04/16/12

Play Date…It Was Great!

Last week, no wait let me start from the beginning and try to tie it altogether. Several months ago, we had new neighbors move in next door. We are in a heavy house rental area, we rent, I want to always rent! I do not want to own a house for as long as possible! Houses are too committal I am not ready for that type of relationship bond. I believe I could only commit to a long-term relationship with a house that is the equivalent to an iPad. Oh! Imagine what that would look like. The possibilities…sorry I dosed into another world. It would take one magnificent house to tie me down that is for sure. Distracted much? The neighbors, yes they moved in. I peeked out the window, watched, studied, and HID! I freak out when new people move in. I never know how they are going to be, and I normally do not like talking to neighbors.

That is too committal too.

After they had moved in, and had been there a little while the lady came over and introduced herself. She suggested we get together. Well of course, I was already panicking because she had crossed over to our yard, so then the thought of meeting again was freaking me out. However, she seemed very nice, and I liked her vibe right away. Still I am always apprehensive with new people, especially those who live so close to me. It reminds me of the other neighbor next door. The first week we lived here I went out to the mailbox and there he was going to his mailbox in black satin boxers baring big red lips with the words “Kiss Me” (I am 98.6% sure they were the accurate words.) plastered on them AND no shirt! Oh, I forgot he did have black ankle socks to go with the attire, as he waved and said “Good morning” in a grumpy fashion. Believe me my imagination would never had made that scene up, those neighbors have proven to be not so pleasant on several occasions. They do not rent — we are stuck with them.

Focus Angel!

The nice neighbor lady (Most assuredly she is younger than me, but I use off words to describe people.) introduced herself, discovered that I home school, and wanted to get together sometime to talk about homeschooling. They have a four year old who is in preschool currently, and she is having a baby at the end of May I believe. (The mom, just clarifying.) She came over one day and knocked on the door. I am a freak about answering the door. I do not do it, and I do not care if the people on the other side hear me “Shh-ing” the kids or not. I hide behind the broken blinds (Thanks Mr. Nathaniel Cat), while the kids poke their heads right at the strangers. I don’t understand why they haven’t learned to hide properly. I had to answer the door when I saw her, it isn’t that I do not want to talk to her I get thrown off and don’t know what to say. (I will try to shorten this story.) She came over to suggest us getting together again. I was confused with the open-ended invitation and did not know how to respond so I did not.

A few weeks go by — I see her outside and apologize for not getting back to her.

Oh, wait there was another time that she came, but I was sick, and having serious neck/shoulder pain so I could not go to the door. David did and talked to her for a little while, she gave him a paper with her name and number on it for me to call. At first, I thought she gave me an email, which I thought no problem I will contact her that way. Nope, it was a phone number. I could not call. It was too open ended. I didn’t want to call when she was busy, I didn’t want to disturb her, I don’t know her plans, when is the best time to call, how do I know she really wants to talk to me? (A good indicator for the last question is that she continued to try to talk to me.) I did not call or show up at her house because I did not know the right time, or I could not work up the courage to walk over there. I was constantly flooded with questions. Even though she told me several times that she is home all day, she gets her little girl at 1:00 pm and is home after that.

I just could not come to terms with a time.

Finally, last week she came by again. (Yea! For her because I would have given up by now.) I was all flustered because the morning had been a mess, and I had just gotten all of the kids settled into school about an hour prior. I looked a fright, and all buggy-eyed from anxiety of trying to gather thoughts to talk on the fly. She asked to get together and I could not think, I tried to stop my brain from running in circles and noticed that she really did want to do something. I combed over the days and said: “Wednesday, how about Wednesday we go to the park?” Perfect, we set a date and a time. And began my social anxiety frenzy. (Part of the contributor to my meltdown the day before.) The kids did too. We were excited, and nervous. Remember I have had pretty much nothing, but negative experiences around here with other mothers. I did not have any good scripts — there are also the very fundamental views that play a major role in this area. I am too liberal for these parts. No offense, just the fact. (I am open to them; they are not open to me.)

She came knocking a little early.

It worked out, and we went to the park. It was fabulous! I had the best time. She was very open — I felt comfortable enough to share my views about homeschooling, and curriculum. I like to use “secular” home school materials mixed, with the Sonlight curriculum, STEM, Art & Music apprehension, unschooling type of methods, and multi-sensory as well. I am all over the place and I have encountered many people who believe it should only be one way. Each person has to find their own way to home school if they decide to do so, I respect their decisions — I wish those types of people would respect mine. I was also comfortable enough to share some about my religious views. Her daughter is wonderful, and a great playmate for the kids. Ariel had a blast being with another girl. She is younger, but I think that works well for Ariel. Joshua and Daniel like her very much too. Daniel did go off on his own and watched other kids on the playground. He was in observation mode most of the time.

He talked out loud about what kids were doing.

He did not talk to them, I asked him if he wanted to and he said: “No”. He was happy watching them, he was really happy. I can relate I think it’s the “people groupie” thing. We do not have to be involved or directly interactive to enjoy people. Make sense? We stayed at the park for a while. When we came home, all of us were super excited, and over-stimulated. We were all happy too. We plan to do it again, but I believe it was on Friday that they came knocking later in the afternoon. The kids and I had been snuggling in bed reading because for some reason I started to not feel well. The knock came and I was dreading who it was. When I opened the door and saw her I was feeling like I did not want to socialize, but then I thought about how much the kids needed it. The reality is, I need it too. The kids ran around our yards playing and having such a wonderful time. I sat with her and her husband and we talked and talked. I started feel much better instantly.

Come to find out we have a lot in common.

They are so pleasant, down to earth and have a great “take me or leave me” type of attitude. They had lived in CA for quite a while, even though they are not from there. I have found that many people from CA are very open and much more tolerant of differences. They had just moved from Washington though, which is another area that seems to be quite open. She went to school for her masters and is a teacher. (Not currently working) My first fears with our encounter were telling her about Daniel and autism. I cringe at the thought of telling people because I never know how they will respond. Again, I have many negative encounters that tend to drown out the few positive ones from around here (and family). She taught in a school with what sounds like an excellent program for special needs children.

She did not flinch when I told her that Daniel was autistic.

She and her husband both treated him so kindly and with his quirky behaviors, they had no problems. They let him touch them, get in their face, smile, and study them with no problems. They tried to engage with him, and he did several times. At one point, he came up to the three of us and said: “I like them” It was awesome. He has since shared with me that he thinks the “Mom and the girl are pretty.” He continued to pet the little girl’s hair, and it didn’t bother her at all. She doesn’t seem to notice anything different about Daniel. (Daniel does love the ladies.) He is very interested in the baby in the Mom’s belly too. I shared with her my home school blog, if she meanders over here I will feel a bit exposed, but it has been such a positive experience that I had to write it. I was filled with joy watching Ariel and Joshua enjoy themselves so much. They were so happy. I want that for them, I want them to have friends and be able to socialize. I wish it had happened sooner in this town, oh well.

Now our goal is to clean the house so we can invite them over to play.

The kids REALLY want the little girl to come over and play. Every time I have new (or uncertain) social interactions, I start to get anxiety. I get frustrated with myself, which adds to the stress. I want to be social, but then my anxiety kicks in and it causes me to feel like something is wrong with me. Thoughts pop in my head like “Why can’t I just have a conversation without freaking out, or getting too enthusiastic?” At one point she mentioned the Fibonacci number and I practicality jumped out of my seat, I may have clapped, I know I got overly excited and shared how I love the Fibonacci sequence. Then, I said: “If I begin to bore you, you have to tell me because I may go on and on.” I did control myself pretty well, but I was SO excited to hear someone mention it before me! Ariel found a snail shell that made her think of it. Yes!

It has been a very positive and I am looking forward to our next play date.

I have a second half connecting to this post talking about Executive Function Disorder and how it plays into my social confusion/anxiety. I needed a specific situation to apply it to. I am also rounding that straight into my massive meltdown, and all of the things that contributed to it being triggered. I forget how all of these different components play into why I behave, or respond a certain way. Others do not have a clue — they only believe that I am responding out of immaturity or emotions. There is so much that goes into it, especially when someone else is responding out of their projected emotions.

I need clarity, I need direct communication.

Generalizations cause me to be thrown into a black-and-white thinking of dizziness when I am not specifically told it is a generalization. Mainly if it is a topic of emotion I have a problem, other things I have a better ability to discern what is a generalization. I have learned to reason through those — I have not learned to reason through emotions. I understand that others can get frustrated, or exhausted because of this, but I can’t change it. This is what happens with my kids, and it is another reason why I have been apprehensive with play dates. I talk very direct and literal with my kids. People have given me looks, or tried to cushion my words to my kids. They don’t get that. They get clear, direct, and literal. I was so happy to be able to talk to my children, be myself, and talk to another adult without all of these judgments and fears soaring through my mind.

That is what I call a great play date, all of us being ourselves! (Well as much as you can meeting new people. )

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04/12/12

Inspired By…

Today I am sharing an inspiration collage. I am not creating an art piece in the customary sense for a collage to be made. I am creating this piece with people.

“A collage (From the French: à coller, to glue, French pronunciation: [kɔ.laːʒ]) is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole.” (Already linked to above.)

This past month so many new people have inspired me that I cannot possibly share them all, but I mention them now creating a visual of all that they share on their blogs. I speak of all the poets, writers, artists, musicians, spiritual influencers, science impacters, techy wonderfulers, math/number guiders, all of the TED video people who have influenced me so much, AND all of the people who share their life stories who are on the autism spectrum and/or have children on the autism spectrum. I know I have left people out, I read many blogs! Every week I take time to sit down and catch up on blogs that I have subscribed to, while discovering new ones. I usually take about an hour, two days a week to focus on people’s blogs and respond with my “like” button and/or leave comments. I have been trying to comment more because I get so enthused by people sharing themselves through their craft, yes blogging can be considered a craft as well.

I do not take it lightly — I think that it is important.

If I follow someone I put time into reading them, I know that a lot of people do not do that. It’s ok, this is who I am I invest in people as much as I can. I guess I am deemed a “fan of people” a “people groupie”. Today I was incredibly behind, I had almost 400 emails in my account, some of them were not to blogs, but the majority of them were. There are some that I am able to read on a daily basis and able to comment. Others I sometimes have to read come back later, reread, and comment. Unless I am unable to write a quick comment, then I only click “like”. As I sat down, I looked at all of the people floating in my inbox. I went through and read as much as I could. I spent about two hours off and on reading and commenting. Thinking and pondering, enjoying and delighting, my heartbreaking and feeling. I collected all of the people in my mind and my soul, then gathered up their words and images/art forms wondering how I could connect them all. I decided to write these words as they all soar through my mind their words, and life are acknowledged and creating a beautiful collage. They all inspire me.

Yesterday we had a play date with a new friend.

Our new neighbor has come over several times to talk to me to schedule sometime to get together. I was going to write about my weirdness, and the whole story with that. I am not today. She is a wonderful woman, and her daughter is so cute and such a smart little girl. My guys loved playing with her, and I enjoyed myself very much talking to the mother. However, I have been off all day from a new social encounter, but I do not feel like talking about that. Daniel and Joshua have been off all day as well, there was no formal school today. They were playing so well and they did all day I did not want to ruin it. That is a rarity for them to play well all day, no meltdowns, freak-outs, arguing, social confusions, and/or someone getting hurt. Ariel wanted to be with me all day. Stay with me I will come full circle to inspiration. She sat on my lap as I read my emails, blogs, and left comments. Until…

I showed her the Kitty Blogger.

At that point, she asked if she could go look at it on their computer. She was in there for a few minutes, laughing then asking me to come look at kitty stuff. I showed her my gravatar on some of the posts under “like” after that, she asked if she could read my blog. I asked her which one? She has sat down read my poetry blog before, and told me which ones she liked. She loves all of the images I find. This time she wanted to read the one that I have not shared with many people because it has so much of me on it. I post poems on the fly, music, links (a lot) about pretty much anything. The blog is a Hodgepodge of my brain. I pulled it up for her and off she went reading my blog, watching my videos, and looking at my images. She came in and told me that her favorite video was Akasha Project – “The Quantum Music of Hydrogen” video by Vigor Calma. She said she saw a dragon face fading, flowers, and a tiger face. You would have to watch it to see why. We talked about the video for a while, then she told me that she wanted to paint what she “felt”.

She however, informed me that she did not want to yet.

Instead, she requested to listen to my iShuffle because she wanted to listen to more of my music. She did paint a beautiful picture that I will share below. I share all of this because Ariel inspired me very much today. She is open to learning, she loves life, she is a delight to be around, she asks hard questions, and everyday something is new with her. Don’t get me wrong it is the same with the boys only in a different way. They inspire me too, but today I was not all that inspired by rowdy “Pokémon play.” Here starts the rest of my people collage, I am not able to give all of the ways that they have inspired me so I will share as much as I can. (I apologize ahead of time for not telling all of you that I linked to you — I hope you don’t mind! I am not sure what the blog rules are for that.) Ariel wanted to paint with me, and I have been wanting to try to draw and paint “Goth girls”. I love them. Here are some of my inspirations Mike and Jamie Best. (Robots and Goth Art LOVE!) I was so excited to see such beautiful collages on Lori’s blog A Quiet Week. (Hence, where I was inspired for the word.) She shared with me an artist who inspires her Suzi Blu. I instantly loved her art. This triggered me thinking about my dear bloggy friend Bruce. In the beginning of April, he made a YouTube video that stirred my heart.

I was so excited for him, and he encouraged and inspired me so much.

He is such a wonderful person and so very talented. Here is his video and you can see how he was inspired by Nina. This video has been playing in my head all month. The words he shared moved me deeply, and got me thinking about things that I have not tried because of my perfectionism issues. Nina shared with Bruce to pursue his art “even if it looked like a Pre-K kid did it.” You must go watch to get the full inspiration. This video flooded me today as Ariel asked to draw and paint with me. I decided to give my Goth girls a try. I will share the pictures below of what Ariel and I made, Joshua joined in later, Daniel didn’t want to. I will show you what he was doing too. Thanks to my good friend Lisa aka. Alienhippy who encouraged me to “try to paint and allow yourself to stim in whatever way you need to”, I have dabbled in trying to paint. I did not try much of any form of art before for various reasons. I will stick to my physical reasons, but negative interactions caused me to feel like I could not. I also have such a hard time with my hand coordination, and tasks like writing, painting, drawing, using scissors, etc… It can hurt or cramp my hands. I also can get freaky about paint or any substance being on my hands.

However, I decided to give it a try over the summer.

I have found a new and very helpful stim that helps calm some of my anxiety, and uncontrollable loops. In recent months, I have also been inspired to allow my silly side out more. I tend to hold my silliness in because I can be WAY out there sometimes, or a complete goof. I was inspired by Sam at Everyday Asperger’s , her friend “Crazy Frog” suggested I let my silly side out more. And I have listened to Crazy Frog and have gained so much understanding about others, and myself. I have felt such peace and have had great laughter from reading her blog. However, letting my silly out and being more social can trigger some serious anxiety, sometimes I am not even aware that I am feeling excited energy from being social on the internet. I think it is because I do invest time into reading people’s blogs, and I give a piece of myself every time I share my words with them. I don’t mind, I love it — I forget how much it can take out of me though. This leads into some others who inspired me this month, Inner Aspie has helped me in many areas, but one specifically has been my issues with anorexia and dysmorphia. I have not found many other Aspie’s sharing about this.

There have been some days that are hard.

I do not want to diet, or try to lose weight. I do not want to think about it, but my mind goes directly into “image attack” if anxiety, or random fears pop up. It is not about being skinny, and just because you are thin does not mean there are no problems. I am not tackling that cultural thing right now. She has inspired me to accept things about anorexia and dysmorphia issues. I was not facing them — I have been beating myself up because I immediately go there when things start to fluster me. My body refuses food — I have to force down bland noodles or rice, and broccoli on good days if I am overcome with confusion and anxiety. I lost almost 20 pounds over the summer, I did not need to. I did my best at forcing me to eat, but it was a struggle with my mind. I have to fight it, and I have gotten a lot better, but I also have held on to shame and guilt about it. I am done talking about this. Now it’s out there I am inspired to move forward and heal. Thanks to Inner Aspie I was led to Carrie’s post about meltdowns at Parenting with Asperger’s. Ironically, that very night after reading it I had the worst meltdown I have had in over 10 years. I may blog about it I don’t know yet.

I shared with Carrie in my comment that I still had guilt and shame after a meltdown.

That night I struggled so much. I was feeling social stress, and anxiety for various reasons. I was nervous, excited, and happy about our play date. There were many contributing factors, but what set me off in a rage was I thought David said I was acting like a seven year old. He did not, but that is what I heard and before I knew it my body was taken over facing all of my ex’s, my mom, and various other people in my life demeaning me telling me that what I felt or did was childish or juvenile. I had no control over myself, and thankfully, I had her blog to remind me what it is actually like when a meltdown happens. Of course, I apologized — he did too for his part in the whole episode. I will skip all of that for now. Then, today I was also inspired by Aspergirl Maybe, she has been inspiring me ever since I started reading her blog. Her strength, courage, honesty, and faith have inspired me in so many ways. As I read her post today, I was struck with how brave she has been to make the decisions she has, and the ability to follow through to take charge of her life. It inspires me to stay the course, and keep trying to stay focused on the directions I need to take in my own life.

Another person is Kirsten’s blog, quirky and laughing.

She shared the Autism Positivity Week post, and for the first time in my life I could actually write something positive about myself, share it with others on another blog and not feel guilt or like someone was going to come along and tell me that what I said was not true. Or accuse me of bragging, or being prideful. Rachel was one of the first blogs I found of an adult autistic she has inspired me in many ways on her personal blog, but the Autism and Empathy site has inspired me beyond words. It is packed full of a wonderful collage of people, and very beneficial information. My Goodness there are so many people I wish I could add on here, but I have made this far longer than I expected.

I forced myself to limit it to the last couple of weeks.

Plus, I am now teary-eyed and I hate crying so I am going to stop before the flood starts. I hope this post has inspired others, reveals what an impact all of you who share and write make in our community. Our sharing leads to more sharing, which leads to more people stepping out and trying. Creating magnificent pieces of art whether with materials or in each of our hearts. This to me shows our vast spectrum, our individuality, and our hearts to want to share, make a difference in our world, and help others. We can shake mountains with our inspiration. Thank you all for inspiring me in so many ways and helping me to step out. Who is inspiring you? How are they? Be sure you tell them, you never know how your inspiration can lead into unfolding a bunch of others to be inspires too. Now for some pictures! Even if they look like a Pre-k kid did it, I made some Goth girls and I love them! (I now have the courage to practice.)

Added 4/13/2012 (AM): Bruce has on his bulletin “Please pray for Nina! She is in the ICU.” Please keep her in your prayers, positive vibes, and /or happy thoughts!

You can click on the pictures for captions.

[Show as slideshow]

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04/11/12

My Wordi(less) Wednesday

The things that we love tell us what we are. ~ Thomas Aquinas

I never thought about that quote before, interesting I saw it on fb today. I do not do well at being wordless, but today I cannot get out what I would like to get out. My brain is frazzled. Happy yellow day, ended in a cloud of grey, but rose to semi-indigo working into a nice burgundy. That is my color forecast for the day. I did have a strange visual as I lay in bed last night (actually 1:38 am) it involved a dragon, a puff of purple, and some mountains. Strange, but still a pretty image…maybe I can write out the scene. I wish I could draw it the dragon was SUPER COOL! Maybe I shouldn’t share that. Oh, well I did. Today I went on fb and Inner Aspie had posted a Pearl Jam song. I am not going to go into detail, but the song means a lot to me on many levels and I had not heard it in a very long time. I will share the video I found below. The music is soothing to me, the lyrics penetrate my heart, and it brings back memories.

It triggered the memory of the first time I heard Pearl Jam.

It was 1992 way down in South Florida — I had been working for months and made no friends, until a few weeks earlier. This group ended up being the best group of friends I had. They taught me a lot. The group gradually broke up and went separate ways, moving away, going off to school, transferring to other stores etc… Sorry sidetracked. My boyfriend at the time went home to visit for a wedding. I was invited to a party, for the first time with my new friends. I was nervous, anxious, and in order to help ease my worries I made plans to stay the night with the girl who lived in the apartment. When I walked into the apartment, I was struck with the song Jeremy. I was gone — literally, I stood stuck in the music. I do not know why, but the lyrics soared through me and stirred something I could not explain. Once I woke from my other world, I realized people had been talking to me and were looking at me in a strange way. I responded with: “Who is this?” Thankfully, they enjoyed my quirks, and one of the guys was a fanatical Pearl Jam fan. He was happy to oblige all of my questions.

I studied the CD case, and fished through reading everything I could.

They played it several times for me before other people arrived, but then told me gently that we could not listen to this one album all night. I was already excited to discover the album title being “Ten”. Love the number ten. The night went well, and my first social event seemed to be a positive…until a certain guy showed up. I didn’t like him from the get go. His behaviors and actions triggered my past experience with my abusive ex. He was a next-door neighbor, not invited, and loud and rude. He made me swell with rage, and I wanted this bully to “Get Out!” I could not understand why no one was doing anything. I will shorten the version of what happened, he was a complete jerk, he was being degrading to women, especially his girlfriend. I had enough of him and told him to leave. It was not my apartment so he refused, my friend was afraid of him. Eventually I ended up in his face telling him what I thought of him and demanding he leave or I was calling the cops. (I forgot the reason why they freaked out about the cop threat some of us were under age and drinking. Yeah, I would have gone to jail too.) The guys at the party were pulling me away from him, and another group was blocking him from hitting me. My cutting words caused him to punch a hole in the wall instead of me.

That sent me and I was ready for a death match.

Now he damaged my friends apartment! He was going down! Needless to say, I was pulled out of the apartment until they got him out. It was all a blur at this point and his girlfriend was terrified, she and several others came outside begging me to stop. I did not realize that he was an abuser, and I was making things worse for her. I just wanted him out of the apartment, he had such a horrible presence and I could not take his vileness. He left, things settled, and my friends learned rather quickly that I loved music and did not care how big, or bad someone was if they were not invited and were rude I would go in a blind rage to get them to leave. Yes, I have several stories of me doing this with people — for some reason I have never been able, to sit back and allow monsters force people to endure ridicule, and meanness. Some of my life stories scare me to death in hindsight. I cannot believe some of the ways I behaved, and dangers I put myself in. I wish I would have had the same passion to protect myself at times. Oh, let me add this whole episode would be another reason why I should not drink alcohol!

Other things on facebook today, randomly chosen for my whatever reasons…

www.facebook.com/AutisticPeople

Hmm…I was happy to see this because I am having some problems with cognitive distortions today, sometimes they are so hard to see as distortions.

www.facebook.com/autismdiscussionpage

www.facebook.com/Hahahalaughitout

And now some random pictures! If you scroll on the picture you can see my titles. Whoop!

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04/10/12

Speaking Of Self-Awareness…

According to the wiki page, (I am not going to search very hard today because I do not have the time.) Self-Awareness is defined:

“Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. Self-awareness, though similar to sentience in concept, includes the experience of the self, and has been argued as implicit to the hard problem of consciousness.”

Before this last summer, I had lost virtually any self-awareness I had. I know that I had a small amount of understanding, but I was unable to detach who I was from the people in my life or my environment. They were my mirrors — they reflected and scripted for me how to act, how to respond, whom to be friends with, how I should live my life. I absorbed them trying to discover who I was. Social confusion, a faulty executive system, and no authority throughout my childhood able to guide me left me to wander around observing social dynamics in my circle of relationships. I had several women who were obsessed with weight, looks, approval seekers, and constantly hiding their intelligence surrounding me. I found my mother so confusing in this area because she would be freaked out about whether she was attractive or not one day and the next she didn’t care at all. I can pinpoint some of these events now to social confusion and anxiety.

She would only think about her outward appearance if someone mentioned it.

Same here, I normally do not think about whether I am attractive or not, unless someone makes me feel a certain way. I have additional issues because of my birthmark. (Those of you who do not know about my birthmark can read this post if you like.) Both my mother and I were ridiculed in school about the way we looked. My mom had additional abuse at home (though she will not call it that) she was abused physically, and emotionally. She was called names and made fun of by her father. From an early age for some reason, I did not put up with grandfathers hooey, I got in trouble a lot, but I was too fast and I was a good hider. He made fun of my name often, when my mom told him my name in the hospital the day after I arrived he said, “What did you name that kid? Angel-leaky? What kind of name is that?” However, with all of the ugliness there were great qualities about him too. I speak of him because unfortunately he helped pave the way to my mother’s dysfunctional view of herself — stripping her of self-awareness and self-acceptance along with his family and my grandmother’s lack of attention. My grandfather was abused as well, and since his behavior was not as horrible as what he had been raised with he did not see himself as an abuser.

It can trickle down, generation after generation.

My mom loved fashion, and being made up, she was a model for some time and loved it. No thanks! She learned how to dress and keep herself up through modeling classes. Later as I was a child, she started aiming for more managerial roles in her company. An assistant store manager who was a very confident woman took my mom under her wing, and taught her what she needed to do to work in a “man’s world”. She also had a great kind man who was her store manager who helped her. He and his family were very good to us and thanks to him; my mom was able to pave the way to her career. My mom still did not have self-awareness in an embodying sense — she now took on the identity of her workplace. That became her for over 23 years when she left she had a nervous breakdown, alone and shared with no one what she was going through. She is still seeking to discover who she is. I rejected what she was — I knew that it was not my mother.

I resented the fact that she constantly tried to make me into that mold.

Especially when I started working at the same company, for a season I became just like my mother. The day I realized what I had become I decided to quit and changed the course of my life. (It was not the only deciding factor, but I have written about that elsewhere.) I wish I would not have done it in such haste — I seem to do so many things in haste. It does not go with my character though, I am very systematic, I like to plan, and think before I do anything. There are certain instances for some reason I lose that part of me and go off in what seems like a whim. Only later left staring at the mess that I have made, and I have to pick up the pieces. I believe had I been instilled with some understanding of self-awareness many of my decisions would not have been so destructive. Many times, I was doing it because I was searching for me. What was I about? What did I like? What kind of people did I want to hang out with? My interests did not seem to mesh with most people so I felt as if I could not connect to people.

It did not occur to me to seek out like-minded people.

I managed to fall into situations with people, and then thought “Well we must be friends, or in a relationship.” It seems to “just happen”. I cannot explain it very well. If only I would have known that I was good with numbers, that I am an excellent researcher. I can dance, I have the ability to write, and I have a knack for picking trends music or otherwise. I can understand and teach science, I do not have to pretend that I am not smart, and I am fully capable of being self-sufficient in all areas….had I known! I did not. I knew nothing of this about myself. I wish I could explain it better, it sounds kind of strange to say these things. I have been so disconnected from myself — I knew these things about me. I did not know that I was allowed to do them. Even though I was the closet to me, I somehow took on the rule that someone needed to tell me that it was ok for me to do it. My reliance on others to tell me who I was distorted even more of my self-awareness. Most children do look to their parents to help them discern who they are. This is a normal part of development — they mimic and try on their parents for size until they start to discover themselves. I did not learn the “capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals.” Since I could not see myself I could not reconcile self without others informing me. Does that make sense?

My parents never knew who they were.

Their parents had some great qualities, but they also did not equip them to discover how to be the person that is inside of them. Both of my parents were severely abused, and I am not sure how that plays into all of this. They were not allowed to be themselves, which is multiple posts that I am not going into…at least not yet, maybe next year. They did not place many aspirations on me. Their aspirations however, did frequently involve appearance and morality. When I failed to discover myself on my own, I took to religion to tell me who I was. I had been using boyfriends as my guide without realizing it — I mixed my identity with work, friends, and boyfriends. I did not know how to pull from within and continue in that self-strength. I never trusted it because everyone in my life had told me that I was wrong in some form. Now there is a mix of my own distorted perceptions and actual events when people continued to tell me what was wrong with me. It really doesn’t matter the fact is it caused me to question myself, feel rejected, reject myself, and adopt whoever I thought knew what the heck they were talking about.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

This is one reason why it is so important to teach children how to have self-awareness, and it is never too late! (It seems that I am clashing self-awareness and self-identity together — to me they feel the same. This post is a processing post anyway.) Some folks may consider me going through a mid-life crisis, or being pre-menopausal. It is possible, but the funny thing is as I have been combing over my thoughts and where my thinking is at right now, I am entering my teenage phase of true rebellion! Lol! I am stripping off all of the ideals of the generation that raised me, and I am determining my own thoughts, beliefs, and self based on how I define it. I have read that this type of development normally starts from teens onto the end of people’s twenties at times. I am being kind of cheeky here, but it does seem spot on. A few months ago, I made list of goals that I wanted to achieve this year, my number one goal “To become self-sufficient in all areas.” I want my own identity, I want to be able to trust and rely on myself. (Not in a narcissistic way, we all need people.) I want my own income again. I hate being so dependent financially. I have always had this fire inside of me to be independent, but everyone told me how incapable and dependent I was.

I didn’t realize that many of those people were projecting their own self-talk onto me.

I didn’t know that I could reject those words, and trust what I felt about myself. It is so strange how I was raised to be so dependent in one sense, yet so independent in another. I have been thinking about this stuff for a while, I would like to go into greater detail. I am not sure that I will, but this morning I was triggered to get this out because I read this article by Ashley Judd Slaps Media in the Face for Speculation Over Her ‘Puffy’ Appearance. While at first when I read it I was trying to weed through whether it was her insecurities speaking, or if it was a good article. It turns out that I found many, many excellent things in what she wrote. She is tackling our perceptions of women in society, as a woman this is very close to me. As an autistic woman, I have additional factors that play into this. My lack of self-awareness and confidence in my own “gut feelings” has led me into the hands of predators that have used and hurt me.

I speak of male and females alike.

I not only have had the confusion of men reading me the wrong way, which quite frankly if my heart is set on someone they will know exactly how I feel. I normally do not stay quiet about my feelings toward people I care deeply for. I have never played games, in romantic relationships or any other relationships. However, I normally stay quiet until I know how they feel — I never like to show affections for people first EVER! My interactions with women and the “appearance” issue have been just as confusing as it has been with men. People can read wrong signals — they are their own perceived signals, whether through desires or insecurities. I don’t understand that. If you like me tell me, if you don’t tell me it saves everyone from grief. Had some of those girls asked me if I was flirting with their boyfriends, I would have told them directly…I did not want their man. (Believe me!) Instead of asking, they would attack my appearance, or me. With this type of banter that other women have done, or how men have treated me it makes me aware of my looks. At times, it made me feel inadequate in my appearance. I do not like people to see me because I have been attacked either way.

My self-esteem was damaged because of others lack of self-esteem.

It makes me filled with questions. Why does it matter what I look like? Who am I to you? Why do you feel the need to point out what you deem as flaws, or give backhanded compliments to confuse me? I now have questions for myself as well. Why didn’t I tell that jerk off when he told me that I was fat? Why did I listen when the guys in my life compared me to other girls and constantly told me what I needed to fix? Why did I stay with them when they clearly found other’s much more attractive, enough to cheat? How did I manage to end up with guys who were always fantasizing about blondes when I am a brunette? Why didn’t I shrug off anyone who did not value me? Why did I allow my mom’s own negative self-talk conform my own image — when I knew how damaging and wrong it was? Why is our culture so confusing sexualizing everything, but condemning us for being sexually active? Oh, I have so many questions! I have to stop myself, or I will keep going.

I am going to leave with the last paragraph of Ashley Judd’s article and say thank you to her as well.

“If this conversation about me is going to be had, I will do my part to insist that it is a feminist one, because it has been misogynistic from the start. Who makes the fantastic leap from being sick, or gaining some weight over the winter, to a conclusion of plastic surgery? Our culture, that’s who. The insanity has to stop, because as focused on me as it appears to have been, it is about all girls and women. In fact, it’s about boys and men, too, who are equally objectified and ridiculed, according to heteronormative definitions of masculinity that deny the full and dynamic range of their personhood. It affects each and every one of us, in multiple and nefarious ways: our self-image, how we show up in our relationships and at work, our sense of our worth, value, and potential as human beings. Join in—and help change—the Conversation.”

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04/8/12

Good Day All!

If you are new to my blog let me tell you upfront one of my special interests is origins of holidays, how they have evolved into what they are now, and why people celebrate. SO I am having to control myself from bursting into a full on post about holidays. I am not about telling anyone who is wrong or right, or how they should celebrate their beliefs, and I cannot define exactly how I celebrate anything. I love hearing how others celebrate holidays and why they do. I am as unorthodox as possible! Since the kids cannot have many sweets due to our bodies having strange, or hyper reactions to sugar, dyes, and other forms of odd ingredients I usually keep the candy to a minimum. They did get three small bags of M&M’s, I made them gluten-free waffles with homemade strawberry topping, and I made chocolate shortcake that I will be filled with fresh strawberries and fresh whipped cream. I am not bragging I am sharing the visual in my head because even I am going to eat that!! I have a weakness for strawberry shortcake.

BUT chocolate strawberry shortcake sounds divine.

I will have to get pictures. For a bit of history about my passion for the origins of holidays, I was deeply traumatized by the realization that my mother was a liar, and that she went to such great links to lie to me about Santa Claus. I believe I was eight when the lovely little girl informed me that Santa was not real. “Christmas was all about Jesus and your mom is a liar.” We almost went into a physical altercation because of it so when I asked my mom if Santa was real and she told me that he was not, I was devastated. It has taken years and years of therapy to pull through that one, I mean the trauma from Santa being a phony then the mass crash of visuals revealing that the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, The Leprechaun at the end of the rainbow, Micky Mouse, the space men that lived in my closet, Alice Cooper who appeared floating on my walls in the middle of the night…Yeah, they were all not real.

Ok, I did not need therapy.

Although I didn’t work through some of these emotions until several months ago. (I did not know that I needed to.) I know that not everyone reacts the way I do, but for some reason it was hard for me to reconcile why it was all right to lie about that when it was not ok to lie about other things. Anyway, I am repeating myself. I love discovering new things about holidays and I find all of the myths, traditions, and stories so fascinating. I am jumping to the next topic otherwise I will start babbling on and on about Easter. (Quick read about bunnies.) This year we decided to make it a Pokémon Easter! Please do not judge. David discovered huge lots of Pokémon for cheap on Ebay. We took the gargantuan amount of little Pokémon’s and filled the eggs. I went out this morning and basically threw them all over the yard. My guys will lose patience if they have to look too hard, or they get too sidetracked and will stop gathering the eggs. They had so much fun, and were very excited to have all these figures.

I plan to use our large lot for school as well as play.

They make great teaching tools for categorizing, or teaching the concept of sets. They get really excited when discussing the evolved forms of Pokémon; it makes a good hands-on teaching tool for life cycles. They also make great story starters, and it gets them kind of obsessive about drawing them. I cannot seem to get Ariel to stop. She drew all of the figures in the first Pokémon handbook — I think 151? Now she is onto the second book, which is 490 she has drawn 50 so far, and she is helping Daniel and Joshua draw from the first handbook. She is a natural teacher. Currently, she is drawing and told me that she is planning on “finishing up to 53 tonight…maybe. I might do more or less.” Hee hee The boys are playing with the figures right now. I find it interesting that Daniel is able to (or finally got interested enough in something else) remember all of the Pokémon names, their types, and their abilities. He has never done anything like that before. Well he did that with fans, and Hexbugs, but it wasn’t the same.

I ended up searching for the origins of Pokémon.

I found the creator Satoshi Tajiri very interesting. I read this as well Interview With Satoshi Tajiri – Page 1. In a way I was trying to figure out why these characters and story-lines would appeal so much to my children as well as so many other children and adults. I really have no answer, but I did learn a lot about Pokémon. I had no intentions of this post being about Pokémon, but I guess my fingers and mind had a disconnect. I suppose I am rambling on because I dealt with many emotions in my last post, and I needed to write something not so intense. I am feeling very good processing all that I did and I really hope that it helps others, or least others can relate. I have been very tired today, and allowed myself to take it easy. Though my brain is going a mile a minute and I feel like I should be doing way more than I am! Silly me. I hope you all had a wonderful day!

I will leave with some pictures!

[Show as slideshow]

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04/7/12

About Lonely III (The Novella-I kid!)

Continued from About Lonely II…

I feel happy surrounded by my objects they do not replace people, but they sure are more accepting and less confusing. I want to interact and have more friendships. I am not sure how to keep long lasting relationships… maybe I can as long as they accept my ways and me. Honestly, I have not had very many people accept me. They have a preconceived idea about me. It is partly do to how I behave in situations with new people. I have had many people see me as a snob at first. It depends on the environment, but normally I try to stay out of sight, and quiet. One of the reasons for this is that people have misunderstood my personality for being an “attention seeker”. The truth is I am very animated; I get excited in good and bad ways. People have assumed that I am trying to be in the limelight when in reality I do not like being the star of the show. I like everyone to be seen, but many times, it does not work that way.

I like to share the stage — I admit the stage is fun, but not alone.

When I feel safe enough to let my guard down a bit people get to see that I am not a snob at all. I am a very accepting, and open person at times to my detriment. The good thing about me is that I never need much. I am always good with small gestures. Extravagance can make me feel awkward and uncomfortable. It is a lonely place to feel the need to stay on guard, know that people think you are stuck up, but do not know how to change it. It is a lonesome feeling to have to weed through social dynamics along with learning a new environment. I find it lonesome because others do not seem to have these same issues, so I have had to go through it alone.

I have observed others, and they know what a “look” means.

They understand a smile, or comment, someone’s tone does not confuse them. They laugh at things that can take me days to get. They remember to say “good morning” everyday. It can make me feel lonely when I do not understand what is going on. It makes me feel lonely when I am surrounded by people who seem to get everything that is going on and I haven’t clue. It seems many of my lonely feelings have to do with other people’s perceptions, their inability to read me, and/or my inability to read them. I am not alone; I do not feel lonely until it is brought to my attention how “different” I am. I find it interesting that my mom does not have the same feelings. She does not experience the same emotions that I do when confronted with being different.

If you have not guessed, I have been doing a parallel study.

Yes, I have been studying the differences between my mom and me. I have done this my whole life – the difference now is that my mom is answering my questions! She would not talk to me about this stuff before, now that she has an understanding of autism she is willing to discuss things she would not have in the past. She does not feel lonely when surrounded with a group of people who do not get her. She is aware of it, but it does not concern her. She has many rigid scripts though. They trump certain feelings — much like my “help trump” thing, my mom has mind trump cards that deal with social situations. I think hers is different because she is not as social as I am. She also does not put the same kind of importance on a relationship. I don’t know why I do this – I do have to accept it though.

I have friends, but I do not talk to them often.

I do interact through facebook sometimes. In my defense, (Not that I need to defend myself.) I am rather busy, and my priorities go to my children. I have taken to giving myself time to write, and blog because without that time I am no good to anyone. I email one friend on a semi-regular basis she does not get upset with me thankfully she understands. I have not been with or talked to my friend here since the last Bible study at my mom’s house, but we could not talk much then anyway. I enjoy reading, and commenting on the blogs I do. I am trying to be more social online, but I also know my limits. I also have to feel safe. When I feel safe my silliness comes out.

I can be quite the goofy lizard!

I do want to take a moment and talk about how I get taken aback in friendships. I have times when I shut down. My shut downs (or meltdowns) have been known to come on unexpectedly. In the last few months I have learned to watch for my triggers, and either start my own shut down, or prepare myself for what is about to happen. In the past, they seemed to come on suddenly and I would cut myself off from people completely. When I returned, the relationship seemed to change. It would cause me to be filled with anxiety and confusion because I didn’t understand what had happened. I tend to think everything is fine even with limited contact. I expected everything to be the same as it was the last time we had contact. This is where I can get sideswiped with confusion and hurt. I have encountered this on several occasions when I thought everything was fine, but the person had moved on and replaced me, or had no interest in me.

I perceived them as being finished with me, but not telling me.

These types of interactions caused overwhelming bouts of loneliness. It led to major negative looping because it didn’t make any sense. It was a rejection that seemed without cause. I have experienced this type of thing my entire life with numerous types of relationships. The worst ones were when my two live-in boyfriends (Not at the same time!) both planned to leave me, but did not tell me until the last minute. One I actually discovered that he was moving to another country because his new employer called and talked to me. If I had not gotten that phone call I am not sure when he would have told me. We did end up staying together while he lived there, but trust had been broken. My father did the same type of thing when I was around 11 or 12 I cannot remember now when he moved to another state. He told me the weekend before he was moving.

He didn’t understand why I was so upset.

It was a huge change; I had been going to his house practically every weekend since I was little. He was leaving, and I did not know when I would see him. I also felt like he didn’t much care that he was leaving me. The feeling I always had was that I should be happy for him. It was the same way by boyfriend responded when I discovered that he was going to work in another country. The first boyfriend to spring this “side swipe break up” on me acted as if I should have known. However, he hid it from me for over a month. He put in a transfer and the people at work (We worked at the same place at the time.) knew before I did. When he continued to keep contact with me and shared his life again, it was an attitude of “You should be happy for me.” Every time I encountered this, I experienced the other traumas on top of it. I didn’t want to, my mind seemed to attack me, my thoughts were uncontrollable, and I felt the emotions over and over again. These experiences made me feel exceptionally lonely. I had no one to talk to, and since all of them acted as if it was ok, I thought I had no reason to be upset.

My mom was not much comfort in this area.

She does not have much sympathy when she considers people to be jerks. She had empathy, but her way of handling it was different. She felt badly for me, but to her they were replaceable. When I think of lonely those were lonely times. I was terribly alone in my feelings, and hurt. Still I entertained myself, I talked to trees, birds, bugs, animals, the sky, and I went on adventures during the wee hours of the night. (Not too smart – no sense of danger.) I spent many days at the pool, and many nights spent with the moon and stars on my balcony. I also poured myself into work. During those times, I had my cherished books, movies, and music. They were my best friends and the only ones who understood me. Some people thought I was so strange. They thought something was wrong with me because I enjoyed riding my bike by myself, or during breaks instead of talking about people I was busy examining lizards or I would change the subject to vampires!

I may have felt lonely, but I was never alone.

Lonely sounds like such an awful thing. Sometimes I think it is good to feel that deep lonely feeling. If we didn’t feel that, how could we find our self? How can we ever discover our true inner strength, if we do not see what it is like to have no one? I am not speaking of long periods of depressed isolation, which is definitely not a good thing. I have gone through that it normally does not bring about healing. I am referring to what I felt at the symposium. I sat surrounded by people who look at my kind as studies, enigmas, puzzles to figure out, preconceived ideas about how people like me think. I was an alien in a room full of medical professionals. It freaked me out for a moment, but then I realized nothing had changed.

I was alone, but I wasn’t truly lonely.

I understood that the only reason why I was feeling lonely was that they were saying how much I needed people. I needed to adapt in order to be in this world if I do not want to be lonely. All of it was based on their perception of what lonely means and as I have been thinking about it, here I am once again debunking someone else’s idea of whom I am. They had great resources and ideas to help integrate people on the autism spectrum. They could explain how my brain works in the area of social confusion in so much detail; they gave me great understanding and clarity that helped me. They had very positive things to say about people on the autism spectrum, but they also were generalizing and making assumptions based on their own personal feelings.

I want friends.

I want to experience people. I want to share with people, and enjoy people. I want to be able to share myself without fears of rejection. It is happening. I am very much a social Aspie, but I also cannot be too social. I have to have limits. I get over-stimulated. I can get obsessive if I am confused by a relationship. I do not feel like I am missing anything though because I do not have a bunch of people in my life, or because I do not go out all the time. Those things made me feel very lonely. It does not make me a lonely person. All of these years my feelings of loneliness have been stemmed from being misunderstood, and having people in my life who were constantly telling me how I needed to be. Discovering more about whom I am, and how I see and process my world takes away a lot of my loneliness.

The feelings of isolation and deep despair have dwindled.

I understand that I can have that type of negative loop, but my looping is not the same as actually feeling that way. My loops are usually my brain trying to help me understand something. I think the saying is true you have to love yourself before you can know how to love others. It never made sense to me until I started actually liking myself for the first time in my life. I have spent a large amount of time trying to love others with all of my heart because I did not know how to love myself. (I do not mean to sound all cheesy here, but I have to confess this stuff.) My coming to terms and accepting more of me has given me the ability to step out more and comment on other blogs.

It has given me the ability to share more of me with others.

It has revealed how there are people who know what I am talking about. They have felt similar things — we truly are not alone. Though we may feel lonely out in the “real” world, the internet world seems to bring me much comfort, even if I do not have “normal” relationships with people. I am still very hard on myself, and question at times, why anyone would want anything to do with me. This is not out of insecurity it is out of the inability to see who I am. It is my “self mind-blindness.” My self-awareness has been lacking, and I have been looking to others to help me all of these years. I do not see what others see in me. I do not understand what attracts people to me. I do not know why anyone would want to be my friend, or love me. I am a little teary eyed at this point and I do not know why. I partially think it is because I am seeing some good things about myself. I am accepting that I am good at things. I believe that I am a person of worth, and I matter. I cannot tell you how incredibly painful it is for me to write those words. I felt like nothing for so long.

I felt invisible many times.

The feelings like no one would notice if I just left this world, feeling completely unlovable and rejected for so many years stripped me of self. My mom felt all of those things her entire life as well, but she never shared that until our weekend together. Again hers is in a different way, it has to do more so with talent than self. However, her self-image does stem her feelings, but I will not go into that. Discovering why we do things the way we do, and that there are others who share and understand has given us a new perspective on life. We have also had many things cleared up gaining the understanding that no two autistics are alike. We are not a simple label, you cannot fit us into a box, and we are our own unique vessel. I do not understand why people have to be categorized. That is a sure fire way to make someone feel lonely. I am wondering what others think about the word lonely. I wonder why people write so many things about it, but never really tackle the subject. Lonely…there is so much packed into that word.

If you are feeling lonely, remember you are not alone.

The end!

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04/5/12

About Lonely I

I have been thinking about the word lonely. What does it mean? Why do so many people feel lonely and hide it? Why do some people consider those who are perfectly fine alone as lonely? Why do people not believe it when someone says: “I like being alone.” What is lonely? What does it mean to me? What makes me feel lonely? What makes others feel lonely? How many times can I write the word lonely in a paragraph? Does the word lonely feel lonely? Ok, Ok I’ll stop. The word lonely got me thinking about alone, to me the word lonely and alone or two different things. They can coexist, but being alone for me is not a bad thing sometimes and it does not mean that I am lonely. I was perfectly fine with being alone (I still am), but the feeling of loneliness has overwhelmed me many times in my life.

As I have tried to write this post, it has spun into over 4000 words. (Currently.)

I have several posts that I am sharing on the topic. I have tried to capture and articulate what I am feeling on the topic, but I cannot. Instead, this has turned into ramblings of situations that have made me feel lonely. I can be consumed with the feeling of isolation. When I want to share my thoughts, or talk about things that make me happy, or sad. When I want to tell someone my pain without interruption, or analytical prose. When I look around and realize that no matter what I still have to keep up some form of mask in order to survive, or adapt. I feel lonely when I am faced with the reality of how different I am, or when I feel completely misunderstood. I read the wiki page on loneliness and thought that this statement was appropriate “the physical absence of meaningful people around a person”. It isn’t about large numbers of friends, or relationships it is about the physical absence of meaningful people. If we do not have one single person in our life that we feel understands us, or at least accepts everything about us that can lead to feeling lonely. I have been consumed with despair and loneliness at times when I am surrounded by people. I can be overwhelmed with this feeling the more people there are.

It’s the feeling of not understanding others, and them not understanding me.

The etymology dictionary had this to say about lonely: “dejected for want of company”. The dictionary shared words like lonesome, destitute of sympathetic or friendly companionship, desolate, and isolated. Yes, I have felt all of these things. I still do many times, but I also find comfort in being alone. The feelings of loneliness can rift through me suddenly and unexpectedly. It is usually triggered by an incident. When I sat in a room of over 300 hundred people and by their statistics there was only one other person…possibly two who may understand what I was feeling at that moment it flooded me with feeling all alone in the world. I mean seriously alone. They spoke about individuals like myself in ways that made me realize in a drastic way that indeed my thoughts are my own. I was unaware of how much I believed that others were thinking exactly what I was. It put it into perspective that I do this in a real tangible way. On the surface, I understand this, but on a daily basis, I am not thinking about it and I assume that others are reading my mind, or mean the same thing as I do on a subconscious level.

Logically I know this is not true…I do not know how to articulate it.

They did say at the time that the statistics for autism could be going to 1 in 100. Not because there was an epidemic, but because according to Ami Klin, PhD (I am paraphrasing because I did not bring a recorder and could not write fast enough, but I did get key words and statements.) it is not an epidemic the medical field is finally getting things right. They are gaining more understanding, perspective, and with new resources for early diagnosis, it changes the numbers to be more accurate. He did not dismiss the fact that environment and/or genetic factors can (do) play a role as well. However, he mentioned that if it truly were an epidemic, the statistics would not be the same between children and adults. The stats were 1 in 110 for both child diagnosis and adult diagnosis. Now we have the stats at 1 in 88 according to the CDC. This number should apply to adults as well. Personally, I have stayed away from reading any more about the new number release. I can’t do it right now. In a way, those numbers made me think quite a bit more about the meaning of lonely. It brought me back to a few weeks ago.

I sat in the conference room looking around wanting to find my kind.

Not because I was scared or insecure, but I felt outnumbered. I felt on guard, and as if I needed to protect myself. I do not know why. I felt like I had been thrown into a foreign country where I vaguely understood their language. They did not know my language because their words did not mean the same thing. When I said something was loud that meant it was hurting my body, it was stinging my flesh, it sent jolts into my ears, it made me dizzy and off balance. When they said something was loud, they only meant the volume was up. I know the differences between my brain and others. I do understand this, but to have it so clear, and directly spoken, shown, and explained — felt lonely. It felt isolating and real for the first time. I saw myself being described in clinical terms, these people understood me based on research, studies, interactions doing therapies with people like me, but they still did not “get” me. It made me see with clarity how confused I am a lot of the times. My confusion makes me feel lonely. It made me ponder on many other things as well. My mind has been soaring with events in my life. This experience made me doubt anything and everything I have known.

It made me question all kinds of social interactions.

I already do this — I have to be cautious with people because I have been hurt so deeply. Even when I have kept walls up, and defense mechanisms, I would still be hurt by confusing actions and words. The inability to discern what the relationship was about, how I was supposed to interact in the relationship, along with trusting the wrong people, being manipulated, and confused caused me to be hurt. I see now in my constant confusion I attacked myself and caused myself more harm than the other person did at times. When I rushed things through my head, I didn’t know how to process it. That led me to ask my mom “Are you lonely?” She said: “No, not at all. You know I like to be alone.” She then shared that my sister who moved back in with her has been connecting a lot of similarities between the three of us. Funny the other day the topic of being lonely came up with them as well.

My mom asked her:”Do you ever feel lonely?”

She replied with: “Not really, only when I see couples together maybe.” I then asked my mom if she felt that she no longer feels lonely because she has gotten used to it. I wondered if she felt lonely when she was my age or my sister’s age. Her answer: “Well, maybe, but I don’t think so. You know I have always liked being alone. Even as a child, I preferred to be in my room. I didn’t really want to play with other kids.” She then went into how she was kind of like Liz Taylor, always having a man when she was our age. She is reading a biography on Liz right now. I recalled my accounts of the men in her life. She seemed more annoyed and bothered when they were around. I did not much care for them either…some of them I liked, but they did not stay around very long.

Why?

Because my mom couldn’t do it. She couldn’t keep up a relationship. It was too much work. The only reason why she has long lasting friendships is because they contact her, they keep the relationship going, and they call and set up plans to do things. She has an ex-boyfriend who lives out of state (they dated when I was a teenager) we still have not figured out the relationship… friends? More than friends? We do not know, but he keeps regular contact with her. He and his kids stay at mom’s house for vacation every year. However, if he did not call or email her on a regular basis she would not think to contact him unless something new happens in her life. He continues to tell her that people are supposed to keep contact and call each other. Although, he has finally accepted that she will not remember to do so. I am different in this area, when I care about someone, they can consume my thoughts. I want to interact with them all the time. I want to share everything, and I want to know all they are doing, thinking, achieving, their likes, dislikes…I want to know them as much as I am sharing myself. I have discovered that people do not do this. It makes me feel rejected, and confused. I now know that it has nothing to do with me, but throughout the years, it has hurt me terribly.

When I was younger, my mom had a group of girlfriends.

They hung out at our home all the time. They would sit around talking, drinking Stroh’s beer, listening to music, smoking cigarettes, and eating chips or some sort of snacks. I sat watching them, observing their behaviors, cleaning up after them, entertaining them with my dances or silliness, and telling them “I am never going to smoke, or drink.” I wish I would have stuck to my little self rules, it could have saved me from some hard times. I recall in detail many similar nights, I am on the living room floor, I have my books laid out or some sort of game I am playing by myself — listening to every word they say, and I feel desperately alone. I did not understand anything they were talking about, and I felt invisible unless they wanted a beer, or I could make them laugh somehow. My mom confused me as well because she was different. She was acting different and I did not understand why. My mom has since shared with me that she was the one who held the parties, and drank to help with her social anxiety. She didn’t know what it was at the time. The one thing that confused me very much and was a contributing factor to a distorted self-image was seeing my mom surrounded by friends.

She always has people who surround her, yet she seeks to be alone.

Coming Soon About Lonely II…

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04/3/12

Fragmented Thoughts

I have had to take a break from blog reading. There are so many wonderful posts that are being written, and other ones…I am not in the mood to write a post about autism. My brain reflects my different way of thinking, and truth be told several posts from people have caused me social confusion. I want to keep it light today, but I am hoping to focus on autism and self-awareness in the weeks to come. I am torn this year about all of this “awareness” going on. I am frustrated and excited at the same time. I see so many new bloggers, and people on the spectrum sharing their stories. I find that to be so great! I am also enthusiastic to see many more parents writing about autism acceptance. However, I am still faced with the reality that others feel this is a disease that needs a cure. In recent days this has happened several times in my own person life.

We are constantly balancing between spectrums.

At times it feels very much like we are given a “one or the other” choice. Still I will focus on all of the positives that I see. However, because of all of these wonderful posts, “other” posts, and personal experiences with negative spins my brain is racing and soaring in all directions. I have so many things that I want to share, but cannot find my words. Instead, I will share some pictures, and the three little ones that fill me with joy along with coercing me into a freezing ocean today. Oh, Oh! I got a picture of my $5.00 Macy’s coat too. Please, please brain get yourself together!

Alright, alright I cannot leave without sharing some resources.

Stigma and the “Othering” of Autism

Autism Awareness is Not Enough: Here’s How to Change the World

How Asperger’s syndrome affects creativity

Monkey and Autism Acceptance Month

Autism Understanding and Acceptance

Autism and Empathy

Zoey ~ My Autism Greeting

Video by stark.raving.mad.mommy

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04/2/12

I’m Baaaaccckkkk!

On Friday, I was a complete spaz! Actually, all week I was off and on again with being calm, excited, sad, or plain goofy. My anxiety was tiptop! I soared with good and bad anxiety it was fueled by anticipation. All kinds of anticipation. You name it I probably thought of it and tried to prepare for it. Anyone ever see Doomsday Preppers I could have been placed in that category until the last hour before my mom came to pick me up. However, it was only mentally, I had not prepared for anything in the physical realm. I finally was able to pack, get showered, gather snacks, and water for the two and half hour trip an hour before mom got here. After about thirty hugs from the kids, mom and I were off to Savannah. When we got into the car both of us were calm and excited. (Before you go any further, I did get sidetracked and seem to be bouncing in different directions in this post. It also contains a numerous amount of smiley faces. You have been warned. )

The road trip was awesome.

It was the first time my mom and I have had solid hours of uninterrupted conversation since…I think my sister was born! Many things were discussed — I am not sure how we ended up on one particular conversation, but we did. Most likely, it was me because it was about relationships and I have a special interest when it comes to relationships. This led to our discussion about her ex-husband. It transpired into how he ended up leaving. I am not sure if I have shared the story before, but I am not going to share all of the details today. During this particular discussion, my mom triggered a key event that I had blocked completely. I did not realize the trauma I went through, or that I completely blocked it. My mom was out of town for a week for work when the event happened. While she was gone, I found my stepfather with another woman. A woman that I had already caught him on the phone with overhearing him tell her that he loved her. I had also already busted him with bags of marijuana.

I told my mom previously about the phone situation and the marijuana.

When I walked in on them, I freaked out and called my mom. She shut down and could not do anything about it because she was three states away. She had to stay for her job, and she said that she would take care of it when she got home. The short story was I lied to my stepfather and told him that mom said he had to leave. I took care of my two baby sisters for that week. I ended up skipping school the entire time and got expelled. (I got back in, but that is another long story.) I cannot recall everything that was going on, but I was in an abusive relationship myself. I believe I was around 15 years old. I am not able to think of the dates at this time. It is all a blur, but what freaked me out was that I completely blocked the incident. It made me wonder about other things that I have completely blocked. I am not planning on recalling any blocked memories at this point. This was enough thank you very much! I share this story though because what I did to myself caused me serious damage all of these years.

I took on the guilt, and felt like a horrible person for lying to get him out of the house.

I somehow twisted the events, and turned the trauma onto myself. I blamed myself for thinking badly about him because I did not remember what I had seen. I felt somehow I was to blame even though the only thing I did wrong was get a lying, cheating, pothead jerk away from me, and my sisters! (Even if it was their father) He also stole money from my mom, who happened to be making substantially more, he got her in serious debt taking checks out of sequence, and hiding it from her. She did not find that out until the bank called her telling her what her overdraft was. She was 6 months pregnant with my younger sister when that happened. She felt stuck, and didn’t know how or what to do. The stigma of being a single mom and getting another divorce was weighing on her, she was pregnant, now in horrible debt, working 50 or more hours a week — just to share a few things going on in our life. She didn’t know what to do with me catching him with the other things I discovered as well. I would have made an awesome private detective!

I took the reins and got rid of him.

Mom thought he left on his own and he thought mom told him to leave. I have felt so horrible all of these years, and even convinced myself that maybe I did the wrong thing. After mom reminded me of what I saw, it was as if I was standing in the room and I relived the entire moment. I remember details of the curtains, the couch, the lighting in the room, everything! Now that I remember, I have had all of that guilt wash off of me. Sure maybe I should have let mom handle it, but to be honest I could not live in that house with him one more second. I didn’t even want to share the same air with him. I HAD to get him out. I knew that mom and I would be fine. We did fine without him — he had already disconnected from my sisters. It was a mess. So the Savannah trip turned out to be much more healing than I thought it would be. In many ways, not only for me, but for mom too. She has held on to guilt about divorcing the #@@!@@#$# that’s all I will say.

Our trip was awesome!

We did not get to go to all of the museums, and houses that we would have liked to because it rained. We did get stuck in the rain, got lost in circles because we got disoriented, and almost had a meltdown on each other. In the past, the whole indecent would have ended with us yelling at each other. Instead, here is what happened, we had to catch the shuttle by 2:30pm it was 2:05pm pouring down rain, she kept confusing me because she had the map backwards, we finally figured it out. We had been walking under huge trees that kept the rain semi-tolerable, but in order to get to the shuttle we had to walk out in wide open spaces, when we did the rain started coming down harder. I said: Oh, it’s getting worse” (referring to the rain) my mom snaps: “How can it be any worse than this?”

Immediately my brain starts thinking of all of the worst possible situations.

Being stuck in the rain, walking in circles, in Savannah, GA was not that bad at all. We could ask someone to help us, we could get a cab, we could go find a place to buy an umbrella, and on and on my brain went. It was not bad at all even though it was very frustrating, and I hate getting wet. The rain did hurt my skin and I was having a lot of issues, but for me it was not as bad as it could be. For my mom it was the absolute worst thing in the entire world ever! This is where the fights would start — I would take her quite literally and tell her how it could be much worse. She would take me quite literally and start telling me how horrible it actually was back and forth until finally one of would blow. This time I looked up at the sky when she said it and said: “I meant the rain is coming down harder, I was talking about the rain.”

We almost lost it on each other too when we could not find a place to eat.

We do not do well when we are both hungry. I am not going in sequence, sorry. The day before the wonderful drive ended up with us stopping at two La Quinta’s asking where ours was because I thought mom printed out Google map directions, but NO! She had an actual map from 2005 for Savannah! I cannot read regular maps in a car. I get dizzy, I cannot make sense of them, and they get all blurry, and cause me to panic. I NEED PICTURES! I need tons of landmarks to look for. I need exit numbers. I need approximate distance of time. I need anything to help me know that I am not lost. I like regular maps at home when I am not traveling. If I am traveling, I need every detail possible. I told her to pull off and ask someone and she did. We found it and it was not hard at all. We seemed to be running a pattern during the weekend though, “If only we would have a gone a little bit farther.”

Still we had a ball.

We laughed, got on each other’s nerves, I danced all over the place she ignored me, (It was just like when I was a kid…good times.) we ate some great food; she talked me into going to Macy’s. We each got $90 coats from Macy’s for $5.00! WHAT? Yes, we did! Quadruple awesome clearance sale! My mom’s favorite stores are Macy’s, Dillard’s, some other fancy schmancy stores. She used to shop there all the time….when she had money and a reason to buy that attire. Me? I got excited about all of the lampposts, trees, and birds that were around! I got a little obsessive with taking pictures of doors, as well as the others I mentioned. I tried to get ghosts to talk to me, but none would. I had all kinds of birds talk to me though. I managed to make one frustrated and he went after mom, he flew right past her head within inches! My bad! Good thing she is not afraid of them. My sister on the other hand would have attacked me had that happened. I don’t understand it her name is Athena I would think she would love birds.

We plan on going back because I did not get to see Bonaventure Cemetery.

I have to go back and see it. We did see Forrest Gump — he hopped onto our trolley for a moment. I did not see any feathers, but there was a plastic bag floating that made me think of this scene from American Beauty. I think that sums up what I was feeling sometimes while walking around Savannah. All of the tragedy that fills the history of the town is too much to take in. BUT the beauty that fills the place was too much to take in as well. As I listened to the facts and information, I wanted more. I wanted to know more. I wanted to get down on my hands and knees and study the bricks in the roads. I wanted to run my fingers along the train tracks. I wanted to look into every door, but I got sidetracked by the beauty of the cracks and lines, and crookedness of the sidewalks from trees deep old roots that reveal history and life. The roots carry the memories of the people who walked those streets good and bad. The shutters that were crooked gave buildings character. It was too much to take in for a short weekend.

That morning we went to get on our shuttle mom and I were both a little anxious.

We walked into to the lobby and it was full of college age baseball players and their coaches. Good Lord! I was surrounded by giants! I got overwhelmed and had to sneak off to the corridor. Mom and I both waited and the shuttle was late. Anxiety rising, an older woman came over and spilled her coffee, I immediately ran over to get napkins to clean it up. Mom said the woman was making negative comments about herself and she was trying to comfort her, I did not hear a thing I needed to clean up the mess. When I looked down, I saw that coffee was on her toes. Awww!!!! Toes!!! I took a deep breath and cleaned her toes for her. It was painful. I share that story because that was a moment of my “help trump” card taking over my complete freak out over toes. Lol! Also, because it leads into the next event. The toes almost sent me over until I heard the loveliest and most calming thing ever. A family speaking in German sat down right in front of us. I felt the calm rush over me and a big smile across my face.

Mom did the same thing.

We then realized that both of us are calmed by hearing the German language. On the shuttle, we talked about our time in Germany. I get confused as to how long we lived there mom said it was three and half years. I think I thought it was two — anyway she shared how she loved it there. The only things she missed while living there was her parent’s and American food. I said: “WHAT? American food! Blah!” Lol! She does love German food, but for some reason she likes “American food” whatever that is. As she shared more details about Germany and our life there, we started to get a little anxious again about getting on the trolley. We sat down and lo’ and behold, the couple in front of us and next to them spoke German. Anxiety melted and we were both calm and happy. I have no idea why that is the case and I had no idea mom felt the same way I do about the German language. I do like listening to all languages they fascinate me, but for some reason the German language feels right to me. I have no other way to explain it. I have nothing but positive connections to Germany. Mom said she wanted to go back to Germany one day, sigh….I wish we could.

Oh, yeah I was in Savannah!

I made this much longer than I had planned. Geez! There was a lot that happened this weekend and that was only the tip of the iceberg. The kids did great. They played games, watched movies, ate junk, and are now going all wild and not listening to a single word I say. That seems about right. I am going to take them to the beach and let them run some of this out of their system. I wish it would tire them out, but it won’t. They were funny when I called them; all they talked about were Pokémon, and the games that they were playing. They didn’t seem to miss me at all, but they did. I am not too worried about that it doesn’t hurt my feelings, it is much better for me to know that they are having fun and doing well without me. We wrote stories about their weekend with Daddy, and this is what they said it felt like with me being gone. Ariel: “It felt like mommy was on the computer, but invisible for a longtime.” Daniel: “It felt like mommy was upstairs, and she was not coming down, forever.” Joshua: “It felt like she was in the bathroom for a very long time.” LOL! I had other things that I was going to share, but I got sidetracked and now I have to stop.

Picture time!

(I have a couple of pictures with my face in this batch and I am freaking out! Just so everyone knows.)

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04/1/12

Bringing Awareness, I Am Turning Blue (Repost)

I wrote this last year in a flush of being overwhelmed by all of the information and turmoil that sprung from only the first day of Autism Awareness Month. The weeks that led up to the first day of April consumed me with emotion as a mother of an autistic child and as an autistic woman. This year is no different. As a matter-of-fact, I am even more overwhelmed with the heat rising from the announcement “CDC: Autism Rate is Now 1 in 88″. I cannot even write about my feelings. I will wait until the smoke falls and everyone is able to focus once again on the reality that we need to acknowledge and help children, adults, and parents. We need resources, accurate information, and individual plans to focus on each individual on the autism spectrum.

We need a focus on implementing helps.

At this point there are so many unknown factors that play into the “why’s” or “how’s”. I am not dismissing the importance of doing studies and trying to discover better ways to help, or determine certain factors. The numbers seem to be of little value to families struggling financially, emotionally, physically, and not knowing where to turn. I hope this year we can transition into seeking the answers to help parents understand what autism is. Help them not be afraid of the diagnosis, but in order for that to happen some outlooks need to change. Parents need help in understanding — there is so much information out there and they need direction. Adults coming to terms that they are on the spectrum need acceptance, and help as well.

We need direction.

I hope that awareness, compassion, empathy, and understanding that the label autism is not the same for each of us. We all look and act differently. With the big reveal of the CDC numbers to me, broaden my eyes to see how incredibly diverse Autism is. Even though we are not the same we suffer many similar issues that make us feel isolated. It reveals that we need to take a step back and truly grasp the fact that there is no normal. We are all human beings — no two alike. It is tiresome to see the round and round conversations that do not seem to move or motivate people. At any rate…

We need to be reminded that we are not alone…all of us on the autism spectrum or not.

I did clean this up a little but, but I did not edit the message.

We are boys, we are girls, we are men, and we are women. We are diagnosed, un-diagnosed, and self-diagnosed. We are friends, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, employers, and employees. We are artists, geniuses, mechanics, and cashiers. We are living in institutions, boarding schools, college and at home. We are being abused, bullied and outcast. We are being accepted and lifted up.

We are everywhere.

Some of us can speak and it feels like we won’t stop, some of us can speak, but cannot get our words out, some of us cannot speak through the means that is comfortable for others, some of us speak through a song, dance, cry, or scream. We are looking at you right now. We cannot be put in a box and we cannot give complete clarity to all of our differences. We find some comfort in our similarities. We have been here and will be here, more of us will be diagnosed and hopefully get the help we need to give us the best quality of life possible. Bringing awareness does not mean to just think about it for this day or month.

Bringing awareness could be a paradigm shift in the thinking of others.

Awareness according to Wikipedia:

“Awareness is the state or ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects, or sensory patterns. In this level of consciousness, sense-data can be confirmed by an observer without necessarily implying understanding. More broadly, it is the state or quality of being aware of something. In biological psychology, awareness is defined as a human’s or an animal’s perception and cognitive reaction to a condition or event.”

Awareness defined in the dictionary is:

Awareness
noun
“Awareness of, knowledge of, understanding of, appreciation of, recognition of, attention to, perception of, consciousness of, acquaintance with, enlightenment with, sensibility to, realization of, familiarity with, mindfulness of, cognizance of, sentience of The 1980s brought an awareness of green issues.”

As we go into this month of designated autism awareness, I think about what I would like people to have knowledge of, an ability to perceive, to feel, to be conscious of, when it comes to autism. Actually, there is a lot I would like for people to be aware of but I guess if I were going to stay focused, my main points would be for people to be aware of the fact that we are not all the same. Every person has his or her own unique qualities and hindrances. Though we may have many similarities, there are many differences as well. We each have our own personality and likes. Some may have the similar obsessions with fans or trains but some change their obsessions and often. Social situations can affect us all differently — we may be very social and then have anxiety later. We may be too anxious to go or do anything. We may not even think about it because the social situation involves our special interest.

Our sensory issues manifest in different ways.

Some of us are seekers, some of us are avoiders, and some of us are a mix. Loud noises can tear through our body and jolt us into a panic — the sound of ice can feel like daggers in our ears, while loud music can be comforting. Hot weather can drain us while for others it is energizing, cold weather can stop some of us from being able to move because it hurts our flesh so badly, while some of us can run around in the snow in shorts and think that it is great. There are so many differences between each one of us and that is something that needs to be made aware to the world. There are substantial differences between girls and boys and woman and men on the autism spectrum and I think that is something of importance that should be remembered and considered continually.

There are so many methods of treatment and I think having proper awareness of them is important as well.

There are many things that my mind wants to share but I cannot in a blog post. As I challenge myself to stay focused and make a clear point, I guess out of everything that I would want people to have awareness of when it comes to autism, is acceptance. I would long to see people accept our differences and be aware of them. I would want people to accept our gifts and hindrances not as pity or idolize the giftings but to accept us as we are. Accept challenges and bring forth more awareness to the needs of those who are not receiving the help they need. I am referring to parents, children, and adults on the spectrum. Acceptance that it is ok for parents to be upset, concerned, exhausted, worried, and feeling hopeless but to not accept those feelings as their new identity.

Don’t stay there.

Accept that a mindset of fear will make the mind look for a constant enemy, not be empowering but strip away the life ahead. Accept that you don’t have to be angry but determined to help your child and yourself. Accept that the challenges are real but if our community pulls together to seek to help parents were better equipped to help their child with autism, it can change. Accept that adults on the spectrum can bring a lot of insight to parents who do not know what it is like for their child. For those who have been in denial to accept that there are adults on the spectrum, they have a voice and they can give hope to those who feel hopeless. There needs to be acceptance and awareness that parents have a voice too and need to be heard just as much as their children do. We all need to accept that we are not winning any battle by drawing lines in the sand and bashing each other. We need each other and those who are unwilling to accept that are just not ready for a paradigm shift. We need to acknowledge that, that is ok too. However, with more of us speaking out as parents for our children, giving our children a voice as well, and focusing on quality of life instead of what is seen as detriments of life, maybe that will change.

I hope there will be some minds bending to true awareness this month.

Here are some resources to help bring awareness.

What is Autism?

The History of Autism (Quicky)

Rethinking Autism

Some Videos

Loving Lamposts Trailer

Increasing Awareness of Women with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Girls and Asperger’s I have several more links on this page regarding girls.

Types of Asperger’s As a means to help identify in some way not to compartmentalize, there can be many variations and mixes. It usually depends on environment and stress levels.

Life with Asperger’s (8 different types of Asperger’s)

Communication Frustration (Wretches and Jabberers)

Autism Symposium

Light it Up Blue (Reference to my post title.)

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Category Archives: Finding My Quirks

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