Empathy

It's been a while since I've written, but I felt the need to write about an epiphany that I've had.

I first started to notice a tendency in high school, that as I had an innate habit of absorbing the personality traits of others I was around. Much like the way I absorb data.

At a time when I didn't know about Asperger's, it didn't really make much sense to me. It is known that those with Asperger's have difficulty understanding and empathizing with others emotions.

A few months ago, I was talking with a former colleague about his turmoil and he self-describes himself as an 'empath'. I found it very interesting to discover another end of the empathy spectrum. It was an interesting discussion between the man who can't empathize and the man who can't stop empathizing.

It occurs to me now the way that I cope with my inability to naturally empathize is through a strange form of mimicry. I generate would would probably be better described as a 'simpatico' with people. I find a way to feel empathy through subconsciously analyzing and mimicking how people behave and then internalizing it.

So that makes me wonder again, how much of 'me' is me? How much is layers upon layers of other people's personalities, feelings and emotions analyzed and absorbed by my mind? 

Maybe this is the way all Aspies cope? Maybe it's the healthiest way to go about it? Or maybe this is limited to my own unique mind? I don't know. I don't know how to even feel about it, so far it has worked, but I feel it further obfuscates my own identity.

Vulnerability

I've been having a very rough few weeks. After a short period of stability, the darkness of depression has hit me hard most evenings in the last few weeks. I could claim it has to do with my mom being in the hospital, but if I'm honest it started well before then.

I feel broken, and I think it is so true that is does give you the ability to build yourself back up again, however, I just don't know how to go about it. I am lost and I feel trapped.

I told a friend last night that I feel like Asperger's locks me in a room and in that room I am stalked by my depression. It is so difficult to deal with the way these two afflictions feed off of each other.


My sense of identity is shattered, it is shards on the floor at my feet. I am trying to re-forge them without getting cut by them and I am struggling.

I can't help but feel like I have a major gap in my life and I don't know how to fill it. I'd like to this is another example of where Asperger's and Depression feed off of each other. The Asperger's makes it difficult for me to meet and engage new people in order to date, and the depression drains me of the energy to overcome it and makes it seem hopeless. Add to that the level of doubt that this would even be the right time in my life to have a partner and it just completely stalls the process.

I don't know who I am, and even more difficult, I'm not even sure who I want to be. How does one forge a weapon without knowing if he wants a sword or a battle-axe? How does a painter paint when he doesn't know if he wants to make a portrait or a seascape? I just know I can't stay as the puddle of emotion that I am right now, nor descend into the numbing darkness on a nightly basis, if I want to survive.

Who I am... and what I don't want to be!

Last night, I stumbled upon a Facebook post that linked to a webpage about communicating with people that have Aspergers or High Functioning Autism. I didn't actually read it until this morning, but it hit me hard. The page I landed on was neuro-typical wives talking about their relationship with their Aspergers husband and I see myself so much in the descriptions.

Here are some excepts, these are all from different spouses:

"Hard to communicate with, doesn't like to be social, doesn't like change,never compliments me... He thinks I can read his mind because it seems so painful for him to communicate. Very passive-aggressive."

 "He will go to work but as soon as he gets home he shuts down."

 "I love social events but it is like Chinese water torture to him."

 "Lack of empathy, lack of affection , lack of communication, lack of support through very difficult times. Always always always feeling lonely in my marriage."

 "Missing the physical and articulate expressions of simple affection and of passionate curiosity of ones object of desire. It is like reading music when you know what the orchestra sounds like and seeing the branches move without the sound of the breeze."

 "Poor communication, defensiveness, rigid thinking and lack of empathy."

I've never been in a relationship before, and I'm 31 years old. I know I am scared of the initial rejection and so I don't put myself out there. In addition to the fact that I do not participate in many of the normal social events in which one finds a date.

But I also do fear what it would be like to be in a relationship, the mental energy it will require from me in order to actively not be like the men in the above quotes and the fear that I will end up being like that to someone and hurting them deeply.

I also feel like I am lonely and that I'm missing something important by not being in a relationship. But at the same time is that enough to 'inflict myself' on someone or to expose myself to the slew of rejections I'll receive or to endure social situations that I won't enjoy in the hopes of 'meeting someone'. I really have no idea.

Moving Forward

Yesterday, I said goodbye to my job of over 6 years. It has been a weird sort of two weeks since I gave my notice. I've felt a bit like a lame duck going around work, troubleshooting issues here and there, but unable to make any strategic changes, since I will not be there to see them through, and my successor has yet to be named. My famous or maybe infamous flash drive gave birth to a few new ones for the various people that will be assuming my functions. I guess that kind of speaks to how much of a remit I had. Not as easy, is transferring the information in my head, including but not limited to, how to use the various tools on those flash drives.

Yesterday was about trying to tie up as many loose ends as possible, in the Personnel world, in the Front-End world and around the club. I hope I set people up for success without me. I was very glad to hear that the previous Saturday's VIP event and tax-free weekend were very successful, even without me present (it was my birthday). Flashing back to the previous August VIP where I came in on my vacation to coordinate both the Front-End and Technology execution of the event. It gives me confidence that business continues without me and pride that I have done something right in helping build a new crop of leaders.

Yesterday was also a day of goodbyes, a day where I got my traditional 'good bye' custom cake. The choice they made for me was, not surprisingly a cat, which somewhat fittingly bore some resemblance to Oscar the Grouch according to some. It also included the phrase "we'll meow-iss you" and had my customary laugh as 'ha-ha' around parts of the cake on sugar paper.

Saying bye is hard, but unlike my job before Sam's, I leave this job with my head held high, and able to say some proper goodbyes. I leave a different person than when I came in, and much better for the time I spend and the people I met. It has been the support of my 'Sam's Club family' that has allowed me to begin the process of healing myself and exploring who I am, including doing this project. While I do have some friends and people I keep in touch with from my previous employment, I feel that Sam's Club is different, it will always be special, and it is something I don't expect to happen again.

In my email to the associates I am leaving, I likened my departure to a kid leaving for college, and I think that is an apt metaphor because I feel that while I have 'left the house' I will never really leave the family, even if I don't see them nearly as frequently. I will not name anyone here because there's so many people that have made a huge difference for me, but you all know who you are.

I would be remiss if I didn't say something about the company itself. Sam's Club, as many of you know, is a division of Walmart. Walmart, especially the Walmart US division, gets a lot of media flack and bad publicity. I want to say that I was always treated fairly and well at Sam's Club. While I don't always agree with every policy of the company, no one I know agrees with their employer 100% of the time. The important thing however was that the company and management always acted ethically and the company both followed the law and went beyond to ensure employees are protected. The company took a risk on hiring me when  no one else would and always followed its core belief of respect for the individual. The company has always shown respect for my uniqueness, including working though my Asperger's traits and embracing my mental talents while not holding my lack of physical talents against me. There will always be, in a chain as large as Walmart/Sam's Club, store management or market management that do not do the right thing, but the company doesn't deserve the negative reputation that it gets.

I had a great six year run with too many amazing people to count, and I feel like I'm leaving at the right time. I will leave you all with a quote from Malcolm Tucker of The Thick of It (played by the always awesome Peter Capaldi), it does include expletives.

Malcolm Tucker: It is possible to have a good resignation, you know?!

Hugh: A good resignation? Well, I'm looking forward to how you're gonna sell this to me!

Malcolm: Look, people really like it when you go just a bit early! You know; steely jawed, faraway look in your eyes! Before you get to the point when they're sitting round in the pub saying "Oh, that fucker's got to go!", you surprise them! "Blimey, he's gone! I didn't expect that! Resigned? You don't see that much anymore! Old school! Respect! I rather liked the guy! He was hounded out by the fucking press!" How about that, eh? What a way to go!

Thank you everyone and we will see each other again...

My-Bi-Oh-My

Warning, this blog post contains frank discussion of sexuality and may potentially be somewhat graphic. If you are afraid that Jesus will drop a bomb on you because of the discussion of sexuality or same-sex relationships, stop reading here.

Since I started puberty I've been interested in girls/women. I would say maybe 5th or 6th grade. A girl's breasts were particularly a fixation of mine. There's a common expression, are you an "ass or tits guy" and I was definitely the latter. Though I have come to appreciate a fine behind.

Because my urges and attractions were so strongly associated with females and a particular feature of female anatomy, I quickly identified as straight. It was probably sometime around the middle of high school when I started looking at guys somewhat sexually, and it was a far more gradual process. This led to a lot of confusion on my part. I've always looked at sexuality as a spectrum and do not subscribe to the idea that a lot of people hang at the radical ends of straight or gay. Rather I think most people have a little bit of attraction to the same sex, even if they are predominantly straight. I think this is how I rationalized a lot of the attractions I was feeling. For me again, it started with the chest, great pecs were my main fixation. I tended to be interested in kinda effeminate boys or at-least not rugged looking ones, again I rationalized that there was some beauty in them that was androgynous. A curious thing for me looking back was how little I actually thought about the sexual organs, I didn't think of the vagina too much really, or the penis. I knew I wanted to stick mine into a girl, and I knew the technical mechanics of where it would go, but it's not something I really fixated on. The same went for guys, I knew I had some attraction, but I did not really think of what I would do with one, later on the thought of getting oral sex from either gender had appeal, but I was more focused on the attractiveness of the body and more of the secondary sexual characteristics instead of the genitals. The one exception I had was a fascination with testicles, mine and other boys, but this fascination wasn't really sexualized until much later on.

As I got older, my sexuality, for lack of a better word, matured. I started to look at girls as a complete package, tits were still great, but I started to appreciate the ass, legs and of course the vagina. The same also happened with guys, I began to appreciate more types of guys, though still liking 'twinks', appreciating the male ass and thinking of anal sex and appreciating the penis. It is a weird sensation to see a penis and want to immediately suck it. Another recent development in the last couple of years is a change in my role. I always wanted to be the stud, poking both girls and guys. However now I have found myself more and more liking the idea of being the one penetrated, dominated to a degree and held by a stronger, more masculine man. It is again an odd sensation that I am learning to live with. 

So for me, while I have not really been open about my bi-sexuality prior to this, I really find my situation to be more fluid than that label may really allow anyway. I feel, even at age 30 that my sexuality is still evolving. I did 'hide in the closet' a bit, but to be honest, for a lot of my life, I didn't even know I was in one.

I think it's important to note, and perhaps more embarrassing than coming out as bi-sexual. That I have not had any sexual relationship with either gender. Those of you that know my struggle with social situations and my suspected Aspergers, can probably understand why to some degree. But I am hoping that being honest with who I am will leave me in both a healthier mental state to have a relationship and build my confidence with doing so.

Asperger's Speaks...

I didn't become aware that Dan Aykroyd had Aspergers until a couple of years ago. Around the time I was really exploring the idea that I may be someone that possesses those traits.

I just saw online that he was asked about it, and while he describes his case as mild and that he considers himself lucky to have been able to really channel it creatively, you could still see the emotion on his face and the holding back of tears.

It was particularly moving to me because Dan Aykroyd played a big role in my childhood, my taste in film and my sense of humor. I can't count how many times I've seen both Ghostbusters movies, Dragnet, Blues Brothers, etc.

I am reminded of when, in Ghostbusters II, after the slime comes out of the bathtub, he exclaims "That's Great!" thinking of the scientific implications, and then catches himself "I mean, that's terrible!". That is a frequent challenge of mine as well, and I suspect if was a case of the actor informing the character, especially since Aykroyd helped write the script. It is not that he didn't care about Dana and Oscar, but it wasn't what his first reaction was to, since they were obviously safe, but in the world of the neuro-typical, his first exclamation was a social faux pas and seems cold and heartless. Yet those would be a few of the last adjectives I would use to describe the character.

I don't have an official diagnosis of Aspergers or ASD, but it is something that my therapist and I are exploring and something I have suspected for for a few years. I identify with a lot of the traits, especially as a child. This is something that, like Depression, I find is a topic that is difficult to discuss, with people seeming to often downplay it. I hope Dan opens up more publicly about this topic, I think it would be a big help to a lot of people.