Saturday, October 25, 2014

Why Won't You Look Me in The Eyes?

So many eyes
All around me
Staring
Watching
Observing

So many eyes
To stumble into
Causing confusion
Anxiety
Disorientation

So many eyes
So deep
Containing every aspect
Every emotion
Of a person

So many eyes
Wanting to look in mine
To dig deep
Into who I am
To judge me

So I cover my eyes
And start to hum
I may even cry
It is all to much
Make it stop!

Why won't you 
Look me in the eyes?
You ask
Do you not understand
That I can't?

     Many people have this question: Why do people with autism avoid eye contact with other people? The poem above gives you my perspective, and that's what I can give you; my perspective. For me, eye contact is very awkward. Sometimes, it's almost painful. Yeah, painful. You have to understand that "typical" people make eye contact as a nonverbal form of communication. There is a lot of emotion in a person's eyes. A person may be good at hiding how they are feeling on the outside, but the eyes don't lie. Here's how that plays out in autism.
     People with autism have trouble with other people's emotions. Looking into your eyes may mean seeing some emotions that we don't know how to deal with. We may feel ill-equipped to help you. That makes us feel anxious, even more anxious than we already are in social situations. Also, it could be confusing. If your mouth is saying one thing but your eyes are saying another thing, our brain may not know how to process that. Then you throw body language into the equation. Whoa! Shut the system down! It's just too much, and our brains can only process so much. 
     On the flip side, people with autism have trouble with their own emotions. It's hard to let someone else try and understand your emotions when you don't fully understand them yourself sometimes. I can't speak for everyone on the spectrum, but I'm personally not good at hiding my feelings. I'm doing good if I'm able to identify and deal with my emotions and what caused them in a particular situation. However, if someone looked into my eyes, they may figure it out before I did. That's when I can't answer their questions of "What's wrong?" or "Are you ok?" They get a lot of "I don't know". 
     William Shakespeare said, "The eyes are the windows to your soul." I'd say that's true because when I look into someone's eyes, I feel lost. Lost in everything that makes up that person. Lost in trying to trudge through all of that to get to the important stuff that matters in that present moment. It takes all my attention that I can't focus on anything else, much less on what they're saying. So I cheat lol. I watch people's mouths when they talk. This is close enough that it looks like I'm making eye contact, but I'm really not. It also helps because unless I watch someone talk, I have a hard time understanding what they say. 
     So don't take offense if a person with autism isn't looking at you in the eyes. Forcing us to make eye contact would be the worst thing to do. Just because we aren't looking at you, doesn't mean we aren't listening. We just have a different way of doing things :)

"I live in the same world you do; I just experience it differently. I am a human being with feelings, just like you; I just express them in my own way." ~Me~ 

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Answered Prayer

     So in one of my psychology classes, my professor decided to do a little experiment...because that's what psychology people do lol. She gave us depression and anxiety self-evaluations. Then she said we would be taking the first part of each class for a time of prayer and meditation on God's Word. We would then see if our depression and anxiety improved. I thought, "Great idea because I suffer from clinical anxiety and depression." 
     One of my prayers was specifically about my anxieties, especially my social anxiety. Because I have autism, social situations take more work for me. I sometimes feel lost, confused, or unsure, and that leads to anxiety. My prayer was that God would lessen my anxiety and help me connect with people better. I never thought He would do what He did!
     I've mentioned before that I'm in the process of joining a social club at school. I knew it would be a good way to make new friends and connect with people. God has taken it even further. Since starting this process, I feel like a rose that blossomed from a closed-up bud. I went from the girl that tried to blend into the wall to being able to go up to someone, introduce myself, and keep a conversation going. I went from "I can't wait to go home" to "I can't wait for the next get-together". Before, I walked around campus saying, "I don't know any of these people." Now, I can walk around campus and say, "I know her and her and him and him..." 
     I was talking to my best friend, Erin, the other day. She has walked through this long and treacherous journey with me and was always by my side. She has seen the good and the bad and helped me through some rough times. I was telling her about all of this, and she laughed. Not in a mocking way but in an amused and delighted sort of way. She said, "That's a real change from when I first met you. You used to be so hesitant in big crowds and meeting new people. Now you're meeting tons of new people and going to these mixers. And now it's not a matter of 'Do I want to do this at all?'; it's a matter of 'Which one do I want to do?'"
     I can see the change in myself in just this short amount of time, and I love it! God not only answered my prayer, but He went above and beyond my expectations. With my past experiences, I guess I should know by now that that's how He works lol. God always answers our prayers. However, He answers them His way and in His own time. 

"I live in the same world you do; I just experience it differently. I am a human being with feelings, just like you; I just express them in my own way." ~Me~

Monday, October 13, 2014

My Two New Therapeutic Tools

     A couple of weeks ago, I bought some of that cool, new Kinetic Sand. If you've seen the commercial on TV, you've seen how cool this stuff is. I decided to buy some after watching a video from grav3yardgirl on YouTube. I talked about her videos in my last post. In this one, she reviewed Kinetic Sand, showed how cool it was, and talked about how it can be really therapeutic. It's pretty awesome. I wish I could describe on here how this stuff moves and feels. It's really unique and amazing! I love to watch it fall from my hands. I find it most helpful when I'm studying. When studying and doing homework, I get really distracted sometimes. It's hard for me to concentrate, and I lose my train of thought often. I have found that if I use Kinetic Sand while I'm doing homework, I get distracted less often. When I do find myself losing focus, I use the Kinetic Sand as the distraction instead of things like Facebook or TV. It allows me to take my mind off my work for just a few seconds, do something calming that doesn't take my full attention away from the task, and then get back to work. It's been working really well. 
     Another great thing I've acquired recently is a rocking recliner. See, my brother and I moved into a trailer house together in a very nice, gated trailer park. Our new trailer house came with a couch, chair, and the rocking recliner. It's my new favorite thing! I love it! It's so comfy. My brother claimed it as "his", but I sit in it more than he does. I like to do my homework or watch TV in it. It's really relaxing to sit there and rock back and forth in it, especially if I'm listening to music. When I'm doing homework, it actually helps me concentrate because it calms me down and reduces stress. I'm actually sitting in it right now as I write this blog post lol. So those are my two new favorite things, and how I use them to help me.

"I live in the same world you do; I just experience it differently. I am a human being with feelings, just like you; I just express them in my own way." ~Me~