This blog will serve as a place I can brain-dump about my Asperger's condition, the autism spectrum, the nature of the mind as observed by me; and the nature of Yoga and Vedanta, and my own internal observations about all this. Kindly let me know if there are any suggestions to make this blog better, or if it has helped you in some way.
PERSONAL HISTORY
I will start off explaining how I came to understand myself on the spectrum. Like most things, I sort of blundered my way into it. I've always understood that my mind worked differently than others, but it can be difficult, in the absence of a sense of myself across lifetimes (which I now possess), it can be a challenge to articulate exactly how different you are.
My first loose observation will be to point out that I've ALWAYS understood how clearly "internal" I was. That is, to be more precise, the internal world contains a specific "validity" that doesn't exist in so-called "social" life.
The second symptom I noticed was anxiety in relationship. My early life was not particularly suited for an Aspie, which I am now grateful for, as being forced to adapt constantly to new social situations has left me with a facility for more effectively impersonating a neuro-typical person for periods of time. I moved every 1-2 years during my childhood, and for me this has set a pattern which has failed to serve me in later adulthood and into middle life.
Also, I didn't know as a child that I was coming from a family full of abuse, sexual assault and drug addiction (on my mom's side) and autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder (grandfather and grandmother, respectively) on my father's side. This understanding, that I will explain at another time, has been of great solace to me, since I can now understand and come to compassion about why my parents treated me as they did, and how similarly we react to things in a general sense. I no longer experience the sort of pain I did then regarding my relationship with them, and am now engaged in removing the long-standing pain that is stored in the body-mind from those years. This is my current challenge.
My saving grace on the family side was my great-grandmother on my mom's side, who truly was my first Guru. It has only been five years or so that I have been able to understand myself enough to not cry when thinking of her. Without her involvement in my life, I am not sure I would have been able to find my way out of the trap that Western culture (which is almost totally left-brained and therefore egoic) and my own "rule-following" nature had laid for me. Granny, as I will refer to her from now, showed me what I didn't know then was my right brain. I will talk about Granny at some length in a future post.
Part of the problem in every aspect of my life, which begins to manifest between 1.5-2 years into ANY work, intimate or other personal relationship is that I begin to get what I can only describe as an "itch". It consists of a measure of boredom and a measure of needing to move on. I will be in crisis mode generally by 3 years, and I will begin to feel increasing overwhelm as time proceeds forward without change. Indeed, it is my need for consistency, which I understand is a typical part of the autism spectrum, which raises this in my mind.
Generally, I will begin to sabotage any relationship that doesn't allow me to evolve beyond the learning I have undergone during my time with that situation.
I have come to understand this as part of the autism experience as well, because, frankly, I learn faster than almost anyone.
EXTERNAL VALIDITY
While a source of great pain and anxiety, I have now understood that social life has always held less general "validity" for me than my internal life and the understanding that I gain from "tuning in" to the nature of the world itself, of which I am not separate. This is the real irony of this condition:
WE EXPERIENCE THE UNITY OF THE UNIVERSE BEYOND WHAT YOU CAN IMAGINE AS OUR DAILY EXPERIENCE. Yet, we are thought to be anti-social, not wanting to connect, and separate. Nothing could be further from the truth.
HEAD INJURIES
I have some other issues with my mind also, due to the scrambled nature of my brain/mind interface as a result of having several head injuries and the fact of a syndrome I shall call "head-injury maturation". It is a observed fact that many athletes or people with multiple head injuries (of almost any magnitude) have more symptoms that manifest between age 40 and 45, with the key year appearing to be age 43. My friend Sean Pamphilon did a movie on many of these people, and I've seen the footage enough to realize what has happened to me on this as well.
I have only broken one bone in my body during this lifetime, and that is my skull; which I have broken 4 times, and twice quite severely.
ASSUMPTIONS
This is the part where I will write out (and possible add to later) the assumptions you will need to keep in mind when I am writing.
1) SPIRITUAL BEING: I will be referring to myself as a temporarily-embodied entity whose actual life spans across centuries. I have experienced this DIRECTLY is is not up for debate.
2) "INTENSE WORLD": Autism spectrum people experience the world more thoroughly than it is possible to articulate. Metaphorically, consider that an NT world is a two-dimensional landscape, whereas I experience the world in three dimensions or four, at times. This has many implications for what I will be writing, so I will refer back to it.
3) DEPTH: This is written by someone whose life experience pales in comparison to the one you have likely lived. Reading this is an exercise that should be not taken lightly, and will likely need to be studied to be properly understood. There is more of this universe than you have experienced. Don't assume you know everything. Even my own given autistic mind pales in comparison to the way some more deeply autistic people experience the world, so I will not make assumptions that my perspective is the ONLY ONE. This is a typically NT and "social-world" problem that I will NEVER fall into.
4) TRANSLATION VS. TRANSFORMATION: There are two functions of religion, according to Ken Wilber, and I believe that this is a great way to explain almost any communication we have with each other. I am explicitly recognizing that in reading these words that they can serve these two functions, and am willing to accept at the outset that my words my seem at first to be translational in nature. Translation is needed at the beginning, but transformation is always awaiting the willingness of the participant to be changed by what they are reading or experiencing. Learning is transformational. Additionally, it should be understood when I am speaking as a translator vs. saying "how it is", which is both not debatable and transformational both for myself and for the reader, should you accept the truth of it. It is the nature of autism spectrum people to speak of "how it is", and I will continue this here. What is more, I understand that to some degree I am speaking as a translator of autism as experienced from inside, and not as a casual observer. What is more, I hope to specifically transform the understanding of someone who reads this.
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