Now, that’s NOT funny, I don’t care who you are . . .

America’s Funniest Home Videos has never been funny.

Anything in which people laugh at other people getting hurt is not funny.

Anything in which people laugh at other people being awkward or embarrassed is not funny.

Anything in which animals get hurt is not funny.

I will never understand how people interpret pain as funny. Whether it’s physical or emotional pain, it just isn’t funny.

I know that those of us on The Spectrum are supposed to have difficulties with empathy, but this isn’t really borne out by research – especially on women.

What is borne out by research is that women  on The Spectrum study people. And that everyone on The Spectrum has probably experienced some form of bullying. We’ve certainly all suffered that weird gut-twisting “what do I do NOW” feeling that happens after you say exactly the wrong thing and spend months feeling like a pariah because no one talks to you.

So, we KNOW from pain. We know what it looks like, what it feels like, what it takes to recover. Even if we can’t truly relate to the person getting hurt, our often extraordinarily good memories can replay Pain in 3D Surround Sound with Smell-a-Vision.

It wasn’t funny when it happened to us.

Grumpy Cat is NOT actually Grumpy, so Funny. And her name is Tartar Sauce. Also funny. 

How could it possibly be funny when it happens to someone else?

Clearly, Schadenfreude is NOT something I suffer from.

Now, finding Freud’s name in an overused emotional word – that’s FUNNY.

 

 

 

Fire-proofing your pants (and your classroom).

I never, ever could lie. I gave it up before I ever hit puberty because I always. Get. caught.

I hate most sit-coms because the plots of most episodes revolve around people lying and then trying to get out of the consequences.

Why is it that the entire cast of Friends would rather lie even when the truth wouldn’t even be a problem?

On the other hand, anyone can pretty much lie to me with impunity. I automatically believe anything reasonable. And I accept a whole lot more as reasonable than most people. Which means I get cheated on. And lied to. And used. And manipulated. And it takes incontrovertible evidence to get me to believe any of it.

This CAN be a problem as a high school teacher.

Oddly, though, I have found out that my perennial belief in the innate honesty of every human being on the planet – while often being horrifically destructive in my personal life – is actually a tool I can use in the classroom. 

One of the Great Truths of education is that students will live up to your expectations of them. One of the lesser known Truths is that students can always see right through when you SAY one set of expectations, but you really MEAN something else.

In a school like mine, where so many of our kids are subject to negative snap judgments, this becomes a vital distinction. So many of their teachers – past and present – SAY those lovely high expectation phrases that anyone conversant in edukinese is familiar with. When they stop talking, though, the real expectations become clear –

They expect our kids to lie. They expect them to cheat. To steal. To be disrespectful, rude, and socially backwards. Which, well, the kids will do.

BUT – I have found that if I act surprised and disappointed, even heartbroken, every time a student lives “down” to those stereotypical expectations, some of them, a LOT of them start actually trying NOT to surprise and disappoint me. If I let them see that I believe they will naturally tell the truth and act honestly, more of them actually do.

It’s a great cover when I actually AM surprised.

I HATE being wet.

But I LOVE being in water.

Seriously, being in water, particularly warm water, and especially water I can sink into all the way up to my chin, is one of my very favorite places to be.

When I was a kid, I would practice laying absolutely still in the bathtub until the last ripple in the bathwater went still. Then I would try to keep it that way for as long as I could. Actually washing myself disturbed the water too much, so I’ve probably taken hundreds of “baths” in which my head, face, and neck never even got wet.

Just like hot baths, I adore hot tubs. But only if no one ever pushes the button and turns on the bubbles. Because then it splashes and I can’t control where the little flying drops will land.

That’s what happens in the shower, too. The water goes EVERYWHERE, even where I don’t want it to. And the side facing the water is warm, but the side facing away is cold, a cold which is made worse by the air leaking in around the shower curtain, even though I pulled every wrinkle out of it trying to block the drafts.

If I can get enough of me under the water that I’m not feeling those insidious drafts, I can get used to the bouncing, spraying, random water. Because I’d rather stay there than turn the water off and be . . . WET.

Seriously. Being wet is unnatural and icky,. It doesn’t matter how warm the room is, you’re going to be cold. And man has not yet invented a towel that absorbs all the water off your body without going cold and clammy itself. And clingy. Wet towels are clingy. Wet hair is worse. Wet hair is clingy and itchy, moves in weird clumps, takes forever to dry, and leaves weird clammy spots on your pillow and the back of your shirt.

Use a Hair Dryer? That’s just adding insult to injury. You can’t aim the hair dryer so that the air is blowing in your face – that just feels like you’re suffocating. Your hair doesn’t really feel like it’s getting dry – just changing from cold and wet to hot and wet and now it sticks to you in individual, itchy strands.

There’s only one way to be sure you can avoid all this discomfort and ickiness – take a bath, keep your head dry, and get out by slowly easing out of the water and letting most of it evaporate before you stand up and have to feel the drops running down your legs.

Sadly, this does not keep your hair clean. Nor does it make your family happy to wait out the hour or so it takes to accomplish this process.

Battles like this with sensory issues are another one of those odd non-ADD puzzle pieces. I mean, who would rather be DIRTY than take a bath? Especially when that person will gladly sit in water up to their neck for hours?

Don’t worry, though, my days as Pigpen from Peanuts are behind me. Being an adult means being able to recognize the importance of being, well, mostly freshly washed and clean. We do a lot of things to keep other people from saying really nasty things about us, to live within those “norms” that are so vital.

I will always believe though, that people who “can’t” leave the house without a shower, get up an hour early to shower and blow dry and straighten or whatever,  or who shower multiple times a day are still way weirder than I am.

 

Someone Else’s Words . . .

As an incredibly hyperlexic person, it is rare indeed for me to use other people’s words instead of smithing together my own. But I found this poem and I can’t find the one I wrote about basically the same thing, so you get Ariane’s words instead of mine:

Writing round in circles

Worth comes from within 
Our value doesn't depend on the validation of others

Bullshit

We are social creatures
We don't even really exist without the validation of others. 
If I am worthless to the people around me
What's the point in me believing in my worth?
But, I hear you say, people get it wrong!
People fail to see the worth in others
And it's true
Not all kinds of worth are as easily seen
But that doesn't mean it isn't there
So we look within and try to build ourselves alone
Try to pretend we're self contained and don't need those flawed eyes to reflect ourselves back to us. 

Some people can do it. 
Some people build great towers of self worth and self belief. 
Their beauty shines out strong and folks all around come near to share it
Or folks get angry that they've found beauty and worth they couldn't see before
But either way they have defined themselves, and show the world they don't need it to tell them they matter

Some people can't do it. 
Some people tie themselves in knots, wondering if this is worth, or self delusion
They doubt they have any beauty to shine, and maybe they're right. 
Folks don't even see them. 
Because if they mattered they'd be able to show the world, like those others do.

 

One of the greatest struggles I have with Awesome Nancy, my therapist, is getting this very idea across to her. My self image is based on how much value or benefit I can add to the lives of others around me. My glass isn’t half full or half empty – I have the glass, but someone, anyone, everyone else, has to turn on the tap.

I cannot wrap my mind around the idea of believing in my own worth without having some proof of it.

Heck, it took me finding Beloved Spouse to actually believe that I am            actually real to other people when I am not physically in their presence. I’ve always believed that, as often as I think about friends and family, they are  all too busy for me to cross their minds. I “know” that this is wrong, but I  find myself giving into this belief anyway.

In my mind, I have to earn your attention. I have to earn your acknowledgement of my very existence. On bad days, I add it all up and the balance sheet proves to me that I haven’t even earned the right to exist. The oxygen I breathe would be better off used in the lungs of someone with much greater value to friends, family, and society.

Bleak, huh?

That’s just the beginning of that slide, though.

As I am a logical person, if my “benefit” to you is my value, then, if you abuse or mistreat me, it’s because I have failed to provide enough “benefit”.

You can’t be mad at me if I have been and done what I am supposed to as your employee, girlfriend, whatever.

This means that – in my brain, where nothing ever “just is”, if I am abused or mistreated, it’s because I allowed it to happen by failing to live up to expectations, which I should be able to avoid. My behavior is always a choice, governed by past experience and evidence gathered about what pleases people in given situations, right? Then yours must be, too, and if it’s abusive or neglectful, obviously I made the wrong decision about how to act around you.

I am still not convinced my being abused couldn’t have been avoided by my being a better girlfriend or whatever. And don’t even get me started on the fact that I chose to stay in that relationship – a failed choice on an entirely different level.

And when I did leave, when I finally made that choice which probably saved me, it was my choice to destroy my entire identity . . .

After all, my mirror reflection tells me nothing about me as a person. The only reflection I can trust is that in the eyes of those around me.

So, I finally asked for help

A couple days ago, I finally either got up the courage or hit rock bottom – I’m really not sure which – and composed and sent an email requesting a meeting at which we could discuss possible accommodations and modifications that might help me with the everyday paperwork and housekeeping tasks of being a teacher. Even though I know that I have my job next year, I am still aware of the very thin margin between how well I am taking care of my “professional responsibilities” and not being considered professional or responsible enough.

I put ADD, ASD, and EFD on my disclosure. I know that there is probably not an actual written diagnosis for the ASD in my records at my shrink’s office or in my therapist’s session notes. I guess I should get that written down, but in our conversations, my therapist has taken a really practical approach to the fact that my ADD/AHD diagnosis is enough for ADA documentation and apparently, getting an ASD diagnosis in Arkansas is ridiculously difficult – you have to have an md, a shrink, and a speech path all agree in order to be “officially” diagnosed autistic. I don’t know if that covers the whole spectrum or is just for those who are severely developmentally disabled and will therefore be entitled to services through the state.

As a 42 year old who CAN maintain competitive employment (even if it is with some difficulty), I’m not going to be entitled to any services. So, it does seem like a potential waste of time and money just to have a few letters written in my records.

Then again . . .

There are so many things about me that are not explained by “typical” ADD/ADHD traits, but are laid out in shocking accuracy on the simplest of Adult ASD trait lists for Women. My time management and organization issues can be attributed – obviously – to the ADD. Some of my social and sensory things can be, too, depending on who you ask.

But ADD doesn’t explain –

The eternal and yet unanswered question – what does everybody else know that I don’t?

It’s that sense of “otherness” that convinces me that there are more dimensions to my “Non-Neurotypical” brain than are addressed with ADD treatment and therapy. Any description of that by ASD women who have managed to put that feeling of being a stranger in a land everyone else knows into words feels like I’ve found one of the puzzle pieces I thought was missing from the box.

From the inimitable Samantha Craft –

“What most individuals decide subconsciously, on a type of automatic mode, I do not. The way I process life can be compared to the sensation one feels when they concentrate on their eyes blinking. When focusing on the eyes closing, we are distracted by an automatic action that would normally not be a distraction. Blinking doesn’t involve thoughts. The way I process is similar to the sensation of paying attention to the blink of one’s eyes: I am pulled into the blinking of my own thoughts.”

There is nothing in the world like starting to feel kind of funny and realizing that, while you were utterly absorbed in something else, you literally forgot to breathe. Or having someone you love have to unfold each finger from the fist you’ve made for so long that you can’t unclench it yourself and you can’t use the other hand because it’s fold up, too.

And no educational colleague has ever been able to adequately explain to me what they have done brain-wise to remember to take roll every period or make themselves write lesson plans or grade papers.

What they say is: I JUST DO IT.

This makes no sense to me. One of the most common questions my mother used to ask me was: WHY CAN’T YOU JUST SEE WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE AND DO IT?

I never did have an answer for that questions. There is, quite literally, no single behavior that I can point to that I just do out of habit. Everything is a conscious decision – eating, bathing, answering the phone, unclenching my jaw, taking medicine for a headache I’ve been fighting for 8 hours . . .

Nike will never hire me as a spokesperson.

More “found” pieces later . . .

Making Tradeoffs

Before I cut gluten out of my life forever (it was an unhealthy relationship to begin with), I loved doing my own nail art. I could get my finger-spades (shout out to Schulten!) to grow long enough that they looked fake and strong enough that I could abuse them daily with acetone and glitter and they’d still be there for me.

They were so sparkly!

Now that I am gluten-free, though, I cannot get my nails to a decent length to save my life. Acrylic nails make me feel like I can breathe and I’m always afraid I’m going to scratch myself or, worse, poke myself in the eye. Again.

Of course, the Aspie in me perseverated (the obsessions of people on the spectrum are referred to as perseveration, as are repeated meaningless behaviors like rocking) and now I have literally hundreds of bottles of nail polish and just about every nail art tool known to humankind.

It’s true that I’d rather be able to properly digest food and get rid of the waste – 3 weeks of constipation at a time were NOT fun – than have long, pretty fingernails.

But sometimes, I feel like dealing with my “non neurotypical” (neuroatypical?) issues and my digestive function problems almost takes more tradeoffs than I should have to make.

Setting the gluten-free thing aside, let’s look at one of the biggest tradeoffs: All of this medication –

Thanks to my particular combo of comorbid conditions, I take 2 antidepressants – one for serotonin and one for dopamine. My insurance won’t cover Adderall XR, so there’s that little gem three times a day. Vitamins to make up for 30 years of nutritional insufficiency, probiotics so things move properly, and, currently Prilosec to deal with the fact that I can’t lay down without the acid climbing back up my throat.

Those last three don’t really bother me. But the prescriptions are one of my greatest internal conflicts.

Despite the fact that Beloved Spouse and Awesome Therapist have both repeatedly assured me that I am still me on the meds, I can never shake the feeling that my brain, in its natural stew of hormones, enzymes, etc. is the Real Me. Which means all this mucking about with my brain chemicals – keeping more of this, making the brain use more of that – results in the fact that my medicated state is Not Real Me.

And why do we take meds, boys and girls? 

Because our natural, unaltered brains don’t work in a way that allows us to be successful in the Real World?

That’s right!

In other words, Real World requires Not Real Me. 

Chase that down the rabbit hole of depression with me and you land on the conclusion that, if Medicated Me = Not Real Me, then Beloved Spouse’s constant check-ins about whether or not I remembered to take my meds means that Beloved Spouse prefers Not Real Me to Real Me.

Intellectually, I am aware that this is, to be blunt, stupid. Not to mention destructive. When you consider that B.Spouse and I have been together for 10 years – this time around as a couple – spent part of our 20’s together, and initially met when I was a sophomore in high school, it’s actually pretty insulting to claim that B.Spouse either does not know or does not prefer Real Me.

It still bothers me. Paradoxically, it also bothers me that taking the meds doesn’t just fix the problems. Instead, the meds make it possible for me to “build new scaffolding” so that I can function, especially in the deadline-heavy, constant paperwork, documentation-reliant field of education.

In other words, now I might, possibly, perhaps, be able to build a system that means I remember to take roll every day. It’s long and frustrating and sometimes it feels like I have built and discarded enough “scaffolding” to keep Michelangelo comfortable while he paints the Sistine Chapel all over again. 

That is so Michelangelo!

Still, one wonders where the lines of “not worth it” might eventually be drawn. Psych meds have side effects – you can’t avoid them. One of mine makes me sweat so much I look like I’ve just had a shower.

Would I still be willing to swallow the pills if I suffered, not just a lower sex drive, but a complete inability to truly “enjoy” sex?

If they tell me tomorrow that the carefully selected blend of chemicals I rely on every day is likely to lead to a heart attack or debilitating stroke, would I be willing to sacrifice down the line for the benefits I’m getting now?

I guess it’s a good thing I’m not an obsessive worrier.

Of course, it could just be that I can’t remember what to worry about . . . 

 

No More Pencils, No More Books . . .

There are two weeks left in the school year. Which means that it’s time to 

In case you didn’t know: Teachers are Hoarders. We keep Everything. Usually multiple copies of Everything.

Add that to my “Keep that. We might use it later” attitude about life in general and you get boxes and boxes of leftover worksheets, reading passage copies, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Now, it might be one thing if these boxes were full of neatly labeled files, ready to be pulled out and used at need.

But . . .

Remember the ADD? Put that in the boxes, too. And the exhaustion of the end of the year. And the rush to get everything done and get out of the building.

Now, the only people who might be able to make any sense out of the mountains of paper in the boxes and be able to use all of the “valuable” resources you have saved are those “top men” from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It’s all in there somewhere, right?

So, this year, I decided to at least attempt to reduce the amount of “stuff” that I added to the shed at the beginning of June and then never looked at again. A little Google-Fu turned up this wonderful blog post

https://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/truth-for-teachers-podcast/classroom-clutter-keep-toss/

And the imaginary guilt of not having some resource that I “might need” just lifted off my shoulders – it’s shocking how heavy imaginary guilt can be.

In this post – and her podcast – veteran teacher Angela Watson makes a couple of points that I will now NEVER start or finish the year without. When it comes to resources, the Teacher-Hoarder needs to ask MYSELF two questions:

1. Do I NEED this to effectively teach a lesson?
2. If I do need this or something like it, how likely am I to be able to find it again?

Truth be told, unless you have created something special that is unique to your teaching style and content and cannot be stored electronically, the answer to the second question will always be “yes”.

That first question, though. That’s the one that makes you really reflect on your teaching:

If you NEED a particular thing to be able to teach a topic, what does that say about your knowledge of your content and relevant pedagogy? What does it say about your attitude toward updating your materials and methods that you can’t let go of older, possibly dated, resources? 

Are you forcing 21st century students to endure 50-90 minutes of 20th century teaching that they can’t relate to?

When I look at all the stuff I’ve kept just for the last two years, it doesn’t take long to realize that the only “irreplaceable” materials are the things that I wrote my own notes on while teaching. Everything else can either be found ridiculously quickly on the internet, is probably available in the textbook peripheral materials, or I ALREADY HAVE IT SAVED and need only print it out when I get to that content.

So, this year, instead of keeping paper, I am keeping saved files and a nice long bookmark list of my favorite free resources.

I think it goes without saying that Beloved Spouse is totally on board with this idea.

Oh, and since I infected you with that earworm –

I Like Pithy!

The post title should be read in the same voice as when Stitch says “I like fluffy!”

It’s true. I like pithy. Big fan of aphorisms. Love it when I can come up with one of my own, but often inspired by others . . .

A recent discovery and new favorite:

You can’t keep watering a dead plant!

I like this one a lot. Much better than “beating a dead horse” or trying to “get blood from a stone”.

It also reminds me of this scene – one of the best in a mediocre movie – where Senator(!) Al Franken is just downright MEAN to poor Alan Tudyk  . . .

“It is very important that I did not kill this plant!”

This morning, on my “philosophizing” time (read:commute), I was struck with one so apt that I’m just sure someone else has already written it and my brain just dredged it up and handed me the saying, but forgot to give me the citation.

I was thinking about the difficulties I’ve had this year – and in past years – with “figuring out” how to navigate my new school’s culture. Not that it’s been bad this year. In fact, I was excited to be able to reflect on a year gone by when I haven’t managed to unwittingly offend a coworker to the point that they wouldn’t speak to me or opened my mouth to correct someone only to discover that he/she was NOT the person you should be “acting like you’re smarter than”.

(I made it to May 1st without anyone with sad eyes informing me that they had to get rid of someone and “well, you’re the newest one here.” In the last 9 school years, I have only had one year when I left for the summer and then came back to the same room – and I had been RIF’d that year, but they canceled it!)

Anyway, I was thinking about how I’d had a better year and how much of it was due to the fact that I have a colleague/bff that would answer my questions and only rarely look at me like I’m crazy. And I thought about all those other years and what I now know about Asperger’s/ASD and how we miss hints and cues and undercurrents.

Then it came to me:

When you are an Aspie, the unwriiten rulebook will always be in a language you never learned. 

It’s amazing how simple the answer to one of those eternal unanswered questions really is. I spent my entire life wondering what it was that “everyone else” seemed to know that I didn’t.

I would think that people – particularly at work – would appreciate my added information when they didn’t know something. 

Apparently, people who hold more “advanced” degrees – particularly in education – than I do and who are at a higher pay grade than I am do NOT appreciate being made to look like they know less than a new teacher on campus.

Especially in meetings. In front of everyone.

Who knew?

Mastering the Pieces

People like to say that sometimes life is like a jigsaw puzzle that you don’t have the picture for.

I get that. In my case, I not only don’t have the picture, I have no idea how many pieces the puzzle even has.

I’m 42 right now. I am a Teacher. I’m a Mom. I’m a Wife. I have been labeled Gifted – particularly with words – all my life.

I live a bit north of Little Rock. I teach English at one of the High Schools that is not “Historic Central High”; one where “those” kids make up most of the student body and I often have to work around court dates or help kids get caught up when they get back from being “locked up”.

I love those kids. Every single one of them. I think some of them love me back. Most days I feel like I might possibly be one of the worst teachers I’ve ever known.

I’m great at teaching – the actual “stand in front of the class, give examples, go around and make sure the kids learn” part. The roll-checking, paper-grading, deadline-meeting bits? Not so much. And those things are how you keep your job.

I have a smart dog and a simple dog, 6 tree frogs who have to live in three separate habitats, and a number of plants that are continuously having a near death experience.

I cross stitch, sew, quilt, make jewelry, and write. I don’t do any of these things for long and have multiple unfinished projects in every one.

I can’t burp. Escalators terrify me. The lead apron at the dentist makes me sleepy in less than a minute.

I have gained about 25 pounds since I quit smoking. I believe that the extra weight cannot possibly be less healthy than the cigarettes. When I quit, I had no idea just how many things the nicotine had been partially self-medicating and completely masking.

How many “pieces” I thought I had, but were actually just a mirage. Hard to see clearly with smoke in your eyes, after all.

So now, I’m a non-smoker. I’m also an Aspie. I have severe ADD. I suffer from Major Depression. I have dermatillomania. I take medication, see a therapist, and do entirely too much research on all of them.

Read a case study on how much damage untreated ADD/ADHD and depression can do to a life and you might just be reading my biography.

I am Celiac. Feed me gluten and my digestive system just. stops. working.

I didn’t begin to deal with any of these things until I was over 35. I’ve only been able to consistently take my meds for about three years now. I only finally agreed to see a therapist about six months ago.

I guess you could say that my jigsaw puzzle metaphor is more like someone dumped a puzzle over my head, didn’t tell me how many pieces it was supposed to be, and just shrugged and walked away when I asked for a picture.

This blog will be a place to share things I learn and discover – sort of a “traveler’s notebook” of the clues for putting the pieces together. Memories, research, experiences good and bad, teaching ideas – anything really.

I’ll be happy to have company. Maybe something I share will help someone else figure out how their puzzle can be solved.