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Three Can’t Be?

  • Posted on August 26, 2010

It can’t be normal for me to have three nights in a row of nights when some sleep is accomplished?!?!?

I can’t remember when it began to happen that whenever I have two nights in a row of somewhat okay sleep the third night ends up being without any sleep whatsoever. What scares me is that instead of no sleep on the third night it could become no sleep on the second night; then comes no sleep ever again.

It can’t be possible that I spent all of last night fully awake because of what I wrote yesterday in Chronic Insomnia is Deadly. I wish I documented information about what patterns revolve around the nights when I get no sleep. Most of the time the reasons for not sleeping are obvious to me, but the one for last night I can only guess.

It seems like when I come closer to feeling less tired my brain is then incapable of becoming sleepy at night. It’s as if I’m supposed to remain in a perpetual state of exhaustion. The strange thing is that I don’t remember experiencing this when I went on vacation kayaking and camping. Sometimes I wonder if maybe being in my house for as long as I’ve been isn’t somehow causing me to lose my mind.

This much I know → I’m tired of researching for the latest information about insomnia.

Chronic Insomnia is Deadly

  • Posted on August 25, 2010

I’ve foolishly become accustomed to viewing chronic insomnia as being more of a nuisance rather than a dangerously destructive health problem. When I’m led to think there are no long-term valid reasons for my being unable to sleep, I feel ashamed and guilty. Most people think I just need to take a nap. Some think it is a consequence of what’s said in Proverbs 23:7, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”¹

I have struggled with long-term issues of insomnia for over 27 years now. Only recently have I seriously examined the pattern between the times my sleep is more healthful versus when it goes awry. The unusual amount of stress I’ve had in the last four weeks has taken its toll on my ability to sleep. In one way, increased insomnia is my fault. But then in another way, it isn’t.

Chronic insomnia appears to be a catch-22 situation. Scientific studies are revealing to researchers² and reporting in articles³ that, “Chronic insomniacs losing out on sleep may also be missing brain matter. For the first time, brain imaging has linked chronic insomnia to lower gray matter density in areas that regulate the brain’s ability to make decisions and to rest.”

Reduced orbitofrontal and parietal gray matter in chronic insomnia affects areas in decision-making and stimulus processing. It’s also this same area where we learn about the pleasantness of stimuli that tells us how much we like something; also known as the “stress sensitive” region, which involves memory formation. Diminished gray matter here can cause a person to lose interest in his hobbies and interests.

The grey matter density of these brain regions is what helps us to evaluate pleasant stimuli (i.e., that which helps us get to sleep!), as well as in regions related to the brain’s “resting state” (i.e., sleep!).

People under chronic and severely stressful situations or those with post-traumatic stress disorder or depression are at most risk for this type of smaller brain volume. Is it any wonder why it is so critical to find out the root cause of chronic insomnia?

People commonly assume that someone who doesn’t get enough sleep looks tired. What they don’t realize is that adrenaline can prevent this appearance from occurring. For me, I’m just starting to be more aware of when adrenaline is in my system preventing me from being able to stay asleep or get back to sleep. Falling asleep isn’t usually an obstacle, even though it might take me a half hour or more to do so.

Besides insufficient rest, adrenal fatigue adds strain into the equation. As of today, I finally exited out of the adrenal fatigue range (not by much, but at least I’m out of it!). I slept for two nights in a row (not without waking up periodically, but enough rest non-the-less). On days when I regain an enhanced ability to think (after having been exhausted for an extraordinary length of time), it feels weird until I get used to it again.

Chronic insomnia may cut a life short. Researchers say people who struggle to sleep appear to be at higher risk for early death. Findings show that overall mortality is three times higher among people with chronic insomnia than among people who do not have insomnia.

People with chronic insomnia require increased brain activation to maintain normal daily function. The article states that those with chronic primary insomnia may have to work, concentrate, and attend more to tasks than people who sleep well. I would think that would be obvious, no?

¹That leads to the belief that all a person with chronic insomnia needs to do is think he has no problem with sleeping and then the insomnia will end.

²Reduced Orbitofrontal and Parietal Gray Matter in Chronic Insomnia: A Voxel-Based Morphometric Study by Ellemarije Altenaab, Hugo Vrenkene, Ysbrand D. Van Der Werfacd, Odile A. van den Heuvelfg, and Eus J.W. Van Somerenabcd [Biological Psychiatry] on August 4, 2009.

³Does Insomnia Shrink Your Brain? by Cristen Conger [Discovery News] on February 16, 2010; Sleep Loss, Brain Loss by Michael J. Breus, PhD [The Sleep Doctor] on February 09, 2010; Does insomnia lead to brain loss? by David Braun [National Geographic] on January 28, 2010.

Postscript added the next day → I was unable to sleep even for a minute on the night after writing this post. The next morning I wrote Three Can’t Be?

Maturity is Interdependence

  • Posted on August 18, 2010

From what I’ve observed about the Amish, I see their community as being the role model of what functional families should look like. No culture can reach perfection in this area, but a civilized society has no excuse for going backwards. I can’t speak for other countries in the world, but I can share my thoughts on the direction America seems to be heading.

It’s ironic that our society has so many professionals in the mental health industry but yet has an obviously high failure rate. Most criminals repeatedly return to correctional facilities, drug addicts usually end up back at rehabilitation centers sooner or later, clients of therapists typically remain permanently dependent on their programs, and self-help groups all too often end up being an individual’s home away from home. Those are the externally visible examples of dysfunctional behavior.

On a smaller scale (but yet equally important) are beliefs and behaviors hidden within immediate family relationships. Unhealthy patterns within these groups continue because of the inability to see things the way they are and not having to do so. Whenever direct consequences for decisions are able to be severed from those who made unwise choices, the outcome ends up being immaturity. This is the way non-grown-up adults become trained by their children in the way to go.

Growing up means making your own decisions and having to live with the consequences of them. A codependent person lacks the balance that comes from interdependence. A codependent makes less decisions for him/herself by sacrificing too much and/or too long for others. Individual boundaries decrease over time, because structure becomes non-existent. It’s only logical considering that irresponsible behavior is rewarded.

Why would anyone want to change the way s/he is as long as s/he can continue a self-gratifying pattern? On the outside, it may look like a codependent person is suffering silently inside. It would seem like it has to be unpleasant to forgo things for yourself (like maybe someday having a new car, vacation, improved home, etc.) in order to ‘help’ others in ‘need.’ However, if that was truly the case, then a codependent person wouldn’t continue to spend the rest of his or her life behaving in the same dysfunctional and unhealthy way.

Ultimately, no one does what they don’t want to do. We all do what we do because we want to do it and we will do it no matter what the consequences are. It’s the reasons behind our choices that can be deceptive.

Parents who truly love their children do not enable them to remain immature adults. Parents who continuously believe that their adult children need their help, especially if that help eliminates the direct consequences of their childrens’ foolish and irresponsible behavior, are not being loving parents at all. Those self-deluded parents end up being trained by their own children in the way to go.

Parents can deceive themselves into thinking that they are doing the right thing by supporting all the decisions their children make (e.g., how their children raise the next family’s generation, etc.). Parents refusing to establish their own limits (i.e., boundaries) as to what they’ll cooperate with is a sign that something is wrong. Every household has the right to determine it’s own set of values of what is acceptable versus unacceptable.

An adult that hasn’t grown up will not respect the rights of his or her parent(s) if the same beliefs are not held. Rebellion will be inevitable and the codependent parent knows this. An interdependent parent has enough strength, courage, and love to separate himself or herself from whatever childish behavior may come from his or her child(ren)’s stubborn refusal to accept how every human being has to grow up into being a responsible mature adult. A codependent parent can be manipulated into feeling guilty for doing the absolute right thing when s/he believes the wrong is what’s right.

Being codependent means making other person’s decisions for him (or her) and making another person’s problems your problem. There are two ways of making decisions for other people. We’re all familiar with the active way, but how many realize there is a passive way? By letting our adult children decide for us in the way we should go, we unknowingly are passively and non-verbally deciding to tell that child s/he has to remain immature. In fact, at the same time, that codependent behavior is what prevents parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. from being the role model of maturity.

Becoming more immature over time and increasingly codependent is a catch-22 situation. A society can even fall prey to becoming deluded over its existence within its own realm. As government power grows, citizens actually end up getting less by becoming more dependent instead of interdependent. Getting something for nothing (in the end) costs way more than having to earn and pay for something. The way to know when an individual has become fooled is when s/he is unable to comprehend the inevitable outcome of a defective program. This inability to comprehend arises because of preferring to remain childish as much as possible. It’s scary to grow up, but becoming mature has benefits that far exceed the difficulties which come from the challenge.

Families are the micro-organisms of society. When households practice dysfunctional patterns, it’s only to be expected that society will be a magnification of the same product. How can society not become more immature and codependent over time? It has to start with each individual learning the meaning of wisdom.

Reinhold Niebuhr touched upon wisdom his prayer —

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

God sums up wisdom perfectly in Psalm 111:10 —

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.

Throttling Back

  • Posted on August 17, 2010

Even though only one word remains stuck in my mind during these recent weeks, it brings along with it endless thoughts, which then lead to countless decisions. That’s kind of ironic considering that the word is, “simplify.”

Multiple new thoughts, for me, mean that decisions undergo fluctuation as new information requires continuous readjustments. Maybe in that way I’m not much unlike the stock market? I won’t crash, but I did come close to putting my blogs into the trash. Someday they will be gone… just like all of us.

Communicating with NTs makes me leery.

  • Posted on July 26, 2010

If I’m contemplating ways to communicate with a neurotypical (other than my daughter or husband), I can’t help but feel leery. It’s awful, especially if there might be a chance to maybe communicate with an old acquaintance or relative. In such situations, I feel like a rabbit that’s trapped in a dark corner that doesn’t know if it should run or if it’s okay to stay.

The dark¹ corner feeling comes from hitting my best level at small talk. If I dig at the conversation to bring it deeper, then sooner or later it seems I’m buried under dirt. This isn’t what usually happens when  I’m communicating with another Aspie. I’ve observed enough Aspie-to-Aspie conversations to see that there is a huge difference between Aspies relating versus NTs. For me (and most other Aspies), there is no guess work involved in understanding what’s being communicated by either party when only Aspies are involved.

From what I’ve seen about how NTs handle communicating with me, they’re either assertive or avoidant. Compared to those two opposites, I’m somewhere in the middle — except for online (which typically is Aspie turf anyhow) and/or snail mail — too often too much like Charlie Brown, as displayed in this conversation done in a strip back on December 31, 1965:

Charlie Brown: Next year I’m going to be a changed person!
Lucy: That’s a laugh, Charlie Brown.
Charlie Brown: I mean it! I’m going to be strong and firm.
Lucy: Forget it. You’ll always be wishy-washy.
Charlie Brown: Why can’t I change just a little bit? I’ll be wishy one day and washy the next!

Charlie Brown is much like how I am. Charles Monroe Schulz (a classic Asperger individual) portrayed himself in his comic’s character, Charlie Brown. However, in some ways I have changed since childhood. In the comic strip, Charlie Brown never grew up. Oh how I’d love to continue the Peanuts comic strip where Schulz left off, depicting Charlie Brown through adolescence, young adulthood, middle-age, and then as a grandfather. It could still be funny overall, but (for it to be accurate) it would have to have some serious sections.

Take for example the Peanuts strip from January 21, 1968:

Lucy to Charlie Brown (at her psychiatric booth, explaining why people take advantage of him by talking too much:) It’s your own fault! You’re just too wishy-washy! People who talk too much² deserve to be insulted! They deserve to have other people walk away from them! Talking too much is an unforgivable social sin – absolutely unforgivable! The only way to deal with people who talk too much is to let them know just how boring they really are. You can’t waste your time with them, no, sir! Why should you sit and waste your valuable time while some bore talks on and on about nothing? Life is too short to waste it listening to some person who doesn’t know when to shut up! Time is too valuable! Time is…

How many times can a person endure having injustices done against him, especially when its twisted around to have him feeling like he is to blame? Charlie Brown’s worst ‘flaw’ is his repeatedly trusting others and longing to be accepted as the others are in the Peanuts gang.

gulliblefootball

Just because I learned how to be strong and firm sometimes (in order to protect myself), being leery is what causes wishy-washiness. Kids don’t mind ‘playing’ with someone as if he’s a toy without feelings. There are too many adults who haven’t matured past that stage. They’re just more experienced and able to be subtler than when they were younger.

Most adults, especially old acquaintances and/or relatives, hopefully want to work as hard as I do at finding a way to communicate that constructively works for everyone. Yesterday, I received a surprise phone call from someone back in high school. The last time I saw her was about 15 years ago. We talked for hours and we both seemed to enjoy it.³ I went through the same thing last year with a close relative I hadn’t spoke to for 15 years, except she surprisingly showed up at my house instead of calling. I have no idea if either of them are as confused as I now am.

I wasn’t given any contact information (like a phone number, email, or snail mail address) before yesterday’s phone conversation ended. I have to hope she merely forgot and maybe she will read this post and call me again. I also hope that maybe the relative who I saw last year for a couple of hours will read this post and contact me to help eliminate some of my (or our?) confusion. I can’t help but wonder if she hasn’t written to me for the same reason I haven’t written to her… that maybe she is as confused as I am?

I can’t shake the feeling that people might struggle over why I’m highly reluctant to use emails, especially when for them it’s much easier than putting a stamp on an addressed envelope once a season and having to wait longer for the gratification a response brings.

I thought having a contact page is a good compromise. I would receive the message and respond via snail mail and would be willing to send my skype name (only to those who I know very well). Skype provides many options for communicating, even sending an SMS (text message). After what I’ve been through with AOL’s programs, skype’s instant messaging is a relief. My mac handles the newest version of skype beautifully. However, if I were to install it on windows xp, I’d probably download the old version 3.8.0.188. Unfortunately, not everything that’s new is improved. (I do digress, no?)

My guess is that some people might have a hard time to understand why someone like me would never create a facebook account. It’s frustrating for me to know there are people I care about who have a facebook site, but facebook doesn’t allow a person access to it unless s/he  subjects her/himself to facebook’s insanity.

In the beginning of this past February, a woman contacted me who saw me periodically during my childhood. She acted excited to have found me and I thought we’d stay in touch, instead of sharing only a couple of emails. I hope that she too might read this post and let me know at least why I haven’t heard from her again.

Before that, another person from high school (no, not a boyfriend) said he had been trying to find me for 27 years. He wanted us to be friends and he called a few times to briefly chit chat. I thought we’d actually visit in person, especially since he was close by in the area. Again, I’m left perplexed as to what all that polite small talk was about when it led nowhere.

Even going as far back as 45 years, a neighbor from that long ago dropped in unexpectedly to visit me in 1983 (without any contact in all those years) for about 10 minutes. Then, that was it. I never heard from her again (even though I remembered her birthday and mailed her a card afterward).

I’ve either said enough to explain why communicating with NTs makes me leery or I’ve said too much. No matter what, the way I look at it is, “How can you lose something that you don’t have?”

If Charlie Brown had an identical twin sister, I’d be her. Good grief!

¹It’s dark because I can’t see where I’m going with my conversation in regard to what the NT is planning to do about it.
²This includes people who brazenly trespass against you and would do so repeatedly if given the chance. Its not the size of the offense as much as it is the wrong spirit.
³What isn’t enjoyable is how much my muscles ache from being so tense while talking. Even though nothing bad happened, it’s kind of like almost having an accident in the sense that you can’t help but automatically brace yourself in case there is a collision.

Nightmares

  • Posted on July 23, 2010

NightmareAfter having briefly mentioned the topic of nightmares during a visit with other Aspies and gaining an unexpected response from one individual, my curiosity about them resurfaced. It became a recent strong interest I’ve been indulging in and trying to satisfy with professional data gathered from current research studies. Maybe if I summarize what I’ve found out so far it might arouse the same curiosity in some others too.

About two percent of adults experience recurring nightmares¹ at least once a week. Nightmares diminish greatly before adolescence. Those who spend most of their sleeping life having nightmares learn to not be bothered by them.

Headway seems to have been made over the years as to why nightmares occur, but since new information often times disproves the old, it’s important to remember what’s new for today might someday be outdated.

Research in areas difficult (if not impossible) to prove seem much like mystery novels. A brilliant author can keep the reader guessing as to who is to blame. It’s much easier to rule out possibilities than it is to be sure without a reasonable doubt. Contemporary experts in the same field of study don’t have consistent data much of the time.

When it comes to nightmares, what seems to agree with most of the recent studies is that people with thick boundaries don’t have nightmares. Adults with frequent nightmares have been found to share the characteristic of having thin boundaries. Thin boundary people are open (not only towards others, but also towards their own unconscious processes) and are prone to enter into personal relationships quickly. They also are more: vulnerable, aware, creative, sensitive, artistic, fragile, easily hurt, complex, intelligent, unusual, resourceful, empathetic, and defenseless.

Thinner boundaries enable greater creativity and may be why artists are referred to as the “mine canaries” of civilization. I go along with the theory that it’s possible for a person to have the same kind of receptor for magnetic fields that enable birds to use the information for guidance in traveling, provided that his boundaries are permeable. Such abilities can be both a blessing and a curse. Not getting lost is good, but along with heightened sensitivity in multiple areas can come an intense awareness of all the potential dangers around. The saying, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you” is intended for things which have already happened. If it’s something that hasn’t happened yet, not knowing could hurt you because being unaware leaves you vulnerable. It requires greater inner strength from an individual to keep emotions balanced when being hyper-aware than it does to live life at a ‘normal’ level where things aren’t felt ‘too’ intensely.

How’s that for ironic? Being extraordinarily aware causes the sensation of feeling vulnerable, but yet being less aware is what actually makes a person vulnerable.

Information I’ve gathered from multiple sources say it’s always the self that is under attack in a nightmare, but beyond that researchers seem to be relying more upon speculation than anything else. The other basic observation they agree on is that nightmares do not involve projecting onto others one’s own angry impulses.

Dr. Ernest Hartmann (Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and Director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton-Wellesley Hospital and well known for his research on nightmares) states,

Nightmare sufferers are not persons with an excess of aggressive drive or of hostility, but rather persons with thin boundaries such that normal fears and angers “get through” more and become more vivid and frightening for them than for most of us.

Dr. Patrick McNamara (The neurocognitive scientist and associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine who has spent ten years researching and writing about nightmares) states,

Instead, nightmares appear to be about the strength of the ego, the “I,” the self. It is always the self that is under attack in a nightmare. It appears that people who suffer frequent nightmares have more fragile egos than the rest of us, but when you look deeper, these people very likely have the strongest egos, or sense of self, on the planet. Nightmare images haunt our awareness for days. Frequent nightmare sufferers cope with this stuff on a regular basis. They are very strong individuals.

I did think about doing a series of posts on the topic of nightmares. It’s certainly a subject full of unending avenues to explore, but the deeper the investigations go, the less reliable and more conflicting the information becomes. Just ask any canary how far down a mine it would like to travel. Life is better where the sun shines and the air is clear. Dark places are for nightmares.

¹They do not recur in the sense that the same scene is replayed night after night, but the individual does experience frequent nightmares. Post-traumatic nightmares, on the other hand, do recur with the same scene, with minor variations, replayed over and over.

Bring Back Freedom

  • Posted on June 16, 2010

Being Female for One Aspie

  • Posted on June 15, 2010

I recently embarked upon a relaxing vacation.¹ Being that I haven’t done anything like that for around three decades, the trip confirmed several things I already suspected. Unfortunately, now that I’m back home and again with sleep deprivation, I’ve returned to what caused me to need that experience in the first place. Because of that, exhaustion has already diminished my ability to explain details. I can tell my brain is deteriorating faster than it should be. That could be partly why I’m less able to write posts for my blog.

I’m tempted to quit writing altogether, but if I don’t try my best to use what I’ve got left of my brain’s capacities, the capacities that still remain will degenerate even faster. This negative progression is not mental illness. It is a natural physical aging that is happening at a faster than normal rate. It is being enhanced by post-menopause. Getting older is a fact of life and there is no such thing as reversing the aging process. All one can do is slow it down.

Most older women already know how diet and exercise play a vital part in protecting health, but few are aware of the other factors some people have which hinder even the simplest of tasks. There are a couple of reasons I’m bringing attention to this. The first has to do with what I was once told. It was, “Everyone has problems.” What I wonder is how many people realize that (generally speaking) the less obvious the problems are, the more they can cause problems. These kinds of problems come from those who like to judge others without personally being capable of knowing the challenges another person may have to deal with. We are all human, but we are not all alike neurologically.

The second reason behind me telling about my post-menopause experience is so other women can have an enhanced perspective to see their own journey on this path. Women tend to be interested in what others go through with pregnancy and the labor of child birth, so why not also that time of life when those events are no longer possible?

To balance things out, I’ll first briefly share about my two pregnancies and labor experiences. In a nutshell, they apparently were not typical. I especially know this now that my daughter just gave birth to my third grandchild just recently (May 26th to be precise). I had hoped hers would have been as easy as what I went through, but it wasn’t. What she went through to have her three children was more the norm for women who have natural childbirth. My children were both born at home with the minimal amount of prenatal routines. I don’t even know what it’s like to “push” in order to give birth or what “labor pains” are. Pardon the odd way of describing it, but I know no other way than to describe it as being like an upside-down regurgitation (minus the intense nausea). I’m sure having a full moon during each of those events, along with remaining upright (rather than reclining), had some influence.

Now things have flip-flopped. It’s as if what blessed me to escape the usual unpleasantries of child bearing has turned into a curse. To some, this might not make sense, especially since you’d think that a hyper-sensitive nervous system would be a recipe for enhanced challenges with child birth. I can only guess that it’s because of being hyper-sensitive those experiences for me were not difficult. I easily knew what to do versus what not to do. Number one on my list was to stay as far away from hospitals as possible at all times (which is what I do anyhow). A hospital (even if it’s a “child birthing center”) would freak me out. I knew long in advance I needed the freedom to be able to go walk off alone into the woods or a field, while in labor, and come back indoors when I was ready to deliver (in my way, at my time). I wouldn’t even consider Lamaze classes, because (to me) that didn’t seem natural or necessary; plus, it would have been a waste of my money. In my mind, giving birth didn’t need to be any different from how a wild animal deals with it.

Maybe it’s because I’m a human being living in a “modern” society that post-menopause is a curse for me? I’ve had hot flashes long enough to see a personal pattern evolve. Because I’ve become conditioned in two decades to respond the way I have to minor incidences like a cat vomiting in the night or juice being spilled by a child, I can no longer control the snowballing destructive chain reactions such things have on my body. Hot flashes have become like a personal bio-feedback machine to me. There is a direct correlation between adrenaline production and hot flashes. First comes the anxiety producing event, then immediately afterward an overwhelming wave of heat is triggered, usually followed by a major emotional disruption. The mood alteration sometimes is immediate, but often times it’s repressed and vents out later (e.g., the next day).

After having done research to learn about what is going on physically inside my body and why during post-menopause, I again know what to do versus what not to do. Again I know not to go the route most others may choose to travel (e.g., using pharmaceutical products). Being that I’m more hyper-sensitive now than ever before in my life, it is imperative my environment be as much under my control as possible. Being that people (including myself) are like chemicals which produce reactions, socializing must be done with caution when there is the combination of heightened hyper-sensitivity and post-menopause. It’s not just relationships that must be monitored closely. Sounds, lights, temperatures, tastes, smells, textures, etc., all have a strong impact upon basic bodily functions like sleep, energy, memory, thinking ability, muscular strength, etc.

It’s too bad that there is very little research in the area of post-menopausal Asperger women. The younger Aspies are, the more the medical community is interested. This is especially so for Asperger females. Since Aspergers isn’t something a person outgrows or “has,” but rather is what one may be, there are plenty of opportunities for us older Aspies to add to, and/or refine, the existing relatively crude information that already exists about Aspergers. For example, the article Asperger’s Syndrome and Unequal Reaction to Pain by Nelle Frances, contains useful information. It would be interesting to see how data like that could be related to what David Zava, Ph.D. says in his interview on How Cortisol Levels Affect Thyroid Function and Aging that’s published on the Virginia Hopkins Health Watch website.

¹Little did I know I’d be on another one four days after publishing this post! If you’re interested in nature photos, I have plenty connected to my vacation tag on my casual blog.

Paying it Forward

  • Posted on May 21, 2010

These five people have done a good turn for me:

  1. Phil A. Smouse
  2. Warren W. Wiersbe
  3. Bob Deffinbaugh
  4. Patricia ———–
  5. Michael Pearl

How so?… during this past week, the words they have written are helping me to see the errors of my ways. I already described on the 19th of this May in my post A Destructive Vacation how Phil Smouse and Warren Wiersbe have done so. In that post, I introduced Bob Deffinbaugh’s article The Pursuit of Christian Character by including a link to it.

It wasn’t until the early hours of this morning that I finished reading and thinking about Deffinbough’s words said (thanks to being awake all night). After gaining a couple of hours of sleep, I was back up again reading at my computer. It was then when I stumbled upon Patricia’s post Honor your Husband! on her blogspot blog Homemaking Naturally. Since I found a strong connection to her words while reading it, I was moved to click on her link to the thought provoking article by Michael Pearl called Carnal Husbands, Cranky Wives, and Cantankerous Kids. I instantly recognized the site No Greater Joy, because of having been there before and being impressed by his words on Holy Matrimony.

Why am I mentioning what I am?… to remind Christians that we all need to stay united. I’d also like to strongly recommend to other Christians Deffinbaugh’s article The Pursuit of Christian Character. It’s not short or meant to be read quickly. Every bit of it is worth the time to spend thinking about.

As to how I may pay these good turns, by the five people listed, forward, I don’t know yet. I do know, however, that how we pay such things forward is knowledge which needs to be kept private. [Matthew 6:3]

Logic or Lack of It

  • Posted on May 3, 2010

In 2008, Science Daily published research showing evidence that those on the autism spectrum use logic more than neurotypicals do. They did an experiment to see how NTs would respond to choices couched in emotional language versus how neuro-A-typicals would. The NTs all answered differently depending on how the question was phrased. Aspies consistently gave logical answers regardless of the phrasing.

~ In other words, NTs are influenced by whether or not a glass is said to be half empty or if it’s said to be half full, whereas non-NTs are not. ~

I suspect that emotive words aren’t the only things that can cause illogical thinking in NTs. Misreading behavior may be an even bigger contributing factor. It’s a catch-22 for NTs — projecting emotions into things causes subjective perceptions, but being able to be aware of doing it requires objective thought.

Here are some examples of what I find illogical:

You can have the same person, but as to how that person will be valued by most NTs will depend on how other NTs perceive him (or her); plus, how an individual perceives him (or her) self is another irrational factor.

My neighbor once told me that men are more attracted to a woman who already has a guy interested in her. I saw an example of that same concept with the guy Dorky David (Oz Perkins) in the film Legally Blonde.¹ It wasn’t until Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) acted emotionally involved with Dorky David that the girls David was trying to get a date with became interested in him.

I was recently told that people have less interest in hiring someone unemployed than someone who is busy working. Shortly before that, I was reminded by others of how the negative impact of being unemployed increases the longer you are without work.

The only explanation I see for why people act as they do (as mentioned above) is that they’re lacking the sufficient logic needed to see things more realistically (i.e., absolute; not relative). Someone who has spent more time being alone is more likely to appreciate another person. A person who has been out of employment longer is more likely to work harder than an individual who thinks too highly of himself (or herself).

Not all Aspies are equally equipped with logic and all NTs are as deficient in logic, but I suspect that the imbalance in levels of logic between individuals may be the largest factor behind most things involving the major issues of life.

It’s too bad society is dominated by illogical people. I don’t think there is a way for me to express my thoughts on this matter without personally offending some (hopefully not most). I need to remind myself that such things are not my problem.

¹You can view a clip from that part of the movie by clicking on “Dork Break’s Elle’s Heart” (the bottom video listed on the right) via the link to the movie’s site in this post.


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