Cimex Lectularis: The Aspie Kryptonite

So, here it comes, the post I have been dreading writing but that I hope will both be somewhat cathartic and will help to prevent this experience happening to others amongst you. This post is likely to be a long one as I am hoping to properly express my thoughts and feelings as well as the story as it stands. There may or may not be a part two, that will depend on how long it takes for this issue to be totally fixed and how much that affects me. On a more important note, those of you who may have an issue with bugs in some capacity might want to skip this post as I really don’t want to make people feel paranoid or trigger any bad responses.

So, with that warning, I am going to take you all back in time, back to around the last week of August. On one particular morning, I believe I’d been awake about an hour, I began to notice lots of little itchy red spots on my skin, and they seemed to be increasing. There were at my best count around fifteen or sixteen of them, most on my arms but some on other bits of my body too. Upon showing them to my mum she was puzzled but not too concerned after this happened again the following morning she had the horrible thought that it might be bed bugs.

We stripped my bed, took off all the duvet and pillow covers, the sheet, and saw nothing – no sign of any tiny insect life beginning to invade my life. Thank god. We were confused but they must have been something I’d been attacked by when out walking the dog – some sort of insect living in the long grass. It was a few days after this that we were due to go on holiday – which we did – for four days to Poland. I was there with my Mum and Dad as well as to of their friends who have known me all my life. For the most part I really enjoyed the trip – the lack of downtime was really difficult and I was exhausted by the time we got on the plane to come home – but it was a good trip, very busy and very insightful as I’d hoped.

We returned home on the afternoon of the 4th of August – my birthday was the following day, not a special one but a birthday none the less. My parents left me in the house just after we got back to go and get our dog from the place she had been staying and to get basic bread and milk sort of thing. I was absolutely delighted to flop down onto my bed, breathe in my me-smell and prepare to relax until the next day when we would likely see family.

That was when it changed. That was when the nightmare began. At first, I thought I saw a tiny spider on my bed, then another two on the headboard. I jumped off my bed and, pulling back the sheet off the mattress I came face to face with what looked like a flattened tick – something most dog owners are very familiar with. I managed to trap it in a little bottle, knowing that whatever it was  –  whatever all of them were – my family were going to need to see it.

Our worst nightmares had come true, they were bed bugs. The next few days, including my birthday, were a bit of a mess, I remember snippets of what happened and such but the days all blurred together a little. My Dad read online that we should use these smoke bombs on them. I also read that the smoke bombs (and most home-use pesticides for these little gits) were only effective on half the population, but my Dad is the type of person he is decided that the amazon reviews had to be right and me, the one who has studied parasites at a basic level, but still at a level higher than him, was wrong.

This began a pattern, my room had to be massively ‘de-cluttered’ I had to throw away most material items which could not be washed at 60 degrees – all the knitted things I owned basically as well as any other balls of wool waiting to be worked. I had to throw away things that I didn’t necessarily want or need, I threw away boxes and notebooks and clothes and small items that were not really of any value. I probably binned some things that I would otherwise have kept but when my Mum was holding up an item and saying ‘chuck or keep’ my brain wasn’t able to keep up and often I would let things go because I knew I had to get rid of a lot.

After the purge was completed, leaving me with at least three empty drawers in my bedroom which used to be full (and a good few others which have less in them than they used to) I then had to deal with not sleeping in my bedroom, luckily for us we have a touring caravan which stays on our property not at a storage facility so I was able to sleep in there. There were no lights and I had to keep a key for the house handy in case I needed in for anything. I also got no internet connection out there – these were relatively minor things but they added to the growing pile of things I needed to deal with.

As I wasn’t really to go into my bedroom for risk of transferring the little things all I had were the clothes I had worn on holiday and the new clothes I got for my birthday. I had my phone and my mini sketchbook which I usually keep in my bag just in case I want it. I had very little to do, had almost nowhere to get privacy and no idea how long it would take for this to end.

I was scared at first that I might lose things that could not be replaced, or things that could maybe be replaced but would cost hundreds – maybe thousands to replace them all. I have been lucky so far, I have managed to take apart my reborn dolls – something which is pretty easy to do – and check they had no signs of any insects within their bodies. I am pretty certain they are safe. I also combed through many of my collectable Charlie Bears, which are teddy bears that are not meant for children and have unbelievably beautiful fur, I used a nit comb for this and found nothing. They will need to be in the freezer for a good while to hopefully kill all the bugs and any eggs which might be on them before we can make sure they are totally safe.

I have had to say goodbye to only one thing that has really upset me so far – that is the bag I had which used to belong to my Granny. It said Knitting is Good on it, and she used to keep current projects in it. I did the same after she passed away, I was really upset to lose one of the things she had which can’t be replaced. I felt it still smelled like her house, even three years later.

Slowly things seemed to be getting a bit better, I was allowed to sit in my sister’s old bedroom through the day in order to get some privacy. I gained some wool, both that I bought and that was gifted to me by Holly from her own collection. I had my laptop back too, so I could watch some things which also helped me feel a little more in control. The week before Uni started back again I was even back to sleeping in my bedroom – but had to get dressed in the bathroom and leave my pyjamas there every day. It felt like somehow the bombs that I knew wouldn’t work, were working.

Just over a week ago I found another bite – there had been a bomb in the room only three days previous. It proved that what we had planned to do wasn’t working. Finally, it was decided that we would have to get someone in to deal with it all, again, this was something I had said a good while ago but my Dad was determined to fix it and believed it was working. I’d even allowed myself to believe it was working, but we all should have known better.

Now we are back to square one, the exterminator has made it clear that almost everything we believed was wrong. Other things have had to be removed from my room to be put in isolation for a year – this is one of the few ways to make sure any bug eggs are also dead. I also have to dress and undress in my room, any clean clothes have to be placed in black bin bags up on a shelf each night to be put on in the morning. I have to put my pyjamas in another bag when I take them off. This guy is coming tomorrow to lay bedbug traps in the whole house – they then have to be left for two weeks before being checked in a Lab. Hopefully, there will be no nomadic bugs in other rooms, no one else in the house has any bites, but we can’t be sure. After this is done then there will be a treatment on the affected rooms, and then? God knows what happens then.

So that’s what has happened up to date, that’s the in’s and out’s of the situation. As you can imagine, for me it is worse. I may be able to sit in my sister’s room during the day meaning I have been able to create some version of a sanctuary for myself, but I also am still very limited in terms of what I can spend the day doing. I have my laptop, a notebook, a sketchbook and some knitting projects. This encompasses most of what I spend my time being involved in, but not having the opportunity to work on other things is irritating. I also don’t feel like my bedroom is mine – and not just because I feel like bug bate every night when I go in to sleep – my room is totally bare – my shelves are empty, my drawers are all sitting in different places waiting to be reorganised and cleared to return to their normal place, I have none of the things I usually have sitting out for me to see and find comfort in. My bed has been placed near the middle of the room, in a very strange place. It also has no headboard so I have been frequently waking up sore since my pillows fall off when I sleep. My parents chose a new bed set for me which is similar to the one in their bedroom. The top side has a fabric close to velvet –  a feeling which makes my skin crawl. This is supposed to deter me from sitting on my bed – which used to be where I always sat. They have bought me a chair instead, which I am glad to have as I have often pointed out if I don’t sit on my bed I have nowhere else to sit. I have also found that the chair is a little painful for me because I sit in an odd position (I mentioned often to my parents over the years that sitting up straight made my back hurt but they never really looked into it – probably thinking it was an excuse)

I also don’t have a lot of comfort items, my weighted blanket is in isolation currently but my mum is hoping she will be able to freeze it so I don’t have to go too much longer without it. The bears I mentioned, my collection of Disney animation dolls and my Pop figures are all out of my room and in various places. My reborns? All but one which I put back together, are sitting in separate components of limbs, head and body. I can’t have them in my room. The one which I pieced back together is having to sit in a cupboard as my family’s lack of respect for them meant my niece took her out to play in the garden (Yes, I was very angry about this but apparently it was my fault for leaving her lying around, not their fault for not taking the doll off her)

The last bit of this that I’m going to ramble about before I leave this be, for the time being, is the changes of routine and the uncertainty. I am having to live with the fact I don’t know when I will be able to get back into my room, I don’t know if other things will need thrown out and replaced. I don’t know if I will be back there in time to get my costume for a comic event in two weeks time, nor if I will be back in there properly when my parents go on holiday in four weeks, will I be back to normal even by exams? By Christmas? I currently have no idea what to expect day-to-day, I have nowhere to go when my sister is staying here and needs her room.

Emotionally I have struggled a lot, I have been angry, upset and totally in despair. I feel like the first three days of this whole thing I was just living in a constant meltdown. I had no comfort items, I had no routine, my family were also stressed and upset and too annoyed with this issue to really see how much I was suffering – or to see that I really needed them to be gentle with me at this time.  It’s hard not to feel that they are angry at me when they mention their fears and frustration, I know they aren’t angry at me per se (or at least that Mum isn’t – Dad never says anything like that) but it’s hard for us all, they are better at dealing with it than I am, and they don’t seem to see the lows that I feel. It’s like they are wearing blinkers sometimes, especially Mum but then she’s also been dealing with things recently and doesn’t seem to notice that she takes it out on those of us who live at home with her.

We don’t know exactly where these guys came from, my Mum strongly believes they must have been in something I bought from a charity shop and I can’t see any other explanation. They are some very resistant bugs – not much is able to kill them and because they are not seen as a risk to health they are not something the council will pay for.  Supposedly they like cluttered environments and my lifetime understanding of those of us who have ASD means I am aware we seem to be either extremely clean, organised and tidy or we don’t tidy – our brains too busy to deal with any of that. So I can imagine others amongst us have ‘clutter’ even clutter which we consider valuable. Hopefully this time I am very lucky and nothing more has to be sacrificed, but that’s not a guarantee – nothing is.

So that concludes my massive explanation of some of the issues I have dealt with in the time I haven’t been writing posts. I am hoping to go back to posting regularly and I am going to try and have some posts ready in advance so I don’t have to think too much about what I’m going to write. I don’t think it really works to say I hope you enjoyed this post – it’s more of a warning to you all. These guys – bed bugs – are probably one of the worst infestations an aspie could ever have, and I really hope none of you ever have to go through over a month of stress as I have (and still am). Thanks for reading guys – I feel I have probably lost some of you since I haven’t been posting for a good bit but those who are with me, thank you. Speak to you soon 🙂

 

Autism and Conflict

Autism and Conflict is an interesting thing. There are two defining ways that most people see us Auties, and that is type A and type B (for the purposes of this analogy only).

The Type A Autistic is one of the types often portrayed in the media. This type is the quiet, shy and easy-going type, this is the autistic person who does whatever anyone asks, is extremely gullible and gets picked on by everyone around them and doesn’t seem to care.

The Type B Autistic is the one often portrayed in Dramas about autism or in news programmes. This is the one which has wild, uncontrollable rage. It is basically a small, less muscular Hulk. This autistic sees red at the slightest thing and nothing calms them down.

This is an exaggeration of course, in truth most autistic people are more of a Type C. Type C, as you have probably guessed, is a mix between the two types. This is the reality of Autism – just as it is the reality of anyone else – we all have good and bad days. Sure sometimes we Auties are more likely to explode when we have a bad day, we are also more likely to be gullible and believe that person we call a friend might actually not be a friend at all. What I want to talk about today (and maybe this was a long-winded approach) is when we aspies go up against conflict, how we usually deal with conflict and how we should try to deal with it.

In the interest of this blog post, conflict means any sort of face to face or computer to computer disagreement, a conflict of interests as it is often called. I want to talk about how we get ourselves into these situations, as sometimes a lot of us don’t realize we are getting ourselves into them, and then how to politely get out.

Most of the time these conflicts arise due to a lack of social understanding on our part. We often struggle with telling if someone is joking, for example, a friend laughing at a photo of you and saying your t-shirt looks stupid could mean two things. If you also thought your t-shirt was stupid and the reason you had shown your friend was for them to laugh with you then this is fine, the problem arises when, in this situation, you don’t realize your friend is laughing with you and you become embarrassed.

This is when the eruption meter goes up, you feel a bit hurt or embarrassed and maybe angry at your friend. If this is a big deal for you then that might be enough to trigger an angry outburst, if it is less of a deal it is like adding something to a hot frying pan –  it fizzes for a bit and then settles down.

Thing is, this situation could be avoided, you could avoid adding to the frying pan or, even better, avoid the explosion of a meltdown by asking your friend what they mean.

This is a bit of a downfall for us all, we often don’t say when we don’t understand something and misunderstanding can be an issue even for Neurotypicals. We, as a people, need to learn to ask when we aren’t sure, we can dissolve a bad situation that way and, if this person is really your friend, if they truly care about you, then they will be more than happy to explain what they meant.

If we collectively started to do this then we would be able to understand our friends and family that little bit better and prevent anything bad from happening at all.

 

Of course, I am not saying this would always work, not even with friends will it always work because people do get annoyed at us, and they are entitled to just as much as we are entitled to get annoyed at them. This does mean there are more ways to deal with conflict.

As a quick aside the following tips do not necessarily apply to the internet. If on the internet someone is being mean to you the best thing to do is to report it to a group admin if you’re on a Facebook group, or to the owner of an online Forum. If you can’t report it, move to a different part of the page, a different website entirely, or get up and physically move away from the computer before things get worse. Try and come back to the situation later, with a more rational mind. Try to re-read the comment, if it still comes across as mean delete it, do not- I repeat – do not reply to it.

The person trying to annoy you on the internet is usually looking for a fight. They feel they can hurt you from behind their computer screen where you can’t see them and don’t know where, or sometimes who, they are.

This is almost the same for real-life situations. Tell a teacher, a manager or a parent or friend, and get away from the person who is trying to irk you. If a person is making you feel upset or angry then treat yourself like a bomb. You have been set to explode if you explode in this room with someone annoying you and possibly other people then there is going to be a mess. If you move to a quiet room you can detonate safely, or possibly you can cool yourself down enough that it is too cold and the bomb defuses.

If you are being picked on or teased by someone, friend or foe, it is always best to get away from the situation. If they see you explode, you have created fuel to their fire, they can do it again and again, they will happily cause a chain reaction within you. Don’t be a chain reaction, be a bomb disposal unit.

That’s my word of advice for today. Avoid conflict, don’t let yourself explode and tell someone who can help. I hope none of you have to deal with conflict anytime soon but I equally hope that when you do you are able to defuse.

So, talk to me everyone, what are your prime defusing methods? Do you have a safe zone where you can detonate the bomb? And how do you help yourself in the aftermath of the explosion?

Ps. Apologies this isn’t about health as I said it would be, having a bit of an issue with the health-related post. Thank you so much for reading and hope to speak to you soon 😊

Aspie University (wouldn’t that be great?)

So, as I said I would do, today’s blog post is all about University. This is for those with ASD who are looking to go to Uni, those already there, maybe those parents who are preparing for their children to head off to Uni. Those who have been to Uni before, maybe even those thinking of going back, might also enjoy this post. I want to share these tips and tricks for survival which I have learned from my first few weeks at University to try and help others get through it, and maybe have a laugh at my expense.  So, with no further a-do, I will head into my thoughts on University with Autism.

My very first tip, if you are planning to go on to University soon is, if you don’t have to then don’t. If you can afford to go to College before University then that is the way to do it. College acted for me as another stepping stone, it helped me get across the proverbial river between high school and University. My college course-  NC animal care, for those who are interested – was a big help. It was not an academic challenge for me, that wasn’t why I did it, but there was a lot of emotional and learning challenges along the way. When I started college, I had someone in the class with me to help me and to watch over my health and now, in Uni I am independent of staff to watch over me although I can go to student support if I need anything from class support to having to borrow money due to a hypo.

Whether you choose to go to College first or to go straight to Uni there is still a lot you need to be ready for, even from college to Uni there was a huge jump between how much independent learning I have to do. My course is a forty hour a week workload. I am only in the Uni for six of those hours, the rest of the time I have to work independently and that is where my next tip comes in. Organization for study.

Organization might be something that you got down at school or college but when you have so much free time this becomes harder. I found the best way to deal with this was to make a timetable and not just a timetable of the work at Uni and when I have to be there but also of the time I’m not at Uni. I have scheduled in time for lunch, for walking the dog and for optional work and mandatory work. I have twenty-one hours a week of mandatory work, which I have to spend doing something related to Uni. I try and switch this around so I am sometimes typing, sometimes note taking and sometimes drawing graphs, tables or mind maps. Optional work is on a Friday afternoon and all of Saturday and Sunday, this is time where if I have no uncompleted work I can do what I like but if I have a test coming up, an essay to write or something to complete for my Monday class I can use this time to do those things.

Secondly (only in this order because of alliteration) is Sensory issues. Sensory issues are something most of us have to some extent, some people may find they cope with Uni noises, smells and sights but for those that don’t, or that cope better on some days than others here are my thoughts. Sound-wise; if it is too loud in and around the campus I have two tips, firstly if you have a class first thing in the morning try and get there about half an hour before classes start, that way you can avoid the crowds and noise as others start to filter in, and once you are there the noise levels will rise gradually so that it isn’t as much of a shock once the building is at its loudest. My second tip is wearing earphones. I prefer in-ear earphones as these can both hide under my hair so I can wear them without seeming rude and also because these can filters out a large amount of sound but not all of it so if someone needs to talk directly to me I can still hear them. Next up, light; light is an issue for a lot of people when the weather outside is dull and the horrible strip lights get turned on but it is also an issue when using screens, a lot. My tip for this is one which might be more time consuming but can make a big difference, especially if you get headaches. I have used colored lenses in my glasses to help with this. The right color tint almost tones down the sensory issues I experience, making a difference so noticeable that for a few days you will be looking at things through the glasses and then with your eyes only, marveling at the difference these films can make.

 

Meltdowns are my third thing I want to address. Meltdowns or shutdowns are always hard in a strange situation and due to the very nature of them, this is where they are most likely to happen. My University has two quiet rooms. These rooms can be used by anyone who needs a break and time to reflect, relax or deal with a difficult situation. This is a fantastic idea but I understand this isn’t something every Uni has. It is likely that the University will have spare rooms – possibly in student support – where you may be able to organize to go to if you are in need of a quiet space. Some Uni’s may also have somewhere you can keep sensory toys although I highly recommend bringing small sensory toys in your bag daily. I always keep a tub or putty, my weighted snake, and some communication cards on me at all times in case I need help.

Another big issue of Uni life and ASD might be the issue of friendship. I can’t give a full explanation of these things because I am still working on this but I will say what I can. One of the big things with Uni is that you may struggle to find someone who is in every one of your classes, or even in the building every time you are. If there are only a handful of people in all your classes that make your job easier, other people will be unsure too. Be prepared to ask silly questions such as ‘is this the right room?’ even if you know the answer because this opens the dialogue. Imagine a computer document, if you want to put text on a page you need to insert a textbox, think of these questions, or comments about things like the weather, as your way of creating a textbox. Don’t expect to make friends quickly, just being casual with people, being friendly, helpful and – above all – being yourself, will help you make friends.

So, these are my basic tips and tricks on starting University, I hope they help you and yours and I hope they maybe relax you a little if you are worried at all about going to Uni. If you have any questions at all about autism and University, about any of the sections I have mentioned or worries you want to address then please comment below. I hope you enjoyed this, bye for now. 😊

NEXT TIME: Next Blog post will cover Autism and Health, a general overview.