Someone on @bookstodon was asking for books of the year. I always struggle with this - remembering, but also, books may have had a profoud meaning for me that I have then absorbed into my understanding.
However, two I will highlight:
Flowers for Algernon.
The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting (currently reading). I will say more on this when I have finished it, but it is quite superb.
TL:DR A day of 2 halves, a day where my relationship with my father changed forever.
This is not an easy read - peruse at your own risk.
Up at 4 as usual , chatted with CDP 🧚♀️ ,then this old squirrel fell back to sleep - it being Sunday n all
My Dad and sister were due over today so my Dad could complete the ASD assessment Informants questionnaire.
We had some unexpected snow so a quick conflab with the parent & we agreed that the visit should be ok.
Tidying up the house , getting washed / changed took up the morning then headed out early because of the snow.
We met at one of our favourite eateries & had a delicious lunch , I had my first turkey dinner of the season & it was delicious.
The drive back was mildly interesting due to the white fluffy stuff but nothing too serious.
We topped my Dad up with a cuppa & biscuits & presented him with the questionnaire - all 16 pages of it !
I emphasised that it needed to be as thorough as possible because a ASD diagnosis can be difficult without childhood details.
About an hour later he finished .
My sister & my Dad left about 4pm to get home before the snow got heavy again. We said our goodbyes etc & they were gone.
I then read thru the answers my Dad have put down …
17/47 questions had no answers , 7 were ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers to open questions.
Apparently the only thing he remembered of me as a baby was that I didn’t sleep well.
Apparently my only strengths as a person are : IT Work & Computer gaming !
I wasn’t expecting war & peace but the total lack of information in answers that ranged from my birth to the present day, via my pre-teen & teenage years was disappointing to say the least.
I am gonna have to approach other family members to see if they can pad this out!
We’re watching Fargo, for about the 4th time, it’s moderately amusing & involves a lot of snow …. hey there are worst ways to pick a movie!
Mixed nuts & alcohol are helping me cope with being such an important part of my Fathers life that in answer to the question “Can they feel empathy” was blank.
Final Thoughts:
I realise that I have not been a model son, I am no great academic , artist , musician or physician. Shit I can barely hold my own in the IT world. I had thought that my own low opinion of myself was just me , but it appears that my father has an equally low opinion of me, so much so that I barely register.
My diagnosis has suddenly become much less likely, since childhood details are fairly key apparently!
I am Squirrel, because being human is far too fecking hard !
Thanks to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you ! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
@Tim_McTuffty@actuallyautistic I suspect - with no evidence at all* - that he might also struggle to fill it out honestly. It might prove to be over-positive there.
"Oh yes she was walking at 2 weeks, and conversing on phenomenology by 6 weeks. Strengths: They are the greatest living human."
TL:DR I am a truly socially impaired entity, I am thankful that I have really good & close friends to help me with this. (If that is not an oxymoron! ) ; I fear that spoons are soon to become a big part of my life. ; I am starting to understand that this journey I am on is many faceted , complex and Andrex™ long! ; Downton Abbey is still brilliant !
Today started early, as my days now do with an early morning cuppa and a chat with my Bestie.
Breakfast was had & Mrs Squirrel went to do the weekly shopping run .
I played No Mans Sky in co-op mode for the 1st time with the Cheeky Dutch Pixy who has been kind enough to introduce me to co-op gaming.
The experience was disrupted when an old Playstation Friend of CDPs joined us & my ASD triggered like a bomb going off ! I shrank away from both the new comer & my friend. I came close to turning off the playstation , but settled for flying off to the far side of the planet & changing all the privacy settings.
I fear that I may have scared my friend with some of the the things that I did & said, not that they were terribly terrible, but I am aware that my friend has her own battle with ASD (or ASS as it is in the Netherlands) & that was never my intention , but I had no real control over my reaction. I sincerely hope that a) CDP 🧚♀️ will forgive me & b) that in time I will learn tools & techniques to help me deal with such things.
A friend on Mastodon spoke of spoons, & the disconnect between the apparent & physical levels of exhaustion felt by some ND folk. I don’t know if this is a thing for me. I know that I never feel fully refreshed by sleep , but is that just me ?
This afternoon was a quiet one, a few chores & then a Downton Abbey double bill, with chinese takeaway & cider in the intermission.
Watching Downton Abbey: New Era , Violet has just died & my sentimental side is in full flow 😭, I’m such a soft squirrel on the quiet!
Final Thoughts:
The full force of my Social Interaction Impairment element of the ASD Triad hit me like a spade in the face today, the force & speed of the trigger was, in retrospect , quite scary.
The idea of ‘having enough spoons’ was raised again, I have yet to fully understand this concept & wether it applies to me.
When I started my ASD journey I’m not sure I fully understood what I would encounter & what I would learn along the way. This is intriguing, fascinating & frightening almost in equal measure !
Thanks to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you ! 😊🫶🐿️🖖
I am autistic. But I also acknowledge that this is quite a broad diagnosis too. It covers a range of experiences that are different for different people.
But it feels like it at least restricts the divergence.
I've just seen the Netflix series All The Light We Cannot See, based on the novel by Anthony Doerr which is sitting on my bookcase. It has tempted me to read and/or reread some novels based in WWII.
Does anyone have any recommendations of novels based historically in or around WWII?
Ave Barrera's The Forgery (2013/2022) is a Mexican #art caper story about an #artist forced to complete a forgery as part of an inheritance fraud. But by the end its unclear (perhaps purposefully) whether the narrator has experienced imprisonment & exploitation by a violent & rich mastermind, or whether its all a fever dream brought on by a hand injury (turning to sepsis). While quite enjoyable its also finally unsatisfying as a novel.