How I Coped With Losing My “Job”

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. This week, one of the prompts for Writer’s Workshop is to write an essay titled “How I coped with losing my job”. I don’t do well writing fictional essays and have never had a “real” job, in the sense of a paid position or even volunteer work. I did, however, once “lose my job”, in that I got told the day center I went to couldn’t keep me there anymore.

This happened sometime in January of 2018 at my first day center with my current care agency. They had had me there for eight months, in two different groups, but when I was struggling to cope at the second group, they could no longer serve me or so they said.

I felt really distressed about this. The most frustrating aspect was the fact that they blamed me for no longer being suited to the center, while in reality, three new clients had been accepted into my group and no additional staff had been hired. I remember the reason they said it was me being the problem, not the new clients, was the fact that I’d been having meltdowns shortly before they arrived. Now I know that any anticipated change will cause me distress and that doesn’t mean I’m just a problem client. However, in hindsight, I’m pretty sure they wanted me gone sooner rather than later all along, for the simple reason that I don’t have an intellectual disability.

Thankfully, I wasn’t told to leave on the spot, but got time to find a new place. I initially had no clue how to, but did remember that, in 2010, I had been helped by the Center for Consultation and Expertise (CCE). I told the staff that I wanted to involve them again.

This was a bit of a hassle, as my community psychiatric nurse from the mental health agency said I’m far too high-functioning for the CCE. I applied nonetheless and got an orientation meeting in May of 2018.

In the end, I didn’t need the CCE for finding a new day center, but the consultation was what led me to accept that living independently with my partner wasn’t working and I needed long-term care.

I did feel intensely frustrated, like I said, at being “fired” from this day center. However, in the end, I don’t blame the staff, who were just powerless in the face of my challenging behavior. I think the manager, who didn’t look beyond my psychiatric diagnoses, is partly responsible. So was the psychologist from the psychiatric hospital, who more or less made the manager accept me on partly false premises.

September Dreams and Memories

Posted on by Astrid

Last night I dreamt of being admitted to the psych hospital. It’s no wonder, since the anniversary of my actual admission isn’t very far away, on November 3. September 23 is my anniversary of going into long-term care and last Wednesday, I celebrated one year in my current care home.

I was reminded yesterday that September is a bittersweet month. That is, I was reminded of the sweet aspect, ie. it being me and my spouse’s wedding aniversary yesterday. The bitter aspect has overshadowed my days with flashbacks and my nights with dreams more than I’d like. I am, thankfully, still coping.

I am hoping that, as I acquire more pleasant memories here at this home, the flashbacks and nightmares will lessen. I know I was saying something similar when reclaiming November in 2021. I hope this time around I will choose following my dreams and aspirations over re-enacting the past.

Sharing this post with Friday Writings #145, for which the optional theme is dreams and memories. This was more of a freewrite than anything else, but oh well.

Play Therapy #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

I had my first play therapy session on Wednesday. That is, I used to have play therapy when I was in elementary school. That was nearly 30 years ago though. Yikes, how time flies!

Anyway, I only had four sessions back then before the school holiday and apparently those were either enough or my parents didn’t consent to more play therapy. Not that they were paying, but oh well. My parents were very reluctant to agree to these first sessions anyway, because they were suspicious of anyone in the helping profession, including the play therapist. I wonder why, since the goal of therapy was that I not get angry as quickly anymore. I back then denied getting angry much at all. However, I did play with toy weapons all the time, threw out the purple-haired dollhouse figurines because people don’t have purple hair and tried to overflow the water tray. That might have been telling. Or not, since I don’t know whose initiative the toy weapons were.

I hated play therapy though, because I had to go to it during my favorite subject in school, biology. I wonder honestly what the point was.

Same now. I was initially told, back in February when I had the intake interview for therapy with two different therapists, that the type of therapy I’d get was called something like “differentiation therapy”. I filled in what I thought this meant and behaved in a way that I thought was consistent with this. I thought that the goal is to learn to identify different feelings, so this Wednesday I constantly named the attributes of the objects I played with. The therapist did note that I was adamant about which types of play-doh I liked or didn’t like, but she didn’t write anything about me constantly saying, for example, that the PlayMobil® figurine was giving its companion its left rather than right hand, etc.

I’m pretty sure I was trying to show off with this behavior. I’m now scared she’s going to think I’m far more capable of identifying feelings than I am. Or think I am. Or whatever. I hope we’ll get something out of play therapy this time around, unlike back in 1996 when I was ten.

This post was written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday (#SoCS), for which the prompt is “school”. I interpreted it loosely, because I really wanted to write about play therapy. I’m going to write an actual post on my first session later.

If You Aren’t Prepared For an Imperfect Child…

Posted on by Astrid

Yesterday someone on Reddit’s Childfree sub asked why many parents-to-be have this idea that they’ll get the perfect child. You might say that having dreams for your unborn child is normal, and it is. Having this clear-cut image of what your child will (that is, should) achieve in life, is not.

Of course, there are thankfully many parents who are able to adjust their image of their child if (or rather, when) said child does not conform to their initial expectations. My parents, unfortunately, are not among them.

Like I’ve probably shared on this blog before, when I was a baby and sustained a brain bleed due to premature birth, my parents were concerned for my quality of life. This is more or less normal, although it wasn’t back in the ’80s. In fact, the doctor flat out told my parents not to interfere, since they were keeping me alive period. I am forever grateful for this, despite the fact that the same doctor admitted in 2004 that he sometimes meets former preemies he’d been keeping alive that he now thinks of: “What have we done?!”

At that time, I thought he would not mean me. I was still passing for “just blind” and, though blindness is considered a major disability, it’s one that by itself does not prevent someone from living independently and going to university.

That was the exact same reason my father, when talking about euthanasia of severely disabled babies in 2006, didn’t mean me. He did, however, mean those with intellectual disability and those with severe mobility impairments (the case at hand involved a baby with severe spina bifida). And I’ll never forget that he added to his statement that he didn’t mean me, “because you’re training to live independently and go to university”. As you all know, that didn’t work out.

My parents did find a workaround to the problem of my not being the perfect child they’d envisioned: they decided that my landing in the mental health system and now in a care home for those with intellectual disability, is my choice rather than a necessity. I haven’t fully processed all the ways in which this attitude, which some of my care professionals took over, has impacted me. It hurts though.

Now back to the idea of a perfect child. Even when disability isn’t involved, a child is their own unique individual, with their own strengths, weaknesses, wants and needs. When a parent decides that their child should go to university at eighteen even though they are still in Kindergarten, like my parents did, that doesn’t just impact a disabled child. It impacts any child for whom for whatever reason university isn’t the best place to go at eighteen. Such as, for instance, any child with an average or even slightly above-average IQ. Or any child that is more capable of practical jobs than of academic ones. And any child who, God forbid, doesn’t want to go to university.

If you aren’t ready for a disabled child, a child who isn’t a top achiever, a child who might I say has their own personality, by all means don’t become a parent. You don’t know what your child will be like, after all. Having dreams is alright, but be ready to adjust your image of your child when the need arises. And for goodness’ sake, don’t guilt trip your child for being themselves.

I’m linking this post up with this week’s #WWWhimsy.

Parenting Advice From a Childfree Survivor of Childhood Trauma

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today’s RagTag Daily Prompt is “parenting”. Since I’m currently recovering from meeting my parents for my birthday, I’m going to make a list of parenting advice my parents should’ve received. I realize their inability to love me unconditionally wasn’t unwillingness. In fact, the fear that I may have this same inability is one reason I’m childfree. This post is a random list and may come across a bit harsh, but so be it.

1. A family is not a business. It doesn’t have to be run efficiently. Yes, I understand you get impatient with your child’s struggles at times, but this isn’t their problem – it’s yours.

I was constantly shamed for needing too much help and my parents gave up on teaching me basic skills of daily living because I got frustrated and the task didn’t get done efficiently.

2. Challenging behavior does not make the child (especially young child) bad or manipulative. Behavior is communication, yes, but to search for hidden motives behind it, is actually quite arrogant.

I was told by my parents that, by age seven, I had come up with some idea to manipulate everyone into thinking I was different in all kinds of other ways besides blind because I didn’t accept my blindness. News flash: I am those other things.

3. Children are incredibly loyal to authority figures, be it their parents, teachers, or others. When you fight the school or healthcare system over something rather than trying to be cooperative, the child will experience a conflict of loyalty. This means that, just because they side with you eventually, it isn’t necessarily in their best interest.

My parents were constantly fighting the school over my needs, because the school denied my intelligence. Then again, my parents minimized my emotional difficulties. When an educational psychologist who saw both my intelligence and my emotional issues, nonetheless advised special education for me, my parents still weren’t happy even though they’d chosen this ed psych, because they were dead set on me being mainstreamed.

4. Your child is not an extension of your ego. For this reason, they do not have to follow an educational or career path you like. It isn’t their job to make up for your lost dreams.

See also above. From the time I was a young child on, it was clear that, by age eighteen, I’d live on my own and go to university. Interestingly, neither of my parents have a college degree and particularly my mother feels “dumb” for it even though she worked herself up to a management position that usually requires a college degree.

5. Your child doesn’t need to prove their value. They do not need to prove they were “worth raising” by being anything, be it independent, successful, or whatever. If you don’t want a disabled child, a child of a certain gender, or whatever, you shouldn’t have a child.

I have probably said this before, but my parents, particularly my father, seriously think that a child needs to prove they were worth raising by being successful in life as an adult. He didn’t mean me when he said this, “because you’re training for independent living”. Well, now that I’m in an institution with seven hours of one-on-one a day, he obviously does mean me, since the few times I’ve seen him since he’s barely acknowledged me.

6. Love your child unconditionally. This does not mean agreeing with every single decision they make, but it does mean being there for them when they need you. And this doesn’t end when they turn 21. With a few exceptions (an adult child becoming a criminal, for example), parenting is a lifelong commitment.

I am linking this post up with #WWWhimsy as well.

Vignettes About Unicorns

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today I’m joining Writer’s Workshop. One of the prompts is to share at least five moments of your life (not events, but merely vignettes) that are somehow related. I, for some reason, was immediately drawn to the theme of unicorns. Let’s see what I can come up with.

1. I remember having a unicorn My Little Pony figurine as a child. In fact, that’s a lie, as I think it was my sister’s, but I loved her anyway. In my memory, she was light purple, but I could’ve misremembered that, since my favorite color is lilac.

2. Last October (I think), I got a unicorn soft toy from my spouse as a thank-you gift for my support throughout our relationship and particularly over the past several months.

3. The other two unicorn soft toys on my bed, I bought at the fall fair here on institution grounds last October too.

4. Which reminds me, I have a lonely unicorn soft toy sitting in the soft toy cabinet. I got that one for Christmas at the last day center I attended while living with my spouse.

5. Oh wait, no, I have another unicorn soft toy in the cabinet. I got that one when leaving the care facility in Raalte for the intensive support home. Oh, how I miss being in Raalte still.

6. Now enough with the soft toys. The first unicorn I created, in July of 2021, I did entirely from a YouTube tutorial. I gave it to my spouse, who probably still has it.

7. I remember crafting my first unicorn at the intensive support home with my assigned staff. It didn’t turn out as good as I’d liked, but it was okay.

8. I gifted her my best unicorn I created while there when I left. Too bad she ignores me now…

9. When I left the intensive support home, I gifted each of my fellow residents a small cutter-created polymer clay unicorn.

10. I used for it a cutter I’d gotten for my birthday last year from my parents. My spouse had also gifted me unicorn-themed cutters at some point, which I originally intended to use.

11. I read my first unicorn-themed book a few years ago. That is, I probably read some in childhood too but not sure since they weren’t as popular as they are now. The book was a short picture book called First Day of Unicorn School.

12. My current unicorn-related read is the second book in the Unicorn Academy series by Julie Sykes. Oh wait, that’s not exactly a memory I’m sharing…

13. I can’t remember when I started calling my spouse “head unicorn catcher”. The reason is the fact that my spouse’s truck route is named after a city which has the unicorn as its symbol. Oh wait, that wasn’t really a memory either.

But I got to thirteen. So I’m allowed to share this post with Thursday Thirteen too. So if my post doesn’t meet the criteria for Writer’s Workshop, at least it meets the criteria for that.

Creativity: How I Have Evolved As a Creative Over the Years #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s late once again as I get to my letter C post. I don’t tend to think up my topics in advance. Same with this one. It actually popped up in my mind several minutes ago and here I am writing about my creative journey. Okay, I did my entire #AtoZChallenge of 2022 on creativity so am pretty sure I covered this topic already, but let’s do a repeat in that case.

I am not very imaginative. Like I said on Monday, I most likely have aphantasia. This combined with blindness and my other disabilities doesn’t make me all that great of an artist. And yet, I love to create!

In childhood, I’d often draw dresses and other fashion items, pretending I was a fashion designer. I lost the vision needed to draw around age 12 and, even though my drawing teacher found me paper that would create raised lines when drawing on it, I also hardly drew anything beyond stick figures in boxes from then on. Don’t ask me about their meaning – yes, I know they meant something, but for the life of me I can’t remember what.

I didn’t craft or create art again until my mid-twenties. Then I started card making. Over the next five years followed at least a dozen other crafts. And now, I’m stuck on polymer clay, although to be honest I don’t use the medium nearly as often as I used to.

Creativity can, of course, also involve the written word. I wrote stories from a young age on. I started out writing fiction and the occasional poem. Now, I almost exclusively write blog posts.

I must admit, as I think back on my creative journey, that my level of imaginativeness has probably declined over the years and I didn’t always experience aphantasia. Not that I ever had a rich inner world. Well, that is, I have and always had a strong inner monologue (or inner cacaphony, in fact) and could probably describe an inner world in words, but I couldn’t visually imagine it at all.

I think this lack of imaginativeness is the reason I write personal blog posts mostly and craft mostly realistic figures or things from tutorials. I mean, of course a unicorn isn’t real, but I almost literally copied my style of unicorns from a tutorial. Realizing this makes me feel really sad.

Bulimia (Or Something Like It): My Relationship With Food and My Body (Revisited) #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all and welcome to my letter B post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I’d like to share a more personal piece and describe my history of disordered eating and body image issues. After publishing this post, I saw I did a post on this topic in 2019 too.

I first started struggling with a negative body image when I was about thirteen. I remember writing stupidly specific worries in my diary about food and my weight, such as whether the nails I’d bitten off would cause me to gain weight. All the while, I didn’t realize that I was, in fact, pretty close to overweight if not overweight already from consuming enormous quantities of candy on weekends and daily sausage rolls at the school cafeteria.

I was lucky that I never became significantly overweight until around age 25. By that time, I had developed something at least bordering on bulimia: I ate a full 500g bag of candy, sometimes more, in one ten-minute sitting at least three times a week. I also purged, although I did that after regular meals as much as after bingeing.

In the six years that followed, I gained over 20kg in weight and, by the time I was kicked out of the psych hospital to live with my spouse in 2017, I weighed 80kg. At my height of 1.53m, this is quite far in the obese range.

Yet my body image wasn’t as much of a concern to me at the time. Yes, I hated the way I looked, but at the same time I was too careless and unmotivated to change my habits. I had stopped purging for the most part by the time I moved in with my spouse, although I still occasionally did it as a form of emotion regulation.

Now, I’ve been at a healthy weight for about a year. Don’t ask me how I got here, as honestly I don’t really know. I mean, yes, I’ve been supported by a dietitian since early 2022, but honestly I can’t quite say I follow her advice. I mean, okay, I no longer binge due to my food being locked away, but I do snack on “bad” foods all the time.

My body image, honestly, is still as screwed as it always was. I still swing between underestimating and overestimating my size, between hating my body and not caring about it. I still purge occasionally, though not really out of a wish to lose weight, but more out of a need to self-regulate.

Looking back, I don’t think I ever had a genuine eating disorder. I mean, I might’ve at one point met the criteria for binge eating disorder, but I’m not so sure about that. I think my disordered eating is really more a symptom of my emotion regulation difficulties.

My First Airplane Trip

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. A lot is still on my mind, but today, I’d like to write a lighthearted post. Thanks to John Holton, who provides the Writer’s Workshop prompts, I now have several ideas. One is to write about my first airplane trip. Let me share.

My first airplane trip was also my first trip abroad and my first vacation without my parents. It was a trip from Schiphol (Amsterdam) airport to Moscow on August 4, 2000. I was flying Aeroflot, a relatively okay Russian airline. Still, everyone clapped when the airplane landed successfully, something I recently found out stopped in the 1970s with Western airlines.

One thing I remember quite distinctly is the horrible pain in my ears and head in general during takeoff and landing. I haven’t flown in years, but the memories came back when my spouse reminded me about it, having had a similar experience on a recent airplane trip. Honestly, I can’t imagine people actually taking pictures while the plane is taking off or coming down.

I still did have a tiny amount of vision back in 2000, so remember looking at the clouds once the aircraft had fully risen.

I also to this day remember the film playing in the airplane. Not that I could understand any part of it, as it was in Russian, but my fellow travelers explained to me that it was called something like “I want to go to prison”. The plot revolved around a Russian character who had heard that, in Dutch prisons, inmates get their own TV etc. (something that isn’t exactly true, by the way), so he wanted to flee to the Netherlands even if it meant going to prison. I bet nowadays this film wouldn’t be considered appropriate.

“St. Nick, I’m Stuck!”

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Sorry for not having touched the blog for nearly a week. I’ve been struggling once again. However, today I feel in an okay place mentally at least, so I thought I’d join in with John Holton’s Writer’s Workshop. One of the prompts is to share when you learned that Santa/the Easter bunny/the tooth fairy was your parents.

I’ll have to talk about St. Nicholas rather than any of the others here, because that’s what we celebrate most here in the Netherlands. St. Nicholas is like Santa, except he has helpers called Peters. They used to be black, but now they come in every color or with black streaks across their faces (from creeping through chimneys to deliver presents) because the concept of Black Peter is racist.

I was eight the last year when I still believed in St. Nick. This was 1994. As the legend goes, St. Nick and his Peters would ride over the rooftops on a white horse and maybe they’d descend through the chimney to deliver presents.

That year, on the evening of December 5, my parents, sister and I were having dinner when we heard noise coming from the roof. We didn’t have a chimney, but I was still too clueless to think about that. “St. Nick, help, I’m stuck!” We went looking for where the sound came from and saw that there were presents in the loft under the staircase.

Eight is a fairly old age to still believe in St. Nick. In fact, I’d been packaging St. Nicholas presents for my teachers for several years by then. By the year after this, when literally everyone my age had stopped believing, my father spoiled the beans for me: he came to me with a cassette tape, put it in the player and there it was: “St. Nick, help, I’m stuck!” It was his own voice, slightly distorted. By that time, I knew for sure that St. Nicholas was my parents.