Tag Archives: anxiety

A Poem Called “A Different Normal, A Normal Kind of Me, Different Relationships”

A Different Normal, A Normal different me, Different Kinds of Relationships,

Thinking of me, think of you,

by theamazinJ

Thinking of you, me,
Thinking of what ‘special needs’ that really aren’t special because they are just our needs,
thinking like you think I can do things that are very hard for me,
and thinking you think I can’t do things that are easy for me,
I have a lot of energy, but I am disabled.
I am able, yes, but I am also disabled.
Disability is part of the human experience and everyone needs to embrace their life and love everyone every day regardless
because at any point, life can be over, or we can become disabled or more disabled even…
I can become more disabled any day like you can become disabled at any time.
and you will still see and think I can do things all the time even though I am disabled.
Normal is different, normal is fake, normal is unreal,
I am disabled, and pushed to the brink of my energy, my time, and my limits,
even when my spoons are low or my lifely body portrays you to think of what you think,
You tell me to use my spoons wisely, so as not to burnout,
you tell me to work on things of what you want me to work on,
when I am who I am, even with what I can do and can’t do all the time,
even with being able to do anything at any time I am able to do it,
I can’t do anything everything everyday, but I can do anything at my time.
I noticed I do things when my feeling to do the thing
I want to do is when I have the spoons to do it
and decide to focus on that thing I want to perfect or just want to do or just need something to do to feel good,
Disability is a thing, it exists, and we have to accept
the things we do, things we don’t do, and things we have the spoons for to do the thing we are doing,
I am different, yes, and most importantly, I am disabled and able,
I able to do things on my time, when I am ready, and when I have ambition, and when I have determination to do it,
My normal is different from you, different to you, and very potent to my life,
I can do, I do need support, but I don’t need you to tell me or what you think I can and can’t do,

What is support,

by theamazinJ

Support is different because support is helping someone like me achieve self-determination of what I want to do, of what I need to do, when I am ready to do it,
Support is giving me the time to live on my own in my own living area with my own things and seeing you when we have time for each other,
Support is giving me the opportunity to do what I want and what I choose for myself and supporting me while doing it,
even when I am writing something on my own, even when I am doing art, even when I am creating film, even when I am reading on my own, or even when I just need space,
Support is giving not what you think, it is not giving me love when you think you want to give it, but reading me well enough to know when I want it,
Support is giving you love when I feel you want it,
Support is not telling me rather just giving me the opportunity to talk about certain things that are hard for me to talk about,
Support is not telling me, and thinking I just don’t know and am told, and support is being included in conversations about me,
Support is great when I am supported and not told, supported and loved, supported and can talk to you about things that are hard for me to make it easier,
support is when my anxiety is eased because I don’t feel pressured, I don’t feel told, and I am feeling in control,
I love my support regardless who you are,
I need support in certain areas just the way anyone else needs support in those areas, so just give me a chance to tell you what support I need and when I need it,
and I will listen and know when and who can support at the time,
so please understand what support really is.

Support when I need you,

by theamazinJ

Being told is not a good feeling, being told makes me feel out of control, being told I can’t connect with everyone is limiting me, being told is being out of control,
I need your support and finally understanding,
I need your support so that I don’t walk away in pain when I feel you don’t understand and am low on spoonful energy, and need time to reconvene myself to you, or even when I feel hurt,
even when you don’t understand why I am walking away even for a day or even sometimes longer than that,
It does not mean I don’t love you, and it does not mean I don’t care, it just means I need time because of the way you approach me or the way you understand things about me makes me cringe,
I need your support so that you know the love we give to each other when we all need love,
I need your support.
I know I left you at times, some longer than others, but I need your support, not your telling me, and not your ridiculing me, with easing on sarcasm, and definitely not your abrading me as if I feel like a nothing,
I am a person too even though I am disabled, even with being autistic, or even with my anxiety, or even with my sensory system, or even with my way of understanding the world,
or even with my way of feeling for you,
because I love you, I love all of you,
I love the way everyone loves me.
I am grateful for the love for me.
Support is when my life is not empty, and I have someone to go to talk with about something may be hard to handle at the moment
ultimately giving me the power to make my decision as the decision maker in my life.
I have services that give me my support workers, that give me my broker, that give me an agency too, that give me someone looking over my money I get for my services,
but that does not mean I need to be told, I just have a team of whoever wants to support me any time I need it and give me the time.
I love you, I love everyone because I am loved by all, loved by everyone.
I left you for a reason that left me needing my space away to have enough spoons to deal with you and think about ways you can better support me,
I needed this because you seemed to not understand, you seemed to think you knew everything even without listening to my thoughts, my opinions, my ideas, my creativeness,
and my learning about history and knowing how I feel and what I believe to make the world a better place,
You may not understand how I want to make a better place, you may not understand my art, but I do understand and have a sense of what I want.
While I left you because I felt like everyone left me in the dust without any support without any kind of things I owned before and needed to go back to the family who I needed space from at the time I walked away with you who tried to help me at the time
so I can get my spoonful energy back and reconvene myself to the world,
I know I hurt many people, I know I hurt by not talking that much to first the family in my life, and being silent to all a way long time,
I know I triggered everyone from either leaving without letting anyone know to triggering in many other ways,
when it comes to triggers, we can love and be loved, but there needs to be communication in every relationship especially when communication gives and creates agreements of supported decision making within those relationships I choose to have agreements with,
between me and the people I choose in my life for support and what kinds of things I need for support even as a disabled person with being autistic.
Having support from people means my anxiety is low, means I am in control of what I want regardless, and means everyone understands me, and understands what makes me tick and what doesn’t.
And with that being said, even with bleeding love coming from our veins, it just pushes us closer to the support we all need in our lives.
I hope you understand,
I hope you know I love you,
I hope you know what support really is.
And, most importantly, I hope you know how much I love…

And here is a song by Leona Lewis:

And Chasing Cars:

A Poem Called “Autistic Rage”

Autistic Rage,

(Written after reading the article Blind Rage, in response to Helen Keller, by Georgina Kleege)
(This poem is something that is in the works for a poetry anthology I am doing for class for my masters program at CUNY. I am working on doing annotations for each part of this poem that requires an annotation which is why there is numbers associated with certain lines as well as 4 other poems I chose to annotate as well. I also used gender neutral pronouns so as to not identify. Since my natural tendency in writing is short bursts of words rather than longer sentences from my own Autistic language which is my own Autistic Poetics and my professor likes that. And, I will be filming this poem this week for my non-credit film class.)

by theamazinJ

My feelings of disability 1
come from the distinction of an honor,
but to many a tragedy,
from the way we see people generally,
to the way we converse,
from Kanner’s views of autism,2
to Asperger’s views of psychopathology, 3
to the beauty of movement
from the ideas of Tourette’s4
spilling out my gut,
without my insincere moment,
from the way Elephant Man5
physically felt stigmatized
and ostracized to the
way my moment of
my life lives.
To the way I fill the moment
of my influence,
to the moment of
how the intersection of
autism and Tourette’s
go hand in hand
even with dyslexia6
with the acts of disability
in American culture.7
My life is good,
stop and wonder,
my life is good,
I don’t care what you say,
I hurt,
I pain,
from your misunderstandings,
from your lack of empathy,
of your arrogance,
of your immaturity,
of your future of me one day,
when I surpass you.
I hurt,
I pain, I forgive,
I forget,
I argue,
I say,
Get Out,
Get Real,
Get images,
Get going,
I am me,
So get the hell out.

My disability of autism
is interesting.
My disability of anxiety 8
is a swirl of energy and rage
to be controlled.
My disability of movement
makes me move differently
than I am and you are.
I move with ease.
I move with fluttering hands and feet.
I fly my hands in the sky with flapping,
I shadow my feeling in the darkness.
I crawl into a hole.
My disability is discomforting.
My disability is not accepted.
I feel over anxious from
the already anxiety I feel
from society.
I feel I don’t love who I am
because I am not accepted
under this social standard, 9
this social construction society created, 10
and under every one telling me without
supporting me.
And, if I don’t want to be told,
that I am not supported by anything.
It’s control.
It’s life giving me serene beauty without
touching the beauty.
I love things, I love animals,
I always and sometimes love people.
I feel conglomerated
by society by the people
around me.
I need to be forgiven for I am,
yet, everyone wants
to change me for who I am right now.
I am, right now.
I cannot just be
I cannot just do
I cannot just say
I want to say
I want to do,
but in reality
i am unforgiven.
I am forgettable,
i am not working
like the way
They is worthy, 11
or
They thinks is worthy,12
or
They thinks they is the Queen,13
or
They
notes them and with pride,14
or
Them
exacerbates who they is
in a low key manner,15
or
They seems better
but really is not,16
or
They moves in to build peace
but cannot really17
or
They talks about sex
but takes it too far18
or
They passes with ease
causing more pain,19
or
the way Them projects who they are,20
or
Them uses their anger to shell out to others,21
or
They thinks the world revolves around them,22
or
how they thinks they can speak with AAC
even saying how proud they are of autism,23
or
even the way they takes on
how others feel and does not know their own,24
or even the way they attempts to
say Autistic men are more likely to be pedophiles
from an article from 2013,25
or how they thinks they can find causes
which they thinks can take away the pain
and cure autism even though that just
causes more pain in order to pass
and not be real,26
or even the way the anti-vaccine movement
thinks they knows everything, but knows nothing.27
or how every Autistic leaders feel,28
or autism researchers think about Autistics,29
because Autistic or not, I feel
humanity is real,
but humanity sucks
from the way we are all judged,
but humanity is not normal,30
and normal is done,
normal is succinct,
normal is seemingly joyous but
with eagerness to feel pain,
to feel suffering, to feel like less than,
but most importantly
feeling jerky,
feeling like a marshmallow,
feeling geeky,
feeling like I don’t belong
and everyone can move me
in the direction they want,
and my anxiety soars everyday,
every night,
and cannot stop
because everyone tells me and
no one wants to be told
and no one supports, but support is
good is better and helps a person
achieve self-determination,
achieving identity of largeness in my hands,
my long legs ache, my arms are in pain,
and I just feel like embarking on something special
as every other human being
is special, is unique,
and not more, not less,
and a part of the life
we live today.
It’s the way Neurotribes was written31
and even with In A Different Key,32
because Autistic history is real33
when it is really
the history of the Human race.34

(Happy Autism Acceptance Month 2017!)

The poems in order will be :

1) Autistic Rage poem
2) I am not retarded poem
3) I open at the close poem
4) Tyrant and Martyr poem
5) Poem of Apologies

(Now each poem will have annotations based on the readings I read this semester with other readings (books, articles) I have too.)

How Anxiety affects us and How to Cope!

I received a request for this post from one of my readers who had emailed me. Anxiety is one of the biggest factors which can impair any Autistic person from functioning with the rest of society. A lot of times anxiety can lead to meltdowns, tantrums, aggression, sensory/emotional overload, or even shutdown depending on where the root of the anxiety originally started. Anxiety overwhelms us differently. Some people feel more overwhelmed by the anxiety than others or some people just know how to cope better with the anxiety.

There are 2 factors to anxiety: nervous feelings that can control/prevent a person from functioning which can lead to depression. It affects us, Autistic people differently than every one else.

In order to function better in society, Autistic people (whether diagnosed with Autistic disorder, PDD-NOS, or Asperger’s Syndrome) need to learn the best way to cope in order to function with the rest of the world. I am learning how to meditate in order to control my anxiety. However a lot of times I find when spinning around (especially when I was younger), closing my door to my room to rub my body against the carpet (especially when I was younger), clapping my hands incessantly, walking outside to hug trees, and/or vocalizing my thoughts mostly in the shower as I feel the warm water beating on my body help me with anxiety.

A lot of times when I vocalize my thoughts, many people have felt I am talking to them so they answer me. However, I am just sorting through my thoughts on ideas or issues I am having in my life. Although in recent years, I am slowly learning to quiet my mind in a meditative state. I started reading books on meditation and learning by myself to have my own mantra (to be able to focus one thing). A lot of times I revert back to my natural ways of coping with anxiety because it’s easier to use up the energy of the anxiety. This only removes the anxiety temporarily without focusing on confronting what I need to deal with.

Meditation has been my inner strength in times of anxiety these days. I find meditation soothes my body as I breathe deep and slowly. I also find that meditation allows me to observe more. Though, through my entire life I noticed I would observe the world differently by seeing the way the shadows from trees, animals, and other things in my environment like the sun affect us. Now meditation often changes my observations by allowing me to observe my whole environment including other people.

I feel if many other Autistic people regardless of where they fall on the autism spectrum can learn to focus their breathing and thoughts on one thing through meditation, they will be able to start coping with anxiety a lot better. Meditation is a great resource, but can’t help every one not even the so-called Neurotypical people. For instance, some Autistic people are in self-stimulation (stimming) mode many times throughout the day, that their brains won’t function in a calm way unless they are doing their special interest. However every one must try to do meditation anyway to see if it works too.

One time I met a person last year who clearly had autistic disorder with intellectual disability and he clearly couldn’t function without being drawn to YouTube. The parents send him to a camp a few hours away where they live so he can live at that camp all year long. I brought the parents and the son to the Apple store to look at the Ipad for their son. I feel the Ipad would help their son only if therapists can help their son use it to engage with the rest of society.

Is it that important for every one to engage in society? What if some people just want to be with the rest of nature? I have noticed some Autistic people don’t want to engage with other people. Is this because the anxiety overwhelms them so much that no body taught them how to cope with it? It’s easier to cope with the anxiety than to leave yourself isolated and lonely.

Loneliness is not only an Human problem, it’s a non-Human problem as well. Many dogs, cats, and other animals get lonely even rodents. Have you noticed plants can get lonely? In fact, have you ever thought all five kingdoms of the many organisms of life can become lonely. The point is any one who is a part of the animal kingdom needs to cope with anxiety in order to function with the rest of the animal kingdom.

Some people who can’t function with other people, need to just realize who they are to function with every one else to feel connected to another Human being. Some people can only function with other people because they are afraid of other animals. It’s very important to cope with the anxiety to function with all positive life forms. That’s where meditation and non-judgmental thoughts help out. For example, when a fly lands on your arm for a just a moment, its there for just a moment to interact with you. We not only need to accept Neurodiversity, we need to accept Biodiversity to be able to cope with the anxiety of being around others.

The best way to cope with anxiety is accepting to connect with others. By doing so, we need to accept who we are and know what works best for us. For me, I am learning to meditate to calm my mind. Give it try yourself! If you can’t cope with the anxiety doing that try to listen to positive song tunes in your head like “I Believe I can Fly” by R.Kelly or hold a small rock in your hand or use a cloth tissue to hold on to. In the end, you can get through it if you believe.

I hope this helped everyone understand how to cope with anxiety.

posting more soon,


OUT, J