Head In The iClouds

WARNING - THIS POST CONTAINS QUITE A LOT OF SWEARING.  PLEASE DO NOT PROCEED ANY FURTHER IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED!!!

Luddite - one of a band of protesters against unemployment who destroyed machinery in English factories about 1812-18; hence, any opponent of technological innovation, etc.

If there’s one thing guaranteed to drive me round the fucking bend, induce an almost total meltdown, and disturb my yogic bliss, it’s having to deal with technology - especially computer technology.

Which sadistic arsehole came up with the idea for computers?  I would really, REALLY like to meet that person, and shake them by the scruff of their neck.  Did they have no idea of the stress that they were unleashing on the world?

I bought a new laptop a couple of weeks ago to replace my old one, which has taken to overheating and spontaneously shutting down (a bit like a menopausal autistic female): and I decided to take the plunge (hoping like fuck I didn't drown), and invest in a supposedly much more user-friendly Apple MacBook Air.  All I can say at this point is, I don’t know who this user is to whom it’s supposed to be so fucking friendly, but it certainly isn’t me.  

I know there are many autistic people out there, women among them, who are positive geniuses with computers (probably one or more of them are responsible for developing the bloody thing in the first place) - but I’m not one of them.  I don’t see patterns, especially not in computers - I just see a random, confusing, fucking mess.  I am almost totally computer illiterate - you might as well write the bloody instructions in Swahili for all the sense they make to me.

Today, I finally got around to trying out my new external DVD drive, which I had to buy ‘cos the Airbook doesn’t have one (pay more money, get less hardware).  It’s only been sitting in its box for the last two weeks, while I’ve continued to watch DVDs on my old laptop with its integrated optical drive - did I ever mention I don’t like change very much?  And right from the start I managed to get into a pickle, simply by running the instruction DVD which came with the thing (but which, according to my best friend, is only necessary for Windows users.  No wonder I couldn’t follow the instructions - there weren’t any to be found for me to follow!)

In the end I had to rope in said best friend, yet again.  Fortunately, she also has an Airbook, and the same DVD drive: and she absolutely loves technology, and sorting out problems.  I think she’s quite loopy, personally, but there you go.  It takes all sorts.

So, for over an hour and a half, we fiddled and faffed about, trying various options, including downloading a different video player - but nothing worked.  Whilst I despaired, and my mind and nerves unravelled, she delighted in trying to unravel the conundrum.  

Finally, having exhausted all known options for why the fucking thing wouldn’t do as it was supposed to, and simply plug in and play, she suggested that I unplug it and then replug it into the USB port on the opposite side of the computer.  I thought she must be really desperate, or taking the piss, and visions of having to buy another computer with an integrated optical drive, just in order to be able to watch my DVDs, started to filter into my now overly fraught mind.  But I did what she asked and, lo and fucking behold, it worked!  I then tried it again in the port from which I’d just removed it, making sure to connect it firmly like she had said it needed, and it worked.

Un-fucking-believable!!  All that time and, for me, hair-pulling stress, and it came down to not having plugged the bloody thing in properly.  Talk about Not Keeping It Simple!  (Keep It Simple is a slogan we have in AA, but often don’t use - case in point).

Technology often makes me want to chew my own foot off and use it to club to death whoever was responsible for creating it in the first place.  Do they seriously not realise how much stress they released into the universe with the advent of this stuff?  Mental, emotional, and physical?  My computer takes over my whole bloody world - it becomes my higher power, a God at whose altar I sacrifice my peace of mind, physical well-being, and sanity.  It makes me loopy.  As if I needed any extra assistance.

Well, after today, I’ve decided that I’m not doing it any more.  I’m not giving it that power - it can sod off.  I think this is God’s joke on me, an additional source of humour about which I can write, and laugh at myself for my Luddite predilections.  Seriously, I think I have a prehistoric brain.  Or, at least, some areas of it remain stubbornly underdeveloped and resistant to the evolutionary changes which the human race has undergone.  Why else would I have such difficulties in dealing with the multitudinous stresses of modern life?  My nervous system just hasn’t adapted to it.

Of course, the flip-side is that if it weren’t for the computer then I wouldn’t be able to be sharing this with you now.  Nor would I be able to do my shopping on-line, thus minimising one of the other sources of stress in my life.  Like many things, it’s a double-edged sword.  I just have to be careful not to stab myself or slice off my own limbs whilst manically, and carelessly, waving the thing about.

Don't Mind Me Two

This is by way of an addendum to the last blog post, Sense and Sensibility.

I really find this business of not knowing my own mind a bit tedious at times, especially when I also have the annoying habit of making categorical statements, only to find that I have cemented myself in the wrong place yet again, and I’ve got to set about chiselling my way out!

In this instance I am referring to my statement about liking the change in the seasons. Now this is not strictly untrue: I do like things like seeing the flowers appear in spring and the arrival of the baby birds, not to mention all the wonderful fruit that makes its appearance during these warmer months (I have a ‘thing’ about food, especially fruit – I think it’s called an obsession!) However, my liking of the seasonal changes is mainly theoretical – I like the idea of it, but the reality appears to clash with my personality. I enjoy reading about them, and seeing pictures – the way they do it in magazines, directing your attention to whatever aspect of the change happens to be their particular interest (health magazines, food and lifestyle magazines, etc). I know it’s a bit of a bizarre thing to enjoy, but I have aspergers, don’t you know - bizarre is my middle name (er, not literally, you understand?!) And, anyway, I’ve given it up now because it was such an obsession and a distraction that I hardly got much else done but reading – anything!

I have a lot of these delusions about myself. Some of them are really quite funny. For instance I used to think that I was a gregarious social butterfly. I mistook not being able to stop talking once I started as a sign that I enjoyed social interaction, and was able to engage in light chit-chat! The fact that it would wear me out, that I would come away from such encounters with my mind racing and obsessing over what had been said (which could last up to a week until the next time!), and that I could only talk about one thing – namely me and my interests – failed to register. I had to have my neurotypical best friend tell me that this is what I did, and that this does not constitute small talk, and general polite conversation. I was aghast! Was my small talk not small enough, then? How small did it have to be? I mean, for heaven’s sake, I’m the woman who’s obsessed with the minutiae of life: you can’t get much smaller than that, surely?!! But no, apparently this doesn’t count. It’s not light enough, like a fairy cake – more in the way of a rock bun that’s been cooked too long!

So, to try to get back on track, this change business is not something I embrace wholeheartedly, or even half-heartedly at times – sometimes there’s no heart to be found in it whatsoever! I just have this idea that I do, even despite all the evidence to the contrary throughout my life. I keep thinking it’s just a matter of changing my attitude (ha ha ha, more change!) towards the idea of change, but as yet this has not worked, and I’ve been doing it a bloody long time now! Methinks it’s time I tried another method - accept that it’s intrinsically part of the aspergers and, for whatever inexplicable reason, change just isn’t something I’m ever going to find easy. Hell’s bells, I don’t even like changing my breakfast cereal, or the kind of knickers I buy! And I hate it when the Brussels sprout season comes to its end, and I have to figure out something else to buy in their place!

I hate the change in seasons, and not just because of the difficulties I have with deciding what to wear. I hate it when the clocks go forward here in the UK (which they have just done, and now I’ve lost an hour’s sleep, and I’d just got back into the rhythm of getting up earlier!), and the dreaded British summer time begins – in the middle of spring! It’s the time when all the people, who were safely locked up in their homes during the colder months while I was out taking my walks in blissful solitary peace, suddenly appear and the world feels overcrowded. Now I can hardly get from my door to where I walk without encountering someone, and even whilst indoors I can hear them going about their business outside.

What is it with people? Why does it seem they all have to come out at the same time? Couldn’t they do it in shifts? And why is it that they seem to have this propensity for gathering together in the same places, like sheep all following each other around? I mean, just look at what happens in the summer holidays when they all head for the traditional holiday spots and theme parks: can there be anything less conducive to a restful break from work or school? Is it any wonder half of them are glad when the holidays end and it’s time to go back?! (I do know that they are not all the same, and that they don’t all do these things: it just seems like it to me!) Me, I look forward to when the days grow shorter and the clocks go back, and I get my lost hour back (where does it go in the interim? On holiday, probably, away from all the people!). Not to mention, of course, all those surplus people suddenly disappear indoors.

And there, once again, I imply that I enjoy another change, but I am reminded of the fact that I apparently don’t respond well to the lack of light, the cold, and every other thing that goes with the autumn/winter season, and that it affects my mood and I become quite gloomy at times. I only ever seem able to see one piece of the jigsaw at a time, and never the whole picture, so I have to frequently be reminded of the truth about myself and my condition. It’s a bit of a bugger when you can’t quite remember who you really are!

So, having explored the issue, I have come to the conclusion that no, I don’t like change. In fact, I BLOODY WELL HATE IT!!! This will not come as a surprise to my friend, who is constantly telling me that it’s the case: but to me, I’m always amazed. It takes me a while for things to fully compute, and then I can never guarantee that it won’t go in and disappear into the black hole that appears to materialise in my mind to swallow up all the really useful information I could do with retaining, leaving me with a swirling mass of gaseous waste to ponder on obsessively – the minutiae of life!

Sense and Sensibility!

You know the statue “The Thinker” by Michelangelo (seated naked man with one arm curled up to support his forehead, probably to stop his brain from falling out!)? Well I’ve decided he’s an asperger who went outside to try to figure out what the weather was like in order to decide what to wear, sat down to think about it, and froze to death in that pose because he couldn’t feel how cold it really was!

This may sound a bit odd but to me, an asperger with sensory problems, it makes perfect sense. How do you figure out what the temperature is when your wiring’s all crossed? Me, I rely on my sight: I decide what the weather’s like based on how it looks! Oh, and I stick my hand out the window (once I’ve opened it, of course: the window, that is, not my hand!) As you may well imagine this method has never failed to not work, and I invariably end up dressed inappropriately. But still I persist with it - I know no other way, so I stick to what I do know, even when it’s been proven to be totally ineffective!

It’s not so bad when the weather is “behaving” as it should do ie hot in summer, cold in winter. But it’s the bits in between, the variations in temperature, the annoying hazy bits in the midst of the extremes of hot or cold that cause the problems. It’s almost like trying to piece the weather together using an identikit. If the sky is blue, and the sun is out, I decide it must be quite warm.

But then, of course, I have to take into consideration the season, and then into the equation come all the variables, designed to confuse the process. If it’s winter and it’s a “nice” day then it still probably doesn’t mean that I can go out in a t-shirt. However, if I’m going out walking then I might end up feeling too hot if I overdress, but I’ll probably be too cold at the beginning, and what if I don’t warm up at all? Should I just take a suitcase with me with numerous changes of clothes in case every single possible variation in the weather occurs whilst I’m out for my walk (an event which only takes an hour at the most)?!!

Even more confusing is if the weather is overcast and looks gloomy. This I have got down as meaning that it must be a cool day, because it looks like one, even in the midst of summer - but then you can never rely on the weather in England to behave anyway. It’s a bugger when you dress up ready for wintry weather only to discover it’s milder than the tropics! I should just employ myself a mobile valet to follow me around on my expeditions and carry all the clothes I have to discard as I begin to overheat!

I begin to see why it takes us aspergers so long to do anything! I have a decision-making process as long as your arm to go through which cannot be circumvented. Try to speed it up and all I end up doing is slowing it down further, leaving myself in a complete dither, and generally short-circuiting the system. I appear to be innately incapable of going from A to B: it just seems I HAVE to take in the rest of the alphabet, no matter that I might not want to!

So relying on my sense of sight is neither use nor ornament, but so too is trying to work it out using my hand. I am hopeless at gauging the temperature of anything. I regularly get in the bath only to find that it’s still too hot, no matter that I have checked it frequently with my hand. It has been suggested to me that I try using my elbow instead as it is much more sensitive. I have tried this, and it does appear to work better.

However, due to another peculiar and illogical aspect of my condition, once I have got into one habit I find it very difficult to relinquish it in favour of something better, something which actually works (‘cos the thing it’s usually intended to replace almost inevitably doesn’t work, and probably never did: I just seem to pick these things up like someone at a flea market attracted to all the useless broken bits that get left behind!) Bonkers as it might seem, it actually feels to me too difficult to change from sticking my hand in the water to putting my elbow in it: and, besides which, I have to bend down further to get my elbow in there!! As a consequence, it seems, I just tend to forget that my way doesn’t work and that there’s a better one.

And then there’s the small problem of having to gauge what exactly is too hot, since I have nothing to measure it against except my own peculiar, and frankly inadequate, understanding of the word hot! And for some bizarre reason, in diametric opposition to my dislike of the weather being too hot, I cannot seem to feel the heat enough when I get in the bath, and I hate finding that I’ve cooled it down too much because I’ve been unable to gauge in the other direction too!

I used to be able to figure it out by how red my body was, and how much sweat was pouring out of me (plus how light-headed and dizzy I felt!). I’d read somewhere that hot baths which made you sweat were good for you – they probably didn’t mean that hot, and I’ve since revised my opinion in light of the fact that I have pale, sensitive skin prone to drying out easily (so it’s really not that good for me at all), and aspergers, which means I haven’t got a clue what they mean by “hot” and “sweat”! Since I don’t go to those extremes any more it’s a little more difficult.

I could buy a thermometer, I suppose, and find out what is considered to be the ideal temperature for a bath? But I’d probably just ignore what it registered if it didn’t match up to what I felt was the right temperature, totally forgetting that the reason for acquiring it in the first place was because my in-built thermometer doesn’t work properly! You just can’t win with aspergers!

Perhaps one answer to the problem of trying to gauge the weather is to move to a country where they have only one type, with hardly any variation in temperature – Siberia, perhaps, or Africa? A bit drastic, I know, especially as I hate it being too warm or cold. But then think how much time I would save trying to decide what to wear, not to mention what clothes to buy, which is another joyous event in itself! I could just buy the same outfit for every day of the week, but in different colours so that people didn’t get the idea that I never get changed!

But then there’s also a little problem I have with travelling anywhere further than the local town without suffering extreme anxiety. And, anyway, I don’t think they sell soya milk, peanut butter, or goji berries in either of those countries, not to mention all my other very specific dietary requirements! So maybe I won’t bother after all. Besides which I like England. I even like the changes in weather: each season brings with it such an infinite variety of exciting and inspiring things. It just takes me and my body a while to catch up and adjust to each change, so it’s a good thing that there are only four seasons in the year! And, asperger or not, who wants to almost freeze to death or swelter in a heatwave all year round?!

No. I think I’ll just stay where I am and learn to adapt to the peculiarities inherent in having aspergers. But I don’t really have much choice – my body would still follow me if I decided to move, so it’s a bit pointless trying to escape from it! I just need always remember not to copy The Thinker’s example, and forget to put on my clothes before I go outside to check on the weather – especially if I end up in Siberia!!