I was born a boy 48 years ago. Hard to believe I'm still here, alive on this planet. I was born into nothing, not as bad as it could have been, not as good as it could have been either.
My programming wasn't quite right. Inside I'm wired to be a girl. I should have been a Mom, should have had the relationships girls have with their mothers, sisters, and girl friends. My mom and dad kinda influenced the programming when I was 3. They thought it was funny to make me wear my sister's dress. Maybe I'd have still been gender confused if they hadn't done anything, but that's life.
In addition to gender issues, my brain doesn't completely work as it does for others. Asperger's Syndrome, combined with a Mensa qualified cerebrum, means I am subject to weird responses from people - negative criticisms that are extraordinarily complimentary.
Case in point: One day I was presenting something I'd done at work. (It was a technique to measure the gnarliness of polygons on a spherical surface. It was really quite simple.) One guy with a Ph.D. said, "That problem's probably been solved somewhere by a bunch of Ph.D's already." I told him, "You're probably right. I looked, couldn't find anything, and had to have the work done in 2 weeks, so I just did it."
On the other hand I have the emotional capability of a child. In another thread I said I didn't know what it was like to be lonely. It isn't that I've never been alone - I feel alone all of the time actually - but alone doesn't equal lonely.
I read something that said 70% of all communication is non-verbal, and Aspies (people with Asperger's Syndrome) are essentially blind to non-verbal communication. Body language, voice subtleties are lost on an Aspie. I don't know if that's right, but it's probably close.
Imagine a world where you are cut off from nearly everything that's being communicated. You're face-to-face with someone and they say something. "You've done a great job! We're cutting the project." The latter part is easy to objectively measure. What of the former? Is it true? Is it a lie? You can't tell because you're reading this in text on a forum. In real life, you might be able to tell if the person is telling the truth or lying. To me, I still only get the text portion.
I must live in The Real World with real people.
I came from nothing. A week from today I brief our Sr. VP and other senior managers on the results of a piece of research I just completed. The person for whom I did the work believes the VP will find some money to continue the work in the next fiscal year, maybe a quarter million. I'll present our work, our results, our recommendations. We'll joke about things, we'll get real serious, and I might even come off as being somewhat normal. I've briefed these folks before. Not bad for coming from nothing.
I'm married. We've been on the rocks mostly on transgender issues. On learning of Asperger's however, it seems much of our troubles are in communication. A year ago I purged virtually everything. That was September 12, 2004. I figured that by now we'd either solve gender issues or be divorced. While gender issues aren't solved, I go out as Stephanie once a month. Learning of Asperger's has made it so that when I think Tracy is saying or doing something against me, I stop and reconsider, and we talk. While things aren't great, home is no longer the hostile place it once was. I'm learning.
I have a daughter. I try not to make her into me. I try to do things she likes to do. I try to be a good parent. I know sometimes I really am a father, sometimes just a parent, maybe father, maybe mother. I don't know. She's almost 7, so the fundamental things are already established. She's now in first grade. Her class did a mural at school, where each of the students had to draw themselves. She drew herself as the tallest; physically she's second shortest. Guess she's doing okay.
I walk through life. I'm alone in a world filled with people. Inside I'm a girl, unless I need to project Physical Strength. So often I don't know who is genuine and who isn't. I like walking late at night, because I'm alone with the Moon and the stars.
I'm not lonely, just alone.
Originally Posted by Katya
