My Crazy Place

I have often wondered about love. I was raised up to believe that Marriage would make the world a brighter and shineier place to be. If you grew up in the house I did you would also know that this is an ilogical concept. My parents did what most parents of their generation did when the relationship ended, they stayed together for the kids and that was always probably the worst thing in the world they could do. You grew up knowing they basically hated each other and that they were unfaithful to each other but there was nothing you could do. I thought I would have been better off if they broke up. So to say that my education about love was tainted would be an understatement. Factor in the fact I was undiagnosed autistic then you have yourself a cocktail for disaster. My dating life was marred by what I was used to. I was drawn to people who were abusive and those did not end well. Because I had no social support when it came to the opposit sex I also found myself ge

I know on August 1st Shielding is due to come to an end. This is because the R rate is down to a negligable rate. This does not mean the pandemic is over, and it wont be over until there is a vaccine, but it does mean that the risk of infection is low enough to let everyone out. As a shielder myself I know there is going to be a lot of anxiety out there about going out. For so long we have been told "outside bad, inside good" and people are going to be a lot more sceptical about going out. So here are my tips for ending shielding on a personal level. 1) Risk assess your trips out and plan them to the nth degree. If you see too many people where you want to go not socially distancing or being stupid, decide if you need to go there. If not dont go. If you do decide the risk level for you. Do not let anyone else risk assess for you! 2) Face-masks. I know they are not fun but if wearing one makes you feel better the wear it door to door. Whether it

Dear President Trump, At the beginning of your Presidency I used to think, you are rough around the edges but behind the divisive words you were using, you had the making for some legitimate and promising policies especially around immigration. The respect I had for you in the beginning has now dwindled to nothing. You have been racist! You have been down right disrespectful to politicians in my country to the point your own citizens were apologising for your behaviour! You have made ignorant and down right unconscionable choices and have gotten even worse with COVID. So now I am calling you out!! The USA has the highest death rate in the world according to the WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION. That is the highest death rate in the WORLD.  You have the highest death rate then even Mexico and yet, you decide that you can flaunt the need to social distance, to wear masks, and to fund your medical professionals and provide them with the PPE. In fact, just to put this into perspective UK citizens

I have been thinking recently how much I relied on television to help me grow up. Being one of those women who was missed in childhood as autistic because we were born in the wrong decade, I really struggled in school. I didnt have friends that I could socialise with, all I had was TV. Even today, when I am feeling down I resort to Dhar Mann videos to remind me of what is right to do. So here is a rundown on shows that helped me growing up. 1) The OC early seasons. Showed me that just because people have money doesnt make them happy so be grateful for the good you do have. 2) hang time. This showed me girls are just as capable as boys. 3) Space Above and Beyond. Showed me that Loyalty is a good thing especially when it is reciprocal. 4) Profiler. Showed me that bad things happen to good people but running away is not always the answer. These are just 4 shows I watched growing up, but they helped me learn. Honestly there are so many to count but it can be a double edged sword. Autistic

I have been drawing a lot recently so that I can let my frustration, love and anger out. I am not the best drawer in the world but it is a way for me to be leveled out. This is the first one where I gave a face to anything. The symbol is from supernatural but for me it is in my mind to keep the bad thoughts and feeling away. I am also using it on PTSD therapy. This is how I feel as an abuse victim. When I am safe and on my own. When I am on my own I am able break the chains and I am not a quivering wreak. This for me is how I feel around certain people. I feel soo lonely when I am around certain people. I cant break free from them and I feel they are in one place and I cant get through it. This is me trapped by badness. When I am around certain people this is how I feel. Weight down. This is how I am feeling when it comes to certain people. I am trapped in their bs. Like I said, I am not the best drawer but it lets me express

Why cant I go first? I know this is a selfish thing to ask but I put everyone else first ALL THE TIME! Why can't I come first, just once. Why is it always me making the sacrifice? If I could I would run away from the people who cause me so much stress and pain. Change my name, move and make sure they could never find me again. I would give up everyone I know to get the hell away from them. But I cant. No one helps me, no one says "hey you know what this person needs help, im going to help her." People just take from me. I fear that one day they will take so much that there will be nothing left for me except a smoldering wreck. Do you know what I pray for every night? I pray that one day, there will be £100,000 in my account. I would then move from where I live, speak to a solicitor about legally changing my name, close all accounts everywhere under my name and start fresh with a new identity so that the negative people in my life could not find

I am seriously confused at how children can go bad. <.p> The kids who broke my mums window, I have known them since they were small. We all moved onto this estate before some of them were born. When they were younger they were so sweet and cute. Now, they are turning bad and I do not understand what is causing it. Today I caught the kids who broke my mums window taking pride in what they did. So, again, I had to go to the kids parents to tell them what I saw and again getting them in trouble. I am so angry at what is going on. I will not even let people say, "you come from a bad area, its understandable". I will not let them get away with it because you know what, I come from the same area. I come from Ladbroke Grove. I am not comitting criminal vandelism or cussing at people and swearing at them. It is a choice. You choose to behave one way or another and I wish I knew what was causing the issue in these kids. They need to get th

I had to break my shielding or should I say bubbling. I had to come to London because some kids broke my mums window. I found out that one of the kids is like me autistic. To say this broke my heart is an understatement. It showed me that autistic children are more susceptible to negative influences then non autistic children. He was asked why he did it he said "the other kids said it was ok". This is worrying. How many autistic children are being negitively by the people around them. We need to explain to autistic children how to define good from bad. We also need to make sure they know they are not alone.

There is an episode of Blue Bloods where they focus on the memory of our ladies and gents in Blue and what there did and sacrificed when the twin towers came down. There are parts in the episode where Tom Selleck asks "where were you on 9/11?" These events are scarred in our minds as a reminder of what can happen. It is also a reminder of what does happen in the aftermath both good and bad. So I want to ask the following questions; 1) where were you on 9/11? 2) where were you on 7/7? 3) where were you on 6/14? My answers to these questions are as follows: On 9/11  I was in school. By the time the towers were hit, in the UK I was in afternoon class. There was an emergency assembly called and we all piled into the hall and the announcement was made, there had been a major terrorist attack in the USA. We were sent back to our form rooms and televisions were there. We started watching the new with live coverage from the States. Even as a teenager I remember the horror in the clas

I was diagnosed with PTSD earlier this year. My PTSD is from what I saw and heard during the Grenfell Tower fire. I lived near the tower, 20 minutes by foot 4 minutes by car. I helped out in the aftermath of the fire and I suppressed many many feelings I had and it finally started manifested in ways t hat was troubling. I knew logically that PTSD was not just for soldiers coming back from war but the practical side of it was not something that I was aware of. When I finally got the diagnosed it was a relief but at the same time it was like "ah so this is what PTSD is". It is not just something that is the same for everyone. It affects people differently. There are some people with the same symptoms but the main difference is the triggers. One of my triggers is sirens. When I hear a siren I start looking with lazer focus on where it going. I am getting less anxious but I am still getting lazer focussed. I am also triggered by smell. When I smell the

I read a story recently about the number of celebrities who have had plastic surgery. To be honest this article upset me. Being someone who is autistic I take life very litterally. This is the body that I was born into. Would I like to get plastic surgery, yes but I am not fortunate enough to have the money to do it. When you start seeing so many celebrities who, pre surgery, were gorgious already, I get angry. I was born and grew up to be only 5"3. My looks (if I have short hair and the right clothes) can get me called a man. I have to wear glasses and my entire life I am a teeth grinder so my teeth are in bad shape. I have had cancer scares so have scars and due to my mental health I have gained a lot of weight. I was not blessed with being rich, or being "discovered" so I have to deal with my at best average looks but these celebrities who are already gorgious risk loosing their beauty by having surgery after surgery. What I would not give

I have always wanted to be a mother. I have always had a gift with kids and because of my childhood, I always wanted to give someone a life that would be better than mine. I always thought growing up that I would be able to have the love of my life and I would have kids and I would be a mother. When my spine started going out of wack and I started having problems I still had hope that one day I would be a mum but then my finances went out of wack. Now with my spine I know that I will not be able to have children of my own. The realism of this hurts but I thought of the positive things that I could do i.e foster mother or adopt. The problem is, the state my finances are in I cant even look after myself. I fear that I will become an old maid. I will never have children and I will never be able to feel financially safe. This is a horrible feeling that I will never be ok. When you get these feelings it breaks your heart. All I want is to be a mum and that will probably never happen for me.

Back to drawing again today after feeling really down. I looked at my bank balance and wondered how I was going to make it last me another 3 weeks. For me my life is always feeling like this. I am being looked upon by people who only want to see me fail. Then instead of good things happening like being financially ok, living in my own home and having a family have been made impossible. However the negative things such as disabilit are far to frequent in my life.  For me it often feels like I am going one step forward and 20 steps back. When something good finally happens in my life something else negitively impacts me to send me so far back even behind the start line that I am struggling to keep it together. I am a person of faith, I know shocking for an autistic person, and I believe that God never gives us more than we can handle. In military terms I should have been awarded the purple heart multiple times by now. It is hard when you know your struggling and have to ask f

After watching one of Dhar Manns videos tonight it reminded me if something important. That important thing was that we should never let ourselves or others get in the way of our dreams. Let me tell you a story. As a child, even though I was undiagnosed dyslexic and autistic I was pretty good at acting and I loved to dance. I even managed to get myself into an agency. I auditioned and it worked, they toom me on. But I had hang ups. I never thought I would be successful because of my looks and because I did badly in school. I had difficulty learning lines so it made me subconscious.  I went to weekend drama school and I would shy away from parts  because I struggled with reading. Eventually the agency stopped sending me to auditions and I gave up. I thought there would be no place in the acting community for me. Later when I was diagnosed as dyslexic I realised why I had problems but it was too late then. I knew it was just never going to.happen for me and that was that. People still to

I have been thinking about my autism and Social awkwardness. It is really difficult to explain to people in words. How do you explain to people why you do not get what is going on. It is different with everyone person who has autism but I drew what it felt like to me. For me it feels like I am in a box which has warning sign around them. Groups of people are around me chatting, socialising and making friends and I am in that warning box. I cant get out of the box but I see everyone around moving forward. I want to get out and be like everyone else but I cant. Autism can make you feel lonely when you know that you are so different from everyone else. I guess the trick is accepting that the path the neurotypical world is on is not your path. You have to make peace with that and make peace with who you are to be happy. Push your limits to challenge yourself but be happy with who you are as a person.

Many people often talk about Depression whether they know what it is or not. So I am going to talk about it in terms of a personal view and what it really is. So what is depression? For me, I find it funny that Depression is classed as a mental health condition when it is caused by a physical thing. Depression is caused when your brain stops producing or seriously reduces the production of serotonin. This chemical helps with stabilizing your mood. If you reduce production or stop producing it all together then you can get seriously low and it then has an impact on your physical body. It can cause issues with sleep, serious fatigue, and seriously low and dangerous thoughts such as "I am better off dead". What is depression for me? I first started suffering in a noticeable way in 2007 when I knew 6 people in Iraq and Afghanistan who were killed in action. Later that year my grandfather also passed away. I got so low I took a penknife to my hand. This is the most painful type of

Technology is a great tool! It is great when the people whelding it use it with the right things in mind. When I say this I mean thinking that not all of your audience is going to be the same. This year the Civil Service conference has been condensed into one session instead of multiple sessions across the country. This is good and bad. 1) Good a) More people could attend at once b) People providing presentations are not worn out by the time they reach the end of July c) Much more interaction can be had 2) Bad a) Tech can be over used b) Sessions are too short, breaks between sessions are too short This, unfortunately was true for Civil Service Live. I am amazed to see how they brought it together. For me however, the downside was the introductory video before each session. There were so many colours, flashing images, loud noises etc. I honestly felt that I was verging on an autism meltdown. As such I ch

I get so sick of hearing people saying ALL Lives Matter when someone posts the "Black Lives Matter" slogan. It is ignorant of people to say that to be honest. It means you do not understand what the meaning behind "Black Lives Matter" really is. So, for you all here is my interpretation and why you should not say ALL LIVES MATTER in response. Now before I start I want to say, I am not anti-police and I do not think that believing in Black Lives Matter means you can not be pro-police. Anyone who says it is an either or situation is pushing their own agenda and you need to make your own opinions. The reason why the Black Lives Matters statement is so powerful. It means that whilst yes, everyone's life DOES matter, not every race gets attacked by people in authority. In the instance of George Floyd, it was a white police officer choking an unarmed black man until he died. How many police officers saw what was happening and just stood by and wat

Being a shielder on my own there have been many times I have let my own wellbeing falter. My personal care has gone out of the window and I am then worried about everything else that I have to deal with. There are so many elemants to wellbeing that if one falters then the rest are sure to tumble. Take for instance, mental well being. Some times this falters because I have had a particularly confusing day at work and I start feeling down on myself, or therapy has been traumatic and I can't bring myself back to an even keel. It could also be that I feel low about being a shielder on my own. These things can have a negative impact on you that sends the rest into a tail spin. If you think out it, when you are mentally struggling you do not want to do much and are much more likely to pay for stupid things that you are unable to afford and less likely to move about and do physical activities. When I am struggling physically for instance my back is causing me so much pain I do not

There are far too many people who think that you have to be good in school to be successful in life. Do not get me wrong a good education is not a bad thing but it is not the be all and end all. Before I was 16 I was bad in school verbally I knew what I was doing but my reading and writing was terrible. At 16 I was diagnosed as being dyslexic which I thought was the end of the world. I had already failed my GCSEs once and now I was retaking them. I didnt think that I would get through the second time around. I did eventually get my GCSEs and went on to get a B and two Cs at A'level. Even with my Dyslexia diagnosis I was unable to survive university longer than a term. This made me feel very low because I felt like a failure. I felt like I was going to be a looser my entire life because I did not have a university degree. What I know now is that not only am I dyslexic I am also autistic. That diagnosis however only came at the age of 31. It is unlikely that I will ever get t

Some people in the medical community really frustrate me beyond belief. I am asthmatic, I am autistic, Dyslexic, with Depression, PTSD and spinal problem. I have been living with my conditions for a while now and the asthma my entire life and yet, there are some medical professionals who believe they know better then me about my body. So here is why it is annoying. In 2008 I had a massive cancer scare. I had a 14cm lump in my left breast. Luckily for me it was benign but it got so big because I brushed it off. It would appear and disappear when I was having my periods. At the time my periods were so erratic that I just thought it was a by product of hormones because crazy. Until the day it did not go away and got bigger. I had to go through tests, ultra sounds and even surgery. The healing process was terrible. I vowed never to be in that situation again. Now it gets really frustrating when you speak to a medical professional and then he ignores the fact that you know what your

I get really frustrated with ignorance. When I tell people I am a high functioning Autistic person I either face people who dont understand but what to learn or sheer ignorance. The ignorance is where I get frustrated. I, for example, get people who hear the word autism and start immediately dumming things down for me. Autism does not make me dumb. You do not need to use words of one sylable with me. Autism just means that I process things in a different way. The other thing I get is people saying "you cant be autistic you can talk". This is really offensive to me. There is a reason why its called HIGH FUNCTIONING AUTISM. The people who are autistic that need loads of help are low functioning. Not everyone with Autism is the same. There is a saying "once you have met one person with autism, you have met one person with autism." This saying means that that one person's autism will most likely be different from the next person you meet with autism. Anoth

What can we do to be kinder to each other? During this COVID-19 situation we have to be kinder to each other. We were forced into it however, it has been really amazing to see but when this Pandemic is over how can we continue to be kinder to each other. I do not want to see the world to go back to the way it was, when everything was about me me me and not about me and you together. When the world was money before love, care and affection and the state of the world would be at a cost to the environment. I dont want to see us go back to that, it would break my heart. So what can we do to be kinder to each other? 1. Find ways in which we can support each other either in person or online: 2. Find ways to volunteer. It does not have to be something that is physical it can be something like letter writing: 3. Look at ways to help feed people for instance, looking at any extra food you may have and donate it to a food bank instead of letting it go off: 4. Take care of yourself

I am really sick and tired to hear the BS going on about the police. So, I am here to say, I am not pro racism I am pro police. You do not have to be pro racism to be pro police. Now, before you start jumping on me about what is going on in the world today I do not agree with what has been going on. Any police officer who uses their position of trust to abuse people of colour. It is absolutely disgusting when you see a police officer killing an unarmed man but here is the thing, NOT ALL POLICE OFFICERS ARE LIKE THAT Just like doctors Police Officers SHOULD be held to a high standard because of the position of trust and authority they have in any community and every police force around the world should weed out those officers who are racist and unable to do their job to a high standard without letting their racist ideology come through. When you look at the issue of George Floyd this has never been more clearer and the blue wall of silence should never help cover these attr

I am a volunteer with an American Charity called Soldiers Angels. Soldiers Angels helps service personnel who are deployed abroad, their families and Veterans. I know there are so many scams out there in the real world where people pretend to be service members when they are just after your money. The people who sign up for letters and other things are true people who are really service men and women who would love to get a letter, an email, a care package or anything that will help them get through their tour of duty. You get to help these brave men and women out and it really does bring joy to your heart. Some do not reply but that is fine and the ones who do are so grateful to you that it makes the world feel nicer. I encourage anyone who is looking for something to do to make a difference. It is one of the most important things we can do to look after these brave people. It does not matter if your not American or in America it is something that anyone across the worl

Welcome to my world. It is a crazy place. It is a confusing place. I am a disabled adult who is Autistic, Dyslexic, with Asthma, Depression, PTSD and Spinal Problems. This is great for being only 34 years old. I had to start a new blog because I could no longer afford my blog on Wordpress which sucked but because of COVID-19 I had to cut back. Honestly I cant be too sad about it because I am doing my part. Due to my disabilities I have had to be shielding during this COVID-19 situation. In the beginning I was really struggling with being a shielder. I wanted to go out and help people and I was stuck inside. It made me feel so low you could not imagine. What I found out however, staying inside I was helping. I was keeping a high risk person off the streets which could potentially cause problems for the health system. That helped me hugely. What I also found was I could do things from my own home. Due to my autism I struggle with food so what I was doing, I would keep th