Catching a Ball in 2004
It was 1969 I was bat boy for the little league team and a good family friend was the coach. I wasn't even a good bat boy. I was always being yelled at to get out of the way. Autistically I was in the worst possible environment all of the those screaming kids doing "the chants" and in general the fast pace of a ball game were all too much for an Aspie. Of Course, Aspie and autism were unknown in my rural school in 1969 or I'd been diagnosed then. ( I'm glad to have missed that label.)
I'm sure dad was disappointed that I could never catch a ball or really use that Red Johny Bench base ball glove I still cherish to this day. I was even worse off swinging a bat. By this time it was discovered I could not run and skip without looking like a fool so perhaps it was just as well I was bat boy. Ironically I had the same types of trouble years later when I became an auto mechanic. I was always being pulled from danger and yelled at in that shop. I'm glad I was identified as gay as at least gay was something understood, even if autism was understood the stigma of it is worse than Autism. With both the ball games and the mechanics and even in gym class I was unknowingly having autism overload and thus things were not working completely, My hearing and my vision and my developing picture thoughts were all making 'normal' things impossible.
2004, Just last year I now live in a loud city the freeways the Beeps of the "Out of time car wash timers" over mile away the boom boxes and the blowers/mowers drive me crazy but yet I discovered I'm a great ball player. If only my dad could have seen me! Neighborhood kids were pitching a baseball among 4 people and I happened to outside and ignorantly, I thought joined in. Now 2004 the Picture thoughts are figured out and I simply turn them off and played ball. When the autism is controlled and in this case turned off the normal thought works well I shockingly discovered I could keep my eye on the ball and not loose it in overload as I had done in grade school. I don't know if was easy as it was for others in grade school but it nice to achieve even if was 40 years too late.
It seems everytime I has a clumsy attack or a special moment It was autism's slow unexplained thought process screwing up the works. It seems we can only do one thing at a time. I can hear well, I can see well, I can think OK but doing all of that stuff together is impossible. It seems the Autism inputs get mixed up and nothing works. Our hearing and our Vision are much more precise than a traditional person's. I can for example hear perfectly If I put a pillow over my face and block out all visual inputs,,,,,, Open my eyes and remove the pillow and the visual inputs actually effect my hearing it slows down its processing. Add in a picture thought that cancels out Optic vision and it is a wonder we can even walk let alone catch a ball.
The Autism thought process we ignorantly were learning was not yet advanced enough to operate with such things as picture in picture thoughts or projection thoughts. Those thoughts allow us to keep track of the real world and still think as were programmed. Early Grade school thoughts are complete optic canceling events that we absently try to ignore and If we do have picture thoughts they indeed interfere with our normal persona. I spent most of my first through 8th grade years in overload. Finally in 8th grade I realized those picture thoughts I was trying so hard to ignore were indeed connected to my thoughts and learned to use them.
The Autism Thought process has never been in Print before but it is wild and wonderful precise and useful in daily life. It is really good at deep complicated things and if we learn to water it down and think with it, Autism and real life are doable. We are doing two things at once in Autism we are thinking in Pictures (or trying to) that takes up lots of brain power and we need to translate those thoughts to speech. If an Aspie were presented with a "numberline" of Autistic thought development I bet our kids could learn to control their thougthts,use their thoughts and even get along in the real world by 6 grade. Our Anthropology had done the long version of this experiment many times just condense our experience and do it again by setting up a true autism school. Autisitcally we seem naturally programmed to think in pictures that is our defult process and we really have to struggle to learn traditional thoughts that we are being ignorantly force fed. (humor) Even ABA doesn't kill the picture thoughts some in our Anthropology have been through ABA and learn to picture think after meeting us.
I'm sure dad was disappointed that I could never catch a ball or really use that Red Johny Bench base ball glove I still cherish to this day. I was even worse off swinging a bat. By this time it was discovered I could not run and skip without looking like a fool so perhaps it was just as well I was bat boy. Ironically I had the same types of trouble years later when I became an auto mechanic. I was always being pulled from danger and yelled at in that shop. I'm glad I was identified as gay as at least gay was something understood, even if autism was understood the stigma of it is worse than Autism. With both the ball games and the mechanics and even in gym class I was unknowingly having autism overload and thus things were not working completely, My hearing and my vision and my developing picture thoughts were all making 'normal' things impossible.
2004, Just last year I now live in a loud city the freeways the Beeps of the "Out of time car wash timers" over mile away the boom boxes and the blowers/mowers drive me crazy but yet I discovered I'm a great ball player. If only my dad could have seen me! Neighborhood kids were pitching a baseball among 4 people and I happened to outside and ignorantly, I thought joined in. Now 2004 the Picture thoughts are figured out and I simply turn them off and played ball. When the autism is controlled and in this case turned off the normal thought works well I shockingly discovered I could keep my eye on the ball and not loose it in overload as I had done in grade school. I don't know if was easy as it was for others in grade school but it nice to achieve even if was 40 years too late.
It seems everytime I has a clumsy attack or a special moment It was autism's slow unexplained thought process screwing up the works. It seems we can only do one thing at a time. I can hear well, I can see well, I can think OK but doing all of that stuff together is impossible. It seems the Autism inputs get mixed up and nothing works. Our hearing and our Vision are much more precise than a traditional person's. I can for example hear perfectly If I put a pillow over my face and block out all visual inputs,,,,,, Open my eyes and remove the pillow and the visual inputs actually effect my hearing it slows down its processing. Add in a picture thought that cancels out Optic vision and it is a wonder we can even walk let alone catch a ball.
The Autism thought process we ignorantly were learning was not yet advanced enough to operate with such things as picture in picture thoughts or projection thoughts. Those thoughts allow us to keep track of the real world and still think as were programmed. Early Grade school thoughts are complete optic canceling events that we absently try to ignore and If we do have picture thoughts they indeed interfere with our normal persona. I spent most of my first through 8th grade years in overload. Finally in 8th grade I realized those picture thoughts I was trying so hard to ignore were indeed connected to my thoughts and learned to use them.
The Autism Thought process has never been in Print before but it is wild and wonderful precise and useful in daily life. It is really good at deep complicated things and if we learn to water it down and think with it, Autism and real life are doable. We are doing two things at once in Autism we are thinking in Pictures (or trying to) that takes up lots of brain power and we need to translate those thoughts to speech. If an Aspie were presented with a "numberline" of Autistic thought development I bet our kids could learn to control their thougthts,use their thoughts and even get along in the real world by 6 grade. Our Anthropology had done the long version of this experiment many times just condense our experience and do it again by setting up a true autism school. Autisitcally we seem naturally programmed to think in pictures that is our defult process and we really have to struggle to learn traditional thoughts that we are being ignorantly force fed. (humor) Even ABA doesn't kill the picture thoughts some in our Anthropology have been through ABA and learn to picture think after meeting us.
posted by Pre Rain Man Autism | 7:59 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home