The dreaded ROUTINE

At the very CORE of my Asperger's syndrome, front and center (mostly center), lies the dreaded ROUTINE.  The routine is the thing that gives me the most frustration.  For one, if it gets effed, my attitude becomes very, very bad.  Temper-tantruming, reduced to a 3-year-old girl, outta my way, buster, bad.  As you've probably guessed, this and parenting do not go together.  The routine plus STEPparenting....even worse.  My day-to-day has a plan.  A very strict and rigid plan.  I can change the plan with a slight head pain, as long as another plan is replacing it, but if someone ELSE messes with my plans, it's like a drill bit pushing slowly through my head.  The more the routine is changed, the angrier and more irrational I become.  Lord help the person who changes my plans and gives me no backup instructions.  It goes a little like this:

"By the way, I know you weren't supposed to have the kids today, but their usual care provider is busy, so you'll have the Little Man for the rest of the day."
"Um.....I have PLANS!"
"Sorry.  Just found out about it ten minutes ago."
"But....what am I supposed to DO?  I have the day PLANNED."
"I don't know.  Figure it out."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! *TAZMANIAN DEVIL SPINNY HEAD MOVE* AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!"

Then I'm a totally frazzled jerk for the rest of the day.  No one can speak to me.  Little chatters and giggles make me what to ram blunted sporks into my eyes, and that's on a GOOD day.  If whining, fighting, purposeful annoyance of a brother occurs, it's over.  Everyone (including me) is in time out for 2 hours.

It builds, as well.  If the routine goes bad one day, it sucks.  If it goes bad two days in a row, it's a nightmare.  If I don't get back on track more than 2 to 3 days in a row, I begin to implode.  The inevitable temper tantrum rises up, and *poof* I need to hide in a sound-proof bathroom alone with things to throw.

The dreaded ROUTINE is something that I can't really explain.  "You can't plan every minute of every day of your life, Karen."  Sounds simple, yes?  NO.  Maybe I can't do it, but I NEED to do it.  In fact, I DO do it.  I plan exactly what needs to happen the next day in my head before I go to bed every morning.  So, I CAN, in fact, plan every minute of every day of my life.  It's when it doesn't go according to that plan is when the problems start.

I just realized that I'm only wearing one earring.  Eff it all, I just bought these, and now I seem to have lost one.  How does someone not notice a neon green earring falling out and onto the ground?  Seriously!  I suppose this blog is over.  I need to go look for the damn thing now, and I can't solve my stupid routine problem, anyway.

The Introduction

I suppose I better tell you a little bit about me and what this blog will mostly be about.  The basics, my name is Karen.  I'm 31 years old.  I'm engaged to be married to the most wonderful (and patient) man on the planet next July.  Eric and I have been together for a smidge over three years, and I will be the future stepmother to the Big Man, age 6, and the Little Man, age 4.  Eric and I have the kids (hereafter referred to as the dudes) full time.  About two and a half months ago or so, after 16 years in the workforce, I quit my job in order to become a stay-at-home mom.  I was juggling a lot with 40 hours a week, plus being a full-time university student and a full-time mom to the dudes.  Eric works 40 to 50 hours a week, sometimes more, at two jobs, plus he's an amazing dad.  Something had to give.  I'm still adjusting to the change.

This blog will be about LOADS of things.  My head never stays in one place for long.  There will be loads of stuff about my opinions on motherhood, I'm sure, along with quite a few stories from my past (I've got some good ones), and I'm sure quite a bit about fashion, which is my number one hobby.  My PASSION, however, is school.  I'm a junior at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.  I'm a political science major.  I have a 4.0 GPA, and I'm not slowing down.  I freak out if I get a B, seriously, and beg for extra credit to make sure I don't lose my GPA.  The blog will likely have loads of school freak abouts.

That seems a good segue.  About a year ago, I was in a history class, and there was this guy.  He just wouldn't shut up.  Class after class after class, in the middle of lecture, at least a dozen times a class, he'd raise his hand to ask a question.  The question always began with "Isn't it true that.....?" and always ended with him trying to display some sort of knowledge that the professor hadn't bestowed upon us or the opposite of what our professor had just said.  He didn't really want his questions answered, he was showing off.  He wanted affirmation that he was right and the professor was wrong, or that he was smarter than the rest of us.  I like need to stay on schedule.  This, it was taking time out of my scheduled class time.  He was injecting information that was not going to be on my exams.  I am NOT okay with that.  As it was, I yelled at him.  In the middle of class.  And then I cried in front of everyone.  A psychologist was suggested.  A few weeks later, I walked out of the office with a shiny new diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome/high-functioning autism.

Thirty years of my life began to make sense.

Autistics Speaking Day

So, here goes.  My first blog post.  This blog was inspired by Autistics Speaking Day today, which is in response to something called the Communication Shutdown.  An event created with good intentions, but I think it misses the mark just a little bit.  The Communication Shutdown (misnomer IMO), encourages neurotypical people to log off Facebook and Twitter for the day to stand in solidarity with the autistic community.  Apparently, if you stay off FB for the day, you will know what it is like to be a "silent" autistic.  Uh...PFFFFF.  As it is, Autistics Speaking Day is part counter event, part co-event.  Members of the autistic community are a bit weary about the Communication Shutdown because:

1. Autistic people are not silent, online or offline.
2. Non-autistic people will have no more clue what autistic people's lives are like simply by staying off of Facebook for a day, because while they are avoiding their computer, they are still not autistic.
3. The invention of the Internet has prevented autistic people from feeling so isolated. Autistic people use social networking sites, forums, and blogs to talk to other autistic people, and even nonverbal autistics or autistics who have difficulty effectively communicating have an opportunity to socialize online.

That list is straight from the Autistic Speaking Day FB page.  Oh, look, I figured out how to make a link!!!  Anyway, so that's the reason for the beginning of this blog.  I'll go ahead and start a new post for the good stuff.