Sheila Schoonmaker

Can people believe it’s actually possible for someone to forget that real medical issues occur? All I can do is tell others that I am one of them who does. Because I forget this, it tends to cause me to mislead others by what I write. I feel terrible knowing that I’m offending people unnecessarily because of not realizing what other people are thinking when they’re trying to figure out what I’m saying. It just goes to show how helpful feedback can be and it’s also a reminder of how much time and work explaining can take.

I fully agree that many children have real medical issues. Children on the autism spectrum do have comorbidities that need attention and care. I have had my share of them. As a young child, I went through a set of health-related issues. As a young adult in my early 20’s, another stage of physical ills passed my way. Upon entering my middle-aged years, I struggled through about 13-14 years of chronic insomnia. My most recent ‘bump in the road’ of physical health was from an episode of a frozen shoulder. Aside from now experiencing a cold about 2 or 3 times per decade, and (at the most) mildly being ‘caught’ by a flue bug about 15 years ago, the only other thing that ‘caught me’ was lyme disease. My several exposures to lyme however never led to the lyme borreliosis bacteria getting much of a chance to mess up my immune system.

I used to have a weaker immune system, but now it’s pretty darn tough. It has to be because it’s the only form of health insurance I’ve got and it’s the only insurance I trust, can afford, and want. Because of how pleased I am with how well my body takes care of me, I tend to get very excited about how wonderful the human body is capable of taking care of itself if its needs are met. True medicine should be a matter of knowing one’s own self very well, along with understanding how everything in life is harmoniously balanced. Handling symptoms definitely has its place, but learning the ‘whys’ is a whole lot better. Once all that information gets plugged into place, then there is wholesomeness in operation. All is at ease instead of being dis-eased. To me, dis-ease is simply having some factors stressing against one another instead of working in co-operation (unity and harmony). I have a radically different approach to health than most people do, so I apologize if and/or when I may be upsetting others because of that.

I do not look down my nose at all towards people who handle health-related issues in conventional ways. What does jerk my chain though is when people mix things that are not health issues in with things that are! Everybody has body parts that function the same way, but there is one body part that even though it does the same job for everyone, it does that job in different ways for different people. That part I’m referring to is called, “the brain.” I can see why people ignorantly call Asperger’s a disorder and how come some people even go so far as to say it’s a disease. However, just because someone can’t comprehend why something functions differently does not give him the right to label it as being something which needs a cure!

Doctors can master such things as how a stomach, liver, kidney, ear, heart, etc. work much easier than they are going to figure out how the brain works. The brain is a whole different form of matter because there are other factors involved that I doubt will ever get covered by medical science. In fact, it might be safe to say it’s impossible to even talk about those factors. I hope no one asks me what I’m talking about here, because I don’t even want to begin to explain. It’s way beyond explaining. I just accept it and I actually accept how other people handle their health issues differently.

I’m so adamant about protecting my way of living that I probably end up having people feel bad about their way. Maybe it helps to know that what I’m saying here in this post is an example of how frustration is unavoidable when wanting to help with solving complex puzzles because it takes the whole package to answer. Besides some packages being difficult to comprehend, some parts in that package will also be tough adjusting to. When I say package, I’m referring to individual people — in this case, I mean me.

Whenever I get used to a program’s visual set-up and then it gets changed in appearance, it’s like someone has climbed inside my head and re-wired my brain so that I have to re-learn how to think in order to use the same thing! I don’t mean to complain about WordPress since it’s a great online blog program, but I doubt they know what effect it can have on Aspergians like me.

I wonder how many other people go through this mental frustration?! Others who use WordPress will know what I’m talking about, but people who are just reading my blog might not know because what they see at their end looks unaltered. For those who don’t know what it looks like ‘behind the curtain’ here, WordPress made some radical re-arranging.

I’m still a ‘newbie’ here, so I’m hoping WordPress doesn’t make alterations too often. I don’t know why they even did do it. Everything worked fine before. In fact, for me, the design set-up was better before this last overhaul. Now I’m so distracted because of having to get used to using what’s different!

My point? Urgggh! I absolutely HATE having to make mental re-adjustments when I’m in the middle of concentrating on more important things!!!! It’s just like having a personal library with thousands of books you’ve carefully placed in a certain order so you can find a book you know you have somewhere. Then along comes a ‘house cleaner’ who rearranges all your books for you while you’re gone. You come back to find a book only to discover you’ve got to re-learn a new order.

I guess I just got a good reminder of what bothers me a lot. Oh well, now I DO have more writing material to explain some more characteristics about the Aspie world.