Category: personal

bookmark_borderA beautiful day in Boston with Christopher Columbus

Posted on by Marissa

Christopher Columbus is happy today. 

I could tell when I visited him.

Being a statue, he can’t exactly change his facial expression to reflect what he’s feeling. And I’m well aware that most people would say that he isn’t capable of feeling anything at all. But as someone who loves statues more than anything else in the world, and statues of Columbus in particular, I believe in the idea that a statue can feel happiness. Call me crazy, but I believe that on some level, Christopher Columbus knows about the election result and is pleased with it. 

As mentioned above, I decided to visit Christopher today. I had been in a dark and negative headspace regarding his situation, as detailed in this blog post. But with the hope and lightness that the election result brought, I was in the mood to make another trip into the North End to see my favorite statue.

And I’m glad that I did so. 

Before even boarding the train, I was beginning to regret my decision. It was one of those days that is relatively warm, but extremely windy. As an autistic person, this severely bothers my sensory sensitivities. Within the first few minutes of waiting on the train platform, I was frozen to the bone and in agony. I was wearing a light sweater due to the fact that the temperature (according to the weather app, at least) was 67 degrees, but I was soon wishing that I had worn a down parka and ski mask. After what felt like an eternity, the train arrived, but it apparently didn’t pull into the station correctly and had to back up a couple of feet, costing additional minutes. Finally, I was able to board the train and therefore to get a reprieve from the ice-cold wind. 

Once in Boston, my way was blocked numerous times: by people plodding along the narrow sidewalk, by a chaotic intersection at which a truck was trying to turn but none of the cars would allow it to, and by a gaggle of tourists hanging out near the entrance to the Peace Garden of St. Leonard’s Church. 

But once I stepped through the gate of Chris’s new home, the Peace Garden lived up to its name. Gentle music wafted through the air. The biting cold wind ceased. A wide brick path led through the garden, with a delicate-looking fence and elegant lanterns on either side, toward the entrance of the church. To my left were two statues: one of Jesus on the cross and the other of Mother Mary with children gathered around her. To my right were four statues: one of a saint with his arms raised in the air, one of a kindly-looking man surrounded by children, a gold-colored fellow with outstretched arms, and Chris. He stood tall with arms crossed over his chest, as always. Beautiful rosebushes had been planted around his pedestal. The trees cast shadows across his marble face, and their golden leaves drifted softly down to blanket the grass. The sun’s rays cast a warm glow over the peaceful scene. 

A few people trickled into the church for a mass that was starting soon, but for the most part, the garden was deserted, allowing me to spend a few minutes with Chris undisturbed. I didn’t actually talk to him, because that would’ve made me look completely insane, but I admired him, took some photos, and sent my thoughts to him telepathically. (I guess that sounds kind of insane too, now that I think about it.)

Hi Chris, I greeted him. It’s me, Marissa. Do you remember me? I came back, like I promised I would. No matter where you go, I will always find you. I will always come back. I will never forget about you. Are you happy in this place? You look nice here. It is peaceful and beautiful. Did you hear the news? Do you feel happy about it?

As crazy as it sounds, I knew that he did remember me, and that he was happy, about both his home and the election results.

Once I had assured myself of this, I took a closer look at the church building itself, a mosaic displaying the names of its benefactors, and a new sculpture called the Noble Journey, which shows footprints of various sizes representing immigrants coming to America. And then I turned and walked slowly back down the brick path and into the bustling, congested streets of the North End. 

Bye Chris, I thought as I looked back over my shoulder. I’ll be back. Until next time…

Here are some pictures that I took of Chris, his friends, some other things in the Peace Garden, and a couple of other miscellaneous pieces of public art in Boston:

You can view all of my pictures of Chris at St. Leonard’s here. This album also includes the pictures that I took when I visited him for the first time there in September, which I wasn’t in the right headspace to post about at the time.

bookmark_borderA beautiful day

Posted on by Marissa

I am happy today. 

This is the first time in my life that I have voted for a presidential candidate who won. In 2008, the first year I was eligible to vote, I voted for libertarian candidate Bob Barr. In 2012, I voted for libertarian candidate Ron Paul. In 2016, I voted for libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. I was happy that Trump won, and definitely preferred him to Hillary Clinton, but due to the fact that all of Massachusetts’s electoral votes are basically guaranteed to always go to the democratic candidate, I continued my tradition of voting third party. In 2020, I voted for Trump, and he lost. In 2024, I voted for Trump and – it feels both strange and amazing to type these words – he won.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Italian Americans 4 Trump 🇺🇸🇮🇹 (@italiani4trump)

It is a beautiful day. Things feel lighter, more hopeful. I feel that I can breathe again. A noose is no longer tightening around my throat, the heavy boot of tyranny no longer stomping on my face. For four years, I never thought that this result would happen. To some extent, it feels magical, unreal, almost like a dream. Part of me feels that any moment I will wake up, and this beautiful reality will be shattered.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by RFK Jr. (@robertfkennedyjr)

I am proud of my country today. For four years, the sight of the American flag, the sound of patriotic music, and the mention of the Fourth of July made me feel more pain than pride. For me, these things signified the country that had elected a government determined to force people to undergo a medical procedure against their will and to destroy everything that makes life worth living. But now I feel much more positively towards America. Self-righteous bullies have spent four years pompously lecturing about “our democracy,” but now the very democracy that they’ve spent all this time worshipping and fetishizing has elected Donald Trump! Perhaps this country, this democracy, isn’t so bad after all.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Vivek Ramaswamy (@vivekgramaswamy)

I admit that Trump is not perfect. He almost certainly does not care about statues with the same intensity as I do, or in the same way that I do. He cannot fully reverse the atrocities that have been committed against historical figures, and by extension against myself. He may not even partially reverse them. But for today at least, it feels like a healing balm has been smoothed over my wounds. This election result is the most significant good thing that has happened in a very long time. It does not undo the pain, anguish, and trauma that I’ve experienced over the past four years. But it helps. It really helps. 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Virginia Flaggers (@the_virginia_flaggers)

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by colbycovington (@colbycovington)

Four years ago, at this exact time of year, was the rock bottom of my life. Everything that made my life worth living had been destroyed, the historical figures that I love having been lynched, smashed to pieces, set on fire, beheaded, strangled, and drowned with complete impunity, and the people who committed these atrocities perceived as holding the moral high ground in the eyes of society. And by electing Joe Biden rather than Donald Trump, our country confirmed that they didn’t care about my pain, didn’t care about my perspective, didn’t care about the historical figures’ right to exist. Our country’s response to my pain was to inflict even more of it. Our country’s response to my (metaphorical) gaping, bleeding wounds was to rub salt in them. Seeing other people’s joy, exuberance, celebrations, and gloating, after the excruciating agony that I had experienced over the preceding months, was nothing short of soul-crushing.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Jason Aldean (@jasonaldean)

Now, the situation is reversed. It’s the mirror image of that horrible time four years ago. I never thought that such a thing would happen, and I hesitate to type these words for fear that I will somehow jinx it. But the people who gloated so cruelly and gratuitously four years ago, who fell all over each other in their eagerness to shove their spiteful celebrations down my throat, lost. I won, and it is now my turn to gloat. Part of me wants to do exactly that. The people who hurt me deserve to be punished for their actions. Retribution, revenge, justice… these words are all synonyms to me, and all are completely justified in this situation. But another part of me sees the merits of what is commonly referred to as “taking the high road.” If I gloat as nastily as my enemies did, then that makes me like them, at least a little bit. Part of me feels that the people who caused my pain deserve to experience the same pain in return, while part of me feels that no person deserves to experience pain so horrific.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Jacob Bryant (@jacobbryantmusic)

Regardless, I am happy today. I intend to savor this feeling, to soak it in, to enjoy it for as long as I can. For the past four and a half years, positive experiences have been hard to come by for me. This is a big and important one, which I truly appreciate.

In an Instagram post which you can view here or below, Breitbart News described Trump’s victory as “indisputably the greatest political comeback in American history,” and I can’t help but agree. Trump is only the second president, after Grover Cleveland, to win two non-consecutive terms, and as the post mentions, he overcame “multiple prosecutions; two assassination attempts; censorship on social media; overt media bias; and even efforts to intimidate his lawyers.”

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Breitbart (@wearebreitbart)

Breitbart’s mention of overt media bias is no exaggeration. Starting with their coverage of the capitol protest on January 6, 2021, the news media has completely given up on even pretending to be neutral. Their coverage of that protest was appalling, disgraceful, literally sickening, beyond unprofessional, and absolutely shocking to the conscience. Nearly 100% of their political coverage over the ensuing four years has fit those descriptions as well. Any semblance of neutrality, or professionalism for that matter, has completely vanished. Prior to 2020, the news media certainly had a progressive bias, but at least it was covert. Now their bigotry, their closed-mindedness, their utter contempt for anyone who deviates from their totalitarian social norms, is naked, blatant, and on full display. I have been hurt, enraged, and traumatized dozens if not hundreds of times over the past four years thanks to the news media, and this is despite making the decision to almost entirely cease news consumption due to finding it so hurtful, enraging, and traumatizing. Every time I so much as glimpse a biased headline, I am reminded painfully of the fact that news consumption, previously an enjoyable and interesting way to gain information, has devolved into just another way for society to torment me by expressing its rejection and hatred.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk1776)

Which brings me to the most amazing and remarkable thing about this election result:  for possibly the first time in my life, the people who hurt me didn’t get what they wanted, and I did. The gloating “friends,” acquaintances, family members, and strangers on social media. The mindless conformists who displayed Harris/Walz signs on their lawns in order to remind me every time I walk down the street that they support the lynching of the man that I love. Democratic politicians, activists, and government officials determined to eradicate every last shred of diversity and individual liberty from the earth. Their despicable accomplices in the aforementioned news media, who have traumatized me dozens if not hundreds of times. Bullying prosecutors. Orwellian social media executives. Wannabee assassins. All of these people lost. And I won. That’s something that has never happened to me before, and I am in awe of it. 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by President Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump)

One final observation about Trump’s victory is that it provides a bit of justice, even if only small, for the historical figures. Particularly the statue of Christopher Columbus who stood at the Minnesota state capitol until being lynched by a mob of bigoted bullies in summer 2020. Perhaps statues weren’t in the forefront of voters’ minds when they cast their ballots, but rather overshadowed by more mundane issues such as inflation, social security, immigration, and the economy. Regardless, the man who chose to allow this lynching to happen, and later to characterize it as an understandable act of civil disobedience, lost his bid to become vice president. So today I am thinking about Christopher Columbus of St. Paul, Minnesota. Nothing can undo the atrocity that was done to him, but today brings him a quantum of justice. He, and what was done to him, must never, ever be forgotten. 

Christopher Columbus Statue with the Minnesota State Capitol in background

 

bookmark_borderDear Christopher Columbus…

Posted on by Marissa

You used to be mine. Obviously, not in a literal sense, and not in a legal sense. But I always thought of you as mine. My own special statue.

You stood in the park, on your awkwardly large pedestal, looking out over the sloping green lawn and the colorful flower beds. You were the perfect centerpiece, nestled between two leafy trellises. Boats bobbed gently in the ocean behind you, its glittering blue surface stretching towards the horizon. No one really seemed to notice or care about you. Tourists didn’t snap photos, businesspeople walked briskly past, children frolicked in the park but never seemed to glance your way. But I noticed you. Your existence meant everything to me.

I remember the first time I saw you. It was a warm, summer night in 2009, and I was volunteering at a political event at a restaurant called Tia’s. From the patio, I saw you, lit up beautifully in the fading light of dusk. I was surprised to see you. Until that moment, I had no idea that you existed. I had been taught in elementary school that you were evil and horrible, and I was surprised that any public place would have a statue of you, let alone a city with such a liberal reputation as Boston. Your existence meant that Boston was a place for me. It meant that people like me – people who are unpopular, rejected, misunderstood, different from the norm – were welcome there. I had never really identified much with the city or state that I am from, but from that day on I was proud to be from Boston. From that day on, I became interested in exploring Boston and photographing its neighborhoods and landmarks. From that day on, you were mine. 

Years passed, and I visited you numerous times during my travels. I graduated from college and switched jobs a few times, eventually landing at a law firm that was just a short walk from your park. I went to visit you nearly every day during that time. I looked forward to my lunchtime walks, which took me along a gravel path, past tulips and sunflowers, up a short flight of stairs, and under the trellis to where you stood on your pedestal. Every time I walked past you, you made me smile. When I had a stressful day at work, you lifted my spirits. Sometimes, seeing you was the only positive thing in my day. Some people might have been put off by your serious expression, your arms crossed sternly over your chest. But I found you beautiful. You were different from all the other statues in Boston. You were like me. 

I didn’t think about how you came to be in the park that bore your name. I didn’t think about who made you, or when, or how the money was raised to do so. I didn’t think about who legally owned you, whose property you were, or who was responsible for your protection or maintenance.

I loved you. 

Every day, you were there, surveying the park from your marble pedestal at the intersection of the two trellises. 

I thought that you would always be there. 

"Standing Vigil"
Photo titled “Standing Vigil” by Nate Dow. To me, this photo perfectly encapsulates the way that things used to be, the way that things are supposed to be. This is Christopher in his rightful place. I wish that I had taken a photo like this of Christopher, but he was murdered before I had the chance. Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/natedow/49782524371/

June 10, 2020 changed all that. Four and a half years later, I am overcome by grief and rage so strong that my soul feels like it is being eviscerated, when I think about what happened on that date. I remember where I was when I found out. I was working from home, in my living room, and decided to turn on the 4:00 local news. What I saw on the TV screen caused a sickening feeling like nothing that I had ever felt before, and which words still cannot full describe. That day changed me irrevocably. The Marissa that existed before June 10, 2020 is dead. The bigot who ripped your head off your shoulders and smashed it on the ground killed her, just as much as he killed you.

The mayor issued a bland, lukewarm statement. The police department made a perfunctory promise to investigate the crime, but no leads ever turned up. The Friends of Christopher Columbus Park, the organization that was supposed to take care of you, took no position on your murder and instead continued to post pictures of flowers, kids’ activities, and pumpkin festivals, as if you had never existed. The Boston Arts Commission held hearings at which, voice shaky and hands trembling, I testified, desperate to be heard, desperate to convey how much you meant to me. In what would be a sign of things to come, my voice didn’t matter. The city announced that they would give you to the Knights of Columbus, to be displayed at their new headquarters, which would also serve as low-income housing. Events continued to be held in the park, street musicians strummed their guitars, people took part in outdoor yoga and zumba classes, workers strode briskly through as if nothing had changed, children played tag around your pitiful empty pedestal, seemingly oblivious to its tragic significance. 

I learned things about you that I hadn’t known before, researching every fact and compiling every bit of information that I could, as if that would somehow enable me to make sense of what had happened. I learned that you had been created by a sculptor named Andrew J. Mazzola, out of marble from Carrara, Italy. You were commissioned by an organization called the Friends of Christopher Columbus Committee and then donated to the city of Boston, which placed you under the jurisdiction of the Boston Arts Commission. Numerous citizens and businesses of the North End had contributed money for your creation. On October 21, 1979, you were unveiled in the beautiful park on the waterfront, at a ceremony that was attended by Mayor Kevin White, Governor John Volpe, and various dignitaries. 

Now, thanks to the bigot who destroyed my world on June 10, 2020, the thought of that park, with its stately trellises, its colorful flowers, and its sunny waterfront, makes me sick to my stomach. Now, I have no pride in being from Boston, no interest in its history or culture, and almost no interest in its sports teams. It’s difficult for me to bring myself to take the train into the city that I used to love. I quit my job at the law firm, in large part due to what happened to you. It was too difficult to continue on as if nothing was wrong, surrounded by so many painful associations and reminders.

Is that what they wanted? Was that the goal of this despicable action? To destroy the life of an autistic person by taking away the one thing that made me feel represented and included? To inflict indescribable, excruciating pain on a person who did nothing but try to get through each day as best as she could? To make me feel like the entire world hates me, and like I would be better off dead? Because that’s what was accomplished. By physically ripping you to pieces and obliterating you from the park that is your rightful home, the bigot psychologically and spiritually ripped me to pieces as well. I don’t call that social justice. I don’t call it diversity, I don’t call it equity, and I certainly don’t call it inclusion.

Three years later, you rose from the dead. Your head was somehow reattached to your shoulders, and you materialized in the parking lot of the new Knights of Columbus building. I visited you a couple of times, talked to you, left you flowers and a note. I saw the cracks in your neck and near your hairline. I marveled at your resilience and strength, and at the skill of the sculptors who put you back together. Just as I was starting to heal, to feel somewhat okay about your new location, you moved again, this time to the Peace Garden at St. Leonard’s Church. Apparently, the leaders of the Italian American and North End communities had gotten together and arranged for the Knights to gift you to the church. In late summer, I visited you in your new home, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to post the pictures.

The consensus among the Italian American community is that the Peace Garden is a better location than the parking lot. And logically, I see the good points about your new home. I want to like it. I want, more than anything in the world, to be able to feel that your story has a happy ending. But I don’t like it. And this resolution doesn’t make me happy. 

You used to be mine. And now you aren’t.

Before 2020, I had never really thought about the fact that you were owned by the City of Boston and maintained jointly by the city and the Friends of Christopher Columbus Park. When I contacted the Friends to voice my hurt at your murder and their neutrality regarding it, they defended the security measures that they had taken but refused to apologize for “focusing on the positive.” I felt like a fool, a weirdo, for being so emotionally invested in what I realized was a piece of stone owned by someone else. If the organization tasked with protecting you isn’t upset about your destruction, I asked myself, then why am I so devastated? As you’ve come into the ownership of the Knights and then the church, I’ve experienced similar sentiments. I question myself and my feelings. I wonder if by loving you so much, I’m somehow sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong. I wonder if I am the equivalent of a stalker, obsessively focused on a celebrity who doesn’t even know they exist. Community leaders worked out a deal for your transfer, coordinated the logistics, and announced it to the public once you were already in your new home. I wasn’t privy to this process, and logically I see that I would have no right to be. But somehow the fact that your fate is up to others, and that numerous people are far more involved with you than I will ever be, feels like a knife twisting in my chest.

Things were more straightforward back when you were in the park, where you are meant to be. You were simply mine. I didn’t need to think about any of these things, to feel left out, to feel like a stalker. But now, the innocence is gone. Now I realize that you were never really mine at all.

Perhaps a day will come when I will be able to appreciate the fact that you rose from the ashes, that you endure, albeit with some additional scars that you didn’t have previously. Perhaps a day will come when I will be thankful that you are in the heart of the North End, with flowers planted around you, cared for by people who like and respect you. I’ll be thankful that I can visit you easily, that your location is highly visible but still secure behind a metal fence. Perhaps I’ll appreciate the fact that, as a devout Catholic, you’d likely be flattered to be among a statue garden of saints. Perhaps I’ll be happy that you are happy in your new location, and entertain the idea that you might even prefer it to the old one. Perhaps I’ll be amused by the idea of you hanging out with your new friends. Perhaps I’ll even contact the church office, talk with them, and try to become involved in the church.

But today is not that day. Right now, all I feel is sadness. The thought of you in the Peace Garden, surrounded by your saintly friends, brings nothing but stabbing pain. Now, all I want is for things to go back to the way they were before. I know that this is impossible, and I know that there is no practical utility in feeling this way, but it is the way that I feel, and my brain just can’t move past it. All I want is for things to be the way that they are the picture above. The picture depicts you the way that you are supposed to be. And right now, for me, nothing else is acceptable.

You used to be mine. And now, thanks to the actions of a heartless and soulless bigot, completely lacking in empathy for anyone other than himself, everything is ruined. 

bookmark_borderGlimmers of hope – a photo essay

Posted on by Marissa

The past few blog posts have been pretty negative. It is true that the past few months have not been a great time for me, with numerous setbacks and challenges that have exacerbated my autistic burnout and landed me in a negative headspace. However, things have not been 100% negative, so I wanted to take a break from the negativity and share some things that have brought a smile to my face:

This entertainment column in a local newspaper (called “Aldo, The One on One”) specifically mentioned Columbus Day and Christopher Columbus himself.

I wore this t-shirt to a community event, featuring a drawing of Christopher Columbus that I made. I knew from looking at the schedule for the event that there was going to be a “Land Acknowledgement,” something that I find both hurtful and potentially able to trigger a PTSD attack thanks to its connection with the ideology that is responsible for the traumatizing events involving statues. Because of this, I considered not going at all. But I ultimately decided to go, while wearing this t-shirt as a statement that Christopher’s life matters, and mine does as well. 

After my co-workers caused a PTSD attack by calling Columbus Day, “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” (as explained in this blog post), I decided to wear a Columbus-themed pin the next two days, leading up to Columbus Day. I am not entirely sure what my company’s policy is regarding such pins, but I figured that it would be okay given that a handful of co-workers wear Palestine pins at work. Plus, many co-workers wear jewelry, headbands, and hair accessories in celebration of Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter, the Fourth of July, and St. Patrick’s Day, and Columbus Day is a holiday just as those are. Ultimately, no one gave me a hard time. That could just be because the pin was too small for anyone to be able to see what it was, but I at least felt that I was making a statement in defense of Columbus.

Also on the Columbus theme, I took baby Christopher Columbus out of his display cabinet and did a photoshoot with him.

My American Girl dolls decided to organize a little get-together to celebrate Columbus Day.

After numerous weeks of lacking the time and energy to do so, I was able to take photos of the beautiful fall leaves, after all. These, for example, were spotted at a local park where I volunteered at an event with my local Republican committee:

(more photos from this park can be found here)

These were taken at the pond near my house:

(more photos from the pond can be found here)

And these were taken at a nearby cemetery:

(more photos from the cemetery can be found here)

I don’t have a photo for this next one, but things are looking up, for the moment at least, with my special interest in sports. The winter sports season has started, and the amount of coverage that NBC and its networks are showing appears to actually be manageable (knock on wood). I am currently caught up on figure skating, am almost caught up on horse racing, and am looking forward to the Breeders’ Cup, which is starting today. And miraculously, I have begun the laborious process of going through my backlog of Olympics recordings, something that until recently, made me nauseous to even think about doing. I watched the very beginning of the equestrian and swimming competitions, both of which involved an officiant ceremonially pounding the ground with a staff to signify the official opening of the venues. Even when watching the events three months later, it was beautiful to see the sun shining through the fog in the background of the early morning dressage competition at the Palace of Versailles.

On a different note, I came across these Trump stickers at the parking garage near my work:

Additionally, I finally got a Trump sign, which my little statues wanted to pose with:

Last but not least, my “Mini Lee” arrived at my house! This is a tiny replica of the Charlottesville statue of Robert E. Lee that was sickeningly destroyed. As you can see, I showed him to the bigger statues, and they think he is pretty cool. These are being sold by Monuments Across Dixie to raise money for a full-size recreation of the statue at a location to be determined. If you are interested in getting your own Mini Lee, more info can be found here.

The world often feels like it is trying to make it impossible for me to have a life that is worth living. But I will continue to fight for such a life, one small glimmer of hope at a time.

bookmark_borderDear Tim Walz…

Posted on by Marissa

Lately, I have been finding it difficult to go on.

I have been thinking about the idea that everyone has the right to their own perspective, their own viewpoint, their own feelings, their own emotions. Some people would argue that it makes no sense to say that a person’s feelings are wrong, or that someone has no right to feel angry or upset at a situation. According to this way of thinking, if a person is angry or upset at a situation, then they automatically have a right to feel that way, because that is the way that they feel. As a believer in objective moral truth, I am skeptical of this idea. I believe that if something is objectively not bad, then no one has the right to criticize it or feel any negative emotions about it, because to do so is to punish someone who has done nothing wrong. 

But I digress. Regardless of which side is right in this philosophical debate, what has bothered me so much about the events of the past four and a half years is that people have not merely felt, or voiced, negative emotions about the historical figures that I love. They have enacted those feelings in ways that have involved the physical destruction of the historical figures. And regardless of one’s feelings about the historical figures that I love, regardless of what one thinks about their merit as historical figures, everyone should agree that physically eradicating historical figures from the earth is wrong. Everyone should agree that disliking someone does not give you the right to murder them.

Yet everyone, clearly, does not agree with this. 

I’ve had to watch, through pictures, videos, news reports, and social media posts, the man that I love be strangled, lynched, beheaded, smashed to pieces, drowned, burned. I have had absolutely no power to stop this, to prevent it, to reverse it, to gain any sort of compensation or restitution for that harm that has been done to me. I don’t even have the power to voice my pain and be heard. Because no matter how hard I try, no matter many different ways of explaining I attempt, society refuses to recognize that any harm has been done to me at all. Whenever I try to express my viewpoint, to voice my grief and anger, to present any sort of argument for why what happened was wrong, I am met with insults and ridicule. People call me a racist, an idiot, a moron, say that I should be barred from public spaces, laugh in my face using Facebook’s hideous “laughing face” reaction. When I contact public officials, I am either ignored entirely, or lectured about how I am wrong, and how the murder of the man that I love was a good thing, and how I need to have more empathy for others and to educate myself about the harm caused. The fact that harm was caused to me by the murder of the man that I love is denied and disregarded. The idea of others actually having empathy for me is not even acknowledged as a possibility. 

This is why I’m outraged upon coming across the following quote from Tim Walz: “How is it fair that you’re paying your taxes every year, and Donald Trump hasn’t paid any federal tax in the last 15 years?”

Walz’s sentiments are so lacking in empathy that it’s appalling. 

After being forced to watch the man that I love be strangled, lynched, beheaded, smashed to pieces, drowned, and burned, dozens upon dozens of times, I don’t care a whit about how much tax money Donald Trump pays. What I care about is the man that I love, and the fact that he was murdered.

Tim Walz, in fact, made a deliberate decision to allow the man I love to be murdered. Tim Walz knew that a group of bigots and bullies were planning to lynch Christopher Columbus at the state capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota on a particular day and at a particular time. And he ordered the state police to stand down, to do nothing, to make no attempt to stop the lynching. So the man that I love was lynched, brutally and excruciatingly, on the steps of the state capitol, as dozens of cops stood and watched. The images of the noose being tied around his neck, his metal body crashing to the ground, a bigot named Mike Forcia standing on Christopher’s pedestal and thrusting his arms into the air in sickening triumph, mindless bigots posing with their knees on Christopher’s neck as he lay pitifully face down on the ground, a line of cops standing at attention and doing absolutely nothing as these horrifying events took place, are indelibly seared into my mind. The excruciating agony will be with me forever. It burns my consciousness and torments my soul as I type this sentence.

But to Tim Walz, the lynching of the man that I love does not matter. It is not important, not a problem, not worth doing anything about. Tim Walz thinks that the amount of taxes paid by Donald Trump is more important than Christopher’s life, more important than the soul-crushing trauma and pain that I’ve been subjected to. 

Lately, my mood has been low and down, my soul feels crushed, and everything feels heavy. For four and a half years I’ve lived with trauma that never goes away, that contaminates nearly every person, organization, place, and activity, that eats at my mind when I’m trying to fall asleep, that erupts into a volcano of anguish at the smallest reminder. And no one cares. Society thinks that the problem is me, that the man I love deserved to be murdered, that I am racist and bad for loving him, and that I need to change so that I’m not as upset about the fact that he was murdered. It’s difficult to imagine a path forward, a life that could be meaningful, given these circumstances. 

Meanwhile, the people who lynched the man that I love have faced no negative consequences at all. Their needs are being met, just as they always have been. They haven’t suffered trauma. They are told that they are perfectly fine the way they are (righteous and honorable even, depending on who you ask), that they don’t need to change. They are able to live their lives, spend time with friends and family, love their romantic partners, raise their children, engage in their hobbies, and voice their views without criticism, without insults, without laughing face emojis. Tim Walz is able to campaign for Vice President of the United States with his wife and children by his side, participate in debates, speeches, and interviews on meaningless issues, and almost entirely avoid any accountability for his decision to facilitate the lynching of the man that I love.

In the eyes of society, the people who hurt me, the people who murdered the man that I love, hold the moral high ground. In the eyes of society, I am condemned as shameful, disgusting, and morally bad for having been hurt, and the man I love is ridiculed for having been murdered. 

In other words, the person who has done nothing wrong in this situation bears 100% of the negative consequences, and the people who have done something wrong, by causing the horrible situation, bear 0% of the consequences. 

Tim Walz, that’s what isn’t fair. 

bookmark_borderMy heart hurts…

Posted on by Marissa

Today, my heart hurts. I feel exhausted, drained, and demoralized. I feel weak and tired, my brain feels dull, foggy, and slow, and my body feels heavy.

I have not been blogging as much as I would like. For the entire month of September, I did not blog at all, and so far in October, I have done so only sporadically. This is beyond frustrating, because there are so many thoughts in my brain that I want and need to express. But I can’t. I simply do not have the time, or the energy. Things have not been going well for me. I have been experiencing autistic burnout for four and a half years, and for the past two and a half months it has been particularly severe. 

The Olympics marked the beginning of this bad stretch of time. Sports have traditionally been one of my biggest special interests, so this was something that I had been eagerly anticipating. But NBC’s coverage decisions meant that I was unable to watch all of the coverage that I needed to. There was simply too much of it. And so what I thought would be both a challenging and exciting experience turned into a nightmare of overstimulation, information overload, mental exhaustion, and sleep deprivation. I managed to alter my goals and mindset regarding the Olympics, allowing me to endure the experience. This was extremely difficult for me as an autistic person, and is something that I am proud of myself for doing. But being proud of oneself for accomplishing something is not the same as having a positive experience. The Olympics turned out to be something that I needed to endure, rather than something enjoyable and rewarding. And that is not great, to put it mildly. Not only was I subjected to an inordinate amount of stress and exhaustion, but I was denied the rewarding experience that I was picturing and expecting. 

Also starting around this time, I began to feel vaguely physically unwell, which continues to this day. I have been suffering from a runny and stuffy nose, sore and scratchy throat, cough, itchy and watery eyes, headaches, earaches, and low-grade fevers. These symptoms come and go, waning and giving me hope that they will finally be gone, only come roaring back the following day. These symptoms haven’t reached a level of severity that would cause me to miss work or cancel any activities that I had committed to, but they have caused me to be constantly miserable. It has really taken a toll on my mental health and quality of life. 

Throughout August and September, I also had an inordinate amount of difficult interpersonal situations put onto my plate to deal with. Texts and messages that I didn’t know how to respond to, uncomfortable phone calls that I had to make, requests for social get-togethers that I knew I wouldn’t be able to do but that were excruciatingly painful to say no to. I have made the decision to quit socializing, because friendships simply don’t work for me given my autism and history of trauma involving interpersonal situations. But people continue to ask me to socialize with them, and every time they do, the wound is ripped open and I essentially am forced to make the painful decision to quit socializing anew. These situations have been emotionally exhausting and have used up a lot of mental resources.

Because of my overall level of exhaustion, I have been sleeping very late, even when I go to bed relatively early. As a result, I essentially don’t have time to do anything other than getting ready for work, and working. I don’t have time to take walks, I don’t have time to run errands, and I don’t have time for writing. Such an enormous amount of time is spent sleeping, that there is no time for anything else. Despite this, I wake up exhausted, and it is painful to wrench myself out of bed. In other words, even this enormous amount of time spent sleeping is not enough. Most likely, no amount of sleep would be enough to make me feel refreshed and well-rested. Normally, I enjoy walking around the pond near my house, in the woods, and in the center of town, looking at the beautiful fall foliage and photographing it. But I haven’t really had time to do this. The fall season is passing me by, and I’m not able to enjoy or experience it in any meaningful sense. This is a depressing way to live. In fact, I would argue that it does not quality as truly living, but merely as existing. 

I’ve also had numerous workdays get screwed up. My work is usually a source of stability and routine. I can focus on something concrete, such as ringing up customers’ groceries at the cash register, bagging the groceries, collecting shopping carts in the parking lot, or stocking groceries in a section of the store. But I’ve been subjected to various instances that have turned my job into a source of dysregulation and chaos. On multiple occasions, I’ve been trapped with slow-walking and talkative co-workers during the commute home, causing me to miss the train and preventing me from doing Italian lessons on my phone. One night, the staff was asked to stay an hour late (not a problem in itself) and a co-worker pressured me into getting a ride home with another co-worker rather than taking the train as I usually do (apparently thinking, for some reason, that the fact that it was an hour later made it unsafe to take the train). Another night, the manager didn’t give clear instructions, so I didn’t know what section of the store I was supposed to work on or when I was supposed to stop. And another night, too much frozen food was ordered, so I ended my shift by pushing boxes of food with all my might in a (futile) attempt to force them into the completely packed walk-in freezer.

Worst of all, when my manager was explaining how the Columbus Day holiday would affect projected sales, one of my co-workers interrupted to “correct” the holiday name to “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” When my manager responded that people could call the holiday whatever they wanted to, another co-worker interjected, “As long as you don’t call it Columbus Day! Anything but Columbus Day!” If you know anything of my feelings about Christopher Columbus, you won’t be surprised to learn that this caused me to be flooded with excruciating, agonizing pain. And it brings me to the next cause of this recent exacerbation of autistic burnout: Columbus Day.

Given that I love Christopher Columbus more than anything in the world, Columbus Day should be the best day of the year for me, or at least a better than average one. But this year at least, it was horrible. I attended and sold my artwork at an Italian festival, which should have been fun and exciting. However, I had to stay up late the night before in order to get my work ready, it was cold, rainy, and windy (all things that severely bother my sensory sensitivities), and a friend came by to sit at my table and help break it down at the end of the event (despite the fact that I had previously told her, as nicely as possible, that I did not need or want her help). This all amounted to an uncomfortable, angering, and draining experience. Instead of celebrating and honoring the man I love, I spent the day coping with an experience that was exhausting, out of control, and chaotic. 

Plus, as has been the case every year starting in 2020, various people, companies, and organizations used the occasion to attack Columbus, and therefore myself. I am too mentally exhausted and in pain to describe these things in detail, but the culprits include various cities and towns, American Gril (yes, the doll company), and every museum and park in Boston. Every time I see the words, “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” I am filled with agonizing pain. There are no words that can adequately express the hurt of seeing other people’s perspectives validated, suffering acknowledged, cultures celebrated, and voices heard, while my perspective is dismissed, my suffering ignored, my culture shamed and condemned, and my words ridiculed. No matter how hard I try, I cannot force others to listen to my ideas, understand my point of view, or empathize with my pain. When you combine this with all the other things that I’ve described in this blog post, I feel beaten down. My spirit is crushed. So many things that used to give me pleasure have been taken away, contaminated, ruined. There is almost nothing that I can direct my time, energy, or attention towards that does not cause excruciating pain. It is difficult for me to see a path forward.

I am trying to keep the faith. I am trying to remind myself that I have felt this way before and have survived, and have returned to a state of happiness again. I am trying to remind myself that at some point in the future, my body will have more energy, and my brain will once again feel sharp. But right now, that isn’t the case. Right now, everything feels heavy, dark, and hopeless. Right now, everything hurts.

bookmark_borderThe agony and the ecstasy of the Olympics for me as an autistic person

Posted on by Marissa

For me as an autistic person, the Olympics is one of the most exciting things in the world, and also one of the most torturous. Sports are one of my special interests, so one would think that the Olympics would be heaven for me, with two and a half weeks of non-stop coverage of gymnastics, swimming, diving, track and field, equestrian, fencing, shooting, and more. But this is the exact reason why the Olympics have the potential to become my own personal hell. A hell filled with overwhelm, stress, chaos, mental exhaustion, and information overload.

I will start by explaining why I love Olympic sports so much. I think what I like most about watching sports is that they have clear procedures, rules, and processes for determining the winner. Every sport has a system, whether that consists of judges giving scores for each competitor’s routine, a horse and rider receiving faults for each rail they knock down, or simply a clock determining who crosses the finish line first. No one knows in advance who the winner is going to be, but one can expect that the competition will unfold according to a familiar and predictable process. For me, watching a sports competition means watching it in its entirety, from beginning to end. It means watching all the coverage that is available. I love to watch the entire process unfold, from the opening video montage, to the heats with dozens of competitors that no one has ever heard of, to the semifinals, to the finals, to the post-race interviews of the winner(s).

As anyone who has glimpsed the Olympics broadcast schedule knows, the sheer amount of coverage is so huge that it is impossible for one person to watch it all. And this makes my brain go crazy. I have a perfectionistic, completionist mindset, to put it mildly. I am a very all-or-nothing person. If I am into something, I tend to become really obsessed with it. If I like something, I am not content merely to have a little bit of it; I want all of it. I find it preferable not to do something at all, than to do it in a way that falls short of my standards of completeness. So when the Olympics come around every two years, I don’t want to miss any of the coverage. I want to watch it all. But because of the enormous amount of coverage, missing some of it is unavoidable. The result is having to make excruciating, nearly impossible decisions about which events to watch and which to miss.

Leading up to this Olympics, I knew that it was going to be a challenge. I knew that difficult decisions would need to be made. I knew that I would likely need to set my alarm in the morning, that I might need to record certain events to watch later, and that I would have to minimize (and carefully time) outings outside of my house. But I was up for a challenge. I was mentally prepared, and I was excited. I had spent hours upon hours catching up on all of the Olympic trials coverage that I had missed over the past couple of months due to my work schedule. I had worked hard to put myself in a position that would give me the best possible chance at success.

Watching the hour-long intro show that aired before the very first events of the Games – preliminary soccer matches that took place two days before the opening ceremony – I was happy and optimistic. The video montages were exciting and the commentary interesting. Everything was elegant and appealing, from the NBC studio in Paris, to the pictograms that represent each sport, to the fonts and graphics used during the broadcast. It was particularly cool to see images of the statues, monuments, and famous buildings in Paris, and I was hopeful that watching the Games unfold among these iconic landmarks would be somewhat healing after the traumatic events involving statues that I’ve detailed at length in previous blog posts. 

But then, shortly before the opening ceremony on Friday, June 26, I checked the TV listings for the following day (Saturday) in preparation for planning a watching strategy. And what I saw made me sick to my stomach. Watching these Olympics was not going to be a challenge; it was going to be impossible.

The competitions started as early as 3:30 in the morning and continued throughout the entire morning and afternoon, usually on 3 or even 4 networks at once. The idea of waking up at 3:30 seemed ridiculous, but recording these events would not work either, because there was no window of sports-free time later in the day in which to watch them. And missing out on these events would be completely unacceptable. The sports taking place at ungodly hours weren’t limited to the ones that I (comparatively) don’t care much about, such as soccer, handball, rugby, cycling, table tennis, badminton, and wrestling. Nor were they merely “borderline” sports like rowing, kayaking, and archery. The ridiculously early sports included my favorites, such as equestrian, diving, swimming, and gymnastics. Missing those would defeat the entire purpose of watching the Olympics.

In other words, even after narrowing down the sports as much as I possibly could, even after eliminating all but the absolute must-watch events… the amount was still not even close to being manageable. 

So my brain exploded. I screamed at the top of my lungs, again and again and again. I pounded my feet on the floor. I punched the walls and the couch. I threw various objects. 

After this explosion of rage, I made the decision to boycott the Olympics. Given that NBC’s coverage choices made it impossible for me to watch in a way that was acceptable to me, I preferred not to watch at all. I was so angry that the mere thought of the Olympics filled me with disgust. 

The following day, I woke up feeling like someone was hammering an ice pick into my forehead. It was the worst pain I have ever experienced. Not only was I completely unable to function, but merely existing was agony. The pain made it impossible to sleep, and neither Tylenol nor aspirin did anything to relieve it. The only activity that was possible for me to do was lying in bed in excruciating pain. The entire day was essentially lost. Watching the Olympics, even if I had changed my mind and decided to do so after all, was impossible. 

But as night fell, the agony finally abated. I realized that the Olympics primetime show was starting soon. And I decided to put it on. Watching the abridged versions of the day’s competitions, knowing that I had missed out on the full, live versions, was a foreign and bizarre experience for me. It was simultaneously torturous and interesting and enjoyable at the same time.

When the broadcast ended, I pulled up the TV listings for the following day. The feelings of overwhelm and frustration started to return. Gymnastics and equestrian were again slated for 4:00 in the morning, followed shortly thereafter by swimming and then archery and then more swimming. I could set my alarm for 6:00 and miss only one session of gymnastics qualifying, I thought to myself. I could set it for 8:00 and miss two sessions but at least catch archery. Or I could set it for 10:15 to ensure that I at least woke up in time for the second session of swimming. I went to bed feeling unsettled, but not nearly as out-of-control as I had felt the night before. 

Miraculously, I woke up, without having set an alarm, at 7:30. Turning on the TV mid-competition, and therefore missing the beginning, is completely at odds with the way that my brain works, but that is exactly what I did. With the early morning sun casting beams of light across my living room, I watched the heats of the men’s individual medley and heard the crowd’s chanting for Leon Marchand reverberate through the stadium. Over the next few hours, I flipped back and forth between channels, catching portions of swimming, gymnastics, archery, equestrian, shooting, basketball, canoe slalom, and skateboarding.

It was painful to watch the third subdivision of women’s gymnastics qualifications, knowing that I had missed the first two, and it was similarly torturous to watch the cross-country equestrian competition, knowing that I had missed the dressage round in which a competitor had set a record for the best-ever score. But I enjoyed getting to experience a variety of different sports, and getting to watch them live, at the time that they were actually unfolding. I enjoyed switching from channel to channel to check out what was happening. I enjoyed watching gymnasts of all different countries, some of whom I’m not familiar with, and some of whom I recognized because they competed in the NCAA. I liked the introductory video to the equestrian competition, which explained the scoring system. I enjoyed the fencing competition, held in the magnificent, theater-like venue called the Grand Palais. And I even enjoyed catching a few minutes of skateboarding and basketball, even though these are not sports that I’m usually super interested in. 

It turns out that losing an entire day, although excruciating in terms of both the physical pain and the sports missed, was necessary. The way that I had been approaching things was not working, and my body and brain forced me to stop. Losing an entire day allowed me to reset, to approach the Olympics with a completely different attitude, and to rediscover what had made sports my special interest in the first place.

Because in addition to the fact that they have systems and rules, I love sports because they make me feel connected to the world around me. I love to watch competitions unfold in real time, knowing that others all over the world are watching them as well. I love that no one knows what the outcome is going to be, and that everyone simultaneously finds out the result in real time. It makes me happy to know that I am watching sports together with millions of people, even though I don’t know them and am not interacting with them

With previous Olympics, I watched as many live sports as humanly possible, and I recorded the rest. Inevitably, the recordings would pile up to a point where I felt that I had no choice but to stay up late trying to get them watched. Inevitably, the second round of a competition would come on before I had a chance to watch the recording of the first round, and I would have to either watch the rounds out of order, or record the second round too. Inevitably, I would begin to cram in a few minutes of recordings here and there whenever I had a spare moment, causing me to miss the beginnings of live competitions when they invariably started earlier than I expected, and also causing me to miss out on the experience of watching Olympic sports that I wouldn’t necessarily have sought out. In general, this way of watching the Olympics created a jumbled, chaotic sports mess that was no longer enjoyable. The sports had gradually transformed over the years, from something fun into something that needed to get watched, a task that had to get done, an item on my to-do list that I aimed to get rid of as quickly as possible. Paradoxically, as I became more and more into sports, the thing that made me enjoy sports in the first place, had been lost.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been getting up at a reasonable hour and simply watching whichever sports I can, while forcing myself to be okay with missing the rest. Watching the Olympics with this new philosophy has been simultaneously agonizing and exhilarating. Doing anything in a way that falls short of perfection is completely at odds with the way that my brain works. It is a situation in which no option feels right, but I feel that this one is better than the alternatives of either missing out on the Games entirely, or completely destroying both my sleep schedule and my brain in a futile attempt to catch everything. I am proud of myself for being able to adopt this new approach, because I know that the past version of me wouldn’t be able to do so. I am not an Olympic athlete, but in a way, I am doing the impossible every day of these Olympics, and I think that is pretty impressive.

bookmark_borderRevere Beach Sand Sculpting Festival 2024

Posted on by Marissa

Last week, I visited and took photos of the sand sculptures at Revere Beach. A sand sculpting festival and competition takes place there every year in July. Due to my job which requires working on weekends, I wasn’t able to attend the festival itself, which took place Friday through Sunday. But I do enjoy looking at the sand sculptures, so I decided to visit them on Wednesday morning.

I was concerned that the sculptures would have deteriorated by that point, three days after they were built. I was also concerned that the beach would be windy, as it often is. As a person on the autism spectrum, I have sensory sensitivities to wind, which have become more severe in recent years, and can cause spending time outside to become excruciating. The wind was quite painful during the walk from my house to the train station, which boded ill. Plus, people began getting on my nerves during the commute by doing various annoying things such as invading my personal space, blocking my way, and getting onto the train before I had a chance to step off. I was starting to regret making the journey.

But as I crossed the bridge from the train station to the beach, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was almost zero wind. The day was cloudy, cool, muggy, and still. I was equally pleased to find that the sand sculptures were in pristine condition. They had not deteriorated at all, and were magnificent to behold, as they are every year. They were located conveniently between the Wonderland and Revere Beach MBTA stations, making for an easy walk. Despite it being three days after the festival, there were lots of people milling about and admiring the sculptures, but not so many that it was impossible to move about freely or get good photos (as is often the case during the festival). Overall, it was a successful and pleasant experience, and I am glad that I went.

Among my favorites were the cat and mice, and the chameleon. Hopefully you enjoy the photos below:

You can view more photos on my photography website here.

bookmark_borderFour years ago today…

Posted on by Marissa

Four years ago today, a sequence of events began, which changed my life completely.

Over the past four years, I’ve experienced unimaginable pain. Pain more excruciating than I thought was even possible for a person to feel. Pain so overwhelming that for the first few months I was reeling, in shock, unable to truly comprehend what was happening or to find adequate words to express how I felt about it. Pain that will take a lifetime to fully process. The events of the past four years have made the world a worse place to a degree so enormous that it is still not fully comprehensible. For a large percentage of this time, I believed that suicide was the best option, given the extent to which the things that make life worth living have been destroyed.

The BLM movement, the “racial reckoning,” the push for racial justice, the statue takedown movement, DEI, political correctness, “woke” ideology…. whatever term one uses, this movement and this ideology did not originate on this date four years ago, but they did rise to power and prominence. What happened four years ago enabled this ideology to become mainstream, to dominate our society, to become the norm. And make no mistake: it is an ideology of authoritarianism and intolerance that has inflicted tremendous harm.

This movement claims to be all about diversity, when in reality it is waging a cruel and brutal campaign to obliterate from the world all forms of diversity that actually matter.

This movement claims to value inclusion, at the same time that it calls for anyone who is different from the norm to be attacked, condemned, and exiled from society.

This movement claims to strive for equity, when in reality it has perpetrated injustices so egregious that they shock the conscience.

This movement claims to fight for the oppressed, yet it itself is the cause of oppression.

This movement claims to help marginalized people, while stomping on the faces of those who are truly marginalized.

This movement insults and shames me for allegedly having “privilege,” when its adherents are the ones who actually hold privilege in our society.

This movement condemns people who have done nothing wrong for allegedly “causing harm,” when its adherents are the ones causing horrific, agonizing, and indescribable pain.

This movement lectures people about empathy, at the same time as it itself demonstrates appalling lack of empathy.

Black Lives Matter, people chanted in the streets, repeated mindlessly in their social media posts, and pontificated in self-righteous press releases. But what about my life? Why does my life not seem to matter in the eyes of society?

People pontificate about “the harm done,” but what about the harm done to me? Why does that not seem to matter in the eyes of society?

It boggles the mind that a movement and ideology could portray itself as, and be perceived as, something so much the opposite of what it actually is.

Because this movement and ideology are profoundly immoral. This movement has inflicted immense harm on the people who deserve it the least. Its ideology is cruel, intolerant, destructive, totalitarian, and completely lacking in empathy. At its core, this movement and ideology are about compliance and conformity, about obliterating all meaningful diversity from the world, about condemning and destroying anyone who dares to be different, to challenge authority, or to diverge from social norms in any way. That is why underdogs and rebels are its targets. This movement is about awarding further benefits to those who are already the best-off in our society, providing further validation to those who need it the least, and inflicting further hurt on those who are already facing the most significant challenges, struggles, and difficulties. This movement’s rise to power has been, by far, the worst thing that has happened in the history of the world. Its adherents do not hold the moral high ground.

But the events of the past four years have also caused me to realize what matters. For too long I had been spending my time and energy on things that are not important, things that I felt I had no choice but to do, because other people expected them of me. But now I have realized that historical figures are the true purpose of life. This does not make the atrocities that have been committed any less atrocious… but I have found a meaning and purpose that I did not have before. The historical figures will live on through me. I will continue to share my perspective, because despite what our society says, it is just as valid and correct as anyone else’s. I will stand up for the historical figures and for myself. I will do whatever I can to honor them and bring them justice.

bookmark_borderA meltdown caused by blogging time being cut short…

Posted on by Marissa

Today, I feel horrible. I woke up to find little pieces of paper – the remnants of the envelopes and advertising that had come in the mail – still scattered all over the floor. My throat is horse and my head achy from screaming, again and again, at the top of my lungs. My hand is bloody and swollen from punching the granite kitchen counter. My feet and ankles are sore from stomping again and again on the floor. I am concerned that the foundation of my house might be damaged from all the stomping, and that my hands might become permanently damaged from these repeated injuries, if they are not already. This is a particularly disturbing possibility given that my job centers on picking up, lifting, and handling objects with my hands. I feel guilty and demoralized. I’m angry – angry at others, angry at myself, angry that instances like these keep happening. My body feels heavy and tired. My chest is tight, my arms and legs leaden, my stomach twisted in knots.

Yesterday, I had a meltdown because my blogging time was abruptly cut short.

I was at my parents’ house, and the plan was to watch Survivor, as well as the Bruins game. Survivor was on from 8:00 to 9:30, and the Bruins game started at 7:30. So, in addition to being able to watch a half hour of the game before Survivor, we would also be able to watch the end of the game, because it would almost certainly still be going when Survivor ended. Then, after the game ended, I would go home. My parents and I all agreed to this plan, and I was looking forward to the night of TV watching.

Personally, I never just sit and watch TV. It doesn’t work for me to sit and passively watch without anything to occupy my hands. Plus, I live with a constant backlog of topics that I want to blog about, making it foolish not to take advantage of every potential chunk of blogging time that I get. So whenever I am watching a TV show or sports game, I blog at the same time. Usually, it works well.

The thing about blogging is that it is highly momentum-dependent. It’s not the type of task that you can do a little bit of whenever you have some time. Blogging works much better when you have large, uninterrupted chunks of time, because it is mentally laborious and requires focus and concentration. Usually, once I sit down to work on a blog post, it takes me some time to get momentum going, to get into a state of flow. Once I am into this flow state, I am very productive. The writing flows effortlessly. I can keep writing and writing and not get tired at all. Because I work full time and own a home, I don’t get a lot of opportunities to get into this flow state. And when my momentum is interrupted, it’s difficult to get it back.

Yesterday, when Survivor ended and my dad changed the channel to the game, the third period was just beginning, and the Bruins were losing 3-1. My dad asked me what I wanted to do. I was surprised, because I thought everyone had agreed to the plan of watching the rest of the Bruins game after Survivor. Why would he be asking me what we should do, when the answer to that question had already been decided upon? *

Plus, for the preceding two hours, my blogging hadn’t been going smoothly. I was getting bogged down. What I thought would be a quick, easy blog post turned out to be more complicated and difficult than I had anticipated. But as Survivor was ending, I was finally making great progress. I was finally getting into a flow state, and finally starting to feel good about how the writing was going. My dad’s suggestion to leave came at the worst possible time.

My dad indicated that he was okay with staying for the rest of the game, unless the Panthers scored another goal, making the score even more lopsided. Naturally, about 30 seconds later, the Panthers scored. And so my blogging time was abruptly cut short. The momentum that had just started to get going, came to a screeching halt. **

There was something about having my blogging time cut short, without warning, that made my brain explode. It’s not just the fact that I had to leave at 9:30 as opposed to approximately 10:00. It’s the fact that I was expecting to have until 10:00, only to find out, without advance notice, hat I only had until 9:30. It’s the fact that I was counting on having until 10:00, only to find out at 9:30 that I was expected to leave immediately. I hadn’t gotten my belongings together or put my socks or shoes on, and I had been planning on getting another helping of ice cream and another helping of water. I wasn’t prepared to leave, because that’s not what I was planning on. I thought that I had an additional half hour of time left. It was another instance of the type that I’ve written about before – an instance in which things did not unfold according to the picture I had in my head. ***

And so I exploded.

I simultaneously knew that my anger was irrational, and lacked any ability whatsoever to stop it.

The rational part of my mind was fully aware that it did not make sense to be that angry at something so relatively unimportant. The rational part of my mind was even aware that if I hadn’t gotten so angry, I would have been able to open up my computer upon arriving home, resume working on the blog post, and possibly finish it, all while watching the end of the Bruins game on my own TV. In other words, if I hadn’t gotten so angry, I would have been able to avoid the very outcome (the premature end to my blogging time) that I was so angry about.

But none of this knowledge had any power to make me any less angry. Rage coursed like molten lava through my veins, overtaking my mind and body and soul. The anger was so strong that nothing could stand in its way. It took over my entire consciousness. Logic was feeble and powerless in the face of the overwhelming, uncontrollable fury. Like an erupting volcano, or an exploding bomb, once the anger started, there was no stopping it.

So I was completely consumed by anger, while simultaneously knowing that it was irrational. I feel guilty, because my dad didn’t really do anything wrong. One day my parents will be gone, and I don’t want incidents like this to be the main thing that I remember from my time with them. I feel frustrated and demoralized, because I’ve tried so hard to prevent these types of incidents from happening, yet they still keep happening. I feel conflicted, because I truly believe that autism is a gift and a superpower. I’m proud that I have it, I don’t consider it a disorder, and I don’t wish to be neurotypical. But these beliefs seem to be incompatible with the fact that my autism causes me to feel and behave in ways that I know – at the exact same time that I am feeling in behaving in these ways – are irrational.

I know that my ability, and need, to hyperfocus are part of my autism. I know that it is part of my autism to have problems with transitioning from one activity to another, and with unexpected changes to my plans. It is due to autism that I need such copious amounts of blogging time, due to autism that it causes me such distress to have that time interrupted, and due to autism that once I get into a flow state it is difficult for me to stop.

Perhaps the reason why my anger exploded so severely yesterday is because I initially tried to suppress it. I reluctantly agreed to my dad’s request to leave after the Panthers’ 4th goal, pretending that it was okay with me, even though it wasn’t. I didn’t want to inconvenience him, I didn’t want to be high-maintenance, and I didn’t want to cause a conflict. It wasn’t until I got back to my house and shut the door behind me, that the anger exploded. Perhaps I should accept my needs as an autistic person, even if they seem unreasonable to others, rather than suppressing them. Using willpower and self-discipline, forcing myself to tolerate things that upset me, might work in the short term but are not long-term solutions. Acting as if you do not have the needs that you have, does not cause you to stop having those needs. It causes the needs to go chronically unmet. And that will eventually result in an explosion.

* When my dad and I discussed this today, he explained that for him, it’s not enjoyable to watch a game when his team has no chance of winning. He would rather watch a competitive game between two teams that he doesn’t care about. For me, although I prefer the Bruins to win, the score has no impact on whether or not I want to watch the game. The important part of watching the game, for me, is watching the athletes warm up, make their entrance, go out through the tunnel, etc. and watching the video montages and the interviews before and after the game. All of these things take place regardless of what the score of the game is. And all this is, of course, in addition to the blogging that I was counting on doing while watching the game.

** “Couldn’t you just finish the blog post at home?” you might be thinking. But unfortunately, the mere process of having to pack up my laptop, put my shoes and socks and jacket and hat on, get into the car, get out of the car, check my mail, unlock my door, and unpack my stuff again, is enough to shatter my concentration and ruin my blogging momentum. More often than not, once my momentum is brought to a screeching halt by the process of leaving, it is sufficiently late that it doesn’t make sense to start up again, and so my blogging time for the day is done. And also more often than not, the following morning is filled with various tasks, and then I have to go to work, and then I get home too late to start blogging, so I don’t end up having another opportunity to blog until my next day off.

*** There were also a couple of other things weighing on my mind that may have contributed to why I became so angry. Recently, I made the decision to completely quit socializing (as radical as that may sound) but was second-guessing that decision because I heard about an all-you-can-eat ice cream event that actually sounded like it could be fun to go to with a particular group of friends. Additionally, two people have asked me to do drawings, which is flattering and awesome, but cuts into blogging time, making the blogging time while watching TV even more crucial.