#WeekendCoffeeShare (October 16, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s been a while since I last touched the blog, sadly. I somehow couldn’t get motivated. Today though, I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again. It’s 9:30PM as I start typing this post and I’ll probably go to bed right after finishing it. Will check out my fellow coffee share bloggers tomorrow.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. It’s still been insanely warm for this time of year. Yesterday, the daytime temp even reached 20°C. We thankfully did get some rain.

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you I have my first proper cold of the year. Yes, the year, not the season. It’s no fun, but I’m intensely grateful I’ve avoided it so far. I mainly have a nasty cough and a little sniff. Of course, I’m a little tired too, but it’s nothing compared to the probable COVID I had a little over a year ago.

If we were having coffee, I’d share I’m still meeting my movement goal on my Apple Watch each day. Not my exercise goal, as some days, I can’t or don’t want to go for a longer walk and the side-by-side bike was taken in for repairs last week. I guess I did break it when I had that meltdown on the bike a few weeks ago after all, though it wasn’t solely my responsibility, since the fact that staff denied the problem and kept using the bike most likely didn’t do it any good.

If we were having coffee, I’d share I am still undecided as to whether my food processor thingy was worth the money. I’m leaning towards regretting having chosen this one, but not having had any other one, I can’t know whether it’s this brand or food processors just aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

I did cook a meal using it last week as well as this past Wednesday. Last week, after we figured out how to attach the accessory for blending my sauce, it did a great job. I cooked a pasta dish with roasted bell peppers.

This week, I used the same add-on to chop some garlic and ginger and blend it into a curry paste, but it turned out the care home’s cheap immersion blender did a better job finishing the process than my food processor. I’m not sure whether I somehow broke the equipment or whether it’s just no use for this particular job. I must say my piece of ginger was quite large. Either way, my curry was good after all.

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you that, today, I finally managed to play some with polymer clay again. Nothing fancy, just a simple Christmas ornament and something I might turn into a pendant later on, but it was fun.

If we were having coffee, finally I’d share that I’m struggling intensely with worries about the future, particularly relating to my need to move again. Last week, I found out that it’s unlikely my current care agency will be able to support me, in that their current homes aren’t suitable for me. They have one place that’s currently being developed that the behavior specialist said they’re still looking into. That place would be ideal in terms of distance to my best friend, so I inquired about how seriously this place is being considered, given that it won’t be opened until May of 2027 or maybe even later. No response to that. Then yesterday I found out that somehow it’s been decided that the independent client supporter will take over applying to new places rather than my care agency’s placement person. I asked them whether this means the place I was told about last week isn’t an option after all. No response so far.

I’m struggling with this especially because I’m more and more convinced that there won’t be a suitable place for me anyway. I mean, there’s no doubt there are places in which staff are more able to cope with challenging behavior, but how they choose to cope with it likely won’t be helping me. Like, my last home was officially much more equipped to deal with challenging behavior, but they ended up treating me like trash.

It doesn’t help that, on Monday, a staff who has known me from my previous home and is now a regular substitute staff here, claimed I did much better at my last home and during the first year I was here. This honestly has me feeling that what staff see as me doing well is almost entirely contradictory to how I see it. After all, even though it may not look like it from my blog, my day-to-day quality of life is better than it was three or four years ago.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (October 2, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. How can it be October already? How can it not, you might say. I’m joining in wiht #WeekendCoffeeShare again. It’s nearly 10PM as I start typing this, so no more coffee or other drinks or food for me. Feel free to grab a cup of your favorite beverage though and let’s chat.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. It’s unusually warm for October and that’s an understatement. On Tuesday and Wednesday, which I know were technically still September but oh well, the daytime high was 26°C. I don’t think daytime highs under 20°C are in the forecast until later next week.

If we were having coffee, next I’d tell you I did quite a bit of walking over the week. On Tuesday, I even took a walk off institution grounds. The staff who was with me at first wasn’t sure I could walk an uneven path and wanted to stay in the residential area, but I assured her I’d walked the path before. No pictures, unfortunately.

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you I didn’t engage in any major cooking projects over the week but I did do quite a few small food prep activities. My most elaborate culinary activity was me making a vegan mango and avocado salad with black beans. It was absolutely delish and I regret not having taken a photo.

I also finally think I figured out how to make the perfect smoothie bowl. The key is just about enough liquid to move the blender blades. Another important thing is not to overblend your smoothie. Today, for the first time, I probably had too little liquid at first. I hope this hasn’t caused damage to my blender. This was a quick mid-afternoon snack smoothie bowl, so just banana, pineapple and coconut milk (and a little water once I figured out the blades wouldn’t move otherwise). I didn’t use any toppings this time.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I was also a little crafty yesterday. I made a bracelet. It was slightly too large for me, so I gave it to the staff I made it with.

If we were having coffee, finally I’d moan about the fact that there’s still no news on the moving front. I looked up the institution in the Dutch Bible Belt town. This has caused me some mixed feelings. There’s a documentary series about it on Dutch television right now. It portrays VIC (very intensive care) homes. These are homes similar to my previous home or even more restrictive. Though the staff being filmed aren’t as harsh to the clients as my former staff were, part of the reason is probably the fact that they were being filmed. I didn’t find out that this series was filmed at this specific institution until after I’d shared in an online group that the higher-ups are considering moving me to that one. Now my staff say it’s highly unlikely that I’ll be transferred to a VIC home. They keep telling me the higher-ups truly want a suitable place for me. Then again, that’s what the staff in Raalte back in 2022 said too. I know I’m not so physically aggressive that I need a VIC home, but I also know that it’s not that causing my staff to struggle with me: it’s my way with words. Besides, even at my previous home I was told everybody found me to be challenging Yet at the same time I was being told to my face that I’d always get the least familiar staff and they’d always leave me alone first because I wasn’t physically aggressive. In other words, I was the least physically violent yet almost by extension the hardest to restrain into submission. It’s this power dynamic that’s basically the story of my life and it sucks.

September 2026 In Review

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the end of the month already, so I’m writing a monthly recap. September, overall, was a pretty good month. Weather-wise, it was and honestly still is summerlike. This probably contributes to my better than usual mood.

Not much happened in the way of actual progress on the moving and other care-related fronts. This is frustrating, particularly because it means I have little to fall back on should my mood and behavior deteriorate again. I mean, my support coordinator said last week that they’re doing away with my Care and Force Act agreements on restraint and locking the doors. In theory, this could be positive, in that it isn’t written in my plan anymore that I can be restrained or locked up. However, the reason I wanted an agreement was the fact that staff were just doing whatever the heck they wanted to for years. I no longer have a crisis plan, or not yet, depending on your perspective. I had a horribly long and troublesome plan for years, until a few weeks ago my support coordinator and assigned staff just decided to throw it away and rewrite it from scratch. Again, this could be positive, but it could also be an excuse for staff to do as they please. Since things are going okay here now, I’m not kicking up a fuss, but I do want to make sure things don’t go downhill again. Or rather, that when they do, this doesn’t become the new normal yet again and it doesn’t get taken over to my next place.

Like I said, the month was pretty good overall. I enjoyed a few crafty activities and quite a bit of cooking and baking. I also did a lot of walking and biking.

Health-wise, the month was okay. I remember last year in September, I was quite sick with probable COVID. This year, no cold, flu or COVID symptoms yet. I do have chronic abdominal pain. I’ve had it for years and it was always chalked up to irritable bowel syndrome or constipation, but it’s getting worse despite the fact that I eat a pretty balanced diet. I had bloodwork done to rule out celiac disease, had inflammation indicators checked, calprotectin levels in stool, urine tests and yesterday I had a bladder scan. All are normal so far. I don’t mind just dealing with it if it’s clear that it’s IBS, but I’ve always felt that it’s too easily chalked up to that. Just now, I heard that’s what my GP thinks it is after all. She claims the symptoms could’ve gotten worse because of stress. I call bullshit to that, but whatever.

Lastly, I learned in August that now that my ex-wife and I are divorced, I qualify for compensation of my health insurance payments. I however also have a higher long-term care copay. All in all, I get about €30 less than I got before we divorced. I don’t care, as I can still quite easily make ends meet. Besides, I’ll most likely get some money once the house gets sold. No news on that front yet.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (September 26, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again today. It’s just past 7:30PM, so I’ve had my last cup of coffee for the day and will probably have my evening soft drink before finishing this post. Feel free to grab a cup of your favorite beverage too and let’s chat.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. It’s been quite warm for September and we’ve hardly had any rain. On Tuesday and Wednesday next week, daytime highs over 25°C are in the forecast again. It’s a blessing and a curse that I alone can’t do much about this climate change thing.

If we were having coffee, then I’d share that I’m still meeting my movement goal on my Apple Watch each day. I did a fair amount of walking this past week but also rode the side-by-side bike several times. On Tuesday, I had a meltdown on the bike and probably damaged it, but it still works.

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you I didn’t do any cooking this past week except for making some smoothie bowls. On Thursday, I made a vegan carrot cake smoothie bowl topped with pumpkin and sunflower seeds. I’m still trying to figure out the right thickness.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I got an E-mail from the person in charge of applying to potential new care providers at last. The person E-mailing me is responsible for the intellectual disability population here and is still waiting on the one for the brain injury branch of my current care agency. This person will be back at work next week. The one E-mailing me did ssay that they were indeed considering the institution on the Bible Belt I mentioned a few weeks ago.

Because of this, I decided to text my best friend with my concerns. I’d mentioned the town before, but only in passing and I don’t want the powers-that-be to find a place for me there only for me to find out that my best friend can’t or won’t visit me there. As it turns out, though obviously she cannot see herself living there, she pointed out that a lot of my feelings about the place might in fact be prejudice. It’s a long drive from her current house and an even longer drive from where she’s considering moving when the house gets sold, but we’re both okay with that, as both of us (me first, in fact) realize our lives don’t revolve around being together. At least, not anymore, sad as it is.

I had some concerns about the institution itself too. It’s a major intellectual disability institution like the one I’m in now, but it looks like most of the homes cater to people with challenging behavior. That can be interpreted as a good sign or a bad sign. I mean, I definitely have some level of challenging behavior and, if the staff at a prospective home are truly equipped to deal with it, it should be better than my current home. However, just because a home caters to people with challenging behavior doesn’t mean the staff truly know how to deal with it, as my experience at the intensive support home shows. One positive in this respect is the fact that the institution actually follows a particular support approach (and one that I can see working for me if done right). In theory at least, it isn’t just a prison in disguise.

One other positive is the fact that the institution includes several homes specifically for people with brain injury, including those with complex needs. This is the kind of home I’m hoping to move into. I’ve also heard they accept my care profile (funding). Let’s see where this leads.

The Wednesday Hodgepodge (September 16, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s been forever since I last participated in the Wednesday Hodgepodge. This is my third attempt at writing this post. If I believed in fate, it should’ve been a sign that I shouldn’t be taking part anymore, I guess. Either that or WordPress just doesn’t like me, since neither the block editor nor the classic editor work nicely right now. Anyway, here are Joyce’s questions.

1. How do you define beauty?
Like Joyce, I think beauty comes mostly from within. I’m going to tease her a little by giving an example tied in with the reason I originally left the Hodgepodge: back in I believe 2023, a trans woman won the Miss Netehrlands contest. She wasn’t the most physically attractive contestant. However, even a Miss contest isn’t about physical looks alone and her confidence for sure shone through. I won’t go into a rant on the entire Miss thing as inherently wrong and, as regular readers of this blog know, I feel strongly about the fact that trans women are women. If you disagree, please don’t start an argument here unless you’re genuinely willing to be educated. My point by choosing this example is, showing up in the world as you are, especially in spite of persecution, is, in my opinion, a surefire sign of beauty.

2. Have you ever taken a trip by train? If so where did you go and what did you think of the experience? If not do you have any desire to do so? Where would you like to go?
I have traveled by train many times. I don’t know what defines a “train trip” vs. just traveling on a train, but the most adventurous train ride I took was a day-long trip from a town near the Germany/Netherlands border to Berlin, just using regional railroads. I used to love train travel back when I still (thought I) was more independent than I am now, but haven’t been on a train in many years.

3. Shell shocked, bombshell, bandshell, shellacking, in a nutshell, walking on eggshells…choose one and tell us why you chose it, or how it relates to your life in some way currently.
I’m choosing “walking on eggshells”, although I could also choose “bombshell”. Both relate to the fact that I’m going to move to another care facility at some point. I didn’t share this with the Hodgepodge community, although some of the participants follow my blog outside of it too so may know. Being told I’ll be moving again was quite the bombshell. I’m walking on eggshells sometimes now fearing I’ll be transferred to a crisis unit if the home-finding process doesn’t go quickly enough.

4. Tacos, pistachios, oysters, clams, eggs…your favorite food on the list that comes in/with a shell?
Tacos I think, although they’re hard for me to eat. I also love eggs. Need to open my bag of pistachios that I bought at Ekoplaza several weeks ago, intending to use them on my vegan and gluten-free cake experiment. I never ate oysters and have no idea what clems are.

5. Are birthdays a big deal in your house? Is your own birthday a big deal in some way? Elaborate.
I have a love/hate relationship with my birthday. Since going no contact with my parents days before my birthday this year, I believe the hate part is stronger. Most of my fellow residents do like their birthdays. This is one reason I usually do try to do a special activity for mine, like cooking a meal for the entire home (20 residents plus staff).

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I already started this post with a random thought I think. Now that I’ve finished the post (in the classic editor) I’m not sure whether to even publish it. At least I did finally write something again and that’s a win.

August 2026 In Review

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone! It’s the final day of the month and this means it’s time for my monthly recap. August was a pretty good month in terms of my engaging in interesting and enjoyable activities. It was also a slow month, in that no progress has been made on the home-finding front. In fact, I only realized yesterday that it’s been literally a month since the client supporter contacted me.

I could of course blame the summer for the slow-going process. It’s true, in that my support coordinator and assigned staff were both off for the greater part of August and the behavior specialist is now off until mid-September. It isn’t good though. Because of this, I E-mailed both the client supporter and the client confidante on involuntary care today. After all, no formal progress doesn’t mean life doesn’t go on. I mean, back in my days of online forums, I’d always use some variation of the tagline “Time spent in institutions is not life experience deductable” as my signature. It’s true for the client, but too often the people in charge do not realize this.

It is, in this light, good that I was able to spend a significant amount of time on enjoyable activities. One of those has been cooking and baking. I originally wasn’t sure I wanted to spend over €300 on a food processor if I wasn’t going to be able to do cooking activities at my next home anymore. I obviously could’ve bought a cheaper model, but eventually decided to go for it and just get the model I wanted. I’m lucky in this respect that I’m relatively financially secure. And in case you’re wondering, it took some fiddling around with the whisk attachment, but eventually the cake I wanted to bake on Saturday was a success.

I haven’t heard anything about my Care and Force Act agreement (on when I can and can’t be restrained or secluded) since having had the meeting with the behavior specialist and client confidante three weeks ago. This honestly sucks big time, since even though I’ve only been restrained once during this time, there’s no guarantee that things won’t turn around for the worse again until I’ve actually gotten a proper agreement. And truthfully, even if or when I do, I doubt things will ever be okay here at this home.

That’s the sad realization I’ve come to this month: no matter how good my day is, I’ll always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I think this perpetual sense of apprehension isn’t altogether unfounded.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (August 14, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this blazing hot Friday. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again. It’s 7:30PM as I start typing this post, so I’ve had my last cup of coffee for the day and will likely be off for a bit before publishing this post to have my evening soft drink and chips. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. Oh, I already disclosed that it’s blazing hot again. We’re on our fifth local heatwave this summer if I’m correct. Today, the daytime high was 36°C. Tomorrow we’re going to have a daytime high of “only” 27°C but it’s going to get humid. I always said summer is my favorite season, but now I’m pretty sure it’s not.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I’m still meeting my movement goal on my Apple Watch each day this month so far despite the heat. One reason though is the fact that, yesterday, I rode the side-by-side bike to the next town despite it being at least 30°C. That, honestly, was a stupid decision.

If we were having coffee, then I’d share that I did quite a lot of culinary activities this past week. I finally made iced tea on Monday after having bought loose-leaf green tea on Sunday. I also made a smoothie yesterday and made a tuna salad on Wednesday. No picture, because when it was on my plate, I’d just had an argument with my best friend over my choice to eat dead animals again and this caused me to feel so bad that I didn’t feel like taking a picture. The reason she was upset, by the way, wasn’t necessarily the fact that I eat meat (though that’s a valid reason for her, being a vegan, too), but the fact that I’d told her a few months ago that I would be trying to go vegan when creating my own meals and she felt that I’d lied about my intentions. I hadn’t, but my method of “trying” felt insincere to her. Thankfully, we resolved the argument eventually.

Today, I did create a vegan dessert. I used mango, silken tofu and agave syrup. The staff who helped me make it, didn’t like the strong soy tang,, but I surprisingly didn’t mind. I didn’t particularly like the texture though, which is one more reason I really need to get a food processor.

Mango mousse

If we were having coffee, I’d share that there isn’t any news on the moving front and my Care and Force Act plans probably won’t be fully ready for a couple of weeks at least. After all, both my assigned staff and support coordinator are off until late August and the behavior specialist will be off right after them.

Speaking of which, somehow the orienting of a new staff got messed up yet again this week. My support coordinator had initially said that this staff would be oriented to the activities and ADLs and then we’d evaluate to see if she needed more orienting. A few weeks ago, she told me that the orienting to the activities would be postponed but there wouldn’t be an evaluation after her orientation to my ADLs. This reeks of the one chance policy and I’m horribly upset about it. On top of that, at the last moment the person doing the orienting got switched. Yes, again! I wouldn’t even have found out if I hadn’t inquired about it myself this afternoon. It went kind of okay, but this whole thing still frustrates me to no end.

Now the new staff is an experienced worker, but I have had similar problems with student staff. In late August, a new student staff will start working here and, though my support coordinator thinks she shouldn’t be oriented to me at first, some staff disagree. Besides, if she doesn’t get oriented to me during her introductory time here and the powers-that-be decide later on that she needs to work with me anyway, will we have the same issue we had with the last student as well as with the currently orienting staff, ie. that she isn’t working as an extra anymore? I have absolutely no trust in this entire process.

I’ll sign off now, because I sense that if I continue this will end up being a negative rant again. I’m going to have a cup of green tea now.

Spoiler Alert: Disabled People Are People!: Reflections on Involuntary Care

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. As those who read my most recent post know, I had my Care and Force Act meeting yesterday. For those not familiar with this, this is the law governing when people with intellectual disability, dementia or brain injury can be subjected to “involuntary care”, such as restraint, seclusion and forced medication but also when restrictions can be placed on how a person lives their life. For example, it regulates the circumstances under which people can be prohibited from using electronics.

My own Care and Force Act plan only relates to measures like restraint, seclusion and forced medication. These three have more strict guidelines than other measures like prohibiting someone from using electronics. With these, it’s always “involuntary care” regardless of whether the person shows resistance or not. This is actually a reason I recently found out that my antidepressant prescription is “involuntary care”, because it does not follow medical protocols on when it should and should not be prescribed. This does not mean I will go off of it, by the way.

The meeting with the client confidante and my home’s behavior specialist went pretty well. I attended it without a staff, because at the last moment the staff who could attend it with me was switched and I didn’t like the one they assigned me.

The confidante however was quite critical, which I liked but the behavior specialist didn’t. There are three plans involving restrictive measures, all within the stricter category: two for restraint and one for seclusion. The one on my antidepressant hasn’t been written yet. I had E-mailed the behavior specialist in advance with a lot of feedback on the plans. Particularly, they were far too generic. For example, it is written in them that I can be restrained when in “high distress” and that this will prevent me becoming physically aggressive towards staff. The first part of this statement is horribly nonspecific and the second is frankly wrong: I actually rarely if ever become physical when not being restrained and the order is reversed, in that I am restrained first for verbal irritability and this leads to furhter aggression from me.

The behavior specialist got quite uncomfortable with the critical comments from the confidante. After all, she pretty much told it like it is: if I were to file a complaint, there’d likely be several grounds for it being upheld. She also quite clearly said that restraining or secluding someone without a proper plan is deprivation of liberty. I liked this validation, because it shows that well, just because I’m a client doesn’t mean the staff can do as they please. Actually, when the behavior specialist claimed this side of the home being locked isn’t for me (which I frankly believe isn’t true), the confidante quite bluntly suggested I get a key. This is unrealistic in my opinion, but it does show that staff can’t randomly be locking people in just for the sake of it.

Today, I had a horrible argument with the staff who’d been initially assigned to attend the meeting with me. It wasn’t even about me: another resident had eloped and she was threatening to refuse him access to his electronics after he was taken back here. I didn’t actually want to go into this client’s situation, as it’s honestly none of my business. All I wanted to do is raise awareness of the fact that just because someone is intellectually disabled doesn’t mean they don’t get to live their life as they want. This particular staff has a rather ableist attitude towards care, literally having told me that she gets to decide most things about me because she’s the staff. The reason for this comment was my telling her that we were going to take a shorter walk than she wanted. This is another example of the not-so-strict measures, because deciding that I have to take a certain walk is restricting me from living the way I want to live. Not that this particular situation would’ve been one I’d make a fuss of if not for the fact that I was literally in pain and had already been going on two longer walks that day.

Unfortunately, the Care and Force Act is a bit vague in terms of what does and does not count as involuntary care. For example, a home’s front door being locked at night doesn’t necessarily count, because it is not disproportionate and affects every client equally. That being said, there is some push towards open doors and I can see why. After all, like I said when a staff used as a reason for the front door being locked at all times that regular front doors are locked too, regular house residents have a key.

After digesting the meeting, I E-mailed the behavior specialist that I understand that it takes quite a drastic attitude change to actually fully validate this home’s client’s rights and that I don’t expect this to happen overnight (or before I move out of here). I however do want to make sure that we’re making progress and at the very least it doesn’t get worse.

Testing, Testing… In So Many Ways…

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today I’m once again joining in with Esther’s writing prompt. The word this week is “test”. I could, like I’ve done so many times, rant about the use and misuse of testing in education and care. I mean, everyone who’s followed my blog for some time knows about the nearly thirty-year-old, horribly flawed IQ score still in my care plan today. However, I recently saw the housing profile that will be used in finding me a more suitable place and it thankfully never mentions my IQ.

There are, of course, many other meanings to the word “test”. It could refer to something new you’re trying. For example, today I cooked a cabbage and mashed potato dish. It was the first time I cooked something with mashed potatoes (or boiled potatoes in general, for that matter). When I mashed the cabbage/potato mixture, it sounded horribly soggy, so I almost threw out the entire pot. Thankfully, a staff convinced me to let it sit and see if I and/or my fellow residents would like it regardless. Turns out that, though the texture was too smooth for my liking, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected.

On Monday, I also took out my AirPods to test if they still worked. My best friend had cleaned them several months ago and I was too impatient to let them properly dry. Turns out my right earbud was ruined, though the left one still works. I have been using headphones ever since, but don’t particularly like the feel of headphones on my ears. I do have earbuds, but cannot use those to make phone calls.

This got me thinking of finally buying new AirPods. Browsing the Apple Store online sent me down a rabbit hole of thinking I might want to buy a Macbook again. I had one for about six months in 2019, but struggled to get used to it. The thing is though, I bought that one without researching it properly first because my previous Windows laptop had been near-dead for several months and health insurance wouldn’t pay for me to get JAWS for Windows. JAWS at the time didn’t have a subscription plan, so I’d have to pay like €1000 for just a screen reader. That didn’t make sense to me, so I spent this money on a new Macbook. Six months later, insurance changed its mind and I couldn’t wait to buy a Windows laptop again. I sold my Macbook to my then mother-in-law. Now that my Windows laptop is still working and, besides, I do get annual JAWS upgrades, I have more time to actually orient myself before making a choice.

My best friend was a bit worried when I mentioned the idea of buying a Macbook, because well she doesn’t want me to get overly stressed about it like I was in 2019. That being said, Windows has near-weekly updates that change things around, so I’m more used to adjusting to changes in my tech than I was back then. We’ll see where this goes…

July 2026 In Review

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last day of the month and this means it’s time for my monthly recap. July was most of all a hot month weather-wise. It had its highs and lows, but wasn’t as eventful as May or June had been. I consider that an okay thing.

The first half of the month was an uncertain time. I learned in mid-June that I was going to be moving out of this care home, but wasn’t sure of the details. I mean, for all I knew, I could be kicked out to a crisis unit or onto the streets.

It didn’t help that my aggressive behavior got a bit worse in early July. I had another major incident on July 10, in which among other things I told a staff she’d be facing a complaint. I never followed through, because she backed down with her restraint quite quickly. Later, I was told that the way the situation escalated would’ve in fact warranted me being restrained. I’m not entirely sure how much my support coordinator, who told me this, knew about the order of events, because well cause and effect were reversed: I spiraled out of control after the staff tried to restrain me, not the other way around. This particular staff has quite a harsh support approach, so I maintain that it need not have escalated into a restraint-worthy situation.

I will finally have a meeting to discuss my Care and Force Act plan on August 10. My support coordinator will be off work then, but the behavior specialist will attend, as will an independent client confidante. I will hopefully be able to make it crystal clear then that restraint is not a way to de-escalate a situation for me nor is it something that’ll teach me a lesson. Rather, its purpose is solely to keep me from causing significant harm to myself or others.

On July 16, I finally met with the behavior specialist, team leader and my support coordinator and assigned staff to discuss my moving out of this care home. It turned out that there are no plans of single-handedly terminating my care. As I read my housing profile, which will be sent on to the care finding people, I did realize that for some staff, the situation is however rather urgent. It isn’t like this surprises me, but it does kind of contradict the rather fluffy letter I received from the behavior specialist on July 16.

Today, I received a phone call from independent client support. The agency the substitute behavior specialist had recommended, didn’t feel like they could help me, but the one with the client confidante on involuntary care did. I was happy to find out that the same client supporter I’d spoken with several years ago regarding my move from the intensive support home to my current care home, was able to pick up my case.

In other news, today my now ex-wife and I received the letter that our divorce has been finalized. This means we’ll probably soon be talking selling the house. Otherwise, it doesn’t change much.

Over the month of July, I did engage in a few crafty and culinary activities. On Wednesday, I cooked the absolute blandest pasta pesto ever. I cooked it for my fellow residents too, but was so underwhelmed with the result myself that I didn’t even care to ask whether the others liked it. This did motivate me to learn more about the details of cooking beyond blindly following recipes.