My First Date

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today’s topic for Throwback Thursday is first dates. Since my now husband was the only person I ever actually dated, I’m going to share my experiences about meeting him.

As regular readers might know, we met on a message forum. More specifically, he met me there, because I barely knew him by the time he private messaged me. He, on the other hand, had read most of my posts on the forum, as well as my blog.

I wrote on there, for all forum members to see, that I was feeling lonely living on my own in my student apartment in Nijmegen. At the time, he had decided he wanted to expand his circle of acquaintances. Neither of us were really looking for love, so in that sense, maybe it wasn’t actually a date.

He PM’d me asking to have a cup of coffee or tea somewhere in Nijmegen. I agreed, then backtracked, fearing he was a “creep in his fifties”, as I worded it. You see, I had barely read his introductory post. He invited me to the forum meeting in Utrecht where, according to him, at least fifteen other forum members could vouch for him that he didn’t appear creepy and was nowhere near fifty. He was eighteen at the time and I was twenty-one.

Looking back, I still took an enormous risk, as I never went to that Utrecht meeting. I did tell my support worker where I’d be meeting him, but, me being an adult, I didn’t have a curfew or anything.

I can’t remember whether I was stressed beforehand. During our meeting up, I certainly was. I can’t remember who paid for my coffee and his tea, probably him. As I’ve mentioned before when discussing this first “date”, I tripped over some steps in the cafe, spilling my coffee. I screamed in frustration.

As for who did the talking and who did the listening, neither of us talked much. He asked me about my taste in music, to which I replied vaguely that I like world music. I honestly wouldn’t have a clue how to respond now either, as I’m not really that much into music.

This “date”, to be honest, was quite the disaster, but he had it in his mind that, if he tried to meet me another time, we’d have many more dates. And we did. We got married exactly four years after this date.

Gratitude List (July 15, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I am struggling a little, but trying to stay positive. As such, I want to write a gratitude list again. I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful as usual. Here goes.

1. I am grateful for ice cream. Last Sunday, the local Rotary Club sent out some people to do a performance on care facility grounds, like singing and acting and all. I didn’t like that, but they also sent an ice cream truck. I loved the stracciatella and vanilla ice cream, even though I normally don’t care for chocolate.

2. I am grateful I was able to bring a huge smile to my old assigned staff’s face when I gave her the polymer clay hedgehog I’d crafted for her.

3. I am grateful for nice, warm enough but not too hot weather this week.

4. I am grateful my physical fitness level is pretty much back to where I’d like it to be. I have been walking a lot over the past week. Not reaching 10K steps most days – just once, last Saturday, in fact -, but I’m so glad I’m walking longer distances again.

5. I am grateful for my husband’s creative pep talks. Earlier in the week, I had almost lost my polymer clay mojo because I kept doing my flat projects wrong. Then when I’d found a way to bake them without them bending upward or getting air bubbles at the back – by baking them or cardboard -, someone I consider a polymer clay expert claimed that would cause me problems. That discouraged me a lot, but my husband said not to listen to just one person and to do what works for me.

6. Speaking of which, I am so grateful at least that one little piece of polymer clay – a random cookie cutter star – turned out pretty good.

7. I am grateful I didn’t cry when my old assigned staff officially left yesterday.

8. I am grateful for a really nice card from her too. It has a small lucky doll inside of it, because she wishes me good luck.

9. I am grateful for my new stuffed dolphin. When my old assigned staff put me to bed yesterday, I grabbed ahold of my favorite stuffed animal, the lemur, and she commented I could seek comfort with him when I miss her. She had considered buying me a soft toy as a goodbye present, but she reasoned I have quite many already. This got me thinking and, within an hour, I’d ordered this stuffed dolphin off Bol.com, to be delivered today. It’s a little smaller than I’d expected, but actually it’s the perfect size for me to hold it when trying to sleep.

10. I am grateful that Seeing AI, the image description app on my iPhone, guessed my age in the above photo as 27. 😁 Not that I really care, but I just noticed and thought this’d make for a fun last item on my thankful list.

What are you thankful for?

The Wednesday HodgePodge (July 6, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’ve been struggling quite a bit over the past couple of days, which is why I haven’t been blogging. Today, I thought I’d write again, but I want to keep it relatively light-hearted, so am going with a contribution to the Wednesday HodgePodge. Here goes.

1. July 6th is National Fried Chicken Day…are you a fan? Do you make your own or have a favorite place to buy from? Do you own chickens? If not chicken what’s your favorite fried food?
Ah, this question immediately brightens my mood! I love love love fried chicken. My favorite fast food place to get it is a local one called Kipzaak (which translates to “Chicken booth”). My favorite restaurant to get “real” non-fast food fried chicken is about a 30-minute drive from Raalte in Rouveen. You can eat as much fried chicken as you want there for a special price.

I don’t own chickens myself, but a client in the care home next to mine does. They have their cage next to the day center.

2. What’s something you’re too chicken to try?
Rollercoaster rides. And basically any theme park activities beyond the merry-go-round.

3. When did you last find yourself running around like a “chicken with its head cut off”?
I’m not 100% sure what this saying means. If it means being chaotic in one’s daily life, this usually happens to me when I’m deciding to craft something in an impulse, but I can’t come up with an example right now. If it refers to general disorganization, probably yesterday. I was very much in a daze at the time.

4. Something you’ve done recently that makes you think “I’m no spring chicken”?
Oh wait, I’m not? 🤣 I’m 36, but often I forgot that this isn’t all that young anymore. I guess mostly my physical fitness reminds me.

5. “Winner winner chicken dinner”…tell us about something good that’s happened in your life lately.
Oh, this is going to be really hard, as I just had the toughest few days in a long while. This situation though led to quite an intense heart-to-heart between my husband and me, and this was the good thing. I really hope that my marriage is going to be stronger than ever.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
Just to clarify, no, there was no relationship crisis that preceded the above. The situation that’s caused me to have one of the tougher weeks I’ve had in a while, has to do with my staff: my assigned home staff is leaving at the end of next week. I had quite a strong attachment to her, maybe unhealthily so. I am really hoping I can feel secure enough to share my most vulnerable side with my husband from now on, since I’ve pretty much decided I’m not going to show it to any of the other staff. After all, for all of them I’m also merely work.

Confronting My Dependent Shadow Side

Posted on by Astrid

This afternoon, I downloaded a small collection of shadow work-based journaling prompts. One of them is to write about the time I felt most offended by someone. What did that person say or do? And more important, what was my reaction? I am encouraged to focus mostly on the emotions involved rather than the mere facts.

The first thing that came to mind, was my former psychologist diagnosing me with dependent personality disorder. This, though, didn’t really offend me: it scared me. After all, she claimed not just that I was being passive and clingy, as people with DPD often are, but that I was misusing care. I, obviously, disagreed and feared losing my care because of her diagnosis. This, indeed, did happen about six months later.

The moment I felt most offended though, was the moment in June of last year when my husband said he thought I might have DPD. He may’ve forgotten that this was the exact diagnosis my psychologist had given me in order to kick me out of the psych hospital, since he did not propose I move back in with him. His reasoning was, however, the fact that, even with one-on-one support for most of the day, I still struggle.

I felt intensely triggered and scared again, but also angry. However, I wasn’t necessarily angry with him, but with my own dependent side. After all, maybe, just maybe, he is right indeed.

Deep down, I do know it is crazy to want – to feel I need – one-on-one attention all of the time. I don’t even want it, truthfully. Right now, I’m very content being by myself. But then again, why do I feel so anxious some of the time when my staff leave? Why can’t I make simple choices? Why do I need my husband to take responsibility for any major parts of my life? These are telltale DPD criteria!

I am not even scared of the diagnosis itself. Diagnoses are just labels. But I am scared of losing the care I have now, like I did in 2017. And then the little voice, my independent part, is telling me that I coped just fine. I mean, I know I took two overdoses of medication during my first six months of living with my husband, but wasn’t that just manipulation?

Couldn’t I have a much better, much richer life if I unlearned this intense fear of needing to fend for myself? Yes, yes, yes, I could! But does unlearning this fear mean being given a kick in the behind and being forced to live with my husband again? Maybe there are steps in between. Like, today I poured myself a glass of fruit-infused water, spilling a little over myself, but I did it anyway. I felt intense anxiety, because I knew my staff noticed and maybe she’s going to expect me to always be able to do this independently. Then again, so what? Then the worst thing that could happen is I can’t get fruit-infused water if this staff is working my shift and I don’t feel like pouring it myself. Is that so bad after all? And just to say, the staff didn’t even tell me to pour the drink myself. I just noticed the bottle was in front of me and I decided to try to do it. I could’ve asked her to pour the water for me, in which case she’d likely have done so. She is a staff who generally encourages independence, which sets off my demand avoidance. However, the fact that I not only did something independently I wouldn’t normally have done, but took the initiative rather than being encouraged (read: pushed), gave me a confidence boost.

My 2022 Birthday Celebrations

Posted on by Astrid

In one of her Writer’s Workshop writing prompts for this week, Mama Kat asks us to share about something we celebrated recently. Of course, it was my birthday last Monday and I haven’t yet told you all everything about it, so here goes.

The celebrations started on Saturday with me arriving in Lobith by taxi at around noon. My husband gave me my first present after we’d had lunch. According to him, I’d been nagging him about the Cernit matt polymer clay varnish being sold out everywhere. Indeed, I had mentioned this to him (not exactly nagging, in my opinion), to which he’d replied with a challenge for me to find where it’d been allegedly sold out. I found out that a Bol.com (a Dutch site much like Amazon but more expensive) partner still had some in stock. He then asked me whether I wanted it for my birthday. I said yes. So that’s what I got. I got two 30ml pots of it, because according to my husband a Danish vendor had it in stock at half the Bol.com price including shipping.

At around 2:30PM, my parents arrived. They gave me strawberries that they’d bought from a street vendor across the German border. They also gave me German tea, which I ended up giving to my husband, since it was black tea and I only drink green tea and the occasional herbal tea. My main birthday gift was a huge box full of plastic cookie cutters to use with my polymer clay. There are 75 cutters in the box, ranging from animals to vehicles and from a few Christmas-themed and sports-themed ones to dinosaurs. The box also included cutters for all letters and numbers except for I (the box recommended cutting off a piece of the L for that). I also got a huge jar filled with beads that my parents bought at a thrift store. Lastly, I got a kit for making magnetic bracelets.

After we’d had coffee and apple pie, we chatted some. Then, it was time to leave for the restaurant my husband and I had picked out. The restaurant was called “De Revolutie” (“The Revolution”) and we’d somehow gotten the impression it was a Cuban-style restaurant. That had appealed to my husband and me, because my parents are leftists.

When we arrived, we soon figured out it was indeed hard to comprehend which revolution the restaurant was referring to. We’d hoped for pictures of Che Guevara, but there were none. I had already discovered that, what the restaurant had on the menu, definitely wasn’t Cuban cuisine, as most of its meals include beef and that’s hardly consumed in Cuba (or so Google tells me). I didn’t care though.

I chose shrimp in garlic oil as my appetizer, which was really good. My husband chose nachos and was given a huge bowl of them. I ate some of his. Then I went for a burger for my main course, while my husband chose a stew. His was a relatively small serving, while mine was quite large. I liked my burger, but had hoped for a spicier version.

After we’d finished our meal, my parents left and my husband and I drove back to our house in Lobith. The next day, we drove to my in-laws’ house, where only my mother-in-law was at the time. My mother-in-law gave me a clay extruder as a present, which I love but only figured out how to work today.

On Monday, my actual birthday, I didn’t do much out of the ordinary. I treated myself to a sausage roll for lunch, but that was it. I also tried to find ready-made cookie dough to make cookies from to give as a treat to my fellow residents. It turned out the supermarket was no longer selling this, so I went back on Tuesday to get ice cream after all.

I had decided this year that I don’t want a present from my staff, since technically you (or your family) pay for it yourself anyway. However, yesterday the new student staff brought me some plunger fondant cutters to use with my polymer clay. They weren’t even really intended as presents, but I appreciate them very much.

Mama’s Losin’ It

#WeekendCoffeeShare (June 11, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again today. Grab a cup of coffee, herbal tea or I could even make you strawberry infused water, since I bought some strawberries at the supermarket yesterday and I still have a water bottle with a fruit infusion thingy that I got for my birthday two years ago and hardly even ever use. I guess I’m going to make some for myself now, so be right back. Anyway, let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d ask about your weather. Ours has been mixed this past week. Early in the week, it was quite chilly and rainy, but today we’re having sunny weather and daytime temperatures of up to 22°C. It’s a little windy, but still lovely!

If we were having coffee, I would share that the orthopedic shoemaker came by on Tuesday to do the final tweaking to my right semi-orthopedic shoe. It’s now fine or so it seems, but the left one, the one with the ankle-foot orthosis in it, is now giving me issues again. I don’t get blisters, but it does feel as though I’m getting slight pressure where the edge of the AFO touches my foot. To be honest, I am currently undecided as to which shoes I like better: my regular shoes or the semi-orthopedic shoes with the AFO. Neither is giving me the comfort I’d like and I’ve more or less lost my walking mojo altogether.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I’ve been experimenting with methods of trying to make the perfect polymer clay earrings all week. I haven’t found the perfect method yet, but today’s would-be earrings are at least better than Thursday’s, which were so curved that I threw them in the trash.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I’ve been making plans for my birthday with my parents, husband and mother-in-law. I initially invited my parents to the care facility, but, after talking it over with my husband, decided it’s better to invite them to Lobith. They will be there on the 25th (my birthday is on the 27th). My husband suggested we eat at a Cuban restaurant called “De Revolutie” (“The Revolution”). I love Latin American food, so that’s awesome. Besides, my parents are quite outspoken leftists, so I bet they can appreciate it.

Then the next day we’ll pay a visit to my mother-in-law (my father-in-law will be on vacation then). I haven’t yet decided whether to do anything special on the 27th itself. I actually have a nurse practitioner’s appt on that day and, since my appt this week got canceled too, I really don’t want to cancel. My staff suggested going out for lunch afterwards, so that’s an idea.

How have you been?

The Wednesday HodgePodge (June 8, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! Today I’m once again joining the Wednesday HodgePodge. Here goes.

1. “A daughter’s a daughter all her life, but a son’s a son til he takes a wife.” What say you? Elaborate.
In my personal life, the exact opposite is true, in that my parents were very clear that, once I was an adult (ie. once I’d turned eighteen), I had to fend for myself. My contact with them lessened even more once I got married. My husband, on the other hand, sees his parents almost on a weekly basis. I am honestly much closer with my in-laws now than with my own parents, to the point where I’ve appointed my mother-in-law as my informal representative should I become incapacitated.

2. Something you’ve seen recently that was “cuter than a June bug”?
Hmmm, I’m obviously supposed to say little Wolke, my baby niece, but to be honest I don’t really care for babies all that much. I don’t really like children in general, but I’m going with her older sister anyway. She will be three in September and talks up a storm already.

3. “You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy ice cream and that’s pretty much the same thing.” Agree or disagree? Last time you had a serving of happiness ice cream? Dish-cone-milkshake-sundae…which one do you choose?
Disagree with the saying. Though I do like ice cream on occasion, it’s not at all my favorite treat. I don’t actually really have a sweet tooth since recovering from my overeating. Give me chips instead.

As for my favorite ice cream, it’s probably a cone, although I like sundaes and milkshakes too. I can’t remember when I last had ice cream. A milkshake though, yes, I do remember, but it was far from good. We got it with a paper straw, as plastic straws are banned in the EU, and it was too thick to drink with that but too thin to eat with a spoon.

4. What is one way/area in which you’re currently “swimming against the tide”?
I don’t do social media much at all. I mean, I do still have a Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account, but I hardly ever use them.

5. Three things you’re looking forward to this summer?
My birthday at the end of this month. Other than that, I don’t really know. My husband and I originally thought of taking a few days out by train, since Lobith is close by the German border and Germany’s public transportation is nearly free during the summer months. However, he found out that trains are already so packed that the police had to come out to remove some of the people. Not my idea of a holiday.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I have been obsessing over crafty stuff again. I am really looking forward to doing some polymer clay work again, but can’t decide what to make, honestly. Yesterday, I tried my hand at another pair of earrings, but the slab was a true lint magnet and I was too lazy to get alcohol to remove it. I wasn’t too inspired as to what to make out of the slab anyway. Any ideas?

A Few Pretty Intense Days

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s been a few days since I wrote on my blog and I didn’t even check my feed reader yesterday at all. The last few days have been rather intense emotionally.

First, on Sunday, my husband picked me up at 8:30AM to drive to my sister and her family, who live across the country. Little Wolke, my baby niece, was, well, a baby. She didn’t really interact at all. Neither at first did Janneke, my older niece, who will be three in September. My sister did explain that “auntie Astrid’s eyes don’t work” so that’s why I can’t look at her, but she was still shy. Once my sister had taken the polymer clay bear I’d created for Janneke and let her undo the wrapping, she was a little more engaging. I did feel bad that, when she said the bear wanted a kiss, I told her not to (since I keep hearing mixed things about the safety of polymer clay in this respect). I did worry for a while that maybe Janneke was a bit too young for the bear, but my sister said she doesn’t put things in her mouth anymore and my husband said she has to learn.

My brother-in-law kept my husband occupied with the same old stories and jokes he tells each time we see each other. Meanwhile, Janneke warmed up to me and started inviting me in to her play. Janneke had hip dysplasia, for which she needed surgery last September. She still remembers in a way or so I think, as all her dolls needed to go to the doctor and get fitted with a cast (or have the cast sawn off).

At one point, my sister did start talking about needing to get rid of her pregnancy pounds. I felt a little uncomfortable about that, as she’s quite thin and I am still overweight. Then she started telling me about her career plans.

Overall, I did notice that my sister only talked about herself (and her kids). This is okay with me, but it does remind me of my parents often telling professionals that I am only able to talk about myself. It makes me feel as though the reason I’m not allowed to talk about myself is not that it’s about myself, but the fact that I don’t live a “normal” life. In other words, the contents of what I tell my parents makes them uncomfortable more so than the fact that it’s about me. Either that or my sister is somehow a lot more reciprocal with my parents than with me.

I do think I like Janneke after all though. Last time I saw her was at my birthday almost a year ago. My sister prompted her to give me her present, but she said: “No auntie Astrid not nice.” I felt that was both cute and a tiny bit upsetting.

Thankfully, my husband was able to drop me off in Raalte again in the afternoon. I arrived here with half an hour to spare before we’d eat dinner, which was Chinese takeout.

Then yesterday, which was a bank holiday, I spent most of the morning in bed, because a temp worker was assigned my one-on-one shift and the two most recently employed staff, neither of whom I know well, were working the regular shift. The temp worker tried to get me to go out of bed at first, but she had no idea about the activities I normally do during the day and I didn’t have the energy to explain them to her. Overall, I felt really powerless and like I’d rather not have someone there at all. Thankfully, today we’re more or less back to normal.

My First Crush

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today’s topic for Throwback Thursday is first crushes. Let me share.

My first crush was a boy called MJ (that is, he had a double first name). I think he was a year younger than me. I was ten at the time and in the fifth grade at the school for the blind. Back then, we would always say we were like 90% in love with the other one. I don’t know where the percentages came from or if kids in other schools used them too. I certainly remember telling MJ that I had a crush on him and at that point, several kids in his class pushed me to kiss him. I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek but till this day feel intense shame about it.

I don’t remember feeling heartbreak when that “relationship” ended. It only lasted for a couple of weeks anyway. I do know that MJ passed away when I was in high school, something I didn’t find out about until many years later.

My second crush was a girl named Layla and I’m not even sure I’m spelling that right. I was fourteen at the time and had only met her once. She was in the grade below me at secondary school. At the time, I was still about as clueless about love as I’d been at age ten. After that first encounter, I never met Layla again and so I never told her I had a crush on her.

For years, I’d have fleeting crushes on various girls and boys who paid me attention, but I never told them. I never quite fantasized about having a husband (or wife, since same-sex marriage is legal here) when I’d grow up. In fact, when my now husband told me he was in love with me, I wasn’t so sure whether to reciprocate it. I did like him, but did my feelings go beyond mere friendship plus a little puppy love because he was paying me attention? In the end, it didn’t really matter, as our relationship and now our marriage is a happy one.

Making Up My Mind: Why I Want to Live in an Institution

Posted on by Astrid

Last week, the behavior specialist for my care home came by for a visit to discuss my housing profile. This is the thing with my wants and needs with respect to a new prospective care home on it. I initially wasn’t too picky, saying for example that I would most like to live on institution grounds but if that isn’t possible, a quiet neighborhood home would do too. Then when I talked to my husband, he said that an integrated neighborhood doesn’t get much quieter than my current neighborhood in Raalte. He also told me I don’t need to make compromises about where I want to live as of yet, since I will be looking to stay in my prospective new home for the rest of my life.

The reason I initially compromised about living on institution grounds, is that my current care agency has only one such institution and that one at least wasn’t admitting new clients back in 2019. I’m not sure about right now or whether not admitting new clients means they aren’t keeping a wait list either. However, I was wary of contacting other agencies due to the bureaucracies involved. Then my husband said though that this shouldn’t be something for me to worry about.

Eventually, after talking about it with my assigned home staff, my husband and my mother-in-law, I decided to make up my mind about my wishes for the housing profile. I said I’d really like to be looking at institutions.

This does mean I had to drop my objection against contacting external agencies. I offered two agencies we could contact other than my current one. One has an institution in Apeldoorn, the city I grew up in, and another in a small town elsewhere in Gelderland, about a 45-minute drive from Lobith, where my husband lives. For reference: Raalte is about a 75-minute drive from Lobith and I did agree with my husband that I won’t be looking at care homes that are farther away. The other agency has an institution near Apeldoorn and one near Nijmegen. I’m not sure the one near Nijmegen was acceptable distance-wise to my husband, but the one near Apeldoorn certainly was.

Both agencies are unlikely to refuse to consider me based on my IQ alone, even though both primarily serve people with intellectual disability. The reason I think so is that both also serve other populations and I have some experience with both agencies.

I do feel all kinds of feelings about the fact that I’ve made up my mind. For one thing, I do feel some form of shame about wishing to live on institution grounds. Back in 2006 and 2007, I wrote agitated articles about the fact that deinstitutionalization was said not to be working by some non-disabled advocates for the disabled, claiming it was poor care, not community living, that was at fault. I meant, for example, the fact that people in the community need more support to go outside if, for example, they aren’t safe in traffic, than they would need in institutions. Then, if that support isn’t provided, it’s no wonder they’d rather go back to living in the woods.

Now one of the reasons I want to go into an institution is the fact that I don’t feel safe leaving my home and the only way of preventing me from leaving it anyway is locking me up. Now tell me again you want the least restrictive environment.

Another feeling has to do with the institution in Apeldoorn specifically. My family home was quite close by that institution. So close in fact that I remember one day when I was eighteen, having an encounter with the police and being asked whether I’d run away from there. I know my parents would feel intense shame if I moved there. Then again, they probably feel intense shame at the fact that I live with people with intellectual disabilities already. Besides, who cares what my parents think?

I do have a few things I need to consider when looking at external agencies. For example, my current agency provides free, pretty much unrestricted WiFi in all rooms of all its homes and it’s available to clients if they wish to use it, which I do. I am not sure the other agencies do, but I will inquire about this when the need arises.