Asdquefty’s Journal

It’s that (not-so-)wonderful time of year again where we all prepare for going back to school. I’m running around buying textbooks, getting equipment, having sessions with the special needs department at school, and all that wonderful stuff.

The other thing is that this weekend at work is likely to be havoc as people rush to do all their last minute back to school shopping, even though they had all summer to go shopping. Everyone complains about the rush of last minute shopping, but nobody does anything about it. Let’s just hope I don’t get too stressed out at work on the weekend, but I’ll have to deal with that when it gets here and remember I’ve had worse jobs.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I haven’t forgotten my blog, I’m just getting busier preparing for classes.

I seem to have missed a setting to truly re-enable comments. Sorry about that, and feel free to comment away.

The subject of stigma surrounding mental illness has recently come up on some of the blogs I’ve been reading, in response to some recent news stories on the subject.

I agree that most people are pretty ignorant when it comes to mental illness, and I have to admit that I used to be just as ignorant. Back in January, I was diagnosed with social phobia and mood disorder NOS, which didn’t fit and mood disorder NOS didn’t really fit. So in the true Aspergian style, I jumped off the deep end into the pool of information available on mental illnesses on the internet. It did include some hypocondric moments where I convinced myself I had several different problems, but the truth was that I simply have Asperger’s and that Asperger’s is so much more then just what’s listed as the diagnostic criteria. I find this true for most of the disorders, as the diagnostic criteria list only the absolutely essential elements that everyone with the condition has and/or describes the core disorder.  Along the way I’ve become pretty well informed on mental illnesses of almost all kinds, a lot of the meds used to treat them, and most importantly that there is always a person behind the illness no matter how severe.

(I don’t classify Asperger’s as a mental illness, I just mention it because it’s the name for my condition. That, and there is considerable stigma and total misinformation around the autism spectrum anyway.)

Over time I’ve heard some pretty bad stigma and misinformation, most of it undeserved or based on an inaccurate or flawed conclusion, and here’s a sample:

• People in my family have had a skip-a-heartbeat reaction when they found out I see a psychologist.
• “You’re Asperger’s? Huh? But you’re so high-functioning!” - various people on the Internet, upon finding out my work history and education status.
• “You’re not Asperger’s, you don’t have collect toy dinosaurs and stick thumbtacks in them.” - A friend with a B.A. in psychology, describing a young Aspie (<10 years old).
• “Why waste your time? Everything someone with BPD says is a lie.” - The friend I just mentioned, upon me telling him about the blogs I read. This has got to be the worst stigma I’ve seen yet. Yes, BPD does involve false self image, but it’s not pathological lying, it’s a form of dissociation.
• The all too common “Isn’t mental illness just stuff like psychosis, mania, and self-harm?” that a lot of people seem to think, along with a belief that depressed people just need to snap out of it.

A common theme that I’ve seen during my extensive reading has been a severe and confunding lack of logic and understanding among the “professionals” of mental health treatment. A lot of professionals seem to follow a process:

1. Wedge Place person into diagnostic categories, preferably ones where the most medication can be prescribed.
2. Prescribe meds, selecting randomly from the applicable class(es). (It doesn’t even have to be relevant, let’s throw them some atypical antipsychotic(s) even if they only have GAD.)
3. If no med is prescribed, wait a while then go back to number 1.
4. Wait, maybe the wrong med is prescribed, then you can go back to 2.
5. If you’ve come back to 4 at least 5 times, go back to 1.

I feel that the medical and biological side of mental illness is over-represented. The healthcare system for mental health should include psychotherapy as much as it includes medication, as both are equally needed for getting help with mental illnesses. You don’t see someone recovering from an injury get fed an ever-increasing amount of medication, they see a physiotherapist and do physcial therapy. People illnesses simply get handed an endless supply of what amounts to painkillers for the mind and denied the therapy that would truly help them and solve the problem. We need to see insurance providers and governments start funding free access to psychologists, as that’s the ticket to getting better for a lot of people. That, and making sure that the psychologists are truly interested in helping people and take the time to see the person beneath all the labels.

I was nominated for the Arte y Pico award recently by Autism Insights, and I’m honoured to receive this award. I was beginning to get the feel that my blog was becoming stale, but I can feel relieved now that I’ve received an award. Autism Insights is a blog that follows the world of autism without getting too serious or hung up on the various controversies often discussed by the autistic community, and it’s quite refreshing. Thank you.

Upon winning this award you are tasked with the following rules…

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog , so everyone will know the origin of this award.

Here are my five pics to nominate for the Arte y Pico award:

1. Untreatable’s Blog - Untreatable provides an amazing amount of insight into the world of mental illness, and I recommend his blog for everyone as understanding mental illness will go a long way towards helping people with it.
2. Be Your Own Detective - A window into the world of private investigation, Barry provides an inside look into the techniques and tools used by investigators. Not all may find his blog interesting, but I do as I have a real interest in this stuff.
3. Reports from a Resident Alien - The blog of a female Aspie from somewhere in the United States, her entries provide a day-to-day look into the world of Asperger’s with a significantly different perspective from my own.
4. The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive - Seaneen is an inspiration to everyone as she struggles to live with and treat her illness. She has an opinion on almost everything and her writing is really good, I hope that she achieves her dream of being a successful author someday. She accomplishes a lot more then she gives herself credit for.
5. Life with Asperger’s - The blog of a male Aspie who takes a look at some aspects of the Aspie life that most people wouldn’t think to ask about.

I’ve started a new job recently, and it’s going quite well. When I’m at work, I feel mostly happy and it feels good to be working around people and doing something useful.

The problem is that it just seems so empty, I finish at the end of the day and I have no desire to do much of anything. The main problem is that I have a hard time tolerating and being around people for extended periods of time, and that I don’t find the majority of people very interesting. I don’t have much of an interest in following the popular culture, it just doesn’t interest me, and I’m afraid that most people find me boring because I lead a really quiet life.

I’m in one of the tough spots in terms of having Asperger’s, as I can appear normal on the surface but those who really know me can identify obvious unusual things such as my mannerisms, quietness, lack of assertiveness, varying lack of enthusiasm, among others. People often lose interest once they see what I’m really like, and I doubt that I’ll ever be able to find someone who understands me for who I am. I’ve always been an outsider, looking in on the normal people having successful lives.

I started a new job recently, and it’s going really well. It’s rather irrational that I’m feeling depressed tonight, but it comes down to the same ting it always does, being so alone and seeing no real point in life. I’ll be fine tomorrow and Monday, but I just wish I wasn’t so alone. My personal life is where I have the greatest difficulty. I’m so tired of being alone, but I can’t get over the wall that always seems to be there.

All of these days

All of these nights

All of them the same

None of them matter

I’ll be alone for all of them

I’m sure you’ve all heard about the tragic and gruesome bus attack in Manitoba, Canada by now, and that in the future a psychiatric evalutation will likely find that the perpetrator is severely disturbed or was at the time of the attack.

The thing that has really pissed me of is the way that some groups deny the family of the victim any dignity and use the event for any purpose they see fit.

The first groups that did this is PETA, with a new ad campaign. They are comparing the attack to the slaughter of animals, in what can be best described as shocking extremeism being pushed with extremely bad taste. They’re even trying to make the ads the most visible in Manitoba, which just further adds to the bad taste. I find it astounding that PETA hasn’t been disbanded by now, but people have the right to say whatever they want. Finally, kudos to the publishers of the Portage Daily Graphic for refusing to run the advertisements, as the ads are totally inappropriate.

The full story on the PETA campaign is available at cbc.ca.

The second group that is acting in bad taste are the protestors from an extremist Baptist church who plan to protest at the victim’s funeral and push a twisted and utterly illogical message that “[the victim's] slaying on July 30 was God’s response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and divorce and remarriage.” Some members of the church are already in Canada and if they do protest the funeral they should be promptly detained as they are clearly harassing the family of the victim. The right to free speech ends when your message is disrespectful, insulting, harassing, or otherwise hurts someone in any way including emotional and psychological trauma. The worst kind of harm that can be done to someone is emotional and psychological trauma as it is much harder to heal, often lasts for a lifetime, and can’t simply be numbed in the way that pain medications push away physical pain. The members of the church have no right to be in this country and should be deported immediately, or preferrably tried for harassment here but that’s unlikely because of how the legal system works.

The full story is also at cbc.ca.

I’ve added a new page with a list of books that I’ve read and would reccomend that everyone take a look at to expand their horizons. If you have any suggestions on books that I should read feel free to leave me a comment or email me with the title(s) of the books, I’m interested in books on almost any topic out there.

I’ve been feeling better over the last few days, as I’m starting a part-time job next week and that does a lot to help because I don’t have so many feelings about being useless and I can be optimistic about the people I’m going to meet when I start working. I’m going to be working in a major retail store, which is a new place for me as I’ve only worked in smaller stores and pizzerias before, and I’m pretty sure that it’s going to be a good fit as the pace will be more relaxed and I won’t be so stressed out.

I find that there’s an invisible wall between me and other people. I can interact with people I know or deal with at work, but when it comes to meeting someone new it just does not happen. I don’t know if people want me to talk to them because I can’t read them, I don’t know how to get going, it takes a lot of effort for me to approach someone, and I have some social anxiety as well that brings up the whole thing of they might not like me. Add in a developing distrust of people and some depression where I don’t feel worthy of people’s attention, and the glass wall that is already there gets thicker on some days.

I can’t even explain some of it unless you’ve felt it, because it just feels like I have to climb a hill before I can talk to new people.

The other thing that happens to me is that I sometimes don’t register someone I know because I don’t recognize their face, and then it’s like talking to a new person because I don’t think I know them.

The final part of this is my lack of assertiveness, where I assume other people want to be left alone.

I’ve been out of ideas on what to write about, as you can see in the way I haven’t been posting as much, so I figured I’d start keeping a log so that something would be here, and also so that I can list what happens during each day and prove to myself that positive stuff does happen, however much I seem to miss or discount it. Maybe this can give me some perspective.

The first thing that happened today was a call from a friend, who was at the local Future Shop and buying a laptop. He knew what laptop he wanted to get, but the sales people were trying to get him to buy services he didn’t need and didn’t know anything about the laptops they carried either, trying to pressure him into buying a more-expensive and less-capable laptop. (Anyone who knows anything about electronics isn’t working at an electronics store because they’re capable of doing more technical work such as programming, engineering, or computer repairs. The good computer repair people start their own shops because there’s more money in that then working for a chain.) Anyway. so he called me then had lunch as I was taking the bus to the mall to join him. He bought me a sub, then after we ate we went back to the store where I simply said no to all the stuff the sales guy was pushing. The sales guy didn’t really push anything on me, I guess my friend had told him my background and he knew he wasn’t going to win, and so there wasn’t much of a problem.

After that we ran a few errands then we unpacked the laptop and set it up, entering settings, removing all the junkware including MS Works and Norton Antivirus trial, then I set him up with AVG antivirus (which is free and offers free updates) and created the restore discs for him. It took me a good three hours, but he saved some money because Future Shop wanted $200 to do the same thing. Future Shop is always coming up with new ways to try and grab people money, and they lie to push these new services which are completely unnecessary. All new computers sold in stores come with complete and detailed instructions on how to setup and configure the computer.

After that, I decided to play some Rock Band but it was too noisy, so I had some supper and took the bus to the public library which was closed.

Good events:
1. Saved my friend some money by helping him navigate the minefield of commission sales and setting his computer up for free. (Major)
2. Got exercise of at least 2 kilometers walking, maybe 3 kilometers. (Minor)

Bad events:
1. Couldn’t play Rock Band. (Minor)
2. Library was closed. (Minor)

The balance of events today was positive, with one major positive event and no major negative events.