Uhm, sure it has
Edit: (Has social anxiety, warts and all, been bad? I'm sure this is way too long, at once, but it was originally supposed to be here at one point. Sorry for the confusion.).
-
End Edit
-
And I guess I have much to say because it's all(?!?!) here (...or hopefully most of it...). Sorry in advance... I just couldn't stop typing.
BAD Jack.
Well, anyway... My name is Jack (of course) and I'm from Washington state. I have Asperger's Syndrome.
For starts, I have many acquaintances, perhaps no real true friends. People, like from work, do call and send me text messages... I just don't respond to some of them because of the person sending them.
Trust is an issue for me. If someone has hurt me before, I have perhaps lost all faith in that person, all sense of trust that I thought I held about them. I avoid them. And some of those are the people I work with at work. Ahhh, the endlessly good life... Not. :/
To one degree or another, suicide has been a problem for me... thinking about it even in grade school. Back then, perhaps schoolwork was difficult... Maybe I was a lazy bum back then...? I don't know, but difficulties still remain in terms of the difficult people in my life today. Well, people don't really make me suicidal, per se, but my behavior has given my employer some concern so I'm in therapy for that...
How did that flare-up at work start? Well, I was teased so much that I thought I'd take matters in to my own hands. The next day at work I used a razor blade to slash my wrist 5 times in front of my co-worker that caused me harm the night before. I wanted there to be scars that resemble his gruesome behavior, scars that could be seen and remembered by anyone and i guess everyone. I wanted their behavior to be eclipsed by my own because what ultimately matters, I still feel... I guess, is how I treat myself.
The damage that I did was, of course, inappropriate, but mired in my head was the thought that since I was wearing sleeves, it was okay, I could hide it. If I bled profusely, I could bandage myself up right there, before walking on my own blood, telling him that I was now walking over myself as much as I let him walk all over me. But the injuries were not even that deep. The first cut stung like hell, though and by the 5th cut, I found that I wasn't bleeding "Hollywood-style" I found the end result less than satisfying. So I just gave up.
Long story short on this, I talked to my supervisors at length for a two hour meeting or so in their office moments after the fact. Human Resources came involved and I talked with them at length about what was going on as well. I'm actually on my last day of leave. It's been over 40 days and I've talked to three therapists about this very issue. I'm thinking about being seen every month or so. Maybe twice a month.
Its a good thing I have insurance that covers this sort of mental health therapy like counciling... Okay, it's co-pay, but still... $20 a visit I guess is not that bad. It's just odd that my behavior/logic/reasoning is or has metastasized like some sort of cancer... Though I guess it's logical at the same time, when one thinks of it as a disease of some sort. :/
In other news, I am still a virgin in the pure sense while being 33 years old as of this moment. And yet, before I was 21, I didn't have a thirst to have kids even then, like, having kids I guess is a nightmare in itself if I, or the world as a whole, is unable to sustain or support what we have before making more...
Why are we, as humans, having more children? I ask that often with no answer. You don't need to answer that, there isn't any one answer to a broad question like that.
And yet... well, being obsessed with sex, well... uhm, ya. Strange indeed. How can I want it if I don't want have a relationship (while that's not true, I guess it has been, as knowing where I am in the relationship world)...? Dyslexic logic is rampant at times, yes? Well, at least I don't go out of my way to become a sort of mad bull in a glass factory. But in their right mind, with luck in their favor, who would, seriously? Not a soul? I'd stick to that answer, too.
Well, in that vein of relationships and trust, I'd be much more willing to befriend a woman than a guy, maybe on a scale of 10 to 1, whoever the woman is or what she does. Though I should never deal in absolutes or semi-absolutes, even as extreme as 10 to 1... because I ended up with two guy roommates once... UGH! Ewww...
Anyway, I see men as chauvinistic, fowl and foreign. I guess I always have. I don't know. But since I'm a virgin at this age... well, women are foreign to me as well, apparently. :/
I've used computers to pass the time, to communicate with people with and such. But this, too, has been a colossal nightmare, in that you're never fully sure if you're talking to a woman or a man, especially on IRC.
Work isn't a problem per se, other than getting a job in my field... with the Puget Sound area of Washington state being as tight as it is. I'd had hopes of going into graphic design or webmastering... And yet, I still have college loans to pay off (with endless deferments), with the minimum wage I (still!) have... but, eh... I guess it's okay. Nothing is perfect, or ever can be, or ever will be...
Just being able to work or to have an employer in 2009 in the USA... that's luck. Maybe. Well... there is still 9 months to go in 2009, something might happen yet that would make half of America unemployed. Or something... as unlikely as any of that is...
I still am a perfectionist, though, anyway... washing hands before I eat, like at a restaurant, even. I have seen my parents countlessly order sandwiches or something and not bother to get up to the restroom. Sometimes I would purposefully look for pasta or fried rice, instead, if I felt particularly lazy. But then I've seen spots on the silverware, too... :/
Given the stress and that in my life, well... I somehow remained drug free. Weird, huh? Like, I feel in a sense that it would be a sin to even begin drinking beer or smoking cigarettes. I've told myself again and again (in some way) that I really don't need them, they cannot bring happiness, I'd be happier without them... etc. Even in caffeine I'm kind of against... like, no coffee here, please. Mountain dew? Sure, once in a while, maybe. But it's still like I'm better without it. Somehow.
There's nothing at all against people that do use them, I still am just kinda horrified to use just about drug myself. I have had rum and coke served to me before which just further clarified for me the "evilness sin" of drinking for me. It was like drinking the saltiest water ever, eating the sourest of grapes ever or eating the worst tasting cough syrup in the history of Mankind. Ever. For me, personally... in my lil' ol' world, at least.
This all started, of course, when I was in 7th grade. I guess the D.A.R.E. police officer had promised us all in the classroom, to some effect, that if any of us started using any kind of substance, even as an experiment, it would become some sort of crutch, to some degree, like... the user would be hopeless without it.
Sure, that's extreme. But somehow, having that nightmare scenario served to me back then(probably misinterpreted, but nevertheless) is probably all that it took for me to be who I am today. Maybe with the help of television at the time it further validated what the officer was saying.
*shrug*
I'm sure some of you might chime in that it's about balance. But there is no balance available with some drugs. Some of them are legal, and most, sure, are illegal. And law enforcement doesn't know balance when you use some/most/all of the illegal ones.
I avoid television now, because the commercials are endlessly insane. Thank goodness for broadband, which I can watch stuff like ER without the conformity of television. I also catch Keith Olbermann on msnbc.com where I especially love his special comments. Maybe he has a form of Asperger's, too. His tirades that are special comments seem to be endless too, like this one... :/
A latest obsession is finding free mp3 files on the web with at least a 128 kbps bit rate and a 44k or hopefully a 44.1 kHz sample rate. I have built myself this music collection to win back the balance of stress in my life in my favor on bad days... if I remember to hold on until I get home, that is. So, I think I have just about every single "one hit wonder" ever made from the 1980's (I would hope, I love most of them) that is still within the back of the mind of many Americans.
I also have a huge assortment of dance, electronica and trance songs... lots of pop and probably a little less than that in terms of music from the 80's hair metal bands. I also have quite a few jazzy electro-funk songs, like there is a sound effect of popping and cracking, like it is played from a really old LP and yet, there are synths, a bass, horns and more of a song that is modern, maybe? Or not...
I also have some classical songs remade with modern synthesizers, a few country songs sung by women, because, well... I feel they are more "truly human" and "less chauvinistic." Alternative songs works too, such as grunge. Never been a super fan of grunge, but it sure beats the wallowing cry of some... bluegrass song...? Sung by a guy?
Okay, so grunge was 99% men. Or a 100%. I mean, I never knew any grunge band with a woman as a front lead. But having said that, I'm sure most of the songs I have, if they are not created by a woman, there is one that sings in them. Or a voice of a woman is just simply sampled in the song... whichever. Right now, I've got a foreign language song, no kidding, sung by a woman. "Be My World - Non So Perche" by Milky. I think it's French and Google could tell me, but I'm busy banging away at this little note about me now so I cannot look... trust me, I can get sidetracked.
Anyway, I pick up different remixes or languages of the songs I find because I like the original. And when you got these different varieties, well, then the library has personality. At least the Genius playlist helps to bring the personality out... I think iTunes is awesome.
In some of the songs I have, the Genius doesn't know any related songs that it would go with... like pop goes with other pop songs, rock goes with other rock songs. And sometimes it is just a question of separating the name and the artist in the correct fields for the Genius to know what group of songs a song should actually be played with. But thankfully, within iTunes, I can tell it to play songs that haven't been played at all (or just been played not as often as some of the other songs) to get those songs that have been left behind by the iTunes Genius.
In any rate, I have 2,907 songs in iTunes. 10.3 days, according to iTunes. And there is still work to do... I don't know if I have, say, Diana Ross, at least in some/most of the songs she is readily known for. Maybe any. Natalie Merchant? Norah Jones? Julee Cruise? I have some songs from each artist but you get the point. There is always something. Such is, of course, true in other areas of my life. Maybe even yours, I'm sure...
I don't know, I guess if I tried to explain to some people that I'm just not that interesting at all, they'd laugh at me right in front of my face. Except that the person doing most of the laughing in my life would, in fact, be me, fact be told.
At times I giggle at something that would snowball... and, well, then I'd snort... then I get these absolute horrid hiccups that sound like a squelching machine somehow, sometimes AS I AM LAUGHING, which becomes much like an an endless perpetual loop. Especially, in that moment, I am told that my voice or my laughter could be heard a football field's away, or something to that distance, maybe. Yes, it could be unprofessional... but, well... I guess it's just hard to separate the oil from the water once soap has been added. It's just all me. And at least I guess by some people, I can be read like a book, which is kind of comforting, actually.
Given all of my flaws and all of my self-inflicted scars, at least I do have wings, sometimes, of an angel. Humor. At least I have that in my life... that side of me. And while it might seem depressing that it's just me and not reflected back to me from anyone else... yet... it's still a blessing that I have it, that I have that goofy side of me... the part that would make a random person roll their eyes or smile. Or both. But it's good. Maybe. No. Wit like this is an angel's gift. Yes. There, better.
Ya, Jack's not interesting, indeed. NOT. Knows simplicity? Not hardly. Ever? Mmm, bleah. Or some such... I don't know. But I guess I've now unwound, at least for today. Well, in this hour. Yet, it might crash the whole fabric of space-time or just the socialphobiaworld.com forums, but hopefully not.
But, thanks again, though, for your interest. :/ :|
Blessed Be,
-Jack in WA
Edit: (Has social anxiety, warts and all, been bad? I'm sure this is way too long, at once, but it was originally supposed to be here at one point. Sorry for the confusion.).
-
End Edit
-
And I guess I have much to say because it's all(?!?!) here (...or hopefully most of it...). Sorry in advance... I just couldn't stop typing.
BAD Jack.
Well, anyway... My name is Jack (of course) and I'm from Washington state. I have Asperger's Syndrome.
For starts, I have many acquaintances, perhaps no real true friends. People, like from work, do call and send me text messages... I just don't respond to some of them because of the person sending them.
Trust is an issue for me. If someone has hurt me before, I have perhaps lost all faith in that person, all sense of trust that I thought I held about them. I avoid them. And some of those are the people I work with at work. Ahhh, the endlessly good life... Not. :/
To one degree or another, suicide has been a problem for me... thinking about it even in grade school. Back then, perhaps schoolwork was difficult... Maybe I was a lazy bum back then...? I don't know, but difficulties still remain in terms of the difficult people in my life today. Well, people don't really make me suicidal, per se, but my behavior has given my employer some concern so I'm in therapy for that...
How did that flare-up at work start? Well, I was teased so much that I thought I'd take matters in to my own hands. The next day at work I used a razor blade to slash my wrist 5 times in front of my co-worker that caused me harm the night before. I wanted there to be scars that resemble his gruesome behavior, scars that could be seen and remembered by anyone and i guess everyone. I wanted their behavior to be eclipsed by my own because what ultimately matters, I still feel... I guess, is how I treat myself.
The damage that I did was, of course, inappropriate, but mired in my head was the thought that since I was wearing sleeves, it was okay, I could hide it. If I bled profusely, I could bandage myself up right there, before walking on my own blood, telling him that I was now walking over myself as much as I let him walk all over me. But the injuries were not even that deep. The first cut stung like hell, though and by the 5th cut, I found that I wasn't bleeding "Hollywood-style" I found the end result less than satisfying. So I just gave up.
Long story short on this, I talked to my supervisors at length for a two hour meeting or so in their office moments after the fact. Human Resources came involved and I talked with them at length about what was going on as well. I'm actually on my last day of leave. It's been over 40 days and I've talked to three therapists about this very issue. I'm thinking about being seen every month or so. Maybe twice a month.
Its a good thing I have insurance that covers this sort of mental health therapy like counciling... Okay, it's co-pay, but still... $20 a visit I guess is not that bad. It's just odd that my behavior/logic/reasoning is or has metastasized like some sort of cancer... Though I guess it's logical at the same time, when one thinks of it as a disease of some sort. :/
In other news, I am still a virgin in the pure sense while being 33 years old as of this moment. And yet, before I was 21, I didn't have a thirst to have kids even then, like, having kids I guess is a nightmare in itself if I, or the world as a whole, is unable to sustain or support what we have before making more...
Why are we, as humans, having more children? I ask that often with no answer. You don't need to answer that, there isn't any one answer to a broad question like that.
And yet... well, being obsessed with sex, well... uhm, ya. Strange indeed. How can I want it if I don't want have a relationship (while that's not true, I guess it has been, as knowing where I am in the relationship world)...? Dyslexic logic is rampant at times, yes? Well, at least I don't go out of my way to become a sort of mad bull in a glass factory. But in their right mind, with luck in their favor, who would, seriously? Not a soul? I'd stick to that answer, too.
Well, in that vein of relationships and trust, I'd be much more willing to befriend a woman than a guy, maybe on a scale of 10 to 1, whoever the woman is or what she does. Though I should never deal in absolutes or semi-absolutes, even as extreme as 10 to 1... because I ended up with two guy roommates once... UGH! Ewww...
Anyway, I see men as chauvinistic, fowl and foreign. I guess I always have. I don't know. But since I'm a virgin at this age... well, women are foreign to me as well, apparently. :/
I've used computers to pass the time, to communicate with people with and such. But this, too, has been a colossal nightmare, in that you're never fully sure if you're talking to a woman or a man, especially on IRC.
Work isn't a problem per se, other than getting a job in my field... with the Puget Sound area of Washington state being as tight as it is. I'd had hopes of going into graphic design or webmastering... And yet, I still have college loans to pay off (with endless deferments), with the minimum wage I (still!) have... but, eh... I guess it's okay. Nothing is perfect, or ever can be, or ever will be...
Just being able to work or to have an employer in 2009 in the USA... that's luck. Maybe. Well... there is still 9 months to go in 2009, something might happen yet that would make half of America unemployed. Or something... as unlikely as any of that is...
I still am a perfectionist, though, anyway... washing hands before I eat, like at a restaurant, even. I have seen my parents countlessly order sandwiches or something and not bother to get up to the restroom. Sometimes I would purposefully look for pasta or fried rice, instead, if I felt particularly lazy. But then I've seen spots on the silverware, too... :/
Given the stress and that in my life, well... I somehow remained drug free. Weird, huh? Like, I feel in a sense that it would be a sin to even begin drinking beer or smoking cigarettes. I've told myself again and again (in some way) that I really don't need them, they cannot bring happiness, I'd be happier without them... etc. Even in caffeine I'm kind of against... like, no coffee here, please. Mountain dew? Sure, once in a while, maybe. But it's still like I'm better without it. Somehow.
There's nothing at all against people that do use them, I still am just kinda horrified to use just about drug myself. I have had rum and coke served to me before which just further clarified for me the "evilness sin" of drinking for me. It was like drinking the saltiest water ever, eating the sourest of grapes ever or eating the worst tasting cough syrup in the history of Mankind. Ever. For me, personally... in my lil' ol' world, at least.
This all started, of course, when I was in 7th grade. I guess the D.A.R.E. police officer had promised us all in the classroom, to some effect, that if any of us started using any kind of substance, even as an experiment, it would become some sort of crutch, to some degree, like... the user would be hopeless without it.
Sure, that's extreme. But somehow, having that nightmare scenario served to me back then(probably misinterpreted, but nevertheless) is probably all that it took for me to be who I am today. Maybe with the help of television at the time it further validated what the officer was saying.
*shrug*
I'm sure some of you might chime in that it's about balance. But there is no balance available with some drugs. Some of them are legal, and most, sure, are illegal. And law enforcement doesn't know balance when you use some/most/all of the illegal ones.
I avoid television now, because the commercials are endlessly insane. Thank goodness for broadband, which I can watch stuff like ER without the conformity of television. I also catch Keith Olbermann on msnbc.com where I especially love his special comments. Maybe he has a form of Asperger's, too. His tirades that are special comments seem to be endless too, like this one... :/
A latest obsession is finding free mp3 files on the web with at least a 128 kbps bit rate and a 44k or hopefully a 44.1 kHz sample rate. I have built myself this music collection to win back the balance of stress in my life in my favor on bad days... if I remember to hold on until I get home, that is. So, I think I have just about every single "one hit wonder" ever made from the 1980's (I would hope, I love most of them) that is still within the back of the mind of many Americans.
I also have a huge assortment of dance, electronica and trance songs... lots of pop and probably a little less than that in terms of music from the 80's hair metal bands. I also have quite a few jazzy electro-funk songs, like there is a sound effect of popping and cracking, like it is played from a really old LP and yet, there are synths, a bass, horns and more of a song that is modern, maybe? Or not...
I also have some classical songs remade with modern synthesizers, a few country songs sung by women, because, well... I feel they are more "truly human" and "less chauvinistic." Alternative songs works too, such as grunge. Never been a super fan of grunge, but it sure beats the wallowing cry of some... bluegrass song...? Sung by a guy?
Okay, so grunge was 99% men. Or a 100%. I mean, I never knew any grunge band with a woman as a front lead. But having said that, I'm sure most of the songs I have, if they are not created by a woman, there is one that sings in them. Or a voice of a woman is just simply sampled in the song... whichever. Right now, I've got a foreign language song, no kidding, sung by a woman. "Be My World - Non So Perche" by Milky. I think it's French and Google could tell me, but I'm busy banging away at this little note about me now so I cannot look... trust me, I can get sidetracked.
Anyway, I pick up different remixes or languages of the songs I find because I like the original. And when you got these different varieties, well, then the library has personality. At least the Genius playlist helps to bring the personality out... I think iTunes is awesome.
In some of the songs I have, the Genius doesn't know any related songs that it would go with... like pop goes with other pop songs, rock goes with other rock songs. And sometimes it is just a question of separating the name and the artist in the correct fields for the Genius to know what group of songs a song should actually be played with. But thankfully, within iTunes, I can tell it to play songs that haven't been played at all (or just been played not as often as some of the other songs) to get those songs that have been left behind by the iTunes Genius.
In any rate, I have 2,907 songs in iTunes. 10.3 days, according to iTunes. And there is still work to do... I don't know if I have, say, Diana Ross, at least in some/most of the songs she is readily known for. Maybe any. Natalie Merchant? Norah Jones? Julee Cruise? I have some songs from each artist but you get the point. There is always something. Such is, of course, true in other areas of my life. Maybe even yours, I'm sure...
I don't know, I guess if I tried to explain to some people that I'm just not that interesting at all, they'd laugh at me right in front of my face. Except that the person doing most of the laughing in my life would, in fact, be me, fact be told.
At times I giggle at something that would snowball... and, well, then I'd snort... then I get these absolute horrid hiccups that sound like a squelching machine somehow, sometimes AS I AM LAUGHING, which becomes much like an an endless perpetual loop. Especially, in that moment, I am told that my voice or my laughter could be heard a football field's away, or something to that distance, maybe. Yes, it could be unprofessional... but, well... I guess it's just hard to separate the oil from the water once soap has been added. It's just all me. And at least I guess by some people, I can be read like a book, which is kind of comforting, actually.
Given all of my flaws and all of my self-inflicted scars, at least I do have wings, sometimes, of an angel. Humor. At least I have that in my life... that side of me. And while it might seem depressing that it's just me and not reflected back to me from anyone else... yet... it's still a blessing that I have it, that I have that goofy side of me... the part that would make a random person roll their eyes or smile. Or both. But it's good. Maybe. No. Wit like this is an angel's gift. Yes. There, better.
Ya, Jack's not interesting, indeed. NOT. Knows simplicity? Not hardly. Ever? Mmm, bleah. Or some such... I don't know. But I guess I've now unwound, at least for today. Well, in this hour. Yet, it might crash the whole fabric of space-time or just the socialphobiaworld.com forums, but hopefully not.
But, thanks again, though, for your interest. :/
:|Blessed Be,
-Jack in WA
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