Each one is a process.
It’s a battle I conquered.
Playing with colours.
As I kept moving forward.
Sometimes words say less.
Sometimes paint says more.
Sometimes words flow freely.
Sometimes paint is my outpour.
Sometimes words are just too tough.
Sometimes rhyme and colour is enough.
I went to see a psychologist today.
On the way I practised what to say.
But as I sat in the psychology chair.
I found that those words hadn’t followed me there.
This is a repost of an old picture I created just Cutting, Glueing and Sticking. My Mom did a lot of messy art with us as kids and it is something I still really enjoy doing.
In the back ground is my Grandad and the little house I grew up in (still my Dad’s home) it was still being built in this image. There are a lot of images of my Mom and my Dad’s Mom is in this too. That is me and my brother playing in the sand. Also the tiny baby is me on the day of my Christening.
A look inside the mind of Autism
This is called, “PAIN”
It is a look into the mind of my Autistic Father, on the death of his life-long partner. (Mom)
It also reflects my pain after losing my best friend and mentor, and the loneliness I felt unable to express.
Image from Google
I have been thinking of three meltdowns I have had over the last few months. I have a few thoughts I’m pondering on and wondered if anyone could help me process my babble.
I have gone through life undiagnosed, my parents didn’t know ANYTHING about Autism. I was told by many people I had a bad temper. The usual things were said to me, that I was having a paddy, a temper tantrum and I needed to calm myself down. I learned at a young age only to show this side of me where I was loved and accepted, at home with my Mom.
This meant I was always wrong, I was always bad, I was always rubbish. I would lose myself in daydreams and prayers, the only places I felt safe. As a teen this turned to mild self-harming and suicidal thoughts.
I have learned a lot about my traits, things I would never have learned from books. I love reading about the lives of my friends and their kids on their blogs. I love sharing their up days and down days. I can relate to their children and it helps me to put names to things I have never understood about myself.
When face to face with someone who intimidates me my natural response is to imitate. I can act really well and look just like everyone else. But when I get home I shutdown and sometimes, depending on the environment and the people I have been with, I just can’t control how I feel inside. The pain of being misunderstood, rejected or taunted for trying to be me is unbearable.
Wearing the mask is easier, but it means I’m faking it. I don’t want to be accepted for being an imitation of another person. Doing all the things others want me to do but never really being myself. This is how I have lived my whole life. I want people to understand that I am Aspie, yes I find some things difficult but I don’t make excuses, I find my own ways of doing all the things I need to do.
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
~Oprah Winfrey~
I’ll tell you now, I know many people but I only have one person who I trust to see me and talk with me in a shutdown state. My close family know my meltdowns and my husband knows exactly how to help me when I have reached the point of not knowing how to help myself. I am very blessed to have the family and friends I have.
I have learned to hold them in for quite a while, to cope with the internal twists. The total confusion of brain to mouth. A lot of the time I just go quiet. Go along with those who are in control or more assertive. Or to walk away and find a quiet corner to process.
I have my own life to live, my own thoughts, feelings, opinions and convictions. Through writing I can express these things, which has made me want to speak them too. I’m not so good at that. One to one I’m ok with, any more than that and my mind is flitting from one to another not able to keep up.
In a coffee shop, I’m still trying to process it and not beat myself up about it. Someone I know was giving their opinion on ASD’s and not wanting to listen to anything I had to say. I tried so hard to speak but some people just don’t let you get your words out do they. I also felt quite cornered and not able to leave. I should have just made an excuse and found a way to leave but this person then started talking about how discipline was all Autistic kids needed. The environment was challenging enough for me without this. There was a new person I had enjoyed chatting with and that was something I felt good about. I lost it and I know that who I let out wasn’t a true representation of who I am. It was a combination of the bad tempered and angry people who have abused me in my past.
What I can remember, they consisted of a lot of crying, rocking and chewing on my cardigan. Then that went into shouting, screaming, slapping, stamping and banging things.
It was not like the other two where I was overwhelmed and bombarded. I’m wondering if I absorbed/imitated the person who was on the receiving end of it. I don’t know really….I do know that I didn’t like me much after that. I came home and cried about it for nearly 2 hours.
When people don’t understand about Autism, I wish they would just not say anything.
I can make a choice, I’m an adult now…at last that fact has sunk in.
One other thing, manipulation (of any description) doesn’t wash with me any more either.
Faith looks to God alone; laughs at impossibilities; dances in anticipation of tomorrow.
(The Lewis Awakening of 1858)
image from Google
This post is a bit of fun for anyone who wants to join in.
Basically free flow is a good way for me to distract my brain and help process thoughts. It helps me when I am obsessing on something silly, like today it was the colour orange.
I KNOW that seems extremely strange but it has many ways of presenting itself in my mind. It goes off in all directions and takes me into wonderful adventures. However I have to break these cycles and get on with that little thing we all call life.
The email was titled, “Do you want to play a game?”
We are very alike, so of course she did.
We are wondering how many others would like to play…hehehe
Open up a fresh document.
(If you prefer you can also use good old pen and paper)
Click on the link below to the music, it will open in a new window.
Click on the image above it will become larger.
Once the music starts look deeply into the image for a few second allowing your mind to clear.
Then start typing (writing) WHATEVER comes into your thoughts.
Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, spaces, lines or even making sense…just type.
It doesn’t have to rhyme, it’s just a way to express and relax your mind.
You can go back and edit after the music finishes.
Here is the link to Angels free flow tangent poetry.
And this is the link to my poem.
Please feel free to share your thoughts or poems in our comments.
Use this idea to help yourself, you can pick your own images and music.
Love and hugs.
Lisa. xx 🙂
LINK TO MUSIC…..
Hello my lovely bloggy friends,
Hello my lovely bloggy friends,I REALLY didn’t think I’d be writing a post tonight, but God had other plans I suddenly felt inspired and I have something to share.
First of all can I just say thank you my lovely friend for praying.
“Thank you!” 😉 xx (She knows who she is)
I have been DESPERATE to see her all this week, but come this morning I was sat rocking on my bed worried sick about how to talk to her about what I REALLY couldn’t get my head around.
Ok…I looked at the floor and stuttered a bit, stimmed quite a lot but that’s fine, she’s cool with the whole Aspie thing. She listened and helped me find my words very patiently and eventually I got to the end of my 50 minute hour.
Next week when I meet with her hopefully I will have processed some of this and will have a clue to how I’m feeling.
I have really wanted to paint but I haven’t felt inspired.
Emotions usually help with this or music…this week, NO…NOT BEEN HAPPENING!!!
Constantly search for gifts and abilities on which you can work. Don’t be afraid of change. It is a sign of life and growth. Change what needs to be changed, accept what you cannot change and quit whining about it! Don’t waste another minute trying to be someone you were never created to be. Stop questioning God’s design for your life. When an old man from the mountains of North Carolina was asked how he created such extraordinary wooden carvings of dogs, he replied, “Well, I just take my knife and a piece of wood and carve away everything that doesn’t look like a dog.” Learning to see yourself through the eyes of God is like “carving away” everything that is not part of the original design – God’s plan – and then learning how to accept what remains.
I remember being little Lisa before this world hurt me with all its prickliness.
As a child I wanted to be a Butterfly, Shirley Bassey, part of ABBA and The Nolan’s.
I was a happy, loving, trusting and VERY energetic child.
I loved drawing and sewing, in fact I loved making things with my hands.
I was a chatterbox, who never stopped singing and dancing.
I see this side of me when I am with people who accept me and love me for who I am.
It’s time to carve away all that prickliness, all those thorns that poke, prod and trap.
I have my first sketch ready, obviously my painting will be abstract, I LOVE painting abstract, but this is what will be beneath my layers of paint.
Love and hugs everyone.
Lisa. xx 🙂
Fractal loops
Hello my lovely bloggy friends,
I have a few thoughts AGAIN…when do I ever NOT have a few thoughts though.
Last night I was up late chatting on the computer.
I was just about to turn off the computer and go to bed, when an email notification came through for one of the blogs I follow.
***************************************
I would like to say here that what follows may be a little too intense for some parents with ASD kids.
Also…the reason I am writing this is because as an Aspie I feel relieved when I read another Aspies words and can relate.
It helps to feel not alone anymore.
When I can see that I am NOT a hopeless mess, and there are others like me it fills me with encouragement.
I am learning to use my shutdown time to refocus, create and tune into who I am and where God is leading me.
It always amazes me that ways through are given in scripture, the best way through a shutdown is to go through it willingly.
I had to think back to being a child.
What did I do as a child?
***************************************
The title of the blog post that came through to my email was…
When I read this, written by my bloggy friend Angel…..
My heart sank…I know this feeling all too well.
In fact I think every Adult Aspie/Autie out there also knows this feeling.
It’s when you start to pace, and all those pictures and re-runs just keep flashing.
Trying to make sense of all the JUMBLE in your head.
Things come flooding in from yesterday, 3 days ago, a week ago, months, years even.
All those connections that just can’t connect.
All the lightening fast thoughts that just keep slipping away.
The pacing gets more, and then you start talking to yourself in your own head, or even out loud.
Walking from room to room, finger flicking, rocking on the spot, still talking.
You want so desperately not to go there, it seems so dark and lonely.
How long…you are asking yourself, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go there.
What has happened…..???
My brain is so full it can’t cope, it has stopped making sense.
The right words can’t be found any more.
You talk too much, write too much, in fact you obsess on anything and everything that makes you feel alive.
Because that feeling of darkness, aloneness…. is so intensely isolating.
You just want to slap yourself in the head and get it to stop.
Please stop, please….the noise, the smell, the lights…don’t touch me, this is my space!
***********************************************
This is how it feels for me.
Once I’m in, I have to just go through it…it’s how I go into it that makes all the difference.
************************************************
Anything negative or confusing is going to cycle.
I can’t always tell when it will resurface, so I avoid the JUMBLE the best I can.
(If you haven’t already read Laura’s post called, “Too Much Jumble,” please do)
If I feel the questioning and the obsessing starting up, it’s usually because of the “NOT KNOWING”
My “NOT KNOWING” loop
This is why Aspie kids ask SO many questions.
I’ve started to ask questions again. It’s working.
I don’t care if I seem a little dim, it’s stopping the NOT KNOWING!
Through trying so hard to analyse and figure things out myself.
I have been throwing myself into my FRANTIC THOUGHT LOOP.
I remember the first time I gave it that name.
I was sat in my quite place under the oak tree, down by the reservoir near my home.
Trying to avoid going in…..I wrote this poem
Prayer and Poetry are a wonderful way for me to get through this.
by Alienhippy
You would not believe the filters I have to use to free
The processes I go through so I can truly see
The rehearsing and the questions
Constant battles in my brain
If I attached a loud speaker
You’d think that I’m insane
~
It will start with something simple
An interest that gives safety
Or acceptance from a person
Who likes me for being me
Then that safety forms a blanket
That covers all the crap
That the world has thrown upon me
That sealed me in my trap.
~
I document my way out
Through journals and through rhyme
Reflect on change to routine
And re-organise my time
Then make plans to share the burden
That I feel I may become
Praying that God rebuilds any damage I have done
~
I cannot change this process
I have lived and I’ve obsessed
I have walked this path for many year
Alone and left depressed
I have to fight right through it
Calling out to God above
Held, accepted in His wisdom
His Guidance and His Love
*******************************************************************************
Love, hugs, blessings and peace to you my dear friends. xx 🙂
GIVE ME A NAME
Click on fractal to open larger image.
Oblio and his dog Arrow, from the land of Point
Hello my lovely bloggy friends
I am just having some fun playing with fractals. I am only using Apophysis and I have come up with some WONDERFUL flames. So I thought it would be fun if I threw this one out there and asked all my lovely friend to give it a name.
If you have time, maybe even explain why you want to call it that!
How it makes you feel, if it makes you feel anything at all?
What you can see, can you see anything?
As the Rock-Man says on…’The Point’…Harry Nilsson
“Ya see what ya wanna see and ya hear what ya wanna hear”
Or…maybe even throw some WONDERFUL art lingo at me if you know some, that I won’t understand AT ALL……..BUT I can Google it.
I only know my own kind of Lisa-Lingo, but I like to learn new things, all the time.
You could even write me a poem about this lovely fractal.
Just go to town…go on be yourself. Don’t read what everyone else writes!
You are an individual, you are completely unique, that’s what makes you…YOU!
Oooooow the endless possibilities….Guess what my friends?
I have found my Aspie-happy.
She was on the shelf in between the Bovril and the OXO’s …I’m just in a silly mood today.
Love you all. xx 🙂
Now I’m off to McDonald’s for my dinner….giggle giggle.
I decides to update this post and add a clip from the THE POINT…Enjoy.
Inside the fish
Trapped in the pit of the belly of a fish
In despair and fear, Jonah’s only wish
Should have gone to Nineveh, instead I ran to Tarshish
~
Three days in the dark wishing he was dead
In the cold and the stench, seaweed wrapped around his head
Crying out to God, wished he’d listened to what He’d said
~
Vomited on a beach, now ready to preach
Depression and fear, no longer are near
So looking at this story, we’ve been saved by God’s grace
Like my friend Jonah, the emotional basket case.
~
Alienhippy's Blog 