They can't ask...

I want you to sit with me for a minute.

I want you to think of your life.

How much of it was spent with people who loved you? People who valued your existence? Who respected your basic needs (food, hot water/heat, sanitation). Who comforted you when you were heartbroken?

That's not everyone.

Some people spend their lives being ridiculed for having questions or fears. They are mocked when they are unsure. They are forced into situations that terrify them, sometimes with threat of punishment if they do not comply. They are treated as a bargaining chip. They are treated as a whipping boy for other's frustrations. They are told that they are an embarrassment.

They are told they are too much to deal with, while making them take on more than most people can manage.

They are told they are lazy, or inadequate, while their hands are tied to keep them from acting.

They are scapegoated for failures beyond their control.

They are blamed for drinking problems, drug use, physical abuse dealt to them, and more.

Sometimes, their consent is violated. Repeatedly. While being told they already made their choice.

In all of this, these sequential failures and barrage of inadequacies, when they ask for the barest minimum, heat in the winter, clothing, or even healthy food, they are told that they ask too much, and that they are draining others.

They are lied to and told they'd get support so they could work, then it is ripped away, and when they inevitably lose their job, it's of course because they just couldn't 'cut it' like everyone else.

There is never anything they can do that is good enough that they have basic human value.

Sometimes, they were beaten for this.

Many become deeply depressed. Many fight it, and luckily, survive. Barely. White knuckles on knife handles, beer bottles, steering wheels… they've fought…

They've made it. Barely. Many haven't.

But then they met you.

They've come to trust you, and need you. They may work to anticipate your needs, and try to take care of you. Mostly because they love you, but also because there's always a terror that if they don't do enough, you'll throw them out like everyone else. You too will turn on them, like everyone else.

Then… something happens.

Something causes these decades of abuse to burst out over seemingly innocuous events, and it drives them to desperate feelings that, while they fight them, they can't.

In these moments, they can't ask for what they need.

Because they've been there before. In that place where they felt like this. And when they asked for help, they were mocked, demeaned, or told to go ahead, do that thing they were feeling.

They can't ask.

They don't know what they need. Because their heads are screaming that there is one final solution to all of the pain and panic and fear and grief and it is taking all they have to say

"NO, no… I am not going to do that".

"No, I'm just going to sit here, and not move"

They can't ask.

They can yell, and scream. They can sometimes cry. They can panic. They can withdraw. They can lash out.

But they can't ask.

If you know them, don't make them. Look for the signs. Take what they say seriously. See their reactions for what it is.

Because waiting for a traumatized person to ask for what they need may mean they don't get it.

https://womenyoushouldknow.net/stop-telling-us-to-ask-for-help-depression-doesnt-work-like-that/

A Journey to Find Home

Today is October 3, 2015. I am 32 years old. Today, I start on the journey of seeking an Asperger’s diagnosis.

I have always been an 'odd duck': quirky, eccentric, weird. From childhood, my family chalked it up to a high IQ, and low common sense. No street smarts. In adulthood, some have even requested that I be evaluated professionally. (For the record, I’ve been to three separate psychologists/psychiatrists, and they all agree that, while I have generalized anxiety disorder, I am not bipolar, delusional, schizophrenic, etc). I have always ‘not quite fit in’. I remember asking a friend in junior high why the kids picked on me, what did I do differently? She couldn’t explain why, but just said that I made myself a target. I accepted it. It was… not ok, but… whatever. That vague non-claimed emotion of non-fulfillment, un-named existence. Because it just WAS.

I have been married for 11 years, and have two beautiful children. My husband loves me, and has supported me for the entirety of our relationship. But all of our marriage, he has fended off questions regarding my maturity, responsibility, ambition. When would I get a job? When would I start acting like a normal adult? When would I stop freaking out about things that [they thought] didn't matter? Why was I such a slob? Why am I so disorganized? Why can I not just have a conversation? Why, basically, am I such a pain in the ass.

Then I met this group of women. A wonderful, remarkable, inspirational, and sanity saving group of women. We talked for hours, at odd hours of the night, as we bonded over our newborns. I knew that some of our group were diagnosed with Asperger’s, or high functioning autism. I accepted it, I mean, the world takes lots of people, but I moved on. It didn’t really mean anything to me, so I discarded this as useless information. It stuck in the back of my mind though. These women showed me that there really was a world beyond what I had known, something I had begun to doubt. They were my best friends, my sisters, and my mothers. I yearned to be closer, and yet feared the rejection I was sure to experience once they met me.

Then I met a local mom, who has several children, two of them the same age as my own. We had similar interests (cloth diapering, babywearing, and kids ages). Some of her kids were on the spectrum, had sensory issues, and more. Her oldest, however, ‘clicked’ with me instantly. It was as if I was talking to a younger version of me, a window into my past self, but not. I was able to understand exactly her meltdowns. Her fits. Her tantrums. Her obsessions. Her aversions. We could talk, and it was easy. Not in that way where people pretend to tolerate you, and later you find out they were exhausted by your tediousness, but in the way where someone really likes what you do. We had different interests, but the way we talked about them was the same. Her mom started me asking me why she did things, because I could explain it. When she told me that her daughter was on the spectrum, it opened my eyes.

So I got curious, and began to do what I do best. I read. Articles, blogs, stories, forums, reports, quizzes, anything I could get my hands on. These things didn’t apply at all!!

Then I learned about Female Aspect Asperger’s. And something clicked. It made sense. It was that feeling -of home, belonging, explanation- that I had been missing, but searching for. I had found the missing explanation of my life. I could understand WHY I stuck out. I could understand WHY I had a target on my back in school. Why so many times my parents and my husband were angry with me after social events, incredulous that I didn't understand the trouble or discomfort I had caused others. It just explained SO MUCH.

The next couple months were conflicting. I tried to explain this wondrous revelation to friends, my family, my husband, but none of them understood. They all believed that I was trying to find some way of ‘being different’, making excuses, or getting attention, etc. But Asperger’s just FIT. My husband, daughter, and I took tests over and over and over again. Not 5, 10 or even 25 question tests. Tests that took hours. I begged them to take them repeatedly, begging the results to change, to prove that it DIDN'T fit, to prove them right. The most hilarious results occurred when my husband took a test for me, marking every answer that applied, in a way that HE thought would get me a neurotypical (read: normal) result. It was my highest 'Aspie' score. So we (I) took a step back, and really evaluated our lives. Our arguments. Our disagreements. We realized, on top of the obvious social issues, interests, pickiness, etc, that I am much more literal than I appear. I use sarcasm with the best, but understanding sarcasm or dry humor? Nope. I answer rhetorical questions. Like, ALL THE TIME. As in, it is the cause of most of my fights with my husband. Apparently I read obvious facial expressions, but other than that? Nope. Can't do people and names either, unless I have known them a while, seen them frequently, or something memorable happened when we met. The more, and more, and more we looked, observed, and were unbiased, the more the signs became clear. Things that made me look crazy, actually had a rational foundation, a real explanation.

Imagine, if you will, that psychology follows a linear diagnostic checklist:  

Cyclical moods, depression, hyperactivity, spending issues, promiscuity? Bipolar disorder.

Isolation, fatigue, body aches, headaches, disinterest, suicidal tendencies, rage? Depression.

Stress, panic attacks, sleeplessness, fatigue? Generalized anxiety.

The list goes on. A person could fit many of these, but not enough for any to be a real diagnosis. But you know what Asperger’s is? Asperger’s isn’t linear. Because it isn't psychological. It is neurological, and infinitely more complicated and varied. Asperger's is like one of the back wheels of a girl's faded pink banana bike, back in the 80’s. The back tire has the normal spokes of the wheel, but on those spokes are beads. Aspergers is the wheel, and the symptoms are the beads. The wheel encompasses 'linear' psychology, and the beads are each a different symptom. But many people are lacking the wheel. So they see these scattered psychological symptoms, and doctor’s try, in vain, to diagnose and ineffectively treat according to these symptoms. I was one of these. Many of my ‘difficulties’ in life showed up on these linear checklists. Not enough to diagnose me definitively, but not enough to say I was ‘normal’, or even functioning.

The Asperger’s wheel, however, makes it all make sense.

It explains it ALL. Not one eccentricity is left to wonder at. Not a single one. Each and every ‘interest’ now makes sense. The social anxiety. The chattiness (read, conversation monopolization). The 'know-it-all' reputation. The total CRAP conversation skills (although apparently I excel at lecturing). The fingerspelling, and hand motions, that I do hide at my side. The reading at 18 months, and devouring 6th grade chapter books at 6 years old, many in under an hour. The jokes, rhetorical questions, insinuations, sarcasm, facial expressions, mood changes, etc that seem to go right over my head. I DO get idioms, metaphors, etc, but I can actually confess that I researched them in my teens, along with old fairy tales, mythology, and the correlation between society and their horror stories (legit senior research paper in high school). I am extremely inappropriate in conversation, between the jokes, the questions, asking the wrong questions. I've lost friends, invites, and more because of that actually.

But now I live with this fear. I am so afraid that they will tell me that nope, I’m not an aspie. That really I’m an oddball, that just can’t figure it out. Someone who is really just that clueless, or desperate, or cold and calculating. I am afraid that this ‘home’, this puzzle I’ve unlocked will really be ripped away, and I'll be back out in the cold. That I'll be crazy.

So I’m writing this. Because I don’t talk to anyone about this. My family is simultaneously sick of hearing it, and they don’t believe me. My friends….. some who know think it is a cry for attention. (Some, those with kids on the spectrum, think it's a done deal) My village, from whom I draw such strength? I fear so badly that I will alienate them with my… oddities… that I have not truly discussed this in this way. I can't hide who I am, even with self-editing that makes me seem so much MORE normal online, my oddities shine through. But I have stopped asking the obvious questions, the nagging questions. So I'm writing here, because I need the outlet.

But it is time to be an adult. I am now in a position socially where my eccentricities are going to be forefront and noticeable. Knowing how often I'm told that I embarrass myself, or act badly, this leadership role makes me highly anxious, and I worry constantly about how I am speaking to people, which makes me tired and cranky. So it is time to find out if this is really why I am so different from others. Because then I can say honestly, “I have Asperger’s. I’m not crazy, and I don’t always understand if you are angry, curious, or sarcastic, and I don’t usually know when I’m overstepping. But please, tell me when I am, I’ll be ok with that. Just don’t be mad at me for something I can’t seem to learn to fix. I’m not crazy, I’m just different.”

And hopefully, maybe, I can finally grow up.

*this was written before being published.

That's not fair!!!

"That's not fair!" It's the cry of every five and six year old on the planet. And me, of course. So many occasions in my 'short' 32 years of life have led me to complain or exclaim that something is not fair.

Someone recently told me that as an adult I should be aware of exactly how 'not fair' life is. That there are many things that occur normally, naturally, that are not fair. Then there are wars. There are really crappy political decisions. There are kids being shot by policemen. There are kids killing policemen. There are children getting sick, and worse yet, dying. There are old people dying. Kids starve. There are diseases, and disorders, and more that occur outside the influence of mankind.

All of which is 'unfair'.

"So stop saying it isn't fair what you are going through. You are old enough to know that life isn't fair, and just deal with it."

But I disagree. Why expect things to be horrible just because you know that bad things exist? Should we stop hoping for good things to happen? Just because another kid might push your child down on the playground, does that mean that we teach our kids to just push others? Should we tolerate inequality just because we know it will happen?

NO! We as parents strive to teach our children fairness. To others and to ourselves. We teach them to share with friends, so they each have something. We teach them to be kind to others, because why? Because they want others to be kind to THEM. What is that, if not a basic lesson in fairness?

Even our country, (America, for anyone not from the good ole US), was founded on principles of what? Truth, Justice, and the American way. What is 'Justice', but a synonym of 'fair'?

Ok, I stand corrected, Superman fought for Truth, Justice, and the American way. But look at the entire genre of superheroes. What did they fight against? Obviously, ARCHENEMIES!!! But in abstract, they fought against inequality.

They fought for FAIRNESS.

Geez. Name any large movie, novel, book or literary enterprise, and they all fight for the same thing. Even Biblical stories go back to treating people equally. From an eye-for-an-eye, to forgiveness. One is about equality, one about giving the person the chance to be 'fair', by making the first gesture of forgiveness, of kindness. It's fairness, touched with mercy (a moral discussion for another day). Even the 'golden rule' is about fairness. "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you."

HELLOOOOOOO!?!?!?.... (in the voice of Jr. Asparagus, if you know what I mean), what is that, if not a direct command towards being FAIR!?

In fact, it seems most of the wars we have are even a fight over what's fair or not. Since it is such a subjective thing, fairness means so much different to each person.

But does this mean we should just give up and resolve ourselves to living and accepting a world where inequality, injustice, and cruelty are the norm?

I say no. I say we should not stop dreaming and fighting for fairness, but we need teach our children that it is something we should strive to achieve. Our ancestors fought for fairness, and it has led us to where we are. The Pilgrims were searching for religious freedom, that they not be prosecuted for their beliefs. The end of slavery, an effort to offer equality to the men who broke their backs to build our country (and who still fight to this day). Women's lib, and Feminism, also a fight to achieve fair standing for women of all kinds. Without these visionaries who have not forgotten 'Fairness', we would be existing in a feudalistic society, living and dying at the whim of our rulers.

I say keep looking for 'Fair'. Look when you are 6, 16, 36, or 96. Never stop looking for, expecting, and acting in Fairness.

After all, if we all strive for Fairness, maybe it will spread.