The Circle

[Arashi222]

I hope you are feeling better today Arashi! It sounds as though you had a dreadful time.

I made it to school after a two day drive. I waved to Cerulean while passing through Indiana, to Loomis while passing by Chicago, and to Gomendosi just because. I have come down with a miserable cold though, and feel mopey. I can rest for a couple of hours before having to attend a small reception, which isn't nearly as fancy as it sounds.

Thanks Bay...I am feeling a bit better. My eye is feeling a bit better too.

I am glad you made it to school just fine all except for the cold. Colds are the worst especially if you are in a new place and in unfamiliar territory. I hope you start to feel better too Bay. I bet everyone enjoyed their wave. Well and Internets hug for you and a feel better pat on the head.

 

[Bay]

Thanks Bay...I am feeling a bit better. My eye is feeling a bit better too.

I am glad you made it to school just fine all except for the cold. Colds are the worst especially if you are in a new place and in unfamiliar territory. I hope you start to feel better too Bay. I bet everyone enjoyed their wave. Well and Internets hug for you and a feel better pat on the head.

Awww...thanks Arashi!

 

[buckyboy14]

I'm on vacation in Colorado. I had a good day, except for one thing: I had to go on a steam train ride. The horn was awful. It honked at completely random intervals, and I couldn't take it; I nearly broke down. I had to plug my ears, which led people to give me funny looks.

 

[Soup]

Too bad for them! They're supposed to be enjoying the ride; not staring at you. If the sound is too much for you, do what you must in order to ease the strain. I'm a big fan of noise cancelling headphones. Those are life-savers & people just assume you're listening to music AND they're less likely to try striking up a conversation! I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday.

We're planning to do more travelling too. We go to Palm Beach a lot because my husband has these professional seminars there. We make a holiday out of it & stay for a good 10 days. We went in Fall of 2011 & again in Spring of 2012. We always stay at the same resort where we have our on nice little condo right on the ocean ---> Palm Beach Shores Resort and Vacation Villas (Palm Beach Shores, United States of America) | Expedia

The full kitchen is great for me since we drive to the local grocery store, buy what WE feel like eating & eat what we want, when we want. The only thing that I don't like with this place & its why we haven't simply bought a unit since we go 2-3x/year is that they don't let you bring your dogs! NO PETS! Even for owners! There are some places nearby that do BUT they only want dogs that weigh under 50 lbs. The pug weighs 15 BUT Kaiser the Dane weighs a good 130 (not much for a male Dane). If we're to live somewhere for the winter months, as we eventually hope to do, we won't even consider a place that doesn't allow our dogs.

The condo looks exactly like the photos & they keep the place spotless. The beach is magnificent! You can rent what I call ASPIE HUTS for the entire day! You can hybernate in them & nobody bothers you. they protect you from the son, are really comfortable & you can eat, sleep & draw or read in them. It's a quiet resort that tends not to have drunks, wild parties & late night racket. They do offer scheduled activities but you're not forced to register for any of them. Added bonus: you can drive down to Key Largo & go either snorkelling or scuba diving in the coral reefs there. It feels like being in a documentary!

 

[smith2267]

Kind of on a long string of crappy days. My current aspie obsession is an online RPG game. Naturally I get bullied. But they are working overtime lately.
I got hate mail on my birthday. And they are trying to attack me so much I leave the game. They've even accused me of lying about being aspie.

 

[Soup]

That's awful, smith2267! Are there other games you can play & ditch these destructive miserable people? You shouldn't have to put up with bullying: there's nothing natural about that. I don't care what you look like, how you speak or what you weigh or any other distinguishing feature you have. Nobody has the right to treat you like that!

 

[smith2267]

Thanks...but doesn't that happen to all aspies? It's happened to me my whole life, whenever I get into any sort of long term community of people.

 

[Soup]

It happens to heavy people, too skinny people, gay people, lesbians, people who stand out from the mainstream in any way at all! In my school, redheaded kids got picked on a lot, as did kids with glasses or braces on their teeth. If you had both, there was hell to pay. Kids who were too nerdy & good in school got picked on & kids who appeared slow witted got it too. Poor kids got it at more affluent schools. Rich kids got razzed for that. Really plain girls got bullied, sometimes plain girls bullied pretty ones. There's no making sense of this. Asperger's is the excuse: mean spiritedness is the reason.

 

[Gomendosi]

Bullying in my thoughts is done with ignorance of the impact it truly has and would probably come from a lack of an emotional connection in the bully’s life.
I have been bullied ferociously and even by authority figures (even they have tolerance levels), I look back on my life and realise I may have bullied at some points, maybe as part of a group or when I thought I had a higher standard?
See, if I am honest I don't even know if I was a bully because in circumstances where I think it may have been the case, I have a ready and rational explanation or I can fall back on the old adage of I was only one of many or it was family, or I was only acting as part of my job.

I have never bullied to the extent of what was done to me be I am sure I have done something that would have been interpreted as such at some point by someone somewhere!

Bullying isn't about you or what you are or do, it is about the individual testing boundaries, determining the extent of their power and other peoples tolerance and this is all heightened in groups, plus their is the perceived reward from said peers, a sense of satisfaction that your surrounded by other who accept your way of treating people so it can't be wrong if they agree, safety in numbers!

This is just my own opinions though!





There are a few threads here dedicated to bullies, bullying and the effects of both ; ]

 

[Kelly]

I needed to share this with people who will hopefully understand. So I was once again trying to discuss with my husband the possibility of our daughter being on the spectrum and he is still of the mind of "lets not get ahead of ourselves / don't rely on it being that blah blah blah"

Anyway everytime something obviously spectrumy(made up word lol) happens I point it out to him. So Wednesday night we were playing on the xbox when she was supposed to be going to sleep. She came in complaining that she had milk in her drink cup why didn't she have her usual strawberry water (long story short we'd run out and the mother in law had brought some but not until after he'd already filled her cup with milk) so we explained this to her. My husband then said "if you want you can have strawberry water, go and get your cup".

I knew what would happen next so I pre-warned him "you didn't give her specific instructions...just wait for it..." he looked puzzled and about 10 seconds later she came in clutching the cup full of milk looking totally confused "uhm what do I do with the milk? Should I put the water in with it?". He couldn't believe it because to him it was obvious that what he meant was to empty the milk out and put the strawberry water in but not to her because he hadn't specifically mentioned emptying the cup or getting rid of the milk, so I explained it to her as I did it her exact words "well why didn't daddy just say that?". I then got to explain to him (again) literal thinking and how that can be an aspie trait and 'do you see why I think she's on the spectrum because this is an everyday event' and then we had a bit of an arguement because he said I wanted her to be on the spectrum and I became furious and said that was the last thing I wanted. I would love it if she wasn't on the spectrum because then she wouldn't be faced with all the associated anxiety, social problems etc etc but it is just so obvious because she has many many aspie traits.

 

[smith2267]

@kelly, it's already in the family, right? so it seems to me the level of suspicion should be high. I don't think I have the literal thinking, but I've seen it in others, including my Dad (who is in denial about his AS)

 

[Soup]

It sounds like she is on the spectrum & you're well placed to notice the traits since you have them yourself. The sooner it can be confirmed, the better because you can teach her priceless strategies & knowledge specific to living with Asperger's. This will spare her a lot of struggling later on. BTW, she's a gorgeous little girl & she looks exactly like my 5 yr old niece.

 

[Arashi222]

Oh Kelly that must be so frustrating for you to have to explain over and over again to your husband what he doesn't want to see. I know and I think we all know here that you would rather you're daughter not have the same troubles that all the rest of us do but that you recognize them and want to give her help early in life to provide her more coping skills. I think its rather smart of you. I see so much of my self in what your daughter does. My mom still has to re-say or more re-explain things to me because I look lost or unsure of the steps involved.

As for me I still am not feeling well from my recent bought of food poisoning and ended up not going to work ( see Soup took your advice well that and my body helped too). But I recently am coming to the conclusion that my mom is worried about me. She is worried about when she dies and what will happen to me. She keeps getting really frustrated with my inability to control my money or I kinda understand it but then when she gives me mixed messages like don't spend anymore money but then in the same breath says you need to get your sister a present (this was for her baby shower) I get confused so I spent money on getting my sister a present and then I spent more on my credit card than my mom wanted me to and then she got upset with me. I get so confused when she does stuff like that. Don't get me wrong my mom is really supportive and loving and I feel lucky to have her but sometimes as we all get it, I think she wishes I were more like my younger 'normal' sister.

 

[Soup]

Financial management skills is something the vast majority of human beings lack! Look at the statistics on runaway debt, bankruptcy & foreclosure. Many people over-spent on credit cards & got into BIG trouble when they lost their job. Few of those people were Aspies. Financial management isn't something taught to kids in most regular schools. There are books & classes (online) you can take to learn budgeting, learn about banking & the merits of various account types & services, learn about mortgages & other types of loans & lines of credit & learn how to make informed financial decisions. You can learn what it really means financially to be able to afford something. You also can learn about saving (NOT scrimping away for something) & investing.

 

[Bay]

I am done with this week's class and can relax for a bit. A couple of classmates and I, who are also far from home, will be drinking margaritas tonight while doing laundry. Sounds like a perfect evening in rural, northwestern Illinois!

 

[Cerulean]

I'm sad today. My husband had to leave this weekend to go to his friend's funeral in Michigan. So he's about 6 hours away. We haven't been so far apart since before we were married, for two months of long distance dating. I feel so disoriented, I had to write myself out a schedule today so I would keep moving and not just lie around all day. That's been helping. On the plus side, my dad's not home today (we live with him short term) so I don't have anybody pestering me about what I'm doing and where I'm going etc. Ahhhh quiet.

 

[buckyboy14]

I have a friend who lives in South Africa. He moved away from the US, but I still talk with him on Skype a lot. He's probably my best friend. I just learned he has a girlfriend. I don't know how to handle this. I always felt reassured knowing that I wasn't the only person I knew that wasn't in a relationship. Now what...?

 

[skk123]

I have a friend who lives in South Africa. He moved away from the US, but I still talk with him on Skype a lot. He's probably my best friend. I just learned he has a girlfriend. I don't know how to handle this. I always felt

reassured knowing that I wasn't the only person I knew that wasn't in a relationship. Now what...?

I know the feeling too well. My best friend is crushing hard on a girl and is close to confessing his feelings to her. Ever since he told me I've felt something I can't really describe, like I know I should be encouraging him but I'm not and maybe a little jealous. As an aspie I really don't know how to handle certain emotions and it can weigh on me heavily.

As for my day, it went quite well. I was able to have small talk without any awkward conversations with people at work. I did however run and hide from someone I knew, hoping they wouldn't spot me. oh well, I guess I can't always get everything right. Still quite happy by the end of the day.

 

[Kelly]

Another day another decision....so Kyoko's latest obsession is modelling, she's always had an interest in it but the past week or so she has done nothing else. Every waking hour has been spent either modelling herself, making her dolls model or watching something model or talent related (america's next top model, britain's got talent, x-factor). So without thinking much about it I sent her details to a talent/model agency, thinking if she somehow got accepted it may be fun to indulge her obsession a little...well they contacted me the next day to say they want her on their books.

Here's the bit I need to decide about, you have to pay (that is an industry standard), difference with this place is it's a one time fee of ?90 for now until she is 18, unlike other agency's that charge around that amount per year. They also charge ?110 for an induction workshop in which they will do a model shoot, film shoot and give her alot of coaching before deciding where her focus is best placed (whether she's better suited to modelling or acting). It's a very reputable company and everything (all the major companies get their kids from them and they have alot of independant reviews etc) so I know it's not a scam it's just ...?200 on an obsession, it's alot of money and she may not get any work out of it. Although I suppose the majority of it is for the workshop which is basically a day of modeling and acting so not too different to paying for a fun day out for her.

I just don't know what to do, my husband says it's fine and that it's worth it because it will make her so happy but I keep thinking what if I regret it in 6 months time when she's had no work or hundreds of auditions and not got a single job from it. I also don't want to get her hopes too high because she's been looking at the companies list of clients and she saw things like harry potter (they provided many of the extras for the film) and also clothing companies that she likes and I think she thinks that she's going to be starring in films every week inbetween shooting for major clothing brands(she's a very very confident girl). I've explained to her that there will be hundreds of kids going for the same roles but only 1 or 2 are picked so she can't get upset if she doesn't get picked much and she says she won't but still it's worrying that she's going to have a real crushing disappointment if she goes for a film or TV role, sets her heart on it and then doesn't get it.

In other news I think my illness has finally passed, my throat is still a bit dry and my temp keeps randomly going up but on the whole I feel better, I need to get some blood tests done today or tomorrow just waiting for the doc to call and tell me when.

 

[Soup]

That is a big decision indeed! She's a very beautiful girl & with the UK becoming increasingly diverse, the demand for child actors & models reflecting this new reality will also increase. Since she's so young, the first few times she doesn't get selected after an audition for a desirable role she very well might feel saddened & disappointed. She may indeed freak out & melt down BUT she'll also learn a valuable life lesson that many kids don't get to learn these days because their helicopter mothers make everything seem to go their way. Sometimes you don't get what you want. Sometimes someone else does a better job or is more suited to something & gets chosen.

If it becomes too stressful or overshadows other more important priorities, you can always scale down or cut it out altogether. Who knows: in a few years, playing the violin or football may become her new passion. My 5 yr old niece has gone through a few different passions: for a while, it was the princess phase. That was cured by getting her outdoors & active. She became a fishing fanatic & now loves to explore in nature so her parents take her out on trails & nature reserves. This is much healthier for her than fluttering about in long gowns & a tiara learning nothing & doing nothing of any enduring value.