Family

Celebration, Overwhelm – and a smirk.

Autism, Daily Life, Family, , , , Leave a comment

Last week was a lot, and this week has continued. Like many Autistics with HSP, I put others first. I am terrible at knowing my limits, and holding my boundaries.

Awareness

2 weeks ago, a teacher at my school shared with me the research his gifted students had been doing. It was all on an online platform. They had been researching autism, and were preparing a presentation about it. so I went on this platform and I wrote down some notes for the students. Just some observations based upon their writing. Some suggestions for terminology. things like this.

Many of the students were in my class over the last few years. So I was sure they would know who I was making the notes.

Last Wednesday was the day for their presentations.

I love that they had done the research. I love that they had visited a school for stage 3 autists in Beijing. and that they had observed with their own eyes. None of them interacted with the students at that school, but it was a step.

Due to time constraints, they had all 4 presentations at the same time. they put up 4 tables, not far from each other in our Highschool Library. I wanted to support them so much. But I couldn’t hear well. four different speeches at the same time. with videos and observable media.

At one point, I sat next to one computer and closed my eyes, to hear the video over the talking. It was near impossible.

In the end, I was at one group while the others packed up. This group was explaining to me, and our head of school. When they finished, the head of school asked them about meeting autistic people. I am standing beside him, my lanyard strap covered with pins that all say “Autistic”, “I am Autistic”, “Neurodivergent” etc. The students pointed to me.

He looked at me and asked if I had connection to Autism. I have worked closely with this man for 4 years, and I had to tell him that I was autistic. I had come out in front of the entire school earlier this year, but he was absent. He had a lot of questions, and that attention made me feel awkward.

Celebration

The very next day was my son’s Graduation. I was excited, and anxious, and so many different things. I love my Son. I am proud of my son, and all he has accomplished.

I forget, that my school never does anything small. The kids deserve an amazing celebration. And I guess Allistic people like disco lights and loud music, and red carpets. I could watch center stage, or I could watch the live broadcast (While inside the celebration). But If I tried to look anywhere but the exact center stage, I was blinded by a disco-laser-spotlight thing.

My son and his band performed some songs, amazingly. I couldn’t watch it. They were on a side stage. I recorded it, but if i looked up, I would get a laser in my face.

I love that the children had a big red carpet like moment. Their Big day. But after the family lunch, I had to go home and get away. It was too much. I actually shivered while sitting on the couch by myself for 2 hours.

Family time.

I made the mistake of taking my family to the Mall over this past long weekend. My youngest loves the mall. But long weekends are too busy. My oldest children escaped after lunch. They took a car home. It was too loud and too many people for them. I stayed with my wife and youngest. She had a great time.

I love spending time with my family. I always feel terrible if I need time to regulate, or recover from over stimulation.

These are the times I struggle the most. I want to show my family I love them. I want to do amazing things with them. I want to get out and make memories. I just cannot do it with too much noise, lights, or people.

And it compounds.

If any one of these things had happened in a week, I would be fine. But all three of them within only a day or so apart, it makes things so much harder. I had to spend Monday curled on the sofa for the most part.

Smirk.

I have been trying to use as much time as I can during my break times to relax and regulate. It is End of Year, and there is a lot of paperwork that needs to be filled out, including self-reflections. I have been staying afloat, barely.

Today was a very difficult day, but it ended with something that made me smile.

My friend, who works with the gifted students, came up to me. One of the girls in his class was a student of mine. She published a tiny book about moving to a new place, and it convinced me to publish my own book. Well she came up to him and had questions about why I was giving so much feedback on her writing. And he let her know that I was autistic, and he told me he could see her coming to realization. He could see her piecing our year in grade 3 back together with this new information. He said she was surprised, but happy to know.

It made me smile.

And then I came home and passed out on the sofa for 2 hours.

Blankets

Autism, Daily Life, Family, Uncategorized, , , Leave a comment

There is something amazing about a blanket. It is calming and comforting. Everyone should have a blanket.

I look back at Linus from the Peanuts comics. He was always seen with his blanket. My family used to call it a security blanket. He used to wear it as headgear or use it as a whip, but for me, that’s not realistic.

Ford Prefect from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy always carried a towel.  In a way, it was his security blanket. But of all the uses mentioned, wrapping yourself up tightly wasn’t one of them.

I read and hear a lot about weighted blankets helping neurodivergent and autistics out. When I  was younger, I loved heavy blankets, and for years I never equated the two.

A heavy or weighted blanket puts a constant warm soft pressure on your body. That pressure helps you feel safe and calms you down when stressed.

For me, it is like a full body hug. A hug from someone who never judges you, never demands anything,  and never needs to break the hug until you are ready. I particularly enjoy snuggling in a blanket.

Unfortunately, when I got married, I didn’t have the words to explain my need for blankets.  I had always assumed everyone loved them like I do. My wife was raised without blankets. Where she was raised, in the tropics, blankets were more of a status symbol.

For the first few years of marriage,  my side of the bed had blankets at night. And even today on warm nights, she doesn’t use blankets. And heavy blankets are only for cold nights.

We have both adjusted to each other’s needs. Sometimes, with two different blankets on the bed.

But blankets are not just for beds. Our living room has a couple of thin blankets.  On stressful days, I will return home and cocoon myself on the sofa. Or half cocoon on medium stress days.

Cocooning is when you wrap the blanket tightly around yourself.  It gives the same comfort as a weighted blanket. I may lay down completely cocooned and isolated for a few hours.

On less stressful days, I will half cocoon. I wrap the blanket tightly around my legs and lower torso. Then I can drink tea or use the remote control to watch TV.

When in this mode, the TV is mostly for white noise. It doesn’t really matter what comes on. As long as it takes my mind off the day.

Tonight, I am up at a lodge for a church retreat with my family. My children and I are delighted that there are heavy blankets on all the beds. Just sitting here with it is relaxing.

Goodnight, I hope you all have amazing blankets

I want to write…

Autism, Family, Musings, , , , Leave a comment

I find writing very therapedic. I love writing, as most Autists do. But often times I just can’t do it. I will sit down with a great idea in front of my computer, and then something will interrupt me. Once I am interrupted, my brain doesn’t reset to work mode.

Tonight I opened my novel, Gateways, I was about to start writing ideas for chapter 5. As soon as the file loaded, my wife sat down beside me. She wanted to talk about our current Job hunt. I understand that, and I love my wife. So we talked about the future for a few minutes. maybe 5. and she left me to continue my writing.

It was gone. all my thoughts on the chapter had now been released to the wild. I sat there trying to focus, and I found I was no longer even in the mood to work on that book. So I opened up my New Valarians book. I started to make notes on Chapter 7 of that book, and it was not time to tuck my daughter in.

I love reading to my daughter, and tucking her in. It is one of my daily highlights. But when I sat back down, and stared at the book pages… nothing. Those thoughts had flown the coop. And I no longer felt the urge to work on that book.

So I sat staring at my screen, and drank my tea. and I thought I would share my notes on Autism and Writing.

Written Communication Over Verbal Communication.

Many Autists prefer to communicate through writing. There are a few reasons for this, but it starts with our difficulty with verbal communication.

When we speak to a person, there is an unwritten rule about the proper pace. How much time needs to be between each speaker. Too long, and the one speaker gets bored or thinks you are not listening. Too short, and you are too eager, or you are not listening, because you border on interrupting. Both are often labeled as rude. Also if an autist, like myself is talking and we get interrupted, we loose our thought process. We stumble, as we had our words laid out in our mind before speaking. When we write, we can take our time to plan out what we want to say. We can take our time, and not be interrupted.

Clarity is also an issue. When we want to communicate something, there is often a lot of details we want made clear. We want there to be no chance of misunderstanding, and so a lot of written messages are long. We cannot get that clarity when we speak. Allistic (neurotypical people) often ask questions to clarify. Once we have been asked a question, often times we have to spend time searching up the information in our brain to find the answer. Because of course the questions asked are not the questions we thought would be asked. Also the pause to find the best possible answer can be often seen as not knowing the answer. Thus it seems like we are deferring to the wisdom of the allistic person. Even if our information is more up to date, or correct.

I love writing. But I do not enjoy texting. I used to enjoy texting, back when it was simple. But nowadays, no. I will often times use voice to text, and then spend 15 minutes editing the text. You see when you communicate by text, there are now rules to texting.

You cannot make a large text, it is rude. You have to use simple words, because if you use real words it may offend the other person and be seen as patronizing them. CAPS CHANGE THE MESSAGE. So if you accidentally lock the caps on, you have to go back and rewrite it. Emojis are used to show feeling, and many other things. I liked it when there was just 5 emojis; 🙂 😀 😛 😦 @-}–

When I send text to people now I have to spend 5 minutes just scrolling through the emoji list. I’m asking myself which one is the correct one to use… I don’t know. If I put a flower, does it mean, I want you to have a happy day, or does it mean romantic feelings? Why do we even have an eggplant? and Flags? birthday cake? streamers? dogs? cats? soccer balls? Why can’t we just use words for these things?

When I am writing my novels, or my blogs, I do not need to use emojis. I can relish in the joy of real words. It is a blessing. It helps me de-clog my mind. However, sometimes, as is often the case in here, I feel it is unstructured.

It takes a lot of energy to structure my thoughts into comprehensible writings. Then to go back and add details can bean added hurdle. That’s kind of why lately I feel more like I am just rambling on my blog, but it brings peace to my mind and helps me sleep.

So that is where I am off to now.

Maybe this weekend I can get some writing on my books done.