Compassion?

How about I teach a way to think and learn about compassion?

Nurses have advocated teaching about pain management.  It was thought that if someone had pain, they would tell you about it.  Not everyone can communicate pain.  A very real way to think of it is that if you told me you had a headache. If I could not see your pain, it must not be very tangible, maybe its not real since its not real to me?  You are able to continue talking with me and don't seem to be in pain.  It was through nurses intelligent observation and sensible logical measurements pain became measurable.  The 0-10 scale combined with clear descriptors of qualities of pain, that it became a tangible thing to manage.  

How about anxiety?  It is a type of mental pain.  If you have never experienced a moment of panic, how would you know or empathize?  Here is an extreme way to think about it.  You have just consumed a whole pot of coffee.  Some people are acclimated to that much caffeine so think about enough to feel jittery.  Then go into a closed small dark closet, sit down and will yourself to be still.  Remember there is caffeine racing through your veins, its small and dark.  Soon enough you need to go to the washroom, but the door is jammed, it will not open.  Try being calm and serene, its not happening.  Now all that urge to urinate is creating bowel cramps from the pressure of sitting with a full bladder, but that damn door will not open.  It is not just the anxiety that is the problem, it is the compounded symptoms.  Now the door bursts open and relief is imminent.  Oops, you had an accident on the way to the washroom, you are now embarrassed and no one can understand why.  You are very flustered, you cannot tell them why since you don't want to admit to being silly enough to be locked in a closet.  Maybe you are more jittery, breathless, talking more excitedly (hyper-caffeinated) in attempt to divert attention from your oopsie moment.  Don't you think you are coming across kinda strange flapping your hands around talking mile-a-minute?  Kinda looks like stimming now somehow.  Stimming is a way to relieve anxiety, directs it, and is repetitive thereby calming, something controllable.  

There are ways to relate and teach all emotions in this way.  I've been trying to identify feelings and talking about them with MrD as if they are individual people.  Anxiety comes to town, sometimes accompanied by Scared and Mad.  Mad and Angry are similar but one is stronger than the other.  Sad, Lonely, and Bored are often related, but confusing to decipher.  Happy, Silly, Content are welcome.  Start with the extremes then the subtle becomes more and more clear.  We all learn by starting simple and building on it.  Treating these things this way makes it more logical and then when feelings pop up, it is easier to identify the cast to figure out the story.

Music has influence

Having noise as part of background environment is fairly normal for most people.  I've gotten back into having music using "SHOUTcast - Songbird" free from the internet.  The music selection is phenomenal!  For a long time we needed quiet because TV & Radio cause fractured attention with the screaming-sonic-boom-volume commercials.  Its hard for regular people to enjoy media with jacked up volume interruptions, try being a little more sensitive to sensory stimuli and wah-la, an instant recipe for frustration.  There are two enviroments we can control to some extent; internal and external.  (More blog posts upcoming about environments)

Sometimes when problems arise you have to go all the way back to the basics to figure out where is the hijacker that is making a problem or behaviour so maddening, or just contributing.  There have been numerous studies about music popularity and it is now known that top-40music follows recognizable patterns.  I hear more and more overlap in music genres now than ever before.  Patterns are identical or tweaked to be faster, slower, mechanical, interrupted, or enhanced somehow.  A musical brain would be fascinated by the myriad of facets of musical patterns.  A musical brain is often a mathematical brain, or one that recognizes patterns.

Motivational upbeat music has a tempo of about 80-90 beats-minute.  High octane exercise music has a tempo about 100-130 beats per minute.  Relaxing calming music has a tempo 60-70 beats per minute.  Ever noticed sleepy music is never on the radio in the morning?  Thats intentional.  It is a challenge to play with this information.  Afternoon lag?  Time to crank up the music and do something active.  The boost lasts longer than caffeine & sweets without the dehydration or energy crash.

Today I cranked up the Dance tunes, and getting up was easier for me and MrD.  I intend to experiment with music in our environment during meals, homework, and of course bedtime.

Thinking challenges

I am really fed up with advertising media and their bag of tricks.  They pray on insecurities, fracture attention spans, irritate, annoy and rarely amuse.  How many products do we really need?  As a child I don't remember such a  gluttony of average products all in the name of variety.   Cleaning products, personal care products, vehicles, medications, food... Do we really need all of the products?  They will all do the same thing more or less.  I'm tired of the insulting barrage of: are your teeth white enough?  is your laundry clean enough?  is your car trendy enough? are you fat enough?  is your food tasty enough?  are you depressed enough?  is your erection floppy enough?  is your armpits wet or stinky enough?  are you tired enough?

Once you turn the advertising upside down like this it really changes the validity of their promises.  I think the general public need to rebel against this overpowering pounding of media and demand better.  Are people really the stupid sheep marketing patronizes in this way?  Do we need to be lead to every thought & conclusion in the name of promoting the economy?  Our landfills & recycle stations seem to show a different story.

I'm posting this rant for the simple rationale of thinking exercises.  Once we fall into habits of complacency and ultimately apathy, change no longer happens.  If I allow myself to think of my son as disabled, then he is.  When he is driving me crazy with selective hearing, non-compliance, or just laziness, I am the one who is stressed.  Once I wrap my brain around it, again, and turn the frustration on its head it goes away and I can problem solve again.  Labels can be positive or judgmental.  I am striving to choose positive labels to prevent the inevitable, "You are what you think" from happening.  Right now my son is very interested in Les Stroud "Survivorman."  Even more surprising is that he is equally interested in marketing and media psychology.  I can't help but giggle that they are the same thing, just different environments!

An introduction

Autism is predominantly an invisible handicap.  Autism & dementia are becoming more & prevalent across all cultures.  What's with that?  Humanity seems to be at the top of its game, with the endless intelligence, innovations, inventions, & technology.  Then we get these humbling knocks on the ego in our various regions of the world with huge environmental wake up calls Hello, knock knock, earthquake, tsunami's tornadoes, toxic substance leaks...  Thats life isn't it, micro or macro, crisis comes, we dig in & get through it.  "Higher Power" has more influence than we can ever fathom, regardless of religion, something is at work. Living to be the best person we can be is the goal.  Thats a tall order don't you think?

Autism seems to be the current flavour of the media.  It doesn't hurt that April is Autism awareness month.  There are so many varieties or sub categories of autism, yet very little is understood about it.  Those geeks & nerds that people in the 80's liked to make fun of, well, Silicone Valley & big business has wisely welcomed them.  In the 50's & 60's they were just different, odd, or eccentric.  If it wasn't for the "different thinkers" of the world, there would be no innovations.  I'm coming at this from a view of understanding & tolerance.  Whether people are nice, smart, dumb, or socially numb, they're still people.  This isn't a Polyanna-married-Barney-swallow-it-whole viewpoint.  It's reasonable to think that there are as many varieties of autism as there are "normal" personalities.

This blog is an effort to make me think about what I have learned about Autism, and to share it.  There are multiple theories as to why Autism happens.  Is it genetics gone awry.  Did the everyday environmental pollutants team up with immunizations to create deficits.  Are these children lacking enzymes & nutrients in our everyday diet. Is there toxins competing for receptors for antioxidants.  Is there food intolerances.  Are we seeing the benefits of the quietly genetically engineered food trickling in through our entire food chain & reacting with genetics & environment.  We may not see answers for another 50+ years at any rate.  The most interesting new development is that Autism seems to have a definite genetic link.   Schizophrenia & Autism have been mapped & found to be on opposite ends of the same genome.  I don't have a link to point to where I gleaned that from, but its out there.  Its been embedded in genetic codes longer than its been understood.

Maybe we are going to finally see more intelligence applied to understanding the brain.  Hopefully the policy makers will apply more mental health funding & education options.  Mental disorders, addictions, autism, dementia, these all affect the brain.  We are hardwired to seek what we desire.  Its cliche, mother's breast-milk is sweet, babies love sweet first, there's clear instant compatibility for survival.  Well then, Mr. Marketing, business thrives on tapping into our subliminal desires, addictions even.  I seriously dislike commercials on television and radio, the LOUD yammering insulting repetitiveness fractures my attention, drills into my head, and makes me irritated. Little normal children can't get enough of it, while other children freak out on sensory overload.  Why is it normal to be bombarded in this way?  What happens when abnormal outnumber the normal; complacence it seems.