Flash Fiction: The Journey Home

Posted on by Astrid

As Kevin was boarding the bus, Lauren by his side, he knew he was heading back to the one place he hoped – or had told himself he hoped – he’d never have to see again. He recognized the bus driver – same one who’d driven the bus back on that evening so many years ago. Kevin hoped the bus driver wouldn’t recognize him. He was filled with intense shame having to be on this bus and being confronted with the same bus driver, didn’t help that. However, he had to face his monster now and go back and ask his parents for forgiveness.

Five years ago, Kevin had been on this same bus headed in the other direction. After a massive fight with his parents – over drugs, of course -, they had kicked him out of their house. In a massive breakdown, Kevin had threatened suicide while on this very bus. The driver had called the police and Kevin was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Thankfully, he had gotten his life together eventually. After a short stay in the mental hospital, he was released to an outreach-based addiction rehab program. He had had his relapses, but was now roughly eighteen months clean. He had a steady job, rented a little apartment and had the cutest dog in the whole wide world. Moreover, he had Lauren now. And now that he had proposed to her and she had said “Yes”, it was time to finally make amends.

This piece of flash fiction was written for Fandango’s Story Starter #97. As regular readers of my blog will know, it has some autobiographical elements: I at one point (over fifteen years ago) threatened suicide on a bus and was, on a separate occasion, kicked out of my parents’ house. However, the rest is purely fictional.

Book Review: I Want My Daddy by Casey Watson

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I haven’t been reading as much as I’d like to, but I did finally finish another book. It’s Casey Watson’s latest foster care memoir, I Want My Daddy. As regular readers of my blog know, I love memoirs and particularly inspirational memoirs such as these. Casey Watson is a foster carer in the UK and, in a series of books, writes about the children she’s fostered over the years, of course taking care to protect their privacy. For this reason, she writes under a pseudonym. I Want My Daddy came out last month and I ordered it off Apple Books right away.

Summary

A 5-year-old boy, Ethan, is brought to Casey in the middle of the night after the sudden death of his young mother after a drug overdose. Estranged from her parents, Ethan’s mum had been abused by her ex-partner, and began taking drugs to cope. Ethan is obviously lost and bewildered, and regularly wakes up screaming for his mum in the night. He begins to lash out at other kids at school and his behaviour becomes more volatile. When arrangements are made for Ethan to see his dad in prison, Casey recognises the name and face… It turns out she’s far more familiar with this case than first imagined.

My Review

Initially, the book dragged a bit with Ethan hardly talking, seeming pretty normal if in shock, and yet the school having stuck tons of labels onto him because of his struggles. I couldn’t quite grasp what was going on with Ethan, other than him obviously having lost his mother. Tragic as this is, having read the entire book, I think I can safely say that Ethan is quite a resilient boy.

Eventually, once I found out what caused Casey to be far more familiar with the case than she’d previously expected – something I won’t spoil here, but it wasn’t what I expected -, the story moved more quickly.

Like in most of her books, Casey never makes the people involved look all evil, no matter the bad things they did to the children she cares for. This is especially true in this book. Repeatedly, Casey says, it is not the mother or father she condemns, but drugs.

I didn’t realize until the end that this was in fact a pretty heartwarming story. I tell you this, so that those who can handle a bit of drama but want a happily-ever-after, know this story might be for them too. With me assuming Ethan was a recent foster child of Casey’s, I cannot be sure whether it indeed turned out this way long-term.

Overall, I really liked this book, but not as much as some of Casey’s other memoirs, and I gave it a four-star rating on Goodreads.

Book Details

Title: I Want My Daddy
Author: Casey Watson
Publisher: HarperElement
Publication Date: April 13, 2023

TGIF: Twenty-Two Degrees!

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining Paula Light for #TGIF, an opportunity to ramble.

Today, let me share about the weather. It’s been okay most of the week with some rain, some clouds and occasionally a bit of sunshine and temperatures rising to about 16°C. That’s cold for May if you ask me. Now I’m no weather expert, so I have no idea what constitutes normal weather for May, but it feels like it should be almost summer-like.

Which, today, it is. The daytime temperature reached 22°C. Well-known Dutch meteorologist Erwin Kroll, who would do the weather forecast on public television in the late 1980s and 1990s and is therefore my face of the weather, once told an interviewer on the audio magazine for blind children that this was his favorite temperature. After all, at 22°C, you can both sit still and move around without getting cold or hot respectively. I love this temperature too, though my ideal temperature is slightly warmer.

I once again wore my blue, flowery skirt that I also wore last week, along with the same blue shirt. In the evening, I changed into shorts, because I was going on the stationary bike. I had also gone for three walks today, so up till this point have nearly two hours of active minutes on my Apple Watch. I intend to still dance some, because I feel compelled to double my movement goal once again.

In other health news, I stepped onto the scale on Wednesday and I finally reached a truly healthy BMI. Yes, you heard me correct, this time it’s not nearly, but actually. Even though my dietitian tells me I no longer need to lose weight and has been telling me so for a while, I’d love to still lose a few pounds. That being said, I understand the dietitian’s logic: with my history of bulimic tendencies, it’s easy to fall into that trap again and a healthy lifestyle is more important than an ideal weight. The last time I was at a healthy BMI, was back when I got married in 2011, but then again back then I engaged in purging behaviors quite a lot too. I never, ever want to go back there.

I do need to make sure exercising doesn’t become compulsive either. That being said, that’s not as likely to happen as my body just can’t go on forever. Then again, actually listening to my body – challenging it when it needs to be challenged beyond its comfort zone and giving it a rest when it needs to rest -, is quite hard. I am working on this though.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (May 10, 2023)

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Hi everyone. I’m joining in with the Wednesday HodgePodge once again. Here goes.

1. Did you watch the coronation of King Charles III? Share some of your thoughts about that, or about the royal family in general.
No, didn’t watch it and don’t care for the royal family at all. I honestly am more on Harry and Meghan’s side if I have to choose one. Not that I know much about the entire situation leading up to them being the black sheep, but there are always two sides to a family split-up and everyone seems to side with Charles, William and Catherine. Being that I’m old enough to remember Diana, albeit not very well, this tells me Charles himself is far from perfect and he hardly seems to acknowledge it.

2. What are you the uncrowned queen of?
Here at my home, I’m the uncrowned queen of smoothie making. Sadly, the blender died and the staff think a stick mixer works as well (which it doesn’t), so I’m waiting for my benefits to arrive on the 23rd so that I can buy a new blender.

3. In a box of chocolates which one do you usually go for?
Coffee cream. I also love caramel and anything with nuts in it.

4. Something learned at your mother’s knee?
I’m not sure what this expression means, but if it means something I learned from my mother as a child, I’ll go with my love of crafts and simple food prep. My mother would often help my sister and me bake cookies. Though I haven’t done that in years, it does probably translate into my love of smoothie making.

5. “Like mother, like daughter”…in what way is this saying true for you?
The first thing that comes to mind is a negative one: both of us have really poor distress tolerance. However, both of us are also somewhat creative. We also look somewhat similar: both of us are short, both of us on the curvy side, both with dark hair. My mother has brown eyes though, while mine are blue.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I am currently reading I Want My Daddy, the latest foster care memoir by Casey Watson. So far, it’s good. It has an intriguing twist that I didn’t expect.

Hello Monday (May 8, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. My weekend was quite good, if a little hectic. I thought I’d share about it. I am linking up with Hello Monday.

On Saturday, I had a temp worker who was here for the first time as my one-on-one staff for most of the morning shift. Thankfully, I got along with him okay. This did mean I didn’t feel comfortable going on a walk, let alone working with clay or other crafty things. I did play a game of Yahtzee with a fellow resident in the morning. My weighted blanket was also finally put in the washing machine. I was a little worried that putting it in the dryer would damage it, but the staff told me he knew what he was doing. Thankfully, once I got back from Lobith on Sunday, I found out it was still intact.

In the afternoon, I got a new temp worker once again, but thankfully my spouse was here almost as soon as the evening shift started, so I didn’t have to deal with the temp worker long. We drove to my spouse’s and my house in Lobith, picking up groceries and Domino’s pizza along the way. I had the hot and spicy pizza with pepperoni, bell peppers, onions and jalapeños.

Because I hadn’t been walking all day on Saturday, I decided to do some dancing in the evening. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have reached my movement goal on my Apple Watch and I didn’t want to cheat by lowering it yet again (and I certainly didn’t want to break my 250-odd day streak).

On Sunday, we visited my in-laws for a bit. My mother-in-law and I went for a 40-minute walk through the village. In the evening, when I once again had a temp worker, but thankfully a somewhat familiar one, I went for two more 40-minute walks. Then, because I could, I danced some more. I finally doubled my movement goal on my Apple Watch for the first time in half a year.

Yesterday evening, I had a bit of an issue with my sister. I invited her to my birthday at the end of June, thinking that if I invited her now she would have plenty of time to make sure she actually could make it on one of the days my spouse and I are available. She got upset, because her and my youngest niece’s birthdays are first (this Saturday and on the 19th, respectively). She tried to ask me whether we would come over for her birthday too, which on the surface seems reasonable. However, being that she has both this weekend and the weekend after that planned pretty full with other family and, besides, we don’t do last-minute planning for trips that are this long (my sister and her family live over two hours away), I decided against it. According to my sister, the way it “works” in our family is everyone knows when our birthdays are and is welcome to come by, so it wasn’t like she should have invited me. Being the people pleaser that I am, I actually almost let her persuade me to allow her to ask her in-laws, whom I barely know, to pick me up when they would be visiting them on the 18th. Thankfully, my spouse intervened and told me that would be really unwise, since what if I have a meltdown either on the trip or when with my sister’s family? Finally, thankfully, it turned out she wasn’t really expecting us, but was just upset that I’d mentioned my birthday this close to hers. I can see her point.

Yesterday, as a side note, was my partner’s and my fifteenth anniversary of being a couple. I really feel pleased that we decided to “call it a relationship”back on May 7, 2008. We’ve overcome quite a few hurdles in those fifteen years, but I’m so happy that we’re stronger than ever together!

Gratitude List (May 6, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this first Saturday of May. I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT) for a gratitude post today. Here we go.

1. I am grateful for a trip to buy some new plants for in our care home garden last Saturday. One of the student staff had been planning on us having a vegetable garden here. While that’s not exactly gone to plan, we do have a few flower beds and some space for vegetables too. I loved helping pick out the first few flowers and plants.

2. I am thankful for new duvet covers. My husband last week told me he needed new ones for our bed in Lobith. Too bad twin bed duvet covers don’t come in cute colors, but those for my single bed do. I got one with rainbows on it and one with butterflies on it.

3. I am grateful for sleep. I have been able to sleep reasonably well over the past couple of days.

4. I am grateful for some success with physical therapy. The physical therapist came by on Wednesday to try to do some yoga exercises with me in order to help me loosen up my muscles. It was hard but rewarding. I am grateful my assigned staff said I can have a staff member with me during physical therapy even when it’s not during my allocated activity time.

5. I am grateful for nice weather on Thursday. We hit 20°C for the first time this year that day.

6. I am grateful for no thunderstorms that I was aware of yesterday. A lot of rain, hail and thunder had been predicted, but thankfully I was indoors when it rained and, insofar as we got any thunder at all, it was far enough away not to make me startle.

7. I am thankful for a lot of compliments on my skirt and shirt that I wore on Thursday. These aren’t really suited to the colder months (unless I find panties or leggings that will go with the skirt, but I only have black panties now). Most clients really liked my outfit. I bought both the skirt and shirt relatively recently.

8. I am grateful for ice cream. On Thursday, two staff took me and another resident to Deventer, the nearest city, to get ice cream. We originally intended to go to a place that’s supposedly really good, but couldn’t find a space to park near there, so decided to go to Talamini, an ice cream chain that’s good too. I had caramel and Kinder Bueno, a candy bar flavor, on a cone. Unfortunately, I did get the ice cream all over my skirt, shirt and into my hair.

9. I am grateful to have been supported by my assigned staff more than usual lately. She also makes it clear that it isn’t like she’d been avoiding me, but that, with all the chaos and crises among other clients and her being a regular employee here, it just isn’t always possible for her to support me regularly.

10. I am thankful I haven’t lost all hope yet. Sometimes, it feels like it, but I am glad I can still appreciate the little things in life.

How I’ve Focused My Attention and Energy on What Is Missing As an Enneagram Type Four

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I’ve been meaning to write more, seriously. There’s a lot on my mind, but somehow I can’t find the words to express myself. To get started, I chose a prompt from the Enneagram-based journaling prompts book I own for my type. As those who’ve read about me and the Enneagram before will know, I’m a type Four or the “romantic individualist”. The first prompt for my type in this book asks me how I’ve focused my attention and energy on what is missing.

On the surface, this seems to resonate with me, in that I’m always looking to improve my situation even when I’m relatively content. I don’t mean right now – right now I’m far from relatively content. However, back when I was in my former care home, honestly I had it pretty good and even so I was focusing on what was missing. In that case, this was, among other things, a sheltered institution environment. I badly wanted to live on institution grounds and completely lost sight of what I would lose if I took the leap to move here. And that was a lot.

In a sense, focusing on what’s missing isn’t necessarily bad. It allows a person to consider steps to improve their life. For instance, something I’ve often missed is to be a more contributing participant in my care home. Today, my assigned staff and I were discussing my birthday and I mentioned wanting to help cook the meal one of the weekend days (the staff only cook homemade meals on weekends now) around my birthday. She told me this doesn’t need to wait till my birthday and we now have a plan for me to help cook köfte for the home next week.

Often, in this sense, a wish to improve my life starts with something I’m missing. At other times, it starts the other way around, with an impulsive idea to buy something only for me to realize later on that something I feel I’m lacking in is underneath this impulsive idea. An example is my former assigned staff at my old care home having mentioned the idea of me getting a mini fridge. I got all excited, started thinking up ideas, but eventually it turned out I was missing certain supports.

As an Enneagram type Four, I am always longing for something. In this respect, the idea that I’m “always dissatisfied”, as my staff think, is sort of correct. That doesn’t mean I need to settle for something that’s absolutely unsuitable, like my current care home, though. Yes, I took the leap, but that doesn’t in itself mean I am forever stuck here. I am hoping that, if I ever find a place to live that is slightly less unsuitable than my current care home, I can stop chasing the ideal and start embracing what’s missing as an opportunity for growth in myself as much as for improvement in the situation.

Linking up with #PoCoLO and #SpreadTheKindness.

Currently (May 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I remember joining in with Currently every once in a while way back many years ago, but then the person who used to host the meme discontinued it and I never found it again. Now, I’ve rediscovered it. The Currently linky is a meme in which we share what we’re currently up to based on five monthly verb prompts. Here goes.

Loving:
First up is smoothie making. I am loving experimenting with ingredients, such as instant coffee and cocoa powder. One smoothie, in which I added just a little (or a lot!) too much instant coffee, turned out rather bad. One of my fellow residents still claimed she loved it though. We’re not officially allowed to give each other things, but since I just can’t make just one smoothie serving and she’s the one who enjoys my smoothies most, I make sure to consider her first when I have some left over.

Next are my tactile dice. I had and probably still have them at my and my husband’s house in Lobith but they’re probably down in some junk closet, so I decided to order new ones. I have been loving playing the game of yahtzee with the same fellow resident.

Picturing:
I will be going clothes shopping with my staff tomorrow and am kind of imagining how that will be going, both positively and negatively.

Craving:
I just had lunch when I started writing this post, so nothing at that moment. Now that I’m finishing up this post at 3PM, I’m craving white chocolate. I just hit my lowest weight since my wedding (in 2011) this morning and am really pleased with it though.

Wishing:
To find a more suitable care home. It’s been really hectic here at my current care home and I’m pretty sure the powers-that-be are testing my limits. For those visiting from the linky: I reside at a care home for people with mild intellectual disability and significant challenging behavior. I am supposed to get one-on-one support for most of the day, but this often doesn’t happen because others need or are supposed to need more care. I finally got the okay to be looking for another care home last March, but of course this can be a long process.

Collecting:
Smoothie recipes, of course. I downloaded several smoothie recipe collection books off Bookshare, the accessible book service for the blind or dyslexic. I don’t have all the ingredients for any one smoothie, unfortunately, but like I said, I’m trying to experiment.

Share Your World (May 1, 2023)

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Hi everyone. I’m really wanting to continue my blogging streak and, even though I have a lot I could still write about, I don’t feel like writing a long blog post. Instead, I’m joining Share Your World. Here goes.

1. The First of May is a Bee Gees Song.

Do you like the Bee Gees and if so, what is your favourite track?
I had to look up the group on Spotify to know what they produced, but my hunch was I couldn’t stand them. Indeed, they’re the ones behind Stayin’ Alive, More Than a Woman and other equally annoyingly-sung tracks. So no, I’m not a fan.

2. What was the first record (single or album) you bought?
I would like to say an A-Teens (ABBA cover band) album, as that’s what I listened to most, but probably it was the 1999 album Urban Solitude by Anouk.

3. Do you know what was top of the charts the day you were born?
I had to look it up and checked the number one in the top 40 for my birth week in the Netherlands too just to make sure it wasn’t completely different. It was On My Own by Patti Labelle and Michael Mcdonald. It’s another song I cannot stand.

4. Do you and your partner have a “special tune”?
No, not at this point. Our taste in music tends to develop together though: when we first were dating, we were both into Irish folk. Then came Tom Lehrer. Then followed German schlager and truck driving songs. Then punk (or that was before the schlager and trucking songs, I can’t remember). Then more recently country. Now we’re both into pop. I am more into dance too, as I don’t really listen to music just for its lyrics.

Gratitude:
Music has no hidden agenda, it can inspire, soothe and calm.
I agree wholeheartedly, although I must say people can misuse the idea of music. I mean, staff often tell me to “just” put on some music when I’m distressed. It can definitely help and I won’t deny that, but it’s no cure-all.

To end this post on a positive note, I am going to share one of my favorite songs to dance to.

ZZZ: Sleep Issues in People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Almost every year, my final post in the #AtoZChallenge is about sleep or “ZZZ”. This year is no different.

Sleep problems can affect anyone, disabled or not. However, sleep disorders, including sleep apnea (sleep-related breathing disorder) and insomnia, are more common among people with intellectual disabilities than among the general population. In fact, one review found that as many as 31% of adults with intellectual disability experienced more than one sleep problem. More severely intellectually disabled individuals, those with certain genetic syndromes and those with comorbid neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, are at particularly increased risk of having more sleep disturbances.

Sleep problems can cause physical and mental health problems in intellectually disabled people just like in the general population. However, they can also contribute to challenging behavior.

There are many factors associated with sleep problems in intellectually disabled people. For example, those with comorbid autism and/or ADHD are at increased risk of having sleep disturbances. Those with certain genetic syndromes, too, may experience certain sleep disorders. I mentioned sleep apnea already in my post on Down Syndrome. People with Smith-Magenis Syndrome, on the other hand, often experience an inverted circadian rhythm.

Environmental factors also need to be considered. For instance, a care home may not be ideal for people with intellectual disabilities to sleep properly due to for example night staff checking on them frequently. This does not happen here. What happens here rather frequently is the reverse, staff leaving clients to “rest” in a sensory room or their bedroom during the day.

The management of sleep disorders in people with intellectual disabilities is somewhat similar to that in the general population. However, more care should be taken to rule out medical conditions such as epilepsy or sleep apnea as the cause for poor sleep. The only medication which is somewhat effective for sleep issues in intellectually disabled people, is melatonin.

Now it’s 10PM and I’m ready for bed myself, I guess.