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 :)
