I am home from Coventry :-D

[beccaelizabeth]

Redemption 15 was fun
and I was weirdly calm about it all. Is possible this is what weekends without anxiety problems feel like?

am still autistic though and suspect I upset one person and probably annoyed others
so this is my traditional post con apology.
It's never on purpose, I do my best, I just error quite a lot too.

I chose this time to try and be interactive and join in with things, so I did stuff like the creativity workshop with group work, or making a crown in chaos costuming where I have no skills and just asked for help a bunch and also used a stapler, and I always stuck my hand up at panels when I had a thought, and then at the dead dog party I went around with a big piece of paper and some pens collecting what everyone thought was the best part. Maximising interaction pretty much maximises chances of fail too, so that's a high risk strategy. But it's the sort of thing you can't do any other time. Plus my life of late has had really minimal human interaction, since college finished, which is pretty much since before the previous Redemption. Two years ago. So more joining in and doing things is better.

Also I got my photo in the Sunday newsletter being the Red Queen. And I got whole plurals of costume tokens. Costumes are fun and people join in and I get to be sparkly in the day times.

costume was also practical cause I had my thermals on underneath.
... I did not find the hotel warm this weekend, except at the disco.
the dancing version of the Red Queen had no thermals, skirt, or crown, but people still said they liked my costume, so I guess the metallic red bit is a winner.

Every time I go to these things and have thoughts and think maybe I could be on a panel.
... and then I feel a lurching kind of sick and think no, no I could not, that's ... nope.
... at the panels I mostly found places to sit up the side of the room, so I had the wall at my back and could see all the humans and at least one exit. This made it difficult for the panel to see me, but that seemed a reasonable trade off, and I didn't mind if I weren't noticed and only hoped it weren't annoying for them to be looking so far sideways. Pine had a nice seat in front of a pillar, Three Spires a whole row of chairs against the wall, and Courtyard some fabulously comfy sofas I nearly fell asleep on quite often. The main hall had no such handy seating, plus very bright lights on the talking people that meant they couldn't see us in the audience anyway, and sometimes no running around mic so there was not so much hearing neither. The main hall was not very interactive. Some good talks though.

Thing is, it was only when thinking of being in front of people like on panels that I felt sick this weekend. ... yes, that's a rare and noteworthy thing for when I have to leave the house. I was pretty much utterly chill, for me.
It wasn't difficult to eat breakfast, my usual Sunday breakfast was the correct amount of food on all the mornings, though I did only have a couple packets of hula hoops for the rest of the meals. Getting up in the morning and being surrounded by humans was apparently not a problem.
I even was quite happy going home on the train. I like it when the station staff are helpful, and I didn't have to go through Birmingham at all, and there were nice long waits between trains so things could be well organised.

So on the whole I'm feeling pretty awesome about this weekend.
I'm not booked for the next one yet because I'm planning to move house before 17, and I didn't book any other conventions despite excellent looking guest lists because I'm planning to spend all my money to move house before 17, but just on a spoons and happiness level I could happily go to another like this next month.

:-D



And? Also? There was only one stuttering incident all weekend.

I do not know where I got this magic from, but I like it.

Comments

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

It was great to see you at Redemption.

[beccaelizabeth]

good to see you too

:-)