Tag Archives: church

09/9/12

New Adventures

Urg! I wanted to write a short post, but this is what happens when I do not write for days, now I have passed the 2000 word mark. (insert eye roll here) Oh, well if you make it through all of this, thank you! This week has been interesting. I am not so sure how to explain it, so I will not attempt to do so. However, I will share some of the things I am able to. I have been out and about since Wednesday night.

I went out with my aunt on Wednesday and had so much fun!

We went out to dinner and since there is very little happening in this town right now we ended up going to the mall and the coffee shop. I am not really a mall type of gal, but I had not been in years so I thought it might be fun. My aunt likes to go with her friend and people watch. She did spoil me by buying my dinner and a couple of tops for me. She said that she is all caught up for all the birthdays she missed. :-)

I had ball dancing in all of the stores we went into.

It was very reminiscent of me growing up and going to the mall. I was either in the music store, a bookstore, or dancing in the stores that played obnoxiously loud music that I would not normally listen to. However, while my aunt was searching the racks “Lucky Star” by Madonna came on and I called it by the first two beats. I win! Oh, yes, I did start dancing Madonna’s dance right there. I am the product of being a latch key kid and MTV being my babysitter. 8-)

The funny thing is I did not have a true awareness that I was dancing until people looked at me.

I did not stop I was having too much fun. My aunt and I were able to catch up on about 10 years of omitted information from our conversations due to always having people around us and having to filter. Even on the phone, we have not been able to talk freely. We both felt like a huge weight had been lifted off our shoulders. We also gained a lot of perspective as to our behaviors and actions that did not make sense or caused us to doubt our intuition over the years.

Good stuff, good indeed.

When I came home, Ariel wanted to know all about my adventure. She was very concerned about me leaving, but that is for another post. After I shared with her all that we did, she requested that I take her to the mall. She had been having a rough week and wanted me to stay with her at all times. I told her that I would take her the next night.

All of the kids need a break from each other and need alone time with me.

I decided that I would take each of them on different nights. Ariel was Thursday and we had so much fun walking around the mall and going into stores. She wanted to go to some girly stores and showed me all of the things she liked. She was so excited to pick out her own top and some items for Daniel and Joshua. She got them exactly what they would love. Daniel a pair of green flip-flops and Joshua soft shorts because he likes soft clothes. She shared with me all of the types of things that she likes and why. She likes animal prints because she wishes she were a wild animal. She also loves bright colors and glittery things.

I loved listening to her talk about her interests.

She was so happy and vibrant walking around with me. We laughed and giggled completely uninterrupted. I admit that I do like this mall much more than others, it is small in comparison to major malls and it is only crowded on the weekends. A nice quiet mall is kind of fun to wall around in. She found a store that does makeovers for little girls, they do parties, and runway shows. She loved it! I think that may come from her Grammy (my mom) and her Grandma K. They both are very sharp dressers and enjoy fashion. Both of them were models at certain points in their life as well. I am happy to support her and dabble in getting fancy at times as well. :-)

The next evening Daniel requested to go to the park. 

I suggested that we go play putt putt golf and try something new. That sent him into an anxiety spin so I dropped it. We went to the park and I have never seen him so happy. He basically had the entire fortress of fun all to himself. He was giggling, clapping, running, and leaping. He would stop at times at look at me then smile, after a second he would go back to his leaping and running escapades. He played music on the chimes, there is a little cubby hiding them. He did not talk while he was playing, but when he finally took a break and started walking on the wood beams around the perimeter, he started to ask a plethora of questions. The park is right next to the public pool that I frequented throughout many summers as a child.

We had to walk around the empty pool and discuss the pump, size, why there was green water, etc… 

We then had to discuss the buildings, sheds, and storage place, along with the basketball court, spinning playground toys, why bugs come out at night, as well as why it echoes when you clap outside. It was getting too dark and he did not want to go home, so he asked me to take him somewhere else. I ended up driving him around to my old elementary school and then high school. There was a football game going on and he was intrigued for about a minute. Finally, after about 30 minutes of reaching every “hot spot” in my small hometown, I talked him into checking out the putt putt golf place for future reference.

He thought that was a good idea. 

We went and checked it out. We had to walk around the entire thing, while I explained hidden speakers that played the music, their air conditioner, how to play putt putt, why they had a fake alligator, a giraffe with its head bent down, and a big gorilla. Why the gate was build the way it was, why they had a small building to hold all of the equipment, what was inside of the small building … you get the picture. I told him that it was time to go and he said, “Ok, I want to go to the store now.” Um, earlier he made it very clear that he DID NOT want to go anywhere near a store.

He changed his mind lucky for me because I really needed to get some things. 

While in Target the adventures carried on about how the building was built, why did they have one part of the ceiling lower than the other part, what was making noise, why did they have broken lights, why did the cart move the way that it moved, why did people need to work at stores, on and on with questions. I admit the questions can get exhausting and frustrating at times, especially when there is no way for me to know the answer, but I am ecstatic and amazed to finally hear what is soaring through his mind all the time.

Joshua is feeling kind of left out. 

I was unable to take him yet because I had planned for us to try kids’ church on Saturday night. I am taking Joshua on Monday night to go play putt putt golf. I cannot wait to spend some alone time with him. There have been times when things fall through on plans for him because he usually goes third, it has been unfortunate, but we try to make it up to him. I promised him that no matter what I would take him on Monday. My aunt suggested us coming to kid’s church because she would be on stage doing a skit. She normally does and both of us thought that would be great for the kids to feel comfortable with her being there.

Joshua’s social studies lesson this week discussed how you could make friends at school. 

He looked down, sounded kind of sad, and said, “I do not have any friends.” Aaaa! My heart broke. I have been working on this and I am in the process of getting them involved at the YMCA, they want to take karate so we will try it. However, I am still waiting. That is when I thought I have to do something – church it is. It is a safe environment, I know their lessons, and I trust my aunt and her judgment with teachers, so we went. Short version, Daniel continued to ask to leave and I continued to ask him to, “just try it.”

Joshua was very hesitant, but came around. 

Ariel LOVED it! She and I had a conversion about going the other night. We discussed how she should not bring up her doubts about God in class or with her teachers because most of the time that is frowned upon. I had to explain it in terms of Santa Claus. (Do not get offended I am not comparing God to Santa Claus, I was only trying to help my daughter understand.) We do not want to cause other children to doubt, or have questions that other parents may not appreciate.  That is up to them to discover (at this young age) and their parents to discuss, I have yet to find many kids who question the way mine do at this age. She ended up telling me, “Look I believe that God is alive 100%, I don’t think that he is real about 9%” Lol! I thought that was so awesome. Back to kids’ church.

Daniel did stay, we took a few breaks, but he stayed in class with me.

He did not want to participate at all during the floor game. However, after I asked him to sit and watch with me for a while he decided that he did want to sit in the group with the other boys. The other kids did stare at him because he was wearing his noise reducers that look like huge headphones. He did not notice. None of the kids were blatantly rude though and everyone was very nice and accepting of me staying with him. I think it is a good place to try to get in some socializing. I can also expand on the teachings and use it as a learning guide for how we may not think exactly the same way even though we can find many truths and important messages.

It is good for me as well to get over my “religion” anxieties. 

As well, as learn how to not think of all “Christians” in one way. I do confess I have become jaded and I do not want to be that way. Not with all people of the Christian faith, but in church settings and organized religion. I do not want to be like that. I do not want my children to be like that either so I am facing my fears and anxieties. Bottom line I am afraid of being hurt and judged as I have been in the past. I am no longer allowing myself to live in those fears or casting judgments against others because of my fears. Side note: There was a mishap in communication and we ended up not finding the kids church until later, it is a HUGE church. I decided to take the kids into the main church for worship. Though I may not think in the black-and-white terms as I did before while singing the words, I was moved to tears.

There is something so special to me about singing together.

I feel such a beauty that falls in the air during that time. I feel this when gathering in concerts as well, but some concerts have a different feel and the spirit behind it can seem rough, hard, at times like anger, or angst, but during worship no matter what kind of church I have been in, it has felt sweet and like a peach hue mixed with golds. (There have been a few exceptions to this, but I will not allow that to distort the beauty.) It feels like clouds that are soft and comforting. Anyway, it felt very good and it was the first time in a long time that I could sing in a group like that without feeling icky.

If that makes sense.

We had many adventures this week. We are all doing very well too. No meltdowns, shutdowns, overloaded outbursts. We all had fun. I plan to continue to take each child out at least once a month. They all want to go back to kid’s church as well, so we will. I am excited about the YMCA too; there are so many opportunities to try things. The kids and I are starting to feel more comfortable venturing out and trying new things. We will still have to balance and weigh how our weeks are and make sure we do not do too much, but hey, we are becoming quite the adventurers! :-)

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06/3/12

My Spiritual Rant Fest! II

Continued from My Spiritual Rant Fest! I…

This is why I have had such a hard time conforming to certain beliefs, and it caused me a great deal of emotional trauma. Other people did not seem to have this problem and always knew the voice God even when He seemed to always agree with them. When I expressed my questions, my concerns, voiced my opinions I was told I lacked faith, and in some cases just ignored. They seemed to lack of theory of mind for me. They had mindblindness toward people who did not agree with them. They were unable to consider the thoughts, feelings, or emotions of those who have different beliefs. Is that lack of empathy? Are they truly mentalizing?

I am teaching the kids to be mindful of others and respecting their beliefs.

We are mentalizing in our way. By definition mentalizing is:

“Mentalizing refers to our ability to read the mental states of other agents and engages many neural processes. The brain’s mirror system allows us to share the emotions of others. Through perspective taking, we can infer what a person currently believes about the world given their point of view. Finally, the human brain has the unique ability to represent the mental states of the self and the other and the relationship between these mental states, making possible the communication of ideas.”

We are trying to gain an understanding toward others.

We look for commonalities so we can share in the togetherness of humanity. I think that it takes us a longer time to process mentalization in some cases, but I believe we all do it. Speaking for myself a component of confusion for me and what throws me is when I feel people’s true emotions and their words, or smiles do not match. What I have seen throughout my internet adventures reading a ton of blogs or websites from autistics are, when they realize that they have not considered another person’s point of view, it is like a wake up jolt, and they begin to try to walk in those people’s shoes. They try to gain understanding to some extent. Of course, not all, but many. The reality is every autistic is an individual, with their own thoughts, beliefs, fears, likes, loves, interests, etc… We are humans, and many of us are very open and accepting.

To me that is the concept of God. 

I confess I have always had a hard time personalizing God. When I was a child and people told me about Jesus – it made no sense to me. Once in a while, I was in Sunday school, I do not remember why or who brought me there. I was very young – most likely, it was a holiday or something because we did not go to church regularly. I remember one time being exceptionally scary and devastating for me. The Sunday school teacher drew a picture of a heart, and then, proceeded to tell us that if we sin thorns begin to grow in our heart.

She started to draw black thorns into the heart.

As she went on to explain that the more we sin the more the thorns take over, I became frightened. All I can recall now are her words, “When you tell a lie, or think bad thoughts, thorns start to take over your heart. The more wrong things you do the more these black thorns grow, wrap around your heart until it looks black, and keeps you away from Jesus. He cannot hear your prayers – He cannot come close to you.” (I know I got very close to her words they may not be “exact,” but very close.) I looked at the heart covered with black thorns, and just knew that was my heart. All of the things I had done wrong in my short-lived life consumed my thoughts, and I was never going to be accepted by God. (I gave you the condensed version of the story.)

I knew it was impossible to never do anything wrong. 

I knew that no matter how hard I tried I would still do something wrong. I accepted my fate as being rejected and unacceptable to God, forever. Still that did not make sense either because God was supposed to be all accepting and loving. It has been back and forth battles in my mind about God my entire life. I became settled at one point, but that was because organized religion made it easy by giving me rules.

Until the rules became too inconsistent and ever changing.

Because I had been in so many different churches, I started noticing patterns. When I was going to only one church I would blow them off as my imagination, but the more churches I went to the more I noticed.  I had been obsessively studying for years with all things Biblical and Christian based. These patterns I was noticing linked into politics, social behaviors, emotional responses, and recognizing groupthink. (I didn’t know what it was at the time.) I started to allow myself to ask questions and seek answers from other sources. I am not going to go into all of that right now. I am processing.

I think it is important to keep an open mind in the area of beliefs.

I think that it is an awful thing to point out one group or another and claim they are a certain way based on media, limited information, lack of understanding, and lack of wanting to understand. That goes for any form of reasonable belief. (I do not condone those that are clearly abusive, or like cults.) While I do agree with some of the components of the article, I truly think it could apply to all people. There seem to be many people who are leaving their faith.

Faith as we have known it is morphing into something different. 

As a culture, we are merging into new states of beliefs, understanding, and acceptance. Just like our political system is changing and no one knows what it is going to look like, many of our other systems that have been lingering around are starting to change as well. This was interesting also Some Americans Reluctant to Vote for Mormon, 72-Year-Old Presidential Candidates Our world is changing, people are changing, definitions are changing, and I want to be a part of the change. I see more positive than not. Though at first I was bothered mainly from the title “Does Autism Lead to Atheism?” now I see it as a turning point. It gets people talking. It got me angry, and in that anger, I worked out some pain.

I had a rant fest that has opened doors to other pains I have been putting off for far too long. 

I have been searching for fellow Aspie’s who have experienced trauma growing up in church, or people like myself who came to faith later in life. I have not found many writings about it and for a while I felt like it was only my imaginations. I was influenced by the Christian faith growing up, but they are mixed from Pentecostal, Charismatic, Lutheran, Methodist, Southern Baptist, Non-Denominational… that is all I can think of now.

I researched them all.

I found the openness of worship, and prayer freeing in some churches, but their doctrines and theologies confusing. I found others to have great detailed and in-depth teachings, but stifled in the area of music and prayer and music is a very big deal for me. I am not being shallow it is who I am. Truly, I love all types of music, it wasn’t that really – it was the feel. That is the best way I can explain it. Sidetracked I know.

I have been wanting to find others who understand and know my experiences. 

I have found people who for the most part are not on the autism spectrum, but I would really like to find others who have experienced major confusion, hurt, or any other experiences when it comes to faith. I do not think it is limited to the faith I was surrounded with and I do think we need to share our stories. I am not sure how, maybe just commenting, starting your own blog, or emailing me, I don’t know… I think if they are going to start studying our beliefs we should start talking about them. Maybe express what is good for us and what isn’t. What confuses us and why. Personally, I cannot define my faith into any definition that currently exists. I’ve made this quite long so I’ll end my rant abruptly with resources of course! :-)

I read these great links and have been pondering them for a while. 

Conspiracy Theories, Autism, Fear, and Life on the Crazy Train

Nicole and I had a great conversation through the comment thread and I wanted to keep going, but I do not think either of us have the time to do it. :-)

God Confusion (“I’m an ex-christian with Asperger’s Syndrome.”)

Finding My Ground  (I have been reading this blog for several months. There several posts she has written that I would recommend, but I will leave it up to you.)

The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science (I threw this one in here because, just because.)

I found this interesting too, click on the image to go to the link.

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06/3/12

My Spiritual Rant Fest! I

I had a much catchier title, but then realized that it could be offensive so I changed it. I usually stay away from topics such as the recent gust of affairs about Autism and belief (claims of lack thereof) in God. However, being that this is a special interest for me I am going to write about it. My first response when I saw the title of this article Does Autism Lead to Atheism? was, “Really? This is what we are going to focus on?” Then, like I mentioned, religion and spirituality is a special interest of mine dating back to three years old as I can recall – I had to go and read.

I found the title alone to be offensive.

Why can it seem offensive? For one, it is singling out a community. Even posing the question “Does autism lead to atheism?” has a feel of seeking out to separate a community that is already separated, and ostracized for the way they think. In the U.S. where 46% of people are said to believe in Creationism, according to a survey released by Gallup. Survey: Nearly half of Americans subscribe to creationist view of human origins this could be ostracizing for autistics and Atheists, or Autistic Atheists.

I am not saying Creationism is either true or not, the point is not what I believe.

Alternatively, what anyone else believes for that matter? The issue here is that is in this country many times you are looked down upon if you confess that you do not believe in God. I am not sure about other countries, but several blogs that I read indicate the same thing is true in certain countries. Atheism is still quite misunderstood if you read, or hang around certain religious circles. Autism already has many negative associations and now we are going to look at faith as another means to point us out? (Excellent read here by Ariane Zurcher The Depiction of Autism and Why it Matters)

I get irate as well when I encounter people who attack Atheists.

I get irate when anyone shows complete ignorance, lack of respect, and expresses utter religious intolerance. Reading the article above sent me down several other trails.  I came across these:

Autism and Belief in God

The Fear of Atheism

Why Religious People Are Scared of Atheists

Atheism as mental deviance

What atheism and autism may have in common

Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism 

I do admit this quote from LiveScience makes a lot of sense:

“Believers intuitively treat gods as intentional agents with mental states who enter into social relationships with humans, using supernatural powers to assuage existential concerns, respond to human desires and monitor their social behavior,” the scientists wrote.

I have been confused by this at times.

Although, I have had many strange occurrences that I have been unable to explain. I have encountered others who share similar stories, and I have encountered others who have not – those who are Aspie’s and those who are not. Could it be synesthesia, Quantum Mechanics, Multiverses? Who knows? I do want to point out that I have noticed what looks like autism traits in many readings from ex-Christians… and guess what? I have noticed many “neurotypical” traits if we still want to call it that, as well. To me it seems that those who gear more towards an analytical mind have issues with a personalized God. It does not seem to be about mindblindness, but rather about how irrational it seems that God would always do or say the things a person desires.

Such as, it is His will for the person to be showered with great wealth, health, and followers.

Possibly, a lifetime of emotional manipulators, or religious trauma caused one to seek the approval of God. This could lead the person thinking that God is telling them that they must give more, do more, pray more, but it is never enough. They never feel the love of God because they do not know how to love themselves, or feel unworthy of love. At some point, an analytical mind is going to realize that this is not healthy thinking, or beneficial to actual personal growth. I read this Losing Your Religion: Analytic Thinking Can Undermine Belief in April.

I cannot get a grip on my trails of thinking with all of this – I have a ton of thoughts connecting. 

Trying to get focused – this quote popped out at me”To be plain about it, the beliefs of most religious systems imply a lot of crazy things if you work out the logic. But most people don’t behave in a crazy manner.” ~ Razib Khan (from one of his posts I linked to above.) As I am writing this post, I can think of a dozen autistics off the top of my head that are very spiritual. I know that there are many who have a personal relationship with Jesus, or another form of spiritual deity, guide, I am not sure how to articulate it. Please do not be offended.

There are autistics who are deeply involved with paranormal, and spirituality. 

I do not find it offensive to be generalized into the Atheist community. I find it offensive to be generalized in any context. We are people. Anyone of faith is a person an individual. Anyone who does not have a religious belief is a person. I have no true problem with these studies, after gaining a valid reason from one of the articles I read. I do find it fascinating, but it is disturbing to have such focus on one community and have it thrust into the media. I go back to my initial portion of this rant about being ostracized.

I do not feel this is a purposeful plot. 

However, I do not understand why certain people in the scientific community continue to label us as unfeeling, lacking emotion, unable to relate to another person, having no compassion, or empathy. I wonder what Atheists think of all of this? I have a trigger here obviously because I have been surrounded by people from a Christian faith that believe autism is not real, or that it is from my sin, David’s sin, generational sin, it is the devil, at one point it was a demon stopping my son from speaking. Seriously, this is what led me right out of this type of Christianity. Clearly not all Christians are like that, and not all of them believe those types of things.

When you are around it for a long period of time though, it can be very confusing. 

I am not attacking anyone who believes that, however, people need to understand how horrifying and demeaning that is.  The other side is to hear in the same breath that autism is a great spiritual gift and autistics have a direct link to God that others do not. What? I am not even going to go into the problems with all of this. It is very confusing to hear these things, or go through an experience like that.

I do not understand why there is a need to make angels or demons out of what is not understood. 

All of this has stirred something in me, and it reminds me of what I wrote about Daniel the other day, during his evaluation:

“I found it very interesting that while she was trying to get him to talk about his emotions he said things like, “I don’t know.” Or when she asked him, “What makes you happy?” He said, “Not spinning.”

She did not understand that at all.

I knew why he was saying that. It is because when he spins things too much it causes him to get over stimulated and his head hurts. He had been playing with a spinning top that was in the collection of toys she had and he had to put it away. I found it very interesting that when she asked him about the emotions of others, such as from stories, their pretend play, with people and then, a baby he knew their emotions spot on.”

All of my kids including myself have a very difficult time expressing our own emotions.

There is the theory that because we are unable to articulate, express, or show our emotions in the moment, or in similar ways than others do that we lack this ability to understand another person’s emotions. I am beginning to think the real issue is that we are able to read and feel people’s “real” emotions. People mask them behind false smiles, winks, or unnatural understandings of how emotions are expressed. Is that smile real or fake?

I do not know where these rules of emotions came from, but somehow they are the “norm.”

In reality, they do not make sense. I have shared before about how the kids and I have had “inappropriate” responses, but are they? In this post Mind Dump I have a ton of resources. We are not being insensitive we are doing our natural response to try to make ourselves, or others feel better. Laughing is contagious, our mind intuitively thinks to laugh to try to make others laugh, thus feeling better. (Simplified explanation of a huge range of information.)

I have gotten into loads of trouble for inappropriate laughing, or other behaviors.

I didn’t realize that I was doing something wrong, BUT was I? It was my natural response. Are we conditioned to think certain emotions apply? While teaching the kids about emotions some of them have caused me to feel awkward. I do not naturally respond in a certain way and either do the kids. Now apply me being confused by certain emotions to God. If you are asking me to sit down and accept God as the emotional personification of a father, a best friend, a teacher, or some other form that others seem to find comfort in, yes, I will logically dismiss him as God.

They have all hurt me and caused me great pain. 

Even if you ask me to think of God as a personal God based on attributes of myself, I have a hard time with this because I am well aware of how much I can influence myself into believing something that I want. I am fully aware that I can confuse my voice with God’s. I cannot connect to that. I do connect to nature, animals, art, music, science, numbers, in them I see and feel God. When I help another person, take care of their needs, or see another person do that for someone else, I see God.

I connect to God through acts of helping and taking care of needs. 

Please know that I am only sharing resources that I have found. I am coming to my own conclusions and I leave these resources for you to come to your own.

Continued on My Spiritual Rant Fest! II…

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11/22/11

Negative Into Positive II

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

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

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

These things fed into my already self-condemning mind.

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

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

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

Ariel and I talked yesterday and it woke me up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are some links that I found very helpful.

Negative Automatic Thoughts

15 Common Cognitive Distortions

Negative Automatic Thoughts w/ Examples

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

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


 

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11/22/11

Negative Into Positive I

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

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

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

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

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

I have been overcoming some of them little by little.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My emotional self and logical self fight.

 Second half here. 


 

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08/24/11

Unleashing Feelings

Guess what? I have broken open a flood inside my heart. After writing out all of these issues that I have been working through I have discovered something, the cage surrounding my feelings has been opened. I seem to have locked away a lot of my emotions over the years so that I would force myself not to feel. I have repeatedly told David that I feel like a robot. I am not a robot. He has always challenged me in these words of mine because he sees me. I have a strange way of not seeing things in myself but seeing them clearly in others. David, my mom, and close friends have repeatedly told me that I am a loving, caring and generous person.

I haven’t seen it.

Or if I have seen it then words from various voices have popped up and said “Now you are just being prideful”. I do not do nice things or show how I care for others because I want or expect something, I just do it. After I wrote the last two posts dealing with fear of abandonment, something seemed to just leave me. A foreboding dark cloud of some sort just up and left. The lie that lingered has started to fly away and I see the sun shining down. I know that I will have other things to work through in my lifetime but once I “get” something, I get it. There is no need for me to return. I am able to see the error in my thinking and move on. I have no guilt or shame about it, it is what it is and it’s a done feeling.

I realized this with the word “soon”.

I got so angry with myself for being afraid of a simple word. But see, it wasn’t the word, it was the not knowing hidden in that word. It represented something that I did not want to face – it represented that I do not have certainty about this life. Like many of my anxious feelings, I am afraid of the unknown or the uncertainty of something. There is something truly manifesting in my thought process about these phantom fears of mine. They are smoke screens of what I am truly fearful of: I get afraid of being hurt or being in a state of confusion. Confusion causes me much pain. In my mind, I have taken these phantom fears and placed tangible fears in their place so I could hold on to something because a fear of something is far better than not knowing.

Yikes!

I can apply this to many of my fears. I have created fears or reasons so that I would no longer be in a state of confusion. Confusion makes me ill. It causes me to not be able to eat, sleep, think, and live, basically. It just puts me in a state of depression so in order for me to be able to function, I created faces to my fears to help me be able to put them away. This has caused me to have many inaccurate feelings and ideas. It has also caused me to shut down my emotions throughout the years. I do not know if others are able to do this as well, but I have to ability to turn off certain feelings so that I will not feel it anymore. But they are still stored and documented and they manifest through other means.

Anger is one that I dealt with over the last two years.

I did not allow myself to feel angry for a long time because I interpreted anger as a wrong emotion. I felt like I was judging people or that I had misunderstood them when the anger would arise. Partly this was due to me having meltdowns and freakouts throughout my life and people telling me how wrong I was for doing so. I admit that my temper was out of control in many cases, but it was mostly due to lack of understanding, and most of the time, I knew that I was being treated badly but did not know how to express it. Hence, hold it in, hold it in, hold it in, BLOW!! I experienced full-blown rage with the church people that continued to tell me that I had done something to cause Daniel’s autism. When he was not accepted, most people didn’t even acknowledge him, or me when he was with me. It made me angry and confused.

Rage stirred in my belly when I continued to see people used and abused in the name of serving the Lord.

I had seen it too often, I had seen too many people have their voices squelched, their identities destroyed for the sake of leaders’ desires, the words of the bible used to manipulate and control others. If you haven’t witnessed this in your religious (or other forms of institution) circles, great! I mean really, I think that is a wonderful thing, but it does happen and people get hurt and people become dependent on leaders and no longer rely on their instincts or the true biblical understandings. It happens and the truths of humanity in the bible become caricatures of the opinions and views of leaders. It burned rage in me that I forced down because I thought I was wrong. The rage, however, was left in me. I was unable to see clearly what had happened to me in churches but I could see it in others.

I could recognize it and call it out for others but not for myself.

I do this with a lot of things. I dealt with a lot of that rage in the last two years. I wrote about it, I thought about it, I finally saw it in my life and I dealt with it. I can finally hear a sermon and not get angry, though I get annoyed sometimes, I no longer get angry. I dealt with my triggers and allowed myself to feel that anger. I reposted something a while ago about my feelings about church and after that it was done. I thought there was a lot more, but there wasn’t. I had already typed out so much in my personal journals that I had actually been helping myself heal without knowing it. I got settled with people and I got settled with God on the topic and have since moved on into a new journey of understanding my personal experiences with God, this world and spirituality.

The same thing is happening now with love.

I had said before that I had only felt love once. It is true but evaluating it I see why it was so impactful. It was the first time I gave myself freely and didn’t work on trying to hide until I became confused. The relationship exposed things in me that I had a choice to deal with or stifle. I chose to deal with many things that it exposed in me but then out of fear, I stopped it. I began to hide away parts of me that had started to manifest, I only allowed “safe” invisible parts of me out, ones that I knew would not hurt too badly. I already started to build walls around my heart and soul, so when I met David, I had actually spent an entire year forcing myself not to feel for myself but only feel for others. I could control my feelings but not the feelings that I was overwhelmed with by others.

In a way, I had been so vulnerable that I felt I had to protect myself from feeling.

I can walk in a room and be consumed by people’s feelings, emotions, thoughts, vibrations, I don’t know how to explain it – I just feel them. If I allowed myself to feel what I felt also, it was too much. For the past two years, I have been in a safe place to deal with me. I have not allowed myself to feel love through me in a very long time. I know that it started when I had a miscarriage over 10 years ago. I was terribly hurt by people, their words and my own inability to be able to grieve properly. It started a shutdown process. I started to eliminate the shutdown, but quickly had to go back into shutdown mode for various reasons, such as being ostracized by my church, an (ex) husband who was being a complete jerk, I got laid off from my job, I lost a friendship that meant a lot to me, and started a new church. That was a few…there is a lot more. All of this happened one after another, things just piled up and I was incredibly confused by a lot of this stuff.

I had to stop feeling.

All of this awakening has been incredibly painful but SO worth it. I am discovering how much I do love. I love people, I do. I have convinced myself for years that I don’t. I like the fact that I can find good in people, even though I need to be cautious with that. I would rather see the potential and possibly motivate them to get there. Those who are mean or nasty can help change me for the better. I have a choice to be bitter and angry or not allow their issues to be mine. That is an entirely different thing than righteous indignation or standing up against injustices in the world.

I love life.

There is so much treasure in this world. There are so many great things to ponder and experience, a lifetime is not enough. I know there are terrible, horrible things that happen in this world but I also see so many triumph over the tragedy in their lives. What was meant to destroy or break a person made them stronger and a powerful voice to encourage others. My prayer for people in those detestable, wretched situations would be that they come out with their voice loud and powerful, that their hearts would not be formed into bitterness or fear but that they would see their strength, value and fearlessness in them that they survived.

They are there to talk about it and help others.

I am just writing run on sentence after run on sentence. My mind is but a whirlwind of thought and I am not sure what I am trying to say. I feel the power of loving one another today. I feel the sensation of oneness with our world and with creation. I feel something that I have not allowed myself to feel in a very long time. I feel the light of the world that does not allow darkness to consume. I feel balance. I feel, I feel! I have no idea what tomorrow holds but I am not afraid of it. I do not know how anything will play out and in a way I comforted in that thought. I actually feel the peace of not knowing. If for a moment, I felt it. :-)

I would rather have that moment of feeling than never know of its existence.


 

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05/22/11

“Just Sit There And Be Pretty!”

Yes, an ex-boyfriend said that to me. I remember every detail of that night. I remember after it was said to me I shut down because I did not know how to respond to it. I frequently got in trouble with significant others because of my questions and conversations that I would start while out and about socializing. I am intrigued by people and I enjoy hearing their stories, what they think, what they are all about, and how they got to that exact moment in which our worlds interacted. I ask a lot of questions and I probe.

I find this enjoyable, while others just want to go out and have a “good time”.

I had three long-term boyfriend relationships starting at around the age of 14. This first relationship is in part the reason for my obsessive behaviors I discussed in my last two posts. It is a fragile time in a person’s life anyway but this is when you begin to really start looking for answers to who you are and what you are going to be. I entered into an abusive relationship for 3 years and didn’t even know it. What he did to me caused so much confusion and loss of identity that it forced me to be in search of the “real” me.

I never thought I was being abused because I never felt like a victim.

In all three relationships, they manipulated me, not all were physically abusive but they were verbally with saying many things similar to what I titled this post. The thing is that I stood up for myself. The normal pattern was for me to shut down because I was confused, then I would be hurt and then that would manifest through rage. I was sharp with my tongue and my wit. This would make them even more angry. In my mind I figured if I could stand up for myself than I was not really being abused. I was so hard for them to control because on the one hand I seemed very fragile and insecure but on the other hand I was strong and independent.

I felt victimized but never a victim.

I still feel this way. I see people take on the “victim” identity and I think that it is a shame to be settled in such a title when we have been equipped with the ability to not stay victims. Then again I do not like to see those take the ‘warrior” mentality either because then you can never show weakness. Part of being a true warrior is recognizing limitations, not hiding from them but embracing them to make you stronger. What I am sharing now has always been me. I lost these things about myself at one point. I had people in my life many times try to not allow me to use my brain.

Not just in relationships but also in other settings, such as work and church.

My obsessive behaviors did ease as I grew older and I found that if I was not in a relationship I was much better at being myself. I may have felt alone but I was comfortable with being alone with myself. I still however, had a desire for someone to be in my life so I searched on. By the time I met my first husband I had been alone for quite some time and I was pretty confident in me in a lot of ways. I liked him because he was intelligent, loved music and had a dry sense of humor that I got. But we really were just friends, I never felt anything more than a friendship with him. Plus I was entering into a new era of my life and started going to church which changed our dynamic.

We had many differences in our beliefs and I was evolving into someone new.

By the time I met my second husband I was fully emerged into church life and being a Christian. I felt I had no idea who would make a good husband for me so I trusted my friends instead of listening to my gut. He too just wanted me to sit and be pretty. This brings me to what triggered this post and why I felt I needed to get this out. Last night I had been thinking about all of this, my life playing like a movie. I had some feelings of regret but I think regret is good and I wrote a poem about that as well. Anyway, I looked at David and I was staring at him awkwardly, with no emotion on my face, this creeps him out, (I have a gift of being able to do that when I am thinking and creep people out. lol) and I said “Thank you for loving my brain.”

He looked at me and said “I do not know how to respond to that.”

I do that often too, I say strange things that he doesn’t know how to respond to. Hee hee It was at that moment that I realized why David has helped me so much. He has allowed me to use my brain. He has encouraged it. He has even gone to great lengths to tell me that “If you didn’t use your brain, I could not respect you and I would not be able to stay with you.” I shared with him what I meant by loving my brain. He was the first person to allow me to ask my questions, listen to my rants, let me cycle and rage, laugh and cry, whatever I needed to do, to be able to let my true nature come out.

He used to get hurt or frustrated with things I would say.

Like when I called him a cry baby, I wasn’t being mean in my mind I thought I was helping him. I see the error of my ways now. :-) I can say harsh things but not mean them in a harsh way at all. As we discussed all of this he told me that “He would rather me clear a room, making people uncomfortable and deal with the things they will not face, rather than sit and be a wallflower.” He doesn’t mean for me to be rude but to ask the questions that are hard and driven for answers. He told me that he hasn’t really done anything except encourage me to let the things that he sees in me to come out. Not let them hide but let them out freely. I think this is a reason I had no obsessive behaviors with David. I didn’t feel like I had to hide anything or try to keep parts of me hidden.

One dear person that I worked with said to me once “Angel, you need to find someone who loves you for your brain.”.

I remember that day in every detail too. My second husband had left, we were separated, when that friend (thank you, Jim) said those words, I had a flash of the entire relationship. The whole time I had been railing against the unspoken words “Just sit there and be pretty”. My relationships, many of my friends and my church that I was in, had all been telling me the same thing. Don’t use your mind, sit there and do what you are told, stop thinking for yourself. And I couldn’t do it, no matter how hard I tried.

I could never and will never be able to “Just sit there and be pretty.”

 


 

 

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05/20/11

Fitting In Not So Much

I lived kind of dual life with church people. Dual in that I didn’t share about how I didn’t agree with some of their views and I stopped questioning them about how some of the language seemed very judgmental and non-loving. I still stay quiet, it’s just easier. I wasn’t hiding sin, I was trying so hard to live a “holy” life that I became obsessed with my “wrong doing”. I studied people in church and tried to become who I thought I was supposed to be. People and their behavior was very confusing, it never fit. I acknowledge that I made up rules for me to follow but I took all of their words literally. I really lost any sense of self I had during that time. Now I am at a point where the pieces are slowly coming together and I am discovering some parts of me that have always been there but I have hidden.

I am also finding the pieces of me that are new as I grow older.

When I met David I had already come to a point where I was not going to change to find a partner. I was settled on not finding one. I was fine with being me, the me I knew at that point. It was good to start a relationship like that, it wasn’t founded on insecurity because I wasn’t being someone I thought he wanted. I couldn’t accept that someone would want me for me, until I met David. First of all in the past anytime my true self would be exposed it usually wasn’t good, so I learned to only give people little doses of me. I would give the appropriate dose for the appropriate people mixed in with who I thought they wanted.

Secondly, I really didn’t know who I was.

How can you find yourself or even know who you are when you are trying so hard to fit in? When you have had others tell you who you are or should be? The things people would label me with were so confusing at times. When I would obsess about certain people, it would cause me to get sidetracked and fixated on becoming someone who was “right”. I would obsess to try to find myself. If I could figure out what they saw in me and I brought that forth, possibly that was who I was. As my mind would wander thinking about them, I would begin to have anxiety because I knew that I wasn’t completely who they thought I was. I would then feel the need to know what they were doing, when I would see them, why they were not calling when they said they would, would they stop talking to me?

Just all kinds of things.

I did this because I felt like I was losing self, I was creating my identity through their image of me. I wanted those people to live with me, so I could discover who I was. I wanted to be consumed by them so I could know what was right. This is not unique behavior, it is actually what many NT’s do as well, they take on identity of the group and the group moderates what is right and what is wrong. Since I did not naturally do this it felt odd, individualized and my obsessive behaviors seemed extreme. People who are able to adapt to a social situation are able to see what type of people are there and adjust their personality accordingly. I recognize that this does not make them liars, as I thought. I can read people’s true selves, this is different from reading people. A true self is what is actually going on inside, I have discernment for that. I do not have discernment for people’s social self.

I see things in people that are good or bad.

And here lies one of the main reasons why I have such social/relationship confusion. When what I feel/see doesn’t match with what I see/hear it causes me to doubt myself. I doubt my ability to discern motives and people. Because of this doubt I have ended up in controlling relationships and trusting wrong people at times. I have had people tell me over and over again that I was wrong about a certain person, only to discover that their own motives were completely wrong. They were trying to steer my doubts to conform with the group so they could feel “right”. My obsessive behavior and the feeling of needing to be around people stemmed from the fact that I did not feel confident in my ability to know how they felt about me. I would be confused by what I saw and their actions/words were toward me a lot of the time.

I think this has to do with my inability to know who is my friend.

When I care for someone I try to give them everything, this would be one reason why I have had so few cohering relationships. I would try to be completely translucent but I couldn’t because I felt if I was truly exposed that they would leave. It takes a lot of energy to try to find yourself. But it takes huge amounts of energy to expose yourself while trying to keep an identity of being who you think people want. Anytime I stepped out I would see how they did not want the “real me” they wanted the shell of me. My shell had all the great qualities but never showed the bad. When I realized that they only wanted the shell, it brought to life just how fragile that shell was and I would feel like a failure. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just be that and I felt like I had done something wrong. I hadn’t taken on the “right” identity.

I would feel that I wasn’t good enough to satisfy the relationship.

The whole purpose of my people consumption was to control my life. People were too unpredictable, they kept things from me, they changed or I would discover things that I never knew about them and it would throw me into a panic. I wasn’t psychotic – I just wanted my life to be predictable and I needed to know who they thought I was. It required me to know the people in my life deeply and regularly, not to manipulate and control them but to help me not have anxiety and panic attacks.

My fitting in method didn’t work.

I could fake it but I was still isolated and alone in my thoughts. I caused people to feel suffocated because of my need to know where they were and what they were doing. I seemed quite insecure and needy which is the opposite of who I am. It’s ironic as I look back that people who made me feel suffocated made me angry. I didn’t want anything to do with “needy and clingy” people. I liked my freedom and being alone. It’s funny how I did similar things but I thought that it was different because my motives were not to control them, unlike those who tried to control me. All these years of trying to fit in haven’t really helped at all. I am more comfortable now with not fitting in. The more I discover about myself the more I see that I cannot fit in without sacrificing and losing myself.

It’s baffling being able to live as a person who is confident in a lot of ways, yet full of anxiety.

For many years I the used the wrong words to describe my feelings. I am feeling released being able to find my words now. I used the wrong scripts to express myself or to try to mix with the group. I felt wrong for liking being alone and I felt wrong for thinking all of my random thoughts. The truth is I still do feel these things. I still feel the sting of rejection. I still feel the isolation as I go out into social settings. The difference now is that I am truly starting to feel alright with it. Does it come with age? Does it come with answers? Does it come with acceptance? I am sure they all play a role in this. I think a lot of it has to do with me realizing that no one ever rejected me. They couldn’t have, they didn’t know me well enough. Really no one can reject us, they can only reject parts and if that is the case what does it matter?

Those who truly care will accept us as a whole.


 


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03/14/11

Current Documentary Watches

I am in a documentary cycle again. I tend to read then go searching for documentaries on the topics of interest and flood my mind with as much information as I can. The last time I shared my documentary flicks was in September 2010 and I was basically on a food rant. :-) Those can be seen here Need To Download! If you are not up to reading my rant just go to the bottom of the post and you can see the documentaries I have listed. I know a lot of them from that post and this post are from PBS but I enjoy them.

So here are the current documentaries that I have watched.

Frontline: God In America

I felt that God in America, gave a rich history of America and faith. I learned a lot and it triggered me to do more research.

Frontline: The Medicated Child

I found this interesting, I am not sure exactly how I feel but it gave me things to think about and research.

History Channel: The Dark Ages

I love history and I used to watch a lot of history documentaries but I haven’t been able to in recent years. (My other special interests took presidence.) I did manage to watch this one and enjoyed it very much. I learned some new things and it gave more things to research.

National Geographic: The Gospel of Judas

Hmm…What to say about this one? I did find it very interesting but I don’t know, I can’t put my finger on it but it seemed to be missing something.

National Geographic: The Gospel of Judas Link

Documentaries I am in the middle of watching.

This Emotional Life

This documentary has proven to be very beneficial so far. I am on the second episode, and it too has given me resources and tools that can help me a lot with emotions. There is so much in each one that I will need to re-watch them.

The Calling

I really like this one so far because it goes through people of different faiths and their journey of feeling a call from God.

Documentaries in my queue to watch (Netflix queue)

Turning Points in the Physical Sciences

Frontline: Growing Up Online

Frontline: Sick Around America

PBS: The New Medicine

PBS: The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization

PBS: Empires: The Medici, Godfathers of the Renaissance

PBS: The Buddha

Let The Church Say Amen

The Bible According to Hollywood

Single: A Documentary Film

Nursery University

Escape From Suburbia


 


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03/6/11

How Quickly I Change

I was doing so well, ok, pretty well but now I am overwhelmed and anxiety ridden. Off and on Daniel has done a lot better but now I am feeling the aftermath in my own body and mind. I haven’t been able to accomplish much because I can’t think and I am so tired. I get angry with myself because I feel like I have no reason to be tired but I am and it is very hard to force myself to do anything. I decided to rearrange our front room which is part of our school room, along with our bedroom.

I have been wanting new bookshelves for a long time.

I have had my books stacked on top of each other, hidden behind each other, placed on any given space possible so they are not on the floor. Also the shelves that I have been using for storing school materials, craft items and manipulatives, basically collapsed. David has had it since 1997. Some of the other bookshelves we have had since 2004 and they are cheap ply wood types but they have held their own.

Anyway, we found some new ones for $16 and decided to get them.

I did some spring cleaning and wanting to get rid of a bunch of books but I am having a very hard time with that. I am in class today at church. On Weds. David and I are going to an autism symposium. In two weeks one of my sisters and her daughter are coming to visit, we haven’t seen them in about four years, I think. My birthday is at the end of the month. All of these things are good to me but yet I am ridden with dizzy head, fuzzy thoughts, starting to lose my appetite and I can barely read anything. Reading is what calms me, that and writing and both of them I am having a very hard time with. I am not sure what to do about church for our future there and I am just full of anxiety about going this morning. I don’t like this at all.

Part of this is that I just can’t think.

My sister has been emailing me and calling me often and sporadically. I do not mind her calling it just throws me and I do not do well on the phone anyway. She said “I know you are not a phone person and I will not keep you.” but we ended up being on the phone for over an hour because she asked me about Daniel and how do I explain any of this over the phone? I sent her a link that is geared toward children to help them understand what autism is but they really will not understand until they get here. PLUS Daniel is so good at being a sweet little guy when others are around that people think I am making things up. Of course there are certain things that he does and those will be clear but they will not understand his sensory overload or they may not even notice is hand flapping, silly noises or constant spinning. Others don’t seem to notice.

And it’s not that I am just not a phone person.

When I get off the phone, depending on the person it can take me days to recover. I get very excited and anxious. While on the phone even with people I am comfortable with, I shake, my hands start to shake and I can feel the adrenaline pulsing through me. My heart rate sky rockets and afterwards I have to tell David every detail of the conversation so that I can make sure I didn’t say anything wrong or to see if I understood them correctly. It is some serious stuff. I don’t want to do it, I can’t stop it. In the past I tried and I would tell myself how ridiculous I was being, it’s just a phone, goodness! Deep breath. I am just overwhelmed and tired and frazzled.

At least I am not having negative thoughts, I think.

I am doing ok on that part but I am exhausted and then I find myself trying to escape through my special interests. The problem is that when I read things my brain is connecting a billion other things and then it gets all jumbled together in a mass of confusion. I have been trying to read blog posts and I want to write comments but then I think it is too long, doesn’t make any sense or I cannot get a single thought to come together. I am just fuzzy brain. Maybe I will do better and feel a lot better after being in class with the kids today. Our kids are staying home with David, Ariel had a random fever on Friday and it was gone by Sat. but we do not want to take any chances with them getting sick. Also Daniel is just walking on the fence of sensory overload, so church would not be a good thing for him today.

I guess I am done…maybe a little more.

I am not sure the purpose of this post other than to try to get myself to calm down and be able to function a little better. I always feel like I am overreacting with this stuff. I feel like I should be fine, other people are able to get excited and have happy thoughts about having family come, going to church, going to a symposium! I seem to fall into a trap thinking that since I now know what my problems are than I shouldn’t have the issues any more. I know this isn’t true but how do I convince my mind of that? Sorry for my word meltdown, I know I have written a chaotic post but I just had to get something out.

Well I am off to get ready and praying for a clear mind and a not so anxious heart. :-)


 


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