Today is my 100th post, and I am proud of myself for it. Not only have I managed to keep a promise and write this blog, but I have met so many amazing people along the way. Even if they were single serving friends (Fight Club reference :p ) I know now that each and every one of you that stop by and give encouraging words, check in on me when I have been a little quiet, or those that left comments on the posts, or my Google+ wall. You are all to thank for the beginning of this journey.
So thank you all, thank you so much for the support.
Today is a a special day for me, I am going to try and break the cycle PTSD has thrown me in without a fore warning. The cycle is one of being closed off to everyone and everything. So afraid to open up and be hurt again that you close up tight, and close yourself off from the world. Because if the world can't get in, you can't get hurt, again. Right?
Wrong. Very wrong.
When we close ourselves off to the world, we are hurting the world. The world is a darker place without us, those who have survived our events. Those with PTSD are a special breed, we are all the ones that world has seen fit to be able to survive abuse, physical/sexual or otherwise. We have survived war, rape, the ugly of the world.
We are the strong, we are the powerful. We cannot hide ourselves from the world, a world that needs us. Needs us to show them how to survive. This blog is my attempt at sharing, at guiding those who are on the dark road before us all. You are not alone, you walk among others who are there for you.
As promised, today I am going to attempt to open up and share more of my soul. Share more of myself, I am handing the keys to my castle over to you.
In one of my previous posts I mentioned that I felt disconnected. I went on to talk about how as a child I felt that way, and how now as an adult I fell disconnected as well.
The disconnection I feel now, as an adult is brought on by my PTSD, I walk through the world watching and observing as if I were a visitor of this world. Many of you can relate, I am sure.
But the disconnection I had as a child was different. To say that I was socially awkward is an understatement. I remember my brother and sisters making friends like it was nothing. I remember them walking into school, and running off to their friends and going about their little lives. I could never understand this. Most of my adolescent life, I had one friend. My brother. Yes I had people who were friendly to me, and I returned the favor, but never any friends.
As an adult this doesn't bother me, as a child I never gave it a second thought. I did not connect with people, I was more comfortable reading a book, or playing with computers. Not on computers, this was before the internet was everywhere, back in the dial up days. The first computer I remember owning had a 3.5 disk drive. Yeah, if you don't know that is old. I would spend the hour and half, my mother let me use the computer, a day compressing data, trying to get more than the maximum 3.5 MB on those disks.
I had a telescope as a child, I built tree houses, made bows and arrows. I had summer jobs, I read and I read. When I was a child they just called kids like me strange, or anti-social. I was the kid everyone wanted on their science project, but never wanted to talk to outside of the class.
I was born different, and thought nothing of it. I was born with Asperger. Asperger's is amazing, at least I think so, it is a form of autism. But I see as my own super power. The left and right sides of my brain communicate in such away that the line between the two is blurred. I am able to understand concepts, ideas, equations, theories with ease. But as with all super powers there are down falls. Social and emotional ques, are my kryptonite (superman's weakness for all you non-nerd types).
Since I was a child I thought I just did things that other people refused to try doing. I was good at math, and couldn't understand why others weren't. I was fascinated by science, and computers, and reading. As I grew older, it dawned on me that I wasn't like others.
When I was a child I the other kids would call me an "asshole", or "heartless", I even got "Why can't you just be normal, like everyone else?". When I was in high school, I tried to be like everyone else. I would watch people, and study how they interacted with each other. I would go home, and spend hours trying to mimic the facial expressions of the kids I saw that day. I would copy the tones of the words they used. The inflections in all the wrong places, would drive my aspie mind insane.
Why was everything a question in high school? WHY?!!
Well I played the mimic, the copy cat for as long as I could. My dad would take time out of his day to talk to me, just me. He would try to tell me that "No man is an island", I still remember this phrase, because even to this day it doesn't make sense to me. Of course no man is an island, that is silly. But at the same time every man (and woman) that has ever been is an island. We all die, and go back to the earth. So literally every dead person is an island, and every living man is just waiting for his turn to be an island.
He was trying to tell me that "No man, can survive alone", I didn't understand that fact until I studied social and physiological studies. The scientific fact that social interaction is required for life, is what got through to me, not my dad's words of wisdom.
I lack the ability to read social and emotional ques. That has lead people to call me names like "heartless", when I am confronted with a problem, I try and solve it using logic. When I was in high school, the logic I possessed said to mimic those who wished for me to be more like them. As an adult and now with PTSD, logic tells me:
If I am not like you, that is a good thing, I have experiences and knowledge you'll never be able to understand.
The reason I write is a two fold issue. One being my PTSD makes it impossible for me to vocalize my problems. Two is because as an aspie, a person with aspergers, the written word is easier for us to communicate with. The written word is free of emotion, yes it is possible to convey emotion, but you are still using words that are free of emotion. There is no confusing inflection on any of the words.
When I say that I have waking nightmares, I mean that. No more, no less. There is no mood, or gender or questioning inflection there. So after all the puzzling questions of high school, after all the "you're weird" comments of elementary school, I found my way in life.
I may have asperger's, I may have PTSD, and I may be a very broken man. But after all that I have over come in life I know that there is nothing in life I can not do. I am done trying to be "normal", it is exhausting trying to be like everyone else. I can only be me, and the me that I am, I like. Flaws and all I love myself.
So from now on, I won't be like everyone else. I won't be anyone but me, the crazy, broken, aspie, PTSD self.
So thank you all, thank you so much for the support.
Today is a a special day for me, I am going to try and break the cycle PTSD has thrown me in without a fore warning. The cycle is one of being closed off to everyone and everything. So afraid to open up and be hurt again that you close up tight, and close yourself off from the world. Because if the world can't get in, you can't get hurt, again. Right?
Wrong. Very wrong.
When we close ourselves off to the world, we are hurting the world. The world is a darker place without us, those who have survived our events. Those with PTSD are a special breed, we are all the ones that world has seen fit to be able to survive abuse, physical/sexual or otherwise. We have survived war, rape, the ugly of the world.
We are the strong, we are the powerful. We cannot hide ourselves from the world, a world that needs us. Needs us to show them how to survive. This blog is my attempt at sharing, at guiding those who are on the dark road before us all. You are not alone, you walk among others who are there for you.
As promised, today I am going to attempt to open up and share more of my soul. Share more of myself, I am handing the keys to my castle over to you.
In one of my previous posts I mentioned that I felt disconnected. I went on to talk about how as a child I felt that way, and how now as an adult I fell disconnected as well.
The disconnection I feel now, as an adult is brought on by my PTSD, I walk through the world watching and observing as if I were a visitor of this world. Many of you can relate, I am sure.
But the disconnection I had as a child was different. To say that I was socially awkward is an understatement. I remember my brother and sisters making friends like it was nothing. I remember them walking into school, and running off to their friends and going about their little lives. I could never understand this. Most of my adolescent life, I had one friend. My brother. Yes I had people who were friendly to me, and I returned the favor, but never any friends.
As an adult this doesn't bother me, as a child I never gave it a second thought. I did not connect with people, I was more comfortable reading a book, or playing with computers. Not on computers, this was before the internet was everywhere, back in the dial up days. The first computer I remember owning had a 3.5 disk drive. Yeah, if you don't know that is old. I would spend the hour and half, my mother let me use the computer, a day compressing data, trying to get more than the maximum 3.5 MB on those disks.
I had a telescope as a child, I built tree houses, made bows and arrows. I had summer jobs, I read and I read. When I was a child they just called kids like me strange, or anti-social. I was the kid everyone wanted on their science project, but never wanted to talk to outside of the class.
I was born different, and thought nothing of it. I was born with Asperger. Asperger's is amazing, at least I think so, it is a form of autism. But I see as my own super power. The left and right sides of my brain communicate in such away that the line between the two is blurred. I am able to understand concepts, ideas, equations, theories with ease. But as with all super powers there are down falls. Social and emotional ques, are my kryptonite (superman's weakness for all you non-nerd types).
Since I was a child I thought I just did things that other people refused to try doing. I was good at math, and couldn't understand why others weren't. I was fascinated by science, and computers, and reading. As I grew older, it dawned on me that I wasn't like others.
When I was a child I the other kids would call me an "asshole", or "heartless", I even got "Why can't you just be normal, like everyone else?". When I was in high school, I tried to be like everyone else. I would watch people, and study how they interacted with each other. I would go home, and spend hours trying to mimic the facial expressions of the kids I saw that day. I would copy the tones of the words they used. The inflections in all the wrong places, would drive my aspie mind insane.
Why was everything a question in high school? WHY?!!
Well I played the mimic, the copy cat for as long as I could. My dad would take time out of his day to talk to me, just me. He would try to tell me that "No man is an island", I still remember this phrase, because even to this day it doesn't make sense to me. Of course no man is an island, that is silly. But at the same time every man (and woman) that has ever been is an island. We all die, and go back to the earth. So literally every dead person is an island, and every living man is just waiting for his turn to be an island.
He was trying to tell me that "No man, can survive alone", I didn't understand that fact until I studied social and physiological studies. The scientific fact that social interaction is required for life, is what got through to me, not my dad's words of wisdom.
I lack the ability to read social and emotional ques. That has lead people to call me names like "heartless", when I am confronted with a problem, I try and solve it using logic. When I was in high school, the logic I possessed said to mimic those who wished for me to be more like them. As an adult and now with PTSD, logic tells me:
If I am not like you, that is a good thing, I have experiences and knowledge you'll never be able to understand.
The reason I write is a two fold issue. One being my PTSD makes it impossible for me to vocalize my problems. Two is because as an aspie, a person with aspergers, the written word is easier for us to communicate with. The written word is free of emotion, yes it is possible to convey emotion, but you are still using words that are free of emotion. There is no confusing inflection on any of the words.
When I say that I have waking nightmares, I mean that. No more, no less. There is no mood, or gender or questioning inflection there. So after all the puzzling questions of high school, after all the "you're weird" comments of elementary school, I found my way in life.
I may have asperger's, I may have PTSD, and I may be a very broken man. But after all that I have over come in life I know that there is nothing in life I can not do. I am done trying to be "normal", it is exhausting trying to be like everyone else. I can only be me, and the me that I am, I like. Flaws and all I love myself.
So from now on, I won't be like everyone else. I won't be anyone but me, the crazy, broken, aspie, PTSD self.
Thank you for sharing that...it helped me understand your words even more.
ReplyDeletePoor Dad...men of his generation were often given to using cliches because long, drawn out explanations just weren't part of who they were. (My Dad would've referred to it as, "all touchy feely"). :) At least you have the knowledge that your Dad cared enough to try, in his own way, to reach out to you.
I don't think you're weird. I think you have a lot on your plate and handle it the best you can. But I think you can take one of those weights off your shoulder (as much as your Asperger's will allow) by just being you and not worrying about being like the rest of the world. We're all different because we are shaped by our life experiences. So write on, sir, write on.
My dad, in his own way has helped me more than anyone. He does his best with what he has. He is my hero. Thank you.
DeleteCheer cheer! I can only second the 'write on' . And I must say that your writing does not sound crazy or broken at all, it also strangely does not sound 'Aspie' to me. I'm not an expert, just knew and still know a few people who tended towards that. Your childhood experiences come as a surprise - another angle. As usual I have questions, but the comments section on a blog only accommodates so much and my arms are pretty f***** up with rsi at the moment...:). Your blog does give me a lot of insight into the ptsd mind and turmoil, and there is beauty in your determination to overcome, and to remain human and compassionate through all of the challenges. So it is not just the 100th blog post that is the victory...
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for the kind words, and I will write on :) I am on the "lighter" side of aspie, not full blown, but not fully "normal". I enjoy it, it is like my mutant ability, or a latent super power.
DeleteJust sticking my head in the door to check on you. Hope all is well.
ReplyDelete