Gratitude List (September 8, 2023) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It was a rather eventful week. Time for me to focus on the positives in a gratitude post. I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful, which is back after a hiatus over the summer. Here are my thankfuls.

1. I am grateful I have a moving date! This obviously tops my list. Like I mentioned on Wednesday, I’ll be moving to the new care home on the 18th.

2. I am grateful my mother-in-law is taking time off from her volunteer job to come to the visit to look at my room and have a coffee at the new care home on the 15th. Hers may be a volunteer job, but it’s responsible work, as she works for an animal rescue shelter and they’re required to maintain 24/7 availability.

3. I am grateful for quality time spent chatting and playing dice games with a fellow resident. Today, she won, which was good, as I had spilled the beans about my leaving this home a little earlier than I’d originally planned and she was quite upset. For the record, I didn’t let her win.

4. I am grateful for the nice card this resident gave me, even though I told her I wouldn’t be leaving today.

5. I am grateful for sunny and warm (well, hot) weather. It’s a little too hot for my liking, but I love the fact that I can wear my summer clothes a little longer than usual.

6. I am grateful my Braille display and computer both behave. Both gave me a scare this week. I bought new headphones on Sunday. Not because I needed them but because they’re fluffy and pink. Then when I plugged them into my computer, somehow my PC decided to install TikTok. This was a coincidence, as a 3.5mm audio cable can’t transfer data like that. However, I had no clue so started messing with my computer like crazy, uninstalling everything I didn’t recognize. This thankfully didn’t cause any long-term problems, but for a while I thought my Braille display wasn’t working so I must’ve somehow uninstalled its driver (even though I recognize that manufacturer). In the end, rebooting my Braille display solved the problem.

7. I am grateful for a delicious blueberry smoothie I made on Monday with a temp worker. I used frozen blueberries, yoghurt, vanilla extract, cinnamon and sweetener. It was absolutely amazing!

8. I am grateful for some long walks when it still wasn’t too hot outside.

9. I am grateful for a great essential oil blend in my diffuser. Yesterday, a fellow resident was out of control a lot and it was causing me anxiety. I eventually decided to ask the staff to help me create a blend so that I could calm down. I put patchouli, white fir and lavender essential oils in the diffuser.

10. I am grateful for the will to write. I may not always know what to write about, but at least I want to write. I currently have a seven-day writing streak going (although I still need to write today, which will make it eight days) in Day One, which is rather cool. Sometimes, all I write is a quick gratitude list (which I drew inspiration from for this post) or a “My Day” template post, but that’s okay too.

What are you grateful for?

The Wednesday HodgePodge (September 6, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining the Wednesday HodgePodge once again. Here goes.

1. It’s National Read A Book Day…whatcha’ reading? What’s a book you want to read?
Honestly, I’m not currently reading any book. That is, I’m paging through a few, among them a positive body image workbook and Find Your Path by Carrie Underwood. And of course a ton of journaling books. I can’t remember the last book I actually read. I thought I wanted to read Cathy Glass’ latest foster care memoir, only to find out it’s her penultimate book. That’s truly sad, as I love the author. It immediately caused me so much disappointment I don’t think I want to read this book after all.

2. Which is better…having high expectations or low expectations? Explain why.
I am probably in the minority here, but I think having low expectations is better. Still better yet is having no expectations at all, but to let things unfold as they will. I grew up with parents who put a lot of pressure on me under the guise of high expectations and this – among many other things – led to some emotional scars. I also feel that, if we have high expectations of others in life in general – so people other than those lower on the social ladder than us (like children) -, we often come across as demanding and critical.

3. Serenity is ________________________.
A feeling of calm and being in the present.

4. What’s the most interesting thing in your purse or pocket right now?
Uhm, I don’t have a purse and rarely have anything in my pockets.

5. What helps you calm down?
Ideally, lying under my weighted blanket with my stuffed lemur’s tail over me, my essential oil diffuser on and a calming Spotify playlist like this one playing on my music pillow. Or just lying under my weighted blanket, if my phone needs charging and I don’t have any essential oil blend in my diffuser at the moment.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I have some awesome news: I have a moving date!!! On September 18, I will be moving to the new care home. I still know next to nothing about it, but I’ll follow my advice on question #2 and just let things unfold as they will.

August 2023 Reflections #WBOYC

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last day of the month, so it’s time for my monthly reflections. Overall, August was slightly better than July, but it’s still been quite a tough month. Honestly, it’s been quite a tough year so far.

My spouse’s car broke down a few weeks ago, so we weren’t able to see each other each week this past month. Last Sunday, though my spouse did visit me, it was in my mother-in-law’s car. Thankfully, the car has been fixed for now.

My mother-in-law also only visited me once this past month despite there being five Tuesdays in August and her normally visiting me every other Tuesday. On the 1st, she had to work and on the 29th, a new horse was delivered. The story behind her having gotten a new horse is a bit sad, in that one of her horses, Remco, passed away suddenly last month. I mean, he was already crippled, so could only step around a bit, but still his death was unexpected. The new horse is a young mare called Marrit.

Now on to my own life. It’s been boring. I’ve been mostly waiting to find out more about the move. Last Sunday, my support coordinator told me that I’ll move within six weeks, probably sooner. I honestly have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Obviously, I try to remind myself it can’t be worse than here, but what if it isn’t any better either? Will I be expected to magically flourish there just because it’s not this home? I’m hoping, of course, that I will eventually flourish, but this isn’t going to happen magically. Indeed, this requires work, both on my part and on the part of the staff.

I also, like I mentioned yesterday, have had an increase in flashbacks to my childhood trauma. Of course, I could hope this will lessen when (if?) I’m in a calmer environment, but still I’m pretty sure they won’t disappear without support.

In the health department, I’m doing pretty well. I had a meeting with the dietitian yesterday and she asked me not to lose any more weight. I’m not sure how to do this, truthfully, as I’m eating well overall. There’s also this thought at the back of my mind telling me that I could still lose 10kg and be at a healthy BMI. Besides, I still have quite a lot of abdominal fat and watched some YouTube videos a while back that mentioned the dangers of internal obesity. Then again, the dietitian told me there’s very little I can do about this. The YouTube videos tell me otherwise, but then again my healthy voice is telling me (or at least I’m assuming it’s my healthy voice) that following those YouTubers will just lead to extreme restricting, which will probably just cause me to relapse into bulimia. I’m still struggling intensely with all the things diet culture tells me about what to eat and not to eat to preserve my health and, at the same time, my dietitian has one foot right inside diet culture as well. After all, my food plan was a classic weight loss plan up until I reached a healthy BMI. Heck, the very fact that I mention the BMI here shows how much I’m into diet culture. I want to unlearn this, but I’m not sure how.

With respect to other health factors, I’m doing okay. I walk more than I did in July, have been swimming again and went on the stationary bike occasionally. That being said, I do worry about a decline in my mobility. This could be the YouTube videos again, which told me a loss of arm swing could be a sign of overall decline. I have absolutely no idea whether my arm ever swung at all though. That being said, my drop foot seems to be getting worse too.

I did finally get the eczema on my legs treated. I also got a slight infection on the skin of my earlobes, where I had my ears pierced in early July. I’m currently on a course of an antibiotic ointment, so hoping that’ll work.

In the crafty department, I haven’t been very active. I did create a lot of unicorns out of polymer clay, but they were all done using cutters, not sculpted. I intend to paint them and use them as gifts for my fellow residents when leaving this home.

I’m linking up with What’s Been On Your Calendar? (#WBOYC).

Poem: Home Is…

Posted on by Astrid

Home was
At my parents’
Who were there and yet weren’t there for me
Hurting me in ways I feel I can’t express
It wasn’t safe
Or maybe that’s just me

Home was
On my own
Barely holding on by a thread
Surviving but that was about as far as it went
It wasn’t doable
Or maybe that’s just me

Home was
In the mental hospital
Where I stayed for nearly a decade
Only to be kicked out again
That wasn’t forever
And that wasn’t me

Home was
With my spouse
Again, barely holding on by a thread
Managing life by sleeping and panicking
It didn’t work out
But maybe that was me again

Home then was
In the care facility in Raalte
About as unsuitable as they come in theory
But it was near-perfect in reality
And yet, I left
And that was me (sort of)

Home then became
My current care home
With harsh staff, chaotic clients and poor quality of care
I wasn’t abused (not really), but that’s about as far as it goes
It doesn’t feel safe
But then I wonder, isn’t that just me?

Maybe soon home will be
The future care home
The big unknown
Will I feel sort of happy there?
No-one can tell
But it’s up to me

To make myself feel at home

This poem may sound a bit self-loathing. It isn’t intended this way, but I couldn’t express as concisely how I feel about my various “homes” and particularly the way people have told me I approach them (ie. the idea that I’m never satisfied anyway because I’m looking for perfection) without sounding this way. This is definitely not my best poem, but oh well, it shows my conflicting feelings about the fact that I’ve never felt “at home” anywhere.

I’m joining dVerse’s OLN. I’m also joining Friday Writings. The optional prompt is “muscle memory”. I guess repeating that I don’t feel at home anywhere counts.

Decisions Made for Me

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. I’m joining Denyse’s #WWandPics once again. This week, she talks about the letter D words that relate to her, among which “decisions”. I wanted to write about decisions too, but this time, about the reality of decisions being made for you. This may not happen to non-disabled adults much, but it happens to me all the time.

Like with my upcoming move. I know next to nothing about my future care home and, when I told my assigned staff that this frustrates me, she pointed out that I’ll move there anyway so how would giving me more info help?

Honestly, I wish I were given some way to have any level of input into the process. I know the reason the powers-that-be have decided to give me no choice is probably because they feel I’m too critical anyway. They believe I’m looking for the perfect home, which they and I know doesn’t exist given my rather complicated care needs.

They always tell me that I wanted to leave the care facility in Raalte, which was near-perfect compared to my current one. I did, in a way. That is, I wanted to have a discussion with the behavior specialist to explore the possibility of me finding another care home. That’s not the same. And they were the ones not being up front with me about all the things I’d lose if I wanted to live on institution grounds and have fellow clients with whom I could speak. They may’ve technically allowed me to make the decision to move here, but they gave me the bare minimum amount of information to make that decision.

Now they’re not letting me make a decision at all. It makes me feel intensely powerless and that’s a really distressing feeling. And who will be in trouble if my behavior doesn’t improve? Yup, me. Some staff have come to call me spoiled, in fact, so the burden is on me to show them I can handle whatever this new home has to offer. If I can’t, well, too bad, then I either have to learn to live with the decisions made for me or find myself another way to cope.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (August 16, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I haven’t participated in the Wednesday HodgePodge in a while. The reason is a comment Joyce, the organizer, made about Rikkie Kolle, the trans woman who won the Miss Netherlands competition last month. Trans rights are dear to my heart, so I felt the need to educate Joyce (respectfully, of course), even though I will probably not be able to convince her that trans women are women. After this, I didn’t feel I could in my right mind participate in the HodgePodge again, despite the fact that Joyce assured me that people from all walks of life are welcome. Then today I decided to check back and the first HodgePodge’er I stumbled upon happened to be Jewish. That’s a relief. So now I feel that I may be able to join in again, given that it’s indeed not just a place for conservative Christians.

1. What motivates you to work hard?
Nothing, honestly. I am not a hard worker. That being said, if I want to accomplish something, I thrive on setting myself deadlines.

2. It’s been said “Ignorance is bliss”…is it?
It depends. Where it comes to the state of this world, a healthy balance is needed. I mean, complete ignorance will lead people to mistreat the planet and each other even more than we already are, but being completely submerged in negative news, won’t solve anything either.

I think the same goes for our daily life. I mean, I watched a video on signs of dementia a few days ago and was shocked to find out I ticked more boxes than I thought I would. Now the doctor doing the video covered the complete spectrum from entirely healthy (which I know I’m not) to end-stage dementia. I am pretty sure I’m still at a stage where I can reverse any cognitive decline I might be experiencing. In this sense, ignorance could’ve felt like bliss, but it isn’t necessarily so.

3. Would you rather be stuck on a broken elevator or a broken ski lift? Explain. Have you ever actually been stuck on either? Of the common fears listed here what’s your #1: heights-enclosed spaces-snakes-public speaking-the dark-flying.
I’d probably choose an elevator, though neither seems appealing to me. Never experienced either. Out of the common fears, I’ll choose snakes as my number one because I’m very scared of venomous animals. I can handle a non-venomous snake without a problem though, have even had a small one around my neck.

4. What’s something you like about the town or city where you live?
The institution I live in (not my specific home, of course). The rest of the town is boring.

5. Life is too short to ___.
Waste it by endless worrying. Oh now how I wish I could stop doing it.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I haven’t shared this with the HodgePodge crowd yet, but I am soon moving to another care home. My assigned staff actually mentioned September. I havent’been given an exact date yet and won’t find out till about two weeks in advance. Fingers crossed it won’t be like the end of September, because quite frankly I can’t wait.

Colors, Changes and Connections

Posted on by Astrid

Today, I am joining Denyse’s #WWandPics link-up. Denyse apparently has been sharing posts following an alphabetical theme. Today, she talks about the letter C. I could do this alphabet thing too, but then I’d have to start at A. Instead, I’m taking inspiration from her “C” words to write my post.

Denyse’s first “C” word is “change”. Of course, things are changing in my world too, though I’m not yet sure when. I got informed last Saturday that my new care home will keep my current day schedule for now. That’s in spite of the fact that it apparently indeed does cover two hours more care a day than I get funding for. I still don’t fully understand the technicalities, but I don’t really care, as the number of support hours I get according to my day schedule was never the problem. It was how cut up into at most 60-minute activity blocks it is. It’s okay though. Better than the alternative my staff have been suggesting, saying I need to find a way to cut back on those two hours and go down to 30-minute activity blocks.

I asked my support coordinator about having a care plan review. We haven’t had one in nearly two years due to my moving to my current home right when my last review was due. My support coordinator is going to get the new one to schedule a review once I’m settled there and he will attend too.

He also finally sent my mother-in-law an activation code to access the daily reports on me and my care plan. As far as my mother-in-law is concerned, they mostly report really superficially. For those who are wondering, back several years ago it was agreed upon that I wouldn’t get access because it might cause distress, but I did want someone in my family to have access especially now that I’m struggling significantly. Most daily reports apparently go something along the lines of “mostly had a good day, slightly stressed over ___”. I don’t know whether it’s deliberate, but that’s certainly downplaying my distress.

The support coordinator for the new home did ask my current support coordinator to confirm what color paint I want on my wall, despite the fact that I’m pretty sure I already told him through my mother-in-law. It will be pink, since lilac wasn’t available. Truthfully, all other colors except maybe blue sounded awfully ugly to me. And yes, despite being blind, I do have some concept of color from when I could still see a little.

Through all this change, I am happy about my online connections. I have multiple disabilities, so am in Facebook groups for various conditions. I am also in a few Facebook groups for former preemies or NICU babies in general. The Dutch one is organizing a get-together in September. I sent the organizer an E-mail to sign up, then decided to ask some further questions in the Facebook group. As far as I’m aware, the get-together will be held in a café-style meeting room, so I’ll most likely be able to get the ParaTransit taxi driver to get me right to where I need to be. On the one hand, I’m reminding myself that I used to attend the DID charity meetups independently each month from 2011 till 2013 and even rode the train there by myself. On the other hand, it’s 2023, not 2013 and I’ve probably declined cognitively at least a little. Then again, if I don’t try, I’ll never know if I can do this. I would really love to connect to other NICU survivors, as honestly I’m beginning to realize I might not be alone in experiencing significant attachment issues and they might in fact have started this early on.

Can’t Wait to Leave

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s prompt for Five Minute Friday is “leave”. I am pretty sure this or a similar prompt came up before when I was in the process of finding what turned out to be my current care home. Maybe not on Five Minute Friday but on Stream of Consciousness Saturday or the like. Well, now that it came up on FMF, even though I’m not an actual Christian like most of the participants, I thought I’d join in. So, here goes.

I can’t wait to leave this nightmare of a care home. Today, a fellow client was being severely out of control right in front of my room and my would-be one-on-one had to leave me to attend to him because her colleague was alone attending to “the group” (ie. everyone except another one-on-one client). I felt it was unfair, because that other client’s one-on-one is non-negotiable, while my staff keep claiming I need to cut back on my hours. Well, I could not do any activity at all with how long it took the staff to attend to this other client and then bluntly tell me, once melting down, to calm down, etc.

I can’t wait to leave this nightmare of unclear and mostly very harsh treatment that I receive here. I mean, I’m not aggressive, but I get treated like I am.

I am hoping to find out when I’ll be moving to my new care home real soon.

I sometimes feel left alone on this journey. I try to turn to God, even though I no longer subscribe to traditional Christian beliefs. I really do hope that, even if (which I’m pretty sure is a “when”) I’m left all alone in this world, there’s someone out there who cares.

Hello Monday (August 7, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this first Monday of August. How are you all? Let me share about my weekend. I’m also sneaking in a bit about today, because I don’t think I can devote a separate blog post to the topic and it needs talking about anyway. I am joining in with Hello Monday.

Saturday started out pretty good. My assigned staff came to do my one-on-one for the morning. My schedule did get somewhat distorted because she came up with the idea of us clearing out my wardrobe. I didn’t mind at first, but I didn’t realize until it was too late how overloading this was.

Then eventually, after having had a shower, getting dressed and having had breakfast, I realized I’d forgotten the steroid cream I’d been prescribed for my eczema. I asked my assigned staff to help me apply it. “I’ll show you how, then you can do it yourself,” she said. Fair enough, you might say, but by this time I was well and truly overloaded. I sighed, to which my assigned staff made a comment about me being a “big girl” and that I could stomp my feet all I wanted (I didn’t). Once she got down to showing me how to apply the cream, she kind of curtly told me to relax my hand (which, well, having mild cerebral palsy, I simply can’t), then asked why I can’t. I got quite thick layers of cream on some parts of my skin and nothing on others, but in the end it didn’t matter, as the cream she’d grabbed was the oily lanette cream rather than the steroid. I do understand my staff meant well, in the sense that she’s trying to encourage independence. However, I often don’t realize how overwhelmed I am until it’s too late and at that point, any further demands will lead to me shutting or melting down.

Saturday evening was pretty good. We had home-cooked macaroni for dinner, which I loved! I actually was allowed a second helping.

On Sunday morning, my one-on-one arrived 25 minutes late, claiming it was only 15 minutes and that it just was what it was and deal with it. Then at lunchtime, she wouldn’t leave my room after I’d finished my drink (I wasn’t eating because I’d be having lunch out with my spouse), claiming she was making up for the time she’d been late in the morning. Well, it isn’t just sitting in my room that helps me. If she could’ve taken that time to help me with an activity that needed doing rather than just “chilling”, that would’ve been appreciated, but she couldn’t.

Thankfully, my spouse arrived around 1PM. We drove to Apeldoorn once again and, after a stroll around the city, decided to have lunch at Backwerk once again. I had the same old chicken barbecue baguette. Hema was closed, so we just had a drive around, then stopped by Aldi in the town next to where my institution is (I’m pretty sure those who live in the Netherlands know which town I’m referring to, if I haven’t shared it already). I wanted to get some nuts and Tuc (a kind of salty biscuit), which my dietitian allows me to snack on later in the evening. My spouse also got apricots, so I also bought those. And of course the perpetual Kinder Bueno. Then my spouse drove me back to the institution.

Once there, it turned out one of the staff had car trouble, so didn’t arrive till 4:30PM. Of course, it was my one-on-one that got cut. One of the other staff made it sound as though they were buying us French fries and a snack to make up for it, which I considered rather lame. Then after we’d finished our fries at 4:50, the staff informed me bluntly that my day schedule would be followed from there on, so I would have one-on-one again at 6PM. I felt this was ridiculous, but had no choice, as the staff were using stupid emotional reasoning to get me to agree with them.

In the evening, I did show my one-on-one how to make beads out of polymer clay.

Now on to my cheating by sharing a bit about today: this morning, my support coordinator informed me that he was going to attend the team meeting for my new care home to answer some questions about me, but that he thought I could answer those questions perfectly well myself. I agreed and went with him. Some of the questions made me feel a little uncomfortable.

The first question I got, in fact, referred to my drinking excessive water. That happened exactly once and was an impulsive act. I decided to broaden the topic and explain about my preference for how staff deal with my impulsive or self-harm tendencies, ie. by not giving more attention than needed to the behavior but to stay supportive of my emotional needs. I did forget to mention that wounds do need to be checked, something that doesn’t always happen here.

Overall, I mostly felt validated, in the sense that at least the team didn’t respond negatively to my comments. I did find it hard to walk the fine line between being too bluntly honest about my needs and delivering a sales pitch of myself. I hope I did okay though.

July 2023 Reflections #WBOYC

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last day of the month and this means it’s time for my monthly reflections. As usual, I’m joining in with What’s Been on Your Calendar? (or #WBOYC for short).

This month was a toughie once again. All I had to keep me going was an E-mail from the behavior specialist at the end of June saying that they were still investigating a possible new home for me, so I hadn’t been forgotten. This didn’t do much to perk me up, honestly. At the beginning of the second week of the month, my mother-in-law E-mailed her to request extra supports. We had been discussing her asking the behavior specialist to come round to talk to me every once in a while to keep me from spiraling further into crisis before, and in fact my mother-in-law had requested it before, but that message had not been responded to. This time around, it turned out the behavior specialist was on vacation till the end of the month. I’m pretty sure given her work schedule, she should be back tomorrow, but even though our E-mail was sent pretty early in her leave, I’m skeptical that she’ll respond then.

Of course, I did find out on the 23rd that a new home has been found for me. Like I mentioned last week, the way I found out about it was rather weird and I don’t know anything about the home other than what my care agency has on its website about it. A moving date hasn’t been set either as far as I’m aware and I won’t be informed till about two weeks in advance. My assigned staff asked me today whether I keep wondering when I’ll be moving. Yep, of course.

In other news, my support coordinator did leave the agency a few weeks ago. I can’t say I miss her, as I can talk to my new one much more easily. Still, I’m glad I’m leaving this place in the hopefully not too distant future.

I haven’t really been crafting much over this past month. The only thing I finished, in fact, is a bracelet with the glass beads I got from my mother-in-law for my birthday. Today, I did finally get round to claying once again. And got my hands all blue from handling alcohol inks without gloves.

I also didn’t walk as much as I did last month over this past month. I honestly don’t really care though.

Since iOS 16.6 resolved the Braille display bug that caused me to be unable to read books on my iPhone, I have been reading more over the past week. I also finally bought a blender, so yay for smoothies!

Here’s hoping August will be a better month than the past few months have been.