What's in a name?

Someone asked me about the title of my blog. Conceptual Cat's Cradle, what's it mean? I like names with meaning, so of course it had one... or three. But really the question got me super thinking, so I rambled about it.

What's in the name? Aside from an awesome alliteration, which is amusing because of my name, and my longest lasting nick name (Not counting Bitch...), it explains two very important things. One, my thought process. Two, where I was when I created the blog. Since it works in two parts, I'll explain it in two parts, since that's easier for me. Also because they are two separate *types* of issues. Things? Categories? Something. Whatever they are, they are two different types of them.

The first is a product of birth made infinitely worse by a late diagnosis. The conceptual cat's cradle is how I think. I don't think in words, I don't think in pictures, I don't talk to myself in my head. It's a cat's cradle. That silly kids game, where you have a string and you wrap it around fingers and you move it back and forth and it gets more and more complex the more work you put into it? Yeah... It's also like those stupid fractals on the early windows screen savers that change shape and color and move about in form and complexity. I also think in sound. Not music, not birdsong, not speech. Sound. Tones. Short ones. It's not like hippie whale song or some shit. Just tones. Like someone plucking a muted guitar string. Or one of those stupid electronic tuners. (If you can't tune your own fucking instrument without the use of electronic devices, how the hell are you going to know when a string is off, or if it sounds correct, or if your stupid tuner is broken? I did, and still do, tune all of my instruments -- harp, guitar, dulcimer-- by ear, and check them on a tuner. I also have perfect pitch, or the next best thing to it, and thus don't understand why someone else can't distinguish between two notes.) Tangent aside. That's my thought process. It doesn't start in english and it doesn't end in english, so there's a lot of translation, and thus room for error along the way. It makes sense to me. I've always thought that way. I don't always get out what I need to when I need to though. Now, why am I an oddball abstract thinker? Because I'm crazy. No really. I spent most of my life wildly misdiagnosed in one direction or another. Between teenage drama and genuine issues, I spent a good portion of my life seeing a shrink and asking what the fuck was wrong with me. The answer was always, "Nothing I can't drug into submission." Not an answer I like. It took them YEARS to get to the right answer. I can understand why, to be honest. I am a social creature. I enjoy other people. I enjoy their company, I like to soak in their experiences. This is *NOT* something that people with my diagnosis do. Autistic people don't do social, so no one really looked that way even when I exhibited all the other key signs. When I was 27 I got my head shrunk by a marvelous man who didn't want to drug me into a coma and he informed me that I am a high functioning cognitive autist. I smiled and told him to go fuck himself. We argued quite nicely for a while and eventually I stopped being a baby and let him run the ridiculous battery of tests to prove it. Ok, so I'm kinda autistic. Fine. Then we argued about treatment. I don't do drugs. I had my life ripped apart by a psychiatric misdiagnosis that lead to me spending far too much time on a drug I didn't need. Further, I don't give three shits if gluten makes things worse, I am not going on a gluten free diet. I'll happily cut down, but I need gluten to live. So there. Call me childish, but it isn't happening. Fortunately he's willing to work with me in the ways I need and want him to. Which, since he's moved to California it all by e-mail. At least it's free now.  So, there. Reason one for the name. It's what my head looks like if you could put thought into physical form.

Next, where I was at.

Honestly the inside of head felt like this. Too much going on and not enough place to put it. Too many words, to many experiences, and way, WAY too many emotions. Oddly, once I got past the emo teenage years I sort of became a guy. I don't care for emotions. I certainly don't care to base decisions off of them, and I staunchly refuse to allow them to rule, control, or affect my life, or decision making process. This isn't to say that I don't have emotions, simply that I prefer to control them as opposed to the other way around. Much like most guys. So... No, I didn't magically develop a penis, just a love affair with reason. Not to mention, flipping out in public is embarrassing on a good day. Take that one step further and add in the fact that I became a violent little shit once I forgot to be afraid of everything. My world, and my view of the world around me, is pretty damn black and white. This leads to issues since most of the people I know live in this horrible place that's mostly shades of grey. Still, they love me. (I bet this part seems disjointed and confusing, right?) So, you take a landscape that's pretty stark and you throw in emotions that I neither want nor understand. You throw in friends who trip your OCD, who don't get you, who push your buttons, and then ask you why you're irritated. You throw in a lot of stress, irritation, stubborn pride, and a million other stupid things and your landscape is not long stark. It's now this creepy, twisted, volatile, irritating place to be in. And the only way out is this gate that's made of string. To open the gate you have to make Jacob's Ladder into the Bishop's Door and if you pull the wrong string the whole thing falls apart and you're back to the beginning.   So there's reason two.

One was because that's just how I work. Two because I needed some coping mechanism to deal with the amazing amount of stupid I cause myself.

And there you go. Complete with pictures. Because I can.

Red Flag.

So, in times past when I've reached this point in my life I've dyed my hair. Red. Usually the brighter the better. I am not dying my hair this time so instead this is your red flag. This is the last warning that I am declaring no quarter.

Don't be emo at me. I know you have problems in your life. I get that. I still love you and I will go back to the regularly scheduled bitching sessions when I have a little bit of breathing space between me and psycho killing machine. Because, right now, I really want to punch you  in the face. Pretty much everyone on the planet can substitute their face and have it be true. What did you do wrong? Not a damn thing. You're being you. You're even being the amazing you that I love and adore. I just have no patience now. None. My tolerance meter is red-lined and until I decompress some, every little thing just sets me off.

If it's something you can fix and won't, don't whine at me. I'm just going to give you a few ways I think you can fix it, and then I 'm going to get upset when you have a BS reason why that won't work.

If it's something you can change and won't, don't whine at me. For the same reason as above.

If you need your ego stroked because you're feeling under the weather, don't come to me. I'm just going to tell you to get some fucking self esteem. I'll give three or four reasons why I think you're amazing. When you disagree with me, I'm going to get pissed. First, because you're bashing yourself. Second, because you are looking me dead in the eye and telling me that I'm wrong. Which I'm not, because if I were, I wouldn't be friends with you, now would I?

If I disagree with you and you call me stupid, foolish, a zombie or sheep, do not cry when I react. I will get pissed. I will tell you exactly why you need to drop that line of conversation, and if you choose to continue I will cease conversing with you and cut you out of my life. My friends aren't clones of me. We don't need to agree with each other all the time. My friends can debate and even argue without it turning to name calling. My friends don't force me to agree with them. If you can't do those things, you are obviously not my friend.

If I disagree with you and you cry at me, do not be surprised when I don't care. I am not here to be your clone. Don't expect me to be. I will try to be polite while I adjust and relocate some patience. Please don't push it with behavior that irritates me when I'm at normal levels of stress.

If you want me to tell you that it's ok that you're doing *insert some action here* when it is deliberately harming yourself or someone else, PARTICULARLY if you're doing it because you don't want to man up, don't be surprised when I don't tell you it's ok. Especially don't be surprised if I tell you why I think you need to man up instead. DOUBLY IMPORTANT, don't cry at me when I do tell you to man up.

Don't be a dick.

Quite frankly I have a million problems in my life right now. Here... let me make this super clear I have a million problems in MY life. Bringing it back to me. And you know what, that's where it needs to be. I need to deal with my own shit. I barely have enough patience to deal with my bullshit. Where on earth am I going to get the patience to deal with yours? The patience gnomes, they don't visit those who just quit smoking. They don't love us.
Further, this is not a cry for help or a cry for attention. I am quite capable of dealing with my own problems. I am doing just that. No, this is not a cry for help, this is simply letting you know who, what, where, why. I believe in transparency.  Particularly when it may help diffuse tense situations or avert them altogether. I am simply saying that I do not have the coping skills for both your problems and my own. That's all.