It's Fun to Be in the I-O-OH-P (Not): The Dictionary of Self-Loathing

Of all the faux profound psychological games one is forced to play in either group or individual therapy, the one I hate most is the Positive / Negative game.

The idea is to write down. on one side of the paper, all the negative messages you've received about yourself from family, peers or other outside sources since your earliest days of childhood, and then to write down, on the other side of the paper, counter-balancing positive messages to tell yourself.

This is the second time we've had to play this sort of self-loathing game in the Eye-Oh!-Pee. The first time it just depressed and humiliated me. The second time, last night, resulted in one of those moments where if there had been a loaded gun in the room I would surely have turned it on myself, pulled the trigger, and blown my brains out in front of the whole class.

By the time I was done with the exercise, I had a list of negative messages as long as your arm -- but nothing at all in the positive category. There simply is nothing. It's no good putting on s smiley face and just Making Shit Up. 


Of course we were then expected to read our lists to the whole damn class. Of course. You can't express anything privately in these sessions. My head was downturned and I would not meet anyone's eyes, so I was called upon last. I said, "I don't have any positives." The instructor said, "Well, start with the negatives and maybe we can help you with the positives." I said, "I'd rather not." Seriously, who wants to read out a litany one one's flaws and failures when that is all you have? 


Next we were told to pick one of our positives and write it out in big letters. I did mine in block letters with shading. I wrote:

NOTHING.

ZERO,

The instructor saw this and said, "Doug, if you're really stuck you can use one of the messages on the blackboard." 


I had read the positive messages on the blackboard earlier. It was all Complete Bullshit like "I am a Caring Person."


Well, no, honestly, I'm not. I mumbled something to the effect of, "I don't believe it," and went right on shading my Nothing and my Zero. 


The instructor said, "Doug, I'm concerned. . . " and before I could even think "Bully for you" B____ chimed in from across the table. B_____ is a big, loudmouthed junkie who is just the sort of person who used to push me around on the playground when I was in school, but he leapt in with, "Yah, I'm concerned, too; you're a good man an' --"


I guess my expression told him to put a sock in it. I wanted to tell him, "What do you know? You don't know me from shit."


I was down for the rest of the evening, right up until bedtime. I didn't sleep well. I guess that it's remarkable that I wasn't tempted to take a drink, not that any stores were open where I could have bought the stuff. But I have to wonder if some of these social worker/instructors really know what they are doing sometimes. Do they know what cans of worms they are opening? Do they know that they are playing with fire?


-- Freder.

It's Fun to be in the I-O-OH P (Not!): AA= Antipathetic to Asperger's

Just back from my third (and last for this week, thank goodness!) official AA meeting. We are required to attend three each week as part of the Intensive Outpatient Program, and for this reason alone I may have to leave the program. I don't knock it -- if it works for 99 out of a hundred people, then it's doing what it's meant to do. But I strongly believe at this early point that I'm the one in a hundred that it's no good for.

The second two meetings at least were not as bad as the first, because I had the sense of get out of there before they all started holding hands and reciting The Lord's Prayer. Now there's a point in itself. They pretend to welcome all beliefs, sects, denominations -- but let's say I were a Muslim Alcoholic. Holding hands and saying the Lord's Prayer would not be cool.

For my part, when it comes to God I don't say yes and I don't say no. I say, "Whatever happens will happen." But I also say: "Don't anyone dare shove your damn religion down my throat because I'll puke it up and shove it right back at you!"

The strongest adherents of AA insist that it's not a religious organization. And yet God is all over the place in AA, and the very structure of the meetings is similar to that of a church service.

Never mind. I can deal with that aspect of it, knowing that it's there, seeing it for what it is -- and also knowing that I do have a Higher Power -- and she works in the building next door. If AA is telling the truth about letting you decide who or what your Higher Power is, they'll just have to accept that.

No, the part of me that makes AA so difficult is the part of me that is strengthening again the longer that I'm sober.

It's not that I'm an anti-social person, as so many people have misunderstood throughout my life -- it's that I'm a non-social person. Alcohol loosened and opened me up and made me much more social than I truly am. The head psychologist who spent a total of fifteen minutes with me before rushing to judgement after hearing a fraction of my issues was quick to dismiss my self-diagnosis as being someone with a mild case of Asperger's Syndrome, and gave it a completely different name -- more to prove that he was The Boss and would be Making the Calls than for any good reason. Then a third guy came to my room and gave it a third Completely Different name.

And you know what? I no longer care what anyone wants to call it. The fact is that I have a  social disorder, the symptoms of which seem to be pretty much the same across all three diagnoses.

And when I stepped into that first AA meeting on Thursday night, my heart shot up into my throat and it was just as if my soul was lifted out of my adult body and deposited back into the body of that little kid in the First Grade who sought out the most remote, emptiest part of the playground and just sat there in silence, waiting for the bell to ring.

Here was a gymnasium full of people, all of them strangers, not one of whom I could talk to.

My old instincts took hold, and I went straight to the back of the gym, where I sat with my hands pressed between my knees and my shoulders hunched.

If there's anyone left out there who doesn't know how I feel about large gatherings of Strange People (and to me, most Normal People are Strange), I'll refer them to an earlier post on this blog called "A Nightmare of Hell." I went into this meeting in a state of serenity and strength, knowing that alcohol would not be a problem for me that night. I came out of it desperate for a drink, clawed by anxiety and fear, so upset that I shouted out loud and scared Whitey.

Instead of drinking, I took one of my anxiety pills and my last mood-evener of the day, poured myself some ginger ale. By mid-afternoon of the next day I had finally regained my Happy Place, the place where I knew that I was safe from drinking.

But then there was another AA meeting last night, and another this morning, and I sure hope this gets easier as the four weeks in IOP roll on ahead of me. Because if it doesn't, I will be buyig a bottle and relapsing before you can say "Danger Will Robinson!"

Not all solutions work for all people. I understand that most Normal People like Rituals and Large Gatherings -- but I can't stand either one. And since neither AA nor I will change anytime soon, I guess we're about to find out what happens when an Irresistible Force meets an Immovable Object. . .

-- Freder.

What's Wrong with Detox?

Well, folks I did end up in Detox last week, for the second time in my life, the second time in two years. And I can tell you that the process is Deeply Flawed on a number of levels, and many of those levels I'm not prepared to discuss here, because I'm not a professional, I don't know Jack Shit about the subject, and beyond that I am an Asperger's patient who, uhm, kind of has trouble with the whole Reality experience, and beyond THAT I'm still stupid enough to believe that Ginger Ale Tastes Like Love.

OK, I know that some of you are going to be WAY too young to get that joke.

But here are two, I think legitimate, points that I want to make.

1) There are no Public-Access computers available in Detox, and believe you me, a Detox patient is not allowed within fifteen feet of any kind of computer at all.

Here's the funny part: You ARE allowed access to a public cell phone.

Now, most of y'all probably think this is great. But I don't own a cell phone, never have, never will -- I don't even use my LAND LINE unless I have no other options, I don't have ANYone's telephone numbers memorized (some of them I have written down, but I keep them here on my computer or on a notepad next to my Land Line). 

So, if you put a cell phone into my hand, my immediate instinct is just to toss it out the fucking window, 'cuz honestly, I can't even figure out how to USE the damn things.

I am a person who communicates with the outside world by means of the internet. And if you say to me -- "No, you can't have access to the internet" -- that's exactly the same thing as saying to me, "Sorry, you just dropped  off the face of the planet, and nobody will ever know what happened to you, nobody will ever know where you've gone, Sorry, but you've just Ceased to Exist as  Human Being."

And not only is this Unfair, but it genuinely created some problems for my friends and family and people who care about me. It was, literally, as if I had vanished.

2) There are No Pussycats in Rehab.

You think I'm joking? I'm not. Not only was I deprived access to my OWN pussycats, who I desperately needed and I feared (as it turns out, correctly) needed me -- but I was deprived access to ANY pussycats at all. And you know what? I think that pussycats are really therapeutic. I kow that some people don't like them, but guess what? Pussycats are smart enough to know who doesn't like them and smart enough to know to stay away from folks who don't like them.

I  think every Rehab ward should have at least eight or ten pussycats living on the  premises, all of them available for adoption, all of them available to Go Home with a patient who really takes a liking to one of them. I think that this would be one of the most Amazing Healing things that any Detox Ward could do. God damn it: just give them a pussycat to pet and (if they mutually wish) Snuggle Up to.

In fact, I think that I just Invented a job that I would be the first one to apply for: 

Detox Ward Pussycat Wrangler.

Don't those of you who know me think that that job and me would be the perfect combination?

-- Freder

Facebooked

It's day two of my Facebook withdrawal and my typing fingers are itching. Never mind.

As I was saying to my friend BC last night, the initial attraction of Facebook was that within 48 hours of joining I was reconnected with friends from my high school years that I hadn't heard from in three decades -- and some of them became pretty close and good contacts. But in latter days, the temptation to hop on Facebook and just type whatever moody soundbite came to mind was rather too strong, and with a growing catalogue of "friends" (some of whom share my employer), that temptation was getting rather more dangerous than I realized.

I've known BC for better than thirty years now, and have regularly corresponded with him for most of that time, and as he rightfully pointed out last night, he's heard much worse and darker thoughts from me than anything I ever typed on Facebook -- and yet I haven't done myself any physical harm to date. But one do-gooder "Facebook friend" who probably doesn't know me all that well and didn't realize that I just needed to vent some steam took it upon themselves to call the police in on me -- and not just that. They sent my comments -- my PERSONAL comments on my PERSONAL page -- to someone in authority here at the college, someone who also over-reacted -- and as a result I've been ordered back into mandatory counseling.

How Big Brother is that?

Y'know, I've been thinking about going back into counseling for some time now, so if I can get it paid for by the college I guess I won't complain about that. But, really -- what a nerve! Which one of my so-called Facebook friends had the cojones to violate our minimal relationship and intervene so deeply into my personal life?

I want to say to them, "If you can't stand the Angst, don't read my posts!"

If you've known me for any length of time at all, then you know that Angst is pretty much What I Do. If I couldn't type about my feelings then I would have no outlet at all for them -- and then I would really be in trouble. Typing about shit is my way of channeling and coping with shit. It's the reason why I started this blog, which was never intended to be anything else than a kind of Daily Therapy.

Over time, the blog and Facebook kind of began to meld, and that was my mistake. I typed things on Facebook that should have been reserved for this much more private forum. But that doesn't excuse someone from meddling in my private life and actually creating more problems for me when I have plenty enough of them already, thank you.

This is one of the reasons I have to kill my Facebook account. I don't even know who it was that knifed me in the back, so I can't even "unfriend" them and get them the hell out of my life. As I should have known, there are lurkers on Facebook, stalkers on Facebook, and people who will do Evil to you if you give them the opportunity.

-- Freder.

Purged

Just so you know, if anyone cares, I am not on Facebook anymore. It was no longer a healthy place for me to be, and last night it got too personal.

It's my own fault, like everything else. Last night I was so depressed and down on myself and venting about it publicly on Facebook was probably not the best way to treat it. Still, I really didn't need someone to call the cops on me.

I was up until three AM fielding questions from two W________ police officers and a mental health services worker. THREE AM! Today I am emotionally and physically exhausted, unable even to think straight on the job. And they're going to call me again tonight. Because it's a "Police Matter" now.

I know that whoever called them in meant well, but they did not do me a service. It was a hard, emotional night that just got worse and worse. They threatened to take me away to a hospital or a shelter. Who would take care of my cats if that happened? Who would even know?

So -- no more Facebook. It's too easy for me to make a public fool out of myself, and it's obviously too easy for others to intervene when no intervention is needed or wanted.

-- Freder.

Another Annual-versity

It was one year ago this past weekend that the auctioneers came to the old house for the last time, took what they were going to take, and I loaded up the last of what I wanted, and turned over the keys to the new owners.

The old house. . . it feels like a dream now. I can still "see" it in my mind's eye, can still mentally navigate it as if it were a bit of virtual reality, but that thirty-five years of history? Gone. It almost feels like it happened to someone else.

I have word through my father that the new owners are planning to tear the barn down. They may already have done so. This means that the old place literally isn't the same place that I lived in anymore.

Although it was nothing but a hardship at the time, I guess now I should be grateful for the move; among other things, it kept some thoughts and emotions at bay that have lately been catching me up.

I can't believe that this coming May, Mom will have been gone for two years. Two YEARS. Two years and it's still an open wound. This morning at work a book landed on my desk that had no obvious connection to the memory, but it dredged everything up anyway, and I had to run to the men's room to cry.

I have so many reasons to be thankful at this point, and yet the memory still has the power to cut me down at will.

One year ago today, the new house was strewn with boxes. Today, it's a home that I am happy in, but it seems that I still have plenty of baggage to unload.

-- Freder

Far from the Madding Crowd

I now suppose that it's an Asperger's thing, but I have always hated crowds. It's gotten worse as I get older: the proximity of so many bodies bothers me, but so does the noise -- with so many people yammering away at once, it is sometimes impossible for me to understand or identify a single voice, even when the person is standing right next to me.

I try to avoid arriving at work at the same moment that classes let out just because I can't stand the flow of students around me, crossing my path, cutting me off, walking too slowly, or dominating the sidewalk by walking in groups two to four abreast. All babbling on their cell phones.

Even a busy supermarket or another person in the break room is torture. So Book Rush is one of my least favorite times of year at work: virtually the entire student body will pass through the store at some point, usually in waves at the top of the hour. Sometimes it's a challenge to get from one end of the store to the other.

I've posted about book rush before, so I won't re-tread it. I just wanted to type that with the kind of week it's been, I'm not going to beat myself up about how I plan on spending the weekend.

The Plan:

1) Not to leave the house for any reason, not to see or speak with any damn person

2) Snuggle up with my Honey cat and sleep in AS LONG AS IT TAKES -- even if it's until twelve-thirty or one in the afternoon.

3) Decompress with a movie or two, Doctor Who, Torchwood and Laurel & Hardy.

4) Eat pizza and other comforting things.

5) and last, try to get a complete first draft on the Flash Gordon piece I agreed to write in a moment of arm-twisting, but not to beat myself up if that doesn't happen.

I can't promise that I'll exactly be ready for more punishment once this strict regimen is completed, but with any luck it will get me past the gibbering, twitching, shaking stage.

-- Freder.

Winter of our Discontent

There are days, more and more often, when I feel like I'm losing the war. I'm hoping that it's just the effect of winter, that things will start to get better when the seasons change. But I don't know. I end up in tears every single night. There's shit going on that, even with my almost complete lack of shame, I can't type about here on the blog. When people ask me "How are you?" I don't even know how to answer anymore. I mean, I can't tell them the truth.

Dawn of the Braindead

The view from my desk,

It's impolitic to type this, and I've kept my typing fingers quiet on the subject until now, but today was Day Four of Book Rush, and they were out in force, wave after wave of them, the Born Yesterdays and the Never Had A Clues and the Think I Know Much More Than I Actually Do's.

Yes, it's true: most college students really do have all the brains of a tapeworm.

I can cut the freshmen some slack. They're on their own, probably for the first time, probably feeling overwhelmed. I can sympathize. But the upperclassmen -- they have no excuse! They've done this before.

The most common question I get asked, roughly on the order of a couple hundred times a day during book rush, is "Can I buy my books down here or do I have to go upstairs?" Even the parents sometimes ask that one.

I want to know what it is about my workspace that reminds them even vaguely of a cashier's station. Could it be the chest-high wall surrounding me that so discourages that kind of activity? Could it be the total absence of those cheery cash register sounds? Could it be the barricade of notebooks currently stacked in front of the space, making it virtually impossible for anyone to get close enough to conduct a transaction?

The ones I like the best are the ones who don't even ask. They just come up here and stare at me expectantly, then cautiously raise their books and try to hand them over.

Hmm. Yes, I see you have books. Pretty ones. Nice.

I like to let them stew a little bit before I ask, "Can I help you?"

They have to go upstairs anyway to get out of here, so what's the big deal?

Beside me here is the Emergency Exit. It's got two Big Red Signs right at eye level that read, "EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY -- ALARM WILL SOUND." Just in case, there are two more signs just above the handbar that say the same thing in big red letters. Yet on the first day of Book Rush, no less than three  students and one adult went barreling through that door, yes, setting off the alarm. It is a really loud and annoying alarm by the way. In order to make it stop I have to walk around the front of the booth, stand directly under that noise, and key it off. Did I mention that it gets louder and louder the longer it screams?

And someone did it again today. I was right in the middle of going through a pre-order box with another student. I'm afraid they knew that I was pissed. It's kind of hard to hide in the initial wake of jumping right out of your skin.

My question is, "If you can't read, what the hell are you doing in college?"

There's also the phenomenon, not limited to the students, of turning easy, simple questions into a novel by Dostoyevsky. "Once upon a time there was this and that and the other thing and my grandmother's second cousin on her father's side recommended a book to me, it's a red book with spots and it's about an inch think, I don't know what it's about or what the title is or who the author is, but it's for some class, I don't know the course number." All bookstore people are familiar with this. The challenge is to filter out the extraneous and figure out what the person is really asking for. This can be made extra-difficult when they speak in a halting, roundabout way, or if they speak in a monotone, or in a whisper, or as if they have a mouthful of marbles. In short, the way most students speak.

My favorite Idiotic Question so far this semester is: "I bought this book at Amazon but it hasn't arrived yet. Is there any way I can just borrow this one for two weeks?"

It wins for being a Double Play: not only is it a Very Deeply Idiotic Question Indeed, but it shows that the student really was raised in a barn and has no moral compass whatever.

This morning another student made a point of bragging out loud that she got a lot of her books "for cheap on Amazon."

Our textbook program is structured to break even, not to make a profit. I wish that we could put a sign up to that effect, broadcast it to the students. The bookstore is not ripping you off. There's no doubt that textbooks are a Racket, but it's the publishers and wholesalers behind it, not us. Amazon is selling the books at a lower price than we have to pay for them. Who knows how they make a profit?

The students stand on the stairway and have conversations, blocking the way for people who need to get through.

They walk sloooowwwly  two and three abreast, blocking the halls. 

The personal hygiene of many of them is definitely in question.  It's hard to answer student questions when you're holding your breath.

We bore ourselves silly making the same speeches over and over, trying to drill into their thick heads, "Keep your receipt! You can't return anything without your receipt!" And yet today, just four days in, a student came up to me and said: "I need to return my books and I don't have my receipt."

Enjoy the books, Chumley.

They don't moan or drool or eat human flesh, but sometimes it seems as if they are intent on devouring one's Immortal Soul.

Like today.

Go forth, students! Go forth and PLEASE don't multiply.

-- Freder.

Down the Road a Piece

Up at an ungodly hour to get out to Albion by 8:00 AM for my three-week follow up with the doctor. It went so smoothly and quickly that I got back into town with time to kill. I was able to do my grocery shopping, take it all home and unpack it, and still get to work fifteen minutes early.

Last time I went out there, by blood pressure was 171 over 110, and nobody even wanted to discuss my liver. I was drinking nearly half a bottle of vodka every night, and for all of the Wrong Reasons -- only slightly less than what put me in the hospital last year around this time.

It all started with that disastrous experiment a couple of months back of cutting the Prozac dosage in half. By day three, as you may recall, I was crying all the time. The little detail that I left out was that I immediately returned to self-medicating in a big way, draining the bottle to numb the sadness and stop the tears. You start drinking for those reasons, that's when you're really in trouble. You think you need more all the time, but what you're doing is feeding the Melancholy Beast -- which immediately starts to demand more. And I didn't stop when I felt the drug begin to kick back in -- the Prozac never seemed to work as well after that. I never made the connection.

It wasn't easy at first, but I managed to dial back significantly on the vodka. . . and the difference it made on my emotions was, as I told the doctor, both immediate and dramatic. That, in turn, made a deeper reduction possible. I can drink in moderation when my emotions are under control. When they're not -- forget about it, all bets are off.

My blood pressure today was 144 over, I think, 98 -- still high but within the acceptable range, or so I am told. At least, he didn't make me go on medication for it, which is a triumph all by itself. As well, I know -- for reasons that we won't get into -- that my liver is doing better.

Of course I got the speech that I should stop altogether, and I know that my doctor is right about this. I'm not in denial. I know and am the first one to admit that I'm an alcoholic. It's not for nothing that I've labeled dozens of posts here with the word "alcoholism." When it gets out of hand as it did recently, it ceases to be a pleasure and becomes a problem that needs to be brought under control. But I've no interest at all in stopping completely. I won't make any excuses about that. It may well be, as the doctor suggests, that this is the addiction talking, but if so, it's not talking alone. With my whole heart and conviction, I say to you: I have few enough pleasures as it is. Not giving this one up, at least not now. 

Lesson learned: that I'm on Prozac for life. Because if I ever try to get off of it again, it could shorten my life by a considerable bit. . . for more reasons than just one.

-- Freder.

Plumbing and Backsliding

I was dismayed when the plumber got out of his truck. He was tall and lanky and he looked like he was about sixteen years old. Service and Repair people are supposed to be older than me and come with an air of reassuring authority. When did that change? When did they start sending out babies?

But he got the job done all right. He was only here for about half an hour. He snapped my leaky valve off in nothing flat and slapped a new one on. Done! Now I can water my garden without having to fill the watering can indoors.

So that appointment went well. The same can not be said for my doctor's appointment this afternoon.

My blood pressure is through the roof, and he didn't even want to take a blood test to see how my liver was doing.

The fact is, and I was perfectly honest with him, for the past couple of months, ever since my disastrous attempt to cut my dosage of the Prozac, my alcohol intake has quietly and insidiously been on the rise. It has reached the point where I look at the bottle in the morning and think to myself, "How in god's name did that happen?"

And as my doctor pointed out, this is probably why I've felt like the Prozac never really worked as well once I got back up on my dosage, probably why I'm having frequent and extended anxiety attacks, probably why my emotions have been so out of whack lately. You drink too much and it cancels out the Prozac.

I was doing well enough for so long, and then a couple of months ago everything seemed to fall apart. Now I'm at the point where I have to back away from the edge yet again and at least be more mindful of what I'm doing and how much I'm doing it.

And, damn and blast it all, I have to back over there in three week's time. If my blood pressure isn't down to a reasonable level, he's going to put me on medication.

Bloody hell. I came out of the doctor's office even more depressed than when I went in, and wanting nothing more than a quick slug of bottled courage.

Instead, the wall of hot air that I walked into when I got home convinced me that it was time  to install the air conditioner. 87 degrees inside, and humid -- my quats are all flopped on their sides on the floor, making themselves as flat as they possibly can. Me, I'm staying in front of the fan.

-- Freder.

That Persistent, Extremely Large, Dedicated-to-his-work Black Dog

This is one of those mornings where the Prozac doesn't feel like it's working at all, one of those mornings where it's a good thing I'm not the sort of person to keep a loaded gun around the house. There are moments every now and then when if such a thing was within my grasp I would absolutely use it. Fortunately, those moments pass. Mostly, I think of my kitties. It doesn't end the depressive spell to think about snuggling with Honey or the way they all gather 'round and "bump" me when I'm putting on my shoes, but it does bring the thoughts of doing myself harm to a sudden halt.

The only reason I mention it is, I can't be the only one who sometimes feels this way, and some of the others who sometimes do are the sort of people who keep loaded guns around the house. This is the reason why we have tragedies like the one we had recently here in Maine, where a young man killed his wife, his children (nobody knows in what order) and then himself.

Anyone who believes that gun control wouldn't save a significant number of lives every year is living in a dream world. If you don't have access to those sorts of weapons, you can't harm yourself or others. I also believe that people who would turn a gun on themselves or others in the heat of the moment are far less likely to use other methods, because, as I've already typed, the moment passes -- and those other methods are slower and far more intimate. I have actually cut myself on occasion, just enough to know that I could never go deep enough to do the job. I'm not saying that gun control would put an end to all suicides, murders and accidental deaths. Humans are far too venal and inventive for that. If someone really wants to do harm, they will find a way. But we stand a better chance of stopping them if they can't just pick up a gun and start pulling the trigger.

My favorite line in the original X-Men movie comes when Sir Ian McKellan as Magneto says to a large assembled force of police officers, in tones dripping with contempt, "You homo sapiens and your guns!" -- just before using his powers to rip the weapons from their hands and turn them on the cops.

Guns bring no good into the world. But I'm realistic about gun control, because there are too many idiots out there like Charton Heston with his cold dead hands.

If we can't have gun control, I wish that others would be like me and practice self gun control. Don't give money to the gun industry, don't give in to the kind of illogical thinking that having a gun in your house will make you safe. There are better ways to "protect" yourself, including not owning one of the things.

This is also one of those mornings where it feels like a good thing to have started this blog in the first place. Sometimes it helps just to type things out.

-- Freder.

An Open Letter from a Derelict Corespondent

This is going out to everyone I owe correspondence to in one form or another. The list is getting fairly long.

Don't think that it's personal; I haven't been getting back to anyone lately. So that makes me an Equal Opportunity Procrastinator.

The only issue is me. I seem to be in full Greta Garbo mode, crawling into my hobbit-hole and pulling it in after me. I haven't even paid my mid-month bills yet because I don't want to think about it.

The anniversary was hard, and two ten-day work weeks out of the past three didn't help. Also, I think there's a bit of a let-down now that the move is over. Right now, it's taking everything I have just to get through a normal work day. Oh, there's a quote I'm dying to insert here, but I'm trying to quit that. Let's just say that my steampunk difference engine is chugging away full bore, but my coal supply is low.

I've established a workday / weekday routine that's working fine, but the weekends and off days are another thing. I actually haven't had enough off days to figure out a routine. It's got to involve chores in and around the house, but I also have to mandate specific time for reading and for doing something in the creative realm. If I don't specifically schedule those things, they won't happen. Yet there has to be some flexibility in there as well -- not something I'm good at. I feel like a normal person wouldn't have to work so hard to manage their free time.

I also feel like a normal person would be all settled in by now and be ready to take on social activities such as entertaining friends. I worry that C___ and S____ are going to be angry at me because I've had dinner at their place twice already, and I haven't reciprocated yet. But, see above, I'm still feeling very much un-settled and un-ready. Until I know what life is going to be like, I don't want any more distractions than I already have.

That's it, really. Back to the seed metaphor. The prep work has been done, but I'm still waiting for a shoot to break the surface. It's taking longer than your average flowering shrub ought to. But then, it's been a cold spring, and I haven't been allowed much in the way of free time in which to germinate.

I'm ready for that week off, now. I've got a leaky valve in the basement that needs attention from a professional (ah, no, that one is NOT a metaphor!), and there's still the fan in the gas fireplace that needs replacement. But my boss scares me.

Oh, here's an amusing little story against myself: the other night I wanted to cook a pizza (I make it myself, piling it deep with hamburger, mushrooms, broccoli and bacon), and couldn't understand why the oven was taking so long to heat up. My pizza was ready to go and the oven was still only at two-fifty. Well, I'd cooked chicken the night before, and instead of washing the pans I filled them with water and put them back in the oven to soak overnight. Then, of course, I'd promptly forgotten they were there. By the time I opened the oven to see what was taking so long, the pans full of water were steaming hot. I spilled a bit of the chickeny water inside the oven taking them out, and steam boiled out.

The next thing I knew, the damn smoke alarm was sounding off, and surprise! It wasn't the one in my head. Doing more than one thing at a time is not one of my strong points under the best of circumstances, and I was getting pretty rattled. I climbed up on a chair and tried to turn the alarm off, but the bloody thing would not stop. I finally ripped the cover off and yanked the battery out of its socket. By then I was cursing loud enough for the neighbors to hear, I'm sure. What kind of a moron puts a smoke alarm right outside a kitchen where smoke happens all the time?

I no more than got back to the stove when the smoke alarm in the laundry room decided to shout at me, too.

Gah! I gave it the same treatment. And guess what? I'm not putting the batteries back in!

Dinner was quite late that night.

Hope all is well with you. Hope that your work week isn't as bad as you anticipate. Hope that your various ailments are not troubling you. Hope that sunny skies are in your future.

Best wishes as always, brothers, sisters and parental figures;

-- Freder.

A Nightmare of Hell

Oh My God!! Today was "Staff Gathering" day at the college; after three years of attending these things, I have finally come to realize that I detest Staff Gathering Day from the depths of my soul, and now I understand why.

It is 100 percent pure unadulterated torment for me, from the time I step into the Diamond atrium to find it packed with bodies, all of them talking at once, sometimes at the top of their lungs, an utterly incomprehensible wall of babble that goes right through me and makes me want to run screaming into the metaphorical night.

I literally spent the day wishing that I had a gun in my pocket so that I could blow my brains out. It was that bad. Essentially, I revert to the behaviour of my childhood and retreat to the quietest, least-populated area on the playground and hope that no one notices me there.

Strange people use my name when they speak to me, and I don't know who in hell they are. It is a horrible feeling being trapped in a room jam-packed with people, most of whom I don't know, and to whom I have nothing to say. I got my name tag, went straight to the buffet, grabbed a bagel and some wedges of melon and then beat it for the door to the picnic area outside.

At nine-fifteen everyone filtered into the auditorium; I took up a standing position at the back. Then began the annual interminable ordeal of passing the microphone along to every single person in  the room, so that they can give their name, rank and serial number. I sometimes dream of doing my Judge Judy impersonation into that mike ("You put a microphone inta my hands! NAWT SMAWT!!") or something equally silly, and in my younger days I would have done it -- but I've learned to just act normal and color inside the lines when the spotlight is on me.

A little after ten, just as the President was getting started with his speechifying, I slipped out. Thank the powers that be, I had a ten-thirty sales call with my overly perky Random House rep. It felt good to get away from that mob, good to slip behind my desk and do something more or less productive.

But by eleven-thirty that was done, and I had to return to the event. Classroom sessions in the morning, activities in the afternoon, divided by a lunch like something out of Dante's Inferno, once again the packed room, the bodies too close for comfort, the incomprehensible buzz of hundreds of people yammering all at once.

It is just exhausting for me, the last place in the world I want to be. Plus, the food was lousy. The Eggplant Lasagna was both overcooked and cold, served in a big tray like slop, and the steak was pretty much raw.

I forced down as much of it as I could than again beat a hasty retreat back into the bookstore.

My afternoon activity was a tour through the Museum, which is world-class -- but I like to go there in the summer when it is empty (ditto the campus libraries) and today it emphatically was not. There were a couple of galleries that I literally had to excuse myself from because there were too goddamn many people in there. The information provided by the museum staff was good, but I would have preferred to read it. I was reminded of why I never learned a single thing of value in school. All the great books I've read have been on my own hook, every skill of value that I have I taught myself.

At 2:30 the event was to wind down with an ice cream social out in back of the Roberts Building. I moseyed on down there knowing that I wouldn't eat anything, because by then I was feeling physically sick. Anyway, I had a plan.

I stayed just long enough to be seen, just long enough to exchange a few words with a fellow bookstore employee, just long enough so that it would register that I was there. Then I snuck into the building's open dining hall and out the side door. Every nerve in my body was twitching. As I walked fast towards the parking lot, I kept on repeating "Oh my god, oh my god, I am getting out of here!"

I'm much better now, chilling here at home, typing into my blog. . . and planning on being "sick" next year when this Day of Torture rolls around again.

-- Freder.

Meeting the Challenge

Patches, the Hypersensitive Quat. Yes, this is really kind of what it feels like.

This morning the Anxiety was more like an amlulance wail than a smoke alarm, which was confusing, because I didn't have to be in to work until 11:30, and so I was able to sleep in. Usually those mornings are the better ones. On the other hand, the quality of my sleep this morning wasn't very good. In and out of consciousness, half asleep, half awake, crazy dreams that made no cognitive sense, you know the drill. Perhaps that had something to do with it.

Whatever the reason, I could feel it on my back like a physical thing. Knowing what it is (at last) helps to deal with it on an intellectual level -- but nothing dulls the hypersensitivity itself -- except alcohol, and I'm not going there.

I've started to make some changes, though. I've gone back to shaving and showering at night, instead of straight out of bed in the morning. As soon as I read back the post in which I described the effects of morning showers on me, I felt like I was living the old joke:

-- Doctor, it hurts when I do this!

-- Well, don't do that.

It means that I have to take more frequent showers, but this morning I was able to remind myself of the benefits: today would definitely been one of those where my morning shower felt like assault & battery. I patted myself on the back for that one, and thanked whatever it is we're thanking when we thank the Powers that Be.

I'm making the time to read; not every day, but that's the goal. Much more so than any other activity, including watching a good movie, this is calming, aids in decompression, soothes the spirit and fills up the empty places. Reading is a pleasure that I had mostly forgotten over the last six years and longer. The books piled up, but there was never the time for them. I've determined that has to change.

And, just today, I've begun making lists. In my current job, the only way I have been able to survive for the last four years has been to write everything down, make lists of every task that needs to be accomplished, sometimes with details of how to do it. If I didn't have these lists in front of me, work would be hopeless. If it's not on a physical sheet of paper, it falls out of my mind and doesn't get done. I really botched up a special order for a customer last month because I neglected to write anything down while I was on the phone with her. I ordered the book, but as soon as I'd done that some other thing popped up that needed my attention, and the mental note was gone the way of the Dodo. When the book arrived, we thought it was stock and it got shelved. No paper trail is the easiest way for me to get into big trouble.

And I found that, here in my new life, some of the same things were going on. I'd spend heaven knows how much time every day spinning my wheels, trying to think, for the third or fourth or fifth time, what it was I wanted to get accomplished.

Today at work, before my short shift ended, I took some scrap paper, made my first list for home, and tucked it into my pocket.

I've only checked off one and a half things so far, but it's more likely I'll get there if I don't have to waste time re-thinking the same stuff over and over.

If Asperger Syndrome is in part about making order out of chaos, the best thing I can do is try to live more "mindfully." I'm sure that I won't make it all the time, that there will be lapses. But the past year has been all about putting one foot in front of the other, and that I can mostly do -- even on a godawful morning like the one I had today.

-- Freder.

Closure

It's here! The jailhouse! There it is in its new home in my "formal" garden. The last piece in the moving puzzle. The final proof that home is here.

What is this thing? you may be asking. I'll tell you.

It is, literally, a drunk tank, dating back to around the turn of the last century. When a cop on the beat found some gent who was drunk and disorderly, he'd lock them in one of these things, where the person would literally chill until the paddy wagon came around to take him to jail.

That's its history. But to me, today, it looks and feels like my TARDIS.

My father had been very interested in using his truck to move the thing here. I had my doubts: he's getting on in years and has a bad back. But he insisted. Late last week, I asked if he would be available sometime over the long weekend with the provision that if it proved too much for the two of us that we STOPPED and I called in the movers.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, the plan got changed, and I didn't have much say in it. Instead of us going over together on Sunday or Monday, Dad and his wife wanted to go out there on Tuesday -- alone.

How do these things happen?

Well, thank goodness that as it turned out they had plenty of help. The new owner and his father were there, and they were anxious to get rid of the thing, and they did most of the work of loading it into my father's truck.

When I got home from work Tuesday afternoon, there was my father's truck with a hoosegow strapped down in back!

My backyard neighbor, R____, the one that I like, came out and climbed into my yard to see what the hell was going on. She was nice about it, a real sport, because she and her Significant Other will have this in full view of their back garden, and I can well imagine a lot of folks wouldn't appreciate that. Dad being the self-proclaimed raconteur that he fancies himself, he gave her the whole history of the thing.

She climbed up onto the truck and helped us unload it. We shored it up with a bit of stone paving from the garden and two stakes from the garage.

She actually laughed when I made my TARDIS comment. Sometimes I wish people wouldn't do things to make me like them.

As I was coming back from putting away the remaining stakes and the sledge hammer, I saw Dad talking to R____ seriously. I don't know what he was telling her, but she looked concerned and sad. The conversation broke up as I came down to them. I hate it when that happens.

R____ and my Dad's wife suddenly really started to hit it off. They're both gardeners -- and both outgoing. M_ went down into my neighbor's garden and she showed her the whole set-up.

Dad and his wife came in and cleaned up a bit, and then we toddled off to dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. They had a coupon. I used to take Mom there for lunch every so often on a Saturday. I'd forgotten that the first thing you have to do with one of their hamburgers is cut it in half.

*

On Monday afternoon I was doing what I could to recover from what felt like a minor case of heat stroke, picked up that AM working in the garden under the suddenly hot sun, when my friends from college, who live just down the block, showed up on my doorstep to invite me to dinner. This didn't sit so well with me, because it was unexpected and a disruption of my Routine, but I accepted because -- well, that's what I have to do to break out of myself, I guess.

When the time came to leave I threw the deadbolt on the back door and went out the front way. It turned out that Pandy Bear had been hiding on the front porch, so I had to get him back into the house somehow. I have no keys to any of the front doors. I went out the front, walked around to the back, tried to use my key to get in --

-- except that I had thrown the deadbolt.

"I'm in trouble now," I thought.

Thank god the downstairs windows were open, and thank god the screens aren't bolted to the house, and thank god I have a stepladder in my garage. I ripped the screen away, squeezed myself through, fell ass over head into my study here and banged my knee on the floor.

After that experience, a little bit of socializing was relatively easy.

But I must say -- as much as I sometimes get lonely and crave social contact, after two straight nights of it under these conditions I was glad to have things back to peace and normalcy tonight!

Gonna take out the trash (so I don't have to do it tomorrow morning) and scoot quickly around the block. G'nite!

-- Freder.

Memorial Day

A terrible bout of tears at 5 AM on Memorial Day when I should have been asleep.

The realization that I am "on the spectrum," so to speak, brings with it a lot answers to the questions of what a lot of "normal" people would -- and have -- judged as being an unhealthy relationship with my mother and an unhealthy reluctance to leave home.

But there was nothing Freudian about it. I had Asperger's. No one in the family had a name for it, but we all knew that something was wrong.

Mom was my Protector. Home was my Safe Haven in a world that I could not begin to understand.

How difficult, then, to suddenly have the roles reversed when, six years ago now, she had to have her right leg amputated due to diabetes, and I was suddenly thrust into the position of being the Support Person -- physically, emotionally, financially. . .

Coping, coping, coping, my life and hers became a landscape of dealing with things that were a horror to us both.

And still how much more difficult to lose her so suddenly, without significant (to me, anyway, although a neurotypical might have picked up on the signs more easily than I did) warning -- and then to be assaulted by my sister, entering My World and stealing from the estate, turning things upside down; by the legalities of death; by the auctioneers coming into my home and tearing it apart into a horror, a ruin, literally, for me, ripping my Reality into shreds, turning a rich world of organized clutter into a Depression-era state of Chaos --

A year ago today, we laid her remains to rest around the  old house. This was made necessary because Memorial Day was the only day that I could  get off from work. I was drunk, of course, as I am drunk now typing this at 5:30 AM, for the same reasons.

I gave everybody a chance to say what they wanted to say, and then I said my piece, and then in deference to my hypocrite sister, who wanted Jesus present in some form, I recited the following verse, the only verse that I know by heart, because it's from a favorite movie of mine, and as an Aspie I am good at remembering these things, even drunk --

My name is known: God and King

I am most in majesty in whom no beginning may be, and no end.

Highest in potency I am, and have been ever!

I have made the stars and the planets in their courses to go

I have made a moon for the night

And a sun to light the day also..

I have made Earth, where trees and grasses spring.

Beasts and fowl both great and small

All thrive, and have my liking

I have made All of Nothing for Man's sustenation.

And of this Pleasant Garden that I have Mostly Goodly Planted

I will make HIM gardener for his OWN re-creation.

There was a pause. Then my father said something along the lines of Amen -- and, I do not exaggerate, everyone RAN for their cars. ZOOM! There was dust in the air in the wake of their tires tearing up the driveway.

I was left alone.

I thought, Why did they all run away and leave me?

Then I went inside and poured another drink.

-- Freder.

Too many brains at the Breakfast Table

I'll be back with a real post before the holiday weekend is out, but for now I just wanted to type this interesting passage verbatim from the back end of Nick Dubin's book about Aspergers and anxiety. It comes as part of a conversation about aligning the head and the heart. Take it away, Nick:

In recent years, there has even been evidence to suggest parts of the body, other than the brain, register emotions the same way that the brain does. Dr. Paul Pearsall (1999), a respected psycho-neuroimmunologist, suggested the heart also thinks and feels like the brain. This seems like a radical notion, but he showed many of the same neural cells that are found in the brain are also found in the heart. In her 1997 book, A Change of Heart, Claire Sylvia described what happened to her after her heart transplant. According to Sylvia, after she received her new heart, she experienced a major change in her personality. Further, new memories and sensations surfaced out of nowhere. She ultimately sought out the family of the young man who had donated his heart. To her utter surprise, she found out she had seemingly acquired some of his personality traits. Even more surprising, her story is not unique. Apparently, reports of this phenomenon of a personality transfer are not uncommon among heart transplant recipients (Pearsall 1999).

Oh, great! Bad enough that all men have two brains, usually with conflicting desires -- now there's a third with a voice of its own! No wonder I always feel conflicted!

Later.

-- Freder.

Pick Your Metaphor

The four boys from Liverpool in their Sea of Holes.

Yes, I know that I typed just yesterday that my posts would be getting fewer and farther between and here I am today back again "just like a bloody great opera star always making her Positively Final Appearance" (I think that's from Fawlty Towers, but I could be wrong), but this is actually pretty big.

Call it a lightbulb or a road map. Call it anything you like.

I was reading last night about cognitive behavioural therapy as a means of helping control anxiety, and although I could understand the principle all right, it wasn't really connecting with me on an emotional level (which is how I need things to connect if I'm ever really going to fully comprehend them) until the author, who is a diagnosed Aspie, came out with a metaphor of his own.

Imagine if you had a smoke alarm that was going off all the time, even when there was no smoke.

That one dropped into my emotional understanding like a ten ton weight! Suddenly the constant morning anxieties I have had, especially in the last six or seven years of my life when I became responsible for absolutely everything, are comprehensible to me. I thought once again, as I have thought so often recently, Oh my god, that's me!

Friends and readers of this blog will know that I am emphatically not a morning person, never have been, never will be, and that it sometimes goes a lot deeper than that. Now I understand why.

My smoke alarm is going off. It's not overstating things to say that mornings are an assault on my senses at a time when I have not had a chance to gather myself and prepare for the onslaught.

I've learned to wake before the alarm rings, because it shatters me.

Even something as simple as taking a shower when I first get up can sometimes have me weeping and begging for mercy. The water beating on me, sometimes too cold, sometimes too hot, the necessary scrubbing, it all feels like I'm being worked over by two big orderlies. Now, I don't have a problem taking a shower in the afternoon or evening, or even a couple of hours after I've gotten up. But first thing in the morning it is a shock to the system, and as I go through my morning chores and think about the day to come it sometimes feels like shock after shock is being piled on, jolting through me when I am not adequately prepared to receive or cope with that input. In fact, I'm in a state of hypersensitivity.

Within an hour or sometimes 90 minutes, it starts to get better: I have been able to gather myself, calm down, my senses begin to dull somewhat.

This is THE REASON why I drank heavily in the mornings from the moment I got out of bed: it was my way of numbing my senses to a dull roar, to a point where I could cope with the onslaught of that damn smoke alarm going off constantly in my head!

See, I told you it was big.

This morning was better than normal, but, as usual for me, I started feeling a deep sense of panic and anxiety during the short drive to work. I started moaning. Then, for the very first time, I was able to think to myself: It's that damn smoke alarm going off again.


Look around you. Is there any smoke?


No. No smoke. No smoke at all.

I took a couple of deep breaths. The panic didn't go completely away, and I expect that it never will -- but the alarm turned off (or at least was reset for the next time) and I was able -- my god, as they say -- to feel like I was in control of it, not the other way 'round.

[Insert metaphor here]

-- Freder.

The End is Nigh!

Ah, so tomorrow there is to be Rapture.

I didn't learn about any of this until just this afternoon. Yeh, it's true -- The Rapture is coming tomorrow and millions of Christian Bible Thumpers are going to be taken to Heaven, leaving the rest of us down here in an Apocalyptic setting to duke it out with the Devil and his Minions.

Who decided this?

I did a little (and I mean a little) research and discovered that it was decided by some evangelical cracker who plans on watching the whole thing tomorrow as entertainment on the telly.

Well, you know, if he's right, then I'm fine with that. In the year just past, the year that began for me on 14 May, my world has come to an end at least three times. There was losing Mom, then having the auctioneers come into my house over a period of three days and freakin' rape the place, then having it sold out from underneath me just when I was restoring some order.

So, you know, for me this would be just One More Thing.

In fact -- it would be good, because it would mean that I wouldn't have to make any more decisions about work, about the car, about the plumbing problem in my basement that I made worse by trying to fix it myself, about ANY damn thing. All I'd have to do is duke it out with Demons, and Baby, that is something I feel that I would excel at.

My message to God and the Devil at the End of the World would be, you guys have been feeding me shit for so long, and you expect me to go quietly into that not-so good night? You got a little bit of a surprise on your hands, you Cosmic Bullies! I've been bullied by the best of 'em, and you clowns have created a Right Angry Dude! Bring it on!

Unfortunately, the world is not going to come to an end tomorrow, and I'm going to have to focus and make some decisions sooner or later. I'm going to have to come to grips with the future and try to make a new life.

One of the posts that I haven't written, because I've been avoiding it, is titled "Gifts my Mother Keeps on Giving Me."

One of those gifts was a sign that she painted to hang outside our home at Turkey Hill Farm in Cape Elizabeth, all those years ago.

It was hung outdoors for a long time and is badly worn. It hangs inside my back entry hall now. It reads "D. Thornsjo" under a picture of a Phoenix being reborn. Of course the D. Thornsjo that she painted it for was my father, and she could never have imagined the significance that the sign would one day have for her then eight-year -old son.

There's a reason why the Phoenix is reborn in flame.

Starting over again hurts.

Thanks, Mom.

The end of the world? Been there, done that. Bring it on. I'm ready.

-- Freder.