Lovely Athena

a poem I wrote for Athena last night, 3/26/08

Lovely Athena

Every day she waits to hear the voice of her true love

Sitting by the phone she wishes on stars above

As he also waits to hear from his Lovely Athena

He often asks her “How was your day?”

Happily in response, she chatters away

What she says doesn’t always make sense to him

But he is pleased nonetheless to hear from his Lovely Athena

When she cries out in frustration, and he voices concern

I dare say, he still has quite a lot to learn

But he will go the full distance and still five hundred miles more

All for his Lovely Athena

to Athena with much affection, from Ivan.

The origins of our nickname “athenivan”

 So where did “athenivan” come from, and what does it mean? Since I have several usernames with some variation or other of “athenivan,” I figured I would offer an explanation of where it comes from, to anyone who may be interested. It comes from “Athena” and “Ivan”, the first and middle name of our being, respectively. Athena decided to have them together because to her, it meant being in cooperation with Ivan, in the outer world as well as our inner world, meaning that she would think about his opinion on things we had to make an “outer” decision about, because she knew that her decisions would affect him, and me (The Integral) as well. It would have been very complicated to add MY name into the collective name, and I didn’t even think about asking either of them to work on that. I don’t care, as I know I am with them in their decisions, and we are all included in the process of decisionmaking, which is all that really matters to me.

The Integral, on behalf of all of us

Thirtieth Post

We used to write poetry regularly, and we had a poem entitled “Thirtieth Poem” for some reason……..maybe we just liked that number. Certain numbers are very appealing to myself (The Integral) and Athena….I cannot remember who picked the title for that poem. Anyhow, we’re paralleling that poem with a post of almost the same title…..

We plan to have many more posts in the future. It’s been an interesting adventure so far, being able to get our thoughts out for ourselves and others to see.

We swear by the “drafts” feature…..it’s where most of our posts started out. We can’t often write out entire thought strings in one sitting.

The Integral

Ivan Returns

Hey….this is Ivan…..I’m back after a couple of days of being mostly inactive……Athena and The Integral held down the fort. Something is irritating one or more of us in our system. We’re not sure what that irritant is yet; at least I’m not sure what it is. It’s not uncommon for us to have a lot of trouble figuring out who is upset and about what (the “about what” can be an even greater challenge to identify) I can tell that someone is upset because the body hasn’t been getting enough to eat lately. Whoever is in charge has on occasion forgotten to eat, or eaten very late. Our sleeping pattern is off too. The body sleeps very late at night and doesn’t wake up on time in the morning, and then we’re very unproductive. Failure to remember to eat enough and on time is a result of someone being upset. It’s not a “vindictive” thing that one or more of us does to one another; we’re way beyond trying to get revenge on each other. It’s triggered more by anxiety and overload than anything else.

Other than that….not much else is new right now. I’m keeping the body up too late as usual….I need to put some fuel in, because Athena forgot to eat breakfast, The Integral took over at some point during the day, and then either a)forgot that Athena hadn’t eaten breakfast, or b) got very engrossed into playing Spider Solitaire on the computer, and didn’t eat lunch/dinner until 5 in the afternoon!

Our life can be “interesting” to say the least……

Ivan

We survived another week

Well……….another school week has come to an end. We’re behind in a lot of things; namely, math homework, eating properly, drinking enough water, and keeping the apartment clean. Possibly some other things as well….sleeping on time, perhaps?

Such is the life of an autistic system trying to stay at least halfway on track with stuff.

Ahhhh, life……

I (The Integral) just had another very long conversation with a friend. Conversations between me and this particular friend generally last at least an hour. Minimum. I think this time we talked for a total of two hours. Give or take fifteen or twenty minutes one way or another.

We’re SO going to pass out in the next five minutes.

Until next time goodnight!

The Integral

Drifting off to our Mindfortress

                            Drifting off to our Mindfortress 03/20/08

Drifting off to our Mindfortress

We pass by the sounds of the world

Without hearing a thing

As if we are a particle of dust floating in midair

Drifting off to our Mindfortress

Faces become as one blended swath of matter

Whizzing by at lightning speed

Making us feel dizzy if we stare straight ahead for too long

Drifting off to our Mindfortress

We wait impatiently for our beautiful sanctuary

Away from the noise and faces

And into the magic of quiet and solitude

Collaborative work, Athena and Ivan

Amazing speech by Senator Barack Obama

This man doesn’t cease to amaze and inspire us with his message of hope and unity. After seven years and counting, of woefully lacking leadership in our president and our government as a whole, I honestly didn’t think I could be nearly as excited about a candidate as we have all been about Senator Barack Obama.

Just listen to these words.

I did. I heard a man clearly fighting for American unity, without using any fighting words. I heard the voice of a man who clearly wants the best for a country he loves dearly, and for all of its citizens. I heard the urgency of a man begging (well okay, that’s a little melodramatic, but you know what I mean. I do not have Senator Obama’s written or oratory skill. Forgive me.) for a chance to try and right some of the wrongs that have been done to us as Americans by our own failed leadership. I heard the fierce urgency of now.

We were, collectively, firm supporters of this man before hearing this speech. After it, we are only firmer in our convictions that he is America’s best chance at redemption vis a vis the rest of the world, and perhaps a little more importantly (well, not necessarily to us, but for some, yes) vis a vis her own citizens.

Ivan, with contributions from Athena and The Integral

fascinating thoughts in the shower

 Sometimes I have the most fascinating thoughts in the shower. Why there, of all places, I wonder. Perhaps it has something to do with the sound of the water flowing from the shower head? I’ve heard this sort of thing from a few other people too. Maybe it also has to do with the shower being one of the most, if not THE most private activities of our daily routine, even more so than just being alone in our apartment. We have privacy for much of the day because we live alone; however there’s just something about being in the shower that generates many interesting ideas. We just wish we could remember more of them, and/or that we had time to write them down.

Oh, if only blogging were a faster, easier process…..typing words is the easy part. Converting the mental chatter into something coherent and acceptably congruent with what I mean is the hard part.

There’s an interesting category idea…..fascinating shower thoughts.

Athena, who really needs to go to La La Land now.

feeling like a thing that is no longer wanted

Often I feel like a broken doll, or a worn out schoolbag, or a pillow that someone no longer has use for. I feel this very deeply, and then I cry. The different selves inside experience this feeling in other ways. Ivan just gets irritable. The Integral doesn’t know what it means. She is in fact the least emotional out of the three selves. I cry for Dean, who becomes concerned and confused because he hears me crying and doesn’t know why because she cannot or will not explain. More often than not, she doesn’t explain because she simply can’t. It’s hard to get any words out at all let alone useful explanations during a period of overload.

And not being able to communicate whats going on inside my mind…..naturally leads some combination, in no particular order, of fixation, anxiety, depression, and/or frustration………the depression manifests itself in something like the title of this short post…….feeling unwanted by whomever……..which is more often than not, a departure from reality. In other words it’s not actually true that some person doesn’t want me…..it’s that anxiety is causing me to have perceptions that are not necessarily equal to what’s going on in reality.

It’s happening right now….probably because we feel crappy after having to withdraw from our Physics lecture class and lab. There was no way in hell we were going to come close to passing the second exam……..the first was a disaster……but that’s another story for another time, if it’s written out at all.

Athena, with some assistance in word use from The Integral.

Things I didn’t realize until much later

things I didn’t realize until much later:

-people on TV don’t respond to those watching at home. Because they can’t. The show has already been recorded and put on TV. The TV is an inanimate object and the actors on whatever show you’re watching, never see you sitting at home or wherever you might be sitting in front of a television set. I thought of this when I woke up rather late this morning (August 6th, 2006) when I thought of Peter Pan begging unknown people watching that movie to save Tinkerbell, his fairy friend, after she drank his medicine which had been poisoned by Captain Hook. (Here’s a bit of background info about where I was when I thought of this: I had just arrived at the home my family and I would be staying in for about the next two weeks.) Now mind you, this is the non-animated version of the film I am referring to. When he realizes that Tinkerbell has drunk his medicine and is dying as a result of the poison (she drank it to save him from being poisoned.), Peter, played by Mary Martin, says roughly the following, staring up into space, eyes directed as if gazing out of the set at the viewer: “Do you believe in fairies? Please, please believe…. If you believe, simply clap your hands and keep clapping to bring her back.” And then Tinkerbell begins to recover. But how? My sister and I sat on the couch clapping, obviously thinking that it would save her. (This is a memory of something that happened a long, long time ago. I cannot remember how many years ago now, but I don’t think I had hit puberty yet.) I believed for a long time that Tinkerbell survived as a result of our clapping, and held this believe for several years (I think) after that. I’ve never admitted that to people, for several reasons, including not having recalled this event until many years after the fact.

-that I can’t see my own eyes rolling or moving at all when I’m looking at them in the mirror, no matter how closely I look at them. A well-known autistic author mentions a similar experience in one of her books (elaborate if given permission. It was the part about looking at her face in the mirror, thinking it was another person, and then wondering why her face looked away when she looked away from the mirror.) I thought I had something seriously wrong with my eyes, and I also thought I was crazy, and that “everyone else must be able to watch their eyes roll in the mirror! Why not me?”

-that coughing up phlegm meant I had HIV/AIDS or some other terrible sickness. To this day we have no clue what led us to that conclusion, all we know is that we had that fear for a while.

I am sure there are other things related to these, that I have had trouble deciphering at some time or other. Reading Donna Williams’ “Somebody Somewhere,” specifically about her interaction with her friend K. and the mirror, was very vindicating. I realized there wasn’t something horribly wrong with me for not figuring out the above things so long ago.

Athena.

p.s. I included this in the category of embarrassing things not because I’m embarrassed at any aspect of being autistic, but because at the time I was pretty embarrassed that I couldn’t figure these things out.