aspergers

391: The Affliction

| Aspergers Girls

The Affliction

At this moment I try not to attach to any one ideology or belief, thinking I live in illusion, and that, even the thought of illusion and knowing a semblance of truth, be further illusion, if illusion be. The complexities rendered through the delving of mind are both baffling and intriguing, pulling me in like the piece of an engine longing for lubrication, its sole purpose found in the concept of functionality. There is no other need, but to be anointed in the telling, so I can proceed forward in a time of no procession; this is indeed troublesome, and not, as no burden be found in a place of no time bent into illusion; thusly, it is so that even the emotions that purge from within and without are naught, but the imaginings of ghosts long ago past.

In saying this I prelude my own entrance, a necessity within no necessity; but nonetheless established as a fleeting truism for the traveler beset with weariness. In knowing my truth is not truth, I am thusly freed from the agony of discrimination of self; the endless dissection that occurs, rightfully and dutifully so, when one sets about to cling to illusion of form. In so being I am formless, and this argument, if claimed to be a quarrel, quibble say but light it be, exists phantom too, than whom does whittle with words, with such speech gathered from the where and when? And this, my friend, displays the propensity to be traveler lost within traveler. Precise to say, to recognize the dream is to be the dreamer, and in so being the one at slumber all is weaved into further name-saying causation. Instead of scribing truth, I merely dictate what is thought to be truth within my circumvented reality; therefor, unless I was to gather the truth of agelessness and the potentiality of the All and lather this upon the minds of the singular, I do nothing justice; say my own tethered thoughts still set out to sea, bobbling in the waves of uncertainty.

I speak this not to set the stage for trust or to further prove a point of no point, as there is no point worth proving when no point exists; nor is this trust I speak of, need be, for in form I appear not trustworthy no matter what I mumble, as I am in guise as this ruthless one set upon high or worse the victorious one celebrated. In the eyes of man, I can be none but judged; and there the dilemma is set; for how to curve an aspect of enlightenment without throwing the ball at the very victim who perceives himself to be. In this way I am nothing; neither scapegoat nor scriber of the ways, neither angel nor devil worse, or even the pen that hankers from the very end of limb; I am none and I am All, and what one sees is neither here nor there in this place of nonexistence.

How weary I grow in even telling such a tale of no tale and how my hands weep from the desperation within, further proof the illusion grows; to hide and never recede, to come forward but never enter, to move without ability to see, this is the truth; yet, how does one born of the singular I move in a world born of We, when each, as separate made, choses their own captivity? Tis foolish man’s game, one supposes, to even breech the subject of immortality when everywhere the banners fly blood; come hither, to this space of mine, she preaches, and at once scorned with the rest; perhaps this is the truest form of freedom, to be as the bird of song and not flee from the stones that follow; to sing at the top of the peak and not fear the fall of the morrow; for my song is unleashed upon the highest, and meek not I be; for no river nor valley has captured me; and all is unsung that never was.

How can I be such butterfly with unclipped wings, when all about I dance in the dirt and soils? How can I be the babe nearly birthed, when the canal of opening seems so variably charted and boarded still? Am I not a queen emerged without her captain, on a ship without sail, in a land of no sea? How I navigate in a ghastly wind of nowhere and land again and again upon the very stone I once passed. What is this me, who dangles her memories like sapphires and counts them as rubies expired? Who merrily sings as the serpent unwound, un-skinned, and turned magnificent; who am I but this trellis before me, the ins and outs of where the others leap and bound; am I both prisoner and freedom maker, trapped in the makings of my doings, unraveling one and then another to find myself time and time again; some traveler trapped in a dream of no morrows and no beginnings; waiting for time to peel back as mere shadow set upon thee.

Is this my cause? To rest as mermaid on the surface of earth while weeping tears of the oceans before me? Am I to be starfish drug out and enamored for her legs alone; plucked one by one from the depths of nowhere only to be brought up to the rim of naught; circle dancer I seem, trapped in this funny limbo; awakened and spirited, yet alone in my quest of no quest; for how can it be that in being me I am the key; yet I be not? And how can it be, in being you, you are the me, and you be not? How can this brain of no brain wrap around infinity and spring up anything renewed in renewal, when at my very depths are the limitless breaths of knowing; where shall I begin when there be no start; and how shall I end when timely death has all but vanished, leaving but his cape, the dark shadow of remembering banished.

Laugh, I dare not, as the gleeful me is no cause for celebration; and what to celebrate in such a dismal state as this; and weep, I cannot, as what is for the crying worth, when all about is the toys of puppeteer lost and scattered, abandoned with the coming of the unraveled wavering truth; to be given such a task of no sacrifice, but to feel the shells of sacrifice, as if each had been splattered and fired upon some soul of thee; to be given the world in a cup and to glance down and behold eternity calmed, yet know not what to drink but the vision beyond; how can I be such vision and such mortal, wrapped in this infinite coat of knowing, spread open, the flaps as distorted wings discolored in doubt. How can I be this butterfly broken, when surely the simple embrace does cast illusion silent and heart-strings grow, carrying the essence of me freely without the need of form?

Butterfly or ghost? What be I; magnificent or tangled, what am I? Can you not rescue me now before I surely split in two; the idol of want, the taste of judgment, the enticement of lies, eagerly eating away at the flesh I once was; as I stir in my chrysalis of unrest, evaporated by the ever peace of naught, haunted by the unearthly voices of angels, my living blanket of tranquility the one that trumpets doubt forward. Where am I inside this invisible film, my being wrapped and then wrapped again, suffocated in incubation, brought out to the fire of transformation, and made to nibble at her own skin; when suffering is promised not, when answers never were, when everywhere is hungry ghost whose appetite has vanished through; who is this dreamer and of what does she dream, if not of the place beyond dreams that I am to break through; but how, is her only question; how in the light of your ultimate glory can I testify this truth through the pages of illusion-maker; how can I prove what is not to be proven; how can I dance to the invisible music of invisible air and weave something of nothing; and so it seems, I must rest eternally, until eternity surrenders; and I, let out of this suit of circumstance am thusly braided into ceaseless sky, awoken not wingless but weaved into completion, the very heart of light freed.

390: The Making

| Aspergers Girls

Pierce me with your sunshine; lay me upon the broken windowpane, so like the wind of nevermore I may bend through a timeless eternity, the ribbons ripped out my soul and laid down upon your guilded throne. Twist me into your very making, my ache your ache, my rumble your rumble, my determination sewn less with need than want of servitude.

Give onto me nothing unbearable less I be made bearable; and in this way give to me what is mine for the making; the seamstress of the night turned sunlight by thy key; I am forevermore at thy service, as the spring turpentine to the welder’s hands; cleanse me with your essence, so the very timing I proceed is blessed with the anointment of your coming.

I ask not to be recognized but to be given as the sacrifice you need; none less made panged than awakened; none less made broken than mended; in this way I am completed, in the thinking of naught but your asking; I am given more than asking’s appetite, taken from the illusion of pain into the gift of flight; my very substance turned to the gold of movement; all stagnation ceased as the phantom ghost it be; my effort surmised as effortless; my giving granted as undertaken by none.

In the least possible way, make me seen, so that I may not hide behind your gown, but feed of the eternalness of your glory; for your storm is my storm, your movement my step; the eye that leads neither blinded or scorned, but rather lifted as grandest seeker seeking nothing but naught; I am this or I am that; no difference matters to the me that thinks she breathes; no difference matters to the wings that carry me; no burden feels as light as thee; no road so unmoved and free; as the strongest rivers pouring through, though I be untouched, unmoved, un-enchanted by the very force of force, it is as if gravity ceases and the doubts erase, never here, never in existence.

No such beauty is found in the gentlest of faces; no such grace as thee. For in this chamber of no chamber, inside the existence of no existence, I am scattered across your calling as the desert flower to the grain, mixed in with earthly risers, nurtured through the feed, but set apart as springing grace in her majesty’s embrace; use me as you wish, as I know I am made for such worthiness; my deed undone in your granting, time let out as the hem of the dress when the coming of seamstress is left open.

I am the door; I am the window; I am the very pane where I lay in waiting, counting the stars twice over in my gratitude; for endless is no more; and future does not arise in the ever standing stillness of your abiding love. Yes, I have known love; at last the dove’s dream be mine; not for the taking, not for the making, but for the simplicity of beholding, the making of what I carry my very self; the essence poured within me, glue sticking to my edges, the vessel I be.

In this I am complete at last; all answers made swift; unworldly things lifted and set upon my bureau’s mirror, so I might step back and examine the guarantees of eternity; a reflection within a reflection; my brother, my sister, each an etching for the making; each whisper only my own voice; each shadow only my own creation; for I have been blinded by the light; and in this all ceases to manifest beyond the glory of His coming; for in you, in your endless sea, set free and flowing in tumultuous love towards me, I am swept, I am taken, I am made.

I thank you for the making with my very own soul; I dress you in the patterns of my heart; I sweep my only kindness into your seams; I partake in your dance; I feed off of no other than the mistress of my betrothed and lightened one; for your beauty is unmistakable, unmasked in each and every thing; whether granted breath or might, rather weak or unseen; each becomes alive in the coming of this music; I hear, I see, I move, and in this way I am at last awake; my slumber merely a dream; my answers never found; for naught they be but chances resting on the fireside hearth, never meant for kindling or fuel, only tokens of the illusion spun open through trust.

I believe. I believe in you. And thusly I believe in the ever growing gratitude of self beyond self; this high maker that lands someplace between the two that view; the one taking in the other, as cherished gift; the recognition forging the road to golden light; we only need undo the ribbon dotted red upon our brow, the drapery of delightful disguise, the leading point that made the dark in hopes and knowing of removal; for this is gift; this dark, this misery, this confusion; for in its lifting we be made this word freedom; we be made this careful union; we be this One.

It is in our powerful release we are made. The birth of life in the removal of the blinded curse; the start of eternity at our fingertips; remove me steadily; remove me again and again from your face; take me in my tattered form, my blindfold, my rag, my dark cloth and scour me across the floorboards of your mind. Stampede across my image, dissect me, lather me in spindly needles, torment me with your secret words, pierce me with demise, damage me with trajectory and misery; and then see I still stand in the glory; see I am still here, untouched, unnerved, unmoved.

For in my seeing, there is none that in illusion can take what is forevermore; none that can make me believe you are not the glorious one; none that can make me turn from the light of light, from your very face, dear brethren; for you are the light, the way, the path; you, as you stand beside me in your bewilderment, cursing my very breath; you are whom I love; whom I dare not stake; whom I pin myself upon, and claim as magnificent one.

388: Keepers of the Light

| Aspergers Girls

I invite you to listen to this song first.

I started singing You Light Up My Life, around the age of eleven. I think it was the only song I wrote down the lyrics to and memorized. That, and Away in a Manger. I used to sing songs at the tippy-top of my lungs, squeaking and squealing to anyone that would listen, including my downstairs duplex-landlords, who sometimes brought me indoors for cookies. I could tell when I sang, by looking in the observers’ eyes, that people didn’t think I sang super well or close to on key. I could tell they thought I was a lonely child searching for attention. I could tell that they were smiling in an attempt to help me feel accepted. But I couldn’t say all that. I didn’t think to say it. I didn’t know that everyone else, or most everyone else, didn’t think like me. I figured we all knew what was being unspoken. That we all just pretended we didn’t.

When I sang my heart out, I slipped into a fantasy world. I leaped across time and stood on stage. I imagined refuge in a bountiful light. I imagined being lifted and protected and seen. The song itself didn’t free me; nor did the audience observing. What freed me was the freedom I was—the capacity to be me. What trapped me was the realization that all about me others weren’t free.

There was a time where people approached me for my light. They were drawn to me. Something about me pulled them in. I know now it was and has always been Spirit. Then I did not know, and I didn’t wonder; I thought everyone had this; I thought everyone heard God and could see through people.

I remember going to the church around the corner, a Catholic cathedral where I never once attended mass. I was drawn there, at times, the little girl I was, with her un-brushed hair and with her big searching eyes. I would swing on the monkey bars in the church playground over and over, until my hands blistered. Then, if I hadn’t already entered, I’d walk quietly into the empty church and just breathe. I felt safe there. I felt connection. But I didn’t know why. The candles, the light of the candles, they spoke to me, as did the colors of the glass windows and the movement of sunlight through the grand space. I wasn’t frightened. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t anywhere. I just was. Sometimes time stopped and I traveled into the future where I would walk in as full-grown woman and be, with the others, I would be.

I wasn’t a religious child. I wasn’t even spiritual. I was magical. I believed in magic everywhere. I believed everything, each and everything. I believed in everyone around me. And I loved everyone. I trusted them. I gave myself freely: my attention, my time, my love. I had an over-flowing abundance of love. And I was me. There wasn’t anything about me that I had created. I radiated from within.

Something about me, or perhaps something within me, gave me the incapacity to be anyone but me. This gift of being authentic was beautiful. But because I trusted and believed others so greatly and so freely, when they told me what they thought, I believed them. Because if they were beautiful and I loved them and they were perfect, then they must know, they must have the answers.

I believed when they, the others, told me that I was just a child and didn’t know things. I believed them when they said life was hard. I believed them when they cried and cursed what was wrong and unjust. I believed it all. And I began to see that I lived in a world entirely complex in its simplicity. I began to see that I held all the secrets of love and joy, but that none could see them. I knew how to laugh and how to make other people laugh; and I did so without intention or want; I just was joy.

Then came the passing of days, when I learned my joy was not enough. When I learned that my heart, no matter how big, could not make a difference—at least I thought. Soon as my friends grew older, they changed. Their views became more broken and fragmented, their opinions stronger, their hatred taking shape. Divisions were made, as I watched, fingers pointed, sometimes at me, but mostly at others. And everyone started playing this part that didn’t make any sense; except that their ways kept people, for the most part, in an imaginary role of control.

I began to see that love was divided and measured. I began to see that love came and went, as did people. I learned that love didn’t mean love; what some called love actually meant conditions and fleeting moments of spiked emotions of some sort that didn’t feel or look like love at all. I learned that whatever shape I took, I could receive part of this love, that wasn’t love. But since I couldn’t find the other love anymore, the one I held in the backyard during slumber parties and collected, as the others laughed with me, without cause or pause for judgment; since I couldn’t find that love anymore, I took what I could. It never felt right. It felt false from the start. It was false love created by my want for connection and the growing emptiness I had inside.

My actions seemed to define me. I seemed to become who people thought I was. It didn’t matter how much goodness I had inside me; no one could see it, unless they chose to. No one. And when they did think to see the goodness, it was because I emulated them; I showed them a part of themselves they liked, or wished to like. I showed a commonality or I complimented them by my presence or in my spoken words. I collected false-love this way: pretending to be who they wanted me to be in an attempt to connect. To say I played, would be false, as there was no joy in this. To say I fought, would be false, as there was no friction. It was a space and place that I am incapable of defining or marking. For how can I define a place in which everything was false—the only thing real my want to fill the emptiness of falsehood?

This falsehood permeated much of my life, far into adulthood. A falsehood that eventually blinded me as well, to my own inner light. I had to snuff my light to continue to exist. I was given no choice.

I had to extinguish who I was, if I ever wanted hope of connecting. At least this is what I conditioned myself to think. I learned to track the actions of another to determine my next move. I could tell from every flinch, every switch of voice, every motion. Responses were my indicators. Reactions my compass. I stopped feeling inside my own body. I became numb to my needs; everything was masked in my effort to predetermine how to respond to the responders. For I could see in their eyes the judgment, the dislike, the wondering. I could see so much that they wouldn’t ever say. Particularly their thoughts about me, or about the way they perceived me. I knew they thought what they dare not say. I knew there were all these connections going on just in seeing me. I was being categorized and dissected and figured out. It’s not that I thought I was that important, it was that I thought they were. I think all along I knew they were a reflection of me or at least a mirror to my own experiences. I knew we were one and the same, but didn’t know how to define the feeling. And so I would watch, until I laughed and joked, trying to squeeze the joy out of someone whom had seemed to forgotten where he or she put it.

Mine, my joy, was always there, right in me, never gone. Even with all the poured in sorrow, I had this joy. It was always growing and blooming. There was always hope. It seemed no matter how much the others responded in a way that carried the potentiality to sting like thorns, that I still kept my hope. There was this unstoppable faith. Something in that song about the light through the window, about the light itself; I knew this. I saw the light n my dreams and I heard light in the whispers. I knew my destiny. I knew my calling. But this too, I was often told was wrong. I was made in form divinely perfect, but undoubtedly I frightened people. And this brought me to a place of confusion, so very great, I dare not venture there even in thoughts and rememberings.

For how could I, one held by the angels and light, have been so terribly flawed? And why did all around me seem to be such blindness? I searched and searched as a child—in the trees, under the school buses, in the grassy fields—for reprieve. I slipped into my imagination. I hid in the shrubbery and shadows documenting my own thoughts. And I came to the conclusion I was someone made wrong; though even this, deep down I knew to be untrue.

In time, I learned to conform. I learned to tuck away the voice of truth and the rays of light. For I believed the misery of disconnection to be far worse than hiding my light. And so I hid, for a very long time. And though I was a keeper of the light, it dimmed.

And here the dark found me. So very freely, as if beckoned by the very ache of my soul. I walked forsaken to my self for decades. I learned, through my mind, to hear the lies before the truth. I heard the negative talk, and I collected this, for if I did not believe them, I could not be with them, and then I would have to be alone. In order to connect, I had to believe what others said about me. If I believed in my light and my angels, and in my very soul, than I would be without the company of humans. I would only have the invisibility of my hope and joy—and alone whom would I share anything with?

Eventually, the lies became my truth. My whole truth. I was what others created me to be. And then a shift happened, in which they were what I created them to be. I began to see like other people. I began to believe the lies. I began to think that yes, only my point of view counted. That yes, I am in control of my world. And yes, I am the most important and special. I began to be a love-leech collecting falsehoods. Love, love, love ME! I demanded. Love me through validation. Love me through listening. Love me through answering back how I expect and want you to respond. Outcomes became my life. Hope became my misery. I latched onto the yellow brick road of illusion. I thought, if I was just good enough, and right enough, and had all the answers I would WIN! I would be LOVED! This is what I was taught. This is what was walloped into me. This is what I ATE because nothing else was offered.

Until the pain of emptiness became so great that I knew I was wrong. I knew that life was not meant to be like this. I knew somewhere inside my little girl protecting the light was dying to come out.

For me this has been my greatest gift: my affliction.

My very agonizing pain was what set me free. The very discomfort that kept shouting within of the falsehood was my greatest joy. I was given a lantern since birth. And I walked four-decades pretending I was not, in hopes of gaining false love.

And now, as I step back, very much the little girl I was, with my lantern bright, I see I kept this light hidden for a purpose. I suffered for a reason. I suffered because everyone else was suffering. I didn’t retreat because I was so different after all. I just retreated a bit later along my path. I just retreated knowing I was retreating. There wasn’t anything different about me, except I was born awake. I was born with the affliction that is both my teacher and my cross to bear. I was gifted the wisdom at a young age, and through this affliction I was formed and made, through this affliction my lantern was fueled. I see this clearly, more clearly each moment I am here.

I see that we each have these lanterns, and that for some of us it hurts more to hide them. But we all have them. For some of us we know we are hiding them: this is the affliction.

I see now that I am struggling to turn up the lanterns of all, when all I need do is turn on my own.

In so many ways, in every way, I am that little girl, with her joy, with her lantern strong, standing on the hillside and beckoning my friends onward. Only this time I can see. I can truly see. I know now my once perceived greatest weakness is my greatest comforter. I know my need to be love, my need to shine, my need to be free is the only need I ever choose. I know that in my affliction I am made whole. I know that in my wholeness I honor each and every soul. For in the embracing of what has always been and shall ever be, I have embraced the world. I have embraced the light.

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Related Post: Behind the Curtain

387: Pop Goes the Angel

| Aspergers Girls

authentic

seattle Chorus
This is ME (the little one) so happy and in a state of pure grace, surrounded by some of the many excellent talent of the Seattle’s Men Chorus

While taking a shower, something came over me like a wave. No, not the water.

The shower seems to be one of my places of deepest intuition; a place where we all intermingle in our thoughts and knowings; a place where I am somehow singled-out as the one to share the knowings to the world. Did someone say: scapegoat?

I think somewhere, if you allow me to get all imaginary-Catholic on you for a moment, there is an angel team of spirits, and I am standing there in line for selection and not being picked for the softball team, again, and I am the last little angel. And some recruiter guy, who likely looks like a cross between Cary Grant and George Clooney, with beckoning eyes like my childhood dog, Justice, well he saunters by and seeing me in my meekness says: Do I have a job for you. Let me beam you down to earth and you can play for that team! A whole world!

I was not the brightest of angels, indeed.

Nonetheless, hearing the voice of angels, or not, I still ghastly despise the whole entire process of showering. Just seems a waste of time and requires a lot of effort. I like when I am all warm and cozy back in my clothes though, and the fact I can no longer locate the lingering stench. My dog is a built in shower-time-for-mom monitor because she begins to really like to be around me, like I am radiating with Eau de Parfum Pooch.

I am thankful for my shower moments with Spirit. Not that they are very much different from my typical minute now. Naked or not, pretty much wherever I am, I am bombarded with intense revelations. Bombarded isn’t truly how it feels. But I am having some issues regarding the whole recruitment process before I was beamed down.

If I am not an angel reject then I want a quantum-phantom-super-hero cape that is baby-sky-blue and sea-foam-green with tints of royal-purple around the edges.

I should have known I was different when in Kindergarten after it was my turn to share my favorite color, everyone squished up their face and said: Magenta? WTF…. Last part added for effect; they didn’t text back then.

When the revelations come, (aka: when the dust mites scream as they are drowning in the shower and I mistake them as angels), a little sweet girl part of me springs out and squeals in delight. She literally jumps up and down in glee. “Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you,” she says.

(I don’t jump up and down, just this invisible little-girl-me does. My earthly vehicle (body) has been a victim to the illusion of gravity. Jump = unsightly risk.)

Isn’t that grand, a semi-saint who is in touch with her human frailties! My angels are applauding… Oh no, that’s not my angels… that’s EGO. Hello, EGO. Everyone wave; that’s what he wants, but when we are super obvious about his clingy-neediness, he kind of freaks and disappears for a bit. So wave super big, like you are at a sports event and part of the crowd. Go! EGO!

Phew, that was a close one!

You totally want me for your Guru, don’t you? (Oh, crap, he’s back…)

As I was saying, I had this kind of powerful revelation in the shower. My little girl me was super happy and then panicked. The sense of urgency rushed in and I was quickly reminded by observer-of-self that urgency = fear. And so I embraced the little girl, and she whispered. Well actually who am I kidding? She is an aspie little girl, therefor she shouted her fear in great amorous jubilee! She couldn’t even sit still, for goodness sake. With her face all in a knot, and her cute cheeks all a-puffed, she fretted, “What if I can’t remember this? I wish I wasn’t in the shower… and EWwwwwww so naked, old and wrinkly!”

Okay, so she didn’t really say that last part; luckily she is blind.

Having a team in my head is quite remarkable. This team is with me when I am not in my complete state of grace. I can hear my angels, and they like to join in, whenever my ears are open. I have lids on them, I suppose, my ears, not my angels. But that is a funny, funny thought: little angels in tin canisters. I could pop them up when I needed them like Jack-in-the-Box. My angels have a grand sense of humor, but I can imagine them now debating about this one, and thinking I have perhaps crossed some imaginary line. Let me check….. dialing… dialing… (WE don’t text.)

Oh, we’re good. They are taking turns hiding in different blue tin canisters. When they pop up, it’s hysterical, like a great combination meal of spirit: A little bit of angel and a little bit of popup ghost. Boooooooooooo. Pop goes the angel.

When my little girl comes out with her urgency, and my observer holds her manifested fear, and then the angels enter, Spirit says, “There is nothing to fear, and you will remember what you will remember.” And then little girls is calmed and I am returned to a semi-state of grace.

This happens a lot. The whole cyclic process. Message of revelation downloaded, little girl excited, little girl fears, observer pops out, fear is embraced, fear speaks, Spirit enters, fear released, and presto I am back. I am like a drop in the ocean being collected for rain, then poured down on the flowers, then dribbled down a ditch, and then released into a stream, then evaporated back into the big sky; it’s kind of super cool, and super easy, and so much FASTER than it used to be. Sometimes so fast I don’t recognize it has even happened. And I don’t much care for the ditch.

This gets me back to the vision I saw, or heard, or felt, or something or another. It was simple, but if I tap into my angels they shall go on and on and on in complicated verse, as the main speaker of the lot OBVIOUSLY doesn’t realize what century we are all living in.

Suffice to say, the main message, that I could feasibly scribe two to three pages about, (angels are laughing), was…. WAIT!
Actually, I don’t want to be bothered with it; some things are best unspoken.

Secret space created away from angels. Shhhhh:
(I am going to share. But don’t tell. I am sharing now, because each and every day I am approaching a greater and greater state of peace, and I sooooo know I am not supposed to teach or preach, and just be, and let the miracles happen; so before I get to that next place in my evolution, I need to regurgitate and spill, before I get caught by the angel patrol, and they stuff me in a tin can. Whose great BIG idea was it to awaken an Aspie anyhow? Seriously… blahhhhhhh)

This is kind of what they were saying to me… but without judgment, ego, self-righteousness or accusation… theirs is always la-de-da-loviliness… which makes me feel like a miserable earthling… which is kind of my point. I already have my angels up above as the God-appointed-Holy-knowing-spread-love-beings, I don’t need humans here doing the same. It actually doesn’t bother me though, anymore. I just understand it more, as the angels poured the knowledge in my head while I was attempting to wash away the Eau de Pooch.

When someone comes from a place of preaching about being “positive” or “grateful;” you know the type; you likely have been one yourself at some time or another. Me, I was voted MOST SPIRITED in high school. I was a cheerleader. I played the Positive game… follow me to the land of la-la-la… even though deep inside I am miserable. (past me) Present me = HAPPY.

First off ( < ego-phrase), if a person is entirely Mrs. Happy Pants, free of negative thoughts and such, then she’d be a guru, and she’d know better than to spill her knowledge out and share stuff, because no one hears anyhow and it’s not her place to share.

That is why I shall never be a guru or a complete Buddhist. That is why I attach semi to my name. (Too bad I wasn’t named Truck.) I am half-baked, incomplete, almost finished, and I always will be. Because once I think I’m not, I am so back to square one. Plus who doesn’t like cookies when they are almost done, but not quite. I’m gooey! The good stuffs in the goo!

Plus I lack the ability to close my mouth. That is why there needs to be a new spiritual practice for Aspies. The Aspergerian Path to Enlightenment written by a half-backed Aspie. I elect YOU! Someone suggested The Church of Sam; I am good with that; it’s not my real name to begin with.

Oh…. Quick side story, that is entirely unrelated to the main point:

A few days ago I talked about the church gathering (smathering <<<smothered and lathered in the ickiness so I shall never go back). And during the small group time someone asked me about the pen-name Samantha Craft. Well, conveniently, as it was a church and such, I was in a state of grace; I was able to speak from a depth of great love. I explained “Craft” was a last name that belonged to a woman who was like a mother to me and who was a strong woman of faith and took me under her wing and that she had died of a brain tumor at the age of 50 and I had chosen her name to honor her and because of her spirit. (I like all the ands and I am keeping them.) Everyone, the eight or nine women sitting in a circle watching me, were very solemn and calm as I said this. And then I heard, “And what about the name Samantha?” Oh…..well then the little girl in me, she popped up and said, giddily, “From Bewitched!”

This sums up why I confuse people. This half-cooked, combo-me. That is why I shall forever be a semi-saint and never earn my wings. I am much like the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life (best movie on earth), except I haven’t found my George Bailey. I confuse people, because I have this deep prophetic spirit filled with catacombs of endless love and I have this little girl who totally wants to be a witch from a sitcom. (Who has always wanted to have a nose that wiggles and does magic.) People can’t figure out who or what I am, and can’t place me; so they try to judge me to ease their own mind of discomfort. And then I watch, just sit back and watch as their faces get all disfigured and wacko, and watch as their bodies turn away. And I smile bigger thinking: You have NO Fricken idea who you are, do you?

Before I go, I recognize I don’t think I really completed a point. Isn’t that refreshing? I mean who wants to be preached upon by a self-righteous know it all. (<< ego, the observer of self says.) I am the first to admit: I KNOW NOTHING.

If I could say something to you…oh wait my angels are back at their game of tin-can hide-and-seek; quick, listen up:

Dig up your stuff. Spread it out to the world, and in this way you are the TRUTH. You are already the LIGHT and LOVE, and really you are already the TRUTH. But most of us, according to Spirit, don’t know this, so we spend a bunch of time in the illusion thinking if we just talk the walk or walk the talk or whatever, we shall magically transform. Won’t happen. There is nothing to transform.

Keep spreading LOVE and the Light shall come. But don’t spread through preaching. (Like I am right now; unless you spend two pages first humbling yourself.) We are love. We spread love by doing absolutely nothing but being. (And we aren’t even really being either).

What happens is someone attempts to spread their “BE-Happy” thoughts (or other jargon, advice, help, fixing stuff) and then the person who is already not happy feels worse. (sad face) And the person who is already happy, doesn’t really care, because she or he is already happy, and momentarily thinks she knows it all. NEVER SHARE when you are super confident and think you know it all. Undoubtedly, you will wake up and will have made a fool of yourself! Promise. You know nothing. Absolutely nothing. I guarantee. You are a reflection of me. If you doubt your lack of knowing, just reread what you just wrote.

Ohhhh, Pop-Goes-the-Angel…. I better go. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Semi-Saint out!

seattle chrous 2

Be Authentic. Be Free. Be Who You WERE made to be! xo

"10 Ways to Love Yourself": Numbers 1 through 10: Stop making lists about how to do what you already are! ♥ xo ~ Sam the half-baked semi-saint.

* For clarification, when my angels speak it is always positive and I don’t feel anything but good. And I never really played softball in heaven.<3

385: Navigating the Female Aspergerian Mind

| Aspergers Girls

“Samantha Craft,” M.Ed. has served as an educator for adults and children, a spiritual counselor and an advocate for individuals with special needs. She holds a teaching credential and a Master’s Degree in Education, and has completed multiple postgraduate courseworks in the field of psychology and counseling. Currently, under the penname of Samantha Craft, she manages and authors the well-circulated blog Everyday Aspergers: Life through the eyes of a female with Aspergers. Her prolific writings depict the multifaceted daily life of an adult with Asperger’s Syndrome. Samantha maintains contact with people across the world touched by ASD and serves as the founder of an online support group for adult females on the autistic spectrum. She resides with her husband and three sons, (one with ASD), in the state of Washington.

This article may be duplicated for professional use in an educational setting and for family members in the home setting. Please keep contact information on the page. The works are copyright protected and not meant for duplication for groups or presentations. Copies of the edited and complete article can be found in the future publication of a peer reviewed journal.

Navigating the Female Aspergerian Mind

Chances are, because of the lack of available resources in regards to Females with Asperger’s Syndrome, an undiagnosed female with ASD has slipped under the radar of many professionals. With today’s growing rates of autistic syndromes, any professional established in the field of mental health therapy would benefit from careful examination of the complexities of Asperger’s Syndrome, as it pertains to the female experience. Until recently, little to nothing was known about the female with Asperger’s, as most, if not all, current diagnostic tools are geared toward and develop based on the male genders’ characteristics of ASD. The simplest of signs that might indicate the female representation of Asperger’s to a practitioner are often misunderstood, misdiagnosed, denied, diluted, or unnoticed.

As a result of under-diagnoses, a large majority of females on the autistic spectrum are reaching adulthood as survivors of multiple emotional and physical traumas. Because limited resources and tools are available for working with the female client with Asperger’s, professionals sometimes fall back on what has worked with clients who do not have ASD, regardless of the fact that Asperger’s is not a mental health condition, but a neurological syndrome. More often than not the practitioner treats the symptoms and not the condition, focusing on the obvious comorbid traits of Asperger’s, such as depression and anxiety, without full consideration dedicated to the whole of the person, in particular the fact that he is working with an individual who views the world somewhat different from the mainstream client. Though the professional has the client’s best interest in mind, in some cases the professional’s overall lack of education and limited know-how can be not only non-beneficial for the client with ASD, but detrimental to the psyche. Wherein the astute practitioner recognizes the challenges at hand in regards to the female with ASD, he seems to be a rare minority.

Considering the sensitive nature of the female with Asperger’s condition, an individual whom has likely often found herself a subject of alienation, ridicule, suspicion, doubt and abuse, it is vital for the professional to understand the power she holds to make or break her client; especially the client’s feasible outlook on seeking out further assistance as pertains to her emotional well-being. In example, females on the autistic spectrum develop both conscious and subconscious strategies in their attempt to function effectively in a world which often appears unpredictable and potentially volatile. Oftentimes, a female with Asperger’s is using all of her mental and emotional resources to merely survive and navigate the social world. In response she is fatigued and over-taxed. If a female is partaking in mental health therapy, and the therapist suggest to her that she change or adjust some of her coping mechanisms, for example seeking out strategies to decrease verbal processing, the suggestion itself has the potential to create increased anxiety and feasibly shutdown the client’s ability to remain focused and present. Aspects of the unexplored “Aspergerian” mind can present challenges and/or roadblocks that the practitioner does not necessarily encounter in therapeutic dialogue with ‘typical’ clients, e.g., those presenting with mental health illness without a neurological condition. (I avoid the word ‘disorder’ entirely, in regards to Asperger’s Syndrome, as it is my firm belief that just because one functions outside the perimeters of the current majorities’ collective agreement of norm does not by the process of negation establish a select group as abnormal or having a disorder.)

In understanding the female’s (with Aspergers) mindset is uniquely different from the majority of mainstream society, including her capacity for complexity of thoughts, intense mental connections/scaffolding, and advanced logical sequencing, and taking into account the potential effects of a lifetime of repeated humiliation and abuse, it is advisable for the professional to consider the (ASD) client’s trauma may reach far beyond what is considered the typical depths of post-traumatic stress. Add this to her tendencies for sensory-stimuli overload, and the female with Aspergers will likely exhibit an instinctual flight-or-flight response to any new situation; especially those pertaining to vulnerability and emotional intimacy. Other factors hindering the benefits of therapy include the client’s ability to recreate her self-presentation based on how she perceives the professional perceives her. Often a master actress, the female with Asperger’s has developed a toolbox of masks enabling her to move in the world undetectable to the naked, untrained eye. Here in the client-practitioner relationship, the client is likely to mold into the persona that she believes best fits the comfort-level of the professional, moving within the room of therapy just as she moves in the exterior symbolic rooms of her life. A professional, unstudied in the elements of the female condition of Asperger’s, is apt to miss the nuances of a given client’s chameleon qualities, overlooking the client’s subtle changes in representation of self or wrongfully assuming the client is resorting to trickery and sabotage.

The female with Asperger’s, while extremely witty and intelligent, exhibits continual emotional fragility. In some cases this is hidden behind emotionally-detached humor or within the guise of a persona she is currently exhibiting; e.g., she may imitate a character on television. Though she is emotionally vulnerable, she is capable of hiding herself from other people and is keen in her honed ability to detect social norms and acceptable behaviors of a given situation. Given her nature and character, one word or mannerism from the practitioner may be overanalyzed and/or perceived by the client as a threat or criticism. Misinterpretations, distrust, or a number of other variables, can lead the client to shutdown (emotional withdraw), meltdown (emotional outburst), retreat into imagination or fantasy, recreate the presentation of self, and/or switch from a state of emotional presence to logical analysis. When the client is triggered by the professional and responds accordingly, the quality of the therapeutic relationship is adversely affected. Unlike the mainstream client, a woman with Asperger’s may never trust a professional once she believes she has been misinterpreted and/or criticized.

As a professionally diagnosed female with Asperger’s, in reviewing my own experiences in therapy, which encompass a decade-long-span of individual, couple, small-group and large-group interaction, incorporating a cornucopia of therapeutic techniques and theories, my most damaging experiences occurred when the practitioner was neither vulnerable nor authentic, a perceived-lacking from my point of view, that affected my capacity to connect at a humanistic-level with the practitioner. The best scenarios, in my therapy experience as the client, occurred when the professional was free of dogma, restrictions, and rigid-habits, and able to see through my mirage of disguises. In truth, I don’t think this ever happened, the best scenario that is, and that I, in actuality, through the process of vigorous self-help and psychological self-studies and applications, became my own psychologist by trade, primarily implementing Transpersonal Psychotherapy and elements of Logotherapy.

Based on my own life experience, the deep-level of understanding of my own Asperger’s condition and the personal interactions with other females on the autisitc spectrum, I have developed a list of what I would have liked to have seen, given the means and opportunity to time travel back as a client or to time travel forward as a practitioner. In recognizing each therapist has his unique style, I offer this as a list of suggested ideas, my hope and intention being to provide others the opportunity for a beneficial client-practitioner relationship.

List of Ideas