Am I a Superhero?

Hello! 

My brain's gone into full scale overload. Running through my entire life, picking up the clues, reanalysing conversations and situations. Lost partners and friends. 

When I was getting ready to go to work today I decided that I'd do a blog linking myself to superheroes. Or really, linking some of the themes of comics to how I felt. It's difficult to really understand what having Aspergers is. There aren't really any role models out there. That would explain my need to find characters that exibited some of the signs. 

So I was having a shower and decided that I was like Neo. I'd taken the blue pill and woken up from the matrix. I was Hiro in Heroes when he discovers that he can stop time and now I can use my powers for good. I was like Clark Kent (from the films) socially awkward, not quite getting it and being seen as 'special' by work colleagues, but secretly having my superpower... the power to compulsively over analyse anything! I am "Analyst Boy!!"....  (I'm sooo.. SCREWED!! LOL!)

For a brief time it was exilerating. The possibilities... endless! 

But I don't feel like a superhero anymore. 

So, let's check off the process for accepting change.... 

1) DENIAL  - Yeah, had that for years.

2) ANGER - I think I just hit that one. 

3) BARGAINING - This one seems a little too irrational for me. I'll let you know if I hit it though! 

4) DEPRESSION - Actually no. I think I've come out of my depression since finding out. Now that I know I feel like I can start to forgive myself for some of the stupid things that I have done. 

5) ACCEPTANCE - They say you can go through the steps in a variety of orders, but I think I started with this one... and I'm working backwards. (That's odd, right??)

The biggest problem I have is coming to terms with.. well.. probably having to act throughout the rest of my life. I didn't realise I did it before, I thought everyone did. I thought it was normal but that I was bad at it. What I mean by act, it's that I'm lying to people. It's more... ok imagine your in a play with Matt Damon or Halle Berry. You want to just run up to them and get thier autograph, or snog them or something. But you know you can't. That that would be wrong. Everyone's looking at you and you have the lines you need to say and the actions you need to do. It's been preplanned and memorised. Your a professional and you don't really have a choice so you act. 

Honesty is very important, but if I said the things that came into my head I know I would hurt people. I have to filter a lot of it out. Phase things differantly. Censor myself. Even if I had the best intentions of what I wanted to say, that I thought it might help them. If I do say it it often makes things worse. Or I'm seen as cold and heartless. 

"Empathy is the capability to share your feelings and understand another's emotion and feelings. It is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes," or in some way experience what the other person is feeling"

Aspergers is often characterised as having a lack of empathy. I think this is a bit of an over generalisation. So, lets break it down. (God that's SUCH an aspie thing to do)

1. Share feelings - If a friend breaks up with their partner, I have sympathy for them. But I don't get upset myself that they've split up. I wasn't in the relationship. I haven't lost them. So I can't/don't experience the loss they do. 

2. Understand anothers feelings - I do understand them, I understand them from my perspective, when I've had breakups. I've read loads on psychology and observed people's behavious so I can understand it from a technical perspective. (That's a little off target isn't it?)

3. Put oneself into another's shoes - I can do this really well.. so typically the advice I give is what I would do. But what I would do is not what most people would do. So I tend to screw up there. I can offer advice I've seen on TV, or read in a book. Or (and I have done this before) quote the 5 steps above to them. Convinced that my experience and understanding will help them. Sometimes it does. I think it comes across as proactive. Sometimes it doesn't and it comes across like I'm insensitive to what they're going through. (I guess I am in a way)

4. Experience what others are feeling - Not really. I can think about when something similar happened to me and remember how I felt. But it's often not the same and what they are feeling. 

Right now.. I can't sleep. It's 5 am. I have to be up in 3 hours and I can't sleep. 

I keep coming back to the thought that I've lost ignorance of the problem and with it hope that it would ever go away. Hope that I will ever be normal. (Sounds like step 4.. depression!)

On that wonderfully optomistic note. I'm going to try and get some sleep again. 

Night! 

Ryan