1. On Friday morning I finally got an email regarding my occupational health assessment for the permanent job I was offered a few weeks ago. I don’t think I mentioned about this delay on the blog, but never mind. The email was from Absentia Coordinator, which I guess explains everything at least up to a point, but I saw it when I was on a break from my agency job, so I didn’t pay much attention to who it was from and the way how Gmail displays emails made me think it’s actually from a lady named Absentia. I found it absolutely hilarious and it made me think that I can’t complain about the delay. I started wondering, maybe I could change my name in a similar fashion, although I am not sure if it would have the same impact on non autistic people.

Do you think Amnesia would sound ok? Abruptia could possibly also work. Unfortunately I am unable to come up with anything beginning with a different letter, which is a bit disappointing.

2. I finally got some shift from my agency, I did 27h over 4 days in a medium size care home in a village outside of Swindon. It’s not too far from me and I could get there on a bike, if I had one. Bus service is not great. I’m just trying to get home after 6h shift, it’s a very hot Sunday afternoon so I thought why don’t I change my commute into an adventure? However, it doesn’t look like I am getting anywhere closer to home and it’s been an hour since I finished my shift. I was walking through a footpath in a field for a bit and thought that was really fun as it reminds me of my family home, but after like 10 minutes I saw like a herd of cattle so I decided it may be safer to come back to the centre of the village.

3. I am surprised how much higher my energy levels are now than even a week ago. I wonder whether it’s the fact that I’m working that is giving me energy, or maybe the fact that I stopped reflecting on myself as an autistic person? Or maybe just because the weather is better? It’s really strange that after a busy shift at work I can still think about adventure, while when I’m just sat at home everything seems to be too much trouble.

4. In general, however, I don’t regret having that much time off work. I believe it was good for me.

5. I worked out where at least part of John’s issues with buying clothes come from: he won’t try items from shops that already let him down, that means he found two pairs of trousers there that were meant to fit him but they didn’t. My solution would be to keep trying, because you never know. His solution is to find a shop that makes clothes that fit him. It was very puzzling and irritating for me the entire time we were together. Now I think I finally worked it out: he sees the shop as a system and trying two items is like testing the system. If neither of them fit, that means the system needs to be rejected because it’s all wrong.

Did I tell you that John is a safety engineer? And we, autistics, transfer strategies learned in one setting to others. Sometimes it’s a good thing, sometimes not so much.

Anyway, all the clothing items I bought for John a few days ago while looking forward to ‘making him happy’ will need to be returned and he’ll continue wearing jeans in this heat.

But at least I now have some understanding. And you know, it’s not like he ever had to go out wearing only his underwear, so maybe I need to give him space to apply any strategy that works for him? Although ideally I’d like if he learned some new approaches.

6. I still don’t know if I should keep blogging or not? I’m not sure if I’d have anything to add from now on, when I worked out (at least mostly) how my mind works. Ideally I’d like to pass it on to others, but then, you know, I doubt people will easily accept it. Let’s take the example from above – do you think John would agree with me if I explained that he’s transferring strategy learned at work to clothes shopping? I doubt it. Therefore, I don’t think other autistic people would easily relate to my blog, unless they spent the same time reflecting on themselves as I did.

So the question is: who am I writing for? At the same time, you know, I love my blog; most of the time. It’s only occasionally that it annoys me.

7. I’m currently sitting on a bench somewhere in the centre of the village. Can’t be bothered to get up really, but it would be nice to get home within the next 4h. Wish me luck.