“Parts, not the whole”

30 Jan 2011 22 Comments

by Bruce (born 2b me) in Asperger's, Asperger's Syndrome, autism, gratitude Tags: , , , , , , , ,

“spinning things” and “parts, not the whole” part 2

Two phrases, “spinning things” and “parts, not the whole” are descriptive of how I often view physical objects, as well as how I often think. In my previous post (part 1) I discussed “spinning things” and “spinning thoughts.”  Now in this post (part 2) I will discuss how “parts, not the whole” seems to apply to both things and thoughts in my life.

Parts not the whole: THINGS:

I go back to steam locomotives: I was always fixated on the wheels and the connecting rods. If I moved my gaze elsewhere it would be to briefly take in the swinging bell, jets of steam, or the waving crew, and then I would return to the wheels. I can spend several hours in a row viewing steam locomotives on YouTube, often watching the same one repeatedly with my eyes fixated on the spinning wheels and connecting rods! Again, diesels for me were just big moving boxes and not at all fascinating. Whereas all the moving parts of a steam locomotive were on display and grabbed my attention.

However, I did design and build the house I live in, and I did paint landscapes and still life when younger. And people told me my photographs were well composed. I could draw an entire steam locomotive in astonishing detail. So at some level, when it came to things, I was absorbing the whole, or composing parts into a whole. So there definitely are times when I do see the whole, even though my preference is for the parts (especially if they spin!).

Parts, not the whole: THOUGHTS:

This is a fictitious example of how, in my thoughts, I can focus on the parts, and not the whole, and thereby miss the big picture. Say my wife heats up some frozen macaroni in the microwave and some cheese spills onto the turntable, and she doesn’t clean it up for a couple of days. Well, that could really begin to irritate me (yes I know I could clean it myself — but it’s the principle! ;) ). That thought could spin round and round in my mind and get me feeling quite dissatisfied about my marriage! Meanwhile my wife is out getting the groceries, or she has accompanied me to a doctor’s appointment, or she is making my supper for the how many thousandth time after thirty-three years of marriage. But would I remember that BIG picture? No, I’d just focus on that little bit of cheese still sitting on the microwave turntable and let that negative thought go round and round and affect my satisfaction with my marriage. This focus on the part could put me in a very unpleasant mood. Ugh. :(  

Even though I know, at a deep level, that God or the Universe will continue to provide, I still can become quite anxious about the details. I have indulged in micro-planning the future, micro-managing the present, and micro-analyzing the past. But I am glad to see this tendency is decreasing (and so, I am sure, is my wife! :) ).

The “whole” or the “big picture”:

As I mentioned above, my art was about the whole picture. And I have noticed that a new post seems to come to me as a whole unit, rather than as bits that I stick together. So there are times when my thoughts do encompass the whole. And there are times when I can catch and correct my thinking to encompass the big picture. This usually brings a feeling of relief, a sense of freedom from worrying about the parts, a sense of contentment and satisfaction. The big picture, I mean the really big picture of the gift of living in this magnificent universe, is quite amazing and refreshing. Gratitude and gratefulness are reliable practices that help me reverse my small-minded thinking.

Gratitude and gratefulness:

Chloe has a very helpful poem on being grateful here. She suggests that we stop and take a moment to think of something that warms our heart and be glad. I found the tension draining away as I read her poem and did that exercise. And I wrote about gratitude and gratefulness here. I wrote about finding reason to be grateful in the simple fact that our heart continues to beat and our breathing carries on without direction from us. And Lisa’s blog has many posts about taking negativity and “turning it upside down.” Taking time to pray, and heeding that still small voice within, can restore the big picture.  These practices help redirect my thinking from the details to the big picture, from the part to the whole.

In conclusion:

In both my thoughts and in my physical world it is often only the parts that I dwell upon. They are the main attraction and easily distract me from the whole. Focussing my thoughts on the parts, rather than the whole, can generate anxiety and dissatisfaction. My habit is to focus on the parts but I do seem to be capable of seeing the whole.  I am learning to remind myself to keep returning to the BIG picture. :)  

Gratitude, gratefulness, and prayer are key practices for me. They help me stay positive. They cut off the anxious thought loops that fuss over details. They keep me aware of the magnificent whole, and that gives me a peace that passes understanding.

Thank you dear readers for visiting my blog. Blessings to you and yours.

Questions?

I may have misinterpreted or misapplied the idea of “parts, not the whole.” I learn a lot by reading comments here, and from posts and comments on friends’ blogs. So as usual I invite your comments.  Is “parts, not the whole” an issue for you? What helps you move from dwelling on “parts” to appreciating the “whole”?

“Spinning things”

24 Jan 2011 14 Comments

by Bruce (born 2b me) in Asperger's, Asperger's Syndrome, autism Tags: , , , , , , , ,

“spinning things” and “parts, not the whole” part 1

When I first started exploring my possible place on the autism spectrum as an Aspie, I would encounter two phrases that I was not familiar with: “spinning things” and “parts, not the whole.” I had no idea what they meant. Then one day the thought of “steam locomotive” caused the light to go on as I recognized how these two phrases may apply to my life. I see them as descriptive of how I often view physical objects, as well as how I often think.

In this post I will discuss “spinning things” which includes thoughts as well. Then in my next post I hope to discuss “parts, not the whole.”

Spinning THINGS:

I was born in 1945, fifteen years before the end of steam locomotives in Canada. I grew up watching the big spinning wheels and reciprocating connecting rods on the steam locomotives that headed up every train. I recall that the large spoked driving wheels and the flashing connecting rods were my main point of focus. That is where my gaze rested as the huge locomotive thundered past, or coasted into the railway station. I paid only a little attention to the rest of the locomotive. All that action on the side where the big wheels were had me mesmerized.

At home I had toy or model trains to play with and I would lie on my side on the floor for hours and gaze at the wheels and connecting rods of my toy engines as they went round and round the oval track in my bedroom or in the recreation room in the basement. My engines actually made smoke and puffing noises in time with the rotating wheels and flashing connecting rods.

Take 55 seconds to see for yourself… turn the sound on..(sound starts at 6 seconds)…..

When I think of my peers, I realize that I had an unusually intense interest in steam locomotives. I knew all the various types and could run my models for hours at a time. When all the steam locomotives were replaced by diesels, I lost my interest in railways. The diesels always seemed like moving boxes with no action to watch.

And there were tops. Some even hummed.

However, I could draw from memory an entire steam locomotive in astonishing detail, down to bolts, rivets, builder’s plate, etc.. At some level I was absorbing the whole. I am able to see the whole, or the big picture. I just get very fascinated by the spinning bits. I spent several hours last night viewing steam locomotives on YouTube, often watching the same one repeatedly if it showed the spinning wheels and connecting rods!

Spinning THOUGHTS: 

I have the habit of creating worlds in my mind that can keep me occupied for hours. Sometimes these scenarios are replays of actual social encounters and sometimes they are pure fiction inspired by something on a screen or just totally made up by me. I play the scenes over and over, often making subtle changes to effect a more pleasing outcome. I think I do this because these made-up encounters are almost always more enjoyable than those of my real life.

And then there are the purely negative thought loops that I know I should abandon but often I just don’t seem able to let go. It is almost as if there is a tendency to self-sabotage, or a reluctance to give up my “right” to be angry, depressed, sad, annoyed, etc., even though I know at some level that these thought loops are spoiling my day and my life, and possibly even turning me away from relationships. 

My “worry or planning” thought loops go round and round exploring every conceivable outcome that may occur. I was particularly vulnerable to this when I was a child protection social worker. I would lie awake at three in the morning trying to figure out how best to help a child. I would get only three hours sleep per night. This was not sustainable, and I wrote about it here and here.

My spinning thoughts often still keep me awake at night. I have some success in stopping them by doing one or more of the following: praying, saying the Jesus Prayer, meditating, watching my breath, doing deep relaxation exercises, or reading. Listening to music may also work.

Conclusion:

My mind is fascinated by spinning things and occupied by thoughts that go round and round over the same issue with minor variations. I am learning to replace negative thoughts by positive ones, and to stop or redirect the thought loops, but it is, for me, a struggle that requires constant vigilance.

I am a beginner in my explorations of the Aspie/autie spectrum so I may have misinterpreted or misapplied the idea of spinning things. I learn a lot by reading comments here, and from posts and comments on friends’ blogs. So as usual I invite your comments. 

In my next post I hope to write about my experiences with “parts, not the whole.”

 

Bogged-down in Bloggyland

13 Jan 2011 24 Comments

by Bruce (born 2b me) in Asperger's, autism, senses Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Hello Bloggyland friends. I am feeling rather bogged-down in my blogging as well as being swamped with overdue responsibilities in my life off-line. I have not been able to keep up with either posting on my own blog, or with reading and commenting on my friend’s blogs, and I am quite disappointed with myself over this.

Slow at reading:

Part of my problem is that I read at the same speed at which I talk. This is because I sound out each word in my head as I read. I also see only a part of the word I am looking at (or perhaps the whole word if it is short). All the other words are an out of focus blur. So skimming doesn’t work for me. And my “sounding out” is at my normal rate of talking. If I try to “talk” fast in my head, my eyes soon start to ache and I must return to normal speech speed. Hence it takes me a long time to read your blogs.

Slow at formulating a response:

I often say that I am slow at “thinking on my feet.” By that I mean that I take a long time to process information and formulate a response. So coming up with a comment that may be worthy of  posting on your blog can be a slow process — and even then I often look back and wish I had said it differently. I commented recently that it can take me 20 to 90 minutes of fretting to generate a comment. But shortly after this I found myself taking over six hours to compose one comment. That’s a comment, not a post!

Slow at writing posts for my blog:

There were times when I spent fourteen, or more, hours working on one post on my own blog. I would guess four to six hours is the norm.

Slow at typing:

Part of the problem here is typing speed. The words usually do not just flow onto the page screen. There is a lot of backspacing and retyping!

Several “new” blogs:

I have recently discovered several blogs that are either new, or new to me. So my reading load has been greatly increased of late. And I read very slowly. So right now I am feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Solutions:

I know that tension does physically slow my typing. So I can try to relax at the keyboard. I also know that anxiety can slow my thinking processes. So I can try to remind myself that my dear Bloggyland friends are not likely to be yelling “off with his head” if I don’t get it perfect! And I could restrict myself to just a handful or less of blogs, but I don’t like the thought of abandoning any of my bloggy friends nor do I like the thought of depriving myself of their writing. As to my off-line life I could try to get better organized and set aside some non-blogging days to catch up, but I’m not very good at that. And right now I am just feel swamped (overwhelmed).

Sorry:

So please accept my apologies if I have not been visiting your blog as often, or commenting as frequently, as I usually do. My participation in blogging has been rather spotty since getting swamped. 

Suggestions: 

So I’m asking for suggestions, if you have the time (I don’t want to swamp anyone else). Do you have any ideas that might help? I’d love to have your suggestions or comments about your experiences blogging. And thanks for your patience. :)

Serendipity:

Breakthrough? I just realized that this post has taken me only two hours to write! That is most unusual. So maybe just thinking about sharing these problems with you has alleviated much of my anxiety and enabled me to speed up! I hope so. Bloggyland therapy at its best! But please, if you have the time, do share your thoughts – I still need them and they will help others too. :)

“Hygiene” and “My Stuff”

11 Jan 2011 19 Comments

by Bruce (born 2b me) in Asperger's, autism, gratitude, Love, social conditioning Tags: , , , , , ,

I have heard comedians and marriage counsellors suggest that the honeymoon is over when one partner realizes that their spouse squeezes the tube of toothpaste at the top rather than from the bottom (or vice versa), or they insist the top should be replaced on the tube after each use (or not replaced as the case may be).

This is not a complaint or gripe about my wife. It is about my own peculiarities.

I remember very early in our relationship seeing my wife dig the bristles of her toothbrush inside the toothpaste tube when putting paste on her brush. This was such a violation of my personal standards of hygiene that I was shocked and felt revolted by this. It is possible to apply paste to a brush without the tube ever contacting the brush, I do it all the time. And the adverts on the television demonstrate it repeatedly.  So from that moment on, and for the next third of a century until the present, I have kept my own tube of toothpaste separately along with my brush and my floss. I keep them not in the bathroom, but on the second shelf of one of the upper kitchen cupboards, and nobody touches them but me. I also provided each of my four kids with their own tubes as well.

As a result of this and similar strategies on both our parts, our marriage and our sanity have survived over a third of a century. As I indicated above, this is not a complaint about my wife. She has been a great support to me and a real blessing, especially considering I have been disabled for approximately twenty years with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and I am very grateful for our marriage and family.

Since I enjoyed kissing my wife, and since more “germs” were undoubtedly transferred in that way than would ever be transferred from brush to tube, I realize my reaction was not rational. I had tendencies to perfection, I had become a “clean-freak” by that point in my life, and I had a probably irrational “fear of germs.” Hence I found putting a brush in the tube quite off-putting. 

This was probably more a reaction (disgust) to what I judged to be “slovenliness” on the part of my wife. And I know I am not God, so my judgements are very fallible! For all I know, the majority of people may dig the bristles of their brushes into the tube. But this is about my own weirdness, namely:

  1. my strong reaction to violations of my own standards  of hygiene, and
  2. the fact that in general I am not keen on other people touching my stuff, especially if they treat it differently to what I consider correct. 

I do seem to be loosening up a little as I age, and I am developing more tolerance for different approaches to life. This seems to be leading to less stress. But in the area of hygiene I still seem quite rigid.

However I don’t know if these peculiarities are simply my own eccentricities or if they are shared by other people on the spectrum, and I would like to hear from you, dear readers. How do you feel when your standards of hygiene are not met? Does it put you off? Are you bothered when people mess with your stuff?

Coping (or not) with the holidays

01 Jan 2011 25 Comments

by Bruce (born 2b me) in acceptance, Asperger's, autism, gratitude, Love Tags: , , , , , ,

The Before and After Comparison:

Today I am assessing how I handled the holidays this year compared to other years, now that I self-identify as an Aspie. What difference has my “diagnosis” made in my ability to cope with the social stressors of the holidays?

My Family:

All my family gathered for a few days at our home for Christmas. We had eight people (my wife and me, our two sons, our two daughters, our son-in-law and our grandson who is one-and-a-half years old). We also had five dogs in the house (our two, our son’s, and our daughter’s two). We live in a relatively small house of about one thousand to eleven hundred square feet, so it was fairly cramped for space.

I am always very thrilled to have the whole family together under one roof. It gives me a sense of contentment — that all is right with the world at least for now while we are all together. I think it brings back feelings of warmth and love that remind me of when the kinds were young and we were all together every day and night. I consider my family members to be my biggest blessing.

My family is very supportive, courteous, and caring towards each other. We don’t argue, attack, or put people down. The social atmosphere is very pleasant in our home and everyone seems to enjoy the reunion. Even the dogs enjoy each other’s company. Of course it is particularly enjoyable to see our little grandson playing with his toys and board-books; it brings back memories of our own kids when they were small.

In Retreat:

However, I spent the majority of our holiday time in retreat in the bedroom where my computer resides. This is because I know that engaging socially is such a tremendous energy drain for me. This is particularly so when there are multiple conversations occurring. And there is the sensory overload from the sounds of music, bright lights, toys, dogs trotting around, etc.. To avoid exhaustion I need to retreat and have a lot of what I call “down time” where I can be quiet. I seem to just exhaust all my energy when I am in social situations.

A Major Difference:

A major difference this year was that, being conscious of Asperger’s and my need to limit stimulation and the stress of conversation, I managed to withdraw to my room prior to reaching a state of exhaustion from too much socializing. I then could enjoy my down time, and then return to the group situation later, feeling refreshed and ready for some more contact. I would then retreat again before exhaustion got the better of me.

In previous years I would often remain engaged too long, get exhausted, and crash on my bed unable to enjoy my down time, and too far gone to recuperate sufficient energy to re-engage.  This state of exhaustion I usually found very depressing, and I would be quite angry with myself as well.

I Congratulated Myself:

This year, while my family were all here, I found myself wishing that I could be with them more, but I congratulated myself on managing my energy well, and I knew I was doing my best and doing the right thing.

Then Sadness Crept In:

However, when my older daughter and her family left for their home three hundred miles away I slipped into a bit of a depression that lasted a day or two. This was partly because I knew I wouldn’t be seeing them for a while, but also because I got down on myself, annoyed, and disappointed with myself, for not being able to spend as much time with them while they were here as I would have liked.

I Felt Accepted the Way I Am:

But the bottom line is that I believe everyone had a great time gathering together and seemed to enjoy each other very much. I am not aware of anyone being upset because I retreated upstairs (I guess that after seventeen years of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome disability they are accustomed to me taking breaks).

Focus on the Successes:

So I am trying to focus on the fact that I did have some time with my kids and grandson, and not worry about all the time I could have had if I were someone else! And I am feeling quite good about our family gathering and the way my new understanding of my Asperger’s helped me to manage my energy.

Blessed by my Family:

I am so blessed by my family’s love and acceptance and by their gathering here for Christmas.

Support from Bloggyland:

And I am so very grateful for all the support and encouragement I have received from my Bloggyland friends. You have given me a base of acceptance, and a sense of belonging that is new for me, and this is very empowering. I am moving forward in a way I could not have imagined prior to meeting my fellow Aspie/auties in Bloggyland and getting to know myself through your writings. It is such a relief to have found people who understand me in my depths, without needing an explanation. Thank you all so very much. Love and hugs to all of you.

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