Do I have to pretend?

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I don't pretend. I stay out of the social Darwinist fray. Many people aren't into the rat race mentality. They are into less social, more intellectual things. This is the world where I prefer to reside.

I feel much worse since I agreed to a medical screening procedure that's standard, so I can see why it was recommended, but usually I have the strength to say no to these kind of things when they're going to be too much for me. Now I'm trying to pretend to keep people from going after me and have wound up agreeing to something I cannot stand and do not know how to get out of and don't know how to cope with situation while pretending to be strong and calm as others seem to demand

It's true: one must not be compelled to do ANYTHING.

If it's a screening for cancer, though, I would go beyond feeling "compelled." I would get the screening. I love waterfalls; I don't want to lose one because she didn't get a screening.

I can't stop crying and the flashbacks are horrible but thank you for sending your love Kraftie

Forgive me, Waterfall, I didn't know you get flashbacks like that.

Would you be just as scared if they put you under general anesthesia during the procedure?

Then again...maybe I should stop lecturing, and just give you a

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It sounds like something really bad happened to you with a doctor.

Or maybe, like me, you felt sensory overload when a procedure was being done.

Once, when I was about three or so, I got an EEG to see if I was epileptic. That made me think I had brain surgery--and I believed it until I was a teenager. All for a little EEG! I used to go around telling people that I had brain surgery to cure my mental retardation (which is what I thought autism was when I was a kid). I was quite autistic until I began to speak when I was 5 1/2. I became less autistic afterwards.

If you don't want to do something, it's your right as a person not to be forced to do something.

I've never really "spoken" to you before, Waterfall.

What is it that gives you the most pleasure, and prevents you from feeling sad?

When I can be lost in the moment and just be and I am around others who are kind, take me as I am, and I can just be me with no worries for a future that may or may not happen or the past that isn't here. When someone pulls me into the present. When an object of beauty or idea or activity pulls me into the moment these are things that make me happy and I need to remember those moments not the rest of it, not that I am sad so much more than I am happy.

I am happy too when I see someone else enjoying me or happy through something I've done. I was crying today and my swim instructor came, and said she's had a hard day too, and then later she told me I'd helped her feel happy just by being her student and whatever she felt or experienced today somehow, if I can believe she meant it and wasn't just trying to calm me, somehow she seemed to mean I'd made her day better, just as she helped me. That makes me happy, too, to not have to experience myself as a terrible drain on others whenever I'm around them, as I want to be.

I may do something for my daughter now, that could help some. Thank you for the suggestion to think what makes me happy.

I get what you mean...perfectly. I think people should just "be," too.

Your swim instructor sounds sincere; her saying she's just happy that you're her student is not cliched at all. It's not a platitude. I think she meant what she said.

Are you a competitive swimmer?

No not competitive not even fast

And you're right, cancer screening. Being asked to swallow even the most mildly toxic substances for the procedure is making me so upset I can hardly stand it. But right now I will do something for my daughter as you suggested maybe this will help some

How old's your daughter? It's lovely that you've got a daughter.

I'm 54 (yesterday), and still have no kids.

I'm glad to have children and shouldn't complain, but sometimes still so lonely.

We went to see modern art, it was free and while I was there surrounded by what individual people had worked on to say something who don't get pressured into any mold of normality, there was some peace in my head. Now I am having to work hard to hold down the noise, but i do have the memories of people not being afraid to say with their art who they are and what they think and the memory there are those people and people here helps