Quite a bit of work to do. That feeling of life stuckness I had before? Well I just got a kick to move. This will probably, realistically, reduce my availability in terms of doing things I really want to do. (Like worldbuilding for my latest project.) That's a sad side-effect of adulting.
But, hey. It's responsibility. (Funny thing is...I was, when I was young, in the mindset where I swore I would never grow up: I knew my body would age, and I knew my life would change, but I promised not to grow up. Horrifically, as an adult...I feel like I succeeded. As in...I have many many many childlike aspects about me: naivety, imagination, immature emotions, fragility, frailty, lack of understanding of the world around me, and yes. Lack of responsibility. Kids half my age can usually manage their daily lives better than I can, because they're on the road to learning things like jobs, work, and whatnot, having conquered things like what to eat and hygiene. Not so with me!)
And responsibility is a good thing. Sad thing, sure, yeah. But good thing. It's a good sadness. It's an important sadness. But anyway. This change was spurned on by my counseling appointment, which my mom came along for. My mom has some misunderstandings, my counselor doesn't know my full life, and between those two there's not perfect communication, but they did share insight which the other didn't have, allowing between the two an effective brainstorm of, "this might actually be a good thing"!
Among them, a previously-mentioned idea of going back to college and getting a good education out of it to keep my skills sharp, not to mention, to network to the current individuals in the field. (My contacts are two years stale.) Yet this, while good and productive in of itself, would serve as the perfect excuse for a ruse, of sorts: my college has a !cishet support group, apparently, and both my mom and my counselor have been encouraging me to network with people in real life.
Now, neither knows (at least I don't think either knows) that I've actually met with an online contact in real life, but it only happened once (and I am a complete abysmal utter failure at followthrough since they offered to do so again and I even accepted the offer but while they sent the info on times/dates we could meet I never got back to them which is a stupidity on my part and since they are a blog reader I can tell them I am deeply sorry about that; in a sense you could say I stood them up), and both my mom and counselor agree I need something regular.
I did have the NaNoWriMo meetup (which both know a little about), but that's the closest I've gotten to networking--and I didn't really follow through on that, either. So basically, what the plan is, is to force me into something where I will follow through.
I have a decent record at starting to explore on my own--quite an excellent one, in fact. I have almost as low as possible a record on actually keeping on track and following through on my own. Sometimes, I do; most times, I don't. Out of all the promises I've made, whether to others or to myself, I'm pretty sure that I've got a 95-5 split between failure-success at minimum. (Granted, part of the problem there is that I have a tendency to make a lot of promises, often unrealistic ones, but that's arguably one of my most noble traits and I'd rather not lose it. I don't want to break promises, but ideally I do so by honoring them/succeeding, rather than by simply not making promises.)
Basically: this has been a self-feeding cycle. I needed a push to get going. I lacked people to give it to me. So I sought people out, initially, that would help give me the push. But because I didn't have them and still don't, I wasn't given the push to follow through on that initial search and thus I didn't get going, rendering me needing a push to get going because I lacked people to give it to me...
...You get the idea. This is making effort to break the cycle, to give me those people and that network to force me to have those pushes. This is not something easy to do, but I have just enough support where I might be able to actually get it done.
Another thing I was given was a printout of DVR (Division of Vocational Rehabilitation), which is basically next on my to-do list. I don't know exactly how broad that program is, if it's international, across the country, or just a my-state thing. I suspect that even if it's just a my-state thing, that something similar exists not only across the country but also internationally, just with the exact specifics changing from place to place.
To describe what DVR is because I'm assuming until I have evidence otherwise this is a my-state thing (and I'm pretty sure the number of readers on my blog from my own state of Washington can be counted on one hand--maybe even one finger), basically, it's for people with disabilities (which between autism and bipolar disorder just among the absolutely confirmed ones I definitely qualify for), to help provide them with services to get/keep jobs.
While I do technically have a job (one reason my mom didn't think of this), there's apparently no rule saying you're disqualified just because you work four hours a week at a part-time minimum-wage job you've held for years. (Well, technically, 75 cents above minimum wage for me. And this being Washington, that's a pretty dang high minimum.)
The hope there is that because it's easily shown that, yes, I have a disability, and yes, I have a proven difficulty with work, so that they can help me, giving me the resources I need to be independent, the ultimate goal. (Because, yeah. I need to be independent.)
I'm sure there's a ton more, but I can't think of it. My mind's flooded, overwhelmed, by the info processing, so I suppose this will have to do, aside from a final disclaimer. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I've begun tagging categories for my blog entries--but I don't always do this consistently, nor is this a retroactive thing. Meaning, you're only going to see tagged the entries I've made on a subject since having started the tagging, something I've been doing...well, not very long. A couple weeks or so? Some limited time thing like that.
If I think of anything else, I'll make a follow-through entry.
But, hey. It's responsibility. (Funny thing is...I was, when I was young, in the mindset where I swore I would never grow up: I knew my body would age, and I knew my life would change, but I promised not to grow up. Horrifically, as an adult...I feel like I succeeded. As in...I have many many many childlike aspects about me: naivety, imagination, immature emotions, fragility, frailty, lack of understanding of the world around me, and yes. Lack of responsibility. Kids half my age can usually manage their daily lives better than I can, because they're on the road to learning things like jobs, work, and whatnot, having conquered things like what to eat and hygiene. Not so with me!)
And responsibility is a good thing. Sad thing, sure, yeah. But good thing. It's a good sadness. It's an important sadness. But anyway. This change was spurned on by my counseling appointment, which my mom came along for. My mom has some misunderstandings, my counselor doesn't know my full life, and between those two there's not perfect communication, but they did share insight which the other didn't have, allowing between the two an effective brainstorm of, "this might actually be a good thing"!
Among them, a previously-mentioned idea of going back to college and getting a good education out of it to keep my skills sharp, not to mention, to network to the current individuals in the field. (My contacts are two years stale.) Yet this, while good and productive in of itself, would serve as the perfect excuse for a ruse, of sorts: my college has a !cishet support group, apparently, and both my mom and my counselor have been encouraging me to network with people in real life.
Now, neither knows (at least I don't think either knows) that I've actually met with an online contact in real life, but it only happened once (and I am a complete abysmal utter failure at followthrough since they offered to do so again and I even accepted the offer but while they sent the info on times/dates we could meet I never got back to them which is a stupidity on my part and since they are a blog reader I can tell them I am deeply sorry about that; in a sense you could say I stood them up), and both my mom and counselor agree I need something regular.
I did have the NaNoWriMo meetup (which both know a little about), but that's the closest I've gotten to networking--and I didn't really follow through on that, either. So basically, what the plan is, is to force me into something where I will follow through.
I have a decent record at starting to explore on my own--quite an excellent one, in fact. I have almost as low as possible a record on actually keeping on track and following through on my own. Sometimes, I do; most times, I don't. Out of all the promises I've made, whether to others or to myself, I'm pretty sure that I've got a 95-5 split between failure-success at minimum. (Granted, part of the problem there is that I have a tendency to make a lot of promises, often unrealistic ones, but that's arguably one of my most noble traits and I'd rather not lose it. I don't want to break promises, but ideally I do so by honoring them/succeeding, rather than by simply not making promises.)
Basically: this has been a self-feeding cycle. I needed a push to get going. I lacked people to give it to me. So I sought people out, initially, that would help give me the push. But because I didn't have them and still don't, I wasn't given the push to follow through on that initial search and thus I didn't get going, rendering me needing a push to get going because I lacked people to give it to me...
...You get the idea. This is making effort to break the cycle, to give me those people and that network to force me to have those pushes. This is not something easy to do, but I have just enough support where I might be able to actually get it done.
Another thing I was given was a printout of DVR (Division of Vocational Rehabilitation), which is basically next on my to-do list. I don't know exactly how broad that program is, if it's international, across the country, or just a my-state thing. I suspect that even if it's just a my-state thing, that something similar exists not only across the country but also internationally, just with the exact specifics changing from place to place.
To describe what DVR is because I'm assuming until I have evidence otherwise this is a my-state thing (and I'm pretty sure the number of readers on my blog from my own state of Washington can be counted on one hand--maybe even one finger), basically, it's for people with disabilities (which between autism and bipolar disorder just among the absolutely confirmed ones I definitely qualify for), to help provide them with services to get/keep jobs.
While I do technically have a job (one reason my mom didn't think of this), there's apparently no rule saying you're disqualified just because you work four hours a week at a part-time minimum-wage job you've held for years. (Well, technically, 75 cents above minimum wage for me. And this being Washington, that's a pretty dang high minimum.)
The hope there is that because it's easily shown that, yes, I have a disability, and yes, I have a proven difficulty with work, so that they can help me, giving me the resources I need to be independent, the ultimate goal. (Because, yeah. I need to be independent.)
I'm sure there's a ton more, but I can't think of it. My mind's flooded, overwhelmed, by the info processing, so I suppose this will have to do, aside from a final disclaimer. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I've begun tagging categories for my blog entries--but I don't always do this consistently, nor is this a retroactive thing. Meaning, you're only going to see tagged the entries I've made on a subject since having started the tagging, something I've been doing...well, not very long. A couple weeks or so? Some limited time thing like that.
If I think of anything else, I'll make a follow-through entry.
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