I recently had a phone conversation with a new acquaintance, who pulled the “You think you’re autistic? I don’t see it” line. I laughed and said, “You don’t know me well enough yet,” instead of saying, “Wow, I’ve spent nearly 30 years pretending and practicing to be normal – glad I was able to fool you – on the phone – for a single hour! How dare you – you who say you haven’t even talked with an autistic person before – try to tell me who and what I am, as though you – who don’t know me AT ALL – know me better than I know myself?” It was the first time I’ve had to deal with that kind of dismissive attitude, but then again it was also the first time I have explained my self-diagnosis to someone who hasn’t actually known me for a while.
Then the drama struck when we were later texting instead of talking, and I was confused by something he said, and responded in a way that he found hurtful. I couldn’t even tell which of my comments could be taken as hurtful, so I had to ask what it was I said. After the conversation, I was feeling really upset over yet again failing at human interaction, but at the same time I was pleased to see growth in my self-awareness and ability to express it. I think reading other Aspies’ writings and working on my own has helped with that.
Here were some of my shared thoughts:
I don’t know how to take things when I don’t know someone well. It can be especially hard when texting.
When I don’t know what to say, I don’t say anything. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out my thoughts and put them into words, too. Especially when I don’t know what the person I’m talking to is thinking, so I don’t know what I should even be responding to.
Like you, I pull away from pain. And that includes pain unintentionally inflicted on others. It reminds me how often I misunderstand and am misunderstood. And if I’m gonna hurt people, I’d rather just sit alone with my cat.
And it takes me time to get to know someone and know how to interpret all they say and do. Until then, interactions can be confusing and frustrating for me.
I’m not saying I’m never understood, I’m just saying that understanding others and being understood is a frequent struggle for me.
Today I stumbled upon this post by Cynthia Kim at Musings of an Aspie, “The Seductive Illusion of Normal.” This passage really fit how I’m feeling today:
I don’t live in a vacuum. I say and do stuff. People around me are affected by it. Even though they know I struggle with certain things–they know this logically. That doesn’t prevent them from being affected by my words or actions or lack of words or actions.
This is when the wish to be normal sneaks up and grabs me.
I’m using normal and not neurotypical here for a reason. Normal is an illusion and I know it’s the illusion that I’m wishing for at these times. I’m not wishing for a different neurology so much as a fantasy version of life.
It’s easy to be seduced by the idea that being normal would solve everything, that it would make the lives of the people around me easier. But, of course it wouldn’t. We’d have some other problems instead, because life is like that.
And still it’s there, born out of frustration and insecurity, of a sense of never quite being good enough or right enough or just plain enough.
Maybe it’s a self-esteem issue. Mine has never been especially good. I seesaw between overconfidence and underconfidence, with no idea where the sweet spot in-between lies. Does anyone truly know this? I’m not sure.
Recently I also read “The Isolation of Aspergers.” Even though I don’t fully identify with most of her words, I do share many of those feelings. There’s a lot of loneliness.
I’m typing this and I haven’t even finished reading the post – I like it that much.
My words can express an agreement and hide my dislike for certain things, but my body language is almost incapable.
Yep.
Even large family gatherings with people who love us can make us anxious. When you dismiss our anxiety with a wave of your hand and a roll of your eyes, you say our feelings don’t matter. Your dismissal of my feelings increases my anxiety because I feel I have disappointed you. I feel like I cannot do anything right.
YES.
Because sensory issues play a big part in our lives, we often prefer specific foods. Forcing us to try new foods and chastising us if we don’t proves to me that you don’t respect my boundaries. I am an adult. I know what I like and what I don’t.
THIS.
I finished reading it and wanted to shout, “Amen!” and show it to everyone I know. Here’s my first step:
“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”
Bull****.
There are many words that still haunt me. Taunts about my weight that started in late elementary school. Words of social exclusion from the mean girls. Dismissive remarks from relatives. A girl I considered my best friend suggesting I just kill myself. (I pretty much remember the exact phrasing of that one.)
I remember talking to a new friend in high school and explaining that my group of girl friends didn’t care what I had to say. “Oh, I’m sure you’re just imagining things,” he said. “No, I had the feeling that they didn’t want to hear me, but then they actually said, ‘Schenley, shut up; we don’t care.'” I thought that was pretty convincing proof that my intuition had been correct. I don’t remember him having a good response to that.
I recall a period there in high school where I felt like I just couldn’t win. If I was in a good mood and talkative, they would yell at me for being annoying. If I kept quiet, they would yell at me for being depressed. It was only in the past few days that I started to realize the direction of the correlation – sure, sometimes I was quiet because I was depressed, but I think more often I was depressed because I was quiet.
On a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon is telling Amy about his “Which new game system to buy?” dilemma in a very animated and agitated fashion. Poor, patient Amy just wants him to shut up and pass the butter, and in exasperation feigns interest. Despite her doing this extremely obviously, Sheldon is oblivious and just gets more enthusiastic. Sometimes I wish I could be as oblivious as Sheldon. Instead, I have learned to pick up those social cues of disinterest and annoyance. And when people aren’t interested, I can generally shut up. But this comes at a cost.
I’ve started to notice that this constant tongue-biting is truly damaging to my mood.
I’m suppressing my own thoughts and feelings. I’m telling myself they aren’t worth sharing. When these are feelings of excitement or joy, that is pretty effective at squelching the happiness.
As an Aspie, I have special interests that bring me joy. I love to spend time on/with these things, I love to think about them, I love to talk about them. The problem is, other people generally don’t find them as interesting.
It hurts when others aren’t interested in something I’m passionate about. I mean, if the person is someone you care about, shouldn’t you at least listen out of care for the person, if not the topic? Whenever someone shows a genuine interest in what I’m talking about I can feel myself light up. Like when a friend’s husband asked follow-up questions about how paper-pieced quilting works instead of just nodding and smiling.
It’s great when I have someone to share an interest with, when I’m allowed to be excited and they’re excited in return. My dad and I can rhapsodize about music and movies (and script lines at each other – yay acceptable echolalia), my sister and I can ramble on about our Sims or gush about Glee, a friend and I can quote The Office to each other and even went to The Office Convention in Scranton years ago, etc. I treasure those relationships and moments when we can be ourselves and share each others’ joy. There’s even research to back up the idea that sharing joy with others is a good thing.
Other times I keep my mouth shut because I’m feeling down and don’t want to dampen the other person’s mood, or what I have to say is nothing new and I feel like a broken record and feel bad for the other person who’d have to hear it. I suck at lying, so I just don’t talk. But that doesn’t help me feel any better. And in those moments I long for someone to reach out to me and be honestly willing to listen.
I started this post weeks ago, but then I put off finishing it. It’s a painful topic, and I was having a hard time organizing my thoughts without rambling. But I don’t like leaving things unfinished, so here I go.
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I’ve been feeling lonely lately. Not that it’s a new thing; it kinda comes in waves. I think this latest time was really instigated by having free time again. For a while I was chatting online daily with a friend, and when that ended it was sad and a hard change in routine, but I became so very busy and stressed that I simply didn’t have time to feel lonely. I was too busy with my work schedule, and a busy season of my photography business, and the craziness of trying to make Christmas gifts and visit people. But all of that activity cut off abruptly. . . and although I was thankful to have my down-time back, it also increased my feeling-down time.
My thoughts for this post have been all over the place. Do I go into the feelings of childhood loneliness? Do I explore the ways I made friends who lasted? Do I share the heartbreaking times where I failed to make friends in new places? Where do I begin with all of this?
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Since graduating from college I have moved a lot. I moved 7 times in 6 years, in fact. Have I mentioned that change is hard? (Rhetorical question – I did). I was hired as a nanny and then had families’ financial situations change, or I moved in with people knowing the situation had to be temporary. I moved back in with my parents a few times when my work/living situation had to change, because they are awesome and supportive. Each time I moved to a new place I really did try to meet people. I’d find a good church and then step outside of my comfort zone to go
to a young adult ministry event, or join a women’s Bible study, or attend a small-group event to join a group. And I met some really nice people this way. . . but I never made a real friend. And I don’t know why. It seemed like most of them already knew each other, had a history, had their own relationships and busy lives. They were friendly to me, but I never felt truly initiated into the group, and was rarely invited to do things outside of the scheduled event. And I’ve never known how to get in.
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Looking back, it seems like I needed an insider to pull me in. Junior high sucked. I’m sure eventually I’ll write more about bullying, but for now I’ll just say that those years were the worst of my life. I hated going to lunch in junior high (and I love to eat), but I didn’t know how to change where I sat. Then one day my badminton partner in gym class invited me to sit with her at lunch. I long referred to her as “my angel” for rescuing me in that way. By inviting me to eat with her, she provided me with the “references” I needed to get in with a new group of girls. This group (though a bit fluid over the years) remained my social group at school until graduation. While far from perfect, we did share a lot of fun times, and for that I am thankful. In fact several of us got together for a private “un-reunion lunch” 10 years after graduation (I had *zero* interest in attending my class reunion); I truly enjoyed seeing them again after so many years. Yet at school, especially at the end, I often felt lonely, even within this group.
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I’m not really sure at what point in my life I started to feel different. I felt different from the other girls because I was a tomboy. Everyone always called me “smart” and it set me apart – when I got older it made me sad that most people would sign my yearbook with something like, “You’re so smart!” instead of something about being friends. In high school I felt different because I wasn’t dating (not my choice) or interested in partying (my choice based on faith).
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I loved the times I had a best friend. If I didn’t, or if they weren’t around, I always dreaded the times at school where we were directed to pick a partner or group. I knew that if the number of friends wasn’t right (3 of us and it was 2 to a bus seat, for example) I’d probably be the one left out.
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In the collection of stories/essays/poems Women from Another Planet?, Jane Meyerding tells a story that really resonated with me. She writes about going to Girl Scout Camp one summer, and how she participated and enjoyed every day there. It wasn’t until the overnight camp-out that she realized something:
The other girls had become friends with one another. Alone there, with no adult present to direct us, they chatted and whispered and laughed and interacted with seamless ease. How did they know what to say? They weren’t talking about anything, and yet they talked constantly. My conversation was limited to specific subjects, not including anything as nebulous as girltalk or smalltalk. Moreover, they seemed to know each other in a way they didn’t know me — and I certainly didn’t know them. I had been with them as much during the summer as they had been with each other. I had done everything they had done (as far as I could tell). And yet I was a stranger there. The only stranger in the tent. I realize now that one or more of the other little girls in that tent may not have been happy and socially successful. But all of them knew how to put on the act. They may have felt lonely. They may have felt inadequate. But they knew–even at eight years old–how to behave in a social situation.
(p 158, 159)
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It’s painful to not understand why I’m not accepted as a friend at times. The people who become my close friends all tell me I’m a great friend, but most people must not see what they see I guess. I remember one time (that I will keep intentionally vague). I was in a room with a girl I thought I had a good relationship with, and she stormed out of the room appearing very upset. I had a feeling she had gone to talk to girls in another room of the house, and since I had a question for one of those other girls I went over several minutes later. Sure enough, the first girl was there, and it was clear she had been crying. Later she mentioned it within another group context and I asked about it, and she explained she had fought with someone. I never knew why she chose to seek out the other girls instead of talking to me, since I was right there. But it hurt.
We flourish much better in an environment where the emphasis is on academic achievement and not socializing. Of course we need to learn to socialize, but through shared interests with like-minded individuals, not by being thrown to the lions. Emotionally, we require an atmosphere of tolerance and non-judgement.
This was definitely true for me, going to Grove City College. People were actually nice to me. It was so weird, but wonderful. And one of the best things that happened there began on the first day. The college organized “mentor groups” to help us get settled in and meet each other. I entered that first day with the determination to try harder to make friends, and I was acting much more social and outgoing than was normal for me. But when I sat down in the grass with my mentor group I saw an individual who looked as shy and uncomfortable as I truly felt. We were both wearing Christian rock t-shirts, which gave me a chance to strike up a conversation. I put forth a little extra effort to initiate with her. It didn’t happen for a while, but she became my best friend, and still is after a decade.
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Like a lot of people on the spectrum, I often feel more lonely when I’m surrounded by people than when I’m truly alone. I think it’s the seeing the NTs interact and feeling so unlike them. I read one person (I’ll try to find the reference) describe it as feeling like being separated by a pane of glass, being able to see the interactions and not really join them.
I get frustrated when I hear NTs generalize that autistics are “anti-social” or “loners.” In fact, I heard someone who works in my field say, based on her experience with an autistic close relative, “They don’t really make that ‘human connection’ with other people.”
The truth is, we’d love to be with other people. But because things never, ever go right, we end up getting used to being alone, without even noticing this is happening. Whenever I overhear someone remark how much I prefer to be on my own, it makes me feel desperately lonely. It’s as if they’re deliberately giving me the cold-shoulder treatment.
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A few weeks ago I was riding in the car with my family. Sitting in the backseat, I gazed out the window at the dark wintery scenes. I noticed a feeling that I recognized as familiar. As I saw each house, with warm light seeping through the curtains across the cold darkness between us, I felt pangs of longing. I wondered why. Maybe it was a metaphor created by my soul.
I stumbled upon this piece when browsing facebook. It’s quite long, but talks about some fascinating research (I had heard of “autistic symptoms in rats” in studies, but didn’t know what that was supposed to look like). I was of course interested to reach the parts on empathy, such as:
Indeed, research on typical children and adults finds that too much distress can dampen ordinary empathy as well. When someone else’s pain becomes too unbearable to witness, even typical people withdraw and try to soothe themselves first rather than helping—exactly like autistic people. It’s just that autistic people become distressed more easily, and so their reactions appear atypical.
And:
That’s the paradox about autism and empathy. The problem may not be that autistic people can’t understand typical people’s points of view—but that typical people can’t imagine autism.
Thoughts about empathy have been swirling around my head for weeks, and I’ve been wanting to write something about it. . . but this is a topic that could easily be researched for a dissertation. Instead of trying to write a cohesive essay I’m just going to catalog some thoughts here.
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I instantly become defensive when people talk about autistics and their ability to care about others. I have reacted this way for years, even before I considered myself on the spectrum. For example, at a meeting a coworker was talking about her brother who has Asperger’s, and his reaction to someone close to him dying. I can’t remember what she said verbatim, but the gist was, “He didn’t really seem upset about it. They just don’t make that connection with other people. He didn’t want to talk about it.” Without pacing the room and waving my arms around and shouting, “I’m autistic, too! We are human! We have emotions and love people!” I quietly tried to bring a little perspective. I suggested that perhaps he didn’t seem upset because people on the spectrum often don’t understand and express their emotions the same way neurotypicals do. I added that funerals and the like can be really uncomfortable situations, with all those people crying and putting out negative vibes and maybe he was struggling to deal with that, rather than showing his own grief in a recognizable way. I also suggested that individuals with Asperger’s are often logical people who want to fix things, and he might see talking about the situation as pointless because “What good will it do?”
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I think one of the problems is, how do we define empathy? I have Tony Attwood’s book Asperger’s Syndrome (1998) on my shelf, and I pulled it down to see what he had to say about empathy. A search via the index gave me this (p 55, 56):
The original list of features for Asperger’s Syndrome includes the comment that the child lacks empathy. This should not be misinterpreted as meaning that the child completely lacks the ability to care for others. It is more that they an be confused by the emotions of others and have difficulty expressing their own feelings.
But wait – isn’t “caring for others” what most people are thinking of when they talk about empathy? I get the sense from things I read/hear that a lot of people think that autistic people don’t care about the feelings of others, that they’re unfeeling robots. The almighty Wikipedia says, “Empathy has many different definitions that encompass a broad range of emotional states, such as caring for other people and having a desire to help them; experiencing emotions that match another person’s emotions; discerning what another person is thinking or feeling; and making less distinct the differences between the self and the other.” (emphasis added) Clearly people on the spectrum don’t (as a whole) lack the ability to care for others and want to help them. It’s the other aspects of empathy that can be difficult, like “discerning what another person is thinking or feeling.”
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It seems like this “lack of empathy” (or perhaps we should call it, “misunderstanding others”) isn’t reserved only for autistics. This author says it well:
I think it’s important to draw attention to the fact that this lack of understanding goes both ways. I find that when people on the autistic spectrum fail to understand someone’s reaction, this is seen as ‘lack of empathy’ – but, when someone who is not on the autistic spectrum fails to understand the reaction of an autistic person, this is seen as a case of ‘autistic people are a puzzle’ and a justification for representing us as a jigsaw puzzle piece. These double standards are unhelpful. They place all responsibility for lack of understanding on the autistic person, and create a divide between those who are on the spectrum and those who aren’t.
After all, if the statement about intuitively reading awkwardness or discomfort assumed that the respondent were looking at an autistic person, the results would come out quite differently, for two reasons: a) autistic people stand a better chance of reading one another’s signals properly, and b) non-autistic people usually find it very difficult to read autistic people’s signals properly.
NTs may be better at reading NTs than autistics are, but autistics are better at reading other autistics than NTs are.
I believe this is one of the reasons I am a good TSS. Often I’m more likely to accurately guess what’s going on in my clients’ heads than even their caregivers are. Here’s one example:
A young autistic girl was screaming under the kitchen table while I talked with her mom and her BSC. She hadn’t yet been given her medication. When her mother directed her to take the medication she refused, and so the mom told her to stand in time-out (a spot in the kitchen with us). The girl stood there for a minute but then went over and closed the sliding-glass door that led outside. Her mother yelled at her for leaving time-out. I told the women that I heard a car drive past right before the child closed the door, and maybe that was the antecedent. The BSC agreed that the girl was probably over-stimulated and the car was extra loud to her, even though the two other women hadn’t noticed it. The mom then stopped reprimanding the girl, and after getting her to take her pill she had her go to her quiet bedroom to calm down until it kicked in.
A wonderful example of NT/AS misunderstanding was on “The Hofstadter Insufficiency” episode of The Big Bang Theory. Starting at minute 1:45 in this video, Sheldon shares something personal with Penny.
Sheldon: Here’s something else you don’t know about me. You just hurt my feelings.
Penny: What did I do?
Sheldon: I opened up and shared something deeply upsetting to me. And you treated it as if it were nothing.
Penny: I-I didn’t think it was a big deal.
Sheldon: It is to me. That’s the point.
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Imagine a row of people watching an emotional movie, such as the recent version of Les Mis. Three of them are crying, and one isn’t. Would you assume the first three are feeling empathy for the character singing on-screen, and the fourth was cold and unfeeling? Maybe.
The first person is thinking about the character’s situation and feelings, and she’s empathizing and feeling their emotional pain.
The second is crying because the song was a favorite of his late mother, and he’s grieving for his loss.
The third is having memories of her own past hurts stirred by the words of the song.
And then there’s me. I’m literally thinking, “This is a really sad song. I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to be in her situation and feeling all of those things. And if I let myself think of her sadness or my own past heartaches, I will cry. I hate feeling negative emotions, and I HATE crying in public. . . so I’m putting up the wall. Look at that – they’re using a really narrow depth of field. Why don’t they keep his eyes in focus? That’s Photography 101. Obviously they’re doing it on purpose, but I really don’t care to stare at this guy’s nose-pores. This is weird.” And I focus on the cinematography and random details for the rest of the film.
Take that, Les Mis. I can shoot with a wide aperture, too.
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The empathy issue was actually the biggest reason I thought I wouldn’t qualify for an autism diagnosis. I’ve always felt *too* sensitive to the emotional states of others, as well as their hidden feelings at times. In Rudy Simone’s excellent book Aspergirls, she says that women with AS can have heightened “psychic sensitivity” and can sense things like others’ true intentions hidden behind their outward appearance and words. Tony Attwood mentions this as well in this forward. And in this post on the topic, Tania Ann Marshall even cites the Highly Sensitive Person website that helped me so much in college. In these cases, it seems like women with AS are using this “sixth sense” to compensate for not being able to read people the same way neurotypicals do.
Here are two posts that talk about people with AS feeling too much empathy:
“The Empathy Conundrum“- I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of the Musings of an Aspie blog. I really appreciate this post, and it gives a good balance to the discussion on empathy. In fact, re-reading it now I feel like she has much better things to say about empathy than I do, but since I’ve already typed up most of this post I’ll keep it.
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One day I was reading a link someone shared on facebook, and on the side of the page saw a link to another article titled, “10 Symptoms of Asperger’s Syndrome.” Feeling a little trepidation about what might be said regarding AS, I clicked the link. The third symptom listed is “Inability to Empathize.”
Individuals with Asperger’s syndrome may find difficulty empathizing with others. As they age, the affected person will learn the accepted social response for interacting with others. While they may react appropriately and say the “right” things, they may not understand why the other person is truly upset. This can be an issue in childhood as the individual with Asperger’s may play too roughly with their peers or say cruel things, unknowingly hurting the other person. When confronted for this behaviour, the child may respond that what they said was true and they do not understand the issue.
Oops. I recently made an off-hand comment online that caused a dear friend to cry; that was definitely not my intention, and obviously I couldn’t see how it would upset her, or I wouldn’t have posted it. And I can’t tell you how many times (both growing up and even in the past few years) I have said something to my sister that really upset her, and my mom would reprimand me and have to explain to me why she was upset. Usually my first reaction in those situations wasn’t to feel sorry – it was to feel frustrated and annoyed that she responded that way, because I “couldn’t see what the big deal was.” Especially if I thought I was just stating a neutral fact.
A lot of posts I write will inevitably be focusing on the things about Asperger’s that make life difficult; after all, the diagnostic criteria are based on deficits (for a positive spin, read Discovery criteria for aspie by Attwood and Gray). So here I wanted to share something that brought me great joy.
At the beginning of my “Emotional Overload” post I told you that I had sent my favorite band a link to the blog post I wrote about naming this blog after one of their songs. And I shared that I got a little notification that Charlie from the band “liked” my post; I appreciated so much that he actually took the time to read it.
This past Friday Dad and I drove 5 hours to Columbus, OH to see Jars of Clay yet again. Normally we don’t go that far just for a Jars concert, but I had never been to one of their Christmas shows and I got a deep desire to go. . . and my dad never says “No” to a concert. Music is an aspie-fixation we share, and we’ve built a lot of wonderful memories traveling to shows together over the years.
We gave ourselves a large time buffer for the trip and made great time, so we arrived about 2 hours before the Meet and Greet was scheduled. The venue served food in the front, and as we were about to sit down at a booth Charlie saw us (before we saw him, this time) and came over to say hi. I thought to get a picture.
Charlie is awesome.
He was supposed to be heading back for the sound check, but he talked with us for a few minutes about the tour, answered Dad’s question about shooting a music video in the Philippines, and listened to Dad’s story about one of my first concert experiences. Then he turns to me and says, “Oh, and I really liked your blog, by the way.” *invisible internal happy-dance*
While Dad and I ate our early dinner we listened to the band run through “Loneliness and Alcohol” for their sound check, and I was feeling so extremely happy after that interaction that eating was almost upsetting my stomach.
We had a nice time exchanging a few words with the rest of the band at the Meet and Greet, and Jude kindly rounded up the guys for a group photo. They also graciously signed a set-list I grabbed from the stage after the show.
Matt, Charlie, Stephen, me, Dad, Dan. And cookies.
Dad and I were able to stand right up front against the stage – it isn’t the best for sound balance, but it’s just so much fun! This is what it looked like:
Years ago I had recognized that my love for the band was bordering on obsessive (creating a website, being highly active in the wonderful Jarchives community, etc) and I consciously toned it down; I didn’t know at the time that it was an Aspie “special interest”/fixation, but I knew that things like stalking are socially unacceptable. 😉 But any of you who are on the spectrum will know how important special interests can be, and so you will probably understand why I had such a wonderful, joyful day. Dad and I used to get excited when we could tell they recognized us from the many concerts we had attended; thinking of Charlie coming over to chat with us and bringing up the topic of my blog post truly warms my heart. If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to check out their music. You can even download some for free on NoiseTrade.com.
I enjoy Toad the Wet Sprocket‘s music. (They get bonus points for inadvertently sparking the formation of my all-time favorite band.) After a very long hiatus this classic 90’s rock band reunited and released an awesome new album called New Constellation. I had the opportunity to be one of their Kickstarter backers and download the tracks in early July, so this album was on heavy rotation when I realized I have Aspergers.
Have you ever had one of those moments where a song pops into your head and you don’t know why, but when you look up the lyrics or listen to the song you realize it perfectly fits your mood or the situation you were thinking about? I had one of those moments with this song. It works so well as an Aspie anthem – sensory issues, defenses, feeling alone, wanting to “reach across the breach,” language issues, needing others even though we seem to disappear sometimes.
You can pick up the album/track on iTunes, Amazon, etc. . . and it turns out you can listen to the full track over on myspace, which is apparently still a thing.
“Is There Anyone Out There”
A swarm of senses, a shatterstorm
Tangled threads to weave a world
We build defenses and call them homes
Each alive, alert, alone
Is there anyone out, is there anyone out there, hey, hey
Is there anyone out, is there anyone out there calling for you
‘Cause I don’t know how to reach across the breach so deep between us
Is there anyone out, is there anyone out there
Who feels the way I do
Uncertain language, imperfect words
How can we expect to speak the truth
I need you closer
I need you still
No matter how I seem to disappear from you
Is there anyone out, is there anyone out there, hey, hey
Is there anyone out, is there anyone out there
The world I’ve seen it seems no-one could ever know
The same as every other one of seven billion souls
Is there anyone, is there anyone out there
Is there anyone out, is there anyone out there, I’m calling for you
‘Cause I don’t know how to reach across the breach so deep between us
Is there anyone out, is there anyone out there
Who feels the way I do
Last night would have been a lot more difficult if I hadn’t been able to view it through the lens of having Aspergers.
I was having a good Sunday. I had no problems running sound during the morning service, ordered a new lens to use during portrait sessions, started a sewing project after a month away from the machine, and began watching a favorite TV series over again in a very Edwardian fashion (if you haven’t read 600 Hours of Edward – go do it). Then to top it all off, after I shared the link to my Inland post with the band through facebook, Charlie from Jars of Clay liked the post. I always appreciate when they appreciate my appreciation, you know? 😉 It was time for dinner and I was excited to tell my family about the latest interaction with my favorite band.
But then my phone rang.
Fortunately I didn’t answer. I don’t know if I would have responded well if I had. The caller left a message and leveled a false accusation against me.
I’m not sure how to accurately describe the emotions I felt. My heart raced and I felt like I was shaking (I don’t know if I was physically shaking, but it at least felt that way emotionally). I felt like my temperature dropped. A lot of times I ask my autistic client, “How do/did you feel?” And he almost always responds, “Upset,” instead of giving me a more specific word like “Sad” or “Mad” or “Scared.” Last night I felt “upset.”
I was dumbfounded by the accusation and by the fact that the person actually called me. I went downstairs and told my family. Through my new lens of self-awareness I noticed a lot of things. I noticed I was talking too loudly. I noticed my family was going to be done eating by the time I finally took more than a single bite, because I was too upset and too busy venting to eat. I noticed that I kept forcing myself to take big deep breaths, same as I prompt my client. I noticed (and even commented aloud) that I felt like rocking.
I noticed that my mom kept reassuring me that I had acted above reproach in the situation the call seemed to be referring to, and I kept trying to explain that I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I was still upset. I wasn’t upset because I thought I had done something wrong. I was upset because I KNEW I hadn’t, and I was being thought of and talked of as if I had done something wrong. And that’s NOT FAIR. I have always had issues with “fairness.” I was upset because I thought I wasn’t going to have to deal with any more drama from that specific part of my past, yet it kept coming up. I was upset because I was under attack and there were just too many emotions (my own and the accuser’s) to process.
I managed to shove down my dinner through deep breaths and exhaled nonverbal sounds of frustration. I had to eat so I could leave for Bible study. I got out to my car and my mind was still churning over the situation, and I was spiraling downward. I stopped my car before even leaving the driveway and switched the CD to Jars of Clay’s Self-Titled album. It is my go-to record when I am desperately upset; it is the most effective medication available to soothe my soul. I turned up the volume and sang along to reduce my ability to ruminate. It’s a 20-minute drive, and during the last 5 I found it impossible to turn off my thoughts of what I wanted to say about what just happened. Right before I turned into my pastor’s driveway I started crying – those unwanted tears of emotional overload that cause me so much frustration that I cry even more. I hate those. I took a few deep breaths and dried my eyes, then walked in.
I was still visibly shaken; my pastor’s wife immediately asked me what was wrong. Before group began I was able to briefly discuss the situation with my pastor and his wife, who are two of my most trusted counselors. My pastor advised me to ignore it; I nodded and said, “Yeah, I’m just feeling all. . . ” and waved my hands on either side of my head, unable to articulate what it was I was feeling. Then instead of taking my normal seat on the floor I sat in the rocking chair.
, etc. . . and it turns out you can listen to the full track over on 
Walking Inland 