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…

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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.

Here we go again – well-meaning misrepresentation in portrayal of #Autistic #women — i.e., #thebigthings

Well Autistic Bewareness Month isn’t yet over, clearly.

And I feel a big bad about writing this post, but I have other things I need to do with my life, today, and I need to get this out of the way.

So, there’s this play called “The Big Things” that’s running in London. About a man and his Autistic wife who has all sorts of reservations about becoming a mother. I haven’t seen the play, which somewhat limits my ability to comment exhaustively. I have read a review of it, as well as seen a fair amount of blog posts and Twitter conversations about what a disservice it does to Autistic mothers — and, from what I’ve ready, Autistic women, as well.

The one thing I have experienced directly is a SoundCloud recording of a Q&A session this past Friday evening. Paul Wady of the Guerilla Aspies performance group was on the panel to discuss Autism and the effects the play has on the Autistic community as well as women. You can listen for yourself below. Or not. Your choice. (Piece continues below the SoundCloud player)

A lot of things in the panel discussion raise “red flags” with me. An Autistic man speaking for Autistic mothers… the way he typified the Autistic community… the way that old pain from a really… unfavorable experience dating an Autistic woman, years ago, obviously colored his discussion about Autism and women in a larger sense.

The Q&A was held on a Friday night, and we know how many Autistic people are up and at ’em on a Friday night, after a loooonnnnnngggg week of dealing with the non-autistic world… not to mention Autistic mothers who, um, are likely mothering, fer Chrissakes. Sheesh, it just gets worse.

One of the things that bothered me the most about the recording — and I had to sit through something like 40 minutes of increasingly irritating / distressing discussion to get there (I know… poor me, right? 😉 ) — was a woman at the end saying that, surely some discussion about Autistic mothers is better than none! And we should just be grateful that we’ve been included.

Ugh. I don’t even know where to start with that. But let me boil it down:

1. The idea that we should just be grateful to be included smacks of 1954. Back when well-coiffed women typically had their arms grabbed by men who steered them in the direction they wanted. (I’m thinking of all the scenes in Sabrina, which I watched the other night, when men were grabbing women’s arms and hustling them through some door, or in this direction or that — yeahhhh… cringeworthy, by today’s standards.) The idea that women should just be grateful to be included — and Autistic women, no less — to have a chance to participate. What year are we in, anyway? I don’t get that.
2. Yes, raising awareness about the existence of some people can be beneficial. But what kind of awareness? Back in the early 1900s, there was a lot of awareness being raised in America about immigrants entering the country. This is what that awareness looked like: See what I mean? Now, to be clear, the kinds of cartoons cranked out around the turn of the last century were specifically for the purpose of inciting anti-immigrant sentiment. And Kibo Productions’ intentions were nothing like that. At all. But when we talk about “awareness” we need to be clear about what’s being communicated — and that there’s actually some truth to it.
3. As for discussion, my main question is, how much actual discussion can or will truly take place? Are all audience members going to attend discussion groups or engage with others about the validity of this play? What’s more, let’s think about where we’re starting the discussion — in this case, from a deeply flawed and limited standpoint, which doesn’t give us much ground to stand on, or build a decent discussion on. It’s like trying to have a discussion about a butterfly, when all you see is a caterpillar, and nobody talking about the butterfly has actually seen one in real life, just memes on Twitter.
4. The woman speaking up appeared to be speaking from the perspective of a non-autistic individual. She got a round of applause. Mmmm-okay. So people want to talk about this stuff. Great! Let’s start by understanding what the actual objections are, validating them, and working from there. Not saying the equivalent of, “Oh, you’re getting all worked up over nothing.”

Autistic women have been dealing with this kind of stuff — invisibility, being discounted and dismissed, people telling us “why are you so upset?”, not to mention being gaslighted about “making stuff up” — seemingly since the beginning of time, and it gets old. How unfortunate, that no Autistic mothers were actually able to attend the Q&A discussion. Woulda been great, not to mention valid, to include them in the discussion.

I’m not an Autistic mother (I deliberately chose not to have children for personal reasons), so I’m not going to put words in anyone’s mouth. Sonia Boué and Katherine May and others have done a fantastic job of responding. I’ll post their work on this blog when I can — it’s really, really good.

This of course is an ongoing situation and new developments are happening, every time I go back to Twitter. Which is both bad and good. It’s bad because it shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and it’s good because now we get the chance to turn things around.

If only we hadn’t been put in this situation, to begin with…

Live and learn, I guess.

Or, I could just do what I’ve always wanted to do

As it turns out, it really doesn’t make sense for me to go back to school, at this point. I looked at the numbers for how much it’s going to cost me, and I checked around to see what other people’s experience has been like with the program I chose. Reports are mixed. Some people love it, some hate it. Being totally realistic, when I think about my time commitments, my money situation, and the general trajectory of my life, if this is gonna be expensive and time-consuming, going back to school is definitely not at the top of the list.

I tend to think about restructuring my life on a semi-regular basis, especially when I am tired and overworked. I end up charting a whole new big course for my life, forgetting about the things I already have happening. And I lose the plot of my life. I’ve been feeling like that’s been happening a lot, lately. Losing the plot, forgetting what my priorities really are, overlooking the things that I love and that mean so much to me, and just getting caught up in distractions.

So, while I like the idea of having a degree, finally, unless it is absolutely, positively critical for me, and it’s fast-tracked and not expensive, it doesn’t make sense for me to sink the time, energy, and money into that whole endeavor.

So, back to my original programming. Focus on my writing, focus on my day-to-day life, my responsibilities, my obligations, and do my best by them, instead of getting wrapped up in a change that I’m somehow convinced is going to dramatically alter the course of my life.

I really have to stay fluid with this. Everything feels like it’s shifting and changing around me, and I need to not lose the plot on my writing. I’ve become increasingly concerned with the end-game I’m caught up in right now. Getting a degree for the sake of professional advancement doesn’t necessarily make sense, if I’m going to age out of the 9-to-5 workforce in 10-20 years. My age is a factor where I work, and people my age are usually shown the door before too long. Early retirement… I’ll be eligible in less than 5 years, which seems just so bizarre to me. If that happens – and I sincerely hope it will – that means I’ll get severance pay, and that’ll be a bit of a buffer to float me. It probably won’t cover me for long, but it will be something. And that is what I am holding out for.

So, yeah… end-game. Not in terms of the end of my life, but in terms of the end of my standard-issue mainstreamed life. I own a house with a mortgage that will be paid off in less than 12 years. After that, my need to make boucoup bucks will decrease dramatically. I’m also setting myself up for greater self-sufficiency — getting a plot in a community garden, setting up my own home for greater energy efficiency, streamlining just about everything I can manage, buying big-ticket items now, while I can still afford them, and generally cutting down on my dependency on whatever I can — especially the expensive shit.

As for income, ideally, I’ll be self-supporting via my writing, in another 12 years. It may sound like a stretch, but I need to get my act together with this, do the work I need to do in order to write the best work I can and really contribute. For all my complaining about the need to promote myself, that’s just a part of the whole for anyone who wants to be self-sustaining. I just need to find the proper tools to get myself some exposure and connect with people who actually want to read my work.

Get my Patreon refined. Actually make that a thing.

And put my energy into that, rather than getting a degree which I may or may not need, in the grand scheme of things.

If I need it, and it’s easy and doesn’t wreck my life, I’ll go for that degree. But quite frankly, I’ve been dancing around getting my writing out there for quite some time. Fits and starts. Fits and starts. And it’s getting a little old.

So, time to turn my prodigious focus to the task of figuring out this writing business, figuring out how I can get some income coming in about it. There are a lot of micropayment options out there, and if I build up enough of a following, that could sustain me, most likely. It’s just a matter of connecting with people who can and will contribute — complete the circle of creation, to keep it going.

Well, we’ll see how it turns out. Always an adventure.

Working towards #Invisible #excellence

This weekend has been very much about art. And excellence. And solitude. And suiting myself. And working.

I wrote what I think is a pretty decent essay on Saturday morning. I was invited to submit an essay about the intersection of my queerness with the faith of my religious upbringing, and it was an intriguing proposition. It’s taking me places I haven’t “visited” in a long time. To be honest, I generally avoid … going there… because it can be so painful and so convoluted and so frustrating for me to think about it, let alone write about it in ways that others will understand.

I am seldom asked to contribute writing. It just doesn’t happen. I write a lot, I’ve written a bunch of books, and I blog pretty regularly, but I’m not in the publication ecosystem, if you will. When I was a kid, all I really wanted to do, was be a writer. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, and I’ve made all my job choices because of needing to protect my writing process. Shelter it from outside intrusions. Guard the time I have available to work. Center my life around it, in countless ways. That desire, that drive, has informed every single choice I’ve ever made, and one of the reasons I got involved with my partner, and stayed with her for 26+ years, is that she gets me as writer. She values that. She respects it. And she leaves me alone to pursue it.

I am such a writer. It’s not even funny. I’m rarely blocked. If anything, I have more material to write, than I have time to write. That’s been the prevailing theme of my life: So many words, so little time. And some of the words are actually pretty decent. I devote my waking hours to noticing things and thinking about them in ways that few other people do. When other people have read what I had to say, at times they’ve been amazed. If I felt more comfortable about it, I’d brag a bit on that point. But other people’s respectful notice of my ideas puts me off. I can’t help wondering, “Why is this so amazing to them? It’s just common sense?” And I can’t even begin to discuss it all, because I often come off as arrogant or stuck-up or condescending.

Sigh.

Well, I’m not sure I actually want to talk about my writing with other people, anyway. For me, writing and reading happen in a nonverbal space — where words and ideas and images all swirl together without needing to be spoken. When you add in spoken words, you overlay it with a whole other dimension of experience — adding a timbre, a frequency, if you will. A sense that was never there to begin with in the space where there is only the written / silently read word. It changes the experience of the piece. And I deeply regret listening to one of my once-favorite authors reading her work aloud. It ruined it for me. It ruined her work for me. Because for now and ever more, I’ll hear her intoning in a dramatic, almost hyperbolic manner the ideas that once struck me as solid and rooted in calm.

I hate talking about my writing with people. It’s like, if you get it, you get it. And there’s no need to talk about it. The work stands on its own as a separate entity in itself, with a sense that belongs only to the reader, just as the sense of writing it belongs only to me. Trying to embody each others’ experience… I don’t consider it a good use of time.

If you don’t get the work, there’s nothing I can tell you that’s going to make it any different. Nothing I say is going to create for you the experience I was hoping you’d have. You’ve got your own perspective, your own phenomena, your own version of the world. And that’s fine. It’s just not something I share. And in a way, I almost like it more when people really don’t get my work (and don’t pretend they do). It’s honest. It’s clean. It relieves me of the obligation to discuss it, to see what it meant to the other person, to pretend I want to connect with them over my creation… or rather, the creation that made itself available to me, that I could bring it into the world.

I know, as a writer, I’m supposed to strive to get my work the largest audience possible. Market the Muse. Get The Word out. I’m supposed to promote it. Support it. Get it in front of people. Social media! Facebook! Twitter! Pinterest! Instagram! Tumblr! And whatever else… Google+? Definitely SEO, so people can find it if they search for that sort of thing.

But that’s not writing. That’s promoting. And frankly, I’m not a fan of how the publishing industry has pushed the onus of publicity onto the shoulders of the writers. It makes no sense. We’re writers, for chrissake. If we were going to be marketers, we’d be marketers. Or am I missing something?

I dunno. I’m tired. I’ve had enough for one day.

Bottom line is (and I’ve written about this before), obscurity and I are on very good terms. And my obscurity allows me to focus on what matters most to me — the word, the sense, the feel of it all. The minute I lose that shelter, my inspiration starts to dry up.

So, I make my choices. I work in secret, in silence, in obscurity. If I handle this well, I’ll manage to create something genuinely excellent, before I reach the end of my road. Whether the rest of world knows about it… not my problem. What I know about, is.

Back to my Favorite Flow State

Well, this is good. The snow has finally melted, the weather’s warm, and I’ve got a renewed spark in my life. March was a beast, I have to say. It really drained me, what with all the snow and all the logistics.

But now it’s April. It’s really, truly Spring, and I’ve got a boost of energy coming into this month.

Yeah, I know it’s Autism Bewareness Month. That’s not my favorite thing. But it’s also not the only part of my life. Autism is big, of course. It’s a defining feature of my overall makeup. But other people’s confusion about what Autism is (or isn’t), is not high on my list of Fix It priorities, this month.

I’m much less interested, right now, in adjusting other people’s messed-up conceptions, than I am in creating the kind of world I actually want to live in. For all the talk about Autism and suicide (and I’ve walked that fine line with my own ideations, over the years), I’m not hearing as much talk about Autistic people creating the kind of world we want to live in.

Yep, it’s easier to critique others’ work. Others’ world machinations. Others’ philosophies and approaches.

And I’m happy to do it, myself, now and then.

But the way I’m feeling these days, I’d much rather funnel my energies into doing things Right, instead of constantly bemoaning (which is what can I do so well) when things are done Wrong.

That being said, yeah… my writing and publishing is coming back online. I’ve had a really rough several years at my current job. And I’ve tried to get out a bunch of times. I’ve interviewed, talked to recruiters, and I even had a job offer, at the end of last year. But I stayed put, for some reason. I just couldn’t bring myself to leave — mainly because the shiny new job had little to no opportunity to work from home, which is something that I absolutely, positively cannot countenance.

I need to be able to work from home whenever I need to. I need to be able to relax, not be constantly interrupted by environmental intrusions, and I need to lie down and sleep, now and then, when it gets to be too much. I’m still able to keep on track with my tasks list. In fact, I’m even better able to, when I’m home, because it’s so much less stressful than being in the office. I can actually think when I’m at home. Imagine that… Get into the flow… Settle into the work… Get stuff done. Magic.

The other reason I won’t work for a company that doesn’t let people work from home (because they say people abuse it), is because if your people aren’t fully engaged and loving what they do, then something is wrong with your culture. And dragging them into the office to do your bidding isn’t going to make them any happier. It’s a hostage situation, and I’m not doing that anymore.

Nope.

Hm… I think I’ve digressed. Where was I…?

Oh yes! Getting back into the flow.

My writing. My publishing. Digging out all my old writings and putting them out there. I’ve got a bunch of writing that’s languished, over the past years. Books I’ve started. Books I’ve even published (under the name Loren Stone). I’ve published a handful of lesbian novels – erotic and otherwise – and I’m working on more. I just had an idea for another book that also brings in the Autism theme, and I like it. I like it a lot.

Of course, I’ve got to get organized. I’ve got manuscripts in various  states of completion in a bunch of places. Pieces built on other pieces. And then I get inspired and another piece comes up. I’ve got poetry, too. Lots of it. Stashed. In several manilla folders in the file drawer to my left. Holy smokes, I’ve got so much work in progress, it’s wild.

Of course, I get down on myself, because I haven’t “done anything with it”. I haven’t kept my Patreon up to date. I haven’t even kept my Lore Stone blog up to date. I’ve been intermittent and noncommittal at times. And I’ve toyed with the idea of just dropping it all and walking away, when it felt like Too Much.

But that’s just my Autistic self looking out for itself. I have to watch my energy expenditure, and I’ve got so much going on in my life, I have to make choices. Drop some things when they’re not working anymore. Back off on certain objects of intense focus when my inner resources are spread too thin. Follow the change of the seasons. And just be realistic about what I can — and cannot — do, when everything (and I mean Everything) gets to be too much.

So, I’m cutting myself a break. I’m getting out of the business of planning everything out so, so carefully. I’m a program planner by day for my professional job, and it pays the bills. But when I’m left to my own devices, I really just want to flow. Let it all go where it will. Let myself go where I will.

And that’s what I’m doing, right now. I may change my mind in a couple of days, but right here, right now, I’m cutting myself a break and letting myself off the proverbial leash. I’ve got too much writing waiting in the wings to get all “planny” about it.  This stuff has to flow.

Just like me.

It’s all gotta just flow.

Hello, weekend!

I am so ready for this weekend, it’s not even funny.

It’s been a full week – lots of scrambling and negotiation at work, political back-and-forth, along with a bunch of personal shifts for me.

Basically, I’ve realized that my Type A strivings over the years, while useful in some context, aren’t really getting me where I want to go, anymore.

I guess I want to go different “places” than I did, 20 years ago.

Right now, I’d love to not “go” anywhere, but settle into my routine, read some of the many really great books I’ve acquired over the years but never got around to reading, spend a lot of time reflecting, just taking it all in… in all its complexity and thoroughness… and live my life.

Just let myself BE, for once.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

I need a rest — mostly from myself.

Now, I know where my impulse to push-push-push comes from. It’s from my intensity of focus and my passion for all kinds of new things. It’s from my uncanny ability to get stuff done, which in itself can be very fulfilling. I’m one of the most driven people my partner’s ever met. She tells me that frequently. And it’s true.

I’m driven.

But my drive seems to be taking a detour, these days. And rather than being outwardly driven to make and do and accomplish, I’m now driven within… to absorb, to take in, to observe, to understand, to enlarge myself every bit as much as I’ve wrung myself out like a sponge being squeezed dry of every drop by the constant torque of my drive.

I’m no less driven. I’m just being pushed in very different directions, these days.

And I’m pushed to write. To finish up the books I started, all those years ago. To put the polishing touches on them and then publish. ‘Cause you know, Autistic folks could really stand to be better represented in the publishing world. Fiction. Memoir. All that. And I’ve got more than a few projects I’ve done over the years — both finished and unfinished.

Hmmm… Oh, this feels tasty… {smacking my lips, as I write this}

Have some fun with it.

But first, the weekend.

Rest.

Restore.

And don’t even think about next week.

Selah.

Amen.

Next up: Some time to sink into the Flow

Well, my duties have been discharged for the year, and now I’m free to do what I like with my time. Well, mostly free. I “clocked out” at 12:08 p.m., after answering a last-minute email from a colleague in Ireland. He was emailing me after his business hours, so I might as well be considerate. Then I turned on my email auto-reponder informing the world that I’ll be back in just under 2 weeks, and now I’m “free to move about the cabin”, as it were.

I love this time of year. I really do. I like the long nights. It feels warmly enveloping, even if it’s below freezing outside. I love the darkness and the short days. Sadly, the days will be lengthening after tomorrow. Oh, well… Maybe I’ll move to a Nordic country in my later years, so I can have a longer winter… Or not.

This year is an anomaly in my long career. Experts decry the low numbers of employment in the Autistic population, but it feels to me like I’ve been missing out. If only I were underemployed. Sheesh. 😉  I know, I know. I need to be careful what I ask for, but I’m seriously tired. I’ve been continuously employed since 1988 — nearly 30 years, now — and with just a few breaks in between — a week to regroup from a layoff in 1993, and another 10 days to move across the country in 1995 — I’ve been showing up to work religiously for three decades, now.

With just the all-too-short weekends to let me modestly recharge, till I had to go back at it on Monday mornings.

But this year is different. I’m now working for a company that has a free week off between Christmas and New Year’s each year. If that isn’t an antidote to all the corporate B.S., I don’t know what is. Plus, it’s free for everyone — it doesn’t tap into my vacation time or require a dock in pay. It’s just there to take. And everybody’s taking it.

Which means I’ll be free for nearly 2 weeks… and I can get into my Flow State. I can clean out my study and organize myself. Heck, I might even locate the copy of Flow that I bought a few months back. That would be nice. I could read it.

Or not.

I can do what I like. Think what I like. Read what I like. Lie down and nap whenever I like. Make the most of my time, doing and thinking things I typically don’t have the time to do or think.

I might even sew something. That would be a lot of fun. I’ve got some clothes-making projects I’ve been thinking about for months, now. I could do that, too.

I can write. With more than the standard 20 minutes to collect my thoughts and get them on paper. I can focus on projects I’ve had cookin’ for quite some time. I can even finish up the Autistic Woman’s Cycle Calendar (a monthly cycle tracker that’s especially for menopausal women on the autism spectrum) that I’ve been finalizing for Auptima Press. I can do anything I like — and that means I can finalize stuff I’ve been wanting to finalize.

I can actually get some stuff done.

And that’s good.

It’s very good, indeed.

Something better this way comes

I’ve been thinking a lot about how much time and energy has been consumed by the drama around “To Siri With Love”.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how much time and energy women have spent over the last days and weeks and months, dealing with all of the sexual harassment bullshit that’s been going on for as long as we all can remember.

And yesterday, I came across a Twitter post that really said it all for me.

i am sad that so much good women’s writing has come out of this moment and all of it is inevitably explaining this moment—what else could we be writing if we weren’t constantly doing the labor of explicating our own professional subjugation?

It’s as true for my feelings about the autistic situation, as it is for my feelings about women and our place in the world — past, present, future. It applies to a whole lot of groups — people of color, disabled, queer, all the folks who have been systematically disenfranchised and have been fighting to stay afloat for a while, now. We’re all so busy just trying to stay alive, that we have no chance to do much else.

Take Black women voters in Alabama, for example… Nobody really notices Black women, until they show up and vote the way everybody else who cares about the well-being of folks who aren’t straight, white, and a certain slice of Christian, should vote. And then, suddenly, everybody’s in love with Black women. They notice they exist.

And then the election passes, and everybody goes back to their systemic inequalities, slipping back into somnolent indifference… until the next Major Threat comes along.

It’s a tiresome cycle, and it’s perpetual. And it sucks the life out of so many of us. Basically, if we weren’t constantly dealing with all the socio-cultural assaults, the injustice, the inequalities, and so forth, how much time and energy would we have for creating and writing about other things that have to do with us living our lives to the fullest in the kind of world we want to create, rather than constantly defending ourselves against the systems that somebody else created and we are sorta kinda stuck with?

I feel the same way about the whole Siri drama. I feel like I’ve really gotten derailed, over the past week or so. I’m very happy with some of the pieces I written, and I think they will stand the test of time. They speak not only to themes in the book, but also to enduring issues that we really do need to solve as an autistic community, even as a larger human community, if we are going to move forward. Unless we fix some of this shit, we can’t ensure that everyone will live with full dignity and opportunity to experience life as fully as we can. It’s the typical socio-cultural moshpit action that gets me all stirred up and bent out of shape on a semi-regular basis.

The problem is, the Agendas I’ve been addressing have been set by somebody else, the bar for acceptability has been set extremely low, and the stakes feel very high.

It’s addicting. It truly is. Going on Twitter to see what else people have said, looking for how people are responding, coming through the news, reading blogs, even occasionally going over to Facebook – which I tend to avoid like the plague – it all perks me up and gets me out of my low-level malaise that seems to be the flavor of the year.

But addiction is not how I want to spend my life. In fact, much of my life has really been marred by addiction coming from all directions, including from within. I deal with my demons on a regular basis, and I know how easy it is for me to get drawn into cycles of upheaval followed by pain management, and I know how susceptible I am to the buzz that comes from active social media.

So, I have to be careful. And every now and then, I need to step away. It’s healthy. It feeds the sides of me that get lost in the online shuffle. And it helps my system regulate back to where I am behaving like myself again, instead of just being a series of reactions to everything else that’s happening around me.

Honestly, that’s what I want most: To be myself, in my own way, rather than just being a composite of reactions to others. The great irony is, those others probably don’t even realize I’m there, in the course of their own internal dramas. Everybody’s got their dance to dance, without exception. So, the task of living in constant relation to everybody else’s self-absorbed gyrations (which may not make any sense to anybody else outside their head, including me) is a fool’s errand.

Unfortunately, I fall for playing fool far too often.

That being said, when I look around me at the world we inhabit, replete with its misunderstandings about autism, and human experience in general, I ask myself, How can this change? Certainly, it changes when we take oppressive and exploitive elements to task, and we oppose their proliferation. We can’t just let people get away with crap without saying something. On the other hand, we also need to add in positive influences as a kind of cultural ballast to give our community more to work with than just accusations that Those people did things all wrong all over again.

That’s the space where I want to be. I want to be in a positive frame of mind, in a position of creating new alternatives, not just taking the old, tired ways to task. I don’t want to be a freaking gatekeeper for other people’s sensibilities. I’ve got my own since abilities, and getting dragged down to their level is just so depressing. Plus, it’s boring. Seriously it’s incredibly . mind-numbingly . boring. Where’s the joy? Where’s the excitement? Where’s the future? There’s not a whole lot of it that I’m seeing in the old, worn, outdated attitudes about autistic people and how we function in the world.

When I look around me, I see a lot of signs of hope. Employers are making more of an effort to make room for autistic people. Our community is picking up speed, beginning to thrive, and the amount of writing by actually autistic people is increasing exponentially. Things genuinely are shifting in our favor, however slowly, and every day it seems like there are new glimmers of hope in our prospects for the future. No substantive change happens overnight, of course, and the changes that we do make have to be supported and furthered in ways that will make them more than just a passing fad. But, compared to how things were 20 years ago when I first realized I was on the spectrum, things are so much better now. And they’re better because we are paying attention to the stuff that needs to change and we’re getting allies who are actually capable of stepping up and helping us steer our collective ship any better and more positive direction.

So, while the critic in me practically salivates at the idea of working my way through offending research papers and books and memoirs and picking them apart to show how very Wrong they are, there’s a bigger part of me that wants to just ditch all that crap, leave the critiquing to others who have the time and energy for it, and set out in a whole new direction. I don’t want to get stuck in the middle of other people’s lousy inventions, their shoddy thinking, their lazy philosophies, handing over their whole minds to purported experts who have a ton of funding to spread half truths and outright lies about people like me. I want to live my own truth, and demonstrate very clearly that there’s a whole lot more to being autistic than just a collection of behaviors. The autistic experience is humanity-times-1,000, and with the depth and breath of our intensities, there’s a whole lot to be learned about what it means to be autistic — and what it means to be human.

Our neurology amplifies everything. It magnifies and emphasizes stuff that most non-autistic people would never even notice. And it also numbs us to what other people are very sensitive to. It’s fascinating, and why wouldn’t I want to dwell in that fascination, as opposed to getting dragged down into the intellectual malaise of people who haven’t figured out how to think for themselves?

Why indeed?

That being said, it’s time for me to wander off and go think about something interesting for a while, hone my thought process, and see what coolness I can come up with. Autism is amazing. It’s excellent. And it can be a hugely challenging gift. But when I rise to the challenge and work with things as they are, some pretty cool shit happens.

Let’s talk about that, shall we…?

Without #TheoryOfMind, #ToSiriWithLove wouldn’t be the dumpster fire it is

Haven’t autistic people suffered from the “Theory of Mind” hypothesis long enough?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this infamous “Siri” book, lately, and while some people are absolutely horrified by the author’s attitude about her son, there’s something deeper and larger that really bothers me about this book. In fact, I think without this element, the book – and the attitudes of the author, which give the book its overarching tone – might not even exist.

That factor is the influence of the “Theory of Mind” (ToM) hypothesis, popularized and commercialized by Simon Baron-Cohen. The ToM hypothesis posits that autistic people lack “the ability to attribute mental states – beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc. – to oneself, and to others, and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one’s own” (thank you, Wikipedia)

There is some great thinking around why this theory is wrong, so wrong, and the implications of it, so I won’t go into all of it. See Sharing: Clinically Significant Disturbance: On Theorists Who Theorize Theory of Mind | Yergeau | Disability Studies Quarterly,  Theory of Mind, my Ass,  and We can stop suffering from Theory of Mind, Now. Study reports: Interaction Takes Two: Typical Adults Exhibit Mind-Blindness Towards Those on Autism Spectrum on this blog for more of my writing about it.

I think it’s fair to say that “Theory of Mind” started wreaking its havoc years ago, and considering how anti-autistic thinking has really evolved and dug in just over the last 10 years, or so, I would say that it has experienced something of a philosophical triumph. Woe betide any who challenge it. In fact, if you do challenge it (as an autistic person), it’s easy enough to refute you by saying you lack ToM, yourself, so how could you understand something you’re too deficient to grasp?

It’s the ultimate intellectual castle surrounded by a moat. Just toss ToM out there, pull up the conceptual drawbridge, and you’re safe from all the marauding hordes of those developmentally disabled types.

Theory of Mind definitely dominates the mind-share space in mainstream autism thinking (and I use the term “thinking” with reservation). And nowhere is that more evident than in “To Siri With Love”. I mean, Siri-ously (sorry!), it’s just so pernicious and pervasive, and the author repeats its tenets so often, that it’s pretty clearly a foundational subtext that colors the entire discussion of Gus and his life.

The author says in the Introduction,

…every person with ASD I’ve ever met has some deficit in his “theory of mind.” Theory of mind is the ability to understand, first, that we have wishes and desireds and a way of looking at the world — i.e., self-awareness. But then, on top of that, it’s knowing that other people have wishes and desires and a worldview that differs from yours.

Groan. “Every person” she’s ever met… Maybe she needs to get out more… The worst thing is, she keeps referencing ToM throughout the book. Whether it’s explicit references to ToM or the underlying tone that belief in alleged “mind blindness” makes possible, the blight of Theory of Mind is like an invasive species that’s reached its grasping tentacles it to a whole underground network of healthy roots and is gradually choking out the chance of any alternative concepts.

I’m not sure she could have written the book she did, had she not been taught that her son is severely deficient in a quality / ability that some (including Simon Baron-Cohen) believe is one of the hallmarks of humanity itself. Clearly, someone got to her and convinced her that Gus has an insurmountable deficit. And there we have it. End of story. Until somebody can find the gold in it and make a decent buck off the whole “hilarious” catastrophe.

What I really hope to point out in this little essay, is that while challenging the author on her choice of words as well as her outlook is certainly one way to approach this situation, and taking the publisher to task is absolutely necessary, let’s not forget who is actually responsible for this dumpster fire. That would be Simon Baron-Cohen, along with the publishers who put out his work about ToM, and all the other people who seized on that half-baked concept, popularized it, capitalized on it, and built a veritable canon around that really shitty example of bad science.

The ToM hypothesis is so pervasive, so subtly intrusive, that even autistic people buy it. I had spirited exchange with an autistic man about a week ago about how theory of mind is not good for anyone. He didn’t buy it. It was very invested in the explanation, which he seem to think exonerated him from culpability for his autistic challenges and made it possible for him to understand himself better. Yes, it’s important that we find ways of understanding ourselves and our relative limitations… and we often do that with that hypotheses, theories. They can be extremely helpful to the autistic mind. We look for patterns. That’s what we do. And having a shorthand explanation that encapsulates a complex bunch of issues into the straightforward explanation is very helpful in a number of ways.

But when the concepts that we are seizing on are fundamentally flawed, are based on not only bad science but really shoddy interpretations of the data, and they’re derogatory and dehumanizing – which Theory of Mind is – then, Houston, we have a problem.

All this being said, I would love to see some of the outrage channeled towards the root causes. Taking one author to task, only solves one set of problems. Taking the publisher to task will not solve anything, since publishers often consider themselves bold “truth tellers” in the face of ideological tyranny. Until we fully address and debunk the debilitating Theory of Mind hypothesis, shit like this is going to continue to happen. We will continue to see books like this. We will continue to see parents having these kind of dismissive, diminutive attitudes about their autistic children. We will continue to see therapists using pain and coercion to manufacture so-called “normal” kids who have been supposedly “lost” to a condition or disorder which has taken them hostage. We will continue to see our voices marginalized and derided and completely overlooked, because we will not be fully human. Our minds will not be considered fully formed. Our future will continue to be constrained by imaginations of people who are far too willing and eager to take experts at their word and line up behind that ideological Trojan horse.

As long as Theory of Mind is allowed to stand without challenge, as long as we fail to assign the proper responsibility for mindsets like Judith Newman‘s, as long as we pick battles at downstream points, we will continue to see these issues cropping up, time and again.

And until Simon Baron-Cohen retracts his hypothesis about Theory of Mind and takes full responsibility for the harm it has done to countless autistic individuals, no amount of boycotting, no amount of tweeting, no amount of Amazon reviews is going to stem the tide of material like this.

So, while I have serious problems with how Newman thinks about her son and talks about him in public, and while I do have only the deepest disdain for a publishing company that didn’t even bother to fact check or tone check one of their pet projects, I think the problem lies deeper. And as long as we continue to spend our energy on skirmishes, will be losing the chance to win the larger battle.

As much as I hate all the warfare metaphors, as much as I object to talking about this in terms of battles, we do have a serious conflict on our hands. And there are people being hurt, even killed, because of it. I, for one, can’t just sit idly by, while all this is happening. Nor can I content myself with the fact that a lot of people are learning about just what a troubling book “To Siri With Love” actually says. These are all signs of progress, these are all indicators that something, however small, maybe changing in our favor. But in the grand scheme of things, we have a long way to go before we are seen as fully human, and fully capable of complex thought, let alone agency in our own lives. We have Theory of Mind to thank for that, and until weed out that pernicious influence, we’re going to be fighting the same battles, squabbling in the same skirmishes, for the foreseeable future.

I’m tired.

Let’s fix this shit.

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