sensory processing disorder – yarn and pencil

Monday update of crafty meanderings

This is some of what I’ve been creating this week…

I found a mandala that had been started quite sometime ago and was about a quarter towards completion, so I finished it. I made the pattern up as I went along…

As I enjoyed it so much I thought I needed to expand my skills so I purchased this…

It’s published by Interweave Press so I knew it would be good. As soon as it arrived I hooked up this one…

I started and finished a pair of socks. Go me!…

Eleonora continues to beaver away over at Coastal Crochet blog designing new rows for us each week. Here’s my blankets with their latest rows added…

There’s a couple of other items that I haven’t managed to work on this week. I have been spinning and I’m about halfway through a 350 gram bag mix of merino and silk from John Arbon Textiles. I can’t get the colour right but here it is thus far…

I’m struggling at the moment and I’m not sure how to put it into words. It’s a lot of things and most of it underpinned by lack of self worth. I’m also affected by a lack of understanding by a person this week of the limitations of my sensory processing disorder. The person does not read my blog.

I’m letting you know as I sense myself withdrawing into myself even more than usual. I think it might help me to acknowledge this.

So that’s it for now. Thanks so much for dropping by ❤

Please turn down the volume

to aspie or not to aspie

We’re standing on a train platform in the middle of nowhere – the kind that doesn’t even have a ticket office or a loo (and if you need to pee you have to just mindlessly panic, praying that the train will come any second now, while desperately considering squatting in the nearest bush).

I am buttoned up in my winter coat and balancing on one leg like a flamingo – hopping up and down in tune with the painted yellow line on the platform. The wind is shaking the leaves in the trees like some sort of improvised percussion instrument, and a few stray autumn leaves are chasing conker shells around the ankles of the oaks.

It’s that strange overcast kind of day that coats everything in a pasty white light – it could be 6pm or 6am and it’s difficult to tell which.

‘This is how the apocalypse would…

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Sensory Anxiety: Not your ordinary anxiety

Thank you to The Sensitive Giraffe for pointing her followers to this blog post. For some time I’ve thought a lot of my anxiety is different but couldn’t pin point how; this post goes a long way in explaining it and I feel it is pivotal in helping me understand myself. It’s brilliant!

The Sensitive Giraffe

I’m reblogging this from Eating Off Plastic.

I never considered my anxiety being different because of Sensory Processing Disorder. But after reading this, it makes a lot of sense. I think this also helps explain why repeatedly trying to face situations doesn’t always make it easier or less stressful. In many instances, the physical symptoms keep showing up with the same intensity.

This is probably a good explanation for why I’m jolted awake by my neighbor and experience the rapid heart beat. I mean, this has been going on for months. My body still isn’t adjusting to it. It still reacts as if this is the first time.

For those who don’t experience anxiety in this way, perhaps this post will offer some insight for why saying “just keep trying” doesn’t always help.

Before you dive in, a quick note. This article was written for the STAR Institute for…

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How to turn falling snow on (or off) your WordPress blog

This is helpful if you don’t want or do want snow on your blog. I’m avoiding all snowflake blogs for the duration due to sensory processing order that is associated with my autism. Thanks to BlogPad Pro for enlightening me on this subject.

I’ve just found the setting for mine, (I didn’t know my blog had one), and ensured it’s switched to off.

BlogPad Pro

It’s that time of year once again, where we’re all starting to feel some festive cheer, and you might have noticed falling snow appearing on some of your favourite WordPress.com blogs

Are you wondering how to turn this option on?

Go to your online dashboard > Settings > General

Scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll see “Show falling snow on my blog until January 4^th” – simply check the box to turn on some festive falling snow.

If you’ve suddenly discovered falling snow on your blog (maybe you turned this option on last year), simply uncheck the button to turn off.

Edited with BlogPad Pro

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Snowflakes can cause pain

Hello,

Snowflakes are lovely… mostly… I like real ones, and I like them knitted, crocheted, cut from folded paper, still photographs etc etc.

But… I don’t like moving

snowflakes across a screen of text.

What we do with the appearance of our blogs is really up to each author; but if I follow your blog and you have chosen to have snow falling across your page I’m not going to be able to read your posts. I know that I could read via the other way – bright white background and wide width of text – but that too is problematic for me. So please don’t take it personally, but I won’t be able to hang around long enough to ‘like’ or write a comment.

I’m interested to know if this is an issue for other people?

I hesitated in writing this but thought best to be upfront about it.

With love, Tracey xxx 💙

Postscript: the column of words above were meant to be in a different space on each line but publishing has put them into a column. I have tried editing but the words stubbornly refuse to do as they are told. Tut tut… such naughtiness.

Postscript 2: I’ve edited again because what Jasper has to say in the comments is correct. It did sound like I was apologising for myself.

My autistic senses: #1 sound

autspicious

An aspect of autism that I didn’t know until I first researched it was the sensory experience, and I imagine this is something that most people are unaware of. We see autism first and foremost as a social impairment with the sensory difficulties as a very occasional afterthought. Now however, I have realised the way I process the world around me is a lot more prescient than how I relate to other people. Since my diagnosis I’ve come to understand the way I move through the world, the physicality of being autistic, and, more importantly, I’ve been able to put in measures to help manage it. I don’t have an official diagnosis of Sensory Processing Disorder; it was intimated in my assessment and to get it on paper I’d have to go private. Besides, knowing that sensory things are an issue for me seems to be enough.

Having thought about…

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What love looks like

I’m not sure what’s going on with me at the moment. My sensory processing disorder is worsening. In my last post (Travelling) I mentioned how car travel is increasingly difficult. There are lots of other things too.

Next weekend is StitchFest down in Totnes, Devon. It’s one and a half to two hours away. I really want to go. I want to handle fibre before I buy it. I want to smell it. I want to soak up the atmosphere that such an event inspires.

I don’t know if I can actually do it… the traveling, walking in to two unknown venues, the lighting, the noise, being unexpectedly touched, flickering screens, low level spot lights…

I’ve been in tears trying to decide whether I should go, or not, or go, or not… Yes, I meant to write that twice.

What love is, dear reader, is Lovely Husband’s answer. I don’t have to decide until the day. If we get halfway there and I say I can’t go on, he’ll turn back. If I get to the door and I can’t go in, we’ll turn back. If I’m in there one minute, 5 minutes… we’ll turn back. To him I am not wasting his time, not wasting money on fuel, not wasting money on an entry fee… To Lovely Husband the important thing is that I get to try.

Autism: Ear muffs And Grocery Stores

Noise cancelling headphones help me access public spaces but as I’ve mentioned before, not all reactions from others are positive…