Legwork and Life, week of 5/9/18

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
Last week wasn\’t as easy as I\’d hoped it would be.   But gotta take the bad with the good, I guess.  And there was a decent amount of good. 

So Chris\’ birthday happened.  I tried to make it a good day for him, and we went out to eat.  Normally he\’d\’ve had to cook on that day, but he doesn\’t like cooking.  So the obvious solution was a meal out.  We ended up a Chinese place that\’s nearby.  They\’re a bit more pricey than usual, and their vegetarian offerings leave much to be desired, but it made him happy, and that\’s what matters. 

Other offerings in tribute of his birthday included ignoring chores this month (and that week), doing all the driving to various places, trying not to complain to him about things that day, and a trio of different-flavored fancy cupcakes instead of a birthday cake.  He seemed to enjoy the various things, so mission accomplished, I guess.  Some of my family also sent their best, and my parents and my grandmother both kindly took us out to eat in celebration of his birthday.  That was fun, as I liked the company and the food at both places.

The only trouble is that the present I got him was deemed \”permanently lost\” by the mail service, so the company that made it is having to resend it.  It now won\’t arrive \’til the middle of the month- about another week.  I think I might be more bummed out about it than he is.  It bothered me the entire day and still bothers me now.  I did the best I could, though, and that\’s all you can really do. 

Speaking of doing the best I could, the LGBT and the Church event went pretty well.  The head sound guy made setting up the microphones and such very easy, which was extremely thoughtful and gracious of him.  I still managed to stress through the entire event, though…  Go go gadget anxiety disorder. 

The event was a bit more on a hopeful note than I\’d been expecting, which I think is probably a pointed philosophical choice on the organization\’s part.  While there are plenty of people in the CRC that could really use a good browbeating on the subject, most people won\’t sit through the browbeating happily.  Even if it\’s a badly needed educational browbeating. 

Anyway, the stories were all hopeful ones, at least in some ways.  Some of them were sad, along with the hope, but each of the kids is making the best of their lives.  I was particularly impressed by the last panelist, a remarkably energetic, optimistic girl named Sam.  I guess she was on NPR\’s Morning Edition, which she was really jazzed about. 

But I guess more importantly to me, she spoke about how her parents just… utterly rejected her identity (\”queer\” and bisexual), but rather than dwelling on how much that has to have hurt, she chose to speak about how much she loves them and admires them.  Without compromising her acceptance of herself and others like her.  She said, and I quote, \”My parents are the best.  I love them so much.\”  She expressed that sentiment repeatedly, even as she related how both her parents are pastors, and firmly believe that she is doing the wrong thing with her life.  Sam regularly attends Bible study and supports other LGBTQ+ Christians in their faith. 

Personally?  I wonder how long her parents\’ dry theology will stand against their daughter\’s vivid,  devout Christian life. 

This branch of Christianity, the Christian Reformed Church, has a very bad habit of sticking its nose in the Bible and ignoring the people involved, and the world around it.  I have repeatedly compared them to the Pharisees in the Bible, and I think it\’s a very apt comparison.  They\’re so concerned with getting their theology right, that they ignore the very basics of God\’s charge to his followers:  love God, love your neighbor.  

Pointing to passages in the Bible and telling people that these things make them second class citizens, or somehow unworthy (or hell-bound, or whatever), is not at all loving your neighbor.  It is a most basic version of \”us versus them,\” the shunning of the outsider.  It is not love to judge a person\’s merit on one facet of their personality, or insist they live stunted lives because of how God made them. 

But currently the blind lead the blind over there in the ruling body of this branch of the church, and I roll my eyes at all of them.  Hopefully the day will come soon when the bright light of truth pierces the darkness of their hostility and alienation, and the church will open its arms fully and honestly to the beautiful image-bearers of Christ who fall under the name \”LGBTQ+.\”

Lastly this week, and very much closer to home, there was a minor power outage in my area on Monday.  I returned home after exercise and lunch, and began work on my various things (including starting a book I\’ve literally stared at in dread for the better part of a month…).  I had the window open to let in fresh air, and suddenly there was a \”POW\” outside.  Immediately, my lamp flickered and died.  Nothing happened after that for about 20 minutes, after which I got annoyed, got my bike from the garage, and went for a ride outside. 

It was good exercise, but it also reminded me that I\’m hilariously out of shape and that I should have invested in a more sedentary-friendly bike seat.  Also, my bike trail got cut short because of construction.  Boo.  Still, hopefully I\’ll be able to do this again, more successfully, in the future.  Preferably minus the power outage, which thankfully ended a couple hours after it began.

Reading the Research: Accepting Unfairness

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 stuck out at me for various reasons, not the least of which includes that I was bullied as a child.  But more because it made me chuckle sadly, I imagine.  They played a pair of trading games with children.  The games were one-on-one, a puppet and one child.  Some of the children were autistic, some weren\’t, and so they compared the results of the games.  While both autistic and NT children showed a willingness to share equally and didn\’t prioritize self-interest, the autistic children were three times as likely to accept unfair offers, and less likely to reciprocate (give as they got) a fair trade after one was offered.

The researchers suggested the differences were due to \”deficits in social and cognitive development,\” and suggested improvements in anti-bullying programs and interventions, including teaching things like reciprocity and fairness of exchange pointedly.

While this isn\’t… exactly… a bad plan…  It kind of misses the obvious reason this is a thing.

I don\’t know how to put this tactfully, so: YOUR ENTIRE WORLD IS UNFAIR TO AUTISTIC PEOPLE. 

Seriously.  While everyone else gets to (mostly) be themselves, with minimal guidance, we\’re expected to change and change and change until we don\’t \”look autistic.\”  No hand-flapping, no spinning, no repeating comforting phrases aloud, no being directly honest rather than misleading (because white lies are expected!), no giving your direct opinion on something instead of moderating your response based on what everyone else thinks…

Never mind the sensory and digestive issues, which most NT people don\’t recognize as legitimate, let alone accommodate for.  So bring your earplugs, your sunglasses, your support device, and your special diet foods, because you can darned well bet nobody\’s going to care that it\’s too loud, too bright, too hectic, and there\’s nothing for you to eat.  Fair?  Hell no. 

We are trained not to be ourselves, for the sake of everyone around us.   For the sake of seeming \”normal.\”  Does that strike you as fair?  It certainly doesn\’t to me.  But we\’re told to accept it and \”get with the program\” already.  What we want doesn\’t matter.  That\’s ingrained into us.

And these adorably blind researchers have the gall to think it\’s because our brains don\’t always develop at the same rate as NT children.

No.  I\’m sure that factor doesn\’t help.  But no, that isn\’t it.  It\’s that our entire world is already unfair. The study chose autistic people at an average range of 9 years old.  They\’re definitely old enough to know how this works.  Why should some weird game with stickers and a puppet be any different to them?  If every day you were subjected to systemic unfairness, you\’d be more likely to not care about fairness in a few stickers in a weird game, too. 

Ultimately, the researchers\’ suggestions won\’t hurt.  Telling autistic people how reciprocity works, directly, is a good plan, and teaching how to recognize fair trades probably won\’t hurt, if they don\’t already know.  But honestly, if you really want bullying rates to go down… teach your freakin\’ kids that autism just makes some kids different, and that\’s okay.  When bullies come a\’calling, some of  those children accustomed to autistic kids will say, \”hey, no, not okay, they\’re just different and we like them that way.\”  End result: less bullying, and a less unfair world. 

Book Review: 50 More Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
50 More Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food, by Susan Albers, PsyD, is a pretty self-explanatory set of 50 short essays, each with a different way to practice self-care without resorting to eating junk food.  It\’s the second of two books, the other being of nearly the same name, minus the \”More.\”  The book begins with a 40 page section about the stress eating cycle that the author so often sees in her clients, and then hops right into the essays.

The topical essays aren\’t disparate \”try this!\” ideas as I feared, they\’re organized by general subject.  So the broader subjects of mindfulness, meditation, yoga, expressive art therapy, and sensory therapies each have a collection of ideas within them. So there are, for example, several kinds of meditation you can try. 

I had no idea there were so many different kinds of meditation!  Chanting meditation, which is often parodied in media with robed, skinny monks sitting in funny postures, intoning \”Ommmm…\”  (You may chant something else, but apparently one ancient culture insists \”Oum\” is the word of creation.)  There\’s a kind of meditation where you try to empty your mind and still your thoughts.  There\’s meditation with prayer beads of some variety.  A mantra-based meditation, where you focus on a phrase and try to internalize it.  And a more recent arrival, self-compassion meditation.  I thought it was so cool that there were so many ways to do an ancient practice like meditation. 

I was amused to look through this book, especially the last couple sections, and recognize that some of these techniques the book is teaching you are stimming.  There\’s a type of rhythmic finger tapping they teach you how to do.  The roots of this are in a ancient China, but c\’mon.  Tapping your fingers on yourself is obviously stimming.  Only, it\’s acceptable, because \”Ancient Chinese meditative practice.\” 

Same goes for many of the sensory therapies, like aromatherapy.  Using something that smells nice to perk you up, or remind you of better times?  Please.  I hear that exact same strategy spoken about by other autistic adults.  They use it as a coping strategy to endure the trials of being neurodiverse in a world that doesn\’t want us around. 

I particularly got a kick out of the entry on soothing your senses, which included touching soft and smooth fabrics, darkening a room, and taking off any restrictive clothing (such as shoes).  Could this seriously be any more obvious? 

Naturally, the whole book wasn\’t a primer on \”Things Autistic People Do To Cope,\” but so much of it was that I spent the latter half of the book being amused rather than learning anything. 

On a more personal note, I found this book instructive but it didn\’t personally describe my particular comfort food tendencies, which disheartened me considerably for the first half of the book.  The first 40 pages or so describe a particular eating stress cycle that some people get locked into.  Basically, a person experiences stress, which makes them want comfort.  They then eat something, feel better temporarily, then feel worse and guilty about eating whatever it was.  This leads directly back to stress, and the whole thing repeats. 

That is not how food and I work.  The book makes much noise about the comfort and positive feelings of eating food only last a few seconds.  That may be true for some people, but it is not true for me.  As I was struggling through this book, I examined how I ate comfort foods and whether I did in fact only enjoy them for a short time.  And whether I then descended into guilt afterwards. 

The answer was no, I enjoyed them the entire time I was eating them, and did not descend into guilt afterwards.  My sources of stress are mainly not food related, and though I do indulge in comfort-eating, I\’m pretty mindful about it.  If anything, this book, with its suggestion to eat mindfully, simply increased how much comfort and pleasure I derive from eating said comfort foods. 

Maybe this, like other aspects of my life, is simply a thing I process and deal with differently due to being autistic.  Or maybe I simply haven\’t had time to get into the complete cycle as described in the book.  Either way, I read the first section of the book with increasing frustration and annoyance. 

That said, the information in this book is neither invalid due to that, nor useless.  It\’s cheaper on the wallet to engage in meditation than it is to make pancakes or a mug cake, or to put on some music with your computer or phone, or even to drink a cup of tea.  And really, less effort to do any of those things rather than cook.  So yeah, this is still very good information.  I just had a hard time recognizing that as I read the book, due to the \”this is you, isn\’t it!\” tone in the first section, and its incorrectness. 

Read This Book If

You struggle with comfort eating, or even, like myself, use comfort eating as a stress management tool.  Autistic people, parents, special ed teachers, whoever: today\’s modern society has an excessive amount of stress, and the body can only handle so much of it before it starts performing sub-optimally.  It doesn\’t hurt to add other stress management tools to your toolbox, especially when some of them don\’t touch your wallet and some of them are so inexpensive they might as well be free.  There are ones that aren\’t (yoga or tai chi classes), but those are likely worth the price, too, if the effects are as they were described.  As for me, I didn\’t have high hopes for a book that\’s obviously the sequel to a previous book of the same name… so I\’m now curious as to what ideas are in the first book.

Legwork and Life, week of 5/2/18

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
I seem to be starting the week well, which is good, because I could really use an easy week or two.   That isn\’t to say there won\’t be challenging things this week, but with a low-stress enough start to my week, I might be able to handle them a lot easier than I would\’ve otherwise.

This week contains my spouse\’s birthday, for starters.  I have a couple things planned, but he\’s not really one for big celebrations with tons of people.  Unfortunately, to my great and abiding discomfort, the present I got him is late… and neither shipping company wants to claim responsibility, or even possession.  So that\’s frustrating.  He\’s a good sport and has said he doesn\’t mind too much, but in a similar situation I would be kind of annoyed, so… 

Another unusual event this week is that I\’m running a sound board for an event that isn\’t a worship service at church.  And not just running the board… I might well be setting up the microphones and such, too.  I am… rather nervous thinking about it.  I\’ve never actually set up microphones before.  I know how they turn on, and know somewhat how to set up the wireless ones.  But not really how to plug in and set up the microphone stands.  The event is important to me, though, so I\’m not going to back out.

Specifically, the event is a panel regarding LGBTQ+ people and the church.  The ruling body of the major Protestant faction in this area, the Christian Reformed Church, has mostly leaned on the side of \”ignore them and shun them and maybe they\’ll go away\” rather than overtly telling gay people that they\’re going to go to hell.  Still, that\’s very damaging to children, and the friends of those children.  So this panel is a group of five LGBTQ+ teenagers, who will be sharing their experiences in the local church, and at the local Christian college.

People who\’ve read this blog for a long time will already know I have Opinions about the subject of gay rights and how we tend to treat people.  I don\’t particularly expect to be all that happy after this event, but it\’s best to understand the current situation of things from people who live it.  Which I suppose I don\’t need to tell you, since you\’re reading this blog, presumably to understand autism and related issues. 

Lastly, related to the Legwork portion of this blog… I had an idea for solving my \”what should I read and review next?\” problem.  There are a couple publishing companies I\’m aware of that publish books specifically related to autism.  And from what my author friends tell me, reviews are really hard to come by.  So, I might offer those publishing companies a deal: they send me copies of books, and I\’ll review them and post a bit of the review on Amazon.  I try to give every book I choose to review a fair chance, even if it\’s not terribly useful to someone like me.  So it could work out really well.  I might never again need to worry about where I\’m going to find a book to review.

But first, I need to clean up my blog a bit.  My book reviews need to be tagged as such, and possibly given other tags, such as \”for parents\” or \”for autistic people\” or \”for teachers.\”  I have about 400 blog entries, so this is a somewhat daunting task.  But hopefully I\’ll be able to work up the energy to tackle the job.