There are two types of diets that have come up in recent media which both advocate as being the ‘diet of the original human’. One is the Paleo diet, focusing on not eating grains and no nightshade plants such as tomato and potato if I’m correct. This is all off the top of my head and what I remember from someone’s explanation, so it might not all be correct and it’s not completely relevant to be. If you’re interested in the Paleo diet, I strongly urge you to look it up.

The other type of diet, which I had been looking at for a bit and done some research into and am now trying out, is Intermittent Fasting. Intermittent Fasting is the diet which goes directly opposite the wildly held belief that you must eat breakfast and that it’s the most important meal of the day and is associated with all sorts of benefits. I will not go into this today, again you can look it all up.

Intermittent Fasting works on the belief that when humans were still cavemen we regularly went stretches of time without eating and that our bodies were made for this. I am not interested in this diet because of this, but more for its benefits. Which this video explains and also how it works and how you should go about it and basically is just a general explanation. He has a lot more in-depth videos of intermittent fasting and other things, so if you want to know more you can just check those out.

The main reasons that I want to do this are yes to lose weight, lose some fat, become thinner, but also because it helps me listen to my body more and teaches me how to take better care for it. It helps me keep track of food better, keeps me from snacking at night or taking sugary drinks. It’s more about getting and keeping a sense of control over my body for me.

I joined a facebook group for intermittent fasting that is linked to a specific app for it and at some point, I saw a post from someone who had an eating disorder who asked a question and someone else responded that she had bulimia and that she uses intermittent fasting to gain and keep control of her body. And that made me realize that I actually also fall into that category. I may not have the eating disorder as it is commonly known, and it is definitely not a label I would like to tack unto myself. However, I am very sensitive to food, I am very sensitive to a lot of things, and eating is often really a struggle for me and bad habits are very easy to fall into when a lot of healthier foods are off limits. This gives me the opportunity to really dive into researching healthy foods that I can eat or drink.

For anyone who is worried, I am not doing this because it is becoming a fad diet or something. But I am struggling with a lot of issues, my weight being one of them. A lot of my struggles deal with me grasping for control over different areas of my life and learning to find and take that control instead of giving it up to someone or something else. So for me, this is really about empowerment.

If anyone has any questions or wants to talk to me about this, they definitely can. If you don’t agree with me for doing this, that’s fine, but do realize that this is more than a way to lose weight easily. I fully expect that that will either take time or happen very minimally. This is mostly about taking control of my body and learning how it works.

So. It has been a while. For a while now there have been thoughts that I wanted to share with my readers (few as they are), but each time I thought ‘No, I shouldn’t. It’s stupid.’ And that in and of itself was stupid, but I also didn’t quite know how to express what I wanted to say, or rather write. So maybe in the times ahead I’ll be able to write some of those things that I wanted to write. But first, it’s time to talk about something new.

I have always been a hugely creative person. I’ve loved to create things and as long as I did those things for myself it usually didn’t bother me all that much if it didn’t come out as perfect as a Da Vinci painting. But I’ve grown up knowing that being an artist probably isn’t going to get the bills paid. So I looked at what normal jobs I could do that could pay the bills.

I tried learning to be a teacher’s assistant, but with my (now obvious) autism that wasn’t fated to go well. Went back to high school for a better high school diploma. Went to a translator’s academy. I, however, couldn’t learn the third language quickly enough and keep up with everything else so that didn’t go through. So I figured, what job can I study for that let’s me study English and literature (which was my passion)? I settled on English teacher. The theory of it went great, because I am a study person. However, again my autism (still not official) forced me to accede that I am simply not good enough in social things and communication to be able to ever do this. So I figured, well if there isn’t a job I can do with English, at least I can study English Language and Culture. And I did that. That’s when I got the official document saying that I have autism in some not specified degree. At the University I tried another hand at translating and found out that I liked it, but that my anxieties really didn’t. I got my Bachelor’s degree through some miracle, but during my Master’s they really got the better of me.

So, with a relatively useless diploma and an autism diagnosis in the pocket I was back in square one. I was back at trying to figure out what normal job I could possibly do. With the help of someone I figured out that I’d really to sew for a living, but that that probably wasn’t very feasible. So we continued looking. And we thought, well, what if we combine your love of sewing and creating with something simpler that will let you pay the bills. Best of both worlds, right? So we looked at what other skills I have and how they could give me a job. I remembered that I also like numbers. I like being organized (yes, my house may not look it, but my mind really does like having things organized. The problem is that I can’t keep stuff organized). I like being accurate, even if it slows me down. That made us think, well wouldn’t a job as a bookkeeper or in administration be something for you. So I went back to school to learn to be a business administrator in part-time. So one day a week I went to school, and three days a week I worked in the administration of an administration’s office.

I liked what I was learning. It was difficult as it was really something different from what I had been doing before but I liked it. And then, within two months I started finding problems. One was a side of my autism that I hadn’t really seen before. Namely that when I have to process information that it stays in my head awhile, it takes a while for me fully process information. Not in the sense that it takes a while for me understand something, but in the sense that it clogs up my head like a crumpled piece of paper clogging up a strainer. And the more information I have to process, the more clogged up the strainer in my brain gets. For a little while that goes okay, but eventually I get headaches, really painful ones. So I had to take some sick leave. Take some rest so that my mind could get unclogged. It that point it takes days.

But after a while it sort of went okay and the headaches grew less. I grew slightly more proficient.

Then I found out that this nagging problem I’ve been having for as long as I can remember, really doesn’t like me working at a desk. I think it was within two months from me starting that job that I had to go see a physical therapist because my back was giving me so much pain that I couldn’t concentrate on my job. I had to do so much stretching and taking breaks that I wasn’t getting any work done properly. For the next few months I regularly went to see that physical therapist. Until my sessions paid for by my insurance were done. I could continue going, but I’d have to pay for them myself. And the physical therapist said “You shouldn’t come anymore. Your problem is chronic and the best I can do is give you temporary pain relief. Go see if a chiropractor or masseuse can help you out.”

After my vacation I went to see both. I really had to, because when I went back to work after my vacation I had so much pain within 2 weeks that I couldn’t do anything except lie on the couch. A month and a half later I still was having too much pain that I regularly had to miss work. My doctor prescribed me paracetamol painkillers, and when those didn’t do enough he added diclophenac. Those helped, for short periods of time. But I still had days when I simply couldn’t go to work.

My contract was nearly up so it was time for me and my boss to think about whether or not we were going to continue.

I had found that because of my problems processing input I had trouble sometimes keeping the different accounts apart. So I would make mistakes because I would take information from one account and use it on another account. But I thought that maybe if I went to for the administration of one big business, who only had to deal with their own administration, that it wouldn’t be such a problem.

So I had started looking for a new job. Finally, two days before my contract was up I got word that I could start working at a smaller firm. So I didn’t re-new my contract and to work closer to home.

But even my chiropractor could do no more than relieve my pain for short periods. And I was missing a lot of time both at school and at work due to my autism and back problems. So much that I sometimes only could work one day a week, or even less, and had to be home the rest of the time. My boss, rightfully so, sat down with me and we tried to think of what we could do to better the situation. First up I had already offered to try and work at least half days for now. He also said that maybe I should try sporting under the guidance of a physical therapist.

So I went to see a new physical therapist who quickly saw that my pelvis actually wasn’t standing straight. This caused decreased mobility in the corresponding ankle and had also caused my back to sort of re-shape itself so that I could stand up straight. Sort of. This had caused me to have so much tension on my back that it was no small wonder that I had tension headaches.

That’s where I am now. I’ve been going to see this physical therapist who hammers my back and pelvis back into place and he has given me a routine that helps me get mobility back into my back. However, with my issues my back will have tension on it easier (because the tension from increased sensory input and information processing also settles on my back) and longer and harder. Even with my special chair I have difficulty working my hours. There is so much backlog in the administration that the company might lose clients. Because of me. So I don’t think that my contract will be re-newed.

I also don’t think it’s wise. Because even though I’m smart enough to do the job, I have so many issues that it probably isn’t feasible for me to do the job. Nor will I be able to find a boss who is okay with me having so much sick leave that my productivity is 30%.

So I’m once again back to square one. Trying to figure out what I can do to scrape together an income. That’s where Patreon is coming in. I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to set everything up. I still have a month and a half to figure it out before my contract is up. But I think I should focus on my creative projects. Getting those out, and doing temp work in between projects while I get together a client base. But I need to create and I need to do it on my own hours. I need to be able to take breaks long enough for me to clear my head or go sporting to stretch my back. I have come to the realization that I am probably not going to fit in any mold of a normal job. So I’m going to make money doing what I can. Making clothing, making audio books or podcasts. Making props for LARP. Perhaps doing some pixelart for a happy patron. I’ll figure it out. This way I hope to show myself and the world that I do have worth and that I am awesome. Even if I don’t fit the mold that society wants me to fill.

So please. If you want to see me make awesome clothing, everyday clothing or costumes or something in between. If you want to hear me recite tales. If you want to hear me discuss books or DnD. If you want to see me create a pixel project piece by piece. Think about supporting me as a patron. Tiers will be as small as 1 or 5 dollars a month. You can even sign up to have your tarot cards read by me. In the time before I will launch my Patreon page I will talk more about what I’m going to be doing, probably as I’m figuring stuff out. So follow this page and, most of all, tell your friends and family to support this awesome person who doesn’t the mold.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, and I didn’t mean to. But some things that I wanted to talk about still hurt too much to put them down to writing at the time. But, lately it’s been itching for me to write one of these things again. I wanted to create a blog filled with happy things, good news and such, but since my life mostly isn’t made up of happy things and good news I guess it stands to reason that it would be hard to fill my blog with it then.

There have been plenty of posts all over the internet about what not to tell people who are suffering from depression or other mental illnesses, or about how you should deal with them. Those posts are all great, because lots of people still have a lot to learn about that aspect. But one  of the things that is almost never discussed is what you should or can do for someone who is caring for someone with a mental or physical illness.

Let me tell you something about my country. It has now been over a year since my boyfriend and I moved in together. Joy and happiness all around, right? Well, there probably would be more of it, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m still messed up. I didn’t want to take that with my into this new phase of my life, but unfortunately, that wasn’t really up to me. When I was still living with my parents and wasn’t up to getting a job after I quit school because I wanted to commit suicide (one of those things that hurt too much to talk about, but I’ll explain more later), I could get an unemployment benefit specifically designed for those who have trouble getting a job. I could get this BECAUSE I was living with my parents. However, when I moved in with my boyfriend the new city government (because I had also moved cities) said: “Well, unless you have a contract that your living spaces are clearly separate, he’s financially responsible for you, also he makes enough money for the both of you, so you can’t get welfare.”

Well fuck. And it didn’t stop there. When I was still living with my parents I finally got practical personal help who helped me get the semblance of my life into some sort of order. She was a wonderful person. However, when I moved cities I moved out of her ‘jurisdiction'(not entirely true, it works a little differently, but it came down to me living too far away to continue getting help from her). Luckily, the bureau that she worked with also had a department near my new place and I managed to get a new coach, yes let’s go with coach.However, I needed approval from the city government so that they could pay the bureau so that she got paid for helping me. So fine, we talked to the city government. And the first question they ask is, “How much can your boyfriend do?” And I love my boyfriend very much but I don’t want to saddle him up with everything. It’s been breaking me up for years, so why would I want to saddle that unto him. But the city government is adamant that he helps me deal with whatever, for however much he can do. So not only do they want him to be financially responsible for me as long as I can’t get a job (I have one now, but more or that in a different post), but they also want him to be my caregiver. Putting even more of a strain on a relationship that hasn’t been easy for years.

But what they forget is that this also puts a strain on the caregiver, in this case, someone with a 40-hour workweek, who is also a new homeowner. There are no funds to help out the caregivers. And caregivers do a lot, out of love they sacrifice their own time, and sometimes also money, to help out their person in need, be it a (grand)mother, or other relative or their significant other, or sometimes even just a really good friend. In the case of family or a significant other the government expects it from the people around them to take care of that person. They don’t offer any thanks or help for them, they just expect them to step up out of love and take on that burden.

I didn’t expect that help in the way that the government does. We had talked about it and he understood that I need help and sometimes guidance, but I never wanted to put all of that at his feet. I have, however, been ungrateful about it. I should have known better, I’ve seen my mother take care of my mother and how much she came to resent her mother (even more) because she never thanked her for everything that she did, she just saw it as normal. I’ve always been very grateful for what he’s done for me, but I’ve had problems expressing it. I always feel very foolish saying thanks or giving someone a compliment. Where I come from thanks wasn’t a word that was uttered a lot, and compliments have always made me feel weird. I make a wreck out of myself trying to live up to the world’s expectation and then when I feel that I do, I can’t be happy about it because all I’ve done is reached ‘normal’, happy is for when you do something extra. But everything that I accomplish is normal. So I often also forget to compliment other people for whatever they do.

My relationship has now been going for almost 8 years. I would like nothing more than to wake up every day next to him, have that short cuddle with him after I’ve gotten dressed, or be kissed by him after he’s gotten up before me. But I’ve never even had a normal good friend for that long. And I don’t count friendships from primary schools, because those a. weren’t all that because of the bullying, and b. friendship was simple, it consisted of ‘do you want to play with me after school’. I hardly know how to have a normal friendship, let alone have a relationship.

After I got together with him I wanted to stop thinking of myself as a victim, so I started therapy, and then another therapy, and another therapy. I got anti-depressants. Eventually I went off the anti-depressants, I think because they weren’t really working and I was doing okay. I was doing okay, so long as I wasn’t thinking about my depression or something that triggers my performance anxiety. But as my boyfriend visualized it, I stagnated, until I found a new hole to go down and then I went deeper, until I stagnated, then I would find a new hole and go deeper and that went on and on, until I found rock bottom and I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to commit suicide because I felt like such a burden to everyone around me. I felt like such a failure who would need help with just about everything and would never find her place in society where I would be productive and accepted. I felt like I always had to be special, I could never do anything normal. And everyone around me always had to adjust to what I needed. I honestly thought that I would make everyone’s life better by taking myself out of that equation. I thought that if I took myself away from this world, than the people I loved wouldn’t have that burden anymore, they could live carefree without me to mess everything up and make everything difficult.

That almost killed my relationship. It’s still almost killing my relationship. Because I can’t explain to my boyfriend that it wasn’t his fault that I continued on that downward slope. That it wasn’t something that he could really have done something against. Loving my harder, doing more for me, making it easier for me, wouldn’t have changed a thing. It’s my head that’s the problem. My thinking, which leads to actions or inability to act.

The combination of me not knowing how to be in a relationship and keeping it alive and me being so wrapped up in my depression has hurt my boyfriend. That’s what a lot of people forget about depression. There’s also the other side of it. What it does to the people around the mentally ill. And now I’ve unintentionally hurt my boyfriend to the point where we don’t know if it still can be fixed. And I’m left with figuring out how to get myself together, accept and love myself and show how much I love my boyfriend.

Last night I came back from Moots II a LARP event by Vortex Adventures. For those of you not in the know, LARP stands for Live Action Role Play. What that basically comes down to is this: do you remember as a child playing dress up and playing outside having the wildest tales and adventures? LARP is the combination of those two. Whatever the duration of an event is, that is the amount of time that you get to be outside in nature, stay up late if you want to, be crazy, weird, wonderful, bashful, silent, outrageous, or whatever you want to be with a group of people that are also experiencing the same things. Some of the people you know, some of the people you never get to know. It doesn’t matter, because together you all create a world, with consequences and rules and special things that happen there.

As an autist LARP can be very difficult for me. Having all these people around me, getting all these impressions. It’s sometimes hard to filter and sort everything out.

The first day, which usually starts around 16:00, I can’t really get much done. I have to acclimate, feel that I’m there again, feel where everything needs to be and where I’m going to fit in. It’s incredibly chaotic and my head isn’t really capable of forming much thought. That first night is always for me about being there with the people and finding my spot.

My first LARP event, last year’s Moots II, I participated in a fight on Friday night, to get it over with and to feel how it is. It was a small group of monsters (Non Player Characters) who came to the players as demonic somethings, and we had to be intimidating and say nothing. Eventually it came to a fight. At some point I can still remember very vividly that I had three players around me who were attacking me, I was trying to keep up with how many hits I was still ‘allowed to take’, how to react to the attacks of all three players and trying to attack them myself. When I was attacked by those three players one of them hit me on my nose, right below my glasses, with a dagger or something. That really hurt, but I couldn’t do something about it because we were fighting and it hadn’t sunk in yet, because adrenaline.Then there is the fact that it’s dark and that we were fighting between tents with, you can guess it, tent lines. At some point the players stepped back a bit because I was nearly tripping over them and when I actually fell backwards over someone lying dead, I didn’t see him because it was already dark, I decided that it was as good time to go dead. After some time I got up, held up my hand to indicate I was Out of Character and walked to a Game Leader, who told me that I could re-spawn if I wanted to so I did. This time after I died the players ‘cut off my head’, hauled me up and dragged me to the fire where they ‘dropped me in’, not really of course! After that I was done and I didn’t really see anymore monsters so I thought it was a good time for me to head back to the monster tent. That was when the adrenaline dropped and I slowly started to cry because of everything that had just happened. Someone who saw it happening brought me to the red cross tent and they signalled the leader of the monster crew, who fetched my boyfriend and came to me. That was my first and last official fight.

It wasn’t a bad fight, it was actually pretty epic and cool to do. But for me it was too much and I am too insecure to feel comfortable with it. Especially with people who I don’t know. After that fight I decided that fighting wasn’t for me. It happens. Maybe someday I’ll feel more comfortable and secure and pick it up again. So that was the end of fighting.

The other part of LARP is roleplay. One of the most common things with autists is that we have trouble with communication. Roleplay is all about communication. Giving someone a message, I’ve done those, they’re pretty cool and simple. But also telling a story through your behaviour and what you do with your face and voice. That is something I’m even more insecure about, because I know that it’s a problem area for me. But that is what I’m focussing on, because it is something that I can learn tricks for and I can practice.

But I’m not leading role material, yet. I have extreme difficulty pitching my voice, and when you have to address a hundred people you need to pitch your voice. That can make it very difficult to find something cool and epic to do during a LARP event as an NPC/monster. I’ve had an event where I got really, really bored because I couldn’t find my spot and I wanted to do something but there wasn’t something that I could see that said ‘yes, that’s something I can do’. Insecurity really held me back.

Then a Game leader did the most amazing thing, probably without really realizing it. He created a small role for me. I can read tarot, though I should really keep practicing that, and he could use that in game to give some of the players a message. And by reading for other players I could just be out there on the field, having fun, generating game, making the world a little livelier. Well, at first I went out there on my own. I sat for half an hour, or longer, in an extremely cold wind, and no one who paid me any mind. When I was frozen solid I had enough and went back. I told the Gameleader that this wasn’t working and that I needed help. So we found someone who could play my brother. We dressed him up as well and went out again. This time we went somewhere else, we actually made a deal with the merchants that I could perform readings in one of their tents. I did a few readings there and then we went out, walked by the various camps and talked to people. Sat at a fire for a short time. And eventually I got to talk with one of those people that I was to give a message to, through a reading. It didn’t go completely as the Gameleader and I had imagined it, but that’s ok. The message was given and because we were again starting to get really cold so we went back.

After that I made a decision for myself: I would try to create roles for myself. Something to do for me, even if there isn’t a place for me in the big plot. But I also knew that I couldn’t do things like this on my own. I needed someone with me, to break the ice and keep things going when necessary.

After Moots I me and my boyfriend signed up for a Monsterweekend. There we had several workshops where you could learn things that could improve your game but also your fun during a LARP weekend. On Saturdaynight there was a LARP evening, just that evening. We would all get an assigned role, get dressed up accordingly and then start playing. The starting to play is very awkward, but that’s normal. I was given quite a big role, which really surprised me, but it also gave me what I needed to play comfortably. I was given the role of ex-wife of the ex-head of my maffia family, who was now the wife of the current head of that maffia family. I was given some goals and given some background information. I had told them that I needed a buddy, and that was my husband, so that worked out grand. Before we started playing me and my ‘husband’ sat down and discussed, how we were going to act towards one another ( such great memories there), what we wanted out of our ‘marriage’ and stuff like that. Of course I didn’t tell him that I was secretly ‘in love’ with someone else. Having a buddy meant that if I didn’t know what to do I could just stay around him, and talk, or chat with others. There were things to be discussed, and being a top-wife I had the right to discuss it with them. But I also got the time to arrange that secret love affair, without my husband’s knowledge. What was absolutely wonderful was that I had arranged that four people were protecting me: my ex-husband, who needed me to get him out, which was not in my plan, my husband, because I was his wife, duhh, my lover, because we wanted to elope together, and then there was a hired assassin who was hired NOT to kill, but one or more of those parties. That is where I learned, how to make LARP fun for me, while giving others game to play with as well.

This event I played a role that had very big impacts for me, not for others really, but it did for me. I played the servant of an incredibly corrupt noble couple.

That’s me in the middle there. First time I was photographed during a LARP event I think. I knew when I took this role that I was going to be humiliated. And I was, probably not as much as they could have, but they had another servant who they humiliated even more. At some point they thought I said something stupid and they had the other servant ‘slap’ me. We came across a player who got enamored with me, God knows why. I had to pre-taste food and drink for them. Make sure that they’re comfortable and was sent on errands. At the end we came before the new Goddess of the creation Pantheon (knowledge of that world, not very important for this) and the player who was enamored with me, threw an apple right at ‘my mistress’. She told me to do something about it. My first thought “Crap. What am I going to do?” I walked up to him in a sort of a huff, still not knowing what I was going to do. Then I remembered the slapping and that the other servant had also slapped that player and others. So I thought, let’s try that. And I tried the theater slap on him. Thank God for me he played along fabulously. I pointed at him with an angry finger saying “You don’t do something like that!” and walked away in a huff again. I felt absolutely great doing that, because I had never imagined that I could do something like that, let alone with someone I didn’t know. I did that, I created the circumstances where I did that.