At the bottom

Every once in awhile I have to spend some time at the bottom of the well. Its like my body needs time to remember what its like to be sad so it can appreciate the good times and decides to stop producing those happy drugs altogether and I’m left in a rut I just don’t know how to get out of. I can’t sleep, I can’t think, I can’t communicate with any degree of effectiveness. All I can do is do my very best to live through it and hope that it will be over soon, that I can go to sleep one night and wake up the next day to a brighter world.

I think the hardest part of it is the effect it has on those I care most about. I don’t like being a burden but it’s hard to be anything else to those I can’t hide this from. The guilt I feel for having a negative impact on their lives at these times only compounds the way I feel. I feel like I should crawl into a hole somewhere and hide away from everyone until it passes but I can’t, and they see, and they worry, and the whole thing goes around in a big circle. I can accept what it does to me, I have a much harder time accepting what it does to them.

I feel like I should have better control, like if I could just look at this from the right angle I could make it do away, so I poke and I prod and I try to make it all make sense. Emotions rarely make sense, I don’t even know why I try. I know I should just ride it out, cry when I need to, sleep when I can, but that’s so much harder to do when there are other people to take into consideration. I’m stuck in a struggle between what I need to do to feel better, and what I need to do to keep them happy, and I really have no control over the outcome. I can try to smother it down but it will all build up in the long run and eventually overflow, eventually they will see, I can only keep it hidden so long and the longer I do the worse it is in the long run.

I know it will pass, I just wish it would pass faster so I can get back to living my life.

Masochism

Although this diagnosis of Asperger’s is new to my life, the self evaluation and discovery that has gone along with it is a story as old as I am. I’ve always been seeking the deeper meanings and hidden answers and this isn’t the first time that the things I have discovered about myself have raised eyebrows and had people thinking that there must be something wrong with me. When I tell people I’m a masochist I get the same reaction.

There is an epidemic in our world that for some reason no one seems to see. Its an epidemic of misinformation and it plays a deciding role in the amount of discrimination and ignorance that people are running up against every day of their lives. Google masochist and see what you find, a startling array of articles and definitions proclaiming masochism to be a mental disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of self defeating behavior, and while I admit there are those out there like this, its these types of blanket diagnosis that contribute to the misunderstanding I suffer from. Things are rarely black and white in reality the way they are on paper.

No one stops to consider that maybe it’s a combination of mental and/or emotional disorders that contribute to some masochists behaving this way. I am a masochist without self defeating personality disorder.

Saying I like pain is a lousy way to describe it. While I have a high tolerance for it, pain is pain and it hurts. What I do like about it is the rush of endorphins and adrenaline my body produces in response to the physical and emotional trauma I am putting it through. When it comes down to it I’m nothing more than an adrenaline junkie who is too smart to jump out of an airplane and knows that its better to throw it into a cocktail with some yummy endorphins to kick start the effect. No one is out there insisting all snowboarders are in need of psychiatric evaluation, or that bungee jumpers are just trying to cover up emotional pain.

By now some of you are wondering, do I hurt myself? Do I let other people hurt me? The answer is once again not so black and white, it depends on the situation. I went from poking at scrapes as a kid to artistic cutting and wax as a teenager. I prefer, at this stage in my life, to have someone else do the hurting for me. Now, before you jump to conclusions, I am not out roaming the streets at night dressed like a slut hoping someone will attack me. Remember what I said up there about being too smart to jump out of an airplane? I take my personal safety very seriously, and this is no exception. I’m very careful about who I will let hurt me, but what a wonderful surprise to find out that there was another side to this coin. I have a wonderful sadist in my life.

You see, while the amount of pain I can cause myself takes the edge off the desire, satiation is hard to achieve. My bodies natural defence mechanisms kick into full gear way too soon and I have to remain present to continue. Take that power out of my hands and put it into the hands of another and suddenly I can ride the way it makes me feel. Ultimately I am safe, he isn’t going to do anything I can’t get up and function from in very short order, but the uncertainty of not knowing how far he will push this time or what he will do next plays tricks on my mind and floods my body with my drugs of choice. Knowing he gets off on hurting me just adds the emotional twist of lime that finishes it off perfectly.

There is a side of this no one sees, the mutual trust and respect that’s required to engage in these activities, or the communication that takes place about every aspect of this in our lives. This isn’t something that’s entered into lightly, it takes a vast amount of understanding about both yourself and the other person to take things to the level we do, and the risk is as much his as mine. People express their concerns for my safety and, while I understand that they are just worried, it’s insulting because it expresses a lack of confidence in my intelligence and strength.

Just as insulting, in fact, as considering my having Asperger’s a disability.

The "cure" for my "problem"

I’m baffled by the concepts of normal, and typical, and common sense that isn’t common and doesn’t often make any sense at all. I don’t understand the world’s propensity towards dishonesty and untruth. “Honest to a fault” is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard. Whose fault are we talking about here and why does the truth need to be anyone’s fault at all? Why can’t the truth just be what it is? I spend my life asking these questions, and haven’t found an answer yet.

The only way to achieve balance in my life is by being honest with myself and the people around me about who I am and what I need. I tried bluffing, I tried faking it, I tried pretending I was just like the rest of them. I tried and failed, but I tried and succeeded with surprising frequency as well, only to return home still overwhelmed and miserable in the long run, drug down by the pressures of the role I was playing day after day after day. I tried to be someone I wasn’t for the sake of the mass majority that they could continue to be comfortable in their idea of what was right and normal and the best thing for everybody, but the truth still sang beneath the surface until my ears rang with its echo and my head pounded to its rhythm. The inside of my head was a raging storm of confusion as I tried to make my needs meet the standards of a world that thought I was getting by just fine. Interesting that now, as I have reached calm and balance, they think there is something wrong with me that needs to be remedied. I’ve found the cure, and they are still confused about the problem.

The only disabling thing I suffer from is judgment, the rest of my life is calm and peaceful and I’m quite content with what I have. That’s more than can be said for most people out there trying to “make it in the real world”. If I sought a cure for who I am, the things that form my personality, what would be left? What would it matter if I could enjoy having more friends if all of the things my real friends love about me were lost in the process? I have spent 30 years in self evaluation to get myself to a point where I have all the things I need to make me happy and content in my day to day life and what would be the point in throwing all of that away in order to have things I don’t really want in the first place. Really, they ought to stop trying to cure me, and start trying to accept me. It’s much more within their realm of influence.

To the music in her mind..

She dances alone in a clearing full of eyes all alight with wisdom and understanding if only they could see her. They cant, she covers her own eyes to keep it inside thinking that if she cant see them they cant see her, and she’s right. What they see isn’t here, its nothing but a shallow veneer wrought of lilacs and ivy woven tight with thorns to prick the unwary and keep a million tiny pieces trapped inside. Pieces that she has painstakingly collected through time untold and clutched in the tiny fists that beat against the chest of humanity.

Its not a simple as they think nor as hard as they imagine to dance beside her, but the vision they behold blends and wavers between this world and another baffling their concept of reality and truth. Frightened by what they can’t understand they watch on and the whispered songs they should have heard from the dawn of this act vanish beneath the din of observation and judgment. Still she dances, uncaring that lines are blurring and unmindful of the storms that are brewing overhead. This is her time, and her place, and they cannot really see her after all. They could dance beside her but the very nature of their world holds them back.

She falls exhausted to the dirt at her feet and carelessly they rush to her side, words of solace and pity that grate through her veins, burning her with the intensity of their desperate advice. Clenched fists that they would see this fall as weakness, this need to stop and catch her breath as impairment, did they not see her dance? Surely if they had they would know she deserves this moment in the dust, the sweat that glistens on her skin, the pounding heart that threatens to burst from her chest. They didn’t, they saw nothing but the tears and anguish of a child too afraid to reach out and take their hand, too lost in her own dreams to even see that they only want to help her understand. They cannot see that its not she that needs to understand.

Why can they only see her here she wonders, when she lies in the ashes of her own humanity too weak to rise and greet the song that plays endlessly through her mind, and her tears begin to soak the fallow earth that cradles her prone body. Mired in a net of judgment and evaluation she could drown in her own thoughts as they try to surge past her lips in a torrent of explanation, only to be lost in the stream of labels and opinions that pour from their mouths. Careless definitions cast forth in an attempt to find a way to keep her here, in this world, where they can see her. She rises to her feet and though she still cries she smiles and turns away, shrugging off those hands that seek to bind her to this reality. There is nothing for her here but dust and ashes, and so she starts to dance again, hoping against hope but knowing better, that this time they will finally open their eyes and witness the peace this dance brings her.

Suffering From Judgment

Floating around on youtube this morning I came across a video discussing how we do not suffer from Asperger’s we suffer from society.

This is something I have thought about many times over the years, even before being diagnosed with AS. I have never suffered from my differences, only from the judgment of others about the value of those differences. When held up in contrast to their own needs my life seems hollow and disconnected and so it’s easy for them to jump to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with me. They fail to see how full and rich it is when compared to my own desires.

30 years of being told there is something wrong with you takes its toll, and I feel it through secondary mental disorders. As time passed and I was increasingly expected to take part in society as a “normal” person I developed anxiety and a social phobia. Although I don’t imagine I would have either of these were it not for AS in my life, I’m quite certain they are not a symptom of the AS itself but rather a symptom of societies reaction to my differences. The social phobia is almost a benefit now; I feel much less guilt about my inability to function in the outside world when I’m not making constant attempts to do it. Still I hear on a regular basis that this is no way to live my life, that there must be something wrong, that I ought to be looking for a cure.

Am I angry about it? Not really, I cannot blame the vast majority for not knowing any better, it is after all not something they have been prompted to think about. Those that should know better but don’t are another story, but I am happy to know their true character and even more happy to leave them out of my life. I just think it would be a vast improvement if people stopped trying to decide what was “right” for everyone else.

Self Esteem

I often come across as very negative about myself. Perhaps not here where I make an effort to express that I have talents, but more so when it comes to verbal communication. I’ve been told by outsiders that some work on my self esteem would do me wonders. It makes me snicker, if they knew anything about me they would know that low self esteem is not something I suffer from. I have a tendency to talk more about the things I am not good at than the things I excel at, but there is a simple reason for this and it has nothing to do with the way I feel about myself.

The things I am good at I am extremely good at. I do nothing by halves, and if I am not competent at an activity I simply won’t do it. Being a perfectionist this leads to a high level of expertise about the things I know, and an almost complete lack of knowledge about the things I don’t. For some reason this bothers people to the point where I am either a narcissist for talking about my strengths, or have self esteem problems for addressing my weaknesses. The only way I can see around this would be to discuss both in one conversation but since they tend to involve totally separate topics this rarely makes sense in the context of conversation.

I can’t for the life of me figure out why being aware of my weaknesses is a bad thing, or even discussing them with other people, when it leads to a further understanding of myself and that is what I am after in the long run. I have no idea why acknowledging the things I am good at makes me egotistical when those are the things by which I stand to offer the most to the world. I don’t understand why it can’t just be accepted for truth that it is. No hidden meaning, no search for a pat on the back, just me knowing what I’m good at.

Perception

Some will seek the tangles in the depths, only to be trapped and lost in a cage of their own interpretations. They close the doors to their own minds, slamming them shut one after another in an attempt to hold together their fragile and shattering sense of self. The cracks that mar the surface ebb land flow like the tides, for sometimes these feeble attempts at enlightenment form mud that seeps into the cracks and fills them. But the reality of truth flows past these shallow dams, they loosen the bits of debris that tries to lock itself into feeble wisdom.

If only these eyes could see, if only the walls that contain this all could be torn down one brick at a time. If only progression could force time back in its wheel, then the voices of things once uttered in distress could be trampled under the heavy tread of common sense. But alas, time marches on and the voices that once echoed so soundlessly from wall to wall, fade in the distance between then and now. Who remembers the whispered tales so forgotten in their own past they cannot see the light of the present shining bright into their imagination, beckoning and tempting of things that could lead the soul to peace and the mind to clarity?

Feeble winds and feeble tales spread slow and tend to whimper with dying breaths, for without progress the wings could not unfurl, and the butterfly would never soar, forever doomed to the path of the earth, chained by the bonds of altered evolution. Stagnancies breeds disease, and this disease that burns fierce along the pillars of the bridges casts its shadows long across the path that leads onward, forward, one step at a time.

The arms of comrades fallen by the wayside, point the way through the mires that try to grasp and claw, draw them into its heart where it feeds on those who call themselves the truth. Gaping rents in the understanding of those too blinded by base achievement to grasp the difficulties within their twisted hands. Psychic vampires who sneak unwary through the triumphs of others, seeking to pick and prod at the delicate fibers that hold the sleeping eyes of dreamers as they wander from room to room.

My spirit sings at the cusp of the deepest pit, obsidian darkness and an echo that fans out forever, like a stone dropped from far too high to ever pierce the delicate skin of the oceans that abound. Laughter fills the emptiness of the blackened rooms behind the closed doors. For those without eyes to see, or bridges to traverse the severity of the landscape, shall trip and stumble to the knees of a child when faced with the certainty of their own mistakes. Someday the slap shall send them reeling, and the crystal palaces built so carefully, brick after brick, in careful progression, will shatter and fall before the eyes of the disbelieving.

Progression relies on the imperfections of humanity, for with nothing to improve on how could we progress. And yet there will always be some who can refuse to see even the plainest of colors as they pass before their eyes. Some who will always see the calming blue that descends from above as the crimson red that surrounds their defenses. My song mourns these lost souls, who have forgotten how to forgive themselves all transgressions that they might learn and grow and seek the metamorphosis that allows them to soar.

Indigo blood sinks deep into the soil that holds captured the feet of those who wander too far down the path of self righteousness, those who would dare scratch insults in the dust in vain attempts to be granted company in the face of their own denied misery. Grant them succor, and their claws rend and tear at the pages that hold the destiny of truth before their very sight. Grant them solace and they cry foul and dismay, that one would dare offer sanctuary in the depths of their own endless drive towards totality.

Let the angels be warned, that the demons that hide within the hearts of those too important to care for the opinions of others exist in the closets and under the beds. Intolerance is the nightmare that lurks in the shadows and causes fear in the night. Each time the evening descends, another voice fades from the echoes, another is added to the chaos, another twists itself into knots with its own failed logic. In all cases, at the end of all tales, reality and truth will prevail, for that is the path of progression, and there is no denying that.

Keys

Dreamers whisper back and forth across star strewn skies
Their voices crisp and clear on the breeze
Parading their hearts for the world to answer
With echoes of immortality
Amongst the marked

Those who bear the brand, who dance attendance
To the dark that lives and breathes eternity in their souls
Seek the light in the darkest of places
Seek the recesses of their own fragile motives
And find the truth hidden in the caskets of confidence

Deny the honesty that screams defiance at the masks
At the peril of long forgotten deceptions
Rising to devour what remains of the will to be whole
The stone that hides the true image from prying eyes
Also blinds eyes that seek fulfillment
In a world that doesn’t belong to them.

The never ending pursuit of happiness
Foiled at every turn by the fragile’s inability
To take ownership of the weakness that bleeds for acknowledgement
With laid blame they hide their scars
Laying bare their own chances

Acceptance marks the beginning
And the path grows longer with each step
Twisting and turning past ethical lessons
Taught in fear of the unknown.

Shed the scattered teachings that the truth is what they speak
Cast the muttered discontent aside in the face of bitter reality
We are the nightmares that lurk in the abyss of our own subconscious
We are the light at the end of our own tunnel
We are the keys to our own success
We simply need to unlock the door.

Hiding Within

I haven’t always been reclusive. I went to regular school like any other kid and went on to college. I took my kid to school and went to my full time job every day. I went out every night and had lots of friends. To the outside world I seemed like your average young mother doing her best to get by in life, but I was screaming on the inside. It’s hard to cope with feeling this way when you have no idea what’s going on, or why you are struggling so much with things everyone else can do with ease. I understand now that its common with Asperger’s to feel this way, but back then I slowly withdrew a piece at a time trying to gain some peace and clarity in my life, and some understanding of why it all seemed so different for me.

The times I want to leave my cozy little den have dropped dramatically in the last few years. I don’t think the time I spend alone is a new need, just the further recognition of one I’ve always had. I can’t focus on anything when there are other people around, so I stay in my apartment by myself most of the time. It’s getting to the point where even that isn’t enough. Cabin fever gets the best of me because I love to be outside, but living in the city overwhelms me to the point where I have no choice but to stay indoors most of the time. Even a trip to the nearby park seems like an impossible journey when you are worried about who you might run into. The occasional dinner, family function, or errand I manage these days leave me over stimulated and exhausted. Going to the grocery store is a nightmare of lights and sounds and people that I can’t avoid because I only eat certain brands of certain foods. All I want to do when I’m done is go home and go to bed. Just the idea of going out into the hall of my building can be too much to bear sometimes.

I want to live in the woods. I want trees, and running water, and rock as far as the eye can see. I want my own little room in the attic where I can hang things from the ceiling, and paint on the walls, and fill one end with pillows for curling up and reading in. I want to be able to step outside my door without being immediately assaulted by the traffic, and the lights, and the hordes of people going this way and that. I want to be able to see the stars at night, and to sit by the fire quietly thinking. I want to live where the world can’t find me unless I let them.

Its not that I don’t want any contact with people at all, on the contrary, I am fascinated by people and desire to connect with them, I just struggle with face to face interaction and social etiquette. The few people I do interact with on a social level, including my boyfriend, are either on the spectrum or highly open minded people who can see past these weaknesses. Despite these difficulties I have found a way to connect with a broader slice of the world at large through the internet. I have found a medium where eye contact doesn’t matter and everyone is free to pursue what brings them peace and happiness, where people don’t have to ignore my tapping feet and worried expression to see the truth in my words.

Some day when my situation is a little better I can move from this city and find my little piece of heaven in the woods. Until then I will bide my time here in this apartment, adventuring out into the wide bustling world only when I have to. Those who know me will shake their heads and forgive me, just another way that Alei is different from the rest. Those who understand me will recognize that it’s what I need to do and love me all the more. The rest of the world will pass by my doorstep and never even know I’m here. Its better that way.

The Missing Voice

I’ve been doing a lot of research these last few weeks. I have a driving need to find out exactly where Autism fits into my life so I can decide where to go from here. I’m shocked at what I have found. In mainstream coverage there is one thing significantly lacking. Where is the voice of Autism? How can people who have no idea what it is like to have Autism claim to know all the answers about how it affects your life and what you should do to “cure” it? Why are we listening to the NT parents of Autistic children and not listening to the adults who have lived with this their whole life? Those same adults who were once children with Autism.

I see a general sense of panic happening over the issue of Autism, and I don’t really see the point in that. I’m all about getting the stats out there but this tendency to react with horror and disbelief is a little childish in the face of the facts. An average of 1 in 150 children are on the Autistic Spectrum, and I agree these numbers are staggering, but they are not new despite their relatively recent appearance. If 1 in 150 children have Autism then 1 in 150 adults have Autism. You grew up beside us, the quiet kid at the back or the class clown. You worked beside us and maybe once in awhile wondered where our minds were wandering off to. You sat beside us in the coffee shop and wondered what book we were reading. You sat beside us in the movie theatre and didn’t even know we were there. Autism isn’t new, people panicking about it is.

This rush to find a cure frustrates me. How many Autistic people did they talk to before they decided we need a cure and how much of this push is coming from parents who just want a “normal” child. I’m amazed that people who consider themselves intelligent and rational are buying into and contributing to this hype. I’m even more amazed that they perceive this as the whole truth when it is so blatantly half of the story. Digging deeper the real story is there, the endless accounts of people who have lived with this their whole life. Acceptance of who they are. An overall sense of confusion about why the world can’t accept them as they are as well. People who know that like everything else in life it isn’t all bad, that the upsides to being Autistic more than balance it out. People who wouldn’t want to be NT for all the money in the world. Oddly enough, I haven’t found anyone with Autism screaming for a cure.

Normal vs Sane

What is normal but a figment of their warped imaginations? It doesn’t exist in my world, never has, despite the endless times it’s been thrown at my feet. They tried to throw it at me but it never stuck, how could I be something that doesn’t exist. I may as well try to be a unicorn or a dragon for all the good it would do me. I can’t be anything other than what I am, and try as I might I will never master the magic of transformation. I tried and I failed before I learned how to mimic their cries and let them come flocking to what they wanted to see, I’ve forgotten now how to do even that. Not that I care.

I refuse to pretend, I’ve spent my life pretending and I don’t think it’s too much to ask for my loved ones to accept me for who I am. I know it isn’t for most, the ones who already knew about my world and love me and would never ask me to change, but I worry about the rest. Will the social stigma Autism get the best of them? Will they crumble beneath the pressure of the media to find a cure? Will they stop seeing me for the person I am in the face of what they see as a disease? Or will they open their minds and their hearts and see the truth about the girl standing in front of them and all she has to offer? I don’t know, I can’t predict how they will react, I don’t understand them at all. It seems so easy to me. Stop trying to change the things you have no control over and just accept reality into your life.

I’m not hurting anyone, hiding away in my little world. I don’t pose any threat by remaining peripheral from all those but the few who will meet me half way. I could wish for the ability to expand this close circle, I could visualize it in my mind, but still I would open my eyes to find that the power is not mine to make their choices and all that remains are my whispers and the hope that they will hear them. One little voice saying that trying to be normal is counterproductive to remaining sane. You may as well try being a unicorn, or a dragon, for all the good it will do you.

Altered Reality

I sit and wonder impossible things. Impossible questions with impossible answers that are impossible to find. It’s no wonder I feel like I’m running in circles, panting and heaving with each labored step to get where? Nowhere except right back here where I started, staring at my own bitter reflection, that warped perception with no face that I embrace and hold dear. It shatters under the pressure of so many hands tugging it this way and that towards their own definitions. No care for the not so fragile doll, suddenly porcelain under their scrutiny, searching for flaws in the already crackled veneer of what they taught her to be. I don’t understand how it can be easier to live on their side of the mirror.

Clarity they say, and common sense, naught but hurled remnants of ages long past that drift to the bottom of the muddy waters that surround them, social conditioning that has no basis in reality. Not clear, clarifying, but crimson with the tears of bleeding hearts and opaque to muddle and blind, if only they could see. I can’t save them from passionate denial, when all I have to offer is words, and to open my mouth I risk the flood pouring forth, to sear them where they stand for their damning accusations of reality and misguided fantasy. Even now I fail to understand the world beyond the glass, its perceptions seems so warped it overwhelms me. I’m a catalyst with no voice beyond a whisper trapped between here and there. Nothing but these groups of letters that fall from my fingertips.

I seem to exist in a world they can’t even imagine, at the edges of their reality, their existence, where they glide endlessly through life on magic carpets fueled by the dishonest truth, kept company by a golem in my likeness, though I long ago fled the safe womb of that chrysalis. I fight my way through rabid jungle that seems so calm and serene from their lofty perch, where the wind barely graces the tops of the trees with its gentle kiss. The reality of who I am exists only in their dreams, where they can cast hideous denials back in the face of my defiant screams, and find succor in their heated delusions that I am like them at all.

I am not who they expect, not who they see when they deign to cast enlightened eyes my way. The reality flows just beneath that brittle veneer, one that could not hold under the gaze of a closer look, a blessing then that they choose not to, their cool apathy the glue that holds its cracked and worn fragments as my disguise. Deaf eyes and blinded ears. Where, I wonder, did they learn not to trust their senses. Common sense in the face of the truth that it is neither common nor sensible at all. The intensity of their lives makes my head swim and no matter how strong you are, treading water is always a losing battle. Any wonder that I choose to exist in my world rather than theirs; they make the same choice every day.

Opening Minds

I’m not going to cry, I’m not going to whimper, I’m not ever going to let a lone tear roll tracks down my dusty cheeks. I won’t let the world know the pain they cause, the scars that cut through my soul, marring the edges of my very spirit, and leaving me crying in agony on the inside. A cold face is all they will receive in return. Their cruel taunts will pass my ears with the speed of a wave, crashing against the rocks, and yet will not wear me down. My strength is moored in the lines of the earth, and the energy that sustains it runs through my bones as well. Laughter may echo across the lands of my mind, but my own can join it in harmony, and soon the mocking shall fade, no power without consent. I won’t let them see the shattered webbing of the core that is created, when laughing minds refuse to see the truth, when the sheep inside their hearts follow blind along paths of destruction.

The fear that rocks my being is one for them alone, and yet they will never understand this, for the weight of the world rests in their hands, and the power of it makes them gluttonous. Wrapped deep within layers and layers of gauzing, cushioned from the damage they cause themselves, and everyone else in the process, my heart still weeps but I won’t let them see. If they opened their eyes, saw the lines in between, walked the tunnels with lamps instead of blindly floundering on, then the world might last forever. Takes but a moment to ask the questions that provide illumination for this journey of ours, and the light a single one may cast can light the way for countless others who follow in their wake. But no, some people fear the light, and the knowledge it may bring, that in the glare of the truth they might find they their perspectives a little warped. So they hide behind Ire, and claim to have a greater understanding of the world at large, when all they can really see is the walls they have created in their own little reality.

True bravery takes a step outside that door, those walls of safety and comfort, to see the world from the eyes of another. Why won’t I cry? Whimper? Because it would make no difference, cruel eyes would just flash and call it weakness. They would jump to conclusions, assuming they hurt me, that the wounds that appear across the flesh of my soul are theirs. But they belong to humanity, romantic as it is, for these people will mean the end of the earth, Armageddon, Ragnorak, if they don’t learn to listen to the greater songs that are the energy of us all. Why embrace anger, when acceptance comes easier, why embrace hate when the heart wants to learn. Why claim understanding before even listening. Open your mind and embrace clarity.

Sometimes...

The unexplainable happens, and you are struck by a force so strong you are left reeling in its wake, hoping you survive the impact.

The soul makes a leap before the mind is ready, and the confusion this creates blows apart some of the things you thought you understood.

The subconscious wakes up, and starts effecting changes in your life, unbeknownst to the conscious mind.

Dreams aren’t really dreams at all, but silver threads that guide you to the healing that you need, tangible only in that space between sleep and wake.

The bits of evil that lurk in the shadows of your spirit are the only things keeping you sane, and forcing your heart to keep beating.

Its harder to embrace hope than defeat, happiness than sadness, comfort than pain.

Even though all the signs are pointing in one direction, the only way to get where you are going is to go the other way.

The things that hurt the most are the things that are worth the most.

Every time you answer a question it opens a door, and behind every door is a room full of questions.

State of Mind

I have to be honest; I can’t do this any other way. I have to admit that I’m frightened of the shadows that lurk at the edges of understanding and acceptance where it was once my solace to hide and wait and watch. Now I’ve hurled myself from the darkness and into the blinding light of the fire where all the weaknesses I fought to smother for so long can be picked apart and scrutinized in the hopes that reassembled these tiny fragments can be stronger as a whole. I feel like a blind man who has learned to see, still fearful of stumbling and falling over the stone blocks that are scattered here and there that I now know are simply features in my garden and not the traps I once thought them to be. I can see them, I know what they are, and yet I can’t help but be wary that another will spring up that I have never seen. There are so many things I couldn’t see before now.

I am at a crossroads, and yet there are no other roads but for the direction I am already traveling. I started on this path a long time ago, and I have gone too far to retrace my steps now to become something other than what I am, a frustrated little girl who is locked in a struggle between wanting her turn for show and tell and fearing the class will laugh when she shares what she has found. Pockets full of sparkling pebbles and bits of beach glass, marbles and pennies, pinecones and buttons; she sits quietly at the back of the class endlessly moving them between her fingertips, hoping against hope that her name isn’t called. Hoping against hope that it is so that maybe she can think about other things and find the rest of the pieces she needs to put herself back together.


My desire to share of myself runs deep and contrary to my inability to take part in this sharing with others. Locked behind this screen of thorns there is a measure of safety, and yet what am I really sharing of myself without that human connection, I may as well be talking to a mirror. I wander through this amazing garden of ideas and thoughts that has always existed in my mind attempting to plot its twists and turns in the hopes that someday I can make the world understand, and yet somehow I know they never will. I can’t shake it, this desire to communicate; it’s the bane of my existence. Few and far between are the people who understand enough to spend time in my world and yet that driving need compels me to throw open the doors to one part or another of my soul and invite the world in, for better or worse. Most end up lost and bewildered in a very short time. Some few understand and respond, and for these I am truly grateful because every single person who understands makes me feel a little less alone.

I have accepted this into my life, but one detail remains, and there it sits again at one detail that locks my mind and my heart into this eternal struggle to define what matters. One person’s opinion and faith in my ability to see inside my own mind in a way that no other could fathom. One heartstring stretched to its limit and the rise and fall of unconditional love left hanging in the balance. One person, what matters their opinion in the grand scheme of things. Nothing, and yet everything when their acceptance is all you have ever wanted. Without it I have no idea how to move on from here.

Emotional Dichotomy

I have, through the years, been described as both over emotional and cold hearted, the former due to my tendency to melt down when under pressure to explain and burst into tears, and the latter because of my apparent inability to empathize with others. The fact of the matter is that emotion doesn’t affect me in the same way as it affects most. I can’t ever recall being a little bit happy, or a little bit sad, or a little bit angry. Its not that I feel these things intensely all the time, but rather that I usually don’t feel them at all.

At times I’m sure I have a better grip on reality than most NT’s, unblinded by all those little emotions that seem to dictate their every move. They seem like children to me in so many ways, unable to cope with reality in the face of the way it makes them feel. I’m not saying this to be insulting, this is simply my perspective and although that can sometimes seem harsh and critical I am just as critical of my own capabilities and weaknesses.

Of course this means that I’m not as “happy” with my life as I have led people to believe, but if you tell people that then they assume you must be unhappy so I used the words they understood. Most of the time I am neither. Most of the time I am numb. Most of the time people also interpret that as unhappy. The snake is eating its own bloody tail trying to explain it.

I have no problem with being this way, I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would choose to feel that intensely all the time, it seems to get in the way of common sense so often. Even when emotion reaches a state that I feel it there is a core in me that screams that feeling this way is unrealistic, that I am assigning false value to things that have no meaning in the long run. When I am angry I know that it is serving no purpose, that calm thought could solve a problem that yelling will only exacerbate. When I am grieving for what I have lost I know that that changes nothing and it is best to move forward appreciating what I have. When I am sad I know that this too shall pass, and that acceptance helps me to move on. It’s intense but its brief and once I have moved past it I’m not concerned with it anymore and its time to get back to business. I guess that’s one benefit to living life in the moment.

Mini Documentary

As much as I like to talk about the way having Asperger's has affected my life, I think its just as important to hear other points of view. This is a very insightful and well put together little documentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAfWfsop1e0&feature=related

Out of the darkness

I’ve been struggling for as long as I can remember to explain the world the way I see it. It’s not as easy as it might sound. For a long time I couldn’t figure out why no one understood the things I was trying to explain and so I learned to hide it for fear of being told it was all in my imagination. I would write on scraps of paper, tiny tidbits about the way things looked and felt to me, and hide them inside books and up inside my closet. When I did venture to speak of the way I was feeling I generally found that people did not understand. The frustration of trying to put the pieces together in a way that they could fathom would overwhelm me, and before too long I would be bawling my eyes out. This made me seem over emotional, and granted I was at that exact moment, but it was always a symptom and never the problem. I knew this, but I didn’t know how to explain it to them.

I’m not bitter any more. I was for a long time, but with the knowledge I now possess I can’t have expected them to have any idea what they were dealing with. Aspergers had barely even hit any ones radar and by the time I started exhibiting signs I had learned how to fake it in most situations. The focus has always been on diagnosing the young, and less care was taken with adults; because we have good language skills, and are often highly intelligent it can be difficult to spot. I’m very good at faking it when I have to, I just prefer not to because of the amount of stress it causes me.

There is a common misconception that because people with Aspergers don’t process social cues on an instinctual level that we are not good at reading people. I am sure there are people with Aspergers who struggle with this, but when I am outside of the situation I am exceptionally good at it. I’ve spent my whole life studying people and the way they interact in an effort to be more like them. I have a huge mental database of people I know, situations, and reactions that I can cross reference with relative ease when I am calm and relaxed. There is no pressure when I am a bystander and if my perception is wrong, no risk of reacting in the wrong way. Put me in a situation where I have to take part and all of a sudden it’s a race against the clock to interpret the social cues, and missing just one can spell disaster. The stress of trying to keep up can overwhelm me and cause a short circuit in my database and then I may as well be a fish out of water. The more aggravated the other person gets about my inability to communicate, the worse this gets, until I am in full meltdown mode. I worry about this all the time, its easier to just stay home.

So I do. I stay home and I fixate and I try not to explain myself to too many people. Well at least I used too. With the addition of one new word to my personal dictionary I have discovered the ability to share myself, all of myself. I have found a way to put into words my different perspective of this world we all share. I have found a place where the child in me can roam free in my garden of thoughts, and where the adult can sit and ponder the mysteries of life. I have found a way to throw open the gates and let others pass through the thorny vines that have grown so long and so fierce about this gilded cage. I have found the freedom to be me. Out of the darkness I created for myself, the perceived safety of my imagination, and into the light. The fires have been stoked; all that’s left to do is explore the shadows in the safety of its glow.

Socializing

They called me socially phobic for years. At first they implied that this meant I was afraid of people and I snickered behind my hand, I’m intrigued by people and the way they behave, but I am certainly not afraid of them. They reiterated with the qualification that I was afraid of negative judgment, and they got a little closer to the truth. Then they had to go and say I had poor self esteem and attending a workshop would help me with that. There is nothing wrong with my self esteem, the things I am good at I excel at and the things that I’m not good at I accept. Socializing is one of the things I’m not good at.

I don’t understand all the rules. Human beings make so many rules for the right way to do this or the wrong way to do that. Rules for saying hi, rules for saying goodbye, rules about how long its ok to talk about one subject, rules about how long you should talk about things that have no meaning before you can talk about the things you want to talk about, rules about how you should act when someone else is talking about something you have no interest in.

Most people don’t even see them as rules, for an NT these connections happen without thought. It comes natural to banter back and forth about things you don’t care about. It’s friendly to stand around and chat about the weather. It shows that you care about people when you take an interest in their interests. Most people instinctively know when its their turn to talk, when its ok to initiate conversation, and when its appropriate to make their excuses and carry on with their day. Its not that I don’t know these things, it’s that for me they require an extra step in the thought process. This can make social situations highly stressful.

Most people also have wide and varied hobbies and the ability to take at least a passing interest in the things that appeal to their friends. I have a hard time talking with anyone at length about any topic that doesn’t interest me and these are few. I have *fixations, a few topics that I know a great deal about. I have extreme difficulty engaging in any activity that doesn’t involve one of these. My mind starts to wander and I find it intensely stressful to maintain the appearance that I am listening and interested. It takes conscious effort stay within the socially acceptable parameters of chit-chat, something I don’t understand the concept of in the first place. A wandering mind interferes with that, and I can’t help but think my time can be used more efficiently. This isn’t intended to offend anyone, it just is what it is, and although I can fake it sometimes I really have to wonder what that is doing for anyone in the long run. Faking it just doesn’t seem right.

This is doubly hard when I am working on a project. My state of mind is difficult to describe at these times. I have to pay very close attention to my behavior or I risk disconnecting from the world at large completely. Interruptions aggravate me, and I have to be on guard against snarling at people for doing the things they are entitled to do. I am aware that they are doing nothing wrong and this goes a long way, but when I am all wrapped up in something it makes it damn near impossible to focus on my tone of voice, body language, and facial cues. People who want to be around me at these times need to learn to rely on the words I am using and ignore the social cues I am presenting.

I can only imagine that ignoring these takes just as much conscious effort as it does for me to maintain them in social settings.

*(in no particular order):
Late Roman (approx 300AD) – early Middle Ages (approx 900AD)
Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy – The science of people.
Sex and Pain
Nature
Baking

Living life one minute at a time.

Every day dawns new for me. It’s always been that way, for as long as I can remember I have been telling people to leave the past where it belongs. I don’t regret, or dwell, or mourn the things I once had that I have since lost. I’ve always just known that no matter how much something hurts today, and even if it still hurts tomorrow, that there will come a day when I hurt less and there will even come a day when I don’t hurt at all and that loss will be just another memory in a long stream of them.

People for the most part confuse me. Their tendency to dwell in a past they can’t change or on a future they can’t possibly predict never fails to amaze me. That they would sacrifice their happiness now for what they think might make them happy in the future is a concept I simply cant wrap my head around. I live in the moment, taking happiness and sadness as they are presented to me, accepting success and failure as they happen, and in the case of the latter picking myself up, dusting myself off, and moving ever forward no matter how slow the pace. I have no real plan, no idea of what I’m going to do next year, just a few ideas and the willingness to see where they take me.

When you are a child everyone always wants to know what you want to be when you grow up. The truth is that I am 30 years old and still don’t have any idea what I want to be when I grow up, but I played their game and I played it well for awhile when I was young and therefore their expectations weren’t high. As far as they knew I had aspirations and dreams just like any other child, but I was just pulling rabbits from a hat to make them all gasp with glee. I discovered early that if my talents appealed to one or two of my teachers, they could shield me from the scrutiny of the others. I found the library, and the music room, anything to keep me inside at recess. There were still ripples, but for every teacher that took my book away in class, there was another teacher to go straight in and get it back for me.

The problems started when, as I got older, people started expecting me to follow through on these dreams. When everyone else was executing their carefully laid out plans, developing their career, I was struggling to keep my head above water in a world where I was increasingly expected to mingle with my peers on a social basis. I no longer had teachers to shield me, and it was no longer acceptable to focus on one activity to the exclusion of all else. I no longer had the angsty teenager excuse for hiding out in my bedroom all the time, and yet I was feeling an increasing need to be alone and do the things I wanted to do. I was slowly becoming aware that there was no place for me in mainstream society.

The thing that struck me to the core was that this revelation gave me a measure of peace. I didn’t care if I didn’t fit into mainstream society; I’d never understood the motives behind it anyway. Get a good job, make lots of money, buy a big house, a cottage on the lake, and a fancy car all so that you can keep working long enough hours that you never have time to enjoy any of it anyway. I don’t need any of those things to be happy. Save lots of money for your retirement just in case you make it there and there is no more social security to support you. When I get too old to take care of myself I might just wander off into the woods. Don’t bother coming to find me.

None of these things concern me, and that’s a hard concept for most people to understand. Some consider it immature and irresponsible and I agree that my absolute refusal to plan for the future can come across as naïve on the surface, but I believe that it is based firmly in reality.
I don’t need any of those things to be happy, I can be happy with them and just as happy without them. The material possessions are peripheral to my actual needs.

This doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes work towards a goal, it just means that my plans aren’t concrete. They don’t represent a bigger picture of what my life will be like in the future. I can succeed or fail on any step at any time and it doesn’t really have that much of an impact on things as a whole, because as a whole all I want is happiness.