Hello,
My name is josh. I'm 26 and I am a member of the united states air force. Recently I have been accused by a female of a certain indiscretion related to something that happened while she and I were both intoxicated. I was apparently misinterpreting some of the social cues and body language of the individual and made some poor choices regarding intimacy. Several days layer she approached me very angrily and I was unaware of how to properly diffuse the situation so I thought that the best course of action would be to adopt a humble stance and allow her to vindicate herself in whatever way she felt necessary. I was unable to comprehend the extent to which her anger went and, in retrospect, it seems that allowing this act of reprisal was not as absolving as it seemed at the time. In short, she beat me senseless and burned me several times with her cigarette. After she left I spent about an hour contemplating what I should do to resolve the situation. I determined that I should phone the police and report everything that had happened in the days preceding this event so as to determine the legality of the matter. When I told my story to the policeman, he basically laughed at me and told me that he was more concerned about her violent actions against me than the allegations which led up to them. I was generally unconcerned about my wellbeing but more concerned that I might have done something wrong.
after all of that I went in to work to report to my superiors. They were quite concerned about the contusions and the burns so they had me go to the hospital for treatment. The doctors performed several tests to be sure I did not have a concussion. They gave me an pain killer and a balm for my burns and asked me if I had any suicidal thoughts. In fact I had been contemplating the idea of self_termination as I had great anxiety about all of these implications and thought it a viable, if not honorable, solution to my inability to conform to social normalcy. I answered yes to their question and thought that I might benefit from psychological counseling. they agreed and set me up with an appointment with a psychologist. I went directly there and explained the situation to captain reagan.
She was concerned as most people were with the status of my injuries. She was also troubled at my lack of anger at the person responsible as well as the fact that I allowed the attack without attempting to defend myself. She also expressed concern about my suicidal ideation. Her opinion on the allegations were as benign as the policeman's had been. She recommended weekly sessions for the foreseeable future.
After extensive psychological testing the analysis was abnormally high in several areas. After couple of days of consulting the dsm, captain reagan came up with two diagnoses; schizoid personality disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. She sent me in for consultation with a psychiatrist, colonel vyverberg, to determine whether I was a good candidate for anti-anxiety medication.
After a two hour session with the colonel, he asked me if I had ever heard of asperger's syndrome. I had done some extensive research on the internet about the subject during the psychological testing phase as I had been looking into possible causes of a variety of symptoms I was aware of. I had even gone as far as taking a diagnostic test which came out to, I think it was, 89% atypical. I expressed this to the doctor. He said that he has worked with several autistic children and explained that I was exhibiting characteristics associated with the condition. He asked me if I thought that it all fit my personality. I replied that, based on my own study, I thought that it was entirely plausible, if not likely, to which he replied, ”me too.”
Toward the end of my session with colonel vyverberg I expressed that I was feeling quite strange. When he asked me to explain, the only idea that I could articulate was that I felt like I wasn't ”acting.” This led me to, what might be considered, an epiphany. I realized that I have been ”acting” for years, mimicking behavioral patterns, speech patterns, scripting conversations with people days on advance, analyzing facial expressions, verbal cues, non-verbal cues, trying to maintain eye contact, trying not to interrupt people, keeping my head up, keeping myself from staring blankly in intraspection, fabricating emotional responses, trying not to bore people with long explanations of simplistic phenomena, etc. what I have found is that all of this analyzation and corrective behavior is quite exhausting and quite stressful. In terms of the star trek character, data, it is as if my emotion chip has overloaded my neural net. I have found it very relieving to effectively ”turn off” the chip, so to speak. So, instead of overcompensating to make myself more socially acceptable, I have found it beneficial to embrace my inherent awkwardness.
I still have a lot of work to be done to dispel the allegations against me, but my attourney has assured me that things look to be in my favor. This whole situation has, however, made me much more wary of future intimacy with people. I feel it may be improbable to think that I will ever be able to successfully ”read” a woman properly enough to determine whether or not those kinds of advances are appropriate. As it stands, I may never touch a woman again without expressed written consent. I find the whole concept of sexuality quite confusing and frustrating.
Thank you for allowing me to share.
20 Mar 2012, 8:36 pm
