A place of my own

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Can I ask the Mods to please remove Fnords comments here?

You can, in the wp.net forum at the bottom of the forum list or by contacting one directly. I would note, however, that he shared only what he had learned and his experience - nowhere was it indicated as it being right or necessary for you. Don't dismiss your social skills so readily; you communicate well and in an articulate manner. In my limited exposure since getting back here in reading your posts, there seems to be a heightened sensitivity to the comments of others coupled with a strong opinion - not an unusual characteristic within the spectrum in my experience. Place several individuals with these characteristics in a confined intellectual space and - Voila! - we have combustion. Hope to hear more from you, and hope you find balance and communication here that you seek.


M.

Try a PM to MrMARK.

Okay, that's helpful, thanks.

Fnord, I have had my fair share, as well, when it comes to brutes and that sort. It's basically a lower class way of life but you're right, in forums like this you come across all kinds. I will show respect to anyone who shows me respect.

I accept your feed-back but I would rather not have any more exchanges with you here.

Thanks.

Thanks again Fnord for your private messages. That was really sweet of you.

aintnowreck, Thanks for posting. I'm kind of burned out so I'm going to come back later to respond. Thanks again..

Right now I just want to hate life. It's too complicated, painful and overwhelming all the time to really deal with. I prefer being alone. That's the only place where it is calm and peaceful. I don't want to communicate with anyone.

If things had gone differently, I would have been very successful. I'm still working on it but it's hard. Depression, a general lack of will to survive doesn't help.

Anyway, I'm fine either way. It's all relative.

aintnowreck, I can relate pretty well with what you're saying.

I grew up in rather depraved conditions. I guess people tend to somewhat harshly judge those who make it out of these kind of places. It's only to my credit that I am who I am. I was able to raise the level in my adult life but abuse ultimately occurred again just the same. Being autistic and all the disadvantages that go with it put me at a disadvantage. It's rediculous that I still don't have my college education. I was blessed with incredibly self-absorbed individuals who were also rather sly in taking advantage of my generosity, though I was compensated in monetary terms. The damage to me otherwise has been catastrophic in simple terms.

I'm kind of disgusted with life right now. There's a lot of anger to get through, then depression. It doesn't entirely seem hopeful or optimistic right now. I'm trying to take steps but I'm not very good around mechanics, which is required in order to make any headway at all.

Thanks for sharing. I can certainly empathize with what you've been through. It's nice to know someone understands.

I've had people ripping me off right and left all my life. My first stained glass design was stolen from me after taking a class to learn the craft. After 20 years of him reproducing it, I went in to ask for the 10% royalty he promised me. Sure enough he was there in the act of mass producing it with the individual parts neatly stacked in his process of reproducing them. He insulted me with an offer of $14.00 for the last 14 he had sold for "Christmas spending money" that year as he had put it. It was the only piece that even moved in his store window. He made them in two sizes, one in the $30.00 range and the other in the $50.00 range. I was insulted of course and left empty handed. It had been his bread and butter all those years and he's still selling them to this day. I have the copyrights on it but a lawyer gave me all kinds of defeating, gibberish bull-shit and then asked for a retainer fee. After the costs for the attorney, it probably wouldn't be worthwhile, as the lawyer so ignorantly attempted to say. It's the principle of the matter, but I'm not in a position of course to afford principle.

I don't have the ingenuity to mass produce works in stained glass or I would. My skills are more esthetic and it would be a waste of my ability because the process is only mechanical once a design has been rendered.

I should be able to make prints and sell those at some point. I hope I will be able to pull that off anyway.

I'm really pissed off beyond freaking comprehension. I didn't even get to have my education where I could have better developed my talent. My first pieces were outstanding but I could have gone a lot further by now had I not been swindled by so many freaking jerks and ass-holes!

The cloud of abuse looms over head. I wish I could be free of it. I wish I didn't have to know it. I'm finally angry now after all these years. It feels terrible. I never thought it would get me. I was too busy thinking I was the exception. I had it figured out. It couldn't happen any more to me because I was finally grown up. I thought I was smarter than that. I was smart but also naive, which isn't so smart after all. Plain door-mat stupid, actually. What is intelligence? Who knows. I was pretty attached to thinking I was smarter than the average bear. Now I know in fact, dumber than average there.

I thought abuse was only a part of my past. It actually never ended. Dress it up in a nice home and surroundings..it may look pretty which really only makes those things worse because it's that much more confusing. I'm angry that I have been victimized, all my god-damn life. I'm talented and I wanted so much better, and I tried very hard to see that happen but I guess the odds were stacked up against me. I don't know if I can live with the feelings of rage that I feel now. I haven't much left to give as a human being, which makes life even more meaningless and worthless. This wasn't supposed to happen to me! I never did anything in this lifetime or any other to deserve it. I'm just trapped in an environment, however comfortable, where I feel more or less helpless to function or do much else to know how to help myself.

I remember from the time I was an infant. I remember the broken play-pen that had no mattress where I slept and nearly starved from neglect. I remember a sense of refusal to touch any part of it, including the worn blocks along the top. My mother said holding me was like holding a sack of potatoes. She would try to tickle me and she couldn't get a smile. This mother who wanted a smile couldn't so much as feed me properly. I remember the long darkness and crying and finally the giving up too. I don't remember it specifically but as I'm told by eight months I finally laid on my back, stared straight ahead and no longer sat up or cried anymore. I was taken to the hospital where urine was taken and my mother was given pamphlets on infant nutrition. She then took me home against medical recommendations and began a regimine of forced feeding. I vomited continually and she began an ugly battle to force me to keep it down so she wouldn't look like a bad mother. I finally did keep it down. I'm not autistic because of this. It was brain-damage during delievery. People have done nothing but make me feel ashamed that these things have happened to me or that I even survivied. That's all I really feel now about it. Ashamed that I had the repugnance to survive the inane mess.

At about one year old, I remember seeing an incident where my father bludgeoned a man in the head with a pipe and nearly killed him. Every day of my life was packed with unbelieveable stuff. The worse is I remember every element and nuance and is contained in its entirety within my memory. The worse part is I don't forget anything.

People make up all kinds of things about you the minute they hear or know anything. They are wrong about every bit. If they hadn't ever been in those kinds of circumstances then they can't begin to know, but what they think and even say though really does hurt. If I don't have a thick skin, it's because I don't exactly know how to get one. I don't have those protective barriers so everything hurts that much worse. That's autism. The sensory thing is a nightmare, to say the least. It always was and I guess it always will be. How does anyone cope with all of it, but I'm expected to. I guess I don't have the bragging rights that some do. I hope if I ever do make it there, I won't be that way. People are where they are not because of weakness or whatever.

Right now I'm burning with hate. It's just pure ugly anger. I won't cry. f**k the rest! And f**k anyone who says I shouldn't say f**k!

I just have this overall sense of vulnerability. The whole abuse thing compounds things and also puts me in a place of limbo where I can't really belong anywhere. Wherever I go there is alway this attempt being made to exclude me. I know where I belong, it's just that others may not want me to belong there. They may think I either delute or confuse their cause. If they weren't so confused themselves, they wouldn't think so.

I'm not so much confused, about myself anyway. I'm just a little more vulnerable than the average. This interferes a lot with everything. It isn't necessarily safe for me to venture out on my own. My verbal communication is hampered. If an incident occurs, I'm less capable of knowing how to either respond or react appropriately to the situation on the spot.

The average aspie here seems to be more capable in this respect. So then are they really autisitic or is it more particular to higher intelligence which also involves those egocentric traits pertaining to shyness? The aspies I have seen elsewhere experience the sensory integration problems which points to autism and also the communication deficits and problems with social skills. It's just a matter of degree I guess. I find the problem rather disabling, though with ample or adequate training this could have gone very differently for me. I probably would always need a good network or support system in place though, which I don't in any way have, so ooops and oh well!

It seems here to be more a war of the haves and the have-nots. And the haves seem rather threatened by the have-nots. I'm definately more a have-not than anything. But there is an intelligence, even if it is mostly trapped in many regards within. I don't have those worldly capabilities, but I still don't see myself as defective. People like me have only one draw-back, we need allies and a support network that recognizes and appreciates the challenges and can render those services required so that everyone can benefit.

I need to go be pissed again for a while!! !!

My flowers make me happy. With little or no help, they make blooms every day, just water and a little fertilizer every couple of weeks. I have to focus on things that are pleasing. The depression is getting me. And anger. That's the worse part. I'm not made for anger. I guess not. It took a pile of crap that large for me to finally get it. I can't live with it too well. It feels like it's killing me. I'm just overwhelmed by all of it now, I could literally explode. Since exploding isn't an option, depression. Depression kills too. Why am I such a misfit?! !! I need a whole slew of curse words here......

It's very frustrating. The isolation, abandonment. Nothing but abandonment, both parental and societal. Still life clings and lives on. True death is when the soul dies. The rest is only a passing or fleeting experience. I won't accept that my soul has died. That could only be a hell. I'm still alive so this can't happen. But sometimes I do wonder. Like I'm just too worn down to really care anymore, even for myself. s**t!! My surrouondings look pleasant enough, actually quite pleasant. I was always very good with interior design and esthetics. Whatever!! It doesn't amount to much without a social life, career, recreation, opportunities, etc...

I can't even talk about my circumstances or my life because it might be too depressing for others. WTF!! ! But no you wouldn't want to make anyone uncomfortable. I definately don't so again, more trapped inside.

f**k life, f**k people, f**k art, f**k engagement, f**k, f**k, f**k, f**k and hahaha as a mother-fucker!!

I'm really not this crude, but sometimes I just feel it.

This is how it's going to be. Just me here. Just like IRL. That's kind of okay. I have gotten seperated from the mainstream. I guess I never was mainstream anyway, but at least I was trying. That's what abuse does to you. The worse kind is the subtle, manipulative type. My life has been pretty much destroyed. I'm more or less a disaster on two legs that can barely walk. The autistic challenges which are diverse, the child abuse history, the adolescent history of abuse from the "Child Protective System", the adult history of abuse and manipulation.....there isn't much left for potential there. One person can only withstand so much. Every year of my life was worse than the next and each year there was no possibility it could ever get any worse but it did. It was just the same in my adult life too. The events seemed to be more brutal than the next. The adult stuff even more so because of the subtleties. If someone clubs you in the head, at least you know enough to run. So the psychic damage there is unspeakable, for someone who's perceptions are too overwhelmed already.

As a young adult, I had trouble even leaving my apartment because of all the strain and pressure everywhere. It was just too overwhelming. The worse was those contacts or exchanges with people that always left me feeling like, oh my god, there really is something wrong with me. It almost felt like the sky was falling because I couldn't measure up. I couldn't say the right thing, smile at the right time, engage in small talk... It was really painful and I didn't understand why I was different. I read just about every psychology book available but nothing really applied except the obvious things like anxiety disorders, depression or post traumatic stress, but those things didn't explain everything.

It was around 2000 when I saw an internet article questioning whether Michael Angelo the artist had autism. I read the article and suddenly it clicked. Everything I read there I could apply to myself. It took a long time before I could really investigate it. Even when I did the information was so clinical and pertained to a lot of behavior problems around children it was hard for me to really make the connection all the time. It took all these years for it to all sink in and resonate. It was hard for me to come to grips with psychologically because of the abuse history. It was almost too much to have to digest. The tragedy of my childhood, adolescence and adult life being that much more overwhelming given this added perspective. I really didn't need any more emphasis on the tragic aspect, but it is.

Finally all the memories of how I behaved in so many ways made sense. But it has taken years because the literature out there seems to be somewhat skewed toward bad behavior.

It looks now like I'm going to be isolated for the rest of my life. The people I trusted only caused me harm and damage. They used me and didn't care how I was being affected. Now I'm so emotionally damaged, I honestly don't believe there's any hope. I can't pretend there is if I know deep down otherwise. It sounds good but only I can know how beaten down and worn out I am. I think I actually really hate people now. I was frightened of them but I never hated them. I'm just too tired to care of give a try anymore. There isn't a speck left in me with which to do so. I'm not going to cuss now. It isn't going to do any good. I know there are good people out there. But I'm too tired, too spent to be able to know or find out.

If I can I'm going to try to make a website and display my artwork and hire a printing company to make copies I can distribute through the internet. But part of me doesn't even want to. Like my heart isn't really in it anymore. After nearly half a century of the most unthinkable cruety and abuse from people, I guess it isn't any wonder. I'm not even ugly or some such like this that would explain why these things have happened to me. I don't know. It's sort of like god has something against me, even though I don't even believe in god.

I guess I am a little ugly. I have wide-set eyes and nice lines in my face but my nose was broken when I was 12 by an abuser. I have always felt very ugly. The abuse made me feel that way. But pictures of me as a child look very angelic in features and people over the years have told me how attractive I was even though I never saw it. It's the self-image of the scrappy, ill-kept little girl that no one wanted or cared for that remains. Everything adds up to low-self-esteem any way you look at it. Within myself though, I do feel conspicuously unattractive, but perspective tells me otherwise.

Aspieartist,

People tell me that I'm handsome (well, "guapo" and "pogie" in their native languages), but I look in the mirror and I just don't see it. We're all a litle ugly, in one way or another. That may not seem a helpful idea to you, but dwell on it a bit. Think about the ugliness you see in others, as well as that which you can not see.

Then try to see in yourself the beauty that others see in you. This may be hard at first, but eventually you'll find it. My wife tells me that mine involves the willingness to apologise when I've wronged someone. Others say it's my "natural" ability to provide encouragement. Well, if that's the case, then I'm going to keep trying to amplify on it. You can do it too. Just trust me on that one, please.

Best wishes,

Fnord