1. I don’t understand manipulation; I mean I understand the definition of it; I can render it dormant in myself, stop it before it even surfaces. So I recognize its coming. But I do not understand manipulation in completion. It seems that much of the world functions as a whole by manipulating the environment and events in hopes of gaining a perceived outcome. I don’t like that attribute or any semblance of that attribute in myself. In so being, I constantly am evaluating and reevaluating my motivation in attempt to weed out any sprouts or seedlings of manipulation. Thusly, I am in a nonstop state of deep analysis of self in effort to be that which I wish to represent as truth and goodness, even as I exist in a world full of trickery.
2. I don’t understand pointing the finger at someone outside the self. Yes, I understand cause and effect. I understand it so well, indeed, that I see the flurry of possibilities and renderings in every circumstance I perceive. I see in black and white in a sense, but not in a segregated way. I see nothing as entirely right nor anything as entirely wrong. I see both sides; and I see what is outside those two opposing sides, in the middle, above and below. There isn’t any way of proving anything, as all is scaffolded off of a non-original thought positioned in my brain by some eventual found pattern or discovery. Pointing a finger is declaring I know. When I know I know little to nothing of this world. Pointing the finger is proclaiming I am correct, when no such person exits that is in complete correctness. I become exhausted in thought, as I wish to exist as many: to blame fully, to counter, to get irate, to live in a place in which I am both innocent and justified in action. But I cannot go there. I try. I try to don the same robes as the majority, and I am immediately succumbed by feelings of suffocation, regret, and a sense of ‘wrong.’ If I was to point a finger at all, it would be inwardly at self, in having found myself attached to a societal rule of blame as a result of turning away from self-responsibility and adhering to a false individualized and limited self-perception.
3. I don’t understand friendship. Being with others confuses me. I am often giddy and overcome with joy when I first engage with an old friend or new friend. I laugh a lot. I take on my friends mannerisms and way of being. I become less of a me I know little of, and more of this other I seem to suddenly understand a lot about. I am a sponge of sorts, soaking up what is in my immediate environment. Empathic, perhaps. Psychic? I don’t know. It almost seems biological at times, as if I can feasibly metamorphasize not into butterfly from caterpillar, but from one shape I had adopted to the next before me. I often smother another with my attention, wanting, and what appears to be love. But I know not what I am actually doing. It feels like a reunion of sorts, a coming together after eons apart. Only, when we again separate, I am left bewildered by my actions, and again wondering who am I. Worse, I doubt my genuineness, my authenticity, my essential being. To watch myself as observer morph and remorph is both baffling and disturbing. I long to simply be as stagnant one not taking on the persona or emotions of another. But as hard as I wish, I remain some tangent unborn onto self, and reborn in true form as another.
4. I don’t understand love. I have tried and tried and tried. I feel great bonds. I feel great affection. I feel admiration. I feel a like-vibration of sorts that brings on kindred feelings of sameness, recognition and home. I understand over-thinking about someone. I understand longing and wanting someone. I understand the bodily sensations of erotica. Yet, I do not understand the concept of love. I would declare with accuracy I love my children because yes, I would die for them. But is dying for someone love? If so, whom else would I die for? And I would further claim with accuracy I love my good friend, but why would be the next question. Is love based on standards of behavior, on me feeling good and safe, on me feeling lifted and self-validated in my existence? Most seems evident of selfish ego-needs. And so I become wrapped in confusion again of love. If it’s just a knowing and a feeling, then I have this type of ‘love’ a lot. If it’s a desiring to connect, then I have this too. I believe I could romantically love anyone, given the proper setting and environment, the proper influences through the years. I can be taught to love based on what I have been exposed to. I can be taught to choose another as my lover based on what I have collected as truisms. What if I love everyone, and that is the way it is? What if that is my confusion? In trying to separate and delegate and segregate love, I am left lost to myself. For I love but know not what for.
5. I don’t understand people. People confuse me. They can be so warm and generous at first. So available. So real. So genuine. And then they go into hiding. I overwhelm them, I think. It’s my nature to pounce out, to attach, to bleed out my soul, to engage, and to get so very excited upon connecting. I give and I give fully. This me, this all of me. And then I retreat to a place of deep regret. For again I was taken in by the beginning dance, this place of first greeting and meeting that I took for real and everlasting. You see, I stay the same, very much so, in this manner. I stay the same in my ability to love even though I know not of what love is, and in my ability to be me, even as I know not who I am. It is such a dichotomy of twisted thoughts that I seek harbor and refuge from my very brain. But the truth is I do understand me, in all my predictable unpredictability, I am the same. I am loving. I am real. I am me. And when others go someplace else beyond themselves, I am overwhelmed with confusion and self-blame. What did I do this time? Why can’t I stop myself from being SO me? Why can’t I accept that what is now won’t ever last that eventually the place where we meet as two complete souls joined in gleefulness will wear down. That I will be back to myself, wondering what went wrong.
6. I am naive. I know some people prefer the term innocent or unworldly. Of just plain kind and good. But the truth is I am naive. It doesn’t matter how many times I experience and re-experience a similar event; it still turns out the same. I still am baffled and surprised by the end result. You mean I let that happen again? You mean I was betrayed, tricked or cornered? How? Indeed my eyes are wide open. My brain is on high alert. But somehow my heart is in the lead. We follow my heart. This beautiful child-like love and we just can’t help ourselves. We fall with her, into her way of being, and we think this time we are okay. This time it’s alright. This time trust. Trust. Trust. Trust. I don’t know how to stop trusting. For I cannot see what I am not.
Everyday Asperger's 
We are so uncannily similar, Sam! I don’t understand the human world either, and have the same experiences as you do. My idea of friendship is having pets and being myself with children. I keep my distance with adults – having learnt from bitter experience. I gave up looking for friendship long ago. The searching was so hard and ultimately fruitless. Yes, it’s a world of trickery, and no, I don’t understand them – and they don’t understand me. Never will.
Wow, this is so beautiful, and at every word, I was thinking you were in my head speaking my heart.
Maybe there’s nothing to understand, Sam. Maybe you don’t so much love all and each equally as that you ARE love, unchained, revelling in itself. Maybe that is our very nature, but we forget and hide from this wonder that we are. Maybe this is all beyond words, beyond the mind’s scope, but the mind still likes to play with it. No harm done. Just love’s dance with itself 🙂
Hi Samantha, I have never heard anyone say, besides myself, that I feel I overwhelm other s. I can see so many times how exasperating I am to others, it’s like I say the wrong things, or maybe too much, or I make someone uncomfortable….and I am left wondering O God , what did I do??? Why is it like this with me so much. And another thought, my sister has always felt that no one wants to hear anything she has to say so she will hurry up and say whatever….and I notice a similarity with myself. Like when I leave a message on someones voicemail, I always feel I have to rush and talk fast and many times I pondered why did I do that? And the same thoughts like my sister, I am afraid no one wants to hear all what I have to say so I better hurry up and spit it out. I don’t know if this relates at all with your post, but I feel somehow it does, for me anyway. That pervading uncomfortableness with others, on the phone , anywhere really. Like now , I have no idea how to end a conversation either, on the phone , out in public, or on this post:) So I will say bye for now:)
I feel so similar to your #3,5,6. People and friendships confuse me. I am often left feeling bewildered. Hurt. I crave friendship but it evades me. I feel like I am loved and left a lot. I wonder what it is that I am doing that pushes people away. I truly do not understand. I’m glad I could see myself in your words here because it helps me to understand a little more about myself. Thank you.
Sam, I feel exactly the same emotions, but is as though it comes in cycles. I “come good” for a while (whatever that means: I guess it means I fit in with the other humans) and then I inadvertently slip back in to this place you have so adeptly described. It makes me really sad and frustrated when I find myself here, and very very lonely. And I will remain like this for months now, until I get a breath of wind under my wings from somewhere:it will eventually lift me enough to rise up and once again fly and soar. From that height I get perspective. I look down over the “situation” and laugh. It’s as though I get reminded of how crazy this dance on the earth plane is. If you don’t know the steps, noone asks you to join in.
Real friendships are illusive to me and I wish it was otherwise. I have always cried upon hearing the song “Yellow Bird”. Sums up my emotions around friendships and feeling alone and misunderstood in the world. My dog, husband and daughter get me. What a relief!
Love your work Sam. And love to all the other Aspies out there. Things are speeding up on the fringes. Power to all for the times ahead xx
Beautifully articulated. Your insight cuts to the core of the human condition, and the issues you discuss here are present in all humans. (You are not alone) This is the eternal struggle, and the word for this is ego. The ego is an artificial construction of self. Humans rely on their artificial ego as a security blanket. You have the ability to enter other people’s spheres because you are a shape shifter. All humans have this ability but most cannot realize it because they are too insecure. They cling to an ego, and they feel violated by your intrusion. But in the true cosmic sense your intrusion is right and good, and will help them in the long run to lessen their insecurities and accept all things as part of their self. I have watched this happen with humans whom i have relationships with and know it to be true.
If you are having trouble because you dont feel you are being your self; realize that your self is the all; you are everything, and it is not just okay, but essential, for you to merge with others: it is a sacred act. And when others are having trouble because they are irritated or annoyed because you have entered their sphere and become them, allow them their space, but be careful not to succomb to the same insecure negative emotions that they are experiencing, because those negative emotions will create a callous that will detract from your true gift, a gift which is dependent on your translucent ego, which could become opaque and callussed and turn you into a normal human, which would be a step backward in my humble opinion. An alternative is to intentionally construct a transparent ego, and take pride in the fact that you are more than just the artifice that we all cling to.
Hopefully this helps and doesnt hurt, take what i say with a grain of salt, because i am in fact an alien shapeshifter retard dookie clown who should not be taken seriously. But its all true. Seriously. So real. Not really. But yeah. One of us. Gooble gobble.
I understand fully; and appreciate your words.
I totally get this, but you already know that. Love you. xxxx
This conditional thing people believe to be love… well, is not love. It’s ego based need to possess someone. True love doesn’t differentiate. In my opinion it’s very important not to be led astray by what most of people think. My point is that it’s difficult to understand when you automatically accept ideas outside of you as true (and, as a concequence, dismiss your own). When you seek your own definitions, and then ask yourself why other people confuse such concepts, it’s easy to develop compassion and not feel hurt… and, at the same time, stick to your own truth instead of turning into someone else.
In my experience, giving too much rarely turns out to be beneficial to any part. On the one hand, when it’s done unconsciously, it’s easy to feel drained and as a result, start to avoid people. On the other – both parties play a certain role (rescuer/victim) and often get stuck. What’s more, the victim doesn’t get a chance to solve their problems on their own.
Compassion balanced by some insight and distance, being loyal to my own feelings made my relationships more peaceful.
Earth plane is a wonderful place – you can learn so much by simply observing and transforming yourself. You can turn every ‘I don’t understand’ into wisdom.
lovely
Like my thoughts. Is that what everybody feels, like Ka said? I am so confused with other people that I don´t know anything. It is like I am so pure and have no control over me or my feelings (what are they?) but others just know this all. I started to withdraw in my twenties, escaped in my head and I am still there. That´s ok though, I like my head very much 🙂 I NEVER get bored. Even though everybody seems to think I am bored all the time. I am so boring to the outside world.
I too share me too much even though I know I shouldn´t. I can´t help it. And I learned the hard way that everybody isn´t like me, trusted and loyal. I also find it difficult to be interested on others. I am interested but I can´t ask them anything. I think that people tell themselves if they have something to say. Like me, I keep going on about myself and I except others to do so too. But wait… They want me to ask them questions. No no… Can´t do that. And then I start to feel selfish.
I have never experienced romantic love but I do love deeply, I think. And there is only very few people in my life who I have loved. Connected would be more the word for that feeling than love. I don´t know what love is.
I don´t know if I have aspergers or not. I have no diagnose yet. Still working on that. But everything I read here seems so familiar. Finally. Something to relate to. Everything starts to make sense now.
thank you for sharing 🙂 I enjoyed reading your comment
Thank you for writing this.
Love,
it is likely from the general public confusion on the subject that this is something that it is not possible to understand. It is only possible to feel Love and to believe or even know that one does love. Perhaps it’s possible to appreciate and embrace the results of Love. We know the general area of what it is to feel Love. It’s the best that we can do. If we are very lucky someone else will appreciate our nature and spend time making it abundantly clear that they love us too.
lovely, thank you. I am very lucky 🙂
Reading this few years later and with tears in my eyes i see my lovely 9 yers old kid, who is trying over and over to find friends and is ready to love them from the first sight until infinity and failing again and again, just because she is too friendly and too loving and then after some time too annoying for others.
I hope she would find peope like you in her life, praying for it… And thank you, that you are and that you teach us, ignorants, how does it feel from inside…it is hard to understand, but we are trying too, believe me!
There are groups at myspectrumsuite.com listed perhaps you can connect with now. Wishing you the very best.