My life in the dark

A message about curebies

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:50:00 +0000

I’m not complaining about having Aspergers Syndrome. I’ve never been complaining, and yet I get endless inquiries about treatment options and heartfelt suggestions for ways I can improve my life. My life is grand. My life is a product of the choices I have made and for the last little while those have been damn good ones. Things run fairly smoothly from my point of view, and yet all anyone else sees is how miserable they would be. My happiness apparently has no bearing on my happiness when it comes to public opinion. They are too busy listening to people who have never lived my life tell them how badly people with ASD need a cure.

I try not to get involved in the political drama that surrounds the issue. I try not to get worked up, but it makes me want to scream from the rooftops, or pull my hair out because I know no one would hear me even if I did. Any cure they offer could be compared to a lobotomy. If you take away all that makes up my personality then what is left but an empty shell that once held a vibrant and inquisitive spirit. I couldn’t live as less than I am. I wouldn’t know how. No one would.

There are very few adults with ASD looking for a cure. I say very few to be politically correct, but the fact of the matter if I haven’t been able to find even one and I’ve been looking. I belong to forums chock full of people on the spectrum and not one of them is screaming for a quick fix. Yea they bitch about the shit parts, but doesn’t everyone? I do however hear all kinds of yelling about “curebies” when all we are looking for is acceptance as a different sort of thinker. Not better mind you, different. FFS we make up a fair chunk of the population, we WERE the children being “stolen from their parents”, and a good percentage of us turned out just fine. Just for the record, a good percentage of Neurotypicals didn’t.

Its hard not to be upset by it all, when the assumption is constantly being drawn that there is something wrong with me, something wrong with the way I think. The only thing wrong is feeling that they have the right to judge when they cannot possibly know what its like to walk in my shoes. We are a minority, but we deserve the right to be heard.

It doesn’t seem to matter that those who know me love me for my differences, that even though I take some getting used to there are those who simply wouldn’t feel the same about me if I didn’t think the way I do. It doesn’t seem to matter that I’m standing in front of them saying that I am content with who I am. That we are standing in front of them saying we are content with who we are. That had we been cured as children we wouldn’t be the people they know and love today.

My message is pretty simple. The truth always has two sides.

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:52:00 +0000

I have to wonder, sometimes, if I will spend the rest of my life coming to terms with who I am and where I fit into this crazy world. It seems to come so easy to other people, to find that little niche where they belong and spend their days in relative peace. They have never had a meltdown in a crowded grocery store, or felt tears running down their cheeks on the bus. No, those distraught moments are saved for the safety of their homes, behind closed doors, where no one will ever see their weakness.

It’s like, that moment of clarity never dawns and I’m left sitting in the dark wondering if the light of understanding will ever grace my face the way it graces the faces I see when I walk down the street. They seem to understand each other. Why can’t I understand them, and why can’t they understand me? Do I speak in tongues too fluid and fast for their ears to register? Then its my turn to wonder if its even worth opening my mouth at all, when all they understand are platitudes and spurious commiseration, and I have neither to offer. They turn those blank stares upon me and wonder what that murmur was they heard when there is nothing to see here. Please just move along. I’d like to be able to breathe again.

It’s still dark in here, and my flashlight is starting to flicker.

In my dreams sometimes I’m just like them, normal and average and able to understand. In my dreams I can speak with them. In my dreams I can fly without broken wings. So why then do I wake up in a cold sweat and wonder where I am when I know full well that in those moments it isn’t my flesh that is lost? I guess I know the answer to that one, that where they see the trials of an existence like mine I see the horrors of an existence like theirs, so lost in their own illusions that they cant feel what I feel, or see what I see. I would rather feel too much, than learn to be content with never feeling at all. They want me in their world, but that’s only because they are unable to witness mine.

To wallow in their suffering is a foreign concept. To see it for the fact that it is and stop fighting its inevitability must seem like giving up when you are surrounded by those who have nothing better to say than the sun will come out tomorrow. And what will you do if it doesn’t? Those hollow words are meaningless in the face of a future that cannot be predicted. I don’t see it that way, but what do I know locked in this little box I have created to protect myself from their prying eyes? Nothing, it seems, when they only take my words, hear what they wish, and attempt to show me the world in black and white.

I never wake up in a panic when I dream in full color.

Feigned

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:51:00 +0000

“So you think you know me?” she said to them. “You think you know what dark and desperate secrets hide behinds these eyes? You think you know what terrible truths lie locked behind these pale and bloodless lips, what it takes to satiate the demons whose poison burns through my veins? What do you know, what could you know, when I have never opened my mouth to speak and instead was content to let you believe the lies you told yourself.

An angel in the dust is all they have ever seen, her halo still shining dimly through the layer of dirt and grime that a lifetime of crawling through the mud has left behind. A sweet and innocent child scarred once too often by reality to really be considered beautiful if not for the golden aura of expectations they have built to cage her.

“Fly” they whisper back, “it is your purpose”

It’s a simple as that, or so they think, to take the proffered hand and rise to greet the sun. To shake the dirt from her soiled skin and spread her wings to dry that she might soar.

“This angel you see, this torrid reflection of grace and hope, is a mirage at best. Why do you choose to fill your life with lies? Why do you claim acceptance when you can’t even see the truth? Why else waste your breath without even stopping to ask why. I bear these scars like badges of honor and this sediment like a shield.“

“Besides, I never learned how to fly without broken wings.”

A Glimpse

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:26:00 +0000

Boxes

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:32:00 +0000

In the back of my mind there are a bunch of boxes. Beat up and dusty they sit in the corner out of the path of any direct light. Most of them hold nothing but air, the memories they once held now scattered to the winds in a million particles of dust fine glass. Corroded by the years and lack of attention they faded into nothingness without even a whisper to herald their passing. Some are full to the brim with the shining past, bits of happiness and comfort snatched here and there and filed away to peruse at a later date. Flickering lights of conversation long neglected that still hold out hope that one day I will open them up and see what they hold. A few, hidden at the very bottom of the pile, are dark and forbid careless tampering. Locked tight to the world they contain those things I have seen and lived and survived that lurk at the edges of my mind and make up the glue that holds this otherwise fragile and gossamer child together at the seams.

Rarely do I venture there, and bring forth one of those boxes. Rarely do I linger in the past where they live, wallowing in the mud of who I was, and who they were, and the choices we both made. I hardly even see them anymore hidden in the dusty mire where they have lain for so long, long ago cast from conscious thought to take up residence in nightmares and terror. These are the moments I would rather forget but cannot, jagged pieces of glass in my mind that could rend and tear if I spent too much time wallowing in their presence. Yet I know, in my heart, that these same bits of my past with such power to devastate me also fuel my strength and that to lock them away forever cheapens the horror and terror I felt when I was trapped in the moment. The tiny scrapes and cuts they cause allow the poison that could easily consume me to bleed from my veins.

I have a great deal of affection for those darker places in my mind, those corners lost deep in shadow where fear and hatred and misery lurk in patient silence, waiting for the opportunity to pounce. Most people shy away from the very edges of their humanity, never seeking to know what lies buried beneath that heap of lies we learn to tell ourselves in an effort to hide all that weakness from the prying eyes of others. In the pool of my own sweat and tears mingled with the blood of my pride and the dust at my feet I can see forever reflected back at me. These moments make me feel not less, but more and stronger each time I pull myself from the ashes of the fire to stand reborn and stretch my wings to the glory of their new span. It is only when held up in contrast to these moments of misery that I can witness the real value of the light and comfort that floods my life on a day to day basis. It’s only by carefully unlocking those boxes and rifling through their contents that I can achieve greater understanding. What I’ve done is such a huge part of who I am.

------------------------------------------------------------------

“That one” she whispered, and he reached for one hidden back in the shadows of the already dim room. “No not that one, the one beside it” her voice got quieter as his hands neared the source of her anticipation. Wrapping it carefully in his hands he cradled it out of its place in the dusty past and lowered it carefully to the floor between them. She could barely look at it, knowing what it held, and tears started to creep down her cheeks, leaving tracks in the dust that had settled there in her search to unearth this long hidden piece of her past. With trembling hands she lifted the chain from around her neck and the key that dangled on the end danced in the small light offered by the one small lamp as she dropped it into his outstretched palm.

Brain Usage Profile

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 05:29:00 +0000

I don't usually post these things, they are generally a little too fluffy and see through for my tastes, but this one is surprisingly well done and the results were eerily accurate.

http://mindmedia.com/brainworks/profiler

Auditory : 63%
Visual : 36%
Left : 40%
Right : 60%

alei, you show a slight right-hemisphere dominance with a moderate preference for auditory processing, an unusual and somewhat paradoxical combination of characteristics.

You are drawn to a random and sometimes nonchalant synthesis of material. You learn as it seems important to a specific situation, and might even develop a resentment of others who attempt to direct your learning down a specific channel.

Your right-hemispheric dominance provides a structure that is only loosely organized and one which processes entire swatches of reality, overlooking details. You are emotional in your reactions and perceptual more than logical in your approach, although you can impose structure and a language base when necessary.

Your auditory preference, on the other hand, implies that you process information sequentially and unidimensionally. This combination of right-brain and auditory modes creates conflict, as you want to process data more rapidly than your natural processes allow.

Your tendency to be creative and free-flowing is accompanied by sufficient ability to organize and be logical, allowing you a reasonable degree of success in a number of different endeavors. You take in information methodically and systematically which can then be synthesized rapidly. In this manner, you manage to function consistently well, although certainly less efficiently than you desire.

You prefer the abstract and are a theoretician at heart while retaining the ability to be practical. You find the symbolism in a great deal of what you encounter and are something of a "mystic."

With regards to your lifestyle, you have the mentality which would be good as a philosopher, writer, journalist, or instructor, or possibly as a systems designer or social worker. Perhaps most important is your ability to "listen to your inner voice" as a mode of skipping over unnecessary steps to achieve your goals.

At the bottom

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 15:54:00 +0000

Every once in awhile I have to spend some time at the bottom of the well. Its like my body needs time to remember what its like to be sad so it can appreciate the good times and decides to stop producing those happy drugs altogether and I’m left in a rut I just don’t know how to get out of. I can’t sleep, I can’t think, I can’t communicate with any degree of effectiveness. All I can do is do my very best to live through it and hope that it will be over soon, that I can go to sleep one night and wake up the next day to a brighter world.

I think the hardest part of it is the effect it has on those I care most about. I don’t like being a burden but it’s hard to be anything else to those I can’t hide this from. The guilt I feel for having a negative impact on their lives at these times only compounds the way I feel. I feel like I should crawl into a hole somewhere and hide away from everyone until it passes but I can’t, and they see, and they worry, and the whole thing goes around in a big circle. I can accept what it does to me, I have a much harder time accepting what it does to them.

I feel like I should have better control, like if I could just look at this from the right angle I could make it do away, so I poke and I prod and I try to make it all make sense. Emotions rarely make sense, I don’t even know why I try. I know I should just ride it out, cry when I need to, sleep when I can, but that’s so much harder to do when there are other people to take into consideration. I’m stuck in a struggle between what I need to do to feel better, and what I need to do to keep them happy, and I really have no control over the outcome. I can try to smother it down but it will all build up in the long run and eventually overflow, eventually they will see, I can only keep it hidden so long and the longer I do the worse it is in the long run.

I know it will pass, I just wish it would pass faster so I can get back to living my life.

Words

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:15:00 +0000

Words are all I have, especially at times like there when nothing else seems to make any sense. 26 letters strung together in endless combinations that paint a picture of who I am, and what I offer, and where I fit into this confusing world. My tone betrays me, my eyes lie, my face denies the truth, but my words never do. They march on across these pages with nary a care for the tears that might roll down my face or the furrowed brow that signals irritation. Here my words carry more weight than the way I say them. Here it all makes sense.

As unpredictable as I find the world, I know that I am the same. Taught through social conditioning to search for the hidden meaning behind the things people say, the delivery has come to mean more than the words themselves, and delivery is something I fall pathetically short at. In a society where body language and social cues are such an integral part of the way we interpret each other I’m like a fish out of water.

I have difficulties communicating nonverbally and using tone of voice and facial expression in context. I often frown during enjoying conversation because it occurs to me that I need to do something later. I’ll smile while someone is recounting their horrible day because I thought of something that might cheer them up later. Learning to ignore this in favor of the words I am choosing must be difficult when it’s so deeply ingrained right from the beginning that these are the things that tell the real story.

I do my best communicating in the dark, in the shadows where my words are all there are. In the middle of the night I can talk for hours and never skip a beat, the words just pour from my mind in endless waves of consistent thought. Stripped of the uncertainty, the dichotomy between what I say and how I say it, they flow like poetry. Sorted and ordered on paper they start to tell a story untainted by the lies told by my eyes and hands, the honesty of these carefully chosen letters shines through, no longer hidden beneath the grime of mixed signals that mars my every attempt to express myself face to face.

Poor Communication

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:04:00 +0000

Today was not a good day when it came to communication. Sometimes I do so well, and other times I fail so horribly. Today was one of those failing horribly days. I have stuff on my mind. Nothing new, I always have stuff on my mind, but today it was kind of stressful stuff and my schedule was throw off because my boyfriend was off work. I don’t blame him, but unfortunately he took the brunt of it as my aggravation shows no matter how hard I try to hide it.

It’s hard not to take it personally. It’s hard to ignore all of the social cues I am giving and just listen to my words, when the general perception I’m giving is irritation. It’s hard to explain that I understand it isn’t his fault, and that I’m not blaming him, when my face is saying I’m angry. Its hard to convince him I’m not upset when everything I’m not saying is telling him I am. So he ends up walking on glass around me which just irritates me more because I can’t explain the way I am really feeling. Round and round and round we go and where we stop no one knows.

Time to get some sleep, more on this tomorrow.

Classic Entertainment

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:25:00 +0000

Fraggle Rock - First episode, released January 1983.

Whispers in the dark

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:51:00 +0000

That’s what I’m doing right now isn’t it? Whispering into the dark? No one can see me, and you can only hear me if you pay attention. It’s a defense mechanism. 100%. Its an effective one at that.

I purposely share of myself in a way that only those who really want to hear what I have to say have to listen. I’m constantly worried that I’m boring people, or upsetting people, or keeping people from things they would rather be doing. To compensate for and hide that little anomaly about myself I take a back seat in life, waiting for people to come to me, to let me know they are interested in what I have to say, and only then do I open my mouth.

Even this. No one asked me to write this blog, but it’s like talking in an empty room with the door wide open. If someone walks by and is interested in what I am saying they are free to enter and even join in if they like. I love comments, even the negative ones. They show me people are reading, and give me an insight into what people might enjoy.

This is a struggle for me, and I’m treating this like my diary from day to day, discussing what’s on my mind and trying to organize the way I feel about things. I put it on the web because knowing I’m not alone helps me drastically and I’d like to think I provide the same for at least a few other people. I have gotten an email or two thanking me, so I must be doing something right. For those who aren’t comfortable with that, that’s alright too. I’m glad you are reading anyway.

My mind is running in circles, this is a lot to process in a short amount of time. That mental disorganization sometimes comes across here and if I seem a little inconsistent I apologize, if there is a particular aspect of the blog or type of entry you enjoy let me know and I’ll see what I can do. Otherwise I’m sure the topic or genre will come back around if you watch for it. I express myself constantly and in many ways, but I can be a little spotty about the application. Keeping up with my brain is a full time job that keeps creating backlog.

Cheers.

The other side of the glass

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:32:00 +0000

They can’t see me. They’ve never been able to see me where I sit on this side of the looking glass, so close to their reality I can reach out and brush it with my fingertips if I tried. I wont, it just leaves me lost and bewildered in the wake of confusion that rushes swiftly through my mind as I try to decipher a world that assaults every sense I have. I can walk beside them and what they see is a warped reflection of the truth, cast in the image they desire to perceive, but never do they open their eyes and see the extent of the fiction they have created. Heaped with a burden of expectations I always seem to fall behind, losing my companions to the crowd that surges around us and defines the edges between my world and theirs. Unable to keep up with the flow of socializing it’s easier to just fade away.

I’ve spent most of my life creeping around the edges. I’m a social voyeur living vicariously through those who do it with such ease. It fascinates me, the way people interact, and I view life like one big sociology study. Sitting quietly in the background taking mental notes on what people are saying and the way they are acting, no one would even notice I’m there unless I stood up to speak and although I have a lot to say I’m rarely sure how to say it.

I feel myself retreating, looking for the way out, disconnecting from their side of the veil a little more each day. The desire to meet them on their terms is an ebbing tide that shows no signs of returning. My pride insists on acceptance and there are only a few who can see past the smoke and mirrors to recognize the value of the real person that hides inside. Those who can respect me for my differences I’ll meet halfway, for their differences deserve to be respected in turn. Those who would continue to heap futile expectations on me should know that they heap them on a husk of what was once there to be burdened.

I still want that connection. It’s the biggest dichotomy in my life. My need to be left alone and my need to connect with the world at large tug me in opposite directions some times when I want to reach out and touch someone nearby. I’m lucky, now, that I have someone who chooses to exist beside me, grant me that human touch I desire so badly, to do it on my terms and see it for what its worth, to appreciate the things I have to offer. I’m lucky to have met someone whose needs run so parallel and yet opposite to my own that we find strength and satiation in the flash floods that consume us. Someone who can see the reality Through Glass.

Through Glass

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:23:00 +0000

Through Glass

I'm looking at you through the glass...

Don't know how much time has passed

Oh, god it feels like forever

But no one ever tells you that forever

Feels like home sitting all alone inside your head

How do you feel? That is the question

But I forget.. you don't expect an easy answer

When something like a soul becomes

Initialized and folded up like paper dolls and little notes

You can't expect a bit of hope

So while you're outside looking in

Describing what you see

Remember what you're staring at is me

Cause I'm looking at you through the glass...

Don't know how much time has passed

All I know is that it feels like forever

When no one ever tells you that forever

Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head

How much is real? So much to question

An epidemic of the mannequins

Contaminating everything

When thought came from the heart

It never did right from the start

Just listen to the noises

(Null and void instead of voices)

Before you tell yourselfIt's just a different scene

Remember it's just different from what you've seen

I'm looking at you through the glass...

Don't know how much time has passed

And all I know is that it feels like forever

When no one ever tells you that forever

Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head

And it's the stars

The stars

That shine for you

And it's the stars

The stars

That lie to you..

I'm looking at you through the glass..

Don't know how much time has passed

Oh, god it feels like forever

But no one ever tells you that forever

Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head

~ Stone Sour ~

Masochism

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 15:36:00 +0000

Although this diagnosis of Asperger’s is new to my life, the self evaluation and discovery that has gone along with it is a story as old as I am. I’ve always been seeking the deeper meanings and hidden answers and this isn’t the first time that the things I have discovered about myself have raised eyebrows and had people thinking that there must be something wrong with me. When I tell people I’m a masochist I get the same reaction.

There is an epidemic in our world that for some reason no one seems to see. Its an epidemic of misinformation and it plays a deciding role in the amount of discrimination and ignorance that people are running up against every day of their lives. Google masochist and see what you find, a startling array of articles and definitions proclaiming masochism to be a mental disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of self defeating behavior, and while I admit there are those out there like this, its these types of blanket diagnosis that contribute to the misunderstanding I suffer from. Things are rarely black and white in reality the way they are on paper.

No one stops to consider that maybe it’s a combination of mental and/or emotional disorders that contribute to some masochists behaving this way. I am a masochist without self defeating personality disorder.

Saying I like pain is a lousy way to describe it. While I have a high tolerance for it, pain is pain and it hurts. What I do like about it is the rush of endorphins and adrenaline my body produces in response to the physical and emotional trauma I am putting it through. When it comes down to it I’m nothing more than an adrenaline junkie who is too smart to jump out of an airplane and knows that its better to throw it into a cocktail with some yummy endorphins to kick start the effect. No one is out there insisting all snowboarders are in need of psychiatric evaluation, or that bungee jumpers are just trying to cover up emotional pain.

By now some of you are wondering, do I hurt myself? Do I let other people hurt me? The answer is once again not so black and white, it depends on the situation. I went from poking at scrapes as a kid to artistic cutting and wax as a teenager. I prefer, at this stage in my life, to have someone else do the hurting for me. Now, before you jump to conclusions, I am not out roaming the streets at night dressed like a slut hoping someone will attack me. Remember what I said up there about being too smart to jump out of an airplane? I take my personal safety very seriously, and this is no exception. I’m very careful about who I will let hurt me, but what a wonderful surprise to find out that there was another side to this coin. I have a wonderful sadist in my life.

You see, while the amount of pain I can cause myself takes the edge off the desire, satiation is hard to achieve. My bodies natural defence mechanisms kick into full gear way too soon and I have to remain present to continue. Take that power out of my hands and put it into the hands of another and suddenly I can ride the way it makes me feel. Ultimately I am safe, he isn’t going to do anything I can’t get up and function from in very short order, but the uncertainty of not knowing how far he will push this time or what he will do next plays tricks on my mind and floods my body with my drugs of choice. Knowing he gets off on hurting me just adds the emotional twist of lime that finishes it off perfectly.

There is a side of this no one sees, the mutual trust and respect that’s required to engage in these activities, or the communication that takes place about every aspect of this in our lives. This isn’t something that’s entered into lightly, it takes a vast amount of understanding about both yourself and the other person to take things to the level we do, and the risk is as much his as mine. People express their concerns for my safety and, while I understand that they are just worried, it’s insulting because it expresses a lack of confidence in my intelligence and strength.

Just as insulting, in fact, as considering my having Asperger’s a disability.

The "cure" for my "problem"

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 16:07:00 +0000

I’m baffled by the concepts of normal, and typical, and common sense that isn’t common and doesn’t often make any sense at all. I don’t understand the world’s propensity towards dishonesty and untruth. “Honest to a fault” is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard. Whose fault are we talking about here and why does the truth need to be anyone’s fault at all? Why can’t the truth just be what it is? I spend my life asking these questions, and haven’t found an answer yet.

The only way to achieve balance in my life is by being honest with myself and the people around me about who I am and what I need. I tried bluffing, I tried faking it, I tried pretending I was just like the rest of them. I tried and failed, but I tried and succeeded with surprising frequency as well, only to return home still overwhelmed and miserable in the long run, drug down by the pressures of the role I was playing day after day after day. I tried to be someone I wasn’t for the sake of the mass majority that they could continue to be comfortable in their idea of what was right and normal and the best thing for everybody, but the truth still sang beneath the surface until my ears rang with its echo and my head pounded to its rhythm. The inside of my head was a raging storm of confusion as I tried to make my needs meet the standards of a world that thought I was getting by just fine. Interesting that now, as I have reached calm and balance, they think there is something wrong with me that needs to be remedied. I’ve found the cure, and they are still confused about the problem.

The only disabling thing I suffer from is judgment, the rest of my life is calm and peaceful and I’m quite content with what I have. That’s more than can be said for most people out there trying to “make it in the real world”. If I sought a cure for who I am, the things that form my personality, what would be left? What would it matter if I could enjoy having more friends if all of the things my real friends love about me were lost in the process? I have spent 30 years in self evaluation to get myself to a point where I have all the things I need to make me happy and content in my day to day life and what would be the point in throwing all of that away in order to have things I don’t really want in the first place. Really, they ought to stop trying to cure me, and start trying to accept me. It’s much more within their realm of influence.

Stone

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:29:00 +0000

I sit at the edge of the night
Watching the frayed bottoms of the curtain rise
Searching for all the missing pieces
That I seem to have left scattered in the wake
Of my tumultuous flight
To reach this precipice

Curled in upon myself I seek warmth
Protection from the cruel winds
That taunt back and forth across my flesh
Screaming in agony for release
Into this, the twilight of my former existence.
I shiver, and I wait, and I watch.

I was beckoned here by the taunts of a childhood best forgotten, these seeds of dismay took hold early and the thorny brambles they grew are too thick for the fragile to pass. I hold them deep inside, protect the hearts of those I love from the true depths of my own depravity, and lie fetal in wonderment as my own imagination threatens to tear my very essence to shreds. But these times I need as well, for the tears I cry are the tears of the Gray of Matha, born of portent and tragedy, and they doom the messenger, my own unrealistic despair. They are the tears of Frigga, and as they pass the portents change, and resurrection can begin. They cleanse my soul of its own poison, and cure my blindness, that I might resume my stolid vigil.

What I watch for has never been clear
A glimpse might peek from the sheltered sky
But lost in the fog of my own solitary confinement
I wait, but not in silence,
Questions echo across the empty span of darkness
Fall back down to shift and swirl about my huddled frame
The scratching of talons on the earths own crust
It calls, and I scream defiance

I lived in this place of denial for many years. Even after I discovered this world I drifted in the unrealistic expectation that I had to be a certain type of person to qualify. I strove for years to mold my personality, convinced early on that my fantasies where just extreme versions of what I really wanted. I have vacant memories that float around my brain, snippets of conversations that once danced circles around my understanding of who I was. Voices that spoke calmly, in deepened tones, as they told me what and who I was. What I needed, what I wanted. They bore a hint of truth and conscious reality, so they never sounded hollow on deafened ears to my own screaming desires. Submit they whispered softly into the cracks of my foundation, and I felt I had no choice but to listen, my own regard so eroded in the swollen waters of their power.

Creeping up from behind they sat
Sharing my space for but the passing of a moment
Eternity in my tiny world, where dark dreams held sway.
The stony façade, the marble iciness of my gaze
Though tempted never strayed
Oaken wisdom, thorny roses, petulant weeds
All tossed and broken in the storm

So I sat alone. Still lost in wonderment at my inability to find my own definition. Each eternity that passed just waking further the demons that danced along the edges of the curtain on the horizon. The one that hinted of wonders, and horrors, and screamed truth loud enough to ring bells in my ears. Their talons crept forward, to rent deep into my flesh, valleys for tears to find passage to the parched and dusty earth that settled where I sat. Alone was far better than the flaccid reminders of what I should be, I should be waiting, and watching, and searching for answers.

When the curtain starts to rise
The edges start to crumble,
Open eyes clenching shut as the light of what has been hidden sears forth
It flashes and falters, for the truth cannot be so clear
Gone again, tears form at the corners of steel blue eyes
Melting stone in their path, fragile flesh exposed
To the twining thorns that twist and flourish around me.

There is no path through me, that was the mistake of lost souls that tried to chip at my base and alter my perceptions. But these thorns did not seek to alter, they twisted and twined and snared me in their embrace, taking nourishment from exposed flesh as it was offered in turn. Each sapping strike bleeds my soul of the doubts and worries that plagued my ideals, and in these thorny brambles I find comfort and solace. Given life in that brief flash of understanding and truth, he continues to grow around me, entwining my soul and making my cry out to feed him the blood of my own pain to sustain the growth of his power.

Stone cannot be bent; it must be chipped away, shed in the light of destiny and the scope of self knowledge that the mind can grasp. The demons still dance at the edge of my awareness, but the raging inferno that tips every thrusting thorn that drives through parchment flesh, tender and weak as it flares and burns in its wake, lends translation to the voices they cast across the opaque distance between fantasy and reality. With the solid wall of his own beasts, reverberating whispers that speak of depth of character and are mortared by protective nature, to bounce from they take on tones of meaning and understanding.

With prodding claws he drags forth my tears
Each searing drop of agony a question lost to wings
They form wider with each strike leading further into the recesses
Twisted realities that lead to a path labeled destruction
By those who care not to heed the warnings
These thoughts are not placid
These raging waters of destruction that persuade me to drown
In seductive images, and terrifying nightmares
Knowing that those thorns that drain me, leaving me helpless in his embrace
Bear also the fundamental ambrosia that grants me life
The vigil continues, but I sit not alone.

Whats Missing?

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:04:00 +0000

They say I can’t be happy unless I have lots of friends and acquaintances with which to pass the time. They say I can’t be happy, spending most of my time hidden away in my apartment from the rest of the world. They say I can’t be happy locked inside my head thinking away the afternoon. They say I need more. What do they know? I wouldn’t know how to be happy any other way.

I tried it their way for years, all it did was make me anxious and miserable. All those friends and no time to get to know any of them, a full time job I hated, and me faking a smile when I could be half assed bothered to concentrate on it. The days disappeared one after the other with never enough time for the things I needed to do and needed to think about. It was all too much so I stopped pretending but now that I have everything I need they tell me it’s not enough. Why do they only see the things I don’t have, and never the things I do.

I have a beautiful daughter whom I have raised well. She is a shining example of acceptance and tolerance. I can’t remember the last time she threw a fit, when she wants something she approaches me calmly and rationally. She knows I am almost always willing to negotiate. I know we will have our rough spots over the next few years as she becomes a teenager, but we have excellent communication skills that should serve us well.

I have a wonderful, caring, understanding boyfriend. Although he doesn’t always get why I feel the way I do, he is willing to take it at face value that I do and accommodates me to the best of his ability. He values my honesty and candor about the things I need, and communicates his own needs very effectively as well. He is my social buffer when circumstances warrant a trip outside. He nurtures the little girl that I am inside and yet respects me for the adult that I am. He gives me my space when I need it and understands that it’s not a slight against him, that I am just preoccupied sometimes and its best to let me be. Many of the things he loves the most about me can be directly attributed to having AS.

I have a quick and attentive mind to the things that interest me. I don’t jump to conclusions without doing my research, and I don’t open my mouth unless I have something valid to say. I am the first to admit when I am wrong and the last to back down when I am right and it matters to me. I can be stubborn and hard headed but only about the opinions I am sure of, and I have no desire to force those opinions on someone else. I am willing to share the information that I have, but by no means do I expect blind compliance, I prefer for people to take what I say and come to their own conclusions. I often see the connections between things that others are missing in the big picture. My advice is well respected.

I have a best friend who understands me in a way no one else does. She also has AS so we are able to bounce problems and ideas off of each other with no worries about judgment. We don’t chat about the weather or spend hours on the phone discussing our crushes. We do have each other’s back no matter what, and when no one else understands its time for a visit.

I have a phenomenal grasp of the English language, and the ability to inspire emotion through my writing when I am in turn inspired to do so. I can just as easily write a professional business letter as a journal and I also write poetry and other creative pieces. I have been receiving high quantities of praise from respected individuals about this talent for years. Having a computer allows me to share my writing with a much greater audience without the pressure of having to socialize face to face.

I have friends who don’t expect anything beyond our friendship. We care about each other and even if we go weeks, months, sometimes years without speaking we know it doesn’t change that. If they need me and there is something I can provide they know where to find me, and vice versa.

I am happy and fulfilled. What exactly am I missing?

To the music in her mind..

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:28:00 +0000

She dances alone in a clearing full of eyes all alight with wisdom and understanding if only they could see her. They cant, she covers her own eyes to keep it inside thinking that if she cant see them they cant see her, and she’s right. What they see isn’t here, its nothing but a shallow veneer wrought of lilacs and ivy woven tight with thorns to prick the unwary and keep a million tiny pieces trapped inside. Pieces that she has painstakingly collected through time untold and clutched in the tiny fists that beat against the chest of humanity.

Its not a simple as they think nor as hard as they imagine to dance beside her, but the vision they behold blends and wavers between this world and another baffling their concept of reality and truth. Frightened by what they can’t understand they watch on and the whispered songs they should have heard from the dawn of this act vanish beneath the din of observation and judgment. Still she dances, uncaring that lines are blurring and unmindful of the storms that are brewing overhead. This is her time, and her place, and they cannot really see her after all. They could dance beside her but the very nature of their world holds them back.

She falls exhausted to the dirt at her feet and carelessly they rush to her side, words of solace and pity that grate through her veins, burning her with the intensity of their desperate advice. Clenched fists that they would see this fall as weakness, this need to stop and catch her breath as impairment, did they not see her dance? Surely if they had they would know she deserves this moment in the dust, the sweat that glistens on her skin, the pounding heart that threatens to burst from her chest. They didn’t, they saw nothing but the tears and anguish of a child too afraid to reach out and take their hand, too lost in her own dreams to even see that they only want to help her understand. They cannot see that its not she that needs to understand.

Why can they only see her here she wonders, when she lies in the ashes of her own humanity too weak to rise and greet the song that plays endlessly through her mind, and her tears begin to soak the fallow earth that cradles her prone body. Mired in a net of judgment and evaluation she could drown in her own thoughts as they try to surge past her lips in a torrent of explanation, only to be lost in the stream of labels and opinions that pour from their mouths. Careless definitions cast forth in an attempt to find a way to keep her here, in this world, where they can see her. She rises to her feet and though she still cries she smiles and turns away, shrugging off those hands that seek to bind her to this reality. There is nothing for her here but dust and ashes, and so she starts to dance again, hoping against hope but knowing better, that this time they will finally open their eyes and witness the peace this dance brings her.

Suffering From Judgment

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 15:27:00 +0000

Floating around on youtube this morning I came across a video discussing how we do not suffer from Asperger’s we suffer from society.

This is something I have thought about many times over the years, even before being diagnosed with AS. I have never suffered from my differences, only from the judgment of others about the value of those differences. When held up in contrast to their own needs my life seems hollow and disconnected and so it’s easy for them to jump to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with me. They fail to see how full and rich it is when compared to my own desires.

30 years of being told there is something wrong with you takes its toll, and I feel it through secondary mental disorders. As time passed and I was increasingly expected to take part in society as a “normal” person I developed anxiety and a social phobia. Although I don’t imagine I would have either of these were it not for AS in my life, I’m quite certain they are not a symptom of the AS itself but rather a symptom of societies reaction to my differences. The social phobia is almost a benefit now; I feel much less guilt about my inability to function in the outside world when I’m not making constant attempts to do it. Still I hear on a regular basis that this is no way to live my life, that there must be something wrong, that I ought to be looking for a cure.

Am I angry about it? Not really, I cannot blame the vast majority for not knowing any better, it is after all not something they have been prompted to think about. Those that should know better but don’t are another story, but I am happy to know their true character and even more happy to leave them out of my life. I just think it would be a vast improvement if people stopped trying to decide what was “right” for everyone else.

Self Esteem

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:21:00 +0000

I often come across as very negative about myself. Perhaps not here where I make an effort to express that I have talents, but more so when it comes to verbal communication. I’ve been told by outsiders that some work on my self esteem would do me wonders. It makes me snicker, if they knew anything about me they would know that low self esteem is not something I suffer from. I have a tendency to talk more about the things I am not good at than the things I excel at, but there is a simple reason for this and it has nothing to do with the way I feel about myself.

The things I am good at I am extremely good at. I do nothing by halves, and if I am not competent at an activity I simply won’t do it. Being a perfectionist this leads to a high level of expertise about the things I know, and an almost complete lack of knowledge about the things I don’t. For some reason this bothers people to the point where I am either a narcissist for talking about my strengths, or have self esteem problems for addressing my weaknesses. The only way I can see around this would be to discuss both in one conversation but since they tend to involve totally separate topics this rarely makes sense in the context of conversation.

I can’t for the life of me figure out why being aware of my weaknesses is a bad thing, or even discussing them with other people, when it leads to a further understanding of myself and that is what I am after in the long run. I have no idea why acknowledging the things I am good at makes me egotistical when those are the things by which I stand to offer the most to the world. I don’t understand why it can’t just be accepted for truth that it is. No hidden meaning, no search for a pat on the back, just me knowing what I’m good at.

Diagnosis

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:53:00 +0000

Yesterday my Doctor asked me what I thought getting diagnosed with AS would change about my life. It was an excellent question and it has provoked a lot of thought, because the answer in a nutshell is nothing and everything.

I am aware that when it comes to society as a whole this isn’t going to change things. Knowing why I feel the way I do in social settings doesn’t make it any easier to go out and experience them. The average person isn’t going to go out and do a lot of research about Aspergers, looking for a way to interact with me on my level. Things will continue on as they always have and there will always be misunderstanding in my life. I’m ok with that; I don’t have a lot in common with the vast majority of people and I can see no point in spending my life trying to explain myself to them. Let them think what they want, I am content.

Where this will make a difference is in my one on one interactions with the people whose opinions I do care about, and here it will make all the difference in the world. Just knowing that there is a reason for the way I am has already made a huge impact on my life. I still feel like I live in a parallel universe, but I no longer feel alone here. I feel as though I have found a way to reach across the gap and occasionally pull someone in with me, to see it my way, to listen to what I have to say and view the world from a different perspective. It’s to finally be able to put words to the things I have thought about for so long and not feel like I will be ridiculed and laughed at for feeling the way I do.

Its easy to see where AS has colored my life through the past, and I have been doing far too much thinking about it these last few weeks. Its odd because I have never had a problem with dwelling in the past but this last little while I have been letting it drag me down. Its time to get back to the moment, and right here, right now, things are pretty damn good. I have a boyfriend who is open minded and understanding, a best friend who totally gets where I’m coming from, and a daughter who is a joy to be around at 12 years old. My needs are few and they are all taken care of. I have plenty of time alone to think and do the things I feel the need to do. It took me 30 years but I have reached a place in my life where I am completely content, even the rough patches are no bumpier than anyone else’s. My life isn’t for everyone, or even the vast majority, but then their lives aren’t for me either.

Being diagnosed is providing me with a different perspective, showing me that it’s unrealistic to compare my life to theirs and hope to come to any viable conclusion of good or bad. If nothing else, it’s allowing me to look at things in a new light and see that there is nothing wrong with being exactly who I am.

Troubles Accepting

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:19:00 +0000

I almost feel like I need to take a step back here. I know that’s not possible, one can’t just step back from their life and look at their experiences and perceptions from another angle. I’m wholly overwhelmed by this look inside myself and the insights this discovery has given me about my past. In little pieces it all seems to make sense, but when I try and condense it into a bigger picture of the way it makes me feel the edges start crumbling and I am left with nothing but dust once again.

I wanted to provide a guiding light through this, I wanted to light my own way and hoped to show others the path as well. I thought I could accept Asperger’s into my life and continue forward as I always have, one day at a time. It isn’t as easy as I thought and I’ve discovered its much more deeply woven into the core of who I am than I would have thought possible. I never would have guessed in a million years that I have Autism, and reality can be bone crunchingly savage when it hits you out of the blue that way.

In the wake of this struggle, this blog has turned into an expression of the difficulties I’m having in coming to terms with myself, and where I fit into this world that I have fought so hard to stay afloat in. I’m questioning everything about who I am right now and while I don’t think that’s entirely healthy it hasn’t killed me yet and I wouldn’t know how to stop if I wanted to. Perhaps through this baring of my soul I can reach some understanding. A little less confusion in my life would be stellar.

Perception

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:12:00 +0000

Some will seek the tangles in the depths, only to be trapped and lost in a cage of their own interpretations. They close the doors to their own minds, slamming them shut one after another in an attempt to hold together their fragile and shattering sense of self. The cracks that mar the surface ebb land flow like the tides, for sometimes these feeble attempts at enlightenment form mud that seeps into the cracks and fills them. But the reality of truth flows past these shallow dams, they loosen the bits of debris that tries to lock itself into feeble wisdom.

If only these eyes could see, if only the walls that contain this all could be torn down one brick at a time. If only progression could force time back in its wheel, then the voices of things once uttered in distress could be trampled under the heavy tread of common sense. But alas, time marches on and the voices that once echoed so soundlessly from wall to wall, fade in the distance between then and now. Who remembers the whispered tales so forgotten in their own past they cannot see the light of the present shining bright into their imagination, beckoning and tempting of things that could lead the soul to peace and the mind to clarity?

Feeble winds and feeble tales spread slow and tend to whimper with dying breaths, for without progress the wings could not unfurl, and the butterfly would never soar, forever doomed to the path of the earth, chained by the bonds of altered evolution. Stagnancies breeds disease, and this disease that burns fierce along the pillars of the bridges casts its shadows long across the path that leads onward, forward, one step at a time.

The arms of comrades fallen by the wayside, point the way through the mires that try to grasp and claw, draw them into its heart where it feeds on those who call themselves the truth. Gaping rents in the understanding of those too blinded by base achievement to grasp the difficulties within their twisted hands. Psychic vampires who sneak unwary through the triumphs of others, seeking to pick and prod at the delicate fibers that hold the sleeping eyes of dreamers as they wander from room to room.

My spirit sings at the cusp of the deepest pit, obsidian darkness and an echo that fans out forever, like a stone dropped from far too high to ever pierce the delicate skin of the oceans that abound. Laughter fills the emptiness of the blackened rooms behind the closed doors. For those without eyes to see, or bridges to traverse the severity of the landscape, shall trip and stumble to the knees of a child when faced with the certainty of their own mistakes. Someday the slap shall send them reeling, and the crystal palaces built so carefully, brick after brick, in careful progression, will shatter and fall before the eyes of the disbelieving.

Progression relies on the imperfections of humanity, for with nothing to improve on how could we progress. And yet there will always be some who can refuse to see even the plainest of colors as they pass before their eyes. Some who will always see the calming blue that descends from above as the crimson red that surrounds their defenses. My song mourns these lost souls, who have forgotten how to forgive themselves all transgressions that they might learn and grow and seek the metamorphosis that allows them to soar.

Indigo blood sinks deep into the soil that holds captured the feet of those who wander too far down the path of self righteousness, those who would dare scratch insults in the dust in vain attempts to be granted company in the face of their own denied misery. Grant them succor, and their claws rend and tear at the pages that hold the destiny of truth before their very sight. Grant them solace and they cry foul and dismay, that one would dare offer sanctuary in the depths of their own endless drive towards totality.

Let the angels be warned, that the demons that hide within the hearts of those too important to care for the opinions of others exist in the closets and under the beds. Intolerance is the nightmare that lurks in the shadows and causes fear in the night. Each time the evening descends, another voice fades from the echoes, another is added to the chaos, another twists itself into knots with its own failed logic. In all cases, at the end of all tales, reality and truth will prevail, for that is the path of progression, and there is no denying that.

Keys

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 18:58:00 +0000

Dreamers whisper back and forth across star strewn skies
Their voices crisp and clear on the breeze
Parading their hearts for the world to answer
With echoes of immortality
Amongst the marked

Those who bear the brand, who dance attendance
To the dark that lives and breathes eternity in their souls
Seek the light in the darkest of places
Seek the recesses of their own fragile motives
And find the truth hidden in the caskets of confidence

Deny the honesty that screams defiance at the masks
At the peril of long forgotten deceptions
Rising to devour what remains of the will to be whole
The stone that hides the true image from prying eyes
Also blinds eyes that seek fulfillment
In a world that doesn’t belong to them.

The never ending pursuit of happiness
Foiled at every turn by the fragile’s inability
To take ownership of the weakness that bleeds for acknowledgement
With laid blame they hide their scars
Laying bare their own chances

Acceptance marks the beginning
And the path grows longer with each step
Twisting and turning past ethical lessons
Taught in fear of the unknown.

Shed the scattered teachings that the truth is what they speak
Cast the muttered discontent aside in the face of bitter reality
We are the nightmares that lurk in the abyss of our own subconscious
We are the light at the end of our own tunnel
We are the keys to our own success
We simply need to unlock the door.

Hiding Within

noreply@blogger.com (alei) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 01:55:00 +0000

I haven’t always been reclusive. I went to regular school like any other kid and went on to college. I took my kid to school and went to my full time job every day. I went out every night and had lots of friends. To the outside world I seemed like your average young mother doing her best to get by in life, but I was screaming on the inside. It’s hard to cope with feeling this way when you have no idea what’s going on, or why you are struggling so much with things everyone else can do with ease. I understand now that its common with Asperger’s to feel this way, but back then I slowly withdrew a piece at a time trying to gain some peace and clarity in my life, and some understanding of why it all seemed so different for me.

The times I want to leave my cozy little den have dropped dramatically in the last few years. I don’t think the time I spend alone is a new need, just the further recognition of one I’ve always had. I can’t focus on anything when there are other people around, so I stay in my apartment by myself most of the time. It’s getting to the point where even that isn’t enough. Cabin fever gets the best of me because I love to be outside, but living in the city overwhelms me to the point where I have no choice but to stay indoors most of the time. Even a trip to the nearby park seems like an impossible journey when you are worried about who you might run into. The occasional dinner, family function, or errand I manage these days leave me over stimulated and exhausted. Going to the grocery store is a nightmare of lights and sounds and people that I can’t avoid because I only eat certain brands of certain foods. All I want to do when I’m done is go home and go to bed. Just the idea of going out into the hall of my building can be too much to bear sometimes.

I want to live in the woods. I want trees, and running water, and rock as far as the eye can see. I want my own little room in the attic where I can hang things from the ceiling, and paint on the walls, and fill one end with pillows for curling up and reading in. I want to be able to step outside my door without being immediately assaulted by the traffic, and the lights, and the hordes of people going this way and that. I want to be able to see the stars at night, and to sit by the fire quietly thinking. I want to live where the world can’t find me unless I let them.

Its not that I don’t want any contact with people at all, on the contrary, I am fascinated by people and desire to connect with them, I just struggle with face to face interaction and social etiquette. The few people I do interact with on a social level, including my boyfriend, are either on the spectrum or highly open minded people who can see past these weaknesses. Despite these difficulties I have found a way to connect with a broader slice of the world at large through the internet. I have found a medium where eye contact doesn’t matter and everyone is free to pursue what brings them peace and happiness, where people don’t have to ignore my tapping feet and worried expression to see the truth in my words.

Some day when my situation is a little better I can move from this city and find my little piece of heaven in the woods. Until then I will bide my time here in this apartment, adventuring out into the wide bustling world only when I have to. Those who know me will shake their heads and forgive me, just another way that Alei is different from the rest. Those who understand me will recognize that it’s what I need to do and love me all the more. The rest of the world will pass by my doorstep and never even know I’m here. Its better that way.