processing

It’s All About the Ovaries (Second Edition of Everyday Aspergers: Part One)

| Aspergers Girls

So, I’ve been procrastinating on this post since December 2018.

I’ve analyzed why and have come up short. It’s likely that I don’t care much for self-promotion. Indeed, in the last 6+ years I can count on one hand how many times I’ve asked folks to share about my Everyday Aspergers Facebook page. (And that counts the mention here!) If you haven’t checked it out, please do.

I could blame my procrastination on the countdown to menopause, which I hope and pray arrives tomorrow, as I’ve been dealing with the complexity of endometriosis for years, including the 2018 road traveled of chocolate cysts. Don’t let the name fool you; it’s all about the blood. And now that I’ve over-shared, I will switch gears.

 

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Recently, I’ve had a profound peace — could be hormones shifting and my lady parts semi-retiring — could not. (Oops, focus Sam!) I’d like to think it’s something to do with my faith and spirit. It’s likely a combination of coffee, getting older, and finally getting fed up with not speaking up for myself and finally understanding boundaries! That, and I do feel the presence of an angelic spirit. But that’s another story.

Not much has changed (with my brain) in the past years, since I started writing Everyday Aspergers. Which now has over 1.4 million hits! Well, yes, some of the reason behind the high ‘hit’ number is because there are over 500 posts! Omgosh — write much?

My point being, I still digress to a close-to-annoying degree.

That’s likely why I typically get called to interview for a job, based on my awesome resume, skills, and experience, but don’t seem to ever get the job! (In fact, I don’t even get a rejection letter — just GHOSTED.) Picture me bungee jumping off a high cliff of ‘tell us a bit about yourself,’ and swirling in rapid circles, giggling like I’m twelve, raising my voice in high pitch, fidgeting about, announcing how proud I am to have ASPERGERS, and then correcting myself: “I mean to be on the autism spectrum.”

I leave an interview feeling like I either nailed it and they absolutely LOVED me, and want to be my best friend, or convinced I terrified the living daylights out of them. It’s likely the latter. As I mentioned: I don’t ever hear back. Thank the lord for my job at ultratesting.us, where being neurodivergent is the norm! Thank my lucky stars. (< Madonna video)

Ironically, I have studied 1000s of hours of best hiring practices for my vocation, and can’t seem to keep my Aspie-ness in a bag when under distress at an interview. There must be a pill I can take. (Now picturing Violet in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and now must Google to find an image.) “. .  . because Charlie she’s a nitwit.” Not to say I’m a nitwit.

 

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Okay, alas the REAL point of this post is to tell you THE SECOND EDITION OF EVERYDAY ASPERGERS IS HERE! And it’s now available in paperback in many countries. Check out Amazon or ask your local library to see if they can order it. Look at the PRETTY cover by an autistic artist (and my friend and colleague)!

USA amazon

UK amazon

AU amazon

10 Facts You May Not Know About the Book Everyday Aspergers

Are we friends yet? (Facebook link)

 

Okay … done! Although, I don’t think this is what my publisher had in mind.  (scan down for more.)

 

 

On a side note, I will speak to you as if you and I are in a cafe, and I’m catching you up with my medical stories. Sorry for the monologue, and the white-haired man sitting kitty-corner to us that is blushing because I am talking too loud.

This here ^^  … that’s an image of a chocolate cyst. Funny story … after an ultrasound in early 2018, when I found out I had at least one chocolate cyst, (and had gone to the emergency room in excruciating pain, and was curled up on couch most days for weeks) in typical Sammy-fashion, I researched with hyper-focus about the chocolate cysts and implemented some home treatments — including essential oil, strict dietary change, etc.

When I returned months later for a follow-up ultrasound, the technician confirmed indeed the cysts presented (3 of them) exactly like ‘chocolate’ cysts! Immediately following, (literally a few steps down the hall), my OBGYN doc informs me, “The cysts are shrinking, and that doesn’t happen with chocolate cysts, so we can’t call them that anymore. They don’t shrink.”

I was dumbfounded.

Surely, in some cases they can? And I’d done so much, including talking to my body, to ensure healing.

My scrunched up face demonstrated I was confused, as I asked in a high-pitched voice, that no longer suits my age: “Well, what would we call them if they weren’t shrinking?”

She responded, “Oh, definitely chocolate cysts.”

I then got that familiar feeling in my gut that means ‘NO ONE on this planet is truly an expert in anything and most of the time professionals are talking out their donkey.’

(“vulgar slang To say foolish things; to talk of nonsense. Don’t pay Jonathan any mind, Mary, he’s just talking out his ass again.”)

The next time I went back in for a check up, with said Doc, she informs that my chocolate cysts are shrinking or stabilized.

So I guess we are back to calling them that?

Anyhow, it reminds me of the time I had a dead front tooth, when I was in my early 20s, and I went to a dentist that a colleague had suggested I see. It was 1992, a sunny day. The dentist’s recommendation for my dead tooth’s discoloring was to darken all my teeth to match!!! Yes, that’s right. And, noooo, I did not!

I have trouble believing this actually transpired, especially after I told my dental hygienist the story yesterday, and she said that’s the worst telling she has heard to date. Also, because decades have past with my pretty veneer tooth. (The other dentist I saw bleached all my teeth to match the new veneer. Yin and Yang. Dark and Light. Theme of my life.)

(On another side note: I found out this week I have no cavities and an unusually small mouth [which matches my usually small head]. And I warned the dental hygienist not to say she has a small mouth despite what her husband says, because that can be interpreted in different ways.

She was appreciative, and said, “We’re going to get along just fine.”

I always find it to be an interesting phenomenon when I give out unsolicited advice to non-autistics about social graces.)

Needless to say, I never went back to that dentist who wanted to darken my teeth! But the young, inexperienced (terrified) me did shake hysterically in her car afterward. The same way I shook after seeing a ‘specialist’ a few years back.

That time a doctor would diagnose me with ‘a close cousin to POTS syndrome,’ (as my blood pressure acted a bit different from typical POTS, but the tilt table test confirmed the condition.)

This was after 5 ER visits wherein my pulse would go to 160 upon standing, wherein the IV would add sodium to my blood, and remedy the POTS-like reaction, making me seem better; only to be sent home and the symptoms to come back (160 upon standing, weak, shaking, etc.); only for me to return to the ER and be told I must be inventing it for attention.

Yes, hysteria is still widely falsely the diagnosis for women! No wonder I have white-coat syndrome.

Fortunately, my then-husband Bob (now-good friend) was in the patient room with the ‘specialist’ (notice the quotes) and me, when the Doc told me my diagnosis and prescribed an exact treatment plan, e.g, constricting stockings, raise bed, exercise regime, salt intake, etc.

A year later, I came back, feeling super pleased I’d followed the Doc’s directions, and was able to sit up for long periods of time, and return to life as normal (well atypical normal). BUT THEN . . . she SCOLDED me, accusing me of making my condition up, and saying I didn’t have POTS, and didn’t have to do all that. That I wasted my money on salt pills and where did I get the idea I had POTS?

I had to phone my ex-hubby from the car to avoid a nervous breakdown; literally thought I was losing my mind, until I realized the doctor was …

(Scan down for book reviews.)

So . . . I likely should write another post soon that is more about the book. I will. I think. Can’t wait to see what pops out of LV’s mouth then! Sir Brain is shaking his head in shame. (He doesn’t have ovaries.)

531: The Balance Beam

| Aspergers Girls

I have a hard time giving to me. It’s not about esteem, as far as I can logically decipher. Nor is it about being selfless or completely altruistic; though I strive for those ideals, I highly doubt they’re attainable in my human suit.

I have a hard time feeling my achievements and accomplishments. It’s not that I don’t take note of my hard work and efforts, and even the path I climbed, (or sometimes slid down rapidly screaming for help), to get there.

More over, I don’t think I have the capacity to feel, essentially, who I am.

I can see that I am intelligent, kind, and for the most part understanding and forgiving. I recognize what could be quantified as a kind of ‘goodness’ in me, and even an over-riding sense of wanting to serve to serve and not to gain approval. I get all this about me. I see it. I recognize. But somehow I can’t feel the experience.

I don’t know if one would call it a sense of pride or fulfillment, or other abundant amounts of labels—but whatever it is that other people seem to get and obtain, in an abstract way after achieving a goal, I don’t seem to have that. I can’t even say if it’s a feeling or outcome, simply because I don’t understand.

Perhaps this inability to understand is because I don’t think the race or game, or what-have-you, is ever over; and to top that off, I don’t even believe that the race or game actually exists. I see the process of achievement as a cluster of something or another, all unrecognizable and indistinguishable amongst the rest of life’s happenings.

To me, I do to do. I give to give. I care to care. I exist to exist. There isn’t this motive or agenda underlying my actions or ways. And if there is, the motive, if not for others, feels heavy, poisonous, and akin to wretched waste.

I just am. And this way that other people sometimes maneuver through life baffles me: the secret schemes, the plots, the webs spun and re-spun. And furthermore, along the same lines, in comparing the declared ‘loser’ to the announced ‘winner,’ the latter seems nothing of grandeur in comparison to the agony of the defeated one.

With this said, I cause myself great harm in overanalyzing my every move. The spectator I am, observing self, tinkers about with scoping tools, contemplating if my action is suitable representation as reflection of interior. If, in fact, in the light of the day, what is said or done, matches my intention or desire. In a constant state of analyzing, I am aiming for the path that is in direct resonance with my soul self.

In addition, I cannot detect the idiosyncrasy of common conversational rules spawned by the associate facing me; yet, I can dissect with fine-fashion the inner-weavings of my own motives. So much so that I deliberate with self questioning if my words are appropriately suited for ‘proof’ (to self) of authenticity.

Is the exterior self accurately representing the unspoken self? I ask. Still with this perceived self-harm, I need this way of being. The manner in which I tread upon a dreamland stage, whilst all about more selves collectively critique the actions portrayed by the exterior, is a proverbial limb of my essence. To be without such manner of existence, I would find myself broken and obsolete, and abandoned, the same as wood for fire. And as tree, I would weep.

In honesty, the worst of the matter is when another enters my zone: the place in which I sit unsettled watching for discrepancies between what is intended and what was produced; distinguishing the gaps, molecular they might be, between what is felt intrinsically as truth and what is displayed as reflection. I hide within, in constant wonder-state, questioning if what I have done is honorable. And here the pain comes, as the mind blunders and rallies for evidence of what is honorable.

Again, I find myself today, in the balancing act of striving for neither perfection nor satisfaction, but rather the gentle center point that does more to extinguish self and lighten all. It’s a varying balance beam of grace that beckons me to be all I can be, but not too much.

519: By Default

| Aspergers Girls

A relative of mine once said:

‘Everyone is selfish, even saints, because even if you are serving others, but ultimately you do it because it feels good, then that is selfish.’

I am pretty sure he is an Aspie.

People with Aspergers, particularly females with ASD, sometimes fear they are self-centered, selfish and/or narcissistic. The fear of self-centeredness is indeed one of my mental fixations—meaning I sometimes obsess about the fact that just being a human makes me a little narcissistic.

When entertaining thoughts of selfishness, I go into this weird cock-eyed, inertia state of over-analysis. Nothing new. You can find me on the couch in my Sheldon-like spot, staring into oblivion, biting my lip, and sighing deeply as I turn around conjecture-corners of reason, fearing once again, I am hopelessly self-centered. Tears come, then, as I further punish myself thinking this is just another exhaustive performance of ego, feeling bad about feeling good. And that maybe I am a genius narcissist in my ability to feel bad about maybe being self-centered.

Once the narcissism trigger slaps me, this whole looping-grasping tango starts, a looping process I have previously bleated out in abundance through metaphoric-saturated analysis, a state of mind in which I once again gather all the ‘truths’ from my memory banks in a futile attempt to decipher what is indeed fact and what is not fact, knowing all the while there are no endpoints. Thusly, the modifier ‘futile.’

This analysis of aforementioned subject matter involves bungee jumping through deductions, including thoughts of: a) life is an illusion, b) DSM-V is largely controlled by pharmaceutical purse-strings c) most ‘conditions’ overlap one another d) family dynamics, diet/nutrition, depletion of our natural nutrients in soil, pollution, chemical-poisoning, infection, mutated swelly-breasted chickens, etc. affect our minds e) genetics f) quantum physics, multiple universes, string theory g) the fact that electrons and living bacteria in yogurt respond to an observer’s thoughts and emotions h) and if the statement near letter A listed above is true then the rest points listed are a moot point

Then I start to over-analyze me, knowing far too much about the literature in the mental health genre-bowl in general, and knowing far too much about me (see previous 600 pages), and having housed psychology and counseling as my special interest pocket for most of my life. (My mother worked for the family therapist Virginia Satir; and I was pretty much swooning at the thought of emulating her since the age of nine.)

I think I have been paranoid about the possibility of losing my mind since I first sat hunched over in a bush (literally) at the age of eight, contemplating the vastness of the universe and what was outside the universe. My son with Aspergers is similar, but ripened earlier than me; he asked me point-blank while twirling his toes in his car seat (age three), “Mommy, who birthed God? And who birthed that person? And how do you know?” So there’s that.

My point is that I have concluded over and over that there are (infinite) murky areas in the realm of mental health; so if anything had the capacity to drive me batty, based on the subject’s lack of pinpoint-ability in regard to conclusive evidence, it would be this psychological mumbo-jumbo matter.

Of course, I realize, some people, regardless, require medication for their safety and the safety of others, and/or to function in life. And yes, I have empathy for those people, some being my friends. But I wonder where the lines are, as everything seems to bleed into the next, and so many people have their different theories, answers, and remedies. It’s very much a disaster for anyone with a mind like mine to even consider all the loopholes and unanswered questions in regards to mental health. I guess I am glad I have a neurological condition, and not a ‘mental health’ condition (yet), because, as we all know: neurological conditions are so cut and dry! Hahahaha!

(I am wondering what cut and dry means, and for some reason picturing a pioneer woman hanging raw meat on a line of string. Beef Jerky! Gasp. We are so much a conditioning of our environment.)

Anyhow, if you are an Aspie Chick or an Aspie Rooster rest assured you are likely not narcissistic. I don’t know for sure, but I’d say if you are constantly worried about it then there’s a good chance you aren’t. Chances are you harvest far too much genuine love for people not based on your own self-gain, and that you over-think that you are too self-centered. Also, there’s a possibility, too, if you are like me, that you get down on yourself, not because you aren’t elevated in status, or not performing well, or not gaining attention of peers (narcissist’s idea of failure), but because you are or might be! Goddess forbid if someone pays attention to me in a positive way! It’s like we have this humble-stinger stuck in our butts! Oh crap, I feel a little good about myself, someone noticed me, someone complimented me so……..something must be wrong with me. Self-inflicted gluttony commenced—whip, whip, whip.

I mean seriously, I don’t know how many times I have cried about how afraid I am that I might be too self-centered. I mean I know I am self-focused, because I hyper-focus on everything, e.g., other people, special interests, fixations, pending danger, the fly on the wall, the speed in which I type, the grumble in my tummy, the octave of the fridge hum, etc. And I just happen to be another focal point, and also a case subject (guinea pig) for my own HUGE special interest: Aspergers. So following the logical dots, then yes, I am my own special interest, but by default. Seriously, I’d much rather jump into your mind and write about you. Any takers?

Trust me, I go into these weekly fits of self-loathing and wanting to stop writing in which I wish to cash in my creative hankering for the life of a meditating (naked) Zen hermit who does nothing but focus on light.

On the same topic, interestingly enough, my fifteen-year-old Aspie son, no longer in his car seat, said to me a few days ago: I think I might be slightly narcissist because I realize I care more about the enjoyment I might feasibly gain from a new gaming system than the other things we are talking about that other people would think matter. But that doesn’t bother me.

I gave him a reassuring, logical response.

I wasn’t doing him any favors.

He’d already concluded, within seconds:

“Narcissism is part of the human condition and without people who were hyper-focused on their own self-interests nothing would get done in this world. I find it best just to accept the illusion of life and enjoy it as much as I can without purposely causing harm. I see it. And I accept it…The world doesn’t really have any antagonists.”

Okay, so I definitely think he’s smarter than me.

516: A Gallant Longing

| Aspergers Girls

I process everything. I am a processing machine. I even process the process of writing. Today I feel ‘guilty’ for yesterday’s writing, as it didn’t represent the ‘true’ me. Even as I search for the ‘truth’ of who I am, stumbling again into myself and not knowing where I fall, I somehow still manage to pinpoint who I am not. It’s strange, even to write. But seems to be the way of it. All so complex and bothersome. Like most days, I wish I was rather emptied of myself.

Yesterday my post ended with freedom, with the removal of ‘self’ and judgment, with the capacity to move into this world unseen and to be okay with that. Yesterday that was a true statement. Today it’s not.

I didn’t lie. I meant what I said. I was in a brief over-confident mood. I was in an I-will-will-myself-all-better-state. I get that way from time-to-time. I wouldn’t call me hopeful or resilient or ‘positive’ during these moments of zealous confidence. More so, underneath my skin somewhere, when I approach my writing with such voice, I am a bit perturbed at life in general. I guess you could say I was sporting an under coating of frustration and trying to paint over myself with some form of strength.

I tend to only feel good about the words I have scribed that provoke a soft appeal and gentleness. I tend to be attracted to my sharings which display an intense vulnerability and a vast uncloaking of self. Yesterday’s post wasn’t one of those posts.

I am not ashamed of the writing, and not regretting it, just, I guess, wondering how I can so easily shift and transform. It’s unsettling to say the least, when the person I was a moment ago isn’t the person I am now. Perhaps, I say in jest, I have some advanced multiple personality disorder in which I am both congealed and disjointed all at once with legions of aspects of self bursting into bits and pieces of everything.

Yesterday, I was PMSing. I ‘suffer’ from PMDD, endometriosis, and an autonomic blood pressure condition (closely related to POTS), as well as hyperjoint mobility syndrome, each of which are triggered by fluctuations in hormones. PMDD is enough in and of itself to drive me batty, but the physical pain sometimes leads to a week of being couch bound. This has been an on going event for most of my adult life. It’s not new, and it’s not strange or unknown. But somehow the debilitation is still rather scary and depressing, particularly, as I was hospitalized about a year ago from an extreme episode. Anyhow, I really don’t want sympathy or to rant or complain, just to explain.

I suppose in moments of couch-bound, sloth-mode, semi-hibernation, I get particularly prolific in my writing. One reason being that there is really nothing else I can physically do, beyond playing computer games, watching movies, and reading, oh, and the occasional romp to the kitchen to binge eat. Having the capacity to write during these hormonal nightmares most certainly brings me a sense of purpose. Also, I think the hormones, or what-have-yous, affect my thinking, in that I have more thoughts and that I am more vulnerable to outpourings. And too, to be totally truthful, sometimes I write during my PMDD only because if someone reads my words I will feel less isolated.

I force myself to write during these times, not because I have to, but because I want to. And that is the primary difference in the particular self-focused writings (like today’s and yesterday’s) versus the majority of my writing.

Most of the time, believe it or not, I don’t want to write, but feel driven to write. Usually, I don’t hear my own singular voice, but more of a collective gathering of thoughts. I have surmised, after continual coincidences, that I somehow tap into the collective Aspie condition. As silly as that sounds, this has been my truth for the span of over a year. It appears Aspies jump into my brain and stir me up. As much as they’d like to believe I am reading their minds, I tend to think they are invading my thoughts—little hitchhikers whispering. Or, rather, we are all just splashing is some giant heated pool of knowledge, and I, by some odd twist of faith, have been granted the capacity to spurt out what we are swimming in.

When I write, I see images and sense words. I don’t actually hear anything. There isn’t a voice I can describe or even an intonation. There is more of a feeling of what I believe is a type of communication I don’t readily recognize as familiar. There is no emotion beyond love. And an easiness and comfort exits without effort. There isn’t a questioning of what I wrote or a judging. There often isn’t much editing involved. It just kind of IS. And I like that.

The process of writing in most cases takes away some of my Aspie thoughts—those perpetual queries that ransack my brain.

I believe the intention behind ‘my’ words creates the overall feel of the work. Much like a painting, my heart is reflected in the renderings. If my intention is to share and nothing more than the words are light and airy, filled with a sense of hope. In this manner there is a radiating wellbeing resonating from the writings. A knowing everything will be okay. A connection, a reaching out, a holding and a holding ground, in which travelers come and visit, and find a place of respite.

I miss that peaceful flow, that rescuing-retreat. I missed it yesterday. I miss it today. I guess I’d rather be part of a collective than this ME. I’d rather sit with a gathering of us than alone—a gallant and worthy longing, indeed.

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

| Aspergers Girls

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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