Gritches the Aspie

In this sleep-deprived ramble, I'll be complaining about people who complain about people who complain. That is, people who find complaining objectionable in some way, shape, or form. If there's one way I feel stifled, one way in which I feel I am not free to express myself, it's when I find myself discontent. Excessive complaining seems to be a social taboo, but I argue that society is doing itself a disservice by frowning upon complaining. What happens when someone complains? By which, I...

Hey ya'll. I've been in a slump lately. Haven't posted much. I'm still happy though, and I'm finding that being happy in general does NOT preclude the experiencing of pain. Thankfully, I seem to have come up with an idea that actually stops PTSD flashbacks (the aforementioned pain) dead in their tracks. My therapist (who is an autism specialist at the top of her field) is very interested in this idea and wants me to develop it further, for the benefit of her other ASD patients. Now, bear...

I keep trying to write about the phrase "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade", but the result always makes me want to punch myself in the throat - like I deserve a good throat-punch for writing something so cheery. So let me put it like this: I was once taught that losing is a personal problem. That if you can't find a way to win in any situation, you're not trying hard enough. Forget that "there is no trying, only doing" crap. The problem with that is that when life kicks your ass,...

It seems to me that Asperger's and depression just go hand-in-hand, like peanut butter and jelly, or perhaps more like rusty tacks in your shoes and pain. But you never hear about depression getting better; at least not in Aspies. I wonder why that is? I have a hypothesis, somewhat broadened from a forum post: It's hardly a matter of debate that an Aspie's "comfort zone" is integral to their well-being. I'm no less subject to that; at this very moment I'm sitting in the spot that is the...

Don't worry, this is a short one. I saw a unicorn today. No really, I mean it, an actual factual unicorn. I'm not even speaking metaphorically; I'm talking about a unicorn, four legs and hooves and a tail and everything. Only thing it was missing was a horn. Don't know why. But who cares? I saw a freaking unicorn! The point I'm trying to make is that if you focus on the 99% that is there instead of the 1% that isn't, your world can be a lot more magical. And I'll leave it at that.

Don't get me wrong, high self-esteem is important. It is absolutely integral to your sense of well-being. But what you need is a sense a real sense of high self-esteem. A secure sense of high self-esteem. "But Gritches, how does one achieve such a thing?" What a handsome question. First, realize that a high sense of self-esteem is NOT a starting point - it's an endpoint. It's a result. It's a reward. Forget about "fake it til you make it", because "faking it" results in the fragile sense of...

I've really never talked about this? Oh well, better late than never: I see it every day, people are caught up in this trap of worrying about "self-esteem". Let me explain the borderline pseudo-psychological bullcrap that is the modern understanding of self-esteem, and when I'm done I'll explain how and why you're doing it wrong, and then I'll tell you what to do about it. I promise. So buckle up, buttercup: Self-esteem was introduced in 1972 to the public school system in the United...

Well, I'm waiting for my Xbox One to download a 722 MB update over a satellite connection, so I have a few hours to kill, might as well write about what I've been thinking about lately. Traumatic memories trigger negative emotions because they're encoded in a fragmented manner. Memories have three major properties: Space, Time, and Content. For a traumatic memory to be encoded in a fragmented manner, that means that particular memory lacks the properties of time and space, and only retains...

Okay, so, I have a lot of problems with the song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". It's nothing to do with the subject matter, with religious implications, morality, nonononono. None of that. There are just so many things about the ballad that don't quite add up to zero, if you know what I mean. Let me take this step by step: The Devil went down to Georgia. He was lookin' for a soul to steal. Okay, so, he went down to Georgia. Down. Indicating he was somewhere north of Georgia prior to his...

I am very, very tired, so I apologize in advance if this is just idiotic rambling. But here we go: When the layman hears the term "PTSD", assuming he isn't ass-deep in Cheetohs and Candy Crush he would probably think of veterans, and rightly so; PTSD was first widely recognized in veterans under the moniker of "Shell Shock" and continues to be a significant issue facing our armed forces today. However, as us-all-people know all too well, PTSD can come from other sources too; pick your...

I realized something beautiful today. A human being paid me a kindness with no expectation of reciprocity. A $50,000 prototype of a medical device, one of only five in existence, is sitting on my bed next to me. This device used ultrasonic waves to allow the body to actually grow cartilage; it's very possibly the cure for arthritis. The owner of the company I work for, a medical device manufacturer, lent me this device at the behest of my boss. An old back injury had flared up (a bulging...

A brief tale of how I went from trying so hard to have fun and failing to a point where I couldn't stop having fun if I tried.

What I learned by giving away free cookies to a large collection of various kinds of neurotypicals.

"Gritches has Lots of Mommies" Sounds like a children's book about polygamy. But srsly, let me begin by making clear that I am not complaining. At all. In fact, I've been meaning to write this for a while but I couldn't figure out how to do so without it sounding like I'm bragging, not that I'm prone to doing that or anything. But the fact is, I feel like the luckiest Aspie in the whole wide world. Half a dozen women claim to be my adoptive mother, and many more act like it without...

The results of my self-experimentation with Chamomile in capsule form as an anxiolytic.