#WeekendCoffeeShare (September 15, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone, how are you? Let’s catch up over a cup of coffee or once again green tea in my case. I’m joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that this week was full of ups and some downs, though the downs weren’t as low as I’d expected. As regular readers of this blog know, I will be moving to the care facility in Raalte in eight days. My staff, my husband and I have been doing some preparation in regards to my leaving my current day activities and going to start up in Raalte.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I finally told my mother I’ll be going to the care facility. I sugarcoated it a little, saying I’d be staying at my care agency in Raalte during the week and going home to my husband on week-ends. As a result, at first she wasn’t sure I’d be actually sleeping at the care facility. After a little “but I thought you were doing so well” and all, she wished me good luck at the place.

I am not 100% sure how to feel about it. In a way, this seemingly supportive attitude contradicts my memories from years before and that is hard to adapt to. However, I’m trying to be grateful for her support. I haven’t talked to my father or sister about it yet.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that my sister gave birth to a baby girl, Janneke Sietske, last Tuesday. She is named Janneke after my sister’s and my grandma who died last year and Sietske after one of my brother-in-law’s grandmothers. Janneke had some health issues early on and we haven’t been able to visit yet. We’re planning on visiting her next week though.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that today, my husband and I made some small banana soaps for the staff at day activities. I’ll give them to them on Friday, when I have my leave-taking party.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that my last appoitnment with my nurse practitioner went okay. He has referred me to the mental health agency in Raalte. I haven’t seen the referral letter, but he said he’d written about my trauma but that, for now, here and now work is most appropriate for me. I did try to get it through that ultimately, I do want to process my trauma. I’m not sure that will happen, as most likely I can’t get trauma therapy without at least a C-PTSD diagnosis if not DID/OSDD. Precisely getting my trauma-related issues assessed is a huge trigger for me.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I finally finished The Fault in Our Stars, which I started reading already three weeks ago. I will hopefully be able to finish at least one more book before the end of the month.

What’s been up with you lately?

Blue to the Blind #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday (#SoCS) is “blue”. The idea is to write about the firsst blue object you see when sitting down to write your post. Well, I am blind, so I don’t see anything blue as I sit here to write. I could be writing about things I know to be blue. The sky is blue. The ocean is blue. Or at least, they’re both seen as blue due to the sun’s reflection on them, or something.

I could be writing about my sensory cat, the soft toy I got for my 31st birthday from my sister. I think the cat is blue. It is filled with lavender, which I know is kind of blue too.

How would I describe blue to a person who’s never seen it? I can, at least, having had color perception as a child, still imagine blue in my mind’s eye. Someone born totally blind can’t. I once wrote a post describing the color green to blind people on my old blog. This was a journaling prompt, just so you know that no actual blind person asked me to describe the color green. Which, I should say, I really can’t.

I mean, synesthesia may be able to help. Blue is a “cool” color. It is the color of the number three in my synesthetic perception. Then again, even with synesthesia, everyone’s perception is different, so that wouldn’t make sense.

Interestingly, there are no blue letters in the word “blue” and the overarching color in the word is orange for the letter B.

I wonder now, does my synesthesia always make words look like the color associated with their first letter. I’m not sure, but the word “green”, even though the two E’s are green, isn’t really green overall. It’s more red with a touch of green. The G is red.

Mondays are green too, even though the word “Monday” has no green letters in it. Fridays are blue and yet again, there’s no blue letters in the word. Isn’t that fascinating?

At Every Age

Posted on by Astrid

There’s so much I want to write about, but I can’t get myself to sit down and actually write. Well, sitting down is not the problem, as I’m probably still a pretty sedentary person, but actually writing is.

Today, I”m joining in with Finish the Sentence Friday (#FtSF). This week, the prompt is to write about your (or your child’s or whoever’s) favorite age.

I used to think being younger was better. I don’t really know why. Maybe I was conscious at an early age of the fact that life is finite, so growing up meant getting closer to death. I also thought that growing up meant an increase in responsibility, which scared me from an early age on. After all, I knew from as young as age nine on that I was supposed to leave the house and go to university by eighteen. That’s a huge burden of awareness to carry as a child that young.

Now I think being at every age has its beauty. I do worry that I’m declining in health already, and this is where the sitting down comes in. I really need to get more active, because I know that at every age, you can do something to improve your health and wellbeing.

I also think that, at every age, you can retain or regain some level of childlike wonder. We see this in the alters, who each represent a particular stage in development. Some are grown-up for their age, like Jace, the 9-year-old who was told about going to university and leaving the house. Others are more childlike, like Milou, who is 8-years-old and very playful. We also have an adult, Marieke, who, though she’s 32, enjoys sensory learning and play.

In my fellow clients at day activities, I also see the beauty in every age. They are intellectually disabled, most with a so-called “mental age” under six. Now the concept of “mental age” is highly ableist. However, learning about normal child development can teach us some interesting things about myself and others with developmental disabilities anyway. I was intrigued to read about emotional development as it pertains to people with mild intellectual disability and as it pertains to me in some way too. The consultant psychologist assigned to my case in my care-finding process, said I function emotionally at a 16-month-old level. This explains a lot of why I act the way I do. Interestingly though, we don’t have an alter who identifies with this age.

In short, I think every age and stage in development has its beautiful sides and its ugly sides. Childhood means your parents still have a lot of control over you, but it means you have relatively few responsibilities. Adolescence and young adulthood come with increased responsibility and freedom. I don’t know yet what middle age or old age will bring, but I’m confident I’ll find the beauty in it.

The Daily Four (September 9, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

I am once again joining in with The Daily Four. I am a day late with this one, as I didn’t discover it till nearly 9PM yesterday, which is my usual bedtime. Here are the questions.

What truly motivates you to write?
My readers, I guess. Before I became a blogger, I had an online diary and even when I still kept my diary on my private computer, I always envisioned someone reading it. I rarely write without an audience in mind. It doesn’t mean I get depressed if my posts don’t get (m)any comments, but I delight in finding that people read my work.

Other than that, I’m motivated by an intrinsic will to write. Even in the times of my personal computer diary, I would be proud if I wrote an entry everyday for a certain amount of time. The longest I’ve gone without skipping a day, is probably like three months.

What’s cluttering up your life today and what are you doing about it?
I don’t really know. I’m not one to be bothered by physical clutter easily, probably because I don’t see it and as such, it doesn’t distract me. However, there may also be this thing like mental clutter, where thoughts clutter up your life. That definitely happens to me and I’m not sure it’s a thing, but I’m making it into one. Worries tend to clutter up my life in this way. So does thinking about what I should be doing instead of doing it.

Did you enjoy a creative childhood?
Yes. I was a writer from an early age on. I also enjoyed drawing when I still had enough sight to do it. My mother was the most encouraging of my artistic creativity, but my father encouraged me to think creatively.

Have you ever wanted to write a book or if you have written a book do you feel accomplished for doing so?

Yes! I wanted to be a children’s book author when I grew up and have quite a few unfinished manuscripts. One of them was pretty far along. It was called The Black Queen and was about a teen girl whose mother had multiple sclerosis. I must admit, my stories were full of plagiarism though and not very imaginative.

I still intend on someday writing my autobiography. However, I’m not sure whether I’ll do it, as it requires quite a huge attention span to sit and write a book.

Song Lyric Sunday: Bird in the Sky

Posted on by Astrid

I am once again joining in with Song Lyric Sunday. The prompt this week is Bird/Fly/Sky/Wing. The song I selected fits several of these words.

For today’s theme, I have chosen an oldie from my own country of the Netherlands. Paloma blanca (also called Una paloma blanca) was written by Hans Bouwens (aka George Baker) in 1975 and was popular across Europe and even in the United States. I never quite understood what a palm tree did in the lyrics, until I discovered today that “paloma” means “dove”.

Song Title: Paloma Blanca
Songwriter: Hans Bouwens
Band: George Baker Selection
Release Date: March 22, 1975

When the sun shines on the mountains
And the night is on the run
It’s a new day, it’s a new way
And I fly up to the sun
I can feel the morning sunlight
I can smell the new-born hay
I can hear God’s voices calling
From my golden sky-light way
Una paloma blanca
I’m just a bird in the sky
Una paloma blanca
Over the mountain I fly
No one can take my freedom away
Once I had my share of losing
Once they locked me on a chain
Yes, they tried to break my power
Oh, I still can feel the pain
Una paloma blanca
I’m just a bird in the sky
Una paloma blanca
Over the mountain I fly
No one can take my freedom away

Gratitude List (September 7, 2019) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone! I’ve been wanting to write a lot today, but somehow, I once again couldn’t find the words to write a proper blog post. This week was a good one in some major ways, but it was also a very stressful one. To focus my mind on the positives, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT).

1. The sensory room at day activities. I have been relaxing in it a lot lately. There’s a guy who uses it often, but he was off this past week, so I took full advantage of the available room.

2. Tranquilizers. On Tuesday, I was very irritable. I am so glad that the staff offered to give me my lorazepam and it worked.

3. Great news from the care facility, of course. I got to speak to the behavior specialist and support coordinator, which was good. It was great to hear that I will most likely be moving by September 23.

4. Hearing more about the house we’re buying. We got a go on the mortgage and are now waiting to get the keys.

5. My husband having been able to change the days he’ll be off work. He would originally have the week of September 16 off, but since I’ll be moving to Raalte on the 23rd and we’ll get the keys to our house most likely on the 25th, that wasn’t ideal. My husband will now have the week of the 23rd and the week of the 30th off.

6. Nice food. To celebbrate the great news about my moving to the care facility, my husband got us pizza and a tompouce (a Dutch pastry) on Tuesday. On Thursday, I was stressed, so I bought myself a lot of snack food. Still, I enjoyed it.

7. Horseback riding again. Yesterday marked my first riding lesson after the summer break. I rode Morritz again. I didn’t ask about Angie, the horse I previously often rode, who was injured some six months ago. As the weather was relatively good, we rode our horses outside.

8. My stuffed bear. I had a lot of nightmares and vivid dreams this past week, so I am all the more grateful for the stuffed bear my mother-in-law won for me at an animal shelter event last year. I have a ton of other soft toys, but this one is the biggest.

I am also grateful for the extra duvet my husband laid over me some nights back when he realized before me that I’d otherwise feel cold.

9. Painkillers. I’ve been having a toothache lately and had a headache yesterday. They may or may not be related. And yes, my father-in-law is a dentist, but this makes me more wary of going to the dentist (him) with this. Thankfully, paracetamol has been working.

10. My amazing fellow clients at day activities. A new girl started yesterday. She’s nice. So are the others. Most don’t understand that I’ll be moving, so I haven’t told them yet. I’ll be missing them.

What have you been grateful for lately?

Working On Us Prompt: Family Relationships and Boundaries

Posted on by Astrid

This week’s Working On Us prompt is about relationships and boundaries. I am going to focus in my post on my relationship with my family of origin.

As regular readers know, I don’t have the best relationship with my parents. They are very unsupportive of me regarding my mental health and disabilities in general. They, in short, believe that I refuse to accept my blindness and for that reason, choose to make up my other disabilities, including mental illness, to have an excuse to be different. They say I somehow crave attention and therefore want to manipulate everyone into providing me care.

Well, let me be very clear that I do not choose to be mentally ill or autistic. In part, my mental health issues are in fact trauma-based, having been caused by my parents’ mistreatment of me.

For this reason, I’ve had to set some boundaries with my parents. None of these I voiced towards them yet. I, for example, have them, as well as my sister, on restricted access to my Facebook, which means they don’t get to see posts I set to friends only even though we are technically Facebook friends. My sister is generally less eager to voice her opinion, but she for all I know 100% agrees with my parents. My brother-in-law isn’t really any bad, but I have him on restricted access just in case. When I created this blog, I purposefully didn’t link it to my Facebook, so that my parents and sister are less likely to find it.

Another boundary is not having told my parents or sister that I’m going into long-term care. I am going to officially disclose my going into long-term care on the afternoon or evening of the day I move to the care facility. I have already had a dozen scenarios run through my mind of how they will respond. They may already know, of course, and never have told me in order to keep the peace. They probably don’t know though. In that case, they may decide to estrange themselves from me, or they may try to talk me out of being in long-term care. They may, in the best case scenario, say it’s my choice and my life.

As far as respecting my boundaries, I’ve never set truly firm boundaries with my parents. I may have to soon, in case they want to talk me out of being in long-term care. I may even have to go no contact with them myself.

In case you are wondering who supports me, I do have my lovely husband and his parents. My husband of course will be missing me when I go into long-term care, but he 100% supports me nonetheless.

#IWSG: My Ideal Writing Space

Posted on by Astrid

It is the first Wednesday of September and that means it’s once again time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG) to come together. This past month has been pretty productive with respect to my writing. I also left my comfort zone a little, writing one poem and learning more about writing. I subscribed to a writing-related newsletter at the end of July and have been enjoying my daily dose of inspiration.

This month’s optional question is about your ideal place to write in the world. If you could choose one place in the world to write your next story, what would it be and why? As it is, I write best when in my room, at my own desk. This desk is exactly the right height. I’ve tried writing while sitting at other desks or tables, but they’re either too low or too high. I also need my own chair, which is just about right for me too.

This being said, I have had my desk in various places. I’ve had it in several of my institution rooms. I had it when living independently in 2007. Now, it is in my room in our current house.

I will be taking this desk to the care facility with me when I move. This means I’ll have to use another desk when at my husband’s and my house. I do have another desk that can be made lower or higher. Currently, it is set too low, but I will ask my husband to make it exactly as high as my other desk. That way, I’ll hopefully still be able to write when at our home.

I usually don’t write well when there’s noise around me. I can’t really even write when music is playing in the background. This makes me glad that the staff at the care facility eventually chose the room further down the hall for me.

I like to type on my external Bluetooth keyboard connected to my iPhone. It has to sit on a laptop case or it’s not in the right position in relation to my Braille display or my hands. I can type on my laptop keyboard too, but currently being used to my Bluetooth keyboard, I prefer that.

As you can see, I don’t fancy writing in some type of exotic place, but I do have a lot of requirements for writing comfortably.

Moving to the Care Facility Soon!

Posted on by Astrid

As regular readers of this blog know, I’ve been planning on moving into long-term care for nearly a year. That is, that’s how long it’s taken me to decide I for sure want to apply for long-term care funding, to apply for it, to appeal the decision denying me the funding, to win the appeal and then to find a place. Honestly, this whole journey has been going on much longer. Twelve years ago this month, I told my support coordinator in Nijmegen that I wanted to get into one of their living facilities for people with mobility impairments. Due to my psychiatric hospitalization, this idea got trashed and we ended up looking for places for people with mental illness or “high-functioning” autism. That took many years and was unsuccessful in the end. I got kicked out of the mental hospital in May of 2017 for supposedly wanting to remain institutionalized forever. Well, the psychologist was right in that I feel I need 24-hour care for the rest of my life, but I most definitely didn’t intend on staying in the psychiatric hospital forever. I’d much rather go into a facility for people with developmental disabilities. Thankfully all this time of battling the system that says that an IQ above 85 means you should be pushed towards independence forever, ultimately paid off. I will be moving to the care facility in Raalte on September 23.

The house I will be placed in, has room for twelve residents, divided between two groups of six. There’s always at least two staff in the house during the time the residents are home and awake. During the time we’re supposed to be at the day center, there’s an on-call staff for the entire living facility, but of course there’s staff at the day center. During the night, there’s a sleeping staff at my house, but there’s also a staff who is awake and serves the entire facility.

I will get a room with its own bathroom. This room is a bit further down the hall than the other currently available room, but that room has a shared bathroom. At first, I said I didn’t mind, but the staff warned me that the other clients don’t clean up after themselves. I will get a call button to alert a staff member, so if I can’t get out of the rooom for whatever reason, I can still call the staff if they don’t hear me shouting.

On Thursday, the staff will be discussing what day center group I’ll be placed in. The day center manager did say, after I asked it, that my elliptical can be placed there. They have day activities Monday through Thursday and on alternating Fridays.

They will make sure they have an extra staf available on the 23rd when I move in. They asked my day center’s coordinator whether either she or my support coordinator can come the next day for proper handover.

After a month, we will have a review of how things are going. They made it clear that this is not for the staff to decide I need to be moved out again, but for us to discuss ways the staff could possibly better accommodate me.

I am very excited to go to Raalte! My husband may ask for time off work to move me, especially since this week is also the week we’ll meet with the solicitor for property handover on the house we’re buying. It all is a bit stressful still, but I”m so glad I’ll finally find a place that’s not for independence training or treatment or the like. Finally, I’ll be able to stop merely surviving and start living.

Song Lyric Sunday: Cowboy

Posted on by Astrid

It’s Sunday and that means it’s time for another installment of Song Lyric Sunday. I don’t participate each week, but this week, the theme was easy. For the theme of Cowboy/Gun/Hat/Horse/Western, I am choosing one of the songs on my Country playlist on Spotify. I don’t remember how I first learned about this song, but its meaning definitely speaks to me.

Song Title: Faster Horses (The Cowboy and the Poet)
Singer/Songwriter: Tom T. Hall
Release Date: 1995

He was an old-time cowboy, don’t you understand
His eyes were sharp as razor blades his face was leather tan
His toes were pointed inward from a-hangin’ on a horse
He was an old philosopher, of course
He was so thin I swear you could have used him for a whip
He had to drink a beer to keep his britches on his hips
I knew I had to ask him about the mysteries of life
He spit between his boots and he replied
“It’s faster horses, younger women,
Older whiskey, and more money”
He smiled and all his teeth were covered with tobacco stains
He said, “It don’t do men no good to pray for peace and rain.
Peace and rain is just a way to say prosperity,
And buffalo chips is all it means to me.”
I told him I was a poet, I was lookin’ for the truth
I do not care for horses, whiskey,
Women or the loot I said I was a writer,
My soul was all on fire
He looked at me an’ he said, “You are a liar.”
“It’s faster horses, younger women,
Older whiskey, and more money”
Well, I was disillusioned, if I say the least
I grabbed him by the collar and I jerked him to his feet
There was something cold and shiny layin’ by my head
So I started to believe the things he said
Well, my poet days are over and I’m back to being me
As I enjoy the peace and comfort of reality
If my boy ever asks me what it is that
I have learned I think that I will readily affirm
“It’s faster horses, younger women,
Older whiskey, and more money”
“It’s faster horses, younger women,
Older whiskey, and more money”