processing

531: The Balance Beam

| Aspergers Girls

I have a hard time giving to me. It’s not about esteem, as far as I can logically decipher. Nor is it about being selfless or completely altruistic; though I strive for those ideals, I highly doubt they’re attainable in my human suit.

I have a hard time feeling my achievements and accomplishments. It’s not that I don’t take note of my hard work and efforts, and even the path I climbed, (or sometimes slid down rapidly screaming for help), to get there.

More over, I don’t think I have the capacity to feel, essentially, who I am.

I can see that I am intelligent, kind, and for the most part understanding and forgiving. I recognize what could be quantified as a kind of ‘goodness’ in me, and even an over-riding sense of wanting to serve to serve and not to gain approval. I get all this about me. I see it. I recognize. But somehow I can’t feel the experience.

I don’t know if one would call it a sense of pride or fulfillment, or other abundant amounts of labels—but whatever it is that other people seem to get and obtain, in an abstract way after achieving a goal, I don’t seem to have that. I can’t even say if it’s a feeling or outcome, simply because I don’t understand.

Perhaps this inability to understand is because I don’t think the race or game, or what-have-you, is ever over; and to top that off, I don’t even believe that the race or game actually exists. I see the process of achievement as a cluster of something or another, all unrecognizable and indistinguishable amongst the rest of life’s happenings.

To me, I do to do. I give to give. I care to care. I exist to exist. There isn’t this motive or agenda underlying my actions or ways. And if there is, the motive, if not for others, feels heavy, poisonous, and akin to wretched waste.

I just am. And this way that other people sometimes maneuver through life baffles me: the secret schemes, the plots, the webs spun and re-spun. And furthermore, along the same lines, in comparing the declared ‘loser’ to the announced ‘winner,’ the latter seems nothing of grandeur in comparison to the agony of the defeated one.

With this said, I cause myself great harm in overanalyzing my every move. The spectator I am, observing self, tinkers about with scoping tools, contemplating if my action is suitable representation as reflection of interior. If, in fact, in the light of the day, what is said or done, matches my intention or desire. In a constant state of analyzing, I am aiming for the path that is in direct resonance with my soul self.

In addition, I cannot detect the idiosyncrasy of common conversational rules spawned by the associate facing me; yet, I can dissect with fine-fashion the inner-weavings of my own motives. So much so that I deliberate with self questioning if my words are appropriately suited for ‘proof’ (to self) of authenticity.

Is the exterior self accurately representing the unspoken self? I ask. Still with this perceived self-harm, I need this way of being. The manner in which I tread upon a dreamland stage, whilst all about more selves collectively critique the actions portrayed by the exterior, is a proverbial limb of my essence. To be without such manner of existence, I would find myself broken and obsolete, and abandoned, the same as wood for fire. And as tree, I would weep.

In honesty, the worst of the matter is when another enters my zone: the place in which I sit unsettled watching for discrepancies between what is intended and what was produced; distinguishing the gaps, molecular they might be, between what is felt intrinsically as truth and what is displayed as reflection. I hide within, in constant wonder-state, questioning if what I have done is honorable. And here the pain comes, as the mind blunders and rallies for evidence of what is honorable.

Again, I find myself today, in the balancing act of striving for neither perfection nor satisfaction, but rather the gentle center point that does more to extinguish self and lighten all. It’s a varying balance beam of grace that beckons me to be all I can be, but not too much.

528: Named IT

| Aspergers Girls

Most people likely wouldn’t wake up Thanksgiving morning (in America) with a yank-to-the heart to blog. Obviously, I am not most people. I have too many thoughts in my head to sit quietly, or pace silently, or do a number of things tradition dictates on this day.

I have been partaking in the familiar ride of merry-go-round, gluttonous (see original meaning of word) over-analysis of said self, said relationships, and said environment. And no one within close proximity of my bloodshot eyes is safe from scrutiny. It’s amazing to lounge back and examine myself in full dissect-mode. As if I don’t realize another part of me is watching the hashing of existence.

I’ve come to several conclusions in the last few years, one being that my brain is naturally resistant to simplicity, and with that notified and rectified, and barfed back out into my reality, it only makes sense, (IT being some abstract unknown at this juncture in time), that even the process of self-reflection and –analysis becomes jam packed with innuendos of thoughts suggestive of borderline outer-space-level, far-out-there, uncharted territory. I mean to say, I can’t simply think without establishing layers of miniature clans of dictatorships, hall monitors, and the rogue rebel here and there. I don’t get to do that—the all or nothing factor out trumps the simplicity and shovels heap after heap of soil into my already marked spectacles—I don’t get to see a straight shot view. With all the leveled parts of my thought process, and all the interior battles at play for center seat, I am left askew, searching for the optimal view whilst heart-set on still wishing to see straight and level. If this thought process sounds overboard and complicated and too fluffy, and perhaps profound, well indeed IT is.

I have been beefing through the meat of me, left with a nasty residue of discovery. My palate is unchained and begging for captivity, some found juncture in the time line of reprieve. And that’s the way IT is, always outstretched, outreached, and overboard on the outskirts of center ground. And here I am, leaning back on my leather loveseat wondering, once again, what life is all about, my purpose, and the reason for IT all. I could waste some more energy, and couple all the thoughts with self-pity and apologies. I could tie a yellow ribbon of pity and regret around my idling mind loops. Or I can bypass that ghastly no-point jabber and go straight forward into what is leaping about my neuro-pathways. I’d rather do the latter. I have apologized to self and audience of self enough in this lifetime.

I am at odds with the basic concept of how to reason in my own mind. I am at a standstill, petrified as ancient forest, with the changes all about me. My environment has altered: where I live, who I see, when I see. And my routine has drastically changed. Everything is not the same, because of the exterior world shifting. I am not on some psychedelic trip and nor am I imagining nor delusional. In factual, able-to-legally-notarize life, so much change has occurred in the last few months that I am left dumbfounded and immobile in thought. But not in a way that leaves me emptied and unable to form logical sequences. No, this is quite the opposite. I am thusly so preoccupied with an over-stimulating environment of change, both internally and externally, that I am drowning in a sewer of ‘where am I,’ ‘who am I,’ ‘where am I going?’ There is a true stench of tranquility, in the sense that wherever I go, whatever I am doing, and whatever I choose to involve my self in, I have an underlying hankering of unsteady and unsafe humming in my metaphoric eardrum.

I can’t be without noticing I am being. And I can’t think without noticing I am thinking. And all the while I am viewing myself and hearing myself, in full dialogue at multiple levels. I sound crazy, indeed, if such a word is definable. But I recognize what is occurring and why it is occurring. I have undergone abundant life changes all at once, and this process has left me swimming in a whirlpool of what is. My safety net of routine twice-removed, the predictability-factor of life swiped clean out of view, the knowings of day-to-day, the falsehoods of control, and the need for expectations-met, all gone in one blow.

And here I find myself with the torrential IT. Face-to-face with the reality that again and again everything changes, with my own doing and without, with a sense of manifestation and leadership, and with a sense of whimsical-tyranny outstepping my ownership of control. It’s all or it’s nothing. And I am left not knowing what or whom to trust in a world that used to not make sense, but at least had a constructed wall of illusioned-safety. With such walls torn down, and all concreteness turned abstract, I am struggling whole-heartedly to recognize where to stand and where to rebuild a foundation.

I am left recognizing how dependent I am on the false sense of security. How my mind craves routine and established guidelines and rules and pointing-arrows leading the way to retreat. I am left more confused than established in discovery, more torn open and exposed to the self-upon-self than secured in the ways of being; and mostly, I am struggling in a reality that no longer exists, because all that seemed paved with instructions of how-to-be and act has been upturned by the giant bulldozer named IT.

522: Outside the Isolation of Noise

| Aspergers Girls

I am much like a computer. I know that. I feel it. I sense it. I hear it. I take in more than most could feasibly comprehend, and spit out just as much. I need to process, both internally and externally. If I do not process, I will explode. Not literally, but definitely by means of emotional shutdown, spurting out, or losing myself in looping cyclic thoughts. I need to be heard by others, and indeed by my own interior self. I also need to reflect a form of truth.

I partake in communication akin to a hunter stalking her prey. I am in search. I am digesting the elements. I am preparing myself for future claim. I am reflecting, too, on past hunts, and bringing the memories forward for analysis. To exist is to hunt—to search for the meat of the matter and pull it outward from within, and to furthermore seek out that which is externally available for clues so that I might make my way through the forest that is my world.

Everywhere are trees. They are thick and mossy. They are stoic. They are alive. And each tree stands with a thousand secrets—some spoken and some hidden. And in this way I move about listening. I cannot be without the sense of everything bursting with input. There is a non-surrendering aspect in regards to my thinking. Gallant knights at the wheel of knowledge aching for an answer they know does not exist, and yet, they, these rouge-pages-blossomed, chase time away in a merry-go-round of maybes. I cannot stop them, and I, the someone beyond them, am left victim of sorts, incapable of surrendering for the lot of us.

The forest makes me blind. I cannot see through the trees. And the knights make me bitter because I cannot rest with them at the reins. I ache like none would know, unless too trapped in the wooded causeway, reaping what is taken in at high-speed but smothered by the incoming. I get trapped in overload. Trapped in a glass-bowl incapable of knowing what is what, what is important, what is true, what is necessary to process. A fish with no water, yet still swimming in this notorious muck of something deemed needed by some distant part of self. I can’t get out, but I want to. And part of me doesn’t even recognize I am there. Part of me can’t tell if I am even here, where I seem to live in this land.

I am nowhere, in moments, true. Essentially lost to my own buried selves—the multitudes of me who are shuffling through the debris of information. Each questioning the other for validity: “Is this the accurate representation?” “Is this a true source?” “What is beyond this source?” “What is truth?”

The knights battle inside as I move through the whispering trees—further aspects of self sprung up through the gatherings of words. They multiply whilst seemingly traversing into a battleground of truth; each contemplating while incorporating the strongest voice in hopes of victory. A win for the team. A win for silence. The totality of self pushing towards peace.

There is chaos, interruptions, non-stop contradictions, quibbles of sorts, and primarily confusion. Yet, no matter their futile attempts, brought up to the forum of exclusion, they waver away from the foundation of adequate representation fortified by truth. This nothingness of beyond bearing down its weight upon the galleries’ guesswork. And thusly, re-measuring occurs—long rulers and yellow tape stretched out in endless mayhem—judgment and discernment in regards to what is set out as evidence.

I cannot find peace here, and still I travel so. My only outlet found in emotional exhaustion, high-energy spurts of fixation, or the letting out of my soul in form of discourse, be it writing or speaking.

And so it is many times in words and tears and high-interest, I typically find reprieve. I don’t know why or how, or the ways in which I work beyond what comes forth as fragmented awakenings. I only know that I live most hours amongst the churning of selves in the shadows of the talking forest longing to be heard outside of the isolation of noise.

521: No Harm Intended, and other aspects of this Aspie Girl

| Aspergers Girls

No Harm Intended

Anger:

When someone gets mad at me I feel like my world is coming to an end. I literally do. I have thoughts of ending my life, about how worthless I am, and about how I am not fit or made for this world.

Conflict confuses me. Anger scares me. And any type of disagreement makes me wonder why there is such a thing as discord. Particularly scary for me is the silent treatment, withdrawn emotion, or the ‘cold shoulder.’ It’s not the action or words that scares me, not even the person, it is the way my brain responds.

During conflict of any type, I go into hyper-speed and live through the worst-case scenarios, having flashes of all the feasible most horrific things that could happen as a result of the situation. I experience my thoughts as complete visuals—full on scenery, liken to vivid dreaming, with emotions, sensations, full color and sound. I experience multiple mini-scenarios in a matter of seconds. And I come out bewildered and exhausted, and barely able to focus. With all of this, I have this emptiness as well. When I am triggered by conflict, I want to make a plan and make a plan fast. If I have a plan, I think I will be okay. I will find my way out and survive. If I don’t have a plan, I find it hard to concentrate on anything else. In order to have a plan, I must first evaluate the situation, find feasible reasons why the event is happening, and then set about to find solutions. I get stuck at each step, push myself out and then loop through again. My entire worst fears surface. Without doubt, I know it is the end. It feels like a death of sorts.

I am not afraid of the fighting itself. But I am very terrified of how I will react. I know with certainty I am not a wimp or codependent. I stick up for myself and state my needs, set boundaries, and make choices to protect myself. I am not afraid of hearing about what is on the other person’s mind or even taking constructive (or not-so-constructive) criticism. I am not afraid to fight back verbally, if I feel threatened. It’s none of that; the fear all has to do with the inner workings of my mind and my response.

Authenticity:

I want to be myself entirely; so much so that the times I think I might not be behaving with authenticity, (e.g., using a tone that doesn’t reflect my inner thoughts and emotions), I beat myself up mentally. Inside there is some self-set standard of how to behave. If I am not true to myself there is a nudging inside that sits on me like the weight of a sandbag. How this heaviness exists and why it comes, I don’t know. How it determines right or wrong in relation to my inner ‘true’ being, I know not. With so much ‘not knowing’ going on it is amazing that this regulator of authentic self still exists. But it does.

In judging my authenticity I look at everything about my representation of self, including the way I walk, the way I talk, the manner in which I present myself, and each and every word I use. I do this repeatedly before I speak sometimes and always after I speak, wondering if what I am representing of self is self. I don’t know why this is so important to me—the act of over-analysis of self to find truth and authenticity—yet, I am psychologically locked in the same room as truth-seeking.

There are times I fight the being ‘real’ and want to turn it off, many times. There are times I want to tape my mouth shut and not speak. I can tell myself, even promise myself profusely, that I will not tell someone something. (This could be a simple fact, an aspect about myself, another or an event, a conclusion about an emotion, a revelation of sorts, or information that reveals an intimate aspect of a given situation.) But it doesn’t matter how I try to stop the train of what is words coming out of me. For despite my best attempts the locomotive comes, charging in with full force. And then I step back and think: “Here I go again.”

Truth:

I can’t live burdened and in that way I appear selfish. But the truth of the matter is I don’t want to be this way. There is another driver beyond me: a director. He is the one making the calls. Personally, this me, this person now that is consciously aware and writing, she would like to stop, she would like to remain silent, she would like to keep something to herself, but she cannot. She isn’t ‘allowed’ to be false or non-genuine. She isn’t allowed to house secrets.

She is sworn to this all-encompassing law of ‘the truth shall set you free.’ Only the truth is confusing. Only the truth can be convoluted and mixed up and come with a whole bunch of strings attached. The truth can be buried under an avalanche of ego-will and manipulation and selfish desire. The truth can be jaded by subjective perception and personal collected truths.

Yet, to be as authentic as possible, the truth itself must be unmasked, dug up and examined. Here in lies more work for my brain. For all at once, in conversation and outside conversation, I am examining self, looking for clues of dishonesty and non-representation of authentic being, while dissecting the elements that classify true truth.

As a result of this instinctual given necessity to walk through the world as a genuine representation of me, I can’t lie without deep regret and remorse; for the act of not being true feels like a direct affliction to my being, as if I wound myself in the process of falsehood. I have lied, usually in times I am trying to protect another, think I am protecting another, or confused, lost and overwhelmed. I have lied, and in the act felt wounded and wrong. I always regret and relive lies, in a perpetual purgatory, no matter how small or how well-intentioned I thought I was being.

In addition to outright lies, I can’t tell a partial truth without partaking in deep reflection of why I did such a (terrible) thing. I concentrate on the elements I left out of the telling, the whys of why I only told half a truth, justifying and then punishing the act. And I do the same if I leave out a detail of a story. For instance, in recollecting my day to someone the times events occurred must be exact. To say even a minute less or more, or a time a few minutes off, seems wrong. The details must reflect the truth of what I recall as much as possible, not too complex or too long-winded, and not ever leading someone in the wrong direction.

Reviewing Speech:

After I say something, like a sentence or two, to another, I go into review mode, a whole audience stepping in to decipher if what I said was 1) true 2) based on the best of my recollection 3) reflected from a state of wanting nothing in return but to be heard 4) lacking selfish motivation, manipulation, or covering up of any sort 5) not said to win someone over or gain sympathy 6) not missing parts that would take away from the true meaning or events.

While I am in review mode, there is a background interpreter 1) reliving the past events through a pictorial overview 2) rewriting a script of how I could have said something in a more authentic or kinder/loving way 3) watching myself go back in time and correcting what was said to better amplify truth 4) justifying said actions and suggestions through connecting back to previous learnings.

Need I say this all gets rather exhausting?

Linear Dialogues:

My linear dialogues are parallel and happen at the exact same moment. I am endowed with the capacity to triple- or quadruple-think. That is to say I can process several thoughts along separate lines at the same instant. So while one process is happening, so is another. And there is a finite goal to this reasoning, in which the lines of thought are straight and contain their own predetermined want of outcome and motivation for completion. I am along for the ride like a passenger traveling on three trains simultaneously.

Someone Observing:

The linear thinking on multiple parallel levels happens continually, in all conversations, and even in quiet moments of stillness when I am reflecting back to previous events. I also do this with my thoughts and behaviors when I am alone, sorting through this maze of how to be, as if there is a higher power checking in on me for my authenticity, or another person standing in a far corner observing me and evaluating. It is more natural, in fact, to move through the day with an imaginary overseer watching, then to move in the absence of no one but self. In some ways I don’t know how to exist without thinking I am observed. I am not paranoid. I don’t think someone is actually there. I don’t think I have to behave for them. I only feel I can’t watch myself, or be myself, or move without first seeing myself through someone else’s eyes. It’s always been this way. I am a participant in a game of hide-and-seek, not hunted, just found—again and again.

No Intention to Do Ill Will:

To some I might seem selfish or manipulative or purposeful in my intention to harm. But to me this is impossible. I simply cannot cause harm on purpose without great detriment to self.

I have tried to be angry on purpose and it doesn’t work. I have tried because in watching others it seems easier to live in denial, deflection, blame, rage, finger-pointing and the like. To be able to not fall into an abyss of self-evaluation, self-blame, and over-awareness, seems key. But I have surmised that I am only me when I am authentic, and in so being authentic and in so knowing the whys of how I act and how I feel, I cannot place blame on someone without denying a part of myself that knows I am always partially responsible.

I can’t hold grudges. My anger only comes when I am confused and overwhelmed or dreadfully scared. And so when another person is mad at me, if she or he accuses me and confronts me for being selfish, or purposely deceitful, or callous, or any a number of things that I avoid at all costs, I don’t understand.

I don’t understand how they can see me that way. I don’t understand how they don’t know I am constantly seeking to be my best. I don’t understand how they could ever, ever think I would harm on purpose.

519: By Default

| Aspergers Girls

A relative of mine once said:

‘Everyone is selfish, even saints, because even if you are serving others, but ultimately you do it because it feels good, then that is selfish.’

I am pretty sure he is an Aspie.

People with Aspergers, particularly females with ASD, sometimes fear they are self-centered, selfish and/or narcissistic. The fear of self-centeredness is indeed one of my mental fixations—meaning I sometimes obsess about the fact that just being a human makes me a little narcissistic.

When entertaining thoughts of selfishness, I go into this weird cock-eyed, inertia state of over-analysis. Nothing new. You can find me on the couch in my Sheldon-like spot, staring into oblivion, biting my lip, and sighing deeply as I turn around conjecture-corners of reason, fearing once again, I am hopelessly self-centered. Tears come, then, as I further punish myself thinking this is just another exhaustive performance of ego, feeling bad about feeling good. And that maybe I am a genius narcissist in my ability to feel bad about maybe being self-centered.

Once the narcissism trigger slaps me, this whole looping-grasping tango starts, a looping process I have previously bleated out in abundance through metaphoric-saturated analysis, a state of mind in which I once again gather all the ‘truths’ from my memory banks in a futile attempt to decipher what is indeed fact and what is not fact, knowing all the while there are no endpoints. Thusly, the modifier ‘futile.’

This analysis of aforementioned subject matter involves bungee jumping through deductions, including thoughts of: a) life is an illusion, b) DSM-V is largely controlled by pharmaceutical purse-strings c) most ‘conditions’ overlap one another d) family dynamics, diet/nutrition, depletion of our natural nutrients in soil, pollution, chemical-poisoning, infection, mutated swelly-breasted chickens, etc. affect our minds e) genetics f) quantum physics, multiple universes, string theory g) the fact that electrons and living bacteria in yogurt respond to an observer’s thoughts and emotions h) and if the statement near letter A listed above is true then the rest points listed are a moot point

Then I start to over-analyze me, knowing far too much about the literature in the mental health genre-bowl in general, and knowing far too much about me (see previous 600 pages), and having housed psychology and counseling as my special interest pocket for most of my life. (My mother worked for the family therapist Virginia Satir; and I was pretty much swooning at the thought of emulating her since the age of nine.)

I think I have been paranoid about the possibility of losing my mind since I first sat hunched over in a bush (literally) at the age of eight, contemplating the vastness of the universe and what was outside the universe. My son with Aspergers is similar, but ripened earlier than me; he asked me point-blank while twirling his toes in his car seat (age three), “Mommy, who birthed God? And who birthed that person? And how do you know?” So there’s that.

My point is that I have concluded over and over that there are (infinite) murky areas in the realm of mental health; so if anything had the capacity to drive me batty, based on the subject’s lack of pinpoint-ability in regard to conclusive evidence, it would be this psychological mumbo-jumbo matter.

Of course, I realize, some people, regardless, require medication for their safety and the safety of others, and/or to function in life. And yes, I have empathy for those people, some being my friends. But I wonder where the lines are, as everything seems to bleed into the next, and so many people have their different theories, answers, and remedies. It’s very much a disaster for anyone with a mind like mine to even consider all the loopholes and unanswered questions in regards to mental health. I guess I am glad I have a neurological condition, and not a ‘mental health’ condition (yet), because, as we all know: neurological conditions are so cut and dry! Hahahaha!

(I am wondering what cut and dry means, and for some reason picturing a pioneer woman hanging raw meat on a line of string. Beef Jerky! Gasp. We are so much a conditioning of our environment.)

Anyhow, if you are an Aspie Chick or an Aspie Rooster rest assured you are likely not narcissistic. I don’t know for sure, but I’d say if you are constantly worried about it then there’s a good chance you aren’t. Chances are you harvest far too much genuine love for people not based on your own self-gain, and that you over-think that you are too self-centered. Also, there’s a possibility, too, if you are like me, that you get down on yourself, not because you aren’t elevated in status, or not performing well, or not gaining attention of peers (narcissist’s idea of failure), but because you are or might be! Goddess forbid if someone pays attention to me in a positive way! It’s like we have this humble-stinger stuck in our butts! Oh crap, I feel a little good about myself, someone noticed me, someone complimented me so……..something must be wrong with me. Self-inflicted gluttony commenced—whip, whip, whip.

I mean seriously, I don’t know how many times I have cried about how afraid I am that I might be too self-centered. I mean I know I am self-focused, because I hyper-focus on everything, e.g., other people, special interests, fixations, pending danger, the fly on the wall, the speed in which I type, the grumble in my tummy, the octave of the fridge hum, etc. And I just happen to be another focal point, and also a case subject (guinea pig) for my own HUGE special interest: Aspergers. So following the logical dots, then yes, I am my own special interest, but by default. Seriously, I’d much rather jump into your mind and write about you. Any takers?

Trust me, I go into these weekly fits of self-loathing and wanting to stop writing in which I wish to cash in my creative hankering for the life of a meditating (naked) Zen hermit who does nothing but focus on light.

On the same topic, interestingly enough, my fifteen-year-old Aspie son, no longer in his car seat, said to me a few days ago: I think I might be slightly narcissist because I realize I care more about the enjoyment I might feasibly gain from a new gaming system than the other things we are talking about that other people would think matter. But that doesn’t bother me.

I gave him a reassuring, logical response.

I wasn’t doing him any favors.

He’d already concluded, within seconds:

“Narcissism is part of the human condition and without people who were hyper-focused on their own self-interests nothing would get done in this world. I find it best just to accept the illusion of life and enjoy it as much as I can without purposely causing harm. I see it. And I accept it…The world doesn’t really have any antagonists.”

Okay, so I definitely think he’s smarter than me.