1 in 93?

Let's pretend that you have a childhood disorder that gets a lot of media attention and a lot of funding. You also have a caring and conscientious pediatrician who understands that his patients need more help than funding will allow. So he labels them with this new politically fueled diagnosis to be sure they get the help they need.

This, in turn, inflates the number of children diagnosed and encourages the concept of an "epidemic".

In reality, it is just the result of politics and medicine and people doing their best to get remedial help paid for so that children stand a chance of getting ahead in life.

But, you know, epidemic is fun to say. And it causes panic. And this increases funding. So let's just increase the parameters of the disorder and start diagnosing everyone with it.

my not crazy list

So that I am not crazy, I have devised a list to sort out what is real and what is not. Since I was asked to post it, I have and I'll even explain things!

things that always seem real:

Shadow World
My People
Pain
Deep/Intense Emotions
the Dark

*Shadow World and the fae world are the worlds I always see superimposed on this one. Sometimes fae world does not seem real. Shadow world ALWAYS does. Shadow world is, perhaps, another universe that overlays this one. It is sorta like this one, only muggier and more big trees and the people aren't living in cities. It's tribal still. Lots of wars. They pass stuff on through stories and dance and believe in little gods and um. It's just a good place. Sometimes things interact and usually we pass one another like shadows. But they watch me. Sometimes I think I was born there and accidentally traded places with someone here. But I'm not sure. It feels like home.

*My people are any people I can see and connect with enough that I know they are there. Or people I feel close to so while I assume I've invented them, I'm most pleased with the invention and keep them around.

*Pain and deep emotions seem obvious to me, at least... But shallow up high emotions don't usually seem real. They are just quick reactions. So they don't make the real list.

*the Dark is my term for the deepest part of my soul where I drop through all the layers of me until I find my center and my calm.

and in the Dark, things that seem true:

Balance/Cause&Effect
Feral/Nature
Emotions
Solitude/Affection
Being an Atom/No Importance
Now

*Um. Not sure what needs explained. Solitude is where we all are, but we can feel affection and get some relief from it. And being an atom is just that. We are a tiny part of all that is and so we don't really matter in the grand scheme which is a HUGE relief to me.

things that never seem real or true, or are only distorted reflections thereof:
interactions
words/"communication"
the body
humans/social
work/job
rewards/punishments
cement
stories (memories, books, movies, talking)
passage of time
needs

*distorted reflections of true things... those would be words, interactions, social structure, stories, time, needs, rewards and punishments... I'm sure they are based on reality in some fashion but it comes out all distorted and messed up.

*the one everyone blinks in confusion at is "cement". Yes, cement! It surrounds you and cuts you off and you cannot feel the world and you are trapped and it sucks the life out of everything.

Randomly, and for the record, I find communication a reflection of reality but certain communications feel more real to me. For example, I find that emotions are all best expressed physically. If I am happy I squee and spin and twirl and run and bounce. If I am angry I snarl and stomp and huff and throw things. If I miss you I'm likely to gnaw on you or bite you gently. If I don't want to talk I cover your mouth and turn away. No ambiguity. The confusion is only when words get involved.

So, now I am not crazy cuz I have a list of what's real and I'll carry it with me and when people say "you are crazy", I can pull out my list and say "no I'm not, see??"

:D

Oh! I found out today that "wrong" has LAYERS to most people. Levels. Differences. For me it is really simple. Things are true, reflections of truth, or they're untrue. Things go with the flow of nature and help the universe click together, or they are wrong. I don't understand this "more wrong than something" concept.

It's with or against the natural flow. What else is there to know?

Meditation

I've meditated since I was a child. Really, flapping and pacing and overstimming is meditation for all autistics. We just happen to meditate kinetically. Still my prefered method, through yoga and dance. I don't often sit still to meditate or say pretty words or any of those fancy things. I just do it. More natural to me than breathing. When I meditate, I don't get my breathe/swallow sequence confused and choke on my own spit.

At some point in high school, I finally read about meditation. It talked about clearing thoughts and finding your center. Since this time, I assumed that when you meditate and clear thoughts that the thoughts should stay clear for days. You bring the clarity back with you. So I figured I sucked at meditation.

Apparently, it is only clear while you concentrate so you feel relaxed and refreshed after, like a nice nap ought to do. Only better because you don't dream.

Why, one might wonder, did I think the clarity should be brought back and last forever? Because that is how I meditate. I drop down to the depths of myself, wrap myself in the dark and comfort there like a warm blanket, and bring the blanket up with me so I can stay wrapped in that comfort all day while I work and do all my stuff. Part of me is always in the meditative state, renewing the blanket, while the rest of me does daily living stuff. When I actually concentrate on it, I find clarity in the dark fire of my soul that I can't find anywhere else, and I feel loved and whole and well.

I got very curious about how other people meditate. I thought I meditated like everyone did. It never occurred to me that there was any other way to meditate. Until I read about it and thought I was doing it all wrong. I tried the "clearing the thoughts" method a bit but gave up on it as something I'd never succeed at and went back to my warm blanket.

I wonder if my method might be closer to the way a buddhist monk would do it. I also wonder if I'd get more answers to my questions if I went to live in a buddhist monastary. I don't find many people who have any clue what I am ever talking about, let alone able to delve even deeper into my questions.

Mostly I wonder why I only feel whole and loved when I'm sinking so deep into myself I can forget the outside world, and I walk in the other worlds I see and feel. (When I say forget, I do mean forget!) What is it about interacting in this world that is so caustic and scratches with sharp angry bristles until you burn and bleed?And it isn't the entire world. I'm fine away from cement and from humans. I'm fine out in nature. I'm fine among my people. It's just surrounded by the human artifacts and human people that I drown in the echoes from their thoughts that are so disjointed against their words that are again so disjointed around their actions.

So I'll just wrap in my warm blanket and keep trying. I'm sure there is some little trick to coping with the outside world if I can just find it.

Hoorah for autism. Let's get rid of filters and just let the world bombard us from every angle! And then try to hold down a job and be a functioning member of society so that we have any hope of survival! WHEEE!

*sinks into the dark*

Health Care

So my friend posted this to me. I guess it's going around Facebook (that sounds like a flue or something that encourages hand washing). So and so "believes no one should have to chose between food and health care, and no one should have to worry about insurability because of a doctor's diagnosis"

"shoulds"

One can always tell something fishy is going on when they see "should". It usually points to unthinking repetition of catch phrases. Just add first person perspective. No thinking needed.

Apparently the health care issue is the big "thing" right now. I don't see why. There's a very simple cure: everyone can just cancel their insurance. Destroy the part causing the biggest issues. Once again, we have created a problem and refuse to do anything to correct it. We're just going to tack things on around it to hide the problem. Bandaids for cancer, anyone?

We vote with our pocket books and no one seems to remember this fact. If you are upset that people put poisonous chemicals in your food via white sugar and processing, don't buy it. If you don't like what insurance has done to health care, don't buy it.

Or, wacky thought, choose good food over health care and quit buying poison that causes most of the ailments that cause you to need a doctor!

I haven't had insurance in a very long time and haven't suffered in any way from this. I put my money into a healthy life style, full of unprocessed, as organic as possible foods.

Of course, I'm a radical. I have no debt. I have no car. I have no desire to drive. I'm working on moving to an area of Colorado where I won't need to borrow rides from friends as often. Silly to not own a car just to bum rides. I'm even fixed, so I can't contribute to the population crisis.

National health care that still involves insurance is going to just be more of the same. Only worse, because they'll take away our right to not be insured. If they're going to force me to put money into a system I want no part of, that's crap.

Although I have long since come to realize that we don't even have rights over our own bodies. It was quite a fight to get fixed. Luckily, my uterus was bad so it was medically allowed. The tried to convince me it was fine, and then when they had no choice but to admit it was broken, they tried to convince me to try hormone therapy. For the few years I had insurance, I used the system to make sure I wouldn't further NEED the system. Truth is, if I haven't the right to end my own life, I know that my body belongs to the state. They are the ones regulating what I can do to it. And if I don't even own my body, what do I own? What is the point in all the "freedoms" we think we have?

Americans are terrified to own themselves and so we give ourselves away like terrified whores, hoping Big Brother will solve all our problems and we won't even have to think. Just tell me what to do, and I'll obey.

This from a country that started out with the revolutionary idea of laissez-faire and as little government as possible. It's sad.

Lucidity

One reason I don't blog often is because I don't often feel lucid. It's rather difficult to focus down enough to write about autism and studies and things I am studying. I understand it, in my head, but being coherent when trying to explain what I know is a very different story.

I firmly believe that autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder are closely related. Possibly the same disorder that just presents in different ways, depending on the fetus development. They have so many overlaying features, hallucinations and delusions being part of it.

Many autistics I know will tell me they don't have hallucinations, they just have hyperactive senses that display things long after they are no longer seen. So you see things that are not there? No, I see things that used to be there, because my senses don't let go. I fail to distinguish. Ditto for sounds and smells and other sensory input. Autistics are not allowed to have hallucinations. That is for crazy people like schizophrenics. So we will label hallucinations something else, to keep us from being crazy.

I am most certainly autistic and I freely admit, I hallucinate.

Sure, there are all my curiousities about reality. Perhaps I am seeing into another world and it overlays this one and so it isn't a lack of sanity but a surplus of senses. Maybe so. Maybe that conviction is a delusion. In any case, when the other worlds overlay this one so strongly that I have to work hard to keep this world solid enough to function in, I lose a lot of lucidity.

Being rather feral, I am tossed about by the seasons and the moon. My senses register a wider range than NTs and I spend a lot of time being paranoid and wanting to run.

And then I ignore my blog until I am lucid enough to right. Or until I've run off enough extra energy to focus a bit. I walked about four miles under the full moon and can almost think in a straight line. Exercise always helps me focus.

In any case, poor neglected blog. Had to write something. My writing of late is fragmented, not remembering how to use all the words. Verbs and nouns are all speech needs. Feral speak, I consider it. So here are some words.

Perhaps I'll write more about the worlds in my head at some point.

Cat Cloak

I asked my niece what I could make for her because her sister requested a Gir hoodie (I need pics of that!). She asked for a medieval cloak that looked like a cat.

So being the indulgent auntie, off I went to find fabric. I got the cloak to her, very oddly, in time for her birthday. I'm more the random gift giver. Prezzies on days don't tend to happen.

In any case, here it is!!




The full view of the cloak. It even has a tail :D



















Close up of the hood!















It's so spiffy! Now I want one. ^_^

















And it's lined so it will be super warm in the winter. And machine washable. Hoorah!!

And it's genuine cat fur. At least, my cat slept on it every day the fabric was in the house. So there is real cat fur in there. Close enough, neh?

Childlike Joy

I was reading in my yoga journal today about squealing with joy more often, taking a child's delight in the world.

That is certainly one place that autism rocks. We tend to be more childlike with all that developmental delay we've got going. I'm pretty sure that I tend to be about eight years old on the emotional and moral scales. I certainly delight in little things that most adults have become immune to.

Rest assured, the joy is contagious! When I worked at a hospital and ran to watch the sun rise most mornings. My patients got into the act and my co-workers as well. They'd mostly forgotten how pretty and magical sunrise was. How so, when it rises every day? I saw it as a daily reminder of the beauty and magic of life and they got used to it. Well, without filters, I can't get used to it. ^.^

Score one for autism!

I still dance in the rain, squee at shiny objects, collect bird feathers and, in general, make an absolute goober out of myself at everything that catches my interest. Granted that many NTs do as well, it seems to be something easier for autistics because we don't outgrow much.

The downside? Well, I still throw temper tantrums like an eight year old although I've had to learn to suppress most of the screaming and lighting of fires. Sometimes I remember that life isn't fair and have to throw a bit of a fit over it, even though my 32 years of experience already understands this cognitively. It is very odd, sometimes, to have such dissonance between emotional and cognitive understandings! Or, as I usually shout at people who try to explain things to me, "Well I know it in my head, just not my heart!"

Overall, though, it's more than worth it. I wouldn't want to be able to get used to pretty sunsets and lose my fascination with foggy mornings.