communication

462: Beneath the Skin of Conversation: an Aspie’s Interpretation of Communication

| Aspergers Girls

The hardest part of the communication process for me is in the act of sensing others’ expectations of me. In other words, when conversing in written or spoken form I can often detect the way someone expects me to respond in words and actions to his or her words and actions; and as a result, I feel an uncomfortable sensation and pressure to perform and live up to expectations, as if I have unwillingly been written into some theater script.

Sometimes, if I don’t act and sound the way another expects then he or she responds in a manner, e.g., with words, inflection, posture, body movements, tone, etc., that reflect defense or question. Often, during conversing, even online, I feel another person reaching into me: a type of octopus probing.

Before conversing, I prepare myself emotionally and physically for a bombardment of others’ expectations. Not out of defense or fear, but out of the constant exposure, and my resulting adaptation of self. It’s a type of communication assimilation, one in which I wasn’t effectively given a choice, but rather forced into the pattern of give and take in order to escape isolation and not feel entirely obsolete and ostracized. I rather joined in to release myself of the pain of being alone; not because I agreed or fancied the way the discourse presented itself, but because my only choice was to join in or remain outside the perimeters of society.

Recently, I have concluded that if others’ expectations of me bring me discomfort, my expectations must in turn, whether at a conscious or unconscious level, bring others discomfort. Thusly, I practice daily releasing expectations for all people. I have let go of my unspoken expectations to be understood, heard, comforted, loved, etc. Having let go of most expectations, the challenge now is at a deeper level of my psyche.

I know myself enough to realize I still hold onto expectations regarding others. I still want them to release expectations of me. Wanting another to release expectations of me is an expectation on my part. This is clear.

I now detect with great awareness many wants and needs individuals bring into a conversation, which at times I can perceive as much unspoken ‘unfinished’ business and emotional baggage. Most of these complexities of needs and desires are at a deep level hidden below the surface so that even the individual is unaware of what he or she is bringing into the conversation.

I theorize, even if others could recognize these needs and unspoken feelings in self, and I could attempt to appease and soothe their insecurities, nothing would be accomplished at the core-level. As their esteem isn’t based on my response or surrendering to a game of ego-stroking; their esteem is something that must be built from the inside out.

For myself, I take no issue to addressing my exact needs. I am in touch with my core being. I was born this way, I believe, as most are, but much of our core-self is hindered and hammered by the indoctrination of societal expectations. I, for one, have no challenge in admitting I am in need of comfort, I am frightened, or I am feeling insecure. I recognize myself as a human being with a full range of emotions. The difference I find between myself and many others, is I will simply state without fear, when I need something. I am matter of fact. “I feel ugly. Tell me I am pretty.” I don’t hint or create scenarios in which I hope another will fulfill me. I simply state what it is that I am experiencing, whilst also recognizing I am the only one who can build myself up into a state of wholeness. When I reach out, I reach out fully, without secrets.

When I sense others’ expectations, as the observer I am dumbfounded at times in how to ‘act’ in a conversation. To me, saying what I think another wishes for me to say is not truth, but instead a type of false-validation in which I am playing a role and fulfilling an unspoken expectation based on another’s deep-seeded insecurity. This might sound cruel, but I don’t believe it is. I think instead, I view things at a deeper-lever than the typical person. I see what is beneath the skin of conversation, and much like a doctor, I am able to detect through observation and study what the patient cannot readily detect alone.

I am diving in deeper to the analysis of conversation and recognizing a familiar truth established thousands of years ago by philosophers, gurus, and spiritual teachers. The truth of freedom in all things, including conversing, is truly in the process of letting go. Letting go is freedom that doesn’t exist with thoughts of the future. All expectations are woven into the future and created from material of the past: the remnants of material based on the scaffolding of personal interpretations.

As of late, I have noted certain people trigger my own need for ego-stroking. I give my power over to the ones I supposedly ‘love’ the most. However, at closer look, I give my power over to those I ‘attach’ to the most. For in my view, love does not encompass fear or expectations, not even needs. Love is enough in and of itself.

Today, I am facing the challenge, a journey which often feels equivalent to being scraped on the inside with a razor blade to spirit, of releasing expectations of validation from those I love most deeply.

I am granting them the freedom that I desperately wish granted to me.

This is an all engulfing and brutally life-transforming, releasing process. Yet, I find in the moments of solace, in-between the effort and pain, I can at last breathe, in that I have shed the hypocrisy of self, by treating others as I truly wish to be treated.

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.

454: Sometimes I am so very real

| Aspergers Girls

I believe this collection of random thoughts I have had over the past two weeks emphasizes both the tenderness and complexities of my heart-mind. Much love to you ~ Sam

Sometimes I am so very real in a world of falsehoods that I am mistaken as fake.

Listening to another’s words is telling. A truth seeps through. Inside the words there is restriction, beyond the words, too. Any self-based motivation and intention is detected. The ego’s ploys and plots. I can feel them. The way the one tries to place his image on another to validate his own truth of existence. The way another tries to categorize an experience through cloaking a person in his own garments. It feels heavy to me, to be around someone who is attached to his own sense of self, his own sense of what is right. I feel attacked with daggers. Penetrated with judgment. It is not that my own identity is so fragile and in need of repair from the demons of the world; it is because my soul is tender to the ways of people blinded by their thoughts of superiority. I see others as equivalent to self, as equal. And so many times another wants to define me as more or less. Both disrupt my energy flow and energy purpose. Both make me momentarily stagnant, slipped inside the seams of another’s perspective, and bent into the shape of their doing. This isn’t a defect or something I need to alter. This is. And I sit here wondering where these people go, so lost into themselves, that they can not find the truth of us.

I do not share my story to receive empathy. I do not share my journey with any intention at all, beyond love. And even this intention, I release. For love exists fully in freedom. I place no expectations on my readers, and no expectations on my self. My hope is abandoned, in the sense I choose not to hope for outcome based on my words. I don’t steer, nor do I drive my voice. I simply speak my truth. I am that I am, and whatever flows out of me, I bless with my authenticity and with our shared light. I do not seek approval or acceptance. No longer do those traps entice me. I seek only to shine as a representation of your own beauty. And in doing so I am placed ten-fold above my own interior pain. I am lifted beyond the seemingly endless singular journey and returned to the arms of All. You, me, we: traveling as one united.

Sometimes I want to pour myself out, like spillage from a sac. Plop myself right out there in completion. Everything from the biggest secrets to the biggest fears. And just say: Here I am. Take me or leave me. But if you’re going to leave, do it now. So you don’t take the good parts of me with you.

For me, the challenges with religious doctrine or any spiritual doctrine, is that more times than not a person will pull out a singular element of his interpreted truth from the literature, perhaps a quote or a philosophical idea, without having studied the whole: the works in completion in original voice and language, the history of the interpretations, the effects of man’s interpretation, and the effects of man’s darker virtues, those of greed, power, and control. In my current view, pulling out one singular element from a vast and complex teaching that has been made more complex through man’s influences and tainting, and claiming a singular truth, is the same as taking a body part off of a human to explain a being; in other words, I would not cut off my ankle, place it on the table, and say: Here I am. Here is my truth.

A true friend inspires you to shine your own light, expects that you prove nothing, and loves you in any condition. She neither takes away from who you are, or adds to your existence, but neutrally supports you with her own self-acceptance and self-love.

Too often I have been admired, and mistaken this admiration for love. Too often the admiration fades, and what is left is this empty shell of another’s perception of me. I long to be loved for me, but seem to get lost inside the busy-ways in which others build me up. It is lonely falling from a place that never was to a new place that is even less a reality. Back to this hole of somewhere, the gap in which people bury their disappointments.

It isn’t your opinions that bother me, or even your continual judgment and evaluation of who I am as a person. I don’t mind if you disagree with me, or that you believe you can fix and control me. I don’t even care if you find my ways repulsive and unsightly. I care that you don’t love yourself enough to see that you are already whole and complete, and instead take your illusion of a broken self and try to pound ‘broken’ into me.

Often I absorb the energy of someone that is around me. For example if she is angry and bitter, I feel this. If I am around the energy for a certain time interval, usually more than an hour, I begin to reflect back to that person what she wants and expects to see. I, in essence, shift, becoming an image of the other’s projection. If the person is in a state of contentment and bliss, free of judgment, and full of unconditional love, I can spend countless hours in the one’s company. If she is tormented by fear, which is often the case, I become wrapped up in her fear myself, transforming into something I do not find comforting. As hard as I try to maintain my sense of self, I slip into the evaluation energy field another has of her own self. I become who the other perceives me to be. I have heard other spiritual teachers speak of this phenomena. What amazes me is that no matter how much love I give out to another ‘seeing’ me, she will eventually make me into her truth, regardless of my love. I am beginning to understand more and more why silence in the presence of others is sometimes not only beneficial but necessary.

Some of my most far-reaching works were driven by an intense and utter sense of isolation, separation, and desperation. I cried out from the dark of my soul in a state of pure innocence and agonizing pain. Here, in these dark nights, the light came. The light of you. Many blessings.

No one, absolutely no one, is trying to escape. We are all trying to get back in. Back in touch. Back in bliss. Back to the place where we are whole and entirely connected. We aren’t stagnant beings trapped in a prison. We are pulsating light attempting to penetrate from the outside in, longing to return to the core of love.

Just because I appear to be at a loss right now, somehow fallen and maybe looking to you broken, doesn’t mean I won’t be back on my feet in a few minutes, entirely renewed and ready to start again. I recover quickly. Reentry into this world has become my habit.

My honesty runs deep. I am not just layers of honesty; I think I am built with bricks of it. Each comment I make is weighed for truth, and in turn each word out of another’s mouth is felt for accuracy. Not my way or their way. Not right or wrong. But whether or not the words spoken resonate with the underlying energy. If what is expressed coincides with the empathic pull I feel. Even the facial expressions, the body movements, the tone of voice—I wonder as observer of self and other—is this a truth? A true reflection of the state of being? I dig deeper and wonder what truth is; and thusly, the simplest actions for others, become rapid moving complexities to me. The sound of a ‘hello,’ the movement of a head shaking, the words ‘I love you.’ The daily norms aren’t easy for me. So much rests beneath everything. And yet everyone seems to be skating on the surface.

It is hard for me to be in balance. I want to. I try to. I study how to. I look in books. I look at others. I watch and observe. But it appears I wasn’t built the same way as the rest. It seems I move in extremes. I am either overly passionate and obsessed or I am shut off entirely. I am either running full speed ahead or dodging what is coming at me. I don’t know how to be the other way, the way people seem to be. I am a mess or I am pristine. I have all the answers or I have none. I am on cloud nine or I am in hell. And it isn’t anything that brings me out of balance, not a mood swing, not a chemical, not a drug.. it is this place, this world, the confusion it brings: the energy, the questions, the bombardment of rules that aren’t rules. All this makes me cling to one thing and then another in hopes of answer. The clinging elevates me to a place of momentary security. The obsessions trap me away from reality. But then the reality comes and I am swung back down to who I am in a place so unfamiliar. It is a constant game of pendulum dodging. I am at the bottom somewhere with the pendulum above. I hold on and swing, right to left, left to right. Hope to fear. Fear to hope. And then sometimes, I just give up, let go, and fall into a dark place of not wanting to hold on anymore.

I woke up raw this morning, bristle brush to the inner parts. Scraped, with my protective tarnish all but removed. It’s hard to find equilibrium when certain events are altered. When what I’d thought would be does not transpire. I find myself repeating teachings of letting go and trusting, living in the present, and having faith in the process. Only this lesson seems to be on a annoying feedback loop, some old record I can’t turn off. I am tired of trusting. I am tired of trying to let go. I just want to find that state of being where even the voices from the record are silenced. Where there aren’t any droning reminders and no need to pacify the feeble self I perceive. It’s a grand frustration when all the answers are there, are given, are ready for taking, but my body and mind seem to be frozen in a distant state of deafness.

I don’t understand why I fixate on another person. I am not what would be labeled co-dependent. I am not needy. I am not desperate. But certain people trigger a dire hunger in me, as if I found a lost piece of my own self. I wonder if at some spiritual level I recognize the person, if I know outside the limits of time what has already transpired. Perhaps my sensitivity stretches beyond this moment, and shows me in dream and waking-state my other part; and then, the earthbound self I am cannot handle this sensation without succumbing to passion. Perhaps I am recognizing where I used to be, whom I used to be, or what I am to become.

I hunger for a love I know not. A deep penetrating, enveloping love that never leaves and never enters. That blooms from within over and over, eternal in its giving. Depletion exists not, nor does retreat. Only constant renewal and rejuvenation. When I taste this love, from within the space of no space, in the light’s birthing and rebirthing, I am home. When I do not, I am perpetually lost and wondering where I was before I forgot.

The worst for me is loops.. looping.. spinning.. the cyclic thoughts that overtake me that feel much more biological/fight-flight than logical. I can be fine one moment, one hour, one large portion of the day, and then something triggers me, e.g., a strong emotion, an attachment, a hope, a disappointment, or various degrees of stimuli. And Boom! I am smack in the middle of some lost land, where I cannot catch my breath or my sanity. I am falling and wondering if I will ever touch down again, if ever I will ground myself in factual evidence and reassurance. The same thoughts move round and round me, a merry-go-round in my head. And I am not only dropping at high speed, but sinking inside too; shrinking in fact, become some diminished self: less worthy, less me. It takes all my strength to keep from drowning, all my reserves and energy. Then I am momentarily in a state of limbo that seems to last eternity, where time is stopped, and my whole existence preoccupied with whatever it is that is consuming me. It feels as if I swallowed something of substance, but then in turn it grew and began to devour me. I wish then I’d never taken hold of whatever it was: a person, place, thought, dream. I wish then I was someone different, someone more prepared for this world.

Sometimes I over explain myself and give a lot of details because I know from experience people are swift to form their own judgments and opinions about me the moment a word escapes my mouth. In many situations, I instantly feel misunderstood, before a complete sentence is even formed. I interrupt for the same reason. I can feel the person steering away from what I have tried to say. Words, they limit me. I feel and sense too much to explain in a paragraph, or even in an entire book. Mine is an endless stream of thoughts, and to speak for only a second, I am already lost to the world. There is an isolation that follows spoken communication and a reminder that peace is found in silence. An isolation in which I realize my way of communicating is often unheard by the masses, and only collected by the delicate few. Still, I rejoice in the few, in their endless compassion and love. Here I find my refuge and my true voice.

At this moment I agree that thoughts can lead to manifestations in life. I believe this because of the mystery of moving atoms and the mystery of water molecules, in how they respond to stimuli—the observer. Sometimes people will tell other people to think positive and to not fear. This is not beneficial. It only further perpetuates the conquest of fear. When anyone tells another how to be or how to find the way, he is implying he knows more than the receiver. The resulting energy exchange, the product of ‘telling,’ negates any power a message might have carried. The most benefit is gained when someone is loved unconditionally, when another shines his light in love with no expectation that the other person be any certain way or respond in any certain way. There is a confusion in the world, a deep confusion, in which people think they have the answers and are here to share the answers. The truth is we are the answer. Within us is the light. When someone feels the impulse to penetrate another with her truth, this is not love. This is fear disguised. This is believing that one has a secret the other does not possess. We have become a ‘How To’ generation, built with a million upon a million keys of separate generated ‘answers.’ Everyone is so busy telling everyone else what to do, that they forget to listen to their own heart. When others begin to open up their own soul, we will be a much quieter world.

I am awake in the sense I know myself. In knowing myself I know others. In knowing the all, I recognize the constant change and transitioning of life in everything and everyone. Yet, I exist in a world where people worship stagnation, confinement, and the boxing up of attributes. I understand nothing is as it seems, but all about me people try to declare what is and what is not. I used to listen to their echoes and believe. Now I listen to my own heart, and know.

My vulnerability and openness is not a reflection of my strength or weakness. I am not a degree of something or another someone sets upon me. Up on one scale of attributes, and down on another. I am whole and complete. Even in my perceived ‘low’ points and ‘failings,’ I am enough. I am that which is beyond this physical being, this limiting ego-state. I am that which is already entirely love and light. If one chooses to place upon me a definition of his or her truth, then this truth is also who the person believes his or her self to be. In choosing to see me as only light and love, never stagnant, and continually transforming, the other chooses to see self the same. What I am is what you are.

I will love you no matter what you say or do. I will forgive you no matter what you say or do. But this does not mean I will let you back into the circle where I keep my heart. If you hurt me, I close. A part of me surrenders from our relationship. And to trust again, seems infeasible. Yes, I will cherish you. Yes, I will support you. But to be connected again, may be an impossibility.

There is a difference between loving unconditionally and allowing anyone into your sacred space of self. It is not hypocritical to announce you love unconditionally but to still choose to limit access to certain people in your life. In fact, it is essential to have boundaries and self protect. In order to maintain unconditional love, one must love herself first and release self-judgment and self-expectations. In the process of self-love, one must maintain a freedom to nurture and uphold the self and balance this act with applying the wisdom to protect the self. In choosing to let go of certain individuals and to establish physical and spiritual distance, I am not announcing a degree of separation; instead, I am pronouncing a continuation of the honoring of my holy light and purpose. I won’t allow the capacity of a singular to diminish my light and counteract my energy resources and my ability to serve and love others. In truth, sometimes one must be set aside from the proximity of self, still held in light and love, still held in hope, but no longer set in a spectrum of space that can essentially snuff my light. Better that I focus on the circumference of the radiating love of all then on defending myself from one who is negating my efforts.

He came in with his opinions, and rearranged my life, sifting through what was right and wrong, and in need of alteration. I was dusted off, pulled out of my place of comfort, and turned upside down. Made to believe this title of faults were the end all, the cause of turmoil and disruption. Luckily, he couldn’t reach my heart, the cornerstone of my existence, my truth and my steadfast peace. For even in my disarray and utter sadness, singled-out on a weary shelf of ‘wrong’ and in need of ‘fixing,’ my heart cried out ‘false.’ And she sang, you are beautiful for always.

We (many people with Aspergers and others who are sensitive to the falsehoods) see through the illusion, even if we don’t know what we are seeing through. We feel this falsehood at our core and recognize it as poison and not real. We often don’t know why, but we do. When we are around like people who bring us comfort, it is because they resonate with our core. If our core is authentic, we resonate with authentic people; if our core is fear-based authentic, we resonate with fear-based-authentic; if our core is non-authentic fear-based we resonate with that. Regardless of a neurological condition or any type of label. Like attracts like

Sometimes I would prefer to meet someone in my perceived moments of ‘weakness,’ instead of my perceived moments of ‘strength.’ In that way, I am not set on a pedestal, and then watched until I falter. More so, I would prefer to connect with another who sees me as neither weak nor strong in any condition, but merely whole. There is a profound emptiness that flows through when one establishes one as something or another, labels experience as theirs with an unreasonable ownership, reckons they know and can figure out another soul. They can’t, unless they know their own soul. And even then, two get lost in the endlessness of no boundaries. I am neither longing to be admired for my strength nor longing to be forgiven for my weakness. I don’t exist in a stagnant state. I only exist as love and light. And all else is falsehood appearing real. I love you in your completeness, not for your moments.

I am supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. And awesome. And a bunch of other cool words. But if you are seeking perfection, you better find that in your self first.

It isn’t your opinions that bother me, or even your continual judgment and evaluation of who I am as a person. I don’t mind if you disagree with me, or that you believe you can fix and control me. I don’t even care if you find my ways repulsive and unsightly. I care that you don’t love yourself enough to see that you are already whole and complete, and instead take your illusion of a broken self and try to pound ‘broken’ into me.

I have this ongoing list of how I am supposed to be alongside an ongoing voice of how no one really knows how anything or anyone is supposed to be because everything is self-created, perceived, and rejected and/or accepted.

I don’t do well when someone I meet excites me. I am like a dog set free for the first time at a dog park. I frolic and pounce, over-sniff and over-lick. And then when I am back in the doghouse, I wonder what came over me.

447: Gifts Offered

| Aspergers Girls

My thoughts upon waking this morning:

“Most days on my newsfeed for my like-page on a social media network (Facebook), I offer out many so-called ‘positives.’ I make posters with messages about love and light, sometimes about experiences some of us share. I giggle, lol, do the heart thing, poke fun at my quirks. I post silly you tubes. I post my son being handcuffed, a link to my mammogram ‘taking the ladies out,’ and/or teenage puberty puns.. I try to maintain a balance in my life of seriousness, introspection, and humor. Face-to-face my friends and I crack up all the time. I love to laugh.

I have chronic pain and have been in the house mostly for 3 + weeks, but I am getting better. Yay! I am also waiting for a brain MRI result. So yesterday I scanned through posts 321 – 340, the dark night of the soul part of my blog. And the depth of self and spirit brought me solace. Most of what I posted here yesterday was links or poems from there, or from an advocacy piece ‘I Am Elephant.’

What I posted here yesterday was not how I was feeling all at once… I am not that complex and prolific. lol. And not depressed. I am reflective and in that waiting stage of wanting to know health results and letting go of the attachment to the outcome, as I’m sure many of you know well.

It was not my intention to bombard anyone with ‘negative’ or ‘sad’ posts. I just know as a sensitive soul, that when I can see someone else is feeling or has felt the same as me, I feel far less alone. I share my sadness, not to be lifted or to be sheltered or cared for…I have plenty of that. I share because I have been to deep places that some others can at times not comprehend or understand without placing judgment. And I want YOU to know I understand and do not judge where you have been or will be.

I know I will be evaluated and sliced and diced by some, and yesterday was no exception. And in truth, that is still the scariest part for me: Risking my entire self and knowing I will be evaluated. But the illusion of fear will never stop me from shining my light. Never stop my authentic self.

If I need to be melancholic one day, or share melancholic works one day, to shine brighter the next, I shall. And it’s really up to the reader to decide what my motive is. I can’t decide that for anyone. I hide nothing. I know it’s not the current trend….. I know I am not all smiley faces and think positive and be the best you… but I am ME.

I choose you and your light over fear, over trends, over anything. Thank you for allowing me the space to be me. I truly feel we are family.”

****

I still feel more when someone critiques me verses compliments me. In fact, I still feel close to nothing when someone compliments me. I just can’t feel it. I don’t know why. But it doesn’t feel like a bad thing. It feels quite good—like others’ opinions are not who I am. However, when someone is passing judgment in a way that does not resonate with my core being, I feel this intense rattling.

I then go through a process similar to this:

1. Is this truly reflective of where I am at in this moment?
2. What is this teaching me?
3. Is this something I can learn from?
4. Is this of value to my journey?
5. Did I overlook something?
6. Do I need to look at this more deeply?

This process either takes seconds or hours.

I then decide if the gift someone else has offered me is for the betterment of my being or better to return calmly. In the case of anger, I often return it calmly. Not in manners or actions, but by spiritually sweeping the energy away. Thank you, but no thank you.

I visualize, (as I was taught in Buddhist readings), a gift being presented to me with outstretched arms, and me smiling, accepting and saying thank you, holding, and then reaching out my arms and returning the gift, with a gentle ‘no thank you.’

Oftentimes a surge of energy moves through me as I am holding the gift offered that does not resonate with my core being, and I write this energy out with a powerful force.

As I write, I have to shave off the ego, the defensive me that wants to barge through and proclaim: I AM right. I have to laugh at this ego-part, and recognize I am being humbled and growing further.

I notice that when I am concentrating on spreading love and light and connection that the bombardment of judgment about me comes on stronger. It’s a definite one-to-one. The evaluations of me come in huge waves, typically. Not just one person, but several, a building momentum that I find fascinating. Gifts of all sorts come tumbling towards me, one after the other.

I understand, too, through all this, that anything anyone thinks, feels, or says about me is an evaluation; whether interpreted as truth or falsehood, or right or wrong, or good or bad by me, makes no difference. It’s all judgment, at one level or another. It’s all resonating, deciphering, rejecting, and sifting,this process people go through in observing another. I think perhaps I can feel this process though, like tentacles fingering into me. And I think it can be oftentimes discomforting: some alien life form penetrating into my bubble of space to feed into who I am and conclude what I am.

It’s the conclusions that are hard for me to digest—the end product of what is brought out into the light.

I keep waiting to be seen in completion, and keep realizing that this is far beyond the capacity our limited human senses.

****
Thoughts on Keeping Silent

426: Verbal Fluency and Females with Aspergers

| Aspergers Girls

People with Aspergers, in my opinion, often have high verbal fluency and are able to think of many things about one given letter, topic, subject, item, etc.

Here is one example of my ability to think of many things based on one letter:
link to Dirty D’s Don’t you Weep (prior post)

I think that people with Aspergers have a high-intelligence that can be demonstrated by their ability to scaffold off of one given idea. Sometimes this processing ability adds to stress and misunderstandings, and the appearance of ADHD like behaviors.

As a person with Aspergers, my own high-verbal fluency can cause high anxiety. A simple action, like my husband showing me tile for a potential bathroom remodel, can trigger a reaction in my mind in which I am jumping from one image to another. In the case of the tile for the bathroom, the tile itself is an object trigger, triggering a series of sequenced events in my mind.

On seeing the tile, my thought process went like this:

We could make cosmetic improvements to our home’s bathroom, but we don’t own the house. If we improve the house, should we buy the house? If we don’t buy where will we live? Should we sell our other house? What should we ask for selling price? What if the house doesn’t sell? Well what is a fair price? Maybe we should continue to rent out the house. That makes sense. But what about….

All of these thoughts bombard me. Wherein my high verbal fluency can lead to fantastic writings and the successful completion of projects, the same fluency can cripple me emotionally. As a result of a number of triggers, I can find myself unable to be constructive for hours or even an entire day. Certain triggers can leave me immobile for most of a week. I get lost in the loop of my own thinking.

In the future, the tile could again trigger these same emotional responses in me, and therefor the tile could feasibly remain a trigger for an extended period of time.

Here is an activity that demonstrates the concept of verbal fluency.

This was a quick activity I did this morning. If you wish to partake in an easy four-minute activity, then read the first section “Preparation” and then stop before continuing onward.

Preparation: Without scanning down further to read, find a piece of paper, a pen, and a stopwatch. When you are ready to begin the activity, scan down and read the directions. (You can type a list instead of writing.)

DSCN0736

Directions:
Don’t read past this until your list is done.
1. Set a timer to four minutes.
2. Write a list of anything you can think of that you can do with a pencil.
3. Stop after four minutes.

Read below when done with your list.

DSCN0510

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My husband’s list (written)

Write
Erase
Measure
Roll
Bounce
Whittle
Wedge
Break it
Bite it
Eat it
Flick it
Throw it
Lever to lift
Stab with it
Sharpen it
Poke it
Spin it
Stand it on end
Spear things with it
Build something with it
Draw
Paint the pencil or draw on pencil
Drumstick for music
Lift things with it

My list (typed)

Miniature sword for a mouse or small creature
Stabbing utensil for defense of intruder
A rolling device to place on table for a contest
A stick to poke bugs with outdoors
A shovel to pull up weeds
A massage roller for the arm or back
A way to make a fake mustache..hold up to face.
A tiny baton
Break it up to use as a pawn in chess game
Place on paper and use as a spinner
Use for spin the bottle on flat surface
Poke holes in something (or finger)
Break off lead and use the lead to draw and smudge on paper
Use to connect yarn and make a toy like sling shot
Bang on a drum or other object
Bookmark
Flag holder (use tape)
To keep a door from closing all the way (may need heavier object)
Stir coffee
Take hair out of bathtub ring
Fidget between fingers when nervous
Write with (of course)
Play fetch with dog
Keep a plant held up in garden
Poke to see how dry the dirt in a plant pot is
Play catch
Place under bedsheet to bug/irritate someone
Dress up in clothes and make a doll (add yarn)
Sketch, trace, smudge
Sharpen it
Throw it away
Chew it
Look at it
Dig into garbage disposal
Twirl hair

Conclusions:
My husband is a ‘neuro-typical.’ Also known as an NT. He is considered mainstream and typical when compared to a person who has a neurological syndrome such as Aspergers. I have Aspergers. When examining the two lists some interesting things come to mind. Of course I am a female and Bob is a male. So this aspect of gender also affects the results.

1. I saw what I would do with the pencil in full imagery and thusly often included exactly what the pencil would be used for. I added specifics. I didn’t just write ‘sword.’ I wrote “a miniature sword for a small mouse or creature.” Bob wrote a simple answer without specifics. It didn’t cross his mind to do it any other way. He thought he got the point of the question and answered accurately.

2. I paid attention to detail because in the back of my mind I didn’t want to confuse anyone that might read my list. Bob didn’t consider what other people would think at all.

3. I didn’t list logical things such as ‘write’ until the creative aspects were thought of. My mind immediately went to creativity. Bob’s mind immediately went to logical.

4. The question read what I “can do” with a pencil. In my mind I interpreted that question as actions and saw people or animals doing the action. In my mind someone or something always was attached to the pencil. In Bob’s mind it was only the pencil. He saw the pencil doing it in isolation.

5. I was actively involved emotionally with each thing I thought of, simultaneously evaluating if I’d like that action, how useful it was, and if it was truly feasible. I included minor details such as tape, flat surface, etc. to guide another or in essence to ‘prove’ it was feasible. Bob just thought about a pencil.

6. I knew in the back of my mind if I wrote short answers I could write a longer list but I had to add detail, even though I knew my list would be shorter. Bob didn’t even consider detail.

7. I saw the pencil naturally being used in my mind. Images popped up and I wrote what I saw. I used my environment to help me. If I saw I plant where I was sitting I could connect an idea. Bob didn’t look around his environment. He said he used ‘mental effort’ to come up with his answers.

8. I worried about my list. I questioned if all the ideas were valid. I questioned whether the one thing I started writing before the timer started counted. I worried about the time. I watched the clock. As the time ticked I evaluated in my mind how much time was left and the average number I was writing. I was distracted by the time and numbers. I thought about my typing speed and the typing speed verses writing speed. Bob worried about the amount of time left a little bit.

9. I pictured and evaluated each thing after I wrote it. As I went on to write the next thing on my list, I was still thinking about the first one. Had I used the right words, enough words, and described what I saw? For example I was concerned about the door wedge (to keep door from closing all the way) and thusly added ‘may need heavier object.’ I knew I couldn’t add more detail without taking up time, and that bothered me some. I could think of new items while still focusing on previous items at the same time. Bob just wrote his list. (He did say “that’s cool” when I read him this number nine; so there’s that.)

10. My thinking is complex. I wrote to keep a door from closing all the way (may need heavier object) and bang on drum or other object. Bob’s thinking was basic core segment from the start. He wrote wedge and drumstick.

My husband has a high verbal fluency. This is evident by the length of his list, and he was able to write without pause, until the timer stopped. He was able to think of many things. I have a high verbal fluency as well but my list was much different than my husband’s list. My list was affected by my imagination and thinking in pictures, and somewhat by my anxiety of time and worrying about what others would understand of what I wrote. Any person, NT or not NT, can have a high verbal fluency. But, as mentioned earlier, I think people with Aspergers generally will demonstrate high verbal fluency and use of imagination in their list.

Feel free to share your list and conclusions below in comment section.

Here is a study:
Verbal fluency in adults with high functioning autism or Asperger syndrome