Positive things

Yesterday I finally handed in that key at my old job, so now I officially don’t have to think about these things anymore! It feels like a weight off me.

Yesterday evening I decided to join a project which my best friend is working on. I’ll probably write more about this once we know more things for certain. The thing I can tell you already is that he was planning a Game Night and someone mentioned he could make it a charity raising event. The charity that we’re most likely going to raise money for ended up being autism, since a lot of autistic people have the tendency to like gaming. Not all autistic people, but a lot of them do. So this is a great link. I can’t promise anything yet on this subject, but this is the most likely thing that’s going to happen and we’re already working on the planning.

Working on an event with my best friend, who I know I can work very well with, is just the thing I need to get my spirits up after a week of sadness. Now I have something positive to think about and I can regain some confidence by doing something I know I’m good at. I love this project. It keeps me busy and it keeps me happy.

Today I also made a start on some small sponge cakes with my sister (I don’t have any pictures, since they’re not done yet) and I had a driving lesson. This driving lesson went great. We focused on a lot of things that had to do with steering, which I seem to be quite good at. This also gave me confidence.

So yesterday evening and today were some real confidence boosters! Just what I needed!

Not my day

After I have been fired, I was asked to return on Tuesday to hand in my stuff. So I called in to schedule when I should arrive and arrived. I had an hour until I had to go to physical therapy, but figured this should’ve been enough for just handing in my stuff. My sister also happened to need something in the city, so she decided to drive me there and afterwards also drive me to physical therapy, which is very nice of her.

When I arrived, I handed in my stuff as we agreed. There was a key that I couldn’t just hand in at my team leader, but that has to go to administration and I would get the money back that I had to give in return for the key for save keeping. It’s so they would be sure I would look after the key. So we went to administration and… they weren’t there. My team leader asked a colleague where they were and he said ‘oh, on a break, must be back in 5 to 10 minutes.’

My team leader was very busy, so he asked me if I could handle it by myself. I could and my sister was fine with it too, so I agreed. My sister and I just had a look around the store and in 15 minutes we checked the administration office again. Nope. Nobody except for a cranky old lady who simply said ‘No.’ with a very annoyed look when I asked her if she was allowed to handle me handing in my key.

Quite annoyed, my sister and I decided to get the thing that my sister needed from the city and then return to check the office again. So we went to get her stuff (not everything she needed was there and this was already the second time she went to that shop, the last time it turned out to be closed) and then we went back again. This took us just over another 15 minutes. So in total, we’ve waited for the administration office for over half an hour now (and the first half hour was gone by walking there and handing in my other stuff). Guess what? Still nobody there.

Very annoyed, my sister and I walked back to my team leader. He told us to return another time and see if they’re there then, since he didn’t know where they were either. This isn’t his fault, he’s not the boss of the administration office, so I simply stated that I didn’t like it and thanked him and said I’d return. Still, this was very upsetting. This means I still haven’t finished my business there. I still can’t put this whole thing behind me.

The whole thing had left me in a terrible mood and we went off to physical therapy. Upon entering the building, I usually get myself some water which is great during exercise. Last week the water machine was out of water and it had no plastic cups either (luckily my physical therapist was in a good mood and brought me a cup of tea instead). This week, as is my luck, the water machine was out of water and cups again. There happened to be a few cups at the desk at the entrance of physical therapy, which means I could get water from the tap in my physical therapist her office, but she was still busy talking to a patient, which meant her door was closed shut. Did I mention yet that it was about 24 degrees Celsius (75,2 Fahrenheit) outside?

I stepped into the training room, where I’m usually expected to just start my routine if she isn’t done with a patient yet, and it was just as warm there as it was outside. I felt just awful training in that warmth. Usually they have the air conditioning on there… Later my physical therapist got in the room and she asked me why I was training at such a weird level. Turned out that I pushed the button next to the right one, making my training more difficult. No wonder the heat got to me so badly! I mentioned the heat to her and she said the a/c was on. I told her it wasn’t. One of the great things of Asperger’s: I usually notice when the air around me is different from the usual. She kept telling me it was on, until she listened closely and agreed that there’s usually a buzzing noise. She changed some settings and the a/c turned on. After this training got a bit better.

As you can probably understand, I got home in a very bad mood and very tired. I ended up taking a very much needed nap in bed.

That evening I got into some arguments with some people too, but in respect for them I won’t write about that.

The city

This will simply be a small update, as not a lot has happened.

The city went okay. The weather was very hot and humid... So it quickly took my energy. This was good in a way, since it distracted me from everything else. But I also didn't want to spend much time in the city, as my energy was quickly draining.

Also, there were road workers busy working on the road (as road workers tend to do). They produced a lot of noise, making the city an even less desireable place to be. My sister disliked the weather and the road workers too, so we quickly purchased our stuff and got out of the city.

All this made me quite cranky, but at the same time distracted me from every memory association around me, which is good. So while I disliked these things, in some way they helped. Tomorrow I'll have to stop by at my previous job to hand in my stuff. After that I'll be done there.

Memory association

At the moment I'm in bed, but I can't sleep. My sister asked me to come to the city centre with me and I happily agreed. It wasn't until this night that I started having troubles with it.

Why? Because of memory association. I have strong connections to certain things, places, scents, music, etc. A big event (to me) can create such a bond. Now, most people have associations like this, but for me, they're really strong. I heard more autistic people have this.

It's not just remembering certain memories. It's reliving them with the feelings and all. It doesn't always affect me as heavily, but sometimes it just comes crashing down on me. There are even certain songs I can't listen to without crying and I've thrown away certain pictures, because they were breaking me up.
At the same time there are things, like my events badges for example, that have me smiling by just looking at them.

These associations to memories can be both good and bad. I try to surround myself with things that are associated with good memories. But what if whole places became attached to bad memories?

That's what happened. Simply thinking about the city centre already has me crying now. Even the route there is too much to bare. Going there by bus will have a lot of bad memories by itself. The first bus stop shows the health centre I've been to from birth. Since my Chronic Fatigue it has transformed into a constant reminder of my struggles, since I've been there frequently since then.

At the second stop I can see the building where I had my administration job. Where I got fired because of the many days I was absent because of my Chronic Fatigue.
Also, the bus rides under the train station, which holds many memories to long lost friends and boyfriends.

At the third stop we're at the old part of the city centre. Here lay a lot of memories, too much to write down. Friends, boyfriends, bullies... both still here and lost... in many different ways...

The fourth stop leads to the last stop still in the city centre. Still the old part, but close to the new part. This is where I needed to be for my last job, which obviously still hurts me a lot. Also, this is where I'll need to be to get to the right shop when I go into the city centre with my sister. We won't be going to the same street as my old job, but I'll be able to see it and we'll be taking the same bus route.

Also, no the bycicle or by foot won't help. This route will either give the same places, or even add my old school and/or the hospital to the list. No thanks.

But I can't keep running either. Not only will I need to be in the city centre at some point anyway, I still have clothes and the key from my previous job to hand in this Tuesday. So I'll have to face all these memories.

I've always had this problem, but losing my job has added the new part of the city centre to the list, making the picture too big to grasp. I hope I'll be able to conquer this and make the city centre accessable for me again.

Not much to say

Sorry that I’m posting so little on this blog. Don’t worry, it’s not that I just started and already decided that I’m going to drop this blog. I’m still planning on keeping this blog up-to-date. The problem is just that I don’t have much to say, or don’t know how to say it.

Last week I was too emotional to be able to figure out how to explain everything. This week there’s just not enough to write about. Like I said, I’m allowing myself to be sad for a while, so I can give everything a place and progress the whole thing. Practically this means that I’m basically sitting at home, crying a lot and playing games. This sounds bad, but it’s actually a good thing. I rarely have the time for this, since I always need to keep going, searching for jobs and things like that. I like having some time to sort out my emotions.

Of course I’ll get back to getting things done soon, but in the meanwhile I just don’t have a lot to write about. Having a blogpost every day, stating ‘cried again’, won’t really do anyone much good and won’t add anything. When I get to the point where I can get things done again, I’ll probably have things to write about again. I’m trying to make this point somewhere next week, but of course I can’t be certain.

So, don’t give up on my blog yet! I’ll be back!

What's in a name?

There’s something that I’ve always struggled with and that’s naming things by their proper name. This has disappeared more and more over the years, since I have started to learn more and more names of things, but was the worst when I was young. What exactly do I mean with this? Allow me to explain.

When I was still in primary school, my parents used to make me my sandwiches, as is normal for most children in primary school. They would ask me what I wanted on my sandwich and I would often say “Sausage”. Of course the next logical question (if you have more types than one in your fridge) would be “What kind of sausage?” This question always caused trouble for me. “I don’t know… The thin sliced one which I always like with some mustard…” would be a normal answer for me. My parents would immediately know what I meant and correct me with the right word. I could never remember the word, so eventually I would just dismiss it and wonder why “The thin sliced ones” couldn’t just be enough. They knew what I meant right? (for the Dutch people, since I don’t know the English word: This was ‘Palingworst’)

At some point my parents introduced a new kind of sausage. They had me try it and I simply LOVED it! Add some mustard (yes, I love mustard on the sausages I put on bread) and it’s pure heaven. Later they asked me again what I wanted on my bread and I replied with “That tasty sausage.” My parents were, of course, completely confused. I mean, I now had two kinds of sausages that I thought were tasty, so what did I mean? I told them they had me try something and I loved it more than the first sausage and that I meant that one. After a few seconds of thinking they finally understood what I meant. They showed me the sausage and I happily nodded. They corrected me, again, with the right word for it and put it on my sandwich. Again, I couldn’t remember it and started calling it ‘Tasty sausage”. (in Dutch: Lekkere worst) Up to this day I still can’t remember the word. I thought it was smoked sausage? No idea. All I know is that it’s tasty.

The same thing happened with a type of conditioner for under the shower. The first conditioner I ever used was a bit grey-ish. Not completely grey, which would look terrible, but just a slight shade darker than white. My parents tried to tell me that this was conditioner and I just thought it was a very difficult word for just another type of shampoo that simply did something else in my hair. After asking for shampoo a lot, when I meant the conditioner, and after having been corrected a lot, it ended up being called ‘The Grey”. (Dutch: De Grijze) This came to be after a lot of frustrated cry-outs to my parents like “Condi… Con… You know! That grey stuff! Just give me the Grey!”

This has always been very weird to me, since I’m great at learning new languages. I started reading in kindergarten and started reading English in 2^nd grade (Groep 4). I was bored to death whenever anything came to reading. Except for when we had to do “Begrijpend Lezen”. I guess this could be translated to “Reading Comprehension”. This basically meant that we had to analyse the things we were reading and when we had to use a blank space and all those kind of things. This took a long time for me to pick up. There are no straight rules for this, which got me all confused at times.

So then, why do I have trouble learning some words? There is a pattern though. It’s not just any random word that just won’t stick. It’s words that already have a category they fall under and suddenly have some weird exception to it. Fish isn’t just fish, but every fish has a name. Chairs aren’t just chairs, some chairs have name too (like: fauteuil… I thought it was?).

This was actually my first real clue to Autism, weird as it may sound. In 6^th grade (groep 8) a child from my class, who has Autism, gave a presentation about Autism. He did this with his guidance counsellor helping him. At one point he tried to explain how people with Autism sometimes have trouble with just picking things up, which others just do without really thinking about it. The whole class was confused at this sentence, so the guidance counsellor stepped in and gave an easy-to-grasp example for the class to help understand it.

She held up a cup and simply told us that that was a cup. We all nodded. She told us that that may be logical and we all knew that, but that it wasn’t just any cup, but that we all know that it’s actually called a muck and that someone with Autism might just not pick that up as easily. This is where I first had my suspicion something was up. The whole class nodded at the notion that the cup was actually a muck. Instead, I made a quick mental note: “That’s a muck.”

I still have trouble understanding this quirk of mine. Why can I pick up languages so easily and even taught myself to read, but can’t I remember a few simple subcategories? One thing that I could think of, was the grey area. People have trouble understanding the so-called ‘grey area’ of things. In other words, things that aren’t as clear as you’d like them to be and can have a lot of exceptions. It might be that these subcategories are just too much in the grey area. You already learn the words for things and then you find out there are exceptions to it, which makes it have different names! Too much, too unnecessary (in my mind at least). This might be the answer.

So yea… If you ever wonder why, even after having studied for being a baker, I still can name so few baking goods… This is why. It’s not that I’m stupid. It’s just that it won’t stick. Bread is bread and at most it can be white and other shades of dark. If you want me to name them for the costumers, you better give me the words on a piece of paper, or I’ll be at a loss.

Fired

So... Today I got fired... Of course I'm really sad and have been crying a lot. They told me that they saw that I was absent way too much and didn't work fast enough. This is due to my Chronic Fatigue, so they'd rather have that I go and work on my health.

They did agree that when I was there and feeling good, that I did a good job. So I haven't been fired due to doing a poor job or anything. Being absent a lot and being slow does not only not work for them, but they also feel having a job takes too much out of me at this point. I got a lot of guidance at this job and I had similar problems at my previous jobs, so this isn't just about not being able to be a baker. It's about not being fit for a working environment.

So the plan is now that we're going to report this to the UWV (that's where I get my social security, or in Dutch; uitkering, from) and see what they have to say. My jobcoach is going to advise them to put the percentage of that they think I'm fit to work down a lot. In other words, we're going to see if we can get my hours down significantly. She's going to advise at the UWV that I can better use these hours to get the right help to work on my health. One thing we've already thought about is that we want to go to the Fatigue Centre (freely translated from: Vermoeidheidscentrum). Sorry if my English is being unusually bad at the moment. It's not every day that you need to explain things for social security in another language...

At the moment I'm just really sad. There is also a little bit of relief in the sense that I now know what I can expect, but that relief isn't making me happy, just a bit calmer. I've allowed myself to be sad over this for a while, so sorry if my blog is very sad during these days. Let's hope that my journey towards improvement will bring some more good news into this blog and also into my life. My blog was meant to bring understanding and hope. Not just show me failing at work... So I'll try hard to get my health up. For now, I'm just going to be sad for a while, so I can process this.