Monday, December 6, 2010

If I could felt my brain...... my stuffing wouldn't fall out .

This isn't about felting but more about feeling .  I guess it would fall under "cathartic purging" . Like many people , I am not speaking here to be "heard" as much as I just feel an over whelming need to try and organize my current thoughts . I don't think most people understand what I'm saying anyway . I'm "speaking" to clear the clutter from my brain . SO, unless you are the type of person who doesn't mind the sound and fury of a good purge....you should probably move onto the next blog .

I'm not sure if what is happening to me is directly related to my Aspergers or some other brain wiring anomaly . It's quit possible that it is a mixture of factors but the relevant bit is that I appear to be over whelmed by things that most people find easy or at least "doable" with some effort . I think that is one of the most difficult things for people to understand about other humans with neurology different then their own . Although Aspies are "credited" with lacking theory of mind, it seems to me that neuro-typicals are no more able to figure out how my mind works then I am theirs . The reality is that I can be very intelligent in some areas and still be close to retarded in other areas . Anyone who hasn't experienced this phenomenon first hand would seemingly rather believe that I am being lazy then that one brain can function on two such drastically different levels . Well, welcome to my world . As another aspie once put it...."I am the dumbest smart person you may ever meet ".

So, this past year I have gotten to face my own bits of retarded eye to eye by "trying to learn to market myself ". Although learning felting has been an experience of the best parts of Aspergers...the focus and pure joy of learning, marketing has been a little piece of hell full of self-doubt. indecision , and facing a kind of deception <----------(not the kind where I have to actually lie , which I find physically painful, but the kind that means I have to edit what I say and do .) I'm sure that anyone who sells items knows what I am talking about , at least in the abstract . You are told not to talk about politics or religion or risk alienating possible customers . The exception to this is if you have a large enough demographic to sell to that shares your politics and religion . I find that highly unlikely because anyone who is as "weird" as me, probably doesn't have any more money then I do and I buy everything I need from the thrift-store .The result is that I now worry about alienating potential buyers AND even worse have to try and understand what other people might like to buy . I know that market research is as basic to running a business as boiling eggs is to cooking a meal . This isn't rocket science but it's just as hard for me because I don't think my personal esthetic is even close to the norm .

I spent many years thinking that I would grow up and those tasks others seemed capable of doing would suddenly seem doable for me . For years, I collected a thrift-store wardrobe of grown-up clothes for the day when I would wake up an adult and know how to get a job that I would be able to use my strengths . (The clothes are still there but now I am trying to figure out how to use them in my crafting projects) . I work at a job that makes no use of my BA in psych but allows me to do my crafting passion on over nights .....it's not a choice as much as a compromise . At 47, 4 years after having received my DX of Aspergers, I am no closer to growing up then I was at 20 . I would love to claim, as I think my parents do, that I am just one of those free spirits who chooses to live unconventionally ......(or just lazy). That would be a lie. I live to the best of my abilities and do so by hanging from the ledge by my finger nails ........(precariously) . Having already experienced long bouts of poverty and short bouts of homelessness and institutionalization....my fear of failure is not paranoia but based on a very possible reality .

So, my desire to eventually be able to make a living from what I create is not just an ego booster or to have some extra money to take a vacation . It is a life line that may prove the difference between making it to the shore and my lungs filling with water . Why ???? Hard as it may be to believe....in real life, there are many people who just don't like me . I've never been able to decipher exactly what I do that offends folks but it always catches me off guard when I find out co-workers hate me . I put so much energy into trying to be a good worker and nice to people . I work over nights to try and limit my contact with people because I assume it will give them less reason to hate me but....even that appears to be to much .

So currently, there is someone at my job who has told one worker that "I am weird and she is afraid of me"....told several others, including my manager, that " I am not doing the required cleaning" and recreated a huge drama based on her acquisition that I had not done the laundry for several days . Since I know that I had done all the laundry the night before except for one client....there is no way there could be laundry baskets full unless she had intentionally put clean clothes in the basket to make me look bad . That kind of intentional sabotage really scares me . How do you deal with a psychopath who also happens to be friends with your boss ? So, like the terrorists, she doesn't need to actually blow anything up now.....she has already made me feel like I have to constantly be on guard against attack . I don't function as well under this kind of pressure . It would be simple to say, if your not doing anything wrong then you have nothing to worry about but my life experience has proved that past believe to be unrealistically naive . ....just ask the witches or Jesus if your so inclined .

OK, so besides this current fear of losing my job and the reality that I am even more stuipid then I gave my self credit for.... I also had oral surgery a few days ago where part of my gum had to be cut away from a cavity and the pain as well as the Tylenol is making me even more stuipid . It's also nearing Christmas where I have to deal with some unpleasant realities , such as not feeling like I have a "family" that actually knows I'm alive during a season that focuses on family closeness . Normally, I can ignore this fact but each Christmas I have to battle myself over what to buy a family that I hardly know . Should I just send gift cards or should I send some of my hand made items that they may hate and throw out ? I'm slavishly sentimental towards the items I make and the idea of them being thrown out is very painful to me but so is the idea of giving something as generic as a gift card .

So here's the math....

physical pain
+
psychic/emotional pain of rejection of others
+
fear of poverty
+
fear of failure
+
fear of the unknown/future
=


?????aspie dysfunction or just the normal human condition . I'm not sure it really matters I'm just hoping that I can keep pushing forward and that there isn't a cliff at the end of this path or, that if there is, I will find that aspie super powers include an ability to fly .


Angst be gone....back to felting tomorrow .

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