for a while, but then decided to just go, because he was probably already gone.

Still cranky, I went to the City Hall to get some answers on an activity that I’m working on. There they told me to call a number that I already called before on the same issue. I told them that I already called that number, to which they responded which division I needed. I called and, after being put on hold, asked for that division. The lady on the phone first demanded a full explanation from me, then concluded that I needed the same division I already asked for. She then continued by putting me through to that division. After a few more minutes of being on hold, I was told by the same lady that there was no answer due to them being too busy. She then asked me some more questions and ended up taking a note of my call and that I should be called back by that division.

At this point I was very cranky, as nothing up ‘till now seemed to go right. Ready to scream, I went into a shop to get a nice present for a friend of mine who will be celebrating her birthday soon. This actually went fine, but later at home I would find out that I forgot to withdraw some money to go with the small present as I planned to.

Still pretty cranky, I decided to drop by at the office where I can check my e-mail for the weekly Autism meeting. (usually I check this at the meeting itself, but the last month I didn’t have time for this, which meant I hadn’t checked this e-mail account for a month already) This turned out to be a bad decision, as I wasn’t in any state to communicate with others. This being so, I had the worst communication with the people there, which made it a very awkward situation explaining what I was doing there. I did manage to explain it in the end and was allowed to check my e-mail, but it was the most awkward conversation ever. (Although I did end up explaining to them how to get their computer working, right before leaving the building, so that’s a plus I guess?)

After this disaster, I decided to just go home, as nothing good was going to come out of this day and I also needed to safe some energy for physical therapy, which was that one appointment I had. I got on the bus. My sister called me and told me she actually happened to be at the bus stop near our home, so we decided to meet up and… The stop-button turned out to be malfunctioning, so the bus didn’t stop at my bus stop. Of course. Why was I expecting this bus ride to go well in the first place? Not after a day like that!
After arriving at the next bus stop, I quickly called my sister (who had a very surprised look when she saw me driving by!) to explain everything, and jumped on the next bus.

While walking the last part home, I told my sister I had the worst day and she said that I could now at least rest at home. I agreed and when I arrived home I decided to get me a glass of lemonade and… The phone rang! I quickly put aside my glass and ran over to my phone. I was ready to answer it, when… (!!) They hung up on me. I looked at the number, but it was a hidden number, so I couldn’t call back. I’m sure this was the division that would call me back and I missed it. This was the last drop and I gave up. My day wasn’t going to be a good one.

After that no big things went wrong, but nothing went right either. I had physical therapy and after that it was already time for dinner. In other words, there wasn’t much of a day left. Today was a bummer. I hope tomorrow will be better…