Sudden Jerking of Arms, and Yelling
29 Oct 2010 28 Comments
in Asperger's, autism Tags: Asperger's, autism, embarrassment, questions, social faux pas
SUDDEN JERKING OF ARMS, AND YELLING: Is this autism or something else?
I feel weird about letting this out. I have never talked to anyone about it, and I don’t want to lose my dear readers and blogging friends. But I have puzzled over this for ages.
HERE IS WHAT I EXPERIENCE: I will be sitting in a chair, or maybe driving, and my hands and forearms will suddenly fly upwards. My hands will sometimes clap once, and sometimes I will let out a yell (AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!). I never do this in public. Occasionally, if I am a passenger in a car, and not engaged in conversation but remembering one, my hand will snap up off my knee a few inches. But I never yell or clap in public.
HERE IS WHAT BRINGS IT ON: This response is triggered by memories, or recollections, of social interactions that did not go well in my judgement. Memories of any other kind of failure, mess-up, or disaster, will not elicit this response. There must be a social component.
A RECENT EXAMPLE: I drove about one-and-a-half hours to a meditation meeting. I arrived early, as is my habit, and started helping one of the co-leaders to set up the cushions. He asked, “How was the drive up?” I answered “Oh, it was fun”, (I drive a Mustang 
), but then I proceeded, while setting up cushions, to tell him how and why the journey was “fun”, and I only stopped part way through my explanation when I realized I was talking to his back as he continued setting up.
His question, “How was the drive up?” was simply a greeting, his way of saying, “I see you and welcome you,” period, full-stop. He didn’t want to know how or why my drive was “fun”. His question was in the order of “How are you?”. Just a social convention. But of course I took it literally.
Then, about three hours later as I was driving home in the dark, I suddenly lurched, or yanked myself forward, at the steering wheel, and let out a yell. The trigger was simply a flashback to the co-leader’s greeting and my unskilled response. My physical lurch and yell were simultaneous to the flashback, and not at all a conscious or deliberate act. It was something that just happened to me. The strange thing is that at the time of my social “error”, I wasn’t blushing or embarrassed. I may have felt a bit rejected. Mostly, I simply realized I should stop talking. It was only later that I had this sudden “reaction”. I can write about it now, two days after the event, without having any reaction at all.
(Edit: the day after writing this, but before posting, I was driving and had a sudden flashback to the exchange with the co-leader. I involuntarily lurched forward and loudly vocalized “Oh, sh*t,” So I guess at some subconscious level it must be really bothering me).
MY QUESTION: I am new to the autism spectrum world and have so much to learn. I am wondering if the behaviour described above can be attributed to autism, or is it something else? I would appreciate your thoughts on this.
Pride and Arrogance (or the end of questioning).
22 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
in don't know, questioning Tags: certainty, integrity, questions, search for truth
But I now seem to have settled into a role of “pursuer of many questions” and it seems a very comfortable fit for now. Will I succumb to the temptation of falling for the security of a fixed and rigid belief system again? Only time will tell where the spiral will lead.
That is a quote from my third post dated July 20, 2010. The spiral has led to a return to faith and trust.
When Job, in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), pursued God with questions he was simply answered with a demonstration of God’s majesty. No other answer was forthcoming. I think this is because the human mind is just not capable of comprehending God and his reasons for doing what he does.
Hence I am faced with my pride and arrogance in presuming to question.
Psalm 131 tev
Lord, I have given up my pride
and turned away from my arrogance.
I am not concerned with great matters
or with subjects too difficult for me.
Instead , I am content and at peace.
As a child lies quietly in its mother’s arms,
so my heart is quiet within me.
Israel, trust in the Lord
now and forever.
.
And so I shall simply sit down, shut up, and trust in the Lord.
As I write this there have been 90 visits to this blog since it started less than a week ago. To all who have visited: Thank you. Your interest and comments are appreciated.
May peace and joy be yours in abundance!
No Mask!
22 Jul 2010 2 Comments
in masks, programming, questioning, social conditioning Tags: beliefs, Christianity, indoctrination, masks, questions, social conditioning, who am I?, Zen
There is a Zen koan: What was my face before I was born? (or even before I was conceived!).
Who am I before I ever put on my first mask?
Can I peel away the many layers of conditioning and programming and beliefs and “certainties” accrued over the decades from parents, teachers, Sunday School teachers, camp counsellors, advertising, sermons, politicians, spiritual teachers, books, TV, movies, friends, etc.? Peer pressure and the demands to conform at work and play, often require the donning of particular masks; the adopting of “certainties”, beliefs. They build up layer after layer over the years, much like bricks being cemented into a wall. The wall grows thick and tall and immoveable. How does one demolish it?
There are various systems of inquiry, such as The Work of Byron Katie and The Option Method of the Kaufman’s, that tackle the belief edifice one brick at a time. Each belief is thoroughly questioned, examined, challenged. This would seem a long and tedious process, but I am sure the demolition proceeds at an ever-increasing rate as the knowledge gained from seeing through one belief generalizes to the next. Freedom is the aim.
Jesus taught (Luke 17:33):
“Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it”
Paul added (Eph 4:21b-24 tev):
“…you were taught the truth that is in Jesus. So get rid of your old self, which made you live as you used to – the old self that was being destroyed by its deceitful desires. Your hearts and minds must be made completely new, and you must put on the new self, which is created in God’s likeness and reveals itself in the true life that is upright and holy.”
So Christianity also realizes that the old self, the deceitful masked one, must go.
And then there is Rinzai Zen of Japan, to which I was introduced by Philip Kapleau in ’69 or ’70. To over simplify, it’s a non-verbal approach. After much sitting and work on koans (to get one unstuck from one’s discriminating mind) a well-timed whack on the head by the Master liberates the seeker into a moment of Satori or even Enlightenment! 
Yes, I want to meet my “face before I was born” because I know it is the same face I will meet on my deathbed (if I should be sufficiently conscious), a face stripped clean, a face with no mask.
Why not meet that face now and enjoy its unpretentious company for the remainder of my life?
I was “Born 2B Me“, not a mask.
It is time I met this “Me“.
Put the Mask On! Take it Off Again!
20 Jul 2010 6 Comments
in masks, questioning, who am I ? Tags: authenticity, beliefs, hypocrisy, integrity, masks, questions, who am I?
How many masks have I worn in my life? Some fit well for a while but then become suffocating, some chafe or itch, some make me feel accepted and at home, many I put off and on repeatedly as my mind changes or my mood shifts. They are often used to help me “fit in” or to give me a sense of identity or purpose. My hypocrisy meter tells me when I must discard a mask.
The masks have come in many flavours: Christianity (Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, Fundamentalist), Buddhist, Agnostic, Tibetan Buddhist, Scientific (Cosmological, Astrophysical, Psychological), Poetical, Artistic, Philosophical, Political, and Zen of various persuasions.
And those are only the ones bearing on beliefs or spiritual practices.
There are also the many hats I have worn: breadwinner, husband, father, citizen, family chauffeur, son, student, etc.. These roles are much more enduring than my adherence to any belief system or spiritual practice. Although the beliefs and practices have a form of constancy in that they keep cycling round and round in a sort of spiral.
Most of my masks or personas fail to satisfy as I become aware of their shortcomings. And it seems my enquiring mind never fails to find the inevitable shortcomings in any belief system. The result is that it is hard for me to settle down in one belief system for long. I am too full of questions! This is confusing and frustrating for some who wish I were more predictable.
I have often jokingly called myself “The Midnight Christian” because I would read the Bible late at night and remake a committment to Jesus only to wake up the next morning feeling very Zen again.
But I now seem to have settled into a role of “pursuer of many questions” and it seems a very comfortable fit for now. Will I succumb to the temptation of falling for the security of a fixed and rigid belief system again? Only time will tell where the spiral will lead. But now that I am looking at my life from the more meta-level of questioning the very nature of beliefs, and how we get hooked, I think it would be hard to take any one system too seriously. Let the questions rule!
Living the Questions
18 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
in don't know, good questions Tags: certainty, don't know, fundamentalism, questions, search for truth
I know that the questions raised in my first post have been wrestled with by philosophers and theologians for millenia and by psychologists for more than a century and most recently by neuroscientists. I don’t expect to find answers that have eluded them.
The purpose of this blog is to engage in the game of living the questions. The exploration, the chase, the hunt is where the action is. Answers are frozen. Questions are fluid. It seems that whenever humankind has come up with the answer, subsequent developments have demanded a revision or a complete overthrow of the original certainty. So in actual fact I will never arrive at an answer. I will just skirt around the edge as I pursue the next question.
There are many blogs of one sort of fundamentalism or another touting the set and rigid answers of particular religious or political systems. This blog will instead play with the questions.
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