A stressful year

Wow, it's been quite some time since I have been here last.

I'm ashamed to say it, but I am stressed to the max because I'm getting a new kitchen.
Well, it isn't all just the kitchen.
This year has been one stress after the other.
Once I knew that I have Asperger's, I knew I had to get some things adjusted.
So I applied for a carer, somebody who can help me with my mail, and all those official things that all are a mess with me.
First I had a woman from the Red Cross coming in in February in an emergency kind of way, because the authorities I'm getting my money from were of the opinion I had to move into a smaller apartment, once my children had moved out, and got me into a box. Because I am in a wheelchair, finding a small apartment that fits my needs is near impossible, but it also was impossible for me to get that fact across to them.
So, to avoid that I got evicted, I asked that lady from the Red Cross.
She also got the ball rolling that I got a carer.
And then it was one thing after the other.
A judge came in to assess my situation, then a psychiatrist came in to assess my situation, (and man, was he weird. He never listened to me telling him I have an Asperger diagnosis. He came in on a Saturday morning without having asked for an appointment first, and when I received him he held out his hand for greeting. I never took his hand. I sure hate shaking hands, but I have grown up around people who expect it, so I do it. But psychiatrists are rats, they offer people who - usually seek - an Asperger diagnosis their hand, and when they take it and shake it, the psychiatrists claim they cannot have Aspergers, because they have shaken the hand. So I just wanted to avoid that. But in the end his diagnosis was that I have a personality disorder, because I didn't shake his hand. (Well, and of course more. Just being short here.).). And after all the assessing then I had that carer who came in to get my situation fixed. But she was no good at fixing, so I told the judge to appoint my sister, like we had had plans ever since I had the definite hunch that I have Asperger's.
Okay. In the end my sister is now my carer. She too came in several times, to get a start on getting my mail sorted out.
And then also the most terrible thing happened. My sweet Kassi, my love, my cat, nearly died. She had caught an infection probably in her lungs, and I had to rush her to the hospital. She was terribly ill for some weeks, and I had to see the doctor with her on quite a regular basis.
She is way better by now, but still not completely well. But I have good hopes that she will eventually get over it.
Well, and last sister got a start on getting my apartment sorted out.
I still had a lot of stuff from my children, and I just simply didn't have enough space to put my things away. My kitchen was just two wall cabinets, and two drawers. All from back 1960. Whenever I put a plate into the wall cabinet, I feared it would come crashing down. The particle board it was made of was all crumbly and brittle, the glue that was holding the particles long since dried out.
So, my sister bought a brand new kitchen for me!
That has been my dream ever since.
All my adult life.
I have so often gone to furniture websites, and just dreamed about something good.
Something where everything has its space. Something with a spinny thing for pots and pans in the corner cupboard. Something adult.
And now I have it.
It's so beautiful.
But well, it had to be installed.
Sister has ditched all her free time to do that. And on three weekends her husband too.
I truly truly appreciate it.
But well. I usually am just by myself, or rather, it's just my Kassi and me.
Having visitors is spaced by years.
It is not entirely unheard of that I have a visitor. But I need my time to recover after that.
And I had to discover that one week is not enough..
When my sister was here the third weekend, I started to cry, around three in the afternoon, and just couldn't stop anymore.
I had felt the urge, as well as a slight sickness to my stomach the second weekend already, but had managed to come through without embarrassing myself.
So, after I had started to cry, the shape I was in started to go down a steep slope.
That day I couldn't even say good bye to sister and her daughter. I sat in a dark room, going into hyperventilation every time sister or niece would talk to me.
After they had left, I crawled into my bed, and pretty much slept all evening.
And I slept through the following week.
I had gone into overload.
And all week, when I had to go out, do my shopping, I was pretty much out of all sorts.
I was hyperventilating as soon as I was out of my home or my car, and speaking was just barely possible. I could not synchronize my gasping with my talking, and so it came out in short, gasped syllables. But I also was terribly flustered, and so repeated many syllables too.
I warned sister how I was, but still she was pretty dismayed when she and her husband came next weekend.
That weekend I holed up in my room all along. I couldn't stand looking at my sister, or have her look at me. Not because I was embarrassed, but because it hurt. It was a physical pain.
I was a mess all week.
I have a card I have on a strap around my neck, that says I am autistic. That saved me these past weeks. Usually when I was in overload phases, before I knew I have Asperger's, I invariably would get into fights with people, who couldn't make anything of my acting weird.
But now I received a tremendous lot of help.
People read my card, and didn't come too close to me. Or they would listen patiently through my stuttering. In the shops the clerks helped me, when I was too befuddled to find my stuff. They even saw that I didn't have to line up in long queues, and also saw that other shoppers wouldn't step up too close behind me.
On Friday it turned out that it was best to skip the next weekend, and that was good.
Having two weeks to just myself, I calmed down enough to have my speech even out again.
I still get a bit flustered when I have to talk to people, and I still have slight tremors in my breathing. But I mostly am okay again.
We only had one more weekend, last weekend, where we finished up the essentials. The cupboards had all been in, and only the counter top had to be installed.
Sister saw that it was no good doing it all in one big bundle, and said the rest that still needs be done can wait until next spring.
They packed up, and left afer only three hours in the early afternoon.
Again, like every day, I crawled into my bed, ready to rest the stress away, when one last incident hit.
I had felt that slight sickness to my stomach all weekends.
Now I was entrenched behind my computer, and wondered what it was with my stomach.
Did I really feel sick?
Should I go and stick my finger into my throat, to get rid of that weird feeling?
Dunno. Was I really feeling sick enough for that?
And while I still wondered if I really was sick, my stomach just simply shot all the softdrink I just had up in quite a violent fashion.
I never saw it coming, and barely had the time to get my hand clamped down on my mouth.
Softdrink and bitty pills came spewing out from under my fingers, and there was no other way than just letting go there in my bed.
Then I knew that I actually was sick to my stomach.
    But that was it. That was the last weird thing.
I am coming out of it.
I do sleep a lot. Half of the day.
That is a common reaction to overload. I had that happen all my life.
What is not common is the stuttering.
But I have gone a whole lot longer this time.
Usually, before I knew about Asperger's, I would have gone into meltdown probably after the third weekend. I usually would have reduced the pressure by yelling and screaming.
This time I did a lot of buzzing, or humming. Don't know how to explain. Every time I exhaled, I would do so on a "Hmmmmmm".
I constantly hmmmed when I felt stress.
That let go of the pressure, and it also was soothing.
Plus, I would rock myself.
I did the things I had always felt were soothing, but would have never allowed myself to do. - Rocking myself, like some nut from an asylum or what!
I had fears all my adult life that something was seriously wrong with myself. So I constantly saw that I was not acting seriously wrong.
By doing so, allowing myself to soothe myself, I came through the experience quite okay.
By now I have can just simply enjoy my beatiful new kitchen.
I know that I can be just by myself, and of course with my Kassi, until next spring.
I will be able to enjoy Christmas.

This year has been a good year.

The next can come.
I wonder what it will bring, without being scared to death by all the possibilities

Eye Contact

I can't stand eye contact.

When I was little, and had misbehaved and Dad had to scold me, he invariably came to the point where he would demand that I look at him when he talks to me.
But I just couldn't. And the worse I felt, the harder it was to have eye contact.

Over the years I have learned that people expect eye contact, and I have learned to look at a spot  between their brows.
But I am not comfortable with that.

But that is what every Aspie will tell, as well as we really don't know what makes it so hard.
What I can say is, that eye contact isn't only just uncomfortable, but I also have trouble listening, and understanding things I get told, when I have to maintain eye contact.

All through my life I have listened to people telling me things, and then when I get asked about that a minute later, I never was able to tell what I just had been told.
I realize that now big time, since I'm not trying to maintain whatever kind of eye contact, proper or faux. Now I look at whatever I feel comfortable with, which can mean that I actually turn my back on whom I am talking to. And that way I can keep things in my mind.

There are more weird things connected to my seeing.
When I'm driving, and get for whatever reason stressed, I have to turn down, or shut off my music altogether, because I cannot see properly.
That doesn't mean that all things go black or something, or maybe fade out into white. The things are still there, but I cannot asses them properly.
It's the same like in my graphics programs.
Usually I have a very good feeling for proportions when I do pictures or graphics.
Without any aides I can place objects pretty much exactly in centers, both what is the real center, and what is visually pleasing.
For my graphic designs I rarely use guides and rulers, because like I said, I can do that visually just fine.
But when I work in InDesign, a layout program in my Adobe Creative Suite, which displays every object inside a layout with a thin bounding box, I just cannot see properly. It is just impossible for me to see past the many bounding boxes if the layout is any good, if the objects are placed in a pleasing or proper fashion.
In Photoshop the brush tip changes to a little cross hairs when it is too tiny for a proper display.
And even though the cross hairs should make it real easy to place the brush properly, I just can't.
In those cases I have to work with the zoom, so I am able to see what is going on on my canvas.

Music

I love music.
And I cannot stand music.

Okay, to unravel this, I will start with the radio.
Radio is basically an instrument of terror for me. Not only do they refuse to loop music, they also always talk into it. Not only talk, but kind of yell just how amazingly great and indispensable their station is.
Terror.
It is very rare that the radio plays a song I like, and then they ruin it in the said way.
So, the CD was my favorite invention.
Before CD I had to tape my favorite music in just the ways I needed to listen to it.
And that even was an improvement to back then when I had to always set the arm of my record player back.
But I have to admit that I didn't listen much to music when I was pre teen.
I loved Karl May's Winnetou, and listened to those stories on records. And the Winnetou soundtrack actually was my first love in music.
But that was due to my love for Winnetou. I wouldn't have loved the music without the movies.

Two songs I really loved, just because I loved the music, were Danyel Gerard's "Butterfly", and Paul McCartney's "Mull of Kintyre". That was awesome! The sound of the bagpipes touched me deep down inside. Mother owned both songs on small records, and I actually went at times and put them on.
By the way, the bagpipe still thrills me. So much, that I actually play one.

But my first real love in music was Chris de Burgh.
Like so many other things I had picked that up from my sister. Sister loves music in kind of a musician way, plays several instruments, and actually is able to compose little pieces.
I can barely read music.
But Chris de Burgh had an awesome impact on me.
Some of his songs still touch me so much, that I cannot sing properly along because I have to sob, or actually start to cry.
Over the years I have picked up more likes. But nothing beats Chris de Burgh.
And I'm not liking his music because it is romantic, and a great thing to hear when one is in love or some such.
I cannot explain what exactly is going on inside me when I hear it, but I can say that at times it nearly bowls me over, and it is a necessity to listen to it.
Back in eighth grade we went on a class outing, for about ten days.
And it being Waldorf school, we were explicitly not allowed to take Walkmen along, which had just been invented.
Terrible! Going on these outings was of course a strain anyway. But the mere thought of not being able to listen to my favorite songs nearly made me sick.
At those times, when I feel that need to listen to a certain music, it seems that every hour without that music is utterly wasted.
That got me into a box, because of course I cannot just simply disobey orders. One doesn't do that.
But ten days...
In the end I took the Walkman along.
I had to.
I start hurting when I feel a need like that, which cannot be mended.
And I'm not just saying it like that. I react bodily to music, both in good ways and bad ways.
Of course my teacher found out that I had my music along, and took it away.
I'm not sorry that I did what I did. But I wish that I could tell my teacher that I hadn't done it just because I was thick-skinned and not interested in rules.

I must say, my children have done a real great job going along with my music. They never complained that I have it running not only in loops, but that also for weeks, months, and sometimes even years.
At home not so much, but always in the car.
And they even were so good to not let their own music run too loud.
I didn't know I have Asperger's while my children still lived here, but of course I always had strong reactions.

Most terrible: bad music usually gives me what we call an "ear worm", it keeps running in my head in endless loops, imposing itself on my consciousness, more often than not for days, or even weeks.
That happens lamentably rarely with music I like. But hearing just the tiniest bit of some gruesome old pop song, triggers the loop.
The lesser I like the music, the easier it creates the loop.
And because it is in my head, there is just no way away. I'm stuck with it.

I had one great big incident with music way back when I worked at McDonald's.
We had a tape of music running in the lobby. Just some music to tinkle in the background while people ate their meals.
Very early on in my "career" there I was assigned to do the lobby, to clean up after people, and see to the floors and things.
Most crew members hate that job, but I really enjoyed it, keeping everything neat and clean.
And while I worked there, (nearly every day, because my superiors were impressed by my likes to clean up.), I took notice of a song from the tape.
It got so that I was looking out for it, and I actually got a bit snappy when people started talking to me while the song was running.
And one day I came into the store, and a new tape of music was running.
I am not exaggerating when I say that it nearly made me sick.
I rushed into the office and challenged my superior to put the old tape back in.
And I must say considering the fact that I was way out of line, the man was kind enough to apologize, and tell me properly sorry that the old tape didn't even exist anymore.
I could hardly work that day, and went home in tears.
Two days later my sister called me up, and she was surprised that I sounded terribly down.
Despite my feeling a little bit embarrassed about acting silly over a piece of music, I told her about it, and how I really missed it.
I didn't know the title or anything, but I sang the chorus to her. More because it was so prominent in my mind, rather than hoping for relief.
But my sister was totally easy about it. "Oh that. That is Hello Again by Neil Diamond. I have that on a CD. Come by if you want to borrow it."
Oh my goodness!
It was such an enormous relief that I felt, that I actually had to shed some tears.
I went quickest possible to her to borrow the CD, but I'm afraid it has to count as stolen by now, because I never could give it back again, and bless Sister for never making me part with it.
Whenever I hear that song, it feels like stepping into a hot bath on a real cold day, where one stops shivering instantly. Everything inside me that sticks out from being rubbed the wrong way gets smoothed back down, and all I feel is soft rightness.
I am okay when I hear it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGE_v-KMV-o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBQVKzNpW4s

(Never mind the terrible videos. It's just the music.)

As I was googling for these songs, I realized that I forgot to mention one important point.
I cannot stand any changes to my favorite songs.
Actually it was my dream to once go and see Chris de Burgh live in concert. But after I have seen him several times performing on TV shows, I have given up on that idea. Because like most artists, he always tweaks his songs, to achieve a kind of variety.
And that disturbs me massively.
Inside me the effect is close to what happens when one scratches on a black board, and depending on my general state, at times even can trigger tears.

Books

I never saw myself as somebody who doesn't like to read.
In the opposite.
But for sure I always had certain issues...
I always wanted pictures in my books. Yes, I know that people associate that with stupidity and a lack of ability to read. But I just simply am at a loss when I have nothing to hold on to in my mind.
People always point out how important it is to let ones imagination run. But really, I just cannot imagine people very well. So, when the looks of people  are somewhat important to the story, like for instance in The Lord of The Rings, I need guidance.

I got one book of Enid Blyton's "Five"-series for Christmas, I'm not so sure, but I think it was 1979.
And I really loved the book. Mother read it to us, so no troubles getting started on it.
So very soon I got more books of the series, and soon my sister offered me to read her books of Blyton's "Adventure"-series.
But I couldn't.
Because my favorite characters wouldn't be in those.
To this day I haven't read any of Enid Blyton's other famous series.
I find it exceptionally hard to get acquaint with people in books, or even on TV, and it disturbs me greatly when things get changed.
I am a huge Diagnosis Murder fan, and lucky me, just a short while after I had become a fan, at a time when the series came off the air, it was announced that a couple of novels were planned to be written. By author Lee Goldberg, who had written a couple of episodes of the TV show too.
And gee, was I happy when I held my first book in my hands!
The greatest thing about that was, that I would finally learn how my favorite characters, Mark Sloan and Steve Sloan, talk in the original. Being from Germany, I only knew that dubbed, speaking with strangers voices. Okay, I wouldn't hear the voices in the books, but I would know the wording.
But just a couple of pages into the book, I really got disturbed.
Lee Goldberg had taken it upon himself to "set a couple of things right".
Besides some other things he had changed the characters ages!
  Lee Goldberg, the author, is a total pain down south somewhere. He is so full of himself, and spends hours and hours on the internet, hoovering up praise for his sloppy work, and he just doesn't care when people find out that his work is sloppy. I had sent several remarks about things he was inconsistent about, or downright wrong. And his uncouth reply was that he doesn't care. It's his books, and he can write them just as he pleases...
So, anyway, I cannot read those books without getting into a state. My mind keeps yelling out loud when things aren't true, or when things are just simply not believable, going by what the series had been like, and I end up being exhausted, displeased, and in a real rotten mood.
Apart from being a firm believer that Mr. Goldberg sucks big time, I want to make the point here that my mind just cannot adjust while I'm reading.
That also got me out of reading Star Trek books.
Star Trek novels are written by many different authors, and they all want to come up with something ingenious, that marks their own work. One author invented a restaurant I think on board, where the characters go, and others invented real freaky crew members.
But all those inventions stayed in the work of just one author. They never got picked up as a general fact. - Yes, I am aware that there is the copyright thing. But I'm thinking if one writes in a universe like Star Trek, one should be willing to keep things followable.
And since that is not so, I simply cannot follow anymore.
   And follow I cannot either when I'm watching a movie, when I haven't had a chance to read in advance what it is all about.
That has gotten so that I hardly watch any TV anymore, since I cannot afford to buy a guide anymore.
I do access my  accustomed TV guide through the internet, but that is just too much trouble. All the scrolling that is involved, and the fact that they only display a few stations on one page, makes it impossible for me to gain any useful information.
But well, I don't have the time to watch a whole lot of TV anyway.
Nowadays I mostly just listen, while I work in Photoshop or something.
The one thing I still actually watch is documentaries.
Because I cannot gain the desired amount of information from books I have turned to visual education, and like that have accumulated quite some knowledge, in dozens of different fields.

And internet by the way.
I cannot read internet posts, when they contain too many quotes.
Some people really do that quoting beyond any reason. They quote what others have already quoted, and that all leaves a total mess, which I simply cannot understand any more.

So, I usually read what I know.
Up to this day I still actually ready my Enid Blyton books.
Just three years ago I have started buying the original books in English.
I have books I read in summer, and others I prefer to read during autumn or winter, when it's cold and one has to be under covers.
But I also love to read "Le Petit Nicolas", because that always brings back good memories of being in school. Rudolf Steiner school rooms can be pretty cozy, and it's great thinking back. Our French teatcher had read Le Petit Nicolas as a treat when we had behaved and learned well.

The Telephone

To come away a bit from the past, and rather shed some light on what makes my life so different, I'll start with the one big Aspie-feature. It's one of my biggest problems all through my life, next to not being able to stand close contact. But the contact thing kind of runs in the family, so nobody thought it was too weird.
But the telephone always stood out.
I cannot really explain why I am so terribly scared of it, but I certainly am. Just like almost all Aspies.
Knowing I have to make a certain call will give me nightmares for weeks.
Last year I was supposed to call a man who was supposed to repair my heaters. That took me three months.
What I can say is, that I don't hear properly on the phone. In real life I have no problems in that regard.
Let me give an example: as I was trying to get an appointment for my diagnosis, and when I couldn't get the renowned specialist on the phone, I called up the university hospital, which also has an Asperger consultation office.
I searched for that on Google, and called the number that got brought up.
Somebody answered the phone, and so I asked if it was possible to get an appointment for an Asperger's diagnosis.
The lady was thrown for a loop, and asked "What?"
So I repeated my inquiry, but no good. The lady had no idea what "Asperger's" is.
I thought it was real strange for an Asperger's consultation place to not know anything about it.
During all those misunderstandings the lady kept saying things. I wasn't talking into her words or anything. I did listen. But I didn't hear the words that I had reached the dentists office.
She had to repeat that several times, until I had finally heard it.

Answering machines are even worse.
Like I have said before, I have a friend in Texas, and I Skype pretty much every night with him.
And in case he is out doing his shopping or something, he has set his Skype to forward my call to his mobile phone.
And still, after all these years, it scares me out of my head when the forwarding tone starts. I cannot help myself. I lung for my "close call" button, my heart beating all the way up in my throat.

Back then, when I was way younger, people often suggested that it would probably be a lot better for me, if I had the option to video call, thinking that I only was scared because I didn't see whom I was talking with.
But since I have that extensive knowledge of constant skyping, I can honestly say no.
We, my friend and I, had a little bit of a rough beginning, because I loathed being in the video, plus there often was an echo, which let me hear my own voice, which scares me bonkers. But after a while it has become just the same normal, like it had been way back then, telephoning with my best friend for hours and hours.
It seems that I can use the phone fine, when I have a certain rapport with the person I am phoning with. A good knowledge of what is meant by what, and what the reactions will be.
My friend at times let me talk to his neighbor, or his niece who used to live with him. And what can I say, even though my English is quite good, I never could understand what they were saying.

So. I hate to use the phone.

And what makes it real bad is when people have those idiot "please hold the line" tape recordings going.
Those rile me bonkers. Especially when I have to call up the authorities who see to my support. They never just pick up the phone. One always has to listen to a recording at least once.
And when one gets into the holding system, they tell one every few seconds that no one is available to answer the call, one should please exercise some patience.
Really, exercising the patience until somebody answers is no problem at all. But hearing the idiot message every few seconds, like I'm some kind of weirdo with a zero short term memory...
It's terrible! And inbetween they play some terrible music, which I just know will stay in my head for at least the rest of the day, getting replayed in the same endless loop of terror.
And I just cannot escape.
Because of my telephone-connected hearing problems, the volume always has to be dialed all the way up in my phone. So, no matter how far away I hold the receiver, my ears get penetrated. And of course I cannot just leave the room, because I am waiting for somebody to answer my call.
So, if this takes more than just maybe a minute, I quickly go into "sensory overload".
It totally rubs me the wrong way, and builds up an incredible pressure, somewhere around my breast bone.
And when that happens, I soon have to start to yell, to let go of that pressure.
Well, while the loop is still running, I'm pretty free to say what I want. But if the whole thing takes too long, I just cannot get out of it. And when I then get forwarded on, or whatever, I find myself yelling at the people I talk to.
I don't want that. One doesn't yell at people. And of course it isn't helpful at all, when one needs to get a problem solved.

But that is one of the facts of Asperger's: stress piles upon stress. It doesn't go away because "one takes a deep breath" or something.

Around the same time I have tried to get a diagnosis, I also learned that I apparently was no client anymore at the place where I get my money from.
So I picked up the phone, and tried to find out what was going on.
I started calling one place, got through the loop of terror, but got forwarded to somebody else, who again was not the proper person, put me back into the loop...
The thing is: the more stressed I am, the lesser I am able to formulate proper sentences.
I more and more had trouble to say what I want, and more and more often got forwarded, and so I started to hyperventilate.
The end was that I couldn't speak at all anymore. Just gasp some short syllables. I had to give up on trying to find out, but rather call the Red Cross, and get somebody to help.

People usually think we Aspies have poor self control, and had bad upbringing and just pitch tantrums so we get our way.
But those sensory overloads are so much more.
It's not us. Something huge takes control, and just drags us along.

I once tried surfing in California, and got nearly drowned by a wave I had completely misunderestimated. The way I came out of the water, near suffocated, hurting, beaten-up, bushed, trembling from the effort to survive, felt very much the same like after one of those sensory overload occasions.
It is no fun.

P.S.: here is where the good of the diagnosis comes in.
I have since then made some calls, and had said right up front that people please bear with me, I am Aspie, and have troubles talking on the phone.
And it is just amazing! People are usually very helpful. And they see that they don't forward me unnecessarily.
It's a difference like between day and night.
In only a couple of weeks I managed to get a couple of things done.

Well now, how was my time in school?
First: it started one year late.
Waldorf school has a test all children have to perform, to see if they are ready for school.
My Dad had already told me that it involved drawing, which made me real happy. I liked to draw, and was better at it than everybody else I knew. So, for sure I would pass with flying colors.
When I was at the school doctor's office, I certainly was intimidated, and not happy that I had to answer the questions, instead of letting my parents do the conversation, as usual.
But then came the test.
The doctor handed me a sheet with one circle, one square, and one triangle, and told me to copy the shapes.
Great! I'm real great at copying shapes.
In my mind the test was how good I am at drawing. How much alike I was able to draw my own shapes.
Very very carefully I drew my lines, and was real pleased by how they came out. Just the same like the doctor's shapes.
And it caught me by biggest surprise that nobody praised my skills.
In the opposite. It was judged that I was still way too immature to go to school, and my parents seemed embarrassed.
    But the good thing was, due to my coming in late, I got the better teacher.
Waldorf school places great value on continuance, and so classes stay together as a class from the first to the twelfth grade. And every morning during the first eight years, the class teacher, or form teacher or master, I'm not sure about the proper term, teaches the first two hours. Like that the teacher nearly becomes a third parent. And things can get real awkward when one doesn't like ones form teacher.
I liked mine, despite all his shortcomings, of which I sure will tell more. But all in all I was lucky to be in his class. Schooltime always was an adventure with him, with going on long hikes, trading classes for an hour in the pool in summer, or ice skating on the lake at the school's door step in winter. Plus he was very keen on arts, and I always delivered good in that department, and we sang so many beautiful camp fire songs.
Pretty much all other students envied us our teacher.
My sister for instance had a female teacher, a spinsterish slightly elderly lady who never did any hiking, and for sure she wouldn't play the guitar to accompany camp fire songs. She was a real bore.
My teacher taught sports too, and there my sister had him as her teacher too. And because my teacher really liked wild tomboy girls, he really liked my sister. All over the years he told me to be a little bit more like my sister.
It wasn't like I never was tomboyish at all. When we, my sister and I were playing outdoors with our friends, I certainly was tomboyish too. But there I wasn't so puzzled like in school.

Waldorf school takes great pride in the fact that they cherish all children, and take them just like they are. They don't do the spooky thing like regular schools, to let slower children stay down a year. If children are a little bit slow, they try extra care to help them along. And they claim that every child is allowed to develop in just its own way.
- Maybe they have temporarily lost their manual when I was in school. Because it seems only children who act like textbook children, who like bright colors and running around and be loud, are allowed to be just like that. Others have to be pushed into the proper direction.
In first grade we learned knitting.
I actually had learned it at home already. My sister had to teach me, after she had told me about it.
I was absolutely thrilled, and to this day knitting is still a favorite pastime of mine.
And my teacher  (a lady teacher for handcrafts, not my form teacher) was full of praise, because my knitting was so neat.
Our first project was to knit a ball. And we were allowed to use every color we liked.
I liked green and white.
So I started out: two rows green, two rows white. Two rows green...
I had about a quarter of my ball done, when my teacher chided me for being a bore. "What? Only two colors? And white isn't even a color really. Look, all the other balls look so merry with all those mingled colors." And she put down her foot and forbade me to use green or white again.
My ball looked dreadful, and I never again took any pride in it.

Colors are extremely important to me.
I always loved blue, but of course blue isn't blue. One nuance off, and it looks dreadful to me.
And not only looks. It kind of feels dreadful.
The first years in school we only painted with a handful of colors: lemon-yellow, golden-yellow, cinnabar-red, carmine-red, yellow-green, dark-green, ultramarine-blue, and prussic blue. At times we were allowed to also use brown, and very rarely black.
So, when we had to use prussic blue in our copy books, the day was rotten for me. I didn't want to have that in my book. Why not take the ultramarine?
But the worst was when we used brown.
Brown is a color that is necessary to depict earth, or the stems of trees. Brown is no color one uses for ones pleasure!
But when we learned writing, we started out with writing all the names of everybody in our class. And the child whose name was being written, was allowed to select the color we all had to use.
And Lars-Christian ruled we had to use brown for his name.
It nearly made me sick. I didn't want to use it.
And because Lars-Christian was one of the children who were really mean to me, plus also had a real like for brown clothes, brown stayed a no-no all through my life. I didn't even want to touch it.
And when I had to wear brown garments for a theater, I nearly suffocated.
Only recently I made my peace with the color. I actually realized that because I have brown eyes, the color goes way better for my clothes than blue.
But it might help that Lars-Christian turned out to be a nice guy after school, when we had met for our first reunion.

The good thing is: because I was in a class that never let anything weird I did slide, but rather reacted with laughing at me, teacher included, I learned from very early on to never act on my feelings.
If I didn't understand what was going on, never show the tiniest hint! Just act like everything is perfectly normal! I even was mean enough to laugh with the class when one of my fellow weirdos had said/done something weird.
But in the end that saved me a great deal of trouble.

What also helped me big time, was that I come from a home where figures of speech were in constant use.
Our father had a very colorful way of speaking, saying things like "It's just a tiny village. They flip up the sidewalks at eight in the evening."  Or "They push the moon on with a long stick."
But I must say, when we had misbehaved, and Dad proposed that if we ever did that again, he would go tobogganing with us, I was nearly thrilled out of my head. Because our parents never did those things with us. My sister took me. So I was a bit disappointed that Dad never made good of that promise. (Well a good thing, because in reality that would have meant a good spanking.)
But well, thanks to my Dad, I can not only understand many figures of speech, I also can use them myself pretty good.
The only thing I notice: in English I have massive troubles detecting figures of speech, or things said in earnest, but meant as jokes.
I have a friend in Texas I Skype with pretty much every night for five years now, and I still find myself awed by things he mentions like in earnest, but that actually are funny exaggerations.
I think I have torpedoed 90% of his jokes, by simply not getting them.
But again, I learned to maintain a low profile. Of course my sister always caught all the meanings. And when she saw my awed expressions, she always blew my cover: "Did you actually believe that?"
So I learned to shake my head, and say in consternation: "Sure not!"

It didn't take long until I had found a first friend in school.
Natalie. She was a real sweet girl. And scintillatingly funny. But she had club feet, and so nobody wanted to be friends with her. We were having a great time.
And what is more, we both slowly evolved do be the funny guys of the class.
We both were fans of a german comedian, and, unlike most of the other children, were exposed to him, first on records and tapes, and later on TV. TV is quite frowned upon in Waldorf worlds, so the other children had little other means coming by the jokes than by us.
I was exceptionally good at reciting the jokes, because acting like other people had become my way of life.
I still give myself the appearance of a normal person, by speaking in a very jokeful way.
I have over the last thirty years collected every sentence or word I thought that was funny, and have learned them all by heart.

But anyway, I have a feeling that this post is very unstructured, and I can't seem to make one big point here, so I better come to an end, and try it better with the next post.

I'm thinking the one thing that kept my life from being the typical Aspie-story, with constant terrible failures, is the fact that I am a little sister. And not only that, but my sister is only one and a half years my senior. Like that we did everything together.

Our theory is that our mother was Aspie too.
One reason being that she never took us anywhere.
Like that my sister was in charge of me.
And that worked really very well.
Our father worked as janitor in an elementary school, where we also lived. That was great growing up, with our own playground, gym hall, and many more pluses. One of which was that there were several different sport classes going on in the afternoon. All it took was our father letting the instructor know that we would come over, and that was it.
Like that  my sister took me to the mother-and-child-exercises, when we grew out of that to the regular gymnastics,  and from there we upgraded to the artistic gymnastics. We dabbled a bit in handball, because the instructor had asked our Dad if we wouldn't be interested. Well, we weren't all too much.
      I must say, we did all that with different success rates. My sister was really gifted in the artistic gymnastics, and trained to go to compete in tournaments, while I mostly took part in the tournaments as a "ticket" girl. The girls who had to run to the referee people with the points some other referee had given.
But I had that awesome red unitard. Red was our club's color.
Well, my sister fractured her elbow while training for a competition, and that was the end to that career.
For a little while we joined a ballet group, because again our father was asked if we felt like it, and so get a group going, but that was really just an intermezzo.
Both my sister and I never were much for the girl-things.
The only notable success I think I ever had in all those ventures was, that our ballet instructor praised my ability to "jump like a spring".
But looking back, I am so glad that we did all that. That was the reason why I never was the clumsy nerd in school, who never got selected into the teams.
Plus of course I had that great unitard to wear in school sports. That was a huge exception back in the mid seventies. Especially in Waldorf school, where no great value was placed on "Leibesertüchtigung", meaning sports so to say.
But also because there was no great value placed on sports, my pretty unitard and all didn't do anything in giving me a standing really, until about around sixth grade. By the time of which I wasn't wearing the unitard anymore I want to point out. That was the beginning of the eighties, and I wore my sweats with great pride.)
But all in all I was considered the sporting ace of my class.
Despite my inability to score any good in the official track and field competition.
Well, I could throw those little leather balls farther than most of the other girls, and even some boys. But running....  No chance in that department. And it even was worse when we had to professionally crouch-start. I needed about as long to get to m feet, as most of the others needed for half the track.
What I was really good for was shot-putting, javelin, and discus.
And what I really was great at was swimming. Or rather diving. One year I was best out of the whole school, because I dived some fifty meters non-stop.
I had to, because I never quite managed to crawl, and do the proper breathing trick every couple strokes. So I just simply learned to go on, and on, and on, until my head hit something hard.
Plus I really loved diving. I often spent time just sitting on the ground of a pool, dreaming, and feeling utterly secure. It was great, because nobody could disturb me there.

I think a short while after I had started school, my sister and I tried handball again.
And this time it was perfect.
We both loved it, and it remained our passion until we were grown up.
But while my sister excelled again, and made herself a widely known pivot, I was at certain odds again.
One reason was that I could only be for one year with my sister. Then she had to go on into the next age group.
    In handball it is so, at least in childrens teams, that the more gifted players play the center, and the lesser gifted ones get placed on the outer positions.
So, I usually played on the outer, or the half-outer position.
My job was to catch the ball, and then pass it back quickest possible. I don't think I ever attempted to shoot at the goal.
Well, it wasn't long that our opponents had me figured out. I was absolutely set on passing the ball back to the player next to me. If that wasn't possible, I froze up completely, unable to decide what to do with the ball now. Really. I just stood, my heart beating up into my throat. So more often than not my opponent just simply plucked the ball from my outstretched hand, and ran a quick counter, more often than not ending in a goal for the opponent team.
That process actually got refined into a strategy all throughout or opponents. They got instructions to just block my neighbor, and then just simply take the ball from me.
But before my team could get really frustrated, I got lucky. Our goalkeeper was ill one day, and we had no substitute. So on a hunch our trainer tossed me the jersey, and declared I had to do it.
Her thinking was that I was most dispensable field player. But it turned out that I was even better than our regular goalie. Even without any proper training.
So, I stayed in the goal.
I'm not saying I was exceptionally great. My biggest problem being that I never quite understood the details of the game. But my advantage was that I could concentrate completely on just the ball. I was never distracted by any of the nifty tricks that get played to distract the opponents, because I never saw the tricks. I had no idea what was going on, except that somebody soon would attempt to get the ball past me into my goal. And I was quite good at thwarting those plans.
I worked best in penalty situations.
When the opponent got a free shot from seven meters distance.
My reflexes are not outstanding. But I was unbeatable at figuring out the player who shot.
No matter all strategies, at one point they have to look into the direction where they want to shoot at. And since I had figured that out before, I had enough time getting there.
One match we won, because I had defended all four penalty shots.
But that gets easier as the numbers go up. Once one has a reputation for keeping those feared penalties, the shooters start getting nervous.
    So, again like in school, I had my own little niche, in which I felt safe, and could at times shine.
Really, the greatest thing about being a goalie in handball, as opposed to football (soccer), is that everybody has to stay seven meters away.