Victimhood: all too easy to fall into. You can spot a vicitm a mile away many times, because they tend to whine or moan a lot about their fate but frequently take very little action to change it.

Then there's martyrdom: martyrs expect you to see their suffering and to think highly of them for it. Suggesting that they should take steps to remedy their situation will be taken badly: who are you to rob them of their honor?!! Martyrs suffer in silence or stoicism, often when they don't really need to suffer at all.

Either way----> the problems don't get better, or if they do, the person finds something new to whine about and the success isn't mentioned. Solutions are not sought out, they are discounted.

I should know: I've definitely been a victim, especially in my younger years, when I felt powerless and that God would be displeased if I stood up for myself, that to do so would be selfish.

I think I'm pretty much over that, though: when I started work I realized, after several months, that if I didn't stand up for myself noone else would care, or listen. The work environment was just totally different...and while I'm not above whining occasionally, I'm more likely now to defend myself, to set things straight, to go to a boss if I need to, or to simply tell someone off if they need it.

I am tired of being a vicitm. I'm gonna pitch a fit and scream my bloody lungs off if anyone even attempts a tenth of what's already been doen to me, ever again.

Anyway, the question is this: does accepting and facing the challenges and joys of being autistic make me a victim? I don't think so. I am looking for solutions to life's adversities, for a niche in life, for ways in which I can succeed and fulfill at least some of my potential. That's not a victim.

More than simple envy......

Why, when males are endowed with something as nice as a penis, don't they put it to better use than they do?

Violence: a penis is like, the world's best sex toy, and almost every guy has one. Why would they want to use it as a weapon?

Foreplay: Men have a distinct advantage here in that their very sexy male organ is on external display. It can bounce! It can wiggle! It gets hard! It does all kind of entertaining things. Do they take advantage of this fact by taunting us into a frenzy until we practically beg for them?? Not often. But they could. I mean, they could tease us all day long, off and on, until the girl feels like dragging him into the bedroom. But most don't. Instead, they're like, "Time for bed!" (meaningful look or gesture), it gets hard, and then they're like, "Wow, it's hard! I could stick this somewhere!" and that's about it. :-/ I'm not complaining TOO much, but guys, are you seriously that lacking in creativity?? Or in patience?

In the Bathroom: Frankly, if I had such a handy urethra that could aim as well as theirs does, that's what I'd do with it: aim. My anatomy precludes this, unless I want to start the arduous task of learning how to pee standing for females. Still, I manage not to get it all over the seat, floor and walls. I have told my sons, time and again, that if they cannot aim and lifting the seat is just too strenuous for them, they should sit. They do not. I'm just about to the pont of removing the seat entirely...except that I would rather sit on it than squat above the bowl! I hate having to wash it off before using each and every time.

I still believe that love, whether or not it is returned or rejected, is never wasted.

So, for all the lonely souls in the world, who have loved in vain without return, let me say it again: love is its own reward. It doesn't have to be reciprocal to be genuine or worthwhile. Don't ever be ashamed of loving someone, whoever they are.

Love enriches the world, it opens our hearts, it causes us to see the good in life and to be the best people that we can be. It gives life strength and meaning and passion and drives us to acheive goals and surmount problems that would otherwise seem insurpassable.

The pain doesn't come from love. The pain comes from rejection and from the death of hope and yes, expectations. Don't ever be afraid to love or stingy about it.....just watch out for those expectations....the biggest reward has already been had.

I just got my second raise in about a month!!! I couldn't believe it! Wooohoo! The boss said, when I asked him why he did that, that he felt that people who work harder should get paid more even if they don't have as much seniority. I told him that I would work hard to deserve the raise (after thanking him profusely). I think I embarrassed him. :-P

I found something that helps my hips a little: to wear an insole in the leg that is shorter. When I wore insoles for both, they hurt like hell. Took the left one out, relief. I have not had SERIOUS pain since doing this.

Okay. I boiled water for chocolate malt-o-meal at least three times and had it all evaporate before I could add the cereal! Finally I used about half a pan's worth of water, let it boil, measured the boiling water, threw out the excess, and made the cereal. It is very hard to boil just a cup or two of water and have any of it left!

One of our nice neighbors gave us a whole bunch of oriental poppies that she was digging up, along with other plants. She did this on MOther's Day. And Tim had also bought me some stock starts and a strawberry plant (complete with green berries already fruiting), these, I am happy to say, were in pots. The poppies were more or less bareroot and not very happy about that. I planted them all ASAP and we watered the heck out of them. They recovered.

The medication, which cost $25, does not work! Lovely. I still alternate between that familiar burning sensation, times where they're only very faintly sore, and where the area feels numbed and I feel queasy and lightheaded and exhausted. It is, more or less, one of these three modes, almost all the time.

One of my legs is about 1/4" longer than the other, and this, incidentally, is also the leg with the foot that was turned inwards when I was a baby, the one I wore orthopedic shoes for. The left one. The same hip that hurts me. Hmmmm...... I forgot to mention to the doctor that my hips also dislocate during some activities...they haven't done so in a long time, but it hurts like hell when it occurs. The thing is, I wasn't in a LOT of pain when I went to see him. I'd had two days off work. And even with the hike, I was only mildly sore. So he'd ask, "does this hurt?" and I'd say..."Uhhh...yeah. I think so. Maybe." I have a high pain tolerance. I would have to be in agony in order to be able to tell him really well exactly what hurts and where, precisely. I would have to come in after working all day long.

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We're considerign buyign the house of the assistant manager that I wouldn't speak to for a while. I'm still not sure how well I like her. OK as a person, maybe. I still don't want her to be my boss. It's a really neat home, an underground one. It's like a little hobbit house! Very unique! YOu would expect it to be dark, right? It is not. It has a big skylight. What it IS: very well insulated by all that earth, and it feels very holistic and nourishing. It has 5 acres and is all set up for g oats already!! It has woods! It has water, power, phone, internet, AND a generator setup for power outages. It needs more gardens, they haven't been kept up. Also, it has a lot of outbuildings, storage sheds, barns, woodsheds, etc etc. I want to get this place, but I can only get $50 K financed. The house needs some significant work done on it (which I can do) and no bank will loan on it, because it's an earth home. They won't take payments in any form, they have to be bought out. Today they're getting it appraised....and I'm betting that it will be in the 75-100K range. I wonder who they will sell it to? Soemone who will build another house and demolish that one? :-( I really want this place. It feels right.

I want to cry. I woke up feeling this way and it just hasn't gotten any better. But I won't/can't, anymore than a desert can flood on command. I just feel desolate and barren. We went for a walk though, and saw a lot of pretty plants and great rocks and boulders. Boulders with moss, shooting stars...hmm...I can'y decide which I like better.

Anyway, I took some St John's wort and should be feeling better sometime today. Hopefully before I go to work. He's been so nice to me, it isn't his fault. I just get into a bad mood now and then.

So I went to the doctor about my hips. He asked me where and how they hurt, but they didn't hurt enough to be able to tell him as well as I'd have liked to, as well as I could have had I worked all day before going there. Unfortunately my work hours don't really allow for that, nor do his. He took X rays. Bones are so beautiful, so graceful. The bony pelvis reminds me of a butterfly. The xrays show that the bones are fine, just fine!!! I don't know how they can hurt this much...how?! It is so frustrating.... He syas that it's probably soft tissue; ligaments, tendons, and so forth, that have gotten strained. Try not to lift heavy things (yeah, right). And he gave me a prescription for an anti-imflammatory, but that's not good since the insurance company won't acknowledge that I've been paying them a sizable chunk out of my check every two weeks. They haven't sent me the card yet, and they deny that I'm on it.

The pharmacy says that it's "only" $25.00. Over the counter anti-imflammatories don't even touch this pain, I seriously cannot even tell that I took them! OTOH, do I want to work in pain and be this crabby and irritable because of it? Maybe I'm just a hypochondriac, as a number of people seem to imply. All I know is that there are times when this hurts so freaking much that I feel nauseous.

When the goal is to turn an autistic person into a pale imitation of a neurotypical and to deny them any expression or manifestation or justification or legimacy of/for their autistic selves, isn't the true goal to squelch and suppress their self identity? This "therapy" leaves the autistic no place to turn inwards, where they can say, "this is me, this is good, I *like* me, this is who I am. Instead, it's all pretense and facade, something we're not all that good at, I think. One is left in unhappy introspection: is this me? Or it it what they wanted? I'm not happy with it. They liked it. I don't like this...they pick on me for it....it's bad because they don't like it...they say it's weird...Why do I have to pretend so hard...and who do I pretend to be?..." (I used to choose one model at a time, usually someone I admired and was fond of. If and when they rejected me, I then had to discard that persona and try to model after someone else.) I always had a slight nagging feeling about this...and what hurt the most was when the person encouraged me, actively assuming the role of role-model, and then abruptly abandoned or spurned me. I was unable to choose a generalized 'normal' mode, or to identify one. I *had* to imitate other people in order to act any semblance of normal.

Is this what you people want, to deny us our autistic self identity? To say that who we really and truly are deep inside, is wholly inadequate? We are supposed to live out an entire life this way?! And to be happier for it!!! My god, what have you been smoking? How could you even imagine that this would be successful or productive? (We won't even go into humane, auties apparently are too far gone to deserve humane treatment!)

A person's self-identity is the very germ and seed of their personality. To rob a person of this, and intentionally, yet, is a crime worse than rape. A body is only a shell, but without our real self, we would just as well be walking zombies acting to please the general populace. A person's selfhood is sacred, and noone: no parent, no teacher, no therapist, no expert, has the right to deprive anyone of that.

What better form of expressing one's inner self can there be but the arts?

You can ban me from your forums, you can shut me up, you can shout me down. You can fire me, threaten me, hurt me, and pretend I don't exist. You can tell me that since I'm autistic, my opinion doesn't count. You can claim that I'm not really autistic, the pschologist was dumb and I'm pretending and therefore I'm invalid. You can make up elaborate and bizarre theories to explain things away about me and why I'm so, in your opinion, fucked up. You can pray for me, plead with me, sigh over me, wring your hands, ply me with guilt trips, laugh at me, or swear at me. It doesn't matter.

I am tired of trying to be what I am not and I refuse to do it anymore. It's hard work to be what I am, but at least I know who I am. I am just as legitimate, being autistic, as you are, being neurotypical, and you aren't one iota better than me for it. You can't shut me up. I will paint, and even though I can't communicate well, my pictures will say it for me: this is me, this is who I am, this is the beauty that I see in the world around me, through my eyes!