Changes...

Finally, I have some time to write! I have just completed my first full week back at work and my first full week with the new guy and a different atmosphere. All that I can say with any certainty is that it has been a week of change. To me it feels like everything has changed. I know that it has not, but it is a feeling deep in my gut that cannot be shifted with any amount of logic or rationalising. The new guy is alright; indeed we share a lot of the same taste in music and computer games. However that represents a greater danger to me than if we were completely unalike: I need to keep my work and home life absolutely separate and that just makes it harder. I worry constantly that he will try and involve me outside of work, which I can understand is normal for NT’s, but undesirable to me. The moment work and ‘play’ bleed together, as they did back when I was at school, then I cannot cope.  

A large part of me mourns the loss of the life I have lost. Just under two years with little major change in my life represents something of a golden age. No matter what I do, I cannot go back to what once was; I can only remember it fondly. That in a way helps me to deal with the change. It is a point in time that I can use as an anchor; a way to almost instantly calm my nerves, even if it is at the cost of a little depression. Mindfulness too helps. Focusing on the moment rather than the wider world helps me a great deal. I now have to focus upon enjoying the little things when I can. For me that usually involves bushcraft and nature. They embody something of a mental escape route when things start to get a little too much. The kind of calm and sense of peace that I can achieve when using mindfulness in times of change is greater than when everything is stable. Whilst I am less in control of my life, I am more in control of my mind and body. 

                                                 The key to my mindfulness technique.  

                                                 © Stephen Horncastle (SC: google images)

I still miss being away, though I think that it may be down to my perceiving it as a simpler time, before the changes occurred rather than my catching wanderlust. Who knows though, I might be wrong. Perhaps more self-analysis will reveal more.

Tea!!!

I have finally found a song that expresses my love of a mug of tea!

Genius!...

Work and my Aspie mind

It’s my first day back at work after my hol's, and my drops three bombshells on me. I say bombshells, but at the time they felt more like nuclear warheads. First, I have to continue doing overtime until around September because the colleague who lost some of his fingers isn’t back yet. Which is fair enough, he can’t help that; but it still came as something of a nasty surprise. I was after all told and expecting that I would be able to split my time again. It just seems like the date of my release from non-normality keeps getting pushed further and further back. I keep thinking “when will this end”? The second warhead was that we are doing an exhibition, which means that I am going to be under a lot of pressure from deadlines on top of doing extra time. The third and possibly the most serious was that we would be getting a ‘new guy’. To me that completely changes the entire nature of the workplace. Worse, he lives along my commute and can’t drive, so I was asked if I can give him a lift every day. Of course I didn’t really have a choice. My commute used to be time with just my thoughts, and now it is going to be small talk, at least at first. Being stuck in a car for an hour a day with a relative stranger is not my idea of fun.

Only time will tell if it turns out as badly as every bone in my body says it will. He seems alright, but I am worried that he won’t understand that I don’t ‘hang-out’ after work and am not interested in meeting his mates; even if he thinks that I will like them. I’ve been in that situation too many times before to be pleased. I think that I will disclose my ‘disorder’ at the first opportunity and hope that he understands that I am something of a loner. Besides, the average age of my friends is about in the late forties and he is a lot younger than that. I am more than happy to work with him, just don’t expect me to socialise after hours. 

                                            An accurate representation of how I feel right now!

Right now I’m just trying to enjoy the little things in order to cope with these changes. An early night with a good book, watching some good documentaries, a little consumer therapy (for gadgets, music etc. not clothes or shoes); these are ways to take my mind off of my problems and the depression that I can feel lurking in the shadows.

Back again and baffled?

Well, I’m back from three weeks (very lucky me) in the Med. Three weeks of nothing resembling work, no early mornings, no commute. Three weeks to read and think. I remembered how much I hate airports. Maybe it’s my OCD peeking through, but they are always so grotty; even the planes. There is a coating of stickiness on everything. I had a shower before I left and I felt compelled to have another when I got home. That combined with being in a room/plane so crammed with people that you can actually smell them, makes traveling pretty stressful. I tried the lager/cinnamon/ginger remedy, and if you aren’t sick when drinking it, it works quite well. A valerian capsule before leaving helped with the anxiety.

Once there however, I started to relax. I didn’t take my mobile (I hate mobiles as I’m sure I’ve already said), so I was effectively cut off from the world. It was terrific. It always seems like my world shrinks on holiday and with it my worries. That’s not to say that I was completely relaxed all of the time I was out there; there were some social obligations as family friends were also out there, but I did manage to reduce my blood pressure enough so that there wasn’t a risk of my head exploding. I guess the sun helped lift my spirits as well. I’m not a sun worshiper; far from it (I’m more of a colder climbs man myself), but it does help the body to release mood lifting hormones. Let’s face it, it seems that you have to go abroad to find sunshine if you’re British.

All in all I think that this summer’s holiday was a success. Managing to relax for even five minutes is pretty rare for me! I enjoyed being in and around other cultures, and I even got to do a bit of history whilst out there. It’s really weird being back though. That kind of confusion you feel when you were in another country in the morning and then get into your own bed is most disconcerting. Waking up a home is also weird for the first few days. I thought that I would be glad to be going back to work and back into my old routine; but part of me wishes that I was back out there. I know that that is normal for NT’s, but for me it is quite disturbing. I love my home and my home county and I’ve never really wanted to be anywhere else, but now I am longing to be somewhere else. I’m bamboozled, perplexed, mystified and even baffled.

An Aspie Abroad

It has been bad enough not being able to post due to a lack of time, but for the next three weeks I will not be able to post at all. I am finally going on holiday, having got extra time off due to my extra hard work over the last two months. But wait I hear you say, haven’t I continually stated my dislike/phobia of travel? Well, yes, that is true. However, the place that I am going to in the Mediterranean has a very special place in my heart, and I also have a soft spot for the Mediterranean as a whole. Plus, my entire family are taking time off from work/university to go, so I will have lots of moral support. The flights still scare me though. I wouldn’t say that I have a fear of flying; I just experience a lot of unease when taking off and landing. Which seems perfectly natural, to be honest. I don’t completely understand the physics of flight and that moment when the pilot puts it into full throttle just before take-off just feels wrong. Despite it usually being an early morning flight, my brother and I usually have a breakfast Guinness before the flight (it’s medicinal! On a side note Guinness seems to taste really good early in the morning, I think it’s something to do with your taste buds and them not really being fully awake. I am not an alcoholic, honest, it’s an annual tradition). I also take a valerian capsule before I leave home which seems to suppress the nervous system and take the edge off of my anxieties.

Packing always seems to make me feel more anxious. I guess that that is because it makes it real instead of an idea. When the car pulls away from home I always get the feeling that I’ll never see home again. That for me is the worst part. If I am going to have a panic attack, it is usually then that it happens. Thankfully though, if I am going somewhere that I actually like, then it’s not so bad. Once I am at the airport a sort of acceptance of the inevitable sinks in. My siblings usually provide a good distraction as they know how I feel about the whole thing. When I am there my world shrinks to my immediate surroundings, which is great. I am actually looking forward to having time to read and sleep! Before all of this can take place I have to go to my cousin’s wedding and the party, which is not what I’d call my idea of fun. The actual ceremony will be fine; I just hate fancy dinners. Being an Aspie I find dinner conversation really difficult, not to mention tiring. I think that I will try a new technique to combat the possibility of a panic attack and the resulting nausea: a concoction of cinnamon, ginger and beer. All three are known for their anti-nausea properties, so trying them all at once should be very effective (that is if the concoction doesn’t actually make me sick). I’ll report how it turns out when I get back.

Artistic License?

I am constantly amazed by how much NT’s bend the truth. There have been so many times when have heard the re-telling of an event, which I have myself witnessed, only to find that the details have been altered. It is not an outright lie, it has just been altered a little (or a lot, depending upon who is telling it). If I don’t believe that a story is entertaining enough for general consumption, I will keep it to myself. I just cannot bring myself to lie about things, even little things. It makes me highly uncomfortable. The worst perpetrator seems to be my younger sister, who habitually over-exaggerates, and this actually leads to a lot of conflict between us as if she does this in front of me, then I cannot stand by and let it happen. I know that my correcting her is a little OCD, but from a moral standpoint, it is absolutely right to do so; even if it is not encouraged in certain social situations. I guess that it is something that I will never fully understand…