Growth vs. Change

As always, all names are pseudonyms...

Whoa, it's been 5 months since my last update! Well, a lot has been going on. For one thing, I'm almost finished the first draft of a novel that I hope to eventually publish. I am shooting for the end of the month (that is, in a week!) to have this draft finished. I've been trying on and off to write about this particular set of characters since the end of 1996, and it never got anywhere beyond a series of crappy and disjointed episodes. Well, this time it finally has, and I think I have a solid story in the works.

Now onto today's topic: growth vs. change. A couple weeks ago, I was talking on Zoom to Chuck, a counselor from my 1997 Israel trip with whom I reconnected last year. We have been chatting pretty regularly (usually once a month) since we reconnected at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. I asked him if he remembered a particular time when the counselors led an "obscene sculpture contest" on the beach of a kibbutz we were staying at. He said he did, and I asked him whose idea it was. He admitted, "It might have been mine." Now that I think about it, I seem to recall that it might have been the idea of this other counselor who was a real smartass. But hardly the point. I laughed and said something like, "If only your kids knew. When you're a kid you like to think that your parents are these boring 'proper' people but you eventually learn that they did all the same ridiculous things that you did." Chuck laughed and said, "I really haven't changed since then. I'm still the same guy. It's just that now I'm a parent."

I was glad to hear somebody, anybody, say that. I reflexively cringe at phrases like, "People change" and "relationships change" especially when talking about someone who gets married and has kids. It's as if when someone gets married and has kids they're expected to be replaced by a pod person who has nothing to do with the person they once were. I associate these phrases with people having ditched me, sometimes inexplicably, including at least one time that involved ghosting. When I was a kid, my mom said "relationships change" and "people change" when I was in ninth grade and my "friends" caved into peer pressure and turned their backs on me. She said the same thing when I was 27 and Melanie, my best friend for more than half my life, ghosted me without explanation and didn't invite me to her wedding. Actually, she said it every single time a friendship came to a sudden end. These phrases carry horrible baggage for me, because the message I ended up getting was, "These people outgrew you. And their erratic actions were normal in response to someone like you."

Because the reality is that I haven't changed, and I told Chuck as much. And it's true: I still have the same interests as I did 23 1/2 years ago. I'm still irreverent. I'm still tomboyish/androgynous. Hell, I still think about a lot of things the same way as I did decades ago. Once, in 2015, I was telling someone a story about a conflict I had gotten into with my mother when I was in high school. Later, I found a school journal entry I had written right after the incident happened in 1998. The same points I made when defending my perspective in 2015 were all outlined in the journal entry, all with eerily similar wording. It didn't matter that 17 years had passed since the incident; I was still thinking about it in almost exactly the same way, right down to how I phrased things.

That isn't to say I haven't grown. I had a lot of issues in the summer of 1997 (and around then) but now they are largely under control. I had poor executive functioning in that I would say stupid things and regret them a nanosecond after they were out of my mouth (the "lacking a filter" issue common to people on the spectrum). I had extremely high anxiety and had a lot of meltdowns. Part of the issue was that back then autism was only used to describe people like the eponymous character in the 1988 film Rainman; I wasn't diagnosed until 2003. These issues have largely resolved with time, my growing understanding of the issues, and a whopping dose of SSRIs (which I've been on since 1999, the second half of my senior year of high school). I still have anxiety about certain things. I still have the occasional meltdown, but it's very rare and only in very specific circumstances. When it happens I am usually alone or dealing with my family. I have a good relationship with them, but the reality is we carry a lot of baggage and it sometimes comes to the surface and sets me off. As for the "filter", it usually does what it's supposed to, but I'm not perfect. I'd like to think that I've grown since then, and I believe I have.

"Oh, but see, isn't that change?" No, it isn't. Why? Because, my dear, what I described are adjustments, alterations to certain behaviors, not changes of who I am at my core. I'm still a smartass. I'm someone who will stand up on a chair in a restaurant and do the Pee-Wee dance when the song "Tequila" comes on. It's just that I'm more discriminating in terms of where I do these things; the "Tequila" incident was in a Manhattan restaurant with friends-- this sort of thing happens in public spaces in New York City quite a bit, so it's more acceptable there. I realize that I may be debating a semantic issue, but that doesn't mean that semantics are irrelevant. I'm older and wiser but, bottom line, I'm still me. 

So when should the word "change" be used instead of "growth"? I think when somebody's core persona changes. To use an extreme example, let's look at Frank Meeink, the former skinhead whose life loosely inspired the 1998 film, American History X. He was entrenched in an ideology that informed every aspect of his personality and his life. He even went to prison because he almost killed somebody. In prison, he found himself in sober reflection after interacting with black inmates on a regular basis. Today he is a changed man, and regularly educates people on the poison of racism and white supremacy.

I guess the word "change" also has more baggage with me, not just because of my mom's comments about people "changing" and relationships "changing", but also because over the years many people implored me to change, carrying the implication that there was something horribly defective about me: parents, teachers, peers, you name it. More then a few times when I had a social setback that was ultimately the result of an honest mistake and not rooted in maliciousness, someone said, "You could look at this as a positive opportunity to change."

"And my answer to that," to quote Bill Maher in one of his routines, "is fuck you."

And really, I was thinking about the issue of growth vs. change when I was in high school. My stance on it hasn't changed since then.

Why should it?

Lemons and Lemonade (or "The Silver Lining Around the Mushroom Cloud")

As always, names have been changed...
It's just about 5 months into this COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, Massachusetts, which has done a great job of containing the virus, has entered phase 3 of reopening. On July 5th, I took the subway (mask on, of course) for the first time since March, getting myself the hell out of Quincy and going to Cambridge to go swimming in an outdoor pool. The outdoor pools are open (at lower capacity), and so is the gym. While going to the pool at the gym or an outdoor public pool is not a risk-free activity, I feel it is one of the safer risks I can take because chlorine kills the virus. I've also recently gotten to see one of my friends who already had the virus in April. He had a high fever, which indicates a strong immune response, and thus some type of immunity developed in the end. My doctor confirmed that right now he likely has some immunity, though we don't know enough about COVID-19 to know how long it will last. So I felt comfortable seeing him. I've also extended my social circle a little and hung out with my cousins, who came for a visit from Providence.

This pandemic is frustrating to no end. Until there's a vaccine, it's hard to know what the future will hold, and I dread this winter when people will be forced inside and given more opportunities to spread the virus. Even now in the summer I feel a little anxiety of what's to come next. This is one of the most horrible things to have happened in The United States (maybe THE most horrible?), with more casualties than 9/11.

That said, it is also one of the best things that has happened to me. Before anybody decides to twist things around, reads the wrong thing into my statement, no, I am not saying how wonderful it is that we have a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Rather, I'm saying that there's a silver lining around this mushroom cloud, a lemons and lemonade kind of thing that's happened to me in its aftermath. For one thing, I am doing a lot of writing. I'm well into writing a novel. I've tried writing many different novels over the years, but have had structural problems and have found myself stuck after writing the beginning, or have ended up writing a crappy draft. This time is different. What is also great about developing this novel is that I'm writing with characters I came up with at the end of 1996, characters who I've tried over and over to get a story out of but have been unable to. Until now. I think I'm really going to do it this time.

Additionally, stuck in full quarantine in March, April, and May, my mind started to wander. I thought back to the summer of 1997. I remembered my group trip to Israel, where I had an obsessive, autistic-style crush on a counselor named Chuck, and how I chased him around like I was Pepe LePew. This severely disrupted my experience and left me embarrassed about my behavior for years. I have had a few brief, superficial communications with Chuck over the years (ICQ, email), and we've been on Facebook together since 2008. We never kept in touch in any meaningful sense of the term. But with my wandering mind, I decided to message him. We had a good conversation, and ended up Skyping-- twice.

During our first Skype chat, Chuck and I hit it off right away and had some interesting discussions-- it turns out we have quite a bit in common, including a shared interest in brain science. We had a few good laughs about the funny things that happened on the trip in the summer of 1997. We also talked very frankly about my embarrassing behavior. I said, "Yeah, I had a thing for you and I had the subtlety of a hand grenade about it. I was embarrassed about it for years." Chuck shrugged, laughed, and said, "You were a teenage girl. These things happen. I'd like to think I handled it well, but I'm sure sometimes I didn't." I told Chuck that I gave him a lot of credit, that while he didn't always handle it well, he did the best he could for a young guy working in an era where autism was virtually unheard of. Having this discussion with Chuck was very cathartic and gave me a lot of closure that I never really had about that rough period in my life. He lives nearby, and I look forward to meeting up with him, and I hope to also meet his wife and two kids. This, of course, will probably only happen after a vaccine is developed, or when Chuck is at least more comfortable expanding his social circle during the pandemic.

Chuck isn't the only person I've reconnected with. I reconnected with Jonas, my counselor at Camp Negev and friend and mentor throughout my teenage years. Oh yeah, and my first crush. Yeah, I tended to get crushes on counselors... wow, what a dork I was! Anyway, he and I had kind of a falling out in the spring of 2001, and I haven't seen him since then. Our communication was limited to the occasional email and Facebook comment. However, we cleared the air about what happened back in the day (which I really don't want to get into the details of right now). At first, Jonas was not sure it was a good idea to video chat, but a month later, after hearing me on an alumni section on a camp podcast, he changed his mind. A couple weeks ago, we talked on Zoom. We had some good laughs about camp memories, and we filled each other in on some of what we've been up to over the past 19 years. Jonas ended by saying, "Let's stay in touch." He lives thousands of miles away, but the next time he is in New York City visiting his in-laws (which I suspect will only happen after a vaccine is developed, so I think we're talking about at least a year), I will probably head down there to see him. I definitely look forward to meeting his kids (I already know his wife; she went to the same camp).

I also reconnected with Amelia, a close friend from my age group at Camp Negev. Like Chuck and Jonas, we had been on Facebook together for years but didn't have much communication. We had a nice Skype chat and, like in my chat with Jonas, we filled each other in on what we've been up to over the past several years. She lives in the south, so it'll be a while before I get to see her in real life. I hope she comes up to Boston at some point. Or, perhaps I'll go down there. We'll see. If nothing else, we're just about due for another Skype session.

In short, because of this pandemic, I've been writing like a madwoman and reconnecting with old friends (Jonas and Amelia) and acquaintances (Chuck-- now a friend? Not sure how he'd classify the relationship from Skype alone). This mushroom cloud has indeed had silver lining, and I've turned some lemons into lemonade.

With all the horror stories that have happened as a result of COVID-19, it's nice to be able to hear something positive. Let me know in the comments if you have similar "lemons and lemonade" stories that have happened as a result of this pandemic!

A Sad and Cautionary Tale that Makes Too Much Sense

Note: All names have been changed to protect individuals' privacy.

I've often written about Melanie, my ex-best friend who cut me off ten years ago when she didn't invite me to her wedding and stopped talking to me completely, all without explanation. If you're late to the party, you can find the first post about it here and the most recent post about it-- which also addresses its long-term effects on me-- here. 

In the second of those links, I tell the story about how an advertisement for a "Family Movie Night" featuring Moana was the catalyst for an elaborate and embittered fantasy that I concocted in my head: one of parents cheerfully taking their kids to a Disney movie, all the while having forgotten their identities and having excised their childfree friends. 

Indeed, this is the image I had harbored of Melanie and her husband and kids for the past ten years-- well, sort of. I had already known that Melanie's living situation was bizarre; I heard down the grapevine that she and her husband and kids were still living with her parents in their small northeast Philadelphia home. But aside from that, the otherwise pristine image of Melanie and her family remained in my mind... really, because of the way my mother initially reacted in 2008 when it had become clear that Melanie was no longer talking to me. My mother, who has since apologized profusely, had said these exact words: "Melanie is in a stage of her life where you're not invited." Mom went on about how this is what usually happens when people get married (years later I learned that she had told me that obvious lie because for some reason she thought it would make me feel better...uhhh??) and that I needed to learn to take hints. "She's trying to tell you something," my mother muttered (I could practically hear her facepalming at the other end of the line). "What?"  grunted. "She's not interested," my mother grunted back."

This conversation had made me feel inadequate-- even though I had known about Melanie's living situation and even that her mother was controlling (more on that later), I continued to imagine her in this mostly blissful, idyllic life: going to see a Disney movie in a public park on a warm summer night with her husband and kids; sitting on a bench at the playground with other mothers and talking about their kids' achievements while the kids played on the swings; having neighborhood potlucks with families that her family is close with... all the while having cast me off because I had been holding her down.

But I learned something interesting down the grapevine a couple weeks ago: Melanie has fibromyalgia. It isn't this information that shattered the "idyllic" image of Melanie's life (though it certainly didn't help). Instead, it was something else that I found out from an old mutual friend, Jenna, who I'd lost contact with around 2004 or 2005 and later reconnected with in 2015. Jenna hadn't been in contact with Melanie since about 2002 or so, and they (Jenna's preferred pronoun) also have fibromyalgia. I thought this was an interesting-- if sad-- coincidence. I told Jenna what I had found out, and they told me that they weren't interested in hearing about someone who had cut them off without explanation...

Wait, what?

Jenna said that they had thought they'd told me this a while ago. But they hadn't. Jenna then explained that around 2002 Melanie stopped returning Jenna's phone calls and emails and wouldn't even take their phone calls. What makes this even more interesting is that around 2002 or 2003 I had asked Melanie, "Do you still talk to Jenna?" I don't remember Melanie's exact words, but she said something that made it sound like she and Jenna had simply fallen out of contact. 

The fact that this has happened with at least two people who had once been close with Melanie is revealing. Why Melanie stayed in contact with me for a few years after severing contact with Jenna, I couldn't tell you. But I strongly suspect that this wasn't entirely Melanie's decision, and maybe not even hers at all. While I still think she's a jerk for doing what she did, I think her mother put her up to it, but perhaps not in an overt way. I think Melanie's mother gradually poisoned Melanie's mind against Jenna and me, and Melanie told herself that she simply "lost contact" with Jenna and possibly with me. But how would Melanie "not know" what really happened? Because, if my hypothesis is true, Melanie is also a victim in this-- a victim of her controlling mother. 

In other posts I've alluded to Melanie's mother being a control freak. She wasn't someone who I would call abusive, not by a long shot. However, she did shelter Melanie in bizarre ways, squashed her individuality, and did not give her any tools to function as an adult. Growing up, both of us complained about our mothers for similar reasons, often to the tune of, "I'm unconventional and my mom is trying to change that." In the case of my mother, she was trying to help me be happy but did it in a tragically misguided and ultimately hurtful way, which she now realizes and regrets. In Melanie's case, her happiness was not part of the equation: Her mother had an image in her mind of what Melanie should be like and was determined to realize it at all costs. How do I know that her motives were different? Well, technically I don't know that, but I look back at a lot of incidents from when we were kids that support this theory:

1. When Melanie was a teenager, she told me that she had recently been at a gathering in which she had been playing basketball with a group of boys. Her mother called out to Melanie and said, "Come sit with the women." Yes, Melanie. Stop getting exercise with kids your age and come over and sit with middle-aged people whose genitals look like yours (sorry, but that's what it comes down to). My mother would never have done that! In fact, she would have been happy that there were finally other kids who wanted to hang out with me -- regardless of what was in their pants -- and that I was getting exercise.

2. One time when I was seventeen and Melanie was eighteen, I said something about someone being a nutcase. Melanie told me, "Oh, I'm not allowed to say 'nutcase'. My mom says it's too sexual. She tells me to say 'nutball' instead." No, this absurdity was not a line out of Ralph Wiggum on The Simpsons. 

3. I wanted combat boots, and so my parents got them for me for my eighteenth birthday. Melanie wanted a pair too but her mother wouldn't get them for her because they were deemed too masculine. Never mind that plenty of teen girls in the '90s wore combat boots. 

4. When Melanie finally met the guy she ended up marrying, at age twenty-one, she had to sneak him up to her room to fool around because she wasn't allowed to have boys upstairs. That's right-- she was in her twenties and this rule was still there.

5. The very last time I saw Melanie was in the summer of 2005, when I was twenty-four and Melanie was twenty-five. We met at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor in New Jersey. Melanie had originally planned to come back to New York City with me (where I'd been living at the time), but her mother had already planned a "girls' day out" for the next day-- and told Melanie about it at the last minute. Additionally, her mother said she wanted Melanie home at 8:00. Yes, a twenty-five-year-old had a curfew. 

6. After Melanie had gotten engaged, her mother had started bugging her about grandchildren. I don't mean the typical, "Oh, are you going to have kids?" or even "When do you think you'll have kids?" It was relentless pressure to the tune of, "I wanna be a grandma!" Melanie's comments that she had wanted to wait a couple years after marriage before having kids apparently fell on deaf ears. 

You get the idea. Melanie remained under her mother's roof into adulthood. Even when she went to college, she commuted (I realize this could be a financial issue, but I'm not convinced of that in this case). She met a man, married him, and gave her mother the grandchildren that she'd demanded. Oh, sure, she and her family live with her parents, but otherwise she has found true happiness, right? And because she's married and has children, she must be a true adult, right?

No. I doubt that "true happiness" is the term to describe Melanie's adult life, and not because of the compromising condition of fibromyalgia either. The above examples strongly suggest that Melanie's mother not only groomed Melanie to grow up to be like her, but also that she probably expected Melanie to continue living in her childhood home through adulthood: At the time that Melanie's mother pressured Melanie about wanting grandchildren yesterday, Melanie had been working at Macy's for a mere $8 an hour.  

Melanie had complained about her mother trying to squash her unconventional personality over the years, but she stopped in her early twenties. In fact, when she first started dating the guy she ended up marrying, I saw a radical transformation: This rambunctious tomboy who'd been my best friend for years turned into a demure, 1950s woman who even said, "Oh, my sweetie knows about that" when I asked her what kind of computer she had. And no, I don't think this change was for her husband-to-be; I met the guy and I liked him, and I find it difficult to imagine him trying to make a woman into someone passive. Rather, I think Melanie did this for her mother. I think the message Melanie's mother had given Melanie was subtle but clear: She could either conform to her mother's expectations and they could have a good relationship, or she could tell her mother to fuck off and they'd have no relationship. One or the other. No compromise. Melanie did not want to lose her relationship with her mother, so the choice was very clear. Part of the choice involved cutting off any friends that her mother deemed "weird". I personally think her mother's issue with me was that she thought I was going to do something inappropriate at the wedding and also be a bad influence on the eventual grandchildren. She couldn't have me ruining the 1950s-white-picket-fence-wholesome image she was trying to create. She probably would have seen Jenna as a similar threat to that image.

Maybe you believe I'm overthinking this. I realize I very well might be. I could be wrong about a few things; I could be wrong about everything. I get that this is all speculation But despite my mother's initial comments ten years ago, you cannot seriously tell me that Melanie is an adult just because she is married and she has children. She has never left her parents' house, and I don't think it's for financial considerations either; her husband is a computer programmer. She is probably still under her mother's control and likely has adopted her mother's sociopolitical views simply because she hasn't had much exposure to anything else. She lives in Philadelphia, but it might as well be rural Kansas.

What makes my hypothesis, if true, even sadder is this: My mom believes that Melanie is on the autism spectrum. I'm not convinced that she is, but I think it's possible. I initially rejected that suggestion for a couple reasons: 1) People on the autism spectrum don't tend to be swayed by peer pressure, and 2) Melanie called me out on inappropriate behaviors a number of times when we were teenagers, and 3) Melanie had a lot of friends in high school.

My mother, who is a retired teacher, made me reconsider. She pointed out that while a number of her autistic students are very independent, there are many others who are just like their parents, but in a very superficial way that doesn't seem to reflect the child's true self. In fact, Tony Attwood, the kingpin of Asperger's experts, has pointed out that many autistic girls in particular mimic their peers or parents. They see that these people are socially successful and believe that in order to have friends and a happy life that they have to imitate them. The sad thing is that many of them, when they do this, end up repressing their true selves. In adulthood this catches up to them and leads to a major identity crisis. 

If this profile of autism does indeed describe Melanie, then it could be that she learned how to superficially mimic her peers in order to make a lot of friends in high school. It could be that she also commented on my behaviors simply because she saw that I didn't act like her peers, and yet her comments may have lacked any real insight. Or it could be simply that her mother told her to call me out on these things. It wouldn't surprise me at all. In fact, if I remember correctly, when Melanie related the story about her mother telling her to say "nutball" instead of "nutcase" because the latter was "too sexual", there wasn't a hint of irony in her voice. She said it matter-of-factly and with a straight face. It also makes me wonder: Did Melanie have kids because she honestly and sincerely wanted to, or did she just think she wanted to because it was what her mother and society at large expected of her? 

Melanie was a talented visual artist and singer. Even though the arts are not usually marketable skills, Melanie could perhaps pursued freelance work (at least prior to the fibromyalgia diagnosis, which I understand was very recent). At the very least, she and her husband could have moved out; her husband is a computer programmer and there are many affordable, nice apartments in the suburbs of Philadelphia. She could have found some other type of work and done her art on the side. But the last time I saw her, she was no longer drawing and I don't think she was singing either. Melanie had so much potential, but I think her mother crushed her.

Ultimately, I have a very different perception of what exactly happened between Melanie and me. While I do believe Melanie needs to take responsibility for what she did to Jenna and me-- she is an adult, after all-- I realize that it's likely that she is also a victim. It is indeed sad.

Parents of Asperger's girls, I'm watching you.

The Dreams Keep Coming

The dreams about the ex-best friend, Melanie, who didn't invite me to her wedding and ultimately abruptly cut me off after sixteen years of friendship just keep coming. I understand that she is ignorant, sheltered, and flaky. But that doesn't make what she did hurt any less, even seven years after the fact. Dreams about confronting her to find out why she did it usually come once or twice per month. And these aren't the casual, vaguely-remembered dreams that most people have. My dreams are intense, vivid, and often sensory, factors that significantly contribute to the massive emotional impact that my dreams have.

I have a variety of dreams. The most common one is that I run into Melanie somewhere. I call her name, and she takes one look at me and runs. I chase after her and grab her shirt sleeve and say something like, "STOP! I just want to ask you one thing."

Another variation is that for some reason I am together with Melanie. I pace around, trying to figure out how to tactfully broach the subject. Finally, I say something like, "Melanie, I have something to ask you, and… now, this isn't easy." I take a deep breath and ask, "Why didn't you invite me to the wedding?" In every dream, Melanie gives me a different answer. Most of her explanations are absurd, but as absurd as they are, I could easily see her using them as excuses. In one dream, her father was dead, and she said that she thought it would be difficult for me to be there and not see her father. I can't remember offhand what other explanations she has given, but in many dreams instead of answering she just doesn't say anything or runs.

In another dream, I ran into her husband and asked for a straight answer. He said, "She doesn't want to talk to you." I said, "Yeah, I get that. But I'd like to know why. One of you just tell me why, and I'll never try to contact her again, no questions asked." The dream ended there.

In my most recent dream, Melanie did something that would make sense for someone more caring, but something I am sure she would never do: She broke down crying, and said, "I'm so sorry. I was wrong. I wasn't thinking. And I truly regret it." Actually, forget "I am sure she would never do it." I know she would never do it. She isn't capable of the sort of sober self-reflection that I am (and many other people are) capable of. I can see now, however, that she might have had second thoughts about our friendship long before she abruptly cut me off in 2008.

One memory that should have set off sirens in my mind when it happened was during my senior year in college in New York City (2002). Melanie (who lives in Philadelphia) and I were on the phone. She said that her boyfriend (now husband) was over. I'd never met him, and she said, "Would you like to talk to him?" I said, "Okay." Her boyfriend got on the phone with me and said, "Hi. I hear you tell repetitive jokes."

Yes. That's what Melanie's boyfriend had to say to me. Why? I see now that this was probably all that Melanie saw me as. She didn't tell her boyfriend that I was a creative person who liked to draw and write. She didn't tell him that I got her interested in animation when we were kids and that's the reason she ended up going to school for animation. No. She told him that I tell repetitive jokes. Back then it upset me, but today I see why it should have raised alarms in my mind: That was what she thought of when she thought of me, not as a creative, intelligent person. I often wonder if this was why she cut me out of her life.

The fact is, I will never know for sure why Melanie did what she did. I have a number of theories, but all of them point back to my suspicion that she was afraid I'd do something to upset her at the wedding, and instead of addressing it with me took the easy route and cut me out of her life. If this is true, then Melanie is as fair-weather and flaky as Dad had warned me about ever since we were kids (Dad sees through people's bullshit more easily than anybody I know). And it says more about her than it does about me. Nonetheless, the dreams keep happening and I just want them to stop. I need closure.

I am going to write Melanie a letter. A hand-written letter, that I will mail this weekend. I don't expect her to write back, but I need to do this. Even if this doesn't stop the dreams, it will at least make me feel I've gotten the last word in. I don't care if it makes her think I'm a creepy stalker. I just want to assert myself and make her understand what she has done.

Well, perhaps I'm giving her too much credit for thinking she's capable of understanding what she has done.

A Visit from the Monster

I've been having a case of The Monster all week. Just to remind you, The Monster is when I find myself in a horrible state of mind because of something I've done wrong. Actually, it's often more as a result of people's reactions to what I've done wrong. Even if the reaction is something as benign as, "You have to make sure you don't say things like that", it can trigger a cascade of intense, overwhelming emotions. I feel such horrible mental pain to the point that it's practically physical. I find myself angry at myself and hating myself. In fact, at work (it's a low-paying temp job) this week I had to go into the bathroom to cry. I was hyperventilating and I had to stop myself from howling from the agony I was feeling. I went back to my desk, still in tears, and a couple people asked me what was wrong. I told them that I was just going through a rough time, that it was "personal issues, you know?".

The slightest trigger can bring back a bunch of old memories, many of which I'd put to rest up until two years ago. What happened two years ago, you ask? Let me start by saying that two years ago I was in a better mindset that an I'd been in, well, ever. I'd lost 40 pounds, I was getting into excellent physical shape and developing athlete's heart, and my self-esteem was through the roof. I recall one day specifically when I had just left the Dodge YMCA in Brooklyn, reeling from endorphins from my latest killer workout. I walked toward the subway, plugged into my iPod and listening to a song that had a message of hope. It perfectly complemented the wonderful changes I was making to my body and my brain. At that moment I felt like someone could come up to me with an AK-47, shoot me, and the bullets would bounce right off.

That was early 2013. Then I made the biggest mistake of my life: I left New York City and took a job at a library in Maine. Yes, in my infinite wisdom, when I went back to school for library science, I thought it would be fun to concentrate in children's librarianship. I thought it would be fun to do activities with kids and that I'd just have fun with them. I mean, it was fun doing just that when volunteering at a New York library for seventeen months. But what I didn't count on were the parents, which were pretty absent in the library in New York that I volunteered at. The short version is that the parents in Maine constantly complained about me, saying that I was mean to their kids. I was finally fired after only four months when parents told the library director that their kids were afraid of me. I was 5'2" and weighed 122 pounds. I don't know what the parents thought I could possibly do to their kids, but truth be told, this wasn't the first time I've heard that people have said that they are afraid of me.

The Monster was awakened.

I bounced back and took a job in a library in Massachusetts. Once again, I was fired after four months. To my knowledge, only two parents complained about me. But the library director took those complaints very seriously. When parents complained about the other librarian, these complaints were just laughed off. Why? My shrink says she thinks that the director saw right away that there was something off about me and was thus more sensitive to my infractions. In fact, this phenomenon of not being able to get away with little things when neurotypicals get away with outrageous things is a very common Asperger's experience. Needless to say, I want nothing to do with working at libraries anymore.

The Monster was awakened again, and I haven't been able to put him to sleep. At most, he lies dormant, waiting for the next thing in my life to go wrong and to come back. When he does, he constantly whispers in my ear that I bring my problems on myself; that I cause people distress and misery; that I'm creepy, defective, and narcissistic; and that I deserve bad things to happen to me, both physical and emotional. He tells me that he hopes that somebody beats the shit out of me so that I get just punishment for all the problems I cause and my refusal to learn from my mistakes.

Just to clarify, this is not a literal voice-in-my-head. But it is very powerful. I have tried all week since the Monster's initial visit on Monday to neutralize him. I've gone running (even though I shouldn't because I still haven't recovered from an injury to me knees from last year) and I've gone swimming. It provides temporary relief, and I feel a little better since Monday, but it's not enough. I'm still reeling from some anger. I don't even know who or what I'm angry at anymore, but I just wish the Monster would die. The best I can do now is just wait until he lies dormant again.

Don't get me wrong, even when I was doing well emotionally the Monster would still come sometimes. But at the most he would stay for a couple hours and then I would be fine again. Now he comes for days at a time, and in this most recent instance, it's been closing in on a week.

I am just so sick of a lot of things.

I am sick of…

1. ...Knowing that if I get into a conflict with somebody, even if they're at fault, I inevitably have played a role in the incident.
2. ...People telling me "It's your overall personality; I can't even explain it", expecting me to just smile like this while they say it, something no neurotypical would ever be expected to do. In fact, BOTH LIBRARY DIRECTORS said this to me. 
3. ...That a lot of people in my life-- my brother, cousin (and yes, I'm close with both), and some of my friends who've known me longer-- feel entitled to wag their finger at me and lecture me like I'm a child.
4. ...My dad framing my life as a case of maturity. Even when he thinks he's complimenting me in that regard, it's a backhand compliment. He says, "You've matured a hell of a lot over the years." But he says it in a voice that sounds like, "God, you were so awful back then." To raise your consciousness, think about how it sounds telling someone with Down Syndrome who's improved in math, "You're a hell of a lot smarter than you used to be." It sounds like, "God, you were so stupid back then." 
5. ...Being expected to understand how everyone feels but then being told I shouldn't be expected for people to understand me. I'm supposed to shrug and go, "Okay, no problem" and, again, smile like this. Recently, my brother said of this, something like, "Yes, it's unfair, but you know why that is." 
6. ...Being expected to repress every little thing that comes naturally to me, whether it's my choice of discussion topic, my opinions, my sense of humor, or anything else. Sometimes I do this and then everything goes well, but it's exhausting. The dam breaks eventually, the holes in my mask form, and then I get lectured on how I need to learn to do A, B, and C, and not to do X, Y, and Z.
7. …Hearing sentences that start with, "You need to learn…" or "You need to work on"...
8. …Knowing that the stories I've related on most, if not all, of my blog posts are told from the point of view of an unreliable narrator and that I am missing one crucial element. My brother and one of my older friends have both told me that when I tell a story they know that if they ask somebody else, they'll have a story that's diametrically opposed to mine. My brother also recently said that I frequently have a very skewed version of situations, often with catastrophic results. 
9. …Of people asking me what I do for a living when I'm constantly in between blue-collar jobs, despite having a Master's Degree.
10. …Of the fact that most people have one or two skeletons in their closet when I have a whole fucking graveyard.
11. …Of being observed. I've been observed one way or another since I was a little kid, and by the time I was eleven I was pretty aware of it. It still goes on today. I'm sick of being observed, evaluated, gossiped about, told on, etc. I'm also sick of people like my brother telling me that nobody owes me answers when I ask exactly what happened that got people upset enough to tell on me, or what they said about me. It's easy to say that nobody owes you answers when this sort of thing rarely happens to you.
12. …Of people like my brother telling me that part of being adult is learning to repress my emotions. The problem is when I do that it only delays the inevitable outburst, which only makes things worse. My brother doesn't see whatever outbursts I have as an end result of repressing and repressing and repressing. He sees it as me giving into some emotional whim. Dad has the same opinion. Part of the problem is that, as I've said before, leaving a situation to cool down and prevent such things is seen as immaturity. 
13. …Of my pain being dismissed. If the Monster starts fucking my brain and I feel overwhelming emotions which I express, Dad tells me things like that I'm just trying to get attention and that I need to grow up. The irony? For years Dad understood me a lot better than Mom. And actually, there are still aspects of me that he understands better than Mom. But the deep psychological turmoil? Mom seems to understand it better (although this is a fairly recent development), perhaps because she has students who write in their journals about cutting themselves or being suicidal (no, I've never done/been either). I think only in the past few years have students come out about this sort of thing to teachers. They probably cut as much then as they do now but were shit-scared to talk about it, even in journals.
14. …Of having to think before I open my mouth or send an email or ask somebody something.
15. …Of having to expect that something will go horribly wrong, even if the situation I'm in seems wonderful at first.
16. …Of being told I'm not trying and that I need to try harder.
17. ...Of when something does go wrong, getting an entire fucking list of things that I did wrong, some of those things which still don't even seem wrong. When most people are told they've done something wrong, it's one thing, not a whole fucking list.
18. …Of never being allowed to be 100% right. Ever. 
19. …Of being told that I'm aggressive, too intense, and that I make people uncomfortable. Sometimes people don't even have a tangible explanation for these things when I ask for ones.
20. …Of feeling like I'm in a SIMS game. For those of you who don't know the SIMS, it's a simulation game where you take people, put them in houses, and let them develop relationships, get jobs, etc. A popular thing to do-- which my friends and I did in college-- is to "fuck with" the characters. We would build them a pool, let them jump in, and take the ladder away so they can't get out. Or we'd put them in a room with no door. Sometimes I feel like I am a character in that game and some higher being is fucking with me, watching me stumble through life.

In fact, I sometimes feel like the Universe is trying to put me in my place.

Mundane Things That I Find Funny

I have an unusual sense of humor. Sure, I laugh at other things that people find funny, but usually these people, like me, have a "fringe" sense of humor and laugh the hardest at rounds of Cards Against Humanity or at jokes on South Park. 

But there are other things that strike me... not as funny, per se, but amusing. And these things wouldn't make sense to most people unless I explained why. A joke works when you reflexively laugh at it. But there are some mundane things that I find amusing because you have to think about them. And when you have to think about why something amuses you, it doesn't make most people laugh. But what are these mundane things that amuse me, and why? Is it an Asperger's thing, or does this happen to everybody? Let me give you some examples:

The Boston green line trolleys have only 2 cars, sometimes 1. It especially amuses me when I see these 1-car-only trolleys. Why? Because I lived in New York City for over a decade. With the exception of the infamous and hated G train (which had only 4 cars), all the subway lines in New York had around 10-11 cars in order to accommodate the city's elephantine population. But Boston doesn't even have a million people, let alone the 8 million that New York has. The blue, red, and orange lines usually have 5-6 cars at the most. Probably since the green line is the oldest line and is a trolly and not a regular subway train, it only has 1-2 cars. So when I see a one-car trolly (usually on weekends and in late evenings) I think it's cute. I think of the city of Boston as a person, trying naively to prove it's just like New York by having its own subway system, but not coming close to even resembling New York. It makes me think of a little kid imitating his or her older sibling.

Ten years ago, I was at a water park. There was one water ride which had circular rafts to hold a few people who went down the slide. There was a conveyer belt to carry the tubes back to the top of the ride for the next users:

But this amused me. Why? Think about it. They had to hire engineers to not only build the slide but also to build the conveyer belt that brought the tubes back up. You have to have a serious engineering talent to build such structures, and it amused me that so much effort was put into something so frivolous when there are more important things that such talents could be used for. Not that I dislike frivolity-- obviously I like it or I wouldn't go to water parks!

When I was little, things like this didn't just amuse me: they put me in stitches. I guarantee you that if I had encountered the New York subways and then the Boston trolleys as a kid, I would have laughed hysterically. I would have lost my shit, as they say, over the conveyer belt carrying the tubes up to the top of the water slide. And when I was in elementary school, I thought footballs (as in American football) were hilarious because of their shape. If somebody threw or kicked a football, as it turned end over end it made me think of some weird creature running away. I used to laugh really hard at these runaway footballs, and nobody could figure out why I was laughing. Another time, when I was in 1st grade (age 7), I laughed hysterically in class for no fewer than 10 minutes over the word "grass". Why was it funny to me? I don't know. I think I just thought the word sounded funny. When I was a little older I also thought the word "Batman" was funny.

One of my friends with Asperger's thinks palm trees are "hilarious" when viewed from far away. Why? He doesn't know. He just thinks they're hilarious. Another friend with Asperger's thinks the word "couch" is funny, and when she was little you could not stop her from laughing at that word. 

A trademark of having Asperger's is having an odd sense of humor. But laughing at mundane things? Is that an Asperger's characteristic, or does this happen to other people as well? Comments from everyone on the neurological spectrum are welcome!

Owning Your Emotions

I briefly alluded to "owning" one's emotions in my last blog post, and now I am going to expand further on that idea. By "owning" one's emotions, I mean acknowledging that they exist, not trying to repress them, and even being able to embrace them. For many years I felt like I was not allowed to own my emotions, that I had to justify to myself any odd thought or feeling that I had or else it meant there was something wrong with me. Even though I am an adult and my parents and others are meeting me with much more understanding than they did when I was growing up, or even when I was in my twenties, I find myself reflexively going through justifications in my mind that I shouldn't have to go through. In a recent post, "Thoughtcrime", I talked about having reflexively justified to myself why I had tears in my eyes when I learned that Dr. Jack Kevorkian died. I ultimately decided that if anybody told me there was something wrong with that then they could jump in the lake. I had tears in my eyes because I was sad and disappointed about the loss of someone whom I'd never even met. Yes, and? So what? That's how I reacted. Accept it. I thought to myself, If there's something wrong with me, then there's something wrong with me. I am 30 years old and I am entitled to feel however I feel. If it means that the world thinks I'm fucked up, then fuck the world. But the fact that I reflexively went through that ritual at all just shows how much I have been conditioned over the years, mostly (but not completely) by my parents.

The scenarios in which I felt the most like I was not allowed to own my emotions were those involving the intense crushes I developed on a few guys over the years. I can trace this issue back to the summer of 1997 when I was on my group trip to Israel with Camp Negev (not its real name) and its sister camps across North America. I had developed a huge crush on one of the counselors, Chuck (not his real name). At the time, he was only the second guy I had ever had a crush on. The first was a counselor named Jonas (also a pseudonym) from my summer camp. I was incredibly lucky that he had not only been accepting and understanding of this but also became my close friend and mentor and remained so for several years. When I met Chuck, I assumed that if I spent enough time with him the same thing would happen. So I followed him everywhere, even walking the perimeter of wherever we were staying in hopes that I would "accidentally/on purpose" run into him. Chuck tried to be nice to me-- and he was nice except for the occasional frustrated snap, after which he usually apologized-- but we sure as hell didn't become friends. The fact that I had spent so much time focusing on him instead of meeting other kids and enjoying learning about Israel eventually became a source of embarrassment to me. After I had time to reflect on that summer, I thought to myself, "Okay, obviously I don't know how to handle these types of situations. The next time I see that I am developing a crush on somebody, I will talk myself out of it."

That next time came the following summer, 1998, when I returned to Camp Negev for the C. I. T. program. As luck would have it, my crush was, once again, on yet another counselor, an Israeli named Omri (again, a fake name). We were somewhat buddy-buddy in the beginning. It began when the camp wouldn't let me work with kids because they were afraid that I might hurt them, physically and emotionally. The fact that anybody thought I was capable of doing something like that was shocking. I was hurt and had nobody to talk to. In a move that would make today's youth leaders and psychologists cringe, the executive staff essentially told me, "You made your bed. Now sleep in it." Not in those words, of course, but I wasn't given any kind of emotional support. People told me that it was my problem, one that I had brought upon myself, and that I had to solve it myself. At least, until Omri reached out to me.

My relationship with Omri began as my talking about the mistakes I had made in conducting myself in the past and knowing that I would have to grow up a bit in order to work with kids. But after a week or so we just talked about regular stuff. We laughed together and offered one another advice. Yes, I gave him advice about a couple things. It seemed like we were becoming friends. I asked him if he would eat with my family on Visitors' Day. He said, "Well, if one of my kids asks me they need to come first, but if not, I would be happy to." We had several interesting discussions in the first couple weeks, all of which ended with a big bear hug "goodnight". Omri impressed me as an intelligent, thoughtful, interesting guy-- all common denominators in my crushes, which never developed from an initial physical lust as with most people (it's called "demisexuality"-- Google it). Because I knew that this crush was inappropriate due to the age difference (I was 17 and he was 23), I realized that I had to rein myself in, just as I had promised. I set very strict boundaries for myself. I was not allowed to go out of my way to sit with Omri at meals. I was not to approach him to hang out until at night after his kids were put to bed. I was to accept that his obligation was, first and foremost, to his campers. I was proud of myself for having set these limits, and I was sure everything was going to be okay and that I could handle this situation and that Omri and I could be friends.

But it was not enough. After a couple weeks, Omri figured out that I had feelings for him and avoided me. On Visitors' Day, he had to eat with his kids and I accepted that. But in the evenings when I would come to him and ask, "Are we hanging out tonight?" he would often say he was "tired" or "busy". I promised myself that if he said those things that I would just turn around and leave, as was the mature thing to do. So that's just what I did. The mistake I made was looking back as I headed away and seeing him warmly embracing some campers and other counselors. Very few people appreciate the sheer willpower it took for me to just leave. Many have been perplexed as to why I couldn't just "let it go" or "accept it" or "give up". Do I really have to qualify that with an answer?

I will say this: even though I followed the strict rules I had set for myself, I realized that they did not work in keeping my emotions in check. I am embarrassed to admit that in the last week or so of camp I resorted to pulling the same stupid stunts I had on my Israel trip: taking late-night walks to "accidentally/on purpose" run into him-- sometimes as late as 2:30 AM-- just so I could see him and, if nothing else, claim one of his bear hugs. And in retrospect I'm sure both he and Chuck knew that I hadn't "accidentally" run into them. I couldn't help but feel great sorrow that my late night conversations with Omri that I had enjoyed during the first couple weeks were over. My racing heart and accompanying adrenaline rushes told me that I was not feeling okay about this, that this was a big deal to me. But I knew I couldn't blow up about it. I couldn't cry about it. I had to find other ways to tame my hijacked mind, especially if I wanted to work with kids second session. One night I sat alone in an office until I calmed down. Another time I took out my diary and wrote about how frustrated I was about how things were going. But my feelings still came and there was nothing I could do about them. They were there, whether or not I wanted them to be.

In the end, Omri wanted nothing to do with me. Back then I had not known about Asperger's Syndrome and just months earlier had misdiagnosed myself with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). I recall on the last night of camp crying to one of my friends and saying, "Everybody else is allowed to have feelings for someone, but not me. Why? Because I am obsessive-compulsive. I have to calculate everything I do." While everyone else who liked hanging out with Omri could take it for granted that they had the right to hang out for him, for me it was a privilege that had been revoked. I was not allowed to be his friend. I did not have his permission.

After I went home the next day I drove around with Dad and told him everything. I made him promise not to tell Mom. Why? Because I knew that she would tell me that if only I were more feminine in dress and behavior I wouldn't have scared Omri off. And that is ultimately the sort of thing that did happen when I finally came out to her about having crushes-- more on that later.

In 1999 I worked at a crappy summer camp and met someone who finally reciprocated my feelings. It was with him that I got my first kiss (and a little bit more). He was from Germany, however, so our semi-relationship didn't last (we still are in touch on Facebook, however). Then in the summers of 2000 and 2001 I also had crushes on people at a different camp, this time in Michigan, that I worked at. Both of them ended negatively. Long story short, Joe (fake name), an English guy two years younger than me, was not only friendly with me in the beginning but actually my friend. Then when he figured out I had a crush on him, he canceled his plans to go to Chicago with me at the end of the summer, AFTER I had bought the Amtrak tickets (I was lucky I was able to get a refund)! Instead, he went with someone else-- to GARY INDIANA. He told me I was "fucked up" and told other people I was stalking him. As in the situation with Omri, I found myself hurting and nothing I could say or do would stop the pain.

During my years in art school, I had a crush on Doug (yes, a pseudonym), one of my teachers. I am now embarrassed about this because, as discussed in the linked blog post, he was caught in an underage sex sting on the Internet. In any case, the story is familiar. We began on friendly terms and I eventually developed a crush on him. Just like Joe, Doug eventually said nasty things to me, but much worse. He said that I would never amount to anything. He also lied to keep me out of one of his classes. He told me the class was full, but I knew better. Once again, when I tried to repress my feelings-- telling myself that I was imagining things, or that he must have had a good reason, or that it's none of my business-- my pounding heart told me that the pain would not go away.

Doug was the last crush I had had for a long time. Then, in October 2007, I reunited on Facebook with Sergio (yes, fake name), a Mexican counselor eight years older than me who had been at Camp Negev in 1995. At camp, we had been buddies. When we reunited online, we hit it off immediately. We emailed each other several times a week. We once talked on Skype for two hours. He suggested that we make a film together. We talked about meeting the next time he came to New York City, where I was then living. Once he even emailed me at work to ask if I could talk on Skype (obviously I couldn't). As time passed, I began to feel warmly towards him. I couldn't tell you exactly when it turned into a crush. I can't quantify it, so please don't ask me to do so. But I decided to send him a package for Chanukah. It was a gesture of friendship, nothing more. He told me that he looked forward to receiving it. Sergio left for a vacation in Spain, and when he came back I asked him if he'd gotten the package. He said he hadn't.

Our frequent emails suddenly stopped dead. This was before Facebook added a chat function, so I couldn't IM him and ask what was going on. However, I knew when Sergio was online because Facebook used to have a page that would show you who was online. He was constantly commenting on people's posts but he wasn't answering my emails. I kept emailing him over the course of January, 2008, to ask him if he'd received my package. No answer. None. Zero. I was angry and hurt. And no amount of talking myself down could convince me that everything was okay, not when my heart was racing like I was running a marathon. I couldn't repress this emotion at all. I couldn't deny the pain that I was in. I even asked one of my cousins, "Why does this bother me?" He said, "Because you worked hard to do something for another person and he doesn't seem to care." Well, yeah, no shit. And I realized that this was a valid emotion that I should be able to own. But for years I'd made excuses for other people, told myself I was overreacting, and told myself that I had overstepped my bounds (ie, it's MY fault).

Both of  my parents (but my mother in particular) conditioned me that way. At first glance it appears that I told myself, without any prodding, to squash my feelings of hurt in terms of Omri, Joe, Doug, and the others. But I also learned this elsewhere. Whenever friends at school shunned me, Mom would blame the fallout on me and also tell me, "Relationships change." If I was upset because Jonas wouldn't write back when I sent him an email when I needed to talk (always about something I wasn't comfortable telling my parents), Mom told me that I needed to understand that he was in college and that he had a girlfriend and... take your pick. Any excuse. I shouldn't be upset about these things. Ever. Oh, and because Jonas lived hundreds of miles away, I shouldn't be focusing on him. At all. I would think that all of these things would be completely irrelevant to whether or not somebody should want to talk to you. So in the case of Omri, I took that advice when I walked away and sat in the camp office and squished my feelings. Same when Joe suddenly decided to go to boring Gary, Indiana instead of to Chicago with me. I said to myself, "Well, I guess he has his reasons and I have to respect that." And actually, when Mom found out about Joe a year later, that's exactly what she said, that I should have respected his decision.

As for Doug, Mom told me that I was misinterpreting constructive criticism as nasty comments. When I knew he had lied to keep me out of the class, Mom told me that I was imagining things. When it was clear that Doug had been lying, Mom told me that I had obviously pushed him to the edge and instead of telling me point blank he didn't want me in the class he lied because he didn't want to hurt my feelings. No. I'm not stupid. He didn't give a damn about hurting my feelings. He lied to avoid the inevitable confrontation (and he did eventually let me in the class, after I called his bullshit and essentially twisted his arm). Mom also told me that I should have respected his decision to keep me out of the class. But sorry, when somebody is paying $30,000 a year to go to college, you do not lock them out of a class just because you don't like them. You bite the bullet and deal with it like an adult.

And in terms of Sergio? When weeks passed without a response about the package despite clear activity on Facebook-- and despite three weeks of gently prodding Sergio for an answer to what was a simple yes-or-no question-- I stepped out of work one day and called Dad in hysterical tears. I told him that I had a crush on Sergio and that I was embarrassed about it. Dad told me that I had nothing to be embarrassed about, that Sergio was probably just busy and that he would get back to me, that he probably just hadn't gotten the package yet. I confessed to Dad that I had done something stupid: The night before, I had reached my limit. I had felt like Sergio was fucking with me. I had sent Sergio a barrage of emails in the period of about an hour demanding why he wouldn't respond, why he was ignoring me. Then I sent him a video message via Facebook asking the same thing, and in that video I broke down crying. I then unfriended him, saying things like, "I can take a hint. You don't want to talk to me. I guess I fucked up again. The mature thing to do is unfriend you." When I woke up the next day, thinking to myself, "What the hell did I do?" I apologized and tried to refriend him. But it was too late. He ultimately blocked me and we haven't spoken since.

When I couldn't hold it in anymore and I told my mother a few days later about what had happened, she started screaming at me that I had smothered Sergio, that I couldn't differentiate between a casual acquaintance and a friend (months later I showed a therapist the emails from Sergio. She assured me that it was very clear that he had been my friend). She told me that my sending him the package was overfamiliar and inappropriate... oh wait, I should tell you what was in it. You'll never believe the stuff I sent him: A clay dog that I had made, a drawing, a DVD of camp videos, and... gasp... a T-shirt. Yes, a T-shirt. I really sent him a T-shirt. No, really, I did. And you know what it said? It said, "Brooklyn 718." No, really, it said that. I swear.

Yes, both of my parents and others told me that sending a damned T-shirt was too personal. You'd think that I had sent Sergio a jock strap by the way they reacted. Mom told me that I should have just thought, "Well, I guess it made him uncomfortable when he didn't acknowledge the package." So in other words, I guess I should have said, "Oh, fiddlesticks. I guess I fucked up. Next time I'll walk on even more eggshells and make sure I don't fuck up."

Mom also played the "relationships change" card (Relationships change in three months? Really?). In a pathetic attempt to tell me a "good lie", Mom even said that maybe Sergio cared about me so much that he was also trying to protect me from getting emotionally hurt in the long run by backing out when he did. I guess Mom forgot that this very transparent lie wouldn't work on a 27-year-old. That bad "good lie" (which perhaps she was telling herself as well as me) reminds me of this scene from a Simpsons episode:

Lisa: So there I am, being nice to Alex, and she takes all of my friends and ditches me!

Marge: I'm sure they didn't ditch you, honey. Maybe they went off to plan a surprise party for you.

That scene resonates with me in so many ways. I can't begin to tell you how many times Mom has said things remarkably similar to that.

My dad and my brother even commented on my weight (I was overweight at the time) and my tomboyish appearance, saying that Sergio wouldn't have reacted as he did had I looked-- and acted-- more feminine. My brother especially thought my appearance might have been what drove away Sergio. Never mind that he wasn't seeing how I looked each day in real time, just a few photos.

One woman played the Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus card, saying that I have to accept that men need more time to process things. Oh yeah, doesn't matter how the woman is feeling. She has to just suck it up and wait for the man to be ready to talk. It's always about women being nurturers and men just doing what they do. To this day I hate that book almost entirely because of that conversation. Another case where I couldn't just own my feelings. Everybody and their grandmother was coming up with some simplistic, stupid answer that I was just supposed to say, "Oh, okay" to.

The expression I kept hearing from everyone around me was, "Let it go." Let it go? Funny, when I was a kid and I would be perplexed about why girls would go ballistic if their crush didn't like them back, Mom would say, "Well you have to understand that this is a special feeling." But of course when I get the arrow in the butt it means I'm crazy and I just have to "let it go." Oh, hey, after all, I'm just obsessive, right? And obsessive feelings aren't real, are they?

One night the song "I am a Rock" by Simon and Garfunkel played relentlessly in my head. The lyrics took on an entirely new meaning for me. I ended up going to therapy, and it took me 1 1/2 years to get over Sergio.  The first shrink I went to was ridiculous. I told him about how Sergio and I had talked about meeting in New York the next time he came and that I had looked forward to riding the Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island with him-- we both love roller coasters. And what did he say? He said, "Don't you have other friends you can do that with?"

There was a time when I would have tried to make myself look on the bright side, that yes I do have friends who would ride the Cyclone with me. In fact, one night in 1998 when Omri and I didn't get to hang out, I thought to myself, "Well I had a really interesting discussion tonight with this other person. That's positive." But I look back and see that then I was repressing my feelings. And when my shrink asked me if I had other friends I could ride roller coasters with, I told him exactly what I thought: "I want to ride the roller coaster with Sergio." I was finally owning my feelings. I wanted to ride the goddamned Cyclone with Sergio, and I wasn't going to pretend I felt differently. Needless to say, I found a new shrink.

One thing that Mom said when this nonsense with Sergio happened was, "Why do you always fall for guys who are out of your reach?" My answer is this: It's an unfortunate coincidence (except for the one guy who I was briefly in a semi-relationship with), but she seemed to think I was doing it on purpose. She even asked me if I had ever had a crush on my best friend, Eric (not his real name). I supposed she was desperate that I have feelings for someone who lived nearby. No, I don't have a crush on Eric. I never have. It would be like having a crush on a first-degree relative. And jeez, I would think that Mom (and anybody else) would know that you can't control who you fall for.

Sergio eventually unblocked me and accepted my subsequent friend request. But he still didn't answer my emails. And when summer came and he posted a profile picture of himself standing on the train platform of what was clearly Newark Airport Station on New Jersey Transit, I was crushed. He had come to New York and hadn't bothered to contact me. I was supposed to squish those feelings. And a few months later Sergio unfriended me again. When I tried to refriend him, he blocked me again. Mercifully, I haven't had any crushes in seven years, since Sergio.

Was I stupid in terms of the way I panicked and sent Sergio the barrage of emails and that video in which I broke down crying? Yes. But he also drove me to it.  And what also drove me to it was the years of accumulated bad experiences in which I couldn't own my emotions, in which every thought I had had to be repressed to keep not just me sane, but also my parents. But it didn't keep me sane. It only delayed the inevitable. I cried a lot growing up and both of my parents often chalked up my frustrated tears to overreacting and immaturity. But the repression didn't work and it sure as hell didn't make me sane. My racing heart kept telling me what I knew logically, that something was wrong and that I was hurting. Sometimes we have to cry, and sometimes we have to cry hysterically. Sometimes we have to scream and shout explitives. Sometimes we have to punch a pillow or break an expensive vase. We have to own our feelings, even if other people don't understand them. And as for the rest of you, you have to let us own these feelings. You have to accept that we have them even if they make you uncomfortable. Even if you don't know what to say, don't just tell the person to let it go. Or, if you think they should let it go, give them advice as to how instead of hoping the three magic words will make a difference.

And for crying out loud, what is so difficult about saying the following?: "You know what, I confess that I don't understand how this is making you feel, but I imagine it must be frustrating and painful." That helps a lot more than you would think.

Finally, I want to end this post with a metaphor. As I mentioned earlier, people held me to different standards in terms of how they felt I should handle crushes. The metaphor is this: Sometimes people get very hungry, and there is a giant bacon cheeseburger nearby. Most people take it for granted that they can eat the bacon cheeseburger, or at least get a whiff of it. As for me? I was expected to be on a perpetual religious fast.

Independent-Living Prospects

I am fed up with people asking me what I do for a living. 

It's one of those questions that begs the question. That is, people assume that because I am thirty-three I must have a career. But I don't have a career. It's just one of those aspects of life that is taken for granted. When people ask me what I do for a living, they are making a lot of unconscious assumptions: They see that I am a white, middle-class American. Most likely my life was uneventful. I finished high school, went to college, got a job that I have been working at for ten years or so and, possibly married with kids, am living happily ever after (fortunately I am living in an era when, and a city where, marriage and children isn't one of these assumptions). When they make these assumptions, they assume, too, that I am neurotypical, even if they have never heard of the word. These are some of the many assumptions that people make about every other human being on earth, and only recently have they been brought into question. 

People who know me and know my situation tell me to "think positive". It's easy for them to say, of course, since they are neurotypical people who are not stuck with the sometimes-torture chamber that is my brain. They haven't gone to school, constantly been between jobs-- dead-end jobs, that is-- realized that their degree was useless, gone back to school, gotten a Master's Degree, taken two jobs related to that degree and been fired from both of them because of issues related to interpersonal skills, and then realized that that they have yet another useless degree. They do not understand the turmoil I have had to live with practically from the dawn of my consciousness. And their suggestions to alleviate some of the problems related to living independently actually do not work for me. They take it for granted that these suggestions would work because they would work for most people. It doesn't even occur to them that there are some people for whom these suggestions would be harmful.

What suggestions are we talking about exactly? For example: 

1. Until you can get a permanent job (yes, like WHEN?), why not take a job in retail? At least it's some money!

No. I can't take a job in retail. I was just fired from two jobs that involved working with the public. I can only put a fake smile on my face and pretend to be interested in everybody's personal lives before the holes in my facade start to form. People can see right through that. Besides, it's too emotionally exhausting for me. This isn't a matter of "won't", but a matter of "can't", in the same way a person with an IQ of 75 can't do calculus. This is just not who I am, and I have tried it.

Just for the record, I do have a temporary work at home job. It does not pay well, however.

2. Get a roommate so that you can save money. It will also be less of a burden on your parents.

Yes, it's true. My parents are helping me to live in Boston, just as they helped me to live in New York City. My mother is retiring next year, so unless I find something within the coming year, I have to move back to Pennsylvania to live with my parents. In the meantime, I am downgrading from a one-bedroom to a studio apartment (fortunately in the same building) on August 31st. I sucked it up and got rid of a lot of books and some furniture so I can comfortably fit in this smaller unit. My one-bedroom is $1425 a month and is set to go up to $1500 this fall. The studio is $1200 a month. I actually did try getting a roommate. I met a fellow Aspie over the Internet. We hit it off immediately and started making arrangements to get a place together. But he and I got into an argument over something really stupid and realized it wouldn't work out. Before meeting him I met a few other potential roommates. None of them picked me. I am sure I would be difficult to live with. I have my own habits, my own way of doing things. This is very typical of people with Asperger's. Plus, when I was in college, nearly all my roommate situations ended in disaster. Even my parents agreed that they would rather sacrifice some extra money to help me rent a studio than hope that a roommate situation to which they wouldn't have to contribute financially would work out.

3. Move to a suburb. It's so much cheaper!

Yes, it is not only cheaper but also a lot less diverse and accepting. In places like New York and Boston, I feel comfortable and make friends with ease. It is hard to meet people as accepting and open-minded in a suburb, even in comparatively liberal suburbs such as the one in Pennsylvania where my parents live. Plus, think about this: If some employers in a city are uncomfortable with my personality, it would probably be much worse in a suburb. My job prospects would likely not be any better, despite the lack of competition. 

4. Why don't you try [insert job prospect here]?

I already have. I have been down so many paths that it is almost laughable when others make suggestions, thinking I actually haven't tried them. That's another assumption: People assuming that I don't have a career because there are avenues that I haven't thought to explore.

In short, I am beyond frustrated. I live in Massachusetts, a state that famously has the most resources in the U.S. for adults with Asperger's Syndrome, so that is making me hopeful that they can assist me with finding a job. I am, however, not optimistic. I like to think that my blog posts give people hope, but sometimes I have to be honest: Life with Asperger's often does not turn out the way it did for Temple Grandin, for example. Most people with Asperger's-- women especially-- struggle to make ends meet in adulthood. I've heard of brilliant people working as janitors or doing some work that doesn't reflect their intelligence because they can't get through a job interview. Or they get through the interview and can't hold the job because of conflicts with coworkers and their bosses. Right now I feel that my only hope is to get my writing published (I have already finished a book that I am shopping around and am currently working on another). But even most best-selling authors have to have day jobs to make ends meet.

To those of you who brandish big smiles while telling me to "think positive", please walk around in my shoes for a day. 

New York City- An Aspie's Paradise

If anybody were to ask me about the perfect place for a person with Asperger's Syndrome to live, my answer would be very simple: New York City. 

Why New York City?, you ask. Isn't it too crowded and overwhelming for people with sensory issues? Yes, but not everybody with Asperger's Syndrome has those issues. In fact, a good portion of them-- including me-- don't. And just to clarify, for many of us (me, at any rate) our discomfort with crowds is not about simply being around large numbers of people, but expecting to interact with them, all at the same time. For as long as I can remember, people have told me that I'm great in one-on-one or small group situations, but not so great in large group situations, such as parties. In fact, at parties, I usually befriend one or two people and go off in a corner with them to talk. Or if I need some break time, I just sit in the corner and draw. Asking someone with Asperger's Syndrome to enjoy large social groups is like asking a Catholic nun to be John F. Kennedy. 

But enough of that tangent, on with my endorsement of New York City as an Aspie's paradise. I lived in New York City for 13 1/2 years and for me it was incredibly easy to to forget that I had a condition that many regard as a disability (someone I met online who moved there from Maine for about a year made the same comment). Why? The answer is simple, I think. New York City is as diverse a city as you can get. There are all kinds of people who live there. I don't mean people of different ethnic backgrounds or even people from different religious affiliations (though there are those too). There are people with such a wide variety of temperaments and personalities, much more than I've seen anywhere else. I live in Boston now (long story), and while it's diverse enough that I feel comfortable, it's not quite the same as New York. Hell, a ride on the subways in each city will give you the idea of what I'm talking about.

You go to the F line in Brooklyn, for example. You wait in a small line to get through the turn style during rush hour. Someone can't find their Metrocard, and the person behind them butts in front of them. Typical New York impatience, but that's okay Everyone is used to it. You get on the train, heading for Manhattan. Five minutes in, someone gets on and starts screaming about Jesus and end times. A few minutes later, someone else begs for money. At the first stop in Manhattan, a group of guys gets on and does a wild performance for money, complete with back flips. Later, a man comes in dressed as a clown and does the nail-in-the-nose bit, also for money. As all these colorful people continue to board the train, you look around at everyone riding the subway. Some are trying to read and can't concentrate with all the noise. They roll their eyes. Others have a good laugh. Others still are ambivalent. In terms of the panhandler, many feel sorry for him and give him money. Trips on the New York City subway are never dull. And did I mention that the people who are riding the subway also have a variety of temperaments? Of course! Otherwise there wouldn't be such a wide variety of reactions!

We all know the stereotype, too, of there being a ton of crazy people in New York City. That said, I think it's also easier for the average person there to put things into perspective. Whereas a quirky behavior by someone with Asperger's might be viewed as "weird" or "scary" elsewhere, it might simply be viewed as "quirky" or even just part of the patchwork of personalities in New York City. With so many people acting unusual, it's just a lot easier to see the difference between "quirky" and "crazy". Plus, there are a lot of organizations that make it easier to find and make friends. There is the GLBTQIA center on 23rd Street, for example. How about the Asperger's support groups? Or groups for atheists? New York is also a place where I met a lot of polyamorous people (I'm not inclined that way, but my point is that New York is just very accepting of that kind of openness). And New York Public Library even hosts what's called an Anti-Prom, a prom for GLBTQIA teens. I suspect that New York might be the only major American city whose library would host such an event (except for San Francisco and, possibly, Chicago). You know all the stories about libraries being blackmailed by the religious right.

As for Boston? Well, there aren't lines for the subways, and in the six months that I've been here I saw a total of one solicitor and one "crazy person" on the trains. There's just not the daily exposure to oddness that there is in New York. Again, I think Boston is pretty accepting but I don't think in the same way that New York is. I don't know if, for example, the library would host an openly GLBTQIA prom. It just isn't nearly as diverse and I think Boston has somewhat more of a religious hold. But again, let's put this in perspective. Last year I lived in a small rural town in Maine for about five months. I hated it. It was homogenous-- lots of white, Christian people. Very, very few Jews, let alone those with any other religious background. And as for atheists? I'm sure they were in the closet along with the gays who live there. In fact, to meet interesting people I had to drive to Portland-- 75 miles each way. Everybody who was my age in the town in which I lived was married and had 2.5 kids. At one point, I posted on my Facebook status, "I miss NYC so much it hurts." It did hurt. I did not feel welcome, and I felt like many people thought there was something wrong with me. I did not feel that way in New York at all. As I said, in Boston I feel welcome, but let's just say that it's slightly easier for me to remember that I have Asperger's Syndrome, something many people regard as a disability.

So fellow Aspies, go to New York. It truly is an amazing city.

She's Going to Be Fine!

On Wednesday I met up with a mother I had interviewed (for the Asperger's book I'm writing) several months ago and her 18-year-old daughter. They flew in from Tennessee. We had a late lunch at the Tick Tock Diner near Penn Station. The girl is not ready to drive, and not ready to go to college yet. But I know she's going to be fine. She's very intelligent, very high-functioning, and I think just a "late-bloomer." When will she be ready to begin taking adult responsibilities? I don't know. If I had to make a guess, five years. She's not going to need "supported living." All she needs is more time to reach adulthood.


Anyway, I had a good time with mother and daughter, and we hung out in the restaurant for over two hours. We laughed a lot-- the daughter has the same deranged sense of humor I do-- talked about issues with Asperger's, and more. I listened to the daughter's interest in Nintendo and Pokémon, and they listened to my theory about why I think the late Dr. Jack Kevorkian had Asperger's syndrome. And we laughed. And laughed. And laughed some more. And that's important. Not all conversations have to be serious, and not all (or even any) have to be about "social" topics. What matters is the participants have a good time. 


The daughter is going to be fine. Just give her time.