When it all comes together… eventually

Well, that only took 15 years…

I’ve been working on a set of ideas — all related, each with great potential — for over 15 years.

And finally it’s all coming together.

That’s one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging on here a whole lot. Finally… finally… things have gelled with me enough to actually take shape in a form that actually works.

I know I’m being cryptic (and I have to be, because I’m in “stealth mode” with this project), but basically, I’ve written and conceptualized a whole lot of stuff over the past 15 years that I can now actually put into action.

The ideas all work together. And they’re useful to a whole lot of people. And I have access to the technology and skill (and customers) to make this fly.

And that’s how it goes with us Autistic folks, sometimes. We’ll have all these great ideas… very detailed, thorough, grounded, practical, transcendental… and it can take us years and years to finally fit them all together into a way of being, working, thinking, living, that’s superlative. Super fantastic. Transcendental.

But it takes time with us. And we have to have the right conditions to work under. If we don’t have the time and proper conditions, it can kill off our ideas, our drive, our ability to think. Sometimes it kills us, period. However, if we’re given the right support and the right environment… well, the sky’s the limit.

Yeah… I’m not sure “support” is the word I’m looking for. It makes us sound dependent. Needy. Like we can’t do it on our own.

Look, we Autistic folks can do a vast amount of things on our own. If the world isn’t constantly trying to kill us. If it’s not dead-set on destroying us, because we’re different.

I was fortunate to grow up in an Autistic household, surrounded by Autistic friends and neighbors. It wasn’t “weird”. It was how we were. And neurotypical people were the “weird” ones. I’m lucky that way. I grew up knowing how to love my differences and let my freak flag wave wild and high. I also didn’t give a good goddamn what anybody else thought about me, my ideas, or what I did with my life. So I had that going for me, as well.

But I know an awful lot of Autistic folks get stuck growing up in the mainstream, surrounded by people who are bound and determined to make them pay dearly for being different. That’s pretty sucktastic. And as soon as I got away from my family and the area where I grew up, I ended up in that world, too. It can be awful. So, when I talk about things being sucktastic, I know whereof I speak.

Anyway, I have to get back to working on my Grand Plan (I love planning!), so I’ll cut this short.

Bottom line is, with Autistic folks, it can take us a long time to develop… ourselves, our skills, our knowledge, our expertise, our understanding of the world. But when we do… Look out. We are a force to be reckoned with.

Okay, that’s enough for today. Now, go out there and do some good in the world for yourself and others.

The beginning of suffering is the giving of f*cks

What a horrible summer it’s been. I don’t know what’s worse: the heat, the long daylight hours, the humidity, the constant rain, my lack of exercise, my lack of interest in doing much of anything other than my own thing, the hyper-political pointlessness at work, or my general despair about anything ever getting better.

Good gawd. I’ve been in a terrible place, on and off, for months, now. I’m surprised I’ve gotten anything done.

And yet… I have. And for good reason. I can turn my laser focus to the positives and block out all the negatives, and I can continue apace, “killing it” in a manner of speaking, although everything around me is going to shit, and nobody seems capable of stopping the downward slide.

I was just thinking about this yesterday… how just about every job I’ve ever had has sucked in a very big way. I mean, just sucked. People undermining me. Bosses working against me. Power struggles. Office politics biting me in the ass (there’s an image for you – you’re welcome).  Terrible working conditions (too much ambient noise / light / distraction). Being passed over for promotions. Being shut out of important conversations. Being shut out, period, by politically connected people who have used me as a bridge to overcome their own differences (I work it out between them, and then they buddy-up and push me out of the way).

It’s all happening again. So, fine. Screw it.

The chief problem in all of this, is that I give a damn. I give a f*ck. I really do. I care about other people and how I relate to them. I try my best. But they can’t be bothered to reciprocate. Or they take advantage, because they’re weak and manipulative. And so I end up getting the proverbial short end of the stick.

I care. I get involved. I give a f*ck.

Note to self – stop doing that.

Truth to tell, most of what goes on in the day-to-day has absolutely nothing to do with me or the things that matter most to me. And I’m tired of playing along.  I’m tired of the games. The bullying. The posturing. The going behind my back to maneuver around me. Yah, I’m done with that.

Everybody else who wants to squander their life force on that… be my guest. But I won’t be joining you.

Of course, that’s easy for me to say from the comfort and safety of my own home. When I’m in the thick of it, with my hyper-empathic self, it’s a whole lot more difficult to block it all out. And honestly, I worry about it all hurting my ability to do my job and keep the money coming in. I need a paycheck. I have a household to support. Yeah, The Man has me over a barrel, that’s for sure.

But I probably make it worse for myself than need be. I’m way too hard on myself. Much, much harder on myself than anybody else is. Heck, everybody else seems to think I’m close to perfect (ha ha ha, how hilarious). At least, that’s what they tell me. How little they know… Oh, how little they know…

Well, anyway, it’s Sunday. I have stuff I want to do, including driving out to the country to look at the fall colors. My partner and I are headed west with her new scooter, so she can join me on walks and sightseeing. We actually went shopping together for the first time in a long time on Friday night. She on her scooter, I walking at an actually comfortable pace. Pretty magical.

Eh, there’s to much to say to fit in one blog post. I need a walk. Need to air myself out. Time to don some outside clothes and head for the back roads.

Later, all…

When being #Autistic was a very, very good thing

I wasn’t alone in my wonder at the wonder of it all

It’s been an incredibly busy past 4 weeks… or has it been 6? Business travel, deadlines at work, projects not turning out the way they should, people making excuses, left and right, and the very people who are making a mess of things taking control of all the projects.

Ah, me… I’m at a loss, as are many of my co-workers. It’s incredibly dispiriting. But at least I’m not alone in my despair. I have plenty of company (fortunately or unfortunately).

One of the benefits of being too busy to think about much, is that I find out what matters most to me. Because that’s the stuff that bubbles to the top of my thought process. That’s the stuff that works it way out, like rocks emerging from the soil in the New England spring. All the rest of the stuff I’ve been thinking about is apparently compost… it will go through its decomposition and melt back into the background of my life. But some things have “sticking power” and won’t go away.

It’s those things that I’ve been thinking about.

So, of course I’ve been thinking a lot about my childhood and how it set me apart. When I was younger, I was tempted to believe that my lot was terrible, painful, horrible. That it was too punishing for words, and oh, how I suffered. It’s true. I did suffer. But that’s just what happens, sometimes, and I’m through with thinking that suffering is a sign of aberration, of something being amiss. Nope, sometimes that’s just how things go. And the magical part of it is, I get through it. All of it. Just because it’s uncomfortable, even painful, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad thing. Because, after more than half a century on the earth, I now realize that pain is very much a part of life — but suffering is something I make worse, myself. By judging and resisting that pain.

It’s much more productive to take a Meh attitude — a Meh-titude, if you will — and get on with it. Get my mind off the anguish (much of which I’m causing myself) and just get on with living.

My childhood, in retrospect, really worked in my favor. It prepared me for the world as an adult. It made me into the person I was. And it was full of wonder… precisely because I grew up in an autistic household which absolutely, positively accepted my Autistic traits for what they were and revelled in them, rather than pathologizing them.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t all delight and bliss. My childhood was, in fact, extremely difficult, both inside and outside the home. My family got a lot of things really wrong. But the parts that my family got right, they got really right. And I’m a better person for it. So many of the “disordered” behaviors — repetitive motions, echolalia, alternative play styles, talking a “blue streak” about passions, having passionately focused interests at all, even my frantic energy — they were all recognized and welcomed as the things that made me what I was.

My Mom, in fact, loves to talk with exuberance about so many of my behaviors that qualify me as Autistic. Singing a song to myself over and over and over for days at a time. Dismantling a toy vacuum cleaner that was given to me, so I could play with it my own way. Immersing myself in Native American studies, learning about trees, animal tracks, animal scat. Talking, talking, talking some more about the things I cared so deeply about. And running wild, all over the place, making my Mom nervous, but never actually getting hurt.

My parents remember those things as wonderful. Because they were me. They could also relate. And for all the things I did wrong and was punished for, at least — at the core — they recognized and loved me for who I was. Because that was me. And they’d both been punished enough as kids for their own Autistic traits, that they never wanted to do that to their own kids.

That’s one thing they certainly got right.

And I’m glad I can see it now. Because for years, I got so hung up on the things they got wrong, for their shortcomings, their failings, their neglect and abuse, that I missed the ways they were so good for me, so healthy, so helpful and supportive. And although I’m still at odds with the community of my upbringing (they still seem a bit cultish to me, to be honest), I can still see there was a lot of good in it for me, that helped make me who and how I am.

It helped make me healthily Autistic, in so many ways. So much so, that I have to just look at people (or shake my head when I’m online) when they talk about Autism only being a problem. Or only a disorder. It can be problematic. It can be disordering, even disabling. But in and of itself, Autism is not the enemy. And it’s not only one thing.

It’s not only one thing at all.

It’s many things. And we can choose for ourselves what we’ll do with the full spectrum of experiences. That much is very clear to me.

With that being said, it’s a gorgeous day. I have an all-day conference call I need to attend — and no, I’m not looking forward to it. It’s part of the job. It doesn’t happen every day. I’ll survive. Plus, I get to work from home while I’m doing it, and I can sit out on my deck and enjoy the breeze and sunshine, which is wonderful and delicious today. There are worse ways to make a living, that’s for sure.

So, off I go…

Something to show for it all

I’ve been thinking a lot about my situation, lately, and the thoughts haven’t all been very encouraging. Basically, I feel as though I’ve spent 25 years building up my skills, gathering experience, learning some really tough lessons along the way… only to be pushed out of the way for political reasons, or by people who want what I have, but haven’t actually earned it.

I know, I’m being incredibly unrealistic in this respect, wanting to see some sort of payoff for all the years of investment and dedication. That’s not how the world works, I hear you say? Yeah, well, in some parts of the world it is.

And I’m not currently situated in that part of the world.

I suppose this is just what happens, when you’ve been around for a while. Eventually, people who understand what you do and get it, “age out” and move on. I’m really noticing that, these days, because the people who really understand me and realize what it is that I do are 10-15 years older than me. And they’re ramping up their exits from the world I inhabit. Retiring. Or dying. Disappearing, in one way or another. So, my allies and advocates are getting fewer and farther between. Which leaves me standing alone in the midst of the crowd, wondering if everybody realizes just how mediocre everything has become…

I can’t shake this horrible feeling of having wasted so many of my years. After all the work, after all the dedication, after all the determination, what do I have to show for it? I can’t go back to school, because while I have the money, I don’t have the time or the bandwidth. I’ve tried it. I can’t manage an academic course load of any size while I’m working full-time. My partner’s health is declining, and it just feels like I’m biding my time till she worsens and passes away — which is a terrible way to feel, when it’s the love of your life. I don’t know what’s happening with work, or what I even want to happen. I would sorely love to get out of technology, but they money’s too good, and I’ve sunk too many years into that activity to move into another space. I have some ideas about how to move forward, but nothing is very clear, right now.

Well, anyway, the world is full of opportunities, and if I don’t see them, that’s on me. I just get a little tired of doing so much work and not having much to show for it. Or maybe I’m just looking for the wrong payoffs. Maybe I’m casting too wide a net and expecting too much from my efforts. I tend to do that. I have plenty of ideas in my mind about how things should be and what should come of them, but I’m not always tapped in to the reality of how things truly work.

And maybe I’ve been seeing payoffs all along, I just haven’t realized it, because I’m so focused on doing and doing and doing… always moving, always making, always creating… the point is the journey, not the destination, with me. But every now and then, I stop and look around and wonder what in heaven’s name I’m actually working towards.

I’m in a transition phase, that’s for sure. I work with people who actively try to thwart what I’m doing, who hide their agendas from me, and who take credit for my work. They don’t know what they’re doing, actually, and they don’t listen to my guidance. They’re too busy finding out for themselves. I’m superfluous. Especially since they believe that nothing now is the same as it was 25 years ago. I’m not going to change them, so I need to amend my own point of view and/or my own situation.

That being said, I need to go out for a walk. I made a point of bringing walking clothes with me, so I can stretch my legs. It’s 3 hours ahead of my usual time, and I have a few hours before I have to start my official day. I’ve got lots of room to roam, which is good. And I can think about how I’ll spend my afternoon on Friday, since I’ll have a lot of time to spend after the conference is over. It’ll be Friday afternoon, back East. Nobody will be working or emailing me. I’ll be able to explore and take in some museums, I think. There are lots of museums nearby.

Anyway, enough typing. Enough stewing. I’m in limbo, not sure where I belong, not sure where I’m going. Just floating, trying to keep myself upright in the roiling sea. Unmoored. I’m unmoored. But I can’t think about that now. I need a walk.

Six reasons I frequently end up in bad relationships

I just read a great post about Gut Instincts and Autistics getting bullied or taken advantage of by people. This post is an expansion on what I commented there.

I’ve been in bad relationships (either intimate ones or friendships or working relationships) that really took a toll on my standing in life. At times, they were emotionally abusive and set me back that way, but more often, they reflected poorly on me in the eyes of others, and that undermined my reputation with other people. They took me for a fool and dismissed me in untold ways.

That can be an even bigger problem than self-esteem or self-perception issues. You can always fake your way through crappy self-esteem. But if you’re not esteemed by others, then the problems are even worse.

Anyway, I’ve thought a lot about this over the course of the past years of coming to terms with being Autistic. And I’ve realized there are some really compelling reasons I find myself in (or actively seek out) bad / abusive / challenging relationships. Some other reasons I’ve done that over the years are:

1. Alexithymia – I can’t tell how I feel about a situation. I literally can’t tell how I feel about a person and how they’re treating me. If I don’t know they’re being mean to me, how can I address it? How can I learn to recognize their behavior as abusive or negative? How can I ever hope to defend myself? Fortunately, being clueless about the harm actually protects me from it. For example, if someone insults me in a language I don’t know, I’m not going to be hurt. At all. I don’t know they were being nasty, so … meh.

2. Slow processing speed – I’m often too busy parsing the environmental cues to realize someone’s yelling at me all the time. This is a real thing with me. People, I literally don’t have the bandwidth to manage all the sensory input — the lights overhead, the feel of a breeze on my arm, the scratchy seams in my shirt, the background noise of people talking or moving stuff around or making the floor vibrate when they walk by — to “get” that people are making fun of me or getting short with me. I’m usually just barely keeping up, so by the time it sinks in that someone’s being mean to me, the conversation / situation has moved on. La la.

3. Auditory processing issues – I often can’t tell right away that someone is being mean to me, because I can’t actually hear everything they’re saying to me. Again, it’s like someone swearing at me and calling me terrible names in another language, when every other word drops out of their sentence. I sorta-kinda get that they’re upset, but I can’t tell what they’re going on about. So, I generally ignore that sort of thing. It’s like when a friend of mine (who’s deaf in one ear) decides she’s had enough of people and she lies down on the side of her “good ear” (as she calls it). She effectively blocks out the rest of the world, and she can rest.

4. Memory issues – This is a huge factor. I don’t have great short-term working memory (I’ve been tested, and it sucks), so a lot of stuff just gets forgotten… sometimes before it can even register. My slow processing speed makes things register later, while my auditory processing issues only allows some stuff to get through. And then, either the situation evolves to something completely different, or I forget the details of what was said or done, and life goes on as it has been. On good days, I’m blissfully unaware that people are acting terribly towards me. On bad days, I’m like, “What just happened?” When my memory is particularly bad (when I’m tired or agitated or overwhelmed by everything else), I’m lucky if I can remember that something actually did happen. It’s not nearly as awful as it sounds. Believe me, much of what happens in my relating with other people isn’t worth remembering.

5. Being yelled at and treated badly wakes me up – I often feel sluggish and brain-foggy, and that makes me feel terrible about myself. But when someone is being mean to me, it makes me more alert. Even if the circumstances are hurtful, at least I feel like I’m awake and I feel like “myself”. So, it doesn’t seem so awful. It actually feels engaging. Of course, the standard-issue position on being yelled at is, It’s Terrible And Should Never Happen – If It’s Happening, Make It Stop. But in my case, being yelled at doesn’t always actually hurt me. Sometimes it wakes me up in important ways.

6. Logic, logic, logic – I tend to click into logical mode, in challenging situations, so I don’t really feel emotionally impacted, every single time. Sometimes I am, but not always. Sometimes it’s just an objective thing that happens, and I don’t get emotional about it. Of course, other times I do. It’s variable. But when I am really hurt by something that’s said to me, logic comes to the rescue again. Objectively speaking, I’m a wonderful person with so much to offer. I’ve been told that often enough by people I trust, that I’m inclined to believe it. My sample size is big enough to be statistically viable. So there. If someone is being mean to me, I can be objectively certain that it’s about them, not about me. And I can move on without taking it personally.

On the whole, I think the mental health / relationship standards that apply to the general population don’t necessarily apply to me. Stuff that impacts others, doesn’t impact me the same way. Sure, it would be great to not be abused by the people I consider friends, but people are people, and frankly, I often can’t tell if people are actually being mean to me, or not. If I can’t detect it, it doesn’t affect me, so it’s far less of a tragedy for me than it is for others who are deeply impacted.

Maybe I’m sounding all denial-y, but that’s how I see it. That’s my experience. I’m still here, I have a really positive self-image, I’m able to care for and protect myself, and I’m living a far better life (for myself) than I ever dreamed possible. I’ve somewhat figured out — from experience — how to spot “problem people” and avoid them. But mostly, I avoid people when I can, because it’s so exhausting to have to figure everyone out, always on the lookout for danger signs, and constantly weighing all the variables and considerations. Sheesh, who has the time and energy for that? Certainly, not I.

So, I spend a lot of time alone.  And that is wonderful and delightful. The most interaction I have on a regular basis is social media. At least I can walk away from that (literally) anytime I’m feeling overwhelmed, and it’s not going to jeopardize my life, like walking out of my job or home would.

In the end, we all have to figure out what works for us and what doesn’t, and take steps to make the most of what works, while trying our best to keep what doesn’t work from ruining our lives. It’s an art. It’s a science. Life goes on.

Raised #Autistic – Lessons Learned

All the talk about how Autism diagnoses have skyrocketed in the last 30 years, overlooks one key factor:

Once upon a time, the Autism Spectrum wasn’t pathologized. It was developed.

It was very much a part of life, and there were institutions and mitigators in place to help weave that neurotype into the overall fabric of life.

I was raised in an area that’s chock-full of Autistic folks. Is this abnormal? Not on your life. In fact, it’s the norm. And every aspect of growing up is/was geared towards training individuals how to be responsible members of the community. It helps that it’s a rural area, where everybody has to pitch in, no matter what, so nobody gets a pass to completely drop out of society because of any difficulties they may have. Society needs them, it’s made clear. And whatever they can do — in whatever measure — is not only needed, but required.

Take my aunt, for example. She just passed away last year, and she was probably one of the most “obviously” Autistic persons I’ve ever met. All the classic behaviors, all the classic traits… that was Aunt M. She definitely did not have an easy life, but she lived by a code that placed others first at all times. She had a quote on her dresser that effectively said, “Whatever sufferings I may have, others have it even worse. And in the end, the question is not how much I’ve gotten out of life, but what I’ve given to those who are struggling more than I.”

That’s the ethos I was raised with overall, and I can tell you that Aunt M personified that, each and every day. She had her challenges, of course. My mom had to constantly watch out for her, from the time they were both young girls, till the day she died. She was bullied, she was threatened, she was abandoned. And she had intense issues with anxiety and social interactions.

But she lived her life. She lived by principles. And in the end, he had such an important place in life, her funeral was attended by close to 100 people, many of whom relied on her for many things throughout the course of her life.

I was raised in the same way — principles. Be a responsible member of society. Put others first. Realize that others have troubles, too, and rather than thinking about what I need to get out of the social equation, I need to put myself out there and be as helpful to others as I can. It’s not about me. Yes, I have intense suffering and challenges at times. Yes, my life is a non-stop parade of pains and joys — often so intermingled, it’s hard to tell which is which. But in the end, what I contribute to the world is far more important than what accommodations I get to secure my own happiness.

Now, you might dismiss this as being some lofty approach by someone who’s not impacted all that heavily by Autism. But you’d be wrong about that. Everything I have, everything I can do, it’s all been hard-won and paid-for at a steep price. And I’ve been around long enough to realize what a toll it’s taken on me, over the years.

Does that toll matter? Nope. The bottom line, for me, is what I add to the overall human equation. I’m responsible for my corner of the universe. I have to keep it clean and orderly and do my best to not be a liability towards others. I have to keep my own suffering out of view, because what I have to give is far more important than anything I feel I need to take.

All those years, when I was in excruciating chronic pain and some days couldn’t get out of the bed… the short time I was homeless… the times when I’ve had to quit jobs and move on, because the environment was so painful I couldn’t tolerate it anymore… Through all the meltdowns, the shutdowns, the touch-is-pain moments… The one thing that kept me going was that it wasn’t only about me. I had to get up and go to work to support my household. And if I couldn’t manage a full-time job, then I had to find a regular source of income that let me work part-time and still make enough to pay my rent.

The thing that carried me through all those years of intensity and hardship, was my upbringing by parents, grandparents, and a wider community who were all Autistic. Who knew what it meant to struggle, and who still pressed on and pushed me to deal. They didn’t let me off the hook. They kept at me, and kept reminding me of what was Right, what was Wrong, and urged me to do the Right thing. Even when it was impossible, they still demanded that I do my best. No excuses. Just get on with it. Yes, life is painful and awkward, but that’s what teaching and training were all about. I had to learn. I had to be taught. I had to be raised.

There was never the assumption that kids already inherently knew the right thing to do. There was the assumption that adult life is challenging and requires skill, and like any skilled endeavor, that takes training and practice and continuous discipline. The skills I have now, which have allowed me to live a really full life and experience so much that many people only dream about, they didn’t magically emerge from my pristine primal state. They were abilities that were identified, prioritized, and emphasized as the sort of thing that all adults do.

And there was no argument.

Yes, it was tough. Yes, it was challenging. Yes, I still have leftover “stuff” from all those years of training. I was enculturated into an Autistic society, and there were Rules and Regulations for everything. It was rough, at the time, but all the hard lessons have made it possible for me to live my life… regardless.

The skills I developed at just getting on with things, for putting others first, for making the effort to be a contributing member of society — even when I was disabled — made all the difference in the world. Society has a way of looking out for those who support it and contribute, and that’s always been my “safety net”, if I even have one. I make myself useful to others. I contribute. I’m not perfect, I’m pretty weird at times, I’m Autistic, I can be pretty off-putting at times. But in the end, my goal is to make myself an asset to the world around me, not only devote myself to getting my needs accommodated.

That’s all because I was raised by Autistic folks. Those were the Rules.

’nuff said.

“Say what?”

Well, this is interesting… I’m realizing more and more, just how much my hearing difficulties have affected my day-to-day life, interactions with people, my willingness to engage with others, socialize, try things, and get an education.

I mean, yeah, my overall sensory issues have had a really … dampening… effect on me. Experiencing light touch as pain can be a source of constant distress. Balance issues put me in a constant state of hypervigilance, when I’m “off”. Light and sounds can be painful, too. There’s a reason I go food shopping every day — so I only have to be in the store for 10 minutes at a time (and yes, it works!). All of that can add up over time to a pretty significant trauma load. Even the little traumas, if they aren’t cleared out of my overtaxed system, build up to something bigger and badder than the individual elements, themselves.

And then there’s my hearing. Such as it is. Most of what I hear, if I’m not listening intentionally, is a muffled mmmmmfffftgrrrrlllllnnnnb. And yes, it is maddening for people who deal with me to have to repeat . themselves . every  . single . time . they . say . something . to . me . unannounced. I really feel for them. Because sometimes you just want to feel like you’re being heard, without having to repeat yourself every . single . time.

But what can I do? Unless I’m paying attention to what someone is saying to me, I don’t pick it up. I just don’t.

And it’s getting to be more and more of a pain in the neck. As time has passed and the high tech industry has evolved, I’m finding myself in more and more “leadership” positions, where I’m directing a bunch of lower-paid folks (often on the other side of the world). I’m also responsible for communicating progress to higher-ups. And yes, this is a massive pain in my hind-parts, because those are the least-capable parts of me — phone calls with people who have thick accents over bad internet connections… distilling all the details of the past week in can-do Powerpoints that press all the right “comfort buttons” in hyper-controlling people at a higher pay grade than myself… Keeping lines of communication open with people of all types…

What did I do in a past life to earn this steady stream of demoralization and practically built-in failure?!

I ask you…

It really is kind of funny, if you think about it. Either that, or cruel. Good thing I’m post-menopausal and no longer hormonally inclined to fret about not getting everything right. Good thing I care a lot less about what other people think, and I’ve lived in my body/brain long enough to know not to trust all the terrible things I say about/to myself. They haven’t fired me yet, so I guess I’m doing okay. Plus, I’m ahead of the game, because even at my worst, I do a better job than a lot of non-Autistic folks do when at their best.

So, I’ve got that going for me.

The only problem is… I can’t hear for shit, sometimes. Seriously, I can’t. I don’t think it’s gotten worse for me than it was when I was younger. It’s just that now I have to talk to people a lot more. For something like 15 years, I was a developer, so I could just communicate with my computer and code. Not worry about the people stuff. And I wasn’t saying “How’s that? Can you repeat please?” every 1o minutes.

Ha! I should count how often I do that, these days. Might be eye (and ear) opening.

Anyway, I realize more and more, these days, just how much my hearing difficulties have affected my life. I avoid all kids of stuff because I might not hear properly, and I might A) make a fool of myself, B) get into trouble, or C) actually be in danger.  I can’t do work that involves other people and power equipment, because I might not hear a warning, and I might lose a finger… or an arm. That’s a bigger loss than I like to admit, because I love manual labor. And I would love to be able to support myself while working with power equipment. But at this point, I don’t think that’d be safe.

I also don’t go out much, because I might have to interact with people, and the only thing more lonely than being around people who aren’t trying to connect, is being around people who are trying to connect, but I have no idea what’s going on, because I can’t hear them properly. Sure, I can cue the canned greetings and response, but I’d really like to be able to do more than that. But people just don’t have the time. And when I keep asking them to repeat themselves, they seem to get tired of dealing with me.

I’ve been thinking about talking to my doctor about this. I probably should, because maybe there’s something to be done. I really worry about interactions with the police and other first responders, not to mention other authority figures. Having trouble hearing is a great way to get shot by the police, based on recent history, so yeah — in the interest of living a full life, I should probably look into this.

I just have to prepare properly. I think I’ll write up a description of my symptoms for my doctor, describe my difficulties, and ask her if there’s anything to be done. It might be nice to have some sort of assistive device that could block out all the ambient noise, so I can concentrate on what’s being said to me. The idea of wearing a hearing aid worries me, first because of the distracting feel, second because it can call me out as vulnerable and people might try to take advantage of me, thirdly because I really don’t want people to pity me and treat me differently.

But other people deal with that all the time, so maybe I should quit being so squeamish.

Anyway, that’s my latest “thing”. The hearing situation. Or inconsistent lack thereof. I’m going to learn a little bit of ASL, I think, because I’ve been wanting to do that for some time, now. It’s something to add to my overall skillset. I need skills. And I also need to widen my world a bit.

It’s all an adventure, isn’t it?

In search of my flow state

I’m in the process of resetting for the new year. Resetting my activities. Resetting my priorities. Resetting my activity levels. I typically do this earlier in the year, when I’m swept up in the New Year’s Resolution blitz.

But this year, I haven’t been feeling it. At all.

It’s not going nearly as well as I’d like. Work is weird. My life is weird. It’s all kind of… weird. I don’t feel like I’m fully inhabiting my own life, and I’ve been so busy with everything, lately, I haven’t had time to stim or reach a flow state for weeks… perhaps since the beginning of the year.

It’s maddening. Probably the worst thing about the way things have gone, for the past months, is the ever-increasing level of interruption in the course of each day. It’s absolutely maddening. As in, it makes me really, really mad. I have to be able to settle into extended periods of thought, in order to be effective, and my current job is preventing that on every level.

Distraction kills, and it’s doing a hack job on my performance at work, not to mention my job, overall.

Well, that’s the job, right? That’s “just how things are” in my current professional corner of the world, and anyone who can’t keep up is left in the dust. Personally, I’d be fine with being left behind. Just cut me a check and let me go. Let’s call it a day and say it was an interesting learning experience, shall we? And let’s all move on to other, better things.

But I don’t have a substantial back-up plan. I’ve been putting out feelers for work, but the kinds of work I’ve been applying for… well, it just hasn’t been a good fit. I got a job offer, a month ago, but I had to turn it down because the conditions were, well, crappy. A longer commute. Into the thick of the worst rush hour traffic in the area. Frenetic pace. Frenzied, from what I was told. In a building where they have chemicals that smell and bright lights that blind. An open work space plan. And not more money than I’m making now.

So… no. Not that.

I put in for some other jobs, and I heard back from what looked like a really good opportunity, but after I responded to them, they didn’t get back to me. I need to ping them again. There’s a good chance they took a look at my resume and realized — Hey, she doesn’t have a degree! — and, like many others, decided I “wasn’t a good fit”.

It’s a little depressing, actually.

But it’s got me thinking… About what is actually the best work for me to do. After being a web developer for 15 years, I gradually shifted into project and program management for the past 8 years or so, because it felt like the software engineering world was closing in on me and I was getting crowded out. I felt like I just couldn’t compete with all the lower cost talent with more updated skills… the people who “fit better” with organizations… or who had degrees. The project/program management space seems to be less amenable to people who literally teach themselves how to do things, than the development space. And while that didn’t hurt my prospects in the past handful of jobs I’ve had, it’s starting to feel like it’s closing in on me even more than development did.

This is about how my “career” is feeling, about now.

And indeed, the lack of flow is a huge issue. Somehow, I seem to have acquired work that I absolutely hate. Tracking other people’s activities. Communicating to everyone who needs to know about program and project status. Navigating political minefields. Battling for my territory. Making nice with people across the organization. Being interrupted every 20 minutes (or as soon as I get into a flow state). Conference calls. Lots of conference calls. With people who have thick accents and/or are on a poor phone connection. And more interruptions. Travel. Regular business travel, which doubles my workload and completely trashes my routine.

It just feels like a setup. I can do it for so long, then I am completely wiped out. Because nobody sees how much I struggle, and I can’t let on, because that would trash my career prospects like nothing else. And I can’t chance that.

The fact that I’m really good at it, is no consolation. At all.

I mean, seriously, I’m really good at it. I’m a fantastic meeting facilitator, I can communicate extremely well to people who need to know. I know how to work effectively with offshore folks (been doing it since 2002). And I can turn on a dime if the situation calls for it.

But man, oh, man, do I pay for it. In a very big way. Of course, nobody else sees how steep the price is, because they rely on me to keep doing what I’m doing, just the way they are accustomed to seeing me do it.

And seriously, this is no way to live.

I need my flow back. I need to settle into a chunk of code and just work my way through it. I need to cozy up with a tasty algorithm and just do my thang. Seriously, I do.

…

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{pause to take a breath}

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Okay, so where does that leave me? Or rather, where does that point me?

Realistically, away from where I am now. And back into the development world. In my former life (before I trained my replacements in 2002 and was then told to go find another job in 2005), I was one of the best of the best at my chosen line of work. Web development. Front-end web development. UI coding. Cross-browser. Cross-platform. Proficient in ‘nix flavors and the command line. Not afraid of anything code-related.

And it suited me. In a very big way. Because I could create things and make stuff work, like nobody else. I could convince browsers to do things they weren’t built to do. I was good. I was one of the best. And I was relieved of my duties by the bean-counters who had no idea what the work entailed. All they knew was that I was “too expensive” and they were convinced I could be replaced.

Hm.

Yeah, as it turns out (having managed a lot of projects involving developers who weren’t even close to as good as I was), I can’t be replaced. My skills are still needed. And my interview and subsequent job offer this past December (for a developer job) tells me that I still have a future in that realm. I tend to get pretty rigid about things and get convinced that since I’ve almost exclusively done project/program management for the past 3.5 years, so I’ve been telling myself that I have to stay in that space. But I don’t. I can shift back to development. I’m the only one who’s blocking myself, at this point.

Plus, I can do my own “thang” in the process. Build tools. For mobile. Just build things that show people what I do — like Temple Grandin recommends. I’ve actually got a pretty impressive portfolio, and it’s not even complete. I need to get focused on completing it, and lift myself up out of this increasingly wretched state I’ve been in, for the past year and a half, when it first started to dawn on me that this was probably not the best job choice for me.

There’s a lot I can do about my situation, right now. I can build my own apps. I can build my own websites. I can do a lot that shows how I work. And I can put the finishing touches on some projects I started over the past years but lost the energy to do them – because I was too wiped out from my day job to keep up with it all.

…

So, there is hope.

But for now, it’s time to go move some snow. We got a bunch of it overnight, and I need to shovel it before the temperatures start to rise. Heavy snow is no fun.

Oh, how I would love to talk about ideas…

So, this trip has been interesting. I have 11 hours to go (and yes, I am counting), till I get to leave the office, get in my car, and drive to the airport. Then, I’ll have yet another bite to eat, board the plane, and fly home.

I can’t wait. I’m done here. I was supposed to have dinner with an Aspie friend, last night, but I ended up having to do a work team-building thing — going out to dinner with my coworkers, and then having ice cream afterwards. It was a good time, and I enjoyed hanging out with them. Just like I’ve enjoyed spending time with other folks, discussing work and other subjects, and everything that goes along with networking for work.

Sure, I enjoy spending time with these people, but when do I get time to decompress? All this peopling has been incredibly taxing. It’s exhausting, no matter how much I enjoy it. There’s too much to take in, too much to process, and all of it’s happening in an environment that’s inherently hostile to me and my sensibilities on a profound level. Everything around me is too too loud, too bright, too frenetic, too superficial, too political, too… everything.

And not an in-depth idea in sight, from what I can tell.

I’ve spent the last four days skimming the surface of life, and it’s about as much as I’m prepared to indulge. Everybody’s saying I should stay longer. I should spend more time. I should even move out here. They like me. I like them. We get along. There’s a fair amount of love between me and my coworkers here, and they enjoy working with me.

But it’s a one-way street, social and mentally speaking. I’m the one working overtime to fit in and adapt to their ways. I’m the one putting out the effort to blend and be a responsible individual who cultivates positive social interactions. I’m the one who’s bending over backwards (metaphorically) and putting a cramp in my back (literally) to adapt to their schedules, their food choices, their priorities, their values.

Very, very little of what goes on here and what people care about appeals to me. Living a classic American conspicuous hyper-consumer lifestyle in ways that support and further the dominant paradigm (as well as  the economy), and structuring your life around your popularity, social standing, and political connections are about as far from my main priorities, and you can get.

It’s just so vacuous… I feel like I’ve been living at an extremely high altitude for the past week, with very little oxygen, no trees, and no signs of diverse life to be found.

And nobody around me seems to notice, which worries me.

I mean, I like the people I work with. But at some point, I need to talk about more than office politics, as well as their mainstream lives. I need to discuss more than what people had for dinner the night before, or what the school schedules are. I’m out of  place, but I’m the only one who notices, because I follow other people’s leads, and I play to their strengths. It’s much easier to interact with people, when I make them the center of attention. They love it. They love to talk about their lives, their cars, their kids, their hobbies. But very, very little of it has anything to do with queer little ole me.

Which is pretty much the story of my life. Not much around me has anything to do with me or my values, my priorities, my interests. Never mind what I would have talked about, if I’d been able to go to dinner with my friend last night. We would have riffed on abstract concepts for hours. But alas… alack… All I have to show for dinner last night is a dessicated, intellectually barren experience, where I’ve worn myself out interacting with people nothing like me at all, doing things that don’t interest me… and there’s always the chance I’ve insulted someone without intending to.

Ah, well.

I get to go home today. Back to my books, back to my routine, back to my regular eating and exercise schedule. Back to my house, my partner, my queerness, my nonbinary, noncompliant ways, and the life that I’ve structured exactly the way I want it. Back to my quiet, my peace, my steady cadence. Back to my ideas. Back to a place where I can actually think, instead of being rushed and pushed and cajoled and coerced into meeting someone else’s cookie-cutter social needs, on someone else’s time, according to someone else’s idea about how things should be done.

Well, I’m sure I’ll get some insight from this trip, on down the line, but for now, I’m just really relieved to be finishing up my stay here and going home this afternoon. I’m sure I’ll be back here, sometime in the not-so-distant future, but for now, I’m looking forward to getting my life back to how I want and need it to be.

The day is starting. Let the games begin. Again. For the time being.

“Old School” Autism Adjustment

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I structure my life. And I’ve been thinking about how I handle myself, regardless of what comes along.

Because I do. Of course, it falls down, here and there. Of course it does. I’m human. I have finite resources, and like a high-performance race car, I need to pull off the track, every so many revolutions, and get tuned up. I’m no different than a Formula-One race car, in that respect. High-performance vehicles, including my body and brain, need more specialized care on a more frequent basis.

That doesn’t make me disabled. It makes me high-performance with specific needs.

Interestingly, nobody’s calling F-1 race cars “disabled” because their tires need to be changed more frequently than your everyday family sedan.

Please.

And here’s where my New Year starts out a little early. I’ve got this new resolution to really “reframe” (much as I hate that word) the way I talk about Autism. Hmm… let me think of a much better word than “reframe” — okay, let’s use “redefine”. Because that’s essentially what I’m doing. The words I use add shape and texture to the concept of my Autism, and by using different words and different mindsets to talk about that central part of me, I can literally change the quality of my life and the thoughts/concepts that guide it.

If others “get it”, then great. If my example helps them to redefine their own experience (whether it’s Autistic or not) and create a more self-aware and self-directed way of life that’s got less pain and suffering, then great. But my redefinition isn’t for the sake of anyone else. It’s for my sake. I am Autistic, after all. 😉

One thing driving this shift is my experience of looking through my library of images I’ve used in blog posts over the past year or so. I’ve been actively blogging here for nearly two years. I started this blog back in June, 2008, then had to tend to other things, and I came back in February, 2016. Some days, it seems like a lot longer than two years, and other days, it seems a lot shorter.

I’m alexithymic like that.

Anyway, I noticed that so-so many of my images have really negative connotations for me. There’s a lot of suffering archived in my media library. And while searching in vain for some really uplifting images (or just some pragmatically strength-inspiring pics), I came up with nothing, time and time again.

Oh, here and there, I found an image or two. But on the whole, things look pretty grim. I’d have to say the ratio of gloomy:gleeful is about 9.24:1.

So, that’s gotta change.

I’ve talked before about how we need more Autistic Joy, and I still believe that. But it’s not enough to mention it now and then in a blog post. It’s got to be the main theme in all my blog posts. And if not outright joy, then at least some discussion of how I’m managing my Autistic life — and doing it successfully.

Oddly, I feel as though I may be failing “the cause” as I write this. Because Autistic people are supposed to get support and resources for our difficulties. Yes, when appropriate, I absolutely believe that. If I am completely and totally unable to help myself, then I do need extra help.

The thing is, I’m rarely, if ever, completely and totally unable to help myself. I may have lost track of all the ways my system was being slowly eroded by circumstances beyond my control. I may have allowed myself become so run-down that I lost my normal capabilities. I may have gotten so wrapped up in what I was doing, I forgot to eat, drink, sleep, and empty my bladder, and that’s making my life a lot more “interesting” than I’d like it, as I gingerly wobble across the house to get to the bathroom.

But those things are on me. I may be Autistic, but I’ve helped to create those conditions. I didn’t properly manage my life — which I’m perfectly capable of doing. I didn’t take good care of myself — which I know I need to do, so what’s my excuse? I didn’t set a timer (which I know I sometimes need) to eat, drink, sleep, and keep track of my bladder’s state. Self-created suffering is not the sort of thing I can use to demand more services for my situation.

It may sound like I’m being too hard on myself, but I’m not. I was raised to know better, and to do better. And I was raised in a world where I was expected to take responsibility for myself, even for the times when I struggle. Especially for the times when I struggle. Because everyone is dealing with something pretty Big, and they don’t have extra time and attention to devote to my own self-created issues.

If I’m capable of discerning my difficulties (which I am, more than anyone else), and I’m able to learn from my experiences (which I can, and do, regularly), then it’s my responsibility to make provisions for my situation. Manage my issues. Restructure my life so that I’m not suffering, if it can at all be prevented. And make the damn’ effort to not get myself into taxing situations that I know, from experience, are going to make life worse for me — and everyone around me.

Yeah, I’m old school. That’s for certain. My approach isn’t for everyone, but it most certainly is for me. And as one contingent of Autistic folks focuses on the disability side of things, I’m focusing on the “Autistic ability” side of things — because our lives are different and shouldn’t be expected to be exactly the same. And because I’ve figured out how to live my life as an actually successful (and yes, I’m using the word in its true sense) Autistic adult. I was as a successful Autistic child, teen, and young adult. I just didn’t realize it, thank you alexithymia. Turns out, the very thing that makes it possible for me to function effectively in situations that freak other people out, actually hides that effectiveness from the rest of me. So, I’m a heck of a lot more successful and happy and content than I realize.

Damn… I need to write a whole post about that, sometime. Or maybe I already have… Anyway, that’s another idea for another day.

So, with the New Year just around the corner, it’s time to get some more positive pictures in my media library. And get some more pro-active, pro-Autism posts in my blog. Staying stuck in how horrible everything is… well, that doesn’t serve anyone. Least of all me.

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