I’ve been reflecting a lot as of late. Of my choices and my personhood. I am slowly transforming and transitioning. I long for Crazy Frog to come out and lighten Melancholic Me. But I recognize this as a growth process. A replanting of sorts. And so I turn to words. My forever comfort through the ever-changing life.
I’m crying, listening to the song This Time by August Rain, (below), over and over.
Since I was a little girl, in answer to prayer, I was told I was going to be experiencing a lot of trials in life but this would be in preparation to assist others. In February this angelic promise became reality. And I knew that all the pains I held were for a reason. There is no way to put this into words, only tears. If you could see my face, you would know. My eyes would tell you. Today is day 100 of my journey blogging. I have made friends and contacts around the world. Everyone has been supportive and kind. Everyone so beautiful. You have no idea what your presence means to me. I am healing with every set of eyes that hears my truth. Healing knowing, I’m at last walking in my calling. Walking in unity. I am no longer watching life from the sidelines.
This morning, as I wept, I spent some time in reflection, examining Your words. (Traits, 10 Traits, and 116 Reasons) I am gifting myself with feeling happy and celebrating…I am embracing my gift of my words and embracing the gift of your words. Here is a selection of what I am celebrating:
Your website is a huge comfort to me.
Can relate to most of it so well. It’s as if you had been spying on me from inside my mind!
Thank you for expressing words that I have not been able to and for helping me put words to things I have experienced, but didn’t know how to say.
I can’t get over how dead-on each aspect of this is. I feel printing it and handing out to every person in my life.
(Crying harder now!)
Wow. You have totally nailed this as far as my teenage aspie daughter..This was wonderful! I just laughed and laughed in self-recognition.
Oh my goodness. I can relate to so many of these, it’s as if everything is finally slotting into place…I’m just seeing the world through completely new eyes now.
This is amazing! You have written the most precise description of female aspies I have ever read (and I have read quite a lot about this!
I can find myself in all of your points, especially points 5,6 and 7. It’s almost scary how close your description fits me!
So many years spent lost and alone.
Oh. My. Goodness. When I read this it feels like you have had a secret camera filming me since the moment of my birth. Scary.
Thank you so much for this post. I’m going to use to help my partner and family get a better idea of “me”..I knew of a lot of them threw my daughters way of looking at the world,brought a big smile to my face,cant wait to show her
I thought I was alone in not being able to relate to what I look like!!!
Reading your post today was a confirmation for me that once again “I am not crazy” and neither are the rest of us.
So true…. Every damn word…. Beautifully written, thank you for this. I will share this with everyone who just doesn’t understand me.
This did help me understand more about my 27 year old daughter with aspergers.
This is pure brilliance…my daughters world makes so much more sense after reading this.
What you wrote was insightful. I always knew I was different.
I wanted you to know that finding and reading your blog and sharing the information with my husband has made my transition from misdiagnosed, hard to deal with, “crazy” person to a person who is actually like other people with explainable quirks and issues much, much easier!! And even though you are practically telling my life story her, I’m starting my own blog to shout out!
Wow, this describes my 11 yr old Aspie daughter perfectly, and I am grateful I can print this to show her.OMG!! I could almost go yea, uh huh, that’s me too! to every one of your items! Scary! I’m glad I’m not completely alone in this world!
All I can say is…. * * * * * wow * * * * * I feel sure that I’ve found the missing component of so much of who I am, who I’ve been, and what has greatly affected the at times harrowing journey I’ve taken…Today I don’t feel alone at all. Today I feel embraced.
Anyway the piece you wrote is brilliant I love it and so identify, I often feel isolated and alone and not accepted and I’m always looking for people I can connect with and who understand.
All of the moments when I felt as if only me and the person in my head understood life, became so much clearer.
I was crying by the time I got to number 4…This blog is the most spot on description of life as I know it that I have read so far.
There isn’t one single thing, not one, that you wrote that i can say “no, that’s not me”. It is ALL me, all of it. and it’s terrifying and a huge relief at the same time.
After reading your blog, I became totally obsessed with the possibility that I may be Asperger. I spent the entire day reading your posts, comments from readers, and googled other blogs on this subject. Then I chewed my husband’s ears off asking “so do you think?”
And when I finished reading your post above, it felt like finding a key I’ve looked 33 years for. Your post is almost verbatim my experience…I’m astonished.
And when I finished reading your post above, it felt like finding a key I’ve looked 33 years for. Your post is almost verbatim my experience.
This is me me me me me all over! Spooky how you seem to know my head inside out.
I think because of you I have finally discovered what has been so different about me my whole life. Thank you so much for giving me what might be my answer, I have no words to express the gratitude I have in my heart!
This article so closely describes my life that it made me cry – somebody out there really understands what it is like to be me, and I am not the only one of my kind.
I think part of my condition on this earth is my utter fear of human beings.
I don’t mean this to sound negative or like a joke. I seriously think my main issue in my life is PEOPLE. This is a problem. People are everywhere.
It’s not that I dislike people. I love people.
I fear something I love. This love/fear dynamic can be compared to my love of food and fear of expanding the spare tire around my waist and/or my chin line. Though people do not inflate me, they deflate me.
I’m a sponge of sorts, soaking up people’s troubles and holding troubles, and then releasing the troubles; only in the process I get weighed down, troubled myself, and depleted in energy reserves. I suppose part of this current sponge experience is a result of my previous learnings.
What I’ve Learned
I learned through observation that if I acted kind and carefully, people wouldn’t hurt me, usually.
I learned that if I didn’t act a certain way, I would be teased or ostracized.
I learned that some people could find me and affect me no matter how I acted.
I learned that if I shared from my heart, I would be misunderstood.
I learned that if I was me, I could become invisible.
I learned to play games.
I learned to blend in.
I learned better to blend in than to stand out.
But then I longed to stand out.
I longed to be noticed and I longed not to be noticed.
I didn’t know what place was in between my longing.
Where to stand?
Sometimes I became beautiful through others’ eyes.
Through my physical beauty, I gained attention.
Attention that never felt real or pure.
Attention I longed for nonetheless.
My physical beauty aged and youthfulness faded.
I learned that people notice what they want to notice and take what they want to take.
They like a piece or part of me and then when the section no longer serves them, they leave.
They leave the part, and in leaving, they leave the whole of me.
I learned I desperately wanted love, but I wasn’t supposed to ask for love.
I wasn’t supposed to appear weak.
If I wanted love, I needed to appear strong, as if I didn’t want love.
As if I was completely satisfied in being in isolation.
I never understood this illusion of strength in aloneness.
Why people pretended they were not frightened.
Why people pretended they were an entirety, when in truth they were only an ingredient.
I don’t know if there is anything else that permeates the depths of my soul like the fear of people. Beyond the pretending and questions, perhaps my depletion occurs is the energy I pick up. The health symptoms of others I take on, the friends and relatives, and sometimes strangers who visit me in my dreams. Perhaps my fear stems from the humiliation of my youth or the loss of loved ones. Whatever the cause, from wherever this fear was rooted, it remains a tall plant intertwined within my very being. I see sucker plants sticking, prickly burs stuck. I see small specks of blood. I see rough, sword-like leaves stabbing and cotton ball seeds blocking. These are the people stuck in and about me.
I don’t know why. I don’t think I want to know why. But I do wish to change this reality. I do wish to know without question that people are not to fear. I don’t want to think about how to do this. Don’t want a plan of action or a list. I don’t want to try to change things anymore. Trying doesn’t work. I just want to believe. I want to shift. This is my reality. Shifting the fear to love.
I took out a box today from my closet marked: Spectrum Intuitive Teachings, a small box that I’d shoved in the back of my daylight basement closet months ago, without second thought. I was done with my business, my successful business. I had to quit, so I thought, because, I wasn’t doing the right thing according to someone in the world. Just like that I changed my life, believing I should not do what I’m doing.
I shoulded on my self. My fear has led me to should on my self a lot.
I’m still processing my actions. What was I thinking? Why did I change my life to please a stranger I’ve never even met? Why did I compromise? Why did I change?
I have these chameleon tendencies. I was not born a lizard. But I act like one. I change colors adapting to my environment, change appearance in hopes of blending in and not being spotted.
What is so bad about being spotted?
The fear.
And so at the heart of me is fear.
At the core penetrating my every action is fear.
Today, I release this fear.
I choose to transform this fear.
I have no one to fear.
Even though the voices shout loudly: Fear You. Fear Them. Fear. Fear. Fear. I know these are untruths.
I know much of what I learned are untruths.
Today, I untangle the untruths—a giant ball of intertwined string.
I let the untruths spiral out down a long staircase, to disperse, to lessen, to unravel, until all that remains is a long string of blue.
And then, seeing clearly and easily, I snip away at the string.
I create little pieces of untruths.
In my hands I gather the clippings.
The tiny, tiny remains.
I blow with my spirit breath.
Disperse them into the air.
The angels come now.
Take the strings away to their nests in the sky.
Where the strings are used to house the young ones.
The innocent.
The newborn.
The strings transform and serve as comfort and shelter.
I transform my giant core of fear into sheltering love.
I awoke with an awful anxiety. This I recognize as a pressure that cries to be released. Though there remains this fine line in what I truly want to pour out on these pages and what society expects, accepts, and wants.
In some ways I’ve turned this blog into another player in my game. This game I’ve played since I was old enough to know that if I was nice enough, funny enough, and interesting enough, people would pay attention to me. And in turn, if I exhibited too much honesty, was too revealing, or too straightforward, people would reject me, or worse, simply disappear.
A woman with Aspergers remains a constant actress. There is no escaping this. And to me this is the thorn of having Aspergers. I continually scope and evaluate. I look at others’ actions and responses, more so than many can phantom. Some of the observations breed questions, a continual whirlwind in my mind. I wonder the simplest of thoughts, such as what was the motivation behind that person’s comment to more complex thoughts of what is the motivation behind my writing.
My mind forms a tumble weed of sorts, spinning and rounding the field, pushing up dust and debris. The child in me watches in fascination, the driver, the one avoiding the tumbling of thoughts, tries best to steer away. Still in the distant, regardless of my view, the tumbleweed remains spinning.
Some might think: Write what you want. Who cares what people think.
If only I were so simple. If my mind worked in the aforementioned fashion, this blog wouldn’t be a blog about a woman with Aspergers. I guarantee that.
With Aspergers one of the biggest burdens is: Thinking about what you are thinking about me. It’s not narcissistic or selfish. It stems from wanting to be seen, be valued, be loved, and be recognized for who I am. It stems from not wanting to be misjudged, misinterpreted, misunderstood, ostracized, dejected, alienated, stabbed in the back and persecuted. It stems from a lifetime of recognizing I don’t quite fit in with the mainstream, and if I don’t learn the norms, the unspoken rules, and then pretend to a degree and assimilate, I never will fit in.
It comes down to the options of fake a little or break a little. And I’ve been broken. The little bit of faking leads to a little bit of guilt, and continued self-analysis and reasoning of how to be a better person.
In a lot of ways I am in a perpetual state of figuring out how to be a better person. I recognize I’m good enough. I recognize I’m beneficial. I love me. Those aren’t the issues. The issue at hand is trying to be seen by you in the same way I see myself. This barrier remains, this veil that divides us all, and how I long to merge with others and be entirely one.
At times, having Aspergers is a feeling liken to being an ugly duckling that transforms into the beauty of swan, only swan is wondering why ugly duckling was not good enough for the world. Why ugly duckling has to be swan to be loved.
I extrapolate there is much shame inside of me. This shame is a part of me. I don’t see shame as wrong or needing fixing. I don’t’ see any part of my life as wrong, wasted, or unnecessary, and certainly not bad.
The shame stems from wanting to be as authentic and real as humanly possible. Only in being human, I have a mind that wants to protect me.
I want to be a ship in the night that sails with all the other ships in a forging fleet across the ocean waters; I don’t want to be a lone ship. But if I am myself in total, I will likely be cast out to the rough waters, banished from the refuge of loving souls.
The fear arising today is a fear based on the future—a fear of not knowing which route to take, how to steer, where to go. I recognize this fear. I wave to it. I speak to it. And in so doing, I lessen fear. But the specks that remain speak volumes and still haunt me.
I have this spirit inside of me that both longs to share her soul and light but that also longs to retreat into a hovel where no one can penetrate my skin.
This fear rises in thought of where my writings are traveling. Who reads these words. And what is to become of these words.
My dream is to publish, whether through self-publishing or a literary agent. But this, I am certain is many writers’ dreams. I feel guilt in dreaming. A concept I don’t quite grasp.
Still I dream.
And in my dreaming I do find hope. In another reading these words, I find hope. And so I sail on; whether lone ship or in the company of masses, I sail on.
Everyday Asperger's 