The turmoil of an unexpected high blood sugar reading...

Bloody hell its been a while! But despite the whole lot of not that much going on right now I have something I would like to write.

So, what do you do when you get those annoying aspie 'feeling' you know the ones that fill you full on angst because your blood sugar is off because of antibiotics. That feeling that fills you up from inside out and consumes every moment and thought that you can run through your over tired frustrated brain. The uneasy pain in the bottom of your stomach that comes when something bad/new/uninvited is about to happen and you don't really want it to but cant hit the inner pause button. That feeling. The one that you have avoided for months through the use of strict routine and structure, by meal planning, carb counting, insulin monitoring, careful eating and not deviating into the unknown. When your so close to achieving perfection and something comes a blows your right off course, that 'feeling'.

It's been a long time since I clenched my fists because of a 'feeling' since I haven't been able to sleep because of one. It's the point you know you are totally over reacting to something small, high blood sugar, but you cant help it because its out of your control. everyone who knows me knows I like to control my environment, I don't mind change as long as its expected, I like new experiences as long as I know they are coming and have had time to prepare myself. What I hate is out of the blue I'm going to totally fuck you over for no good reason by taking your perfect insulin to carb to blood sugar ratio that you have spent months fine tuning to allow you to eat well and lose weight and I'm going to screw it up just because I can and then laugh as you have an internal battle over the rational and the aspie to see which side ultimately wins this battle of the wills and leaves you in a frustrated turmoil over the smallest thing.  (yes I have given the antibiotic a voice and mind).

It is at this point which I wish I could just let it go, like I do with most things, trains running late, appointments taking ages to get, friends being busy when I want to talk to them. I can handle that. But antibiotics screwing with my blood sugars is a step to far. So bare this in mind Mr Antibiotic, next time you think about messing with my BS's know that I'm on to you. And you can't hide.

when life gives you lemons?

What do you do when life gives you diabetes? Well to begin with I shrugged, then laughed, then cried, then told myself to stop being so stupid and get on with my life, and that was 6 whole months ago!!!! I proceed to leave London move to the highlands get a job and work my arse off all summer leaving myself as little time as possible to dwell on this new future.

So after settling down, adjusting to being a human pin cushion (admittedly one who likes to pull faces whilst being poked) and trying hard to get on with life, I found 6 months had past, I was about to finish work for the year ( I fancy some time off) and have a horrible creeping feeling that I'm letting life fly by and by sitting wallowing in my little corner of the highlands, feeding off self pity, am not really doing much with it.

even if it is a stunning part of the world! photo: Lauren Williams

So with that in mind I'm determined not to let a small things like 4 daily injections and 3 infected toes get in my way, (well unless they do the whole causing problems with functioning thing they are rather fond of). I'm going to start studying again, get out more and be more positive! I want to do more, write more, live more and I know this is totally radical but laugh more? I know I'm really pushing the boat out. 

So as I always tell myself kicks up the back side are a good thing and come in many shapes and sizes. ( this ones 5'4) right now I'll let mu health team figure out whats wrong with me and go forth and climb waterfalls.

So apart from trying to see what cool words I can come up with using the letters of my diagnoses ADDD???? Im going to shut up and even if its just me who reads this I know im doing muself a favour anyway. 

i think there for i...

sometimes the best decisions are the ones you don't have to think about. the ones you just know. these don't come around hugely often, i find but when they do its worth grabbing them with both hands and running as if your life depends on it. not thinking is often more valuable when making a life changing decision then spending long periods of time contemplating, twisting a thought round and round in your head until you lose track of what you were thinking about in the first place. but as an aspie who loves to think and plan, making a spur of the moment choice isn't always that easy.

there have been a few occasions in the last year that i have not thought and just done, some have been big things like moving to canada, other smaller like meeting up with people on the fly or going bungee jumping. but big or small these things where i have not thought, often end up being the best experiences that i've had. i'm lucky, i know my own mind very well. i know what i want and what makes me happy and i also have a good idea how to go about getting myself there. and knowing all this has come from thinking. but acting on it has not.

i don't want to talk about moving to canada or leaving home, although they were both big things that very little thought when into. instead i want to talk about how someone so prone to over thinking can make the best decisions with out a single moment though. having AS means i like to plan everything out, i like to know whats going on so i can be in control. that way i'll stay calm and be able to even relax a little. when i do something i have every eventuality planned, i know what's going to happen if X happens or Y. this is the way i do things. i will think back over conversations picking out details analysing them to with in an inch or their subjective lives. and i do this because i cant help it, its just they way i am. i also love to think about the big things, to try to puzzle out the questions that i dream up. i want to work myself out i want to work the world out. i love to drive myself insane thinking over the endless possibility of everything. so what the fuck am i doing not thinking about things that i do?

the past two days for me were amazing and this is because i didn't think i just did. on wednesday i got a tip from work, whist walking though the village i stumbled across a friend. five minuets late we where heading to the whistler bungee shop so i could book a bungee jump. i hadn't been planning to go but hey, i had the money and it was something i really wanted to do. i got home on a high knowing in two days i was going bungee jumping and saw on my facebook feed that, john,  someone i knew (ish) from the uk was in whistler. now john is someone i have a huge amount of respect for. he used to judge at climbing competitions i took part in and despite the fact i was never GB team he found time to talk to me after i climbed and made sure i felt happy and involved within the competitions. this in its self shows he's a guy with a lot of compassion for others especially those who might be on the out side of things (as i, along with many other aspies often am). but more recently he has also done something that has pulled together thousands of climbers across the globe to unite under one banner. not many people could do that. especially not with terminal cancer.

CAC (climbers against cancer) a charity that aims to raise awareness about cancer as well as raise money for cancer research was john's brain child. he knew he was dieing but decided to do something big that would benefit as many people as it could. he decided that being ill wasn't going to stop him. and in less then a year has sold thousands of t-shirts world wide to raise money for a cause that almost everyone is touched by.

seeing that john was in whistler was kind of exciting i wanted to go and say hello if i could so messaged him and we agreed to met up the next day. now at this point i like to point out that no only do i not normally message people i don't know fantasticly well, its only in the past year that i have learned how to do the whole meeting people thing properly so this was a big personal step. and one that was taken by not thinking to hard!

we met the next day at the top of whistler gondola along with a friends of john's who he was staying with. sitting down to a hot chocolate we chatted about CAC, what i was doing in canada and a little about aspergers. john was open about his cancer so i felt comfortable talking about being AS and this openness also allowed me to ask something i have always wanted to ask. its not an easy question. as a kid i was always told it was rude and upsetting. not something that should every pass your lips. but i wanted to know. john has been open about the fact he is going to die. i asked if he minded me asking a personal question. he told me to go ahead so i did. in a quieter voice then my normal i started to slowly voice my question.
"what's it like knowing your going to..."
"die" john finished the question for me. he looked at me before answering. "its a good question" i could see its something he has thought about and that its also something almost impossible to put into words. he said that he takes each day as it comes that he makes the most of things and tries not to think about it to much as it can be a rather overwhelming prospect. but the thing that stood out for me the most was when he said it meant he had to make a decision. he decided it wasn't going to stop him doing something big. being able to make that decision tells you a lot about a person. it tells you they want to fight, that they know themselves and that are hugely motivated. its not always easy deciding not to let anything stop you. often it can seem like there is a mountain in the way of you and what you want to achieve but as long as you keep taking steps you will get there.

me and john by an inukshuk atop whistler mountain

this really rang a cord with me. since finding out about being AS i have had to look over and reconsider parts of my identity. who am i and what dose having AS mean for me. it took a lot of thinking over the past year and a bit for me to figure it out. i am me, i decided and having AS wasn't going to get in the way of anything i want to do. this is something i hold on to when times get tough. having thought all this though i decided it was better to be scared and doing things then not scared and not. sometimes this decision can be overwhelming but it was also liberating for me, knowing i'm not going to let anything stop me has allowed me to make decisions with out thinking. i know my own mind so i want to do something then i should do it.

we headed out side to take some picture of us in CAC shirt. (john then posts them on fb so show the world how far a idea can reach). from there we took the peak to peak across the valley (i so want to say glen here it's an easier word to spell and i love scotland so) before heading back and having lunch. after this i headed out to ski for a while and john and his friend headed down the mountain. if anyone wants to check out CAC here's a link to the website: climbersagainstcancer

me pre jump

the next day i was going bungee jumping. proudly dressed in my CAC shirt so i could try to get some decent picture we headed out in a small group to the jump. i was insanely excited about it. to the point of not being able to sit still in the cab too well. the first jump i did i went backwards as being a climber this should make it scarier for me. it was an amazing experience. i loved it so much as soon as i had been hauled up i was asking if i could have another go. this was going to cost however. i used the not thinking to hard tactic again and decided it was well worth it. the next time i attempted a swan dive but it ended up looking more like i was trying to swim in mid air!

"im flying though the air"

its funny what an amazing two days you can have by not thinking to hard. but i know i have only got to this stage by thinking a lot. my ability to think is what makes me me. its a gift from my aspergers but its also a curse. thinking has meant i could see that i was different and for years meant i thought there was something wrong with me but it has also given rise to my new confidence and sense of self. thinking for me is everything. i want to study it at uni someday (philosophy, i know there's not uni course called "thinking"). i want i sign off with a little bit of descartes as well as the title of this piece "i think there for i am" and i am what i chose to be. (my little addition)

officially a freak

i'm a freak, that's pretty much what the report says. i don't do much like the normal person, i cant pretend to be a normal person and i expect far to much from the normal people who happen to be my friends. sometimes cold hard facts aren't nice, even the ones your expecting.

that's the brief outline i've got from the report after my assessment for aspergers. one i have it, two it effects me on quite a wide base and three its kinda bad. not that this surprised me at all, i pretty much knew that already, but reading how i have no normal levels of empathy dose make me feel a little less human. oh and it also made me cry (no surprises there then!)

i'm an unusual case, most people don't get a diagnosis at 18. i should of got one as a kid but my parents buried there heads in the sand and ignored the signs. not that that matters now. the important thing is i've done it. i now know for sure and have proof if ever i need it. i've know i'm autistic for a while so why am i so upset at having it proved to me?

i suppose these things are always hard to read and its not unusual to get upset when presented with a document summing up quite how inadequately you suit nuro typical life. its something that all people on the spectrum have to go through, almost like a uncomfortable right of passage, but i reckon its easier to get it as a child when its your parents who have to deal with the emotions of it all. not aged 18, 4 days before you get on a plane to to spend a year halfway across the world away from all the people who know you. but when did i ever do things the easy way?

the report gives scores from different tests and basicly just summed up the answers i had given at the assessment. my scores read along the lines of:
screening test: 37 out of 50 (most AS people score 32 or above)
empathy test: 10 out of 80 (most AS people score 30 or below)
diagnosis test: 17 out of 18 (need 10 to be classed as AS)
seeing it like this is somewhat difficult, i cant hide behind a wall of maybes now (not that i did much before). its there starting me in the face and telling me where i stand. yes that is what i wanted to know, but i suppose i wanted to be told a bit more nicely (in search of a better word) although i'm not sure how i expected functional documents to do nice?

and i don't suppose sitting in a room that's not your bedroom, in a house that's not your home with all your friends and people who you care about over a 100 miles away is the best way to go about reading these things. not if your relationship with your parents is like mine anyway. 

i felt very alone as i sat crying. suddenly i felt less then human like i wasn't good enough any more because i cant feel things like normal people do and i cant act like normal people. seeing it written like that made me feel invalid as a person. i wanted to talk to someone about it to share it so it wasn't just me who had the knowledge of it, as it seem more then i could cope with. i wanted to talk to a friend. no, actually i wanted a hug. (unfortunately anyone i would consider hugging is well over 100 miles from my current location and in some case over 500 miles away making hugs slightly impractical)

i tried to pull myself together. failed. tried again. failed again. so started writing this. apart from anything else writing what it feels like to get a diagnosis on the day you get it makes it more real then a few days later. i then had a nice chat to a friend and by the time that was over was feeling far more positive about the whole thing and decidedly more human. so that's all good.

i suppose its natural to look at myself and then compare me to a normal person and feel different  and at times when i feel vulnerable or lonely i will think of myself as less then human or a freak. no matter how much i accept myself and learn to work with myself to function within mainstream society there will be times when its hard not to want to be normal, purely because its easier, but i don't have that choice and i never will. i have the right to feel proud of being AS (as long as i don't develop a sense of entitlement with the pride) and i am who i am and a piece of paper (or some pixels on a computer screen) isn't going to change that!

a few words on a few things :)

its fair to say at the moment my world is a bit confused. in the past month and a half i have slept in 10 different places and visited 8 different groups of people. i've stayed in a mixture of relatives and friends houses, student flats and hostels and reached the stage that if there's a bed i'll sleep in it no matter where it is. and in 3 weeks time i fly to canada but not before i've done some more visits. so all in all rather tiring really and for someone who likes to have routine and regularity how easy it is to adjust to a life style of constantly moving around and adapting to new things on almost a daily basis?

well for one thing you've got to want to do it. this is something i have had to keep telling my self when i have been getting stressed and tired. i chose to do this and i could stop at any point. i'm doing this as i want to see my friends and some parts of my family before i leave. i want to say goodbye to the people i care about and who have made a difference to my life before i bugger off out the country. as someone who can struggle to make connections with people the ones i have got are very important to me. people who are willing to deal with me having a violent meltdown and just accept that its part of who i am mean a lot to me. and due to the way i do things i seem to have a smattering around the country. this means i couldn't just say good bye to them all a day or so before i left instead i have been on the go trying to see them all. i know its worth it but that didn't stop me getting close to melting down on a few occasions when things got to much.

you also learn a lot when on the go constantly. i have met a lot of people the past month and have had to be friendly, polite and open with pretty much all of them, even when all i've wanted to do is tell them to shut up so i can sleep/ read my book/ watch some on-line tv. somewhat to my surprise its in the hostels that i have been the most open and unautistic (i know that's not a word) i've chatted to numerous strangers and got along with most of them i've accepted that i won't always get my own way while i'm staying there and that i have to fit around the other people. things that i'm not always great at doing. i'm not sure if it is because it was with total strangers who had no expectations of who i was or if it was because i was nervous so was trying to portray myself as confidant but i did quite well. by the end of 5 nights in glencoe i had spent nights chatting to people from all over the world played cards with them and even cooked dinner with two people i had met that week. not bad for someone who finds social interaction rather taxing!

not to bad then? well i reckon time spent in hostels is not only valuable in terms of my general social development but will also help me when i get to canada so that's all good. unfortunately i seem to have struggled a bit more while staying in friends houses. i have never been good in other peoples houses i tend to feel quite uncomfortable and although i have improved massively over the past few years its still not something and find terribly easy especially when friends parents are around. trying to string a sentence together while sitting in someone's kitchen with there parents shouldn't be a challenge and i know that. but it doesn't mean i'm not going to sit there silently with hands stimming under the table and only just mange to stammer out an one or two word answer when a question is directed at me. i'm not sure if this is a normal AS experience or not so any feed back would be appreciated!

then on top of the vast amounts of social interaction is the lack of routine. this i thought i was dealing with rather well. spending no more then 3 or 4 nights somewhere means that its impossible to establish any form of comforting routines that you know you can stick to. and while there are advantages to this (you cant get upset when the routines is interrupted when you don't have one in the first place) it dose seem to increase my stress levels. i didn't really notice this at first. each day i would make a vague plan and stick to it. ok things would change but most of the time i was prepared for this so it was fine. but as the days on to go stacked up and i wasn't in control of what was happening each day i got a bit more stressed. to start with i could release it by just going out on my own for a walk, this having no effect on anyone else is much the best way for me to deal with it but by the time i had been on the go almost a month it didn't work so well. 

i have always been an emotional person who cries easily and i have been getting to the stage that when things weren't  going they way i wanted them to i would be close to tears and it would be over very stupid things. lucky on most occasions i managed to keep myself in check. but it doesn't always work. by the time i had reached my friends house in glencoe i had been on the go just over a month. i had stayed in a hostel for the past 5 nights and was pretty tired. when the plans for the day changed because she got called into work i fell apart slightly. i did mange to wait till she left but once she had gone i just let myself cry. i'm not sure what i was crying for, mostly because i was tired and something had suddenly changed, but i did feel a lot better for it. i'm not sure if its just me but sometimes a good cry on my own makes everything feel a lot better afterwards. unfortunately it can be hard to find the quite/ private spaces to have these cries and people tend to get irritated when you cry for no good reason in there presents.

i have read that some people on the spectrum sometimes struggle with personal hygiene and while i wouldn't say i do, lack of routine dose mean on occasions i have forgot to do things i should such and clean my teeth twice a day. while this is no great deal i'm wondering of its something typical of us spectrum people or just my laziness. i have also found that showering can be problematic when staying in places where they don't provide towels when you neglected to pack one, luckily i don't thing my friends like it when i smell so have lent me ones while i have been on the go.

last thing i want to ask is about hitch hiking i'm not sure if many others of you have done this but i have on a few occasions accepted lifts from people heading my way. while so far i have been fine every time i have questioned myself on the wisdom of this being a small 18 year old girl. i know i can be very trusting possibly too much so and accepting lifts from strangers is possibly not the best idea but in a small friendly place like glencoe (where all the lifts i got where around) it didn't seem like and issue.

all in all my past month and a bit has been relatively eventful. im currently at my parents house catching up on sleep and trying to eat regular and healthy meals after the some what dubious diet that i've surcomed to on occasions. i'm also counting down the days till i leave still a scary and daunting prospect but one i am looking forward to greatly. i'm longing to settle down for a a while and get a routine for a few months at least :) i don't think i met any other autistic people travelling around but i do recommend it even if just for a week or so. i don't like to let being autistic get in my way and while shearing rooms with people you have never met can be terrifying is probably also rather good for us. as i've always told my self its better to be scared and do things then less scared and not :)

limbo

im currently living in a strange kind of limbo, not quite here but not quite there. i don't really know where i am. i've left home but not got to where im going. i know im autistic but not sure where i fit on the spectrum  i can climb but its not climbing (will explain this later). all i know its that im in-between big parts of my life and for now all i can do is wait for them to get going. witch i suppose is the first part of travelling. the waiting to go.

so where am i going? well im off to canada in november to be a ski instructor in whistler. sounds easy enough really, travel half way across the world to a new place, live in student style accommodation with a room-mate who i don't know and spend all day taking kids up and down a mountain, what's to be scared of? not like im not great with people, have routines that annoy the heck out of the people around me or am prone to meltdowns when i get, well, when i get to the stage that i get meltdowns.

its fair to say the idea of all this terrifies me, but in a way that partly why im doing it. i like to push myself way out my comfort zone (or at least i tell myself i do, so i do) and see how i react and what i can do that i didn't think i could. but right now it all seems very big and scary and due to my bloody marvellous habit of circular thought ive been thinking almost non stop about what canada will be like. and scaring myself silly. useful!

all that said i am very much looking forward to it. scary as it might be i love skiing, i love canada and i've been looking forward to this trip since i had the idea of going. but im not there yet. right now im travelling round the uk visiting family and friends who i wont see for a while once my real travels start. between leaving my summer home in glencoe to going to canada i wont be in the same place for more then two weeks. well if everything goes to plan anyway.


before i get to canada there a few things i want to do and getting a formal diagnosis to find out where i am on the autistic spectrum is one of them. ive know for almost two years that i fit somewhere on the spectrum after stumbling across a news paper artical about AS women and very quickly identifying with what was being said (i had been thinking for a while that i might be slightly autistic before i read the artical). my parents who also read the artical could see most of what was being said in me as well. i promptly when online to do some digging and found that i seem to directly fit the profile of an autistic woman. to add a bit of weight to the theory of why i was so meish and not so good at the whole fitting in thing, one of my aunts and a cousin who knew about these things had been telling my mother for years that i must be somewhere on the spectrum.

i tried to get a diagnosis back then but it turned out there was no provision for adults on the spectrum where i lived. they didn't diagnose us and they didn't really care. my doctor tried to go though my school nurse but that failed as well. in the end i gave it up as a bad job. i probably wouldn't be trying again now if i hadn't moved to glencoe this summer but my experiences and friends there told me (rather directly) that its something i really need to get done. so im trying to go private. 

having started the process im now trying to get on with it, filling out forms and what not while all the time mindful that i need to be done before i head off and away out the country. so i'm checking my emails eight times a day just to make sure i don't miss anything.(well obliviously)

i'm also an obsessive climber but due to a rather unfortunate injury have not been able to climb for well over a year. this has upset me somewhat. i live climbing, it's my world and i didn't know how to, or want to live with out it. but finally i am back. i can climb again but to me, someone who enjoyed competing at a high level, i'm not really climbing. as much as it good to be back i want to climb hard again but i cant. so, to me, i'm in-between not climbing at all and being able to climb properly. another state of limbo.

so that's me a girl in limbo. travelling around the uk with no one place to call home (not that i'm complaining is rather fun) each new place brings a new routine to be adopted (i cant live with out them) different people to see and a few new challenges in terms to staying happy, polite and civilised when what i really want to do is scream at people and run away. but im learning, living and being me and i suppose that what really matters.