The title is from an Animaniacs cartoon I watched years ago, I actually watched it again this morning with the kids. The title of this particular toon is “Wally Llama”. Here is an episode summary:

(Yakko, Wakko, and Dot Short) ”Wally Llama who lives on top of a mountain in the Himalayas is the wisest creature in the world. After he grows sick of answering questions he vows to stop for the rest of the day. The Warners arrive and pester him to answer one question. Eventually he gives in, but when he hears the question he goes crazy because he cannot figure out the answer. The question is why do hot dogs come in packages of ten, and hot dog buns come in packages of eight?

There are numerous reasons why I relate very much to this episode.

One being the question that the Animaniacs ask at the end “Why do hot dogs come in packages of ten, and hot dog buns come in packages of eight?” This is the type of question that I get all day long from my own little Animaniacs, but sometimes it is a bit too much.   The main reason why I chose to talk about this today is because I took Wally Llama’s coping skills as my own years ago after watching the episode. I was a supervisor in a stressful job, living in a stressful environment and when I would get overwhelmed I would close my eyes, plop down on the floor, (I did not care if it was the middle of the store or if I crossed my legs in a chair in the middle of a restaurant.) place my hands up, and repeat “Llama, llama, llama, llama, llama” Yes, I did. I would not always plop down, but I would hold my hands up in meditation position, close my eyes, and repeat llama.

Most people would laugh and that would help me laugh.

Once I started laughing I was able to cope. This week has been a bit rough at times and our 2319! Plan has not been working. I was at my wits end with the boys the other day because they are having such miscommunication that it is was causing some serious meltdowns.  I was getting so frustrated at not knowing how to deal with it that out of desperation I said: “Come on boys sit down criss cross applesauce. Let’s close our eyes, put our hands up like in Yoga, and you say what Mommy says.” I then said: “Llama” over and over and they said it with me within a few minutes we were all laughing and calm. After that, we were able to talk calmly about what had happened and everything was cleared up.

I have been doing it for days now.

It is working! (For the moment.) I can only find the clip of Wally Llama in Spanish which makes it sound even better. We purchased the episode off of iTunes. This week has been a huge week of progress as well… so I am not surprised by the meltdowns. All three of them have been practicing their handwriting, which is extremely stressful for them. They all have to use a lot of concentration and effort to practice writing, but they are doing so awesome. I started the Autism & Reading Comprehension this week as well and the boys are doing great! I was very surprised at how much Daniel does comprehend I shouldn’t be. All three of them comprehend, but they all three also show their comprehension through different ways. Ariel is way beyond in her reading and comprehension although — she is still enjoying doing the lessons with the boys. I really like the book and the lessons being laid out. I have to constantly try new things with the boys to keep them focused on reading.

Ariel reads all the time.  

Daniel likes to read, but he can forget words. If I do not continually stick to a reading program he will lose interest and the words that he has learned. We then have to start all over again, not for all words, but the bigger ones. This also can be quite taxing on them, and cause meltdowns. They are doing great at many of the math concepts, but need more work with subtraction. I decided to focus on subtraction this week as well. I think that may have been a bit too much to add while starting something new with reading this week. Even though they are doing well with subtraction — I did not think through all of the new things that were happening this week…for all of us.

I get kind of freaky when I know that their evaluations are coming quickly.

I have several months, but I go in hyper-drive at times wanting to make sure they are at level and learning everything they need to be learning. AND I think that is why my mind pulled out Wally Llama. I need to make sure that I am not pushing too much. These guys are above-average in many of their academics and are constantly asking questions. It is so easy to miss the progress and things that are accomplished  sitting right in front of you when you are constantly focused on the things you feel need to still be accomplished. I need to sit back and appreciate how much these guys know, and enjoy the way each of them see the world in such awesome and unique ways. I also found some Yoga DVD’s for kids that have been fun for us. We started them about two weeks ago. That is probably what triggered Wally Llama for me.

Maybe you would like to try it too, let me tell you sitting down and repeating “Llama” over and over can be quite amusing.

Here are the Yoga videos I am using with the kids.

YogaKids

Junior Yoga by Annette Lefterow (They are not as “enthused” with this one.)

AND I thought this was worth sharing as well. Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong

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This morning started out pretty well. I had my plans for school floating in my head, I was quickly typing out some poems that I remembered from my dreams last night, and just as I was finishing up to get ready to prepare breakfast…the tornado of Daniel came sweeping under my chair kicking and screaming. Through the yells it was revealed that he wanted a toy spider that he could not find. It started because for some reason Ariel and Joshua decided they wanted to play with toy bugs this morning. Daniel has not spoken about this spider in months, I mean MONTHS! I knew exactly which spider he was referring to because a couple weeks ago when I went into a cleaning frenzy and organized all of their toys once again, in my mad cleaning spree I saw this spider.

The spider had been in the corner of the kitchen hidden under various other objects.

It was hiding in a place that I had not seen because quite honestly I was completely overwhelmed with all of the random small pieces or mismatched toys that clustered various small places in this house. The toys that should go in a lost and found box for later, but somehow Daniel seems to think they belong in corners of the house, under my blankets on my bed, randomly placed in my closet, or completely dumped in any or all rooms of the house. I have pictures of these toy dumps for just today that I will convince him later that he needs to help me clean up. However, it will mainly be me or David cleaning it up. Yes, yes the spider.

I had to tell him that I threw it away.

WHY?? Why did I do such an evil vile thing? On purpose?! I will not go into detail, but will only say aggressive much? The last couple weeks have been the delayed reaction to the holidays. The kids in their own way have been having small meltdowns, but nothing major. Daniel has been aggressive off and on for about two weeks, but his recovery time and his aggressive behaviors have not been anywhere near what they used to be. I forget how much of a toll this takes on me because I am in reaction mode, then I wonder why I feel the need to stim for hours. This morning was pretty bad though. It was so bad that I had my own meltdown. I couldn’t help it. I was overwhelmed with being derailed once again for school and trying to pull myself together to get us able to focus and accomplish what we needed to for today.

I could not control my outburst.

It was not directed at the kids. I was trying to finish my thoughts because I was stuck and needed to get them out. Daniel was screaming at me, and kicking the back of my chair. Then, David asked: “Don’t you need to go to Target?” That did not sit well with me. I had no control over my words, and went in and started breakfast. I was throwing bread of course, and tossing eggs. Then, I stopped, put my head in my arms and kept repeating: “I can’t get back, I can’t get back.” while stomping my foot and almost crying. I was completely derailed. I have been struggling for weeks to get back to our schedule. It isn’t going well. The kids are being argumentative about school, and I am trying my best to stay motivated myself.

Long story short I had to apologize to David.

Daniel had to apologize to me. I went to Target and cried in the vitamin aisle, then felt guilt for having a meltdown. I did not find a spider so I had to go to two other stores and finally found one. If I did not get a spider Daniel would not have been able to move forward for who knows how long. I came home, gave him the spider and all was well with him anyway. Joshua and Ariel is another story. Joshua has been highly emotional lately and feeling like everyone is leaving him out. It does not make sense to me at all because no one is. It really causes me  confusion, which is never good because that makes me anxious. I don’t know how to help or even understand it. Ariel is transitioning from little girl to girl, and that has a whole other dynamic that I can relate to. I just was not expecting it at seven years old.

It’s all quite interesting.

The positive is that recovery time today and the other days have been short for the kids. I think part of my meltdown today was that I have been holding this stuff in and trying to put out fires forgetting that it affects me too. When Daniel is aggressive I have to be on my toes trying to save things in the house, stop him from throwing things, slamming doors, breaking the toys that he loves. I don’t know why he always goes to destroy his favorite toys. He always gets so upset after they are broken, it makes it worse. Wait…after thinking about it I have done the same thing. Maybe it is because we are so upset it makes us even angrier to see something that can make us happy. Possibly a form of control. Who knows I am analyzing to escape.

I am still overwhelmed and will need this day to recover.

We did finish all of our school work. Daniel completed everything and even brought me a social skills book saying: “I want to read this today. It is my favorite.” It was perfect because it has visuals and the wrong way and the right way to do things. It is this book The Social Skills Picture Book Teaching play, emotion, and communication to children with autism excellent resource. Daniel and Joshua are playing together and it is like nothing ever happened this morning. I am fine with that actually I am elated by that, but I am exhausted. I feel like I wrestled with a rhinoceros or something and I lost. It is already better so I am trying to get back on track by writing this out.

I did watch another TED video that I thought was worth sharing Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter …

Even if you feel no interest in watching the whole thing I do recommend listening to her poems in the beginning and at the end. It is a good reminder that the bad days always get better. BUT I will say it is excellent to watch she is a poet and the way that she talks about it explains my brain with poems. Project V.O.I.C.E.looks awesome!

I have been allowing the poems that are flooding through me to come out.

It is part of accepting my means of processing. I think I may feel some poems coming regarding my emotions for today, and tomorrow the kids and I are going to write some poems. I am going to see if they will be able to write some of what they have been feeling the last few weeks. The more that I listened to Sarah Kay the more I say even if you do not feel like a poet it is definitely worth watching. It is helpful to be reminded that others relate even if you do not hear from them or know it, or have consuming feelings like you have nothing to contribute. You do have a story to share and it matters.

Whatever your form of communication is — your voice matters.

Title of gallery “New Spider & Random Toy Dumps”

[Show as slideshow]

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Part of the problem as well is I think everyone else has no problems. I fall into the line of thinking that people have not felt this sort of thing — I feel that mainly with people in my personal life. I look at them and think they have it altogether and want to know why I do not. I do not know how to separate my own feelings of not wanting to hurt anyone from expressing myself. It makes me ache so badly at the thought of telling someone what I am feeling and then see it hurt them, or make them angry. I do not know how to process my emotions or what I am feeling by hurting or causing anger in another person. I am willing to die a slow aching death inside instead of telling someone how I feel fully.

I have instead built walls.

Only later to explode with emotion trying to force people to leave or I become numb to them so that I can finally say what I need to. Then, I wait in anticipation because I do not know how they are going to respond. Somehow I have to train my mind to be able to speak up and say that my pains and hurts matter. I have to express it even if it does affect someone else in a negative way or they do not give a flying fahrvergnügen. (It popped in my head and sounded funny so I used it.) David has been exposed to my working through expressing myself it has been very hard for him at times. I seem to not be as affected when he expresses his emotions to me — I think it may be from my years of listening to others express themselves.

David had no idea that I have been so unhappy for all of these years.

He had no idea I had been depressed for years, especially when we lived out West. He had no idea I was holding on to a broken heart from a long time ago. He had no idea that I was hiding behind a shadow of him. He had no idea that I was hiding so much of myself all of these years. Honestly either did I. He has lived with me 24/7 for years now and he did not know. I did what I have done my entire life, I pushed back any of my doubts, fears, and questions for the sake of trying to make/keep people happy. It was not because he did anything to make me do that, I just assumed the role that I had been given since childhood. I pushed back all of my emotions because I did not think that they mattered, or that I was making them up. I am saying this again, that I would be rejected, or that I would hurt someone. I say “rejection” often because it is a big one, and as I have read around the blogosphere many people feel it.

I wanted everyone else to be happy, to the point of my unhappiness.

As I have taken a look at my past relationships with everyone I have seen many things with clarity. I have stepped away from denial and looked at them again — there have been true moments of understanding. This is hard for me to accept, but no matter how much they said they cared about me they still treated me like they didn’t. I have been an afterthought in many people’s lives that I have continued to regard as close and dear. The only way I can understand is by looking at them through a spectrum. One end of the spectrum is unconditional love the other end is complete hatred, most people fall into the middle even when they claim unconditional love. Maybe that is their definition of it. Maybe that is all they are capable of. Maybe my expectations are too high, but they have been too low for long enough so we’ll see how things go.

The focus has to be on the relationship.

Defining a relationship is a hard one for me since I have only known to suppress myself in them. I have read all kinds of things, I have written about it, and still my mind cannot grasp it. I guess I have to just look at the basics. Relationships are mutual in communication, trying to understand each other, sharing, being honest, and I believe acceptance is key. The other thing for a relationship to work is asking: “How does the other person define the relationship?”  I believe a lot of my confusion lies in, once again, my definitions of the relationships I have with people. I think my lacking theory of mind has caused me to believe that others feel the same way I do about them. The times that I discovered they do not or they do not place the amount of importance on things like I do, causes me to get hurt or confused.

I can confuse people because I am normally fine with limited contact.

I can go back and forth from not contacting at all to bombarding them with emails or fb posts. I don’t get upset if I do not hear from people all the time. I only get anxious when I am not sure what the relationship is. I can go months without talking to someone if I know how they feel about me. If I am unsure, I get loopy that is mostly with new relationships and family. An example is when I first became friends with someone online, both of us being Aspies with similar issues made it hard at first. We were both worried that the other would misunderstand, and leave. Or that we would offend each other, but after a month or so of us saying “I am not leaving, you cannot offend me, I fully accept you” we finally felt safe. (She rocks!) And that my friends is a loving thing to do for an Aspie.

I do see my patterns, but it may take a while to implement.

I think if I define what a healthy relationship is to me it will be very beneficial. I have spent so many years focused on what relationships mean to others. I know that if I no longer want to be hurt I need to change some things. I found a quote the other day that said: “I don’t know how to be someone that you would miss.” When I first read it I felt like it rang true with me, I felt like I wish I could be a person that someone would miss. The more I thought about it I got angry, and thought that quote may have it wrong. It should be something like: “It’s a shame you don’t know that I am someone to be missed”, or something much cleverer.   Actually Lisa from Alienhippy shared this quote the other day and I guess it makes it quite clear.

“Stop spending time with the wrong people. Life is too short to be with anyone who sucks the happiness out of you like marrow from a bone. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room. Never fight for a spot or sell yourself to someone who overlooks your worth. And, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.”

 ~ Dr. Christiane Northrup~

I don’t know how to walk in this quote, but I will try…

I read this quote the other day too.

“The meek shall inherit the earth because the aggressive people of the world will trample their face into it!” Ouch!

Disclaimer: What I have shared may have repeating information about relationships, I cannot keep track of my roaming mind. If indeed you have read things from me that are the same or quite similar well just remember I can be very loopy. However, every loop I go through I get a bit more clarity so enjoy the ride.

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Yes, hello sadness cycle there you are…Ironically every time I am in my “happy” cycle I tend to fool myself into believing that it will last. I was debating whether or not I wanted to “out” myself since I have been on such a good run, but the truth is, I fooled myself. It is an odd occasion where I am not feeling both happy/sad at the same time. I should start charting the degrees of what I am feeling. Today I am 51.8% sad and 48.2% happy. I am being consistent. It was not until yesterday, when I felt completely overwhelmed and started to have thoughts of not mattering to people that I realized this is truly a pattern of mine.

The things leading up to my current feelings are very clear.

I have exposed myself with information that I feel is making me naked in front of the whole world. I then, felt foolish over the things I shared. I felt like it was silly to feel exposed over what type of music I like or that I always wanted to go to the ballet. Most people do not find that exposing at all. However, to me I am sharing things that by my now expression of liking them is more intense. I have the feeling that NOW everyone else will know what I am thinking or feeling. I have voiced my liking for things before with no real consequence to me because I kept hidden my true feelings in my mind. Once I openly confessed how much I cared for something in my recent posts it was like my words revealed the real me, but to other people they were just words. I tend to forget that people do not think of them like I do.

Words and music are very personal things to me.

Many times I feel like I have closer relations with them than people…Ok, I actually do. I have deep attachments to some of these things that I have been sharing lately. Then, after I have shared them I relived past meltdowns/shutdowns, and other experiences about some of the things that I have exposed. Once those enter the picture I feel guilt or shame, or the worst possible feeling in the world for me — stupid. If I spiral down to the point of feeling like an idiot, well then I have mastered my perfect point of depression cycle.

I am not there yet, but that is also the reason for this post – to stop it.

What makes me feel stupid? It is not the feeling of lack of intelligence about certain topics, or questioning my ability to think and reason through most things. It is not about my ability to be educated, or feeling that I lack the ability to regurgitate information acquired in an articulate manner. No, it is not that at all, though what I am about to say does trigger doubt in my intellect sometimes. It is feeling like I am being made fun of, being misunderstood, treated poorly, feeling like I am misunderstanding others, and I cannot figure out what it is true or not. It is wondering if my aunt is angry with me for some reason though I have done nothing to make her angry, and if she was she would tell me. It is feeling anxious because I did not call my dad and step mom on Christmas because I couldn’t from social stress. It is the feeling of being invisible with all of my family members on fb while they are all “living” it up with each other and nary a Merry Christmas or Happy New Year sent my way.

I did email my dad that was all I could do.

David skyped his dad and step mom and, then his mom and her side of the family and I could barely get off of the computer long enough to say: “Hi”. My mom was here when David skyped his dad so I could say: “Hi” and not have to worry about talking very much. David did thank me for my feeble attempts to be social though I am a good faker in that area it tends to eat at me and gnaw at my insides until I crack. I have another post that I have been working through titled “Faking Happy”. There is a statement in there from David that I believe is worth sharing more than once. He said to me several days ago: “You have the ability to stay in long relationships completely unhappy, and no one knows it except for you.”

Yea, that spun me into several paths of thought.

It also brought tears that were completely unexpected. I can go through all of my long-term relationships and see this, with family, friends, ex’s, and even in my workplace. I was willing to work to the point of my complete illness both mental and physical because I did not want to hurt my bosses or upset them. These were bosses who used my abilities for their gain and did not treat me right at all. I remembered the last boss I had at a major retailer. We had an agreement I would come to his store if he got me in to do another round of what they called “Round Robin” sessions. The Round Robins were a day involving three sets of interviews with usually three executives all at the same time including store managers, district managers, and the Human Relations district manager. The regional manger would be there for certain positions. It was very challenging, and not the best thing for a person with anxiety issues or Aspergers. If I had known then I wouldn’t have been so hard on myself, and felt like such a failure.

I had gone through them twice already, and felt I could finally do well through them and get promoted.

There is a whole story with all of that, but basically my anxiety would get the best of me and my true self would not show. They always commented about me “not looking them in the eyes” and felt that I was too insecure and timid. HA! Me timid? I may be a lot of things, but when it comes to work I have never been timid. I was good at every job I did there and I knew it. I was a good trainer and most of the time a good leader when I did not have to deal with social nonsense.

Back to the story, I had been working over night for several weeks and was out of the loop.

I came in one morning to discover that the Round Robins were going on that day. My boss failed to tell me, and he did not even sign me up. He forgot about me even though he had been walking with me every night, complimenting me, and was even amazed at the amount of work I had accomplished in such little time. The people who I was talking to could tell that I was beyond upset, I asked where he was and they told me that he was part of the interviewing sessions.

I walked out.

They tried to stop me and calm me down, but I was done and I was not coming back. I sobbed uncontrollably the whole way home. I sobbed for hours, and I did not leave my bed. I felt such excruciating pain in my body that I cannot even describe. I felt broken. I felt rejected, invisible, and I could not understand why someone could not care the least little bit about me when I had poured my life into that store for him. Well for the company, but I was devoted to him as a boss. It triggered every moment in time where I put my trust in an authority figure, proved my loyalty and abilities only to feel trampled on and ignored. He called me leaving messages for me to come back, I did not pick up the phone I heard his messages on the machine.

I did come back and he apologized over and beyond.

He was honest in telling me that he didn’t have a good reason he had just forgotten. He forgot me. Do you know what that did to a person like me? It solidified the already pounding voices that had told me I did not matter. My hard work and over 60 hours a week that I put in did not matter. The fact that I drove 45 minutes to work, was there on time, stayed as long as he needed, fixed things in other departments for team leaders who were not fulfilling their job duties, and spending my days off if needed there…did not matter. My reactions may seem a bit extreme, but it triggered a lot of emotions at the time. I was also still deeply wounded by past relationships where the men in my life made me feel as if I didn’t matter. I got over it, I understood his reasons.

He did have a lot going on.

The positive that came out of it was that I did not have to go through those series of interviews ever again! He felt awful, and since I had already gone through them twice, he was on the committee, and I had proved my abilities and how capable I was I got promoted anyway. They also could not locate my previous reviews that had stated that I needed more “growing”. It was strange. I look back on some of my situations where I felt completely devastated by things like that and see how a lot of the times they ended up working out in my favor. It does not take away the feelings of rejection, the feelings that I was not even thought of was extremely painful, I still feel it today. I do not know how other people handle these types of things. I do not know how people get over these thoughts, or when the sting of familiar feelings hit how do they not relive them.

My mind has to work double time to cope with this stuff.

I am nowhere near where I used to be, and that is a positive. I read several posts yesterday from the blog Life with Aspergers about Aspergers and depression. I cannot tell you how much these posts helped me. I combed through them and applied what I was learning. I discovered my biggest problem is much like my anxiety problem was I have not accepted this cycle. I finally accepted my anxiety which has helped immensely. Even though I have confessed my understanding of the cycles, I still have not accepted all of them fully. I had hidden thoughts that somehow if I had the information that it would miraculously disappear. I am not talking about being in severe depression — I know the difference between that and my cycles. I would go to a doctor if I was feeling that way. This is the depression that comes and is triggered by certain things, but I know that it will go soon enough.

I get negative thoughts, but mostly because I hold in my hurt, anger, or frustrations.

I also can cause myself a great deal of stress by fixating on my confusion. I will start to think things like I shouldn’t post ever again, or share my poetry, or walk out of my house because what does it matter anyway. I begin to believe that people do not want to hear from me ever again. I have images of family, and friends rolling their eyes at my emails or comments. I then think they only reply because they feel obligated. I start to tell myself that I need to clam up. I need to wither away into my own small world with no social contact so that I will not feel the social confusion, or anxiety.

It’s funny as I am writing these out and sharing them I see how silly they sound.

That reveals to me how I should not waste time on these kinds of thoughts or worry about things like whether my family even knows if I exist. I have accepted this cycle and I can already feel some of the silly thoughts leaving me now. I confess though they feel real, but I know that many of them are not. I am going to listen to this song for a while ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE~Johnny Mercer & The Pied Pipers and work through some of these thoughts. I am tired of faking happy. Tomorrow I will shoot for 68% happy and 32% sad…my gradient of joy. My acceptance of the depression (sadness) cycle is a healing process for me with my acceptance comes the ability to think of new ways to handle and process it. I am exchanging unhealthy patterns for new healthier ones one layer at a time.

If you have not read these I highly recommend them they are great resources.

Aspergers and Depression

Asperger’s and Depression – Part 2

Asperger’s and Depression – Part 3

Asperger’s and Depression – Part 4

This post from another blog helped me too.

Managing Your Anxieties and PTSD

And another song because I think Kevin Spacey is tops!

Also because I was listening to the soundtrack of Midnight Garden of Good and Evil…maybe that made me sad? No, it was a series of things including sensory stuff. Without further ado I give you “That Old Black Magic” performed by Kevin Spacey who always makes me smile. (I loved him in Se7en, another favorite…Big surprise!)

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Ariel gave me the title of this post. I wanted to share this story because it is another developmental progression for Daniel. The whole thing started with Daniel getting very angry at his Perplexus game. In the last few months he has been working on the concept of winning and losing. He does not like to lose. He had been twisting and turning the game trying to get the tiny ball through the maze, almost winning multiple times. Finally, it got to him that he was not winning. He started to cry, and asked “Why am I not winning?”

It took some time to calm him down.

I managed to get him to lift his head from his hands, and look up by losing at the game several times myself. I lost and then expressed myself by saying things like “Oh, darn I lost again. I will keep trying, I guess.”He started to look at me and then would put his face in his hands and say: “Oh, no. Oh, no.” He told me to stop one time, but then I said something about being done playing and trying again later. He was not satisfied, but calmed down some.

He then got upset again.

However, this time he went on the couch and covered himself with a blanket. I asked him if he was alright, and he said: “No.” He continued to say things that I could not decipher, but then we had this conversation: (Joshua is upstairs with David, daddy time.)

Daniel: I’m leaving.

Me: You are leaving? Where are you going?

Daniel: I am leaving far, far away. (He looked at me then, he covered himself with the blanket again.)

Me: Are you going to Mars?

Daniel: Yes, I am going to Mars.

Me: In a rocket ship?

Daniel: Yes, I just did. It takes for a long time.

Me: What is it like on Mars?

Daniel and Ariel: All red.

Daniel: Venus is yellow.

Ariel: Now I am going to Mars. Look Daniel is the first kid on Mars. No wait we are the first two kids on Mars.

After all of that they decided to leave Mars and read some books.

There are some major things that Daniel did today. He understood a little more today that it is alright if you lose. He was able to calm himself, with little help from me. He has never made a statement about leaving before, which prompted me to ask him if he knew what that meant. Here is the conversation:

Me: Daniel do you know what it means to leave?

Daniel: It means to go somewhere, because I was mad.

Me: What or who were you mad at?

Daniel: At brain (that’s what he calls his game “my brain”) I played and played and did not win.

Me: You were mad at brain and wanted to leave?

Daniel: Yes, because I could not win. I am mad at brain, and wanted to leave.

Me: Are you still mad? Do you still want to leave?

Daniel: No, I am not mad. Brain needs to go in the garage.

Me: So are you ok now? Is everybody fine?

Daniel: Yes, everybody’s fine. Ok.

Sometimes I cannot believe that he is talking to me like this.

This is the first holiday season that has not been meltdown madness from October until the end of January. There have been moments, but they have not lasted long at all. Daniel has learned positive coping mechanism like going in his room alone and reading or just looking at books instead of continuing to be aggressive. He continues to learn to express what he is angry or upset at in many more ways. The rest of us have been able to read him much better as well. It has made a huge difference having David, Ariel, and Joshua understand Daniel’s frustrations.

I still need to explain why Daniel is behaving a certain way at times.

The difference is everyone is more understanding, and relating in their own way by thinking of similar things that cause them frustration. It is very clear that Daniel is feeling safer at expressing himself, and feels like he is being heard. It has made a huge difference in his interactions with everyone. He has been talking nonstop — he is repeating many scripts to himself. Some of his frequent scripts are about emotions, his emotions and other people’s emotions. I believe his scripting has helped in learning to calm himself as well. Possibly my own change of attitude toward the holidays helped the month of December.

Next year I will do better with October and November.

On another note I happened to hear this poem on a movie that was background noise for me earlier, (I don’t know what the movie was.) and thought some of you may enjoy it as well. So many poems to read so little time…and music to listen to…and books to read…and dances to dance…and paintings to adore…and sculptures to love…and pictures to seek…and skies to keep…I think I need to stop listening to music I always open the floodgates with music. I can’t help it! I’m not stopping!

i carry your heart with me by E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

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I have been pondering my self-worth a lot lately, wondering what that really means. I have been thinking about how people have and do treat me. I have spent a large portion of my life being confused by people seeing the value in me, but not valuing me. I have mistaken them seeing it as them respecting it. Since I wanted to try to understand what value truly means I felt that I needed to go back to the basics. In order to understand its meaning, what did I do? Why, I went to the dictionary of course. Since I am referring to a cultural/ethical meaning, I will use the following definition:

Value: relative worth, merit, or importance: the value of a college education; the value of a queen in chess. (Simple enough, right?)

Taken from Wiki page:

There is a distinction between relative (or personal or cultural value) and absolute (or noumenal) value (not to be confused with mathematical absolute value). Relative value is subjective, depending on individual and cultural views, and is therefore synonymous with personal and cultural value. Absolute value, on the other hand, is philosophically absolute and independent of individual and cultural views, as well as independent of whether it is apprehended or not.

Relative value may be regarded as an ‘experience’ by subjects of the absolute value. Relative value thus varies with individual and cultural interpretation, while absolute value remains constant, regardless of individual or collective ‘experience’ of it.

Relative value may be explained as an assumption from which implementation can be extrapolated. If it was known, Absolute value could possibly be implemented, but this cannot be assumed, it is what it is.

At this point, I would like to take this spin into the topic of autism, but I am in no frame of mind to take on any arguments or stances. Instead, I will use my personal life experience and hope people can make parallels with autism, and other situations where they have felt that their absolute value is not recognized by others because of how others assess relative value (as far as I understand that is what the above the paragraph was about).

Autism is difficult.

It’s difficult because it is a spectrum of issues, but regardless of whether some label autism as a disability or as a gift/advantage/next step in evolution, everyone on the spectrum has value. Anyone trying to live in our world, but who feels unable to measure up or disabled in some sense, has value. I see this as a huge issue in people, including myself, defining their value based on the relative value of others. “Relative” changes. We absolutely have value, whether someone sees it or even respects it. Their view of us has nothing to do with us or our self-worth.

How difficult it is to accept that fully.

I am usually a confident person. I am confident when I am just being myself. It is not until someone exposes the fact that I am being myself that I become shaky. My anxiety causes me to feel insecure or doubt myself. Or when I am feeling confident, then something happens and I become unsure what a person means by what they say or do. I know that I have value, but time and time again the people who have cared for me have treated me as if it were not a valuable commodity. I have been so confused by people who claim to care about me, but their action’s reflect otherwise.

I had a dream about an ex-boyfriend of mine that really triggered some deep-rooted issues that I was unaware of, but are connected to many of the other things that I have been working through and sharing on here. In the dream I saw how I was treated by him, even though he cared for me, which was not good. There were things about me that he found as valuable: my humor, my music interests, my keen knowledge of The Simpsons at the time, (he was an adamant Simpsons fan, probably still is). I assume he found me attractive physically.

He never really told me.

There was one comment he made to me one night that was: “You are too pretty to be smoking.” I guess that is a compliment. Another boyfriend never gave me compliments either. I do remember him saying: “Someone who looks like you should not have such a foul mouth.” These two were completely different personality types, one was an artist who drew very well and a musician, and the other was a violinist who was extremely talented and was attempting to go to school for psychology as well. Both of them were very intelligent, but also made me feel as if I were not. They both also did drugs during our time together, and were in their early 20′s so I am not sure how much that played a role in their treatment of me.

My excitement and girl-like character would annoy them.

However, if I showed too much of my intelligence they seemed to not like that either. I was constantly confused as to what they valued and what they didn’t. Sometimes they would like it when I was my witty, smart-”butt” self and other times they got really angry about it. Sometimes they would get in long discussions with me about music, philosophy, or spiritual beliefs, and other times they would get upset and not want to talk about it. Now that I think of it though that could have been because it would be a special interest of mine and I would not shut up.

My appearance seemed to be a big deal.

They liked it when I looked a certain way, although they both seemed very accepting of me being natural as well. I did not have to get all prettied up for them, but they did like it when I did. I would know that they didn’t like something by a negative comment or criticism. They both felt like I really didn’t look much different, I don’t wear much make-up so that is probably why. They accepted that about me, but then would confuse me by flirting. Or by talking about the beauty of other women. Or give compliments to other women, but not complimenting me. The women would be the opposite of me, or have certain features that would seem similar, but I would start to think that they must think that her features were better than mine since they commented on hers, but did not say anything to me. I would not understand why they spent more time acknowledging the other girl and not me. It didn’t make sense. I am not the type who needs compliments I usually do not think of it, but when they are given to other people by a boyfriend who does not compliment you that is confusing.

I was not jealous I was confused, and hurt.

I had no distinction between the value of my beauty and the value of others. In my mind if they were flirting, then that meant I must not be enough, I was not fulfilling some need and that meant either I try harder or give up. If they said that someone was attractive I took that as meaning they were telling me that I did not measure up. Since they did not really make comments about me or to me, I was left to feel that they really did not want me. I would go into a spiral of trying to figure out what the point of me in their life was. This would lead to complete meltdowns or harming myself. I could not explain to them what I was feeling because any time I tried I was told I was being jealous or overly dramatic.

I guess my confusion looks like jealousy.

I can see how that would confuse them since I was not normally a jealous type of person, in that sense. Jealousy is another topic of explanation for another time. Why would they want to be with me if they were attracted to all of these other girls? It had to be for some other reason, what was it? Was I that stupid or naive that I could not figure it out? After all would settle, I would apologize for my behavior and things would go back to normal. Me being the caretaker, and supportive while they did what they wanted. Sometimes it included me, many times it did not. Had I understood the relationship I probably could have been ok with this. If they would have been direct with me, and told me I am just using you I could have dealt with that.

I see now it was not that simple.

Did they use me? Yes, because I made it easy to do. Did they care about me? Yes, but they cared more for themselves. I found that confusing because when I care for people, if I decide that I am going to put forth the effort to have them be a part of my life, I pour myself into it. I see their value and try to build into it. I try to encourage, and motivate them in it. With both of them I thought that their talents were amazing, and I would love to see the drawings or listen to their music or talk all day about psychology. One of them was also fascinated with Germany, and was taking German as well, I thought it was great and I would get excited hearing him speak the language. (I have my own thing about Germany.) I wanted them to succeed in their value, and it made me happy when they did. I got smarter each time though, and would only allow people to have parts of me, I started learning that as a child, but I still got hurt along the way. I know this stems from the pattern that my dad instilled in me with comparison now, but I did not know that then.

Being compared to someone else, or feeling like you are being compared can make you feel like you have no value whatsoever.

To be continued…

Complete sidetrack, but not really I will not explain it’s too long, but with this topic I have to think happy thoughts so I share a happy song from my childhood. The Turtles “So Happy Together” I like the horns, the drums, and ting, ting, bing, bong, of the strings and the Ba-ba-ba-ba ba-ba-ba Plus it is a dancing swirly yellow and purple song. Yippie!

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If you asked me even last year if we would go to a fair I would have laughed and said something like: “Yeah, right” Although I would have said the same thing about going to a Shrimp Fest, three stores in one day with the kids, a birthday party, or attempting Halloween. A lot has changed around here. One of the main reasons for us not doing those things was because we just couldn’t with Daniel. Either going would cause complete meltdowns and we would have to leave or the overstimulation afterwards would be too much for any of us. We still have the overstimulation issue, but knowing how to better help each one of us has made it worth the attempts to try new things.

Sometimes it is not fun, it can take several days for us to get back to our “normal”.

However, it is nothing like it used to be. We actually have fun going out. I am not a nervous wreck trying to stay on top of everything and everyone in an attempt to stop meltdowns, freak outs, or any possible thing that could happen. I have spent so many years on the defense that I caused a lot of stress in myself and others. I already soak in details, and have my own sensory issues, but when I try to stay on top of others sensory/social issues alongside that, it’s too much.  It is much better now because Daniel no longer runs away from us in a panic from a noise or what seems like a random thing that causes him fear. His communication and ability to articulate more clearly what is bothering him has made it so much better for him and me. I am no longer spending all of time trying to figure out what could scare him, what could make him run, what could make him panic, and then there is always the food thing.

He has stepped out a bit trying some new things.

We have been able to go to a restaurant a couple of times and we had fun, he had fun. A lot of questions, Daniel is always asking a ton of questions, but fun. In the past the only place that we went to that was pleasant was the museum. He loves the museum and would go every week if he could. I agree with him, I would like to go as well, but I need one that is a bit more exciting to go to.   Given that it is pretty much the opposite of a fair, I was not too sure how it would go. My mom mentioned going to the fair and I said: “Let’s try it”.

Next time I will plan it a bit better though.

I knew it was going to be a bit rough because my mom had a church event where she had been face painting kids for two hours. She was overloaded and not “feeling” the fair. Daniel had been not feeling well all day, but he insisted that we go. By the time we went he was feeling better so that was good, but he was anxious since he had never gone before and the only reference he had was a Clifford game. He asked if Clifford would be at the fair. My main concerns had been with him, I get frustrated with myself because when Daniel’s issues seem to be more prominent I forget about what Ariel and Joshua are going through.

We got there and it was going well, we had an adult per each child.

The first stop was the animals of course! It was already loud the second we got there though. The animals smelled so bad. We were able to see all of the animals and I talked to some cows, I got a picture of a beautiful cow who wanted me to set her free so she and I could walk around and talk some more. Then there was the pig who was SO over the event, the rooster who liked me telling him how pretty his feathers were and the chicken who was pretty upset about being in the cage next to that other chicken because she was rude. Ha ha ha Maybe I made all of that up, but I did talk to them and they seemed very happy about it. No one else talked to them. I did get some pictures, no flash!

Ariel started to get physically ill from the smell.

She started turning pale and was holding her nose. She had to go so we went off to check out the rides. All of them did very well, the wanderer ended up being Joshua, he could not hear a thing. Ariel and Joshua wanted to go on the carousel, as they stood in line Joshua started to lose color in his face and was holding his ears. Daniel did not want to go on the carousel. Joshua got worse and he could not go on the ride because the music was too loud. He had to sit out with Grammy and Daniel far away from the music. It was too loud for both Grammy and Daniel as well, but it wasn’t making them get sick like poor Joshua.

I took pictures of Ariel and David.

Ariel loved it. She wanted to do more rides. We found a dragon ride that she HAD to ride. Joshua decided to try it since it was quiet. I was concerned, but let him get on. I couldn’t recall why I was having an uneasy feeling until I looked at him sitting in the dragon with Ariel and I had a flash of what he has done on swings. He used to lose balance, have a petrified face, and would almost fall even when I was holding on to him. Panic hit me and I reminded David how Joshua can get off balance, he was on the outside of the ride. The opening was right there, what if he lost his balance and fell out? OH, GOD! Alright I stayed calm.

David told him to hold on for dear life and Joshua reassured him that he would be brave.

When it took off he had that moment of panic face, the second time around he was saying: “I am brave” over and over out loud, by the third time around he was hooting and hollering and having a blast. Daniel did not want to go on that ride either. He wanted to go on the Ferris wheel. I couldn’t let him, not this time it was too high and since we had never done anything like that he was too unpredictable. All of the rides were so fast or put the kids up in the air or were too loud. I couldn’t find one that would work. I finally found one that I thought may work. It was a boat that went back and forth and up and down. Plus I could ride with him so I offered that one.

Ariel wanted to ride as well.

Joshua was not about the boat at all and he didn’t care if it had pirates on it or not. We sat down and Daniel had his ears covered the whole time and asked me a ton of questions. The boy in front of us told us how cool the ride was. Then, it started. It was slow for like a second, but the jolts threw Ariel and Daniel off. The more it went the faster it got and I was covering both of them with my body telling them that it was ok. They both turned pale, Ariel’s eyes were bulging out of her head and Daniel was white as a ghost. I saw his little hands shaking and I yelled to the guy: “Stop the ride!” Both of them could barely walk, I had to carry Daniel and help Ariel along.

When we got down the questions started.

They both stared at the thing like it was some horrible beast that tried to destroy them. Ariel was teary-eyed and asked why she was so scared. Both of them wanted to know what happened and Daniel wanted to know why he was shaking. I explained that it threw their equilibrium off and it was just how their body was responding. I was feeling it too, but my Mommy instincts trumped my dizzy, nauseous feeling. We sat at the table for a while and Ariel bounced back quickly and wanted to go on the dragon ride because “It makes me feel like I am riding a real dragon”  Daniel did not recover so easily. He did not want to try any other rides. I explained to him that he didn’t need to be afraid that we could try again when he is older. At first he said no, but when I explained to him that not all rides are like that and maybe his body just wasn’t ready for it he was more receptive to trying again…sometime.

He has talked about it over and over again, but he is not afraid, which is a VERY good thing.

We were all overloaded. We were all over the noise, the smells, the people, the heat, and the bugs. We made it about three hours. YES! Three hours at a fair that is huge! Daniel had completely shutdown after the ride. He would not drink, his eyes were glazed over, he continued to ask questions, then got fixated on the fans in some of the buildings. He refused to leave one building that had a huge seven blade fan and vents in the ceiling that he could see. We were finally able to convince him to go and he came back to his goofy playful self after about 5 minutes in the car and two cups of water. Everyone had a lot of fun, I ate funnel cake again. Yes, I did!

Funnel Cake! (I didn’t eat the whole thing, I shared.)

Overall it was very enjoyable, it was a great adventure. It was a big accomplishment socially and sensory wise. I was so happy that the kids got to experience it. We will try again and I am sure it will be even better next year. Next year will most likely be at the fall festival in my hometown and that fair rocks! I am looking forward to having good food again, AND they have gluten-free food too! I wish someone would start making gluten-free funnel cakes at the fairs. I let the kids try some cotton candy. They were very excited about that. Ariel said that her favorite was the dragon ride and  so did Joshua, he said it was his favorite because “I felt like I was Anakin!” Daniel said that his favorite part was the animals because all the buildings had big fans.

I cannot believe we went to a county fair!  Awesome!

[Show as slideshow]

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I have been thinking off and on for days about my sensory and feeling connections to “things/talents/emotions/people” (copied from Lisa). I have been trying to figure out how to sever ties that bind into the deep connections in my brain. I have found no answers. After reading a couple posts yesterday from Lisa and Bruce, it brought even more thoughts to my mind. Lisa shares about the negative emotional connections that she has with one of her talents, though it is not limited to just one that she feels this with and Bruce shared about how possibly “passing” for “being normal” can cause burnout for an Aspie. In a way I see these as linked. I know firsthand that my emotional connections can be overwhelmingly good or negative and my constant trying to “pass” as everyone else has caused me to be exhausted and unable to function at times.

I will start with the emotional connections.

For me music is a big deal. It lives in me and if I have a memory, person, event, smell, whatever connected to it I will relive all of it, good or bad. I have been trying for weeks now to gain music back for me. I no longer want it stolen into the painful heart pings that I have been feeling. Even the good ones are starting to hurt and I do not know how to get it to stop. I will add here though that with it turning to fall, this could be a major reason  because I always get kind of down as it turns to fall. I am at peace, but I feel down and a bit melancholy. It is a strange affair. Comfort and sadness. Anyway I have been trying to make the songs my own. My feelings not what I have associated with the songs. For some reason though, if something bad happens it takes over all the good and I cannot remember the good anymore.

I then have to cut off music for a while.

I do the same thing with movies and many other things that I enjoy. An example of this was a movie that David had asked me to watch over the years, I refused. I would not even look at it. I couldn’t because it was linked to a very painful time in my life. I did end up watching it not too long ago and it was a great movie, but then something happened where I made a negative connection and now it hurts to even think about it. I have done this with writing and dancing as well in the past. I completely stopped stories and poems for a while because it hurt too much. I only wrote prayers or my thoughts, but I admit I could not stop the poems or stories sometimes. I hid them away for no one to see because I was afraid to share them with others. I had negative associations with people’s reactions and I could not. For me to write a blog, share my poems and stories is a very big deal.

At times I get so scared, but I feel that I must do it.

I have taken back those talents and I have taken back dancing more so over the years. I still have some negative associations with it at times, it is linked to music so that could be the issue. However, I have been having dances and memory of past dances fill my mind and I can dance them with joy. I am trying to get rid of some of these darker emotions that I normally leave trapped inside of me. I have been writing them out trying to get them away from me. I do have some darker stories, but I always see hope in them. My hope is to gain my hope back into the things that I love. I want to be able to see the connections, events, and situations that have caused me such pain to ruin a beautiful song, a movie, or other things that I enjoy, so I can possibly understand and let it go.

I want them to be free from those emotional connections.

I do not know if I can. I am a very intense person. I have full body, emotional, spiritual, and sensory experiences. When I love something or someone I give it all, I think that it is so intense because I am very limited in my ability to connect to emotional love. When I do I can hardly contain it, it is very difficult. The same goes for when I am hurt or angry. It does take a lot to make me angry, but I do get angry and when I do it is not pretty. When it comes to hurt though that seems to be a regular that I know. I do not know how to handle it other than try to escape from it. Escaping is trying to shut down my emotions in some way. I finally realized some of the ways that I have done this.

One way has been reality shows.

I will be honest I cannot stand reality shows. I do not like watching them, they annoy and confuse me. BUT they are perfect to get sucked into and not think. My problem is that I do. I do think about why they are acting like that on TV.  Why would they go on a show to get a husband/wife?  Why would they go into a house with a bunch of people just to live and act crazy? Why do they put themselves out there for the world to see? When I was under a lot of stress several years ago I started watching different types of reality shows. They were horrible and I didn’t like them, but they helped me to become numb. I was picky about which ones I would watch, it was mostly those that were geared toward people’s daily lives not competition shows, unless it was cooking.

I still watch So You Think You Can Dance.

I do not vote or watch anything except the dances though. I also get sucked into watching shows like Psyche and Monk because I like their quirky ways and it doesn’t require much deep thought. Though I still find myself finding something to research or investigate while watching them. One of my favorites to have a marathon showing is Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I think I have seen every episode about 20 times. (possible exaggeration)

I got so fed up with myself with the reality shows that I told David to get rid of cable.

I couldn’t stand what I was doing to my brain. And the knowledge that I was doing it on purpose was sickening to me. I have been wanting to do it again, find shows or music that is numbing so I do not have to feel. I can’t this time though. I need to try to work through this and I really wish I knew how. How do we gain more positive emotional connections than negative when the negative seemed to have consumed so many of the good ones? I am hoping to discover that answer. I have other things that I do, Lisa called them “rituals” to help me. I have certain things that I do to try to help me cope and like she said when I do them and I am misunderstood, I tend to shut down or stop. Which causes me to loop and get stuck. One of the things I have done my whole life is to write it.

Whether it was true or not, I wrote it out.

What I mean by true or not is that it was a real emotion or feeling that I felt, but it may not have been the actual feelings of a person or the situation. This causes a problem as well. I connect emotions or feelings perceived by me of others to “things/talents/emotions/people”. This could be completely wrong. There are times when it is an actual event or situation, but then there are other times I can only go by what I think. And a lot of the time what I think has been skewed by my inaccurate perception of how people feel about me. So how do I disconnect false emotional ties to “things/talents/emotions/people”? I don’t know.

This is also where I see the connection of “passing burnout” that Bruce spoke about in his post.

I have been so exhausted trying to study people, their behaviors, the social dynamics that I still do not understand after reading about or I forget. It has become so much easier just to mirror and hide behind another person. I thought it was anyway. Actually, it has been severely damaging to me. I didn’t do it on purpose, it was just my way of surviving many situations that I had no idea how to deal with. I have lost so much of myself that I am gaining back now and that is good.

I do take responsibility for it.

I was tired from the physical, social, spiritual, emotional dynamics of work, church, family, and friends. Plus I have done it multiple times throughout my life as a means to survive social situations, even though I didn’t realize it. (As I think about it, I am not sure that there is truly any responsibility to be owned.) I spent a lot of time passing off as one of them and it made me physically ill. I was emotionally drained and when the babies came it was a relief to have such a distraction from the world. They were a wonderful distraction. Really I enjoy them as my distraction. They helped me a lot and it has been quite easy to make them the forefront of social situations and hide behind things.

I don’t have the energy or strength to mirror people anymore.

I cannot “act” while in public and try to handle/understand autism/myself at the same time. It is too much and too exhausting. Now I am trying to have self acceptance and freedom to be myself with all of my oddities, but anything I perceive as negative is associated to music, books, people, buildings, on and on and I get stuck. That means that when I do act like myself and any autism traits come out that are misunderstood or misinterpreted they get connected to whatever I am reading, listening to, watching, wearing, person I am talking to, etc…And I want to shut down.

I see why I am fearful of moving back to my hometown.

I do not even know what will be triggered if I go there. That is why I am working through this now. I must find a way to work through these emotions in a positive way. I want to enjoy the things that I love without them being stolen because of past experiences. I also want to accept myself fully and not let that be stolen either. I cannot “pass” it has not worked and I will no longer be able to do it. I like me and I want more of me around. I am rather fun at least I think so.   I guess this is my next big challenge. Hopefully people will answer on Lisa’s blog and I can gain some good ideas. In the mean time I will be reading and looking some stuff up.

I get really puzzled by Theory of Mind, that is part of the problem as well.

I continually forget that others do not think what I am thinking or that they do not know what I am thinking. They read me wrong because it comes from a Neurotypical point of view or at least from their own perceptions, morals, ideals, desires, motives etc… It may have nothing to do with being an NT. I am normally thinking of the other persons needs or wants over mine so it is foreign to me to think that they do not do the same thing. I have mentioned that before, but I think that may have something to do with the deep emotional connections that I have. The confusion of another person not thinking of me or how they are making me feel is very confusing and hurtful to me. Situations, people, events, or how people responded to my talents would definitely link deeply to me if I felt that they didn’t care as much as I did or they treated them with disregard. Or being verbally abused while operating in a talent/situation or belittled in some way would do it. I do hope my ramblings make sense here.

I am just processing, I’ll see what comes out of this. I have nothing, but hope.

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

But then by Saturday the internet was in and out.

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

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

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

Daniel was overloaded, he couldn’t think.

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

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

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

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

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

Either way, I found one.

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

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

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

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

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The funny thing about working through emotional issues is that life still goes on. We still have to do school, go to work, go to the store, go out to social events and continue as if your insides are not all in a knot. The brain still has to function properly, despite dealing with past baggage or current events. I find that so interesting about the brain, the ability to cope. Last week sometime when I was dealing with some of these emotions that I didn’t quite understand, I felt like my insides were just spilling out and I had no way to gather them up and get myself back to a workable state. I tend to laugh at myself when I feel this way because I know that many times my emotions can be exaggerations triggered from sensory or confusion.

The other morning something happened that made me laugh.

I was overwhelmed with confusion about not understanding why I felt such pain in my heart, I pulled myself together and got up to make breakfast. As I walked to the kitchen I looked down and Daniel had laid out four letters from his Word Whammer toy, C-O-P-E. I laughed so hard, I do not think that Daniel knows this word or at least the meaning of the word, but he could. I found it amusing that it was the word I needed to get over that hump of trying to figure “it” out and later as I finished stories and posts that I had been writing for a while, things seemed to come together in my thinking.

I knew that I had to be ok by Sunday, because it was my nephew’s birthday party.

I wanted very much for the kids to go to their cousin’s birthday party, they had not experienced a party like that. Plus it was his first birthday! Yea! Birthday! I knew that the kids were going to be overloaded for days and that I would be too. I prepared as much as possible, but I also knew that I had to get out of a vulnerable state emotionally if I was going because the sensory and social would be too much for me. My sisters go all out, they like big social events with grand everything. I like that about them in a way because I do have fun and the kids get to experience things that ordinarily they would not. For my sisters though over-the-top is an everyday occurrence so we have to participate in small doses. They did offer for us to come before everyone else came so we could not be so overloaded that was a great thing for them to think of us.

It was a big lesson/test for me.

I never know how my sisters are going to treat me, one second they love me the next I am being badgered and mocked about something. However, I am clueless to what is happening, I feel something is wrong, but do not know what is happening until later. This day just felt nice, it was pleasant and I felt comfortable walking in. I got my little nephew the second we walked in. I like their house, but it felt rather closed in with the decorations and made me feel  like I was in a box. I occupied myself with the kids so I was happy. The more people that came though the more I was getting overloaded. They had a bouncy house in the backyard so we took the kids out there and they jumped for a while it was helpful for them. I jumped too, it was helpful for me as well.

I felt comfortable being myself.

Actually, I didn’t really think about it, like when I hid my water bottle in their cabinet for drinking glasses. I didn’t want anyone to touch it, breathe on it, look at it, or confuse it for theirs, so I put it in there for safe keeping. I do not like holding water bottles. I was able to be a comic relief with that move, the kitchen got crowded with people and I ended up having to ask my sister for my water bottle that was in the cabinet. She gave me one of her “You are so crazy looks” and laughed. I hide things in strange places and always have, but as you can see I have a perfectly good logical reason. Right?

The kids were happy and having fun, but they were going into sensory overload.

We managed to stay for about two hours. It is a 30 minute drive there so we had to think of that as well. Plus it was hot, very hot! They had not even opened the presents or done the cake or anything and it was already 4:30pm, our guys were not going to make it. I was not going to make it. I was already disconnected. At one point my sister said something about being angry and I was surprised and asked “What did we do?” she told me that she wasn’t mad at me, but if I wanted to be part of the group that she was upset with fine, she would be mad at me too. From that point I was confused and my sisters began their banter on me, I could not hear what they were saying because what I was hearing all sounded like buzzing bees in my ears and I could not make out their words.

I looked clueless.

This is why people have thought of me as being dingy or stupid because I am trying very hard to understand what they are saying, but I just can’t. It is all fuzzy and hurts my head and I stare blankly. I was overloaded by sight, sound, and smell. Their bantering felt different though, it didn’t cause me confusion or make me feel bad. It didn’t seem to feel the same. Later when I talked to my mom she told that they were actually doing their sisterly loving banter. She said: “They were trying to be sisters”. I knew something was different, they were not being mean even though an outsider’s perspective could have deemed it mean. It was a great lesson for me to be able to trust my instincts about people. Now I know when I have that feeling that what someone is doing is wrong, I can trust it. All of my sisters do this bantering/mocking thing with me. I do not understand it, I have been confused by it. However, others who have witnessed it think that it is very mean and attacking at times. Again, I do not need to worry myself with those issues as long as I am not confused. Now I have a clear distinction of “feeling” to clarify for me.

I can begin to trust my feelings about people’s other motives as well.

The short version of the rest of the story, we all had fun, but were seriously overloaded. I ended up sitting on the couch crying and at first began to ask myself why I was being so silly and crying, but then I just went, “Oh, I am overloaded.” I let the tears fall, I was not sad or depressed my body just had too much input on all levels. It didn’t last long and then I felt better, very tired, but better. All of the kids were out of control the rest of the night, shutdowns, meltdowns, non-stop spinning objects and bedtime was not fun. But overall it was fun and worth it. It didn’t help that I gave them each a cupcake because they couldn’t eat the cake, even if we had stayed. It wasn’t gluten-free. Daniel and Joshua are very social and LOVE the ladies. Daniel made his rounds making googly eyes with them and then loving on the ceiling fans. Joshua however, was devoted to Grammy. Ariel sat and observed and then gave a blow by blow of all the goings on at the party after we got home.

On another note, the Bible study has been going well.

I am a bit peopled out, but it was good. I like this group of women. They are real. I was surprised when I shared with them how I had been working through the fear of abandonment and all of them said: “Oh, yes.” or had a reply with explanation about their own fears. I knew it was universal, but it had not become real to me until I saw and heard others with the same fears. I came out of the closet a bit and wasn’t sure how they would feel, I wore my shirt that says: “Dear Math, I love you ∞” (infinity symbol). My mom rolled her eyes at me and laughed, the other women didn’t give me any weird looks or anything. I believe it triggered some conversation about science and math though and I shared with them my thoughts about seeing God through various means like that. They hadn’t thought about God or even math (numbers) in certain ways, if anything I was glad they thought out of the box for a moment. I have a thing about all of the numbers and symbols in the Bible. I know, I know BIG SURPRISE!

In all things I learn lessons.

What I have learned this week is if I am not coping the Universe will force messages through my kid’s toys. When I am overloaded it’s ok to admit it, accept it and let my body respond to it. I really love my sisters and I really appreciate their differences. I am willing to trust people even after being burned a lot in my life. I never lost trust, only buried it for a while. I adore and cherish my kids more than I can express, the love I feel for them is entirely different from what I have been talking about lately. I admittedly have a different way of thinking and feeling about love when it comes to animals and children. Yes, I did just confess that. I have to acknowledge that as part of who I am and not feel guilty for it. I see connections in all things and that is how I feel God speaks to me, how I learn, and how I process. A major thing that I have learned is that love of self is actually quite important. You need to be able to love who you are in order pour out your love to others.  An ancient teaching that has only manifested in truth for me recently.

Those are some things I learned this week.

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