Things I Do at Day Activities

Posted on by Astrid

This is my third attempt at writing a blog post for today. I started writing a random ramble, then started sharing ways to relax. While writing about that, I noticed I was explaining all about the snoezelen® room at day activities. I then wanted to write more about things I do at day activities. So here goes.

Usually, I start the day with a cup of coffee. The staff drink coffee in the central area of the day center before the clients arrive, and since I usually arrive early, they offer me a cup too.

Then, when I go to my group’s room, the other clients arrive and the staff help them unzip their coats. They also read the other clients’ diary, in which their home staff write about them.

I usually do a table-based activity first. This involves sorting tasks, construction play, etc. I particularly enjoy shape-sorting activities.

At 9:30, the second staff for the day comes and we drink coffee. Then, we each go to the bathroom. After that, there are set activities for most mornings. On Monday, I go for a long walk with another group. At my group, the other clients play some games and do other table-based activities. They go for a short walk when the other group returns.

On Tuesday, I go swimming every other week. The day center’s people have the pool to themselves then and most clients have an assigned volunteer or staff to help them. The other week, a volunteer comes to our group and we run some errands.

On Wednesday, we have a cooking activity. For this, another volunteer comes. We generally do some really simple cooking. Since it’s a busy day, the staff really do most of the work. I feel sad that they don’t really involve us much. Of course, watching is cool too.

On Friday, we go to the marketplace. Each of us brings some money and we buy something that everyone likes. Sometimes, it’s fish, while other times it’s a bread roll, fruit or salad.

On each of these activities, the staff can’t take all of us. As such, we take turns going with one staff to do the activity, while the rest do table-based activities with the other staff.

Some people also love the snoezelen® or sensory room. I for one do. The sensory room has a water bed, but also a bubble unit, which is a water-filled unit which makes bubbly noises and has floaty objects in it that you can look at. There are also several tactile boards with all kinds of textures on it that you can explore.

Most people also love listening to music. On Wednesday afternoon, a music therapist comes to our group. I only attended this once, as I normally have the afternoon off on Wednesday, but I love it. The group also owns several tablets, a CD player and a TV to listen to music on or watch videos on.

I currently go to day activities two afternoons: Tuesday and Friday. On Tuesday, we have no set activity for the afternoon. This can get a bit boring, as staff usually spent most of the time writing in people’s diaries and doing administrative tasks. On Friday, I and two other clients go horseback riding with one staff.

At 2:30PM, we have a cup of coffee again, After that, most people hang out some and are getting ready for the bus home, even though we won’t be picked up till four o’clock. On Friday though, we have a dance at another group which everyone from the entire center is invited to.

There are four groups at the day center. My group is for the most severely intellectually disabled people. Another is for the elderly. Then there’s one for people with autism and others who need a lot of structure. This is the group who go for the long walk on Monday. The last group is for relatively capable people. They do kitchen-based tasks like loading the dishwasher. They also do creative activities.

Like I said, I’m in the group for severely intellectually disabled people, even though I’m not intellectually disabled. The reason is I need a lot of support and no pressure to achieve. I can visit other groups if I want to though.

#IWSG: Finding My Voice

Posted on by Astrid

Today, it is once again time to share our thoughts with the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG). The optional question assigned for this month is to write about from whose perspective you like to write best. Since I rarely write fiction nowadays, my answer is simple: my own.

I didn’t do much blogging in the past month. Part of the reason is the need to remain silent about some recent occurrences in my life. This means some diary-style writing is out of the question right now. Unless, that is, I do it offline.

Which brings me to the fact that I rediscovered Dyrii, an app on my iPhone and now on my Mac too, which you can use for keeping a journal. It still needs a little getting used to on my part, but overall, I like it. It helps me find my voice again, even if it isn’t in public.

I seem to have been able to write some more again in the past week. It feels good. I always feel good when I write.

I am also seriously thinking of starting up my fiction writing again, even though I am told that it generally lacks imaginativeness. I will see if tomorrow, which is my day off from day activities, I can write some fictional piece again.

In other news, I got myself the Dictionary.com app on my iPhone. I am loving looking up new words and idioms. As you might know, English is my second language and half the words that I come across in word-of-the-day challenges, I do not know the meaning of. I’m told this isn’t so unusual and that I’d benefit more from learning idioms rather than vocabulary. I don’t care. It’s cool to learn either way.

#IWSG: Creative Outlets Besides Writing

Posted on by Astrid
IWSG

I have a ton of things I want to write about, but somehow I can’t get myself to actually write. I started trying to use my new Mac Saturday evening. So far, it works but is still a bit hard to use. The WordPress app for Mac isn’t available in the app store, so it is a pain to install. I’m just using my phone now rather than WordPress.com in Safari, because at least I know how to work this.

It’s time again for our Insecure Writer’s Support Group or #IWSG check-in. This month’s question is about creative outlets other than writing.

I must say I”m not terribly creative. I don’t do any artsy things and am no good at music either. No, not all blind people are musically talented! I tried my hand at learning to play the keyboards and guitar for a bit, but didn’t like either. Granted, my guitar lessons were while I was at summer camp in Russia and the instructor spoke Russian and English only. This was before I knew English, so it took me half an hour to figure out what he meant by the “strings”.

If we expand creativity a bit to include crafts, I have tried a ton of them. I started out trying to make cards in 2012, not realizing how inaccessible this craft is to blind people. I should’ve known, since the blindness agency used to offer card making courses but specifically to the partially sighted only.

Then I tried mixed media, which was similarly inaccessible. Then came polymer clay, which should be doable but not by me. I tried to learn to crochet and loom knit too.

Lastly, I tried soap and bath and body product making. I still love that craft and would someday like to pick it up again, but I can’t do it independently. This is when I realized that the problem may not be exclusively with my blindness, but my cerebral palsy affecting my fine motor skills too.

So in short, no, I don’t do any creative things other than write. But I’d love to learn.

Determined

Posted on by Astrid

I want to write so bad, but my shoulder is still hurting. Not as badly as it was, but there’s some kind of bulge on it that keeps acting up whenever I lift my arm up even slightly, as I do for typing. I am determined to beat this stupid thing though.

Determined. That’s Fandango’s word for FOWC today. I rarely participate in these one-word challenges, although I’m subscribed to most blogs that offer them, including Fandango’s. However, today’s word struck a chord.

I told my named support worker at day activities about my crisis of 2007. I realize I’ve never shared my life story on here yet, so some readers will not know what I’m talking about. Let me explain. In 2007, I was living independently and going to university. I had been forced to go that route after essentially being kicked out of an independence training home that I had attended because I’m blind. I had been diagnosed with autism just a few months prior. Neither autism nor blindness alone should keep someone from living independently and going to university, but the combination did cause me a lot of trouble. Within three months, I was in a suicidal crisis. I had to be admitted to the psych ward. Not because I wanted to per se, but because that was what I needed at that point.

Fast forward 9 1/2 years and I was kicked out of the psych unit again. Yes, I stayed in a psychiatric hospital for 9 1/2 years. Not because I wanted to, but because no other place wanted me. Those for people with just autism, couldn’t deal with my blindness and vice versa. There are places for people who are blind with multiple disabilities, but most of the clients going there have some type of intellectual disability. That was obviously not where I belong. Or was it?

I’ve now been living independently with my husband since May of 2017. Despite lots of support, it’s a struggle. I am surviving, but I’m barely living.

So I decided to apply for long-term care. Which had originally been determined to be best for me by the psychiatrist who admitted me to hospital in 2007. I am determineed that, if we stop looking at just my labels and start looking at me, we’ll find someplace for me.

Then again, is this determination? Am I not essentially underachieving if I admit I need 24-hour care? Or am I actually determined to follow my own path to happiness and the best possible quality of life?

My 2019 Word of the Year

Posted on by Astrid

It feels like forever since I last wrote, even though that was only last Friday. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I’ve been wanting to write a lot over the week-end and did in fact write some each day. Just not for my blog. Today, I am going to write a post I’ve been dreading writing, like each year. It is the post in which I announce my word for the year.

Now why is that so dreadful? Because I have a lot of trouble, and that seems to increase each year, choosing a word of the year. I feel like I need to focus on my word of the year, but then again that doesn’t seem to work. I mean, if life is a bunch of choices, focusing on my word for the year should make it happen. That just isn’t how it works, and I’m still undecided as to whether that’s because I’ve not focused on my word for the year enough or because of things outside of my control.

As such, this year, I am going to decide on a word that should be relatively easy to focus on. It shouldn’t be like a heavy weight on my shoulder, like “progress” or “be” were when I chose those words in previous years.

With no further ado, here’s my word for the year 2019: CHERISH.

The word “cherish” was suggested to me by someone in a trauma self-help group. I had wanted to choose words like “self-care” or “nurture”, except that I’d already had those as words of the year previously.

In the year 2019, I want to cherish myself. This means, according to the dictionary, to hold dear, to show loving affection. I want to be kind and loving towards myself. It also means something akin to “hold onto”. In this respect, I want to hold onto life. Because of that, I hope this year I won’t be acting too impulsively.

I also want to cherish the people who are important to me, most notably my husband. In the process of applying for long-term care, it’s sometimes felt as though I was abandoning him. That isn’t my intention. I want to remain with my husband for life. As such, if and when I go into supported housing, I want to make the most out of the time I’m going to spend with my husband. Until this happens, I’ll also hopefully be able to show lots of affection towards him.

What is your word of the year?

Blogging

Posted on by Astrid

I am once again joining in with #JusJoJan. Yesterday I did write, of course, but I didn’t link up, since my post wasn’t for the prompt. Today’s prompt is to share about your blogging endeavors. Why did you start blogging? How did you come up with your theme? How has blogging affected your life? And so on.

I probably shared this on my older blogs a couple of times already, but I don’t think I jotted about my blogging on here. I was probably destined to be a blogger, as even as a young teen in the late 1990s, I longed for someone to read what I’d written. Not my parents, of course, but I was pretty open about my writing otherwise. My father at one point joked that I showed my new best friend my diary the first time she visited me. I didn’t, but I did show her some personal writings of mine. Those got her to feel pity for me. The friendship wasn’t healthy to begin with, as I was needy and clingy. The friendship ended not even half a year later. Today, I won’t go into that. It only serves to prove that I was very open in my writing from an early age on.

I got a computer with Internet access in May of 2002, when I was fifteen. Within six months of that, I’d started an online diary. The contents of that diary, unlike those of many of my later attempts at keeping a blog, are still available online. Their original location, on DiaryLand, might even still exist.

In February of 2007, I created my WordPress account and moved the contents of my diary to my first legitimate blog. This diary had over the years started to contain some more essay-like posts besides the diary-style navel-gazing. However, with DiaryLand, there was no way of organizing your posts by categories or tags. My parents criticized me for being too personal in my diary. I didn’t intend on becoming less so, but now I could put all my navel-gazing into a category called “Personal” for people to skip.

I have had three blogs (if I include this one) that were lasting. First, I had said blog moved from DiaryLand. Then I had Blogging Astrid, which I originally intended to keep alongside this blog. That didn’t work.

A Multitude of Musings, the blog you are now reading, is, in fact, a restart of another relatively long-lasting blog I wrote in 2011. I am a bit sad that I deleted its content years ago, but I can’t undo that. Still, my stats say the day I had the most views was in 2011.

Blogging has had a huge impact on my life. My husband checked out my blog – the one that had been moved from DiaryLand – before he asked to meet me in real life. This meant he already knew me pretty well before we’d first met. In this sense, my marriage makes up for the friendship I wrote about above, as my husband chooses to stick by me despite my openness. I don’t encourage him to read my blog now, but if he wants to, he can. He’s occasionally been cross with me for sharing something about him. I try only to share the positive now.

Why did you decide to start blogging? How has blogging impacted your life?

#IWSG: Am I a Writer?

Posted on by Astrid
IWSG

About three years ago, I told my then day activities staff that the number one item on my bucket list would be to write my autobiography. I have said I want to be a writer too many times. Now of course I am a blogger, and my blog posts consist exclusively of words, but does that count?

To kick myself in the butt a bit, I am joining in with the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG). This is a group of (aspiring) writers who encourage each other via monthly blog hops, a Facebook group and more. I’m still not sure I belong there, as I don’t even know whether I still intend on ever publishing that autobiography, even if I get to write it. I am not sure I’m good enough to publish anything. Of course, I already got a piece published in an anthology in 2015, but does that really count? Besides, it was non-fiction and I’m still unsure whether the IWSG is intended for fiction writers only. Given that my biggest supporter in life, my husband, says my fiction is rather unimaginative, I don’t think I’ll ever attempt my hand at that again, even though sometimes I want to. Insecure I am, at least. The question is whether I’m a writer.

One of the ideas of the IWSG blog hop is to answer monthly questions about your writing. This month’s question is about questions: what are the most and least favorite questions people ask about your writing? I think my favorite questions are about my process and the least favorite ones are about the content. I hate it when my husband asks me what I’m blogging about, because I construct my blog posts as I write. I also write much better than I speak, so I would rather just show someone what I’ve been writing than summarize it. Then again, I don’t like showing those close to me what I’ve written either.

What about you? Are you an insecure writer?

2018: The Year in Review

Posted on by Astrid

The year is nearly over. I have been debating whether to post a review of the year for a while, since I didn’t start this blog till late July. As such, most of the people who read it, may not be aware of what’s been going on for the first half of the year and I might need to explain too much. However, I want to do this review for myself if for no-one else. Here goes.

The year started off rather bad, with me having a major meltdown at day activities on January 3. I didn’t know at the time how significant that event would be, but it was the one event that defined me for the rest of the year and probably into 2019.

I looked back at my old blog’s posts from January 2018, and I can’t believe how blissfully ignorant I was. In the second week, I chose “Be” as my word for the year, for I intended 2018 to be a year for rest and staying present. A week later, it was decided that my day activities hours would be cut and I would eventually have to find a new place.

In late January, when I had more meltdowns at day activities, I started thinking of involving the Center for Consultation and Expertise (CCE) on my case. They had been involved with me in 2010 and 2013 previously and I’d hoped they could help me find some perspective. For those who don’t know, the CCE is an agency that helps people who fall through the cracks in the care system due to complex care needs and severe problem behavior. I didn’t really know whether my situation was bad enough, but I was desperate.

I was first told by my community psychiatric nurse, who called the CCE on my behalf and minimized my problems, that I’d have to go to the blindness agency for support. My need for sensory activities, after all, was due to blindness and I couldn’t possibly have severe problem behavior, as that would mean I couldn’t be married or live independently. This assertion caused huge internal turmoil. Some parts of me thought we must be too good for day activities and that’s why we’re being kicked out. After all, aren’t we oh so intelligent? Most of the parts in me felt desperate though and didn’t care about my IQ or our marriage in this sense for that matter.

With the help of my support coordinator, I finally was able to get an orientation meeting with the CCE in May. I apparently expressed my despair well enough that they took me seriously and found a consultant.

In the meantime, my support team and I didn’t sit still. This was why we had already found new day activities by the time we’d start the consultation at the end of July. At the time, I was feeling a bit conflicted about my living situation. My husband was trying to warm me up to the idea of buying a house in the city where he works. I didn’t feel like it, but I pushed those feelings aside. Until late September, that is.

Thankfully, the consultation hadn’t been completely closed by this time. I finally gave in to my feelings and admitted that I want to go into supported housing. I initially felt a lot of shame about this. I didn’t know whether my husband would be supportive and I knew my family wouldn’t be. Particularly when creating my care plan and reading the application for long-term care funding, I felt embarrassed. There is this voice inside my head. It’s my mother telling me, shortly after my admission to the psychiatric hospital in 2007, that I can’t even wipe my butt without a support worker’s assistance. I can, but so what if I can’t?

My husband turned out to support me. The CCE consultant is willing to stay on my case until we’ve finalized the process of getting me long-term care funding. The application was finally mailed on the 20th of this month.

Can I say this year that I fulfilled my word of the year? Not really. However, over the past few months, since deciding to apply for long-term care, I’ve felt a certain sense of calm. It seems as though I hit rock bottom this year and I can only go up now.

Besides the day activities and living situation, other things happened too. My paternal grandma died. This, for whatever reason, helped me find the strength to distance myself a bit from my family of origin. Since no longer expecting them to be genuinely interested in my life, I’ve felt a sense of calm in this respect too.

I’ve also learned to accept mysselves, that is, my alters, as they are. I am still not fully at a point of accepting myself without the need for diagnostic labels, but I am getting close.

With regard to blogging, I’ve improved much in the past year. I’ve been able to keep a pretty regular blog for five months now. I am so glad I started this blog, even though sometimes I feel disappointed in my stats. This blog is where I can be myself.

Lucy At Home UK parenting blogger

Recovery

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s Sunday writing prompt over at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie is “recovery”. This is such a commonly used word in mental health. “Recovery” is the ultimate goal for any mental health consumer or so it is assumed.

I attended a recovery course while in the mental institution in 2010-2011. It was very interesting. It was made clear that recovery is not the same as cure. You can be recovered and still live with a mental illness. Rather, recovery refers to getting as positive and fulfilling a life as possible. It is commonly used in conjunction with “rehabilitation”. The difference is though that rehabilitation is a treatment approach and is hence centered on the professional relationship, whereas recovery is completely patient-centered.

The recovery course I took was specifically for those residing on one of the long-term wards in the psychiatric hospital. This at first surprised me, since being hospitalized is clearly not having a fulfilling life. Or is it? I mean, if you can’t live independently, can you still consider yourself recovered.

I was at the time not planning on ever living independently. In fact, though I was engaged to my now husband, I was planning on going into a workhome, a long-term living environments for autistic people.

Here, it is important what I wrote above, that recovery is completely patient-centered. This means that, though it is believed that most people would want to live as independently as possible, if you don’t, that’s okay too. You are encouraged to make your own decisions, no matter how ill you are.

I have always been of the opinion that self-determination and self-reliance are not the same and shouldn’t necessarily be connected. I am pretty determined, but I’m not very self-reliant. I think personally that self-determination should be more important. Clearly, my last psychologist at the institution disagreed. She diagnosed me with dependent personality disorder, which according to the DSM is characterized by passiveness and an inability to stand up for oneself. I didn’t meet those criteria, but she felt I was asking for care she felt I didn’t need. She kicked me out of the institution almost with no after care. I survived, but I don’t feel well. Now it’s time to focus on self-determination. To try to reach the goals I set for myself.

Like I said, recovery is completely patient-centered. This is what I strive for. To me, recovery is feeling as well as possible. This means I can still work on recovery while going into long-term care.

A Letter to the Insiders

Posted on by Astrid

I want to write, but I don’t know where this is going. In fact, until I wrote down the title of this blog post just minutes ago, I had no idea I was even going to write a letter to my alters. I was inspired to do it by the recovery-based letters some people write to their mental health conditions.

Another thing that inspired me subconsciously, was a conversation with a dear friend on the need to integrate as part of treatment for dissociative identity disorder. This is often seen as the only possible end goal, and this dear friend was even told so on her first appointment with a therapist. We feel very strongly about this. First of all, integration is the third and last phase of treatment for DID, so it feels very wrong to discuss it at the very start. Second, integration can also mean living a functional life (ie. integration into society). I know many therapists, including I think our psychiatrists, feel a merger of all alters as somehow more healthy than living as a functional multiple. Well, agree to disagree.

The first phase of treatment is stabilization. This includes getting to know your system, learning to deal with feelings, developing inner communication, etc. After this, the second phase is trauma processing. Only once all traumas have been processed can you begin to integrate.

We don’t do DID treatment and aren’t likely to get it ever at all. After all, the diagnosis process scares the crap out of us and we’re unlikely to be believed. As such, it’s all the more important that we validate ourselves.

Dear you,

Welcome. We appreciate you. We are glad that you’re here, for you helped us survive. Without you, we wouldn’t be where we’re now. Thanks for that!

We know you may feel sad, or angry, or confused. that’s all okay. It may not feel okay to you, but that too is okay. Your feelings are valid. They’re there for a reason.

We want you to know there are people out there to support you. Inside, you have an entire system of alters that will help you be the best you you can be. If we work together – and that includes you -, we’ll heal.

Outside of the body, you’ll meet our support staff. Maybe you’ll be able to meet our mental health team too. Most of the people in our current life are supportive. We know this hasn’t always been the case and that’s one reason you’re here. We are here to help you heal from those experiences. You can trust us.

You may not be able to disclose your true identity as an alter to everyone, but there are people in the DID community you can talk to as yourself.

We hope this letter helped you feel a little bit safe. It’s still scary, but things will get better.

Love,

Us