Hi! I've had the idea for this post in my head for quite a while, but I'm notably only writing it in the middle of the night right before what's gonna be the most stressful day I've had in possibly years.

So, in my previous diary post, I talked about a computer issue I had that took several days and a new SSD to fix. A day before the issue started, construction work began on my home. The kitchen, a bathroom, and the wall to an entire room were completely removed, and remodeling began across the entire house.

The process has been... grueling. Having construction workers over almost every day, hearing them bark orders at one another across the house, hearing loud music on their radio amidst the racket of drills, hammers, nails, woodcutters, and whatever else they've brought over... It's been a nightmare. I've had my earplugs in almost every day for weeks now, and I'm fortunate I've been able to spend all this time in my room with the door closed to reduce the noise.

Yes, I did say weeks. The construction is expected to last over a month in all. Amidst this, I've gotten my fourth commission (a particularly feature-heavy one with another lined up immediately after), played phone ping-pong with my doctor's office, ordered some "special" earplugs that turned out to trigger my compression headaches, rekindled a recently lost friendship, met someone disruptive to my mental health, had a blatantly one-sided therapy session that led me to terminate contact, watched my boyfriend get into online college, and more.

During this time I've become more intimately familiar with the feelings I associate with autism. If you don't know, I'm pretty heavily autistic, and it pervades my life on the daily. The idea of a meltdown or sensory overload is so ingrained in me that I'll often navigate social situations with neurotypicals more strategically than socially, lying to someone's face because it gets me to a less overwhelming environment faster, or going nonverbal to avoid the extra mental load of having to articulate a response that won't get me yelled at. Additionally, I can't talk over noises higher than a certain volume, can't talk when someone else is talking, hate repeating myself, and dissolve into dust under a ceiling light.

But I want to delve into a specific kind of autistic issue. There is something you could do to make a situation like this MUCH worse for an autistic person. And that's introducing MORE cacophony into their already limited headspace.

It would seem that my brother, during this time, got a new keyboard. Cool! But it's LOUD. Mechanical keyboards can be, but I'm talking EXTREMELY loud. I can hear it from literally the opposite corner of another floor of the house. It's absurd.

After I realized what was happening, I talked to him, and asked him to make it quieter. He flatly stated, "I don't know what you want me to do." I suggested he keep his door closed, which he begrudgingly obliged. It helps for the most part, but it doesn't help when I'm in the hallway.

You see, autistic meltdowns and overloads don't all have to be sensory or emotional. Different stressors all contribute. That includes emotional stress from relationship and social issues, physical stress from hauling boxes out of my room, sensory stress from all the noise, and now the additional sensory input from the keyboard. I'm literally less functional in the sanctity of my own home because of this freaking keyboard.

My family have a, shall we say, history of being unaccommodating and unwilling to change their routine. I'd like to ask him to get quieter keycaps, but I'm certain he'll refuse. I'm lost, embarrassed, guilty and ashamed for having these problems. But they're literally outside of my control. And in my opinion, if he's unwilling to stop something that's actively harming me in my daily life, screw him.

It's almost 1 AM the morning of July 2nd. On the 3rd, construction will begin in my bedroom, after weeks of it being up in the air which room was next. This leaves me with only one day to move everything out of my room. I wanted to do it earlier, but my mom only moved her stuff out of the spare room today after putting it off for several days.

Another way to mess up an autistic person's headspace is screw with their workspace, their safe space, their room, their private oasis, their secret garden. My little area with my serverbox, personal computer, and plushies, will be moved into the spare room NEXT TO MY BROTHER'S ROOM with his stupid keyboard.

I don't have a say in this. There's no other place it could go. They won't be working on the 4th. The 2-day weekend is immediately after.

I am, frankly, very concerned about what such a high concentration of stress will do to me. It could mess me up badly. But I don't have a say in this. I'm already left a self-doubting, incoherent, venting mess from everything else.

I'll just have to pull through one of the worst days I've had in years, and come out the other side.