New address for Highmat blog

Dear reader

I merged this blog into my German blog so it is bilingual now. Please follow me there for more and more private information: http://highmat.blogspot.de/

See you there!

Domenika

Buttons for Asperger-autistic people

People with Asperger's syndrome have often got special requirements for their workplace.
They find it difficult to communicate with other people because it is hard for them to decode the signals sent out in interpersonal communications.
Many find security in a stringent daily routine, with rituals and habits which should always remain the same wherever possible.
Their enthusiasm for specific topics, which they might have encyclopaedic knowledge of in their heads, is not always met with understanding, let alone due recognition.

If these aspects of life cannot be expressed in the workplace, this can lead to shyness, feelings of inferiority, under-stimulation and depression.

In order to account for these requirements, the "button project" was established: Inspired by the "Stamps for Bethel" concept, used buttons are collected in order to create jobs for people with Asperger's.

This is a fantastic project set up by independent people who want to mould their work space exactly according to their own personal requirements.

You can get more information on this project here: http://buttonproject.wordpress.com/

Feeling ingredients

In my line of work, I often hear the phase "Yes, I feel a lot! But this does not mean by a long shot that I always know exactly what I am feeling."
In general, what we feel is a conglomerate of multiple feelings, in different nuances, gradations and combinations.

But as it is often much simpler to deal with feelings when you can actually identify them, it is certainly worth practicing how to recognise which feelings go into making your cocktail of feelings.

One method is to feel "pure feelings". After all, if you can recognise a key feeling in yourself, it is easier to recognise it again in the chaos.
Practice picking out individual feelings from the pack, e.g. happiness, openness or disappointment, and feel them as intensively as you can.

Over time, this will enhance your ability to recognise aspects of your own feelings and therefore improve your capacity to deal with them.

Investing in burnout

The current issue of Focus features this cartoon: A man is sitting at a bar and the barkeeper asks: "Do you want to pay?". The man then says "I'm afraid that I can't.." and opens his wallet to show the angry barman a small black puff of smoke emerging – "Burnout..." he adds.
The cartoon shows us how relevant the topic of burnout is nowadays. Among mentally gifted and highly sensitive people, it generally develops through under-stimulation and/or over-stimulation.

But the cartoon also shows – probably unintentionally – the connection between burnout and money.
Having burnout is no excuse for being skint, but it can certainly be the trigger. Because burnout also inevitably brings a person to the question "What do I want in life?", and the answer often leads people to a new start professionally, which also brings with it financial limitations.
The situation is even more intense for self-employed people because burnout always results in an immediate massive drop in earnings for them, adding fear for their own existence into the equation, which only serves to intensify the burnout symptoms. A vicious circle.

So for many, burnout is a careful balancing act between recovery, changes and financial survival. In which areas can I push myself? How can I deal with the intensive stimuli better? And how can I integrate these measures into my professional, private and financial life?
The key is to find the happy medium, which reopens the path to your inner home and at the same time provides enough scope to change old structures. An investment for life!

Pleading to be alone

Even as a child, I always loved being alone. Nowadays that I know about my highly sensitive nature, I realise that these times alone were and still are essential for the survival of my mental state.

First of all, it is important to recognise the difference between being alone and loneliness. You can feel lonely at a party full of people. But being alone really means being alone.

Being alone is often called "seclusion" which suggests that the state of being together with others is normal and that being alone is in fact more of an exception.

People are of course social beings but nowadays there is almost a pressure to be together with others. It is seen as somewhat uncool to be alone or to want to be alone. After a day of dealing with people at work, many use the TV, radio and internet to come into contact with others at home.

Don't get me wrong, I use this media too, even quite extensively at times. But if they are only used as distraction to ensure that we don't have the feeling of being alone out of fear for who we might meet in that solitary place, we lose a piece of our identity – the feeling of who we are. After all, you are much more than just the colleague of... or the friend of... You are you!

And I would strongly urge you to do the following: Enjoy yourself alone!