Verbal communication and actions are over rated.
For example, for the past 12 months while I’ve been in burnout, I haven’t heard from hardly any of my friends and barely any of my family, and I’ve got a lot of friends and family, so this isn’t usual.
This has been a true god send to me. Most of them don’t even know yet that I’m autistic and they certainly don’t know I’ve been in a burnout, they have no idea.
However, since I’ve started to feel better, I’ve had a steady but manageable (so far) stream of friends contacting me. Inviting me out for lunch, to go for a walk, to go nordic walking, cycling, one friend who knows I would love to go to Marrakesh has paid for and booked a holiday there for us in June, the same friend has also booked a hotel for us next week so we can go to listen to her favourite band who are coming over from America. None of her friends like the band so they won’t go but she knows I’d go to the end of the world for her if needs be so although I don’t like going to listen to bands, I’m happy to go with her because I know how important it is to her and she’s insisted that she pay for that as well. We might not see each other or have any kind of contact for months and months on end but she knows she can rely on me to the degree that if i’m able to help or be there for her in any way, I will be. She doesn’t have the same level of confidence in the friends she hangs out with all the time.
I have other invites coming in as well, as well as friends popping up to simply say hi, how are you. I don’t keep in regular verbal or physical contact with my friends or family but we are in touch constantly by something much stronger than our words and actions. They didn’t know that I need their friendships right now, that their friendships are what will help me on my next leg of the journey. I’ve decided to go back to India and Bali and some other countries so I’m going to be away for a while this time, maybe a few years, maybe forever, who knows, so it’s great that I get to see some of my friends before I go. And no matter where I am in the world, at least one of my family or friends (who are my family) will come and visit me. They have been to Australia, Bali, India, the Isle of Man, all the places I’ve lived in the UK, wherever I go or wherever I am my friends keep in touch with me some how. I’ve even had letters and cards arrive at remote ashrams I’ve been at in India ~ I wouldn’t even know you could do that!
I don’t keep in touch with them so much but they never let me out of their hearts and visa versa. They all encourage and support me no matter what I do. My dad is currently encouraging me to walk the Pacific Crest Trail, another friend bought me the book with the route etc and I just know that whether I want them to or not, at least one of them will come and see me while I’m walking the trail and either walk a bit of the trail with me or for me to have a little stop off with them. I know when my sister is hurt and in which part of her body and visa versa and she’s the least ‘spiritual’ person you could ever come across.
This is a few days later now and I have to admit that the messages from friends and family is starting to become a little overwhelming for me now. I’ll handle it. But what I’m saying is, if I had to rely on verbal communication, I don’t think I’d have any friends at all, but I speak to them in my language. They don’t use this language with other people and they have no idea really how it works with me but it does and I’m overflowing with gratitude at the love and friendship that’s pouring my way now, now that I’m ready to receive it.
Verbal communication hurts my head, sign language is a bit better but I much prefer to communicate in a non verbal, none sign language way. That way I don’t have to get past all your understandings and you beyond mine before we reach some level of mutual understanding.
This is why I love silent retreats and the level of friendships you form there go way deeper than the ones you make when you are verbally communicating or communicating through body language.
I love it when I go mute but that doesn’t happen very often so I have to accept that I was given the ability to speak for some reason. I have surrendered to this now so now I will be guided in whatever way I need to be and if it means using my voice, so be it. I don’t hate it like I used to. I accept I can speak and now I’m not fighting it I guess I’ll soon find out why I can. I still find verbal/body language to be a very crude and harsh form of communication though.
Hi BlueRay
Sounds like things are really improving for you and it is good that people are showing such a genuine interest in you as well as caring for your well-being and needs. The fact that you have some unwritten agreement among you and your friends on how best is to communicate is wonderful. I am still trying to work on that one, but the fact that you have accomplished this brings me hope. Verbal/body language is overrated and unfortunately society revolves around it, but I still believe there is a way that NT and ND people can communicate between each other better than we do currently. Understanding and education will help with this over time.
I'm glad that things are improving for you and you are feeling better than when we last spoke. :)
Thank you Starbuck, I appreciate that. I feel so loved and cared for right now and with every message I get I feel so fortunate. I know I’m there for my friends and I don’t really ask for help, I didn’t know how to, but this feels like they are paying me back 100% plus more ~ not that I ever put a price on what I give.
And yes, I 100% agree with you. I absolutely believe there’s a way we can communicate better with nt’s. Most of my friends are nt’s and the diagnosis and the time spent in this burnout have taught me that I need to learn about others and understand them as much as I want them to understand me, as far as they can. My support worker is helping me with that as well and I’m finding ways to communicate with people that doesn’t result in arguments and me getting annoyed with them. I also see how even my brother in law, who I thought for all these years was out to wind me up, wasn’t/isn’t. I thought he was the chief winder upper and he wasn’t at all.
I’m coming to understand that my autistic traits won’t dissapear just because I have awareness of them but that I can do things to minimise meltdowns etc. For example, I might spent time with people but maybe make the visit a bit shorter and rest afterwards.
Having all that time alone, not even having to get out of bed or wash and change everyday etc has helped me tremendously as well as having the support from people on this site. I’ve still got a long way to go, my support worker keeps reminding me that I’ve got further to go than I’d like to think and that we have to keep on working the baby steps, because they are actually working. But I’m out of the darkest stage and I can see the light and that’s good enough for me.
I think we will all find our way to the light if that’s what we’re aiming for, however we get there. You’re often in my thoughts Starbuck because I know we were at a similar stage so I’m glad that my experience is giving you hope. It’s like it all just happened all of a sudden but as we know I put a lot of effort in to getting me where I am today but it worked. I’ve stopped taking the anti depressants but they were a huge huge help. I don’t think I could have got this far without them. I’m very grateful to them.
With the communication thing, I think it’s all about have total confidence in yourself. Not in who you present to the world, that’s superficial, but in that thing, whatever it is that got us this far. I’ve always had a strong connection to it, all my life, although I didn’t understand it like I do now, or I didn’t understand that others weren’t like me. It’s like when you’re so connected to that thing inside of you that is beyond thoughts and ideas, it emenates out and meets other people. It’s like, I knew I needed this period of total solitude. I knew that and had so much confidence in it, it’s like my friends responded and supported me by not contacting me in all that time. If they had been contacting me I would have been freaking out, I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. I came off all social media, unsubscribed to all email lists and started blocking them. This took me nearly a year but I achieved it so now I’m not getting emails. I just reduced my life down to nothing, basically. I rarely even get mail coming through the door now. In the past year I’ve hardly ate and when I did, it was usually chocolate yet my blood results are better than they’ve ever been. My vitamin D levels are the highest my doctor said that he’s ever seen. He said in fact, he’s never tested anybody who wasn’t deficient. And I know this is true after working with consultants and politicians in the Isle of Man to get the government to supplement everyone as a matter of course. I have never not been aneamic. Me, my mum, sister and niece are all aneamic. We take iron tablets now and again if it goes too low and we can rarely give blood, but this time, my levels were normal. I have provided my body with little nutrition, no sun light, hardly any fresh air, I have barely moved, I even have bed soars, I haven’t kept my hydration levels up, I have been frequently dehydrated, living on solpeideine to take the pain away because even though I knew a drink of water would do that, I couldn’t drink. Even if I had had to live on the streets, there was nothing that was coming between me and my burnout. Meaning I was shutting the whole world out. I knew it would work even though all those around me were worried, trying to throw labels at me, eating disorder, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, depression, anxiety, agoraphobia. I was none of those things. I presented as those things but that was a false appearance. I was simply exhausted. My first shut down of this proportion was when I was 18 months old and they put me in an isolation ward at the hospital for kids with learning difficulties, for 3 weeks, all by myself with only nurses going in to feed me. And it worked. I began to function again. And as many of us found out, receiving the diagnosis is not only a cause of celebration with the answers to so many questions, asked and unasked, it also comes with loss, grief, devastation, fear for the future and lots of other things. In the end I also stopped going to the job centre. I just told them I’m not going in any more, it’s not helping me, I need to not leave my house at all. They didn’t sanction me and they’re making it so I don’t have to go in any more. When I need that time for total shut down, I am so committed to getting that time that I will not accept anything less but I also don’t put any conditions on it. If it meant living on the streets and eating out of bins I would have done it. And I think when you’re that committed to giving yourself what you need, everyone around you seems to cooperate without you having to verbalise it. I was too tired for that. And now I’m coming out of it with a clearer mind and heart. The effort was all worth it.
Much love to you X
BlueRay said: In the end I also stopped going to the job centre. I just told them I’m not going in any more, it’s not helping me, I need to not leave my house at all. They didn’t sanction me and they’re making it so I don’t have to go in any more. When I need that time for total shut down, I am so committed to getting that time that I will not accept anything less but I also don’t put any conditions on it. If it meant living on the streets and eating out of bins I would have done it. And I think when you’re that committed to giving yourself what you need, everyone around you seems to cooperate without you having to verbalise it.
Golly! You really must walk an exalted path, BlueRay. How come you weren't sanctioned? When I failed my ESA assessment, following my suicidal breakdown, they stopped all of my benefits dead. I had nothing to pay rent or anything. I nearly went under. I appealed, so everything was reinstated - but then I had to go through all the stress of the appeal, and then later a tribunal. All of it nearly finished me off. I count myself lucky that it didn't, because it's finished off many thousands of other people. When the DWP were finally forced to reveal the figures on sanctions deaths, it was shown that over a two-year period between 2012 and 2014, 2,380 people on ESA died within a fortnight of being told they'd been deemed fit for work and would lose the benefit. An horrific proportion were suicides. But you're saying you simply went to the Job Centre and said 'I'm not coming in any more because it's not helping me', and they just happily went along with it? Even though we hear countless stories all the time of people having JSA sanctions simply because they were half an hour late turning up to sign on, or didn't go because they were ill. They clearly saw how committed you were to your shutdown, I suppose. I also find it remarkable how light you make of living on the streets and eating out of bins - as if it's a valid and wonderful life experience. Who are all these people, too, who magically co-operate when that happens? All these friends you have?
Thank you Tom. I’ve calmed down now and I know that the way I speak can provoke strong reactions in people, I just didn’t expect to receive the comments I did, but I’ve calmed down now.
What I talk about are universal truths, proved scientifically by people like Einstein. What the public know about Einstein is very little compared to the work he was involved in which was learning more about the universal laws.
I’m not saying people are settled and happy to be on the streets, although many are, for certain periods of time anyway while that is the best thing for them. If I had been settled with it I’d still be there now, but complaining about it and thinking of it as a terrible situation doesn’t help anybody. It took me many years and several attempts to get off the streets, off the drugs but I kept on going until I achieved it. I was never ‘happy’ with the situation but my inner happiness which depends on nothing outside of me ensures that I am happy, truly happy, no matter what my circumstances are so when I’ve been homeless I have simply accepted that I am homeless just now and I would make the best of it.
I might also take a rest. The conversations have been so helpful to me. The posts I started were to help me. I don’t always talk like that but that part was for me so I needed to talk openly. Everybody who contributed helped me more than they will probably ever know.
I do know the universal laws. For whatever reason (I don’t try and work it out anymore) I was born with a connection to my spiritual self and the universe and I had no connection to my body. I’ve had to learn how to be human and although I’ve always got what I wanted in life, living in a world where nobody speaks your language (as many people with autism can relate to) is not always easy. However, my diagnosis changed all that and the recent conversations, although they didn’t end so well, have given me the confidence and the go ahead to be me. Not just as an autistic person but who I am, living on this different dimension, as well.
You’ve got a book to write anyway, we’re all waiting for it to hit the shelves so we can get our copies
Perhaps you could start a post telling us about the Universal Laws of Einstein, so we can understand them too?
I was deliberately using that absolutist construction, Deepthought.
I noticed, I have been following the patterns of development prior to and via your thread on Realism and Nominalism, to the full crystallisation of the Absolutism here, and thus my intervention with the Relationalism.
But you're quite right, and I would normally have written something less severe.
The basic problem was Black and White thinking, and as such using the Null Hypothesis, where Black registers as nothing or experientially negative and therefore being nonsense and disagreeable, and white registers as something or experientially positive and therefore is sensible and agreeable.
Consider for instance that Alice looks at Object A and describes a Square, and Bob looks at Object A also but describes a Rectangle. Object A is an Oblong ~ who then out of Alice and Bob is correct in terms of which shape they saw?
Two answers are that Alice is correct in describing a Rectangle on the grounds of who needs anything less? And Bob is correct in describing a Square on the grounds of who needs anything more?
So in terms of normally writing something less severe:
More along the lines of 'I believe this to be nonsense.'
At this stage the same message is being repeated as before ~ with the 'spearhead' of your statement still being the word 'nonsense'. Stating that something "more along the lines of" is actually more severe in linguistic spearheading terms.
Coming to terms with this interpretive glitch was very healthy indeed though ~ in the sense of noticing it as not being the healthier option. Another consideration for instance is "This is not making sense to me", yet you clocked it very well indeed as:
More like 'I don't believe this to be true for everyone.'
Seriously Tom, absolute linguistic gold, seriously.
In terms of the "I believe this to be nonsense." as involves the darkest or most malevolent (ill-wishing) self of us; from which we learn what not to do, and in terms of "I don't believe this to be true for everyone." as involves the lightest or most benevolent (well-wishing) self of us, from which we learn what to do.
Thus as such you considered the 'nonsense' of the negative self, then the 'sense' of the positive self, and as such weighed up and balanced out as the neutral self.
Ker-ching!
I think indignation made me slip a little, too.
Well with your little slip of indignation with us, the Child-Parent dichotomy problem became a well and balanced Adult solution.
I think it’s probably permanently Deepthought. I know the decision to leave the group was initially due to my autistic black and white thinking, but I also don’t feel as comfortable on here any more. If I can’t talk freely, what is the point of talking, is my way of thinking?
I wouldn’t dare, I’ve already been accused of being a witch who has magic powers and who thinks that all the people who aren’t witches are rubbish. I wouldn’t dare talk about them on here. I already feel as if I’ve been burned at the stake, hung drawn and quartered. I no longer feel safe. I built up a good level of trust and support on this site, over time, enough to make me feel safe, only to be torn down big time so I won’t try that again. I just wrote a post about how I think, all be it very basic, but that might explain what you’re asking, in a little way, so I’ll post that.
They’re not ‘Einstein’s’ laws though, anymore than the law of electricity belongs to the person who first discovered it. That person may have discovered it, but the laws of electricity are universal. Electricity is there for any one of us to take advantage of if we learn how it works, or get someone else to learn it and share the benefits with us, such as light, heat, power etc. We still get those things, even though we don’t know how they work, we still enjoy the benefits of the law of electricity even though we don’t understand every fine detail of them. Einstein understood the laws but they are not his.
BlueRay said: I know the decision to leave the group was initially due to my autistic black and white thinking, but I also don’t feel as comfortable on here any more.
Well after what happened, I am in no way surprised at the moment that you do not feel comfortable talking as freely as you have before, very few people do when it comes to being treated disrespectfully regarding their individual outlook on life.
Such discomfort is meant 'not' in order to test us, but in order to 'rouse' us from our Autistic benightedness (or ignorance) about how to communicate in more socially amenable ways.
It helps to keep secure in mind that there are Conscious, Psychical, Mental and Physical languages and terms for relating with others, who are likewise familiar, or wish to learn. Thus there are four types of people who relate with these languages and terms, down to those who just use the Physical language base:
Type Fours (or T4s) have a developed sense of all experiential ranges of awareness, and use all language bases ~ so are Conscious, Psychical, Mental and Physical. T4s are by proportion enlightened Facilitators, and are the lesser minority of the population, at way less than 1%.
Type Threes (or T3s) have Conscious, Psychical, Mental and Physical awareness, and develop their Conscious range of experience for the more evolved, or else are more evolving their Psychical. Mental and Physical sensibilities. T3s are by proportion intuitional Leaders, and are the greater minority of the human population, at 9% approximately.
Type Twos are (or T2s) have Conscious, Psychical, Mental and Physical awareness, and develop their Psychical range of experience, for the more evolved, or else are more evolving their Mental and Physical sensibilities. T2s are more by proportion conceptual Supporters, and are the lesser majority of the human population, at around 30% approximately.
Type Ones (or T1s) have Conscious, Psychical, Mental and Physical awareness, and develop their Mental range of experience, for the more evolved, or else are evolving more their Physical sensibilities. T1s are more by proportion instinctual Followers, and are the greater majority of the human population, at around 60% approximately.
So what you do know and can do (as a T3 to become a T4) is not possible for all (particularly T1s and T2s), and what you consider to be an adaptable state of mind (such as the previously mentioned poverty thing) is for most also an immutable state of actual body and environment ~ that is very concretely and very objectively real for them. Nothing they do can ever change that, T1s live and breath physical and material poverty as is their path through evolution ~ whether rich or poor, for they are the youngest of the 'Children of Humanity', and need providing for as Followers ~ hence T2s are Supporters, T3s are Leaders and T4s are Facilitators.
[Autism involves being at least a T3, although T3s can be more like T2s or T1s ~ consistently, or intermitently]
So when you stated that you get what you want to survive, it is lucky that what you want is actually what you 'need' in evolutional terms, and as such you are in harmony with the facilitational frequency of your life course ~ as has just included here a sociological clanger! I have had quite a few myself just like yours here ;-) and they are good to learn from, really they are, especially with others who can relate :-)
Learn from not run from maybe?
BlueRay said:Einstein understood the laws but they are not his.
Not quite ~ the laws of (hu)man(ity) come from the 'principle' objects and states of affairs observed and experimented with repeatedly through nature, so Einstein's laws (such as Relativity and Special Relativity) are his as he published on them. There are no laws of nature though, only principles.
So there are the principles of nature, and the laws of (hu)man(ity).
I’m not talking about the laws of relativity. That was only a fraction of his work and what he studied.
Yes, the universe works on principles but the principles work through the law. There has to be a law and that law is universal, not only to mankind but to the whole of the universe which man is not separate from, so it applies to man but not only to man.
Also spent time homeless
and in a hostel for the homeless
recalcitrant (DO NOT APPROACH) said:Also spent time homeless
and
recalcitrant (DO NOT APPROACH) said:and in a hostel for the homeless
I never did the hostel thing myself as I was too unsettled. Staying in one place did not really happen until I found my footing, which is to say where I felt most grounded, and got on the emergency housing list. Then I found a place advertised the next day in a paper ~ and the landlord turned out to be someone I used to know. He did not recognise me at first, but it was well amusing when he did, because he was really pleased and surprised ~ and memoirs and laughter aplenty did flow. He was a genius chess player type, and I had a mega bonus playing chess with him on a regular basis.
One thing I did have trouble with was that I was so used to sleeping on hard floors; that it took me a year and half's practice before I could sleep on a soft bed again.
Did you find the hostel thing to be okay?
I never went to hostels. I didn’t feel safe in them, I felt safer on the streets.
BlueRay said:I never went to hostels. I didn’t feel safe in them, I felt safer on the streets
Interesting statement, being that you 'never' went to hostels ~ yet you did not feel safe 'in' them?
Nice example of Autistic Black and White Thinking ~ i.e, the first part of the sentence that you 'never' went to hostels; is contradicted by the second part that you did not feel safe 'in' them.
Is it perhaps that you did not 'use' hostels because of not feeling safe when you had been in them as a visitor, or that you never actually went to one because of not feeling comfortable about using them?
In my case, I seriously needed to experience the individuality of me singularly and freely, and using hostels involved rules and collective conformity with others. Being nomadic for me meant that there was no need or imperative to be with others, nor to interact with them.
I lined up a couple of times to go and sleep there but the talk from the others who were lining up, put me off and I had a system of sleeping in the day and walking the streets at night, which I decided I would stick to. That felt safer to me and I had some good places to sleep in the day, such as pubs and I think I was more visible this way, meaning people realised I was homeless and so they would feed me, let me get a shower at their house etc. So I’ve been in hostels as a visitor (my auntie used to work in one) and in other capacities but as for me sleeping in one, my preferred method was to walk the streets at night and that just felt like a better option to me. Plus I didn’t want to line up every night at a certain time just to get in.
Oh yeah, my support worker is working with me to hammer that word ‘never’ out of me. It was all going well until last Friday then I screamed ‘I’m NEVER going back to my autism group and I’m NEVER going back on the autism site! Lol!
I am such a typical text book case aspie it’s untrue, but I love it although I have been doing much better since minimising my use of the word ‘never’. My black and white thinking is getting better by the day as well.
I’ve always been a nomad and I think I always will be. I took a few years out because my son (little weirdo! Lol) wanted to go to school!!!! It didn’t matter what I tried to do to convince him that I’m sure he’d have more fun coming with me, he wanted to go so he started when he was 6. I thought he might go for a while then get bored of it but he didn’t get fed up till the last year. He was all set to get high grades and go to uni and by that time came he’d had enough ~ at last, I thought, allauya!