Let's get the party started

It was my new company's Christmas party last week, and I thought I'd better go along. I had an idea I wouldn't like it as it takes me a while to relax around new people. I had a get-together with my old work colleagues and it was great. People I'd known for years and I felt relaxed and able to talk, or just listen and not feel bad. We talked about people we knew and events we had all shared in.

My new work colleagues are all still a mystery to me, and I still haven't met 90% of the company. I turned up to the venue in my usual non-work attire of jeans and a t-shirt. Luckily I saw others arrive as I approached and my attire was somewhat "off point" so I had to go home to change into something more suit orientated. I returned to the venue and walked into a massive room where everyone was mingling and I was probably the last to turn up. Even in my new clothes I was underdressed with most men wearing morning suits or tuxedos and the females all wore glamorous ball gowns and dresses.

And I first turned up in jeans and a T-shirt.

I felt quite embarrassed and humiliated to be honest. How could I have gotten it so wrong? Two hundred people seemed to instinctively know the dress code was ubersmart; they had all managed to tap into this subconscious stream of social awareness that runs through all human beings with the exception of myself. At least I was in a position to go home and change - otherwise it would have been like that dream where you're naked, only more embarrassing.

The format of the evening was a mingle followed by us sitting for a meal in pre-arranged tables, and then more mingling after the meal. Needless to say my pre-drink mingling was awkward and mainly involved me hovering in the background of people who were probably internally debating on whether to acknowledge my existence or not.

The meal wasn't too bad as I kinda knew a few people on my table so made sure I arranged to sit next to them. In order to do so I had to swap places with someone so I swapped our name cards to complete the subterfuge. After 10 minutes or so in my seat its rightful owner approached and picked her wine glass up from in front of me, saying "sorry, I left my drink at your seat" with an amazingly subtle amount of sarcasm.

After the meal people started to talk and drift and people came and went and the whole seating structure of the room broke down and people floated like nebulous particles waiting to dock. The noise got louder and louder and I started to shut down, waiting for an opportunity to leave under the cloak of other people's social activity.

And then it happened…the pity talk. Someone who themselves seemed to have no-one to talk to, not because they were autistic but because they were boring, came over and flatly announced "I thought I'd come and talk to you". By now I had already shut down, I could barely hear anything, I tried to read their lips as best I could but ended up leaning in for far too many "eh?"s. I conversed the best I could but there was no way out of this. It was a war of attrition where neither of us had anyone to come to the rescue, and my mobile phone was off so I couldn't simulate a "silent call" with some deft manipulation so I was stuck. In one of the many lulls in our conversation I excused myself to see if "someone I'm giving a lift to" had left yet and they got the message and allowed me to scan the room with full neck motion until they got the message and left. I left shortly after.

It would have been better for me if I had never gone in the first place. I'm sure I came across as pretty rude to a few people *shrug* I just need more time to feel comfortable around these people, but I think I've put myself one step forward and two steps back. My probation is coming to an end in a few weeks too.

Ho ho ho

I hate Christmas. I hate everything about it, from the 3 songs that play on a loop in every store you visit, to the massive queues when you're just there buying a movie to watch at the weekend, to the forced joviality and goodwill to all men. I hate the consumerism.

However I think everyone hates those things, well, a lot of people do anyway. Having Asperger Syndrome (AS) just adds another layer of misery on top. Obviously the queues and the noise in shops mean that shopping for anything is off the agenda until after the January Sales. I'm terribly impractical and a chronic procrastinator so I always leave buying gifts etc to the last second. But the worst thing is having to deal with other people…their wants and needs and expectations. Every year I want to tell people "don't get me anything and I won't get you anything". If I want something I'll buy it. I don't "get anything" from the act of giving or the act of receiving. The only thing I get is stress and anxiety and the fear that people don't like/want what you get them, and having to pretend you like/want what you're given. It's such a sham, why do people do it year after year after year?

Plus nothing is more miserable than being alone on Christmas. AS or not.

It's not just Christmas though, it's my birthday too. I don't tell anyone when it is, mainly because I don't like being the centre of attention, even if it's just 5 minutes of attention. I'd rather not have it. My birthday is just another day. When it is someone's birthday at work it is always made known in advance and there are whip rounds, cards, cakes to be bought, drinks after work that lead on to clubs etc etc. I can do without it all. It's usually not before long that people realise they don't know when my birthday is and ask. I just tell them that I don't celebrate it.

Back from holiday

I'm back from my brief holiday; I had to go back to the family home for my mother's birthday. The flight up didn't go without incident, but nothing major, it could have been worse. My parents don't put any toiletries in their guest bathroom so this time I decided to take my own. Only it turns out that you're only allowed gels and liquids up to 100ml in volume on a plane. So I had to stand at security while they throw everything bar my toothpaste into the bin. Some things I had only just bought. So I was annoyed at the expense, but at least I was still flying. I could have checked my bag into the hold but that would mean waiting around at the other end.

I don't fly often so I'm not totally blaze about air travel. I'm not scared of it, I don't fear it, but I do get some rational butterflies on take-off. The thing about flying is really the taking off. It's those first moments when you see things you don't normally see and feel things you don't normally feel. After a few minutes, when you finally reach the clouds and all outside is white I can finally relax.

As I said, it was my mum's birthday, it was a "big one" too. My sister got her a jewellery set, my brother some expensive spa vouchers. Of course I don't keep tabs on my family, I don't really know how old anyone in my family is so I didn't know it was a "big" birthday.

I got her a book.

Dad treated us (my sister was also in attendance) to lunch at a really swanky hotel/restaurant. It was so posh that when your table was ready a guy would come get you at the bar area with a tray to take your drinks to your table for you. The food, like the service, was exceptional. Alas it wasn't until many hours later that I'd realise that that was the only food I was getting served that day. It was only 2pm! My parents might be able to last on 500 calories a day but I can't!

Back at my folk's place and it's all so quiet. My parents just sit in absolute silence and read newspapers and books. If I would watch something on TV my dad would come in and tell me to put something else on (something boring as hell usually) then just leave the room anyway!

And my parents' house is also so hot. I'd try and leave the odd door open here and there to cool the rooms down but it never worked, "Shut that door, you're letting in a draft." My parents also hate watching TV. An aunt and uncle came over in the evening and I had some beer to pass the time, but come 10pm I had been up almost 20 hours and hadn't eaten for 8 of them. It was ok when there was only one strand of conversation going, but a divide occurred and two factions spoke about two different things, so I was starting to lose it. Eventually they left and I hit the sack.

Being in a different environment for me is stressful enough, so I was spending most of the time literally counting the seconds. It was like being in jail…but without the three meals a day.

The following day my dad took us on a day-trip to where he always takes us when I visit. I was glad just to get out of the quiet, hot house and kill some time. We went to a small coffee shop that was absolutely packed with young students and I was just overloaded. I could only hear a complete rabble so didn't partake in any of the conversation at the table.

Back to my parents and more hanging around and watching clocks until it was time for tea. This was good food again, but again old person portions, but I was fairly well fed. After tea there was just boring TV to watch, and far too few beers to drink. When the well was dry I just went to bed around 10.30pm. Probably the earliest I've even gone to bed. I downloaded some games to my mobile and just played on that a bit then tried to doze off.

The next day and I was up early to get a lift back to the airport. This was the bit I was dreading the most…saying goodbye. I could tell my mum was looking for some form of physical contact or reassurance. A hug or a kiss, but I could barely look her in the eye let alone hug her. My parents don't know about my Asperger Syndrome (AS), and it's times like this that I feel at my worse. I feel I should tell them, I guess maybe they deserve to know. But I wouldn't know how. I couldn't do it by email as that's not fair, or over the phone. But I don't want to do it face to face either as I couldn't be bothered with the required conversation. So I guess I'll just go on feeling like a horrible person and my parents worrying why I am so "odd".

I got to the airport on time so no drama there. The weather was quite bad, it was wet and windy. I was seated at the back row of the plane so had a good view of the wing and engine from my window seat. An old lady was sitting beside me and she made small-talk about the weather. The pilot warned us that we should expect some turbulence on take-off and until we reach cruising altitude. The old lady beside me read her newspaper through the safety briefing as we taxied to the runway. The plane shook and shimmied as we hurtled down the runway. Not long after takeoff the plane suddenly dipped then rose and I felt my stomach sink as my head was forced down. The two young men in the row in front whooped and wheyed as if on a rollercoaster, and the old woman beside me didn't bat an eye lid as she tried to work out the answer to 5 across. I couldn't work out if she was very well travelled or just didn't give a shit if she lived or died.

Not Alone but Feeling Lonely

Tonight was a work colleague's birthday so we had arranged to meet for food and drinks. The venue was not far from where I live so that was good at least. We were to meet at the restaurant/bar at 7pm which was, as someone with Asperger Syndrome (AS), the first problem. To me "meeting at 7pm" means meeting at 7pm. It's not hard, is it? Apparently so. Cue me waiting for a while for anyone else to turn up.

There were current work mates, past work mates and my colleague's own friends all there and I obviously got on with my own work mates better as I knew them. Some of my colleague's friends attempted to start a conversation but it didn't go well and things quickly ran dry. I actually spent most of my time talking with an ex-colleague of mine who is the opposite of who I would normally enjoy the company of. He is social and likes sport. However I think he is drawn to me as I am very candid in my views and he is quite the man's man. He knows he can talk to me about things most people would take offence at, let alone agree with. He knows no joke is too offensive to tell me, too off colour. My AS gives me an ability to see everything at face value and I call a spade a spade.

Funnily enough the guy that tried to talk to me also tried to spark a conversation with this ex- colleague and the two got on like a house on fire. I guess it's just me. By this point things were too loud and I was getting overload, people were talking but I couldn't hear, I couldn't differentiate one conversation from another. A wall of noise was forming.

After the initial venue a second one was agreed and I went there almost right away, but the others were some time behind. When they did turn up they were all firmly entrenched in their cliques, I was all but forgotten. My colleagues and this guy's own friends all lost in conversation with each other. Shock horror, I was nothing to do with it. People whose company I enjoy and want to spend time with outside of the office were all too busy with bonds they had formed in my absence. So I just went off home and no-one probably even noticed I had gone. I'm sure on Monday I'll hear all about the various pubs they went to, what club they ended up in, and what a great time they all had.

How can I help you when I can't help myself?

This subject isn't something I've been looking forward to posting about and if I'm honest I doubt I'll post about it again. However I want this blog to be as honest as possible; I want my Asperger Syndrome (AS) to be as fully vivisected as it can be.

Having AS is having a frustrating, scary, and at times hard to deal with life. We often get overloaded and just fail at being able to cope. When I find myself in those lowest of times I do self-harm. I cut myself and have in the past (but only as a never-repeated experiment) burned myself. I've done other things that I'll stop short of telling you about, but needless to say my body is a patchwork of history.

As I have aged and matured I've kept to parts of my body that I can hide with clothes, but my younger self has pretty much ensured that I have secrets I want to hide but can't. My hands and my forearms are scarred, but it's weird cos I have just accepted it and cos I don't "see" my scars I think that others can't either. What unsettles me the most is when someone makes it obvious they can see them. Thankfully this has been very rare, but when it does happen it makes me think that everyone can see them, they are just too polite to say anything. The irony. Here I am, character assassin extraordinaire relying on the kindness of strangers. Probably the most memorable aspect of my diagnosis was the fact that I didn't think anything of my scars (as normal)…but I instantly noticed when my psychologist looked at them. She was being obvious about it and all my walls and barriers and lies came tumbling down. It was a visual slap in the face, a jerk into the reality of the obvious self-abuse that I deny…quickly followed with questions that began "I see you cut yourself" and other grasps at my dignity.

If I could go back in time I'd tell myself to only injure parts that you can hide.

The problem with people

People with Asperger Syndrome (AS) have their brains wired up differently from normal people; it's almost as if the social element of it has been turned off. To have a stab at an analogy, do you ever remember learning to breathe? Or have you just always done it? Now image someone for who the breathing instinct has been turned off and they need to learn how to breathe and consciously think about it the whole time. As you're sat there watching TV they are sat thinking "breathe in…breathe out…breathe in…breathe out…" In social situations it can be like that for people with AS. In social situations we are exhibiting behaviour that we have learned from experience and observation…behaviour that just comes natural to other people.

Now for another analogy. As mentioned above, social interaction is, for us, an effort. Think of something else that is an effort, such as running on a treadmill. It's easy at the start, then it gets a bit of a chore, then it gets tiresome, then it gets too much and you have to stop. That's what it's like for us at a party or a group gathering. As time wears on we wear out and eventually zone out. This "zoned out" situation is one we refer to as overloading. When everything has gotten too much for us the shutters just come down. All desire to pretend to be social have evaporated. That's when we're sat in the corner at our rudest and quietest. It's not because we're horrible people…it's simply that while you've been enjoying yourself and relaxing, we've been running a damn marathon! Now we're exhausted and just want to be left alone.

It is this need to learn social behaviours that probably leads to a lot of confusion in a young person's life. I remember as a child, when someone would fall over and hurt themselves I couldn't care less, it didn't bother me. But other children would rush to the injured child's aid and I could never understand why. Little did I know that my AS was robbing me of empathy, I didn't care for people in peril as (frankly) the person in peril wasn't me. Seeing other people react in a totally different way from you is confusing and worrying when you're a child. So we do something we end up doing a lot of…we fake it. As a child I learned to fake concern by studying the reactions of others. So when a playmate fell over I would mimic the behaviours I saw in others. I still do it now…when a work mate or friend announces their grand parents have died or some disease has befallen them I screw my face up in concern and mutter "Oh no"s and "that's terrible"s just like everyone else in the room does. The reality is that I don't actually care. I know it sounds a horrible thing to say, but I can't help what my brain makes me consciously feel.

As I grew into a (still undiagnosed) adult my perception of this phenomenon changed and as my vulnerability to peer pressure waned and I began to grow in the confidence of my own skin I started to see people as being fake. As a child all you care about is fitting in, so you learn to mimic. As an adult you don't care about fitting in so much and instead start to question the behaviour you see in others. I would think that as I didn't care about this person, others couldn't either so their displays of affection were something I assumed were fake. That they felt just as I do but chose to demonstrate othewise. As I had to learn social interaction I think I view it in a far more clinical manner; to me it is simple cause and effect. I seem to view people's actions in a far more objective and critical way and tend to form opinions about people from their behaviour that others appear to be blind to. It's the classic "wood for the trees" scenario. Normal, social people seem to me to get enveloped in other's personalities, whereas I stand back and view things in a cold, analytical manner. A side affect of this process is that, of everyone I know, I'm far the quickest to say I don't like someone. It's rare for me to hear anyone say they don't like people, or they'll say things like "Don't get me wrong, I really like Joe, he's a great guy, but sometimes he does things that annoy me." You won't get that from me. I call a spade and a spade and I'll just come out and say "I don't like him" and I'll launch into an intimate character assassination, picking off flaws like shooting fish in a barrel.

That then leads onto another facet of AS (are you beginning to see that it all ties together into a big, complicated structure?) - namely that we tend to see things in black and white. I like you or I don't like you. I think you're right or I think you're wrong. I think you should obey a rule, or not obey it. Appreciating shades of grey is hard for me. Maybe I'll expand on that in a later post.