Catching up on blogging ... also, something I will probably never keep up with ...
But Catching up on sharing what is going on with me/in my head/etc - is something I Can try and do for you now ... all one or 2 of you who actually read my blog posts :)
This is also my Contribution for http://abcwednesday.com/ ... which is up to letter C (I have missed a few - oops - another thing I Can't Catch up on if I miss it - and a Couple hours later and I would have missed being able to add my link for the letter C too - I really should be Doing a D post now [er - actually, I SHOULD be sleeping - oops :] ... might Do something (Different?) for D in a Couple of Days ... If I don't get too Distracted - lol)
So where have I been?! - I kind of got busy going to Adelaide for a couple of weeks (and Catching up with some family members I had not seen for many years ... In some cases not since I was a teenager! Also revisited places I used to go as a Child) Then I came back, and Continued my "graduated return to work" (am back to my normal hours now) and kept busy keeping busy ... Geocaching, quilting, etc etc etc ... and reading library books, blogs, etc about Autism and Aspergers - lol
I still don't have a clue where I will eventually end up working ... am currently still in limbo ... being used as an extra body (doing "alternate duties") at the same place I have been for about 15 years ... it has been decided, by "the powers that be" I should not go back to what I was doing ... so they have to find somewhere else for me ... but things are taking time to happen ... all the red tape, etc ... things like this seem to move at the speed of dark - lol
But ... I have been doing a lot of thinking, and Coming to terms with things ...
Who would have thought that, at my age (54) I would be having to come to terms with the fact that I actually have a disability ... but the good news with this is - it is not something I have just acquired - it is, mostly (aside from the whole stress disorder thing that is multiplying some of the effects of it at the moment), one which I have had for all of my life ...
Weird eh?
Am I Crazy? ... no ...
Confused? ... don't know about you, but me - yes ... lol
Just part of the weirdness that Comes from falling apart and then in with all that mess, discovering that part of the reason my whole world Came Crumbling down was that I had been trying to Cope with it all minus one bit of Crucial information ... that I am actually Autistic!
... that diagnosis did not Come as a Complete surprise - I had my suspicions that I may have Aspergers, but had then dismissed them - as I was too social, too vocal, too normal ... or so I thought ... what was so Confusing was the stereotypes that one tends to hear/read about, and the fact that I did not have a Clue just how much it actually Could affect me ... things I never realised/thought of ... like this stuff: https://musingsofanaspie.com/executive-function-series/ and https://musingsofanaspie.com/2013/08/02/procrastination-or-executive-function-fail/
Of Course it also didn't help that a psychologist I saw for Counselling when my ex walked out (in 2013) also told me I was normal - just "a rare personality type" ... when I asked if I might have Aspergers he laughed and said "no, you don't have that - you make good eye Contact and Can Carry on a Conversation with me" ... argh ... and unfortunately an all to Common thing to happen [here is a link to a recent article about why: https://theconversation.com/the-women-who-dont-know-theyre-autistic-80991 ]
Ok ... I typed some of this stuff several days ago, ready to finish typing and post it later ... and I had this bit in there: [copy in some of what I wrote about coming to terms with stuff, here and there in notes]
... I have been typing up these blog post ideas in the notes app on my iPad, and I have also been typing up a kind of "dear diary" type thing every day or 5, with what has been happening, and any thoughts and feelings I can think of/remember ... I have found it quite useful - typing things helps me sort them out better in my thoughts ... a bit like talking about them does ... sometimes I work out what I think/feel about things when I notice myself telling someone! or when it kind of ends up being written here in my notes ... or kind of appearing in the middle of a blog post I am writing - lol
(And some of what ends up in my blog posts starts as things I was writing in my notes :)
Now ... I wonder when I wrote whatever it was I wanted to add in here?
*goes and looks*
I think I was thinking about this:
"It has been an interesting journey/adjustment I have to make ... from always being such a fiercely independent person, to now having to come to terms with just how much help I actually seem to need at the moment ...
... and maybe that is (at least partly) why I have been getting myself into so many [emotional] knots about my work situation/Comcare/etc stuff ...?
Oddly enough - I am now looking forward to possibly seeing an OT, and maybe yet another shrink ... and who knows who else ... and seeing a psychologist again (I already knew I definitely need to do at least that, but now realising I probably do need the all the other stuff as well) ... was always looking fwd to getting some kind of help with skills Assesment/finding out what job I would be best suited to, but now also really interested to find out more about me ... all the things I might have going on/working differently that I have always just thought was normal ... like what problems/differences, if any, do I have with things like proprioception, motor skills, coordination, sensory stuff, etc ... [not to mention all the things that contributed to the problems I was having at work - communication, executive function, social problems, anxiety, who knows what else ... ]
Just ... still feel a bit weird about it all ... probably because I don't actually know how I feel? lol"
And this:
"It is an odd place to be in ... Knowing that I am highly intelligent and in so many ways so capable ... but yet I am also ... to be quite honest - mentally disabled ...
[the stress disorder alone would qualify me for that label]
Yet somehow ... as confronting and undesirable that label would have sounded to me in the past ... for some reason, maybe because it now has a logical reason/understanding attached, I now seem to be ok with accepting it?!
The odd situation I have read about on blogs/in books - of being so disabled in some ways, yet in others" [most things :] ... not ...
Not sure if I wrote this anywhere in my notes, but definitely something I have been thinking lately:
I am ... Almost normal ... I could probably use that as a title for my blog, or a book ... almost ... but not quite ... I look normal, and often act normal - I even thought I was normal (just not very good at it) for most of my life, and can mostly BE normal ... except those few times ... where I am not ... lol
Oh ... I just found what I already wrote ... I was the beginning of an idea for a blog post for the letter A ... that I never got Around to doing - lol
I think I said it better the first time:
"Almost normal ...
One of the problems with being an Aspie, or having any variety of high functioning Autism, or ADHD/ADD, etc. and probably with a lot of other hidden disabilities too ... is that most of the time one can Appear, Act, and to all intents and purposes - BE, quite normal ... except for those times when one isn't! - when things don't work/one encounters a problem ... and then it comes as a surprise to people, and/or one is expected not to have a problem because "you usually don't have problems" or "everyone else can do that" or "but you are not disabled?" ... when in reality ... I am ...
Some of the time it is quite obvious, but other times not even noticeable - in fact I didn't even know myself, until I was 54!"
Although maybe I should not use "almost"? ... it may imply that I am something less ... when in some ways I am MORE than normal ... as someone else (I think it was Temple Grandin) says: "different, not less" ...
So - maybe I should describe myself as "Delightfully Different"? lol
Or ... I Could just Continue to Call myself "Crazy" ? :)
(Or does that one also have the wrong Connotations? ... when people Call me Crazy I have always Considered it a Compliment - lol
I think this is where I Could also include a quote from the lyrics of a Leonard Cohen song ... Currently my favourite song - (Anthem)
"There is a Crack, a Crack in everything - it's how the light gets in"
I have a "Crack" ... and I want to light up the world!
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I have had that happen, meeting old relatives. At my grandmother's funeral in 1983, more than one person said to me, "I bet you don't remember me," and they were correct, because I hadn't seen them since 1963, when I was 10!
ReplyDeleteROG, ABCW