How I handle transitions

The glib answer: it's 4.20 a.m., I'm not intending to sleep tonight, I didn't manage to get dressed until about 5 p.m., and the only medication I've taken in the past 24 hours is the antidepressant I get horrible withdrawal from if I don't, how do you think.

The marginally less glib answer: badly.

The actually informative one: oh, goodness, I don't know. My current major stressor is that I was supposed to get the keys to my new place (I'm moving! into a lovely flat with a six gas ring hob, and beautiful granite work surfaces, and a back garden, and gorgeous built-in bookshelves in my bedroom! with a kinky poly trans lesbian working at the mathsy end of computer sciences!) on Thursday morning; Shenanigans Ensued, and I will now not be able to move in until the 3rd of January, but my rent on the Den of Christians is up as of 10.30 a.m. I have sorted things out such that I am also not paying rent on the sodding thing until then, but - this still leaves me in a situation where I have a carload of stuff with me in London, no particular desire to take it back up to Cambridge over the two weeks when I have nowhere in London to live (not least because I have a second carload of kitchen equipment that wants to come back with me in aforementioned car, plus some seating I didn't manage to bring with in the first round), and - the obvious solution, which is "transport it all to my cubicle in the department and leave it there." Plus some more shenanigans to do with "by yourself, because everyone is busy", "you can't drive", "you'd feel bad asking for help", and "you only have access to your building 7am-11pm."

This is a major contributor to my being a bit mad at the moment. Not the entirety of the problem, by a long way - other issues include "new trauma for people I love", "doctors trained to fucking practise", "trying to get another round of chemistry done before the break", "the fucking situation with the fucking assertiveness course" (generally improving, but still kinda hellacious taken on a timescale of the last two weeks) and "missing a counselling session".

Several of which are, well, also to do with transitions: to a new GP I haven't yet trained; still establishing relationship with new counsellor, though that's generally doing well; handling my competence issues with respect to being a new PhD student and ~getting enough done~; adding "carer" to the range of roles applied to a particular person...

... and what it boils down to is this: in situations where I know what I'm doing, I have control, and influence of external factors is minimal I'm generally pretty good at coping with change.

But in situations where I feel a strong need to be perceived as competent, my actions are largely contingent on other people not cocking things up, and I don't actually have control? Everything goes kind of to shit, Q.E.D.

I suspect at least some of this is related to the old autism, in that when I am under pressure but my range of options is limited, my executive function is one of the first things to go. Plus, of course, finding it really difficult to judge what other people think of me, whether I'm doing enough, etc etc etc. It is all very tedious. And perhaps if this had been asked on another day, when I wasn't doing the fucking stupid thing I am currently, you'd have got a more thoughtful and less sweary answer, but to be honest it would probably contain the same bare-bones response. So there we go.

The dream of the new year

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

... says Neil Gaiman, at intervals, and I know that he is dreadful, and I take issue with the idea of good madness (at least for myself); and yet - and yet, this.

Because: the days are getting longer, and light is seeping back into the world. Because I've made it halfway through winter. Because it reminds me to find other people wonderful, and to trust that others might feel similarly about me; because it reminds me to dare to make art.

And: yes, I don't think a changing number in the Gregorian calendar makes a huge difference to What Things Will Be Like, but - it's a useful milestone; a useful waymarker at which to lay down one's load and consider the path ahead. So that's the dream, maybe, but I don't think it's an unrealistic one: that I might have choice, and the space to choose wisely.