THINK - Book Foward
This book is all notes to me, about me, explaining me. The
entries are excerpts from years of my e-mails, from my morning writes and from wee tiny notebooks I carry with me wherever I go.
In 2008, I was all set, me, to join the blogging world. I was rereading this book and I was bored with me, all of me. A friend who knew I had no TV had been kind enough to check some movies out of the library for me. One of those movies was “Mozart and the Whale”. I stared at it for days thinking I had no reason to watch any minute of any Aspergers support group. Then, all of my else failed, and watch it I did.
This book is all notes to me, about me, explaining me. The
entries are excerpts from years of my e-mails, from my morning writes and from wee tiny notebooks I carry with me wherever I go.
In 2008, I was all set, me, to join the blogging world. I was rereading this book and I was bored with me, all of me. A friend who knew I had no TV had been kind enough to check some movies out of the library for me. One of those movies was “Mozart and the Whale”. I stared at it for days thinking I had no reason to watch any minute of any Aspergers support group. Then, all of my else failed, and watch it I did.
Truth is sometimes not just surprisingly evident, it's glaringly apparent. Fifteen minutes into that movie I knew the truth, fifteen more minutes on the Internet told me what I knew was right. The truth was that my accurate diagnosis is Aspergers. And yes, I've had that diagnosis
professionally confirmed, it is now official.
Imagine yourself me, you've just finished your diary files, you're to the point of proof-reading for typos, your indigo's rising, and your everything changes. Bombs burst, literally and figuratively, into my air. My world filled itself with a gut-wrenching, an ego-blasting, shamanic death. I went down for the count.
Screaming through my mind flew all of the “possible” diagnoses I'd heard, all the ones bestowed on me, all the pills I'd swallowed, all of the thoughts I'd written in explanation of me . . . the Truth of my life whirled my mind into a feeding frenzy.
Denial is so much more than something you can sit in, it's something you can recognize real. I had never considered, not even as a remote possibility, that my brain's capacity to understand might, in and of itself, be limited. Flash . . . BOOM, I experienced my own big bang.
The truth is, the only diagnosis I have ever believed real was bestowed on me by a very, very smart man. He explained to me that I was “Heyoka, Walking the Visionary Path.” That was heady stuff for a 30 year-old, especially a “seeker”, more especially when you know, you know, it's true beyond any shadow of any doubt.
Bear was Lakota, I am obviously not, so our translation of “Heyoka”, for my world, became “Muse”. I'm a writer, and a “muse” is what I know I will be in the end, in the all I'll be, “a thought in the mind of that which created me”. Lofty words those, a bit of the “airy fairy”, still true.
He smiled when he agreed with my perception, my explanation, and he answered me with a nod I can still see. It was a “real” I didn't know, I recognized. It was the nod of a Walker between Worlds, I know that nod now.
An Aspergers diagnosis was not an exhilarating understanding of my walk here. It wasn't really a mood booster for me. Science has such a wonderful way of bursting bubbles. I wasn't quirky anymore, I was inappropriate. I’m not eccentric, I’m irresponsible. I'm not a writer, it's just my compulsion, my obsession. It became apparent that I had hidden myself so far in plain sight I couldn't even see me. It took days, then more than a year for my Aspergers to make sense, for me to be able to reconcile who I am with what I am . . .
Heyoka, as he explained it for me, for my purpose, was to be a “backwards” thinker. Take my word for it, I thought that would be right handy for a Muse. And, I find the DSM-IV “technically” defines my “backwards thinking” as “non-neurotypical”.
And laughing, at me, with me, for you . . . I am quite literally a “Visionary”. I think in pictures . . .
If I'd known then what I know now, if I had known I could be diagnosed with Aspergers, you wouldn't be reading this, I literally couldn't have written it. In some of these excerpts I said I was writing myself a “case study”, I meant it then, in jest. I really had no clue.
The Aspergers diagnosis put my understanding, my two worlds, on a collision course. I reread everything, rethought everything and realized I wouldn't change a word. I meant the words then, I mean them now. That was enlightening . . .
So who am I? Ah, I'm the one
keepin' me where the light is,
Janet
professionally confirmed, it is now official.
Imagine yourself me, you've just finished your diary files, you're to the point of proof-reading for typos, your indigo's rising, and your everything changes. Bombs burst, literally and figuratively, into my air. My world filled itself with a gut-wrenching, an ego-blasting, shamanic death. I went down for the count.
Screaming through my mind flew all of the “possible” diagnoses I'd heard, all the ones bestowed on me, all the pills I'd swallowed, all of the thoughts I'd written in explanation of me . . . the Truth of my life whirled my mind into a feeding frenzy.
Denial is so much more than something you can sit in, it's something you can recognize real. I had never considered, not even as a remote possibility, that my brain's capacity to understand might, in and of itself, be limited. Flash . . . BOOM, I experienced my own big bang.
The truth is, the only diagnosis I have ever believed real was bestowed on me by a very, very smart man. He explained to me that I was “Heyoka, Walking the Visionary Path.” That was heady stuff for a 30 year-old, especially a “seeker”, more especially when you know, you know, it's true beyond any shadow of any doubt.
Bear was Lakota, I am obviously not, so our translation of “Heyoka”, for my world, became “Muse”. I'm a writer, and a “muse” is what I know I will be in the end, in the all I'll be, “a thought in the mind of that which created me”. Lofty words those, a bit of the “airy fairy”, still true.
He smiled when he agreed with my perception, my explanation, and he answered me with a nod I can still see. It was a “real” I didn't know, I recognized. It was the nod of a Walker between Worlds, I know that nod now.
An Aspergers diagnosis was not an exhilarating understanding of my walk here. It wasn't really a mood booster for me. Science has such a wonderful way of bursting bubbles. I wasn't quirky anymore, I was inappropriate. I’m not eccentric, I’m irresponsible. I'm not a writer, it's just my compulsion, my obsession. It became apparent that I had hidden myself so far in plain sight I couldn't even see me. It took days, then more than a year for my Aspergers to make sense, for me to be able to reconcile who I am with what I am . . .
Heyoka, as he explained it for me, for my purpose, was to be a “backwards” thinker. Take my word for it, I thought that would be right handy for a Muse. And, I find the DSM-IV “technically” defines my “backwards thinking” as “non-neurotypical”.
And laughing, at me, with me, for you . . . I am quite literally a “Visionary”. I think in pictures . . .
If I'd known then what I know now, if I had known I could be diagnosed with Aspergers, you wouldn't be reading this, I literally couldn't have written it. In some of these excerpts I said I was writing myself a “case study”, I meant it then, in jest. I really had no clue.
The Aspergers diagnosis put my understanding, my two worlds, on a collision course. I reread everything, rethought everything and realized I wouldn't change a word. I meant the words then, I mean them now. That was enlightening . . .
So who am I? Ah, I'm the one
keepin' me where the light is,
Janet
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