Dealing with Things – or Trying to…

People who have physical illnesses often know exactly what is wrong with them, what is causing their illness, and what they can do to reduce or cure the effects of that illness – as do their friends and family.  (I’m well aware that not everyone does).  But in a situation like mine, I’m on a spectrum of things which might affect me more or less than other things, and so people can’t just learn about Autism and Asperger’s, but about how the symptoms affect me as in individual.  The hardest thing is when people think they know how I should be, think they know about me, and put the theory in place, and it doesn’t match.  I’ve got a situation at the moment with someone who I’ve known for many years who has put themselves in place to give me advice, and it’s just horrible every time I have to be in the same room as that person, which is roughly once per week.  Even worse when I’m trying to focus on what I’m there for, and trying to avoid any conversations related to work as I’m not at work at that point.

This place is, again, church.  I’ve reached that key point where I’m not new again, and people are starting to place me.  I’ve lost the best friend to sit next to as he moved on, and indeed he protected me from a lot of these conversations and discussions.  Now I’m on my own, avoiding these is somewhat more difficult.  One morning, I was inflicted into six conversations about work. After spending most of Saturday trying to relax and get away from the week, it’s all thrust back on me very quickly.  Some of the things with church are still there from my previous experiences, and so often my head is full of stuff that I keep trying to get rid of, that keeps coming back.  It kills my focus, my concentration, and I’ve wanted to get up and run away a number of times.  I know if I do that, then there’s no way back.

A few weeks ago, I was asked about re-joining the PA rota, which for anyone who hasn’t read the previous posts, I was asked to stand down from several years ago, by the same people who are in charge to this day.  Although I was asked by someone who didn’t know the circumstances, it just put me in a corner.  After the previous conversation mentioned above with someone who was trying to tell me what I should do with myself, I was left trying to explain the situation without getting angry or bursting into tears.  Whether I want to do PA or not is irrelevant – 3 churches have rejected me, mostly because the people do not understand that I worshipped through what I did.  That channel was cut off each time because people didn’t want to listen to me, and didn’t give me the chance to be different.  They just assumed I am the same as everyone else.

I’m not sure what to do about the situation.  I’m worried that I’ll end up with no church again – that wasn’t a nice place after what happened here last time.  I don’t know if I’ve reached the end where I am, and I’ve got nothing standing out at me as an alternative at the moment.  I just pray.

Saturday has become my only chance to get away.  The week is much the same.  Work is still the same challenges, and home isn’t really much of an escape.  I’ve become very alone in the evenings since leaving simsig and the model railway club.  I can occupy myself sometimes, but sometimes there’s so much in my head that I end up doing nothing much, and the situation just carries on.  If I do get focussed on something, then I find that the thoughts and emotions return when I go to bed and try to switch off.  If I manage to go out on a Saturday, it’s just like a temporary way out.  It’s like I just hide behind it, and it comes back when it’s time to move onto the next thing, or it’s forced back on me by others not happy with something I have or haven’t done.  Several times I come home from being out, relaxed and reset, only to have someone else’s problems inflicted on me.  It’s just like the rest of the week, and work, so it’s everything becoming so current again and I just burst into tears when the torrent hits.  Crying and trying to get things out in the same place as people trying to take their issues out on you whilst not making it too obvious because it only gets worse is impossible.  I’ve never got all the horrible stuff out of my head, because I don’t have the space when I need it.  Mostly, that’s at work.

The situation is no different to the last time I wrote about it.  Trying to somehow cope by dodging the blame for anything and everything.  The past few weeks have seen the return of the politics in the one bit of my job I do like – buying parts.  It’s always been a political world.  As a small garage, I can only buy what my suppliers (motor factors) stock.  When I go to a trade show, it allows me to talk to the companies who manufacture the parts.  Some companies are good at being interested in talking to us who buy and fit the parts – others are absolutely hopeless!  I’m not interested in corporate waffle.  I’m interested in the truth.  Sadly, motor factors seem to be as bad as politicians about giving us as a small garage the real facts.  They also don’t seem to like being questioned about things.  I’ll give an example of what I have to put up with.  A few weeks ago, a large motor factor had a price rise of 11.5% on one brand of products.  This was larger than we would normally see, and so I questioned it, thinking terms had been dropped.  The reply given by one of their directors was that the manufacturer had increased cost prices to them be an average of 1%.  Now, anyone with basic maths skills will notice that this doesn’t add up.  So, I questioned it again, giving several examples to prove my facts, and got no reply.  That was until I walked into their self-organised trade show two weeks later, and was nearly immediately pulled aside after walking through the door, and told “trust you to notice the price rise.  We’ve had to pass on increases in our costs – that’s how it is”.  Angry really doesn’t cover it – as a small person in a small garage in a small world dealing with big companies in a big world – we have to put up with what to me are blatant lies and attempts to fob us off.

It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.  When you try to talk to manufacturers about why you don’t buy their products, most are not interested, as the majority are happy.  I’ve had suppliers refuse to deal with me in the past because I always check prices, and won’t buy parts which are, in some cases, deliberately overpriced.  I am just a small person in a small company, and so I don’t matter.  I’ve been told to apply for jobs in these companies – in recent times, they don’t reply to my applications.  A few years ago, I later found out that the interview I’d had was listened in on by two senior managers in the adjacent office.  This summer I applied for 3 definite jobs and made several speculative applications at motor factors and for other jobs.  Of the motor factors, one manager told me he would get back to me, and never did.  Another told me he couldn’t offer me a job because I did not tick the boxes.  He suggested I was more suited to a job at head office and would pass my details on – again I heard nothing, and it was suggested to me that I was being fobbed off.

I used to dream of being able to prove what I know, and dream about being listened to and taken seriously.  Recently, it’s just another series of nightmares about not being able to cope with what I have to deal with daily, and seeing me losing it at the people who make me feel so small, and refuse to tell me the truth.

I’m lucky to have some good working relationships with local branches of motor factors, although it’s very difficult when their head offices aren’t always supportive of the working relationships.  The amount of work both sides put in to get around some of the brick walls imposed by high up is huge, hard work, and when things don’t quite work, I don’t always do very well at dealing with it.  Add this to the string of other issues I’ve talked about in previous posts, and some days I just don’t cope.  I don’t know what I can told to make things better – I feel like it’s the big companies who are holding me back, and I feel like I am waiting for the day to be able to prove myself, and be listened to.

Back to now, and I somehow have to release this from my system, along with all the other things.  The problem is things keep building up and building up.  I spend most of my evenings in my bedroom with a computer, internet connection and a TV – although mostly the former due to the lack of programs worth watching on TV.  Sundays I’ve already talked about, and Saturdays are my only chance to get away.  Even that doesn’t always happen.  People have a habit of giving me things I should be doing, and if not that, telling me I should be doing other things.  All I want to do is get away from anything to do with work, and usually that means from home and my parents, as it’s too close to work a lot of the time.  The hardest thing though, is being alone so much of the time.  The evenings I am mostly to myself.  I sometimes manage to engage in some kind of text based conversation, and occasionally a meaningful one which helps.  The problem is anything else just hides the problems away, until they come back out.  Sometimes if I’m on my own, or I have to do something which I don’t find easy, then it’s not an escape at all.  Sometimes I bump into someone I don’t want to bump into, or a conversation changes to work, and things go quickly back to square one.  The more that’s gone on, and the more that’s stored in me, the more delicate I am, and the harder it is to get away and clear out.  Even when I do get away, I’m soon back dealing with something.

The problem is not just my head; it’s giving me other issues.  About 3 months ago, I had a cold.  Nothing serious, except I still have some symptoms now.  I feel like my head is pressurised and blocked up, I have dry eyes a lot, and sometimes indigestion type symptoms.  It seems to be a lot worse when I get wound up, and I know about pressure in places as I relax.  Except I don’t seem to fully relax.  Over time (months), it’s tiring me out.  The combination of thoughts in my head, not feeling well at times, my body releasing pressure and the dreams/nightmares are leaving me feeling very tired, probably exhausted at times.  I feel really tired when I am woken up in the mornings – and have sometimes fallen straight back to sleep, and had to be woken up again.  I just feel tense so much of the time, in my head, in my body, and in my mind.  People ask me if I’m OK, and usually I have to give the “correct” answer because I’m around other people, or if they ask whilst I’m away from the problems, then I probably am OK at that point in time.

It’s hard saying I’m OK to someone who knows full well I’m not OK a lot of the time, and even harder when they start asking questions around other people – there are some people I just do not want to open up to or in front of, and I just wish people would understand that.  Sometimes, people say I open up too much, and at other times, when I’ve dealt with something at that moment, I’m not going to bring it back out whilst it’s not there.  The problem is, even with the one or two people I can really talk to, I can’t always bring out the issues if they’re not there at that moment.  And so, they stay hidden, and they come back.  I’m not sure if a lot of the issues wouldn’t come back anyway.  Having such a small number of people I can talk to, and people who want to properly talk to me is hard, because when I need to talk, it feels like I never can.  That’s why I sometimes let go more openly than people say I should – because there is nobody at that time when there’s something there I need to get out.

It’s difficult having so few close friends, and now being involved in so few activities compared with say a year ago.  I miss having something to do in my week, but it was no good having those things which just added more hassle and upset than good.  I lost friends by leaving some of the voluntary activities I did.  With so many people, when I wasn’t there by default, they became uninterested in me, and indeed some turned on me as an excuse for things that went on, and were subsequently blamed on me, just because I couldn’t cope, and left or was pushed away.

Instead, I put time into doing stuff by myself.  The railway group I run sees a lot of my work, and some people appreciate it at least.  Even that has politics between different groups, and representing railway enthusiasts is difficult with recent events where minorities have caused issues for many in how railway enthusiasts are perceived.  I have tried to volunteer in some different organisations to give back some of what I have received over the years, which will also help me get away a bit more at the weekends.  Of the 4 applications I made, I only received a reply from one, saying I was on a waiting list.  I wonder if it’s much like applying for a real job – am I getting the real answer?  Will I get the chance to give something back?

Like trying to find a real job, I just dream of the day I can get to prove myself to someone who matters.  I dream of being able to support myself, and be in control of my destiny.  At the moment, I feel I am stuck where I am.  Stuck in the politics I mentioned above.  Stuck in the cycle of challenge, and not really getting out.  I can’t afford to move out of home, and I don’t really want to.  It won’t solve the work issues, and then I go home, am even more alone than I am here, and am skint and can’t have a day out or something because all my money has gone on just living, and so I’m just as trapped as I am now.  There’s nothing grabbing me to move out either, so I stick with what I have, and what I know.  Some days I cope, some days I struggle, and some days I just don’t cope.

I dream of finding more people who understand me, or want to understand me.  I look on social media, and see people who once gave me time, and I try to start a conversation.  Occasionally I get a reply.  Occasionally still, the conversation goes past 3 or 4 messages.  And more occasionally still, the conversation might start up again on another day.  It’s such a rarity for me – made harder still when I just want to talk.  Typing out what I want to say is so hard sometimes, especially when things in my head are raw.  Up to a year or so ago, I used to talk to people several times a week in the evenings, before I was ejected from the group.  Sometimes I just want to hear a calming voice.  Sometimes (well, perhaps quite often), I just wish I could share a hug with someone.  I use those words “share a hug” – hugs can be so emotive, but so cold as well.  A bit like friendships and responses to messages I send.  I can offer a hug, or even hug someone, but if they don’t hug back, it’s really horrible.  It’s a bit like my attempts at friendships – I try, but I so often feel so cold by the lack of responses which really mean anything.

I don’t necessarily miss that group now, but I miss being able to actually talk to people.  Often when I try to start a conversation, I feel like I’m stabbing in the dark, like trying to stab a star with a pin in the night sky.  I have so few people to talk to, that when I find someone who will talk to me, I think I push things too much, because I want to have more time talking to them than they do talking to me.  Most of the time, they already have their friends, where I have them, and it feels like I have to break into their world, which just doesn’t happen.  There are, literally, one or two exceptions, and even with perhaps my best friend, our friendship has been ridiculed by others.

I guess it’s the one thing I miss from school days – being around other people.  There were plenty of things I found hard, but there was someone around to at least interact with.  Sometimes, I feel very alone, and just want to talk.  I just can’t convert that want into a conversation.  I’ve started doing simple things like wishing people happy birthday, in the hope that it might spark a conversation.  Sometimes I might manage to ask “how are you?” or “I hope you’re doing OK?”  Any reply more than half a sentence is a major achievement.  Sometimes I see someone I know or knew having a hard time, and I pray for them, and send a message of support or love, just to let them know I’m praying for them.  Again, many don’t reply at all, which is difficult for me.  I feel like I’m putting myself in their face, and probably giving them something they don’t want to know about.

Sometimes I see a really inspirational picture (well, something that I can relate to or lifts me a bit), and I just want to let that person know that it’s made a difference to me.  Sometimes I manage to send something; sometimes I even get a reply.  Once recently I got a reply that was more than half a sentence long, which was real (I think/hope).  Just that little thing and that little bit of someone’s time gave me such a big lift that evening after a difficult day.  I imagine it like receiving that hug back when I gave one – just so reassuring, uplifting and peaceful.  I even had an offer of meeting up for a coffee if we were ever in the same area.  This might sound harsh, but it’s not intended to be, but for me, actually acting on that just seems so unrealistic and foreign.  It might be the shock of such an offer, but I just don’t understand how to go about making something as simple as meeting up with someone I’ve not seen for many years and going for a coffee with them – that’s if we’re ever in the same area.  For some it might be really trivial, but for me, something like that is major event, and not something I know how to do.  I pray for the knowledge of what do and time for such an eventuality.

So – where to next?  Well – Christmas to start with.  Everything around me looks like it’ll stop again this year, when I just want to carry on.  My family is all close, and we see each other fairly regularly, so there’s nothing particularly unordinary about seeing them.  I’ve not got any of the voluntary activities to fill some of the time this year either, and only a trip planned at New Year, so Christmas will probably drag out.  For the last couple of years, I’ve had the period between Christmas and New Year off work.  This year might be more difficult with the situation as it is, and having nothing planned to do.  I can’t seem to be allowed time off to just be at home, because I’m seen to be doing nothing whilst others have to out themselves out to cover my job.  I’m not sure which will give me more hassle, working or not working?

I wish I could look forwards and say things will get better.  At the moment, I just see what is here now.  I feel like I’m reliant on other people to help me along.  To get a different job, I need someone to take a chance on me, as I seemingly don’t tick all of the boxes.  I just want someone to give me the chance to prove myself, but the world wants someone who ticks all the boxes.  To make friends, I need people who want to make friends with me.  I’ve found one equal friendship this year, but I cannot rely on that one person – they have their own life, other friends, family and other things.  I have me.  My job, family and home life are so together, that I look for other things outside of this one box, and always find it difficult to fill the gaps.

I hope that in a few months, I can report back some positive steps – I just feel very cautious about making things worse, rather than better at the moment.  I just want what everyone else has – friends who give me as much time as I want to give them.  I just want to cope with day to day life, and know how to react to people, and understand them, and have them understand me.  Maybe even share some proper hugs?

The simple things are just such a challenge to me – each and every day.

I wish you all a happy Christmas, and all the best for 2016.

Trying Different Things…

So, six months has gone by since I last put my thoughts down.  A lot has happened – things have come, and gone again.  Some things are just the same as always, some are worse, some have got better.  This is just some of the things I’ve been going through, and still am going through.

Last time, I mentioned that I’d returned to the model railway club I’d left after things became so difficult.  Well, within two months, and well before the first exhibition of this year, normality set in, and I was back pretty much where I was, dealing with most of the responsibility I had previously.  There were some issues over the exhibition at Easter which were promised to me to be dealt with before the next exhibition in June.  Ten days before, a meeting of the committee took place (being a member of the committee was the one thing of my previous responsibilities I hadn’t re-assumed, so I wasn’t there).  All the issues were lumped back onto me, and made to be my problem.  Accusations were made against me by three individuals, as well as smaller issues involving a handful of other members.  They claimed I had volunteered to do certain things when I had been asked to do them.  They made excuses about trying to work with me and my “difficulties” which I had been against.  I was accused of not putting in my fair share of time into anything other than operating the railway and I was accused of damaging parts of the building when I had done something – parts of the building which were already damaged – just I was the one who found the damage.

These things, combined with several club nights of hassle, a forthcoming exhibition which looked to be a complete challenge to organise with the lack of support and amount of rumours going around into certain things, and some other decisions made by the committee to go against decisions made in the past gave me little option but to inform them when I found out what had gone on that I would be taking no further part in any of the society’s activities in the short term – at least not until the committee showed this complete negativity towards me.  I only received three replies – a public reply and a private reply from one committee member, which were quite different.  Publicly, I was condemned again, privately I think that person was trying not to be as abrupt, and to salvage something of what had gone on.  In reality, I didn’t know which to trust, and so I trusted neither.  A week or so later, the other reply arrived, and that was utterly horrible.  It was complete condemnation of my actions, and laid total blame at my door for not handling a situation that I had put myself in, and was not able and ready to cope with.

Over the following exhibition weekend, I stayed away, and didn’t miss it, and haven’t done since.  I have enough problems going on without volunteering to give myself more problems.  I think the hardest thing was realising that some of the people I called friends had turned against me, or at least not supported me at the key time.  Sadly, that seems to have been a common theme for the first half of this year.

As well as the model railway club situation, my church life was turned upside down again.  I came through a major blip (as described in my previous blog post), but some things never were quite the same.  We had a meeting to discuss a number of issues, both mine and others’ issues, and try to understand the bigger picture, and how things could work better.  Things settled down for a few weeks, but then everything seemed to come back altogether.  The disorganisation, late changes and being lumped with other people’s roles left me not coping and not prepared, and rather angry, and I walked out 5 minutes before the service started as I was nowhere close to a worshipful state.

I ended up in a different church (which had a slightly later service), and found myself sat at the back with someone I was starting to know as a friend (more about that later).  Ironically, the preacher was a member of the church I’d just walked out of, but I was beyond caring about that.  I was winning the battle of finding enough strength to have even walked through the door, and knew I wasn’t in a good place.  The service started quite soon after I’d walked in, and I was OK until something was said at the front about not walking away from God.  I was immediately in tears – I had done just that – walked away.  I was taken into a quiet room, and I cried a lot, described the situation and cried some more.  That was church that day.

During the week that followed, I found strength to go to the house group I had become part of attached to the church I had walked out of.  It certainly wasn’t easy, but I was able to be a part of the evening, contribute to discussions, and go away thinking I’d made progress.  However, within days, things turned again.  I received an e-mail stating that some members of the housegroup were concerned about my posts on Facebook about the discussions which had taken place which were private, and about my negativity.  I was told I would have to agree to “terms” in order to continue to be a part of the group.  I had several busy weekends between then and Easter, so I said I would not be around for a few weeks, in the hope of some discussions, explanations and evidence of what I supposedly done.  Nothing came, no discussions, no explanations, no evidence – nothing.  Once my weekends calmed down after Easter, I felt no wish to go back to that church – there just was nothing drawing me there.  Most of the bits of friendships I’d formed had either already fallen apart or just had, and what was left was shielded by all of this.  Again, it questioned my choice of friends – again people I trusted had betrayed me.

After several weeks of putting this to one side, and not really having considered the outcome or the impact on my faith, I went, for the first time in a while, to a Christian men’s breakfast, where I realised I’d been missing fellowship, and my faith had slipped.  I arranged to see a minister I trusted, with a bigger overview of the whole situation without being directly involved, to try and put one thing back on track – my path with God.

We talked about various things, about the previous church situation, and about a way forwards.  I’d known I wouldn’t be going back where I had come from – having had major issues for the second time, the attempt at resolving them and second try obviously wasn’t right.  We came up with a strategy to exit calmly and peacefully, and a strategy to get me back into church, with the help of someone who was increasingly becoming a close friend.  Before I move onto that, I need to finish with the old church.  I had a phone call a couple of weeks later from someone wanting to talk about the situation and what had happened nearly 3 months before (as It was by then).  Still they couldn’t tell me what I had said – just that I had upset people by what I had apparently said on Facebook – yet two of the three names mentioned aren’t on Facebook, and still nobody could tell me what I had said.  I just said that I’d already moved on, and didn’t feel I wanted to reverse that.  After another week or so, the minister I’d spoken to came back to me and said people were telling him what appeared to me to be an even more watered down version of things which might have happened.  I knew I’d moved on, and left all this behind.  I formally resigned from the responsibilities I had there.  I did try to retain a foot in the door so that if I was called, I wouldn’t be a stranger there, but that door was slammed shut by those in charge.  I got the stock response of “you’re always welcome”, but also that I couldn’t be a part of anything.  How can I be welcome when I’ve been shut out?  I just don’t understand that.

Enough of that – onto something better.  As I mentioned, I was properly introduced to someone I now, six months on, can call my best friend.  If you read back, I’ve said several times that I never thought I’d find someone I could call a best friend, but finally there is someone I can trust, who can trust me (I think)!  Our friendship has grown through church – after what went on, we’ve been able to support each other, and both of us are restoring and growing our faith.  I get on with his wife too – who is also really supportive of our growing friendship.  Everything seems to be a two-way thing, and it’s something very new to me.  It’s just natural – I’m not having to try to make things work or force things along like I have before with other people.  It’s to me, just like best friends should be – it’s just taken me until 27 to find out about it.  We’ve been able to meet up as ourselves, go for dinner, talk about things, found a lot of common interests, and indeed our past church histories are similar involving issues with worship through technical support (PA and AV to clarify).  Both of us were looking for the same thing in a church, and we’ve both found it away from the tech desk!  Maybe that calling will come one day, maybe not.  For the first time in my adult life, I can sit in church, with a friend without feeling totally uncomfortable.  I’m still working on how to deal with those who caused me to leave the first time around, but this time I’m not on my own.  So far I’m coping with most of it, and growing and building.  Praise the Lord!

So, after several years, I’m back in the church I started off in.  I’m very aware of certain people, and very aware of certain situations I don’t want to find myself in.  Sometimes I can do nothing more than sit in the back corner and pray for an hour and a half.  The hardest thing has been the people who just think it’s easy for me, and think I should slot back in where I left from.  Things have changed.  I have changed.  I’m now not on my own in church for one.  I’m not ready to start doing things – I just want some space to be me, to worship, and to cope with being in church, in an environment I struggle with.  The people who kicked me out are still there, and it feels like they’re pretending nothing happened.  Most people won’t accept what happened in the past, so I just have to carry on like everything is normal, easy and OK.

The other problem is the amount of work references that come up.  I try to stay clear of certain people for this very reason, but sometimes, it’s just not possible.  One week, five separate people asked in depth work-related questions.  By the second one, I was referring them to call me at work, and by the fifth one, I was walking out of the door.  By two days into the week, my parents didn’t find my actions acceptable, and neither would they accept that my not knowing of what private conversations they had to be acceptable, as I should have been a part of those conversations.  I really find it difficult to handle a situation where I have been expected to do something when I know nothing about it, yet it happens over and over again.

If I ask about something, I get told that I should know about it.  If I ask for something to be written down, I get told it doesn’t need to be written down because I’ve been told about it, regardless of what else I’m already doing at the time.  I can’t relay messages to customers about things I’ve not been told about.  Instead, I should ask about things – how do I know to ask about something if I don’t know I need to ask!  And so it goes on.  For months, things seemed to have turned against me – blame for anything possible, even when it’s nothing to do with me.  On a number of occasions, I’ve been reduced to tears, sometimes before 8:30 in the morning.  Then I get told to stop being upset as it’s unprofessional, and I’m making others unhappy by being upset and negative all of the time.  By the time this repeats itself and several other things, I’m in pieces by the end of the day.  So, I make a swift exit at the end of the day, whilst Mum and Dad are still getting organised or whatever else, and just go a cry.  Sometimes I’ve ended up talking to Grandma, in tears, but even that is a problem to my parents sometimes.  Apparently, I should be able to deal with the problems I cause.  Sometimes, it’ll be one or two things in a day; sometimes it’ll be non-stop all day.

I reached a situation where I couldn’t cope.  But I still have to carry on.  I’ve been threatened with my job and home for ruining other’s lives, and refusing to be happy and positive.  When I get home, and go into my own space, to do my own things, that’s still not good enough.  I get the “you can just…” routine.  Not asked of, assumed of, and often at weekends too.  I can’t be left alone to try and get my head out of the never-ending spiral – they just have to keep digging and poking at me.

Yet, sometimes like a flick of a switch, everything is OK, and then the switch flicks over, and I’m the world’s biggest problem again.  I just can’t read it, and I don’t know why all the blame is on me.  I guess I’m the easy one to blame?  Even when I managed to cope with one day, the next will be back to what has become normal.  I even managed a week where I coped for the whole week, only for the next to be complete hell again.  I’ve probably said too much already, but this isn’t everything, and there is worse.  The hardest thing has been the repeated persistence of some things, and the blame on me being like a default position.

A few weeks on, and things are not as bad – they’re not good, but not as bad.  Discussions have happened about the future, and it’s clear that in the medium term, I need to find a job and a home before my parents retire.  Easier said than done.  I can’t afford to live on my own in my own home without more money, for which I need a different job which pays me more money.  It's well known that living costs are high, and for me, the sums don’t add up.  Add all the stuff above, and I’m very trapped.  Finding a job has not proved possible for the last several years I’ve been trying.  The things I know are becoming harder to get into – the big companies keep putting hoops to jump through in the way – the latest thing I to endure was a “video interview” – where a computerised person asked me questions.  Given I got a proper interview for similar jobs a couple of times in the past, now I can get no further than this video interview thing.  The problem is the moment I put that I have Autism on a job application, is the moment I get nowhere.  Even though I have eleven years’ experience of customer service, it’s just not good enough for companies that want to tick boxes.

Someone suggested I join a job agency.  The problems are numerous – one being that I have a full time job already, two being autism, and three therefore not knowing what I am able to cope with in things I just don’t know about.  I’ve only ever done what I do now, and I’ve only ever worked for my parents.  I just don’t know how I’d cope in a different place doing something I don’t know about.  The trouble is companies don’t want to hear that either.  So, I’ve started trying something different.  I’m trying some very open applications, explaining my situation, and asking for consideration for an unpaid trial or work experience so I can find out more about the company and potential role, and they can find out about me, without the unrealistic pressure of an unnatural interview, which always seems to find my lack of confidence and uncertainty, and would also give an indication of whether I could cope with doing that role.

I’ve started with a couple of companies I know, but may look to broadening the idea if I need to.  So far, I’ve had mixed replies, ranging from “that’s not how we do things” to people I know not believing I would leave the family business.  Enough people have told me I can do the jobs I’m applying for, but persuading the people who matter that I can seems somewhat harder.  The problem is I’m asking for something quite different to how most companies would handle a prospective new employee, but I hope something that if I can find someone willing to take a chance, something that will work for both sides.  I’m trying to do something before I have to, but I’ve got to find someone who is willing to take a risk and do something outside of the box to help me.

Until then, I’m stuck where I am.  Trying to cope with each day, get away from what I can’t cope with in the evenings and weekends, and trying to move forwards again, finding one or two things I can cope with along the way to pull me through.  Having left 3 voluntary organisations in just over a year that turned impossible for me to cope with, I don’t have much left.  I do spend a lot of time in front of a computer screen, usually doing work on one of a couple of projects I have ongoing.  At the moment, they’re mostly private ones since the work on signalling simulations ended.  One or two have been for the benefit of the railway enthusiast community, whilst others have been for my own interest, to keep me in something to do, and try and pull my mind away from the horrible stuff going on.  Sometimes I manage to briefly escape, sometimes I don’t.  In the worst of it, I went nights and nights without sleeping properly, I’ve had headaches, dizziness, what I best describe as indigestion at both ends and in times of continuous stress, I put on weight too, along with yet more comments that I need to learn to cope because I’m causing myself harm.  I can see that, and feel it.  It’s become part of my life trying to manage situations to get away from the horrible stuff.  People keep thinking they know better and putting things on the way of my escapes though.

Sometimes I’m successful, other times it attracts criticism from those who think I sit around doing nothing, those who think I should be doing something else, or those who just don’t understand how I am.  The problem is I’m still getting used to having a best friend, but I don’t have the depth of friends most people do.  My world is still quite a lonely one at times.  When I’m in a situation with lots of people, it’s either the wrong people, or the wrong place with the wrong other people around whom I just can’t talk in front of.  I’ve been hurt so many times, that I just try to avoid things – it’s easier.  Then I get hassled for not going out, or not moving away from my computer.  I’d really like to be able to talk to people.  I can’t even seem to manage a decent set of messages or e-mails, let alone anything else – even to people I know or went to school with.  I don’t know why, but it just doesn’t happen.  I don’t want to take over your lives, I just want to be friendly and have a chat when I send a message.  It’s so hard when I try something that doesn’t work, gets ignored, or you just cut off.  So hard that I try less and less.

So, where do I go from here?  I have to work hard to keep the small number of friends I have.  I’m always conscious of what I say, and relaxing properly is nearly impossible.  I keep looking for options to find a job I can cope with – keep trying doors which might not be mine to open.  I’m suggesting something different, by me who am different.  Will someone see something in me to open the door to allow me to take control of my own life and destiny?  I don’t want to be trapped here for ever.  Well, I won’t be.  I don’t fancy being out on my own in the future when what I know now stops existing.

Lord – find me my way to freedom.  Amen.