gorsecloud (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gorsecloud) wrote2011-04-26 05:27 pm
gorsecloud) wrote2011-04-26 05:27 pm
[story] Graduating to A Plane of Existence I Already Inhabit
I wrote this story sometime in... 11th grade I think. It's a vignette-style format, something that I always have liked experimenting with, and is good for conveying, I think, the way thoughts can meander and fragment.
This is a story of, honestly, a very personal nature, which is why only friends will be able to see it. But it is the explanation over a lot of my idiosyncrasies, and also a kind of... story of my life/self.
Please be kind. As stated, this story is incredibly personal to me.
----------------------------------
Graduating to a Plane of Existence I Already Inhabit
I was baptized when I was a baby, too young to remember.
I was told that all during the ceremony, I was asleep. Quiet. Not a peep from me. Not even when the priest sprinkled water on my head, which makes a lot of babies upset.
But the moment we left into the hallway outside the room, with the sounds and the noise and the people, I began to scream.
-----
I used to arrive at preschool. My friends would run up to me, calling for me to play. I would shriek and jump back, hands in front of my face.
My friends didn't understand, any more than I did.
My mom taught me to say 'I need space.'
Now when I went to school, my friends would come running up.
I need space, I'd say.
They gave me space, and soon I ran to join them.
-----
When I was little I was into Pokemon
Pokemon this, Pokemon that.
Everything Pokemon
Summer of my first grade year I got a book. Every single one of the first 150. The Official Pokedex.
I read it all, over and over.
I remember one day reading that Sandshrew were picky eaters. I pointed this out to my mom.
I'm glad I'm not like that, I said.
She gave me a funny look. I could already tell what she was thinking. I protested.
She was right, I was wrong.
-----
I went to private school in first grade.
My parents gave the teachers some tips on how to handle me.
Very specific directions, they said.
------
My mom used to have to cut the tags off of all my clothes.
They would chafe my skin bright red.
------
My picky eating slowly became a problem over time.
The list of foods that I liked and could eat slowly shrank.
It got to the point where breakfast was a constant problem.
I don't like cereal. I don't like ham or things like that.
The foods that I do eat I slowly get tired of, because I eat them too much.
My mom and I fought.
Each time I'd end up close to tears.
I couldn't explain why I had problems.
It was harder with the rest of my family.
They didn't know as much.
-----
I used to figure skate.
If I had a bad day at school, I couldn't skate though.
It made no sense
But if something bad was gnawing at me, nothing would go right.
I'd cry, and stamp my feet like a toddler.
But nothing would go right.
Until I figured out what went wrong with my day.
-----
In middle school, I had P.E.
I hated P.E.
Especially one-on-one games.
Even then I knew I wasn't fast on my feet.
One day we played a game.
Basketball unit.
The point was to try and knock the ball away from other kids
But you couldn't stop dribbling yourself.
Right off, one tall kid comes straight for me.
Me, the short one.
He shoves me forward.
I try to hold him off.
In the end, he shoves my ball away.
I screamed and had to leave the gym.
-----
I can't normally come up with witty comebacks.
It's not that I'm not clever or smart.
My brain just can't work fast enough.
-----
Whenever my mom would be late, I'd worry.
All kinds of horrible thoughts would whirl in my head.
What if she got into a crash?
How would I know?
What would happen?
Would my dad pick me up?
What if he didn't know yet?
Then my mom would come.
I'd be angry.
She'd apologize.
But it started to happen more and more often.
-----
Seventh grade yearbook line was worse than PE.
Everyone get in a line, they said.
Two-hundred odd kids.
Two adults and a stack of yearbooks.
It was a mob.
I was in the line for about a half-hour.
Finally when some bully shoved me repeatedly, I screamed in his face.
My friends carefully extracted me out of the mess and pulled me over to a wall where I could cry.
I never liked waiting in lines again.
-----
I used to think if hypersensitivity was a superpower, I had it.
It was the only thing that would make sense, how I could smell things others couldn't. How I could hear the electricity running through the wires whenever a TV was on. How a single flake of pepper could set my mouth aflame.
When I saw these differences, I wondered why.
Why was I like this?
I must be one of the mutants, I decided.
Yeah, that was it.
-----
One Saturday my mom gave me three chores to do, all at once.
I fidgeted, I tensed.
I threw my arms over my head and wailed that she was giving me too much to do all at once.
Next week, she gives me five.
I hardly bat an eye.
Sure Mom, I say with a smile.
The thing was, I meant it both times.
-----
I never could win a march-off in band.
Too much thinking too fast.
I dreamed, though.
-----
A year ago, I went to a new psychologist on a recommendation.
She said I was on the Asperger's Spectrum.
Asperger's Syndrome.
High-functioning Autism.
“Not far,” the psychologist told me.
But I was on it.
It was all little things.
Too small on their own.
My idiosyncrasies.
Hypersensitivity of touch and smell. Delayed reaction to stimulus. Having trouble with vague directions, or too many at once. Even my picky eating.
And most of all, the fact that nothing seemed to be the same from day to day.
My mom and I talked to her for an hour. Then we made another appointment for next week.
When we got out of the office, we hugged each other and cried.
-----
It's different when you know the whys.
It's one thing to know a problem exists.
It's another to know why it exists.
When you know the whys, you can learn to cope.
Now I had to learn to cope.
-----
The first sign of hope was in US History.
The project in class hadn't been going well.
There was too much information and not enough time left.
We hadn't gotten enough information for the questions we were supposed to present. We couldn't even agree on what we did had.
Then the teacher called time.
To my horror, my group was first.
I looked at the teacher with pleading in my eyes.
I'm sorry, he said
You'll be fine, he said.
I was agitated as my group walked up to present. Within thirty seconds, I almost lost it in front of the entire class. They could tell this.
I could hear the snickers starting.
My groupmates were staring at me, wide-eyed.
I finally asked the teacher to let me go out into the hall.
He nodded. I fled.
The hall... was calm.
Less than one hundred and eighty seconds later, I strode back into the room, head held high despite the taunting looks of my classmates.
I rejoined my group mid-presentation as if nothing happened.
-----
I tell my psychologist of my progress. We celebrate.
-----
Learning to deal with Asperger's is a process, and a slow one.
It's not so simple as popping a pill.
Asperger's doesn't work like that.
I must learn how I perceive the world.
How my mind handles things.
And then I use that to my advantage.
But the process is a slow one.
And not without incident
-----
The problem with learning how you work is that not everyone thinks that you should work that way.
-----
One day in band everything went wrong.
I was already pressed for time. I hated being rushed, but I didn't want to be late.
I'd been sure that I brought my sunglasses, but they were nowhere to be found.
The percussion had left their instruments carelessly shoved in front of my locker, giving me a foot and a half to get all of my bulky equipment out.
Then to my dismay, I discovered someone had thought my instrument was theirs and taken it outside.
I searched for a band director, hoping to take five minutes to calm and reassert myself.
But then a freshman found my horn, and I was forced to settle in place outside.
Then I discovered my earlier generosity had cost me.
My spray-on sunscreen had been almost entirely used up by beggars who'd forgotten.
I was in tears by this point.
The freshman approached me.
Told me to calm down. Told me that my sunglasses were only a material possession.
Not that big of a deal.
As if that was what the problem was.
I couldn't help it. I snapped at her.
She puffed up, irate as a pigeon. Said that she used to be the same as me, and it was only after she'd learned to not make a big deal of such small things that it'd gotten any better. Said that she was only trying to help.
I told her that whatever her intent was, she wasn't.
Band started, and for a while I was able to be alone.
The routine of repetitions relaxed me.
A half-hour later, I was mostly calm.
Then, as another group practiced a visual, the freshman came over to berate me some more.
I tried hard to not start crying again.
-----
I had just had a huge disappointment.
I tried to talk about it, but nothing helped. I just kept feeling worse.
My friend tried to put his hand on my shoulder. I shook it off roughly.
He tried again.
I shoved it off and yelled at him to stop it.
A girl turned around.
Calm down, she said, It's not that big a deal.
The gall for her to say that, she who had no idea.
But as it was, I was already in tears. I didn't want to bite off any more heads. I already felt bad for biting off my friends.
I held up my hand and said, I need space.
Just like my mom taught me in preschool.
Are you serious? She sneered, Are you serious?
She eyed me coldly.
I'm trying to help you, she said icily.
She turned away.
-----
Why do people always think they know what will help?
-----
I've only told five of my friends that I'm on the Asperger's spectrum.
All five of them accepted it.
Two of them said it explained a lot of things.
-----
We finally learned the root of my picky eating.
Aspy kids aren't just being finicky.
Their body just can't handle the idea of actually eating the food
-----
I had a firsthand experience with the reality of my picky eating.
I had forgotten to take a medication of mine over the summer.
I tried to restart it one week.
The next day I was horribly nauseous.
Late that week, we were going to Disney World.
My mom gave me something to settle my stomach at the airport.
I grimaced looking at the flavor on the packet.
But I opened it and took the chewable tablet with water.
Predictably, my stomach rebelled.
Not hard. But if I hadn't known it was coming, I might've thrown up.
But as I chewed
I thought
This isn't so bad.
-----
My mom and I told the psychologist about one time on a Friday, when I'd been unable to eat fish sticks.
I love fish sticks.
But the breaded fillets had felt abrasive on my tounge.
She told us about something I think was called nerve memory.
It's like phantom pains for amputees.
There's nothing there, but the brain remembers the pain.
It feels like the limb is still there, even when it isn't.
For me, something similar could happen if I was focusing on something hard.
Were you focusing hard on something that Thursday? She asked.
My mom and I stared at each other.
AP Exams! We cried together.
-----
Life goes on.
Sixteen and three quarter years I lived without knowing.
One I have.
One year with a great many changes.
The road is long and hard.
But the reward is lasting.
I only accept the best of myself.
I don't let Asperger's be an excuse.
-----
I don't know everything about Asperger's.
I know precious little about the technical details.
About the brain and the chemicals and the impulses that go into it.
All I know, I have learned from myself.
What inaccurate data my own perspectives can bring.
Asperger's has been with me since I was born.
The diagnosis hasn't changed who I am.
I just know it as something I've always been.
Though I just learned it a year ago.
I guess you could call it a state of being.
I think of it as a state of knowing.
This is a story of, honestly, a very personal nature, which is why only friends will be able to see it. But it is the explanation over a lot of my idiosyncrasies, and also a kind of... story of my life/self.
Please be kind. As stated, this story is incredibly personal to me.
----------------------------------
Graduating to a Plane of Existence I Already Inhabit
I was baptized when I was a baby, too young to remember.
I was told that all during the ceremony, I was asleep. Quiet. Not a peep from me. Not even when the priest sprinkled water on my head, which makes a lot of babies upset.
But the moment we left into the hallway outside the room, with the sounds and the noise and the people, I began to scream.
-----
I used to arrive at preschool. My friends would run up to me, calling for me to play. I would shriek and jump back, hands in front of my face.
My friends didn't understand, any more than I did.
My mom taught me to say 'I need space.'
Now when I went to school, my friends would come running up.
I need space, I'd say.
They gave me space, and soon I ran to join them.
-----
When I was little I was into Pokemon
Pokemon this, Pokemon that.
Everything Pokemon
Summer of my first grade year I got a book. Every single one of the first 150. The Official Pokedex.
I read it all, over and over.
I remember one day reading that Sandshrew were picky eaters. I pointed this out to my mom.
I'm glad I'm not like that, I said.
She gave me a funny look. I could already tell what she was thinking. I protested.
She was right, I was wrong.
-----
I went to private school in first grade.
My parents gave the teachers some tips on how to handle me.
Very specific directions, they said.
------
My mom used to have to cut the tags off of all my clothes.
They would chafe my skin bright red.
------
My picky eating slowly became a problem over time.
The list of foods that I liked and could eat slowly shrank.
It got to the point where breakfast was a constant problem.
I don't like cereal. I don't like ham or things like that.
The foods that I do eat I slowly get tired of, because I eat them too much.
My mom and I fought.
Each time I'd end up close to tears.
I couldn't explain why I had problems.
It was harder with the rest of my family.
They didn't know as much.
-----
I used to figure skate.
If I had a bad day at school, I couldn't skate though.
It made no sense
But if something bad was gnawing at me, nothing would go right.
I'd cry, and stamp my feet like a toddler.
But nothing would go right.
Until I figured out what went wrong with my day.
-----
In middle school, I had P.E.
I hated P.E.
Especially one-on-one games.
Even then I knew I wasn't fast on my feet.
One day we played a game.
Basketball unit.
The point was to try and knock the ball away from other kids
But you couldn't stop dribbling yourself.
Right off, one tall kid comes straight for me.
Me, the short one.
He shoves me forward.
I try to hold him off.
In the end, he shoves my ball away.
I screamed and had to leave the gym.
-----
I can't normally come up with witty comebacks.
It's not that I'm not clever or smart.
My brain just can't work fast enough.
-----
Whenever my mom would be late, I'd worry.
All kinds of horrible thoughts would whirl in my head.
What if she got into a crash?
How would I know?
What would happen?
Would my dad pick me up?
What if he didn't know yet?
Then my mom would come.
I'd be angry.
She'd apologize.
But it started to happen more and more often.
-----
Seventh grade yearbook line was worse than PE.
Everyone get in a line, they said.
Two-hundred odd kids.
Two adults and a stack of yearbooks.
It was a mob.
I was in the line for about a half-hour.
Finally when some bully shoved me repeatedly, I screamed in his face.
My friends carefully extracted me out of the mess and pulled me over to a wall where I could cry.
I never liked waiting in lines again.
-----
I used to think if hypersensitivity was a superpower, I had it.
It was the only thing that would make sense, how I could smell things others couldn't. How I could hear the electricity running through the wires whenever a TV was on. How a single flake of pepper could set my mouth aflame.
When I saw these differences, I wondered why.
Why was I like this?
I must be one of the mutants, I decided.
Yeah, that was it.
-----
One Saturday my mom gave me three chores to do, all at once.
I fidgeted, I tensed.
I threw my arms over my head and wailed that she was giving me too much to do all at once.
Next week, she gives me five.
I hardly bat an eye.
Sure Mom, I say with a smile.
The thing was, I meant it both times.
-----
I never could win a march-off in band.
Too much thinking too fast.
I dreamed, though.
-----
A year ago, I went to a new psychologist on a recommendation.
She said I was on the Asperger's Spectrum.
Asperger's Syndrome.
High-functioning Autism.
“Not far,” the psychologist told me.
But I was on it.
It was all little things.
Too small on their own.
My idiosyncrasies.
Hypersensitivity of touch and smell. Delayed reaction to stimulus. Having trouble with vague directions, or too many at once. Even my picky eating.
And most of all, the fact that nothing seemed to be the same from day to day.
My mom and I talked to her for an hour. Then we made another appointment for next week.
When we got out of the office, we hugged each other and cried.
-----
It's different when you know the whys.
It's one thing to know a problem exists.
It's another to know why it exists.
When you know the whys, you can learn to cope.
Now I had to learn to cope.
-----
The first sign of hope was in US History.
The project in class hadn't been going well.
There was too much information and not enough time left.
We hadn't gotten enough information for the questions we were supposed to present. We couldn't even agree on what we did had.
Then the teacher called time.
To my horror, my group was first.
I looked at the teacher with pleading in my eyes.
I'm sorry, he said
You'll be fine, he said.
I was agitated as my group walked up to present. Within thirty seconds, I almost lost it in front of the entire class. They could tell this.
I could hear the snickers starting.
My groupmates were staring at me, wide-eyed.
I finally asked the teacher to let me go out into the hall.
He nodded. I fled.
The hall... was calm.
Less than one hundred and eighty seconds later, I strode back into the room, head held high despite the taunting looks of my classmates.
I rejoined my group mid-presentation as if nothing happened.
-----
I tell my psychologist of my progress. We celebrate.
-----
Learning to deal with Asperger's is a process, and a slow one.
It's not so simple as popping a pill.
Asperger's doesn't work like that.
I must learn how I perceive the world.
How my mind handles things.
And then I use that to my advantage.
But the process is a slow one.
And not without incident
-----
The problem with learning how you work is that not everyone thinks that you should work that way.
-----
One day in band everything went wrong.
I was already pressed for time. I hated being rushed, but I didn't want to be late.
I'd been sure that I brought my sunglasses, but they were nowhere to be found.
The percussion had left their instruments carelessly shoved in front of my locker, giving me a foot and a half to get all of my bulky equipment out.
Then to my dismay, I discovered someone had thought my instrument was theirs and taken it outside.
I searched for a band director, hoping to take five minutes to calm and reassert myself.
But then a freshman found my horn, and I was forced to settle in place outside.
Then I discovered my earlier generosity had cost me.
My spray-on sunscreen had been almost entirely used up by beggars who'd forgotten.
I was in tears by this point.
The freshman approached me.
Told me to calm down. Told me that my sunglasses were only a material possession.
Not that big of a deal.
As if that was what the problem was.
I couldn't help it. I snapped at her.
She puffed up, irate as a pigeon. Said that she used to be the same as me, and it was only after she'd learned to not make a big deal of such small things that it'd gotten any better. Said that she was only trying to help.
I told her that whatever her intent was, she wasn't.
Band started, and for a while I was able to be alone.
The routine of repetitions relaxed me.
A half-hour later, I was mostly calm.
Then, as another group practiced a visual, the freshman came over to berate me some more.
I tried hard to not start crying again.
-----
I had just had a huge disappointment.
I tried to talk about it, but nothing helped. I just kept feeling worse.
My friend tried to put his hand on my shoulder. I shook it off roughly.
He tried again.
I shoved it off and yelled at him to stop it.
A girl turned around.
Calm down, she said, It's not that big a deal.
The gall for her to say that, she who had no idea.
But as it was, I was already in tears. I didn't want to bite off any more heads. I already felt bad for biting off my friends.
I held up my hand and said, I need space.
Just like my mom taught me in preschool.
Are you serious? She sneered, Are you serious?
She eyed me coldly.
I'm trying to help you, she said icily.
She turned away.
-----
Why do people always think they know what will help?
-----
I've only told five of my friends that I'm on the Asperger's spectrum.
All five of them accepted it.
Two of them said it explained a lot of things.
-----
We finally learned the root of my picky eating.
Aspy kids aren't just being finicky.
Their body just can't handle the idea of actually eating the food
-----
I had a firsthand experience with the reality of my picky eating.
I had forgotten to take a medication of mine over the summer.
I tried to restart it one week.
The next day I was horribly nauseous.
Late that week, we were going to Disney World.
My mom gave me something to settle my stomach at the airport.
I grimaced looking at the flavor on the packet.
But I opened it and took the chewable tablet with water.
Predictably, my stomach rebelled.
Not hard. But if I hadn't known it was coming, I might've thrown up.
But as I chewed
I thought
This isn't so bad.
-----
My mom and I told the psychologist about one time on a Friday, when I'd been unable to eat fish sticks.
I love fish sticks.
But the breaded fillets had felt abrasive on my tounge.
She told us about something I think was called nerve memory.
It's like phantom pains for amputees.
There's nothing there, but the brain remembers the pain.
It feels like the limb is still there, even when it isn't.
For me, something similar could happen if I was focusing on something hard.
Were you focusing hard on something that Thursday? She asked.
My mom and I stared at each other.
AP Exams! We cried together.
-----
Life goes on.
Sixteen and three quarter years I lived without knowing.
One I have.
One year with a great many changes.
The road is long and hard.
But the reward is lasting.
I only accept the best of myself.
I don't let Asperger's be an excuse.
-----
I don't know everything about Asperger's.
I know precious little about the technical details.
About the brain and the chemicals and the impulses that go into it.
All I know, I have learned from myself.
What inaccurate data my own perspectives can bring.
Asperger's has been with me since I was born.
The diagnosis hasn't changed who I am.
I just know it as something I've always been.
Though I just learned it a year ago.
I guess you could call it a state of being.
I think of it as a state of knowing.