Auditory Processing Disorder? I thought you were autistic?

Yes, but the two often go together. I was never diagnosed with APD because if I wasn't autistic I probably wouldn't have APD either. It's just another part of how my brain works. (Some people have APD without being autistic, though.)

The main thing about it, for me, is that I have No Cocktail Party Effect. This is the casual name for the thing your brain does where it listens to the thing you’re trying to hear, and totally doesn’t register the things you’re not trying to hear.

Mine can’t do that.  I hear everything. All the time. And I have excellent physical hearing, boosted by autistic hyper-sensory abilities: That is, my physical ears are just like everyone elses’ who has typically functioning Hearing ears, but my autistic brain has all the sensory intake areas turned up to 11, so my brain picks up way more from my auditory nerve than a neurotypical brain would.

End result, I have freakishly good hearing, but that’s not as useful as it sounds because of the aforesaid Auditory Processing Thing. I hear everything, and my brain doesn’t see a need to sort out any of it. If there’s a room full of people I can hear every single conversation at once, every rustle of cloth, every exhalation and footstep, and understand none of the things being said.

I often do not tell people, especially strangers, that I am Autistic, but I usually have to tell them, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that last thing you said- I have an auditory processing disorder, and I hear everything else in this room as well as you. Could you please face me when you speak?”

Doing or Not Doing. Yeah more zen.

Q: “What do you do to get more energy?”
A: “I… don’t.”

That. That’s it. I do “nothing”.. in the sense that I do less in order to have more energy. To keep my energy for things I need to do, I have cut back on things I do not need to do so often, or could do slowly, or could do another day. I have Chronic Clinical Depression as well as being autistic, so I do often feel that I run out of energy very fast.

What I do is choose very carefully how much activity or sensory input I will engage in each day. I realize this isn’t something that most people can do sometimes, but you may have to make a lot of changes to address energy in this method.

I am not saying it is the best method for everyone, but it is working for me. It is hard to get used to being so gentle with myself. I do not like turning down some invitations to save energy for doctor appointments. Sometimes I would rather go out on the town with my friends than sit indoors and watch a movie with them, but these are the kind of choices I make so as to limit my use of energy.

Now, I am not saying, “Do only necessary things and have no fun at all.” By all means do not do that- it would not be a balanced lifestyle and could lead to problems. Humans are often better off with a balanced life. Do some fun things. Do some needful things. But do less of both, and try not to do everything all at once. I do my healthcare routine of shower etc., then one or two needful things per day like a class or appointment, then I do one or maybe two fun things, either with friends or by doing my art.

I have, I realize, the privilege  of being able to set up my life right now so that I am not very busy. It might not be possible for you to do exactly what I do but you can find ways to be a little less busy, which might lead to being less overwhelmed or tired out. Personally, it is healthier for me to avoid being too busy.

Culture right now is very insistent that if you’re not super busy and always tired, you must be “uninformed”, “unpopular” or “unsuccessful”. Ignore that noise. Slow it down. Life is not a competition. Life is life.

Be a stone in the river.

When you have a Chronic condition, any disability or illness or trouble that lasts longer than other people have patience for, they often talk up how great it is for you to always be fighting, always "keep fighting this". Guess what?

They mean well but that is *exhausting* and irrational to expect.

 I'm not saying give up, I am saying you do not have to fight all the time. No one can be in an aggressive mode every day, "inspirational" only when thrashing about against the current. Sit in the current. Be a stone in the river. Let the river go past. 

“Heaven is where you are standing, and that is the place to train.” Aikido founder O Sensei Morihei Ueshiba.

I’m not saying you have to be pleased to be where you are. Being sick or disabled in some way often just sucks. It isn’t sunshine and rainbows.

But it is where you are right now, and it might help to know
that you do not have to wait to be happy
until you get better.
You can be happy or at least At Peace in some ways here and now.

Once more: You do not have to wait to be happy
until some future or impossible time when you get better.

You don’t always have to be “fighting”. You deserve to have peace now. Let yourself have it.

Day 17 of the Autumn 2015 Sinus troubles.

I've been sick for 17 days now. Only about 3 of those involved leaving the house at all. I am getting bored of my bedroom. *WHINE* I'm a big baby.

 As I mentioned,  I've been diagnosed with Silent Sinus Syndrome, which is a rare condition where the sinuses in the front of one side of the face close up for as long as several years. I also have a deviated septum. This probably is part of why my allergic reactions turn into painful acute sinus infections within about 48 hours, those infections linger for a month or so, then crawl into my lungs to nest for the winter.

Fixing it requires surgery. I don't know when I get the surgery- I have a consult appointment next week. I don't know how long recovery will take either. This is only upsetting for me in that I am sick right now, and that I was going to get a dog.

 I need a dog. I am a sad piece of misery without one. My house is too quiet. No one wakes me up to go for walks.

There's the catch, though. To have a dog, I have to be healthy enough to move around. I am not, so I can't. I am so lonely without a dog. I won't be able to have one until I am healthy enough to move around again, outdoors. I wear a scarf over my nose and mouth in winter here anyway because I almost always have or am recovering form lung infections in winter, so I can't breathe icy cold air.
I wanted to get a dog and go scootering with him in the mornings. I was healthy enough to do it, too. And then this happened. Foo.

You'd think after years of winter bedrest for months at a time, I'd get used to bedrest. Nope. Still as whiny as ever. I hate not being able to at least sit up and do things, but the more I do anything other than lie down or against pillows in bed, the sicker I get the next day. I have to REST.  Well, tomorrow after I do my online test I am gonna play computer games on the couch downstairs. I can be bundled up down there just as easily as up here.


Yes, online test. Did I mention the awesome side of this?
1. They caught the SSS before my eyeball started to sag. That's right, most people only know they have this thingy when their sinus has imploded so much that the bone under the eye socket is dissolved and their eye starts to droop. NOPE NOPE NOPE. So I am very thankful my CT scan showed that I have it before anything happened to my precious eyes. I am exceedingly visual and I need my eyes.
2. In spite of my brain fog making reading hard, I have found an Audio Dramatization by the BBC of my textbook, (still chortling over that) and that's been letting me "study" for the test I need to to take which is  ONLINE. My History class is at the cutting edge, for a college course, and that means our assignments and tests are all ONLINE. I can take the test from right here in my bed! I don't have to haul my weak butt into the testing center!
This is important because to attend our school you must be healthy and mobile. If you cannot wheel or walk a quarter mile or more from parking lots to classrooms, you cannot attend classes. Elevators and a few ramps do not an Accessible Campus make, not if you're too sick to walk long distances but not actually disabled.


I miss going to Aikido. I miss how cool it was to be healthy enough to work out and work hard.
I really, really miss my dog.

INTJ problems- Not Cold, Pressure Cooker.

I test out on the Myers- Briggs profile, professionally done, as an INTJ/p. That is, I have some times when that last variable is a 50/50 split.

INJT are stereotyped as likely to be cold rational intuitive thinkers, blunt, honest, a bit socially awkward, and stuck kind of pretending to reactions they don’t feel in order to fit in.
All spot on,
except one thing.

I’m not cold. I’ve never been cold unless you mean like Dry Ice is cold. I am a kettle. I am boiling over. I am a slowly seething mass of rage that vents gently and constantly so it doesn’t explode. I am FULL of lots of emotions, lots of loves, lots of empathy for people I’ve never even met, depths of sorrows, lots of old resentments, LOTS of righteous wrath against willful hate.
I am largely full of rage. Yet I do not appear outwardly to have anger issues, and have almost never “taken it out” on someone. Never, in my adult life.
It’s not for lack of knowing how, either- I know a lot of very dangerous stuff including certain martial arts. Or for lack of really, really, wanting to.

Most of my family would be very surprised to learn that I am pretty constantly a roiling pressure cooker of wrath and rage…. under a knitted tea-cozy. “That’s my secret, Cap… I’m always angry.”
…crap. I’m growing up to be either Bruce Banner or Sam Vimes. That’s either really good or really bad.
I sublimate that rage so it never comes out. But I just don’t identify with this stereotype that INTJ people are cold and unfeeling. I have these vast oceans of feelings, not the least of which is this… Anger Thing.

Smile and Nod- Advice for the over-educated

..So often the best policy. Especially when you know stuff no one else needs to know.

Person:
“OMG we totally picked the perfect name for our baby, because I looked it up, and this baby name book says it means " Gift from Heaven”!

Me, internally:
OWCH. Ah, No. No it doesn’t.
You gave your daughter a name nicely following two rather popular trends right now, the “UK Surname As a Firstname” trend, and the “Girl named with a syllable ending the in the fashionable, feminine-associeted -ey sound, like Ashley and Brittany” trend.

But it does not mean anything even slightly like Heavenly Gift, it’s a Locative Surname given to tell people where someone was from. It’s just the name of a town, which was in turn named after a geographic feature or famous historical event.

Now, I know whatever name you give your beloved child will forever mean Her, to you, but linguistically and in reality that name does not remotely mean Heaven’s Precious Gift, it means, “This one town in Lancashire with some white trees near it.”

Baby name books lie to you to make you feel good and buy their book.
If the actual linguistic Meaning of a name matters to you for everyone’s sake please do your research….

Me, Outwardly:
*Smile and Nod* Oh, that’s nice.

Sometimes, it's best to keep your mouth shut. Everyone's happier.

Weird Martial arts dreams

"Tell me about your martial arts dreams. Like the ones when you are asleep."

Hoo boy I had a heck of one last night. Lemme get to my laptop and edit it in here.

So I seemed to be high school age again, me and a few friends were attending this conference meeting thing with a bunch of other high schoolers at a big building with lawn around it, right across from my high school. Somehow I was a practicing Aikidoka then. I think in the dream, Sensei’s dojo was based in my high school, not at my college as is reality.

Everyone at this meeting got really angry with our group, I think it was because after the meeting and potluck snacking, we took back the leftover cookies we had brought and we ate the rest that the meeting people had not eaten. For dream reasons, this made them all furious at us. They really wanted to punch our faces in.

We tried to run for our huge white van and leave, but we were missing one of our group, a very shy girl. Outside on the lawn around the building, teens were gathering to work themselves up and get really ready to find us and beat us up. They were standing around in loose groups of twos and threes all over two sides of the building.
So I said to my friends with me in the van, “Drop me off over by all those people. I think I can do something about this. While I have them busy you go into the other side of the building, find *shy girl* and get her out. Then come back around pick me up. I might be running.”

So they drove past the crowded side and I kinda hopped out of the van as it slowed down, and all the angry teens saw me, and I didn’t say anything I just started walking though them. I knew they were all set to attack someone, so it might as well be me. I could keep them occupied.
The first one ran at me and BOOM, Aikido throw. And the next. And the next. It was very gentle. I just grabbed a wrist here, and arm there, and sat them down on the grass. They looked up at me kinda stunned.
I just kept on at a waking pace through the crowd, throw after throw, one after another. It was really hard to keep it up, and I am not very experienced so sometimes it was difficult. I kept saying, “Have you had enough? I have. I’ll stop when you do. I don’t want to fight.” There were at least 40 people.
After a while things slowed down and they were kind of avoiding me, in shock.
My friends swung around and picked me up in the van and we got outta there.

Then I was at school, and suddenly hearing rumors about a big fight, and that I had “beat up a bunch of people”. My heart sank and I knew I was gonna get expelled for violent behavior. Everyone was treating me oddly now that the whole school had heard I “started a big fight and beat up people”.

 I spent the whole day being very quiet, and proving to people who asked that what I had used was gentle and defensive and that I had actually been careful not to harm anyone. Then I felt I had to confess to Sensei all the details of what had happened, and that I had used Aikido in such a manner.

 I was so mortified he would disapprove and tell me I had misused it. I was also very afraid he’d have already heard one of his students had “instigated a big fight and beaten a bunch of people up”, and would be upset and ashamed of me.

At practice, in front of everyone, I made a formal bowed apology for all the disturbance I had been central in, and explained the entire thing as honestly as I could. I don’t know if Sensei was upset, because then the dream shifted and I’ll never know what he though.
And all that was last night.

A Bowl of Mushrooms, or weird cravings.

Content warning: Post contains discussion of slight food related/eating disorder type issues.

My relationship with food is… It’s Complicated.

Food is my Drug, Let’s be honest. Half of what I eat is all about the euphoric high I get from having taste explosion experiences with anything tasty that I eat. I am autistic and in my case that’s why I have tastebuds in severe overdrive and a sensory neural system that is always turned up to 11. When something as common as Food evokes that sort of response, it’s a setup for serious hangups, issues, associations, complexes and neuroses about and around Food. It’s not something one can avoid, so I have to find ways to deal with Food and Eating more healthfully.

To try to get round that, and to eat a bit better, I’ve managed to work out a system where if something is moderately healthy, and I suddenly crave it, I eat it. If something is refined-sugary or exceedingly caloric, and I still crave it, I eat a little of it. That way I don’t ever feel deprived and binge. (in theory. Pizza is still a bit of a problem. ehehehehe)

A lot of people eat this way, they call it “Mindful Eating” or something. I try not to feel guilty about what I eat, but just to eat some of whatever my body thinks it needs, and not too much of any one thing, and to stop eating once I am almost full.
The theory is that body often knows what it needs if you get good at listening. Most sugar cravings are actually me being thirsty, for example.

One time I bought armloads of squash and cooked it all in a single week.

Another time it was bananas. I must have been short for potassium, because I was strolling along with my grocery list and cart when my nose caught a whiff of bananas and wrenched me around in the supermarket aisle and dragged me to the curved fruits section of the Produce Corner, screaming inside my head, “THAT! WE NEED THAT! BUY US THOSE SO WE CAN EAT THEM.”

Whenever I am working my poor sickly muscles back through phys therapy and into health, I get a serious craving for certain types of meat. Dark meat Chicken, beef, shrimp, anything with oils. I think my body needs that to rebuild. So I eat it.


Which leads to Mushrooms.

What the heel is in mushrooms? Is it potassium? Some vitamin? Why can’t I get enough mushrooms? Portabello, if that makes any difference.

Stranger in a strange land... with weird weeds.

Up to my elbows in Purslane, Mallow, Timothy, Dandelions and Bindweed. And then the absolute scent-bomb that is the lurking Morel mushroom.

Gardens and weeds in this biome are an entire new world to me.

Update:
Also, I am severely allergic to Timothy Grass and should not attempt to weed my own yard no matter how much energy I have that day.

*hackhurkasthmaticcough* See this is why hunting and gathering is my ancestral WAY. I am not made for gardening

A bad combination of cicumstances- silly lil rant

You know what’s fun?

1. I often sleep with my window open so fresh air can circulate. (second story, steel mesh screened, it’s perfectly safe to do this.)

2. I live in a Suburban Wonderland of a town where people frequently barbecue, burn leaves, roast smores, and generally use fire to do quaint Americana Norman-Rockwell Painting type activities.

3. It’s also an area with a college nearby so they do these things at any ol’ hour of the night because Studying is Hard and life is short, and our sleep schedules are shot anyway.

4. I have a new “Fire and CO detector” that is a fragile orchid of delicacy when it comes to any kind of smoke that is NOT matches. If you light candles and wave the match around, it’ll ignore that. Anything else within about 1,000 feet of this thing will make it start screaming.


Now, when all these things line up just so, it creates a hellish Venn diagram of, “Let’s wake her up at one in the morning with the fear that her lil’ home is ON FIRE, she’ll like that!!”
because the fragile and delicate orchid that is my fire alarm,
which, remember, ignores actual wood smoke in the house,
Is picking up traces of smoke on the wind coming in my window.
*facepalm*

Zen and Moments

A friend asked me,"Do you think more goals come along after achieving hyper-focused goals we've had for years? I've been chasing my goals so long that I literally do not know what I would do once I achieve these goals. I'm like a dog chasing cars- what would I ever do if I caught one?"



 Did you see the Disney film Tangled? We’re like Rapunzel. She had a dream to go see the lights. Along that journey, her experiences stacked up and built her into a new person, so that once she had seen the lights, she realized that seeking that goal had led her to a new goal.
You cannot make a new joy the one thing you set up to seek. A boy dreams of becoming a pilot but when he goes to flight school he finds out it is hard work. He perseveres because he wants to fly. When he does get his dream, he enjoys it for quite some time, and he always does enjoy it, but the novelty does wear off a little. Suddenly he discovers photography and uses his plane for aerial shots. He has a new dream to pursue.

To Seek Joy makes Joy a noun, a thing we can attain or lose. To Enjoy is a verb- it’s a thing we can keep doing over and over again.  I think we can have more Joy in Verbs than in Nouns. I mean: A Thing is passing- Doing is continual.

A man and a woman fall blissfully in love and decide to get married. One morning she wakes up and realizes she no longer feels that “old thrill” about him, and she doesn’t feel the way she did when she married him. She is not “In Love”, but she thinks about how they care for each other, and decides she still loves him, and that she will continue to. She realizes Love as a Noun is a thing you can lose, but To Love as a Verb is something she can do. She talks to her husband, and he agrees- that “spark” is gone, but as they say, nothing lasts.. Should they quit their marriage because they lost a thing they had? They decide instead to find new “sparks.” They take a road trip together, do new activities, spend time together, and discover new ways they can love each other. They spend over 50 years discovering Loving as a Verb, discovering ever new horizons of caring and connection.

People who try to make one pivotal experience last forever and be their true satisfaction are often unhappy because they are trying to make a moment last forever. The true value of those moments is that they are rare and precious- that they do not last. Instead of despairing because we cannot make a moment last, we might find more joy in just savoring the moment. As we savor it, it becomes part of us, and even when it is over, we have it always.
Every joy we do not try to prolong artificially leads us to new joys.

 What we grasp and cling at, we lose- what we let go of, we find we can keep forever.