We all find it hard to bounce back from something bad in our lives. Standing up to prolonged pressure, mistreatment or difficult circumstances is even harder. In this time of self-improvement and social media profiles which only show the positives of the lives of others, it is very easy to feel that our resilience is low compared to others. Well, I have news for you. Your resilience is not nearly as low as you think…
I am scared. Scared of this virus and what it might do to my friends and family. Scared that the restrictions that have at least kept it in check to some degree will be lifted too soon leading to more outbreaks. Scared because I no longer know what to believe and who to trust. I spend quite a lot of my life in fear anyway, and it is really not nice. A combination of anxiety,…
It is now 6 weeks since I went further from home than just outside my front gate to place and collect my dustbins. This is having a number of impacts on my mental health and thoughts, many of which I am sure I do not fully realise or understand, and some of which I suspect I may not notice for some time. As I have said before, I like being at home. I am happy…
There is a TV commercial I keep seeing at the moment that is confusing me. It is for a mattress. I am sure that it is a lovely mattress and I mean the brand no harm, but one aspect of this ad seems strange to me. As is often the case, there is a series of customers giving bite-sized views on the product, which is all well and good, until we come to a lady…
We all love our comfort zones don’t we? I have often taken the anything for an easy life route in my life, and at time that is the right thing to do – you can’t live on the edge all the time after all! Right now, though, we are all out of our comfort zone one way or another. It can be scary, stressful and exhausting (it certainly is for me), but I am still…
If this period in lockdown is teaching us anything (aside from how patient teachers are, right home-schooling parents!?), it is the number of relatively basic things that enrich our lives that we have all taken completely for granted for a very long time. Who would have thought that popping round the corner for some milk and bread would have to become at best a military style operation to accomplish safely and at worst something that…
It would be very hard to overstate how difficult this time is for all of us. Whether we are working in essential services and thus putting ourselves at some risk, or staying at home as we are vulnerable ourselves or care for others that are, there is a lot to think about. It is also almost impossible to escape from the pandemic for long. It is worldwide, so the news and talk from every country…
When I got married last year, the first line of my vows was “We are all a bit weird.” Amazingly, the ceremony still went ahead and we are still married. But we really are all a bit weird, as in we all do things that seem unusual or strange to others. Many autistic people do something known as stimming in one form or another. This is some form of physical habit that we do repeatedly,…
If ever there was a need for patience, now is that time. It is hard. I am deeply impatient most of the time. I am that really annoying person that insists that more checkouts are opened if the queues are long in a shop. I hate it when I phone a business at 9.01 and get a recorded message that they don’t open until 9. And don’t even start me on schools sending home letters…
There is, understandably, much talk of when life will return to normal following the pandemic and lockdown. People are keen to return to the familiar and get on with their lives as they expected them to go. I totally get it. As an autistic person, my routines are hugely important to me. We all take comfort in the familiar. But I’m afraid I have news for you. When we are released from lockdown and the…