challenges

459: Aspergers: The Marathon

| Aspergers Girls

Sometimes I forget the complexities of my own Aspergers. I forget how much goes on underneath the obvious and observed. I forget the complexities and complications. Forget that just to navigate a single day is to run a marathon.

Here is a list of significant challenges associated with individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome. (This is based on my experience with myself and son; as is the case with all people, we are each unique, and experiences differ.)

Completely confused by small changes to a familiar situation or environment

Feels threatened by hugs

Overwhelmed by bright colors

Frightened by loud noises

Voices can be painful

Capacity to hear may be better than to see

Lethargic and tire easily, moving from one position to another requires a great deal of energy

Poor sense of self, of body in space, and underestimate how to safely move and navigate environment

Will stick to strict routines and avoid playing with others

Aversions and oversensitivity to certain texture, sounds, colors, people, scents, tastes

Oversensitive to bright lights and sounds, like the humming of the fridge, certain light bulbs, and electric currents that other people may not notice

Difficulty sitting still and getting comfortable

Low tolerance for constant repeated noise or loud noise

Overwhelmed around a lot of people, especially new people

Unable to focus when distracted with visuals, such as clutter of pictures on a work page and/or decoration in a room

May do the following to avoid performing a task or listening: throw a tantrum, refuse with defiance, hide from the situation (under jacket hood, beneath a desk), complain of fatigue, make a rude comment

Short attention span

Difficult maintaining balanced level of emotional arousal, either too low or too high

Impulsive behavior is often a result of a perception of someone’s high-expectations

Doesn’t anticipate the consequence of her actions

Multi-tasking is overwhelming

Weak visual-spatial planning, e.g. bump into walls, objects, and other people

Mentally cannot organize new situations and becomes frightened

Hard to perceive problems

Meltdowns/Tantrums from sensory overload

Constant insecurity about what possibly might happen and how others may or may not behave

Uncertain how to behave in new situations

High anxiety

Risk of self-injury and depression

Feels under pressure to perform and behave

Doesn’t anticipate the consequences of her actions

Every day experiences seem random and unpredictable

Can be violent towards others emotionally or physically, and not perceive own behavior or strength

Difficult judging appropriate behavior

May take risks without knowing how to evaluate danger of the situation

Fears and phobias

Obsessive thoughts

Can have internal pressure to escape a given situation, but lacks the ability to formulate a plan to relieve pressure (no escape route)

Irritated by sensations on skin, such as itchy scalp and arms

Makes repetitive noises, e.g. a vocal sound, tapping, scraping, nail clicking

Bores easily

Doesn’t understand why she is bored by interests others find intriguing, such as common structured play

Sensitive to sensations, such as hunger, a full bladder, dry skin, taste in mouth

Frustrated by inability to perform a given task and/or excel

Preoccupied with details

Meltdowns and outbursts

Over-stimulation

Feelings of insecurity, anxiety and fear

Feelings may be manifested in physical ailments and actual body pain

Overwhelmed

Difficulty grasping humor and seeing the a different perspective or point of view

May choose one word from a discussion and base his/her individual response on the one identified element, instead of the main point of topic

Focuses on the details of one specific part of conversation, over and over, in the mind

Verbal impulsivity and nervousness, as well as a need to fit in, may lead to interruptions, babbling and hurried speech

Lacks ability some times to determine appropriate moment for closure during conversing, and instead speaks incessantly

May recognize he is talking too much but cannot stop his impulsivity to continue to talk

Grooming and hygiene issues, as well as difficulty evaluating own appearance, presentation and attire

Gullible, unable to always understand the punch line of a joke or hidden meaning of a statement, and easily persuaded by others

Difficulty with nonverbal body language, inappropriate body proximity and facial expression

Fluctuating tone, rhythm, volume, and pitch of voice

Timing of speech and delivery varies

Short attention span

Prefers familiarity in people and surroundings

Difficulty recognizing what behavior is expected in a new situation or event when compared to another past experience—may run, scream, jump instead of sitting

Nervous habits and repetitive behavior

mar

After two days of high-functioning behavior, aka navigating the social arena, I shall be in bed hugging my Mac laptop.

(Much of this article was taken from a past list I compiled, which has strategies for helping children in the educational environment. The link is Working with Children.)

458: Morphers Anonymous; What is ‘Self’

| Aspergers Girls

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

High-interest in the keyword and key point.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The only answer I hear is: love

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

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

457: Lost Again

| Aspergers Girls

I am so very sad today.

I have been crying since last night. This is a confusing part of my life; more confusing in some ways than the rest, and less in other ways, but regardless confusing. I find myself alone and frightened, and at the same time protected and guided. I am stepping out of self, as I often do, and watching silently, as I process through what need be done. I am certainly mourning; what I am mourning is not as important, as the reason why I am mourning. I am mourning over substantial loss. The what of it? The who, the reasons, the particularities, the details, don’t matter much. It’s all the same pain. All the same tears. This sadness.

I am mourning because if I don’t I cannot move on, and will find myself in this dreadful place of sorrow far too long. And so I weep, not because I am forlorn or even truly lost, for I know soon I will be content, but because I know I need to go through this to get to the other side.

I feel misunderstood as of late, and this has been a constant in my life, this aspect of being misunderstood.

I have moments of bliss, when I connect to what I choose to call my angels or God, moments of profound insight and reprieve. I find refuge in my moments of connection with the collective, the All, the source. But the instances don’t last, and I am left here; or so it seems.

This morning I am feeling very much ‘left,’ broken and left, as abandoned debris. Even as I know this to be an untruth, I still experience it as a strong reality. I still watch as a part of me suffers so, in the regurgitation of fears and missed opportunity. I am not selfish in my dallying in pain, only staking myself here a bit, until the time comes that I can glide out and be alive again—in the light, and in accordance with my higher self.

This state is difficult to maneuver within; alongside the tears and sense of overwhelming despair, remains the long distance hope, unreachable though it be.

I feel misunderstood in many ways. And as hard as I try, this continues to happen. It isn’t that I am flawed or that the other is wrong; it’s just the way it is. And with each time this happens, I break a bit, having exposed myself fully and been knocked down dubiously. I haven’t yet learned how to not expose myself. Despite the little nagging voices that warn me, that tell me how to be, how to play, how to act—regardless I still don’t ‘act’ correctly. At least not in accordance to the mainstream, not even it accordance to the side-stream.

What is it about me that has to be this way? Why do I have to be different? And so complicated inside. So utterly confusing.
My entire life, I have only longed to be loved and understood. Loved in completion and understood in completion. I always thought there would be someone who could do this, beyond my own self and beyond God. Now I am beginning to think there isn’t anyone; that there isn’t a one or a somebody that can take away any of this pain brought on by isolation. And that scares me to a great degree.

I am trapped somewhere now, between wanting to explain myself over and over and be truly seen, and wanting to hide and not come out. Rather than depression, I would name this yet another trial of spirit, another relapse into the negation brought on by the yin and yang of life. I behold myself on that constant pendulum of rebalance. What goes up, must come down. And I am tired of the echoes that leech out of me, their sadness carried to the depths of my pores; then seeped out screaming, as my entire body washes away in ache.

I become so hopeful and childlike at times. I am this gleeful spirited one, dancing in the miracle of life, and the miracle of all, and then I am brought here, into the dark forest of dimly lit nowhere. A scope onto self and self alone, the rest forgotten and folded away, some unkempt laundry tucked out of sight. And I stand here, suffocating in my own vomit of misery: shaken, lost, alone.

I don’t understand it, why this life is this life, and why I am made as me. Why so much has been shown to me and given, and so much taken away. I don’t understand this at all, and the concept of the inability to understand boggles my brain, causing me to loop and decipher the aspects of my own torment. As if, I, as logical being, could master my own self and recreate the concept of reality, pull myself out of the burden of misery and into the sunlight of hope.

I sit here in battle with shadows, or some form of regret, and I play out this scene again followed by again.

Hello, I say to the downcast one, hidden in her corner, huddled and terrified.

Hello, I say again. My lips moving and my voice carried, yet somehow captured and set aflame before reaching the hovel where the child rests asleep in fear.

Hello, I scream, shaking the ground and the space in between us; the separation so narrow a fleck would serve as bridge.

And still she neither moves nor reckons I am here.

Instead she gathers herself as garbage and recollects the foul smell of the world must be her, and if not her, at minimum her own doing.

She is lost again, in some forgotten place, between this world and the next, trying to find her way back to a place in which she does not belong.

456: Osmosis

| Aspergers Girls

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

455: Love and Loops

| Aspergers Girls

I have been trying really hard to not loop, to not spin, to not take something that is nothing and turn it into a monster. The largest portion of this sense of self is lost in doing so, in succumbing to the voice of fear and believing what I hear. The greatest part of spirit knows that fear is all but illusion, and only love exists—prevails beyond the illusion of naught. Still I get lost in the murky waters of falsehoods, daily, if not hourly, trapped in a labyrinth beyond human logic.

Because I am vulnerable, I lose sight of my purpose. Because I succumb to this falsehood, I lose sight of the all. I become a pawn in some minions’ game of discourse and confusion as I stumble down endless reasonings leading nowhere.

I have watched myself as the observer and taken soul-notes, or more so delve through time for answers, and if not answers than at least a glimmer of insight. I have listened to my heart-mind, and focused on the powers that rest beyond intellect. And in so doing, I have found some peace. I have found some recourse beyond the dilly-dallying of the mind, beyond state of anguish.

I have discovered, with full vitality, a remedy beyond this place I am. I have seen a solution that is far more reaching than letting the pain play out to the end. I have seen: It is not that I need to seek the meaning and find the solution, but that I need to release the need for solution.

Before I believed this meant releasing to the process—to allow or give permission for my mind to go through the torment. Now I view the occurrence with new eyes. There is no need for me to wallow in this state of pain day in and day out. The truth of the mystery of release is found in not releasing, not focusing, not trying, but simply replacing.

Releasing through replacement is my remedy. And not replacing with the tools of busyness or distraction. For though they be sweet, the intermingling of heart-mind into a daunting or thusly thrilling task or adventure, they too come to a conclusion, an end that certainly leaves me back on the dock of gloomy comings. A place where I am once again triggered by an invisible made visible.

I’ve come to see that what I am sensing is not so much an intellectual attack as a spiritual attack. A dark nature of my own doing or another’s, I know not. A creation brought on by self-manifestation or a power beyond, I know not enough to ponder. But whatever the affliction, rather karmic, energetic, or simply part of my journey into greater peace, the affliction exists. A pain so palatable I can taste it—hold it in my mouth and bite down. It’s thick and dirty, and filled with deception. Trickery of what is and what isn’t. And mask upon mask of who I am.

In the end, at the bottom of all the lies is this desperation, this clinging, that makes my mind scream out. A lost woman forlorn and in destitute wondering about from that which she came.

To experience is to remember. To experience again is to cry so deeply in recognition of the unraveling loss of control that the tears become the enemy. The shell of self emptied too, so despite the remnants of what I thought I was, who I thought I was, I become something entirely altered, different even within the mirror I reflect upon. Wherein even the home in which I sought rescue and escape is shattered—no place to crawl back into, no matter if it be demolished or in disarray—no shell exists. I am left out in the open barren space of nowhere searching for a way back home to nothing.

And so I have put into practice a new approach, scouring over the teachings I have collected in my mind, and surrendering a gentle submission of knowing not enough to conquer this affliction. Instead, I retreat into a place in which I connect my heart and mind, and I give to myself the gentleness of love.

I let into my mind only one word: LOVE

And I repeat this over and over and over: Love, love, love

Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love

That is all.
That is the all.

And here I rest, unable to untangle my own mind with any other words, unable to be the puzzle solver or mender. Unable to recollect what brought me here again—for one solution inevitably leads to further spinning and descending into the abyss.

Instead, instead of anything else in existence, I choose love.

And there I rest, repeating the source of light over and over, until the healing waters come, and I realize whatever or whomever it was that afflicted me, be it self, illusion, or other, I am whole still. Returned to the womb of discovery. Returned to the self complete and renewed.