"AS & Tragedy"

Once again, we have a thought-provoking article from one of our very own Aspie Insiders, Miles Bumgardner. Check it out below and let us know what you think. Thanks Miles!

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"AS & Tragedy"

When one hears the word "tragedy" the mind pictures several things: Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet", the sinking of the Titanic, the shooting of schools like Columbine, or the tragic death of a young one from some horrible illness. These are tragedies of the extreme. But to some the loss of a loved one or pet can be just, if not more, terrible because it affects us directly as individuals. And as with other things, looking at tragedy of any kind through the Aspie Glass is no more clear than it is without it.

The sad fact is that we are all going to face something tragic at some point in our lives. Thats just part of the deal of being human, and alive for that matter. A wise man once told me that a person's true character comes out when they face hard times. If that’s the case then I certainly need to work on mine. But there is some truth in what the man  said, as the nature of tragedy or anything disastrous is one that's unpredictable and often unexpected. So when we are caught off guard we react to our first primal instinct: shock. Where we go from there varies, for as individual beings we contain different experiences that make us our own.

The age old inquiry of "who am I" could be answered by that: you are the sum of all your experience in this existence! But, that’s a discussion for another time…..

Something that sticks out a bit in terms of individuality is that we tend to make things more important than others. Something personal becomes more important than a larger scale of things, unless of course YOU feel it affects you as well (and, I'd like to point out, IT SHOULD)! But sometimes we can't help that, or in this case Asperger’s Syndrome can't help that. We know ourselves better than anyone else, and to experience emotional pain is considered to be quite normal. Or, at least, so I've been told…..

We are conditioned by the society we live in to interpret things like the death of a loved one, a natural disaster, or a permanent disability as being tragic. And with the exception of the last example, death and natural disasters are not tragic but normal in the cycle of life. All that lives must die, and there can't always be sunny skies with no earthquakes. Although these events may bear tragic consequences, that does not necessarily make them tragedies. We merely THINK they are tragedies, because we perceive them to be so. The death of a favorite pet is sad, but it’s no more tragic than the farmer slaughtering his prize hog in order to feed his family. As the old saying goes, "it is what it is". Besides, the tragedy isn't the worst. It’s how we handle it, the "getting over it,” that is the most difficult part.

Because I live life with AS (Asperger’s syndrome), the lines between common and "uncommon" sense is very blurred, so when my Grandmother (my mother figure) or a deep and special friend died, it was very difficult for me to process. Sure, we all think of death in our lives, we see it on TV and films, but when it actually happens and you don't suspect it, your world is flipped over, creating one big mess inside and out. Then you have to run and find a way to cope with what’s happening, and unfortunately, I did the wrong thing and internalized it. I became angry, and not the "oh dear, I just missed the bus" kind of angry. But the destructive angry, especially in regards to my friend. So I went crazy, not knowing what to do, what to think, how to let go. And only now am I just figuring out how to do that. Well, better late than never right?

It was through facing the coldness of reality and saying, “Okay, they're gone. Get used to it and get in gear NOW” to myself that I began to be set free. There are plenty of ways to “let go" of the things that give us pain. So learning to do stuff on my own and thinking of the good times, music I enjoyed in their company or books became a way to stay in touch with them and I became more and more at peace with it all day by day. That’s how you get over tragic events I suppose: taking everything day by day, one step at a time.

One of my heroes was George Harrison and he wrote a song called "All Things Must Pass" where he says that nothing is permanent and that like a sunrise, nothing stays the same way and life keeps moving along. The sunrise can't last all morning and a sunset can't last all evening. All things must pass away, but we'll have the memories, for better or worse, to help us along.