Small update because I'm too tired

Hey everyone, here's just a small update because I'm too tired to write a good blog post.
Some of you might've seen me at the convention and are totally up to date, but some others might be wondering how I'm feeling with my leg being hurt and everything. This is why I'll write a small update.

Saturday morning a friend of mine found out that the hotel had a wheelchair that I could borrow. This allowed for me to move around the convention and still keep an eye on the eventrooms that I had to supervise. The wheelchair did take a big strain on my arms and I got tired very easily from having to move a wheelchair over a carpet (note: this was my first time in a wheelchair ever!). Also, I couldn't help move around chairs and tables and stuff like that. This led to me feeling very useless, but everyone around me told me that I was a big help already in supervising and providing the right information to the right people and stuff like that. I'll take that for truth then.

On the night from Saturday upon Sunday my leg actually felt like I would be able to walk again. Somehow the person who took care of me always shows up at the right time and this was true this time too. I bumped into her and asked her to check out my leg. She was actually in a very bad mood, but after checking my leg her face cleared up and she happily and hopefully asked me to try a little walk. I did and, even though I was still pretty weak, I could walk for a little while! This seems like a small victory, but at first they thought I would be confined to my bed all weekend, so not just being able to move around in my wheelchair, but actually be able to walk around a little bit was already a huge victory!

Sunday it just got better and better. I could hand in my wheelchair and walk around! I was still terribly weak and I had to watch out not to strain my muscles too much yet, but I could walk fairly well. This made it possible for me to help at the workshop (making Japanese bread; melon pan) that a staff member and I present since last year.

In conclusion, I still feel very weak, but in comparison to Saturday morning, I feel lots better. I'm scared of going to bed now, because if I cramp up again, I won't have First Aid ready to run upstairs. But I'll have to get over this, seeing I have a driving lesson tomorrow. I really hope I'll feel okay for that, because driving is always a little bit of a strain on my leg. I can't have my leg feeling all weak when I need to control the car. I'll see tomorrow.

A great day ends in a great disaster

Today started out great, as I arrived yesterday at the hotel where Abunai (the biggest Anime/Manga convention in the Netherlands) is held this weekend. So today I woke up on convention grounds and I was ready to take on the world so to speak.

Actually the whole day seemed to go fine. I had a 2 hour meeting and helped a bit with setting up the convention, but had a few hours of basically nothing after that. When the events started running, I was mostly supervising, as the events didn't need much help.

It was a great day and I was looking forward to the next two days as I would have more to do then... until disaster struck.

Around 2 am I woke up screaming in pain. My left leg completely cramped up. It hurt like no cramp I've ever felt before. My sister tried to massage it out, but it didn't help at all.

Finally we decided to call first aid. They had a good look at it and treated it. They said it was so severe it was even a bit over their heads. After some heavy pain medication they could finally get the cramp out (note: the medication was after a lot of very painful tries).

They did tell me I might be stuck to my hotelroom the rest of the weekend. I surely hope not! I'm devastated by this. The pain medication is keeping me calm, but I'm torn in two from the inside. I've really looked forward to Abunai! That's even an understatement. I can't imagine having to miss it. Please leg, get better!!!

There's never a fun day without...

… having to feel terrible afterwards. This is the curse that is my Chronic Fatigue. I have been feeling dizzy all weekend and yesterday evening my temperature went up. All I’ve done today is go to a friend of ours with my sister. There we would work on our Cosplay (A word that comes from Costume and Play. What it means EXACTLY is still under discussion between fans, but the most used explanation is: Dressing up as an anime/manga/videogame character).

But I got to be honest… I didn’t do a lot. I couldn’t do a lot for this anyway, as something needed to be fitted on my head, which is hard (not entirely impossible) to do on my own. This, and the fact that my sister would drive us there and back, is the only reason that I still went to our friend despite not feeling well. I did have a lot of fun, so I do not regret my decision. Going there didn’t make me feel worse and it provided a great distraction.

But actually focussing on thinking about difficult things, or doing something that requires physical energy, is just too much at the moment. I’m dizzy and I still have a bit of a heightened temperature (which is annoying in this heat!). Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I’m used to this by now. The only reason I’m writing about it, is to show what Chronic Fatigue does. A lot of people ask me “Chronically Fatigued? But you’re going to friends and are having fun and things like that right? You seem fine to me! So what do you mean?” Well, this is what I mean. I may seem perfectly fine, and I probably am (or at least, not feeling all too bad), but afterwards I collapse.

Again, I’m not seeking for comfort or attention or anything like that. I just want to show what living with Chronic Fatigue is like. This may be “The daily days of an Asperger”, but the description of my blog says it’s about my life with Asperger’s AND Chronic Fatigue, so I shouldn’t ignore the Chronic Fatigue. That’s the only reason I’m writing this.

Whenever you meet someone with Chronic Fatigue and they seem perfectly fine to you, this doesn’t mean they’re fine all the time. They might have saved their energy just for you and will maybe feel terrible afterwards. Don’t focus too much on this though, if that person saved his/her energy for you, then just enjoy that day, that person didn’t save it just to be remembered of it the whole time. That person probably saved it to enjoy a nice day with you just like they normally would. Sometimes I have people asking me if I’m tired already throughout the whole day. That’s not necessary. I’ll tell you when I want to stop. If I crossed my limits, that’s my own fault, not yours. I can learn from that.

This isn’t one of my best written blogs as I don’t feel too well and I’m feeling bad over not being able to work some more on my Cosplay, or my driving lessons. I hope I’ll feel better for Abunai (the biggest anime/manga convention in the Netherlands, which is at the end of the week). But I felt like I had to write it anyway, because it’s important to know this side of Chronic Fatigue too.

A bit of frustration, but still a great day - 2

This is the second part of this blogpost: http://thedailydaysofanasperger.blogspot.nl/2012/08/a-bit-of-frustration-but-still-great.html

After that, we went to the bakery museum. Seeing I have a certificate for ‘assistant baker’, this was right up my alley. In fact, it was my idea to go there! I have been there once before (my sister just said I went there more often, but was too young to remember it), but this was at least 10 years ago, if not 15… Almost everything was still as I remembered. Seeing I have an associative memory, this took me right back to the time I was a child and walked in here. I still loved it just as much as I did back then. Maybe even more, seeing I understand a lot more about baking now.

After some looking around, we were watching a baker create some bonbons. There was a group of people with children in front of us. While we were watching, someone announced that the group could go and decorate some cookies. I did this at this museum when I was young too and I couldn’t wait to relive this, so I immediately jumped up and asked if I could join too, or if it was just for kids. They smiled and said I could join too if I wanted. I felt like a little kid in a candy store! My ex and I sat down and we had a lot of fun decorating our cookies (of course, mine looked the neatest. I liked his cookie too though). The group that was there, was a very nice group too. The children were very well-behaved and we were all simply having fun.

 

After this, I asked the baker if he could maybe show me how he makes his marzipan roses, as I’m still struggling with those (I know, I know, shame on me). He was amazing! He didn’t simply show me how to make a rose, but he went well beyond that by showing me a lot of other techniques too. I can’t wait to try these things out! He also told us that it was time for him to show how to make ice cream old-fashioned style and asked if we wanted to come and watch. Of course we did! Because he now knew that I studied for assistant baker, he started quizzing me on if I knew what he did wrong and why he did certain things. I never made ice cream before, so I couldn’t answer anything which was pretty shameful, but I still learned a lot from him.

When we were done with looking around, we had another look around in the museum and then went to the entrance to buy a big bag (not just for me! For the rest of the family at home too!) full of old-fashioned candy. I love this kind of candy and I know they love it at home too, so I just couldn’t leave without it.

We still had plenty of time left before the steam tram was to ride out, so we decided to have a look around town. My ex (I hate that word, it sounds so negative! But we’re really getting along very well! But friend doesn’t seem to catch the feeling either… Love isn’t it anymore either… Do you guys know a better name to call it, without having to write his name here?) bought himself some nice merchandise in one of the stores. After that we had some lunch.

At this point it was time to ride the steam tram! This was an amazing experience. It looked a lot like a steam train (although the tram driver kept insisting it was a tram), so we were both very happy. We could decide for ourselves where we wanted to sit. First class, second class, on the balcony… It was all allowed! Of course we were in first class and frequently got onto the balcony. We just kept switching between these places. I have no idea why there were actually only a few people in first class.

On the steam tram, the conductor had to wait at the balcony we were standing on until the tram stopped for a minute, so he could transfer wagons. (The parts on where you can transfer wagons obviously wasn’t closed off on this old tram, so it wasn’t safe to transfer while we were still riding) While he was waiting, we told him that my ex is a train enthusiast and that I love steam trains. This might not have been a train officially, but it came really close. This started a nice conversation between the conductor and us, in which we learned that we were supposed to go 30 km/h (18.64 mph), but that the owner of the tram was driving and that he liked to go 40 km/h (24.85 mph). This made me smile, since I love speed and this was speed in one of my favourite types of transportation!

We had a short conversation with the person selling the drinks too, since they had to wait on the balcony too. Normally I don’t just randomly start a conversation with a stranger who I know nothing about, but I was in a very good mood (even a bit of a Kansas!) and the conversation also happened quite naturally, as they were just standing there next to us.

After the tram ride, the day was over. Having to say goodbye to my ex and to have the day end made me a little bit sad for a while, but at the same time I was happy to have had such a great day. My ex and I promised each other that we would meet up some other time again, as we can still have a lot of fun together. We might have lost the love we had, but we didn’t lose each other, which is a great thing. I loved this day!

A bit of frustration, but still a great day - 1

 There was just so much to write about yesterday, that I decided to make it a 2-part blogpost. So more to come tomorrow!

Last Christmas I gave my ex (who was still my boyfriend back then) a day out for the two of us. It was a ticket with which we could go from one town to another by a classic ferry and then go to another town by a steam tram. This ticket was usable until the 21^st of August, so we decided we would go somewhere in the summer, because such a day out is nicer with good weather.

A month later we broke up… Of course we didn’t feel like taking this tour for a while, as we were pretty heartbroken. We were able to see each other in real life, but to take that tour that was originally meant as a great date for the two of us? No, that was too painful.

Later we were more comfortable with it, but we just couldn’t plan this day in. Whenever I had time, he didn’t, and whenever he had time, I didn’t. We were getting very close to the ending date of this ticket!

Luckily we managed to plan this day in after all. Yesterday was the day it was going to happen. It didn’t start out all too great. The evening before that day I was very nervous and couldn’t calm down until I had all the information I needed. (Time tables, maps of the cities we were going to see, etc.) This seems like a lot of unnecessary planning, worrying too much and being a control freak, but that’s not it. Remember: It’s only since a year ago that I started being comfortable with travelling by public transport. Now it wasn’t ‘normal’ public transport either, so I couldn’t use my smartphone to get to the right information. This added to the stress level. Luckily I found all the right information in the end and I printed it all out.

When I arrived at the place where the boat was docked, I wondered where I had to hand in my coupon to get our official tickets. I expected a ticket boot there, but there was none. Since my ex wasn’t there yet, I couldn’t ask him what he thought we should do. I looked around and saw a tourist office which said ‘tickets’ on the side. Thinking this was probably the right place, I went inside.

There was a line from the desk until the door, so I had to wait a while. I was so happy that I left my house early! When it was finally my turn, I got a bit anxious, but I pushed myself to ask whether I could get my tickets here. I couldn’t, it turned out I just had to show the coupon on the boat. Then I said I heard the lady in front of me speak about the bakery museum and that I was thinking of going there too and that I wanted to buy two tickets. The lady at the desk said it was better if I bought it at the museum. I asked: “So, that means I can’t buy it here?” To which she answered: “Well you can and you would get a discount, but I would advise you to buy it there.” I got so confused, that I had trouble processing it. The lady looked at me with a look on her face that seemed to say “Sooo… Do you need anything else then?” I couldn’t process this confusing conversation on time, so I simply said “Okay, thank you,” and I walked off. I have no idea if I just missed some sort of discount.

So far for my Asperger being in the way of my day, because from here on out my day was just amazing! My ex arrived and we hugged and boarded the boat. We had some trouble with ordering a dish, as 75% of the menu appeared to be not available, but besides that everything went great. We really enjoyed the journey and spent some time on deck, enjoying the wind and the incredible views.

When we arrived at the town we were headed to, the first thing we saw was a steam train which was preparing for leaving. My ex is a public transport enthusiast in general, but he especially loves trains. I have always loved steam trains. So this was a perfect scene for us to arrive to. We spent some time walking around the steam train, simply marvelling at the sight of it and taking pictures.

Sorry for the terrible quality picture. My 1 and a half year old smartphone didn't like the bright weather. This was the locomotive that drove the steam train. It was still disconnected at that moment.

 

In this town we took out a lot of time, by having planned to take the last steam train to the last town. We checked our ticket, which said we could use it for a free ride with a classical bus to a few museums and other tourist things. We didn’t care for any of these things, but have planned for a bakery museum which wasn’t included in the ticket. After some thinking we decided to still take the classic bus just because we wanted to ride a classic bus, and to simply ride out the whole round-trip.

Just neutral...

Let me just start by saying that the blood test went well. It’s still stinging a little bit, but that’s all. I wanted to write some nice blog post about everything that happened yesterday and today and about how it all affected me… But I can’t.

Why can’t I do that? Because I don’t even know how I’m feeling at the moment. There have been both happy and sad things, I have been stressed, I have been anxious… But I have also been happy and relieved. In short, I have felt a great amount of emotions in a short period of time. This has resulted in a sort of emotion overload. This sometimes happens to me when a lot of emotional ups and downs happened.

I think it’s a kind of protection mechanism that helps me process everything. I just go into this neutral state. This doesn’t mean that I don’t feel anything, but my emotions simply aren’t that big and I just live very much in the moment. A few years ago I went into a similar state after a very harsh break-up. After the break-up (which happened through MSN) I just sat down in a comfortable chair and stared off into the distance. My mum asked me if I was okay and I simply told her that I didn’t know yet, that it was like my body was still deciding whether or not I was okay with all of this (turned out that I was not).

In a more mild way (I’m not staring off into the distance) I’m in a similar mood right now. I have no idea if I’m happy or sad… I know that I have been happy. I know that I have been sad. Am I happy or sad at the moment? No idea. I guess I might say I’m content at the moment. I’m fine with this mental state though. It gives me peace of mind and a very objective view on certain issues, which makes it easier for me to sort them out. I can’t say I’m very productive now though, but I’m not too bothered by that. So yea, that’s what is going on right now. I think I’m okay with this.

A day at the Fatigue Centre

Today I went to the Fatigue Centre and as promised, I’ll write about it. Last night was a sleepless one, as I was so worried that I couldn’t stop my mind from thinking about everything one could possibly think of. Seriously, my mind just went on about every single subject it could think of, very annoying. This left me with very little sleep in the end.

Because of this, my day obviously didn’t start out well. I had trouble getting myself to focus, so little things went wrong and my mum and I were discussing so many things, that I simply forgot to eat breakfast. On the way there I told my mum this and we decided to have something to eat at the hospital (the Fatigue Centre is in a hospital). This helped a lot.

When we got to the registration counter, I was told we had to go back to the entrance to get myself a pass with my information on it. I knew I needed this pass from the forms they sent me, but I didn’t know I needed to be at the entrance for that. I went back, had my pass made, then went back to the registration counter. There I was presented a lot of forms which I had to sign. So I had a lot of information to process already.

After ten minutes delay, we were asked to join the doctor. Upon sitting down, my eyes immediately fixated on the stuff laying on her desk, right in front of me. I tried to look up occasionally, but I just couldn’t look at her, not even at her forehead as I usually do with other people. She loaded some more information on me about food supplements and the treatments they offer and stuff like that. My mother soon noticed that I just couldn’t take it all in, so she took it upon her to accept the folders and listen extra carefully, so she could answer any questions about stuff I missed afterwards. (Thank you mum!)

It was soon clear that they wanted a lot of sudden changes in my life from me, which I just can’t live up to. We asked them if they can adapt to my Autism and they honestly said they couldn’t, since they don’t have the expertise for that. They weren’t rude about it, they were just very nice and honest about it and ready to help me think of the next step. We decided that I would take all the information that I can use for myself, but then in my own time and at my own pace. They gave me prescriptions for food supplements and showed me which kind of treatments and therapies I could try.

After this they did some tests, so that we can exclude some other possible reasons for my fatigue. I have did this once before, but this has been three years ago, so the results need to be renewed. They also did an extra test which I didn’t do before. I can’t remember the name for it, but they checked how much physical load my body can take by attaching some wires… I would have to ask my mum what they called this, or maybe someone knows and can put it in a comment. This test said that my body, in rest status, should theoretically be able to take on any physical load. This doesn’t add up to what we actually see happening, so this didn’t give any diagnosis.

After a lot of tests and talking (for about two hours, divided between two different specialists), I got a lot of food supplements and had to take a blood test. I didn’t expect this and I’m very scared of needles, so my stress level shot straight up. They also told me they can’t diagnose me with Chronic Fatigue Syndrom, as fatigue is also a symptom of Asperger’s Syndrome and you can only get the CFS diagnosis when there isn’t anything else that can explain the fatigue. I told them that I didn’t think this was normal fatigue, even with Asperger’s. They told me that doesn’t matter, that according to the rules they still can’t diagnose me with CFS.

Why does this matter this much to me? To show I can’t work the amount of hours the government wants me to work, I need that diagnosis. Now the only diagnosis I have is Asperger’s and based on that, they can’t say that I can’t work 20 hours a week. Well… I can’t even hold a 15 hours a week job… Am I destined to hop from job to job, failing every time, because I can’t keep to the government’s standards? I don’t hope so…

So, after all this I had to go to get the blood test. My stress levels were still high up and I told my mother that I was very scared. Since I had many blood tests before and she was always with me during them, this wasn’t news to her. The fact that this came unexpectedly didn’t help either. I knew that I needed a blood test, but at first I was to get one on another day. That it was to happen on this day, when I was already very worried about everything, and so sudden, didn’t help at all.

Moments before the blood test, I got really scared and my tension prevented the needle from hitting the right spot. Sometimes I really am my own worst enemy. The needle missing the right spot really hurt me A LOT. This also meant that it had to be redone. I was hurting, scared and in tears. They kindly asked if they could have my arm for another shot and I said: “No.” I wasn’t being stubborn, I was acting out of fright. I did realise that this didn’t help at all, so I asked if I could just take a little time out. It wasn’t that busy at the hospital, so they were okay with that. I could go to the cafeteria, have a little drink, and come back whenever I felt like it. They even understood it if I wanted to do it some other time.

That being said, my mother and I went to the cafeteria and got ourselves something to drink and a slice of cake. I took me about 45 minutes, but I managed to calm down. Then my mother asked me if we could go back and my stress level shot up again. I told her that I got a good scare there and that we could maybe better do it some other day, as just getting tense and missing the vein again, wouldn’t really work. Both her and the doctors understood and even agreed. My mother and I decided we would go to the local hospital in our own city this Wednesday to try it again.

So yea… The day at the Fatigue Centre did get me some good information and a new path to take, but emotionally it wasn’t a good day for me. I got very scared and my right arm (which was the one they used the needle on) kept hurting a lot for a few more hours after that, even after taking two pain killers. (This is from missing the vein. I AM very sensitive to pain, but I never kept hurting for hours on end from a blood test that went right before.)

This was a very long blog post, but it also was a long day. I hope you all managed to read up to here.

Not on my mind

This week has been a turbulent one for me, as many thoughts and emotions plagued me, but I’ve also done some fun stuff. To protect myself from collapsing completely from all the things that happened, I have shut myself off from thoughts of certain things that just needed to happen. Things that I can’t do anything about until the time is there.

What do I mean with that? For example, the Fatigue Centre. Tomorrow will be the intake. There I’ll find out whether I want to go through with this or not. This centre has plagued my thoughts a lot, but I couldn’t know my answer until the intake is there. So I decided to just leave it be and focus on other things. This has helped a lot in one way, but it has a nasty side-effect to it.

Because I have focussed on other things, so I wouldn’t worry too much, I simply forgot about the whole thing until today. Today I saw it on my calendar and had to discuss the time we would go there with my mum. Because it got on my mind again, I suddenly realised something. I completely forgot about the daily log I had to keep for them! I can log in to their website and I have to give numbers to certain aspects of my health. For example, today I would give my fatigue a 7, as I had a bad sleep last night because of someone holding a big party with the bass loud.

Why did I forget about this? Didn’t I care? Don’t I know how important this is? No, that’s not it. I do care and I do know how important this is. It’s just that I threw every thought of the Fatigue Centre away for a short time, as every thought of it had negative associations for me that I couldn’t solve yet. Things that I can’t solve, keep occupying my mind, so I had to completely throw it away and with completely, I really mean completely. I didn’t realise, though, that I wouldn’t think about the daily log.

This happens to me sometimes. When I try and distract myself to lift my mood up again a bit, I sometimes forget about a few important things too, which usually upsets a lot of people. I’m very sorry about this, I don’t mean to do it. My sister just came up with a good idea. Maybe I should put these kind of things as an alarm in my phone, when I try and distract myself from a subject that has important daily things like this. I’ll try that next time. I hope I won’t forget to do that either… For now I’m focussing on the intake that’s tomorrow.

On a little side note: The London Olympics was amazing! Too bad it’s over. On to the next one!

Driving lesson

I was still in a bad mood when I woke up yesterday morning and I had a driving lesson. Because of this, I took my time to wake up slow, because I would need all the energy I had for this lesson. I had doom scenarios in my head, where I would mess up everything, because my head is somewhere else.

As usual, my driving lesson started with telling my instructor what was on my mind. She knows that this influences the driving lesson, that’s why she always asks. She understood that I probably wasn’t going to perform at my best level, so she started off slow. Then something happened to me… I had to focus on what was happening, but not so much that my head would explode. It was the perfect amount of focussing where no other thoughts were allowed in, but my head wasn’t crammed with information either.

Suddenly my head cleared up. My mind went clear and I could focus on what I was doing. Along with this change, my mood changed too. I could see the bright weather that was outside and I felt confident in what I was doing again. Driving turned out to be very therapeutic! I loved my driving lesson and it allowed for me to have a clear view on my life again. This doesn’t mean that all my problems are solved, but it does mean that I can finally start making new plans on how to handle all of this.

This is how important a good instructor is. My previous instructor wasn’t trained to work with people with Autism. I started out happily driving, but she ended up just stressing me out. This new instructor changed everything and brought back my love for driving, and this cleared the way for new directions (pun intended) in my life. I wonder where this will take me.

Gaming memory lane

Tonight I have been reading up on a bit of game knowledge about Mario. Up until now I knew most things (like that the Super Mario Bros. 3 - World 3 tune is the same tune that’s used for the Fairy Fountain in Zelda), but it still led me to browse around on the internet to listen to those tunes, or watch some old cartoons that aren’t airing anymore, featuring those games.

I’ve spoken about memory association before. In that post I spoke about it in a negative way, but it can be very positive too. In this case it was very positive. Just listening to these tunes, or watching these cartoons, brought be back to my childhood. Especially the Super Mario Brothers tunes brought me back to all those times that I played on the NES. All those birthdays where friends and family asked us to bring out the NES so that we could play on it and we could show every new feature that we discovered.

I also remembered the first time I saw the Super Mario Brothers Super Show and the Mario anime they aired. All these things came back to me and for a moment I felt like I was back in those days. I’m not saying my childhood was all sunshine and roses at all, but I loved playing on the NES. This makes me want to get the NES out again and play some more. I think it’s somewhere in the attic where I can’t reach though… I might ask my brother… (it’s his NES actually)

And it’s not just Mario that I loved playing of course. Memories of playing Kirby and Duck Hunt and many more games also came back to me. I still remember that my brother once tried playing Duck Hunt with a small hand mirror and actually managed to shoot a few ducks… Now, excuse me while I’m off to listen to some more old game tunes.

More bad luck

This week I just can’t seem to catch a break…
A friend of mine has sunk in a very deep depression. I still haven’t solved all the events stuff. This Friday I was supposed to hold a (free) bingo, which was already postponed one week, when I found out that you have to notify this at City Hall through a form. Even when the bingo is free, but has prices. This form takes them two weeks to work through and file, so the bingo gets postponed again.

My best friend isn’t very happy at the moment either (for his privacy, I’ll leave the reasons out). And if all this wasn’t bad enough, I just heard that Aaron, who was maybe coming here for a holiday somewhere in December or January, unfortunately can’t make it anymore.

By the way, on itself all of the above would be manageable. But it’s on top of all the things I already mentioned before, as nothing of that has been solved yet. All of this is just too much going wrong in one week. In fact, in the middle of a very bad break down I told my mum: “Well, the one thing I got going for me is Aaron who might be coming…” Well, scratch that.

I still have a few friends and I got my family, which I didn’t forget, don’t worry. But I’ll need a bit more than that. Friends and family are great and I truly love them, but I need something in life just for me (like a job, or a volunteering thing, or something like that I mean) that is actually going well. Because right now I can’t see it.

If you can, feel free to mention it in a comment. I can truly use some positive things right now. Did I just ask for compliments? No I didn’t. I don’t need to hear great aspects of me. I’m not the type of person to ask for compliments, I feel compliments are something you need to earn, not ask for. I meant things that are going right for me, or things that I can do to get things back on track. Because right now, I can’t really see it myself and maybe others can.

Mixed feelings

My head is all messed up at the moment. I feel extremely happy and extremely sad at the same time. I keep having panick attacks and when I get too tired from the panick attacks, my head simply shuts down from all the sadness to protect myself and concentrates only on good things. I mean, up to the point where I can’t get anything productive done anymore. In other words, I’m a mess.

On the one hand some things are going quite well. Spending more time with my best friend has been very good for me. Also, I’ve been to my ex his birthday party today, which was the first time since the break-up that I’ve been at his home today. I was quite nervous for this, but everything turned out to be a lot of fun and we can still happily go back to being friends. This has relieved me a lot. Some more nice things happened in the social department. Also, I love putting events together which I’ve put a lot of time in last week.

On the other hand a lot of things seem to fall apart too. Having too much drama within these events is starting to eat away from me, as I’m very fragile already at the moment. Every event has drama, but where I’m at in my life right now, it’s hurting me more than usually. It’s actually keeping me from enjoying what I love doing most. I hate this, as without events I feel like I’m nothing, as events is what kept me going. (By the way, if anyone goes ‘I know what event you’re talking about!’ then my answer is; no you don’t. It’s not just about one event and there are also things going on that aren’t out in the open because they haven’t been properly discussed yet.)

At the same time the whole Fatigue Centre thing is eating away from me too, as I’m still waiting for the intake.

Being without a job, and with that a routine and confidence, also hasn’t done me any good. Besides that, I still didn’t get back all my energy from being unwell either, which makes all this harder to deal with too.

By the way the discussions at my previous job went and how I’m dealing with these events, I’m scared I panic just too fast to do what I want in life. I can handle constructive critique, that’s not it. In fact, that helps me to work better. But I’d really like for something to just work out without things escalating up to the point where everyone’s upset. Maybe it’s my doing, maybe it’s not. I don’t know. But I could really use a project where something doesn’t turn out all drama.

But people keep telling me that this is normal for the business world. Then maybe I’m not cut out for the business world? Maybe I’m wrong and I really can’t handle critique as well as I’d like to. I don’t know. I’m actually typing this while panicking, which I always advise other people against, so it’s probably one big confusing text.

I’m sorry, I really needed to write this down, because I don’t know what else to do with this. If you read back, you’ll see that the only thing that’s really going well for me is meeting a few friends. Or at least, the only things that I can see going well while in this panicky state. Maybe I’m missing things, I don’t know. My point is that right now that’s all I can see and besides that I can only see everything around me falling down.

I’m sorry that my posts are being really sad lately, but that’s how I feel. I don’t want this blog to turn into a ‘pity me!’ blog, that’s not my intention. I just want to write about my life and how my Autism and Chronic Fatigue influence that. It just so happens that quickly after starting this blog, I lost my job and these things happened and I needed to find a new path again. A new path is scary for me. It usually means a lot of insecurity about everything and needing to drop certain things in my life. This scares me to no end and makes for these big emotion swings. Right now I have no idea what to do with this. All I know is that I don’t know anything. My life is one big question mark where people seem to expect me to have the answers. I don’t. I just have this question mark. You can have that question mark, I don’t want it, but I don’t have any answers for you.

Headache - 2

Another small update. I had a rough morning, as I was still feeling terrible and feared I wouldn't be able to come to the weekly autism meeting. I set my alarm to 2 hours later and slept some more. Luckily this seemed to do the trick and I feel slightly better now. I will be coming to the weekly autism meeting, but I won't be as active as I usually am.
I'm glad though, because I was looking forward to some company. Also, this probably means that I won't be unwell for that long.

Headache

Just a little update, seeing I can't really concentrate on typing out large texts.

At the moment I have a terrible headache. My head is bursting with pain, it feels terribly heavy, I'm dizzy and my temperature has risen a bit. I HATE being unwell. I hope I feel better after I have slept a bit, especially since I don't want to miss the weekly autism meeting.

So frustrating

I haven’t got much to talk about today, as there isn’t much action going on at the moment. On the other hand, there is plenty going on in my mind, as is usually the case. My mind doesn’t really seem to have an off-button. This can be a very good thing, as it helps me in solving problems, but it can be a curse too, as destructive thoughts run the show too.

At the moment I’m very frustrated with people who I think very highly of, but who keep talking themselves down. It’s not that I’m angry at them, don’t take me wrong. I’m frustrated with them, in the sense that it’s very frustrating when someone doesn’t seem to be able to see (all) the good sides of him/herself and I can. It makes me feel very sad for that person and it makes me want to yell all the good things about them straight in their faces. I’m well aware this doesn’t exactly help, as I’ll just make them feel as if I’m angry at them, while I really just feel sad for them... Nobody should feel like this about themselves.

There is one weird thing about this though: I can hardly see this when I feel bad about myself. When I feel bad about myself (I don’t at the moment, don’t worry), I can hardly see that I’m being that destructive about myself too. But when someone else who I think highly of is feeling bad about him/herself and seems to be having a hard time seeing their own good sides, it frustrates me to no end. And usually, when you try and tell them their good sides, they won’t accept it either.

And again, yes I am aware that I do this too once in a while. This is the weird part about it. Even though I have times like these too, it still frustrates me. Especially when I care a lot about that person. I don’t want anyone to feel bad about themselves, everyone should be happy and walking on rainbows and stuff. I know, that’s impossible, everyone is entitled to a little down time once in a while. Then why am I still so frustrated about it? Sometimes I confuse myself.