And, Moving On...

Nightingale in watercolour, Jan 2019

Yes, it’s time to say goodbye.  I started this blog on the 10th February 2010, exactly nine years ago, so it’s rather fortuitous that I should end it now; though I have to say that it was someone else who suggested that it was perhaps time to bring it to a close and start afresh, given that I don’t like endings (or beginnings, both of which denote change, a concept with which I’m not at all comfortable), and would therefore have carried it on, and simply tried to re-boot and re-purpose it.

But the fact is, it has fulfilled its purpose: which, according to the words of my first post, was “a vague hope that perhaps I might find my own voice, and it might help to re-ignite my enthusiasm for writing. Oh, and that maybe there will be someone out there with Aspergers whom it might help. You never know.”  So, basically, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing with it, and it shows.  Never was a blog more appropriately titled.

Having moved past the rambling stage (which at least denotes some form of movement), and got stuck in a circuitous holding pattern for some time now, I have decided to end this iteration of my blogging life and begin a new one, which will have a definitive, single purpose this time - to share my experience, strength, and hope as an autistic using the Twelve Step programme on everything, from my alcoholism, eating disorder, etc, to my autism and adhd.  And this time, God willing, I will stick to the point.  I’ll post the link here on this blog when I get it up and running.

I might also start another blog in which to post my artwork, poetry, and all the other creative and literary bits and bobs with which I sporadically littered this one.  If, or when, I do, I will also post that link here for anyone who might be interested in seeing how I progress along that journey, though it will mostly be to satisfy my desire to display my work (like many of my fellow/sister autistics, I do so love to display things).  But my focus will be primarily on the other new blog.

So here’s to new adventures.  I hope you’ll come along with me.  

You Say You Want A Resolution...

Watercolour Horse - Nov 2018

“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning, but a going on with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.”    Hal Borland

“To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.”    Mark Twain

Oh look, it’s that time of year again - the start of a new year (or  should that be New Year, just to denote its importance and significance?)  Yes, the time when my bonkers brain tries once more to get me to sneak into my life yet another plan, under the cunning disguise of new year’s resolutions.  Because, of course, a resolution is completely different to a plan (well actually, no, it’s not).  And of course, it being the New Year will make all the difference to my ability to be able to follow and stick to any plan  *ahem* resolution I mean (not at all the same as a plan) because, you know, it’s different.  I insist - this time it WILL be different!

Yes, yes, I know I’ve never yet, in all of my fifty-one years of living on this planet with this brain, been able to stick to any of the hundreds of resolutions I’ve ever made (strangely reminiscent of my inability to stick to any plans I’ve ever tried to implement, outside of the routine I have installed to keep me functioning on a daily basis).  But I live in hope (or a delusional state of magical thinking, and a stubborn resistance to accepting reality).  You never know, this might be the year I achieve the impossible improbable highly unlikely (and, while I’m at it, I might just stumble upon the land of Narnia in the back of a wardrobe - if I could only find the right wardrobe).

Let’s face it, I love a plan; I love the idea of following a plan; I’m OBSESSED with plans; I just don’t have the genetic disposition to be able to stick to one, without tweaking, complicating, or abandoning it five minutes after I’ve made it.  I’d have to have my brain genetically modified to get me to be the person I dream of being - super-efficient, rigidly structured, hyper-productive.  

You know, when I look at it like that, what I basically mean is that I want to be a robot.  Or someone else.  Or both - someone who is a spontaneous robot, but who doesn’t have all of those confusing and messy feelings that get in the way of me functioning efficiently.  Oh, isn’t that what the scientists working on Artificial Intelligence are trying to achieve?  Something that resembles a human being, but with which you can replace the inefficient, inconsistent, unpredictable human workforce?  And it’s not like they haven’t already made inroads, replacing them with automated services, thereby putting people out of work, and reducing the amount of jobs available.  And here am I, offering myself up on a plate.  What a dodo.  

To get back to the point, then, giving a plan another name (or ‘re-branding’ it, as they say), and re-packaging it in shiny new wrapping is not going to change the results one iota.  I still won’t be able to stick to it.  

One day I’ll fully accept this, and stop living in the future.  One day… (Oh, is that a plan I see before me, for how I plan to live in the day at some point in the future?  Well, golly gadzooks, how on earth did that sneak in?)  

Long story short, I have no plan to make any resolutions for this or any other year to come… but I’m sure that, if I contemplated that statement for long enough, I’d find that I’d somehow managed to sneak in a plan.  Oh bum.  *rolls eyes*

Artistic Interlude

My latest watercolour painting - September 2018

I painted this picture at the end of September - so before my wappy paint-researching-and-buying spree, and after the post in which I announced that perhaps I hated painting, because I certainly don't seem to get a great deal of joy out of it.

It took me five consecutive days to complete, painting for a couple of hours each morning.  I set no goals, other than to simply paint.  I let it take me as long as it wanted to take, and I took my time and slowed the whole process down.  I also kept it simple, using only three colours - burnt umber, raw sienna, and French ultramarine blue.  

Nor did I have the stress of trying to match my colour scheme to that of the original photograph, because the photo was in black and white. And, for once, I didn't confuse matters for myself, and drive myself into delirious indecisive distraction, by referring to all of the accumulated printouts I have of innumerable paint colours and possible mixing combinations.

I have to report that, remarkably, all these conditions together appear to have worked to produce a miracle, and I actually enjoyed this painting experience.  It seems that giving myself the freedom to voice the disquieting thought that I might not like painting after all, allowed me to make a shift from my entrenched position - hopefully not just temporarily.

I also spent less time criticising what I was doing, or the end product. In fact, I actually really like this painting.  It represents a deliberate change in the way I'm trying to paint now - more flow, less rigid control; layering and mixing paint on the paper rather than in the palette; choosing colours I like, rather than trying to replicate those of the subject; trying to paint what I see and feel, rather than the pull of photorealism, and trying to paint what I think I should be seeing.

All of which is quite remarkable for me - the woman for whom change comes at the speed of a tortoise wearing concrete boots.  It's only taken me about seven years of painting to start to break free of the rigid rules I've been confined to trying to follow.  Hopefully it won't take that long for the next change!  

I guess if I stop trying to follow what other people say and do (with my dodgy autistic interpretation skills), which is what has impeded my progress, and trust in my own ability and God's guidance, then I might evolve a bit quicker.  I surely can't get any slower - other than to come to a complete standstill.   

FOOD FOR THOUGHT #4

"Imagine yourself as a living house.  God comes in to rebuild that house.  At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing.  He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.  But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably, and does not seem to make any sense.  What on earth is He up to?  The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.  You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."   

Mere Christianity by C S Lewis

I may not be a Christian, and I may not believe in the Christian concept of God in which Lewis believed, but I do believe in the idea that we are a physical manifestation of the Creative Energy which underlies the whole universe and beyond; and that Lewis's description of the process of becoming a true expression of that Power is, for me, simple, accessible, comprehensible, and beautiful.  

God, it seems, has greater plans for me than I do for myself, and I'm okay with that because I don't have the imagination to think big - but I don't need to, because He'll do it for me.  Plus, as I've often discussed, I am hopeless with plans, so if it were left up to me to do the planning for my life I'd still be a broken-down shack.  I just have to get on board with following along, and doing the little things each day which keep me by Her/His side, invite Him into my 'home', and make Her feel welcome enough to want to stay.   

Weebling To Thirty

Do you remember those toys called Weebles, which first appeared in the 1970s, and had the tag-line “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down”?  (I just googled them, and it turns out you can still get them.)  They were great fun, and I especially loved the tree house, in which they lived.  I really wanted to live in that tree house.

Anyway, this is not a post about Weebles, per se.  This is about the fact that today is my AA birthday, and I have somehow managed to cobble together thirty years of consistent sobriety (that’s 30 years, in case anyone out there has problems with discerning the letters in words - though my internal grammarian baulks at the informal and technically grammatically incorrect use of numbers within a piece of text).

But enough of that pedantry.  So where do Weebles come into this miracle of recovery, you may be asking?  Simply in the fact that I’ve decided that the Weebles’ means of locomotion is one I share when it comes to describing the way I’ve done my recovery (and can be extended to encompass the way I “do” life in general) - namely, I’ve wobbled a lot but I haven’t fallen down.  Sometimes I go from side to side whilst remaining stationary; frequently, it seems I’ve gone backwards; oftentimes I’ve gone round in circles; but ultimately I have managed to make slow, tentative, frequently tortuous, forward progress.  

This is how come I happen to be sitting here now, the bemused (but grateful) recipient of the gift of thirty years of sobriety, which I have to tell you I was never really sure I wanted in the first place, didn’t ever really make a conscious decision to go after, but rather (in the classic autistic way, I can now see with hindsight) simply copied my way into; and for the first ten years wished I could give back, and return to the ignorance of not knowing that alcohol was not the solution to anything in life but simply one more problem to add to the pile.

Briefly, my journey of sobriety began with my second, and last, visit in 1988 to the psychiatric ward of my local hospital, after I’d been arrested for criminal damage, and had then tried to kill myself with an overdose.  

After this I was given the choice of either going home (where I was extremely miserable), or going to the local rehab unit for alcoholics/addicts, which conveniently happened to be next door to the hospital.  

Even though my initial visit to psychiatric had been for a two week detox from alcohol, which I’d voluntarily kept extending until I’d outstayed my welcome at the seven week mark (I felt strangely safe and at home there, after the initial terror on being admitted), I don’t recall any of the staff ever using the word ‘alcoholic’ to describe my drinking.  I believe I was initially considered to be possibly suffering from manic-depression (bipolar disorder), because I suffered extreme mood swings (due to both the effects of coming off alcohol, and what I now know is a combination of autistic meltdown, and ADHD).  

What is most remarkable is that, despite the fact that medication seemed to be freely and routinely prescribed to patients willy-nilly, I escaped the psychiatric system without ever being given anything other than the standard sleeping tablet, which I only took during my stay there.  It was years later, when discussing it with my best friend, that I realised just how blessed I had been, given that I had so many things for which I could easily have been medicated, especially given that, due to complete ignorance on the part of the staff, I was being misdiagnosed (autism not being widely recognised, especially in females, back in1988).  

And, distressingly and painfully uncomfortable as my life has frequently been since then (living without anything chemical to replace the alcohol and mute the chronic anxiety, and general sensitivity to everything around me), I am extremely grateful for being kept safe from what could have been a disastrous transference of my addiction to alcohol to an addiction to prescribed medication, as has happened to so many other people I know of.

To continue (before I weeble myself into a standstill), I chose to go to the rehab unit as the lesser of two evils.  And, as with my stay in the hospital, once I got over the shock of moving into an unfamiliar environment, I settled in and duly repeated the same pattern of becoming dependent - duly becoming the longest-serving resident, clocking in at a year and a half.  Yet again, I had to be almost forced to leave.

After I left and moved into my own home, at the age of twenty-three, things proceeded downhill from there.  Despite having been taught all things domestic by my dad starting at the age of seven (and then being expected to take care of him), I was hopeless at looking after myself.  And, whilst I’d come away from rehab with the knowledge that I couldn’t ever drink safely (‘one drink is too many, and a thousand is never enough’), there wasn’t a great deal else that was keeping me sober.  Essentially nothing had changed.  

Add to that an escalation in my undiagnosed anxiety, and a full resurgence of my also undiagnosed and raging eating disorder (compulsive overeater/under-eater/bulimic - in remission for a number of years now).  Plus I’d discovered that I could get mildly stoned on certain over-the-counter medications, which I used whenever I had to leave my flat.  A joyous existence, what ho!

It’s not surprising that, after nearly ten years of this, I descended into a state of hopelessness and depression, in which I wished daily that I could die, and finally progressed to the planning stage.

And at that point God stepped in and, in a remarkable act of Providence, reunited me with someone I’d met at the end of my time in rehab, for whom I’d briefly worked as a voluntary alcohol services counsellor (yes, me, counselling people - it doesn’t bear thinking about, I know), and who was now firmly steeped in the AA Twelve Step programme.  Through her, God saved my life.  

She became my AA sponsor; introduced me to the real recovery programme (it’s in the Big Book, not the meetings); helped me find a God of my own understanding (a Friend who loved me, rather than the critical and punishing father figure in which I’d come to believe); was the first person to recognise that I suffered from chronic anxiety, and the first person who identified me as being autistic; and she has been with me on this journey for the last twenty-one years.  Having just one person who truly knows me, and accepts me for who I am, has made all the difference - and for that I am extremely grateful.

What’s also remarkable is that, despite the struggles, I have never had the desire to drink alcohol again since sometime in the first year of my stay in rehab - the obsession to drink was removed (as it says in the Big Book) without me even realising it.  I have also never wished I were dead, and thought about killing myself, since reuniting in 1997 with the aforementioned person who is now my best friend and who, ironically, has also turned out to be a fellow autistic; and thoughts of wanting to die plagued me daily from the age of about seven, after my mum left us.

So, here endeth this brief overview of my time in recovery.  I can’t say it’s been easy (I’ve never been known to do anything easily), and there have been frequent set-backs, but I have to say it is ultimately worth it; and I will, no doubt, continue to wobble my way in Weebly fashion through the rest of my life.  

Therefore, I guess all that’s left to say is:-

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR LISA WEEBLE, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!

Confounding Co-Factors

Here’s a conundrum - what sometimes looks like addiction, feels like addiction, sounds like addiction, but isn’t?  Answer - autism.

How so?  Well, take, for example, my perennial problem with the internet.  Regular readers might already be aware of my on-going struggle to reign in my obsession with it, and may be bored out of their brains with my seemingly constant references to it - as I am myself.  But bear with me: this time I may actually have had a genuine epiphany.

As usual, I have not posted for so long because I’ve been stuck on the web.  In between bouts of trawling, I’ve been tying myself in knots trying to work out why I can’t seem to stay away from it, and how to manage my use of it (which, ironically, is all part of the obsession - so even when I’m not on there, I’m worrying about how to stay off there, etc).  

This time around, I finally determined that it’s an addiction - that I’d been “in denial”, minimising and rationalising my behaviour (for example, by blaming it on my ADHD).  After all, did it not fit within the simple AA definition of addiction in the Big Book:

‘If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic.  If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.”

Substitute internet use for drinking, and it described perfectly what seemed to be the problem - inability to choose to stay off there (away from my compulsive web-trawling, as opposed to my “responsible” use of the internet for things like communication, or blogging) for any decent length of time even when I wanted to, or needed to in order to get anything else done; and lack of control over what I would do once I got on there, which not even extreme tiredness, or physical pain, could induce me to stop.

And, also as described in the Big Book, I have tried all ways to control it (egs setting up rules, using a timer, hiding the router AND the computer at times) - and failed.  All that’s done is driven me round the bloody bend, obsessing about how to stop being so bloody obsessed with the bloody thing!

I’ve tried fear, I’ve tried guilt, I’ve tried coaxing; and I’ve done what I do with everything, which is to compartmentalise it into two distinct and extreme camps (because I really don’t do middle ground) - those being my responsible, sensible, creative, productive use of it; and my unproductive, wasteful, negative use.  They haven’t worked.  

The unfortunate effect of categorisation is that, by extension, whenever I ‘give in’ to my compulsion, I judge myself to be choosing to be irresponsible, unproductive, and slothful; that I could stop myself if I really wanted to; that I just need to ‘pull myself together” (like a pair of curtains), and pull my socks up (as if having droopy socks are responsible for me not applying myself, or trying hard enough?!)   

Yet Step One of the AA programme says that, when it comes to addiction, we are unable to exercise free choice when we are in the grip of an overpowering mental obsession and physical compulsion to use whatever substance or behaviour it is to which we find ourselves enslaved, no matter the damage it may be causing. 

So, having arrived at what I thought was the right conclusion, I set about applying the solution: part of which involved the practical first step of trying to ‘detox’ (AGAIN) from my compulsive use of the internet.  Only this time (I thought) it was going to be different, because I believed I’d got to the root of my dilemma - finally identifying what the problem actually was.

Then I had a conversation with my sponsor/best friend, who mentioned that we’d been here before (with alarmingly frequent regularity) - having an obsessive conversation about my obsessive use of the internet; and that perhaps it wasn’t an addiction after all.  Did I not recall that being obsessed is part of being autistic, she asked (for probably the ten thousandth time since I’d been diagnosed back in 2010)?

And something clicked.  Perhaps she was right?  And perhaps it was time to try to make a wholesale shift in the way I think about myself, because I still seem to have some vague, unconscious idea that there are still parts of me - like my alcoholism, for instance - which are the same as the neurotypical version, and aren’t influenced by my autism: as if I have a brain that is separated into two halves (one being the autistic part, and the other the neurotypical), and they operate in tandem; and I just need to find a way to tap into the NT side in order to overcome the influence of the autism/adhd.  Fuck’s sake!  I thought I’d got over this ‘split personality’ business already!

I realise I haven’t gone into any specific details about the confusing similarities between autism and addiction, which I intended to include here, but this post is already long enough, so I’ve decided to split it up, and (hopefully!) I’ll write a second one about that stuff, soon.  I’m just relieved to have finally got something written.

May you find clarity and truth about your own life.    

Blunting The Edge

My Lady Wren

Hi.  It’s been a little while since I’ve been able to sit and focus on something longer than a Literary Inspiration post (hence three in a row!).  Not that I’ve lacked ideas - just the ability to develop them beyond the initial draft.  Ironically, it wasn’t even as if I could claim that it was the internet that was distracting me, because it wasn’t.  

I’ve just had two weeks free from my compulsive internet trawling, using it only for essentials, like Sype.  But then I seem to remember the same thing occurring the last time I stayed abstinent - I gradually felt better, my brain calmed down, my mind got clearer, and my attention and focus improved, but I got very little or no writing done.  I did, however, do other things.

And it’s been the same this time.  I have actually managed to paint a picture (the first since July last year).  Whilst that in itself was great, the best thing about it was the fact that I enjoyed it, and there wasn’t the same amount of angst which usually accompanies it.

Whilst I have struggled to write any posts, I actually managed to write a bit of fiction, which I have done in the past, but have struggled with since.

And then there’s the fact that I have rediscovered the joy in my yoga practice, rather than it just being a necessity to my well-being, which is how I regard it (my alternative version to medication to help manage my anxiety and adhd, because I cannot take drugs due to being an alcoholic/addict).  Being obsessed with the computer means that my interest in everything else falls by the wayside - which includes my beloved yoga.

So, two weeks of freedom.  Again.  Two weeks appears to be my sticking point, at the moment.  It’s the longest I’m able to manage before I drift back to the internet.  I used to have the same thing occur when I was trying to become abstinent from overeating, which I used to find frustrating and disheartening.  

But I didn’t give up, and I got beyond that point when I was ready (which is usually not when you think you are), so I know that it’s just a part of the process, and not to listen to the Voice of Doom that tells me I’ll never be able to get completely free of this compulsion; or that I should accept it as part of the erratic nature of my adhd, and give up trying to manage it.  Accept that I need something to take the edge off of my anxiety, adhd, and all the other stuff about being me that makes everything I feel so acute, and that this is the lesser of the evils I have used (alcohol, medication, food, television). 

Except that it only works to take the edge of whilst I’m on there.  And then I’m left not only with the compulsion to keep going back, but also an increase in the symptoms that I was seeking to relieve.  My anxiety ramps up, I become more agitated, my focus and attention is shot to bits, and my brain feels like it’s melting.  Plus, I forget who I am, because I’m absorbing other peoples’ opinions again.

And here’s the other thing: I actually do have practical ways of taking the edge off, but without the negative consequences - with faith in a higher power, prayer/meditation, yoga, the change in my diet, and the barest bones of a daily routine to keep things ticking over and manageable - but no plans!!  They’re not instant, and they don’t render me unconscious (ie functioning, but not quite all here - like the walking dead, rather than someone in a coma), but they work to bring everything down to a manageable level.  

So, what happened to bring that ‘golden period’ to an end (other than me forgetting, yet again, the inevitable consequences of me web-trawling?)  Because there’s always a reason, as I learnt with alcohol, food, and any other addictive/compulsive behaviour - it doesn’t just happen that I find myself back trawling the internet, or with a drink in my hand, or bingeing on food. There’s a build-up which, if it isn’t being dealt with, turns into a mental and emotional tsunami.  

It may be the quietest tsunami you ever saw, because I am so poor at self-awareness, and so slow to process what’s happening to me, that it mostly doesn’t look like anything is wrong at all; but you’ll know it by the end result - me seeking ‘comfort’ and distraction on the internet from the feelings of restlessness, which I don’t recognise as being related to what’s happening in my life.  

Of course, this ‘comfort’ is only temporary, and not very comforting at all, given some of the stuff I sometimes inadvertently come across whilst trawling, and all that happens is that my life then becomes chaotic (more so than the manageable chaos which seems to be an intrinsic part of who I am - a trait which I have yet to accept as a fact, whilst I still strive to be Mrs Meticulously Tidy and Organised).

Here, then, are the events.

In November last year, I had to fill in an assessment form for the new disability benefit which is replacing the old one.  The DWP scares me to death, and I’m hopeless at filling in forms.

In January my friend Dee (who lives in Scotland, and I haven’t seen in person for about two years) visited on two separate occasions (staying overnight each time).  The second visit was in order to accompany me to the medical assessment I’d been called to attend for the new disability benefit.

Leaving aside the assessment, you’d assume that her visit would be a nice thing - and it is.  Except that I’m autistic - EXTREMELY autistic, and I don’t deal well with being around people, even in my own home, even when they are my closest friends.  It’s not relaxing, for either of us, as I have no idea how to behave, and I end up hovering around her.

As to the medical assessment, I haven’t had to go to one of these for quite a few years.  This ramped up my anxiety about the possibility of them taking away that money.

In February they informed me that, not only had I been awarded the new benefit, but that it had been increased substantially.  Yet again, you’d think this would be welcome: and it is.  But that doesn’t change the fact that, whether it’s good or bad news, I’m still clueless as to how to deal with it. 

Also as a consequence of both Dee’s visit and the assessment, she told me that I’m a lot further along on the autism spectrum than we thought - closer to the Temple Grandin autistic end, rather than the Asperger’s.  Whilst I know that I am extremely affected, it still comes as a bit of an unwelcome surprise to be told just how much so. 

Around the same time, I extended my circle of contacts from one (my friend Dee), to two.  And then, in the last week, I added another.  This is a big deal for me.  

I have been perfectly content to only engage with one person for a long time now (in this regard, I am classically autistic, preferring my own company to that of other people because of the stress engaging with them induces.  Plus, too many people offering too many differing viewpoints and opinions confuses me).  

But, as she said, she is coming up to her seventieth birthday this year, and, assuming she dies before me (jolly, I know!), I have no-one else with whom to share, or for support.  And whilst I may prefer my own company, and to have as few people in my life as possible, I do actually enjoy my limited interactions with her; and even I know that I need to have some people with whom to converse at a deeper level than simply to exchange polite greetings, the way I do with neighbours. 

It is also my fiftieth birthday coming up which, whilst I’m not consciously aware of it causing me any conflict (mostly because I just ignore it, the way I do every birthday - it’s just a number to me), no doubt there’s something going on.  

For one thing, I have found myself thinking more frequently about how I’ve got less time to do stuff, and how I wish I’d got my act together a lot sooner (particularly with regard to writing and art, but also with accepting and managing my autism/adhd).  I also sometimes find myself envying those who’ve been diagnosed earlier, which is not helpful, ‘cos it just leads to me feeling regret about my life. 

And then, in the last few days, I found out that one of my Aunts has died.  She is the last of my dad’s six brothers and sisters, and she was the oldest.  It wasn’t a shock (she was into her eighties), but, due to the distant and confusing nature of our relationship (of my relationship with the whole of my family), I have no idea how I feel, or what to do.

This culminated in me having the ridiculous idea (given that I cannot paint to order) that, rather than buy a card, I would like to paint one to send to her family (these are people I haven’t seen, or spoken to, for over twenty years).  And so I came on here to look for photos of appropriate flowers.  And got overwhelmed. And then got distracted.  And got lost for three days.  And now here I am, trying to drag myself back out of it.  Well it inspired me to write, anyway, which is the ultimate irony.

So there you have it - the anatomy of an autistic meltdown.

I hope that the only things melting in your life are food-related.

Śanti

Christmas - The Return (Part 6000 And Counting)

“The main problem… centres in the mind rather than in the body.”    Alcoholics Anonymous, page 23

Hey, how’re you doing?  Did you survive ‘the Season’ (if, that is, you celebrate it at all)?  Or is it still on-going?  Here in England we have Boxing Day, not to mention the Twelve Days of Christmas, which are supposed to start with Christmas Day, and extend to just beyond New Year’s - not start twelve days before The Day, which is what I used to think.  But then a lot of traditions have just become extremely confused and mixed up over time.

Anyway, enough of that.  My point for this post is that it kind of struck me this morning that I’m obsessed with Christmas, and I hadn’t really realised it.  (Okay: pick your jaw up off the floor, Dee.)  Bizarre, huh?  I mean, you’d think that someone who has written an extensive post about the whole thing, every year for the last three years, would actually be aware that they were rather obsessed with the topic, wouldn’t you?  But no.  Somehow the word ‘obsessed’ had slipped my mind when it came to the C word.  Probably because my mind was too busy actually being obsessed with the whole thing to have time or room to notice what it was doing.

And then there’s been the peculiar idea I’ve had that, because I haven’t talked as much about Christmas this year as on previous occasions, I therefore have not been as obsessed.  Thinking about it (including memories of past Christmases), listening to Christmas music for weeks beforehand (and having it playing on a loop in my head continuously), watching book-bloggers on YouTube talk about it, and preparing and reading Christmas-themed novels doesn’t count, apparently - in the world of the terminally deluded.  Hello?  Forgotten what an obsession is, have we?  I think so.  Perhaps we need a reminder?

An obsession is, fundamentally, something I cannot stop THINKING about.  It CONSUMES (good word for a compulsive overeater like me) the mind.  As it increases, there’s no space (or very little) for anything else.  Everything starts to revolve around it.  It leaks out into conversation, AND ACTION.  It affects how I feel.  It becomes the whole of my world.  And, with Christmas, there’s the illusion that, once the season is over, then so too is the obsession - and next year will be different, and I’ll deal with it better.  But it isn’t, and I don’t, because I keep missing the point.  

And the point seems to be that I don’t accept that I have an obsession with Christmas because I’m autistic, and I get obsessed with everything I think about - because I’m autistic, and that’s the way my brain is wired.  But with a lot of those other things I’ve started to recognise, and accept, the part my autism plays in them, and so they pass relatively quickly (some quicker than others) because I’m also now learning how not to feed them.  With Christmas I seem to think that it’s different, that it’s down to years of learning and conditioning (which has its part to play, but its now, again, primarily all in my mind because I no longer engage in any of that Christmas celebrating - but my mind is still obsessed with it all).  

I have stopped what I consider the major behaviours revolving around it, but it hasn’t shifted my thinking.  Well, duh?  Have I not been paying attention?  Replacing them with a few ‘minor’ habits (like the music) still feeds the obsession: and it takes so very little for me to become obsessed.  Or had I not noticed?  Seriously?  Do I walk around with a blindfold wrapped around my cognitive functions? *rolls eyes and sighs - deeply*  

So every year I still get my knickers in a twist about the idea that it’s coming up, and that I’ve got to find some way through it (as if it were some physical obstacle camped out in my flat, or an impenetrable forest that had sprung up outside my front door); whether I should celebrate any part of it at all (like putting a tree up, which I do still own, and actually like doing); or find some other aspect of this time of year to celebrate, like the pagan winter solstice.

Though why I’d want to celebrate the lengthening of the days with the return of the sun is ridiculous when I HATE this time of year.  I love autumn and winter, the darkness, and the cold weather; and the fact that it keeps people mostly indoors (especially my downstairs neighbour, who goes into almost literal hibernation, and from whom I hear hardly a peep - oh joy!!).  

I find it depresses me when we reach this point, when even though it’s the time that winter begins, spring is on the horizon.  And Christmas is messily all wrapped up in that, what with it being the end of December, with a new year on the horizon.  I thrive in the dark, like a mushroom.  I want to hibernate and hide in the spring and summer.

Basically it seems that, for some reason, I think I’ve just GOT TO celebrate something.  Why??!!  You know it occured to me just now that it’s probably got a lot to do with the fact that everyone else does (or so I imagine - when I’m obsessed I only ever see that it’s happening everywhere, even if it isn’t), and another of my autistic traits happens to be that I feel the need to copy everyone else.  

So, autism all round, then, huh?  Copying; obsession; difficulty dealing with change (seasons, end of year, celebration); don’t know how to celebrate; rigidity (seeing it as ‘the end’ of the year, not just a continuation of the flow of time); literality (the ‘magic’ of Christmas, etc); worry and anxiety; and analysing and complicating everything.  There’re probably more, but I think I’ve mentioned the predominant ones.  Plus I’m bored now.  

I even managed to sneak in some impaired social understanding and ineptitude on Christmas day, when I met a nice couple out walking their puppy; and, in the midst of a pleasant interchange (though with me feeling increasingly frantic as I tried to anticipate and keep up with the conversation), they told me their names, which precipitated a paroxysm of confused thought on my behalf as to whether this now meant that we were friends (the exchange of names is almost tantamount to the offering of engagement rings in my world).  I conveyed my bewilderment to a person I know to be my actual friend, who assured me that those people were merely being polite.  I wasn’t now to wander around my village, anxiously anticipating bumping into them, and being invited to socialise (so I can stop rehearsing responses in my head).   

Well, I guess this autism thing really affects EVERYTHING, eh?  Who’d’ve thought?  And Santa Claus really isn’t real, then?  Bugger!

HO HO Hope you’re having a good day.

Śanti.

Olympic Madness

Okay, so I’ve checked my blog to see when was my last post, and it’s been just over a week…  Classic Lisa, boundless enthusiasm for a short while, and then nothing.  So, to stop the rot, and do what I said I would do (post something regularly, to keep a sense of continuity), here are a few words.  Well, two words - Olympic Games.

Yep, that’s what has taken my focus this last week, and back onto the internet, to randomly, purposelessly trawl (thinking, as I do, that I could “just have a bit of a look”, and then come off and go straight back to being focused on my writing and whatnot.  Yeah, right: like that’s ever happened, or ever likely to).

And here’s the ridiculous thing - I can’t actually ‘watch’ the Games, because I don’t have a tv licence (along with not having a television, which I gave up about fifteen years ago), so instead I read the instant updates about it, and then watch the clips when they’re available.  And in between waiting, I drift off and look at some of the other topics I’m interested in/obsessed about (the most recent ones being books and reading).  Just my mind’s way of finding a way to get back on the internet.

The other ridiculous thing is that I don’t actually agree anymore with the idea of competitive sport, despite loving sport, and being competitive by nature.  I used to love doing sport at school, and I was good at it, but it brought out my competitive nature to the extreme - I was an appalling team player because I would even compete with my team mates.  I didn’t know how not to: I just am not a team person (like I’m really not a people person, though I’ve moved past the “I hate people” phase I was in for many years.  I’m just not comfortable or happy around them).  I’m not the type of person who should be let loose with a hockey stick… or any other piece of sports equipment that could double up as a lethal weapon.  

Even when playing ‘friendly’ games, I couldn’t help myself.  My friends hated having to partner me when we played badminton doubles, because I would simply take over the whole of our side of the court, and hardly allow them to get a touch of the shuttlecock.  I couldn’t share, I didn’t trust them, and I hated to lose.  And boy did I hate it when there were five of us, and I had to take my turn off the court…

And whenever I used to watch sport on tv, I would become vicariously competitive, and turn into one of those awful, judgemental, nationalistic fans, shouting at the television about how great my side were (I’m English when we’re playing Scotland, Ireland, or Wales, and British when we’re all clumped together, as we are for the Olympics; and if no-one from my nation is playing, I’ll ‘adopt’ someone else’s team/athlete); how shit the others were; and how they'd cheated if we lost.  Or I’d turn on our side if I couldn’t blame the others, and say how useless we were.  Such a lovely person.  Sport brings out the monster in me.  Here’s the irony - I’m actually a pacifist at heart.  I hate conflict.  

Having grown more thoughtful about what I do, think, how things affect me, and who I am, etc, I now understand that in order to not feed a negative character trait or behaviour, I have to do the opposite (yeah, I know - I should maybe give it a go with the whole internet trawling thing…).  It’s one of the reasons I don’t do sports anymore, and only do yoga.  

Mind you, there are people who have managed to corrupt yoga.  Can you believe there are yoga competitions, and people who actually want to turn it into a competitive sport?  Here’s where my tolerance of people gets a little flaky (where thoughts of violence float up, and I want to bash them over the head with their yoga mats, or maybe a bronze statue of Shiva - much more effective) - ARE THEY FUCKING BONKERS?!!

Do they not know the meaning of the word ‘yoga’, or the purpose of it?  It translates as ‘union’ or ‘yoke’, and means to unite the mind, body, and soul: to become whole, one with ourselves, God, and the rest of the universe - which includes other people.  Competition is about separation, trying to prove yourself to be better than everyone else.  How does that bear any relation to yoga?  ARE THESE PEOPLE DUMB, OR WHAT?  No doubt we’ll see it included in the Olympics some time in the future.

I know there are those who say that sport brings people together, and that it’s a safe way to channel and burn off energy.  And I agree that maybe it does for some people.  But I think for others it’s merely more fuel to the fire of their nationalistic pride, their hatred of others, and their desire to conquer and subjugate, just played out in a sports arena rather than on a battlefield.  

I don’t think you can make the blanket statement that participating in sport is a substitute for war - if that were the case, we’d have less wars going on: yet (unless I’m really missing something) that doesn’t appear to be the case.  For some people it seems as if sport is a substitute, but merely to pass the time, and keep in shape, for when the next war comes along.

And people wonder why our world is divided, and in such a mess, with countries, groups, and individuals all competing with each other for power, glory, and money/material gain.  And no, I don’t mean that sport is to blame (or the Olympics specifically).  I guess it’s just a microcosmic view of what goes on in the whole world; wherever there are people, there is competition, which can sometimes engender conflict.  It’s human nature.  It’s a bugger.

So there we go.  I’ve probably wandered from my original point, and said more than I set out to do.  It was meant only to be a brief update.  But what do I know about how to be brief.  And at least I’ve broken my duck (it’s a cricketing term, ironically - means to finally score after being on zero for a while).

I hope that if you are watching the Olympics, that you are enjoying them in the true, Olympic spirit - by that I mean that you are able to admire the skill of each athlete, regardless of which country they represent; embrace the ethos that says “it’s the taking part that matters, not the winning”; and not turn into a maniacal zealot.  

So, here’s something that confuses me, though - if it’s the taking part, not the winning, that counts, then why give out medals?

Wishing you peace, health, and wholeness.

Namaste

LITERARY INSPIRATION - AN INTRODUCTION

A small selection of my books, presided over by a small Pooh

I love quotes - which you may have noticed if you’ve looked around my blog.  Unfortunately, there isn’t enough room to fit in as many as I would like, otherwise there would hardly be space for anything else.  (I am thinking of adding another Page to the sidebar, for other random quotes I’ve collected.  Probably to be called “Quote Unquote”.)

I also love books.  And, since a lot of great quotes come from literature, I’ve decided to combine the two, and start what will hopefully be a regular series of posts where I share favourite quotes or passages from my books, with a few of my own thoughts about it, and a photo or two of said book attached (as it’s given me a reason to use the camera I’ve had, and hardly used, for nearly three years).

Just to reassure you, despite the possible implications of the title, this is not going to be filled with words from great, deep (the kind you need a JCB for to dig up the meaning), heavy, worthy, ’classic’ works of literature; nor, even, any such recent books.  

That is not the kind of stuff that I like: it bores the arse off of me, and I am hopeless at finding the deeper, symbolic meaning in those stories, despite the fact that I love the English language, and seem to have been born with a natural affinity for it.  Well, for using it: trying to understand everyone else’s use of it tends to leave me flummoxed.

I did take 'A' Level English Literature at college, where we studied and analysed great works of literature.  Well, at least, everyone else did: I simply floundered, and failed miserably at it.  I think it might have derailed my love of reading for a long time after that.  Mind you, for some perverse reason when I left college I started reading more classic books - like the whole of the Brontë canon, and Thomas Hardy, along with things we hadn’t studied, like Jane Austen.  I don’t know what’s going on in my brain half the time.  

A large Pooh with a different view

Ironically, despite it being thirty years ago since I left college, I do remember all of the books we studied; they were indelibly imprinted into my brain through repeated analysis.  Therefore, I thought I’d take a trip down memory lane, and share the joy with you.  So here they are:

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer 

Thankfully we only studied one of them (can’t remember the name now, but it was one of the lesser-known ones).  It was in the original “olde" English, which we had to translate into modern English, before having to interpret the bloody thing!  The only thing I can remember is that there was an old, blind man with a very young wife, and she was having an affair with some young bloke.  The husband found this out in an embarrassingly explicit scene when, having had his sight come back, he went to tell her, only to find them having sex in a tree.  Bizarre.  And tedious.  And completely mind-boggling to me: why, and how, would anyone have sex in a tree?  

Othello by William Shakespeare 

Early example of interracial marriage, and the power of jealousy to destroy.  And a symbolic description of a slimy toad.  Again with the having to translate it first, though not so dense as Chaucer.  Nothing could be so dense as Chaucer.  Not too bad after having the imagery and language explained (so that basically covers the whole thing then), though I wouldn’t understand it by myself.  But I remember the main characters - Desdemona, Iago, Cassio, and, of course, the eponymous Othello.  And there’s dying.

Richard the Second by William Shakespeare 

The less famous of the two Richards (the other one being the Third, and having a hump).  Sad bloke, bit whiney, completely lacking in any self-awareness, especially of how he got himself in this mess.  Vaguely recall the famous speech about “this sceptred Isle, this England…”, and characters called Bolingbroke, and John of Gaunt.  And Richard dies in the end.  Of course.  

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë  

Oh my God, one of the most torturous, tortuous, and utterly tedious books I’ve ever read.  I just wanted to slap Cathy, and drop Heathcliff off a cliff.  I’m happy to say I think they both died in the end.  

The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley  

I think we must have really hammered at this one because not only do I remember the plot (boy goes to stay with his friend, falls in love with friend’s much older sister; sister is having affair with local farmer, which is forbidden ‘cos he’s lower class; sister and farmer use boy to deliver messages between them; sister and farmer get caught in flagrante delicto; all goes pear-shaped, blah blah blah.  All very heart-wrenching and tedious), but I also remember the first line: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”  Plus a scene with a red bicycle, which is meant as a phallic symbol, ‘cos it’s just before the sister and the farmer get caught having sex.  Went right over my head.  No death, just heart-wrenching separation and longing.  I longed to be separated from the book.

Volpone by Ben Jonson  

About a man (a costermonger, I think) whose name (the title of the book) reflects his character - literal translation ‘the Fox’: wily, sneaky, sly, and untrustworthy.  I think he tries to seduce the daughter of some wealthy merchant, but I’m not certain.  By the time we got to this book in the course, I think I’d lost the will to live.  And the ability to retain any more information.

The Return of The Native by Thomas Hardy  

I mistakenly thought this was going to be about a black person in Africa (I had a one-dimensional interpretation of the word ‘native’ at that time).  So you can imagine my surprise when it turned out to be about some white woman returning to her home somewhere in England (or was it Wales?  It eludes me, the tale was so riveting.  Perhaps I’m getting confused because I think there was a t.v. version made with Catherine Zeta Jones, who is Welsh).  And that’s about as much as I can remember, other than that, as with all Hardy books, it was terribly fraught, dark, and depressing, and someone probably died at the end.  Oh, and lots and lots of symbolism, to do with the scenery.  Which was dark, dank, and donk.*

A few more books

And there you have a brief history of my literary history.  Thankfully I eventually moved on from all of that, and I found stuff that I really liked (as opposed to more of the stuff I thought I should like, due to my literary aspirations, and my unfortunate autistic propensity for absorbing and copying whatever I come into contact with).  This means Terry Pratchett, and a whole lot of children’s books - especially Winnie the Pooh (the REAL one, NOT the Disney one), The Secret Garden, and The Chronicles of Narnia.  Expect lots of quotes to be culled from these.

In keeping with my newly discovered enthusiasm for blogging, based on the principle of NOT following a plan, I will not be making proclamations about how often, and on what day, I shall be posting these snippets.  That way lies madness - and the inevitability that I shall end up doing the opposite, which could mean not at all, ’cos that’s in my nature.  

I am hoping to post them regularly, but that could mean anything from once a week to once a month, or even (God forbid) once a year, and anything in-between: so expect them when they arrive.  I’m also hoping that, in the new spirit of continuity I am attempting to achieve, they will serve as inspiration for me to stay connected to my blog, giving me something to write if I run out of ideas for a random post.  I guess we’ll see.  I’m trying to go with the flow, and let things evolve organically, rather than attempting to force them to follow a path I’ve dictated is the right one (which is based on what I’ve read about how everyone else does it).

So there we go.  I’ll shut up now.  This was meant to be a short introduction, but see what I mean?  I say I’m going to do one thing, and the opposite occurs.  I will shut up now.  Bye bye.  Happy reading. 

* This is a line from one of The Goon Show episodes.  I can’t remember which one.