It would be lovely to be able to discuss difficult topics without having a meltdown every time. To not live as if I have a hairtrigger, just waiting for the slightest thing to send me spiraling into a whirlpool of pain. To not have this headache, these gummed up eyes, this upset stomach and migraine-feeling neck pain. To not feel embarrassed and ashamed of myself for falling apart...again.

And sadly, it isn't the Asperger's. Maybe a little bit....the Asperger's certainly contributes by not being able to tell kidding from serious, etc. Mostly though, it's the PTSD, coming around the block to try to fuck up my life yet again, ruining another day that could have been perfectly good, leaving me feeling so fragile and frail and small and in need of comforting. I hate this. I really hate it. They say that EMDR will help and I sincerely hope that they're right. :-(

Anxious. Feeling insecure...ashamed of myself for feeling insecure....defensive. Stop, I tell my mind...stop. There's no reason to feel anxious. Stop, you'll ruin it by worrying about it being ruined, the ultimate irony. Leave that thought alone and just walk away from it already. Ugh....

And I think back...a couple of years back. Yeah. Look what letting anxiety run away with me did then. Lovely. Please, brain, stop. Stop tormenting me already.

Don't think there's ever a time when I don't want a hug, regardless of how asocial I'm feeling. :-/ Oh well.

Had a great day. Working with blueberry plants all day is centering and calming, lots of solitude and time to think. Counter-intuitively, getting that kind of quiet/solitary time tends to engender a desire for more of the same, rather than a need for social interaction. For me, social skills/ability to tolerate social interaction are like a muscle- I must use it or lose it, and it really doesn't take much time alone for me to want yet more alone time. By "alone time", I mean all alone, without people nearby. For example, sitting alone in the library would count towards social interaction that would halt atrophy of sociability even if I don't actually talk to anyone for the several hours I'm there, because there is still human energy around.

Human energy is draining. Feeling all those people around....it is emotionally and mentally "noisy". Oddly, large gatherings of Quakers are much less draining than the same number of other people would be. That human energy is still something I need a break from, but much less so than if they were a different group of people. Not sure why.

So. You see how I am, and my dad still thinks I should become a CNA. That just seems like such an incredibly bad idea to me! Taking care of the people I love and nursing them is one thing....doing it every day is another. Also, although I would likely love, nurture and care for patients under my care, the social interactions with co-workers would drive me nuts. Recipe for certain disaster....

Ah---> speaking of such things: mullein is good for relieving congestion and it grows all over the place (free, in other words). It doesn't have an exciting flavor, but isn't bad, either...mixing it with peppermint or other typical herbal tea blends for people with colds (rosehips, high in vitamin C, are another recommended addition) is the general course of action. How much? Oh, I don't know....a single leaf, or maybe a tablespoon per cup if it's dried and powdered.

I feel useless. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to grow up in a family in which art was valued, nurtured and encouraged. Or if I'd grown up in a farming family. There were advantages to being born to a medical family, but as a result, I've always been pushed towards medicine, a field which is highly interesting, but requires math skills and/or social skills in order to succeed. Meanwhile, my true passions- all of them- art, animals, plants....went untended, unappreciated. Any one of these areas could have been cultivated with much greater success than trying to develop an affinity for math in a person who just doesn't have it.

It isn't that I'm blaming anyone; I don't mean it that way. But I lack confidence and belief in myself, in the very areas where my strength lies, because these areas have always been overlooked an tossed aside as only being worthy of hobbies or pastimes. I know, intellectually, that I have value and talent, but that recognition never really sinks in to my core/self worth. :-(

Have to move, the place I'm living at has been foreclosed on. Now what? The bright side: I've found a place to garden.

Perception is everything.

I hope that someday, I'll be able to love without fear, without the specter of loss haunting me at every turn, to be able to relax and enjoy the moment, to feel safe. There have been fleeting bits of time like this, so I know it can happen...but oh, for it to last, to be solid rather than ephermal...

Yay! Blueberry farm picks me up again this week!

Exhausted for no good reason. Going to fix up the fire damaged house and stay there, as it looks as though it isn't going to get foreclosed on after all.

Feeling discouraged and disillusioned.

The Family Dinner Table

A few years back, someone I admired and respected said something to my children about family dinners, such that eating together around the table as a family was assumed to be the norm for us. I cringed and blushed inside, not having the courage to shoot down this ideal that I hadn't lived up to. The truth is that I almost never have family dinners sitting around the table...not because I'm lazy, but because I don't like family dinners.

I realize that our society has elevated the family dinner to an essential ritual, that it's considered a hallmark of a healthy and respectable family. Politicians talk about family meals....sitting around the table together is the wholesome and traditional standard. One never hears about a happy family eating in a less formal manner. Happy families sit down and chat happily while sharing their mealtime, period.

Except that family dinners aren't always happy. For some of us, there are literally years of bad memories involving dinnertime and tables. There are parents slapping their children upside the head from across that table, making cutting remarks about the amount of food eaten, playing control games with that nice dinner, or forcing their kids to eat stuff that makes them gag. There are fights and scenes and general nastiness, cold silence instead of the happy small talk, none of it anything anyone would ever want to reenact, all of it so aversive that the slightest bit of tension at someone else's family dinner mkae my anxiety levels soar, makes my stomach sink with dread and foreboding. No, I don't have sit down family meals. And I don't buy that the sort of family meals that haunt my memory are healthier than the much more free form meals that we have. Convention be damned....there is more than one way of doing things, including eating together.

Nope. Landlord changed mind. Perhaps this is just as well; I was feeling like the ultimate traitor for considering giving up my dog, who has been there for me 24/7. What now? It's getting warmer and fixing the fire damaged cabin is beginning to seem like a reasonably attractive option.....

I am no longer without a place to live; in lieu of rent I get to do edible landscaping and gardening so also the problem of where to garden is taken care of! Work at the blueberry farm starts in a week or two.

The downside is that I have to find a home for my dog...ideally I'd like to have the option of gettign him back someday or at least getting to see him now and then. This is heartbreaking...he's the best dog I've ever had....but I have to have a place to live and without that I can't see my children to speak of. :-(

It has been said that sex is important and vital to men because it is often their primary source of physical touch and affection, that they need sex in order to feel loved....whereas for many women, romance and non-sexual affection is either a prerequisite for sex or even a very acceptable stopping point....which leads to conflict.

Perhaps it's a sensory issue, but I'd have to side with the men on this one. If romance and tame affection were all I got in a relationship, I'd begin to feel teased, tormented and frustrated in fairly short order. Within 2-3 days we'd be seeing meltdowns and real panic. It's been a problem at times, because as with everything else, selectivity is high. I need to be touched and handled, yet am unreasonably fussy about who and how.

In the course of pleasant daydreaming a few days ago, i realized that it's not solely about sex; it's a need for touch. I could probably be OK, truly OK as opposed to just coping/hanging in there, if instead of a daily romp, there were a massage instead....now and then. It does seem however, that a nice massage, whether given or received, would have a way of revving up ones appetite.....hey, it would be good one way and even better the other, right? :-p

Depressed. At times it feels as if the entire purpose of my life is to lose that which is most loved.

Ha ha... I am making trouble...in a mostly benign way of course....with a neurodiversity display at the library. I am so sick and fucking tired of the idea that we'd be better off dead, need to be cured in order to live a worthwhile life, can only acheieve success by living a life of falsehood (masquerading as neurotypicals), are either retarded or are not truly autistic (because, dontcha know, MR and autism are almost synonymous! Ugh!) etc. And when I hear these views voiced by humans who present themseleves as sentient, educated folks who should know better and who pretend to know what they're talking about....in a library , something has to be done about it.

It's been an interesting weekend. Better, I finally went to my meeting and told them about the fire, and am making headway on this problem/issue. The simple truth is that I hate to ask for help and I hate to get it, even when I need it rather desperately. I mean, I am thankful for help, but having to be the one getting it...oh never mind...there is just no way to say this without sounding like an ingrate, which I am not. :-/

Had yet another holocaust dream. I've had these dreams (nightmares) since I was a child, long before I ever heard about World War II. This time, I was one of three adopted children. Our parents loved us. I was wanted, I fit in, I was part of a family. These are feelings I have not known in my waking life. The sense of security was solid, real. But then..... Our father was a Nazi, and he was of a higher rank than some others...who were executing other children...children like us, except they hadn't been adopted. I was so conflicted and upset and afraid that we weren't safe that I was running away. At all times, my family was kind to me, I was loved...but seeing the blood of the other children spattered all over the other soldiers, the ones my father commanded, had filled me with such doom and fear that I felt compelled to flee. I couldn't understand how he could be so casual about these other children and have such a blind spot for the very same sort of children under his own roof.

Someday, I will belong.