do you ever feel invisible ?

criss · Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:39 am Post subject:

I go regularly to a music and poetry event in Covent Garden, and the other day I sung my latest song, "Playgrounds as Battlefeilds", the song was all about my life with AS.

Towards the end of the song a woman came in and sat down and then asked me what was my song about. I proceeded to tell her, however, her face seemed to be expressing great uncomfortableness, so much so that I had to ask her what was going on for her.

She told be that she was a psychologist and no way did I have AS as my means of expression (by this I feel she meant emotional expression via lyrics) was beyond the ability of a person with AS.

It is very unusual for me to be rude or over-assert myself, but on this ocaision I told her to her face that I found her grossly ignorant and clearly inexperienced in her profession (she was I guess just starting out and rather fancied herself as a hot-shot)

Later, once I had calmed down somewhat, and contemplated very deeply on the evening, I found it a very useful experience for me.

My anger seemed to be about how she judged people with AS by such a crude measure. She went on to say,

"Why do you think you are different from the rest of us?"

"Why do you desire a label so much?"

I then told her that my father was autistic and that I have a formal dx (which I received last year) She then appologised to me.

Some might say that I should be so lucky that I can pass off so NT, but behind this very advanced adaptive skill there is great pain. The pain of not being seen. Thus my greatest triumph proving my greatest failure. My inability to express facial affectedness as well as human facial expression.

I very much relate to the artist Caiseal Mor

http://www.mahjee.com/

As a child Caiseal Mor was labeled mad and insane and suffered such trauma that he developed severe dissociative identity disorders, that proved so powerfully effective that as an adult he could just go into a role, perform and dazzle audiences, only to fall apart when he got close to others. His degree of autism and his difficulties seem so much like my own.

This has been the story of my life. And because I have spent 14 years in intense psychotherapy dealing with my dissociative disorders and traumatic past I have acquired and thus adopted a language that is not inherently my own, but has been adopted by me, and at times this confuses people no end.

After a lifetime of concealing my true nature, I am starting to now learn the wisdom of sharing my discoveries more discerningly.
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"We are here on earth for a little space to learn to bear the beams of love." (William Blake)

Thank God for science, but feed me poetry please, as I am one that desires the meal & not the menu. (My own)