working it out as I go along

On the twenty-fourth day of Advent, Christmas Eve, I decided to start re-reading Autism: An Inside Out Approach by Donna Williams. I realised that it said at the back of the book that she gives strategies to help people deal with ASD related difficulties. I hadn’t noticed that the first time I read it – it was more a ‘Gosh, she is describing what it is like to be me’ experience. So I decided to reread it to find strategies, and hopefully find something to help me be organised. There was one paragraph in the first chapter that I liked:

My ‘autism’-related difficulties took me on a journey where my physical health fell apart from a combination of inherited faults, bad management and the chronic stress of dealing with an incomprehending world which taught this camel to walk straight instead of taking the lorry-load of straws off its back for the thirty years before it realised there was a choice.

This is where I am at right now – why this year off has become necessary. So if I can learn some ways where it can be different, I will be very happy.

Then I decided in the evening to be a bit Christmassy. Even though in general I find Christmas pretty pointless, I do like Christmas carols. I like them because I learnt lots of them by heart when I was a kid. Every Christmas I would learn a different Christmas carol. For me, as a child who found Christmas confusing, this gave some meaning and consistency to Christmas. Once I’d learnt a carol, it was like I possessed it – I could sing it whenever I liked. I had no idea what they meant, in general – I remember learning ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ when I was seven, and being fascinated at the idea of Jesus being our childhood’s pattern. To me, a pattern was the kind of thing I saw on the wallpaper, or on the kitchen lino – lots of shapes repeating themselves. I liked them, and so I liked the idea of Jesus being one! I remember wondering what exactly was the difference between ’shareth in’ and ‘feeleth for’, and why the first went with gladness and the second went with sadness. Maybe Jesus was only allowed to share in gladness, not sadness, because gladness is good and sadness is bad. But I liked how they rhymed.

So, because I like carols, on Christmas Eve I decided to turn on my TV (which I very rarely do, as I don’t find it interesting) to see if there were any carol services. I then got distracted by a documentary about Paul Scofield. I normally have no interest in the lives of actors, but this captivated me. First because they played a bit from King Lear, and I’d seen that film when I was 15 and felt the connection of recognition. I remembered what a good film it had been (even though I’d been disappointed at the time because they changed it quite a bit from the original play, and made it a lot shorter). I thought I would change channel after they stopped playing the King Lear scene, but then I became fascinated by what they were saying about Paul Scofield. I felt I could relate to it. He sounded like me. People found him enigmatic and naive. He hated socialising and refused to go to parties. He had no interest in promoting himself. He had no interest in going to Hollywood. He just wanted to act, and act well – that was what he devoted his life to. And he couldn’t analyse it – he could just do it at the moment. And he would accept and reject parts on instinct, having to work out afterwards the reasons why. I found it very inspiring – it is so rare to hear about a famous person who makes sense to me and who I can relate to. It occurred to me that if I could find a something – one thing – to devote myself to doing, then I would be fulfilled. I would have no interest in promoting  myself either – just in doing what I did well. It’s interesting – I also decide things on instinct, and then have to work out afterwards why. This is because it is an autistic thing not to consciously process something right away, but you subconsciously process it. This is also how people are called savants. It is why when I was a child, I could work out mathematical problems and have no idea how I did it – which was very frustrating for my maths teachers, and also very frustrating for me when they insisted I wrote my ‘working’ – I had no idea what ‘working’ was.

Then, after I’d watched that programme, I watched a carol service that was at a children’s hospital. The singing wasn’t particuarly good – well, it wasn’t a choir, I don’t think, just a group of people, like you get in a church congregation. But I liked it, because they talked about the hospital and the people were real people who had a real connection with the hospital, and some of them had children who had died there, and it was moving that they had all come together to do a carol service. And I liked the Liverpool accents when they spoke and read things. And I also liked how the camera sometimes focused on people who weren’t singing. I liked that people didn’t feel they had to sing, but they could still be part of it.

And then I saw there was a eucharist service on another channel,  so I switched to look at that one. And that was a proper choir, all in harmony. I like the sound of such things – it feels like it envelops my body in softness – so I watched that one. I don’t know why I like songs that are in harmony so much. I remember the first time I heard a harmony. I was ten years old, and my school was doing a musical. It was a silly musical, but there was one song which was a duet in harmony. While the two girls sang it, I remember being utterly tranfixed, and wanting to cry, but in a good way. Then some kids started laughing at me because I had a funny expression on my face, and my mouth was hanging open, so I got embarrassed. I didn’t understand why the song had had such an effect on me. I still don’t – I just know that this is what songs in harmony do to me. When I was a teenager, The Marriage of Figaro (which I’d never heard of back then) was on TV, and my sisters and I were flicking channels, and suddenly there was this song (the one called Sull’aria, but it was in English) and I just had to listen to it. My sisters wanted to change channel and we had a huge argument about it, because I really wanted to listen, and they said it was boring. But later I got the tape from the library and I listened to the whole thing to find that song, and I listened to it over and over.

Incidentally, it also occurred to me yesterday that maybe the reason I don’t watch TV is because when I was growing up I rarely got to watch things I was interested in, because they were so different from what my sisters liked to wath. They liked the normal things that kids like to watch. I liked things that they declared were boring. So it is quite nice to realise that I have full control to watch whatever ‘boring’ thing I like now.

Today it is Christmas day and I am watching ‘Carols from Kings’, because my cable TV has a thing where you can watch things that were on TV in the past week, as well as what is on TV right now. So I am feeling very content listening to it and typing on my little Asus Eee laptop, and eating Belgian chocolate malt balls that I got from Asda, which are like maltesers but nicer. It’s odd – there is part of me that feels a bit naughty for spending Christmas alone. People are not supposed to spend Christmas alone – it either means you’re a bah humbug, or that you are a pitiable, lonely person to be prayed for in church. But it is so nice to be by myself. It is so very quiet outside – well, it’s always pretty quiet anyway, but even quieter today. I went in my garden and hung up my washing, and was aware that I’m probably the only person in my neighbourhood doing laundry on Christmas day, and it was a nice peaceful feeling.

Christmas does not have a religious significance to me. I like the carols purely for familiarity and because I like the sound. The words are silly, and they don’t help me worship God. I like my relationship with God to be constant. I don’t like it to have to be different on Christmas day, and I don’t think it has to be, because there is a bit in the Bible about how some people like to have certain days as special and set apart and other people like all days to be the same, and whatever you do, do for God. So I am the latter type of person.

I have a random question. Why do bishops wear those funny hats? I am really not used to such hats because I have never attended a church where anyone wore one. Yesterday when i was watching the eucharist carol service on TV, I saw this bishop was wearing a funny hat, and for a moment, when I wasn’t properly paying attention, I thought to myself that he was wearing a Christmas party hat that he had got out of a cracker. I thought it was part of the festive season. But then I paid attention and remembered they wear hats like that all the time, because I see the photos on the internet, so I am curious what it signifies.

On the twenty-third day of Advent, I felt I wasn’t sure what organisational strategy to use, or what I was supposed to be doing. I started off by writing my daily thoughts. I didn’t finish them though. I left them half way through to go to the loo, then got distracted and went on the internet. However, I made myself do several lots of ‘ten things’. That is a good strategy. It is so small, that it doesn’t feel like a big deal, and once I’ve done one lot of ten things, it’s very easy to do another lot. So I went through different rooms in my house, tidying away ten things. I found too that once I’m in the kitchen making food, then it’s easy to wash up and do landry and stuff, because it’s all to hand. I need to see things to be reminded to do them. Out of sight, out of mind. Unless I have a list, I guess, but today I didn’t make a list. I was going to maybe make one, but I went on the internet and then stayed there. I think I must reinstate the ‘no internet until after 9:00pm’ rule, even if I’m not using time, because even when I have days where I don’t use time, I do sometimes sneak a look at the clock out of curiosity. And of course, once I go on the internet, then I see the time, because it’s there in the bottom right hand corner.

I am finding it quite overwhelming, the whole strategy thing. I think each day really only needs one focus. I suppose once my house is properly tidy, the ten things will take up less time. On Friday and Saturday, they took over, and became the focus of my day.

I noticed that today, the reason I kept going back to the internet was because I hadn’t decided upon something to do, so I had nothing else to return to. I wonder if it will work to decide in the morning, whilst writing my daily thoughts, what I want the main focus of the day to be. The daily thoughts are important to focus me onto the day.

I must also take my health into allowance, which is annoying, but better in the long run, I guess. I do feel very unwell for two weeks every month and get very bad pains (for which I’ve had lots of tests at the hospital and no cause has been found). I thought I was healed from it two years ago, because I went to a healing service and then later I prayed and suddenly the pain was gone – miraculously, it seemed to me. For that time I could eat anything and not get pain, which was very unusual. But then it returned.

However, when journalling the other day, I tried the technique where you write a dialogue with a part of your body which is causing you pain. Again, I know this sounds kooky, but I think it is about getting in touch with your subconscious, and often pains in the body are related to emotional things too. So I wrote a dialogue with my abdomen to see what it (or my subconscious) had to say. And it was strange – it kept saying I need to accept. Accept what, I asked. And the answer was ‘just accept’. The past. Myself. Don’t fight. Just accept. So now when I get the pains, I do concentrate on accepting myself and not fighting anything, and it helps a lot. I’ve had a lot less pain this month. But I still get the unwell, dizzy, shaky, tired feeling. But maybe that is to be fixed by spending more time in my inner world, as that seemed to work yesterday.

So, in finding organisational strategies, I must also find strategies to manage my health. And I know it’s important to realise too that I do get easily overwhelmed by sensory stimuli, and I spend a lot of energy trying to figure things out that are obvious to other people, and thus I use up a lot more energy than ‘normal’ people and so get very quickly tired. So I know I have limitations on how much I can do. I don’t like this. I want to be able to work as many hours as I choose, and get lots done, but that is not practical or healthy, so I try to accept my limitations. It’s odd – our culture is not about accepting limitations. It’s more about how wrong it is to limit oneself, and how to find ways to achieve more, and push yourself past the limits. So many books I’ve read have that message, and I realise I have become indoctrinated by it. So now I am relearning.

Tomorrow is the last day of Advent (I presume, at least. Or does one count Christmas day as well?) and I feel like I should have achieved some super plan by now, and be ready for some great epiphany tomorrow. Of course, I know that’s silly, but still it is what I feel would be nice and satisfying. But now, so that I don’t feel a sense of let-down, I think I will try to see this Advent organisational plan as a start, rather than an end. It’s been a time for me to experiment with different strategies, and get to know myself better, so I can see what works for me. I haven’t yet implemented some great plan, and I am still confused, but I feel better equipped for figuring out a plan, and starting to become organised. And after all, I have the whole year until September. This is the point of having a year out – to work out an organisational plan and start applying it to my studies.

On the twenty-second day of Advent, I didn’t feel well. I felt all shaky and dizzy and physically overwhelmed (I think the pinhole glasses made me dizzy, because I also wore them to do yoga, and you’re not supposed to wear them when you’re moving around), so I stayed in bed, and slept for a bit longer. Then I thought and visualised and prayed, and found myself soon feeling deeply peaceful and no longer unwell. Then I read in bed, and then I realised that it was very rejuvenating to live in one’s inner world for a while – to completely ignore the outer world. And then I wondered if this is my problem – that I can’t simultaneously experience my inner world and the outer world, due to the ‘mono thinking’ thing. And that surviving in the world as an adult requires being in the outer world a lot of the time, so my inner world gets lost.

When I felt better, I got up and ate. I went to Asda, and it was so very crowded that it was a horrible experience. I think perhaps having spent the earlier part of the day living in my head, my self-awareness was increased, so I was more aware of the effect the crowds and noise and busy-ness was having on me. It was so crowded that I was constantly looking for ways of squeezing past the people and finding the aisles I wanted. At several points, I became aware that I was clutching my shopping basket to my stomach and making my way through the shop with a look of sheer panic on my face, so then I consciously made myself not look like that, because obviously it’s just a supermarket and not anything to panic about!

As well as buying food, I bought sweets and crisps. I have been eating so much healthy food that I felt that since it is the Christmas season (even though I don’t celebrate it!) I would like to buy some treats for myself. I bought sweets and crisps with no artificial colour or artificial flavours, but still, they contained wheat and sugar and I knew they wouldn’t have a good effect on me, and it is silly really to buy such things, but I bought them anyway. And then when I got home, I ate some of them, and went on the internet, and had fun interacting with online friends, and felt a bit decadant (yeah, I know it’s a silly thing to feel decandant about) and again stayed up late on the internet.

And then, when I went to bed, I wondered what is becoming of my organisation plan. And I thought about how I don’t like to do the same thing every day, because then I feel bored and trapped. So I wondered how my organisation plans can incorporate different ways of doing things. Maybe the 40-minute segments are sometimes appropriate, and the chronological lists are important for different days, and sometimes a day of staying inside my head is the best thing to do. But I don’t know how to make all these different things into one big master plan and know when to use each one.  And how do I incorporate the inner and outer worlds? And paying attention to time and ignoring time? Day 22 brought more questions than answers. And Advent is nearly over. I am not sure if am any closer to finding an organisation strategy that will work long term, and which I can apply to various situations. But at least my house is a lot tidier.

On the twenty-first day of Advent, I didn’t want to repeat the pattern of the day before, so I decided that it would be a completely different sort of day (I decided that since it was Sunday, I could use the excuse of a ‘day of rest’). I decided I wouldn’t do chores. I decided to try speed-reading some of my study books, so fast that I don’t actually take them in (because if I try to take them in, I find I worry about not absorbing the whole lot, and that is distracting) but simply to get a very broad overview – of headings and key words. And also I’m always curious how much it is possible to take in just by skimming through a book.

I decided to try using my ‘pinhole glasses‘ that I bought a while ago from ebay. I hate reading with normal glasses. I have to because I am so very short-sighted that if I take my glasses off, the page has to be about an inch from my nose for me to see what it says, which is not comfortable, and means I can’t see the whole page. But somehow my glasses act as a barrier and stop me getting fully absorbed with a book, because they make my eyes focus differently from how they otherwise would. This has always been the case. I’ve had glasses since I was seven, and as a child I would always read with my glasses off. So the optician thought there must be something wrong with me, and prescribed bifocals, but I hated those just as much and also took them off to read. Then, somewhere in my teenage years I realised I could no longer comfortably read without my glasses.

But I randomly discovered pinhole glasses on the internet and thought I would give them a try. And they are more restful on my eyes. I can see better than with no glasses if I wear them, but I can’t see anywhere near as clearly as with my glasses. I can see how they would work brilliantly for someone a lot less short-sighted than I, but I think for my eyes the holes would have to be a lot tinier and more frequent. But still, they are restful to wear. So I tried to read with them on. Now, it turned out that I couldn’t read with them on either, but I could read the headings, and I could get a sense of the shape of the text on the page, and that made me familiar with the books. And there was something oddly soothing about just turning the pages and not knowing what they were saying. My common sense did tell me this was kind of pointless, but I felt I was getting some familiarity with the books and thus hopefully removing any mental blocks I have about studying for my course.

Since I couldn’t actually read what was on the pages, I then decided I might as well take off the pinhole glasses and read with no glasses at all. I read one book like this, but it turned out to be such an interesting book that I put it right next to my nose and read what it actually said!

So, on day 21, I looked at study books. I then went on the internet for ages and regretted spending so long online.

On the twentieth day of Advent, I barely recognised my house when I came downstairs for breakfast. It seemed rather empty without the stairs being and hallway being covered in clutter. I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not, but decided on the whole it was a good thing.

Now I wasn’t sure whether to make my list starting with the things I hadn’t one on Day 19, or to make a similar list again and leave those things till last again. I opted for the latter – because the things I’d omitted were more leisurely stuff like journalling and studying. I wanted to keep up the habit of doing small daily things like my ‘ten things’ routines and yoga and leave more leisurely things to the end. So I made a detailed list to complete in order, and I did all kinds of things, and extra things that I thought of, like washing the kitchen floor. But by the time I’d done all those chores, I simply didn’t feel motivated to do more leisurely things. They seemed like simply reward stuff rather than necessary stuff, and I’d rather go on the internet. So I went on the internet, planning to spend only half an hour there, but ended up spending all evening, and the early hours of the morning there. And I went on the internet before 9:00pm, because I told myself that since I’m not keeping track of time when I make chronological lists, the ‘no internet before 9:00pm’ can’t apply.

I analysed this pattern. I like the internet, but there gets to a point where I am not gaining anything from being on there. I’m simply finding it hard to motivate myself to switch from the internet to something else. And some tasks seem rather big, and it’s harder to switch to a big task than it is to switch to doing something small like picking up ten things.

One the nineteenth day of Advent, which was today, I felt very positive in the morning. After my dad had left, I wrote my daily thoughts, and I reflected on how it was a good, positive visit and how I feel energised from it. And then I had an idea. I decided that today I didn’t want to keep track of time. I don’t like time.  I just wanted to do things – all the organisational things I usually do (well, apart from the 40-minute segment thing, because you need time for that) – without looking at the clock. Part of me thought this was a very bad idea, because it is a weakness of mine that I am not very aware of time, and surely I should be encouraging myself to keep track of it, not avoiding it. But then I thought, well, if that is the way my brain works, and if I don’t actually have to keep track of time today, since I have no appointments, why not just have one day where I ignore time.

Then I started thinking about how I would do it. I thought of different things I wanted to do, and then found myself confused because I didn’t know which to do first. So I toyed with the idea of writing down things to do in the order I should do them. My first reaction was that this would never work, because I hate lists and timetables, and they scare me. But then I reasoned this was not the same as a list, because it was in order and I had to stick to the order. And that it was not the same as a timetable, because a timetable has times on it, and that is the main thing I hate about timetables, because I find it too constricting. And I also decided I had nothing to lose by trying this idea.

So. I wrote all the things I wanted to do in the order I wanted to do them. And then I got started. And it worked really well. I didn’t feel overwhelmed, because they were in order, so I had to do one thing at a time, in order. And the lack of time-awareness was so freeing. Thinking about time really distracts me. I got so much done today. I didn’t do everything on my list, but it was a huge long list, and I added extra things along the way that I hadn’t thought of. I went to the sauna and steam room, for instance, as a treat, to relax me, and to make me get out of the house. But even though I didn’t do everything on my list, I still did loads. I vacuumed the whole house. I put away lots of ten things, and threw away lots of ten things. I did yoga, and had a quiet time, and read, as well as doing lots of tidying and cleaning. I like this idea of deciding what to do in order and having no times by them. I will do it again tomorrow, I think. It works. I’ve achieved more today than any other day that I’ve been doing this organisation plan.

On the eighteenth day of Advent, I didn’t find a strategy, but it was an interesting and positive day.

I had ordered an old second-hand book from Amazon called Sidetracked Home Executives. I think someone on bookcrossing recommended it for organising one’s home and life. So I read half of this book on day 18. At first it didn’t look too promising – the authors seemed as different from me as possible. They are two sisters, American, stay-at-home moms, who regularly attend Bible studies and bake thousands of chocolate chip cookies for church. And they merrily decided one day that they were hopeless at tidying their homes so they needed to come up with a plan. But the more I read, I realised there were things that I could relate to – these women easily got distracted and so never stuck to a plan. I realised this is a large part of my difficulty with organisation – I start doing something, but then get distracted by something else, and then something else, and I forget what I was doing. They also describe how they hate lists, and find them scary. These women describe the system they devised, which is a very complicated (or so it seems to me) card index system. They have a set of cards that say things that they must do each day. I could sort of see the benefit of this system, and would probably have finished the book if my dad hadn’t come to visit.

Now, my dad had said he was coming, and I agreed to it, but I had mixed feelings about his visit. This is because often, when my dad comes to visit, he spends the time getting stressed and telling me how messy my house is and how I can’t look after myself and I need to pull myself together, and then he does things, like the washing up (which he doesn’t do properly and I have to rewash everything when he’s done, and he puts things away in the wrong places and he doesn’t stack them properly and sometimes they fall out of the cupboard when I open it and smash on the floor and it scares me) and the ironing (and he does counterproductive things like ironing my crinkle top, and putting everything he’s ironed higgledy-piggledy in a washing basket so they get all crinkly again).  And I tell him not to do these things, and I explain that I don’t like him doing them, but he won’t believe it, and says he needs to do it or it won’t get done, and he insists that I’m grateful really.

So this is why I had mixed feelings about him visiting. But it turned out it was a really good visit. He came in and said he wanted a cup of tea, so I put the kettle on, and then he came and gave me a hug and said well done for the house being so tidy. I explain I was doing several lots of ten things every day, and that’s why it’s tidier. But honestly, I hadn’t realised it was so much tidier. I thought it was still messy and he was going to nag me about it. But he said it is three quarters of the way to being tidy and he was really pleased. He also said that either I was taller or he had shrunk. I said maybe yoga had stretched my back and made me taller. He said that maybe I was just more confident and assertive and so holding myself taller. I wondered if that was the case, and I realised I do feel a hundred times better since starting my year out from college, so I said ‘That is because I am not at college where I was miserable and ill all the time.’

But it made me feel good to realise my organisation stategies are having an effect. I feel more motivated. But then after I’d made my dad a cup of tea, I got a horrible pain in my abdomen. I always get this when he comes to visit. It is from the stress. It was really bad, so I lay on the sofa and cried, and then I told my dad that it was because he was visiting, but that it wasn’t his fault, because I like him, but I just have bad associations with his visits, that make me get abdominal pains, and that I need to now get some good associations instead, so that I stop getting the pains.

When I felt better, my dad drove me to Asda, and I bought lots of things that are big and heavy because it’s better to buy such things when you have a lift than when you are walking. And then we went to a Japanese restaurant and had some lovely food. And then we had a relaxing evening watching TV and chatting. So it was a good day.

(I edited this entry to delete personal stuff about my dad. I tend to write everything in great detail and it is not always appropriate to talk about other people in detail, and not relevant to my Advent organisation plan.).

On the seventeenth day of Advent, I became aware of the need to have a big plan, incorporating motivation and goals and rewards. I was reading a book on study skills. Odd that I always thought I had study skills, because I always did well at school, and at university in the past, but now the nature of universities has changed, and this book incorporates all of these changes into its message. It’s called The Study Skills Handbook, by Stella Cottrell, if anyone is interested. I like it especially because its layout is made for dyslexic students – not that I am dyslexic, but I have the same scotopic sensitivity thing, so it is a book that is really easy on the eyes. The font is blue and with no serifs.

Well, I’m not sure if I came up with a strategy as such today, but I decided to try incorporating yoga into my routine. I haven’t done any exercise for a while – mostly because my exercise of choice is swimming, which isn’t advisable when I have an ear infection. But my back has been aching and tense lately and it occurred to me that yoga might help. So I got out my yoga video (which still had a few uncomfortable connotations attached to it, ever since the Bible study group people were in my house and saying that things like yoga videos could put a curse on a house. Not that I believed them, but still I was upset that they said such things about my house and my yoga video, so it made the yoga video have an unpleasant association attached to it). But I did one of the yoga workouts today, and I was pleased and surprised that I felt a lot better – my back felt stretched, like the tension had been released, and the pain was gone. I also felt a lot more alert and awake afterwards, with more energy. So I decided that yoga is a very good idea and I shall do it every day.

I also went to Asda, not so much because I needed to, but because I realised I hadn’t been going out and getting fresh air, and I really should. So I went to Asda. I noticed that my shopping method is very inefficient when I don’t have an idea of what I’m going to buy. Things catch my eye so I randomly follow whatever attracts my attention and go wandering into aisles that I don’t need to go into. I saw some fluffy toy frogs that I liked, so I went down the toy aisle. I saw some fluffy dressing gowns that I liked, so I went down the clothes aisle. I didn’t buy any of these things, and nor did I want to – I just liked the look of them. And then I saw myself in the mirror, with my fluffy cream-coloured fleece coat that is way too big for me, and my fluffy grey trousers, and I thought about how very frumpy and unfashionable I looked, although I didn’t care really, and the thought was quite amusing to me. So all these things distracted me, and I considered how it is much better to go in with a shopping list and only go to the aisles which contain things on the shopping list.

So today was a lot of thinking about potential strategies, but I didn’t come up with a particular one yet.

On the sixteenth day of Advent, which is today, I thought of a simple but effective strategy. Normally, when I cook food, I leave it cooking and go and do something else and then I forget I am cooking something, and only remember when I smell it burning. Today, I decided upon a way to avoid this, and incorporate my organisation into it. I made a rule that when I am cooking, I must stay in the kitchen and do various ‘ten things’ – such as wash up ten thing, put away ten things. I can go out of the kitchen to do some different ten things, but I must return to the kitchen straight after. I must save my kitchen ‘ten things’ until I am cooking (so this involves not washing dishes at the end of the day, but waiting till the next day when I am cooking).

Incidentally, the ten things is going very well, because since I’ve started it, I have constantly had an almost clear kitchen table (it used to be piled high with laundry ready to be ironed and put away). So now I can eat at my kitchen table, and not upstairs on my computer desk like I used to (and which I can’t do any more anyway, because I am not letting myself use the computer before 9:00pm).

Today, I have slept a lot. I am very very tired. I think my body is catching up from a very tiring and stressful college course which does not suit my personality or learning style at all. So I have decided not to feel guilty about having lots of extra sleep, because my body really seems to need it.

On the fifteenth day of Advent, I decided my new rule is not to go on the internet before 9:00pm. Now for me to make a rule that I actually take seriously, I have to make it with someone else, normally with God, but rules I make with God tend to be about more specifically spiritual disciplines, not the internet. So, I did some visualisation – now I know this will seem very kooky to most people, and I almost didn’t write about it because I don’t like people to laugh at me, but hey, it is what works for me, so I will write it for myself. I sometimes invent imaginary people in my mind. I’m not insane – I am quite aware that they are imaginary, but I am also aware that the power of the imagination can be helpful. So I have an imaginary mother figure, who I invented years ago, and who I sometimes visualise. This is because my real mother doesn’t love me, and that is sad for me, and so it’s nice to imagine that I have another mother who does love me. And I think probably she is just another version of God, really. I call her Angel, because I think she is a bit like an angel, and because Angel is a name too. So, on day 15, I imagined her, and talked to her, and made the decision with her not to go on the internet until after 9:00pm.

I also decided to do some proper private journalling. Not just writing my daily thoughts, but do some exploratory journalling, to see what is really inside my mind, and whether I really want to return to college and finish my degree, and to see if I can find what my real passion is and how to be organised in a way that suits my personality. I have two books on journalling, one by Ira Progoff, and the other by Tristine Rainer, because it is something that interests me and I’ve been wanting to do it for some time. I know some people think it’s weird and new age, but I think it is particularly useful if you have Asperger Syndrome, because it’s hard to process your thoughts and emotions, and journalling can help you do that, and help you put them into words and see what you are really thinking and feeling.

So that was my strategy for day 15. I started reading these books and doing the exercises in them. So far it seems like my body is telling me that is exhausted, and that pushing myself to fit into all the college hoops has been very counterproductive. I’m not sure what the solution is, but I hope maybe I will discover some solutions from journalling.