Thinking Type Things

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Let me start this post off with a bit of a caveat.  This is going to be a post that makes people uncomfortable.  If you want to turn away now, that's ok.  If you want to stay, that's ok too.  And for some they'll likely be wondering if the things I'm writing are directed at them.  And the answer is yes.  And no.  Its not written with anyone specific in mind, but with everyone I've ever encountered in my life.  If you read something and think I'm making comments about you, pointing fingers at you, or whatever, please don't take it personally.  I'm not.  I'm just trying to get thoughts out of my head to help people better understand me.
 
I've had a lot of things on my mind lately.  Good things. Bad things. In between things. Things that make me cringe in horror.  Things that make we want to go screaming into the night never to return.

And that last is where I am at the moment.  I've spent the last few months working my way back from one of the worst bouts of depression I've had in a long, long time.  It was bad enough that I was planning out what would happen after I died.  Not when or how, but that I knew I was ready to end it all and I was figuring out how to take care of the things that needed to be taken care of.  I wasn't just on the edge of the cliff, I was hanging on by two fingers and actively letting myself slip off.  I'm not sure I've ever been there before.  Lots of things led to it, but I was there.

These days I'm working myself slowly back.  Right now most days I just want to run into the woods and not return.  Be the crazy dude that lives in some cave and jabbers at the squirrels and birds in my own language.  And some days I just can't deal. I have to remind myself that there are some people that would track me down in the afterlife, kick my ass, and tell me to come hang out with them for a bit and get me to feeling a bit better.  Zombie life or not.

So I'm a couple feet back from the cliff now. And trying to figure out the next move.  And so I've been thinking a lot.  Who I am.  Who I want to be.  How I communicate.  Who I want to communicate with.  All of it.  Everything.  And it's led me to a few things I want to share about me.

I've talked before about discovering what life is like on the Asperger's Spectrum before and everything that comes from it.  And its a lot to handle.  I mean seriously.  Not just for me, but for people that I interact with online, in person, in passing...wherever.  Its been enlightening and frightening to discover the things that I do that aren't part of the "social norm."  Most of the time its scary as hell, because things I've done all of my life, I had no idea they weren't part of "normal" behaviors.  My brain just never caught onto it.  And I want to change you know?  I don't want to do things or say things that make other people uncomfortable.  And I'm making changes slowly.  Seriously, I'm trying to change what I can.  But its hard you know?

People don't like confrontation and they don't want to be hurtful....so they don't tell me things.  They let things build up to the boiling point and walk away.  Its happened so often I feel like I need to wear a flack jacket all the time to protect myself.  But...I hurt because I don't want that to happen.  I don't like hurting people.  I don't like losing friendships or acquaintances or whatever the heck we are.

But its more than that.  I'm not aware of how I'm coming across when I'm reacting to things.  Am I showing distress?  Am I glaring? Am I acting like I don't care?  I mean seriously what am I doing???  I don't know what it looks like when I'm getting feedback...because that's another aspect of being on the spectrum.  I often think I'm project calm or neutral and its apparently not those things, but I don't know what it is!

And then there's this post.  This is all stuff that I want all of you to know.  Seriously.  I'm not trying to be socially unacceptable or cruel or whatever else it is.  I'm just trying to fit in and I don't know how. Trying to do the things I've seen other people do, trying to do what I think is right, but sometimes it comes off wrong. Or out of place. But I am trying, as best as I can.

So I'm trying.  Trying to learn. Trying to move on. Trying to understand.  Trying to be understood.