Something I am noticing lately is that not only does my ability for coherent, intelligible speech fade away under stress and pressure, but the intake also becomes impaired. Usually a little bit of it gets through, in single word soundbites. (reference the post from Nov 13th on this page).

Examples from today: I went to the autism specialist who has been evaluating my tyhird son for a possible autism spectrum disorder. Preliminary findings are PDD-NOS, with possible Asperger's, pending I.Q. test. I relayed the recent happenings at my former workplace (yesterday was my last day) to him. I told him that essentially, I had a meltdown due to my manager nitpicking me, and also that even though I had been told that I would work in the bakery and would be trained for it, this hadn't happened, and the reason I had been given was because of my hyperfocusing,(which from my point of view, is pretty much necessary in doing any kind of fine detail work, particularly artistic detail work.) (At times like this, I really wish that I had become a surgeon, where the hyperfocusing would be a tremendous asset. Nobody in their right mind would complain that a surgeon paid too much attention to their task at hand.) a component of the Asperger's syndrome. I also told him that once I had calmed down from the meltdown, I realized that I'd made a mistake, and I begged them to let me stay, or to place me in a different position, or whatever, but it was to no avail. Having put in my 2 weeks notice, I had to go, period. I didn't feel that the whole thing was entirely kosher, particularly the part where a disablity was used as an excuse not to promote me where it'd be promised, or to move me if necessary.

Here is what I remember from what he said:

"Possible lawsuit

wrongful termination

hostile work environment (if he only knew!!!! I didn't tell him a tenth of it!)

People at job service building would be the ones to talk to

Idaho favors employers over employees

Everybody has their niche; what can be a liability in one place can be a huge strength in another.

If they hadn't told me that they were going to train me for an area, and then reneged on it, it would be a different story.

I'm sorry you were treated that way."


There was considerably more meat to the conversation than that, but for the most part, I remember only single words and key phrases.

And I hate to say this, but I think that I probably do this all the time, and especially when I'm upset. Certainly people get nasty to me, but I think it's also quite possible that my brain highlights primarily the most upsetting, disturbing things in BIG RED LETTERS and that at times, it's 95% of what I remember, just the highlighted stuff (which of course is generally highlighted because it set my alarm bells ringing). In other words, the positive stuff, the things that could be potentially nourishing to my soul or useful in terms of context or balancing out the negatives, go in one ear and out the other, and almost the only stuff I retain is often of an insulting, painful, traumatic, or otherwise freaky nature. It isn't that I do this intentionally, it just happens that way. It probably isn't all that surprising that I'm frequently depressed. :-/

If only I could stockpile *nice* memories and replay them over and over again. For some reason though, I have to ration out the nice memories that I do have. If I play them more than a few times, they fade in strength or I find it harder to remember them...no, that isn't exactly right. It's like they lose their clarity and strength, sort of like a can a pop goes stale after you open it. The bad memories, on the other hand, gain power and strength with each repetition, unless they're tied to a breakdown, in which I typically remember almost nothing at all except for a foggy gray haze and nothingness, like a living death that you gradually came out of.

The thing is, I don't think people realize...when they say something really mean to me, I don't just hear it once. I hear it hundreds or even thousands of times, cutting me down, making me hate them, and each time it's almost as fresh and brightly sharp as the first time.....when really, maybe they were just having a bad day and didn't mean it much.