I awoke with an awful anxiety. This I recognize as a pressure that cries to be released. Though there remains this fine line in what I truly want to pour out on these pages and what society expects, accepts, and wants.
In some ways I’ve turned this blog into another player in my game. This game I’ve played since I was old enough to know that if I was nice enough, funny enough, and interesting enough, people would pay attention to me. And in turn, if I exhibited too much honesty, was too revealing, or too straightforward, people would reject me, or worse, simply disappear.
A woman with Aspergers remains a constant actress. There is no escaping this. And to me this is the thorn of having Aspergers. I continually scope and evaluate. I look at others’ actions and responses, more so than many can phantom. Some of the observations breed questions, a continual whirlwind in my mind. I wonder the simplest of thoughts, such as what was the motivation behind that person’s comment to more complex thoughts of what is the motivation behind my writing.
My mind forms a tumble weed of sorts, spinning and rounding the field, pushing up dust and debris. The child in me watches in fascination, the driver, the one avoiding the tumbling of thoughts, tries best to steer away. Still in the distant, regardless of my view, the tumbleweed remains spinning.
Some might think: Write what you want. Who cares what people think.
If only I were so simple. If my mind worked in the aforementioned fashion, this blog wouldn’t be a blog about a woman with Aspergers. I guarantee that.
With Aspergers one of the biggest burdens is: Thinking about what you are thinking about me. It’s not narcissistic or selfish. It stems from wanting to be seen, be valued, be loved, and be recognized for who I am. It stems from not wanting to be misjudged, misinterpreted, misunderstood, ostracized, dejected, alienated, stabbed in the back and persecuted. It stems from a lifetime of recognizing I don’t quite fit in with the mainstream, and if I don’t learn the norms, the unspoken rules, and then pretend to a degree and assimilate, I never will fit in.
It comes down to the options of fake a little or break a little. And I’ve been broken. The little bit of faking leads to a little bit of guilt, and continued self-analysis and reasoning of how to be a better person.
In a lot of ways I am in a perpetual state of figuring out how to be a better person. I recognize I’m good enough. I recognize I’m beneficial. I love me. Those aren’t the issues. The issue at hand is trying to be seen by you in the same way I see myself. This barrier remains, this veil that divides us all, and how I long to merge with others and be entirely one.
At times, having Aspergers is a feeling liken to being an ugly duckling that transforms into the beauty of swan, only swan is wondering why ugly duckling was not good enough for the world. Why ugly duckling has to be swan to be loved.
I extrapolate there is much shame inside of me. This shame is a part of me. I don’t see shame as wrong or needing fixing. I don’t’ see any part of my life as wrong, wasted, or unnecessary, and certainly not bad.
The shame stems from wanting to be as authentic and real as humanly possible. Only in being human, I have a mind that wants to protect me.
I want to be a ship in the night that sails with all the other ships in a forging fleet across the ocean waters; I don’t want to be a lone ship. But if I am myself in total, I will likely be cast out to the rough waters, banished from the refuge of loving souls.
The fear arising today is a fear based on the future—a fear of not knowing which route to take, how to steer, where to go. I recognize this fear. I wave to it. I speak to it. And in so doing, I lessen fear. But the specks that remain speak volumes and still haunt me.
I have this spirit inside of me that both longs to share her soul and light but that also longs to retreat into a hovel where no one can penetrate my skin.
This fear rises in thought of where my writings are traveling. Who reads these words. And what is to become of these words.
My dream is to publish, whether through self-publishing or a literary agent. But this, I am certain is many writers’ dreams. I feel guilt in dreaming. A concept I don’t quite grasp.
Still I dream.
And in my dreaming I do find hope. In another reading these words, I find hope. And so I sail on; whether lone ship or in the company of masses, I sail on.
by Samantha Craft, April 6, 2012 (Based on True Events)
I was an only child. But I wasn’t a lonely child. I always had some type of friend; whether a cousin, a daughter of mother’s friend, a neighborhood kid, or an imaginary spirit friend, I always found company. Making friends was never an issue, before I hit puberty. I had a natural cheeriness and good nature, and downright quirky humor that kept people about. I was clever, too, creating skits and recitals on a whim, and performing for whomever would listen. I still appreciate the young couple, our landlords, we had for one year, when I was about nine, who painstakingly listened to me sing You Light Up My Life, whenever I saw them. I couldn’t hit the high notes of the lyrics without a terrible screech—still can’t for that matter.
Though I had friends, I was often alone in the afternoons after my three-mile hike home from middle school. I remember there was a pointy-teethed German Shepard that lived at the top of First Street. He growled at me whenever I walked by, and then darted out clanging his lengthy metal rope with him. It took a lot of courage for me to walk home. Not because of the ferocious barking dog but because of home itself.
Things had a way of following me from house-to-house, and I do me things, as I never did figure out what else to call them. These things kept happening to me.
The things came to the upstairs duplex I occupied in Palo Alto. There was an afternoon when my babysitter and I were sitting on the living room couch and heard a circular sawing sound directly above our heads. Only when we ran outside onto the balcony to see what the noise was, nothing was there. Confused, we walked back inside, but as soon as we sat back down the sawing sound began again. We spent the next several minutes playing a game of running outside to find the noise and then running back inside to hear the noise. No explanation was ever found. Soon, we lost interest, and as children do, turned our attention to afterschool television specials.
That same house is where I discovered my imaginary spirit friend whom I named Buddy One. To this day, I’m not sure if he existed or not. I do recall one time reaching up for a bottle of wine vinegar and losing my grip. The bottle came rushing toward my head, and then, somehow, the bottle moved in the shape of an L and landed gently on the kitchen counter. I remember televisions and phones going wacky and all fuzzy on occasion; and I remember how the faucet in my bathroom would turn on when no one was about. There were knocks at the front door at night with no one behind the door. After a couple of years of living on the property, between the occurrences and my continual nightmares and premonitions of our pets dying, Mother was spooked enough to have a priest visit with holy water in hand.
Later, in my teenage years, when I belonged to a local Catholic youth group, I’d attend meetings in an old yellow Victorian building that used to be a nunnery. That house always spooked me. I couldn’t use the bathroom there. And twice, when I entered the empty kitchen, the faucets turned on.
One of the creepiest happenings took place at my father’s in the Central Valley in California, when I was in college. Dad worked nights, so I was typically home alone. One late night, after I’d watched the Silence of The Lambs at a local movie theater, I entered the house spooked by the whole movie. I flicked on the television for comfort, and right after I turned the television on the stations started flicking from channel to channel, one after the other, nonstop. I couldn’t get the television to stop, even when I used the remote.
But of all the places I lived, the duplex at the bottom of First Street on the Monterey Peninsula was the scariest. The house had a way of calling things to it. It was during this time, during my middle school years, I had horrible nightmares of being speared with a stick and roasted over an open flame by demons. This was the time I’d wake in the middle of the night feeling as if something was pulling me down the bed. A time when I didn’t change my clothes at night because I was afraid of the darkness that came when I lifted my shirt over my head. A time I slept with the light on, the television on, and my nana’s rosary around my neck.
One day at the duplex, I remember a tall stranger came whom had claimed to be a painter. My friend Renny and I were sitting on the back deck, when he sauntered through the yard with a wide and even gait. I can still hear the gate squeaking, the iceplant crunching beneath his boots and his deep voice clearing.
Stopping at the bottom step of the deck, the stranger had glanced across at us two girls with a cool smile and said, “Hello.” It was a simple calling, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. As if the backyard belonged to him. It was Renny who moved first, sitting upright and giggling, blushing like the word Hello had been a compliment.
Inside of me, I felt a need to run, to escape.
“I was asked by the owner to paint the house,” he said.
Wanting to leave and go inside, I had tried to catch Renny’s eye, but she was too busy looking at the blonde stranger.
The man tapped his boot on the step and shifted his weight. He was silent for the brief time he took to scratch his head and sink his hands into his overall pockets. Then he looked out with a rather empty stare. “You two ladies go to church?”
“No,” Renny answered.
I was inches away from the doorknob. “Sometimes,” I said.
The stranger leveled his eyes on Renny. “That’s interesting.”
“Not really.” Renny retorted.
“Don’t you think it’s time you made a decision to commit yourself to something other than yourself? Now you two, let me guess. It’s probably all about boys for you. Am I right? No time for God. But plenty of time to do things you ought not to be doing.”
Renny’s red ears were poking through her hair. She shrugged her shoulders at the man. I remained frozen.
The stranger continued: “God isn’t something to take lightly. Do you want to burn in hell?”
My toes felt numb. There was something terribly wrong with his tone, like he was trying to inch his way inside me with his words. Watching Renny begin to tremble, I remembered back to my friend Jane, when we’d been beaten with the board.
I shouted, “We’re leaving!” and grabbed Renny’s hand. Renny didn’t hesitate to follow. We were through the backdoor quicker than the man could utter one more word. And we left him there, good and lonely, not wanting a single thing to do with him. About an hour later, after Renny and I had escaped inside my bedroom, I gathered enough nerve to look out the kitchen window. The backyard was deserted.
Most days at the duplex, I got the sense I was being watched. It was a terrible frightening feeling. I can’t think of anything worse than the fear I had of entering that duplex. Nothing worse than fearing home: the one place that was supposed to be safe.
I spent most of my afternoons when school let out outside on the back deck, on our flat roof with the ocean view, or on the small front patio. There was easy access to the roof. I only had to climb through our upstairs bathroom window. Out on the patio, a space no larger than two pizza boxes set side-to-side, I’d watch television through the open front door or pull out our extra-long orange cord and talk on the phone.
One cloudy day I ventured inside the duplex to grab a snack. I immediately did what I always did—I opened all the draperies, the front and back door, and clicked on the television.
While I was in the kitchen, rushing about to find something in a hurry, I heard a strange and unfamiliar sound. At first I thought the sound was coming from the television. Some haunted house event on Sesame Street. But the sound didn’t stop. It was a loud throaty breathing, a very scary sound, I will never forget, and can still imitate with a chill-rising tone. The sound was comparable to Darth Vader’s breathing, only more pressing. I’ve only heard the breathing replicated once accurately, and that was when I was watching a ghost hunting show.
On hearing the breathing, I ran to the living room to turn of the television off. I couldn’t stand the noise. I wanted to jet out of the house. However, when the television was off, the noise remained.
I recall turning around frantically to find the source. Not believing the sound could still exist with the television off. It was then, as I began to panic, I heard the sound again. This time right before me. Suddenly, in front of my eyes, a gigantic wall of static formed from ceiling to floor. The static hissed something terrible.
Trapped and cornered, I clamped my eyes shut. When I opened them, the static was surrounding me. The deep throaty breath pulsating through my entire being
As I trembled, I heard words, words that sounded as if they were filtered through a thick mask and felt tube-fed into me: “Get out! Get out! Get OUT!”
As if on cue, at the same time as the words Get Out were voiced, outside the thunder rumbled and the rain poured down. Fearing for my life, I burst forward through the static and dodged around the corner, sprinting out the backdoor at full speed.
Terrified, I screamed at the top of my lungs, and ran and ran up the hill. Finding myself a block up from the house, on the top of an unfamiliar flight of stairs, I leaned against an apartment door and wept. Then without thought, I pounded on the door, still screaming. A young man opened the door and brought me inside.
Ten minutes later, Mother arrived. Taking me by the hand, she led me through the rain down the street and back inside the duplex. Mother listened to my story but blamed the event on my over-active imagination. As twilight approached, she wouldn’t give into my screaming demands.
“Just go to bed and stop letting your imagination get the best of you. If I let you sleep with me, what’s that going to teach you? I’m doing this for your own good.”
My black-beaded rosary, a gift from Nana, was swinging around my neck. I held firmly to Mother’s doorknob. “Please let me in. I’ll be quiet. I promise.”
“Let go of this door and go to bed!” she insisted.
“But the ghost, the ghost is in the house. Please!” I begged.
Mother pulled harder.
“Mother you don’t understand. It was real. I don’t want to be out here alone. Please let me in. Please help me!”
Mother shook her head and glared at me.
My hand slipped from the knob and Mother’s door slammed shut.
I ran downstairs, grabbed the phone, pulled on the cord, and ran outside to the small front patio.
I dialed my father. Before I had spoken more than a few sentences, Dad suggested I stay at Nana’s house.
“Did Nana teach you the Lord’s Prayer?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Use it,” Father said.
“Okay.”
Father cleared his throat. “You have to know something. Today I was staring at a photograph of you for over an hour. I don’t know how, and this has never happened before, but I had this sense some evil force was attacking you. Your nana’s mother used to have dreams and sometimes she saw spirits. Last week a psychic told me to destroy a painting I’d made. One with a gray house set up on a high hill. She said to paint candles all around it because she believed it was a portal to another world. Anyhow, I painted the candles, and threw the painting away. Right before you called. I can’t believe this. It’s very strange.”
Dad went on, for several minutes, explaining about how a spiritual group had recently tried to recruit him claiming they believed he had spiritual gifts. Dad, never one to talk on the phone for more than a few minutes, quickly ended the conversation with some more nervous laughter and some pleasantries. Then, after wishing me luck, he hung up.
I sat on the patio listening to the dial tone for a long while, still wiping my tears, and twisting the rosary in my hands. I thought back to all the times before—the nightmares, the stranger, the unexplainable happenings.
I ran into the house, quickly grabbed the old afghan off the couch, and ran out to the backyard wooden deck. I could sleep there, I thought, at least until the rain came.
Okay. Day thirty-five and I’ve finally doused my fire of vanity! Yes, I’ve donned my reading glasses, and zoomed in on the font on my computer screen. Maybe I won’t have a raging headache today. What I goof-head I am. I can actually read the words I’m typing now, without squinting.
This morning, I have a lot of deep, philosophical jargon pinging around in Sir Brain. LV is in her pleated secretarial skirt, pacing about, taking notes, while wearing her studious glasses and practical shoes; (you might want to press my lingo button).
I was holding out for Crazy Frog this morning, but I think he is still away with the fairies, which leaves Little Me pretty much holding down the fort. Which is a bit scary, as this new form of thought has been emerging that I cannot quite pinpoint, but that seems liken to a black-caped, masculine-feminine entity, that hides in the dark behind trees, wears a mask, and carries various weapons of Sir-Brain destruction.
She’s more of a female but with a tomboy attitude. She despises feminine aspects in all forms, but yet finds herself a female. A difficult position to be in, I imagine. Anyhow she’s lurking somewhere within, and doesn’t have a lot of beneficial, high-energy words to offer me or other individuals. I imagine she is hurting somewhere deep, deep inside of her being, but that most people would try to bomb her before giving her the time of day. I can’t blame her for hiding. As I fear her myself, and wish to destroy her. Even as she whispers, “I am your teacher.”
I don’t have a name for her, but I think she’s the aspect of me that is responsible for explosive negative thoughts, that send me stumbling down the hole of self-destruction—the one who tells me I’m stupid for writing a blog, for exposing myself to the dangers of anything and anyone outside myself, and for thinking I have anything of substance to offer anyone. She is the barrier in the road, the stop guard with the automatic weapon that warns me to get out of my vehicle and stop moving, or she’ll shoot. I don’t know what she has to gain from acting the way she does. But there must be some motive.
She was with me most of the day yesterday. To the point I didn’t feel I had my footing in reality anymore. She was satisfied with the amount of time I’d been hiding in the house, refusing the act of even going to the grocery store or of taking a walk with my dog.
She isn’t depression. Depression doesn’t feel like an entity. Depression feels like a mass of fog that settles down upon me and leaves me temporarily disoriented and blinded, momentarily stunted in my ability to move.
No, she, this entity, that I shall name Phantom Eknow (eee-no)—for Entity unKnown—is definitely more than a feeling or fog. She is there somewhere, always waiting and watching, even in my happiest moments. She’s been there since I was a little girl. I remember laughing in my youth, and enjoying my day, while all the while wondering when the pain would resurface, the misery, the fear.
It is an odd sensation, talking about her with anyone. Especially as she is surfacing just as I am writing these words. I almost feel shameful, but not entirely shameful, because I’m holding out thinking someone will understand, and maybe be able to see their dark-caped entity, too. That makes this seem worthwhile, this confession and sharing of sorts, the knowing that I am reaching out from this small place in which I live and breathing words into another human being in hopes of contact, connection, and shared understanding.
Part of the human isolation happening in the world right now is because of the fear of sharing our whole selves. So much is fear-based, that the very thought of being anyone but who someone else wants an individual to be is paralyzing the masses. So many are looking for a leader, a guide, a way, the answer, without taking the time to go within.
The fact that I almost feel shamed in sharing a darker element of myself is proof enough for me that a real oppression of authenticity exists. There seems to be two polar extremes in our world; all I have to do is tune into a reality show; which I don’t do, to view the extremes. There are always the crazed people doing terribly disturbing acts or the fake people dressed in garbs imitating idols. It appears, many are immolating their inner being and light out of a fear of not being seen. When in actuality, the representation they are showing other beings is not a clear representation of who they are to begin with.
I wonder how many of us have PHANTOMS that we hide? Phantoms that are all caps, all capital letters, lurching inside, that we go on pretending aren’t there. I wonder if we brought them into the light and listened, what we would learn. Here is my Phantom. Here she is. Here I offer, to you, Phantom: the substance of what some people label my imperfections.
Why is it so many are trapped in this game of showing all their high cards, in hopes of recognition, while burying all their low cards in the dirt? What is it that makes a person trust another when they show their high cards, but makes them want to run away when exposed to the low cards? To me, the trust is found in showing what is hidden, not sharing what has been shared a thousand-times over. If I dig up everything and expose what was once hidden in the darkness, then what is left to fear in me? What is left for others to fear? If I am first and foremost authentic and genuine, and have nothing left hidden, then where can fear hide?
There is nothing to fear in being me, but this fear would like me to think so. The fear would like me to fret the plausible pains of exposing my true self, so that the fear can perpetuate its very own existence.
So many people talk about change. So many point fingers and blame. Yet, so many forget to look within—to take out the Phantom, to take out the power, to sit with the fear-based entity and listen to his or her story.
No wonder, that to me, and many others, the world often appears one giant masqueradeball—with the bug-filled wigs, restrictive corsets, and elaborate masks. For that is what the world is, at times, the majority seemingly set out in a dance of deception, where their true fear remains buried, and the pretend, disguised entity continues to twirl round and round.
I imagine a ball without the masks, where I am spinning with my phantom, twirling and twirling, and with each turn decreasing Phantom in size, until she becomes so small and obsolete that she returns happily into the unknown from whence she came. I imagine an endless room full of people spinning with their Phantom, until we are all left without a partner, and have no choice but to join hands together, and at last truly dance.
* I have to laugh, my original post (dyslexia) said Lost in the Mascaraed—which means lost in the eye makeup. Crazy Frog returns!
This Masquerade – George Benson
Are we really happy here
With this lonely game we play
Looking for words to say?
Searching
But not finding understanding anyway
We’re lost in a mas–masquerade
Both afraid to say
We’re just too far away
From being close together from the start
We tried to talk it over
But the words got in the way
We’re lost inside this lonely game we play
Thoughts of leaving disappear
Ev’ry time I see your eyes
No matter how hard I try
To understand the reasons
That we carry on this way
We’re lost in this masquerade
Both afraid to say
We’re just too far away
From being close together from the start
We tried to talk it over
But the words got in the way
We’re lost inside this lonely game we play
Thoughts of leaving disappear
Ev’ry time I see your eyes
No matter how hard I try
To understand the reasons
That we carry on this way
We’re lost in this masquerade
Days like today I want to find the highest mountain and shout in my loudest voice, “I am Elephant!”
I want to charge forward with my tusks at a massive pile of hay. Stab and stab with all my might, until no barrier is left, only scattered remnants that the animals can feed upon, digest, and carry away.
I hate, if I ever were to hate anything, the aspect of being misunderstood. I hate that my son is being misunderstood. I hate that I am misunderstood. I feel as if we, as an Asperger’s “species,” have been set up for failure. As if we are supposed to make ourselves less genuine and honest, in order not to threaten others’ norms.
I understand we represent the unknown that exists outside the comfort box of many individuals. And when we surface, stand there face-to-face in conversation, the anomaly, if you will, is seen as a threat, an oddity, a discomfort; and we are made into this perceived entity that requires some degree of change or adaptation on our part.
I question what is it about the way I think and function that requires fixing and change. What if the way I think and function is ideal? Why is it that the majority believe their way is the right way, when all about them the world is falling apart from war, famine, lies, manipulation, blackmail, disease, hatred, bigotry, and poison? These named leaders play these games using their tricks. Wherein I, coming from a place of honesty and genuineness, am perceived as a threat.
Is the feeling of threat erupting from others’ insecurity or perhaps from the uncomfortable feelings that arise when one’s foundation of what is believed to be the right way is confronted?
Perhaps the way communication is currently played out is from a very limited and self-centered scope. Wherein there is this unspoken dance where I am expected to filter what I say, how I say it, when I say it, and how much I say, as to not risk causing discomfort to someone else.
Assuming I am reasonably self-aware, which I am, and I have no intention of ill will or harm, which holds true, and that I have generally mastered the basic social norms of avoiding insult or rudeness, then what other rules must I add?
It seems to me the other rules include this basket of techniques, sayings, buffering, limitations, and balancing that enable the recipient to feel better about him or herself, or at least not any worse. It seems to me a game where the first priority is to not make waves, to win the person over, to sound strong, and to sprinkle evidence of high intellect and likability, in order to allow the other person to feel comfortable enough to maybe begin to trust me.
Why is it that if I accurately and purposely reflect what the other person wishes to hear and see, that they embrace me and wrap the tentacles of interest around me; but other times, when I am entirely authentic, and I share without pretense, plan, or caution, I am questioned, perhaps even distrusted, judged, singled-out, ridiculed, or admonished? Why is it some human beings want to converse with clones of themselves and make me into their egocentric mirror, instead of knowing me?
Communicating is like driving down a dangerous road where there are warning signs at every turn. Beware! Make sure your words are continually reinforcing the other person’s identity, perception, and worthiness. Avoid offending, weakening, or threatening a person’s idea of truth. Know that complete honesty triggers alarm in people. Understand that ultimately most people you approach already don’t trust you and you have to build and build trust before they will. Even then, know there will be people who will never trust you.
Why is it when I speak my truth some question my intention, my motive, my want, my need, my desire, my expected outcome, my reasoning, my life, my identity, my self-worth, my perception, my judgment, and/or my personhood? Are these seeds I need to plant seeds of dishonesty?
What if I am not the anomaly? What if my son is not the anomaly? What if the teenagers persecuting him with their bullying and snide remarks are the anomaly? What if my son is the teacher? What if Aspergers isn’t a syndrome or a disorder? What if Aspergers is a new mirror: a mirror that reflects back truth and honesty, and genuineness of spirit?
If communication is to based on a scale dependent on levels of trust, then a person sitting across from me in conversation is continually establishing how much they know me and trust me in order to decide what to share about him or herself, or his or her perception, facts, or experience. How do I decide which parts of me to hide?
Why isn’t communication the opposite of distrust? Why don’t people strip themselves of protective layers and speak their truth? Aren’t we all in search of love and attention? Companionship and sharing? Why don’t we all wear T-shirts that read: Love Me, Please. Isn’t that what we crave? Why is it so hard for someone to walk up to a stranger and say, “You look sad and lonely. I’m sad and lonely, too.”? Why is it people say so easily, “It’s a beautiful day” instead of “You’re a beautiful being”?
Strangers ask me, “Why are you being so nice? How did you become so kind?” or say “No one ever asked me that. Thank you so much for taking an interest?” And yet I am the one who knows not how to communicate naturally?
If withholding information is the norm, then I question the integrity of the establishment who dictates such norms. If one is to say to me, “Impossible; if we all spoke are truth the world would fall apart,” then I ask: “Is the world not already falling apart?”
The majorities’ opinion of what counts as the correct mode of communication style appears backwards and disproportionate. This fear-based approach contradicts the doctrines of many spiritual and religious foundations of unconditional love. I don’t understand this barometer I am supposed to carry into conversation—this inner dialogue, gut-feeling, or what have you, that informs me of what to withhold.
I understand to avoid crudeness, rudeness, defensiveness, argumentation, blame and downright meanness—as I see those derivatives of communication equally fear-based as the self-regulating barometer that predisposes the mind to beware of each and every encounter with another human being.
I do not understand the harm in sharing my authentic self and true feelings, if intention to harm and do ill will are abstracted, and what remains is the representation of the true being. Isn’t this what human race is striving for—the disrobing of falsehoods? Don’t people long for genuineness? If so, then why do I feel so oppressed? Why since my youth have my peers and authority continually been trying to snuff my light? Why do I feel as if I am to be locked in some prism of isolation, left alone with my thoughts, so the world outside doesn’t have to fear my reflection?
I am not bold, I am not brave. I am me! But so many people can’t see me.
I crave purity and truth. I abide by these elemental necessities. Yet, I am continually punished for not partaking in a ritual game, of following some unspoken norms of what is supposed to be. When everywhere I look around me the world is falling apart because of all the unspoken lies, manipulation, greed, and trickery.
This dictated “right” way to communicate, the fear-based approach where people say what is expected, and what the other person probably wants to hear, in order to get at some unspoken goal, appears manipulative, preplanned, and superficial.
Why in society is there a limit to what we are supposed to reveal? I understand donning clothing to conceal the taboo of the naked flesh. I can abide by this norm by simply cloaking my body. But to understand the taboo of sharing the naked spirit—I can find no such cloak. I do not know what to cover my truth in so that a person will listen without their ears first burning or their anger first churning. I do not know how to persuade someone to my side. I see no need, have no want of these things. And for this, again, I am lacking.
I watch as those that conform pass untouched in the night. While I remain oppressed because of my nonconformity. Why must I become an untouchable in order to walk freely? Why must I stay hidden in order to be accepted? As many times as I’ve been crushed and hurt, debased and stabbed in the back for sharing myself, I cannot learn another way to walk in this world. It as if the legs that carry me can walk no other way than the way in which my spirit intends. I am made to be silent or to remain in constant affliction. I am imprisoned by my own desire to be.
This is such a lonely and unspeakable place of pain and shame. And all about me professionals with man-invented degrees are claiming their “truths” of what I am, when they do not even know how to even see who I am. They are aliens dissecting me with their eyes, though they wear spectacles with blackened and tarnished glass. They can see nothing but their own imaginings and what has been told to them by others; others whom had things told to them; whom in turn had things told to them by others, with the origin residing in some theorist, who himself was likely twisted in his views and perception by his need to conform.
In my view, I am an elephant. Being an elephant, I know myself as an elephant. I know how an elephant eats, sleeps, dreams, and walks. And I know other elephants who walk in the same way. Who think in the same way. Yet, I have hyenas all about me telling me what an elephant is like. How an elephant should look and be. Who listens to a hyena to know what the elephant is, when an elephant is standing right beside?
Something must change. That is why I shout, “I am Elephant!”
Everyday Asperger's 