Primordial Chaos

Both Oasis and Jamiroquai do a song titled this, I like both. It also happens to be my favorite "garden" flower. My favorite flower overall is white calla lilies, but they're not really likely to be grown in someone's garden. Did you know that the actual flower of the calla lily isn't the big white petal part? The yellow thing in the middle has a bunch of tiny flowers on it, those are the actual flowers. Random rambling.

So, I've been REALLY sick the past few days, miserably so. I'm kind of a big baby when it comes to being sick. However, I've done lots of studying and homework in my down time, so I'm not just sleeping all day. I wish. :P

So, the Diversity in Medicine committee has to do one event a semester. I think we're going to wind up doing two this semester, then in the spring is my little pet project/event, and I plan on going all the fuck out on it.

April 2nd, 2010. World Autism Awareness Day. I'm working on planning UNM's little (HUGE) awareness celebration. I'm partnering up with all sorts of other student orgs to do this, it's starting to shape into a huge all day thing, almost a party. GOOD. I'm rather reserved most of the time, but this is one thing I get pretty worked up and loud about. 

April is also Autism Awareness Month. So go get one of those magnetic ribbons for your car. :P You can also go to zazzle.com and search for autism or Asperger's under t-shirts. They've got some pretty entertaining ones on there.

You know, I'm kinda bitter about not being diagnosed until I was 23. Mostly because of the horrible mental hell I was constantly living in. Also because I've only had just over 3 years of being able to see the world a bit more rationally and also having any sort of extensive interactions with people. I don't entirely know and/or understand how to manage really close relationships of any sort. As much as I may appear to have everything under control, I don't. I fight everyday with this, with my own thoughts and feelings...it's very much like there is two different versions of me. One of whom I REALLY HATE. I have these moments where I can't understand how someone else feels or what they're trying to tell me. Then I go full tilt Aspie tantrum. Once I hit that level of frustration, I can't stop it. It's like I'm chained to the back of my mind just watching everything happen, something else is in control. I get really frustrated with my emotions and other people's emotions and I hate when that happens. I say horrible things, I think horrible things, I feel horrible things...then the more rational me has to answer for all of that. It's never good. EVER. I've destroyed and/or contributed to the destruction of a lot of friendships that way. I've hurt a lot of people that way too. All I can do is say I'm sorry, and I'm sorry doesn't mean shit. *sigh* There's no cure for this. There's no help even, really. I will be like this for the rest of my life. That really fucking upsets me. I know it's just a matter of time before I hurt someone else. I'm to a point where I'm seriously considering not having close relationships of any sort with other people. To protect them. To protect me.

Though, I think it's just more I wonder what could have been, would I not be like this if it had been caught sooner? Would my life have gone differently? Asperger's wasn't added to the DSM IV until 1994. I was 11 then. Would anyone have even known enough to catch it? No answers, just a lot of questions. And a lot of regret. 3 years seems like a good chunk of time, but when you are trying to relearn the world around you and yourself...3 years isn't much.

I keep thinking I'm like this for a reason, that somewhere on my path I have something major to give to the world. My cause was given to me in a rather non-subtle way. I am to be a champion of this cause, and I have every intention of doing so. I don't want another human being to ever have to live like I had to, and then fight daily like I do. Because sometimes I don't win and things go south. I know the mental torment and storm that goes on, what I've been through, what I will go through...no one should have to live this. But I do. Others do too. So I will give everything I have to fighting this, not just my own personal battle, but for those who can't fight, for those who will have to fight, for lives not yet created that will be forever changed by this, for those who struggle and lose sometimes...and the people around them that have to face the storm. This all started out about me, I have autism, poor me, life sucks. Then I met others like me, and their families. Heard similar stories to ones from my life. I've had the parents of young kids ask me if they'll be well adjusted or "more normal" as adults. Or ask me what my life as an adult with an ASD is like. Am I social? Do I have friends? Is dating difficult? Do things get better with time? Parents who obviously are feeling the stress when their kiddo has a moment, and I'm sure it hurts them. I've admitted some really difficult things about myself during these conversations. I've had to tell them we won't know until he/she gets older and see the look of dismay on their faces because they are searching for some hope, some relief...it was from those first few times I was asked questions like that when the idea of this being so much bigger than me started to dawn on me. I'd spent so much time living in my head away from others that I only understood me. Then I noticed that other people were dealing with the same shit, many who had more severe cases than I do.

A couple of months ago I was volunteering over at UNM's autism center, as I do when I have free time, and was talking to this mother who had a 7 year old boy who was about as severe as myself. She noticed he would interact with me and I could get him to talk, and asked me how I managed that. Apparently he never really interacted with her much. I told her "I speak the same language" and I explained what I meant by that. I gave her a few tips and tricks I've learned over many hours of interacting with autistic kids, and we had a conversation. She asked a familiar question, what my life was like as an adult, and I gave her a brief run down of my story, when I got diagnosed, a glossed over version of my struggle, me finally going back to college, that I'm a honors students in 2 university and 2 national organizations, and so on. She asked me if I was studying Psychology and I told her yeah, I want to go into autism research. She picked up her son and as she turned to walk out she said to me:

"If anyone can give us hope, I think it's you."

In that moment, I knew where I needed to be, what I needed to do. That moment is SEARED into my consciousness and my fate was sealed. There isn't an hour that goes by I don't think of her and what she said. Of watching her little boy SMILE and WAVE at me as they left, something unusual in autistic kids, especially with strangers. At that moment it completely stopped being about me, it was now about everyone BUT me.

I've lost a lot of my personal battles. I've got more to lose, I'm sure. Other people I'll hurt, regrets I'll have, all of that. I'll do things people don't like or understand, piss people off, frustrate people...I know there's more of that in my future. I'll do everything I can to make it not so, but I'm not perfect, I can't win every time.

Regardless of my shortcomings, faults, and failures, to that mom and her little boy, I carry a small spark of hope.

I'll spend my life trying to turn that spark into a flame.

~A.