I wrote a letter about 9 weeks ago, as my future self then, now my more recent former self…
It was dated May 1, 2022. Now it’s May 18th, and feel the last details syncing into place. The update is nearly complete. This update. Not the last one of course.
This is the song that never ends…
Now, I find my alignment more easily. I no longer look outside myself for calibration, except as it pertains to my own center. Apparently this is autistic of me. I think I might have suffered less if I had realized it sooner, and also, what is not, can not be. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet…
I think within three days, by the 21, which will be 9 weeks, I will indeed be upleveled…another layer shed, another mask painting and hung, another level of capacity to cultivate fun…
The virus moving through me is one of countless opportunities, to focus on wellness, light, love, acceptance, strength, letting go, allowing, love, love, love…
Dancing. Breathing. Smiling. Resting.
I took more ibuprofen today, even though it numbs, the pressure on my facial/cranial nerves from the tooth/gum infection combined with whatever this virus passing through is…made it seem like the more sound choice. All a work in progress. I trust myself again. More. I see humanity is mostly asleep, mostly wounded, mostly acting as they are programmed. It’s easy to forgive us. We are indeed children of consciousness. Consciousness is unfolding in and through us. We have a lot to grow into, not even counting infinite evolutionary potentials.
Excuses and reasons. A fine distinction. Egoic mind has a lot of reasons to explain why the story is useful, the story is not an excuse but a reason, which does somewhat excuse…life doesn’t excuse though, it simply acts in accordance with its own nature. Humans are predictably chaotic. One of my main missions has long been to soothe. Relax. Me and you. We can do more from a coherent state. Chaos is only useful when it has a container…the feminine held by the masculine. Safe. Powerful. Divine.
I still think I would do better with the right partner. I have done worse with many however…or…it seems that way from here fairly often. We never will know how the other timelines would have went…will we? Yes, yes. So fourth grade indeed.
Evening:
Better and better.
I’m back on a good track. I can only get back to it when I fall off, or fall further. I am getting good at identifying and naming, loving, alchemizing. This is how love grows.
I stand for my highest self, for our greatest good, for our collaborative adventures. I stand for potentials and progress and shaking things up. I stand for open discourse and questioning authority. I stand for quirks and quantum playgrounds and wrinkles in time. I stand for mystery and magic and majesty. I stand for evolution and iterations and asymmetry. I stand for beauty and truths and fluidity. I stand for the wild wild, the hunger, the satisfaction, the glistening eye. I stand for spark, for freshness, for new ways of seeing and being. I am here as space for the new paradigm to unfold in. I am a vessel of the void. I am the ing that causes and escapes the gap. The glitch in the matrix. The seed of dissonance which dissolves itself into clarity.
Pain is data. I am alive. Incoherence is destructive and only useful to break the pattern…even that…I can manage with much greater precision. I am re-inspired. Even more inspired. Inspired again. What a magnificent dance. What a wonderful song.
I feel clear even as my bones are inflammed and my teeth and head have been hurting for a long while. Sinus burn…passing through quickly though, and quite manageable. I am aware of how lucky I am. How I have been cultivating these gifts, unconsciously to a large degree, and yet, right on time.
I am sorry not to be working in Zuni, but can’t be too sorry, as I am super grateful to have this time to care for myself, process, catch up a bit, settle, regain some coherence, and get through some dentistry… I’m still healing, fending, mending, bleeding, renewing, transcending. I am a natural born leader. I am preparing to step up. Perhaps I am prepared. Perhaps I am already in front. I do not need to be seen like I did. I only need to see myself, love myself, trust myself, show up for myself. The ALL will come with me, because we are, I am, I can, I will…this will is strong. This will my mother finds offensive. This will shines in the darkness and looms in the sunlight. This will is a budding blossom a developing epiphany and quantum thread through everything. I draw you in. I draw myself back to the
The remaining two people I had to talk to regularly have gone dark. Cut me nearly completely off. Nicely, which I appreciate. The usual. Too much. Can’t even. Just can’t. They have lives which I do not fit into. They don’t say anything, they just pull back. Well, they do say “I have a lot going on right now”. Me too.
I understand. I feel not helpful or valuable or anything but a fucking burden to anyone I need from in this life. Just do the laundry, water the plants, and go away quietly while we visit and plan with the people we love. Die quietly or we will despise you even more.
They message me now and then, setting new, much more distant boundaries. No acknowledgment of the tearing. I feel abandoned again. I am getting used to it though, as I should be by now. Just weeping lately and hurting and distracting. Trying. Failing. People try to ‘help’ by telling me it’s my fault and how easy it should be to get my shit together. Just get a job, essentially. As if I have not had thought of that. As if I have not been traumatized by a half dozen failed attempts in the last three years. As if I was not struggling for my sanity and functionality nearly every fucking day.
I get messages that I am difficult, taxing, hard to love, and just not valuable to anyone for anything. They have both made clear they will still correspond, just, not fully, not openly, not as my free self anymore. Only if I keep it real superficial and mostly fake. Do not show my true colors or express my opinions or perspectives. Nice weather. Oh yes, there are approved topics and approved opinions, and all others are no longer allowed to exist. Conform or cease, that is all.
I nearly constantly monitor myself and pull back, pull back, pull back. Limit. Limit. Limit. I find this confusing as I feel in such an increasing state of need and dysfunction. It would be easier if I had a secure place to call my own. My secure place is no longer secure. Threats abound from several directions.
Becoming more aware of my dysfunctions has not yet panned out to mean less of it. In fact, now I have yet another thing to analyze. It does help me be more protective of myself, and forgiving to others. I know it only matters that I do not betray myself. I feel like that has been my default position most of my life. Loyalty to others, betrayal of self. Of course, it feels like the other way around. It all gets tumbled around and then works out in the wash.
This frees me up I suppose. I can’t regret this amazing life, as I love my son and so many wonderful experiences. It is hard to realize that is it then. There is no after party or point or successes to be had. Just the slow rot back to muck. The best you can hope for is to die alone in your sleep. I thought that was a possibility last night. Of course, it nearly always is.
I think I should be braver and make an exit plan that does not leave a mess for others, or leaves an appropriate mess somewhere, like in a court house. If only I could splatter my brains and heart in such a way that it would make some significant positive change. A poem of sorts. Some way to make a positive change. That probably isn’t it.
I don’t see any way anymore. I don’t think I quite have the courage or strength anyhow. It is harder than you think to kill oneself or any other. Easier too, I suppose. It just happens eventually. Expiration.
I thought I was infected by some strong virus last night, and I might be. Shakes. Chills. Dizzy. Body aches. I think I slept 7 hours, which is a lot for me, especially recently. I have not had the chills like that in years. It could be more thyroid failure or perimenopause, or maybe I am just a fucking whiner, and there is not actually anything wrong with me except I am a fucking waste of space. I know I created a lot of toxic chemistry in my body on Wednesday and Thursday, melting down, not handling things well. I think there are good strategies and solutions out there, and I will continue to line up with them.
I’m working and not getting paid…or, got cheated out of payment for the last several hosting jobs. I don’t see much recourse outside of engaging more with the toxic wasteland that is out ‘justice system’. I get blinded by rage. It’s best if I disengage.
I am trying to care for myself but keep running into walls in every direction. I’ll put on a coat and walk I guess. See if I can shake some of these tears off. My arms hurt terribly. My spine hurts. My hands and feet hurt. My teeth hurt. All of that pales next to the hurt in my heart. My mind. To feel so shunned by the people I have been so loyal to. I suppose it is just another example of how I am as stupid as any living thing ever was. I don’t know why I can’t just be happy asleep. Happy as a fucking zombie or, want the simple boring life of insignificance. Why I think I need anyone else to see me or love me. Why I wasn’t born more lovable. Why my own touch isn’t enough. I think I will get a heavy blanket, and stop trying to get along with people.
[Anybody got some worms? I will put some audio book on and walk about. My fucking bones hurt badly. My heart hurts worse. Okay knees. Heart. Hands. I am grateful that I still trust you enough to get me around the block. I’ve got guest turnover today, and again, no pay. Airbnb has just fucked me out of the $833 I was counting on to pay my mortgage and some utilities with, and no recourse. Also has me ‘by the balls’ to continue working for free or they will bill me further. There is no human to appeal to. We are all meat cogs in a meat cog eating machine. The new ‘gig economy’. I will not continue to participate, as it eats my goodness, kills my soul, and is fundamentally wrong. Most humans will continue to go along with it though. Things are lining up for a real fucking shit show. Meh.]
Let’s talk about meaning. Identity. Theories of mind. The relative perspective of one thing to another. The continuous ever-changing seas of change…
Below, I have copied and posted a quote from a peer reviewed academic paper about the history of the term ‘autism’…
It is interesting to me to note that the AI grades that paragraph a “C”, college level (16th). I start writing and instantly bring the readability score up and the grade level down. I could see this as a disadvantage or deficit but I see how it can serve me and my potential future readers quite well. I have known I am sort of bridge or ‘the leap’ in the gap for some while. I am the ‘ing’ in everything. Or, maybe just one thing.
I only recently realized that my deficit in social skills is not merely my high intelligence (though that certainly does play a part in the equation), but also, this blind spot that others see so clearly…and, more significantly at the moment, is how that reflects back into the people who have been closest to me and then cast me out. And of course, society at large. Now my defiance seems much more ‘justified’ and aligned, and my mission is apparent with much more clarity. Advocacy. Awareness. Appreciation of our differences. We have so much to offer one another, in the way of forgiveness, gifts, experiences, opinions, dramas, lessons…
I do love this life, even when I can’t quite figure out if it has any meaning or purpose. Even if it is all merely a speck of star dust in the back of a sheep’s eye (that’s an ewe’s eye to you 😉 ), even then, it’s still a really great stage for having a fuckingfuntastic time.
I have always excelled at reading and writing comprehension. I enjoy finessing words into sentences and paragraphs to convey meaning. Wordsmithing, a partner of mine used to call it. It helps to know my audience. Generally, my audience is my own mind. Not long ago, I had that tallied over on the ‘problematic’ side of my life equation. Now I see with new clarity, how every obstacle is still the way, and how this thing that is a problem in some contexts, is a gift in other contexts.
Yes, I see the disjointedness and incoherence of my current paragraphs…one reason I loved college so much is that there is time and appreciation for rearranging, editing, getting the words just right for a specific single person grading it, tailoring and orchestrating meanings and patterns, in order to maximize transmission of meaning, to create play in reading, to infuse my ideas with the unspeakable magic of rhythm and juxtaposition. Delightful.
My recent epiphany about myself on the autism spectrum continues to unfold in surprising ways. I am not shocked by any of it anymore. I am in day 11, since I realized this about myself and my entire life story–my whole sense of identity shifted. Talk about a mind virus. Autism and other terms…well, really every word is a meme–a potential mind virus. Psychological terms, constructs of disease and dysfunction, are alarmingly contagious and pervasive. The realization that I am ‘on the spectrum’ in ways I had not previously realized, that the discussions of dysfunction and incoherence and disruption and disability pertain to me in ways I had not realized before,
My given name is Gabrielle Dee Lilly. This has a unique history like every name does, and is perfectly suited to me. Both, the person dictates and name, and the name dictates the person. Messenger. Truth bringer. Voice of the Great Mysterious All. This is a collaborative, cocreative eternal process. At least, to our very narrow perspectives, it seems eternal for all intents and purposes.
Imagine if you will, a few adults in the budding field of psychiatry, in what later became eugenics, then got botched a bit by Hitler, and is currently thriving as one of the most provitable human-life-essence-sucking-machines the world has ever seen. I call it the Industrial Disease Complex. We are all infected. We continue to co-create it. I bring it to the light as often as I can, because in the light, we begin to see the gifts inherent in our shadows.
“The concept of autism was coined in 1911 by the German psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler to describe a symptom of the most severe cases of schizophrenia, a concept he had also created. According to Bleuler, autistic thinking was characterized by infantile wishes to avoid unsatisfying realities and replace them with fantasies and hallucinations. ‘Autism’ defined the subject’s symbolic ‘inner life’ and was not readily accessible to observers (Bleuler, 1950[1911]: 63). Psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists in Britain used the word autism with this meaning throughout the 1920s and up until to the 1950s (e.g. Piaget, 1923). However, in the 1960s, many British child psychologists challenged the contentions about infantile thought assumed by Bleuler and created new methods to validate child psychology as a science, in particular epidemiological studies. ‘Autism’ was then completely reformulated as a new descriptive category to serve the needs of this new model of child development. From the mid-1960s onwards, child psychologists used the word ‘autism’ to describe the exact opposite of what it had meant up until that time. Whereas ‘autism’ in the 1950s referred to excessive hallucinations and fantasy in infants, ‘autism’ in the 1970s referred to a complete lack of an unconscious symbolic life.”
Let’s talk about divergence and diversity. When it comes to neurology, human societies currently tend to designate a bell curve of normalcy, and then everything on the fringes of the bell curve is designated divergent, or, outliers. Outliers are notoriously problematic in scientific study, and also, the leading edge of change. They are the points that lead to new discovery, expanded awareness, the evolution of consciousness.
In a similar way that we used to be clear about ‘women and children first’ protecting the ‘weaker’ or most vulnerable among us because in them is our future; we would be wise to honor and appreciate those who are neurodivergent from the center lines of ‘normalcy’, as they hold the hope for our future.
My grandmother Dee was surely an autist as well. She used to tell my mother, also autistic, that she should never wish to be ‘normal’, as normal is the most boring, unimpressive thing a person can be. I tend to agree, though I also do see the need for a center line of normalcy in order to have a coherent society.
We need both: A majority we call normal, and outliers who push and pull and disrupt norms in order to keep us evolving healthily. We would be wiser to appreciate and value the diversity of humanity, and honor one another in all cases as tiny shiny specks of the same system. We are loving consciousness unfolding. We are life eating its own tail as well. We are the ing and the ism and the ed. We are the living dead, the fully alive, the thriving, the dying, and the not yet born.
Coherence is a key I would like to focus on in myself, my social circles, and the broader systems of society. Incoherence reduces our flow, our positive progress, and the expansion of loving consciousness. Coherence unlocks new frontiers of wellness, cooperation, and realization. It is exciting to think of our collective potential and realize how immature we are. How we are only beginning to become aware of our Super Capacities.
We are multidimensional light beings. Crystallized fluid. Consciousness in the now.
I am a leader. I am a good-natured grinning fool. Walk beside me. We got this.
Next up: Is Autism the Divine Feminine Reemerging?
Surveys to help individuals figure out strengths and weaknesses in communication, empathy, and coherent body-mind activities.
I am having so many mixed feelings. I feel more clear about my need to write, and will stop being frustrated that no one can handle talking to me for very long. I am indeed, very hard to love. I love myself more and more all the while. If I don’t do it, who will?
It will take some getting used to and I am not sure my circuitry will abide. This model is argumentative and defiant. A core feature of me is that I question authority. I can see why authorities would prefer to ‘do away’ with me.
I think the twist currently being called autism is one you either have or don’t. Like brown hair or being left-handed. I think probably many more humans do than we think, but the stigma of being needy, of not being independent, or not conforming…just compliant enough but not fucking needy. Perhaps this is the goddess–aka the divine feminine– reemerging in us.
I am auburn and nearly ambidextrous. My grandmother and my son are left-handed, which used to be considered as much a disability or divergence as autism is today, maybe, and, well, certainly comes from that same Mobius strip twist. I love that the autism community has adopted the infinity/mobius as a symbol, and am intrigued that meta has as well, with a little bend in it. Interesting indeed.
Don’t be too independant, but, just independant enough. AI has already run circles around us in so many ways. In fact, it is only the twist and the originality, to non conformity which it has not mastered. If we are exterminated, then I see how rote programmed human meat machines will serve the metal/mineral, non breathing replacements we are creating.
If I was in charge of breeding us, I suppose I would consider autism a good idea gone wrong, maybe. Or, I would be trying to maximize positives and kill off the negative extremes. This happens naturally with evolution, so, we could say consciousness is doing that. The battle between conformity and originality, or authenticity, rages on. I try to move it out of my body more. I am from the wild-wild, and also, see ways to update systems of conformity…only if we are indeed aiming for democracy and expansion and love and equality. If we are aiming for domestication and disease and dysfunction…I’d really rather not play that…I’ll probably just splash around here awhile.
Lakes and mountains are closed again. I would not have believed so many things about the way things are if you had suggested this would be the case when I was young. And so, what will our future look like? Whatever we imagine it to be. Whatever we become.
The stigma, the temptation to give in to deficit, delay, disability is extreme and overwhelming at times. However, seeing my limitations from a new, wider angle, allows me to step back into my abilities and navigate the cracks with more information… I still think it is very good. I absolutely must get my finances more secure…not sure still about pursuing a formal diagnosis…not sure any help is available, and not sure if it is that it will be worth the cost. On the other hand, if I could get a glucose monitor, some regular income, and a therapist to talk to, maybe a coach, I know I could do much better than I am.
I am not sure if it is better for more people to be diagnosed, but I am positive the current questions are causing many to weed themselves out. 26 of 50 of the AQ questions are likely to be answered ‘incorrectly’ by an autistic mind, or a parent wanting a child to be normal. 12 of the questions on the ASSQ, and 6 of the RAADS-14, if one can even get past the ridiculous format for answers. If I adjust for idiocy*** in the ASSQ, and evaluate my child self, I score 54 of 54, and on the RAADS-14, 36 of 42. I am certain I have whatever twist is being studied…I am not certain that half the population doesn’t, and it’s not just the weak stupid uncreative faction trying to keep the more programmable population programmed and paying for their gold watches and whatnot…castles and slides?
I would like a snow slide, still. Yes, I am aware of the drift. I allow it consciously, playfully, because I don’t give enough of a fuck to conform to boxes that have nothing in them for me. Why the fuck would I not “deviate”? That is not necessarily a dysfunction, is it? Don’t we need diversity? Are not the traits of creativity, honesty, integrity, originality what we need more of? Yes and no, I suppose.
I think I will be addressing this. If someone would pay me, I would love to dive into it deeper, and I probably will anyhow, because this is my life and I feel it might help others. My drive to be helpful, useful, have some purpose, is agonizing for many years of my life. Increasingly as I see the potentials slipping away and waste more and more of my energy weeping uncontrollably.
The classic question: “I always take things literally.” is impossible for an autistic mind to answer accurately. Clearly these tests are written to highlight disability and dysfunction. To instill disempowerment. To make us dependent on a system. The system that would put us to death in an instant if it could find a way to do it cheaply. Yeah. Fuck them.
I am freshly insulted by humanity at large. I forgive my mother and Alex for their own blind spots, and for not wanting me in their lives, difficult as I am. I think I must celebrate myself, cultivate myself, do what I can to be bright and successfully happy to show my son a potential way… I forgive humanity for believing what seems safest, and for sleepwalking through most of their zombie vampire lives. I forgive myself for my own limitations and failures. We are doing the best we can from where we are with what we have.
Breathing. Bouncing. Stretching. I am not happy about losing so much strength. Think I better tighten up this program, big time.
I think a lot will get better if I get this tooth fixed…not sure how. A month to go to get a dentist to try, though she is not convinced it will make it feel better. Maybe I take the antibiotics Dr Lim gave me…though that could make everything worse… How about get back on track with cleaning, bills, productivityville. Listings. Mushrooms. Courses. Books. Yeah. Perserveration.
“psychology : to have or display an involuntary repetitive behavior or thought : to exhibit perseveration
Any person … whose social skills have been severely deficient since very early childhood, who started to talk late or whose communicative use of language is inadequate, and who perseverates and lacks cognitive and behavioral flexibility meets the diagnostic criteria for an autistic-spectrum disorder.
— Isabelle Rapin”
My use of language is not inadequate, but the effect is the same. It is overadequate, too far out, hard to follow unless a mind is very fast and the knowledge and experiences are vast. The numbers of humans I could connect with continue to dwindle.
Markus is in hospital with hernia…I imagine this changes his plans with me and Zuni. If there were some. He has been near the edge some…we gracefully keep going as best as we can. No one knows what is really right. Even if they think they do, they can not know any more than me and you do. We are all specks of life. I see consciousness evolving through all of us.
Leo too, holding onto threads, biding time, dying slowly. He stands up to hug me and I know it’s good for us both.
Of value, from me. Laundry, beds, laughs, color. I will continue with the things I am into, as they all align just fine with my new revelations…only now, I will add the reference, admition, discussion of neurodiversity and neurodivergence. Important distinction…is there a normal we aim to or is there a creative edge we aspire to? Both, and.
I’m the type of person that plays in quantum fields. I’m the type of person that chooses joy. I’m the type of person that gets things done. I’m the type of person that let’s go of whatever no longer serves me, regularly. I’m the type of person that loves, laughs, and makes wellness a priority. I’m the type of person that enjoys living fully alive.
My mom told me recently that she had to have a neighbor come over to help her hold me down to bathe me. I had an intense fear of water for several years and later an intense love for it. I still love watching moving water, it calms me right down.
I had reoccuring nightmares about drowning which haunted and terrified me for years.
I did strange ritual dances at my driveway and at the creek in grade school. I had intimate relationships with the elements and with imaginary beings. I made fudge for fairies and left it under trees.
I collected and still collect specific rocks.
I have a wide variety of special interests that might seem odd, and I dive deep into them with an intensity that makes most people uncomfortable and exhausted.
People like me to be in thier group sometimes, but they don’t like ME when I am in their group, sometimes.
I would not keep my clothes on as a toddler, have always preferred a very limited set of clothes and accessories, have always been sensitive about textures and colors.
I wear the same bracelet, earrings, or necklace, if it does not irritate me, for months or even many years without ever taking it off. I didn’t realize how strange this is.
I frequently find out things I have always done seem super strange to others.
People I have known for years will stop talking to me suddenly and never explain why. It has happened a lot in my life.
My ‘best friend’ in jr hs made me walk a quarter mile behind her so her ‘real friends’ wouldn’t see her walking with me.
Thoughts ricochet in my mind for years, and insults or confusing statements/unsolved problems permeate my body, even when I sleep, making it a matter of life and death sometimes to resolve conflicts and misunderstandings.
Some days I just weep uncontrollably for hours.
I had severe hives nearly every day and night for about 12 years growing up.
People often call me childlike, or a free spirit.
I like mud. I don’t mind getting dirty.
I am tall and strong ‘for a girl’.
People find me annoying or get angry without me understanding why often.
I frequently feel blindsided by people’s responses to me.
Lots of things catch my attention and irritate me, or bring me bliss. I love looking at flowers, insects, earth, water, sky, leaves moving…
I hear and see details others don’t and I think about ‘far out’ connections.
I hyper focus on things and outlast/outperform others when I set my mind to it, at nearly any cost.
I fail at most of the things I try, yet I am tenacious about achieving things, even when I get subpar results for my efforts.
I was incarcerated at ages 13, 14, 15.
I have been sexually assaulted and raped more than once.
I nearly always feel completely traumatized by doctors and other authority figures.
Eye contact is more intimate than sex to me in many cases.
I am attracted to energy and intellect.
I masturbate regularly.
I scored well in school, was skipped grades, and then dropped out.
People tell me I am difficult, trying, and hard to love regularly. People fall in love with me easily and then fall out of love with me abruptly, or it seems that way to me.
I never know how to answer self identity questions for password clues.
I am deeply perplexed by wrong wording.
I love to play with phrasing and rhythms.
I have a great singing range and can mimic some other singers, at least to a degree.
I have emotional meltdowns that I can’t control.
People misunderstand me all.the.time.
Jokes have to be explained to me and usually are just not funny.
I say “I don’t know what that means.” a lot.
Hardly anyone gets my sense of humor, though they frequently find me hilarious when I am just telling stories about my life/perspective.
People find me rude, abrasive, weird, and delightful, magic, and inspiring.
People think I am lying or manipulating or being passive aggressive when I try to accommodate/guess incorrectly what they are thinking or feeling or meaning.
I take things literally, and I play with the literal meanings of things.
I love to use cliches and slang and often speak or write in sound bites, quotes, or references to an infinite variety of connections.
I think in webs and circles. I take notes in loops.
My handwriting changes significantly with my mood.
I think I am excellent at mimicry sometimes, and terrible other times. In either case I enjoy it immensely– verbally, physically, socially…
Words play in my mind all the time.
Bright colors are soothing to me. Sometimes pastels irritate me. Sometimes Jazz activates the hate.
I do really well at a lot of things but no one wants to play with me most of the time, and when they do, it’s often not very fun for anyone.
My favorite make believe games as a child were cowboys and Indians, lone ranger, inventors, shopping, and later selling/trying to sell things door to door or on the side of the road.
Most humans seem like irrational boring lying manipulating blind immature lovely conflicted wounded self-absorbed cute soft vulnerable creatures to me.
I’ve always called my mother by her first name.
I daydream a lot.
I don’t sleep much.
My father refused or declined to claim me, even though he says he loves me now (2 or 3 times!)…we have spent parts of three whole days in one another’s company that I remember…I don’t think he spent any time around me as an infant, but I am not sure.
People often tell me they are or will pray for me, which is obviously a socially acceptable way to assert/claim their superiority over me. I think it is because they perceive me as socially defiant, and I come off that way because I don’t play by standard social rules.
I often dance or play with social rules on purpose to shake things up, break the mirror, or cause people to pause.
I am a multidimensional crystallized fluid shape-shifting being of light.
I have had systemic inflammation and autoimmune issues my entire life.
I have a strange relationship to pain, and generally feel it so much that I tune it out. I live with pain and numbness a lot of the time, and I also experience extreme ecstatic bliss often–through sound, sight, touch, connection, flavor, pattern, or other synchronicity…
I still take a soft blanket and pillow with me when I travel, even in my 50s.
I only had one or two dolls growing up and I kept them in their original packaging.
I was considered a ‘tomboy’ growing up.
I was bullied by nearly my entire school.
I was abused by the principal at my school, who preyed on ‘at risk’ youth.
I was teacher’s pet more often than not.
I pick up accents and mannerisms from whomever I am around.
Nearly everyone I have had a time-sharing relationship with is ‘a freak’ of some sort/probably ND.
I enjoy playing with phrasing and it often seems to confuse others.
I often have to explain my jokes, and others have to explain theirs to me.
I am fascinated by stereotypes, archetypes, and many, many other topics.
I studied smiles and facial features most of my life.
My body was traumatized by people in masks during lockdowns. Shaking. In a rage. Weeping. I couldn’t hide it. I could barely breathe much of the time.
My mother used to force me to look her in the eyes and I still have vivid memories of the storms in them, and a visceral PTSD response when I think of it, especially in her presence.
When I look into people’s eyes it feels intimate, or I get distracted by the colors and lines, and in any case, I can’t really understand what they are saying or be trusted to know what I am saying. It puts me in a submissive trance maybe, and forced eye contact with my mother and therapists has left long-lasting trauma in my body.
Lots of people told me I had a ‘bad attitude’ when I was young, and resting bitch face as I got older.
I frequently feel frustrated, confused, and gaslite.
I leave 3-30 more messages in conversations than others.
I utilize several outlets to ‘put words’ and research references so I don’t overwhelm my friends and yet I still do.
People sometimes notice my whole body is trembling when they hug me, if they do. Some hugs calm me down so much that I would do nearly anything to get more of that calm.
Some voices calm me like hugs. When I am under stress, a mans soothing voice calms me more than his typical sexual advances violate, and so I have been in numerous, nearly countless situations which have been traumatic.
Most of my relationships have dissolved or been greatly challenged by my emotional disregulation and misunderstandings.
I frequently have the feeling people are complimenting me to compensate for mental criticism, a common thing many humans do.
Words seem to be less meaningful than tones to me, when conversing with other humans, though I rehearse, edit, and search for the accurate words to use to try to be better understood all.the.time.
I care more about being authentic and true to myself than about being socially accepted, though it is also agonizing to feel energetically excluded so much of the time.
I feel significant, sovereign, and superior or inferior–vastly different–to many humans sometimes.
My movements and speech are a bit strange/odd.
I perseverate (I recently learned that word. It fits). Rumination. Tenacity. Unusual interests.
An Alarmist?!?!? LMAO A couple partners now have told me I am catastophizing, overthinking, and reactive.
meltdowns in college
accusations of passive aggression and manipulation
delinquency
not giving enough fuckitudes
mmmm yummy fabrics and colors
named my Undergrad degree “Patterns of Earth and Man” before that was a popular thing
*OOOOO! I get something else suddenly–put that in a different container. I am good at this when I am well regulated…some have said, Super Good. 😉
When you’ve been flying blind for a very long time and then you see through the fog and discover you are still right on course.
When the key domino topples and the entire design is revealed in rapid sequence, and then, it’s time to reset.
When every misunderstanding and confusing moment and emotional meltdown and the pervasive sense of betrayal suddenly all makes sense. Yes, people are still shitty communicators, and I am still one of the us/them too, even more than I knew when it comes to being shitty and a shitty communicator. And also, I am more obviously different and defective to them (genpop them?), whereas no one ever is to me, except when I feel accused of manipulation or not communicating or being naive and I disagree. Now I see they were right, and so was I. I already knew all of it, but I see it all in a different light.
Click. Snap.
It is a great sigh of relief. A great weight lifted. A truce in my body. An easing on the disease. I am grateful. Do I want to be labeled as disabled? No. Am I facing rapidly decreasing abilities? Yes. In every area I can think of…
Enthusiastic Screaming Purple Pickle Screams:
I AM NOT CRAZY. I AM AUTISTIC!
I am grinning. Purturbed Turnip/Depressed Parsnip mumbles
You haven’t even realized anything new, except more of what you don’t know…
Sighs.
I’m done with worms for now. Gonna have a banana, though increasingly aware that the blood sugar roller coaster is a big factor in how well I feel and function. Add fat and protein. Simmer down. What the fuck else? Oh yeah. Cleaning. Trays. Take over the world with kindness.
I am having some good NFT ideas…and conveniently, that is up on the agenda.
Domino One.
Sarcasm and thinking in pictures or imagination, friends, preferences, are the subject of a majority of questions in evaluative tests I come across. Like so many things, they make me a bit crazy at the pigeonholing way they are worded, and often have to make a choice which I know is ‘wrong’ or leading to an inaccurate score. The more I do them though and think about what they are getting at, and read accounts from other autists, and reflect on my own experiences so far, the more obvious and inescapable it is. I am autistic. I am 51. I am grateful to finally understand so much about so many frustrations and failures and this lifetime of autoimmune attacks, shame and blame from society…confusiton, meltdowns.
Another sigh of relief. Where to go from here? How to best move forward in this wellness journey? Right on track, domino. Right on track. Art. Cleaning. Yard. So many things. Get money and give it to the next person. Clean stuff. Make plans. Edit. Upload. Come on. Snap this all together. You got this. I got this. We got this.
Disabled, differently-abled, gifted…sometimes these labels serve us well, and other times, much like the words written on masking tape and put on shoeboxes, they don’t always accurately describe all the contents. Our true identity. I am fluid. The river. A tiny shiny speck of space-time. Labels are all silly, and yet, I have a growing appreciation for how much they serve our current human society. This one I am born into and struggle to interface with, find some suitable place in, some way of being of some value to.
Why? I don’t know. How much I can trust my own senses is in constant question. My last intimate relationship has broken me open and revealed my impossibilities. Only dead pinned down butterflies are the real thing to some. That isn’t how I see it, but, it might serve me to put the tape on anyway…
There are a long line of clicks when I look back at my life history through the lens of autism. If I am autistic, or have autism, which seems undeniably obvious now that I tried the label on…though I do know I identified as neurodiverse–not typical—my whole life–and also, since studying education and human psychology in my second Master’s program.
We could start with conception, both parents on LSD. Birth, 40 days late, pulled out with forceps, unusually large girl–surprise! My mom had been sure I was a boy.
Childhood. I was verbal right away and reading well before school. My mom does not remember me learning to speak. I do remember being able to mimic sounds very well and I still delight in it, mostly via singing now. I have always had sensory issues. My mom had to have a neighbor help her hold me down to bathe me, and I remember being difficult to keep clothes on me. I was climbing and leaping off of things to the degree that my mother learned to just not look at me most of the time. She accepted that I probably would not survive early on in life. She had me institutionalized at age 13-14-15–by 15 the state and I took over, and I learned to survive on the streets.
I have always prided myself in being a ‘wild child’, which was what my mother called me, among other things…now I see that from the start people were telling her there might be something seriously wrong with me, and frequent messages I got about being so amazing and smart were really meant to be compensation. I was oblivious to this for the most part, though I have had a frequent glimmer of doubt when people give me compliments, not always, but sometimes, and now I think, yes, I can feel when people are being condescending. I wish I had known of my deficiency early, as it might have helped me armor myself more effectively and reduced some of the abuse and bullying and shaming I have experienced in this life.
Many people with autism have trouble with cliches or catch phrases. I have always found them delightful and play with them often. Now I see that the degree to which I do that is probably perceived as inappropriate by many. My book, 47 truths, is something of a celebration and exploration of cliche’s…I often feel all of life is, I suppose.
Click. Click.
I have always had a strange cadence and been a bit difficult to relate to. When I was young I was bullied by nearly everyone…I wonder now if I mentioned I think I have autism to my good friend from grade school if he would be surprised at all or say he already knew…I realize many people probably assumed I knew.
And technically I guess I did…interesting what a container with a socially accepted label can do.
–post copy– 5 3 22
Over the last few years, my sense of identity has been upheaved and beginning to resettle. A major shifting point has been when two of the people closest to me accused of being passive aggressive and emotionally manipulative. Both of them use the silent treatment and money to emotionally manipulate me, quite openly and obviously–they seem proud of it even–so this confuses me greatly.
I also felt devastatingly put down as being disgusting for feeling rage during the pandemic, and told I was being a bad friend by my only close friend at the time. I have been accused of being a racist and ostracized by my family and people I thought were my friends. I have struggled with inability to self regulate, debilitating pain, obsessive negative thoughts and brain fog. I am more and more frequently in a traumatized state doing my best to compensate and maintain some degree of socially acceptable camouflage much of the time. I shake and cry many hours of most days. Masking during lockdowns highlighted my inability to read social cues without extreme diligence to facial micro expression. I have felt increasingly under attack and in just barely and alone survival mode.
I have been aware I am “on the spectrum”, or, “in the neurodiversity ballpark” for a couple decades or more. It was very clear when I got my MA degree in special education and the current labels of disfunction–ADHD, Autism, Asperger’s syndrome.
I see now how the messages my body receives are mostly that I am worthless and a burden and should die or hide. This explains my lifetime of autoimmune issues. Parts of me that want to belong, be accepted, feel included or useful or on purpose somehow–those parts shame the bulk of me, the real me, the most of me. I constantly feel like humanity will only include me for my disability and illness and dysfunction. My talents and gifts expected and used up without any appreciation. Taken for grated.
I have seen what the system does to people. Our streets are filling with outcasts, mostly doped up and shamed with labels of dysfunction and no tools to help. Our young men and women are in trouble. Our elders are in trouble. All our beautiful variability is ground off, and we are told we must fit in the box or disappear, or worse, be the burden, the bane, the problems of society.
I know I am not alone. This is a quandary for me…are we the new paradigm? Is eugenics and the current industrial disease complex my enemy of my keeper? Both? Has it always been this way, and will it always be? How much of this is my responsibility? How can I have my best life, and set the stage for my son to have his best life? Is it helpful to put on the labels or to cast them off fervently?
Where my talents/gifts are seen they are only appreciated to the extent that I am expected to exhaust all of my energy providing that to everyone for free…in fact, I am expected to somehow muster an income and support myself, keep my own wells filled enough to then pour out this fake, limited, masked, pretending, dishonest, coded aspect of me mode.
As stereo-typically narcissistic and self centered as it is of me, I think it only matters how I tell the story of my identity, to me. Society and history will make whatever they will of me, and I have no control over that, regardless of my abilities and disabilities. Regardless of my satisfaction. So…what do I need to feel satisfied, to be well, to live my best life?
This is really the only relevant question.
The answer is always be here now, practice gratitude, lighten up, let go, move…
Three cheers for neurodiversity. Thank goodness we are not all the same or this whole thing would be over already.
I feel discarded. Disregarded. Dissed. Dismissed. Degraded. Deaf to the screams of meaningless mists. All this living and caring and aiming and striving and thinking there was any fucking point to anything. Such silliness. Nothing matters. No one can even see me. I don’t actually exist in the eyes of humanity. I only exist to the sun and stars and moon. To my cat friend and many local insects, as a bringer of food and water.
I won’t say love is a lie, because I am love embodied. I do think it serves me best to stop expecting other humans to be anything but hateful, immature, ugly, killers of everything. The greatest destroyers. Except. Not quite great. Not most of us. We are mostly worthless and weak. Silent and meek.
To be loved by a man who doesn’t merely want to fuck me…this has been a lifelong quest of mine, and alas, so far, I am feeling only fucked and unloved. More accurately, actually, these days I am unfucked and unloved. I suppose that is improvement, though it doesn’t really feel any better. Most of that has something to do with aging. Age 50 feels a bit different from 15, 25, 35, even 45, in this body.
Every week or two, at least a few times every year, someone I have known a long while will ‘offer’ to fuck me. Strangers do it more quickly, usually in less than an hour or two, as it seems to be the prevalent social norm between men and women in this, current society. Would you like to fuck or get fucked? No, thank you. Well then, don’t say no one ever offered.
Yesterday’s offer, from a dear longstanding and younger hot-bodied friend was for “Uncomplicated sex.” You mean masturbation? I got that covered. Thanks, and no thanks. There’s no such thing as uncomplicated sex, at least, not for you and I. If there was, I would have to decline…I think. I did consider it briefly. More than once. If the offer had been for complicated sex it would have been much more tempting, and still, I hope I would have the fortitude to decline. I don’t need help with simple release. The reeving up of chemistry. I got that handled. Where I desire to meet is in the here and now. Fully alive.
Appreciating. Discovering. Unfolding together. Cocreating ecstasy and generating new stardust. New ideas. New dance moves. Let’s make something that has not been before. Let’s go somewhere neither of us have been before.
Anything less than complete presence and sacred embraces, sensual deep kisses, real time healing touch…seems like so much less than it could be–so much less than we have the capacity to be. I’ll try not to serve myself worms so often. Feast on fastness and feathers and fine threads. Appreciate the knotwork.
She ties and unties everything.
And again.
Bah. Anyhow, I will walk about. The earth, the non-human animals, many of us are still mostly alive. Humans appear to be mostly dead, inside and out. Alseep. Vampires. Zombies. They wander about repeating useless soundbites of separation and hate. Wondering why someone else doesn’t DO something about how fucked up everything is. Fucking things. Let’s fuck? Fuckity Fuck Fuck? For fuck’s sake.
Last weekend a man I had met the day before slipped a tiny bible into my hat, after I had said no thanks, or rather, implied it, as he didn’t formally ask. He justified this imposition by saying he prayed for me, and thanked me for ‘sharing that story’. This was a reference to my mentioning that I have been raped and beaten and caged and many things that people fear, and so I am not afraid–or rather, I am quite capable of maintaining courage in the face of my fear. I did not tell him any of the stories of any of it, though if I had, perhaps he would have begun to have an incling of a clue how his behavior is the same violating behavior. Just a bit less bold or brave. A bit weaker and less impressive. The same degrading, demeaning, judgmental, fucking feeble-minded hubris that assumes that all a woman needs is some man to penetrate her just right, and then she will stop feeling insane. Maybe she/I will somehow feel better?
I don’t think that part is actually part of the equation at all. I think it is more simply a matter of men–and women– wanting to feel better in the moment–to feel like, well, at least they tried to help, ‘I mean–I did fuck her, and she still was crazy, so…don’t know what else I could have done.’ Seriously, I bring it up because, well, maybe other women feel a lot differently about it–maybe that is all humanity needs–more belittling, degrading, dehumanizing, and fucking? Hmmm. I guess we will see. I don’t think it has been helpful to me. I could be wrong though. It’s difficult to discern much anymore. Humanity has fully embraced insanity as our cultural norm. Fuck everything. Fuck it all. Fuck you. Fuck me…
Burn the witch. The witches are all me. The bitches are all in me.
I release the hounds. Let go the expectations.
All bets are off. Social contracts are burned and broken. I am free to be solame.
The masculine capacity to hold space for the feminine wild. This is a large part of my work. I train. I learn. I teach. I study. I feel. I live it alive. Visceral. I have been fucked a fair amount. I have held space for myself and for many wounded men–rather–the wounded boys that reside in unhealed, immature men. Most of the men I meet. Women too, to be fair. Most of us live mostly asleep. In the shadows. Dancing.
I am alive. I am love. I am dancing. I am listening. I am speaking. I am honey dripping. I am the earth as it dries and cracks. I am so many seeds. Some of us will bloom. Some of me will unfold. All the rest will go unspoken. Untasted. Unlived. Unbroken.
Not the loneliness of not being around people, rather, the despair of disconnection, of not speaking the same language, of not living in the same dimension. I feel separate from everyone. Those who I feel closest to hurt the most, because I see how we could connect, I get glimmers of hope, and trust, and believing we are connecting, and then I find myself excluded again, and it feels worse than never believing I was a part of something, I think. Of course, I don’t actually know. Based on experience, probably nothing I think is true, in fact, there is no such thing as truth. There is only now, and my made up suffering…the point? I really don’t think I know, don’t think there is one…I examine how our society devalues itself, the way we humans devastate ourselves, poison everything, act as the things we hate–toxic, indifferent, inconsiderate, disconnected, uncommunicative, suspicious, secretive, secluded, deceptive, incoherent. I know that coherence is
three breaths away.
Let’s walk then, and breathe in some sunshine. If I can stop weeping long enough to venture outside and not scare the neighbors. Most do not speak to me. Even most that I consider friends and family barely speak to me…even split these days. Short bursts of frivolous meaningless conversation. Sound bites of meaning tossed out into the void. No plans. No logic. No sense. No love. No connection. No trust. No plans. Nobody speaks. Everybody gets hurt. War rages on and the hate surges strong. Inside and out. Outside in.
nmgal007 ~Angel Lilly, Performance Poet, Speaker, Songwriter, Singer 