Be thankful

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I am watching the threads where people are laughing and/or complaining and/or worrying about all the things they are going to do with their families - people who are married and/or have children, or have parents and/or siblings and/or friends. How did you do it? How did you do it? Why can't I do that? Why do I want it?

No friend will call me to wish me happy holidays, except the ones who call themselves so because it benefits them.

When I go to see my family they will (except for my mother) belatedly remember that I exist, and ask me generic questions about how I am doing. They walk away before I answer.
I am used to being invisible.

I will struggle through dinner with my family for my mother's sake. Even though I can't feel it and have trouble acknowledging it, I know she loves me.

I am more comfortable alone but during the holidays I feel I should not be comfortable by myself. I speculate that I would enjoy having a partner or wife but the older I get the more I think I am getting set in my ways and would have trouble adjusting.

I watch TV specials where the family comes together with warmth and love and think that I am missing something. But I don't even know what to want. It is hard for me to be touched, hard for me to make the small talk that seems the glue of social interaction and still, easier to be alone.

If you enjoy your family, be thankful
If you are married and have that kind of family, be thankful
If you have friends who call to wish you well, be thankful

Behind the mask of wry jokes and pad posting, some of us are alone and confused. How do I feel that? How do I do that? Is it good? What am I missing? Sometimes I am close to understanding it and then it slips away, I forget that it is good and that I want it.

Getting the diagnosis helped a lot. It made me feel less like the only alien on the face of the planet. Finding this site helped a lot. It is rare that I say something here and wonder if I am speaking the same English as everyone else. IRL, almost daily.

I know it's not thanksgiving; nonetheless I am thankful for my computer and for WrongPlanet, and for my family, such as they are.

I too am thankful for my computer, WP, and finding out about AS.
I could barely stand to be around myself before finding out about AS.
Now I have something to explain me which is pricesless.

It's also allowed me to realize I do have a few real freinds who care.
I don't really connect but they do want me round from time to time.
I help them and they help me.
I'm just glad to be there.

Merry Christmas from one member of your surrogate online family, such as it is.

I'm at my parents' house for the holidays, the place I'd been desperate to get out of and thought I never wanted to go back. I haven't decided whether it's worth it to be here, to get the benefits of being part of a family Christmas. But I'm glad I at least have the choice.

Too bad you can't take breaks from your family and come chat on WP, Neuroman. If it were possible, I'd go off and hide with the computer.

Merry Christmas, Neuroman.

I hear you loud and clear on your post. I am fortunate that I only live 20 minutes from my parents, meaning I can have dinner and leave. It is a confusing time. During the holidays I get more lonely, watching all the activity.

On one hand I find myself wanting the same thing.

On the other, I know what happens when I try.

At home I'd rather be invisible, my mother takes the opposite route and pays too much attention. She's concerned, I know, and cares, but unfortunately it's just irritating. "I KNOW how to run the dishwasher, thanks, you've been telling me every time I do it for years" is a response that luckily doesn't get said.

I'm working on things with my parents. That, quite frankly, I could use some advice on, in another thread, which I may go start in a moment.

This year was the first time I took a major step, for me. For thanksgiving, we were to go to a small gathering at a neighbors. I've been there before, and it's ok, just... boring and stressful. Dinner with strangers, yay. So I got to my folks, and as we were leaving to go to the Thanksgiving dinner, I decided I didn't want to go.

I'd been thinking it the whole time, but suddenly chose to do exactly what I wanted in a holiday situation. I went home and felt pretty darn happy about it.
Removal of stress.

Back to the beginning:

Merry Christmas, Neuroman, you are not alone, not here.

*edited for spelling.

Last edited by hermit on 25 Dec 2005, 1:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

Now that my immediate family knows more about my autism, things are starting to improve among us. My mom has tried to give me advice on interpersonal relations that actually seems relevant and sensible for once. I'm very thankful for this!

But yes suffering through family gatherings is usually very painful for me. I highly doubt things will ever be quite right with my extended family. I felt guilty about leaving as early as I did at the last large gathering of the extended family, but I wasn't exactly the first one to leave, and what was really the point of my staying any longer anyway? I'd just have been sitting silently on the couch or in the corner, while they instinctively formed their mingling groups and/or wondered what to do with me. Better to save myself and them the anxiety, isn't it? Not that I don't think they are all more or less decent people and I wish them all the best of course...

I'm thankful that Wrong Planet exists. If I didn't find this Site, I'd probably be talking to a Shrink, right now. Sometimes Shrinks aren't the best people to have to turn to. I'm also thankful that I can sneak downstairs and Log in whenever I need to. I'm thankful that I can come to a place where I can obsess about my Fixations, without having the Flashbacks of the times that I've been scolded, during my Childhood. I'm thankful that I'm not the only one here who has Fixations. I'm thankful that I hardly feel suicidal anymore, since I was diagnosed with Depression, back in 1998 and put on the right Medications. I'm thankful that I'm not "Mentally Challenged", meaning having a low IQ.

what a great idea - i'll be checking for hotspots with my pocket pc. and i will check; i thought there was a way to do it through the cell phone.

thanks for all the support.

the most important part is to have people who understand exactly. you have no idea how valuable it is, to know that someone understands and that I am not speaking a different language.

NTs give a blank stare when I explain as I did above. How could you not want human contact? And if you don't want it why do you think you miss it?

Even therapists don't understand this. They think it is evidence that I am impaired by some sort of trauma that only they can help. Somewhere down deep inside, you are not ambivalent. Somewhere down deep inside, you want human contact. You just can't feel it. And I can help with that. All you have to do is make the effort to connect with me. And if you don't, well then, you're borderline.

Even though I am the second psychologist in my family, they don't understand things like this. They think that with enough human contact, I will get better. At least they have learned not to touch me.

Seriously, thanks for the support. I envy those of you who have these things and the capacity to enjoy them.

I forgot to mention my favorite part of holiday meals:

Jack, have some bread pudding.

I have celiac disease. I can't eat wheat, oats, rye, barley or malt.

Oh, sorry. why don't you try the pasta salad?
Pasta is made from wheat flour. I have celiac disease. I can't eat wheat, oats, rye, barley or malt.

O.K., how about the meatballs. They're not made with flour. They're made with breadcrumbs (I kid you not).
I have celiac disease. I can't eat wheat, oats, rye, barley or malt. Bread is made from flour.

O.K., I guess you can have the turkey and some salad.
The turkey was made with bread stuffing and the salad has croutons.
Well, just pick out the croutons.

Since my cousin has the meal catered, I have no way of knowing what is safe. I have been doing this for four years now. Probably I will have some ham, hope there is salad without croutons, and have something to drink. Unless there is a hotspot, I will spend the rest of the time "sleeping" in a corner somewhere.

I am very thankful.
And the more i learn, the more i realize how lucky i am.

What i am not thankful for is that so many good people, those of you i feel i have come to know, have not been as lucky as i.
it seems to me, all i know about human beings, and all i know about the many of you, human beings, it seems like everything is backwards. All of you should not lack, should not want, nor need. All of you should be the ones who have it all. You are the ones most deserving of all that the holidays are supposed to represent. All of you, moreso, than even me.
Reading this has made me question some things that i have taken for granted. One of which is egoism. At this moment i feel that i do not deserve. I would like to give it to you, someone who would appreciate, and not take for granted, what is just my circumstantial fortune.

Thank you all for this gift, you have opened my eyes.



i want to communicate one final thought. I do not pity you. I respect your lives and the circumstance that have led you to this place. And i admire your will to continue, to search, to be.
You all are from a very special mold. How things are is just as it should be. Many of the other human beings would not have the strength to become the great human beings that you are. I pity the others, for not getting to know you, and what you could offer. I pity them for their narrowness of mind. i pity them for being weak. I respect your strength.


Have the happiest of seasons,
SB²

I am thankful that my car broke down - loose belt and something fell out of the bottom! Now I don't have to go to the relatives dinner.
I am thinking that they will feel bad and that I should feel guilty. But I can't understand why they would feel bad. This, I guess is an insidious part of autism. Since I can't imagine how they would feel, I don't believe they would feel it. This has interfered with my believing that anyone in my life has loved me. Why would they? I don't understand why they don't just forget about me the way I forget about them.
It makes me wonder complicated things about how invisible I feel. Perhaps this is my own invention. Because I do not see other people, I cannot imagine them being able to see me. It is why I can't imagine people being mean or evil, or lying. Why would they? I don't. This, in a way, is empathy. But since it doesn't look like everyone else's empathy, it falls short of what they expect. Unusual empathy. How about that instead of lack of empathy? Empathy is projecting your own experience onto others and developing expectations based on that. Disappointment is when your expectations are not reflected in reality.
So I feel invisible because I cannot imagine that other people can see me (because I can't see them) and perhaps I create a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts. I stand out because I am in brown wrapping, but perhaps in the emotional/relational realm I am invisible because I am living out that self-fulfilling prophecy. And then everything I do fulfills it, even if I think it is a strategy to be noticed, because I still believe I am invisible. Romantic love becomes important as a strategy for validating my invisibility - if someone can see me it is because they are special, and my invisibility as a trait (vs a state) remains unchanged.
How do I become visible? Hm. A question to pursue in the other thread....