Living with Ass Burgers

'I was Diagnosed with Aspergers at the age of 24 after a long battle with mental illness and depression. Where many feel their lives are over when diagnosed with autism, I felt my life had just begun. All the answers I had been waiting for were suddenly there in front of me. I finally knew who I was.'

[lifeofanaspie]

A case of 'The Shames'

As Aspergians we are all trying to cover a multitude of sins day by day, no one wants to be looked at funny, taunted, made fun of or completely ignored (although it's a safe option), so we try our best to fit in as best we can.

What I wanted to talk about today was when we break down and our cover is blown and how this affects me and some of my coping strategies.

My most vulnerable time is when I am excited, when something has made my adrenalin pump because I have been laughing or lots of people are having a debate or if something exciting is happening around me.  I forget myself and my disguise and usually something goes wrong.  A good example is a conversation that I was having with someone who I hadn't known for very long.  We were talking about work and I was talking about my previous job working at an airport.  Aeroplanes are definitely exciting to me and so I quickly found myself talking about them in great detail and before I knew it I had gone past the point of no return; when you've stopped talking to someone and you are just talking, absorbed completely in your happy little world, and there it was, the blank look, the look of 'oh my...' and the words 'you're quite strange aren't you?'.  Now of course I know that this person meant no harm at all in what they said and maybe were just so unsure of what to say that they felt that was the best thing at the time!  I do not blame them at all, but that's the end of it for them, but oh no not for me!

Here's what happens next, let's see if you relate...

A few hours later, it's quiet and I'm alone with my thoughts, 'Why did you do that, why can't you control yourself, everything is so complicated, people are so complicated, I don't get it, I can't get it, I wish I just had a normal brain, I have to try harder, just stop talking to people altogether, you need to stop getting yourself into these situations, just stop it, don't let it happen again, I am so embarrassed, I feel sick, I have a headache, I can't sleep, I'm stimming, my foot it tap tap tapping over and over and over, all I can see is the face of that person, I still can't read it at all, I just can't, and my head feels like it's going to go.... pop.'

I call this 'The Shames' because I feel totally ashamed of myself and it goes beyond thoughts it is a physical feeling of total vulnerability, inadequacy and lack of control.  This is just one small example, there are many different situations that cause this; bailing out on a social, making strange faces at people, making too much or too little eye contact, speaking out of turn, laughing too hard, taking a subject too far, being too quiet or introverted or even when part of you wants to go out and be social but your Aspergers is somehow stopping you and you feel like you are fighting against it...

So how do I cope, well to be honest it is really tough.  The wrong way to cope is to allow yourself to completely recoil into your own little shell which is very easy!  You need to soldier on and I make this work by using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy techniques, I have a thought diary and when I start to freak out I write down what my concerns are, then I reason them out, once that's done I then look at the thoughts again and re-evaluate them based on my new evidence, then write out my new thoughts.  The process itself is extremely cathartic and especially for people with AS who love anything structured and routine.  It takes a little practice and self discipline but there are even apps for it now like Thought Diary Pro which I have on my smartphone.  I take some time out, I avoid social contact with anyone 'risky' for a few days until my confidence is back, but I discipline myself with a time limit, a few days, you can avoid it for a few days and then you have to get back out there and start trying again.  Learning to let go and cry is also really important, it's something that people with AS find very hard to do and I can only do it with some sort of visual stim like a film or TV programme to get me started before I focus on my own need to release, it's another skill that takes some practice.

I know it's exhausting, I know it's scary and I know how crappy it is to always go 2 steps forward and 3 back over and over.  I know what it is like to lie there and feel like Tom Hanks in Big with a brain that just doesn't seem geared up for adult life.  And I know how much it hurts.  

I also know how much love I have inside me and how much I am loved.  The support of my closest and best friends, parents, colleagues and my son remind me that I am blessed everyday to be here and to have the gifts that my AS brings as well as the curses.  Have a great day, keep smiling and feel loved.

[lifeofanaspie]

'But you don't look like you have autism'

So it's been a long time since I posted here, and this is probably because I decided that moaning about my AS wasn't helping me, in a way it was making me feel more isolated.  However, I have returned to you all with another post that relates to some frustrations that I am currently experiencing, not just as a person with an ASD but specifically as a woman with an ASD.  Let me know if you relate!

Due to having moved to various locations across the planet as a child, the friends that I have now are not people that I have known since childhood, those that knew me as a child, may not have known me for very long for the same reasons.  So it would be fair to say that the majority of my friends have only known me in my later teenage and adult years.  For those who know me the best or for the longest my AS is part of who I am, they are aware of it, and when the mask slips, they don't freak out.

However, recently I have been wondering why I still find it increasingly difficult to tell anyone that I have AS, when I find it a normal part of my life, and the situations that I have talked about in my previous posts continue to repeat over and over.  Sometimes I think 'why don't you just explain to them that you have AS and then help them to understand you a bit better' but I don't.  Why?  Here's why...

As far as I can tell in recent years it has become more and more accepted in society to have autism in some capacity but it is still seen as intrinsically linked with males.  You ask a NT to close their eyes and imagine what a man with autism looks like, they think of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, but ask them to picture a woman and you can almost guarantee the features of Downs Syndrome come to their mind.  It's very hard imagine a normal looking woman with autism, because it isn't yet accepted that women can suffer with ASDs like men.  In the 90s it was thought that around 1 in 5 AS patients was female but recent research shows that it is in fact more like 1 in 2.  This is because studies have shown that women are much better at covering up their autism.

"...the fact that girls and women with Asperger's or high-functioning autism can be more adaptive than boys: they are commonly better at hiding things or seeming more sociable, masking what doctors traditionally think of as the signs of autism.

But the strain of trying to appear "normal" can be immensely stressful. Gould said it results in "many of the girls we see having developed secondary problems such as anxiety, eating disorders or depression".

Amella Hill, The Guardian

And so we continue to be unaccepted in many ways in the NT world and now unaccepted in the AS world too, so we end up stuck somewhere in the middle after thinking that we finally found the place where we fit in and then feeling let down.  Which is why we just deny, just carry on pretending.  It's so much easier, and exhausting, and depressing...

So now I come to the title of the post, 'you don't look like you have autism', the curse of the invisible affliction.  No, no I don't. I don't dribble on myself, have a nervous twitch in one eye, I don't have a really bad overbite or stinky breath, I'm not in a wheelchair with a computer for a voice like Stephen Hawking, I don't even wear special shoes! The worst part is when I have decided in the past to confide and tell people I have been accused of being either a liar or a hypochondriac.  That's tough after 10 years of referrals and diagnosis and a lifetime of struggle, bullying, attempted suicide, self harm, social isolation, to have what I think to have been a really positive diagnosis just 'poo pooed' by someone who has no idea what Aspergers is or, more importantly, how it presents itself in women.

But you know I have learned in my 30 years on earth how the NT among us work and I have become a professional mimic.  I know exactly how to blend in like a chameleon and behave 'just like everyone else' out in the open.  My work colleagues say I'm weird, but loveable, and I accept that without needing to justify myself.  But what very few people know (really only my other ASD friends) are the everyday battles that still happen at home and in my everyday life, in my head, the constant support that I have from my parents even though I am a working adult with a child of my own and the extra measures put in place around me to keep everything ticking over.

There are some tell tale signs that can tell us apart from NTs my favourite being that we often appear younger than we are and are often childlike, but that suits me!  We often withdraw from the outside world, have hyper-sensitivity issues, display repetitive behaviours, have very strict routine and structure and speak out of turn in social groups. But that's for another time, I'll give away my secrets when I am good and ready.  So for now... 

HERE IS THE FACE OF AUTISM IN WOMEN.  NOW SUCK IT UP.

[lifeofanaspie]

Explains a lot...

[lifeofanaspie]

Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.

Albert Einstein

[lifeofanaspie]

Don't you just LOVE being an Aspie?

Wow life really has been hectic and I apologise to my followers if I let you down.  I came back today to talk about something that I know that all Aspies fear and regularly fail at.  Yep you guessed it, relationships.

Having managed a couple of epic fails myself over the past few months I realised something really important.  I wasn't being true to myself.  I was never honest about having Aspergers and it led to misunderstandings, frustration and in the end, heart break.

The question is, when is the right time to tell someone you have an ASD?  The first time you meet them over coffee?  Wait until you've gotten intimate?  I've learnt that in those first couple of weeks of dating someone before you get too close, especially a Nypical, you owe it to both them and yourself to be honest before things get more serious.  And the hardest part is that you have to be prepared for them to walk away.  Sadly there are Nypicals that would feel uncomfortable and unable to date someone with autism but we have to accept that and move on. 

As Aspergians we are natural cynics, it's exhausting!  Constantly weighing up the variables and potential outcomes of our actions before we carry them out.  Our previous experience is all we have to go on because we have no intuition or ability to read the current situation we suddenly find ourselves in and lets face it there is no 'Instruction Manual'!  If there was we would have read it, bought the audio version and studied the key notes! Many of us have had external pressure put on us from a young age by parents, teachers and friends to 'act normal' in certain situations where it has been deemed necessary for us to 'succeed'.  We all feel this in our adult Aspie lives day in and day out, and of course most of the time we succeed in suppressing our urges to blurt, twitch, monologue, preach and generally show off our intelligence but there is a big difference between suppression and denial.

So when you meet someone you care about, there's only one thing for it, take the leap and be honest.  It's the only way to be true to yourself.  Someone told me today that it doesn't change me, and it doesn't change what I want to do in my life.  And he's right.  The only one trying to change me, is me.

[lifeofanaspie]

When it's time for a time out.

For those of us aspergians who are in work or school, college or university the general stress and strain of the average day can be exceptionally challenging.  Not because of the high target demands of the office or the complexity of the subject being covered in class but because of the amount of social interaction and lack of personal space involved in those few hours. 

I personally find that my aspergers means that I deal with this situation differently to the NT person or Nypicals (which I now prefer and will use from now on).

Nypicals seem to like to talk about their day and this seems a normal every day part of life.  Dinner around the table at 6pm 'so hunny how was your day?' and so on.  During my teenage years the response would always be the same 'yeah' at which point the conversation came swiftly to an end.  All appeared normal, the usual grumpy teenager not wanting to discuss the evils of their day.  This behaviour continued into my twenties at which point my parents would start to probe me for answers.  Of course I would simply become more aggitated and the result was that they, as nypicals, believed that I had serious problems at work and was really unhappy, which was wrong, I was successful well liked and progressing.  Now here's the thing, when aspergians come back from their day of socially exhausting activity they normally feel like they want to do one of two things.   One being run, keep running and don't stop and when you finally have to, crawl under something like a large rock and stay there forever, two being break down into a fit of tears and cry until you finally fall asleep through exhaustion.  The last thing an aspergian wants to do is socialise.  Talking to people has been hard enough all day without the continuation when we get through the front door at home.

So does this mean we are all destined for a life of solitude with nothing but a goldfish for company?  For some, perhaps, but for most no.  We simply need the Time Out from social interation for a while to rest our brains.  As Aspies our brains work hard enough as it is due to our powerful semantic and visual memories without the added pressure of all that problem solving and communication.  So we just need a bit of time, an hour or so, sometimes longer just to disconnect from the rest of the world.

Once we've found our little space and the whirlwind of conundrums and queries relating to the day have settled down and become less of a significance we are ready to move on.  I like to chat in the evenings once I've had my time out, I like to talk about the things that I understand and ask about the things I don't but it's on my terms, when I'm ready and I'm lucky enough to have someone willing to try and accomodate that in my life. 

[lifeofanaspie]

Aspergic Preverbial Paranoia...

  Are they laughing with me?  Or are they, in fact, laughing at me?  I have no doubt that you have all asked yourselves this question at some point during the last month.  Let me set the scene...

You are quietly getting on with something and drifting a little from the usual strict levels of control that you have to exercise in social situations, no weird faces, noises, jerky movements, random statements, you get the idea.  But you get caught off guard, you catch the end of a conversation, it's funny, your colleagues are laughing and before you can stop yourself, something has come out of your mouth.  There is a brief silence, then a burst of laughter, but you are not laughing because to you what you said probably wasn't funny.  So now the complex questioning in your mind begins and the opening questions above start to circulate in your reactive mind.

So how do we know?  Are there signs that an NT gives that we can interpret in oreder to answer these questions?  I personally can not answer this as I struggle to interpret these situations.  However I can say this, I believe that we are being laughed at most of the time, but I do not think that this is spiteful or nasty behaviour on the part of the NT.  I have noticed one very significant trait in them that seems to be consistant in the context of this situation.  When a group of NTs are laughing at you if you are good enough at recognising the signs you will see that they are also embarrassed and there is an element of confusion in there.  They don't really know why they are laughing and I honestly believe this to be an almost nervous reaction.  They are simply unsure because what has happened is not 'Typical'.  As Aspies we need to remember to bear these things in mind, perhaps explaining ourselves once the laughter has died down will help to ease the tension and also, more importantly, stop us feeling like complete dorks.

Sadly, there are occaisions when it is geering, and it is what we British like to call 'taking the piss' and this will never be easy to cope with.  I still find my feelings hurt on a regular basis because there are just some individuals that will use your autism to make you feel small and them feel big.  I tend to just revert to my completely autistic self with these people, pointing out everything that is wrong with them.  Its mean but hey, who says just because I have autism that means I have to be really nice.  There's nothing wrong with fighting back. Just choose a more AS appropriate weapon. 

[lifeofanaspie]

This is a brilliant video that highlights the reality of Aspergers and how subtle it can be.  Well done Rosie!

[lifeofanaspie]

Shaking off the Black Dog...

Things are hard at the moment, and that goes for people from accross Europe in all walks of life.  But I think a common misconception is that Neurodiverse among us, who perhaps find it harder to see emotion in others, lack emotion themselves.

This, honestly, could not be further from the truth.  Time and again I find myself in a turbulant whirlwind of emotions that I am unable to make sense of or control.  And so, we begin to drown.  Slowly and first then faster, into that dark place, where we go when we just don't understand things anymore.  It all got far too complicated right when you thought you had it all figured out. 

A single fact, a single scenario, re-playing through your aspergic mind like a stuck record over and over.  The calculation machine running at maximum capacity trying to work out possible outcomes and answers using logic and data, but still, blackness, there is no light at the end of the tunnel because our calculations never create outcomes, because, as much as we try, we can not predict the future and this... is our greatest frustration.

I am going through the control process, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes I am in control and sometimes I am not. 

Sleeing is my escape as I am sure it is for many of you.  Maybe one day the world will make sense.

[lifeofanaspie]

Computing Machinery and Intelligence

A M Turing

[lifeofanaspie]

Autism, the next step for human evolution?

Many of us and indeed, many anthropologists have studied ongoing human evolution to great lengths, but at the moment, as far as they are concerned, nothing much is happening.  We are much the same anatomically today as we were 500 years ago.  But are they missing something?  Should they be taking a closer look inside the brains of human beings in order to find evolution? 

So why are we seeing increasing numbers of so-called neurodiverse individuals in the world?  Is it because of growing numbers of additives in food and chemicals in the air or the changing environment?  Or is it natures way of making the human race even better at surviving that it already is?

One of Man's greatest failings as far as survival is concerned is it's high level of emotional intelligence.  Triggered by hormones, the brain reacts to different stimuli sometimes causing humans to self destruct or indeed destroy each other.  It is a problem that, I think, nature is trying to fix.

Autism when looked at on a wider scale really does look like a typical classroom experiment.  Subjects, varietys and results.  Autism is rarely the same in two people, unlike any other genetic illness where the same GATC code is written and results in the same outcomes in every person it effects.  This leads me to believe that autism is something far more special and profound.  The brain has evolved into something more powerful, it processes inormation much faster it can create incredible results from a young age and yet it does not have the hinderances that the neuro typical brain has, the complication of uncontrolled emotion or indecision.  It has become far more like Turing described in his Computing Machine paper in 1950 it is based on a far more black and white system of 1's and 0's.  Was there something in his words that we are missing?  He often refers to his fictional 'human computer' but was there some fact in the fiction?

Are we the beginnings of a breed of super humans that will rule the earth in a few hundred years?  I believe it is possible, science fiction as it may sound, but it is going to take time, nature has to make many mistakes before it gets these things just right, like any good scientist I suppose.

I recommend reading Turing's paper, it is intruiging if nothing else.  It may well spark others thinking around autism and its links with the new digital age where everthing around us is becoming faster, more intelligent, and less complicated, why shouldn't nature join in?

[lifeofanaspie]

All's fair in love and war, but what's the difference?

Ok, apologies for my lack of posting.  I have been struggling with my severe dairy intolerance over the past few days...  I'll leave the rest to your diverse imaginations

Infact it was quite fortunate because during this time I was unfortunate enough to have to experience one of my worst afflictions, conversational dysfunction, during a heated 'talk' with a colleague.

Ok so... emails, it seems to start with emails.  I find that more and more subliminal emotion seems to be written into emails, as so I tend to send what may be deemed aspergic emails. due to the fact that they tend to be largely blunt and to the point.  This it would appear seems to upset people.  Do they need some sort of flowering?  They aren't going to my grandma!

Anyway, so this lady comes over after much 'pinging' back and forth and starts yacking at me.  I'm desperately looking at her face to try and understand her mood, angry?  Upset?  Happy?  Relaxed?  Stressed?  I'm frantic at this point, searching, but there are so many things, her eybrows are moving up and down her eyes are staring at me then they look away, her mouth is changing from smiling to frowning, it's too much to take in and then...   ...   ...  silence, oh no, she is waiting for me to say something, ok, I was listening, but I don't know how to respond in order to make this go away, go for the facts, the facts!  'the email was sent to your senior manager, who should have communicated it to you, I apologise that this was not the case'.  Way to go!  You sounded so sincere and like you gave a crap.  NOT!  Now she's started going on again, what do you say to make a person like this go away?  So I repeat the information again, its not working, I'm not getting this right at all.  Finally my head starts to spin and I'm stammering, I need to get out of this situation and quickly.  Luckily I have a sterling manager who stepped in and took over, at which point I made a quick exit.

So what can I tell you guys about dealing with this one?  Today, I am afraid its nout.  Because I, like so many of you, am still struggling with this one.  I haven't yet come up with a way to deal with it.  I don't understand NTs when they get like this, I don't know what they want and I don't know why, I also don't know how to make them feel better and calm down.  If someone starts to lay into me, the more intense it is, the more I clam up and can't speak.  There are so many great things I could say but if I open my mouth nothing comes out but a kind of weak sighing noise.  And then, I just stop talking. 

Going mute is the worst, NTs hate it, it angers them to the max and I am sure they think you do it on purpose.  If only they knew what it was like to be so scared of opening your own mouth or to be so totally confused by the look on someones face.  Its at times like that I think most of us would like that little time out hole in the ground that was nice and dark and warm so we could curl up in a ball and hide from the crazy NT world. 

I hope that some of you might be able to offer me some advice, so please post back and let me know your stories or successes. 

[thedailywhat]

[lifeofanaspie]

Conversation... The Aspergic No-Brainer

Anyone with autism will tell you that conversation is one of the most difficult areas of their life and although my aspergers is less severe, this is area I have always struggled with.

Frequent thoughts that enter my head during conversations are:

'When is it my turn to talk? Should I let them talk now? Are they interested in what I'm saying?  Do I care?  Am I monologuing? I don't know what to say now. Why has my mind gone completely blank?'

There are two main issues that I struggle with most and it is these that I will focus on in todays post.

The first is monologuing.  I never even realised that I did it until I was diagnosed.  I had been lucky to have had either very patient friends or very direct friends who can tell me to shut up until that point!  But now that I am aware of it I have some sort of an idea of how to realise I am doing it, stop, and allow myself (and the other person) to draw breath.  When I meet up with my best friend I am happy and excited to see her, but of course happiness and excitement are one of my triggers for monologuing.  I tend to build up to it during the hour or so before we meet, thinking about all of the things I can tell her about my life since our last meeting.  And of course when I get there and open my mouth, it goes on and on and on.  It's always the same.  You realise, you stop and then there it is, the awkward silence while the other person looks at you in a way that you know isn't saying 'do carry on'.  So now that I know I do this what advice can I give you in helping to ease the situation with others?

The first thing I suggest anyone do when they meet up with a friend or relative is to make sure the first thing that comes out of your mouth after saying hello is this 'so, tell me whats been happening with you since we last met?'  Then make a concious effort not to talk until they either ask you a question or stop talking for a reasonable period.  The second thing is while you are learning, ALWAYS wear a watch.  We aspies love to time things and quantify stuff, do exactly that with your conversations.  'Watch your Watch'.  Try to keep your 'speeches' down to no longer than 3 minutes without pausing and letting the other person speak.  Its hard at first, practice with a close friend if you can.  Its all about detail, we go into far to much of it for NTs to deal with.  You will perfect this (we perfect everything!) and when you do you will be able to adapt it to create what seems like a normal NT conversation and with a bit of luck, you will enjoy the challenge!

I think that's enough for one night... I'm off to see my best friend actually!  I'll cover the second part tomorrow, dealing with conflict and stressful conversations, something I struggle with to this day. Remember - Watch your Watch!

[lifeofanaspie]

I wrote this message three times over again and decided each time my message was too weird. So, I'm just going to say thank you for sharing your stories. It makes me feel less alone seeing there are people with the same inconveniences in life (: Well, not that it are all inconveniences, with AS also come gifts others don't have, like hypersensitivity. It's kind of cool I think, at least at the days I can handle all the impulses. Anyway, thank you once more (:

Its great to know that I'm helping others to feel less alone.  If you aren't already on WrongPlanet then I really recommend signing up and getting involved.  Its a great community.

Em x

[alliecat-person]

[lifeofanaspie]

jemimaaslana:

allies-person:

That’s the question  I’m asking myself as I’m considering my teaching woes. A few weeks ago I met an autistic woman who told me she survived teaching by inventing a kind of persona, like someone on TV, for the classroom. She said that protected her because “it wasn’t really me.” I think…

Actually, adopting a persona is not so much about faking being neurotypical as it’s about protecting those parts of you that you don’t want exposed because it’ll lead to triggery situations.

I role-play a lot in my spare time. Role-playing is a pretty big part of my life. One aspect of it is because when donning a character for a game session it allows me to be something I’m not, another aspect, however, is that it allows me to use some aspects of myself that I don’t normally use, because they are not acceptable or appreciated.

Ever since I began role-playing I’ve become better at hiding my oddness to the outside world. That’s part of the reason I was diagnosed so very, very late. I did so unconsciously. I played a role.

A role I constructed to consist of the parts of me that were acceptable and useful and with added parts to replace those bits that weren’t acceptable.

I now use those skills consciously to handle my daily life. The interactions with colleagues and co-students, family and acquaintances. Only my very closest friends and trusted family members get to see the real Jem, as I am without any overlaid persona.

My personas are very close to the real me. Anything else would be utterly soul destroying. But they are just far enough removed from me to protect me from the direct effects of much hate and triggery stuff.

Through our role-playing classes, we have a couple of times been able to help a few kids conquer their fear of exams, by helping the kid create a role (or persona - if you like) that they could ‘play’ when going to an exam. A role with a character sheet with stats and everything, a character with no fear of exams. It cannot help everybody, but it has helped some.

We’re not coaches or professional therapists, but this actually works for some.

It works for me. I have a wide array of roles that I ‘play’. Interestingly enough, I even play a role when joining up with my regular group for some classic fantasy-role-playing. Only one of them know what I’m really truly like, the others have only met a persona. Mind, that persona is probably the closest thing I have to the real me, because there’s a greater acceptance of oddness amongst other geeks, but still. This is meta-layers of role-playing that most people would find immensely confusing.

I find that it means I can to some degree take a safe headspace with me, even when heading into social territory that isn’t always entirely safe for me.

Anyway, I just wanted to say, don’t just dismiss the idea of a persona out of hand. The persona doesn’t have to be that far from your own personality. It certainly doesn’t have to be a happy-go-lucky wise-crackin’ persons to catch the attention of students. Sometimes it just has to be a persona that protects YOU, because if you have a persona that protects your mental state from harm, you’ll (hopefully) have a little more spoons left to allow your enthusiasm for your subject shine through all of the stress, and that in turn will motivate all but the most resistant students (and there isn’t much hope for them anyway in my experience >.<)

Anyway, if it still feels all wrong and stressful to even consider trying this, then don’t - obviously.

I just wanted to share my experiences with this. You don’t have to be anyone other than yourself. But you can create a persona based on yourself and use that. Hmmm sort of like some authors of fanfiction make idealized versions of themselves the main characters of their fics. Well, maybe not quite that extreme. But I’m sure you get the idea. You make a Mary Sue-ish version of yourself for a persona, and then you’re that persona for the few hours a day while you’re in whichever stressful situation makes it necessary. And for your Mary Sue persona you don’t need to idealize stuff that is irrelevant for the task at hand, of course. Like, while at university I’ve decided it’s okay for me to know stuff about politics and sociological issues, but I pack away my knowledge of computer games and cheesy fantasy fiction. So that’s the persona I wear when I’m there.

[lifeofanaspie]

This is a photo I took in the Turbine Centre.  I love lights and neon, I love the way they can be manipulated to create so many moods and feelings.  I'm hoping to get a sensory light in my bedroom soon to help me relax, I'll let you know if it works!