Bite Marks

I bit the hell out of the backs of my fingers yesterday. That's not something I often do, but yesterday set me down the road to some advanced agro stimming.

Normally, I have a good idea of how to balance things in my life so I don't need to. But sometimes...

The last month has had too many things in it and I don't know how to manage.

Yesterday, it was all too much. I had to do something. There were no suitable textures to run my fingers along during my walk from the afternoon traumatic experience (which I'm still having trouble processing) to the normally pleasant evening appointment with my daughter. Part of my problem was anxiety over whether I'd have to interact with my ex-wife. But that was only part. Other parts were things that happened four and twelve years ago. Also, I recently started dating someone and... my social-emotional batteries were just cashed out and I felt horrible.

I felt horrible.

And my dentist told me years ago that I shouldn't clench my teeth because it causes the enamel to flake off.

So I bit the backs of each of my fingers. Hard. Not so hard to draw blood, but hard.

The quietest, most aggressive stim I could do, and it helped, but it wasn't quite enough. 

I think the goal was to turn the elusive, internal, undefinable, unapproachable pain into something external. Something I could see and release. I don't know. It was just the thing to do.

There's so much too much going on. I'm not dealing with it well. I can tell. Bite marks on my fingers. Claw marks on my arms. An hour here or there catatonic and unable to move or speak while my daughter watched movies with my housemates.

It feels the most horrible. I think it's what they call a meltdown. I've had worse, but dammit! How do I make it go away when it starts? How do I make it go away?

Christmas Eve, Germany, 1999

A thousand things in a tight little circle.

Snow falls outside.

What the hell is it?

I'm from the desert.

She tells me it's special and all I can think of is Patton praying for no snow so his troops can kill more Germans.

Isn't it beautiful?

Isn't it horrible?

The way the world turns rotten like that.

Tank treads and forgotten landmines

And a continent on fire.

Look at how sweeping it is.

Look at how the snow fails to cover it up,

Fails to cover it all.

Some words about Kurt Cobain

I've had today marked on my calendar for a while. 20 years ago I had a moment of clarity.

I wasn't much of a Nirvana fan at the time. They were just another part of the fabric of the zeitgeist. I liked their songs, but I was also frightened of them. The darkness and fear and feelings of isolation and misunderstanding that so many of the songs carried with them were too similar to things going on in my inscape over those couple years. I graduated high school, gained and lost a National Merit Scholarship, and ended up hiding at my parents house and going to community college while a well-meaning psychologist tried to help me out with problems that weren't yet clearly categorized in the DSM yet.

I kind of got where Kurt was coming from, and it terrified me. I also had a serious aversion to the kind of self-medication Kurt indulged in. I'd seen it hurt people I loved, my favorite babysitter when I was a kid in particular. So, I had to just coexist with Nirvana, and try to soothe my psyche with old Beatles records. Also, all my disposable income went to comic books, anyway.

But there was something about it all. I tuned into their Mtv Unplugged performance. I followed their troubles with making In Utero safe for K-Mart and Target to sell. I worried about Kurt, especially because of a particular couple song lyrics. I regarded words as the building blocks of the magic that runs the world and when one of the most played bands on the radio records a song called "I Hate Myself and Want to Die," that's some seriously powerful magic. I didn't know what to do with the guy, but his music was everywhere and his music hurt with a kind of pain that I could feel.

And I hurt.

And then 20 years ago Kurt Cobain died for our sins. Or my sins. Or maybe just my insecurities. I know he didn't think of it that way. I'm pretty sure he just felt like his life wasn't his anymore. He was much akin to John the Savage from Brave New World. 

Perhaps, if he were a more patient person, he could have waited things out for a while. Things might have gotten better.

But I don't think he had much wait left in him.

As for myself, I could wait. I cooled it with the suicidal ideation. I stopped thinking it was funny to write "loaded gun" on the grocery list at my parents' house. I covered up the angry, sad words I had Sharpied all over the walls of my bedroom.

Twenty years ago, Kurt Cobain died, and I decided I could try harder at living. So I'm going to take a little time to honor that today.

post script

Since I posted this yesterday, in various formats, I have been getting a lot of feedback from people who were happy about "the choice I made." Which makes me feel a little weird. That wasn't my point. 20 years ago, I was not on the verge of suicide. I was 19 year old undiagnosed aspie, in a world where that wasn't even a diagnosable thing yet, who was going through meltdowns and shutdowns and suffering from severe social anxiety everyday. When Kurt died, I didn't decide not to kill myself; I decided to try harder at living.

Sherlock "The Sign of the Three"

Thoughts on the episode of Sherlock from this past Sunday that I finally got around to watching. First off, brilliant. Made me tear up a bit.

Secondly, this high functioning sociopath lie he keeps telling himself (it only makes sense to me if I believe it's a lie he tells himself to explain why he had trouble with figuring out emotions in real time). An actual sociopath would have a much easier time extemporizing during a best man's speech. Sociopaths, while tending to lack affective empathy (i.e., aren't sympathetically affected when they perceive other people's emotions) they have a stunning grasp of cognitive empathy. They intuitively know how to use the words and body language to emotionally manipulate other people into giving them whatever they want without worrying about how the other person may ultimately be affected. Sociopaths are the greatest salesmen in the world. Con artists are sociopaths. Many CEOs are high functioning sociopaths. People generally do not realize that sociopaths are out to take something from them until they have already lost it. It's only after the injury is discovered that the sociopath is called an asshole.

Sherlock Holmes is called an asshole right away. He has demonstrated time and again that he just does not have the people skills to be a high functioning sociopath. And, while he tends to be self-centered and hyper-focused on facts and details to the point that he does not immediately recognize or understand the emotions of others, when he does, he is profoundly affected. The weight with which the realization that John Watsob considers Sherlock to be his best friend hits him so deeply that he is rendered inarticulate.

Sherlock's internal dialogue with his brother Mycroft (who, arguably actually is a high functioning sociopath), as he is trying to extemporize his best man speech to buy the time to deduce the identity of the Mayfly Man, reveals the amount of logical deductive reasoning power Sherlock has to employ to work up the bare minimum of cognitive empathy to keep a captive audience from throwing their drinks at him.

Also, it seems like if he was a bit quicker on the uptake he could made time with the maid of honor instead of helping her find the most eligible bachelor among the other male wedding guests. But he figured that out a bit late and had no one to dance with. He let his deductive mind get in the way of allowing his affective empathy register until it was too late, but it did register. But that's okay, because Irene Adler is out there... somewhere.

So, to bring this back home, I don't accept the 'high functioning sociopath' label for Sherlock Holmes. He has the wrong kind of empathy deficit. He was truly happy for his best friend on his wedding day. He has affective empathy. The cognitive empathy deficit is more in keeping with someone on the autism spectrum than with a sociopath. But then John Watson already hinted as much in the Hound of Baskerville episode.

http://youtu.be/lIlm5MyZTlM

Garden State

Nine years ago I watched Garden State at a really vulnerable point in my life. It was the first major rough patch with my ex-wife. The first time I was sure we were breaking up. The time I moved into a studio apartment after sleeping out on the back porch for three months.

So I was in my studio apartment and had somehow managed to be in a situation where I was dating someone. It kind of surprised me. But I know I'm smart and I suppose I'm attractive, so, at a thing at a bar with work people she was there with her work people and she let me know in no uncertain terms that I should ask for her phone number.

This is pretty much the only way I can manage dating someone. They have to let me know in no uncertain terms that they would like to date me.

So, we hung out a bunch for about a month. I was honest with her about where I was in life. Mostly I was in a fog. Emotionally I was numb to everything. I didn't know what I wanted, but here was a woman who expressed interest in me and was nice to me. She kept calling back, and I kept hanging around.

We watched a few movies together. One of them was Garden State.

It was a bit strange, as a person named Andrew who was numb about everything and feeling lost, to watch a movie with a main character named Andrew who was numb about everything and feeling lost.

I liked the movie. There was a lot I cpuld relate to. But one part really troubled me. I honestly couldn't figure out why Sam, the love interest, liked Andrew so much.

I just didn't understand it. 

Tonight I watched Garden State again. In the last nine years life has circled back round to a similar place. This time I'm thoroughly divorced. This time I knew that a certain amount of emotional numbness is how I deal with pain and loss.

This time I paid more attention to the other characters in the movie. It suddenly made sense that, in a lot of ways Andrew had more going on than the developmentally arrested members of his peer group.

This time I realized that my real problem wasn't that I couldn't understand why Sam would so quickly fall in love with movie Andrew. My problem was that I couldn't understand why my date was so interested in real Andrew.

There were reasons why that relationship was only a short term thing. The biggest was that my overall emotional numbness was not a place from which I could build anything meaningful. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know if I had anything going for me. Also, my marriage had a bit further to go in its journey. Seven more years, more or less.

Now I'm here. I learned from that earlier stint that I am not the guy who does rebound relationships. And I can watch Garden State and appreciate that Sam sees in Andrew someone who is trying tp get beyond that which has held him back all his life.

It would be pretty neat if there were someone out there like that for me. But I'm not going to rush into anything.

Mute Moments

I used to get upset when I felt like people weren't listening to me. But now I recognize that a lot of these moments are times when I can't speak. The words get stuck. I can't find the point in the flow of a conversation to spit them out. I'm effectively mute. I can't blame other people for not listening.

Part of this is brain wiring. It takes me longer to put the words together, to translate my wordless thoughts into sentences that can be spoken.

Another part is that the attention of my thoughts is often called in directions that others are not expecting. Sometimes this is good and I end up providing much appreciated insight. Sometimes it just makes it harder to be understood.

And when I'm tired, it's harder, just harder to let the words fall out of my mouth.

But self-knowledge and acceptance makes it easier to let go of the anger and to see that my difficulty speaking is not something that someone else is doing to me. It's just part of who I am.

Little bits

I find I've had success with some little bits of life. I managed to get myself more of a real job. I'm making friends, thanks to finding a good housemate situation. I'm no longer living in a creepy residence hotel with shared bathrooms.

Still, I totally want to run away and move in with my parents. But I can't. My parents and all the people in my old life are 1500 miles away from my daughter.

So I'm trying to put together a new life for myself from these little bits.

So far, so good.

Getting divorced was devastating. I didn't fully realize how much the sense of stability from being in a marriage helped me deal with life. But, alas, it was a marriage that was making my ex-wife miserable and that misery was transferring to me. Or was it the other way around?

Either way, it's time to move forward.

What I've learned is that I need other people in my life. I need stability and familiarity.

There's part of me that really wants that kind of a reliable relationship again. I want someone who will look out for me and who I can look out for. Life can be frightening and lonely.

I'm scared though. I know myself. I know I have limitations and can be pretty naïve when it comes to relationships. I have been a jerk and an idiot. I don't want to do that again, but worry that maybe I will.

And I also don't know how to protect myself. I worry. I don't want to fake my way into another relationship that doesn't work. I also know I don't have the stamina and resilience to go through the whole dating thing and shopping for potential partners. I also know that I don't want to be alone.

I have to believe that it's not an impossible problem. I have to give myself the hope that it will all work out. But I think I'll also try to have the patience to take things as slowly as I need to.

Feelings are hard. I don't always know what they mean. Anyone who is good for me for the long term will be someone who can accept and appreciate that's a part of me. Someone who things I'm worth it anyhow.