Cutting the fat - week 2

Week 2

Loss – 1.5 kg.

Yes, I am aware that this was a very long week.

Unfortunately due to a nasty case of the flu I was out of action for a few weeks, and I wanted to save the updates until after I’d managed a full week of being able to eat and exercise properly.

This is a good loss, but I’m not sure how my being sick factors in here.  My diet wasn’t perfect this week, but it was better, so who knows.  We’ll just have to see how I go next week.

Getting back into the exercise after such a break was also a challenge.  They say muscles have memory but that sure doesn’t seem to apply to me.  I’ve taken a few weeks off, and it’s like starting at square one again!  I couldn’t even do a single push-up.  It was like a terribly sad scene from the Biggest Loser, a fatty in her tights and singlet lying spent on the ground after doing half a sit up, with out the benefit of a super hot personal trainer yelling “C’mon Voyager, don’t be beaching yourself now!”

In this exercise routine I devised for myself I did allow for situations like this – somewhat – and I took them.  I really wanted to stick to it though; otherwise I’ll just keep doing less and less until I give up.  That I did – gave myself one day off this week, but otherwise I got through.  I had to take a lot of breaks, so it was slow going, but I feel better for it, and will try and go harder next week.

I’ll be aiming for another half kilo next week.  Can I do it?  Of course.  Will I do it?  Errr…

Well, keep thinking positive thoughts,

Voyager

Help! I hate my best friend's girlfriend!

What do I do, now that I have to lie to the one person I could always be honest with?

 I’ve been wanting to blog about this for awhile but I’ve had no idea how to approach this sensitive problem.  So I turned to the internet for help.

This is what I came up with.

I like it.  Especially the line graph, that’s eerily accurate.

My best friend is male and has known me for years.  He may be neurotypical, but I’ve never felt like I’ve had to explain myself to him for any reason.  Such friendships are rare these days.

Him getting a girlfriend – and changing the friendship dynamic – is something I was going to have to deal with at sometime.  The self entitled part of my personality doesn’t like it but realistically, it’s well within his right to do so, and I was just going to have to be supportive.

Well, recently that’s precisely what happened.  The BFF took me aside and told me about a girl he’d met, let’s call her Ali, and that he wanted the three of us to hang out.  He told me that she’s an older woman, attractive, and they had been hooking up.  He then showed me this text message:

Hey babe, buying scarves 4 all the bite marks u left on me xx ;)

Ewwwww.  Ok, WTF?  Even I know sharing sexy texts with your best mates is bad manners.  But it did at least give me a mild warning for what I would be subjected to the next day.

So, the next day at BFF’s place, I’m awaiting her arrival, hoping I make an ok impression.  Given that I would be spending a lot of time around this girl, it would make things awkward if she didn’t like me.

Then when she arrived I did, I’ll admit, nearly screw things up immediately.

Ali:  *sensuously* hey babe, like my new scarf?

Me:  *hysterical laughter*

The BFF shot me an alarmed look and I remembered I wasn’t supposed to know why that was funny…oops.

We were introduced and then she started talking.  All I could think was “please God, make it stop.”

Look, they say it takes one to know one, right?  I knew straight away that this girl was all sorts of issues.  Now I am the last person to place blame on someone for being mentally ill.  What I don’t like is when someone is mentally unstable, does nothing about it, and then inflicts their illness on others to get attention.

Ali’s conversation has a certain pattern – we talk about her being injured/ill/overwhelmed.  Then we hear about how she heroically over came set obstacle.  Then we hear an ‘interesting’ fact about something she’s good at.  It’s always on her – if conversation moves away from her, she brings it back somehow.  And it’s always the heavy stuff.  In the space of about 3 hours, I found this about her  -

-          she’s asthmatic

-          she was hospitalized for whooping cough for two weeks

-          She had surgery on her hip and couldn’t walk for six months

-          She’s dyslexic

-          She has OCD (allegedly)

-          She has celiac disease (allegedly)

-          She has ehland syndrome

-          She has chronic hiccups (allegedly)

-          She was once hospitalized for a nervous breakdown (oh I’m sorry, that is not something you should find out about someone you’ve just met!)

-          She has had various breaks and sprains that impacted her detrimentally (too many to name here)

Basically, the girl’s self esteem is so poor she needs attention and validation constantly.  See, this is also what I know about her, that the BFF told me because she never talks about these things.    She is 25, but still lives at home.  She moved back there shortly after her last nervous breakdown and still hasn’t left.   She went to business college after high school, and has had countless office jobs but never for more than a few months.  This is probably why she had to move states and apply for university – had to go by open foundation because her grades from school weren’t good enough.

Ali’s life has been hard, I can admit. By portraying herself as a tragic heroine she creates more positive image of herself than the reality  - due to her physical and mental illnesses she’s an adult who never really grew up and learned to be independant.  I know so many like her.  Heck, I was her. Like me, she’s probably angry at herself for not working things out like most people our age have.

 Yet still she refuses to acknowledge her limitations and she puts herself in situations where she can’t win, because you’ve gotta love a girl for trying, haven’t you?

Ummmm…no.  Like I said, I can’t blame Ali for her hardship, but I can blame her for creating drama.  Now, let’s think back to that slide show from the lovely folks at college humour.  I would change one thing on their presentation to suit my circumstances, on slide three.

“You make my friend angry with your bull**** shenanigans.”

“then I have to deal with him.”

More like,

“You make my friend worry with your bull**** shenanigans.”

“Then I have to deal with him.  Not.  Cool.”

I suppose I should address the ‘allegedly’ I put on the list of Ali’s ailments.

I think she’s…well, not lying.  I believe she’s exaggerating within believable limits, if you will, to make some of her issues sound more serious.  If I didn’t have a medical background - and have some of these problems myself – I probably wouldn’t pick it up.  Although the fact that most of her problems seem to be self diagnosed should tip my friend off that Ali’s biggest health issue is her hypochondria (or Munchausen syndrome, I can’t tell at this point.)

But the BFF eats this all up and worries about her.  Then I have to listen to him worry.  Again, not.  Cool.

Later, I took the time to think about my feelings, and to figure out if my rising distaste for this girl was fair.  Was it just jealousy that I have to ‘share’ BFF with her?  Are my standards for a suitable girl for him just too high?  Or am I intimidated by her, that she openly and eagerly talks about her mental health battle, yet I don’t feel as though I can (and should) share mine?

I don’t know what our other friends think, and I’m too afraid to ask in case I am just being petty.  But one thing is for sure – I have to deal with her somehow, in a constructive way that doesn’t create tension with her or BFF.

Now, if I could just figure out how to be constructive.

Voyager

Cutting the fat: Week 1

After one week I am down 1 kg.

Nnnnnnot bad.  Luckily this regime hasn’t got my daily routine too out of order.

My weight loss could be more, but I haven’t exactly been careful with what I eat. Sticking to my diet is fine when I first wake up, but the later it gets, and the less awake but unable to fall asleep I become, the less I’m able to listen to reason concerning what effect eating a sizable snack has on my metabolism.

Sticking to my conditioning regime hasn’t been that difficult.  I’m going to stick to the same routine for a few weeks or so before I think about changing my reps.  I’ve just got to make sure I get it done early in the day because longer I leave it in the day, the less motivated I feel.

My biggest issue by far however is my knee.  Now we all know that cardio exercise is great for weight loss but I’ve had to ease up on the running since the reemergence of pains in my knee similar of the last time I tore my meniscus.  Naturally, I’m worried.  This doesn’t affect my conditioning regime but it really bothers me that I can’t work on my leg strength or cardio fitness at the moment.  I going to have it checked out in a few days and see if it’s an easy fix.  I am aware it doesn’t work like that but hey – a girl can dream!

Just keep swimming,

Voyager

I experience the C in OCD

I’m aware that I haven’t talked at all about my OCD on this blog yet.   The main reason for this is that I really don’t have the words to explain it.  The things I feel compelled to do might seem mundane but to me, these intrusive images, compulsions and the feelings of anxiety if I can’t carry them out are very upsetting.  I feel the less I talk about it, the less I think about it, the better.  This is important for my diagnosis, mind you.   People with OCD are aware of the unreasonable nature of their thoughts and actions, separating this from being just another feature of Asperger syndrome.

So within this just-ignore-it-and-it-might-go-away tactic I live by, not acknowledging my compulsions means that I do indulge them with in reason to settle the violence in my head. Usually this doesn’t cause me too much grief.

Then this morning I lost my tape measure.

Allow me to elaborate…I have many compulsions, one of which is to measure my waist.  I might do this between five to fifteen times a day, when I get up, when I’ve been to the toilet, after my conditioning regime, before and after I eat…basically, any time I feel (unrealistically) that I’ve done something that may make a difference to my waistline.

Anyway, when I woke up this morning I opened my bedside drawer to find…no tape measure.  I sat there, confused.  I measured myself last night, didn’t I?  Then what?  Did I throw it on my desk…no.  In my underwear drawer…no.   Or did it disappear into the black hole under my bed?

My reasonable self was telling me to get on with business so I started to tidy my room, hoping it will show up.  But one tidy room and no tape measure later, I came to the conclusion that I will have to do without it for the foreseeable future.  A bizarre but not unfamiliar uneasiness is growing in my mind, but I had assignments that had to get done somehow.

In the end, I didn’t accomplish a lot that day.   I can’t even talk about the things that were going through my head but let me assure you they weren’t pleasant. I couldn’t concentrate on my studies.  Every time I sat down and opened my books, I would spring up five minutes later and start pacing.  I did a lot of pacing.  My roommate noted that I looked ‘wired’ and offered me a beer.  I burst into tears, first because I couldn’t measure its effects, then at myself for having such a moronic thought.

I found my tape measure cleaning out my craft shelf that night and silenced my thoughts by measuring up a storm.  I can’t describe the cleansing feeling this had on my head – suddenly I was thinking clearly and logically again. I laughed with my roommate about my emotional blowout that day, which I blamed on ‘womens troubles.’ (I’m not kidding – he totally bought it too!)  It’s ridiculous that I continue to let these compulsions control me, I know.  Unfortunately with OCD, as I said before, knowing this is part of the problem – not the solution.

Voyager

Cutting the fat - step 1

Like I said last time, I'm trying to get fit.

The first step to getting my fabulous physique back?  A killer exercise regime.

It turns out that coming up with a workout schedule is a whole lot more fun that actually doing it, but whatever.

I’ve tried to come up with some exercises to target different parts of my body.  Apart from aesthetics, getting stronger, particularly in my core and lower body, would make life a lot easier.

Like many people on the spectrum I have issues developing and maintaining basic muscle tone.  Many gym exercises are damaging to me because I don’t have the strength to support myself so other parts of my body try to compensate.  If I’m going to do this, I’ve got to be informed.  I unearthed some of my old exercise sheets from my physio and have come up with the following for strengthening my back.

-          superman hold – 30 seconds

-          reverse leg raises – lie on stomach, lift one leg behind without moving hips, hold for 5 seconds, place back down.  Repeat 15 times on each side.

That’s the back.  Now, for the core…I don’t carry a lot of weight around my midsection so I consider it one of my best features.  It’s popped out a little of late, so even though it’s not really a problem area, it’s the one that’s got me the most freaked out.  My stomach muscles are hardier than my non existent back, so I’m tempted to do 500 crunches but that’s no good for my back.  But I will still be brutal.  Here is my proposed ab routine –

-          40 sit ups, fingers to knees

-          40 crunches

-          40 side crunches, 20 on each side

-          5 V ups (that’s all I can do – will be looking to increases that.)

-          Dish hold – 30 secs

-          50 dish rocks (optional, depending on how my back feels)

As for upper body – there's no benefit for me really – I just love toned arms!  My goals are to accomplish ONE pullup and chin up and to be able to do 40 ‘man’ pushups.  So far I can do about 15, but I’ll do as many as I can and make up the rest of the 40 with ‘girl’ pushups.  Then I can increase the number of ‘man’ pushups every few weeks.  A major concern also is what can only be described as my congenital lack of tricep muscles.  I’ll definitely be looking to develop those.

-          40 pushups

-          20 tricep pushups (on knees)

-          20 diamond pushups (on knees)

-          20 tricep dips

-          5 hand stands held as long as possible

-          2 30 sec tuck handstand hold on bed

So that’s it, my conditioning regime.  I’ll aim to do that 5 times a week. 

Cardio is going to be harder because my right knee is threatening to cave in.  This means no running, and biking is out as I don’t own one and I don’t have a gym membership.  I have however been learning how to skate recently, and as my physio technically didn’t say I couldn’t do that, I’ll settle for 3 practice skate sessions a week.

That’s the plan, anyway.  Time will tell if I stick with it, but I have a good feeling.

Happy travels,

Voyager

Thoughts on an Aspergian friend - Limited by ourselves

Recently my Mum ran into the mother of a friend from school.  I hadn’t seen her for awhile, but at the time we and our parents had bonded over the fact that we were both on the spectrum.

We were similar in a lot of ways.  We had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome around the same time in year seven.  Both of us were gifted academically but struggled with our concentration and motivation.  We had no idea how to deal other teenagers, and were each others only friend, ostracised and bullied by all other students and teachers.  Then from about year nine onward, we drifted apart.  Personality wise, we were chalk and cheese.  She was happy to languish in her anxiety and depression problems.  She never wanted to go out, talk about positive things or put effort in her schoolwork or relationships.  She saw no reason to be giving back to the world that had hurt her so much.  As for me, I wanted to try and fit in, learn how to study properly and create a network of neurotypical friends.  She saw my foray into the world of ‘normal’ people as a betrayal and I thought she was being a coward.  After high school, we lost contact.

I knew that we graduated from our respective university degrees at the same time, and I was worried about her.  I can’t see her having the presence of mind to search for jobs, practice for interviews or take the time to write a professional looking resume.  It doesn’t help that she has graduated from a program that has very few jobs available, and I just don’t know how she would handle the corporate world.

As Mum relayed back to me what her mum had said, it seemed my fears were accurate.  Turns out her lack of pro-activity was not just a phase.  Seven months out of the degree, she is unemployed, living at her parents’ house, with no car, no money of her own, and no friends.  The problem, her mum lamented, is that she really isn’t qualified for her dream job.  Her grades were not good enough to get into the post graduate program that she needs.  But she won’t consider another direction, or get a lower position to work her way up.  She did take a counselling job, but she kept getting in trouble for discussing her own mental health problems with clients.  She was told to adhere to the guidelines set out for her, she refused and they let her go.  Her view of life is just too rigid.  Modifying her behaviour would help her out of her rut but she won’t change.  If I’m a Voyager, she’s more of a Houseboat.

Let’s look at where I am comparatively for a minute.  While I feel like I’ve learned some life lessons that she has yet to realise, I would not say I’m faring a whole lot better than her.  Since my early teens I’ve tried denying I had a problem, desperate to live the ‘neurotypical dream.’  The result was a breakdown in which I was forced to face the reality of my disability, and get realistic about my future.  The Houseboat – yes, I’m making that stick – needs to start thinking this way too, hopefully sans nervous breakdown

Having Asperger syndrome might have seemed quirky and subtle while we were at school but both of our futures are in question now.  All of the other kids with AS that I know are still in school, so I can’t compare any further.  In the meantime, I worry.  We may be intelligent, and certainly capable of being valuable employees.  But are our impaired social skills preventing this intelligence from being applied to finding and keeping a job?

I want to change to become easily communicative.  I want to change her so she wants to change her outlook.  But longing to be normal has done no good for me in the past.  All I can do is hope that somehow, someday, we’ll find a way to be ok.

Voyager

Cutting the fat

I, Voyager, am going to get fit.

There, I said it.  Now I can be held accountable by the power of teh interwebz.

I’ve mentioned before that I have weight issues, and how it causes me all manner of problems. Yet I’ve been struggling with it for over a year now, so what’s changed?  Why am I suddenly so driven to tighten up and what makes it different from all the other times I’ve vowed to lose weight?

It’s not just aesthetics.  Oh don’t get me wrong, I hate the way I look, but I always have.  When I was a teen doing dance and gymnastics I felt like an elephant even as I would strut around the gym in my shortie shorts and crop top.  I felt my early appearing breasts and shapely hips meant that I was overweight compared to the willowy, long waisted girls in my gym and dance classes.  I thought that these girls were healthier just because they appeared thinner.  Of course, this wasn’t true.  .As an insecure teenage girl I felt like any different body shape to mine was better.  Even so,  I was taking care of my self with my exercise and eating right.  And you know what I see now, looking back? 

My body when I am fit is, dare I say, nice. 

I have hips, a round butt and large breasts but now I know those things aren’t bad for you.  My comparatively tiny waist and flat tummy compliment them quite nicely.  Unfortunately, due to the layers of fat  I’ve laid down, I can’t appreciate my shape anymore.  I’m not getting the most out of my body, and that has to change.

Yes, this body of mine is a god given gift.  Looking fly would be awesome, but several things have been going on for me recently which have convinced me that I have to start treating this body like the gift it is.  I had an accident last month which resulted in a broken wrist, broken ankle and a concussion.  I was bed bound for awhile, and of course I couldn’t do any exercise at all.  Now that scared me.  I was already overweight, and now I can’t walk?  Dragging myself around was a real pain, and I couldn’t help wondering, when I started hobbling around again, if supporting my ample weight was slowing the healing process.  Luckily I didn’t really have a net weight gain – not walking meant I couldn’t visit the fridge whenever I felt like it!  As a result, my fitness is at floor level, and I’ve noticed the difference.  I need more to get me through the day.

My goal out of this is to lose 30 kilos.  It’s a lot – almost a whole person, but this is best case scenario.  If I lose 25, I’ll be at the upper end of the healthy weight range.  Anything between 20-30kg will have me feeling like my old slammin’ self again.  It’ll be a long hard journey but, as blogger handle suggests, I’m ok with pushing into difficult territory to reach my goals.

Thinking those strong, beautiful thoughts!

Voyager

Confession time: Why I deserve to be unhappy

Why is this?  I’m fat.

I don’t need a motorised scooter to get around or anything, hell I don’t need to go to plus sized clothing stores to make my clothes fit.  But I do take up space.  My lifestyle, dare I say, is all right.  I go to uni, I play sports, I go out dancing on a Friday night.  But according to many, larger women don’t deserve to have anything that makes them happy.

Oh, I wouldn’t go as far to say that I’m being denied employment or service at restaurants because I’m overweight.  It’s the little things that get to you.  Recently, my roommate posted this on his page.

Married Couples are Happier When Wives Thinner, study finds 

Now this in itself isn’t offensive or surprising to me.  What was offensive to me was how this study shat all over scientific methodology, but whatever.  I have been told, in no uncertain terms by several men that they don’t have time for rounder ladies.  I do forget how widespread this view is, but topics like this get people talking – and I realise just how prejudiced people around me are.

 

The first comment was from a pregnant friend, who wrote this:

“well, I’m screwed then!”

To which my room mate replied,

“Only for a few more months, Meg!”

Oh yes, don’t worry Meg.  See right now you are a horrid, squelchy, ugly being, using your pregnancy as an excuse.  You can make your husband pie every night, you can clean the house until it looks like the cover of Better Homes and Gardens, and you can wait on him hand and foot.  But could he be happy when he’s married to a fatty?  Never!  Don’t worry though– as soon as you pop that baby out, you can starve youself, ditch the baby body and go back to being the kind of wife you husband can take outside.

I made a comment too

“uh oh, I’m screwed long term!’’

To which my roommate replied –

“only cos you let yourself be :)”

ARRRGH!  THE CONDESCENDING SMILEY FACE OF DOOM!

Wow.  In one sentence, without even stating anything directly, my roommate has inferred everything that bothers me about my weight.  This would be my direct translation

“Oh Voyager, you so silly.  Not only are you repulsive to look at, but you’ve forgotten it’s your lazy, weak willed character it that got you there!”

And thus followed a delightfully immature facebook argument where I called him ignorant, and he called me lazy in less vague terms that got to the point where I nearly stormed into his bedroom, tipping his protein powder onto his bed and asking him why he dared make fun of my food issues when he lives on fake protein and amino acids.  Ah, but he’s not fat, therefore he’s an expert on healthy eating and successful relationships, no?  Being the ugly, weak, big mac inhaling fatass I am, I can’t help but preach the necessity of sensitivity and personality compatibility in relationships.  Silly Voyager indeed.

So to recap – why did I brain fart and get fat in the first place?  It’s a long story, but after my breakdown, they fed me a lot of Zyprexa. And sodium valproate. And many others.  I put on 5 kilos in my first week.  I gained 30 kilos in just three months.

My fuller figure is a battle scar because I was very, very ill.  I was out of control.  These drugs were a last resort to get me from a mess of a human being needing constant supervision to an independent law abiding citizen.  So, whenever one of you materialistic bitches that make up 99.8% of society thinks it’s funny to comment on my physique do you know what I hear?

“Well Voyager, you probably would be dead now if you didn’t take that drug.  But you did and look at you now – a big fat loser.  That’s so much worse!  You should have refused it – yeah, you would be dead, but you would have died thin and beautiful, and isn’t that what really matters?”

So it seems.  I’m not on the drugs anymore, and my energy levels have returned to normal.  I’ve been shifting the weight, slowly but surely.  It’s been hard though, funnily enough losing weight ain’t easy!  If only I could stop eating…it’s just that when all you hear are people telling you how repulsive the way you look is, eating a large triple cheeseburger meal might be the only good thing that happens to you all damn day.

Depression strikes - Are you Prepared?

Sooo…I didn’t up this morning.

I woke up at ten, when my alarm went off.  I wasn’t really interested in going back to sleep but I didn’t get out of bed.  I didn’t do anything, really.  I just kind of lay there, not thinking, just sort of taking stuff in like my morning backache, the rattling sounds of my roommate cleaning and the neighbours mowing their lawn.  Eventually I was forced to leave the bed when my need to use the bathroom overcame my need to be stationary.  I happened to glance at the clock to find it was already 2pm.

What the… how do I blow four hours by doing nothing at all?  Was I sleeping?  Probably, intermittently.  But usually when someone becomes aware of morning, it does things to them.  It makes them think about food, exercise, clothes.  Start getting ready for work, or if they don’t have work, they remember all the friends and housework they need to catch up on.  This sort of stuff  isn’t moving for me sometimes. 

These episodes of nothingness happen to me a lot, at least once a week.  Even if I have made plans that day I will not be moved until a urinary tract infection threatens, and often receive calls from confused and angry friends and family demanding to know why they have been stood up.  It upsets me that they are upset, and I have no solid reason to placate them with.  But really burns me up that even the concern for people around me isn’t enough to shake me out of these lengthy and, let’s face it, self indulgent episodes of inactivity.

I can’t talk to anyone about it, no one understands.  It sounds so idiotic:

“so you were in bed all morning?”

“yeah.  Just lying there, doing nothing.  Couldn’t get up.”

“why?  Were you sick?”

“no.”

“have a big night out?”

“no”

“did your alarm go off?”

“yes”

“so why couldn’t you get up?

“I just couldn’t.”

“Why not??”

“I. just. Couldn’t.”

Even I’m confused.

I know what causes it, of course.  This happens as the black dog begins to gain on me, getting in close enough to bite.  I start to hear things and think things I normally try to keep my distance from.  He tells me its worthless getting up, because I’m worthless.  I have nothing to contribute.  I’m leaching off the government, no – one likes being around me, people are just putting up with me.  Getting of bed would mean inflicting the burden of my personality on the world, and what on earth did the poor world do to deserve that?

Lately, a combination of severely injuring my ankle and my employment contract ending means logically that I should be prepared for these sorts of feelings to increase.  So I have a plan.  I already have a list of things to do for when I do get up.  It’s quite generic – housework, cook dinner, go over notes, that sort of thing – but I find that having to decide how to fill up my day tends to prolong my episodes.

This plan is a long term one, because depression never goes away.  It can let up for awhile, but having the best job, relationships and drugs will not protect you forever.  So I would be stupid to throw out my list when things turn around for me.  The dog will return, he always does.  He returned today, but I was prepared.  If I wasn’t, I would probably still be in bed.

Voyager

How I realised my worst nightmare

I have a confession to make.  I am now in my mid twenties and I never meet anyone’s eyes.  It does cause me trouble but not always in an obvious way.   Now I know it’s an obvious tag that there is something very wrong with me!  But to do it is unpleasant for me, so I’ve put it in the too-hard basket for now, even if it is necessary

A little while back I went for a short exchange to Japan to study at a private college.  I know I’m awkward but I didn’t worry too much – as a foreign exchange student it’s a given that I’m not going to fit in, I reasoned.  Japanese people, even young people tend to be polite and hospitable no matter what they think of you anyway.

My story starts in a culture education cooking class.  I was paired with an energetic girl named Kei and her four friends, who was happy to chatter away about her weekend escapades as she showed me how to prepare Japanese omelette.  My Japanese is sketchy at best, but being flattered by the genuine friendliness this girl was showing, I did my best to act attentive, with a well timed “ah, sou!”  and a technique I call ‘flickering.’

“Flickering” is how I attempt to convince people I’m actually looking at them, and it works best when you are doing something else while talking to someone, as Kei and I were.  To ‘flicker’ you keep your eyes on the task at hand, or straight ahead.  Then every so often, you ‘flick’ your eyes up, hitting the person’s face for a millisecond.  It says to them, “I’m listening to you, really, but I want to concentrate on my omelette/homework/knitting as well.”  If you’re not doing anything, you just look like you’re thinking really hard.

After a few flickers, Kei suddenly went quiet.  I flickered again, for a bit longer to see what was wrong with the girl and she went berserk.  She began jumping up and down, screaming “I don’t believe it!  They’re BLUE!!!”

Kei’s friends demanded to know what the problem was, and she began talking very fast – I only got the words “blue eyes…she actually has…can you believe it?”

You’d better believe it.  These girls had never seen someone with naturally blue eyes before.

They couldn’t be convinced without some solid proof, naturally.  So Kei grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around to face these six hazel lasers ready to bore into my retina.

What was I feeling right then?  Somewhere at the intersection between molestation street and white hot metal avenue.  Six faces.  Screaming, laughing, emoting more than I usually see in a whole year.  It was too much.  I wanted to avert my eyes but that would raise more questions I don’t have the Japanese vocab to answer

But we weren’t done.  The rest of the class – including some other Australian students – were a little confused as to what made Kei’s table lose the plot and me half hyperventilate, half laugh like a 14 year old boy at a lingerie football match.  Somehow word got out that they had an ‘aoi’ on their hands, so the other 24 students in the class had to see it for them selves.  I was forced into a chair, with no option than to allow myself to be visually gang banged by these kids.

After a few minutes of this violation, the teacher managed to get everyone back on task – after taking a few close up pictures of yours truly on their phones to prove their discovery to their friends. I returned to my omelette despite wanting to plunge my brain into a bucket full of ice, while an exhausted Kei explained to me that she had seen pictures of models with blue eyes, but assumed that they were just contacts.  Blue eyes were considered to be a rare genetic anomaly.

It wasn’t all bad in the end.  I made some new friends, even if they were hoping I had some blue eyed male friends I could set them up with.  Plus I was told that the close up pictures of my wide, petrified periwinkle eye on people’s phones caused quite the sensation over dinner tables in this smallish Japanese community.

There are some situations in which eye contact is unavoidable.  So I started wondering if I couldn’t test my limits a little.  Maybe I should start flickering for a bit longer.  After all, if there’s one thing this incident has taught me, it’s that I never know when I might need it.

Useful links

Slowly, ever so slowly this blog comes together.

I've started adding links with some useful information on the right.  It's looking awfully scant at the moment, but I'll add more links if I find some good ones.  So far we have:

http://www.anxietyaustralia.com.au/ A support site covering a variety of anxiety disorders, including panic, social phobia and PTSD.

http://www.aspia.org.au/ Resources for those in a relationship with someone with an autistic spectrum disorder

http://www.autism-help.org/ Info for parents of an Autistic child

http://www.autismspectrum.org.au/ Home of the Aspect organisation.  Lots info for people with ASDs, their families, friends, educators and health professionals, support groups, fundraisers, conferences and social events.

http://www.beyondblue.org.au// Beyondblue is a mental health awareness organisation.  Has info about support systems available for those living with mental illness in Australia.

http://www.livewire.org.au/ An online community for people under 21 for people living with chronic physical and mental health issues.  Also has support sites for family members.

http://moodgym.anu.edu.au/welcome Personally I'm not a fan of self help, but if you don't want to pay $200 a session with a psychologist for Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) then this program is for you. Can be done wherever you have a computer. 

http://www.wrongplanet.net/ Thought of as a community for people with ASDs but all 'neurodiverse' people (Tourettes, Bipolar, Schizophrenics etc) can find something here.  Plenty of resourses and people prepared to share their live lessons.

http://www.ybblue.com.au/ Sister site of BeyondBlue.  Provides mental health awareness for school age children.

Top ten reasons to date a girl with Asperger’s Syndrome

Disclaimer:  I apologise for any individuals who do not fit this list, these are light-hearted generalisations based on myself and girls with AS in my acquaintance.  It is not meant as serious advice.

10.    We are not clingy.  Sick of girls who must know your whereabouts at all times?  Over her calling every day?  Had enough of her going ballistic because you waited two whole hours to respond to her text?  Then I can guarantee your girlfriend is neurotypical.  Girls with AS are an independent bunch.  We like spending time with you, really we do, but if you call more than a few times a week, we feel stifled.  If you are living with an AS girl, expect to be briefly acknowledged in the evenings before she goes off to pursue her own interests – meaning that you can too!  Oh and one date night a week is more than enough, thank you.

9. We like hugs.  No really.  With the recent rise of pamphlet psychiatrists in the world comes manyl broad misconceptions about individuals with AS.  One of the most widely believed and upsetting of these is that we hate physical contact of any kind.  Well fellas, while people with HFA frequently seem to, most if not all girls with AS that I have met would say that they love to be held.  In fact, because we often aren’t good at verbalising feelings, this is a great way for us to express how we feel about you but -

8. We do not overdo PDA.  As said before, we don’t mind a bit of hand holding or lap sitting with our one-and-only in polite company.  Spontaneity, however, is something we are not known for.  Don’t expect us to pounce on you mid sentence in a crowded room and start sucking your face off.  Not unless you want us too, anyway.

7. Buying us presents is easy.   Because of our restrictive cognitive functioning, we develop so - called ‘specific interests’, hobbies or subjects that take up a lot of our time and conversation.  Find out what our current interests are (should take about two minutes of conversation max) and buy us something related to that.  Relatively painless for you, we feel like you care – everyone wins.

6. We are always on time.  We have photographic memories and more often than not neurotic fears about being late, so we will always remember what time you intent to show up and how long it takes to get to the restaurant/cinema/party.  There’s none of this screwing about for half an hour putting on make up or finding the perfect pair of shoes to match the hand bag and accentuate my waist.  We’ll have figured this out long in advance and timed our prettification to be all done upon your arrival.

5. Looks are not a priority.  This prettification I mentioned in no. 6 is not extensive anyway.  We don’t spend a lot of time putting our faces on or choosing clothes.  The reasons for this are a combination of our aforementioned rigid cognition, motivation, poor self esteem and that tendency we have to feel like quietly rebelling against something.  So even if you spring an outing on us, you most likely won’t be waiting too long for us to get ready.  Also, this goes both ways.  You should be assured that we are dating you because of your personality.  We get used to being hated on by beautiful people so the main thing we find attractive is kindness and compassion.  So you don’t ever need to worry about not being cute, fashionable or buff enough for us.  Treat us right and you could be a swamp creature for all we notice.

4. Your friends belong to you alone.  When guys get together, there’s always one that insists upon bringing the girlfriend along, or she maybe she insists on being there.  She then proceeds to sit on the edge of the group, clinging resolutely to the boyfriends arm with one hand and texting or checking the nails of the other.  The only contributions to the conversation are a prissy lip curl in response to a dirty joke or a half hearted “that’s so funny.”  As for girls with AS, we prefer to stay away.  It’s not necessarily that we respect your right to your own space, or that we don’t erase all facets of a non shared life once we are in a relationship.  This sort of situation makes us uncomfortable, so we bow out and let boys be boys for awhile.

3. Change scares us.  How is that a good thing, you ask?  Well, sometimes it’s plain annoying, sure.  But it has its perks.  Namely, chances are a girl with AS will not be pressuring you to commit.  For most of us, changes in life that will shake up our day to day living in a big way, such as moving in, getting married and having children. make us nervous.   NT girls who are having nesting urges might be pressuring you to move in within a few weeks, to get engaged within months, and even to have children within a year or two.  Not so with the AS afflicted female.  If things are comfortable in the relationship we are perfectly happy to stay in that situation for years.  That’s not to say that we won’t commit under the right circumstances.  If you think you are at that stage with your AS girl, make sure you move slowly.

2. We do not read minds.  Ok, NT girls don’t either.  The difference is, we don’t pretend to just to stir you up.  From your NT girlfriend, you are far more likely to hear things like:

“You think I’m fat!”

“I know you’re angry…”

“I know you still like her…”

The average adult with AS comes with shattered self esteem.  We spend our whole lives being assured that it is impossible for us to empathise with the thoughts of others.  As a result, we still draw conclusions about behaviours of yours we don’t understand, but we don’t trust our own instincts.  If you do something we just don’t get, we will ask you about it out right.

1. We try really, really hard.  Anyone with a disability is constantly made to feel like a second class citizen and a burden on their loved ones on a daily basis.  If you give us a chance, we will try our best to make you happy.

 Love always,

Voyager

Now, Voyager!

Realising you need to change is often a harsh awakening, but that's just momentary.  Enforcing the change is often a long, uphill process.

Welcome to the journey of defeating the dog.  I realised I needed to change last year.  I have four defined conditions - anxiety/panic disorder, asperger syndrome, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder.  As a result, the first 20 odd years of my life have been a tumultuous tale of confusion, discouragement and unhappiness.  As far as mental distress goes, I got pretty far.  Several doctors, psychologists and hospital stays later, I found myself exhausted with life.

After my last discharge from hospital however, exhaustion gave way to movtivation, finally.  I was motivated by the fact that quite frankly, I was a loser.  I was in my twenties but I was not living like a mature adult.  My hospital stays had left me a bitter, angry person more than willing to take this anger out on the innocent bystander for the slightest offence.  I was fat and my memory was shot to shit so I couldn't work or concentrate on my studies.  I had to live at home with my family who were resentful of me for all my disability, illness and money wasted on medical bills had put them through (their words, not mine.)

I could have put up with this. I could have drifted through life, uneducated, unemployed, proved my family, the kids at school and the self rightous hospital staff right.  But as Oprah Winfrey said, success is the best revenge.  So I started trying to life like an adult.  I returned to uni, moved out of home and joined a few sports clubs to get fit and get out of the house.

This is just the beginning though.  Depression and anxiety don't magically go away when you leave hospital or come off your meds.  OCD isn't gone when you learn to control it.  Asperger syndrome never stops sabotaging you, never!  My journey will have many parts.  I need to get a job when my studies are over, make friends and keep the friends I have happy.  I have to navigate a world that I don't understand and am afraid off when all I really want is to hide in my room watching anime for all eternity.  But the responsible adult does not do this.

I'm going to try.  It will be difficult but I've got no choice.  So journey on - whether you are neurotypical or also 'unique-minded' the world doesn't stop just because you do.

Voyager