First of all, let me say, the new month came around and I didn't even realize it. I've been writing this blog a whole month now! Wow. Time sure flies. Twenty five posts is a lot. For me. My last blog had four, if I remember correctly.
Scratch that, I just checked, and it has 42 entries. Well then. So I guess 25 isn't all that much, after all. On the other hand, they were shorter entries (seriously. One of them was 26 words, I kid you not. And you thought I was always this long-winded, didn't you?), and it lasted over a couple of years, so I'm still pretty impressed with myself. And, in all of those years, I only had somewhere around thirty views. Ha! Thirty. That's so cute.
Anyway, writing a blog about writing a blog is redundant and boring, plus I'm starting to feel like that creepy girlfriend that wants to celebrate our "monthaversary," so... moving on.
I've been getting the feeling that I really need to send the link for this blog to my therapist. Since verbal communication about anything I actually care about is not really my strong suit, maybe just having him read my thoughts may help him, if he wants to put in the extra time. I know yesterday I didn't end up saying even half of what I wanted to, and having someone look at me when I talk is really, really distracting. I couldn't filter out the voice in my head saying "he thinks I'm making this up to get attention, I know it, he doesn't believe a word I'm saying, and now I have to figure out how to prove it to him, but I don't know how!"
It's like when I was twelve or thirteen, and my family was playing an improv game at a party. I had been suffering with severe back pain for months, and had only recently started getting over it. Coincidentally, for the game, I needed to "pretend to be someone who had a hurting back," for one reason or another. But I didn't know how to do it. I only knew how to pretend not to be in pain. I was frustrated and confused, and when nobody could guess what I was acting out, I ended up sulking alone for at least five minutes. My point is, I knew what it felt like to be in that situation, and I knew exactly what I had done for the entire duration: pretend there wasn't a problem. Sure, I hurt like heck, constantly. It kept me up at night because there was no position I could lay in to make it go away. I couldn't do a lot of things, because everything was excruciating. But I do not complain. It's one of the rules. You don't show people you need help, just like you don't show people you're different.
(In case you were wondering how I got rid of my back pain, I think it was a combination of a few things. For one, I improved my posture. I've always been notorious for slouching. But mostly, it was that I lost a lot of weight. Fifty or sixty pounds, if I remember correctly. Man, that sounds off... Was I really that overweight? But anyway, I was unhealthy and overweight before, and now I'm not, so I feel better.)
So, sitting there in my therapist's office, I felt the pressure that I needed to "pretend" to be autistic, so that he would know I was telling the truth. But I don't know how to pretend to be autistic. I only even gained more than just a cursory knowledge of the subject in the past couple weeks. I couldn't tell you with any sort of conviction what an autistic person looked like. I knew what it felt like. And I knew that I had it. But I didn't know how to show it. I only knew how to cover it up.
Now, I know what you're thinking: Penny, just do the opposite! When you feel the urge to zig, just zag! Well, it's not that simple. When I need to stim, I do it without thinking. In fact, a lot of times I don't realize I'm doing it. Like when I'm tapping my teeth. I barely notice it, most of the time. When I do notice it, it's like waking up. I realize not only that I'm doing it, but that I have been doing it for several seconds or minutes, whatever it is. It feels really awkward when I stim on purpose, and so I don't try to. I only try not to when I get the urge, especially when people are looking at me.
People have asked me why I smell my hands, and it's been pretty uncomfortable having people put me under the microscope like that. I've gotten weird looks from people when they realize I'm rubbing the sharp edges of my pen my lips, so I try not to do it if I think someone's watching. I've had my professors repeatedly tell me to stop fiddling with my clothes while I'm on stage, and so when I'm on stage, I can resist it. Usually. By extension, when I'm putting on a performance off-stage as well, I'm pretty good and holding my urges at bay. Over the years, because of training, focus, and a lot of practice, I now have a switch in my head, saying "this is how you act when people are looking at you, and this is how you act when people are not."
You don't pick your nose when people are looking at you, you just don't. I literally can't do it, I've trained myself too well. I have no qualms with nose-picking when I'm alone, though. It's the same with stimming. I felt like I was sitting there, telling him that I'm a nose-picker, and him responding "no, you're not a nose-picker, because you're not picking your nose right now." I'm still baffled by his response, even though I know how hard I've worked to appear normal. I really can't blame him. But even though I'm older and know better now, I still get surprised sometimes when people don't know what goes on in my head.
Right now, in the comfort of my own home, as I express my thoughts in a medium that I'm most fluent in, taking all the time I need to do so, I'm stimming just fine. I keep scratching and picking and sniffing and tapping, completely unhindered. It's kind of annoying, actually, to have to stop in the middle of a sentence to satisfy these urges. A month ago, I would have been begging for someone, anyone to teach me how to stop it altogether. But I don't mind it as much, now. It's just how I think. I'm giving myself time to process and percolate on what I want to say next, while my hands and arms act of their own will, momentarily disconnected from my brain. When I think about it that way, I really don't mind it anymore.
My only worry is, how can I get people to accept me for who I am, if I literally cannot show them who that is? If I can't stim in front of people, will they believe that I do it at all? If I have to soften each blunt thought before I allow myself to express it to the NTs around me, and filter out anything I think will be misunderstood, can I make them believe or even understand the way I truly think and feel? Since I have made a habit to never complain when something pains or irks me, can I ever tell them when something is wrong?
I'm terrified that if I tell someone that human contact drives me crazy (and not in a good way), they might not believe me. They'll probably just think that I'm insulting them. I don't want people to think that I'm boring, even though spontaneity is not programmed into my brain. I want people to know that I am diverse, that I like to try new foods, new things, but when I'm at home, I eat the same things, every day, and I wear the same clothes every week. I'm not boring. But will anyone understand that?
Thankfully, I'm starting to let myself stim and talk openly about myself to my family. I'm pretty sure I have insulted/upset most of them, multiple times, but I'm trying to figure it out. I haven't learned how to express pure Aspie thoughts in the NT language. A lot of them don't translate. So far, I've only expressed other NT thoughts, or over-simplified concepts from my Aspie brain. But my family is being patient with me, for which I am extremely grateful. It'll probably be months, maybe even years, before I've said all that I needed to say to them to make them understand exactly how things work on back on my home planet. But we're on our way. And it gives me hope, that I'll be able to show my true colors to people outside of my immediate family. Maybe I'll even have a real relationship with somebody. That'll be so cool.
Penny
Ps, apparently I read big books, so I don't blame anyone for having issue with my blog. When my therapist came out of his office to get me, and he saw me reading this, he said "wow, that's a big book! You read a lot, don't you?" Since it did not seem like that big of a book, I'd say the answer is "yes". Gone and the later Harry Potter books were bigger, but I had no trouble with them, either. Well, happy reading, either way!
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