Then my father managed to alienate me even further (as if that is possible) I’ve been trying to think of questions I could ask him about my early childhood development in a way that wouldn’t get spontaneous lies from him. He swears my childhood was idyllic and that I was some wonder child. My only problem, according to him, is that I keep insisting something is wrong. DOH!!! Dad!!! I’ve been saying it for as long as I can remember. Maybe, just maybe …… SOMETHING IS WRONG!!!!!!

Anyway. First I asked if I could read early. He said he didn’t know what early means but that my sisters and I all read before school. I am pretty sure that is a lie. I love my sisters but neither one is the brightest crayon in the box. Neither one gives a hoot about learning and they definitely were/are not into reading. Ok….so maybe daddy-o was hung up and made us all learn to read. I know for a fact it didn’t apply to my youngest sister cause both parents were off screwing other people and leading lives that didn’t include my sisters and I. Yeah. I believe we had all that chaos but you took time to teach Kelly to read. uh HUH. NOT to mention we’re talking about the 60′s. This is during the stone age before kids start school when they’re toddlers.

Anyway, since I didn’t get a raft of shit from him about asking questions, I made the mistake of asking more. I asked about speech and any other skills I might have learned early or on my own. Now he swears I was quite the precocious talker. Funny. I was trained to not speak unless spoken to, to NEVER talk back, or express anger or sadness. I was also painfully shy. How the hell can he claim I was quite the talker?!? I don’t know about my early years but I have never liked talking, have always had trouble having conversations that freakin make any difference.

That’s not the worst of it. Of all the skills he could have mentioned I learned, he mentions social skills and that I had good ones. If you know my dad, you know how ludicrous that statement is. He doesn’t even know the term “social skills” and plainly he was confusing social skills with manners. For crying out loud, you can teach a dog manners!. This is especially infuriating because I now suspect someone was talking out of turn. I had asked an old family friend who also happens to be an educational psychologist for help in finding a psychologist to assess me. I am pretty damn sure she must have run right to my father (after ridiculing me for suspecting Asperger’s). He would never use the term “social skills” unless someone fed it to him. He also is a man of few words. His answers to me were pretty darn wordy for him.

I am so tired of being invalidated by that man. It doesn’t matter what it is. He always has to knock me down.

angry

upset

trying not to cry

WOW 25 views already today.
0 comments.
maybe I should give up

12:36 pm

so far, my favorite quote from “Pretending to be Normal” -

“like … wearing stilts on an icy pavement.”

I feel this way so often. It is a perfect description of how I experience life on a regular basis. Often the ice feels even more precarious, as if it is not on pavement but bobbing on rough waters.

1. There are no diagnostic tools with which to assess adults.
2. There are very few professionals who are familiar with how ASD presents in adults, especially those who have had to learn their own coping skills or how to “pass” for NT.
3. ASD in adult females is even better disguised and seems to come with its own set of criteria.
4. The cost is prohibitive. (I was quoted a fee of $950.)
5. Even if a person manages to find a “qualified’ professional and has the available funds, there is still the risk of a false-negative diagnosis or a mis-diagnosis. I know for me, that would be pretty devastating.
6. Criteria in the DSM and in child diagnostic tools is comprised of data collected from child studies – Asperger’s is based on male child studies.

Not too long ago, I considered devoting part of my blog to a cooperative list of female traits. Almost immediately I ran across a site by Rudy Simone. She has compiled a wonderful list of Asperger traits and an additional one of traits exhibited by females. It was then unnecessary for me to duplicate the effort.

In light of the difficulties faced by adults considering diagnosis, I wonder if it would be feasible for us to develop our own criteria list, to actually collect data and figure out what symptoms are universal, which ones are common and even those that are evident in enough people to include in criteria. In other words, let us develop our own “tool” for diagnosing adults. I don’t know about you but when I compare myself to all the other adults blogging on the web, I am surely on the spectrum. If I look in the DSM, getting a professional diagnosis seems impossible.

So, maybe it is time we put our heads (and efforts) together to create a cohesive picture of adult ASD (both formally diagnosed and self-diagnosed). If enough of us get involved, the powers that be may be forced to pay attention and stop making formal diagnosis so prohibitive.

Do you have suggestions on how this could be accomplished?

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• although the symptoms from an augmentin allergic reaction have subsided a great deal, they are still haunting me. I am pretty tired of not feeling well
• my back hurts like hell
• my computer threatens to completely die at any moment and I haven’t the money to get a new one …. well, I have it but it means that I might run out of money before any more comes in
• I am feeling very alone. I live with a man I love with all my heart but he can be very self-centered, especially when I am in need. It seems that the more I need him to be here for me, the less he is. I’ve also come to the point where I can’t brush off the fact that he is not honest with me. Trust is precariously low. I have no one to talk to unless, of course, it is about fishing or motorcycles or food. No one believes that I have no friends but it is true. It is rather ironic that I have over 200 connections on my Facebook friend list.

This is not “poor me”. This is my reality. It is truth. No one ever wants to hear about these things and I always get accused of being negative. So, mostly I keep it to myself which only serves to reinforce the wall between me and the world. That’s how people want it to be. It is sad on a grand scale and overwhelmingly despairing for me. Sometimes I can’t hide it, though, and this is one of those times.

<sigh>

Today is rainy but it is very warm and for that I am grateful. Being cold is almost painful and it is debilitating. Another one of those things no one believes or cares about.

I am so weary of being invalidated.

9:54 pm I started reading Liane Willey’s book, “Pretending to Be Normal”. So far, there have been several OMG yeah! passages but mostly it has been about her school years which I can’t relate to. Hers seem so good. Mine were so sucky, especially high school. I also can’t relate to her amazing memory from childhood. I remember next to nothing about how I was as a child.
On a good note, at the library I reserved Craig Ferguson’s book, “American on Purpose”.

I’ve also been neglecting my blog. There’s still lots of material I want to add and I know I’ve been negligent about writing more original material. I’ve even been bad about commenting on entries referring to OPB (other people’s blogs) I just haven’t been triggered to write and good little Aspie that I am, I lack creativity without getting triggered. I will try to be better about it. (before you go off on me about creativity and Aspies, I personally can’t muster up creativity. I need a muse, a reason, a cookie or even an idiotic xtian will do. I need a mental tickle to get the words out)

My puter is dying in bits and pieces. Yesterday it wouldn’t turn on at all and I have to admit I freaked out internally. Externally, I did really well. Today the “S” key decided to fall off. I knew I had to get a new computer soon (it is completely out of disk space) but I really need this one to last another month. I just really shouldn’t  spend the money on one before that. It’s a priority though. My computer is my sedative, my entertainment, my sanity and also a tool. Other than work, it is my only link with the outside world. I don’t even use my phone anymore other than a few txt messages here and there. Really, when you think about it, txting isn’t really using a phone. It is just a tiny computer.

So. Yeah. I am beat. An 11 hour day today and I am nearly out of coffee, which means one more trip out into the world before I can call it a day.

This takes me back to middle school where the ways I was different became obvious. I knew I was different before that and for all I know, so did other kids. I think it became a problem because that was when girls started being obsessed over hair and make-up and clothing and who had what. I was an immediate social misfit. The irony of it is that I didn’t change my basic nature or behavior, they did (changed theirs). This leads me to conclude that a huge part of the problem is perspective and values. It isn’t that people can’t/won’t accept diversity, it is that they value shallow things. I imagine most people feel like they aren’t fashionable or beautiful or thin enough but also that they fall short of the mark socially and financially. Everyone is trying to obtain an illusion – trying to be more like someone else and that someone else is trying to be like yet another person. Who the heck sets the standards that everyone falls short of? It sets everyone up for failure to some degree and if you don’t understand the whole “game”, you are bound to be cast aside. There is no room in the “system” for evidence that the game is flawed and so certain people are bound to be rejected.

The elephant in the room is exposed. Seems to me it is much more neurotic to stay in the room and convince yourself that because no one else is pointing it out, the thing to do is to pretend you don’t see it.

read entire thread at Autism and Cultural Expectations

The Book of Genesis and the Creation Story

Etymologists have shown that the story of the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis is the story of Sumer. Cities mentioned such as Ur, Larsa and Haram were actually in the land of Sumer. The creation story in the Book of Genesis has striking similarities to a Babylonian account of the creation known as Enuma Elish meaning when on high. It was written a thousand years before the Book of Genesis was written.

read entire article The Origins of the Creation Story: Can The Book of Genesis be Traced Back To Sumer? | Suite101.com.

The Role of Myths in Human History

Ancient myths were created and then passed from generation to generation because humans were searching for ways to explain the unexplainable: natural disasters, diseases, death, and mysterious phenomena, for example, eclipses of the sun or moon, shooting stars, rainbows, aurora borealis, St. Elmo’s Fire, etc. In addition, myths like their close relatives fairytales, originated in folklore; and as a result, both myths and fairytales not only helped explain the unexplainable, they also often taught lessons in how to live.

read entire article - Ancient Mythology and Views of Creationism: Stories of How the Earth and Mankind Were Created | Suite101.com.

“While it is well known that the Romans worshipped many gods, there was, in fact, an official state god. This god was named Sol Invictus (the unconquered sun) and was created by the emperor Aurelian in 274 AD and continued, overshadowing other cults in importance, until the abolition of paganism under Theodosius I (on February 27, 390). The Romans held a festival on December 25 of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, “the birthday of the unconquered sun.” December 25 was the date after the winter solstice, with the first detectable lengthening of daylight hours. There was also a festival on December 19. Though many Oriental cults were practiced informally among the Roman legions from the mid-second century, only that of Sol Invictus was officially accepted and prescribed for the army. Emperors up to Constantine I portrayed Sol Invictus on their official coinage and Constantine decreed (March 7, 321) dies Solis — day of the sun, “Sunday” — as the Roman day of rest.”

via Top 10 Fascinating Facts About The Romans – Listverse.

I am waiting to hear from him to see what his plans are for the day.

Maybe I will meet him for lunch or something. blah.

I suck as a mom of older kids. I was much better when they were little.

It doesn’t help that boys shove mom away really hard.

It is difficult to be effective when you’re on your butt.

This pic is about a year old.

Now he looks a bit older and very tattooed.

Still feeling the effects of the augmentin allergy. Another bad itching spell yesterday and now the stomach symptoms have relocated to my intestines. Lovely. On a good note, the symptoms are subsiding for much longer intervals than a week ago. Seriously, if antibiotics make you feel ill, STOP TAKING THEM!! Don’t let the docs convince you it is normal. I tried telling them for years how bad I felt when taking augmentin. They brushed it off and said of course – augmentin is rough on the stomach. When I said it wasn’t just the stomach distress but that the drug made me feel sicker in general, they acted like I was nuts. Sure enough, I googled “augmentin allergy” and one of the signs of an allergic reaction was feeling ill beyond the scope of the illness being treated. Bastards. I really dislike doctors probably only second to my ex and a particular pastor with the initals FGR. (they are tied for 1st place and are equally toxic) So, I have been poisoning myself for years when taking augmentin. My body finally said “I told you so”. Funny thing – I also did not pay attention to the emotional poison of said disliked people. You’d think after 50 years of being on this planet I would learn to listen to my body before I listen to ego-driven abusive men.

A blah Saturday. We are in for days of constant rain. I am cold. Bob is reluctant to turn the heat on. I can’t function when I am cold.

oh yeah – the count is up on blog visits but absolutely no comments are coming in. The fact that I inspire no one doesn’t come as a big surprise. Still, it would be nice to get some interaction