2 Worlds Collide

For me having Aspergers Autism is kind of like living in 2 worlds at the same time ... one half of you lives in the real world and the other half of you lives in a parallel world and you can never be completely in both worlds.

Its like trying to play tennis and swim laps at the same time.

Its like living in France and not being able to speak more than 2 or 3 words in French and no one else speaks English.

While I understand some things, like that NT people like to talk and so therefore like to phone each other or text each other or message each other a lot and they expect their friends to want to talk to them as much as they do.... Its only human nature to want to connect to other humans ...

Yet just because I know this it doesnt mean I feel the need / desire to talk

Not having that need means people end up feeling that I dont like them or that I dont want to talk to them and friendships that are just getting started tend to end with no longer being in contact with each other.

Of course just because I have no desire to chat it doesnt mean that I dont like responding to messages, I may not always know what to say or even feel a need to respond, but just like everyone else I want to be connected to people.... its frustrating that I can not feel a connection like other people do.

Sometimes the way I look at things is kind of child like / innocent ... yet I have been hurt so much in my life by others that I know the world isnt always a nice place, yet I cant help looking at it the way I do...

Sometimes my view is obviously unrealistic ... such as how saying Please and Thank you should be easy for everyone ... But I also understand that humans are rather selfish on the whole and think mainly only about themselves ... people seem to think its their right to walk through a door being held open by someone without having to say Thank You to the person holding it open...

Obviously not everyone is that self centred, but a majority of human beings are self centred, which is why when disaster strikes and you hear about strangers helping each other, they become hero's because putting others above yourself is a trait that is limited these days.

You often hear now on the news about things like how someone who went to the help of someone being attacked was in turn attacked and either hospitalized or killed for going to help .... and that is why people are getting less and less willing to put themselves out for strangers.... As an example, people are scared to pick up hitchers now in case the hitchhiker attacks them...

People walk around these days texting on their phones or talking on their phones.. it keeps them connected to people but at the same time it also isolates them from the world around them..

A couple of years ago I sent out a Facebook invite for people to come to a party this year, and we needed 60 people to come, yet having asked over 100 people through Facebook and having given then all 2 years to organise time off, only about 6 people said they would come.... Hardly anyone has replied to posts asking them to let me know if they are coming....

I sometimes wonder what is the point of these people having me on their friends list if they can not even bother replying to things when I ask them.... and people wonder why I dont feel the need to talk to people... maybe if they talked back when I needed them to talk it would be better...

I honestly dont understand how to deal with people... I am totally lost when it comes to interaction...

But that is where it can be confusing for people who know me as they have seen me interact with people, seen me being like everyone else... but what they dont understand is that while I appear to be "normal" I'm so stressed inside and not really understanding what I am doing .. not knowing if I am saying the right things, talking too loud, laughing at the wrong time, looking too intently into someones eyes, not being sure of what is the right thing to reply ... basically just winging it ... (I'm sure that is the right term I should use here)

I wish that I didnt live in 2 worlds, but I do ...

People have said to me things like.... I'm shy to but I just go out and talk to people, you can make friends if you just try as well...

But these people dont realise that my shyness is a different type of shyness ... mine is due to not understanding people, not feeling a connection.... and I think that people on a subconscious level pick up on that, which is why not many people want to be friends.

Of course I am not even really sure if people I do know consider me a friend or an acquaintance... If I dont see people for months and months or dont really have contact with them, are they still considered a friend ? As to my mind all the people I know are just acquaintances, they can not really be considered friends in the dictionary definition sense as in ( 1. person one likes and chooses to spend time with - usu. without sexual or family bonds - ) ... So as I do not spend time with people who may or may not be friends then that would make them acquaintances right? ...

Of course this is complicated as I realise that it should not just be up to the other person to come and see me, but for a friendship to work with me and other people, its the other people who have to take charge of the friendship... They have to be the ones who organise a day and time to visit, who invite me to visit them on a set day and time (preferably when David can come with me as I dont like to use public transport on my own) ... I know it seems like I am putting a lot of the responsibility of the friendship onto the other person but because I dont have a connection to people and dont understand social involvements the way others do, then I really do need to take a passive roll in that part of the friendships.

I once had a friend in early 2000 who would organise to come and pick me up or have David drop me off at her place and then we would either stay at her house or we would go out on errands, she would drive us wherever she needed to go... It was really nice, until she started to use me as a cover for her affair, that started to get to me, especially when I became like a third wheel at lunch meetings between them... So that friendship ended after my having talked with someone else ( an online friend I had never met in person, but felt comfortable to talk with ) about how upset i was at being used ... Well this person sent the friend who was using me an email and basically exposed her to her husband, I dont think that was what she intended, but it ended the friendship I had with both ladies. But at the start of my friendship with this first lady it was nice having someone who could be in charge and was willing to be the one who organised things about visiting or taking me places.
My Autistic world is one that is rather lonely as I tend to be the only one in that world, its a world full of books, imagination, fantasy... where a pigeon becomes a dragon, where a rain puddle becomes a lake, where a flower becomes a jewel, where animals are the only things who care about me and respect me and understand me.

The Real world is one that is rather confusing with people telling lies and being mean, being sarcastic, saying things like I wont hurt you like other people have and then doing just that... Where I understand something to mean one thing but in reality it means something else altogether, where being touched can make me hurt, where people invading me space by walking too close to me stresses me out so much, where talking to someone can become a mine field of not knowing what they mean and not knowing what to say or when to stop saying things, where getting a gift becomes stressful because then you dont know if the other person expects a gift back at some point, where as when you give a gift to someone you dont expect anything in return, but then people take advantage of that... Its where certain tastes or smells are too much for you, where being lonely even when you have family who love you is just part of life.

When you spend too much time in the Real world trying to be "normal" that's when it collides with the Autistic world... that is when you have meltdowns, get depressed or suicidal, scream, have a temper tantrum, become mute.... or what ever else happens with you when 2 world collide.

Obsessions

Ok obessions .... well I know I've talked about this before and there will probably be times in the future where I repeat many things I have already posts.


I've started to call Aspergers - Aspergers Autism - rather than asperger syndrome because I feel Aspergers Autism is a much better name as it has both Dr Asperger's name and also what it is a form of.

Anyway .... people with Aspergers Autism can become obsessive about things ... sometimes we can even become obsessed with people ... but of course we are all different so what we obsess on can also varied.

I am one person who does become obsessed with people.

Now if you are the partner, boyfriend / girlfriend, of someone with Aspergers Autism, at the beginning of a relationship it can very overwhelming if your partner has become obessed with you. It can cause a number of problems in your daily life.

The best things to do it sit down and work out some rules together, such as only messaging, texting, calling, emailing you at certain times of the day.

I know with me I dont always know where peoples boundries are so to have a set of rules would be so helpful to me... I dont always know if I am giving out too much personal information or not, as I am very honest and open about things, but of course that can make other people uncomfortable.... I also dont know where a conversation is meant to end....

Which is why, especially in written conversations I may not answer something someone says as what they say, may in my mind, not have a need for a reply, yet they may have expected me to reply back.

Of course even in written conversations I am not always able to understand what is going on... for instance, some people seem to find the use of ! very important and may end a word with!!!!!!!

Where as I dont understand that and actually see the use of so many ! as being aggressive and rude.

Manners are a little bit of an obsession with me, as I dont understand why people feel the need not to use manners, such as saying Please and Thank You ... to me it seems as if so many people these days feel that they have a right to everything, rather than feel priverliged when they get something. So I am very obsessive with good manners and even with David I will say Please and Thank you when recieving, doing or asking for something.

Another one of my long term obsessions is reading... I can read for at least 18 hours a day if I have the right books. I get lost in the worlds and lives of those I read about.

Music is a slight obsession with me as well.

Computer games, whether PC, Xbox or Playstation can become obsessions with me, and again I will sit for 18 hours just playing games ... I've been known not to sleep at times when obsessed by a game... luckily most game obsessions end fairly quickly, like in less than a month or two .... especially if I get to a point where no matter what I cant get passed after about a week of trying...

Swimming can be an obsession for me, but I havent been swimming for years now as I find it very stressful being around so many people at the local pool and the ocean is way too cold for me.

But yes with obssessions they can end quickly or they can continue for a long time, sometimes we may need to have rules set down for us to help us with ou obsessions and at other times, patience is the best thing.

But explaining things to us is always a good idea as we dont always consider those outside of our own little worlds where we live alone.

Growing Up

Over the last few days I have been thinking about me and my growing up not knowing I had Aspergers Autism.

I do know that all my life I have always felt I was different to everyone else, finally knowing why has made things easier, but I do wish I had of known when I was just a young child around 8 to 10 years old, I think then so much more would have made sense to me.

I've always watched people and mimicked what I saw and considered "normal" behaviour.

One thing I couldnt mimic was the ability to want and to keep friends. I was happy alone. I of course did have sisters but much of the time I felt they were ashamed of me for various reasons. My younger sister got to a certain age were she no longer wanted to be my friend. Now as adults we have all gone our own ways and hardly keep in touch... of course for me that is just part of me... the not staying in contact... I know that I should, but there is no drive like what "normal" people have to be in contact with the people in their lives.

I just hope that my sisters know that I do love them with all my heart and would give them a lung if they needed it ... or any other body part I could spare... because they mean the world to me.

As do my nieces and nephews.

I think living so far away from my family is hard for me, because I love them so much and because in truth they are really the only people that I have a strong connection to, other than David.

But in the world David is the only person who really knows me, when you come down to it I have been with him for 18 years now and in that time we havent been a part more than a week, so he sees my autism characteristics and deals with my meltdowns and my needing things to be certain ways... Where as my sisters and other family members really havent spent anywhere near 18 years with me.

You also can not count the very early years of childhood because as a baby and infant of up to 4 or 5 years you really are not as aware of those around you, you dont take notice of them.

So from the time I was born my older sisters were really in my life for only 8 to 10 years before they moved out of home and into homes of their own and children of their own.. so take the first 5 years off of that and that means I was only really aware of them for about 3 to 5 years where we lived in the same house.

For my younger sister if you take off the first 5 years then it would be slightly longer that we lived together in the same house, about 9 to 10 years.

So it would be very easy for my sisters to not see my Autistic characteristics and if they did see any it would be easy to pass them off as my being a little eccentric, a little odd.

Even now I do not know if they accept it or understand it or believe it... Its probably easy to go back to thinking that I am "normal"

Although for me as I said, I always knew that I was different, even while trying so very hard to fit in with those around me.

I tried at school to make friends but I dont think I really had any friends, I never when to peoples houses or had sleep overs, was never invited to birthday parties, even though at the age of 10 and again at 12 I did have birthday parties were I was able to invite some people I knew from school, although most had parents that were friends with my parents.

I know that most of the time during recess or lunch I would spend my time alone at the back of the oval or somewhere else like that, where I could watch the other kids playing together and I could just sit and watch the tree's and the animals.. like ants or birds or caterpillars ....

I guess maybe thats why I enjoyed camping and fishing and swimming, growing up as those were activities were I could come across as "normal" even to my family because these were activities were you didnt have to interact too much.

One memory I enjoy about fishing was when I caught a catfish one time and needed my younger sisters help to pull it in...

I really do like it when I am able to connect with my family, because I do love them so much and those moments are very rare and so special to me.

Its rather lonely not feeling connected to people... think of it as being connected to everyone by computer and then think of how that would be if you lost that connection... you know the people are still there but you cant connect / interact with them because you have no Internet connection...

Thats what its like for me.. I know that people are there and are connected to each other but my connection has no power to connect so I know its there and available but I am not able to log in.

When people do interact with me, they seem to be only able to keep it up for a limited amount of time before they fade away from me.

I do now try and explain to people that if I am not talking to you or replying to messages or posts, even if I said I would, then you need to to contact me again because sometimes I just need a reminder to interact with you.

I sometimes would like to know how family and people from school remember me growing up .. did they notice anything different about me... did they think I was slightly off, slight eccentric, slightly weird ?

:)

I so wish I was better at social interaction and knowing what is acceptable and what isnt.

Growing up I always connected better to animals than people... I always felt such a strong connection, even to caterpillars, frogs, butterflies, tadpoles and so on.

I considered becoming a vet when younger but I wouldnt have been able to deal with seeing animals in pain, and I certainly wouldnt be able to put animals to sleep.

I think it is unfair that we put animals to sleep that we believe are suffering from pain but we let other human beings who are suffering live in pain... at least humans can actually say Yes I want to end my suffering ...

We also put animals to sleep just because they can not find homes, yet we do not put our homeless humans to sleep..

Animals to me are a life line to the world and growing up my inner world was full of wild animal friends.

Now as an Adult unable to have children, animals are not only my friends but also my family.

Of course because I do gett attached to animals, it means I tend to have a lot of dogs, cats or other animals in my life and I am always wanting more, even though I shouldnt ... I like it when David says I cant have some animals, even though at the time I dont like it and he has to deal with my being upset, but later I understand it is probably better that I didnt get it, although knowing that doesnt stop me from still wanting what I did. 

:)

Yes I'm Different

Why does it seem hard for some people to understand that yes I am different to them.


Where NT people see a game like Waja's as just a bunch of pixels ... I see a real world ... Those pixel characters are as real to me as the people paying to buy them ...

Why is that so hard to understand?

Why is it also hard to understand that I have a set of idea's reguarding rules or reguarding what is fair or right...

To me I dont think its right to get say 20 waja's free by going to 20 different newbie forums ... To me that is lazy and not right at all ... when I joined waja's I asked for one free waja and then I worked out how to play the game and make money for myself so I could buy more waja's and then breed.

It distresses me when I see people being lazy and cheating ... which is basically how I see it.

I get people who take a free waja or two from me and then transfer it to their second cave or a friends cave so that they can get more free waja's because it looks like they have none at all.

If the only way for people to survive in the world was to cheat and lie, then I wouldnt last very long at all.

What gets me though is that I understand that people see things differently to me and I try to accept that I am not always going to see things the same waya as everyone .... Yet most NT people dont seem to be able to reciprocate. ... And yet I am the one who is considered disabled or broken ... ?

*** Autism = developmental disability / disorder affecting physical, social, lanuage skills and causing a withdrawal into one's inner world. ***

*** NT = Neuro Typical ... Neuro-typical is a term used to describe people who are not developmentally disabled ... Someone who is considered to have a normal brain ***

Both definitions above where taken from both medical and dictionary websites online.



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Mixed Thoughts

Sometimes I worry that I will get stuck in my own head and not be able to get out again.

I dont know if I can explain what I mean by that but I will try.

Sometimes I feel like its so hard to come out and talk and be part of the world. As if my body isnt mine and it takes too much to make it work. Its easier to just stay in the body and not be part of whats going on other than as a watcher.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am getting a keyboard - electric piano type -

I tried to play guitar when I was a child but I had to play it left handed, even though I am normally right handed, except when I eat, and I didnt like how the strings hurt my fingers.

I used to mess around with the school piano after school, primary school, as my mother used to clean there and I would stay to help her.

When I got to high school I had music class and I  wanted to learn the saxaphone but my parents wouldnt let me, but during music class I got to learn the piano a little and was able to play Amazing Grace.

But I never really did more than one term of music class and so never really got to learn completely.

Now I am getting a keyboard and will try to teach myself and maybe if I feel brave I may try to take music lessons.. but I am not sure I could do that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Friday one of my puppies went to her new home... I was so sad after she left as I missed her so much... but I am glad she has a loving home with someone who will love her very much.

I had hoped that my nephew would adopt the boy puppy but he says that now he isnt able to... I dont really want the boy to go to someone else now...

I really want him to go to someone I know so I can see him if I want to. I wonder if my father-in-law would want him as a fathers day present ?

Probably not, although it would be  agreat way to get me over there to visit more often. :)

I have been hoping that I would will a million dollars with the lotto so I could buy a bigger house on a bigger property, then I could just keep the pups myself.

But I think I stand a better chance of losing 40 kg in weight than I do of winning the lotter... If you knew me you would realise that losing 40 kg in weight is nearly impossible for me as I have PCOS which makes it easy for me to put on weight but hard to take it off.

I already eat child size portions of food and prefer organic foods and foods that are fresh and healthy.

I'm a contradiction in regards to weight as looking at what I eat I should be about 80 kg or less yet I am plus sized.

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I have started to use these things for my fingernails, that are like nail polish but you peel it of and stick it on your nails and thats it all you do.

Normal nail polish tends to peel and chip within a day or two, normally within the first hour even, but these stick on nail polish stays on for at least a week or more. Its great.

But its hard to get everyone to fix exactly on my nails, so sometimes it doesnt look as good as it could.

Touching

Watching the Olympics on tv ... the gymnastics ...

It made me wonder what it feels like to be able to hug, shake hands or just be touched by people and not be bothered by it.

Like many people with Aspergers Autism I do not like being touched... I'm ok with people I feel comfortable with such as my husband and some family members... I dont really have friends in life that I see face to face, but if I do see someone who is a friend I can hug them if they either just start the hug or if they ask for a hug.

If I want to be touched then I am ok with being touched.

When I am really upset and stressed I dont like being touched at all, even David can not touch me if I am really stressed or upset, because being hugged or touched when I am really upset or stressed kind of hurts me.

When I see people touch other people who they dont even know I wonder what it feels like to not be bothered by that and I think it must be very refreshing ...

People seem to take it for granted that they can touch someone even if they dont know that person.

If I shake hands with someone I dont really know well its normally because its what is expected in society, but I hate doing it because I dont like touching people, but I can not think of a polite way to tell someone I do not shake hands.

If I hug someone its because I care about them and like them.

I like the Japanese culture of bowing to show respect rather than shaking hands... that would work so much better for me...

:)

:)

Since finding out that I have Aspergers Autism, its explained so much to me about my life, especially about hiding as a child how hard being a part of the world was, and learning what is acceptable "normal" behaviour and then mimicking those around me so I could come across as "normal"

Even as a small child I dont think I had a lot of contact with people, so its understandable that my differences could be over looked.... and now its probably hard for family to think of me as anything but "normal"

Unfortunately I know I am not alone with that as many Aspergers Autistic people I have discovered online have had many of the same issues as I have had, epecially those of us who were diagnosed later on in life.

:)

Stressed

Since Sheldons death a week ago, I have been very stressed and overwhelmed... I have cried myself to sleep, I have crided in the car, luckily I am always a passenger and not the driver, I have cried at home and in the shower... I cried so much in the shower that first and second day that I do not know if I was washing in clean water or in salty tears.

My heart has been broken by his loss and I will always blame myself for it, thinking there could have been something I did differently to stop this from happening... Maybe if I had of kept him seperated from the other 3 .. I knew they were bigger and rougher ... one of them may have banged his soft spot, danaging his brain and causing the seizures...

I am not as sad anymore, now I only cry every once in a while, not every hour... I've been trying to keep my brain busy, by plaing on Waja's, Chicken Smoothie and Facebook games... all of which have helped over the 3 days...

Because of the major stress I have felt I have become sick and have a chest infection. I normally get sick if I am over stressed.

David got me some cough medicine, but I hate it.. I do not like chemicals in my body and I hate anything that tastes of chemicals... This medication is horrible and I do not want to take it, David knows how much I do not want to take it but he makes me take it anyway because he wants me to get better.

I do not think it is helping... My inner child sits in my head covering her eyes and sealing her mouth shut any time the medicine comes near me, and when that chemical taste hits the back of my throat she screams and cries and  has a temper tantrum... I would do that to but I know its better if I dont.

I have recently started to think of my brain as a house with different parts of me in different rooms, such as my inner child, my inner geek/genius, my inner goth/emo and so on... They are in no way different personalities, they are all me, just different emotions, thoughts and feelings that I am currently trying to compartmentalise so I can see if it helps me to work out things better... I dont think it will help but it is something new for me to try.
Why do medications have to taste so yucky ? Surely there is a way to make them taste nice.

We are having Sheldon cremated, which is what have done with all our dogs over the years. Some of his ashes will be going into a sealed silver locket so I can have him close to me, and the rest of his ashes are going into a small silver heart. It willl take a week maybe 2 before I will get his ashes back.

He was only around 300 grams so I had to find the smallest things for his ashes, and I wanted the locket because Sheldon was so special to me, I know that some people may not understand my need to have some of his ashes in a locket, which I will wear, but he really was like my child, and I will remember him for ever and his death will always be a sad memory that will never go away until I myself die one day.

It has been hard dealing with his brother and sisters and with seeing photos of him, and if anyone mentions him its hard also... I hope that soon I will get to a point where I wont be sad as much... I know that Sheldon wouldnt want me to be this sad, as most animals try to comfort people in their own ways, so I know that Sheldon would be happier if I could be happier.... but it is s hard.


This quote is from William Wordsworth

There is comfort in the strength of love;
'twill make a thing endurable,
which else would overset the brain,
or break the heart.