Spin Cycle

It does feel like I’m about to spend the week in a washing machine:  air travel, visit family, visit people from the past, road trip, camping, another road trip, more air travel, little to no privacy or downtime throughout…

Must remember to pack sedatives.

I hate to be so typically autistic about it — why can’t I just be brave, just go with the flow? — and I’ll try to, but the odds of at LEAST a series of mini-meltdowns are overwhelmingly high…

 

Aspies as unwitting abusers?

Looking around some more for some of the specific examples of  “an Aspie (generally male) partner made my life hell” articles and posts I’ve seen, I found the following — and as both a newly diagnosed on-spectrum person AND a queer feminist female-bodied person, I struggle with it:

Asperger’s Syndrome and Women’s Ways of Knowing, by Bronwen Van der Wal  http://www.backlash.com/content/disab/2004/bronvanderwal042904.html

She starts out:

In recent years, the perception of Asperger’s Syndrome (A.S.) has gradually shifted. What was seen as “the absent-minded professor” (eccentric, but benign) seems to have metamorphosed into social deviance with a sociopathic flavour.

She goes on to trace this trend back to an anti-intellectual flavor of radical feminism — and here I wish she’d used a qualifier like “Harding-style feminism” more precisely through the whole piece.  ”Gender feminist movement”, which she also uses, doesn’t seem to be recognized widely enough to be useful, and although I personally tend to find LOTS wrong with many of the philosophies espoused in some branches of radical feminism, I don’t feel OK painting all radical feminists with this brush.   Certainly I can’t comfortably just use the term ”feminists”, as she also occasionally does throughout the article – although I can understand where her temptation comes from to characterize this as a more broadly feminist position, since many of the writers aligned with this view of AS/NT relationships don’t seem to be particularly radical themselves.  The thing is that based on my own survey of opinions out there, not to mention some disastrous interpersonal interactions of my own, the essence of what Van der Wal is saying isn’t untrue.

I don’t relish having to defend two groups to which I belong from one another.

Still, I feel that we queer on-spectrum females could be logical natural allies of Van der Wal’s basic position, since we too stand to experience similar discrimination from female partners.  Opponents can’t as easily use a biologically reductive argument to explain OUR autism-related tendencies, unlesss they want to claim we’re not fully female… not a good road to go down at all.

Change the gender from “he” to “she” and this feels like a description of accusations I’ve received of emotional abuse:

The A.S. in this scenario cannot win. He can inadvertently hurt your feelings, by accident or just by doing nothing, and that is abuse. Whatever the partner wishes to call abuse is, ipso facto, abuse, and even knowing there was no intention to cause harm does not make a difference.

It’s probably necessary for people with my particular configuration to issue the call for compassion here — not excusing intentional abuse at all, from anybody (because here too, females aren’t exempt from being violent assholes, as I can verify from having spent decades now in the queer community), but definitely calling bullshit on the tendency to cast Aspies as sociopaths by nature, and the tendency to characterize AS as a form of “hyper-maleness”. 

At the same time, THIS is also what a feminist looks like — so don’t be blaming this shit on all feminists, ok?

 

More about girls and such

I spent the weekend attending my city’s Gay Pride festival and some related events at bars, which was all fun but completely socially exhausting.  Of course, I’m not the type anyway to do more than just look appreciatively at handsome people in an environment like that, but the difference this year was that I also feel I’ve now got a built-in prohibition against trying to date anyone.  

I just went looking for some of the Asperger’s-and-dating things I’ve found on various sites posted by women saying dating (or marrying) someone on spectrum is the most horrible and unfulfilling thing you can possibly do to yourself, but I didn’t find them; I’ll post links later once those turn up again.  Granted, those were from heterosexual females and the posts had some of the flavor of the typical “guys suck” rant, but it still makes me feel like shit to read them.   If that’s how it is, I can’t imagine wanting to subject myself to somebody I’m attracted to ever again, now that I know what’s wrong and how strikingly it differs from what most people need in a lover or partner.

Maybe I should try to learn to just pursue casual hookups instead.  If only I enjoyed them, it might be fun.

 

Help me, I think I’m falling

I think of all the oddities about myself I’ve been able to trace back to autism,  my vestibular and proprioceptive difficulties are among the things for which I’ve been most relieved to have an explanation.   I never expected any explanation for my odd gait or balance problems or discomfort in airplanes or elevators or anything, really:  I always just blamed myself for being physically nearly talentless and graceless, and kind of a freak when it comes to motion.   I did wonder aloud on many occasions whether there were associated skills that could be taught and learned.  No one ever provided a satisfactory answer to that question.

Well, it seems it can be done for kids using Pilates:  http://www.ptproductsonline.com/issues/articles/2006-11_02.asp

I am VERY interested to find out whether adults might benefit from the same or similar treatment, or whether it’s too late after decades of odd movement to make those kinds of changes.  In either event, I’m happy to see that kids today have more therapeutic options available.

 

How to Get Over a Girl

The forum I found this on (by Googling the phrase “getting over a girl”) isn’t for Aspies, but it’s great advice:

http://www.uncommonforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=381655

Guess this would go under the classic
“wanting what you cant have”
problem.

I have that too sometimes. Go build something to take your mind off the subject. A porch, a tesla coil, a go kart, a car engine, a computer, whatever. Preferably something decently big, and difficult.

So:  me, I’m gonna build some decently big, difficult, and brilliant recordings this summer.  Much of it will be collaborative, although I’ll do the tech work and a lot of the playing. 

I’m trying to promise myself I will also spend enough time on my own music – whether that will actually help resolve any lingering girl problems or will just stir stuff up on the bottom of the emo lake, who knows.

There’s no point in not channeling the failed-relationship energy into one of my big interests, though.  Truly, it might be one of the only ways I CAN channel it.

 

Fear of Success?

A few excerpts:

http://www.asperger-advice.com/fear-of-failure.html: 

Fear of failure is a common complication when you are diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. Chances are that progress or development such as learning new skills or meeting new people is even harder for those who have this combination. Being afraid of failure is closely related to fear of rejection and most of the time those who have it also fear being criticized by others. These fears can delay your progress in many ways because fear of failure can immobilize you.

http://life-with-aspergers.blogspot.com/2007/12/aspies-and-perfection.html:

Aspies are often their own worst enemies in the area of self worth. They often set themselves unattainable or inappropriate levels of perfection.

It is not uncommon for an aspie to consider a B- mark, or anything below it to be a failure. They will often berate themselves severely after such a “failure”, usually calling themselves failures etc, and sometimes resorting to self-harm.

http://www.googobits.com/articles/1933-aspergers-syndrome-a-developmental-disorder.html:

Children who have Asperger’s have traits that make them appear to be perfectionists. They love being the first and the best at things and find imperfection, losing and criticism very frustrating. Their ability to communicate their feelings often results in inappropriate behavior. Asperger’s children experience emotions that are overwhelming, which causes them to have a high anxiety level. They need to be around people who are patient, understanding, loving and supportive. Tender loving care (TLC) is needed to help them reach their goals. These children flourish in this type of environment.

I’ve spent years in and out of school without being able to so much as look at my grades on assignments when they come back.  Forget about reading the comments.  I’ve usually just hoped for the best, or in cases where revisions needed to be turned in, I’ve guessed at what needed to be revised.

So far I’ve somehow gotten very good grades in my classes anyway.  However, it occurred to me that I am at a juncture — about to start work on a Master’s thesis — where I really ought to do something about that, at least if I plan to stay in grad school this time.  Things probably already look a little weird to professors I’ve had more than once, if not to all of them.

Last year, prior to my having been diagnosed or even having any serious clue, I saw a counselor who suggested that I should go out of my way to get a B in a course.   Naturally, my response was a resounding Hell No:  I’m in my program because I love the subject, and as a grad student I don’t have to take any classes so irrelevant that I’d consider intentionally turning in B-level work.  That counselor and I never got anywhere.  Extremely nice person, but a little too forgiving, I thought.

So we got final papers back today in the class where I submitted a research proposal I can potentially use as a foundation for my big project. 

I last saw my current Pshrink-Lady yesterday.  She’d pointed out that I often seem to do slightly better with oral delivery of feedback than I do with receiving it in writing; she’d suggested I might want to find a helper in class to read my comments and grades to me as a way of working toward being able to read them myself.  So I did that today, sort of: I cornered a postgrad student I’d talked to a few times in class, a person with somewhat overlapping research interests, and we went for a beery lunch and swapped papers. 

I read the comments the professor had made on her A-minus paper, trying to get a sense of what types of criticism I could expect.  She read the comments on mine, and at my insistence she remained silent until after I’d downed my adult beverage.  So there I was, sitting there about ready to throw up and run (regrettably all too familiar a feeling), and she was giving me this sort of scolding, what-the-fuck look over the top of my paper. 

Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore and was like, “What?”

“She wants you to do your thesis on it.  You got a perfect score.”

Ulp.

So then she outlined for me some of the professor’s suggestions about changing stuff in tables and providing lengthier explanations of some terms and so forth, which at that point I found considerably easier to absorb in at least summary form, although I was still kind of shaken up and relieved all mixed together. 

My old counselor would have been gravely disappointed in the perfect score, I fear.

Maybe my new one can help me figure out how to look directly at the words on the paper next week, now that I’ve seen enough of the trailer to know the story has a happy ending.

And I guess this means I’ll have to go on and write the damn thesis…

 

Full Disclosure, Family Style

Next week I have to fly cross-country for a friend’s funeral.  I scheduled my arrival a couple days early so I could visit my mother.  My sister is flying in for a couple days at the same time.  We’ll all be at my mother’s house.

My plan had been to try to broach the subject of my on-spectrum diagnosis with them, figuring that giving them both a chance to rewrite parts of the family history might explain some of the craziness better and might allow everybody to finally toss out some guilt and blame and replace it with education and compassion, or something.

Only problem with this fantasy (apart from the fact that I don’t have a neat label to share with the fam, largely because Pshrink-Lady agrees with me that the current categorizations kinda blow – so, paraphrased, I’m “on spectrum somewhere… closer to Liane Willey than Temple Grandin”, and that’s complicated to try to share):  My family ISN’T understanding.  All the craziness that happened DID happen, and still does.  Talking to them this week before the trip reminds me exactly how broken our relationships are, and how much we all fall back into that craziness when we talk to each other despite having established our own lives (all three of us alone in small houses with our pets at this point) in cities thousands of miles apart.  My updated diagnosis isn’t likely to change that except maybe to make them feel pity or contempt for me, assuming I’m some kind of savant retard (yeah, I know, I know:  I am… but that doesn’t negate my humanity completely, does it?).

(Does it?)

The battle brewing before I even get there has to do with my mother having enlisted me to attend an impromptu get-together with extended family members.  To somebody not on spectrum, I suppose this is no big deal.  What I’m finding is that, on top of already turning my routines upside down to take this trip and enduring the vestibular clusterfuck that is air travel, not to mention having to share space with people with what I imagine will be very few opportunities for solitude throughout the week, I have no idea where the additional social overhead required to navigate this event is going to come from.  These aren’t friendly relatives:  I mean, I’m sure they’ll be polite, but they have always felt kind of sorry for me for wasting my brilliance, for having so many emotional roadblocks that I was prevented from becoming a prominent doctor or lawyer or whatever six- or seven-figure profession better suits my hippie-ass social-sciences-and-humanities temperament.  Their kids all performed much better, and they did it young.  My graduate work now is barely a consolation prize.  This promises to be a brutal exercise in self-defense.  I need to have my story ready.

I told the fam I might stay somewhere else to avoid having to be put through it.  “Don’t be weird,” said Mom.  “I’ll be pissed,” said Sis.

Everyone here says to try to get a prescription for Xanax.  I don’t know whether I’ll have time, or whether I even feel there’s sufficient justification to ask my doc for it. 

So, yeah, anyway.  Instead of being like, “Hey, I learned X about myself.  Take a look at these books/articles/whatever, and Mom, you did the best you could do under the circumstances”, I now picture myself operating from a position of complete overload, and the whole thing going more like:  “Fuck, you guys are assholes.  Take a look at these books/articles/whatever and congratulate yourselves on devoting a lifetime to beating down somebody with a neurological anomaly, fuckers.  Now leave me alone”.

As my people are wont to say:  Oy vey.

 

A childhood snack…

So my copy of Attwood’s Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome came in the mail today.  I’m about 100 pages in.  I’d already read excerpts from it via Google Search here and there, so there’ve been parts I’ve been able to just skim.  Seems to be lots of useful stuff in there (and lots of stuff triggering painful memories), although many of his therapeutic exercises so far, even the non-kid-oriented ones,  seem like they might not be so effective for smart people over about the age of 5.  Who knows?  I mean, he’s the professional; he sees tons of clients.  I’d have probably rolled my eyes, though, had anyone tried most of those techniques on me past kindergarten — and by late elementary school, the psych staff could’ve tossed any notion of enlisting classmates to defend me, or enlisting anyone else at the school at all to oppose the bullying.  I’m sure many of Attwood’s underlying  strategies are good, or well-meaning at the very least, but much of the implementation comes across as both condescending and naive to me.  Maybe some of that could be adapted in a way that doesn’t leave the therapist either talking down to his or her clients, or encouraging them to have any real expectation of support in a brutal schoolyard-justice environment.

I’m also certain Attwood and I are not on the same page with regard to gender identity “disorder”.  In a way I’m sure he completely did not intend, though, thinking about my own personal and subcultural sense of the gender-diversity continuum while I’m reading gives me a good framework for thinking about the autism spectrum similarly, outside of the narrowly defined realm of pathologies.

So anyway, something he said (don’t remember exactly what; doesn’t matter) sent me scurrying back online to try to remember why I’d ruled out PDD-NOS for my own diagnosis, and I found myself skimming through the diagnostic criteria here: http://www.bbbautism.com/diagnostics_psychobabble.htm

PDD-NOS is most often diagnosed when children have significant social impairments, but don’t have the symptoms in area (3). 

So I scanned back up the page to area (3):

Repetitive behaviors, interests, and activities – child may get angry if this ‘pattern’ is interrupted.  Must have at least ONE of the below symptoms:

doot de doot de doo blah blah blah read read read (c) Repetitive behavior such as hand flapping, rocking, ear flicking, chewing on clothing,

Chewing on CLOTHING?!  Holy crap, I thought I was the only kid on the planet who ever did that.  Certainly I was the only one in my school always walking around with sleeves and necklines that looked like huge used pieces of gum.

*Another* seemingly random puzzle piece locks into place.

Oh, and as an adult I drum with my hands and fingers all.the.time.  Guess it’s not just musical.

 

Full disclosure?

Something I find myself pondering a lot as a somewhat-unwillingly-single, recently-imprecisely-diagnosed person on the spectrum somewhere:  If you get to a point with somebody where you think you might want to try serious dating or a relationship with them, what do you tell them about your situation?  And how do you tell them, and when? 

Are there times when, even if you really like somebody, you find yourself wanting to preemptively break things off  only because you don’t want to put them through the potential heartache of dealing with your mind and habits, or because you don’t think you can stand another round of fights about it with somebody you care about deeply, but probably have a hell of a time convincing of that?  Are there times when maybe you’re reluctant to even entertain the notion of being with someone ever again because of it?

Most people to whom I pose these questions respond with a resounding “Hell, no!”  And yet I can’t help but think that if I have it within my ability to keep somebody from experiencing pain by getting involved with me, perhaps it is my responsibility to do so.  That’s true even though I think of myself as essentially pretty harmless — I like a lot of solitude and physical space to pursue my brands of geekery, and I tend to have to do some unorthodox arranging to get my environment and my time to work for me, but I do consider myself a devoted lover and partner (“in your way”, the last two girls each separately conceded during fights which veered awfully close to dumping me, I am that.  I’m not sure I ever want to hear that phrase again).  

So, okay.   Suppose you decide:  Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead, you’re gonna do your best to try to get serious with a particular person you like.  How do you initiate that discussion?  Do you frame it as primarily a medical thing?  As a potential dealbreaker or misery-causer?  Do you send them off with some reading and then give them space to decide whether they want to deal with you, or what exactly?

 

Doubtless the first of many…

…posts touching on social phobia, panic attacks, and anxiety disorders in general.

Regardless of what my official diagnosis-du-jour turns out to be — and I’m starting to see why Pshrink-Lady doesn’t feel it necessarily matters much, particularly if I’m not applying for services which are likely to differ depending on which one I select — this here sums up some of the more salient features of my childhood nicely:  http://www.nldline.com/stress_s.htm

And I’m sure it’s not just my childhood much of it applies to, although I’ve mostly got the panic attacks dealt with thanks to Zoloft and as much control as I can reasonably exert over which stressful situations I get myself into.

Social phobia and panic disorder are, of course, considered to be among the most common comorbid issues with autism-spectrum stuff.  It was news to me (and I’m sure will be news to my family if I decide to break any of this to them, about which I’m still undecided) that all the anxiety and panic, and I suspect a certain degree of paranoia, have ultimately been symptoms of something more fundamental.  I figure an atypical distribution of sensory input combined with an impairment in encoding and decoding nonverbal communication, the latter whether it’s aimed at us or exchanged between people around us, would be enough to do that to anybody.

I am coming to hate the term “co-morbid”, though.  As somebody quite sensibly pointed out in a discussion of Asperger’s and avoidant personality disorder here:

Having said that, Dr. Lorna Wing, who is a pioneer in researching the Autism Spectrum, does not agree with the attempts by the Psychiatric Profession to separate everything into narrowly defined disorders because they overlap too much.

Amen to that.

Anyway, no time at the moment to delve fully into the backstory behind my broaching this subject, which has to do with a birthday party I spent a really inordinate amount of time psyching myself up to go to today and then wound up departing from rather abruptly when someone I once dated for about 30 seconds showed up, but I fully expect it’ll come up again about fifty billion times.

For now, if others are reading, I’d love to hear your own experiences and your takes on the connection (or lack thereof?) between anxiety disorders and the autism spectrum.