Autism’s Love: Making Connections

I am feeling very proud of myself right now. I’ve been working on my new facebook page Autism’s Love: Making Connections and launched it 4 days ago. My dream is to connect with special needs individuals and communities from around the world. I hope my page will be a fun and informative place to visit and share resources. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get caught up in my own little world, always focusing on the tasks at hand. It’s good to take out time to see what is going on in other parts of the world and to see how others are dealing with their individual special needs. I love learning about different kinds of resources. Diversity is key for me. I’ve always loved learning about people and their cultures and now I’ve created an avenue personally connection to me to do so.

Welcome to my new obsession. 🙂 I hope my new page enlightens and inspires you.

Autistic National Speaker Stresses Love, Hope in ‘Defining Autism From… (prweb.com)
Ride For Autism This Saturday (detroit.cbslocal.com)
Butterfly minds needs a hand please. (mumblingsontheverge.wordpress.com)
Pyjama walk for autism 2, the sequel join in !!! (mumblingsontheverge.wordpress.com)
Tips and Tricks to keep in mind while flying with your child with autism (autismate.wordpress.com)
Brain Chemistry Differs in Kids With Autism: Study (news.health.com)
My Child’s Autism: Tell Me Again … Why? (wildermanonrollingcreek.wordpress.com)

April 28, 2013

I Wish…

I wish I could handle working outside of routines better. I’d like to be less rigid and more relaxed in my days. Some days, depending, I can manage to do pretty well, but the bottom line is that I need to maintain a rigid morning routine. That is what works best for me. One simple variation can throw my entire day off. The phone could ring or I may decide to start the laundry before eating breakfast. Those very acts could cause to forget eating until mid-afternoon. I would have also forgotten vitamins and you can cancel my keeping a schedule for the rest of the day. My thought patterns become choppy. I start in a direction with a clear picture in my head and then the picture’s gone. What do I do now? I end up walking around trying to get the picture back, piddling all the while, but accomplishing very little. It’s just too hard sometimes.

In order for me to function at my optimum best, I must have a strict routine in the mornings…let the dog out, morning constitutional, vitamins, breakfast, put water on for coffee, go to my desk, work out today’s todo’s, drink coffee (I like to my coffee after eating), check email and then I can manage the rest of my day. If these things occur in order I have no problems with daily schedule and I seem to have more energy too. Otherwise, I am exhausted by late afternoon from spinning my wheels and getting nowhere.

I wish I could write better and faster. It would be great to sit down and crank out a few blog posts in a couple hours or write a few paragraphs for a book I’ve started. It would be nice to write those few paragraphs in less than half a day, but I can’t. It’s already taken me more than a couple hours to write this. What time will it be when I finish…if I finish. Will I get this posted today?

I constantly stress over the words I chose, spelling, grammar, humor, flow, continuity; I stress over everything. It’s a good thing I can’t wear out the “save” icon as I click it after every correction. Wait…typo…correct…click…saved. Okay…moving forward. It would be wonderful to write my thoughts as they sound when I speak them. People often tell me that I have a wonderful way with verbal story-telling, but you’d never know it by the way I write.

I wish I could plan meals a week at a time. Instead I ask myself the same question every afternoon, “what’s for dinner?” Frequent trips to the grocery store, multiple shelves of cook books and I still can’t seem to get a dinner plan going. I’ve solicited the help of my 13 year old who always knows what kind of protein he wants, but does not really care about the rest. That helps some, but now I have to figure out what to add to it. We certainly can’t live off protein alone. So…I stand in front of the refrigerator and then I stand in front of the deep freezer. I peruse each shelf in the pantry and then I open all the cabinets. Sometimes I turn to cooking shows or look up recipes online. I’ve even called friends to ask what they’re having for dinner…they don’t know either. Looks like take it will be out.

I wish I could leave the house like normal people, not having to deal with the anxiety associated with going out and facing others.

I wish I could be different. I don’t feel this way often, but today I do. I don’t like to admit that I feel this way, because it hurts to know I feel this way. It hurts when I hear others say they feel this way too. I want so much for people to love who they are and their differences, even though I struggle to love myself.

I wish I could relax without feeling depressed. I wish I could casually do nothing for a whole day and not have guilt associate with it. I wish I had more energy. I wish it were a weekday. Oh well, tomorrow’s Monday and I’ll feel much better. Weekends are a bit of a challenge as I tend to abandon my routines. It’s really simple…I’m rebelling against the need for them. The outcome is always the same, but I keep trying to break the mold.

I wish I could accept that this is how I am.