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^^^dig your facility with words

Thank you, auntblabby. It's ironic, because I've always considered myself, and still do, as someone who is not very good with words.

Thank you, Jimmy m. I will check out your story.

Welcome! I hope you find balance and community with us!


I am pressed by your loss, my youngest living child is 13, and like me on the spectrum. He fills a large part of my being, schedule, focus, and states of happiness.

Happy new year for all!

I just had my egg "hatch" and am now a butterfly for this post for the first time. I'm not bragging; this is for informational purposes only. I'm excited to have found wrongplanet.net so that I can "listen to" and "speak to" other people who know the syndrome from the inside. When I say "the syndrome", I mean Asperger's. I got that diagnosis twice from 2 separate professionals.

I'm slow with computers and have other health problems, so I can't be here every day, but I would like to be. The only welcomes I received as a new egg were all friendly and encouraging. As I said in my first post (barely introductory), I don't use the name Asperger and am not comfortable with it, as Dr. Asperger was a Nazi SS doctor before and during the Holocaust and I was diagnosed while the DSM-IV had not yet been followed in publication by the DSM-V. Now, the DSM-V is out, and leaves his name out, so I'll keep referring to myself as "on the verbal end of the autistic spectrum" or some other way. Also, I am a Jew, which is relevant for obvious reasons.

I can only speak for myself and do so; there are just some lines in the life of this world that I can't cross. I can't separate a person from their verbal or musical writings from who they were or are in such relations. I think what a person writes can only be what it is, since it came from that person.

As I was a professional "classical" music performer before disabilities made me stop being part of symphony and chamber orchestras, I know that J.S. Bach called himself and his quill pen only the instrument of G-d when praised for works in the B.M.V. listings (catalogue), and said in verbal writings that survive that "...to G-d alone the glory." I can respect and identify with that concept; his being a Lutheran by religion brings no conflict, since he was one who took the Lutheran church seriously.

I hope I'm making sense; I tend to be wordy because of a mechanism in my brain that demands loudly that I be as accurate and truthful as possible in everything I say at all times.

I'm not good with words and there is so much that human language cannot express this way, so I often must approximate. I am being slow to let people in my life. It must be one step at a time because of all the difficulties of revealing a life "way off the charts" in many ways. I've always had trouble with the stigma, criticism, cliches, and platitudes of the NT majority. As of now, there is only my fiancee who knows the horror story of my life in full, the only person on earth.

Music performance was to me always a form of prayer, but I lost my instruments due to financial reasons and can't expect to ever afford another of any type, so I pray only with words now. I only pray that my suffering in this world with all the tears is not in vain, although I won't know if that was ever the case until I leave this world and hopefully join my beloved son, Reuben, in the world of spirit.

Please remember that I never try to convince anyone to believe the way I do in religious matters; I observe the strict taboo of my culture when it comes to our people's own religion. I can explain or answer, but never proselytize. I do speak only for myself, since I fit in nowhere in organized Judaism, as in other areas of life.

Wrongplanet.net may yet turn out to be a "place" I can fit in. Thanks to anyone who was willing to spend the time to read this.

Anton

What instrument did you play.

Dear Jimmy m,

To answer your question about what instrument I played probably doesn't sound quite normal, but here it is. Ever since I started piano lessons at age six and never liked its sound, I told my family that I really wanted to play the bassoon. I loved its sound, its range, and its place in an orchestra. My grandfather and parents got together and decided that if I would start 5 years of clarinet lessons at age 7 (since my father already had one), then they would allow me to go to the bassoon. I never liked the clarinet, either, but worked at it, along with the piano, and then they took the limit down to 4 years when I somehow impressed them by that time by how I really was sticking to the agreement, and teachers said how well I was doing.

So, I got a bassoon teacher, and after a year or so, a Heckel bassoon. I got my first paycheck at age 14, which was illegal, so the conductor had me sign it over to him, and then he paid me in cash. My teacher then sent me to her teacher, but never taught me how to make the double reeds of special French bamboo that you need for a good bassoon. My new teacher, F. del Negro of the Philadelphia orchestra (retired) was old by then and I was his only student. Well, when he died, my career as a bassoonist ended after several conductors and orchestras had me booked as a pro, because you can't buy a bassoon reed in a store.

Later, I was on my way as a professional harpsichordist (so different, but so beautiful and I loved it); then life got in the way. Music was something I actually could do, but three spinal deformities, disability, a dead grandfather and an extremely cruel, hateful, and abusive mother put me into pain and poverty. I could still play a harpsichord on a folding chair with a cushion, but disability leaves me in a bad place to "live", and I can have no pain relief by statute here any more...and so it goes.

I'm sorry for the wordiness and telling more than you asked (for me, this is keeping it short), but the mood to let it out a bit just hit me tonight.

Anton

^^^wow you are marvelously talented I have a record ["Combo"] of johnny Williams [the movie composer as he called himself then [60 years ago] as ace keyboardist for hire in Hollywood] playing jazz harpsichord. I bet you could make some jazzy music as well.

I feel I should clarify something about my last post. I realize it sounds kind of negative, and I just want to say that in spite of all the pain and suffering in my life, there is still a line I will not and cannot cross, and that is that I believe that it was all preordained by G-d and that there is a reason for all of it. I am speaking only for myself; I am not suggesting anyone else should believe as I do.

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