Aspergers

506: The Risk is Worth it. Thoughts on Friendship.

| Aspergers Girls

I don’t believe I have any answers that anyone else cannot find for himself. Or to non-negate the previous statement: I do believe I have no answers that another cannot find for himself. I have a hard time reasoning in my mind the authenticity of any self-proclaimed or manmade accentuated leader who hints, dictates, or infers that he has the answers. I am quick to steer away, and feel quite many a qualms, when I hear of anyone who thinks they have found the answer, the truth, and the way. I know too much to be a blind sheep, and too little to proclaim I know enough. This is not to say I diminish or shake a finger at modern religion or any new up and coming spiritual fashion, only that I seriously question and outright deny the fact that any human can foreseeably house the answers for another; and certainly without the answer, he has no right, if rights be the matter, to dictate to another how to live or present oneself.

I find the purest souls to be the most delightful in their attempts to literally do nothing but be, and to let be. Those that don’t pursue fame, recognition, reward, and esteem are the ones I gravitate towards, the ones who are actually repelled at multiple levels by anything to do with being in the spotlight. Those are the ones I tend to uphold as seers and seekers of truth.

Secondly, I know enough of myself to know that I am highly influenced by my environmental and physical condition, including my own stamina and mental-conditioning. What I present as reality, and perhaps a semi-temporary-truth one day, will likely be obsolete at another juncture in time.

I don’t like to sway people. I don’t even like to ‘not like.’ Still I don’t like to form judgments, or to reach conclusions about others. Of course some things, some actions, and some people (because of said actions), stand out as recognizably out of the arena of blandness. I mean to say, they make a mark that is recognizable to both my heart and mind. Mostly, it is the things that seem mean, spiteful, unjust, and not lenient which stand out, particularly something that might be deemed ‘evil’ or ‘perverse.’ But even then the lines (and labels) merge into this gray area, and I find myself neither here nor there, trying to counter both sides of an argument that has converged inside my mind.

With all of this said, I offer a few things about my thoughts on friendship. And if that wasn’t an Aspie preamble, I don’t know what is!

Aspie and Friends:

1. I prefer online friends. Online friendships eliminate much of the burden of communication. I have time to think, to edit my thoughts, to respond in a slow and delicate manner, to take time, to get back, and to not be seen physically. Most of my challenges with communications come in the mode of sensory overload and in my evaluation of what I am seeing. Yes, I still evaluate with online friendships, but about 75% of the stress of communication, particularly nonverbal processing, is eliminated. That’s not to say online communication doesn’t offer it’s barriers and weaknesses, but overall, particularly when I take the time to check for clarity, online communication scores high above face-to-face encounters. I mean I could lose myself in a freckle or hair color and miss half of an entire conversation. And forget about the background noise and nonstop monitoring of my tone of voice, inflection, and talking speed.

2. I make online friends. It’s scary but I do it.

3. I support some friends, when I am capable, and they support me when able.

When I am at my lowest, I will sometimes reach out to three or four people at one time, most of whom are Aspie or whom have Asperger’s traits, and if not Aspie then people whom I deem for the most part trustworthy, nonjudgmental, and possessing the capacity to love unconditionally.

4. I reach out to several people at a time because someone might be busy and I also don’t want to overburden one friend with my intensity.

5. I am not blessed to have many friends. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Of course I am grateful for people in my life but no one blessed me with them. I made the friendships, day after day, year after year, risk after risk. Yes, it is hard. Yes, I mess up, and yes sometimes I get super hurt. But I am not fortunate, or even lucky to have friends, because I have worked HARD to make and maintain these friendships. And I have worked hard on myself to learn how to be the best friend (person) I can be.

6. I accept my faults, frailties, and entire humanness. I am far from perfect but I avoid beating myself up. Yes, I allow myself to have a pity-party sometimes, especially when many changes are occurring in my life. However, I have friends that understand these aspects of me.

7. I only interact with certain friends during my most vulnerable times. I choose a select few friends to confide in about particularl things, especially subject matter in which I want no advice or solution finding quests.

8. If I am not careful, and I talk to a friend who offers advice or her view of the situation, the conversation can do me more harm than good. I have learned to be selective. It is a survival mechanism. Some friends can handle my intensity, others my insecurities, others my wild-imagination, and a rare few the complete me. I have learned I can’t be the complete me around everyone; I will get hurt. I have learned I can be complete by dividing myself amongst many friends. I don’t think this survival skill is specific for those on the spectrum, but I do believe Aspies are vulnerable in their ability to be strongly wounded by others, and that they often find themselves in positions of offending or shocking, without that intention.

9. Friends are not easy for me, for there is a part of me who, despite an inconceivable amount of self-reflection, insight, and work, will always think I am not a good enough friend. This isn’t a self-esteem issue. I do like me. It has to do with the extreme ways in which I can psychoanalyze myself and dissect conversations. I am always, and will always be, an observer of others, twice removed from discourse and continually dissecting and evaluating and reliving over and over past conversations.

10. I have one friend in which I can just spill my guts and fears and anxiety and she will JUST listen. She doesn’t do tit for tat. In that I mean she doesn’t ask me for advice, expect me to listen or to return the favor. She just lets me process. I think every Aspie (and every human being) needs someone who will just listen.

11. I recognize I will always feel like I don’t give back enough in friendship. It is just the way it is. When people give to me, in time or other ways, I feel an immediate want and obligation to equal the score. It’s not that I mean to keep score, only that I naturally don’t want to take advantage of anyone.

12. I love to have friends from all backgrounds. I am not picky. Or maybe I am, if you think the capacity to love without conditions, to be honest, to be giving, to be kind, and to be genuine is picky. But with that said, and a little trustworthiness thrown in, I am capable of being friends with many, many people. There isn’t a checklist.

13. I think I need friends. I think everyone does. I think the risk is worth it.

I don’t neccesarily think the introduction matches the list. But, oh well. My friends will understand. 🙂

13 is my favorite number.

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505: Still Nothing: Thoughts on Aspergers Thoughts

| Aspergers Girls

Most of the nightmares in my life transpire in my thoughts of ‘what ifs’—all the grasping strings that loop and latch onto anything remotely tangible—off springs of my fear-induced imaginings.

It’s as if I have some super-human capacity to see the infinite ways in which chaos might occur. When in actuality the chaos is the makings of my mind, trapping me in its claw-like clutches and mistreating me to the torrential worse case scenarios. Had I appetite for thinking that in some way I knew the truth of the worst, I’d be liken to a monstrous phantom-demon munching at everything within grasp. I hate to think of me as the cause of my own demise; and still I tango with these intrepid thoughts.

In battling the inner voices that make me whimper with both familiarity and trepidation, I also forgo the inklings of an entity born from a loud-speaker booming in the background, an echoing of rapid and rhythmic beats. I hear, in this way, the familiarity of words, quotes and data I have scanned and often memorized at some subconscious level. I have all these voices. Yes, all these subjects repeating themselves that I have willfully collected as some treasure to the keeper in last attempt to rid self of the torture-makers at bay.

I have sailed out to wish it so. To demolish the outcomes in which I project what could be and even what shall be. I battle within, the voices of fear and the voices of reason, all enmeshed in a wild osmosis-like parade. Trumpeting ahead is the terror, always the terror. For whomever enters, whatever trapping I have collected—be it wisdom dictated by so-called gods or perchance-happenings masquerading as unbearable, unmanageable, and must-be truths—intermingle in a tsunami of thoughts.

Wherein many living beings, if not the majority, have the likens of a simple version of reasoning, mine—the way in which thoughts enter and stay, one hosting the other in their terrible over-established party—has the capacity to produce an unreasonable amount of possibilities, all in one colossal moment.

In this way the present becomes not only unbearable but a circus onto itself, each way in which I attempt to look springing forth a ridiculous, over-dressed and over-indulged showpiece giving its all in hopes of fair bidding for eventual attention.

Each thing, the scope of collection of thoughts, is tinkered and toyed and examined; myself a miniature by all means, spinning in a whirlwind of endlessness, infinity thrust upon me, my chest overbearingly shaken and loaded with a heaviness long past horrific.

And it is not as though I can stop this.

No ringleader exists. For each thought is alive, with feeling, emoting and giving off its own breath. Each life form produced where once was only the seed of imagining. And me, being ever so clever, swimming in the waters of uncertainty, plucking one after the other to find the hidden truth. Some hope-driven wanderer, I am, cursing again the tides that come.

I am grateful for my mind, and yet I am utterly disgusted with the way in which it wallows in its own self, and takes me to the corner regions where I shake alone, clutching my legs and edging into the bloated corners of existence. I am in a dark place, without hope, as the thoughts inch forward, one by one, each with a minion of sorts attached to its back; some evil knapsacks piled atop the crawling creatures, all housing an unlimited theory of possibilities.

‘Feasibly’ becomes a word birthed by the dark. For each inch of the world is limitless in breadth and direction; and so to live and breathe means to awaken again to the way in which nothing is controlled or understood. Even the entirety itself, as presented forth, is demoralized and left undone. Even the way in which the thoughts transcend transgress, wounded by the piercing brought on by my own demise.

I launch at my world, shooting daggers and arrows towards the waves of thoughts, and endlessly they lap up, taking me in pieces. I taste the bitter saltiness, tears mixed with the washings of me. I have no place to run. No place to hide; and all about me the hundreds of voices haunting with how it should be, how I should be, and how I should be able to stop.

And yet I know not how.

To say the worse of it is the thoughts is to not tell the full of the truth; for the worse of the matter are the thoughts behind the thoughts behind the thoughts. Given the over-capacity to evaluate and process, I experience multiple levels of reasoning in one swoop: a sea-bird of recourse taking in with wounded swallow the million molecular creatures of the ocean.

There is that which is reasoned: named I.
There is that which is the undone mask behind the reason: named Illusion.
And there is that which remains the reminding of the mind’s process that has come before: named Observer.

All of which dwell in one form, though existing separately. Each with the capacity to taunt in its own way, whilst promising relief through a final pointt singled out by the word: Answer.

And still nothing.

No matter what I latch onto, be it reason, be it recollection of illusion, be it observer of the mind-spinning process, each releases me into the turmoil further; each an honorable hand offering relief only to plunge me deeper within the confusion.

The trick, in saving self, is to not listen to any of them. For each voice is a haunting from past collection.

Some variant creature I am, set down upon this planet with the ability to hold into herself limitless worlds. And it is I who slips again and again through multiple dimensions of theory, only to end up as I began: lost, confused, drowned in self-imposed forsakenness.

The trick for the wanderer is to decide not to think. When the parade begins, to close the ears to the luring voices. To ignore the outreaching temptations of stone after stone unturned. To recognize nothing exists in the promises. To understand each promissory note of victory need be only deception and trickery.

Yes, I am made victim to the makings this mind bleeds, less self than the voices, floating on a makeshift waterbed, believing this time, this once, just maybe, the answer will arise. But yet, further away exists the eternal hope. Somewhere there is another voice that doesn’t require hearing. That doesn’t hurt when entering. That has no desire, and with no desire demands and hints of no requests or expectations. It is in this stillness my body rests in the valley of goodness, a place unbeknownst to the voices that carry me still across the external waves of discourse, without notice, without want, without care, that there exists a place beyond their pain.

504: Had I but a voice…whisperings of Aspergers

| Aspergers Girls

“This is your Aspergers. It is your brain searching for something to fixate on. It is our hyper-intelligence. Our brains are puzzle solvers. We are here to help the planet. When we focus on light we make dynamic shifts. But the yang of the yin is when we focus on the dark; it is hell. The trap, we Aspies fall into, is trying to solve our emotions, instead of sitting with them.” ~ Sam

***************

We believe we are never going to be good enough, right enough, or enough. No matter how much we read, decipher and figure out. No matter the conclusions pondered and information transmitted, the puzzles seemingly solved, or ideas seemingly mastered. We remain somewhat in awe of ourselves and the world. Our bodies and brains, and everything, unwinded and dissected, and nonetheless remaining singularly tangled and unmanageable. Our brains were made to conquer and conquest, and yet, we are the ones conquered in the endless ways in which to surmise our reality and exponential experience in life. Through our ability to mesh objectivity with subjectivity, we are made into a conundrum of possibilities; ourselves delivered to the world through a large scope of outward introspection, as if the audience is the All of everyone, and we the victim of circumstantial evidence. We are hunted, say hounded, by our innate ability to view ourselves from a distance, whilst climbing inside of others, many others, and imagining a collected viewpoint and conclusion of us. And this transaction isn’t something purposeful or invented for cause or reason. The exact act of becoming this observer of the observers is ingrained into our essential state of being. We are in essence and in truth, a mini-version of everything we take in. In this sense, we can never be that which is good, right, or enough, as everything is projected and taken back, endless mirrors upon mirrors of becoming the every changing of that which is around us.

We are made to be puzzle solvers, and the dynamic labyrinth of us, and that of the singular ‘me,’ eludes the perceived self. We become so twisted in thought that the truth hides between and beneath complex layers of potentiality, a state of existence at battle with forethought of failure. A concept considered is quickly sliced and diced and made into the sectioned out pieces of avenues of demise. We can see with hindsight, foresight, and insight into the depths of each solution we consider. Thinking therefor becomes exhaustive itself, and at times, many times, uncontrollable. As if we were made to conquer the exact thought perceived, only our tools of conquest are both our weapon and our curse. Had we the opportunity to rest our minds, the remainder flows naturally; however, the resting itself is continually challenged and masked by further thought of the concept of ‘rest’ itself. Making relaxation still another puzzle to be solved and pieced back together. For everywhere is this appearance of a ‘challenge.’ Everywhere our brains want to pick and perch, peck and devour, until the end point is found. Even as we know there is no end in sight. This is the deviation sector of our searching, a place in space in which we can step back and observe ourselves hunting for something we know does not exist, while simultaneous lacking the ability to halt said action. Had we known how to stop ourselves, our minds would be different, lacking the cohesiveness to piece back together that which is before us. We are made this way for reason unknown to us, even as we feel there must be a reason: for how could such a ‘thing’ as I exist, if not for some purpose other than the regions of hell in which our thinking leads.

We long for order in a world that dictates discord, even as nature professes the circularity of wholeness. We see behind the curtains of societal games and rules. The prophecies of past make sense to us, wherein the theories, the solutions, the ways in which modern leaders point, do not. Everything we create is created at multiple levels. Sometimes our own thinking manifests further outcomes. Sometimes the coincidences are incomprehensible and impossible to explain. We are descriptive creatures. Everywhere and all about is description. We take in information like manmade thesauruses and dictionaries. Had we known we’d be mistaken as ancient ones marked as ‘know-it-alls’ and beseeched with unceasing ways of interpretation, perhaps we would have failed to live without taking first breath. But regardless, we remain. Our quest is unreachable to those that think not as we. We are, in many ways, separate in how we perceive the world. Our sensory input on high-speed, our ability to reach a temporary finishing point, beyond measure. We endure a silent suffering all day and all night, the intensity of the world bearing down on us as a tangible concrete weight. A heaviness indescribable and ever moving into each crevice that is ‘self.’ To wake is to take in another day of battle, as to sleep is to meander through that which was taken in the whole of the day. The subconscious combined with another powerful force abstracting the decayed ravaged thoughts and replacing them with an unspeakable knowledge beyond us. Our scope of intelligence so vastly far-reaching that our own minds become lost in an ocean, torrential.

……………….

Had I but a moment to replace my being with another, less common than I, and make this person enter me, then he would know the hell I speak of, the way in which the mind made mad taunts and slithers as snake to fowl captured.

In every way I am me and I am not me; and so it goes I am divided into multiple selves not knowing who to expect. Calm on the exterior or upset. Weeping or cursing. Lying to self or submerged in the illusion of truth. I know not what will happen next. I am subjected to the layering of others: a natural empath taking on both the hurts and wants of those around me. I soak in greed. I breath out anger. I force myself to stand, even as I know not where, as vultures around me circle, taking in what they think is me, and spitting out their awful truths. I am invisible. I know this. I see this. I write this on the edge of my soul. The outline of me marked in words “I am,” and yet sucked out into that voice which is the masses.

I am slipping as I speak. Lost in the places of public where people proclaim this sense of righteous being. I drift in a world where I long to be seen and where everywhere I am branded with harsh judgment. It does not matter how many people love me, need me, or attempt to protect me. Even as my guardian circle expands, the vultures come closer. It is not the ability to build my force field of love that guides me; more so it is my built-in longing to move beyond the vultures of society, which propels me forward in action. Had I not the torrential rain spurted down by the falsehoods of this world, I would be not urged to continue onward. Even in the darkest moments, I know the voice that tricks me is merely a reminder of the voice that tricks all.

Had I but a voice that could penetrate the walls of me, I would pierce me a thousand times through and be within and without, transmitted into a time without time, and cast out as minion to the masses of humble-seekers. Had I but a heart a thousand times pierced, I would ask another blade to enter, if only to free that which is imprisoned: myself upon self.

***********************

“We think we are ungrateful, but that’s not it. Our brains are just always solving, so we conclude we are never satisfied. Thinking we are not thankful, we then self-punish, believing ourselves less than and not enough—incapable of finding this so-called “satisfaction,” a mythical word that is a leeched byproduct spawned from societal whimsy.” ~ Sam

503: The “Truth” About Lying (An Aspie perspective)

| Aspergers Girls

I put myself into a situation last month wherein I found myself lying in totality more than I had in my entire life. I fooled myself into thinking the act of telling falsehoods was somehow protecting someone’s feelings. But the truth of the matter is my lying only compounded the challenges and hurt the person I was trying to protect.

Having always been an overly honest, frank, yet gentle person, I had never experienced the domino effect of lying before. I hadn’t been in a position before in which I was creating new lies to cover up previous lies, nor in the position of trying to recall what I had said in previous mistruths to validate and confirm current mistruths. I found the whole process excruciatingly exhausting, and both physically and emotionally daunting. I finally reached a point where I told the person the whole of the situation, mostly because I was ‘caught’ in the process, and also because I couldn’t stand to tell one more lie.

The truth about lying is that the act itself causes me great distress.

Because of the way my mind works, I overanalyze the simplest of things; however, the most prevalent means of overanalyzing is seen in my natural, seemingly instinctual, ability to search for truths, (and try my best not to lie). To complicate the ordeal, having been around this earth long enough, (I am ready to be beamed up.), it’s quite clear that truths are too complex of matters to ever be discovered in completion. To truly peel the outer layer of the proverbial onion off to find the core of truth is impossibility—the process in and of itself futile.

Yet, still my mind peels and peels, thinking at last I will figure out the reality of truth; even as I know now, at least conclude now, that the only reality is love and service, and trying my best to be the best version of me, whilst allowing myself to be human without gluttony-based-behavior manifested as self-punitive thoughts.

Regardless of any knowings, my brain will continue to try to find the truth, the facts, the reality, etc. The reason, it seems, is I have this engrained responsibility to be authentic. I mean it’s carved into my essence—the very heart of me wanting nothing more than to be me.

And that is where everything gets complicated. For there is no me I can find.

Beyond this philosophical plight, there remains the undeniable, double-stubborn part of me that insists on being honest, even as the depths of honesty elude me. They, the depths of honesty, are complicated by manmade rules. Whether the rules be about feelings, or disclosure, or privacy, or social behavior, the rules affect my ability to figure out how to be. This in itself in a quandary: For if I am in constant state of trying to figure out how to be me, then when am I me? My mind gets stuck on wheels of thought like the aforementioned, and I become exhausted.

In this interplay of finding truth, simple acts become tiring, thinking becomes tiring. Everything is a hurdle and I the limping former track star trying to merely move beyond the obstacle. I become utterly dumbfounded and lost in a maze of possibilities. In partaking in something as simple as ordering coffee at a local spot, I undergo distress. I wonder if my facial expression is what I am feeling. I wonder if my tone of voice accurately reflects the inner me. I wonder if in my response to ‘how are you,’ is a true response. I wonder if my thoughts are kind about the person, and if they are not kind thoughts, I wonder what is kind? I become lost from the simple act of facing a person at a cash register for under five seconds. Time slows down, too, as if I have the ability to process things at the opposite of hyper-time, and enter a zone of almost endless contemplation, until I am pulled back by a sensory trigger such as the voice of another or chime of a machine. I then question my actions. Was I ‘ADHDing’? Was I time traveling? Was I over-thinking? And then the judge comes forward, the voice I stopped pushing down, and now simply observe and let slip away. The voice reminding me how different I am than most around me; how most of my life is spent in another world, way beyond the experience of the common bystander I observe.

And the thoughts don’t stop then. I am in a constant state of preparation of truth. Sometimes I think a certain species was created to be a light bearer of truth; this species being Aspergers and those on the spectrum. At least sometimes this appears the case to me. But I think whomever plopped some of us down, forgot the enormity of the task of the act of bearing truth, forgot the infiniteness of truth, the way the frays off the branches of thoughts bleed out into millions upon millions of splintered-possibilities, and how the mind can only handle so much. I think this creator, or these creators, whether it be God, aliens, genetics, or mutations, overlooked the humanness of us, the frailties, the ways in which our own minds would override our sense of freedom and hope. And how inevitably in longing for the truth, more than anything, we would lose sight of not only ourselves, and those around us, but the very gift of life.

502: Dear You: To my Aspie Sisters and Brothers

| Aspergers Girls

Dear You,

If you are reading this, please know you are not alone.

I know at times it feels that way—really feels that way; so much so, that even your keen logic cannot convince you otherwise. The voices will tell you are unloving, unworthy, undesirable. But the voices are lies. You are love. You are worthy. You are desire.

I have been in the dark place more times than I can count; it comes, the bleakness, spontaneously in huge volcanic ruptures. The pain itself tears at my heart and my soul and leaves me breathless and weak. It is then in the black that I cannot find solutions. When I believe I have no one. And that all about the world is my enemy.

But that is not truth, even as it seems very much truth. It isn’t. I know it isn’t. I know because I have witnessed our beauty in the countless people I have encountered on the autistic spectrum. Their truth and love are evident, their souls transparent.

Please know that by being here, you are making a difference. You are making a difference to me. Your pain is my pain. Your story my story, and we share a lifetime of similarities. I understand you; I truly do, just as you understand me. If we were to sit alone in a quiet place and talk, you would know me and I, you. We are sisters and brothers. We are one in our quest for truth, justice, and love.

I know how you suffer in your silence, and how you too suffer in your immeasurable thoughts. I know how you have to always balance what is inside with what you display on the outside. I know this extreme burden, the heaviness, the endless weary mind. How exhausting that task remains, day in and day out, night after night, in what seems a thousand lifetimes wrapped into one.

I understand how you see beyond the illusion of what is indoctrination, and beyond the falsehoods of societal norms. I know. And I know what isolation comes from our being. I know what it is to be ostracized, questioned, blamed, persecuted, attacked, and made victim. I know. And I stand tall still, more so for you than for my own self. For I will not stop. I will not shut out my light to please an enemy that moves against me. I will remain here. I will remain strong. I will remain whole in my determination to rise above the chaos that is this world. I will continue to seek out kindred souls, who not only understand me but understand the necessity for the demolishment of mediocrity. I will be here, waiting, always. Welcoming through my threshold truth seekers and the like.

I honor you, and our family, each individual who remains afraid but nonetheless holds steadfast to the value of authenticity. No. You are not alone. Not anymore. There are thousands of us here, much more alike than different. And even as we suffer at times in our isolation, in the end we are surrounded by circles and circles of friends on the same path.

Please understand that I think of you daily. Please know that I count my blessings with you included as a star in my night sky. Without you, I wouldn’t know where to stand or how to be. With you I remember my light. I remember me.

Much, much love.
Stay strong.
Stay true.
Your friend,
Sam