Change

I don’t like change. I never have. I need to have a routine. It wasn’t until I was 28 years old, and my long-term partner broke up with me that I discovered I was on the autism spectrum. Before I could get officially diagnosed, Covid hit, then when things returned to normal there was a four-year backlog for appointments. I decided that I don’t need a doctor to tell me that my brain thinks different to those around me, and amongst many things, really struggles with change.

The past six months, at my workplace, have been tough. The talk of change and moving locations has been constant. “We’re moving in a few weeks,” has been the constant hearsay, since the end of November. First, we were moving in time for Christmas, then it was early January, then by the latest the middle of March. The constant thought of not knowing whether we would be moving offices that day was enough to make me feel uneasy, without all of the other difficult things that were happening within the company.

Several electrician visits, arguments with the landlord and an ant infestation later, we will actually be moving offices on Monday. The location of our current office is only 0.3 miles away from my house. I have been with the company two years, as an administrator. Everyone who works there was hired on the basis that they live in a walking distance to the office and do not drive, as there is no parking. We are now moving three miles away, to a location that is not near a train station or close to a bus stop. One of the positives to taking this job two years ago was that after years of an hour commute to and from work, I would finally have my life back – that was defiantly not the reason as to why I left my old job, but it was a reason as to why I accepted the job and stopped my job immediate job search. I knew straight away that the job was not the right fit for me, but I desperately needed to leave my previous employer and the fact that this job was literally right up the road was a good enough reason to stay.

About nine months ago, there were talks of changing my job role and something happened within the company that resulted in me taking up the position of complaints handler. Not only was this a big change for me, but I struggle with confrontation. I don’t just mean that I dislike it. I’m on the Asperger’s Spectrum, but not the type of Asperger’s that doesn’t understand feelings. I have, what I like to call, the “Asperger’s Uno-Reverse Card.” I feel emotions stronger than the average person. Every single emotion is constantly fighting to take the forefront of my brain. As well as this, my emotional state feeds off the energy in the room. If I just hear a negative conversation, I feel like I have been the one that was being screamed at, and I will a mess for several hours – often it can make me feel so bad that I won’t get over it until I go to sleep. Having customers shout, scream and be incredibly rude down the phone to me, for weeks, made me want to leave. I started looking for other jobs, I had a couple of interviews, but nothing became of them. Then the complaints stopped, so I stopped forcing the change, and stopped applying to jobs.

As we got closer to the initial office move date, the company’s production slowed, and the complaints returned. Between December and February things got so bad, at work, that I tried to end my life on multiple occasions. I started applying to hundreds of jobs a week, stating on every single application that I am not allowed to have my phone turned on at work. I received voicemail after voice mail asking me to call back between 9am and 5pm (I work from 8am until 5pm) and a handful of emails, saying that they are trying to call me and to phone them back between 9am and 5pm – often shorter hours than that.

The force to bring change to my routine has been strong, but it terrifies me at the same time. Due to not being allowed to have my mobile phone on at work, I have only been able to attend four interviews since December. I had my last interview last week on Wednesday, where the interviewer told me that he felt I was way too overqualified for the job that I was applying for and said that I should be an Office Manager or at the very least a Team Leader, and scolded my current employer for ignoring all of my training courses and qualifications. That gave me a little confidence to try going for other jobs, and I have found two office Team Leader positions to apply to since. I have a second interview tomorrow with that same company. I really am hoping this is the one, despite it being a little less money. It is something that I am good at, and has the opportunity to progress within the company, whereas where I am is mentally unstimulating and there is no way to progress or do anything at all other than my entry level position that an school leaver could do. It will involve getting the train, but I will only have a 15 minute walk to the station, a 15 minute train journey and a 1 minute walk once I get off the train the other end. If I am fortunate enough to get this job, I may find out on Monday. On Monday, my current job, will actually be moving offices to a location that is three miles away. If I get the job, I will have to hand in a month’s notice, and I won’t be entitled to any days off, because our holiday allowance renewed on 1^st April and we only get two weeks holiday a year, because our holiday allowance is used to automatically book off all of the bank holidays. When someone left the company last September, they were told that there not entitled to take any annual leave, because even though they hadn’t booked any, we had been off on: Good Friday, Easter Monday, Early May Bank Holiday, The Coronation, Late May Bank Holiday and the Summer Bank holiday.

If I am lucky enough to get this job, there will be a lot of change happening all at once. I will have my current job’s office move, the change in how everyone will treat me once I hand my notice in, the change of moving jobs, a new location, a new company, new people, new responsibilities, new expectation. I feel overwhelmed just thinking about it.

I struggle not being the one in control of my life. That’s why I hate being in a relationship, because someone else’s decisions will impact my life. Someone else’s decisions are in control of my life, my future. You put your hope, faith and trust in another person. You believe them when they ask you to trust them, and say that you can move in with them, you just have to give them time to discuss things with their housemate, you just have to trust them. So, you do, only for them to tell you the very next day that they don’t feel anything towards you and you might as well be a stranger on the street. It took a lot for me to place my trust in that other person, to know that all of my struggles in my living situation would soon be over, and I would finally have peace and be with someone that makes me feel safe and I would actually be able to be free and be me. I couldn’t do that on my own – I couldn’t then, and I am still not financially able to now. Everyone I work with says that they would still be living at home if they weren’t married (I am one of the oldest people in my work place and the only person who isn’t married). My entire world was going to finally be okay, but they took it all away from me. Nothing in their home-life would change, but mine was completely destroyed… and I never found out why. That moment had caused a phobia within me, when I am not in control of my life, when change happens that is out of my control. I have ended relationships because of knowing that they would have that control over my life, because they could choose to end things and my entire life would change, but their life wouldn’t be any different, they would just replace me with someone else a couple of weeks later, as though the last four years together meant absolutely nothing. If I end the relationship, I am in control. Regardless of how much I like the person, I break up with them, before they can lead me on for years and years, only to reveal that they never felt anything towards me, despite reassuring me that I’m the one over and over.

I am so much happier when I am not dating or in a relationship, because I am the one that is in control of my life. I am not in control of the decision of my job interview. I am not in control of my current job’s office move. And I am definitely not in control of anything in my working day, because everything gets changed, moved and I am constantly spied on by my manager. Home is no better. I have a horrible teenage next-door neighbour who constantly bangs on the wall and scratches her nails along it, cackling. She places her phone on the wall, to vibrate constantly throughout the night. She sets an alarm in the middle of the night to wake up to bang on the wall to wake me up, and denies everything when you question it with her parents. I have tried recording it on my phone, but I can’t prove where the sound comes from and am accused of making it up. Then my brother and his girlfriend are only quiet in the night and don’t damage my things or go into my room when I am at work, if I lock myself in my room, never use the internet, am never seen, never heard, and never use the kitchen or the bathroom. The only way I can assure that I am (and my belonging are) safe is to be controlled by them. My brother and his girlfriend even stole my washing detergent that I always keep in the kitchen. My mum refused to confront them about it and just said, “We’ve learnt now,” and that was it. She lets him get away with everything. She always has done, ever since the day he was born, everything has always been, “You can’t do that, your brother might not like it. You can’t do this, because your bother will want it. You can’t do that because your brother can’t.” He’s 28 now and he still gets treated like God. If he committed murder, I would be the one who got the blame. “He only did it, because he’s frustrated that he has to share the house with you,” would be the excuse. He pays a tiny amount of rent, contributes nothing to the bills. His girlfriend has no job and lives here for free and has lived with us since the day they met over a year ago. They have a heater on 24/7, they use the washing machine every day and during the more expensive hours. Their bedroom curtains are never open, and the lights are always on. My brother only leaves the house to go to work, so they always use the electricity, and their TV is always switched on. They use the oven six times a day, to cook a hot meal each three times a day. They shower for over half an hour each twice, sometimes three times, a day; we have just been forced to have a water metre fitted this week – it was installed on every house down our road while we were at work. They go to the toilet together and squeal as they watch each other pee. They slam doors at full force every single time they close them. He is on more money than me, but my mum refuses to make him pay for anything, instead I have to pay for my portion of the bills and my brother and his girlfriend’s waste of utilities. I can’t afford to move out. The cheapest studio flat I can find is £850pcm – I would have to be earning £2550 a month to be allowed to rent here and I would need a guarantor. I don’t have a guarantor and I defiantly don’t earn that much a month. I am too old for most house-shares, and the ones that would let me live there only let you live there from Monday night until Friday morning, so I would be homeless from Friday morning to Monday night.

I don’t have a logically conclusion for this piece of writing. My head is just a rambling mess. I really don’t like all of the change and not being in control of things. I just need to get all of the thoughts out of my head. I can’t say that writing this has made me feel any better, but it did give me something to focus on for a few minutes.

- Josie -