Prepare to enter the wild and wooly world of an adult with Aspergers Syndrome, a form of autism characterized by intellignce, quirks, social difficulties and downright strange and oddish behaviours.

People with Aspergers generally are high functioning in everyday life but have great difficulty connecting with others due to the inability to read faces, body language and subtle verbal clues. They also tend to take words literally and have a hard time multi-tasking.

Oversensitivity to touch (clothing has to be soft and often the tags removed), light (do not leave home without the sunglasses), sound (loud noises and noisey places are avoided), taste (many Aspies have quite a limited diet and are frequently very picky eaters) and smells makes the everyday existence more of a challenge.

Fasten your seatbelts and come on in...
To find out more about what Aspergers is..please check out my earliest blog entries

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Pushing People Away...the good wounded animal that I am

It has become harder and harder to write about painful experiences and feelings. Minus the skill of dissociation, I am left to my own instincts. Self-preservation tells me to "heal" and write about it, release it from the chained darkness. Self-preservation and inherent human nature tells me to avoid pain, run and hide.
 As I reveal, one toe at a time, I must retreat. Like a wounded animal, I fear that I am overexposed and in danger, as I am vulnerable and highly distressed. I vehemently push people away when I hurt. The more pain, the bigger the shove. I was taught that being in pain, if others noticed, more pain would be inflicted. Hmmm, guess you'd call that torture. Sounds about right.
 There never was comfort when I hurt. Quite the opposite. So I do what I've been trained and repeatedly done. I hide and shove. If I've been burned, I'd rather stand by the fire then anywhere near the coolness of a being with the potential for further harm. Damn, that sounds kinda messed up. One reason I'm detesting writing.....so much truth to process.
 I know I am in great pain. I wear it on my face, in my clothes, about my avoidant walk and downward gaze. Please, don't see how much I hurt. I won't allow anyone near, especially someone with open eyes.
 My level of trust...ha..it be gone. Pain, emotional pain....of losing, mistakes, right answer with heavy repercussions....is my center stage. The rest of the world has gone dim. I barely notice if it's night or day. Am I awake? Or asleep? It's as if I'm cocooned within an invisible, thick, smoggy vortex...and it's hard to see or notice anything outside of my self. Autism at its finest. The ease of withdrawal still saves me. I can't deal with anymore, right now.
 I push. I shove. I hide.