Tag: psychology

There is a Berlin Wall inside my brain for words

This was installed when I had my accident at 17 and they are very militant in not allowing words from one part of my brain to the other. I learn all the words of a language and retain them but they are not allowed to cross the divide between the conscious and unconscious minds.

My husband just made a joke in Greek which was quite funny. He was saying a bunch of stuff then he says vemata (steps) instead of psmeta (lies) excuse my spelling. So I’m thinking there not the same word and that’s not the word he means or even what he usually says. Then I get what it is he just said so the words are there, there just not allowed out of the fortress often.

I have to find my Reagan so he can say “Tear down this wall Mr Gorbachev!”

Best wishes

Angela

Ebooks vs real books vs audio books

This is an interesting conundrum as there are positives and negatives for all sides. I have addressed this previously in my books here on My author page. I have also written several articles about reading – Different types of Reading, The to be read pile etc. As it’s such an essential skill there is always more to examine so, today I’m going to delve into what happens when I read an ebook as opposed to the real version and add in a little about audiobooks too.

When I had a Kindle and started reading the e versions of books as it was too expensive for me to continually buy the real versions I noticed that I wasn’t enjoying them as much. I’m not one of those that particularly goes in for the smell of old books, the feel of the paper, the weight of the book or the cover design but the fact you can disconnect from the digital world is brilliant. This doesn’t happen if you have stopped working using a screen but progressed to reading using a screen. The book may be fiction and it may be an author or subject you really enjoy but the electric light interferes. Your not relaxed because the photons don’t allow that. You also can’t go to sleep reading an ebook as the light does the opposite in keeping you awake.

I used to think that the reasons I didn’t finish books was because of the style, subject matter, author but the format also has some input into my overall enjoyment. I read the paperback version of Organised Mind by Daniel Levitin. Or tried to read it as I should say because although it’s a very interesting book it was like trying to walk through a quagmire. I gave up. Then I come across the book on Blinkist. I read it very quickly as with all books on there because there designed like that. However, to me it didn’t feel like I was reading the same book at at all. It was summarised so it had all the salient details but as far as I know, by someone else. Therefore, to me, it doesn’t have any of the authors insight or stamp on it. It’s just a collection of words that teach you something, albeit better than the original, but bearing little resemblance to it. I’m really starting to dislike abridged versions of books.

I remember listening to a Jane Austen audiobook and it was enjoyable but since it was abridged it skipped out a lot. Sometimes when traveling my attention is diverted elsewhere so I lose the thread of the story and I found this happening frequently. I think I need all that extra information to keep my focus as it’s a bygone era.

I don’t like listening to audiobooks much as I have sensitive hearing that seems to be affecting me more than when I was younger. I could however just be noticing it more. I know alcohol dampens the senses but it’s not good to use that to cope with noisy situations. Anyways I find I pay less attention to an audiobook but it’s more relaxing that way as I can just switch off.

So in conclusion Real Books are best for absorbing information information, e books if you want a wide variety that doesn’t take up any space and audiobooks if you need a distraction from every day life.

Do you agree with my conclusion?

Best wishes

Angela

For the love of mathematics

My first love in life was maths. I was astonishly good at it. I had the kind of brain that just knew the answer to problems without even realising it. I was very much like Daniel Tamnet. He struggled enormously with his talent and the fact he wasn’t like anyone else. He also couldn’t connect with others. It was only later in life that he learnt that he was capable of more than just maths. He also is a celebrated linguist and has a phenomenal ability to explain how he does this seemingly unearthly talents.

While I no longer have such mathematical talents I am still very much interested in maths and physics problems. I’m just reduced to reading about others accomplishments as you will learn in the book, maths is a young persons game and by the time you reach your thirties your pretty much over the hill just like in sports. They have even proven that you are much more likely to win the noble prize when you are much younger due to the sheer output that is possible in your youth.

I don’t want to sound morbid because I still have many decades left in me I hope but I know that life can be cut short quite quickly as mine almost was 17 years ago. It’s almost like an anniversary. I don’t celebrate it but maybe I should. It reminds me that I was one way for so long and then in the blink of an eye I wasn’t. As an autistic that throws you the most extreme curve ball you can ever deal with. When you have reassess your whole life’s plan, reanalyse what you are now capable of but most crucially relearn basic human behaviour like walking, bowel control and sleeping through the night, is it any wonder that I have been lost for so long trying to rediscover myself?

I had barely found myself at 17 having led a very isolated and protected life. My mother worried excessively about my vulnerability to the point of making her obsessive about protecting me. This doesn’t help when your recovering from a near fatal car accident and she has to raise you all over again from not knowing what 2+2 is to the realisation that the reason you have sent your daughter to many hospital appointments is vindicated because she is autistic. Her differences with viewing the world finally make sense but now you have a new challenge as you don’t know the affects the car accident is going to have on her. Are you going to allow her the freedom to grow or are you going to increase your efforts to cocoon her from the harshness and realities of the world?

I spent the next year off school recovering and adjusting to my new way of being. I had done the SAT test immediately before my accident so that was a marker of my intelligence then but what was I now?

I never took the test again as far as I recall so we will never know but suffice to say I completed high school, did an Access course, a CISCO course in my spare time and got to university.

This is where the trouble begins because as well as losing my mathematical ability it seems I have also my ability to program. This is a big problem for a person who wants to be a computer scientist. Cue me exploring many other areas of interest while learning how to socialise, be a human and basically epically failing at my degree without me even realising. I passed in case your wondering.

For an autistic no longer having a sense of purpose is devastating. I had fulfilled all of the things (read my mother) had wanted for me. I had beat a accident that could have killed me, I had got a degree, I even had a partner with a house and his own business. What on earth was I going to do since I was clearly incapable of getting a job?

I’m still in the quandary of what do I do with my life and what am I capable of but I keep exploring new options. Life has never been simple or easy for me but hopefully I figure it out before it ends whenever that is.

Best wishes

Angela

Autism as a superpower

Greta Thunberg is fond of saying that her autism is her superpower and in a way that is true. It allows her to have the single mindedness that is needed to get the government to pay attention to climate change. It also allows her to continue on with her task regardless of the obstacles that are present or that are put into her path deliberately.

However this also blinds her to the fact that she was rather cruel to her mother making her stop singing opera because flights are bad for the planet. She is a bit like those hard core vegans that say cows are releasing methane into the atmosphere therefore we are no longer allowed to eat them since it’s too dangerous. South Park had an episode on this recently and I was stunned to find watching UFC that the impossible burger actually exists. I thought they made it up as a joke.

Autism can be regarded as your superpower but it’s extraordinarily fickle in its operation. You have to learn how to control it much like all the characters in Heroes or any other super hero oriented show has to. Before this is done it has more downsides than upsides. This is our eternal struggle. Autism is a gift but more often it’s treated as if you have an infectious disease that makes you incapable of anything.

We need not only autism awareness but autism acceptance. We didn’t make ourselves this way and we didn’t ask to be this way so we should not be penalised for something that we were born with. As Lady Gaga says “I was born this way!”

Best wishes

Angela

The difference between an early and late diagnosed autistic

I’m going to start by saying this is just my personal opinion based on what I have observed so far. I am a late diagnosed person on account of the fact that myself and my personality were quite developed by the time I got my diagnosis at 17. An early diagnosis I classify as you got it very early on in your life so you’ve always been autistic. There was never a time that you can remember being an undiagnosed autistic.

The reason I decided to make this distinction is that it shapes your personality. There is the debate about whether you are an autistic person or a person with autism. This is more than the simple language debate it would seem. I know a lot of people would think what is the difference but it’s there. It depends how much you think autism is a part of you and your life. Does your autism define you in the way that a footballer is sometimes only thought of a footballer and when they stop playing they have lost their identity? For me my autism is a big part of me as it’s always been present whether recognised or not but it’s not all that I am. I am interested in a great many things in this world. Yes I can be obsessive, literal and single minded but I can also be social, warm and affectionate.

I think my late diagnosis helped me as I learnt the habits that I need to survive. I don’t have the strange eating habits of only eating chicken and chips or other similarly limited diets. I may say inappropriate things occasionally but I’m generally polite. I’m a fairly well rounded person who luckily escaped something much more debilitating like Down’s syndrome or Tourette’s but even here people are making strides towards acceptance. They are being welcomed into the community.

I think an early diagnosis is akin to helping a butterfly out of its chrysalis. You damage it in ways it can’t know until later on. I was hurt by others and by not knowing myself but now I think I’m being reborn like the butterfly and I’m flying free due to having gained the strength from my earlier struggles. One of the things my mother always said to me was “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I’m not quite sure whether she was joking, being sarcastic or truly meant it as it differed when she said it but it’s true. Also “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” Or “Cry and you cry alone, laugh and the whole world laughs with you.” These were epithets delivered on how to make friends and the mood you should be in to attract other people.

People are what make life more interesting but you have to be in the right place to be able to accept them into your life. If you have more drama and issues stored inside of you than the average soap opera; your not going to be in a fit state to be anybody’s friend. It is up to you to make the most of your life as you only get one. Your not a cat I’m afraid.

Best wishes

Angela

How to evolve work to benefit autistics

I read Digital Darwinism this morning on Blinkist and it spoke about changing businesses to account for the internet in the way we did for first electricity and then secondly computers. These have become integral parts of our lives but it took some time to accept them in roles that were more than just bolt-on additions. We need to do this with our workforce’s. We need to utilise location independence and free ourselves from the restricting 9-5 m-f culture. This is another barrier that can be removed with some innovative thinking. It mentions the perils that come from not adapting but also the successes that can come from revolutionising employment. For more information about different work practices read or listen to on Audible Cal Newport’s various books or Scott H Young for inspiration.

We need to evolve work so that it benefits autistic people.

  • Autistic people are kind, caring, idealistic and often put the needs of others before themselves.
  • This means that they will help others often to the detriment of themselves in the workplace.
  • They will also not promote themselves so they won’t get the due rewards that comes from their achievements.
  • They are also extremely empathetic to the point that your unresolved issues will cause them emotional distress.
  • This means that we don’t fare well in the closeted atmosphere of the typical office. We are not to be found gossiping around the water cooler and certainly not about what happened last night on Love Island etc.

It is shocking that only 1 in 6 autistics are in work. Not having work is a major contributor to depression. This is highly prevalent in the autism community. Anxiety is another factor that ranks highly and is caused by uncertainty. Not knowing what your going to do in your life or how your going to survive from one day to the next makes you ill. A lot of autistics feel suicidal as it affects them that much.Monique Botha

We have difficulty blocking out the trauma of the world yet to the average person everyday life isn’t traumatic. We can’t desensitise like you do. We are present in life much more than you. We are worrying about the bigger issues of the world like Greta Thunberg for instance. We are not often motivated by money or material possessions. We are striving for self actualisation.

There are reasons we like gardening (Alan Gardner), animals (Temple Grandin) or computer science (majority of Silicon Valley). These are all unemotional things in terms of human emotions. This is what disables us so we are unable to communicate. We are have a lot to offer we just have to be given an environment in which to do so.

My personal experience

I tried to become a part of the workforce but I’m too stubborn and resistant to allow myself to enter something so completely alien to me. When I went for interviews I never sold myself as I didn’t really want the jobs. I just felt I had to go through the motions and somehow I would earn a living. It always felt completely inauthentic. Even the clothing was distasteful to me!

I would like to work but I’ve never found anywhere that was comfortable for me because the energy present was toxic. I am a person that will walk into somewhere and if it’s too noisy I will walk straight back out again. I have done on several occasions. The people I have been with are sometimes ok with this and sometimes not. I have never found social environments inviting because of this unsettling behaviour. Since all workplaces have people they can be classed like that.

I have also never understood the way the average person keeps going into work even though they hate it. It completely drains them so they live for the holidays or the weekend. They numb themselves with alcohol and moan to their colleagues yet do nothing to improve their situation. When such things are classed as normality is it any wonder I have stayed far away from that.

Best wishes

Angela

Sociolinguistics or the use of context appropriate language

This is a field within the study of language that concentrates on how language use differs between social classes. This is very important for social development as how you communicate with your peers often vastly differs from how you would say the same phrases to an authority figure (police etc).

There is a method of communication called the restricted code that is used by children as it’s extra verbal. By this I mean that it is focused on things other than speaking. Touch and facial expression are the main means of expressing what you want to say. This also means there is little room for individual expression. This can be very problematic for the autistic child as they don’t like to be touched and have trouble understanding facial expressions. They also like to express there individuality. So immediately the neuro diverse child is at odds with the neuro typical child. The neuro diverse child understands their way of thinking. However the neuro typical way which is dominant and therefore more prevalent; makes no sense to them. Since the majority of people are neuro typical; in order for the neuro diverse child to get along they have to understand a way of thinking that is completely alien to themselves . The neuro typical child never needs to make any effort to try to understand the neuro diverse child though because there in a minority here.

So a neuro diverse child is disadvantaged and when they get older things get more difficult because the communication rules change again. We start to use the elaborated code with the increasing amount of time that we spend outside of the family and talking to adults. We still don’t understand our peers. The elaborated code has a focus on verbal language which can explain an autistics odd language. There language skills have been honed in isolation and they respect the formality of their native language. They are often to be found talking in a standard dialect. Their peers on the other hand talk in a non standard dialect. This is even more obvious if you come from a lower class background or move to one later on as there is much more deviation present.

It is only much later when the neuro diverse person has grown up that they can replicate neuro typical behaviour like it’s there own. This is very time and energy consuming for the neuro diverse individual. It is also known as masking when an autistic pretends to others that they are something they are not.

We never make neurotypicals act in a neuro diverse way so why do the neuro diverse have to act in a neuro typical way always?

Angela

A simple Russian comprehension with related activities

www.youtube.com/watch

If you wish to watch and listen to the worlds most expressive Russian check out the above video. It’s a simple story with questions afterwards. There are subtitles to help you out as well as pictures and his actions.

Best wishes

Angela

How to adjust your language learning strategy to make sure your always learning

www.youtube.com/watch

This is a very informative video that I came across on YouTube about how to progress through the different learning levels. Turn the subtitles on because he is Russian but he speaks using the words that are closest to English. He makes more sense than most Russians but that might also be because he is talking about something I’m very interested in.

Best wishes

Angela

Prioritisation of Money

Don’t be afraid to spend money on items that will benefit your life.

As a child I never really wanted anything but I was heavily controlled on what I could spend my money on. I usually bought collectibles when I got the chance which was the reasoning behind the lack of access to money. There is always more things to get as part of a set so the temptation never ended. I know this sounds contradictory but having money meant you could spend it yet with so many options what do you spend it on? Do you save it to get something more expensive in the future? If you were like me it just stayed were it was as you were not interested in anything. This doesn’t teach you the value of money as you need to make mistakes by getting the wrong things which I did much later. All you know with the method I employed is that your totally uninterested in the material world.

This in itself is a much better mindset than any you could cultivate as an adult. However I’m now so adverse to spending money that I will go to extraordinary lengths to get something for free. Even if I know it’s really good and something that I really want. Hence I looked for and read The Power of Now online for free. I have also listened to the Little Prince for free on YouTube. Another book that has been very useful is Ultra Learning that I listened to on Audible and read as part of my mailing list. These are titles that have benefited me greatly so far but because I tend to only read books once I’m reluctant to purchase more dead weight as it could be termed.

Nowadays I have more money than when I was a child but not enough to cover the needs and wants of an adult. Since I’m hopeless at earning money I have had to cut back severely on what I do spend my money on. I have always enjoyed spending time on my own and entertaining myself with various Introvert activities yet this doesn’t complete a person. Needing to socialise on a regular basis is expensive so this further increases the time I have to spend indoors to account for this. Being an adult is demanding in many ways yet I’m still stuck one foot in childhood as that’s what Autism is. The gap between your chronological self and autistic self ever increasing as you age.

As an effort to assuage this problem I am offering my first fictional book A life of Halcyon Days for free for the weekend as well my first language learning book How I learnt Greek. Please write a review if you enjoyed reading them.

Best wishes

Angela