I Love My Birthday … Well, I Used To Much More

Today is my birthday! I am 41 years-old and I love getting older. After a life of confusion, frustration, so many traumatic experiences … etc. and so forth to be able to celebrate the day of my birth and finally, understand why I am the way I am as well as be able to accept me is a great thing to celebrate. (Long sentence, huh?) I wrote a post in 2011 giving the reasons why my birthday means so much to me you can read it here What’s In A Birthday? It is not frivolous nor does it have anything to do with being a “diva” for the day. I am genuinely thankful to have a birthday because I was a child who was almost aborted. I share some of the story in that post above. However, I will not discuss abortion views or opinions so please do not comment on that.

I cannot say exactly why I am here or why it had to take this long to actually feel like I have value enough to share air with the rest of world, but I am here.

Prism ~ Artist Helene Kippert

I am here, and I have been thinking a lot about how long I have kept quiet and even discovered that I have been overcome with shame about who I am. I love my birthday, I enjoy the day and I am not going to lie I love presents. I don’t care what they are I just enjoy getting them and unwrapping them. However, for the past few years a steading foreboding has begun to shadow my joyous day and it is Autism Awareness month.

March and April used to be two of my favorite months, they are being swallowed with the approach of fundraising and constant “panic” about Autism.







Continued ...I Love My Birthday … Well, I Used To Much More

“Just Be My Friend” IIII

Continued from “Just Be My Friend” III AND the final post from this series. 

Upon many, many, MANY, conversations we came to terms with how each of us brought in our unhealthy learned coping mechanisms as well as ones that we adapted throughout the years based upon faulty beliefs, fear of rejection, pains from failed relationships, so on and so on. Our journey has been hardcore soul searching. We initially did not give up on each other for the sake of our children. We desperately wanted to break the cycles that run through each of our families from relationships to lack of transparency and unhealthy coping mechanisms — the biggest one of all abandonment, physical and emotional. Our purpose was to give our children a better way, something positive and most of all fill them with a sense of stability. We want them to know that they were greatly loved when they are adults. (Of course, now as well.)

When we took on each situation and listened to each other without consequence, things started to change in our communication.

We still have days where we get irritated or frustrated because we experience miscommunication and things can get contorted requiring us to take a break. However, David finally understands my need for quiet — he may forget, but instead of shutting down or trying to engage when I know that it will cause me to become overwhelmed I simply say, “I cannot talk anymore,  this is too much talking I need a break or I cannot process this right now.” If I have hurt his feelings for the way I said something or my tone seems to not match he tells me and gives me the opportunity to explain. We try not to assume or infer anything. We are both trying to be more empathetic toward each other, open, and losing any assumptions. It takes a lot more effort, but it must be done to help with social confusion and needless hurt, and frustration because of how we communicate differently.

We are a building a relationship as friends. 



Continued ... “Just Be My Friend” IIII

My “Flaws” That Led to Dysmorphia (repost)

Today I read this article The XYZ’s of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), I read about BDDmaybe about a year ago. David was the one that actually brought it to my attention and said that I seemed to have body dysmorphia because of my delusional description of my body on many occasions. Along with my obsessive weighing, not looking in the mirror and my obsessive worrying about hairs, like with my eye brows. I do not seem to show clear traits of OCD so he felt that this was more accurate and that maybe I would find some answers if I researched it. I have a very hard time seeing my body in an accurate way. I believe this started when I was around five years old with my body weight, I talk about that somewhat in my post Aspergers and Anorexia. Body dysmorphia seems to be a trait with my mother and several of the family members on my dad’s side, including the males.

I have an additional “flaw” that people really started to point out as I got older.

I have a birthmark on the side of neck. It is port wine in color and only about an inch of it shows on the side of my left jaw area, the rest of it is about 6 inches along the side of my neck all the way to my head, and it goes into my hair-line. When I was a baby it actually took up most of my neck. It is not a dark purple, some people have asked me if I have had treatments because it does look a bit faded but I have not had treatments. It is really only noticeable when I wear my hair up. As I got older I kept my hair very long so I could cover it up from people. I hid behind my hair for a very long time.

I had people and kids make mean and rude comments to me all of my life about it.





Continued ... My “Flaws” That Led to Dysmorphia

“Just Be My Friend” III

Continued from “Just Be My Friend” II …

Random thoughts here before I go into the next post, I am not sure how many people understand what I am expressing in these posts. I am not sure if anyone has felt to the samedegree of disdain, confusion, fears, and longings toward relationships or not. When it comes to “marriage” it is not really toward the idea of a relationship it has to do with the word and how that word is a trigger for me it makes my mind and body feel shackled with unrealistic ideology and expectations –- anxieties about never being able to have a “normal” relationship. I am not negative toward anyone’s happy relationship — I actually think it is a great thing to read about positive relationships. I want that for my kids, I never want them to experience the types of traumas and pains that I have associated with relationships that includes all relationships. In recent months, I have found that not worrying about it so much and just being is making it much easier. I still have anxiety and panic, but they leave soon enough.

By David and I working toward redefining what marriage is to us and how we would like to live it out has given me a new confidence — it really is ok to be different! 

Things are much more positive for me in the friendship department. I have several women who I connect with online who wonderful. We may not interact every day, but we do communicate. I feel that they are strong women who radiate a healthy perspective and balance for their family and themselves. I find it a great pleasure to communicate with other women who are intelligent, make me think, and allow me to share without condemning or judging me. I have not had that in my life so it is a great experience. My life was full of few women friends who only wanted me in their life when they needed something, guy friends, or I was secluded with one boyfriend/spouse. Being online for several years now, I have made friendships that may be considered acquaintances, but I would still help them in any way I could and I try to show my support by reading and “liking” their posts or fb posts. I comment when I have the time too. I have been making several friends in my personal life too and many of them I have come right out telling them that I am Autistic/Aspergers. It has been a great experience so far.

As I share, I admit I still struggle — I wait for the negative to come and I anticipate the sudden anxiety to strike when I least expect it. 

Continued ... “Just Be My Friend” III

“Just Be My Friend” II

As for David, he was incredibly vulnerable too. His vulnerability manifested differently than mine. I found him abrasive and confusing. He was mentally drained and exhausted, it was his last year of graduate school and he was trying to heal from his own failed relationships. For several years, his world was nothing but academics and living in a research lab, writing articles and preparing his thesis. During that time he divorced, had several relationships and fell into a relationship by circumstance that left him scarred and even more untrusting than he already was – she did a similar thing to him that one of my ex’s did to me. She came home one day and told him to move out, they were finished, she had found someone else. Short version, when I met him he had felt he reached rock bottom and went to all that he knew – church.

He had exhausted all efforts on his own to pull through depression and isolation.

Our vulnerabilities and lifelong confusions, pains, triggers, etc … from every type of relationship was a formula for a not so healthy relationship. I have written about our relationship from the beginning (I shared the links in the last post) and now that I have more insights it gives an interesting perspective about many of the events that took place. Do I think we were a mistake? No, never. We created three incredible humans with our gene pool. Here is what I do think, we moved too quickly. I did not have time to think. I saw him once and the next thing I knew he was driving my car picking me up from work every day and hanging out at my apartment while I was gone to work or leadership meetings. The second time we hung out with each other he pressured me for a hug and I felt guilt for not wanting to hug. There were specific words used that made feel like I had to.

Those can be red flags.



Continued ... “Just Be My Friend” II

Communication My Trauma? I

I read a post titled Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Causes, Consequences and Cure and as I read it, I linked together my own symptoms, derived from communication and relationships, that are similar to PTSD. I hope that I will be able to explain this properly – I will try my best. The post explains the causes of PTSD and how in order for it to be properly diagnosedcertain requirements need to be met. As I went through them, I thought of what Temple Grandin said in a documentary. She said that the autistic mind’s primary emotion is fear. Because of this, many autistics are able to understand animals because that is what an animal’s primary emotion is.

Be on guard for predators!

Be watchful all the time so there are no surprise attacks. Being watchful means analyzing everything, watching everyone, trying to remember details, and infusing them into the brain so that one will not forget the dangers. However, the dangers are never clear until they happen and until the attack, comes the only thing that is felt is the lingering, heavy foreboding. As I thought of my own mind being driven by fear all of my life, I thought about what I felt was a predominant danger. What were the reasons that I felt unsafe, in danger, constantly waiting for an attack, always fearful, and feeling helpless, at fault, or unable to escape.

Communication-Relationships-Emotions



Continued ... Communication My Trauma? I

“Just Be My Friend” I

This post ended up being close to 4000 words and still counting … I decided to break it up and give a little summery/disclaimer as well. This is a whole train of thought culminated throughout an almost three year process. I think I mentioned it several months ago, but I cannot find the post where I said I was writing about transitions and how I asked David to be my friend. I needed the “wife” expectations off of me and I wanted to get to know David; feeling safe. I do not feel safe in the context of marriage or a romantic relationship. As I have been blogging I discovered that the root of many of my issues has been social confusion and being utterly perplexed by humans – those I do not know and those closest to me. In my own self-examinations I also found some very key reasons for why I get hurt, confused, frustrated, and tend to isolate myself. This particular thought process contains thoughts and ponderings leading to why I ultimately asked David to “just be my friend” and allow me to heal.

I was in no state of being able to be a “spouse” and I share why at some point of this wordy post.

However, I cannot jump to it right away there are many levels to these thoughts and history that I have had to process through – mainly coming to a greater understanding of manipulation and how people who are deeply hurt or so desperate that they do anything to control their relationships.  I have been easily controlled in the past because I did not understand that people manipulated like that. There is no way around it all of us manipulate to some degree, babies do it from the beginning to get what they want or need. Manipulation is not necessarily bad – it becomes a bad thing when you lose yourself — when the person now controls your emotional state. When you feel like you have to have them in order to survive — when you can no longer have an autonomous thought without feeling as if you have done something wrong. That is when manipulation is being used in a harmful destructive manner.

Many people are not even aware that they are doing it because it has been taught to them.



Continued ... “Just Be My Friend” I

Pressing Through Anxiety

Last week, I pressed through a lot of anxiety. Being undiagnosed with Asperger’s and anxiety until a couple of years ago, I really did not think about anxiety growing — it was always there and felt “normal” to me, but I did have a knowledge that many people did not feel or respond in the ways that I did. I had panic attacks and anxiety my whole life. As a child, my mother would get so frustrated with me because I was so social and seemed to be at ease interacting with others, but I would start getting stomach aches, sudden fears, loose my words, start to cry, all sorts of manifestations before or after social events. However, the manifestations did not occur for similar situations. One day I would be in a panic about going to school and having to talk to people, but I had no qualms about getting in front of people and dancing. 

One day, I could walk into a room and talk to everyone without any issues. 

Then, on the way home start acting out or get a stomach ache and emotional. I had stomach aches a lot. Anxiety ripples fear throughout me and makes me emotional. In my emotional state I begin to loop. My loop can manifest on anything – it is solely based on whatever has triggered me for the day. It may mean absolutely nothing to me, but I cannot let it go such as when someone posts a quote from a famous person and I question whether or not the person actually said it. I will spend hours in search of finding the direct quote just to satisfy my curiosity. However, it really does not matter to me, BUT I MUST know. My mind needs that stimulation, say “information” drug release to help calm my anxiety.

That is how I have coped with my anxiety throughout my life – when I was younger I went to encyclopedias and dictionaries. 



Continued ... Pressing Through Anxiety