First things first, I suppose a little introduction is in order. They usually make me uncomfortable but since we don’t have to guess who is going to go first this should be a little easier. Besides, there is nothing in this world I know more about than myself, the hard part will be keeping this short and sweet. I am 30 years old, and I just discovered a few weeks ago that I have Asperger's Syndrome. In the grand scheme of things this doesn’t change anything, I’m still exactly the same person I was before I figured out why I am so different, and yet at the microscopic level at which I examine myself it’s monumental. This has given me something I have searched my whole life for, perspective. I have found my voice. I hope to help others find theirs. Welcome to my world.
Showing posts with label social barriers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social barriers. Show all posts

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Stone

I sit at the edge of the night
Watching the frayed bottoms of the curtain rise
Searching for all the missing pieces
That I seem to have left scattered in the wake
Of my tumultuous flight
To reach this precipice

Curled in upon myself I seek warmth
Protection from the cruel winds
That taunt back and forth across my flesh
Screaming in agony for release
Into this, the twilight of my former existence.
I shiver, and I wait, and I watch.

I was beckoned here by the taunts of a childhood best forgotten, these seeds of dismay took hold early and the thorny brambles they grew are too thick for the fragile to pass. I hold them deep inside, protect the hearts of those I love from the true depths of my own depravity, and lie fetal in wonderment as my own imagination threatens to tear my very essence to shreds. But these times I need as well, for the tears I cry are the tears of the Gray of Matha, born of portent and tragedy, and they doom the messenger, my own unrealistic despair. They are the tears of Frigga, and as they pass the portents change, and resurrection can begin. They cleanse my soul of its own poison, and cure my blindness, that I might resume my stolid vigil.

What I watch for has never been clear
A glimpse might peek from the sheltered sky
But lost in the fog of my own solitary confinement
I wait, but not in silence,
Questions echo across the empty span of darkness
Fall back down to shift and swirl about my huddled frame
The scratching of talons on the earths own crust
It calls, and I scream defiance

I lived in this place of denial for many years. Even after I discovered this world I drifted in the unrealistic expectation that I had to be a certain type of person to qualify. I strove for years to mold my personality, convinced early on that my fantasies where just extreme versions of what I really wanted. I have vacant memories that float around my brain, snippets of conversations that once danced circles around my understanding of who I was. Voices that spoke calmly, in deepened tones, as they told me what and who I was. What I needed, what I wanted. They bore a hint of truth and conscious reality, so they never sounded hollow on deafened ears to my own screaming desires. Submit they whispered softly into the cracks of my foundation, and I felt I had no choice but to listen, my own regard so eroded in the swollen waters of their power.

Creeping up from behind they sat
Sharing my space for but the passing of a moment
Eternity in my tiny world, where dark dreams held sway.
The stony façade, the marble iciness of my gaze
Though tempted never strayed
Oaken wisdom, thorny roses, petulant weeds
All tossed and broken in the storm

So I sat alone. Still lost in wonderment at my inability to find my own definition. Each eternity that passed just waking further the demons that danced along the edges of the curtain on the horizon. The one that hinted of wonders, and horrors, and screamed truth loud enough to ring bells in my ears. Their talons crept forward, to rent deep into my flesh, valleys for tears to find passage to the parched and dusty earth that settled where I sat. Alone was far better than the flaccid reminders of what I should be, I should be waiting, and watching, and searching for answers.

When the curtain starts to rise
The edges start to crumble,
Open eyes clenching shut as the light of what has been hidden sears forth
It flashes and falters, for the truth cannot be so clear
Gone again, tears form at the corners of steel blue eyes
Melting stone in their path, fragile flesh exposed
To the twining thorns that twist and flourish around me.

There is no path through me, that was the mistake of lost souls that tried to chip at my base and alter my perceptions. But these thorns did not seek to alter, they twisted and twined and snared me in their embrace, taking nourishment from exposed flesh as it was offered in turn. Each sapping strike bleeds my soul of the doubts and worries that plagued my ideals, and in these thorny brambles I find comfort and solace. Given life in that brief flash of understanding and truth, he continues to grow around me, entwining my soul and making my cry out to feed him the blood of my own pain to sustain the growth of his power.

Stone cannot be bent; it must be chipped away, shed in the light of destiny and the scope of self knowledge that the mind can grasp. The demons still dance at the edge of my awareness, but the raging inferno that tips every thrusting thorn that drives through parchment flesh, tender and weak as it flares and burns in its wake, lends translation to the voices they cast across the opaque distance between fantasy and reality. With the solid wall of his own beasts, reverberating whispers that speak of depth of character and are mortared by protective nature, to bounce from they take on tones of meaning and understanding.

With prodding claws he drags forth my tears
Each searing drop of agony a question lost to wings
They form wider with each strike leading further into the recesses
Twisted realities that lead to a path labeled destruction
By those who care not to heed the warnings
These thoughts are not placid
These raging waters of destruction that persuade me to drown
In seductive images, and terrifying nightmares
Knowing that those thorns that drain me, leaving me helpless in his embrace
Bear also the fundamental ambrosia that grants me life
The vigil continues, but I sit not alone.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Troubles Accepting

I almost feel like I need to take a step back here. I know that’s not possible, one can’t just step back from their life and look at their experiences and perceptions from another angle. I’m wholly overwhelmed by this look inside myself and the insights this discovery has given me about my past. In little pieces it all seems to make sense, but when I try and condense it into a bigger picture of the way it makes me feel the edges start crumbling and I am left with nothing but dust once again.

I wanted to provide a guiding light through this, I wanted to light my own way and hoped to show others the path as well. I thought I could accept Asperger’s into my life and continue forward as I always have, one day at a time. It isn’t as easy as I thought and I’ve discovered its much more deeply woven into the core of who I am than I would have thought possible. I never would have guessed in a million years that I have Autism, and reality can be bone crunchingly savage when it hits you out of the blue that way.

In the wake of this struggle, this blog has turned into an expression of the difficulties I’m having in coming to terms with myself, and where I fit into this world that I have fought so hard to stay afloat in. I’m questioning everything about who I am right now and while I don’t think that’s entirely healthy it hasn’t killed me yet and I wouldn’t know how to stop if I wanted to. Perhaps through this baring of my soul I can reach some understanding. A little less confusion in my life would be stellar.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

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