Trying to Speak

Alright, music time.  Since I know I have this place to post my music, I might as well and cheer up the place.  Here is some techno – techno techno – the kind of techno that is amelodic and relies on its synths to carry on a rhythmic drone that carries the body into movement with the drums.  The kind of music that you least expect to carry any message at all, that challenges the notion of how messages are sent and what sentiment is expressed.  It’s an acquired taste, a taste that begs you to dance first and then ask questions later.  It’s how it goes.

Good news

I just got accepted for AISH today which means I should have money coming in by February.  This will be a big step towards me getting better and moving forward.  Towards doing something with my life- making sure that I can get a job that will respect my disabilities.  It’s just an awesome feeling that I can make these steps and feel wthe joy of regaining the things I’ve lost over the past couple of years.

With that, I’m starting to make my plans and now I’m too excited to have it sort out to any tangible goals.  But it’s there, it’s coming back.

Ok, this hurts.

It’s not fun picking at everything that’s wrong with you.  The mor you think about it, the more hopeless you feel.  And of course I’m not doing this for fun, I doing this to list all the things other people need to know about me as I enter programs to help me out.  This fricking hurts and then having to look at my financial situation over again and it feels like it is just being hammered in again repeatedly.

Just getting this out feels better, though and that’s all that probably counts.

Deep into December already

Things are already looking up for me.  Feeling a lot better about myself and where I stand.  Got out to shovel the deep snow yesterday and took a toll on my back that feels good to have.  Yes, back pain can feel good, haha.

Should be hearing from the AISH office soon enough.  Could be a few days or a week.  IT’s still soon enough for me and I am so happy it’s almost to the point where I can start looking forward and start carrying through with my plans – plans for getting that job that I can keep and work at and live on my own.  I won’t feel so much as a failure, in other words.

But first thing first – make sure I get on AISH.  That will be the most important thing this month.  Then 2010 can look to be a more promising year for me.

I can’t believe November is almost over!

It’s been a long month.  Bring on December!  I definitely need to get out more often than I have.  Also more time spent with the rest of the family which will be good for me.  December will still be rough but hopefully I will hear good news and 2010 will be a good year for me.

The dangers of not taking forgetting my medication.

I forgot to take my meds over the last two days.  That was scary, thinking I was going crazy with my panic attacks.  But now it’s back under control and everything seems fine now.  Those who say anti-psychotics are less addictive than anti-depressants might be warned that there are withdrawal symptoms to go with it.

Sometimes I feel so alone

Sometimes I feel so alone, writing out tables of numbers just for the story it tells.  I feel so alone being the only one I know that writes out a table of numbers that gets any emotional ride out of how they come out and how they are drawn on the paper.  It has to be paper.  It’s not the same done on the computer – I do other things with the computer.  Like make games for myself with only a spreadsheet in hand.  But that’s something else.

I write stories to myself.  Usually the career of a hockey player or a baseball player.  It’s so mundane but I get so much joy out of it.  IT’s hard to describe why I do it.  The same pattern over and over with minor tweaks each and every time, but it is so appeasing and I can tell a story to myself as I write down the numbers.  The story doesn’t go away when I finish the table, I’ll go onto something else that’s attached to it.

It just feels like I could write a whole novel with just numbers and it would be just as perplexing to others just as it was to my father when I started doing this instead of drawing airplanes and dinosaurs.  OH well, I’ll continue doing this because it gives me so much happiness.

Emotion vs. Emotional Attachment vs. Emotional Timing

There was a discussion on another site that prompted me to start a blog, this blog.  The discussion was about a mother who wanted some answers about her child with Asperger’s and some others who had it joined in to give their bit.  However, one of the things I noticed that was mentioned was that people with Asperger’s were “less emotional, more logical, etc.”  Now this person, gender shall remain unknown for sake of protecting identities here, had used this as a reality that she lived with, having been told this by her therapist of all people.  But I couldn’t help but respond to this.

“Less emotional” is a dangerous way of putting things, as it makes a person with Asperger’s sound like they are always devoid of feeling, which is just not true.  People with Asperger’s – okay, for the sake of simplicity, I’m calling ourselves Aspies – have just as much emotion as others.  Aspies have no deficit in emotion.  Denying this results in depression, anxiety, phobia and alexithymia.

The problems with emotion for Aspies is that, I believe, timing is the issue.  In conversation, we’re supposed to time our responses in a manner that keeps the conversation flowing.  Aspies have difficulty guessing what will be the next emotional reaction from what they do, a matter of not being able to figure out sequences of events and so forth.  Sequences require timing.  All autistics have this problem, it’s the very crux of the issue apart from some of the more peripheral issues such as sensory sensitivities.  This difficulty in guessing emotional responses drives Aspies to use logic in their interactions, from their best guesses.  And that is all we have to rely on as we can’t actually guess it with simple heuristics.

But this cover of logic does create issues on the surface – a seeming void of emotional response.  I guess, in a way, this creates an illusion that we are not emotional as the rest of the people.  This does go about to create an illusion that deep inside we’re just not as embroiled as everyone else in the conversation which is just outright false.  What might be more correct to say is that we are not as emotionally attached to others as others are.  That is, because we are so invested into these logically structured guesses, we find it difficult to invest so much of our emotion in others.

This does not rule out loving people though.  It just means that it is more difficult for us to figure out how to express it and reciprocate it.

Getting started

All right, it’s time I start a blog.  Don’t know what I am going to put in my first blog post but thought I would change it from the default.  Though I do have ideas what to start this with and doing so would mean I start listing things I would be talking about in this blog.

First of all, this blog will be a mix of miscellania and a bit of topical discussions to myself that deal with recent discoveries of myself over the past year that has proved to be very helpful in how I deal with my life and the struggles that I face in dealing with it.  That is to say, I would like to talk about such topics as Tourette’s and mild Autistic issues that I know others can relate to if they so bother to visit and follow.   I know I will be talking about that a bit.

With that, I think that is enough for now and enough to get me started with this blog.  It will give me a place to vent when I need it and since I am certain that my blog will not garner that many visits on a daily basis, it will not be too revealing.