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

Monday, May 28, 2018

I have the strangest therapy sessions

Being a Multiple and in therapy for years, you'd think I'd get used to these unusual sessions. But, I swear, it is so weird. I'll be talking and then all the words just stop, abruptly. I mean, there may be thoughts in my head or feelings and physical sensations that I experience but, it's like a heavy curtain comes raining down and I'm left completely speechless.
My hands move, my eyes are usually teary, and I think parts of me are communicating with therapist, just in a completely non-verbal way.
In a way, I have half sessions. I'm there and aware half the time and the other half, I've got zero control and zero conscious.
Life with Multiple Personality Disorder is a highly odd experience, for sure.

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

The Barrier Between Us

There is forever an unseen wall, a barrier if you will, between myself and those I interact closely with. Today the walls were thicker, denser and more perceptible.
I had an appointment with my doctor. Everything went wrong from the new receptionist, to the offices under construction to the never before entered treatment room. I felt terrible and inconsolable. I couldn't sit still. I continually searched for my friend, the shoulder high window if the other offices. I felt enclosed, trapped and highly claustrophobic. I wasn't sure that I could find my way to the safety of outside and my vehicle in the expanded parking lot.
My doctor seemed distant, a football field away even though we stood no more than a foot apart. I was rattled and rushed. My brain speeding around hairpin turns. Doctor seemed curt, rushed and short. I spewed all the things I wanted to say and forgot half of the ones unsaid.
The wall so thick. It's as if I didn't even have an appointment as I felt invisible like chalk melting in the rain and doctor never looked up to see the chalkboard.
I was lost and on my own again, still. Wasted time in a scary, unsettling, foreign room. Disconcerting. Had I known about the construction, long and strange hallways and rooms, I never would have showed up.
Had I been aware that my doctor was that distant and unreachable, I would have better spent my time in bed. But I never know how I will feel or what the conditions will be like when I go to an appointment, a store, a necessary errand place.
Unpredictability is Unsettling.
Flapping and pacing my way through this appointment reminded me of the futility of comfort and the ability to actually make useful contact with someone that has the power to assist me.
I was invisible, a talking head and persona non grata.
It's such an empty, helpless feeling to seek help and be unable to connect. Futility.
Yet another frustrating day in the life.
Hear my sadness
Feel my pain
I am so very alone
Behind thicker walls

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Here's what I know. I'm a misfit toy

I know I'm no expert or genius. Living a reclusive lifestyle does not allow me to be full of wisdom in how the world works, how to make money or find the person of your dreams...but I do know this...
I know that I have experienced a number of unusual situations. My awareness of what happened, examining my emotions and relaying this information can help those who have been through the same things. This information can possibly help those who are treating and working to mend those who suffered as I.
It feels like some friggin' miraculous treasure that I can articulate these secretive events. So few, so very few have escaped their prison of shame and silence. I want to speak out, loudly and clearly for myself and other survivorsho have yet to find their voice
Part of the reason I blog, I've recently surmised, is that I want people to know that I'm not this strange, sullen, depressed human who never leaves her house and nobody knows her. Whew, big sentence there (in meaning not so much as in length.)
I want those that knew me, old teachers, fellow students, coworkers, past friends, that there are very valid reasons for my oddish behavior.
To those friends that I treasured, then offended or dropped all contact with suddenly and recklessly.
These events, they shaped me, morphed me, into a human with very little control over things like trusting, communicating and being stable.
My life is an unpredictable roller coaster of autism, abuse reactions, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (this one, in and of itself accounts for 90% of my behaviors, my exhaustion, etc. It's so complicated. Read about it!) and chronic low energy.
It's like I could exhaust myself trying to explain the reasons behind why I'm exhausted. Everyone would like an explanation. All my life, I've had to explain and be accountable for my behaviors. It may look like I've let people down but it wasn't intentional.
Most people have predictable behaviors, energy levels and social lives. They aren't required to explain themselves because it's a large group and each knows the others qualities. It's only those of us on the outside that are put under the magnifying glass and picked apart for being, ya, you guessed it, different.
Different, different, different. Make the oddballs, the ones who struggle to find the right words, make them speak and explain themselves. It's heaping crap upon crap.
Sigh
No one is ever going to sit next to me, put their arm around me, look in my eyes, and say "Yes, I can see you've had a rough day. I'm sorry. I get why that menial disturbance was highly upsetting. I know how that must have triggered you. I get you. I understand why. It's going to be okay. You're okay."
So I write to maybe be heard and to maybe be understood just a little bit.
I'm not a freak
Really, I'm not.
Just some really odd genetics and some really bad things happened to me weekly throughout my youth that affected me deeply.
Ya know????
These secrets, events, crimes, misdemeanors, insults, episodes of torture, manipulations and my emotions and thoughts around them need to be released so that I can finally be free.
Books have been written by experts on the subject of childhood abuses. People that have never experienced such egregious malfeasance. And they are the experts??!
I know this stuff.
I was there.
I know how it felt and the impact upon me.
I know the road to healing.
And I can talk and write about it!!!
See, I've lived an extraordinary life. Trust me. Validate. Understand if you can. Know how to help others.
I have knowledge....take it

I'm a misfit toy and that's okay!

Sunday, May 6, 2018

I have known little of love

Love is not something that has graced my doorstep with any frequency. It's oft been little more than a passing warm wind, a smile alighted in my lips quite brief.
I never had a parents love.
I was blessed with abundant love from siblings for a time. It, too, was brief and ended yet I am still quite grateful for the time that it was.
My greatest love, my most enduring and unwavering, has involved my two children. Through the tumultuous teen years and two year old tantrums, love was ever there, ever strong.
I had the unprecedented love from a grandmother that filled, overflowed the typical. My grandmother loved me more than a mother ever could. Even upon her death, even as the years have passed, my grandmother's love remains like a silent sentinel, a forever warm embrace.
There have been three friends with whom I have felt great love and intimate friendship. These have been my anchors that pulled me through dark, troubled waters and lighten my burdens, my depression and heavy lack of self-esteem.
Relationships, ah, they have proven to be nothing but tragic in one way or another. I seem to attract monsters reminiscent of my parents, abusers with inflated egos and manipulation strongly at hand. For the most part, anyway.
Love has been nothing but a poor man's dream of a rich man's table scraps. It's not something I seek as it feels like ashes and looks like decay. I don't know that I even believe that love between two healthy adults is something real, to be touched and felt and to survive longer than a few months, maybe a year. No, having not personally experienced it, I am unsure if it truly is real.
Maybe it's because I see photos of "happy" couples yet their eyes, body postures and words betray them. I see no "happy" but lots of settling, denial and unwillingness to call a dead horse, dead.
I didn't come to this world to experience relationship love. Thus I seek not what is not meant to be.
I am not bitter as I'm unclear if such a thing can even exist.
Love is a stranger

When I die

I will have but few regrets. It would have been nice to enjoy more time with my sons. I have done the best that I possibly could.
I will embrace the end of this long suffering that I have endured since shortly after my birth. I have endured far and above and beyond what an average human could. No one will ever truly know how remarkable and painful my every day life has been.
The daily challenges and struggles will not be missed. I have fought both hard and long, vehemently and with grand courage and against overwhelming odds.
I have lived to the best and highest of my abilities. So many times I could have quit and given up but I chose to slug on.
I am most proud of my boys and the men they will become. I was truly 100% devoted to them and am blessed to have been their mother.
I am proud of how I have sought for help whenever I could, acknowledging that some things need assistance to heal.
I am proud of my forward progress, my leaving destructive relationships and my bravery in making ginormous and scary moves to my betterment.
I am grateful for the few who stopped into my life and brought friendship and sunshine, albeit for often short, short times. It was most welcome.
I am proud of my faith and my ability to see that things do happen for a reason and that I came into this life to endure and learn a great many things that few can even imagine.
I should have died when I was 10. That I made it this far is nothing short of toughness and miracles.
I've proven that I have strengths beyond measure.
I am grateful for all the days that I have had.
Again, I will not miss the pain and suffering.
Death is never something to be afraid of. Rejoice.

I'm happy being alone

It's finally dawned on me. I am at a perfect place in my life, alone and unencumbered. Sure, I still live with my teenager so, technically I don't live by myself but all in all I lead a truly solitary lifestyle sans close friends or any additional family. I'm free of the stress, strain and possible detriment of trying to have a close, personal relationship. Thank you Jesus. I'm also free from anyone else's expectations, demands and manipulation.
I actually thrive in this low-key, drama free state of being.
My time is my own. I answer to no one. I don't have to try and figure out what someone wants from me. I don't have to put on airs or behave in a way to try and please another. In a word...Freedom!!
Since moving here two years ago, it has gradually dawned on me that I had been living at someone else's mercy, under an other persons rules and roof, for the majority of my life.
These past few days, these weeks and months have truly shown me that I thrive on my own. It's the least stressful means of existing and I am quite happy and content.
I feel good about myself and my life!!!

I have relationships with things not people

I've known for quite some time that my ability to form meaningful, substantial relationships with people is seriously flawed. It takes a tremendous amount of energy and intellect to figure out how to coexist with another human.
On the other hand, I readily form deep attachments to objects. My car, Lady Abigail, is the perfect example. The times that I have had to leave her at the service station for repair, feel a like nothing short of separation anxiety. I worry and fret whether she will be okay. I look sadly at her empty parking spot feeling forlorn.
I feel so lost and alone without her nearby. Quite honestly, I attribute feelings to her as well. I think she might be afraid or scared and wants to be home with me whilst she's gone. Logically, I know it's silly to harbor such thoughts. But it's important to note that this Aspie can form meaningful relationships, just with things instead of people.
I guess this subject took front stage because my son knocked over one of my plants. It tumbled down the stairway and landed in pieces on the floor. Immediately I started to cry. I was overcome with the grief and distress my innocent, beloved plant must be feeling. I was sad at the injustice, as, after all, it had done nothing to warrant such egregious injury.
My son was taken aback by my tears and I wasn't able to articulate my feelings without fear of ridicule.
Looking back, strong attachment to objects has been a constant for me, as has the inability to have and maintain people relationships. It kind of feels like a trade-off. As long as I have my plants, my car and my half dozen comfort objects, I don't feel lonely.
I'm learning to be more accepting of the way my Autistic mind and human heart work. It may be different but it works for me.
(I was going to post a photo of Jade and her injury but I deemed it too sad.)