Silver Bells and Holiday Memories

Hi kids, still lurking on this blog?

Well I am still kicking, I have just been enjoying my break. However I am sure you all want to know how my holiday is going and what I have been up to (not really I am sure), so here is a short essay on holidays memories and recalling details.



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Routine has been the soft fluffy blanket in my life (like the one on my lap) and one that I have hard time getting rid off (kinda like Linus with his). I like structure, simple patterns and things I can remember and organize easily. This is probably why I love the holidays. For some autists, it's chaotic and noise and bundle of sensory issues. But for me, it's a routine I can rely and remember and recall.

except for this year.

This year, is the first where I wasn't with my mom or my dad. I didn't thunder downstairs (or upstairs) to open presents. There was no holiday get together, no collective of relatives to play Taboo with. I was with Josh and his family and for some reason, I started crying on Christmas Eve about it. I was homesick, which is unheard of for me. I never get homesick and I like adventures and trying new things (occasionally when my anxiety doesn't blindside me)and this was planned back in November so this wasn't a "Sudden Change", but simply something that just occurred to me.

This is not my holiday routine.

Just for the record, I did have a marvelous Christmas with Josh's folks who treated me like I was their son, gave me wonderful presents and had a superb holiday dinner. Just to abate any fears that Christmas was terrible (because it wasn't). I will also get gifts and (give my own) to my family later after New Years. So it wasn't like I wasn't going to spend a mini-Xmas with my mom and step-dad.

Still the routine wasn't like last year, or the year before and these holiday memories didn't match or echo to ones before. The thing I like about Yule and the other winter holidays. Is the fact I can recall past experiences and go "oh yeah this is what is going to happen next", I have a library of memories than I can actually go back to to predict the next events in Winter Break, Christmas and New Years. For instance, here is what happened years back and what usually happens every year.

-I go see my mom
-I get gifts
-There is dinner at her place or at Aunt Lynn's
-Coffee and desert followed by family games.
-Go home with loot

This year was:
-Go Josh's apartment
-Hang out with him all break
-Go to his parents
-get gifts
-watch movie
-eat food
-go home

What really threw me off was the fact there wasn't a huge party of family. I wasn't playing Taboo or Apples to Apples and watching my family laugh recall memories and enjoy the peace of being with a clan.

I think that is what the crux of the essay is. I miss being with something so routine and familiar and comforting. my family both the Hannah (my mom's family) and Kramer (dad's family) I miss being with the sea of faces noise and happiness of the chaos that comes with it. It's only time when I feel happy being overloaded with noise, smell and people. For the rest of the year I am pretty much with just dad and myself. Routine and the daily grind doesn't have the right kind of overload (just the wrong) and I am stuck in a system of being underwhelmed and bored.

However while I love Josh and his family and I feel so blessed to be included. There is something to be said about missing and longing the faces you know and remember.

For an autist, family is the only thing we have (for some at least, not all) that is unyielding and unchanging. It's the only comfort we have that we can trust and while my dad has his moments when I want to scream, and my mom has her's when I want to sigh. I love them and I feel like something is missing when I can't spend the holidays with my mom.

Unspoken

Language is so incredibly complex. It's a true testament to the highly social society that humanity is. Yet we tend to be so narrow-sided when it comes to language and what constitutes as such. We put things in boxes, and over analyze and structure things that don't have a structure.

This is a continuation of old essay called "speaking in Drakk", of course this is playing off the same metaphor of speaking in a complex language that is hard to understand like the fantastic language of drakk. Not all things are spoken, not all things are easily perceived. Not all things are clearly read. Which is why I am writing this, like drakk, the expression of love is not always obvious. Humans don't read gentle grinding of horns or foreheads like a kiss. Nor do they understand why drakkhani would rub their tails against another, or why eye contact is an intimate act. This is flies over their heads, but for a drakkhani it's obvious what those gestures mean. For autists, it's also obvious what certain gestures mean.

Each autists expresses love in unique fashions. Individual to the person expression affection. Some will say "I love you" others will show it and like in drakk, sometimes it's hard to understand it.

I use affection in the same way a dog might roll over on it's back. It's not out of love sometimes it's out of fear. I am afraid of being abandoned or yelled at, so I shower my dad with kisses or hugs and "I love yous" it's not out of tenderness but submission. I just want to make sure, dad isn't mad at me. It's childish, but it's an act that I can't shake. With my boyfriend, I grind my head against his, I squeeze his hand. I growl softly. Most of my more genuine acts are unusual from the traditional displays of affection. Yes I kiss, but french kissing isn't a favorite of mine, I like rubbing against him and being tickled. Those to me are the most intimate of acts next to making love. I also know when he says I love you, when leans on me. When he kisses the top of my head. It gets to the point when he kisses my cheek I say. "I love you too."

I just know and autistic kids know to and despite not showing it in the typical fashion. They do show genuine love. Like drakk, it's hard to read the first time around.

Speaking in Drakk part duex

I know I know it's been a month since I've updated, I can expla-no never mind. I can't. I was actually to lazy to update. That. And I have boyfriend now. So I have been madly in love and oblivious to autism politics. I might also co-mod AFF (cue screaming) to help out Richard who is one of the admins.

Dear God. Save me now.


Speaking of praying to supposed deities. This brings up my topic today. I am planning to come out to my mom (again...cue more screaming), this is not going to be easy at all and honestly it's probably going to be the most stressful conversatiohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifns I am going to have with my mom (this makes telling my mom I am going to live with Patrick seem like a cakehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif-walk now). Because of this stress I will fall into the violent spiral of Communication Hell, and I won't make DAMN sense on what I am trying to explain to my mom.

This seems to happen a lot to aspies and auties and really...it's the unmasking of passing NT. Get us upset or flustered, language skills go POOF. It is apparent when I start getting into a discussion with someone that I either loose speech or my speech become convoluted. It's hard to have a conversation when I am upset because most NTs struggle to understand what I am saying and they get frustrated and then...everyone is angry.

It's like one of my drakkhani speaking their language to a human that knows it, but is still learning it. When upset the conversation ends up like this:

I could tell Taajah is frustrated, his head is lowered and his face is grim. I tried to ask him in English what's wrong, instead I got a response in Drakk. He flicked his tail and wiggled his ears, the barks and sharp word-clicks made the sentence hard to understand, I replied with a note of confusion in Drakk, I got a more growly response, changing the sentence again. At this point I just backed off. I can't understand Taahaj when he is angry.

Words become harder to understand when I am upset. Langauge almost changes. I have to find a way to keep myself from being upset...or have my sister play translator.

A Surreal walk down memory lane

For those that don't know. I am being re-evaluated for my Aspergers diagnosis. I am trying to get actual testing done so I can get services from Franklin County DD. Which has been a bureaucratic nightmare. During the several test and the hundreds of dollars that we shelled out (Which I felt guilty for my mom paying for all of this), we did the ADIAR test which was basically an interview about my childhood to see if I failed any developmental markers that would label me as an autist.

Dec 1 was the first half of the test. It was pretty surreal to hear that I was developmentally late physically and that I lack I think pragmatic speech (I was verbal but never used it to interact socially and to have conversations) I never had interactive play as a child and no eye contact. Today we finished the test and the entire evaluation. I felt a sense of pain for my mom today. As she recalled parts of my childhood that were well...heartbreaking. She always wanted eye contact from me but never got it. I never kept friends, and I withdrew a lot as a child. From the interview, it honestly sounds like I missed a lot of social markers. While I did communicate it was basically needs "Momma I want this, Momma get me this." or feelings but really not to anyone juts myself "I'm tired, I'm sad" and so forth. I recalled rituals of sitting in a particular spot at dinner religiously watching a particular program at a certain time. I stimmed a lot as a child and all the way to adult hood. I formed attachments with objects than people (Esse the frog and Sebastian the cat). It seem like I hit most of the symptoms.

Hopefully this evaluation and the others will make it apparent that I do have an ASD and confirm what I know is true.

Whirlwinds

It's the early half of morning as I sit on a Aero-bed and drink coffee. A lot of things happened which allowed me to reside with Katie my younger sister. 

First, was yesterday when Husband-That-Shalt-Not-Be-Named lost his job. You can assume some of the dialogue and make estimations on how mad I was. I was mad because he lost job yes but most how it echoed the fact I am working my ass off not to get fired and hell according to his performance reviews he was slacking off and making mistakes. 

WELL HELLO KARMA!

So now I am with my sister after she suggest I stay with her to make things more comfortable. I agreed. Now the change of moving to my dad's is linked with the change of moving with my sister for the rest of February. I am quite overwhelmed.