Soothing Lounge Music

This is just what I needed to hear today. Nicola Conte's new album Rituals has a gorgeous track on it called Black is the Graceful Veil which you can listen to for free on Spotify. Alive with rhythm yet silky smooth female vocals with a vibrant percussion line.

Totally yummy. Just what I needed to hear today. :-) Perked me right up. Go listen and enjoy!

Day of Hell

Last Friday was truly awful. I've been having sleep issues, which is unusual for me. Normally I can sleep through a hurricane but I've been getting to bed late, trouble getting to sleep then up later in the morning. Tired all through the day. Not good.

Something that's been worrying me is wondering not only if I'm good enough for my lovely man, but whether I'm bad for him. :'( One of the many things that the discovery of my Aspergers has made clear is how in recent years he has been trying to form a deeper emotional rapport with me. My responses have puzzled and confused him randomly switching from an apparently good rapport when I've been well rested and my coping mechanisms are working well, to being indifferent or neutral when I don't pick up his non-verbal cues or I'm not paying very close attention. Understanding what I lack in natural automatic emotional responses that are so important to NTs in intimate relationships, I quickly calculated that even though I love The Husband to bits and he says he loves me, continuing our relationship might actually be bad for him in that I will always be this way. There is no cure, nor would I want to be cured of being myself.

It has been a tremendous shock to come to terms with understanding what Autism is and how it applies to me but I am more at peace with myself and who I am than I have ever been. I am content that in many ways I am weaker at certain tasks such as social functioning than 99% of the population, but I am much stronger in other ways. These are integrated facets of my personality that make me quirky but I am who I am. Which was not to say that I just being me might cause my lovely man some pain. Realising this made me very sad and I wondered if the difficulty might outweigh the gains from our relationship for him. As they say, when you love someone, set them free. It seemed completely logical that I might have to leave him so that he could be with someone who would make him happier than I ever can and I would do that for him. (Still brings a tear to my eye to write this.) Perhaps you might think this strange that I might be considering the logic of my relationship to the man I care so deeply about, gentle reader, but that is how I am. My brain works differently to most of yours. The logical calculating part of mine works very well while the emotion sensing and ability to get the gist of situations part is very weak. It seems completely natural for me to calculate clinically the merits each situation with the emotional and social content carrying proportionately a very small weight in my calculations when compared to who you might evaluate the same situation. That's because you're using a different part of your brain to do the same task. Different machinery - different result.

Apparently I'm not the only aspie to think this way and it took The Husband a fair few days to be able to talk about his feelings on the subject and to convince me that despite any difficulties, he loves me very, very deeply and would never leave me for just being myself. He admits that looking back on years of trying to mesh his emotional rhythms with me with confusing and inconsistent results has been disappointing and sad but the knowledge of how different we are is a new beginning for us both. We now look on each situation with much greater understanding of each other's point of view and we are growing closer together like we never dreamed possible.

We love each other and each day makes us stronger. There's still a long hill to climb but we're resolved to climb it together, hand in hand with love in our hearts.

Full Service from Ocado

We buy our non-food grocery items from Ocado. The products are good quality, cheaper than Tesco and the delivery people are much friendlier. We enjoy buying fresh food items from a local market where the quality is much higher than you can find in supermarkets or the high street and it's nice to know we're supporting the little guy - direct support for the maker of the goods without any big transport companies and other middle men in the way.

I accepted a delivery recently, at about 7pm the one evening after I got home from work. The Husband placed the order online so Ocado have his contact details for the delivery. He reminded me several times to be home for 7pm for the delivery and everything was going to plan. I'd changed my work clothes for a T-shirt and jeans and was relaxing on my own in the apartment waiting for the delivery, getting ready to prepare supper when the TH returned from his errand when the doorbell rang. I greet a friendly young guy in a green Ocado vest at the door and help him bring our groceries in. When we'd put all the bags in the kitchen I helped him take the crates to the door. He suddenly broke out in a huge smile as he asked me to sign for the delivery. I noticed the huge change in facial expression and a kind of bright shining energy beaming our of his chest but thought nothing of it other than that he's friendly and appreciated me helping to unload the groceries. I sign, he departed an I went back inside to pack them away.

Half and hour later, TH gets home as I'm finishing the supper preparations. I greeted him affectionately with a hug, kiss and a cuddle, as we do, then start chatting about our day when his telephone receives a text message. It's not a telephone number he knows and the message simply said: "Your wife is a very lucky person." We look at each other in confusion and guess that it's a misdirected message. He responds and the conversation with the Mystery Caller (MC) goes something like this:

TH: I don't have a wife. Did you mean to send me that message?

MC: Are you gay?

TH: Yes. Who is this?

MC: You're a very sexy guy.

TH: Thank you but how do you know me?

MC: I probably shouldn't tell you this. I'm the Ocado delivery guy from this evening.

...

After a few more text messages it turns out the delivery guy thought he was texting me using the delivery contact details from the Ocado order! Kind of sweet and very surprising that a cheeky young guy would risk his job to chat up a customer. TH manages to get a gaydar profile name from him so that he can have a look (he wasn't present during the delivery and I thought the delivery guy was forgettable). Ocado delivery guys really are much friendlier. The company clearly tries to deliver a full service.

Note to self: that's what people look like when they're attracted to you.

New Rule: It's Because of Feelings

I've been introspecting a lot over the past 6 months. This has been a time of tremendous growth for both me and The Husband. The process involves a combination of me observing my thoughts and behaviours, comparing those observations with situations describes in some of the good aspie books that we have then talking over my observations with The Husband. It surprises me still how much I don't understand in the flow conversation with NTs and it surprises the hell out of TH how good I am at pretending to be normal and covering up my ignorance and confusion.

My latest breakthrough in understanding my world is a new rule: when confusion strikes in conversation, it's because the other person is having feelings. I doubt this will surprise NTs since, from what many people have said to me, it's quite normal for NTs to be cognisant of the emotional state of others. Sometimes their accuracy in telling other's emotions is better than at other times but in my case, it almost never occurs to me that other people have emotions or that I might be able to discern them and that their emotions affect our interaction.

NTs have a much broader and deeper range of emotional responses that occur more frequently than I experience. I can't speak for other aspies but I'm concious now that my emotional domain isn't spacious. I'm quite content with this situation since it appears that the greater the emotional range that NTs have, the greater the burden that they must carry. While there are undoubtably great highs to be had, the lows seem to come a bit more frequently. The relationship between NTs and their emotions seems to me at times like a drug addict chasing their next fix. Despite having to wade through some terrible comedowns and being driven to desperate acts from time to time, the highs are always worth the chase. The more balanced and happy NTs around me seem to have a more moderate relationship with their feelings and, from my very limited perceptive stance, a more manageable emotional range. So I'm quite happy being me in this regard.

The new rule is very useful to me. When I find myself tripping over something in conversation I try to take stock of what the emotional component might be. I've taken to asking TH how he perceives the same emotional component of conversations where he was also present or about conversations I've had with him and I'm getting better at figuring it out. As with my own emotional depth, my guesses tend towards a shallower interpretation of emotions in others when compared with TH's interpretation of the same event. Where previously I would just be confused and lost, I now have a handle of what I might have missed and this has had a wonderful effect on lowering my stress in social situations.

Like many aspies, I take words quite literally. A turn of phrase that has always confused and annoyed me is "when I ______, as a person, ...". As a person? Yes I can see you are one. What the hell else would you be? "When I _____, as a teenage mutant ninja turtle?" It occurred to me to apply the new rule and calculated that the most likely option is that the person is deliberately trying to emphasise their emotions in the conversation and to indicate that their emotions are strongly felt on the topic under discussion. TH more or less agrees. OK, one less thing to be confused about in conversation. One less scenario that might cause me stress.

We're getting there. :-)

Value of the Written Word

In my previous post, I wrote about my difficulty interpreting non-verbal communication. I think this is one of the reasons why I took to the Internet and its written medium so well. Non-visual communication on the Internet is almost completely absent. People have to write explicitly what they're thinking, feeling and what it is they require of me. They'll pepper IM and email conversations with smileys and the words "OK", "cool", "right" as well as "hmm", "no", "that's not what..." and so on. These little written cues for me are like the feedback that NTs probably need from others when you talk to them IRL. Written communications on the Internet also keeps it brief which is a relief.

Except my for my blog, that is, which is where I permit myself to ramble a bit. I know my posts have recently become long and may take a while to read. You have the freedom to read at your leisure, or to depart without insulting me. When I ramble IRL I can bore or distress my interlocutors. When they flee me in mid-ramble, it distresses me. Knowing about AS I feel better equiped to avoid such unpleasantness, both visiting it upon my friends and family and experiencing the awkwardness it brings about.

Welcome to my (written, explicit) world. Stay or depart as you choose.

Life at the Masked Ball

Life's a ball for some. Mine's a masked ball. Everyone's face is obscured by an elegant mask. The masks have painted expressions on them: smiles, leers and frowns - all decorative. The painted expressions have nothing to do with how the people underneath them actually feel. So the masks are actually misleading, serving only to give a first impression relevant perhaps to the party atmosphere. One can't rely on what is painted for decoration to give you any clues. The masks hide all feeling and understanding laughter at the ball is tricky. Only sometimes can one see their eyes through the masks so it's hard to tell what they're looking at. Are they laughing with you, at you, at someone else..?

Every moment of every day near people is like being at the ball. What I struggle the most with is the emotional feedback from colleagues and friends. I could step into a circle of people but I don't know if I'm welcome or if I'm intruding. I battle to know when to talk and how I'm perceived by others. When one meets people for the first time they are almost always polite and smile. I assume that this is the politeness of social formula while they get to know you. One must maintain the smiling mask to boost the chances that newly met people will think favourably of one in the longer term. From what I've read of NT people, after spending a few minutes with other people they get an impression of how they are perceived by others. I'm not for a second suggesting that this is perfectly reliable and I know that unpleasant NTs can lie convincingly about their feelings, to beguile others until something of value is obtained after which they might show their true colours.

My difference is that I don't get any impression at all of how others feel about me. It's like my brain is wired to know that a signal should arrive but the ability to detect the signal isn't there. I can almost never tell people's intentions. Waiting for the signal to arrive, knowing that it should and it never comes causes anxiety and the anxiety is tremendous. It leads to a lot of negative feelings about myself that distract and depress me. The people are still smiling. Is it politeness or do they like me? No signal yet that they like me. A minute and thirty seconds into a group conversation is typically when the politeness mask drops and people adopt a neutral look. Did I offend or confuse? Is it just the mask of politeness being changed because the social formula permits it? Maybe they don't like me. They're neutral because they don't want to show that they dislike me. I'd know and feel that they like me if they did and I don't feel it so maybe they're hiding their dislike of me. So maybe they dislike me and are trying to deceive me... *gutted* What did I do wrong? I don't understand.

As with all parties, one should only smile at the ball. Only painted frowns are permitted - vapid decorations that serve for variety and which can be dismissed for being of no consequence by the party goers. Balls are a time for dancing and capers to surprise and amaze. Congratulations! I'm amazed and bewildered. I wonder constantly how people feel about me. What was the point of that gesture? There is no certainty at the ball. My obsession with acting normal demands that I try to pretend that there is no anxiety and simply copy the performance of the group. If people are light hearted and bantering, copy. If the mood is heavy and deep with philosophy, copy. Pretend. Without knowing why the mood is this way or how it came to be, just copy blindly.

All I see are the masks and I don't know what they mean.

Drinking Tea - Chinese Style

This weekend, The Husband and I went into one of our favourite restaurants in Chinatown for yum cha with friends. The restaurant still does the old fashioned trolley service to the tables which I adore. Our friends are a lovely couple of South African expats, like us, and I always enjoy meeting up with them. They are warm, expressive and very genuine people. We spent about 5 hours eating lovely dim sum, chatting and wandering through shops. Rather than some bland initials to identify them, I'm tempted to characterise them by a Mister Men moniker. Let's go with Mr Comfy and Little Miss Bubbles.


They know about my Aspergers and are accepting, trying to be helpful where possible. I say accepting because they don't understand fully yet. Neither do I, frankly. Not fully anyway but I can communicate the great many ways in which I don't quite fit in that obviously seem AS related. In email conversation Mr Comfy pointed me to an article on the Manager Tools web site articulating how to join a group politely at social occations. It's a very interesting piece but I seldom struggle with introductions. I struggle with reading people individually as well as reading the group dynamic after joining in. The next post is an excerpt from our conversation. I tried to explain to them how AS feels to me.