Moving on,,, or not.

After attempting to write some stuff for the Personality Imprint Project I have realised two things:

1. I don't have the time and energy to invest.
2. I would much rather write about religion and Aspergers.

After this mini epiphany I realised that I had made an error in stopping this blog. I also want to start another one called NuWorldReligion. May it last longer than the week (?) or so that PIP did! Hopefully I can get my creative juices flowing. Perhaps some sort of exotic smoothie is in order...

Moving on...

Dear readers, sorry that I have not posted for a while. There are two reasons for this dereliction of duty: firstly that circumstances at work are eroding more and more of my free time (which in this economic climate is a good thing; well as long as I get paid for it). Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I am running out of inspiration for posts that stick to the confines of the topic of this blog. Wow... that was a mouthful. I should probably go back over that and check that my grammar is correct! Having the limited attention span that I do I have decided to focus on a new and for me at least, exciting project. I will call it the Personality Imprint Project or PIP. Check it out on Blogger if you are inclined to. I probably won't post on this blog for a while - so nothing has really changed :)  I just thought that I'd let you know what was going on.

Yours sincerely, Richard Avery 

Earth Abides

“A mysterious plague has destroyed the vast majority of the human race. Isherwood Williams returns from a wilderness field trip to discover that civilization has vanished during his absence. Eventually, in San Francisco, he encounters a female survivor who becomes his wife. Around them and their children a small community develops, but rebuilding civilization is beyond their resources, and gradually they return to a simpler way of life”.

So reads the back of the Sci-Fi Masterworks edition of “Earth Abides” by George R. Stewart.

 You might be wondering why I am looking at a book in one of my posts, but bear with me, there is method to my madness (or at least I hope there is!). This is an important book to me and undoubtedly one of the best that I have read. I found myself identifying very strongly with the protagonist Isherwood Williams, or Ish as he becomes known. At first I couldn’t work out why I felt such a connection, but then all the pieces started to come together. Ish seems to be an Aspie. I don’t know if this was intended, but it certainly seems to be the case. Without wishing to give away any of the plot I will give the reasons why I believe that Ish is an Aspie:

1. Ish doesn’t really like being around other people and he prefers being on his own, hence his  wilderness trip.
2. Ish has an SI in the form of Ecology i.e. the relationship between living things and between them and their environment.
3. He prefers to observe rather than participate. 
4. Is adversely affected by any change (anyone would be forgiven for being adversely affected by a civilisation destroying plague!).
5. Social constructions such as racism mean nothing to him. He sees the world in a different way than those around him.

Individually they don’t really mean that much, but when taken together they certainly seem to suggest that Ish really was an Aspie. I often wonder if it was because Stewart himself might have been and that he might have been ‘gifting it’ to his protagonist. Who knows, but it would be nice if it were so…

Arcadia

I just have time to do a smallish post, almost a tweet’s worth. I was following trails of information on the internet, seeing where my attention takes me, when I can across the vision of Arcadia. The term Arcadia or Ἀρκαδία derives from the Greek province and was used by renaissance thinkers as an almost utopian ideal; one of simple pastoral pleasure.

                                     The Arcadian or Pastoral State by Thomas Cole 1836.

It has many parallels with the Biblical Eden and although you can believe in it, you can never attain it. It is an idea that has been around under various guises since the times of ancient Greece, when it was believed that the god Pan lived and frolicked there. It may even have been the inspiration behind the Biblical Eden. It had a profound effect upon me because in a way isn’t everyone seeking the paradise that they will never attain. Despite a part of us knowing that it is unattainable, we still keep hoping. It is what keeps us going in our darkest hour. Aspies too need our dreams.

Emotional Control

In one of my previous posts, I explained why being able to read other people’s body language is a necessary skill for Aspies to learn. What I didn’t cover is being able to cover your own emotional response to stimuli. It is something that I still struggle to do, at least when I am experiencing highly charged negative emotions, such as extreme disappointment, unhappiness and anxiety. Whenever I suffer from a panic attack, all decorum evaporates and I seem to revert to almost animalistic instincts; namely fight or flight (not literally fight, more stay and deal with the problem). I tend to go with the latter and it certainly shows in both my body language and conduct. It would make things far easier if I could slip away without anyone noticing that I am extremely uncomfortable.

Am I this obvious?

I am usually alright at covering up my emotions; I’d say that I’m a bit below average at it. I can read other people’s emotions, but because it is not innate, I have to put a fair amount of effort into doing so. This means that I also have to put the same amount of effort into identifying how my own body is responding to my emotional state. Thus when my mind is reeling with unpleasant emotions, I simply cannot find the amount of energy required to make sure that my body language and expression are not radiating them. I can still read other people’s reactions though, because I am more practiced at it and I therefore know that they know what I am feeling (if that makes any sense… I need more caffeine!). 

An excellent example of this occurred the other day at work. We were approaching a deadline and the boss asked us if we were ok doing some overtime. Without blinking the others said, quite unflustered, that that was fine and so I had to quickly give a similar response. Now I am more than prepared to go the extra mile to get the job done, but that’s not to say that I have to like or enjoy it. My evenings are important to me as they seem to be the time of day when I am at my most calm. Thus, even as I said that it was ‘no problem’, I must have been radiating disappointment as both my boss and co-workers seemed a little unconvinced by my reply and even asked if I was sure. It worries me because it makes me look as if I don’t care about the job and company, which is untrue. It’s not the first time that a similar situation has occurred in my life, but it did get me thinking about it. In fact I have been doing overtime every day of this week and whenever my boss asks me if it’s ok, I try even harder to mask my emotions.       

                                                                      The solution?

It seems that those of us with Aspergers are way more emotionally ‘open’ than NT’s, without even being aware of it; just like not being able to read other people’s body language. The first step towards rectifying this problem is, I guess, learning about body language. The next step would be to learn to identify how your own emotional state it translated into the signals that you give off and then learn to control them. It is a problem that I have only just stared to really pay attention to, so that is probably the only advice I can give, however I will post updates as and when I make progress. 

Music as a Weapon

There are many tools available to the Aspie in his or her battle against anxiety; we are not just limited to medication when it comes to defending ourselves. I have already (if briefly) described how to use mindfulness, as well as CBT and touched upon some useful herbal remedies. However, you cannot have too many methods for combating stress and anxiety and with that in mind I will introduce another of my personal favourites. Anchoring is a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) technique where an individual associates a mental state with a specific stimulus. That stimulus can be anything, such as a smell, image, sound or even a physical sensation, for example a pinprick. NLP seems to be derived from the behavioural branch of psychology, which is also the simplest, albeit with a lot of over-complicated words and phrases. 

A lot of websites that offer to reduce anxiety (for a fee) use NLP and anchoring in particular as the basis of their service. However, you don’t have to pay a supposed expert to teach you anchoring; it is easy enough to master on your own. Before I was even aware of anchoring and NLP, I had already developed my own form. I use all sorts of stimuli to anchor to a state of calm, but media, and music in particular are the most effective in my opinion. Music is designed to elicit an emotional response in the listener. Have you ever listened to a piece of classical music and felt like your very soul was being gently caressed, or heard a piece of heavy metal and experienced the pain and anger woven into it. Everyone has a song that reminds them of a particular moment in time; if you do then you have already experienced anchoring (albeit sub-consciously). 

The simplest way to anchor a feeling of calm to a song is to pick a song that is suitable to that emotion (so heavy and thrash metal are out) and every time you are feeling mellow, whack it on. To speed this process up, sit in a darkened room, with a mug of camomile tea, listening through some big headphones so that the rest of the world is blocked from your mind; or even whilst meditating. Eventually you will notice that you can play it when you are stressed and it will instantly bring back that mellow. It takes time to build up an extensive library of songs, but it is behavioural psychology at its simplest. It depends upon what kind of music you like, but I would recommend chilled electronic as I find its repetitive nature very comforting. Artists such as Solar Fields, Asura, Aes Dana and I Awake are a good place to start in this respect. 

Once you have gotten anchoring music to calm down to a T, you can start applying the technique to other forms of media like movies or games. After that, the world of anchoring is yours to command.

Overcoming neurological limitations

One of the most noticeable ‘symptoms’ of Aspergers is an almost total inability to spot and translate body language. As a teenager I had absolutely no idea about it and it got me into trouble when social situations required it. I had a crush on a girl at school and could not see that she wasn’t interested. It didn’t lead to charges of harassment or anything like that, but looking back, I can now see that she was uncomfortable around me. For that, I am truly sorry. When I was later diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, I finally realised just how bad at reading other people I was and that it presented me with a serious disadvantage in life. Looking back at incidents like the one above did lead to me swearing that I would do my best to be at least as good as NT men at reading body language. 

I started by asking my mum to explain how it was done and picked up a few pointers. However, I needed more than just a few tips; I wanted a life skill. So I scoured the internet for the best books on body language. Having read reviews on more than a dozen, I finally decided to buy five or six for some serious reviewing of my own. In the end, one in particular stood out: ‘The Definitive Book of Body Language’ by Alan and Barbara Pease. It was the most clear and concise out of all of the books that I read through and is still something of a bible to me that I occasionally flick through to refresh my memory. In absorbing the lessons, my Aspergers actually proved quite useful. As I have said before, I was aware of my complete lack of skill in the subject and that gave me the drive to really work at it. As it was an area I found especially interesting, it became one of my SI’s. 

After many years of practice and observation I am pleased to say that I am actually better at reading body language than about 95% of the male population. That is not too hard as most of us blokes are pretty useless at it anyway. But a bloke with Aspergers is practically comatose. In fact, according to psychological tests that I have participated in, I am actually better at reading body signals that 60% of women. I am not boasting about it; I am just trying to show that we Aspies can overcome our limitations to such an extent that they become strengths. It was never a natural skill due to neurological differences between Aspies and NT’s, but due to practice, it has become almost natural. It really is an area where practice does make perfect. I would absolutely recommend that every Aspie try to learn about body language, because without it we face a serious disadvantage in the world.

     

ASD's and Homo sapiens

I came across an interesting piece of information this week that gave me such a boost that I thought that I’d share it with you. I love science and technology, but don’t have a degree or doctorate in either. So I like to read science magazines. I occasionally read New Scientist and American Scientist, but since half of those particular publications are devoted to job columns, it seems rather a waste of money. Instead I opt for a slightly more eclectic and mainstream magazine: BBC Focus. I love it so much that I even bought a subscription, which for me is very rare. Anyway, I digress from the point of this post, which is to pass on an interesting piece of knowledge. 

                                                                 This month's Focus

This month Focus did an article on the evolution of hominids, titled ‘Last man standing ‘. The author examined the relationship between Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis and Neanderthals. Why did Homo sapiens survive and even thrive, when the others became extinct (or did they all? Read the article!). One of the reasons given was our ability to form special skills thanks to autism. It is believed that ASD’s were not present in the other groups of hominids and whilst the others stagnated from a cultural and technological perspective, the presence of ASD’s in Homo sapiens allowed greater diversity and progress in these areas (just look at the ‘Incredible Aspies’ post for evidence to support this). I was already aware of the role that ASD’s played in the evolution of man, but it was such a lift to learn about how important they might have been in humanity’s survival where others failed.

If you are interested, here is the BBC’s Focus website:http://sciencefocus.com/  

And you can subscribe here: http://sciencefocus.com/subscribe