Just a few days ago I started having an impression that creating patterns the way I did so far, purely from my Redecor designs, is not enough of a creative challenge any more. It was good to learn this way as I doubt I’d be able to approach digital art in any different way – I am motivated by patterns after all and if I’d have to start with anything else, I wouldn’t be able to do anything at all. But today I included digital drawing into my images (see above), otherwise though I get to the end result the same way: by using double exposure (putting one image on top of the other and making both of them visible at the same time) which makes the pattern more complicated. I wonder where that will take me with time?

I still wonder what to do about the situation that happened at the fundrising dinner two days ago that I described in my last post, this one where I played with a ruffle ticket and made a comment about it to people sitting with me at the table – which is exactly what an autistic person could do – and those people as a result looked away and started making a conversation without including me.

I really did think at first that they’ll start playing with their tickets in response! I only realised later I expected this reaction because recently I stopped having the impression that I’m different than other people so I guess what happened was, I expected that other people impression of me will also change. Obviously, looking at it logically I can see that my own thoughts can’t change other people behaviour, but as I mentioned here a few times already, my instinctive understanding of the world around me is that I see everything as part of a system where everything is connected. And that’s why I’m getting things wrong so often!

Anyway, I did realise a bit later that expecting others to copy autistic people behaviour is not what we should be aiming for when thinking about how to support us. Most people however don’t reject me when I do those things – they say something like ‘oh Magda, you’re so funny!’ which is better than ignoring me, but not perfect because I don’t try to be funny, I’m just being myself so hearing that makes me feel misunderstood.

However, the situation made me finally come up with the right response: ‘Oh yes, I can see why you’re finding this fun’ which does not say we’re funny and it also doesn’t try to create impression that we’re the same but it does say that the person can see things from our perspective. After that the neurotypical person can move on to making a regular chat, but one that includes us. I think that’s not unreasonable to ask?

Anyway, I am now not sure if I should speak with this person about it? My instinctive understanding is that there’s no need because, as I live in the world where everything is connected, it’s enough for me to put it on my blog and other people will know, even if they don’t read it. And obviously no one will be upset because it’s not my intention to upset them. Of course logically I know that things look a bit different in reality but I’m explaining to you how I see them instinctively.

It’s only Thursday now, I won’t be in the radio till Tuesday and this person only works part time; I’m not sure which days she’s doing but possibly I may not see her. I will ponder for a bit what to do.

Jubilee weekend started in the UK today and I don’t have a connected TV; I only use mine for DVDs occasionally. I’m not fan of TV but I can see how it can be useful sometimes.