Sometimes it's a simple miscommunication that brings about a meltdown. Something as broad ranging as 'social disability' may, on certain days, not be triggered by two shouting people in the street, but by one ignorant person.
I can confidentially say I was doing the right thing. And a nice thing.
I can assert that this first month in a job that requires 3 hours of commuting and resisting the urge to bang on train windows where restless or jump down onto train tracks 'just to have a look' is incredibly difficult.
Today I got on the bus home, a First Bus. The 36, if you're interested. I got on with my C+ pass. It was on time and not crowded. This was good. Two stops on a young girl got on and said, '£1.50.'
The bus driver growled, 'There is no £1.50. You tell me where you're going.'
The girl replies, 'Right near X Street. I've just finished work and I get this route every day and they always charge me £1.50.'
Him: There's no button for £1.50 and I've been doing this job for 4 years.
Her: Can you check?
Him: Okay. Do you wanna put money on it?
Her: What?
Him: Do you wanna put money on it?
Her: Look, what is it?
Him: £1.60.
Her: Oh, right. I thought you were going to say loads more.
Him: It will be if you're going further.
Her: I'm not. I'm going just by X Street.
Him: Just get on already. But I'm warning you, you get off when I say.
The bus goes on. At a stop that is...somewhere, the driver stops and orders her off. She stands and goes to his little cubbyhole of misery
Her: But this isn't where I get off!
Him: You get off here because that's what you paid for.
They argue. I start feeling squirmy, hot-eyed, like I want to bite my hand. I have a ten pound note and a five pound note in my hand.
I get up and approach girl and driver. I hold out my bunched-up notes.
Me: Hi. How much more does she owe? I can -
Her: [To me] It's okay, cheers, I have the money, it's just -
Him: Just get off the bus. [To me] You, sit yourself down. [Points arm back down the bus] Now.
I recoil. His tone was direct, an order, threatening. Will he throw me off the bus in the rain?
I don't sit. I lean against the pole, clutching my money and hugging my bag. I feel scared. My brain is losing its filter rapidly and I run a conversation in my head. I will explain that I was doing a good thing, that he was rude and that he shouldn't have said that to me. He will understand because he is human.
At my stop I don't get off, but stand by his cubbyhole of misery.
Me: Look [shows him the two notes] I was trying to help by offering to pay any extra she needed.
Him: She had money. She already got an extra stop, that one.
Me: But you didn't need to order me away like that. That was rude.
Him: I told her to get off.
Me: No, you were rude and ordered me away, which is wrong. You shouldn't be rude. It's not nice.
Him: You were interfering.
Me: [Holds up bright blue AUTISM ALERT card] I have autism and I was trying to help. Why were you mean?
Him: You were interfering. We'll leave it there.
Me: But -
Him: Get off the bus.
I have a high-impact job. I deal with chaotic, vulnerable and yes, occasionally hostile people. And despite my facial expressions, I do give a shit. Today before I got on my train to work, I checked in with a homeless man who looked like he was going over and made sure to warn him to stay away from town in the afternoon in case it kicked off post-match and to also find out what had happened to the others tenting out. Answer: they were burned out.
I deal with the stresses of adult life and obsessions and rituals daily with a consistent lack of Theory Of Mind - I assume everyone thinks and approaches all situations as I do. Brain scans of autistic people even show a difference in brain make-up. Yet in my personal life, I cannot 'pass' so well. At work, I act a role and it exhausts me. Personally, I may be emotionally mature as the average 14-year old.
Does this explain why after getting off the bus this evening, I put my hood up and actually cried the short walk to my house. Why, when I walked in and The Fiancé asked what was wrong the first words out of my mouth were, 'I'm a stupid fucking autistic freak' and ran upstairs to hide. I am 31 years old.
Since my diagnosis I have never referred to myself in those terms.
This was not a serious incident. Not a major assault on my personality or physical self. No one threw excrement at me or kicked me or called me a retard. Yet the mismatch between my want to do a nice thing and then being insulted and then finding further insult when I disclosed my autism stung more than anything else has in many months.
The Fiancé put it in simpler terms.
'Maybe he was angry because he missed the match. Or perhaps he had to deal with lairy fans all day. Or, maybe, just maybe, he's just a total twatwaffle.'
POSTSCRIPT: The blue Autism Alert cards have so far proven utterly useless.
Thursday 16 June 2016
Sunday 12 June 2016
The White Walkers (NOT a GoT Spoiler)
Signs that perhaps your aspie nature and long-running obsession with health and illness is becoming wildly unmanageable (read: ridiculous):
You become so fixated on the number of viral infections you've had, which GPs gently explain are a fall-out from glandular fever (how can someone so obsessed with illness have been unaware they had GF? Weird) that you become convinced you have HIV and that is the only way to explain the mystery aches and pains and tiredness and recurrent infections. You even go to the GUM for a complete screening despite complete monogamy and no needle-stick injuries.
The results are, unsurprisingly, completely negative.
Shortly after, I start falling asleep on the train to work, when you've just eaten, when you cry, have strange dreams that you confused with real life on a daily basis and struggle to sleep at night. I then believe, confidently, I have narcolepsy.
The fatigue dies down when I forget to daily Google "narcolepsy symptoms".
All week in the stifling heat and humidity, I seemed to sweat more than others, my hands shook constantly, I cried in public when trains were delayed, swore I heard announcements at the stations that no one else heard, sobbed into The Fiancé's chest about how long it could be before one of us eventually dies, and smacked a purple bouncy ball between my hands so I didn't hit inanimate objects. My support worker texted me about autism and Heat Intolerance and how you can feel like you're going...well, insane.
Someone relatively high up at work teases you when you ask for gloves to pick up any rubbish outside work and you go into overload and begin biting your hand in a toilet cubicle and covering your hands with alcohol rub. The ball bounces endlessly against the tiles and by 3pm you say, 'Fuck this. I'm taking an early finish tonight.'
Then you do come down with a cold and take your temperature every half hour, find your glands are swollen and that puffs from The Fiancé's asthma inhaler is the only thing that relieves the closed-throat feeling. I therefore believe that years have smoking have triggered COPD.
Or have been infected by hepatitis.
Then. The night of The White Walkers.
The temperatures in the UK have shot up this past week, turning thrown away meat wrapped in bags and placed in the bin into a breeding ground for maggots. Like droplets of pus, they fell from the bin and when I shone a light on the yard, there was what can I only be described as a carpet of them heading for the house.
I used all the salt in the house, slug pellets, boiled kettles and checked through out the night that they had not squidged under the door. I spent hours crawling around the house picking up what turned out to be white scraps of tissue or dried rice grains. By 1am, I seriously considered setting fire to the bin as the ultimate solution.
The next day, The Fiancé and I mixed bleach and water and sluiced the yard and then poured the solution into the bin and taped up the bin with duct tape. Hot fumes would choke the bastards, Google said.
Afterwards, we ate a breakfast of bacon butties in front of Ink Master and enjoyed that strangely relaxing post-genocide euphoria that is perhaps shared only by serial killers.
All was well. Except for the rat that we discovered last week with the fur eaten from its skull, we weren't too worried.
Today, heavy rains had turned the rat into a flattened white 2-D outline. I heard next door's kid scream about something and the mother shout, 'Don't go near it!' I hope she was shouting about wasps. When I checked our resident corpse, its tail had been raised and draped over a slab. Like something had grabbed it and then been interrupted...
I spent an inordinate amount of time by the back door, eavesdropping on their conversations and could only relax when I heard snippets that seemed to relate to booking a last minute holiday. Maybe they weren't about to bang on our door and blame us for rats and maggots? I emailed the council and begged them to remove the bin.
I put down rat bait outside, chugged more Valium and The Fiancé stroked my head and admitted that it had been a particularly bad week and maybe I needed to see my support worker.
I nodded, flicked my fingers and told him I had an appointment in a fortnight. He frowned and, rare for him, advised me to gauge how I felt tomorrow before going in.
Then he grinned and said, 'How about you write a story about those white walkers?'
I'm marrying this guy for so many kickass reasons.
You become so fixated on the number of viral infections you've had, which GPs gently explain are a fall-out from glandular fever (how can someone so obsessed with illness have been unaware they had GF? Weird) that you become convinced you have HIV and that is the only way to explain the mystery aches and pains and tiredness and recurrent infections. You even go to the GUM for a complete screening despite complete monogamy and no needle-stick injuries.
Shortly after, I start falling asleep on the train to work, when you've just eaten, when you cry, have strange dreams that you confused with real life on a daily basis and struggle to sleep at night. I then believe, confidently, I have narcolepsy.
The fatigue dies down when I forget to daily Google "narcolepsy symptoms".
All week in the stifling heat and humidity, I seemed to sweat more than others, my hands shook constantly, I cried in public when trains were delayed, swore I heard announcements at the stations that no one else heard, sobbed into The Fiancé's chest about how long it could be before one of us eventually dies, and smacked a purple bouncy ball between my hands so I didn't hit inanimate objects. My support worker texted me about autism and Heat Intolerance and how you can feel like you're going...well, insane.
Someone relatively high up at work teases you when you ask for gloves to pick up any rubbish outside work and you go into overload and begin biting your hand in a toilet cubicle and covering your hands with alcohol rub. The ball bounces endlessly against the tiles and by 3pm you say, 'Fuck this. I'm taking an early finish tonight.'
Then you do come down with a cold and take your temperature every half hour, find your glands are swollen and that puffs from The Fiancé's asthma inhaler is the only thing that relieves the closed-throat feeling. I therefore believe that years have smoking have triggered COPD.
Or have been infected by hepatitis.
Then. The night of The White Walkers.
The temperatures in the UK have shot up this past week, turning thrown away meat wrapped in bags and placed in the bin into a breeding ground for maggots. Like droplets of pus, they fell from the bin and when I shone a light on the yard, there was what can I only be described as a carpet of them heading for the house.
I used all the salt in the house, slug pellets, boiled kettles and checked through out the night that they had not squidged under the door. I spent hours crawling around the house picking up what turned out to be white scraps of tissue or dried rice grains. By 1am, I seriously considered setting fire to the bin as the ultimate solution.
The next day, The Fiancé and I mixed bleach and water and sluiced the yard and then poured the solution into the bin and taped up the bin with duct tape. Hot fumes would choke the bastards, Google said.
Afterwards, we ate a breakfast of bacon butties in front of Ink Master and enjoyed that strangely relaxing post-genocide euphoria that is perhaps shared only by serial killers.
All was well. Except for the rat that we discovered last week with the fur eaten from its skull, we weren't too worried.
Today, heavy rains had turned the rat into a flattened white 2-D outline. I heard next door's kid scream about something and the mother shout, 'Don't go near it!' I hope she was shouting about wasps. When I checked our resident corpse, its tail had been raised and draped over a slab. Like something had grabbed it and then been interrupted...
I spent an inordinate amount of time by the back door, eavesdropping on their conversations and could only relax when I heard snippets that seemed to relate to booking a last minute holiday. Maybe they weren't about to bang on our door and blame us for rats and maggots? I emailed the council and begged them to remove the bin.
I put down rat bait outside, chugged more Valium and The Fiancé stroked my head and admitted that it had been a particularly bad week and maybe I needed to see my support worker.
I nodded, flicked my fingers and told him I had an appointment in a fortnight. He frowned and, rare for him, advised me to gauge how I felt tomorrow before going in.
Then he grinned and said, 'How about you write a story about those white walkers?'
I'm marrying this guy for so many kickass reasons.
Sunday 5 June 2016
The Night We Did and Didn't Have
Last night we had tickets to go to Antwerp Mansion in Rusholme for a "Regression Session" pop-up nightclub.
We did study the event's Facebook page carefully and looked at the profile pictures of people who stated they were Going. All 447 of them. We decided that they were young, sexy club bunnies and everyone appeared 10 years younger than us with better make-up and less body fat.
We did analyse the situation, score our moods, do a Pros and Cons list of going, discuss travel arrangements, if we would or wouldn't like it, how much an Uber would cost at 3am and if our Prozac doses were correct...for a fucking HOUR AND A HALF.
We did reach a decision and changed the plan.
We did not go here:
We did not partake in this:
We did go here:
The local (and only) "rock" pub where we sat on benches that are encouraged to be graffitted on (someone had persistently scrawled COCKSUCKING THUNDERCUNT onto the wood) next to teenage Goth girls drinking water who whined about "hipster metalboys" (I don't know what these are. Please help me understand).
We did stand a metre away from one of the bands amongst a crowd of six who clapped self-consciously when Indie Band #57* finished a song.
We did not change our minds and head to Rusholme. We did continue to here:
We did drink cider of many types. Brothers. Old Mout, Thatchers and local brews that The Fiancé likened to "like Hartley's making cider." We did win money on a fruit machine by bashing random buttons.
We did see a man in a Deadpool morph suit dancing camply beside women with walking sticks in front of a band who played hard rocked versions of David Bowie. We did not see ball pits, bouncy castles or glow sticks.
We did see three of my ex-clients sat on the pavements, trying to get money for food. I will not go into their details, but I knew they were hungry and did need that money for food. They chatted openly to me and The Fiancé about their housing situation. Quick summary: dangerous.
We did not spend £150 on a Travelodge/Holiday Inn/Premier Inn room in Manchester just so that we could crash and not worry about bed for the night.
We did spend £20 in a Bolton takeaway on three pizzas and a chicken kebab (for one of the guys' dogs). We did walk for twenty minutes trying to find the ones who had swapped pitches. One guy we did have to track for awhile until we found him. He was able to go to where he goes to sleep and not have to make any more money that night. He would be able to feed his partner. He wouldn't get attacked tonight.
We did see Bolton's Street Angels (old men in High-Vis jackets) assisting drunken girls falling outside clubs. Girls with working phones and six friends to help them and probably at least the price of a 9 inch pizza each to get a taxi home.
We did not see anyone talk to my clients. We did see people shout at them. We did not see Street Angels talk to them or stop beside them.
We did go back to the original pub and buy more cider. The Fiancé shambled out of the toilets after a long time, sat down and stated, 'I just used my trusty pound coin to carve FUCK JILLY** on the wall.' Then a passing man rubbed his head for good luck.
We did manage to sell one of the tickets for the thing we didn't do. We did not wish we'd been there instead.
We did go home, eat takeout and watch Family Guy.
We did not feel bad for being too afraid to go to a big fuck-off club night and opting instead for local pubs. We did not feel anything when we fell asleep. Except how good a bed feels when you've been out in the night air in the busy town centre.
We did not take it for granted.
*Indie Band #57 was not their name, but I like it for a band name. I'll use it.
**Jilly is a false name for The Fiancé's old flame.
We did study the event's Facebook page carefully and looked at the profile pictures of people who stated they were Going. All 447 of them. We decided that they were young, sexy club bunnies and everyone appeared 10 years younger than us with better make-up and less body fat.
We did analyse the situation, score our moods, do a Pros and Cons list of going, discuss travel arrangements, if we would or wouldn't like it, how much an Uber would cost at 3am and if our Prozac doses were correct...for a fucking HOUR AND A HALF.
We did reach a decision and changed the plan.
We did not go here:
We did go here:
The local (and only) "rock" pub where we sat on benches that are encouraged to be graffitted on (someone had persistently scrawled COCKSUCKING THUNDERCUNT onto the wood) next to teenage Goth girls drinking water who whined about "hipster metalboys" (I don't know what these are. Please help me understand).
We did stand a metre away from one of the bands amongst a crowd of six who clapped self-consciously when Indie Band #57* finished a song.
We did not change our minds and head to Rusholme. We did continue to here:
We did drink cider of many types. Brothers. Old Mout, Thatchers and local brews that The Fiancé likened to "like Hartley's making cider." We did win money on a fruit machine by bashing random buttons.
We did see a man in a Deadpool morph suit dancing camply beside women with walking sticks in front of a band who played hard rocked versions of David Bowie. We did not see ball pits, bouncy castles or glow sticks.
We did see three of my ex-clients sat on the pavements, trying to get money for food. I will not go into their details, but I knew they were hungry and did need that money for food. They chatted openly to me and The Fiancé about their housing situation. Quick summary: dangerous.
We did not spend £150 on a Travelodge/Holiday Inn/Premier Inn room in Manchester just so that we could crash and not worry about bed for the night.
We did spend £20 in a Bolton takeaway on three pizzas and a chicken kebab (for one of the guys' dogs). We did walk for twenty minutes trying to find the ones who had swapped pitches. One guy we did have to track for awhile until we found him. He was able to go to where he goes to sleep and not have to make any more money that night. He would be able to feed his partner. He wouldn't get attacked tonight.
We did see Bolton's Street Angels (old men in High-Vis jackets) assisting drunken girls falling outside clubs. Girls with working phones and six friends to help them and probably at least the price of a 9 inch pizza each to get a taxi home.
We did not see anyone talk to my clients. We did see people shout at them. We did not see Street Angels talk to them or stop beside them.
We did go back to the original pub and buy more cider. The Fiancé shambled out of the toilets after a long time, sat down and stated, 'I just used my trusty pound coin to carve FUCK JILLY** on the wall.' Then a passing man rubbed his head for good luck.
We did manage to sell one of the tickets for the thing we didn't do. We did not wish we'd been there instead.
We did go home, eat takeout and watch Family Guy.
We did not feel bad for being too afraid to go to a big fuck-off club night and opting instead for local pubs. We did not feel anything when we fell asleep. Except how good a bed feels when you've been out in the night air in the busy town centre.
We did not take it for granted.
*Indie Band #57 was not their name, but I like it for a band name. I'll use it.
**Jilly is a false name for The Fiancé's old flame.
Thursday 2 June 2016
It Was Nothing More Than Once Upon A Time
A wise man (that would be Chuck Palahniuk, who knows a thing or two about visceral storytelling) said,
Chuck Palahniuk may remember me from such 'Stan'-style letters that ran, 'I'm a really really big fan of yours', 'I want to be a writer TOO' and 'How do you do what you do?'
I have his delicately typed, 'Chill the fuck out, hunny' responses still saved in their envelopes. Maybe I'll frame them.
He does makes an excellent point. So many times past memories, triggers, fears, anxieties feel like real and present danger. They make fingers go totally numb, chests cramp, bowls unleash, heads explode with pain, arms shake, voices stutter and language and sometimes actions unfold into some confusion of fighting something that is no longer happening.
Though memories can leave great imprints, leave keloids on the heart, they are no more real than a Netflix box set or a really long novel. A detailed tangled story. Your story, but a story. And stories live only in the mind.
But those feelings. Oh, those feelings are fried gold. If a traumatic/weird/hysterically dark past can be separated from present-day living, then we have that thing some writers bitch that they cannot find.
Plot.
Plot is story. Plot is narrative. Plot is the tale of a person or people navigating life. Plot is someone's past formulating a future. Plot runs a book, a TV show, a film, a play, a poem.
I cannot claim that I do not get sudden shooting pains through my jawbones or numb fingertips when I get caught in the past. I can't claim I don't think something terrible is about to happen. And then I see I am stood still at a bus stop, waiting to go to work. There is a lone teenager with exploding acne sloped against the lamppost, half-awake for college. A man wearing ADDICTED sweatpants idles past me and lets their elderly dog shit on the grass verge. Life is just life as it should be.
Then I know I can gather up those scraps of past that have screeched through my head like serial killers on Spice and twist them up into fiction like horrible origami.
I think this is my way of saying today was a difficult 'aspie' day. But I went to work, hid my hand-flapping, only had mild outbursts and right now I'm in front of the laptop, favouring fiction over planning my wedding. I have fourteen months until I'm wed. I've been waiting my whole life to turn hours of cramped typing into more than something that just makes me want to sleep through my day job.
Ctrl + N.
Now. Begin tying.
"Your past is just a story. And once you realize this it has no power over you."
Chuck Palahniuk may remember me from such 'Stan'-style letters that ran, 'I'm a really really big fan of yours', 'I want to be a writer TOO' and 'How do you do what you do?'
I have his delicately typed, 'Chill the fuck out, hunny' responses still saved in their envelopes. Maybe I'll frame them.
Though memories can leave great imprints, leave keloids on the heart, they are no more real than a Netflix box set or a really long novel. A detailed tangled story. Your story, but a story. And stories live only in the mind.
But those feelings. Oh, those feelings are fried gold. If a traumatic/weird/hysterically dark past can be separated from present-day living, then we have that thing some writers bitch that they cannot find.
Plot.
Plot is story. Plot is narrative. Plot is the tale of a person or people navigating life. Plot is someone's past formulating a future. Plot runs a book, a TV show, a film, a play, a poem.
I cannot claim that I do not get sudden shooting pains through my jawbones or numb fingertips when I get caught in the past. I can't claim I don't think something terrible is about to happen. And then I see I am stood still at a bus stop, waiting to go to work. There is a lone teenager with exploding acne sloped against the lamppost, half-awake for college. A man wearing ADDICTED sweatpants idles past me and lets their elderly dog shit on the grass verge. Life is just life as it should be.
Then I know I can gather up those scraps of past that have screeched through my head like serial killers on Spice and twist them up into fiction like horrible origami.
I think this is my way of saying today was a difficult 'aspie' day. But I went to work, hid my hand-flapping, only had mild outbursts and right now I'm in front of the laptop, favouring fiction over planning my wedding. I have fourteen months until I'm wed. I've been waiting my whole life to turn hours of cramped typing into more than something that just makes me want to sleep through my day job.
Ctrl + N.
Now. Begin tying.
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