This week tried my patience rather extensively, and also added a new supplement to my routine.
Free time activities are, I think, supposed to be either fun or meaningful. Or both. You work for a living (and maybe you love your work too, but most people don't have that luxury). But when you're done with work, you go home or go to some other space, and decide what to do with yourself. Maybe that's volunteering at a pet shelter, or maybe it's marathon-watching TV shows on Netflix. Either way, what you do is probably either fun or meaningful to you. You can even fold doing chores into this, because the meaningful thing you're acquiring by doing chores is "a pleasant home environment."
This last week's activities, other than the time I spent at the Autism Support of Kent County meeting and the time spent walking with a friend, I would firmly classify as "neither fun nor meaningful." I am, suffice it to say, kind of down about the whole thing.
Friday and Saturday, I attended some group activities in the computer game my spouse and I play together. Normally that's at least somewhat fun, because the people are generally decent and it's cool to see that part of the content. But I'm doing rather poorly with my individual contributions, and it's not going unnoticed. That makes me feel bad about myself, and these activities are 5 hours of my week, so it's not exactly a short time we're talking about here.
Additionally, the leader of the group has been downright mean to most of the group in the last couple months, and it's really starting to wear on me. There are literally dozens of places I could go if I wanted people to be mean to me, I don't really want that invading my fun, too.
Then on Monday, I returned to try to stick out the D&D game I complained about last Friday. The one with the rigid, childish group leader that insisted that everything I did in the actual game was wrong and that I needed to change it all immediately, without admitting an ounce of fault on his part.
I'd kind of hoped that maybe if I could do things the way he wanted, I'd at least be accepted... but nope. I got disparaging comments when I wasn't being ignored, and what little time I did spend roleplaying, I proceeded to do very poorly at and feel terrible about afterwards.
The crowning barbs on that experience were that literally everyone else was having a great time, including my spouse, and so it was just me being sad and lonely and extremely disappointed with everything. I was really going to try to stick out this mini-campaign until it was done, but I'm not sure subjecting myself to that level of pain is worth the satisfaction of seeing the story through, or getting to play the character concept I came up with.
So I'm mentally kicking around non-offensive ways to bow out of the campaign, such as, "I'm not handling my workload on Mondays/Tuesdays well when I attend this game," and "a family member is ill and I'm cutting out various evening obligations to help care for them," but both of those are lies. The real reason is that the DM handled my differences like a spoiled toddler and I don't see the point in subjecting myself to emotional agony every Monday... but you can't say that in polite company. I also don't want to ruin my spouse's fun in the game by leaving on a very sour note, because they know I'm his spouse and they'll associate my actions with him.
Feh. I'll think of something. Or lie through my teeth like a "normal" person.
In happier news, I've added CoQ10 to my supplements lineup. I'm not super happy about having yet another pill to take, but considering the algae and such, having additional detoxification support isn't a bad idea. I haven't noticed any super-exciting developments in the week since I started taking it, but it's probably not hurting anything.
In the same vein, I'm trying to eat broccoli sprouts on a daily basis now. You're familiar with the health benefits of broccoli, I'm sure. It's a powerhouse of vitamins and minerals, along with providing lots of fiber and very possibly fighting cancer. The same chemical that supposedly fights cancer (sulforaphane) also has some research that shows it helps with treating some symptoms of autism. (Symptoms like depression, communication difficulties, and anxiety, specifically.)
While I'm not really sure how much that's going to apply to me, eating broccoli sprouts and young broccoli is most likely not going to harm me (other than the taste, blech), so trying to add it to at least one meal a day is a good plan. My current default meal is chopping the stuff up really good and then putting it on my sprouted grain bread and nut butter sandwiches. It looks super weird, but the nut butter politely drowns out the flavor, so I'm calling it a success.
Free time activities are, I think, supposed to be either fun or meaningful. Or both. You work for a living (and maybe you love your work too, but most people don't have that luxury). But when you're done with work, you go home or go to some other space, and decide what to do with yourself. Maybe that's volunteering at a pet shelter, or maybe it's marathon-watching TV shows on Netflix. Either way, what you do is probably either fun or meaningful to you. You can even fold doing chores into this, because the meaningful thing you're acquiring by doing chores is "a pleasant home environment."
This last week's activities, other than the time I spent at the Autism Support of Kent County meeting and the time spent walking with a friend, I would firmly classify as "neither fun nor meaningful." I am, suffice it to say, kind of down about the whole thing.
Friday and Saturday, I attended some group activities in the computer game my spouse and I play together. Normally that's at least somewhat fun, because the people are generally decent and it's cool to see that part of the content. But I'm doing rather poorly with my individual contributions, and it's not going unnoticed. That makes me feel bad about myself, and these activities are 5 hours of my week, so it's not exactly a short time we're talking about here.
Additionally, the leader of the group has been downright mean to most of the group in the last couple months, and it's really starting to wear on me. There are literally dozens of places I could go if I wanted people to be mean to me, I don't really want that invading my fun, too.
Then on Monday, I returned to try to stick out the D&D game I complained about last Friday. The one with the rigid, childish group leader that insisted that everything I did in the actual game was wrong and that I needed to change it all immediately, without admitting an ounce of fault on his part.
I'd kind of hoped that maybe if I could do things the way he wanted, I'd at least be accepted... but nope. I got disparaging comments when I wasn't being ignored, and what little time I did spend roleplaying, I proceeded to do very poorly at and feel terrible about afterwards.
The crowning barbs on that experience were that literally everyone else was having a great time, including my spouse, and so it was just me being sad and lonely and extremely disappointed with everything. I was really going to try to stick out this mini-campaign until it was done, but I'm not sure subjecting myself to that level of pain is worth the satisfaction of seeing the story through, or getting to play the character concept I came up with.
So I'm mentally kicking around non-offensive ways to bow out of the campaign, such as, "I'm not handling my workload on Mondays/Tuesdays well when I attend this game," and "a family member is ill and I'm cutting out various evening obligations to help care for them," but both of those are lies. The real reason is that the DM handled my differences like a spoiled toddler and I don't see the point in subjecting myself to emotional agony every Monday... but you can't say that in polite company. I also don't want to ruin my spouse's fun in the game by leaving on a very sour note, because they know I'm his spouse and they'll associate my actions with him.
Feh. I'll think of something. Or lie through my teeth like a "normal" person.
In happier news, I've added CoQ10 to my supplements lineup. I'm not super happy about having yet another pill to take, but considering the algae and such, having additional detoxification support isn't a bad idea. I haven't noticed any super-exciting developments in the week since I started taking it, but it's probably not hurting anything.
In the same vein, I'm trying to eat broccoli sprouts on a daily basis now. You're familiar with the health benefits of broccoli, I'm sure. It's a powerhouse of vitamins and minerals, along with providing lots of fiber and very possibly fighting cancer. The same chemical that supposedly fights cancer (sulforaphane) also has some research that shows it helps with treating some symptoms of autism. (Symptoms like depression, communication difficulties, and anxiety, specifically.)
While I'm not really sure how much that's going to apply to me, eating broccoli sprouts and young broccoli is most likely not going to harm me (other than the taste, blech), so trying to add it to at least one meal a day is a good plan. My current default meal is chopping the stuff up really good and then putting it on my sprouted grain bread and nut butter sandwiches. It looks super weird, but the nut butter politely drowns out the flavor, so I'm calling it a success.
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