Ordinary life

“Gradually, everything becomes clear to me. Much of me is still a mystery, but I do not give up, ”says the 27-year-old Vlad after lessons in a“ training apartment ”. Lessons where he was taught the simplest things: go to the store, wash the floor, cook porridge

In a spacious apartment on Engels, a kettle boils. Vlad makes me tea, lays cookies on a saucer. Invites you to sit down. I'm inspecting. In the kitchen, the inscriptions are glued to all the cabinets: “for dishes”, “cereals”, “oil”, “garbage bucket”. Above the tap, the stickers are “hot” and “cold”. A schedule hangs on the wall. "Breakfast", "classes" ...

- And what is it, Vlad?

- Now I will explain. This is a general schedule. On Monday we ... oh, it’s more convenient for me to say from Saturday. In general, we live all week, starting from Monday ... Oh, well, from Monday. We come to the apartment in the evening with a tutor, dinner, leisure.

- Cook yourself?

-It happens that the tutor does something, but mostly yes, students. We. Alternately. Pre -negotiate, in advance, at the end of each week. Who and on what day of students prepare breakfast or dinner. So. Here we have dinner, leisure, hang up. In the morning everyone has their own responsibilities. Wash the floor, pour flowers.

We are in the “training apartment” of the Center “Anton here nearby”, where adults with the features of development learn the simplest things. Someone is preparing breakfast for the first time in his life, someone is surprised to find that he now has his own area of ​​responsibility and no one will make part of the work for him. And out of responsibility, the ability to cope with life is growing. With the simplest, ordinary life that the wards of the center is already mastered by adults.

Vlad plays improvisation on a blockflate photo: Natalia Bulkina for TD

Lord is important order. He speaks thoroughly, only with full phrases, loves accurate numbers and remembers all the addresses. This allows him to hold on to the facts, as if relying on his acquaintance, on what he sees.

I listen to Vlad and I think: how does everything work in his head? How does information about the world lie in it - shelves, catalog? And how is it arranged in mine? Fragments, glare. I can’t work when conversations are going on, I can’t at all, as if the world is scolding with sound fragments. I quit the office, that's why. Vlad seeks to work in the office. Go to work, communicate. He learns to communicate as the most important skill.

I listen to Vlad and I think how I differ from him. Yes, little. I also do not know how to learn alone, I need to show. I also be sad in isolation. I am also afraid of public speaking.

I look at Vlad and think: how will I explain to strangers, why did Vlad needed this apartment to learn how to cope with life? Vlad pours my tea. He does it very concentrated and neatly. The tea is delicious, I thank. Vlad is very proud.

He did not know how to cook before the "training apartment". “And, I admit, I did not have to do cleaning,” Vlad says just that. “Now I am doing everything - and my floors, and cook and wash.”

Before that, my mother took all care. Not all families where a person with developmental features grows, cope with the role of tutors - those who teach, and not those who only protect.

- Was it difficult to study?

A long pause hangs. Vlad carefully chips cookies.

- Yes. At first there were some difficulties, but I quickly overcame them. Because there are instructions, sequences. Take, for example, the same washing machine. Frankly, for the washing machine, I still use instructions. We have no washing machine at home and there is no constant practice. I have not yet happened to be purchased. I am doing this according to the instructions. If there were no instructions, it would be difficult.

Vlad's phone calls in the bag-pitch. He opens the zipper, peers into the screen and says:

- Sorry, I have to answer.

Vlad shows a video of her performance in the theater camp photo: Natalia Bulkina for TD

I leaf through the instructions for the washing machine compiled by tutors for students. Everything is in great detail there. How to choose and load linen. How to hang. “When washing is completed, click“ Off ”.”

Returning, Vlad tells about the center “Anton here is nearby”:

- I had heard about this organization before, but I still did not suspect that in a few years I had to go through training there. But it all started with training on employment. In 2016. “I, work and colleagues,” he had such a topic. I went through this training, in a month I did not miss a single lesson.

After this training, a lot of time has passed: Vlad managed to work as a dressing room and an assistant to the waiter, and in his specialty received in the center - crop production. “I cut the Christmas trees from dry branches,” he says.

And Vlad is an actor: he plays in the inclusive performance “Talks”, the joint project “Anton here is near” and the Alma Mater Foundation. This is also paid work.

All these works were found by the Center for the Support of People with Austism "Anton here is near." In the tranquet park, where Vlad worked as a wardrobe, the wardrobe closed for the summer, and with the same, Vlad is looking for work on his own, like everyone else. But when he finds it, the first time a volunteer will go with him at first - as in all previous places.

- When I was an assistant to the waiter, I wrapped forks, knives and spoons. In napkins. I liked it.

- And what?

Vlad is thinking for a long time. He drinks tea. Crumes cookies. The leg, thrown on the other leg, begins to shake finely and little. This is a common thing, it helps to lose your bodily tension. Answers, slowly, carefully choosing the words:

-Of course, I was not going to work as a waiter all my life, but you need to start with something. Someone starts with a loader, with a janitor. I would like to try a janitor, but in the near future it is impossible, because it is necessary to rent a room, and now it is not possible due to expenses. And the work by the janitor begins very early, even earlier eight, it will not work to ride from the house. But we were a little distracted.

Vlad tells me “we were a little distracted” to any deviation to the side and returns to the question asked: the story should be told all, consistently and with all the events and dates, addresses and exact coordinates - otherwise it is impossible. What was first, and then, as if bricks fit into the foundation of the conversation.

I will not tell you the whole story of Vlad - it is very long.

Like any ordinary life, right? This is only life “sitting at home” very short. This is in our country in most people with developmental features. Sitting at home, safe and in isolation, to be chosen first in their studies, and then at any work. Yes, what kind of work we are talking about, if you do not know even the simplest things, you can’t even go to the store. It so happens that in a family where a child with features was born, peculiar co -dependent relationships are formed, in which the roles are painted for a long time and firmly, where they habitually do everything for the child, not knowing how to see that the child has grown. Accustomed to perceive it as an unable to grow.

Somewhere in the middle of the conversation, Vlad pauses. The phrases seem to slip away, fall from under the tongue, and time is required. Vlad begins them and cuts them off in the middle, tries again, from the very beginning, a complete proposal.

Vlad photo: Natalia Bulkina for TD

Wait. Just wait and let your thoughts get together. Vlad's fingers tremble, crumble cookies. I completely tortured you, I say. No, Vlad answers. No. You have nothing to do with it.

This is calm and the ability to pull yourself together. This is the ability to control oneself and give yourself what you need. Know your characteristics. Their reactions. To help yourself and become your support-it is brought up only by independence, with relying not on someone who steers and knows, but on himself. And it becomes the most valuable acquisition. With which you can live.

Vlad lowers his eyes and suddenly notices a hill of crushed cookies. These are traces of our conversation. Vlavites and removes, and again everything becomes clean.

We say goodbye, and in the corridor Vlad tells me about his main dream. She is very simple. Live in St. Petersburg, work and provide your family.

- I have a girlfriend, her name is Masha. We met in the center. I have the most serious intentions to her. My girlfriend does not work, but it doesn't bother me. This is excusable to the girl, but I just have to work.

Vlad has a beloved girl, he is afraid to lose his job. He just has life, such an ordinary one. What many would not at all consider for achieving. He also has dozens of people with an autistic spectrum disorder due to the simple, inconspicuous, daily work of the “training apartment”. So that more people can simply lead a very ordinary, simple human life, money is needed, of course. On the wages of the tutors, for rent and repair of the apartment, for products and classes, for the painstaking daily work of everyday life. Let's give Vlad a chance for ordinary life.

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