Me, anxiety and roads

There is a new anxiety I am having now - I can't cross roads on my own, which means that I can't get out on my own as I have to cross roads. I think it has to do with balance. When I went to see my GP a couple of weeks ago, I felt v anxious and my head was all over the place, and so was my body. I ended up having an anxiety attack in the middle of an island in a side road. I felt so off balance that I was going to fall. No one was around to help me and I had to cope on my own. I only managed to get to the clinic because other people did come to cross the main road, so I walked with them. I felt safer doing that. I can get home on my own locally because the buses I get on, both stop just round the corner to my road, so all I have to do is get off, and walk a few minutes round the corner.

This is so frustrating for me as I had been going out on my own a lot up until a couple of weeks ago. I had to because my mum, who walks with a stick, isn't that confident about shopping either. Maybe there was something there hidden in my brain that was anxiety, and something has triggered it all of ten-fold (it feels like hundred fold), telling me that I can't cope with doing that alone anymore and need help. It is hard for me and my mum because she now has to come with me if I need to go somewhere, even across the road to get the paper. I did try the other week, but got to the end of the road to where I usually cross to the garage, and froze, starting another anxiety attack. It is going to be a long, slow journey to get better, I believe. I want to get better.

This is now going to be a diary, which I might publish next year after I am better, journalling how I feel about situations.

Turning a negative into a positive

Over the last weekend I finally published my new children's fiction book 'Billy and the Sparkling Socks' to Createspace. There were a few problems I had to sort out in the process, from discovering they don't accept 2-page spreads to cover problems, but I got there. But when I looked at what it would now look like according to their fixed PDF version, it didn't come out as I really wanted. How? I have small illustrations at the start and end of each chapter, and a few of the end ones appeared on separate pages. I tried to fix it by working it out but soon realised that it had to be like that. I wasn't happy with that as it wasn't ideal looking to me. But then I got thinking...the extra blank pages and space would be ideal for children if they wanted to draw their own socks or rainbows in the book, although the book is mainly for reading not drawing in. It has given me an idea for the rest of the series.

Cover reveal, I hope. Here is a link to the cover for Billy on Createspace. (Hope it works).

https://tsw.createspace.com/title/6528252

I really like it, and I hope children do too.

It is the first in a number of series of children's books about children with Asperger's and autism who find magic that teaches them how to be more confident and communicative.