My autistic brain with Interventions

 

This is how one side of my autism is very much, given to two polar opposites at any one point not able to switch and blend between each state in the way that for most people you can  so I can from not being 'there' to so obsessed I may not come away from an activity even if there are more pressing things that I need to do.

 

I have crippling levels of generalized and social anxiety that literally prevent me from leaving the house or trying anything new or different to the point I'll put tons of effort into fighting any routine change apart from being prone to depression.

Sometimes I need to be 'carried' so I make that move and go out for a walk or try something new with support so I move forward dealing with my problems rather than stalling, wasting energy that I often don't have.

Past childhood into new adult-childhood

There are lots of different ways in which the way we express our little selves of which one of the more obvious is how outside of our adult lives we elect to present ourselves through what we wear.

Whatever it may be, it is always to drawn a line under what may be classed as being seen as an adult (although of course that doesn't alter The Law) and to resemble outwardly our little selves.

To varying degrees what it is inwardly our sense of littleness which for a few such myself is always there and so is involuntary and permanent would show just on its own whatever we we be wearing but we feel more at one with it more when we resemble our little selves physically.

There is I feel an issue at heart of littles communities  that really causes much heartache and that is the extent that many seem to locked in the cultural norms of the seventies and sixties where boys only do certain things and dress one way and ditto girls and this can apply even to those who see themselves as transgender.

I was more with the Free To Be Me ideals where we looked beyond a persons sex and said you can do and wear what you wish regardless of your sex even if you may thing you're in the wrong body.

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Some still say in effect girls can only be littles if in skirts and dresses and boys can only be one in short trousers or those awful longs even if today's boys and girls may dress very differently and have more mixed interests.

As a feminine sissy gurl I have the right to wear a dress and be that gurl and girls who prefer to wear shorts when playing shouldn't be told they cannot be near people at events if they wear shorts cos they're not girls and the people associate shorts with boys.

It's easy to understand a boy who was ill treated perhaps in them for wishing to wear a skirt may have certain associations but what right does that give them to prevent another being themselves not least if they were bullied by girls in dresses and pereline socks?

Peoples behaviour has nothing to with what they wear while in it, the attitude is in their minds not their clothes and surely we need to stop treating people badly just because they wear one sort of attire.

Sometimes people argue about  you can have parts in your Little Space that are not of the era you were brought up in as if they are not emotionally an authentic part of you so that if say you were brought up in say the nineteen fifties, you cannot have plushies or have say books from other eras.

In my regressed world you can add some things into it so say teddy bears can be complemented by say a dinosaur Plushie because it's function and utility to is the same, you play with it, it comforts you as hold and hug it as the inner child you are.

In much the same way to read say the books of Jacqueline Wilson is a part of understanding a part of contemporary childhood with the objects and experiences our age in it, that can aid me understand more of this age I'm travelling through as the hybrid adult-child I am

Making progress

 

I've decided that Age Regression is not a accurate description of how I am as this thing is a permanent state that might be masked at times with emotional and even behavioural costs arising from that.

I am Age Dysphoric having Age Dysphoria because it is permanent having no voluntary element to it however good regression can be for things such as trauma, depression and the like.

I am a sissy gurl of ten in an adult shell of my era with more life experiences as that ten year old  for going around the sun several times as one but not really developing in the may most bio-boys would becoming teens and then adults.

I've also accepted my autism which may not be the 'classic' autism of the eighties film Rain Man but still is and is me.

In my era diagnosis was poor and if they gave you one label than they attributed everything to it which was why my Dyslexia was late in the day being diagnosed and that was through the Employment Service rather than health and disabilities so they ignored the autism and adhd and stuck like glue to Cerebal Palsy for everything.

I have an account now at a site that can help me cope with this on my own terms not needing a cure but tips on how to ride being your authentic age dysphoric, autistic, dyslexic learning disabled self.

"This is what you need!"

 

When you aren't as able as most, you are more dependent on other people for things or completing them which isn't just an irritant that can cause you to lash out in frustration in itself but also a cause of tension between you.

What isn't said I think needs to be is inevitably it does alter the relating dynamic by virtue they have what you need and can't do that they can use as lever and equally you may feel you have leverage because they're your means of getting something done so it is easy to form an abusive relating pattern.

But it's not just that it's also how that person slots into the role helping you realize the idea you had that can become a point of contention too.

Speaking as a person whose always been disabled, our normal expectation is in discussing it with someone, they work with us to do it the way we wish unless that's not possible in which instance we'd expect them to talk though other suggestions reaching agreement on the way forward.

What can happen though is the person runs with what they feel is what you need, taking control not just of the help but also of the very idea itself imposing their ideas in place of yours  then threatening to walk off leaving with an uncompleted job if you even question such attitude as the one looking for help.

It's as if at that point you just became invisible no longer permitted to have any say about some things in your lives and that easily leads to tensions that others soon pick up on.

I think if you spot this early on you need to bring this up as it can easily cause issues.

What Katy Did and Disabilities

I'm working on blog entries today as I'll be away for a couple of days so the the time I'd normally use will be taken up making arrangements and all that.

A favourite novel of mine is What Katy Did by the American authoress Susan Coolidge which was written in 1872 that I've had my current hardback copy from 1989 if I remember correctly although I sure had and read it during my childhood.

I wrote a little about the series in the early years of this blog but today we're going more into depth.

Lots of editions have been produced but I love the simple unaffected illustration on the front of this one because it's inviting but clearly is of the era showing Katy Carr outside the picket fence with the traditional timber framed house in the background.

I have been re-reading this because this is book that spoke very directly to me as a disabled child where generally speaking we were not inked in the world that children saw so it was this book and the English (they'd never say British) satirists Flanders And Swann that showed we had place people could accept.

Chunks of Katy, the twelve year old, struggling at 'self-improvement', having grandiose aims and rather dashing them badly not really a bad girl but carried away at times was and indeed is me all over: Mischievous boy in a dress, getting into trouble but remorseless upon being found out, it's just so familiar because it's not that you don't have a conscience, you do, but it kicks in too late!

The other thing is really from the second half of the novel, something truly awful happens to Katy very much by accident as she goes in the Swing that she was told not to go on by her Aunt Izzie  who just expected a child to just follow the instruction rather than saying it was unsafe.

The line comes out from the staple that was designed to secure it as she soars, so she falls at speed to the ground striking her spine. It leaves her unable to walk and more or less confined to her upstairs bedroom  for a long period whereupon she is visited by her family.

Re-reading that moved me because it's similar to what happened to me just a couple years older than Katy where something went wrong with a swing and I hit the asphalt beneath with speed and at force. 

It didn't paralyze me although I was bruised but it left me drifting in and out of consciousness for about ten hours living permanently with significant brain damage where head struck the surface.

Part of the novel talks about how that experience affected her being in pain, feeling bitter and about how she adapts to becoming disabled when her beloved cousin Helen who also is disabled comes over explaining to her she needs to adapt, making the most of the situation she is in or risk losing the love and affection of her family though her own attitude.

Some have criticized the emphasis around her learning patience, learning to be cheerful, having hope, trying to keep things neat and getting on life as it as part of the "sainthood" attached to disabled people as if that's their only value.

To me it's to miss the point entirely which is life as a disabled person is harder, comes with disappointment, doesn't exempt you from general expectations and in my experience and a few others you just have to adapt to what is. It's a brutal truth.

It is certainly the case in the novel the idea Katy could of been looked after downstairs wasn't looked at nor is any kind of physical therapy (UK: physiotherapy) looked at which today we sure would because that was too new in the late nineteenth century.

We learn later on, Katy after Aunt Izzie dies, does begin to learn to walk again, taking on the running of the house which to me then was a sign at least you *could* have a life where you did contribute.

To me although criticized for what is seen by some as late nineteenth century (UK:Victorian) moral instruction, it's a enjoyable inspirational story whose values do align more with the 'real world' when it comes to offering the disabled reader some comfort and life lessons.

That's why I always loved it.

The languages of apology

As a reader of this blog, you will have realized I'm by no means  perfect having gotten into situations that I shouldn't and a good part of what it is about is helping me change those habits of a lifetime in part by the establishment of clear rules for me to learn to live by rather than just overriding yours and by consistent  reinforcement of boundaries so I do learn to keep within them.

The other side to this is teaching me what to to put things right in real time so I assume appropriate responsibility for my own actions where in the past I've ever shrugged my shoulders or attempted to play a card - usually a disability card to exempt myself from the standards expected of others.

I need people to take me through this so I am as responsible as I am actually capable of disabilities aside so I learn to conform to your standards and expectations.

Disability and Discipline

 

There is one subject that I'd like to talk about on this blog which I do have views on.

While good arguments can be made for punishing people for things they could do but didn't especially if they had negative consequences for others, I do feel it is wrong to punish somebody for something that they had little or no control over such as stammering, being unable to write neatly, forgetting because of memory problems and so on.

This was something I did see occasionally in school and quite often in the workplace where it was just presumed everybody there had no disabilities and from that there were no excuses period for not being able or struggling with a task.

What as individual you needed was either support in the the task or or some extra tuition to master a task on a one to one basis which was something I had to fight tooth and nail for even at the risk of alienating some colleagues who though this help for me was somehow a threat or  unfairness to them.

Not  work reviews that seemed to be every other week sapping your confidence or any chastisement that if we'd of just refused to do right would of been justified and disability shouldn't prevent you for getting it.

Back together again

It's another morning following the changes in my life as I've been effectively taken back away from the grown up world of Employment having been found virtual unable to work with my mixture of physical, learning and developmental disabilities.

Of itself that doesn't surprise me having struggled with the whole thing more or less from the moment I left the education service and ironically that was the only place with the support I found myself capable of fulfilling a role.

That the only role I appear able and qualified to be is that of a school child regardless of biological age is hardly new, I remember some discussion at a training centre a couple of years after leaving school where several people felt I was more of a child.

From now on I might as well be upfront and honest about it allowing my "reset point" to go be restored  to ten allow myself to be treated as a ten year old feminine gurl dressed in a girls uniform by adults.

It's not that I ever saw myself as one - to me it was always a case of "the grown ups or adults are" as if in my head I never associated myself with one.

Here's to being a child!

Littles sleep

 

Last week I talked about sleep having lost several spoons to staying awake for longer than is good  for me and sleep is something that has been mentioned before as in Little Modes Sleep like there's a current thread running on it at Adisc and with friends.

Anyway peoples you'll recall I'd converted sleep into a going to sleep and waking up  as a adult little gurl experience with age appropriate bedlinen, teddy bears, posters, pretty much the works really and it was wonderful.

Well, how well do you find actually switching off, closing your eyes and going to sleep? 

If you're like most of us maybe a bit iffy even if we turn off the Tv for a bit before getting into bed. But there's something, you might remember it, that used to work pretty well for you when you were younger and I'm suggesting you try it.

Recently faced with this, I recalled this reassuring routine of either being read a short story or maybe of listening to soothing songs -Lullabies- that from being in bed get you into a relaxed sleepy frame of mind from my own childhood.

It happens that Amazon has a pretty good recording of Lullabies in contemporary arrangements in stock that is available as an inexpensive download as well as a cd and I bought it.

Lullabies-the rainbow collection which I'm sure is available on Amazon in the States and Canada too.

It runs for about 35 minutes which is just long enough for you to start to drift off clutching your teddy and it does really help having adopted this into my sleep routine packed with favourite songs and rhymes from the past.

I'm just a sissy gurl trying to find their way

You saw that direction pole in the public park near the side walk with loads of arrows on it, well I'm the boy it just confused cos it seemed to have so many different directions each going off at a tangent.

And that's how my life's kinda been from early childhood seeing the signs following them but never really ending up with any clear cut ideas about who I was and more to the point which direction I was headed.

I'd think I had a plan and then find something would throw me off track like wanting to go to University but fluffing up on my qualifications because I had a nervous breakdown and then being told you'll just have to be factory worker instead as if that would interest me.

Cos the thing is I'm so interested things I want to know all about them and that whole turn out 500 of the same thing day in day out wasn't gonna do it for me OR the possibilities would be so large I couldn't make my mind up and end up all paralyzed mentally from it so nothing happened.

I'm getting better in my years at making things happen but I'm no natural.

Things that calm me down

One thing I have always like and still enjoy is rag dolls of which I have a good number that live on my shelves that I use whenever I am feeling very anxious or otherwise stressed, holding, stroking or 'playing' with them both at home and at work where they do understand needs like this that I have in me

One thing I have always like and still enjoy is rag dolls of which I have a good number that live on my shelves that I use whenever I am feeling very anxious or otherwise stressed, holding, stroking or 'playing' with them both at home and at work where they do understand needs like this that I have in things such as meetings. It's a part of who I am.
 

Scouting and Me

The one organization I'd love to have joined when I was a chronological child would of been the Brownies, the younger side of Girl Scouting but it was never to be. In fact my folks never enrolled me to any part of the World-wide Scouting movement which was a pity for although I have disabilities it wouldn't of been hard for them to accommodated me (and I'm sure if asked nicely they'd of been happy too).

This is the Brownie uniform I'd of been proud to have worn, learning more about self-reliance, serving others and improving my poor confidence at the time.

Taking the promise, one I'd of been happy to made in 1972 as I had no problem uphold the principals and pledging my allegiance.

Here's a 70's vintage uniform with  badges but can you see that oh so  1970's smiley face yellow badge. I used to have loads of them then! 

Smartly dressed I would learn how to be a useful citizen, giving of my best, being the very best I can be.

Given what I now understand of my gender issues as a sissy gurl one might think I'd of wanted to of been a Brownie although I had no issue with the Cub program.

I made the commitment in 2018 to follow the program and principals of the Brownies exploring, learning new things and having fun and have never looked back.

Channelling the essence of being a Brownie in day to day life, having a a uniform with the range of variations to suit needs we have today, that's very much me and I love it.

*Updated 2018*

Interests of "The Child"

This week I'm talking about interests and where they led me.

Sports were a big thing in school to the point they were social connectors so any child who wanted to get on like me needed to get engaged with them.

Hand to eye co-ordination was never me strong thing cutting across to varying extents my abilities in playing school sports but the thing was it never stopped me trying or just playing as a purely social thing.

That meant I was prepared to pick up a tennis racket and ball to play with another child if they felt like a game even though I'm not good at it rather than getting into funk or screaming to anyone who would listen. 

Another interest of mine was music, specifically recorded music.

When I was younger how you listened, the cultivation of a time to listen intently to it, appreciating took hold not that I didn't have music on as a 'background' but I'd find time to do just that and maybe a quiet room to sit in too.

Also I was interested in how that sound was reproduced caring that although I may of been ten years old, I was getting the best I could get from my recordings be they tapes or as was common then stereo  records. 

I was fortunate Dad knew a fair bit about electronics and especially audio engineering so even with our modest income I had at that age my very own stereo record player with a built in radio cos he built it for me from modules and made a case from wood. That was better sounding compared to what my friends had.

As I got more into my teens money permitting I bought magazines about what they called "High Fidelity" which when remove a lot of technical terms and snobbery from it is really more about getting the best sound and they had articles about improving what you heard as well as reviews of equipment.

I was reading them cover to cover from the age of eight!

Around the same time I got from grown up friends handed down equipment that while good wasn't as good as what they could now afford was better than what I had so at one point I had a tubed Rogers Cadet II amplifier with it's control unit, a Panasonic stereo cassette deck for recording and playing cassette tapes on , a Goldring turntable and cartridge and a pair of hand made speakers using units originally fitted to Rolls Royce upmarket cars!

Today I own an all Rotel stereo separate system and a Sony MiniDisc recorder with a portable player for listening while away or on the move.

Disability and this thing

Disability and sissification-who knew?

Really there's such a big ignoring of traits and kinks by the non disabled kink and fetish communities of anything that involves people who may need assistance, that have disabilities, that may have assistance aids and services for the full abled I could scream.

Needing crutches, being a wheelchair user, having a learning disability doesn't alter things such as your sexuality (or having one!), having a pennant for dressing in a uber feminine way when you were born male or as a submissive wanting an understanding dominant who would fully work with your needs and met theirs in using domination while respecting how your disabilities leave you.

Why shouldn't disabled sissies like me have and offer to dominants things that meet each others needs?