Alright after yesterday I could not let go of the thoughts about how I perceive things. I got really focused on perception, and the web search began. As I was explaining that I have a constant story going on in my mind I wrote:

I think that I do this because I know and have known my whole life that my perception can be off. In order to make sure that I am as accurate as possible I have created a lifelong story to maintain detailed memories. I will not say that I am 100% accurate in my perception, but my memory is quite good. Unless I am overloaded then, my short-term memory can get jumbled. However, I am usually able to keep an accurate memory, though my perception may be off.

Now that I think of it, my story telling is most likely scripting.

I have learned to control talking out loud the scripts that are racing in my mind or repeating what others say…most of the time. I still say things and I still type things thinking that people know what I am talking about. I forget that they cannot hear what is going on in my mind. Lol! The more I think about it I think that I may be wrong about my perception. My perception may not be that off. I believe I have found yet another source of anxiety that I can control. My fear of perceiving things wrong stems from me feeling like I am being judgmental instead of perceptive. Or that I am inaccurate in how a person feels based solely on their words and actions. I realize that most people do not share what they are truly feeling. I know that I have had this epiphany before, the problem is, I will not remember. It is a perception thing and people can change from day to day.

With some people the person they want you to perceive them as changes on a daily bases.

People who do that have caused me to doubt my own perception skills. It has also caused me to seek out as much information to create a lasting memory to help me know how a person feels about me or about others. My mix up with the definition of perception and being judgmental was picked up by me while I was around certain groups of people. I also got the mix up from family members throughout my life. It has caused me to doubt what I feel/see, be anxious, and then be consumed with irrational thoughts. (I plan on doing a whole post about irrational thoughts at some point.)

In one of the shows I talked about yesterday, they showed a screen of words that were colors.

Instead of the letters being red for the word red, they were yellow. Or the letters in the word yellow were green. I do not know if those were the exact colors because I was in the middle of brushing Daniel’s teeth, but when I would look up and saw each word, I shouted out the correct word, not the color of the letters. Here is a picture that may help get a feel of what I mean.

Based on the definition of perception I was actually very perceptive while many other people were not based on the TV program.

It got me thinking about me, autism, and perception. I thought about the times that I have been very perceptive, but others convinced me that I was wrong. After years and years of having this done to me, I finally accepted that I lacked any perceptive skills. However, that goes against who I am and how my brain works. Those with sensory integration issues, like myself, are VERY perceptive of their surroundings (sometimes it may be detailed, and specific). Many times it looks like we are not because we shutdown. Or go into meltdown mode. The intensity of emotional, physical, and sensory combined can be too much to bear at times.

It is much like empathy — we do not lack it many times we don’t know what to do with it.

There have been many occasions when I knew that people were lying, or they were not very nice people. I would voice my concerns with others and they would tell me that I was wrong. Have you ever noticed that many charismatic people tend to gain the trust of the masses? Have you ever heard of the famous doctor serial killer Marcel Petiot? He was supposedly very charismatic, charming, intelligent, and a doctor! Even though he had gotten busted for thieving while he was mayor, people still supported him. He continued to steal and be shady — I guess he remedied any issues by moving to Paris and using his charms there. (Until he got caught, that is.)

I find all of that so interesting because we as humans can be so easily swayed.

We can doubt ourselves based on group think, or status think. Many bullies get away with things because the perception is, they are a good student, a star athlete, or a teacher’s pet. Many people in our lives can convince us that what we perceive is wrong based on their own fears, insecurities, or desires. I personally have had so much hope in the good of people that I have challenged my own gut instincts, and changed my perception. I think my mom and David have been the only two to see me consistently call out people who are not being honest, forthright, or deceptive.

Thinking about it more I do have several friends who have witnessed this with me.

I forget that I do have several friends that I have kept for over 10 years. My bad…My memory is proving to fail me.   I had learned to not say anything and to sit in doubt and confusion. Both of them have also caused me to question myself as well, but I know that they were not trying to hurt me. (They tend to be distrustful of people.) I have been right about people being good when others have perceived them as bad as well.

They had their own personal reasons, but I felt confident enough to challenge them after a while.

I still was not sure of myself and would loop about what I thought, what I saw, what I heard, why they did not believe me, and a zillion other questions. After watching some of these videos, reading some more information, and also going over my perception skills, I have come to the conclusion that I am not as far-off as I thought. We have to learn to trust our instincts, but also know that we can be heavily influenced by our wants, fears, other people’s perceptions, and how we view the world. I am going to work on fine tuning my perception skills so I can trust myself a little bit more. I know, just like my memory it will not be 100% accurate, (no one is) but it is worth it to stop anxiety and irrational thoughts.

I read through this article again Navigating Love and Autism and compared some things to my own experiences.

The section about Kristen and her boyfriend at the time hit a nerve. It made me recognize how I picked up a faulty perception of myself based on many similar words spoken to me from family, friends, and ex’s. The section begins with this:

“Kirsten’s two previous boyfriends had broken up with her, too, and her current boyfriend was an unlikely match — a charismatic extrovert with soulful blue eyes who thrived on meeting new people. But when she admitted at the outset of their senior year in high school that she envied his social ease, he had embraced the role of social coach.” (emphasis added)

As I read many of the comments that her ex-boyfriend made to her it was a flash of my own life.

I see how people in my life have perceived me as cold, rude, uncouth, and juvenile at times. They would then decide to take me under their wing to guide me into proper social “fitting in” ways. It would work for a while, but I always end up saying or doing something not “right”.   The whole article is packed full of greatness, and it helped me to gain a bit more understanding about myself. It is also a great resource to help the kids as they get older. I am so happy to have people of all ages opening up and sharing their stories, it is going to pave a path for our kids to succeed so many ways.  Hopefully it will help change the perception and stigma in a lot of areas not only autism. I have a lot more to ponder so I am going to stop with that.

I watched these videos that were interesting as well:

Beau Lotto: Optical illusions show how we see

In this talk about optical illusions at the end he is explaining how they are transforming color into sound, I chuckled a bit because my mind already does that.

BBC Horizon: Do you see what I see? “The Himba tribe”

I did point out the different green square before they pointed it out. I can’t find the rest of the video.

Do You See What I See? (I can’t get this one to play, but maybe some of you can.)

Update: I have currently tried to correct this post 8 times, and I am driving myself batty. If there are any inconsistencies or if I am not making sense, just let it slide. I have gotten brain clutter I think from everything I consumed, and I am having a hard time filtering. So now I am going to go paint. Dippity-doo!

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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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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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I read a post titled Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Causes, Consequences and Cure and as I read it, I linked together my own symptoms, derived from communication and relationships, that are similar to PTSD. I hope that I will be able to explain this properly – I will try my best. The post explains the causes of PTSD and how in order for it to be properly diagnosed certain requirements need to be met. As I went through them, I thought of what Temple Grandin said in a documentary. She said that the autistic mind’s primary emotion is fear. Because of this, many autistics are able to understand animals because that is what an animal’s primary emotion is.

Be on guard for predators!

Be watchful all the time so there are no surprise attacks. Being watchful means analyzing everything, watching everyone, trying to remember details, and infusing them into the brain so that one will not forget the dangers. However, the dangers are never clear until they happen and until the attack, comes the only thing that is felt is the lingering, heavy foreboding. As I thought of my own mind being driven by fear all of my life, I thought about what I felt was a predominant danger. What were the reasons that I felt unsafe, in danger, constantly waiting for an attack, always fearful, and feeling helpless, at fault, or unable to escape.

Communication-Relationships-Emotions

I am afraid of all of them. All three of them have done surprise attacks on me and all of them are unclear and constantly changing. They all have the feel of me being in a wide open space and not being able to hide or protect myself. I have experienced all of them first, second, and third hand. All three of them have significant meanings because they are an everyday, all day, constant occurrences. Imagine always being on guard, analyzing, seeking to understand what is going on, but feeling surrounded by predators. Not that they are, but even those closest to you surprise attack you. You drop your guard and begin to feel safe and speak freely, then BAM! The words flood out all over you. The words are not just words – they are like glue, tiny webs that latch on and through your brain.

They are fused together with smell, taste, touch, sight, and hearing.

Not only that, but every detail has been consumed from the person’s face to the half-inch crack in the ceiling. The shade of the sun and how it made shadows on certain objects. The words have feeling into the body. They have colors, tastes, and get absorbed into images. The desperate flooding of the mind with image after image, definition after definition, and not understanding the tone or body language while all of this going on. The intensity of each misunderstood word or action on your part is now turned to self-loathing because it is impossible to understand how you could possibly be such a horrible person to cause such hurt, anger, distress in another human being.

The good times are not remembered.

Anything good that you did is hard to remember because you HAVE to remember all the negative to try to stop it from ever happening again. Stop the pain that you cause or stop the pain that others cause you. Events in my life are quite traumatizing based on these factors. However, it is impossible to collect all the data because every person is different and will respond differently. Even those who have responded one way in the past may respond differently this time because of many other factors that are unknown. My mind consumes so many details and has been unable to discern what is important and what is not so much that I have everything stored. It is hard to filter through to find positives.

Especially when I am continually misunderstood.

My way of communication can seem very self-centered. I am constantly having a conversation going on in my head and a lot of times the conversation spills out and can be heard by others. I tend to have the conversation in my head going while talking to others. I can forget that I am having a conversation with another person by getting consumed in my own thoughts, connections, and/or pulling the data to try to find a pattern. I can also think the conversation is over when they do not feel that it is. Things that I say aloud are perceived to be directed toward the person. They are not, they are usually rules that I am telling myself to help me remember the moment. I accidentally say it out loud. If a person gets offended or upset at me, I feel attacked because I do not understand what they are upset at and I feel like I was in a safe enough place subconsciously to say it aloud.

By the attack, I no longer feel safe and I shut down.

I now have that infused in my brain and the event has been hurtful, confusing, and causes distress. The fear or anxiety is heightened by the person’s attempt to tell me how I hurt them or they try to explain to me how they feel. Feelings? I am pretty basic in my feelings, happy, sad, angry, or afraid. I know I am happy when I do not feel sad, I know that I am sad when I do not feel happy, I know anger because it rises up and burns my belly, I know fear because it rises up and causes me to feel like little needles are piercing me all over, especially in my heart.

Other expressive emotions or feelings can confuse me because I do not understand why I am feeling them.

Communication My Trauma? II

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It has been hard for me to accept emotions that do not seem logical. I can understand loving my children because they are my children, I am their mother. I assume that I would automatically love them, but it makes sense to love them as well because you are supposed to love your children. Does that make sense? I am processing, forgive any nonsense. I have learned to only put emotions like overwhelming love into writing or other “acts” like giving gifts, pictures, music, etc. because the words are too powerful for me. I also do not use words unless I truly mean them when it comes to deep emotions. If I say them out-loud it is incredibly difficult, scary, and significant. I do have categories for my emotions and the categories have different definitions for each word according to their placement. I can get confused by people saying things to me like: “You made me feel like this, how does that make you feel?” I DON’T KNOW! And if the person keeps on, I get so detached that I feel nothing at all.

Nothing, void, blank, hollow!

When that has happened I have felt attacked because I couldn’t explain myself. People do not like to hear that you feel nothing, for some reason it makes them angry. I would like to say that this has been with one person, but in actuality it has happened my whole life. It has made communication, relationships, and emotions very traumatizing and difficult. Social activities for people, everyday communication, and relationships are normally fine for others. For me, it is as if I am a gazelle in an open field just trying to eat grass, but surrounded by a pride of lions. I don’t even know how to explain my fear and trauma from what I have experienced with other people’s emotions. I have lived with the fear of hurting people and I try so hard not to, but somehow I seemed to do it quite often. (So I perceived. I am reevaluating my perceptions and people’s reactions in this process.)

I have throughout my life hurt people and have not understood exactly why.

For a person who feels that one of the worst things you can do is to hurt someone, it is devastating to discover that your words, actions, and own expressions cause other people pain. It was one of the reasons that I stopped writing for a while. I felt tremendous guilt and anxiety about what I wrote. I even stopped myself from writing what my true feelings were and only wrote what I thought I was supposed to feel so I would not hurt anyone. I tried to convince myself that my form of expression was wrong and should not be shared. I though i should only fluffy things to make people smile. I withered inside and became a shell. But I do not understand my emotions except through writing them through various means. It is the only way I know how to process and understand what I am feeling and discern what is real from fabrications.

I am trying very hard to associate positives alongside the negatives.

I am working on accepting the shades of gray and blend the good and bad together so that I do not continue to feel like I am being attacked or waiting for the attack. It can be a hard task when all of your sensory pulls up information connected to all of the details your brain has stored up for a lifetime. It is hard to filter through and live life trying to understand communication. Your own way of communication then adds to other people’s. It makes me wish that there was a program that would easily plug into my brain so I would not have to worry about it anymore. Not really, it sounds good until I think it through.

I know that I am using an extreme by comparing PTSD symptoms to my trauma with communication.

I am not saying that it is necessarily PTSD. I am looking at it through a comparison to see how it could be very traumatic for me (possibly others on the autism spectrum) compared to others. I have triggers with words, songs, pictures, voices, weather, objects, on and on that will manifest conversations and events where I was confused, distressed, or completely taken aback. I relive the words, actions, facial expressions, mannerisms, the places we were, sounds, smells, colors…I can recall everything. I relive how I felt and the pain or confusion I experienced. The complete helplessness, fear, and anxiety. Whether this is my heightened sensory processing, autism, or PTSD, it doesn’t matter. It happens to me and it can be hard to relive. (It could be all three.)

I am learning to process them through a different lens.

The negatives that hit me, I am writing them out through a poem or story and I am turning them into positives. Some of the poems or stories may not feel so good to others, in my opinion they have a positive outcome. They help me to blend my black and white to find my gray and be ok with it. I get scared about gray. It is so unpredictable. It has no distinct lines. It swims and doesn’t have clear rules. It makes me uneasy. In order for me to be ok with it, I think upon things and people that make me happy, the few people who make me feel understood and safe.

They make me feel safe stepping out to find the gray.

I have been writing my thoughts and personal experiences about communication. I am hoping all of this helps me eliminate many of the fears that I have had. As I write, I am realizing the many ways that I have misread people causing me to create negative loops. There are many other times that I have NOT misread people, but they were unclear or claimed that I was misreading them and that caused me negative loops. I will be exploring more about my loops in the next post in this series, I think. I am not sure I will ever be alright with communication, relationships, and emotions, to be honest I do not know one single person who is.

If they say they are I would be cautious of them. (ha ha ha get it? “cautious”?)

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Sometimes I Google my name to see what pops up. I not only cyber stalk others, but myself as well! I actually do it to make sure there is enough misinformation so people who I do not want to find me won’t. I know I sound a bit paranoid, I am not really there are some freaky people from my past that I would prefer thought that I fell off the face of the earth or that I am living in seven different places with several different aliases. I pretend that I am a spy sometimes. Just kidding! I cyber stalked myself the other day and again the top link is a family ancestry with the wrong birthday.

I have told my great-aunt several times that it is the wrong birthday, but she has not changed it.

I don’t know what she did to the ancestry website. It used to be super cool and it dated back to year 1200 or something with lineage from Germany, England, and France. I really wanted to study it sometime, but she changed it and now I cannot find any of that information clearly. Sorry. So the usual links were up some were me some were not. I like looking at the “not” me’s too that can be fun. I clicked to the second page and noticed my name in the newspaper of my hometown. I had not seen this before or I didn’t notice, it was for a science fair. I clicked on it and discovered that in 8th grade my partner and I had won in a science fair.

Under the category “Medicine and Health”

The project was comparing what plants and medicine have in common. I was shocked when I read this. I had a vague memory of it and I also had some memories of other science fair projects that I had done. At first I thought that maybe it was a mistake. Then, I started to recall the memories. It was another time when the whole event was turned into a negative. I started to recall many memories regarding school. One of my biggest problems with school happened to be my mom. I really wish I could explain this in a more positive light, but I cannot. My mom showed no interest in my schooling, she hated school and projected that on me as well. All she wanted was for me not to bring home bad grades so she didn’t have to deal with it.

After school activities were an aggravation to her.

I remember in third or fourth grade I started to want to go to the basketball games on a regular basis. I could as long as I found my own ride home. She did not want to pick me up or she could not because she was at work. However, she still didn’t like me going. She didn’t like me going over to friend’s houses, but she would let me as long as the parents brought me home and I wasn’t late. I think it was in fifth grade that I wanted to do track and I talked her into letting me, but I had to find my own way home. With the pressures of having to constantly ask people to take me home and the fact that my mom had no interest in it, I stopped. There were other social reasons as well dealing with competition, but that is another part of the story.

I was able to participate in one event for track though.

They had several other options as well and one of them was the football throw. Yes, I did do the football throw, I was pretty good at throwing the ball a far distance. I had a friend who played basketball for a while too, she was considered a tomboy more so than myself and she was really good at basketball. I played with her at recess. My problem though is that I really like the sound of basketballs bouncing and I like the vibrations that I see when it does bounce, needless to say I got distracted a lot. I used to play with my basketball in our driveway all the time. I liked spinning it with my wrist into the air to see how high I could get it. I would practice spinning it on my finger (I cannot recall the correct terms) but I remember one of my favorite things to practice was the crossover dribble.

It reminded me of a “V” as I did it.

Also I like it because it made a balance move for me, I was using both hands and swayed my body, it could be kind of like a dance move. My mom hates sports and my dad was severely addicted at one point. Now it is running. When I lost that friend I didn’t really have anyone to practice with anymore. I could not with my dad because he would tell me all of the things I needed to work on and explain to me for hours how I had messed up. Do it perfect or don’t do it at all. Be number one or just forget it. He was an all-star athlete in school, he was unable to play basketball because it clashed with other sports schedules. As an adult it became an obsession and let’s just say the family reunions were not fun and someone always got hurt. I just wanted to “play” flippin’ basketball with my dad. My sister took the basketball reigns and was awesome! However, my dad was her coach and I am not too sure what all happened, but she quit and that was unfortunate. She was really good.

I got sidetracked I have a lot of sports stories.

I usually do not talk about any of them or I just say that I do not like sports so I don’t have to think about it. Back to the science fair, I remembered that I got yelled at because I had to stay after school and someone needed to pick me up. I remember that it was a major disruption for me to go over to my partners house. I remember that she was also frustrated with me because I could not spend the large amount of time that we needed to put the project together. I also remember that I really enjoyed it and was quite fascinated with our project. I think I blocked a lot of things like that out because I have so many negatives associated with it. I gave up on trying to keep my grade point average up by the end of 8th grade because the only reason why I wanted to was so I could stay on the dance team. BUT I had to be at every basketball game and special event, unless I could get someone to take me I got yelled at for needing my mom or step-dad to take me and pick me up.

It was really the only thing I loved at that time, dancing at being at the games. (remove social confusion that is)

I had one of those moments the other day where I got really angry. I feel like this was just plain wrong. I should have been able to go to events and participate in sports, science fairs and the dance team without being responsible for myself or feel guilty for wanting to participate. My mom didn’t understand it and she thought that it was stupid. It feels wrong that I could not share with my parents. I remembered that I didn’t even tell my dad about the science fair because the other ones that I was in he either took over about himself as a kid or he told me how great some other person did in their project. I am not trying to parent bash here I just really don’t get it. Well I do, my mom had no interest in the things that I was interested in and if she is not interested or she dislikes it, it doesn’t exist. My dad I have several things in common with, but I cannot talk to him about them and I definitely do not want to try them because then it becomes a competition between us.

If I did well he would have to try to beat me.

He does this with everyone and I do not know why. It makes me very thankful that he cannot dance or write the way that I do because there is no competition. Although it doesn’t get recognized. I think that is better actually, I would rather it be that way after thinking about it. All of this has got me thinking and challenging the negative thoughts that I have repeated to myself over the years about not being intelligent or not being good enough. It really got me thinking about my love for computers and how my brain naturally gravitates towards the way computers work. I have taken my interest and gone over to MITopencourseware and was intrigued by how much I understand about computer science. Yes, I am also learning a lot. It has triggered the desire more so to go to school. I am planning on trying one class and go from there. I am tired of the negative voices stopping me.

My blast from the past and win at the science fair stirred something in me and I am going for it.

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

Here is some of my list:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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It is no secret that I believe in God, I talk about Jesus and I have talked about my faith. It is part of me and it just comes out. It is no secret with people who know me that I have a lot of questions about God, I do not think that is a bad thing. In the past several years though I have had several challenging events in my life to wonder what it is all about. Why do I believe in God? Why when I sit and think about it can I not deny that He exists or is even intervening somehow in our world? I am not asking for answers to these questions, I am just sharing. At times I am perfectly fine and settled with what I feel and then other times I am thrown once again. I think part of my problem is the expectations of others. Those who expect me to believe in God the way that they do, and if I don’t, they try to convince me how wrong I am.

What is the point of personal relationship?

Doesn’t the statement “personal relationship” automatically imply that my relationship will be different? There are fundamentals to religions that cannot be left out but still shouldn’t there be freedom to have that independent relationship with God? I have been going over past thoughts, journals and blog posts where I have stated that I heard God or I felt like He told me to do something. What is interesting is that I cannot say with absolute certainty that it was truly from God. When I look back I see how easily I have been influenced by others. Their voices, ideas, interpretations have all had a strong influence on me because I had so many years of feeling wrong and unable to trust myself.

David and I have discussed the beginning of our relationship.

At that time I was doing pretty well at gaining my trust back toward myself. I was walking in my independence and I spoke my mind. I had anxiety issues but I was able to control them through taking my alone time. I really started thinking about what happened to me, somewhere over the years I have lost my voice, my independence, my trust in myself, and own thoughts. When I first spoke to David that one night and we went for coffee, I didn’t know what it was, as a matter of fact I was thinking platonically because I felt that I was supposed to speak what God told me to and then David was supposed to do whatever with that.

As I think about it, after that night I do not think David has left my side.

He contacted me the next day and the next. Slowly all of my alone time was gone. I started isolating myself from church and friends and I went on a mission to help David. Shortly after we moved to another state the roles reversed. It was clear that after the move I was completely derailed and became the focus of needing help. It has been that way ever since. We have been searching for all of my problems and how to fix me. Year after year I have called upon God to fix me. Asking Him why do I lack intimacy? Why am I disconnected? Why don’t I understand? Why are there so many things wrong with me? Why won’t my brain stop? Why, why, why? And every year we found no answers. Although, we did gain a lot of answers when I discovered and embraced my Aspie traits and sensory processing issues but it did not fix my lack of connection.

Again I am facing God and I am asking questions about the voices in my head.

I am not ashamed about saying that I may have been wrong in what I have heard in the past, thinking it was God. It is part of our spiritual growth. We see it for what it is and move on. I used to have a fear about being false and claiming that what I heard was from God. I have always been cautious with that but the thing is I have a 50/50 chance. Either I am right or I am wrong. It doesn’t change the fact that God is there for me. He allows us to mess up and even mess up in His name, even to the point of blaming Him for all of those speaking out of their own motives. I will confess now that I have been one of those people.

So what do I with this?

Here it is, I have learned a very big lesson. I have learned that I have been influenced and guided in my thinking for a long time. I have learned to be codependent on God and authority figures in an unhealthy way. I have learned that I need to think for myself and start trusting my instincts, while still being cautious. I have learned that my relationship with God is my own and no one can tell me what it is supposed to look like and I definitely do not want to tell anyone else what theirs is supposed to look like. My personal opinion is that God wants us to think for ourselves. As we grow in our walk with Him or even as those who do not believe in Him, the challenge is to be ok with changing. Discovering that it is ok if our thoughts, ideas and even beliefs change over time. I’ve written it before but I will say it again, I think that is what we are supposed to do.

I am ok with being wrong in this area…for the moment.

I will probably freak out a little later but for now I understand the many ways I have submitted to others thoughts and direction. I see how I could not discern what was right or wrong because I was bombarded with information and ideas. I wasn’t given the time or the quiet to process and work through my own way of reasoning. This is a pattern I have done my whole life. I see how at times I turn around and do the same thing to others because I have been shaken and I am seeking answers. This time around I am stopping it. I need to process on my own, find my own voice and think for myself. It is very hard but I know I can do it because I have done it before. The difference this time is that I cannot lock myself up from the world and sink into my own private world to do so. I have to learn to process while the other voices are hammering me but also telling them they are not allowed to guide my decisions or progress.

We’ll see where this ride takes me.

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Needless to say my second marriage was not founded on anything good. As I describe in my previous post. I prayed and prayed for God to change me. I really did, I thought I was so horrible for not liking him. But I perceived him as fake, he would change all the time right in front of my eyes. He kept things from me; twice I discovered piles of bills hidden in our second bedroom. He just wouldn’t tell me. I have no idea where the money went. All of this was going on while we served at church. We served in several areas together. He was being considered as a deacon. All the guys loved him and the ladies thought he was charming or something. There were many things going on but the final straw was actually my fault. Sometimes I am just too honest, thinking that I am helping but I make it worse. We were at a counseling session for couples because we were having problems and we were trying to get help. We were told to be completely honest.

I told him that he really needed to pray for our marriage because I had a crush on another guy at work.

Oh, yes I did. I told him that not because I was acting on my feelings but because I was seeking help in the situation. I told my pastor, who in turn told others in the name of “prayer” and the rumors started flying that I was cheating. I later found out that my ex had told some leaders as well that I was cheating. It was a mess. By that time he had already left, dumping all of my belongings out all over the house and taking whatever he could that he said belonged to him. I felt completely violated and devastated. I am admitting, I got to a point to where I couldn’t stand the sight of him. I had many meltdowns and tantrums because he was a liar and he threw my sensory issues beyond any other thing in the world. At times his presence hurt my flesh.

For a while when he was still there, I wouldn’t come home until wee hours of the morning.

I just couldn’t, I would rather sit with friends or my car alone than go home to him. I will say we both did things wrong but sometimes I feel like I did the biggest wrong by not listening to myself or God and I caused both of us to suffer needlessly. It did not help that in the beginning of our marriage I had a miscarriage, it really made things much worse. He left and caused me lingering problems for quite a while. But the story does not end there. There is the failed relationship of my church family.

I had several very hurtful things happen to me during this time.

I had some people pull me into a room and tell me that people were saying that I had cheated, I went off. I asked them who said it, why did people believe it, even if it was true who had the right to gossip about?? It was discovered the link being the pastor during a prayer meeting. I do not think it was his intention but it was hurtful. I had one of the elders wives corner me in the corridor of the church and say loudly “GOD HATES DIVORCE! You better do something to fix your marriage!” I just looked at her and said “You can’t make people change.” She then replied “Well God can change them and every marriage can be fixed.” I replied with “You cannot know what goes on in every marriage.” and I left. They had asked me to step down for a while serving, I felt they were right and I had no problem doing so.

The day was soon approaching though when I was to return to teaching the kids.

It was the day before I was to return to class, I had asked for the curriculum a week in advance and no one gave it to me or would talk to me. I got a call from the pastor (he was a new pastor than the youth interim) at work telling me to please come to church after work because he wanted to talk to me. I felt like I was in serious trouble. I went after work and the pastor and head elder sat me down and told me that the elders had voted and they decided that I could no longer teach the children. I understood and sobbed for days. They told me that they felt my character wasn’t good at that time to be around the children and that it would be too confusing for the kids. Side note here: The day before one of my friends had seen my ex with a girl going to the bank. It could have been nothing but it didn’t seem to be nothing to her when she saw them. I really don’t know, but it is interesting that my character was being judged.

No one ever talked to the kids about the situation and I was not allowed to, even though they all asked.

The very next Sunday was a final blow to me. The new pastor’s son had recently graduated seminary and was a youth pastor. He started going to the church because he had to move in with his parents. His wife had found another man and left him. That Sunday he got up talked about his divorce and then it was announced by the head elder that he would be the new youth pastor starting immediately. I still don’t even know how to take all of that. I asked why it was ok for him and not me; I was told that he was open and honest about it so that probably made a difference. I WAS OPEN AND HONEST! I told the pastor right away when things were wrong and that I needed prayer and that my marriage was failing. It still doesn’t make sense. I was never angry, I am still not but I was hurt. No one absolutely no one asked me anything except that small group of people.

I felt like I was  wearing a giant red “A” on my clothes.

I stayed for a while longer but then I felt led to go to another church. The new church helped me recover. They were very accepting and they built me up. They encouraged my challenging questions and they even let me rant about inconsistencies with the scriptures that I felt I saw. I feel like the Lord really led me to a place of healing and it also helped me to not become bitter and angry at all churches. That was my first church experience as an adult. My first church experience as a new Believer. My first church experience with groups of church people. It was not a good one and unfortunately it was not the last. It feels good to write this out. I have held on to it for so long for fear of people thinking that I am bitter or hateful. I am not, I am sad by the experience. I am sad that people can go to church their entire life and never get the message of Christ. I wish the message wouldn’t get lost in experiences like this.

I know that I am not the only one and that makes it even harder for me to bear.

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I have mentioned before that I was not brought up in church, though I was influenced by Biblical teachings and ideas of Christian faith. I came to Christ on my own, through reading the entire Bible (Protestant) from beginning to end, by myself. No one told me to, except I felt very compelled to read it. When I read it I had a pretty distorted view of Jesus, I was good with an all-powerful God but Jesus? What was He all about? For some reason when I read the Bible in its entirety He made sense in my mind. I took to His teachings as literal. I looked upon Jesus as a Jewish man, who showed us how to live by the Jewish teachings and concepts. I knew I was a gentile and didn’t feel like the lifestyle of the Jewish people was what I was supposed to do, though.  I did not become confused until I started reading more Westernized Christian influenced teachings and listening to their preaching. Mainly what many “Americanized” teachings have  adopted as a philosophy and call it “religion”. (I mean no offense I am just trying to explain my mindset.)

I felt like in order for me to understand my faith that I needed to go to church.

One morning I felt led to turn on the radio, I flipped through the channels and at the end of some sermon, which I had missed completely; the preacher went into how to accept Jesus into your heart. I fell to my knees and just felt like that was what I needed to do. I sobbed for an hour, nothing in particular coming to mind, except for, I felt accepted. Accepted and at peace for the first time in my life. I became obsessive about learning the scriptures and studying all about what the Bible meant. I heard in my inner being, I guess that is the best way to describe it, to get baptized. No one told me this; I read it in the scriptures. I was baptized by my father at his church, that became mine too.

I had conflicting feelings the entire time I was there.

First of all, when I arrived the pastor of over 13 years just got removed because it was discovered that he and the secretary were having an affair. The youth pastor had just taken over as the interim and there were a lot of emotions flying that I didn’t know how to process. My dad was a church leader at the time, until my second sister got pregnant at the age of 15 years old. Everyone was forgiving, with very condemning comments when my first sister had gotten pregnant, but after my second sister did, well….it was too much. My dad stepped down. I quickly got involved and started serving in children’s ministry. My first husband would not go to church with me; he was Catholic and felt very uncomfortable in a Non-Denominational church. We had a lot more problems after I became a Christian and started studying. His family did not appreciate my history lessons about the Catholic Church and they did not like my many questions about their faith.

I wasn’t trying to be rude; I genuinely wanted to know about their faith and beliefs.

Eventually we came to terms that our marriage was not going to work no matter how much counseling we did, I was obsessed with my faith and he was not. We just couldn’t get past it. The church was very accepting of me during this time, because he was Catholic and they felt that his faith was wrong anyway. Those are not my views, that was what the church felt. I was beyond devastated. The Christian faith made it clear that divorce was wrong; I personally never wanted to get a divorce because of my family history of multiple divorces and the pain that it causes. I felt like a failure and a horrible Christian. I carried the burden of him getting a divorce because he was Catholic and no one in his family had gotten divorces, there was just a lot.

The church made it clear that it was ok because they felt that he had abandoned me.

They needed that to make it ok. The children at church never even knew I was married because I was always alone so they had no problem with me to continue serving. I then found my second husband, whom I despised from day one. I never liked him, I thought he was a fake and a phony and I told him so. A lot. I went against my gut and I listened to all of the church people tell me that he was such a great guy, “he is so spiritual”, a “real man of God” and so and so on. I knew that he lied to me while we were dating and I called him on it every time. He would ask me “How do you know this stuff?”  I wish I would have listened to my feelings that told me to get away from him. I will give you one example of how I feel God was trying to make it very clear that I was right in my judgment, but did not trust it.

It was New Years Eve weekend and he had made plans to go to his hometown.

I begged him not to go. I just knew something bad was going to happen. He told me “I have to go; it’s like the ending of my previous life. It’s symbolic.” He went and I was praying the second he got on the road. I was up all night, that New Years Eve, I wrote it all down in my prayer journal. I saw like a vision of what he was doing throughout the evening. When he came back, I told him that I knew he had cheated on me and that I saw all of the things he had done. He claimed that they did not happen and that I made it up. I described the girl. He still denied it. After a few months he did something similar and the same thing happened though I did not see him cheat but I did see him with a girl.

He finally broke down, confessed all.

I had been right about everything. I then felt like it wasn’t about me, it was about him and God. I led him into prayer and he rededicated is life to Christ. Then after that he asked me to marry him. I said I don’t know. Later that day I was working alone, my heart was broken because I had been right and I didn’t know what to do. I heard my name being called, like in the air and I looked up. I saw like a vision  and I heard, “I would not give you someone who would hurt you.”(Not audibly, it’s hard to explain) I understood what that meant because after all of my failed relationships (with the exception of my first husband), the common thread was they lied, they cheated, and they did drugs, and was abusive to some extent. I ran to my ex and told him what had happened and I told him how I felt like that meant we were not to be together.

He said “No, I think that means that before, if I did not rededicate to Christ. Now that I have changed you know I won’t hurt you.”

I was very confused, I talked to my Christian friends and they all said what he had said. I assumed that I was wrong. I thought “Well maybe it is possible that he was the wrong guy before but now that he has accepted Jesus, maybe he is the right guy.” I didn’t trust my gut with my first marriage and I didn’t with my second. In my first marriage I made the decision based on never wanting a divorce. Since he was Catholic, I really believed we would never get a divorce. The difference about him and my second ex-husband was that I genuinely liked him as a person. He is now remarried and very happy and I was so happy to discover that. My second husband I married because everyone else told that he was right for me and since I couldn’t trust my judgment on relationships, I believed them.

Our marriage was built upon distrust and my overall dislike for him as a person.

More to come….

Personal Note: When I talk of hearing voices or seeing visions, I am not really sure how to explain it properly. It could be a variety of things going on. I have intense dreams as well that have given me clear direction, so scientifically it could be my brain telling me the right thing to do. Spiritually it could be how I experience God.  I have gone over mental reasons and do not fall under the criteria for any of the mental disorders that I have read. For me I am comfortable with both the reasons being science and God.

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