Taboo Topics: Sex and Porn Addiction [an anonymous guest post]

So typically i prefer TABOO TOPIC posts to have a face and a name to help make the issues being discussed more ‘real person’ to other people going through them. But i am going to make an exception in this case as it is a friend who i know sharing the story and the nature of the story is needing some protection from family and friends… but i hope this will be an encouragement and help to all of you who might be struggling with this or knows someone who is. i’m sure the sharing of it was not made all that much easier by doing so, and so i am very grateful:

‘I said “I DO, forever”, to a sex and porn addict.

My husband is one of the kindest, patient, most loyal, always ready for fun and a laugh people I know.

My husband is also a sex addict. A porn addict. In recovery.

What does this mean? It means that he has had a compulsion towards sex and pornography like an alcoholic does to alcohol.  It means that in his past certain sexual acts drew him into actions and behaviours involving pornography or sex workers.  It meant that he couldn’t get through a day without watching pornography & needing to masturbate to a fantasy.

This is a man who loves Jesus, loves people and wants to practically see the world shift into a place where people live knowing that they are valued.  There is not a lot of tolerance for sitting around and having intellectual conversations in this if there is no practical application of what it all means.  This attracted me to him – no matter which circles we were in before the butterflies began, this guy really wanted people to know that they matter and made sure that they were included and practically looked after.  It appealed to me a lot.   I am glad he chose me to ask the ‘Do you want to do life together forever?’ question.

Before he asked me this though, there was a whole lot of disclosing that happened.  My skeletons from the past, his journey in the present.  A journey which is still a part of our present.

He spoke about ‘men’s groups’ and going on retreats with a vagueness initially that made me wonder, then ask and then realise that as much as he was lovely, I wasn’t sure about marrying an addict.  Addicts who hide things, who emotionally withdraw, who blame shift to justify their addiction.

An addiction which speaks to the intimate, fun, make-up after fights, tender, playful part of a marriage.  An addiction which had nothing to do with me and yet offended me when it reared its’ head as it felt personal.  It felt as if somehow I was to be responsible for relapses or acting out, or pushing boundaries. What if I upset him or he felt rejected by me and acted out (watched porn or withdrew into a world of fantasy and masturbation which had nothing to do with us)?

His recovery has meant disclosing to me, before we got engaged, aspects of his past which meant that his shame and nervousness at the thought paralysed him. Some of these disclosures hadn’t been a part of his world for a number of years.  Some of them were still a daily wrestle when he told me.

It made me realise that he is in active recovery. There isn’t a vague ‘I am dealing with this stuff with my prayer partners’ – There was and is an active, intentional process in place.

It made me realise that this isn’t just about him if we want our relationship to flourish.  It has to do with me too.  It has to do with me being willing to be vulnerable.  It has to do with me being willing to look at the parts of me that aren’t so healthy.  Not so that he doesn’t relapse – but so that I am not asking him to change in ways that I am not willing to.

Sex addiction is often understood as an intimacy disorder – it’s where intimacy between two people is not fostered, or grown or seen as the purpose of being with another.  It’s where intimacy could help heal and deal and celebrate life, but instead an impersonal encounter is put in its place as a substitute.

Intimacy & grace instead of shame & judgement (self-perceived or other) really is the space we have had to learn to live in.  And keep learning.

There have been relapses – porn is everywhere.  There have also been a changed understanding of what constitutes a relapse as his recovery process has happened.  It was hard initially knowing that his fantasy world included images of women who weren’t me; that his way of coping with stress at work or with us was to escape into a fantasy world of sexual partners who had nothing to do with the realness of our day to day life.  It was hard to gulp back tears and say – have you spoken to your sponsor?  Have you checked in with the guys who pray and support you on this?  It was a good lesson to learn that not everything is about me, or hinged on me.

We do fight. We do have amazing weeks where I can’t remember the hard, tough, annoying ones and then we have hours, days, sometimes a week where our intimacy is challenged  BUT not because he is acting out, but because life has happened – and he & I are still working out how we help love each other in that space without pushing into each other’s fragile sensitive spots.

Practically, it means that when he goes away on guys’ weekends, to bachelor’s or work functions with men who have no issue with strip clubs and so on, that a part of me holds my breath until I know that he is okay again.  Not because I think that his intent is bad.  Because I know that temptation is hard for all of us.

Practically it means that there is only internet access in our home space when I am awake.

Practically it means that an external person (his sponsor) will be alerted if he attempts to access porn on the internet on any of our home laptops.  We have chosen to do things this way so that I am not the policeperson having to call him out – but rather it allows for him to come back into a space of ‘US’ with a supportive structure around him.

Practically it means that we cut budgets, evenings and outings short to ensure that the recovery work can happen – individually and in groups.

It’s a part of our rhythm.  It’s our normal now.

I wish that there was a way to wear this badge, of being clean, with an open heart and revealed face `like one would do with alcohol or drugs, so that we could publicly affirm the fact that my husband has also wrestled issues of shame, a lack of understanding of intimacy (not just the sexual kind) and had to manage on a day to day, sometimes hour to hour, the temptation of porn and available sex – for it is available, whether through one night stands or sex for sale.

I wish that he didn’t walk down that road to begin with – simply as it has drenched one of the kindest, gentlest, most caring men I know in shame and a sense of not always being worth of being loved for himself.

I wish that I could see you face to face as I share this – simply because there are far more people like me than we know.

[For my own story of Porn Addiction and a few others from people who have bravely shared theirs, click here]

Taboo Topics: Addiction – Meet David Luis [Drugs]

It is early 2012. The phone rings and my brother George answers. Silence. Eventually I whisper: “I need to get out of here. I need help.”

But the story starts in 1995, at a party, where a friend was having so much more fun than everyone else. “What’s he on? Is he drunk?” Our innocent questions were answered with “Ecstasy” and a journey into 18 years of intense addiction began.

That first pill was exactly that: ecstasy – an incredible rush of sensations on the skin and in my mind. Dazzling lights and music pounded my body as if they were a living, breathing thing. And soon every Friday night I journeyed into sound and touch and love and fun. It seemed so innocent.

In 1996 my boyfriend and a friend of his raped me. At the time I didn’t believe it was rape. I just thought it was a very adult situation I needed to ‘man up’ to: I’d caught him cheating and he responded by forcing me in on the act.

I should have left his home that night, but I chose to stay, and all through the year that I lived there, his infidelity ate away at me, making me feel worthless, unloved – spare. It was in the weekly ecstasy that I found fun and a reason to smile.

My once-weekly ‘feel-good’ session soon became two and then three and then, four nights out of every week I escaped into the warmth and love and beauty in those little pills and the music that went with every party.

Ecstasy wasn’t enough, though. I tried LSD and then cocaine. I loved cocaine. A lot. In 1999, I tried heroin and loved that even more. It was – yummy. Yes. Yummy. That was how we described it then, and it’s really the best way to describe it now.

I liked heroin, but it killed me. I overdosed after snorting too much at party and I woke up in Joburg Gen after my heart stopped three times. I never chased that dragon again. Instead my cocaine use grew, and by 2004 I was snorting three grams a day. I moved to London and for a while I used very little. But only for a little while. When I came home in 2007, my body couldn’t handle it anymore, so I switched to speed.

In 2009 I tried crystal meth and it became my new best friend and worst enemy. I couldn’t get enough of those endless white clouds of crystalline chaos. I stopped caring about how I looked – my skin became a grey, purple, disfigured war zone of meth bugs.

I lost weight. And my mind. You don’t sleep on meth. I went for days, sometimes more than a week without sleep. Your brain isn’t wired to go for long without sleep, so I lost the plot, and my job.

It wasn’t enough to stop me, though. I sold everything I had to pay for more. I cashed in my pension. I pawned my furniture. I didn’t care if I had to sleep on the floor in an empty room –so long as I could get another hit.

It didn’t make me feel better, though. I sank so low and felt so alone that all I could think about was ending it all. I took 120 sleeping pills. It didn’t work – all that happened was I slept for several days, waking in a confused mess.

My family tried interventions. So did my friends. I cut them out of my life. All I wanted was more meth, and to be left alone. One by one, they all did. I was alone, in an empty house, and I couldn’t go on.

Some people go even further before they hit rock bottom or die. They become homeless. They steal. They become sex workers. The pull of meth is that strong. We just don’t care anymore and we will give anything for another hit.

But I had run out of options. I couldn’t get high; I couldn’t kill myself, so I surrendered. All I could do now was to live.

I picked up the phone, and dialled George. It was 22 January.

On 28 January I started writing a blog about my addiction. Two weeks later, I got a call from Alan Knott-Craig, the CEO at Mxit. He’d read it, and he offered me a job. He had three rules. I forget the first two, but the third was, “Honesty. Come and tell everyone your story. Because people think that drugs happen elsewhere – they don’t realise that they’re everywhere.” And so, on 28 February, I moved to Stellenbosch and started my life again.

It hasn’t been easy. On 15 April 2012 I fell off the wagon and got high on cocaine. But I had learnt, and I confessed to my family and friends and publicly, on my blog. And I started counting my clean time from scratch. Day 1: April 16, 2012.

Each day now is a journey back to life, of being kind to myself with meditation and motivational readings. I work with my sponsors and a therapist and my higher power to help me rebuild my life and identity. Some days are tough, some are great, but all of them are worth it.

And as I write this on 7 January 2015, I’m on 997 clean days, and counting.

Dave Luis. 7 January 2015.

“If you think it’s time to take control, reach out in absolute confidentiality to Narcotics Anonymous and start a safe, nurturing conversation about how to take back your life. Go to http://www.na.org.za/ or call 083 900 69 62 to speak to someone just like you who can help”

My addiction blog: healing.me https://bloggsymalone.wordpress.com/category/healing-me/page/16/

My clean day count blog: https://bloggsymalone.wordpress.com/category/cleandaze/page/44/

[For more stories involving Addiction, click here]

Taboo Topics: Singleness – Meet Amanda Kuehn

HIS BANNER OVER ME IS SINGLE

Last month I was supposed to get married.

There was no ring on my finger, no invitations in the mail. But there was a date on a calendar and the seed of a dream that had been planted in my heart many, many months ago. I’d had a plan—we’d had a plan—in a world where I was part of a “we,” in lifetime that doesn’t feel all that long ago. The day came and went and I wondered if it would ever come again. If there would be a day when diamond commercials wouldn’t make my heart sink.

I have been single for all but three years of my life. During those three years I struggled something fierce to figure out what it meant to be me and to be in relationship; to be independent and private, while also being inclusive and self-disclosing; to be strong-willed and passionate, but at the same time open-minded and gentle. I am still learning those things. I have made remarkable progress, but right now there is no relationship in which to test such things and sometimes it feels like wasted effort.

The word banner derives from the French “banniére” and the Latin “bandum,” a cloth out of which a flag is made. The German language developed the word to mean an official edict or proclamation, a rule under which one lives. It is where we get the word “abandon,” which means to change flags, to switch loyalties.

We live under a great many banners in our lives; banners that represent our fidelities and loyalties. There are banners of family, religion, country and corporation. The banner of Apple. The banner of Nike. The banner England. The banner of Christian. There are banners that we stand under by our own choosing, and there are banners that are spread over us, whether we want them or not. We develop certain ideas about people who are associated with particular banners. Sometimes they are true. And sometimes they are not.

I struggle to keep camp under the banner of “single.” It is not a place I really want to be right now, though I don’t really want my single friends to know that. I don’t want them to feel it is a bad place, a lacking place, a grass-is-browner woe-is-me sort of place. But often that is how I feel. I skirt to the outside of the camp. I watch the other members under the banner of single and I see all sorts of responses. I see them weeping and laughing, celebrating and suffering. I see them angry and bitter. I see them resourceful and redemptive. I see them living and loving without reservation. Sometimes I want to be one of them. I want to accept my position and see my singleness as an opportunity rather than a limitation. But most days I want to escape. I sit at the edge of the camp, just so that God knows I am ready to leave at a moment’s notice. But after two years of leaning on that fence, I’m looking for another, better, more trusting position than my post beside the exit.

Part of the reason I’m so reluctant to stay is that I did not choose to be here. I did not leave my last relationship believing that we were poorly matched or destined for destruction. I did not run under the banner of single ready to embrace new freedoms. I did not really realize what was happening when things were falling apart, and by the time it was over, I was left to trudge under the banner of single with heavy feet.

Singleness is not something I feel “called to” or excited about. It is a place I feel I was left when someone ran out from under the banner of relationship with me. When someone who had chosen to love me chose to stop, to leave, to change flags and abandon me, leaving me single.

Sometimes the banners we live under are banners that we do not choose. And sometimes they come with messages that they should not retain. I was told a great many things following my last break up, and even more after the change of heart I had the six months later. Among them, that:
“I deserved someone better”
“I had become a better person”
“God must have something else for me”
“If it were meant to be it would happen”
“He [my last boyfriend] was an idiot, a coward, blind, stubborn, etc.”

And though sometimes these things made me feel better (at least momentarily), mostly they made me confused. They encouraged me to view life under the banner of single as a temporary holding pen. Though many have suggested that God has someone else in mind, no one has ever suggested that God might intend for me to be single. No one has suggested that I am under the banner of single on purpose, which leads me to view it as an undesirable place to be.

Here’s another, perhaps bigger problem. Regardless of what other people believe about singleness, there are a lot of judgments and assumptions that I bring into it myself. There are messages and false truths that I associate with living under the banner of single that give voice to my deepest fears about my own worthiness and belonging. These messages do not come from God or love or goodness or grace, but from all that is the opposite of these things. And some of them have been reinforced in very painful ways.

It is one thing to be single and to feel that you are unseen, unheard, and unnoticed. It is one thing to suppose that the reason you are single is because no one has really experienced all that you have to offer. (I want to pause and recognize that this is a really valid place to feel pain, frustration, and even anger. As creatures that crave in our deepest depths to be truly known, to feel unseen is to feel invisible, inconsequential.) It is quite another thing, however, to believe that you were seen, heard, noticed and appreciated, that someone began to know the deepest depths of you, loved the deepest depths of you, and then chose to stop. Of their own will and volition, another person chose to stop seeing you. Decided they’d seen enough and judged you as no longer worth the effort.

I am not sure how to recover from that. As a consequence, I have begun to believe it must be true. That this must be the reason I am single: because despite all of the things that I have been told by my friends and family, despite all of the reassurance that God has done work in my life—has broken and molded and fashioned me into something tender and compassionate and playful and kind—I see my singleness as evidence that I am too difficult to partner. That I am too quirky or damaged or intense or odd.

Just when I am ready to embrace my giftedness, my worthiness, the hard-won wisdom that has come from full nights of wrestling with God’s goodness, I hear the voice of the last man who loved me as he choses, with great effort, to stop. As he tells me there isn’t enough time. There are no more second chances. I am not as special or worthy or deserving as he thought. This, I have begun to believe, is why I am alone.

And because I have associated these judgments with being single, it has become difficult for me to see singleness as good, to see the gift in my unclaimed time and attention, the privilege of having space to freely explore. I sometimes wonder how it is that others thrive under the banner of single, a banner that still brings me such heartache, reminding me that no matter how much I learn or grow or change, it may not be enough.

But there are other judgments to be made, truer truths to be spoken over and into my life, and they are not made by people (who are prone to err when it comes to such things), but by the being who made me in the first place, who knows my deepest depths better than I know them myself. Who does not choose to quit on me. Does not run out of time or patience. Does not believe that I am not worth the effort. His banner over me is Chosen. His banner over me is Worthy. His banner over me is Redemption. His banner over me is Love (Song of Songs 2:4).

For some the banner of single is a temporary fidelity, but for others it is not. God has not promised me that I will marry. I wish that He had. I wish I knew that in the end there would be a mate with whom I could share all of my everything, a partner with whom I could envision and build and act a life of restorative grace. But for many that is never the case. God has not promised that I will be married, but God has promised that I will never be alone. God has promised that I will never be abandoned. God has promised that I will never be unworthy. And right now those are the promises that must become the banners I claim. And in time they may even make me bold in living under the banner of single, knowing I am foremost under the banner of Love.

[You can follow more of Amanda’s writing on a variety of topics over at her blog by clicking here]

[For some other epic stories on Singleness, click here]

If you write it, they will come. Perhaps. Or not. They may not.

Being a bloggerist [as i like to call myself] can be a roller-coaster whirlwind of emotions, and often is.

 

The tension that exists between writing what you want to, what feels like it might be importantly significant, or giving in to the little red guy on your shoulder of page view stats where you slide into writing what the people want to hear.

Sometimes those things line up and it is easy. Any time i write about Relationships or what has become one of my favourite and the most popular of topics on my blog, that of Taboo Topics [You know, those rarely spoken about topics in church and even beyond, that many generous friends of mine have been bold enough to share their stories on], the people flock, like flocks of… um… flocking things.

But there are other times when i write about something meaningful and important and almost everyone stays away…

Two posts i wrote recently which i hoped people would read, but which i knew the titles alone were probably enough to scare most folks off, and at most it would be the choir once more – those who don’t really need to hear it because they are already doing it – who would stop by for a visit. Neither was particularly read at all – not read and disagreed with or read and ignored, but not even looked at:

When Violence Stares you in the Face and you Turn and Walk Away

Giving that Costs

These two posts on Christmas i thought would get a few more eyes on – maybe my reputation of being a Christmas grinch and the fact that i used a picture of the grinch to accompany the piece i wrote meant people stayed away cos who wants to feel bad about Christmas. But actually they are both really good pieces with a lot of positive in them. Especially Graham’s two pieces which i stumbled on online – was hoping if i made it obvious that someone else had written them, they would get some eyes:

Two True Meanings of Christmas – Guest Post by Graham Heslop

There is no U in Christmas

Then there was this post on Accountatextability which maybe turned people off by having no idea what i was talking about – this is an excellent way you can help out a friend who might be struggling with something [from porn addiction to temptation to cut to drinking] and i hope people will find it:

It’s as Easy as Accountatextability

You can try tricking people with a blog title that reads something like, ’10 Ways to the best Sex ever’ or ‘The baby that rode on a kitten’ [seriously i’m going to make that video one day and it will BREAK. THE. INTERNET] but is actually a post about how they should tip the guy who watches their car better, but you will likely lose them within a line or two. Not many people like to be tricked.

Or you can actually get some friends of yours to write about Sex Before Marriage or even Sex in Marriage and see if anyone bites, um, i mean reads the post.

Or else i guess you can just dial out of the stats pages and continue to write about and share space for others to write about the things that are meaningful and just simply hope that those who need to read it will pitch up. That as the choir continue to cheer you on and sing praises to your posts, that every now and then, hopefully when it matters, a non choir persona will stop by and be challenged, encouraged or transformed by the words you write.

At the end of the day, i guess all i can be is faithful, and trust that the right people will show up…

After all, you did. I thank you for your time.

Steps Towards Transformation: part Employment Equity: Sindile Vabaza

I think it is important that I give an examples of how ‘baseline’ thinking can help us navigate difficult waters.

1.) The issue of employment equity is a difficult one. My take on it is that from my experience both young white and black people fundamentally want to feel like they are being treated fairly and of course that is a most reasonable thing, but I do want to latch on to the idea of fairness.

If we are to truly work towards fairness we have to agree in principle on certain things.

We all have to agree in principle that it is not a desirable thing when talented young white people are snubbed for jobs in order to fill quotas.

However white people must also recognise and admit that when black people come into the workplace they are assumed INCOMPETENT until proven otherwise, while white people are assumed COMPETENT until proven otherwise. This sort of thing contributes to the larger feeling of racial inequality which pervades society.

In order to illustrate this I will use examples of people I know.

I have a white friend who was snubbed for a job because of AA. He is bright and applied his economics training while he was at varsity to helping solve problems in poor communities.

He was hurt that he was overlooked for a job.

I didn’t feel okay about this,

But also I remember going to an engineers braai at Wits with some friends and catching up and hearing stories of black graduates who talked of their difficulties in the workplace.

A lot of these guys and girls came from poor backgrounds(their schools were the kind you payed R100 a year to go to), who had faced obstacles many white people cannot even fathom and yet when they got to the workplace they found themselves faced with even more systematic challenges(something I think would make anyone bitter) and exclusion that FELT distinctly racial.

Now my point is this; There are grievances on both sides of this and a solution is not going to be easy or painless but if we are to move forward and move towards creating non-racial workspaces we must all admit that the workplace is engineered in the sense that white people have an easier path to success(because of the generational privileges accorded to them by Apartheid) and that some very undeserving black people have at times being given jobs(AA and BEE are attempts to disrupt the ‘white’ hegemony created in the workplace by Apartheid policies)….

It seems to me that a lot of young white and black people could unburden themselves if they was an agreement that what we ALL WANT are workspaces where the brightest and the most hardworking and those who network the best can get ahead(social and emotional intelligence).

I think it also needs to be said that a lot of white people are grossly entitled and this evidences by the fact that when they don’t get hired they immediatedly assume it’s because of AA or BEE. This is shockingly arrogant because it assumes that a person of colour can never be more suitable for a job than them. In fact I would go so far as to say that this is a racist assumption.

So, in short, I personally think that until white people become serious(as those who have an advantage in the workplace) and agree to the baseline requirements I mentioned, we will not move forward on this issue anytime soon.

We can only have a discussion point once all sides recognise that our system is fundamentally set up in a way that encourages dichotomy and antagonism and that we have to imagine a better way forward otherwise we find ourselves in a future of mutually assured misery

[For more thoughts on First Steps towards a New South Africa by Sindile, click here]

[For a whole host of other Race vibes, click here]

Taboo Topic: Living with Disability – meet Louise Bowley [Aspergers Syndrome]

My name is Louise and I have Asperger’s syndrome.

Not many people know what this is, especially those in the church. There are two polar opposite views that I have come across in the church when faced with any mental or psychological disorder. On the one extreme its total denial of the illness or disorder (something can’t be wrong with a Christian) and on another extreme its you have demons in you and we need to get them out. (demons meaning the illness). I have had varies forms of deliverance experiences and I know that demons exist but Aspergers is essentially a brain dysfunction.

There are too many impulses in the brain in one area which results in this dysfunction occurring. The results of this dysfunction means that in a person with Asperger”s syndrome there is heightened sensitivity for the senses. This could be sound, light, touch, taste and smell. This would manifest in the way that if there are too many loud noises the body gets physically exhausted and needs to recover. This is one of the minor impairments.

The other ones are that there is a major social impairment (this means that generally most social cues are missed and not stored in the brain) eye contact, body posture and facial expressions look forced. Another is that there is a lack of seeking enjoyment of things with other people and lack of the appropriate social reactions to those of other people.

The other set of symptoms are that Asperger’s people generally have obsessions with a few specific topics, inflexibility with rituals that have no purpose, repetitive body movements like hand or finger flapping and a preoccupation with parts of objects.

The reason that I am explaining this in so much detail is also in fact a part of been an “Aspie”. Been honest about things in a sometimes inappropriate manner is also one of those traits.

I needed to explain all of this first to put my story in context. Aspergers is an “invisible” disorder because you can only see when someone is socially inept when you start to talk to them and then you don’t really want to connect with them because they don’t reciprecate in the conversation as “normal” people would and they constantly go on about one subject.

I was only diagnosed with Aspergers about four years ago. When I was growing up in art class and at school all of these traits resulted in me not having many friends at school or even at church. I found it very hard to fit and I also felt very “subjectless” in normal small talk situations as that didn’t interest me much unless they were talking about something that I was interested in. This of course did not happen very often. Sometimes I would also just get angry at people and that of course is a sure fire way to push people away. As a result of this I had few real friends in school and was left out of sleepovers and all the normal stuff that kids do together when growing up.

Lack of social skills when the world is a social environment is a huge impairment. I was involved in a ministry a few years back and because I didn’t communicate the message that God gave to some people through me “in the right way” they asked me not to pray for people anymore as I was not socially appropriate. Eventually, I was asked to leave the ministry group because of the behaviour patterns that I had which were not clearly understood by the members of the group.

In my normal church environment where “small talk” is a very necessary skill (one which aspies are not that good at and don’t really want to be good at) this a real challenge. I have always found it hard to know what to talk about at church during coffee and to have short conversations that don’t really mean anything. This means that it has been especially hard to form meaningful friendships as they begin with the small talk conversations and very often I don’t really have anything to talk about either.

Think of Asperger’s as the person having not been sent the book on “social norms” and ways of doing relationships. Things like when to change the subject from an awkward one, to simple things like it’s time to leave someone’s house because everyone else has left.

It has been a struggle for me to make friends because of this impairment and I have to work twice as hard to be included in things because of this. Usually I am not included as my behaviour is classified as strange to the “neuro-typical” type people.

I have been bullied and teased and left out of general activities because of the social awkwardness and this has resulted in a very low self-esteem for me with regards to people and specifically to romantic relationships as well as I can’t tell and don’t know the social dance in that either.

I was often left out at school and even in my study years. Because of my lack of social understanding this meant that climbing any kind of work “relationship” ladder to get ahead was not possible. I worked in many different sections in many different jobs and usually because I was not good and am not good at expressing my feelings, I didn’t get further in those positions. Stress also affects me badly so that also contributed to things.

>In the church and work environment I have struggled to connect with people and sometimes I have nothing to say so that means that the relationship doesn’t go further because I am not even sure what I should be saying, small talk bores me and sometimes I can do it, but it’s hard to. I either talk about some contraversial topic that no-one wants to discuss or some random general knowledge on one of my many pet topics. This of course makes it hard to connect when everyone else is pretending and keeping to social norms in conversations! Suffice to say that makes things even more of a challenge.

What someone could do is take some time to get to know me for me. The friends that I do have do make an effort but church events that are wider are hard to manage sometimes for me.

Where others were always invited out socially, I generally was not (with the exception of my one friend in the church at one time who always made me feel welcome). Weekends away with intimate and close friends never happened because forming those type of relationships is very difficult for me as sometimes I would over share and scare people away and then not share at all. The skill that other people have of knowing the difference between the two, I just don’t have, hence general relationship skills are missing resulting in a lot of heart ache from being left out of events and other things because the relationship was not deep enough and I had no roadmap to know how to get it to that level.

One thing about Asperger’s people that is unsettling for the “non-Aspie” is that we tend to be honest about things that in the social norm most people do not appreciate or would not dare talk about. (Eg. salary)

Some ways that would help others to make the Asperger’s person feel more welcome (remembering that this is something you can’t really see in “normal”social interactions unless you look carefully or actually ask!) is get to know me for me. You could also find out about my special interests and talk about that and then guide me in the conversation to your special interests.

I am naive in some things but that doesn’t mean that I am a child. Patronizing me is not helpful. I do not read non-verbal cues very well and can’t always understand how you are feeling unless you tell me. My maturity can be masked until you get to know me.

When rules of engagement (as in social engagement) seem not be understood by us (or me) it would be very helpful for them to be made known very clearly and consistently. Many times I miss the rules of the game that everyone seems to know instinctively. An example would be when its time to leave. A random statement of “I have things to get done tomorrow.” is just that to me – a statement of fact and does not necessarily compute in my mind to “You need to leave now with the other people.”

Trust is also hard as I have been hurt many times by people in authority and people on the same level as me. Emotionally I feel things deeply. If you don’t pre-judge me and get to know me, it will be easier for me to believe that I can trust you. My motives are also not clear sometimes and this is where you can ask me and I will be honest with you. (Other NT people you might not ask that question to).

Generally speaking most Aspies are also honest about things (even our salaries) and will talk about some topics as a normal course of events (though the “rules” say you can’t) We can also be anxious and that stops us from making eye contact. Answering questions in a literal way is also one of the ways we communicate, so if you ask if someone looks strange and we think so – we will say, “Yes!”. We won’t know if we’ve hurt you so you need to tell us if this is the case.

Sometimes we also don’t know when we are invading your personal space, so again also tell us if this is the case (as we won’t have any idea unless you do!) If you just move away from us and we don’t why, it would be helpful to explain why. It’s also easier if you explain the detail first and then the big picture in a logical way, some abstract ideas are difficult to grasp some of the time.

>Please also don’t use social constructs in an explanation but rather define something in a logical and factual way. I also verify and clarify things often (it may seem redundant) but it helps me to understand and it helps the person I am speaking to understand as well. Interpreting someone’s intent is also very hard to do.

Understanding is also key as we are all different – so trying to understand where I’m coming from and me trying to understand you will also go a long way in bridging the gap.

Calling people by names like someone being “difficult” or “retarded” is not very helpful (no-one likes being labeled no matter who they are). This will cause anxiety and when we/ I get anxious this would make it more difficult to communicate.

Freedom for everyone to be themselves without judgement is a very important thing and I find that even people in the church are quick to judge and make an excuse to leave someone out of their special group. This needs to change as we are all a part of a family no matter what the people in the family look like. We are all different and just because someone’s behaviour is different does not mean they are less of God’s creation.

So I encourage you, if someone looks like they are struggling in a social situation and look alone, go up to them and start a conversation, you never know, your life could change!

[For other stories from inspirational people who happen to be living with disabilities or have special needs, click here]

Taboo Topic: Living with Disability – meet Steph Mclennan [Ataxia – Mild form of Cerebral Palsy]

“Why do you wear those things on your knees?” “Look at Steph, she is so slow. Ha ha!” “Why can’t she run and jump like a normal kid?” “Steph you’re a freak.”

These are the refrains that followed me around as a child born with the mildest possible strain of Ataxia, which is a form of Cerebral Palsy. As an adult, I am incredibly fortunate that I now live a “normal” life, have a “normal” appearance, and nobody could ever tell that I have CP. As a child, it was a very different matter.

My parents realised there was something wrong with me when I failed to meet any of the physical development milestones as a baby and toddler. I was taken to a specialist, who diagnosed Ataxia. “She may walk one day,” the good doctor told my parents. “She will never run or lead a normal life.” I have often thought about taking a jog past that doctor’s home. That is my first message: While doctors are obliged to be pessimistic, they are not always to be believed.

I started pre-primary school at Browns School for disabled children. Six months before I was due to start grade one, I was moved to a mainstream school, and it was here that my personal hell began, and it continued unabated until I started high school.

As a five-year-old, I can remember being held up against a wooden locker with a girl’s hands on my shoulders and having her shake my whole body body to make her point, because she could, and because I was physically unable to defend myself while she displayed her “power”. My mother tells me that she had to keep me at home for a day so that the teacher could try to explain to my classmates that I was, in fact, a human being with feelings.

The cycle continued through primary school, worsening in Grade 5 when, due to repeated episodes of my knees dislocating due to the lack of muscle tone, I had to start wearing knee braces. Not the fashion accessory a ten year old girl who already had coke-bottle glasses wants to be sporting. Here is another thing parents of disabled children need to know: the cruelty of children knows no bounds, and teachers often do not see it, or choose to ignore it. Your child, if he or she is anything like me, will not tell you the severity of the hell that they endure. Firstly this would mean reliving their ordeals in the safety of their home, and secondly they know the only solution is to not go to school, which no parent would ever allow.

From Grade 8 onwards, kids tended to leave me alone rather than pick on me, and life started to slowly improve. I breathed a massive sigh of relief in Grade 9, when my knees were declared strong enough that I no longer needed to wear the knee braces. However, I was still known as the kid who had been disabled, and it was only when I started university that I was truly able to start a “normal” life, and be seen as just the same as everybody else.

Another thing that parents MUST do is ensure that their child fully understands what is wrong with them, what their limitations are and how any treatment is helping them. I never fully understood the logic behind needing to wear knee braces and do vast amounts of tortuous exercises every day. If I had, I believe I could have made this time in my life a shorter one.

I have often wondered whether it would have been better for my parents to leave me in schools for disabled kids right to matric. If you are the parent of a disabled child, I urge you to think twice before putting him or her into a mainstream school. As I said, “normal” children will squash the joy out of every one of your child’s days, and while they may physically be up to the challenge of mainstream school, the emotional ramifications will be huge. Those scars are the only real remnant of Ataxia that I will carry with me all my life.

[To read more stories from People Living with a variety of Disabilities or Special Needs, click here]