the dysfunctional friend

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In my introduce yourself post, I said that I would eventually get around to letting people see little bits of me, like a glimpse thru a mirror. That mirror bit is from Clay, who says that if we are upset about something, its a reflection of how we treat others. Or in analytical terms, "traits we tend to dislike in others are usually the traits we do not like about ourselves..". But it's a good analogy, the reflection of self.

This is what I want to get to today. The 'me I don't want to show people'. The me that judges people when I hate being judged, especially when I feel they don't know or understand me. Sometimes I hurt so close to the surface of existing that simple things that other people brush off have me in tears for a day. I see the world differently than most people. I feel like some days, no matter what I do, it's just not good enough. It's pervasive.

I read a few things about Dunbar theory that my friend Sage pointed out to me. Basically Dunbar speculated that we can only maintain about 150 connections without them losing meaning. It got me thinking about childhood, inappropriate behavior, friendship and why people make the choices they do - or do they?

Do people choose to make friends, is it learned, or is it a natural instinct, like a throwback to hunter-gatherer days? Do we learn it from our mothers, is it a skill handed out by the gods, is it passed down in your genes? And how do I get it?

I say that because I have never had the easy ability to meet and make friends, not like some people do. To me collecting friends is more of an extrovert activity that other people take for granted.

My sister shared with me a few years back that autism spectrum and sensory perception syndrome runs in our family. I knew this, but it took for her to say it for it to really sink in. I think about it several times a week, whenever I talk to my family.

A person with sensory dysfunction processes things abnormally. Senses are magnified or distorted, and what seems normal for one child is torture to another - tight clothing, sunlight, touch, proximity, loud noises, crowds. The response or reaction of a child to particular stimuli is seen as inappropriate by others. Fear, anger, hostility, avoidance, public melt downs. They have problems processing emotion, and making friends.

Social cues which most people understand become confused, until in time the individual is unable to process social stimuli and interact in what society deems as an appropriate manner, and the person is labelled as a "social reject". Once the tag goes on, it's a bitch to peel it off.

All four of my sisters kids have some form of autism spectrum or emotional behavioral disorder than they take medication for. When I was a kid it went largely unrecognized and untreated, especially in girls. My sister and I spent a long time discussing problems and patterns that occurred in our childhood, and realized how they were passed down by our parents, and their parents in turn.

The issues that I had growing up are similar to what she sees in her children. I know from experience that these social handicaps will have repercussions in how they cope with the world in the future; that will carry to adulthood, if they are not addressed.

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The patterns that I still carry are echoed in my everyday perceptions of social interactions as an adult; patterns that hold me back from loving and feeling loved. I also realize that many people don't understand. They see my behavior as something that I should be able to control. I have lost friends, jobs, ambitions and respect because of my inability to exhibit simple extrovert traits such as making friends, hugging, saying hello first thing in the morning, and making small talk. The advent of computers and the internet is a gift. I can talk to people without having to think about all the other ways I can fuck up.

The more I reflect on the connection between sensory perception and the ability to socialize, the more questions I have about how it might be manipulated. I wonder about sound, vision, language and patterns that repeat - can a certain social cue that means hello to one person can mean "defend yourself" to another, and if so, how can the behavior be reversed?

I wonder if certain people are irreparably synced to a sound for sorrow, if tensions can be injected into a bone or a ligament, if vision can be altered by sensory overload, if paranoia has to do with a malfunctioning nose, and if pleasure can be enhanced by a taste.

Can we become addicted to negative or positive sensory input, to the idea of being in love or in pain, without ever actually feeling the emotion? Does love require two lanes and a car crash, or can we invent it out of sound? Can I listen to a chord in C minor and become blissfully happy?

How much can we affect the outcome of a child's future? Should we try to "fix" adults whose perceptions were distorted as children, if they didn't get whatever it is that we think they were supposed to get as a child - or do we love them for who they are?

When people tell me that who we know in life is one of the most important aspects there is out there, that social networking is the key to success, I want to laugh and tear their face off, because that is something that haunts me and shames me. I feel broken when other people take it for granted.

Making friends has always been something I struggle with, just maintaining a few close friends. I look at all the people on Facebook that I know, that collect hundreds of friends - networking they call it - and wonder if making friends will fix me, if it's some skill I can eventually learn and become more adept at. Will I be happier if I can add that Dunbar number friend to my list?

Perhaps one day I'll find out. Until then, perhaps the world will come to understand people like me a little better and hopefully stop trying to tell us how things work in this world. That we should just accept "that's just the way it is." I believe that there is a better way to live; a world where people help one another, treat each other kindly, where who you know and what you possess aren't the deciders of power, where politics, banks and big business don't dictate the terms of our existence.

My dysfunction has created me, my perceptions, my sensitivity, my interests. Without it, I would not be me, complete with inner demon and occasional angel. Love me, hate me, but perhaps this "sickness" has made me more "me" - a unique individual that will never be replicated.

Just something to think about.

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^{all photos are my own}