Distraction Overload

I discovered I wasn’t the person I wanted to be about a year after I had my second child. As I sat distracted at the computer in the kitchen; a small, tentative hand had rested itself on my right forearm causing anger as fast as electricity to turn my vision red. I stared at the hand for a few seconds, in blind hatred, my eyes burning with an incredulous expression on my face at the audacity of the interruption.

The hand was attached to this creature that had unfamiliar blue eyes and smooth pink lips. Those lips were making noise…it needed to stop. I snatched my arm away and it fell to the ground, making more noise, louder noise. I shouted back more loudly but that only added to the chaos…which continued to build until I snapped and left the room to lock myself in a different one. At the door, my son knocked and screamed for me to come out. By the time I did come out he was hysterical in the need of reassurance that I still loved him. With my child sobbing in my arms, his face red and cheeks wet with tears, I turned my anger inward on myself. I hated myself. Feeling desperate and inadequate I entered the depression stage of that vicious cycle of anger.

Anger was my constant companion until that major turning point in my life where I was diagnosed and treated for autism as a result of this event. Anger had took the place of most emotions and earned me the labels of defensive, difficult, and empathetic. It effectively hid my autism from the world and hid it well. So well, in fact, it took 27 years to boil to the surface and hit its’ ultimate breaking point.

It wasn’t immediate, as change often is a lengthy process. The culmination of treatment and intense self-examination left me a shell. All the things that anger left in its shadow I now had to learn to handle. Confusion abounded. Simply because I cannot express those thoughts or thought processes leading to my people misinterpret my confusion and awkwardness for simple-mindedness. If you don’t know how my mind works what makes you think I understand yours any better so that I can explain it to you how you would understand?

Static

The morning sun would shine through the dirty windows at odd angles, because the kitchen faced the west and there were only a few ways the light filtered in indirectly. Through the utility room, you could see every fleck of dust as the sun poured in through the dreary and ancient once black and white checked curtains, spilling onto the dirty concrete floor. Through the entry that connected the kitchen and utility room, some of the sunshine creeped into the kitchen. The south facing window also brought the morning light that would bend around the garage that was attached to the house, from the sun peering above the trees in the woods behind the house. Father had already left for work and mother would begin the days’ chores and dinner planning after her morning coffee (black with numerous spoonfuls of sugar) and cigarette, which she took sitting at the kitchen table. My older brother and sister (by 12 and 13 years each, respectively) had also left for school, leaving just my mother and I. Gazing across the table out the aforementioned south facing window, she brooded holding her cigarette in the air with her other arm across her stomach, in a sort of slouch.

On days that required her to make dough, she would make extra to form me a tart using grape jelly as filling and would crease it closed into a half moon shape. I would watch through the steamy oven window as it baked, giving off the scent of promise. The pastry would come out of the oven warm and flakey and the jelly was always too hot on my tongue but I ate it anyway.

During the time it took me to process all of the sensory input as an autistic three-year old child, I could have been living. I could have been loving, appreciating, laughing, and doing. But I stared uncomprehendingly at everything I saw, memorizing it for me to remember like a movie 30 years later. I could have been making connections and learning how to trust others instead of pushing them away or seeing them as static and unnecessary (unless I wanted something, then they were tools). If I had been paying attention to things other than the tart baking in the oven, maybe I would be closer to my mom. Our conversations could consist of more than the current: ‘is dad there? When will he be home?’ Why didn’t she try to get my attention and spend that time with me? Was I ignoring eye contact so much that in my memory I only see glimpses of her amidst a plethora of scenery? I was only three, and even then I thought I knew everything just as a rebellious teenager would vehemently claim, I knew nothing. Nothing that mattered. I acted impulsively, irrationally, and I considered myself equal to the adults with which I exclusively interacted.

The Girl I should have been

Zoe is the girl I would have been if I hadn't hardened myself with defense mechanisms. She doesn’t hide. She sings loudly at church, she smiles and laughs louder than anyone else, and cries when she is sad. She has a strong family and the support she needs, which I did not have while growing up. Believe me, when I tell you it was hell. I learned all too quickly how cruel the world can be, so I shut it out. Left unmonitored, recess time becomes an opportunity to attack the kids with disabilities without consequences. Physically, emotionally, and verbally we are attacked. Eventually they didn’t have to attack me, the damage continued self-inflicted as I entered Junior High. The only time I got respite was when someone more disabled than I was there to receive the blows, which occurred for the first time in the sixth grade when all the area grade schools merged offering a higher selection of punching bags.

Even though entering Junior High was the worst kind of hell you could imagine, I found some relief from the boys who picked on me (although the girls upped the ante exponentially). In the sixth or seventh grade, I don’t remember which; I had an architecture class with Jason Nalazek and Denton Tackman. Jason was the angry, awkward and unpopular kid and Denton was the scrawny bully. Denton had something to prove and had been my nemesis since Kindergarten where he constantly called me ‘fatso’. The first time the teacher left the room I saw the twinkle in Denton’s eye as he looked at this gigantic cardboard pencil sitting atop some mailboxes on the left side of the room. I sat on the right, discreetly watching him, thankfully assigned a seat far away from Denton. Jason was not so fortunate and sat in the same row in the leftmost aisle a couple of desks behind Denton. Denton darted from his desk, grabbed the gigantic cardboard pencil, and swung it like a bat into Jason’s head. The thud was deafening. Denton simply threw the pencil back atop the mailboxes and slid back into his seat, while Jason sat in silence with his face turning the darkest shade of red. Thus began Denton’s new bullying interest and my sweet relief. Occasionally he would revert to some of that behavior and would jeer me in the gym where I played basketball after during lunch (avoiding the other kids and any social time I was forced to endure in the cafeteria). But I ended up being one of the tallest girls in our grade and he never seemed to grow at all and was quite easily placed in a headlock.

Eventually I couldn’t play in the gym anymore as the boys began to notice my body changing and weren’t afraid to say anything about it. Then I was thrown back into the wolves in the cafeteria where most of the girls sat in the round tables according to their social standing. I sat in the round table nearest the doors (offering the quickest escape when the bell rang) that soon would become my social circle for the rest of my school years, with those rejected from the other tables.

This is Not Me

After a friend informed me he didn't want to read my blog because by doing so he would thereby be tainting whatever perception he had of me I took a look back. These blogs are about who I was...not who I am. Look back ten years, are you the same person? I hope not. I don't want to rewind ten years...I was selfish and petty. If I could rewind with my brain retaining all of the knowledge I have gathered these 30 years I would go back and do a hell of a lot more with my time, wouldn’t we all?

I look into the past because it’s interesting to me. I’m objective. Maybe it’s not interesting to others because they are subjective and make assumptions related to my posts. Not to sound conceited, but it’s their loss if they do.