I have a very autistic, very avoidable problem right now. Well the beginning part was not avoidable but how bad it got could have been I guess.

Last Tuesday I scalded my leg. I am hypo-sensitive and have had operations so what I feel isn’t always there. I had had a number of near misses with boiling water and managed to break my teapot as well so although I diligently checked the first 4 or so times this time I didn’t. I changed my pajamas without much thought and moved on.

The next night as I came in from my dogs last use of the outdoor facilities I found my pajamas were again wet and my leg hurt. That time I checked and what I saw was a fairly large burn had burst. Worse it was on an area where I had had surgery which explained a bit combined with the whole hypo sensitive thing how what looked like a very bad burn could be missed.

Any of that could happen and not point to an issue with how autistic adults are supported here. It’s that 10 days after the burn that it hasn’t been attended to that bothers me.

My case-manager alarmed not to hear from me for a few days before this came to check that I was alive the day after this happened. I mentioned it hoping she or my doctor would think to set things up in a less alarming way because he whole let’s go to the clinic now or hospital doesn’t now and has never worked for me.

When I saw my doctor on Tuesday a lot of it was taken up with my case manager quitting. Or my being pressed into opting out of it. I cannot talk to strangers on the phone. It’s one of those strange places where my ability to lead an adult life breaks down.

I had been aggravating in a number of ways I guess including wanting t see that doctor over another but which choice I should make was never spelled out. I prefer to see the one who kind of helps with the others as I know they don’t all have a solid handle sometimes on even things like how much I understand as the jerkiest of them probably never hear me speak. I am not getting started on how I feel on that topic.

So now with no help at all I have to go out into the world. Even the nicest doctor is going to be a bit upset by this whole taking ten days to do anything. My life is stressful and avoiding things that will blow my brain apart takes time.

It’s bad. I know it was actually quite bad from the start but ten days of neglect didn’t help it. That transitions are hard is a known thing so I can’t wrap my head totally around the fact that the obvious solution of simply arranging a support person to come the next day didn’t happen. I have frequently asked about these support workers. I have had two times in 3 months times when they showed up in my life, Once was for 3 seconds and the other time as transportation. What I need is actual support.

So I sit here scared. I sit here wishing I was not an adult as this is not something I can do alone.

I sit here wondering why when I have so many medical issues and life issues it is actually ethical to decrease support. It doesn’t feel ethical.

I get I am “impossible”. Well I am not actually. That was where I felt frustrated enough to opt out of something I need a bit too fast. I had explained the ground rules for communicating with me too many times it felt like. It should be simple. I mean what I say. If I say I can only manage one doctor a day and no more than three a week (did I mention it’s been a horrible year?) I suppose much like the joke about the man who says I love you and years later tells his wife he would have let her know if it changed, I feel like that’s the rule my appointments should go by.

If I say way too many times that I can’t cope with the bright lights, the noise and the often dehumanizing treatment of me that takes place in our E.R.’s there are solutions. If I could make phone calls I could likely arrange them but nope. I have a specialist for most things including fixing gruesome things so if I were my own case manager I would have contacted him and arranged him to take a look at it in the clinic for that. I am not a good healer so every wound I get is a complicated one and well my life plots against me I think.

None of that happened. Now I have no hope of less stress care. No real hope to be honest of being treated with respect as although this was an accident people will doubt it. People when I do not look at them will joke among themselves as if I am deaf.

Yet I have a life I am attached to. Responsibilities and desires. I am also as my rabbi helpfully reminded me a Jew. Not sure why he reminds me of this so often. The whole life is sacred but my life being a bit of a pain in the posterior to manage is one of the most complicated parts of being one. Hebrew is hard if you have no visual processing skills and dyslexia but clinging to notions that your life is sacred when all around you people are making jokes about your distress is hard.

So obviously I have to act. Fall into a void I know will be filled with horrors. So of I go with my heart hammering. There is no comfort object large enough for this task. Skipping it and just waiting to go to temple is tempting but not correct. I waited until the world was darker but there are more ways to deal with light and noise than the cruelty of people.

I am not afraid of any procedures this will involve. I know they are not pleasant but it is the people at the other end of the rubber glove that terrify me. The random mean things they say. I doubt I will fall apart so badly someone will compare the care of me to the care of an animal as has happened but there is a lot of room from there to compassionate acceptance.

I don’t know for sure I will be able to explain what happened as I know multiple people will want to know that. It seems really dumb even for me except this is my life.

A really concrete example of life as an autistic adult. I sometimes feel like the most inept autistic adult out there when I see what people are dong and saying but I know of course others struggle. Others have little issues that become big because where they intersect with the world is too unbearable.

So I will dress and launch myself out the door into Shabbat. Not one of peace I suspect but Shabbat can surprise me. Please let it surprise me. Please let the people surprise me.

Shabbat Shalom.