Legwork and Life, week of 2/7/18

Posted on by Realistic Autistic

House Hunting

The closing was finally scheduled, and there seems to be no further complications as of yet… save that the closing was scheduled at an office that\’s over an hour away from where any of us live.  So Chris is going to have to take the morning off, so we can drive two hours in a day, just to sign some paperwork in person.  This seems completely absurd to me.  I live near a city, and the closest place is toward the rural side of the state, away from my city, the capital, and most forms of civilization?  Ridiculous.
Needless to say, I\’m not looking forward to the trip, but it would, I suppose, be the last wrinkle with having to deal with the bank and such.  There\’s still the \”we need to hire a moving company for the heaviest stuff\” and the actual moving process, which I don\’t expect to be any fun, but at least that\’ll be more familiar than this is…

Runaway Tooth Story

This previous weekend was kind of horrid, in large part because I effectively lost part of a tooth down the sink…  
To be precise, I lost a crown off my lower back molar.  I have genetically weak teeth, and on top of that, brushing my teeth is a hideous experience, so when I lived in a place without fluoride in the water for a few years, the rot-fairy came calling, and dental-related suffering ensued through high school and college.  This crown was one such result.  I have since improved in my ability to tolerate taking care of my teeth, and added an electric toothbrush to my cleaning routine, but that won\’t make the crown go away, naturally.
Apparently, flossing will make it go away, though!  Or at least go flying.  I was flossing my back teeth when it popped out and bounced around the sink.  I lost sight of it, and promptly assumed it had gone down the drain, since that\’s where I\’d last seen it.  Needless to say, I was upset…  So I woke my poor spouse, who had been sleeping quite peacefully, and we went to get a specialty wrench to take the sink apart so we could locate the silly crown.  
It turns out that it\’s not that hard to take apart a sink, but the parts you don\’t normally look at can get really revolting in very short order.  We\’d only been living in this place for less than 4 years, and there was hair and a soil-y substance and rot… It was disgusting.  After cleaning out the pipe and sink parts, we couldn\’t find my crown, either… so I got started on cleaning up the bathroom after all that… and found the stupid crown in the overflow sink catch, mostly clean.  
We\’d bought some temporary dental adhesive while we were out for the wrench, so after I scrubbed the crown, washed it off, and disinfected it, I was able to put it back in… crookedly.  It took me an hour or so to realize I\’d messed up, but when I tried to get it back out, I couldn\’t.  Which is how we ended up buying me saltwater taffy to try to dislodge it…  
Turns out, for anyone curious, saltwater taffy is stickiest when it\’s just out of the wrapper.  So you pop it into your mouth directly onto the spot you\’re trying to get stuck, then moosh your mouth shut and then open.  I\’ve never tried to purposely lose a tooth or something like that before, but if you ever need to, this is one way how.
I got it back out again, cleaned the glue out of it, and reapplied more glue, this time making sure I put it in right.  I definitely put too much glue in, because the crown was too high when I was done, but Monday afternoon, when the dentist was able to see me, he complimented my work, saying it was the best he\’d ever seen, and that maybe I should consider a job in dentistry.  I assume he was kidding, but I wisely didn\’t tell him that I\’d be miserable doing his job…  
So anyway, I got the tooth fixed on Monday, and after a few hours of suffering, my mouth seems to be back to normal.  Found out two things, though.  First, my dentist office has new lights, which do such a good job curing the glue that they also \”cook\” the gums if the users aren\’t careful.  So I\’ve been introduced to a new form of pain.  I didn\’t really register it as heat, but it was definitely painful.  
The second is that the temporary dental adhesive is full of gross crap, and I felt like garbage after ingesting some of it.  I checked the package for the ingredients afterwards… two forms of aluminum and petroleum jelly, along with various other things.  The ill effects lasted several hours, and made me wonder whether I was poisoning myself on accident…   I seem to be more or less okay now, though, so maybe I haven\’t damaged myself permanently.  
I am, however, planning on buying a big container of Draino (drain clog cleaner) and pouring it down the bathroom sink, possibly while chanting something suitable for exorcising demons.  I wasn\’t expecting such a horrifying mess inside my nice, clean-looking sink, and the revealed truth has made me rather ill.  Death by harsh chemicals seems like a fitting consequence for my trauma.  
Next week we\’ll close on the house, and after that, start planning to bid this apartment good riddance!

Reading the Research: Diagnosing Autism via Movement

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.

Today\’s article suggests an alternative form of diagnosis for autism, from a rather unusual angle: movement.  Using high speed sensors, the scientists examined 70 volunteers as they touched objects on a screen.  It turned out that participants who had autism diagnoses exhibited a greater amount of fluctuations in speed when reaching to the screen, to the point where the movement score was predictive of the diagnosis, and vice versa, right down to the more heavily affected autistic (\”lower-functioning\”) people having the most extreme scores.  This is the second study of this kind this team has done, according to the article, and the previous study also had promising results.

For the confused, these results kind of make sense in the \”autism is a brain difference\” way of looking at things.  If your brain areas are connected in unusual ways, your movements are going to be more uncoordinated and possibly less controlled than someone whose brain is more normally-developing.  In basic areas of functioning, this may not matter.  For example, I can fold origami, and did so quite a bit in preparation for my wedding.  I can cook with sharp knives, without chopping off my fingers (though admittedly I am VERY careful with knives I know are sharp).  I can move myself up and down sets of stairs and through hallways without bashing my elbows on things (usually…).

But growing up, I was fairly uncoordinated when it came to gym class, which did not endear me to my peers when everyone was focused on winning.  And, truth be told, it took me a lot of tries to learn how to fold origami, and to make chainmail jewelry.  More, I think, than most people would need, if the people I\’ve taught are any indication.  I feel like, as a rule, I tend to take greater care with my fine motor movements (like folding origami, chopping vegetables, pushing buttons) than most people do.  If that\’s true, and this study is accurate, that might explain a lot.  My extra care in these movements would just be one more remediation of a weakness that autism has given me.

On a different note, it\’s been noted in various medically-minded textbooks that unusual walking patterns (gait) or clumsiness in movements is often found in autistic people.  I can\’t say for sure how diagnostic such a thing is, but I do know I walk oddly, with my steps being too long.  If I\’m doing very poorly that day, I tend to \”clunk\” or become less graceful, too.  It\’s like I no longer have the energy to expend trying to walk gracefully

Then, too, I don\’t know about you, but I have known people I could identify by how they walked.  A certain amount of leaning forward, a way of lurching to one side, a jerkiness to the steps, perhaps.  This sort of thing is gross (major) body movement, rather than the fine (and almost imperceptible) movement these scientists were testing for… but if I can notice such a thing, then perhaps this same concept does scale all the way down to the fine motor movements. It\’s a promising, and possibly very fruitful, line of inquiry. 

I\’d be curious to know whether the scoring system they\’re using for this study had any interesting results with other populations, like depressed people, intellectual disabilities, or ADHD.  Any tests that would result from something like this would be a great deal less subjective than current assessments for autism.  Because we don\’t really know what causes autism, there are no blood tests, genetic screenings, or any other form of objective medical test.  Something like this, if it can be replicated and the results hold true, could be a very quick, objective measure of whether a person is autistic.  That would save a bundle of money in short order, as it is currently very expensive to test for autism.  It requires a well-trained professional, specific expensive tests, and the time to administer them.  Something like this would require only a high speed camera and a computer program.

Book Review: The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
(Note: obvious title is obvious- this post will not be \”family-friendly\” or safe for work.  It is, however, a very important subject and a part of being human, so it needs to be addressed.)

The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability: For All of Us Who Live with Disabilities, Chronic Pain, and Illness, by Miriam Kaufman, Cory Silverberg, and Fran Odette is a reference volume of over 300 pages.  It contains an entire education\’s worth of sex ed, from myths (chapter 1) to philosophy (chapters 1, 2, 3, and 10), to anatomy and how-tos (chapters 5-9), to safe sex and identifying sexual violence (chapters 4, 12, and 13).  Each chapter is accompanied by quotes from various people with disabilities talking about their experiences.  I don\’t think I\’ve ever come across such a complete, thoughtful, positive treatment of the subject, particularly when it comes to people with disabilities.  Needless to say, I hope, I consider this book a fantastic resource for any person, especially given the rather lacking sex ed courses I myself went through. 

Please note that this book is written in broad brush strokes, in hopes of being useful to as many kinds of people with disabilities as possible.  It is not, therefore, autism-specific, though at least one of the quotes from people with disabilities was autistic.  Several chapters include sections of specific things to keep in mind for physical disabilities, or chronic fatigue, or other impairments.  There\’s less emphasis on mental and emotional disabilities or differences.  But, admittedly, it\’s harder to make broad recommendations for such a diverse group.  They do, at least, have a paragraph here and there about hypersensitivity to touch, which is often applicable to autistic people.

Something important to mention before I go much further, is that one of the first myths this book dispels is the \”people with disabilities and chronic illnesses are not sexual\” myth.  I have never personally suffered from this myth, but I\’ve always \”seemed\” normal, so that\’s probably why.  I do think the authors are right on target with this, though, that people in wheelchairs or who have other obvious disabilities are assumed to be like children, despite having the brains, temperaments, bodies, and libidos of an adult.  This myth is obviously ridiculous when you look at it too hard, but I don\’t think most people do, because sex is assumed to be only for the young, healthy, and beautiful in US culture.  Never mind that the human species would have died out if that was actually the case…

For me, one of the most important chapters in the book was Chapter 4, which is on communication.  I married my spouse last year, and we have since done some exploration into our sexualities now that it\’s socially acceptable to do so…  but a major hindrance has been my difficulty talking or thinking about the matter.  Society, especially the church, has preached loudly and clearly that sex should be considered a shameful thing that you\’re only allowed to do once you get married, and that solo sex (masturbation) is unacceptable.  Nobody wants to talk about it.  Sex ed is perfunctionary at best.  So most of what I\’ve learned on the subject, I\’ve been learning in my 20s.

This book could change all that.  Because, like anything else in a relationship, communication is key.  You need to be able to tell your partner what you like and what you want, and your partner needs to be able to tell you those things, too.  That\’s difficult for me, between my social conditioning, my sensory issues, and the fact that I become nonverbal when I\’m sufficiently involved with sex things.  The end result has been a lot of frustration, overall.  This book has suggestions for that, though.  You can establish hand signals to indicate things like \”Yes, this is good,\” \”no, this isn\’t good,\” \”do more of this,\” and \”stop.\”

Another notable positive point about this book is that it is relatively LGBTQIA+ friendly.  While the book doesn\’t go out of its way to make a big deal about it, people of all kinds are represented in the quotations.  The book does simply refer to people who have vaginas as \”women\” and people who have penises as \”men,\” but I think it probably does that for simplicity\’s sake, rather than any particular transphobic-ness.

The last thing I found interesting about this book is that it had a number of sections talking about how to deal with being a sexual person while institutionalized, or having attendants or support staff around a lot.  As a whole, the disability community is trying to move away from institutions, but they\’ll probably remain a (horrifying) thing for a while longer.  So the tips and suggestions in this book are very valuable for frustrated, dehumanized adults in institutions.

Before anyone gets too horrified about all this positivity and talking about sex, please do keep in mind that one of the reasons sexual abuse is such a powerful form of abuse is because no one wants to talk about it or hear about it.  This is particular true for disabled people, who are assumed to not be sexual, desirable, or competent in any fashion.  Look up the statistics for sexual abuse against disabled people, look me in the eye and tell me that isn\’t a problem.  The solution isn\’t hushing up the matter, it\’s making it safer to talk about, so everyone can be safer about sex, more educated about themselves and other people, and make better decisions.

But this book does go into the necessary precautions and safety tips for having a safe sex life: everything from abusers and allergies to STDs and birth control.  I was a bit disappointed that their birth control section really only covered condoms and female condoms, and there are over a dozen different options, with more being researched.  But admittedly, adding hormones to a person\’s already shaky biology can be a really bad plan, and a lot of the current birth control options are hormone-based.  Additionally, many of these options aren\’t very disability-friendly.  For people with physical disabilities, even condoms aren\’t all that accessible, with the exception of one brand of polyurethane condoms that they highlight (and I couldn\’t find online, sadly).

Read This Book If

You\’re a parent of a child with a disability, or a person with a disability.  Or heck, a person who might be open-minded enough to date someone with a disability.  This book is chocked full of excellent, sex-positive thoughts, suggestions, educational materials, and even guided exercises.  It combats the detrimental philosophies about disabled people, self-esteem, and sex, in a very enlightened, reasonable, and thoughtful way, while providing the information needed to be safe about this very important subject.  If you\’re a parent, this is all the stuff to teach your kids as they become old enough/developed enough to have a sex drive and manage themselves.  If you\’re a person with a disability, or dating someone with a disability, this book has great, thoughtful tips about ways to improve communication and sex, and even ways to try new things.  Don\’t miss this book.  I\’ll be adding it to my bookshelf. 

Worth Your Read: Choosing Supports While Keeping Autonomy

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
I\’m not sure how often this will happen, but as I get more tied into the disability and autism community, I occasionally run into articles that I don\’t have a lot to say on, but I do think are very worth your time. 

This particular article is most relevant for parents and more heavily affected autistic people, as it\’s one autistic person\’s guide to sorting out support services by whether they give a crap about a basic human right: autonomy. Whether you\’re neurotypical or heavily-affected with many difficulties and disabilities, all people need some control over their lives. 

Disabled people are often assumed to be like children in that even with adult bodies, brains, and sex drives, they\’re expected to give up control of their lives and do whatever they\’re told, irrespective of their interests, ideas, hopes, and dreams.  This is cruel and thoughtless, and one of the reasons mental institutions tend to be evil relics of the past.  Even if the person isn\’t capable of managing their affairs entirely, it\’s imperative to keep as much control of their lives in their hands as possible.  Otherwise, psychology is quite clear about what happens to people (autistic or neurotypical) without control over their lives: we get fearful, depressed, miserable, angry, and even violent.  This is not what you want for yourself or your child, if you care at all about their happiness.

So, all that said, the guide, from Thinking Person\’s Guide to Autism.