Communicating without Body Language

I am talking with a friend and we just came to this very meaningful realization. My friend said that it is frustrating trying to have a conversation with someone on IM because you can't understand them as well. I said, what do you mean, I find using words to be far easier. She said "Well, but you miss out on the body language..." Then she said - this was a great insight on her part - "I wonder if the trouble I have understanding you on IM without the body language is similar to what you feel on a daily basis having Asperger's and trying to communicate with people without being able to read their body language." And I was just like... Bingo. That is so it. That is such a great analogy. She says "Lacking the cues I normally rely on such as your tone of voice, it feels so much more uncertain." Uncertain - is the perfect word to describe how pretty much every single interaction every single one every single word feels every single day. It is exhausting to deal with so much uncertainty and to plow through it despite the anxiety of it every day. But I do it because the alternative -isolation- is to me unthinkable.

With her permission I am pasting the relevant parts of the conversation here. I would love to know if other people can relate to what we are talking about or have experienced it in their lives, whether NT or AS. 

It goes without saying, for any people who may be reading this without much knowledge of AS, that people with AS have trouble reading body language or nonverbal signals in others and tend to over-rely on words. That is why they can often sound overly pedantic and a little fixated on words .

Friend

Yes I thought of that as soon as I typed it. I rely on body language but you may not.  No I guess it's not true that I understand" completely" but I see my daughter struggle with language and communication. A better response would have been" I have sympathy or empathy for that struggle".

Ugh us NT's are confusing! Lol I'm totally seeing my awkward wording and wish I could communicate via type better. It must be so frustrating to feel that verbally with people. Or to understand all their assumptions and nuances.

Me

Ah yes that is a better way to put it thank you . Yes, I think you have gotten it there. Because you rely on body language and because I was barely aware it existed until recently, it is very likely that what you were feeling just now trying to communicate with me with just words is what I feel every waking minute of my life trying to communicate with others. THAT could actually be a FASCINATING analogy to use to get other people to understand how isolating it is! Do you think?

Friend

Yes I think it fits perfectly! I very much became aware of how it must feel.  Lacking the cues I normally rely on such as your tone of voice, it feels so much more uncertain.

Kate Goldfield

Yes, uncertain. Communications are so uncertain for me that I always have anxiety in them. I think most Aspies do. I can have a million good thoughts in my head but as soon as it's time to talk I'm stuttering, stammering, unable to look someone in the face and having "um" every other word because I just have no idea of what I'm "supposed" to be doing and therefore no confidence in what I'm saying. Not all the time, but more often than I'd like. Certainly, tonight at the bookstore.

But situations in which the social rules are clearly defined, I am fine. That is why I am far more comfortable giving a presentation in front of 50 or 100 people then talking one on one with most people, because the rules are clear for the presentation. The rules for the one on one ? CONSTANTLY changing. Enough to drive a person INSANE.

I can't look at them often because there is so much INFORMATION in their face but I can't decode any of it, and it is frustrating and distracting. I don't want to be left out, so I try anyway. I think of what I wanted to say and say it. But because I am not decoding all of their information, it rarely sounds natural. It rarely flows with what they  are saying and thinking. It comes out as forced and intense and unnatural and they will still reply usually - not always - but I am ALWAYS aware of how unnatural what I say sounds compared to the way others do it and if I let it, it would drive me mad.

Certainly, that realization was responsible for 90% of the reason I spent hours after nearly every college class sobbing on the nearest couch. That isolation is intense. That feeling of being shut out is intense.

It's still there... I just try to fight it more and have gotten slightly better at fighting it by finding people more receptive to my communication style who are more able to make me feel heard and quell the loneliness and isolation. But still not as much as I need. It's so hard. To even make people understand there is a gap. They are so not aware of it and it is a really hard thing to put into words, but it is so obvious to me. I am thankful for the people I know... but I wish ... there was less of a gap. I have to be careful not to let my mind go there too much, but it still deserves to be said.

Friend
Yes I can see that when I think about it. Each person with their own unique body language,  expressions and tone of voice. How do you know what means what? Like being around someone who's unstable all the time. Unpredictable.My God yes I would be sobbing on a couch too. Incredibly draining. Yes surround yourself with the people who understand your communication style. But yes that fact will always be a hard one. You need to find ways to not dwell on it. OR let it bring down your self esteem.

Ugh look at my awkward wording!! Lol it pales next to your eloquence

Kate Goldfield
12:22am
No you're fine don't worry about it!  I appreciate your effort. Hmmmm. I don't know. The few times I've mentioned to (P erson) how awkward I feel I sound she seems to be genuinely shocked that I would say that. She doesn't seem to feel that way. But I watch her with (Other person) or with everyone else. How do I not feel bad that their conversation style is so easy and flowing full of shared information, shared emotion, which I want more than anything in the world? My heart hurts just thinking about it, even right now.

Kate Goldfield
I might have technical eloquence, but you have emotional presence, and that is far more important.

Friend
Do you think you don't have emotional prescence?

Me
It's why Aspies get so obsessed with words and like puns a lot often I think. We depend on words to express how we feel.
It depends on how you define emotional presence..
That is a tricky one.

Friend
12:24am
Yes cause I would say you most definitely do.

Kate Goldfield
I do feel that I am good at describing something but not good at feeling something WITH someone.
You've never met me or talked to me in person though and I would say that the kind of emotional presence I am talking about can only be felt in person.

Friend

Right that's true. But there's definitely a part of one's prescience on the internet. A vibe so to speak.
Presence
Good night!
Let's try to continue if you'd like.
Another day.

Snapshots of Sunny and 75 (Joe Nichols song come to life)

Today was, as the Joe Nichols song goes, Sunny and 75. And thankfully not humid like yesterday. AMAZING. Some snapshots of the day. 

Someone I know from the museum honked at me on my street as I was trying to get the bus, which was cool and made me smile. SO MANY AWESOME PEOPLE HAVING FUN from small babies running naked on the beach to elderly couples with canes and every kind of person in between, of every color and ethnicity (in Portland, no less, which I have never experienced to be that diverse before) were running around, strolling, rolling down hills, playing basketball, swimming, reading, sitting, chatting, pushing kids on swings, every activity imaginable by every kind of person imaginable on the Eastern Prom today. It was like 75 with no humidity. It was pretty incredible. People in shorts and tank tops when just a few days ago we were still wearing winter coats. Man, what a lesson that things can change like that - both for the worse AND for the good.

So... I came back to the apt for shorts after half an hour. I didn't want to but I knew I had to push myself to go out of my comfort zone a little to properly enjoy this day.  So I found the shorts, dropped off my bags, and went to the beach. I didn't want to because of the hill, but I made myself. The hill did suck, and actually I realized beaches are not very sensory friendly places to me, at least certain ones, but I tried. The boat launch proved to be a more sensory friendly, enjoyable place. I took off my shoes and put my feet in the water. Ouch - I need flip flops. But I tried. So many people so happy! I sat by the boat launch a while though - that part was good. It felt SO good to have shorts and no shoes on - bare feet and legs in the beautiful sun. I listened to and sung to songs on the radio for half an hour watching the sun sparkle on the water by the boat launch before I left. Most people were either with other people or engaged in solitary pursuits so I saw not a single one who seemed to be open to conversation on the actual Prom or beach itself. 

I did however run into an older guy a little further down on a bench at the outer edge of the Prom when I finally walked back up it. He had a dog at his feet and a blissfully open energy about him, so I started a conversation with him. It started with the weather, and his dog, and then led to discussions of nuclear energy (his occupation), Pennsylvania (where he was from), Baltimore (we both had lived in or near it), and the pet oxygen mask that I had heard about in the community connections radio program Dave Winsor so artfully did on the radio last night/ this morning (I had no idea I would have the opportunity to use it in conversation today! So cool. I was struck by how good of an interviewer he is, and inspired by the passion of the guy who is trying to get all Maine towns to own pet oxygen masks.) 

I then ran into Rob...Seriously. I just ran into him walking back to my apartment. That's never happened before, ever, in seven years, but I had left my phone behind and apparently he had the same idea of the beach as I did. So, he went to dinner, I shopped for groceries at whole foods, and then we spent an hour together having far more meaningful conversation than we have in a long time, perhaps because we were both far more relaxed than we'd been in a while. 


While shopping, let's see, how many people did I run into. Martin who I know from the museum and Laura, her wonderful husband and daughter who I hadn't seen in ages. "You're glowing," she said to me. Such a difference one's environment makes, at least for me. Knock on wood, I have room and space and ability to be me in all my glory here, instead of just suffocating behind wall after wall of barriers to ever even feeling okay like I was before. May it last as long as humanly possible, because for me, it usually doesn't. But I will enjoy it while it does. Pretty meaningful day. If I can keep my body from falling apart any further I might just get a meaningful life... 

Asexuality/Sexual Minority Oppression Open Mic Experience

There will be no small talk on my blog, lol

 Even though my energy is low tonight I had to type this up so I didn't lose it. I wrote it on pieces of scrap paper at the public market last Thursday, shortly before I performed it. You may want to take advantage of one of the few times I have posted something concise enough for you to read all the way through =)

Approximation of performance of spoken word essay on asexuality and oppression related to being in a sexual minority for open mic perfomance at Turnstyle Thursday on Thurs May 8, 2014 at approx 910 pm (Video should hopefully be posted in a few weeks and I want to remember when I was on) --

I ad libbed the introduction, which was good as it was more real and spontaneous. Something about watching the video of myself online of previous weeks and being both embarased and intrigued at the same time. Talk about the weather etc to warm up.

Then - Okay this part is not what I said, this is just writing about it but it's close enough -

About a month ago, Someone accused me of calling them an ant-gay slur. I calmly at first told them that they had the wrong person, as I would certainly never do anything like that, but they persisted and told me "it was on the video." (I checked the video. Nope, no anti-gay slurs there.) "It's okay," he continued. "You probably didn't even realize what you were saying. Don't worry about it." "No," I told him, growing more and more agitated. "You don't understand. I have spent my life working against and protesting against discrimination like this. I would never have done something like this." He continued to tell me it was okay and I felt very patronized. I left the building sobbing... and continued so for the 10 minute walk to a nearby place where I was able to talk to a friend and come to terms with what had happened.

Shaken, I tried to figure out why this had made me have such a strong emotional reaction. (Other than the obvious fact that no one had ever accused me of anything like this in my entire life.)
I realized I had been over-empathizing with the person. I had been responding as if I was the one who had been on the receiving end of the anti-gay slur. (I probably would have had an easier time dealing with it if I was, come to think of it. Strange.) Because of my own experiences, I was over-empathizing.

Part that was closer to what I said --

If I manage to do one thing before I die I want to wipe out the experience of shame for both other people and myself. Shame is such a toxic emotion, and one so many people experience for so many different reasons. But nowhere is the experience of shame more rampant than in the gay, lesbian and queer communities.

I'd like to share a few words about my own experiences. I'm not gay, but for a time I thought I was, because society gave me no other options.

I now identify as asexual. This means I experience no sexual attraction to others. That's an extremely hard experience to have in a culture that seemingly prizes the experience of sexual attraction above all others.  Nearly all of our TV shows, especially the ones geared towards adolescents, all of our books, advertisements, movies and conversations revolve around the experience of sexual attraction. If you're bi or trans, with quite a bit of effort, you can find a culture of people that tell your story. But almost nowhere are people telling the story of a lack of sexual attraction.

When I was a teenager, I would watch TV shows like Boy Meets World, and wonder why I didn't want to hug or kiss anyone like the main characters. I would listen to my peers talk about who they found hot, and wonder why I didn't share their feelings. It was isolating and depressing. I had no friends, and no one ever talked to me about my differences or told me it was okay to be different.

Shame was my constant companion, and still is, although I am getting a little better about it. I'd feel so upset about being different and having no label for it, that on several occasions I was nearly suicidal.

What saved me?

At one point, I decided I must be gay, since I knew I didn't like guys. Except I wasn't. I went to a gay youth center in my hometown, and one of the counselors there mentioned to me that I could be asexual. This scared the hell out of me, and I repressed the thought for the next nine months. This scared me because she didn't say anything other than the word, and all I heard was "You're going to be alone for the rest of your life," which was a thought I simply couldn't handle. I want and need emotional connections with others - I just don't want sex. I then threw myself into gay culture as much as I could because I desperately needed to fit somewhere.

On December 23, 2002, one night when I was home for winter break from my freshman year of college, I was on the computer late at night. The word "asexual" came into my mind and on impulse, I typed it into Google. AVEN, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, came up. At the top of the words were the words "Asexual - A person who does not experience sexual attraction" in bold, beautiful letters. My mouth dropped open and I spent the rest of the night reading every word on the site. We had 163 members when I joined in 2002. We now have more than 57,000 members. That's quite a jump in twelve years. I have had the opportunity to meet others in person and have been interviewed in a number of publications ranging from the New York Times to New Scientist, all several years ago. I found others like me and  I found the courage to like myself. I haven't thought about it all that much for the last few years, though, as I focused my energy on other things.

But when I was accused of denigrating someone else's sexuality, it brought all of this back. The girl I used to be - lost, afraid and alone - all came back as I unconsciously put myself in this other person's position, and the tears fell.

Shame is a toxic thing and the only way I know of to get rid of it is for myself to tell my own story openly and honestly. Next month is Pride month, so the timing seemed right to tell this story.

Someone today told me "If you have the intention of harming someone else, that is the only time you should ever feel shame. Other than that, everything you do is just fine if it works for you." I like that.

Tonight, I want to take the first step of saying no to my shame by telling my story. I hope you will all join me in saying no to your own shame. Thank you.

***
The response was overwhelmingly positive after I read this, and it was such a freeing feeling. I had many people come up to me and tell me how courageous I had been to read this and how inspiring it had been to them. I had people tell me that I probably opened people's minds and allowed them to think about things in a whole new way. I even had two, count them two, people come up to me and tell me they felt the same way a lot of the time. It was *so* rewarding and validating, so freeing, and such a feeling of connection. I hope to get other opportunities to continue telling my story in such a rewarding and meaningful fashion.

On Emotions and Connection to Others

I have some thoughts on emotional highs and lows, personal independence and competence, what creates both, and how they help or hurt you in connecting to others to process. Spurred by a sentence I just read in a book.

I just read something about withstanding emotional lows in order to experience new emotional highs... and how some people can live life by shutting off their emotions to a degree and not having as many rocky bottoming out emotional lows, but they also don't get the experience of new emotional highs either. I 've lived life in several ways... I've never been not emotional, of course, but I've had the REALLY intense cycling back and forth between despair and euphoria several times a day of college and I've had periods of my life after college where nothing was THAT wrong but nothing was that right either - emptiness, boredom, a despair born out of no emotions worth having rather than too many emotions. I've had periods (okay, most of them) where the experience of anxiety was so great that it blocked out the experience of nearly all positive emotions, but the negative ones were intense.

And then I've had the experience of re-discovering joy and rediscovering what it's like to feel happy to be you (at least at some points in the day!) and rediscovering what it feels like to connect to the world as you.

The joy of connection, both to music or people or parts of the world, the feeling of joy over feelings of competence, which is still rare for me but oh so sweet when it comes, and the joy of the feeling of independence. The feeling of starting to feel a little more confident is amazing in itself... The realization I had one day now about 6 weeks or so ago of all of a sudden feeling like I could go with the flow more.

Realizing that day that that all of these things that were going on around me that would have sent me into a tailspin or made me insane  before, I could now seem to handle.
 While I felt vaguely uncomfortable, I felt like I could probably handle them if I had to. That was HUGE.

 Somehow this process has to include a way for me to recover feelings of competence about myself. My biggest emotional highs in my life have occurred while doing really simple basic things that were mired in independence and personal competence... The biggest emotional high of my life was probably simply walking back from the Super Fresh grocery store a half mile or so from my college in Towson, Maryland, with groceries, the radio on my Walkman and a smoothie in my hand. The feeling of utter competence and independence, of ability, of self determination... coupled with the natural (for me) emotional high of the songs on the radio, the sugar high of the smoothie (a la Smoothie King, which I mourned the closing of for so long when it closed in Portland years ago), and even the natural relaxing rhythm of walking and the feeling, at least when it wasn't humid as it so often was in Baltimore, of the air on my face.... All combined to create an ecstacy unlike anything else. I got it not all the time but almost every time I walked across that four lane highway/road that seperated the Super Fresh shopping plaza from the road leading to our school (hell, crossing that road after grocery shopping was an art form in itself). I sometimes would wonder why such a simple thing would make me so happy, but I didn't analyze it too closely... I was too busy enjoying it. I did realize that the smoothie and radio along with the independence were all connected, though. I still think of the steps leading up to the Sheraton that we would cross to get back to school every time I hear "Mississippi Girl" by Faith Hill on the radio because the memory and sensory experiences of the high of life when I was standing on those steps listening to it on the 430 Future File on WPOC Baltimore was... and is... forever etched into my head, in the best possible way. The songs on the radio carry all my memories, good and bad but mostly good, and they constantly bolster me and support me whenever I feel weak. The emotional language of my life is ingrained in them.

I would get similar feelings walking from Hannaford to my apartment when I lived in South Portland in 2007, before all the trauma in my life started. Unfortunately, since 2007, I haven't had a lot of opportunities to feel competent or independent in pretty much any way. I've had a lot of crises... one crisis after another, that called upon all my coping skills and didn't leave any or little room left for positive emotion. Since my crises were of a nature that it was hard for others to understand my difficulty, there wasn't much in the way of positive feedback about my effort to cope. In fact, I was called crazy most of the time and left to survive however I could in the way I knew I had to. I persisted, and I'm proud of it, but it wasn't easy. I often would complain that I wished I had normal problems so someone could at least relate.

I somehow managed to lose nearly of all my physical strength somewhere in the time between Liberty and Eugene... See, this is how fragmented my life is, I can describe things in my life based in what city I was living in at the time. Oh well. The point is it was not intentional, it was gradual, but when I went to leave Oregon I realized I could no longer lift my laptop. And I had no idea why. Nor do any doctors I have talked to since. So then I've had 5 or so years of having to ask for help with most physical tasks, which is intensely embarassing and many people do not believe me when I say it hurts too much to do something simple. So there went the opportunity to feel good about anything physical, and so much of life is indeed physical. No carrying back groceries for me and feeling good about that anymore.

It seems to be the times that we least expect it when feelings of joy or satisfaction, even, hit. I have in the last three weeks since moving to Portland and getting the chance to at least move around the city independently had moments, not nearly as intense as previous times or pre-2007 but moments where I am struck by the joy of what I am doing. Struck by the joy of being able to move around the city unencumbered. They have been tempered by all of my physical problems, which really wear on a person emotionally, but are still sweet when they come. Usually some combination of a good song on the radio, fresh, crisp air (of which I will soon have to mourn due to the approaching humidity of summer) and/or a good interaction with someone.

There have been, of course, many emotional low points, both in the past year and past few weeks. The more I start to understand how much I've missed out on emotionally, the more I sometimes am prone to feel overwhelmed by the length and size of the gap I need to bridge. But those moments when I feel connected to people are so sweet , so amazing, so powerful they make me smile for so long after. The physical sensations in my life are very often so overwhelming I can think of or feel nothing else, and the emotional isolation this brings is greater than anything else. But I am starting to realize, people are connected to others, they feel others' emotions, they trust others, they trust or have a stable sense of people caring about them even when they are not in interaction with others. Object permanence. This feeling of stability helps them to deal with unpleasant or traumatic sensations in their lives. So, if you couple my greatly heightened sensitivity to physical stimuli with my almost completely absent ability to understand on a consistent basis that others care for me and are connected to me at all times, my often complete isolation and despair becomes , I hope, a lot more understandable.

The concept, though, of WANTING new emotional highs enough that you can and will willingly suffer thru the emotional lows - of knowing even while in the emotionl lows that it is WORTH it for the emotional highs - is somewhat new to me. I can usually not think of anything other than the low when in it, and I have never had consistent or stable enough emotional highs to feel the presence of them when in the lows.

But I am hoping by moving into a city where I have some connections and some ability to be more independent, that I can create enough meaningful emotional experiences that they will start to blot out the lows all the time, consistently, giving me a capacity I hope for emotional regulation I've never had before. I've had some signs of it but it's a one step forward, two steps back process that it is often frustrating to me.

Last Monday, I was feeling particularly vulnerable after having felt somewhat unmoored all weekend. I was not able to find the emotional grounding and connection that I usually had been able to find in the situation I was in, and my distress kept building upon itself despite my best efforts to soothe myself with music or self-talk. I just needed to be heard by somebody, but I was aware of how much effort it took to connect with me and so let my desire not to be a burden supercede my need to connect. Maybe it's what I should have done, I still don't know. I just know I have to find ways to connect with people that are not so time consuming and difficult for the other person, because the ways I have are not maintainable, not self-sustaining, whatever. The level of connection I require to feel heard is nice when you can get it but not realistic for most people to have. I have to somehow find shortcuts. I have to learn how people connect with others, because most people seem to use verbal shortcuts, or maybe nonverbal language or physical intimacy of some kind to fill their need for this kind of connection, and I'm only able to do it with long, intense, rambling discourse. There is a time and a place for that but how do I develop ways to feel connected with others even when not in the midst of these discussions? How do I develop object permanance? These are the questions rambling around my brain tonight.

Someone today told me that if I am feeling calmer in myself I will be more able to take others in and feel their emotions - not feel so unmoored as a usual state of being. I agree. I had reached the same conclusion. But being calm for me is in large part a function of my physical environment. I can't feel calm if  my senses are under attack by loud music, smells, humidity, the feeling of my clothes on my body and so on. Most people do not understand these sensory issues and think they are a "preference." They do not seem to understand that my brain literally will not work right if subjected to them. They tell me to suck it up and be considerate of other people's needs. They give me the message that my needs are not worth accomodating. There is shame involved. All of this is not very conducive to being open to people's messages of caring, love or support. Yes, I realize that people can't always accomodate me, and I don't expect them to. But when it wouldn't put them out much to accomodate me, then it would be nice. Even if they could acknowledge as valid my difficult experience of whatever experience we are sharing, it would help silence the shame I always feel for experiencing it differently. People tell me constantly that my experience is different and imply "Well, this is how most people do it, so you better comply and start feeling it that way, or else just deal with it." Not going to happen. So then I get overloaded with not only the physical stimulus but the shame of being the only one to feel it that way, and it's usually the second one that makes me involuntarily start to cry. Crying is not a very good way to increase connection with others, I'll tell you that much. But it's one most people don't seem to understand I have no control over. Most people do not know how to offer support to someone who is crying, this much I will tell you for sure.

 My world is regulated largely through the consistency of music on the radio, since it's the only form of consistent emotional relatedness I can expect. I've just realized this recently. But I would love to have a human being that felt as dependable to me and as safe and supportive to me as the songs on the radio do. I hope to get there some day, hopefully sooner rather than later. I'd love to be able to trust people, to communicate with people without the barely disguised feeling that they are going to --unintentionally yes but still -- hurt me if I'm not  on guard. The first step to this is acknowledging it and trying to figure out how it came about. The second is probably putting yourself in situations that can challenge these beliefs. Maybe a healthy dose of patience? I don't know. But again... spur of the moment thoughts rattling around my head at 346am when I really should be asleep. Goodnight.

On Communication and Directness

I was on the bus today, and my friend called me on the phone. I am not very adept at handling phone calls as they happen as I find it hard to switch my attention and multi-task. But I took the call nevertheless. My can't-multi-task mind forgot to be aware of the loudness of having a loud phone conversation on a crowded bus, and someone across the way to me said, very calmly and simply to me near the end of the conversation "Can you get off the phone?"  I said "Sure," told my friend I had to go and hung up. No drama, no big deal, just a simple statement of need and fulfillment of need. Why can't all human interactions be like this? So easy, when people just say what they mean, and mean what they say.

I realize that it very well could have not gone that way. I could have misinterpreted his message, he mine. He could have been more aggressive or hostile while giving the message, I could have been defensive while receiving it. But none of that happened. It was the easiest, most simple form of communication ever.

Later that day, I'm sitting in a doctor's office, listening to him tell me "I'm going to be as direct as I can. You need to..." Note to self, if you have to preface something with "I'm going to be as direct as possible" then you're probably not used to being very direct. Finally, this time I was able to hear the message he was trying to give me, but it clearly took several tries (5 by his admission, but five spectacularly unclear attempts) for him to figure out how to be direct enough to just say what he meant so I could understand it .

Let's review here. One has an advanced medical degree and a lot of education. The other, one assumes but doesn't know, has probably received quite a bit less education. (This being Maine, and education levels often correlate to income levels, and rich or well-off people usually do not ride buses in Maine.) But which of those people was able to communicate in a way that took 30 seconds to understand, and which took by his own admission 5 tries before he could get the message across?

Our culture has messed up priorities. All of that money, spent educating people on how to obscure the truth and not say what they mean. *Shakes head* Messed up priorities, if you ask me.

On Shame and Labeling Self Hatred as Such

Hello all,

Tonight, I want to reflect on a realization I had during a therapy session today.

Had I more time, I would also reflect on the open mic piece on asexuality I did tonight, which was totally cool, but I want to reflect on this more. I did write about it on Facebook a little.

Today was a beautiful, sunny 65 degree today. I was in an agreeable mood for most of my therapy session, until we hit a snag, as we often do. The snag usually has to do with me revealing something difficult for me and then getting angry because I have trouble understanding when other people understand me. And being alone in such painful feelings, which for me usually include a more than healthy dose of shame, is no fun at all, in fact it's pretty intolerable.

Now, I am beginning to realize that everyone has different ways of expressing that they hear someone, and it's pretty individualized. I realize that for most people, it is ingrained in them NOT to be very expressive with their body, tone or words and that I need to somehow find the people that are more expressive. I get all this, but I still get very frustrated. I am not good at picking up on the subtle body language most people use to communicate understanding. I am trying to get better on that.

But in the meantime, a very interesting thing happened today. I am still trying to process it, which is why I am writing here. Something prompted me to talk about the shame I felt... I can't remember what the experience was (there are so many of them). I think we were talking about the play, and I was talking about how painful it felt for me to have such intense emotions about the play and then to look around me and see that no one else seemed to share them. (And then how happy it made me when a certain other person later in the week had the same experience as me!)

He didn't.... seem to get it. I didn't know how else to explain it to him. He said he got it, of course he did, everyone always does. But it did not feel like he got it. And in my stumbling to try to find other ways to explain it, I stumbled upon the word shame. And that seemed to resonate with him. "How many things do you feel shame about?" he asked. "How many?" I thought. HOW MANY? "All of them." Shame, for me, is not an option. It's not an occasional experience. It's not something I can take on or off, or visit occasionally. Shame, for me, is a battle I do and a feeling I am acquainted with every single waking moment of my life. It sits there like a tight overcoat that you can never quite shake off, and I have become so used to fighting it that most of the time I don't even bother to name its existence.

Apparently, I have become so used to its existence that it didn't occur to me, with all the words at my disposal, to name it to my therapist or to others in my life. I thought it was obvious. I thought my shame was obvious. I thought my hurt was obvious. It was obvious to ME, so why wouldn't it be obvious to others? Only, apparently, that's not how people work. Only, apparently, I have a very bad sense of what other people understand about me. (Well, I already knew THAT. Why do you think I keep asking people to describe what they understand? They keep saying they understand. Clearly, they don't. They keep telling me they understand, and yet they act surprised when I tell them about the shame? Mixed messages here.)

What else can I say about my shame? I feel it is important to label it and describe it and bring it out into the open as much as possible if I am to find a way to get rid of it. Shame cannot survive in the light of day. It thrives on secrecy and darkness.

My shame about who I am is evident in my every thought and move, even when I'm not consciously thinking about it. Where did it come from? It came from growing up as a very different person, with very strong emotions that I was never taught how to regulate. It came from receiving messages again and again, from all different parts of family, culture and the world that who I was was undesirable or wrong. No one knew how to handle me. I was too intense for them. My intensity scared them, scared everyone. They never talked openly with me about it, to my knowledge, but instead thought somehow they could suppress it. They thought they could shame it out of me. Maybe there was guilt involved. Guilt is a cousin to shame. Guilt over not being able to figure out how to help me, over not being able to figure out how to solve my problems. But the guilt was transferred into blame foisted upon me, even if it was not a conscious process on their part.

I am sure this is not how they thought about it to themselves, and I know they loved me. I know they only did it "for my own good" and didn't realize how I would perceive it. I am not saying this to blame them, for I love them very much and don't want to hurt them. I am saying it because a) I desperately need to understand how the shame was installed so that I can figure out how to un-install it and b) if I label it, then the shame can't thrive in secrecy.

This is an open blog, and I run a large risk in writing about it here. I realize that. I simply can't put it off any longer, though. I am going to have to trust that if they happen upon it, which through Facebook and so on is pretty likely, that they can take it in the spirit intended. The spirit being that I love them, I appreciate all the sacrifices they made for me (some of which I may do well to hear the full stories behind to better appreciate them), and I know they did their best. But I have got to be allowed to question their best, I have got to be allowed to question their choices for my own sanity. It is not that I have decided "It's all their fault." It's simply that I've decided maybe it's not all MINE.

And in the process of figuring out how to stop blaming myself, it is only natural that I start to consider the culpability of others. While still realizing that they were there for me in all of the really important ways and while acknowledging with all my heart that there was NEVER a moment in my life where I doubted that I was loved. I always knew I was loved. That's more than a lot of people had. But you can be loved and still have questions. I would love to have an open conversation with them about some of these experiences, but I don't know at this time know how to start it. The best I can do is contemplate the experiences here.  

Back to my feelings about shame. This is all just free flowing, stream of consciousness writing, as all my writing is. My differences didn't have a name - until I was 21 and I happened upon the label of Asperger's. My differences instead just had a "Stop doing that!" or the sound of my name being said sharply when the person wanted me to stop engaging in a behavior that was embarassing them. I felt like I was the only teenager in the world who had to worry about embarassing her parents instead of her parents embarassing her. When I would go out with my family to places, I could always count on being rebuked about my behavior. I talked to strangers too much, perhaps, or I had a habit of stretching my legs against the wall in a way that looked odd to others in public. I was probably fidgety, and I know from others' stories that I had a speech impediment for most of my early years. Certain family members were... probably just as puzzled as I was about why I came across so differently, about why my body movements, speech patterns and emotional expression were so different from others. But I was a perceptive kid. I may not have understood the nonverbal messages and social language of my peers, and I may have seemed like I was in my own world most of the time, but I knew when my parents thought something was wrong with me. I understood the language they used to say "You're doing this wrong." I absorbed it all. Thirty years later, I am just trying to figure out how to seperate myself from it. Being ashamed of myself and my differences is so much a part of me it's as if someone had told me to stop drinking water. How do I do it? I don't know, but I hope to find out.

"What do you expect of yourself?" someone asked me tonight. It was a good question. I realized I didn't have an answer. What do I expect of myself? I expect myself to look, act and behave like others or in as good of a copy of them as I can do. And I constantly internally berate myself for not being able to copy or mimic them. That has to stop. I can only be me. I can only be the best version of myself that's possible.

Back to my therapy appt this afternoon. I was flabbergasted when my therapist said that he didn't understand until I told him that I was feeling shame about myself. How could it not be obvious? I thought.

Apparently, I've done SUCH a good job of trying to copy others that I fooled them a little too much.

I'm a resillient person, and I never lost my ability to feel joy even when in the depths of my social and emotional isolation. It's this people would see, somehow, instead of my pain.

When I was in high school and singing along to songs on the radio, lost in my laughter and joy of the songs on the radio? It was that they saw, and they wondered how I could be so happy. Me, who spent my entire freshman year of high school daydreaming of suicide the way others dreamed of attractive guys - happy? What? Me, who spent my sophomore year of high school engaged in the intense anxiety that comes with severe OCD, spending all her time in rituals designed unconsciously to gain a sense of control over the world? Isolated me who spent her entire junior high school career bullied almost to death? All they could see was my *happiness*? It must have been coming out pretty strongly to hide all the other stuff.

I wonder, I venture to wonder if that is what happened with my parents. I wonder if they didn't notice the pain because the joy was so evident. I have always been a joyful, passionate person. I might not have talked to anyone my age or had any friends when I was a kid, but I had deep conversations with adults and joyful conversations with people in my family or other adults. I just couldn't talk to a kid my age to save my life, that's all. With few exceptions, I still can't, except for some Aspies. Not without debilitating anxiety, anyway. My spirit, perhaps, rang out so strongly with everyone else that they thought there was either nothing wrong with me or nothing wrong with me that was that serious. But it was serious to me. I noticed. I NOTICED, and still do, every time that I did something that was different from other people my age, and I wondered why. I wondered why and I wondered why I was so alone. I wondered if I would always be that alone. I needed someone to talk to me about why I was so different. I needed someone to help me understand it, or at least to find a way to be okay with it. Now I'm trying to figure out how to make up for lost time. At my age, when a therapist or friend tells me there is nothing wrong with me, it no longer registers. That's the unfortunate truth. It no longer can compete with thirty years of ingrained messages. I appreciate them telling me, I appreciate their effort, but that's all it is to me... an effort. My brain won't let me believe they could be telling the truth. I have to figure out how to make myself believe. I don't how to do this yet.

Maybe I was too much like them for them to understand how urgent it was. Maybe they figured that they had been quiet and introverted when they were younger too and I'd grow out of it. Yes, I did develop the ability to have deep, profound conversations with people (almost always older than me, though) and there isn't a person in the land who wouldn't label me a good conversationalist. (Although, I didn't even know I was a good conversationalist until a DJ on the Baltimore country station told me my sophomore year of college. I was flabbergasted that he would think so. He was equally surprised that I was surprised.) But what I absorbed in those early years when it was presumably assumed that I would grow out of it was a self hatred I have never been able to shake - only hide. And that self hatred has kept me from feeling a sense of actual true emotional connection to people for all my thirty years. Shame is such a big emotion, there is no room for anything else. And it's such a lonely place to be.

How can I be so open about myself and yet still hate myself so much? Aren't the two kind of contradictory? 

I have developed such a split personality almost about shame and about myself over the years, that I don't even know how to conceive of it. I was so scared of people until about my junior year of college. I couldn't even walk past a group of guys my age on campus without feeling afraid of them, without feeling like I wanted to run away. Without thinking they might hurt me in some way (emotionally, not physically or sexually, but emotionally is bad enough). It was sometime in my junior year where I had the realization that "Gee, no one's made fun of me for the past two years, and I've been pretty out there, so I must be an okay person." To the world, I maintained that there was nothing wrong with being yourself. To the world, I was the perfect picture of someone who was not ashamed to be who she was. Hell, I sung at the top of my lungs, I said what was on my mind, I was passionate and involved. I literally danced as if no one was watching. There couldn't be someone more proud to be who they were, right? Only, not. I was just trying to cover my own emotions up.

I dove into my music as a way to escape from my emotions. The emotions of living on a college campus with so many people my age to compare myself to were intense, and I would go from euphoria to despair and back again several times each day. The euphoria came from the songs on the radio. The despair came from the self-comparisons I was forced into each and every day. It was a regular occurrence for me to end up sobbing on the couch on the common area of the academic buildings every day after class. I would be able to keep it together during class but would start sobbing before I could get out the door of the building. I would sit on the couch and sob, and people would ignore me or not notice me. I embodied the Hunter Hayes song "Invisible." I was not doing this to get attention. I have never once in my life cried to get attention. I cry because my emotions simply become unmanageable and sweep me away with me them. I cry because the pain becomes too great. I cry because I notice the differences between me and others, and I am overcome by shame. I would cry for hours until the secretary, closing the building for the evening, would notice me and ask if I was okay. All I needed was to feel that feeling of someone caring... and it was enough. But oh so hard to get. My crying overwhelmed people in my life. They could not handle it, and they could not handle me. Enough said about that for now.

The emotions in depressing country songs were the only thing I could relate to. No one could understand how Blaine Larsen's song "How Do You Get That Lonely, " a song about teen suicide, would cause in me a sense of euphoria. I'll never forget playing that song for my psychology professor and having him ask me "Kate, is there something you want to tell me?" No, there wasn't. I wasn't playing the song for him because I was thinking about suicide (by that point in my life, I had gotten over those thoughts). I was playing it because I couldn't believe someone else could relate to the intensity of emotion that I experienced. I had such euphoria over being understood. It made me feel so calm to listen to these words, because I felt understood. It was right there in the song. And all the other songs that the seven country stations I could get in Baltimore played, when they weren't playing songs about drinking and pick-up trucks. Country music is just as split in its expression of emotions and themes as I am. The despair in Rachel Proctor's "Me and Emily," the sense of pain and isolation in Martina McBride's "Concrete Angel" ... these were the only tools I had to figure out how to navigate my intense and overwhelming emotions. I never thought, as a liberal, atheist Democrat, that I'd be so thankful for country music!

I say the above not to make anyone feel bad for me (although I imagine it might be an unintended side effect, and I am just going to have to hope my readers can deal with their own possible feelings of guilt on their own without reflecting them back to me). I say it to illustrate one thing. My emotions were intense, and they needed an outlet. Music was that outlet. When I looked like I was happy because of the songs on the radio, well, okay, I was. But it was only because I was successfully shutting out the world around me. As soon as I took the headphones off, I was plunged back into the world and I couldn't deal. I was able to play-act as someone who was confident in herself because I badly wanted to  be. I even fooled myself for a while. But I wasn't, nor have I ever been, comfortable with or okay with myself. I don't have weight or body image issues like a lot of people my age. Instead, I have global "how I express myself" issues and I can't stop comparing myself to others.

A world that is enjoyed because you can successfully cover up the nasty feelings with something better is not a world truly enjoyed. Not when the energy you use to cover up the nasty feelings keeps you from being able to receive the love and positive energy of the world around you, and only allows you to keep up a good act of having it together and being connected to others.

My therapist told me today that because I am so passionate and emphatic, that I come across as very confident. Aggressive, sometimes, even, which I had not realized. How ironic. I am coming to realize that part of the reason I am probably so emphatic is that I need to be that emphatic to drown out my own messages of wrong-ness and shame every time I open my mouth. Most people with social anxiety or the level of anxiety that I have probably would not talk at all. But I had HAD it with social isolation. I made the choice to talk anyway. When I was in college... I would literally pace back and forth outside my professor's door for 20 minutes each time I went to see them, trying to get the courage up to knock or go in. That's how hard it was for me. Many would have given up, but I made myself do it. It just took a little longer.

So my social anxiety is expressed in the fact that I can't shut up. I need to be talking or filling the space with words. Theirs or mine, it doesn't matter, but since most people don't talk much, or are intimidated by me or whatever, it's usually mine. I can't let there be silence, I am realizing, because that's when my thoughts come through. My thoughts of shame, my thoughts of anxiety and judgement, my realizations of sensory overwhelm. I am always trying to block my thoughts every waking moment, or just to process my thoughts.... Whether it be with music, conversation or writing, I don't really have the ability to be still. When thoughts are blasting you every single waking moment, you don't have the luxury of being still. You need to find a way to express, create, process somehow.
Anti-anxiety meds, for the most part just made me acutely aware that something was wrong while being too sedated to figure out what it was - not exactly the recipe for success.

I would love the chance to rest. But I don't have it. If I put down my burden, it will come crashing down on me. It is a boulder rolling down the hill again and again and like Siphyus (spelling?) I must keep rolling it up the hill again and again until I learn another way to be.

A song has been coming on the radio lately that I love... It has a line that really speaks to me.

The song that keeps coming on that I had never heard before is Already Gone by the Eagles. The lyric that kept getting my attention was 
"So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains 
And we never even know we have the key"

I hope with enough writing, analysis, discussion and just feeling my way through it, and with enough exposing myself to new experiences and trying to be open minded about what happens, that I can eventually find the key.

My therapist ended the session (of which the relevant part was probably only about 5 minutes, but isn't that how it always goes) by saying to me that "Unless you have the intention of hurting someone else, you have no reason to feel shame. Everything you are doing is okay if it works for you."
Simply telling me that I had no reason to feel shame didn't do anything for me, but that line appealed to my need for logic by giving me a litmus test of sorts I could use. And I did... even tonight. Upon noticing that I got along better with guys than girls and starting to feel ashamed of it? Apply the litmus test. Was that hurting anyone else? No. Then should I waste energy feeling ashamed of it? NO. Upon noticing that the #1 bus was one of the new (read, smelly) buses, commenting on it and then feeling ashamed because who else would even notice that (at this point I doubt even the bus driver himself knew) - apply the litmus test. Was my noticing that the bus was a new smelly bus and politely commenting on it going to hurt anyone else? No, of course not. Then did I have a reason to feel ashamed of it? No. Those were just two examples from 5pm to 10pm, but I am hopeful that I can expand them. To have a sense of logic to apply to all the times I catch myself starting to hate myself... would be more helpful than I could even imagine. Let's just hope it keeps actually working.

Tonight, to cap off a day or evening anyway given to trying to throw off the effects of shame, I wrote and performed a piece about asexuality at the open mic night. I have never discussed asexuality in public outside of queer/gay rights activism related spaces. But a month ago, someone there who I admired accused me of calling him an anti-gay slur (after watching a video of a previous performance I did). I was aghast as I certainly had not and would not do that. I ended up leaving the building sobbing. I finally felt able to discuss the incident, in generalities, and without names, and relate it to why I had been so affected by it. I had over-empathized with him and I had taken on what I imagined must have been his emotions when he thought someone was saying an anti-gay slur to him. It threw me back to the days where I felt lost, alone and afraid because I was so unsure about my own sexuality or lack thereof. So I wrote about it, and about the experience of growing up knowing that you didn't fit in anywhere, of knowing that everyone else seemed obsessed with talking about their experience of sexual attraction and not knowing why you didn't share it - how insanely isolating and depressing that was and how finding AVEN (www.asexuality.org) probably saved my life.

It was very well received and I got a lot of wonderful comments about how much courage it must have taken. One girl I admire wants me to add her on Facebook. Two people actually said they could relate and felt asexual at times as well. Very good result.

So... I am doing whatever I can, everything I can , to throw off this sense of shame so that I can feel others' emotions inside of me and not just a sense of isolation. Wish me luck. I think I may need it. I would love to hear of others' experiences as well. Thank you for listening.

On Wanting to Be Understood

I said to my friend who was giving me a ride home from the meetup something along the lines of "I can hardly remember a time in my life where I wasn't feeling intense emotion every waking moment" during a discussion we were having about how some people don't feel emotion very much or all of the time. I said I was having trouble imagining it.

His involuntarily, mostly nonverbal-but-still-verbal response was "God," in a tone of voice... in an under your breath but not quite emotion-intensity filled tone of voice and as he said it.... My mind, my body, my emotions all relaxed. I knew with that utterance that he totally understood what I had been getting at it and it made me feel at peace. All the stuff he said after it were just words and didn't really stick with me. But that one utterance... If only people would realize that A) I don't need them to FIX my problems .... and B) I really want them just to listen and hear me and C) Listening and hearing me means giving some explicit sign that you understand the content of what I am saying, such as repeating it back to me or rephrasing or even an explicit nonverbal sign (subtle nonverbal signs I don't do so well with).

All of the people who have been frustrated with me over the years when I end up getting unintentionally aggressive or overly intense or demanding with them in conversations about emotional matters... would probably be amazed to know that all I wanted from them was a sign they understood, not for them to solve the problem. ..... But is the problem that people simply don't know how to give this? It may be. I can't count the number of times I said to them that was what I was looking for and they got defensive and usually said something along the lines of "You know I understand" (not true) or nothing at all, despite clear entreaties for understanding. Hell, people are willing to call me "manipulative" before they'd give in to give me a one sentence statement that showed they understand. WHY? Why is it so hard for us as a human race (or at least in the Northern US culture I live in) for people to show that they understand one another? Why is that so threatening or difficult? And how much of this is just culturally specific to the northeast US? I have learned just since yesterday that there are cultures that are so much more open and for whom expressing this understanding, as far as I can tell, is just a way of life. Even in the southern US, I am told, it is more like that (probably depending on where you go.) I learned this through the stories my roommate told me last night and through the amazing appearance of a woman who had moved here from Bolivia three years ago tonight at the meetup (first non-white person we've ever had there, very refreshing).
and the reply from a woman named K who I just recently met online.... MCS and AS and from Alberta... A woman after my own heart but so sad so far away.... She gets it like I don't think anyone in my life has ever gotten it... THIS is why I'm so open on Facebook and everywhere else in my life... it might take a LONG TIME, but sooner or later you'll run into someone who can relate. In fact, as a result of my being so open about who I am, about Asperger's and so on no less than three people who I met as part of other communities have discovered their Asperger's diagnosis because of me or as inspired by me... which makes me feel REALLY good. They are so happy to know why they are the way they are. 

She said...

I think I get ya but I have no idea why it's so hard to get this need met. I think my husband (&some ex friendes and ex boyfriends over the years) gets very tired of me "ranting" or going on and on about something. I think they view it as a sign that I am too worked up about the topic and they try to calm me down with comments diminishing the experience... but that is ironically exactly what MAKES me go on and on! I feel like if they're minimizing the experience then they obviously aren't absorbing what I have said, so I try another way of explaining it, or use more superlatives or more swearing to try to convince them how intense my experience was... and they again see me "making a mountain out of a molehill" so try to convince me "Don't take it so seriously"... so I, feeling so much need for them to understand what I have been through, will try MORE to express myself.. so they try more to shut me down... and I try more to explain. They end up seeing me as a freak who can't ever calm down but that's not the truth of it. Really, if they showed understanding in the first couple minutes of my story, I would be so gratified and satisfied... and then it would be done. By fighting to avoid this simple bond of being " on the same page", they are the ones getting me upset and pushing me to keep desperately attempting to get through.

On A Very Special Meet-Up and Rebuilding My Life

Building a Life Out of Sticks and Stones

I had no idea it would feel this good. Driving through Yarmouth with a friend of mine on our way to a meetup I had been going to for almost two years in an adjacent town, I felt a sense of joy.

Two weeks previously, I had moved from a friend's house in Yarmouth. I had been living there for a year, and although I enjoyed the friend I had felt suffocated there because I didn't drive, and there was no public transportation to and from Yarmouth.

The beginning of my new but long-awaited living situation in Portland was rocky, but seemed to smooth out a little bit as the weeks went on. I was surprised by the sudden surge of joy at driving through Yarmouth without feeling tethered to it, though. The joy did not come from being in Yarmouth itself. No, it was an intense joy at being in Yarmouth without living in it. Without being tied to it, without trying so desperately every single day to get out of it.

"GOOD RIDDANCE YARMOUTH!" I thought to myself gleefully as we drove through (our trip of which was extended because I apparently still have the ability to get lost in Yarmouth despite having spent so much of my life in or around it.)

I grew up in Cumberland, adjacent to Yarmouth, and spent a lot of my childhood there for various reasons. So Yarmouth has meant a lot of different things to me over the years. It's funny how that works, how any one stimulus can take on so many different meanings. The convenience store Handy Andy's could either be where we got ice cream as kids before Food Stop opened up their ice cream window, and where my younger brother Spencer and I would ride our bikes to, or it could be where my friend had wanted to take walks by on Sunday afternoons (while in my head I was desperately pining to get to Portland and the hell out of Dodge). It symbolized both childhood fulfillment (the independence of riding my bike all the way to Yarmouth!) and adult longing (wanting to get out of town and into something that fit me better).    

But today, after a year of feeling absolutely suffocated in Yarmouth, I was simply glad to not be living there. There is nothing wrong with Yarmouth per se. If I had a car and a place to live that met my environmental needs, I am sure I'd be very happy there. There is Royal River, a cute but small downtown and a lot of things nearby. But when you don't drive and there's no bus, Yarmouth feels very suffocating.

It renews my strength and efforts to want to try to figure out how to make my current living situation work. I love living in Portland. I am still at the rather overwhelmed stage of all of a sudden having all of these opportunities and things to do, but no structure to fit them into... but I hope a structure and routine will develop. Currently I leave the apartment, situated very close to the ocean and about a mile from downtown Portland, early to mid afternoon and get the #1 bus to downtown. I spend my time between the Jewish museum I volunteer at, the Public Market and gelato place where I often hang out, and any various social activities, lectures or other events I can find going on in the evening that I feel brave enough to venture out to. Whole Foods, as well - my default hang out place when there's nowhere else to go, and the only consistent thing in my life since my life started to fall apart in 2007.

Little by little, I find my way back to myself. Reminding myself, of course, of the one step forward, two steps backwards rule that seems so common. On Sunday, I went into Longfellow Books, a bookstore I used to love downtown, an hour before they closed. I ran my hands over the spines of the books, marvelling in the way they felt under my fingers. I delighted in the intruiging titles, the newspapers, the magazines, the funny humor selection... the whole world that was created in the bookstore that was apart from the one I was so sick of living in in my head. This would seem so simple, so ordinary to everyone else... Yet it was revolutionary to me.

I got brave and went into a Walgreens on the same day. Again, pretty normal for most people, but not for me. I developed chemical sensitivities in 2007 and little by little was forced to stop going into pretty much all public buildings for several years due to chemical and fragrance reactions. It was pretty traumatic for me.

Last Christmas, I made a decision to try to start doing new things again. Knowing that some of my reactions are anxiety based and some are chemical based, I made a decision to try to see which was which. It didn't really work very well until I happened upon social events rather than just going into buildings for the hell of it. I noticed that if I was brave enough to go to a social event in a new building and was able to be distracted talking to someone, the symptoms didn't bother me nearly as much. For example, Panera Bread was not nearly as scary when I was at a book club having some wonderfully intellectual and meaningful discussion about a book with others. Having success with social events in new buildings made it slightly easier for me to entertain the idea of going into other places. I still can't go into 90% of places, but slowly and surely I am trying more places every week. The key is to do in a time and rate that feels comfortable for me, because if I don't feel properly supported and okay about what I am doing, I will just be re-traumatized. My mind is given to be becoming traumatized rather easily. I am impatient but realistic at the same time.
 
I am trying to take back my world. I am starting to catch rare glimpses of myself, to feel like me again, the me that existed prior to 2007. It's an amazing feeling when it comes. Sometimes, though, I get so overwhelmed with how far I have to go that I just want to cry and cry. And I do. But usually I am lucky enough that someone will catch me and give me the encouragement I need to go on. I am so tired of catching myself, of being an island. No man is an island, no man can live without encouragement. Those in my past who have accused me of playing a victim hurt me deeply in doing so, although I know it wasn't their intention. I don't know how to get these very important people to me to see that everyone just needs to be heard. People don't need others to solve their problems, they need people to HEAR their problems.

And if there's one thing we can all do, it's hear each other. We all have ears, a mind, emotions to use in perspective taking. Most people choose not to use them because the weight of emotions is more than they can bear. But those that are able and willing to use it are a gift indeed.

The meetup I went to in North Yarmouth tonight had 15 people. Fifteen wonderful people all wanting and eager to devote three hours of a Tuesday night into listening to the stories of others. Three plus hours spent encouraging others, and making them feel heard, as well as telling their own stories. Almost everyone had to travel a minimum of twenty minutes to get there, most of them far more. Probably a third to a half had nearly an hour to travel. But, for the chance to share and bear witness to the stories of others, they gladly did so. I cannot think of a better gift that one person can give another. It filled my soul. It always does. I have a tendency to start feeling desperate by the time the two week mark rolls around. But I have never left that meetup without feeling my soul replenished, without feeling like I had the energy to try again anew. No matter how dire my circumstances feel before each meetup, and they have often been pretty dire, I always leave convinced that at the very least I can try to change my attitude. We all know these intentions don't always last as long as we'd like them to, but the more opportunity we have to practice and the more encouragement, support and opportunity to interact with other people following similar paths that we have... .the more likely it is to happen on a more regular basis.

These are people trying to figure out how to be at peace with themselves, the world , and their relationships. They all have different stories and different struggles, and different ways of expressing them. Yet, when their story is told, you can almost always find that you have something you can relate to in their story. That makes it feel like you're given the rare opportunity to just be human together... and feel each other's humannness. I've been going to these meetups for nearly two years and for most of them up until the last couple months I almost felt like other people's stories were something I had to suffer through in order to get to my turn to talk. But then tonight for the first time, I was able to sit calmly and really listen to other people's stories, and to see myself in them. I was able to interject comments and relate to others without the overwhelming anxiety that usually would precede me talking in a group (which never stopped me, but wasn't pleasant either).

The absence of the agitation was remarkable. I hope it lasts. I had a rare opportunity of feeling understood shortly before I came to the group, so I am thinking maybe that allowed me to be calm enough to really be present. Who knows. Either way, observing the difference in myself and the way I perceive being in this group over the last two years is really fascinating for me to do. None of the concepts we talked about ever made sense to me for most of the first year or longer. Only in the last two months or so have I all of a sudden awoken to the realization that every single thing the group leader says actually is true or actually seems to have meaning in the context of my life. There is a lot of discussion about spiritual truths and concepts that all seemed very esoteric until now. You have to get to a point of trusting in yourself and the universe before any of it would make any sense at all.

Even though I didn't believe in most of what was being said, I am well versed in needing to take things with a grain of salt. I don't have so many social opportunities in my life that I would pass up one with extremely nice, wonderful, nurturing people just because some of what they said went over my head. I listen to country music, after all. Most of the country songs I listen to have stories I can't necessarily identify with, but emotions expressed in the songs that I identify with more than anything else in the world. In other words, I think I'm learning that you shouldn't necessarily pay attention to people's words, but instead you should try to pay attention to how they say something, their tone of voice and the overall feeling they're trying to communicate. It's a tough message for someone who's spent her life buried in intellect and who has always communicated only in words and ideas - to focus on feelings without the barrier of intellect. I still don't quite know how to do it. But I know I'm going in the right direction and I can only imagine what wonderful things await me once I have a little more practice with it. And I know I have the right place to explore it in.

It's even worth going to Yarmouth for.

Little Moments (On Emotionally Present Vs Detached Conversation)

I have been volunteering at a local Jewish museum lately in an effort to get more involved with the community and meet other people. I have become tired of how stuck in my own head I am and wanted to try to be part of other people's lives, but was quite unsure of how to do this. 

In the people I have met at the museum, I have found wonderful conversations, wonderful connections and so much opportunity to feel like I matter to someone. From intellectual conversations to discussions of emotions to discussions of art and the weather and Jewish culture and whatever else, I have found it here.

But the most amazing thing that has happened has probably occurred when I wasn't actively trying to make anything at all happen. Let me give you an example. One day, I was with two other women who work at the museum, waiting in the room across the hall for the Monday evening services to get out so we could go back into the chapel area. The conversation that broke out while we were waiting was... so delicious in only a way that someone as emotionally starved for conversation as I am could probably appreciate. It was... casual. Oh so casual, and full of... emotion, and people being themselves. Just chit chat of some sort... the topic I don't really remember. The words didn't really matter... It was the delicious flow of back and forth... that I was for once a part of. Just basic chit chat of which I almost never get to be a part of, while we were waiting for the services to end. 

Why is this meaningful? Besides the fact that I was emotionally and socially shut out from the world around me for the vast majority of my 30 years... I have realized in the last few days that nearly all my social interactions involve analysis or high intellectual functioning or discourse. I have realized that the family I grew up in prized intellectual discourse more than anything else, so this became my first language. I have learned that I use analysis of events as a way to distance myself from experiencing the emotions of the events. I am so grounded in analysis that I can't even conceive of how to be truly emotionally present in a conversation. Even my social interactions now all revolve around intellectual events, and I don't like that. I still feel like I am missing something, shut out from the emotion I want to experience in all these discussions. I think I may have finally hit upon what it is. I need to find a way to be emotionally present instead of using intellectual analysis as my one and only way to communicate. This will not be easy as I have few role models. All my friends are Aspies and prone to analysis as well, perhaps not as much as me but in the same way of thinking. My family behaves similarly. In fact, I had not realized just how rare actual basic what would be considered for most people as throw away conversation was until I experienced this conversation at the museum and tried to figure out why it made me feel so wonderful - when the others couldn't seem to remember it had even happened five minutes after it ended. It was normal for them. It was revolutionary for me. 

I have never had the opportunity to just hang around people my age. Not for lack of trying. In college I never had the opportunity, I had a couple friends I sometimes was with but our conversation was never or rarely of the flowing, emotionally present sort. To observe people just being people is revolutionary to me. Everyone that I have been able to observe in my life has always used analysis or intellect as a way to deflect their emotions.  Or maybe sometimes just simply being closed off for other reasons, unemotional or unexpressive for whatever their reason, but I have almost never had the opportunity to observe emotionally present people. And I am starved for it. 

Just one more reason I like country music so much. I don't always agree with the words and I can't always share the experiences in the songs. But the emotions in the voices of the singers are so intense, so wonderfully intense. The sound of the voice speaks to the emotion throbbing in my heart, threatening to overwhelm me. When I am overwhelmed to the point of breaking apart by my own emotions and my lack of ability to find them reflected in anyone around me (so good are people at shutting off their emotions in work environments or public environments and so almost non-existent are my opportunities to join them in private environments) then I turn to my music to find my emotion reflected in the songs on the radio, and this soothes me. No matter what the songs are actually about... Hearing the emotion break in their voices is the only thing that calms me and soothes the savage beast inside me. Being an atheist liberal Democrat, I can take songs about driving trucks and praying to God and find the emotion so prescient that it doesn't matter how religious they are... I've always wondered at that, but didn't bother to probe it too deeply... Just figured that if I replaced some of the words in the songs with other more relevant symbols in my life, the songs would fit just as well. 

I have no idea what to do with all of these insights, but writing about them is the first step to understanding them.  I need to figure out a way to be more emotionally present in my life and a way to observe other emotionally present people to figure out how they do it.  One possible step in this direction will be to try to take an improv acting class, as I believe this could help me learn to be more emotionally present in the moment. I have identified a possible class and as long as I can tolerate the building I will try to take it, it starts in less than two weeks so I am hopeful but don't know if I can tolerate the building yet so we will see. Let's hope so. 

On another country related note, the title of this blog is a Brad Paisley song (the Little Moments part anyway).

Intense connections at First Friday in Portland

Oh man where do I start? Where do I even start? That was such a marathon of a day and a marathon of awesomeness but it certainly didn't start that way. And I'm so exhausted now. But I need to find a way to process. Should I start with the French speaking, geeky, funny in such a me-way gay rights activist I met on Exchange Street while walking to the gelato place, and the approximately half an hour awesome conversation we had, named Tyler? Or the nice friendly comfortable conversations I had with all the awesome people who work at the gelato place, which now has their outside seating open (Warm weather has been greatly delayed this season), which just feels so summery. Or maybe the people I ran into at the Jewish museum, which I decided to go to for First Friday (who I am kidding, I would have gone no matter what the activity was and they know that, lol). Or the girl from the open mic who I ran into at the Jewish museum (I am pretty sure that is one of very few people under 40 I have met or ran into there) who I got to be all conversational with, and I usually don't get to do that with anyone my age. Or the guy about my age with some sort of genetic disorder that made him appear pretty much like an autistic non-verbal person but wasn't. Or the conversation I had with the artist about the guy with the disorder (who he personally knew) afterwards. Or the conversation I had about summer camps with the guy there. And how many nice connections I got to have without even talking to A much, which somewhat stunned me as they were more than usual.

But if I did that, I wouldn't have even gotten anywhere close to the good (or really good) part. I wouldn't have gotten to the part about going to Playback Theatre in the Community Television building at 730 for First Friday, taking a risk because I had not eaten anything and I knew I was running on empty, knew my emotional regulation abilities go to hell when I don't eat (but hadn't enough food to take anything with me), and didn't really want to leave N and T at the museum, but decided to do it anyway because it was an opportunity I knew I couldn't pass up.

The theme for the stories that people were supposed to tell was "Honesty" tonight. They take people's stories from the audience on a theme and play them back to them. There were a LOT of people this time. The one other time I had been there had been maybe 10 or 15 people at most. This time I counted somewhere between 60 and 70. The energy was so WONDERFUL AND VIBRANT. Just walking there was an exercise in amazement. Warm weather first fridays and winter first fridays are SO DIFFERENT. Musical performances everywhere, every block of Congress practically. I must have passed half a dozen people playing the guitar in the two blocks of Congress from Monument Square up! My mouth was open. People everywhere. So amazing.

Then the energy at CTV was so great. And the theme, honesty, which I have spent so much of the last week thinking about and even today posted before I left how frustrated I was that people couldn't be honest- what a sweet opportunity to explore further.

Omg, I am feeling myself fall asleep and I can't do that! I can't do that before I tell you about how I spoke about what could be summarized as learning about the social lies that people tell each other (because the theme was honesty) and how people clapped and laughed and reacted so genuinely and wonderfully.... how it was such an amazing experience.... and how when I sat down, after a lot of comments about how beautiful the story was and people telling me good job and thank you, which always makes my heart sing and today was no exception, the next person got up to go. She comes up to the mic and says "Hi, my name is Dana, and I just want to say hello to Kate first. We went to high school together." I'm like, Um WHAT??? lol In all the 12 years since high school I have ran into people from high school VERY seldomly and before last weekend, I had never had a single meaningful spontaneous conversation with someone randomly from high school in the 12 years since (last weekend's interaction was close but still wouldn't qualify).

So.... at the very same time as I come up with a coherent, powerful theory and story in this public setting about the isolation of my life and then the search for meaning and honesty in my interactions with people in this new stage of my life , someone pops in and says "Hey! We went to high school together." And it felt like it was to some degree so powerful because it was like things came full circle. Here there was, a witness. A witness to the extreme pain in my life, someone who had been there, someone who could both hold my past experience AND hold my present and future experience, and relate to me as the competent person I had become. I was almost shaking with emotion but so .... well just stunned actually, I was sitting there just stunned for most of that night. That thing is way too short, 90 minutes is too short for an event that powerful.

They were so good....They did my story so well.... They were like a chorus that was articulating the thoughts that might go through the head of someone who was trying to learn how to play the social game and felt like they were kind of from another planet. I laughed with recognition at the familiarity and the bizarre feeling of seeing myself represented in someone else.

I think there were some other good ones but I don't have my notes by me and I don't remember. Someone recognized me from the Conversations that Matter series at the Jewish Museum as soon as I set foot in there, I think his name was Arthur. He also told a story there. That would become a theme tonight, the number of people I ran into with connections to the Jewish Museum! So very awesome. There was the woman I talked to afterwards, so wonderful, caring and articulate, who it turns out had been one of the artists that exhibited at the museum a few months ago. Eva someone. Or the improv guy I talked to afterwards, so intense and amazing, who it turned out was the presenter at the very first Conversation series at the museum.. David LaGraffe. That's a lot of connections to the museum in one night, ha.

I kept my eye trained on Dana when she sat down so I could talk to her after. Oh, there were so many people I wanted to talk to and could have, would have, but I knew I couldn't pass up that opportunity. She seemed to want to talk to me as well. How amazing... when I walked up to her she started to do the standard "How are you" act that people have upon meeting strangers or new people, and then CAUGHT HERSELF, realized she was acting, dropped the act and related to me authentically. And all this happened nonverbally in a way I was able to realize and name and it made me feel so much closer to her.

She was one year behind me in high school, I found out. I asked her what she remembered of me. She replied that she remembered me from Inkwell, which I had forgotten. It was a literary magazine that I vaguely remember doing. She told me she was impressed by the comments I made about pieces when we were deciding which pieces to use or not. (In all the years since high school I didn't even once remember or think of being on the editorial board, I was too isolated to have actually remembered it in a social way. When prompted, I remember DOING it, but I don't remember talking to anybody.) I replied, well that's very nice but tell me how I really was. In the face of her compliments and, I thought, flattery, I thought she was just trying to make me feel better. But it would become apparent that that was how she truly experienced me. "Very smart, very shy" she said. Well, that would seem to sum it up. "You were so nice to people, saying hi to everyone, very open and generous with your time and wanting to help others," (or something along those lines) she said. She hadn't been in school much and didn't remember that much but what she did remember (and that she remembered at all since she said she didn't remember many people and hadn't been in school much of the time) was telling.

What I want to do more than anything else right now is find a way to rethink myself. I am beginning to realize that all the feedback I had "assumed" was valid from my peers, family, etc was probably misinterpreted in some way, or over-exaggerated in my head in others. No one's fault  but the way it was. I need to replace it with others. I have had thirty years of self hatred and now I just want to start liking myself.

I want to take all the feelings of "different, invalid, less then, disabled, a burden, not able to do what matters" that weighs me down so heavily each and every day when I so much as glance at another person, and replace it with "Intelligent, caring, articulate" and....  WHAT ELSE? Strong, insightful, joyful, loving? Herein lies the rub, most people in my life seem to think that my desire for validation is tantamount to playing the victim or lying in my wounds without moving on. But it couldn't be further from the truth. If I can understand how my buttons got installed, I can un-install them. That requires focusing on them for a while to re-interpret all of my seminal, founding experiences that created my concept of myself. I need other people to tell me how they experience me so I can start to figure out what good, positive descriptors I can put in there instead. The positive words I used are iffy, cautious, with very little backing. The negative words I used I could repeat in my sleep and have such emotional backing to them, their energy could power a million generators. It will be a battle to change them but it is a battle I need to fight.

Before I left today, I was sitting at the window and couldn't help but see the people playing on the tennis court across the street (yes, there is a tennis court across the street). In my weakened, emotionally vulnerable state this morning, I fell prey to the familiar emotional traps in my brain. The simple sight of a girl my age playing tennis across the street... was enough to make me depressed. It was enough to start the tapes of self hatred, the tapes of "what I should be". The older people that played after her did not trigger it, but it was a sober reminder of how much I have arranged my life to avoid interactions with people my age not in the disability community, and how much self-hatred and self comparison those experiences can still trigger. I want to uninstall that. I don't want to spend the rest of my life hating myself, especially for no reason, or based on invalid information.

It has not escaped my attention that of all the social events I go to, most of which are at the Jewish museum but not all - Margie's meetup, or the deaf film festival, or so on - in all these events I almost never meet or talk to anyone my age. I can stand in a room full of people over 40 and am so completely comfortable with them, I don't even notice most of the time that there is no one my age there. There was at the film festival but I mostly only talked to the older people, quite unconsciously. Tonight when I was walking by the eastern prom when I got home, furiously trying to process my intense thoughts, the universe decided I needed yet more lessons on top of all the other lessons today. I was sitting on a bench thinking... and observing that the eastern prom seemed to be alive with people around my age talking and gathering and BEING HONEST and authentic. It was Friday night around 10 and the first night warm enough to go without a coat all season... the place was alive. But not with scary people. With real people. I even caught the end of a conversation among 3 or 4 young people that went something like this. Well, I don't remember the words, but. They were talking about a mutual friend who was very smart but allowing himself to be trapped by the words of an insane girlfriend. "He's so smart... almost autism...but that woman... is like a disease." (It's amazing or maybe not the level of casual profanity peppering their conversations. It did not feel like they used it gratuitously though. It had so much emotion to it and was used to convey so much emotion, as a really important/meaningful adjective, that it felt almost a privilege to listen.) The way they talked was fascinating! The words they used, the tone, the way they used the words, they way they expressed .... so different and so much more raw and present and prescient then the conversations I am used to. All of the young people's conversations sounded like that. I was not able to listen as much as I would have liked without it being weird, but there was a raw honesty I have long seeked being expressed there.

So there I sat, considering all the intense connections I had had that day and trying to figure out how to change my perception of myself, when the very group of people I had felt so seperate from walks by me and happens to have a casual conversation about a friend of theirs who is basically "so smart... almost autism [smart]." They used autism as a synonym for smart. Seriously. They did. I'm sitting there thinking oh my god.... How do I even find these conversations??? The universe brings such amazing things to me when I am open to it.

I did not know... that people would do that, would use autism as a synonym for smart. I could tell... that that is what they were doing. I could tell.... I stood there after they left, saying out loud to myself "They care. They care. They care! They care! They care!" the words tasting so funny in my mouth, so rusty yet so stubborn. I could for the first time have a little bit of an idea how the typical peers I so envied might view me. The easy going , partying, rough, scary peers, the ones so aggressive in their normality I was scared to the other side of the room or city, clearly were admiring of their not typical peer - admiring, and protective, and caring and not disliking or demeaning at all. Admiring - that's the feel I got from the audience when I was telling my story in front of them for Playback Theatre tonight. Admiring and almost awe - Almost awe. So many people telling me what courage I had afterwards. I have spent my life believing the worst of what I thought people thought of me - could I possibly dare to believe that other people actually admired me, actually were in awe of me, actually enjoyed me? And why is that so much more difficult than believing that they see me as different, less than, and a burden? Especially when at least in the last few years I have gotten so much more of the first feedback? Food for thought, to say the least.

There was the woman whose questions about my experiences after the Playback Theatre were so welcome, so gentle, so lovely... who tried as best as she could to explain to me the answers to my deep, probing questions. The furthest she got was to say that we all have basically an implicit agreement and understanding that everyone is lying when they talk socially.... But where do you go from that and how do you take that knowledge and turn into a way to connect with others? Still exploring that question and wanting to find answers to it. I said to her after, "There's no way you could have that level of sensitivity and thoughtfulness and not work in the healing professions. What do you do?" I expected her to say she was a therapist, close enough. She's an energy healer. Can I spot them or what? And she was an artist who had presented at the museum, so I need to remember to ask about her. Eva someone.

There was the conversation with Dana, who was visiting this weekend from Boston, and her parents who also remembered me from high school, somehow. Then there was, just as everyone had left, the conversation with David, who does the improv classes. I told him I wanted to do improv, and what ensued was a long conversation about what improv is, what its value is, what its value for people with disabilities is, and a test improv conversation at which if I don't mind saying myself I excelled at. I love improv and always have, but have never gotten to do it formally. It embodies so many of the principles of the floortime theory of autism... circles of communication, perspective taking, meeting someone where they're at. So it looks like I now have an improv class to take as long as I can tolerate the building which I will try... in South Portland, starting May 15, 8 weeks, Thursday nights, $15/class. I think it will be amazing, if it works. I liked him a lot.

People were stunned by me. I have thought and said enough negative interpretations of people that I think I have the right to say that. I could tell. People were stunned and impressed by me. And that felt good. But rather than forgetting it 2 hrs after it happens... I want it to stay with me this time. I want the positive feedback to stay with me, for myself to realize that I may be different, I may experience the world far more intensely and may not follow the operating instructions or manual that most of the rest of the humans come with, but that doesn't make me worse or not worth knowing... Just means I come with different operating instructions. I can still do amazing things. I just need to do them differently. Seeing someone do things the typical way should not be cause for self hate.

I got a ride back with the improv guy... was so full of myself in a good way that I was able to totally be in myself when I asked this girl to hold the door to the building, and another girl what street I was on. And I could tell from the way they related to me that there was a subtle but profound difference in the way they related to me - they related to me as themselves. Maybe it is.... if I keep approaching interactions with one foot in and one foot out and keep doing the dance all about, others don't know if they're in or out either. If  I approach confidently... then they can approach confidently, and we can connect. It is all about building a positive, strong, stable sense of self, but that is something I can't build with words or affirmations alone. It is something I need to EXPERIENCE in the community and then realize belatedly that I have done. That is another reason why validation and validating relationships or experiences are so important.

I didn't even mention the guy who works at the gelato place who came in and said "Oh, the humidity is so disgusting" and I'm like "What did you just say?" He repeated, I told him That makes me so happy, He said Why?? I said Because I have been saying that for days but thought I was the only one.

I actually found someone else willing to complain about a sunny 65 degree day after six months of winter because it was (only a little and only in comparison to winter but still, a little muggy, a little humid). After ironically I had complained about that before I left, feeling the familiar sting of self hatred because I knew I was the only one who would complain about that after 6 months of winter when it was 65 out... but I was wrong. That came up not once but TWICE today. TWICE, the second time being with the improv guy, people mentioning how they hated the air. !!!!! Finding yourself in others is so crucial, I need to find a way to spend the rest of my life exploring these relationships. The feeling when you finally connect is unlike any other on earth.

I need sleep. !!!! Emotional connections over physical discomfort ,I need to remind myself and try to live this and everything else as much as I can and patience I hope.