My name is Erik. I am 34 and on the autistic spectrum. I am for all intents and purposes what you might consider smart.
I've been pinned down to paper like an insect and studied since i was old enough to go to pre kindergarten classes by psychologists and psychiatrists and teachers alike. I have a GIANT ream of paperwork with some of my records i managed to recover as a 30 year old man from my various schools that was so completely gut wrenching to read i was in a walking coma for 3 months afterwards, recovering from the whiplash of all that information and what it meant finally sinking in. It was the key component to my finalized diagnosis after several months of dual evaluation (differential diagnosis) that led to me being official labeled as having Asperger's Syndrome. Though that definition may have changed slightly due to the DSM manual changing, so now i am simply an adult with autism, just maybe not the kind that you would immediately recognize.
I have spent a great deal of my life in the back of the class, literally and metaphorically BEHIND everyone. I had to study in class to learn, and keep up with the standards of each state's requirements but i couldn't. I couldn't find a way to meet that requirement AND to meet the requirements of my autism. You see, I had to study PEOPLE when i was in school, and it was a full time job with much higher stakes. Much of the class work was manageable, if i was allowed to do it my own way. If i knew the answer in math class, i would write it down, but even if it was right, i was yelled at to show my work by the teacher, and i couldn't understand what he had meant by that. My writing started in the 3rd grade, and i was only encouraged because as it turns out, they were just using my writing to study me and perhaps publish a paper on my behavior. I wrote about trying to understand other kids, and why they were mean to me. I wrote about how scary my asthma was and how sad i felt at home and at school. I wrote about whatever autistic interest i had at the time. Dinosaurs for a long time. Then learning every breed of dog and how to draw them. Learning to fix computers and write in MS Dos when i was in the 3rd grade. My homeroom was in a chicken coop outside of the school in a small town in upstate NY. Not a great place for a kid like me to be, but i'm not sure there was any place in the world for a kid like me to be.
So i struggled. Of course. The depth of that struggle is a million stories that would make your heart hurt to hear. They make my heart hurt to recall sometimes. I have achieved a herculean task in simply making it to this stage of my life. In managed to exist right now. I was never prepared to make it this far though. I made it on instinct and relentless study and mimicry of my surrounding. I took social risks and after years of being beat on became hard and fearless in the face of threats and violence. I stood against my would be tormentors until they broke under the effort required to beat me into submission. I just had nothing left to lose anymore.
So here i am. Smash cut to the here and now.
I'm functional, in some rudimentary ways. But i'm also ruined for life, like a war veteran. Warped by the things i've seen and had done to me. My rational mind cannot filter out all the hurt, all the negativity, all the cynicism, even being this far removed from it's frequency. I can't work a conventional job because for all my efforts, i'm still a mutant, and the fact that i require "Effort" at all to affect a normal personality to work with others saps my strength quickly and completely, running me into the same problem i suffered as a young man. Either i can do the job well. Better then well. Or i can manage all the social contracts in the workplace that must be maintained, and flounder in performing the actual duties with all level of acumen.
So i live lean. Incredibly lean. I have learned to make the meager stipend i receive for being ruined into a manageable mess, at least somewhat. I have insurance. I have food. I have a tv, a computer, an internet connection and various other bits and pieces of a life strewn together from thrift stores and sales and trades and the like. I built my own computer. I fixed my own electronics. I don't have a cell phone or a car. I have enough. Just enough. To survive, but not to thrive.
I have no family connections, nor do i have any connections to my social history. All the faces and people i have met over my life have fled, many before they were aware of my condition, but i am certain they would not return upon learning of it. Every living person i know and interact with by and large is brand new, and our relationships are kept shallow and distant. Engaging only under strict conditions of a shared interest on occasion and with great restraint on my part. I yearn for a deeper connection, the strings i grasped at when i was young and tireless, but anytime i have attempted to obtain them, i find i am overreaching and run the risk of driving new people away. I want to ask you who you really are, and why. I want to know your stories and how you got this age, to be sitting across from me here now. My desire is to understand people, so that maybe someday i can fully understand myself. So that i might know warmth and affection born from a deeper place then the utility i offer. The odd collection of humor and skills that i present to you.
I don't have a dream. An overarching goal or purpose. Even when i was young, i just said i wanted to be happy. Maybe when i was a teenager, i thought i could be a singer if i kept practicing, but bands are VERY social and hard to manage. And a job in the music industry when the pie was shrinking was not to be. I wanted to be a DJ once. An on air personality, only to share my love of strange music with other people. This is of course before i understood that being a dj required much more then just being good at it and having a great background in music. It required interviews and uniforms and protocols and gatekeepers. I tried, for a while, but it was not to be. Since then i don't think i've had a single thing i've really wanted to be. I thought i might be a writer.
That my pain, my experiences, my unique brain and it's story might be worth something in the world. Maybe my life could help ease the pain of others, help people like me who could not relate in the normal world have a comforting and funny voice to support them. Something i wished i had in so many dark moments. But i only knew the writing part of the puzzle. I wrote and wrote and wrote. But i never knew what to do with it. I'm not a guy with a terribly high self opinion. I could never figure out how to "market" myself. What i would send. What i would say. What to do with a writing style that is like an unbroken ream of paper darting gleefully from gallows humor to sorrow.
I want the same things as you mostly. A sense of purpose about my life and what i put my effort into. Some tangible result of that spent life to gradually emerge and form the beams that might support a fully realized person and life. To feel friendship and feel no anxiety about losing it. To make enough money to support myself, stand up from this wheelchair and walk off into the sunset alone, emerging when i feel like it, not because i have too. To make a difference. To mend my shattered wings.
So here i am, and here i have been for the last 2 years. In pursuit of nothing. Digging a hole and filling it back up each day. Strangling myself with my own noose of failure. My own shattered sense of who i am, versus who i believe i am supposed to be.
And i still don't know. Maybe you can tell me.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Monday, November 18, 2013
Patterns
There are some patterns that most autistic people share.
Extreme focus on a subject of interest (my playing a certain game for an entire day, or reading a book in one long session, fixing an object that is broken until complete, ignoring sleep and food.)
A level of detachment from emotional matters, though the degree varies. I still possess empathy and emotions, they are just very VERY subdued by comparison to normal folks. Many people have remarked that i seem "Robotic." and at times that is probably true. I Seek to solve problems in a pragmatic, rational, and unemotional way so, yes it is, clinical or perhaps robotic.
Traits like this, when you lay them out line by line, don't seem on paper as if they would be so crippling, so alienating and limiting, but in the real world even little differences matter. Even the little variations get you noticed. The guy with the mole on his lip will always be that to some people, forever and ever. That will color their interactions, perhaps it's subtle affect will radically alter his ability to progress upward in his chosen career path.
It could be that simple, and my condition is quite a bit more pervasive then one little physical deformity.
It would be if not perfect, at least ideal, if difference was praised more in common encounters, less in tiny off shoot artist communes. If my brain could be recognized as a different operating system, a program designed for different tasks, and not uniformly compared to the existing archetypes and found lacking.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
It is attributed to to Albert Einstein but a disputed quote. The message should still resonate loud and clear.
Were so many PEOPLE not standing in front of so many doors, i could open them all with my mind.
But there is no ruthlessness in me. No desire to hurt or reduce for malice. I can only make a cold logical presentation of why you should,
But you are not obligated to ever,
Move.
Extreme focus on a subject of interest (my playing a certain game for an entire day, or reading a book in one long session, fixing an object that is broken until complete, ignoring sleep and food.)
A level of detachment from emotional matters, though the degree varies. I still possess empathy and emotions, they are just very VERY subdued by comparison to normal folks. Many people have remarked that i seem "Robotic." and at times that is probably true. I Seek to solve problems in a pragmatic, rational, and unemotional way so, yes it is, clinical or perhaps robotic.
Traits like this, when you lay them out line by line, don't seem on paper as if they would be so crippling, so alienating and limiting, but in the real world even little differences matter. Even the little variations get you noticed. The guy with the mole on his lip will always be that to some people, forever and ever. That will color their interactions, perhaps it's subtle affect will radically alter his ability to progress upward in his chosen career path.
It could be that simple, and my condition is quite a bit more pervasive then one little physical deformity.
It would be if not perfect, at least ideal, if difference was praised more in common encounters, less in tiny off shoot artist communes. If my brain could be recognized as a different operating system, a program designed for different tasks, and not uniformly compared to the existing archetypes and found lacking.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
It is attributed to to Albert Einstein but a disputed quote. The message should still resonate loud and clear.
Were so many PEOPLE not standing in front of so many doors, i could open them all with my mind.
But there is no ruthlessness in me. No desire to hurt or reduce for malice. I can only make a cold logical presentation of why you should,
But you are not obligated to ever,
Move.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Day in the life, uh.
Living with me, or knowing me closely, is not unlike living with any other disabled person.
I may not require the direct sort of care some on the spectrum do, but what i require takes resources just the same, and can foster frustration in those that would attempt to give it, no matter how well intentioned.
Every single day requires a concerted effort on my part to feel normal, to feel, if not happy, something approaching it.
It requires hours of concentration just to achieve something akin to not feeling entirely destroyed and hollowed out, each and every day.
If that sounds exhausting to endure, that's because it is. I assure you.
It's no picnic to be around either. People take their normal friends and relationships for granted often, and it's not until that normality is juxtaposed against some disparity struggle that the value is crystallized. So who in there right mind has the metaphorical "Time" for that? We are all so deeply individualistic, that i can't begin to imagine this idealized person because it's absurdity in the concept phase alone of consideration stops me abruptly, as if walking face first into a wall.
Sure. Sympathetic right? That happens. It's close to pity, often crosses over, but it's not your burden to bear and i respect that. I never wanted pity, and i'm past needing sympathy. Parity is all i strive for. And an "X" in the win column once in a while, to go beside my collection of check marks on spent calendar pages, gathering dust in yellowing boxes in my mind.
I used to aim higher, but one to many trips down this flight of stairs from extending my hand enough to skew my balance has made me coarse and cynical, even if i'm still not especially cautious. There was never a body capable enough nor willing enough to help drag me out of myself past my limitations, it's just too much hard labor, too much work, and no one can be bothered.
I do what i can with my skillset, but i and not the sort of brain, the sort of man, that can do everything myself. I wish i was. I wanted to be. I can write the words and stack them up together, but i can't turn them into a book, into a working relationship, into a job. I can sing the songs well, practice of years has lead to mastery, but i can't market myself for shit, so only the neighbors and my apartment know. I can pack my own bags damnit, but the gatekeepers out there are all normal, all powerful, all excluding, and my own personal rat race for years has been trying to sneak in the back way.
Nothing's changing beyond my age, and the depth of entropy, the intensity of my gravity. At the end of the day the world still operates in a way that i cannot penetrate. I am the powder, i am the lead, I am the hammer and the tensed spring, but absence the casing i am,
wasted.
So i tell my story walking, late at night to people who keep on talking, while i'm out there being awkward, wishing that just this once i would fall forward.
I may not require the direct sort of care some on the spectrum do, but what i require takes resources just the same, and can foster frustration in those that would attempt to give it, no matter how well intentioned.
Every single day requires a concerted effort on my part to feel normal, to feel, if not happy, something approaching it.
It requires hours of concentration just to achieve something akin to not feeling entirely destroyed and hollowed out, each and every day.
If that sounds exhausting to endure, that's because it is. I assure you.
It's no picnic to be around either. People take their normal friends and relationships for granted often, and it's not until that normality is juxtaposed against some disparity struggle that the value is crystallized. So who in there right mind has the metaphorical "Time" for that? We are all so deeply individualistic, that i can't begin to imagine this idealized person because it's absurdity in the concept phase alone of consideration stops me abruptly, as if walking face first into a wall.
Sure. Sympathetic right? That happens. It's close to pity, often crosses over, but it's not your burden to bear and i respect that. I never wanted pity, and i'm past needing sympathy. Parity is all i strive for. And an "X" in the win column once in a while, to go beside my collection of check marks on spent calendar pages, gathering dust in yellowing boxes in my mind.
I used to aim higher, but one to many trips down this flight of stairs from extending my hand enough to skew my balance has made me coarse and cynical, even if i'm still not especially cautious. There was never a body capable enough nor willing enough to help drag me out of myself past my limitations, it's just too much hard labor, too much work, and no one can be bothered.
I do what i can with my skillset, but i and not the sort of brain, the sort of man, that can do everything myself. I wish i was. I wanted to be. I can write the words and stack them up together, but i can't turn them into a book, into a working relationship, into a job. I can sing the songs well, practice of years has lead to mastery, but i can't market myself for shit, so only the neighbors and my apartment know. I can pack my own bags damnit, but the gatekeepers out there are all normal, all powerful, all excluding, and my own personal rat race for years has been trying to sneak in the back way.
Nothing's changing beyond my age, and the depth of entropy, the intensity of my gravity. At the end of the day the world still operates in a way that i cannot penetrate. I am the powder, i am the lead, I am the hammer and the tensed spring, but absence the casing i am,
wasted.
So i tell my story walking, late at night to people who keep on talking, while i'm out there being awkward, wishing that just this once i would fall forward.
Friday, May 17, 2013
You can't fault a dog for being a dog.
Hi there. I don't write often enough. Mostly because my depression grinds me into the dirt until i am unable to function, and if i survive each bout with it, i inexorably return to the page. Even though, it seems to do me no good. I want to believe my words mean something, that i can help someone, or even better, that i can help myself. Years of writing to no one in particular have left me spent, isolated, and lacking the confidence one usually requires to succeed at such endeavors.
I digress.
This is an autism blog, and i am a formally diagnosed autistic.
There are too many studies out there for me to go through single-handedly, even with my perseverance operating at peak "forgetting to feed myself and sleep" levels of efficiency. What i can bring you however, paints a picture.
Several studies using MRI brain imaging scans and autopsy of the brain have shown a connection between autism and brain size, as well as white tissue volume. The variances are significant person to person, from some studies suggesting as low as a 17% greater volume of white matter and 9-13% increase in overall brain size, all the way up to 71.3% more white matter, and 66% greater brain size. These variances only serve to illustrate to those already in the know in the autistic community something we have always been aware of.
Autistic people are DIFFERENT.
Not just different from the population at large, different from one another, sometime in orders of magnitude greater then the average person would consider. Lets not forget this is the brain we are talking about here. The seat of human consciousness. The thing that makes you, YOU. The least understood of all the organs in the human body, and arguably the most important. The complexity of the brain, as has been said by scientists, makes decoding the human genome look easy.
What i'm saying is, we really don't have the tools or techniques yet to understand just what these sorts of radical changes in our brains are doing to us completely, or what it means. This is an evolutionary grey area and no one was, or is prepared for what it could mean in the history of mankind. Autistic's could possibly be a new mutation, an evolutionary branch off of homosapien, just as we evolved from neanderthal man.
Yet, we have some out there, who have been trying to co-op our community, speak for us, suggest we are diseased, we need cures for our "illness." A fundamental change in the biologic operating system of our brains from BIRTH, as it's re-branded as an illness. A sickness compared to cancer, suggested by some as a cancer of the mind. There are organizations out that pity us, make money from others on the pity they cultivate, the guilt they inflict on confused, desperate parents. All the while we set up our own communities, our own networks, and we wonder aloud together, "Why can't autistic people speak out for autistic people?"
Lets start over.
You may be wondering what the title of these piece means,
"You can't fault a dog for being a dog."
It's something i came up with many years ago.
I was frustrated, like a lot of people, with my failures in social situations. I endured early years of torture, bullying, abuse, and detention instead of proper care and consideration in school. They didn't have a diagnosis back then. Still, no one seemed to be able to change this course for me. In high school, i adapted a new, more vicious strategy. Having had my share of beatings, i choose not to back down to threats and attacks my first few weeks, and it allowed me to scare my bullies off, and even be invited into a few social groups. Long story short? It worked for a while. Teenagers love weird offbeat thinkers, and i had that in spades. I was infamous, well known, and enjoyed a modest amount of popularity. It was strictly off of my novelty, but i wouldn't figure that out until much later. It didn't change the fact that i was still completely and thoroughly misunderstood. While i had some renown and with it a few benefits i never had before, i still felt like i could not make proper relationships. I felt like people were, incredibly stupid most of the time, and i could not relate to their limitations when i radically exceeded them.
It was hard to me to understand, because i was born this way, born with some extra ability that made my brain a bit bigger, a bit faster, and i just assumed that this is what everyone could do. That when they seemed stupid, it was because they were just not applying themselves, not trying to think about things like i did. I never felt that special, so how could so much of the world seem so obvious and simple to me and seem so vexing and irritating to others?
It wasn't until i was in college that i understood what i had missed before. I was doing that same thing to them they did to me. Judging them based on their inherent limitations, on what they were born able to do. On how they were created, not who they were. Calling people stupid is just as unfair coming out of my mouth as it is anyone elses. It wasn't any better then me getting beat up for being extremely poor at sports, wracked with cripplingly severe asthma, or being "weird." I was born that way, and they in turn were born their own way.
Intelligence is just ONE evolutionary adaptation to try to succeed as a species in this world. Physical attractiveness is another. Raw strength is another. Incredible dexterity is another. Hell, one scientist when asked about his intelligence joked that it was the worst of the adaptive advantages to be born with.
He said something to the effect of, "Sure, intelligence might save me from predators, but so would running really fast. Personally i find running really fast to be the superior adaptation."
I learned something. I might be smarter. In one narrow little metric or maybe two. But that doesn't make me BETTER. It just makes us different. A big brain is very biologically expensive. That is to say, there was/is a finite pool of resources to draw from when i was created, so many of those resources when into my brain that my body was frail and extremely vulnerable. My allergies were life threatening from the moment i was born. I have been near death from asthma attacks in my lifetime, before the age of 10, and multiple times.
As an adult, my enlarged brain is severely demanding and poses many significant difficulties to my life that a regular brain does not. I am prone to heat stroke due to my head quite literally overheating from over activity (referred to by some as "racing mind.") I have Irritable bowl syndrome that seems to plague many on the spectrum. I have constant pain from muscle spasms and a profound inability to sleep regular hours or restfully with any reliability. My senses of hearing, smell and sight are elevated resulting in severe sensitivity and acute awareness to these stimuli often causing severe pain. This results in me often wearing sunglasses indoors to cut the light, alienating me further. I have to wear earplugs in environments that normal people would never have to, and if i do not i can damage my body so severely that i have triggered benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. Multiple times. This took weeks, and weeks to heal, there is no means to make it heal faster. Unpleasant smells are extremely unpleasant when you have a heightened sense of smell. I also have migraine headaches frequently due to changes in atmospheric pressure that can stay with me for days, rendering me wracked with pain with no real way to stop it until the storm passes, so to speak.
And that, is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. All of that for the evolutionary boon of a big brain. It's a horrible trade off. On occasion is has proven helpful, most of the time it just results in me being penalized socially. No one likes someone who is right all the time, it makes them self conscious. Most of the time my nature effortless language and cadence make people around me feel bad about themselves, even when i am trying my hardest not to offend or insult anyone. Being smarter is bad for ME too, not just others. It makes me hyper aware of my problems, my limitations, and the statistical likelihood of overcoming them. It makes me a jaded overly studious cynic par excellence. It's nothing to be jealous of for certain. It leaves me exhausted, depressed, lonely and unable to connect to others due to the heaviness of my demeanor.
But i am, what i am. And i can't be mad at you, for being what you are.
The average brain is being inundated with 11 million bits of information a second, and yet we are only able to process 50 bits per second. Maybe i can process 100. Maybe more. But that is a fundamental difference in our biology, and should not be asserted to make other inferences about one another's character. I can't be angry anymore when someone doesn't understand me, i have to respect their limitations and hope they can make an effort to respect mine. If that happens, at least we can tolerate each other.
We still have a problem though. A problem greater then any other manner of communication barrier one could possibly fathom. This is no mere language barrier. There is no computer program or off the shelf linguist out there that can translate "autistic" to "neurotypical." We still cannot understand each other, and while that is a lost to both parties, it is invariably a greater blow for the autistic in this exchange. Nt's rule the world. You are plentiful, powerful, and completely ubiquitous. When one thinks of a person, they think of you. Autistic's are rare and vastly different even from one another, and losing the ability to communicate with the most bountiful human life form on the planet lea leaves us severely disadvantaged, and honestly, pretty alienated and alone.
How can we bridge this impossible gap? How can we accurately relay what those extra bits per second are doing to us, how they shape our lives and decisions, how they make us feel. Neanderthal man simply died out, but who knows how long that took or exactly how it transpired.
You are different from us. We are different from you. Does that mean we are doomed to live entirely separate lives, operating in parallel from one another, forever?
I don't have many neurotypical friends. You might not have any autistic friends. It starts with me, but as the dominate species out there in the world..... neurotypicals, it ends with you.
I digress.
This is an autism blog, and i am a formally diagnosed autistic.
There are too many studies out there for me to go through single-handedly, even with my perseverance operating at peak "forgetting to feed myself and sleep" levels of efficiency. What i can bring you however, paints a picture.
Several studies using MRI brain imaging scans and autopsy of the brain have shown a connection between autism and brain size, as well as white tissue volume. The variances are significant person to person, from some studies suggesting as low as a 17% greater volume of white matter and 9-13% increase in overall brain size, all the way up to 71.3% more white matter, and 66% greater brain size. These variances only serve to illustrate to those already in the know in the autistic community something we have always been aware of.
Autistic people are DIFFERENT.
Not just different from the population at large, different from one another, sometime in orders of magnitude greater then the average person would consider. Lets not forget this is the brain we are talking about here. The seat of human consciousness. The thing that makes you, YOU. The least understood of all the organs in the human body, and arguably the most important. The complexity of the brain, as has been said by scientists, makes decoding the human genome look easy.
What i'm saying is, we really don't have the tools or techniques yet to understand just what these sorts of radical changes in our brains are doing to us completely, or what it means. This is an evolutionary grey area and no one was, or is prepared for what it could mean in the history of mankind. Autistic's could possibly be a new mutation, an evolutionary branch off of homosapien, just as we evolved from neanderthal man.
Yet, we have some out there, who have been trying to co-op our community, speak for us, suggest we are diseased, we need cures for our "illness." A fundamental change in the biologic operating system of our brains from BIRTH, as it's re-branded as an illness. A sickness compared to cancer, suggested by some as a cancer of the mind. There are organizations out that pity us, make money from others on the pity they cultivate, the guilt they inflict on confused, desperate parents. All the while we set up our own communities, our own networks, and we wonder aloud together, "Why can't autistic people speak out for autistic people?"
Lets start over.
You may be wondering what the title of these piece means,
"You can't fault a dog for being a dog."
It's something i came up with many years ago.
I was frustrated, like a lot of people, with my failures in social situations. I endured early years of torture, bullying, abuse, and detention instead of proper care and consideration in school. They didn't have a diagnosis back then. Still, no one seemed to be able to change this course for me. In high school, i adapted a new, more vicious strategy. Having had my share of beatings, i choose not to back down to threats and attacks my first few weeks, and it allowed me to scare my bullies off, and even be invited into a few social groups. Long story short? It worked for a while. Teenagers love weird offbeat thinkers, and i had that in spades. I was infamous, well known, and enjoyed a modest amount of popularity. It was strictly off of my novelty, but i wouldn't figure that out until much later. It didn't change the fact that i was still completely and thoroughly misunderstood. While i had some renown and with it a few benefits i never had before, i still felt like i could not make proper relationships. I felt like people were, incredibly stupid most of the time, and i could not relate to their limitations when i radically exceeded them.
It was hard to me to understand, because i was born this way, born with some extra ability that made my brain a bit bigger, a bit faster, and i just assumed that this is what everyone could do. That when they seemed stupid, it was because they were just not applying themselves, not trying to think about things like i did. I never felt that special, so how could so much of the world seem so obvious and simple to me and seem so vexing and irritating to others?
It wasn't until i was in college that i understood what i had missed before. I was doing that same thing to them they did to me. Judging them based on their inherent limitations, on what they were born able to do. On how they were created, not who they were. Calling people stupid is just as unfair coming out of my mouth as it is anyone elses. It wasn't any better then me getting beat up for being extremely poor at sports, wracked with cripplingly severe asthma, or being "weird." I was born that way, and they in turn were born their own way.
Intelligence is just ONE evolutionary adaptation to try to succeed as a species in this world. Physical attractiveness is another. Raw strength is another. Incredible dexterity is another. Hell, one scientist when asked about his intelligence joked that it was the worst of the adaptive advantages to be born with.
He said something to the effect of, "Sure, intelligence might save me from predators, but so would running really fast. Personally i find running really fast to be the superior adaptation."
I learned something. I might be smarter. In one narrow little metric or maybe two. But that doesn't make me BETTER. It just makes us different. A big brain is very biologically expensive. That is to say, there was/is a finite pool of resources to draw from when i was created, so many of those resources when into my brain that my body was frail and extremely vulnerable. My allergies were life threatening from the moment i was born. I have been near death from asthma attacks in my lifetime, before the age of 10, and multiple times.
As an adult, my enlarged brain is severely demanding and poses many significant difficulties to my life that a regular brain does not. I am prone to heat stroke due to my head quite literally overheating from over activity (referred to by some as "racing mind.") I have Irritable bowl syndrome that seems to plague many on the spectrum. I have constant pain from muscle spasms and a profound inability to sleep regular hours or restfully with any reliability. My senses of hearing, smell and sight are elevated resulting in severe sensitivity and acute awareness to these stimuli often causing severe pain. This results in me often wearing sunglasses indoors to cut the light, alienating me further. I have to wear earplugs in environments that normal people would never have to, and if i do not i can damage my body so severely that i have triggered benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. Multiple times. This took weeks, and weeks to heal, there is no means to make it heal faster. Unpleasant smells are extremely unpleasant when you have a heightened sense of smell. I also have migraine headaches frequently due to changes in atmospheric pressure that can stay with me for days, rendering me wracked with pain with no real way to stop it until the storm passes, so to speak.
And that, is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. All of that for the evolutionary boon of a big brain. It's a horrible trade off. On occasion is has proven helpful, most of the time it just results in me being penalized socially. No one likes someone who is right all the time, it makes them self conscious. Most of the time my nature effortless language and cadence make people around me feel bad about themselves, even when i am trying my hardest not to offend or insult anyone. Being smarter is bad for ME too, not just others. It makes me hyper aware of my problems, my limitations, and the statistical likelihood of overcoming them. It makes me a jaded overly studious cynic par excellence. It's nothing to be jealous of for certain. It leaves me exhausted, depressed, lonely and unable to connect to others due to the heaviness of my demeanor.
But i am, what i am. And i can't be mad at you, for being what you are.
The average brain is being inundated with 11 million bits of information a second, and yet we are only able to process 50 bits per second. Maybe i can process 100. Maybe more. But that is a fundamental difference in our biology, and should not be asserted to make other inferences about one another's character. I can't be angry anymore when someone doesn't understand me, i have to respect their limitations and hope they can make an effort to respect mine. If that happens, at least we can tolerate each other.
We still have a problem though. A problem greater then any other manner of communication barrier one could possibly fathom. This is no mere language barrier. There is no computer program or off the shelf linguist out there that can translate "autistic" to "neurotypical." We still cannot understand each other, and while that is a lost to both parties, it is invariably a greater blow for the autistic in this exchange. Nt's rule the world. You are plentiful, powerful, and completely ubiquitous. When one thinks of a person, they think of you. Autistic's are rare and vastly different even from one another, and losing the ability to communicate with the most bountiful human life form on the planet lea leaves us severely disadvantaged, and honestly, pretty alienated and alone.
How can we bridge this impossible gap? How can we accurately relay what those extra bits per second are doing to us, how they shape our lives and decisions, how they make us feel. Neanderthal man simply died out, but who knows how long that took or exactly how it transpired.
You are different from us. We are different from you. Does that mean we are doomed to live entirely separate lives, operating in parallel from one another, forever?
I don't have many neurotypical friends. You might not have any autistic friends. It starts with me, but as the dominate species out there in the world..... neurotypicals, it ends with you.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Problem solving via LASER GONIOMETER
My writing tends to be organic, and comes it waves. My feelings, when i can grasp them are fleeting and too difficult to fully express in plain language. I am, as we all are, trying to decipher the ineffable after all. I never expected it to be easy.
I have years of writing under my belt, and that leaves me with endless pages filled with subverted angst and a paper trail of my efforts to try to understand the self, the neurotypical world. and my place in it. The following is a journal entry about the feeling, the struggle, in a little bite size piece. No. It never gets any easier.
I've read a lot. Not in terms of easy to name drop recognizably great works, but of information in general.
Data. facts. Figures. Concepts. Theories. Hypothesis. Inquires. Conflicts. Debates. Fallacies. Phallus-es, and all the varying methodologies and dogma's therein.
And my head hurts. Sure. All of that information is straining inside this shell, pushing against an impermeable membrane, threatening to crack the casing and the matter inside pulsates and throbs. I still always find myself going back for more.
More knowledge. More information. More truths and immutable facts about reality. I guess my brain decided a long time ago how i was to operate in this world, and i was absent that day. MORE. If i fill up the space, perhaps i will be able to construct a uniform understanding of all the hypocrisies, aspirations, objectives, inclinations and inspirations.
Nothing seems to satisfy/sedate/satiate this urge to know it all. I think of it in my head, as a tremendous flat landscape, the floor clear acrylic with bits of information like a massive puzzle hidden under endless piles of earth. I wander this endless land, with nothing but a broom and my tenacious obsession, uncovering numbers, letters, images and clues. Forever methodically sweeping away the dirt that obscures my understanding. The final picture.
I'm not happy with speculation. It's fun to attempt, to imagine, to employ creative problem solving to attempt to reason out the world, but without all the pieces, the thing never coalesces. It is pressure, and carbon, and time, but never, a diamond.
I want to understand why we hate ourselves. Why we hurt others. Why most of what we say as a species, are lies. Why we belief in fairy tales, why we defer to our lizard brains so often. What consciousness is and how more people can obtain it. What is the self and can those born without awareness of it EVER have it revealed to them?
I want to chew you up and pulverize everything that you are. Crunch your bones and suck out all the marrow. Lick the blood of your thoughts and use all that matter to feed strength to my exhausted arms. To keep sweeping. Keep swinging. Keep digging. Keep holding my brains in my head with my hands, and crawling ever closing to the black abyss of truth.
Maybe there, i can finally learn, why humans are the way they are.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Digging in the dirt.
This is from a piece i wrote several months ago, and while reading back over it, i recognized it's placement made far more sense here, then in my general purpose journal. It is written in a more informal style, without an audience in mind, providing a more intimate window into what it might sound like if you could hear someone talking to themselves, trying to convince themselves of something, or talk themselves out of something else.
More headlines, more information but nothing stirring. So much pap, so little substance.
It occurred to me today, another piece of the self awareness puzzle, my general interest in shopping malls. I've always tried to put it into words, and have managed to understand a bit, this strange effect of being around people but completely invisible amongst them. It has always provided an odd comfort, as if i can draw energy from them via proximity, but do so in stealth, without the burdensome interactions that invariably end with me alienating everyone i meet. There seems to be another factor as well however. People on the spectrum are being studied intensely right now, trying to understand autism via brain maps is what i'm most interested in personally. As i understand it, and as i often stated in my life and writing long before i had a diagnosis, i tended to describe myself as "An alien that learned human speech" (temple grandin coined the phrase "I was like an anthropologist on mars.") Similar yes? I also made multiple references to feeling as if i had "crosses wires" and the only way i could envision handling my life was an act of controlled demolition. Going in and tearing out everything, laying it back down in the way i saw fit would be the only way i could see surviving in a life and body that made me intensely depressed, lonely and nearly suicidal on several occasions. Turns out, as it's been said by some researchers in the field one of the oddities of Asperger's, is that "If you think you have it, you probably do." People on the spectrum have been observed as "thinking in pictures." Which is something i'd said of myself before too. I specifically remember telling brady among a few others this when i was a teenager, when trying to describe how i write. I think that other dimension that i enjoy so much about the biggest and most robust shopping malls is for that reason, it's an added dimension of stimulation. I can derive great pleasure from looking at things in that context. From studying people, and exploring this urban museum. Picking things up in stores, reading labels and figuring out what things are made of. Where the materials came from, how it was constructed, how it is used or the science behind an item's creation. I never feel strongly compelled to purchase or acquire, and often just wander, looking at everything in every store, looking for the story, enjoying the stimulation far more then the acquisition of of the thing. I keep learning. and by doing so, i keep myself interested in a world that feels so small to me. So small as each increasing bit of knowledge explodes the earth, and exposes it's secrets, condenses it's truth.
How odd. An illness that bestows some kind of inexplicable self awareness? What the hell is that? How can that really be possible, be a "thing" that occurs in the natural world? The mystical third eye has become manifest? A unique expression of the human genome. That's how i try to think of myself now, trying to gradually lighten the weights in my backpack, admittedly i put them there myself. I could blame the eyes, the people, the weakness projected onto me, but ultimately i decided the hurt i felt was a defect in my manufacturing, and i needed to rectify this problem immediately. So, i did literally put lifting weights in my pack on my walks to school and college. I braced myself and focused my mind, putting up layers of iron, nickel, aluminum, like paint on a plywood, gradually hardening, thickening, growing more and more dense until i could carry their weaknesses. Until my strength was overwhelming any attempts to put me down or injure me with words or fists. I took what i felt was this huge flaw that i was in my mind, personally responsible for, and buried it under my uncontrollably perseverate behavior. I didn't think of it as perseveration then, i thought if it as the Nietzchian WILL, as integrity, and the honor and stoutness of the samurai code was to be integrated into my sloppy, weak, undisciplined life.
Turns out it was just one of my of the side effects of asperger's syndrome. An uncompromising nature, a drive to DO what i say i will do and BE as i say i am. I still carry that forward to this day, i have no other choice, but knowing now, i wouldn't change that about myself anyhow. I stand head and shoulders above the arrows and insults of a vicious unhappy world. I may be unhappy too, but i am strong and honest, and i will NOT reduce myself to be a part of a society that is cruel, entitled, egocentric, and functionally blind. I have not been able to blind that third eye even with the most self abusive and rigorous attempts in the past, and i'm through with trying. I was hard and unswerving then, i did NOT hesitate, and i will embrace that self once more with knowing arms, wrapping up that phantom and pulling it back into my self where in belongs.
You will rise up to my level, i will not waste anymore of myself trying to reduce myself to yours.
I do not know if one can nourish a soul enough, to cultivate this kind of awareness in the self. I do not know if i am special, so special, that i cannot ever be a part of this world, but i was born with this. Gift, or, curse, it is equally both, and i cannot relate to what it must be like to have that barely-functional vision, two eyes that are just good enough. Can self awareness be hammered into the soul, a spike that splits the brain stem, separates the many parts and forces new tissue to grow, new electric wires to sprout like saproling's stitching the now open mind back together?
I can't waste myself on that either. I tried, with so many people. I joked to myself, or tried to tell myself i was joking when i said "there are no friends for me. I have to build one from scratch." And god did i try. But it was not to be.
One can not lie as a Man in a field of cows and expect to wake up in a field of Man.
I understand that now. Part of me will always pull myself in that direction, for me, i can't characterize it in my head in any other way then "helping." But help is relative i guess. The Hagakure says:
"Offer advice, like a glass of water, to a man dying of thirst. "
but i had never been able to understand when people are lying to me all that well, and so much of what a person says to everyone, everywhere, everyday, is a lie. When a person complaints at length about a specific topic, "I'm fat. I'm boring, i'm unhappy, i'm weak-willed, i shop to much." Whatever it may be, i don't understand that they are in fact just talking to fill space, to make noise, to facilitate the passing of time. It is illogical to me that when i would offer solutions to these problems, even with considerable education, intellect and tact, that i would draw such ire, such a fiery counterattack in response.
"At what point did we start fighting?" I would wonder to myself. I made mental notes, and noted this occurrence and how often it seems to repeat it's course, but i was powerless to change the way it played out. I just could not understand patently illogical behaviors and mannerisms, and to this day, i still can't.
So i am trying to not do that, to divest myself from caring about people, without becoming completely cold. I already sway between emotionally detached and unmitigated intensity when i am engaged on the topic that interests me, such is the nature of the syndrome. No stomach for small talk, no mind for unimportant ritual and pleasantries. I never compliment someone to garner favor, i only do so if i really believe what i'm saying with complete conviction. I'm not certain this is a hurdle i can overcome, another gate in my brain physically cut, a flopping wire removed from the circuit that connects everything else. Best to accept that i can't do everything perfectly, certainly not with the dexterity or agility of a neurotypical brain wired for social interaction.
Don't break your back again, loading the backpack up with weights or people, that didn't want your help to begin with. Let them fall away and fade into the rear view, as so very many have in my life, and as more will surely follow. It's a lonely life, a dedicated samurai, or cowboy, or enlightened mind in a world of indifference so sharp that to look at it will draw blood.
So don't blame them, but don't capitulate to them either Don't let them BLAME YOU for their weaknesses that increase in weight the closer they stand to you, your gravity, one of the side effects of that metaphorical third eye, ebbs ever outwards, pumping out an energy that makes rain fall around you like gunfire. That snaps the skinny bones and unguarded hearts of those that would approach carelessly. Don't unsheathe your sword against anything but a worthy foe. Let your presence alone rattle the fault lines and break into pieces those who would stab you in the back.
There will always be envy. People who hate the birds for flaunting their ability to fly. But birds don't concern themselves with those mournful creatures stuck down on the ground. Neither disdain nor pride is conjured for the bird, they just live in a different world.
It occurred to me today, another piece of the self awareness puzzle, my general interest in shopping malls. I've always tried to put it into words, and have managed to understand a bit, this strange effect of being around people but completely invisible amongst them. It has always provided an odd comfort, as if i can draw energy from them via proximity, but do so in stealth, without the burdensome interactions that invariably end with me alienating everyone i meet. There seems to be another factor as well however. People on the spectrum are being studied intensely right now, trying to understand autism via brain maps is what i'm most interested in personally. As i understand it, and as i often stated in my life and writing long before i had a diagnosis, i tended to describe myself as "An alien that learned human speech" (temple grandin coined the phrase "I was like an anthropologist on mars.") Similar yes? I also made multiple references to feeling as if i had "crosses wires" and the only way i could envision handling my life was an act of controlled demolition. Going in and tearing out everything, laying it back down in the way i saw fit would be the only way i could see surviving in a life and body that made me intensely depressed, lonely and nearly suicidal on several occasions. Turns out, as it's been said by some researchers in the field one of the oddities of Asperger's, is that "If you think you have it, you probably do." People on the spectrum have been observed as "thinking in pictures." Which is something i'd said of myself before too. I specifically remember telling brady among a few others this when i was a teenager, when trying to describe how i write. I think that other dimension that i enjoy so much about the biggest and most robust shopping malls is for that reason, it's an added dimension of stimulation. I can derive great pleasure from looking at things in that context. From studying people, and exploring this urban museum. Picking things up in stores, reading labels and figuring out what things are made of. Where the materials came from, how it was constructed, how it is used or the science behind an item's creation. I never feel strongly compelled to purchase or acquire, and often just wander, looking at everything in every store, looking for the story, enjoying the stimulation far more then the acquisition of of the thing. I keep learning. and by doing so, i keep myself interested in a world that feels so small to me. So small as each increasing bit of knowledge explodes the earth, and exposes it's secrets, condenses it's truth.
How odd. An illness that bestows some kind of inexplicable self awareness? What the hell is that? How can that really be possible, be a "thing" that occurs in the natural world? The mystical third eye has become manifest? A unique expression of the human genome. That's how i try to think of myself now, trying to gradually lighten the weights in my backpack, admittedly i put them there myself. I could blame the eyes, the people, the weakness projected onto me, but ultimately i decided the hurt i felt was a defect in my manufacturing, and i needed to rectify this problem immediately. So, i did literally put lifting weights in my pack on my walks to school and college. I braced myself and focused my mind, putting up layers of iron, nickel, aluminum, like paint on a plywood, gradually hardening, thickening, growing more and more dense until i could carry their weaknesses. Until my strength was overwhelming any attempts to put me down or injure me with words or fists. I took what i felt was this huge flaw that i was in my mind, personally responsible for, and buried it under my uncontrollably perseverate behavior. I didn't think of it as perseveration then, i thought if it as the Nietzchian WILL, as integrity, and the honor and stoutness of the samurai code was to be integrated into my sloppy, weak, undisciplined life.
Turns out it was just one of my of the side effects of asperger's syndrome. An uncompromising nature, a drive to DO what i say i will do and BE as i say i am. I still carry that forward to this day, i have no other choice, but knowing now, i wouldn't change that about myself anyhow. I stand head and shoulders above the arrows and insults of a vicious unhappy world. I may be unhappy too, but i am strong and honest, and i will NOT reduce myself to be a part of a society that is cruel, entitled, egocentric, and functionally blind. I have not been able to blind that third eye even with the most self abusive and rigorous attempts in the past, and i'm through with trying. I was hard and unswerving then, i did NOT hesitate, and i will embrace that self once more with knowing arms, wrapping up that phantom and pulling it back into my self where in belongs.
You will rise up to my level, i will not waste anymore of myself trying to reduce myself to yours.
I do not know if one can nourish a soul enough, to cultivate this kind of awareness in the self. I do not know if i am special, so special, that i cannot ever be a part of this world, but i was born with this. Gift, or, curse, it is equally both, and i cannot relate to what it must be like to have that barely-functional vision, two eyes that are just good enough. Can self awareness be hammered into the soul, a spike that splits the brain stem, separates the many parts and forces new tissue to grow, new electric wires to sprout like saproling's stitching the now open mind back together?
I can't waste myself on that either. I tried, with so many people. I joked to myself, or tried to tell myself i was joking when i said "there are no friends for me. I have to build one from scratch." And god did i try. But it was not to be.
One can not lie as a Man in a field of cows and expect to wake up in a field of Man.
I understand that now. Part of me will always pull myself in that direction, for me, i can't characterize it in my head in any other way then "helping." But help is relative i guess. The Hagakure says:
"Offer advice, like a glass of water, to a man dying of thirst. "
but i had never been able to understand when people are lying to me all that well, and so much of what a person says to everyone, everywhere, everyday, is a lie. When a person complaints at length about a specific topic, "I'm fat. I'm boring, i'm unhappy, i'm weak-willed, i shop to much." Whatever it may be, i don't understand that they are in fact just talking to fill space, to make noise, to facilitate the passing of time. It is illogical to me that when i would offer solutions to these problems, even with considerable education, intellect and tact, that i would draw such ire, such a fiery counterattack in response.
"At what point did we start fighting?" I would wonder to myself. I made mental notes, and noted this occurrence and how often it seems to repeat it's course, but i was powerless to change the way it played out. I just could not understand patently illogical behaviors and mannerisms, and to this day, i still can't.
So i am trying to not do that, to divest myself from caring about people, without becoming completely cold. I already sway between emotionally detached and unmitigated intensity when i am engaged on the topic that interests me, such is the nature of the syndrome. No stomach for small talk, no mind for unimportant ritual and pleasantries. I never compliment someone to garner favor, i only do so if i really believe what i'm saying with complete conviction. I'm not certain this is a hurdle i can overcome, another gate in my brain physically cut, a flopping wire removed from the circuit that connects everything else. Best to accept that i can't do everything perfectly, certainly not with the dexterity or agility of a neurotypical brain wired for social interaction.
Don't break your back again, loading the backpack up with weights or people, that didn't want your help to begin with. Let them fall away and fade into the rear view, as so very many have in my life, and as more will surely follow. It's a lonely life, a dedicated samurai, or cowboy, or enlightened mind in a world of indifference so sharp that to look at it will draw blood.
So don't blame them, but don't capitulate to them either Don't let them BLAME YOU for their weaknesses that increase in weight the closer they stand to you, your gravity, one of the side effects of that metaphorical third eye, ebbs ever outwards, pumping out an energy that makes rain fall around you like gunfire. That snaps the skinny bones and unguarded hearts of those that would approach carelessly. Don't unsheathe your sword against anything but a worthy foe. Let your presence alone rattle the fault lines and break into pieces those who would stab you in the back.
There will always be envy. People who hate the birds for flaunting their ability to fly. But birds don't concern themselves with those mournful creatures stuck down on the ground. Neither disdain nor pride is conjured for the bird, they just live in a different world.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
How to give up (knowing when, or how, to throw in the towel)
This is not a tutorial.
It's a question.
At what point does toughness and rugged determination, cross over into delusional stubbornness and perseverence?
I don't have the answer to this, and being autistic, i don't know if ever will to a degree that makes me comfortable. My very nature, like many others on the spectrum is interwoven with the tendency to perseverate. This word has a few different definitions so i'll clarify a bit. One listed from wiki states: "the inability to switch ideas along with the social context, as evidenced by the repetition of words or gestures after they have ceased to be socially relevant or appropriate," ... Which is pretty good, but not an all inclusive explanation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseveration
More or less, what happens is we get stuck. There is a point at which rational minded people would abandon a cause for one reason or another.
it could be simple disinterest, it could be that the platform has been abandoned and they are following the crowd (like from myspace to facebook ) It often times is because completing the intended action has become too difficult, and also could be that a person has made a reasoned observation that the amount of energy they would expend to complete it would be much greater then the end result (Sure i COULD repair that dvd player.. but a brand new one is 20 dollars at wal-mart.)
These options have never worked for me. It seems without fail, once i am commited to a task in the immediate sense, i am STUCK firmly to that task until it's completion, much to the detriment of my sleep schedule, any appointments i may have to keep, my hygiene, and even my ability to feed myself. I have on many occasions, just forgotten to eat as a result of my level of involvement with whatever i engaged with, and it's not until i feel dizzy, or dehydrated , or deeply ILL that i notice. Occasionally, i have someone remind me, and then i eat or drink before returning to to task, but if i'm alone..
Many examples exist in my own life where i have stayed awake for 3 days to fix something. Usually this has to do with electronics. It could be building, stress testing, and repairing a computer, or last year, dismantling, rebuilding and repairing an X-box 360 that had stopped working by resoldering it and swapping a few parts.
The point is, while in some of these cases, the end result is great. I did fix the xbox and saved 300 bucks. I fixed a dvd player and saved 100 bucks. I fixed a computer and saved someone tons of expense. However the darker side of perseveration starts to drag into interaction with other people, and behaviors that can show potential co-morbidity with OCD.
Giving up on a task is hard enough, with someone who is built more then a little inflexible, but how do you decide when to give up on a person? How do you DATE as an autistic and NOT just spend your relationships treating people like things to fix, never giving up because "you started it, and you have to finish it."
I know, externally, not intuitively, that people can not be dealt with in such a manner, and i know that at some point, you have to let go. I feel as if i lack to insight to be able to accurately identify HOW and WHEN that should happen. It tends to make me more black and white, and less forgiving when i try to create a system for myself.
3 Strikes and your out. I know . What about extenuating circumstances? When if your partner is "going through something" and as a result is uncharacteristically mean towards you? Should this allow for special considerations?
What if the infraction from another party was unintentional or "an accident." How many times do you allow for "Accidents" of this nature before disregarding this distinction? I have always said something to the effect of: "I don't care if it's an accident. If you shot me and aimed at the guy behind me, i'm still shot. I'm not LESS shot because it was accidental."
Who's wrong/right in that scenario?
If you honor all your agreements with a friend/relation and they repeatedly fail to honor theirs, how many "Chances" do you allow them before deciding to remove them entirely from your life? Living up to one's word is very important to me. I am deeply honest, and rely on honesty to communicate with others in a world in which i experience a high degree of social blindness. I rely on my honest communication of my intent and feelings because i cannot reliably read the subtext and social ques of others as a communication mechanism. When others fail to maintain honesty in actions AND in a words, the disconnect is deeply disconcerting for me, and i feel slighted, and disrespected when i am lied to.
You may justify it as a "Small Thing" ("I forgot to pick you up when i said i would. Come on, it's not that big a deal.") but i wouldn't agree to do something, and then "Forget." and THEN be nonchalant about it. If i make a commitment, i stick to it.
I'm still trying to learn, everyday, about how to have better interactions with others in a world that is full of invisible pits for me to stumble into that others see perfectly.
In the meantime, i'll keep asking questions, and carefully analyzing answers. So i'm not being funny, or sarcastic, or rhetorical when i ask you,
"How do i know when to give up?"
It's a question.
At what point does toughness and rugged determination, cross over into delusional stubbornness and perseverence?
I don't have the answer to this, and being autistic, i don't know if ever will to a degree that makes me comfortable. My very nature, like many others on the spectrum is interwoven with the tendency to perseverate. This word has a few different definitions so i'll clarify a bit. One listed from wiki states: "the inability to switch ideas along with the social context, as evidenced by the repetition of words or gestures after they have ceased to be socially relevant or appropriate," ... Which is pretty good, but not an all inclusive explanation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseveration
More or less, what happens is we get stuck. There is a point at which rational minded people would abandon a cause for one reason or another.
it could be simple disinterest, it could be that the platform has been abandoned and they are following the crowd (like from myspace to facebook ) It often times is because completing the intended action has become too difficult, and also could be that a person has made a reasoned observation that the amount of energy they would expend to complete it would be much greater then the end result (Sure i COULD repair that dvd player.. but a brand new one is 20 dollars at wal-mart.)
These options have never worked for me. It seems without fail, once i am commited to a task in the immediate sense, i am STUCK firmly to that task until it's completion, much to the detriment of my sleep schedule, any appointments i may have to keep, my hygiene, and even my ability to feed myself. I have on many occasions, just forgotten to eat as a result of my level of involvement with whatever i engaged with, and it's not until i feel dizzy, or dehydrated , or deeply ILL that i notice. Occasionally, i have someone remind me, and then i eat or drink before returning to to task, but if i'm alone..
Many examples exist in my own life where i have stayed awake for 3 days to fix something. Usually this has to do with electronics. It could be building, stress testing, and repairing a computer, or last year, dismantling, rebuilding and repairing an X-box 360 that had stopped working by resoldering it and swapping a few parts.
The point is, while in some of these cases, the end result is great. I did fix the xbox and saved 300 bucks. I fixed a dvd player and saved 100 bucks. I fixed a computer and saved someone tons of expense. However the darker side of perseveration starts to drag into interaction with other people, and behaviors that can show potential co-morbidity with OCD.
Giving up on a task is hard enough, with someone who is built more then a little inflexible, but how do you decide when to give up on a person? How do you DATE as an autistic and NOT just spend your relationships treating people like things to fix, never giving up because "you started it, and you have to finish it."
I know, externally, not intuitively, that people can not be dealt with in such a manner, and i know that at some point, you have to let go. I feel as if i lack to insight to be able to accurately identify HOW and WHEN that should happen. It tends to make me more black and white, and less forgiving when i try to create a system for myself.
3 Strikes and your out. I know . What about extenuating circumstances? When if your partner is "going through something" and as a result is uncharacteristically mean towards you? Should this allow for special considerations?
What if the infraction from another party was unintentional or "an accident." How many times do you allow for "Accidents" of this nature before disregarding this distinction? I have always said something to the effect of: "I don't care if it's an accident. If you shot me and aimed at the guy behind me, i'm still shot. I'm not LESS shot because it was accidental."
Who's wrong/right in that scenario?
If you honor all your agreements with a friend/relation and they repeatedly fail to honor theirs, how many "Chances" do you allow them before deciding to remove them entirely from your life? Living up to one's word is very important to me. I am deeply honest, and rely on honesty to communicate with others in a world in which i experience a high degree of social blindness. I rely on my honest communication of my intent and feelings because i cannot reliably read the subtext and social ques of others as a communication mechanism. When others fail to maintain honesty in actions AND in a words, the disconnect is deeply disconcerting for me, and i feel slighted, and disrespected when i am lied to.
You may justify it as a "Small Thing" ("I forgot to pick you up when i said i would. Come on, it's not that big a deal.") but i wouldn't agree to do something, and then "Forget." and THEN be nonchalant about it. If i make a commitment, i stick to it.
I'm still trying to learn, everyday, about how to have better interactions with others in a world that is full of invisible pits for me to stumble into that others see perfectly.
In the meantime, i'll keep asking questions, and carefully analyzing answers. So i'm not being funny, or sarcastic, or rhetorical when i ask you,
"How do i know when to give up?"
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