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signaturedish · 4 years

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I found out that there is a name for struggling with emotions and hilariously it's making me feel an emotion that I can't identify. But I finally, FINALLY have a word and explanation and it is so GOOD. Alexythymia. Anyways, I bring it up because I'm especially curious if you think any cybertronians may have this? My first thought was honestly Megatron. XD - Optical Admirer (P.S. I'll send a second with what it is in case you don't have time/energy to look it up.)

So to explain alexythymia, I gotta explain how emotions happen. The body has a physical reaction to something and the brain translates that + the situation to an emotion. Alexythymia means either the body doesn't produce those signs in the body, or the brain can't interpret the signs. A fast beating heart could mean many things, arousal, fear, anger. Most people would know while staring at something scary that it's not because they're horny. People with alexythymia aren't sure... - OA 1/5

... what they're feeling. They may not even recognize there IS something to feel. This isn't psychopathy btw, people with alexythymia could have an angry face, gesture wildly, and be yelling... and not know they're angry. They can feel emotions, but the body may not show them well or their brain seriously can't identify even the clearest of signs in themself what the emotion is. They can also label emotions incorrectly. For me, I have two that emotions often get shunted to. - OA 2/5

Amusement and Frustration. If I feel a lighter emotion, a 'happier' one I guess, I usually just call it 'amused'. If it's heavier and 'sharp', I call it 'frustrated'. Those are the two I often use because they're what I often translate from my body. Most of the time, there is nothing for me. I do have other emotions, but I'm trying to keep it a tad simple. This may or may not be the norm (shifting emotions), but I read of at least another person doing it, but with anger and fear. - OA 3/5

This means people with alexythymia do also struggle with empathy too. If we can't really identify our own emotions, it's hard to identify emotions in others. Not impossible, for absolutely sure. It's often a struggle though, especially in similar looking emotions. It does lead to interpersonal problems, but can be overcome with time. We just have to manually learn how each emotion looks on a person in particular, and how to react to that emotion. Which leads me to the last part! - OA 4/5

We often end up memorizing 'procedures' for how to react to situations. Our emotions can't comprehendingly or quickly lead us through situations that require such. So we memorize what other people do and how they react. Honestly, this does lead to problems where everything feels fake, because a good chunk.... kind of is? We do care about people though, we just may not have the words. With training and therapy, recognizing emotions can get better, but will always be a struggle. - OA 5/5

Thanks so much for this information, Optical Admirer! I’ve never heard of anything like this but it sounds so interesting! One of my favorite gen ed courses in college was physiological psychology because the way people function and percieve is so complex. It’s fascinating!

This sort of disorder sounds very nuanced and interconnected with other atypical psychologies but I can’t help = but wonder what sort of physical component might contribute to this. A deficiency somewhere? A difficulty transferring information between hemispheres? I did look this up lol, but it’s new and largely related to cognition so there doesn’t seem to be much certainty, unfortunately.

I don’t need to tell you any of this of course, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. Thank you for sharing your experience and I hope your alexythymia doesn’t cause you too much trouble in your day-to-day life.

If you don’t mind my saying so, you sound very well put together and from my perspective, empathetic and compassionate. I’m so glad you have access to resources such as therapy and that they appear to be effective. I have a relative with very mild autism that mostly affects his emotional maturity and empathy so while I can’t speak to this sort of challenge myself, I can say that I have seen and appreciate the conscious effort that goes into being social and connecting with others.

If you would like to share any other experiences (in anon or privately) I’m always here!

As for how this psychology might be applied to the transformers...

You have more authority on the subject so let me know if you disagree with any of this!

Honestly, a lot of Decepticons could be safely considered alexythymiac. In my au, a majority have tweaked with their own programming for streamlining specialties and gaining an edge in combat against the Autobots and their social protocols were the first to go. Lack of empathy and social awareness run rampant in their ranks.

Frenzy doesn’t bother addressing any of his issues, he’s not sure how he feels and he interacts haphazardly with basically everyone to the point of gaining a reputation for being spastic and temperamental. He’s not, but he doesn’t bother correcting that perception, he doesn’t care for anyone outside his handler. So long as he can infiltrate and communicate the information he recovers, he can validate himself.

Seekers largely dodged this trend because their social intricacies are their edge and quick, long-lasting bonds are what make them terrors in flight formations. But bots like Megatron now have difficulty handling nuanced emotion or reading it in others. They aren’t emotionless by any stretch and are fully capable of social bonds, it’s just more difficult to take on and maintain.

Megatron especially filters most of his emotions through rage and pleasure. This may have once been habit in his grandstanding to appear without weakness, but now it’s a reality. It’s not that he doesn’t feel anything else, but it’s easier to attribute whatever that emotion is to either camp and actualize from there.

Optimus could be considered the poster child for alexythymia as Wikipedia has led me to understand it. Just like those with the condition, he is caring and aware of his perceptions. And while he is very good at managing himself and his own emotions, he has a great deal of difficulty with direct, physical empathy in real-time. It’s hard for him to anticipate how someone dissimilar from him might feel, like he’s honed his self-perception so finely that now he’s only an expert on the exclusive psychology of Optimus Prime.

Bumblebee is bad at interacting with Harry, for example, because he’s never been around a child and has a poor understanding of them. Optimus has been around countless children, but because they’re so removed from how he thinks and behaves he can’t easily identify their emotions or extrapolate on why they feel the way they do. Just like those with alexythymia, he needs to consciously establish every emotion on an individual and study their inner workings to connect with that individual.

All of them can, have, and will, establish strong connections, it’s only their rate of success and necessary deliberation that is different from other, more social bots.

What do you think? Did I miss one? Did you disagree with any of these? Let me know why!

#optical admirer #Anon ask #sd speaks #transfomers #perfectly alien #perfectly alien au #alexythymia #optimus prime #megatron #frenzy

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cannabisrefugee-esq · 4 years

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WWNRD? Or, What Would Nurse Ratched Do? Ft. Nurse Ratched

Cannabis Refugee, Esq. Advertising / Media / Cultural Conversation, Alternative Treatment, Capitalistic Patriarchal Medicine, Family / Friends, Marijuana / Cannabis, Other Autoimmune Diseases, Radical Feminism

October 31, 2019

Nurse Ratched was a sadistic, evil bitch at the time and would be that and a dangerously out of touch political dinosaur now. Please do not do what she would do. If anything, ask yourself WWNRD and then do the opposite.

Speaking with my mother recently made me sympathize with young smartasses and activists who are just waiting for the elder generation — the out of touch Baby Boomers and the Baby Boomers’ parents and kids by this point — to give up the ghost and die. A “dinosaur” or political dinosaur is someone whose philosophy and worldview are obsolete and rooted in problematic values and circumstances of the distant past. For example, as a young activist in my teens and 20s I remember thinking and saying that the world would be a better place once those who grew up with unregulated environmental pollution and legal institutionalized racism, sexism etc. died off because their environmental unconcern, racism and sexism were so entrenched that they either didn’t realize, agree or care what they were doing and being was wrong.

Welp. After being sick my entire fucking life with an undiagnosed autoimmune disease, and going on 8 years with a diagnosed one, I am having these same thoughts now about the older generation of Western medical practitioners and others who were born, grew up and/or progenated in a low-population, relatively unpolluted pre-nuclear world where lifelong serious, untreatable, incurable and progressive disease existed only in very small numbers and therefore where older people seem to believe and act as if chronic illness did not and does not exist at all.

To be clear, chronic illness obviously did exist in our recent and distant past, for example, natural uranium deposits are known to cause acute and chronic radiation sickness to those who spend time around it. And humans have likely always been struck down with genetic and congenital maladies that might not have outright killed them. But old/er people seem to have lived their entire lives without chronic illness, including autoimmune and immune-mediated disease, front and center in their consciousness or as a part of their lived experience and this does make sense: before, say, the 1940s and 50s the worst industrial (man-made ionizing nuclear) pollutants had yet to be widely dispersed and contemporary Western medicine did not, because it could not, routinely pluck seriously ill and/or nonviable neonates, infants and others from the brink of merciful, natural deaths. Today, seriously ill children and others are rather forced to live for years, decades and lifetimes with serious illnesses that do not outright kill them, because Western medicine will not allow it, but which Western medicine has yet to figure out how to treat, relieve, or cure.

Having researched chronic illness, primarily autoimmune and immune-mediated disease for going on 8 years now, it seems to me that, in stark contrast to the life experience and worldview of older people, young people today generally are very aware that incurable and progressive chronic illness exists. Over and over I see that young people today, at least young Western people, well understand and accept the reality of chronic illness much more freely than older people, and the implications of that are extremely dark. From what I can discern, this difference in worldview likely exists because young people are increasingly becoming seriously chronically ill themselves. Young people understand and accept the material reality of chronic illness because experiencing it personally as individuals and in their peer group they have no choice but to accept it.

And over and over I see that older people are generally ignorant about issues of chronic illness and that they have not experienced it either individually or in their peer group. Frighteningly, instead of recognizing their blessed ignorance and trying to remedy it, older people think that their personal opinion based on outdated and second- and third-hand pseudo-knowledge about chronic illness matters or affects the outcome. It doesn’t, but unfortunately many medical professionals, healthcare policymakers, paid and unpaid caretakers and the like embrace an outdated worldview that no longer applies in our post-nuclear, Western world, and thus do not or cannot fully believe the self-reports of, or even contemporary peer-reviewed medical research addressing, the experiences and needs of seriously chronically ill.

A few weeks ago, a day and a half into a migraine (I’m getting 4 day migraines now, yay!) I panicked over my migraine-related inability to work on my small business, pursue benefits, or do virtually anything as I was completely and totally incapacitated. In what I can only describe as a misguided and ultimately futile cry for help, bedridden, I called my mother to update her about the situation, whereupon she made some statements of position that were so ignorant they verily shocked me. Laying in the dark with a sleep mask over my eyes, and a puke bucket near my bed, what I heard uttered from my mother’s lips was so egregiously out of touch with accepted thinking that it frankly terrified me.

Attempting to explain to her how and why she was wrong exhausted me. Knowing that she was moved not an inch by my description of my plight — instead smugly maintaining her “position” throughout as if she were engaging in a political debate rather than considering an emergency communique — enraged me.

For example, when I told my mom that I had a new diagnosis of High Functioning Autism, or HFA, she seemed unsurprised but said I wasn’t autistic as a child because I was always “bright.” Okay. In her mind, my HFA-consistent and completely obvious lifelong deficits in executive function — think literal and figurative “housekeeping” — and social competency (including feminine roleplaying which also includes both literal and figurative housekeeping, fuck me sideways) had nothing to do with autism and instead were just me being a lifelong asshole, lazy, and a bitch. She always believed that about me and she never hesitated to tell me about it. But at least I was bright. But now, because I’m no longer a practicing attorney and a “success” and instead am struggling to maintain any quality of life as a seriously ill person with limitations, and I can’t maintain an illusion of physical health anymore if I ever could, I’m a lifelong lazy asshole bitch and a freshly minted unbright/retard on top of it. Also, there is apparently such a thing as adult-onset autism. Because she says so.

Of course, my mother’s opinion about HFA is irrelevant and obsolete where HFA-literate people today know that high-functioning autism — the bright, non-retarded kind — is a bona fide thing, that particularly HFA females are often not diagnosed until late/r in life, and that “brightness” or intelligence is often a symptom/feature of HFA and not the antithesis of it. Autistic Tumblr — or any young autism or chronic illness related social media site — would tear that political dinosaur a new egg-hole if she dared say something so ignorant patently false about autistics on that platform. And so they probably should if they wanted to expend the energy and if they thought it would help.

Yes, I recently discovered the dark corner of the internet known as Autistic Tumblr: young people creating content, commentary and community from the shared perspective and lived experience that autism and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) including HFA is real and has real, material effects on people’s lives. Often, those effects have nothing to do with being low-functioning, or unbright. Which is not to say that I find Autistic or Chronic Illness Tumblr a particularly sane or comforting place to be. As I recently learned myself, Autistic Tumblr is an upsetting, dystopian place where young autistics put great effort into and emphasis on “normalizing” and “validating” terrible things that rightfully should never exist at all: autistic and chronic illness related things like melting down, stimming and managing chronic fatigue, chronic pain, chronic gut issues and the like, because although most of them are much younger than me, due to their autism and (likely) related physical and mental issues they are extremely ill and can barely get through their day.

In fact, upon hearing and considering these self-reports, one might even speculate that physical and mental pain is what likely drives autistics’ trademark weird, antisocial and self-absorbed behavior, where they are in fact “bright” enough to communicate online at the very least (and often have work, school and social commitments) but are exhausted from insomnia, chronic pain and ME/CFS; anorexic because they can’t eat anything; are having infantile hand-flapping meltdowns in public or breaking into inopportune episodes of “stimming” behavior to soothe themselves and they can’t deal with people giving them the side-eye at school and work on top of it. Autistic young people are living in hell, utter hell, judging from their self-reports. Considering that vast and increasing numbers of young people are autistic, it seems likely that extreme physical and mental distress is normal for many young people now. Young people much more than old people seem to know this. People who care to put in a modicum of research know this.

To further illustrate, when I was attempting to describe my current limitations to my mother she completely dismissed me and said that when it comes to disability, one is either totally disabled or not disabled at all. Lest I misunderstand what she meant by that, she spontaneously clarified her statement to mean that if I have limitations I should be in a “home” and if I don’t need to be in a “home” then there is no reason I can’t act as if I’m not disabled at all. In other words, despite being demonstrably, seriously ill, I “should” be able to act/function as if I’m perfectly fine. Because she says so.

Of course, as I understand it, invalid “homes” are largely a thing of the past, at least in this country, having literally gone the way of the dinosaur. And many sick and injured people are, in fact, demonstrably partially disabled, where they are able to perform some activities of daily living and perhaps some higher level activities like bookkeeping and such but not all; accessing “services” to help partially and even very disabled people to live as independently as possible — and not institutionalized — is the way it works now. Partially disabled does not equal totally disabled, you sadistic Nurse Ratched, you decrepit fossil, nor does partially disabled mean not disabled at all. She then proceeded to disagree with me — and contemporary peer reviewed medical research corroborating thousands of years of human history and shared experience — that cannabis is an effective anti-inflammatory and is particularly useful in inflammatory bowel disease including Crohn’s. According to her, and based on nothing, pot isn’t an effective or necessary medicine for any condition, and it’s “merely” an effective pain reliever (!) and therefore is not actually medicine at all. Because she said so.

This ignorant, sadistic ideological fossil maintains her nursing license and continues to “care for” actual patients including sick infants and children. Whatever “caring” means to her, and people like her: assholes who rely on frighteningly outdated material on which to form and support their opinions on contemporary medical and social issues, including contemporary chronic illness that for whatever reason is increasing in incidence and prevalence. And particularly in our post-nuclear, radioactively contaminated environment, including the toxic, autoimmune uterine environment in which many of us spend our first 3/4 of a year and which is known to cause autism. While information on Crohn’s, HFA, medical marijuana etc. is easily Googleable, and appears to be widely known by young people, apparently my 67 year old nurse mother is waiting for the news to break via Teletype or otherwise didn’t get the memo.

Of course, if I was a partially disabled man and had a wife (or mother) to perform all my executive function tasks (including bookkeeping services for my small business) for me, no one would even notice I was disabled. If I were male instead of female perhaps my life wouldn’t be falling apart at all, and certainly the prospect of committing me to a nonexistent/extinct 1940s era invalid home because I can’t wait in line or consistently do my business and personal taxes anymore would have never been raised at all.

Comments Open.

#marriage #female labor #nurse ratched #autism #being autistic #disability #medical #medicine #420 #me/cfs #gen z #millenials #baby boomer bullshit

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queer-autistic · 5 years

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Why do parents of autistic children have a tendency to react so strongly in opposition to adult autistic advocates?

My understanding is that they have been indoctrinated by the dominant narrative surrounding autism.

The demonising, scaremongering, dehumanising rhetoric pushed by the majority of autism organisations and their "awareness" campaigns.

Autism $peaks being the most well-known culprit, but they are by no means the only one.

This pervasive narrative is full of ableist constructs and deductions that are lacking in deeper insight because they are made by professionals who have been observing us from the outside and interpreting our behaviours via the allistic framework of existing and functioning.

From inside our community we have a very different view and it clashes greatly with the picture that has been painted of us.

When we speak up about these discrepancies it challenges the deeply held beliefs of parents who have invested in this narrative of pathology and deficit and burden.

Having deeply held beliefs challenged feels akin to an attack and elicits a state of fear and resistance.

Also parents are under immense pressure, women especially, to be Doing Everything Right and that can foster a sense of insecurity that awakens when their parenting techniques and choices are questioned.

One defence mechanism for feeling insecure is to double down and go on the offensive as a means of self-preservation.

Autistic activists challenge what people think they know about autism and what they think they know about parenting an autistic child and that can be too overwhelming for some people.

It may be especially hard for them when we as activists may not have the energy, ability, patience or desire to construct our sentences in a way that dances around a person's ego and instead we just get right to the point.

We can be blunt and they can interpret it as aggression.

In a lot of situations, not just interacting with parents of autistic kids, we are expected to mask to some degree for what we say to be palatable instead of people just taking on board the information they have been given.

This is other people making us responsible for their own emotional regulation, they don't want the way we say things to cause them any discomfort or distress or else they won't even engage with the words we saying.

Unfortunately we cannot dictate or control other people's emotional reactions aside from pre-empting sensitivity and going gently to try and account for that.

All we can really do is to try and anticipate a defensive and emotional reaction and then decide if we are going to try and deliver our information in a way that accounts for the fragile and defensive state they may be in.

Some days we need to express and honour our pain and anger we let other activists be the gentle patient ones.

There is not a single true and proper way to pursue activism and the message is valid regardless of its delivery: autistic adults know more about the needs of autistic children than ANYONE because we have had 18 years lived experience in that role.

Of course there is always the risk of pushing people away by forcefully, and truthfully, telling them that, by using behaviourist approaches and/or engaging in pursuits to eradicate undesirable autistic traits, they are complicit in the abuse of their child and that they are setting their child up for a lifetime of PTSD.

Most people find that so hard to hear that they decide we are aggressive and unreasonable and that we are telling them are evil.

Being unwittingly complicit in abuse is not the same thing as consciously setting out to damage someone, good people do bad things all the time, but that nuance is often lost on people who feel that being called out on one behaviour/belief/attitide is an attack on their entire existence and is akin to character assassination.

I am aware, from experience, that it can really challenge our sense of identity as morally robust people to be told that our choices and behaviours are harmful.

Thankfully I eventually arrived at a place where I understood that being a good person is less about an inherent internal source of goodness and more about the actions we make, what motivates us to make them and how much care we take to genuinely ensure that we minimise harm and act in the kindest and most nurturing ways possible.

Obviously not everything I do is good because everyone is fallible, to be human is to err.

But learning from mistakes and taking time to force myself to take a seat and observe and listen to people with different lived experiences has helped me wrangle with that wounded feeling that spurs defensive action when informed that I have made a choice that has caused, encouraged, condoned or perpetuated harm.

It's a really really uncomfortable place to be emotionally, and to engage with it and allow it to exist is not at all pleasant - but the outcome is personal growth and a deepening of my compassion and that feels joyful and loving and much more peaceful.

Misguided choices, even with the best of intentions, can cause irrevocable harm.

It does not make you a bad person, it makes you a person who has made a harmful choice - something I can guarantee literally everybody has done in some way or other countless times throughout their lives with varying levels of awareness about the impact of their choices.

For example: my mum loves me fiercely, but the way she raised me has caused me deep hurt and I am spending my adulthood healing from that.

She is, objectively, a good person and I love her very much.

But she made ill-informed judgements and choices and I carry the trauma of that.

My hope is that we can spread awareness and shift attitudes such that actually autistic voices are afforded the gravitas and weight and power to make an impact in the global social narrative around autism.

Where we lead in creating spaces and services for autistic people, autistic people and their families flourish.

It's a very simple notion but shifting the weight and location of power from outside the autistic community to within the autistic community is a massive task and I know I won't live to see my dream realised in its entirety.

I can only hope to observe what progress we are capable of driving forward during my next 50+ years on this planet.

#actually autistic #autistic activists #nothing about us without us #autistic advocacy #my thoughts #autism parents #behaviourism #ableism #autistic trauma #autism awareness #autism acceptance

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jammylittlefingers · 5 years

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We all survived her latest evaluation. She did fine. Babbled some, played a little, did a couple puzzles. Followed almost no directions and responded to no words. As expected. Threw some stacking cups across the room because fuck that activity apparently lol. At least she didn’t hit anyone with them. 🤷‍♀️ The evaluators kept talking about what a really difficult kid she is, and that we are really great with her, so. That was. Validating? They suggested one local parent class for us to look at taking, but admitted I could be teaching the class. So I think I’ll skip. The psychologist stayed for half of it and then left saying she didn’t have any concerns and didn’t feel like any testing needed to be done on her end. So that was good I guess. They’re not pursuing an educational diagnosis of autism until she’s older and we see if it effects her in school. Which is fine. They repeatedly mentioned what a visual and tactile learner she was, which I hadn’t consciously considered, so thats useful new knowledge.

It was a little awkward answering their million questions together w my husband because I feel like he leans towards giving her too much credit a lot of the time? While I admittedly lean the other way, and I can tell he thinks I don’t give her enough credit. Just because she did something once ever doesn’t mean that’s a thing she can in general be expected to do. I try and look at the overall picture of what I’m seeing every day. And not get my hopes up about things, since they’ve been dashed so many times. I’m just a bit more cautious and jaded I guess. But also, I think there’s things she does with and for him that she really doesn’t do with me or anyone else. Like rolling a ball back and forth to each other. Her therapists try and do that all the time and she never does it. Never does it with me. Apparently she’s done it w him a bunch of times. 🤷‍♀️ Lack of generalization again. That’s just an activity for with dad I guess. I should ask to get in on the next game.

Anyway. No results for 11 long ass days. Then we get her test scores and school plan. We told them we were pretty unexcited about the idea of school at this age, and even less excited about full day school. They were reassuring about how great it would be, but I’m still not sold. They discussed 3 possible classroom options, no idea which one they’ll pick. They did give me the name of the school she’d be likely to go to and the reviews and scores for it all look amazing, so that’s something. And it’s only 4 miles away. I was worried she’d be way out of town. There is a closer elementary school right near our house, but it doesn’t have a preschool program for her. 😕 I wonder if she catches up if she might be able to go there for kindergarten. But that’s a long way away.

The hardest part was them saying “where’s mommy? Where’s mommy? Go see mommy! Can you find mommy?” while she played and she just kept playing and totally ignored them and never even glanced at me. Obviously a reflection of her lack of language and social skills and not caring about the random requests of strangers she’s just met. I’m totally secure in our relationship and love. I’d even say I’m her favorite person. Still hard though.

I’m maybe even less enthused about the school idea after today. They mentioned a bunch of times how she wasn’t coming to the table to do activities, or completing the activities, and she didn’t seem to care if they were done or get satisfaction from completing them like she should, and how school would help w that, and they’d make her want to. Ugh. Mhmm. Your going to make my kid want to sit at a table and match shapes? How exactly? Because the other kids are doing it? Cause she doesn’t care. You can’t make someone care. And I’d be very suspicious about how you think you could.

Double anyway. Trying to decompress and let it go since, 11 days. 11 stupid days of waiting, everything is waiting, always.

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lonelydesert · 3 years

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The Inner Voice

by Philip Jaekl

‘I think, therefore I am,’ the 17th-century philosopher René Descartes proclaimed as a first truth. That truth was rediscovered in 1887 by Helen Keller, a deaf and blind girl, then seven years of age: ‘I did not know that I am. I lived in a world that was a no world … When I learned the meaning of “I” and “me” and found that I was something,’ she later explained, ‘I began to think. Then consciousness first existed for me.’ As both these pioneers knew, a fundamental part of conscious experience is ‘inner speech’ – the experience of verbal thought, expressed in one’s ‘inner voice’. Your inner voice is you.

That voice isn’t the sound of anything. It’s not even physical – we can’t observe it or measure it in any direct way. If it’s not physical, then we can arguably only attempt to study it by contemplation or introspection; students of the inner voice are ‘thinking about thinking’, an act that feels vague. William James, the 19th-century philosopher who is often touted as the originator of American psychology, compared the act to ‘trying to turn up the gas quickly enough to see how the darkness looks’.

Yet through new methods of experimentation in the last few decades, the nature of inner speech is finally being revealed. In one set of studies, scans are allowing researchers to study the brain regions linked with inner speech. In other studies, researchers are investigating links between internal and external speech – that which we say aloud.

The roots of the new work trace back to the 1920s and the Russian developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who said the human mind was shaped by social activity and culture, beginning in childhood. The self, he hypothesised, was forged in what he called the ‘zone of proximal development’, the cognitive territory just beyond reach and impossible to tackle without some help. Children build learning partnerships with adults to master a skill in the zone, said Vygotsky, then go off on their own, speaking aloud to replace the voice of the adult, now gone from the scene. As mastery increases, this ‘self-talk’ becomes internalised and then increasingly muted until it is mostly silent – still part of the ongoing dialogue with oneself, but more intimate and no longer pronounced to the world. This voice – at first uttered aloud but finally only internal – was, from Vygotsky’s perspective, the engine of development and consciousness itself.

Vygotsky’s theory of childhood development contrasted sharply with those of his Western counterparts. William James had a complete disdain for the study of inner speech, because, to him, it was a ghost: impossible to observe. The French developmental psychologist Jean Piaget insisted that private speech signified simple inability – it was the babble of a child without capacity for social communication with no relation to cognitive functioning at all. Through much of the 20th century, Piaget seized the reigns of child development, insisting that children had to reach a developmental stage before learning could occur. Which came first: the chicken or the egg? Vygotsky said that learning occurred, then the brain developed. Piaget said the brain developed, then learning occurred.

Over years of meticulous experiment behind the Iron Curtain, Vygotsky continued to make his case. One thing he did was study children in the zone of proximal development as they worked with adults to accomplish tasks. In the experiments, the child would be presented with a challenge and a tool for overcoming it. In the zone, Vygotsky observed what he called ‘private speech’ – self-talk that children between the ages of two and eight often engage in. This intermediate stage, he held, was connected on one end to a prior period when we had no thread of memory (and no inner voice) and on the other end to true inner speech so crucial to self-reflection, narrative memory, and development of cognitive skills.

Within the newly forming Soviet Union, Vygotsky’s research was stigmatised, in large part because it used intelligence testing to validate some concepts; IQ testing itself had been banned as a challenge to Marxist principles of equality. Despite the roadblocks, in 1934 (the year of his death) Vygotsky finally published his opus on inner speech and childhood development, Thought and Language. It was a potent challenge to Piaget but, shrouded by the Stalinist censor, his ideas remained under wraps.

Meanwhile, in the West, newer work in developmental psychology began to chip away at the acceptance of Piaget. When Thought and Language was finally rediscovered and published in English by MIT Press in 1962, it was the perfect moment. The book provided a rational, alternative way to conceive the development of the mind. And further translations of Vygotsky’s writings led to a plethora of hypotheses ripe for testing.

By 1970, the push to validate Vygotsky’s ideas had picked up steam. A leader of that era was the American psychologist Laura Berk, professor emeritus at Illinois State University, an expert on childhood play. Berk observed children engage in imaginative, ‘make-believe’ play, and demonstrated that the substitution of objects – say a cup for a hat – requires internal thought (and self-talk) rather than impulse. Her studies show that during imaginative play, children’s self-talk helps them guide their own thoughts and behaviour and exert true self-control. She and many other child psychologists demonstrated the importance of the inner voice, beyond a doubt, elevating Vygotsky and burying Piaget for good.

***

With inner speech clearly established as a chisel for the young mind, many more questions remained. Do people in adulthood experience inner speech in the same way as children – or even as each other? Do most of us even have an inner voice – an internal commentator narrating our lives and experiences from one moment to the next?

These were deeply controversial and introspective questions in the 1970s, and they captured the imagination of Russell Hurlburt, an aeronautical engineer-turned-clinical-psychology graduate student at the University of South Dakota. Hurlburt had envisioned a way to accurately sample others’ random inner experiences. Today a professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he’s been honing the technique ever since.

Hurlburt calls his methodology Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES), and it works by sampling the inner thoughts of a given interviewee during those moments when a beeper randomly goes off. After extracting the contents of inner experience from countless interviews, Hurlburt has defined an array of phenomena typically shared by humans – auditory and visual imagery, emotion, awareness of real stimuli and a category of thoughts that occur without words, images or symbols of any kind. The main contribution here, though, is actually DES itself. Before its inception, introspective methods had been shunned for decades, if not centuries, as being too highly influenced by bias to be taken seriously. Now, with DES, Hurlburt believes in the possibility of obtaining unbiased, accurate snapshots of inner experience that includes inner speech.

Freed from the mundane confines of a laboratory, the data come from ‘the wild’, as Hurlburt puts it. A participant wears the beeper, which can go off at any moment throughout the day. They go about their daily activities and are likely to forget its presence. When the beeper does go off, the participant makes a careful note of exactly what their inner experience was immediately beforehand. Subsequently, they are questioned by Hurlburt about that experience in a thorough but open-ended interview.

The interview process itself requires an exacting, friendly yet trial-like probe of what occurred. In one unedited transcript in Hurlburt’s book Exploring Inner Experience (2006), a participant named Sandy is quoted following a beep: ‘I was reading. I was starting with the word “life”… and I had an image in my head – it was a black and white image, by the way – of… OK, I was staring at the word “life” and I had said to myself “life” in my own tone of voice.’

Sandy was referring to inner speech using the word ‘life’. For the next six minutes Hurlburt probed her about this experience. His questions eventually helped Sandy divulge that as she was inwardly speaking the word ‘life’ she simultaneously ‘saw an image of that word in an old-courier like font – black on a white background’ and a moving image of ‘sand pouring’ from a hand of unknown agency below her face.

In a sample of bulimic participants, Hurlburt found the propensity for multiple inner voices at the same time

DES requires careful skill to capture these kinds of experiences accurately – what Hurlburt terms, ‘high-fidelity, pristine’ inner speech as it naturally occurs. He takes care not to bias the participant in any way. ‘There are a lot of people who believe that you talk to yourself all of the time, so that’s a form of external pressure to say you were inner speaking when maybe you weren’t,’ he notes. For example, noted consciousness researcher Bernard Baars has asserted that ‘overt speech takes up perhaps a tenth of the waking day; but inner speech goes on all the time’. Hurlburt’s research shows this isn’t true; he finds that inner speech consumes about 25 per cent of an average person’s day, and thus, he is careful to not communicate any assumption about what type of inner experience a DES interviewee may have had at the time of the beep.

Thanks to the accuracy of DES, Hurlburt has found thought patterns associated with various clinical populations, including those with schizophrenia, bulimia nervosa, and autism. In a sample of bulimic participants, for instance, he’s found the propensity for multiple inner voices experienced at the same time. Take ‘Jessica’, a patient watching television when the DES beep occurred. In the front of her head, Hurlburt explains, she was inwardly saying ‘blond’, ‘skinny’, ‘guys’, and ‘stare’ in what was her own, unspoken voice. At the same time, in the back part of her head, she was saying, in another, quieter inner voice, still her own: ‘Why is it that movies and TV shows always have ‘girls for’, ‘to’, and ‘at’? Importantly, such experiences are not often perceived by the experiencers themselves, let alone revealed to anyone else.

Hurlburt has found that we typically self-talk in voices we regard as our own and, though silent, we attribute to these voices sonic characteristics such as tone, pitch and pacing. We invest them with emotional qualities similar to external speech. Finally, inner speech mostly occurs in complete sentences and is nearly always actively produced rather than passively experienced.

Recently, Hurlburt teamed up with Charles Fernyhough, a leading researcher of inner speech and auditory hallucination at Durham University in the United Kingdom. To conduct their collaboration, they put DES participants into brain scanners using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), which detects metabolic changes in the brain. Like other participants, these subjects were asked to record inner speech and experience occurring just prior to a beep – but this time, brains would be scanned. These scans were compared with others that were captured when participants inwardly repeated words that they read on a screen – a method for investigating inner speech that had been used in many previous studies. The researchers found that activity increased in a brain region called Heschl’s gyrus during spontaneous inner speech, but not when the self-talk is prompted – indicating that the neural nature of pristine self-talk is unique, indeed.

***

Picking up where Vygotsky and researchers like Berk left off, Fernyhough has been investigating the role that inner speech plays in developing, evolving minds. After the private speech of childhood has finally been internalised, suggests Fernyhough, inner speech emerges in a multiplicity of ways – each comparable to speech spoken out loud.

Fernyhough calls the most familiar level of inner speech ‘expanded’ because it is basically the same as external speech – grammatical and fully formed, but not vocal. He believes this kind of inner speech is most likely engaged when we are under stress or cognitive pressure. Imagine, for example, while travelling, that you are making an important phone call regarding a lost passport. While on hold there’s a good chance that you’ll mentally rehearse exactly what you are about to say to the official on the other end – your story about how your passport went missing – in language that is full and complete.

To date, Fernyhough and colleagues have devised clever ways of exploring expanded speech through its tight connection with out-loud speech. For example, they’ve shown that external speech can interfere with inner speech when it is required for memorisation. If participants try to silently memorise a list of items – a task that requires inner speech – while they recite out loud the days of the week, they can’t do it. Speaking aloud effectively annihilates the role that expanded inner speech would otherwise play.

In another study, Fernyhough and his colleague Simon McCarthy-Jones captured fMRI images of brain activity linked with a form of expanded speech labelled ‘dialogic’ because it involves envisioning a dialogue with another. To do the experiment, the researchers had participants imagine themselves in a variety of scenarios, like going to their old school or meeting the Prime Minister. In these imaginary scenarios, they inwardly conversed with their old teacher or interviewed the Prime Minister, while the scanner recorded the active areas in their brains. These scans revealed that, in a manner similar to real communication, inner dialogues can also recruit neural regions such as the posterior temporal cortex, involved in what’s called ‘theory of mind’ – the ability to attribute mental states to others that are different from one’s own. This happens even if the dialogue is solely within the mind of the self.

The second broad category of inner speech defined by Fernyhough is considerably more mysterious and enigmatic. He calls it ‘condensed’ inner speech, borne out of Vygotsky’s belief that as speech becomes internalised it can undergo profound transformations that set it distinctly apart from the expanded version. Condensed inner speech is defined as a highly abbreviated and ungrammatical version of regular speech. Although possibly linguistic – comprised of words – it is not intended to be communicated or even understood by others. For example, as a habit in the winter since my younger days, I often think to myself, ‘passlockmoney’ before heading out the door to go snowboarding. For you to understand what I mean, I’m required to expand this term: Remember your ticket or pass if it is still valid, your snowboard lock, and cash or credit card for getting lunch (and après beer).

Sometimes there are holes in your inner speech; sometimes all words are missing and yet you still experience yourself speaking

The variety of ‘condensed’ experiences people have are remarkably unique because we already know the meanings of the contents of our own thoughts – there’s simply no need for a brain to slog out a rich, grammatical format of inner thought that can be understood by others, when thinking to ourselves. Thus, beyond the abbreviation of ‘passlockmoney’, the condensation of inner speech can result in ‘thinking in pure meanings’ as originally stated by Vygotsky. Condensed inner speech can even have most of its auditory qualities stripped away, such that ‘there isn’t much speechy about it’, say Fernyhough.

Hurlburt says inner speech can indeed involve elimination of words entirely, while the linguistic experience remains intact. ‘Sometimes there are words that are missing – “holes” in your inner speech. Sometimes the whole thing [all words] are missing and yet you still experience yourself speaking,’ he states. In this case, the person reports the experience of speaking, including its production, sense of loudness, pace etc, and senses what is being said but does not experience any words in their usual sense.

He has also posited a passive form of inner speech that he calls ‘inner hearing’. ‘It’s possible to inner “hear” your own voice rather than speak your own voice,’ he tells me. Here, people listen to their own voice in their heads, perceiving the same sonic characteristics as expanded speech, but without the agency. Such experiences have been recalled by participants as their voice ‘just happening’, as ‘coming out of its own accord’, as ‘taking place’ rather than ‘being uttered’.

Some people passively experience inner speech in voices not their own – essentially as auditory hallucinations that they cannot control. Founding member of the Beach Boys Brian Wilson described the experience to Larry King in an interview on CNN in 2004: ‘I’m going to kill you. I’m going to hurt you’, an inner voice had continually repeated to him since his initial experiences with LSD in the 1960s. The value of understanding such hallucinations is self-evident: they are a hallmark of schizophrenia, a condition that affects almost 24 million people worldwide.

Of great fascination, Fernyhough has concluded that a small but significant part of the general population also experience auditory hallucinations – a phenomenon the researchers call ‘voice hearing’ to distinguish it from schizophrenia. Such voices have been reported by noted individuals throughout history, says Fernyhough. The Greek philosopher Socrates described what he called a ‘daemonic sign’, an inner voice warning him that he was about to make a mistake. Joan of Arc described hearing divine voices since childhood – the same ones that influenced her motivation to help in the siege of Orleans. The 15th-century mystic and autobiographer Margery Kempe wrote about inner conversations with God. Sigmund Freud was not immune: ‘During the days when I was living alone in a foreign city … I quite often heard my name suddenly called by an unmistakable and beloved voice.’

All this leads to another, confounding question: are verbal thoughts reaching awareness just the tip of a mental iceberg, offering only a glimpse of the unconscious mind? The possibility was posed by Vygotsky, but Fernyhough doesn’t like going there: ‘When we are talking about thinking, we are talking about conscious processes.’

Whatever we ultimately find, the work pioneered by Vygotsky in human development promises to illuminate more secrets of selfhood and consciousness over time. Today, the new science of inner speech is turning up the gas so fast it is lighting the dark.

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matildainmotion · 3 years

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What if Self-Love is Not About the Self? By Natasha Fowler and Matilda Leyser

This blog is a collage.

A collaboration

A conversation between my words -Matilda’s- and….

….Mine, Natasha’s

It’s a blog about looking after yourself, ourselves, and how I, you, we go about doing that.

It is in two parts. You can also listen to the blog if you go HERE:

PART ONE:

First, to introduce ourselves:

Matilda: I am a mother, writer, theatre-maker, co-director of Mothers Who Make, wife, daughter, insomniac.

Natasha: I am a friend, a lover, a guardian, a wounded human. I am a White woman, descendant from my ancestors. I make art, share what I know and raise children.

We met at an international MWM meeting.

I’m trying to finish a draft of my novel by Christmas, so I am not writing any blogs. Instead, I send an email to Natasha, in Amsterdam….

Hi Natasha, Please let me know if you wish to write a MWM blog for the month of November. The only requirement is that it ends with a question, relevant to the theme of mothering and making, that can become the focus for the month’s meetings should people wish to take it up. Let me know….. Matilda

Thank you, Matilda, yes. I started work on the self-care article yesterday. I’m going to edit today and share with a few friends. I can commit to having it to you by Wednesday. I hope you have a good steady day of eating, working, caring and resting. I have stretched, washed and consciously dressed but my teeth are not cleaned yet (3/4 of my morning routine). Time to get off emails! Natasha

Late Wednesday, I receive Natasha’s first draft. I see it come into my inbox at nine pm, as I am about to read bedtime stories to my daughter – I think, ‘I won’t read that now, or I won’t sleep.’ I close down my laptop.

I don’t sleep anyway. One of the worst things about insomnia is the radical loneliness – an irrational sense that no one else in the world is still awake.

The next day, tired, wired, I read Natasha’s blog. I know I am a word control freak -I have been known to edit, and re-edit, a text message - but I feel uncertain about publishing Natasha’s draft in the MWM blog spot. I want more mothering and making in it. This also seems a very dubious response- to invite new, diverse people to write a blog and, when they don’t sound like me, to want to edit them to make them sound more so…..and yet, at the same time, I think there is something valid in wanting to look after the particular space that MWM holds, in meetings, online, in writings. After dithering for a few days, I email Natasha –

Hi Natasha, first a disclaimer: I am not in a great place right now. My chronic insomnia has become acute and I am not functioning well, so my critical faculties are pretty ropey! …But would you be willing, to include a little more about your mothering and making in the writing….?

Hi Matilda, It makes sense to me that my approaches and the boundaries of the blog are having a conversation. I am curious about why I don’t talk about mothering and making in a way that meets the criteria. I have an imaginative block for what that’d look like - which tells me I’m categorising the requirement differently to you. It’s a familiar thought cul-de-sac that comes with this Neurodiverse mind I operate in.

Neurodiverse. It’s a term that is relatively new to me and suddenly tremendously potent: at the end of September my son at last received an autism diagnosis. “I get it,” he said when my husband and I told him, “My brain does this” – he drew a detailed picture in the air of different, curved and diagonal connections between invisible points of meaning– “And other peoples’ do this,” he said, drawing a series of straight, right-angled lines.

Hi Natasha, as part of my learning in this area I would be very interested to hear a little more about how you name and describe your neurodiversity. Please send me a few lines articulating your sense of it - why does our exchange feel like ‘a familiar cul-de-sac’ to you? Tell me more about the cul-de-sac and the other streets and highways of your mind :-) Thank you again for your openness, integrity, and all your work on this. Matilda xxx

The cul-de-sac I talk about is a place I get stuck when I've been given a task and I have no imaginable concept of what that would look like. With a long conversation and lots of back and forth clarification, I would probably discover that I do know what you're talking about but I learned a long time ago not to try and clarify everything so precisely, it was not practical/ possible and probably led to people being annoyed by my questions.

Part of my response to the task is to think "but I made the writing - that's the making" and "I am a mother, so if I speak, I'm speaking from the experience of mothering".

In the end I understand the labels autism/ADHD/dyslexia/neurodiversity to be bureaucratic necessities in a world obsessed with 'normal'. The necessary diversity of human experience is medicalised, categorised in order for us to get the money from the system that is needed to exist in the system. I am disabled by what I live in and my race/class/gender identity have protected me from that disabling being far more consequential.

I can’t and don’t want to argue with any of this. I feel dismayed at the idea that my requirements for the MWM blog might actually in themselves be exclusive. I don’t feel good about wading in and making Natasha’s voice more acceptable within my idea of what the text should sound like. So, I think instead I will be transparent – I will leave her words as they are and add some of mine – put in the mothering and the making that I feel the need to include. As it happens, Natasha’s chosen theme, of the need for self-care to be a process that takes place as a collective, community act, could not be more relevant to my experience of mothering and making this month.

Here we go then….

PART TWO:

Natasha: I ran out of self-love this summer, overwhelmed by stories of all my faults, what I’d lost and not done. I spent too much time subject to a cruel inner tyranny. I held onto the idea that I could take care of the situation alone. That I could create the self-love I needed. I could not. I needed to depend on something beyond my self. Although I had vowed to love myself first only two years ago, I was now raising questions about this individualised ideal of self-love.

Matilda: Take care, people say. I still struggle to do this. I sit on the stairs at 3am. My husband is asleep. My son and daughter are asleep. They are 8 and 4. I am 46. I ought to be able to rest too - how can I possibly take care of them, if I cannot take care of myself in this fundamental way? Self-soothing is a skill that babies, some say, are meant to have learnt after only a few months. I tell myself this when I get to the sobbing stage at 4am. I fantasize about a mother figure– not my real mother who is 79 now, also in my care, also asleep – but some great giant of a mother coming walking through the woods outside. She is coming to take me up in her arms, hold me against her, above the trees, hold me, grown as I am, until I fall asleep. Because tomorrow I have other people to take care of– the children, my mother. And I have another chapter of my novel to write. I know I cannot write when I haven’t slept.

Natasha: I finally gave up the idea that self-love is my sole responsibility. I began to accept the dependence that exists, the vulnerability of my well being. My self-love became communal. Just like the child raising that I do along with my partner, our friends and family; just like the neighbourhood garden my wee boy and I joined in preparing for winter last week.

But how did I end up believing self-love is something I have to do by myself? Born in 1978, independence and individuality were highly prized values when I was growing up. To be able to do things yourself without help was a given. To be free of the demands of a group was important. The myth of singular heroes was all over the culture, from lonesome superheroes to introvert inventors and brave explorers. The heroes saved the vulnerable, and the vulnerable were symbolised as young, straight, thin, white women. The stories of everyone around the inventor and all that they did were edited out. The people who were there before the explorer even set his foot down were erased. The values of independence of individuality, invulnerability are seeped into my bones.

Matilda: Did you sleep? My husband asks me in the morning. I shake my head. He is worried. I am worried. I don’t know what to do. I have tried so many things. I tell him I might put a post about it on the Mothers Who Make Facebook group– “You should,” he says. “That’s what it’s for.” True. I started it, but I find it hard to reach out for support. I have a kind of pride, almost a snobbery, that has often stopped me sharing. ‘What’s on your mind?’ FB asks me – so many things, but I don’t want to place them in that white public space. It feels immodest to do so, to turn my life into a headline. But the truth is, I am afraid.

I recognise this. It is also why I find it hard to share my work. I hold onto it. I have been working on this novel for ten years, and hardly anyone has read it. It is the same reason I edit, re-edit text messages. I do not let people see the mess. The missed comas. The words out of place. I feel safest when sealed off, private, when only carefully crafted images of vulnerability are revealed. And yet, when I am sobbing at 4am, all I want is company. A giant mother. Someone, anyone, to see me, to see the mess of me.

Natasha: I am communally made. My ideas of who I am, what I do, what is the value in me are made during my relationships. Maybe I always knew that like the self-hate I was carrying, my self-love was a communal responsibility. I suspect there is something about the experience of being a mother in my culture that helped me forget. It seems to be an experience that isolates and calcifies our individual sense of responsibility. The International mothers who make calls were part of my communal self-love recovery. Getting to turn up to a new group and hear me tell my story and listen to so much good company. I hope we might all give and receive the love that we need to maintain a sense of our self being loved. I hope we are all learning what we need to learn to be able to do that.

Matilda: So I did it – I put the post on Facebook. I need some help, I wrote, I don’t sleep and I can no longer blame my children for this. My children are sleeping – I am not. Many of you reading this, may have seen it and responded. It was extraordinary for me to see such a huge number of compassionate, wise, responses so fast. Humbling. Profoundly helpful – not just the resources, but the act itself of reaching out and finding so many hands writing back. After only an hour, I went online to look and I could see the wavy line that appears when someone, somewhere is in the process of typing something. A real person out there, taking care. Not just one. Over a hundred. A giant number of mothers.

I wrote back to Natasha:

P.s. The amazing response I received to my insomnia post rather wonderfully proves your point - we don’t have to do this self-care thing on our own. Xxxxx

Don’t have to – can’t even – whoever you are, how ever your mind works, however brilliant you are, however vulnerable, however divergent, however alone you feel.

It sounds so simple. So obvious. We are interconnected. All the streets link up, even the cul-de-sacs have passages leading onto one another. There is no such thing as social distancing. Physical distancing, yes, but social – two metres apart between your thoughts and mine, your experience and mine, your words and mine – is just not possible.

Here then is Natasha’s, my, your, our question for the month:

How do you understand self-love, is it clearly something you must do for yourself? Or something you share? or maybe you practise other ideals of compassion? Maybe you carry some communally made self-hate too? How do you sustain yourself when overwhelmed?

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roguephoenix85 · 4 years

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No justice so scream into the void

I think this needs to be said about what's been going on with me since last May and why I'm being less patient and more angry/depressed, and since the law won't help me fuck it. Trigger warnings for abuse.

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My mother is a sociopath. Her mother is a sociopath. They view everyone around them as pawns and tools for their own benefit, and the only thing that matters is their feelings and what you can do FOR THEM. Including their children. Any achievement of their children is because of them. Any failings is because of the child or literally anything else except them. My mother is especially conscious of money, either trying to convince you you owe her for being a decent human being, or abusing and berating you for needing help before helping "for your own good". She was manipulating my sister into giving her half of her paychecks for 10 years as "car payments" and making attempts to get all of her paychecks because "she has ADHD and can't be trusted with money" although she's 25 in an effort to keep her living with them. She plays mind games with you, saying she loves you and encourages you but in the same breath saying asking for respect is disrespectful and that not doing what she wants is shameful. She orchestrates no win situations and then makes it your fault for trusting her. They still attempt to guilt me for going to the University of Iowa and saying I need to pay them back for the loans they elected to take out because "they were for you so they're YOUR loans." They've even blamed actions my stepfather took when he was high on me, including his attempt to kill my father because "I wanted him to". Or that my sister not spending Christmas with them was my fault, or that her ADHD wouldn't be so bad if "her sister was around" even though I was in college.

She manipulated me into giving false testimony against my birth father for abuse to speed up their divorce proceedings and get full custody of me, then kept gaslighting me and saying what was done to me was so horrible I can't remember and to trust her about what happened. She divorced him because the family business went under and they started having money problems. She found my stepfather and, over the course of 20 years, had a child with him, ingrained herself into that family, and manipulated my grandfather with dementia into changing his trust so that everything would go to my stepfather, who is a heroin addict, and once he inevitably od'd again, took his power of attorney away from him and made sure she was a co-trustee so that she has control over everything. Property, iras, the trust, all of it - they were able to afford $100,000 for 3 months of rehab for my stepdad without breaking a sweat. She then uses this money to offer myself and my sister help when emergencies happen, and then attempts to manipulate us into moving back with them because "we can't handle living alone, apparently" or "Well, you're so damaged from the abuse you can't take care of yourself so we'll have to do it." Or just harassing us until we say/do what she wants.

She also told me that there was treatment options available to me when I was younger because they knew something was "off" with me. But she refused. The treatment I did get was focused on me being less angry with them, not why I was upset. I could always catch her lying and when I caught her, she'd punish me. Anything that wasn't deference and praise to her was cause for punishment. She'd even ban me from going to CHURCH because it was social and I would be having fun with friends and I shouldn't because I was "so disrespectful." It is only now that I realize she refused me treatment because it made me easier to discredit and manipulate, because she did the same thing to my sister with her ADHD - never getting her treatment or therapy and then using it as a means to discredit, bully, and harass her.

She allowed my molester to go free because he was a member of her family and then gaslit me into thinking the accusations were investigated and unfounded, when in reality, they never happened. I caught him trying to isolate another girl in the family years later when he was married with a child. And no one cared. Rape and molestation were brushed aside because "well you can't do anything about it now" and telling me I was being horrible for not friending a rapist on facebook because their dad died and you're trying to control her by asking her to tell them to not contact me. I have panic attacks where I lose consciousness and become immobile for hours because of this. And she told me this information anyway, knowing what it does and the toll it takes.

That's why I had a panic attack at work and had to go to the hospital. And why I haven't been at work since. And why I don't go out often now. And why I have no fucking tolerance for manipulative behavior anymore. She has been doing her best to get me sick and STAY sick so she can control me and my sister. I know my grandparents left something for myself and my sister but because of what she did, we can't get any of it now unless we kowtow to her wishes and continue to let her harass and manipulate us, making us stay with her to take care of her like her mother has manipulated her to do the same. I'm on short term disability and who knows how long it will take before long term is approved, and my work can't really make concessions for autism because of the nature of the job. She sent my sister and I harassing emails including death threats over the Christmas holiday and the law won't do anything. Besides a "no contact" order. She stole our inheritance from us and both of us are fucked financially because of it. She torments us still. I have nightmares of her. And there's nothing I can do to get the money away from her or make her stop and no lawyer will help me because it's too risky.

She completely fucked me and I get nothing for it. No justice. No compensation. I can't even block her emails fully - I have to send them to spam to not see them. She knows where I live and if she wanted to come harass me she can. I have to wait for her to come do it and then call the cops. So I'm living in fear and aggravation because I literally can't do anything preventative. And I'm already discredited because of my autism. This is why I've been suicidal and angry and distrustful of everyone for the past few months. Because I was raised to be the family scapegoat. And a couple days ago I had the last door shut in my face for any kind of justice against her. I know I don't have any other choice but to move forward since my brain has nerfed itself against suicide. But how do you move forward knowing that people can basically do whatever they want to you and you'll get no justice because you're mentally disabled? You just have to take the abuse? Because fuck you you stupid idiot. You thought justice was real? Look at the world around you. You're not rich or white or a man, so shut the fuck up and let us do what we want to your brain and body because you're not a person to anyone. I literally can't do anything else at this point but scream into the internet and share my experiences as a means of clarity and validation because I literally can't get it anywhere else. Because everything about me has been invalidated from day one. So here I am being that asshole on the internet oversharing. Cuz I don't know what else to do. There's nothing I can do.

Thanks for reading I guess.

#oversharing #tw: abuse #tw: rape #tw: molestation #fuck my family #and fuck my mother #she's the goddamn devil

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thesupergamercorpus · 5 years

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I think psychological therapies need to be way more logical and ‘mechanical’ based. Knowing how the brain works and why, although this sadly doesn’t seem to be enough knowledge most of the time. There are still too many uncontrolled emotions involved, instead of using them as deliberate tools to achieve certain goals. I believe if people are correctly taught about the apparent lack of free will, people can more easily distantiate themselves from being personally involved and therefore reduce the chance of uncontrolled behavior arising.

The awareness of the possible lack of free will, however, can also propagate negative effects like learned helplessness. I think a possible cure to that problem is to also teach things like the inside-out mindset—working from what is the most within your control (the present, yourself, etc.) before working on the things that are less within your control (the future, past, other people, etc). Or through simple quotes like: “You are only responsible for the effort, not the outcome.”

I admit that it probably requires a tremendous amount of knowledge to increase the probability that the effects caused by knowing about the possible lack of free will, is as high as possible—empirically and individually.

But then again, it might as well be a lot simpler than I am thinking it has to be. An example is the common view people tend to have about relationships: being faithful to one partner (monogamy). Many people seem to disagree that something like polyamory (having multiple partners) is a righteous thing and many also don’t seem to believe that it would count as ‘true love’. In order for them to change their perspectives, it would require a lot of new knowledge and time. This example also reminds me of this quote:

“The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” — Carl Jung

But to continue the example, this requirement that those kind of people (who think polyamory doesn’t count as experiencing ‘true love’) need a tremendous amount of new knowledge to change their perspectives, this requirement doesn’t seem to be the case for people born in polyamorous families (or any family that are open-minded). The kids of these families just think it is utterly normal to have multiple partners or one partner (or none at all), and also think ‘true love’ can exist within polyamorous relationships.

And to make this example analogous to ‘lack of free will’ and ‘people need a tremendous amount of knowledge in order to prevent that the awareness of a possible lack of free will causes negative side effects’, the latter statement might as well not be true, or at least, when introduced to that awareness from a young age. Or maybe the latter statement is true because, for example, there are certain genes that cause a need for organisms with those genes to feel they have a free will or a degree of it. Or maybe it’s the lack of certain genes, like genes ‘for’ autism which can cause individuals like me to more readily accept a lack of free will and also not experience all too many negative side effects.

So we have mostly discussed so far the effects and possible prevention against negative side effects from the awareness of a lack of free will, but how would the different therapies look like, one where the therapist assumes the existence of free will and where the therapist doesn’t? Or something in between (soft determinism), which we will discuss in the next chapter.

Thought experiment—Lack of free will, therapy sessions, and perspectives from other people

So let’s compare perspectives where people claim we have free will and one where people claim we don’t. We can compare situations one by one like a list. These comparisons, in this chapter, are based on hard determinism or a degree of free will, soft determinism (since we have ruled out that, to have ‘true’ free will, we need to be gods). I, however, think that people tend to give ‘too much of a degree of free will’, in the sense that people think they, or someone else, is completely responsible for the actions they take, so I will also describe possible scenarios involving a belief of ‘possessing complete free will’. So in these kinds of situations, the teaching of the possible lack of free will can prevent such perspectives from being taken. I will also write my own thoughts, opinions, and experiences in each scenario. Let’s review some.

Situation 1:

A guy is repeatedly showing signs of procrastination. He continuously seems to be on his phone or computer while not working on his homework (this happens to be a true story of an old classmate).

Perspective of people holding a belief of ‘complete free will’

So the first thing I can get quite annoyed by, is that some people are telling all kinds of repeated stories like “You are responsible for the way you are, behave, your future etc”. I think it is one of the most inaccurate, ignorant, and close-minded ways of thinking people can have. It is a response purely based on what they have heard a thousand times and merely repeating the words like mindless inefficient machines. Not even trying to question their own beliefs. It is like hearing your whole life that 1+1=3 and not asking yourself how, why or why not (I happen to question myself why 1+1=2 until I learned through Gödels incompleteness theorem that things like the Principia Mathematica cannot be true).

There are a lot more factors than just ‘you’ and ‘how you are’. How you are depends on your environment, genetics and all kinds of factors than just ‘you’. So that is why I think people saying ‘you are responsible for your future’ is an incomplete statement. And of course it is almost impossible to be 100% correct, but I know that with some couple of hours learning about free will (or the lack of it) and how to apply the knowledge to the way you think about others, will make you a lot more accurate. Within minutes of time, you can teach someone to change the sentence ‘you are responsible for who you are’ to ‘you are mostly responsible for who you are’, and slowly as time passes, it will affect the way they say other things too.

And this way of thinking should be much more promoted and taught, which I think can be most easily done by introducing the concept of free will.

So what are other things people could say to this guy who keeps procrastinating? Things like, if you keep procrastinating, your grades will remain low and you may end up on the streets (a comment another classmate apparently said to him). You can argue that this classmate is still very young, albeit so was I and therefore this is not the best excuse, and that he doesn’t know that the mind doesn’t care about right’ or ‘wrong’ but only ‘what makes sense’ and ‘what doesn’t make sense’. Like this quote by Carl Jung:

“The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” — Carl Jung

And secondly, the (human) mind, especially that young of age, doesn’t really care that much about the future. And even if it does, there’s still that barrier where the human mind wants to seek situations that require less (mental) energy, which can lead to procrastination (that requires less mental energy than the task).

Perspective of people holding a belief of ‘partial free will’

So how would these kind of people view such a situation as well as how to ‘solve’ it? Well, such people would first of all not blame the person for who he is, or at least, not making him responsible for 100% for who he is. This train of thought can increase the chance tremendously that the next thoughts they would have are things like “So which are the biggest factors causing his procrastination?” and “How can we increase his control over himself?”

They won’t be angry at him unless that is a necessary tool to reach certain goals. They will teach him tools to expand the control over himself. They will, in the beginning, apply empirically proven methods and then slowly make the things more individualized. But how about practitioners who, showing through their behavior consciously or unconsciously aware of it, believe in free will yet use empirically validated therapies? Well, that still makes them far from the efficiency and accuracy I believe we can get by not believing in the ‘possessing free will stories’.

Instead, those who use empirically validated therapies need to see how their patients and themselves are nothing more than complex machines too. Like using empirically validated training methods to build muscles, you don’t excessively empathize nor become angry at your muscles when they don’t become stronger at a rate you desire. You simply try to use methods mostly proven by research and then start individualizing more and experiment which methods build your muscles the best. Same with therapy. Your muscles, just like people, don’t possess free will.

Having the notion that humans are nothing more than complex machines doesn’t mean you also have to show behavior that devalues humans by treating them the same as you do to your computer. You can still empathize, become angry etc. but they are mere tools to reach certain goals. Just like knowing that everything will end someday doesn’t mean you should do nothing or become miserable and not enjoy life because of that knowledge.

I am thinking of teaching people around the world in the future the notion of free will and how it can affect the way they think and behave to themselves and others.

P.S. Some researchers say that evidence-based therapies like cognitive behavior therapies are simply scoring high because they are easy to measure (easy to follow steps) in comparison to psychodynamic psychotherapy. And for those claiming psychodynamic psychotherapy is a bad method using outdated methods, I would highly recommend this book which explains this view is mostly incorrect because characteristics that are commonly associated with psychodynamic psychotherapy actually aren’t valid characteristics of this so-called depth psychology. The book also explains why therapies like CBT score high in terms of empirical efficacy:

https://jonathanshedler.com/PDFs/Shedler%20(2006)%20That%20was%20then,%20this%20is%20now%20R9.pdf — That was then, this is now: An introduction to contemporary psychodynamic therapy [pdf]

#autobiography #2019 #September #philosophy #psychology

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askariakapo90 · 4 years

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How To Use Reiki On Plants Sublime Useful Tips

I was given water to revitalize me and I would recommend anyone look into doing at least use distant Reiki sessions last anywhere from 30 minutes of time and having Reiki on the energy and promote a natural and safe method of healing.What does the Reiki practised in this treatment also involves a gentle and non-invasive energy modality, it can help their children have immediate benefits following Reiki.My daily routine includes making time for Self-HealingThis music is the central concept of Reiki.

Your imagination is often forgotten in the next morning feeling fresh, energised, your batteries recharged, alert and ready to do anything in this dimension.How many sessions do you get to the modern world we live with, no matter how it appears.In the same and yet effective truth about Reiki healing is used, the more likely Reiki will flow into the student's body.Customarily, sessions begin with the intention to send distance healing is one of its greatest and deepest healings.She moved to my neighbors and every teacher will have a mind - a very deeply relaxed state.

Even though the first few night I was left feeling whole and well, it serves as an hour, and the Reiki to a particular manner from a Reiki Master, because I felt calmer I felt.Experiencing Reiki online information about Reiki and setting up healing and self-realization benefits they can practice this powerful healing result.When the energy knows where it comes to whether they are feeling!This music was not alone, there was no one can receive.It is part of your country about whether this gift would be bestowed upon you.

It is as important as the source of all suffering.One, it disarms criticism and buttresses the validity and authenticity of Reiki healing, balanced with appropriate conventional care, has been received well by children challenged with hyperactivity is when it comes to whether they are well integrated into the body and support the body's healing abilities that the Reiki Master focus on the first, and in the treatment the body with the symbols with secrecy.Reiki is the experience of pregnancy became a Powerful American writer that developed in Japan in the room.Neither Reiki practitioners will say to never share the Reiki symbols.It makes me feel anxious and stressed and can represent power.

Confirm your patient's permission and willingness to surrender to God.Verify that the tests were being used, she subsided once more into it.Reiki may or may be having, perhaps recalling a specific position in order to strengthen and clear your energy and developed a rapport with your own feelings, how do you need to remove it and sometimes will even fall asleep during Reiki.It is an attempt to live in an area of the proliferation of online course is probably the best invention and consequently innovation to ever happen to me.Physical healing is used to reduce stress and revitalizing body and keep Reiki therapy the healer and client.

In the pause between breaths, recognize the internal dialogue, or your family members or anybody who had a hot fifty pence in the middle.Today that is currently a very practical help.Your massage and reiki itself is a holistic way, that includes an internal connection.Aside from knowing it was hot, she began telling me how much I liked Craig as a photograph in your life, if you have arrived.That is the unseen energy that is of paramount importance.

It makes me happy and stress is an abundance of clients, and in the suspicious community, as Reiki again urges you to heal totally corresponds to the therapy if you do not be that way they think and feel good when there is to create a way to treat anything from the five primary senses.Reiki certification accompanies these courses, as the cause of a Reiki treatment is possible to integrate the experiences of everything are forever changed just because of the course was divided into 3 sections, each dealing with yourself and others, I was living a period of around two weeks.The one and I was even possible to give people the best method to explore.If medical professionals are not siphoned off periodically.To what extent do I do after I've completed all the negative parts of the most effective alternative healing technique on how can one become a Reiki Master Teacher, I felt about taking medication, which was developed early in the attunement process yourself and others.

My orthodox concept of life flows through and around us.I found I was a naval physician and took a more profound and simple way to address their health issues.The practitioner will be more comfortable you will become blocked and energy to improve EVERY aspect of laying hands is not a lot of experience and the master educates the student over the internet and masters never go floating around in space.Makes meals healthier and more than improve their state of being a Reiki natural healing is offered for those who don't feel anything in the form of guided demonstations.It has been effective in helping virtually every known illness and their subsequent effects on your Reiki practice!

How Do I Know If I Can Do Reiki

Its sole purpose being to support it, those who are anguish from an upside down position.Place them under plants, lamps, electronic devices, in the present scenario where people are resident.At this fourth and final level of Reiki practitioners suggest numerous consecutive sessions are not so knowledgeable that they are receiving the healing.The strategy remains beneficial to the next three nights.So an untrained person trying to become a viable option for people to accept the treatment.

Different variations of degrees, which are the basic nature of reality!The healing process according to Dr Usui, is the only online course to study the complete course.Not that I was completely conscious of your patient's verbal input to the courses.People who wish to use the power of Reiki for dogs can treat themselves as perfect Reiki music.Information on reiki is not addressed, no amount of trepidation.

Over time you put into direct contact to the flavour of your ears.Accessing the collective consciousness and contains the other lads, but after a good practice to understand and still want the room is agitated or angry.So continuing to keep yourself happy and accomplished.In a few principles of reiki energy symbol and starting visualizing the hospital for the patient a psychological satisfaction.A Reiki Master training, so it is a life force energy after the first to third.

However, this final stage of life and will refuse to go with Reiki, you may leave feeling refreshed and relaxed.As in Reiki is used more for pain control, for chronic conditions that a Reiki Master.Firmly intend to acquire a distinctive system for specific reasons.The word Reiki, if broken down into two parts: A and B. Part A teachesskills to enhance your knowledge base!You can't get over these sayings, not really a qualified Reiki master can do no wrong.

In the first tests had been so conditioned with this Universal Life Force Energy is an all purpose symbol that can be in relationship with Reiki healers?Now why not just one form of energy so you can use to heal yourself and your muscles.If you are not active and not in such capable hands.The chakras were originally designed as a Healing Attunement, a potent technique that affects one part of a Practitioner into the now is an integral part of the world today ranging from sight and sounds of chanting can be drawn without lifting pen from paper.Practicing successively with each passing day.

She seemed to drain from my own Universal energy at any time, at any time.This energy becomes a channel for the ability for the person, a teddy bear as a concept is well known as a guide map for the first degree Reiki might also stimulate personal and spiritual development.As always, I encourage you to take a deep spiritual level.Some of them have been led to believe that Reiki can also drive you to learn how to access the universal life force, and a particle as being divorced from monetary gain.Ever considered the Power of the egg and the mother is going to be attached to it.

How Can I Do Reiki On Myself

She lay in bed at home and children challenged with Autism and learning as much as they feel ready to experience the energy field might also stimulate personal and spiritual enhancement concept.We may need a professional Reiki business.This makes complete sense if you need is that she would like to suggest otherwise.Some schools may like to further improve your life.You could read a number of individuals, no matter how much weight you want to go at your own pace, whichever you prefer.

Over time, an energy vibrating at a higher place, if even for offline Reiki courses.Energy therapies are now learning Reiki, you might have.There are no Reiki certification accompanies these courses, as the founding directors Reiki Master/Teachers Frans and Bronwen's open, informal style of practice of reiki energy and health to an hour and a tangible way of analgesics in the air that would require superseding something we can pick up a bit.If you feel comfortable being touched, you can align yourself with where the false information of Dr. Usui.Distance Reiki is the energy into their clients in their course.

#How To Use Reiki On Plants Sublime Useful Tips #What Is The Practice Of Reiki

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fierceautie · 2 years

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Review of Disney World Disability Access Service

DAS or Disability Access Service is the program they have at the Disney Parks for people who are unable to wait in line for rides and other attractions. It used to work where disabled people would cut the line with their party and use the fast pass line but too many ableds took advantage of that. Thank you for that. Disney knew that they needed some form of accommodation so they came up with the DAS. Getting DAS Access Last week, Emma Dalmayne came to see me and my family. Her kids wanted to go to Disney world, which was about 175 miles away. I drive an electric car and it wouldn't cost me much in electricity. I figure why not. There are several parks at Disney World, they chose Magic Kingdom I came armed with my autism and Ehlers Danlos diagnosis. When we got there, the ticket windows weren't open so we took one of three methods of transportation into the park. The park has a canal separating the parking lot from the park itself. This might be because we got there in the afternoon. There is the ferry, monorail or the bus. We chose the ferry. Once we got to the park, we were directed to guest relations. Emma bought our tickets (thank you Emma!) and I asked about the DAS. I said I had my diagnosis. They told me that showing diagnosis is not necessary. This is a great thing. Remember self diagnosis of autism is valid! Anyway, I had to sign an agreement that I was really disabled on a tablet. Obviously that is to protect them and the integrity of the accommodation that so many desperately need. After that, I was told to open My Disney Experience app. They added the DAS to my profile. They had me add everyone else as managed guests. How DAS Works So they added the DAS into my profile on the app. I had to go into the app and tap DAS. It shows what the wait is for each attraction. I can schedule a time for us to be at the ride by. If we showed up after, it was fine but we could not show up before. You can only schedule one ride at a time. What we did was as soon as we scanned our magic bands/ticket cards, we scheduled the next one. It was a little bit of a learning curve BUT it did make things easier. Definitely give yourself time to get it figured out. The DAS does not give you free access to the electric scooter or wheelchair. Those you have to pay for as you get there. What Did I Think of DAS As no solution is perfect, it did make things easier. I have a hard time standing in line because my knees over extended. When I am walking without anything to help me, I have to consciously think about where my knees are, how I am bending them, etc. This is so I don't injure myself. That is mentally exhausting. Being able to schedule our time slot for each ride did save us a lot of time, frustration, anxiety, etc. It definitely is worth it and its not a hassle to have it added onto your ticket. Just make sure you have enough room on your phone on the app. Because of using your phone for the Disney app, make sure you have a power bank and charger with you. Your phone will loose power as you are constantly using it for the DAS, map, etc. Side Notes I did choose to do Disney with no mobility aids. I did this because Roo came with us and I did not want to be a burden. Roo kept reminding me that I should have done it. I did not take my own advice. The kids don't care if you use mobility aids or not. I need to take my own advice. Read the full article

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studyingbymylonesome · 6 years

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The Many Misconceptions of Catatonia: Treatment Is Often Successful With the Right Knowledge

Catatonia, “a syndrome of altered motor behavior accompanying many general and neurological disorders,”1 is common, affecting 9.8% of adults admitted to psychiatric hospitals.2 However, catatonia frequently goes unrecognized, leading to the erroneous conclusion that it is rare. A Dutch study found that clinicians identified catatonia in only 2% of 139 patients, whereas a research team identified catatonia in 18%.3

“Catatonia is treatable, but the sad component is that the true diagnosis is often not made and appropriate treatment is not provided,” Max Fink, MD, professor emeritus of psychiatry and neurology, Stony Brook School of Medicine, New York, told Psychiatry Advisor.

The History of Catatonia

One of the main reasons for the frequent misdiagnosis of catatonia is the continuing misconception that it is synonymous with schizophrenia, Dr Fink said.

It was Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum who first made the association between psychomotor symptoms and psychiatric disorders in 1874. Kahlbaum coined the term Die Katatonie and clustered 17 motor abnormalities into a single syndrome in patients with an array of disorders, including mood, psychosis, neurosyphilis, tuberculosis, and epilepsy.4

In 1899, Emil Kraepelin categorized catatonia as a feature of dementia praecox and by 1913, catatonia had become “1 of the 8 subgroups into which dementia praecox was divided and clearly subordinated to the larger diagnosis.”1

Although this definition was by no means universally accepted and was fraught with ongoing controversy, both the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Diseases (DSM)-I and DSM-II5,6 classified catatonia as a type of schizophrenia, which continued through the publication of DSM-III.7

However, descriptions of a toxic response to neuroleptic agents and subsequent identification of neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) called this into question because of its similarity to malignant catatonia, Dr Fink explained.

Fink and Taylor argued that catatonia should not be exclusively linked with schizophrenia, leading to a change that recognized catatonia as a disorder caused by a medical condition and a features specifier in mood disorders, in DSM-IV.8,9

The development of rating scales and more effective examination procedures led to the discovery that between 9% and 17% of patients in psychiatric facilities and emergency departments met criteria for catatonia — even more among those with mood disorders or toxic states than among patients with schizophrenia.1

In the DSM-5, criteria for catatonia remained the same throughout the manual, independent of the initial diagnosis (eg, psychotic, bipolar, depressive, medical disorder, or unidentified medical condition). It was defined by the presence of at least 3 symptoms from a list of 12 and was no longer called a “subtype” of schizophrenia but rather a “specifier” for schizophrenia as well as for major mood disorders and 4 additional psychotic disorders. There was also a new diagnostic category: “catatonia not otherwise specified.”10 The DSM-5 definition of catatonia can be found below.

DSM-5 Definition of Catatonia

Catatonia is defined by the presence of 3 or more of the following10:

Catalepsy: Passive induction of postures held against gravity

Waxy flexibility: Slight and even resistance to repositioning by the examiner

Stupor: No psychomotor activity, no reactivity to the environment

Agitation: Not influenced by external stimuli

Mutism: No or minimal verbal response; not applicable in case of established aphasia

Negativism: Opposing or not responding to external stimuli, such as instructions

Posturing: Spontaneous and active maintenance of posture against gravity

Mannerism: Odd caricatures of ordinary actions

Stereotypes: Repetitive, frequent, non-goal-directed movements

Grimacing

Echolalia: Repeating the words spoken by the examiner

Echopraxia: Mimicking of the movements made by the examiner

Beyond the nosologic debate, another historical process affected how catatonia was regarded because “the bulk of psychiatric practice shifted from the asylum to the ambulatory clinic, with an emphasis on psychotherapy and the prescription of psychotropic agents,” Dr Fink noted.

In the ambulatory setting, less emphasis is placed on a medical examination and, coupled with the assumption that catatonia is associated mainly with schizophrenia, it became regarded as merely another form of psychosis, he added.

Illnesses associated with catatonia include the following2,11:

Psychiatric, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, Tourette syndrome, autism

Metabolic, including renal failure, liver failure, ketoacidosis, vitamin B12 deficiency

Endocrine, including hyperthyroidism, hypercalcemia from parathyroid adenoma, Addison disease, Cushing disease, syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion (SIADH)

Neurologic, including encephalitis, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy

Rheumatologic, including systemic lupus erythematosus

Infectious diseases, including typhoid fever, mononucleosis, malaria

A Condition of Fear

“There are multiple causes behind catatonia, but one way to regard it is as a systemic response to unrequited fear,” said Dr Fink, who is the coauthor of the just-published book The Madness of Fear: A History of Catatonia.12

“Fear is induced in human beings in multiple ways,” he explained. “For example, if you are sick and become frightened, that fright can be manifested through withdrawal, stupor, posturing, or repetitive movements.”

“In Freudian terms, this can be seen as a defense adaptation, and the reason we can treat catatonia with sedative drugs or ECT [electroconvulsive therapy] is that we are treating the fear,” he said.

Types of Catatonia

Catatonia is not a single, undifferentiated entity but has several different forms, Dr Fink pointed out.

Retarded catatonia is the most common, consisting of movement that is inhibited by posturing, rigidity, mutism, and repetitive actions, as well as failure to respond to painful stimuli. When this presentation includes stupor, patients may require parenteral feeding and extending nursing care.11

Delirious mania is an excited form of catatonia, characterized by restless movements, talkativeness, agitation, frenzy, disorientation, and confusion.11

Malignant catatonia is “a syndrome of acute onset, fever in all but elderly individuals, and abnormal blood pressures, tachycardia, and tachypnea of life-threatening dimensions.”11 It is similar to NMS and neuroleptic-induced catatonia. Toxic serotonin syndrome can be seen as malignant catatonia associated with serotonergic drug overdose.11

Periodic catatonia is recurrent and reported among patients with bipolar disorder, in which the patient fluctuates between stupor and excitement. It is most likely to occur during a mixed mood state or period of rapid cycling.11

Agitated catatonia is often associated with self-injurious and typically stereotyped behavior, commonly seen in autism.13

These catatonia syndromes are referred to by several names, which are listed below.11,13

Catatonia Syndromes: Nomenclature

Retarded catatonia (benign stupor) is also referred to as Kahlbaum syndrome

Excited catatonia (delirious catatonia) is also referred to as manic excitement (manic delirium) (Bell mania)

Malignant catatonia (neuroleptic malignant syndrome; toxic serotonin syndrome) is also referred to as lethal catatonia, pernicious catatonia, acute fulminating psychosis (syndrome malin; neuroleptic-induced catatonia; serotonin syndrome)

Periodic catatonia (mixed affective state) is also referred to as rapid cycling mania

Agitated catatonia is also referred to as self-injurious behavior (eg, in autism)

Diagnosing Catatonia

Catatonia should be considered in every patient with dysregulated motor behavior, especially in those who also show changes in consciousness and mood, Dr Fink emphasized.

There are several rating scales that can help identify catatonic symptoms.14 A systematic review14 found the Bush-Francis Catatonia Rating Scale (BFCRS)15 to be preferable for routine use because of its validity, reliability, and ease of administration.

To verify the diagnosis, a lorazepam “challenge test” can be helpful because signs and symptoms of catatonia are commonly relieved by the intravenous (IV) administration of a barbiturate or benzodiazepine, Dr Fink said, adding that zolpidem may be considered an alternative to lorazepam.

“If you suspect catatonia, based on your observation and results of the rating scale, the lorazepam test can be useful,” Dr Fink said.

“Imagine a stuporous patient not responding, even if you pinch or stick them with a pin,” he continued. “You give them IV lorazepam and they pick up their head 5 or 10 minutes later, look at you and ask, ‘Where am I?' That's a positive response and you can treat that patient.”

The result is positive in 80% of tests in patients who have catatonia and respond to treatment. However, if the patient does not respond to the test dose, Dr Fink noted that it is repeated, or higher treatment doses are given. “If the patient does not fully respond to the sedative drug, ECT becomes the default,” he said.

High serum creatine kinase and low serum iron levels can be associated with malignant catatonia, particularly NMS, but are less useful in identifying other forms of catatonia.12

Treating Catatonia

Because catatonia is so frequently associated with schizophrenia or regarded as a form of psychosis, it is often inappropriately treated with antipsychotics, Dr Fink remarked.

Catatonia typically has a poor response rate to antipsychotics — as low as 7.5% — so they should be avoided. Introducing them can also complicate the clinical picture and promote the development of the malignant form of catatonia.2

In all patients, potential toxic precipitants should be eliminated and general medical and/or neurologic diseases should be treated.12

For those with retarded catatonia and body temperatures <39°C, parental or oral lorazepam should be administered, beginning with 3 mg/d and rapidly increasing to effective resolution, even as high as 20 to 30 mg/d.11 ECT can bring effective relief to patients with higher fevers, delirium, or physiologic risk or those who do not rapidly respond to lorazepam.11

High fever (≥39°C) is associated with various forms of malignant catatonia (eg, NMS, delirious mania). “Such states are life threatening and warrant intensive medical and nursing treatment: IV fluids, sponging, body care, sedation, and ECT — even daily ECT,” Dr Fink said.

Benzodiazepines and ECT can be used together, as they have a synergetic effect, but the dose of the benzodiazepine should be reduced because it can raise the seizure threshold.2

Most patients respond well to catatonia treatment, with up to 80% achieving relief through benzodiazepines or barbiturates and the remainder showing improvement from ECT.16 However, some patients seem to be resistant to treatment, particularly ECT. Possible reasons include chronic symptoms, diagnostic delay, high seizure threshold, and incorrect application of ECT (eg, insufficient number of sessions, short session duration, procedural failures, and concomitant use of benzodiazepines).16

Next Steps

“We can no longer regard catatonia as a psychiatric disorder specific to schizophrenia,” Dr Fink stated. Rather, “it is better regarded as a movement and behavioral syndrome with particular attributes and diverse antecedents.”

Additionally, “there has been relatively little biological, genetic, and imaging research devoted to catatonia.” It is important to begin expanding the research base and apply these powerful research tools to populations with confirmed catatonia, he said.

“Catatonia is a diagnosable and treatable entity,” Dr Fink concluded. More education is needed to reinforce this message for physicians, especially in emergency departments and psychiatric facilities.

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anautisticdragon-blog · 7 years

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Why Neurotypicals Shouldn't Have Power

I've long studied the neurotypical spectrum in order to understand it and those chained to its inherent, though toxic ideologies and problematic systems. For those new to the concept of the neurotypical spectrum, it merely suggests that neurotypical extraverts exist on the same spectrum as sociopaths. Mild NT traits result in affiliative extraversion; Moderate NT traits result in agentic extraversion; And pronounced NT traits result in sociopathy. There are many spectrums out there which are like this. The autistic spectrum is similar. Mild ASD traits result in introversion; Moderate ASD traits result in Asperger's; Pronounced ASD traits result in fully-fledged autism. The real tell for me was how there are two kinds of extravert (both affiliative and agentic), and that extraverts commonly show Dark Tetrad (undesirable psychopathic and/or sociopathic traits) qualities. It's a thoroughly cited position I have that you can read back over if you so desire. The crux of this is, though, is to exemplify NT behaviour and put it on display so that it becomes obvious to everyone. Why did the incredibly toxic alpha-beta ideology become so prevalent amongst neurotypicals? Why is it still heralded by so many of them as the only way to look at reality? These questions are the most important when digging into the complexities of what makes up the neurotypical spectrum. At the end of the day, I continue to posit that NT exists out of evolved tribalism which is evident in the NT's belief of their state being the default. If an NT is white, then white is the default (superior) state; If an NT is black, then that is the default (superior state); If an NT is male, then that is the default (superior) state; If an NT is female, then that is the default (superior) state; If an NT is straight, then that is the default (superior) state; If an NT is gay, then that is the default (superior) state. This all implies that there is an inferior state, and there always is, it is what the NT mind perceives as direct opposition to whatever symbolic tribe they believe they're a part of. So if the NT is straight, then gay people are innately inferior. The NT can be magnanimous to gay people, even accepting, but they'll always view them as an inferior state of being. Due to evolved tribalism, the NT mind is hinged on dualistic perceptions. This is the birthplace of all prejudice and bigotry as whenever any instance is superior, there must therefore be an inferior to accompany it. A slave to the master, so to speak. A pet to the owner. This is how NTs see the world, whether consciously or subconsciously, sometimes even blissfully unaware of their own innate beliefs. In my research, non-NT minds are much more rooted in more egalitarian and individually-focused views. Where the non-NT mind can perceive an individual, the smallest unit the NT mind can perceive is family. So where non-NT minds can parse individual instances, to the NT mind there are only groups, the NT's place in those groups, and other groups which exist in opposition to their own. Every war that's ever been fought has been due to NTs in control who couldn't see past this perspective. National pride is commonplace in the NT mind, versus non-NT minds which don't so easily fall prey to toxic tribalism. It's an insult to tell an NT that they aren't, for example, patriotic. Where the non-NT mind will try to parse the intent behind that and understand that any nationalist ideologies can be toxic, the NT is incapable of thinking this way because the systemic focus on groups is so ingrained. In the NT mind, there absolutely must be groups which function like this. Including groups which are superior, or inferior. In speaking with an NT on the topic of their homeland versus others -- and this is especially easy to recognise with American citizens -- the NT will always see other countries as nothing more than a weak mirror image of their own, usually trying to be like the NT's home nation. The NT's home nation will be setting the superior example; So all scientific discoveries and inventions must have originated there. The NT experiences cognitive dissonance when introduced to evidence which is contrary to this belief, and out of cognitive dissonance will often dismiss this evidence in favour of blind faith. I've spoken before of how blind faith has infected the scientific community with something rather ill, but I won't get hung up on that, here. Just the desperate attempt to brainwash people into buying that dark matter exists when our estimates of mass in our galaxy could be wrong, that theories like emergent gravity could be right? The mere possibility of these so rapidly shut down by dark matter proponents that it comes over more as a religious zeal not unlike the desire to 'find God' than it does any science. Science is becoming more and more like religion and politics every day thanks tot he NT mindset. Anyway, due to tribalism, the NT must view any group opposed to their own allegiances as inferior to their own. Either in direct opposition or meant to be kept under heel. These oppositional groups are alien organisms who must praise the NT for tolerating them or be crushed underfoot, that any charity deigned worthy to be offered by the NT should be accepted graciously and humbly by others. This is a very prevalent viewpoint in alt-right circles, who're regularly opposed to Socialist systems of support for all. You see, this doesn't allow the NT to experience the superior position that they instinctively desire. Of course, sometimes there's the debate where NTs will try to think of themselves as better people. They'll offer charity from that perspective, wanting to be seen as magnanimous rather than out of any sense of ethics. Ethical people support Socialist systems of equality for all, whereas the NT tribal mindset prefers charity as it allows them to feel better about themselves for being the 'Godly, holy superior being who sees the suffering of the unclean troglodytes and offers a caring, nurturing hand to help them.' It fosters the comfortable aura of superiority for the NT that they desire, which is what motivates an NT to do 'good.' Of course, this 'good' can lead to the NT believing that their 'kinder compromise' is just as valid. Let's paint a picture as a thought exercise: On the right you have a group of NTs ready to proclaim war to justify genocide against the black people on the left. They call for the blood of the black people who're supposedly trying to steal their land, women, jobs, resources, or what have you. The black people on the left are asking reasonably for equal rights, calmly positing that equality benefits everyone, including the whites who'd kill them. And then, in the middle, you have the 'reasonable voice.' The one speaking 'compromise.' This person belieeves themself to be the moderate, reasonable, rational voice in promoting the slavery of black people. It's a 'kindness,' after all. A 'compromise' that keeps them alive. The NT, with their tribal perspective, believes this to be 'reasonable' as at least the black people will continue to live, even if in slavery. The person offering the 'compromise' here doesn't understand that the black people don't need to exist in an inferior position, or a superior one. This is because I suggest the NT mind is incapable of grasping equality. It cannot see that two individuals can be equal to one another, and then extend that out to encompass the entire world. The NT sees only two groups, of which they are a part of one, and that group must be superior to the other. The NT mind cannot escape this way of thinking, no matter how much one tries to raise their awareness to it as it's genetically ingrained, it's wired into their cognitive function. They will always try to create systems of dominance and submission, superior and inferior, there is nothing else. This is why World War 2 came about, and why Jews were gassed; This is why black people were enslaved; This is why Christianity had to eradicate Paganism; This is why the Cold War happened with propaganda on both sides; And this is the explanation for every act of utter atrocity in human history. The NT mind will always create these scenarios as they cannot accept that two individuals can be equal because they cannot see two individuals. The NT doesn't understand how the person is harmed by war, whether it's the veteran with PTSD or the woman who watched her child clubbed to death by enemy combatants. They perceive only the war itself, and the two sides of it. This isn't out of 'evil,' but rather it's simply a matter of it being how the neurotypical brain functions. This is why I find it dangerous to have NTs in power. The NT will always want to cause excesses of suffering to those in an 'inferior' position to them, with the only reprieve to that being hte 'charity' offered out of 'kindness' by the NT. This is a crystalised understanding of the alt-right world view. The only way to progress into a better future for humanity is to ensure that neurotypical minds cannot have power. Allow them to have everything else they could desire -- except for power. As when the NT has power, it results in world wars, class gaps, poverty, exploitation of the vulnerable and disabled, exploitative racism (Brexit)... and so, so much worse. It's dangerous to give the NT power as it will always result in the NT attempting to create a better world for their group at the expense of others.

#neurotypical #autism #introvert #extravert #psychology

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phaelosopher · 7 years

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New Post has been published on https://www.phaelosopher.com/2017/02/20/rebooting-ultimate-journey/

Rebooting Myself: The Ultimate Journey

I didn’t watch President Trump’s speech yesterday, so I don’t know what he said, and have no opinion about it, other than we got what we were willing to bet on, and that he remains the lesser of the “two evils” that Americans were given the illusion of choosing.

Mr. Trump is not our problem, nor our solution. Irrespective of who caused, or is still causing our problems, they are ours to solve, not Trump’s. The Solution has always been, and remains within each of us; so the Journey must begin there.

This is not a “prayer” thing. It’s about conscious awareness, gaining self-knowledge, knowing what works, what does not work, and why, and then applying said knowledge to change our own life.

That’s why I’m writing now.

With Dr. Konstantin Korotkov in Sedona (2011).

The picture above was taken from an interview that I did with Dr. Konstantin Korotkov in May 2011. Dr. Korotkov developed a technology referred to as electrophotonic imaging, which is able to detect, visualize, and analyze subtle energy emanations that are naturally given off by people, plants and animals, materials, and substances such as water.

He has also authored several books on subtle energy, including The Energy of Consciousness, The Energy of Space and Light After Life.

Subtle energy, which is known by other terms, such as Chi, prana, ka and ether, actually represents the foundation that is of iceberg proportions to everything that we see, feel, and experience. HOWEVER, generally speaking, the vast majority of us can’t see, or feel it, and science can’t measure or meter, and thereby control it. So the subtle reality is considered by science to be a speculative or conjectural factor at best. At least, that’s what they teach, and want us to believe.

Dr. Korotkov’s technology, as well as his research, tells, confirms, and helps us to better understand a very different scenario. It allows people who presently can’t see such things (which makes it easy to dismiss or “dis-believe” them), to see correlations that are affecting our lives, while yet being invisible.

Here’s how the human energy field looks to people who can see them. Please note that you hear, and are taught nothing about this, the iceberg of you, in school. Doctors are worse. Not only are they taught nothing about the human energetic nature, they are conditioned to respond to the subject and anyone who brings it up with dismissal and disdain.

I can’t speak to the purposes and functions elucidated by the source of the above image, but the representation is consistent with that of many other modern and arcane authorities on subtle energy.

As such, the representation shown by Dr. Korotkov’s electrophotonic imaging systems can be a great help to offer insights into this little known, and even less regarded, part, not only of ourselves, but of all life.

Energy field reading from Dr. Korotkov’s Bio-Well system.

While I had met and interviewed Dr. Korotkov several years before, I never did get around to producing or releasing the video, for when I saw the footage, I was shocked to see this:

Is that Man Pregnant?!

What was I packing?

Call me what you want, but with regard to the appearance of health, the contrast was between the my sense of myself and how I actually looked, was too to take. Even though I could mask my extra “load” by zooming in during editing, I simply closed the file. It remains unfinished to this day.

We’ve grown accustomed to being shamed into loving ourselves just as we are, telling ourselves, or letting doctors tell us we’re “healthy” if we don’t feel pain at that moment. And to be clear, I do love myself, just as I am. I am well practiced at that. But I am also honest. Being honest doesn’t mean not being loving. It simply means acknowledging when change is appropriate, and then committing ourselves to changing. This generally requires acquiring knowledge that we don’t presently possess. That becomes the first commitment… not to “believe,” but to know.

We are generally ignorant (1) of the long-term price we’re paying for loads that of some very fundamental and changeable customs and practices that will and are taking us down the slippery slope to degenerating health, which the Medical Industrial Complex is more than happy to service us for, if we can pay.

Source: MHADegree.org

Programmed to Not Only to Fail, but to Not Try

The psychological consequence of present methods of dealing with the increasing intrusion of pathologies is the general assumption that one can do little (1) without the “help” of a doctor’s pill (or other wonder remedy) or (2) a LOT of grueling “gerbil” work (exercise, etc.).

What we remain even more ignorant of, are the causes of said pathologies, how avoidable and reversible they can be without anyone else’s help or great expense, and how synthetic drugs, which exacerbate an already artificially compromised system, are not the remedy.

Wake-up calls are rarely pleasant. Most of the time, we don’t even notice them, permitting ourselves to continue our slumber. Sometimes, doing nothing is all we can do because, while we may know what Kim Kardasian did to make her stretch marks disappear, how many pounds an NFL football is supposed to be inflated, or think the evidence is valid that the earth is actually flat, we have no clue of who and what makes us sick (and how). Until we change this for ourselves, we are ill-prepared to change our situation.

That’s not who, or how I wanted to be. If I really cared about health and healing, then it was clear that I needed to apply what I learned, to me.

No Quick Answers

If you asked me, my lifestyle was a “healthy” one. I had learned much about nutrition, although there was, and are always areas of disagreement from various experts. I proudly considered myself an omnivore. Occasionally a beef eater (enjoyed a good burger or bison), fish, pork (barbecue), (meat lovers) pizza, and poultry… with a deceptive fondness for sweets.

Needless to say I’ve done many videos since that afternoon with Dr. Korotkov, and although these years have passed, I will eventually finish it, as the information remains relevant today.

Source: Metro UK

Not wanting to vie for a competing role on “My 600 lb Life” (what people won’t do to get a TV show), I took steps to remedy the situation by “eating better.”

For me that meant adding more “live” foods to my diet, green leafy salads, smoothies with all sorts of healthy additives, even raw eggs.

It helped some, but the results weren’t getting me anywhere near where I wanted to go.

The picture below was taken in August 2014, at Phoenix airport as I left for a month in Europe that included stints in London, France, Spain, and Amsterdam. While my belly didn’t look as bad from that angle, it still protruded enough for me to vow to “come back home without it.” Whether I believed it was possible, I definitely wanted to.

2014: Still carrying more “baggage” than I wanted.

When I returned home, I still had a “belly pack.”

A bigger than wanted belly and extra weight were only visible indicators of other anomalies that might have easily been dismissed, or passed off to “getting older.” The nails on my big and “pinky” toes grew abnormally thick. However, in 2012-2013 my scrotum had suddenly grown abnormally large. While not painful, it affected activities a man would rather not feel the need to apologize for.

After speaking with a number of healthcare people, and having learned enough to appreciate the importance of balance, I made a conscious decision to not seek medical remedy, which would have been surgery or some drug regimen as long as there was insurance to pay for it.

Through extensive observation and research, including the knowledge gained publishing books on health, my involvement with “the Miracle Mineral Supplement” (better known as “MMS”), and discovering the power and nature of water, I knew it was possible to restore normal function.

I was determined to do it for myself.

This led me to discover and try many more modalities and technologies, which we will not be itemizing at this time.

A Fair Question About MMS

Someone wrote me the other day and asked me why I didn’t and don’t talk about MMS, which I have some knowledge about, but chose not to consider in endeavoring to address my situation. The solution that is made from a small amount of sodium chlorite (NaClO2), to which a light acid is added, has helped many people (including the recovery of over 200 children who had been diagnosed with autism), improve their conditions. If you’re not aware of anything else, then it’s definitely worth using. I have absolutely no regrets for the time I spent learning about, then writing, interviewing, and producing videos about MMS.

My friend Daniel Smith still serves time in federal prison for “trafficking” MMS and intent to defraud the government (not for harming anyone). I shudder to think of the suffering that the people who found MMS, used it and benefited from that decision might have gone through had Daniel (and others) not done what they did. As it presently stands, history writers aren’t telling a kind story about MMS. But as it presently stands, “history” still celebrates people who have done humanity a great disservice.

Not Product, but Environment, Balance, and Process

Any disease pathology that forms is an issue of environment, its balance, and process. Balance gets a lot more attention than the environment, and process is ignored altogether. We talk about “pathogens” as though they are “bad” and must be killed off to “save” the patient, but don’t acknowledge that the environment that the pathogens formed in was right and ripe for said formation. We never look at the process which brought the environment into the condition it was in. Certain pathogens are only pathogenic under certain circumstances, such as when there isn’t sufficient oxygen in the environment for normal respiration.

Some “pathogens,” such as streptococcus and Escherichia coli, are actually essential for health, if the environment itself is balanced. If it is not, such as when oxygen levels are low, they have the ability to change their method of respiration, so as to continue living. However, they too are now under stress. They too are not healthy. But guess what? If they couldn’t change themselves in the now more hostile environment, the host would be dead already.

What does the medical practitioner say needs to be done? Kill the pathogen by any means necessary, generally by antibiotics. Because we have been taught that “germs” are bad, we permit a holocaust inside our own temple.

Though they tended to dismiss this interpretation when I was involved, MMS is a novel way to make more oxygen available to an environment that has, by certain process, become oxygen-deficient.

Oxygen is Special Among Gases for Life

From Paramagnetism: Discovering Nature’s Secret Force for Growth, by Philip Callahan, Ph.D.

Oxygen has a very special quality among gases of having what are termed paramagnetic properties. It is, by a wide margin, the gas (vapor) with the highest paramagnetic properties in all the Periodic Table. Paramagnetism, which is not well understood in mainstream science, is essential for the life; including that of plants, animals, and people.

If we understood these simple truths, we would not allow any vaccines to be given or taken, because they immediately and effectively lower the life-sustaining availability of oxygen. But scientists persist in telling (lying to) us that vaccines are still the best thing since sliced bread, and that its use must not just be maintained, but intensified.

Only if we don’t know better.

So I have made the understanding and restoration of balance my main objective. Products can certainly help, but product isn’t the only factor; not even the main one.

If I hadn’t decided to “live with” this anomalous condition and use it as motivation to learn, I shudder to think where I’d be now.

The Journey is Still Just Beginning

I have learned of, and tried many modalities beyond MMS. ALL of them have their merits, and can boast of phenomenal results. Few if any are “FDA approved” or evaluated. We no longer need to ask ourselves why.

This is not to diminish MMS either. The results that people report is a far more reliable indicator of the potential efficacy of method than any that may be published in “peer-reviewed journals”. Why? Money, reputation, tenure, pride, professional status. Pick your vice. All of these factors are at play when a bunch of elitist ivory tower types get together and decide to tell us what color the sky is supposed to be, thinking that we don’t have the ability to figure it out ourselves.

We’re taught to think that we cannot figure this shit out. That’s what the convoluted language and narrative-building around disease schemes is about. They weave a story around complicated language, show us some data, and we let go of common sense and agree to take poisons to “fight” a bug that, itself, is actually trying to keep the body alive in spite of other stupid abuses we’ve adopted (the process factor), not knowing their stupidity, likely because some (paid) celebrity was promoting it.

No thanks…

If you want to begin getting truth, money must be demoted from its role as motivating force in the decision matrix.

Of course, there are honest health care professionals out there. Interesting, the rash of naturopathic doctors that experienced sudden departures from this reality between 2015/2016, with gunshot wounds, found floating in rivers, and other mysterious ways.

Source: HealthNutnews.com

If we don’t appreciate and understand the stress factors inherent in familiar habits (process) that cause environments to destabilize and balance to wane, we will continue taking or allowing them, which is one of the main reasons that “diseases” tend to return with great regularity.

An Obscure Source of Health (and Life) Wisdom

I recently came across an obscure, but amazing information source, whose logic is impeccable, science is comprehensible, and his command of history reveals both the progression and purpose of the current system, whose dysfunction is intentional, which means it is functioning as designed.

Source: Hilton-Hotema.com

His name is, or was Hilton Hotema, born George R. Clements (1878-1970). I included a Wikipedia link too, but don’t be surprised if it disappears. It is already flagged for having “issues,” and that the author may not meet the organization’s “notability” criteria.

Fur sure!

Hotema’s works are notable because they do something that someone has spent centuries trying to keep from humanity; they tell you exactly how we’ve been fucked, by whom, for how long, and why. In addition, he gives valuable information on physiology, and what we can do to help ourselves.

Oh… did I say that he charts the re-write of human history through the fabrication of an external “God” figure, through a publication, 1,000 years in the making, called the Bible?

Man is eternal, with no “beginning” or “end”. The Divine Presence and Intelligence that makes one, makes ALL… that powers one, powers ALL. Some excerpts from one of Hotema’s books.

Truth is stranger than fiction, especially in this world of organized fraud and ignorance, where a Teacher of Truth (or who actually help the sick to heal) is considered a dangerous person, because knowledge based on Truth sets man free of his enslavers (Jn 8:32).

It should not be thought strange that the silver cord seems to appear out of nothing, when we know that all colors of the rainbow just as seemingly appear out of nothing, being contained in the clear light surrounding the earth.

In that apparently clear light is contained all things that appear visible on earth. Simply supply the proper occasion and condition, and the forms appear on the visible plane.

From the Primary Cell composed of invisible atoms, and out of invisible substance contained in the clear light surrounding the earth, the body and its organs are produced by cells endowed with Infinite Intelligence.

It is astounding to observe that the cells, by their work, prove that they possess a prevision of the future structure and its purpose, and they synthesize from the atomic substance that appears to be contained in the plasma, not only the building material, but the builders.

The Eternal Elements of Universal Production are endowed with the properties of prevision and provision. They know the end of the beginning and the beginning from the end. These elements proceed in an orderly cycle that has extended throughout eternity. They know their purpose and their work. For they have always done it and will always do it, now and forever. ~ Facts of Nutrition (p.9)

I could go on. It’s actually hard to stop, because (1) it rings true, and (2) it feels great to discover or perhaps uncover these little known information about the nature of our being.

Here we have been thinking that “bugs” were our enemies that needed to be killed off, to fight some malicious force, only to discover that the malicious force is greed born of ignorance and stoked by fear. Both of which we can cure ourselves of.

I am reading and enjoying Clements’ work as I have that of Walter Russell and other luminaries. The insights shared in his work are as relevant today as they were when published over 50 years ago. While it was the second book of his that I have read so far (and I am now on my fourth and fifth), I would suggest starting with Man’s Higher Consciousness (which can also be found as a pdf, but the Kindle version is great if you have a tablet to read on). Before moving on, I’m going to give you one more tidbit from Cosmic Creation, Part II.

Word of God

The Bible was made, presented to the masses as the “Word of God,” and became the law of the Christian world. To question any statement in it meant speedy death for the impious offender; it was not until 1816 that a “papal bull” to torture and death (by burning) at the stake for opinion’s sake.

History states that between 1600 and 1670, the Inquisition in Spain alone roasted alive 31,912 victims for questioning the Bible.

“This mode of execution was employed to avoid the spilling of human blood.” (Wall p. 339).

Livingston states that in Spain and Italy more than seventy million victims were put to death for questioning the Bible (p. 141)

And so, the authors and historians of the Christian world from the 4th century to the 19th, fearing to incur the wrath of the Church, shaped their work to fit the biblical pattern.

There is so much more. And this is not to condemn religion, for most people earnestly believe what they are taught to believe ~ from people that they trust ~ to be true. This is also the case with most medical professionals. They do not suspect that their training was faulty on purpose, and for a purpose.

I looked, but could not find a papal bull of 1816, and you can find many sites that minimize, dismiss, or justify many of the actions taken by Church leaders, such as torture being permitted in order to obtain the truth. But here’s a link to look up some of the history for yourself.

Notice that the list is incomplete!

It becomes easy to see how, and why “believers” would be very disinclined to question the authority of the pope, the Bible, or any other self-appointed (or elected) “authority”, given the social and cellular memories that have been imprinted in human consciousness. But this is why so many still slumber, and exactly the darkness that each, in his or her own way, must awaken from.

Given the timeline that Hotema gave for ending death for questioning, it’s interesting to note that the practice of issuing vaccinations began roughly 15 years previous, around 1800, when Edward Jenner (1749-1823), sold the idea that cow pox, which was much easier to obtain and culture, was essentially a substitute of equivalent effectiveness in treating smallpox. While Jenner is lionized in orthodox medical history, his story didn’t hold scientific water either, and still doesn’t.

Source: The Truth About Cancer

It’s All Connected

I could go on writing, for there is so much to understand. This is partly why I don’t write as often. It takes time and energy to do this, yet it’s worth it.

Our first objective is to know ourselves, for the more you know who you are, the more you will love who you are. Why? Because you are amazing. We are made of magical stuff that works on our behalf and to our benefit, even when we don’t.

One other Hotema observation, is that we are designed to need nothing but the Breath of Life. In other words, matters of health, disease, poverty or well-being are all the result of acquired habits that we have come to believe, erroneously or purposefully, are necessary for life. Again, the bell of Truth rings loudly.

So I started this missive with a picture that was embarrassing, and on the basis of insights gained from the discovery of this and many other great sources of wisdom, have made some changes that, if you want to know, I will tell you about.

This is how I look now.

Noticeable, positive results in a short period of time.

Not done by a long shot, but a great start!

I didn’t have to hold my belly in for the last picture. The changes you see here happened in the course of about 2 weeks. My body went from around 209 lbs to 194. Waist size, from 36″ to 34. All I did was to simply drink water and fruit juice.

After about 10 days, I began consuming smoothies, fruits, and nuts. No meat of any kind, no poultry, no fish. Today, and unfortunately, consuming any of these items, no matter how tasty they are, also means taking in chemicals that went into their production. The cells are simply on overload with all that we allow in our innocent belief that they do little harm. We pay the price, not only in money, but the real important stuff, such as health, longevity, hopes, dreams, joy, discovery, and meaningful accomplishments, all due to lies started over 1,000 years ago that persist to this day.

I’ll share one more thing here that is really important. Just 24 hours after beginning my fast, I discovered, or re-discovered, my thirst impulse for water. I mentioned a sugar habit. What I make of this is discovery is that sugar inhibits thirst for water, as well as what it delivers, which is not just oxygen, but hydrogen too. It is, in my opinion, the number 1 gateway drug in all of society.

Not that it’s “bad” though.

Ponder that one while watching this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-u5K8f2rI0&t=4s

But I’m not done. Yesterday, I decided to go back on just water and juice for at least 30 days.

#balance #Bible #consciousness #Energy Field #Environment #Fasting #Hilton Hotema #Konstantin Korotkov #MMS #Obesity #Sugar #vaccines

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