Outside my head

[Jessica Ballantyne]

This is going to sound annoying. Living in a town for 29 years, all I ever heard by others is that I'm so quiet. They literally couldn't get a word out of me. I was too busy daydreaming in my head to realize how I looked on the outside. I actually never knew it made me look stupid. Non-family can be vigorous that way. I always used MD as a way to escape my frustrations, but it did me more harm that good, so I had to quit. It was the best decision I made. 

What reasons did you start doing MD? We're their any social issues involved that triggered this? 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

It's occurred to me that I'm better in Illustration and Art. Design is a hard field. I can't find the words to tell my dad this is a big mistake. I struggled for an entire decade to maintain a position in the graphics department. In reality, employers keep on knocking me off the team. It gives me a sick feeling that it will stay that way. Meanwhile, I still live with my parents—at a frickin' embarrassing grown-ass age of 35, which puts me to shame. 
I heard anybody who still lives like that at 35 has serious problems. Trouble with me is that I didn't keep it up with knowledge and training, which is my bad. I actually drifted out of touch. Probably because I wasn't that enthusiastic after all? A college prof looking at my portfolio for admission warned me that I wasn't driven and it will take faith to have a career in graphic design. I wasn't listening, obviously. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

My mom is not what I'd call superstitious when it comes to days, but she does believe in ghosts. She watches ghost hunting shows all the time. She's got Cornwall, Welsh and Irish background, so hauntings are not uncommon in those countries. She sometimes thinks we have a poltergeist in the house, because she notices things turn on by themselves and stuff gets moved, but we live in a 52 year old house. All old houses do weird things we can't figure out. 

I'm sorry to hear your mom detested that you disobeyed her for leaving on an inauspicious day. Everybody has business to tend to and you're an adult. Don't be too hard on yourself. Anybody who is not superstitious wouldn't blame you. I can think of much better reasons to have crossed your mom. 

[Kiruba Victor]

Yeah, I had quite a bad day today and now I badly want to leave the house.

What happened was, I planned to go to college today, and I planned it yesterday, as to what time I'm going today and all. And all of a sudden, my mom was like "You can't go, it's an inauspicious day". And I went anyway, because I had to help a friend on the way, which was the main reason I emphasized today. I had to take mom's scooter and it stopped working midway and I had to drag it a lot until I was tired and took a bus for the remaining distance after parking said scooter in a safe spot. After my work was done there, I took a bus again to the park spot and the scooter still didn't start. So I had to drag it again for quite some distance, until a stranger helped me tow it and I reached home. My mom got furious that I defied her and said that I deserved what happened for defying her and going on an inauspicious day. And I got so irritated, but I just went to my room and not talked to her. 

I'm not a superstitious person, but my mom is, and it's ridiculous to see her believe in that when what happened today had nothing to do with that. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

There are a couple things I realized. I held onto my high school memories for a while. Regards, once high school is over and everybody's gone to college—that's it. They are gone. There's no guarantee you'll see them again. Most of them were jerks and idiots, so it's unlikely they'll invite you anywhere. You might as well find a new crew of friends, which is what I should've done. 

People will just keep on commenting that I sit in this fugal state and won't say much or listen up. This probably is why I didn't have good relationships or lack there of. If I want a healthy life of friends and partners, then I better shape up. All I can remember of my past were people making remarks that I behaved weird and looked so far away. Dad told me that friends don't come out of daydreams. 

My weekends are not often great. They're lonely actually. I either walk to the nearest local stores or eateries, or take my bike for a spin somewhere, and then I go home. Sometimes, I might visit a meetup group in the city, but I don't usually like to go out at night by myself. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

I can understand how crudely you got picked on. I can't remember a dull moment in my life where I wasn't heavily grassed for being quiet. I can remember every moment! It was so embarrassing that it hits me over the head. And I mean these times go as far back as 25 years ago or beyond. Those people were not used to dealing with someone with a highly exceptional mindset and creative gift. I was just something else, but to them, I was quite a a freak. And they were socially acceptable—I wasn't. In fact, that is why most times I'm on my own. So I understand what you're going through and not being able to find a girl. The fact we get poked fun of for it too. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

It suddenly occurred to me. I recall a past where everyone spoke the truth to me. They just found me a mute, humble, timid and unfriendly person. Meanwhile, I was living a dream life that I thought was saying things will get better and happier up the road. But meanwhile, I was reacting towards these fantasies by laughing and talking to air, and staring at nothing, so they all stared at me like I was nuts. Still they didn't understand why I couldn't act normal and hang out, and talk with them. To all of them, I lived in this secretive world they couldn't see and understand themselves, and it went with everybody else. So it's no wonder I was shocked as a result. I was waiting for nothing to come to me. I didn't take the right actions to get there. So I lost and they won. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

Maybe when I was a young teen, I was still quite young to understand the world out there. I acted like I had all the answers and had this habit of making things up. I assumed people will buy what I said and did, when really, it was vice versa. And the effects were cold or embarrassing, or discouraging. The problem could've been that I moved toward the wrong type of crowds. When somebody strongly disagrees with you in a malice way, you'll know they're not your tribe. Even if the people weren't all that bad, they still found it hard to understand me as a person and I failed to communicate with them. Who could've thought something like this can happen to you in your own backyard? I got too carried away with my dream life, because it was the only comfort I had. But it impacted my future and now I depend on two people who wish I would get out and live my own life. 

Every morning I wake up to deja vu, because nobody is ever around. My sister has found herself a boyfriend, and yet I still seek one, after all these years of waiting. I'm jealous of my sister, because she has something that I'll never have. She is a mirror image of someone I could've been if I wasn't born with Asperger syndrome. Yet again, I met all my friends by accident by the universe. So I wouldn't lose hope just yet. Francine has found her partners intentionally over the internet and such. With me things come unexpectedly like boom. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

Everybody has a crush on a celebrity, but they stay with it in real life. Whereas I get carried away with my thoughts and feelings over a person, and it effects my attention of real life situations. For instance, people will notice that I'm just not listening to them, because I'm thinking of this person and situation that doesn't exist. I think this could be the very reason I had difficulties connect with people and building relationships, because they feel I'm not emotionally and mentally with them in reality. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

I'm a grown ass woman, but I don't behave like it. Also, I don't connect with people in the NORM. I'm exceptional and different, with an expressive gift. Everybody I ever met was ordinary and average. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

It was all my fault I had no romance in my life, and still to this day I don't. So many people used to laugh at me and bully me about it. They didn't find me the slightest bit attractive. I didn't open my mouth so that dropped points for being an attractive person. Looking stupid is not sexy. I was a kid who lived in her own shell, and I had no idea what was happening in the world all around me. And I'm a jealous green monster when people are emotionally well in tune and perceptive of this world they're in and they understand how to interact with people. I'll forever be this dull, wooden and unexciting person who just doesn't get it, so everybody keeps ignoring me. I am not an ugly girl, but I have Asperger syndrome, and it cuts off my ability to display myself emotionally in a normal and societal fashion. Quite sad if you ask me, but c'est la vie. 

Another thing is I'm really scared of life itself. I'm so afraid that I'm going to run into dire consequences if I don't grow up and get my act together. I've made some very regrettable, immature, stupid and half-crazed mistakes that upset both my parents and other people. The trauma got to me, because people have given me scornful looks or yelled at me so loudly. Even my mom is concerned more people will find me a nut bar. All this for the fact that I"m a daydreamer—or was. 

Today I was golfing with my dad out on the North side of town. I'm a person who doesn't drive a car and get very far from home. In spite most people in their 30's today are officially full grown adults who do everything on their own in the world. I'm actually quite a kid for my age. I look at my peers and I'm stunned at where I'm at and how they look in the present. It deeply puts me to shame. They are doing far more significant things than me. 
My point is that when dad took me out on the golf range and we shopped at an athletic store, I realized that there is a whole world out there beyond my Homelife on  south west side of town. And I wonder why I have trouble making new friends.