The new science of Neuroscience detected from the university a pleasant plethora of diversity in my genetic code. Just some. “When is some better than full?” they asked with a keen grin of a friend. “When it follows Awe!” It took so much restraint not to be exceedingly angry that I was dizzy and felt faint. I presume from experience that most would have cordially gave an audible smile for such clever clerics from the worlds most elite minds. I was definitely devastated that such men in white armor would assume my sense of humor to be only slightly better than a preschooler. All I could reason is how “full” is not even the proper spelling of the horrendous attempt at wit. Be that as it may, I still found time to play around on the playground of my own awe inspiring thoughts.
Today I am a neurodiverse man of a thousand thought experiments between a rocky psychiatrist and a hardened by life psychologist. They are wonderful. Wouldn’t trade either for the other. Great to have a team of trained sane neurotypical agents of change on the dream team. So much to say that always gets forgotten at the time of thought exchange. Time to rearrange the thinking to keep from sinking into comorbid mixed emotions and I keep forgetting something. What is it? How will I know if I remember it?
OCD is a memento to the memory of mental metal rituals that flooded the syndrome of synapses. Only to find out that not one single computer like compulsion would ever emerge. Just a simple splurge for a blanket that I had to get every generation.
From couch cover as a kid to college bed spread, it was the new version of the same feel. Still almost 40 years later, I still twist the ends of similar but newer versions of the same security quilt that I have felt for decades. No! Not a compulsion, but a relaxation of fixed energy programmed to enter into new dimensions of time and space through my blanket. I mean I like how it feels. It is a real calming effect, like coffee that I can’t drink. It’s a real calming cause, like hot steam that I hate feeling. It’s a real calming trap, like a run in the park after dark with shadows dancing near the perimeter outside of my peripheral. It just feels good to me. No reason. No comparison completely. It’s my blanky and I am almost 50, nuerodiversity maybe, Shhh!
Category: allegory
ASD Burnout of Me!
Thinking in terms of trains. Not quite the obsession just hear the lesson in each neighborhood since childhood. Sets on the floor. Days to set up and more minutes to explore. The thought to add a few more cars to the track. Research the connection to each tunnel through which each wheel passes for a brief moment beyond the realization of the observer.
Power source seems so innocent. Quick decision to spend more money on more parts to start a new ride. Inside the tunnel each connecting car runs without the need for an engine. The energy of itself carries it with the proverbial caboose. The train keeps running. It just keeps running. The cars no longer strictly connected. They run alone without power, with a power all of their own. The whole set is unplugged and full of tunnels. Still they run. No longer fun. The job of the track to keep all intact has failed miserably. Now they run scattered across basement floors to search and discover for more stops. Crowds make connections but I assume they will all be late. I am sure that I will be as well. I can’t tell where the enigmatic engine is. The tracks are just a puzzle to muzzle the vibration. The energy within is stimming like a steam engine as I approach red. Just lay on the tracks, on the back, on the basement floor. There’s the door but first must muster the many cars to realign into a track design. Must connect the train of thought to the real reason it was bought for such a price. Too tired to engineer anything meaningful. The train runs away again. Hopefully it hits the breaks before it breaks apart of me. Too tired to chase. The steam has morphed into dew. Whew! Now there is time but no steam to do anything but stare at the wet basement floor that I thought about cleaning up all day.
Social/ Emotional Reciprocity Error
Undiagnosed for years due to linguistic semantics that professionals still debate about. We wait around in waiting rooms for eyes to watch for ours. Play this game. Seems insane. Seriously? The symptoms I wrestle with are not found in simple table games and eye contact. I have contacted the pain of strain trying to maintain a straight face. Like fried ice cream, masks cover the mental melt down. The frown is not me, as much as the smile is contrived to fit the scene. Just ask me, just ask how I feel when I leave. Why depression leads the way home from social scenes. Really it’s another semantic due the pedantic gathering of experts with expectations that we are all different. Yet, judged by everyone who is not the same. Drained! Drained from the rain of sounds and lights. Drained from driving down a new street with out stop signs. They Beep! The horn honks a new meaning that green lights means Hurry Up and wait again. Red means rest from the rare radiance of roaring traffic. Yellow! Hmmm. So yellow. They told me, “you speak so well”. I thought of this at the yellow. I waited for the yellow again. It’s not a sin. Unless you ask the men behind me who are in a perpetual hurry to get to the next light. I was also in a hurry, a flurry to get home to sit in the freezer and reframe my face. Turn on the melting pot for stew. Everything is different there. Everyone stops to stare at my MPAs. Too much to hide. Energy seems to be a distant diet that I can no longer afford to consume. A diet that is beyond the capacity of the expert chefs. Much like the criteria for social emotional reciprocal relational fictional responses that I gave. It worked. I am OK. The only question now is why is the ice cream melted in the pot of stew?
Mask or Not to Mask
Energy to mask is missing. Must maintain some sense of normalcy. Wish to be abnormally normal. Read my mind, not being unkind, just drained. Straining to keep a straight face. Wish this waiting room was as empty as those cracks in the floor. Wish I could look up to see the time. To see the clock staring at my insecurities. The hands rotate to imitate my unconscious stims. So difficult to determine what’s going to happen next. Why is he still talking to me? Such small talk, such big bulky words for no reason. This season is unmasking for no reason at all. Plan an escape. Make way to the hallway for a bathroom break. Yeah, if he keeps being normal, I will flee to safer shores in stalls and writing on nasty walls. Where smells swell from deep dwelling places. Perhaps I will stay here. That sounds worse than a curse from an old lady with green teeth. Why so hard to be normal today. Why is this mask so heavy. This smile so fake that it breaks my heart to lie like this. This deceptive grin is against my religion. 15 minutes of waiting is carrying the weight of 15,000 thoughts made of shame.
My mask has a leak. I am sure of it as the clock continues to peak and peer right into my abnormal. Those hands just don’t move fast enough.
Am I next? Count the feet. Yes, only four left. I must be. Voices of calm are fading into the walls. I am going to make it this time. I am next! Whew!
One appointment and done. Small drive and still alive. So why am I Drained like the first breath after the last step of a marathon? Why is this mask so full of holes, getting so heavy? Just wear the T-shirt as a flirt with social norms. Alone is not all bad. This clock in my own house stares at me. It has seen me before. It knows what time it is. The alarm of taking off the mask is beyond snooze control. Today, I am too tired to be anything but maskless me. Maskless for recovery. I have another appointment next week. I hope I recover in time to make another mask. I hope I discover in time to fake another task. Until then, I am going to stare back at this clock until I know what I really look like.
No More Sunsets and I am Fine…
Light fades every evening. Scholars say the sun sets in the west and yet, everyone knows that it doesn’t. Why do we accept this curious lie as if…as if it’s ok to say what we always say even though it’s untrue.
Yes, I am fine today thanks for asking! I am light fading over mountains and disappearing over streams. I reel in my rays at days end. I feel in ways that plays against logical sequence. I stand still but turn on axis I. Or maybe II. From manic day breaks to personality nightmares.
Yes, I am fine today. Thanks for asking. Just as I sit and wait for the flaming gas fire to set against all understanding. As if…as if I knew the soul of the sun. It runs upon itself until itself is no more. I guess the sun will set after all. Then I will answer differently. No! nothing is ok. Thanks for asking. I just was unaware as I was entranced by the sun that rose as red rays against common sense and I was completely unaware of myself.
So we wait, I and the sun, as we face the final setting. The day that breaks never again. The night that will never end. I am fully aware that I will never see the sun face to face. But I know that I don’t know how I feel today. I know that the sun never rises or sets but I just don’t have any feelings about it. That’s the truth that the lie can’t accept. That’s the logic that is illogical. We must just accept delusion as if… as if I was the sun running on myself until…until I set. Yes, I am fine, thanks for asking.
Symmetry Used to be a Friend of Mine
From organizing everything from closet space to little cars that race, I made haste to even things out. Symmetry is the key phrase that unlocked the door to why if I got hit on one side I would turn the other cheek. Not as a humble man, but to be hit again or feel pain of breaking the evenness. Not a fun thing when the older brother realizes the secret of symmetry and constantly uses it against me. A hit and run. A hit just for fun to see if I would hit myself to even out the pain. I did. I was a kid.
Two score years later I still sense the symmetrical tug. In order to keep things together but equally apart. It started with a look in the reflection which showed dissatisfaction at the lack of symmetry so obvious to me, and pointed out constantly. Even thinking occupies so much space, often it’s hard to focus on the things at hand. Like my hands have different lines to the point I was going to cut one to even the sight. When will “Even” retire for the evening? I read a solution is to tap one side and suffer through the uneasiness of unevenness. I am starting a petition to have their license revoked.
Out of Sound Mind 