Disturbing Dream

May 20, 1987

92 degrees and sunny

Several pages from my visual journal. They relate to some earlier posts, so I am going to provide links to the corresponding dates. I hope these visual entries do not bore you...

May 14, 1987

The Gravity Race was an annual event at MCAD. This particular year, Newton's Apple (The KTCA series), was there filming. I was thrilled later when I was in some of the footage used on the show. The vehicle that I built was created solely by me. I give credit to Cris in the sketch above "Gravity Race Wednesday May 13th. Cris/Sue collaboration - Honorable mention $25.00! Tri-cube". I think that fact that Cris read my journals caused me to claim that he collaborated with me. He did help me paint it - but I designed and constructed the entire piece. This sketch was drawn the same day that is related in the post "I am a rich man".

May 15, 1987

This incident would stand out in my mind as recordable. I have a "thing" about people who spit. When I was a student at the University of River Falls in 1979, the sidewalk was spit upon by what I considered "farm boys". It gives me the willies. Eeww. Gross.

May 16, 1987

This gardening project was so fun! The kids and I were using spoons to loosen the soil. We planted seeds from a packet. Harrison and Aja held out their dirty hands, palms up to accept a couple of seeds at a time. We carefully watered our garden. The plants were just beginning to poke their heads out when the woman who lived downstairs tore up the garden and planted marigolds. Ouch!

May 17, 1987

My sister Anne lived where all the houses were made out of red brick. They were built close together. This sort of neighborhood made me nervous. I was and still am worried about houses that look too much alike. It frightens me to think I might knock on the wrong door. 

May 19, 1987

This sketch and the one below were both drawn on May 19th. This is a depiction of me cleaning the bathroom - that I complain about in the "I feel like a bitch" blog entry.

These unfortunate plants were also destroyed in the "Lady Downstairs plants marigold episode" ::sadface::

NO Chameleon

March 25, 1986
Writing as a 23 year old

Sometimes things don't turn out the way you wanted them to but it is good all the same.
Things become clear as time goes by.


(a poem)

Light,
walk, illuminate
zwooshhh...
car, headlight, tail
breeze.
whistle ear, hair
all but silence.
alone:
tap-tap-tap-tap;
sidewalk, shoe

I can imagine the apartment I lived in at this time. If the windows were open, I could hear everything going on outside. My bed - a futon - was in a large closet, that had a window that faced the street. I imagine that I was alone, kids asleep, windows open when I wrote this.

(another poem)

I've been deeply wounded
my heart was torn out
discarded
I've been hurt before
not like this
I am starting to heal
the pain, not as great
I am not changing
NO Chameleon

I like this poem. I like the tone of it. I like how I am feeling a little bit empowered. I am acknowledging my pain. I am refusing to change who I am. I especially like it in terms of stating that I was not a chameleon - I will not change according to the whims of those around me. That is actually pretty good insight. It surprises me.

 April 1, 1986

(a poem)

Thunderstorm party
cookies and Koolaid
the rain makes us new again.

Aja shut the windows
so the lightening
wouldn't get in and harm us.

Tornado
bring my trike downstairs
venture outside
to listen for rains.

My dad and I
looking forward to
our own destruction
in the storm clouds.

I see that my haiku for my short film at MCAD had it's beginning in this poem. How sweet to have celebrate a thunderstorm with my children. I tried hard as a parent to make sure that nothing scared my children. I had grown up so frightened by everything. Frightened of crowds, of meeting new people, of going new places - everything! I didn't know that that was the Aspergian in me. My children, two of whom are suspected Aspergians, did grow up fearless - of SOME things - not all. I did the best I could.

As a fingernail biter, I managed to raise three non-fingernail biters (one bites their cuticles - oh well)...

I'm like losing my mind

January 17, 1986

I bought a Karman Ghia today, Wow!

It looked like this - very impracticable for a mom with three kids...

March 11, 1986

Well, I figured it's finally over, it didn't end the way I wanted either. Cris is sleeping with yet another girl friend. He is really a massive asshole. I am really in a mess. I am very depressed. I have zillions of things to do. I can't stand watching the kids anymore. I need a break. I wish I were desperately in love with someone. Here I am again, looking for Prince Charming. I really thought Cris was him. I was wrong.

March 14, 1986

Me, I'm getting pretty strange. I desperately need to rid myself of Cris but it's like I'm on a wild roller coaster, going quickly up and down and up. It is more and more extreme. I'm like losing my mind. Like I demand honesty from Cris, total honesty, yet I am not being very honest myself.

I want to see this new girlfriend Sarah. Char, Sarah, who else?

I really want to kill Cris. He almost killed himself the other night. While I was at home. I was thinking, wow, Cris is hanging himself right now, dangling and twirling in  death. I imagined burning his body until it no longer exists and no funeral but a memorial and not letting Char or Sarah enter even if I had to kill them to keep them away and screaming "You killed my husband!" When in all actuality, I was the one who drove him to it. All me, All Cris with all our heart hell bent on destroying him/self. I am the cause, I cannot let him go - I just can't, but I know I must. I have to. It would be for the best - best for me, best for Cris, best for the kids. I just don't think what damage all this is doing to them. Cris shouting at them in the middle of the night "Anybody seen the drain plug?" God!

Me, I just am so preoccupied, telling them to go away and leave me alone. If I wasn't so obsessed with Cris, I could get on with my life, start my business, go to school, meet someone special, and be happy again. Hopefully not because I met someone - but  happy because I'm at peace with myself. And that's what I want and long for myself - to be at peace - Happy. This feeling right now is hell. I am just like a big scrape on your knuckle, all red and bleeding. Then it gets all shiny and full of puss and then it scabs over and finally gets better. Well, I am that scrape at the shiny, pussy stage - and I keep bumping it and letting it bleed again and in order to scab over I must get rid of Cris. Like really looking out and not looking to get hurt again - like staying with Cris and letting him hurt me so deeply without any consequences and when I do break with him he tries to kill himself - pretty clever way to win me back and just saying enough to make me think that you might at sometime in the indefinite future you just might maybe stop sleeping with other women.

I believe that my low self-esteem was an off-shoot of my Asperger's. I have a hard time maintaining my train of thought when discussing extremely emotionally charged issues. I also believe that, although most people would have trouble dealing with the revelation that their cheating husband has continued to cheat, I was having particular trouble. I really do not have a large "emotional vocabulary" - I tend to paint my emotions with broad strokes - extremes from sad to angry. I also flash between emotions rapidly, angry one minute, happy the next. 

When I confronted Cris with the knowledge of his affair in July of 1985, I was 7 months pregnant - hormones already causing the normal mood swings. I was plunged into despair. I remember considering asking my sister Cindy to adopt my child. I was angry and frightened. I had never drank during a pregnancy before, I am ashamed to say I drank 2 or 3 drinks on 2 separate occasions in the month before ianthe was born. I have always kept this a secret. I think I smoked a couple of times too. I was suffering from moderate persistent depression in the months before and following ianthe's birth. It is common for people with Asperger's to suffer from depression. I had two or three reasons to be depressed: the cheating, the humiliation, the new fresh hell that Cris brought every week into my world.

What a cruel and insensitive man. He is as insensitive today as he was in 1985. Aja showed me a picture of when she was a tiny baby. It was from her father's high school graduation. I commented about how cute she was. She said that her grandmother had given her a bag of old photos; that photo had been included. Indeed? After our divorce, I had sorted through our family photos, choosing photos for Cris. I believed that he would want, even deserved, photos of the children. I gave him nearly a third of the photos, including every important event in the kids' lifetime. I have a nearly photographic memory. This photo was one that I had given away so many years ago. I guess that Cris had not thought the photographs to be quite so important to him as I had imagined.

None of that matters to me anymore. I have grown up with loving people around me that helped me learn coping skills. I am not just a competent woman, I am seen as a leader. I not only have a partner that loves me, but one that thinks that we are partners in life, and who will stand by me as we face challenges head on. 

In a wonderful expression of love Saturday, my lovely husband Anthony, officially adopted all three of our children. It was a wonderful occasion. We were gathered for our grand-daughter's third birthday. The wind was blowing a warm wind. The sun was shining and our hearts were filled with joy. Anthony has been my children's father, handing out advice (and cash) and rides (and hugs) and encouragement (and unconditional love) for the best years of their lives, and he will continue to do so as time moves on. 

 Our happy family - minus the steps!

The wrong side and the right side

August 7, 1985

A Dream...
Cris and Char were in his room and I walked in. They were making love - Char on top. She quickly got off of him and she quickly got off him. She sat between his legs and watched me take a look at the photos of Aja I was looking for...

I wasn't watching them at all. I was even behind the curtain, but after awhile, I told Char it was alright, that she should carry on...

I finished looking in the closet and called "information". They couldn't tell me anything. So when I was finished on the phone, I came out of the closet and Char and Cris were still just laying there. So I knelt down by Cris' head and kissed him and apologized for having interrupted the "proceedings". He said casually that Char wanted to know if I wanted to join in, but I took a shower first and never got around to joining them.

August 1985

I watch Cris now, how he seems. He seems so much happier and at peace. He is very tender when he is in love and I feel he really does love Char and I both. He loves Char with patience I haven't seen in him for a long time. It doesn't hurt so bad anymore. I wish I could wear my ring but I am not - maybe I will again later, nothing matters much anymore. I hope I don't end up a fool in all this.

After I had confronted Cris with the knowledge of his affair, I was so afraid to give him an ultimatum. An ultimatum would give him a chance to choose to leave. I could not live with that. I feared being left.

Cris had been given power by me and Char. I said in an earlier blog entry, that Cris chose vulnerable women. Char and I were his training ground. He wielded his power like a knife and cut out our hearts. He arranged an introduction. He and Char at one side of the booth of a Minneapolis cafe and I alone, very pregnant on the other. He caressed her openly in front of me. He did this to calm her while he destroyed what was left of my fragile ego. My journal continues with an existential quote...

...What counts is to be true, and then everything fits in, humanity and simplicity...

What I wish for now is no longer happiness but simply awareness...I do not want to choose between right and wrong sides of the world, and I do not like a choice to be made...The great courage is still to gaze as squarely at the light as at death.

"The wrong side and the right side" Albert Camus

Where She and Hope part company

July 1985

Fast forward into the future. I have no posts between this and the last post. these pages are separated by a page turn. Apparently my life was recorded in baby books - maybe the years between were recorded in another way. I cannot remember. Immediately before this horrible month, I lived 6 months of pain and confusion. December 1984, Cris and I had flown to California to visit Bruce and Margret - his father and step-mother. We had had a wonderful time. One of my favorite films was "Valley Girl" with Nicholas cage. I had requested to be shown all the sites of the film - Hollywood, the Galleria mall, the "Valley", and the drive through the hills from Hollywood to the valley. I was thrilled. The children enjoyed it. I entertained Aja and Harrison on the plane home by making clothes from napkins for their new He-Man and She-Ra toys. The stewardesses remarked at how well behaved the children were.

We arrived home on Christmas eve. We drank a bottle of champagne, watched Valley Girl, got a little frisky. Enter unplanned pregnancy stage left. Unplanned like the others had been. I knew I was pregnant before I missed my next period.

We lived in a four-plex in Stillwater: 113 West Laurel Street. I think back to that time, and I remember a familiar TAP TAP TAP on the door by the woman who lived across the hall from me. Wilhelmina Osterkamp was an extremely old woman in a wheelchair who hadn't left her apartment in nine years. She would summon me by knocking on the door with the end of a broom handle. I helped her by bringing her mail, opening cans of soup, or taking out her garbage. By the time I realized I was pregnant with my third child, I was changing her bedding, treating her wounds, rubbing lotion on her nearly translucent skin as she told me the stories of her life. 

She had been born in Western Germany in 1897. She immigrated to America when she was 14 years old. She came to Minnesota to marry her second cousin, who was ten years older than she was. They homesteaded just north of Stillwater and had nine children, one of whom had died at the age of nine quite suddenly after complaining of a stomachache. Her name was Lilly. Her death had haunted Wilhelmina. It was the most painful experience in her lifetime. 

Her husband was a cruel man that treated her badly throughout their marriage. He had died in 1968 leaving her in poverty. She stayed on the farm until she suffered a stroke that affected her speech and mobility. She had been hospitalized a short while before moving into our apartment building - years before I had arrived with my little, happy family. 

When I first met Minnie, she was fairly healthy, but as the months, then years passed, her condition slowly deteriorated. The women who visited her and helped her as I did began to encourage her to move into a nursing home. I feared for her life as I heard her coughing through the walls at night. Sometimes, she would fall and pull her body to the door to call for my help. 

Everyday, I sat, cross-legged on the floor, in my doorway - she in her wheelchair - trading stories every day. She was a wonderful friend. She knew I was pregnant before I told a single soul. She saw it in me. I was shocked. She described what she saw that told the truth. I talked with her excitedly about the news.

One early afternoon, I heard her calling through the walls. I ran outside and up her porch steps. Pressing my face against the glass, I saw her on the floor, she could not move. She asked me to call her son - he had a key. He was not close to her  - he never visited - but he came that day. I waited with her, pressing against the glass, telling Minnie help was on the way, "He is coming, help is coming." He did come, but it was he that made the call that took her away from me. 

When the men came to take her away on a stretcher, undignified, strapped down, blinded by the sun, off to the nursing home, I wept for her. She was so frightened and ashamed. She did not want to leave. I visited her at the nursing home until she forgot who I was, but I have never forgotten her. She died several months later, a month shy of her ninetieth birthday.

I told Cris that I was pregnant near the end of January. He was not pleased. He grew distant. By July, I had reached the height of suspicion. I reached for his journal, something I had never done before. Journals are secret, sacred. I was sickened by what I discovered.

This is my first response...

Drowning is not so pitiful as the attempt to rise
Three times 'tis said, a sinking man
Comes up to face the skies,
And then declines forever
To that abhorred abode, here hope and he, part company
For he is grasped of God.
The maker's cordial visage,
However good to see, is shunned, we must admit it,
Like an adversity.

Emily Dickenson

It is very high pitched too! It drives me nuts!

February 3, 1982

Aja never shuts up now-a-days. She mumbo jumbo's all the time. She is just beginning to learn some words like doggie and kittie (sic). She says kitty without the "K" and a very guttural doggy like daddy in a way but she knows the difference. She goes "auf" when she hears us talking about dogs or when she sees pictures of them. And when she wants something (Anything) she says "Muh" and points in the direction of her wishes whatever they may be. And it is very high pitched too! It drives me nuts! I wish she would learn the words but it will take some time.

She is just beginning to run. Which is difficult if you think about it. We chase her all over and she laughs! It is a fun game. I wish it were spring. I can't wait until this winter is over. I want to go to the parks and play outside and things but it is so cold out that we can't and it takes 10 minutes to dress Aja to go anywhere.

It became a law on the first of the year that babies have to ride in car-seats. Aja just loves hers. It is one that we pulled out of the garbage at Laurel Street. Randy and Bonita threw it out, all it needed was a head pad and fixing the pad going around the front. No problem. It works good too. Aja used it as a highchair for quite a while while she was prone to climb. Her highchair tray would rust her food because the paint had rubbed off, but recently we spray painted it and last night Aja and I gave it a bath and it looks really nice!

It has been difficult to record these early writings, Nineteen years old, still a baby myself.I am annoyed by my use of exclamation points! But I use - hyphens - all the - time - in my later writings - and still today. It is like the hyphen is my favorite key on the keyboard.

I am embarrassed by the way I speak of my daughter, how candidly I discuss being annoyed. I actually remember Aja's squeal. It did hurt my ears. High pitched or sudden noises frighten me and hurt me. That is an Asperger's thing. That doesn't excuse my lack of sympathy for my poor tiny daughter. It appears my Theory of Mind did not expand to include my baby's separateness from me.

I am embarrassed by my poverty. I am confused about the car-seat mention. I had a small gray car-seat when I brought Aja home from the hospital. Maybe I didn't have a larger one - a front facing one. I used duct tape to fix the head rest on the dumpster baby-seat. The highchair was given to me by my parents. They gave me my cradle, crib, highchair and rocking chair. They were all the same ones that I used. I had all second hand things. The ladies that I worked with at the Daycare Center threw me a shower and gave me their old baby clothes. I tie-dyed the stained t-shirts and onesies to hide the stains. They actually looked pretty cool. 

I worked at a Daycare in Stillwater. it was a special program where the state pays your wage, while the company benefits from your service. The purpose is to pay for your training in period - or up to a year - and then the company hires you. The daycare did not hire me when the year was up. They instead replaced me with a new employee. I never understood why. As I think of it now, I bet that I was not the best worker, nor was I the best daycare giver. I really am annoyed by small children. I hate how they jump around and ask a lot of questions and hang on you. I just want people around me to sit still and make noise only when necessary. 

I am very tolerant of my grandchildren though. I am much kinder to them than any other children. I tend to correct the behavior of children in public: scold at teens when they are acting up, chide whining children, ignore snotty toddlers. Although I have a much longer fuse when my grandchildren are concerned, I do still get annoyed by them at times. My husband and ianthe sometimes correct my behavior. I sometimes make the situation worse. Like grabbing toys away from Lil Miss Danger before she can grab it from her brother, stuff like that. I do things like that to the cats too, but the cats know to scratch or bite me to get away.

I see how awesome my youngest daughter ianthe is at being a mom. She was several years older before she decided to become a mother. She struggles with some of the same issues I have had, but she is so much more graceful than I am. She is such a nicer person than I ever was, than I ever am.

Keep it simple

April 30, 1987

What I do and why...

A) I do not eat animals because there are peasants starving in South America because of rich Americans using all the fertile land to graze our cattle.

B) I recycle plastic bags because I know they never deteriorate.

C) I do not use unnecessary electrical appliances like hair dryers/food processors/blenders and the like.

D) I dry my clothes inside on wooden drying racks in the winter and outside on lines in the summer.

E) I teach my children that low tech and hand-made toys are more fun than glorified electric playthings - they agree.

F) I buy wild rice that I am assured is grown in Minnesota Not California because it protects the Indians livelihood.

G) I respect the environment. Do not litter. My children do not litter. I dispose of toxic chemicals safety or as directed on the containers say to do so.

H) The only thing I think I must change is that I throw away pop cans. I am distressed by my lack of enthusiasm when it comes to saving them.

Like a textbook Aspie, I believe the above is a writing prompt about what we believe and why. I guess I took it a bit too literally. Like many twenty year olds, I was extremely environmentally and socially conscious. I sewed my children's clothes, I spun wool and knit - but mostly toys - I never could finish a sweater. I shopped at my local coop - it is now the Mayday Cafe in Minneapolis. 

I was a vegetarian for 8 years. I suddenly threw out all the meat products that I had in the house after reading Diet for a Small Planet. At the time of this journal entry, I was at the near end of my vegetarianism. When I decided to eat meat again, I waited until the kids were in bed asleep, and then walked down to the corner cafe. I brought home an entire rack of ribs. I ate them all, sitting on the floor, gnawing on the bones. Yum. There is no way tofu or beans can replace a BBQ rack of ribs. I didn't get sick either.

I am amused by the statement that I don't like to use electrical appliances. I actually am FREAKED out by things that have motors. I like hand tools. I remember my sisters gave me a food processor for my birthday and my first thought was "Why would they give me this when I love to chop vegetables?" Now there is a great example of an undeveloped Theory of Mind. How could they know I liked chopping vegetables? I love slicing vegetables, and washing them, and preparing them. I have a zen-like attitude towards cooking. I love to cook - the process of cooking is calming. I cut my vegetables in perfect slices, even, uniform. I eat the mess ups - or throw them to my dog to eat. 

The whole idea that I was not using motorized items for some sort of Utopian ideal is ridiculous. I won't touch the lawn mower. I won't touch the snow blower. I will not touch the leaf blower. Motors scare me. My husband Anthony is supposed to cut the lawn when it gets long. He works a lot, and gets home late, so he rarely has the energy to mow on a weekday. He is pretty cute when he decides to mow. He has a routine he follows when he is going to mow. First he thinks of all the things he might need to buy, and then goes shopping. Then he puts on his mowing outfit, special yard shoes, shorts, yard gloves, hat and his ipod. He mows and bags the yard waste, even though he says he has a mulching blade - whatever that is. I stay inside and watch him, in case he runs himself over and loses a foot or something. He says there is a safety thing on it that will stop the blade if he lets go of the handle - but you can never be too certain around motors. /shiver

I have been mulching the yard. I was upset because the neighbor lady who mows like clockwork every third day was mowing our side yard. Maybe she did it to be nice - that's what Anthony said. I thought she was doing it to take our yard over - that happens sometimes doesn't it? When you care for someone's property without the owner telling you to back off? Well - that is what I thought she was doing. So when I got 7 trees cut down in my yard (they were dead - well 5 of them were...) I asked the tree guys to leave me the chips. I used a plat drawing to measure from the corner of the cul de sac to figure out where our property line was and erected some stakes. I tied some line to the stakes, then the neighbor came out. We discussed the property line and came to an agreement. I repositioned the lines. 

Then I put yard cloth over the carefully mowed grass and mulched it. All over. The whole side of the yard. All wood chipped. The next summer, I started planting flowers in the area. It looks great. I started mulching the rest of the yard too. The less Anthony mows, the more grass I am taking away. It is a silent yard war. I believe this must be another case of Theory of Mind, because I am not taking Anthony's opinion into account. I just dig up an area and make a garden without discussion. 

Keep it simple indeed. Maybe in my own mind it is simple, because I am singular minded.

I am afraid to tell you who I really am

There is a fear in me. I am grabbing the old journals off the shelf. I have kept them in a box. After hearing the results of my assessment for Asperger's I crawled under the stairs and dragged them out. It is painful to me to remember the rawness of my pain as a young mother married to a very young man who eventually betrayed my trust; destroyed who I thought I had become. My Asperger's made me very vulnerable.

I had drifted through school, looking at my feet in the hallways, doing my work in class, finding it quite boring. Most of my friends lived in different cities and never knew the same "Sue"that people in my hometown knew. They only knew the "Roller Skater" or the "Skipper of Ski Lessons" or the "Concordia College French Camper" or the "AAer" (You can't throw a stick at someone aged 43-49 in Minneapolis without hitting someone who has been through drug treatment as a teen) . They didn't know the shameful Sue that went to school at South St. Paul, a meat packing town.

I graduated early to escape the terror of high school. I didn't eat for a whole quarter at the U of W, River Falls because I was too afraid of the cafeteria. The Resident Assistant knocked on my door the during orientation week. "We are having a party in the common room tonight!" she said cheerfully, "You cannot come because you are only 16 and we will be serving beer, sorry!"

A young man in my math class showed me some kindness, he eventually seduced me. I got pregnant. When I told him, he said he had never left his girlfriend, I was on my own. I knew and actually hung out with his girlfriend. When she found out, she beat me. She broke my glasses and I curled up in a ball on the floor as she kicked me. I lost the baby. Not because of the assault, I guess it is kinda normal for women to miscarry their first child.

I met my first husband, Cris, at a party in Stillwater. Most of my diaries are about him. He was a high school junior; I, a college freshman. An ex-girlfriend had invited him to the party. We were acquainted. She knew "AA Sue"; the "AA Sue" that slept with every boy in our group. She saw me. Later I learned that she took him aside and told him to stay away from me. Of course, that had the exact opposite affect.

On winter break at home, I told a psychiatrist I had been lying to for 2 years the truth. He listened quietly as I revealed myself. He was bouncing his Birkenstock clog on his left foot. When I was done, and asked for help for the first time. He announced, "I never promised you confidentiality" and called my parents into the room. He listed the embarrassing truths I had revealed. Ordered them to bring me home and kick me out.

I gathered my things in a pillow case. My friend across the street gave me five dollars. I took a bus to Stillwater, then Bayport. I knocked on Cris's door.

I have lived my life deeply ashamed of my over sexualized adolescence. I believed as a young teenager that if a boy had sex with you that they must like you, even if there were four boys waiting for their chance in the next room. Marrying young made me feel that I had a found that one that "loved" me. Although marrying young is almost a recipe for divorce, as an Aspergian, I would have followed him to the end of the world. He had other plans.