How Things Are Progressing

I can hardly believe it’s been over a month since I’ve posted here. I have been choosing not to keep writing about my marriage situation because things are still so unsettled and I don’t want to do anything that would jeopardize getting to an agreement with my husband so that I can move out of the house with things being taken care of.

A friend of mine suggested that I get a notebook and write things down as I think of them, and that has been a big help, especially towards stopping so many of the looping thought patterns. When I start thinking of something again, I can just go to my notebook and see if there’s a new detail or question I need to add to my list and then let it go.

I really like my new therapist. She has been very helpful to me already, and it is so good to talk with someone who has a good understanding of Asperger’s. I did share the diagnosis on my other blog, although I don’t plan to talk a lot about it there because most people aren’t interested in the obsessive level of detail I can get into when I start thinking about this stuff. I also shared it with the support group I belong to (it’s for parents of kids on the spectrum). I didn’t get much of a response, although at least it wasn’t a negative one, so that’s okay.

Work is going okay. I managed to get through the last few weeks, which were especially stressful due to trying to do two jobs at once. I have decided that I want to dress a bit nicer for work, so I bought a new sweater and a button-down shirt yesterday. I plan to budget for a couple of new things every month until I have two weeks worth of business casual tops (we can wear jeans, but I want to get away from t-shirts and sweatshirts most of the time). I am wearing my new sweater today and I do feel better about myself with it on. Plus, it feels good to set a goal that I can make progress on right away!

I guess this is kind of a boring post, but I wanted to share what has been going on with me. I am continuing to work on scaling back my outside commitments and not agreeing to anything new so that I can have the energy I need to take care of myself and my son. I am hoping to have more energy for blogging and commenting/communicating with others once I get into my own place, but I just can’t push myself right now as it creates too much internal stress.

Not sure how to end this; that’s always the hardest part for me, so I’ll just say that I hope you all are well and have a very blessed week.

A Meltdown Autopsy

I had a little meltdown at work today. Luckily, I am now in an office by myself (or as close to it as you can get – there is one person on the other side of an accordion-style divider that is kept closed). Before I moved to this location, my supervisor and I had talked about her asking the other person to use headphones rather than speakers to listen to music, and I thought that was what would be happening.

Last week the other person was out, and I was loving my new space. I could totally concentrate and felt so much better about everything, despite the large amount of work that I have at this time of year. This week, however, she came back and has been playing music. It is at a very low volume, but even still I can hear it despite wearing headphones of my own. It’s like when you have gnats buzzing around you – you can hardly see them, but you feel they are there and it slowly drives you crazy.

So today, I finally asked my supervisor about it, and she said remembers a conversation with me later where she told me that the other person would keep the music at a very low volume. I have absolutely no recollection of this and got quite upset about the whole thing. My boss is at a different location so this is over the IM system – good because it gave me a chance to think about what I would say and not be crying in front of her, bad because it’s hard to gauge someone’s tone via that method of communication.

After crying for a few minutes, it occurred to me that I could possibly find some noise-canceling headphones that wouldn’t be too large and obnoxious-looking, but would still work. I don’t want to always have to listen to my own music at high volume to drown out the other; it would be nice to just work in peace and quiet sometimes, but I don’t really know how those things work.

So my boss asked my coworker to turn the music down farther, and I said that I would look into different headphones for myself. I was so relieved to have thought of at least one possible solution because I wasn’t sure how I was going to calm myself down enough to get through the day, but that worked.

I feel like today has definitely given me more insight to how my son is feeling when he acts the same way. I would say for me, it was half due to the unexpected changes and half to my inability to see another solution and therefore feeling like there was no hope of things getting better.

Hopefully next time I can remind myself that there are always options, even if I can’t see them at that exact moment.

I’m curious what tricks others have discovered to stave off meltdowns?

A Burden Lifted

Such a tumultuous month this has been! The holidays are always a somewhat difficult time of year for me, and of course there is a lot going on this year.

I had the meeting with two of the pastors at my church and felt it went pretty well. I went through a lot of the things that had happened between me and my husband, some of which have been weighing on me for years, and they definitely recognized that things were much more serious than they had any idea. After I left there, I felt like a burden had been lifted – like I really just wanted to have my side of the story heard and validated.

My therapist and I have talked a lot about each person’s need to take responsibility for your actions as well as for the way you respond to other people’s actions. One thing he said that got me thinking was that no matter what the reasons are, the fact is that I made a vow when we got married and I need to recognize that breaking that vow is an act that I am responsible for. He didn’t say this to imply we should not get divorced, but just to point out that it is a part of the equation.

I thought this made a lot of sense, especially as my husband and I have had several conversations where it seems we are both fine with the idea of splitting up, but then there is an emotional backlash later. So I shared this perspective with my husband and asked him if he thought he could forgive me for hurting him and release me from that vow. He was surprised but very responsive to this.

Later, on Christmas Eve, we had another conversation where we both realized that we feel a sense of peace and relief at the thought of moving forward separately, although of course we still recognize the importance of providing our son with as much stability and support through the process as we possibly can. Since then, things have been going much more smoothly at home.

I don’t really have a specific timeline for a separation or divorce, and we did agree to meet together with the pastors one time to discuss things further, but I feel like we have overcome the biggest hurdle now.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

I so appreciate the input I got from my post about the difficulties I am having right now deciding what to do about ending or continuing with my marriage. Everyone who commented brought up some very good points and ways to look at the situation.

Although I am not going to blindly follow whatever might be said by my church (either the one I’ve been attending or the one I am a member of), I am interested in hearing their counsel on the matter. After talking with the pastor of the church I am attending right now, I have emailed one of the pastors at “our” church to ask for a meeting. I know myself well enough to realize that I would always regret not talking with him before making my final decision, even though it will be a very challenging conversation on many levels.

My therapist doesn’t think I need to pursue that, but I also recognize that he has his own personal bias against the charismatic church, which is informing his advice. I think the right path for me is somewhere in between the two extremes.

Other than the theological questions, the biggest concern in my mind related to a separation or divorce is how it will affect my son. Originally, I assumed he and I would move out of our house and into an apartment because I didn’t want to deal with owning and maintaining a home.

When I talked about this in therapy, it was suggested to me that remaining in the home would cause less stress for my son since there would be much less change than with my first plan. I didn’t like the idea right away, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it would be easier on both him and me emotionally to stay in the house. Even though it would be more work for me, I don’t want to make decisions based on my fear of not being able to handle the responsibility.

We don’t plan to tell him what’s happening until my husband would actually be ready to move out, but I have been trying to figure out how he will react to the news and if there is any way I could feel him out. Then, this morning as we were driving my husband to work (his car is in the garage), the two of us were disagreeing about something and my son spoke up.

He wanted us to stop fighting because he was afraid we would end up getting a divorce and he would be homeless. Shocked, I asked him why he thought that would happen. He said that if we split up, neither of us would want him because he would remind each of us of the other person, and then he would have nowhere to go.

Wow! It often amazes and, in this case, saddens me what conclusions he comes up with in situations like this. I explained to him that he would never be on his own and that both of us would always want him no matter what happened in our relationship. I also said that if Mommy and Daddy didn’t live together, he would actually have 2 homes instead of 1 (or none).

As soon as I said that, he brightened up and told us that having 2 homes would work out really well and that he knows this because his best friend went through that experience and is as happy as a chipmunk. After chuckling about that one, I questioned the analogy, and he said it’s because chipmunks are happy but hyperactive, just like his friend.

This is all so hard, but that made it just a tiny bit easier.

Aspergirls on Marriage and Cohabitation

Getting back to my discussion of the book Aspergirls (see my other posts here), let’s talk about being married and living together.

I have been avoiding this topic because it is a difficult area for me. My husband and I have had a lot of ups and downs in our almost twenty years of marriage, and things have been extremely stressed between us of late. In fact, we are currently living in separate bedrooms and trying to figure out where to go from here.

Being married and living with another person is hard enough for anyone, but it can be especially difficult for someone with Asperger’s. In a similar comment to one she made in the chapter on choosing a job, Rudy points out that “self-awareness is truly knowing who you are, what you like, and what you don’t. In our case it is also knowing to what extent your AS will affect you in a relationship.”

Another thing she said that really struck me was this:

It’s really important that a person with Asperger’s is not criticized. That only makes us curl up into a ball. We need positive reinforcement for the good things we do, and then we will strive to do more of that. It takes a very special partner to understand this.

~~Rudy Simone, Aspergirls

The most difficult aspect of the whole topic is not one that is covered in the book, and that is the religious aspect of marriage. I was brought up to believe that divorce is not an option except in extreme cases involving abandonment, adultery, or abuse, and that someone who got a divorce was basically giving up on their faith.

While I don’t believe any longer that you are walking away from God by getting a divorce, I do still feel that it is not something to take lightly, and I am not even sure to what extent “what I want” should enter into the picture.

And while it would be easy to paint my husband as an uncaring, irresponsible person by selectively reporting things he has done or said, that would not be the whole truth. It would also ignore the ways in which I have hurt him, both consciously and unconsciously.

We have talked and talked and just keep going around the same core issues, which to me signifies that we have opposing perspectives in many areas, both practically and philosophically.

What I really want is for it to be okay for us to forgive each other and move forward separately to live the way that we each want to. And just as I want to be free to structure and control my life and my environment the way I want it, I also want him to find the openness and affection that he so desperately wants but that I don’t feel emotionally safe expressing right now and don’t know if I ever will.

But I keep vacillating wildly in my thoughts and emotions. At times, I have a sense of peace and optimism about splitting up and I truly believe that it’s okay to feel that way. At other times, I think that I’m simply being selfish and giving up too easily, and that I don’t have the right (or the Biblical grounds) to put all three of us through the pain of a divorce.

I would love to have some discussion of this on here. I am really trying to look at this from all angles and figure out the right path to take.

I Don’t Have To Do a Thing

Tonight I just felt like sharing a song that has really been ministering to me recently. I have been dealing with a lot of emotional issues in relationships as well as with the evaluation process for the Asperger’s diagnosis. It is easy to let myself worry about what people will think of me, and of the decisions I am making in my life, and even to feel less settled in my relationship with God.

But time after time, I have felt the Lord’s presence, whether in a church service or driving in my car or reading an encouraging blog post, and I have sensed Him reminding me that He loves me no matter what I do or don’t do.

Anyway, I hope this touches you in the same way:

One (Almost Two) Week(s) In

Mados left a comment this past Monday asking what difference it has made for me to have a diagnosis. I have been pondering this question off and on all week, and I would respond by saying that the changes have been extremely positive thus far.

After struggling with the idea of being somewhere in between two worlds for over a year now, and feeling prior to that I simply didn’t really belong anywhere and never would, the primary feeling has been that of relief. I have also found that therapy is much more helpful when I am approaching it from the perspective of Asperger’s. I have seen more positive change in the last year than in the previous decade.

The act of going for an evaluation certainly provided a lot of validation that my perception of myself as being different has not been wrong, and it also has helped me to start examining the ways in which I could take more control over how I interact with others and with how I am perceived by them.

It has given me more confidence to be myself and trust my own instincts regarding what I need and want to be content, or even happy, as well as to be successful. I have lived my life for so long with the idea that things happen to me and I can’t understand or control them, and I have often responded my trying to control as much as possible around me to eliminate the confusion. I would also put myself down for feeling out of control or confused, and feel guilty or stupid whenever I made a misstep.

Now I feel more able to acknowledge my challenges but to also recognize that there are options – that there are usually other ways to handle something than I might think of on my own or in the moment when my emotions are high, and that there are ways to fix most things that go wrong in an interaction with someone.

A couple of specific things that I have done is remove about 1/3 of my Facebook friends and also cut my Google Reader down by 2/3. I find that I would rather focus on the people I have real connections with, rather than try to fabricate relationships where they don’t really exist. I haven’t decided whether to “come out” on Facebook or on my public blog. I am not hiding the diagnosis by any means, but I don’t want to go around announcing it to everyone out of context or without a specific purpose.

I did share it with my supervisor and an HR person where I work (it’s a small company with a casual atmosphere, so I know them pretty well), and that has been productive so far. I do plan to tell my family – probably by letter since they all live far away and in different places – and my husband’s family – I’m not sure when or how (they have a lot going on right now with my MIL’s Alzheimer’s and my FIL having surgery next week, so it may be too hectic to discuss it at Thanksgiving).

I still experience frustration when I hit my limits and can’t accomplish all I would like to in a day, and I continue to have intense emotional reactions to situations that sometimes translate into impulsive comments or actions, but the accompanying internal recriminations have morphed into something a bit more accepting and realistic.

I am hoping to begin writing more here again, but I have kept running out of energy by the time I can sit down at the computer to post. Going from part-time to full-time at work has been quite a change, and I am still adjusting to it and figuring out how to get everything done that I have to do, let alone having time to reflect and write.

So that’s about where I am right now with things. It’s a good place.