Wow...
The past 2 days have been so full of drama that even the newly awoken interest of writing this blog has not been able to penetrate the bone-weariness. Instead I have taken refuge in mind-blowingly simple repetitive tasks. Like: FarmVille on Facebook and sorting out knots in my Lhasa Apso puppies coat (she has just spent a week with my mother and was really a mess... don't even get me started). Such are the shapes of the drugs for the Aspie mind, at least this one.
I guess kick-starting the diary is in order even though I had planned to do some more background first. I wanted the scene to be set so that who I am, what I do, where I come from.. you know, the "picture" of who a person is, is in place before beginning to talk about the abnormalities. But, here we go anyway...
This post is written straight into blogger instead of in a separate document that I edit a few times before publishing - which will probably render it more garbled, or at least harder to read/understand. Except for me, which is the point really, it's my diary after all :)
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So, I love my man, I really do. And he loves me, amazingly enough. Quirks, breakdowns, embarrassing behaviour and all. One thing he doesn't do though is understand, or adjust, to my need for order, or ritual, or whatever you want to call it.
One of the ways this trait is expressed is that I need my days sorted. I plan ahead and know what I am going to do and when I'm going to do it. This prevents surprises and allows me to keep my mind moving forwards, keep my life on track and maintain a semblance of normality in public. If my carefully assembeled schedule breaks down, things get dirty.
Unfortunately, I have chosen to fall in love with, and live with, a time-optimist. Also he is, although very intelligent, an underachiever like you've rarely seen. This means that more often than not, if I hang any part of my daily schedule on his shoulders (meaning - if we are to make it to my mother on time he needs to get out of bed before noon, even though it is not a work-day), it's a recepie for disaster. These past two days have had their bright spots, but also terrible crisis. Screaming, crying, near breaking up.
Yesterday I broke down twice. I haven't done this for months and months, so twice in a day was really scary. I ended up getting to the point where I was slapping myself to get out of it, or deeper into it. at least I was able to cry - so the anxiety got out to a degree. The times when it just builds and build and no tears will come are much worse. But yesterday they came, boy did they come. Once in the bathroom and once in the hallway. The second time things got so bad I was trying to leave before the ice broke, but he wouldn't let me - so into the icy water I went.
We sat on the floor in the end, he was holding me and comforting me. Which would have been a sweeter gesture if he hadn't been the cause of the freak-show in the first place, but was still pretty sweet. Things have been bad for such a long time, I'm trying to find the strength to break out of this relationsship but on the other hand I love him, and he loves me... Aside from him living in the normal worlds and me on the Far side, there isn't all that much wrong with us - unfortunately that's enoguh to make MANY things wrong. What I'm trying to get to is that this is hard, and sometimes destructive, but in the same breath that I'm trying to break out of it I'm wondering if any relationsship could be anything BUT harde and destructive for me, and anyone living with me. The ups are so high, and the lows are so low. Is it worth it?
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Life on The Far Side
Learning about Aspberger's it was frightening, and gratifying, to finally get some sense into a world where I had always lived on the Far Side. A place where no other people around me seemed to see, or know existed. As all humans do, an Asperger mind will use its own reality as a a base for understanding others’ realities. To put it simply, you learn what hurts other people by realizing what hurts you, its a normal part of a childs development. But on the far side, what hurts me doesn’t disturb people on the normal side. And what is normal to me can be extremely hurtful. This takes time to learn.
When all you want is to love and be loved, a basic human need shared by all, but all your interfaces with other people to make this happen are misconstructed and misunderstood – it is no wonder the child seeks solitude. Your mind as an AS is alien, when compared to the norm. And an alien mind is a very lonely mind.
To me the solution was the library. I grew up within walking distance from the main library of our fairly large town and I more or less lived there. A book cannot tell you what a misfit you are. If you ask for the company of a book you will recieve it, with the added bonus of further learning about whatever topic is currently on top of your ”need to know all about it”-list. This was an ever changing list, mainly because initially I chose subjects which could be learned completely. Once there was no more information to be absorbed, what was the point? But to this day, what I do not know about mythology (norse, greek/roman, egyptian) is not worth knowing.
All my life I have been (made) aware of all the ways big and small that makes me different. To finally realise that each and every one of these idiosyncracies fit squarely into the AS diagnosis, to finally understand that I AM NOT ALONE ON THE FAR SIDE, that this vast empty space that was and is my basis for reality is populated by other people, was a relief so great it brings tears to my eyes.
When all you want is to love and be loved, a basic human need shared by all, but all your interfaces with other people to make this happen are misconstructed and misunderstood – it is no wonder the child seeks solitude. Your mind as an AS is alien, when compared to the norm. And an alien mind is a very lonely mind.
To me the solution was the library. I grew up within walking distance from the main library of our fairly large town and I more or less lived there. A book cannot tell you what a misfit you are. If you ask for the company of a book you will recieve it, with the added bonus of further learning about whatever topic is currently on top of your ”need to know all about it”-list. This was an ever changing list, mainly because initially I chose subjects which could be learned completely. Once there was no more information to be absorbed, what was the point? But to this day, what I do not know about mythology (norse, greek/roman, egyptian) is not worth knowing.
All my life I have been (made) aware of all the ways big and small that makes me different. To finally realise that each and every one of these idiosyncracies fit squarely into the AS diagnosis, to finally understand that I AM NOT ALONE ON THE FAR SIDE, that this vast empty space that was and is my basis for reality is populated by other people, was a relief so great it brings tears to my eyes.
How it all began
My name is Emma. I have Aspergers Syndrome.
This is not something many people outside my closest family and circle of friend know, but I thought it was time to come out and write about it, in a day to day diary form of how to cope, and more than cope, in life with a highly functioning autistic syndrome. It would be nice to have some fellow travellers on this road, but before we get started, lets beguin at the beguin:
The early years:
Looking back to where it all began, there were tell tale signs from the start. Knowing what we know now, its hard to phantom that the little girl that was me was not ”named and tagged” with AS very early. But what we know now was not know, and in my family being intelligent, verbal and more than a tad eccentric was the norm, not the exeption.
That said, from the very start of my life I have know, and have been told, that ”Emma is not like other children”.
I was clearly bright, overly bright. This was accentuated by my inclination to chose a subject that interested me and learn EVERYTHING there was to learn about that subject, followed by a near obsessive need to teach all my peers and the adults around me everything I knew. When I say teach... well, ”lecture” might come closer to the truth.
The times I broke into the conversations my parents had when entertaining friends were countless. More often than not I’d be using words far to complex and advanced for my age, holding little lectures in a voice which was consistently much too loud about whatever subject I felt the need to share my knowledge about at the time. I had no boundaries and limitations, least of all of the appropriatness of a small child barging in on the adult conversations. Also I had no ability to learn that there were such limitations, despite being told countless times.
Long before any of us knew that this is a common name for AS children, I was known as a ”little professor”. I vividly recall the many times my parents with mingled despair and pride spoke of my unusually advanced use of language, both in vocabulary and form, expressing myself (loudly) as a learned adult at the age of five was the source of both embarrasment and pride in equal measures to them, it seems. To me too, I realize in hindsight.
Outside of the extreme agility of my mind, there was not much agility in me. To put it bluntly, I was (and am) painfully clumsy. My mother enlisted me in ballet class to help me develop my fine motor skills, but after a few sessions I was asked to leave. Says it all, really :) It takes skill to flunk out of a play-dancing class for 4-5 year olds. Since then I have learned to live with constant bruises. One would have thought that at my age (38) I would have learned where the door posts are and that they are usually HARD? Walking into them is simply not a good idea! =)
As already mentioned, I spoke too loud. Much too loud. I had no boundaries, no limitations, despite my mother and fathers best efforts to distill them in me. I would strike up conversations with strangers in the street, sometimes to my mothers’ even greater distress, with homeless people. To me, there was no difference between that homeless man and my mothers friends. In conversation I would stand to close, in your face, and be completely unable to read even the most obvious non-verbal hints of how my behaviour affected people.
Disturbed sleep patterns... aah, yes. I have had insomnia since I was 3 years old, coupled with disruped sleep, sleepwalking and anxiety related unwakeble nightmares. During my entire childhood and adolesence I would frequently wake my family by sitting in bed screaming my lungs out, or sleepwalking doing the same, and nothing would wake me up. This, fortunately, is one of the symptoms that have abated with time, although the insomnia is still there. These days all that remain is a deep rooted fear of falling asleep, and a feeling that my body operates on a different day rythm. It seems the Far Side doesn’t have a 24 hour cycle.
As a child I played with the idea that I came from another world, one with 29 or 30 hour cycles. 20 hours awake, 9 hours sleep. Thats the rythm that fits me. But that doesn’t fit our society, as it is with most thing that fits me...
Other early signs: I took, and unless I try very hard i still take, everything said to me at face value. To this day it is very easy for someone I trust to trick me into believing the most incredulous lies, in stark contrast with the sharp logic thaty penetrates all other aspects of my thought processes.
A favourite anectode on the subject was the time about 10 years back when an ex boyfriend of mine had yet again tricked me into believing something, just for laughs (his laughs). He shook his head, smiled at me and said ”Ah, Emma... Emma... Did you know they took the word ”gullible” out of the dictionary?”
Too which I responded with a deep thought, a sharp frown and the words ”But WHY? That is such a USEFUL word!”
That will still make my friends and family laugh, and me too – but it does put the finger on one of the ways that I am simply not ”like other children”, despite the fact that my childhood now is far behind me.
T.B.C.
This is not something many people outside my closest family and circle of friend know, but I thought it was time to come out and write about it, in a day to day diary form of how to cope, and more than cope, in life with a highly functioning autistic syndrome. It would be nice to have some fellow travellers on this road, but before we get started, lets beguin at the beguin:
The early years:
Looking back to where it all began, there were tell tale signs from the start. Knowing what we know now, its hard to phantom that the little girl that was me was not ”named and tagged” with AS very early. But what we know now was not know, and in my family being intelligent, verbal and more than a tad eccentric was the norm, not the exeption.
That said, from the very start of my life I have know, and have been told, that ”Emma is not like other children”.
I was clearly bright, overly bright. This was accentuated by my inclination to chose a subject that interested me and learn EVERYTHING there was to learn about that subject, followed by a near obsessive need to teach all my peers and the adults around me everything I knew. When I say teach... well, ”lecture” might come closer to the truth.
The times I broke into the conversations my parents had when entertaining friends were countless. More often than not I’d be using words far to complex and advanced for my age, holding little lectures in a voice which was consistently much too loud about whatever subject I felt the need to share my knowledge about at the time. I had no boundaries and limitations, least of all of the appropriatness of a small child barging in on the adult conversations. Also I had no ability to learn that there were such limitations, despite being told countless times.
Long before any of us knew that this is a common name for AS children, I was known as a ”little professor”. I vividly recall the many times my parents with mingled despair and pride spoke of my unusually advanced use of language, both in vocabulary and form, expressing myself (loudly) as a learned adult at the age of five was the source of both embarrasment and pride in equal measures to them, it seems. To me too, I realize in hindsight.
Outside of the extreme agility of my mind, there was not much agility in me. To put it bluntly, I was (and am) painfully clumsy. My mother enlisted me in ballet class to help me develop my fine motor skills, but after a few sessions I was asked to leave. Says it all, really :) It takes skill to flunk out of a play-dancing class for 4-5 year olds. Since then I have learned to live with constant bruises. One would have thought that at my age (38) I would have learned where the door posts are and that they are usually HARD? Walking into them is simply not a good idea! =)
As already mentioned, I spoke too loud. Much too loud. I had no boundaries, no limitations, despite my mother and fathers best efforts to distill them in me. I would strike up conversations with strangers in the street, sometimes to my mothers’ even greater distress, with homeless people. To me, there was no difference between that homeless man and my mothers friends. In conversation I would stand to close, in your face, and be completely unable to read even the most obvious non-verbal hints of how my behaviour affected people.
Disturbed sleep patterns... aah, yes. I have had insomnia since I was 3 years old, coupled with disruped sleep, sleepwalking and anxiety related unwakeble nightmares. During my entire childhood and adolesence I would frequently wake my family by sitting in bed screaming my lungs out, or sleepwalking doing the same, and nothing would wake me up. This, fortunately, is one of the symptoms that have abated with time, although the insomnia is still there. These days all that remain is a deep rooted fear of falling asleep, and a feeling that my body operates on a different day rythm. It seems the Far Side doesn’t have a 24 hour cycle.
As a child I played with the idea that I came from another world, one with 29 or 30 hour cycles. 20 hours awake, 9 hours sleep. Thats the rythm that fits me. But that doesn’t fit our society, as it is with most thing that fits me...
Other early signs: I took, and unless I try very hard i still take, everything said to me at face value. To this day it is very easy for someone I trust to trick me into believing the most incredulous lies, in stark contrast with the sharp logic thaty penetrates all other aspects of my thought processes.
A favourite anectode on the subject was the time about 10 years back when an ex boyfriend of mine had yet again tricked me into believing something, just for laughs (his laughs). He shook his head, smiled at me and said ”Ah, Emma... Emma... Did you know they took the word ”gullible” out of the dictionary?”
Too which I responded with a deep thought, a sharp frown and the words ”But WHY? That is such a USEFUL word!”
That will still make my friends and family laugh, and me too – but it does put the finger on one of the ways that I am simply not ”like other children”, despite the fact that my childhood now is far behind me.
T.B.C.
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