Scattered and Routineless

 

These past few weeks have been a roller coaster for me. Work has been crazy to where I have had no time to write. I had a wedding shower to host for my sister and brother-in-law, which was fun, and would love to host another party again sometime. I got overstimulated for the first time in forever while grocery shopping. Don't know why, but it happened. During my free time, I listened to the audiobook version of But You Don’t Look Autistic At All by Bianca Toeps. I have to admit I learned a lot from her book.

On top of running Naturally Nature Photography LLC, writing my book, and blog; I also work in retail at Home Depot in paint and garden. Right now it's the busy season and thankfully I've been getting a lot of hours. Unfortunately, because I work part-time, my schedule is all over the place and never constant. I'll open one day and then close the next. Plus some days I'm in the garden, and others I'm in paint. I'm used to that by now because in the film industry, the work schedule comes out daily and the hours vary from 12 – 15 hours a day and can start at 8:00 am to 1:00 am or even 3:00 pm to 5:00 am, with the same people every day, and my responsibilities were whatever they needed me to do for that day. In retail, my responsibilities vary on the department, and the schedule thankfully comes out every two weeks allowing me to plan out my other projects. Unfortunately, it's not a constant 9 am to 5 pm job. While working part-time you are basically the one that is used to fill in whatever gap there is on the schedule. So some days I work 6 am to 3 pm and then 2:00  pm to 11:00  pm the next day. Admittedly this is my own fault because I asked for this, but I need the pay, so I work in two different departments. Some days I'm in one and then other days I'm in the other, and sometimes I'm working in both departments on the same day. People on the spectrum like a bit of a routine. Some are more OCD about it than others. Honestly, I have not been on a set schedule since high school and now that I have been finally listening to myself more and seeing what my body needs I'm noticing how much of a toll not being on a routine has taken on me. I am attempting to get a full-time opening position that locks into a set schedule to where the only thing that varies on each day that I work. But I can work with that and that will allow me to have a routine and not feel so scattered.

I've learned to adapt to new routines, however, when they are constantly changing, it still takes a lot out of me. I am looking to go full-time opening with Home Depot so that my shift locks into the same time every day that I'm scheduled to work. This will provide me with some form of consistency in my work life allowing me to form a better schedule for my writing as well as Naturally Nature. Unfortunately, I would still be continuously interacting with people but you can't really avoid that. I hate how I make this a bad thing because I do like people and meeting new people. It's kind of fun helping people try to find ideas on how to decorate their homes. Plus I'm learning a lot about how to take care of my own house, that is once I get my own house. Currently, I'm apartment living and can't do anything when it comes to renovations, plus it's crammed, and becomes difficult to have designated areas. My workspace is in the bedroom right next to the bathroom, where I can stretch my leg out from my seat, my foot is in the bathroom, and my husband's desk is in the dining room. My bookshelf is split into three different locations: bedroom, dining, and living room. And it's driving me nuts. But for now, we are saving up and learning about renovating so that when the time comes we can do it ourselves.

My coworkers are pretty much the same people every day. Once I get to know my coworkers I'm fine, and I'll know what to expect from them on a daily basis, and interacting with them becomes less draining. I also really like my coworkers and get along with them great. I even made some friends. Customers on the other hand come and go and having to directly interact with so many different people on a daily basis becomes draining fairly quickly for me, but honestly, any social interaction is draining, some social situations more than others. My energy fluctuates when I am hanging out with friends and I hate it. I just want to go out and have fun with my friends.

Oh, and to the reason why Naturally Nature is mainly online. I do plan on running a booth at various art shows and other events. So please keep an eye out for Naturally Nature Photography. I do enjoy coming out to the public and interacting with people. Not exactly a troll hiding in a dark room typing at the computer all day hissing at whoever disturbs me.

Do you know what's funny? As much as I need a routine I do love to be spontaneous. I love to go out with friends on a whim or find something that I enjoy on my own such as going for a jog or hiking, or shopping. I also love to cook and grocery shop. Give me a large enough budget and a large enough kitchen and I will buy the entire store. Two weeks ago I went to Liddle instead of ALDI for my groceries and for some odd reason, I got overstimulated. The music was louder than normal than what you find in a grocery store but not so loud that it bothered me. At home or in my car I listen to rock, metal, orchestral, & more types of music louder than the music in Liddle. So what the freakin hell! It was my second time in this store, my first full walk-through. I'm over halfway through the store when all of a sudden my body tenses up. The music becomes more noticeably irritating and everything that I am seeing around me seems to become overwhelming. My husband who was darting around the store like there was no tomorrow (he likes to go rush through and grab what we need to get out as quickly as possible) notices me tense up and tries to get me to the checkout line. I on the other hand continued to walk through the store. Even though I felt like I needed to get out right now I also felt like if I didn't walk through the entire store then I wouldn't be able to come back. Besides I only had two more aisles to walk down. But we do finally check out and get in the car. My body remained tense for about three hours after we got home. I didn't know what to do about it. I know stemming is something that Autistic people do to comfort themselves when overstimulated, but It's been so long since I've been overstimulated that I don't know what to do to help relax. I tried pacing. That's my go-to when I'm deep in my thoughts. For some odd reason, I can't sit still for a long time when I'm at home unless I'm hyper-focused on something or forcing myself. The pacing didn't help much couldn't sit down and relax for a while. I honestly didn't know what to do. I told a friend of mine who is also on the spectrum what happened and he pointed out that my overstimulation could have been triggered by stress as well as my surroundings. This to me made sense. I went back this past Thursday and felt fine. I am so happy! I even found a vegan hazelnut spread for just $2.99.

During my free time, I listened to the audiobook version of But You Don’t Look Autistic At All by Bianca Toeps. I have to admit I learned a lot from her book. Bianca Toeps is a fellow photographer who learned about her autism later in life and studied autism. In this book, she talks about her journey with autism and how she deals with it. And I do have to say her book is a fantastic read.

One of the things she talks about is Executive function which is the ability to take a large task and divide them into smaller ones such as cleaning. I always have a hard time when it comes to cleaning. It's not that I don't know how to. My mother taught me well. I do clean up on regular bases. When cleaning it's sometimes difficult to know where to begin. Everything is important so therefore everything needs to get done all at once. But you can't do everything at once. It's impossible. But where do you start? Then once you get started some were you start finding things you don't need anymore or you find that you don't have a place for certain things such as shoes or towels. You then find yourself on the phone browsing Amazon for a solution for these things such as a shoe rack. The next thing you know you find that three hours pass by and it's still a mess if not worse. This exact thing happened to me this past week. I did write a list to follow but that only goes so far for me. My goal was to clean the bathroom and then write my blog post but then I found myself cleaning my closet and shopping for a shoe rack and towel rack instead of writing.

I knew that I have this struggle when it comes to cleaning but I didn't know that it was affiliated with my autism until Bianca Toeps began talking about it in her book in chapter 2 under Executive Functions.

I feel the same way about studying. Teachers tell you to read a chapter and then write notes based on what is important before they go over it in class. I understand the reason behind this method however my brain goes hello everything in this book is important. How do you determine what's more important when everything is important and how do you expect me to absorb this knowledge in such a short time frame? I tried to get help through the counseling center which they claim to help students being able to get better at taking tests and studying. I figured that they may have a trick up their sleeve that I can use to help me. But no, that's not what happened. Instead, they just looked at me and said I think you may be autistic once I explained what I was struggling with. Well, no shit Sherlock! They then gave me books to go over about autism. I skimmed through and it was just general info on autism that seemed very outdated and not specific to my autism. It didn't take me long to find that none of this is going to help me with my test-taking. So I turned around looked at them and explained that I already knew that I was autistic and walked away. Just walking out may not have been the best thing but just by looking at them, I could tell that they couldn't be bothered with anyone. I may struggle with social cues but I have come across enough people like that in general to where I can feel it generating off of them and learned to stay away. I find that when people are that way in general and they work in a field where they are supposed to help people then they are most likely working in the field for the wrong reason. I find that there is a lot of that in the United States education system, especially with Special-ed or anything to do with helping the mentally challenged. But that's another can of worms. I'll open that another time.