thoughts

Day 51: 4 Play

| Aspergers Girls
Play

I just discovered the word fore-play can only be used in one way!

In California slang: Oh, My Gosh!

And here I was thinking I could use the word to mean: the time before I played or the time leading up to play.

(I’m hyphenating the word fore-play, in hopes of avoiding the p-er-v-s that might use the search term. No offense if you used that search term and were just looking for tips with your Honey. I don’t mean you. But maybe I do. Can’t be too sure, these days…now I’m realizing I just typed p-e-r-v-. I give up.)

Writing is an act I generally enjoy. Not so much yesterday’s post, but overall, writing is like PLAY to me. I believe I ought to be able to write fore-play to imply the play time leading up to my writing. But it looks like I’m out of luck!

I am picturing myself in a crowded room (heart beating fast) and having a small-chat-chat with a stranger (heart beating faster), and casually offering, “My writing involves a lot of foreplay.”

At this time, I would probably start obsessing about my heart beating so very fast, and start hypothesizing all the ways in which I could be dying, e.g., heart attack brought on by genetic mutation, clogged arteries, and my favorite, that Sir Brain continually obsesses about—heart suddenly explodes for unknown reason!

As I was obsessing, I’d likely miss the nonverbal clues of the person standing next to me, who was processing my statement.

I’d miss the person raise a brow or I’d miss him/her attempt to raise a brow. (I can raise my right eyebrow super high, and forget others don’t have my same skill set.) I’d miss the quizzical-who-the-heck-are-you-smile. I’d not realize a tape (CD for younger generation) was playing in the stranger’s mind.

Perhaps something like this: “Is she naïve, uneducated, bold, or just plain stupid? Or maybe trying to pick me up?”

I’d miss the follow-up smirk or wink—dependent upon interpretation. And I’d mosey along towards the food table, entirely oblivious of the person’s response to my utterance, while gorging myself on prawns and crab-cakes, in an attempt to subside Sir Brain’s rapid thinking on death.

They know what I'm talking about!

 Words like fore-play get tangled in my mind.

I love words. I am fascinated by words. They are brilliant and beautiful. And I love to paint pictures with words. Words are my primary colors blended into soothing pastels, when they merge with the white of my computer screen.

Words are my friends. And they are also my enemies. I keep words close. I watch them carefully and with awe. The slightest change, just one little letter, alters the whole meaning. Just a slight dab of painted word, a speck in the corner of the canvas, transforms the entire picture.

I still don’t comprehend why the word fore-play can’t be used in other ways.

The word fore can mean: the front, that which is in front; the future. A method of proceeding. Before. Previously.

 The word Play means: Engage in activity for enjoyment or recreation rather than practical purpose. Usually involving children.

But when I combine the two together, they don’t mean: the play you do before the play. This is confusing.

Why can’t the word combo mean the play writing I do before the writing? I love to play write before I write. I usually write a half page or more, before I find my voice and know what I want to write about. Then I delete, and begin again.

Some people, reading this post, are thinking, really? This is the best you got after you played and deleted?

Yep. This is ME!

I wanted to call this post the Origin of Fore-play. But I didn’t want to attract creeps.

Just putting that out there.

It is a funny and intriguing title, after all.

Be forewarned, don’t go digging into the word origin of fore-play, unless you want an eye-full. Neither do you want to search for images or search for examples of what p-e-r-v means. And YouTube—you know how Crazy Frog likes to find associated videos for my posts. In relation to this post, AVOID YouTube searches. LV is still hiding in shame. 

You might be wondering about the point of this here post. How this could possibly relate to Asperger’s Syndrome.

Let me point out what this post demonstrates:

  1. Words mean a lot to me.
  2. Words are confusing, especially when they have multiple meanings, or when society has combined two words to mean something different than expected and/or that don’t make logical sense.
  3. I confuse words.
  4. Confusing words can cause embarrassment.
  5. I am often unaware I ought to maybe be embarrassed.
  6. My actions confuse others.
  7. Confusing others can ostracize me (or make people like me even more).
  8. I can pretty much write about anything given a particular topic.
  9. I’m a risk taker and have a hidden talent for finding cool videos.
  10. The combo of Green Tea, chocolate cookies, and the supplement Gaba make me even more interesting.

You Tube Links You Might Enjoy

Sometimes certain words leave me feeling unsettled. If you’re like me, this is to relax you.

For those of you who were really hoping for more out of this post, here’s a frisky dolphin. 

And music, we have to have music!

Now I’m wondering about the words play toy! And thinking about when I was 18 years of age, a college freshman, and how one of my first college courses was all juniors and seniors, an upper division class, that I had no idea I ought not to have signed up for. And I’m thinking about the videos in that class, and the topic, and how my face was always beet-red.

Day 50: The Illusion of Normal

| Aspergers Girls

The idea of this concept called Normal is one of the grandest illusions of our time.

There is no normal.

Normal doesn’t exist.

All definitions of normal are debatable—as are the definitions of typical, average, and ordinary.

And what’s wrong with atypical, above average, and extraordinary, anyhow?

Normal, apparently, means behaving like most behave. But who are these most? And how do they behave? Show me the model. And PLEASE don’t point to a television program.

The definition of normal is particularly alarming, and highly debatable, when considering the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a guidebook for mental-health professionals. (Often referred to the mental-health clinician’s Bible.)

All mental-health practitioners in America categorize and diagnose millions of people by referring to the Bible of Abnormal—my word for the DSM.

No surprise that the definitions of normal changes with each publication of the DSM.

The new 5th edition of the DSM comes out in 2013, with newly proposed disorders and changes made to other disorders. It has been rumored that children tantrums will be a new disorder.

What about adult tantrums? Because I feel one coming on!

I’d like to see a Bible of Normal. I mean, if a whole thick book can list non-normalcies than shouldn’t the opposite book be available? Of course there is probably no profit to be made in a book on normal behavior, especially if the book were based on fantasy and trickery and not attached to a drug to cure normalcy.

No big surprise considering the times we live in to discover the DSM is driven by the machinations of the pharmaceutical business.

In fact, more than half of the experts who compile the DSM have ties to the pharmaceutical industry. (Published in the journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.) And other experts have other financial ties, such as research monies.

Thusly, the current idea of normalcy is a spawn of the introduction of psychoactive drugs in the 1950’s.  Hmmmm? I’m thinking I don’t particularly agree with how this normal came about. How about you?

There is a direct relationship: Psychoactive drugs were introduced to treat the DSM definitions of Mental Disorders and Illness.

A mental illness can be defined as: A psychological pattern reflected in behavior that disrupts a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. The illness cannot be overcome by willpower, and is not related to a person’s character or intelligence. In the majority of cases, mental illness usually strikes people in the prime of their life.

Rather ambiguous.

The pharmaceutical companies would like everyone to believe that many people have a mental illness, but that FORTUNATELY the illness is a highly treatable condition; by (buy) their drugs, of course.

Too bad the direct relationship isn’t: The Food Pyramid, Employment Opportunities, Community Support Systems, Herbal Remedies, Acupuncture, Massage, and other healthy alternatives were introduced to treat the DSM definitions of Mental Disorders and Illness.

http://www.wellsphere.com/wellpage/semi-vegetarian-food-pyramid
Image found at above web page.

You do know the powers that be in America do hope we get sick and fat so we will buy more drugs?

Beyond the tantrum I just had over the injustice of the world, I am also a wee-bit confused about the DSM’s definition of Asperger’s Syndrome. The limiting definition is based on only male subjects. I’m a girl last time I checked. The definition is not based on a great degree of research. Yet, these DSM collaborators (insert any word here you want) feel confident and comfortable enough classifying Aspergers.


In considering the definition of Aspergers Syndrome:

People are born with Aspergers.

It doesn’t just appear in the prime of one’s life.

People with Aspergers do have high intelligence.

I’m confused about this reclassification of Aspergers coming out in the new (and improved) DSM-V.  Asperger’s might be classified as a social disorder. Please!??

So the people who act like everyone else are the ones without a disorder, the so-called normal ones?

People who don’t express strong convictions are normal?

People who suppress their quirks?

People who are social conformists?

People who blindly follow the plutocracy? (government lead by the wealthy)

People who blindly follow the presumed authority figures?

If the definition of normal means to function in most areas of life successfully, what are these so-called areas? What is most? What does function mean?

Do I function, if I come across as the norm? Feel like the norm? Believe in the norm?

And please, please tell me what is success.

If we could gather  Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus, and other wise people, and ask them to explain their definition of success, I bet their success wouldn’t resemble most of what is portrayed in America’s normal media, advertisements, and entertainment.

I’m done following the DSM’s and pharmaceutical companies’ yellow brick road of normalcy. It leads to the man behind the current stuffing his sacs with money.

I’m happy with my own path. The path that leads to extraordinary!


Armless Piano Player YouTube

The Artist with No Eyes. Esref Armagan


 

Articles Related to The Illusion of Normal Below

Illusions of Psychiatry

What is Normal

A Comparison of DSM-IV and DSM-5 Panel Members’ Financial Associations with Industry: A Pernicious Problem Persists

Undue Pharmaceutical Influence on Psychiatric Practice: Steps That Can Reduce the Ethical Risk

Day 49: The View From Atop the Triangle

| Aspergers Girls

Last night I was up until 1:00 am worried that I wasn’t good enough.

Some of my worries:

I’m ugly

I’m fat

I’m aging

I’m weird

I’m obsessive

I’m not a good enough mother

I’m not a good enough wife

I think about me too much

I don’t do enough to help others

My blog is stupid

I care too much about what others’ think

I’m lazy

I obsessed on the computer most of the day, fluctuating between a social network page, YouTube videos, and this blog.

There is something extremely calming about my blog. I just click on the main page and stare, reread, and peruse the comments. My blog connects me to another realm, to another part of myself, and to other people who know my journey. The writing offers me a reflection of me: my uniqueness and beauty. My blog is my passion, my talent, my creativity.

Beyond the computer, I felt frightened, somewhat like a little girl running outside the protective circle of her guardian. When I pulled myself away I was nervous and I overate. I grounded chocolate-pudding brownies into mocha-almond-fudge ice cream. I had bread rolls and garlic bread, hash browns, and other carb-filled delights. All the while feeling worse and worse about myself.

I felt entirely alone and useless, despite my family being home. So much so that I googled: Why it’s okay to be lazy and Why it’s okay to do nothing.

I felt extreme guilt about being ME. I analyzed why I had this guilt, but the analysis made things worse. I knew all the things I should have been doing, such as: exercising, showering, drinking green tea, taking my supplements, getting out of the house. But I couldn’t do anything. I was immobilized, trapped, frozen. I couldn’t even change the stained shirt I was wearing or bend down to pick a crumb off the floor.

These types of days, where I am overcome by grief, fear, and fatigue, are nothing new to me. I’ve had these days since I was a teenager. The challenge is that now I’m not a teenager, I am a mother and a wife, which comes with responsibilities beyond my own needs.

These roles’ obligations add to my guilt, my feelings of low self-worth, and my inability to fully retreat, regroup, and reenergize.

Yesterday wasn’t the easiest of mornings for our family. There was some turmoil. This spike in the energy of the household left my brain sprawling. Any type of unexpected event causes me to feel unease and fear.

No amount of reasoning, cognitive tools, or talk can dissipate the fear. I have to go through the fear. Then, once on the other side—whether within minutes or a day—I have the clarity of mind to process and release.

Yesterday the fear stayed with me.

Yesterday I hated myself for starting this stupid blog. I thought for certain I’d never ever have anything to write about worth interest. I hated myself for thinking I was making a difference. I hated myself for my lack of willpower, my messed up emotions, my inability to relax, my constant, constant challenges. I hated life.

My life felt like poop, so much that I even Googled poop. I watched a YouTube on crap—and then wondered whose crap it was.

About midnight, I began preparing for the next day, hoping I’d awake in a different mindset. I wrote a poem about how I’m okay, listing everything from wearing pajamas all day to overeating. I started researching self-acceptance. Starting telling myself I am okay.

I understand with further clarity how I’m trapped in a cycle of perfectionism—always have been, and imagine I always will be. It’s something about the way my brain functions. My strong analytical ability and extreme fluid intelligence enable me to have complex thought processes and to produce quality work; however, those same abilities put me into overdrive of self-analysis, worry, and remorse.

My own thought processes set me up for failure.

I understand with further clarity how a well-balanced person experiences the ABC’s of Acceptance, Belonging, and Confidence. And how having Aspergers evokes feelings of Rejection, Not Fitting In, and Timidity.

 

I understand with further clarity how Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs relates to this female with Aspergers.

My physiological needs are being met.

My safety needs are not being met.

There is no security, stability, or freedom from fear. There are moments of relief from fear, but they are fleeting, always temporary, always changing.

My sense of belonging is limited.

I feel continually that I am not upholding to the rules, expectations, and norms of others. I question my actions, my motives, my own belief systems. I upset my spouse; I neglect my family; being a lover comes with its challenges. I have friends that love me unconditionally, but I worry that they will discover, at a deeper level, I am too odd, too strange, too much to deal with, not enough.

My self-esteem is limited.

I achieve mastery sometimes in my writing, in my thinking, in my ability to love others; but there remains an underlying doubt and fear about others’ judgment and rejection. I like ME most of the time. I would choose ME as a friend. I’d be happy with ME as a friend. Yet, at the same time I doubt my ability to be enough. I achieve recognition and even respect, but I over analyze both. I question am I worthy to receive recognition and respect? What if I disappoint, offend, and/or fall short? What if my faults are singled out? What if I am ridiculed, judged, and rejected? What if I become prideful?

My self-actualization is intriguing.

This is where my triangle is top-heavy. I do pursue my inner talents. I do pursue creative endeavors. I do feel fulfilled by my endeavors. It appears my self-actualization is reached from a different avenue than the norm. I do not progress up the triangle. Instead I take a ladder, lean it against the triangle, climb up, and bypass the center of the triangle, to reach the top. I pursue my talents because that is my refuge, my retreat, my coping mechanism. In this realm, atop the triangle, lies my freedom and power. Atop the triangle sits my obsession, fixation, passion, joy, and extreme love.

And that explains where I was yesterday. I was seated on the top-level of the triangle. High out of reach. I retreated to my place of comfort.

Today, I climb back down the ladder, back to the ground. But I carry with me a greater clarity, a clarity only found because I sat at the highest peak and viewed my world.

“We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do.” ~ Ethel Barrett

“I was a personality before I became a person – I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy, and driven.” ~ Barbra Streisand

“I would step into a place of being lined up with a sense of purpose and my inner compass, and everything was going in the same direction. Then I’d get lazy and get off the track. And then things would start to fall apart, and I’d back up and get it together again.” ~ Kathy Mattea 

Kathy Mattea in 1994 Teach Your Children Well

Okay Poem Below

Continue reading →

Day 48: Death by Saliva

| Aspergers Girls

I awoke in the early hours of the morn hacking like a hairball-ridden feline with my throat aflame. I’d apparently choked on my own saliva and was still mostly asleep, pacing the bedroom floor while gasping for air. My throat was parched from what had to have been an up chuck of bile.

Out of breath and slit-eyed, I made my way upstairs, and sat in the cold living room under the light of a singular lamp, contemplating my death. LV (see my lingo button) was wide awake, panting and pacing in a pure state of panic, entirely convinced that at any moment the co-conspirators of spit and throat would rebel and squeeze the last breath from me.  Sir Brain refused to ever sleep again. Crazy Frog started counting on his webbed digits all the ways a human could feasible expire. Elephant headed out to the forest. Phantom was weeping in the dark. And OCFlea was in his element, strumming on his ukulele and serenading Death.

Little Me, I passed out on the couch while bargaining with the gods.

Saliva Choking Info. Found Online: “I would be interested to know if you are Overweight. The symptoms that you are describing sound very much like obstructive sleep apnea, which is more common in people who are overweight. In this increasingly common disorder, the soft tissue in the back of your throat relaxes while you sleep, and then it falls into the airway.”   

Oh! JOY! Time to find me a muzzle. 

This morning, I looked in the bathroom mirror, and I swear my chin is gone. Vanished. Took off with the night. And I have a taste in my mouth like some Keebler elves were up late lacquering my teeth with pond slime. My chest hurts from choking, and still from that nut that caught in my throat from that frozen-cheesecake incident a couple of weeks back. My legs, and basically every part of my body, ache from starting back up with my evil (Eeee-V-aalll) exercise regime. Oh, yes, and my headache came back like black magic, right when the Dean of Education called me last night.

The Dean is heading to China. She gave me a quick ring-a-ding before she left her office for the week. I will get reimbursed thousands of dollars, it seems. Her advice, to set the final part of the plan in motion, was to write a very short, ambiguous email explaining to the VP of the university that I had to withdraw from the college because of my disability. (For university auditing purposes)

Oh boy, did Elephant barge out from nowhere. All of the sudden anger, which I can only assume had been held hostage in the dark of the haunted woods with Phantom, came barging out full-force, trumpets and all.

Elephant had a thing or two to say to the dean. And Elephant actually sounded quite intelligent during the process.  First off Elephant reminded the dean, who I have to say was kind in her manner, that I would not lie, that I was not leaving the university because I had Aspergers! In truth I was leaving because of the way the professors treated me. And that in my last Master’s Program, I had had no trouble whatsoever with the professors, and was in fact supported! (What a concept.)

After Elephant’s romp, the dean was rather quiet. When she spoke again, she still said the same thing: A brief email would be best.

Within a few more minutes, Elephant got to the bottom of the situation. (Now I’m picturing butts. Sorry. Can’t help myself. But I’m stopping Crazy Frog from posting cute butt photos.)

Elephant discovered that the dean had no qualms about anything that Elephant had said. In fact she agreed. With some careful questioning, Elephant came to realize the dean wanted me to write a brief email to assure I’d receive my tuition back. The brevity would avoid the potential of my tuition reimbursement request going into the long, drawn out appeal process. The dean also concurred, quite nicely, that after I had the money in hand, I might consider sending a letter to the VP explaining the truth of the events.

Bravo! One step closer to putting this university behind me! (Butt images again…)

Crazy Frog is ever so thankful to have his precious i-Mac computer back today. Seems he’s become quite the computer snob.

My post was super short yesterday, by my standards. Wouldn’t you know, it turns out that people who read blogs like short posts! Now I have to go back to review my Blog 101 Rules again, and develop a working list of the unspoken norms and etiquette of blogging. It appears, through the act of blogging, I have stumbled upon a cyber society with its own set of virtual rules and expectations.

I’ll be hosting a sit down with the Geek Posse at high noon, to acknowledge our quirky-cute, uniqueness and our right to be however we wish to be in any society, cybernetic or not. Though, I predict the whole meeting will turn into a Matrix  (virtual reality) debate, where Crazy Frog searches out the boundaries of his existence, and theorizes he is existing in some simulated world anyhow. Regarding their existence, I imagine I’ll have to console LV and Sir Brain with dark organic truffle chocolate, yet again.

And then by sundown, I’ll inevitably find myself gasping in the night with no chin. Such is the story of my life.

The Muppet Matrix. For all my fellow Geek Posse Folks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQrotZDDsTE


Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Day Forty-Three: Sam Craft’s Lament

| Aspergers Girls

You know what’s great about this blog? Don’t think too hard.

Answer: You never ever know what to expect!

You know what? (Again don’t think so hard.)

I never know what to expect either!

Isn’t that fantastic?

Just nod.

For instance, I thought I’d be writing about the blustering Winnie-the-Pooh day outside, with fallen trees and cresting waves on the Puget Sound. Instead, I end up comparing my experience at the university with the impaling of a vampire. How cool is that?

Just to be completely honest, before I type on, I’ve been working very hard at out-witting my own dang rules. Having seen the dilemma of me against me, I’ve decided to lighten up some. Today, I’m quite gleefully typing in my pajamas and socks. Who wants to get showered and dressed to blog? Who was I kidding?

This is good, or rather beneficial, this rebel mood I’m in, because today is the big day I’ve been both anticipating and dreading, for around three or more weeks. I’ve lost count. And it’s not worth my time to look at the calendar. I’ve spent enough time and energy on this whole university blowup event.

That’s what I’m calling the happening: a huge blowup. Blowup as in filling up a balloon with so much helium that it bursts. Blowup as in a tire’s thread worn to the bone causing the tire to bust. Blowup as in a restless volcano blowing its top!

I’m pretty darn proud of myself that I haven’t blurted out all that transpired in black and white on this blog. I like the mysteriousness surrounding what I have offered, and the respect I’m giving the villains.

I’m feeling okay about calling them villains, even though I know we are all God’s (Universe’s, String Theory’s, what-have-you’s) creatures.

I know these people have taught me plenty; especially about how I don’t want to lead and teach like them. And I know these lessons will carry me far, that the experience has already given me that extra sheet of armadillo-layer across my soft-bellied-sensitive-tummy.

Still, something feels so delightfully good about calling them villains.

Some words for villain are anti-hero and contemptible person.

I picture a little ant with a small red cape that reads HERO going up against a grotesque giant in a huge white nappy (diaper) that reads Anti-Hero. And I envision the ant winning by some divine intervention from the Roman Gods.

I like the term beyond the pale, too. It’s a word related to contemptible and means an unpardonable action. I believe I am in the right to say the professor was beyond the pale.  He was outside the acceptable and agreed upon standards of decency. And dang it, if I have to constantly adjust my actions and phrases to make others feel comfortable, then he ought to have at least had decency.

A little word origin lesson, as I’m a teacher at heart, and always shall be: The pale means a stake or pointed piece of wood. Think vampire. I’m thinking a sexy vampire. Pale is in the word impale, like in the Dracula flicks. A paling fence represents an area enclosed by a fence; so to be beyond the pale is to be outside the accepted home area, or designated safety zone.

Fenced areas or regions were set up for people for safety, such as when Catherine the Great created the Pale of Settlement in Russia.

So the message is: “If there is a pale, decent people remain inside the pale.”

Look what Crazy Frog Found!

By the way, my professor, he jumped the fence.

Now I’m stuck on word origin again. I just reviewed the origin of flipping the bird, ducks in a row, and, you might be happy to know with all my rambling, I’m reviewing that’s all she wrote.  Okay, done.

Last night I dreamt that I parked my ten-speed bike in front of a quaint neighborhood house. When I returned to retrieve the bike, I found it broke into two (repairable) parts. I knocked on the door of the nearby house. An older man answered. (He looked like my professor but way uglier.) The man explained that he took the bike apart because I left too much of my bike sticking out in his driveway. I hadn’t. He then offered to fix the bike for a large sum of money. I knew he was applying trickery and trying to gain from my loss. I declined, and instead had him carry the pieces into my van. I drove away.

Hmmmm? I wonder how my subconscious is feeling about my dumbass professor?

Another thought: How in the world can I produce such deep felt all-loving, nonjudgmental prose like The Wounded Healer and On Leadership one day, and then turn around and have the audacity to call a professional a dumbass?

Oh! I’m raising my hand! I know. I know. Call on me!

Answer: Because I’m human (just like you’re human, I hope), and I refuse to act like I’m not human to earn some semblance of self-manipulated respect. Plus, who hasn’t wanted to call at least one teacher in their life a dumbass?

Okay, just so you know Melancholic Little Me is still around, and obviously Sir Brain (as I’m still rambling). Little Me is carrying an index card that reads:

My Authentic Self: “…caring, nurturing, kind, creative, intelligent, beautiful being who doesn’t wish harm on anyone and wants to be the most beneficial light wherever she is.”

I said those words aloud during a group therapy meeting (in the college course I’ve dropped) when asked by the professor, “What do you wish to share in this group?”

But I didn’t share what I truly wanted to share. I had wanted to say, in group, how my heart had been impaled by two professors and by my classroom study-partner. That would have been authentic!

 

Who is Van Helsing? A protagonist in Bram Stoker’s 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula.