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

Acknowledging Fear...The Great Pretender Speaks

Speaking of truth...its chilly out, around 37 degrees. The snow speaks more truth than the sunshine.

Its quite odd to write about what I am afraid of. I have played the part of Great Pretender for ages now. People like it when you pretend to be normal...they pray that you are normal and they reward you for playing the part when it is done well.
Lies, All Lies
Lying...hmm, that seemed to be what thrilled others the most. My parents loved it when I pretended to be normal, when I kept the majority of who I am under cloaks and daggers, under rugs and behind the furniture.
There are rewards and bribes for denying your true self and for putting on a good show.
Pretending to like going places and being at family functions. Playing that the noise doesn't bother you or the sights, smells and foul stench that is in the air. Making nice and sitting still and not moving or wavering from the task at hand. Pretending to pay attention to the most boring, sometimes upsetting and unpleasant teachers and peoples.
Hanging out with unsavorys, the juvey d's and pretending to be like them just to have a crowd, a posse, a like me please I am one of you kindof deals.
Pretending that you have no strong sense of self or of what you want or what you feel because that is so very harsh against the grain and unheard of. No rumblings, no veering from normal planes,lest you fall off the bandwagon, from great heights and become crushed upon the ground.
Pretending is like putting on layer upon layer of sticky, musty, old clothes and wearing them so long that they become affixed to your skin and the very effort in removing them leaves ones skin raw and oozing. It has been going on for far too long says the cat to the mouse.
Under all the layers, somewhere,way down deep, is you...is me...and that which I am without expectations, parents failed hopes and shattered dreams.
To see or not to see...the aspie underneath.
Mostly I had to pretend to Not be afraid. I'd just shove that fear farther and deeper inside. As long as i didn't say anything, as long as my expression remained blank and impassive, no one would know, no one would question, no one would reprimand and punish...for good behavior, in surface value alone was what they wanted. It did not matter who I was or how I felt.
Fear was nothing more than a dark, dirty, shameful thing that got you in trouble and beaten with big sticks.
So, thus, I pretended to be calm....I pretended to be interested...I pretended to listen...I pretended to be fearless...and in the process promptly lost my sense and any sense of who I really was.
Now, now, no one rules me. No one punishes me. No one asks and expects me to do anything when it makes me uncomfortable and scared, unless, of course, I agree. And there have actually been many times where i have had to face being scared, but it simply needed doing. My role as a parent is one of....immense challenges at times, but sometimes there are things that I am compelled to do for the love and sake of another.
Acknowledging fear doesn't make me less of a person....I am not prey or fodder for villains. Rather getting in touch with that which makes me tick and quiver and tic some more, means that I am removing the heaps, piles and layers put upon me by others or imposed upon me by myself.
I become more real with my awareness. I flow into more of that which is really, truly me.
I have grown so tired of the constant pretend. The play has grown stale, old and outdated.
I remove the fancy red cocktail gloves, you know, the ones with the sequins and bells that go clear up past my elbows...I carefully peel, remove and discard, in favor of them leather ones.
Getting real

Trying to Fix The Mirror, Self Awarness...Reflection

Ever since i picked up this mirror, a few months back, I have been trying to get it to work.
I guess I am not surprized that i just was diagnosed with a bacterial eye infection today....I really haven't been "seeing" well. And I have begun to realize exactly how much I look, but fail to see.
I have mirrors, but they do not work. They reflect back this very odd, vague figure of someone, this almost stranger, looking back at me.
My age perpetually surprizes me. The mirror is the only thing that tries to tell me this truth. And I rarely look. Mirrors are strictly decorative, at least in my house.
Sometimes I take a glance on the way out the door, to see if my hair is all scattered and akimbo...I think its about 50/ 50 as to whether or not it actually registers in my brain that I need that brush.
Younglink, ah, my little Wonder and bundle of boy, Him, I always see because he would have it no other way. he knows enough to get right in my face to state his point or to check something out, and he always registers :)
My partner, hmmm, I probably only see her once a week or so, if I consciously tell myself too. She could have a brand new doo, or a new shirt on and it doesn't register. So, I have been working on seeing better, improving my vision.
Yeah, I wear glasses just for the close stuff and that really is not an excuse. I don't know if i have always been this way with my vision. Is this a current affair? Or I am just becoming aware that I have always been this way? I'm thinking its a little of both.
I know that I don't remember faces very well at all and that the majority of people all look alike to me. So, that leads me to think that this is more long-standing.
Why do people look in the mirror? I guess I equate that with checking for flaws or vanity...neither of which I find or believe true in this moment.
I guess I really don't know how to make this mirror work. I thought if i wrote about it, some sort of answer would float by...but, nope, I have none.

The Aloneness...... Aspergers Syndrome and Loneliness

If there is one thing, that I believe a person with aspergers understands much more than the standard neuro-typical it is the intense feeling of aloneness. And maybe, hopefully, I am wrong and some aspies do not experience the brevity and depth of what it feels like to know that no matter where or with whom, you are flying solo.
Eldest and I have discussed this issue at length....we know that we are born alone and have a deep understanding of it.
Aspergers Syndrome is a disassociate state of being...always one step removed from reality
Anyway, this is the beginning of my photo essay album...I miss you