Small walk ahead. Small talk avoided. Shift in schedule takes a shift in consciousness to progress. But I digress to the topic of focus. Focus takes an inordinate amount of energy. To refocus takes some hocus pocus and not fewer than a few days to reclaim the train. Therapy session today is why I am always drained. Drained due to trying to maintain focus on topics that disappear without effort. Like cooking to maintain good health. Like those investment ideas to generate wealth. Like that shower seems so far away so not today. Here in lies the conflict. If the brain wants to stick to a topic, not even I can remove it. Not without effort that was for the next several days. So then I sit in the state of deficit for thoughts to return from break. Thinking drains like wine from rusty lanes. Trains of topics without tickets ride by. I scarcely have time to wave bye. When the thoughts of how to energize actively drain. When the thinking itself is the strain. This is where I find it difficult to maintain. This is where I am today. So I walk away from the rusty mind. Hoping for a sip of the sublime at some time up the road.
Category: obsessive compulsive disorder
Dove of Depression
The day like a dove dipped into darkness.
The pen sits so silent again. Streaming consciousness kisses the melodic mood on the swing set. The flame at the waters edge enlightens the ripples of an alternate reality. They roll with anticipation of evaporation like a mood made of wood. Ready for the chisel and hammer? Some use a saw to recreate the perfect mode of expression. These wood beams glare over the seas. Names not their own have been carved into their skin like tattoos of lost love. Rings of age surround the fingers of the knife that digs near the shore. In order to explore the depths, the cuts must be made. Branches like bones are broken again to fix the brokenness. Men are like trees walking towards the dusk.
Women walk along the edge of dawn waiting for the perfect place to rest under the shade.
Too close and thorns.
Too far and the fruit is out of reach.
Two is better than one unless the one is broken.
Two broken is worse than one if the brokenness is bitter in the roots. Better not to be bitter unless the bitterness is bittersweet. Better not to be sweet if it always leads to brokenness.
The bitter broken token has been paid. The shade creates a shadowy threat that is ripe with fear of pain. Fear of pain is the root cause of long walks from the park to the waters tears.
Not even sure if today existed. Tonight is perfectly perpetual. Pain carves through like a rusty knife in a wood branch. A dove dives towards the bitter broken branch brooding over the names. I still see one. It’s not my name but it still feels like mine in the dark.
Adult with Autism Perspective
To drink or not to drink, often I don’t think of water. Another multi-doctor session via air ways to protect our air passages from passing infections. Lesson learned that once again adults on the spectrum often are undiagnosed due to lack of testing. The grapevine shakes with juicy news of new tests in the field that are being grown. Here’s my acceptance letter to assist from afar, offering the proper inquiry necessary to prevent accidental misses of adults who articulate early.
First, I don’t feel thirst. This anomaly indicates perhaps pituitary dysfunction which shakes hands with this thyroid who needs a steroid to balance. Not actually a steroid but to keep the integrity of the scheme that places words in one act plays. Syndromic Autism or as it is on my file, ASD with a specific specifier having a genetic cause.
Next stage is to zone in on this torrential waterfall a take a sip. It’s all about the perspective. The daunting dance of the psyche has finally concluded. Now we can begin again with a direction that the entire team is satisfied with. Now for the neurologist or genetic specialist to assist in naming the physical claim that has caused damage to this brain. However, not for some time as the wear of this strain is still draining like a snow cap in the summer. So, adults with Autism I salute you. Especially those who didn’t know until you were adults. All sides of the spectrum I wish you the best. I guess this is where I drink from the sink with a tank to think of all those struggling with something unnamed. As with mental disorders this genetic malfunction has been named, claimed, and then rejected all the same. To wit, out of 5 doctors (none specialists) 3 proclaimed Marfans syndrome while 2 others nodded in another way. So strange that genetics can spring forth with so much ambiguity. The good news is, that knowing this perfect label for the genetic syndrome pales in comparison to just knowing why I don’t fit. Sure, I wish to know. Soon I will obsess to find out. However, the ultimate question has been quenched. The water of the unknown psychological issue has been agreed upon and formally written in the file. Self advocacy was definitely necessary. So I feel for those with perhaps less energy or ability to shine lights where darkness looms. For those who wish to speak up but not know what to say. Not to mention, the other co-morbid issues have not gone away. Especially this OCD which is 17 times more likely in the likes of me. 75% of the spectrum moves with a mood disorder which may trump all other diagnosis in terms of order. Hence the reason so many can mask so long without detection. Anxiety…well…sure. IBD most likely due to the conflict of constant tension in the living situation called this body. Fortunately, I don’t still have the temper tantrums that I used to display when play didn’t go my way.
Next phase is the sensory processing issues. That deserves an entire post as the senseless senses played immature games with my consciousness constantly. Just a touch of sugar in my drink and I sink. Just a single degree change of temp and I fall limp from the heat. Now he is sweating but I need a cover. Now the shower is too hot so why bother. The sounds, the sounds just keep sounding the alarm harming the already radiating headache. That was just this morning. The good news is, I know why and that really makes a big difference. Due to the years of research and doctors visits, I may have been the first person ever to hear… “congratulations, you have Autism” and fight back tears of joy. I realize now what I wish I knew then, it’s all about perspective. Time now for me to take a drink from the falls, not because I feel thirsty, but because I can.
Testing 1-2-3 Experts Beware!
Scheduled for yet another test. I guess this is the best way to find the divergence. Common sense says that this is getting out of hand. Common hints portrays this is in the plan. One more test just for assurance. Perhaps the test givers are seeking to see if they have OCD. Perhaps this has nothing to do with me. Perhaps this is just to test the test itself. Needless to say that I conveniently agreed to such rigorous rhetoric out of sheer curiosity. Personally I have already taken the aspire to be an aspie tests nearly ten times. Fortunately the sight saved me time by averaging the scores in each time. How very clever. I endeavor to take it again when the mood swings in that direction. So I am not complaining about yet another screening about this ever looming label that haunts me.
This I will say in defense of the play of testing, I am more than a little frustrated with the style of questions. “You do not like to eat in crowded restaurants alone” type of double negative traps. Wait, no I do not, so I agree…wait I disagree…No, I don’t but what do I agree to!?!
In lieu of this recent debacle I propose this:
Dear Test Creators,
Just ask me what you want to know! Thanks!
Honestly the asking double negative questions acts like a sedative on my mind. Spending more time on the question than the answer. Seems silly to have a college degree but get confused on what a simple test is asking me. Also, why such specific questions? Seriously! Sure, I love to watch slow running water. But what if I didn’t!? I also like to watch this candle flame shape shift in the wind. Why is that not on there? What if I did not like slow water but fast!? Am I not an aspie because of this ultra special, very specific question? You only have 50 or so questions to determine my label, so please make the questions more general. Yes, I did love train sets as a kid but that is beside the point. I also loved race tracks! What if my dad didn’t work for a rail company? What if I didn’t live on a street where I cloud run outside after every rain storm to watch the water run down the street!? Then I guess I would not be nuero-diverse. I would be a very untypical type of character that buys rib cord blankets just for the feel. Hey! Put that on the next test! Why not? Then I would not have been missed. I would not have been misdiagnosed. I would have been found so much sooner and realized that this abnormality is actually normal.
Ok, sure, I will try to create a test myself. No need to complain without offering to obtain some sort of solution. Sure, I will create a prototype of…let’s say…10 questions. Then you experts can intuitively go from there. Of course this is not to be expected anytime soon. This missive has consumed an incalculable amount of energy already. In conclusion, make a new test. Ask only what is necessary for general consensus. Keep the questions simple and positive, no need to try and trick the tester. If you need to spot a fake, then take time to get to know them. It’s better to counsel 1 malingerer due to a simple test than miss 1 Nuevo-diverse because of tricky, extraordinarily specific, ultra long, not negative, test questions!
Yesterday Is Tomorrow
Change is a must when not to change is the enemy of better days. Yesterday stares at the future wondering what could be. What should be. Trust that the process out of this mess is, as far as I can guess, truly necessary. It’s scary how many are growing stagnant. Older but not wiser but any means. The seasons seem to predict that constant effects are needed to promote new causes. Just because I feel safe in misery does not mean the risk outweighs the means. The committee speaks in community forums about scores of individuals on disability doing nothing.
Nothing!
Truly the process to help process this mess is better than this. Seriously! No, I am just being facetious but with a word full of tongue in cheek. Let’s speak as those who are in the know. We know that yesterday is not gone. We know tomorrow is already here. We know that if anyone is reluctant to change that it is all the same. I can predict the future. It looks just like yesterday without any change.
The Changes of Change
Off to a mountain type rocky start to the finish of a play. Playing with vibrations that transport swifter than an all terrain vehicle. Getting back to normal is a fallacy for the insecurities of fall leaves that ride the winds. They never see the tree again from the same view, only a few may stay awake long enough to notice anyways.
Why are such unmoving, but living to give by the sea type trees so bountiful? They seem to play every time a breeze visits. So stable. So able to just be. Alive and unmotivated to move beyond what the roots authorize. No surprise that they last past the blast of the winds. This tree that my little i does see has been around to see more than me. Perchance, just a glance and he has seen those who made me and escorted me into the scene to breathe. Same chance that once only this type survives, a time when this very tree will see those who read from me. Those from eternity that earth is yet to see. The deer pants and does a dance for the fall of minds. Hunted like a prey. Sought after like for play. Life and death in the tip of the arrow. Buckets of bullets pierced the winds, vibrating the leaves as the tree shook with pain, while the watcher took aim. Cheers! Another death. Someone earned a trophy for the wall case. More leaves fell. The water grew silent in view of the violent vibration of blood on the ground seeping towards the roots of the trees. Tonight we eat. Tonight we sleep. We sleep with the leaves that fell last fall. We eat with the deer that fell last night. We dream of the trees that witnessed the blood. Let me be like a tree. Let me be like a deer. Let my mind rest from the vibrant run of the vehicle that crosses all terrains.
Neuro-University of Diverse Minds.
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!
Bipolar Dive
Four seasons of medications that tease the sand like the rain on a sunny day. Oceanic under tow flows perpetually often stealing an unsuspecting visitor to the shoreline. Ignore the education. A brief moment to explore the beautiful depths with scuba gear and a breath. Then the wind of the waves rip the side of the vessel. Gravity exists in such a way. Now the enemy of the surface. The surfers can no longer see my face. Still wondering just how deep this decent into depressions may be. There is definitely not enough air from here to there. Calculate the fear or just enjoy the final view of the underwater tomb stones. I knew it would end this way. So dark and cold. Life swims above. Far above. For the first time I see light vanish. A race for eyes to adjust to the new blindness of old darkness. Others are near but who cares when they are not seen. So it’s a million miles to the next breath. It’s a millisecond before I heard my own muffled sound. Counting down to when there is one left. Shhh! Thoughts seem to make an echo. Echo
seems to make another thought. The pressure is almost unbearable. The end is just above the waves. The bottom has never been seen. The life in the jacket has become straight. The boat rocks. It’s almost my turn to fall in.
Ideas Don’t Stop, I Do
Another great idea. Seems so strange. Such excellent excitement and no excuse will suffice for not finishing. Years of yesterday’s play on the unfinished beginnings. Go and Upgrade. That podcast was a blast for awhile. Maybe brought a smile to someone somewhere. Where? Where they don’t stare at blank walls. Where they they fair well when the seasons fall.
This book is practically writing itself. Just need the hand speed and endurance. Voice recognition software has really come along ways haven’t you? Oh, the website! I almost remembered what I constantly forget. The blog! Oh the fog of the mind. Why whine? Why? Answer another question on questions or answers. And another. And another. They won’t stop coming. Technology has come along way these days. They know. It’s knows. Don’t you? This tablet can read my mind. No, I don’t mind. I just wish it would finish this novel idea. Only 848 pages to go! So…Did you see the price of gold? I am sold that the price will continue to incline as the markets decline due to lack of focus. They are thinking of drinking their fears away. I must stay. I must go for a ride on the blockchain train. It’s the newest solution. I am all in. A great topic for a book. I will start it tonight. This wall looks quite blank. Perhaps words of the unheard should fill it. If these walls were paper they would still be blank. If these walls could write then they would fill my mind with their ideas as well. What do walls think about? I will write on them. They need my ideas to hold these corners in place. I will share so they don’t just stare at me. How impolite! Perhaps I might teach them a lesson. I will reach them with a sledge hammer. Oh! Sister Hammer could really sing. Wait! Anyways those were the days. Days before the flight of ideas. Days before the fight of trying to carry out just one of them, and seeing the
Left of Center Manic Ride
I have four legs. They are round and made of the finest rubber. I am very grounded and I sound like a parking lot full of horses and chariots. My charioteer very clearly needs all of my latest tech to circumspect the terrain. Once, on a night full of painful rain drops from the sky, most of which were forged with ice and wind, my charioteer would pretend to be loosely associated with reality. I have this habit of being on the right side of the road. This night in question, my lights were dimmed against my better judgement, and we went left of center, up a hill, on a dark country lane, in the painful rain drops of ice. Very nice of him to swerve back into comfort zones as I kept a firm grip on the loose ice which was attempting to convert the black top into its own form. I was born to ride in obedience. However, my engine is clever, and I sent multiple warnings to the Mania in charge of this trip. They must have immediately slipped by as we approached another incline in the road. This time my dims were substituted for the same shade as the night combined with the black ice which was secretly planning our demise. No surprise that we accelerated to keep pace with the manic thoughts that were raining out of control like the inclement weather. Left of center, up the hill, in the darkest night. If anyone else is out here, this will be our last drive. The fear that rings in my speakers is a word called “totaled”.
This totally describes the mind state of the manic rain and the pain associated. Yet, the end of the road is near. Just a few minor bruises as we cruise for safer shores. Fortunately the winter night high ways were as empty as the bottles on the dashboard.
I follow the rules of the road. I am well grounded with four legs that are round and made of the finest rubber. I ride right on the roadways day and night. My charioteer on occasion will manically make me ride against my smart computer like brain. It’s just a matter of time before the sum total is more than the total sum. I only wish there was a way to lock the door way when in such a state. No breathalyzers for manic minds. No tests for manic drives.
Let me reverse, as not to veer off topic. Things seem ok inside for a spell. The horses are running tonight. The weather is changing again. These winds are ultra rapid cycling. I am roaring. I am running. It’s getting cold again. The weather looks like rain. The doors are locked as not to let anyone else in. This is a private run. The voice commands are coming faster than normal. I recognize the voice. It’s my job to keep things right.
Out of Sound Mind 