When I started the new shift at work on January this year (Ready to Blow!!), I made it a commitment to try hard and be part of the team of people with which I was going to work. Based on overdose of medicines, I changed by force my personal mood, so to become human, rather than being an Aspie.
It worked fine at the beginning to get myself introduced to the people there, have a quick chat and exchange smiles; it sort of gained me a place among the group; but it was all fake! In order to get that behavior from my part, I had to live in overdose of medicines, so it wasn’t really my own personality. I truly was happy to meet these new people, but my brain is not design for that work (meeting people), so the nice guy who introduced himself, chatted for a while and even made some jokes wasn’t me, but simply a variation of me, obtained with the use of medicine overdose.
That all has a cost! My body gained the consequences of continuous overdose in the form of adding weight, and my mind became simply tired of being something else, so stress became the norm from then on.
After just a couple of months on the new shift, and I became tired of “pretending” and living in chemicals. So I simply decided that enough is enough, and even to the risk of loosing my job, I stopped forcing myself to be human, and turned into being just myself; an Aspie working among humans.
What a mess!!
About half of the team doesn’t talk to me and say “hi” anymore! For an Aspie that is fine since talking and saying “hi” is really not important, but I know for a human it is! They are not happy! For a human it is like an insult not to be said “hi” and “bye”, or at least they take it really personal and feel offended! So I believe I am at the top in the list of “unpopular people”!
Again, that is fine with me, but in order to have a smooth working day (when you have to work with a team of 50 people), I had to go back to overdose; this time to be able to stand the cold looks and cold treatment from other toward me, without stressing myself too much for this situation.
So my Aspie Rebellion came to my mind “liberation”, but with a heavy cost in having to deal now with even more stress than before, which forces me to live in overdose about 10 times the regular dose.
But I will not give up!
After a lifetime being an Aspie and trying to play human for humans to be happy, I will continue to search for my own mind stability, even if humans around me feel discomfort with my presence and behavior. And to provide them with the information of why I am the way I am, so they can understand and feel better themselves, I will make those Aspie T shirts to wear from time to time, as a form of communication and explanation from my part to them, and in a way they can “absorb” easier. If after that they still feel mad due to not knowing or not understanding, my mind still will be at ease by knowing I did try, and if the result wasn’t good, it was mostly their fault and not mine.
Why do I say it is their fault? Because if after reading in my T shirt that I am an Aspie they don’t understand or know what is that, they could simply Google it, or even ask me directly, face to face (something humans don’t usually do).
I hope then, with the use of the Aspie T shirts, my mind will become at ease and my stress levels will drop (at least some), so I can stop using overdose just to go by another day at work!
Raul
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