still cant believe my shitty poorly looped autism creature yippee gif is still getting used on here where are u people finding it

Sophomore year recap, vol. 1

Funny how I only ever go on this blog to give sporadic life updates, which are honestly just lengthier versions of what goes on my Instagram dump. But, I'd hate to let this practice die—plus, I love to write, so it continues for another year. I recently wrapped up my first semester of sophomore year—yet another testament to how fast time flies by—and it's safe to presume that it was the most rewarding chapter of my stay in Ateneo, thus far. I admit I did spend most of my freshman year in my comfort zone (while still managing to make my fair share of rookie mistakes, go me!). Although I don't completely blame myself for not being able to adjust from the get-go, I do admit that my life would have been much easier if I didn't take so long to warm up to the idea of embracing change and taking risks. Upon realizing this, there was a certain pressure that came with it to make up for lost time and try to do as much I could before my body eventually gives out.

For starters, I became more active in the three organizations I am a member of, all of which demanded so much of my energy, and pushed my brain power and time management skills to the test, but were very fulfilling to be in nonetheless. (A little note from Editing Angel: This is where this post starts to look a little bit like a LinkedIn profile.)

I signed up to be a part of the Sanggunian, the student government of the University, under the Commission on Mental Health, since I am an advocate for challenging the stigma that surrounds this issue, as well as providing the proper support to those who need it. I was eventually put under Secretariat, where I was in charge of the databases and documents, taking minutes of the meeting, and updating attendance and post trackers. Although it wasn't the department I had originally planned on getting into, I did enjoy learning about the more technical side of the team and took pride in the fact that I was able to put some of the lessons I learned in ITM over intersession to good use. And by that I mean conditional formatting, but whatever ok!

But, at some point the forces of the universe decided to pull some strings and bring me to my first choice: Humans of Ateneo (HOA), a page that aims to share stories of those within the Ateneo community with the hopes of inspiring others. To this day, I work there as a literary editor, who is basically in charge of transcribing recordings of interviews and turning them into the text posts our audience sees on their Facebook timelines. I love what I do right now, because not only do I feel endlessly inspired by each story of resilience I encounter, but also fulfilled since I am partly responsible for getting that story out there for the rest of the world to see. But, I guess it wouldn't be entirely wrong to say that my favorite story so far has to be Mayor Vico Sotto's, especially because HOA Core (minus Marice, and plus Yanna) and I travelled all the way to Pasig City Hall to hear it from him in the flesh. I can confirm that he is definitely more good-looking in person, that he establishes eye contact when he speaks, and that he is one of the most insightful and substantial human beings I've ever met.

Since being a part of the team, I have also had access to opportunities both within the sub-commission and Sanggu, as a whole. I've been given leadership positions that allowed me to step up to the plate, one of which was directing a video we launched in celebration of World Mental Health Day. My co-project head Bel and I had to conceptualize it from scratch based solely on a spoken word poem given to us, and plan and plot its shooting over the course of one week—definitely a feat given our conflicts in schedule, and the unpredictable weather. Next year, I'll be pretty hands-on when it comes to manning the Peer Support Group of our commission, as I have been assigned as a member of the core team, so that's definitely something to watch out for.

I've attended active listening workshops to help me be better in tending to the needs of others: by either providing them with a newfound support system, or sharing sound advice. I was a part of the sub-core team behind Humans of Ateneo: IRL, where prestigious alumni were invited to speak on their journeys, much like three HOA posts come to life. I also ended up emceeing a freshman drug talk all by myself, because I was only informed at the very last minute that my co-host had other commitments to attend to. I remember practically shaking from the nerves and squealing right in front of the speakers that day, but I managed to pull through with more confidence and less awkward finger guns than I thought possible.

I think this is the org where I took the most initiative and was therefore the busiest, but I didn't mind at all because I was surrounded by such wonderful people. I met most of my team over intersession during a workshop that I wasn't even wholeheartedly willing to attend (because it coincided with what was my last chance to catch Ben&Ben live on their Limasawa Street tour), and thus wasn't expecting much out of. But, we meshed so well together almost instantly as we opened up to one another about experiences and secrets we only would have shared to our closest friends. The acceptance and belongingness was palpable from that point on, and it continues to manifest in how strong our bond is right now.

Aside from that, I got in The GUIDON, the University's student publication, as a Features writer. This is going to sound like such a humble brag, but I honestly didn't expect to be accepted. I'm well aware of how rigorous the week-long application process is, I got the news from friends who failed to make the cut and even saw it for myself during the general assembly they held specifically for applicants. I remember checking my e-mail and being greeted by a list of requirements I needed to accomplish for both of the staffs I applied for: mock articles, interviews, live tweets that all needed to show my unique writing style and authentic take on issues both in and outside the four walls of the campus, that were so overwhelming in scope that I had to call up a friend just to yell in her ear for 10 straight minutes. For the next few days after, tears were shed, friends were ghosted, drafts were created then scrapped, fished out of the Recently Deleted folder, and revised in an endless and vicious cycle—I don't think I had ever written as eloquently, gone as long without checking my phone, or listened to only one playlist on loop for literal days prior to those moments, and yet I was still very unsure of my chances because I knew I was up against some tough competition: veteran staffers of high school publications, and liberal arts majors who looked like they had more personality in their thumbs than I did in my entire body. I remember beating myself up for backing out of my second choice (hi Vantage), which would significantly decrease my chances of getting in. It's just that I knew I was incapable of submitting anything that wasn't half-assed at that point, and I couldn't bear to show them anything that I myself could not give an Angel Seal of Approval.

Thankfully, all of my hard work paid off eventually. Only two days after I had submitted the folder containing my requirements to the respective editor, I was working on a paper in a cafe (the table adjacent to the door of Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Robinsons Galleria, to be very exact) when I received the acceptance letter in my inbox. I burst into tears, crumpled to the floor, and replied with the most articulate response I could muster: “SKLDFJSDLKFJSDLKFJSDLFJSLFSDKJ THANK YOU SO MUCH I am literally crying in the middle of this coffee shop.... thank you.... so much....”

As of this writing, I've published two articles under Features: one about the ghosting phenomenon that remains prevalent in romantic relationships, and another about the experiences of Ateneans with autism spectrum disorder. My job honestly feels like both work and a vacation at the same time, because it allows me to talk about a diverse set of topics with interesting people who are experts in the field, while doing what I feel like I'm best at. But, since a part of me will always consider Vantage my TOTGA, I took on some extra work for them and wrote a film review on "G!", a movie that came out as part of the Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino earlier this year, which has proven itself to be the worst I've seen in my entire life for reasons I cannot even begin to explain. I didn't necessarily have high expectations of it upon seeing the trailer, but I hyped myself up for it nevertheless. I even bought tickets for me and my friend Christine online because I was afraid that they would be sold out, and we dashed out of our MSYS classroom as soon as our professor said goodbye to book a Grab and hurry to SM North EDSA to make it to our screening... only to barge in the theater and see that we were the only two people in the cinema. I mean, there was one couple in the far corner, but they didn't look very present. In addition to that, I did a food review on a JSEC stall called Chopsticks. I honestly think that food is the most challenging topic to write about, because it's hard to convey how something tastes. When someone asks me to describe the viand I'm eating, I often end up just giving them a spoonful so they can see for themselves. But, I hopped on it anyway, because how could I even say no to sampling an entire menu of Chinese food for free? Several plates of dimsum and chicken later, I gave them a well-deserved five star rating and consider myself as a frequent diner. The experience was made extra fun since I was able to chat with the owner of the business, and my photographer who turned out to be someone I followed on Instagram way back in 2015 and admired for how clean and curated her feed was! (Hi, Kim and Alexis hehe)

As if all of the things mentioned above weren't already enough, I also covered a talk on the future of scientists in the Philippines (which I also have an article on—this goes to show just how diverse the scope of my work can get), attended workshops on feature writing and the relation of journalism and mental health, participated in a rally against professors involved in sexual harassment cases in the Ateneo (pretty badass behavior, if you ask me!), and became a facilitator for a high school publication in this event called Point One. I guess I have The GUIDON to thank for my lack of writer's block: they've managed to keep my brain running on hyperdrive, and my creative juices flowing more than they ever have before.

Last but not the least, of course I chose to stay in my home organization, ACTM. Although I didn’t run for any position or apply to be a part of the Leaders Core (yet), I did my best to make myself visible and show my support in any of the events we participated in or projects that we spearheaded. I signed up as a part of the logistics subcore for the annual Prepcourse, where I helped out with set design and ran some errands for officers in the different booths they manned throughout that day. I honestly have a soft spot for the project, since I remember that the first time I felt genuinely happy during freshman year was during my own Prepcourse (Orsem didn't really do it for me, sorry friends) so even though I missed the chance to be a facilitator, I still wanted to be a part of the event in some way. I also hung out with blockmates and friends all throughout Tambay Week, supported our candidates for Mr. and Ms. SOM, as well as our dance team for RIB eliminations, and dressed up as Kim Possible for the annual Halloween party we held—I was even able to go with Ron Stoppable, thanks to my friend Iverson, who dressed up as him as a surprise.

Although the obvious highlight of my stay in ACTM so far has to be attending LEAP, a three-day leadership training seminar in Iba, Zambales. I remember this particular moment where I was wandering around the beachfront, lowkey frolicking in the water, while my groupmates were playing capture the flag. (In my defense, I was never the physically adept type of person, and knew I'd be helping my team out more if I stayed out of the playing area and cheered on them from the sidelines. But, anyway, I digress.) I could see the golden flecks of sunlight glistening on the waves, and the froth from the seawater hitting my toes, and when I looked back beyond the shore, I saw my friends having fun, running back and forth across the sand. As cliche as it sounds, I couldn't help but mutter to myself, "Wow."

Because at that time last year, I clearly remember being slumped on my couch, scrolling through one LEAP-related IG story after another, feeling this sense of FOMO that I didn't know how to deal with. On one hand, I hated that I wasn't part of something that looked equal parts fun and value-adding, but at the same time, I knew that if I were there, I'd be sticking out like a sore thumb and suffering all the more because I was at the point where social interaction had become physically painful for me. Maybe that's why this LEAP was extra special to me: besides all of the great people I met and the insights I picked up along the way, it served as a reminder of how far I've come, and how much farther I have to go during the rest of my stay in college.

(That honestly would have been the perfect way to end this post, but I have so much more I have to cover. How anti-climactic.)

Aside from my newfound love for organization life, I gained a lot of new friends and strengthened the ties I have with old ones. Back then, I was very selective of those I talked to and let in my circle: I let first impressions get the best of me, or allowed shyness to take center stage every time there was a chance to meet new people. Now, I'm close to both blockmates and batchmates: I go to their birthday celebrations, support events that they're a part of, hang out in their condo units to binge on fastfood, or sometimes just sit on the Matteo Steps with them in the middle of doing requirements to vent for 10 minutes before begrudgingly returning to our tables.

I miraculously also had time to sneak in some pretty fun stuff in my schedule despite my workload. Although I wasn’t able to prioritize making content for this blog, I got my writing on the national paper! It was in the first semester of my freshman year when I heard about Inquirer Youngblood from my English professor. Apparently, they accept essays about any topic under the sun from anyone aged 29 and below. Since I felt there would be no harm in trying, I crafted this little piece that aimed to show a different side of being an only child, as opposed to the “spoiled and entitled” stereotype that is usually stuck on us. I didn’t get my hopes up so as to not be disappointed, so when a couple of days had passed and my article wasn’t showing up on print, I gave up and moved on. Good thing my friend Bea sent me a photo of the September 8 issue of the newspaper (coincidentally the same day I got accepted into The GUIDON!), or else I wouldn’t have seen that I got published. I admit that even though writing is all I’ve ever really known since I was young, I’m not a hundred percent confident in my skill, nor do I always see the purpose behind what I do. But, it’s instances like that, that remind me of why I keep at it.

Another capital-G Great thing that happened was getting tickets to the UAAP men’s basketball championship game! As someone who made Ateneo her dream school at age five because of how much she loved the Blue Eagles, witnessing them end the season with a sweep and a championship was everything to me. And getting to do so with my closest friends in my block just made the experience even better than it was. Also, seeing Renzo Subido play in person—all my friends can attest to the fact that I was facing a huge moral dilemma mid-game, because every time he made a basket, I would end up cheering for him. (With a face like that, how could I not though)

I even found my way back in the gig scene after a long hiatus, with no less than Ang Bandang Shirley, Over October, and Munimuni welcoming me back with open arms. I had got tickets on a whim with my friend from my days as a full-on K-Pop stan, Reanna, even though it was the weekend before a big Accounting exam, if I remember correctly. But, I have no regrets: I have a feeling that very few moments in life can make me feel the way I did when Umaapaw (one of my favorite songs in the world) was being played right in front of me. Surprisingly, I didn't cry when that happened—same for Wait and Sa Hindi Pag-alala, but then again maybe I was too dazed to process what was going on.

I saw Ben&Ben just a week ago, which served as the perfect way to cap off this stressful semester. The last time I saw them was way back in October 2018: conflicts in schedule due to prior commitments, or location issues kept getting in the way that it's like they had to take matters into their own hands and head on over to Ateneo just so I could see them again. Although they didn't perform my favorite song, I can't exactly say that I was disappointed because nothing really beats the feeling of seeing them and singing along to tracks that have served as the soundtrack of my life, and are practically etched on my heart. (I am actually tearing up just writing this paragraph god am I emo! I miss them already, wow! Just wanna hear Araw-Araw live, what do I do about this!)

I also managed to finish all 10 seasons of Friends despite my irregular viewing patterns—I started it during our trip to the States before the school year began, and constantly teetered between watching one or two episodes as a reward for finishing a reading due the next day and binging one season during rare weekends that do not require working on deliverables but honestly could have been used to get ahead in lessons. This is a pretty big deal, considering that I have the attention span of a sleep-deprived cockroach and haven't finished a single White People Show since... well, Austin & Ally back in 2017 (which I actually marathoned on Dailymotion, but that's a story for another day). But, I guess there's just something special about this group of pals going through the motions of their everyday lives in the eccentric, sometimes borderline stupid ways that only they can, because I admit: the emotional investment was and is very, very real! I personally identify myself as a Chandler-Rachel hybrid now (thank you, Iverson), try to see which character the people I meet are like most out of fun, and argue to no end with anyone who ever claims that Ross and Rachel (1) were on a break, and (2) are endgame.

Most importantly, I was able to do all of this and still clinch a spot on the Dean's List. I started this semester on an optimistic note: I found all of my subjects interesting, and the professors who taught them, engaging. I'd even make notes on the readings the day before they were to be discussed in class, complete with pops of color here and there courtesy of my fineliner pens and Stabilo highlighters. But, once I reached the halfway point, my motivation started waning. Papers and quizzes, oral exams and video projects were thrown in my direction at breakneck speed: I often found myself cramming output for the sake of having something to submit, and not even having the time to look at readings due for discussion the following day. It came to a point where I thought of shifting out, because I felt I wasn't doing well enough in my majors to justify my stay. Sounds pretty stupid when I look back at it, I guess I simply mistook extreme stress and fatigue with falling out of love with the only program that I ever wanted to get in when I was applying for Ateneo. Thank God I didn't give up though, or else I wouldn't be able to enjoy the fruits of my labor right now. I honestly wasn't expecting stellar grades, considering the number of extracurricular commitments I took on, but now that they're there, I'm not complaining at all! Shoutout to my favorite professors of the semester: Mam Vaswani, who taught me that there is always room for improvement even in my own area of expertise; Sir Atienza, who made lectures feel like casual kwentuhans (or sometimes even chillnumans); and Sir Rebato, who broke the world record for longest patience in the world.

I guess it's safe to say that I am the happiest and most content I have been in a while, and although I am afraid of jinxing it, I feel like it's only gonna go upward from here. I am beyond excited to see where the new year and semester take me, because I know I'll do my part in making sure it's even better and brighter than this one. If you read up to this point, you deserve a pat on the back! Maybe you only scrolled to this point to see if there were any pictures with your face on them, but who cares! It adds to my website traffic, so thank you, happy holidays, and I wish you nothing but love and light always!

Ehlers Danlos Society Awareness Month (Day 31 Community)

Not all health conditions have what they call a community or a group of others with the same condition coming together as a group to be with, support and help one another. Let's be honest, most conditions don't need a community. There's a lot of conditions that are very cut and dry and easy to understand. There's a group on Facebook for everything but I can tell you right now there's not going to be a ton of people in a Hemorrhoid support group. The EDS group is a very close knit group with much value and importance to those who are part of it and I'll be explaining some of those reasons.

Of course one of the most obvious with having a rare disease is to be able to meet someone like you. To know others exist and to share similar experiences with. You know you can always find someone there that truly understands what you're going through having a condition so disabling you tend to lose most, if not all of your friends, some even lose family. Rather it be due to lack of understanding, lack of belief, fear, or any other list of reasons it seems to happen to all of us. So this is a way to make friends just like us. Friends that won't resent us for the physical abilities we have lost or the lifestyle changes placed on us by this syndrome.

Another reason is well because it's rare. It's surprisingly difficult to find any good information about EDS on the internet when you first get diagnosed unless you know where to look. In addition to this being a condition that lacks studies and research it's also extremely complex. In fact before being diagnosed, even with going to nursing school, I had no idea something this complex existed. If you are ever trying to find reliable information about a specific aspect of EDS it may be really hard to find, especially if the topic you're looking for is very specific. You can go into groups. A lot of individuals have certain documents bookmarked or saved in a word document or spreadsheet and can lead you in the right direction. If we can't find a study done in something we can also use support groups to do our own informal studies. Just simply create a pole and let everyone chime in. Before you know it, if posted in a larger group you'll go check out your pole and may have two or three hundred answers to your question.

Next, with EDS pretty much any body structure is a free game which means lots and lots of comorbidities. A good number of comorbidities are common amongst us which means we always have someone to relate to and ask questions to. In addition to this you can expand your groups to include groups for people with those comorbidities further extending your knowledge and possibility of friends. Most doctors don't know anything about these conditions so that leaves it to us to learn everything there is to know about it. When you finally think you have read everything there is on the web, others read thousands of sites or journals you haven't come across and ones you have read they didn't know existed so it's all about learning together and having people who understand.

Being a condition that is so very painful and severely affects sleep as well as causing many of us great depression and guilt for what we've lost and the deterioration our body has been through as well as the feeling of loss. We feel guilty for everything we put out families through, for needing help, for canceling plans and letting people down. Not only as if what we once were has already passed away but also the loss of friends, many times every single one we had before this illness and sometimes family members. We grieve the loss and are angry to learn that people we thought were our best friends and would never leave disappointed in us like a used paper plate. This is also the time it dawns on us how many of these people used us when we were healthy to provide them with things we need. Most of us have OCD or are on the high functioning side of the Autism Spectrum so tend to take responsibility and do things right, including not letting down our friends and family very seriously. Most of us thrive on routine and rules and chronic illness often gets to a point that a lot of this is no longer possible forcing us to make decisions last minute, change them or cancel them last minute, not be able to complete things by a time we have set for ourselves etc and that's really hard. It's helpful to know others who are or have been going through the same thing and to know you're not alone, not the one letting yourself and others down and to be told it's okay and it's not our fault.

The majority of us also have Medical Trauma Induced Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We spent years of our lives rather you're lucky and got diagnosis in two years or ate 70 and have spent the last 55 years actively seeking a diagnosis we all have to fight for one, to see doctor after doctor and oftentimes the worst part of it all, be miss diagnosed with psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and Conversion Disorders. These are extremely dangerous and life threatening diagnosis for us because it essentially closes the door on even looking for a cause of what is going wrong with us. Conversion Disorder is a Diagnosis given after all other conditions have been ruled out the problem is, doctors use it as a crutch to not have to deal with us. We are also superstars, especially in the beginning at having beautiful results when it comes to basic blood tests such as a CBC. The problem is, again, doctors are known to cut corners because they like the majority of mankind are lazy creatures who tend to want to just get the job done. It doesn't matter if it's thoroughly done and done with utmost care to put as much effort into it as they can, it's just done and to them done is good enough so they do the common tests and call it done, close the book and slap a label of conversion disorder on us that follows us around for life for every other doctor to use as an excuse to say they are done too. It takes years to find a doctor who is in it for the better of the patient; one who is up for a challenge; one who is willing to do more testing and testing that is more advanced and most importantly, a doctor who believes us and is willing to go the extra mile. It's when these less common tests like a Tilt Table Study, Gastric Emptying Study, Urodynamics Testing, Upright MRIs instead of doing them in the prone position, Sweat Testing, a Sitzmark Colon Transit Time Study, a 24 hour urine test to measure histamine levels, skin biopsies and ultimately EDS Testing via either the Brighton score system along with a through study of the body and some questions used to determine a positive or negative diagnosis or Genetic Testing to determine a type of EDS that has a genetic mutation that has been discovered. Not all forms of EDS have had their genetic mutation discovered yet which is why the other study is so important. There are more tests that can be utalkzss than the ones mentioned but as you can see, none of these are tests that are done on a routine basis and a lot of doctors don't want to deal with them slapping the psychological, "all in our head" diagnosis on us prematurely.

This results in us without a diagnosis for what we have going on with our body. When this happens we aren't receiving treatment for the symptoms we are experiencing allowing them to escalate. To make things worse we are often given the wrong treatments, handed antipsychotic medications that cause even more adverse symptoms and don't work. When they don't work the doses are increased higher and higher resulting in more to go wrong with our bodies. This also closes the door to treatment causing doctors and hospitals to dismiss life threatening issues, sending us home when we are actually so sick we should be in the ICU. I myself was declared clinically dead at least 10 times before my diagnosis, four because my heart stopped and I went into cardiac arrest and the rest because my blood pressure would drop below 60/20 which in the medical field is a pressure that is considered legally dead. With all but one of these I was sent home within an hour to a few hours of it happening simply told that was weird and sent home on paperwork for Conversion Disorder, Hypochondriasis, or some other psychosomatic disorder and is I was lucky this would sent me discharging me with a diagnosis of low blood pressure and that was that. One of my codes my mom was in the room, thank God for her. When I code no one came. My mom went running down the hall begging for help pleading for a nurse to help because no one was running to my room. The nurse told her I'm probably faking it and just pulled my leads off and told my mom just to ignore me because people like me feed on attention. My mom ran back to the room and thank God had some medical training as a girl scout leader because she had to take first aid and CPR. My mom brought me back. The nurse walked in right after and checked my wires. They are still in place. My state as well as several others protect their medical personnel against malpractice suits so there was nothing we could do. I've been sent home with gastric ischemia which is a life threatening condition where the blood pressure increases to dangerous levels in the intestines. It can cause the pressures to get so high it bursts and dissects blood vessels in the intestines causing a person to bleed to death. I was sent home with a diagnosis of General Psychosis and Anorexia as well as treated for anemia and vitamin deficiency. They blamed it on anorexia, not the fact I physically couldn't eat and was having bowel movements that were nothing but pure blood that everyone. Refused to look at. I had an allergic reaction so bad it almost killed me and was sent home diagnosed with conversion disorder and sent to my doctor who wanted me in ICU but upon refusal from the hospital to see me again even with my vitals so poor my doctor had to take care of me basically sending me home with what I called a take home hospital and working with my mom over the phone to take care of me available all hours of the night. I had a nurse try to give me 50 times the dose of this same medication that caused this. Been sent home with intestinal blockages, hernias, extreme dehydration, a UTI after they said the results came back negative only to get them in the mail a week later to see they were positive and by that time my UTI was so severe I had a kidney infection and was in kidney failure. I've sat there days and nights in a hospital bed where nurses refuse to answer my call light saying I have a conversion. Disorder, don't need to be there and I'm wasting their time and resources taking up a bed for someone who is really sick and that they won't be coming anymore the rest of the night not knowing I was one of the sickest ones on the ward and just misdiagnosed. I've had nurses rip IVs out of my arm, ya know how they push you to your car when you're released? There are a lot of times they pull my IV, tell me I'm not sick anyway and can do it myself having to take multiple trips to get my personal belongings out of my room. When I lost the ability to walk I had multiple doctors tell me I could and would pick me up, put my feet on the ground and the. Let go of

dropping me on the floor. This happened a lot at OSU with their doctors. Again and again dropping me and seeing I didn't have that natural response to catch myself and went straight into the hard tile floor with my fragile and damaged connective tissue would they say hmm. You really can't walk then send another doctor in who would do the exact same thing. I got picked up and dropped four times by four different neurologists just in the first week of being paralyzed and it's happened time and time again after that at other neurology appointments. I could go on and on. This is the stuff a lot of us go through. It's extremely common with EDS, most of us have complex PTSD.

Most of us have an extreme fear of going to the hospital because that's when we are at our worst and at the same time, a time we get treated worse than anywhere else about our chronic illness. We go in knowing it's a game of Russian Roulette with a really high chance we will be sent home sicker than I came in. Worst of all, there's no way to treat our PTSD because it had to be treated by a doctor, the people we have the least trust in. Not only that but the cruel mistreatment never ends. Every hospital visit. I have had good nurses before but I have never gone to the hospital once where I can say everyone was good. I hear a lot of healthy individuals say endless good things about the hospital staff they had or they have some reason they have to go. When you have a rare invisible illness like EDS we aren't given that same care. The appalling lack of medical care never ends therefore it's impossible to even treat our PTSD. It's not like someone in the military who is in a war and when the war is over, it's done, they never have it go back and can get treatment and start to heal. It's like having to live the rest of their lives in that war as a POW who has been captured and imprisoned by the enemy and every time they get out they are found and imprisoned by another enemy and another enemy and then going to see a psychologist who happens for this only to find out the psychologist is one of those enemies from the other side who captures and holds others line you as POWs yet wants to try to help you get over everything that has happened to you even though you're still occasionally been tending by someone else and beat up before getting away again. Seeing a psychologist for us just doesn't work. We have no trust in the medical field and the gross mistreatment and lack of care is never ending. The EDS community can relate to this when one else can. While the healthy people we know, the people we grew up with, who became nurses and doctors themselves get mad telling us those doctors and nurses are heroes, they can do no wrong. That stuff doesn't happen, they are made up of the most caring and compassionate individuals. Those in our community and other rare or invisible disease communities know that degree of mistreatment all too well. We know the truth about the medical field.

We know they are no different than any other company. Identical to the people making minimum wage in a more trivial position such as a greater at a retail store. There are the good ones who take their job very seriously and want to do their job to the best of their ability truly valuing hard work and are highly motivated individuals but most people at a job are just working because they have to. They have bills but if they were multimillionaires there's no way they would be there now. They want to get the job done and go home. It doesn't matter how they get it done, it's just got to be done. These are quantity over quality people. They take working smarter not harder totally wrong, defining it in their mind as taking any short cut necessary to get it done. Ya know how at most jobs they would have, for example, 50 people but there are three of them that seem to pull all the weight. The three everyone thinks takes things too seriously because they hardly leave their desk or station. They don't take the time to walk around socializing and joking around with their peers. When things get behind they are the ones who stress and work really hard to get things caught up where others say I'm not getting paid any more, I'm not going to bend over backwards and stress about if they aren't paying me more. The three people first to volunteer for overtime and the least to grumble of the boss asks them to stay over another 15 minutes to finish something while on the other days a boss May say that if you get your work done you can go hike and everyone rushed to gst the job done to get out the door while those three are left sitting there at their desks to get the job done right whole also correcting others work that was hastily submitted so they could go home or start the weekend early. Just because someone is in the medical field doesn't make them any different from those who hold other jobs. If most of them won five million dollars they would be out of there. Forget the two weeks notice, heck they don't have to work anymore. Someone else can take their patients. If they're told its slow and they can go home when all the patients are out then one more comes walking in the door as they are packing up their stuff there are a lot if doctors will look to the people who are still working and say hey, I'm about to head out of here, do you mind taking this last Patient? It's human nature.

As generations have gone on more and more people are lazy and the medical field is no exception. When you're chronically ill and have spent a lot of time in the hospital it gets really easy to spot those three people. The ones who if they were multimillionaires may cut back their hours but would never dream of leaving their job because their job means more than money to them. They take great pride in making people better, getting them diagnosed, saving lives and they can't see life another way. Those are the good ones. The good ones line any other job. They are far and few, they pull all of the weight, are walked on by other staff members, their managers usually fail to see their accomplishments as they don't spend a lot of time just hanging out with workers at a patient's expense. They are the ones who will advocate and fight for their patients to all ends but like any other job, maybe five percent or one percent or any other single digit percentage of the employees are these people so EDS patients my get one person on their care team that is amazing, maybe two but will never get a whole care team and it seems like the good ones get more far and few the higher the position. I've had more caring and compassionate house cleaning staff. STNA's, more good STNA's than LPN's, more LPN's seen to be there for the patient then RN's and more RN's. Doctors.

I don't think I've ever had a bad Volunteer at a hospital. The volunteers just love to be there for the patients, to put a smile on their faces and to know they made a difference in our lives. Rather it be to bring us a coloring book and crayons, their Emotional Support Dog around to visit us (which is my favorite) bring us a warm blanket or fill up our water containers. I've had one bring me a card and a flower in a small tube of water. The volunteers are there because they want to be there, not because they have to be there. It seems like the higher the person is on the pay scale the more people are in it for the money. Money talks even if it's at the patient's expense and usually if you have a complicated or invisible illness like EDS you are the expenditure. A community is important to know we aren't alone, to share their experiences, some in the group have become medical advocates and will fight for others in their area who can't get the help they need. These advocates, especially the ones with lots of training are invaluable to the EDS community. They may not be able to fix our problems but it's nice to know there is someone out there who tried. When you're at your worst advocating for yourself is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible and oftentimes our families don't do a lot of research on their own so aren't able to advocate for us so having someone who can is more beneficial than words.

As you can see there are so many different reasons community is important and vital to all of us. Some use it simply as a way to relate or a way to make friends like them after losing the friends they had before their health declined to the extent their healthier friends no longer could relate to them and left. Many are involved in the community to gather information and gain knowledge about their conditions. Support groups are also there to talk, especially with so many who have PTSD. We can't trust a psychologist, psychiatrist or therapist as they are medical professionals and talking to a live person is more fulfilling than writing a journal that no one reads. Sometimes it's as if these individuals, having gone through this themselves, know just want to say and how to help us. Some are there as a medical advocate in their area. Someone who can be there for them in medical situations or even just to give them advice as to what to say to make doctors listen, direct them who to contact if they aren't receiving appropriate care and what to do or ask for from our medical personnel. Some even use these groups to find names of doctors that work with EDS patients or places to go where they may be able to get help or even ideas of what treatments work for others with similar comorbidities. There's even a few groups out there run by people who were medical workers before EDS ravaged their body to an extent that they had to leave the field. It consists of disabled nurses, doctors, radiologists and various specialists. This group works to tell us if we need a second opinion. We can post test results or imaging onto the page and since legally they can't have a diagnosis since they aren't currently working they give what's called a "non expert opinion, telling us what they see or would suspect and if we need to see someone else. I find all of these viral and that's why I see the EDS community as not an invaluable and essential part of my life and wellbeing as an individual with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.

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Better help post to my counselor 7-29-2017

I am so sorry about how long this is.  Once written I thought about not sending it to you or somehow boiling it down for you.  But I think I really needed to get all this out.  But I think I also really want someone to understand me.  So I have decided to send the whole thing to you.  I know it is long and most likely a big rambling that in the end you might not get anything useful from.  But I kind of hope you do.  So good, bad or ill here it is. (oh and I certainly don’t expect quick flash of insight, brilliant, glib or other response that deals with all this. Though brilliant flash of insight is always welcome.) ……….. I have been busy and thinking.  In part I tried a council before you and that was not work.  I takes quite a lot for me to talk about thing for a few reason.  First is the whole exposing yourself thing, revealing inner personal things. 2nd It take quite a bit of effort to even think of what to say and how to express it.  It all becomes jumbled and confused, it’s hard to explain.  I know believe this is related to the autism.  So first I have to figure out what I need to express and then I actually have to explain it in such a way to minimize confusion. It can cause confusion when people expect to hear one thing and you're saying another.   For example there are times what I feel in response to a situation is not the same as what most people generally feel.  For example after I learned my husband was cheating and we were breaking up, came over to get some of his stuff.  When he was leaving his car got stuck in the driveway (lived in Michigan and it was winter.)  Well he was trying to get it out with no success.  I couldn’t stand watching him struggle, so I went out and helped him push the car out of the driveway.  Everyone one of my friend were totally surprised I did this and everyone of them said they wouldn’t have gone out and help him.  And I understand their responses, I mean this is the time most would be throwing his stuff out in the snow, yelling and screaming at him and in general doing whatever to express their hurt, anger and pain at the person that just hurt them in the worst way.  So how do I explain to them what I did? So it was very hard to explain to them how it was far worse for me to watch him struggling then to just go out and get him out of my driveway.  Of course it can be explained and expressed but it take more effort than if I had just left him in the driveway because that is what people expected because they understand anger far better than anxiety. And anxiety is what was more powerfully me at that moment. 3rd There is the actual communication issues.  When writting I am a horrible speller and I tend to think far faster then I write so I can end up something hard for the other person to read.  If I am talking I have issues with eye contact, stumbling over words, not hearing tones correctly, not speaking in the correct tones because I don’t hear them.  All those typical autistic kind of issues. This all mean even the act of seeking help can greatly increase my anxiety and I can will hit a point of burn out where I need to withdraw.  And the last therapist didn’t work because I would go through all this and she responded with the equivalent “un hun, go on” We that doesn’t work for me, I need more feedback, more direction in the feed back.  For example she might respond, ‘That is to be expected, as it is normal to feel that way.”  but a response like that can leave me dangling.  I may not actually know what feeling she is referring to.  Also I believe most people feel comfort in feeling like the herd? but I don’t get any comfort from that.  Knowing others feel the same can help me in understanding others and that can be helpful when dealing with others but it doesn’t help me in dealing with me. (This is one of those areas that is very, very hard to explain. I have found other autistic people get what I am saying but i find more atypicals don’t.) I spent a long time not even understanding this myself.  I only learned I was autistic when my son was diagnosed in his senior year of high school.  So I have only known for like 8 years, which might seem a long time it really isn’t.  Everyday I still learn of new ways I am not like the majority of people and how it impacted my life and still does.  You know how teens feel like no one understands them, they are different, a freak, all those normal growing pain kind of things.  Well that is how my whole life has been.  I now know that is how all high functioning autistic people feel. In some ways I am fortunate in that I recognized the fact that I was different from most other people early on (I think 6th grade is when I really, really understood that fact.) I didn’t know how I was different or why I was different but I knew for a fact I was.  And because I knew that was a fact I was able to accept it.  In some ways that made my teen years easier than some of my friends.  I didn’t feel I fix in any better then them but I had accepted it so I didn’t even really struggle with trying.  Instead I just looked for those that I would naturally fit with and be myself in many way. (When starting a new school which I did a lot, I just looked for the freaks and geeks and found friend actually pretty quickly.) So how does this matter today? in many ways.  It is far harder to find the “Freaks and geeks” at 51 then 16.  All my peers are not gathered in one building for me to observe and spot the individual i can relate too.  And those I might relate too are most likely high functioning but selective in where they hang and who they hang with.  So if i go to a meet up that is focus on exercise I am less likely to find a kindred soul then if I go to a game convention.  But at a game convention most of the people are going to be half my age.  Now I am not opposed to young friends but does present it’s own issues.  In fact I do have one friend I see once a month or do.  She is my daughter's age but we click very well.  But she is harder to hang with because she has a far more active lifestyle.  Also it hard to talk with her about thing like my kids or even my divorce because she is at the beginning of things and I am at the end.  She in the flowering of her marriage and I have suffered the devastating end of mine.   Of course all the communications issue listed above make things challenging as well. I only figured out recently that even though I might my time at the meet-ups I have been attending, they were still causing social burnout because they also generated a very high anxiety state.  So I might have a great time but after say three event I would be burned out for a week or more.  This week was a good week.  Your response helped and seems to be the kind I am looking for, that is a positive.  I have finished 2 big projects at work, lowering stress levels, I went to fun game previous friday and then another on thursday. Went to the water park with my daughter (I love the water.) I had lunch with my co-works this just past friday. But still anxiety is up and this morning i woke up all emotional.  I was crying and obsessing about all I had lost.  My friends, my husband and the life I knew and understood (or at least I thought I did.)  I now know this is a response to anxiety.  So I have to step back and re-coup at home.  I also have to watch my buying habits because of late I think I am internet shopping in response to stress. What I don’t know is how long it will take me to re-coup. It can also make planning future events hard.  If I plan things but then end up burning out an cancelling that really doesn’t help much.  I am also not sure how much is going to lead to burnout.  New activities are certainly going to cause more anxiety than things I know but I really am not at the point of having any routine activities with other yet.  The only one I really have is once a month i go to an autism for adults support group.  So far it is the only activity that really, really helps me.  Even when there are issue at the  meeting I still feel “at home.”  I don’t feel like a fish out of water there.  And I can really be myself in many ways I can’t anywhere else. This all started with me wanting to just explain why it was taking me so long to respond to you.  I don’t even know if i have succeeding in do that I do now know I really needed to explain all this stuff to you.  I have spent  lot of time trying to get help in the past but because I didn’t know what what my needs and challenges were and those trying to help didn’t understand a lot of time was spent spinning wheels. Like with the last councilor.  I would tell her I was frustrated, that i didn’t know how to proceed, etc… but she just didn’t get it and couldn’t find an effective way to connect with me and thus couldn’t help. I can say that at least at this age I have learned to spot spinning wheels quicker. When I was 19 I spent a month in a nice psyche ward.  No one there had a clue of what to do with me and how to help, myself included.  Very typical, especially in the 80’s that no one recognized I was a high functioning autistic, mostly because I was female because I had a ton of red flag.  But it did mean that everything, including the med medication they finally settled on for me (we went through at least 4 different kinds) didn’t help me at all.  What did help and why I finally showed signs of improvement was simply the time out for a month.  I really suffering from extreme burnout for anxiety.  So having a month of being pretty free from most social interaction and l social interaction that did occur were very structured and controlled, it allowed me to destress enough to somewhat deal with the real world again I saw the same kind of thing happen with my son.  If I had know we could have gotten him better help and I think he would be at a better stage now.  If nothing else his high school like would had been better, I am sure of it.  So now I know not to wast time in a pointless direction or worse a direction that will only make things worse. I also think you should know how I found your response helpful and makes me hopeful.  You gave me something concrete to research, learn about and explore in maybe understanding myself better, (The  of needs i didn’t know about.) You asked direct question?  It gives me a way to respond when i am at a lost.  Direct question also tell me if you're getting what I am really saying or if some form of miscommunication is going on. Just restating what I said doesn’t mean someone is getting what I said but if they ask question about it I can then get a clue i they are in the same ball park as me. Finally, I promise some more direct answers. meet-ups I have attended:   DFW gamers social happy hours ( like these as it is fellow gamers meeting at various bars, just hanging and talking geek stuff.  I like these but they are random on when and how often they occur.  Plus most have been on the dallas side of area, a bit far for me.) Beginner meditation: Was good but organizer ended it and I haven’t found a replacement like it. Barnes and Noble board game meet up: Again like it, have been to one so far but it is only monthly autism adult support group: Best for me but only meets once a month (really wish it was more often.) Shadowrun roleplaying game: Just been to the first one, it went well and it meets twice a month.  It is a new group of people for everyone, so traditionally it really need to meet at least a few months before you know it it will continue or fall apart. (private home) DnD league playing at Game Store: This meets every thursday and i have been to 4 of these.  It is going well, so far it has been the same players and same GM. (this means it socially stable for me.) Events like this can be trying for me on a weekly bases if games, players or gm change all the time, like they can at this kind of event. i have been looking for some kind of craft class or group I could join but so far I haven’t found one.  Mostly it has been an issue of time and/or focus.  A lot of them meet during the day, while I am work.  And focus is often for young mothers learn crafts for kids and that kind of thing.  But I am still looking. REVIEW OF GOALS It is very hard for me to give you things I want to do or achieve.  As one of my big issue is that I really can’t find much that motivates me anymore.  Though in you asking it did make me suddenly realize in part why my creative energy is so low.  It that I have no one to share with.  Sharing creative energy really gets things cooking and I really do thrive in bouncing around that energy but currently I am doing everything in a vacuum.  I post to FB but get little feedback that way, usually some “like” hits.  But no really exchange on the project.  I thought maybe it was praise I was lacking but now I know it’s not that at all.  It is that back and forth, that sharing of excitement, of developing and growing the ideas that I am missing.  So when my battery runs out I have nothing to plug into and recharge it with. I really, really like what I do for a living.  I don’t always like the job but I like what I do.  I don’t want to move up because that changes what I do.  I don’t want to manage people or even project.  If I get bored in my career it is usually be cause what I am designing I can do in my sleep and it isn’t innovate or teaching me anything new.  In that case I usually have to move to a new job.  (If a company builds widget A and that is all they do, there comes a time you have to go to a company that builds widget B.)  Currently I work for a company that  does almost all custom work so all my widgets are different to some degree.  Plus it is in a growing field/technology so there plenty to learn and grow with, without going into management. Though I love to learn and I am always open to going to training, classes, and self learning I see no benefit to a higher degree at this stage in my life. In general I have enough work experience that a higher degree give me little career benefits (unless I want to move into management, which I don’t) So from time to time I will take a college course for personal interest but it’s not a goal thing. I thought about traveling, but to be honest my social anxiety is so high these days travel something I dread more than look forward too. I have a passport so if there comes a day the bug bits I think I could just take off but for now it just make me nause to think about going abroad.  I use to love camping but Texas has some many things that can kill you, snake and the like I am not sure I can reconnect with nature here. (I have always really, really hated snakes but at least in michigan if I encountered on I didn’t have to worry about any real danger. Not to mention scorpions, and the like you have here.)  So day trips are about all I am up to these days.  Plus camping is more fun with people and I have no one to camp with. I have thought about volunteer work but again couple of issues.  1st Social anxiety high so this could just ramp that up.   And there are thing I am not emotionally ert ipped to deal with.  for example I love animals but things stay with me.  so if I offered to help with the local reque I would have to deal with the emotional trauma of the evil, cruel and sad thing that happens to these animals.  But those things stay with me, I mean really I will remember them for life and they will haunt me. 2nd There is a jaded factor in me that I don’t know if i can get over.  I have volunteered for various organizations in the past but over time I have become somewhat embittered with them.  I see the waste and cons going on and find it hard to ignore.  Basicly I find I can’t drink the cool air any more.  For example I was a girl scout from 11 to 18 and then I was a Troop leader.  But as a leader I was the national council push cookie sales like made.  Basicly a troop meets 9 months out of the year.  The second month in the council will start the campaign at the leader meetings to get the girls ready for cookie sale.  Troops will then spend almost 2 months in cook sales and orders.  then when orders comes in they will spend another month on delivery, rewards and booth sales.  After that the council then spend at least another month debriefing leader on the sales.  So for the girls a min. of 3 months out of 9 are focus on cookie sales. For leader the focus is at least 5 out of 9.  What really kills with this is most troops could make more money in just 1 alternative fund raiser, like a 1 day bake sale.  Most of the money still goes to National and mfg.  As for national then spending the money back on the troops, well 5 months of that support is spent on cook sales promotion, paper work, and distributing.  They do help fund the camps but Girl Scout camp really isn’t any cheaper than other camps I sent my children too.  Plus only a small percent of girls actually go to the camps.  They don’t supplement the price of uniforms and badges like boy scouts do.  In fact you can often buy the uniform cheaper at a local walmart then you can from troop stores.  As to the so called skill the girls learn selling cookie.  Most could and more could have been learned by organizing small local fund raisers like a car wash.  In fact cookie sale has devolved into shelling to friend and relative and those in turn taking form into work.  The girls are not suppose to do door to door sales.  The forms are just line item fill so not really math or account skills are needed.  National supplies all the promotional and marketing.  So what I was a corporate level organization getting a free sales force, giving back the mim it could.  It had nothing to do with the girls.  And there is a lot of pressure for leader to play ball the national way.  So after a year as a local organizer I gave it up. I have encounter this with several volunteer organizations and I am now jaded about them.  I think it is because i trust and really believe in the good work line and i don’t know how to deal with realization that maybe the good work isn’t as good as I thought or the fact that those higher up are lying to those below.  I just don’t know how to see past that and believe once I see the neg. A very long way to say, if I found the right kind of volunteer opportunity I would be for helping but I am not driven to find one. Love: I am not driven to find a love of my life.  I thought I had that and then after 27 years I learned, not so much.  In fact not only was I not the love of his life he was able to lie to me, accuse me of things I never did, make me feel ugly and double who I am even down to the core of my feeling. As far as I can tell the love of his life is a woman 10 years younger then me, slightly dumber than me (barely graduated high school), into kinky Daddy/little girl S&M, her goal in life is to be a stay at home mom (yet when she had a baby, by her first husband, was willing to let the baby sit in a stinky diaper for ½ hour waiting for her husband to come home and change it and she ordered delivery pizza for her lunch on a regular basis), Knows how  use makeup, wants to do craft things but doesn’t does none of them.  I know in the end he dumped me because she gave him kinky sex and made him feel all manly because she would never beat him in anything he did with her.  But do you know how hollow that make one feel.  I mean if you meet my X you wouldn’t think he was that kind of man.  You wouldn’t believe he need a woman who can be perceived as less than him is what he needed to feel better about himself. And on the face of it all it seemed like we were a good match and happy with each other.  It wasn’t just me that was fooled to believing otherwise.  I use brag about him at work, saying how I choose wisely.  When I had a job with an hour community, he would make dinner.  He didn’t get on me about doing thing like house work.  In fact once a friend commented on the messy house and he pointed out that he was currently unemployed and by all right the messy house was his fault not mine. We did fight but no all the time and all the big stuff we seemed in agreement, religion, politics, money and kids.  We shared the same friends.  We did things together all the time, weekly games with our friends.  Social parties and hangout with them on regular basis.  Time to ourselves, dinner, movies, occasional weekend trips.  Separate activities and interests, like I crafted and he liked to play Wow and civilizations, paint miniatures, read some of the same books and read different ones and share.  The one failing most likely was sex.   Supported him in all he wanted to do.  First Navy, then school to get his journeyman but when he discovered he really hated that kind of work I support the change and he went back to school and got a degree in English.  I didn’t look down when he was under employed for 2 years and then unemployed for another 2 years.  I support the change to becoming a casino deals, which he was very excited about.  But that too changed and he found it soul sucking so he took a temp job tech writing.  I think he finally found a job he liked (unfortunately temp) so there were period of unemployment but I didn’t give him crap or blame him.  An I would encourage his writing fiction which I truly liked. But he never was motivated enough to sell it.  I personally think in the end he would have been happy as an editor but he has never pursue it. We had a sex life but I could have put out more often I just found doing it three times a week a bit hard because I was so tired after work.  but I was willing to work on it.  He said he was too but by the time we got to that point I didn’t realize it was too late because he really wasn’t interest in fixing things with me.  I of course didn’t know that.  I even did the Daddy/little girl thing with him.  there were some things I rather liked, really but what I could do was be manipulative.  I have learned that in the SM world the true power in the Daddy/Little relationship is in the Littles, they are very manipulative.  It is there way of making the dominate feel in charge and in control but really it is all about them the submissive.  This is something I am really, really bad at.  So even if there were thing I enjoyed I couldn’t really give him what he wanted.  He wanted to feel in charge of thing without really being responsible for anything.  An example is an effective Little know when their Daddy wants sex and when they don’t (that in itself was hard for me to know.) The Little will then pick her time for approaching.  See because the Daddy can turn the Little down but the Little can never turn the Daddy down. Also with en effective Little the Daddy never has to ask for sex either.  So the little knowing the Daddy wants sex will ask before he might desire too.  The turnly manipulative part is when she doesn’t want sex and the Daddy doesn’t she should then ask for sex knowing the answer will be what she truly wants.  But this also give her banked credit.  So down the line if there is a time she really wants sex but think the Daddy doesn’t she still might get sex because he will recall the times he has turned her down.  But what about when she doesn’t want sex?  Well in truth they are some of the best fakers and most likely the masters of fake it until you make it.  Plus they seem more driven in keeping the Daddy under control that weather they really want it or not matters little to them (kind of like a porn star).   Now this may not always be true but since this is what my x was into and I was willing to give it a go.  I did a lot research, so I read it over and over on the porn/daddy/little blogs and the like.  I also saw in person with other couples he introduced me to and I even saw it with him mistress in person with him.  ( spent a year of crazy trying ot make things work and agreed to a three way relationship. Yeah stupid, big mistake but I really, really was not in my right mind.  My friend really should have stepped in and discouraged it.  Many knew but I think in their own way they really couldn’t believe it and want to see us work.  They were open minded enough to see it possibly work but really didn’t look at if it was a healthy choice I was personally making.) Logically I think what really killed out marriage was all the years we didn’t understand I was autistic and he has borderline personality disorder.  On my side it means I could perceive myself but was poor as expressing how I perceived him. I am guessing he saw me as cold at time but I didn’t even realize this because I could not tell and he didn’t say anything.  There were likely times my tone of  voice alone might have cause him to take hurt and I didn’t know it. By the same token because of his BLPD he was looking for me to be a mirror, to reflect back how I saw him so he could know who he was but I was a poor mirror. I remember reading up on BLPD and crying because they would give examples how best to communicate with someone with BLPD and I didn’t see how I was going to do it.  It would be like telling me to save my marriage I had to keep eye contact with him all the time when talking but because of I am autistic eye contact if very hard to do and actually it can make it harder to listen to people.  So I could keep eye contact but not hear what was said or hear what was said but the person wouldn’t feel like i heard. So lose, lose for me.  This is the kind of issue I think lead to the down fall without me even seeing it coming.  I don’t think he saw it either in the end.  He was all emotion and reaction and that is why he really didn’t even want to try once he found someone that could meet reflex back the Big Strong man image he so wanted. So again a very long way of saying I am very, very damaged from my divorce and can’t see trusting anyone, let alone loving anyone again. Other goals It hard to come up with goals because I don’t know I am.  This is really hard to explain with proper impact.  I have always as far I can remember to the age of 4, known who I was.  I have self identity, self away, what I liked, what I thought, what i cared about and what I didn’t care about, how I thought and why.  I was sure of all these things, always.  What I didn’t know  was how I fit in the world, I often didn’t understand the world or the people in it.  It was something the doctor had a hard time with whenever i was in therapy.  Even when I hospitalized for that month after attempted suicide.  They would talk about self esteem, confidence, blah, blah.  The self harm really confused them back then (though I think they may understand it better now.)  As a cutter they believed it had to be from some form of self hate.  But it wasn’t, it was about anxiety relief. Somehow feeling physical pain and seeing the red blood soothe ed me.  I would physically and mentally relax. (of course back in the day I didn’t understand what drove it and I still don’t fully understand it, especially the addictive quality to it) but they really didn’t get it. I liked myself, I thought I was a good person, a good friend and not to hard on the eyes.  Yeah I was fat and wish I could lose weight but certain not worth killing myself over. (What is was overwhelming burnout that drove me to want to die.  It was just to hard to do anything to the point the thought of nothing was stronger thing living.  Again something I know know but I didn’t then and none of the doctor knew either.) But now after 46 years of know who and what i was at the core of my being I don’t know.  It is one of the most disturbing things for me.  I feel no really joy though I have had happy or content days now.  Food overall is bland to me, which is a big improvement from the ash it use to taste like when my world first fell.   We discussed the craft things, I not driven or excited by any project even when I do get an idea. I mean how do I set goals when I don’t know what I like or enjoy?  I can only guess and take a stab at it.   I guess in the end that is the overall goal.  Know myself again, know my center so I can move outward and onward. GOALS I DO HAVE: BUILD SOCIAL NETWORK KNOW WHO I AM AGAIN FEEL JOY AND PASSION AGAIN

Anxiety Overtakes Depression as No. 1 Mental Health Problem Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Anxiety is the new depression, with more than half of all American college students reporting anxiety.1 Recent research2 shows anxiety — characterized by constant and overwhelming worry and fear — is now 800 percent more prevalent than all forms of cancer. A 2016 report3 by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State confirmed the trend, finding anxiety and depression are the most common concerns among college students who seek counseling.4 Data from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) suggests the prevalence of anxiety disorders in the U.S. may be as high as 40 million, or about 18 percent of the population over the age of 18, making it the most common mental illness in the nation.5,6 Fortunately, there are many treatment options available, and some of the most effective treatments are also among the safest and least expensive, and don't involve drugs. Anxiety — A Medical Condition Driven by Sociological Conditions? Commenting on the featured video, Huffington Post writes:7 "A person with high functioning anxiety can look calm on the surface, but underneath that practiced veneer, their thoughts are churning. That's the message behind a new video from 'The Mighty,' in which a young woman describes the experience of living with the condition, which is characterized by persistent negative thoughts, restlessness and even physical symptoms like muscle tension …" But what is at the heart of all this anxiety? What's causing all these persistent negative thoughts? Why the chronic restlessness? The New York Times addressed the rising prevalence of anxiety in a recent article, noting:8 "While to epidemiologists the disorder is a medical condition, anxiety is starting to seem like a sociological condition, too: a shared cultural experience that feeds on alarmist CNN graphics and metastasizes through social media … 'If you're a human being living in 2017 and you're not anxious,' [Sarah Fader, who has generalized anxiety disorder] said on the telephone, 'there's something wrong with you' … [I]t seems we have entered a new Age of Anxiety. Monitoring our heart rates. Swiping ceaselessly at our iPhones … Consider the fidget spinner: endlessly whirring between the fingertips of 'Generation Alpha,' annoying teachers, baffling parents … According to data from the National Institute of Mental Health, some 38 percent of girls ages 13 through 17, and 26 percent of boys, have an anxiety disorder … Meanwhile, the number of web searches involving the term has nearly doubled over the last five years …" United States of Anxiety Kai Wright, host of the political podcast "The United States of Anxiety," attributes the current trend to the fact that we've been at war for over a decade and a half, have faced two recessions in that same time frame, and have had to adjust to a swiftly changing digital landscape, which in turn has changed how we work and interact.9 "Everything we consider to be normal has changed. And nobody seems to trust the people in charge to tell them where they fit into the future," he says.10 Andrea Petersen, author of "On Edge: A Journey Through Anxiety," interviewed students at University of Michigan for her book, some of whom revealed the internal pressure cooker was turned on far earlier than you might expect. In his Times article, Alex Williams writes:11 "One student, who has ADHD, anxiety and depression, said the pressure began building in middle school when she realized she had to be at the top of her class to get into high school honors classes, which she needed to get into Advanced Placement classes, which she needed to get into college. 'In sixth grade,' she said, 'kids were freaking out.' This was not the stereotypical experience of Generation X … 'In addition to the normal chaos of being a human being, there is what almost feels like weaponized uncertainty thrown at us on a daily basis,' said Kat Kinsman, the 'Hi, Anxiety' author. 'It's coming so quickly and messily, some of it straight from the president's own fingers.' Indeed, Mr. Trump is the first politician in world history whose preferred mode of communication is the 3 a.m. tweet … 'We live in a country where we can't even agree on a basic set of facts,' said Dan Harris, an ABC news correspondent and 'Nightline' anchor …" Beware of Microwave Exposure We have had nearly an exponential increase in electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure from devices like our cellphones and cordless phones, Wi-Fi routers, baby monitors, smart meters and cellphone towers, which may turn out to be a primary driver for this increase in anxiety and depression. How you say? Good question. Due to the pioneering work of Dr. Martin Pall, we know that voltage gated calcium channels are over 7 million times more sensitive to microwave radiation than the charged particles inside and outside our cells. This means that the safety standards for this exposure are off by a factor of 7 million. When the EMF from the above listed devices hit your voltage gated calcium channels, nearly 1 million calcium ions per second are released into the cell, which then causes the cell to release excessive nitric oxide that then combines with superoxide to form peroxynitrate, which then forms the dangerous hydroxyl free radical that causes massive mitochondrial dysfunction. Guess which tissues have the greatest density of voltage gated calcium channels? Your nerves and tissues, like the pacemaker in your heart and, of course, your brain. When the channels in the brain are activated, it causes a major disruption in neurotransmitter and hormonal balance that can radically increase the risk for not only anxiety and depression but arrhythmias, autism and Alzheimer's. I am going to be massively expanding on this in future articles and interviews but in the meantime, please watch or rewatch my video below to help start you on the process of protecting you from microwaves. Do Fidget Spinners Work? In his article, Williams touches on the popularity of so-called fidget spinners, originally devised as a focusing aid primarily for autistic children and kids with attention deficit or sensory sensitivity disorders. The toy is now being used by all sorts of people of varying ages. But do they really help reduce anxiety? According to psychiatrist Pilar Trelles at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, the spinners can be quite helpful. Health Magazine quotes her as saying, "When someone is hypersensitive to the environment they might bite their nails, pull out their cuticles or pinch their skin. Fidget spinners offer a less harmful way to expend that nervous energy."12 The fidget spinner falls under a stress management category called rapid stress management technique, recommended for use in conjunction with other forms of therapy. That said, some schools have banned use of fidget spinners, on account that they distract teachers and other students. Medicine Net has also issued a warning that fidget spinners pose a choking hazard,13 as the round metal bearings could come dislodged. A 10-year-old girl had to have a bearing surgically removed from her esophagus after she accidentally swallowed it. Other Common Causes of Anxiety While genetics, brain chemistry, personality and life events play a role in the development of anxiety disorders, stress is a common trigger. Anxiety is a normal response to stress, but in some people the anxiety becomes overwhelming and difficult to cope with, to the point that it affects their day-to-day living. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) explains how your brain reacts to stress, and how the anxiety response is triggered:14 "Several parts of the brain are key actors in the production of fear and anxiety … scientists have discovered that the amygdala and the hippocampus play significant roles in most anxiety disorders. The amygdala … is believed to be a communications hub between the parts of the brain that process incoming sensory signals and the parts that interpret these signals. It can alert the rest of the brain that a threat is present and trigger a fear or anxiety response. The emotional memories stored in the central part of the amygdala may play a role in anxiety disorders involving very distinct fears, such as fears of dogs, spiders or flying. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that encodes threatening events into memories." A number of other situations and underlying issues can also contribute to the problem. This includes but is not limited to the following, and addressing these issues may be what's needed to resolve your anxiety disorder. For more information about each, please follow the links provided: ✓ Exposure to microwave radiation from devices like cellphones, Wi-Fi routers, portable phones, smart meters, baby monitors and cellphone towers ✓ Food additives, food dyes, GMOs and glyphosate. Food dyes of particular concern include Blue #1 and #2 food coloring; Green #3; Orange B; Red #3 and #40; Yellow #5 and #6; and the preservative sodium benzoate ✓ Gut dysfunction caused by imbalanced microflora ✓ Lack of magnesium, vitamin D15 and/or animal-based omega-3. (Research has shown a 20 percent reduction in anxiety among medical students taking omega-3s16) ✓ Use of artificial sweeteners ✓ Excessive consumption of sugar and junk food ✓ Improper breathing ✓ Exposure to toxic mold Breathing Has a Direct Influence on Anxiety The way you breathe is intricately connected to your mental state. I've previously published interviews with Patrick McKeown, a leading expert on the Buteyko Breathing Method, where he explains how breathing affects your mind, body and health. Here, I've chosen a video featuring Robert Litman, where he specifically addresses the relationship between breathing and anxiety. According to Buteyko, the founder of the method, anxiety is triggered by an imbalance between gases in your body, specifically the ratio between carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen. In this video, Litman explains how your breathing affects the ratio of these gases, and demonstrates how you can literally breathe your way into a calmer state of mind. A Buteyko breathing exercise that can help quell anxiety is summarized below. This sequence helps retain and gently accumulate CO2, leading to calmer breathing and reduced anxiety. In other words, the urge to breathe will decline as you go into a more relaxed state. Take a small breath into your nose, a small breath out; hold your nose for five seconds in order to hold your breath, and then release to resume breathing. Breathe normally for 10 seconds. Repeat the sequence several more times: small breath in through your nose, small breath out; hold your breath for five seconds, then let go and breathe normally for 10 seconds. McKeown has also written a book specifically aimed at the treatment of anxiety through optimal breathing, called "Anxiety Free: Stop Worrying and Quieten Your Mind — Featuring the Buteyko Breathing Method and Mindfulness," which can be found on Amazon.com.17 In addition to the book, ButeykoClinic.com also offers a one-hour online course and an audio version of the book, along with several free chapters18 and accompanying videos.19 Belisa Vranich, a clinical psychologist, has also written an excellent book called "Breathe." In it, she details a program that can help improve your physical and mental health. You can learn more about her breathing program in this recent interview. Nature Sounds Calm the Mind and Quell Anxiety In addition to addressing your breathing, consider spending more time in natural environments. Researchers at Brighton and Sussex Medical School found that nature sounds have a distinct and powerful effect on your brain, lowering fight-or-flight instincts and activating your rest-and-digest autonomic nervous system.20,21,22 Nature sounds produce brain activity associated with outward-directed focus, whereas artificial sounds create brain activity associated with inward-directed focus. The latter, which can express itself as worry and rumination about things related to your own self, is a trait associated with anxiety and depression. Nature sounds also produce higher rest-digest nervous system activity, which occurs when your body is in a relaxed state. Previous research has also demonstrated that listening to nature sounds help you recover faster after a stressful event. So, seek out parks, or create a natural sanctuary on your balcony, or indoors using plants and an environmental sound machine. YouTube also has a number of very long videos of natural sounds, such as the one featured above. You could simply turn it on and leave it on while you're indoors. EFT — A Potent Non-Drug Treatment Alternative Another potent treatment alternative that does not involve drugs is the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), one of the most well-established forms of energy psychology. It's akin to acupuncture, which is based on the concept that a vital energy flows through your body along invisible pathways known as meridians. EFT stimulates specific energy meridian points in your body by tapping them with your fingertips, while simultaneously using custom-made verbal affirmations. This can be done alone or under the supervision of a qualified therapist. By doing this, you reprogram the way your body responds to emotional stressors, effectively "short-circuiting" the event chain that leads to an anxiety or panic attack. Research confirms EFT can be a powerful intervention for stress and anxiety,23,24,25 in part because it specifically targets your amygdala and hippocampus, which are the parts of your brain that help you decide whether or not something is a threat.26 If you recall the NIMH's explanation above about how your amygdala and hippocampus are involved in anxiety disorders, you can see why tapping is such a powerful tool. In the video above, EFT therapist Julie Schiffman demonstrates how to tap for panic attacks and anxiety relief. For serious or complex issues, you may need a qualified EFT therapist to guide you through the process. That said, the more you tap, the more skilled you'll become. You can also try acupuncture,27 which like EFT bridges the gap between your mind and body. Other Treatment Options for Anxiety Considering the risks of psychiatric drugs, I would urge you to view them as a last resort rather than a first-line of treatment. In addition to the breathing exercises, nature sound therapy and EFT already mentioned, other far safer strategies to explore include: ✓ Regular exercise and daily movement ✓ Mindfulness training and/or a spiritual practice. Research suggests psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, may be a game changer in the treatment for severe depression and anxiety, and the spiritual intensity of the experience appears to be a key component of the healing. Magic mushrooms are not legal, so this is not a viable treatment as of yet, but it highlights the importance and relationship between having a spiritual foundation that can provide hope and meaning to your life ✓ Optimizing your gut microbiome. Gastrointestinal abnormalities have been linked to a variety of psychological problems, including anxiety and depression. It is now well established that the vagus nerve is the primary route your gut bacteria use to transmit information to your brain,28 which helps explain why mental health can be so intricately connected to your gut microbiome.29 For example, fermented foods have been shown to curb social anxiety disorder in young adults.30,31 To learn more about this, please see "Poor Diet, Lack of Sunshine and Spiritual Anemia — Three Potent Contributors to Depression and Anxiety." ✓ Lowering your sugar and processed food intake. Research shows your diet can have a profound effect on your mental health.32,33 Pay particular attention to nutritional imbalances known to contribute to mental health problems, such as lack of magnesium, vitamin D, B vitamins and animal-based omega-3 ✓ Getting plenty of restorative sleep ✓ Being mindful of your exposure to EMFs and use of wireless technologies. At bare minimum, avoid keeping any of these gadgets next to you while sleeping ✓ Evaluating your toxic exposures. A common symptom of toxic mold exposure is anxiety, so ask yourself if there's any kind of pattern; do your symptoms improve when you spend time away from your home or office, for example? ✓ Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). They even offer CBT for young children these days.34 A number of universities offer Tao Connect35 to their students, but even if you're not a student, there are free online programs available that you can use. Some examples include MoodGYM,36 e-couch,37 Learn to Live38 and CBT Online39 Anxiety can significantly reduce your quality of life, so it's well worth it to keep going until you find a proper long-term solution. Last but not least, don't underestimate the value of social interactions — face-to-face, that is, not via social media. Lack of social interaction has become so widespread, some establishments have taken to turning off their Wi-Fi in an effort to encourage human interaction. Jimson Bienenstock, president of HotBlack Coffee in Toronto, explained his decision to turn the café into a cellphone-free zone to The New York Times, saying,40 "It's about creating a social vibe. We're a vehicle for human interaction, otherwise it's just a commodity." Indeed, like mindfulness and spiritual pursuits, social interaction helps foster meaning and purpose in life, thereby protecting and improving your mental health.

Tom Price's Views Could Feed The Anti-Vaccine Sentiment Brewing In Texas

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said that vaccination should be a state-regulated choice, not a federal requirement, during a CNN televised town hall event on March 15. 

State governments should be responsible for public health, according to Price, and for determining “whether or not immunizations are required for a community population.”

Price’s emphasize on individual choice for immunization is especially troubling considering he is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons ― which, despite its official-sounding name, promotes the thoroughly debunked claim that that vaccines cause autism and considers mandatory vaccination to be “equivalent to human experimentation.”

(During Price’s January confirmation hearing, he conceded that vaccines do not cause autism when he was directly asked.) 

HHS Secretary Tom Price says it should be up to states to regulate whether immunizations are required https://t.co/3QWUK3oy0W

— CNN (@CNN) March 16, 2017

“Dr. Price is correct that much of vaccine policy is set at the state level,” Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told The Huffington Post.

“But DHHS has an equally important role ‎in vaccine advocacy,” Hotez said, adding that President Donald Trump’s administration has been mostly silent on the issue.

“In fairness to Dr. Price, DHHS in the Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations were also largely silent. So the conspiracy of silence when it comes to vaccines seem to transcend parties and presidential administrations.”

What Optional Vaccines Could Mean For Public Health

If states decide to make vaccines optional, there could be national public health consequences. Consider Texas, where anti-vaccine views have taken root and nonmedical vaccine exemptions are on the rise, leaving the state vulnerable to a major infectious disease outbreak.

Between 2003 and 2010, there was a 19-fold increase in the number of “personal belief,” or “conscientious,” exemptions permitting parents and guardians to opt their children out of vaccinations ― which translates to 45,000 unvaccinated school-age Texans, according to an October article published in the journal Plos Medicine.

Because measles spreads so easily, with a single case generating 12 to 18 new cases on average, it’s often the infectious disease that crops up first. And Texas is no stranger to measles outbreaks. In 2013, measles infected 21 people in the states, many of them unvaccinated kids. 

“When you see drops in vaccination coverage rates, measles is often the first breakthrough [disease],” Hotez said. 

“[Measles] tends to be the canary in the coal mine for breakthrough infections.”

Why Vaccine Coverage Rates Matter

Interestingly, vaccine viewpoints don’t track along traditional partisan lines. In parts of Texas, for example, anti-vaccinators have taken up immunization as a civil liberties issue, while left-leaning holistic health devotees in pockets of California and Brooklyn, New York, eschew vaccines for different reasons.

Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children sometimes claim that vaccination is an issue of personal freedom and choice, rather than of public health ― but refusing to vaccinate has public health consequences.

What about the civil liberties of a young mother or parent with an infant under the age of 12 months? Now they have to be terrified about going into Walmart, or public libraries or shopping malls, because they’re worried their infant is going to contract measles. Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine

Vaccines are only effective at protecting a community against infectious disease when a critical mass of community members are immunized, creating what’s known as herd immunity.

Because measles is so infectious, 95 percent of a population needs to be vaccinated to protect the group. In smaller communities, that means one or two families unnecessarily opting out of vaccination can put their neighbors who can’t get vaccinated for medical reasons (such as infants who are too young to be vaccinated, or individuals with compromised immune systems), at risk for contracting measles. 

Measles is a serious disease. Common measles complications include ear infection and diarrhea. More severe complications, such as pneumonia, brain swelling and convulsions, can result in death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“What about the civil liberties of a young mother or parent with an infant under the age of 12 months?” Hotez asked. “Now they have to be terrified about going into Walmart, or public libraries or shopping malls, because they’re worried their infant is going to contract measles.” 

Texas Is Poised For A Measles Outbreak

The statewide MMR vaccination rate in Texas clocks in at 92.5 percent, which is above the national MMR vaccination rate of 91.9 percent, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. But between 2003 and 2016, Texas went from 2,314 conscientious exemptions to 44,716, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services ― and growing pockets of vaccine refusal have public health officials worried.

Now some counties and schools in Texas are reporting alarmingly low vaccine coverage rates.

Gaines County, Texas, which has a population of approximately 18,400 people, had a personal belief vaccination exemption rate of 4.83 percent between 2015 and 2016 for measles. That puts the county dangerously close to the 95 percent coverage tipping point, even without accounting for community members who can’t be immunized for medical reasons. 

In some Texas private schools, vaccine exemption rates are downright dangerous. Three Texas private schools reported a vaccine exemption rate of 30 percent or higher among students. 

“If one of those kids is incubating an infectious disease and the other kids aren’t vaccinated, then it’s going to spread like wildfire,” Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston told NPR in November.

It’s not just Texas. National nonmedical vaccine exemption rates rose 19 percent between 2009 and 2013, from 1.6 percent to 1.9 percent, according to the American Journal of Public Health. (Oregon had the nation’s highest exemption rate of 6.4 percent, up from 3.4 percent four years prior.) Texas’ nonmedical exemption rate was 1.2 percent.

And troublingly, even states with good overall vaccination rates are at risk for infectious disease outbreaks if clusters of unvaccinated individuals come in contact with an infection.

Conspiracy Theories Are Alive And Well

States dealing with rising vaccine exemption rates and outbreaks are also handling them differently. When measles broke out at Disneyland in 2014 and 2015, the California state legislature eliminated its personal and religious belief exemptions for vaccines.

It could be hard for similar legislation to gain traction in Texas, which Hotez and others say is one of the best-organized and most active anti-vaccine states in the country.

And it’s no coincidence that the kingpin of the anti-vaccine movement, disbarred former doctor Andrew Wakefield, lives in Austin.

Wakefield spurred the anti-vaccine movement with his 1998 British Medical Journal study linking vaccines to autism. (The BMJ later retracted the study, calling it “fatally flawed both scientifically and ethically.”)

Wakefield’s latest publicity stunt is “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” a movie he directed and co-wrote, which rehashes claims from his debunked study and accuses the CDC of a massive coverup of the autism-vaccine link.

“Those of us who have spent any time in government know how federal agencies work,” Hotez said. “Even if they wanted to engage in this conspiracy theory, they are just not set up to do that kind of thing.”

Improbable though Wakefield’s claims might seem, he has a loyal following in Texas. 

The Future Of Vaccines Under Trump

It’s also unclear if the United States’ federal vaccine policy will change under Trump, who has yet name a science adviser and CDC director or confirm his choice for FDA director, any of whom could potentially influence vaccine policy.

To the chagrin of scientists, Trump has already promoted misinformation about the nonexistent link between vaccines and autism. 

I'm not against vaccinations for your children, I'm against them in 1 massive dose.Spread them out over a period of time & autism will drop!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2014

Hundreds of state and national medical groups, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics, sent Trump a letter in February, laying out the science behind vaccine safety: 

“Claims that vaccines are unsafe when administered according to expert recommendations have been disproven by a robust body of medical literature, including a thorough review by the National Academy of Medicine,” they wrote. 

But for now, anti-vaccine proponents in Texas aren’t going down without a fight. One such group, a nascent political action committee called Texans for Vaccine Choice, mobilized to kill a bill that would have removed vaccine exemption in 2016.

Rep. Jason Villalba (R), who filed the bill, told the Texas Tribune that he never expected it to be controversial. 

“The animus that was leveled against me for that was very surprising to me,” Villalba said. “These people, they literally said it to my face — they hate me. That was troubling. Because I get it, they care about their children — but I care about my children too, and the children of the community.”

“While they do not have a whole lot of money, they have a lot of people that they can deploy to interfere in primary campaigns,” Anna Dragsbaek, head of a pro-vaccine advocacy group in Texas called the Immunization Partnership, told Science in December. “They made Villalba’s primary campaign very, very difficult.”

And with a handful of vaccination-related bills to be decided on in the Texas legislature this spring (some would loosen rules for vaccine exemptions and others would tighten exemption rules), the debate in Texas could get ugly. 

As Hortez put it, “There’s a battle about to ensue.”

his reporting is brought to you by HuffPost’s health and science platform, The Scope. Like us on Facebook and Twitter and tell us your story: [email protected]. 

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Tom Price's Views Could Feed The Anti-Vaccine Sentiment Brewing In Texas published first on http://ift.tt/2lnpciY

Tom Price's Views Could Feed The Anti-Vaccine Sentiment Brewing In Texas

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said that vaccination should be a state-regulated choice, not a federal requirement, during a CNN televised town hall event on March 15. 

State governments should be responsible for public health, according to Price, and for determining “whether or not immunizations are required for a community population.”

Price’s emphasize on individual choice for immunization is especially troubling considering he is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons ― which, despite its official-sounding name, promotes the thoroughly debunked claim that that vaccines cause autism and considers mandatory vaccination to be “equivalent to human experimentation.”

(During Price’s January confirmation hearing, he conceded that vaccines do not cause autism when he was directly asked.) 

HHS Secretary Tom Price says it should be up to states to regulate whether immunizations are required https://t.co/3QWUK3oy0W

— CNN (@CNN) March 16, 2017

“Dr. Price is correct that much of vaccine policy is set at the state level,” Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told The Huffington Post.

“But DHHS has an equally important role ‎in vaccine advocacy,” Hotez said, adding that President Donald Trump’s administration has been mostly silent on the issue.

“In fairness to Dr. Price, DHHS in the Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations were also largely silent. So the conspiracy of silence when it comes to vaccines seem to transcend parties and presidential administrations.”

What Optional Vaccines Could Mean For Public Health

If states decide to make vaccines optional, there could be national public health consequences. Consider Texas, where anti-vaccine views have taken root and nonmedical vaccine exemptions are on the rise, leaving the state vulnerable to a major infectious disease outbreak.

Between 2003 and 2010, there was a 19-fold increase in the number of “personal belief,” or “conscientious,” exemptions permitting parents and guardians to opt their children out of vaccinations ― which translates to 45,000 unvaccinated school-age Texans, according to an October article published in the journal Plos Medicine.

Because measles spreads so easily, with a single case generating 12 to 18 new cases on average, it’s often the infectious disease that crops up first. And Texas is no stranger to measles outbreaks. In 2013, measles infected 21 people in the states, many of them unvaccinated kids. 

“When you see drops in vaccination coverage rates, measles is often the first breakthrough [disease],” Hotez said. 

“[Measles] tends to be the canary in the coal mine for breakthrough infections.”

Why Vaccine Coverage Rates Matter

Interestingly, vaccine viewpoints don’t track along traditional partisan lines. In parts of Texas, for example, anti-vaccinators have taken up immunization as a civil liberties issue, while left-leaning holistic health devotees in pockets of California and Brooklyn, New York, eschew vaccines for different reasons.

Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children sometimes claim that vaccination is an issue of personal freedom and choice, rather than of public health ― but refusing to vaccinate has public health consequences.

What about the civil liberties of a young mother or parent with an infant under the age of 12 months? Now they have to be terrified about going into Walmart, or public libraries or shopping malls, because they’re worried their infant is going to contract measles. Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine

Vaccines are only effective at protecting a community against infectious disease when a critical mass of community members are immunized, creating what’s known as herd immunity.

Because measles is so infectious, 95 percent of a population needs to be vaccinated to protect the group. In smaller communities, that means one or two families unnecessarily opting out of vaccination can put their neighbors who can’t get vaccinated for medical reasons (such as infants who are too young to be vaccinated, or individuals with compromised immune systems), at risk for contracting measles. 

Measles is a serious disease. Common measles complications include ear infection and diarrhea. More severe complications, such as pneumonia, brain swelling and convulsions, can result in death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“What about the civil liberties of a young mother or parent with an infant under the age of 12 months?” Hotez asked. “Now they have to be terrified about going into Walmart, or public libraries or shopping malls, because they’re worried their infant is going to contract measles.” 

Texas Is Poised For A Measles Outbreak

The statewide MMR vaccination rate in Texas clocks in at 92.5 percent, which is above the national MMR vaccination rate of 91.9 percent, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. But between 2003 and 2016, Texas went from 2,314 conscientious exemptions to 44,716, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services ― and growing pockets of vaccine refusal have public health officials worried.

Now some counties and schools in Texas are reporting alarmingly low vaccine coverage rates.

Gaines County, Texas, which has a population of approximately 18,400 people, had a personal belief vaccination exemption rate of 4.83 percent between 2015 and 2016 for measles. That puts the county dangerously close to the 95 percent coverage tipping point, even without accounting for community members who can’t be immunized for medical reasons. 

In some Texas private schools, vaccine exemption rates are downright dangerous. Three Texas private schools reported a vaccine exemption rate of 30 percent or higher among students. 

“If one of those kids is incubating an infectious disease and the other kids aren’t vaccinated, then it’s going to spread like wildfire,” Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston told NPR in November.

It’s not just Texas. National nonmedical vaccine exemption rates rose 19 percent between 2009 and 2013, from 1.6 percent to 1.9 percent, according to the American Journal of Public Health. (Oregon had the nation’s highest exemption rate of 6.4 percent, up from 3.4 percent four years prior.) Texas’ nonmedical exemption rate was 1.2 percent.

And troublingly, even states with good overall vaccination rates are at risk for infectious disease outbreaks if clusters of unvaccinated individuals come in contact with an infection.

Conspiracy Theories Are Alive And Well

States dealing with rising vaccine exemption rates and outbreaks are also handling them differently. When measles broke out at Disneyland in 2014 and 2015, the California state legislature eliminated its personal and religious belief exemptions for vaccines.

It could be hard for similar legislation to gain traction in Texas, which Hotez and others say is one of the best-organized and most active anti-vaccine states in the country.

And it’s no coincidence that the kingpin of the anti-vaccine movement, disbarred former doctor Andrew Wakefield, lives in Austin.

Wakefield spurred the anti-vaccine movement with his 1998 British Medical Journal study linking vaccines to autism. (The BMJ later retracted the study, calling it “fatally flawed both scientifically and ethically.”)

Wakefield’s latest publicity stunt is “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” a movie he directed and co-wrote, which rehashes claims from his debunked study and accuses the CDC of a massive coverup of the autism-vaccine link.

“Those of us who have spent any time in government know how federal agencies work,” Hotez said. “Even if they wanted to engage in this conspiracy theory, they are just not set up to do that kind of thing.”

Improbable though Wakefield’s claims might seem, he has a loyal following in Texas. 

The Future Of Vaccines Under Trump

It’s also unclear if the United States’ federal vaccine policy will change under Trump, who has yet name a science adviser and CDC director or confirm his choice for FDA director, any of whom could potentially influence vaccine policy.

To the chagrin of scientists, Trump has already promoted misinformation about the nonexistent link between vaccines and autism. 

I'm not against vaccinations for your children, I'm against them in 1 massive dose.Spread them out over a period of time & autism will drop!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2014

Hundreds of state and national medical groups, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics, sent Trump a letter in February, laying out the science behind vaccine safety: 

“Claims that vaccines are unsafe when administered according to expert recommendations have been disproven by a robust body of medical literature, including a thorough review by the National Academy of Medicine,” they wrote. 

But for now, anti-vaccine proponents in Texas aren’t going down without a fight. One such group, a nascent political action committee called Texans for Vaccine Choice, mobilized to kill a bill that would have removed vaccine exemption in 2016.

Rep. Jason Villalba (R), who filed the bill, told the Texas Tribune that he never expected it to be controversial. 

“The animus that was leveled against me for that was very surprising to me,” Villalba said. “These people, they literally said it to my face — they hate me. That was troubling. Because I get it, they care about their children — but I care about my children too, and the children of the community.”

“While they do not have a whole lot of money, they have a lot of people that they can deploy to interfere in primary campaigns,” Anna Dragsbaek, head of a pro-vaccine advocacy group in Texas called the Immunization Partnership, told Science in December. “They made Villalba’s primary campaign very, very difficult.”

And with a handful of vaccination-related bills to be decided on in the Texas legislature this spring (some would loosen rules for vaccine exemptions and others would tighten exemption rules), the debate in Texas could get ugly. 

As Hortez put it, “There’s a battle about to ensue.”

his reporting is brought to you by HuffPost’s health and science platform, The Scope. Like us on Facebook and Twitter and tell us your story: [email protected]. 

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2nhZ2D1