identity

460: The Extremes of Being

| Aspergers Girls

The Extremes of Being

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I like to be with people; I am lonely without them.
People exhaust me.
I enjoy time alone, resting in peace and quiet.
I miss companionship.
I love who I am, my mind, my thoughts, my deep, deep depth.
I dislike the depth of my thoughts.
I want to share my story. I have to share my story.
I wish I’d kept more secrets to myself.
I long to pour all my love into the universe and to serve and give.
I often shove an excess of my love into a singular one.
I feel an increased sense of worth when I accomplish a lot of tasks. The simplest accomplishments satisfy me.
I am exhausted in my attempts to accomplish anything.
I love, love, love the moment. I am happy. I am content.
I dread, dread, dread the moment that the happy moment ends.
I understand the complexities of the universe, of philosophy, of love, of spirituality.
I cannot understand the various tides of my own being.
I am a giver. I give, give, give, unconditionally, without a trace of wanting to receive the same. I just live to give.
When I give, I become depleted and wonder why I have given so much.
I am honest. I am over honest.
I know how to be a very effective liar, and it scares me.
I am myself in completion.
My self changes every minute.
I want to be held and loved and protected.
I want to not want anything from anyone, and be self-sufficient.
I crave to be understood. I understand others.
I don’t understand myself.
I can see through the rules and games of society. The falsehoods and created truths and statements of how I should be.
I struggle with how to live without a playing board; where to move the pawn of me, if beneath there is no foundation, and beyond no playbook.
I hear from a source unknown, and trust in this truth and heart-mind wisdom.
I crumble into myself wondering why I am forsaken.
I embrace all aspects of myself, the good, the bad, the ugly. The powerful, the weak, the incredibly feisty and the incredibly shy.
I recognize none of these elements of self exist, once I dwell outside the realm of classification and judgment.
I respect the freedom for others to think and live their own thoughts and lives.
I get cluttered inside my own mind on whether or not I have the right to be the way I am.
I understand the process and action of letting go, releasing control, trusting and having faith.
I understand that I go to a place in which none of the tools previously gathered are effective or tolerated by an aspect of self that I know neither as shadow nor angel, but merely lost.
I am confident, empowered, worthy, and remarkably brilliant.
I am like everyone else; in truth, nothing about me is unique beyond the thoughts I gather as my accepted reality.
I love to release, stay in the present, be at peace in the moment, live in the space of now.
I find comfort in structured times of routine and order.
I am in a battle with myself in which I often win.
I wonder where the loser goes to cry.

458: Morphers Anonymous; What is ‘Self’

| Aspergers Girls

I am wondering if the female with Asperger’s Syndrome could also encompass a loss-of-identity-of-self element.

I have always had a hard time understanding my own interests, likes, wants, and needs. My desires become obscured and distorted based on my current love-interest. This could be a love of a person, as in friendship and/or romance.

I seem to morph in and out of existence based on my current lifestyle and interest. I can hold onto certain elements of self, primarily my special interests since childhood, e.g., writing, drawing, poetry, nature, animals, music, but other interests and ‘trademarks’ of my personality readily change without much effort and without me even knowing based on my interaction with another person.

Somethings that hold true and steadfast for my character and sense of self include:

Honesty
Integrity
Great Love and Passion
Processing
Lack of Manipulation
Lack of Game Playing
Intellectual in depth Processing
Tenderness
Kindness
Sensitivity
Intense Introspection
A Child-Like Heart and Spirit
Innocence
Hope
Trusting
Sharing
Giving
The Desire to Serve
The Desire to Make a Difference

The parts of my life that alter when I have an interest in another:

Spending less time on a past special interest or activity.
Focusing on new relationship, sometimes with nothing else seeming to matter, except pleasing the other person by becoming akin to their likes and interest.
Vast amounts of emotional energy spent on the person, in comparison to the amount previously spent on self or another.
Partaking in future planning regarding the person.
Over-analyzing and focusing on aspects of my appearance, habits, behaviors, and goals; effectually comparing myself to the other, and wondering in what ways my self could better reflect the other person.
Revamping of what I choose for entertainment, recreation, and sometimes food/drink, clothing, etc.
Taking on the likes and interests of the other person, including book, music, and movie genres, entertainment, social events and various activities.
Taking on mannerisms, dialect, ways of speech, or other unique characteristics of the person.
Taking on belief systems, philosophies and/or personality traits of the person.

This is usually not done at a conscious-level. Typically, I am blinded to my own behavior, justifying what I am doing with some mind-conditioning or logical sequencing, such as rationalization or total denial. This morphing differs in codependency, as I remain intact in my self-esteem and sense of worth. I do not enable. I have clear boundaries of what I will not tolerate or allow in my comfort zone. I maintain a sense of joy in my own life and accomplishments. But it is similar in codependency in my want to over-give, transform based on another, and my tendency to obsess, fantasize, and make the person more important in reality than he or she truly is. In some ways the person becomes like my god or sun, and I the dependent mortal or planet.

Even with all my growth and self-reflection, I still get caught in the pull-push state of wanting to be myself in completion and wanting to figure out how to be what another wants me to be. Even with this strong awareness, this morphing of who I am transpires without warning or clear indication, until I am in the transient state of a chameleon of my personhood.

This morphing is a common part of the female with Asperger’s condition; the female with Aspergers molds her own behaviors and mannerisms in a way that she believes will satisfy the need of her beloved.

The downfall in this behavior is foremost: losing self-identity.

The other issue at hand is the female with ASD cannot ever meet another’s expectations in completion, because the wants and needs of another individual (aka her ‘best friend’) are in constant transition.

It is important to note that this act of morphing is instinctual in nature to many females with ASD. She is seemingly programmed in the brain to morph based on attraction or interest in another human being.

I repeatedly try to transform my own ways and behaviors to meet the needs of another, without even realizing I am partaking in this behavior. Once I catch myself in this chameleon action, I pull back and wonder why I have once again fallen into the trap of losing self. From here I question the sense of self in all aspects, and become boggled by the concept of simply being.

During the morphing phase, I live my life through the eyes of one person. I see myself being watched by this someone at a distance. I see myself adapting, conforming, and molding in an attempt to fit some faraway expectation or goal, I have subconsciously created. I watch my own self through the eyes of someone else. I match my movements, choices, and even sometimes my thought processes to what I think this individual expects or desires from me. I do this without much awareness or analysis, much like a robot following a pre-instructed and installed program. There isn’t much thought to what I am doing or why I am doing it, beyond doing.

Usually this perspective, the way I interpret myself being ‘seen,’ and how I respond in word, thought, and action, shifts every year or so, depending on the duration of a relationship. Everything I do, I imagine and I believe is seen through the eyes of a human being beyond myself (boyfriend, lover, husband, best friend, boss). My movements, my words, my way of being, revolve around this someone beyond myself.

It is like constantly having an overseer observing me. I question would he/she behave like this? I ask, “Is this bringing me closer to his/her liking?” It isn’t as much a need for approval as wanting to match myself to this other. Interestingly, at the same time this morphing is transpiring, I still maintain my own self-esteem and self-love. I like who I am. I want to be me. But I somehow get lost in the process of befriending this high-interest person.

High-interest in the keyword and key point.

Without the high-interest, I am not drawn into the morphing and adjusting of self. With high-interest, my brain attaches, much like it does with a special hobby or activity, and I become a scientist dissecting the person, as if the person were a project. My brain’s natural ability to dissect, take apart, and rearrange pieces of a whole into a new whole takes over. I become a detective of self and other; again, not typically at a conscious level; though I have some awareness of what I am doing, a cloak to my full reality remains. This cloaking action resembles some sort of protective mechanism and functions the same way as in my high-interest projects, (aka: fixations). I cannot seem to pull myself out, or properly analyze and confront my own behavior, until the passionate interest has subsided; the stopping point/tilting point usually being a new special interest. I go from one to the other, a child on the monkey bars of a playground, not letting go of the one in hand, until the next in hand is firmly grasped.

Through this way of being, I lose track of who I am. Yet, I wonder if I ever was to begin with.

If I take time to process this sense of being, and the ‘whys’ of the way I respond in passion to another, I become confused in thoughts of ‘what is being?’ and ‘what is self?’ I have no idea of who I am, beyond space and matter, and a reflection of the universe. I am ever-changing and transitioning substance. I adhere to the string-theory, to ancient philosophies and belief systems—that of being nothing but the combined perception of others. In truth, I know a thousand others would have a thousand interpretations of this self I am, and in a year’s passing even these opinions would all transition. I am never stagnant, and awaken a new person not daily, but minute by minute. I have no general sense of self or of being. I am that I am. In essence I am nothing.

Perhaps because of the ‘no self’ theory, I transform without intention when fixated on another. Perhaps, like some spiritual teachers have professed, I am merely taking on the characteristics reflected in the person I am observing because I am only, and will always only be, a reflection. Perhaps, I am wired in a way, spiritually or biologically, in which I am not a solid form made to stay stagnant and unwavering; or perhaps I am more keenly alert and aware of the changes and transformations inside of me, to a point that the changes distract from me recognizing a fully forming personhood.

Regardless of my hypothesis, I get trapped in the cyclical repetition of morphing.

In the last season of inquiry, I have reached a new threshold, in which I have questioned: What do I want in another person? What makes me happy? What are my true needs?

The only answer I hear is: love

Beyond unconditional love and acceptance, (and beyond Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs), I don’t understand needs.
Any needs, to me, seem obscure and border on self-based, ego-needs. Who am I to claim a need without at the same time delegating to another how I wish him/her to be or respond (change) in order to please and satisfy me? And what is it inside of myself that is not complete and satisfied in which I need another to fulfill me?

With these thoughts, I become entangled in trying to contemplate the very basic nature of self needs and self-identity.

456: Osmosis

| Aspergers Girls

I am from a different dimension watching the happenings in awe, taking notes, mental calculations of everything about: the climate, the temperature, the ups and downs. But not just of the environment, but of the people. Mostly the people.

Everything is taken in, at both a conscious and subconscious level. There is a sense of no time, and a sense of too much time at other intervals. Much transpires in a quaint amount of minutes, and the mind becomes lost in some labyrinth of intricate and dynamically complex ponderings.

In viewing the situation, the actual being in a room with others, the actual processing of the brain, and the very real presence of self-observation, coupled and quadrupled with observation of others, there is a dutiful evaluation unfolding, a recollecting of past knowledge, gathering of nearby circumstantial evidence, and a preponderance of scaffolding—taking the old and making new form from prior existence.

Both the complexity of thoughts and complexity of creation of newness propel the observer forward into another space. Minute time spans get lost, placed somewhere else, as the mind interjects the mind, interrupting self; something akin to rapid thoughts, but far beyond even the concept of thoughts.

It’s as if the machine is oiling itself, feeding itself, spinning itself, dissecting itself, and spewing out product all at once. To say I am “adrift” is far from factual. To mention the words wondering or surmising, not even close to justifiable. The state of existence is beyond the scope of man. Far reaching, like a power still undiscovered; some creature hidden in the far region of a deep forest, not yet classified or identified, and in so being undiscovered, unable to place a face on his own face, a name to his own name. He just is. A living entity with a breath that is neither here nor there, but nonetheless existing evermore.

To say I enter a room untouched is foolishness. Everything reaches out to me, begging to be gathered. I am overwhelmed, spun, juxtaposed to self, and then brought back to reality, to the present; only to be spun out again—some exotic rare yarn undone and spread throughout the room, feeling and touching with my softness of inquiry my whereabouts, needling myself back through loops and holes, gathering the loose ends and reassembling substance into understanding. Making myself a shape to match the surroundings. Osmosis and inquiry warped in union.

I am what I am, here, in this state, some constant creature of transition. I am hyper aware that my existing affects my being. Hyper a tune to the ways of the world, in how the people move about: the motives, the causations, the wants the needs. Here, thoughts prick at me, trickle in, more like clinging vine than cool running stream. I am pinched and prodded by a foreign entity, and left to breathe in the unfamiliar and daunting. All about me is information—the exterior and interior of bystander intertwining and creating pictures in my mind.

I know not what to do with self, as self is transformed by the collected data; the shapes and forms, the meanderings of thoughts, trying to stumble through the input. A part of my engine made to live. A part that knows not how to sleep. All is alive and real, subscribing to me, as if I were the words expelled—the entities around me, whether forged with their own thoughts or merely spinning molecules of substance rock, connecting to me, reaching, collecting the avenue I be. I become to them what they are to me, some highway of transgression of thoughts.

We combine in a dormant way, hiding behind some wall, filtering our way about one another. Feeding and living in the backdrop. I know no other way to describe this, except that I dance with that which is all around me. To walk into a room is not to enter a space. To walk into a room is to transcend self, and to be returned forever changed.

447: Gifts Offered

| Aspergers Girls

My thoughts upon waking this morning:

“Most days on my newsfeed for my like-page on a social media network (Facebook), I offer out many so-called ‘positives.’ I make posters with messages about love and light, sometimes about experiences some of us share. I giggle, lol, do the heart thing, poke fun at my quirks. I post silly you tubes. I post my son being handcuffed, a link to my mammogram ‘taking the ladies out,’ and/or teenage puberty puns.. I try to maintain a balance in my life of seriousness, introspection, and humor. Face-to-face my friends and I crack up all the time. I love to laugh.

I have chronic pain and have been in the house mostly for 3 + weeks, but I am getting better. Yay! I am also waiting for a brain MRI result. So yesterday I scanned through posts 321 – 340, the dark night of the soul part of my blog. And the depth of self and spirit brought me solace. Most of what I posted here yesterday was links or poems from there, or from an advocacy piece ‘I Am Elephant.’

What I posted here yesterday was not how I was feeling all at once… I am not that complex and prolific. lol. And not depressed. I am reflective and in that waiting stage of wanting to know health results and letting go of the attachment to the outcome, as I’m sure many of you know well.

It was not my intention to bombard anyone with ‘negative’ or ‘sad’ posts. I just know as a sensitive soul, that when I can see someone else is feeling or has felt the same as me, I feel far less alone. I share my sadness, not to be lifted or to be sheltered or cared for…I have plenty of that. I share because I have been to deep places that some others can at times not comprehend or understand without placing judgment. And I want YOU to know I understand and do not judge where you have been or will be.

I know I will be evaluated and sliced and diced by some, and yesterday was no exception. And in truth, that is still the scariest part for me: Risking my entire self and knowing I will be evaluated. But the illusion of fear will never stop me from shining my light. Never stop my authentic self.

If I need to be melancholic one day, or share melancholic works one day, to shine brighter the next, I shall. And it’s really up to the reader to decide what my motive is. I can’t decide that for anyone. I hide nothing. I know it’s not the current trend….. I know I am not all smiley faces and think positive and be the best you… but I am ME.

I choose you and your light over fear, over trends, over anything. Thank you for allowing me the space to be me. I truly feel we are family.”

****

I still feel more when someone critiques me verses compliments me. In fact, I still feel close to nothing when someone compliments me. I just can’t feel it. I don’t know why. But it doesn’t feel like a bad thing. It feels quite good—like others’ opinions are not who I am. However, when someone is passing judgment in a way that does not resonate with my core being, I feel this intense rattling.

I then go through a process similar to this:

1. Is this truly reflective of where I am at in this moment?
2. What is this teaching me?
3. Is this something I can learn from?
4. Is this of value to my journey?
5. Did I overlook something?
6. Do I need to look at this more deeply?

This process either takes seconds or hours.

I then decide if the gift someone else has offered me is for the betterment of my being or better to return calmly. In the case of anger, I often return it calmly. Not in manners or actions, but by spiritually sweeping the energy away. Thank you, but no thank you.

I visualize, (as I was taught in Buddhist readings), a gift being presented to me with outstretched arms, and me smiling, accepting and saying thank you, holding, and then reaching out my arms and returning the gift, with a gentle ‘no thank you.’

Oftentimes a surge of energy moves through me as I am holding the gift offered that does not resonate with my core being, and I write this energy out with a powerful force.

As I write, I have to shave off the ego, the defensive me that wants to barge through and proclaim: I AM right. I have to laugh at this ego-part, and recognize I am being humbled and growing further.

I notice that when I am concentrating on spreading love and light and connection that the bombardment of judgment about me comes on stronger. It’s a definite one-to-one. The evaluations of me come in huge waves, typically. Not just one person, but several, a building momentum that I find fascinating. Gifts of all sorts come tumbling towards me, one after the other.

I understand, too, through all this, that anything anyone thinks, feels, or says about me is an evaluation; whether interpreted as truth or falsehood, or right or wrong, or good or bad by me, makes no difference. It’s all judgment, at one level or another. It’s all resonating, deciphering, rejecting, and sifting,this process people go through in observing another. I think perhaps I can feel this process though, like tentacles fingering into me. And I think it can be oftentimes discomforting: some alien life form penetrating into my bubble of space to feed into who I am and conclude what I am.

It’s the conclusions that are hard for me to digest—the end product of what is brought out into the light.

I keep waiting to be seen in completion, and keep realizing that this is far beyond the capacity our limited human senses.

****
Thoughts on Keeping Silent

439: Exuberance Turned Sorrow

| Aspergers Girls

pinit ability

I have had a very stressful summer. Many of those items listed in publications as the top stressors in life happened to me, or almost happened, in the last four months. I have lost my equilibrium and suffered some serious health ‘flares.’ I also managed to lose sight of all I had gained in the last six months, in regards to my faith and ability to trust in all things working out.

I understand, even in these darker moments, all is unfolding for a higher purpose. This has been my belief since a small child, and whether or not I am accurate in my faith, makes no difference, as I must believe in something outside my realm of existence to continue onward. It has always been that way. I have always looked to the stars for reassurance and the acknowledgment that my pain, and my joy, serves a purpose. If I didn’t have purpose in living, I wouldn’t want to live.

Currently, and for a long time, my purpose has been in serving. With my physical limitations, I can now best serve through my words.

However, through this blogging journal, I have noticed that when I write I sometimes receive a jolt of what could best be described as glee. In producing a part of self into writing, I become wrapped up in ribbons of gold and a sense of celebration. The little girl I am shines and flies through the skies. But then, something else inevitably interrupts, in which I am pulled down, beyond the balancing point, and pressed deep within my soul. It is there I sit, in a dimly lit isolation, gathering the pieces of me I had released, and pulling in that string of joy.

It is an oddity and a familiarity that leaves me with a bitter-broken taste. In theory, I seem to have a naturally built in self-regulator for hubris and pride. I can only lift so far, until I find I am reeling myself back in—some flying fish, netted, hooked, and spun back down at full spinning-speed. I can feel it physically. I can witness it spiritually.

I used to believe this process, of exuberance turned sorrow, was a subconscious protective mechanism rigged in my early childhood in response to environmental influence. I see now, with much reflection, that I am indeed made with an internal thermostat, with a dial turned to the point where my self-based joy cannot rise too high without immediate departure to sub-zero levels. In moments, I feel leashed in, unable to charge outside of the confinements of my boundaries without the reminder of the chained-collar choking my neck. I do not think this is an affliction or a psychological response to my upbringing. I do not think this is biological. I do believe this is another part of how my brain functions. I believe in whatever way I was ‘programmed’ or ‘wired’ or put together, I was given an internal system that keeps my nature in check. I believe I have this same system in place for other parts of me as well.

I cannot stop it. I cannot choose to remain elated. Nor can I choose to remain sad. I am brought to the height, pulled back into the deep, and then set at balance, cleaned and reformed. Sometimes I wonder if I am not constantly shifting and readjusting, an entity truly in constant transition. And that perhaps I am keenly aware of this process. In remembering my childhood, I had the sensation of being just outside the realm of the reality of my peers, conceptualizing and processing at a faster and deeper rate than my playmates; in comparison, today, I can step back and see this existing outside of the arena of life, happening still, only the concepts and ponderings are substantially more complex.

As I continue to write, and share through my thoughts and words, I continue to observe myself and the transformations I make. Wherein I used to barely recognize myself in looking back in time, say some five or ten years ago, in the sense I seemed much changed and transformed. Now I can barely recognize the self I was just last month or last week. In some ways, I seem to be processing through more in a day than I had in previous years. And in other ways, I seem to slip out of one skin of being, into another. I do not know if this is because of my brain or because of my empathic abilities, or a combination of the two. What I do know is I find it harder and harder to hold on to who I am in this moment, knowing that what I think I am will be changing. I find it difficult to be stagnant and stern in my opinions, perception, and desires. Being I feel in a state of constant motion, I find safe harbor in the continual ability to connect and reach out, which ironically signifies the exact thing that brings me flying high and then flinging back down.