#WeekendCoffeeShare (September 4, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Oh my, it’s September already! I at first was going to type “July” in this post’s title, then thought that it was August, only to realize that month too has passed. The weather is still pretty nice for late summer/early fall: sunny and about 20°C.

Today, I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. I already had all my coffee for the day, so a soft drink or water will have to do. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that this week has been a true rollercoaster emotionally. It started with my vision screening by the blindness agency. I really want to share more about my feelings of grief and denial about having lost all my vision. In fact, I still always want to put in a caveat about that tiny bit of light perception I still have left whenever I’m saying I’m now totally blind. But I guess that’s what I am: totally blind.

Then again, I don’t want to wallow in my sadness and would quickly move on to demonstrate VoiceOver Recognition and celebrate the powers of technology.

If we were having coffee, I’d also share that the day center is reopening on Monday after eighteen months of being more or less closed due to COVID. My day activities will largely remain in the home with my own one-on-one staff though.

That being said, I did hyperfocus a lot on the details of my activity program and the times staff aren’t directly available for me. This caused some major distress, but I eventually managed to put things into perspective.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I finally surpassed my Mom with respect to step count in the Fitbit app. For a while, I myself had been last among my Fitbit friends. I however did get in over 10K steps two days this past week. That’s a big win, considering I struggled to even get to 5K most days last week.

If we were having coffee, I would vent my frustration about my pasta machine, which I use for polymer clay, not working correctly. The thing I use to attach it to the table, won’t work. Thankfully though, the staff who gave the machine to me has a son who may be able to fix it.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would tell you that I’ve been doing a lot of inner work lately relating to my life as a dissociative (multiple personality) system. After some conversations with my assigned home staff, I finally decided to do a system mapping again. Like I mentioned on Thursday, I used to have a list of all of us here on the blog, but removed that as it was less relevant. My staff though do find it useful.

I also downloaded an app called Simply Plural, in which systems can keep track of who’s “in front” (the alter you see on the outside) and can do system polls on decisions too. I will probably write the developer about some bugs in its usability with VoiceOver and some suggestions, but so far, it seems quite cool.

I also finally decided to download some more books exploring trauma and stuff from Bookshare. I might explore the subject more, be it in my personal journal or here.

How have you been?

22 thoughts on “#WeekendCoffeeShare (September 4, 2021)”

        1. True, although some of the homes had their own assigned room at the day center where they could do day activities while being socially distanced from those in other homes. My home didn’t though.

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  6. I think it’s totally understandable that you still experience a lot of grief relating to your vision and want to emphasise the fact that you have a little bit of it left. I think that sort of thing would be important for your identity and also people say that even the slightest bit of vision makes some difference, which I can’t really know myself as I don’t see anything but it makes some sense.
    I’m glad the day centre is finally open, y’all must have missed it. 🙂
    And how cool that you’re doing some internal work with your system and that your staff are also helpful/encouraging with this. Didn’t even know there were apps for multiples, but it’s great as there definitely should be to make daily life easier.

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    1. Thank you for supporting us. Yes, there is this app that I mentioned and then there is also an app called something like Dissociative Journal which analyzes your typing to make guesses as to whether you’ve switched. We haven’t tried that one yet.

      I’m indeed happy the day center is reopening, but also glad my day activities will largely remain one-on-one in my home.

      As for my visual status, yes, I understand you can’t imagine what it’s like seeing anything, much like I can’t imagine what it’s like having no light perception at all. The grief is indeed hard, thank you for sympathizing.

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  7. Hi Astrid, I have to tell you, every now and then, I’m just plain proud of you. You have some challenges that I don’t understand and just try not to be ignorant of, like the blindness. I have no means of judging what that must be like but I try and fail to get my brain around it, but you still find clever ways to engage the world, learn new stuff, interact with friends and family that I think would leave me far behind.
    I know that things frustrate you because you mention some of them, but I think you are so much stronger than I could be and I find you inspiring me with most of your coffee shares.
    All the best with your current activities and efforts. Please keep posting. I look forward to each one.
    Blessings.

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    1. Thank you so much, Gary, for your encouraging words. They mean so much to me. I know it’s hard to imagine for people who don’t experience the same what it’s like living with the difficulties I face, but I am nonetheless so grateful for your support.

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    1. Yes, I’ve been quite busy indeed. Trying to squeeze in time for inner work too. As for Simply Plural, I’d heard of the app some time ago but forgot what it was called exactly, so I searched the app store for the word “plural”, as I was pretty sure that was in the name.

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    1. Ah, here’s a pot of coffee, LOL! Those angels sound awesome! The pasta machine is usually used for creating flat slabs though, like lasagne. I think the hair on the angels was done using an extruder. Oh and yes, I got the pasta machine working after all and got a new one just in case this one stops working. Or rather, initially I thought the pasta machine was shredding my clay, but it was something about the clay, because the new pasta machine did the exact same. Thankfully with softer clay the problem doesn’t happen.

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