Book Review: Finding Stevie by Cathy Glass

Posted on by Astrid

I bought Finding Stevie, Cathy Glass’ most recently published book, already shortly after it first came out in early March. However, I had a ton of books on my reading list, so I didn’t immediately start it. Then it took me a while to finish it, because I got distracted. Last Sunday I finally finished it, but didn’t feel like writing a review yet. I was having a bad cold and didn’t feel like writing much at all. Now my cold is gone, so I can write the review.

Synopsis

Finding Stevie is a dark and poignant true story that highlights the dangers lurking online.

When Stevie’s social worker tells Cathy, an experienced foster carer, that Stevie, 14, is gender fluid she isn’t sure what that term means and looks it up.

Stevie, together with his younger brother and sister, have been brought up by their grandparents as their mother is in prison. But the grandparents can no longer cope with Stevie’s behaviour so they place him in care.

Stevie is exploring his gender identity, and like many young people he spends time online. Cathy warns him about the dangers of talking to strangers online and advises him how to stay safe. When his younger siblings tell their grandmother that they have a secret they can’t tell, Cathy is worried. However, nothing could have prepared her for the truth when Stevie finally breaks down and confesses what he’s done.

My Review

I at first had some trouble getting through the first few chapters. I was curious what Stevie’s secret might be and didn’t find out till almost midway through the book. Then, I worried until nearly the end that the book might not end on a positive note. It seemed to drag on a bit, but eventually, I couldn’t help but love this book.

As the book carried on, I grew sympathetic towards every character. For example, Fred, Stevie’s grandfather, is very blunt and doesn’t accept Stevie’s gender identity at first. He reminded me of my own father, having very strong opinions that he wouldn’t let go of despite the evidence. However, in the end it is clear that Fred too loves his grandson.

Book Details

Title: Finding Stevie: A Dark Secret. A Child in Crisis.
Author: Cathy Glass
Publisher: HarperElement
Publication Date: February 21, 2019

Sunshine Blogger Award Again

Posted on by Astrid

Yay, I was nominated for a blog award again. Jill from Food, Feelings, Freedom nominated me for a Sunshine Blogger Award. I had already been nominated for this award about eight months ago, but am so happy for another award nomination. The idea of this award is that Jill poses eleven questions, which I have to answer. Then, I get to nominate eleven more bloggers and ask them eleven questions. Here are Jill’s questions.

1. What do you do when you’re having a bad day?

It depends. When I’m having a bad day, I mostly feel like sleeping, but I try to do other things to cheer myself up too.

2. What is one thing you are most proud of?

My writing abilities.
3. Do you have any pets? Want any?

Yes, my husband and I have a cat named Barry. I’d someday love to have a dog too.
4. What are three values you consider most important?

Respect, kindness, honesty. I think I got this question sometime a few months ago too, but can’t remember where I answered it, so I cannot look up whether I said the same then.
5. What are some of your hobbies?

Writing, reading, using the Internet.
6. What is one thing you would tell your childhood self?

Follow your heart! In other words, don’t do what others expect you to do if it doesn’t align with your feelings.
7. What is your favourite quotation?

I like many quotes, both funny and inspirational. My favorite quote is by Madeleine L’Engle and is about the fact that, the richer a character, the fuller of contradiction it is.
8. Where do you see yourself (what do you hope for your future) in 5 years?
I hope I’ll be living in a supported housing placement, doing day activities I like (at my current place maybe).
9. What is your biggest fear?
I guess abandonment.
10. What aspect of your life are you currently working on? (Work? Personal? Health?)
Mental health and finding an appropriate living situation.
11. What is a risk you took that paid off?
I don’t really know right now.

I am late writing this post, as Jill nominated me last week. I am also having a nasty cold as I write this, so I’m not up for a big challenge. For this reason, I originally didn’t intend on nominating anyone specifically. I thought for a bit that I should do it anyway, as leaving the nomination open seems annoying to me. However, screw it. I’m nominating the first eleven WordPress bloggers to see this post. Here are my questions for you.

  1. What is your biggest achievement in life?
  2. If you were to choose a college major now, which would you choose?
  3. Are you more a cat person, a dog person or maybe you’re a rattlesnake person?
  4. What’s your favorite color?
  5. Have you ever been to a farm?
  6. Are you a city, small town or rural area person?
  7. What is your taste in music like?
  8. How old were you when you spoke your first word?
  9. Where do you see yourself five years from now?
  10. What is your favorite mythical character?
  11. How long have you been blogging?

Mental Health Ramble

Posted on by Astrid

The month of May is mental health awareness month. I’m not sure how much I can contribute to it. In fact, I only found out about it today. Since I have a cold right now, I really don’t feel like writing. Or really, I do, but my brain is too foggy I can’t come up with a coherent topic to write on. So I’m just going to ramble.

Since it’s mental health awareness month, I could share my story of how I found out I’m mentally ill. Then again, I honestly don’t know. Autism, which was my first diagnosis, isn’t a mental illness. Adjustment disorder, which I got diagnosed with upon my breakdown in 2007, isn’t really either. Thank goodness, it still qualified me for care back then. Since insurance coverage of care is diagnosis-based in the Netherlands, and adjusmtnet disorder is no longer covered, I wouldn’t have been able to get care with just that diagnosis later on. In this sense, it’s good that I was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and PTSD in 2010, then borderline personality disorder in 2013.

I am not even 100% sure I identify with mental illness myself. It’s really weird. If I were mentally ill, wouldn’t I need therapy? I don’t get any unless you count the meetings with my nurse practitioner every few weeks.

I don’t feel able to ask for more help on my own accord, even though I’m pretty sure I need it. I have been having a ton of weird symptoms lately and, though I’m getting by, is this really all there is to it?

I had a physical check-up at the mental health agency last February. I have a ton of issues that could be related to my mental health and/or the medication I take for it. Yes, despite the fact that I don’t even know whether I am currently diagnosed with anything other than autism, I take high doses of an antipsychotic and antidepressant. I don’t mind, but I do feel they need regular monitoring.

My psychiatrist would’ve seen me in March, at least that’s what she intended on in December. I still haven’t seen her. I do need to schedule an appt, but I’ve been taught through my years in the mental hospital that, unless you are a pain in the neck of others, there’s no need for you to see your treatment provider. I challenged this belief last year by scheduling an appot for my depression, but I”m not sure I can do it again.

#IWSG: Post-A2Z Ramblings

Posted on by Astrid
IWSG

And yay, it’s May! It’s time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG) day again. As you may have noticed, I didn’t write for the past few days. As such, I didn’t finish the A to Z Challenge. I am still thinking of doing at least the letter Z post, for which I have a cool theme.

The reason I didn’t finish A to Z is that, on Saturday, when I was supposed to do the letter X post, I was off to my parents’ all day. I didn’t get home till past 11PM and, though I had my phone with me, I didn’t really have time to write at my parents’. That’s a good thing in a way, in that I didn’t feel the need to retreat. Usually I do feel that need, as I find conversing in general and with my parents in particular challenging. Now, not so.

I had a good visit with my parents. No hard questions. We did discuss my life a bit, but mostly it was about my premature birth and what has become of my treating neonatologist. I think I mentioned in my letter Q post that I wasn’t even sure he’s still alive. Well, he is, as he’s still a member of the Dutch Pediatric Society. I assume he no longer practises as a doctor though.

Then on Sunday, I felt just too tired to write. If it had been an easier letter I’d have to write on, I might’ve found the motivation to catch up that day, still giving me two days to complete my letter Y and Z posts. Well, it didn’t happen. Then on Monday, I spent the day at day activities and then was off to my in-laws. Yesterday, I started to write a different post, but got frustrated with my Mac and iPhone again, so I didn’t write then either.

My husband encourages me to finish the challenge late, so that at least I have some sense of succeeding rather than feel I failed the challenge yet again. I understand his point of view, but I have several other posts I want to write. So, we’ll see.

Who Am I Right Now?: Exploring My Identities #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day 23 in the #AtoZChallenge. I had a topic for my W post in mind for a few weeks, but then wasn’t sure whether to pick that one. I am doing so anyway. Today, I am exploring the things that make me me. My “identities” can, of course, refer to my alters too, but I covered that topic in my letter M post already. Today, I am exploring my different roles.

I am a daughter. My parents are still both alive. I was a granddaughter (and some would say I still am), though my last living grandparent died in 2018. I am a sister and an aunt-to-be, since my sister is 20 weeks pregnant.

I am a wife. I have been together with my husband nearly 11 years and married over seven. My husband is by far the most important person in my life. Through him, I am also a daughter-in-law and sister-in-law. My mother-in-law is the second most important person currently involved in my life.

I am a blogger. I’ve had one blog or another ever since 2007 and really have been an online writer since 2002. I am also an author, though I’ve had only one small piece published in an anthology. It makes me proud nonetheless.

I am an advocate. Though I don’t engage in as much activism as I used to about ten years ago, I still consider myself a disability, mental health and autistic rights advocate.

I am a believer. Though I subscribe to “something-ism”, it does help me to feel connected to a higher power.

I am mentally ill. I am autistic. I am blind. I am multiply-disabled. I am a benefits claimant. I am a service user at a day center for people with intellectual disabilities.

These last few identities may be the most defining of me when I tend to introduce myself. That’s why I listed them last here. I need to learn to focus on the others.

Voice: Expressing Myself Through This Blog #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcoem to the letter V post in the #AtoZChallenge. This letter was very hard. No topic came to mind spontaneously, except for “vision loss”, which I already covered in my letter B post. So I looked at a book of journaling prompts which has, among other things, a prompt for each letter of the alphabet. The prompt for V was “Voice”. The attached question was to write about something you’ve always wanted to tell someone. I am instead going to write about the way I use this blog to express myself.

When I started this blog, I intended for it to be as free and open as a public place on the Internet could be. I didn’t want to feel limited by beliefs about what should be blog-worthy. In a way, I wanted this blog to be as authentic as my first online diary was, before I knew the impact of sharing stuff online. I would, of course, take care to avoid using people’s real names – something I didn’t do back then -, but I would not keep much hidden to prevent getting criticism.

Now, nine months on, I must say I reached this goal most of the time. Of course, there are still things I don’t share on here, but those are things that shouldn’t go on the Internet at all mostly. Like, I don’t go about describing an argument I had with my husband. In this sense, it is good that my blog isn’t like my first online diary, in which I did describe every argument with my parents.

I still do care a little about the quality of my posts, but that’s not bad. I mean, maybe I wish I were as open as some of my online friends are on their blogs, sharing stuff I share in small E-mail groups on here. That probably won’t happen. My inner critic is too harsh for that, and I don’t even know whether that’s a bad thing.

Unusual Interests: Calendar Calculation and More #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day 21 in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I will be writing about my unusual interests. You see, like many autistic people, I tend to have interests that are intense and unusual in focus.

As a child, I was advanced for my age in math. When I was around six, my father taught me to do square and squareroot calculations. He used a set of squares (which were really computer chips) to teach me, laying three in one row and then squaring it to nine. I loved this.

When I was eight and the kids in my class were doing multiplication tables, this would be boring to me, as I had all tables from one to twelve memorized already. To make the activity useful for me anyway, I chose to start with the table of nineteen. Don’t ask me why I skipped thirteen to eighteen, but I did.

When I was a bit older still, I taught myself to do calendar calculation. Most people not familiar with autism I encounter have never even heard of that skill, which is a common savant skill in autistics. It involves calculating on what day a certain date falls. Usually, this skill is presumed to be memory-based, but I actually knew the rules for doing it. I also learned about the change from Julian to Gregorian calendar in 1582 and took those ten days that were skipped into account when working with dates before then. I have a newspaper article from late 1999, which I still treasure, titled something like “the fight about time” in Dutch. It explained why the year 4000, unlike other centennial years divisible by 400, shouldn’t be a leap year. How fascinating!

Later, I developed other “unusual” special interests. For example, I used to draw maps when I was around ten or eleven. I always drew Italy, though I knew a lot about topography in general.

When I was in the psychiatric hospital and touring potential supported housing places, I had no idea about their location, except which trains and buses to use to get there. I wasn’t as good with topography anymore. I at one point had most bus routes in my province memorized from Wikipedia.

Travel: My Most Enjoyable Vacation #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day 20 in the #AtoZChallenge. I am feeling a bit frustrated with myself at the moment and as a result not as inspired to write. I hope this mood will lift while I’m in the process of writing this post. Today’s topic is travel. I was inspired to write about this by a nightmare I had last night, which was about a summer camp I attended in Russia in 2000. I don’t want to revisit that right now, so will instead be writing about my most enjoyable vacation.

This was, incidentally, also a summer camp. I attended the International Computer Camp for blind and visually impaired students in England in 2002. Because of my negative experiences with the summer camp in Russia, I had my reservations about going to this camp. Of course, this time I wouldn’t be the only blind person, but I still worried that I wouldn’t fit in.

The computer camp was held at a college for the blind in Loughborough, a town in the East Midlands. For this reason, we also took a trip to the West Midlands to see the Black Country museum or that’s what I remember it being called. This was something about the industrialization of England, but I wasn’t able to follow it much.

For most days, we had two workshops we could attend on computers and technology. I at the time had just discovered the Internet and was excited to learn what cool tech there was out there. I attended some workshops on word processing, but also on music and audio. I was also lucky enough to be on the editorial staff for the camp newspaper. I loved this and this was probably one reason I later began an online diary.

The staff worked at various disability agencies in their respective countries. One person I remember well worked at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. He helped visually impaired students find their way through college. He taught a workshop on studying abroad, though it was more of a general survival skills for blind students workshop. This was perhaps the best experience I had there. It helped me realize that I wasn’t the only blind person out there trying to follow her dreams.

This was also the general message I took home from the camp: I am not alone. I met lots of blind and visually impaired young people from across Europe who were facing the same issues I was.

I returned to the international computer camp in 2003, this time in Switzerland. I liked that a little less, possibly because the Dutch staff who attended this time were a bit more pushy about my independence. I still enjoyed it though.

Soap: The Fun of Bath and Body Product Making #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

The First Soap I Made

Welcome to day 19 in the #AtoZChallenge. I’m so excited to share today’s topic, as for today, I will be talking about a special interest of mine.

In the summer of 2016, I discovered soap making. An online friend of mine, who is also blind, had been doing it for years, but I hadn’t given it much thought. Then I decided to buy a starter kit. It contained melt and pour soap base, colorants, fragrance oils, a mold and other supplies you would need. I went about making my first soaps and they turned out okay. I need to say here that I’d tried a ton of other crafting hobbies before, including card making, polymer clay and jewelry making. Though my jewelry turned out okay’ish too, all my other craft projects turned out rubbish. I didn’t notice it at first, so I had some reservations re my soap making too.

The good thing about soap making, is that the result, even if it isn’t visually appealing, can be used. I have several soaps that were too bad for gifting, but I use them in my bathroom.

I cannot make soap completely independently (yet). I have tried, but then my kitchen became a huge mess. However, my soaps usually turn out pretty good if I get some help.

Besides soap, I’ve made body butters and lip balms. I like making those too, but they’re more work. I’ve also tried my hand at body lotions, but they never turned out good. I still would love to make those someday, as their visual appearance isn’t as important as with soaps.

The friend I mentioned above doesn’t use colorants in her soaps. I am still figuring out how to work this thing out, as white soaps don’t appeal as much to sighted people, but with colorants, you have to be careful to match the color and fragrance. I’ve made a few big mistakes in this respect, including a purple soap with coffee fragrance.

Share Your World (April 22, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

For the first time in a long while, I’m once again participating in Share Your World. Today’s questions are very interesting.

I tried to write this post on my Mac, as I cannot copy the questions on my iPhone. I finally however decided to continue on my phone, as the WordPress editor is hard to use on the computer.

1. Was the last thing you read digital or print?
Digital. I am blind, so cannot read standard print. I rarely read Braille either, although I recently received a Braille letter.
2. Are you more an extrovert or introvert?
Introvert for sure. I definitely am not energized by a lot of interaction. I also prefer a few deep friendships to having a lot of acquaintances. That being said, online I can be more of an extravert.
3. How is your life different from what you imagined as a younger person?
Very. I am not sure there’s any resemblance, in fact. As a teen, I imagined being some type of university professor when I’d grow up. I for sure didn’t imagine doing day activities at a center for people with intellectual disabilities. I also didn’t imagine having a husband. The only thing I did imagine at the time was being a writer. I didn’t know about blogs at the time, but did know about online diaries. My online diary gradually morphed into my first blog.
4. Do you think about dying? Does death scare you?  Why or why not?

Yes, of course I think about it sometimes. I saw a man shortly before his death last January at day activities (a fellow client) and this did make me acutely aware of the finiteness of life. Death doesn’t really scare me, although sometimes it does.

Additional Gratitude Bonus Question:  Who has been the kindest to you in your life?

My husband. He loves me despite the fact that I can be quite blunt and a pain in the arse to be around.