I have a hard time giving to me. It’s not about esteem, as far as I can logically decipher. Nor is it about being selfless or completely altruistic; though I strive for those ideals, I highly doubt they’re attainable in my human suit.
I have a hard time feeling my achievements and accomplishments. It’s not that I don’t take note of my hard work and efforts, and even the path I climbed, (or sometimes slid down rapidly screaming for help), to get there.
More over, I don’t think I have the capacity to feel, essentially, who I am.
I can see that I am intelligent, kind, and for the most part understanding and forgiving. I recognize what could be quantified as a kind of ‘goodness’ in me, and even an over-riding sense of wanting to serve to serve and not to gain approval. I get all this about me. I see it. I recognize. But somehow I can’t feel the experience.
I don’t know if one would call it a sense of pride or fulfillment, or other abundant amounts of labels—but whatever it is that other people seem to get and obtain, in an abstract way after achieving a goal, I don’t seem to have that. I can’t even say if it’s a feeling or outcome, simply because I don’t understand.
Perhaps this inability to understand is because I don’t think the race or game, or what-have-you, is ever over; and to top that off, I don’t even believe that the race or game actually exists. I see the process of achievement as a cluster of something or another, all unrecognizable and indistinguishable amongst the rest of life’s happenings.
To me, I do to do. I give to give. I care to care. I exist to exist. There isn’t this motive or agenda underlying my actions or ways. And if there is, the motive, if not for others, feels heavy, poisonous, and akin to wretched waste.
I just am. And this way that other people sometimes maneuver through life baffles me: the secret schemes, the plots, the webs spun and re-spun. And furthermore, along the same lines, in comparing the declared ‘loser’ to the announced ‘winner,’ the latter seems nothing of grandeur in comparison to the agony of the defeated one.
With this said, I cause myself great harm in overanalyzing my every move. The spectator I am, observing self, tinkers about with scoping tools, contemplating if my action is suitable representation as reflection of interior. If, in fact, in the light of the day, what is said or done, matches my intention or desire. In a constant state of analyzing, I am aiming for the path that is in direct resonance with my soul self.
In addition, I cannot detect the idiosyncrasy of common conversational rules spawned by the associate facing me; yet, I can dissect with fine-fashion the inner-weavings of my own motives. So much so that I deliberate with self questioning if my words are appropriately suited for ‘proof’ (to self) of authenticity.
Is the exterior self accurately representing the unspoken self? I ask. Still with this perceived self-harm, I need this way of being. The manner in which I tread upon a dreamland stage, whilst all about more selves collectively critique the actions portrayed by the exterior, is a proverbial limb of my essence. To be without such manner of existence, I would find myself broken and obsolete, and abandoned, the same as wood for fire. And as tree, I would weep.
In honesty, the worst of the matter is when another enters my zone: the place in which I sit unsettled watching for discrepancies between what is intended and what was produced; distinguishing the gaps, molecular they might be, between what is felt intrinsically as truth and what is displayed as reflection. I hide within, in constant wonder-state, questioning if what I have done is honorable. And here the pain comes, as the mind blunders and rallies for evidence of what is honorable.
Again, I find myself today, in the balancing act of striving for neither perfection nor satisfaction, but rather the gentle center point that does more to extinguish self and lighten all. It’s a varying balance beam of grace that beckons me to be all I can be, but not too much.
Everyday Asperger's 
Wonderfully written ! That is exactly how I feel everyday !
many thanks for your read and feedback 🙂
Whoa!! I don’t remember writing this thing!!
Seriously, just about every single word resonated with me on some level, or at least applied to you in the same way that it does to me. I wish I could give you some helpful coping methods or whatnot, but it really is the EXACT same stuff I end up having to deal with myself. Goals never feel like goals and achievements always simply say: “You haven’t done enough yet.”
You worded it all beautifully, despite how hard it is (and how hard I KNOW this is), and I can’t help but laud that completely. I hope there are some people who can give some feedback that might help in the long run (and I’ll be hungrily combing comments in case just such a person shows up) but in the meantime, man, bravo.
🙂 thank you for your comment. so glad it resonated. I think we have the answers in us 🙂
Meditation helps me with these challenges.
walking meditation and reading Buddhism helps me 🙂
Very nicely said.
This is myself too: “…A hard time feeling my achievements and accomplishments…more over, I don’t think I have the capacity to feel, essentially, who I am.”
For a while now I’ve been trying to (intellectually) figure out whether this is due to my inherent laziness, and getting doen on myself for not being able to “use” accomplishments as confidence and energy increasing boosts. It just isn’t there inside me, so it doesn’t happen the way it seems to for regular folks.
thank you for sharing
It is nice to read about our commonality here, it makes a good change when I can say, “okay, it’s not my imagination, perspective-taking,is not my strength, but that same hyper-focus that sets me adrift helps me see beauty and root myself in the here and now.” Before I knew about Aspergers, I just considered myself a poster child for the chronically overwhelmed. I love knowing that there are people like me, it helps me not to judge myself so harshly! It makes me wonder if that sense of never fitting in is more about never sensing where I fit in (which is not as negative). I need to start looking for all the things I have in common with neurotypicals, and stop labeling them as superior beings…
❤ super. thank you for sharing
Exactly. No one has attained perfection.
Good post. I think achieving balance in all areas of life is a lifelong challenge, especially when those with AS struggle with black/white thinking.
yes
i So get this…it was funny when I was reading this to my husband at my typical rapid speed and he suddenly asked, “What is an the Eraser game?” he heard the words “Race OR game” in my slurred rapid speech and was confused…and I had no idea what he was talking about for a minute…LOL guess you’d have to be here! But this resonated enough to read it to him!
Always look forward to your thoughts Sam!:)
lol 🙂 great visual 🙂
How illustrative this is! Great post. I meditate to reconnect and reassemble myself after I feel overstimulated from overthinking, over feeling or sensory overload. It takes discipline but it’s good for me. I aim for at least 20 min a day. Hope this helps.
wonderful. I have tried many different modalities of relaxation. Swimming in a pool, facials, walking meditation, and visualizations with a cd help me.
I’ve stumbled across the term “good enough” to cover the gap between what was intended and was actually happened – the inertia of real life. This helps me to move onward past the self-imposed blockade of “must do it over again because it wasn’t good enough.” Most people don’t seem to notice this gap, I think, because they can’t see inside their own mind with enough detail.
Hope this helps.
Yes, I do quite a bit of analysis of what is good, what is standard, what is enough each and every hour of the day. I seem to get lost in the rubble of in between, wanting to know what is at each end of the spectrum of human behavior. 🙂 thank you for your insight.
I was already getting worried when you hadn’t posted anything for a while, and I was very happy to see there was a new posting now. And wow. Again, just reading your few paragraphs brought me more insight, happiness, understanding of self and peace than I have seen anywhere else for months. I think you would deserve a Nobel literature price or something (even if you didn’t “feel” the value of the beautiful accomplishment this blog is :)).
What a sweet sweet thing to say 🙂 Much love to you. And yes, I post a bit less now with many many life changes. But our community of Facebook is very active.
“between what is felt intrinsically as truth and what is displayed as reflection.”
Mindfulness therapy allows me to focus and be aware of my perception. So I could avoid to repeat the same pattern by focusing. But when you read “Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus”, you will try to understand the meaning. Unless you write down your thoughts, you will easily lose your concentration because you have no idea how deep its meaning is. In other words, I feel certain on that there is a discrepancy between what I identify and what it is so I cannot continue to try to understand. Then some might read it over and over without trying to understand, believing one day they would understand that enough.
Concentration may be the best option for one to understand something without getting into the same error as possible as one can, which is deemed as a natural process. But Trying to understand something naturally does not always work ‘enough’, which means people in academy are deemed as working hard to understand. They write notes and revise them continually.
For this limitation, generally I see we put unnatural efforts like CBT. In CBT, you need to modify and revise your thoughts into a more clear and reasonable way by doing rebuttals.
thank you for sharing 🙂