09/10/11

Confusion Clarified II

I am on a journey that makes me very aware of how perfection cannot be achieved. It’s ridiculous. It’s a false ideal to place on oneself and others. I am glad that I have not had this projection on others — I am so over sensitive to it that I have no set ideals for others, but that causes its own form of confusion. I see how that connects to boundaries and not understanding them or knowing them. Now that I have stepped back a bit, I can list some clear reasons for causing myself confusion. I realize that many of the situations were not caused by others at all. It was me reading people through a negative perception of myself and how I thought others were judging me.

Here is some of my list:

Comparisons: Comparing myself to others all the time to try to figure out who I was or how I should behave. If I was not directly being compared, I was still indirectly feeling it from myself or others. I should be this, I should look like that, I shouldn’t eat this way, I should speak like this, I should not wear that, I cannot like those things, because someone, who I may or may not know does not do that or they do. There would be floods of rules in my mind that I had captured and stored from direct words spoken to me or I observed spoken to others. I have had triggers that would manifest my response. At times this was not an issue, they would normally manifest once I felt anxious or unsure of a relationship, any kind of relationship. Except kids, I always feel myself with them.

Confusing Words: Having clear direct definitions to words when others do not use them with such strict terms and also do not apply the strict rules to actions.

Sensory Overload: When I am overloaded, many things get distorted. I am unable to hear clearly, see clearly, emotions arise and I don’t understand why. I am unable to read or discern many situations because my body is shutting down. I am in sensory overload right now for various reasons. One is the seasons changing they affect me, the kids also, and they begin to do things that cause me sensory overload. Another are sounds they seem intensified and are really getting to me. Food as well, I have limited my diet because it is just too much to deal with. Food is another post.

Emotionally Underdeveloped: I am underdeveloped in areas. One second I can be a grown-up and the next I can be a 13-year-old girl and not realize that I have shifted in anyway. Some of my understandings about things are just not where my peers are. This is normally triggered by my lack of understanding social situations. Or I am just being the girl inside of me and oblivious. I see it now and I know that this is normal for an Aspie so I am accepting it. I am also learning to own my emotions. I have found that once I accept how I am feeling without trying to dissect it I get peace. I have spent countless, wasted hours trying to figure out why I am feeling a certain way or why I felt it one time and not another. For instance, when I accepted that I was crying when I was overloaded, it resolved a lot sooner because I just accepted it. Not all things have explanations, not all things can be explained away, even science at its core has many unexplained phenomenon. Our brain, we haven’t even tapped into the explosions of unanswerables in there.

Emotions: These have been one of my biggest issues. I was not able to express myself throughout my life. I couldn’t because I didn’t understand what I felt and I was demanding that I had to have a reason or explanation for it. Since I can pick up on other people’s emotions, I am not sure when it is mine or when it is theirs. An example, the other night I was perfectly at peace with many things, then David told me that he was upset. I had not picked up on it and I thought he was just upset about all of our computer problems we had, but no. I felt the attack on my heart and it hurt. It felt like it was surrounded by bees stinging it. I felt like if he was upset, then I should be upset and that somehow I caused him to be upset. This time, however, I rejected it. I told myself that it was his emotions and it didn’t have to do with me. As quickly as it came, it left. He had no clear reason why he was upset, he just was. That is hard for me to grasp.

Analyzing: My constant analyzing and pattern seeking has caused me confusion. I have always looked for patterns in behavior trying to protect myself, BUT there is a huge problem with that. Everyone is different and every situation is different. And also people change so just because they did something one time doesn’t mean that they will do it again. Just because they hurt me before does not mean that they are always going to hurt me. Or even if they were nice to me before does not mean that they will be again. Just because there are similarities does not mean that it will end up the same way it did before. I am starting over. I threw out all of my color coded, numerical, alphabetical file folders and file cabinets in my mind. I threw them out! Well, I didn’t throw them all out — some of them are good resources. I am going through them and throwing out the ones that I do not need to keep. Hence, the reason for some of my past stories and feelings I’ve shared recently. I am also coming up with a new system in my storing information system. I have decided to just keep books and fill the pages as I go. For now…until I find a better system.

Misunderstandings: I get confused when people read into my words and think that I mean something or when I am supposed to read into people’s words and I am not sure if I am right or wrong. I am working on my instincts, so this is getting better. However, it gets all muddled if I have sensory overload or social confusion. Work in progress.

Instincts: Not trusting my gut feelings has caused me great confusion. Or when I did trust them and people told me that I was wrong, only to discover that I was right! That is confusing. I am learning to trust what I feel. If people do not want to tell me or feel the need to tell me that I am wrong, I do not care. I will sit and wait. That is what I have had to do most of the time anyway and I have been right.

Not me, is me: I have been confused because I have felt that all of the problems or issues that people have are my fault. Somehow I caused them to feel a certain way. I misread people’s reactions and automatically put it in a negative context and blame myself. My perception is that I have caused their anger or unhappiness. I believe this is somewhat due to the fact that I “feel” their emotion. I have confused feeling their emotions as being the cause of their emotions. I get confused when people do not tell me that they are upset at me because I can feel that too. So if you are upset or angry or whatever with me, you have to tell me so I can explain myself. If not given the opportunity, I will loop and loop forever about it.

I take responsibility for causing my own confusion in many cases, because I have not spoken up.

I come to my own conclusions and assume they are correct, as if I can read the mind of another person. Clearly I cannot! I also see how my childhood into adulthood scripts from people has tainted my view and understanding about the world and people. This is another area where I feel a huge cloud lifted from my mind. Actually it was more like there was a very long twine rooted into my brain blocking all of these connecting paths in there. It was like it got pulled out. When it got removed, my brain felt clean and clear and able to discern, understand my actions and see how others have influenced me as a person. It’s not just my parents who have given me negative scripts, but my other family members as well were a large influence on my negative self perception. Along with friends and ex’s, I see how their own projections of fears and insecurities caused me confusion. It makes it a lot easier to find the true reasons for confusion than to make things up out of fear. This is a hard process, but I am seeing some things very clearly.

I am going to try to give myself and the world a clean slate (within reason) and bring balance to my mind.

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09/10/11

Confusion Clarified I

Confusion Clarified…Some. My next big obstacle that I have been facing is my constant confusion about people, situations and my own emotions. Throughout several of my posts, I can see what my issues are with why I have been confused. It makes a lot of sense and I can see it clearly now since I have stopped the very things that cause me to be confused…for the moment. It’s me. I am the cause of a lot of my confusion. I had no idea.

I am confused about ideals for people.

Apparently the majority of people have ideals about the kind of people they want to be around or certain expectations for situations. I do not have this for others. Well I do, but they get swayed back and forth because it has been based on trying to protect myself. It has not been based on an ideal type of person. It is hard to explain. I do have completely unrealistic ideals for myself. I expect myself to be perfect at everything even if it is not something I am good at. If I try it, I should be perfect. This is ingrained from both of my parents who happen to be two perfectionists. I see now how it is a way of control. If you try it and are not perfect at it right away or in a short time span, then negative self talk starts. Instead of working at it, you quit.

There are only few things my parents have really not given up on: music/art, work, church, and other special interests.

Both of them (still) constantly compare themselves in different areas of their life. It makes sense why I would adopt this behavior — it was what I was given. My entire dad’s side of the family does this. The siblings and cousins are constantly being compared to one another. My dad compares me to my sisters: how our children are, how we raise our children, who is “walking” with God, who has the best house on and on. He also compares my aunts with us and with himself as well.

We are in a competition, always.

I hate competing. I have cried for sports teams who lost because I felt so badly for them. It hurts me. And I have recently remembered that I quit any sports because of the family dynamic with competition. Sports will be another blog post. Because of comparing myself with others and never being able to “measure up”, I have been confused because I haven’t been able to see who I am. If I am me, then it gets compared and there is ALWAYS someone better at something!

Another scenario.

Christmas, I think four years ago, we went to the beach. It was beautiful and the kids had such fun. It was actually a very pleasant day. Daniel had been calm and there had been no meltdowns or overloads. That was a very big deal at that time. I decided to call my dad on the way home, I wanted to limit the conversation because the majority of the time when I get off the phone with him I feel bad. Sure enough I told him what a great day were having and that we just left the beach and how happy the kids were. He proceeded to tell me about how cold it was and covered in snow and ice where they were. He didn’t mind, he still went out running in it or something.

He then told me how he felt bad being happy.

He shared a story about how my sister had worked with someone who had a cousin who fell on the ice and cracked open his head. They were in the hospital and the doctors were not sure if he was going to be ok, so my dad couldn’t really enjoy Christmas knowing that. My sister did not actually know the person, never met them, and she barely knew the co-worker. My dad had never met them and neither of them knew anything exactly about him, his life or even how he got hurt. But they were all devastated and needed to mourn for Christmas and everyone else they talked too needed to as well. The story had limited information and some of it sounded exaggerated, that sister tends to come home with stories like that when she is trying to avoid something, so my radar was up.

My dad does that a lot he shares of those kinds of stories, limited and exaggerated at times.

I am never allowed to be happy or comment on things that I have achieved. I have always found this confusing. I, of course, feel bad for anyone who has been hurt and their family is affected, but there wasn’t even clear information. I asked direct questions and they didn’t even know the guy’s name. Somehow it felt wrong and I was put in a position to shutdown and stop talking about anything good in my life. This is a direct root of confusion for me because I have felt that everyone is judging me with such strict standards as well. They are looking at me and saying, Do not be too happy, do not be too sad, do share too much, and do not be good at anything unless you can say that you are perfect. But perfect is not an actual state. There is no clear way to define perfection in this world full of so many differences. So perfection is achieved through what means?

It’s impossible.

Confusion Clarified II…

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09/8/11

Trust

Yea! Internet is working. I was going to publish some posts on confusion, I changed my mind for now. Instead I decided on writing about trust. I have been doing a lot of thinking and pondering over the past few weeks about the word trust. I was already thinking about what it meant and how my trust has been mishandled my entire life. I take some responsibility for allowing people to misuse it, I also understand that I have more obstacles in my line of thinking when it comes to trust and relationships of any kind. Aspergirl Maybe shared on this post titled “When Do You Trust Someone?” It is very helpful to me to know that I am not the only one who struggles in this area. I still lack the social skills to understand who to trust and who not to. Since I have been hurt and confused so many times in my life, I finally chose to shut down. I have been emerging, but on days like today, I question why.

I want to shut down again.

I want to shut down in some areas because I clearly do not understand and I do not understand what trustworthy looks like in others. What is trust? I have to start with the definition.

¹trust

noun \ˈtrəst\

Definition of TRUST

1a : assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something b : one in which confidence is placed

2a : dependence on something future or contingent : hope b : reliance on future payment for property (as merchandise) delivered : credit <bought furniture on trust>

3a : a property interest held by one person for the benefit of another b : a combination of firms or corporations formed by a legal agreement; especially : one that reduces or threatens to reduce competition

4archaic : trustworthiness

5a (1) : a charge or duty imposed in faith or confidence or as a condition of some relationship (2) : something committed or entrusted to one to be used or cared for in the interest of another b : responsible charge or office c : care, custody <the child committed to her trust

On another blog about social skills, one young lady said, “a good clue that indicates someone is probably trustworthy is if they confide some piece of important information in you first.”

I agree with this to a point.

The reason that I am cautious with this is because I have had people in my life share bits and pieces of important information, um…what I considered important information and found out later it really meant nothing. At some point I realized this and understood that they are not truly sharing, but getting information out of me. There are various ways that people have done this so I have not been able to discern a clear pattern and see when it is happening. Here is my lack of Theory of Mind, I always think that people mean what I mean when we feel connected in friendship, relationships, as a co-worker, as a fellow volunteer at church, whatever setting. Once I feel that we have communicated and my expressions are very clear, I think we are on the same page.

I begin to trust explicitly.

And this, my friends, is why I have been hurt over and over again. This is also why I am pulling out this book “The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique Perspectives of Autism” again. I have missed some major things I think the first two times I read it. I do know that my short-term memory can get all mixed up from emotions and sensory issues, most likely my brain is recalling some of this information now to help me. Sometimes when I am very confused about things I just need to go over it and over it again until I get it. I am trying really hard to not let my past experiences and current ones cause me to stop all feeling again.

Though, I confess I want to.

It hurts too much to feel sometimes. The main thing is my lack of understanding. I really dislike not understanding what is going on or why people say and do certain things. I have a hard time believing that people are not purposefully hurting me. I do know that some have, but the most confusing are the people who claim to care about me. I know everyone has experienced this. The people that are our family, friends, significant others, peers, leaders, and bosses. Every relationship can and has hurt others, I am sure. How are others ok with it? How is it they are able to move on and not get stuck? I know that I get stuck on the indirectness. Maybe it is lack of investment? I invest a lot into people I care about and I assume they do too. (There is a problem.) I’ve spoken about this before, but I wish people would just be clear. If you like me, fine, and if not, fine! Really it is fine, just let me know.

I don’t like cushion – it is false and gives false hope.

I remember years ago, when I was being laid off from my job. They had told me at the beginning of the week that I wasn’t going anywhere. On Friday, I was called into the office and my boss looked at me and said that she was sorry she couldn’t do anything and had to let me go. At first, she was being evasive, trying to be kind, and I asked her to just tell me. Once she stopped with all of the fluff talk, I was fine and able to move on for the rest of the day. I was more concerned about the others losing their jobs, really. I have asked people to be very direct and don’t mess with me, I can handle that. I cannot handle the “Be gentle with Angel, she is so fragile” thing.

My mom has been very direct with me, mostly, but that is how she wants people to be with her as well.

I have gotten confused by my dad and other family members because they try to tell me things without saying it. I can recall almost every relationship in my life that has done that to me, except for a few. And most of them are women who know me pretty well and are direct themselves. When the fluff talk starts, I begin to lose trust in that person because it feels like they are not being honest. They are hiding something from me. In most cases that has been so. Whatever their reasons, whether for my good or bad or they didn’t even think of me, it made me think that they were doing it on purpose. Then, I would (still) go into trying to figure out why this person sees it to be their mission in life to do me wrong. Especially if they know my life history. I see my thinking is unrealistic.

I have gotten a lot better in this thinking pattern.

However, I confess it is the first thing that pops in my head. “They did it on purpose! They do not care about me at all! They are trying to hurt me, I do not know why!” I take comfort in knowing that I am not the only Aspie who does this, but if you are one who does, kindly email or comment me to make me feel better. I think part of my trust issues are the way I see and act upon empathy. My lack of Theory of Mind, I believe, causes me to think that others are thinking exactly the way I am. They are feeling what I am feeling and seeing what I see. I do that for others when I become empathetic toward them. I read this post and thought it gave a lot of insight “The Aspie and Empathy”.

When I read this I had an “Aha” moment.

“In aspergers, empathy doesn’t just mean “put yourself in my shoes” it means “become me”, “feel as I feel” and “see as I see”. I’m sure that this is at least part of the reason why aspies are often good at acting.”

I see clearly what my problem is, some of my problem.

I am not even going to try to figure out other people’s issues right now. I assume that they are caring for me as deeply as I am them. I have the wrong perspective in thinking that they want to see and feel me the way that I want to for them. I have associated love with this and people just do not love like that most of the time. Trust is built upon emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical empathy. How they are defined and expressed are completely different to people. They are incredibly different to an Aspie and people on the autism spectrum. As I have been trying to figure me out here about “trust,” I went to a forum about betraying an Aspie, since I just talked about that a couple of posts ago, I thought it would be interesting to read. I read this from someone and thought it made a lot of sense.

“Betrayal is a lot harder on Aspies than NTs because Aspies are usually more likely to end up being victimized being stabbed in the back compared to NTs.”
“Their friendships tend to be over-concentrated on a few people compared to NTs that spread their friendships out over a larger number of people. The betrayal therefore will have a greater impact.”

You know, in all of this the bottom line is I am just so tired of feeling foolish.

I don’t know how to combat the voice that tells me that I should have known and asks “Why are you so ignorant in this area?”

I am so tired of being hurt.

I just want to feel safe.

So back to the drawing board for me.

This time around I know that I will pick up more that I didn’t grasp before. And every time I go around this mountain I will “get” something and I will learn from others. I will see more than I did the last time and a connection will be made. My goal is to one day feel like I don’t have to care about being safe. That the word safe won’t matter because I will be able to trust myself.

And I can say, “That is their problem” and REALLY mean it.

For me trusting people is hard, I have to dig deep, I get all dirty and bruised, but in the end I find treasures and resources that make me a better person. Even if other people misuse it and treat it with disregard. For some reason, no matter how many times I have been hurt, I still trust the good in people. David said that for some reason I am just one of those people who trusts that humanity has my best interest in mind. It is because that is how I think. Since I think of others to the point of my detriment, I fail to see that the majority of people are looking out for themselves. Sometimes I really wish I didn’t do this, but overall I guess that I am happy that I do.

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09/7/11

Skyping My Innards

This post is a complete ramble just because. We have been trying to set up Skype for a while, but we had problems with a webcam and then the computer problems. David is supposed to be going out of town for a while soon and would like to have it up and running before he leaves. He got me a new webcam and after all of my praises about my computer now my wireless internet is acting up all the time. It is driving me mad I tell you, MAD! Well at least my computer works. He will be taking the iPad with him so he can use Skype on that. I have to say that the whole webcam thing tickles my innards.

I do not know what it is, but seeing myself on a computer screen makes me giggle.

I get all goofy, giddy, laughing, squealing, hand flapping, finger twirling and eye rolling. There is a second delay that makes all of my silliness worse. I try not to, but I cannot help myself. Maybe I will get better the more I use it. It tickles though, it really does. It must be my nerves making me tickle inside. This morning David was showing the kids how it works and Ariel responded exactly the same way I did. Then, she ran away giggling and squealing like I did too. Ha ha ha She was in the other room when I did my whole silly exit so that was quite amusing to hear mini-me.

Well I guess I will just have to get over my Skyping fears.

I don’t know, which is worse the phone or webcam. Ah! The thoughts are making me nervous and tickle at the same time. I am so silly. I have nothing of importance to say today. I am just being goofy and sad/confused with my thoughts so I am just sharing my Skype anxiety. Also, some pictures that I think are super awesome!

I really love the sky.

Though I am always afraid of flying, I have flown a lot. After I accept the fact that I could die, at any moment and there is nothing that I can do, I look out at the sky. Being surrounded by the blue sky and the ocean of clouds up in the air is something that makes me breathless. I haven’t flown since March 2004, I haven’t been up in the clouds, literally in a long time. Figuratively I am always there. I dance and swim and play in the clouds. I also miss spending time outside at night, I used to walk about at night all the time I do not remember the last time I did that and smiled at the moon. I am guessing that Skype made me think of sky and somehow that is how I connected this rambling of mine. Hmm….

My cloud/sky obsession.

Yesterday morning a rainbow filled the sky, we rarely get rainbows here. I was very grateful to see a rainbow yesterday. Last night the clouds were amazing, they looked as if they were painted up there. When Ariel saw them she said: “Wow, it looks like Venus! We are on Venus now.” On our way back into the house she said: “Now we are leaving Venus and going back to Earth.”

[Show as slideshow]

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09/6/11

Worst Date Ever

Since I didn’t date much I was pretty naive when it came to dating. My first two boyfriends I did not “date” – we just ended up together. I can’t think of a better way to put it. By the time I had turned 21 years old, I had been in a long-term abusive relationship and then a couple of years later into a relationship that was better, but still had emotional abuse. I stayed because we had been friends throughout high school and I really liked him, he was funny and he had A LOT of music. Plus he was very social, he would have parties all the time. If I wasn’t confused about a social situation or drinking or both, I had a lot of fun talking to people.

When he left, I had an apartment but no car.

I may have written some of this before, I cannot remember. He had gone behind my back and put in a transfer to go back to our hometown. He told me at our workplace on my 15 min. break that he was leaving. I found out later that night that people in the store knew a month before I did. He tried to come back several months later but I said: “No, I can’t trust you.” I felt foolish, betrayed and incredibly hurt. After I told him he couldn’t come back, then he told me that he was going to ask me to marry him. It didn’t matter at that point. I don’t even think he was planning on that anyway. I think he just said it to try to make me feel bad or like I lost out on something. So several months later, I met someone else.

As you can see, I do not have the best judgment in this area.

Jump forward several months, I am not sure how long…it may have been over a year. I ended up going on a date, which (now that I think of it) may have been my first “official” date, at the age of 21. Oh wait, the circumstance in which we met, my friend wrote my name and number in crayon on a paper napkin and told him to call me. I didn’t know she did it until he came up to me later and said that he would call. Maybe a week later, he called and we made plans to go out. Keep in mind I was extremely anxious, excited and nervous and that mixed up all my filters. He totally had the ladies chasing him so I was already confused as to why he would go out with me. I do not mean that in an insecure way – it was truly from a not-understanding perspective.

Here are the chain of events from our date.

He is late. He picks me up in his black convertible Volkswagen Rabbit, convertible down. He does not come inside, I think he honked. Yikes! He tells me he is not sure what to do, so we decide to go down to the beach. He stops at a grocery liquor store and asks if I like vodka. I said “Yes,” not really knowing what to think and was very thankful that I brought cash on me in case I needed to take a taxi home. He grabs generic vodka and generic lemon-lime soda, plastic cups and then when the total amount pops up, he tells me that I owe him half. At this point I am very confused about the whole thing and just give him the money, hoping that I have enough to get home if I have to.

We head off to the beach.

He takes me to a lounge bar (I am not kidding). The room is full of smoking elders who lived in the condos next door. The singer was playing a keyboard and some horrible music, wearing a blue tux or something. The room was dark, full of smoke and stunk of mildew and liquor. He asked if I wanted to go out on the boardwalk. Of course I did. He went and grabbed the alcohol, soda and cups. I decided that I was not going to be drinking much. I think I had half of my drink as we sat out on the deck. He talked about Sweden and Swedish people and Morrissey and The Smiths. He didn’t ask me much about me and I was really confused by this point. I think he told me about his ex-girlfriend who happened to be Swedish. Then he noticed that the two ladies next to us were saying something in a foreign language.

He asked them if they were Swedish.

They were indeed – there were a lot of Swedish au pairs where we lived. He proceeded to ignore me and talk to them. At one point, one of them asked if he was on a date with me. He said yes and she told him that he was rude. They both then stopped talking to him. Shortly after that, he excused himself and said he would be right back. While he was gone, the ladies told me that he was a jerk and that I should not go out with him. He was gone for over 20 minutes. I sat there like a complete moron. I was in shock I think by the whole thing and trying to figure out if I should call my mom or a taxi. I thought maybe that was the worst of it. I decided that he was not coming back so I went to look for a phone.

In my adventures, I found him.

He was sitting in his car, convertible still down, music up a bit loud, and smoking pot off of a soda can. Yes, he was. Again, I was in shock. I didn’t even know how to respond to all of it. He apologized over and over again and said that he would take me home. I probably should not have gotten in the car, but I did and he took me home. He was drunk and high and I was praying the whole way. I do not know why I let him. A few days later he called again, he told me how sorry he was and that he was just very nervous. Long story short…we ended up dating for almost three years. Others told me how awful that date was, they didn’t understand why I continued to stay with him. He did treat me badly a lot, but I also knew that it wasn’t him. He was like that when he was on drugs.

I hate drugs. I do not know why I ended up with three boyfriends who did drugs.

Our relationship ended very badly the first time. He ended up with scratches and marks on him, and I ended up with a black eye from being thrown into a wall. We got back together after a long break from each other, but I told him that if he was doing drugs I would just stop talking to him. I knew right away when he started again. He did more prescription drugs than others and I knew all of the patterns. I never answered his calls again. I said goodbye to him right before I moved back to my hometown and didn’t hear from him again until years later. As a matter of fact, it was about 8 and half years ago or close to that. He had straightened up his life and lived across the country. I saw all the goodness in him. I knew that he had a lot to offer the world. I got to see the good parts of him even when they were covered up by the mistreatment of me and himself. He did fly me out to visit him and we were able to reconcile the past hurts.

We did not rekindle our relationship, though. It didn’t feel right.

He is now married to a woman from another country, where they live with their toddler son. He seems very happy, from pictures on FB. I am happy for him. I talk about all of this because for the longest time I have felt stupid or completely naive. I don’t think that I was stupid, just not equipped to know that I shouldn’t be treated that way. I felt it was wrong, but I really had nothing to compare it to. I saw such potential, such goodness in him as I did with many others, but I was unable to see how I was being treated. I understand that I am not stupid, maybe foolish sometimes. I did learn my lesson about dates, possibly that is why I never wanted to go on them again. My lack of social understanding and lack of boundaries made it hard for any relationship I have been in. Also my loyalty trait, though a good one, can become a detriment as it was here. Loyalty without boundaries can be a dangerous thing.

As a lesson, make sure if you are an Aspie or have an Aspie in your life to get equipped for dating and relationships!

If I would have been equipped with information about personal boundaries and social skills, I think I would not have fallen into relationships like this. My situation was that my own mother was not equipped for relationships and even told me the other day she wasn’t even sure why she married her second husband. I was not equipped about my body, friendships, or dating. It is very important to have information and understanding in these areas for a person on the autism spectrum. It is very easy to be taken advantage of and end up in abusive relationships without understanding what is going on. It is a lack of understanding and it can be an easy fix. Once things are explained in a logical way or it is revealed to the Aspie mind, we get it. I truly wish I had been equipped at a young age, but I wasn’t so I am learning now. I believe that it will make it much better for my kids and their future.

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09/4/11

Poems By The Kids

Ariel wanted to do dragon poems. I think we are in an obsessive state that is all she is drawing, playing with, talking about, and writing about. We’ll just go with it. Dragons rock!

Dragons

By Ariel

Dragons are cool.

Dragons need help,

With people giving them food and water to survive.

They need people petting them,

And riding them,

Because nice dragons like that.

Mean dragons—stay away from.

They need to learn how to be nice.

When you see them move backwards slowly,

Then they may start liking you.

Dragon

by Ariel

Nethew is his name.

He is red and black.

His eyes are blue.

In the summer and spring he stays outside

And the sun makes him shine on his back.

He has green points on the back of his arms and legs.

He has sharp teeth,

Because all dragons need sharp teeth to eat meat,

To make them strong.

He says hello a lot by saying “RAWR”

Because all dragons need to say “RAWR”

When he was little he said a tiny “rawr” like a baby,

But when he was grown-up

He said “RAWR” so everyone could hear him

When he was flying,

When no one could see him.

The color of his wings are yellow.

He has three claws on his wings,

Four legs.

He shoots out an earth ball.

He lives on Colden, my secret planet

With other dragons who are his friends.

When he turns mad,

His eyes turn glowing red,

He gets mad when other dragons tease him

Or other mean dragons hurt him.

Or when people try to fight him.

He plays a lot.

He likes to run and exercise,

To get strong

To defeat in battle and win in the dragon war.

He likes to fly a lot too

To see birds,

To play with them and meet them.

He eats meat, animals that die,

Or people who die in war,

Or if animals kill a person,

He eats the bones

Because he doesn’t want to kill.

He only hurts bad guys,

Because he doesn’t want to die.

He likes to hang out.

He is a very happy dragon.

He protects other dragons.

Star Wars Lego

by Joshua

Luke is my favorite,

Because he was a gun guy

And Luke was a Jedi.

Hans Solo, I like a little

And I like Luke the best.

Hans Solo has a gun,

But he is not a Jedi.

Obi-Wan just turned into a spirit,

I don’t know how he does that.

The Alien Walker

by Joshua

I really like it because of the guys.

And the green trap.

It can fly

It flies into space with the aliens.

They fly to their home,

Alien Glass Planet.

It’s really cool because,

It has three legs and three feet.

Darth Maul Lego Watch

by Daniel

It has a clock in it—SEE!

The face spins right and left.

Its white and red and black.

It has white in it.

Darth Maul Lego spins on my watch.

Cell Phone

by Daniel

Its gray and black

When I close it,

It makes a “roun” sound.

The battery is a rectangle one.

I like batteries,

They make electricity.

I like the numbers on it,

When I push them they go to the screen.

The screen looks like a TV,

But it’s just a phone.

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09/3/11

Kids Planet Stories

Colden Planet

by Ariel

I think there is another secret planet, that is far away and so cold from the other planets. I think it looks so dark blue. It’s called Colden Planet because of its cold weather. Too freezing to live, even with an astronaut suit. It’s always dark there and always blizzards. Never stopping.

The only thing that can live there is dragons. There are really dark clouds and storms so no one can find it because it is way out in space. It has no sun and no moon. It has a solid snow ground. It’s so dark that no one can ever find it. My head told me that it was out there, probably. You can’t find with a telescope.

Only dragons can live there. No people or animals. It has a huge cave, only one. My planet is kind of like Jupiter only colder.

Alien Glass Planet

by Joshua

My planet is a circle shape. You can see it with a flashlight. My planet is white and has snow. And the face is a circle of the alien face. Aliens live there. There are dragons on the planet, they are snow dragons. There are snow mountains. The aliens wear masks because they are actually people. And they have a space ship. It always has sun, a special sun that can change into the moon. If you hit it with a rock it changes into the moon and it’s 9 o’clock. If you hit it with a big rock it will just turn into the sun and get bigger and bigger and be nothing but the sun. You can see stars shining. It’s called Alien Glass Planet because its white and the sun shines on it and makes it look like glass.

Green Planet

by Daniel

My planet is a green planet. It’s cold on my planet. It has 100 hundred moons, no 20. It has a lot of clouds made out of gas. It has a whole bunch of gas. I live on the planet. I live on the green planet. And just toys live on my planet. There is an ocean on my planet and toys and animals and plants and birds and bugs. I like dragon flies. I like mosquitoes on my planet at night, but not in my house. It has grass and sidewalks.

I am not going to share my story but my planet is called Purple Hoom. It has ligards which are a cross of lizards and rats. There are huge plants that have ginormous leaves that swoop down to the ground in grand curves. That is all.

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09/2/11

Miracles Happen

Alright I am going to be rather tongue in cheek with that title, but when I tell you I think you will see the significance as well. For several weeks we have been having computer problems. My computer has been acting up for a long time. My mouse would get stuck, I lost blog posts, emails and stories, spent hours retrieving them. All because of my computer getting stuck and then shutting down or just taunting me with my pages staring at me and no way to save it. It was incredibly frustrating, this has been going on for a while, but escalated to new heights starting over the weekend. David’s computer had already fried itself and he had to spend last week getting a new one, building it and then setting it all up. He lost several days of work. Finally, he got everything ready to go and he was focused on catching up on his work.

But then by Saturday the internet was in and out.

Yes, the computer demons were on a rampage! I kid. Seriously, it was crazy. By Sunday night we had no internet at all. David had to go work at my mom’s house. Which is quite interesting because there had been several break-ins in her neighborhood, during the day. They were going to houses with no cars, I guess knocking on the doors, if no one was home they would go to the back and break the sliding glass doors. David was at my mom’s house during the break-ins while she was away at work. Hmm….Interesting. Needless to say all of the computers in the house have been updated. I now have a new keyboard and mouse and my computer is working swimmingly.

During all of this though, came Daniel’s insistence on an item.

Backtrack to August 11th, 2011 (Seriously the 11th? I just realized it was on the 11th, this number is playing with me.) my mom took the boys out to have “Grammy Time”. They went to Target to get a toy, Joshua picked out the infamous Darth Maul Lego watch that he has been begging us for since last Christmas, I believe. He insisted that Daniel get one too. Daniel refused. According to my mom Joshua tried to talk Daniel into getting a watch too and Daniel refused. Joshua was extremely animated and acting like Daniel had just lost his mind. “How could anyone turn down a Lego Star Wars watch?” It was insanity. Joshua thought of everything he could to get Daniel to get the watch with him and my mom did too. Daniel loves watches why wouldn’t he want this fantastic, most awesomest, greatest watch in the entire world?

Daniel was overloaded, he couldn’t think.

He was overloaded before he left so when he went into the store it was just too overwhelming and then to try to decide what toy to get was too much. He ended up grabbing a helicopter with spinning propellers. I knew right away why he grabbed it, he didn’t really want it, but he was going for a stim toy. When they came home I heard all about the event. Joshua went on for days about Daniel not wanting the watch. However, by the end of the night Daniel was requesting the watch. I told him no because we did not have the money for the watch and he should have let Grammy get it. The conversation about why he could not have it went for weeks. Everything was going down on Sunday.

Sunday morning Daniel got it in his head that he HAD to have the watch.

The computers were not working so when I told him no and he tried to calm himself on the computer it didn’t work. He was completely fixated. He had been talking about it for days, but on Sunday there was no way around it we HAD to get the watch. Ariel and I went to the store and when I walked down the Lego aisle, I started to panic. They had redone the layout, they changed everything. I scanned every label. The watch was gone. There was no label anywhere. I put both hands on my head and started to panic. My eyes were bulging, I was frantically thinking and saying “This cannot happen! We HAVE to find the watch!” quite loudly I must add. “Oh, Lord we cannot leave without the watch.”Target is the only store that has it around here. I was completely panicking because he was fixated on the watch and expecting it. If I did not come home with it…well, I wouldn’t have come home, maybe.

It would not have been a pretty sight if I came home empty handed.

I knew that they usually put items like that on end caps at the end of the aisle, I scanned the ones with clearance and saw nothing. I did what any normal person does, I said, quite loudly again: “Lord, Jesus PLEASE find me a watch.” At that moment I looked up and on top of the boxes sat a C-3PO Lego watch. It was Daniel’s second choice if there was no Darth Maul watches. I thanked God and leaped and danced and was satisfied for a moment. Now I don’t know if it was sitting there all along, but honestly I had scanned those end caps and did not see it. It was sitting there too as if someone had just randomly placed it there. It was very strange. Then again, in my frenzy I could have missed it.

Either way, I found one.

Something told me that it was not going to work. I thought “This is not going to work, can I please find a Darth Maul”. Lo and behold within a few minutes of saying that as we were walking I saw on a side cap, several aisles away, by the outdoor toys (odd place) a Darth Maul Lego watch. Oh, yes I did! I thanked God again and leaped and skipped some more. I failed to mention what Ariel said through all of this. During my initial panic when I said we had to get it, she shrugged her shoulders and very calmly said: “Well if they don’t have it, they don’t have it. Oh, well”. Then, when the C-3PO appeared she said:”Well maybe God is doing miracles.” After we found the Darth Maul she said: “Well I guess God is doing miracles today.” She said all of them in the most matter of fact voice and didn’t miss a beat.

Here is the major miracle, I didn’t freak out about not having internet.

I was quite calm without it and had already decided that I was going to stay away from the computer for several days. When it went out I was kind of happy so I wouldn’t be tempted. Actually, that was quite a huge miracle for me to be ok without the internet. I even pulled out my dictionary and used it instead of my rapid finger action to the online dictionaries. I spent some time reading it like I used to. I don’t know about all the other stuff, but it felt like someone or something was watching over us and making sure things were taken care of around here.

To quote Ariel “Well maybe God is doing miracles.”

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09/1/11

A Lovely Day

Last Saturday, my mom offered to watch the kids and I took her up on the offer. I felt myself feeling emotionally exhausted and drained and I needed some time by myself. I did not hesitate or question or feel guilt about having her watch the kids. That was a big deal for me. I decided that I was going to go to the beach and read. I knew the waters would be rough and that there would be more creatures and shells on the sand from the hurricane. I like exploring when there are storms, I always see interesting things in the water or the sand.

For some reason I felt like I should stop at the Cat thrift store before the beach.

I hesitated about that for a moment, but then thought that I should listen to my gut and see what happens. There was nothing spectacular, but a few significant things to me. I walked in and went straight for one of the first bookshelves that normally has home school resources or workout DVD’s. I found nothing for school, but did find an unopened three in one Pilates DVD’s set that I have wanted since 2006. Score! I also found beginners step-by-step Tai Chi DVD and thought, “Why not?” That would be worth the $2.50 to try.

I wandered my way back to the toys.

They did not have much, but the kids have been begging for checkers and a chess set. I found a 7 in one game set for $3.50 and thought that was a good deal. I then ventured into the books and found a box set of Sherlock Holmes for $5.00. I decided to wait and see if I should get that one so I left it for the moment and said to myself ‘If I keep it under $20 then I can get it”. I found nothing else and went to the register still not sure why I was there. I felt a jolt to look at the movie DVD’s which I never really do because I always expect them to be bad movies.

I placed my items on the counter and said “Oh, wait”.

I bent down to look at the DVD’s and an unopened, perfectly new “The Big Kahuna” popped out at me. It was hidden in the midst of very lame movies and I laughed. I have wanted this movie for a long time, it has great significance to me. It is a treasure to me, but I have never purchased it. I snatched it up and smiled. Then, I thought there has to be at least one more movie I could find because it is either $3 for one or 2 for $5. I scanned the movies and “The Watchmen” jumped out at me. I have never seen this movie and I am not sure that I will, I haven’t felt right about it for some reason, but it is one of David’s favorite movies. So I grabbed that one too. The Big Kahuna is one of my favorites and he has never seen it.

The cashier rang up the items and I felt another jolt to go get the books.

I grabbed the Sherlock Holmes set and came back, my total was $19.80. She passed me two dimes on the glass counter with her two fingers and they glided toward me in a strange way. I felt as if something had just happened in that store, but I was not sure what exactly. It all seemed like a movie. I left quite happy and be-bopped out to the car.

I went to the beach.

There were no clouds and it was very hot. I read for a while, but I started getting dizzy so I ventured to the water and the wet sand. I took pictures of the waves, they were much higher and rougher because of the hurricane. I got caught up in the crashing sounds and the foam that rushed to edge of my feet. I started digging up shells with my toes and I was so excited to find a shell perfectly intact. All the time that we have lived here I have never been able to find a shell with the spirals and complete. They are always broken or I can only find clam shells. I figured this was another broken one, but I wanted to take a picture of the spiral.

To my surprise I dug up a perfect treasure.

It was full of tiny other shells as well. There was an entire village of creatures living in this shell. I kept it and continued to look for more. I saw some creatures that I have never seen before and I have no idea what they are. I did not bother them, I only took pictures. The last time I messed with creatures of the sea I found out that they were Conus sea snails and I was picking them up and examining them close to my face. At any moment I could have been harpooned with their tooth right in my face. I learned my lesson about how I should not touch sea creatures.

I continued to find shells of two.

Attached clam shells and rows of different types of shells. I took pictures and sat in silence. When I left it occurred to me that I had not once thought about being alone. I had not once felt anxious. I had not once felt awkward saying “hi” to people. I had not once thought about what they were thinking of me wallowing on the sand taking pictures on my elbows or digging with my toes. Or how I got face to the ground examining the contents inside some of the shells. It didn’t even occur to me to think that others were around. I danced in the water and played with the waves and I did not care. It seemed like it was right out of movie scene when the character discovers something. Possibly right after a climax or right before…before something bad happens. Oh, well no sharks and the kids were great that evening too. No worries about the next lead in to a climax, until another time.

It was a lovely day.

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