Hope and Healing in The Forum

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I intend this thread to be a bit of a bridge between those of us who have found healing, and those who are despairing. Recently a person posted a thread wherein he said there was just too much negativity on this Website. That got me to thinking about what gets posted here. When I look through the Forum section here, it breaks my heart to see so much pain. Quite a lot of this pain is part and parcel of being 'different' and the ostracism that goes with that.
Some of us here are "Elder ASpies' and have the life experience to share how we've learned to cope. How we have learned to appreciate our innate 'difference' and even embrace it, rather than be ashamed of it. How to cope with the stresses that being ASpie put upon us.
I've been posting here for over a year, and I've seen so many posts from people on the verge of suicide. I've been that depressed when I was younger, and I understand how far you can slip into despair.

I want this to be one thread where people can look for a bit of help, and understanding.

This thread is a great idea. I hope any member of WP will feel able to post here, for a bit of advice or encouragement and know that they will feel 'safe' to do so and know they will not be either judged or patronised.

I wholly support this idea. Even those who are mostly adapted and functioning well have our down times but we can still help those out who need it.

Yes, we should! Maybe a section like 'Dear Abby,' Aspie style. Although Dear Abby is dead.

But anyway, good idea! We can be brooding, somber, macabre beings.

Hey there,

Guess I qualify as an AS whippersnapper as you put it. Mind if I throw out a question for someone older and wiser - however you may dispute the latter?

I've tried about everything in my power to fake my way through NT life, and despite my success at spinning the illusion, I live in permanent anxiety of making the one misstep that belies the whole thing. Just the slightest facial tic (or lack thereof) blows my cover and the entire chain of impressions I'd been garnering up to that point, and like the others who commented, it royally sucks having to live this way.

Nothing new for you to hear there, just more of what you seem to have been doing far longer than my 26 years walking the earth. But you said in your post, that it does not get any easier with age?

The only motivation that's kept me walking over these hot NT coals in past years was that it would eventually become easier, perhaps natural. I've been starting to lose faith, even doubt that, and now what you said changes the picture further.

I really don't have any specific questions. But you're quite good at expressing yourself from what I've seen thus far, and I would just be interested in hearing you speak further about how your AS has changed or not changed over the years, especially with regard to adapting to an NT world. If you could, then anything you have to say would be of tremendous help to me, and I would appreciate every word of it.

Jerry

Hello Jerry!

When I first realized I was AS it was last year. I called up a phone number of someone that posted on line. It turned out to be Roger N Meyers, a real mover and shaker of the Portland, OR Adult AS community, but at the time I didn't know to be impressed, but now I am suitably so.
I revealed to him my terror that now that I know I have a neurological condition I was horrified that other people might know, that some how my perfect shell would be shattered by a wrong word or act and they would see me revealed. To Roger's credit, he heard me out and listened to my fears of being 'discovered'. When I had spewed it all out, he disarmed me completely by telling me to not worry about all of that because if I WAS AS, they simply 'already knew.'

"Already KNEW??" was he KIDDING?? I was so careful to match peoples words, listen to their words make sure I nodded when they nodded, smiled when they smiled, laughed when they laughed. . .

"No," said Roger, "they already know internally, that you are different than them. Their own neurotypicalness can spot you a mile away, and if they don't know it immediately, they will later on, and it is nothing you can change or mask. If you could change or mask it, you wouldn't be AS. All that elaborate dance you do to try to keep it from them just puts stress on you and really distracts from any real progress in working with others."

So much for the gloom and doom of 'never fitting in", Ben. That is just your loneliness talking. If you find you are yearning to be fulfilled by social contact, consider the idea that maybe you don't feel the social fulfillment you already find. Consider for a moment that interactions and emotions other people feel from social contact do not perform the same chemical reaction (if you will) in you. It really opened my eyes when I thought about it in that way. That people WERE giving me the social inclusion and warm fuzzies and what ever else it is they get from social interaction but it was ME THAT COULDN'T PROCESS IT. So all that tippy toeing around thinking that we 'had to get it right' so we could get the pay off 'being included' was for naught, anyway.

so, I suppose my advice to you is to give yourself a break. I have found the biggest shortcut to working with NTs is to PUT THEM AT THEIR EASE AS QUICKLY AND AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN.
Lighten up around them, use gentle humor, chuckle appropriately. This relaxes them and they can take a lot of your idiosyncrasies when they know they can get your NON DEFENSIVE attention about something and you are OPEN to other opinions and ways of considering events.

So I would say work on your sense of humor, develop a grace of bowing ineveitably to what you might consider absurd about them. Learn to find your own center when the boat is rocking and be there, rather than concentrating on every dip and heave of the social give and take.

I still haven't figured out how to respond when people step on my toes. Any retaliation I can devise is usually too muscular for what they consider appropriate ( in my youth, I would just go for their eyes and I had to wear a muzzle for a while , when I was later in elementary school I was made to wear a sign for my second grade year warning "I BITE" because I did retaliate to those who teased me.) Over the years my sense of social justice is very finally tuned, my moral compass always points to 'what will impact my negative karma the least and my positive karma the most.'

If you try to 'fit in' and 'be like them' ah, Jerry, that's the struggle. If you are true to your own nature and become a 'good guest' in their world, then you relax the struggle and become welcome into their society. This gives you and them a break. As I learn, I would be honored to pass what ever I learn along.

and as for being a young whippersnapper. . as that ancient musical band of my youth, Devo, would say "snap that whip!"

your friend,

Merle

Hear, hear Merle! Well said!

I couldn't agree with you more Prof_Pretorius. I too read a thread from someone recently who claimed to be unhappy with all of the depressing posts here at WP, (perhaps the same one you read.) Depression, upset, dark moods, meltdowns--it just comes with the territory with us.

I am definitely supporting this idea. There's just so much negativity here. I think that I might have been the one who mentioned all the negativity, but I really don't know. It's time that we share our experiences and give the negative ones hope and healing. So, count me in!

I wanted to let this thread sit for awhile without me jumping in. But here goes....
~Ahem~ (Clears throat.)
I used to attend a certain 12 step program that had the slogan, 'fake it until you make it.' That pretty much describes my day-to-day life. I've practiced certain behaviors to pass as NT. Eye contact is a big one. Making small talk with strangers is another. Staying serious during conversation with family is difficult, but essential. TM now declares that I'm not AS, and never was. She says this even as she praises me for not being flippant in family conversations.
My point being that we CAN most definitely practice, learn, and perform behaviors that go contrary to our usual AS behaviors. I've read posts here that complain 'if I do that, then I'm not being myself'. To which I reply, 'how its going, being yourself these days?' If the answer is that you're miserable because you feel like an outcast for your AS, then try doing something different. Some of us are quite sucessful at finding a job where we are so good at our task that we aren't judged for our 'odd' behavior. Most of us aren't that sucessful. Most of us end up being employed in some job where we have to deal with a boss and fellow employees who study us like we're under a damn microscope. I've always appreciated Gerald Scarfe's drawing of the teacher for Pink Floyd's "The Wall" album. He's got one eye that's a lens to stare at you, and his head is a claw hammer to hit you with. In my humble opinion, that's the epitome of me fellow employees.
So do try a bit of 'deception' to throw the NT's off your trail. You won't ever be 100% sucessful, you know. At the best, you'll be 'eccentric'. When they see you reading a biography, or a book of history instead of the latest gossip magazine, they'll know you're 'different'. BUT you can fit in enough to pass without being bullied. It isn't easy, but if you practice often enough, you can do it.

i think aspies in general dont tell everyone when something good happens to them. there should be equal amounts of good things and bad things happening to us, it's just that the good things are not posted so it looks like only bad things happen to us.

A healing topic.

Prof_Pretorious is bang on here. I cringe when I read that some of these young people are so depressed they wish to destroy themselves.

What has helped for me is having a sense of humour. This may not be readily apparent to some here as my humour is a bit dry and not so Montypythonish which seems to be a sort of popular way to express joviality around here.

I am more literary and pedantic and some might say boring. My kids think I am parched, but I thought it was because they are NT.

I am just very careful in my writings because I have an inherent respect for others and their opinions. Some people are better at bantering. Not chit chat, but that kind of intellectual give-and-take that bounces off the rackets like a tennis ball in a really good match. It takes me a long time to think about what the other person has written and I may need it explained a few times before it makes sense.

I am not sure what to say to make these unhappy people feel better that they have not already heard and possibly disregarded because it sounded phoney.

You sound to me like a person who would be a very good role model in this forum. Thank you.

Everybody that posted here is super!! ! Now that I actually read all the posts. Good attitude. Let's keep this thread alive.

I think life gets easier as we get older, because we have more choices for one thing. For another, we tend to feel more in control and not so devastated by what happens in real life. I remember doing the Aspie 'black and white thinking' a lot as a kid, it's only as I've got older that I see events as being not so terrible, bad things are just bad, they no longer seem cataclismic.
I think it is often tough being young, but that's one encouraging thing that I think is true. It does get easier!

Guess I should clarify, I am not at all an 'elder Aspie' by any means but still I think I can contribute as can ANYONE, regardless of age. I am young, but an adult and have, sadly, learned the hard way, and am still learning! I definitely have my difficult moments - that's for sure! But the commonality is, that like Prof_Pretorius and others I do not like to see others suffer/struggle (but I'm still in this category)! So, even though I lack the rank, I shall try to 'lift up' those who express sadness to extreme levels. In fact, I do already.

I think it's important too to remember that we (myself included) do need to have a safe place to show what we feel/experience though; that's distinct from what Prof-Pretorius is saying though. I become concerned when one is writing about, say, suicide or self-harm. No one wants anyone to get hurt. I wonder if it would be appropriate to have an official 'therapist' (you know what I mean) to intervene in extreme situations. Maybe this designated 'therapist,' for lack of a better word, could be informed and have a protocol for intervention.

For instance (I'm not telling any secrets here), one new Aspie posted here, Underlying, I was/am REALLY worried about his welfare. I do like Underlying and his writing is extraordinary - still I would be really worried about his state. Do you think we could have one who could kind-of monitor this sort of behavior before a tragedy occurs? Many on WP are great about bolstering others, but we can't do it alone and maybe a concerted effort would be worthwhile.....unknown.

I am 'young,' relatively, and maybe do not have much to offer but I do care. Perhaps Alex and/or moderator(s) should be consulted about this proposal. I think Prof has a great idea!