Key phrases: Research, strategy consultancy, inequality, poverty, violence, cruelty, povertyism, misogyny, diversity, bias, othering, discrimination, sadism, ageism, decision-making, otherization, marginalisation, ableism, inclusivity, gerontophobia, stranger-stalking, aggression, sadistic stalking, zen approach, misogyny, governance, hate groups, fairness, racism, justice, philosophy, law, hacking, homophobia, contempt, bioethics, health inequalities, cruelty, homelessness, politics, public policy, policing, science and biotechnology, conspiracy beliefs, speciesism, light pollution, callousness, security, mechanical pollution, hate, violence, safety, chemical pollution, conspiracy thinking, social security, forensic psychology… and 20+ years of experience in earth and life sciences as well as nearly two decades with what appears to be "sadistic stalking" or whatever. Some of those crazy nihilistic extremist sadistic networks involved, possibly? (This website is currently paid for by an anonymous sponsor who appears to have full access.)
The country has always had the sayings “Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg” en “wie met zijn kop boven het maaiveld uitsteekt, wordt genadeloos afgehakt”.
In the Netherlands wanting to excel was not done. There’s so much joy in excelling in something. In order to fit in in the Netherlands, you had to be average and strive to be only average, however. You had to do exactly what everyone else did and at the same age/time.
You weren’t supposed to go to university later in life, for example.
You weren’t supposed to want to be in the lab on a Saturday or Sunday.
You are not supposed to have a flexible convenient source of income like doing deliveries for Uber Eats when it suits you – for example working around the schedule of your children – or any of the other chains that wanted to offer this. No, you must be in the 9-to-5 treadmill that puts money into a company’s pockets or put up with the abuse and human rights erosion that come with basic social security benefits nowadays (if you can access them, that is).
If you are over 45, you are not welcome in jobs and areas that are for people of all ages in other countries but only for younger people (preferably aged 18 to 21 because they are cheaper) in the Netherlands. You’re still required to enter your DOB in most job applications in the Netherlands, even though it’s against the law. (Did you know that a Dutch leftwing party that I once liked recently came up with the horrifying idea of voluntary euthanasia for the over-75s?)
Just like many others, I never fitted in here. I and many others, we found America to be the country where we were allowed to thrive and lead joyful lives.
So the Dutch police have a communication system that sucks. But you’re not allowed to say that, are you? You’re supposed to put up with the mediocrity that is now definitely sliding into the abyss. It’s endangering lives.
(Confusingly, the system bears the name of a supermarket chain, but I don’t think that these supermarkets still exist: C2000.)
Is it a symptom or an isolated occurrence? I fear that it’s the former.
I wasn’t supposed to say out loud that many of the country’s civil servants currently communicate as follows “I want to suck my thumb. Because I like sucking my thumb.” Citizens who receive these communications are not surprisingly often baffled. I later read a Dutch newspaper article from which I gather that this how Gen Z communicates. But why does this only appear to be the case in the Netherlands? Because it’s cool to be mediocre here and because wanting to excel and wanting to make things better are increasingly frowned upon, apparently.
“Shut up, or else.” I’m not putting up with it.
The Dutch civil servant apparatus is huge. And very expensive because it’s so dysfunctional. Something similar goes for the medical/care apparatus in the Netherlands.
If medical care in the UK is free (albeit in a bit of a pickle because of the Tories’ underfunding) and taxes are much lower, then how come medical care in the Netherlands requires a system of obligatory health insurance premiums that are as high as premiums for private insurance in the UK and the medical and care systems in the Netherlands reportedly are on the verge of collapse? In addition, the Dutch care system is reportedly riddled with crime. According to the Dutch police, this includes organised crime, not just petty theft.
I too am now caught up in the Dutch bonkers tax credits system. I now owe the Dutch state and it hasn’t explained to me how it came up with the amount. Toeslagen. Just like many others in this country, I want nothing further to do with them. This is not because I don’t know how to go online and apply for them. It’s because these toeslagen have a habit of turning around and biting your behind. It appears to be much better to be able to support yourself and not rely on any of the state’s tax credits no matter what. You can really get mangled in this system because you tend to become so dependent on those tax credits once you apply for them and start receiving them. If you get them, put them in a savings account. Do not touch them. Do not use them. But can you afford to do that? (Yes, I am exaggerating a little now. Because I am really angry with the kind of crap that I have been getting. It’s a long story.)
When you visit the city of Amsterdam’s department for the homeless, you are not allowed to take anything with you other than paperwork. Everything goes into a locker and if you lucky, you’re also asked to go through the metal detector. I was during my second visit.
My passport and driving licence were with my paperwork for the City of Amsterdam, of course. I was pretty devastated when I left and didn’t return my 🆔 to its usual spot. Besides, they want you to leave the office asap. Previously, I went into a KFC to do the things that I needed to do, but this time I was even more deflated – or, powerless, rather – than after the second visit.
Phew. All’s well that ends well. 😊
I find it pretty despicable that only the homeless are treated like criminals in Amsterdam, but none of the other citizens. That is an expression of povertyism.
How ridiculous this is? You CAN get free hot drinks on the other side, so it’s not actually security-related at all. 🙄
Update: I then signed up for a new account in which I didn’t say that I was a student or hobbyist but self-employed but no matter what I try, if send myself a text message to a verified number, I get error 21608 (number not verified). I tried a Dutch number and a UK number. Well, that’s that, then, I suppose.
😎
Update: I received another bonkers email from Twilio.
This is what I wrote back:
I decided to start teaching myself some new skills, opened a Twilio account and it got suspended right away by the fraud department because they want me to answer a few questions as to what I want to do with Twilio.
(Phone number maybe linked to activities to do with my hacking crap?) (Or… email simply sweetly spoofed with the aid of Twilio?) (Likely the latter.)
I tried to send myself a text message but Python can’t find Twilio no matter what I try. I suspect that I may have to run this in a virtual Linux machine. Currently using Visual Studio Code. Need to do some tweaking before I can install the VM.
For now, Twilio and I are parting ways. I simply don’t appreciate such a totally unprofessional approach. It doesn’t bode well with regard to a future with Twilio. It’s going to be very difficult to work with them, then, and any clients I might eventually have would be victimised by this too.
I’m going to hunt for an alternative.
What also happened was that my car suddenly was no longer available as of 10pm – wasted trip – and that a bill had gone up by 33% with some “excellence” charge or whatever and something else, of which I have forgotten what it is.
Today, as I was leaving the building where I am currently staying, I found myself walking down the stairs behind another resident who came from a different floor.
A little bit later, she turns around and asks “Do you live in this building?”
I’m unwell and have lost my voice.
So I voice “I have lost voice”.
“Oh, you are deaf”.
I whisper “No, I have lost my voice”.
I’ve become increasingly unwell in the course of the past three weeks and am currently having what are probably very bad asthma attacks. I’ve totally reached the end of my tether, in all possible manners.
I wish that I had never moved into that utterly dreadful and disastrous penal colony in Purmerend. That horrid place should come with a health warning. It’s a really nasty horrible place that requires an active death wish to make it tolerable because you’re expected to shut up and die there and don’t you forget it. (Actually, it should be closed down. It should be demolished.)
Thinking back to that horrible place tends to bring on anxiety
Guido van Rossum. CWI. Ha. I may have encountered him. I used to know a mathematician who used to work there and I have been to the CWI. That must have been between 1988 and 1994.
Photo of section of my screen, showing a page at Microsoft.com
Okay.
First thing I notice is that ” and ‘ appear to be interchangeable. Let me test that. Check. ✔️
Its very intuitive, so far. I’ve done a tiny bit of Basic without computer and a tiny bit of UNIX with computer and a tiny bit of Turbo Pascal with computer, all a few millennia ago, and tons of HTML in notepad and a tiny bit of JavaScript and a lot of DOS and a tiny bit of its predecessor and a tiny bit of a statistics suite (geochemical data analysis, concerning p,T indicators in, I think, pyroxenes) of which I don’t remember the name but that was (probably) before Windows (in 1988 or thereabouts) and forced me to let the computer run and stick a note on it telling people not to switch it off pretty please because my program was running overnight.
The next thing that I notice is that the game didn’t let me play, just watch, and that the code that Windows says let’s me create my own game returns lots of errors that I don’t find unexpected.
Fabscinating.
Ah. Was in wrong directory. It must’ve looking for the things that it could not find, hence returned errors.
Next: It’s almost too simple. I like separating my statements with parentheses and structuring my programs. (It makes debugging so much easier, visually, too.)
“Oh, poor you. You have a burn on your arm because your house is on fire. Let’s find you a bandaid and some ointment.”
“What? No, it’s not free, you’ll have to pay for it.”
“What? You want someone to put out the fire and save your home? Don’t worry about that. Please don’t interrupt me. That’s not polite. Let’s go get you a bandaid now.”
“What? No, you don’t qualify for an exemption. We don’t waive the costs of bandaids.”
“What? You urgently need dental treatment? That is not important.”
“What? You don’t want the bandaid? You can’t afford it? That’s not possible. Everyone has money for this bandaid. Something’s wrong with you. Let’s admit you to a closed ward for observation. You look a little unkempt, too. When did you last have a haircut? We may have a serious little personal hygiene problem going on here. Let’s go fix you. Let’s go diagnose your learning disability. Might you also be dyslexic, perhaps?” “Why are you running away now? I’m only trying to help you! You’re so ungrateful!”
house on fire = lack of cash
burn on arm = homelessness
Step 6 is optional and has several variations but is not unheard of. Sometimes, people are not even eligible for purchasing a bandaid, even if they have the money.
Need advice? Education? Guidance?
Ask one of the following:
Rutger Bregman
Olivier de Schutter
Caroline Buffery
John Tasioulas
Michelle van Tongerloo
Rory Stewart
Philip Alston
Me
I strongly urge you to talk with each of us because we all contribute our own specific experiences and professional expertise.
If anyone has a pre-2008 Opel Agila or Vauxhall Agila in good condition, with valid MOT or APK that isn’t due to expire soon, and is willing to donate it, or lend it to me for a year, then please get in touch. A small actual van might be great too. Below is why.
The older Agila’s are really boxy and spacious and cute. 🥰
They are actually as tall as I am when I stand next to them, so are (almost) a minivan.
They run on petrol/gas, so not on diesel.
They are low in road tax and insurance.
They are easy to park.
Having something like this would enable me to stop renting storage space and would make me much more flexible than I currently am. (The only other thing that I would still need/like is a small power station.)
I had found one Opel Agila, but it needed work. Not necessarily a lot of work. Just a cleaning and fluid change and new brake components might have done the trick. I wasn’t in a position to accomplish that myself, unfortunately. It might have served me fine. It was old and very obviously used but that’s fine.
I obviously won’t and can’t stay in the Netherlands.
It’s one thing to be considered a “vieze vuile migrant” – cheap low-skill, low-wage labour, with at best diploma mill degrees – in other countries, but it’s quite another to be seen as such in what is supposed to be your home country. 😂
Besides, I’m not eligible for any kind of support here any longer, of any kind, while the crazy legislation also stops me from supporting myself in ways that are considered fine elsewhere, the records that the Dutch have for me are a mess (and they prefer to believe what their computer systems say about me), and so far, each civil servant I’ve spoken with has given me different, contrasting information about just about anything. I no longer know anyone here, the weather is awful and depressing, I’m often not entirely well here and there is very little nature here (bricks, concrete, tarmac, asphalt and cultivated soil, mostly, with water surfaces the biggest natural areas), and my experiences and cultural background don’t fit in here any longer. 🥴
What’s more, because I have been away from the country for so long, I can’t work just anywhere. I’m considered a potential security risk now. This is not about me personally. It’s some kind of rule that you have to have been registered here for 6 or 8 years.
What is worse, the country is developing a culture of aggression and intimidation that I find extremely worrisome and unpleasant. There’s for example an epidemic of people targeting each other with explosives, but there is also a lot of paranoia (for example anti foreigners which now includes me) and aggression in other contexts.
The seized-up mess that the overload of contradictory pieces of policy and legislation constitutes is making the country unliveable.
Life’s simply too short, folks. I don’t believe in fatalism or masochism. I believe in freedom. I believe in living. 😁😀 ☺️
My big problem is that I don’t have any money. I have not been able to support myself from the year I moved to Portsmouth. It’s a long story that no longer matters as I can’t change a thing about it, but it taught me a lot.
I’m going to teach myself a new programming language to get around that. That seems to be the easiest and quickest way to break out of this awful impasse. I’ve enough experience to know that I can do this. Big plus: It won’t matter what I look like as long as I can do the job well. (What I do not know yet is the degree to which I would like it, but I can compensate, for example by playing a musical instrument and going to woods and beaches and long walks in my spare time.) Before I enrolled in earth sciences at university, I actively explored enrolling in computer science and I have some experience with several languages.
Big loud bang two minutes ago. Sounded like an explosion. Over 1100 explosions in the country this year. Revenge, intimidation, often personal, sometimes related to crime.
A little Boxing Day update: All is well. I decided to do a little cleaning up and reorganization while he was out because he wasn’t happy with something. (Yes, he said so.) I didn’t do anything too drastically and made sure not to involve, for example the iMac, but I did move a few things around. When he got back, I was trying to introduce him gently to what I had done. Guess what? He didn’t even notice that anything was different. (I think that is because it didn’t involve any of his stuff.) So I did a good job. I had the idea while I was doing some vacuuming. I couldn’t just do nothing; it felt like I was being lazy. It didn’t require a major effort.
He’s under a lot of stress because of his home situation. At least, that’s what he has indicated to me. That he is in the middle of a divorce, that the divorce is dragging on and on, and that he has taken in yet another little family that he really wants to move out asap and that his wife is all sorts of things. At least, that’s what he has indicated to me. He is highly (emotionally) empathetic and wants to help but then he starts feeling overwhelmed, I think (but this stays under the surface).
Then he took me in, which was incredibly kind, but doesn’t resolve my main issue. (It’s not housing, it’s income money.) So that too put pressure on him and undoubtedly caused some frustration. I couldn’t do much more than wait and keep calling and emailing people and search the web for inspiration and solutions.
He is under pressure at work because of the move to a new building there and because of the new so-called hybrid working situation. (I’d completely overlooked that; I shouldn’t have because it’s cropped up often enough, and in ways that were a little puzzling.) I’ve actually been in touch with the department in the past, not mentioning anyone but in a general context, to inform them that they were creating a lot of stress for many (but not all) autistic people. Their response? Zero understanding or willingness to listen and accommodate. 🤬😠😡
It’s been resulting in actions that constitute pathological demand avoidance, such as being on the road to Amsterdam and suddenly at the last moment, yanking the wheel and driving into Zaanstad, as clearly indicated. It makes no sense. It confuses, angers and worries him. (Yes, he’s said that it angers him. He’s very well versed in navigation and geography, after all, so that is not surprising.) This has recently been getting worse or is a recent development, he’s told me.
Pathological demand avoidance is also the cause of some and maybe even all of his memory issues. It makes him feel powerless and frustrated. He doesn’t understand where it comes from. I think I’m seeing it in some of his other actions too.
He was initially pitching me as an ally in the “fight” against “the others”. (I can’t rule out that he assumed that I am autistic. I’m not. I may appear”autistic” when there’s too much fear and powerlessness in my life for far, far too long and not enough nourishment. I shut down and go into (get-outta-here-asap and) survival mode. I have great bounce back ability, provided people let me bounce back and don’t get in the way of my speedy recovery. Most people are probably much more resilient than people assume. I certainly am, but it requires that basics are provided for. It’s like with poverty, and what Rory Stewart has said about that.)
When it became clear that I was not going to turn into some kind of fairy tale ending, like a forty-years-younger woman falling in love with him, I increasingly became a source of stress for him too. I don’t even mean anything like romance. I don’t think that he grasped the reality of my situation, that nothing was actually being resolved. That’s not uncommon, nothing to do with autism. (I was so desperate that I started playing online games just to make a few cents. You can’t do anything if you have zero money. People generally vastly underestimate the effect of this.) That said, he really freaked me out two weeks ago when he I suddenly found him standing looking at me intently, then was making these really weird motions that I decided to ignore because I didn’t know what to make of this and because it creeped me out. In hindsight, I suspect that someone once told him that if you do what he was doing and the woman doesn’t wipe off her lipstick, it means that she likes you romantically, but I can only guess. Nothing happened but I did have to make clear that he needed to back off (because he seemed to see my lack of response as encouragement). I did that by clearly backing away and creating a greater physical distance. I got off the couch, for example, when he started to move in. It worked. The situation has been tense since. (My mistake: I underestimated the autism angle – or maybe it’s just the male chauvinism angle.) Me, I am into friendships.
He has been masking like crazy. Masking, so I understand, is very stressful too.
He has developed financial pressures, he says. He shops at the most expensive supermarket and won’t set a foot in other supermarkets, not even just to look around. I accept that. You have to work with what there is, not try to force things. Not put pressure on, but take pressure off. I’ve gotten him to download his supermarket’s app and am trying to get him to take advantage of their weekly bonus box offers, which he needs to pick and activate weekly. (Takes 30 seconds but constitutes another burden on him.) He just bought 1000-euro glasses. My eyes are more complicated than his. My glasses cost around 50 pounds max. It’s a matter of making choices. He now refuses to buy olive oil because it’s gone up in price so much (which would be good for his heart; he’s told me that he has a minor heart condition condition), but undoubtedly spends a lot of money on highly processed fake meat products (which he fries in sunflower oil now, which doesn’t appear to be that much cheaper, btw). He could probably use some help making better choices. Many people can, nothing to do with autism. He needs gentle guiding that allows him to feel in control (autonomy) and feel better.
Mind you, I still owe him EUR 700 toward the first month of my rent at what turned out to be a dreadful place but was supposed to have been regular independent housing (unfortunately also in the boondocks). My life completely collapsed after I moved into that place. I never should have moved into it. It wouldn’t exactly have been a complete nightmare for everyone around me if I had put my foot down and waited a month longer for a nice place in Amsterdam. I’ve really been beating myself up over that. How could I have been so stupid?
I think he also needs to build a daily relaxation routine into his life. He has no hobbies (left; he used to play the piano and he used to skate on natural ice). (His life looks pretty burdened but empty to me. Little nourishment. But that’s just me, and I know it. I’d be going to lots of cultural events and attend meetings and go on walks and so on.)
After the incident in which he threw me to the floor, his breathing was actually normal for a while, so he’d gotten rid of some tension. It didn’t last very long. (It’s notably his breathing that indicates to me under how much pressure he is. It’s undoubtedly affecting his heart rate and that in turn may make him feel uncomfortable too.)
I find it hard to separate the stories he makes up from reality when he’s making up stories. He often says things about others that are actually a way of communicating his own wishes. (That way, he can hide or avoid vulnerability or discussions.) To me, he said last year that I had a pioneering business that didn’t make it. (That’s hogwash, if only already because I wasn’t really doing anything out of the ordinary.) To others he said that I had lost my income in 2022. That’s not true either. Instead, I suddenly actually had a source of income the origin of which I wasn’t sure of as I was receiving text messages about DWP home visits that were actually about lock-picking intrusions. I decided to try to make use of that income to get out of there. I’d already tried to get away four times before the pandemic. (He’s aware of that, but he didn’t like the reason why I had to leave, so he tried to turn it into a more palatable “reality” several times. That said, others weren’t willing to accept what was happening either; it was much too crazy.)
He gets annoyed when people talk to him when he’s cooking. I just read that even that can be pathological demand avoidance. (Someone posted that about themselves.) I see it as feeling overwhelmed – or as sensory overload, sometimes, too – or as having a very narrow focus or preferring a very narrow focus (as seen from the outside). (There’s a lot going on inside that doesn’t surface.)
I have known another mildly autistic person for slightly longer. I think that her autism is quite a bit stronger. The way she deals with sensory overload is shut out all other signals. She literally won’t hear you. That’s her version of demand avoidance, I suppose. She’d also make appointments and then forget about them. (She was diagnosed by her daughter, btw, when the daughter was studying to be a psychologist, which she is now. One day she said “Mom, do you know that you’re autistic?”. So is her sister and so was their dad, who I’ve met.) So when I realised that she’s autistic, I read up on what I should do and I let her know what I thought. She confirmed.
My big problem is that I sometimes Iose patience when I am dealing with an autistic person by email (particularly when I am under a lot of stress myself). I need to remember that. (My now different cultural background is hard enough on people, also allistic ones. I can see that. I’ve really become pretty English. In England, I increasingly started using email because it was often the only way to get straight answers out of people.) I like having people around me with super-fast allistic minds – like HvP, may she rest in peace – because they challenge me to but other people challenge me in different ways and I’ve also sometimes been told that I have an amazing level of patience (also by a teacher). It’s just or mostly email in which I seem to fail. I’ve never liked email (etc), because there’s so much you miss. There are no facial expressions, for example, to go along with the words, on either side.
I get the impression that it helps autistic people to offer them a spacious and supportive/empowering soft cocoon, so to speak, not a restrictive and imposing steel corset. I don’t know how else to put it. Something that let’s them be, and allows them to feel expansive when they want to but doesn’t try to force them into anything. They also prefer short and clear, unambiguous communications.
Autistic people can be really peaceful to be around, I’ve found, thinking back to the hours I used to spend with my female friend. They can be like gently babbling brooks. That’s probably if you focus on them and just let them be. (It takes the focus off yourself, also because they miss things about you that others might focus on instead and want to talk about.) Just like a gentle flowing brook?
They can also be a little controlling, I think, and for example visit your home and change things while you are away, do something about things that annoy them, such as ticking clocks, or grab documents off your desk when they visit, right in front of you, without considering that it might be a highly confidential client communication. (I don’t know about you, but this isn’t something that I would do.) They won’t ask for permission. (Am I generalising?)
One of the things that I have learned in the past twenty years is that people rarely help others to help them.
They want to control them
They want to feed their own ego
They believe that it will turn their own lives into some kind of Cinderella fairytale
They want to look good to others (and be praised)
They think it (finally) gives them the right to lecture them or verbally abuse them
They aim to demand something back
They crave power
The woman at the supermarket who quickly hands you or the cashier a fiver when you are short, she’s genuine. When someone in a similar situation (or who has been there) helps you, that too is usually genuine. Most others aren’t.
Remember when you said to me”It’s time to wake up and take your life more seriously,Things they change once you’re full-grownIt’s time to wake up f you don’t settle down, you’re going to spend your whole life alone”But we’re not the sameAnd I don’t see it that wayAnd I don’t want to changeAll I can say is that I’m sorry that I am not just like youThat I won’t let you to tell me what I’m meant to doI ain’t trying to burn no bridges, noBut I ain’t afraid to go it aloneRemember when you cried that daySaid your life had no meaning, but the clock kept ticking awayHow you wish you could go backAnd make a few changes so that your life wasn’t so empty like that Well remember thisThink of where you’ve beenFor the rest of the advice that you giveAll I can say is that I’m sorry that I am not just like youThat I won’t let you to tell me what I’m meant to doI ain’t trying to burn no bridges, noBut I ain’t afraid to go it aloneAll I can say is that I’m sorry that I am not just like youThat I won’t let you to tell me what I’m meant to doAnd I’m no fool, I know that I’ll be in it aloneA life of passion, it can be a lonely roadI got to do the things that feel good to meI ain’t trying to burn no bridges, no
Was reported online by others, too. Means I am offline until this has been resolved because I don’t have a lot of data on my main number’s SIM card. That’s on a different network. Redundancy.
17:00 Internet access restored (but something got tampered with at my bank – a big invoice which I had blocked for the time being got paid – which I can see in a negative way or in a positive way, negative because it means that I can’t pay any other bills including my mobile phone subscriptions and still can’t use public transport, positive because it probably means that I have access to emergency transportation out of here, should I need it, and I may well end up needing it).
3 Jan: No, I was not imagining things. The pheromones were really oozing off him that evening.
He also had told me that I could sleep in his wife’s bed – I’d hate that if I were her – and that I could sleep in his bed during the day, but this may be the (nonjudgmental) autism speaking.
21 December 2024, noon: He just apologised for having hurt me. He’s also kicking me out, though. For two weeks now, he has been going on about a place that I can go to. Keeps going on about it. Insisted it was local. Turns out to be in Utrecht! (Not free. I can’t afford it but he was willing to lend me money for it.) He’s undoubtedly been telling people that I have been refusing to go to it. Yes, but that’s because it doesn’t actually exist!
Afterthought a day later: What I find really shocking is how convincingly he pretends that nothing happened and hasn’t even asked whether he hurt me. (I think I get that, actually.) It’s not that easy for me. My tailbone is hurting so I’m constantly reminded of how hard he threw me to the floor, and only over someone else having moved his iMac a few inches… While think I get what this is about, I am also a little shocked.
It’s an eye opener. About how mild autism works. I had underestimated how complicated this is. I saw it too much as mere diversity. It’s a lot more complicated than that. Now I understand that letter that a woman with a husband with Asperger’s addressed to autism experts that popped up on my screen in England one day. (Yes, I think that I was dealing with an autistic person there too. He shares interests with me. It may make a big difference.)
I’m learning that you don’t help mildly autistic people by trying to confront them with their challenges. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible not to start criticizing and accusing them if you are around them, but it makes things a lot worse. You can support them relatively unobtrusively by accepting their idiosyncrasies and also accepting that what is paramount for them one day can change the next.
I’m also starting to suspect that particularly if mildly autistic people are living on their own, they may need someone to help them manage their household. They aren’t necessarily highly organised (even if they may appear to). It just so happens that I stopped by at the home of another mildly autistic and highly educated person the other day. (I didn’t dare mention the autism to others. Thing is, this person has an entire house and rarely seems to spend time at it. I had to see if I might be able to stay.) Both the garden and the house were a mess. Bottles of water in two open packages behind the front door, boxes with junk and other junk on all the chairs and seating in the front part of the living room, not as if she was moving out, but as if she couldn’t care less. I remember having helped her clean up, clear out and organise a cupboard decades ago. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. I decided to help. Just having someone else there who quietly/gently takes the lead apparently can help a lot.)
After civil servants and a few others essentially bullied me out of my not very pleasant but in some ways certainly tolerable temporary home in the Netherlands, which also cut me off from income (but I’d figured I’d have income or a job soon enough and in fact, had recently already worked a shift) and I was also still due 400 to 500 more euros in benefits than I eventually received, someone has been letting me sleep on his couch off and on, and now for a few weeks already.
But without income, I’m probably even more trapped and more isolated and more powerless there than on the streets, aren’t I. I currently can’t even wash my hair and I’ve been wearing the same clothes for two weeks. I do have plenty of socks and underwear with me, thankfully.
Yesterday, he threw me to the floor. He grabbed my arm and pulled hard. I fell hard.
I’m pretty sure that he wanted to start kicking me then. But he didn’t. He just walked away.
My right arm hurt for a while and my tailbone is probably going to be hurting for quite a while. He’d grabbed my left upper arm and left a bruise (as I discovered the following morning) and my right wrist and yanked hard. (The right arm later also developed bruises.) I’m not sure how exactly I fell backward, whether he pushed me or let go or whatever.
But that was a lot of anger and it’s scary.
He’s mildly autistic. He’s a former colleague. I’ve known him for forty years but in a professional capacity, until about 18 months ago. That’s when I learned that he’s autistic. He masks incredibly well, comes across as very convincing and as far more together than I.
He is in the middle of a divorce, but he’s probably – mostly to himself? – woven an intricate web of lies around that marriage, to a woman who’s about forty years younger. Hard to tell.
He has a first ex. I’ve noticed that he speaks with a slightly different, more posh accent, when he talks with her over the phone.
He recently told me that his current wife had taken his iMac without his consent and shipped it off as a donation to a developing country. She often finds stuff on the streets and she had found another iMac in the streets that she had taken home. (She takes home a lot of things, granted. But an iMac?) Could I help him set it up?
“Oh, look, there’s all sorts of stuff on it.” Files. Folders. It was his own iMac, of course. I said nothing.
That was so unhinged. I became really worried. If he says shit like that about his wife, then what’s he saying about me? I now find myself doubting other things he’s said about her. According to him, she is pretty paranoid. Is she really?
About me, one of the stories he made up was that I had a pioneering business that failed. That’s hogwash. I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. Did he only say that to try to flatter me or has he also been saying that to others? I have no idea.
He’d recently suddenly given me what looked like a pretty trashy novel to read and on the same day, he’d plopped down next to me suddenly much too eagerly and much too close on one occasion. That told me that I probably had to be careful.
He has been really tense. He vocalises just about nonstop, also through his breathing sounds, and his breathing was pretty crazy. He sounded so so so tense. Like a bull that is about to charge, scraping its leg across the ground impatiently, steam emanating from its mouth.
So I’ve been pretty tense, too. He had thought that I wouldn’t just be sleeping on his couch (which he denies of course, but I am absolutely right about this), and ever since that became crystal clear, I’ve been on edge. He began to sulk, basically like a big child and also trying to get my attention. Years ago, he said something like that he liked the tension of chasing a woman (figuratively speaking), I remembered. I don’t. I didn’t consider it reassuring even though I can’t be sure what he meant by it.
I suspect that he had told himself that my shitty situation was just a ploy to get into his life and home, but I can’t know for sure. I suspect that he was expecting another fairytale, like a woman forty years younger falling for him. One evening, he really scared the crap out of me. Nobody else was in the house. Nothing happened but his behaviour initially was so weird that it really worried me. When I decided to ignore it, then he became deliberately intrusive. (I think he mistook my lack of response as encouragement.) Sitting closer to me on the sofa, leaning forward toward me. I got up. He also pretended not to hear me and deliberately stood much too close to me to be able to hear me. I kept backing off but I also got scared. He did seem to notice that.
I felt so betrayed.
He’d also referred to me using his bed during the day or his wife’s bed instead of the couch. I didn’t think that either would be a good idea.
He can be really controlling, I’ve noticed. Not good. He also has memory problems but they are partly an expression of pathological demand avoidance, I suspect.
He’s often ignoring me when I speak, he’s ignoring emails and when he asked me to use WhatsApp, he apparently blocked me after he mentioned The French Lieutenant’s Woman, a film that I don’t know but doesn’t sound like my kind of thing. I emailed him that WhatsApp did not seem to be working well on my phone and that I had uninstalled it, to avoid a discussion. (He’d been doing other things in the run-up to this, btw, and it now looks like it was about, I don’t know, domination? Control? Hard to tell.)
Part of the childish behaviour is also that he sometimes seems to be doing things to try to annoy me to voice his displeasure. Splashing my clothes, for example.
I kept my mouth shut for days, trying to say as little as possible, trying to avoid what would largely nonsensical discussions or even an explosion. But I am in a shitty situation and I am not well. My right lung was clogging up again (another reason why I really want out of the Netherlands as its weather is not good for me). I’ve upped my dosage of N-acetyl cysteine and the junk seems to be really coming out now.
(He’ll say things like it’s just a nervous cough. He likes twisting my truths into stories he makes up all by himself, I’ve noticed. Stories that are more palatable to him, but it may also be stories that paint me a certain way at the same time.)
Yesterday, I brought it up. The iMac. I was at the end of my tether, couldn’t keep it in any longer. He got furious and stormed at me.
(He takes a lot of effort masking like crazy. What’s behind it is supposed to be a secret.)
He did admit that the iMac thing was just because his wife had moved it a little on the table. Later I thought that it may just be because you now get to see that the keyboard is broken. He doesn’t use the iMac but it looks impressive, of course. I suspect that that’s why it’s on the table. He’s into what things look like, I’ve noticed, at least to a degree. Appearances.
After the incident, his breathing was changed markedly. Normal. But he tried to get my attention again, the way he’d been doing for days, and when that didn’t work, he grew tense again. I feel like I’m around a ticking time bomb.
He’s said nothing.
I need to get the hell out of here. I do not feel safe here. There are others around, but this situation is not helping me in any way, isn’t moving my life forward.
To help defuse the situation, I decided to thank him for the cucumbers, tomatoes and tofu he bought for me, but the fact that he’s willing to purchase a package of coffee for me but not a small bottle of olive oil which costs less than the coffee and is adamant, forceful, that he will not buy olive oil was worrisome. My digestion was seized up for days. Coffee helps. Olive oil helps too and it protects the heart. He now uses sunflower oil for everything. He shops at the most expensive supermarket. Appearances. At least I have gotten him to install the app so that he can activate their weekly special offers. They offer a choice of 10. You can pick 5.
I also texted him that I know that this is the autism speaking. Maybe I should not have. Maybe it sounded too much like condonence. (He turns out not to have read it, may have blocked me on his phone too. Who knows.)
I need to get out of here.
I know he can’t help it, but I can’t have this on my plate in my current situation, can I.
(For a while, since the incident, he has been muttering under his breath off and on. I don’t know what he was and is saying to himself.)
I have known someone else who’s highly educated and mildly autistic for about two years longer. Since 1982 or thereabouts. Some months ago, when I called her, she instantly started shouting at me angrily. She said that me and my sweet little voice shouldn’t be pretending that I didn’t know what this was about, why she was angry. I had no idea. Next, I discovered that only five days earlier, she had sent me an email in which nothing sounded amiss. She’d sent it to a new email address that I was only accessing at a public library. I set it up to circumvent the stupid hacking. (The hacking alone is enough to be dealing with.)
This formerly oh so egalitarian country has become heavily polarised and it’s increasing homelessness in the Netherlands at a rapid pace. One or two homeless families in Amsterdam in 2023 asked for help in one month. Now it’s 32 parents and 54 kids.
Bijvoorbeeld: in 2023 klopten maandelijks één of twee dakloze gezinnen bij de gemeente Amsterdam aan. In 2024 waren dat in één maand al 32 ouders met 54 kinderen. (Source: Linda article by Marissa Klaver.)
In 1996, when I returned from the United States after our research funding had collapsed which created an immensely stressful situation for me, getting basic benefits in the Netherlands was a piece of cake. It enabled me to get back on my feet, though it took me 18 months to find a home, in spite of having continued to pay my housing association dues.
It’s different now. Getting basic benefits is a nightmare that takes months. Most people can no longer borrow a friend’s car either, for example, to move some stuff into or out of storage or leave their things in a family member’s garage or basement.
If you’re poor, you are no longer seen as human. People want you to go away. They feel free to abuse you. They feel that you have no rights.
It’s not just polarization that causes this, specifically povertyism. The country has always been overregulated, but is now completely being strangled by a myriad of regulations that cause gridlocks, for example because they can be in contradiction. It’s one big mess of seized-up gears.
It’s no longer the case that if you lose your job, the government will step up and support you if you ask.
It appears that going to court is often the only way to break out of these strangleholds.
There’s one person who is very aware of it all. Her name is Michelle van Tongerloo. She’s a GP. She’s written a book about the patient called the Netherlands and two days ago, Dutch magazine Linda published an article about her and about the book.
Vengeful civil servants are a reality in the Netherlands. They have the power to make or break people and unlike in the past, no longer rigidly apply the rules. They actually actively torment people they are supposed to serve.
This is more or less what John Tasioulas referred to in a recent tweet, I realise now. On 8 December, he wrote ”One of the most poisonous developments in recent years has been the open contempt shown for democratic citizens without higher education” (while commenting on Tuck’s book “Active and Passive Citizens”).
Another problem in the Netherlands is that all sorts of solutions that are open to citizens in countries like the US and the UK if they want to save money or make money aren’t allowed. You can forget about doing anything like “DoorDashing” in the Netherlands. You are also supposed to put as much money as possible into other people’s pockets in all sorts of ways, particularly through renting a home. It’s illegal to sleep in a van or any other vehicle in the Netherlands unless it’s at a campsite. Most campsites are pretty expensive.
And then some (says me, the stupid delusional old cow).
Consensus target now around $40, with some setting it at 80. Note that ten firms have a hold rating, two a buy and two a sell. Several large investment firms apparently substantially increased their holdings in Q2. (That’s me as merely the messenger, not voicing my personal opinion or research.)
I just like their spunky approach, I like that they are small and up against Goliaths and I like what they do. (There’s negative stuff to be found everywhere.)
Been eyeing them for some time – and this stuff doesn’t require expensive travel efforts – but being hunted down by crazy civil servants acting like total lunatics and similar nonsense is not conducive to this kind of enterprise – and I am well aware of it. You learn this the hard way.
Haven’t been occupying myself with any of this for quite a while, so I don’t know what happened and why it’s up.
It was shockingly low for a while. I hope you were able to buy then and did.
(I’m still very angry. I hate powerlessness and I hate being rendered powerless even more. It draws the worst out of me. I make no secret of the fact that like any other human being out there, I need to and have the right to be allowed to do my thing, be busy, be interested, learn stuff, grow, flourish.)
The Dutch, once probably the coolest cucumbers on the planet, taking everything in stride, fazed by nothing, are becoming a nation of spoiled brats and fear mongerers.
On the one hand, there is something really weird going on in the Netherlands that no other western nation has. (That’s with the exception of the gun violence and particularly the mass shootings in the US.) There apparently already have been over a thousand explosions in the tiny country this year, intended to scare people. This bizarre cult of intimidation and retaliation started some years ago and is really getting out of hand. Though they probably aren’t behind the explosions, particularly civil servants appear to be whipping up a climate of fear. 😥😟☹️ “Shut up or else.” It’s connected to racism and povertyism, perhaps also to sexism, definitely to ageism, and also to ableism.
On the other hand, every molehill is being blown up into Mt. Everest. There for example is an unhealthy drive to collect each and every leaf that falls from a tree, lest anyone might slip on it in wet weather. Pretty bonkers if you ask me. The Netherlands doesn’t even have the kind of legal recourse for people who slip on leaves and the like that you see in the States. The leaf-collecting efforts consume a lot of fuel and electricity, too. The really worrisome idea of allowing euthanasia for the over-75s just because they are over 75 seems to tie into this too. Thankfully, that proposal didn’t make it into law. Is real life about to become outlawed in the Netherlands because it’s not close enough to a sweet Hollywood movie or what?
Now they’re putting the fear of god into people about Russia attacking the country. People are being told to prepare for war, and have emergency supplies at home. This is not because of flooding risks or hurricane risks, the risk that hacking poses for the country’s inadequately protected utility companies and banking systems or the strain on the over-extended power grids or because of the insane housing shortage that puts almost everyone at risk of instant homelessness, but because Russia may attack? The Netherlands has not even an inch of border that it shares with Russia. Now any time anything out of the ordinary happens, kids in the Netherlands have a tendency to think that Russia is attacking. Its former long-running prime minister Rutte who currently heads NATO sounds like he is losing the plot and turning into his very own version of Trump. Then again, there’s also the threat of Trump. (I still can’t believe that he got re-elected.) Does Rutte believe that Trump and Putin are plotting to take over the EU? I don’t find that a credible explanation.
How do I connect these two developments? This too, it’s got such an eerie feel of Orwellianism to it.
Sorry, England, about all my moaning about you. Things are now much crazier in the Netherlands. It was never my favourite country, but its gears are seizing up, I think. It’s always emphasized being average and mediocre over the joy of excelling and doing the best you can, the way America used to tick, but it was a nation in which down-to-earth people worked hard. That’s no longer the case, it seems. I don’t know how much of this is due to the imbalance created by social media and TV between the reality propelled by media versus what is happening in society away from media or what the size of this discrepancy is.
Driving people to prepare for emergencies does boost the economy, I suppose, if everyone stocks up. Is that the main reason why this idea that Russia might attack soon is being pushed?
I probably don’t even want to try to make sense of it all. It’s giving me a headache. 😂 The Netherlands is such a tiny country, but it always used to set good examples. It used to be so egalitarian. What went wrong here?
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