challenges

Day 117: A Body of True Confessions

| Aspergers Girls

(This post used to have photos of me. They have been removed by me. Hope you find the post useful.)

This is me HAPPY. This is my real smile caught by camera. I just found out the frozen banana bread ice-cream sandwich was going to be dipped in chocolate! That’s me in a nutshell. Give me chocolate and I forget everything else.

We have returned from Maui. And I am sorting through photos. I HATE  don’t care for photos of me.  I never ever feel like a photo looks like me. I see myself in parts, not in whole. So I see my nose, or the wrinkles around my brow, or the sun spot on my forehead, or the many other “flaws” that jump out at me. I tell myself I should look better. That I need to change. That I’ve aged. And so on….

No picture I have ever taken looks like how I see myself. And in every photo, I look so different (to me).

I get super depressed when I go through vacation photos, because I think I look absolutely terrible. I don’t think it’s a vanity thing. It really is not having a clue what I look like or understanding the image I am looking at. I try to tell myself positive messages, but somehow the messages get all twisted.

And then I get a host of negative messages, such as: “You need to lose fifteen more pounds. Imagine what you looked like before you lost those ten pounds. You are so HEAVY.” I tell myself horrible things, like: “Oh, your husband probably hated to take this photo of you, knowing you are starting to look soooo old.”

I’ve partaken in this negative self-talk, since puberty. Before then, I could care less. I had a huge overbite and a chipped front tooth, and would smile like I was a movie star. Something changed with puberty. Something changed when I realized people judge on appearances.

Thing is, I don’t notice the physical “flaws” in other people. When I look at their photos I see pure beauty. I see their essence. I think all people are beautiful. But I still get so terribly down on myself.

Posting photos of me on this blog is HUGE for me. Of course, I went through and cursed a dozen or so shots, before choosing the ones I felt safe to post.

Often, after a few years pass, I can look back on a photo, and see more of me. I can appreciate the happiness I had during the photo and see less of the flaws. I tell myself: “Why were you so hard on yourself. You’re sweet and kind. And you look absolutely fine!”

I’m hoping, this time, it won’t take a few years. I don’t know why the passing of time helps to view myself, but it does somehow.

I tell myself, I ought to be happy I can take a decent photo with little to no makeup on and my hair barely brushed, if brushed at all. I tell myself that everyone ages, that no one is perfect, that my distinct characteristics make me ME! But the talking doesn’t help. The negative thoughts come back full force. It really is a curse.

I don’t like worrying about how I look to other people. And I certainly don’t like worrying about how I look to me!

I’m putting this out there to help myself. To share my deepest thoughts, and in so doing release some of the associated doubts and deep-seeded fear. Heck! I just returned from one of the BEST VACATIONS in my life. Probably THE BEST, and I’m fretting over how ugly I am, telling myself I ought not go out in the world and be seen in public! It’s very, very ridiculous.

Maybe part of it is not having had a father who ever hugged me, called me pretty, or said he loved me. Could be that my father is so heavily into fitness, always firm and muscular, always concerned about his looks, that when I see me, I feel rather inadequate.

Could be, too, that it’s how my brain works. I know other people with Aspergers that see things in parts and have a hard time seeing the whole. Maybe seeing myself in parts, scrambles my beauty in my head. Sort of like seeing a lovely Black Beauty Horse cut and dissected into pieces on a platter. I think that’s what I do: Dissect and pull apart so that nothing remains but broken slabs of me.

Here is a list of what I feel uncomfortable about me:

1) Since my mid-twenties my arms have been thicker than I’d like, heavy and wide compared to other people my size. I have to be a size 2, seriously, for my arms to appear skinny. My husband says its proportional to my chest and that I have a swimmer’s body; another friend calls me ‘healthy.’ I don’t like either one of those observations, and would much prefer to have skinny arms! Skinny arms fits my personality. I see myself as petite, like a fairy. No fairies have a swimmer’s back.

2) I have incorrect posture. So does my son with Aspergers. It is hard for me to stand fully erect. I look funny, to me, when I stand up tall. I don’t know how to stand without feeling unnatural and in an awkward position. To protect myself from others, I have always hunched. I feel safer hunched. My posture makes me appear odd looking in photos. Same with my hands and arms. I don’t know where to put them in photos. And my smile….I never know what a real smile looks like.

3) My skin used to be perfect. I was very lucky. I looked like those kids in the suntan advertisements. Lots of California sun changed that. Now I’m spotted like a spotted lizard. This spots jump out at me in photos, as does every freckle, marking, mole, and “imperfection.” As I age, day by day, more markings appear. I don’t like to watch my skin change. It bothers me to no end.

4) My Italian nose will forever haunt me. I have tried to love it, truly. And it didn’t seem to get in the way of attracting previous mates; however, my nose is all I see in photos when I first look. That’s why I like far away shots. My nose looks cute if I’m standing back about five blocks!

5) My eyes. I’ve always loved my eyes. But now they appear sunken and old. Like I’m twenty years older than I am. Maybe that’s because I still feel like a teenager inside. But outside someone has redecorated, and I’m not too impressed.

6) My chin. At some angles, I look like I have three, and can’t tell where my neck ends and my face begins. I have a very prominent chin. My son’s orthodontist complimented my bone structure. Maybe if the whole world were orthodontists, I’d be set. I see a witches chin. The witch that has the house fall on her. I want to be the good witch. Luckily I have no warts or hair growing out of moles.

7) Sadness. Sometimes in photos I look very sad or even angry. It’s not how I’m feeling. I don’t feel irritated or melancholy, but I look like someone either just said something to piss me off or just told me my cat died. I try to look like me, and have no clue how to. It’s very frustrating. Sometimes I over smile so people will know I’m happy. Then my husband says: Don’t smile so intensely. Often my eyes bug out, if I’m trying too hard to smile.

8) My hair. It has a life of its own. I never know what to expect. My hair looks the best in the bathroom mirror, and as soon as I step outside the bathroom, my hair changes. I swear it does! Perhaps it is the lighting and the shadows, as my hair appears entirely different in every photo.

9) Shadows and lighting. The lighting of a photo changes how I appear to me. Sometimes I appear swollen or shrunken; other times expanded, elongated, and downright horrific to look at. I want to carry around a perfect lighting bulb above me, like a photographer. I have not posted the photos of me that make me look like I’m a marshmallow, that make my face appear shrunken into itself, and that show I’ve been tattooed with wrinkles. But they exist.

10) Ghastly spider veins. I’ve inherited those creepy little bluish-red lines that decorate my knees and thighs. I think I have as many as most people approaching their eighties. They are truly icky. I press on them and they magically disappear for ten seconds. My husband says that’s not what men are looking at. I don’t really care what men are looking at! I care what I’m looking at. And spider veins are not beautiful. I once read that a lady had lost a lot of function in her legs (mobility) and that she would do anything to have legs that moved well. She said who cared about spider veins. She’d be thankful to have any functioning legs. Reading information like that only makes me feel extremely guilty for not appreciating what I have. Then I just beat myself up more.

To be fair, I do like my eyebrows, my hair color, my teeth, my neck, the bottom half of my legs, and my toes. So that’s a good start, I suppose.

My Biggest Fear……That I will be too ugly to be loved. That’s it! I said it. It haunts me day and night. I feel so beautiful and light-filled inside, but I am afraid the outside will scare people away. It’s silly, I suppose, but it is how I feel. I don’t want to grow old. I don’t want to watch myself change. I don’t like change!!! I want to live a long life, but I want to freeze my appearance. I don’t know how to handle my body shifting. I don’t want to be one of those plastic surgery ladies or Botox queens, but I want to be able to look at a photo and see me.

Wine tasting, and what am I thinking. Oh, I look terrible in this photo. Notice how I chopped my arm out of the photo. Huge stress line on forehead, spotted arm, pointy chin….Gag me. I’m so super self-conscious and critical. If only this were a redeeming quality.

Almost didn’t post this because of my nose wrinkles. I secretly want you to think I’m 20. I had my kids at the age of 6! I’m such a goof-head. Someone change my brain, please!!!

I see big nose, forehead wrinkles, and fat face. This is what I see. I want to see friendship, love, and happiness. But I think: I wonder why my friend likes me when I am ugly. Yes, this is sad, but this is truth.

I love this picture. This is truly me HAPPY. Right before I surfed. My arms are covered so I feel safer. And this is one cool dude!

I like this photo because I’m far enough away that my nose looks cute and you can’t see my wrinkles! Maybe I’ll just stay a distance away from people. Of course, I see my flabby arms and my double chin and my pointy little ear. But my teeth look white!

I’m crying streams of tears. This is beneficial. This is healing. I’ve told my secrets. They shall no longer haunt me!

Day 116: My Last Day

| Aspergers Girls

As this is my last day in Maui, I am thinking upon the lyrics of Nickelback’s song: If Today Was Your Last Day. I am meditating on each and every word.

While taking my walk on the beach this morning, while photographing the abundance of nature, while packing, while driving, and while stepping on the plane, I will be holding these lyrics in my heart and mind.

I have, for many years, been living each moment like it was my last. However, I was living from a fear-based approach. Negativity swamped my mind. Today was my last day because I was slowly dying. Today was my last day because I might not live to see tomorrow. Today was my last day because I was afraid to live.

I walked Dead Man’s Beach. I thought of every worse case scenario. I remained careful and cautious. I didn’t reach out like my heart called me to reach out. I didn’t have fun because the fun inspired fear of loss. I didn’t risk, because risk meant danger.

I had been living like my last day entirely upside down and backwards. Fear consumed me. Everything measured by fear. Everything judged against worse case events. Everything absorbed into this shadowed light.

image found http://www.geekshow

I don’t want to be on my death-bed with regrets of having not lived. I don’t want to live another day worried and harboring deep seeded anxiety. I want to live. And I shall.

I shall carry the healing waters of this tropical island back home with me to the state of Washington. I shall continue risking. I shall continue surfing the waves. I shall stand straight and paddle across the seas. I shall dive deep and swim with the beauty beneath. I shall speak my truth to those I hold so dearly in my heart. I shall speak my truth to myself.

I shall hold my own hand and walk forward, seeking adventure and joy instead of a prison of safety. I have lived so very, very long in captivity that the thought alone of running free is powerful.

Today is my last day in Maui but it is the first day I return home reborn into hope and the wonderful possibilities of life.

Nickelback

 If Today Was Your Last Day

My best friend gave me the best advice

He said each day’s a gift and not a given right

 Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind

And try to take the path less traveled by

That first step you take is the longest stride

If today was your last day

And tomorrow was too late

Could you say goodbye to yesterday?

Would you live each moment like your last?

 Leave old pictures in the past

Donate every dime you have?

 If today was your last day

Against the grain should be a way of life

What’s worth the prize is always worth the fight

 Every second counts ’cause there’s no second try

So live like you’ll never live it twice

Don’t take the free ride in your own life

If today was your last day

And tomorrow was too late

Could you say goodbye to yesterday?

Would you live each moment like your last?

Leave old pictures in the past

Donate every dime you have?

Would you call old friends you never see?

Reminisce of memories

Would you forgive your enemies?

Would you find that one you’re dreamin’ of?

Swear up and down to God above

That you finally fall in love

If today was your last day

If today was your last day

Would you make your mark by mending a broken heart?

 You know it’s never too late to shoot for the stars

Regardless of who you are So do whatever it takes

‘Cause you can’t rewind a moment in this life

Let nothin’ stand in your way

Cause the hands of time are never on your side

If today was your last day

And tomorrow was too late

Could you say goodbye to yesterday?

Would you live each moment like your last?

Leave old pictures in the past

Donate every dime you have?

Would you call old friends you never see?

Reminisce of memories

Would you forgive your enemies?

Would you find that one you’re dreamin’ of?

Swear up and down to God above

That you finally fall in love

If today was your last day

Day 113: Goodbye Dead Man’s Beach

| Aspergers Girls

Goodbye Dead Man’s Beach

In the late spring of a bitter windy day, I wiped the grits of sand from my face and stared down below to the foggy beach. This would be the first time I’d see flaccid bodies all lined up in a row, bloated and an almost-blue.  I hadn’t wanted to watch or even glance a little.  I’d wished to run away or at least close my eyes, but I had to see.  This was another coming of a dream.  Some seven days had passed, seven long days of waiting and wondering who would drown.  I knew enough from my past and the way my dreams played out to realize death would be arriving on a Saturday—on a cold, cold Saturday.

I wondered as the workers desperately pressed and pumped on the already dying flesh, why life, or God, or whatever essence gave me these glimpses of future events, wouldn’t also go one step further and allow me to serve some purpose and exist as more than a detached helpless onlooker.   Had I had a magic button to stop the dreams, I thought at the time I would have.  But then I thought I would have missed the dreams in the way I would have missed my arm, or leg, or eye; the dreams were so much a part of me, a needed part, something I’d been born with which had served me in some sense; even though I couldn’t comprehend the reason, even though I cursed the visions and the following reality, I knew enough, innately or perhaps spiritually, to know the dreams were necessary.

The dreams would serve a higher purpose someday, I was told.  Not directly, but in whispers, gentle reminders to be patient, to be watchful, and to wait.  I would cry then, in my teens, in the same way I cry now, when the weight of the world is so heavy upon my shoulders that I wish for nothing but silence and the unknowing, to be like the mother across the street satisfied with her scrapbooking and classroom volunteering, and yearning for nothing more than the simple.

That’s what I longed for:  the sweet simple.

Those dead bodies below on the beach had been a family, the emptied vessels now covered in black bags on the sands below had been minutes before living tourists who hadn’t heeded the warnings posted at Dead Man’s Beach about the dangers of the ocean currents and under-tow.  One boy had fallen in off the rocks, and in response, each family member had leapt to their own death.

I have been terrified of the ocean, ever since the tragedy at Dead Man’s Beach. Add this to the horrific flesh-eating fish dreams I’ve had since I was three, and the time my mother’s boyfriend saw a shark take a chunk out of his best friend. (His friend died.) And I’ve been able to justify not going in the ocean for about twenty-five years.

Yesterday, I overcame my great fear of the sea. As I paddled out into the ocean on my surfboard, I was terrified. I trembled. I almost cried. I almost turned back. But I paddled onward.

I wasn’t planning on surfing at all while visiting Maui. But there I was, regardless of all my fears and misgivings, flat on my belly, in a borrowed, rather-stinky surf shirt, paddling over the waves. And I got up on my surfboard, not once, but at least five times and rode the waves.

They may have looked like little waves to the observer. But to me they were the biggest darn waves of my life.

I’ve realized I have spent much of my forty-some years living on my own Dead Man’s Beach. I’ve been counting my days. Worrying about lurking dangers. Terrified to be happy.

This evening, as I sat in a local bar having yet another fruity rum drink (a new thing for me), the musician played Here Comes the Sun, and I was brought back to a summer day in Oregon, when at the age of nine I was riding in the back of a pickup truck listening to that song. I remember at that age I had an intense feeling of happiness and freedom. It was one of the last times I remember feeling so elated.

Yesterday, when I rode the waves, I returned to that sunny day in the back of the truck. I walked off of Dead Man’s Beach and I found my sun again.

A wise man once told me that he asks everyday: “How can life get any better?”

Day 112: Collapsed Star

| Aspergers Girls

Collapsed Star

It was an ordinary night for a child who had grown accustomed to the unordinary.  My dog Justice trembled under the bed, while Led Zeppelin vibrated through the wall.  Inside the sheets, all wrapped up in Mother’s essence of bath oil and sandalwood, I tossed and turned.  Then I laid listless and awake—a lump of boredom. I could smell the funny smoke again and hear bottles clinking.

I pleaded with God, “Please make the people go away.”

All at once, a melodic voice called out, “Hello, Little Girl.”

But I knew the voice wasn’t God.

I was certain my God didn’t have a Jamaican accent and dreadlocks.  “We didn’t know you were in here, Pretty Lady.  I’m sorry if we woke you,” the stranger apologized, as he approached Mother’s bed.

I leaned over casually on my arm, wanting to seem mature and interesting enough to earn his attention. “You didn’t wake me,” I responded, with a fake yawn, tapping my little chin with my tiny fingers a few times.  I was accustomed to seeing strangers in the house, but not at my bedside.  Still, I wasn’t nervous in the slightest degree. I’d liked meeting Mother’s friends. They were all interesting in that odd way…

 

The rest of this story can be found in the book Everyday Aspergers

 

Based on true events © Everyday Aspergers, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. https://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com

Day 103: The Sound of Nothing

| Aspergers Girls

Compared to my other posts, this is very mature. Part of my journey to wholeness and self-love has involved documenting events of my past. The short stories are a form of art work to me. They feel like art, as they are scribed through strong emotion and creative flow. However, the words are no longer a part of me. The little girl’s experiences are forever lost on the pages I typed.

This is not meant to be sad, but shared as a possible peer into another part of me—the melancholic artist, perhaps. Or a mature woman sharing her truth, so others know they are not alone. I have many pages of similar events, but shall not post on this blog because of the maturity-level. Someday the missing chapters, I suppose, may appear in book form as a collection of many of the thoughts in this blog.

The Sound of Nothing

My new sitter was Jessica Jensen.  I called her Jess.

She was much the complete opposite of the obtuse and sedentary babysitter Mrs. Stockman.  Jess was a long-limbed, freckled-faced high school freshman with thick reddish-blond hair and a ruddy face infested with whiteheads.

Initially, I wanted to make Jess my best friend, but Jess had different plans.  She wasn’t mean or anything.  She was actually quite tolerant.  However, she was short of being my friend.  During our time together, Jess feigned interest in me, in the form of an over curious stare or raised eyebrow, but within a few minutes she was focused on something else, like her fingernails or the person on the other end of the telephone.  Nothing I said or did truly seemed to impress Jess.  She thought I was smart and funny, and told me so.  But her real interest was in her boyfriends and teenage mischief, all of which I was much too young to understand.

Jess was a roamer, and in a way I was her little naïve sidekick.  I’m sure it crossed Jess’s mind several times to leave me behind somewhere, but to her credit she always kept me in close proximity.  She didn’t know what she was doing most of the time.  She was just some teenager from a broken, druggie home, who didn’t know better, a girl who had far too much freedom.  We attended movies, where Jess covered my eyes so I wouldn’t see the full screen of naked breasts, and then afterward we’d hitchhike about town, bouncing from one kid’s house to another.  Jess was in search of something, maybe an escape or a rush, something to make her forget about where she’d come from and what she’d seen.

I stood by Jess, no matter where she took me, because, like her, I had no choice.  Choices are for bigger kids, once they realize they are worth something, once they know their value, once they can look at themselves and smile, liking what they see.  Jess and I, we just hadn’t gotten there yet.

I followed Jess into a world that seemed a distant land from the home I once knew with my stepfather Drake.  It was a place of no good and ugliness, a world with molding mattresses stretched out under the overgrowth of a beat up magnolia tree, where the backyard fence was bent and broken in all different places, where the house with the peeling yellow paint and exposed boards stank even from the outside, maybe even from the next house over—a raw smell, a dangerous smell that I imagine dogs would whimper and slink away from.

And there, I’d find her oldest brother, or better yet, he’d find me—a long-haired, high school dropout named Rick: a teenager roughened by an absent father and a strung out mother, scraped up all over on the inside like a bristle brush to stainless steel. An aimless boy who roamed a place where beer bottles lined the back porch and stray wild cats, some pregnant, some close to death, slithered in and out of open basement spaces like hairy serpents.

Inside Jess’ house were threadbare couches, half-busted televisions and food, but not the type of food anyone would want to eat, just leftover spoiled junk, crushed potato chips and cookie remnants, and bowls of sugary cereals molding in spoiled milk.  It was the type of house that needed to be quarantined, sealed off with yellow tape and bulldozed down, or burnt into smoldering ash.  No good was in the house.  No good at all.

Rick liked to play doctor, a confusing game wherein he touched me in places a little girl should never be touched.  And Jess, he’d do the same to her, that’s what I suspected, though I never said so.  I just kept my mouth shut, let him do what he needed, and left, went out and found Jess, like nothing had happened.  He never laid himself on me, nothing as crude as that, and he was just a child himself.  He didn’t know any better; just like Jess, he didn’t know any better.

I didn’t feel nothing.  No pleasure, no guilt, no disgust, felt like I would after playing a game of Twister or the Game of Life.  That’s what it was, just another game of life.

One time, in the early spring, I clutched Jess’ hand in her backyard while watching the slimy-brown juices of chewing tobacco seep out the side of Rick’s cocked mouth. “Get the hell out of here!” Rick yelled, fixing his cold-hazel eyes on scowling Jess.

Jess stood her ground.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Rick continued, kicking up pebbles with his muddy old boots and letting loose a wall of dust. “Get the hell out of here!”

“You are an idiot,” Jess said. “It’s my backyard, too.”

“Screw you!”

Jess clenched her teeth.  I stepped back and started counting the multitudes of dandelions.  At the same time, Rick removed a chipped brick from an outdoor wall.

Jess screamed, “You’re going to get arrested!”

“Mind your own business,” Rick said with a heated gaze, adding more spit to the puddle in the dirt.  “Just get out of my sight.  Go back to humping your fat loser of a boyfriend!”  With that said, he pulled out a dented tin box which had been stuffed in the space behind where the old brick had been.  He then opened the box and pulled out a pile of compressed twenties.  He fanned out the money, stopping to toss a smirk Jess’s way, and then shoved the box and brick back in place.

Jess squeezed my hand, and shouted again, “If Mother finds out, she’ll kick you out on your ass again!”

Answering back with a stiff middle finger, Rick headed out the busted back gate. “Whore!” he hollered from over the broken fence. “Stinking Whore!”

Jess turned round to find me.  I gazed up at her and I thought for a moment she might grab some money for herself.  Images of Budd’s ice cream cones and bean burritos danced in my head.  But Jess didn’t take any money.  She didn’t even go near the brick.  Instead she led me inside her house to the grime-covered kitchen.

“Come on,” Jess said.  “Let’s get out of here.”  She grabbed a hotdog off of a plate and took a bite, then proceeded to chew with her mouth open.  My mother taught me to always close my mouth while eating.  I watched as Jess’ food slid about, until the hotdog moved to the side of her blushing cheek.  “Now, what did you see?  You didn’t see anything did you?”  She swallowed and took another mouthful.  A frantic look crossed her face.  She paused between her words to chew. “Because… if you saw… or     heard… anything… anything at all… it’s not… true.”

“I didn’t see anything,” I said, wide-eyed and innocent.  I started counting with my fingers.  I figured there was at least a few hundred dollars in the box.

Jess swallowed again. “Good.  Good.  Let’s go then.  Come on.”

As Jess walked a few strides ahead of me, I could hear her disjointed whispers.  A block away, she stopped and turned to me.  “Never mind,” she said.  “You’re too young to understand.  It’s too late, just too late to do anything now.”

Further up the sidewalk, Jess stopped dead in her tracks.  Her lacy halter flapped up in the wind.  I reached over and attempted to pull her top down.  She didn’t notice, and the wind blew the halter right back up again.  Her sheer pink bra was showing.  I studied the thin material.  Jess faced sideways and cupped her hand to her ear. “Listen.  Do you hear a police car?  Do you hear that?”

I gazed into the crystal-blue of her wild eyes and considered what Jess had said.  I didn’t hear anything.  We waited without moving, stood still—didn’t move an inch, just like those pill bugs do when they’re playing dead.  For a few seconds I believed Jess might well be a bionic babysitter endowed with supernatural hearing.  I waited patiently for the sound of the police siren or the sight of a patrol car.  I waited and waited, but in the end there was nothing.

© Everyday Aspergers, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. https://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com

Samantha Craft