hibernation…

Tags

hibernation, recluse

every now and then – quite frequently – i hibernate. i become a recluse – a psychologist might call it ‘mental hygiene’. i call it ‘not fit for human consumption’. if i don’t heads roll. my life rolls in cycles. social-semi social-recluse-semi social-social… and so on.

i need it to function. my recluse stage i spend playing video games, reading my favorite book series, watching my favorite TV-series – basically doing the kind of stuff that does not bring me in the path of people (other than my wife). The semi social stage is most often spent looking in on people in Facebook, liking a few posts, maybe sharing a few links, while also doing some art or writing. my social stage means actually engaging people in conversation, sharing photos, discussing and posting original content to Facebook.

it just happens that way. and it cannot be predicted – except i usually go into ‘recluse-mode’ around x-mas, some times it might be set off by some ‘incident’, some times it is just there. i resurface some time in february-march.

one thing that is always present right before the recluse stage is stress. too much of it.

 

 

the mind can’t be fooled

Tags

affirmations, deepak chopra, eckhart tolle, personal truths, psychology, self-esteem

for all of my adult life, i have been skeptical about “self-help stuff”, especially the kind peddled by Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra. why? because it simply doesn’t work. and it turns out i am right.

“There are other researchers who question the validity and utility of self-affirmations. Canadian researcher, Dr. Joanne Wood at the University of Waterloo and her colleagues at the University of New Brunswick who have recently published their research in the Journal of Psychological Science, concluded “repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people, such as individuals with high self-esteem, but backfire for the very people who need them the most.”

The researchers asked people with and low self-esteem to say “I am a lovable person.” They then measured the participants’ moods and their feelings about themselves. The low-esteem group felt worse afterwards compared with others who did not. However, people with high self-esteem felt better after repeating the positive affirmation–but only slightly. The psychologists then asked the participants to list negative and positive thoughts about themselves. They found, paradoxically, those with low self-esteem were in a better mood when they were allowed to have negative thoughts than when they were asked to focus exclusively on affirmative thoughts.

The researchers suggest that, like overly positive praise, unreasonably positive self-statements, such as “I accept myself completely” can provoke contradictory thoughts in individuals in individuals with low self-esteem. When positive self-statements strongly conflict with self-perception, the researchers argue, there is not mere resistance but a reinforcing of self-perception. People who view themselves as unlovable, for example, find that saying that when they don’t really believe it, strengthens their own negative view rather than reversing it.

These findings were supported by previous research published in 1994 in the Journal of Social Psychology, showing that when people get feedback that they believe is overly positive, they actually feel worse, not better.

Dr. Wood goes even further. In her Psychology Today blog, she says that most self-help books advocating positive affirmations may be based on good intentions or personal experience, but they are rarely based on even one iota of scientific evidence. She cites psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky’s The How of Happiness as an exception.” (from Psychology Today)

the reason it doesn’t work is because the mind is not easily fooled. really. unless of course one already has high self-esteem – in which case one does not need to use positive affirmations.

so guys like eckhart tolle and deepack chopra are simple, vile liars, peddling their expensive shit to people who don’t know it doesn’t help and who will keep having low self-esteem, because what they are told will help, doesn’t help THEM – i.e they are so flawed that they are beyond help (and poor to boot), with a whole lot of useless books.

 

my inner lizard

Meet my inner lizard. In scientific language his name is AMYGDALA, but I call him Herman. Herman is in charge of everything that has to do with any raw emotions. Like FEAR, ANGER, JOY, GRIEF and LOVE.

Every time I experience a feeling, it is Herman’s doing. He is very good at his job. His job is to respond to what happens inside me or around me, and specifically alert me if there is danger nearby, and prepare me for either flight, fight or hide mode. If he did not do this, I would perhaps be at risk of getting killed several times a day. Herman is very important to me.

As I said, Herman is very good at his job. Sometimes, though he gets stuff mixed up. You see, Herman is also in charge of the memory of feelings I have had in situations where Herman has had to warn me about something dangerous. So, let’s say that Herman once warned me about a car turning the corner just as I stepped off the curb. Herman HEARD the car, and yelled “DANGEROUS CAR!”, and flooded my brain and blood with adrenaline, so I could quickly step back onto the sidewalk. The sudden rush of adrenaline and appearance of the car just inches from me created a memory of fear in me, associated with the sound of a speeding car.
Herman is good at his job. He is not very bright though, he cannot tell real from not-real. So next time he hears a speeding car f.i when I am safe on the sidewalk on my way into a store, he will yell “DANGEROUS CAR!” and flood my brain and blood with adrenaline AND the memory of fear.

There is no speeding car to be afraid of, but Herman can only remember the SOUND and the FEAR, he cannot check if there is a car.

This affects how I respond to the sound of speeding cars.
Herman has hundreds maybe even thousands of ideas about what is dangerous to him and me. But since he is not very bright, and cannot tell real from not-real, he needs me to keep him informed about the realness of stuff he warns me about. If I didn’t give him that information, he would keep himself and me in a constant state of panic.

Luckily for me, Herman is not very fit. He can’t keep flooding me with fear and adrenaline for more than a few seconds at a time (10 seconds at the most), before he needs a breather. When he is taking his breather, there is room for ME to step in and either tell him to calm down or divert him by adding a stimulus that is not connected to what Herman is freaking out about.

Music is very good, or positive white noise like cat-purring. Something that will catch Herman’s attention in a good way.

fidgety fingers

Tags

monkey-brain, movies, multi-tasking, TV

i am ‘easily’ bored. it took me a long time to figure out that the nagging urge i always get when watching tv or a movie – the fidgety fingers – to do something with my hands is actually a form of self-medication. it is a way for me to get my monkey-brain out of the way. in fact this is the main reason i am almost always fiddling with stuff (keys, pens, napkins, lit candles etc.) when i am socializing with people. it is not ‘multitasking’ as such, because i have no focus on what my hands are doing, they are just moving, keeping the monkey-brain mesmerized, so i can focus on the tv-show or movie.

teddy bears, blankies and cuddles

Tags

blankies, teddy bears

no post icon today. today i am gonna talk about my absolute favorites – the blanky, the teddy bear and the cuddle.

i have no idea why, but i have a need to wrap myself in heavy covers when i sleep. i cannot sleep without clamping at least one teddy bear to my chest. and – contrary to what most people believe about aspies – i love to cuddle.

my wife has crocheted me a blanky, and it is perfect to wrap my upper body and head in. it makes me feel safe. like a hug.

once my doctor has signed the papers, i am going to get myself a weighted blanket. it is going to be heavenly. a whole-body hug, to hold me when i sleep.

a theory

Tags

monkey-brain, patterns, positive distraction

i have this theory about aspies and addies brains and why so many of us choose either video games or computer games to unload, decompress, ‘cave’.

our brains detect the regular flicker by which the tv-screen or computer-screen updates the visible image – if you watch a video shot of a tv or computer while they are powered on you can see this flicker as dark stripes rolling across the screen.

i think aspies and addies use this regular pattern to keep what i call the ‘monkey-brain’ busy (positive distraction) and calm, leaving the operative parts of the brain free to sort impressions, emotions and thoughts that we have been bombarded with during a day.

i have a similar theory about why Baroque music, or Baroque-like music work so well to help addies to concentrate, focus, and relax. Baroque music has a very distinct rhythm – 4/4 – and this rhythm helps our neurons to slow down and connect in a more orderly fashion. in a similar fashion it keeps the ‘monkey-brain’ busy (and therefor happy) so the operative parts of the brain can work without interruptions.

so what’s with the ‘caving’?

Tags

caving, decompressing, video games

i am a cave bear. the image at the left is me after, say two hours of socializing. i need to mend. to sort. defrazzle. decompress. i need to focus on one specific thing to return to myself. so i ‘cave’.

usually with a video game, some times by reading a book or watching TV, but mostly it’s video games. if i am not allowed to ‘cave’ i get nasty, short-tempered, angry, snappy, disoriented and depressed.

general life stress, like financial issues, emotional overload, marital ‘problems’, expectations (my own and others’) will also bring on the need to ‘cave’ – f.i from january-may this year my family went through a period of extreme uncertainty regarding our financial future – i ‘caved’ 12-14 hours a day.

“-uhu”, you say, “what did your wife like that, you being unavailable 12-14 hours each day for 5 months"?”

well, there are ways, and it is all a matter of negotiating and communicating.

all our rooms have a ceiling lamp, with a switch by the door.

so when my wife wanted/ needed/ desired to communicate/ share/ request something she simply flipped the switch to signal this. this signal is subtle enough not to be ‘invasive’, and clear enough to be ‘noticed’. i would pause my game, unplug my ears and the time it takes to do those things is enough for me to ‘gather myself’ and be able to pay attention to her. and then when she is done communicating, sharing or whatever, i can just slip back into my ‘cave’, and keep my equilibrium.

naturally, since my wife is an aspie too, the same ‘rules’ apply when she is ‘caving’- though she calls it ‘nesting’.

the game…

Tags

social incompetence, social rules

if one takes the opportunity to OBSERVE neurotypical people in social settings, networks and situations, one will find that they rarely say anything original, of substance, or of positive consequence. they either repeat what others have said or comment derisively on what others have said. in the case they abstain from derisive comments, they instead offer positive platitudes meant to deflect or divert negative attention. this social noise has only one purpose – to increase their own ‘ranking’ within the pack or decrease the ‘ranking’ of others. neurotypical people are constantly engaged in this competition for position. people count the number of ‘likes’ they get in social media sites, like Facebook; they ‘friend’ and ‘un-friend’ based on what they believe those with ‘higher’ pack-ranking would approve or disapprove of. it would be amusing, if it weren’t so sad.

one of the reasons we neurodifferent do not fit into this, often find social situations with neurotypicals difficult, and feel that we do not ‘get the codes’ is very simple. they are all lies, and lying is simply not our forte; the platitudes, unoriginal, inauthentic and insubstantial mush required to fit into a neurotypical world simply do not appeal to us.

nights

Tags

activity, nights

i love nights. ever since i was a wee cub i have been a night-owl. i wrote better at night, painted better, studied better, thought better, I basically did everything better at night. and i suffered under the tyranny of the ‘day-lighters’ who demanded that i conform to their rhythm.

until recently i always wondered why it seemed almost impossible for me to turn my ‘day’ around. for the longest time i struggled with this – believing that if i went to bed in reasonable time i would 1. get more and better sleep and 2. not be such an ass in the morning. simply be able to function like the rest of the world. that was until i realized something vital about the nature of nights. even in an urban area nights are quieter, less polluted with background noise, the light is softer and most people are sleeping – nights are simply so much easier for me to live in.

i became a night-owl as a means of self-medication.

it was a relief to realize.