4th Step Meanderings
I haven't posted in a while and feel i owe my friends some account of my recent. I am easing my way back into the Corpus Cristi House. I continue to struggle iwth low energy, although the arenesp shots seem to working as they should. I am spending a lot of my available energy on Al Anon, including struggling with the 4th Step. I really want to do a good 4th step and do it quickly; my ego is resisting at every move and with every trick in its book.
The 4th step is said to require honesty, courage, and thouroghne4ss; nd i sometimes question whether i am capable of any of those things.
Autistic people are stereotypically truthful. They hate lies and lying. If you name your autistic child Christopher (Christ bearer), he will call you a liar if he learns the meaning of the name. I regret that this is the one symptom of autism tha i seem to have entirely missed. I lie whenever lying seems more convenient than truth telling. I lied to stay out of trouble, because i thought it might male me or others feel better than the truth would. Dianne was a truth teller who hated my lying and called me on every lie she caught me. I finallly changed, but it took many years, and i still have to fight a tendency to "exaggerate" or to "fudge on the truth.
Part of the truth is that i am much more afraid of the trugh about mysef than i have any need to be. Aside from drunken driving, i have never an act that should have had me dragged into court or prison.
Another part of the truth is that i believe that whatever garbage i have to dig through to get to the truth about myself, doing so will be valuable and satisfying. Buried beneath all the shit there is a treasure.
Another part of my life was wasted on useless and probably harmful activity. Some of that was autistic "stimming" (consisting of marathon solitaire tournaments in which i was the sole partipant). I have able to get this somewhat under cpntro;. (It helps just to know what it is.
Another waste has been the time i have spent with "erotica," and the time i spent contemplating suicide.
Sexual fantasies began at age 8, they became pornographic, by my standards,at age 10, and took on a sadistic component during my early teens. The sadism element disappeared in my late teens and my interests became lus "prurient" and more "erotic" through the mexty 50 years before stopping. There were some unusual social influences as age 10. But i have not pinpointed any reaspms fpr my near obsession.
Suicidal thoughts were less intense and occupied shorter span of years (from age 16 to age 40. I must say more about this if i write it into my 4th step This was not so much a "character defect" as a symptom of depression. At age forty i started
to develope an interest in spirituality and, soon afterwards, started taking anti-depressntss whic i continue into the present.
These things are all indications of my double mindedness and of my two faced approach to life. They need to be examined as to whether theyhve injured me or others. My dishonesty certainly hurt my relationship to Dianne. What about the objectification of people, compounded with autism, leave me more alienated than i needed to be? Did my lack of respect for my own life get sunconsciously transfered to my son? How much of my lack of information about myself is a function of ego defense?
Well, back to the 4th step..
..
The 4th step is said to require honesty, courage, and thouroghne4ss; nd i sometimes question whether i am capable of any of those things.
Autistic people are stereotypically truthful. They hate lies and lying. If you name your autistic child Christopher (Christ bearer), he will call you a liar if he learns the meaning of the name. I regret that this is the one symptom of autism tha i seem to have entirely missed. I lie whenever lying seems more convenient than truth telling. I lied to stay out of trouble, because i thought it might male me or others feel better than the truth would. Dianne was a truth teller who hated my lying and called me on every lie she caught me. I finallly changed, but it took many years, and i still have to fight a tendency to "exaggerate" or to "fudge on the truth.
Part of the truth is that i am much more afraid of the trugh about mysef than i have any need to be. Aside from drunken driving, i have never an act that should have had me dragged into court or prison.
Another part of the truth is that i believe that whatever garbage i have to dig through to get to the truth about myself, doing so will be valuable and satisfying. Buried beneath all the shit there is a treasure.
Another part of my life was wasted on useless and probably harmful activity. Some of that was autistic "stimming" (consisting of marathon solitaire tournaments in which i was the sole partipant). I have able to get this somewhat under cpntro;. (It helps just to know what it is.
Another waste has been the time i have spent with "erotica," and the time i spent contemplating suicide.
Sexual fantasies began at age 8, they became pornographic, by my standards,at age 10, and took on a sadistic component during my early teens. The sadism element disappeared in my late teens and my interests became lus "prurient" and more "erotic" through the mexty 50 years before stopping. There were some unusual social influences as age 10. But i have not pinpointed any reaspms fpr my near obsession.
Suicidal thoughts were less intense and occupied shorter span of years (from age 16 to age 40. I must say more about this if i write it into my 4th step This was not so much a "character defect" as a symptom of depression. At age forty i started
to develope an interest in spirituality and, soon afterwards, started taking anti-depressntss whic i continue into the present.
These things are all indications of my double mindedness and of my two faced approach to life. They need to be examined as to whether theyhve injured me or others. My dishonesty certainly hurt my relationship to Dianne. What about the objectification of people, compounded with autism, leave me more alienated than i needed to be? Did my lack of respect for my own life get sunconsciously transfered to my son? How much of my lack of information about myself is a function of ego defense?
Well, back to the 4th step..
..