communication

420: 10 Things Not to Say or Do When I am Sad

| Aspergers Girls

tree light

10 Things Not to Say or Do When I am Sad

1. Don’t ask me to explain or reason my way out. When I am sad I have already evaluated everything ‘to death.’ I have looked at the pros and cons of my own life and my own suffering. I am no dummy. In fact, part of the problem I am so sad, is because I am so dang smart. I am my worst criticizer and have evaluated all the benefits of not being sad verses being happy a thousand times, and the worst part is that I cannot reason myself out of the sadness and feel happy.

2. Don’t tell me I need a pharmaceutical drug. Chances are, I’ve done my research or tried the drug before. My body is so very sensitive that any chemicals I put into my body cause adverse reactions. I get the so called ‘side effects.’ I am that less than 1%. I am the canary in the coalmine. I am the one you read about that gets the suicidal thoughts from anti-depressants and the one that has bizarre things happening to her body when I ingest foreign substances. I am already affected by the environmental pollutants, the toxins in our water and food, the hormones injected into products, and the chemicals that seep out of most homes. Truth is, I likely would be far happier if I lived in a world that didn’t reek of destruction.

3. Don’t tell me you know the reason for my sadness. More than likely, if it’s not my PMS or PMDD, or the result of an auto-immune disorder, or a variant enzyme, an allergic reaction, a virus or illness, or something or another that is deficient or out of whack, perhaps in my intestines or stomach, then it is situational. And not just the typical situations, like a bad day at work or a letdown. I have learned not to let ‘bad’ days affect me. I have ‘bad’ moments, each and every hour, I have ‘bad’ moments, and I choose to spend my day grasping onto the light and the goodness of the day. Only sometimes, I get tired of reaching and trying. My life is a struggle to fit in, to appear ‘normal,’ to follow the ‘rules,’ to even understand the ‘rules.’ I am exhausted. I am a warrior who wakes up every day with the past day erased, all the previous trials conquered gone, all the accomplishes vanished, and I have to start from square one to try to make sense of a world in which I do not feel I belong.

4. Don’t give me advice. You have no advice I have not heard, read, seen, felt, or experienced. One way or another I have studied what you will say. I have studied emotions and reactions in films, in music, in literature, even in nonsensical jokes and in animal behavior. I understand emotions and I understand my sadness. I read to understand myself and I even study you to understand myself. I know more than you think. I may not know the root cause, but I know that there isn’t an answer you have that I don’t have within myself. Your suggestions of correct verbiage, positive thoughts, rest, fresh air, exercise, meditation, visualization, diet, supplements, and the lot, do nothing more than boggle my brain and make me think you care more about your role as a want-to-be helper than you do about my pain. I can’t be the object of your fixing. I don’t want to be and refuse to take on that role. I am not less than you in my sadness and you do not have the secret key I need. I did not express I was sad because I look to you for answers. I told you of my sorrow because I just long to feel less alone.

5. Don’t tell me what I have to be grateful for. Don’t suggest I make a list. That is crap. To me I am grateful for the tiniest of thoughts, gifts, and actions that most people take advantage of. The near site of the dew of the grass, the soft smell of the fire-painted lily, the brilliance of a child’s laugh, the comfort of my favorite blanket, or favorite song..all these lift me. So much of the world lifts me. Many moments I travel in a world so extraordinary and filled with magic that I thank life for just my essence, to just to be in the midst of such glory. My list of gratefulness is not divided by good things or bad things. I stopped judging the right from wrong, and the just from the unjust, a long time ago. I live in the space in between the extremes of yes and no, and laugh at the ones who think their view is the only view. I can’t see making a list of all that is good without classifying at the same time in invisible ink what is bad, or worse, what others are lacking. I am no less and no more grateful than the homeless man on the street. If he is happy, I am happy. If he is sad, I am sad. To even make a list seems to me pompous and unjust, to single out how lucky I am in such a world of misfortune makes no sense, unless I hold greed as a virtue. Unless I see myself as dutifully worthy based on my profiting and others’ lacking. Unless I single out what is entirely missing from another to satisfy my own growing need for satisfaction. And anything of material I would attempt to scribe as benefit, I would rather break apart into a thousand pieces and feed the world. I don’t believe I can classify what happens in my life as good, bad, tragic, ugly, or beautiful. I only know it happens, and is happening. And for what reason is still to be seen. I know to let go and let my higher source lead. But when I am very, very sad, sometimes I forget how to release; I forget how to let go of the clinging of suffering. I forget I am not alone onto myself.

6. Don’t tell me how wonderful I am. I know who I am. I know through and through. I know I am kind, gentle, sweet, generous, forgiving, genuine, giving, smart, keen, and many other positive attributes. I am not sad because I have lost sight of why I am enough. I know I am enough. I am sad because the world has lost sight of me. Because I long to reach out and connect but when I do, I often feel nothing reaching back. To touch another fully, is all I want. To touch in full extreme, without pretention, want, need, expectation, goal, or outcome. To just touch. I, as I wait in my own self-created exile, as I wait without the sense of feeling another, grow in sadness.

7. Don’t tell me ‘this too shall pass.’ I know the sayings and tons of other random words collected to form reprieve. I am an avid reader and collector of quotes. I am a philosopher, an artist, a creator. I have the heart of a lover, the mind of a composer, and the spirit of a warrior. I am brilliant in my creation, and I understand the ebbs and flows of life. I move like the sea with the moon. I move like the willow with the wind. I am affected by the give and take of the world, by nature, by weather, by other people, events, and tragedy. I dream things. I see things. I experience emotions in extremes, and sometimes cannot tell if I am carrying my own pain or the pain of another. People find me. I don’t know how, but they do. And I am a vessel of sorts, harboring the lonely through the storm. They crawl in with their tears and woes, and their aches leak through me, crushing me to the core. I know everything will pass. And I know still that life is a cycle, and like the seasons, my sorrow will come again. Do not attempt to help me to look forward to the end of my pain, help me to go through my pain.

8. Don’t criticize or mock me. I cannot help how I am. Do not call me ‘overboard,’ ‘too much,’ ‘too intense,’ or the like. I cannot help that I am the way I am. I can often control my behaviors and be the best person I can be, and I do this daily. But my emotions sometimes take over. I don’t know how or why, beyond conjecture, but they do. And the more I fight the wave of pain, the more the pain comes. Sometimes I need to submit. To be in the turmoil, so that the tunnel evaporates and the light comes again. I fret over the tiniest of perceived imperfections in the way I treat others. I judge myself for not being caring enough, attentive enough, or loving enough. I cannot lie without deep remorse. I cannot have enemies. I cannot even hate. I know not this emotion hate beyond the emotion of anger turned deep sadness. All is huge to me. There isn’t a small suffering. I hurt for the tiny spider as much as the buffalo. I long for the rescue of the persecuted innocent as much as the child without parent. I feel and take in such extreme happenings, and know not where to lay my burden down. Just as I spend all day, moment to moment, contemplating how to maneuver in a world that remains unfamiliar, I spend my inches of time trying to figure out how to again release my burden, where this time to bury my woe. Shall it be in words, in rhythm, in rhyme, in the deep wilderness real or the serenity of my imaginations? Will I get lost again in my escaping? Where shall I take this misery and when will I have my fill? Do not criticize me and do not tease me. Do not laugh or giggle your way into a stream of mockery aimed at me. I do not do what I do for attention or purpose. I do not do what I do because I want to. I do not do what I do because I am confused or made wrong. I am perfect in my being. I am just sad. I am sad. I am sad.

9. Don’t abandon me. Do not leave my side, if I need you there. Do not hang up the phone, if I am crying. Do not say you will return, and then not call. Don’t say something, and not mean it. Don’t lie to try to make me feel better. Tell me straight what you think. You covering up only makes things worse. The world is already unsafe with its lies and trickery. I need you to be safe. I need your word to be strong. I need your integrity, your honesty, your truth. I need you to be that light that I am, to prove to me again you are here and I am not alone. If you do this, if you are loyal and true, when my sadness goes, when it is lifted, I shall be at your side with the beauty I am, pleasing you in your times of suffering, and holding your hand in your deepest need.

10. Don’t perceive me as something I am not. Try not to label me. To find the answer that brings you closure. It is not my job in life to fit neatly in a box for your comfort. My moods are my moods, my pain, my pain. My emotion is not a reflection of you, nor a product of you, any more than my happiness. I don’t expect anything of you in your pain and sorrow, so please don’t expect anything of me. Don’t make me your martyr, your angel, or your giving-spirit. Don’t make me the melancholic one or the hopeless creature. I am what I am, and what you create of me is neither here nor there, no less truth than what I create. I need you to try to not see me through the eyes of fear, but through the eyes of love. To bathe me in acceptance and forgiveness. To love me enough in my completion that you in turn love yourself in completion. If you can do that, if you can look past my ‘flaws,’ past the definition and existence of ‘flaws,’ and see into my suffering the very spirit reborn into darkness, soon to be sprung into light, then I shall have hope. If I can see me as hope, I will be hope. If you can hold me as hope, I shall be the very essence that you perceive in your grasp. And we can meet there, in that space between the suffering and hope, and merge, per chance, in that shimmer of a second, as one.

419: Passion, Creation, and Acceptance

| Aspergers Girls

sam the clam

(My oldest son in the video.)

I am one of the strongest people I know. And I don’t say that lightly. I have endured many trials and challenges. I cry a lot. But I don’t see tears as weakness, and don’t think I ever shall. I feel a lot, but I don’t think emotions are weakness either. In fact, I am not sure what weakness is anymore, beyond the giving up of self to take in the dictation of a world that is full of destruction and mayhem.

I have integrity. This is clear. By integrity, I don’t mean following manmade laws or rules, or upholding some established truth or way; by integrity, I mean honoring myself by speaking my inner truth.

It’s not an inner truth I could readily find before, nor do I think it’s an inner truth I would have found without great soul-searching and desire. It’s ironic to me, that the very things that spiritual entrepreneurs eventually long to dismiss, that being the emotions of anger and longing, are the very activators that motivate the self to seek to awaken the sleeping soul.

Recently, and for many years in my childhood, I had no choice but to be me. For when I am not; when I try to pretend, hide, deny, or create an illusion that is neither what I see or choose to see, I diminish my very light and openness to truth. I suffer. I suffer physically and spiritually, entirely twist myself in every portion.

By truths, I do not mean my truths of how things should be, or what people should do. I do not mean spiritual proclamation, and particularly not the spectator sport of religious dogma. What I mean by my truth, is my current understanding and perception of what is transpiring with me at a deep inner level.

This openness, this speaking of truth, this reality I reveal, even when I know that it is not the ‘whole’ truth, even when I know that it is only a limited, self-biased, environmental-, and social-influenced truth, a truth combined with biological factors, faith, and other past, future, and present influences, allows me to feel free. When I am my true self, it is if some dark prisoner within has been released and no longer made to suffer. It isn’t that I need to be heard, not even seen; it isn’t that I need to be understood, and I have no want to influence—it’s that I must purge the part of what is that lingers within.

It is confusion. It is murkiness. It is ugly. It is imaginative. It is fear. It is love. It is illusion. Or it is fact. Whatever it is makes not a difference. For this ‘what’ in whatever form, still is in the cell, still locked behind the iron bars of captivity. And until I dispel of the trapped essence, I feel trapped in myself.

This needing to dislodge of the ‘truth,’ of my inner workings, of my thoughts, I see not as a flaw, a disorder, or a burden. It is simply how I am made. And in this unencumbered, soul-filled sharing, I become unhindered onto myself and filled with a light of passion. In my sharing, whatever the sharing, however it is taken in by another, or even evaluated by self, the relief comes, and the once-standing suffering, the boil that was causing the distracting internal ache, bursts.

People mistake me as someone I am not. Not that I claim to be anything in particular. And, in full honesty, likely I am nothing beyond the interpretation of others; I’d still like to think I am not the negative spin people perpetuate me to be. Yet, in this world, there isn’t much to base a person’s worth on, beyond words, self-collected materialistic goods, appearance, mannerism, actions, and deeds. I suppose deeds is what I would prefer to be my legacy—my fruit…what I reap, what I leave.

Still, I know enough to know that what is said affects the bystander as much as any other attribute. I reason, I was judged, particularly in the past, on things that were beyond my understanding at the time.

I gather, and am quite frankly certain, I was judged by others by:

My tone of voice, my elation, my in-depth analysis, my passion, my ramblings, my obsessive interest in a topic, my need to dig deep in inquiry, my rapture of delight in the simplest of things, my uncommon queries, my quizzical expressions, my apparent disinterest, aloofness, or lack of attention, my inability to stay focused on the current topic, my want to review, repeat, and enlighten, my lack of gaps or pauses in thought and expression, my interrupting, my unyielding desire to solve through discourse and dialogue, my re-centering and refocusing on topic filtered through understanding and scaffolding of self and past experience, my intensity, my compassionate movements, my sighs, my large shocking eyes, my gestures of comical silliness, and on and on.

I imagine I was much like a tsunami in my youth: some bucket poured out and turned quickly into a gargantuan of pubescent demise and uproar.

In looking back now, I understand. I understand that I honestly thought everyone thought like me. I thought everyone had a million ideas in their head, endless creativity, the want to explode out the ‘whats’ and the ‘truths,’ and harbored that prisoner that yearned for release and badgered the master until unchained. I can’t imagine, still, what it would be like to not be this way. To not have the need to express what is inside.

Now, I know how to balance myself in conversation, at least usually. Actually, as of recent, I have grown rather submissive, quiet, and somewhat more of an introspective recluse. Perhaps even a bit physically aloof in my stature and demeanor. But my behavior isn’t a form of repression, or oppression, or trying to fit in, anymore. My way of being is a natural balance.

I am finding peace in expressing myself through written words and visual arts now, more so than trying to spew out through verbal processing aloud. Talking doesn’t soothe me like it used to. Certainly at times a conversation with a close friend uplifts my spirit and helps me find my balance, let’s me know I am not alone in my thoughts. Yet, for the most part, I no longer have a need to spew and spin and loop most days.

However, I am finding through creation I am able to explode bit by bit, piece by piece, and find refuge. I am finding solace in silence, more and more. The opportunity for analysis and deeper understanding, if it arises, seems to happen more with my spiritual discourse with my higher source, in my ability, shall I say ‘gift,’ to directly connect to something beyond me.

Creation has been my outlet at last.

I was born an artist, but the world didn’t let me know that. The world did little but try to tear the artist out of me. To dig right into my chest and tear the heart right smack out. To leave me with a hole filled with rules and regulations. And how I was made wrong.

Even in creation, once in a while the ‘ways’ try to sneak in. The ‘how to’s,’ ‘the when’s,’ ‘the where’s.’ I am working more eagerly and happily to dismiss the lingering worldly voices of the ‘right way.’

I never went through a period of my life where I allowed myself to be rebellious or free. I quickly slipped from youthful innocence to a shell of protection, the shell primarily built on good deeds and goodness. I think I have finally reached the ‘bullshit’ phase of my adult years. When I can at last say ‘bullshit’ to the guidelines of who I am supposed to be.

I am recognizing slowly a rebalancing of self: a merging of the spiritual-wise self with the earth-bound warrior. I am recognizing I can be fierce in my kindness. I can allow moments of fleeting anger and disappointment. I can be all of my emotions and all of me. And in this I am finding a greater degree of freedom. I am coming full circle, back to this me I was long ago, and forward to the me I am yet to become.

And I am finding all of the aspects of self right here in the moment, in the realization that all of me, every part of me, is beautiful. The lust, the love, the angst, the anger, the desire, the letting go, the release, the needing to connect….all of me is splendid, and continues to be so. Ever so gently I am becoming my potential, when all along I was already there.

dragonfly

411: Money in the Meter

| Aspergers Girls

On my way to see the doctor this afternoon, I left a message on a complete stranger’s voicemail. Someone I have never seen before. Never have known, and likely will never encounter.

I held on to that stranger while I sat alone at the doctor’s office.

Aspergers was on my medical chart, listed under conditions.

I have this tongue thing, like a gag-reflex tongue I suppose, and a long tongue at that, and my tongue NEVER cooperates, especially with dental x-rays and the like. It truly has a mind of its own. No kidding. As it happened, the doctor lost his patience with me. He tried all ways to get a culture of the white patch at the back of my throat with this long Q-tip thing. But my tongue kept blocking the pokey stick like it was sparring. I was embarrassed, to say the least.

The doctor threw the stick away, and huffed. Quietly and professionally, but the frustration was obvious. Me, being my nervous giggly self, offered: “Are there any tricks? Something you can teach me to help?”

I think he was fed up with the tips he’d already offered throughout the procedure. He kind of snapped, “Tricks? No, I don’t have any tricks.” I felt all of twelve.

My demeanor makes me come across as a stupid-head sometimes: the posture, the anxious laughter, the inflection of my voice. And I fumble with words as my voice squeaks in all of its youngness. You’d think I had the IQ of a horsefly. My un-brushed hair and sloppy attire of the day, likely didn’t help to set the mood of ‘got-it-together-woman.’ I was wishing at this point I’d dressed up for the doctor, at least had my hair up and not all straggly in my face.

Still seeming a bit perturbed, the doc summed up I likely didn’t have strep anyhow. The chances were very unlikely: no fever, no swollen glands, etc. But I knew I was feeling super lousy; I knew when I’d flushed bright red earlier in the day, I’d had a fever, and I knew I couldn’t risk getting sicker. I had an important trip planned and my husband was out of town. I had to know. The anxiety grew.

He left the room without telling me anything except to explain it was basically a sore throat and to gargle. I opened the door and asked a nurse if I could go. I don’t think the doctor appreciated that. He seemed bothered when he explained the procedure of when I could exit.

At this point my resources of zen-being and lovey-dovey-ness, were all but empty. I had a lot on my plate and felt like crap. I don’t remember the particulars, but somehow the subject came up again of tricks. And the doctor said, very bluntly: “I know tricks for kids. I teach kids tricks. I don’t teach adults tricks. Adults should know.”

Man, that wasn’t nice. I swallowed and felt my little heart race. I retorted, “I have to disagree. I have autism and my son has autism. And sometimes adults need tricks too, because our bodies work differently.” He kind of gave me a glance, and that kind of made me feel worse.

He then said, in a demeaning tone, “Have you ever heard of the phrase: Where there’s a will there’s a way?”

He asked if I wanted to try again.

I said, “Yes,” already doubting myself, coaching myself with the silent you can do it, and feeling terribly inadequate. As the doctor prepared another culture, I offered kindly, “The reason I want to rule this out and take care of it right away is because I have to drive in a few days a long distance.”

The doctor approached with the long thing. This time after several more minutes of ‘ahhhhs’ and ‘look up at the corner’ and ‘no stick your tongue back in your mouth’ and much more, the doctor sighed saying he’d likely gotten something, hopefully.

Again the sense of not enough.

Somewhere in the time line after something or another, that I can’t recall now, I lost my equilibrium. I don’t know if it was one final shrug or sigh on his part, or my urge to speak my mind. But I kind of unraveled in a calm but definitely I’ve had enough of this way.

Exhausted, I asked: “Do you not know what Aspergers means and how it affects people?”

He responded, “No.”

I said, “I write for a psychology journal; would you like me to leave a copy at the desk, so you can learn?”

He kind of looked either perplexed or bothered or preoccupied—I couldn’t tell. He said something that indicated agreement.

I said, “You know you were kind of rude to me. You didn’t treat me well.”

His back was still mostly to me, as he stared down the culture. I was thinking this guy was definitely undiagnosed Aspie. I explained, “You sounded like you were belittling me.” I was on a roll then, like when you finally get the ketchup in the bottle unstuck, after that final hiccupping glob, and the rest of the red comes pouring out swiftly.

I continued, “When you talked about not having to teach adults tricks. And you asked me if I knew what Where there’s a will, there’s a way meant. You sounded like you were mocking. And who doesn’t know what that means? You insulted my intelligence. Did you have a bad day or something? I mean the way you were…oh I don’t know what you were. You just weren’t nice.”

I felt a bit like I was in ‘Gone with the Wind,’ in an important scene. Only I was in old blue jeans and wearing socks with my sandals.

He mumbled, “Well, I’ve never had an adult who could not do a culture.”

I said, with a rising voice, “Well do you think I was doing it on purpose?”

He probably wasn’t too keen on being in a room with me at this point. Poor man. I should have given him my husband’s number, so they could commiserate.

The doctor left.

I had some time to wiggle and squirm and text a friend of my experience.

When the doc returned, indeed it was strep throat. He handed me some stick and started to explain about the red line. I said, “It looks like a pregnancy stick.” Now he was nice. He was smiling. He was more relaxed. He was finally sitting and looking at me. He seemed like a different person. He actually seemed genuine and concerned. I could have sat with this person for hours. He was much changed. I sat there hunched with a blank stare contemplating the reasons for his demeanor.

I was thinking: 1) He realizes I wasn’t a moron because I told him I write for a magazine 2) He is feeling kind of wrong for assuming I wasn’t sick 3) He is realizing he was a boob 4) He has no idea what else to do but to give in 5) He thinks I am nuts 5) He is so happy I am about to leave.

As I was leaving I said, about my strep throat confirmation, “Yes, I thought so. I usually can tell stuff about myself and my health.” I imagined I would have talked more and more, if he wasn’t ushering me out the door. I was fine then. He was like my new found friend. I’d forgotten all about the rest—the stuff before he smiled. He’d been kind and that’s all I’d needed.

I reflected back to the stranger, to the voicemail message I’d left:

“I was out of sorts when you left the note because I’d just returned from the airport. I was dropping off my husband there; and now I am headed to the doctor’s because I think I have strep throat. Your random act of kindness kept me from feasibly having that ‘last straw.’ My mother-in-law died this morning. I thought you should know you made a difference.”

When I was parked downtown earlier, she had left a business card on my van’s windshield. I hadn’t seen the note until an hour later, as I was getting into the car for the drive to the urgent care center. She’d handwritten on the back of the card: I wanted to let you know, I saved you from an $18 parking ticket.

She’d put money in the meter.

Day 408: Love, Judge, and Invisible Need

| Aspergers Girls

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I judge when I think another does not ‘see’ me. I am learning to replace my judgment by thinking: “She did understand me; she did see me; she saw exactly what she chose to see.”

When someone says: “Don’t judge me,” they are being contradictory, almost hypocritical, if the negative aspects are removed from the word. For in order to claim someone is judging another, the accuser must first have judged.

To evaluate and categorize another is to judge. To decide another’s behavior is to judge. To place one’s truths on another is to judge. To say my god is the right God is to judge. To say I know a truth is to judge. Whenever a mark is made, a claim, a stake put into the earth, one becomes judger and the other judged. There is no way around this. The judger of the judging is equal to the one accused.

I am releasing my need to judge anything and anyone, and any event. I find only discomfort now in judging. And even more displeasure in defending or clarifying a feasible ‘truth.’ Clarification, unless sought after by a seeker, to me, now feels like a fear-based approach. As if I am saying, “Wait, that’s not what I mean. Please see me so you are not angry and so you will not misinterpret me.”

Now I see. I see this and I laugh.

It’s silliness in the making.

I find myself stumbling from time to time—a toddler learning to walk in all her sweetness.

Whenever I feel discomfort in my body and mind, the pain is non-explicit in its coming. Meaning there isn’t one thing or one someone who brings the pain. It is me. I am the source. Always the source. I see this clearly, and can laugh now at my own accuser: SELF.

I can accept the gift of another’s words or I can say thank you, but no thanks: Keep your gift for yourself. Not needed here.

Prior to this spring, I wanted to be understood because I longed to be seen and loved. Now that I know I am love, I am loved, and I love, the need-base has shifted.

Where I longed to be understood (loved) before. Now I long to be seen as love. But in longing to be seen as love, I recognize a desire. For there is no purpose in wanting, except to try to erase the illusion of loneliness.

I have moved beyond the need for validation, praise, and being ‘enough’ in someone else’s eyes. Usually–that is. In my harder moments of pain, I want nothing but to be held and comforted, reminded of my beauty.

However, it is in my pain now that I celebrate my ability to be human. My ability to transition into deeper wisdom. I see all as a gift. No goods and no bads. The world doesn’t hurt once the bad is removed. Even through the times of extreme anguish, an observer steps back and applauds the journey, the courage, the ever-full heart of love and praise of love.

What I still desire is for another to say: “I see you in your fullness and beauty and light. That is all I see.”

I want to be seen through eyes of love.

Which ultimately means I wish others to heal to a level where they love themselves unconditionally, and in doing so, love others the same. I have grown tired of assumptions, and guesses, and conclusions others reach about me. It’s really a waste of energy.

But I see the confusion of some—how they think they love me or another unconditionally, when in fact there are huge needs attached. (Outcome based needs. Wanting someone to be a certain way. Loving because of qualities or features, instead of loving for no reason but to love.)

I only want to be loved because I am a reflection of the good in another. That’s the only love that feels real. The only love I can feel.

In seeing this, the fact that attachment to outcome or desire implies a degree of false love and the absence of unconditional love, then I realize my very own need to be seen through the eyes of another as love is conditional, and in that way false-love. And so I practice release of even the desire to be seen as love.

I know the more I release the more I feel the love of the ALL and in this I am free.

Still the joy of being seen beyond judgment, deciphering, classifying, guesses, fingering, figuring, and dissecting is pure brilliance. And when I cross paths with a friend or another who loves this way, who loves purely, the healing is phenomenal.

I recognize the light in you, so many say, but do they really?

I want my voice to be a healing vibration of love and nothing else. Yet, when I open my mouth, or type on a screen, I am faced with the reality of others’ interpretation. The only remedy is not to speak. And here I am thinking might be where I am headed.

The more I speak or write, the more I hurt. MY soul knows no one can hear me unless he or she wants to hear me; and those that don’t hear, will turn me into any fantasy they choose. And thusly, I am writing for the few that will see me; the ones able to move beyond the judgment and analysis and pondering. The rest who don’t love unconditionally, will judge me.

And to me, this is my sacrifice for love: To be judged over and over, and made into someone I am not.

Someday I will give up this sacrifice and give up the thought of sacrifice, and just be at peace. I will be that person who barely speaks unless approached by genuine seeker. For I no longer desire to speak a truth to people who are not hearing my truth. And it seems entirely silly to profess an ever-changing truth to an ever-shifting audience. I am wondering too, as I write, if that my main suffering is of the separation, the falselove, the falsehood, the fear.

It is the separation that hurts.

I grow weary of being placed into another’s expectations. Of being made to fit another’s comfort zone. I am comfort; I am love; I am freedom; and if another cannot see that, they do not see me.

I see them. I see them as love. Beyond the fear, I see only love.

I have absolutely no desire to prove a point or to debate or to establish a truth. And the strongest desire, I cannot disrobe, is the want of others to do the same. To enter with me in the space of no doubt, no fear, no cause.

I don’t even forgive anymore, because I don’t ever get to the point of anger or resentment in which I need to forgive. The anger can’t slip in long enough for me to make up lies about another. If anger comes again another day, I shall dismiss it. And if I let it linger, then I shall forgive all readily. I also don’t judge myself. If I did, I would naturally judge others. If one judges self, he undoubtedly applies this to all.

I don’t even give the benefit of the doubt to people, because I don’t doubt people. To doubt is to judge and to deem unworthy or not enough to some degree. And that is all based on the past and interpretations.

Still, as of late, I get this awful sensation from many people that I am being probed and needled, hooked upon and latched onto with their microscopic lenses to find my potential fault or meaning or wrongdoings. I get the feeling sometimes that others are searching for the ugliness in me to justify that they are better or to justify their own ugliness that they believe exists.

This makes me wonder why.

If I write with no intention but to share my truth and to love (without want of fame, recognition, love, attention, debate, profit, etc.) and only with the ‘want’ of understanding self fuller, so I can be a more loving and giving being, then what about my truth is there to dissect?

And isn’t it the most fearful who would fear my love and proclaim their truth as only truth?

Why do people want to make me into something?

I desire to be more invisible than visible now. I long to just hold you from where I am, speechless, the words all erased. And if I am selfish, it is in my desire to have someone do the same—to just love for the love we are.

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374: Moments

| Aspergers Girls

“It is not that I am not present in the here and now; it is that I am so entirely present to the universe that I become intoxicated in possibilities and rapture, and self must retreat back to the echoes of my imagination in order to breathe.” ~ Sam, Everyday Aspergers

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Everyday Aspergers, Samantha Craft

The moment when you know you’ve spoken your complete truth, whether it was a word or thought, and you sift through what you said, wanting to make sure there isn’t a splinter of doubt, that you didn’t indicate anything other than truth. And you feel your stomach twist, because maybe, just maybe, somewhere inside of you, you were wrong.

The moment you speak your truth loudly and clearly, with extreme empathy and knowing, weighing the validity of your words with the interpretation of necessity, while fighting back the voices that analyze and dissect the coming unspoken that is surging its way out through your veins, as you question your need, your want, your intention, wondering if the silence will win out over the pulsating necessity to share.

The moment you risk for the higher good, knowing if you speak your mind that you shall be persecuted, ostracized, and judged, but also knowing, all the greater, that you shall in speaking your light have conquered the darkness, at least a splinter of the darkness that permeates your world.

The moment you lie, only to protect the feelings of another, and you replay the falsehood over and over in your mind; a broken record that hurts your ears and leaves you suffering; not for the sake of another, but for the sake of going against your own self and truth, as you wonder if a better course could have been detected, discovered, and executed; something beyond the distasteful torture of falsehood.

The moment you realize no one has the answers, no book, no preacher, no teacher, no guru. Absolutely no one. And that all of your efforts have led you back to self; only now you are carrying a giant book of something that resembles truth. But in actuality it is a drafted, desperately edited and marked up tablet stack of contrived and siphoned rules, many of which contradict, point fingers, and leave in the ring either victim or prideful one.

The moment you speak your truth and the others leave, except perhaps one that stays for analysis and judgment, or to set you straight. And you listen, trying your best to look like you are interested and are learning, as you bleed all over the sidewalk from the bitter and deceptive words; your heart only wanting love, acknowledgment, and acceptance, not to be told again how you don’t fit in, don’t have it right, or don’t understand.

The moment you realize you understand more about a topic than anyone in the entire room, but to say so would immediately set up barbwire fences of division; thusly, you keep quiet and nod, trying to ignore and not comprehend the analogies that go against the base foundations of truth, justice, and love; with your last hope being that someone, somewhere in the room is like you, sees the light in your eyes, and wishes to not push their belief system upon you, or prove to you their theory, or embrace you in their way of life, but only enters your space to welcome you unconditionally as another being of substance.

The moment you dial up a conversation, and with first word, the person on the other end begins the game, following the rules of conduct and behavior and asking you blank, empty questions, not caring, unattached, unwilling to connect or even listen; the shallowness of the encounter physically hurting your chest and making your heart weep, as you attempt to move through with your life-preservers of nodding and smiling, acting as if you are comfortable, while feeling the energy of the speaker pierce you like daggers: the tone of the voice, the inflection, the pauses, the drawn out non-silence that does not match who they are, what they are, and where they are going. You are merely a dancer in some line of communication, knowing not where to step or when to pause, trying not to step on toes, and staring at a blank empty face, whose only need is to check your name off of her list.

The moment the sun rises, and your breath is taken away, and you are dancing in the rays, your heart free, your child like nature set to the wind, spinning, leaping, abounding in spirit, without moving an inch; and wanting to share this experience, to share the opportunity of hope you see, and in the dawning of a new day, you giddily laugh and celebrate and raise the arms to the magenta skies; only to discover the persons surrounding you can’t sense what you sense; and you think somehow you are made wrong, too attached, too intuitive, too knowing. And so comes the feeling of separation, the sun’s hues shifted, the day begun, with you lost to self, trapped within thought of why your way is not their way, and why your way is left out of the equation.

The moment you kiss another and you wonder what the kiss means, because it has to mean something; and you question how two could connect without connecting, touch without touching, and how the game of romance is only a game, marked with pitfalls and dungeons and war. How you have instinctively set up camp upon another’s territory, and in so doing have been given a safe zone, in which you shall not tread outward; for in stepping out, you risk annihilation, alienation, and doom. You weren’t meant to spread across his land and place flags of declaration about your feelings or experience. You were built for silent torture as you sit spinning in your small space of reason, wanting to scream out the ecstasy and dynamic shift of being, but forced to crease your edges, sew your own self shut and hide out until the coast is clear, or the being you so loved, simply slips away.

The moment you want to be present, but you can’t; and the guilt settles in as friend or child, spouse or son, he looks at you with wide open eyes ready to connect at his level, in a place of happiness and delight, without deep thoughts, without theories and strings of reason, without doubt, without prospect of future circumstances; and how you sit in this passing moment, longing to reach out and be this same way, to stop the clock of the own mind and silence the tick-tick-ticking; and so you pretend; you try; you harbor your very own secrets of misery; a false grin, a false laugh, an intense glance, all means in which you try to give back and let the other know he is loved and needed; even as your brain radiates outward, living in an imaginary land, pulling you back to a place so distant that all connection, all being, is lost in a blink of letting go. To speak and be present, like the other, is to balance on the plank, with the sharks below, knowing without fail, you shall fall with a splash, that your eyes shall dim, your mind blank out, and you shall undoubtedly sink into the dark and murky depths, embracing the emptiness and cold, where once the potentiality for sharing, an open beckoning space with dear one, existed.

The moment you know you are different and you celebrate the uniqueness, recognizing you have a purpose and a bright light and that you will make a change in the world for the betterment; perhaps you feel enlightened, like a teacher or creator of beauty, or . . . but to speak this to the world would be the death of you; for others would claim you are self-centered, grandiose in thought, or egotistical; but you know deep down you are meant for greatness, even as you walk in a world that seemingly does nothing but dilute your own fuel to your own fire. You are passion, you are insight, you are intuition, and you are connected to the grand scheme of life; but to say so leaves you breathless and unsure of yourself, dipped in the pool of humility time and time again. Only to be told you are wrong.

The moment you understand that you are only a perception, a glimmer of what people think of you, and that no matter what you say, or how you get your point across, that no one will see you other than how they choose to see you; that ultimately you are an island onto yourself, with tourists that caravan by and wave, but never set foot onto your sands. And so you stand, unmoving, shining your light, wishing upon the star, that feels more liken to friend than any other being you know, waiting for the day, when a brave one will enter, and join hands to the infinite beauty of you combined.

The moment you realize you are no one, but you are supposed to walk in the world as someone; a someone who acts a certain way, dresses a certain way, expects certain things; but you no longer expect anything and no longer know how to act, and stand on this endless stage watching the ones garbed in their costumes, refinery and fancy ways; and you wonder where you are to stand, how you are to observe, and what you are to take in, if not the bewildered stares of stagehands, whom keep pointing and glaring at your indecent and unpredictable ways. Where to walk. Where to move. Where to be—each become your questions, as the world moves onward to a beat you cannot hear and do not wish to hear.

The moment you realize you do not have a condition or a syndrome or a fault, but understand intensely people are trying to make you believe you do, trying so hard that they convince themselves they are this illusion of normal, and you are this jumbled mess of faults; only you see the truth. Your blinders have been removed. You march in the silence; the one not dictated and orchestrated by the misers controlling the masses. Your eyes have been made open. In essence you have been reprogrammed, the barrier of righteousness, to shine the light on falsehoods and bring out the truth; yet, no one knows this, but the few others that see in truth; and thusly, you move forward half-blinded in lies and half-open to truth, stuck in a place of limbo, with something beyond the beyond, urging you forward through the life that seems not life.

The moment your hands hurt, your feet hurt, your eyes hurt, your heart hurts, but you can’t stop, because there is a force inside of you that burns so deeply that if you do not open the crevice to creativity and let the flames burst out, as dragon releasing delicate-rage, then you shall perish in your own internal war. And so you move, in whatever way called to move; your own self bleeding in the efforts; your own self lost in the time without time, sinking into the separate land where no one can see you move with the freedom of angels, and you cannot see where this world was that you were made to walk in. And here you breathe, inside the escape of freedom, where the others cannot reach in and pull you out, cannot shape you and make you, and tell you lies of whom you be and whom you are not. A place of refuge where you can meet your own maker, whether self, universe, or God, and sit there in your trembling awe.

The moment you can no longer stand being you, as the music never stops, the thoughts never linger, but leap and bound across eternity, bringing up the genius of the world and making you into a spinning top of fury-making; when even the sound of the silence singes your ears and stops your heart, so that you want to scream at the annoyance of the drumming universe; though none around you can hear the pounding. And you cringe and cry and rant and plead, exploding inward as much as outward; for you have been placed in a merry-go-round of havoc with blind-seekers, each dumb and deaf, and wishing you were something other than your own self. And you have no way, no thread, no line of communication in which you can explain how you are the one displaced, removed from where you belong, and brought down to be tortured by the nonsense. How you have all the answers within, but are continually haunted and stopped in your making and doing; when the others, who know you not, shun and persecute your actions. Can they not see you are only trying to be, and that the more they stomp on your being-ness the more they push you back into the dungeon of no recourse but explosion? Why do they force their ways upon you, when they, in their infinite blindness, know not what they do.

The moment you recognize you are not alone, that there is at least one other person like you on the planet, and you recognize their heart, their purity, and their need to make a difference; and in seeing her fully, you fill her with hope, because she knows at last you believe her and you trust her; because, contrary to what she has been told, she is not pretending to be kind, she is not pretending to be generous, nor is she pretending to love. She does love you, with all of her being, with all of her heart. And like your lonely, forlorn and forsaken self, you long to scoop her up and paint her in your compassion and security, to blanket her in your own goodness, and let her know she is this thing called beauty; she is this joyous light.

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