Aspie New Year 2012

January: I started the new year with one of my little Chickens (CT) at Sea World. It was my first big post diagnosis outing and quite a success. I learned a lot from it (like where the restaurant we always visit is) and I think CT did, too. Throughout the last year, she’s been like my shield. If we go somewhere crowded, she guides me through where she can and helps me escape it when it gets to be too much.


February: After about six weeks of one epic realization after another, I hit a bit of a wall. The awareness of just how affected I was by external stimuli had set in and I was in a near constant state of sensory overload. Why, at the age of 34, was I getting worse? Because I was burned out. Read this wonderful piece from Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg for a stellar description of what Autistic burnout is like.

http://www.journeyswithautism.com/2009/06/29/why-i-cant-do-what-i-used-to-do/

March: The great earplug experiment began and changed my life. There are few things I enjoy more than the moment when my foam earplugs fully expand and block out so much of the noise that sets me on edge.

April: It seemed like therapy was finally getting me some results. I learned new techniques for coping and my anxiety was enormously reduced. I also made up my mind to get off my fat ass and start getting some serious exercise.

May: I got to play with dolphins on CT’s birthday. Yes, they are the assholes of the animal kingdom, but they’re so entertaining.

June: My morning walks were regular and exciting. I was proud of myself for sticking with something as challenging for me as walking every day.

July: POTTER!!! Yes, I’m a nerd. So what? My friends and I put on silly costumes and attended the midnight show of the final Harry Potter movie. As luck would have it, since we went to the Universal Citywalk theater, we also got to spend from 3 AM to 5 AM in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It was crowded, it was chaotic and it was exhausting. I spent most of it sitting outside the owlery and people watching so I could stay out of the crowds. Unfortunately, I also got violently ill on the way home.

August: I had been feeling run down after the Potter experience and had stopped my morning walks. Then came the pain. My Rheumatoid Arthritis flared up after two years of being held at bay with vitamins. Back on all my many medications I went.

September: And then I was 35. I refuse to say more on the subject.

October: It was an eventful month. Steve Jobs died, I got some much needed closure, Ninja was faced with school bullies and I went to a wedding. On purpose. And I enjoyed myself! Yay me! Bigger yay for the Chicks for helping me through it and the happy couple who made sure we were at a table of awesome people.

November: On the roller coaster that this year has been, November was a Double Down Drop. (See http://themeparks.about.com/cs/coasterbooks/a/coasterspeak.htm for a definition.) First I met my new boss and he made a joke about my AS that made me very uncomfortable. Then he told me he was taking my office away. This was devastating news.

December: The fight for my ADA rights continues and I will have a letter for my boss next week. Christmas was rough because of the stress and anxiety at work. All I wanted was to stay home and sleep. I haven’t been this depressed in a very long time.

2012?

Well, who the hell knows? I want to have a kick ass year. I want to be at this point next year (provided the Mayans were wrong) raving about how EPIC 2012 was and how great my life is. Going into 2011, my theme song was Uncharted by Sara Bareilles, mainly because of the line “Each day I’m counting up the minutes ‘til I get alone, cause I can’t stay in the middle of it all.” For 2012, I’ve chosen The Good Life by Weezer. Aside from being from a male point-of-view, it sums up what I’ve been through and what I want for the new year very well.

When I look in the mirror, I can't believe what I see

Tell me, who's that funky dude, staring back at me?

Broken, beaten down can't even get around

Without an old-man cane, I fall and hit the ground

Shivering in the cold, I'm bitter and alone

Excuse the bitchin, I shouldn't complain

I should have no feeling, 'cause feeling is pain

As everything I need, is denied me

And everything I want, is taken away from me

But who do I got to blame? Nobody but me

…And I don't wanna be an old man anymore

It's been a year or two since I was out on the floor

Shakin' booty, makin' sweet love all the night

It's time I got back to the Good Life

It's time I got back, it's time I got back

And I don't even know how I got off the track

I wanna go back…Yeah!

Life is short, kids. We only get so much time, so why waste it being miserable? 2012 is my year to find my happy and fucking OWN it. You get out there and own yours, too.

Was The Grinch An Aspie?

Sit down this Christmas season and watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the 1966 cartoon…not the live action travesty) and look at the Grinch versus the Whos as an Aspie versus a town of NTs. It might give you some insight about people like me.


What was it the Grinch hated so much about the way the Whos down in Whoville celebrated Christmas? “All the noise, noise, noise, noise!” I feel you, Grinch. I do. Like so many Aspies, the Grinch prefers to be alone, living atop Mount Crumpet with only his dog for company. His need for quiet is overwhelming and the endless disruption of it drives him to a state of bitterness and hatred.

The narrator doesn’t get it. He tells us that the Grinch’s heart is two sizes too small…or that his head isn’t screwed on right. Naturally it’s all Mr. Grinch’s fault that he can’t conform to what the rest of Whovillian society expects.

I’m not saying it’s okay to try to destroy a holiday enjoyed by many, or that I agree in any way with how the Grinch deals with the situation. I’m just saying it doesn’t seem fair that things had to get so bad that he felt he had no other recourse. Why didn’t anyone see that he needed help?

Unlike the Grinch, I don’t hate Christmas. I don’t have a problem with the size of my heart. A Christmas morning Who song will not magically make me able to tolerate “All the noise, noise, noise, noise!”. The Grinch is not a perfect analogy. If he were truly an Aspie, no amount of heart growth would make him want to be smack in the middle of the Whoville Christmas festivities.

My point is simply this, before you judge someone who wants to be left alone or try to tell them that their intolerance of noise is just an overreaction, remember that it goes both ways. You enjoy your flu-flubas and tartinkas and I’ll take my plate of Who Pudding and Roast Beast over to this quiet corner and we’ll each enjoy Christmas our own way.

Having the “Wrong” Reactions (And an Update on the Work Mess)

I once made someone very angry because I asked for their reasoning behind an opinion that I disagreed with. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful or argumentative. I wasn’t trying to change their opinion to match mine. I was simply curious. I wanted to understand why their opinion was different from mine. It never occurred to me that I shouldn’t ask because it might be interpreted as rude or confrontational. I just wanted to know.


I also tend to joke around when I’m uncomfortable, but because I have that special brand of quirky Aspie humor, it often makes me seem insensitive or just plain weird. As I’ve become more aware of this, I’ve become more likely to clam up for fear of saying the wrong thing. The more I realize how different I am, the more withdrawn I become.

The desire not to make social mistakes weighs heavy on me, now that I know how many of them I make and how often. It adds to the social anxiety I already felt and makes me nervous about interacting with people I’ve known for years. I’m endlessly afraid of accidentally offending people. I wish I didn’t care, but I do.

On top of all of that, I’m constantly faced with people who have such a twisted understanding of people like me that I feel like I’m banging my head against the wall. The situation at work is the perfect example. This week, we’re starting the “transition” to the move out of my office. I’ve been told to keep my door open. This is so very difficult for me. People are constantly walking by and the noise is so distracting. A binaural phone headset was supposed to be the compromise on the noise levels, but when it arrived, it was not at all what we discussed.

http://www.hellodirect.com/hellodirect/Shop?DSP=30200&PCR=1:1:5:15:150:1040&IID=13478&imagesequence=

This is what arrived on Friday. You can see it only covers one ear, rather than the two I was expecting. Now I have my door open, a headset covering one ear and an earplug in the other and I am a wreck. I was having muscle spasms from the tension by 8:00 AM and a headache by 9:30 AM. All I want is to close my door and get some work done, but it is not happening. I can’t help but fear being fired when management is creating a situation that makes it impossible for me to be productive.

Silence

I've started wearing earplugs in my office.  I tried a few different styles, but found that the inexpensive foam kind are the most comfortable and effective.  These are the kind that you smoosh down with your fingers and put into your ears and the foam expands to fill the space.  There is this perfect blissful moment for me in this process, this wonderful little moment of joy when the foam finishes expanding and the world around me is virtually silent.  I would equate it to slipping into a hot bath after a stressful day or kicking off a pair of shoes that pinch your toes.  It's become one of the best parts of my morning.  I can still hear the phone ring and the intercom paging me, but the sound doesn't cause me pain the way it did.

I am also learning to say, "I don't know what to say" instead of stressing myself out over trying to think of the correct empathetic response to another person's emotions.  I have wasted so much energy worrying that I was going to say the wrong thing to someone when I wasn't sure how to respond.  Now I know the right response is the truth.  If someone is hurting and I don't know how to make them feel better, there is nothing wrong with saying, "I wish I knew how to help you."  It's the truth and it tells them that I care about the fact that they are suffering.

Damn, I'm deep today. 

I Think Today Is Not Going To Suck

I stopped at Starbucks to get my Venti No Whip White Hot Chocolate because I knew my office would be colder than a well digger's ass in January and they were playing David Bowie when I walked in.  Good sign number one.  They had fresh marble poundcake in the case.  Good sign number two.  I remembered today is my Friday.  Ha!  Three things telling me today is going to be a good day.

Yesterday I ordered some earplugs because my iPod isn't doing enough to drown out all the stupid that assaults my ears throughout the day, but I'm using different earbuds this morning and they're slightly more effective so I'm not so stressed about maintaining my sanity until I get the plugs.  I've never bought earplugs today and money is tight, so I wasn't sure what to look for.  I posted about the dilemma on the http://www.wrongplanet.net/ forums and got a lot of great answers.  I'm going to try out a few different types to figure out what works best for me in different situations.

Oh, hey, good sign number 4 -- iPod just decided to play "Race Car Ya Yas" by CAKE.  Fuck yeah.