Meltdown

Today, I had a meltdown on may way home.

Nothing happened in particular.

I'm just so sick and tired of my job, of feeling cold all the time, of the constant noise, and of having to constantly wear my "kind and polite supermarket employee" mask when people irritate the hell out of me with their familiarity, their rudeness, their mean-spirited "humour".

I try so hard to look at the positive and to be grateful, knowing full well that there are far worst jobs, and that some people in the world are being exploited and enslaved, and that others struggle to find work. I try. I really do.

But on days like today I just hate it, hate it, hate it; and I guess it's healthier to aknowledge that, than pretend I'm OK.

So I cried and vented and ranted.

And tomorrow... is another day.

What popular Christmas songs taught me

- The old "car's broken down" routine is nothing new.

"A day or two ago
I thought I'd took a ride
And soon Miss Fannie Bright
Seated by my side
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortuned seemed his lot
He got into a drifted bank" - Jingle Bells

- Reindeers are bullies and hypocrites.

"All of the other reindeers

Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games

Then one foggy Christmas Eve,
Santa came to say,
Rudolph with your nose so bright,
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?

Then all the reindeers loved him" - Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer

- If you can't find a priest or vicar to wed you and your sweetheart, just build a snowman.

"In the meadow we can build a snowman
And pretend that he is Parson Brown
He'll say are you married
We'll say No Man
But you can do the job
When you're in town" - Winter Wonderland

- As a baby, Jesus was a freak child who never cried when woken. (I seriously doubt that)

"The cattle are lowing
The poor Baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes" - Away in a manger

- In terms of bullying people into giving you treats, Halloween has got nothing on Christmas.

"Now bring us some figgy pudding
And a cup of good cheer

We won't go until we get some" - We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Oh, the idiocies we sing. 

 

Taking off the rose-tinted glasses

I guess my latest post may have puzzled some of you.

Back in October, I wrote about finding the positive in my work. That is what I have been striving to do for almost two years, because I don't want to be ungrateful for what I do have, and because looking at the positive helps me feel better.

However, the more time goes by, the less I can deny this very simple truth:

I actually hate my job.

Obviously, there is the fact that it doesn't fit my training, experience and skills at all. I have two university degrees - one in languages and translation, and the other one in teaching. Over the years, I have worked in the administrative field at first, then in the education field, mainly as a teaching assistant and holiday carer for children with special needs. Now I work in a supermarket. I have no training in sales or marketing, and no affinity for those kind of things.

In fact, the more I work in sales, the more appalled I am by the tactics used to make people buy things (I wrote a little bit about that in my post about advertising). For instance, we regularly have a "Buy one, get one free" offer on crates of cheap beer - and this, in a town where alcohol problems are rampant. I find that criminal, but, "That's just business". Not to mention the conditions in which many of the things we sell are made - think about slave-harvested shrimp or chocolate. So I am part of an industry that goes against everything I believe in.

There is also the work environment itself. I have an autistic spectrum disorder. I have sensory issues - I am extremely sensitive to noise, and my brains struggles to process more than one information at once. In my shop, there is the buzzing of fridges, neon lights, and air conditioning, the beeping of the tills, the constant background music - and I cannot shut it off. As a result, I struggle to concentrate on my work, and at the end of the day, I am mentally exhausted even though my job isn't intellectually challenging. Sensory overload, coupled with my low tolerance to stress, has brought about many a meltdown.

Another issue is having to interact with a lot of people. Don't get me wrong, I usually like people and enjoy helping them. However, having to deal with customers' requests while carrying out other tasks I need to focus on is difficult. And I really struggle with people's familiarity. Customers see me every day, and they seem to think I'm somehow close to them. Of course, this means the culturally expected greeting kiss, but it also means some customers feel it's OK to squeeze my shoulder or even, I kid you not, affectionately slap my bum (I politely asked the lady who did it every time she saw me to stop doing it. She took it well, but what made her think it was OK in the first place?).

The content of the job itself is the same week in, week out. It's not interesting, and most of the time I'm really cold, because I'm in the refrigerated foods department.

So all in all, and not matter how many fun little sides I may found to it, and no matter how much I want to be grateful to have a job in the first place, I hate it, and I struggle more and more.

I need a new job, but I don't even know where to start...

A giraffe on an ice field

Once upon a time, some poachers captured a young giraffe to sell him to a zoo. They bound him in thick ropes, so he couldn't escape without injuring himself; and put him on a boat headed to a country where they didn't have giraffes. Children would be delighted to gaze at him, no doubt.

The journey lasted for weeks and weeks, and the weather was getting colder and colder until the boat ran into a storm. In the chaos that ensued, the giraffe fell overboard just before the boat sank.

By some stroke of luck, however, he managed to swim to a very close shore.

It was very odd and unlike anything he had seen before. First of all, it had no colour - just an endless field of blinding white. Then, it was cold - as cold as the water he had been in moments before. He started to shiver as he took a few hesitant steps. Boy, was it slippery!

He had landed on an ice field.

Now our giraffe was a very clever creature. His height and long neck allowed him to reach the highest foliage to feed, and his tongue was grooved to easily strip leaves from branches.

Pity there were no trees to feed from, only ice.

His patches of brown and tan made great camouflage on the yellow, sun-beaten grasslands of Africa.

But the giraffe wasn't in a brown and tan grassland. He was on a dazzling white ice field, and he really stood out.

The giraffe had beautiful, long lashes around his eyes that were very useful to keep insects out.

Only, there were no insects on the ice field.

His wide hooves and nimble legs gave him good balance and the ability to run fast.

However, his hooves slipped on the ice and he couldn't run.

All of our giraffe's wonderful characteristics were completely useless, sometimes even a hindrance, because he wasn't in the right environment.

That giraffe, my friends, is me.

I need your input.

I haven been pondering about the reasons why I still go to church, and this gave me an idea. I would like to write a blog post about church, what it is for, what it means to us, and what our perception of it is.

So today, I have an open question to my readers:

What does "church" mean to you? It can be positive or negative; it can include your own experience. You don't necessarily have to be a church-goer to give me your thoughts. You can either share them in the comments section below or message me. Just be aware that will probably use your input to write a blog post - so if you're not happy for me to do so, please let me know.

What autism isn't (and what it is)

A lot has been done to inform and educate people about autism, but a lot of stereotypes still need to be challenged. As a person with an autistic spectrum condition – I have Asperger’s syndrome – I thought I’d share with you a few things I am not:

1. I am not a “retard”. The word itself is offensive anyway, and you shouldn’t use it to describe anyone. In addition, autism has got nothing to do with IQ. Some people with autism are extremely intelligent; others have developmental delays and very low IQ – and everything in between those two extremes. Autism may impair a person’s ability to function independently, but it does not mean they’re stupid.

2. I am not sick. Autism is not a disease, it’s a neurological condition. That means you cannot “cure” it, much like you can’t “cure” Down syndrome. I can develop strategies to help me function better and reach my full potential. However, if I am successfully doing this, it doesn’t imply I am “cured”. It just means I have learnt to adjust and thrive. 

3. I am not broken. I don’t need to be fixed or mended. My brain functions differently from yours and at times that makes it difficult for us to understand each other or get on, or for me to live independently. However, I am a whole person with a lot to offer. I can be given strategies to adjust to mainstream society. I would be happy if you too made an effort to try and understand my points of view and adjust to the way my brain works. If we both take steps towards each other, we’ll get along much better. 

4. I am not an “idiot savant”. As I highlighted before, autism and IQ are not related. Yes, some people with autism are geniuses in one or several areas – it can be maths, music, drawing or anything else. However, not all of us are geniuses. Don’t assume I’m going to pull some incredible intellectual skill out of my sleeve just because I have autism – trust me, I experience enough difficulties as it is without having to deal with painfully unrealistic expectations. 

5. I am not selfish or unsympathetic. I struggle to understand other people’s point of views. Body language, facial expressions, subtext, and implied or hinted meanings are very mysterious to me. This means I do not always understand or realise what emotions you are going through. However, if you make it plain and simple and tell me, you will find me very sympathetic and eager to help. I do care. I just don’t always have the tools to understand your emotions. Equally, because I lack the ability to imagine what you feel or think, I might not realise how my words or actions will impact you before it’s too late. I might upset you without meaning to. Yet, once I realise this, I will be mortified and very willing to make it right – possibly making things worse with my awkwardness. Please be patient with me.

6. I am not antisocial. Some people have told me, "How can you have Asperger's? You've got friends, you get along with people!"  While it is true that some people with autistic spectrum disorders have little interest in people and friendship, don't assume this is true for all of us. Some of us desperately want to make friends, but really struggle to do so (see point 5). Some of us have acquired enough social skills to make friends and socialize, even though it is often taxing (I avoid socializing in large groups because it exhausts me to interact with so many people and have to deal with so much information processing - my brain cannot cope). And most of all, those of us who have good friends are probably blessed to have met understanding, open-minded people who looked beyond our social akwardness and love us just as we are.

7. We're all on spectrum, aren't we? ... I should think not.

 I have become increasingly annoyed by people saying "We're all on the spectrum" (meaning the autistic spectrum) after describing one of their idiosyncracies.

To all you neurotypicals (i.e., whose brains functions in typical fashion, as opposed to autistic brains) out there:

- Being organised does not make you autistic. It just makes you, well... organised.
- Sorting out your socks by colour does not make you autistic. At best, it makes you slightly OCD.
- Getting annoyed by last-minute changes to a plan doesn't make you autistic. There is a difference between being annoyed by change, and experiencing significant anxiety and distress because of it.
- Being very focused on a particular task at a particular time does not make you autistic. Being unable to focus on anything else does.
- Preferring to be alone doesn't necessarily make you autistic. As I mentioned above, autistic people are not all antisocial.

If you don't experience significant difficulties in the areas of social communication, social interation and social imagination (and theory of mind), as well as sensory difficulties, you are not on the autistic spectrum; and by saying you are, you are belittling the difficulties those of us who really are experience on a daily basis.

I picked you.

There were three kittens in the sheep pen that day.

We'd always had cats growing up. The first one was a Siamese who lived to be 20, but we also adopted countless strays that'd come to beg at our door or kittens we found in my Dad's workshop. We once had a black cat we named Zaïre (the former name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, how politically incorrect!), and a white female (very unfortunate colour) who hated baths even more than most cats. There was the ginger tom that hadn't been weaned properly, so for the rest of his life, he'd suck on my Mum's cardigan whenever he was on her lap. Even now, my parents have three cats - Albus, the lazy fat white cat, Yala, the sleek black female, and Jacob, the crazed kitten Mum found in the woods when he was a only tiny furball.

And so I had always wanted a cat of my very own. He'd be black and I'd give him a cool geeky name like Spock or Dr Sheldon Cooper.

About a year ago, a customer of my shop told me a female cat kept giving birth to kittens in his sheep pen, and asked me if I wanted one. So I set off with him to find my very own cat.

There were three kittens in the sheep pen that day. An older, sleek, black-and-rusty one who really wanted to make friends, a terrified fluffy grey female, and a slightly-less-terrified fluffy tabby. That was you.

There were three kittens in the sheep pen that day. The older one kept flirting with me, rubbing his head against my legs and asking for cuddles. But I picked you - the scared, fluffy, wide-eyed one.

The man picked you up and gave you to me. I held you close and I could feel how terrified you were. I brought you back home and as soon as I let go, you ran off and hid under the sofa. You didn't come out for about a week, and even after that, you wouldn't let me come close.

One day though, we started playing together with a piece of string. You loved it. After that, you warmed up to me, and eventually you let me stroke your back and hold you.

I named you Isaac, after the man who gave you to me.

Now you love lying streched out on my tummy and resting your head in the crook of my shoulder. You purr so loud it sounds like a little motor. You're no longer a tiny fluffy kitten: you're a big, strong cat - but still fluffy.

There were three kittens in the sheep pen that day. I could have picked any one of them, but I picked you, Isaac, my very own cat.