Artism: The Essential Expenditure of Stagnant Energy

Today I said something that ended up really striking me about an hour later for what I'd actually said. Sometimes we say small things but what they say or mean is something much larger.

Here's what I wrote to my dear friend Bev,

...you know, when I stop writing, composing, painting, gardening, I go 'nuts'? I think that with my receptive (processing) so shot if I didn't have the (artistic) expressive (abilities) to use up energy it'd all come piling out in stuff that wastes my time and self defeats.

For example, I don't tic at the computer but if I try and make a cup of tea or cook or anything 'novel' I do. If I'm engrossed in a composition the (challenging) mood (and anxiety) crud is nowhere in sight but if I relax and do nothing it is there to 'stimulate' me (gee thanks says I, no rest for the wicked eh!). (The result is I can't stop.)

For me this maybe explains why I'm so fiercely creatively prolific which I couldn't understand before... To give you some idea, in the last 15 years I've written 11 books... nine of them published... done two recorded Albums of songs I composed and have 100s more compositions waiting, I have around 50 hanging artworks throughout my house that I've done, two life size sculptures and 12 small to medium sized ones as well as a stone carving and two completed film scripts.

When I'm creating or swinging or rocking are the only times I really sit still for a long time. But what was I like before I could dare these creative outlets? I lived in my head and whenever I was alone (which was as much as possible), I pawed and cried over my mirror reflection like a nutter, I chattered in constant characterisations from the TV, I tried to get lost in the sound of gravel or a pattern in wallpaper, the shifting patterns of lights, anything to not be present, chaotically present with impulses pulling me into fragments and emotions raging... and why, why is the question?

I believe why is because without cohesive receptive processing I am both overwhelmed by the chaos of fragmented tumbling mostly meaningless input and STARVED of the 'bingo' experience of cohesion that others get so instead I compensate by creating or all I can do is fill the space with whatever I can, including self hypnosis to simply escape what I have.

I felt I replaced my Autism with Artism in the last 15 years and I did. The question is what is there for others who cannot dare the social bridges of artistic creativity for it usually means inviting intimacy and blah where for me creativity means aloneness and solitude (which I seem to crave... but yes, I know there are others who get very lonely, but I'm a self entertainment factory, the receptive is my challenge hence I prefer company that keeps to itself, simply co-existing happily in the same room is my ideal company).

The question is what is there for others when they paint with feces instead of paint, drum with hands on walls instead of drumsticks on drums, make their sculptural installations out of the contents of the bookshelf that will be wanted to be put back later, create their visual symphonies from the dropping of sand and shredded grass and make coins and objects spin like the dancers they themselves dare not be?

When we take away all these Artisms because we see them as Autisms, do we have a more normalised person but one who, in the starvation caused by limited receptive processing now find their mood, anxiety and impulse control states seek to replace that missing stimulation, that missing essential burning up of nutrient energy and run amok with their bodies and emotions at the expense of will and selfhood?

Yes, we can reduce their fierce wildness with a low Salicylate diet, rebalance their blood sugar with Glutamine, their mood disorders with omega 3s, their stress state with Calcium-Magnesium, Mega B and Glutamine, but what of reducing a major source of stress... pent up energy caused by a starvation of receptive conceptualisation experiences because in the constant flooded overload state receptive processing is limited and still the body craves that stimulation of coherent, cohesive cognitive experiences.

I can, of course, take medication to control the severity of mood, anxiety and compulsive disorder fall out that I expect wouldn't be there if my receptive stuff worked cohesively enough to use up the energy these fleas otherwise make good use of.

It's like restless legs when you haven't had physical exercise, but its a soul version, a soul screaming for the internal EXPERIENCE of inclusion, not just because you go through the motions but because you can cohesively and with reasonable consistency internall process the experience of those motions you've gone through.

And what I get are only glimpes of that reality because my understanding in the moment of what I see and hear and even read are all like jigsaws with half or more of the pieces missing and all tumbled up seconds to minutes after I've first encountered them so teaching me to go through the motions doesn't change that, but for me, creating compensates.

Without verbal or typed expression there is still movement, dance, music, art and without those their is still rhythm and pattern.

Maybe I can comfortably cast off this awareness knowing it is the lot of the Artist as much as the Autist but sometimes the line between the two is not so distinct.

~ ~ ~

Article from Donna Williams site http://www.donnawilliams.net
published here with kind permission of the author.

Donna Williams is a consultant in the field of autism spectrum conditions, and an international best-selling author diagnosed with Autism, with nine books in the field of developmental 'disabilities' - her autobiography, Nobody Nowhere, its sequel Somebody Somewhere, plus others including Autism-An Inside-Out Approach, and The Jumbled Jigsaw.