Missing Inaction

 Oh, hello?  Gosh, it’s been a while since I last posted anything here.  If I don’t do something soon people might get the impression that I’m inconsistent.  Though why they should think that about me, I have no idea.  It’s not like it’s a part of being autistic, or having ADHD... is it?  It is?  Did I miss something there?  Oh.  Is that why, despite all of my best intentions, I have not been able to stick to my initial goal of writing at least one blog post every month?  Seriously??  And here I was thinking it had something to do with me being lazy, self-willed, and just plain contrary.  After all, what else would it be, when I say I really love writing, am given the opportunity to do it, but then don’t, choosing instead to sit and trawl through the virtual world of the internet.  And, laughably, seeking out, amongst other things, blogs about writing, in the vague hope that they might fire up my brain and imbue me with some motivation. 

Amazing how time flies when you’re busy doing ... well, nothing in particular, other than being distracted.  But despite the fact that I have been obsessed with looking on the web (not a good thing in itself), and have trawled through a lot of not-very-helpful stuff (like writer’s blogs, and sites devoted to the art of decluttering and minimalism – which are not designed with autistics in mind, but I can’t tell the difference when I’m locked into one of my obsessions), I did search out something of value and relevance to myself, and found in the process some interesting stuff about ADHD, which has helped shift my perspective somewhat. 

In fact, that’s probably a bit of an understatement – it’s more than somewhat.  I think it may have radically altered my whole perspective on it.  Though let’s not get too over-excited here, counting my chickens – after all, it’s highly likely that I’ll completely forget this earth-shattering revelation in about a week, in the midst of some other world-redefining epiphany.  My brain’s like that, you know; something to do with being autistic, and having ADHD...

But, in light of the last article I wrote where I lamented the fact that I couldn’t seem to figure out how to accept my Asperger’s (and the rest), or apply the AA programme, or find a place in life where I fit, I do feel like I’ve had a major paradigm shift, rather than simply one of my all-too-frequent light bulb moments – you know those things, where the light goes on for a moment, and then it goes off.  On, off, on, off, on, off, on...  Kinda leaves you feeling a bit dizzy, not to mention fuzzy-visioned ‘cos you don’t get the chance for your eyeballs to adjust and focus for very long.  Sounds familiar...  Oh yeah, I think that’s how my brain works. 

So, (extended metaphor moment continuing) in the light of this new information, I can see how pointless and futile it is for me to keep trying to fit myself into a neurotypical mould, and to continue to view myself from this perspective, in a misguided attempt to ‘fix’ what I see as being ‘wrong’ in me.  Of course, true to my nature (read brain-wiring), having the realisation and then using it to change what I’ve been doing, in order to bring it into line with the new perspective, is a slow process.  But here’s one of the really important things I’ve learned over the last month from what I’ve been reading – people with ADHD (and autism) don’t do transitions very easily. 

What?  You don’t say?  That’s it?! 

Yes, I know: it’s hardly earth-shattering news, is it.  At least, not unless you’re completely new to this whole thing, in which case it could be wildly exciting.  But consider this: if, like me, you have a very literal mind, and words are very important to you, then that statement is news.  What I’ve read, heard, and said myself, hundreds of times, is that autistics don’t LIKE change.  What I haven’t heard is that we don’t DO change very well, or why.  

‘Like’ and ‘do’ are two completely different words, in my world – ‘like’ is an emotional/psychological word, and ‘do’ is an action one.  The context of the sentence changes dependent on which one is used – at least, for me it does.  But to other people who don’t think like me there is often no real difference, and the words are frequently used interchangeably.  This can often cause confusion.  It can also lead to being classed as someone who is just being picky about semantics.  Well, I’m not being – not intentionally, though it may look like that to a non-autistic.  And it has done – caused confusion, that is.   

You see, the fact is that my experience does not concur with the statement that, as an autistic, I don’t like change.  But, because everyone seems to say that this is the case, I have taken it on board and made it my own – like the good, absorbent Asperger that I am (I really would make a great toilet roll, you know.  I could give Andrex a run for their money).  If I don’t like change, then why is it that I cannot stick to the plan I have, but seek instead to tweak it at every opportunity?  Why is it that I have on there a list of activities so long that I almost don’t have enough time in the week to do them all?  Why is it that I have to have a variety of different things to engage my attention, otherwise I just lose interest?

Because I like change.  Sometimes I even lonnnnnng for it.  I cannot bear things staying the same.  If I didn’t like or want change then I never would have set off on the journey of recovery that I embarked upon nearly twenty-five years ago.

No, the problem isn’t that I don’t like it – though, over the years, I have come to feel anxiety and fear about it, and to not enjoy the disruption that it brings because of not being aware of what it was, or would entail.  There was no-one to guide me, to reassure me that it was okay, that the world wasn’t about to come to an end.  Instead it felt more like I was constantly plunging into the depths of the Amazon rainforest - before anyone even named it the Amazon rainforest.  

The problem is that I have been looking in the wrong place to find an answer –approaching it from the traditionally psychoanalytical point of view, and looking in my mind.  But the ‘problem’ is actually in my brain – it’s in the very fabric of my biological make-up, just like the colour of my eyes, or my gender.  You can’t counsel or analyse it away, though you could, perhaps, convince me that it isn’t real and I’m just making it up, or that it’s actually something else entirely (which is the delusion I’ve been living with for the last twenty-five years, the idea that it’s all to do with being an alcoholic).  No, the truth is my brain really is different.  And it’s my brain that cannot cope with change very well: it’s not wired up to be able to deal with it easily, or quickly.  But I insist that it should be able to, ‘cos where’s the big deal?  After all, I’ve analysed it, and come to the conclusion that there’s nothing to fear about change. 

Yet here I am, still seemingly displaying resistance to it.  Except that resistance is in the mind, and for most of the time I cannot find any when I look in there.  So I offer up the age-old explanation I’ve learnt in recovery – I’m in denial!  In fact, I’m so far in denial that it’s buried deep, deep, DEEEEEEP within my subconscious (or unconscious), and requires more thorough investigation and analysis. 

Well, I have to tell you, I’m a world-class analyser, and I have analysed everything to death ‘til there’s nothing left to analyse.  But still I’ve analysed the nothing, just in case I missed a bit.  Sometimes it really isn't "all in the mind".

So, now I’m tired of doing it that way, and not getting very far.  Therefore I’m going to try this way, and see what comes as a result.  This way?  Yes, it’s the one that involves embracing (rather than disgracing) that which makes me different, and trying instead to adjust the way I live my life to make it ADHD/autistic-friendly, rather than attempting to squeeze the life out of them in order to make myself fit into a long-held vision I’ve had of what it means to be a well-recovered, well-balanced, happy individual.

From inaction to action, hopefully with a bit more speed now that I’m heading in the right direction.  Perhaps tortoise-pace, rather than slug’s?  We can but hope.

  

Dis-Integrating Into Society

“To be nobody but myself, in a world which is doing its best night and day to make me everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.”

EE Cummings

Do you ever feel like you don’t belong?  Do you ever feel like tearing your hair out in complete frustration ‘cos, no matter what you do, you never seem to get anything right?  Do you sometimes feel as if being autistic in a predominantly non-autistic world is God’s idea of a joke, one S/He came up with whilst tripping on some particularly potent mind-altering substance?  Or, perhaps, some kind of punishment for sins committed in a previous incarnation?  

Do you ever wonder what the fucking point is of being autistic?  After all, it seems to attract nothing but criticism for the fact that it makes me incapable of behaving like a “normal” human being, and constant attempts to get me to behave in order to fit in.  Not to mention all that research people do in order to determine what’s “wrong” with my brain, and how to fix it: or, at least, wipe out the gene or whatever it is that caused it in order to make sure that no-one else has to “suffer” from it in the future.  Is it any wonder I view my autism as a curse, when I’m surrounded by such stuff?

And cursed I feel myself to be, at the moment.  Happy, joyous, and free I ain’t.  If God has some purpose for me, other than to experience the misery and frustration of being constantly on the outside looking in, then it’s lost on me.  I’ve even come to the conclusion that, despite what I read and hear about God being all-powerful, everything, and everywhere, the one thing S/He is not is autistic.  So S/He doesn’t understand me, and I don’t understand Her (which explains why I can’t interpret the signs that I’m being sent half the time ‘cos He’s communicating in neurotypical language).  

And, once again, it’s down to me to have to try to bend my brain into a fucking pretzel to attempt to understand what it is that S/He’s trying to tell me, ‘cos He’s not about to kowtow to one measly autistic who’s refusing to try to understand and change the way she thinks (at least, that’s how I see myself).  Trying to understand God is like trying to translate Sanskrit – and I should know, ‘cos I’ve been trying to learn the fucking thing for the last three years, and I’ve hardly got anywhere.  (Don’t ask me why I’m trying to learn another language when I can barely understand the one I was born to!)

I’m angry right now (can you tell?)  It’s been nearly three years since I was diagnosed as having Asperger’s, and I still haven’t accepted it.  And, what’s worse, I don’t know how to accept it, despite having a Twelve Step programme which is all about acceptance and change.  This just makes it even more fucking frustrating, ‘cos I don’t know how to apply the bloody thing to my autism.  How do you accept the unacceptable?

I desperately want to be a spiritual person (it’s one of the main reasons I do yoga), but I just can’t seem to get that right either.  The problem is that I think there’s only one way to be spiritual (of course I do, I’m fucking autistic and everything is black or white, right or wrong), and it’s the non-autistic way – which means embracing and understanding concepts like the idea that there is no right or wrong, there just is; and that God is in the all and the nothing.  

I’m re-reading the book 'Conversations with God' at the moment, which talks about all this stuff, and I’m trying desperately to understand it.  And sometimes I think that I do, intellectually, but I fear that I probably don’t, but that I’m just trying hard to do so ‘cos I think that’s the only version of spirituality there is: and if I don’t get it then I’m fucked.  After all, I’ve never yet read anything spiritual that embraces the idea of rigid thinking (which is what I’m “blessed”, or “cursed”, with) – other than religion.  And I do so hate religion.

Sometimes I think that God doesn’t want to talk to me, and that’s why He makes it necessary for me to have to have an interpreter.  As my best friend frequently says about other things (like the internet, and books), it’s not meant/written for autistics – and I fear sometimes that neither is God.  Perhaps I should seek help from an inanimate object instead?  A teapot, perhaps?  Or a toy rabbit?  Mind you, I’m sure I could find a way to misinterpret that too.  It’s something I’m highly skilled at doing.  Like missing the point.  And complicating everything.  And falling into deep, dark, dank, dungeons of doom on a regular basis.  And never, ever, wanting to be where I am – like now.

So I’m off now to find somewhere else to be.  Or perhaps that should read, I’m off to find someONE else to be?

    

Autism Is For Christmas, Not Just For Life!

Oh, Ho, Ho, Ho!  I feel a song coming on...

“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

Jack Frost nipping at your nose.

Yule-tide carols being sung by a choir,

And folks dressed up like Eskimos...”

Or how about,

“I’m dreaming of a White Christmas,

Just like the ones I used to know.

Where the tree tops glisten,

And children listen,

To hear sleigh-bells in the snow.”

I can hear Nat and Bing singing in my head right now.  Along with Mariah, Macy, Madonna, and Martin (that’s Dean Martin – I didn’t want to spoil the alliteration I’d unintentionally got going).  Not to mention those perennial seventies English faves from Slade (oh, ha ha ha!  Sleighed!!!), Wizzard, and Elton John.  And not forgetting Shakin’ Stevens, with the exceptionally jolly “Merry Christmas, Everyone”.

Yes, it’s THAT time of year again.  Oh joy!  As if life wasn’t complicated enough for an autistic to get a grip of, they have to go and bung in a festive holiday to add to the dilemma.  What is Christmas about, anyway?  And how, in the name of Santa’s socks, do you celebrate it?  I mean, for crying out loud, I already have enough problems trying to celebrate my own birthday, without the burden of being expected to know how to do it for someone else’s.  And a someone else whom I don’t even know. 

That’s like asking me to celebrate the birthday of the woman who works in the post office.  I technically “know” her – which basically means that I exchange pleasantries with her whenever she serves me; I know she’s the post office woman; and I’d probably recognise her if I happened to see her outside of the office.  But I don’t really “KNOW” her.  I think she seems like a nice person – but then this is coming from a woman who has all the perception of a dead dog when it comes to making judgements about people. 

Had I ever been around to meet Hitler, it’s highly likely I would have thought him a nice person too, if he’d smiled at me and chatted a bit.  Especially if he’d been working in the post office.  I have, in my time, tried to justify his actions as having to be the logical consequences of something or other.  I hadn’t quite got to grips with the idea that a person’s innate personality has rather a major part to play in how they turn out.  I was simply applying that good old autistic logic in order to make sense of what is, otherwise, senseless behaviour.  I’m really very good at it – I get a lot of practice, trying to make sense of my own.

Anyway, the point is, Christmas confuses me.  As do most things in life.  And every year, without fail, I go through the same ritual of trying to make sense of it, trying to find the meaning to it, trying to find a way to celebrate it which doesn’t involve the things that I used to do to celebrate ie drink a lot, eat a lot, buy a lot, spend a lot of time with my family, and watch television a lot - all in the name of attempting to get into the Christmas spirit.  And, surprisingly (at least to me), none of them ever worked. 

Yep, the real problem is that I truly believe all that hype.  Even worse than that, I want it to be true – which is probably why ninety percent of my psyche believes it.  I want it to be a special time of the year, with all of that attendant clap-trap about people being full of the Christmas spirit (and I’m not talking about alcohol here).  I even believe that having a white Christmas will make it more magical – as if Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye might suddenly appear to croon the world into a state of festive bliss.

I think that putting up a tree and decorations, having lots of family and friends for  whom to buy pressies and cards, and to be able to spend the holidays with, will “help to make the season bright” (to pinch a quote from the lyrics of ‘The Christmas Song’).  In fact, it’s bloody ridiculous what I think will make Christmas time special – like the magical thinking of a Santa-struck six year old.

And then there’s the whole issue of Jesus.  Just who was he?  And who decided we should celebrate his birthday?  And why do we celebrate his birthday by giving presents and cards to each other?  And getting drunk?  And stuffing ourselves full of food (those poor bloody turkeys – whose idea was it that they’d get the special ‘privilege’ of being the main course?)  And does ‘season’ (as in ‘the Holiday season’) mean it’s longer than one day (which, in my mind, it does – my Christmas holidays still coincide with the school hols, even though I haven’t been in education for over twenty-five years)?   

And when did Santa and Jesus get combined?  Should we call them Jesta?  Was it a marketing ploy formulated by someone back in the deep dark past, who jumped on the idea of gift-giving (as depicted in the story of Jesus’ birth) as a great way to sell the whole idea of Christmas?  Or perhaps it was designed for those people who don’t believe in Jesus, to give them a reason to celebrate?  And if there was a Christ-child born now, would he be visited by three wise-guys and three car parking attendants?  And for gifts, would he get an iPad, an iPhone, and a Kindle?

Okay, so enough of the really deep questions (I’m being ironic here).  What I’d really like to know is why do I still feel as if I must find a way to celebrate Christmas, when I’ve gradually stopped doing most of that stuff I mentioned above over the last ten years or so?  It’s like I’m stuck in a time-warp, where the only Christmases I remember are the ones that involved family, gifts, trees, and the like – yet I haven’t spent Christmas with my family since 2000.  That’s TWELVE BLOODY YEARS AGO!  And it never made a blind bit of difference to how I felt about the whole thing, anyway. 

Yet bang on cue, every year, you can guarantee there’s a light-bulb goes on in my head (or a set of twinkling fairy lights), and I respond to all of the hype and start pining for that perfect Christmas – like one of Pavlov’s dogs.  (And no, I don’t mean that Pavlov conditioned his dogs to pine for Christmas.  That would be a stupid thing to do.  Much like my pining for it is.  Better to pine for something tangible, useful, and attainable – like sticking to my bloody plan!)

The thing is I have learnt, through the practise of the AA programme, that every day is special, to be celebrated if you choose, and a new beginning.  Life is the ultimate gift.  Unfortunately, trying to override my initial learning is a tad difficult, no matter that I haven’t celebrated Christmas for a few years now.  My autistic brain doesn’t let go of old learning – it just has to be whacked into submission to a new way of thinking and doing, which gets laid over the top of the old. 

My best friend tells me there is an improvement – I only started talking about Christmas around the end of November this year, where on previous occasions it was October, and oftentimes September.  I’ll know I’m really improving when I don’t talk about it until it actually arrives, or not at all, and instead simply experience it as another day - another special day out of the three hundred and sixty-five that God gifts us every year.

So, hopefully, I will be spending my day following my plan.  That would be a tremendous gift – and a bloody miracle.  Perhaps Santa can oblige, since I’ve decided that God’s not doing such a great job of it!

Whatever you do, may you be at peace with yourself, and do what makes you happy.  If you can figure out what makes you happy!