Things I have only had moderate success with: getting along with roommates.
I've always lived with sisters, so I'm not quite sure the difference. I think because maybe you are allowed to yell at sisters and sometimes hit them and getting mad at them is okay. Because I certainly had problems with my sisters sometimes. But those were usually minor incidences. But this roommate issue isn't because I am used to having my own room. Because I shared one for large portions of my life.
Sometimes it doesn't work out well at all. Right now, it is ok. Not the worst roommate arrangement I have had, but not at all ideal.
I've lived with my best friend for a summer, and that worked out wonderfully. We each had our own rooms, and a nice big kitchen and baked lots of delicious things and watched a lot of cooking shows and House Hunters and Say Yes to The Dress together. She was an awesome roommate (I maybe not so much, admittedly, but we were still super good friends after, too.)
For one summer program, I lived in a quad in a dorm room with 3 other girls. My roommate was quiet and nice and very religious and gone a lot. That worked out pretty well. We sometimes hung out and she taught me how to make bread and nothing bad particularly happened. One of the other girls in the other room was especially awesome so I hung out with her more. (And then my friend who I lived with earlier was also on campus, so I spent a lot of time with her and that group of people.)
My freshman year of college roommate was also ok. We didn't really talk much, because she had a long distance boyfriend, but we coexisted peacefully in the same space.
Sophomore and junior year roommate was bad. Same girl. I knew it would be bad and not work out but I couldn't figure out how to say no because there wasn't anyone else who would have lived with her probably. And junior year I had a high enough rank on the room-pick-list, I could have gotten a single, but she couldn't have, so that would have also been mean. Sophomore year was ok, with drifting into bad. Like when she broke up with her boyfriend of less than a week and then ate all my birthday ice cream. And then it got absolutely horrible junior year. Part of it probably wasn't her fault, admittedly. I think both of our lives were falling apart in different ways and two people who have lost control of their lives don't really make good living partners.
Anyway, and now there is now.
Currently, I need to find a way to tell my roommate that sometimes I just want to not talk to anyone and it isn't that I don't like her, it is just that I am home and home is my quiet, not-talking-to-people place.
But I haven't told her I'm autistic yet.
Because I've only told a handful of people.
Because it is sort of still a processing-thinking-secret.
And it's tricky too, because she is one of my friends from college, I guess, so I think she wants to hang out. And her program is so much less aggressively social than mine is. Or really, social at all. So I get my social fill up at school and at work because everyone is very friendly and talks and chats a lot (about fun stuff, too! Like science and food! So I enjoy it.) And then I want home to be a quiet place. But she comes home from school lonely because the people in her program don't really talk much and wants to talk and hang out.
And I don't want to be mean but I just need to hide.
And also sometimes she is really annoying a lot but I feel mean and petty when I say that, but really yes basically it is true.
But sometimes I am fine.
But I also don't want to be mean and tell her I don't actually like hanging out with her because that is mean and what if my friends told me that and are actually only pretending to like me because they are being nice, so I should be nice also. (And also because this lease is through August.) Or tell her that she is boring and talks to her family too much and too loudly. Badbadbadbad.
As soon as this lease is up, I am getting a new apartment. One where it is just me.
So that I can go in the kitchen when I come home tired and hungry. Where I don't have to hide in my room when I need to eat. But now, I hide until I know it is safe to leave. And I can't make food that takes a long time, even though I like cooking, because the kitchen isn't safe. I have no snacks because I can't make any. So I've been making meals at 1:00 after she is asleep and baking things then, because that is when I know it is safe.
Because right now my room is the only safe place. Because people might talk to me everywhere else (And by people, I mean my single solitary roommate.)
And it is a bad day-week-time-period, so I am NOT okay with that. But you aren't ALLOWED to yell at people to GO AWAY DON'T TALK TO ME when it is also their kitchen.
And she has an unpredictable schedule so I never know when I am coming home if she is going to be there or not. So when I plan my evening on my walk home based on the usual pattern of her being at home or not being at home, and then I walk in the door and she is there when I thought I would be alone, it breaks. I just sink and escape to my room as soon as I can and stay hidden as long as I can.
I can't know until I have checked out the apartment and the rooms if it is safe to finally be sad if I am sad or tired if I am tired. Because that is only safe if I am alone (or with a very few specific people that absolutely does not include roommate).
Going home is stressful because I have to escape through the apartment to get to safety.
Everything is bad.
Sometimes it is ok, but right now everything is bad.
Life is overwhelming right now.
Labels: adventures in apartment living, autism, autistic?, coping mechanism, dinner, fear, food, friends, grad school, LOUD, me, melt, my brain, rant, rules