A Ramble about Being Annoying

Have you ever felt like you annoyed people? More to the point, have you ever kept your distance from people to make sure that you didn't annoy them? Most people can pretty much tell when they've outstayed their welcome, and know instinctively when to back off. It's actually quite the gift, in my opinion, to be able to read people in this way, and it's something which the majority of people in this world unjustifiably take for granted.

Having spent the majority of my life living with Asperger's, I've also spent most of my life not being able to instinctively know when my presence is not wanted. After my treatments, it is a gift that I now never take for granted. But throughout most of my life, I just came to assume that my presence wasn't welcome unless it was directly stated, and even then I felt like I could never be certain, and so even when people would encourage me in this way, because I could not read them, after a little while I would try to politely keep my distance in some way.

This morning, as I drifted on the edge between conscious and unconscious thought, I realized I was doing this same thing with God. I had been so conditioned throughout my life to keep my distance and to not be an unintentional nuisance to people that I have been unconsciously doing the same thing with God. Somewhere on the edge of my conscious thought, the enemy has been whispering something like, “don't get too close. You don't want to annoy Him until He tells you to leave.”

The lie to this is that He won't ever tell me to leave if I continuously call on Him, and bug Him, and talk to Him, and so on. It would run completely contrary to His “treatment plan” for not only myself, but everyone. In order for us to achieve union with Him, we must draw closer to Him and stay close to Him, not politely keep our distance. He knows this, and He wants this for everyone, including me. The explicit command of Jesus Christ was “Remain in Me” and He went on to spell out what happened if a person didn't, and what was possible if a person did. I know all these things, but no one gets over decades of conditioning overnight.

Part of my hesitancy to draw closer to Him is also simple, or not so simple fear of relationship because of my Asperger's past. It's nowhere near as apparent or as strong as it was, but I realized today that it is still there. It is a fear of not knowing what to do or how to act. It is a fear of not understanding how to just be around and enjoy someone else's presence. Relationships are awkward and uncomfortable at best, even if they're what you might want most in the world.

As I look back, it has been almost five years now since my treatments. I had thought I was past all of these things, but the truth is that they are still deeply embedded and ingrained into my psyche even if there are no “physical” reasons for them. They're there because they are the ways I was conditioned to think by my disorder and how the people around me reacted to my disorder, and even if they no longer affect my relationships with other people as much, they do still affect my relationship with God more than I realized.

This isn't something which can be fixed overnight, but must be changed through reconditioning, and this takes time. God knows this, and I know He isn't impatient with my apparent lack of progress. As long as I continue to try and make progress He continues to encourage and push me farther. As long as I continue to move towards Him and not away from Him, He's good with it. He knows me. He created me and has intimate knowledge of every particle, pathway, impulse, and dimension of my existence.

But there is always the voice. Not the still, small voice, but either the unconscious whisper or the alarm bell yelling in my mind that continues to tell me lies that I have been conditioned to drift towards my whole life. I consciously or unconsciously expect a certain reality and the demon reinforces it with its lies. As a result, I begin to warp my own reality by my assent to the belief which the demon is reinforcing with its lie. The Fathers of the Philokalia described this as well. Demons will tell you what you want to hear or what you're afraid to hear and you believe it thus making it the reality you experience regardless of actual reality.

I am reminded, in some ways, of the ways in which the “Mist” is described in the recent Rick Riordan book, “The House of Hades.” The easiest and most effective way, this book reveals, to manipulate the Mist (the unseen field which warps the reality of ordinary mortals, demigods, and sometimes immortals so that they don't see the reality of the supernatural world around them), is to try and make someone believe that what they expect to happen, what they want to happen, or what they are afraid will happen is happening.

Fighting this constant manipulation by the unseen, unbalanced, and malevolent powers is long, tiresome, and never ending work. It requires knowing yourself and not being afraid to really examine what you are actually believing, what your actual desires are, and not being afraid to delve into the dark, sometimes very dark parts of who you are because these are the parts of yourself that contain the things you don't want to think about and don't want to believe about yourself and so you ignore them. Don't delude yourself into thinking that the enemy ignores them too. These are the places demons read like best selling novels, and then repeats back to you as “facts”. This is why those same Fathers of the desert were adamant in their admonitions to guard your heart and mind, and to never let down that guard.

Even knowing this, it's ridiculously easy to do. Distractions from prayer and spiritual devotions, mental and emotional exhaustion, and so on all tend to wear you down until you let down your guard and the enemy takes full advantage with little lies, or big ones dressed up as your fondest wishes or worst nightmares. Giving your assent to them warps your reality further until you can no longer sense His presence because you no longer believe He wants anything to do with you and belief (which produces action) is everything in this very high stakes game. Thus the reason why Jesus gave the command “Remain in Me,” and the reason why demons focus all of their attacks on keeping you from doing it.

Always remember what the Apostle John wrote in his first letter. If we make confession, He will forgive. If we turn our movement away from Him around into movement towards Him He will rejoice and run towards us. Be watchful. Be mindful. Stay alert. These are the things the demons don't want you doing.