Christine, Wondering

Random Musings of a Human Becoming

Thursday, June 7, 2007

I forgot . . .

. . . the exam went well, too. Lol.

I'm finding myself in a very peaceful mood at the moment, almost serene. It's pleasant, if a little mysterious! I've been puzzling out some of the reasons, and here are some of the things I've discovered.

1: Every day I'm getting a little closer to being completely at peace with Aspergers. It's been 9 months since it finally hit me that I wasn't the only neurotypical in my family, but was actually a marginally better-adjusted Aspie. Since then I’ve gone through periods of rebellion and self-suppression (when I was determined that Aspergers wouldn’t stop me from learning to be completely normal) but finally I’m starting to realise that what I really need to do is to be ME, Aspergers and all. Yes I’m a bit quirky and weird, yes I value accuracy out of all proportion, yes there are parts of me that may never grow up. But that’s who I am, and it’s really nothing shameful. I can be myself, be happy, and function in the world all at once.

2: For the first time since I was fifteen, I’m not clucky (that’s a family word meaning “longing for a baby”). I don’t cry at adverts with kids in them! I’m also not feeling particularly lonely or lovelorn, which is unusual for me when I’m single. I don’t know why I’m feeling this way, but I think the drop in cluckiness is partly due to Jemima. Not that she takes the place of a baby, but having to account for her in everything has made me realise that there are so many things I want to do in my life, and they’re all extremely hard do with a kitten to account for – and she lets me leave her at home alone all day! I may be ready for babies in other ways, but I’ve realised that I can also enjoy my freedom while I’ve still got it. There’s a lot to life that can’t happen if you’re locked down into white-picket-fence mode.

I’ve also identified the fact that the one common thing in all the bad relationships I’ve had has been that the guys have been obsessed with the power relationship between us. ‘B’ and ‘N’ wanted me to be powerful and wonderful, and put me on a pedestal; and ‘C’ and ‘D’ wanted to be powerful and played mind games to keep me off-balance and weak (‘C’ far, far worse than ‘D’, of course). The best relationship I’ve had, that with ‘E’, had no power balance issues, but fell down due to his religious problems with his mother (Jewish mama’s boy . . .). So somehow I’m attracting guys or being attracted to guys who prefer relationships with uneven power balances. I don’t want that, so I need to look out for it in the future.

3: I’ve come to better understand depression, and I’ve realised that I have two types. The first, which I’m calling ‘situational’, is when I get swamped by unhappiness due to things that are happening now or which happened in the past. That sort is easily treatable with counselling, to work through the issues and put them behind me. The second sort, however, doesn’t have anything to do with situations, although it feeds on them. It’s the real, clinical depression, that deep-seated sad soreness that never quite goes away, and can flare up at any time. Understanding this makes it easier to deal with – I no longer beat myself up for feeling awful over nothing. I’m allowed! I can also look for signs of the real depression and deal with it before it finds a situation to feed on, which helps.

4: I’ve also been through a bit of a watershed recently, in that I’ve realised that some of my ‘fringe friends’ (ie the friends that are part of the same group I’m a part of, but aren’t my direct friends) aren’t really nice people at all, and I’ve given up all intention of seeing them. Finding out that I had unpleasant ‘friends’ has freed me up to make some nice, real friends! Funny, how one can forget that friends don’t have to be narky and argumentative and critical . . . lol. I’m really enjoying the friendships I’ve started at uni.

So overall I feel calm and pleasant and capable. It’s good!

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