Follow That Plan!

One thing you could never accuse me of being is balanced. I don’t “do” balance. It’s not in my nature. I lonnnnnnnnnnnnng to be balanced. I strive relentlessly to achieve it. I have obsessed myself out of balance trying to work out how to get it, why I can’t seem to do so, and why it doesn’t last when I have momentarily hit it only to find myself skidding right past it again on my pendulum swing either up or down. I’m just not wired up to be balanced, and my frustration stems from the fact that I cannot (as yet) accept it.

It doesn’t compute – at least not for longer than the time it’s taken me to analyse my way into a sense of understanding, and out again! And if a thing doesn’t compute then I don’t accept it: it’s like it just doesn’t stay in my memory long enough to be fully digested. The story of my life – I am a recovered bulimic!

At the moment I’m not feeling anywhere near balanced. In fact I feel completely out of whack. It all comes from not following my plan.

Ah yes – The Plan. I don’t think I’ve mentioned The Plan yet, have I? Much like I hadn’t written about yoga until my last blog entry. And yet both of them are crucial to my life. But then that’s the way it is with me: I get distracted and obsessed by the minutiae, and the important things get overlooked. Ho hum!

Between them they give me the nearest thing to balance that I can get, which is a sense of order and rhythm, a structure to my day. They make the difference between me living my life to my full potential, and existing in that chaotic, sensorily overloaded world of the directionless, terrified autistic, trying to make sense of, and copy my way into, a life which is not my own. I’ve lived both: I know what I’m talking about. There is no contest. Life with a plan is a thousand times better than without.

Unfortunately there is one teeny problem to this plan business: it means DISCIPLINE (or disciplan, if you will!), the ultimate anathema to an autistic, especially one with the added bonus of ADHD and obsessive/compulsive disorder!

I love plans - the idea of them. I have done for as long as I can remember, and especially since my secondary school days where I discovered the wonderful world of the timetable, which told me EXACTLY what I was supposed to be doing, where, and when. Unfortunately I’m not very good at making them, or writing them down. I get the idea in my head, but then something happens during the process of trying to transfer it onto paper. Rather than solidifying into a coherent whole, it all gets rather vague, complicated, and decidedly “wobbly” (to use a Poohism!)

Another “flaw in the plan”, as it were, is my unwavering propensity for losing interest once the initial enthusiasm has waned, and the time has come for me to really apply myself to the nitty-gritty of actually having to follow it. If it hasn’t produced miraculous results within two days (sometimes even two hours, or two minutes, is just too long!) then I become despondent and convinced that it’s not going to work, and I resort to one of two methods that I have for dealing with it – I either abandon the plan altogether; or I tweak it. And tweaking, as my friend Dee knows, is my favourite occupation when it comes to plans, and the bane of her life when trying to get me to stick to one!

We’ve been road testing this plan business for quite a while now, fine tuning it along the way. I say “we” because, even though I’m the one who has to follow the thing, the whole business of designing it has been a sort of joint venture, with a large proportion of that aspect falling on Dee’s shoulders. Without her I would still be making notes – incoherent ones at that!

Plus she was the one who first proposed the idea, having witnessed my futile attempts at trying to manage my life “spontaneously”, without any discernible structure (even before the recognition of my being autistic). Despite having toyed with the idea on numerous occasions of wishing I could revisit the days of having a timetable to follow, I’d dismissed it as being ridiculous, something that I was supposed to have grown out of by now. How wrong can you get?!

It has become apparent to us that one of the absolutely indispensable tools for enabling autistics to function better is to have discipline and structure in their lives. My friend Dee used to manage a residential unit for those on the low functioning end of the spectrum, which is where she initially witnessed the benefits of implementing a consistent routine, which helped to calm the residents. We didn’t know at the time just how relevant this experience was going to be for me: back then I was still simply a neurotic, with a lot of odd habits!

When we started, about three years ago, I still had no recognition of my condition, but it was very noticeable that I could not manage my own life. I’d have spates of “getting it together”, creating order (this translates as manically cleaning my home!), and making promises to myself to keep it maintained. But inevitably it would all go to pieces, very quickly, and the sum total of my life came down to my obsession with trying to keep my home clean and ordered. There wasn’t much room for anything else: as I’ve mentioned before, I can’t multi-task (I prefer the term multi-function since it covers a lot more than just action-oriented behaviours); and, boy, am I obsessive/compulsive!

And so “Enter The Plan”! Initially it was a very loose structure, just basically a list of things to try to include in my day (including creative tasks like writing, drawing, etc: anything to break up the predominant obsessions at that time - cleaning, television, and reading!), with no time strictures, except concerning meals and yoga. These were the only two things which had definite times, and around which the rest of the day was built. And, to a greater extent, they still are. However, what we found was that this “looseness”, which equated to giving me the responsibility to decide each day what I would do, basically meant that hardly any of it got done: unless I happened to hit upon one of my infrequent “good” days (this meant I’d got enough energy and enthusiasm to do more than the bare minimum.)

Now, contrary to what many in the non-autistic world seem to think is best for us (which appears to be that we need less rigidity and more flexibility, which will help us to become more spontaneous – as if!), my plan has actually evolved from a loose list of activities into a highly structured timetable which maps out every moment of every day, and now very definitely resembles those school timetables I used to look back upon so wistfully. It keeps my life from falling apart, my nervous system from overloading with the strain of too much stimulus, my obsessional tendencies in check (I’m not allowed to focus on doing only one thing – no reading all day long, or twelve hour yoga sessions!), and my brain from exploding from the stress of having too many decisions to make. My ADHD is also catered for – most tasks only last for half an hour, a time limit which is just about as much as I can deal with in having to sit still and focus on one thing at a time.

It also allows for the process of change to occur, albeit at the pace of an inebriated tortoise (I seem to take one faltering step forwards, then stagger a couple of paces back!) But change has, and is, occurring, which is a major miracle in itself for an autistic for whom change signifies disruption, and is to be avoided at all costs. Perhaps this is also why I hate discipline so much - I innately know what it leads to!

And the ultimate irony of it all is that now that I know what it is that I’m supposed to be doing, every moment of the day, I am finding that I am learning to be able to be “flexible” and adjust my timetable to allow for those spontaneous events that inevitably crop up!

What Katy Did

I haven’t yet mentioned my favourite obsession, have I? Bloody hell, that’s very remiss of me! It’s what my friend calls my “special interest”. Apparently lots of autistics have one, something which takes precedence over everything else, including all other obsessions. Well mine is yoga. And ‘Katy’ is Katy Appleton, the yoga teacher whose books I follow, and whose web-site, words, personality, and life in general I have varyingly tried to emulate – which is not such a good idea ‘cos she’s not autistic, and her life is nothing like mine. But try impressing that upon me when I’m in the middle of an obsession.

For one thing she was a ballet dancer before she became a yoga teacher. I’m neither, but I decided I’d like to be both when I discovered Katy and her book. Never one to let reality interfere with my obsessions, I pointed to the fact that, as an adolescent at secondary school, I’d done ballet and enjoyed it. Who cared that we’d only had about half a dozen lessons before the whole thing was abandoned (my school not exactly being a hotbed of artistic excellence), or that I am now in my forties? I concluded that this must mean that I would love it now, because Katy did, and I share with her the love of yoga. Stands to reason.

Well, actually, no it doesn’t. For example, my friend Dee and I have quite a number of things in common that we both like, but strangely enough she has absolutely no interest in yoga whatsoever, a fact which I find completely bewildering considering that she is a very spiritual person. I assume that every spiritual person will take to yoga the way that I did, and that it’s only on account of not having had the opportunity to try it yet that keeps them from doing so. And with that in mind I have taken it to be part of my duty to spread the word about the wonders of yoga - with over-zealous enthusiasm, and an obsessive desire to talk about it at every opportunity. I have probably bored people out of any interest in it that they may once have had, thus diminishing, rather than increasing, the number of possible convertees.

So back to Katy, whose own enthusiasm fortunately did not deter me. On the contrary, it served to re-kindle the fire which had waned somewhat after an inauspicious start to my yoga journey. I’d tried a couple of other books – one of them made it so difficult and boring I lost interest after about a month; the other neglected to include specific warnings with regard to possible dangers, and left me crippled with back pain. I took the motto, “No pain, no gain” rather literally – but then I would do, wouldn’t I? I’m autistic.

But then I found Katy. Well, not literally. She wasn’t standing there, in the library, just hanging about waiting for me to come across her and take her home with me. But her book was. ‘Introducing Yoga’ (in case you’re interested!) – a beginner’s guide to yoga. I’d seen it before and decided it wasn’t for me. I don’t do beginners’ anything: I like to launch myself straight in at the deep end, believing that I don’t really need a gentle introduction, plus I haven’t got the time to waste on it. It probably accounts for why I’ve spent most of my life feeling as if I’m drowning in a sea of confusing ideas and free-floating bits of information which are anchored to nothing in particular, but which have an annoying habit of clonking me in the head every so often. It also explains why I never seem to get very far very quickly, because in the end I have to go back to the beginning any way in order to make sense of it all!

I took it home, and so discovered what has turned out to be one of the greatest gifts I have been given in helping me to live with being autistic (and all my other attendant conditions), before I even knew I was one. I’ve learned lots of interesting and useful things – like discipline (my least favourite thing in the world), and how to breathe properly. It doesn’t half help, especially when you suffer from anxiety and a mind that’s prone to thinking at a rate faster than the speed of light, which can leave you feeling as if you’ve just been dragged across the cosmos by a comet.

But of course, as with everything that I latch onto, I have gone through the inevitable obsessional period, which involves submerging myself not only in the practice of yoga itself by simply following the book, but also in making everything in my life revolve around yoga, and trying to become more like Katy. So Katy loves ballet – I love ballet (I’ve had a fleeting interest in it at various times in my life, which could hardly be called love); Katy likes listening to Cafe del Mar – I like Cafe del Mar (no I don’t: it bored the arse off of me); Katy loves Shiva Rea – I love Shiva Rea (she’s another yogi, and I find her very annoying ‘cos she speaks in a kind of code that is total twaddle); Katy eats salads, soups, and raw fish – I decide that’s what I should eat (though fortunately I don’t like any of them so that scuppers that plan).

“Copying” is the only word I can think of to describe it, though it doesn’t really fit what it is that happens. It’s like I try to emulate people I admire but then, for some reason, I start to lose everything that is me and begin to take on, wholesale, their identity. All or nothing again. And, the thing is, it isn’t a conscious decision or action. I’m not setting out to copy, I just end up believing that they must be right about everything, so how they live must be the right way to live.

Plus, of course, I then decide I have to adopt everything connected with yoga; which means getting obsessed with following ayurvedic principles around food and health, reading the Bhagavad Gita and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, compulsively reading not only Katy’s web-site but any others to do with yoga, adopting the Hindu God Shiva as my higher power, buying a statue of Buddha to help with meditation, and deciding I really must have ‘proper’ yoga clothes in which to do my practice. In short I complicate it all, which is generally what I do with most things. I think it’s also known as ‘overkill’!

I am pleased, and relieved, to report that I have come through all of this unscathed, and with my love of yoga still intact – only now I have got it down to the essence of what works for me, which is the practice. I still follow Katy’s books, but not Katy any more. She’s very fortunate that I don’t live in London, where she is based, and that I suffer social anxiety, otherwise I might well have ended up literally following her - to see What Katy Did Next.

"Shall I Compare Thee To A ... Vampire?"

Seriously. I am now, apparently, closely related to the undead. Mind you this could explain my obsession with ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ and a general inclination towards things dark and vampiric. I particularly liked the character Spike, and especially his humour – though his appearance was nothing to sneeze at either! (No, I’m not sure myself exactly what that expression means – in fact, when you look at it literally, it’s positively meaningless!) Let’s face it, when you’re one of the undead, neither wholly one thing nor another, you’ve got to have a highly developed sense of humour – to go with the other highly developed senses.

It could also explain my disinclination for going outside during the day; an aversion to sunlight, which I used to have to an extreme degree when I was a child; and what used to be an unhealthily pallid complexion, which made me look as if I was terminally ill. (Now, thankfully, I just look pale and interesting!)

And then, of course, there’s the fact that I’ve never been much of a one for showing spontaneous displays of emotion: “as animated as a dead dog” is a blunt but often apt description of my general demeanour. As I now understand it this is not due to me being some kind of emotionally crippled automaton, despite what some people might believe. It is, in fact, yet another of those “quirks” of being autistic – my processing speed for everything is slower than that of a non-autistic, and my system just can’t deal with more than one thing at a time.

And when it comes to feelings, which never seem to arrive singly but rather in gangs (which leave me feeling as if I’ve been mugged!), you’d best multiply the average person’s speed by a hundred to calculate how slow I am, especially when my mind gets involved in the process of trying to work out what I’m experiencing. It’s like looking for a snowflake in the Arctic!

Basically everything I experience is out of synch: so whatever might occur today to induce an emotional response will not come to the surface until some time later - and later can mean anything from a few days up to a few years! And then, when it does hit me, I end up running round in my mind like a blue-arsed fly trying to figure out why I’m feeling so emotional when there’s been absolutely nothing going on to provoke such a reaction. Is it any wonder I would spend a large proportion of my time feeling wiped out by obsessively hunting for the reason, not to mention from the unnamed emotion itself. And the amount of times I put it down to PMS – which necessitated it being re-named to include not only Pre but also Post in the title!

But when I do experience feelings then the range and depth is staggeringly... limited! At least that’s how it seems: I can never find the right words to describe my emotional state, and they often all just appear to merge into one (the emotions not the words, though sometimes this can apply to both!). Apparently my default setting veers between worry and anxiety, manic enthusiasm, or gloom and despondency. I’m either at one extreme or the other, and I only hit the middle for a nanosecond as I go skidding by on my way either up or down. Who needs drugs when you’ve got an in-built facility for altering your own state of mind?!

As to the allusion to being one of the undead, it occurred whilst I was endeavouring to do the impossible, yet again, in trying to explain my Asperger’s to someone. You’d think I would have learned by now that it’s a totally futile waste of time and energy to keep on attempting to communicate to people what is the very essence of being autistic – my inability to communicate with people!! How ludicrous is that? Is it any wonder that non-autistics get confused by me as I proceed to talk in a coherent manner, and pronounce myself unable to express myself?!

And therein lies the problem: I can speak English. Depressingly, in fact, I can speak it very well. Unfortunately, as a means for conveying what I mean it’s a total bloody washout: I might just as well be speaking Martian, though I’m sure there’d still be some well-intentioned neurotypical insisting that they thought they knew what I meant, and that they felt exactly the same: “After all, we live in the same solar system, so we’re all basically the same under the skin, aren’t we?”!

Blundering “once more unto the breach” (more Shakespeare!), I was endeavouring to explain how I pick up other peoples’ feelings (not to be confused with feeling empathy, which I don’t do) – like animals, when they sense danger or can tell when someone is afraid of them, for example. Instinct, or sixth sense. The problem is when I don’t know that that’s what it is, and I find myself walking around experiencing a whole gamut of emotions which I can’t source or name, and that don’t belong to me. Inevitably I end up obsessing and analysing myself into a hole as I mistakenly take ownership of this seething mass of energy, and those to whom these rampantly raging and rampaging emotions belong walk away free, having discharged their shit out into the universe for me to step in. It’s one of the things I hate about neuro-typicals – they have no sense of boundaries!

During the course of the conversation, having mentioned how I’d realised that the fear which I kept feeling around one of my neighbour’s was not mine but his, the person to whom I was talking offered me a helpful suggestion. He said that whenever I found myself “feeding off” other peoples’ negative feelings I should just think about how happy he, his wife, and other people are.

And, basically, that was it. Oh, and I should listen to some Elvis Presley! Of course I simply stood there dumbfounded whilst this astonishing piece of wisdom embedded itself in my mind, ready for me to unearth and analyse later on. I also smiled. I’ve found it’s often the only recourse I have when engaging with members of the alternate human race.

I really despair sometimes at having ever bothered learning to speak, and especially at having taken such an interest in English grammar, being concerned to get it exactly right so that people don’t misunderstand what I say or mean. What is the point of grammar when, as far as I can see, the majority of the population disregard it completely, and just make things up willy-nilly as they go along? If you mention grammar to most people here in Yorkshire they assume you’re talking about a little old lady in a rocking chair!

Just to clarify: I don’t pick up feelings through my mind, so it’s a bit bloody pointless trying to change what are not my emotions anyway by changing my thoughts! My thoughts are not the problem, in this case – it’s the fact that I don’t seem to have a deflector shield for free-floating negative energy. I am a fluff magnet!! The part my mind has to play in the whole deal is in believing that it all belongs to me, and then driving me wappy trying to work out what and why and when, and on and on, ad infinitum. And of course I never find the end because there’s actually no beginning – it’s all come from outside of me, and it’s none of my bloody business!

I think it might be preferable to be a vampire sometimes: at least they get to choose whose blood they’ll suck, and they can always spit it out! I’m not able to choose whose energy I suck up, and it’s a bit bloody (ha ha ha, no pun intended) difficult to spit out what you can’t see!!