Seriously. What's wrong with being "nice"?

So I ordered another book by John Elder Robison (which I've been pronouncing like Robinson, without the "n", but it's actually ROW-bison), called "Be Different", and it took like a week to get here, but I finally got a chance to read it.  Now, I was expecting it to be more "huge eye openers" like I got reading Look Me In the Eye, and from the autism website I was looking into earlier, but I guess you can only get life changing information for specific intervals.  Anyway, it was a good read, but it wasn't anything new, because I'd already read Look Me In the Eye, and I've been spending a lot of time on the WrongPlanet and AspieCentral, so I've been getting more used to the idea, and more familiar with the whole issue.  So, it wasn't the best thing I've ever, ever read.  But it was a good book.  If you haven't read LMItE, then I think it would a very beneficial book.  Especially the end, where he talks about how you should play to your strengths.  In other words, spend more time improving what you're good at, and spend less time trying to fix what you're bad at.  Now, I don't think he means you should entirely ignore your weaknesses.  We have them for a reason.  It's important to improve yourself everywhere you can, and if you can turn your weaknesses into strengths, then you can turn your strengths into superpowers.  In my opinion.

But the things he did with his strengths?  Incredible.  Talents aren't magical gifts you are born with.  They are hard work, hours and days and months and years, slaving away, practicing and studying.  It's painful sometimes, when something doesn't work out, when you come across a problem that doesn't seem to have a solution.  When people criticize your work, but they can't even tell you what's wrong with it.  When even you lose faith in yourself.  But having a talent or a skill means that even through all of that, you stuck with it.  You focused, you worked, because you loved doing it, and that's the key.  That's how you get good at something.  It's not just loving something, it's not just hard work and study.  It's both.

I'm sorry to admit that I have not spent enough work on my special interests to call them particularly well-developed talents.  I listen to doubt and fear way too much.  But I hope that can improve on that now.  Knowing that I'm not the only person on the planet of my species has really done something for my self esteem, lemme tell you.

But anyway, I wanted to continue on some thoughts that I had while reading the book.  It's a tangent, really, because Robison mentioned a huge revelation he had when he was about ten years old, that reminded me of one I had, not once, but twice.

 You see, when I was around ten or eleven, I was sitting there, thinking, and I realized that all the people around me were people.  That each and every one of them had thoughts and feelings, just like me, that they were each the center of their own universe, and I was just a small, flat piece of it, in their minds.  I don't know exactly what I thought of other people before then.  I don't think that I believed that they were all a figment of my imagination, or robots or anything.  But it simply hadn't ever occurred to me that they could be as complex and vast as I was.  That a random person I passed on the street, who I had never seen, and would never see again, had a whole world between their ears that I knew nothing about.  It was mind-boggling.  

I don't know if anyone else has had this experience.  Maybe other people grow up knowing this (if you read Be Different, Robison talks about that missed connection between people, that may explain why I was so late in discovering this), but I have often determined that there are a vast number of people who have not had this revelation, which is why so many people are mean and selfish.  I mean, if no one but you has thoughts and feelings, then why should you waste your time being nice to people, or helping other people?

Now, you may be wondering why I said that I had this revelation twice.  It's because I did.  There are some things that are just so big, that I can't hold them in my head for a long time.  Like infinity.  I remember my parents explaining to me that God has no beginning or end, that He is infinite.  Well, that's all well and good, if you don't actually think about it.  But when I was seven, I did, and it still irks me.  That means that He never started.  I can kind of be okay with never ending, but never starting?  He wasn't born, he just always was.  Everything comes from something.  Everything has a starting point somewhere.  But He just was, forever and ever, and I tried holding that concept in my head, the idea of infinity and I actually got nauseated.  It hurt my head, literally.  (Fun fact, though.  When I mentioned this to someone else, about how trying to understand infinity made me feel ill, I just got weird looks.  Apparently this is unique to me.  Thankfully, because of college and calculus, I'm a little more comfortable with the concept.  As long as I don't think about it too hard.)

So, walking around, imagining the billions of invisible universes around me, was not something a ten year old could handle.  It was simply too big.  It just faded out of my mind over time.  But I remember the second time it hit me, and it stuck.  It was a few years later.  I was probably about fourteen or fifteen, and one of my brother's friends just loved to pick on me.  I didn't understand why.  This was the guy who told me I needed a tan.  Three times.  In hindsight, the fact that he picked on me so much may have indicated a crush on me, but I was blind to that kind of thing, and there was no follow-up, so he could have just been mean-spirited.  Anyway, the more he picked on me, the angrier I got, which was strange because before then, I was not an angry person.  Then, I got an idea.  I'd watched tons of movies, which involved hand-to-hand combat.  I didn't take any karate lessons, but I got the gist of it.  He was a head or two taller than me at the time, so I knew I wouldn't win in a fight.  But I was Penny, sweet, quiet, little Penny.  Everybody knew I couldn't hurt a fly.  And that would be my advantage.  I plotted out the best way to attack.  It had to be fast, completely out of the blue, if I was to have any chance.  A proper blow to the head could knock him out cold, and render him completely incapable of hurting me.  After that, he'd know better than to tease me.

I'm not gonna lie.  In the days and weeks leading up to my impending attack, I continually played the Darth Vader theme song from Star Wars in my head.  I was far more powerful than any of them could imagine.  And I would make him pay.  I pictured it, over and over again, fine-tuning until I knew exactly what I should do.  It was during one of these practice runs that the Revelation Take 2 occurred.

Now, if you're religious, perhaps you would understand me when I said that this was the Spirit talking that day.  If you want to claim it was just my brain, that's up to you, but I've always believed it was an official Chastisement from God.  See, what I got was:

"Shame on you, Penny.  You know better."  

I remembered, out of the blue, the fact that I was not actually the only person with thoughts and feelings on this planet.  That this boy, whether or not he was ignorant of the suffering he caused me, did not deserve to get his head smashed against the wall.  I was pretty ashamed for my behavior, and since then, I've been able to remember that the world does not revolve around Penny.  I know, it's the only point of view I have, like the people of ancient days who thought the galaxy revolved around the Earth.  But to every other person, what they saw was a whole universe revolving around them, where I was just a speck.  Other people don't mean to hurt me.  They barely even notice me.  And to hurt them would be of just as much monument as if I hurt myself.  And so, I didn't.

Since then, my worst fear has been hurting other people.  I can tell you guys that, because you don't know who I am, and you can't come shove it in my face, like some people would.  But there it is.  I can't stand the idea of anyone getting hurt, through my action or inaction.  It's my biggest rule of all: never, ever, ever, hurt someone.

Certain people say I'm too nice.  That I should "stick up for myself," that I should be "more assertive."  They don't realize, they don't see what I see.  That hurting someone else, butting in, getting mad, taking something from them... I know what it feels like, to be insulted, interrupted, shut down.  I know what it's like when somebody "assertively" yells at me until I cry.  I can imagine (though I've never experienced it) how horrible it is to be betrayed, to have your heart broken.  So I would never, could never, do that to someone else.

In most accounts, this is my best quality.  As people get to know me, even though I never actually say it, they realize that I genuinely care about them.  That I would never intentionally do anything to hurt them, and if I hurt them unintentionally, that I would do whatever I could to make it better.  It is who I am.  But there is one place that this characteristic is actually problematic, and I'll admit that, here, where it's in "secret".  In one area, it actually holds me back.

It's that I know that people hurt a little when they see someone do something better than them.  I mean, sure, we all like to watch that guy juggling chainsaws at the circus, but there's always that little part of your brain that goes "I don't have that."  Whenever I tell people that I have more than one "special skill," part of me thinks they don't believe me.  That I'm just bragging for attention.  Everyone hates a bragger.  The other part of me thinks that they do believe me, which means they'll hate me even more.

I remember, when I was really little, watching or reading something about a genius.  There was this kid who went to college when he was really young.  My guess is he was somewhere between ten and fourteen, but that's not the point.  They talked about how bright he was, and how promising his future was, and I thought "that would be so cool!  I want to do that!"  And then they talked about his "fans".  People would send him hate mail.  Somebody threw a brick through his window.  They called him a freak, said he shouldn't be there.  They hated him.  I didn't understand why, just that they did.  And I realized, then and there, that people hate it when other people do better than them.

And I remembered it.  I remember just about everything.  Growing up, I was careful not to show my gifts, because I was afraid of getting hurt.  But as I got older, I still couldn't show it, because I was afraid of hurting other people.  The ones who don't throw rocks and send hate mail, those are the ones nice enough to just sit there and feel bad about not being better than they are.  And I hated that.  I hated that doing something that made me feel good, would make other people feel bad.  It just wasn't fair!  I didn't want to hurt the people I loved, just to make myself feel good.  

So, I dragged my feet.  Hid my "light under a bushel."  When I went to college at 16, I backpedaled enough to still be in my freshman year when 18 rolled around.  And I made sure not to tell anyone how old I was, not unless they asked me directly.  I wouldn't ask for piano lessons, even though I was teaching myself.  I wouldn't show people my drawings, even though I was getting kind of good.  I wouldn't tell my friends I was tutoring math to people twice my age in school.  If I had to show myself excelling at one thing, then I sure as heck wouldn't tell them about the others.  It wouldn't be fair.

Do you see how foolish I am?  People that love me may be jealous, but if they understood the hard work I put into my talents, they wouldn't resent me for the result.  And people that choose to ignore it, and simply say I was "lucky", clearly don't care about me, so I shouldn't have to worry about their feelings (even though I obviously do).  And beyond that, just because I wasn't "allowed" to tell people about the things that I loved, didn't mean I shouldn't improve them on my own!  I could be a closet Mozart or DaVinci if I wanted.  So why didn't I?  I don't know.  At this point, I'm a slightly better than mediocre musician/artist/writer/performer/math tutor/hair stylist, because I let fear and doubt and worrying about other peoples' feelings hold me back.  Was I wrong?  Yeah, I guess so.  But is it really wrong to care about the people around you?  To make sacrifices for their well being?  No!  Of course not!  But was it really better for them to see me fail?  Even now, when people say "oh, you did so good at that!  I couldn't do that!" I squirm.  I start coming up with ways to make them feel better.  I tell them where I messed up, or how long it took me to get that far.  Or, I point out what they're good at that I'm not, but that sounds too much like a misdirection to be beneficial.

Why does it have to be that way?  Why can't people just say "good job!" and mean it?  I know some actually do, but I guess I'm not good enough at reading people to tell them from the jealous liars.  I shouldn't care.  I should just "live my life" and enjoy myself, but I can't.  I can't un-know something, and I know that people are sensitive.  I can't pretend that it doesn't effect me to see other people get hurt.  I want so badly to share my success and excitement with other people, but many of those closest to me are too bitter to accept that it's okay if I have something and they don't.  So I can't.  I have to just bite my tongue, and listen to other people celebrate or complain.  I have to sit on my hands and drag my feet, waiting, hoping, that other people will catch up.

My posts keep turning really negative lately, and I don't know why.  Maybe when I analyze myself too much, I get depressed.  I'm not really that pessimistic.  Most people that know me describe me as a little ray of sunshine, always looking on the bright side of things.  Maybe that's just because I can't stand to see them sad.  But maybe if I stopped writing this for myself, and wrote it, instead, for all of you, then things will start looking up.

Because when I pretend to be happy, I actually become it.

Penny

"Different," and other four letter words

Today, I decided to talk to my little sister about my autism.  I wanted to try and better see what life was like through her eyes, in comparison to mine.  I also wanted her to know more about me, now that I'm starting to understand all these things about myself.  Like I've said before, normally I wouldn't just offer up random bits of information about myself, unless directly asked.  But, I think the key to improving my situation, and better accepting myself, is to show more of who I am to those closest to me.

So I started asking her questions.  To be honest, I was curious if she was autistic, too, and she just handled it better or differently than I do.  I hyperfocus, she has ADHD.  I have social anxiety, but growing up, she was constantly surrounded by people, always seeking them out.  I mentioned in an earlier post that she actually felt sick if she didn't have someone to socialize with every day.  So, we couldn't be less alike, could we?  But ADHD, just like OCD, anxiety, and depression, often attacks autistic people.  And maybe, from an early age, where my special interests were in books and on tv screens, her special interests were on people.  Hyperfocusing on other people, and conversations, would not only make you a master of them, you would have far less anxiety doing it.  So, that was my theory, and I decided asking her about it, not mentioning at first that I wondered if she had it too.

At one point, she said that if she had autism, she wouldn't want to know.  She said she didn't like labels like that, and she would figure out how to deal with her problems on her own.  That's a very healthy and sensible view.  And completely opposite from me.  But that's because she is not autistic (as far as I can tell), and one of the issues that I struggle with is that I don't deal with my problems.  I try to fix them, realize I don't know how, then I shut down.  I've come across this many times.  Now that I better understand how I "work", I can better combat my problems, and also play to my strengths.

The main focus of our discussion ended up being the Aspergian trait of thinking in absolutes.  I mentioned this before, but I want to talk about this some more.  I asked her if she liked things in different degrees, and she did.  She could understand how I would have trouble, and think the way I do, about most things.  For example, she said that she loves Harry Potter, and she loves Twilight, and she couldn't possibly say which she loves more, because that would be comparing apples and oranges.

But then she asked me this: who do I love more?  Her, or the family dog?  I think she was trying to show to me that I really was capable of liking things in varying degrees, but I kind of got stuck.  I wanted to say that I loved her more, of course.  You're supposed to love people more than pets, especially if those people are family.  If I was having a light conversation with some random person, that's what I would say, and then I would give myself reasons why, so that I wouldn't feel like I was lying.  But I couldn't really say it, because I didn't really know.  She said, "if she died and I didn't, would you be more or less sad than if I died, and she didn't?"  Well, I could honestly answer that if the human died, and the dog didn't, I would be more sad.  Over the past two years, I've watched as our sweet puppy mysteriously changed into an old lady dog.  She has grey hairs, and sleeps all the time.  She has diabetes, so we have to give her insulin shots, but she keeps getting sicker and sicker.  She barely has the energy to get up and say hello anymore, but she'll wag her tail when you say her name.  She is old.  She will die.  Almost every time I see her, that is my exact thought.  My puppy is going to die, any day now.  And I feel sad.  So, I pet her and talk to her, telling her I love her, and how much she means to me.  I do things to make her feel good.  The truth is: I am already in mourning.  I am preparing for the inevitable.  

But my sister?  She is young.  She is at the beginning of her life.  If she died now, it would be a horrible shock, and a tragedy.  I am not preparing for her death, because she is not supposed to die soon.  So, yes, I would cry more if she died.  I would be very, very sad.  Would I be more sad than if my dog died?  I don't know.  But I would be more surprised.  And Aspies hate surprises.  Selfishly, my life would be turned upside-down if my sister died.  It would not if my dog died.

I couldn't really say all of that out loud, so I just got really quiet.  She told me I ought to figure that out for myself.  I feel really bad.  I want to tell my sister I love her more than the dog.  I really, really did.  But our love is complicated.  The dog doesn't hurt me, and she doesn't (technically) do me any favors.  But my little sister?  I do things for her, she does things for me.  She hurts me, I hurt her.  Certainly, my love for the dog is simpler and easier to understand than my love for the human.  But is it stronger or weaker?  I have no idea.

We talked for a long time, about a lot of things, and it really got me thinking.  I even started telling her why it was such a wonderful thing for me to know that I have Asperger's.  She didn't understand at first, and maybe she still doesn't, but I tried to explain.  But it specifically involves the way I think.  In the Aspie mind, there is no shades of grey.  Only black or white.  Yes or no.  Right, or wrong.

This can be a gift.  Or a curse.  And I'll tell you why.

Growing up, just like anybody else, I learned about my world, and how to behave, by watching others.  Walking, talking, reading, writing, these are all things other people showed me how to do.  Before I saw them doing it, I didn't not know how to do it, and if I had tried to do it by myself, I would have been wrong.  So, in my Aspie brain, that meant that everyone else was always right, and if I did not match them, I was wrong.

You can imagine what that would do to a little girl, when her brain and her body would not, could not, wholly conform to the model presented to her.  Every time I said something, did something, that wasn't normal, people would tell me.  So I had to stop that thing, because it was wrong.  My mother mentions to someone that "Little Penny is so independent!  She doesn't need help with any of her school work!"  And little Penny learns that not asking for help is a good thing, so if she wanted to be a good little girl, she should do things on her own.

Little Penny hated tomatoes and onions, and hamburgers scared the crap out of her.  But everyone else was eating those things, so little Penny was wrong, and had to try it.  She had to eat them, even though they were disgusting, because obviously, she was wrong.

Little Penny didn't like people touching her, but girls are supposed to want boyfriends, and boyfriends are supposed to touch their girlfriends, so little Penny had to let them, even though she hated it.  Because they were right, and Penny was wrong.

Every time I did something I didn't see other people doing, like smelling my hands, or tapping my fingers, or losing myself in a book, or talking about school buses and ants and superheroes and hair, I would stop, and try to correct it.  Other people don't read books fast, Penny, so you must be wrong.  Other people don't think school buses are pretty, and they weren't thrilled the first time they got to ride one as a teenager, so you don't talk about things like that.  Other people don't walk down the hall running the back of their hand on the railing.  Other people don't smell things, or touch their faces, or tap their legs.  So you need to stop.  But I couldn't stop.  And I hated it.

Whenever I did something different, and other people noticed, they'd always give me this look and say "you're weird," or, "what's wrong with you?"  That always bothered me.  It still does.  As I got older, I would joke and say "do you want the long list, or the short one?"  But every time they said that, every time they pointed out that I was different, and therefore, wrong, it hurt.  I remember every time that happened.  A friend mentions that I have a unibrow, which I hadn't noticed before, so I go home and pluck it out, even though it burns, because girls are supposed to have two eyebrows.  Someone gives me a confused stare when I use big words, and I resolve to copy "normal" people's speech pattern to the best of my ability, re-writing and re-thinking, when big words come out.  Some jerk teases me because I'm so pale, starting a several year cycle, of never wearing shorts, to laying for hours outside in my bathing suit, to finally paying money (something that hurts more than yanking hair out of my face) to try and buy a tan, and fix the wrongness.  Someone gapes at me in horror, because I don't know who this "Brad Pitt" person is, so I start making mental flashcards, berating myself when I don't know who people are talking about.  A girl points out that I have bigger boobs than she does, and I spend the rest of high school wearing loose clothing and curling in on myself, even though slouching made my back hurt.

I don't resent these people.  They just pointed out what they saw, things that made me stick out.  They didn't mean to hurt me, and if they did, then that means there is obviously something more wrong with them, than there is with me.  But my Aspie brain said "they're right, you're wrong, you need to figure out how to be less wrong."  I worked so hard, to be like them, to act like them, to look like them, to like things that they did.  I refused to mention any of my special interests, because other people didn't like them, so they must not actually be interesting.  I would struggle to contain myself, to stop tapping and twitching, to just sit still and be normal.  I would force myself to do things that horrified, terrified, or disgusted me, because that's what you're supposed to do.  And I never, never asked for help.

But today, as I explained this train of thought to my sister (although, not in that much detail), I realized something.  I notice all the time that people are different than other people.  One person is tall, another is short.  One person likes science, and another likes art.  One person talks with a Southern accent, and another barely speaks English at all.  This never bothered me.  In fact, it made them interesting.  Unpredictable sometimes, but definitely interesting.  It was okay that they were different from each other, because they came from different gene pools, different backgrounds.  But, for some reason, I never saw how it was okay for me to be different from them.  I have no idea why I never made that connection.  I wish I had seen that earlier.

I'm not one to regret.  I've always known that the past is the past, and there's nothing you can do to change it.  There is no point wondering what could have been, or wishing you had behaved a different way.  I barely think about the past, except to compare with the present.  I use it, like a catalog in my head, to better understand how things work, and what action I should take.  I worry much too much about the future and the present to spend any energy on the past.

But this one thing, I wish, I wish was different.  I wish my parents saw what I was doing to myself, and told me that what made me different, made me me, and that that's a good thing.  I wish that I had asked for help, that I had told them how scared I was, because I talked different, walked different, and liked different things.  I know I can't change the past, and I truly believe that from pain and suffering, even that we cause ourselves, we learn how to be stronger, better, kinder people.  But for the first time in my life, if someone were to ask me that stupid question: "If you could go back, and change one thing, what would it be?" my answer wouldn't be "nothing."  Not anymore.  What I want, more than anything, is not to cringe when people tell me I'm weird.  I don't want to squirm when people ask me about myself.  I don't want shrug uncomfortably when my friends say "It must be a strange place inside your head."  

I am different.  People are going to point that out for the rest of my life.  Every time they do, I feel them pushing me away, saying "I'm like this, and you're like that.  I'm over here, but you're way over there."  I prefer to look at what makes us the same.  We all have pain and fear.  We all have things that make us feel good.  We all have things and people we care about.  And none of us want to be alone.  I just wish the people around me would stop working so hard to push me away.  I've spent my life chasing after the illusion of "normal", trying to draw closer to everyone else on the planet.  I wish that people could just accept me for who I am, and how I think, and learn that, yeah, okay, we are different.  But we're not as different as everybody says.

But first, I need to learn how to accept myself.  I'm starting to, and I've made a lot of progress, but today has just been really hard, and I need to work through that.  

But I'm so glad I know why I'm different.  I'm so glad that everything makes sense now.  And I'm so glad that I'm me.  Seriously.  Sometimes it can be really hard, but sometimes it can be really great, too.  I guess I'm biased, because I've never been anyone but me.  I can't comprehend how horrible it must be, to not be able to completely lose yourself in a book or a song.  I can't imagine not being able to understand and remember little complex details of something interesting.  Sure, some things are really hard that aren't supposed to be.  But sometimes, being me is pretty awesome.

Penny

Money makes the world go 'round

So, in case you hadn't noticed any of my previous, frantic mentionings of the fact that I am unemployed, I will state it here:

I am unemployed.

This is actually the first time in my life that I have not either been in school or making money, and it's frustrating, to say the least.  I've been looking for a job since school let out, months ago, and I was planning on taking some time off of school to work up some savings.  But now both of my parents are saying that I need to go back to school in the fall.  Which would be fine, I suppose, if they didn't also want me to get a job.  It is the end of July now, and many schools start up in August.  So who would want to hire me to work for less than a month?  I know, I know, I could work and do school at the same time, but that has been unpleasant for me at times, and I don't want to have to deal with working at McDonalds or some store at the mall, AND do school full-time.

My Aspergian mind is stuck.  I need to get a job, but I need to go to school.  To me, only one is possible, but both are necessary.  Society and my family are telling me that I am a failure if I do not do both.  But I cannot do both.  Every time I try to think about it, my brain comes full stop.

Stop.

I'm trying to find out how to monetize my blog, but I am morally apposed to selling things.  Seriously.  I worked at a clothing store in the mall once, and every single day, I hated myself for everything people bought.  I was a great employee, because, instead of being dismayed when a customer decided not to buy, I was cheerful and energetic.  If only my manager knew my twisted little mind.  I would have been fired on the spot, if I wasn't so good at folding clothes (my favorite part of the job, after working a cash register, no lie).

Let me back up.  From my reading, I've learned that people with Asperger's either feel strongly about a subject, or... feel nothing at all.  And that makes perfect sense to me.  That's exactly how I've thought and behaved my whole life.  Give me a glass of chocolate milk, and you are definitely my friend.  Bring up any character in the Marvel universe, and I will talk your ear off.  Mention Mexicans, and I will correct you (it's Latino or Hispanic, guys.  I mean, really), probably scare you with my knowledge of Latino music, and tell you the nick names that my friends used to call me back at the restaurant (all good things)(I'm pretty sure).  Start talking about American Sign Language or Deaf culture, and you will have a hard time shutting me up.  Tell me you think that buying another sweater will help the economy, and I will rip you a new one (but I will do so as politely as possible, because I'm nice and I don't like arguments).  Ask me about politics, and I will go radio silent until the topic is changed, because I have practically no thoughts or opinions on it, whatsoever.  Everything I like, I love.  Everything I don't like, I hate.  Everything else, I literally feel nothing about it.  Okay, sometimes I feel guilty for not feeling anything about it, for instance interests that my friends hold dear.  But I don't feeling anything at all about that thing.

Unfortunately, consumerism is something I feel strongly about.  Every single customer that walked into our store was (most likely) a teenage girl who already had plenty of clothes, and was just looking for a way to make her feel better about herself.  And because she had nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon.  I absolutely despise this.

Don't get me wrong: I like clothes, and self expression, and the evolution of style is fascinating to me.  But STOP WASTING YOUR MONEY.  You do NOT need another shirt.  You do NOT need another pair of shoes.  You do NOT need to waste your time, energy, and money on something that, honestly, won't actually help you at all.  Clothes don't matter.  YOU ARE ALREADY BEAUTIFUL.  I'm serious.  Go read a book, or practice archery, or dance with your girlfriends.  ANYTHING is more useful than spending money on clothes you don't need.

Shoot, I forgot where I was going with this entry.

Oh, right: making money.  So, I hate asking people for money.  I feel guilty getting money for doing things that I like to do.  It's like getting paid to breathe.  I was already going to do it, and why in the world would you pay me for it?  It seems like doing things I like is only benefiting me, so there's no reason to give me more rewards.  It just doesn't make sense.  But, on the other hand, I don't like to do things that I don't like to do (go figure!) and a lot of times, the money I get for it, just isn't worth it.  But I need money.  Everybody does.  I don't want to live at my parents' house, eating my parents' food, because that is a mark of a failure and someone who doesn't contribute to society.  Plus, I don't like having a crowded fridge.  So...

I need a job.  But I don't want to work retail: I hate trying to get people to buy things they didn't already need, and if they already needed it, they wouldn't need me there to convince them to get it.  So, that's out.  I don't want to work in a restaurant again: the other employees weren't as sanitary as I am, for one thing, and for another, it was chaotic, unpredictable, and they were constantly changing my schedule.  I had to call in, almost every week, in order to find out when I was working (and I HATE making phone calls).  Since I am not spontaneous, all of my "fun," "day off" activities had to be planned in advance, but I had no advance notice for my work schedule.  So, I just worked.  All the time.  It was horrible.  I remember one day, coming home from work around midnight, completely exhausted and empty, and I just screamed and screamed at the top of my lungs, because you're not allowed to complain when things are hard, and I couldn't do anything else.  So, no restaurants.

What else is there?  I could start a career, get a desk job somewhere, but they all want someone with experience, an internship, a degree, something.  I do have a degree.  In Transfer Studies.  I don't know if that's quite what they're looking for.  And a desk job never appealed to me, anyway.

Granted, I don't have to stay at any of the jobs I pick.  I could get something temporary.  But I am an Aspie.  I have a hard time starting things, and an even harder time stopping them.  I deal in absolutes.  Either it's a good job for me, or it isn't, and that's the way I see it.  It makes it very, very hard to choose places to work.  Every option is either equally bad, or equally neutral, so my brain won't choose them.  But I've been doing what I can, anyway.  I applied to every place I could talk myself into, including some restaurants and retail jobs.  But nobody's biting.

Great sob story, right?  I mean, I have food and shelter, so I shouldn't be complaining.  But I hate having to rely on my parents.  They've worked their butts off my whole life, trying to make sure my psychological, physiological, and educational needs are met.  Not to mention all the love and support they've offered me over the years.  It isn't fair to force them to keep taking care of me.  I'm an adult now, and I should be doing adult things, like buying my own lunch, and paying rent.

That said, I've been wrestling over what the least offensive way to make money off my blog would be.  The ideal one would be to have a donation button on my page, but I don't know if that's "allowed" or not.  The PayPal people say that it's "only for non-profit organizations", and I am neither an organization, nor would I be working for no profit, so I guess that means I shouldn't use it?  I am pathologically incapable of breaking rules.  That's just who I am.  

I've already started to put up links to Amazon.com for anything I mention that I might sell there.  They'll give me a percentage if anyone buys through my site, within 24 hours.  And I kind of like that.  If you didn't have "insert thing here", and I mention "insert thing here", and you realized you were interested in "insert verb here" said "insert thing here", then it might be nice to get a small percentage of the cost.  I'm not running around saying "PLEASE COME BUY "insert thing here" AND MAKE ME HAPPY".  I'm just offering it.

But that won't really do much, especially if I'm not actually asking you guys to buy stuff.  This morning I finally caved and decided to sign up for AdSense, so maybe I could get a few cents a year through that, but for some reason, the website decided not to play nice with me, so that's out (for today, at least).  But I really, really want to start making money off of my writing, because then I'll be allowed to keep writing, and I'll really be able to start improving my craft.  I have a couple books in the works, and I hope to get them published one day, but my dad won't be happy if I go without a salary until then, and, honestly, neither will I.

So, I'm bidding on freelance writing and editing jobs, which I hope will turn up something.  But I'm feeling the pressure coming down, and it does not make me happy, lemme tell you.

I guess the point of this entry is: please don't be mad at me for "selling out", whichever way I end up doing.  I'm trying not to hate myself for asking for money, especially because sometimes writing is hard, and you should get paid to do hard things, right?  I don't know if AdSense is the best route or not, but I'm gonna try it (if it lets me, that is).  You don't have to click on any links, you don't have to fall for anyone's schemes.  You CERTAINLY don't have to buy stuff you don't need.  But if you do... You'll help a "starving artist" feel a little better about herself.

I know I shouldn't judge, but people buy things way too much.  I don't even like the idea of paying for fast food.  But on the other hand, I won't feel like a loser, living in her parents' house, if I don't live in my parents' house anymore.  Food for thought.

Yay for consumerism.

Penny

The inevitable "coming out" post

So... I did it.  I finally did it.  I talked to my dad about autism.  We were driving on our way to church, and I finally just asked him "what do you know about autism?"  I didn't say anything else, and I don't know if my mom had mentioned anything to him about our earlier conversation.  He said he didn't know much, just that they had trouble with relationships, and for them, some things are hard, that most people find easy, and some things are easy, that people find hard.  Honestly, that's more than I knew about it two weeks ago, so it's fair enough.

So I elaborated a little, explaining that people with autism either had hyper- or hyposensitivity.  That for "them," sight, smell, taste, texture, it was all more intense for them than for neurotypical people, which is the reason why they had trouble with connecting with people, because they get overwhelmed by all of everything, and they had a hard time picking up on subtle cues.  I realize this is extremely truncated, but I was nervous, and I didn't want to over-load him before I dropped "the big one".  All along, I was speaking in a light, but precise tone, careful not to convey how nervous I was, or how hard it was just bringing it up.  Then I explained how, a week ago, I started doing some research, and I realized that I was autistic.  I quickly went on to tell him how I was "on cloud nine," because finally everything makes sense, why I had such a hard thing with things that were "supposed" to be easy.  I told him how I've been doing a lot of reading, about the difference between the way Aspies and NTs think, and I told him that knowing that has already started helping me better communicate with the people around me.  I thought that was a nice touch, because I don't know that he would like to hear that there was anything "wrong" with his daughter, and maybe he might prefer that I just ignore a diagnosis, and continue to work at being "normal".  (I don't know this for a fact, but I'm paranoid by nature, and on top of that, I have a very hard time telling people that I'm having a hard time)

He didn't say anything, he just listened.  I don't know if he even had anything to say, but I didn't stop talking long enough to give him the chance.  The drive to church is very short, and I knew I had to get a complete palate of thought before we were silenced for the service.

Now that we're back at home, and we've been settled for the evening, he hasn't asked me any questions about it, but I've started expressing things here and there which I normally would have kept to myself.  Jokes about Aspies, and for Aspies, for one.  My dad loves humor, and joking about something helps him better understand and accept a situation.  Once again, he hasn't shown any distress, or confusion, about what I've told him so far, so I don't know how he's "taking it," but I want to be sure that he understands who I am, and what I'm going through.  Then my mom starts reading a quote from Look Me In the Eye, where John Elder talks about tricking a room full of people into believing that he worked as a garbage man.  I then clarified that it was extremely rare for an Aspie to be able to lie: for the rest of us, we literally can not lie.  It is painful, even to think about deceiving someone.  They nodded and said that made sense.

Still, no one has asked me about Asperger's or Autism yet.  It is not in my nature to offer up personal details, unless directly asked, and even then, I usually keep it to the most general and short response as possible.  So, randomly mentioning aspects of my psyche like this is not normal, and it takes a great deal of guts to bring it up, not to mention the best of my acting ability to keep it light, casual, and normal-sounding as possible.  It could be that this does not affect my family at all, and I am putting all of this worry and fear into nothing.  I know that my family loves me, and I know, that they know, that I'm pretty weird.  But I have spent my life, doing the best I could to hide anything that was "weird" about me, even from my family.  So I doubt that they even know half of it.  Granted, they sometimes surprise me with the things that they notice, so I could be far more oblivious of them than I assume they are of me.  So, I'm gonna keep working on "being myself" around them, and being more forthright about who I am, exactly.

And, I've also been doing some exploring.  I joined up at wrongplanet.net, using the name PennySings (and I changed the name of my blog!  I thought pennysings.blogspot.com sounded a lot better than pennyocdont.blogspot.com, especially now that I'm bringing the attention away from OCD and on to autism.  Plus, I like the ring of it), and started looking around.  It's really weird, to be able to say whatever I want, however I want, without worrying about people being offended or thinking I was a pompous know-it-all.  I mean, I don't believe I said anything cruel or mean, but normally, when I post something on the internet, I read it and re-read it at least three times, watering it down until it's as sweet and unassuming as possible.  Probably about seventy percent of the comments I write online ends up getting deleted.  This time I only read it once, just to check for spelling errors and continuity.  It's scary and liberating at the same time.  I hope I get to better get to know other people of my "species" (seriously, I was just saying the other day how we're actually aliens, and here I am, stumbling across Wrong Planet, it's absolutely perfect, I tell you!).  I even found an amazing blog series that I just love, and I'm going to get my parents to read it.  It's a lot easier to point them to already written material (much of which is very well expressed) than to try and tell them myself, or to show them what I've written.  I've been going back and forth about whether or not I should show them this blog.  Part of me feels like they would really like to see it, but part of the reason I can express myself like this, is because no one I know is reading it.  Seriously.  I've got a fake name, and I haven't sent this to anyone I know.  If someone I knew were to stumble across it, I don't know that they'd know who I was (this could be extreme oversight on my part.  Despite my paranoia, I think I still underestimate people sometimes).  So I'm completely free to say whatever comes to mind.  Maybe one day I won't mind anymore, but we'll see.

Just for fun, I'd like to plug in something random here.  The more I learn about autism, the more I start projecting those aspects onto people and characters I know.  I am constantly wondering if other members of my immediate family have Asperger's as well (and that is another reason I've started feeding them information on it, to see if they have an "aha" moment, like I did).  And I've started reaching for characters in books, movies, and TV.  Today's suspect is Parker, from the TV show Leverage.  She has difficulty with social situations, she is obsessive and a master in her special interests, and she's just plain weird.  She's awesome.  I would say she's my favorite character in the show, but I'm a huge fan of Eliot and Hardison, too.  So basically, the whole cast is awesome.

So, on that note,
Penny

Socialization is dangerous.

Before I start today's post, I'd like to share a few more startling revelations that I've had over the past 24 hours.  I hope you appreciate how some of these have left me completely astounded, and for at least one of them, all I could do for five minutes was sit on my bead, repeating every possible inflection of the phrase of "Oh, my gosh!" that I could think of.

This is why other people can wear sweaters.  Heck, this is why other people can wear long sleeves at all.  Last winter, I'd finally had enough and bought half a dozen long sleeve shirts, and wore them every day for months, until I finally, finally got used to it.  But I never got why other people had so many different kinds of clothes.  My sister loves sweaters.  She knits them herself.  Even though she hates the cold, winter is her favorite time of year, because she finally gets to bring out the thick stuff.  But I'm so uncomfortable.  The yarn is scratchy, and I can't take it off all day, because then my hair will get messed up.  So I'm stuck in scratchy, thick, stiff, hot clothes all day, the sweat and heat building up, until I can't think of anything else.  My sister, who I strongly believe is autistic also, can't understand why I wouldn't love everything about sweaters, and if I bring it up, she acts like I'm crazy.  No, dear, apparently I'm not.  But I'm glad to know the rest of the world isn't insane, either.  There are just too many miserable and horrifying things people do for beauty.  I'm just glad to know it isn't quite as bad as I thought!

This is why women can cross their legs all the time.  I know, this is a weird one, and it's not something I've even thought about for years.  But I remember, when I was a kid, watching what all the mature, adult women were doing at church.  They were all crossing their legs.  Without moving.  For the entire service.  I decided that this was exactly what I was supposed to be doing, so I would cross my legs too.  But there was no way that I could do it.  It really hurt, having all that pressure on my knee and the skin between it.  I couldn't understand why they could do it, and I couldn't.  So, I would sit there, for longer and longer, waiting until I really, really had to change position.  Now that I'm all grown up, and have been practicing every Sunday since I was six, I can sit with my legs crossed for the whole service.  Sometimes I don't have to change position for a whole half hour, and, as a plus, I get to bob my leg to my heart's content.  It's a great way to get the tics out.

This is why people doodle in class.  I remember watching other kids drawing in their notes while they're in class.  And I thought "hey, I love to draw.  I want to try it!"  I did it once.  It was horrible.  I had no idea what the teacher was saying for the entire class, and all I had to show for it was some crappy little drawings on lined paper.  You see, I've learned that not only is it possible for other people to do more than one thing at a time, for some, it's necessary.  For instance, other people can't sit down and put all of their thought processes into one thing, and one thing only.  I am not other people.  I once watched water boil, from start to finish, and I was fascinated.  I'm not kidding.  Sometimes, I get so focused, I forget to breath.  And it's not entirely uncommon for me to start drooling (although I haven't done it in a long, long time.  You learn to split your focus when necessary, and other kids a cruel about things like that).  So, for someone like me, who processes information by shutting out anything and everything else, doodling in class is not only pointless and distracting, it actually makes me completely miserable, because obsessively focusing on something makes autistic kids happy.

Anyway, let's talk about socialization for the autistic person (or what it's like for me, anyway).  To help explain what it means to me, I'm going to replace the word "socializing" for the more appropriate phrase, "knife juggling."  

I've been trying to learn how to juggle knives my whole life.  I've watched other people juggling all around me, in all kinds of situations, because they're bored, because they need something done, or they need information, because they like to share the activity of juggling with people they like.  For some people, like my little sister, the little social butterfly that she is, going a day without juggling knives makes them anxious, depressed, even physically ill.  They throw out a knife here or there, wherever they go.  A lot of people don't seem to mind who they're juggling with, or whether or not that person actually wants to be juggling with them at the moment.  They just start throwing, and the other person is forced to catch it and throw it back.

I don't use my own knives very often.  Mine are strange, and people don't like strange things.  Most of what I throw is something I got from someone else, or from a book or a movie.  Sometimes I wonder if I have any of my own knives at all, or if all of them are something stolen.  This is very sad to me.  But I spent so long, hiding all of my knives that didn't look like other people's, that many were lost, or re-configured.  Now that I know why my knives are different than other people's, I hope to be able to throw them with more confidence, at more people.  It's tiring, looking for knives that I have that I think other people would like to catch.  That's another reason why I don't throw them as much.  It seems like everyone else just throws their knives willy-nilly, not caring how or if other people with take them, which is completely alien to me.  I guess there's a lot more to juggling than I understand right now.  But I hope I'll pick up enough tricks along the way.

I'm not saying I don't like juggling knives.  In fact, it's pretty fun and exciting, not to mention extremely helpful sometimes.  But I'm not all that coordinated, and I haven't learned many tricks.  I'm a lot better at it now, because I've been practicing and studying for years, but it seems as though everyone else in the world takes knife juggling for granted.  When I was a child, I had no idea how to do it, but everyone else already juggled with ease, laughing and giggling as they tossed their knives higher and higher in the air.  Nobody sat me down and told me things like "Here are the rules to juggling.  Here's what you've got to look out for.  Here are some tricks you should try."  So, I had to figure it out by trial and error.  Unfortunately, when you're dealing with knives, error can be pretty scary, so a lot of times I didn't try.  I just watched closely, analyzing  trying to figure how how to do it.  But you can't learn how to juggle just by watching.  You can only really get good at it by doing it.  I remember when I was a kid, watching my mom juggle with a couple other moms.  I knew where a knife was, and where it had been, but I couldn't tell where it was going to be, so every time I tried to catch one to throw it back, I would wait too long, or fumble, missing my chance.  So I would go back to watching, trying to figure out the pattern, and what my part in it was.  That happened a lot growing up.  

See, here is one big problem with juggling.  A lot of people seem to think that it's a great idea to juggle with a whole bunch of people at the same time.  Knives are flying everywhere, from all directions, and I don't know who's supposed to go next, or when I'm allowed to throw what I have.  It's exhausting, trying to keep up with all of those knives at the same time.  I'll catch one, here or there, but I often won't throw it, because nobody will tell me when it's my turn, and I am not about to jump in the middle of the fray to find out.  When you jump in, either people will stop throwing and stare at you (which is nerve-wracking), or else nobody noticed you were trying to throw something, and your knife falls flat on the floor.  Do you get on your knees, pick it up, and try throwing it again?  Well, that's embarrassing, and usually by the time you get the guts to try and throw it again, everybody's on to another kind of knife, so yours is useless.  I realize now that there isn't actually any turn taking in juggling.  People just magically go with it, jumping in whenever they feel like it, catching random trick-shots, and letting others fall to the floor unnoticed.  It seems like people don't mind when their knife falls to the ground, because they just keep going.  That's a mark of a good juggler.  They don't tell anyone they messed up, they ignore the knife on the floor.  But I don't know how to do that yet.  When I drop mine, I tend to freeze up, not knowing what to do, or how to fix my mistake.  I'm getting better about recovering fumbles, but it's still hard.  I rarely throw more than two or three knives when there's juggling going on with more than one other person.

Now, as for juggling with strangers, that's always been really tricky.  If you don't know someone, then you don't know their style, or what kind of knives, or how many they have.  You don't really know if they even feel like juggling at the moment, or even ever, but you can't just walk up to them and ask them if they want to juggle with you, because that's weird and nobody does that.  Everyone else just throws a knife, and waits to see if they throw it back.  It's terrifying, wondering if you might miss or they might miss, and somebody gets hurt, or maybe they didn't notice you threw a knife in the first place, so you're not sure if you should throw another one or not.  Or maybe they just ignored the knife, because they don't feel like juggling.  I remember watching my mom, in the grocery store, walking down the street, at church, wherever she was, she was constantly throwing knives.  And she threw them so fast, not really caring who caught them.  And just like that, she was juggling with some random person that she had never met before, and never would meet again.  She was learning their style and tricks, risking injury every time.  I had no idea why should would put that much effort and energy into such a dangerous, and possibly fruitless endeavor.  I was amazed at her skill and bravery, but at the same time, I was terrified that someone would randomly toss a knife my way without warning or provocation.

Let me talk about juggling over the phone.  Juggling over the phone shouldn't be all that different than regular juggling, and yet, it's a lot harder.  Because you're doing it blindfolded.  Have you ever juggled knives blindfolded?  You don't know where exactly to throw the knife.  You don't know where exactly it's coming from.  It's a lot harder to tell the mood of the person you're throwing it to, and that's scary, not knowing if the other juggler is happy, or sad, or angry, not getting a chance to get the flow of the flying objects or see where they're going.  I suppose if you're a really natural juggler, you juggle blindfolded all the time.  But it's still a little baffling to me.  When you're juggling over the phone, you have no idea if the other person is going to be there (if you're the one starting it).  If they throw a knife at you while you're minding your own business at home or in your car, it's terribly alarming, and it takes a really long time to adjust and fall into a regular pattern.  I mean, really.  It takes a minute to work up to a decent juggling session, and if someone you can't even see just attacks you out of no where, it's disturbing and confusing.  Usually, by the time I turn on the juggling part of my brain and remember what I've learned about it, the other person is done and they hang up.

One of the biggest, most important lessons I've learned about juggling is that people don't like juggling with an inexperienced juggler.  I mean, seriously, can you imagine tossing a knife back and forth with a person who looks like they're going to pass out from fear?  I know everybody's afraid of getting cut, but if the other person is shaking, you're not going to throw knives at them, for fear of having them pee their pants, or just stand there as it stabs them in the chest.  Plus, if you realize that they don't actually know how to aim, your best bet is probably to get as far away from them as possible.

So, you fake it.  You pretend like you've done this constantly since before you could walk, and that it's so easy you can do it without even thinking.  If your tosses are light and confident, then theirs will be too.  Because sometimes, when people are wary or cautious, they throw weird, and then it makes the whole thing just that much harder.

Now, my biggest concern in juggling isn't juggling itself anymore.  I was forced to juggle at school and work every day for a long time, so I've got some experience under my belt.  I even have some programmed reactions that come more or less naturally, which I'm pretty proud of.  When I've been practicing, I can even throw in tricks here and there.  It's pretty fun, when you've got the hang of it.  

But there are still some things I don't know how to do.  Like start juggling.  Or stop.  I realize that no one is psychic, but growing up, I thought that people somehow magically knew whether or not someone wanted to juggle with someone else.  Like they send off a signal, saying "please throw knives at me".  And maybe they do, but if there is such a signal, it's completely invisible to me.  So, mostly I just wait for someone to throw me something, and I try to figure out how to keep it going.  Once we get started, I start picking up on what kinds of knives I should use, based on what knives they use.  And I usually mimic their throwing style to the best of my ability--not so much to make them think I'm making fun of them, just enough to keep them comfortable.  Sometimes I'm brave enough to throw a knife at a random person.  I've got a couple of really blunt, really small ones I've picked up over the years, that are pretty good for starting things up, and that people won't get hurt if I throw it wrong, or they don't feel like juggling.  Sometimes, just by watching them, you can pick up a few knives they've used themselves, which can go really well (if it's the right knife.  Sometimes, though, people want to forget about some of them, and they won't like you throwing it back to them).

But I haven't learned any good tricks for stopping juggling.  If you just stop, it freaks people out, and they're less likely to start with you on another occasion.  You need special moves to stop the exchange, and, though I know what some are, I still don't know how to use them.  With a lot of people, once you start juggling, they won't want to stop.  It's one of the hazards of getting semi-decent at juggling.  Now, the only way I know how to stop a juggling match, is by having something I need to go do.  Not want, but need.  It's usually someone else wanting me to do something.  Either that, or a previous engagement.  But if all I wanted was to stop juggling, and I didn't actually have anything specifically scheduled later, or nobody's asking me to leave them, then I'm out of luck.  Nobody wants to hear "I don't want to juggle because I'm tired of juggling."  I've never in my life heard somebody say that.  I mean, I have heard people not wanting to juggle because they're busy, or upset or something.  But you're not allowed to not like juggling.  Everybody likes juggling.  If you don't like juggling with a person, then you must not like that person, and you never, ever want to juggle with them.  Ever.  That's the obvious conclusion that everyone makes, and, unfortunately, it's not always right.  Sometimes, I'm out of knives, I'm out of tricks, my arms are tired, and I just want to rest.  But that's not a good enough excuse to stop juggling.  So, I just wait, hoping they'll get tired, too.  I catch the knives, but I don't throw them back as much or as enthusiastically.  Maybe they'll just get the hint, that I'm not really in the juggling mood anymore, even though I was, ten, twenty minutes earlier.  

Sometimes I've been caught juggling for hours, because no one would rescue me, and the other person didn't notice that I ran out of knives.  That's a pretty unfortunately and exhausting situation to be in.  Every once in a while, someone throws knives aggressively, and when I try to back away as respectfully as possible, but they follow me wherever I go.  I try to hide from those people, because you always have to throw knives back when people throw them to you.  It's rude not to, and I don't want to be rude, even though I don't particularly like their juggling style.  

It's taken me a long time to develop the skills I have now, and I'm still far behind everyone else.  Sometimes I don't mind.  People don't notice my mistakes as often as I do, and that's great.  Other times, I feel afraid, and hold myself back, even though I've done the same kind of juggling for years.  It's a process, and I'm learning.  Right now, I'm trying to decide which jugglers I should tell about my autism, and about how, despite the fact that I'm getting really good at faking it, I'm actually not that great at juggling.  Maybe I should tell no one but those closest to me.  Yesterday, I actually managed to say, out loud, with three or four other people in the room, that I found out I'm autistic.  I didn't get the guts to explain what that means to me, or to them, or even really what it is, but I said it.  I'm never sure how people react when I tell them about myself.  They didn't say anything about it, but I wondered what they were thinking.  I know, before I actually sat down and read about it, that I always thought an autistic person was someone who didn't talk and sat rocking in a corner somewhere.  I honestly thought that maybe they had simple thoughts, and that's why they had simple needs and simple conversations.  I didn't know anything about what it was, or what it was like in their--our--heads.  I wish I had asked someone a long time ago.  If I had known, life would have been easier.  But now I know what it is.  Autism is a normal person, with a normal brain, who is either extra sensitive, or extra not-sensitive.  Autism is a person who likes consistency and dependability in this crazy and confusing world.  Autism is a person who may or may not be smarter than other people, but who can use their brain more efficiently than "normal" people do.  

And, most of all, autism is me.  And I'm still giddy about it.
Penny

Mysteries are unraveling up in here

Today has been... amazing.  I can't think of a better word, although I'm sure there is one.  Every time I caught myself tapping or flexing or scratching, my first reaction, "don't do that, Penny!  That's bad!" would immediately be replaced by "wait, no it isn't.  It's perfectly normal."  Suddenly, I didn't have to spend all my energy trying to keep my fidgeting under control, and I could just enjoy being me.  I went to the movies with my mom and sister, and it was an action flick.  As a scene got dramatic or dangerous, I would find myself ticking like a clock, and when I told myself that it was okay, I could just focus on the movie.  I enjoyed it a lot more.
Sitting there, in that movie theater, I suddenly got this overwhelming feeling.  I've always felt so out of place in the world, and I didn't know why, and now I do.  It's because I'm autistic.  I've known for two days, and it finally, finally sunk in.  I am autistic.  I have an identity.  Nothing anything anyone has ever called me, including anything I've ever called myself, has ever quite fit.  I was a little bit of that, and a little bit of this, and mostly not that and thankfully not much of this.  But that was just parts.  Nothing ever quite encompassed who I am.  Autistic.  It just feels right.  It feels like home.  It's like Clark Kent, finding his space ship in the basement, and his parents explaining to him that he's really a Kryptonian, not a broken Earthling.  I know who I am.  I know who I am.  Do you have any idea how huge that is?  It's like I've been carrying this burden, my whole life, and finally somebody came up to me and said "you don't have to carry that, Penny.  You don't need that anymore."  I almost started crying, right there in the movie theater, while Channing Tatum was running after some terrorist with a machine gun.  I wanted to run around the room, shouting at anybody and everybody, tell them "I'm not broken!  I'm not stupid or slow, or weird or wrong or bad.  I'm autistic!"  Even thinking that I had OCD didn't compare to this, I suppose because I've suspected that I had OCD ever since I was a kid, watching Monk.  But there are no TV shows about autism, or at least, not that I've seen.  The closest is the character Sheldon Cooper, from the Big Bang Theory.  But they paint him as annoying, selfish, and completely ignorant of his idiosyncrasies.  I didn't identify with him at all.  So, learning what autism really is, and why I do the things I do came on so suddenly, like it fell out of the sky.  I feel like I'm waking up from a strange and confusing dream, where nothing makes sense, and you're too tired to even try to figure it out.

Afterwards, we went shopping.  I've always hated shopping.  (Thankfully, it wasn't for me, this time, it was for my mom.  We were getting her a bathing suit)  We walked down the isle of the store, and I tapped my feet and wiggled my toes, for the first time in my life, I didn't try to stop it.  It's always driven me crazy that I couldn't control that, because, even though other people couldn't see it, because normal people don't do that kind of thing.  But I'm not a normal person, and normal people aren't me.  I never realized that before.  

Sometimes I've wondered if maybe I saw the world a little differently than other people.  But I never once believed that that could actually be possible.  But walking around today, looking and listening and smelling and feeling, I kept saying to myself "This is why.  This is why you act different.  It's because you are different.  They don't see what you see.  They don't feel what you feel.  And that's okay."

I looked around at the clothes.  I liked them on the rack well enough, but every time I even imagined putting them on, I would instantly hate them.  Now I know why.  It's because of the garish patterns, colors, sparkles and glitter, glowing and flashing before my eyes.  Usually I can focus on what's going on, even if people are wearing these things, because I make myself get used to it.  But wearing them myself?  It would feel like a neon sign, strapped to my chest.  I always assumed that everyone saw why I saw, but they don't.  It doesn't bother them, to wear something bright or shiny.  That's why they wear them.  I always wondered at the bravery and focus of everyone around me.  Granted, sometimes I like to have people look at me, like when I'm performing.  But I can't stand it when they stare at me, and I'm not doing anything special.  I've always felt that if I wore something like that, it would be too distracting to everyone around me, (not just myself), and I couldn't bring myself to do it.  BUT IT WOULDN'T BE.  It doesn't bother the Earthlings!  Only us Kryptonians.  Man, I can't believe it.

Last night, I was laying in bed, connecting the dots in my mind.  A really huge one for me, is walking.  I always wondered why people stomp everywhere they go, like they're mad or something, or they just really like to bruise their feet.  You can't hear me when I walk.  I don't like making all that noise.  But they can't hear themselves.  Oh, my GOSH, they can't hear it?  That's why girls like to wear high heels all the time, even though whenever you walk on a hard surface, they CLACK CLACK CLACK, echoing off the walls, making it impossible to think about anything else, because they don't hear it.  And flip flops, oh, my goodness, flip flops.  They're so LOUD.  And they slap you're feet, too, so when you wear them, you don't only hear them SLAP SLAP SLAP on your feet, you also feel, every. single. step.  I never understood how people can handle all the noise they make all the time.  Now I do, oh, my gosh, I do now, it all makes so much sense, especially since when I walk up behind people, making a "normal" amount of noise, instead of stomping wherever I go, it freaks people out, and they accuse me of sneaking up on them.  It's because they don't hear like I do.

THERE ARE SO MANY MYSTERIES BEING SOLVED AROUND HERE.  I'm feel like freaking Sherlock Holmes right now (who, by the way, is a great example of autistic behavior.  I don't know if the writers did that on purpose or not, but it's a great way to see autism at work, if you're interested).  I can not believe I didn't figure all of this out sooner.

I've also started making some theories about self stimulation, or "stimming."  For me, it mainly involves a lot of tapping and twitching.  From my reading, it's a way to bring yourself back to center, to remind yourself where you are.  So when I'm stressed out, and I touch my face, that action brings my focus to the sensation of my fingers and my face, blocking out everything else for a split second.  It's like reverse echolocation, giving myself an instant snapshot of where I am and what's going on inside me.

I could definitely roll with this under water metaphor, (which I'll admit, I've been working on this all day) and take it on to the social world.  See, when I was a teenager, hanging out at youth activities at my church, I could only stand "socializing" for a short period of time.  I felt like I was holding my breath (and I've described it that way on multiple occasions), and I would have to take breaks, repeatedly.  I would leave the room, unnoticed because I'm always so quiet, and nobody had anything to say to me directly, anyway, and haunt the halls of my church.  Everyone was off with their different groups and activities, and I wandered to and fro, drifting like a ghost, unseen and unheard.  On a bad day, I would find an empty, dark room, and stand there, in the darkness, until I could breathe normally again.  Then I would jump back in the water, and see how long I could hold it before I had to surface again.

OH, MY GOSH, that's why everybody drinks their hot chocolate or their soup when it's freaking SCALDING.  I mean, seriously, one time, I got a hot chocolate with somebody, and it took me at LEAST twenty minutes before I could handle drinking it, but he downed his right away.  This is also why I don't like ice water.  There is such a thing as too cold.  For me, that is.

Anyway, my life, the future and the present, is always so BIG.  I don't know anything and I can't decide what to do or where to go or who to go with, and I can't know, because everything is too confusing, and there's too many possibilities, and reality and choices and noises and pictures are all swirling around me.  This is what autism is like.  Every time I sat down to try and figure out what college I wanted to go to, I would be overwhelmed by information and possibilities and choices and I would just stop thinking about it.  I finally followed my sister out to her school, because I couldn't, I literally could not filter out any of the possible pathways out.  In a moment of choice, I am simultaneously living in every possible future consequence from that decision.

You lose yourself, in all of that.  The universe is so big, and it sends you reeling, every time.  That's why I eat the same thing for breakfast every day.  I can't stand the whirlwind on an empty stomach, I just can't.  I have a few routines, like breakfast, that are stalwart and strong, like a tree or a telephone pole to rap myself around while the universe swirls around me.  At the beginning of my day, I have to have breakfast the same way, I have to have a shower and brush my teeth, I have to check my facebook page (even though there stopped being anything interesting on there months ago), I have to have some idea of what I need to do that day.  At the end of the day, I have to watch tv, and then go to the bathroom and change my clothes and read my scriptures and say my prayers and take my thyroid medication.  I have to do these things.  I have to load the dishwasher the same way, and drive to school and work the same way, and make sandwiches the same way, every day, every time.  People think I would be bored, or that I am boring, but I am anything but.  There is just too much to try and sort through the chaos for every little detail of every single day.  These routines help me keep a grip on reality.  They help me keep myself.

I wonder, now, how far off this is from "normal" people.  I know everyone gets scared and confused, that everyone has a hard time making decisions now and again.  But growing up, I never understood how everyone could know, just magically know, what they wanted to be when they grew up, who they had a crush on, where they wanted to go to school, heck, they even knew what their favorite color was.  I didn't, and I didn't know why.  On the rare occasion that other kids wanted to have a conversation with me, I didn't know the answer to any of their questions.

But I know one now, one that will help me understand myself and what I need, as well as other.  One answer that's made me happier than I have in a very long time.

Hi!  I'm autistic.  What about you?

Penny