Healing Together, Walking Together

[Ed. note: After I wrote the essay Falling Down, I authored the update below. Please read Falling Down first, if you have time. Thanks!:]

While my wound is healing, it still hurts when I walk or put pressure on my left leg. I did see a doctor, even though it cost me a $25 copay, and I had to pay $15 for the supplies to treat my wounds. That's okay - I know that I have to stay in good health, and can't get an infection.

Speaking of old wounds, I have been feeling some anxiety about my social situation lately, although I suspect my fears are overblown. It's just difficult for me to avoid my apprehensions even when I have good reasons to suspect they're ill-advised.

I can recognize that many of my friends and the groups where I associate are trending in different directions than I am. Once again, tonight I am going on a date instead of spending time at an outing with some of my closest friends. Almost every time, I feel stupid afterward for missing good times with my friends in exchange for an at-best-mediocre date.

So why do I keep making this trade? There are a few reasons: I do feel lonely sometimes, and I very much want a relationship. Also, while I know my friends are close to me now and I cherish them, I feel vulnerable relying so much on the same people for so long. I want to expand the circle of people I know, especially people that I can keep close to me.

Sometimes I worry that my interactions with my friends and people I meet are two one-sided, too focused on myself and my needs. I want to be a better listener, a more generous and more supportive person. I feel inadequate in that effort in part because I realize that I'm not inclined to take initiative. I'm not always a demonstrative person, and I don't tend to go out of my way to connect with people. I have an inkling that I may want to change this feature, but I'm not sold yet, let alone wise enough to decide how to change.

I just feel like I don't know enough about myself, or about other people yet. This sense of ignorance feeds my insecurities, too...and already, we've returned to a focus on *my* issues - when I'm trying to think about others.

Cutting myself some slack, though, part of the reason I have focused more on my own reactions than those of other people, lies in good intentions. There have been times in the past when I've tried to connect with people in counter-productive ways and seen my outreach backfire badly. That is a major influence on my current instincts of deferring to other people or focusing primarily on my own perspective.

Focusing on myself has long felt like the safer and more courteous option. I am tortured by worst-case scenarios; I can't escape the fears I have of repeating the debilitating mistakes I have made in the past.

As Neil DeGrasse Tyson says, every day you can ask yourself two things to become a better person: 1) what have I learned today? 2) what have I done to help other people? Considered through this prism, I feel positively overall about the strides I have made to be a better person towards my fellow human beings.

I want to focus on the positive lessons I have learned, not on the dread or shame of past mistakes. I want to have the comfort level to take risks, and the discretion to take smart risks. That goes back to why I am going on a date tonight instead of spending all my time with the friends I already have: I know I could take the safer option, but how is my life going to improve if I always fall back on what feels safe?

Sometimes, I fall. Sometimes, I fall because I've done something rather stupid. I have wounds that have healed, and wounds that are still mending. Sometimes, old pains flare again, and it takes all my strength just to walk on my own. Yet - sometimes - putting one foot in front of the other makes me feel more powerful, wiser, and bolder with each towering step.

Watching those who are attempting the same journey, I wonder how I can do my best to help others. What does that promise mean? How do I fulfill this commitment? I have no idea. But first I'm going to get up, and I won't be going alone.

Life Precedes Words

[Ed. note: I actually composed the following essay before I wrote Better Living Through References, even though I published the latter essay first on this blog. I intended the essay below to serve as my reintroduction to this blog, this time:]

I have allowed some time to elapse since the last time I updated this blog. That is true for a variety of reasons. In the past few months, I have started a paid internship which has become a temporary job. I am cautiously optimistic.

I am hoping to secure something more permanent while I continue my current work. I am heartened to have something steady while I keep searching, but anxious for the low margin of error I still have. I have faith in the skills that have gotten me to this more positive place, but still feel trepidation for the uncertainty ahead, just as I often have in the last few years.

I've also spent some much needed time relaxing with my friends. In between worrying about my work, whether I can pay my bills, or how I'm going to coordinate my living situation, staying in touch with my closest friends has been more invaluable than ever.

While I have wanted to expand my social circle, by and large, I'm spending time with the same people that I knew when I left college. Another side project, my writing, has been largely hit-or-miss. I've faced prolonged dry spells and feelings of inadequacy, laced with some intriguing experiments and inspirations. I do feel that I have progressed as a person, especially as a young adult seeking to be more independent and responsible. That quest continues to be my main objective.

I have been discussing my interest in the disability community with people from several organizations. My work in health and aging advocacy provides a natural segue to the disability world. I devoured the book "No Pity" by Joseph Shapiro, which chronicles the development of the disability rights movement and describes the challenges that people with disabilities face and overcome.

In parallel to this exploration, I have spent more time reflecting upon my identity as a person with a disability. I have not reached the end of my deliberation, nor do I expect to reach an end - everything I consider is a reaction to the evolving situations in my life, and I relish the opportunity to grow as a person and immerse myself in new experiences (and as clichéd and stilted as that sounds, I believe that attitude and embrace it fully).

So, I am trying to manage all of these different ambitions and necessities before I feel composed enough to express myself coherently on other topics - before I have time, or before I have inclination. I realize this is all elaborate excuse-making, but I also have a cynical faith that the best inventions of human reason tend to be rationalizations. In a last-ditch effort to be somewhat genuine, I am sharing my rationalizations here.

I hope to write more often in the near future. I hope to update this space with something to pique interest. Whether that hope materializes, I cannot predict. I have often hoped on one hand, and schemed to act differently on the other hand. If I have any shot at delivering on these promises, I must scheme to reverse myself again, and return to my original intentions - which change too rapidly to measure.

Yes, those who know me and follow my vain attempts at writing have learned that uncertainty is my crucible and my companion...the catalyst that overwhelms my reluctance, feeds my devotion, and yet, undermines my ability to articulate anything close to the thrill and fervent terror my mind evokes.

My entire life is a somersault: when I dare to reach new heights, spinning in the air to keep my balance, I am stretched so far that I am unable to bring my thoughts to the surface. It is in that brief moment afterwards, when I am standing on solid ground but still remember the sensations of leaping, that I can properly share a true vision of movement.

Okay, that's the round-up of what I haven't been doing, and what I don't know. Eventually, I'll return to tell you about another time when I haven't done something else...

Better Living Through References

A close friend of mine once told me that her brother with Asperger's has only communicated with her through shared references. Her brother has never had any other type of interaction with her - his efforts to reach out never migrate from direct experiences to reflection - never include what most people consider "real" conversation.

Many people tell me that it's hard to know that I have Asperger's. My close friend has reported that she sees vast differences between her brother and myself, yet sometimes, I feel that all of my "sophisticated, thoughtful" ideas are still loosely based on references and nothing else.

I have a phenomenal working memory for topics that interest me, and I store as much useful (or useless, depending on how you value the data) information as I can. This allows me to cheat, to make me seem like a person with "normal" reactions to life.

I feel like a human version of the "Turing test": every day, I wonder if people can distinguish what I say and how I act from the people around me. Will I pass? How long will people know me before they suspect me?

Once upon a time, Windows operating software like Windows 95 functioned on top of a pre-existing program called DOS. Windows 95 gave users the illusion of direct control, but Windows was still dependent on DOS architecture for daily operations. I like using this analogy to describe what it's like to be a person with Asperger's who has made some adjustments to cope with a neurotypical world.

While I strive to act compatibly with the majority of the people around me, I am in fact deeply dependent on a very different set of hardwiring. As much as I try to act in a synchronized way with what other people seem to expect from me, there are invariably times when I become frustrated by my limitations and the strenuous difficulty of staying on constant alert.

There are many things I do and ways I think about the world which are considered unusual. For example, I have a profoundly different sense of humor than most people I have met. A lot of things amuse me which are similar to neurotypical humor, but they tend to have their own subtle but pleasing spin for me.

Lots of people appreciate slapstick humor and the idea of the pratfall. Countless comedians - from Charlie Chaplin in the silent film era, to Chevy Chase's bumbling impression of Gerald Ford on Saturday Night Live, to Ben Stiller antagonizing Robert DeNiro in the Meet the Parents movies - have made their reputations and millions of dollars from this brand of comedy.

For me, though, the concept of the pratfall extends from the physical to the emotional and societal. When people are hypocritical, inconsistent, passive-aggressive, dishonest, euphemistic, or otherwise find their feelings and actions at cross-purposes, I feel a great surge of schadenfreude. Those who have, as I have, spent their entire lives struggling to relate to people or to decipher the murky impressions people agonizingly leave in their wake, find it especially hysterical when neurotypical people struggle with some of the same problems.

On a related note, one of my favorite things is when neurotypical people adopt behaviors that autistic people have used to cope with a society that is inherently difficult for them. Every year, more people adopt smartphones, tablets, and other kinds of technology that occupy a person's every waking moment - insulating individuals from the burden of small talk and other social relationships. People are so cocooned in their own worlds - due to technology - that they miss out on the subtle, intimate details of daily life that people like me have struggled in vain to notice.

It amuses me to no end that so many neurotypical people are voluntarily abandoning a portal to the world that has been troublesome for me to access. When I am surrounded by a group of my friends who are all consumed in their smartphones, and I am the one person most intent on making conversation and observing the world around me...I cannot help but guffaw.

In an era of wildly proliferating Internet memes and the burgeoning celebration of pop culture references as a touchstone of daily life, I am beginning to wonder whether I am the person who truly has a problem with relying too much on abstract references and ideas.

The consumer-focused, hyper-individualized culture of America has blurred the lines (yes, that was intentional) between my struggle to anticipate how other people expect me to behave, and my longing to capture as much of the human experience as I possibly can.

I now face a society that discourages authenticity and the hard work required to immerse one's self in a diverse array of experiences. I face a society seemingly satisfied with low-hanging fruit and lowest-common-denominators. If I used to worry that I would not live up to the expectations of society, perhaps it is society that needs to worry about whether it's going to live up to my expectations.

Laughter As A Way Of Life

I used to be afraid. I felt rage and indignation, mixed with regret and despair.  I felt so out of touch, and I was worried that I would never feel at ease.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. I feel so much useless energy coursing through me. I feel anxious, and feel so many thoughts rushing through my mind simultaneously that I hardly know which way is which.

I am constantly reminded of my insecurities. Usually, I suppress these feelings, for lack of a better way to cope. I felt like I had to choose between suppression - ignoring the feelings entirely, or depression - blaming myself, or anger - venting at situations over which I had no control.

I didn't know that there was another option.

I'm trying. Sometimes I still feel like I'm in denial. My laughter is not a way to separate myself from my feelings - it is a knowing acknowledgement of the absurdity of my life - but is not a hollow, hopeless, or self-defeating absurdity. This is an affirmation.

I have tried, hard, to find another place - a better place - to go, mentally. I end up so often in my thoughts, that I need some kind of refuge. I have tried to appreciate things in my life for the way they are.

So I laugh. And why do I laugh, and what do I find funny?

I giggle about what I don't know - what I once didn't know but have now learned - what other people deeply feel to be true but don't actually know - about patterns others miss that I understand - when I finally learn something that it seems like other people understand easily.

One of my closest friends recently told me that I am one of the most optimistic people she knows. This shocked me. I have never thought of myself as an optimistic person. Now, I am trying to be more like the version of myself that she has apparently seen.

I'm not saying that I am changing to satisfy other people. I'm doing as much as I can to be true to myself, it's just that there are things about myself that I don't like. Besides, the idea of being "true to myself" has always seemed somewhat contradictory and problematic for me, both in theory and practice.

Theoretically, how can I be true to myself when I barely know what I want? Aren't I just privileging the things I already know? What's the fun in that? I want to keep expanding my horizons - I don't know where I will be in the future, and how I can be true to what I do not yet know?

Practically, I've always felt insecure about some of the ways I act. I feel very uncomfortable in many different situations, and yet I can be extremely engaging and gregarious with very close friends and when I'm talking about my passions. Still, I'm clumsy about how I express myself - I interrupt other people too much, and too often find myself waiting to speak again instead of listening to what people are saying. I'm genuinely trying not to be inconsiderate - I really am - I just find it so difficult to relate to people sometimes, that when I feel like I have something valuable to contribute, it's hard for me to hold back...so this is a way that insecurity feeds upon itself.

I'm constantly struggling to live up to my own expectations of who I can be, of what I can do, and what I can accomplish. I put a lot of pressure on myself. All this laughter is a way for me to deflate the tension.

Sometimes, I just look in the mirror, and I start laughing. Then, like the world's unsexiest vampire, I disappear for a little while.

Autism Awareness Day

Earlier, I read on Facebook that today - April 2nd - was Autism Awareness Day, which I had completely forgotten. I was excited to hear, though, that people are wearing the color blue to raise awareness since I was already wearing a blue dress shirt.

It can still be difficult for me to tell other people that I am on the autism spectrum, although I have been more open about my condition...condition? Is that the word I want to use?

While living as a person on the autism spectrum definitely isn't a "lifestyle choice" (relax, this is a joke)*, it does seem quite absurd for me to use such impersonal, almost dehumanizing language like "condition" to describe something that has had such an impact on my life so far.

*Would I have to say that so explicitly if I were someone else? (I don't even say "normal", because no one really is "normal", but everyone has problems and quirks that change who they are.)

On that note, I choose to describe myself as a "professional human being". I've spent an often disconcerting amount of time parsing the nuances of the behavior of other people, not to mention my own actions.

When I was younger, I knew less about the world and felt far more sensitive to my own shortcomings. When I had difficult interactions with others, I always assumed that it was my fault, because I was the one who stuck out from the crowd.

Yes, I do make my fair share of mistakes -- but so does everyone else. No one has a monopoly on making or not making a social faux pas.

In some ways, having so much trouble with understanding certain things about the world for so long has helped me. I have more patience for uncertainty, more tolerance of ambiguity, and a greater willingness to see things from the perspectives of other people.

From ignorance, wisdom. And the last shall be among the first.

So that's something. Everywhere I go, people still insistently ask me "where I'm from" because "I have an accent". I usually don't tell them that I probably sound unusual to them because I have Asperger's Syndrome. I want people to believe that I'm really a male counterpart to Anna Chapman, sent as a representative of a foreign country to live undercover in the United States of America, and that my apparent accent and pedestrian background betray my ulterior motives. At least, I hope that's what people think, because that's cool as hell.

Now I just need to practice a Russian accent:

"My name is Teleprompter. I am a professional human being. I am from suburbia, USA, from somewhere you've never heard of, like a good American..."

Improv and Sex: Best Thing Ever

I've always suspected that people who have the skills to be very good at improv also share the skills required to be very good at sex.

First, what is improv, and how will developing improv skills improve your sex life?

Improv is the creation of organic scenes between different actors who have no previous ideas about where their interactions will take them.

While creating improv, it's foolhardy to think of a singular idea for a scene and then rule out any other ideas before you begin, because your relationship with the other character(s) will always determine the scene for you. Sticking to a preconceived plan in improv is almost always a bad idea.

In improv, listening to the other people in your scene and leaving yourself ready for adjustments is critical. The first and most important rule of improv is "always accept". You can't accept the ideas of other people if you aren't actively listening.

The best and most fun scenes in improv usually happen when the performers use their characters' relationships to riff off of each others' actions and collaboratively build adventures greater than the words or deeds that any individual performer could compose.

The best improv is sensitive to the needs of other people, completely unpredictable, and functions best as a collaborative exercise between equally and actively invested parties who give their full effort and consent to their scenes. Sound familiar?

Sex and improv are not very different. If you're not ready to agree with me that improv will help you markedly improve the quality of your sex life, at least you can agree that improv is one of the most fun things you can ever do with your pants on.

To demonstrate once and for all that improv and sex are fantastic bedfellows, let's bring this analogy to another level (even, to a climax): really awful sex can be quite similar to very bad improv.

When people talk over each other and none of the characters are able to agree on what direction their scene should travel...it's like two people who can't communicate effectively having bad to mediocre sex, with neither person getting what he or she really wants.

When one character makes all the decisions and takes all the initiative -- robbing the scene of any intrigue or comedic possibility whatsoever, because there's no elaboration in the relationships of the characters...it's like one-dimensional sex that may feel mechanical when at least one of the people having sex has no reason for enthusiasm or attachment.

When performers aren't willing to accept their instincts and overthink their interactions, denying the vitality and flexibility inherent to improv...it's like people who aren't willing to explore their sexual boundaries, and therefore keep doing the same things over and over again, and refuse to consider spicing up their sex life -- to the detriment of their partner and to their own satisfaction. (I should add here that respecting the appropriate boundaries of other people is also vital in improv - and listening to and observing the other people in your scene is the best way to know and respect those boundaries. Learning improv is an excellent way to discover how to safely explore your boundaries with people who will respect your decisions. The parallel to sex proclaims itself here.)

Practicing improv is a tremendous way to gain skills that also apply quite well to sex. Listening, consent, communication, flexibility, collaboration...improv will help you improv(e) each of those abilities dramatically, and developing all of those traits will help you gain more confidence and will make you a better, more caring partner...not only during sex, but in all phases of your life.

By the way, have I mentioned that I've been performing improv for over three years?

Up All Night: Soliloquy

I enjoy talking to myself, as I've already mentioned in passing while writing a different entry ("Anxiety, Uncertainty, and Other People: It's Complicated"). I think about Hamlet, the protagonist of Shakespeare's play of the same name. Hamlet gives so many speeches to himself. His thoughts race almost endlessly. His feelings careen wildly through the curves of manic anger, resentment, and depression. Hamlet really has no idea where he's going until he utters fateful and apprehensive words. One of the Hamlet's greatest strengths and weaknesses is that his words are his deed. Words can be a powerful deed, but the word alone is not always the entire deed. An ironic lesson for such a prolific wordsmith as Shakespeare to give us?

I've directly confronted this personal epidemic of talking too much and listening too little. How many Horatios are trying to give each of us good advice, as Horatio tried to help his friend Hamlet relax and focus his thinking*, while their advice is too long and too often ignored?

Hamlet also needs silence. In many cases, silence is a proxy for ambiguity. The incompleteness of human knowledge is a hallmark of what it means to be alive and deciphering our existence. It is commonplace that each individual must be content with the exotic vastness of what we cannot know. Yet Hamlet couldn't leave space to contemplate the things he didn't know. Hamlet filled every waking moment with talking, thinking, scheming, plotting, consorting, pondering...Hamlet sealed his fate in part through his inability to stop doing anything.

It is this balance of expressing my thoughts properly when I talk to myself and leaving space to consider the consequences of what I cannot know that I seek to keep practicing. I once asked my poetry professor about my practice of writing poems in great spurts, and then not writing for a similar period. I hoped my professor could alleviate my dry spells, but he did not offer me advice on that matter. My professor simply told me that I need to let my mind lie fallow sometimes, so I don't use everything I have at once. That was tremendously strong advice.

I also notice that I've talked too much at once sometimes when I would talk to my ex-girlfriend or when I talked to other women that I felt an interest towards. Perhaps I didn't feel secure enough, complete enough, confident enough to let go...and that's a shame.

I wish I had felt stronger during those interactions. I wish I had felt the strength to let go...that's not easy when you're feeling like you barely have the strength to hold on! Perhaps that's another lesson for me: don't try to hold onto something that you can't let go. I'm not really sure if that's true. There's only one way to find out, isn't there?

Yes, there's an insane, heart-pounding, wildly unforeseeable world that none of us can corner. That world is waiting for us to explore its endless boundaries. There's only so much I can tell you about that world, or about my portion of it. Eventually, you need to return to the world and experience it for yourself - just like I do!

*(To let it be, or not to let it be...that is the Shakespearean/Beatles question!)

Up All Night: Self-Identifying

For many years, I've struggled trying to decide whether I should self-identify in academic settings and in job applications as a person with Asperger's Syndrome. While I've had difficulties in social settings, I always sailed through my academic work until I graduated from high school. I got by pretty well, so I never saw the necessity of raising questions about a "disability", when I wasn't sure that this condition was disabling me at all.

Another issue that complicates my thinking arises when I compare my situation to the situations of other people who have a less high-functioning form of Asperger's. I've been very fortunate. That I can even write these words and tell you about my life is a major success. That I've found the self-awareness to question my own decisions and analyze my interactions with other people has been a major milestone and a great gift.

There are many people who have suffered through much greater impairments than I have. When I perceive that I'm indistinguishable from a typical person of my age, I can hardly justify to myself that I should self-identify as having some sort of disability. The only person I've met who's spotted me as someone on the autism spectrum was another college student with very high-functioning Asperger's -- which is extremely funny once you think about it.

Today, I heard some of my friends discuss some mutual acquaintances of ours who happen to have Asperger's. When my friends mention some of their unsettling experiences with other people who have Asperger's, it's hard for me to discuss my experiences: I'm torn between feeling sympathy for people following a similar outline and a crushing need to defend myself. I know very well that my lack of finesse with social skills in the past has at times brought me great chagrin.

I used to never make eye contact when I was speaking to other people. My dad would sit with me and drill me. He made me look him in his eyes over, and over, and over again. The overwhelming blueness of each of his irises encouraged me to concentrate beyond any ability that I knew I had. I swam into socialization on the cresting tide of that blueness.

I never knew how to join the conversations of other people. I had a terrible habit of interrupting people in the middle of their sentences whenever I saw a group of people I don't know and I wanted to approach them. I've always been pretty talkative for an introvert - since I finally started talking after a delay of a few years, I've barely stopped for breath. My feelings of anxiety and insecurity in social settings haven't helped - time has always ran fast for me when I'm around lots of people I don't know. I still have trouble finding a way to relax, slow down, and remain patient without disengaging entirely.

Every time someone tells me that they would never know I had Asperger's Syndrome is a victory lap. I have spent so much time and effort trying to be like my peers. Why do I want to identify myself through the prism of a disability, when I'd rather identify myself by the struggle I've undertaken to overcome my condition? Perhaps that's the best reason to self-identify: so I can provide some frame of reference for the sustained campaign I've waged against my own mind to free a little bit more of my soul.

Up All Night: Honesty

I love my friends. Joking and trading stories with my friends makes everything I do meaningful. I would choose not to live if I had to live alone. I've never realized how badly I needed other people in my life until I moved to a new place and had to establish an entire life for myself! The course is mine...time to play. Friends are one of things I have now that I haven't always had. I've been extremely diligent in my pursuit of learning social etiquette. However much I've embarrassed myself while travelling this path, I'm glad that I'm on it.

***

Earlier today, I swam with a few of my friends. I'm not an accomplished swimmer. Mostly I enjoy stretching, floating, and kicking my arms and legs around in a wayward and uncoordinated fashion. When I was very young, I had just moved into a new house with my parents. We had an above-ground pool. I was playing in it with some other kids my age, and my parents made me leave suddenly. They told me that I had to leave because some people were working on our deck, but all the other kids were still there. I found out that I had to leave because we were all going to eat. That's when I discovered the concept of the "white lie".

"White lies" are like breathing to me. So many people around me do it, and now I catch myself telling them so often, that I'm no longer sure if honesty in itself is a virtue. There are so many other priorities that I've observed people to place over honesty: comfort, personal safety, simplicity, time-saving, peace, politeness, discretion, flattery...there are so many reasons not to be honest that I can't even list most of them.

I still prefer friends who are too honest over friends who are too polite. I'll take honesty over politeness any day of the week. When I hear negativity or criticism, it's easy for me to have hurt feelings. It's easy because I tend to take criticism personally. That's the problem: what if people didn't take the observations of other people personally? Every human being is equally fallible, makes mistakes, screws up, is ignorant about most things...there's no shame in being wrong. There's only shame in refusing to make things right.

I prefer people who help me overcome challenges and improve my character over people who pretend that I am without flaws. I like people who have moxie. I like people who are assertive. Am I still going to use a lot of "white lies" in my daily life? Yeah, I am. I'm not sure what else to do. Honesty, in a social context, is one of those sticky prisoners' dilemmas: honesty past a certain point only works if everybody is using it, but people won't start being more honest by themselves. Who has to start?

I've learned an immeasurable amount in my life up to this point, and many of the things I've learned have taken me much longer to learn than most other people. I know sarcasm, snark, and white lies. I can deploy all of these in my interactions on a daily basis. Most people don't know that I used to have no idea how to do any of that. While I'm glad that other people understand me, I'm still puzzled that I need to learn how to hide my feelings to more clearly communicate with the rest of humanity! We are so weird.

Anxiety, Uncertainty, and Other People: It's Complicated

Yesterday, I was irritable while sitting alone on a bench outside my apartment building. I was waiting to meet a friend of mine. People that I didn't know kept walking past me while I was sitting there.

I kept checking the time. I don't like to wait. I can wait in the abstract sense. What I especially dislike is waiting in public. It makes me feel insecure and anxious. I feel defensive. I feel like I have to justify being there, wherever it is I am while I'm waiting for someone or something.

I also dislike the uncertainty of not knowing when whatever I'm waiting for is going to happen, or when the person I'm meeting will arrive. Normally, I don't care so much when something is not in my control. It bothers me when I feel like something is not in my control *and* that I have no other alternative. I don't like to feel boxed in. I also don't like having nothing to do but wait.

I can't even talk to myself while I'm waiting, because people in public think you're weird or not entirely there if you talk to yourself while other people are around. It's how I sort my thoughts. It's just easier for me to think when I can hear my own voice, choosing words to match my feelings. Sometimes, I'm not entirely sure what I'm thinking until I can find words to express myself.

When I'm alone, I don't mind uncertainty as much. Uncertainty bothers me more when it involves other people. If I'm going somewhere by myself, it doesn't matter very much to me whether I am lost for a bit or whether I don't know what I'm doing. When I'm with other people, not knowing where I'm going or what I'm doing make me very nervous. I feel like people are judging me for not having a better idea of what I'm doing.

While I was alone yesterday, I lamented that I let the potential criticisms of other people affect me so easily. I wondered if I worry so much about what people think because I have a high regard for the opinions of other people. If I had a lesser view of humanity, perhaps it would be easier for me to not take the treatment of others so personally.

I'm not a very secure person. I have achieved some meaningful things, but I still have many doubts. There are still areas of my life that plague me with insecurity. My interactions in public with other people are one area of my life that still flusters me from time to time.

Because I feel less insecure when I feel more control over a situation, I often prefer to do things by myself. Spending time around other people can drain me, especially if most of them are strangers and I have to consider the impression I'm making. I have spent much of my life concerned that I'm about to say or do something unbearably embarrassing. My concern about the reactions of other people is an instinct of self-preservation, but now I'm wondering if it's an instinct that preserving me or whittling away my confidence.