2004-10-21 - 6:04 p.m.

the many adventures of the past week

Plenty has happened since the last entry. In fact I just emptied the contents of my bag on my bed and it tells the story of the past week. Let’s get stuck into it then.

The camp, yes. I volunteered to be on staff for a camp run through scripture union on the weekend. I didn’t get to sleep until after midnight the night before and had to be up before 6 am on Saturday, which made me a bit angry with the entities that kept me awake. Could I have gotten to sleep earlier? It was possible, I would have taken a few valiums, but that would only have made me more drowsy in the morning (I had to navigate and keeping my eyes open and ready for the signs along the road was a greater challenge that one might imagine), and I fear becoming dependant on the valium pills.

We arrived at the conference centre and I was straightaway into the kitchen to start cooking with barely enough time to put my bag on my bed. Not that I was complaining, I had been wanting to serve and this was an excellent opportunity, it’s just that in the back of my mind always is the worry that my Asperger’s and depression might mess things up for me. Sure, at first I was more hesitant than most in getting going, but once I did I did the tasks pretty well. It was good to know I was appreciated and that I was serving in a way worthwhile.

One of the leaders asked me if I could look after a group of four kids aged from about 3 to 8 for an hour or so while he was off doing something else. I had never looked after kids in any official way before, but kids have always liked me and enjoyed being around me so I thought, why not. I was introduced to them and then off we went, and they seemed to like me. I was able to entertain them with games, and resolve an argument between two of them, something I was quite proud of.

30, then 40 minutes passed without any of them getting injured or starting crying, which was quite an achievement. Then was the time for them to watch a video as one of their dads had promised and as the leader had told me to tell the kids that they could watch a video “if they were good”. I was never told though that this video didn’t exist and that the television consecrated to this purpose was never going to be wrested from a group of guys engrossed in the broadcast of the Moto GP.

What happened next was predictable. My Asperger’s makes it extremely difficult to break bad news to anyone at the best of times, and you better believe that I had never had to break a promise to a bunch of toddlers who would feel like they had done something bad to deserve it. So I rounded them up into the main hall and I was not game to break the news to them, so I let them wander and distract themselves under mild supervision. It turns out that I did exactly the right thing in the difficult circumstance, but at the time it felt like a monumental failure. It must have been only 20 minutes or so before each of them found their parents and certainly none of the parents rebuked me for anything, they were nothing but appreciative. Nevertheless I became depressed. Looking back on it now I can see that I did a good job, but at the time I felt like I couldn’t do anything right and this was yet more evidence of the fact that my life would amount to little.

Perhaps fortunately, my friend who drove us down had a stomach bug of some description and probably as a combination of this and my little episode of depression we were thanked for our help and suggested that we could go home early, as there were other people to cover for us. But not before I helped make some great chicken wraps and some awesome chocolate brownies.

Then what? Church the following night. I managed a conversation exceeding one minute in length with a certain person that did not result in anything too embarrassing. I must be ultra-careful not to make much of that. My diary witnesses the mistakes I have made in the past in this area. It is useless to discuss this, but it is better to know that I am largely on the right path.

Not that that helped much on the following day on which these wounds were reopened due probably mostly to my own pessimism, but the fact that the topic of discussion was sex and relationships didn’t help as it was supposed to. This episode despite the best efforts of Fh.A triggered a relatively severe period of depression which lasted for about the next 48 hours.

Tuesday was the worst day I have had in a few months as far as depression goes. I was acutely psychomotor retarded and anhedonic as they say, and found it difficult to do anything at all. My mum was unusually accommodating and was kind to me. She gave me a lift to bible study so that I didn’t have to walk in the rain. Nice. While I was there, I was in so much pain, I could hardly talk to anyone. I have great difficulty understanding the mind of someone that has not experienced depression or that has grown up in a peaceful home. I sat there shaking, holding my head, wishing I would cease to exist but not wishing that I would be responsible for it, and not capable of any higher function than that. The time came for my turn to read and Fh.E casually handed me his bible and calmly said “Chapter four”. I was not capable of arguing and this moment gave me an opportunity to pretend that nothing was wrong and in doing so perhaps stop the pain. After all, nothing was wrong apart from that which was in my mind. So I read, my voice trembling, my brain not understanding what I was reading as I was only just able to translate the written word into my voice.

Eventually the bible study finished and I was invited to play video games. I kept on getting killed by Fh.E and Fh.J and so decided to keep blowing myself up instead. It was something that I could achieve and avoided the pain of getting killed by others. It also served to indicate my wish to be unconscious. My mum called my mobile phone. I was in too much pain to respond to her offer of a lift home in the affirmative in a way that she could understand and react to before putting on one of her tantrums. Fh.E also offered me a lift home and I was incapable of accepting before his wife told us without prompting that it was not raining outside.

We said goodbye and I started out on my way home. I walked barely ten metres before I collapsed in the dirt. I was not able to keep going, there was too much pain, I was too afraid to call my mum for the mood she was in and too embarrassed to turn back and ask Fh.E for a lift and disturb his wife. So I lay there in the mud for about 30 minutes. Of course I didn’t die as I wished and got up and jogged home. I didn’t show any emotion to my mum. I just got changed, took some valium and got into bed.

Yesterday was an eventful day as well. In the morning I had an appointment with the counsellor. We both appreciate more where we are each coming from now. I told her the trouble that I had been having and she encouraged me for volunteering for the camp. The meeting was productive and I made an appointment with Dh.W.

Then there was the social gathering last night. I had not gone into the city for some months and had forgotten a little what it was like. We had arranged to meet at this bar, which was quite nice. I was the only one in the group that didn’t have a job, but for some reason I still managed to get on reasonably well with everyone. This leads me to wonder whether the way I felt in bible study was just something subconscious since I was able to be a bit more ‘normal’ and sociable at this gathering. I’m sure I could make a bit more of an effort at being sociable at the times where I feel down. Still, it was a lonely trip home and the roasting I unjustly received from my mum when I got home did not make me feel less lonely.

It has been raining for a while now, and I haven’t been for a jog for a while. I know we ‘need’ the rain but it would be good if I could go for a jog without getting soaked.

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