Monthly Archives: November 2011

11/30/11

Poetry And Clouds

I am feeling a sense of loss. I wish I could blow this off, but it is very hard when you are left to wonder. I also have a friend who has opened up to me, I still have not responded to her. I am kind of at a loss of words, and feeling awkward because we have not seen each other or spoken for a while. It’s times like these that I wish I understood how to handle these situations. I really wish I understood how to move on, and not get fixated on the “why’s” of situations. Or at least understood when to stop asking why. I am pretty sure I may be saying that for the rest of my life. :-)

The Rosebush & The Cloud

The downcast rosebush,
tired and feeling frail from her masters pruning,
looked up to the sky, and said to the wise old cloud,
“I guess I have to be pruned some more, really?”
Wise cloud looked down with a fluffy soft smile,
no words for her today,
she stared at him waiting for a reply with hopeful eyes.
He tried to comfort her in silence,
feeling abandoned she sadly looked down,
“How much pruning can one take?”
Pondering a little while longer,
she mustered up some strength, trying to be hopeful,
“As much as they are willing to take to blossom, I presume.”
Wise cloud looked down with reassuring eyes, in a breeze he spoke,
“Blossom sweet rosebush, focus on the blossom, and do not get lost in the pruning.”

Poetry and clouds, I smile. That is all.

Quotes from one of my Top 5 books of all time “Franny and Zooey” by J.D. Salinger

“Maybe there’s a trapdoor under my chair, and I’ll just disappear.”
- J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“I feel so funny. I think I’m going crazy. Maybe I’m already crazy.”
- J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.”
- J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“We’re the tattooed lady, and we’re never going to have a minute’s peace, the rest of our lives, until everybody else is tattooed, too.”
- J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

Excerpt from THE DRY SALVAGES (No. 3 of “Four Quartets”) by T.S. Eliot

Lying awake, calculating the future,
trying to unweave, unwind, unravel
and piece together the past and the future
between midnight and dawn, when the past is
all deception, the future, futureless…

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond by E. E. Cummings

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

Excerpt from To You by Walt Whitman

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear.
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb,
I should have made my way straight to you long ago,
I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing
but you.

I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I understand you,
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself,
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you,
None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent
to subordinate you,
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God,
beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-figure of all,
From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color’d light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus
of gold-color’d light,
From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it streams,
effulgently flowing forever.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are, you have slumber’d upon yourself
all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already in mockeries,
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in
mockeries, what is their return?)

The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,
I pursue you where none else has pursued you,
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the
accustom’d routine, if these conceal you from others or from
yourself, they do not conceal you from me,
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these
balk others they do not balk me,
The pert apparel, the deform’d attitude, drunkenness, greed,
premature death, all these I part aside.

Insert happy clouds here, a mailbox for trees, and a moonbow from Iceland.


 

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11/28/11

It’s Always Darkest Before The Dawn

This quote has popped up in several odd places for me in the past few weeks. I confess I am almost in a complete shutdown. It is not a good shutdown, I am highly emotional. I am trying very hard not to collapse into myself. I can’t I have to live life. It is hard sometimes. I know that there are several reasons for this feeling. I am anticipating a whole lot of invisible some things with no names. I wasn’t exactly sure what my problem was, but honestly there are too many things that are flowing through my mind to pinpoint anything. Usually October until January…no, February, possible it’s March until I feel the many past experiences leave me.

The holidays always remind me of how alone I feel and felt.

Every holiday was lonely. I was surrounded by people who loved me and still I felt awkward and alone. Plus this month represents one of the happiest times in my life and triggers into the saddest as well. I cannot stop the loops of rejection. I can only redirect them, I am trying and it is painful. It is hard to reprogram your mind. It is hard for me to try to believe something positive when in most instances the second I gave hope a try, it burst into a negative.

I am sure there are many reasons that made me feel like the outcome turned out negative.

I am positive that social confusion (a lot of family confusion), anxiety, and sensory issues played a big role, but I still feel it. It doesn’t matter if I misinterpreted things or people misinterpreted me, the words, the actions, and the emotions all exist. I am not trying to sound down and negative, I am sad though. I am feeling lonely. I feel hurt. I feel lost. I am faced with the realization that we are moving back to my hometown. We will be going possibly as soon as March or at least by the summer. I am scared for many reasons. I am nervous and anxious about following through on getting a diagnosis and facing other things that I have to do.

The thought of going forward with the diagnosis brings forth a lot of emotions.

The biggest one is the feeling of doing it alone. I know that I am not alone, but I am feeling lonely in this. I guess I just have to deal with it like I have my entire life. Especially during the holidays it is difficult for me. I am happy for everyone enjoying themselves, doing their holiday family and friend festivities, but I feel like such an alien. I don’t want to be sad or feel this way, I don’t want to talk about it because I do not want to feel like a burden. I don’t even know how to talk about it.

I don’t even know for sure what I am feeling, it is just familiar.

I will say that it just sucks. It sucks to feel this way. I really dislike feeling happy for others and aching inside for myself. I don’t know how to describe it. I really have no more words about this topic, I think this post “What I need and want” may sum up a lot of emotions that I am overwhelmed with right now. What prompted me to write this out was a song that I heard for the first time today. I am facing some of my demons and want to shake the devil off my back, cause I have a lot of dancing to do. :-) Here are the lyrics so you know what I am referring to if you don’t want to listen to the song. Shake It Out lyrics

Florence + The Machine – Shake It Out

I have never heard of them or listened to their music, (I just saw on YouTube that they were on SYTYCD last season, but I must have turned the channel, I do not usually watch the bands on that show. I only watch the dances, no voting either. :-) ) but this was a good song for me to hear today and it has “It’s Always Darkest Before The Dawn” in the lyrics. I discovered it from a series clicks reading several different blogs that led me to this awesome quote by Björk “You have 1,000 colors of emotion, and each album is one color exaggerated. It’s so exaggerated that it’s not me, but it’s one color, you know? And I feel like that color is in everyone.” from this interview.

In those terms it helped me realize that I am having one color of emotion right now that is exaggerated.

It is exaggerated for many reasons and I could list them off, but I am funneling all of this into a story and several poems so it will reflect this color of me right now. The emotion is not me, I am only feeling it at this moment. I know she was talking about her album, but it helped me place my emotion in its proper place. It also helped me give myself permission to feel it. I need to be reminded a lot that I am not alone and my brain is both unique and has similarities with many. The darkness passes and through it I find my words, and I find more light and multicolored songs.

“It’s Always Darkest Before The Dawn” this has been true throughout my whole life so I will trust in that. 

I want to share another quote from Björk “I think there’s a need for the theatrical. It’s very organic and ancient and human. I don’t think it’s artificial.” When I express myself I hear the words of many people in my life who told me constantly to stop being so theatrical. I am very animated and passionate about things, I also never learned how to express myself in any other way. All I ever knew was to hold it in and then explode. Or hold it in and harm myself. I admit I feel guilty for even sharing these feeling or implying that I am allowed to feel them. Dang! This really hurts. Ok, I’m done…for now. :-)


 

                     

 

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11/26/11

Some More Great Videos

Yes! It’s the brain I am interested in. You will know what I am talking about if you watch this video. “Ask Dr. Tony” October 2011 – Sensory Issues, Special vs Intimate Friends and “Intellectual Orgasms” People misinterpreting my intentions with me being intellectually stimulated by them has caused me some great problems in the past. There is a lot there for me to process. I love a good brain that I can ask a billion questions of and have a “Intellectual Orgasms” as Dr. Tony Attwood states in the video. A lot of the time my interest in men has been interpreted as having different motives by them, their girlfriends, or my significant others, and in many cases I have been sickened and confused by discovering that someone thought I had other intentions. My intensity in wanting to hear what people have to say about my special interests or other intriguing things makes me seem a bit too “friendly”. I have had girls misinterpret me as well thinking that I was interested in them in a more intimate way.

Those things usually do not cross my mind in conversation. 

I admit I do tend to have asexual qualities about me in the broadest sense. Shh! Taboo! I can define it like this, I am definitely more interested in someones mind and what ideas they have to share than physical attraction. I have been attracted to people, but it is not the same as what “normal” people feel. I do tend to be attracted to parts of people and the largest part is their mind. It is rare that I find the whole person as a complete attraction for their mind and physical, friend or otherwise. I do have to have a certain physical attraction, not in the sexual sense toward friends.

They have got to have certain features that I find appealing.

It does not have to be everything about them, if I enjoy their mind and certain features it works well. Though I will add that the features do not have to be attractive in the “world” sense it is what I find attractive. I had one friend that I thought was fabulous because their hair was all curly and wild. It was ok because they never tried to pretend that they were perfect. Their personality and mind fit their hair so it became an attraction and made me smile. Other friends or boyfriends I would be attracted to the color of their eyes, hair, or possessions they had, like books or music. Things that intrigue me are attractive to me.

I am accepting this about myself.

It is hard to admit and very hard for people to understand when I try to explain it. They seem to always have hurt feelings. It is quite helpful to watch videos like this so that I won’t feel guilt or shame for loving a mind more than a body. I feel quite exposed here, but I think it is something that should be talked about. I have been researching and watching documentaries about love, marriage, sex in the United States, and really digging into the stigmas and ideologies that are wrapped into these things. My findings have led me to the history of marriage and the development to what the current ideology in most of the Western cultural mindset. I have been looking into this for months and find it very interesting.There were times in my life that I never wanted to get married and I was told that wasn’t right. I was also condemned for living with my boyfriends. The pressure to marry was intense. I found (find) it confusing and a double-edged sword.

I have no answers about relationships or marriage.

I am not going to get into discussions about marriage or relationships because the bottom line is every relationship is different and you never know what is going on in people’s lives. Plus I have no clue! I cannot and will not make a judgement against people and their relationships, it has been done against me too many times to count. And there is a whole other gamut when it comes to being on the Autism spectrum and being in relationships. There are no simple answers and there are many other factors to consider. Enough of my rant for the day here are some videos I watched. Some may not be PG, just sayin’. :-)

OMG! Yes, I am so happy for this first video! Thank you, Dr. Tony!

“Ask Dr. Tony” July 2011 – AS and Feelings

“Ask Dr. Tony” July 2011 – AS and Relationships

“Ask Dr. Tony” July 2011 – AS and Sexuality

Inside Out: My Life With Asperger Syndrome  (I could relate to such of this video)

I found this documentary very interesting as well dealing with sex in America.

Let’s Talk About Sex

I found this one to be very eye opening in a lot of areas.

51 Birch Street

The website 51 Birch Street

I need to watch this whole documentary again, it had a lot of information to process.

The Mystery of Love on PBS

PBS site

Very interesting article.

Keeping Marriage Alive with Affairs, Asexuality, Polyamory, and Living Apart


 

 

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11/24/11

Lost My Words

I have been trying to write my post for a while now, but I can’t seem to get things out the right way. Today did not go as planned, I am feeling a bit sickly, and tired. My words have escaped me, but I have pictures of what Daniel and I did this afternoon. He was fixated on fans inside the stores and I was fixated on the numbers on the outside of them. We were quite the pair walking around the quaint small downtown on what is called the “island” around here. We looked at water, boats, trains, and he found all kinds of exciting things to look at…so did I. :-)


 

 

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11/22/11

Negative Into Positive II

I have given myself an “either/or” mindset about emotions and my intellect. Part of that really manifested during my church time. There was a separation between the logical mind and the “spiritual” (emotional) mind. They are not allowed to fuse in many Christian theologies I experienced. My opinion is that you have to be a segregated person in order to be part of those groups. I do not think you have to be that way, I do believe that people tend to polarize in this area and are ok with being one way in a building and another way at home. I am not and I cannot seem to be ok with separating my logic and spiritual ideas. I have not figured it out yet, but I am not a healthy person being polarized in one or the other. Then, there are certain core things that are just unmovable opinions (factual claims) that have caused me doubt and confusion as well.

I am able to be gray in my thinking when it comes to certain topics.

I have a clear understanding that certain situations or important life decisions are not simple and do not have one answer to them based on limited biblical knowledge these groups had, customs, and cultures of the past that were not understood or even considered. I am not ok, with accepting that we are to decide the morals of others. I am not going into that though, this line of thinking has caused me to think negative thoughts about myself. I have felt confused, wrong for having feelings/thoughts that go against the group, and even questioned my own intelligence because I was not allowed to use it.

These things fed into my already self-condemning mind.

I am not blaming people or churches, I am prone to self-destruct, but having people who tell me that God is also condemning me for all of the “sin” that is in my life does not set me free, it puts me in more self-hating, guilt, and condemnation. That is not what God ever intended and in the past seven months I have dealt with guilt about my feelings, emotions, and thoughts. I can sit here confidently and say that: “I am not wrong for any of those things or any feelings that I have, and I am not a horrible person.” People who are close to me know what a huge thing that is for me to say and believe. I have been very aware of how I speak about myself since the children have gotten older.

I have worked very hard at not speaking negatively about my appearance or my feelings of inadequacy out loud.

Negative talk was a huge influence in my life by both parents, enhanced by being ridiculed for my looks, my birthmark, my weight (being told that I needed to lose weight by a boyfriend over and over when it wasn’t true), being called stupid at times when I could not speak because I was confused or overloaded. The thoughts became me and I have been working on separating those from my real self for several months now. I am sure it will be a long process in some areas, but I know that I do have control over them now. I want to gain myself back of course, but I truly want to work at helping my kids not to go through this. Part of that is being a good example.

Ariel and I talked yesterday and it woke me up.

For some reason her and Joshua like watching Toddlers & Tiaras. I have a very hard time watching the show, it upsets me at times. It’s on Netflix so I can fast forward or skip to another one. However, I use it as a social tool. We talk about the parents who are positive and what is good about them and same with the parents who are not so good and why. We do the same thing with the children, but they both have said on multiple occasions that the “mommy’s made them like that”. Some of that is true, we discuss personalities as well. The show does have a lot of social dynamics and cultural issues that we talk about at their level. Anyway, Ariel asked me about a little girl who said: “I am beautiful! My face is so pretty.”

It was said in a way that was obnoxious and condescending.

Ariel picked up on it and then shared with me that she feels: “shy” when she says the words beautiful, pretty, kiss, love, being smart, and other things like that. I asked her if she knew that she was beautiful and smart and she said that she did. She said it in a healthy 7 year old way. It just made her feel awkward. I wondered if that was what my issue was as well. I have such a hard time taking compliments and I normally combat with them something negative. I do not do it on purpose I just do not know how to accept someone seeing good in me or in something that I do. I believe this was learned by my parents. I also have the feeling that I am not allowed to have compliments, like I do not deserve them or something.

My main goal has been to not do this in front of the kids for a while, but the thoughts still pop in my head.

I do not want Ariel to feel this or take on that behavior. The boys do not seem to have this or maybe it manifests differently through them. Ariel does have confidence in herself and her abilities, this is where it can be very confusing to other people. I too am confident in my abilities and things that I have a special interest in. I do not concern myself with feeling unattractive or unintelligent until someone or something brings it to my attention. Either through compliment or ridicule. I am just being me. I am overall a confident person, but social confusion, confusing situations, or misunderstood comments can make me seem very insecure. I do need to learn how to accept compliments and also positive criticism. I do not do too badly with criticism as long as I know that the person is trying to help me and not be destructive. I am always open to learning and bettering myself.

All of this has been very good and will help me go through my loop drafts with more understanding.

I am very happy that Ariel calls herself a scientist and she even told me that if she was in a pageant she thinks that she would get queen. The reason she gave: “I would just be myself, with a little bit of lipstick (blah) and my hair done a little, maybe…but I can dance and think I would win.” (blah was a direct quote) Good for her, I wish that were true though, I would have to find a “natural” pageant I think. :-)   I asked her how she would feel if she lost. She said: “Well, I would be ok with that and I would be happy for the girls who won.” Ariel is so awesome! I know I am biased. I am not sure I could be a pageant mom. 8-d

Here are some links that I found very helpful.

Negative Automatic Thoughts

15 Common Cognitive Distortions

Negative Automatic Thoughts w/ Examples

The study is a bit long, but it was interesting.

Evaluation of the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire:
Negative Cognitive Processes and Depression Among Children


 

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11/22/11

Negative Into Positive I

The other day I watched a video that is completely unrelated to this post so I will not put it up, but it did mention something that I had never heard of before. It was Negative Automatic Thoughts, it jumped at me because I had already looked up cognitive distortions either the day before or a few days before. I did not see anything mentioned about Negative Automatic Thoughts in my reading. When I looked it up, to be honest I have no idea what I felt or thought.

I have always had a subconscious understanding that I do this.

All my life I have tried not to have these thoughts flood my mind. I think there is another whole aspect to the Aspie mind, anxiety, depression, and the thought patterns. The added component of intense sensory ingraining and reliving negative events have very strong parallels to PTSD. I do not have a diagnosis for these, but I know that I do seem to line up with the criteria. Gaining this understanding has helped me to acknowledge, understand, and work toward becoming more balanced and truly take control over my thoughts and my world. I do not think at this point it matters if I have a diagnosis for some of the things I feel I may have, other than Asperger’s, I would like to get a diagnosis for that for multiple reasons. I am working on that.

After reading about the negative automatic thoughts, I had a huge revelation.

It is like the chicken and the egg issue, I do not know which came first, the thoughts or the depression/anxiety. I believe my anxiety came first because my mom says that I have always been anxiety ridden and what I believe I did was start creating negative thoughts based on my automatic black-and-white thinking and confusion. It really doesn’t matter because I have been working on trying to stop these thoughts for years, but also questioned myself and would believe that they came from outside sources. Which meant that I had no control over them. They seemed so overwhelming and unstoppable, it is hard to believe they can stop when you have had them your whole life.

I have been overcoming some of them little by little.

In the recent months part of me putting my poetry out there, my stories, and sharing art or myself more has been me trying to combat the negatives. The more I put out there the more I feel confident and less seeking the approval of others (not approval in “normal” sense it is hard to explain), or using other people’s perceptions to tell me who I am. I hope that others relate, enjoy, and get something out of what I share, it is my healing that I am sharing. It makes me feel very exposed and unsure. It also makes me say: “I can do this.”

It is part of my acceptance of myself, all of me not just parts.

When I went through a list of common negative automatic thoughts I knew many of them. Some of them I do not do or at least it does not seem the same that could be my motives are completely different or that it seems to cross a fine line between Aspie traits, and is hard to differentiate. Or is it the anxiety disorder? Is it the social confusion that links into the anxiety that causes me to relive past negative experiences or think that every situation will be like the “one” that ended negatively? At some point I just have to let that go, and focus on being productive with the information I have gained.

My brain is hard-wired to think literally, in black-and-white, and be confused with social situations.

Not that I cannot work on that, but I do accept it about myself and will focus on what I can change. Currently, it does not seem like those things can change, I can become more aware. I can control my confusion, anxiety, and fears, by speaking about it and asking people to be honest and clear with me. I can explain that I do not understand and hope they will be kind and explain it to me. I do have control over how I allow my reactions toward certain thinking patterns affect me, but I am not sure they will ever stop. Actually I am not sure I want them to in some ways they are very beneficial and help me gain certain insight that otherwise I may not have.

I am extremely happy to have a concrete list to look at, examine, and use as a guide to help my process.

After reading about this, it helped release me from certain guilt patterns that I tend to put on myself. I will condemn myself for having negative thoughts, which is not helpful at all. The negative thoughts have caused me confusion and is a big factor in some of my loops. As I went through and read each thing I was able to look at some of my current loops and recognize them as negative automatic thoughts. They just come when I am in a similar situation and I have made one event or person into the ALL. “It will always end up the way it had that one time.” I have been telling myself through writing to accept the gray that this “always/every” is not true. Rationally I know it is not true, this where I have an additional issue and battle in my mind.

My emotional self and logical self fight.

 Second half here. 


 

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11/21/11

Wow! Great Article

I just read Empaths on the Autism Spectrum, Part 1 By and Empaths on the Autism Spectrum, Part 2 By they are so good I had to share. It made me want to see where I scored on the AQ test again to see if there were any changes. I can’t find my last score, but I believe it was somewhere in the 40′s. This time I got a 42. Part One gave such great insight and comfort to me. I was feeling a bit lonely in my thoughts, but this helped bring some clarity even about some things I wrote about in my last post. I may be hypersensitive during the holidays because of my own past negative associations, but also because I am feeling other people’s emotions as well. Not to mention the increase in sensory input during the holidays.

This quote stood to me:

“In short, my friends on the Spectrum were overwhelmingly, intensely, unremittingly, outrageously empathic — not merely in relation to emotions and social cues, but to every possible aspect of their environment.”

Part Two I am digesting, there is a lot there to think about.

Both of these articles are a mix of many things that I am currently trying to understand about myself and acceptance of myself. I have come to more of an understanding of how empathetic I am and the kids are by realizing I had been comparing empathy to what is defined in a neurptypical mindset. After realizing this several months ago, I have been able to recognize how much my kids are expressing empathy and “feeling” or imitating another person’s emotions. I have also noticed that they are exceptionally sensitive their to environment. Actually, I have not just noticed I knew this before, but doubted myself and questioned what I was feeling because of what others had said.

This has explained a lot about their behavior and why they are so exhausted or emotional after we have gone to certain places.

They have the same sensory and social dynamics as I do. All of these years I have been feeling guilt about not putting them out there more thinking that I haven’t done enough. I do know they need to be out there socializing and experiencing new things, but I am sitting here thinking I am glad I listened to my gut instincts about certain places and people. Maybe I am not that off about what I feel about people or environments. The article gave me some confidence about some of my perceptions and feelings about what people have said or done in the past or even now.

I am weaving together several different things right now that all link to communication.

The article helped confirm some of what I had been working through, one of my biggest issues is being so confused by people’s actions and words. When their actions do not match with what they say or I know that they are not telling me the truth about what they really want to say or are feeling. It is a huge chunk of social confusion for me because I am unsure if what I am feeling is true or not. By the conflicting feelings that I am having with their actions/words  I start to think that I am making things up.

I want to yell at them: “Just tell me!” (I always say that, I know.)

BUT I can handle it whatever it is just say: “it”. Of course the whole issue could be that they cannot handle “it” whatever it is. Maybe that is what is going on with the world, everyone is too afraid to say what is really going on in their minds. Who knows! I’ve probably said that before, I think I may be in a November loop of mine and not realize it. I do know that this is a great article and recommend reading it. :-) There is too much I need to process and go over my drafts I have been writing to make sense of it all.

On a completely different note, but not really in my mind some pictures of paintings.

You can see the emotions coming through the kids and me in these. Happy, smiling eights, up in space, swirling around being giggly with each other. I wish Daniel had painted some more I love seeing what he is thinking, but he did not feel like it. The paintings that Ariel and Joshia did on the big paper were made specifically for me the other night because: “Mommy was feeling a little sad.” Daniel laid his head on my shoulders and wrapped his arm in mine for a little while. That was new and huge.

Empathy.

I am not sure if I felt sad for myself truly or if I was feeling someone else’s emotions. I do have several people in my life dealing with things that could be influencing me. I do have my own feelings that I am dealing with as well so it could be a mix. When I feel this way I do things to help me feel better. I started attempting to paint several months ago, I have always cooked or baked, and taken pictures when I feel sad or happy. I cooked all week, but I thought the stew and breads looked pretty so I put the pictures up. :-)

The pictures are not new thing, I have always driven my mom batty taking pictures of strange things. (Well strange to her.)

I took pictures of what I found in her backyard. I got obsessed with a spider in her shrubs, I begged her not to kill it, but I am sure she will. :-( She can justify killing it because she thinks it’s ugly, and she doesn’t have to touch it just spray and let it die. Maybe I will go back and save it before she can. I got fixated on rust, thorns, and other things I found back there. I have also been fixated on x, y, and z for the past two weeks. It started with x, but every time I drew or painted or typed about x the other two would not leave me alone. Then, when I started painting them the wavy equal sign would not stop swimming passed me so I made it too and have been thinking of them for days. I am not sure what that has to do with anything, I am off rambling again I am sure the article, paintings, and letters all connect in my mind somehow and I will figure it out later. :-)


 

 

 

 

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11/20/11

Throne Of Lies

I copied that title from the YouTube clip I found. It is the clip from the movie Elf when he encounters the “fake” Santa. I think that scene is so funny. Especially, when he says: “You stink, you smell like beef and cheese. You don’t smell like Santa” Lol! I bring this up because yesterday we went to see Santa for the first time ever. I am not big into the whole Santa thing, there is a history I think I have written before, but I cannot recall where it is on here. Basically I was devastated by discovering the truth about Santa Claus.

I was told by the babysitter’s daughter.

She and I almost got into a fist fight over the fact that she said that there was no Santa. She also said that it was a lie and Christmas is only about Jesus. OK! But she should not have been the one to tell me and say that my mom lied to me. I was about 8 yrs old I believe when this happened. I was not upset at the fact that Santa wasn’t real, I could grasp that what I could not grasp is my mom lying to me about it. Her rule was: “To always tell the truth and you will not get in trouble”. Although sometimes she didn’t follow that rule, and I would still get in trouble. And let me just add that rule does not work with other people it actually gets you in a lot more trouble! However, I am still struggling to make exceptions to that rule, it is hard-wired in my brain.

Anyway, from that moment on I realized that I could not fully trust my mom.

If I could not trust my mom, I could trust no one. Actually I had many other encounters by that age that made me feel unable to trust people in general, but it was a very confusing moment to me about people I trusted and didn’t trust. All because of Santa. :-) There were no clear lines so all my life I have gone back and forth on trusting people and not trusting people. It didn’t make sense to me why she would tell me such a lie and work so hard at keeping it a lie. My black-and-white thinking could not comprehend. I have been very honest with my kids about Santa. I felt like they would respond the same as I did for some reason, I had a gut feeling. So yesterday before we went to see him, I asked them how they would feel if we told them that he was real, but then when they were older we told them the truth.

They all told me that they would be upset with us.

When I asked them if they would feel like we had lied to them it was an unanimous: “Yes!” They are much happier knowing that he is pretend that is what they expressed. I went over and over it again telling them not to say anything to the other children though. We had a discussion as to why other parents tell their kids that he is real, and they are somewhat ok with that. Out of it the discussion went into tolerance and acceptance of others beliefs and traditions. Who would have thought seeing Santa would be so philosophical.

Daniel was really focused on speaking his scripts out loud.

“Santa is not real, he is pretend”

“Santa is just a guy, why is he just a guy”

“Do not tell other kids he is not real”

“Tell Santa what I want for Christmas”

“I want helicopters and fans because I like them”

“Santa does not smell”

“I smell like Daniel”

“Santa smells like me”

Those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

He went into the smelling thing because I asked him if he was going to tell Santa that he smells of beef and cheese. Ha ha ha I had to remind him of the movie. He took me literally, I do think it was a good thing because had Santa had a certain smell Daniel would have noticed and would have said something. Thankfully he didn’t seem to or the smells from the hardware store overpowered and he couldn’t smell him. We went to Lowe’s and build Santa sleighs and then had a picture taken with Santa. It was fun, the kids all did great, but were seriously overloaded the rest of the day.

I guess I was too because I ended up crying and shutting down later in the night.

I did go to the store and drove around a bit trying to stop, I think I am a bit overwhelmed with several things going on and feeling very alone and having no one to be completely open and honest with. I don’t know I feel very alone for some reason, even though I am not. The holidays seem to do that to me, remind me that I am surrounded, but still misunderstood or unable to spill what is inside of me completely. There have been several things to bring this to my mind, I confess my Santa trauma is one of them. People think I am ridiculous to be so animate about telling the kids that Santa, the Easter Bunny, or the tooth fairy or whatever are not real.

I didn’t even let the kids have a candy cane.

Some people gave me looks as if I were evil. The things people can judge you for are so strange. The guy signing us up called me “babe” and my face must have had a look that freaked him out because his face changed and he stumbled over his words. I was confused by it actually, he was a young guy so why would he call me babe? He didn’t know me, I had three kids, do I look like a “babe”, it seemed very inappropriate and I do not like the phrase babe anyway so I was offended. The good thing was that I did not shutdown or pour out my wrath upon him. Instead I said to myself: “Mom works here do not cause a scene. You have the kids with you do not cause a scene. It really is not that big of deal do not cause a scene. It does not matter, it meant nothing do not loop about it.”

I let it go and focused on the kids.

It was a big deal for me to let that go because in the past I would have looped or I would have yelled at him telling him that I am not his babe and he needs to stop treating women with disrespect. It just was not the appropriate time to give him a lesson on respect, and I realized it! Yea! I admit I still want to go back and teach him a lesson, but mom says it’s no use that is how he is. I am all over the place here. I am a bit off and feeling drained. It was a great experience for the kids. They were a bit awkward with Santa, um…Santa is another story let’s just say he has been trying to get a date out of their Grammy for a month or so. That is not happening. Thankfully he did not know that they were her grandchildren.

You never know who is sitting on that Santa throne.

I am struggling with feeling like a liar and a fake myself. I am processing all of that right now. Mom and David both told me that I cannot tell people everything. I cannot share completely because it can be hurtful to others and make me too vulnerable. It makes me feel sick and like I am hiding things. I have learned to hide things my whole life, but my emotions about it were internalized and I would make myself feel like such a bad person, I felt like I was a liar, and would spin my lies over and over in my head until finally they came out because I was in too much pain or I couldn’t live with the guilt. I am not talking about big huge lies even, I am talking about telling somehow how I felt or what was really going on. If I said that I was fine, I felt like a liar and would torture myself. Or if I said that I liked their hair when I didn’t I would feel sick for days.

I learned how to twist things in my head to make them not seem like a lie to me.

Other people would probably think that it was not twisting at all, but for me it is because it is not direct and exact. I am learning how to process boundaries about my emotions or feelings, and I am learning to find balance in what I should share and should not. However, in the process I feel like I don’t have anyone to talk to. I feel like I have so many holidays past, so many days and years in my life, being alone in my thoughts while others are laughing and pretending, I am aching and hating on Santa. Ok, not really hating on Santa, but I am thinking he has a lot to do with my confusion about lies. I don’t want to sit on a throne of lies! I am kidding about Santa, I clearly have another whole post to write about what I am talking about here. :-)

What to share or what not to share: That is the question…


 

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11/17/11

Daniel Tammet:Different Ways of Knowing TED

When my brain starts to make connections sometimes they will happen in floods of rapid “Aha” moments and it will be through a whole bunch of different resources. I have been slowly working through my communication connections and they all connect to a cluster of many other connections. My mind will start to make sense of my past, present, and it helps me process a little bit more about my gray future. :-)  

I admit the other day when I discovered the photo with some of my books pictured, I was overwhelmed with emotion.

I was consumed with memories of things that I had locked away and I felt all of the pain and sadness I felt in that time in my life. I had gone through some devastating things during 1991-1993, alone. I had no way to understand them and no way to process them. I felt so sad for the young Angel who had been and was desperately trying to find answers for her pain and confusion through books and also escaping through books. I forgot that I read as much fiction and literature as I did non-fiction and biographies and history. I took that away from me. I stripped myself of anything that would make me feel because it hurt too much or caused confusion.

I also saw pictures of myself at that age.

For the first time I looked at a picture of me and knew me. I knew that person, I knew my real smile and why I was smiling. I knew my fake smile and why I was faking it. I knew my stuff that was all in the background of my mom’s house or my apartments. I knew me. It was hard to grasp, but I was comfortable looking at me and saying “Hey, I know you.”  Maybe I sound silly, but oh well. When I found this video yesterday of Daniel Tammet: Different Ways of Knowing TED I felt like even more of me made sense.

You can read about Daniel Tammet here .

 I did read his book Born on A Bue Day, but I was so disconnected from myself and was only thinking of my Daniel when I read it I did not really connect myself to it. I plan on rereading the book just to see if I get anymore connections. I didn’t really understand synesthesia or truly realized that I had it when I read his book or read about him. I probably had some knowledge, but did not connect it yet. Everything in my time, wait for it…wait for it…yes that is what my brain does to me often. :-) Anyway I thought it was a good video and wanted to share. Oh, it’s Thursday! I was born on a Thursday at 11:59pm I haven’t thought of the color.

Days of the week always make me think of mythical gods and the names behind the days of the week.

Thursday makes me think of Thor the Thunder god, well it was named after him and my mom loved Thor. She was going to name my sisters, if they were a boy “Thor Alexander”. My one sister is named Athena that is my mom’s other favorite the goddess of wisdom, she always says. I am stopping now I went off on a tangent again. Thursday is sometimes swirly, sometimes green, sometimes, nothing at all, but most of the time it is just blank to me. I find that amusing considering it was named after such a dynamic god.

Happy Thursday with a bunch of squiggles and sixes, I see dancing sixes.  


 

 

 

 

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11/15/11

Insightful Study

I read an interesting post on Science Daily today and thought that it gave a lot of insight about the autistic brain. The study was done in 2009. It at least made a lot of sense for me. I do have many thoughts and connections to this, but I have already written three posts in my drafts today over 1000 words and frankly I am out of control with writing. Considering I have several stories, I think 10 poems, not to mention the other drafts I have waiting…My brain does not stop, and to think I am “controlling” myself on my blogs! Back to the other post.

The post is titled “How the Autistic Brain Distinguishes Oneself from Others“.

Maybe this is old news for some, but I thought I would share it anyway. Also, I watched a video posted by “The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism” on facebook yesterday. It was “Ignite Phoenix #11 – Raising Geek Kids — Resistance is Futile” as I watched it I realized that I am TOTALLY a geek! AND our kids are totally geeks too! I find it to be a good thing. :-) I knew everything mentioned and the other day I had posted that I was not that into sci fi.

Then I found a picture yesterday of the bottom of my bookshelf when I was about 19.

It was actually a picture of my mom’s Basset hound she used to have laying next to my bookshelf. The one book that popped out was “The Integral Trees” by Larry Niven. I had a large number of books from psychiatrists dealing with inner conflicts, about ESP, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, and I saw one of my all time favorites that I forgot about “Touch Not the Cat” by Mary Stewart. I also had several biographies, and collections like Edgar Allen Poe. I had thrown all of them away when I changed my life. I also forgot all about them, until I saw the picture that was taken in 1992. (I have been slowly re-buying some of my old library collections.)

That book triggered my memory of watching the Sci Fi channel for hours.

My main reason was that it would play Alfred Hitchcock and Twilight Zone marathons. I could watch them forever, well I was reading books at the same time, I do that a lot. There are certain shows that I can have on and read at the same time, others not so much. David said that my definition of sci fi has been limited to a certain type of fantasy definition, which I really am not a fan of. It’s hard to explain, I am contradictory in this area, much like jokes, I do not like Star Trek, but I like Star Wars. (not an enthusiast, but like it)

However, sci fi does venture in to a huge genre that I do fall into.

It is more of using realistic types of things and bridging them into the extreme. A lot of the sci fi that I do not like are the ones that are completely unrealistic, even from an alien perspective. If you are going to live on another planet make sure the science is correct, if you are going to use laser guns please explain how you came up with such an invention in a plausible way. Time machines make sense in sci fi because they explain themselves with some sort of  believable science. It could work one day…

2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010 fall into my likes for various reasons.

I told you I was contradictory in this area. I’ve gone and written more than I wanted. The post about autism is quite busy and was hard for me to read I have a cleaner version found elsewhere linked below. I am leaving now, I am too typative, and rambly today. I will go write to myself now. :-)

How the Autistic Brain Distinguishes Oneself from Others

(I did not read the actual study.)

 


 

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