hello from a happy aspie

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Why not RE-welcoming someone, Alex? Just let us be, by us I am including you.

Yes, it has been a long time, but it's always nice to be welcomed. Anyway, if there is a statute of limitations on welcoming, I probably wouldn't know it! It's also nice to be called amazing--thanks Carasela!

I haven't checked back with this forum much, and this is largely due to what hip66 calls lack of executive function. I have been meaning to write a bit more about meditation since several people mentioned it in this thread.
There are lots of meditation techniques but I practice zen meditation, zazen. You just sit down and have a look at what you are doing and thinking for period of time (5-30 minutes), no reacting if possible, just observation and calm breathing. It's easy and it's not easy. Results vary. I started because I wanted a more open heart and clear head. Some unexpected changes which I believe are due to meditation:
Less word replays: I used to repeat a phrase like 'Raisa Gorbachev' to myself more than a thousand times on some days. I don't seem to get stuck like that anymore.
An appreciation of poetry!
I don't believe everything I think, so I argue about it less.
The spooky sleep paralysis people call 'having a witch on your chest' has mostly gone away.

Studies at MIT identified changes in the brains of meditators. I believe the changes I mention above are due to alterations in my brain due to 9 years of meditation. However, the changes I have experienced in my sense of well being, connectedness, and happiness are probably related to having a good community, volunteering, and other old fashioned stuff.

Hi Muddie,

What is a

?

I do think, too, that meditation of any kind is good, but the one when you are able to focus on your breathing is excellent. Because when your brain is constantly racing, like mine, I feel like I "forget" to breathe, actually I am breathing shallow. My grandma taught me to pray, I still do, sometimes incessantly, of course, I would hope it's not aloud. Praying saved my sanity, I say the same prayer over and over again. I do another thing, I pray for certain people that seem that they are suffering more than normal, in a way that a friend of mine taught me, thinking of that person as a energy unit and trying to "extract" their negative feelings and "trow" them away. It helps that I can use Synesthesia (which is listed as a psychiatric disorder in the mainstream medical field aren't they good at labeling everybody crazY?). Wishing, thinking, praying for other people helps me to shift focus from myself. I am very embarassed that I am neurotic and self-obsessed, I just see it as being plain selfish...but I am making efforts to change that. Of course, it didn't and doesn't help not to be self-obsessed that I constantly have to protect my daughter and I from my ex's antics, he makes up a new torture for me every day, but I realized that he doesn't know what he's doing, his soul has gone for a while, abusing medicine can do that to someone. I don't know how to not let that bother me, I have forgiven him now and I do it constantly, but it still upsets me. Anyway, I am sorry to turn this into self-pity...it looks like that.

If you have time, write more. About meditation or anything you feel like. Thank you!

Sincerely, Elena.