Reclaiming my Self...

Two things:

I know why I am so angry about the name, besides the fact that it offends my sense of sound; because I resent immensely ever having to create another name in the first place. The one I picked for myself, Phoenix Amira Lei, I chose because I had to. I can't even spell my birth name here, because then, in like five seconds, my stalker would find me. I don't want that fat bastard reading anything about me, much less having the connection to his purchase and ownership for the last six years of my legal name as a domain name. He owns it through GoDaddy!.com. He tried to feign ownership to everything I wrote on another site, including all of my poetry, short stories, and many essays. He tortured me for years, mentally, emotionally and sexually/physically. I had no friends. My mother had just hung herself when I met him.

He refused to call me by my name. I felt like 'The Boy Called It'. And then he took my name. I took another name, and it felt empowering, but having someone assign me a name I don't like reminds me of all this...

The second thing is that I have Asperger's Syndrome. It has never been officially diagnosed. Doctors thought I was stupid until my I.Q. tested over 150. When I was little no one knew what Asperger's was...they gave me Atavan for the rages and tantrums, which only made it worse. I had very few friends, and always have. It has been very lonely. Painfully, over the years, I have pushed myself to be less shy, and my vast memory has helped me to mimic and mask appropriate social interaction.

I began to teach aerobics purely by accident when my teacher was sick, but for years I could not mirror or face the students. Yes, I teach yoga, but it is a constant fight to look people in the eye. I get overwhelmed by large groups. I gravitate to corners and windows. I want my back protected. If you touch me and I don't know you, it can provoke intense anger, because it disorients me. I have pet topics I find it hard to shut up about. As a child, and still, there are certain textures, sounds, and smells I can't stand. I would spend hours as a little girl folding the seam of my socks in such a way as to avoid having it near my toes. Like Temple Grandin, I want pressure on my feet when I sleep. The idea of footbinding, therefore, sounded fabulous!

I feel more at home with children and animals. I often, still, have no idea what to say in social interactions. Teaching yoga works for me because what I say in a very real sense, is scripted. Once I get to know people, the awkwardness fades a little, but never quite enough for them to stop thinking that I'm either a little odd, crazy, or stupid, not listening, self-absorbed, selfish, wierd, lost in my own world...or I get labeled with socially-crippling psychological diagnoses that are not accurate.

I've often suspected myself of having Asperger's, and reading Temple Grandin's books, watching the movies: "Adam" and "Horse Boy", as well as interacting with a friend's son who is definitively diagnosed with it should have confirmed my suspicions. But I also don't want to believe it. People have always said "You're different," and that makes me lonely. Sometimes I want so badly to be like others, and not get the strange looks I get for talking while being unable to look at some one when the shyness comes up, for having people think I'm self-absorbed because I panic, draw a blank, and have no idea what to say, or ask to be socially appropriate. I don't want to be a dork or a geek, but I am.

I've lost so many chances at friendships, relationships and jobs because I can't always find my bearings. I get overwhelmed very easily. Sensory overload. And some things I detest vehemently. Certain sounds. Certain smells. When traveling, all the old rituals come out to ease my anxiety. I don't want my things touched. I need to follow certain chaining rituals like a cat (OCD is part of Asperger's), or I run the risk of feeling raw and exposed. What comes after that is anger. That is my coping mechanism to stop the sensory overload.

This name offends my senses. It isn't soothing to hear. It has triggered the glaring realization that I am an Aspie, and always have been...

I went looking for a book I wanted to read earlier ( on my meticulously organized bookshelves ), and couldn't find it. Normally this would provoke intense anxiety, but my eyes fell upon Virginia M. Axline's "Dibs In Search of Self", the 1964 classic on play therapy about a little boy at first considered mentally retarded until they found he had an I.Q. of 164. My mother read this book over and over and over when I was a child, trying to understand me and help me. She did a lot of things wrong, such as tying me up when I had rages so I wouldn't hurt myself; but she also loved me dearly, and protected me from people who said I was stupid because I never spoke or interracted with them.

To the man who stalked me, I was stupid too. Too stupid to see what he was doing. He called me dumb, but I could have been a doctor. I was a physical therapy major in a graduating class if 30, until my mother got ill and my safety net crumbled. At times, the whole world socially seems full of sharks, and things that overwhelm me. Sounds. Scents.

And here is Bound Lotus. My own virtual pressure machine like the one Temple Grandin created that she uses daily, I think, actually as a way to ground herself. Names, words, and mantras and songs...poetry I've memorized...these all ground me too. That and organizing my vast collection of crystals in rows, patterns and mandalas. Through it all, in these last 60-some-odd days, Bound Lotus continues to ease my tension and anxiety. How could I ever have thought to stop? The practice of Bound Lotus has brought me to insights such as these, and it heals my soul.

It is like a tourniqet to stem the flow of too many thoughts rushing in and overwhelming me.