It’s Not Funny!

Off ran Mary Jo past the sandbox.  Off ran Kerri Anne beyond the slide.  And there was I, straddling a bar, deserted by my playmates, and struggling to get down.  Other kids were always faster.  It wasn’t fair.  I had been trying to learn to somersault over the playground bars, but, unlike my nimble friends, I didn’t quite have the “hang” of it yet.

Mary Jo was a ten-year-old tomboy with an older brother and sister to pick on her.  Kerri Anne, while she liked to read and sing, was friendly and athletic.  I, on the other hand, was an only child who would rather stay indoors and cross-stitch than climb a tree or run a race.  I was the oldest, having turned eleven in August, and my legs were long.  But sitting still was my habit, and I disliked playing tag.

When I finally swung off the bar to the ground, I hurried after Kerri Anne and Mary Jo, crying, “Hey!  Don’t run so fast!”  Panting, I caught up with them at a blue but rusty double swing.  They were sitting together on one side, giggling their heads off.  I wondered why.  I gripped the cold metal swing and leaned forward.  Then I saw the opposite seat.  It was covered with water!  Very funny. 

“I’m not going to sit in a puddle,” I huffed.  I tried to squeeze in between my two chums.  Why wouldn’t they stop laughing?  Kerri Anne’s high-pitched giggle rang in my ear.

“It’s not funny!” I yelled suddenly, and I saw my palm come down hard on Kerri Anne’s head.

“Sharon Rose, that was rude,” Kerri Anne said, all the laughter gone from her voice.  And she stepped out of the swing and walked straight ahead.  Kerri Anne’s brown bobbed hair was straggling.  Strange . . . her hair almost always flounced.

I stared after Kerri Anne in shock.  The enormity of what I had done came with a sickening lurch.  I heard Mary Jo say, half-jokingly, “I was laughing too.  Why didn’t you hit me?”

I didn’t answer.  I couldn’t realize that I had hit Kerri Anne, and I couldn’t understand why.  Sharon Rose, the missionary kid, had never struck anyone before.  Why would I do it now?  And if I were going to hit someone, why not a bully, instead of Kerri Anne, the preacher’s kid, who didn’t mean any harm?

Mary Jo and I slowly got off the swing and strayed apart.  Neither one of us comprehended the quarrel, which had seemed to come out of thin air.  There was no fun in swinging now.

I tried hard to think of a reason or an explanation for my misbehavior.  I supposed the. . . the exclusion had angered me.  Kerri Anne had been MY friend first.  Mary Jo also had been MY buddy, before I introduced the two of them.  I wanted them to be friends with each other, of course, but not without including me.  It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t nice.

Kerri Anne trudged across the sand and into the library.  I felt that a wilderness had come between me and my special friend.  I didn’t know how to make things right.  I was used to doing what was right and good, and so being mean bewildered me.  I wanted to keep Kerri Anne’s friendship, but I had never had this problem before, and didn’t know how to solve it.   

Mary Jo and I followed Kerri Anne slowly.   Peering into the library, we found Kerri Anne looking down at the floor.  Mary Jo pulled me in by the arm and said, with the air of a peacemaker, “Sharon Rose has something to say to you.”  Then she disappeared out the door.

But I couldn’t think of anything to blurt out.  I knew the proper phrase would be, “I’m sorry,” but I hated saying I was sorry even more than I hated being wrong.  Oh, I felt awkward.  Why didn’t Kerri Anne speak?  She was so cheery most of the time, but even hearing something unkind would be better than silence. 

Of course, I was very sorry, but my mouth wouldn’t say it.  I thought of asking, “Does your head hurt?” but that would be dumb, and I was never dumb if I could help it.

Giving up, I shrugged, left Kerri Anne in the doorway, and wandered over to a wooden bench.  I put my head in my hands, leaning my elbows on my knees.  I couldn’t tell how long I sat there, so perplexed and ashamed. 

Then I felt Kerri Anne coming towards me, and I looked up timidly.  Kerri Anne smiled!  She held out her hand and said with energy, “Let’s make up.”

“Yes, let’s!”  Delighted by such an easy ending to the quarrel we'd been in, I shook my friend’s hand vigorously.  It was my same hand that had struck out, before I'd thought what I was doing.  But that was all forgiven now.  I was forgiven! 

Mary Jo had been watching the reconciliation from a distance.  Now she skipped up, grinning at us - both her pals.         

I jumped up immediately, and we all ran off together.  Kerri Anne, Mary Jo, Sharon Rose - all three were laughing.

"MOREOVER IF THY BROTHER SHALL TRESPASS AGAINST THEE GO AND TELL HIM HIS FAULT BETWEEN THEE AND HIM ALONE: IF HE SHALL HEAR THEE, THOU HAST GAINED THY BROTHER."

Up and Down the Spectrum | 3 Games for Kids

Since Asperger's syndrome is considered to be on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, my question is: Can a person slide down the scale to be lower-functioning at a certain point in life? It's pretty well agreed among Aspies that moving upward on the spectrum is a real possibility, as experiences are gained and maturity is increased.

Now, my Asperger's traits have placed me quite high on the spectrum since my diagnosis at age 18. I definitely had learned and grown to earn that place on the spectrum.

Now, I'm wondering if I'm slipping back towards low-functioning autism. Is that even possible?

I'll tell you why I'm curious about this: I've been ROCKING. I catch myself sitting in a chair or on the sofa, and rocking side to side or front to back. And when I'm in bed, it feels so good to thrash my head rapidly back and forth on my pillows.

I've always considered rocking to be something autistic people did. There's also spinning - something I loved as a young child and into elementary school. My friends loved spinning too, and we invented two fun games involving spinning, besides the fun of spinning while on a swing with the chains wrapped around each other. Our parents thought these behaviors were normal, and I think they were, too.

If you have kids who like to spin, go ahead and read about the games my friends and I made up.

1) The Shoe Game - Everyone in the room takes off their shoes and flings them into the middle of the floor. Then we spin around and get dizzy while trying not to step on any of the shoes. No winners or losers.

2) The Statue Game - One person is the spinner, and she holds the hands of another kid and lets go without warning, so that her friend freezes into that shape as a statue. Then the customer comes and the statue store clerk tries to sell a statue. This involves pressing levers on the statue to make it move! Whichever statue is picked by the customer gets to be the spinner next.

3) The Billboard Game - This is not a spinning game, but who doesn't love to have something for the kids to do while riding along the highway? My friend would ride I-95 from Delaware to Pennsylvania and back. We strained our eyes to see the billboards coming up, and whoever called out a word from that billboard first, earned one point. We lost a point if we accidentally called out a word on a billboard for beer or cigarettes. (We were preacher's kids, after all - and Baptist to boot!)

" . . . THEY BLESSED THE KING, AND WENT UNTO THEIR TENTS JOYFUL AND GLAD OF HEART FOR ALL THE GOODNESS THAT THE LORD HAD DONE FOR DAVID HIS SERVANT, AND FOR ISRAEL HIS PEOPLE."

Flashback 2014 - Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness

My one-year-old daughter lied to me the other day. If she had waited just a while, we could have called it an April Fool's Day joke - but no, this was definitely a lie. I wonder whether she will escape having Asperger's traits at all, considering how highly we Aspies value the truth!

Here's what happened: My baby was bouncing in her play center, in which she normally has a lot of fun. But this time, her babbling turned whiny, so I asked her, "Do you need a diaper change?" and I did the sign language for change.

Baby girl got a little smirk on her face, and did the sign, "change."

So I lifted her out of the bouncy chair and laid her on the changing pad. Lo and behold, her diaper was as dry as could be!

So I'd been bamboozled by a one-year-old who just wanted to get out of her chair. Hmm . . . I wonder if she'll value honesty more later on, like a true Aspie - though it wouldn't hurt us to have a child who is OFF the spectrum among us, since all four of Baby's caregivers have Asperger's traits.

I remember the first lie I told. I was three, and I was left alone in the bathtub for a few minutes. I was interested in the chain that connected to the plug. I grabbed the chain, pretending that the chain was the reins of a horse that I was riding.

All of a sudden, the plug came out, and the water began to go down the drain! I was shocked and flabbergasted, and couldn't imagine what to do next.

My dad came into the bathroom and asked me, "Did you pull out the plug?"

"No, I didn't," I told him.

I think if I had known to say, "Not on purpose," that's what I would have said - because that's definitely what I meant to say.

But to my dad, I was simply lying, and he punished me.

I have always believed my punishment to be too severe - but that is obviously in the past. And I so seldom told lies after that, that the early lesson in "no lying" did the trick.

"WHEREFORE PUTTING AWAY LYING, SPEAK EVERY MAN TRUTH WITH HIS NEIGHBOUR: FOR WE ARE MEMBERS ONE OF ANOTHER."

Guilty Conscience

Give this post a look-see on youtube, where I read it aloud:
Guilty Conscience Video

I had a request from a reader to address the topic of guilt. As Aspies, we sometimes get the guilty feeling that someone is mad at us, but either we can't figure out what we did wrong socially, or we are misreading cues and our friends are not mad at all.

Alternately, our friends get mad at us, and their nonverbal cues go right over our heads. Or possibly, our friends ask us if we are mad, and we are simply being quiet and concentrating hard, and the "serious" look gets interpreted as a "mad" look. Or one Aspie leaves abruptly, forgetting to say good-bye, and a sensitive Aspie friend assumes the other is mad at her.

These are examples I have heard or observed among my friends. In my own case, my biggest problem is in using words to express my own feelings of being mad. I tend to let a dirty look say it all, or become sarcastic, which does not accomplish the goal of communicating my hurt feelings to the person I'm mad at. When I get mad at someone with just cause, my goal would be to produce guilty feelings in that person without hurting their feelings back automatically . . . but I'm not very good at it.

If you think a certain person is mad at you, it's okay to ask. If you ask frequently, and especially if they are your friends, you are likely to get a lot of "no" answers. Believe them.

If you get a "yes" answer, then follow it up by asking, "How did I hurt your feelings? How can I do better next time?" You don't necessarily have to explain your Asperger's traits, unless you think it would help your friends be more patient with you. You may want to say, "I'm not using my Asperger's syndrome as an excuse, but it's an explanation for why I can't tell whether or not you're mad at me and how to fix it if you are."

My own ongoing sense of guilt could be interpreted more as regret, or a sense of failure. This ties in with the Aspie trait of perfectionism as well as the experience of being raised in a Christian home - in my case, in a missionary family. What I try to remember is that I don't have to be perfect, because Jesus was perfect FOR ME. He died in my place for all the wrong things I have done and the poor choices I have made, while He was completely free from guilt Himself. So even though I want to do my best, make good choices, and avoid mistakes, my motivation is meant to be my love for Jesus - not my own pride.

One way to find freedom from guilt and regret is to replace should thinking with could thinking. When you catch yourself thinking, "I should do things this way," you can rephrase the thought to read, "I could do things this way. I would like to do things this way. I choose to do things this way."

The could-for-should substitution idea is not original to me; I read it in a book by Timothy L. Sanford, whom I met when he gave me a few counseling sessions back in 1999. The book, titled I Have to Be Perfect (And Other Parsonage Heresies), is written specifically to preacher's kids and missionary kids (I'm a missionary kid). I believe much of the content was helpful to address my Asperger's way of thinking as well, specifically: perfectionism, struggling with emotions, and rule-bound behavior.

Here is a quote from I Have to Be Perfect that explains why you would want to replace should thinking with could thinking:

"It's not just a word game. When you exchange the shoulds for the coulds, you give yourself options. When you have options, real options, you have real choice. When you have choice, you have freedom. When you have freedom, you have the responsiblity that comes with choosing. Sometimes that responsibility comes down to choosing between wisdom and foolishness. Most of the time though, it's a matter of choosing from several options that all have positive and negative elements to them. You are free to engage the brain God gave you to choose freely" (Sanford 104).

If you're interested, here is a summary of I Have to Be Perfect from the blog "Thoughts of a Third Culture Kid": The Perfect Lie  (I have not read the entire blog, but I read this specific post and recommend it. It includes a link to purchase the book.)

THEREFORE IF ANY MAN BE IN CHRIST, HE IS A NEW CREATURE: OLD THINGS ARE PASSED AWAY; BEHOLD, ALL THINGS ARE BECOME NEW. AND ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD, WHO HATH RECONCILED US TO HIMSELF BY JESUS CHRIST . . . FOR HE HATH MADE HIM TO BE SIN FOR US, WHO KNEW NO SIN; THAT WE MIGHT BE MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM.