Debunk that Bunk
Another day, another discovery and now another journal entry to try and put it all in perspective. As many of you probably know by now (simply because I keep going on and on about it), I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome about a year and a half ago. I learn more about myself every day, I've learned to listen better to my body and how to change my environment to fit my needs. It's sometimes difficult for people who have known me a long time to adjust to all of this change. The last two nails in my 22 year relationship/marriage were how my reading about this condition was stigmatizing the kids (so stop that!) and how my diagnosis was, in his exact words, "bunk".
Bunk. Uh huh. So...my reading list is not spouse approved, and neither is my basic neurological wiring? Who I am and how I react to the world is...not okay? That's a deal breaker right there. Don't let my slammed door hit you in the nose on my way out.
I've had siblings scold me about labeling either myself or my kids and told me that "I'm not so bad". I don't have a real problem. I've had my requests to not be contacted by phone ignored, poo-poo'd and reacted to as if I needed punishment or correction--after all my request was unreasonable, or just a stubborn temper tantrum so--what I needed was correction.
I've been told all my life to apologize for things that were not my fault, because when you see the world differently, then you must be the one in error, the one who needs to conform. Suck it up. Even after getting diagnosed and being "out" about my diagnosis, as well as doing my best to educate my friends just what my weaknesses/blindspots are, I have still been made to apologize for situations and issues THEY created.
Meeting in middle always means me meeting everyone else 80% outside my comfort zone while they are smack dab in the middle of theirs. Because the effects of my different wiring cannot be seen, I get told to suck it up. I get judged for being weird. Told off for not understanding. Get told that who I am is: a disease in need of being cured or a problem I don't have or...bunk. If I was missing a hand, and not just wired like a post-WWII Italian sports car, perhaps there would be more acceptance of the constraints I'm working with to the best of my ability and capacity.
I do try not to get bitter about it But sometimes it's all too much, like it has been lately. Dammit, I'm a grown woman, stop telling me what I am allowed to be or how I have to prove myself to be worthy of your acceptance. I've got me figured out. Why can't you let me be myself now?
See, all this work of self-discovery has been about survival. Me, finding a way to cope with the world I live in, the career path I had chosen and the location it had led me to. Many of you may think I was dealing with that okay, some of you may have a hint of what was going on, but none of you has the complete picture. I used to sit in my professor box, that little office-cell with no windows or natural lights, and read the same paragraph over and over and over. Not a damn thing would go in. The text would swirl around on the page until reading not only gave me a headache, it make me sick to my stomach. I would do anything to avoid sitting in that PAINFUL box--hell, I'd rather pedal 100 miles than read in there for five minutes. And I did.
Good Lord, here I was, desperately educated to the point that my career hinged on what I was able to read and write and I couldn't bear it. Why the sudden development? It wasn't so sudden, but in all my years I'd never *had* to complete my work in a windowless, florescent-lighted space. There was one other office once, and it did effect my ability to work well, to see--I would make sure not to spend too many hours there at once. It made me physically ill.
Once I figured out why I was avoiding my current office like the plague, I changed the lights. So now it is even more like a cave. Dark. Close. I think I should get a fountain that drips and an eau de moldy stone candle to complete the experience. I still wasn't able to read for long, but there was a marked improvement. It sure isn't a welcoming space.
A couple weeks ago, I went to the Irlen Institute for the first time and was assessed for scotopic sensitivity syndrome (or Irlen Syndrome). I was seen by the woman who discovered the issue and then subsequently how to treat it. She made these breakthroughs in the course of trying to help students with learning disabilities. She doesn't have a PhD or MD after her name, and her scientific research wasn't sponsored by some big name school--so I don't think she gets the credit or attention she deserves. I think because of this, a lot of people believe she's pedaling a gimmick or a false solution. I can tell you with certainty it isn't bunk.
In a matter of minutes, she showed me a couple images that literally swam in front of my eyes, and she was able to calm them down enough to remove nearly all of the distortion. It just took a couple color overlays on the page, and what should have been a circle, stopped pulling oval and settled into a steady, nearly-round shape. Reading with the overlays was remarkable! The text held steady. (Let me note that not everyone with learning disabilities can be helped with this, and not all those with Asperger's syndrome are helped either--but for those with visual sensitivities it sure doesn't hurt to look into it and get assessed.)
This has been a struggle my entire life. I wrote backwards, sometimes upsidedown and backwards. I clearly remember biting myself in absolute frustration because I couldn't turn the letters right way round--and I so very badly wanted to read, so desperately ached to be able to write and be understood. I also clearly remember giving the self-injury behavior up when I was 7--because it didn't logically solve the problem that had made me so upset. Of course, in this journey to uncovering the unmasked, legitimate me, I've rediscovered some of that "meltdown" response. Had my last one a few Sunday's back, and I'm happy to report that although it took me two hours to drive the 15 miles home--I did not, in fact, bite or hit myself--nor did I end up on a forced psych hold. Out of sheer will and the patient help from some non-judgmental cyber friends from all over the world. I am a stubborn bitch. And I have some incredible online support.
Stubborn. Ah, yes, just ask my kids. Stubborn, with a will to accomplish what I want, coupled with a near-photographic memory (although Ms. Irlen insists it IS photographic for me to have done what I have done academically and have symptoms as severe as they are). My memory meant I was able to accomplish a lot academically and musically, despite my physical (sensory) limitations. Thing is, after finishing that terminal degree and getting 'PhD' stamped on my ass, I was tired of having to push so hard, just to get through the day. And with the goal achieved (me having proved to myself and the world that I'm no so stupid after all, no matter how slow and simple my speech might be at times, or how clueless I might be socially) it meant I no longer had an ax to sharpen and wield on colleagues through research and debate. That fight clean went out of me, ha, with the help of many miles ridden in the old bike saddle.
I've known for some time that my clock was running out, that sooner or later this dance would be up and I would leave my current job. I've been struggling with "what now" and making an endless number of decisions. When they "fired" me a couple Mondays ago (it's civilized, I have one year to get my exit strategy figured out), they were trying to help me brainstorm for the next academic placement, and I was on a different track all together. The thought of being locked up with a bunch of words and ideas that are not my own takes the air out of my lungs. I wasn't thinking academics at all, and have been looking at things like massage therapy--dont' worry I'm the touchy, feely kind of Aspergian. I still might, I have a lot of decisions to make.
However, what I do know after yesterday, when I first looked at the world with a better grasp of what everyone else sees--a world where I have more normalized depth perception, a wider field of view, and text holds steady even under florescent lights--what I DO know is that I may not have to be so quick to abandon my academic career over my ongoing neurological issues. That's pretty damn exciting.
Learning that there was help for my processing issues, finding out that there was documentation and physical evidence of such things--preventing that old refrain of bunk and "but you aren't like that, you don't have a problem"--was very self-affirming. To finally be told that I was not a failure for getting tired and being unable to function in a painbox of an office, but that I was heroic to not have crashed and burned well before now--given the severity of my sensitivity. At last, someone gets what I've been saying all this time. Someone listened without disbelieving. Someone listened without denying it could be true. Someone let me be me and...understood. And they gave me a pair of magic glasses that, although they don't take it all away, they have more than doubled my capacity to cope with life. So far so good. I drove home on the 405 last night, 15 miles, changed lanes and everything--and didn't come home in physical agony, needing a nap. That's enough progress for me right there.
Thank you, Helen Irlen, for giving me hope back. Thank you for having faith in me when nearly everyone else seems too preoccupied with discrediting my experience to lend me that kind of support.
Bunk. Uh huh. So...my reading list is not spouse approved, and neither is my basic neurological wiring? Who I am and how I react to the world is...not okay? That's a deal breaker right there. Don't let my slammed door hit you in the nose on my way out.
I've had siblings scold me about labeling either myself or my kids and told me that "I'm not so bad". I don't have a real problem. I've had my requests to not be contacted by phone ignored, poo-poo'd and reacted to as if I needed punishment or correction--after all my request was unreasonable, or just a stubborn temper tantrum so--what I needed was correction.
I've been told all my life to apologize for things that were not my fault, because when you see the world differently, then you must be the one in error, the one who needs to conform. Suck it up. Even after getting diagnosed and being "out" about my diagnosis, as well as doing my best to educate my friends just what my weaknesses/blindspots are, I have still been made to apologize for situations and issues THEY created.
Meeting in middle always means me meeting everyone else 80% outside my comfort zone while they are smack dab in the middle of theirs. Because the effects of my different wiring cannot be seen, I get told to suck it up. I get judged for being weird. Told off for not understanding. Get told that who I am is: a disease in need of being cured or a problem I don't have or...bunk. If I was missing a hand, and not just wired like a post-WWII Italian sports car, perhaps there would be more acceptance of the constraints I'm working with to the best of my ability and capacity.
I do try not to get bitter about it But sometimes it's all too much, like it has been lately. Dammit, I'm a grown woman, stop telling me what I am allowed to be or how I have to prove myself to be worthy of your acceptance. I've got me figured out. Why can't you let me be myself now?
See, all this work of self-discovery has been about survival. Me, finding a way to cope with the world I live in, the career path I had chosen and the location it had led me to. Many of you may think I was dealing with that okay, some of you may have a hint of what was going on, but none of you has the complete picture. I used to sit in my professor box, that little office-cell with no windows or natural lights, and read the same paragraph over and over and over. Not a damn thing would go in. The text would swirl around on the page until reading not only gave me a headache, it make me sick to my stomach. I would do anything to avoid sitting in that PAINFUL box--hell, I'd rather pedal 100 miles than read in there for five minutes. And I did.
Good Lord, here I was, desperately educated to the point that my career hinged on what I was able to read and write and I couldn't bear it. Why the sudden development? It wasn't so sudden, but in all my years I'd never *had* to complete my work in a windowless, florescent-lighted space. There was one other office once, and it did effect my ability to work well, to see--I would make sure not to spend too many hours there at once. It made me physically ill.
Once I figured out why I was avoiding my current office like the plague, I changed the lights. So now it is even more like a cave. Dark. Close. I think I should get a fountain that drips and an eau de moldy stone candle to complete the experience. I still wasn't able to read for long, but there was a marked improvement. It sure isn't a welcoming space.
A couple weeks ago, I went to the Irlen Institute for the first time and was assessed for scotopic sensitivity syndrome (or Irlen Syndrome). I was seen by the woman who discovered the issue and then subsequently how to treat it. She made these breakthroughs in the course of trying to help students with learning disabilities. She doesn't have a PhD or MD after her name, and her scientific research wasn't sponsored by some big name school--so I don't think she gets the credit or attention she deserves. I think because of this, a lot of people believe she's pedaling a gimmick or a false solution. I can tell you with certainty it isn't bunk.
In a matter of minutes, she showed me a couple images that literally swam in front of my eyes, and she was able to calm them down enough to remove nearly all of the distortion. It just took a couple color overlays on the page, and what should have been a circle, stopped pulling oval and settled into a steady, nearly-round shape. Reading with the overlays was remarkable! The text held steady. (Let me note that not everyone with learning disabilities can be helped with this, and not all those with Asperger's syndrome are helped either--but for those with visual sensitivities it sure doesn't hurt to look into it and get assessed.)
This has been a struggle my entire life. I wrote backwards, sometimes upsidedown and backwards. I clearly remember biting myself in absolute frustration because I couldn't turn the letters right way round--and I so very badly wanted to read, so desperately ached to be able to write and be understood. I also clearly remember giving the self-injury behavior up when I was 7--because it didn't logically solve the problem that had made me so upset. Of course, in this journey to uncovering the unmasked, legitimate me, I've rediscovered some of that "meltdown" response. Had my last one a few Sunday's back, and I'm happy to report that although it took me two hours to drive the 15 miles home--I did not, in fact, bite or hit myself--nor did I end up on a forced psych hold. Out of sheer will and the patient help from some non-judgmental cyber friends from all over the world. I am a stubborn bitch. And I have some incredible online support.
Stubborn. Ah, yes, just ask my kids. Stubborn, with a will to accomplish what I want, coupled with a near-photographic memory (although Ms. Irlen insists it IS photographic for me to have done what I have done academically and have symptoms as severe as they are). My memory meant I was able to accomplish a lot academically and musically, despite my physical (sensory) limitations. Thing is, after finishing that terminal degree and getting 'PhD' stamped on my ass, I was tired of having to push so hard, just to get through the day. And with the goal achieved (me having proved to myself and the world that I'm no so stupid after all, no matter how slow and simple my speech might be at times, or how clueless I might be socially) it meant I no longer had an ax to sharpen and wield on colleagues through research and debate. That fight clean went out of me, ha, with the help of many miles ridden in the old bike saddle.
I've known for some time that my clock was running out, that sooner or later this dance would be up and I would leave my current job. I've been struggling with "what now" and making an endless number of decisions. When they "fired" me a couple Mondays ago (it's civilized, I have one year to get my exit strategy figured out), they were trying to help me brainstorm for the next academic placement, and I was on a different track all together. The thought of being locked up with a bunch of words and ideas that are not my own takes the air out of my lungs. I wasn't thinking academics at all, and have been looking at things like massage therapy--dont' worry I'm the touchy, feely kind of Aspergian. I still might, I have a lot of decisions to make.
However, what I do know after yesterday, when I first looked at the world with a better grasp of what everyone else sees--a world where I have more normalized depth perception, a wider field of view, and text holds steady even under florescent lights--what I DO know is that I may not have to be so quick to abandon my academic career over my ongoing neurological issues. That's pretty damn exciting.
Learning that there was help for my processing issues, finding out that there was documentation and physical evidence of such things--preventing that old refrain of bunk and "but you aren't like that, you don't have a problem"--was very self-affirming. To finally be told that I was not a failure for getting tired and being unable to function in a painbox of an office, but that I was heroic to not have crashed and burned well before now--given the severity of my sensitivity. At last, someone gets what I've been saying all this time. Someone listened without disbelieving. Someone listened without denying it could be true. Someone let me be me and...understood. And they gave me a pair of magic glasses that, although they don't take it all away, they have more than doubled my capacity to cope with life. So far so good. I drove home on the 405 last night, 15 miles, changed lanes and everything--and didn't come home in physical agony, needing a nap. That's enough progress for me right there.
Thank you, Helen Irlen, for giving me hope back. Thank you for having faith in me when nearly everyone else seems too preoccupied with discrediting my experience to lend me that kind of support.