DecimalRocket’s Recovery Journal : The Sky Is Not The Limit

[DecimalRocket]

Hey San, it's just before school here, and I'm a bit anxious and guilty. 

I misunderstood certain things she said when I got angry at her. I think I took things too literally — it's an aspie thing. I can understand people — just more slowly.

I have a reason why I'm still well liked with most people though now. Since I can't make as good educated guesses on people's intentions and can't read body language well, I focus on my skill on talking about things directly. This involves asking good questions, conversation skills and just coming off approachable enough to talk to.

Well, I can do that with casual conversation with my more mellow persona. In a heated argument where I and the other party refuses to trust is . . . harder.

Resources from other aspies always tell you that it's not your fault when you get a meltdown from sensory overload. Many of them have it and get ashamed too. I usually prevent it in time, but this teacher was too harsh for me to do what I need soon enough.

I memorized almost about 50 items in a review paper with one look, so seeing my pace with how I study, I'll probably have enough time to rest at least. I'm afraid I'll get another meltdown though.

Sigh.

[DecimalRocket]

I managed to tell the guidance counselor to accompany me with my apology, and I usually don't feel trusting enough to open up to anyone about things like this. I said sorry, and the teacher gave me some chocolate as an apology too. Maybe we were both just tired that day.

Hmm. . . Wow, I guess it's a good idea to be straightforward all the time. Though, I can be blunt sometimes, especially in real life. 

[sanmagic7]

i hear ya, sweetie.  diplomacy has never been my strong point.  i've also been harsh and blunt too many times and ended up apologizing or explaining myself later.  very glad for you that the apology went well. 

keep taking care of you.  i'm doing the same.  love and a warm hug.

[DecimalRocket]

Yeah, I've gotten a lot better as time passes, and I'm not as scared with conflict anymore. Ever since I've become a teenager, I've had this strange sudden need to get independent from adults, and when I finally let it out, it's. . . clumsy. I'm mostly mellow with friends and most adults, but I get moody around certain forms of authorities.

I try to look for EFs and it's often there, but sometimes it's just puberty. Especially with crushes . . . on both genders. Yes, what a very pleasant thing to happen in a country with no gay marriage. Also I still switch between feeling like a he, a she or a them sometimes. Haha. No, I don't think I might get screwed by this info and be discriminated someday, why would I?

And no, I'm not getting EFs of memories of fearing this as a kid, am I? That I as a kid who has no emotional support whatsoever and has no concept of this stuff, damn it!

Sorry . . . just needed to vent.

[Blueberry]

I managed to tell the guidance counselor to accompany me with my apology, and I usually don't feel trusting enough to open up to anyone about things like this. I said sorry,

sounds good DR. You were able to ask for support and got it, and then you apologised. Two things. I used not to be able to say sorry at all. I'm glad she apologised to you too / accepted your apology. That means you can both move forwards I guess

I agree with san that it takes practice to set boundaries. I had to start to learn in my 30's and I still struggle with it but am getting better. I used to come across too harsh. I had no idea how to set and be heard but not be harsh about it. I think that involves re-wiring the brain because simply reading how to do it didn't help me. My mind would just go blank.

You're starting way earlier than in your 30's and though I realise you have the added difficult of aspie, still learning earlier is a Good Thing. Keep going, yay you! 

[sanmagic7]

well, wanting your independence from adults comes with the territory of being an adolescent.  sounds like you're right on schedule.  well done.

vent away - no harm, no foul.  i'm just glad you have a place to get it out.  love and hugs, d.r.

[DecimalRocket]

Thanks, San and Blue. Yeah, I guess I have certain situations that excuse me from being too hard on myself, huh? My natural social skills and upbringing weren't exactly normal growing up, you know? My muscles kept aching today. Eh, I guess the anxiety tensed up my body. But I'm calm now at least.

...

I noticed something. My mind is more quiet. There's this emergence of situations where I don't feel the anxious need to have control over the situation by analyzing everything. There are no unnecessary thoughts, and no feeling of strong effort to achieve that. No fear. No shame. No sadness.

It's just . . . peaceful.

I thought I would gain the greatest insights by thinking more, but I only found that in thinking less. A kind of less where everything else unimportant is cut off, and what's left is what's essential.

In math, when they say an equation is beautiful, it's expressed in the simplest way possible. It's when an explanation is so beautiful that it can explain a profound variety of different and complex ideas in a way that's surprisingly simple to understand. But that's not what I mean. I appreciate it, but math has it limits. It fragments ideas to deal with them one by one, and for now, I did enough of that.

But maybe now's the time to see life as a whole, isn't it?

[sanmagic7]

maybe it is, maybe it is.  it sounds like you're beginning to do just that.  besides looking at life as a whole, i believe you're becoming more whole within  yourself as well.  hence, that immediate need to make everything logical and controlled is lessening.

seeing ourselves from various angles, in various ways is freeing when we can accept all those different parts and understand how they all work together to make us the wondrous beings we are.  we are magical, synergistic, much more than the sum total of our parts.   i love us humans, with all our faults and glories.

love and a warm, accepting hug to you, d.r.  you're moving right along.

[DecimalRocket]

  San.

....

When I was 9, I had my first crush on a girl. I was supposed to have crushes on boys, they say, and I found it strange how my heart leapt for my best friend at the time. I remember pacing around anxious on what this could mean.

I adored my tutor as my hero who was with me after school every weekday. He nurtured my deep curiosity. He was the type of teacher a kid can ask why the sky is blue, and he'd know the answer. He'd often give me hugs and joke around with me as a kid.

When I was 11, I remember he said homosexuals were disgusting, as the word of God had mentioned. He'd speak about always following what society dictated, and if you don't follow every norm, you will be hated and thrown out. I laughed at him as a kid, and said he was stupid.

On that day, I realized he was no longer my perfect hero.

He'd continue to be kind to me most of the time, but would slip something forced and religious to my ear over and over and over again even if I argued against it. The stories that were sweet back then were repeated and repeated in a way that never taught anything new anymore, and I was sick of it. But inside, I wanted to be loved, loved by the father that didn't abandon me like my biological one did.

I remember at 12, I remember being driven to school. The rosary wrapped around the car's mirror. The words of Jesus plastered over the back of cars. Where the sun basked and when the shadows were giants. I felt like the world wasn't real, and I couldn't tell anyone about this.

How strange it was to admit I had no idea if God really existed or not. . .

[sanmagic7]

my dad was my god and my hero and i wanted to be like him when i grew up.  until one day, he wasn't and i didn't.

those childhood ways of seeing adults, hearing their words and thoughts, and processing our experiences with them seem like the world at the time.  then we grow up, and if we're lucky, we find our own way to be seen, heard, and be.  we capture our own thoughts and nurture them, and process our experiences differently thru the mind of an adult.  getting from one place to another, tho, that transition period, can be long and hard.

and the spiritual side of us, yeah, that can go from one extreme to another - accepting what we've been taught to rejecting it all, to finding our own place that makes sense for us.  sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't.  it's personal.

so, i, too, have struggled with all of this.  some i'm still struggling with, some i'm at peace with.   i hear ya, d.r.  love and hugs.

[Sceal]

I'm not sure what to say, Rocket.
But it sounds like you're making progress and on the verge of a breakthrough on your way of healing and growing.

Just wanted to say hi.

[DecimalRocket]

I agree San, it is hard. Funny how the curiosity my tutor nurtured was eventually the thing that got used against him though. 

Hi there too, Sceal. 

....

I'm ashamed of being 2e or twice exceptional.

What's that you ask? It's when you're gifted in some areas, and learning disabled in other areas.

Yeah. It's complicated, I know.

After Ah told me to check out the traits of giftedness, I came across it. I've forgotten taking an IQ test as an 11 or 12 year old before, and my nonverbal intelligence ability (VIsual, abstract, mathematical thinking and planning) and was tested to be at the level of an 18 year old then. I had a breakdown and never finished the test, but I bet my reading level would have been much higher than what's expected of my age considering the types of books I read back then. And that's me when I was more stressed to think well back then.

A more recent test a few months ago apparently tells me I detect social cues and use social inference like an 8 year old. I have to ask notes from my classmates because I get confused with how to write letters sometimes. Sometimes I stay quiet because I don't know how to sound a word sometimes without stuttering. My senses process things in a way that are too strong, and my balance can feel slightly off in a way that's distracting.

In some areas, I feel wise beyond my years, and others, I feel like an immature kid. Either incredibly smart or horrendously stupid. Either I feel petty to ask for help from already being able to do so much, or pathetic enough that I can never help myself. Either I'm not putting in any effort despite my intelligence, or I'll never put enough effort from my own disability. At least, that's what other people have been telling me all this time.

Confused what my place is in the world without having a clear non-complex label to slap my identity with. Having wildly different needs just made my emotional neglect worse, and the years without any emotional support more deeply confusing. Being different lead to being even more deeply misunderstood.

Sometimes I wish I was normal.

[Sceal]

Even people who aren't gifted are strong in some areas and weaker in others. It's part of what makes us all different, none of us are completely alike.

But I'd like to ask you this one question, you say you sometimes wish you were normal - what do you define as normal?
(You don't have to answer that, it was more meant like a game of thought)

[DecimalRocket]

I don't know what exactly is normal. What I've learned about being here is that there's strangely always something to relate to with someone, no matter how different I am. Somehow it makes me feel more "normal". It's not really being normal I want then. It's more of a need for belonging.

One thing I learned is that every advantage has a disadvantage and vice versa. How the pressure on the gifted from society breaks them emotionally (Because they don't get the difference between super intelligence and perfection.) and how they can't relate to others as well. How their powerful brains don't make them just think more deeply, but often feel more deeply to be more affected by trauma.

The learning disabled keep talking about being disadvantaged, but having a talent for certain abilities despite or even because of that disability. I know  aspies often have advantages in detail awareness, finding patterns, being nonjudgemental and loyalty. Those with Dyspraxia (those motor control problems I keep talking about) often has more creativity, humor and motivation.

I've seen two sides, and they need to combine for a complete picture.

And I have no idea how to do that without being ashamed of both.

[Sceal]

Perhaps before you combine the two, you could investigate why you get ashamed? Question the shame.
Shame only works ( according to professionals and researchers) if it has breathing room to grow in. Questioning it, ackowledging it, saying out loud, accepting that you are ashamed in the moment are apparently what one needs to do in a moment of shame.

Personally, I haven't broken free, so I can't give a personal attest to it's validity. But massive amounts of research by others, say this is the thing.