To Feel or Not to Feel: Where is the Empathy?

At 15, my Summers were full of sunbathing with friends on trampolines, bike riding, and trips to my best friend's cabin in Gaylord. Care free and full of nature, spending most of my time outside - doing as I pleased.
Around 8 am on one of those lazy Summer days, my ignorant bliss met my best friend's voice sobbing on the other end as she told her father had died of a heart attack in his sleep. I never heard that kind of pain in anyone's voice before - she was shaking, her nose was running, and she could hardly form intelligible words. We had planned to leave that morning and go to the cabin with him that day. On the other end of the line I was silent, I stared blankly at the wall and held the phone to my ear as I listened to my friend cry. Her sister grabbed the phone and begged me to get there as soon as I could.
I found my friend crying hysterically and  hyperventilating on her front porch. The house was engulfed in grief as her mother and all seven of her siblings walked in and out of rooms, lost. It was completely heart wrenching. I had no idea what she was going through, but I was there. There to listen, to cry, to hold. I was there. I was strong. I was proud of myself.

20ish years later another best friend lost her mom. After losing my own mother the year before I knew exactly how it felt and what she was going through yet I could not be there for her or attend the funeral. I was not strong enough to deal with the empathy that I felt.

Much of my life through my 20s I seemed cold, logical and calculated. I recall not understanding some of the things that made others sad or angry, but clearly I had some level of empathy that did nothing but increase over time with life experiences.
Anybody with autism has heard the claim that we do not experience empathy and it's a hurtful claim (so many negative connotations due to the whole sociopathic aspect of it).

Is this learned? Is it conditional? Is there a varying depth of empathy as Psychology Today claims? Doesn't it display a lack of empathy to blanket label autistics like this?



Taylor, Steve, “Is Autism Really an "Empathy Disorder"?” Psychology Today, 17 May 2019, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201705/is-autism-really-empathy-disorder.

The cloud

My parents died in 2017, following a rapid decline in health the year prior. Maybe someday I'll tell you more about that. But for now, I'll tell you that the resulting depression has been debilitating.


I pull my legs jerkily through the thick and murky air as I stare forward, eyes unfocused with a definite sadness behind them. The cloud has been raining down over me in a deluge today-like most days-however it never shrinks in size or changes from the darkest shade of grey. Thick and bulbous with lobes like a mammatus cloud, ever present, ever drenching the world around me. Through a haze I see objects, people, they move out of my way as they notice my struggled gait. I'm at Target, I'm with my sons. I'm trying.

I cried. Oh I cried like I have never cried before. Day, night, at work and at home, even in public sometimes...dramatically I cried. I wailed. I screamed. In the shower, on my bedroom floor, on the bathroom floor, at my desk at work, driving in my car. That kind of pain wasn't something you can just set aside and deal with at a better time. I have never felt that kind of pain.

I have worked at concealing the depression. It mostly involves not dealing with it. Sometimes I wake and my first literal thought is 'I don't want to be here'. I stare up at the ceiling, listening to the thought on repeat. Eventually I shove myself out of bed, tilt my head to look at the cloud above me, and hope that the storms won't be so bad today. Maybe someday it will be white with the silver lining. I know my kids should be that silver lining. Right now it's a light stone hue and the slightest sliver of silver lining is easily swallowed most days.

Drowning in Slow Motion

I am both alive and dead at the same time. My existence is poetry written by an unknown hand, whipping me through time in erratic crests and troughs and leaving the depth of life heavy on my chest. The trouble is when you are numb, a fierce regret is all that can take it's place making you realize you've been drowning in slow motion for years.  So many years.

Don't Just Don't

Everyone is a 'little bit' autistic.

No. They. Are. Not.

He enters the front door, steps aside and closes the door, shuffling off his shoes.  As he slides out of his shoes and shrugs out of his too-big coat he begins speaking of his day.  He sets his lunch box on the kitchen counter and re-enters the living room, his voice never pausing.  My ears throb.  With each syllable of each word the ear drum beats the rhythm of a song that I do not want to hear. I can't focus on those words and I grow more and more angry, wanting the pulsing in my head to simply end. I close my eyes to try to block it out. I shake my head side to side and slap my ear when he's not looking. I start screaming in my head and if I don't leave the room soon everyone else will hear the same screaming.
This is my life. Does it sound like yours?

Her arms reach out for me, unnoticed by her I shrink my chest back, turning my face away a little but moving forward and obliging. I didn't want to be rude. Nerves jump in my stomach at the expectation of what I know comes, as it comes every time.  My stomach turns from the touch as it does with every touch. I can still feel the weight of the arms hours later as they pulled me closer for that brief time. I still feel sick, hours later.
This is my life. Does it sound like yours?

I never did like family holiday parties. The food table is neatly lined with platters of special holiday fare-the texture and smell of most I prefer to avoid. After dinner the men watch TV while the women clean the dishes in the kitchen. There's expectations. And I am lazy. Girls these days are so lazy. I sit with the men and don't talk the remainder of the evening if I can avoid it. The passive-aggressive comments are far more desirable to the embarrassment of my uncontrollable retching as I react to those smells and textures.
This is my life.  Does it sound like yours?

But they get it, they sooooo get it now.  You see, they can read all about autism. So of course they understand now.
After all, everyone is a little bit autistic.

Autism Acceptance Day

About ten years ago, my husband and I had traveled to Ohio for a wedding while leaving our son (who was one at the time) with his sister and her boyfriend at our home in Lansing.   It was a rare opportunity for some adult time, literally the first time since he was born, and we were excited for our weekend getaway.  After driving almost four hours to where the ceremony was to be held, we found the white church with a white picket fence on a dirt road in the middle of no where a la horror movie style. There were no hills or trees to run behind if a murderer was chasing you, it was all flat as far as you could see.  We found our seats on the bride's side and I anxiously waited to see my friends, two of which were bridesmaids, to walk down the aisle.  The music began and I turned to see the wedding party walking down the aisle.  There was a lot of purple.  There was a lot of eyeshadow.  I was not impressed. 

Normally in this situation you would not say anything.  But not me.  I was a rude, obnoxious, and conceited person and I had to ask why all the purple?  I told them how awful it looked.  I tried to convince them I was right and they were wrong.  I don't know how I had any friends.  Ever.  This was the single most embarrassing thing I've ever done and to this day I still don't know how I kept those friends. 

When I was diagnosed at 27 with Asperger's syndrome (a form of autism) and two years later found ASPPIRE, who helped me with the social coaching I badly needed, I understood what happened.  I was always too proud to admit that I had a problem but today I can admit that I struggle with theory of mind.  Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states — beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc. — to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one's own.  Just knowing that, I have been able to have a new perspective and proactively stop myself from saying things that are rude and obnoxious...most of the time.  I did say I still struggle, after all. 

Now, I just want to take a moment and thank those who have helped me get this far in life.

First and foremost ASPPIRE.  For without them I wouldn't have the rest of this list.  It's truly AMAZING what knowledge can do to change your life.

My friends in Bay City, who put up with a lot of my crap for a very long time.  I was rude and selfish and you still stayed by my side.  I'm sure if I stayed on the path that I was on I would probably have lost you by now.  I probably would not have had the courage to do half of what I have done without you:  Especially you Stacey Bourcier, who I still talk to every day!

My church family at Holt Lutheran.  Especially Kerri Henry and Ilona Harns who were two of my first friends and encouraged me to attend church and join organizations like the LWML and the PTO.

My friends with autism and/or social anxiety I have met both through and outside of ASPPIRE on my own.  Way too many to name, and I don't want to out you on facebook if you don't want people knowing you have those problems. 

The school and staff at Holt Lutheran who have made parenting with autism so much easier for me.  I don't think without their support and constant communication I could as effectively support my children.  You are their mom for 40 hours a week. 

My own family who have slowly come around to accept who I am and why I do what I do.  It's not easy admitting to others who would call this invisible disorder an excuse or scapegoat. 

My friends who constantly support me to be a better self:  Stacey, Kady, and Erin.  You guys are the best!  You don't know what your friendships mean. 

Patience

I lived nineteen years with a person I never knew.  When I was sixteen (and he was 29) most of our interactions consisted of both of our eyes fixed on the green broken ceramic tiles of the floor as we would pass each other in the hall.  He would go in his room and shut the door and I would go through the adjoining kitchen with the same broken tiles and head out the door to school or work or wherever. 

One time I was playing across the street with a girl my age who was visiting her cousins who lived there which also happened to be one of Kevin's friends.  We were playing in the garage when he past us with about ten of his friends and didn't even look at me.  He was probably a senior in high school, I was in kindergarten.  He told my mom to tell me he wanted me to never go back there.

When I was about thirteen I was eating cereal at the kitchen table and he came in and stood by the window waiting for a ride.  I was startled when I randomly glanced up to find him staring at me with a sneer on his face.  I had been chewing with my mouth open.  I froze and stared back down at my cereal until he left.  The loud force of my cry as I burst into sudden tears sent my mom running into the kitchen.  For someone who didn't want to be a part of my life, for my entire life, that was too much to handle.

I still don't talk to my brother.  When I met his girlfriend at a family funeral I walked up to her and introduced myself.  You must be Kevin's girlfriend?  I'm his sister.  They had been dating three years.  I pointed to her finger, what's that?  An engagement ring.  I added her on facebook hoping to have some sort of insight into his life.  We remained friends there for about a year and a half...until I started coming out of the closet more about autism and other medical issues I'm trying to sort out.

I get the feeling that very few people in my family believe me.  Between my aunt blaming me for not taking care of my parents who live two hours away, and my uncle becoming angry because I complained that I could not identify and clean this obnoxious smell at my parents house (hello!  sensory processing disorder!) I give up on my family. I don't have the patience if they don't have the patience.  I'll just go on doing what I'm doing, trying to get to where I need to be.  It would be nice to have the support from them but I have my church family my mom's family and a handful from my dad's.

I did not ask for this.  I did not ask to be a failure.  I did not ask to live in a trailor that is falling apart and not work full time so that we could live in a decent house and have a decent life and help my parents by giving them money and helping them clean their apartment more.  I get absolutely no form of government assistance for this disability and I am TRYING to be a productive member of society.  I can't even pay my student loans back for a degree I barely use.  I am trying so hard.  If someone cannot understand that I have anxiety and sometimes cannot drive to Bay City or that I cannot handle certain sensory issues and it is interfering with me giving my parents what they need and deserve.  I am doing everything I can to change all this.  YOU don't know what this is like so stop judging me. 

A Little Goes a Long Way

All of the desks formed an arc around the room, facing a wooden lecturn in the center.  This room had only one exit, a door in the corner, that all the desks faced away from.  The walls were blank with no windows, other than those that separated the teacher's office from the room.  Each day for a month I sat in that desk, staring at the podium, feeling sick.  I observed the teacher each day leaning casually on the lecturn as he spoke to class.  He waved his hands animatedly as he spoke to us, telling us crazy and inappropriate stories as the smell of his blueberry candle permeated the room.  Eventually it would be me standing in that spot....this was speech class. 

I had never NEVER spoke in front of a class.  I never NEVER raised my hand to answer a question.  I always looked down, always occupied myself taking notes and trying not to be noticed.  I never made eye contact with the teacher, because they took that to mean that you wanted to answer a question.

I didn't know what I was going to do so I signed up for the latest slot I could.  As I watched the others go before me, I was in complete denial I was going to have to do this.  I considered transferring schools.  I could get up at 6 and get on a different bus and go somewhere, anywhere else.  Mother wasn't on board with this idea and I had to come up with something quickly.

A few days before my imminent demise, it was another student Sara's turn.  She stood behind the lecturn and began unpacking a bag placing things on a table next to the lecturn.  She took out ziplock bags of vegetables, a bottle of water and several bowls.  She took apart one of the bowls that had a strainer component, added the lettuce and water; and spun the device around with a crank.  She said the device was called a salad spinner.  My attention was entirely on that spinning object the entire time.  She was a genius.  She did a 'demonstrational speech' by making a salad and speaking as we watched her spin the lettuce dry.  I realized I could avoid all of that anxiety inducing eye contact simply by making them watch my hands as she was doing now.

A few days later, it was my turn.  I had to stand behind that old scuffed-up podium, with 20 sets of eyes upon me.   Before I could get more than a few words out, I nervously fumbled at the container to get it open and sent it flying across the room.  It hit the wall and fell to the floor.  The world stopped. 

From that day on, whenever I had to do any public speaking this memory immediately surfaced.   Each and every time.  I stuttered through everything I had to present with burning red cheeks trying to push the image away from my thoughts.

Yesterday I stood up and spoke about my life, autism, and treatments.  I didn't stutter once, my face was not warm and I forgot about the torturous high school speech class until I sat down to write this blog.

A little calming oil goes a long way.

Slave to the Meds

Every day was the same.  I was suffering socially, physically, mentally...and it was so overwhelming I didn't know where to begin dealing with it.  For four years I was only functional and out of bed about 7 hours a day, and had at most one or two good/normal days a month.  But...I was making eye contact.  And I was making friends!  I was able to keep calm and not let anger color my words that normally kept people away.  People weren't afraid of me and enjoyed being around me.  But as each Summer came, I could no longer sleep my life away.  Each Summer, I would try to go off the meds.  Each Summer I failed. 
I eventually picked up the Temple Grandin book 'The Way I See It' and read her chapters on autism treatments.  She eventually came to the conclusion that a duality of treatments involving traditional and alternative medicines seemed to give the best results. 
It's been a while since I've blogged.  I spent the year changing meds and discovering the potential of essential oils.  I'm doing better now, but I still have more goals to reach.  Full-time employment is up next, wish me luck.

I think you have Asperger's.

My sons were aged one and three when I started to realize something wasn't normal with me.  I was angry and nauseous almost all the time.  I tried to convince the doctor I was pregnant again (even though I had a tubal ligation during the same surgery for which I gave birth to my younger son and that was not possible).  Many tests and appointments later I had the names and phone numbers for psychologists I was never going to call.  I was too proud to call and to proud too acknowledge how intensely the anger suddenly flashed across me whenever my kids touched me.   I thought it was likely postpartum depression and would eventually pass.  As time went on, it took me longer and longer to calm down after each time I felt angry.  It was not getting better.  I decided to make the call when I had to start locking myself in a room to prevent them from touching me.  I told him why I was calling and my story detailing everything I was trying to ignore, and he replied, "I think you have Asperger's syndrome". 
Knowing you have something does not instantly make your life better, but it helps.  Sometime after my older son began attending preschool.  I was lost yet again trying to navigate the social demands of school and the parents of the other children.  I knew I needed more than just the medicine the psychologist gave me, I needed help knowing what to say to these people.  Through local resources, I found ASPPIRE and began taking social coaching classes in 2009 (about two years after I learned about my diagnosis).  After having not one friend and living in the same city for ten years, I made friends.  I wasn't the awkward woman standing in the hallway waiting to pickup my son while avoiding eye contact with everyone and staring at the wall.  I was able to make friends both inside and outside of my son's school.   I even joined a few different organizations to keep me socially busy so that I could continue to grow and succeed.
When I look back over my life, I realize how miserable and alone I was for many, many years.  If I had never found ASPPIRE I would still be in that dark place, struggling against myself.  Struggling just to function.  ASPPIRE taught me what to say, how to say it, how to deal with the anxieties I was too proud to admit I had, and so much more.  I have grown so much through the program I want to help others do the same.

The Art of Avoiding People

I got off the bus and walked down the sidewalk to the blonde-colored brick building where I attended Junior High.  Within the doors was the cafeteria where the students waited for the first bell that allowed them to go into the halls and to their lockers.  The floors were white formica squares, I stared at them as I walked past the rows of pale colored rectangular tables to the end of the cafeteria where my friends sat at the first of two round tables right inside the other set of doors leading to the halls.  When I was within a few feet of the table everyone stood up almost simultaneously, swung their backpacks on their shoulders and walked away.  I quickly lifted my gaze from the floor and looked around the room to see the rest of the students were still in their own worlds at the long tables behind me.  I stood there several moments watching them, then sat down at the table alone. 

Hillary, the tall girl with red hair and freckles, had decided this new game would be very entertaining.  She arranged for everyone to ignore me, all day long.  Her influence spread to every facet of school, including classes.  It luckily didn’t last long, but I remember how it felt to be so utterly alone.  That was the first time I considered killing myself.  That’s what bullying does.

Bullying doesn’t just end in junior high.  It follows you, and so do those thoughts you had in that junior high lunchroom as you watched your friends walk away.  Everything that matters to you can just get up and walk away at any moment, and sometimes you just relive it. 

Fast forward 20 years.

I walked through the doorway into the reception hall, greeted by dark wooden paneled walls and lights emanating from the corner of the dance floor.  The wedding party table is on the dance floor along the back wall.  That’s where Dave, my husband, will be seated.  It was his sister's wedding.  Long white tables lined the rest of the room, surrounding the dance floor.  I glance to my right and I can see Dave’s mom is seated at the first table closest door, surrounded by her family.  Her back is to me.  Her back was to me after the wedding too.  I also see there are no seats left at this table. 

I have a date, my friend from high school, someone to sit with.  She was invited shortly after the lastest fight erupted between my mother-in-law and I which I assumed would blow over as it always does where she pretends it never happened (and pretends she never told me she never wanted to see me again).  My friend and I both know she was invited because I wouldn’t be welcome sitting with a majority of the family.  She was nice enough to come anyway, maybe because she felt protective of me, or sorry for me.  Nonetheless I did not have to not have to walk into the lion's den alone.  Her and I move further into the room and pick seats near some of my father-in-law’s family who is also not seated at the family table.  They left around 7 PM.  My friend and I were on our own, no one to talk to but each other.  I knew others but they pretended to not know me, backs turned.

I could tell my friend was uncomfortable.  I was uncomfortable.  The entire family table chattered amongst themselves and we just watched them from two tables away.  Every time I came near or even looked toward my mother-in-law, she turned her back to me.  We left the room and moved seats several times.  We left the wedding twice.  When my husband’s wedding party duties were over, we joined him outside and stayed there. 

My kids eventually danced themselves into a coma, so we left.  When we got to her house I hysterically cried for a while.  I’ve never been so publicly embarrassed. 

Since the wedding in August, I constantly worried about how holidays would go.  I’ve avoided almost everyone simply because I have so much anxiety about socializing I can’t handle doing anything.  I’ve missed important things.  I missed seeing people on Thanksgiving, we stayed home doing nothing.  When I think of holidays I become very anxious worrying if I will be continue to be shunned or wondering if I will say the wrong thing. 

I feel so anxious thinking about Christmas you would think the day was so close upon me it might be tomorrow.  I hate feeling this way.

More Than You Think You Are

    So I have worked for a nonprofit business who provides social coaching to adults on the autism spectrum and/or have cognitive impairments.  Basically anyone socially awkward, like I used to be and I still am sometimes.  I actually took the class for three semesters; I'm the success story they use. 
    I love it.  I feel respected and appreciated...two things I have never felt working anywhere.  I push myself very hard too....I conduct social outings and host a Friday night social hour for everyone in the program.  During the summer I bump the social nights up to twice a week with a bowling league.  I feel like I have a lot of friends and have an impact on others' lives.  But I also hate it.  It's an obligation where if I'm not feeling up to socializing, I still have to do it.  Kind of like being a parent and all the obligations that go with it-moms don't get sick days and neither do social mentors.  Luckily I've been able to work through my anxiety and have never felt like a failure after the outings.  I'm not infallible though, and sometimes it hurts to realize that.
    One of the days this past week when I picked my kids up from school, some other parents were at the playground.  I haven't always felt respected in parent circles...not only because I'm autistic and sometimes awkward, but also because I am overweight.  Walking up to a group of skinny parents, one of which is a public figure who sometimes talks about fitness and diet, made me very nervous.  I've been avoiding a lot of contact with this particular group because I tend to receive a lot of unwarranted advice about my weight.  It seems people collate obesity with lack of intelligence.  Luckily, the rehearsed quippy lines gained some laughs and the conversation didn't last long enough to touch on any uncomfortable subjects because they had to leave. 
   Yesterday I saw one set of parents from the playground group at a birthday party which ended up running over by about an hour.  I was really hoping to execute an in and out maneuver at pick up but ended up waiting outside the party with them and my other son.  The last thing I wanted was to socialize with anyone, I was sooo not mentally prepared for it.  The father was the fitness guru I had been intimidated about and the mother was very social and very popular with the other parents at school.  I had been building some repertoire with the mother over the past year, volunteering at the kids' school where she also had been working for the five years we've gone there.  She talked me into playing glow golf as we waited.  I hate golf but she was very persuasive and charismatic and of course Eli wanted to do it as well.  The first ten minutes were incredibly awkward but by the end things were going a lot more smoothly.  I was able to engage in a lot of reciprocal conversation and even felt like we could all be friends.  I was shocked when she told me she thought I was outgoing.  I couldn't even remember what we were talking about or how that came up or what happened after that.  This person who I had been admiring for five years and even modeling a bit when socializing thought I was outgoing. 
   Put yourself out there.  No matter how awkward you feel.  Ten  minutes of torture may yield you no more awkwardness.  You might realize people aren't noticing what you think is as obvious as words written on your forehead.  When you think people regard you as 'less than' you will be surprised to know they think exactly the opposite.  You are 'more than' you think you are.

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

I had graduated high school the previous spring and began attending college courses at the neighboring community college after my morning shifts at Sears.  One of my first college courses was in psychology (the field I planned to pursue) and I was vain with the knowledge I received, and eager to repeat it at every opportunity.  My freshman psychology professor claimed to know a rational psychological explanation to homosexuality that I found fascinating and was eager to share.  I don’t recall the details now (I switched to the mathematics field in my sophomore year) but at the time I was able to repeat the theory verbatim to several lucky listeners.

Working at Sears in the way early hours of the day provided a lot of idle time away from management eyes and ears.  My coworkers would spend time in between tasks, sometimes for hours at a time, just standing around talking about whatever was on their minds. Sometimes I would attempt to join in the conversation to get out of working (especially when my boss could be roped into an inane hour-long conversation about nothing that had to do with work at all).  What I didn’t know is that when you’re 18, the only way you’re going to learn about subjects you should and subjects you should not talk about in the workplace is the wrong way.

Jennifer was good friends with Tonya, who was admittedly gay.  I happened upon a conversation between her (Jennifer) and another employee which was of a religious nature.  Her expressed views on homosexuality overtly conflicted with the friendship they appeared to have and I blurted out, ‘but you’re friends with Tonya, how can you say that?!’.  I should have walked away from that conversation instead of thinking it was necessary to prove to her that she was acting deceitful.  Luckily my superior intellect wouldn’t fail me as I would attempt to convince her she was wrong using my professor’s vast knowledge on homosexuality.

Suffice to say I landed myself in the store manager’s office.  I don’t think I made eye contact once with that man, or even spoke once without stuttering during that meeting, yet I was somehow able to keep my job.

That was probably my worst social experience in my entire life.  I ended up losing two friendships (Jennifer had told Tonya I thought she had a chemical imbalance which made her gay but conveniently left out that she thought she was going to hell for the same reason) and I felt utterly defeated.  It took me a long time and many, many communications courses to move on from that failure.  I was afraid to put myself out there and try to talk to anyone for any reason work-related or not.  Luckily I could absorb myself in my work (I worked alone 90% of the time) and avoid my coworkers. 

Rules of Engagement.

I generally don't bring things up for discussion unless I have ample time to preselect my words. Many people got a glimpse today of what I was like for so long....and they were pretty shocked. I really hope I didn't lose any friends.
I know when I'm acting too autistic based on their responses...and that's when I need to move my eye brows, inflect my voice, soften my stance and act as nuerotypical as possible. On top of all that, I need to think of what words sound less aggressive and what will get my point across most efficiently. No wonder why its so exhausting. This is why we need social coaching, so we don't mentally break down after each five minute conversation. I have a headache now :(.

The Art of Self Loathing

I had spent 14 hours in bed from the night before to the next day, that’s when I knew things were getting worse. I hastily dressed and left the house before any of those self-defeating thoughts returned from the vacation sleep had provided to their distracting residence in my thoughts.

I meandered around the zoo, blindly following my children and avoiding the obtrusive sunlight. It was a distraction but still I remained melancholy and disinterested. Usually the zoo is peaceful and empty at the times we choose to visit, but even the small crowds brought by the uncharacteristically balmy weather (for March in Michigan) made it seem overwhelming. Before leaving, we visited the playground outside the gates, where I sat on a bench and watched everyone else in progress of living their lives, all of which seemed loads better than mine from where I sat. The sadness abruptly returned and I became regretful and depressed.

Parents were laughing, taking pictures, and encouraging their children down the slides. Another was by the swings pushing their child, who was clearly having a tantrum, but they seemed to take no notice. I wanted to shout that I didn’t care how much more time his sister had on the swing and to get off if he couldn’t handle it. He was eight, probably autistic, but he wasn’t getting any sympathy from me. Instead I kept my mouth closed tight and tried not to stare too long in his direction, absorbing myself in the lives I was wishing I was living at the moment. I longed for things that were impossible based on the decisions I had made in the past.

My children are getting older and I am finding it difficult to connect with them more. I avoid playing with them, talking to them and touching them. When I think about these things, I feel incredibly inadequate. I retroactively review things in my mind that I should have done different. When my child looked miserable with illness why did I not sit by his side comforting him and stroke his hair as they do in the movies? Why don’t I kiss them goodnight or goodbye? It’s not always like this, I know. When I’m stuck with these feelings, that seems to be all I remember and I cannot shake myself from dwelling on these thoughts. I hope this passes quickly, it’s not like me to be so ungrateful and regretful.

Oh, Mother

My mother sat back in her recliner, red faced and sobbing. Her body leaned to the right as she rested her elbow on the arm of the chair, her hand firmly pressed against her temple and forehead, shielding her eyes as if she was trying to hide them or divulge a secret to an invisible confidant. Her other hand was at her hip, and her shoulder jerked toward her chin with each sob. I could tell that she was trying to fight the tears that were streaming down her face. But I couldn’t understand why. She won. She won and I lost. She looked pitiful and I hated her because she won.

I watched her cry, perplexed, as the side of my face throbbed from the slap she had dealt me. I was silenced with that winning blow, but yet she seemed to be the one suffering the most. What had I done this time? Does it matter? Does anyone deserve to be forced to play such games where no one ever really wins? What a cruel experiment this was to become.

Fast forward a few years, where my hatred has combined with years of loneliness on the playground and being thrown into my own personal hell, junior high. My mother couldn’t hit me anymore for insubordination, so I took advantage and tortured her for the next eight years. She cried a lot and I pretended not to care. She would try to talk to me but I wouldn’t even look at her. When she would ask me a question, I would reply with ‘What?’ as if I hadn’t heard her. Every time she asked a question. Every time she repeated that question. She would get angry and throw the feet up on the recliner, tucking her arms into the sides of the chair beside her body while staring at the TV with malice. I could tell she wanted to strike, but she didn’t dare because at eleven years old I was five foot four inches and almost as tall as she.

When I was fifteen I had a job and soon after a car. When I turned sixteen I got a better job and when I was seventeen a better car. I had money and did whatever I wanted, and what I wanted was to avoid home as much as possible. Sometimes I would stay out until two in the morning, even though I had school the next day. When I was nineteen and in college I would go out until two, drink, drive home, and get up for work at five. I was making bad decisions and because of the distance I put between my mother and myself, no one ever told me.

When I was 23 I had my first child and I needed my mother more than ever. Still unable to forgive her, I began mending that relationship. When I was 26 I had my second child, I needed her less but wanted her more. I eventually learned how to forgive her, and that is the greatest gift I have ever received. To let go of all that hatred and have that weight lifted off my shoulders, thank you, God.

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.

Heavy

When I got my first job at Sears when I was 16, I was a mess. My lack of communication skills and inability to interpret any form of communication correctly left me mostly alone. Luckily stock replenishment didn't demand that much by the way of communication skills, nor contact. Every morning at 6 am I would walk into the dark, crisp early morning summer air and into the special side entrance to start my day. Until the store opened at 10 I would count, sort, stock, fill, and rearrange product in mostly sweet solitude. I had the occasional question from a coworker or "check-in" from my boss.

My boss was really something else....a short lady with a quick tongue and a sun-weathered face that didn't carry much expression. Her eyes always seemed beady, angry, and completely unavoidable with her dark hair cropped so short there was nowhere for them to hide. She would speak to me and I would avoid those eyes, letting my eyes rest above on her imp0ssible hair, which was generally styled in a precise disarray that resembled still cotton. What her face lacked in expression, her voice and attitude made up for tenfold, startling you back to her eyes when she spoke. She was loud and intimidating, with a crooked mouth and a quick temper. I hated her for constantly belittling and insulting me with her backhanded compliments and straight forward insults. I now realize I needed to know how others perceived me by my silence, lack of eye contact and nervous, monotone replies. Perhaps not in such an abusive manner, but I needed to know how others really saw me, as defensive and sometimes rude. It became a continuation of the isolation and pain that I felt during my school years, and I just wanted her to accept me like I wanted my classmates to accept me all those years. Ironically she never noticed that it was really a reflection of herself as I mimicked her social skills, reflecting her quick tongue and attitude back to her.

Lately I feel so weighed down. No amount of social coaching can help me transition from professional to personal relationships. I feel a personal relationship with so many people at work, but that is a road I should not go down. Aspies are not good at gray areas, and making friends with those you are associated with professionally is a huge gray area. I try to lessen the burden by finding and adding friends to facebook that I "network" with through church and work (which is essentially the same). I still find myself confused by the direction some of this effort is going. All I can do is ignore it, essentially. I hope my boss continues to support me because sometimes I feel like quitting. I don't want to quit, but I feel like quitting because the social demands of the parents are so much. That's completely my autism getting in the way. I will probably look weak for saying that, but I should say what I feel and not simply ignore it. I don't need to lie to myself or to anyone else. I also feel God gave me this opportunity for a reason, and for once I am listening to him and following the path he has mapped out for me.