M.E. Purfield's Blog, page 2

Playing Around With Covers

Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/70334031

Avoiding the Patchwork of Shit

“I finished that short story turned whatever today at 18,000 words. It’s now called A Light Never To Be Extinguished. 

I feeI good about it. I’ll give it a once over in a few weeks to check for consistency or tweaks to add or subtract too. But pretty much I won’t change anything. 

The way I write, I make my final decisions as I go. I take what I have, trust my subconscious, and work with it. When I finish those 1,000 or so words, I am finished. I mean, I go over them two times more before I move on and make sure it says what I want it to say. 

I don’t believe in diarrhea writing. Shitting all out onto the page and wiping it up later.”

Read the rest at: https://www.patreon.com/posts/70103580

newsletter 7/23/2022

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Updates 6/18/2022

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Miki Radicci E-Book Sale!

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Updates and Cool Reads 9/17/2021

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I’m Not Crazy (But You’re Insane): Schooling Through The Pandemic

“What is 234 X 456?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do know. We did this before.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll give you a cookie if you tell me.”

“I want a cookie.”

“Then what is 234 X 456?”

“I want a cookie.”

“First the answer and then the cookie. What is 234 X 456?”

“I. Don’t. Know.”

“Sit back down and tell me the answer.”

“Ahhhh!”

Between March of the pandemic shutdown to April reopening the following year, my daughter and I have been learning from home. For the end of the 2020 term, teachers in grades two and under sent by email worksheets for the kids to finish and suggested other activities to complete. It worked out fine for us. It allowed us to work by our schedule. I printed them out and she would leave the house with her therapist to do the work at the center.

The teacher didn’t ask for them back but she completed them. It seemed that kids like my son in the older grades had to check into websites and complete work on third-party applications. We appreciated not having to do this.

My daughter works well at the therapy center where she tried to accomplish her Occupational and Speech Therapy goals. If she worked at home she would be too distracted. She ran away a lot and enforced her dominance. It may appear she was being a brat but she wasn’t. When she doesn’t want to do something for whatever reason she sticks to her choice. A lot of the times she would scream out in tantrum or meltdown. It was not good for her. At the center, she takes direction easier. Maybe because it reminded her of school.

She loves school. She enjoys her bus ride to it and entering the office of education. She loves to socialize. Teachers and staff at the school love her. She’s funny and whip-smart. Before the pandemic, she accomplished so much in many areas she was delayed in as charted in her Individualized Education Plan. I envied her. I hated school, all grades. I couldn’t wait to get home and return to my private world. I think what works for her so well is that she’s around other autistic kids and trained teachers. The kids don’t judge each other. They learn a lot from each other. The teachers somewhat understand her mind and how it works.

When the new school year started in September, so did a new procedure. All schools in the state were in-home learning. The schools used Google Classroom and Zoom. They had to sign in, turn on their webcam, and follow the schedule with the teachers they saw on their screen. It was futuristic. We were no longer able to work at our own pace. School was now at home. There was no differentiating between waking up in your bedroom and going to school. The world was all in one.

My daughter did okay with it at first. The drastic change to the pandemic world was jarring for her. Back in the Spring, she kept asking to go to school and I had to explain to her why it was closed. When September rolled around I continued to explain to her disappointment that school was not a factor now. But she still left the house with the therapist, so there was that to look forward to in the day.

Like all kids in the world, she sat in front of the laptop screen most of the time with the help of distraction. She played with stim toys or ate out of schedule and was interested in some of the videos. Like all the other kids in the class, she zoned out a lot. It was a new way of learning and communicating. It was also two-dimensional. It was not ideal or at all real where you can truly connect with someone with all your senses. A computer screen for her was ideal for watching cartoons or other educational shows that held her interest and fed her obsessions.

Sometimes she saw a video of a story or song (a good silly song was always a winner) that held her interest but she processes it in her way. Not in the way the school board wants her to internalize it. She enjoyed the cognitive journey of the story, lived it in real-time but in the end, it seemed to die or she found something else to focus on.

For example, they had story time where they watched a video and then they had to answer questions about it. What was the title? What was the main character? What did the character do? At first, some of the kids were okay. Maybe half answered the questions and the others focused elsewhere. Then I noticed that each week the childrens’ responses changed. Since they ran the same story every day for a week, they had to answer the same questions every day. Responses declined by the end of the week.

Why?

Some specialists may think because the autistic part of the brain was delaying communication from the ear to the brain or from the brain to the mouth. They zoned out during the story. I have that executive function where I zone out when listening to people talk. Based on the responses, I believe the kids were bored and tired of playing the trained monkey game. Every day they were hammered with this story and the questions. It must have been frustrating for them. They had to be thinking, This again?

The muting situation surely didn’t help. While in class, the kids had to be on mute so other kids and the teachers couldn’t hear your background or your talking. My daughter loves to talk, the opposite of me. Talking wears me out. Now, imagine that the teacher asks you a question.

“Katie, what is the name of the main character?”

“George.”

“Katie, can you answer the question?”

“George!”

“Katie, my love, you have to unmute yourself.”

(I unmute the mic.)

“Can you answer the question, Katie?”

“…”

“What is the name of the main character?”

“AHHHH! GEORGE!”

“No, yelling, Katie. That’s right. Can you say it in a sentence?”

(More frustration ensues.)

**

After the holiday break and at the start of the new year, my daughter had enough with online education. She didn’t want to sit in front of the laptop. She wanted to sit at her own computer to watch videos or play around. She had no problem with the iReady we had to complete every day. It was a program where we worked for twenty minutes on Reading and Math with funny-looking characters. She excelled at it. Math was easier than reading. It pushed analyzing of a story a lot which was her weak point at the time.

I had no problem with this change. We were going through a pandemic. People were getting sick or dying at astronomical levels around the world. Education was not my priority. Keeping myself and everyone calm and healthy in a small city apartment where the four of us were stuck together doing our own thing was my priority. The teachers not only added stress to my daughter for not going with the routine that she should have mastered by now, but they also added stress to me as well.

Teachers tried to use Applied Behavior Analysis tactics with my daughter for her to get with the program. I’m sure they thought this would work with the average Neurotypical child who is conditioned for compliance and submission. These tactics are difficult on autistics. Our brains are conditioned for anti-authority and equality and we assume that the person respects our wishes as we respect theirs.

No.

“Katie, I’m going to tell Ms. So and So you are not behaving.”

“Please put the phone down and listen to me or you will not get a turn.”

“First work and then play.”

None of these tactics worked. I have no problem with rewarding my daughter for doing something correctly or kindly but I draw the line in having to pay her off to do it. It defeats the purpose of raising a child who does things out of the kindness of their heart or the logic of their thoughts. And since these tactics didn’t work, my daughter screamed out and denied them their wishes. She told them that she hates school. I didn’t blame her. I was hating it too.

Since the teacher could not physically do something, the parent had to move in. Oh, no. Now, I was the teacher and they expected me to use these tactics. At first, I did. I lost myself for a while. I said the script and my daughter refused me, too. I even went so far as to take away what she loved and focused on at the moment and told her she could have it back when she finished school work with the teacher. This resulted in screaming. Tantrums. Then breakdowns. I hated it and myself.

Now, I suffer from breakdowns. One of the triggers is noise. Screaming, its frequency. She started to scream, then my son came out and screamed at her and me for being too loud while he was at school, then I would scream. It was a vicious cycle. I hit my head on the walls and with my fists. I might have even loosened my retina which detached that February.

Our little safe space was poisoned. I never blamed my daughter. I blamed the teachers. The God damn teachers who came into my come via webcam and told me how to run my home and daughter. What kind of fascist bullshit was this?

I slowly refused to show up for her OT and Speech that the school provided. It wasn’t working out. Plus, therapy sessions were not effective online. Kids need the one-on-one. They need the proper environment, the school setting to tell them that they were in school and it was time to work at goals. The home is not the proper place for that. I’m not sure how other parents do it, but our home is a safe place for everyone. We don’t judge, we don’t force actions on others, we respect our neurology.

The main teacher continued to push us. Mostly, I ignored her. Really, what could she possibly do? She couldn’t come to our house. It was a pandemic. But she was insistent and I had to sit there and listen to what sounded like reprimanding and orders. I surprised myself at how well-behaved I was. I was so angry I could have ripped into the poor woman. I would have felt bad about it. She and the other teachers were only doing what they were trained and paid to do. That was their NT world and it was clashing with my autistic world. Plus, like me, they were going through their stress issues teaching online with their family bopping about.

When the principal threatened to show up in the online class to see how wonderful the kids were doing with this perfect routine (BAH!), the teacher confessed that it would be bad if the principal saw an empty seat on the screen. It was also bad for the other kids in the class because they might understand it like: Well, if Katie is not doing it, I won’t do it too, Ha ha!

I understood and we came to this conclusion. My daughter would show up to classes and I would turn off the camera. She listened to the class and when she wanted to join she could. And as time went on, sometimes she did in little spurts. She answered some questions when she was interested.

For the times when the Principal popped in, I logged out. No way I was going to force my daughter to play doggie for that time and feed an administrator’s delusion. Also, I didn’t want to get the teacher in trouble. It worked out.

Later I found out, even though my daughter was blacked out and listening to the class, she was one of the few doing all the work. I printed out the schoolwork and homework for her to complete during therapy after school. The teacher had to remind the other parents to upload the work, to complete it so that the kids can be graded. It was one task I didn’t have to scramble to complete.

It took a while, but I got them to accept the way my daughter wanted to work during this crisis. The last half of the year worked out fine for us and my retina was reattached.

**

In April, the Superintendent of Schools announced that the kids would return on a weird schedule at the end of the month. Kids would be divided into groups and go every other week, with Wednesday off to clean the schools. Regulations were in place and I was fine with it. We were looking forward to the kids going back to a kind of normalcy. I know my daughter was awaiting it.

The week before they were expected to come back (at which time parents didn’t have much information for the return like the bus schedule and which group the child was assigned), the Superintendent announced that there would be no in-person school the rest of the year and that they would open fully in September.

Why the sudden change? It might have had something to do with a survey they sent out the month before that asked parents if they preferred their children to return to in-person teaching or to stay home online. I’m unaware of those results but I assume a lot of parents were too scared to send their kids back. Also, it has been going around that many teachers were scared of the vaccine or they wanted to take an extended vacation (gotta use those paid days or you might lose them).

This abrupt change upset a lot of parents. Since the first announcement, they had planned to go back to work and arrange sitters for the time the kids would be home. This arrangement was not easy for a lot of parents but they made the effort to make the plans. Also next door in Hoboken, schools were up and running with in-person classes. Even other states have been doing it way before this.

So what was the deal?

Why was this district special?

Over the weekend parents mobilized, wrote letters, formed Facebook groups, and planned a protest in front of the BOE building on Monday. The Sunday before, the Superintendent announced that in-person learning would start the first week of May.

Great.

What was the result of kids starting to return?

About 20 percent of the kids in the district returned to in-person. They expected more but a lot of kids backed out at the last minute for various reasons. My daughter was the only one in her group, in her class that week. Another kid was the only one in his. Even my son who was in high school sat alone in a lot of his classes. Eventually, the Super read my mind and listened to the teachers who suggested combining both groups into one and having those kids return continuously instead of every other week. The schools with low infection rates complied. My son’s schedule remained the same but my daughter went back every week.

She likes it. She always loved the bus. She loves being in the classroom and being with people. Before they combined the groups, she was having a hard time being the only kid in the classroom, the only Atypical. Having the other child later lessened the anxiety and the constant focus on her. She even became part of a cliche of girls at recess. She’s at that age where boys are disgusting and she was stuck with one in her class.

Transitioning back was hard for her. She was expected to do a little work. She was also expected to be on the computer as if at home and join the other kids online for the lessons. It took time but she got back into a new, or old, pattern. I’m glad she is there. She has control of something she wants to do daily. That’s important. Control lessens anxiety.

All kids are expected to go back-full time this September. Over 70 percent of the state should be vaccinated by then and all restrictions should be lifted. Also, my daughter should be vaccinated too.

It was a hard time for us. I am glad old routines are returning. But it took a lot of help. I helped my daughter and my wife helped me. The Board of Education offered no help. I never expected them to be there for her back. Watching the news, it seemed we were not the only ones. In New York many parents were complaining how touch it was for their kids in Special Education classes. Autistics suffered tremendously.

What helped us a lot was the after-school therapy sessions. Every day, my daughter went to the center where they had one other kid. She was offered online sessions in the beginning but we all knew that wasn’t best for her. She needed to leave the apartment and the change of people.

Hopefully, another pandemic will not happen while my children are in school. Hopefully, the world will be more prepared but I doubt it. One thing I know, I will continue to place my children before any state system of uniform education and she will always have her best interests first: her mental and physical health.

© 2021 M.E. Purfield

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Autistics Can’t Have Nice Things…Like Friends

As you may know or, for my auties, experience, autistics have a hard time socializing. Communicating with Neurotypicals (NTs) is hard since some of us have facial blindness, are not able to pick up tones in voices, or speak honestly and bluntly. But in all fairness, NTs communicating with ATypicals (ATs) is difficult, too. Society stipulates that the minority must submit to the majority. If there are any miscommunications between the NT and AT then it is the ATs fault for not making the effort to be clear. It doesn’t matter if the AT is speaking as clearly as they can or in the only way they can. They are at fault and they will suffer for it.

This can lead to a life of loneliness. In many cases, autistics are content being alone to pursue our obsessions or to stabilize after wading in a world not made for us (sensory overload). A majority of us often have no close friends or family. We have no intimate relationships to the sex we’re attracted to in life. This often leads to alienation, deep loneliness, and often suicide.

For the record, suicide is the leading cause of death for autistics. On average, it happens in our late thirties. Why, I am not sure. Maybe it’s a time in a person’s life where we should be fulfilling all of society’s high points. We should have a perfect job and an escalating career, the perfect marriage, the perfect toddlers, and the perfect home. And, it can be said that many NTs are not there as well, the world slams a lot of pressure on the disabled to be in those positions. While everyone is six feet tall, we are expected to be too even though we are five feet tall. It is a form of ableism. But how can you fulfill those benchmarks when ATs cannot, or shall I say, when NTs cannot succeed in communicating with you.

I have been fortunate enough to be with my wife for eighteen years (twenty-five consecutive years since we met). She is Neurotypical. And we do have communication issues which can be difficult when you’re trying to conquer what life throws at you but, somehow, through our love and devotion to each other, through listening and finding ways to communicate, we are still here and still going strong. I wish the world was more like my wife.

Many friends and neighbors fail to make an effort to communicate with me. I have lost a friend, the respect of a condo board, and my daughter’s Godfather all because of miscommunication.

**

Back when I was on the condo board for my building, the other members complained about the management company and how they performed their responsibilities. Being on the board for many years and even a President for a few years, I was accustomed to the petty complaints. They always seemed the same but no one had a solution for them. They were all convinced that another management company would not act the same way. I doubted that.

Anyway. While I was not President, I was still someone with the most experience and knew how to handle the management company. I had been a manager and trainer most of my life. I knew how to talk to people without making them feel bad or inefficient even though they might have been less than par. I knew how to make them feel appreciated and that always got people to try hard for me when I wanted them to do a job. I asked them instead of ordered them to do a job. I spoke clearly and directly the way I wanted to be talked to when giving directions.

One board member not only trashed the management company but specific members. She called them stupid and other negative adjectives. She compared them to the way her boss, a lawyer, worked his employees. No way a management company could get away with these mild shenanigans if her boss was running the show. To me, it sounded like her boss was a real son of a bitch that made people miserable and she had low self-esteem working there.

By this point, I had enough. This was moving into a ‘shit or get off the pot’ situation. If you don’t like the company then hire someone else. Why complain? Also, I don’t like to be pushed around. I don’t like seeing people pushed around. People that I had worked with closely in the past and knew about their lives. This has to do with my neurology. I see people as my equal and I don’t see class or economic levels. I don’t see authority.

I responded to the board member with my autie honesty. I told her that just because her boss treats her like crap doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do with others.  I said this in front of the management company, which I think upset them the most.

This response did not go well. I was called crazy. What the hell was I doing? How could I say such a thing? Was I not on the board’s side? Were they worried that the management company would think they’re assholes? The management companies always think the board members are assholes. I thought we were assholes. All the board did was complain and offer no solutions. How could we not be perceived as assholes? It goes with the job when you are running a client-based company.

I left the board that day.

The management company continued to be in place long after the board fell apart. Because of my absence and words? I doubt it. I don’t hold such power. But about a year later, after a major change in board members through election (an election I was asked to run in, people still want me on the board), a new management company was voted in. And new problems and clashes with expectations continued.

**

I used to be part of a writers’ group. We gathered once a month, shared our fiction, and received feedback. It was useless for me except to feel part of a tribe. That was important to me at the time. Being a writer can be lonely. Being a writer who makes sales on their fiction while everyone else is struggling to put a paragraph together can be a conundrum.

I made friends with the members as best as I could. I was the quiet one and the one whose work received little feedback. Connections were made on social media. I was becoming part of a tribe that existed before I joined. It felt nice and I looked forward to it every month.

But like all good and bad things, nothing lasts forever. The organizer of the group moved out of state. The remaining core members carried on but little by little it dissolved. A few, including me, continued in various locations.

One day, a writer friend who was living a tumultuous singles life asked my advice on relationships. This writer friend, who I felt close to and knew for a few years, used dating sites/apps and had just gotten over a long-term relationship, coincidentally with an autistic. It seemed important to this writer that they end such struggles since they were growing older and they were tired of it. My advice:

“Just let things be. Don’t force things. The person you’re meant to be with will cross your path one day and, hopefully, the both of you will realize it.”

The writer friend seemed okay with what I had to say. I was being truthful. That was how I met my wife. I wasn’t looking for her. It was all an accident. Our paths crossed twenty-five years ago and we’re still crazy together. Maybe I shouldn’t expect that to happen to other people. Some people feel fine being alone. There is no law stating you have to be married or a couple to be happy. Happiness comes from yourself.  But I truly believed that control was the meaning of life. Control is suffering. When we try to control people and situations, we suffer. Both the controller and the person or situation trying to be controlled. But when we don’t try to control a person or situation, we allow them/it to unfold on their own. We allow our true selves to be seen as well as the true selves of the person or situation we are trying to control.

I didn’t feel any kind of special pride giving the advice. I felt it was common knowledge and logical. I’m surprised a lot of people don’t realize it. So I went on with my life as usual.

The next morning on social media, I see a post from the writer friend stating, and I paraphrase here: Married people should not give singles advice. They especially shouldn’t tell us to wait around to find love and to mind their own business.

I felt hurt and confused reading it. The comments from their supporting friends trashing me didn’t help my feelings either. I was asked my opinion and I gave my autie honesty. I wasn’t mean or blunt, that I recall. I only shared my experience which is something I expect from others as the best kind of advice. The writer’s response felt abusive. Long ago, I made a promise that I would never tolerate abuse in any form again.

Without responding to the attack, I unfriended that writer and never saw or heard from them again. I have since never joined another writers’ group, too. Unfortunately, it would not be the last time I had to cut off relations with an abusive friend.

**

My wife has suffered from sleep issues since I met her twenty-five years ago. After years of contemplating and me urging her to do something about it, she finally went for a sleep study, received a diagnosis, and now uses a machine to help her sleep. It’s hard for her to adjust but she’s moving along smoothly and adapting to it.

She’s progressing so well she gained a token medal from the service that monitors her machine. She received a Silver Badge and posted about it on social media to our friends and family. My daughter’s Godfather’s wife made a comment about how great it was for her to achieve the badge. I stated it was great too since I suffered a lot the last twenty years from her condition. I have trouble sleeping as it is but when someone is kicking, talking, and snoring in their sleep it makes it harder to achieve slumber.

My wife and mom thought I was kidding around with my response. I wasn’t. I was just sharing my side because I think people are interested and my wife and I are a team. I’m truly grateful for my wife’s accomplishment. Godfather Wife said I was making fun of my wife’s condition and accomplishment and therefore reprimanded me on how to be a good husband.

My head spun. Aren’t I already a good husband? My wife says I am. My mother says I am.

My wife and I are partners. We struggled through so many things together. There is no I with us. Could she really think I am so cruel? Has she always thought I was evil all these years? What an abusive and low-brow thing to say. I take my marriage seriously and take pride that so many people we know divorced while we are still together. I couldn’t even imagine anyone saying such a delusional thing to me in public let alone in private.

So, to keep with my promise of not viewing and tolerating abuse, I unfriended her on all social media so I wouldn’t have to see that stuff again. In a way, I have been thinking about doing it for the last few months. Anything I post, she seemed to have some kind of contradictory stance. I felt like she was fishing for triggers. She certainly was with her comment about me being a horrible husband.

But this was for the best. If two people don’t get along they should distance themselves. Especially in the case of Godfather who I wanted to keep a relationship for the sake of my daughter and wife. We had been friends a few years longer than I had been with my wife.

Later that night Godfather Wife texts my wife saying that I blocked her. I didn’t block her. She confused my deleting comments from the post as blocking. I like to leave a scene without a trace. I only unfriended.

Godfather sent a message telling me to take a breath, apologize to his wife, I am crazy because Wife was defending my wife, and I was acting like an eleven-year-old. Godfather Wife also sends me a private message about how she’s disappointed in my behavior. That my defensiveness makes my guilt apparent.

So now my depression is bombarded by their superior shaming.

I tried to explain my position, how I felt like she was giving the right advice to the wrong person. Godfather said, Nah. I got it wrong. Now what I experienced was not how it happened. I was the bad guy. Godfather Wife is the hero and my wife was the victim.

Mind you, my wife has no idea where they come up with this. Why are they doing this? What is the big deal? Friends and family believe they are jumping the gun, nitpicking, and being plain old weird.

The next day was my wife’s birthday and Godfather Wife leaves a nice long happy birthday that positions my wife as the savior of my family and the inspiration to all women and that anyone who doesn’t know that is garbage. One could interpret that she was signaling that I was the garbage.

Again, my wife was confused. How do they come up with this? She already knows that she’s an important part of our family. We’re a team. We do everything together. We appreciate each other.

My wife doesn’t respond to the birthday post. That day, Godfather Wife posts about a friend who she’s trying to help who is stuck with a husband who yells at their little daughter. A few friends chime in about the patriarchy of marriage and that the husband is scum.

You get the idea of who they were talking about?

It seems that there was something I was not privy to in the past that cleared some of the confusion. My wife talked to Godfather Wife last year about my hard transition during the Covid shut down. It was an abrupt change in my pattern and my daughter’s. All of a sudden, everyone was home and teachers were in our home via computers and I had to make sure my daughter was going along with the online learning. She wasn’t. My daughter hates online learning unless she can do it her way. She loves school. She loves going to school.

My daughter and I, both autistic, clash sometimes but, during the shutdown, it seemed to be often. We yelled at each other. I had meltdowns. My brain snapped from the intense sensory overload. When I have a meltdown, I do a lot of screaming. It hurts. I scream at everyone and at no one. I also hit my head, hard, and bang it against doors and concrete walls. When it passes, there is nothing left of me but a useless, shameful puddle of mud. It took a while for my wife and me to come up with a plan to help me avoid meltdowns. Lately, I’m doing okay. Again, we work as a team.

I had no problem with my wife confiding in Godfather Wife. We were all friends. They should be close. But then Godfather Wife dumped that confidence on social media and used it to shame my wife.

Again, my wife doesn’t respond to it.

And the next day she pays.

Godfather Wife blasts on social media that she cannot be there for this friend anymore. This friend needs to seek therapy and stop bothering her with problems that she is not able to face. Godfather Wife needs to focus on her health. I totally agree with that last statement.

My wife felt so disturbed. Who is this person? What was wrong with them?

I told her that she didn’t need to experience that kind of abuse. If Godfather Wife was depressing her and harassing her then she should unfriend her. She did.

As of now we have not talked to Godfather. I unfriended him to avoid further gaslighting but did not block him. He also has our email and cell numbers if he wants to reach out. I have nothing more to say about the matter. I forgive them. I understand that Godfather has to take his wife’s side. I take my wife’s side. I mostly feel sad about the situation, but I don’t feel threatened and depressed.

I think there’s something going on over there in the relationship. Not one person I know understands what happened. The situation is so confusing. I feel I know Godfather. I know that he’s a good person. He may just be a victim of Godfather Wife gaslighting me. One of the traits is to turn your friends against you. It could be the case here. Or so I hope.

But was it my fault for speaking honestly and without a filter? Did autism ruin this relationship as it does a lot of others?

**

Of course, there are many ways to look at it. I can see that I was at fault in social etiquette. But I also see a fault in the others for not accepting another way of thinking and communicating.

I get along with many autistics and undiagnosed weirdos, the outliers of society. I have also disagreed with some autistics, but that was only in political conflicts. Lately, I learned to walk away and pick my battles. It leaves fewer burnt bridges.

It’s expected of people to go along with societal norms (to lie, hide our true selves, talk in vague sentences, and understand/submit to class status) there may be someone in there that doesn’t. They intellectually speak directly to their truth and see everyone in the room as equal. There may be someone autistic. That autistic may have no friends and are content being alone with their obsessions and their home, sometimes, they could use a friend with open ears, eyes, and heart. Someone accepting of their neurology. You never know, that autistic could be accepting of their neurotypicality.

© 2021 M.E. Purfield

I’m Not Crazy – Autism Blog

I’m Not Crazy (But You’re Insane) – Intro

I have been called crazy all my life. Still do as I near middle-age. Still do even though I live a normal life with a loving wife and two brilliant children. Even though I have a mortgage, pay my taxes, stay away from drugs and drinking, never gamble, never cheat on my wife, and read a few books a week, I am considered crazy.

Since I was a child, I talked low which was often confused with mumbling. I wasn’t sure if they heard me correctly or they didn’t hear me at all. I shouted out what I just said and the person responded with aggravation. This confused me. Did they not hear me the second time? Or did they find my tone offensive? I was only trying to help them hear me.

I never held onto friends long. I never had a group to hang out with in school. I often wandered on my own. I never joined the kickball game in the playground. I sucked at sports. I had terrible coordination but quick reflexes. I was a clumsy Spider-Man that often bumped into things.

After school, I hung out with other weird juvenile delinquents but never for long. They always found other kids to hang out with that were a little bit more interesting. I recall spending a lot of alone time by myself playing in my room or if the weather was good in the backyard. I collected and played with action figures (G.I Joe, Transformers, Star Wars) which I used to create entertainment.

I watched a lot of television. Sit-coms, sci-fi, adventure shows, and movies. Back before it was famous, I binged-watched. I scoured the TV Guide to find out time slots or what was on in the future that I might be interested in.

As I grew older, around middle school, I found out that I was crazy. I said strange things. Nothing evil. I was respectful to a point. I made weird funny jokes, sometimes about peoples’ quirks, or pointed out things that other people couldn’t see or understand in a situation.

I also found a love of horror films. I was obsessed. I read Fangoria and wanted to go to their conventions. I studied and practiced special F/X, often mail-ordering the materials I needed.

When I rolled into my teen years and started writing horror, that just cemented my craziness. I made no sense to most people. I had one or two friends that were casually interested in horror. They watched movies with me sometimes. But I don’t think the experience was the same for them. I had to be on time for the theatre on a Saturday afternoon. I couldn’t miss the previews. Or if we were watching a VHS tape at their house, I had to watch the whole film uninterpreted. It sucked to go home for dinner in the middle of a movie.

No, it probably was not the same for others. I immersed myself in the story. I studied it, analyzed it. At that time special effects were big in low and high-budget films. Everything was practical and CGI was a long way off. I tried to figure out how they did that effect on the screen. How they pulled off creating a reaction in the audience. It was magic.

I also analyzed other things. Electronics and devices. I often liked to alter them. Make them better in my perspective.

Another thing that made me crazy was my love for punk music. Even though heavy metal road parallels to horror movies, I felt punk was the better partner. Growing up in the eighties it was rare for a child to be into punk. It was violent, loud, and fast. Not something a parent could understand. Alternative music was years away from breaking the mainstream in 1991. All the other kids were into hip-hop, heavy metal, and pop. Those weren’t my thing. I needed to relate to the music. After all, I was crazy in a sane world. I never fit in. I was the weird kid. Punk spoke about that and many more.

**

All my childhood, I have been abused one way or another. I was picked on. I was bullied. Humiliated. Terrorized. Punched in the head repeatedly. Escaping fight in the school bathroom. Ridiculed. Gaslighted. And ignored.

This all carried into high school, then college, and then the real world. The physical violence toned down. I learned how to talk my way out of a tense situation or avoid them. But the emotional abuse was still there. Bullies grew up, too, and learned to continue their life’s work with words.

At jobs, people continued to call me crazy when I talk about my obsessions or systems or patterns. It sucked. It sucked even when I liked the jobs. I liked systematizing at them. Creating order. Sometimes I worked a little harder at it than the others. Often managers wanted to make me assistant or second assistant. Back then I accepted the offers. Not any more.

As someone the manager counted on to still with procedures, I used to train others how to do jobs. I always showed them how to do the job. Not tell them. Sure, some things could only be told but showing was how I liked to learn. It was visual. It cemented the information in my brain. Back in school, I did poorly when teachers stood at the front of the classroom and spoke what I was supposed to learn. I zoned out. I tapped my fingers and shook my legs (something I still do today). Since I sat at the back most of the time the teachers didn’t bother with me. College was different. It was an art school. Everything was visual and hands-on. I received the best grades of my life in college.

Another thing that made me crazy was my empathy. I often felt for others. People who were pushed around and considered freaks. This kind of cycles back to my horror and punk obsessions. After all, it’s the genre of the outsider, the monster. I related to them.

I never agreed with authority. I hated authority. It never made sense. We are equal. People are equal to me. Why would anyone want to tell me what to do and push me around? How could they not understand that? So teachers, law enforcement, and stuck-up preppy white kids were in my stay-away zone. Which was easy since I was to be ignored.

“Just ignore him,” they always say. “He’s crazy.”

**

In my early forties, I found I am not crazy.

I am autistic.

Autism is a neurological condition caused by lower levels of neurons and increased levels of white matter in the brain. It is not a disease. It is not caused by vaccines. It is a different operating system. It is a communication system that affects speech, hearing, seeing, balance, eating, etc. It has many paths with bridges going over rivers. Autism removes the bridges or reconstructs them in a certain way. You might have to walk across them instead of driving your car.

I discovered that being obsessed, physically and emotionally sensitive, empathetic, systematic, unfiltered with speech and reactions, analytical, socially avoidant, anti-authoritative, and perceived as difficult was my normal. I embrace it. Why shouldn’t I? It was how God or mother nature made me. He/She/It doesn’t make mistakes, right?

I am autistic. I see the world and you in a way you do not. It is my normal. So when I see a neurotypical speaking in vague riddles, confused about order, not seeing what is in front of their face, not understanding the patterns of a situation or design or a person, not perceiving me as equal, or not having empathy or sensitivity, I consider them INSANE!

It’s only natural I should think that since they think the same of me. But unlike the ones that see me as crazy, I am patient with them. I give them a chance. I don’t necessarily accept them but I deal with them until I return to my salvation someplace else.

I tolerate them until a job or situation is completed.

That is something they never gave me.

So, I am not crazy. Never was. But in my POV you are insane.

© 2021 M.E. Purfield

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