My attention span is currently at a level I would describe as “kitten.”

I’ve known for a long time that my attention is directly correlated to the interestingness of the material–this isn’t unusual for kids identified as gifted (nor the adults they grow into), or anyone on the spectrum. In fact, it was this extreme hyperfocus that first had me questioning if I might be on the spectrum as I read tales of kids and their encyclopedic knowledge of topics and saw myself. This one time, I drew the same picture with only minor variations a couple hundred times; I was nine. I suspect I could still draw it.

I’ve also known for a long time that if I’m otherwise engaged, I can pay attention to topics of less interest with some reliability. In a school setting, for example, I’m usually really strongly into one class and then have varying levels of caring about the others–just like anyone else. Because of that high interest class, though, I have this sort of carry-over attention effect making it easier to pay attention to other material that is not as engaging for me. This has led me to the conclusion that I do well in moderate to high stress environments, but yesterday I started thinking (a rare thing these days when my mind lands on a topic and only stays for a few minutes at most), and this may not be the case.

There are different kinds of stress. Google thinks there are three–acute, episodic, and chronic–but that’s not what I mean. Those factors certainly play in, but I think stress can and should be divided by what part of you it engages, not just the length. Intellectual stress would be things like heavy schoolwork, complex reading material (fiction or no), non-rote professional work, puzzle solving. Emotional stress is identifying your own and other people’s feelings, social cues, working with other people. Physical stress could be identifying sensations (like needing to pee or being hungry), things that involve physical labour, or enduring discomfort (like working in a too-cold or too-hot place). Some combination of three things creates the stress, and that can then be chronic, episodic, or acute.

By this system, I really like things that are chronically intellectually stressful, with low levels of emotional or physical stress. I don’t like to move or worry about what my body language says. That is…not how I would currently describe my life. So even while I feel stressed, worrying about money and the cat and immigration, it isn’t the sort of stress that puts me in a position to spend a lot of time thinking. Those stressors are not comfortable for me, so they use up many more spoons than the stressors I like–and because I’ve wasted those spoons, I can’t do the things I enjoy (like reading scienceblogs) which could potentially refresh my spoons.

When I’m stressed–in the bad, not comfortable way–my memory and attention are spotty. I need to have a constant stream of intellectual information coming in–and going out, such as via blogging–to feed my own ruminative processes. Not only do I think they are a good thing, I now think they are essential to my well-being. When I am taking in enough information to have a viable ruminative background process going, my whole mind is working in concert, concious, unconcious, and memory. Being able to ruminate this way requires a precise memory, which is the first thing to go when I’m under stress (I often have no memory of meltdowns, for example–they’re just missing or I have a handful of photograph-like images).

I have been incredibly, risably forgetful lately–and lucky Kit doesn’t mind. Things we discussed multiple times have slipped my mind as if they never were. There is no sense of loss, of having forgotten something. My memory is not recording in the first place. Even when she reminds me, often with my own words, they feel new, unseen.

We talked about it yesterday, and I think it shifted my brain into the right gear to ruminate, because it hit me this morning, how all of this is connected for me: I need intellectual stress (and preferably as little of the other kinds as possible) to function well; I know alternate sources for this when I am not in uni; when I do not get this stress I become unable to seek it out because my will to live attention span grows shorter and shorter the longer I go without; this correlates with an unusually poor memory; these things are because with information coming in, I am able to ruminate properly (like any good ruminant and/or monster), because it is an adaptive and helpful process for me rather than being a destructive way to rehash bad memories or thoughts; therefore I have to just force myself to do something brainy, because it will sort of kickstart the whole process and I will stop feeling leaden. Which is…a helpful conclusion, and hopefully writing this will have done enough kickstarting I’ll no longer feel like my brain is dribbling out my ears slowly and painfully.

Catching up on the last bit of Melbourne, the trip home, what I’m doing OMGRIGHTNAO and plans.

We went to Kate’s hens night, which involved thai and karaoke and a lot of overstimulation, and the wedding, which was beautiful.

We also went to a place trying to bill itself as molecular gastronomy coffee. It wasn’t, so much, but they did have test tube coffee:

Then I took some more pictures of flowers:

I flew back to the US and it took forever, 10 hours of which I spent chilling in the SFO airport, which may be the most boring place on earth. I’ll make a point to go through LAX next time.

I did come back to my kitten, which is some consolation.

I got rid of GoDaddy hosting and signed up with ANhosting.com, largely because Hank Green told me to do it. It’s been a breeze and I’d reccomend them.

Currently, I am unemployed and living in Greensboro. Well, that’s a lie, right now I’m in Staunton visiting Stina and Dylan, but on the whole I am in Greensboro and loathing it, but it’s free and hopefully there will be jobs. There’s been a lot of drama about my car insurance and liscencing, but it’s over and I don’t want to rehash it.

ON JULY 1 I HAVE AN INTAKE APPOINTMENT WITH TEACHH, THE AUTISM PEOPLE IN NC. IT WILL BE FREE.

I’m super excited but also anxious for 2 reasons: 1. I worry it’ll be like Dr. Gaddis again, and 2. it might negatively impact my immigration. We’re waiting to hear from a lawyer, but this isn’t a full-on diagnostic appointment and nothing stays written, so I’m keeping this one and hopefully making the follow-up diagnostic appointment and then making decisions after Kitty has her surgery and can see again to visit lawyers. If I have to wait to get my papers before I can get my other papers, that’s fine. Australia has plenty of very good doctors in this regard and I’d be happy to see them. BUT THIS ONE IS FREE.

So…that’s all. Etsy sale on right now. I took lots of pictures that I hope will become my moo cards.

In my head
I repeat our conversations
Over and over
Till they feel like hallucinations
You know me:
I love to lose my mind

It’s less than a week before I have to leave Melbourne, and so much has changed.

I landed and was whisked away to the Windsor Hotel, a beautiful, historic bit of miniature castle, where we had a gorgeous view of Parliament and breakfast in bed and high tea.

We’ve been down to the beach…

And I’ve taken lots of photos of flowers around our neighborhood:

We learned a valuable lesson (and watched a damn lot of Glee):

We went to the zoo.

And then I learned about a medical program that will want me, no strings attached, in Sydney.

I want to go, very much, and could apply next year and sit the Australian version of the MCAT in February. We need to speak to immigration lawyers, I need to get Prosper cleared for immigration. Everything is suddenly on an impossibly fast timeline. I’m in a mild panic.

I wanted to maybe move with the wonderful Sarah to Baltimore, but I’m concerned I won’t be able to get a job that pays enough in just a few months in a new, big, expensive city. I wanted to move to Atlanta, though less than I did a couple months ago. I wanted to live with my mom, even though the idea mildly nauseates me, because it’d be cheap and require little effort. I’m not sure what I am going to do, but it’ll be something. So at least I’ve made the decision to act, and not let the inertia get to me–and that’s the most important step.

I’ve been trying to write a post since I landed in Melbourne. The city feels like home–well, maybe “feels” isn’t actually the word I want there. “Looks” is more accurate. I often have a difficult time noticing that I’m having feelings, let alone identifying them, until they’re big and overwhelming and scary. Melbourne looks like home–and the pieces that have changed were immediately noticable. A slightly modified tram map posted on the stop bench enclosures. A new poster. A finished building or three where I’d left unfinished wrecks. My favourite Safeway is now a Woolworths. Still, most of it is the same. Roses, endless gardens of roses. Cats and unfamiliar-familiar birds, and Kitty. Coffee. Friends and parties where I can’t understand a damn thing because my auditory processing is not up for the task of dozens of conversations at once–and friends who understand that, and seek me out to have quieter (or louder, to drown out the noise) talks. Friends. Plural, and more than just two.

I’ve been trying to write, and utterly failing.

I’ve been thinking about inertia, and how even though I want to write, I can’t make the words come together in any sort of order that makes grammatical sense, let alone sounds like me.

So. I’m well and happy. We’re going to the zoo! I may be able to take photos, if I can just get over the inertia.

ETA: Combined inertia plus spoons plus lack of funds means zoo later. Maybe tomorrow.

Where the sky is full grey…

I’ll be in transit to Melbourne for the next day and a half, and am travelling into the future (wooooooooooo). Here’s hoping to no airport meltdowns this time.

Multi-topic post!

1. I will be on a plane in less than 24 hours.

2. No one has opinions on a new theme? You guys suck.

3. I’m just getting around to reading some posts from BADD. Here are some reccomendations to start:

Kitty’s post about miracle cure themes in kidlit
The self-pity model
Of privilege and auditory processing (I’m very lucky that my auditory processing is relatively good for the spectrum.)
Public transport and disability in Melbourne

4. An interesting piece about listening to patients (I know, it’s such a bananas idea!)

I apparently fail at in-laws. Kit’s mother has a degree in disability studies and while I probably knew that information, I apparently failed to file it into the storage system. My brain makes me laugh.

I’m 25!

Also, one month and one day before I board a plane to Melbourne.

I really like the Aspie Teacher, and need to add her to my blogroll. I usually re-discover her blog when I’m playing on the autism hub and a new post comes up, and it’s always insightful and very helpful.

I’ve been thinking about perseveration since New Year’s Eve, when I read this post by her on the subject.

The idea that perseveration happens with emotions is one I had never considered, but is so true that I read it and immediately sent it to Kitty (“Yes. This!”). I tend to think about perseveration in the way I think most people do: obsessing about a special interest and having a hard time changing topics, fixed patterns of doing things that sometimes look a bit odd (like lining up toys rather than playing with them ‘correctly’ or having to eat one’s food in a certain order), echolalia. This post has really shattered those thoughts for me, made me acknowledge the depth of my tendencies towards perseveration–even when I seem completely normal, at ease.

There isn’t a time or age in my memory which I can point to and say I didn’t have perseverative behaviour and thoughts; some level of this is probably normal, because like with all things on the autism spectrum, it’s not the case that the behaviour itself is abnormal, just the severity. I have always tended to pick up a special interest, fixate havily upon it for a varying length of time, and then let it go. I think that the way that I played with my toys was probably a little odd–I remember that I enjoyed greatly dressing my dolls, but they didn’t tend to do much on the whole. I enjoyed setting up a scene, but not creating a story and then playing them through it. I read and reread the same books (and lots of new ones, too, but there are a handful of books I still reread when I feel stressed), many well below my age and reading level (the Baby Blue Cat is always soothing). I can’t remember a time when I did not repeat conversations (or rehearse conversations to come) in my head and sometimes outloud. But much more strongly than any physical types of perseveration, I emotionally perseverate.

What this means is that when I experience a strong emotion–the type most likely for me to notice I’m feeling (1)–I tend to get stuck in a pattern. I know my friends and family must be rolling their eyes, because it’s obvious, but I’d never thought of it in these terms and it’s actually really helpful and enlightening to me. Aspie Teacher describes it as a loop, like a broken record. I think it’s sort of like those toy trains with tracks in a circle. Once things reach a certain, unspecified level of feeling–once I’m on that track–I can’t stop going around it again and again without help. That help may be time, or the right input from someone else, or a distracting thing (though distracting isn’t a good long-term fix).

Perseverating makes you feel you’re trapped in your emotions, and they go on and on because no one else understands you enough to resolve the situation. Or you’ll think the situation is sort of resolved and then a few minutes later everything comes rushing back and you’re saying the same things all over again.

I fought with Stina and Dylan, about a week before Christmas. We’re okay now, as far as I know, but thinking about perseveration in this way has helped me work out why it happened in the first place. I have an unfortunate tendency to hold a grudge (which is really just long-term perseveration and an inability to forget?) and can’t always predict the small things that will suddenly become BIG THINGS and lead to this. The trigger was pretty stupid, and definitely not worth fighting over, but I got stuck in a thought pattern of being upset and every time I thought I was done, it all rushed back to me. Trying to explain to my mom and Kitty just felt like reliving it. I could not stop thinking about what was happening and my anxieties about the situation.

Venting online is kind of like winning a battle but losing the war – you may feel a temporary boost from the sympathy you get, but it won’t help you stop perseverating.

This is so true. But I would add that venting, really at all, is not very good for me. Explaining once is enough, because after that it just becomes part of the cycle of upset.

Knowing this now, I have some hope that I’ll be better able to catch this and stop it in the future. I also will be able to explain it to my therapist and hopefully make some sense so we can work on appropriate strategies.

First of all, I think that this expresses my current mood best. There is a box of sugar cookies behind me, taunting.

True story: I once made Dylan a sugar cookie fiend out of fleece and it plays the sugar cookies rampage. I am aware that you are stunned at my awesome.

I’m also currently stunned at my awesome, for altogether different reasons. I shall elaborate.

So, my job sucks. This is actually not true. I like most of the individual elements of my job (medical filing, working with kids, working with kids who’re autistic or crazy or sad, playing on the internet all night), but there are two parts that suck: the fact that my shift is night shift, and the fact that I cannot stand my coworkers. I’m really not sure if it’s an autism thing or a smart thing (or if I could separate the two anyway), but I find them endlessly tedious with their social games and talking about things which do not hold any interest for me. This has been a long-standing and escalating complaint, from “You know, I really don’t have anything in common with these people” to “Not only do I not have anything in common with them, but I wish they’d stop telling me about their kids and little league and parking tickets–even I can tell someone doesn’t want to listen if they put on headphones, so why can’t they just shut up when I do it?” to “OMG STFU I AM WATCHING HOUSE” to my sobbing on the phone to my mom last Sunday morning that I really didn’t think I could come back in Tuesday (that would be right now, as I’m typing–technically Wednesday morning, but that doesn’t count).

She came up with a brilliant suggestion: move to Atlanta. My dad lives there, and will gladly put me up. I can quit this job in 4 months when my lease is up, move to Greensboro temporarily while I clean the apartment and then go to Melbourne, and then finish moving southward and get a job there. It’s a very big city–my favourite kind!–and full of healthcare related shit and IR shit, so I should be able to find something.

I’m scared, because my only friends are Kit, Stina, and Dylan, and I won’t have any of them. But this is why there is an internet. (This is also why there is an internet.) I will hopefully be able to meet some local Asperger’s/autism groups, maybe join a choir, maybe take up dancing again? I can go to school as long as I find a job that pays me enough (and I plan to try to stop by Melbourne Uni to determine exactly what they’ll want from me for the med school), and Prosper will keep me company.

As someone who perseverates to the point of panic on incomplete plans, I have a sense of restfulness and lessened anxiety for the first time in months.

Now I just have to convince my bosses that my plane ticket got cancelled so I don’t need to use all of my vacation time in May!