Toxicity - Webster defines as "the quality, state, or relative degree of being toxic or poisonous"
Toxic - 1: containing or being poisonous material especially when capable of causing death or serious debilitation, i.e. toxic waste. 2: exhibiting symptoms of infection or toxicosis. 3: extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful. 4: relating to or being an asset that has lost so much value that it cannot be sold on the market.
The weird thing about intoxication is that it can be both good and bad. My coffee this morning is intoxicating (not literally, but a metaphor for being good, duh. I didn't spike it...although...that thought has crossed my mind, I won't lie.) Some degree of intoxication can be good, however most of the time people take it past the point of fun and venture into the drunk category. One reason (of a few actually) that I do not drink to get drunk anymore, is that ever-so-fine line between the two. I think to an extent with some people that must come with age. Speaking from a gonna-be 31 year old's point of view, it might be premature...but as my Facebook "On This Day" just reminded me ever so gently, I did do a brief stint in the drunken days...but I digress.
That's not to say I don't drink at all, just the other night I made the wife and I a strawberry banana smoothie with frozen yogurt and wine. It was delicious. And I do enjoy me an Amaretto and Sour, and a Moscow Mule, and I'm quite fond of IPAs (312 by Goose Island is delicious and yes I know that's not an IPA, that it is a wheat ale, but it's one of my favorite beers), but it's not an everyday thing, nor even an every weekend thing. I have my reasons for having no desire to get blinding drunk anymore, which I don't care to discuss here because I'm still too embarrassed by them and that alone is what fuels my temperance, if you want to call it that. Suffice it to say that if you have to be reminded the next day of things you said (and/or did), and you have absolutely no recollection of having said (or did) anything like that, you've had too much to drink. And to do that every time you go out...yeah that is my reason and that's all I'll say.
I'm not getting up on a soap box either, going all Carrie Nation (she's kinda famous for smashing liquor bottles at a local bar here) and preaching temperance to everyone, I'm actually reminded of a meme post from Catholic Memes with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI having a rather large beer (think Das Boot) with a reference to a line in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. A quick Google search for said meme turned up fruitless but it doesn't take away from my point of I don't drink much. Which isn't even the point of this blog post anyway but as the subtitle of this blog should say, "But I Digress..."
Update: I found the meme:
And if you're wondering, CCC #2290 states: "The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur the grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others' safety on the road, at sea, or in the air.
All of that being said...toxicity enters our lives, and sometimes we don't recognize it at first. Sometimes it takes an unobtrusive third party to kind of "bring us to our senses", and to realize that some sort of toxicity has crept its nasty way into our lives. It can be a toxic family member or friend, using guilt or manipulation to persuade you into performing their demands at the risk of your personal satisfaction. Those with Stockholm syndrome will derive some sort of pleasure even while they are doing what they don't want to do, but sooner or later we have to take a moment to take stock of what we do, who we do it for, and why we are doing it. Either something happens that wakes us up to who that person or those people really are, or oftentimes that unobtrusive third party will put their two cents in that will ignite a spark to the aforementioned self-assessment. However, that unobtrusive third party generally can't be truly unobtrusive unless they know the intimate details of both parties, otherwise they are just getting your side of the story, and unless you are being painfully truthful, that story will always be tilted in your favor, even if ever-so-slightly.
That being said, even this tilted point of view that the less-than-unobtrusive (because obtrusive was definitely not the word I was looking for here) third party has, will almost certainly lead to points that you yourself had not given thought to, for one reason or another. They may be incorrectly founded, but at some level they are points worth considering. One being the occasional or sometimes recurring notion that you may not be as important to a particular individual as they are to you. On a more serious tone, there may be indications of actual abuse where you just saw harmless...whatever.
One "problem" (and I use the quotes intentionally) of an Aspie brain is being less able to detect people's true intentions. Simply put - you take them and their words at face value because that is what is logical. This makes guilt and manipulation a more powerful tool to the toxic individual because you're now easier to manipulate. Juxtaposed with guilt trips, you are putty in the toxic individual's hands.
Until you wake up.
In a seemingly unrelated but assuredly related segue, toddlers sometimes make the best therapists. You gently vent your frustration in the form of a singsongy story time voice and boom - save yourself a $200 therapy copay. "So-and-so can't find it in their heart to do such-and-such possibly minuscule-but-turned-mountain of an annoyance or otherwise timely detestable thing, and wouldn't you think after I did some altruistic thing they could do my <insert timely requirement here>?" Toddler's response: a non-sequitur-esque and joyfully emphatic "Yeah!" If that doesn't melt away your frustration then you my friend possess no soul.
And so, Aspie or Neurotypical, when we wake up, when we see for ourselves that toxicity has crept into our lives, we do as Miranda Bailey and Cristina Yang did in Grey's Anatomy when they were forced through obligation to their Hippocratic Oath to treat a Neo-Nazi white supremacist, and we "rise above".
An Aspie brain is a beautiful thing that must never be thought of as a defect or a problem to society. Some of the best things to come into this world do so through the minds of Aspie greats. Don't underestimate us.
No comments:
Post a Comment