Walking

Posted on by Astrid

Over at Therapy Bits, carol anne posed a good question. She asked whether we enjoy being out in the fresh air and going for walks.

My short answer has to be a resounding YES. I love, love, love walking! It helps me relieve stress, get my thoughts organized and be mindful. It also for obvious reasons helps my physical health.

Last year, when I first embarked on my weight loss journey, I was badly out of shape. My husband offered to take me on daily 36-minute walks. Why 36 minutes? Because that’d burn the number of calories I’d have to decrease if I wanted to get to my first goal weight within a year. For me, these walsk were jog-walks, as my husband walks rather fast. I was exhausted within five minutes.

My husband hasn’t taken me on these fast-paced walks much after those first few days, but I do go on walks regularly. I regularly walk to the nearby ferry with my support workers, which is about 1.5km one way.

About half a year ago, I bought a Fitbit activity tracker. It is recommended that you get at least 10,000 steps a day. I got that on my first day, but only manage it once every few weeks now.

The Fitbit has a smart way of tracking exericse, so it distinguishes between running, walking, cycling and going on the elliptical. Mine, the Fitbit Flex2, is also water proof. Today, I went swimming for the first time since having my Fitbit. I am not fully able to make sense of the data it provided, but it definitely did recognize that I’d been swimming.

Back to the question though. As much as I love walking, I don’t really enjoy the great outdoors. I hate walking in the forest or on otherwise uneven ground. In fact, I think I would almost equally enjoy walking on a treadmill to walking outside if all other circumstances were the same. They aren’t though, since on the treadmill you’re more in exericse mode than when going for a relaxed walk.

I Am Autistic #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

I am autistic. Or I have autism, as politiically correct parents of autistic children would say. I prefer “autistic”. After all, autism is an essential part of my identity. It’s not like labels don’t define me and are just there for insurance coding purposes. Yeah, well, diagnoses do not define me. I am, after all, also multiple even though I don’t have a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder anymore. Others do not define me. But my characeristics, including being autistic, do.

Saying “I am autistic” rathr than “I have autism” is preferred by the majority of autistic people. We also refer to ourselves as “autistic people” or even “autistics” rather tha “people with autism”. This is called idetity-first language, whereas “people with autism” is called person-first language and is politically correctly preferred by people wanting to erase the impact of autism.

I know, there are some situations in which a person may prefer person-first language regarding their own disability or identity. I don’t think this is wrong at all. However, people without said disability or belonging to said group should not dictate how we identify.

Identity-first language does not mean we can be called whatever the heck someone wants to call us. For example, a person with an intellectual disability should never be called “retarded”. That’s a slur. Even if said person has reclaimed that word – the R-word has not been reclaimed yet that often, but it might get to this point -, you cannot assume as a non-disabled person that you can just go about calling them the R-word. If in doubt, ask what a person wants to be referred to in regards to their disability or identity.

And of course, I want to be referred to by name most of the time. Unless another part or alter has taken over, but then some of them will be rather in your face about their name.

Don’t assume that political correctness is always preferred, but don’t assume anything really. We are all humans, all different and that’s valid. We should be loved and respected for who we are.

Linking up with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (yeah I’m late). The theme for this week is “-ic” or “-ical”.

Call #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

I just got my prescription phone call service re-approved last Thursday. The prescription phone call service is where I can call a mental health nurse at the psychiatric hospital for support when I’m not feeling well but not yet in full-blown crisis. This is for out of office hours, as I can call my mental health treatment team within office hours.

The thing is though, like I said before, I may need to be able to call someone in such cases for a long while to come. The call service got approved for six months and my nurse said we’d really need to look at whether I’d still need it after those six months. I believe I would, but maybe by that time, we’ve found another agency to fill this gap. Such as the disability service agency I get my home support and day activities from now.

I really hope that I can someday do without mental health treatment. People in FB groups were saying that I may confuse not having a mental illness with not wanting the stigma of a mental illness, when I said that maybe I’m just autistic and not borderline at all. I do obviously believe we’re multiple (ie. some form of dissociative identity disorder), but the mental health team doesn’t believe this. Fine by me. Then we don’t get treatment for that. We’re relatively functional anyway and we’d rather not have any treatment than a treatment that doesn’t validate us.

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday.

The Last Book

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s question of the day over at My Inner MishMash is: What was the last book you purchased or borrowed at the library. I loved this question so am going to answer it here.

I rarely borrow books through the Dutch library system. I am a member of the library for the blind, but use it mostly for the access to magazines, as I prefer English-language over Dutch books. As such, I’ve not downloaded a book out of the online library in months. I also have a subscription to Bookshare, an American-based book service for print disabled people. However, since the software I use to read Bookshare’s books won’t boot anymore, I don’t read books from Bookshare really anymore and won’t until I’ve either figured out a mobile app or bought a new computer.

I also used to buy books in EPUB format from Kobo. The software I use for reading those files, Adobe Digital Editions, however has destroyed several of my eBooks already. I was so happy when I recently discovered Kindle. I love it.

I haven’t downloaded that many books on Kindle yet. The last one I bought was Journaling: This Is My Life by Emilee Day. This is a book of journaling tips and writing prompts. I bought it because I looked for inspirational writing prompts and this one looked to be the best for its cost.

Besides this one, I have a ton of books and files containing journaling prompts in my Adobe Digital Editions, in my Bookshare books library and scattered on my computer. I just love them. It’s not even that I use them for direct inspiration often, but having these books does motivate me to write. Or so I like to think. Some of these prompts are really thought-provoking. I must say the Emilee Day book is a little disappointing as far as I can tell now.

Pineapple

Posted on by Astrid

Last week, I discovered a writing prompt on a blog that asked us to share our favorite recipes incorporating pineapple. Now I really cannot cook that well, so other than a pineapple and banana smoothie, I have no idea. However, something else came to mind.

One of my main hobbies is soap making. I started this hobby in 2016 after having tried out many other creative hobbies unsuccessfully before, including card making, jewelry making and polymer clay. It’s so frustrating to be blind and extremely clumsy sometimes. As a result of this, I often need a lot of help on any of my creative endeavors except for writing. That includes soap making.

Earlier last week, I’d been thinking of a way to pick up the soaping craft again. I’d not been doing it much for over a year due to not having the support system to help me. Before that, I’d made soap at my old day activities in the institution, but my new place couldn’t help me with this.

I started looking for a soaping buddy. No luck. Then I thought maybe I could try soaping independenty after all. After all, it’s not more dangeorus than cooking and, though I just said I cannot cook, I in fact did cook independetnly many yeas ago. Making a simple melt and pour soap requires less preparation than cooking a meal.

So last week when my husband was at work, I went to business. I deliberately chose to soap when my husband was at work rather than when he was home, so that I couldn’t take out my frustrations on him. As it turned out, the soaping went pretty well. I decided to make a simple soap with just one colorant and one fragrance oil and no additional ingredients. That fragrance oil was pineapple. So here you have our favorite recipe incorporating pineapple.

Yellow soap with pineapple fragrance oil

You just need three ingredients:


  • White melt and pour soap base

  • Yellow water-soluble colorant

  • Pineapple fragrance oil


First, I cut the soap base into small cubes. Guessing how much soap I’d need, didn’t turn out to be as difficult as I’d expected. Then I melted the soap base in the microwave. This is not ideal, as the heat may not be evenly distributed through the soap, but I didn’t want to add complexity by melting my soap base in a double boiler. It worked fine for me. Once the soap was melted (which takes only about 30 seconds in the microwave), I added in a few drops of colorant and fragrance oil. The colorant and fragrance oil bottles I used have a dropper, but I just guessed how much I’d need, as you can never be sure the dropper works properly. Then I stirred quickly and poured the soap into the mold. You only have a few minutes from taking the soap out of the microwave to pouring it into the mold. If you see or suspect bubbles in your soap, you can spray alcohol over them, but I didn’t do that this time, as I cannot actually see where the soap bubbles are. I then left my soap to harden for about 45 minutes. It turned out pretty good.