Sunday, March 17, 2013

About My Posts and Writings--About Me


I am a person who takes things very personally. I am a very sensitive person.
This is how i have been my whole life.
When things happen in my life that are huge and monumental, especially when they involve huge hurts, it takes time for my brain, body, and soul to process and fully get over it. It takes Alot of time.

Sometimes years.

I have good days when i think i am okay, but then i have those bad days, where the memories of a certain hurt will flood me, and i am brought to my knees, grieving all over again.

I am also autistic, and i have grown to be very proud of my autism. I consider my autism to be a blessing, a different operating system of sorts.....i do not consider myself to be a research project or a blue puzzle piece or a disease, nor am i an epidemic, or a burden or a tsunami. Nor do i consider myself someone who is in need of a fix or cure. I did not always feel this way. Before Facebook, and especially when i was growing up, i wanted to be normal. I grew up thinking that if i was just normal, i would be accepted by others, i would "belong"----i would fit in. I was even into Autism Speaks for awhile---because i had the mistaken idea that they were for me. But something happened to me after coming onto Facebook and posting my feelings on, of all things, an Autism Speaks comment thread. It was through that comment thread, that i immediately began to meet a huge community of awesome friends, many of whom are also who are also on the autism spectrum. Quickly, my mindset changed. Because i allowed myself to be educated...rather, re-educated.

For it is real human beings who i have met,
people who have real personalities,
people who have a heart,
people who have a sense of humor,
people who are married,
some who go to college,
many who have children,
some who have jobs,
some who also go to Washington to speak to Congress about the real issues we who are autistic face.
The people i have met, are people from all ends of the autism spectrum, who do not fit the stereotypical view of what an autistic person "should" be like. I have been educated as to the very real issues we still face today.....one of the biggest issues being the stigma that still runs rampant among the mindsets of even those who are autism parents and advocates, about us. There are even a very small number of autistics who feel this way.


We are NOT blue puzzle pieces. We are human beings with dreams and goals just like all of you in the neurotypical world.

There are still those who want to come in and get mad and get right in our faces and yell at us and scold us when we have bad days, and have meltdowns....they want to come in and try to fix us when we are right smack dab in the middle of a meltdown, treating our meltdowns just as if we are a spoiled kid throwing a temper tantrum.

NO.

THIS IS THE WRONG WAY TO APPROACH US WHEN WE ARE HAVING A MELTDOWN. A MELTDOWN IS NOT A TEMPER TANTRUM.

A MELTDOWN IS AS DIFFERENT AS DAY IS TO NIGHT FROM A TEMPER TANTRUM.

A temper tantrum happens when a kid wants a toy or candy, and the parent says no, and the kid starts screaming and crying, as a way to manipulate the parent into relenting and saying yes.


A temper tantrum happens when a kid wants a toy or candy, and the parent says no, and the kid starts screaming and crying, as a way to manipulate the parent into relenting and saying yes.

A meltdown happens when an autistic person's senses become overloaded. The whole room starts to spin and it is as if there is a bombardment of wild colors, and different noises clashing, all coming at me in haphazard fashion.....it is as if i am being poked hard all over, as i am being spun all around too fast, and i can actually feel the hot breath of you, the neurotypical, yelling at me in the middle of it all, and then i spiral down and shut down even further.

Please don't yell at me and scold me when i am having a meltdown. It will make it even worse. I promise you.

It will make my meltdown worse.

One of the ways i cope with anything that is troubling me, is to vent by posting and writing about it. I do this to better understand and process through it. I do it because it is the only way i know of how to cope with it. I cannot cope any other way. And i know my friends will get what i am feeling, and not scold and chastise me for it.

God has given me the gift of being able to write.


Please don't shut me up when i want to talk and need to talk. Please don't stop me from writing about how i feel. I do it also to educate...to make others understand. To make the NT world understand.

The note that i wrote last night, was in NO way meant to convey anything other than where i am mentally and emotionally at right now...it wasn't meant to say that i have turned my back on God, for i have NOT turned my back on God....but guess what? I am still not over what that ex-friend did to me last year. And right now, certain Scriptures, certain Christian rock songs, etc, all bring back to me the painful memories of what that ex friend did to me. That whole experience of how he turned on me, still haunts me and impacts my life so greatly one year later, that i am still sometimes brought right to my very knees by it. I still have very profound and painful nightmares about that ex-friend.

I still very much need to vent and talk about it.

It helps me to be able to have that freedom to come here to Facebook and talk and vent about the things that traumatize me...the thing with (Roger---not his real name) shook me to my very core. He may as well of blasted me with a cannon. Because what he did, was like a rape of my very self essteem, safety, security, and who i am as a person......

I had another dream about him just this morning. He will not leave me alone in my dreams. You can talk to me and lecture me till i am blue in the face, but i am not yet over what he did to me.....no amount of you teling me to get over this, will make it happen.....yes, it will happen in time.....but you cannot force it to happen by your lectures and self help strategies and self help books.

Just as you cannot go to a rosebush and force open the buds to force them to bloom now....

I am still in the grieving process over what was done to me last year, 
And then on top of my ex-friend turning on me, i had to endure more emotional agony from the caregiver i had from May through October of last year, when she too began to take her bad moods out on me, yell at me, belittle me, and tell me i was stupid, and that i needed to just take my autism off and be normal.....

My family did all of this to me growing up, and this still keeps happening, and brings my childhod right back up to me....

It seems that the only real support i get, is through all of my Facebook friends who DO get this...and ME!!

I am also very head shy, and when you yell at me....i feel like i am being slapped and hit right on my head!!!!!!!

I cannot stand it when people yell at me, so please stop....please....or one of these days i will make good on my threat to hop a bus to Rhode Island, and then i will  be in a safe place where i am surrounded by people who actually get and accept autism!!!!!

My autism is not going to go away!!!!!!! Neither is the voice i have to express what this is like to be continually yelled at, shut down, shut up, squelched, thrown away, and muzzled by you, the NT world, who still make it so hard to be Autistically Me. To just be Me. Period.

Please don't raise and shake your index finger and talk down to me anymore.

I am not a child.

Please don't preface your statements with "You need to do this"
"There's no need to be upset"
"There's no need to feel like this", anymore.

Please don't tell me no, and give me no options to work with.
Please don't hand me ultimatums. I cannot work with ultimatums.

Instead, ask me how i want things to be done...ask me how before you jump in and assume i want things a certain way. I have rituals, and want and have to have my things to be a certain way.

Please respect that. Please respect the world, the bubble that i am in. It is my world. I am inviting you in because i trust you. If that trust is broken, my world is broken.

I want to be validated, not dismissed, and you are dismissing me when you talk at me and talk over me in that manner.

I want to die because of how i keep getting treated by all of you, in the NT world....

Please stop.....
Please stop shunning me
Please include me in your conversations....in your fun events.
Please don't talk over and interrupt me when i am talking anymore
Please don't tell me how i should and should not feel anymore--i process things differently and in my own way...and at my own pace.

I just want to know it is okay to Be Me.....
And please don;t chastise me and be angry that i wrote this note.....
I love you all, my friends. God bless you.






Please Listen--I Am Autistic--I Am Not Just Hurting--I Am In Pieces!!


I am autistic....i am not a criminal
I am autistic....and i am so lonely and alone
I feel so utterly cold and cut off
Please do not belittle me
Please do not discount my feelings
Please do not discount what i say
Please do not blow me off and ignore me
Please do not judge me and make assumptions of me
Please do not stereotype me, i have a personality, i do care, i do have a sense of humor
Please do not get fed up, walk off, and throw me away
Just because i am too difficult  and just not convenient for you to be friends with
Please don't feel free to talk down to me, yell at me, and call me names
Please don't feel that you can threaten me and make me feel threatened
Please don't try to shut me down, shut down on me, or shut me up
Please don't laugh at me and make fun of me like i am a joke
Please stop deliberately making noise just to hear my meltdown
Please stop bullying me and tormenting me
I am NOT this way by choice
I was born this way
My autism is me, this is who i am
And who i will be till the day i die
I am once again broken into a million pieces
because yet another person has come into ly life and has promised
never to turn against me, never to give up on me
And yet she has done just that
Just as my other ex-friend and other caregivers did
These things not only hurt, they take me down to the very floor
And then it gets all that much harder to trust yet again
I am scared to death that my new caregiver will also walk out on me
I am scared to death that most of my family will always ignore me
I am scared to death that i will never find the right care that is autism-friendly
I am scared to death that i will never get to see New York, New England, 
All the Eastern US, and the states of Michigan and Wisconsin
I am scared i will even have my meager tiny government benefits
Cut or taken away altogether
I am scared that i will just be thrown into a home
To continue to waste away till finally i just die
Someone PLEASE help me
PLEASE......Do i even MATTER to anyone here where i live????????
Do i even MATTER to any of you here on California's golden Central Coast?????


Ask All Of Those Who Will Not Understand.....


Ask all of those who will not understand
All who discount me
and who will not listen to me
and respect me


Ask all those who shun me 
and want me to just shut up 
and to have no voice


Ask all of those who put words in my mouth 
and who won't let me speak to even defend myself
Ask all of those who accuse me of lying and imagining things
Ask all of those who say i just make a big deal out of nothing 
and that i blow things way out of proportion


Ask all of those who walk away 
and throw me in the garbage 
because i am not convenient to them

I Have Changed......


You know, the events of this past year....the way my ex-friend suddenly, without explanation, turned so viciously against me, and all the trouble i had with two private caregiving agencies, plus having several county caregivers walk out on me, plus having two county caregivers that i did like, hurt and abuse me....has done something deep within my soul. Deep, deep, very deep.

Oh, i still believe in God, i still pray to Him....i still believe in His angels.....i still believe He loves me.....i still believe in Heaven and eternal life, and the power of prayer....i still also believe in miracles, and that God heals us.

However.....

I have actually stopped wanting to listen to any Christian rock....
I don't pray as often....
I have zero desire to read the Bible...as it actually bores me to tears.....
or to listen to any Bible verses, because my ex friend was always, always quoting bible verses
I no longer want to step inside of a church
Or hear any of the worship music
Or hear people tell me how real God is
Or say all those churchy things that people love to say
I have stopped liking all of the Christian Facebook pages that i liked for so long

My ex-friend was a christian.
I was hurt deeply by him....so deeply that i did almost feel i was going to die.....
I've been hurt time and again by church after church i have gone to
and by those who profess to be Born Again and On-Fire for God
I just got banned from the page of a local youth-oriented church that i did want to go to
Most of my family shun me
Most of my neighbors here think of me as a pariah and a monster

I don't think that i am becoming an atheist or an agnostic
but i don't want to talk alot about God anymore or listen to the music anymore because it does remind me of my ex friend and all our times together
and i don't want to hear how real God is, or how much He loves me and knows every hair on my head
because it just makes me feel as if i am having all of the unpleasant hurts associated with my walk with Christianity
rubbed right in my face, if that makes sense?
because to me, Christianity and Christian people have preached at me, tried to fix and cure me, they have shunned me hurt me, and let me down....
Time
and
time
and
time
and
time
again

I may start listening to heavy metal again.....all of the music i was told by churches that was wrong and evil and the devil's music.....

All i know is that my relationship with God, no matter what i ultimately decide to do, is going to be between me and Him, or Her now.....it is going to be on MY terms and not what any other Church or Christian tells me i need to do and not do, anymore.



Friday, March 15, 2013

I'm Autistic---Let Me Explain--But You Won't, because To All Of You, I Will Always Be Just A Monster

I'm sorry i haven't posted in a long time....i have mostly been posting alot on Facebook and on my YouTube channel. You see, i got an iPhone 4 two years ago. And a webcam. This enabled me to videoblog more. I forgot i still had a Blogger account, and just never went here anymore.... But...suffice it to say, things are pretty much still the same....i still live here on 

Mean Bully Monster Street!!

I am still very much hated by my neighbors, sadly......!!!!!  

My latest incident involves one of the businesses to my East, where they have two boxer dogs, and the owners are a young couple with three young children. They used to be VERY nice to me! Now they are not, because of another individual who decided to make a new issue out of their dogs, just to stir things up between me and them. They got me involved, and to make a long story short, now, me and this young couple are on the outs as well.

You see, i don't have very good people skills to begin with....i do in some cases where i am around people who are genuinely nice and accepting of me...but when i feel like people don't like me....i shut down and can become just like a gorilla with people....not that i'm a monster....this is my defense mechanism!!

A few days ago, the male owner walked by as my homecare nurse was leaving and i was outside saying goodbye to her. (Earlier in February, i had a scar on my abdomen that abcessed, and i had to go to the hospital for three days and have it treated...then they sent me home and i had a wound care nurse for the past month and a half. I also now have a personal care worker. My physical and emotional health has gone even more downhill in these past two years due to the fact that i still have not been able to secure a better place to live, or good healthcare or personal care.....

Anyway, this man came past my house and began talking and laughing, and i felt for the life of me, that he was directing it towards me in a derisive mean manner....i mean, after all, i have come to expect this from all of my neighbors here, because i am hated, remember, by most of them...and by my own family, because i am autistic and so complex, difficult, and i have lots of meltdowns, lots of hang-ups, quirks, and fears, and phobias....so....i went on the Facebook page of this business and wrote the following, edited for the privacy of the people involved:

 "Mr Bean, I would greatly appreciate it if you would please not go by my house and laugh at me and make snide mean remarks at me or to my guests who come here anymore. I know you guys all sem to really dislike me over there, and i can't change that, but maybe if you opened your mind, and realized that i am disabled, autistic, and i cannot help much of what i say and do when upset, you would start to give me some slack here. I am not the monster that everyone on this street has perported me to be...please give me some respect over here....please!! Sincerely, Melissa"

And then, because i had typos, i tried to correct the typos: 

 "8Seem *Seem is what i meant to say. I'm sorry for the typos; please don't dunce me for that too!! Again, i'm a human being, with feelings.....not the monster you all think i am!!!!"

Tonight, i get this response...and though it shouldn't of surprised me, it did both surprise and it also hurt my feelings, because it was not a friendly response at all! It hurt me because i have always, always, always wanted for everyone to like and accept me....i have been like this my whole life and when people don't like me, i just feel like everything is all haywire....i meltdown....i hate the skin i am in when i know i am not liked and welcome.....which i am not here, even though this is supposed to be my own home, i still feel so utterly unwanted here.....anyway, here's his response....

 "Melissa I have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. We do not speak to any guests who come to your house nor do walk by and make remarks about you. We have always respected your privacy. Please respect ours and not send these types of messages to our business applications."

My response?

"  Sorry, i thought you were talking to me the other day. It is not easy to have the disabilities i have. I am not trying to be mean, nor was i trying to be mean when i wrote you before. Believe me when i say i can hardly wait to move and get away from this neighborhood. I know that i am not welcome here, because everyone seems to think of me as a monster. I am not. I am an adult who is autistic.....just trying to get by the best that i know how......sorry i offend you all......"

I AM sorry that i seem to offend and piss everyone off!!

I am not a monster.

I am autistic.

There is a huge difference.

Please understand that and cut me some slack here!!

I wish to High Heaven this world would stop demonizing and hating and shunning and laughing me off.

I am autistic...but i am still a human being....i still have a voice.....i still matter.

I am not a disease or a burden or a tsunami.

I am just me.