I've learned that I have Asperger's Syndrome this week. For me, this is excellent news; for me, this means I can now go on to live with this condition, acknowledge it, and move on with my life. But I also have an anxiety disorder that I must learn to live with also.
How should I live with anxiety disorder, though, and Asperger's Syndrome? Well, the Asperger's Syndrome can be improved over in therapy. Improving upon my pre-existing faculties are important to me as I must live with this condition. The anxiety disorder, however, can be treated in many different ways--medication, therapy, or both, or alternative practices. Now, what I've learned about medication is that it cannot cure the problem. Rather, like a drug, take me away from the problem before seeing it again.
I have to live with this disorder...While medication can help greatly, I am not going with medication on a regular day basis. It's good for certain situations or when my mind seems to quack on forever in regard to something that cannot just go away, but I do not want to have side effects for feeling "normal," a state that I understand to exist when I am relieved of my fears and living as though there will be no new worries for a while. A quiet mind can be sought out, but it cannot be found in this way. Quietness cannot be found in drugs or in medication; while they can be used for emergency fixes, or even for the sole purpose of relaxing around friends and other loved ones, quietness must be discovered and perfect. As an art gallery owner tells me, or at least suggests indirectly to me, my outlook must change on life.
And the way I live my life must change too. The way I interact with my peers must change.
Friending new people with my interests in mind will become important in the upcoming months and years as I learn to live with both of these conditions. But I will say that I cannot meditate there; I cannot be religious to get there or live in accordance to some higher power; I cannot medicate there or rely on short-lived drugs; instead, I must rely on "trust," one of the areas where I am shortcoming. Trust fluctuates with the situation, going up with exposure to the particular person and experience to the particular experience, but there seems to be a need to stabilize this trust across the spectrum of my life.
Trust cannot be found by itself. It can be found in a relationship. A : B. It is the relationship that explains why two things exist together; "trust" in a relationship can be extended very far. I can say that the same "trust" that forms human relationships also forms our relationships between strangers. And I can say that "trust" forms many more relationships, but the most significant relationship I can find is that of myself and everyday life.
For a person with Asperger's Syndrome, I apply myself directly to the world in front of me; everything becomes attached to us, especially when I am interested in something and decide to pursue the interest fully. So there is no such thing as an intermediate term to separate ourselves from the world. This is lacking and can be learned. Or rather, since it has to be learned, created to meet my needs. I accept that I can be open with people, but I need to learn that I cannot be open about everything, a lesson that has manifested itself into my life since the beginning of the year. Openness can be good and bad depending on the situation; it has to be learned. A person has to decide what to be open and what to be closed about (1). But yet not eradicated or suppressed by the societal norm insofar as it is this openness and this honesty that makes the person with Asperger's one of the most insightful people one has ever come to know. I can be open, but I can be injured and hurt. I can take what happens seriously and then cry in secrecy so as to not worry my friends. I can worry sick about my friends but be forced by others to hide that worry and never make it known to the person or people I worry; it is almost as though I never worried for the other person. Or interacted with that person with this light considered. I am not a person who lacks in these faculties and in these woes; I am me, but I acknowledge that I am different.
To say I am different can often imply that this difference just is--the difference is fixed between me and others--but it is not a fixed difference, a difference that cannot be lessened in order to allow for more collaboration, more conversation, and more relating with each other. Rather, it is dynamic and changing as one perceives it and develops further the perception; I, at least, live by what I perceive. Sometimes perception is imposed on me, and at other times it is not imposed on me; but yet I live with these different perceptions in relation to my own, often living the other perceptions when I should really be living my own perceptions and being more mindful of what I want in this life. Let these differences, nevertheless, prove to be beneficial for my wellbeing and my welfare, and let a mode of life be found for me, and only me, to abide. I cannot abide by another's perceptions when I can live by my own perceptions.
And let this blog be founded as a memoir. A living memoir. (1)
(1) I want to record what happens in my treatment from this point onward. There are many blogs that describe what it is like to live with this condition. Indeed, I would like to note these things from the perspective of someone who was just diagnosed with this condition. However, I am far more interested in talking about what it means to be treated and what it means to receive therapy. There are myriads of conditions besides Asperger's that too require therapy to treat as to make livable, but to make a condition livable, there has to be different methodologies discussed and implemented. This is the scope of the therapy that I am far more interested in occupying my time with as well as this blog, and that is namely how therapy and myself are making this condition livable.
And why am I interested in this? It applies to me, but therapy is given to many more people for different conditions. I am interested in understanding how I figure out the best treatment for myself, and from my own experiences seeing if anything can be said about therapy in consideration to others and their experiences. But even then, such an answer is incomplete; I hope that my account, despite its incompleteness, gets considered by someone who is wondering the same things and inquires into them.
Lastly, why make these experiences public? This should be private...right? I disagree. What should be private is the specifics of my own life. I will change names around. And I will obscure the identities of people. But what can be public is my own experiences with these details changed. Furthermore, given the description of the fact that I will be amending the details of these experiences so as to obscure identities, this blog is one scope of my treatment as I see it. Writing has always been an ally to me, but I also see that conversation is a remedy too as I understand myself and this condition better.
Thus I have now established why I write this blog. And let it be that this blog be composed.
How should I live with anxiety disorder, though, and Asperger's Syndrome? Well, the Asperger's Syndrome can be improved over in therapy. Improving upon my pre-existing faculties are important to me as I must live with this condition. The anxiety disorder, however, can be treated in many different ways--medication, therapy, or both, or alternative practices. Now, what I've learned about medication is that it cannot cure the problem. Rather, like a drug, take me away from the problem before seeing it again.
I have to live with this disorder...While medication can help greatly, I am not going with medication on a regular day basis. It's good for certain situations or when my mind seems to quack on forever in regard to something that cannot just go away, but I do not want to have side effects for feeling "normal," a state that I understand to exist when I am relieved of my fears and living as though there will be no new worries for a while. A quiet mind can be sought out, but it cannot be found in this way. Quietness cannot be found in drugs or in medication; while they can be used for emergency fixes, or even for the sole purpose of relaxing around friends and other loved ones, quietness must be discovered and perfect. As an art gallery owner tells me, or at least suggests indirectly to me, my outlook must change on life.
And the way I live my life must change too. The way I interact with my peers must change.
Friending new people with my interests in mind will become important in the upcoming months and years as I learn to live with both of these conditions. But I will say that I cannot meditate there; I cannot be religious to get there or live in accordance to some higher power; I cannot medicate there or rely on short-lived drugs; instead, I must rely on "trust," one of the areas where I am shortcoming. Trust fluctuates with the situation, going up with exposure to the particular person and experience to the particular experience, but there seems to be a need to stabilize this trust across the spectrum of my life.
Trust cannot be found by itself. It can be found in a relationship. A : B. It is the relationship that explains why two things exist together; "trust" in a relationship can be extended very far. I can say that the same "trust" that forms human relationships also forms our relationships between strangers. And I can say that "trust" forms many more relationships, but the most significant relationship I can find is that of myself and everyday life.
For a person with Asperger's Syndrome, I apply myself directly to the world in front of me; everything becomes attached to us, especially when I am interested in something and decide to pursue the interest fully. So there is no such thing as an intermediate term to separate ourselves from the world. This is lacking and can be learned. Or rather, since it has to be learned, created to meet my needs. I accept that I can be open with people, but I need to learn that I cannot be open about everything, a lesson that has manifested itself into my life since the beginning of the year. Openness can be good and bad depending on the situation; it has to be learned. A person has to decide what to be open and what to be closed about (1). But yet not eradicated or suppressed by the societal norm insofar as it is this openness and this honesty that makes the person with Asperger's one of the most insightful people one has ever come to know. I can be open, but I can be injured and hurt. I can take what happens seriously and then cry in secrecy so as to not worry my friends. I can worry sick about my friends but be forced by others to hide that worry and never make it known to the person or people I worry; it is almost as though I never worried for the other person. Or interacted with that person with this light considered. I am not a person who lacks in these faculties and in these woes; I am me, but I acknowledge that I am different.
To say I am different can often imply that this difference just is--the difference is fixed between me and others--but it is not a fixed difference, a difference that cannot be lessened in order to allow for more collaboration, more conversation, and more relating with each other. Rather, it is dynamic and changing as one perceives it and develops further the perception; I, at least, live by what I perceive. Sometimes perception is imposed on me, and at other times it is not imposed on me; but yet I live with these different perceptions in relation to my own, often living the other perceptions when I should really be living my own perceptions and being more mindful of what I want in this life. Let these differences, nevertheless, prove to be beneficial for my wellbeing and my welfare, and let a mode of life be found for me, and only me, to abide. I cannot abide by another's perceptions when I can live by my own perceptions.
And let this blog be founded as a memoir. A living memoir. (1)
(1) I want to record what happens in my treatment from this point onward. There are many blogs that describe what it is like to live with this condition. Indeed, I would like to note these things from the perspective of someone who was just diagnosed with this condition. However, I am far more interested in talking about what it means to be treated and what it means to receive therapy. There are myriads of conditions besides Asperger's that too require therapy to treat as to make livable, but to make a condition livable, there has to be different methodologies discussed and implemented. This is the scope of the therapy that I am far more interested in occupying my time with as well as this blog, and that is namely how therapy and myself are making this condition livable.
And why am I interested in this? It applies to me, but therapy is given to many more people for different conditions. I am interested in understanding how I figure out the best treatment for myself, and from my own experiences seeing if anything can be said about therapy in consideration to others and their experiences. But even then, such an answer is incomplete; I hope that my account, despite its incompleteness, gets considered by someone who is wondering the same things and inquires into them.
Lastly, why make these experiences public? This should be private...right? I disagree. What should be private is the specifics of my own life. I will change names around. And I will obscure the identities of people. But what can be public is my own experiences with these details changed. Furthermore, given the description of the fact that I will be amending the details of these experiences so as to obscure identities, this blog is one scope of my treatment as I see it. Writing has always been an ally to me, but I also see that conversation is a remedy too as I understand myself and this condition better.
Thus I have now established why I write this blog. And let it be that this blog be composed.
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