I now know loneliness in both worlds.
Am I getting anywhere?
That was the question that I asked on November 11th, 2001 when
I was still involved in a group therapy program. A lot has changed
in the last 11 days. I've learned a lot more and have come to get
in touch with a lot more of my grief as a result.
I am still very much grappling to accept that I have Asperger's
Syndrome. I mean, I know this, now, yes. But, I still keep sort
of denying it, in a sense, hoping it will somehow go away. Hoping
that if I work hard enough, for long enough, and believe me I
worked damn hard in group therapy, for as long as I could absolutely
stand it, that I would break through this void of not feeling for
others and the void of not being able to emotionally understand
socialization and the pleasures that I'm told others dervive from
it. -- NOPE! And, I get that now. I really do. It hurts inside
as it bounces off all that I don't emotionaly understand. It leaves
me feeling like damaged goods. Though I think I intellectually know
better than to think of myself as damaged goods, it's very difficult
to not when I am now so aware of such an incredible separation
between myself and others. This separation is not due to my
choosing or to anything that I can change. That's somewhat of a
relief but also somewhat of a grief-causing frustration too.
I really never cared to address this before. I really never
had any explanation for this before. Now I do. For better or for
worse, now I do.
Interesting, what the answer to my question, at the end of
Awakening To Loneliness was.
I now know loneliness in both worlds.
Am I getting anywhere?
The answer, as most things in my asperger experience are, has
to be an ambivalent and conflicting yes and no. Yes I am getting
somewhere. No I'm not really getting anywhere.
On Tuesday November 20, 2001, I was asked to leave the group
therapy program. Interestingly enough, I was about at the end of
my rope with it anyway. I would have served myself well to have
been able to recognize and admit this and make the decision to leave
myself, but unfortunately, or fortunately, really, depending on how
I look at that, that was not the case. I now realize too, that I
had gained from it all I really could and that I just couldn't
keep up to that level of agitated stress and utter stimulation
overload any longer. I did my best to share space and time with
others and to try to regulate my presentation in such a way that
would please others and invite them closer to me in terms of
connection. For periods of time I had some success with this.
At first the therapists thought, hey, she can change, this
isn't Asperger's. That was based on their observations and
incorrect interpretation of what they thought this "change"
actually meant. When I explained that while I had made an
intellectual choice to change certain aspects of my presentation
(from feedback and through rote mapping - which I cannot consistently
maintain) and explained that this was done purely intellectually
and that there was no accompanying emotional change then, I think,
they finally started to get it.
It was at this point (for other reasons too) that I was asked
to leave. It was a point at which, it seems to me, a big circle
was starting yet again to evolve. A circle that "shouldn't" happen
if you are "changing" the patterns and emotional experience that
you've always known. No matter how hard I tried this was not to
be the case. In the last two days, since leaving the group, it
has felt so calming to stop banging my head against that wall
of false-hope.
I learned a lot about what others need/want/expect from
me in order to feel more closely connected to me - this is how
I got somewhere. However, I did not learn to feel anything else
emotionally from my side of what the "connections" "should" be
(as I understand it intellectually from what I was told and
re-told") In this sense I didn't get anywhere at all.
I continue to try to understand what I just experienced.
I continue to try to figure out why I can't "get it".
Why each time they felt closer to me I would not feel closer
to them.
While I noticed a difference in the behaviour of others
toward me at one point when I was somehow living up to what
they wanted me to do (act like) or be I never quite understood
what that difference really meant, emotionally. There was
no pleasure in it for me. I only know pleasure in my own world.
Pleasure in nature. Pleasure in other aspects of life. I do
not know pleasure from shared emotional connection to
anyone. It feels scary to admit this because I now know that
it can easily hurt other people's feelings. The feelings that
they have that I don't understand very well. While I might
be different emotionally, wired differently emotionally this
does not mean that I, in any way, want to hurt anyone else.
The question at this juncture is, what now? Where does what
I now know and understand actually leave me?
Next Article: Awakening To Much More Than Loneliness
as of December 24, 2001
