Asperger's

'not sure why I'm doing this survey' survey

When falling asleep, do you ever feel like you stopped breathing?
I get the coolest most intense dreams when my CO2 builds up. I don't actually stop breathing, and I don't have sleep apnea. I get too relaxed and take a long time between breaths.
Was your first kiss perfect?
I have never had a perfect kiss. I'm not sure anyone has. Chasing the perfect kiss in our dreams is a brain drug, it gets us through hard stuff.
Exactly what is perfection to you?
If a moment is perfect, you have to let it go as quickly as it came, and it will never come back, or else you ruin it. Perfection, in our minds, is hanging onto that moment, but that's an illusion.
Do you ever feel like you think too much about the person you love?
I wonder what the world would be like right now if everyone thought about the people they love instead of the people they hate.
Are you someone who has to analyze everything?
I've spent a lifetime ignoring what makes other people tick, I'm not about to start now.
Whats the last thing that scared the hell out of you?
Giant spider in my kitchen. Nothing gets your mind off like nearly stepping on a spider as wide as your bare foot. (Wow, this one is old, I wrote that months ago.)
Has anyone ever made you cry just by saying I love you?
This has way deeper significance when you know that person literally cannot say anything else and hasn't been able to have a conversation with you in over two years, and you know it's getting close, and they look you in the eyes and tell you they love you, and you know they mean it, and there are millions of unspoken words that come with it that let you know everything is forgiven and nothing is in the way any more. Yes, you go home and bawl your eyes out. ****Ok, I let this one sit awhile, and I keep coming back and reading it, and it comes across weird and creepy, so I'll clarify a little. My mom died a long slow death from several big strokes that left her very deficit both physically and cognitively. I was not close to my mom growing up, felt rather picked on continually for what none of us realized was Asperger's, never felt forgiven, and never really felt loved, although I'm sure she never meant for that to happen. When she started having strokes there were so many unfinished emotions that never got resolved, and despite the relief I felt that I no longer had to tolerate her unceasing judgement, years of taking care of her and watching her slowly spiral down were anguishing. I learned over that time that nothing means more to our lives on this planet than resolving our relationship issues before it's too late. There is just nothing else comparable to the real meaning of life that goes round and round your head, if you don't get those solved you feel like you failed somehow at why you were here. During her last couple of years I was seeing a psychologist for help with my Asperger's and social skills and whatnot, really eye opening stuff for me, and I began to realize and understand what it must have been like for *her* to raise a child like me. She's not a bad person, but without her own social safety net and support system, she was lost and flying blind, and made ever so many mistakes. My memories of my childhood are fairly tragic in places. By the time she reached her last summer, I was reaching a place where I could let all that go, where I wanted God to erase it all and just make it ok, because we really had made it through our stuff, and I no longer wanted or needed validation or recompense or some kind of understanding or forgiveness. I just loved her and wished I could go back in time and give her lots of hugs and tell her everything was going to be all right. And that is the magic. The last time I saw her awake and somewhat responsive, and I guess this sometimes happens when people with brain problems near death seem to snap back into momentary coherency, she suddenly locked eyes with me and grinned so big like she was not only glad to see me (that had never happened in my life), but like we had a big fun secret just between the two of us. And for the first time in my life, as well, especially with the Asperger's, I locked eyes right back at her and grinned right back, and every bit of it was "I love you, too", no hesitation, no baggage. That moment, as in a previous question further up, was PERFECT. And then I went home and bawled my eyes out, because one moment was all we got. She went blank and never looked at me again, and died a couple of months later.
Who is the last person you pushed out of your life? Why?
I'm not sure if it's so much push as flee. Maybe I push for a reason to be there, I find it so easy to just disappear from people. This has everything to do with when I disappeared off the internet.
Do you have any life changing plans within the next 6 months?
Yes.
Do you have any awkward music downloaded on your ipod?
It's not at all awkward that I don't own an ipod.
How do you feel about the first person you kissed?
I just discovered that the Priceline Negotiator isn't dead after all! I have a thing for William Shatner.

What was the first thing you did on your birthday?
Thanked God I made it this far.
Has anyone left a lasting impression on you recently?
The person I swiped this survey from. I don't have the heart to erase this. "Not really. Like am I supposed to hate Emily's twin? Because she dresses slutty? I don't hate her." It just cracks me up.
As of right now, how do you feel about your future?
Well, if Montgomery Ward can come back from epic fail, anything's possible. We got a little catalog in the mail this week.
Who is the last person you ran into unexpectedly?
Awkward run-ins are my forte. I have a knack for making them especially awkward because I don't mind public embarrassment and humiliation as much as other people do.

Do you think your ex is over you?
I never think about this kind of stuff.
What kind of perfume do you wear?
I'm allergic, wah.
Is it expensive?
And I'm allergic to everyone else wearing perfume. You guys suck.
What was the last songs you sang out loud?

Is sex something special, or just for fun?
Everybody wants to know about my sex life, it just kills people that I won't say anything about how it all works for me. Kinda like when Vulcans go all pon farr, humans suddenly grow antennae and wanna watch.
Are you too sensitive for your own good?
The ironical bit is that, even though the Asperger's has my nervous system wired like I'm tripping through mine fields, I'm often maddeningly calloused and indifferent to other people's emotional needs and feelings.
- 10:38 am
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the stupid vs. the catatonic

In the November 2008 issue of Hallmark Magazine is a story by Ann Bauer titled "My Other Son". It's a fairly directionless trip down memory lane as a divorced parent with 3 kids, one of them autistic. What struck me hardest about the story was how briefly she was able to mention that her autistic son was not only misdiagnosed, but mistreated for schizophrenia to the point of catatonia and 'rescued' from his catatonic state with electroshock therapy. But the story was not about him. Was it? I sure couldn't tell. I think it was about the other son, who apparently 'got it' about his brother when no one else did (which wasn't very well brought to light in the story), begging to be with him and help ~as a person~ when everything else kept getting in the way. Like drugs. Institutionalization. Electroshock therapy.

There but for the grace of God go I. I read stories like that and just cringe at all the stuff I've gone through that *I* thought was bad, but some go through so much worse.

I'll tell ya, parents who feel the need to pursue 'fixing' autism to the point of a child's utter misery for many years is one of the saddest things I've heard of since medieval torture devices used in the judicial system.

The saddest part of that story, to me, was that the autistic child didn't get as much remorse or sympathy as the other child who had to deal with growing up without a father and having an autistic brother. And a mom who seemed to handle her problems by crying over several glasses of wine with a friend. (The story was so vague, it just begs for generalization like this.) I'm sorry, but that didn't invoke any sympathy in my mind for anyone but the autistic kid. Good lord, can you *imagine* someone forcing you to take drugs to the point of being catatonic and having to go through electroshock therapy over it??????? And I am guessing I'm supposed to feel sorry for the mom or something, I don't know. What was her motivation for writing this? To get autistic kids out of institutions? I think that point was completely lost in the attempt to play up the brother who cared, but that line of thought itself was so interrupted that I had a hard time with trying to figure out the other random things being brought up and discarded.

This really has to stop. I guess I was fortunate that my mother only tried to 'fix' me herself, to the point of such severe abuse that I was poisoned nearly to death at the age of 14 by her own hand. She was removing 'toxins' from my body with something so restricted that you can't even find it in health food stores. I went through continual 'fixing' throughout my entire childhood, and the only way I survived was learning to lie and not obey. Why? Because I was different. Not because I was the smartest kid in class or because I was a hard worker at chore time or because I had anything physically wrong with me. It was because I DIDN'T SMILE, and I DIDN'T HAVE FRIENDS, and I have weird habits and strange thoughts about God and couldn't help stimming and embarrassing my mother to the point of teachers begging her to take me to psychiatrists.

By the way, if you are a parent of an autistic child and are still freaking out about autism being caused by immunizations, would you PLEASE read these articles. There is proof out there that autism is global, it's a natural brain phenomenon, and it's NOT necessarily caused by agents from outside the body after the child is born. I find this stuff because I am Mennonite, I didn't have the immunizations, and I was born like this.

Asperger Syndrome - Anabaptist Disabilities Network

The Age of Autism: Oaklawn

And when you're done with that, see if you can comprehend this poem from
NaPoMo day 24—THE STUPID “Aspergers” by Cindy Earnshaw << pieces of linda

THE STUPID
“Aspergers”
Cindy Earnshaw
when they first
notice me in the world
or perhaps
second
I have already been
too smart
all hope for me
destroyed
there’s
no point of possibility
with them
the truth will
forever sound of lying
from my
too-smart
lips
they will steer towards where
I have somehow always
been
and I
will search
and search again to know
their algebraic paths
my massive mind
monstrously mocking brilliant me
they’ll
mock me too
standing there ahead
of them
and groping back behind
all the while
disbelieved
there in
the stupid.
© Cindy Earnshaw
If you didn't get that, we aspies feel like we are drowning in the stupidity of others. I would compare it to being locked away in a sort of mental concentration camp, with virtual razor wire and guns all around me, constantly judging that I am different. Would I have been better off being stupid? Being one of the people who believed that pressing someone to death under a pallet of stones or stretching them on a rack would make them more likely to be 'honest'? Because it wasn't that long ago, any 'smart' person knew that the lower classes couldn't help being dishonest criminals and witches.
Is there any difference now? Will the hocus pocus around Asperger's ever stop?
I am one of the very lucky ones. I can bridge the gap between two worlds with my words. But does anyone listen?
This will never end until parents learn that it's ok for people to be who they are. Down Syndrome children are understood and accepted, but autistic children need to be 'fixed'. If a Down Syndrome child went through overdrugging to the point of catatonia to the point of institutionalization and electroshock therapy, that story would be an outrage. Why is it ok to openly talk about how easy it is to torture people with autism and Asperger's Syndrome?
I can feel for parents of autistic children. I don't think Ann Bauer is a bad person. But neither was my mother, was she? She was only desperately trying to 'fix' me. She completely missed who I ~am~. And when I got grown up and was able to start trying to have real conversations about real things in life, I was shunned for not believing the world works the way my mother believed it works. There was no hope for love or forgiveness for being *me*. My brain works differently, so there is something 'wrong' with me.
I mourn for those who have been forced to the point of becoming catatonic and going through electroshock therapy in the name of mental health, only because they go deep in themselves for awhile.
My survival mechanism was one of desperation, trying to decipher years of punishment, find the pattern, find the escape route, find peace. There is no peace when people expect continual response, and every response has to be judged and found wanting, and every response feels baited, and every response brings emotional or physical pain of some kind, and there is no response that can buy peace and love and forgiveness.
Sadly, what I just described is not limited to autistic children. Children are abused everywhere because parents are stupid, single minded, blinded by something they believe or hear, fearful that something is wrong, or simply because the parents are mean or have mental illnesses themselves. This isn't just an autism problem, this is a PARENTING problem. This is a SOCIAL NETWORK problem. And when all else fails, ask who is making the MONEY on the problem. Health care, insurance, pharmaceuticals, social services, education- these are all big businesses with big money behind them. Question why the world says your kid ~has~ to be "NORMAL". Question why you are accepting what you are told and jumping through hoops instead of trusting your own instincts.
It's OK to just love your child. Get it?
- 8:17 am
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chickens being

Had a dream about the chickens last night. Somehow they were people, but not like us. I don't remember any more. I've been wondering for some time what the world view of a chicken is like, what it's like to live like that. You really have to bend your brain around just to think about not having hands, having such a flexible neck and moving your head everywhere without being disoriented, having feathers projecting from every inch of your body. I think that would be terribly cumbersome.

And then to think about never being able to say how you feel to someone, never having real contact like a hug, the only comfort you ever get is simply in being part of a group, being near each other and hearing each other when you're scared or feeling sick. What would it be like to not know more, not understand the possibility of these things?

I've been trying to wrap my brain around the concept of 'being' since I was a small child. I was terrified very early that I had bones in me (grew up on a farm), and that the bones weren't *me*. They go everywhere I go, make it possible for me to do and feel things with my other tissues, but they are the sign of death in every culture. I carry the sign of death around inside of me. I think I was dealing with that before I was even 10.

I won't go over everything I've thought since then, I'm sure it would make a book. But I still think about it a lot, about 'being'. About the possibilities we can't imagine, about the limitations we take for granted, about the horrifying thought of seeing ourselves both from the inside and the outside with our perspectives. I think a lot of people can't really do that very well, and I don't know if it's the Asperger's, but I can peel away perspective and put it back together in different shapes and forms, and wonder how in the world can we be stuck in our bodies this way? It seems impossible. Yet here we are, experiencing.

I was always intrigued by the old testament guys who got to 'see God', or at least come close. They always fell to their faces and couldn't move, and had to be stood back up by someone else. The experience of being able to see outside this dimension of thought and mind was enough to disable them, either from terror or being so overwhelmed that they couldn't respond to the new sensations and realizations flooding their minds. Maybe being aspie gives me an edge on thinking about it, because so much has been so overwhelming for me in THIS body in THIS dimension of being. I want very badly to be able to go beyond what we are and see all this for myself. I'm sure someone will have to stand me back up.
Van Halen - Video Hits V1 - Humans Being (1999)
- 8:15 am
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bluejacky

I've started transferring my survey posts over to Surveypalooza so people coming in from search engines on mobile devices will be able to see the surveys.

Apologies for the missing vids, another upgrade during the server migration swept through like a scan sweeping through the Enterprise. I'll fix those later, kinda busy...