brain

307: Prophet for Jesus, Fence-Sitter, and The Flame

| Aspergers Girls

Alternative Title: How Deep Is Your Brain ^^^Thusly, this song I cannot get out of my head.

This writing is an example of how my brain processes, not an example of clarity, linear thought, or even anything understandable to most. It goes in circles while trying to pull out conclusions. In the end it makes lots of sense to me… and probably only me.

One time I got all gung-ho about Jesus with an atheist girlfriend; and I ended up giving her an impromptu mini-dissertation about how church would save her marriage. I can kind of blame my untamed and inappropriate outcries of abashment on the bad reaction I was experiencing from an anti-depressant at that time: and since I can, I will. But what sparked the monolithic proportions of my monologue eludes me. Sadly, I must say that that then and there moment, as I spewed Jesus jargon judiciously, would mark the end of what had been a fruitful relationship.

For the most part, I am a fence sitter, it seems, stuck between one version of me and another. If I cling onto some thought too tightly, I crash. I get carried away like a young fledgling on first flight, spreading my wings and getting caught in the experience more than the cause.

In most cases, I don’t like to leap off my fence, as I crash and burn. Case and point being my mini-prophet-for-Jesus excursion.

I like to sit in the middle, in the neutral territory. At least I thought I did.

But I got to thinking last night, as I tossed and turned, still sick from some virus combined with the combination of pre-menopausal hormones that make me shift from a feeling of icy-pond to a bug-singing-lightbulb-crisp rollercoaster ride every few minutes. I pondered on the capacity and audacity of my fence-squatting, and was hit by a big ah!ha!

Like retrospection on high-speed, I was shown the intimate details of the fear-factor that makes me so hesitant to leap from the place in which I perch.

It’s not so much that there is an embryotic fluid that I am trying to maintain balance within, it’s not that I don’t want to cause waves, it’s not that I’ve latched on to some Eastern Tradition of unconditional acceptance and the knowing of not and absence, it’s that I’m fricken freaked out and afraid to claim who I am.

Ohhhhhh, she said to herself, she being me, as she tossed about night-sweaty, feverish, and nose-drippingly on the creased and feather-beddy couch.

Ohhhhh, she said again.

Bewildered once again by the self enlightening of self.

And then the mind dove as often does, into a place that still astounds me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have clung onto all these beliefs of why I am the way I am.

In truth, at least today’s limited truth, or in thought, or in some speck of bubble of time that I happened to breathe in at this moment, the fast growing cohesive fact is that I am AFRAID.

Quest-filled as I be, I am AFRAID to be anything outside the scope of that which I’ve studied and claimed to be a supposed ideal.

I blame zealousy entirely.

I am the potent human combination of INFJ, Idealist, and Cancerian, and over-dominantly right-brained. I am basically screwed on all accounts to be a functioning logical human being without being overthrown by extreme passion, emotion, and evaluation for doing what is right and just.

And in so being this way, that is seemingly beyond my own control, I have latched on to the right and just path: That of doing nothing, because essentially nothing is real to begin with.

The only one big oversight being that in essence in the rigid act of doing nothing, I am in fact doing something.

I am indeed afraid to be anything other than that which I have so deemed to be ideal.

I have moved beyond much self-serving wishes and behavior, but here I still remain stuck on the fence.

And why?

(And with this question I dive deeper in image and thought. Still making sense, but communicating what I am thinking becomes more difficult, as I am experiencing most of these concepts all in picture form and trying to find words that feel right. Some words feel good while others feel like a bump in the road of what I am trying to communicate.)

Well I used to think it was because I was being good, not claiming a right way or right cause, but in so doing, in so sitting on this proverbial fence, wall, or what have you, I am in fact claiming a way. I am claiming the way of the fence-sitter!

So all this time I think I am doing nothing but observing and being, I am actually doing and demonstrating, and that’s what befuddles me: the extremeness of being, wherein I cannot theoretically choose anything without spawning a choice and then exposing the choice to the world. I cannot even sit on the fence without being that which others would claim as a fence-sitter.

Every action I do is perceived as an action. Even inertia. I cannot be motionless without being perceived as motionless. And it is in this perception, in the others’ viewing of me, in which I feel trapped and over exposed.

Before last night and the review of my actions thus far, I hadn’t thought that a fence-sitter could be judged. I thought I was safe on the fence. But in actuality in today’s reckoning, indeed I am judged.
Outsiders judge me with wonderment, regardless.

As the depths of me unfold and I sit upon my fence, I am a fireball of inferno waiting to rupture, waiting to expand and scream I AM ME! Only I know not who I be.

So here, I set about to claim myself, if not to free my own entrapment, than to re-stir that which has been deemed stagnant energy.

I reclaim myself in the doing world, in the being world.

The fact that I have molded myself into so many identities in attempts to fit into a place where I never quite fit in has led me to flee to the sideline, to the fence-sitting. But as I started to write and share my strangeness and perception of life with other earthlings, I soon gathered that I was not as isolated and alone as I had previously imagined. What this means is the fear of rejection was slowly purged and eradicated out of my soul in a two-fold way.

(Here is where I dive deeper and I add words that might not make sense to anyone but me)

First, I was forced, though self-enforcement, to face hundreds of strangers’ reading my words. After months upon months of panic and fear of how said strangers would perceive me, and how my innards would be torn out by disarray and conflict and people pleasing, I became utterly exhausted by the entire process; depleted of mirth and effort I had no choice but to retreat and to let go. And then, and only, with the release of fear, I was finally freed from that which had been the doings of my own self-imposed tyrant.

Secondly, with the people-pleasing aspect of myself released, processed, and forgiven, I was free to speak more from a place of me than from a place of potential danger. Doomville in the strings of feasible futures was eradicated from my thoughts, freeing up a creative aspect I hadn’t delved into as this self before. Having solely dived in such a manner, as in freeing self and freeing mind, I then began to subconsciously analyze my own behavior further, whilst the original me remained dutifully ignorant that the underlayering of me was shedding and rebuilding.

I emerged, some time and somewhere in between as this other me: someone not afraid of what people would say or how people would react to my words, but someone still afraid to make a claim and remove self from the fence.

(Now I go into philosophy mode. I type what I feel, see, and hear from an inner voice. It doesn’t all make sense until I go back and reread it. I remember all the images I viewed while writing and learn a lot about myself. Some words “hurt” and I can’t use them. I pause until the right word comes..)

I was like an in-betweener. Somewhat of a gorgeously endowed knight with shiny armor, sword, and crested shield, yet unyielding in desire to move. To budge me off the fence would be my doom. To make me be a someone, an individual, a man of opinion, or woman no matter, would be my potential downfall.

And so I sat, fence-sitter me as observer dressed for pillaging and forging through the mysteries of world, with only my mind for company.

In so being, I dove further into thought, and vision, and the expansiveness of non-reality, emerging further bathed in what I could decipher as knowledge and know-how but with nowhere to stake my said claim of what would not be called accomplishment but experience.

And as a fence-sitter I grew, and grew weary, wanting more to reach out to the essential self of who I am and was and could be than to the passerby who judged me solely from that place in which I sat.

The judgment be gone and I could jump off. Or so I thought. I dissected, this part of me beneath my other traveling skin-covered self, and recovered the pullings of that which brought rapture upon the dying pieces; I brought out the truth of my fears, beyond the truth of the judgers and the perceivers and the passerbys with weapons and wounds their own.

I came to see that what really kept me steadfast and immobile and riddled with a fear of movement was not that fence in which I built to sit, but that of what could be, if I merged all sections of self and forgo the constant self-injury.

What I saw, as a holy terror, was that the emerging of my divine self was in actuality that which I claimed monster from the start; for in this divine energy coming forth were the mysteries I could not analyze or solve, or even factor as a multiple of life. And as numbers abounded me, drowning me in complexity, the thought of breaking and molding into something new astounded me true, but terrified me more than less.

And so I set bewildered at the self and the propensity of amazement, that indeed the act of self-implosion and procreation of the millions upon millions of tri-folded awakenings beneath me was justly my foe.

And then the light shone, and I disintegrated thought and mind, and released and proclaimed my stand as man and man alone, in spirit and in flesh; one divinely gifted with light and love and passion to be.
And in this reclaiming that had been said so long ago in ancient land, I set forth the fortress of who I was—the castle strong, the enemy weakened, the turrets rising and declaring my beauty.

I rose then, not this man confused by the dark but man confused by the light. For seeing such a grand mass of individualism ghastly reformed into truth blinded me to the causation of form, blinded me to the fact that yes: within I had blossomed so grandly that in need I blinded self.

I understood then, with an unbridled passion of symbolic thought and image, that what be futile broken and unclaimed holiness, was in the same instance trickery mirrors, set upon by no other but me, to deflect from the beauty emerging within.

For in the end, as I rise phoenix from the flame of eternal everlasting self, there was never an enemy beyond the fury of reflection inflamed before my eyes. For where I saw fire was no other than self, and not that the flame bleed false, or wrongly, or pain, but the flame bled beauty beyond reason.

And in this is where I sat, astounded by my own beauty, forever singed in the smoke and soot of what I thought to be demon enemy.

How merrily disguised this beast of naught, how trickery is woven by self and self alone, as one sets upon the land of feet and walks in no direction but away from self, when self is where the ocean waits.

I see now, clearly that I am no less black and no less white than that in which the flame dictates. For when the light reflects I am the shadow, I project and I foresee. I am nothing and everything I wish, if the wisher be awake.

Yet still I sit, this fence-sitter still wondering if all I see is not some grand mystery trapped with a droplet on the ebb and flow of some forgotten time. I sit and wait for the flame thrower to cast his way, for the one I call me to find the girth and scope of chivalry, to find this thing called brave, and jump into the abyss beyond. I see now whilst contemplating the rhythm of thought and nature, I am but me and nothing more, but this me be everything.

And these are the visions that come before me as I still sit twisted in the knowing that though the flame be no other than me that the flame still be.

^^^ and I dedicate this to my hormones ^^^ Night Fever :)))

And that’s all she wrote… as her brain was emptied…. at least for the next hour.

300: Aspergers: The Stuff That Ain’t Working

| Aspergers Girls

1. Exposure Therapy:

For years and years I thought if I just socialized more, if I just connected more, and tried harder to be like everyone else, my endurance level for social gatherings would improve and my anxiety levels would decrease. I believed that through repeated exposure that things would get better. That hasn’t happened.

I don’t have a fear and/or phobia to any one thing or event; therefore there is nothing I can focus on overcoming or having less fear about. My anxiety isn’t caused by anything I can pinpoint. My anxiety is caused by the way I process the stimuli in my environment and the way I respond to my surroundings. I am hyper-aware and my senses are turned up to the highest degree. I am also, despite self-training and studies, unsure of how to act in a social gathering, (e.g, how much to share, when to share, when to stop, when to respond, how to stand, how to look, when to be less honest, etc.); and as a result of my uncertainty, I have a constant inner voice reminding me of how to be. A voice that also self-corrects continually.

I need and long for structure and routine. My fear can be reduced if the same events happen in a similar way. However, inevitably changes occur. To say I will get better with practice or exposure is not an accurate statement. First of all, I am not wrong or in need of improvement. I am uniquely wired. One would not tell a person with a visual impairment that if she kept staring at a picture on the wall the image would become clearer, and one would not tell a person with a hearing impairment to repeatedly listen to a song on high-volume to improve his or her hearing. In the same line of thinking, one cannot tell me to continue going outside of my comfort-zone, to eventually gain a sense of security. I do not have the physical capacity. This is not biologically possible for me.

2. Positive Self-Talk/Cognitive Therapy:

While Aspergers can, and often does, have the comorbid conditions of generalized anxiety disorder, OCD, and depression, Aspergers is not the sum of its parts. A person cannot be treated for the comorbid conditions and then grow out of Aspergers. If anyone says they outgrew Aspergers or cured themselves, I don’t believe they had ASD to begin with. Unless they’ve feasibly learned how to reprogram their brain.

I do not think there is a way to change my brain. And as hard as my life can be at times, I don’t like the idea of my brain changing. Aspergers is not a mental illness. The “disorder” of Aspergers is believed to occur in the frontal lobe of the brain. Why and how the condition develops is still largely unknown. Though there seems to be a large genetic factor.

While positive self-talk has many benefits and can decrease episodes of anxiety and depression, and perhaps even diminish some OCD tendencies, it does little to help with the condition of Aspergers itself. No matter how much self-talk I give myself, I still respond in a fight or flight response pattern, when I am in a public place or at a public gathering. I do not want to feel this way, and do not choose to feel this way, but this is the way I feel.

Self-talk and cognitive behavior techniques can sometimes do me more harm than good. When I am panicking, no matter how many times I incorporate positive self-talk or implement cognitive behavioral techniques, (e.g., replace negative belief that is a falsehood with a true reality-based belief), my body continues to respond as if I am in danger. When I do in fact implement the self-talk, in an attempt to do the “right” thing or to “fix” myself, I then feel guilty when the technique does not work. I then question why I was not capable of applying such a simple concept to my own way of thinking.

No amount of practice, hard work, or scouring through books has increased the effectiveness of cognitive-based therapy techniques for me. And the more I use them, and fail, the more I feel as if I am wired in a way that is wrong.

What does help me is letting go and realizing that the panic is something I have to go through, and realizing that when I am on the other side I will be okay. And that there is nothing wrong with what I am doing or going through. It is just the way I am. So in a way I am using positive talk, but not in the traditional sense. I am not finding a false statement or belief that needs change and fixing it. Instead I am self-soothing and reminding myself I will be okay regardless of how I feel at the moment.

I use my thoughts as more of a security blanket. The best thing for me to do in times of anxiety is not to retrain my brain to talk better to me, but to retrain me to treat my brain better. The key being letting go and acceptance.

3. Thinking if I am more self-aware I will be able to control my thoughts and/or anxiety:

I can’t control myself sometimes. I thought if I read enough and studied enough that I could reprogram who I am at a core level. To a degree, spiritually and perhaps energetically, and maybe even genetically, I might be able to alter myself, depending on what doctrine I deem to hold some semblance of truth, but overall I cannot change this elemental core of Aspergers; and if I feasibly can, the answer repeatedly stealthily eludes me.

I have tried every way imaginable to knock some sense into me when I go into a mode of shutdown, and there is nothing I can do, beyond pushing through the uncomfortable emotions.

When my anxiety is high, I become immobile. I cannot do simple tasks. I become extremely fatigued and unable to think in a linear fashion. I become trapped in a cycle or loop of thought. I can step back and see myself doing this. And the odd part is, I know what tools to implement that should supposedly pull myself out, but I also know they won’t work on me. I have tried. Nothing works to stop the anxiety when it is in full swing. It is like I have to go through the tunnel of darkness to come out cleansed and regenerated at the other end.

Days filled with too much sensory overload lead to days of shutdown. During this time life seems bleak and not worth living; however, it does not feel hopeless. I feel fed up more than anything, and exhausted by thought and life. My good hours are usually from when I wake up until mid-day. By mid-afternoon, I often become overwhelmed. This is when I can do little more than sit on the couch. I cannot listen to someone talk for long. It is like I am a computer and all my memory has been filled up. There is no more room left for input.

I have thought to scribe a list to remind myself during the high-anxiety, shut down times of what I need to do to feel better. However, when I am in shutdown, I know that no list of any sort will help. It doesn’t matter that I know why I am overwhelmed and exhausted. My brain is in lockdown. I am protecting myself from short circuiting. The last thing I need is logic or steps to follow. This cognitive reasoning only leads me into further shutdown and retreat, further bombarded by the outside. The only method that works for me is releasing control and letting myself go through the emotional process. If I do not let myself retreat, I will likely have a meltdown, in where I shout and cry. I need time to decompress and be alone. Time to process and discard of my abundance of emotions and thoughts.

4. Thinking that by knowing I have Aspergers I will be more likely able to change myself.:

With self-recognition of Aspergers my behaviors have shifted, but I haven’t changed. Before I didn’t understand my emotions. Before a major event, like a party at our house, when I didn’t know I had Aspergers, I would get extremely controlling and high-strung. I would order my husband around and start arguments. I would create chaos so I could release the tremendous fear building up inside of me. I didn’t know the fear was from thoughts of the upcoming events. My husband would often ask me why I was so angry and touchy before a party. I didn’t know. I thought I was a controlling person and needed everything to go my way to be happy. The problem was I knew innately I didn’t want to be a controlling person and I was never happy, regardless.

It wasn’t until I realized I had Aspergers that my behavior changed. Now, before an event, I no longer subconsciously create drama so I can release emotion. I didn’t consciously decide to change this; the change happened naturally with the discovery of my Aspergers. Now, I am hyper-aware of why I am upset. I recognize my emotions in detail and the triggers that set me into a state of anxiety. It might seem that knowing myself more would make the anxiety level decrease, but actually the anxiety is more intensified, because I am no longer subconsciously utilizing displacement. I am not displacing my own dread about an event into another event. I am not using or finding a scapegoat. I am not creating drama in order to diffuse my own tension. Instead tension keeps building and I have no way to release it.

Now that I am more aware of my own behavior and emotions, and the triggers, I do much more stimming, e.g., I flick my nails, flap my hands, clear my throat, click my teeth, and so forth. I also have anxiety dreams related to a planned event. And the day of the event, I have extreme fluctuations of emotions, and sometimes physical symptoms such as hives and/or stomach aches. I am now taking in the full of the experience and my body is responding. I don’t know if this is better or worse than the displacement. What is also happening is instead of “freaking out” before an event, I am often “freaking out” after the event. I feel very much like a child who holds herself together for the better part of the day, only to go home and have a meltdown.

I have found, to date, the best way to handle my anxiety is to not turn it into the enemy, or something to be eradicated and ejected, but something to be accepted. The more I fight the anxiety, the worse I feel, for there isn’t any avenue that saves me or leads to rescue. I have to go through the discomfort in order to feel relief. The process is similar to a minor panic attack or adrenaline rush, but it passes, and the more accepting I am of the process the quicker it passes. I’ve noticed the same with my dog’s epileptic seizures. They used to last up to twenty-minutes; now when they begin I hold her and release my own fear. I accept she will go through the seizure and be okay. I send this feeling of acceptance to her, and do not fight her seizures. I then let her go, or hold her less closely, and ignore her in a compassionate way, as if telling her: This is not a big deal. Don’t give it power, and it will pass. Since incorporating this method, my dog’s seizures have decreased drastically in length, generally only five minutes, and sometimes less than a minute. My own anxiety is like a my dog’s seizure; if I just let go and trust it will be okay, it passes much quicker.

5. Believing that by making plans I will feel more structured and therefore I will experience less anxiety:

Sometimes lists help me; especially if there are no deadlines on the list. I like to make lists of chores or errands, and to cross out items as they are accomplished. I also like to rewrite new lists and to see how much the to-do items have diminished. Lists are my friends. Appointments on the calendar are not my friends.

I remember my father would always tell me a similar thing. I would ask him if we could get together on such-and-such day, and he would typically respond that he couldn’t tell me yet, and that deciding at that moment didn’t feel comfortable to him. He did better with last-minute plans. I didn’t understand at the time why my father acted this way. I felt cheated out of his life and not important enough to plan for. But today I understand my father more. He didn’t want to make plans because he didn’t want the stress of worrying about an upcoming event. I am the same way. I have been my whole life.

To me, the best days are days nothing is on the calendar. Even one appointment or obligation can make me anxious for hours beforehand, sometimes even days beforehand. The thought of having to pick up my son up from school each afternoon causes me stress. I leave at a set time daily, and the trip is short, easy, and non-eventful, but the stress does not dissipate.

Usually two hours before a scheduled event, I start to become very preoccupied with the time and the steps I will have to take to leave the house. Simple tasks, like showering or getting dressed, feel overwhelming. I can spend several minutes, processing and reprocessing the pros and cons of showering. I can create in my mind a half-dozen scenarios of what sequence I should follow in preparation for my departure. Even before I’ve started the process of getting ready, I am often mentally exhausted.

When I see an event on the calendar, I have a small panicky feeling inside, as I realize that soon in preparation for an event, I will experience something similar to post-traumatic-stress-syndrome.

This seems contradictory in nature to me: the fact that I do well knowing what to expect and with routine but at the same time I dread plans on the calendar. I look forward to well-structured days indoors at home. However, the repeated isolation and lack of adult company can lead to depression and feelings of isolation, loneliness, and inadequacy.

There is a continual pendulum of want inside of me. On one side there is the longing for company and stimulation outside the home, on the other side there is the longing to hibernate and not have to experience the anxiety involved in going out. This pendulum moves back and forth. If I am not careful, I can self-punish myself by wishing I was different and more normal. I am in a constant state of fluctuation, never centered, and always wanting.

6. Believing if I can just let go of Aspergers and get on with my life, I’ll be fine.

I joke with myself sometimes. I think if I write enough and share enough, I will process the Aspergers right out of me. Some silly part of me believes I’ll wake up and be cured of Aspergers, and if not cured, so much better able to function. The truth is I don’t need to be cured. I am not sick, or ill, or broken. I have been born with a brain that is different from the general population. If society was different, I would be responding differently. But society isn’t different.

I have tried over and over to change myself, to try to fit in, and to try to function, but the more I try, the more I find myself battling the same resistance. What I have found that works is contact with other people who understand me. I feel safe with most people with Aspergers, and to a degree safe with people who would classify themselves as a bit “quirky” or “shy.” I fit nicely with the odd balls and misfits.

I don’t need to let go of Aspergers, I need to let go of isolation and thinking there is something wrong with me to begin with. The more lovely souls I meet with brains wired like mine, the more I learn to appreciate my uniqueness and beauty, and the more I recognize the depth of my own intelligence and empathy.

I was created differently, but different is not wrong, and need not be terrible. With the right balance of release and acceptance, and with the right connection with like-souls, I am learning to navigate myself in this world. Where I used to believe I was dropped down on the wrong planet, I now believe that I am right where I am supposed to be.

Post 294: I Wish It Was Really Tuesday

| Aspergers Girls

Phone call at 8:30 a.m. to husband:

“I had a rush of fear that you are cheating on me. You aren’t cheating on me, right? It’s just my brain, right? You love me?”

Text message (paraphrased) to both husband and good friend, around 11:00 a.m.:

“I have a scratchy throat and feel achy. I am worried that the cold I had is trying to come back. Other people have colds that come back, right? It doesn’t mean my immune system is bad and I’m dying, does it?”

Phone call at 12:15 a.m. to husband:

“Honey, I’m not losing my mind,am I? How has my memory been? Have I been forgetful? Do I seem like my brain is degenerating?”

Seems I’ve had coffee today….Racing thoughts and borderline paranoia about health and relationships.

I tried to not have coffee for two days, and quickly slipped into a state of increased pain, fatigue, and melancholy. With coffee (spiked with organic hot chocolate) my energy is tripled, my esteem increased, and my mood one of mostly happy, (when I’m not obsessing about my health or abandonment issues).

I got a lot done this morning, with the help of aforementioned caffeine and sugar combo. I feel satisfied when I get things done. I feel guilty when I’m a couch spud—which I am when my pain and fatigue is at its peak.

I’ve been working to find a balance, a careful ratio of just enough caffeine and not too much. I’ve been trying combinations of green tea and coffee and chocolate.

coffee

Everything in my life seems to be dependent upon balance and ratio. I’m often at one extreme or another of something, some experience, or some thought.

Everything and everyone affects me at some level.

A new day is never easy. The act of waking and moving takes enormous energy. Not the opening my eyes part, but the actually being alive part.

I’m not depressed, not normall,y and I’m not lacking esteem or joy for the day ahead. In fact, I like my life. I love my family. And I find great happiness in the world I’ve created for myself.

Waking up isn’t hard because of what is ahead of me or what’s on my proverbial plate of opportunity. What is difficult about rising to a new day is the fact that I have to move, I have to think, and I have to make decisions.

Someone I know recently said, “Let’s face it. We won the lottery in life when considering where we live and the comforts we have.”

Those words have been ricocheting around in my brain for quite some time. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t agree. I think the lottery of life is based on one’s mindset and on the way one handles and forms his or her thoughts. Yes, fresh water, food, shelter, clothing, and love are important, but just because one has all those basic comforts does not mean he or she is at peace. A mind can produce a living hell regardless of one’s physical comforts.

I think, more important than any outside factors in one’s life, like what exists in the physical world, are the inside factors of what exists inside the mind.

For me, peace of mind, circles back to my intelligence. I think too much and therefore I suffer.

My thoughts exhaust and cripple me.

Some days, as my husband can testify, I am immobilized for hours on the couch, because the thought of having to make one more decision is too overwhelming.

Upon awaking, right away, thoughts bombard me.

For example: What is the best way to approach my day? What is the meaning of the best? Who established the best? Why are the establishers right? When will the best approach change? What are truisms and what are lies? What is the base of reality? Who am I? Should I relax? Where is the balance between giving and taking? When am I taking too much? Am I present enough, available enough, loving enough? I need to let go. I need to relax. I need to just be. But how do I turn off my mind? What should I create? What should I do first? Should I shower? Should I move across the bed, around the bed? Straight to the bathroom? Am I too loud? Should I rest more? Did I get enough sleep? And on and on and on.

I awake to my thoughts, and my thoughts exhaust me.

I have managed to weed out most of the self-doubt and negative thoughts about myself. This is a great accomplishment. I have managed to interweave positive self-talk and positive affirmations into my day. This is helpful, indeed. I have managed to find release through creation of art and writing. This is a comfort. I have managed to understand myself in great depth. This is useful.

Yet, I have not managed to decrease my intelligence, my ideas, the bombardment of what is, what isn’t, and what is mystery to be uncovered.

And with so much going on in my head, somehow my brain has forgotten to dissect and digest the basics. Perhaps this is the executive functioning part of the frontal lobe of the brain misfiring or being disconnected at some level. As the basics, the what would seem easy aspects of thought, become lost to me. The fact that the day of the week is Tuesday slips away. The capacity to memorize times, dates, faces, places, names, and the like, simply isn’t there.

And so I have complex thoughts. I have the slipping out of common facts and knowledge, and then too, I have the classifying/organizing need. Numbers are constantly on my mind; how they add up, where they show up, what they signify, how they can be shuffled and ordered. With the numbers is previous data I’ve collected of the supposed rights and wrongs of how to be: the rights and wrongs of how to be a community member, a friend, a mother, a neighbor, a daughter, a lover, a wife, a cook, a writer, a shopper, a driver, and so on.

I have this ongoing list of how I am supposed to be alongside an ongoing voice of how no one really knows how anything or anyone is supposed to be because everything is self-created, perceived, and rejected and/or accepted.

Simple things aren’t simple. The task of buying shoes for myself can be excruciating. I have the guilt of being able to buy boots when others cannot afford them. I have the questioning of whether or not the boots are saying too much about me or too little, e.g., Does it appear I am trying to look young or am I looking foolish? Am I represented by this boot? Or is this a false projection of who I am? And who am I?

And then I am sad, as I stand there alone looking in the mirror, wondering why I can’t just see boots. Why I have to see so much more.

Today, bombarded with thoughts, I forgot the day of the week. I went to my acupuncturist and he wasn’t there. I called him and said, “I have written on the calendar that my appointment time is Tuesday at eleven. I think I might have made a mistake. I’m here and you are not. Please call me.”

He was quick to call me back, and very polite. He said, “Yes, I have you written down your appointment is at eleven on Tuesday.” Then he inserted a long pause, ample time for me to process. In response I digested his words, and soon a light-bulb of recognition went off. Yes, indeed it was not Tuesday, it was Monday. I was quick to respond then: “Oh (giggle) I thought it was Tuesday. That’s what’s wrong. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I hung up convinced I was going senile or out of my mind. How could I know so much and think so much but not know what day of the week it is? And then the guilt, the embarrassment. Followed by the positive self-talk and forgiveness of self. Followed by the analysis of self-talk and praise. Followed by the wondering if I did the self-talk right. Followed by the thinking about thinking about thinking.

My husband told me today that I am amazing. That he is so blessed to be married to me. He praised my intelligence, my genius.

I am happy he sees me as so. But there are times, like today, I just wish it was really Tuesday.

~~~~~

monday

272: To Be Home

| Aspergers Girls

It has been said that people who have Aspergers are deep thinkers and poets. I think for me this is a definite truth.

Sometimes I just sit and write whatever pours out of me….well often I do. I see pictures and images, and see a story created in my mind, and I also hear the words. I feel the rhythm of each word and syllable. It is smooth, unless I write the “wrong” word, and then I feel a huge stop, or barrier in the whole of me. This selection I wrote this morning in about fifteen minute, or however long it took to type. It is, to me, the longing for connection, for another, for the missing piece to be filled, for the agape of the creator or completion of the lover, though lover in essence is not completion. It is the heart’s cry to crawl out of the illusion of one and the isolation of desired recognition, the want to be seen and to be unified and brought back to the place of whole. To be blanketed in everlasting love. To be home.

Today I have this monster of angst and unsettled sensation stirring and grumbling inside of me. Like an emptied stomach craving a food it cannot imagine, cannot picture, cannot name. Only he roars nonetheless, told by another unidentified form that he is hungry, though he knows not the essence or meaning of hunger.

Today I have the demon of demise wrapped upon me, sitting on my lap unopened and uncared for, his hauntingly spirit enticing my delight. I long to reach into the unopened and explore, but know too well the finger shall be ripped and torn, and I, left to bleed, will weep for what was touched without end.

Today I snore in silence, my trumpeting sounds of slumber unheard, and thusly unmatched, unconquered and unquenched. I am territory that lays barren, untraveled and unclaimed. I wait, this land I am, for victim to unravel and unfold upon me; so I may, too, unravel and unfold and sleep beside, a spoon to spoon, a treasure to hold and keep; until the sun comes and I am but shadow upon shadow, a vision of myself in the coming light.

Today I spawn and spin, dazzled by your substance, which I cannot touch or breathe, but in your name. And words alone do not fill me, only deplete, so I am hallowed once more, deeper and deeper into self with only your thought. I cannot dance with you; I cannot bend myself into the latitude or longitude of where you stand. Though my desire deceives me, I wish upon the star of you like no other, and long with every scaffold of my lingering heart to climb upon you and feel the ever pounding of your being.

Today you are a vision dressed in the white of memory, unreachable and distinguished, high upon high; so distant that the thought of you still flies with broken wing to find where you begin. I cannot think upon you without being pulled back and hidden behind a barrier. I cannot envision you without seeing the bleakness and black and torrential rain. All about the dancing birds sing, and yet their calls are as the demon’s last meal, broken into bones and crushed in misery of the masses.

Today I scale the mountain of my own desire and stand face-to-face with what I have thusly named you. And how you stare at me through a tunnel within a tunnel, carved out of stone of the Gods. I hear them calling you back to them, and yet I remain screaming, as if my name, my place, my stance could pull you back against the darkness that pulls your thicker and thicker into the spinning weight of now.

Today no name, no wish, no answer is found, because all about you have climaxed and advanced, beyond the space of my imagined time. You are but whisper, hidden ghost between the sheets and layered curtains of nonexistence. You haunt me with your beauty and majestic ways; you entice me time and time again, an ocean rising at the peak of me, my lady parts, and then departing like a serpent eating through my soul. My organs bleed, my skin opens, your darkness enters and feeds again, and I am left less victim than willing participant in the horror that seems home.

Today I beseech you king of mastery, the pillar of my mind that falls as domino sweetly planned, the steep and valley set upon a table for child’s play. Knock me down, one by one, a mountain crumbled upon itself, the pieces separate but together, clanging and tumbling in a makeshift play created by the creator. Watch as the stumbling begins, as the one upon the next beats down to the final destiny of end.

For Today, at the end point you shall find me. The last to be fallen. The last alone. The singular hitting stone, when all else hit each other. Oh to be the starting point, the first, the beginning touched by your grazing hand. Though slapped, and forgotten and used for your design only, to still be shaken by your very hand, least the last dying domino in a line of soldiers forgotten.

Today, I bid you farewell, buried beneath the whole of me, siphoned and forgotten; and with each goodbye that comes and goes, resurfaces like the endless tides, I bid again, in dying breath; my last words the echo of my discernment wept and lost, my judgment buried, that which rests beneath shadow of hope, the darkened space forgotten where dreams die in the dungeon of invisible.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A short poem written before the previous selection, this morning; my first attempt to remove the angst inside. This is about confusion of emotions, of the confusion of being, of the not wanting to be seen and shaped by others as something I am not. It is about physical and mental pain. Before today, I didn’t say what my writing is supposed to be about. I think it is beneficial for the reader to take what they want from words and leave the rest. But for some reason, I needed to explain today. I don’t know why. I just do. Perhaps to make this life seem more real, and you more connected to me. I haven’t edited any part of this or changed it. It is a poem of thoughts and processing.

I’m on my couch, laptop in lap, a redundancy

I’m on the couch, hands hurting, as they do, with the onset of any suspicion

The body is up to something, some little bug or minor fixing

And thusly I am made captive to the lingering pain

Not right, not on, not balanced, and my frail substance bleeds

Calling out for the memory of form

The memory of childhood wholeness

I’m on the couch, and the clock ticks, his neighbor black fridge hums

A scent carries from somewhere and everywhere

Something stale, something clean, something cooked

Scraping of my bones matches the pale scraping of my eyes

As the lashes clash and sting, their delight in the dancing dust

I am a vision to behold onto myself

When all about the world spins and I am left as prisoner freed

On tiny island

Where river no longer rushes through, but salt of air tears in between the blue

Feed me your sanity

Feed my your joy

Pour the essence of what is right and just into the soul of me

I cry out to the universal prose

The poet that hides inside the caverns of my hallowed grave of sorrow

Chase me down to the corners where I weep

Come find me, lost and barren

The babe of my youth sucked out with the tentacles of divine crucified

By hungry mouths that feed off of pain and badgered sorrow

I am but child fed upon by the worldly ways

Nibbled piece by piece

Dissected and set out to dry in chunks of unsettled misery

And you, are victim doubled

Your shattered dreams set upon the wind

As if the substance of nothing will blow back to you

In the absence of time

For there is nothing good

Nothing real

But the vision of the love I carry

And too, you needle this out of me

Siphon upon serpent siphon

And sting me once again

With the wicked ways of me

Tear down your mirror

Tear down this reflection you pounce upon me

Chisel me whole again

Excavate my ruins

Bring me out of the hidden mass

And revere, behold, befuddled me

Make me into the man I am

Before turning me into the demon you demand

——–

Samantha Craft, December 2012

270: Warning: Lizard Tongue

| Aspergers Girls

Working Titles:

I Adore Myself so Much I Could Hug and Kiss ME All Over

Aspie: Why I am So Awesome?

Take a Chance on Me…PLEASE!!!

~~~~~

Why I Adore ME:

1)      My super-sized brain that enables me to be in anytime and anyplace with the blink of my pretty eye.

2)      The capacity I have to entertain myself in thought over the most seemingly simplistic ideas, such as how well do I actually know the back of my hand, and am I the only one that isn’t familiar with the back of their hand, and am I more familiar with the lens of my eyeball from which I see, even though I can’t see my eyeball when I’m looking out in the world, and is my eyeball invisible? How can I see straight through my eyeball without seeing any of it at all?

3)      My intense humor that makes my internal organs giggle, while producing this devious, I-am-so-radical-and-fantastic grin across my blushing face.

4)      My ability to laugh at myself, over and over and over again, and my ability to point out my bazar weirdness so my friend, or neighbor, or complete stranger can laugh about me, too. Even though I know secretly they are laughing at themselves, because I am a reflection of them. And if I point that out, I like to watch their faces turn sheet white.

5)      My huge empathy for everyone and everything. My urge to get out of my van and find out why the man crossing the road is homeless and to fix him all up, like in the movies. And to turn him into a freakishly charming prince, and ride off in his shopping cart into the distant sunset, all in a matter of moments, inside my brain, while stopped at the downtown stoplight.

6)      My urge to save the world with my ever-building (secret hidden) super powers.

7)      My butt. It’s just plain cute.

8)      My need to talk to safe-looking strangers, and to compliment them, so I can see them smile and their eyes light up. The expressions I magically produce on others’ faces when my compliment is unexpected and downright odd. “Oh your house is so big and lavish and fantastic. Is this your dream house? Is this your dream come true? I wish I had a house like this. It’s so perfect. Did it cost a lot of money?” pause…  “Oh, did I forget to introduce myself.”

9)      My ability to have simultaneous sensations. While this isn’t the best: sticky, bitter taste in mouth, jagged bottom tooth puncturing tongue, hard chair penetrating butt, shoulders stinging from typing, throat a bit scratchy, ears hurting from hum of fridge, airplane flying overhead, clock ticking….This is fantastic: moss the brightest magical green on trees, leaves dancing and spinning in front of me as they float off the branches, spider web glistening and singing in beauty, dog smiling at me, feet crunching the leaves, rain tickling tongue, birds singing in unison: a mystical choir, flapping of wings, insects leaping, squirrels pitter-pattering and playing hide-and-seek, wind lapping hair, warmth of wool hat, heaviness of thick winter coat, comfort of wool socks, swishing of pants, the sound of my own song, the sigh, the deep breath, the inhale of fresh crisp forest air, my pulse, my heart, my stomach, my skin, my being, my total beauty connected with the world.

10)   My ability to be remarkably insecure and overly confident at the exact same instant. Especially concerning my wit, charm, intelligence, and hair.

11)   My need for approval while constantly denying the need for approval, as you simply don’t exist outside of my limited perception and this created illusion.

12)   My bouncy spirit. No matter how low or how high, I’m always bouncing inside with the thought of getting to know you and be your friend, and learn everything about you, once you have read my blog and can recite my entire life story, so you can relate everything about you back to me, and thusly keep me the center of attention, so I know I exist somewhere inside the illusion you’ve created, because the thought of being an invisible empty space, as is clearly feasible when considering the vast universe between my spinning molecules, puts me into a state of hyper-awareness of the need to validate my existence.

13)   The fact that I’m uncommon and could never ever be common and ordinary, as hard as I tried, except for the fact that Nerd and Geek are coming into the mainstream fashion; so I might feasibly become the norm, my non-ordinariness becoming ordinary; that leads me to believe I need to create another part of me so I can maintain my uniqueness before society tries to suck it out of me. Perhaps I will sprout wings or let my antennae grow…or reveal my secret lizard tongue!

14)   My want to use made up words that make sense to me, and the knowledge that every word has been invented by someone, so that no words are real anyhows.

15)   My ability to see patterns everywhere, to solve complex riddles while I’m sleeping, and to wake in the middle of the night with an entire script in my head that I know without a doubt I have to share with the world or I will have not fulfilled my mission on earth!

16)   The ability to be entirely ME, and to see that ME is constantly in transition, that ME is subjective.

17)   The way coffee turns me into an unstoppable engine of achievement (inside my head.)

18)    The way I can open the number of my chocolate advent calendar in December, eat the chocolate, feel the smooth tingle go down my throat and chill of pleasure up my spine, sigh deeply, and feel like I’ve actually accomplished something for the day.

19)   How I can predict and time my bodily functions and hormones. “Bitch today; check in tomorrow.”

20)   Just the grandness of knowing there are other people who get me, and the giddiness I am able to feel in knowing that we are all so fricken insane that it brings saneness back into the ball field, all redressed in the ultimate coolness of different.

^^^ The song I danced to in the sauna over and over today, while I was staring at my goldfish, and thinking I’m on the other side of glass just like them; I wonder if they think I am a fish. Maybe I am a fish. Then I clucked like a chicken for absolutely no reason at all.

I have not had the chance to ask my husband if this is socially acceptable or not. So I will take a chance and make a disclaimer: My gigantic over-sized lizard tongue is not meant to be sexual in any way.

photo-on-12-7-12-at-1-10-pm