Finding a Place…

It’s been some months since I’ve written.  Last time I posted, I’d just lost a lifetime best friend, and it took me some time to work my way around this.  In many respects, the hole Paul has left me with is still there.  I’ve said before that I’ve chosen not to write in the bad times, but this time will have to be an exception, as I’m not escaping the lows.

I’ve had a lot of things going on during 2016 – many things coming to an end, some re-starting, or trying to re-start, hitting a lot of issues, people not supporting me, and quite honestly, I’m not sure how long I can keep going for.

It’s just after Christmas as I write, and on top of everything else, I’m full of cold/flu or whatever this bug is.  Last time I had this sort of thing, it took over 5 weeks to get rid of it, simply because I wasn’t emotionally or mentally strong then, and I’m no better now – indeed, perhaps even worse.  The lows are as low as they’ve ever been, and the highs very few and far between.  My world is a lonely one most of the time.  And when I do get a rare opportunity to spend time with someone who wants to spend their time with me, there are usually others along too, or too many people I don’t trust around to do anything but hide away the truth.  There are still people around who think they know all about me, people who still think I use autism as an excuse for not doing things, and then the majority who just ignore me, because they think I’m not worth their time.  Some things just don’t change, and probably never will.

I know that some people reading this will recognise some of the things I am writing, some of the situations mentioned, and maybe even themselves.  I do not intend to hurt or upset anyone, but I know I probably will as I tell it from my mind and my heart.  I’ve spent many, many days recently wanting to cry or burst out several times each day, simply because the weight on me is so great, but I’ve not been able to deal with it.  Even if I have in part, it just comes back the next day or after the weekend or the next time the same situation arises.

I’ll start with work since it’s the thing that dominates my world.  The situation has been getting worse again.  My parents choose to blame me for anything and everything, and then others join in too.  I cope with some things, and not with others.  The parts of my job I get any satisfaction from are becoming less and less through a combination of less manpower and therefore less work meaning fewer parts to buy.  It also means my position is less viable, and it looks like there will be a time coming soon when this takes over as a key issue.  Having lost one member of staff, and another being part time until he retires in the spring after having a stroke, I am having to do more tasks which just aren’t me, and I don’t understand, so sometimes I can only go so far, and then that’s not good enough for my parents, and they blame me.

I try to keep busy doing what I understand – buying parts.  But, it’s becoming harder and harder as the big companies become bigger, and the little man becomes littler.  No matter how strong individual relationships become, I’m still the little man.  I get promises made, and broken regularly – some little, some big.  Some made by an individual and broken by the company they work for – others just not kept.  I fight in an industry where little people aren’t supposed to know the truth, and aren’t given a place to fight.  It breaks me trying to work in relationships biased to the big people all the time.

It’s so frustrating when I find something that’s obviously wrong, for example in a company’s catalogue, and I report it, and it’s either ignored, acknowledged or only part fixed.  I’d say over 75% of what I find is like this.  When I ask for a job to sort it out, they refuse.  It goes in cycles – I find a relationship that works for a while, and then it gets broken up.  For me, it works for a while, gives me something to do, sometimes I get to the point of finding false hope that this might finally be the time it’s a real chance, and then it gets cut off, or someone stabs me in the back, goes back on what’s been said before, and just leaves me sat there wondering what to do next, and how much of my life I wasted pursuing something that just wasn’t realistic.  Only I didn’t see it.  Sometimes, I find I’ve been used – be it my knowledge and understanding or willingness to work with people over and beyond my direct job.  When it ends, I’m back to square one.  Any positives I got from what I was doing just stop, and leave a great big hole – to be filled by those blaming me for everything, and ridiculing me.

Work is such a hard place – surrounded by all of this, and knowing that it’s only a matter of time before the plug is pulled - listening to talk of retirement every day, listening to older people moaning about computers taking over and the job changing.  Hoping and praying for a way out before I end up with nothing.  It’s unusual to get through a day without bursting into tears.  And then that’s my fault too.  I’m given situations that I just can’t handle, and then told if I can’t cope, I should get out.  I want out, but there’s no door open to go to.  It’s so hard to go into the toilet and burst into tears, and not to make a sound, and then be able to come out in a “normal” amount of time.  If I’m really not coping, it can take me half an hour or more to calm down and be ready for something else – so often that time isn’t there, and something else happens first, and the outpouring just starts again.

Perhaps the hardest thing is when someone I know comes into reception, and asks how I am, and I have to lie to them and say I’m fine, often holding the tears back as I try to get the words out – simply because there are others around who I have to pretend everything’s OK too.  Sometimes these people know perfectly well I’m not OK, others don’t realise that they’ve just asked me at the wrong time.  I’ve learned to say very little whilst anyone else is around.  I’ve even stopped trying to go outside away from others for a quick chat, because I’ll just be followed to make sure I can’t say anything.

I dream of the day where one of the relationships I build actually lasts, and maybe takes me somewhere.  I’ve been told so many times that I could do a job, but when it comes to the crunch of me actually applying or saying I’m looking, there’s never an opportunity.  People seem to have this habit of getting my hopes up, and then breaking them.  The problem is I don’t tick the boxes of any HR department.  I just want to be given the opportunity to do something I can do.  I know I’ve shown what I can do, but that’s never enough.

I’ve been searching for another job for over 7 years now, so far without any success.  The closest I’ve come is people saying I can do something, but not taking seriously that I’d actually leave where I am now stuck.  Having gone through many processes and assessments and interviews, it’s one of the most horrible things I’ve ever done.  I don’t want to go and talk to 2 strangers about what I might to if xyz happens, totally freeze up and know that I’ve wasted a day of my life.  I’ve known for a long time my best chance is someone who knows me, knows what I can do, how I work putting me in a gap and letting me fill it.  But, the world doesn’t work like that – so I have to struggle on in the hope of the HR way of ticking boxes.  Autism doesn’t tick boxes.  Real people with real experience get to know me.  I look for the one who doesn’t use that against me, and then I can move on.

I fully accept that I will end up moving out of home – it’s become very clear that working away from my parents won’t work being around them so much.  It’s something that scares me, but I’m getting more hurt by being trapped where I am than the thoughts of being somewhere else.  I need to start my life, but I search for the right place to do this.

Home life is a hard place – mostly because of work.  I don’t get a proper break very often – if I come home and shut myself in my room until dinner time, any attempt to switch out of work will be erased at the dinner table, when my parents can’t keep off the subject.  Weekends are very similar too.  I get complained at because I have my bedroom door closed – closed to stop sound travelling in.  Sometimes I really don’t want to listen to another debrief of what’s gone on at work all day.  Even over Christmas, I didn’t get a full 10 days off without two interruptions – a knock on the door on Boxing Day and a phone call followed by a home visit on New Year’s Eve.  Yes – really!

I find I need to be separate from work when I’m not there, and maintaining this is very difficult.  Even at church, work is never far away – it’s rare for there not to be a conversation that ends up talking about something to do with work, which just brings back everything I’ve spent the previous day and a half trying to get away from.  I just wish people would understand I don’t work 7 days per week, and I need my own space.

It’s also very difficult to have conversations with certain people, especially those close to my parents.  It’s challenging enough turning up to a place where some of the leadership have betrayed me, and pretend nothing happened, until I should hint at any technical, and then they go defensive on the whole situation.  Some people I just steer clear of, some people I tolerate, and occasionally I’ll find someone to talk to away from those in the above categories for something like long enough to have meaningful conversation.  If something has upset me or made me emotional, often because it’s the first time for a week I’ve started relaxing, then people start wanting to know what’s wrong and I can’t open up, I stop relaxing and get worked up again.  And so it goes on…

It’s nearly impossible to strike the right balance that works.  It’s now common for me to be asked to count the money, which can be a useful side-line to having to talk to people I can’t talk to, but unhelpful if I do want to talk to someone who has then gone by the time I’ve finished.  Again – the cycle just goes around another week…

I’m often struggling on Sunday because I’ve not managed to get away from things on the Saturday.  I’ve found Saturdays often to be a lonely day – indeed the one day I am usually free to do as I please, but the best I can do is hide things away behind a guard, and pretend all is wonderful – only for it to come back when I go home, when something has been arranged that involves me when I wanted to not be involved, or at best, the next day.  It’s where I miss Paul so much, as we’d often meet up and just chat on a Saturday, which gave me that chance to clear out.  Now, it just snowballs up.

Over a short period, the combination of things builds up in me, and gives me physical problems.  Stress, anxiety about what comes next and depression all creep up, and then come out in silent rages, bursts of tears, also usually silent, and explosions of gases at either end which really aren’t good.  I’ve put on weight and have regular headaches.  I seem to often get rather tired as my body fights all this, but then don’t sleep because of the stress and anxiety in my head, which leads to nightmares when I do sleep.

Over some weeks, this has been getting worse, along with some of the situations.  I notice getting more tired as the week goes on, and it makes me less tolerant of the situations I am faced with.  The whole series of things just gets me down, and there’s so little opportunities to escape, and no way out at the moment.  So, whatever I do, the cycle just goes around and around.  In the bigger picture, my body doesn’t cope well, and I am more open to bugs/flu/colds etc, and I take a lot longer to fight through them – the last one I had for over 5 weeks.  Add being poorly to the list of stresses and anxieties, and again, the whole lot just swirls around and around with me stuck in the middle.

Some of the images I’ve seen and nightmares I’ve had really have been dark, dark places.  I’ve been as low as I ever have been at times.  I don’t feel I’m in control of my way out, and am just stuck here waiting someone to rescue me.  I keep trying to seek that person, job, place etc – and I’m still trying.

So – what else do I try?  Once a week, I get out of home to the model railway society I returned to after Paul fell ill.  Last Christmas, I was invited back to cover for a shortage of operators (the layout requires 10 signallers to run a prototypical railway on an intensive timetable).  That I did, and have been going since.  The operating situation quickly became apparent to me as a mess.  Having written the rosters, unknowingly to most others, for that Christmas exhibition based on what I thought I could run after a period away, and being the one who found the way to make the situation work the best, I fell into the rostering position which Paul had been covering since I left, and one or two others were dabbling with, but to me, not seriously enough to give any consistency.  I established in my own mind where the issues were on the railway, and where the gaps were, and set about filling them.  It probably wasn’t the most popular move, but finally after 12 months, I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s not been easy – I’ve had issues at exhibitions with stress through railway and external issues coming together.  The worst one for me though was this Christmas exhibition.  Up to an hour before the start, we didn’t have enough members to run the whole railway for the whole afternoon following the committee’s decision to have an exhibition on a working day, and then not make sure the members could cover the date.  As it was, an extra member made themselves available an hour before the start.  Unfortunately, this situation was my responsibility as the operating department, and it got at me for over a week leading up to the date whilst I tried to find people to cover the shortage I had.  On the other occasions I’ve not coped through the year, I fully know why.  This time, I don’t know what happened in the ten minutes before I smashed one train into the back of another, and didn’t know I’d done it until someone told me (the train was about a metre from me as well).

I’m told I’d not done several things in that ten minutes, but I can’t confirm.  Someone else had to step in, so one person never got their break that day, and has made it known he wasn’t happy about it, not understanding quite the situation I was in.  As it was, I went upstairs, away from the railway, left completely alone.  It took me an hour of crying deeply to reset enough to return to the railway, by which point it was the end of the exhibition.  I managed to stay away from those who were upset by “my actions” though I was subjected to hearing it from a distance.

My role within the society is a difficult one, though one I do for the best of the society and the bigger picture, not for individuals, some of whom have big egos.  It’s a fairly controversial one.  When I took over the rostering after returning, some didn't like it – though nobody else wanted it on a consistent basis.

I was challenged as not being able to understand running the railway, and not understanding the need to challenge people, because I have autism.  A society member threatened to leave over my rostering, after telling a committee member a different story to what they told me. 

After Paul and another longstanding member passed away, there was a vacancy on the committee, which was filled at a by-election in June.  I was nominated by some of the younger members of the society to represent them, whilst a number of established members nominated the person who had made the above claims and threats.  Two existing committee members both told me I was unsuitable to be elected to the committee because I have autism.  I did serve for nearly three years previously, before I was kicked out by the establishment.  It did feel very much like the younger group against the establishment.

Unfortunately, the election being held on an exhibition day rather than at an AGM meant some members weren’t available to attend.  It was very clear I wasn’t the popular choice with many of the establishment.  So much so that it came out in the week leading up to the election that one committee member had been taking proxy/postal votes for the ballot, which were not permitted under the society’s rules.  They even tried to claim the society had to accept the postal/proxy votes under law – using a law that didn’t apply to this society.  These extra votes, all I believe were against me, were thrown out eventually, but not without a further battle on election day.

Each of the two candidates was asked to nominate scrutineers, as there wasn’t an AGM to appoint them.  This was done supposedly to maintain fairness.  However, as the roster clerk, I had to consider this at the start of the exhibition.  I was only told that the other candidate had nominated a non-operating member, and I knew exactly who that was, and why.  I wrote my roster, and left someone spare at the beginning who couldn’t vote in the election, but I knew would make sure the scrutineering was done by the book.  As it turned out, the nominated scrutineer refused to accept the postal/proxy votes weren’t allowed, and refused to scrutineer the election, so a replacement had to be found.  I’d worked out it didn’t matter – I knew the establishment would out vote me after it was found that a group of people hadn’t paid subscriptions, so weren’t eligible to vote.  My fight was over, and I lost the election.

During the weeks after the election, it came out that the nominations had been carried out at the request of some who were not eligible to nominate, and without asking the person they nominated.  Again, they formed part of this group of 3 or 4 people who were stubbornly against anything I did.  After that, things haven’t got much better.  The group of 3 or 4 who grouped against me still refuse to accept my role in the operating department, which was finally agreed by the committee in the autumn – yes – it took that long!  They also failed to recognise the discrimination laid at me – just reminding all members that discrimination of any kind against anyone (I hadn’t been the only one with issues) was no acceptable.  I still spend very little time around this group, and others have noted various things going in which this group doesn’t have the support of.  Whether or not I’ll be nominated this year I don’t know, but I might stand a better chance at a full election rather than at a biased by-election?

Operating wise, after 12 months, I am seeing some light.  I have stuck with my plan to fill the gaps, and the gaps are filling.  Many weeks I have struggled on for the good of everyone, not necessarily for the good of me.  I still think of walking away quite regularly, as when the group against me are in number, the evenings made are very difficult.  Added to everything else in my cycle and swirling around my head, it’s another thing stopping me from sleeping and appearing in nightmares, especially leading up to key dates or exhibitions where issues may occur.

In 2016, we said goodbye to three long standing members of the society.  It was after the third of their funerals in August, that having a few hours spare in Leicestershire gave me the opportunity to catch up with a friend who now lives in America, whilst he was visiting family in the UK.  It was one of those very rare occasions I do something “normal” – we sat in a pub drinking, had dinner, and talked for several hours.  He was the developer of the railway signalling simulations I had done work for in the past, but I had to walk away when things became difficult.  Although we had been in touch, and I had done odd bits & pieces on a quite specific level at various points after I had to leave, this was the first time I was able to have an open conversation about things.

As it was, since the whole thing got commercialised by the owners, and several people were hung outside of the commercialisation, his project, also outside of the commercialisation, that project had stalled.  I was asked back.  After a lot of consideration, I agreed but it had to be cleared with those on the inside.  Eventually it would have been obvious I was involved, and better to be open from the beginning.

On this basis, and before rumours started, I returned to a group of people I spent time chatting to, testing simulations for and other things in the past.  Some of the group were very welcoming, others less so, and one or two a bit put out that I’d returned.  A few things were reconciled, whilst others rumble on.  I am a part of some of that group, sometimes.  It can be the place I need sometimes to chat, but sometimes very frustrating when things go on that I cannot be part of.  The worst thing is these periods seem to go in spells, so a week or two at a time that is OK, and then a week or two that I wish I hadn’t logged into.  There’s not much I can do about it.  When it works, it’s good for me.  When it doesn’t, it’s just one more thing.

The one thing that’s perhaps been the hardest though is the simulation testing.  Picking up simulations that are told to me to be in a better state than they actually are is hard work justifying the issues.  Finding out so many things have been watered down for what is and isn’t acceptable is difficult for me when I’m looking for it being right or wrong – not two different things both being right.  The hardest thing of all has been the lack of acceptance on the inside for me being allowed to test simulations.  I was accused of lying, making false accusations which continue to be proved to this day by other testers, and generally not being respected by that inside group.

As I sit here now, I wonder if this whole series of events since August isn’t working, now that I’m in a bad place.  If I leave what little social interaction I have, I become even more alone, and I may miss out on those occasional good moments, with people I can trust, I can talk to or can do something productive with.  A few years ago, I dropped out of every group I belonged to when I fell apart, and at the moment, I can see this happening again, as I don’t properly fit into any of them.

The problem this time is I realise my biggest problem of all is not having a job, the thing that allows me to live, that I fit into, that I am accepted into, and that makes me want to get up in the morning and fight for.  The hardest thing about being so alone is knowing who I can turn to, who I can trust, and who can help me out of the darkness.  I ask people who I think can help me, and as yet, I wait for that help.

I dream of the day where I come home from work and can honestly say I coped with everything.  I enjoyed myself.  I got something out of it.  I was recognised for what I did.  I dream of the day where I can chose my own space, my own time, have my own existence, instead of being trapped where I am.

Then the dream of having a friend round to my house (or probably flat), chilling out, doing something normal together, and not having to force it to happen.  I want to find out who I am, and what I can do.

I just need to find the person who will give me that chance, give me freedom, take a chance that I, who doesn’t tick the boxes, can fill that box, and can overflow that box, as I believe I can.

Lord,

Help me to find that person who will give me a chance in life, allow me freedom, take a chance that I can fill their box, and so much more.  Help me to find the right place where I fit in.  Take my darkness away.  Allow me to live in the light again.

Help me!

Amen