Feline Focus

Feline Focus
My latest puma, July 2016

Carra

Carra
Beloved companion to Sarah, Nov 2015

Window To The Soul

Window To The Soul
Watercolour Horse, June 2015

Sleeping Beauties

Sleeping Beauties
Watercolour Lionesses, Nov 2012

QUOTES QUOTA

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."

"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."

Groucho Marx




Snow Stalker

Snow Stalker
Another snow leopard - my latest watercolour offering - July 2013

13 February 2010

Don't Mind Me

One of the most disconcerting things I’ve found about having aspergers is the fact that I don’t seem to know my own mind at all. It’s like living with another person, and she keeps everything secret from me! My behaviour doesn’t match up to my intentions, and my intentions are always good. It’s no wonder we are often misdiagnosed or classed as being schizophrenic, or having multiple-personality disorders: I’ve sometimes doubted my own sanity too!

I used to think that I was just some Contrary Mary, rebelling against everything I was told just for the hell of, and on the principle that no-one was going to control me. This especially seemed to fit my behaviour as a child: I was unruly, undisciplined, hyper-active, with the attention span of a gnat, with a mind that wandered off everywhere taking my body unresistantly with it! I felt like I was always being led astray, only I couldn’t point to someone outside myself and say “She made me to do it!” The person making me do it was always me, except I wasn’t consciously aware that it was. I’m still not consciously aware of it, hence still finding it a problem figuring out what’s going on in me.

That’s one of the problems with aspergers: the link between mind, body, and soul (true self) seems to be broken, or not properly connected because of the neurological wiring in me being skewed. It feels as if the three parts of me are all separate entities, and they never seem to be acting in synch. They don’t even seem to be communicating with each other half the time! I imagine the wires in my nervous system as looking like a bunch of electrical wiring, some of which are aimlessly and dangerously flapping around giving me an electric shock every so often as they touch each other randomly, and the rest look like they have been soldered together by a blind man wearing oven gloves!

I know this is probably not correct but it helps me to visualise it this way. It reminds me that what I have got is a lifetime condition and not an illness that can be cured. It also helps to alleviate some of the guilt and self-condemnation I suffer over some of the way I think and behave at times.

Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard
An experiment in watercolour and gouache

Quotes Quota

"Do you believe in Magic?" asked Colin.

"That I do, lad," she answered. "I never knowed it by that name, but what does th' name matter? I warrant they call it a different name i' France an' a different one i' Germany. Th' same thing as set th' seeds swellin' an' th' sun shinin' made thee well lad an' it's th' Good Thing. It isn't like us poor fools as think it matters if us is called out of our names. Th' Big Good Thing doesn't stop to worrit, bless thee. It goes on makin' worlds by th' million - worlds like us. Never thee stop believin' in th' Big Good Thing an' knowin' th' world's full of it - an call it what tha' likes. Eh! lad, lad - what's names to th' Joy Maker."

From 'The Secret Garden', by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Love

Love
Copied from photograph of the same name by Roberto Dutesco

Quotes Quota

"There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way."
The Dalai Lama

"If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything."

Malcolm X

On The Prowl

On The Prowl
Watercolour tiger

Quotes Quota

"What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step."

"There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind."

C S Lewis