Empathy and Autism

   I was going to write a scathing blog post about how slightly disappointed I was with the last three seasons of 'Awkward.' now that I've finally watched them, and yes, you read that right... I did use the word "scathing" to describe how I was planning to write about something only slightly disappointing to me.
  But there's a matter far more pressing I think I should write about first, and the reason I let you, the reader, know about what I would have written had nothing pressed at me harder, is because telling you how I would write a review shredding something that brought me pleasure, many laughs and a great escape, perfectly encapsulates my personality and my aspie brain.
  Of course... I'm still going to write that scathing review. No matter how much sentimental residue clings to me once I'm finished with this one. I still have to be me.

  For a short while now, I have been working a job that has nothing to do with hair. Kind of a summer thing. Kind of a desperation thing. It was supposed to be a few days a week, and at first seemed like it was going to be fun and easy! LOL I KNOW! Who was I kidding, right? How do I keep tricking myself into this foolishness? Nothing I've ever done that involves work and talking to people, has ever ended up being easy or fun.

  OK, that's a little harsh--- sometimes I have fun, but it's never easy. I have to compartmentalize so much of myself to get through the day in an NT world of professionalism. I have to imitate those behaviors I've fixed to memory, of people who don't have to work so hard to process all the information coming at them from all angles, and still remain calm. But the only thing that truly got me through this particular job if I'm honest, is the food. I mean, I didn't always get food--- one time it was tampons. But they were 100% organic cotton and synthetic free, so it made me feel like I was involved in an important movement, or something. 😀
  What I'm talking about is this: I was an Event Specialist who had to work inside Walmart. I was one of those people who stands behind a little cart and offer samples of mostly bad-for-you-food to all the addicts passing by. Like a crack dealer in disguise!

  From day one this job proved to be a bit of an outcast's fallback job. And I'm not talking about my kind of outcast either. I'm talking about the island of misfit geriatric toys. Every associate I met was over sixty-five and falling apart at the seams. Some of them might be literally held together by actual seams.
  We're talking thin, stringy hair; all of them. Some, missing all of their teeth and no dentures hiding the fact. A couple of them need canes to walk. And in particular, the woman I most had to work with at my so-called "Home Store", had a colostomy bag and is basically the epitome of the cliche southern hillbilly.

  The company obviously has very loose standards when it comes to who they're willing to hire. Either that, or this territory has the slimmest pickings imaginable! I was horrified. And after a week of working for them, I'd already made my mind up that this would only be a summer job for me. Especially since the "part time" part of my bargain quickly turned into an all the time kind of thing. They were so short staffed that I was at one time, scheduled to work almost 3 weeks straight with no day off. The financial compensation in no way made up for this, and I still can't believe they're getting away with it!

  Now then... after reading the first portion of this blog, how likely are you to say that I have any kind of respect for these people? And how deficient in empathy would you say I am after reading how I described my fellow co-workers? If you said I have none, you would be wrong.
  These people I just described for you are living in despair. At an age when they should be retired and able to live out their days leisurely, they are working five or more days a week at a meager $10.70 per hour, because they can't afford not to, and who else will hire these sad misfits?
  It infuriates me. It terrifies me. And to defend myself from their suffering, I must put up a shield and distance myself from them. My first line of defense always ends up being The Critic. My wall is a wall of disgust and intolerance.
  I climb to the highest point of this wall so I can peer down, in all my superiority,  at the vagrants and unintelligent lifeforms beneath me. The problem with that is it's becoming harder for me to use this line of defense the more I heal the wounds of my youth.

  I may feel very little guilt or shame while I write this to you, but when I walk away and give myself time to process it, the sadness will creep in and I'll feel as though I shouldn't have talked about my co-workers the way I did. Not five years ago, I would have felt nothing after speaking so negatively about them. I may have even felt complete satisfaction from doing so. And if I had done so in person, to their faces, I would have experienced elation; a sadist's delight.
  That's how far I would have to take it to close off my empathy. I didn't know that that's what I was doing back then, but it is. Now that I know how my mind works and why, I can't un-know it. I have to face the facts, and also understand the detrimental effect to my humanity closing off my empathy has. Not just to my ability to connect with my fellow man, but also in my ability to reach out to them, and help them in some way.

  Autistic people are not lacking empathy. They are not unfeeling people. In fact, oftentimes, the opposite is true. I remember how excruciating my world was for me when I was a child. Even if I had not been subjected to a life of constant abuse, scrutiny, and neglect--- it would have been so.
  My empathy was so strong that it was like an exposed nerve. I even felt empathy for inanimate objects--- such as dishes, furniture, and food. Though arguably, food is alive until cooked.
Having empathy on that level is liken to those psychics who can feel supernatural entities go right through their bodies. It's like telepathy without the words.
  It's overwhelming to be able to tap into someone else's raw emotions so deeply as to feel it in your own bones. To ache all over because of someone else's grief. I suffered intense migraines sometimes when I didn't have my walls up to protect me. But now I'm tearing these walls down.

  Well... maybe chipping away at, is a better way to put it.

  On the last week of June, I went to Texas to a family reunion. Many tears were shed but there was laughter too. Something happened there that was kind of magical. I did a lot of forgiving. I closed up a few more wounds. And I came back feeling loved. Like, really feeing loved. Not some superficial emoticon kind of "loved". Not some status update kind of "blessed". I felt genuinely happy to come from the family I do.
  I then went straight back to work the afternoon after my return, but not to my home store. I wouldn't be working with my home-store-homegirl until a week later, and not until my final two days of work.
Now, you need to know that when I first started working with her, she didn't want me there. It made her paranoid. She thought they were hiring me to get rid of her.
  So she complained behind my back about it. And all she ever did when we worked together was complain about this company, leave her station constantly, and break many rules on the daily because she just didn't want to work. But I treated her with kindness anyway. Even though on the inside The Critic was tearing her to shreds so I didn't have to feel her pain.

  On the second to the last day, which was the first time I'd seen her in nearly two weeks... she threw her arm open to me, wanting a hug. It caught me off guard. Not because I hadn't known her long enough to be comfortable with a hug yet, but because I knew in that moment she'd grown to love me.
  I let her hug me and kept my defenses down. But I didn't feel her sadness then. I could only feel her light. That little burning ember that she had to build a wall of protection around; same as me. And in those few precious second, I wanted to cry.

  Empathy is like the hands of the soul. We have the ability to reach inside someone else's body and touch the supernatural being that it cages with our own. Why would I want to cut these limbs completely off?

  When I was about twenty-three, not long after I became a hairstylist, my foster mother said to me: You need to learn to build a glass wall. So that the suffering of others can't get to you, but the light can still get in.
 I think I understand how to do that now.

  On my last day of work, I made it a point to take lunch with my home-store-homegirl. She hugged me three times that day and every time was warm and filled with love. I'm glad I was open enough to receive that.
  In my lifetime I've passed through many people's lives on my way to some place else. Always so temporary are my resting grounds. The constant wanderer in search of her tribe.
I've forgotten many names and addresses. I even forgot the last name of a guy I'd dated for a year back in '08/'09--- as if I'd never asked him what it was in the first place.
  Time evaporates those things that were never solidified by the bonds of real love. But I hope in ten more years I won't be writing a blog about how I still have my walls up to protect me from the people in my life right now.
I know in my heart that I won't.