The disabled week

It's two weeks this Friday so today I'm making a second day in the week post which is as well as I have been very busy this week.

One thing I have been doing is working on copying using the dbPoweramp program from Illustrate, a number  of cds to the micro sd cards used by new music player that I hadn't gotten around to so for example I have a complete set of Adele's cds and studio recordings by Genesis stored with a full set of original album art.
I think the bigger thing though is I have been getting more to grips with feeling at one with who I am, not least the way those disabilities make me and my life the way it is given much of the way encouraged when I was younger amounted to throwing a cloak over the myriad of ways everyday life is effected as if it was separate, embarrassing thing.
What passed as coping strategies encouraged amounted to an denial externally for the benefit of those who didn't want anything outside of a brave doing so well for all that girl script for me and internally not taking ownership of how my disabilities had left me and the things I need to do that are different  to manage them as part of living, part of the life skills that never happened.
Things such as reconciling the acceptance of how your life is impacted with the kind of attitude that makes a life even if it involves more support  and oversight being less of a daily chore and more about living.   Something then that's neither about denial or self limiting opportunities, having abilities mixed in that can be used while accepting the disabilities that cannot be ignored.
Much of that is something I've had to do as part of periodic reassessment of my Capability Of Work (WCA 50) for my Employment and Support Allowance income benefit claim answering a barrage of questions although last time they just saw my medical evidence and awarded it at top rate.
I'd like to end this entry by thanking my BFF Lucy for her support and encouragement over this period.
x

Being messed about

One thing never denied on any blog post anywhere is that I have a  that good number of disabilities both interact and overlap with each other which can be hard for some who have only one disability be it minor or majorly impact on them to accept as it can be for those who may not have any (at least recognized).
This tends to mean you need to consider the whole when you and as I'm meant to as well consider how to manage  my conditions, what I can do and equally what I may not be.
This sort of scenario usually gets more complicated when other people with their own ideas and agendas  start to come in their ideas around how best to manage you or what it is they think you can manage.
One area is around me and work. I could of said employment but the difference between the two is work is a thing you do either for yourself or for another and employment is when that work is given in exchange for money in the form of wages you are said to be employed.
Not surprisingly as as many of my disabilities came from birth or childhood, I have had a number of stops and starts when it's come to holding down jobs or looking and receiving specialized training and assistance although unfortunately one main condition stemmed from  an industrial injury in work.
For a considerable period officially I had been regarded as so disabled  that even with training and assistance I would not be able to hold a position down in open employment and in this country at least 'sheltered employment' making things for govermnent and business with taxpayers support to provide employment if you couldn't work commercially on the open jobs market has been removed.
As in most social democracies, there have been payments for those of us who this wasn't possible but it was reorganized some years back with the view more people were capable (and ignoring employer side barriers to employment) so after a faff that had one form completed and been sent to a medical where the person isn't medically qualified to judge you leading to examples of people found fit to work who died days later from medical conditions but then realizing literally last minute from my medical records I couldn't be assisted into employment anytime soon, this was accepted.
This week I'm getting another of these accepted as unfit for purpose by experts apart from government Work Capability Assessments filled out and we'll see how this goes.
Strangely enough my conditions are  seen as automatic exemption from retesting but buried in the small print of an announcement made by a Minister, they can't do this until they've updated their computer systems which won't happen to the end of this year at the earliest.
This means they're retesting people who by there own admission shouldn't be because it your conditions cannot change over time.
This hasn't helped me stay calm or do anything positive to my quality of life. I'm just glad my BFF is helping to steady my nerves.

Discipline vs Punishment

This is a bit late in completion as I'm very poorly but anyway it needs to done.
The great thing about words is people not only argue about the appropriateness of them but often about the exact means as there are many in English that a very similar but not completely the same.

 Miss Kitty makes a very good point.

A punishment is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular action or behaviour that is deemed undesirable or unacceptable. Of itself it doesn't include guidance, being essentially  reactive - you break a window, you receive legal sanctions for criminal damage such as a fine or community order.
To discipline implies active steps around teaching and training appropriate conduct, attitude and behaviour but when a rule is broken, a sanction is applied to deter the person from repeating.  This can and for me does include forfeits, lines and spanking.

Time together or Together alone?

Modern life is certainly very different  compared to that some of us can recall having had one form of entertainment cease to work properly and require replacement this week in this post done exclusively on the Chromebook.
I think one of the big factors has been that increasingly we are living separate lives even when we say we're living together say as partners  or with our families, often in isolation in not just our own mental space but actually increasingly our own physical ones.
It's by no means uncommon to hear of families may text members about either meal times although increasingly that's no longer shared or to have snacks fixed for them ready as they emerge briefly to return in minutes.
When I was growing up the television was seen by some as threat to their way of life, taking away from things people did together such as playing games or just talking to each other with us becoming just passive consumers of that coloured tube in the corner of the room.

People didn't anticipate we'd talk about what we were seeing to each other, on the subway or at school or work so in some way you can look at it as a 'golden era' like that family in the picture, that's how we lived including for some of us the wonders of NTSC colour that was like going to the movies, 'cept it came to you as huddled around it.
Today though we consume our YouTube, NetFlix an co wherever we happen to be and you may be watching that as someones chatting away or playing a game which is really cool but as people we need some US time as well as ME time to catch up with each other, talk about what we've seen and done, maybe gain some perspective too.
I think it matters for all of us to try to get our modern lives into some kind of balance, sharing time with each other as well as with watching or keeping up with our friends online. Don't you?

Wednesdays musings

To be honest while the next edition of the main blog is written and ready to go, I'm actually a little behind on writing this one but there is a bit of story to that.
I was feeling a little grouchy yesterday which people at one site may of noticed, nothing big and and bad but low level but out there which may of been connected thinking about some past events plus the Daylight saving Time that over here we've just entered that messes my body clock up.
You see, I'm really more a mornings girl, off out of bed with bounce, getting things done but starting to feel run down by afternoon, happier with my earlier than most legal adults with early fixed bedtimes.
I feel sad when I see dark mornings, setting me off with the wrong sort of attitude- it's hard to explain but it really bothers me - and I think that's what kicked all that off.

 By the end of last nights littles chat I was feeling more playful and fun just in time for bed so at last I end up between the sheets next to Theodore the IInd  on a high ready for a good nights sleep.
I was talk to a person the other day about  where and what this littles/middles life slots in with me which is funny cos it's just been me being me but to me it's my natural relaxed state, laying across a bed, maybe reading clutching a teddy  surrounded by my dolls and that. Carefree.
Until next time, Jo.

Am I too old to play with toys?

It's bin an eventful week over here obviously as those of you who have seen the news since Tuesday afternoon will have seen as we're all affected by it in differing ways.
Today though I'm going to be talking about something that you might be going through or maybe it happened to you in your childhood that I think matters.
Most of us grew up with our parent(s) or a very close relative rather than say being with foster parents, in care or adopted and generally they oversaw how we grew up including the things we did or played with.
Every so often there was this talk about  the toys we had like if we still wanted them, could a sibling or cousin have them and sometimes they might of said something like "You no longer need Millie, Jo. You're a big grown up girl now and you don't play with dolls."
If you were really unlucky, you'd come home from school and just find your toys decimated and probing why would produce the answer "You're too big for them now so I took them away"   which tended to be what happened with mine. That sucks!
Actually they could well be wrong especially as it applies to younger teens and a few months back a girl wrote in to the American Girl dolls magazine with the following question to which they wrote this reply: 

This is actually pretty interesting and I have little doubt influenced by children's welfare 'experts' who see so much pressure on acting more sophisticated, in many ways trying too hard at being grown up, being too serious for our own good.
Writing this as someone who is legally an adult I like what they have to say about maturity a  lot which is really what we mean by  being grown up which is more about how we treat others and how we  run our lives. In a word, being responsible which we can struggle with and I won't lie to my younger readers that I haven't had this  too but that is all it is.
Growing up and even being Grown Up doesn't mean we should not enjoy play or doing something creative, indeed only this week gone, someone who isn't an age regressor like me just came out and said they were going to make a Lego model and did, showing pictures to our circle of plain adult  friends. I said life's too short not to do the things we enjoy and they agreed.
If you feel like it, then don't be afraid to especially if you are feeling stressed.

I posted this in part as a response to the young people, mainly French around this age group who were injured in Wednesday's tragic terrorist  incident in London, Great Britain who are in need of our love and support right now.

Tension

One contributor to how you are feeling and by extension how you may behave  under it's influence is the other things that are going on in your world and an increasing area I find is in the online world.
On social media in particular, groups fragment periodically with the segmented part starting a battle in part to justify to whoever is listening  just why they split off and to blacken the name of the very group not so long ago they were proud to be a member of.
You see people who for medical/disability based reasons unable to withstand endless negative and aggressive discourse actively pouring oil on the fires who fail to see after just saying why the don't like interaction with one group, make accusations often baseless just to enjoy watching the fireworks.
I find this not just troubling from how it has left certain communities feeling just interacting with anyone is just like walking on eggshells but also I find it spills over into me feeling disheartened about being the age regressed person I am and times seeping into feeling on edge with people.
That's one reason sometimes I limit the amount of time I'm on and make a point of doing things more positive like reading an uplifting story instead.