Aspergers

Day 50: The Illusion of Normal

| Aspergers Girls

The idea of this concept called Normal is one of the grandest illusions of our time.

There is no normal.

Normal doesn’t exist.

All definitions of normal are debatable—as are the definitions of typical, average, and ordinary.

And what’s wrong with atypical, above average, and extraordinary, anyhow?

Normal, apparently, means behaving like most behave. But who are these most? And how do they behave? Show me the model. And PLEASE don’t point to a television program.

The definition of normal is particularly alarming, and highly debatable, when considering the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a guidebook for mental-health professionals. (Often referred to the mental-health clinician’s Bible.)

All mental-health practitioners in America categorize and diagnose millions of people by referring to the Bible of Abnormal—my word for the DSM.

No surprise that the definitions of normal changes with each publication of the DSM.

The new 5th edition of the DSM comes out in 2013, with newly proposed disorders and changes made to other disorders. It has been rumored that children tantrums will be a new disorder.

What about adult tantrums? Because I feel one coming on!

I’d like to see a Bible of Normal. I mean, if a whole thick book can list non-normalcies than shouldn’t the opposite book be available? Of course there is probably no profit to be made in a book on normal behavior, especially if the book were based on fantasy and trickery and not attached to a drug to cure normalcy.

No big surprise considering the times we live in to discover the DSM is driven by the machinations of the pharmaceutical business.

In fact, more than half of the experts who compile the DSM have ties to the pharmaceutical industry. (Published in the journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.) And other experts have other financial ties, such as research monies.

Thusly, the current idea of normalcy is a spawn of the introduction of psychoactive drugs in the 1950’s.  Hmmmm? I’m thinking I don’t particularly agree with how this normal came about. How about you?

There is a direct relationship: Psychoactive drugs were introduced to treat the DSM definitions of Mental Disorders and Illness.

A mental illness can be defined as: A psychological pattern reflected in behavior that disrupts a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. The illness cannot be overcome by willpower, and is not related to a person’s character or intelligence. In the majority of cases, mental illness usually strikes people in the prime of their life.

Rather ambiguous.

The pharmaceutical companies would like everyone to believe that many people have a mental illness, but that FORTUNATELY the illness is a highly treatable condition; by (buy) their drugs, of course.

Too bad the direct relationship isn’t: The Food Pyramid, Employment Opportunities, Community Support Systems, Herbal Remedies, Acupuncture, Massage, and other healthy alternatives were introduced to treat the DSM definitions of Mental Disorders and Illness.

http://www.wellsphere.com/wellpage/semi-vegetarian-food-pyramid
Image found at above web page.

You do know the powers that be in America do hope we get sick and fat so we will buy more drugs?

Beyond the tantrum I just had over the injustice of the world, I am also a wee-bit confused about the DSM’s definition of Asperger’s Syndrome. The limiting definition is based on only male subjects. I’m a girl last time I checked. The definition is not based on a great degree of research. Yet, these DSM collaborators (insert any word here you want) feel confident and comfortable enough classifying Aspergers.


In considering the definition of Aspergers Syndrome:

People are born with Aspergers.

It doesn’t just appear in the prime of one’s life.

People with Aspergers do have high intelligence.

I’m confused about this reclassification of Aspergers coming out in the new (and improved) DSM-V.  Asperger’s might be classified as a social disorder. Please!??

So the people who act like everyone else are the ones without a disorder, the so-called normal ones?

People who don’t express strong convictions are normal?

People who suppress their quirks?

People who are social conformists?

People who blindly follow the plutocracy? (government lead by the wealthy)

People who blindly follow the presumed authority figures?

If the definition of normal means to function in most areas of life successfully, what are these so-called areas? What is most? What does function mean?

Do I function, if I come across as the norm? Feel like the norm? Believe in the norm?

And please, please tell me what is success.

If we could gather  Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus, and other wise people, and ask them to explain their definition of success, I bet their success wouldn’t resemble most of what is portrayed in America’s normal media, advertisements, and entertainment.

I’m done following the DSM’s and pharmaceutical companies’ yellow brick road of normalcy. It leads to the man behind the current stuffing his sacs with money.

I’m happy with my own path. The path that leads to extraordinary!


Armless Piano Player YouTube

The Artist with No Eyes. Esref Armagan


 

Articles Related to The Illusion of Normal Below

Illusions of Psychiatry

What is Normal

A Comparison of DSM-IV and DSM-5 Panel Members’ Financial Associations with Industry: A Pernicious Problem Persists

Undue Pharmaceutical Influence on Psychiatric Practice: Steps That Can Reduce the Ethical Risk

Day 49: The View From Atop the Triangle

| Aspergers Girls

Last night I was up until 1:00 am worried that I wasn’t good enough.

Some of my worries:

I’m ugly

I’m fat

I’m aging

I’m weird

I’m obsessive

I’m not a good enough mother

I’m not a good enough wife

I think about me too much

I don’t do enough to help others

My blog is stupid

I care too much about what others’ think

I’m lazy

I obsessed on the computer most of the day, fluctuating between a social network page, YouTube videos, and this blog.

There is something extremely calming about my blog. I just click on the main page and stare, reread, and peruse the comments. My blog connects me to another realm, to another part of myself, and to other people who know my journey. The writing offers me a reflection of me: my uniqueness and beauty. My blog is my passion, my talent, my creativity.

Beyond the computer, I felt frightened, somewhat like a little girl running outside the protective circle of her guardian. When I pulled myself away I was nervous and I overate. I grounded chocolate-pudding brownies into mocha-almond-fudge ice cream. I had bread rolls and garlic bread, hash browns, and other carb-filled delights. All the while feeling worse and worse about myself.

I felt entirely alone and useless, despite my family being home. So much so that I googled: Why it’s okay to be lazy and Why it’s okay to do nothing.

I felt extreme guilt about being ME. I analyzed why I had this guilt, but the analysis made things worse. I knew all the things I should have been doing, such as: exercising, showering, drinking green tea, taking my supplements, getting out of the house. But I couldn’t do anything. I was immobilized, trapped, frozen. I couldn’t even change the stained shirt I was wearing or bend down to pick a crumb off the floor.

These types of days, where I am overcome by grief, fear, and fatigue, are nothing new to me. I’ve had these days since I was a teenager. The challenge is that now I’m not a teenager, I am a mother and a wife, which comes with responsibilities beyond my own needs.

These roles’ obligations add to my guilt, my feelings of low self-worth, and my inability to fully retreat, regroup, and reenergize.

Yesterday wasn’t the easiest of mornings for our family. There was some turmoil. This spike in the energy of the household left my brain sprawling. Any type of unexpected event causes me to feel unease and fear.

No amount of reasoning, cognitive tools, or talk can dissipate the fear. I have to go through the fear. Then, once on the other side—whether within minutes or a day—I have the clarity of mind to process and release.

Yesterday the fear stayed with me.

Yesterday I hated myself for starting this stupid blog. I thought for certain I’d never ever have anything to write about worth interest. I hated myself for thinking I was making a difference. I hated myself for my lack of willpower, my messed up emotions, my inability to relax, my constant, constant challenges. I hated life.

My life felt like poop, so much that I even Googled poop. I watched a YouTube on crap—and then wondered whose crap it was.

About midnight, I began preparing for the next day, hoping I’d awake in a different mindset. I wrote a poem about how I’m okay, listing everything from wearing pajamas all day to overeating. I started researching self-acceptance. Starting telling myself I am okay.

I understand with further clarity how I’m trapped in a cycle of perfectionism—always have been, and imagine I always will be. It’s something about the way my brain functions. My strong analytical ability and extreme fluid intelligence enable me to have complex thought processes and to produce quality work; however, those same abilities put me into overdrive of self-analysis, worry, and remorse.

My own thought processes set me up for failure.

I understand with further clarity how a well-balanced person experiences the ABC’s of Acceptance, Belonging, and Confidence. And how having Aspergers evokes feelings of Rejection, Not Fitting In, and Timidity.

 

I understand with further clarity how Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs relates to this female with Aspergers.

My physiological needs are being met.

My safety needs are not being met.

There is no security, stability, or freedom from fear. There are moments of relief from fear, but they are fleeting, always temporary, always changing.

My sense of belonging is limited.

I feel continually that I am not upholding to the rules, expectations, and norms of others. I question my actions, my motives, my own belief systems. I upset my spouse; I neglect my family; being a lover comes with its challenges. I have friends that love me unconditionally, but I worry that they will discover, at a deeper level, I am too odd, too strange, too much to deal with, not enough.

My self-esteem is limited.

I achieve mastery sometimes in my writing, in my thinking, in my ability to love others; but there remains an underlying doubt and fear about others’ judgment and rejection. I like ME most of the time. I would choose ME as a friend. I’d be happy with ME as a friend. Yet, at the same time I doubt my ability to be enough. I achieve recognition and even respect, but I over analyze both. I question am I worthy to receive recognition and respect? What if I disappoint, offend, and/or fall short? What if my faults are singled out? What if I am ridiculed, judged, and rejected? What if I become prideful?

My self-actualization is intriguing.

This is where my triangle is top-heavy. I do pursue my inner talents. I do pursue creative endeavors. I do feel fulfilled by my endeavors. It appears my self-actualization is reached from a different avenue than the norm. I do not progress up the triangle. Instead I take a ladder, lean it against the triangle, climb up, and bypass the center of the triangle, to reach the top. I pursue my talents because that is my refuge, my retreat, my coping mechanism. In this realm, atop the triangle, lies my freedom and power. Atop the triangle sits my obsession, fixation, passion, joy, and extreme love.

And that explains where I was yesterday. I was seated on the top-level of the triangle. High out of reach. I retreated to my place of comfort.

Today, I climb back down the ladder, back to the ground. But I carry with me a greater clarity, a clarity only found because I sat at the highest peak and viewed my world.

“We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do.” ~ Ethel Barrett

“I was a personality before I became a person – I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy, and driven.” ~ Barbra Streisand

“I would step into a place of being lined up with a sense of purpose and my inner compass, and everything was going in the same direction. Then I’d get lazy and get off the track. And then things would start to fall apart, and I’d back up and get it together again.” ~ Kathy Mattea 

Kathy Mattea in 1994 Teach Your Children Well

Okay Poem Below

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Day 48: Death by Saliva

| Aspergers Girls

I awoke in the early hours of the morn hacking like a hairball-ridden feline with my throat aflame. I’d apparently choked on my own saliva and was still mostly asleep, pacing the bedroom floor while gasping for air. My throat was parched from what had to have been an up chuck of bile.

Out of breath and slit-eyed, I made my way upstairs, and sat in the cold living room under the light of a singular lamp, contemplating my death. LV (see my lingo button) was wide awake, panting and pacing in a pure state of panic, entirely convinced that at any moment the co-conspirators of spit and throat would rebel and squeeze the last breath from me.  Sir Brain refused to ever sleep again. Crazy Frog started counting on his webbed digits all the ways a human could feasible expire. Elephant headed out to the forest. Phantom was weeping in the dark. And OCFlea was in his element, strumming on his ukulele and serenading Death.

Little Me, I passed out on the couch while bargaining with the gods.

Saliva Choking Info. Found Online: “I would be interested to know if you are Overweight. The symptoms that you are describing sound very much like obstructive sleep apnea, which is more common in people who are overweight. In this increasingly common disorder, the soft tissue in the back of your throat relaxes while you sleep, and then it falls into the airway.”   

Oh! JOY! Time to find me a muzzle. 

This morning, I looked in the bathroom mirror, and I swear my chin is gone. Vanished. Took off with the night. And I have a taste in my mouth like some Keebler elves were up late lacquering my teeth with pond slime. My chest hurts from choking, and still from that nut that caught in my throat from that frozen-cheesecake incident a couple of weeks back. My legs, and basically every part of my body, ache from starting back up with my evil (Eeee-V-aalll) exercise regime. Oh, yes, and my headache came back like black magic, right when the Dean of Education called me last night.

The Dean is heading to China. She gave me a quick ring-a-ding before she left her office for the week. I will get reimbursed thousands of dollars, it seems. Her advice, to set the final part of the plan in motion, was to write a very short, ambiguous email explaining to the VP of the university that I had to withdraw from the college because of my disability. (For university auditing purposes)

Oh boy, did Elephant barge out from nowhere. All of the sudden anger, which I can only assume had been held hostage in the dark of the haunted woods with Phantom, came barging out full-force, trumpets and all.

Elephant had a thing or two to say to the dean. And Elephant actually sounded quite intelligent during the process.  First off Elephant reminded the dean, who I have to say was kind in her manner, that I would not lie, that I was not leaving the university because I had Aspergers! In truth I was leaving because of the way the professors treated me. And that in my last Master’s Program, I had had no trouble whatsoever with the professors, and was in fact supported! (What a concept.)

After Elephant’s romp, the dean was rather quiet. When she spoke again, she still said the same thing: A brief email would be best.

Within a few more minutes, Elephant got to the bottom of the situation. (Now I’m picturing butts. Sorry. Can’t help myself. But I’m stopping Crazy Frog from posting cute butt photos.)

Elephant discovered that the dean had no qualms about anything that Elephant had said. In fact she agreed. With some careful questioning, Elephant came to realize the dean wanted me to write a brief email to assure I’d receive my tuition back. The brevity would avoid the potential of my tuition reimbursement request going into the long, drawn out appeal process. The dean also concurred, quite nicely, that after I had the money in hand, I might consider sending a letter to the VP explaining the truth of the events.

Bravo! One step closer to putting this university behind me! (Butt images again…)

Crazy Frog is ever so thankful to have his precious i-Mac computer back today. Seems he’s become quite the computer snob.

My post was super short yesterday, by my standards. Wouldn’t you know, it turns out that people who read blogs like short posts! Now I have to go back to review my Blog 101 Rules again, and develop a working list of the unspoken norms and etiquette of blogging. It appears, through the act of blogging, I have stumbled upon a cyber society with its own set of virtual rules and expectations.

I’ll be hosting a sit down with the Geek Posse at high noon, to acknowledge our quirky-cute, uniqueness and our right to be however we wish to be in any society, cybernetic or not. Though, I predict the whole meeting will turn into a Matrix  (virtual reality) debate, where Crazy Frog searches out the boundaries of his existence, and theorizes he is existing in some simulated world anyhow. Regarding their existence, I imagine I’ll have to console LV and Sir Brain with dark organic truffle chocolate, yet again.

And then by sundown, I’ll inevitably find myself gasping in the night with no chin. Such is the story of my life.

The Muppet Matrix. For all my fellow Geek Posse Folks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQrotZDDsTE


Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Day 47: Ode to the Amazing Asperger’s Brain!

| Aspergers Girls

Fun Brain Musical Video  (Fun for All Ages!)

At the age of two and a half, from the backseat of the car, Joseph asked: “Who birthed God?” and “How do you know?”

Many People with Aspergers Have  a Strong Ability to:

Reason

Identify patterns

Think abstractly

Find creative solutions

Talk through problems

Adapt

 Look at old problems differently

Speak their mind irrespective of social norms and standards

Uphold an adherence to personal beliefs

Think of new ideas

Have a high focus level

Experience intrinsic reward through thought processing

 

Here’s a look inside the amazing brain of a child with Aspergers. Below are approximately 5% of the questions my thirteen-year-old son, Joseph, who has Aspergers, asked me during a week’s time. Joseph asks questions at random, seemingly from out of the blue.

This morning on a four-minute drive to school:

What if the earth was square. How would that affect gravity? Did people understand the world wasn’t flat after or before they discovered gravity? I wonder what the world would be like if we never discovered the earth was round. I probably wouldn’t even be here.

Yesterday morning, while sipping his green tea:

 I wonder how the world would have changed if we had inventions earlier? Like navigational devices for the Titanic. You never know. But then again, then Hitler would have had access to such inventions.

 Questions all in a row:

How come people are bald on their head and not on their arms? Why don’t they improve things? Like the Titanic. How come the Titanic Crashed? Why wasn’t it steal plated? Didn’t they have radar back then? What a minute. How can we be a trillion dollars in deficit? Whose job is it to make zippers? I just realized something: we need dumb people to do simple jobs. Not that all people who do simple jobs are dumb. But we need them.

A few days ago, in the car:

 If everything is digital now, are we living more in a fake reality or real reality? When you think about it we are accidentally unknowingly transferring things to different dimensions. I mean where does electricity all go? Is it in the clouds?

Fantastic Video on Genius of Autism

Quantum Physics Musical Video

Crazy Frog side note: My dog licks dishes from the dishwasher. Apparently other people’s dogs lick dishes out of dishwashers, too. Good to know!

30 Second video of dog licking dishes…Don’t ask!

Day 46: Vampires, Naked People and Amazing Super Power Jeans

| Aspergers Girls

I did the unmentionable this morning—I stepped on the scale. I’m hearing horror music in my head, like from the shower scene in Psycho.

I’m not on speaking terms with food. I’m so over eating.

As in done with chewing all together. I need someone to stick an IV (intravenous tube) in me with a nutritional drip of fresh-juiced organic fruits and veggies. Then I need someone to remove my refrigerator, my pantry, to cook for my children, and escort me to the athletic club. I need a cook, an athletic trainer, and blinders—like the horses wear. Actually, I probably need all my senses blocked. I can see myself with blinded-eyes, arms stretched out, feeling my way to find the food, like some starved zombie. I can see me with my pointy chin in the air and my nose twitching, as I sniff out the sweet and sours. I can even see me, once absent of all my senses, except the ability to taste, walking around aimlessly licking things.

Maybe that psychic was right! Maybe I was a dog in my past life!

I try to workout, I do. I’ve done the dance and yoga thing. Even the occasional treadmill in the dark room at our gym. A whole darkened room dedicated to those of us who don’t want to be seen with our fat jiggling. What a concept!

I’ve got this mind-boggling, athletic club phobia happening at the moment. Some of you know what I mean. All of the sudden the gym becomes this monstrosity of the mind. You can’t figure out how to get yourself to go, but yet you have this running tape in your head telling you that you should go. And then you promise yourself you will, or make some excuse.

My excuses are actually quite good. Forgetting for a moment that I’m disabled and I actually undergo substantial pain exercising, I’ve got a long list of reasons that home is better than the gym. Basically, what it boils down to (odd word phrase to picture) is the following:

dyslexia (makes dance classes hard)

body odor and odd body movements (makes yoga class hard)

naked people (makes the locker room hard)

sweat and germs (makes the treadmill room hard)

People in general (makes leaving the house hard)

Hard as in not comfortable, as in a mattress you wish you never bought.

Of course, this time of year, the outdoors aren’t super inviting. I did choose to live in one of the wettest US states imaginable. Which does indeed make for supple skin and that pale vampire complexion.

Just on the way to school today my youngest son said, “Wow. So dark outside. So much rain. Look at all the puddles. I wonder if more ducks will be here soon.”

I’m convinced the town I occupy, in the state of Washington, is runner up in cloud-coverage to the town where the popular series Twilight takes place. The author of Twilight researched to find the cloudiest place in the USA, a town where vampires would want to live.

Perhaps my current location and complexion is the reason I am rethinking my whole vocation and life purpose, and considering this whole vampire lifestyle. That and now a days vampires are so good looking and hot! Which is ironic as they’re physically quite cold. An irony I probably only find interesting. Which concerns me to no end.

I like to walk. I am very thankful for these two functioning legs. But the majority of the time, in these here parts, a stroll in the neighborhood means sopping wet shoes, drenched clothes, a rain-slapped face, and dog-shivers—and that’s with an umbrella.

Plus, this born-and-raised-in-California gal is still adjusting to the temperature change. Where I used to live, if the temperature was 40 degrees in the morning, it rose to 65 degrees by the afternoon. I thought, for most of my life, that all places gradually rose in temperature throughout the day.

Here in my town in Washington, when the temperature is 40 degrees in the morning, sometimes it’s only 41 degrees by mid-day. What the heck? Not one single Washingtonian thought to inform me of this meager frigid-factor when our family was scoping the neighborhood. I’m fairly certain that Washington natives get a kick out of watching the newcomers from California adjust to the pangs of climate change. I actually sleep in my day clothes many nights because I’m too cold to undress. And I’ve developed quite the close relationship with my space heater. Even my socks and me are buddies.

On a sunny day, I have to be careful in traffic. As it seems everyone takes the day off of work, and there exists a good three-times as many vehicles on the road. Give us a little sunshine, and we’re all tongue-wagging chipper, like a bunch of canines set free at the dog park. Only instead of sniffing butts, we are all glancing up at the sun and smiling wide. Some of us even point up: There’s the sun!

If you ever think about moving here, don’t be persuaded by the green-lush beauty and the natives telling you that you can wear open-toe shoes in May. Last May the temperature topped in the high-50’s. The smart folk, they head down to Arizona for the late winter or fly across the ocean to Hawaii.

Of course, if you ever visit in August, you’ll see why we stay. When the sun comes, the land looks like pure heaven.

click to see where image was found

Despite my aches and pains, my issues, the weather, and the temperature, I do need to get the ball rolling, so to speak. LV (see MY LINGO) keeps chatting in my ear. She’s whispering day and night the likes of these types of statements:

You do know that it’s not too good to be able to pinch a full half-foot of belly fat in one try, right?

 How can these same jeans still fit you when you are clearly carrying some fifteen pounds more of fat than when you bought them? They must be Amazing Super Power Jeans!

If you keep going at this rate they’ll have to get a crane to move you out of the house.

Crazy Frog has been flashing images of sperm whales and singing: “Do you know the muffin-top, the muffin-top, the muffin-top. Do you know the muffin-top, that lives on Sam Craft Lane.”

And Crazy Frog has done the math: two pounds from being snowed in from snowstorm, two pounds for three-day power outage, two pounds for the loss of our dog Scoob, two pounds for the university incident. He figures we should sleep for the rest of March to avoid anymore stress-eating.

Funny Fast Food Video Folk Song!

I have no idea how to end this post. I’m just staring at the screen thinking about cream puffs, cinnamon bread, and bagels, and wondering if I can in fact sleep the month of March away and wake up some 15 pounds lighter. I’m wondering about the Amazing Super Power Jeans and Vampires, and thinking of a new superhero. I’m wanting to search YouTube for superhero songs. And, I’m gradually coming to the conclusion that I really do need to get out of the house more, take the first step and head to the gym–despite the Naked People!!!