society

425: What if I don’t have Aspergers?

| Aspergers Girls

What if I DON’T have Aspergers

But what if I don’t have Aspergers? What if this is just me clinging onto a thread in hopes of not being alone in this world?
What if we are just aliens, light-workers, empaths, sensitives or advanced spiritual beings?
What if I am a reincarnated sage?
What if I am a Buddhist paying for previous karmic waves?
What if I am truly crazy, self-inventing my own condition to feel more normal in claiming I am unique?
What if Aspergers doesn’t exist and this is just a human condition?
What if this whole Aspergers is a trend and being over diagnosed?
What if I am making this up in my head to fit in with a collective?
What if I find out from an expert I have something else and not Aspergers?
Am I smart enough to have Aspergers?
Am I odd enough?
Am I enough of anything?
Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee stop!
Who cares?
Really?
Get rid of the name. Call it a chicken-foot fungus dance. Call it the mushroom’s puke master. Call it genius. Call it gifted. Call it looney. I don’t really care!
WE found each other. And WE have more in common than not after years of feeling isolated and alone.

I don’t care what man-invented name, based on a collective documented list of traits based on the observation of some male behavior years ago, was the reason we met. WE met. And that’s what Aspergers means to me: Union.

We are together. We are no longer alone.
Perhaps we ARE from another planet.
Perhaps we are the only humans really here and the rest are reptilians.
Perhaps we are light-workers.
Perhaps we are entirely lost and confused.
Perhaps we are crazy nuts.
Perhaps we are the change the world needs.
Perhaps we are a trend, a wake, or a breaking.
Perhaps we are the new normal.
Perhaps we are just like everyone else.
I don’t care.
Stop trying to analyze what we are and who we are and why we are, and accept WE ARE.
There is no you verses them. There is no us verses them. There is no separation.
It is all just manmade games.
We just managed to survive.
To keep our heads above water.
To see through the madness.
To understand there are things, definite things that need changing in this world.
And if we want to start focusing on self-awareness, self-love, and self-acceptance, then YAY US.
I don’t care how you get there….to that point where life starts to make sense and you start to realize you aren’t alone and aren’t imperfect and have so much to give the world.
I just want you to know YOU matter and YOU make a difference and YOU are never alone.
Stop tromping over our parade, all of you doubters, critics, and people who feel the need to give your two cents about something that isn’t your journey.
I don’t care.
I really don’t.
Beyond the need I feel to tell the rest, who have struggled in pain so very long, that you are right where you need to be. Whatever you need to hold onto to build yourself up after this world has attempted to break you down, is what you need and is YOUR choice.
Shine, shine, shine.
It doesn’t matter if you have Aspergers or don’t, or if this word never exists again.
Let go of the word and reasons.
Just let go.
Breathe.
And be.
I love you.
Whatever you choose to call yourself.

404: The Space In Between

| Aspergers Girls

This morning a man skipped out in front of me, where I was sitting in my vehicle. I watched as he went on his merry-way. I thought that is joyful to see such glee; a man become little child free. And then his trousers, too loose, slipped down to expose a buttocks covered end to end in huge red boils. I didn’t know what to think then.

I feel a dreamer awoken from a dream she thought she’d understood.

I keep visualizing this huge bubble, a vast space encompassing the whole of my world. And I have floated up, much like a giant balloon, air-filled and light to touch, with open palms penetrating the top of the bubble. At least what appears to be the top. I look down to see the everything that was. I look up to see the everything beyond. I linger, my hands pressing.

Today I awoke with great angst. I feel emptied of much of what I used to be, but still entirely me in my making. I have this great capacity for bliss, and then, in turn, the greater degree for pain. I can delve into the pain so thick and rich, it is almost like a buttery-sugar sauce poured on grandest dessert; only it hurts, and burns, and penetrates a part I knew not existed.

I know things; and I hesitate to tell, because all these rules of telling circulate in my mind. My heart knows, but she sleeps when the mind is awake. And when heart awakes, the mind seems so distant and unconcerned. There is a balancing I find difficult, almost unmanageable. How to be me and not to be me. How to be in this pain-body ripe with thought and idea, and still recognize my ideas are nothing. I am only an assumption, an accumulation, a dream herself: a dreamer that is the dream, the dream that is the dreamer.

I don’t like this in between place; how I can feel so entirely divine and one with All and then shift back to this emptiness that ponders the empty beyond empty. I don’t like the pain of discipline. The pain of experiencing the now. The pain of avoiding the fear and agony. But equally in degree, is the turbulence of letting the thoughts enter. I be either gatekeeper in mental pain controlling the switchboard or vastly unburdened and free in my tormenting fear. I have no other way to be. Unless in bliss or in the spell of hearing the lessons—but even that must end.

The lessons fill me entirely. I hear the truth, or what appears the truth, over and over, in these huge gigantic sweepings of knowing. But then heart knows not what to do. How to be. How to share. Or if to shut her mouth and dare not speak. For I recognize my insignificance.

Still I be this mind, and still I be this body. I feel more phantom than ever, wandering about and wishing for the same limbs and eyes; so at least all else, the people and forlorn view, still seemed to witness same. Instead all seems a strange land, and I a strange woman undone and brought forward into the nothing.

I am spectator now. Victim before. Victim no more except onto myself.

And here the responsibility comes: the demon thoughts of how to be no longer and yet to be. The rules enter, as before, but now at different levels: the ways of this new found world.

Such intensity, such newness, such wonderment, that I grow speechless in my speech. And still there is this pulse, this heart, this want to be. Who am I that can breathe and feel, but still see beyond what is?

I am imploded in sadness here within the making of rules; watching the dictator fear slip through as guise of the rules of how to be outside the rules. There are layers upon layers of rigidness, in which I slice; yet, upon slicing, the other boundary emerges, two-fold, gigantic in appearance, a big-brother to the last, the roar ferocious, with a truth so unbearable in its light that I know not whether to glide into and drink or run away in terror.

I have slayed the master of you—the one I put upon throne and made my judge and personhood. But now I must face the jury—the many pawns I be, scurrying about as if to not fall off the checkered board. And still they fall, one by one, into some abyss. And still I be.

It is mind-boggling and dangerous, and I know not how to stop and how to proceed. I cry out for direction and there is always the knowing, the answer, the gift of love and understanding. But even this has become like too much sugar, too much goodness, too much to see in a place of such blindness.

I can write, and then open book of one form, and find what I have written. I can see, and then awake from the seeing, and turn to see the happening. Sometimes the time seems to be naught, and the naught seems to be wrapped in multiple-parallel happenings. What was there becomes not there, and what was not there, becomes there. I can’t understand it, nor do I try, but still it comes.

At moments I feel forlorn and un-chosen by my own self, granted much with no basket for carrying and no foundation for relief.

I can’t be this or that. So I must be nothing. But there is no guidebook for nothing. For even latching onto nothing is latching onto something. There are vast contradictions and complexities; the very uncertainty itself as truth. I see, but to tell another I see is at once defaming my own seeing. Announcing I am something in the mere wanting to share the thought of nothing.

Before I allowed myself to be judged and formed and reformed. I was still a part. I was the puppet in a play. I belonged even in my thoughts of un-belonging. Now I don’t even un-belong.

Yesterday, I felt the spike of isolation. In my new finding of naught, I allowed myself to venture on a walk around the lake. I took in the nature; I took in the guiding voice; I took in the pulsing love; I saw about me beauty. I tried, in this state to reach out, but I remained entirely invisible. The harder I smiled, the more I tried to be seen, the less I was seen. Each passerby, say one, paid passing glance, and many frowned. I couldn’t penetrate whatever I was in. I couldn’t be witnessed. I couldn’t be formed. I couldn’t be made into another’s thought and interpretation. I was nothing I could see, and none that could see me. I was lost in my own finding of nothing.

I became attached to the un-attachment. I became attached to the bliss of not being, and in so doing, became the misery of aloneness.

And so this morning, I wept deeply inside. I woke up not knowing how to be in a world so undone to me, inside a woman so invisible.

Again, I walked the same path; now the sun had been dismissed and the clouds awoke the gulls. The birds sang overhead and I cried in silence below. I wore a black hood, a black jacket, dark trousers, and a gloomy expression. The tears welled up. But still I walked. And this time people saw me; they made effort to smile. They made effort to say hello. They waved. They saw my pain and in my pain could be.

And so I am left in wonderment of how to walk in this world. Shall I be the merrymaker unseen and isolated in a world of games? Or shall I be the miserable one embraced with open arms by the invisible phantoms I long to call home?

And what of the space in between?

395: The Core of Fear

| Aspergers Girls

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This is my momentary truth.

My mind enables me to piece together parts to make sense of the whole. Ironically, the exact tool I use to help me understand complex happenings of the mind is the exact tool that for most of my life incapacitated my ability to find peace of mind. In meaning that as long as I divide and separate my world, I continue to judge.

I believe all things stem from fear or love. I believe fear begets fear, and love begets love. I believe fear can serve as a falsehood for love, and often does. I understand that any love that has attachment to it is a false love.

Here is what I wrote to a dear friend yesterday. (A few changes were made.)

“Attachment is spawned from the need to feel complete and whole, based on an inner need of lacking, which can never be completed from the attachment to any sect, thing, or being. Wholeness must and always comes from within and through un-attachment. Thusly, when I attach I feel torn away from Source…

In regards to Effort— effort can have many intentions and motives. Indeed a home cooked meal only made in the moment for the purpose of love and sharing is indeed effort well-received. Effort with any motive behind it, for self-interest or other, or for a cause even unknown, beyond divine goodness, is effort not received, but actually a something given in hopes of return. So, in theory, my theory alone, with no expectations that you buy in or agree, if in effort I write to you because the focus is to offer myself and love (friendship or what have you) then indeed the effort is nurturing and fulfilling, but effort with attachment feels to me as poison to the soul.

I wish to give of myself freely and from a place of no self-intention, to everyone, and especially to you. So in saying I pray for unattachment it is in actuality, and in reality, saying I pray to love you unconditionally with no semblance of fear, need, or want…

Attachment to all hurts me physically, and when I am unattached I flow merrily along as if in a dream world. The temptation comes when I wish for something to replace what God (Spirit) has given me already, thinking anything here or there, or in between can fulfill me or take away misery. I apologize for the length. And indeed, my friend, had you brought me a crumb to my table or the feast for a king, my feelings would not differ. For it is not in what you do I look to but what you are.”

(Even in reviewing this conversation, I see I am somewhat attached to this person, as I especially want to be unattached.)

In reflection this morning, I understand there is a cycle of pain that many people experience. There is a false love and false sense of being that breeds further fear-conditioning in the world.

False love is, as mentioned above, any and all affection displayed that is attached to wanting something. This is a need-based love. There is always an outcome intended. Therefore there is intention for self. The intentions are numerous ranging from validation, the need to be seen, the need to be heard, the want of some form of attention, and so on. Mostly, false-love is stemmed from the need to be filled. When someone displays false love a sensitive person will feel the attachment, even if it is very subtle. I believe as a person with Aspergers, I feel this false-love attachment when some people speak. I feel their need for love.

A false sense of being or being non-authentic is a result of fear-based conditioning. We live in a world with false-love and false-beings, people who give out false-love pretending and thinking it is real love, and people pretending to be people they are not to conform and fit in. Assimilation isn’t really happening; what is happening is people are conforming who they are to avoid rejection. In doing this they face the ultimate rejection: which is rejection of true self. Not everyone does this, but these actions seem to fit many people at this present moment. Myself included, when I lose contact with Source.

People who are non-authentic will conform, fake who they are, lie, defend, need to be right, argue, debate, and so on. They often hide behind a false-truth, conditions they have set upon themselves and the environment and claimed as reality. These conditions are again stemmed from the root of false-love and false-being that self and others partake in.

We, as a species, look around and think what we see is the truth, when in actuality it is people re-conditioning other people about their truth. This is easy enough to see in studying culture and societies. Thusly, again, false-love and false-being leads to false-conditioning.

False conditioning is FEAR-based and can be called FEAR-conditioning . This is a result of non-purposeful fear, such as people mimicking behaviors and routines based on fear-based conditioning, without conscious recognition they are fearful. There is also fear-based conditioning created by people trying to control, such as big business and media, or in a smaller scale parents using manipulation with children. This FEAR-conditioning leads to Fear-based thoughts.

Fear based thoughts create more fear-conditioning and lead to the falsehood of MY TRUTH = THE TRUTH.

When one believes My truth = The truth separation occurs . When one believes their truth is the truth, he further isolates self from others and being separated experiences more fear. As a result he gives out more fear. Thinking My truth = the truth is a falsehood. This falsehood in back tracking comes from fear based thoughts that stem from fear conditioning that stems from false-love and false-being.We can begin to see a pattern here. Most of everything stemming from a root of non-authenticity and false love.

This is why false-love and non-authentic people hurt some people. 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.

Going back again, after the falsehoods have been formed leading to my truth = the truth, and to separation, then judgment is birthed.

The viewer seeing from a foundation of conditioned fear-based thoughts sees the worlds through degrees, variable, rights and wrongs, good and bad. A young child does not naturally do this. They are open and loving to all, until conditioned to believe the world is unsafe or affected by a fear-base conditioned societies’ actions. As fear-based conditioning sets in, the middle area between two points begins to fade. People forget that there is an infinite middle-ground that is more expansive then the universe. People think judgment is truth. And each person establishes their truth as reality and the right way to be. Judgment leads to judgment of others and self. One cannot judge the outside without first judging the inside. What you see on the outside is how you judge yourself. Though this seems cloudy and mistakenly wrong for most, it is a truth. Thusly, in review thoughts based on fear-based conditioning, stemmed from a society of false-love and non-authenticity, breeds separation (see * below), and separation breeds judgment.

Two things happen when judgment is birthed: people fear themselves and fear others. The world becomes a fear-based place, and this feeds further into the fear-based- conditioning, thoughts, falsehoods, separation, and so on. It is cyclic, re-feeding the core of fear at every step. Genius in its making and undertaking, indeed.

Here, in response to fear-conditioned judgment there are feasibly at least two ways, if not many more, a person may split from their true self and become imprisoned. These splits are survival mentalities, an instinctual response to fear.

When submerged in conditioned-fear, a person will seek escape. No one can live separate and no one can live in continual fear. It is not feasible. Fear and separation are an illusion the soul does not recognize nor understand.

Escape is found in two direct ways, (I have made these names up for clarity of discussion), in the form of 1) Buried Self (seeping further in separation perhaps manifested as Aspergers) and 2) Assimilated Self subconsciously becomes non-authentic

The main difference between the two, is in the first example, Buried Self, the one in hiding, might pretend to be another person, but become readily aware she is doing so; while in example two, assimilated self, the person is under the illusion she is someone she is not, her true self imprisoned deep within. In some ways each experiences the other split, but at differing degrees of awareness. The assimilated self can feel buried deep within and the buried self can feel at times like she is trying to assimilate. In this way they share more commonalities than differences.

The Buried Self feels the fear of the world and cannot pretend fear is not there. She sees it everywhere. She does not understand the falsehood of the world. While some seem to have blinders, she does not, and takes in everything internally. She is told she is wrong or different because of her behaviors of innocence. In the core of fear she cannot readily identify what she feels. This causes anxiety, discomfort, pain, self-infliction, and unbearable confusion. She may be obsessive, compulsive, never-satisfied, angry, highly emotional, and overwhelmed with what seems to be simple tasks. She does not know how to be non-authentic, and subconsciously takes on roles for a short period of time, until she finds herself back in the core of fear. The true self is imprisoned. She feels the false-love and does not feel completed by the falsehood. In this way love seems to hurt, and pain feels more authentic than false-love. She might seek out pain, because the pain feels ‘authentic.’ She keeps searching for true love, thinking there is a ONE out there, not realizing her own ONE is within. She thusly has a strong drive to find the ONE. She recognizes the falsehoods. This is her gift and affliction.

The Assimilated Self is frightened by her own true self because she has been conditioned by fear and judgment. In judging others she has learned to judge herself. She perceives herself as unworthy at the core. She is under the illusion she has readily adapted to her environment and has periods of joy based on worldy-pleasure. She might even think she loves herself. At a deep-level she still feels unfulfilled and separate, but is able to push this back and go on with daily living, perhaps keeping herself extremely preoccupied in the busyness of life, including other people’s business and happenings. She is able to not see the falsehoods and lead a reasonable life without extreme in-depth analysis and self-exploration. Thusly, the assimilated person looks and appears to fit in, but is numb to her own self. This is both her gift and affliction. This person might lie, cheat, defend, openly judge, be righteous about her truth, and feel somewhat absent from life. She might be prone to gossip, manipulation, and plans motivated by extreme self-want. She is complimented and rewarded for fitting in and reaching “normal” goals. She is attempting to feed the fear with more fear, but knows not what she does. She was born innocent.

The key to both types of imprisonment is in recognizing thoughts are not real and in recognizing separation and judgment. This will bring a person into the core of fear. A place where all has been buried from shame of judgment and from the repeated falsehoods.

The next step is recognizing that there is real love and connecting to that love.(Each person finds this connection to love in his or her own way.) When we connect to real love we represent and give out real love and take down the false illusions of fear-conditioning.

Anything that comes out that isn’t love, isn’t love. All false-love is based on fear. Anything that doesn’t feel like love inside the body or outside the body, is not love. People who are deep in the buried self or assimilated self, or a combination of both, cannot recognize real love readily. They can recognize the light of a true person who is whole and loves unconditionally. There freedom is found in looking upon each person and knowing without doubt that that person has unconditional love at their core, though he may still be trapped in the illusion of fear. The key is in realizing the dreamer is trapped in a dream, and choosing to love the dreamer regardless of the dream he is choosing to live.

A key to connecting to source is to dig up all of the illusions trapped in the core of fear In this way you give the fear no power. You remove the energy of fear from yourself. This can be done through careful examination of fear. It would be helpful to have some type of spiritual practice for direction and goal-setting. But it isn’t necessary.

If one goes into him or herself and brings out fear for examination, once exposed to the light it is seen as illusion. In this way you make separation null by seeing the fear-conditioning is false and your true self is authentic and pure and not trapped in your core of fear.

Once emptied of the conditioning you’ve held inside, you are free to be filled with real love from Source. This source is of your choosing. Once filled you can love others with real love, without intention of outcome or need. There will be profound peace. This evaporates the initial breeders of fear-conditioning: the non-authentic self and the false love. Because once one is free of the core of fear, he can love from a place of wholeness and authentic love.

First you must recognize self in the fear cycle. If you judge anyone, you live in fear. If you judge your self, you live in fear. If you love out of want, you live in fear. If you have peace, you have ridden yourself of the illusion of fear-conditioning. Anyone can do this. It is not hard. Just believe in yourself and believe in your brother and sister. See in them the beauty and see in yourself the same. This will heal our world.

I haven’t shared anything here that cannot be found in many spiritual truths and practices. The underlying message: LOVE and Service and seeing the LIGHT in all. When you see the light in all, your only calling will be to love others and a desire for them to love themselves.

****

In stating any truths, I recognize this is my current truth based on my belief system and exposure to certain conditionings. I do believe there are truths that can lead to self-betterment; the key being in not attaching to the truths, but walking as observer through the ways of this truth. Any truth that does not resonate with the body, mind and spirit, and any truth that causes pain of any sort, is not a truth I choose to carry. Any truth that initially separates in the guise of betterment of All, I do not deem as a truth. Each of us find our own truth and our own “guidelines” for recognizing truth.

Here are some Truths I have established for myself when seeking truths:

1. The speaker of the truth will recognize there are no truths.
2. The speaker of the truth will embrace the contradiction that there are no truths.
2. The speaker of the truth will not have attachment to the truth or to truths about the truth.
3. The speaker of the truth will not have specific outcomes (attachment) he hopes to generate beyond unconditional love. This is a specific form of attachment he releases–attachment to outcome leading to results which can be tangible or emotional-based e.g., boost sense of belonging, increase sense of self-esteem, build ego, employ false-love, increase reputation, reap material gain, convince self of righteousness.
4. The speaker of the truth will speak from love as he deems love to be, specifically from a place of unconditional acceptance of self and others.
5. The speaker of the truth will hold in his heart the deep intention to do no harm and speak only the truth from source-heart and not from self.
6. The speaker of the truth will feel a deep knowledge of truth that he recognizes he knew his whole existence.
7. The speaker of the truth will spread peace and love through service with no want of material gain.
8. The speaker of the truth will attach self to no sect., denomination, or exact way, as this automatically breeds division. Where he might choose a specific path for his betterment, this is not an expectation or need for him to place upon others.
9. The speaker of the truth understands multiple paths lead to truth.
10. The speaker of the truth has the affliction of truth: being called to share but understanding that invariably sharing any truth in form (words) sets up division. Thusly he longs to equally share and not-speak.
11. The speaker of the truth is called to service and love above all else.
12. The speaker of the truth continually wishes for release from suffering for all.

********

* Separation breeds fear, any type of separation, this is as simple as dividing two people into two sects—religious, political, neurological and otherwise. I have been taught to fear, to judge, to evaluate and to separate. I will not do that anymore. It’s not even a choice. It hurts. It doesn’t make any sense, and pulls me out of a state of peace. I am best for my world, for my children, and for my community when I am at peace; I refuse to purposefully step out of peace for the sake of judgment, division, and separation. They are essentially all one element. This is nothing new. Nothing I write is new or fresh or brilliant, and I don’t want it to be. When one writes from a place of heart the message is from a place of love.

When Emotion overtakes you

383: Too Me

| Aspergers Girls

Too ME

My husband said, “God was telling you right away at the door to the building. At that point you could have said, ‘You know, this isn’t the place for me.’”

I think he was right.

Last night, I stood back observing myself in the mini-van, ironically right along the same place on the road I’d earlier been laughing in rapture, and watched myself reach the depths of sorrow. I wasn’t depressed in the slightest, I was hollowed out by pain and left aching from within: the place of emptiness which was once my beating heart. I’d been cleaned up, shook up, messed up, and restocked, all of me screaming for retreat. Sadness doesn’t give what I experience justice, not even close. It was a deep affliction in which I was sobbing uncontrollably, and felt entirely at the mercy of my God.

I stopped mostly by the time I got home; I tried to gather myself. I prayed and I asked for guidance; and just then, as I was about to leave the van and exit to the dark outdoors, I spied this oversized animal. Something very wide and very dark; he (or she) was approaching the van. Straight at me, like an arrow. I soon figured out it was a raccoon that we think has built a nest in our tree. It was the first time ever since we’ve lived here that I have spotted him on our property. He just happened to wobble along in plain sight, right as I asked for a sign. Just like my God to send me an over-sized raccoon. He came straight to my van, straight to my door, and then dove underneath. Chicken me, (raccoons eat chickens), I dialed my husband, whom was a mere hop and skip away, upstairs in the house. As who knew if the beast, as cute as he be, was lurking beneath the van waiting to attack.

Bob came down and sat in the van, and he watched and listened as I wept. My youngest, bless his empathetic heart, flashed a note from the upstairs window that read, “Are you Okay?” I gave him the thumbs up. My middle guy, with ASD, he flashed a flashlight, overly concerned about spying a nocturnal raccoon, and having no interest in me whatsoever.

Luckily, I had listened to my angels, because about twenty minutes into my weeping in the driveway to Bob, about the time my youngest held up a new sign, in the same read marker that read: “Hurry up, I’m bored,” I needed that roll of toilet paper to scrub-dry my tear-ridden face. Eariler in the morning, I’d heard distinctly at 7:30 a.m. (in my own interior voice) to take the roll of toilet paper to the van. You’ll need it later today, the voice had warned. I figured my angels were speaking about food spillage or bloody-nose incidents from the boys; little did I know that they knew I would be a blubbering mess. Indeed.

In concerns regarding the symbolism of the raccoon, I think it reflects my desire to accept what is and to adapt to what is happening in my life. Also, I think it is a direct reflection to the way I interpret people donning various masks of protection, and my inability to understand what they are protecting themselves from. I like how the raccoon came straight for me, right out of the dark, appearing in my line of exit; for I could not take another step, literally, until I confronted this masked creature. I think his arrival enabled me to have a private talk in the van that wouldn’t had occurred otherwise. And I think, too, he came to pull me out of the sorrow momentarily and re-center me back on the straight path.

I explained to Bob in the privacy of the van that I was so completely confused by most of mankind’s behavior. And that I felt alone and isolated.

We continued the conversation the next day, which was this afternoon. I have combined the experience into one clump, (because it would bore me to go back and weed out the separate elements of the discussions at this point).

Basically, several things happened:

1. I was reminded of how frequently people judge and categorize other people
2. I was reminded of how differently I tend to think than the “average” person
3. I was reminded of how much I pick up on others’ energies and emotions
4. I was reminded of how much I still long to belong and be seen
5. I was reminded that most people seem more unaware of self than me
6. I was reminded that just because someone says they adhere to certain principles doesn’t mean he or she does
7. I was reminded that people lump collective thoughts into a theory and then generalize about a set of people
8. I was reminded of dogma

I felt a lot of things I’d rather not list, as to me it seems unkind.

My husband took some time (and more time…and some more time) to explain this NT behavior. (Neurotypical; aka, what I use and other people sometimes use instead of “normal,” as no one is normal. In other words “typical-brain” as is accepted by modern day standards; in other words: NOT MY BRAIN.)

He was quite good actually, in his description. (Ladies, shall we pause briefly, and clap at once, as I tell you that I trained my man well.) He gave this great analogy. I could see it all in my head. He said that he believes most NTs, himself included, walk around in these bubbled layers of walls. There are several, at least three. (News to me.) And that when they first meet their bubbles kind of touch each other, and that this is their ‘line of defense.’ They (some of the NTs) like to bump and met several times before letting down the first wall. Therefor they talk about things (boring, surface-level stuff) that isn’t personal or doesn’t seem risky at all (safe, boring, surface-level stuff). They do this to make sure the person is safe, not a threat, not someone to fear, or someone who is after them. Also to see if they share common interests and viewpoints.

By this point, I have interrupted my husband several times and drifted in and out of my imagination, as the bubbles were fun to picture, and my husband is very used to me “interjecting.” Here are some of the things I asked:

1. Why?
2. What do you talk about?
3. Isn’t it boring?
4. What is in the last bubble?
5. What are people hiding?
6. What are people afraid of?

Answers, from my bubble NT husband:

1. We have been trained not to trust. Think of all the messages you hear. For example: “You let him into your house? You told him what? You let him do what? You gave him money? He is just going to buy drugs with it…People basically don’t trust other people.
2. I don’t know. Basic stuff.
3. No; I think we enjoy it.
4. Probably our deepest self that we think is unworthy; fear. (Let’s pause and clap for the extreme inner awareness my husband expressed about himself, seeing he was formally living in a mostly NT world and acting like a Vulcan.)
5. Their deep dark secrets.
6. Being found out. Being hurt, basically fear.

I kept saying, for quite a long while: “But what are you afraid of? What is there to fear?” We went round and round for quite a bit, and it came down to that most humans have an innate distrust for other humans and most humans think at a core level they are inadequate, and some people do things they think are terrible and could never share, or have had things done to them that they feel ashamed about. And there was some discussion about the “dark side” that people hide.

I couldn’t understand what the dark side was, and what people were hiding, and why they were hiding it. I tried. I asked, “What is my dark side?” My husband said, “I haven’t found one yet, and I hope I never do.”

That seemed silly to me; really. I don’t hide anything and have no places of hiding and no bubbles, so there isn’t any place the dark side can live.

But the other stuff, it started to make sense. Soon I asked: “Well then, if there are two different types of people, some that are honest, don’t manipulate, don’t hold back, don’t have these bubbles, but are trusting and loving and completely open, and try to see the best in others, and there is another group who lies, manipulates and plays games to protect an inner fear that stems from someplace about something they are unsure about, then it makes more sense to me that the group that lie and are in fear try to adapt and be more like the ones that trust and are open, instead of reverse, don’t you think?”

This is when we can really cheer for my husband, for having lived with the sincere challenges I sometimes offer out in a relationship, he had the honesty and sweetness to say: “That’s why I think at times that ASD is a new race of people come to help the world.” Then he chuckled, and added he’d been watching too much sci-fi. I took this as an NT immediately putting up a bubble, and I understood.

During the conversation today, I was able to process some of the events that had me gasping for breath as I cried in the van the night before. I asked Bob, “Then why when I am authentic and true and real, and entirely me, do I scare people?”

Bob responded, with several well-fitting answers, all of which made sense, but still baffled me.

1. People don’t trust people; so when you are honest, kind, and sweet, they question your interior motive, your genuineness, and your truthfulness. (aka FEAR)
2. People don’t feel comfortable having someone spill out their whole self all at once; it is too much and overwhelming. They don’t know how to respond, what to say, or why you are that way. (aka FEAR)
3. People are confronted with their own inability to not be authentic and real, and this reminds them of their own secrets and feelings of unworthiness and lack of confidence at the center. (aka FEAR)
4. People are thinking you are in your first bubble, the one on the farthest outside layer; and if you are, then they wonder what you are hiding; for surely there must be all these layers you are hiding; and if you are hiding then why are you faking authenticity. (aka FEAR)

This saddened me and intrigued me, all at once. So, I said, “Some Aspies love the company of other Aspies as we are real, and some NTs like the company of other NTs because they are “pretending” instead of being completely real, at first.”

Bob explained that many NTs like to spend a lot of time together until they trust; they build trust; and he noted that I don’t need to do that, I love instantly, share instantly, and trust instantly. I didn’t understand the need to build up trust.

This brought me back to where I was last night, at a local church event, and explained one thing for certain. One of the speakers, a well-spoken women of faith, who was trying hard to do her best, she explained that intimacy with God takes time, just like our everyday relationships; that we share are deepest secrets with people we’ve known a long time, not just a few days; and that in this way one must spend a long time with God to build intimacy. I found this entirely wrong for me; and stopped myself from saying so, as I stopped myself most of the night from speaking up; because me and my higher power don’t need time to build a relationship. I trust Him; I always have. And I don’t need time with my friends to build trust; I trust in reverse to the NT way, I suppose. I give the benefit of the doubt ahead of time. God gets that, too, from me. And He is good with that.

At this point, as I am reflecting, I am thinking there really needs to be a church for Aspies. Seriously. Because so much of what the lady said didn’t ring true for me. I wanted to add a few things to her speech that she forgot to mention. In regards to intimacy with God she suggested we need to trust, to feel worthy and slow down. First of all, many people feel unworthy in the light of God and that is okay, it keeps one humble. (My little opinion at this moment that I am not attached to.) In addition, there is a lot more to having a close relationship with God (or a person’s higher power). For instance, somethings that might help, include:

1. Humility. Above all humility. This requires the release of self-righteousness, pride, and piety…all things that people who cling to a dogma have.
2. The ability to bring up all of the stuff to someone other than God. My greatest freedom has been in risking and being all of who I am. I have nothing in my closet. Giving it to God and whispering secrets is not enough, in my opinion. Because there are still secrets. There is still fear.
3. Releasing fear (Including fear of other people)
4. Release of judgment. (Walk the talk…that’s all I’m saying.)

These are my truths. They make sense to me under the umbrella of what this church holds as Truth. Under another umbrella there exists other variables. They might not be my truths in an hour or in a week.

I began to see that the discomfort I felt at this place was so multi-faceted. It was a combination of my isolation based on:

1. My high-intelligence and capacity to study and analyze things, like the gospels that were hidden and buried by the church, the way truths are altered and suppressed to make persons of authority gain power, and so on.

2. My high-capacity to interpret the outcome of attachment; for example it is impossible not to judge if one is adhering to one narrow viewpoint, aka dogma.

3. My ability to see past the bubbles to the core, to not judge, but to discern what is there. For example, I don’t judge Fred my cedar tree, I observe him. I might say he is very tall, one branch needs trimming, and there is a small amount of ivy growing at the base of his trunk—better pluck that soon. This is not judging Fred, and that is kind of how I see people.

4. My ability to be bubble-free and completely me. This really rubs people the wrong way. I become like a bubble popper, and people just don’t like me for that.

5. My capacity to speak my truth from a heart of love without need, want or intention. A lot of people don’t get this.

6. My ability to have a very close connection to my higher power. Many people, if not all, at this gathering I was attending were struggling to reach and talk to God. I am struggling to find a way to turn the channel off or at least adjust the volume down.

I sat through an entire talk about how to get close to God, when I already am, using techniques for an NT, which I already ain’t, from a woman whom I discerned needed a few branches trimmed. I wanted to see Jesus on the stage. I wanted to see.

1. Extreme Vulnerability
2. Exposure expressed in humility
3. Unconditional Love
4. No judgment
5. No assumptions
6. Acceptance

I wanted to see outside of the bubbles. I wanted to be taught by a bubble-free person. I wanted to be surrounded by people who got me and saw me and wanted to see me; people who weren’t scared of me because I choose to not live in fear.

I am not trying to draw lines. Some of my best friends are NTs, (sounds silly, but is the truth), and they have many wonderful qualities and are very authentic and real and loving. It just seems like a large majority of people aren’t so real and I am living in a world with people who are pretending. I don’t think it bothered me to an extreme until last night. Until I went to a “House of God” and thought I would find the unconditional Love of the Light. Why? Because I am trusting. Why? Because I choose to look for the good. Why? Because A House Of God ought be a House of Love.

I don’t think I am disappointed. I think I feel poisoned and confused, and downtrodden. My angels have told me that like the gnostic gospels say, that the Light is within, and the temple of God can be found within. I get this. But man has told me to go to church for companionship, connection, and to be in the family of the Lord. Only they don’t feel like companions to me. I feel more at home in a petting farm or on a nature trail: animals and trees don’t lie, don’t pretend, and don’t judge me. Where am I supposed to go for God companionship, beyond self, when the community at large that gathers doesn’t want to see me or hear what I have to offer?

I scare people. That’s all there is to it.

My light is scary. And that’s why I cried. Not so much from the first sign, from the woman at the door who greeted me by looking me over and saying, “Oh, you must not be from here.” (I was dressed too nicely, for the locals I suppose.) I had answered, politely with humor, “What do you base that judgment on?” and she in return blushed and apologized. I might have known I was entering a house of judgment. What got me wasn’t the first sign, but the last sting of the night. When I approached a woman I was drawn to, because she was an authority of the church. When I confided in her she did none of what I would consider comforting.

As I was talking, with tears streaming down my face, of the great love I had for God and how I walked in peace and did not want to do anything but serve: She judged me. She warned me. She told me I was hearing the dark. She told me not to study the saints. She told me the best thing I could do was to meet with other women of faith and make connections. She was defensive. Did not trust me, and kept countering my experiences. She warped what I said and twisted my truth.

I had been searching for a woman of strong faith to guide me through this huge connection to God I have been feeling. I was asking her for guidance, for love, for comfort. I was asking to be seen, to be held, to be known. And instead I was treated like the bubble popper I am: Too real, too much, too me.

*****

I am not meaning to lump all people into NT or non-Nt…. I don’t even think these lables exist..Just trying to make sense of my world and how I walk in it. No one created sect. is better or worse than another. 🙂 I know this.

“I am having a hard time connecting at a personal level with people who claim to love and embrace a certain spiritual practice but judge, act pious, fear, and accuse. I get very confused and start to weep. I do not understand how people can be blinded to their own ways of separation and I feel saddened for all the souls that are affected by their accusations and what seems to be suffocated hearts. I don’t know how to respond, and so I step back in observation, and wish that they could see their true beauty, and therefor open their arms to my authenticity and love. I feel a stranger walking into a room, entirely unraveled and undone by another, before I’ve spoken, and then in speaking, entirely judged, jarred, and classified, put on a shelf with a label before they have tasted my sweetness. I thought this would change as I grew older, and others around me did too, that others would “see” me and “understand” me, and possibly accept me. The aftermath, for me, is this intense yearning for interpersonal connection, intimacy, and belonging. The worst of it being the doubt of my own being, and the knowing that I have the capacity to judge and categorize those around me. And then I wonder if what I am feeling is indeed their suffering and singled-out isolation so evident in their withdrawing from authenticity, or if I truly be the wickedest, cruelest judge of all; and so I weep again; unburdening myself from my own miserly thoughts, and waiting and waiting to be seen.” ~ Sam (Everyday Aspergers)

379: I am very saddened by the state of the world

| Aspergers Girls

shaman

I am very saddened by the state of the world. While I can only speak of the nation I occupy, I gather enough from others that similar events are happening globally.

No matter how long I live on this earth, I am continually confused by many people’s behaviors and actions. Manipulations, lies, and false-intentions aside, I am dumbfounded by the angry-hearts and finger-pointing souls.

It seems so obvious to me: don’t judge another until you have entirely looked at your complete self and accepted who you are, learned to love yourself, and made a vow to be the best person you can be.

And hopefully, by the way of nature, having been through that process, the ability to judge simply ceases. Therefore, I find myself in a quandary, as what I feel within borders much on judgment, though I hope it resembles in form more of a heartfelt discernment.

I watch all around, in this place I find myself a part of, and see people acting out of spite and bitterness. To me, this seems as children at play, individuals who have somehow never gained what some of us were naturally born with. So many walking blindly, a victim of their self-created unbridled passion, set upon a path of feeding the darkness more dark.

I am at a crossroad of self, in many ways looking back at where I have been, without harboring much thought or even intention. Neither am I looking forward. I have tossed away the childish ways of dwelling anywhere other than I am, but still the present lingers here and penetrates my being, reminding me of why, in the past, I so often chose the route of escape over living. And I cannot help but think that the gentle souls of the world continue to choose the same, to slip back into a part of self, where the light is pure and the surroundings safe.

My hope lies in the minority. For in them I see this endless river of kindness, acceptance, and genuineness. And there is where I choose to see my own reflection, in the soul inhabiting this lost planet, which continues to shine despite the glaring dark broadcasted by the deceitful and righteous ones.

I am by no means a religious scholar, but I have had my share of studies in theology. What strikes me as evident is that many religions and spiritual paths have the answers; they speak of not judging, not lying, not cheating, not stealing; they speak of detachment, release of the desire for material ways, and unconditional love. Yet, it seems, that still most of society is buzzing all around, hounded by some beasts, corralled in like sleeping sheep, and made to behave in ways that may not be notorious but are as equally damaging.

It seems I am made, as I be, to walk in this world half-blinded to the ways of the majority, left outside of the fenced-in and blinded, and watching from a hilltop wishing for my brothers and sisters to join me and step out of the illusion of hatred. I am made this forever minority, for separation seems the only prize over entrapment of soul.

Today, I do not choose to celebrate tragedy or turn a disaster into a false idol. I will not choose to share grotesque images, nor to splatter hearsay and falsehoods. I see no benefit.

Have we become a united people whom can only feel close when disaster strikes? If so, what then will keep the disaster from repeatedly happening? What if there was silence upon disaster? What if there was just support, love, protection and safety; and the rest, the disastrous aftershock of tragedy, the spawned pods of evil, were left behind—just dropped, just forgotten, or at minimum ignored. What would the dark broadcast then, and what would we hold onto?

There is a part of me that knows I would be better to release this, to let go of this pain, as I do the rest, to detach from the horrors before my eyes—the dark aftermath of disaster. To close my eyes as the wolves circle in tighter and tighter, the false prophets, of modern day, spinning their webs of deceit; our neighbors joining in the game of hatred and rebel, or perhaps shedding their own tears in the spotlight. See me—notice me—love me. Why not just claim you need attention without the façade of displaying a tragedy to bring you forward? And why spread images of hope or horror based on tragedy with your name stamped upon the photo; how obvious that this is a way of profiting from suffering, whether for self-attention or material gains.

I don’t understand how people can be blinded to their own motives and own intentions. How they cannot feel what they are doing. See how they are acting. And if they are aware, how they can continue forward. Who are these people, as I do not belong to them?

And for the ones gently retreating, doing their part to help in silent fashion, without want of recognition, without need to scream, what of their dear, dear hearts? Who are these ones who humbly serve? How I wish to join you in prayer or meditation, and walk in the light at your side.

I do not understand this world or my place in it. Existing here seems like living on a giant stage of fools, with everyone rushing to be seen and be recognized, everyone in this giant game of Monopoly.

I am deeply saddened, today. I am not sad entirely because of the events of the original disaster—I hurt for the families and the loved ones—but at the same time I recognize disasters happen all over the world. People die in horrific ways all the time. People suffer. People are beaten, tortured, enslaved, persecuted, starving, and so on. There is no shock to me when disaster comes—the only shock is when I see what should by now be familiar, the clamoring for attention, resurfacing of the dark feeding upon the dark, ways and means that remind me of how far we’ve yet to come.

I am sad mostly because I live in a society that has been in essence brainwashed, a place where people are bombarded with negativity and bred to believe in lacking, and behave as if in desperate need. If the world were a spinning top, and I were still child, I would halt the toy entirely, and just let the earth breathe, let the people step out of self and watch. How I wish people could see they are love, they are light, and not these false illusions they have claimed.

I sit here very much isolated, unable and unwilling to share in the masses way of being, unable to take part in a celebration of the darkness. It is like being made to sit in the coliseum of ancient Rome, whilst crying, when all about people are cheering. It is like, this agonizing grief, a singular one watching from a singular window, waiting for the world to stop.