The Shoals of Neurodiversity
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Bite Marks
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Christmas Eve, Germany, 1999
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Some words about Kurt Cobain
I've had today marked on my calendar for a while. 20 years ago I had a moment of clarity.
I wasn't much of a Nirvana fan at the time. They were just another part of the fabric of the zeitgeist. I liked their songs, but I was also frightened of them. The darkness and fear and feelings of isolation and misunderstanding that so many of the songs carried with them were too similar to things going on in my inscape over those couple years. I graduated high school, gained and lost a National Merit Scholarship, and ended up hiding at my parents house and going to community college while a well-meaning psychologist tried to help me out with problems that weren't yet clearly categorized in the DSM yet.
I kind of got where Kurt was coming from, and it terrified me. I also had a serious aversion to the kind of self-medication Kurt indulged in. I'd seen it hurt people I loved, my favorite babysitter when I was a kid in particular. So, I had to just coexist with Nirvana, and try to soothe my psyche with old Beatles records. Also, all my disposable income went to comic books, anyway.
But there was something about it all. I tuned into their Mtv Unplugged performance. I followed their troubles with making In Utero safe for K-Mart and Target to sell. I worried about Kurt, especially because of a particular couple song lyrics. I regarded words as the building blocks of the magic that runs the world and when one of the most played bands on the radio records a song called "I Hate Myself and Want to Die," that's some seriously powerful magic. I didn't know what to do with the guy, but his music was everywhere and his music hurt with a kind of pain that I could feel.
And I hurt.
And then 20 years ago Kurt Cobain died for our sins. Or my sins. Or maybe just my insecurities. I know he didn't think of it that way. I'm pretty sure he just felt like his life wasn't his anymore. He was much akin to John the Savage from Brave New World.
Perhaps, if he were a more patient person, he could have waited things out for a while. Things might have gotten better.
But I don't think he had much wait left in him.
As for myself, I could wait. I cooled it with the suicidal ideation. I stopped thinking it was funny to write "loaded gun" on the grocery list at my parents' house. I covered up the angry, sad words I had Sharpied all over the walls of my bedroom.
Twenty years ago, Kurt Cobain died, and I decided I could try harder at living. So I'm going to take a little time to honor that today.
post script
Since I posted this yesterday, in various formats, I have been getting a lot of feedback from people who were happy about "the choice I made." Which makes me feel a little weird. That wasn't my point. 20 years ago, I was not on the verge of suicide. I was 19 year old undiagnosed aspie, in a world where that wasn't even a diagnosable thing yet, who was going through meltdowns and shutdowns and suffering from severe social anxiety everyday. When Kurt died, I didn't decide not to kill myself; I decided to try harder at living.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Sherlock "The Sign of the Three"
Thoughts on the episode of Sherlock from this past Sunday that I finally got around to watching. First off, brilliant. Made me tear up a bit.
Secondly, this high functioning sociopath lie he keeps telling himself (it only makes sense to me if I believe it's a lie he tells himself to explain why he had trouble with figuring out emotions in real time). An actual sociopath would have a much easier time extemporizing during a best man's speech. Sociopaths, while tending to lack affective empathy (i.e., aren't sympathetically affected when they perceive other people's emotions) they have a stunning grasp of cognitive empathy. They intuitively know how to use the words and body language to emotionally manipulate other people into giving them whatever they want without worrying about how the other person may ultimately be affected. Sociopaths are the greatest salesmen in the world. Con artists are sociopaths. Many CEOs are high functioning sociopaths. People generally do not realize that sociopaths are out to take something from them until they have already lost it. It's only after the injury is discovered that the sociopath is called an asshole.
Sherlock Holmes is called an asshole right away. He has demonstrated time and again that he just does not have the people skills to be a high functioning sociopath. And, while he tends to be self-centered and hyper-focused on facts and details to the point that he does not immediately recognize or understand the emotions of others, when he does, he is profoundly affected. The weight with which the realization that John Watsob considers Sherlock to be his best friend hits him so deeply that he is rendered inarticulate.
Sherlock's internal dialogue with his brother Mycroft (who, arguably actually is a high functioning sociopath), as he is trying to extemporize his best man speech to buy the time to deduce the identity of the Mayfly Man, reveals the amount of logical deductive reasoning power Sherlock has to employ to work up the bare minimum of cognitive empathy to keep a captive audience from throwing their drinks at him.
Also, it seems like if he was a bit quicker on the uptake he could made time with the maid of honor instead of helping her find the most eligible bachelor among the other male wedding guests. But he figured that out a bit late and had no one to dance with. He let his deductive mind get in the way of allowing his affective empathy register until it was too late, but it did register. But that's okay, because Irene Adler is out there... somewhere.
So, to bring this back home, I don't accept the 'high functioning sociopath' label for Sherlock Holmes. He has the wrong kind of empathy deficit. He was truly happy for his best friend on his wedding day. He has affective empathy. The cognitive empathy deficit is more in keeping with someone on the autism spectrum than with a sociopath. But then John Watson already hinted as much in the Hound of Baskerville episode.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Garden State
Friday, December 20, 2013
Mute Moments
I used to get upset when I felt like people weren't listening to me. But now I recognize that a lot of these moments are times when I can't speak. The words get stuck. I can't find the point in the flow of a conversation to spit them out. I'm effectively mute. I can't blame other people for not listening.
Part of this is brain wiring. It takes me longer to put the words together, to translate my wordless thoughts into sentences that can be spoken.
Another part is that the attention of my thoughts is often called in directions that others are not expecting. Sometimes this is good and I end up providing much appreciated insight. Sometimes it just makes it harder to be understood.
And when I'm tired, it's harder, just harder to let the words fall out of my mouth.
But self-knowledge and acceptance makes it easier to let go of the anger and to see that my difficulty speaking is not something that someone else is doing to me. It's just part of who I am.