Showing posts with label shame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shame. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Self-Restraint, Self Control and Aspergers


I didn't realize it, till last week, but I wake up in morning and put on two straitjackets. No, make that one straitjacket and a muzzle.
From the get-go, I start monitoring and censuring my verbalizations and my erratic, unpredictable body movements. One would think and ponder why I would need to do this not only on the outside of my home amongst peoples, but also, most definitely within my own secure environment.

The first answer that springs to mind, I have kids. And kids mimic parents. If mom screams at spiders and dad throws chairs you will probably have a child who turns in to an adult who screams and throws chairs. Look it up. It happens...common knowledge.
So, I didn't want my boys to "pick up" and imitate mommy and her ticky little dances and talking off the top of her head to herself. It just seemed very prudential, practical, necessary.
Thus I have lived in a state of perpetual self-restraint and self-censorship. And it has pretty much felt like a cage with shades and blinds. I mean, how can i be happy and comfortable with who I am if i am so afraid to show my true self? Really?
Another factor would be..hmmm, a bit tougher here...I..don't want to embarrass myself..to my self. I know what looks stupid and mental and I didn't want to see my self behaving in ...hmmm, autistic, spastic ways. Yeah, I didn't want to embarrass myself.
How can one like oneself when the majority of existence is spent hiding and covering the mirrors?
So, at home, my haven of safe, I was anything but free.
The whole going out in public, everyone can understand relatively easy with half a brain. Public embarrassment, saying and blurting out the wrong things, ticky dances are simply not acceptable behaviors..I get that.

Funny thing happened last week...you may have heard about it:)
I went to an autism conference and from my own judgement the vast majority of peoples at this whole hotel were educators and peoples familiar with Aspergers and Autism. And I felt really, really free.
I mean, where else could I have left the straitjacket and muzzle at home and gone skipping down the hallways when I felt like it? Where else would I have felt comfortable, pilfering party favors, asking strangers for strange things and not feel at all self-conscious? Where else could I have asked complete strangers if I could touch their pretty shiny things? (See previous post on Magpie Syndrome..yeah, I am still stuck there. I don't get out much and there were Lots and Lots of pretty shinies :)
I know of no other location where I could freely and out loud be Aspie. And I graciously and with humbled pride easily announced it to everyone I met. Never before, cupcake, never before. I found it incredibly freeing and liberating.
I have been known to laugh out loud, not often and it highly depends on the company and amount of alcohol I have ingested, but it can happen. However, I have never (except with my Partner) rip-roared laughed and chuckled, oh chortled (dic: to make or utter with a gleeful chuckling or snorting sound) in the presence of any one else ever. Omg, it was a riot. I just let it all hang out...I kid you not. And even more astounding, I wasn't embarrassed.

Man, I really let myself go and I saw myself in brand new ways. And I didn't realize how much energy and effort I was putting into self-restraining every word and motion from the moment i got up in the morning until 2am when I went to bed at night.
You see, even home alone, I felt ashamed which is even a more appropriate term than embarrassed as it implies a certain degree of shame and self-loathing. In a strong way, I was denying who I truly was...my Aspergers, my Autism. I have been so self-conscious and hidden, even to me. There were just so many barriers, layer after layer of them that I had been incorporating over the many years.
But then, I got to experience who i really am...and Honey there ain't any going back.
I refuse to go back into the dark, in the recesses of the closet, back into that cage-like, muffled existence. I refuse to be ashamed or embarrassed at that which God made in such perfection. I simply will hide no more, especially from myself. I am allll good. I am Aspie

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The Alien Observes..Anger, Hurt, Love Sex


I have observed a number of things... People that are angry are hurt, in pain. They lash out at everyone, blindly, erroneously, swinging fists with eyes closed. Someone hurt them really bad. (I'm talking about those people who seem angry most of the time)And they can't get a grip on it...can't seem to come to terms with it and release their pain in an alternative way. Angry individuals are hurting.
Frustration seems to be when someone or something fails to meet some expectation that we have...like a dream unfulfilled. Or when we ourselves, fail to reach a goal.
I often Wonder how much I am supposed to allow others to lead their own lives and if and when I am supposed to intervene. Where is the line between being an individual and making ones own choices and allowing someone to do an act which the observer feels is wrong?
What is right and wrong anyway, but a subjective point of view?
Love and sex. I've noticed that some people equate having sex as being in love, wherein sex becomes some sort of tool in which one can "get love". I don't believe that to be true. Many people who are having sex are no where near love and vice versa.
Pain and Love are both HUGE words with a multitude of degrees and meanings, intensities and levels. To say one of them is to whisper into a crowded room...the meaning is only clear to those who can hear it..in a sense, grasp and understand the place in which it is spoken.
Alcohol, drugs, excess, its all a pain-killer, something that is hidden or that we are uncomfortable with. Often I think of addiction as a very strange, warped band-aid that is trying so hard to cover up something that we don't like about ourselves...usually it's false expectations imposed upon someone by another. I find it hard to believe that we could have ever done something so awful that we have to hide from ourselves in shame. Or cover it up and try and bury it.
Why do we consistently find our every little fault and drag out the magnifying glass? Why do we pick on and berate ourselves for being human? I don't get it. Learned behavior, mostly?
The caged bird can sing if it wants