Yes, I am awfully slow in updating about the things I say I'll update about. At the end of the spring semester, I said I had a lot of blog entries in my RSS-feeder, that I'd read through them, and then give my opinion on things presented in those blogs. A few weeks on, and I still have done so.

Masks - oh dear

"Now, I want to get rid of them. Partly because they are so hard to maintain, I have to remember all these masks for so many different people, it gets too tiring, and very stressful when I have to deal with two people who are usually not seen together – I have to mix their individual masks and come up with a super mask that fits both people in that situation."

This rings so true! I've done this for as long as I can remember. A lot of this has had to do with my family. As I might, and might not have mentioned before, my family has never allowed for any feelings to be exhibited, for anything "bad" to be out in the open, and any mental issues or disabilities, like Asperger's, would simply not be accepted. This is why I've never stood up for myself when it comes to all the years I've been, often severely, depressed. Neither have I told my mom about me having Asperger's. I'm not sure I ever will.

More specifically, I've had masks for different people all my life. This has to do with my family situation, as I've indicated above. There's one mask for acquaintances, one for my mom, one for my husband, and so on. It has to be mentioned that my husband is silently and carefully pulling the mask further and further over my head, almost removing it completely. I think this is a good thing, but at the same time, I need these masks in order to function. I've blogged about this previously, a few months back, on how I function very well when it's on "my terms".

Masks are, for me, tightly intertwined with the need to mentally prepare for situations, people and possible conversations. Different people require different masks. If I am to talk to a person working in the uni administration, I need to plan for what to say - in which order should I make my needs be known? How can I best explain what I need help with? This preparation calls for a strong and confident mask.

Preparation for lectures and seminars is sort of similar. It's not good, I know, but I prepare for lectures and seminars by sitting next to someone I know will be prone to throwing their hands in the air to answer questions. Sitting next to someone like that will, most likely, have as a consequence that I will not be asked any questions.

"I have decided that this year, I want to make a fresh start."

This is definitely easier said than done.

After becoming aware of my Asperger's, I've felt more confident in myself than ever before. My entire life, I've kept in the shadows, always being the good girl who does what she's told. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but this good girl-syndrome has kept me in a place where I've never wanted to stand up for myself.

Finding out about being on the spectrum coincided, time-wise, with having to be on my own for 6-7 months. During this time I have had to be my own advocate. It's been hard, but it's been necessary, both for practical reasons and for becoming the person I am today.

During this time I've made quite a few new acquaitances, and I have tried my best to make them without the help of my masks. I have succeded as well - when my husband returned home and met with a friend I made during his absence, I noticed that there weren't that big a clash between the mask I wear with his and the mask I wear with her. It's strange, but a welcome feeling.

This and That - nothing much to update about

If you are a recurring guest here, in my blog, you might have noticed the stat counter I've places on the right hand side. It's interesting, in a way - the first few days after I added it, the number of visits was to be expected; a few each day. But, after I merged this blog with my other one and changed the name on my profile, or, "stopped hiding", it's gotten quite a few unique hits as well as recurring visitors. The blog also gets quite a few page reloads - and I can say, not all of them are mine...

The question remains as to why.

* I haven't written any new posts since last Wednesday.

* The last post wasn't a comment to any news article about going-ons in the autistic society - it was on Autistic Pride Day, and a short one at that.

* I don't advertise for this blog anywhere. It's linked to from a couple of profiles on a few message boards, but I doubt that's where the traffic is coming from.

* I haven't posted a comment anywhere, linking to it.

If you're one of these visitors (which you must be since you're reading this right now), please indulge me and tell me how you found me. Do you follow me on a regular basis?


In other news, there are no other news. Life is slowly going by and nothing much happens. We (my husband and I) attended a wedding last Saturday. I'd been a bit anxious about the dinner and party due to social issues. They pretty much came true - I had a hard time "small talking" when my husband wasn't there (he had a flu and came and left the room "as it pleased" him - bless him, he wasn't feeling good), but that was to be expected. My initial problems making social is when no one initiates it. I can small talk, but only if someone talks to me first. The conversations usually die down pretty fast, as they did on Saturday; someone asks me how long I've known the bride, we talk a bit about that. Then they ask what I study in uni, I tell them. And then it goes silent. I have no idea how to ask something back. They usually leave at that point. I don't blame them.

At Aspies for Freedom, there is a new thread on recommendations of books on autism. So far non-fiction books were recommended, but today when I checked the thread, someone had recommended The Speed of Dark, which is a sci-fi book set somewhere in the future where a cure for autism has been found. It can only be used on babies, but a cure for adults are about to be found, and the main character is given the opportunity to take it. I've added it to my wishlist there as I am in desperate need for something to read and because it sounds very, very interesting. And, since I'm rude and all that, here is a link to my wishlist. If nothing else, I have a wide range of autism books on there - maybe you'll find something you want to read. Although the book is no longer on my wish list (since I got it), I can highly recommend Unstrange Minds - Remapping the World of Autism. It offers a "history" of autism - from when it was first "discovered" by Kanner and Asperger, how it was viewed as a form of schizophrenia, how autistics were treated, but also a good insight into how a few selected countries view autism today. It also explains why there is no "autism epidemic". A good read. Get it today.

Broken promises

You know what annoy me? That people cannot keep their appointment. I know it's a classical AS-trait to be irritated, annoyed, furious even, but that doesn't really do me any good when I having these feelings.

I just wish people would start realizing that there's someone else beside them in this world and when you do know that someone has AS, please consider this as you make and break appointments.

I'm not trying to say that you always have to keep the aspies in your life happy, but something as basic as keeping appointments unless something drastic happens is a small thing for you, but a great one for us. I know I have a weekly planner and I know how much I hate it when my carefully planned (and written) to do/appointment-lists are disturbed.

Just had to let off some steam.

Thet extra little second

It's peculiar how much I've grown accustomed to the AS. Whenever I've read the symptoms and how aspies, in social situations and such, takes a second or so to respond (and therefore may have problems with conversations), I haven't been sure if I do that. Same with the symptom of having to have things "spelled out". But, yesterday I "caught" my brain in doing that logical deduction as to "what I was to understand". It was just a split second where I didn't know what the other person wanted of me until she made a comment that made me able of deducting my way to the answer and behave appropriately.

It's not something I've been aware of before figuring out the AS, but as with so may others who are diagnosed when they are adults, I've started self-analyzing, maybe a bit excessively. Either way, it's the first time I've been aware of how my brain process verbal commands where some information is missing.

Presumptions, assumptions

Well, when you say how hard it is for you to talk to people, and to make friends, it's interesting that you're married and everything. Obviously it's great, too. But it's interesting.

This comment was in my inbox a few days ago, from an entry I made in my LiveJournal with the letter I received from the psychologist a saw last week about Asperger's.

To be honest, I don't know how to make this entry. I don't know how to write an entry on how on earth I can be married. It is true that many autistic people do not marry. I'm not going to say that the majority of autistics won't marry because there seems to be more highh-functioning autistics than we know - more and more people, old and young, get a diagnosis.

So, on the topic of me and my marriage versus friends. I do have problems making, but even more so, keeping friends. The psychologist asked me about that - despite my urge to have a close friends, I seem unable to commit to a relationship on the same level as the people I make friends with. Either I'm yearning too much to be open and have girl-talks (you know, the kind you see in Hollywood movies) or I'm too withdrawn and insecure. Either way, I seem to scare people off. I am very very demanding. I demand that people treat me with the same kind of respect I show them - especially when it comes to giving and taking and showing up for appointments on time. As many, if not most autistics, I have a very deep-set black and white-thinking. I shouldn't blame the problems I have with making and keeping friends on my way of thinking and perceiving things, but it'd also be wrong to simply dismiss it. It is too set in my being to just shrug it off.

As much as I'd like a simple way to explain my marriage and the wonderfulness that is my husband, I don't think I can. Although he is most likely not autistic, we share some traits. Despite my urge to make social, I can also enjoy just spending time at home, in peace and quite (making social can drain me completely, resulting in low energy and migraines). He has always (as far as I know) been withdrawn. It's not that he can't have fun with friends, but most of the time he prefers to stay at home gaming and being a geek.

Other than that, he's the person I've been able to open up to the most in all of my life. He knows my ins and outs, my most shameful secrets and good qualities. And he has never judged me. Even when I make terrible mistakes, he's there to pick me up again.

Exactly why we got together, and have stayed together for five years, I don't know. Maybe I just met him at a time in my life where I was so desperate to fit in, have friends and live the perfect life. Maybe that desperation made me give it my all and make it work.

Marriage between NTs and autistics supposedly have an even bigger chance of not working out. Everyone says it's more work than "normal" marriages. Maybe it is. maybe it isn't. It's a bit too easy to say that autistics don't marry. That they can't have friends. It sounds more than just a bit like a cliché, but "we are just like you". We just work a bit differently.

Coming out Asperger

I think the question of when, if at all, to come out is something everyone 'outside the norm' thinks about from time to time, whether they have done it or not. After discovering I'm autistic last year, the thought of telling others have popped into my head from time to time, but I've previously dismissed it because I haven't had the validation of a professional. Even though I've opted against doing it before, I've prepared myself for the time when it might just happen to be a situation where it will be appropriate and maybe even natural to speak up about the condition.

As every adult with ASCs know, there is a serious lack of books about and research on ASCs in, well, adults. Most of you have most likely already read through the books there is out there, but if you haven't picked it up yet, and wonder how to best disclose, I can recommend Coming Out Asperger. It's a book for the adult reader which deals mostly with how to come out, to friends, partners, co-workers, etc. I'm not trying to say that you should follow the book to a T, but maybe it can provide some support and insight?

My biggest problem to date with disclosing is that I have problems voicing my problems. This has been true for the better part of my life. I've never had a close relationship with my parents. Close is perhaps not the best word - 'personal' is more fitting. It's hard to suddenly have such a relationship with your parents when you're 22. It would be odd to suddenly try to change this relationship, not only because we've never been close in the 22 years I've been on this earth but also because; why should I now disclose this. What is it with Asperger's that warrants a disclosure when more or less nothing else in my life does?

The other relationships where it would be "sensible" for me to disclose is to friends. Speaking freely here, I don't have friends. I've never had. I have acquaintances, but not friends. There are people I talk to when I'm at the university where I study, but I seldom, very seldom, engage socially with them out of the university setting. It's not because I haven't wanted to, but because I seem unable to connect with them on the same level as they connect with each other. The question then is why should I disclose? Maybe because I want a better relationship. I want friends. And friends share, don't they?

So, how should one disclose to potential friends? I already have. Unwillingly, but none the less, I have. One of the girls added me to her FaceBook some months ago when we first started talking, but I guess it was just a month ago she actually looked at my profile and noticed the groups I've joined. If others have done the same, no one's ever said anything. Yet, I've never disclosed using my voice. I prefer to express myself in writing.

The question of why I'm a member of groups for autistics where written on a note in lecture, shuffed through the rows of students and given to me, somewhat discreet.

Hey, why are you a member of so many autism communities on FB?

I froze. I completely froze.

How on earth am I gonna wriggle myself out of this one?!

A hast phone call to my partner during recess gave me some support.

Tell her if you want to. I think you should, but this is your decision.

I didn't tell her. I hurried a note back saying it was "kinda complicated" and that I could tell her later - a few of the girls were going over to her place that night. It didn't come up. Not in itself and I didn't find a suitable time to tell her. I came home and my thoughts of myself was that I was a coward.

The disclosure finally came, in writing, the next day. I wrote a message over FaceBook, and she replied within the hour. It felt nice. Liberating. And once again I'm finding myself in a situation where maybe it would be appropriate to tell. I'm just trying to muster the nerve to do so.