thoughts

Dirty D’s, Don’t You Weep!

| Aspergers Girls


Here’s the song, so you can have the tune in your head.

Replace the lyrics Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap with the words Dirty D’s, Don’t you Weep. And then you’ll know what the inside of Sir Brain sounds like!

Crazy Frog has a crush on Joan Jett. I like her nose. And she’s easier on my ears, than AC/DC. Thus the choice in videos.

I herby proclaim myself a defender of the letter D!

I’ve been thinking about the letter D for about a week now. Yes, this is an example of what I think about. Laugh now, or forever remain silent.What made the D-thinking worse, is having the D’s singing and dancing to the song of Dirty Deeds by AC/DC, inside my head.  I knew there was no resting until I wrote about the letter D. My sanity takes precedence over what I write about. Hmmmm??? I have to wonder what that previous sentence actually means.

Did you know that the letter D has a bad rap? Think about it. The letters A, B, and C get all the credit in grade school and college; D is passing, but barely. It’s like the lowest of the lowest, before you fail. Not a very nice position to be in.

Poor lowly, D!

D is associated with words like dirt, ditch, demon and the ruler of the underworld. D is the beginning letter of dystopia, which means a place where all is as bad as possible! I can’t write that sentence without an explanation mark. It literally doesn’t get any worse than dystopia. (That’s humor.)

D starts the word dysteleology, a doctrine of purposelessness in nature, as in nonfunctional or nonessential parts. Yikes. And the letter D is found in one of the most debilitating phobias: dromophobia, the fear of crossing streets (sidewalks can be dangerous, too). Imagine that one! Thinking Aspergers and dromophobia would be an awful combo!

The more I ponder letter D, the more I realize I do a lot of avoiding of  D-words. (Sorry, Letter D.)

In fact, I often write for the sole reason of avoiding D-words!

I wager you avoid D-words, too, without even knowing. Take a look at this list. How many D-words do you wish you didn’t dwell upon? How many of these words have the potential to drag you down or get the best of you?

Dirt

Discrimination

Desperation

Divisions

Doctrines

Duties

Deliveries

Dating

Debt/Dollars

Decisions

Disaster

Death

Dying

Depression

Dysphoria (uneasiness/general depression)

Darkness

Despair

Dimwits

Dilemmas

Dirty Duds

Dirty Dishes

Divorce

Dog Doo

Daylight (lack of in Washington state)

Diagnoses

Dumbasses

Dork heads

Disabilities

Diving (I just threw this in because the first time, which was my last time too, that I ever dived into a swimming pool, a honeybee landed on my arm and stung me, right as I was taking my plunge. I took this as a sign to never dive again.)

Dormition (death)

Dubiety (doubtfulness)

Doctors

Dentists

Disappearing

Danger

Driving

Dinner (preparation)

Doorbells, Door knocks (This is for those of us with Aspergers.)

More I thought of: Dieting, Deception, Dementia, Delusions, Dust, Dust-mites, Dander, Dank Days, Dictator, Diminishing Democracy, Digestion, Deficit, Dungeons, Doomsday, Drunks, Dirty Diapers…it’s endless…

I can’t formulate another list using only one beginning letter other than D that thoroughly explains things I dread or worry about, as well as this list. I know. I tried.

If you research the letter D, (laughing, thinking this is highly unlikely), you will notice that the letter D has one of the shortest list of positive words available. D is right in there with letters like x and z—limited number of positives. (But a letter that is much easier to use in the game of Scrabble than x and z.)

The letter D has had a HUGE responsibility of holding down a lot of the masses’ frets and worries. Including yours and mine. And the time has come to celebrate D’s uniqueness and positive attributes. To say: “Thank you D for doing the dirty work!”

You can consider me one of those types that gives birthday parties for dogs; just pretend D is a dog. So here’s to you Darling Letter D! We aDore you!

D words to Dig!

Dreams

Dog

Duck

Doves

Deer

Donkeys

Dimples

Disport (play or frolic)

Dance

Dynamic

Dads

Daffodil

Daffy Duck

Dinosaurs

Donuts

Danishes

Darling Dear

Decent

Delicate

Delectable

Desirable

Dreamy

Dazzling

Debonair

Diligent

Dinner

Determined

Divine

Daisy

Dutiful

Dandy

Dessert

Dumplings

And my favorite song when I was eight: Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah! (I’m counting this one.)

I Do!

Did it!

Deserving

Doritos Chips

Diamonds

Perhaps even Dreadlocks

Oh! And Dough, as in raw cookie dough!

And maybe Dark as in Dark Chocolate…am I digressing?

After digging up the D-words, maybe I will finally get that dang Dirty D’s, Don’t You Weep out of my head. (Nope. Still there.)

There is a very good chance, I am being haunted by a mob of classic-rock-loving letter D’s. I can see them with long dark hair head-banding and air-guitaring. Cute D’s but very annoying, they be!

Like my mother always says: Anything is possible.

Thinking I used the word think a lot in this post!

Now I’m realizing, if you primarily speak another language, this post is entirely a dud! Darn it!

Does anyone else have an inkling to want to color in the Big Letter D with the Count from Sesame Street atop the post? I’m thinking purple.

D in Love (Thanks AlienHippy for this song)

Wait a second! How did a monkey get in the picture!

Dreamweaver

Day 56: Nothing But a Heartache

| Aspergers Girls

 

At any given time, from the age of fifteen to twenty-seven, I tried to have a best friend and a boyfriend. This pair of people anchored me: the best girl and the best boy. In some ways, people would consider me lucky, as I seemed to attract the handsome boys. But some handsome boys, and boys in general, I later discovered, could be bad boys, too.

Many people with Asperger’s Syndrome have reported that they didn’t have a romantic relationship for a long time, if ever. Me? I instinctively clung to boys starting at the age of five. Probably as a result of the gap I needed to fill based on the absence of my father and the busyness of my single mother. Being an only child in a world of ghosts, precognitive dreams, and extreme sensitivities to people, places, things, while having an acute sense of sight, sound, hearing, and touch, left me longing to cling to something, if only for balance and retreat.

As I reached my teenage years, I became liken to a high-quality, food storage, plastic cling wrap. I’d seal a male over with my entire essence, and remain stuck there, in full-grip mode. I remember thinking I was experienced with relationships. Keen on how they worked, what to do, and how to keep a “man.”  But I wasn’t.  I was weathered for certain: rusted around the outside like a metal pole set out in the rain one too many winters. But I definitely wasn’t experienced.  I hadn’t the faintest idea of how to take care of my needs and wants, beyond lassoing a male to do things for me.  I was quite pathetic, in an unintentional, hadn’t-meant-to-be, way.

By my early twenties, after graduating from college with honors and starting my first teaching job, I was deeply ashamed of the woman I’d become.  And more times than not, I didn’t know the part of ME that I played in life—didn’t know my lines or even where to find the script. From one moment to the next I was changing.  In one scene I played the role of the dedicated soon-to-be school teacher, and in the next a desperate crazy fool clinging to whatever man she could get her hands on.  A fisherman in the game of love, I’d learned to bait my hook and cast my pole, but hadn’t known to catch and release.

As time passed, each man I met, no matter where or when, who showed the slightest interest in me, soon became my new love interest.  I was fortunate in high school to have had two boyfriends (at different times) that treated me tenderly and with respect. However, later, I dated men from all walks of life, most of whom were extremely damaged in someway or another.  And all who were addicted to something or someone.

The worst of being with a man came in not what they ever did, but what I let myself do.  I made men my bed, and I slept in them while walking through life.  And I fooled myself repeatedly into thinking I was content.  It didn’t matter if the bed was too small, or too big, or if it had lumps.  It didn’t matter if the mattress was missing all together and I was made to sleep on the cold hard floor.  It only mattered I was in the bed, or at least what I’d thought to be a bed.  My mind fooled me.  My heart fooled me.  My logic fooled me.  While all along my spirit wept.

There has never been such a horrible part in my life as the years I walked half-blind to my own wanting.  In essence I was a prisoner, unable to move forward, sideways, or even backwards without pushing, dragging, or tricking myself in any given direction.  Best to stand still in one spot—best not to move an inch—if that was possible.  But it wasn’t.  I had to keep going.  I had to keep stepping somewhere.

The highlight of my dating career had to be the season I spent with the habitual lying, sexually addicted Don—a man five years my senior, who behaved ten years my junior.  At first glance I’d fallen head-over-sandals in love with Don.  The summer day he confidently strode through the Catholic daycare where I worked, I’d tucked myself halfway behind a shelf of books and drooled over his perpetually sun-kissed skin.  He was everything I’d wanted, dark and handsome, and tall enough to look down at me with his bedroom eyes.

The times Don and I were together weaved in and out sporadically through a span of half a decade.  When I first met Don he was separated from wife number one; when I last reunited with Don, he was struggling to patch it up with wife number two.  I was the in-between, but one Don swore up and down he intended to marry.

The majority of our relationship played out like an ill-plotted soap opera, with me as the dimwitted, star-struck mistress, and Don as the notorious villain. I can laugh now, find many lessons in the journey with Don, even thank him for the crash-course in what-not-to-do ever again; but back then, having no other models for beneficial love relationships and no avenue for escape, I was stuck in the mire of pain and misery, a self-invented trap that I had no idea of how to release. I cried daily. I wrote dark or needy poetry. My focus from morning to-night was Don. My life was Don. My reason for living was Don.

There was the time I dialed his number obsessively, about twenty times, just to hear his voice on the machine; the time his lover called me and said: “Just so you know I’ve been sleeping with Don every morning after he leaves your house. I’m those ‘business trips’ he’s been on.”; the time he totaled his uninsured truck out-of-town, and called me to come get him from the hospital, even though he’d been secretly rendezvousing with another that day; the time Don and I threw a Halloween party (which I obsessed and over planned about) and no one came (except a few of my teaching program college mates), because all of Don’s “friends” didn’t respect him; the time I drank an entire bottle of wine and slammed my finger in the closet, because I’d yet again been waiting for Don to show up.

He had a habit of just not showing up. Just not being there. I’d come to expect it. To recognize the raw acid-burning pain in my chest that signified the abandonment soon to come. There was pain continually lurking behind the wall of my psyche. I’d be in bed, the only one awake, and ritually would cry up to the heavens, begging for a way out, for understanding, but mostly for a way to make him love me.

I didn’t know any better. No one had taught me. And Mother, though I love her, hadn’t prepared me. Everything I’d learned from romance came from Mother or movies, or maybe from watching soap operas or another person. I didn’t have standards. I didn’t know what standards were. And I didn’t know why someone wouldn’t or couldn’t love me. I thought everyone was good, everyone just, everyone honest, everyone sorry.

Day 52: Stop Stealing My Articles You Boob!

| Aspergers Girls
This is our Scooby who passed on in February. His photo is here because he makes me feel safe.

If nothing else is gained from this post, at least you got to see a good-looking dog.

That’s our Scoob. He passed on in February at the age of six years. I miss him everyday. Today Scooby’s photo is here on my blog because he reminds me of the beauty and love in the world.

I’m not feeling too happy about people at the moment. Not you, but the boobs of the world! The people who seem to mess it up for the rest of us.

This is my dog Spastic Colon. She is still alive. I put her picture here because Scooby loved her and she's a Boob!

This is my other dog. I love her, but she is a boob.

I just spent three hours going through my entire blog and deleting as many photos as I could find. Fun times!

Hopefully you weren’t following my blog for the cute images.

If you cruise through my posts now, all those animal images Crazy Frog found are sadly gone. Sigh.

Vanished are the YouTubes as well. But there are still links.

At this point, I’m seriously hoping you like to read.

I removed the photos because of copyright infringement. I learned today, through my own research, that I ought not be posting others’ photos without permission; which makes a lot of sense in retrospect. Kind of that AhHa! factor.

I was researching copyright laws after I discovered some BOOB is taking my most popular Aspergers articles and posting them on his/her blog.

I want the word about Females and Aspergers to spread, but at the same time, I don’t want someone stealing my thoughts and my work.

Considerate and honest people contact me first and ask how to go about quoting my work.

Conveniently the “blogger,” who is supposedly some lady, has no contact and no comment section. I don’t think one article is anything he/she wrote.

I needed to do something about this injustice, so I made a cool sign! You can see it below.

If you go to the blog page I listed, which you probably are tempted to do, (as I know I would be) then PLEASE consider coming back to my blog afterwards, and supporting me with comments.

Words like that boob in the comment section would work wonders for my stinky-state of mind.

I know the article says Aspegersgirls—but I don’t want my work and my words on his/her page.

If you look, one of my articles still has my copyright protection on the bottom. Obviously he/she isn’t putting much effort into this.

I know this might not seem like a big deal.  But it’s a big deal to me. This is my heart’s work. Please consider not supporting bloggers who steal other people’s work. Don’t follow them. Don’t visit their blogs. It discourages other honest people, like me, from wanting to blog at all.

I will gladly remove the sign when my articles are removed from the blog page where they don’t belong. I also thought to include my own sign. Because if Boob gets one, then I should, too. I don’t care if this Boob’s blog hits go up. Hopefully it will only be for a day. Thanks for letting me do a mini-protest. Not that you had a choice. But thanks, anyhow.

The sign has been removed after contact with blog owner. However I will replace the sign, if needed.

Day 51: 4 Play

| Aspergers Girls
Play

I just discovered the word fore-play can only be used in one way!

In California slang: Oh, My Gosh!

And here I was thinking I could use the word to mean: the time before I played or the time leading up to play.

(I’m hyphenating the word fore-play, in hopes of avoiding the p-er-v-s that might use the search term. No offense if you used that search term and were just looking for tips with your Honey. I don’t mean you. But maybe I do. Can’t be too sure, these days…now I’m realizing I just typed p-e-r-v-. I give up.)

Writing is an act I generally enjoy. Not so much yesterday’s post, but overall, writing is like PLAY to me. I believe I ought to be able to write fore-play to imply the play time leading up to my writing. But it looks like I’m out of luck!

I am picturing myself in a crowded room (heart beating fast) and having a small-chat-chat with a stranger (heart beating faster), and casually offering, “My writing involves a lot of foreplay.”

At this time, I would probably start obsessing about my heart beating so very fast, and start hypothesizing all the ways in which I could be dying, e.g., heart attack brought on by genetic mutation, clogged arteries, and my favorite, that Sir Brain continually obsesses about—heart suddenly explodes for unknown reason!

As I was obsessing, I’d likely miss the nonverbal clues of the person standing next to me, who was processing my statement.

I’d miss the person raise a brow or I’d miss him/her attempt to raise a brow. (I can raise my right eyebrow super high, and forget others don’t have my same skill set.) I’d miss the quizzical-who-the-heck-are-you-smile. I’d not realize a tape (CD for younger generation) was playing in the stranger’s mind.

Perhaps something like this: “Is she naïve, uneducated, bold, or just plain stupid? Or maybe trying to pick me up?”

I’d miss the follow-up smirk or wink—dependent upon interpretation. And I’d mosey along towards the food table, entirely oblivious of the person’s response to my utterance, while gorging myself on prawns and crab-cakes, in an attempt to subside Sir Brain’s rapid thinking on death.

They know what I'm talking about!

 Words like fore-play get tangled in my mind.

I love words. I am fascinated by words. They are brilliant and beautiful. And I love to paint pictures with words. Words are my primary colors blended into soothing pastels, when they merge with the white of my computer screen.

Words are my friends. And they are also my enemies. I keep words close. I watch them carefully and with awe. The slightest change, just one little letter, alters the whole meaning. Just a slight dab of painted word, a speck in the corner of the canvas, transforms the entire picture.

I still don’t comprehend why the word fore-play can’t be used in other ways.

The word fore can mean: the front, that which is in front; the future. A method of proceeding. Before. Previously.

 The word Play means: Engage in activity for enjoyment or recreation rather than practical purpose. Usually involving children.

But when I combine the two together, they don’t mean: the play you do before the play. This is confusing.

Why can’t the word combo mean the play writing I do before the writing? I love to play write before I write. I usually write a half page or more, before I find my voice and know what I want to write about. Then I delete, and begin again.

Some people, reading this post, are thinking, really? This is the best you got after you played and deleted?

Yep. This is ME!

I wanted to call this post the Origin of Fore-play. But I didn’t want to attract creeps.

Just putting that out there.

It is a funny and intriguing title, after all.

Be forewarned, don’t go digging into the word origin of fore-play, unless you want an eye-full. Neither do you want to search for images or search for examples of what p-e-r-v means. And YouTube—you know how Crazy Frog likes to find associated videos for my posts. In relation to this post, AVOID YouTube searches. LV is still hiding in shame. 

You might be wondering about the point of this here post. How this could possibly relate to Asperger’s Syndrome.

Let me point out what this post demonstrates:

  1. Words mean a lot to me.
  2. Words are confusing, especially when they have multiple meanings, or when society has combined two words to mean something different than expected and/or that don’t make logical sense.
  3. I confuse words.
  4. Confusing words can cause embarrassment.
  5. I am often unaware I ought to maybe be embarrassed.
  6. My actions confuse others.
  7. Confusing others can ostracize me (or make people like me even more).
  8. I can pretty much write about anything given a particular topic.
  9. I’m a risk taker and have a hidden talent for finding cool videos.
  10. The combo of Green Tea, chocolate cookies, and the supplement Gaba make me even more interesting.

You Tube Links You Might Enjoy

Sometimes certain words leave me feeling unsettled. If you’re like me, this is to relax you.

For those of you who were really hoping for more out of this post, here’s a frisky dolphin. 

And music, we have to have music!

Now I’m wondering about the words play toy! And thinking about when I was 18 years of age, a college freshman, and how one of my first college courses was all juniors and seniors, an upper division class, that I had no idea I ought not to have signed up for. And I’m thinking about the videos in that class, and the topic, and how my face was always beet-red.

Day 49: The View From Atop the Triangle

| Aspergers Girls

Last night I was up until 1:00 am worried that I wasn’t good enough.

Some of my worries:

I’m ugly

I’m fat

I’m aging

I’m weird

I’m obsessive

I’m not a good enough mother

I’m not a good enough wife

I think about me too much

I don’t do enough to help others

My blog is stupid

I care too much about what others’ think

I’m lazy

I obsessed on the computer most of the day, fluctuating between a social network page, YouTube videos, and this blog.

There is something extremely calming about my blog. I just click on the main page and stare, reread, and peruse the comments. My blog connects me to another realm, to another part of myself, and to other people who know my journey. The writing offers me a reflection of me: my uniqueness and beauty. My blog is my passion, my talent, my creativity.

Beyond the computer, I felt frightened, somewhat like a little girl running outside the protective circle of her guardian. When I pulled myself away I was nervous and I overate. I grounded chocolate-pudding brownies into mocha-almond-fudge ice cream. I had bread rolls and garlic bread, hash browns, and other carb-filled delights. All the while feeling worse and worse about myself.

I felt entirely alone and useless, despite my family being home. So much so that I googled: Why it’s okay to be lazy and Why it’s okay to do nothing.

I felt extreme guilt about being ME. I analyzed why I had this guilt, but the analysis made things worse. I knew all the things I should have been doing, such as: exercising, showering, drinking green tea, taking my supplements, getting out of the house. But I couldn’t do anything. I was immobilized, trapped, frozen. I couldn’t even change the stained shirt I was wearing or bend down to pick a crumb off the floor.

These types of days, where I am overcome by grief, fear, and fatigue, are nothing new to me. I’ve had these days since I was a teenager. The challenge is that now I’m not a teenager, I am a mother and a wife, which comes with responsibilities beyond my own needs.

These roles’ obligations add to my guilt, my feelings of low self-worth, and my inability to fully retreat, regroup, and reenergize.

Yesterday wasn’t the easiest of mornings for our family. There was some turmoil. This spike in the energy of the household left my brain sprawling. Any type of unexpected event causes me to feel unease and fear.

No amount of reasoning, cognitive tools, or talk can dissipate the fear. I have to go through the fear. Then, once on the other side—whether within minutes or a day—I have the clarity of mind to process and release.

Yesterday the fear stayed with me.

Yesterday I hated myself for starting this stupid blog. I thought for certain I’d never ever have anything to write about worth interest. I hated myself for thinking I was making a difference. I hated myself for my lack of willpower, my messed up emotions, my inability to relax, my constant, constant challenges. I hated life.

My life felt like poop, so much that I even Googled poop. I watched a YouTube on crap—and then wondered whose crap it was.

About midnight, I began preparing for the next day, hoping I’d awake in a different mindset. I wrote a poem about how I’m okay, listing everything from wearing pajamas all day to overeating. I started researching self-acceptance. Starting telling myself I am okay.

I understand with further clarity how I’m trapped in a cycle of perfectionism—always have been, and imagine I always will be. It’s something about the way my brain functions. My strong analytical ability and extreme fluid intelligence enable me to have complex thought processes and to produce quality work; however, those same abilities put me into overdrive of self-analysis, worry, and remorse.

My own thought processes set me up for failure.

I understand with further clarity how a well-balanced person experiences the ABC’s of Acceptance, Belonging, and Confidence. And how having Aspergers evokes feelings of Rejection, Not Fitting In, and Timidity.

 

I understand with further clarity how Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs relates to this female with Aspergers.

My physiological needs are being met.

My safety needs are not being met.

There is no security, stability, or freedom from fear. There are moments of relief from fear, but they are fleeting, always temporary, always changing.

My sense of belonging is limited.

I feel continually that I am not upholding to the rules, expectations, and norms of others. I question my actions, my motives, my own belief systems. I upset my spouse; I neglect my family; being a lover comes with its challenges. I have friends that love me unconditionally, but I worry that they will discover, at a deeper level, I am too odd, too strange, too much to deal with, not enough.

My self-esteem is limited.

I achieve mastery sometimes in my writing, in my thinking, in my ability to love others; but there remains an underlying doubt and fear about others’ judgment and rejection. I like ME most of the time. I would choose ME as a friend. I’d be happy with ME as a friend. Yet, at the same time I doubt my ability to be enough. I achieve recognition and even respect, but I over analyze both. I question am I worthy to receive recognition and respect? What if I disappoint, offend, and/or fall short? What if my faults are singled out? What if I am ridiculed, judged, and rejected? What if I become prideful?

My self-actualization is intriguing.

This is where my triangle is top-heavy. I do pursue my inner talents. I do pursue creative endeavors. I do feel fulfilled by my endeavors. It appears my self-actualization is reached from a different avenue than the norm. I do not progress up the triangle. Instead I take a ladder, lean it against the triangle, climb up, and bypass the center of the triangle, to reach the top. I pursue my talents because that is my refuge, my retreat, my coping mechanism. In this realm, atop the triangle, lies my freedom and power. Atop the triangle sits my obsession, fixation, passion, joy, and extreme love.

And that explains where I was yesterday. I was seated on the top-level of the triangle. High out of reach. I retreated to my place of comfort.

Today, I climb back down the ladder, back to the ground. But I carry with me a greater clarity, a clarity only found because I sat at the highest peak and viewed my world.

“We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do.” ~ Ethel Barrett

“I was a personality before I became a person – I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy, and driven.” ~ Barbra Streisand

“I would step into a place of being lined up with a sense of purpose and my inner compass, and everything was going in the same direction. Then I’d get lazy and get off the track. And then things would start to fall apart, and I’d back up and get it together again.” ~ Kathy Mattea 

Kathy Mattea in 1994 Teach Your Children Well

Okay Poem Below

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