Boxes

In the back of my mind there are a bunch of boxes. Beat up and dusty they sit in the corner out of the path of any direct light. Most of them hold nothing but air, the memories they once held now scattered to the winds in a million particles of dust fine glass. Corroded by the years and lack of attention they faded into nothingness without even a whisper to herald their passing. Some are full to the brim with the shining past, bits of happiness and comfort snatched here and there and filed away to peruse at a later date. Flickering lights of conversation long neglected that still hold out hope that one day I will open them up and see what they hold. A few, hidden at the very bottom of the pile, are dark and forbid careless tampering. Locked tight to the world they contain those things I have seen and lived and survived that lurk at the edges of my mind and make up the glue that holds this otherwise fragile and gossamer child together at the seams.

Rarely do I venture there, and bring forth one of those boxes. Rarely do I linger in the past where they live, wallowing in the mud of who I was, and who they were, and the choices we both made. I hardly even see them anymore hidden in the dusty mire where they have lain for so long, long ago cast from conscious thought to take up residence in nightmares and terror. These are the moments I would rather forget but cannot, jagged pieces of glass in my mind that could rend and tear if I spent too much time wallowing in their presence. Yet I know, in my heart, that these same bits of my past with such power to devastate me also fuel my strength and that to lock them away forever cheapens the horror and terror I felt when I was trapped in the moment. The tiny scrapes and cuts they cause allow the poison that could easily consume me to bleed from my veins.

I have a great deal of affection for those darker places in my mind, those corners lost deep in shadow where fear and hatred and misery lurk in patient silence, waiting for the opportunity to pounce. Most people shy away from the very edges of their humanity, never seeking to know what lies buried beneath that heap of lies we learn to tell ourselves in an effort to hide all that weakness from the prying eyes of others. In the pool of my own sweat and tears mingled with the blood of my pride and the dust at my feet I can see forever reflected back at me. These moments make me feel not less, but more and stronger each time I pull myself from the ashes of the fire to stand reborn and stretch my wings to the glory of their new span. It is only when held up in contrast to these moments of misery that I can witness the real value of the light and comfort that floods my life on a day to day basis. It’s only by carefully unlocking those boxes and rifling through their contents that I can achieve greater understanding. What I’ve done is such a huge part of who I am.

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“That one” she whispered, and he reached for one hidden back in the shadows of the already dim room. “No not that one, the one beside it” her voice got quieter as his hands neared the source of her anticipation. Wrapping it carefully in his hands he cradled it out of its place in the dusty past and lowered it carefully to the floor between them. She could barely look at it, knowing what it held, and tears started to creep down her cheeks, leaving tracks in the dust that had settled there in her search to unearth this long hidden piece of her past. With trembling hands she lifted the chain from around her neck and the key that dangled on the end danced in the small light offered by the one small lamp as she dropped it into his outstretched palm.

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.

Poor Communication

Today was not a good day when it came to communication. Sometimes I do so well, and other times I fail so horribly. Today was one of those failing horribly days. I have stuff on my mind. Nothing new, I always have stuff on my mind, but today it was kind of stressful stuff and my schedule was throw off because my boyfriend was off work. I don’t blame him, but unfortunately he took the brunt of it as my aggravation shows no matter how hard I try to hide it.

It’s hard not to take it personally. It’s hard to ignore all of the social cues I am giving and just listen to my words, when the general perception I’m giving is irritation. It’s hard to explain that I understand it isn’t his fault, and that I’m not blaming him, when my face is saying I’m angry. Its hard to convince him I’m not upset when everything I’m not saying is telling him I am. So he ends up walking on glass around me which just irritates me more because I can’t explain the way I am really feeling. Round and round and round we go and where we stop no one knows.

Time to get some sleep, more on this tomorrow.

Whispers in the dark

That’s what I’m doing right now isn’t it? Whispering into the dark? No one can see me, and you can only hear me if you pay attention. It’s a defense mechanism. 100%. Its an effective one at that.

I purposely share of myself in a way that only those who really want to hear what I have to say have to listen. I’m constantly worried that I’m boring people, or upsetting people, or keeping people from things they would rather be doing. To compensate for and hide that little anomaly about myself I take a back seat in life, waiting for people to come to me, to let me know they are interested in what I have to say, and only then do I open my mouth.

Even this. No one asked me to write this blog, but it’s like talking in an empty room with the door wide open. If someone walks by and is interested in what I am saying they are free to enter and even join in if they like. I love comments, even the negative ones. They show me people are reading, and give me an insight into what people might enjoy.

This is a struggle for me, and I’m treating this like my diary from day to day, discussing what’s on my mind and trying to organize the way I feel about things. I put it on the web because knowing I’m not alone helps me drastically and I’d like to think I provide the same for at least a few other people. I have gotten an email or two thanking me, so I must be doing something right. For those who aren’t comfortable with that, that’s alright too. I’m glad you are reading anyway.

My mind is running in circles, this is a lot to process in a short amount of time. That mental disorganization sometimes comes across here and if I seem a little inconsistent I apologize, if there is a particular aspect of the blog or type of entry you enjoy let me know and I’ll see what I can do. Otherwise I’m sure the topic or genre will come back around if you watch for it. I express myself constantly and in many ways, but I can be a little spotty about the application. Keeping up with my brain is a full time job that keeps creating backlog.

Cheers.

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.

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.

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.