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.