OU blog

Personal Blogs

Malcolm Taylor

Friends

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Malcolm Taylor, Tuesday, 12 Jun 2018, 21:07

Right first of all catch up, I have finshed my 4th TMA and I decided to run yesterday, 11th, and well I tried in 27C to run 5 mile I got 3.5 miles and a tiny bit of heat stoke. Then a sensory overload because of the heatstroke- I don't like heat.

This topic is going to be a kinda fun one because the only I can describe somethings are going to describe or explain I might have to use song lyrics. I am hopfully going to talk about friends or at least my idea of friendship.

This is kinda common some people with autism have rules, as with everything we have rules. I will run through my basic rules to show how bad some of these can be. If i can i will try to explain so of them.

1) Have to be able to keep up with me mentally- so if can speak to them and don't have to dumb anything down.

2) Have to be female- its a precourtion most males are either agressive and/or posessive through evoultion so stop me mimicing or adopting any traits.

3) Have to be paitent- I tend to deither around so paitents helps also if they are calm, I should be.

4) Should be understanding- I tend either not to listen or I if i shutdown, I hope they understand.

5) Have to be accepting- I don't like bigots,racists or people who try and sway views.

Right these are basic rules from there more rules spring off. I will run through the stages of friendship for me aswell i think most are accepted but i will run through them anyway.

Stage 1) accquantice

Stage 2) higher accquantice- Males go no higher then here.

Stage 3) Outline friend- most people who fit the rules end here (This is where the rules start to apply)

Stage 4) Friend- have one or two people between here and stage 5

Stage 5) Fixed Friend- More commonly known as a best friend

So its quite hard to fit on to the scale. That was the idea because i got bullied from a young age this was my way of filtering out fake friends.

All of this is basic of logic, not common sense partly because i have very little but also have and keeping friends needs emotions. I don't have a big enough emotional range and the higher up the stage the more emotional envolement you are meant to have with them. Some people have to me they are just friends, but i am meant to look after friends. If I lose that connecton with someon in that stage4-5 its more like 'Since you been gone' - Rainbow. It's relivent and a bad pun at the same time tongueout . I think that is enough because i will be cover some of this in the Gender blog later on.

Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Malcolm Taylor

My Life

Visible to anyone in the world

As today is the last day of autism awareness month I would like to share how life with autism is well to me anyway. I going to spilt this in to three bits: Emotions, danger and life.


Emotions: In general I have three emotions these are happy, sad and angry. I can't laugh (as in i make a face but no sound comes out) although i can mimic laughter each mimic of laughter is my gauge of how funny something is. To me there is no inbetween i am one of those three. When I was around year 5 to year 6 I got bored with just having these emotions, partly because i couldn't connect with anybody but also because I couldn't see from points of view only my own which is purely logical which caused issues beacuse i could take in more things then anyone in my class but my teachers couldn't really understand me although they could teach me. So I made what i called a 'Synthetic Emotion Chip' in this i put all the emotions i thought i should have like annoyed, excited and worried I think now i have around 15 'synthetic' emotions this doesn't always work but it better then not understanding someone i really want to help. An added bonus is i can turn of my 'emotion chip' when needed.


Danger: This one is an odd one where I overthink so i can see dangers before they happen. The example I use is if two cars, one going up a road the other down, are coming to a point where they meet. The three I see at least are what I call  a safe vision, a mild vision and a extreme vision these look like.                                                                                                                                                          

A Safe-  they pass it other keeping on their side of the road and no harm is done.

A Mild- They clip each other but all is well

A Extreme- The hit head on and bust in to flames anyone who was in the cars or near them is dead. 

Also the other issues I have are not seeing cars or noticing any danger coming towards me so have learnt to bounce, I'm pretty sure I am made of putty.


Life: As I have said I overthink but my life is full of bits i can't filter like that but i see things like this pretty much every step. I don't cope well with lound noises, people, touching or lots of light. I swear i was meant to be a bat. I don't really have friends or what I will call friends. I think I have one or two but thats it. I can see things from other people's point of view but its hard to unstand my own. I tic pretty much constantly whenever i have an emotional reaction which isnt good especially  when you don't want to look like a panda. It may sound like hard work or hell to me this is life I've learnt how to control certain bits  like the twiching... to a point. 


So Please be Autistic aware Some people may have issues worse then me or better but all we want is to be treated with respected and not looked at like we are odd. smile 

Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Malcolm Taylor

Crash goes the car

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Malcolm Taylor, Monday, 30 Apr 2018, 22:19

This month has been busy. To make sure ive understood this because my head its still spinning. I have been working now two months going all over devon, I have caught up with friends i lost contact with, I raced in my C1, had a car accident (more on that one later), had  lesson for my OU course and finshed my TMA.  Thats pretty condensed and with all this i had 2 meltdowns. 

Right, Im going to spend most of this post explainig this silly accident. I should say I wasn't driving. A couple weeks ago me and my mum were going down to training. As my mum was looking  up the juction the car go hit  on the rear, the number plate came off, I was the only one in the car that was calm and making lots of inaproriate jokes, many i can't say on here. We then chose to abanoned training to go head home to phone the insurance people.  No one worry we are both fine. The car had to be repaired though. So we had a hire car... It was a hybrid -_- but not a prius. 

My lesson about sociology, or what the OU is calling it: the social sciences, has been so drull because we have been larening about a street, in Cardiff, in Wales. I live in Devon, in England... How is it meant to be relatable? If you live in wales i can see why its relatable. Now its picking up we are learning about supermarkets. Its still boring but at least i can look at a supermarket or go in one. After this i think we are looking at how and why things are being thrown away. 

The TMA has been fun, I had to plan, where theres autism, theres a plan- usally for or against autism. I do like plans, i can have some order. The down side was the plan had to be a page long- its way to short for a plan it needs to be at least two three pages long. Then I had to use the plan, i finished my TMA in two hours. Then back to work. My life is fun, if i'm not studying, i'm working if i am not doing either of that im training. 

This has been quite a short post but there is so much happening i can't process all of it. I am still quite surpirsed ive had two meltdowns.  smile 

Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Malcolm Taylor

First assignment back and Second assignment done

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Malcolm Taylor, Monday, 19 Mar 2018, 14:39

I got my first assignment back and I PASSED!!! I only had minor things wrongs things like grammar and choosing the wrong words. Now I have to do my second assignment which is now done. (As of 15/03/18). In both I had to do a self-reflection, the only way I could do them was answered them was logically especially the ones where they asked how I felt. I know the questions are for the majority but they would have thought of things that mean people with ASD, especially people on a different part of the spectrum would be to a minimum and that they wouldn't be stumped by things, even if the wording is changed for them. That isn't always the case I have been figuring out. The tutors each have different marking ideas and the book has a rough understanding as well. So both together will make your mark. I am lucky enough to have an understanding of both sides of that coin it fair to say most with ASD won't understand both.

I have a study buddy now, they seem quite good at looking at things differently. I don't know what it is and please people can answer. I only go to face to face tutorials but people always seem anxious and nervous. Why does everyone seem so negative whilst looking at things?  Surely that will hinder their grades and people around them? 

My paddling is going well apart from all the snow we are having in Devon. I hope at some point I can get back onto the water, just training on land is becoming really boring. I have a traineeship thingy, I really don't know what to call it. I help or work with CAMHS (Children and Adolescence Mental Health Service) so balancing this, paddling, OU and other parts of life, which luckily I really don't have, get a bit tricky in place but seems all to be pointing in the right way. So I can only hope for the best.

In other parts of life somewhere between my first assignment and my second I was allowed to show the Young Devon EH4MH Hub group part of my beliefs; Taoism and some meditation techniques which may help them. The Hub group is full of really nice people. It quite nice to see people take on new ideas which go against there own ideas or beliefs; if it is to expand there ideal or expand on what is life. If anyone is interested please have a look: http://www.youngdevon.org/contact?partner_id=650

Permalink Add your comment
Share post

This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.

Total visits to this blog: 20039