tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16781042523579219372024-03-13T07:27:28.775-07:00An Asperger Manifesto for Neurotypicals to Readgina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-88824154270084682652014-07-20T16:24:00.000-07:002015-02-01T07:48:22.511-08:00Are Asperger Children Farouche?<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><em><u></u></em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><em><u>Farouche:</u></em> Shy, retiring, unsociable, hesitant, sullen or shy in company, stubborn, intransigent, marked by shyness or </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQggLrKv4Hop8boInuV31IfYvf96faX5NiLqNsqfFD6nAeQaAy3NP8Kn0Ok8KNaqqJrGmXcKpUwhuYo8hOS9Pa-K6oz7uRv_9-wZt5LiruILjFCOBtGK5bQkPJ8XBd6HnqWa07vpmzspCM/s1600/cat+blue_edited-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQggLrKv4Hop8boInuV31IfYvf96faX5NiLqNsqfFD6nAeQaAy3NP8Kn0Ok8KNaqqJrGmXcKpUwhuYo8hOS9Pa-K6oz7uRv_9-wZt5LiruILjFCOBtGK5bQkPJ8XBd6HnqWa07vpmzspCM/s1600/cat+blue_edited-1.jpg" height="167" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">lack of social graces, and when applied to women, distant and unapproachable</span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Origin: Wild, shy, from Old French, alteration of forasche, from Late Latin forasticus living outside, from Latin foras outdoors; akin to Latin fores door. First Known Use: 1765</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"></span></span></span><br />gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-80196788004134813672014-07-16T16:08:00.000-07:002014-10-24T11:21:37.218-07:00Exhaustion: It's an Asperger Thing<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Running errands requires some social interaction. I often do this type of 'socializing' all on one day because I know I'll feel exhausted whether I do one errand or several. It's not the same fatigue one feels after lifting heavy boxes or cleaning out the attic. It's hard to describe. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have felt this way all my life, and I know that it's built into my perceptions and reactions because no "method' I have tried has changed how I feel, such as practice speaking with people, including people I know or like, or talking it over with a therapist, or learning relaxation techniques. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I'm speaking with someone I feel extremely awkward. I have no language or speech disability; what I'm saying sounds fine, but it feels wrong. I look at the other person and have no idea whether or not my awkwardness is apparent to them. It probably doesn't matter. I would feel uncomfortable even if the person came right out and said, "You sound perfectly normal to me," or "Wow, you are one odd human being." </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh942mukMEaBfHAoxTsBBriUph4Vm9YNVx7oE5GXNGM1CE9rBI0L9r6O76OhD_jXD7c0srD3FOd26v8i6unumuJhh4CuuulqGn9nV5Wn_21IXYbGKM9qeTwkkbhrnVrIrHcfmqc6jn2Yc32/s1600/9a8b98b660337c382959033618faf616.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh942mukMEaBfHAoxTsBBriUph4Vm9YNVx7oE5GXNGM1CE9rBI0L9r6O76OhD_jXD7c0srD3FOd26v8i6unumuJhh4CuuulqGn9nV5Wn_21IXYbGKM9qeTwkkbhrnVrIrHcfmqc6jn2Yc32/s1600/9a8b98b660337c382959033618faf616.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What causes this type of simple verbal exchange to use up so much energy? The explanation that feels correct is that it requires me to focus my mind in a way that is not normal for me. This takes great effort, as if I'm a fish that has been lifted out of the water and is gulping for air. When I return home to my comfort zone, or escape to the countryside, I'm </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">a happy fish that has been released into it's proper lake or river.</span> <br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">"Look Henry, you caught an Asperger. Better throw it back!"</span>gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-58300156845704269352014-07-13T18:29:00.000-07:002014-07-17T18:49:26.509-07:00Good News! New blog on Wordpress http://aspergerhuman.wordpress.com<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A new blog on Wordpress / <a href="http://aspergerhuman.wordpress.com/">http://aspergerhuman.wordpress.com</a></span><br />
<h2>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #990000;">Asperger: The HypoSocial Human</span> </span></h2>
in contrast to <span style="font-size: large;">Neurotypical: The HyperSocial Human</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The new blog asks, How did we get to the present state of human development, in which a new, hypersocial human <span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"><em>(Homo sapiens sapiens or Modern Human - a domesticated version of Homo sapiens</em><em>)</em></span><span style="color: black;">, which</span> </span>has existed a mere few thousand years, has eliminated older humans? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Sneek peek:</strong> I explore the </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRSM880bS_aawGNKFNHkR4_5u0oD28RRUfYpKuG1hrHDcFXxRbA1iQqn-9WLTUj7IxJ57FrPHZxkqABnbIaqz5yzQchHQuaX35gvHBJIp2TkqXiD-kpJ449ud_B_cMkoAn_3wbYfqxAmgv/s1600/imagesCA3HYJR0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRSM880bS_aawGNKFNHkR4_5u0oD28RRUfYpKuG1hrHDcFXxRbA1iQqn-9WLTUj7IxJ57FrPHZxkqABnbIaqz5yzQchHQuaX35gvHBJIp2TkqXiD-kpJ449ud_B_cMkoAn_3wbYfqxAmgv/s1600/imagesCA3HYJR0.jpg" height="320" width="318" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Social humans gave up a lot of brain power </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">in exchange for the false security of </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">supernatural beliefs.</span> </span> </td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> possibility that Asperger individuals retain legacy brain functions that were common for 95% of human history, prior to the Agricultural Revolution, an event that challenged and changed humans in ways far different than those that shaped early humans. </span><span style="font-size: large;">P</span><span style="font-size: large;">ermanent settlements, a dramatic increase in population density, and dependence on labor intensive agriculture, transformed an ancient vision of seamless reality into the steep pyramid of social inequality that rules the peoples of earth today. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-large;">Whatever happened to our wild ancestors?</span></strong> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-42600464088539949102014-07-09T08:48:00.001-07:002014-07-14T16:26:56.033-07:00Problems with Visual vs. Abstract Thinking: Calculus<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Examples from my college days preserve vividly the difference between those who think visually and those who are adept at abstract thinking. Although visual 'talent' as it was sometimes referred to, was a big bonus for studying geology, from geomorphology (landforms), to mineralogy (the crystal classification system) to structural geology (deconstructing relationships in space and time), in order to earn a degree, geology students were required to pass three semesters of Calculus and Calculus-based physics. I am not an abstract thinker; once mathematics leaves 'Concrete World' my visual mind simply goes blank - literally.</span> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG4HLlsFmnQLC1pEIcODWflcqBQ9CxJJB0w4L6tq9lYC3AqWZhMFFcK7Obx94p0tIzvM83ktuGa9iVSQymjgq2f04KpiTBvedhZDtDF0crvJFU7CcWH25rcma8PoQY0bpbSldOCxhINN9O/s1600/crystal%2520systems.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG4HLlsFmnQLC1pEIcODWflcqBQ9CxJJB0w4L6tq9lYC3AqWZhMFFcK7Obx94p0tIzvM83ktuGa9iVSQymjgq2f04KpiTBvedhZDtDF0crvJFU7CcWH25rcma8PoQY0bpbSldOCxhINN9O/s1600/crystal%2520systems.jpg" height="292" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">No problemo! My visual brain could spin the wooden models that (no longer) are used to learn crystal forms, while other students were on the verge of emotional breakdown when tasked with this test. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>First panic, then strategy:</strong> I signed up for Calculus based physics <em>before</em> taking a Calculus course. I had to 'see' what Calculus looked like in the real world. It worked; I passed physics by sacrificing a few points on the mathematics while storing equations as whole images, and </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">giving them names like, "the double violin with a thingy under the roof" and attached the image to a process for solving the equation. I had no idea what the equation described mathematically, but I could usually solve it. Calculus texts aid this approach since each chapter is organized by groups of similar equations.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I had no problem with the math that describes geologic processes like stream flow, because I could easily see the realization in nature. So, physics itself was understandable as it applies to the familiar world of motion, energy and behavior of objects, but getting through <em>Calculus as a foreign language</em> was like decoding signals from a very advanced and very alien civilization. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><strong>Graphs! A visual window into the abstract language of mathematics.</strong></span> <br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">From Paul's online math notes: </span></strong><a href="http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu</span></strong></a><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">"Now, let’s take a look at just how we could possibly
get two tangents lines at a point. This was definitely not possible back
in Calculus I where we first ran across tangent lines. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">A quick graph of the parametric curve will explain
what is going on here. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">So, the parametric curve crosses itself! That
explains how there can be more than one tangent line. There is one
tangent line for each instance that the curve goes through the point."</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>For me graphic images, which can be quite a distraction due to their beauty, do help, but in order to 'do math' I had to approach maths as foreign languages. The analogy is fitting: one can learn the forms and grammar of another language, but never become fluent, nor speak it like a native.</strong></span> </div>
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gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-56238158898896578542014-07-04T13:11:00.003-07:002014-08-25T08:22:27.969-07:00The Special Hell Reserved for Asperger Females<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKvGFuMOBD1XByoSQ5pO2L4oAbl3LrGLJeXimeahdvYGCNwQ1GRubPXWOJBrnUrDSzUVOBpSpZ6VAH4lCwO_cJMc3trb7nZoFuCXPrCqF2N-VRp5bmj-46PaPunZW9wFCkOXwbOxqBnlph/s1600/imagesseal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKvGFuMOBD1XByoSQ5pO2L4oAbl3LrGLJeXimeahdvYGCNwQ1GRubPXWOJBrnUrDSzUVOBpSpZ6VAH4lCwO_cJMc3trb7nZoFuCXPrCqF2N-VRp5bmj-46PaPunZW9wFCkOXwbOxqBnlph/s1600/imagesseal.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">Is it not understandable that at times Asperger females may be irritable?</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;">Traditional Christian Myth, or "The Story of Man," goes like this:</span> A female over-flowing with self-confidence contradicts the well-worn prejudice that women are inferior to men and therefore ought to be submissive in all things. As a young child on the track to being socialized into the "sisterhood" of self-denial, I soon discovered that it is a crime against God, Nature (not actual nature, but some trumped up feeble concept of nature) and of course, Men, for a female child to wander the world freely displaying equal confidence, intelligence, and expectations for success and fulfillment that males automatically demand. What </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">really irked me was that I was told that when I encountered a male who was less intelligent, that I was to act dumb and helpless. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If it had been known at the time (1950-60s) that I was Asperger, my life would have been over: my brain handed on a platter to the Priests of psychology, for re-education, retraining, and possible water-boarding. I would have been forced into drug-induced conformity. I would have heard ceaseless condemnations about how I was born without empathy, a theory of mind, or the ability to use my eyes properly. I escaped all this by being born in a pre-Asperger's Era: I made my own life out of what I had. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The sad irony is, that many males (grudgingly perhaps) did accept my peculiar female aberrance without much more than an initial statement of surprise; male coworkers and friends often noted my confidence and abilities as unusual, but not as unwelcome. As predicted, males who lacked confidence sometimes reacted badly, but again, males adapt; they adapt every day to being around more confident males. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Hell that awaits Asperger girls is the special hatred that comes from the sisterhood, that self-aggregating gang of killer-cannibals who defend the status quo of female inferiority. No one who has seen these females in action can deny their blood lust; no female who has received their wrath can shake the shock of vicious betrayal by her own sex. The equality and trust that Asperger individuals crave from birth are dashed, like a baby seal being clubbed to death.</span> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjZvtLb9k0kfAXjok7f1Z4r530Vwy6QfzQs6pk298PJhpuAF6417tOdl7TGqr4mYf6dVuiDeSNrGKs-OKEh1z8aGrTd6gfALtUwB9dD9492F82P7DPWG_wsxMaCa7RJl5L3YHYyJup58TD/s1600/images6S6PMQ6K.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjZvtLb9k0kfAXjok7f1Z4r530Vwy6QfzQs6pk298PJhpuAF6417tOdl7TGqr4mYf6dVuiDeSNrGKs-OKEh1z8aGrTd6gfALtUwB9dD9492F82P7DPWG_wsxMaCa7RJl5L3YHYyJup58TD/s1600/images6S6PMQ6K.jpg" height="200" width="152" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">Yeah, this is what it feels like, ladies. </span></td></tr>
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gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-31030934157701720572014-07-01T11:09:00.000-07:002014-07-14T15:18:56.512-07:00"Theory of Mind" Exposed as Delusional Thinking<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">
</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>It turns out that the vaunted psychological “Theory of Mind” is psychology's euphemism for delusional thinking; a supernatural, superstitious, and magical type of brain processing common to “normal” people. Anyone who demonstrates rational, science-based thinking is abnormal. </strong></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">The fact that </span><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Scientific American</span></strong><span style="font-size: large;"> would publish this is shocking. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">____________________________________</span></span></span><br />
<b><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">People with Asperger’s less likely to see purpose behind the events in their lives </span></span></span></b><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">By </span><a href="javascript:void(0)"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Calibri;">Karen Schrock</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> | May 29, 2010 |SCIAM BLOGS<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">BOSTON—Why do we often attribute events in our lives to a higher power or supernatural force? Some psychologists believe this kind of thinking, called teleological thinking, is a </span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=why-people-believe-what-they-do-09-04-10"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">by-product of social cognition</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">. As our ancestors evolved, we developed the ability to understand one anothers’ ideas and intentions. As a result of this “</span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=the-hormone-that-helps-you-read-min"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">theory of mind</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">,” some experts figure, we also tend to see intention or purpose—a conscious mind—behind random or naturally occurring events.</span> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A new study presented here in a poster at the 22nd annual meeting of the </span><a href="http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.cfm"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Association for Psychological Science</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> supports this idea, showing that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;">people who may have an impaired theory of mind are less likely to think in a teleological way.</span></i></span></span> </div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Bethany T. Heywood, a graduate student at Queens University Belfast, asked 27 people with Asperger’s syndrome, a mild type of </span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=broken-mirrors-a-theory-of-autism"><span style="color: #19437c; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">autism</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> that involves impaired social cognition, about significant events in their lives. Working with experimental psychologist Jesse M. Bering (author of the </span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/bering-in-mind-blog/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"Bering in Mind"</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> blog and a frequent contributor to <i><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/sciammind/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Scientific American MIND</span></a></i>), she asked them to speculate about why these important events happened—for instance, why they had gone through an illness or why they met a significant other. As compared with 34 neurotypical people, <span style="color: #990000;">those with Asperger’s syndrome were significantly less likely to invoke a teleological response—for example, saying the event was meant to unfold in a particular way </span><span style="color: #990000;">or explaining that God had a hand in it. They were more likely to invoke a natural cause (such as blaming an illness on a virus they thought they were exposed to) or to give a descriptive response, explaining the event again in a different way</span><em>.</em></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFfFeSi5MDOIgsVtZuBtvdGZ7m-CP7cfVsseJh1FUXez8Bw23_qAqRzwGjRdZxvI7h6cMr6_zxoserADVpnIbH5zvZnD8ecVmsxCtE9qnvH1zGyACQdHtJjNr1I3UB7DSY3eW46gLQgPzd/s1600/delusion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFfFeSi5MDOIgsVtZuBtvdGZ7m-CP7cfVsseJh1FUXez8Bw23_qAqRzwGjRdZxvI7h6cMr6_zxoserADVpnIbH5zvZnD8ecVmsxCtE9qnvH1zGyACQdHtJjNr1I3UB7DSY3eW46gLQgPzd/s1600/delusion.jpg" height="230" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once again we see that </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">so-called scientific studies by psychologists are tainted by a bizarre insistence that delusional (</span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">magical-supernatural-religious thinking) is required in order to be a socially-acceptable human, and indeed that supernatural belief is necessary to social acceptance. Is it surprising then that American education is deficient in science and math instruction, and is instead focused on magical social ideas like the insistence that smiley face stickers 'create' self-esteem? </span></span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's unbelievable!</span></span></b></span></div>
gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-56232546383956851822014-06-28T09:18:00.000-07:002014-06-30T18:06:27.861-07:00WHY MANIFESTO? <span class="blog-admin"><a class="edit" href="https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1678104252357921937&postID=1863039329802054879&from=pencil" target="_self" title="Edit"></a></span> <br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>If you want to know about gardening, ask a gardener. </strong></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>If you want to know about mountain climbing, ask a mountain climber. If you want to know about being Asperger, ask an Asperger.</strong> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The Internet is an ocean of trivia, misinterpretation, hearsay, repeated repeats of out-of-context quotes, pseudoscience, bad interpretations of surveys and studies, and information tailored to sell products and services. The Internet is like the mid-Pacific gyre, a vast floating collection of human products collected by ocean currents into a tangle of debris that must be teased apart and reassembled in order to discover the sources of its content. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The diagnosis known as Asperger Disorder is like the gyre - a collection of sometimes contradictory symptoms and behaviors, both vague and specific, negative and tolerable, treatable, but not treatable. Those individuals who are not diagnosed as children, but as adults, face a dilemma. On one hand the diagnosis is a relief: light bulbs go off and illuminate the mysterious tension in the dialog between the individual and society, but the light is also harsh, falling on failed relationships, on bullying and rejection, and on cherished goals that have receded across the horizon while one was simply trying to survive in an alien world. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The unshakable feeling remains that the Asperger diagnosis reflects a hidden fact of nature: I am different, fundamentally and irrevocably different, and no diagnosis that claims that the Asperger style of brain processing is defective, simply because we are not socially-obsessed, can change the certainty that we embody an equally valid human type.</span> </strong> </span></div>
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Posted <abbr class="time published" itemprop="datePublished" title="2014-01-12T16:45:00.000Z"><span style="color: #333333;">18 minutes ago</span></abbr> by <a class="url fn" href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724" itemprop="author" rel="author"><span style="color: #009eb8;">gina rex</span></a> </div>
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<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/DLBGl" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="//feedburner.google.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0px currentColor;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/DLBGl" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a>gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-73033452388282426262014-06-25T12:54:00.002-07:002014-08-31T07:21:47.247-07:00Visual Thinking: Neurotypicals Have No Clue <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Neurotypicals have no clue as to how visual thinkers think. This is easily demonstrated. Visual thinking is achieved WITHOUT WORDS. That's why it's VISUAL thinking. Visual thinking therefore takes place without concepts. It's concrete. Many animals are visual thinkers. <span style="color: red;">To read a description, please go to Post 4/10/14 - <em>Childhood: A Female Asperger Mystery</em></span> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">1. Arranging concepts graphically is not </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRGapR6A0Jr3kl8ILHtQZJk1xJx2TO9-0n0RHV9909Z2ZnSvDYwMhXAe0YvExVJVgRbmW1fWPVXggWBMi4xTZxhq-QNA09pfzIWW8mbG7L2YnoRnsiJ2GKDuztvJSr5DMkpm7FZbA0DUOA/s1600/10_tools_2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRGapR6A0Jr3kl8ILHtQZJk1xJx2TO9-0n0RHV9909Z2ZnSvDYwMhXAe0YvExVJVgRbmW1fWPVXggWBMi4xTZxhq-QNA09pfzIWW8mbG7L2YnoRnsiJ2GKDuztvJSr5DMkpm7FZbA0DUOA/s1600/10_tools_2.png" height="281" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">2. Arranging concepts by drawing squiggly lines instead of straight lines is not visual thinking.</span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDTZm9JK2cfOJHHJk-mhCpxeNBB-FDm1C6CIKyBR_pISvUUIkgVkmfsq5bZfg_yZIZYwPHFppisRaRCDQTOVlCOHukrUggvhgOzpQp3SO2nHC7iv1mnUYHlTlCwQKccBbr4Z9XkXVz46wr/s1600/7-intelligences-mind-map-adam-sicinski.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDTZm9JK2cfOJHHJk-mhCpxeNBB-FDm1C6CIKyBR_pISvUUIkgVkmfsq5bZfg_yZIZYwPHFppisRaRCDQTOVlCOHukrUggvhgOzpQp3SO2nHC7iv1mnUYHlTlCwQKccBbr4Z9XkXVz46wr/s1600/7-intelligences-mind-map-adam-sicinski.gif" height="266" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> <span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"> 3. Drawing words instead of using type fonts is not visual thinking.</span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZj5TF9aT58oRrbZ_5cSzntdUO4ZBF13cHVq0f_Hgc9eE0bwvteG8RdHvUrgbE_uBWiz9nHxVRh6UZKgsVy21QfFW7LfazMel1jBhrs2ov_PxQQ4Y0NrfkQKtocjHHSD5ktMtC4ZGKE5zr/s1600/imagesZVAA5QRM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZj5TF9aT58oRrbZ_5cSzntdUO4ZBF13cHVq0f_Hgc9eE0bwvteG8RdHvUrgbE_uBWiz9nHxVRh6UZKgsVy21QfFW7LfazMel1jBhrs2ov_PxQQ4Y0NrfkQKtocjHHSD5ktMtC4ZGKE5zr/s1600/imagesZVAA5QRM.jpg" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"><strong> Visual thinking starts with the </strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"><strong>one-to-one correspondence of memory with visual information. </strong></span> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK3Q1v0OyIXfxXvUg1fCcqs7FZfX7UyH81ZFGI-8knQe0wQRftrM65TDyibKXDweGcVe5ZGfa2jdBephMFAwdA8IP9zF68v6BkaKXRxagoNU_vcrf68c9yNCUQJIynWTM8bhnH88yxOGNJ/s1600/brain-colored-simple.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK3Q1v0OyIXfxXvUg1fCcqs7FZfX7UyH81ZFGI-8knQe0wQRftrM65TDyibKXDweGcVe5ZGfa2jdBephMFAwdA8IP9zF68v6BkaKXRxagoNU_vcrf68c9yNCUQJIynWTM8bhnH88yxOGNJ/s1600/brain-colored-simple.gif" height="196" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Visual perception and visual memory are very old in evolution, </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">and are considered primitive by people who believe that verbal language is superior. However, images are packed full of information about the environment that word language simply cannot duplicate. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Illustration from Don Hoffman, <em>Visual Intelligence</em></span> </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;">My experience of 'the world' is predominantly visual. My information processing is unconscious. I didn't have to learn to think visually, it's normal for me. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Despite scoring high on verbal aptitude tests, I must consciously </span><span style="font-size: small;">translate my visual thoughts into </span><span style="font-size: small;">written language; it's easy if I'm talking about objects and processes and not concepts, which can have little meaning. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Translation from visual to verbal description is exhausting, like having your dominant hand tied behind your back and being told to write a journal entry each day for the rest of your life, and that you are only allowed a vocabulary of 10 words. Visual vocabulary is HUGE and common verbal language is so limited and distant from concrete-visual reality, that communication, is at times, nearly impossible and it's best to walk away. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Neurotypical language does not describe physical reality, it expresses ideas about reality, most of which are incorrect. </strong></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">While necessary for functioning in modern social environments, verbal language has become so nonspecific in everyday use that it no longer connects with anything real; it's devoid of content and meaning. What passes for communication is the repetition of empty phrases and the recitation of supernatural scripts.<span style="color: red;"> In visual thinking, the image <em>is</em> the content and meaning. </span></span><br /><span style="color: red;">
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<span style="font-size: small;">The social demand to use and respond to verbal-written language has </span><span style="font-size: small;">diminished visual processing in modern humans; the process is there, but has atrophied; brain resources are redirected or subsumed by words. Visual thinking was likely negatively selected during human domestication. Evolution has a rule: What you don't use, you loose. Research does confirm that typical humans are very poor at visual discernment and memory. The remnant </span><span style="font-size: small;">population for whom thinking is predominantly visual is very small. I think the world had better hang on to us before we disappear.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">From Don Hoffman, author Visual Intelligence, UC Irvine 2004.</span> </span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">"This seminar is a
highly illustrated and accessible introduction to visual intelligence, informed
by the latest breakthroughs in vision research. Perhaps the most surprising
insight that has emerged from vision research is this: <span style="color: red;">Vision is not merely a
matter of passive perception, it is an intelligent process of active
construction. What you see is, invariably, what your visual intelligence
constructs.</span> Just as scientists intelligently construct useful theories based on
experimental evidence, so your visual system intelligently constructs useful
visual worlds based on images at the eyes. The main difference is that the
constructions of scientists are done consciously, but those of your visual
intelligence are done, for the most part, unconsciously."</span></span></b></span> </div>
gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-11261616322503129782014-06-21T09:40:00.000-07:002014-06-22T08:22:12.594-07:00Heavyweight Psychology Wars: Piaget vs. Vygotsky <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg5I9y0mCdfgB0os7u0EN76imLOuFbwij9yX2k9osuQ4O1RMieTL3a8ZfAIfp_af49hfKcBQhp7BDHnKvtL5zUYpaXpqF70nFiSbD-2yf4z4KNOjtR969PcW9E8nRHvh911_zpzmBh9LGL/s1600/jaaj+vs.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg5I9y0mCdfgB0os7u0EN76imLOuFbwij9yX2k9osuQ4O1RMieTL3a8ZfAIfp_af49hfKcBQhp7BDHnKvtL5zUYpaXpqF70nFiSbD-2yf4z4KNOjtR969PcW9E8nRHvh911_zpzmBh9LGL/s1600/jaaj+vs.JPG" height="320" width="290" /></a></div>
Piaget vs. Vygotsky - like I said in a previous post, EVERYTHING is a war in American culture. I'm only bringing up this clash between two theories in the psychology of child development and learning because the basic assumptions expressed by Piaget and Vygotsky have a huge bearing on how Asperger's children are defined, viewed and treated by the <strong><em>Helping, Caring, Fixing</em></strong> industry. <br />
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<u>Piaget</u> is famous for his 4 stages of development, in which children are like trains that must arrive at specific stations on time. This schedule is absolute, in that behavior and cognitive development is "written" in the Big Book of Universal Law, and any deviation from the rule is a sign of a defective child. Also, children are on their own when learning: children must "discover" knowledge by themselves, without social interference, which begs the question, why do we build schools and hire teachers?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirLBXKjSd2SRyvhptjuKlMnlzqs894cIL87Qq-NO17ya9aHzcS4mxOo6jfYOwIAUcARX1SFFglwE020EQkLWOtXVRDax7eWIqfv6y1g6c9D0qFoZmpzPwQSqeUB1CwTd5ZaUVDIggAwZpW/s1600/imagesX8WV88Y0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirLBXKjSd2SRyvhptjuKlMnlzqs894cIL87Qq-NO17ya9aHzcS4mxOo6jfYOwIAUcARX1SFFglwE020EQkLWOtXVRDax7eWIqfv6y1g6c9D0qFoZmpzPwQSqeUB1CwTd5ZaUVDIggAwZpW/s1600/imagesX8WV88Y0.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How bizarre! The advantage of the long and open window of learning in humans, is that it's efficient! The individual doesn't have to re-discover a vast trove of existing knowledge, which no individual could possibly do, but has the tremendous advantage of learning from OTHER HUMANS, even those who died long ago. </td></tr>
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In my opinion, Piaget's demands are highly unrealistic (indeed wacky) and are founded in religious prescriptions (supernatural ) rather than being scientific. According to Piaget, a child's behavior must conform to a specific set of instructions, regardless of his or her environment, culture, or social reality. Individual talents and personality 'don't count.' Whether or not a child is born in Madagascar, Siberia, or California, this scheme for learning and development is The Scheme. <span style="color: red;">Wow! Sounds like the justification for the American tradition of Corporate / Religious take over (extermination) of cultures around the world.</span> <br />
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<u>Vygotsky</u>, as one may guess, since this is a war, is thoroughly disparaged by some 'assembly line' advocates who follow Piaget. It could be that because Vygotsky was Russian, this irrational state of mind is a legacy of the Cold War. <strong>The basic differences are:</strong> <br />
1. Vygotsky maintained that the cultural and historical context in which the child is born is vital in child learning and development. 2. There are no "stages" of prescribed development. Children develop along a curve, not in steps. 3. Children learn, not in isolation, but from the adults around them, who provide knowledge and demonstrate skills that help the child to think in increasingly advanced ways until they can function as adults - on their own. <span style="color: red;">Wow! Sounds like a Commie Plot to me!</span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">The tragedy of Psychology Wars, is that American public schools have become the laboratories / battlefields on which competing theories are being tested. Theories are weaponized, politicized </span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">and bastardized in the hands of educators, school boards, parents, teachers, consultants, so-called experts, lawyers and publishers - armies of contestants in the dash for funding, contracts, grants and salaries. Meanwhile, classroom applications of competing psychologies, which are falsely presented as scientific fact, work at cross-purposes in the classroom, and serve to destroy education.</span> </span><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><strong><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">How does this clash between Titanic Theories of Psychology affect learning and development in Asperger children and - importantly - how society judges us? </span></strong></span><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-large;">________________________</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: small;">Need I say more?</span> <span style="font-size: small;">This is not how the world works: this is how psychologists remake the world in their own irrational image.</span></span> </span></strong><br />
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</span></strong></span><span style="color: red;"> </span>gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-85981510810887199782014-06-14T09:22:00.000-07:002014-07-17T12:39:00.114-07:00Flight, Fight or Freeze / The Stress Response<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2sUU15_ESzAbjnYTH5RXLI-uJAVZNbpMDTQnGwjXAjmhfE9vrX0oWtQI88WoA3rMb7Ef-h-ex4i_aLhmMZwiu22Yyx0ThITpyZV3ZNe059ZuQqhfvDL3PU2M-l8swelBWze04PizUUMTN/s1600/Fish-Stress.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2sUU15_ESzAbjnYTH5RXLI-uJAVZNbpMDTQnGwjXAjmhfE9vrX0oWtQI88WoA3rMb7Ef-h-ex4i_aLhmMZwiu22Yyx0ThITpyZV3ZNe059ZuQqhfvDL3PU2M-l8swelBWze04PizUUMTN/s1600/Fish-Stress.jpg" height="320" width="256" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Chronic Stress</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This cartoon of a fish in a blender sums up what modern life is like. The fish is trapped in an open-ended fear of being chopped into a fish smoothie, and activation of the blender is beyond its control. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For most of human history, threat was a product within the local setting. Quick feet and quick thinking were automatic - you escaped or died. Danger from remote sources (violent storms, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, flood and fire) was assigned to nature spirits, and later to powerful humanlike gods, whose behavior could be influenced by sacrifice and through gifts. The human tactic of preemptive sacrifice, with humans and animals as victims, is familiar to children - when we disobey our parents we pre-punish ourselves by going to our room or giving up a privilege, in a 'cunning' effort to plea down the consequences of our offense. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Eventually individuals and groups assigned the task of negotiation with the gods to an intermediary or to a priestly class, thereby reducing psychological stress, but not real danger. The establishment of a social hierarchy created new stresses, which modern humans have inherited and increased beyond what is tolerable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The human body and brain evolved to cope with brief and terrifying stress in the natural environment; after such an event took place (a narrow escape from a flash flood or a confrontation with a large carnivore, let's say) the body needed time to relax and recuperate from the surge of hormones that activate the ancient <strong>Fight or Flight</strong> response, which is the fundamental response to stress in the animal brain. As modern humans we are thoroughly familiar with this sudden and automatic chemical alteration in our brains and bodies. The loss of control while driving on ice or the sudden intersection with a deer crossing a country road, is enough to send our respiration and heart rate soaring and to distort time and memory. If our stress system is healthy, once the danger has been resolved, our body will return to baseline functions and we are left with a 'focus' lesson in mind. Pay attention, slow down, watch for obstacles. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Humans are not equipped to cope with high levels of chronic stress. </strong>The structure and demands of contemporary society fail to deliver what we need to be healthy animals, but instead promote chronic stress that slowly alters and eventually will destroy the mind and body. Many of these stressors are ongoing and inescapable, and the body and brain therefore cannot relax and recuperate. <br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The photograph of a fish that responds to the source of stress by exiting to a better environment, models the Asperger <span style="color: black;"><strong>flight </strong></span>response, which in nature is a vital and much more common option that confrontation. One might call it Nature's intelligent conservative force. But, aggressive male-dominated societies label self-preservation as abnormal, defective, effeminate and cowardly. Wow! How crazy is that? </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkVPeibSxvj7fN45sJyMwlnhMEciDedxxO6bQVVUu1OFc3j2N-psFU1AneENGmRkRJivBXXKjOwoAExPL7H1jwFV9I4vvwxMkDJbnpJY9Ujk_wPVL9T_M4sBipuJxAEOLGya01TK-SLVqm/s1600/images1LNOEN5N.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkVPeibSxvj7fN45sJyMwlnhMEciDedxxO6bQVVUu1OFc3j2N-psFU1AneENGmRkRJivBXXKjOwoAExPL7H1jwFV9I4vvwxMkDJbnpJY9Ujk_wPVL9T_M4sBipuJxAEOLGya01TK-SLVqm/s1600/images1LNOEN5N.jpg" height="174" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>Flight or retreat is the typical Asperger response to social stress.</strong> In modern societies, one is unlikely to be attacked by wild animals, but more than enough danger is provided by the social environment. The person(s) one encounters may be hostile and aggressive due to chronic stress, arrested intellectual and emotional development, or by indoctrination into a cult of bullying and violence. One may be trapped with people whose self-worth depends on demeaning others or who put 'lesser' beings in stressful social situations. Stress is chronic; unnatural levels of conflict, both within the local setting and from global sources, keep individuals in dangerous states of chemical imbalance. Governments and corporations exploit the stress response, because humans cannot think rationally (or think at all) when "stressed-out." </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span> </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The male-dominated American culture promotes the <strong>fight </strong>response: War, war, war! Everything is a war. The War on Poverty, The War on Obesity; Storage Wars, Cupcake Wars! The normalization of conflict as the default mode of human interaction has poisoned civic and political life. The cult of extreme American 'maleness' involves the U.S. in acts of aggression around the world. Up and down the social pyramid, from poor to rich, being a bully is lauded and rewarded.<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbdI9sYdbX0z-3MT7lZKLSpQ-VmGzoyqSdxSOPFgFsUTbcu7XazXoXjq2jDKsi-ne2Ne_vfa1aiCLzNjtjpZNWaMzTv7_vTeROeKrBiKWsil03-CMV7cvViy4ogp1JyjUzWbDHyftUotLi/s1600/GunnyHighwayII.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbdI9sYdbX0z-3MT7lZKLSpQ-VmGzoyqSdxSOPFgFsUTbcu7XazXoXjq2jDKsi-ne2Ne_vfa1aiCLzNjtjpZNWaMzTv7_vTeROeKrBiKWsil03-CMV7cvViy4ogp1JyjUzWbDHyftUotLi/s1600/GunnyHighwayII.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In American culture, the instinctive fight response has been perverted from a <strong>'no-other-option'</strong> defense to a demand on males to adopt psychopathic behavior; society values conflict and violence, not cooperation or fair play. Equality has become an obscene joke. Boys are raised in the belief that aggression toward other humans, especially females, is necessary to be considered a man. This pushes vulnerable boys to the emotional breaking point and dooms many males to arrested intellectual and emotional development, with little hope of being adequate fathers. <strong>This extreme definition of being male is NOT the traditional and natural view of male strength, which constrains the use of force to the protection of the family and community.</strong> </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Instead of government and the people cooperating to correct damaged environments, the severe maladjustments that have become pervasive in millions of Americans are 'treated' with illegal and prescribed drugs, alcohol, domestic violence, financially reckless behavior, bullying and other destructive behavior. <strong>Television, films, videos, and popular music pummel kids with one message: Violence, whether physical or emotional, is the shortcut to what you want, and it's legitimate.</strong> The profitable lie that objects can substitute for human fulfillment is relentlessly promoted via advertising and entertainment. And yet, the inability of millions of Americans to finish minimal education requirements or to function well-enough to hold a job, remains a culture-wide mystery! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some environments have been devoid of what the human animal needs for generations; no one alive remembers that life can be secure, productive and fulfilling. Children born into high stress environments cannot know that safe streets and intact families exist, except as distorted media fantasies. Chronic stress has taken over so thoroughly, that we no longer produce competent and rational citizens and leaders. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_XhCBgBZNAak-xmw6ezLHn1H6WFo0033fRQL-FssjhZ2kqX2tg4NPzoEyELQ_r22auQEsfoSIMvCD5fhEkBzTwjVqIJpzycIpBv2V6O3hn4tAcyGIGemqWF5l12ah42OVjhV3GSsfyiBq/s1600/untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_XhCBgBZNAak-xmw6ezLHn1H6WFo0033fRQL-FssjhZ2kqX2tg4NPzoEyELQ_r22auQEsfoSIMvCD5fhEkBzTwjVqIJpzycIpBv2V6O3hn4tAcyGIGemqWF5l12ah42OVjhV3GSsfyiBq/s1600/untitled.png" height="320" width="286" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Nature's third response to stress is </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">the<strong> Freeze, </strong>which is instinctual in young animals, from deer fawns to lion cubs, whenever the mother must leave them unguarded. The <strong>Freeze</strong> can be temporary; rabbits will remain motionless, buying time to acquire information about the threat - which direction to run and when? The <strong>Freeze </strong>in human interaction often is expressed as subservient behavior, learned helplessness, depression, emotional paralysis and chronic fear. These states of mind can mask tremendous rage or end in self harm. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Societies have elaborate systems of behavior that exploit Fight, Flight and Freeze. These responses play out differently in people diagnosed as Asperger. Typical social humans misinterpret an innate flight response as defiance or disobedience, when in the natural world, running away from danger is by far the most successful life-saving action. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span>gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-41040871693563826452014-06-03T14:11:00.005-07:002014-06-19T18:27:01.485-07:00Profiting from Created Disorders and Diseases<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">...As opposed to interaction with elephants, chairs or watermelons...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What isn't mentioned is that the primary function of society is to judge, evaluate and 'be mean' to people.</span> </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Creating and treating social anxiety has become a major profit-making engine in the abnormal psychology industry, and in related medical, publishing and consumer products industries. It's a good cop / bad cop business: prey on people's fears of being inadequate, defective and socially unacceptable through advertisements and entertainment. Flood TV with corporate propaganda that masquerades as health news, diet and exercise schemes. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mGflhhIa0f_FzrKQuybWqpXHb0Rdx_SIyJACXPhtb0fvWVZO75V0zs2xOPW1mQ0-6wLgF8fgtRUam6o5gcK1jcpn4R0079qosxF3biHAtsM4PKfvSstp4QogWUKmyTyfRA0ZLdgBLIly/s1600/847049-makeup-before-and-after.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mGflhhIa0f_FzrKQuybWqpXHb0Rdx_SIyJACXPhtb0fvWVZO75V0zs2xOPW1mQ0-6wLgF8fgtRUam6o5gcK1jcpn4R0079qosxF3biHAtsM4PKfvSstp4QogWUKmyTyfRA0ZLdgBLIly/s1600/847049-makeup-before-and-after.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Pressure, pressure, pressure is applied by cosmetic and retail enterprises, and aimed at young girls and women. Be perky! Be a bitch! Be a whore! Whatever you do, don't be yourself - wear a mask at all times. <em>Your face and body are mistakes that must be corrected.</em> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihPIKX3CILS_Acvp-reKTP7q_JEKx6Il6TMIBUsGQNxb5nclWeHuMwpIFWfIMdO3JvPyrfV2bNO4mimUXtiqwMklBsykgMBF1cPai6BSSt1f3R6rcNx6YQNF5_Eebw_EfZbALOFXsTmQk4/s1600/salvation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihPIKX3CILS_Acvp-reKTP7q_JEKx6Il6TMIBUsGQNxb5nclWeHuMwpIFWfIMdO3JvPyrfV2bNO4mimUXtiqwMklBsykgMBF1cPai6BSSt1f3R6rcNx6YQNF5_Eebw_EfZbALOFXsTmQk4/s1600/salvation.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Note how shyness, by being paired with social anxiety, expands the ever-growing population of individuals who are abnormal and need "help."</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLaumYyjbI6hjX5oYG-7Qp2higAKTOHL4ympmnLHtSUkaFV60D7S2kcn6xwIo8OKraMMBBy2DbbGyHDxmlTZ-ZK-m0Ow_aPQ5SUQqTORS_vza5__EYfADvwQ6cfjS0HsFqrMP8VmE_We5T/s1600/social_anxiety_disorder_help_for_kids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLaumYyjbI6hjX5oYG-7Qp2higAKTOHL4ympmnLHtSUkaFV60D7S2kcn6xwIo8OKraMMBBy2DbbGyHDxmlTZ-ZK-m0Ow_aPQ5SUQqTORS_vza5__EYfADvwQ6cfjS0HsFqrMP8VmE_We5T/s1600/social_anxiety_disorder_help_for_kids.jpg" height="320" width="111" /></a>Convince parents that their child is a monster from Mars or the Spawn of Hell. Reassure them that that the kid's problems are not their fault and then sell, sell, sell the Hell out of books, guides, and services. The promise of social salvation rakes in billions in consultation fees, testing fees, publications, seminars and so-called expert advice. Curiously, just like old-time religion, salvation from social rejection requires spending (donating) a lot of money, so get out the credit cards. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Once a frenzy of self-doubt and insecurity has been achieved, institutions and corporations get even more money on the back end, by promising to treat or cure the abnormal mental state that has been created. It's so American: money, money, money.</span> </span><span style="font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-size: large;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">How children in the U.S. are supposed to look - perfection is a monster that kills happiness, and sells products. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTYLQLplD5wO0a71CF5QlLhtQJgSBcbVTsN5LPeiYb7Gn3XmMGzr-CdhlL0ED8ZyMv7hZtnNA9a6TJ7iJURBsC2NMeFUa3plIvmtExTrdYKP49nzqnFBM7TDdeixkAUpz7478EzjThlHB2/s1600/imagesR3IO31LT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTYLQLplD5wO0a71CF5QlLhtQJgSBcbVTsN5LPeiYb7Gn3XmMGzr-CdhlL0ED8ZyMv7hZtnNA9a6TJ7iJURBsC2NMeFUa3plIvmtExTrdYKP49nzqnFBM7TDdeixkAUpz7478EzjThlHB2/s1600/imagesR3IO31LT.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">American economics is aimed at achieving high levels of anxiety in the population: it's good for business. Entertainment and advertising, as well as distortions of reality presented by 'news' programs, serve to drive feelings of fear and inadequacy in the population. We're a 'Fadistic' (rhymes with sadistic) culture.</span> </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0SSLC9UcTqvKTrXJ-FKsbZDtQALmo_XmFXhAgeut9ctcd0iVVsUvXZ4QhGSuhHwoR6a1-ihEG9o6u_4YeQHbdWA707WZbSi76Rp86VokpNPPqX5e5zD0nHEc1WYsIjV9pyDiFj2HOHUh6/s1600/imagesTC62K0FU.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0SSLC9UcTqvKTrXJ-FKsbZDtQALmo_XmFXhAgeut9ctcd0iVVsUvXZ4QhGSuhHwoR6a1-ihEG9o6u_4YeQHbdWA707WZbSi76Rp86VokpNPPqX5e5zD0nHEc1WYsIjV9pyDiFj2HOHUh6/s1600/imagesTC62K0FU.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Wow!</span></strong> </td></tr>
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<strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><em>And don't forget profits realized by treating the physical damage and disease caused by socially-induced stress!</em></span></strong> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkoWxtY0QWqq2gCcbzVZ-qKDo2Bo-1xzM4PukRrB90KwYqXv-hI_4JqW1ZPXDXCgTgoxrXdK2pB4OsmRPW_rjJ46_DvBhYtsz5zCaJlXjsbp0M7BYZS4iN8e3XME-ag4aAffqJi6d3oKNd/s1600/anxiety.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkoWxtY0QWqq2gCcbzVZ-qKDo2Bo-1xzM4PukRrB90KwYqXv-hI_4JqW1ZPXDXCgTgoxrXdK2pB4OsmRPW_rjJ46_DvBhYtsz5zCaJlXjsbp0M7BYZS4iN8e3XME-ag4aAffqJi6d3oKNd/s1600/anxiety.gif" height="320" width="275" /></a></div>
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gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-76518797635070702002014-05-30T09:39:00.000-07:002016-04-20T16:16:51.377-07:00Being Asperger / Some Reactions <span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Feeling time after time that you need to say "I'm sorry", and not knowing what it is you did. </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Being abandoned by a person whom you thought was a friend, when he or she realizes that you are really different, and not pretending. </span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Being treated like an object, and wanting to yell, "I'm human."</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Being referred to as <em><span style="color: red;">'quirky' 'eccentric' 'our favorite weirdo'</span> </em>or<em> <span style="color: red;">'strange, but harmless'</span></em> when being introduced to someone new, as if the person speaking anticipates that you will do something wrong, and apologizes beforehand.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Being told that you don't care about people, nor do you want friends: that you are incapable of love and affection - by people who claim to care about people, but either they don't, or they don't consider you to be a person. </span><br />
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<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><strong>Being told that because you are intelligent, well-spoken and an attractive female that you can't possibly be suffering. Your life is perfect. </strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The instinctive hurt of social lies, especially the big ones, about justice, equality, and fair play; the pervasive disrespect for people of 'lesser' value, by so-called 'normal' people. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgub1Xs8EbH0yWH60fsbGMC9gvkBQ0B9gmV4dzPbgp0J_cAwBoUO18AdOBioigpcpzZEeACiTZX4pJeR9OIHul2_fgDDeBZiLmQBvrDU3TKlp4HTSS6EgfiIigmvx4MeyhsKInWD9g1c6D7/s1600/imagesR945NKQW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgub1Xs8EbH0yWH60fsbGMC9gvkBQ0B9gmV4dzPbgp0J_cAwBoUO18AdOBioigpcpzZEeACiTZX4pJeR9OIHul2_fgDDeBZiLmQBvrDU3TKlp4HTSS6EgfiIigmvx4MeyhsKInWD9g1c6D7/s1600/imagesR945NKQW.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">F. Nietzsche, a smart guy!</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">People criticize your desire and need to spend time alone, but at the same time they want you to go away. In fact, they want anyone who isn't like them to vanish from the universe.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: blue; font-family: "verdana";"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: blue; font-family: "verdana";">People who think that they own the universe, and go on trashing a planet to which all people belong, but is owned by no one. </span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"><strong>Living in a social world in which 90% of what humans need and value is missing.</strong></span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The constant awareness of an invisible cage of words and looks and expectations that social people accept without being aware that it limits or controls them, but which for an Asperger individual is like being locked in a nightmare. </span><br />
</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Knowing that a touch of Asperger's would result in a happier and healthier human population, better distribution of resources, effective problem-solving and greater equality in society, but that nothing we can do or say convince social people that we have a contribution to make. </span>gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-47470292306487363362014-05-24T09:59:00.001-07:002014-10-29T07:51:48.376-07:00Divide and Profit: Extinction of the Individual<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">We must
look to the wisdom of the past when so little can be found in our
contemporary world.</span></strong><strong><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> I'm old now; I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, supposedly a less
free, more conservative time in the United States. But, I have never felt so
confined, defined, categorized, unhinged from history, from common humanity,
from belonging, from kindness, from the "values" of a democratic
society than I do now. </span></strong><strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">The individual has been erased and replaced by stock
characters in a game of ‘diversity-demographics’: </span></strong><strong><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="color: red;">Divide and profit.</span> This ongoing process of extinction of the individual is critical to those FKAA(Formerly Known As Asperger) for whom individuality and its correlates, <span style="color: black;">Honesty, Justice, and Equality</span> are essential. </span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"></span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">The very act of 'doing away with' the Asperger's diagnosis demonstrates the willful 'doing away with' our personalities, preference and voices - we are subsumed into a 'spectrum' of socially undesirable persons, classed with psychopaths, but grudgingly said to have some usefulness to society, which is a very narrow and easily removed permission to exist.</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana;"></span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="background: aqua; color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="background: aqua; color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 24pt;">“You have your way. I have my way. </span></strong><strong><span style="background: aqua; color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 24pt;">As for the
right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”</span></strong><br />
<br />
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="background: white; color: #632423; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><strong><em>“It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millennia.”</em></strong></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #632423; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="color: red;">_</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="color: red;">Eric Hoffer, </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="color: red;">1902-1983</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="background: white;">
<strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">“The larger the group, the more toxic, the more of your beauty as
an individual you have to surrender for the sake of group thought. And when you
suspend your individual beauty you also give up a lot of your humanity. You
will do things in the name of a group that you would never do on your own.
Injuring, hurting, killing, drinking are all part of it, because you've lost
your identity, because you now owe your allegiance to this thing that's bigger
than you are and that controls you.” <span style="color: red;">_</span></span></strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="color: red;">George Carlin, <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">Last Words</span></em></span></span><strong><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> </span></strong> </div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="background: yellow; color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span> </div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="background: yellow; color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">For those who would have Asperger
children 'ape' so-called normal behavior:</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 24pt;">"Imitation cannot go above its
model.” </span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 24pt;"></span><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">“The
imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it, because it
was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator, something
else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another
man's.”</span><span style="color: #00b050;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><span style="color: black;">_Ralph Waldo Emerson, <em><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Divinity School Address</span></em></span></span><br />
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<div style="background: white;">
<em><span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-highlight: yellow;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And from old school psychology and psychiatry:</span></span></em> <span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">“Ultimately everything
depends on the quality of the individual, but our fatally short-sighted age
thinks only in terms of large numbers and mass organizations...”</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 18pt;"> <span style="color: red; font-size: small;">_</span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">C.G. Jung, <em><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">The Undiscovered Self</span></em></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 18pt;"><span style="font-size: small;">,</span> 1875-1961</span></span> </div>
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="background: white; color: #660000; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 18pt;">“The liberty of the individual is no gift of
civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.” </span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Sigmund Freud</span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-size: small;">, </span>1846-1949</span></span></div>
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gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-37314182963767297742014-05-18T08:49:00.001-07:002014-06-19T18:33:02.721-07:00INTJ / Bipolar / Asperger's<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWl02Mw0MroX-0treXwcgq4tMZ_WGWvv3w1OI0iVwLkB73MbF4LjIq-ebVvYBhVs1wo0WB1SN9eM38sRpaAbPTddWmrxVYQ2dTzKOJEoCr8ijaiC2gAMt9gkmXPWXaRLrsaMAx-kXgHsXj/s1600/imagesINTJ+-Asp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWl02Mw0MroX-0treXwcgq4tMZ_WGWvv3w1OI0iVwLkB73MbF4LjIq-ebVvYBhVs1wo0WB1SN9eM38sRpaAbPTddWmrxVYQ2dTzKOJEoCr8ijaiC2gAMt9gkmXPWXaRLrsaMAx-kXgHsXj/s1600/imagesINTJ+-Asp.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Not true: The MBTI doesn't label </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">personality preferences as pathologies.</span> </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I'm not the first person to notice the intriguing similarities between the Myers-Briggs INTJ personality type and Asperger 'symptoms.' The difficulty we face is that having invented Asperger's Disorder in the 1980s, those responsible for writing the DSM </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">(<em>Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)</em> have deleted Asperger's Disorder as a discrete condition and have moved us onto a new invention, the Autism Spectrum. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Those of us who are <span style="color: red;">Formerly Known As Asperger's (FKAA)</span> have been killed off with mere words, erased from the DSM-5, and loaded like shades or ghosts on to the back of an overcrowded bus, while psychologists and psychiatrists figure out what to do with us. Makes them appear kind of silly, doesn't it? </strong></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">I have exited the bus and will continue to examine how it is that I qualify for three different labels: INTJ, bipolar, and the currently nonexistent Asperger's Disorder - FKAA.</span> <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I must have won some dysfunctional lottery!</span></span>gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-62439449948756321432014-05-17T08:58:00.001-07:002014-06-08T08:09:57.218-07:00INTJ / Bipolar / Asperger, cont. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I have been comparing the preferences associated with the INTJ personality type as described by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (see previous posts) with supposed symptoms of Asperger's Disorder, and have noticed a curious coincidence, or is it more than that? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> I was diagnosed bipolar 30 years ago, after a 26-year quest to discover the cause of mood swings that manifested as a self-confident 'high' that alternated with the desire to be alone and away from stress. Anxiety was a near-constant symptom regardless of highs or lows. As soon as I was legally able to do so (in the old days, parental permission was required to obtain help) I sought medical and psychiatric help and worked diligently to understand and change my behavior. I did everything that was suggested to alleviate periodic switches from moderately manic to increasingly serious depression. However no medical doctor, psychiatrist or psychologist from whom I sought help could diagnose what was really going on. As I gew to be an adult, the frequency of these mood alterations gradually changed from years to a semi-annual event. This was a time in which there was little knowledge of 'mental illness' as the result of physical conditions as opposed to the belief that moral or character deficits were the cause.</span> </div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fast forward to the present:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOkhULbQAu1qOhtTo7qR1f7NQtpMqnG6INUdfZ2IO1Idk90s4AnwnmcfBqsbRqZM43WBdBNYwJ6y0VJwNpVy6OAYamA1-HT_hNkA0iw-liFz7xnxpJYDKhiJo_hk6VdDXBOLf5p66qfcB5/s1600/8aebb63a57e657ba7f43880dad9454f4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOkhULbQAu1qOhtTo7qR1f7NQtpMqnG6INUdfZ2IO1Idk90s4AnwnmcfBqsbRqZM43WBdBNYwJ6y0VJwNpVy6OAYamA1-HT_hNkA0iw-liFz7xnxpJYDKhiJo_hk6VdDXBOLf5p66qfcB5/s1600/8aebb63a57e657ba7f43880dad9454f4.jpg" /></a><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">While visiting INTJ sites, it's easy to recognize a mild to moderate type of self-love or over confidence that doesn't go over well with other people. This feeling of absolute and smug happiness was how I felt and behaved when manic. It's an intoxicating state, as though one is united with all that is beautiful and grand about the universe. This euphoria makes it difficult to comprehend why people are upset with your confidence. </span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiM8sh5jXJEEQIdHYdkPP06qCGEooafmDhm9jIXSrI1ZkW4j4ZQJWkwqIT5y_zKbdODbSaXuSU-ZBHE35rR78XTQZ7-uz7ZuLV7dBlnSc4XN3nkx0JEMcwwMifxZ2UsaDsyyBp1m-u4R38/s1600/7vhKX8F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiM8sh5jXJEEQIdHYdkPP06qCGEooafmDhm9jIXSrI1ZkW4j4ZQJWkwqIT5y_zKbdODbSaXuSU-ZBHE35rR78XTQZ7-uz7ZuLV7dBlnSc4XN3nkx0JEMcwwMifxZ2UsaDsyyBp1m-u4R38/s1600/7vhKX8F.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><--How some see the INTJ type.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: red;">A Disclaimer:</span> I am not saying that INTJs are bipolar. I am pointing out a tendency for some INTJ individuals to be mighty pleased with themselves, and that as a young person I was prone to this 'natural high.' This mental state of grandiosity in my experience is coincident with mild to moderate mania. </span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana;"></span><br />gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-60210850602769712862014-05-11T12:08:00.001-07:002014-07-14T15:26:18.361-07:00 Asperger's: Pathology or a Personality Type? <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">If you have been given an Asperger's diagnosis, or personality disorder and / or mental illness diagnosis, check out the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). You might discover that some of your frustration, unhappiness and self-defeating behavior is due to a lack of knowledge about your personality. You may be living and working in an environment that doesn't suit you, and that your lifestyle is causing stress. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>I am NOT advocating the MBTI as a substitute for medical evaluation or treatment, but it is a valuable tool that can add specific and reliable information about your personality-based preferences.</strong> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Are you an introvert or an extravert? Do you make decisions based on thinking or feeling? Do you accept information 'as-is' or do you add interpretation and meaning? When interacting with the world, do you rely on logic or perceptions of people and their circumstances? Sixteen personality types are derived from the interactions of these 4 dimensions. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Perhaps the most important factor for those individuals who have been diagnosed with 'pathologic' behavior is the stated goal of the MBTI, which views human differences as just that: Differences. </span><br />
<span style="color: #660000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">"The goal of knowing about personality type is to understand and appreciate differences between people.<strong> </strong>As all types are equal, there is no best type. The MBTI instrument sorts for preferences and does not measure trait, ability or character. The MBTI tool is different from many other psychological instruments and also different from other personality tests."</span> </span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">For complete information about the MBTI, please go directly to the official website for <strong>The</strong> </span><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Myers & Briggs Foundation.</span> </strong><br />
<span style="color: #660000;">__________________________________________________________________</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I filled out the MBTI long before being diagnosed as Asperger, and fell into the INTJ type, sometimes referred to as The Scientist. Having the INTJ personality type does not carry the negative baggage of Asperger's Disorder, although many people do regard the INTJ group as arrogant know-it-alls. Some INTJ people are adamantly against any identification of the two assessments, but others are intrigued, as am I. Females of either designation are rare. There is an overlap of 'symptoms' or 'preferences' in Asperger and INTJ descriptions. </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #660000;">'Symptom' assumes that the behavior is a problem, whereas 'preference' assumes a normal variation in human likes and dislikes.</span> </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The psychology of pathology and developmental retardation identifies Asperger behavior as NEGATIVE and DEFECTIVE. A long list of offensive behaviors is identified and experiments are designed to ferret out individuals who exhibit some specified number of "symptoms" - a number which is arbitrary and keeps changing. Those individuals are then cast out of "normal and acceptable humanity" like blemished peanuts that are sorted and discarded in order to maintain a false standard of peanut perfection - which every peanut must strive to achieve. This is why we see a very long and bizarre array of supposed symptoms attached to the Asperger's diagnosis. The message is, "We don't like people who display these behaviors; they are not normal." The intent is to control the definition of what it is to be truly human. The search for pathologies is embedded in a social (hierarchical) and religious (Puritanical) agenda. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;">In sharp contrast, the MBTI, which is based on the work of Carl Jung, views human behavior as part of nature and arising from the individual. It respects human diversity. The focus is on self-ownership and the equality that only comes with individual expression in society and the greater world. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: large;">These are two extraordinarily distinct and important philosophies, and represent a long-standing struggle between fundamental concepts about being human. </span>gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-51929924176607016272014-05-10T16:34:00.000-07:002014-06-19T18:41:47.234-07:00Introversion <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">HEAVEN </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: large;">The environment </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: large;">and my mind are in sync.</span></span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">From the MBTI website:</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>Favorite world:</strong> Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world? This is called </span></span><a class="bodyLink" href="http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/extraversion-or-introversion.asp" title="Link to Extraversion or Introversion"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I)</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">HELL</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-large;"></span><br />gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-20502495565384075332014-05-09T12:55:00.000-07:002014-06-08T08:11:27.456-07:00 Intuition <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>From the MBTI website / Information:</strong> Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is called </span></span><a class="bodyLink" href="http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/sensing-or-intuition.asp" title="Link to Sensing or Intuition"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Sensing (S) or Intuition (N)</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span>gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-71604286093468410722014-05-05T09:21:00.000-07:002014-05-10T16:29:21.371-07:00Manipulation of the DSM-5: Robin S. Rosenberg, Clinical Psychologist <span style="color: #281b21; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: large;"><strong>Abnormal Is the New Normal</strong></span></span><br />
<h2 style="background: white; margin: 10pt 0in 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;">
<span style="color: #281b21; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Why will half of the U.S.
population have a diagnosable mental disorder?</span></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 12pt 0in;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #281b21; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;">By </span><span style="color: #660033; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Robin S.
Rosenberg</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">, </span></span><span style="color: #660033; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;">a clinical psychologist in San Francisco and the author of </span><i><span style="color: #660033; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Superhero
Origins</span></span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> and </span><i><span style="color: #660033; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Abnormal
Psychology</span></span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Edited for length; <strong>bold</strong> my emphasis. </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Full article can be read in SLATE, Medical Examiner section, 4/12/13.</span> </span></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #281b21; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;">In addition to classifying some medical disorders as mental
disorders, the <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">DSM</span></em>
also has been nibbling at the edges of “normal” by reclassifying as
pathological the patterns of thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that were
previously considered normal (albeit perhaps weird or odd). For instance,
people who are extremely shy and concerned about how others might evaluate
them, and who thus avoid certain types of activities, might be diagnosed with
“avoidant personality disorder.” <strong>These same characteristics didn’t used to be considered
pathological,</strong> and in some other cultures they are not considered to be so.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #281b21; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;">Another way that the increased prevalence of mental illness
occurs is by lowering the threshold of what it takes to be diagnosed with a
given disorder. For instance, <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">DSM-5</span></em>
will change in the criteria for “generalized anxiety disorder,” a disorder that
involves excessive and persistent worrying. <strong>Whereas the criteria in <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">DSM-IV</span></em> required three
out of six symptoms of worrying, only one symptom is needed in <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">DSM-5</span></em>. Similarly, whereas
in <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">DSM-IV</span></em> the
symptoms must have persisted for at least six months, in <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">DSM-5</span></em> the duration has
been reduced to three months.</strong> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #281b21; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;">One effect of a bigger mental illness tent is that there are
fewer people standing <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">outside</span></em>
the tent. Although the next edition of the <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">DSM
</span></em>might not increase the overall number of disorders, if the criteria
are loosened…then more people would qualify for a disorder. <strong>There are, and
probably will continue to be, fewer and fewer people who will live their lives
in relatively good mental health according to the <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">DSM</span></em>.<o:p></o:p></strong></span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #281b21; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;">The normal trials and tribulations of life—the periods of
sadness, or worry, of anxiety, or grief, of difficulty sleeping, of drinking
too much caffeine or having caffeine withdrawal headaches—have been
pathologized. They’ve been made into mental illnesses… <strong>providing a bigger tent
for mental illness leaves us with an increasingly restricted definition of
mental health </strong>and can make us all more likely to see mental illness even when
it isn’t there—where there is just normal human struggle. <strong>We can become so used
to seeing psychopathology that we think—erroneously—that being odd or having
difficulties must be an expression of mental illness.<o:p></o:p></strong></span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #281b21; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;">What is going in our culture that allows for this expanding
definition of mental illness? There are many explanations. <strong>The first is related
to payment for treatment.</strong> Psychological treatments and medications can be
useful for a variety of problems, but for those treatments to be even partially
paid for by health insurance companies, the problems must have a diagnosis.
It’s not enough that there’s a problem that’s being addressed. It has to be a <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">problem</span></em>. (Of course, if
you treat a problem before it becomes a mental illness, the health insurance
company will have ended up saving a significant amount of money, but they don’t
pay for early mental health intervention—there has to be a <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">problem</span></em>. But that’s a
story beyond the scope of this article.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #281b21; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Second, pharmaceutical companies search for ever-wider markets
for their products. <strong>When more people are diagnosed with a given disorder
(perhaps because of less stringent criteria), or a new diagnosis is created, it
widens the market for their drugs.</strong> They push for “off-label” uses of their
medications that in some way reduce a problem, and then they push for that
“problem” to be redefined as a <em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">problem</span></em>.
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u></u></b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #281b21; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: x-small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></span><br />
<span style="color: #281b21; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: x-small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In fact, <em>DSM-5</em> and the pharmaceutical industry have a significant number of connections: One study found that 70 percent of <em>DSM-5</em> task-force members have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. </b></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiggE1XW33w9tMwSsmuc8tcCsCe9WwCehVuaIOgwDkfnxYRnzcHMH3AhBV9FU2809f64-hpYRICgbWfALvEQLMoHKgyjPNhku-t54IRiRitrAyADTsvmWENttMBb0C5Rxy9GsnO8FM2NQHq/s1600/dSilence3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiggE1XW33w9tMwSsmuc8tcCsCe9WwCehVuaIOgwDkfnxYRnzcHMH3AhBV9FU2809f64-hpYRICgbWfALvEQLMoHKgyjPNhku-t54IRiRitrAyADTsvmWENttMBb0C5Rxy9GsnO8FM2NQHq/s1600/dSilence3.jpg" height="320" width="209" /></a></div>
<strong><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"><em>Anyone who maintains that the diagnosis put forth in the DSM are science-based is CRAZY...</em></span></strong><br />
<strong><em><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-large;"></span></em></strong><br />
<strong><em><span style="color: red; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In a crazy world, </span></em></strong><strong><em><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">sanity must be earned.</span> </span></span></em></strong></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #281b21; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></o:p></span></b></div>
gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-58612083181761344072014-05-04T09:20:00.000-07:002014-06-19T18:50:23.956-07:00"Abracadabra" versus "Make It So" <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKxNfaxhvGBbbMyDuynLHE8513CclcCjnhW1QA0G2SWUBCG_Enau29eTC2LpY-oepncgV-2-9uIYhwGX52SlR8ek1g5j4NOAHdNLOaWjjWjrDscJ_3wef4WrzZjvwp4n_uJKh5dWZBVBZI/s1600/1972429_443939409075234_7819901415600862071_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKxNfaxhvGBbbMyDuynLHE8513CclcCjnhW1QA0G2SWUBCG_Enau29eTC2LpY-oepncgV-2-9uIYhwGX52SlR8ek1g5j4NOAHdNLOaWjjWjrDscJ_3wef4WrzZjvwp4n_uJKh5dWZBVBZI/s1600/1972429_443939409075234_7819901415600862071_n.jpg" height="256" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is the erroneous belief at the core of magic, that words have the power to create reality. Modern humans suffer from the ancient supernatural assurance that "saying" is the same as "doing." This is most obvious today in the institutional practice of stating the intention to "fix" a problem such as child poverty, but the actions taken result in...nothing. Stating intent to solve a problem is not problem solving: political statements are not based on correct analysis of the cause or causes and in practice can obscure or cancel out what might be effective strategies. The result is more laws, and the application of a modern magical remedy: money. Money is believed to solve problems, but it doesn't. The sums allotted to even minor projects have escalated over recent years into hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, which the U.S. government doesn't have, but must borrow, and the debt is converted to funds that are "upcycled" to the wealthy. Problems become chronic, institutionalized, and falsely believed to be unsolvable. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Stymied by their own lack of clear thinking, lack of science and technical knowledge, and belief in the magical power of words, officials and experts claim that no matter how simple the problem, it is extraordinarily complex, and that more funds must be allocated to initiate more studies which merely repeat the cycle and prolong the situation. The problem is PEOPLE who cannot take the step from magic to physical reality; people who believe that the social hierarchy is the only path to results, and that those results are conditioned on the "good will" and responsible feelings of those individuals who have gained power. Can you hear me laughing? Social people cannot seem to grasp this fatal roadblock to effective analysis and action. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX3yDp_viopBkXpgPjuyQJMRxjkm7XF7IWnnfmLIgo-JOzmhdwC3EiudVhaqgKGFtyJK7GJyrNpMR5lUvxrMW5QmvsU2Bi_ZVb8zC90aR6qRA0iJa_xvbrIE3HAfoqTxZ8KFOqJRjZYLuP/s1600/untitledpicard.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX3yDp_viopBkXpgPjuyQJMRxjkm7XF7IWnnfmLIgo-JOzmhdwC3EiudVhaqgKGFtyJK7GJyrNpMR5lUvxrMW5QmvsU2Bi_ZVb8zC90aR6qRA0iJa_xvbrIE3HAfoqTxZ8KFOqJRjZYLuP/s1600/untitledpicard.png" height="305" width="400" /></a> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The anti-magic corollary to "abracadabra" is MAKE IT SO, used by Captain Picard on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. This command is a call to action, based on the fact that the ship has been designed to perform its functions, and that the crew has been selected and trained to utilize the ship's capabilities, and then some. How ominous is it that a Sci-Fi TV show is a real model for teamwork, competence and success, while the social world spirals out of control? </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8PsACYOFpGnHLcIGkw_UkzbgoF_MafZ3I5XI614Wl7wcrsueEU2kozj7l4HKYUF99p6r5g-OyLkfRNEbvrJYacEARe2sk0uSf3bkxw1XAwJzk5vkkX3nMvd-DC6E64ioSHzbhnAwk0_SB/s1600/tumblr_lwqchvOKIf1r2yn7ao1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8PsACYOFpGnHLcIGkw_UkzbgoF_MafZ3I5XI614Wl7wcrsueEU2kozj7l4HKYUF99p6r5g-OyLkfRNEbvrJYacEARe2sk0uSf3bkxw1XAwJzk5vkkX3nMvd-DC6E64ioSHzbhnAwk0_SB/s1600/tumblr_lwqchvOKIf1r2yn7ao1_500.jpg" height="320" width="251" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">How ironic, when violence against women has high social value, and is advanced and taught by the entertainment industry.</span> gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-61439461049543667922014-05-02T09:30:00.000-07:002014-06-19T18:51:44.587-07:00Myths about Asperger Women <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3NBaSNIm25UpC1sWPACDaNwC1TfIzP3B00ptChFWz1PryWlA5ug_Gl2AFA3zZ2yMw22tFu5V0vpt8U4d_WG4GPYS02DEhOuUeEaYg7gu8yCL4ImIotcrayiT82Y79lmBiWqQ2IRieXbub/s1600/56aced184035eaf582dcd2b41b256086.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3NBaSNIm25UpC1sWPACDaNwC1TfIzP3B00ptChFWz1PryWlA5ug_Gl2AFA3zZ2yMw22tFu5V0vpt8U4d_WG4GPYS02DEhOuUeEaYg7gu8yCL4ImIotcrayiT82Y79lmBiWqQ2IRieXbub/s1600/56aced184035eaf582dcd2b41b256086.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This Esquire magazine cover is from the 1960's, and despite equal rights legislation, nothing has really changed, because hatred of women is embedded in American culture. Women are bombarded by the message that we are childlike idiots whose sole purpose is defined by men, and utterly disposable when we fail to conform to their prescriptions. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Self-hatred is learned by girls through socialization, and demonstrates the susceptibility of the "normal" brain to "brain-washing." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Asperger females are accused of being unfeminine and unattractive. The old male prejudice that any woman who is competent, intelligent, and ambitious must therefore be 'masculinized' is still being propagated by psychologists. Asperger females are accused of having a "male brain," which effectively ejects us, and all smart women, from the female half of humankind.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">It's quite a compliment, if you think about it.</span> gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-78422851538292408712014-04-29T09:40:00.001-07:002014-07-17T12:39:46.444-07:00What Asperger children are doing with their brains when regular people think we are standing around being defective. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNfiu2rtV8CD9gVMnt1TM67HZECf3TbnbCUQdH2tMbyhJSufqyts9xc6mA4lkThGMg5Xsi8Hd7mhyphenhyphen3dzfx8rFtafV2oTVuOKXJBv6uq25f5HzbixKaeoALGxr_10FxWN9R37L_0fJKDC2c/s1600/good+girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNfiu2rtV8CD9gVMnt1TM67HZECf3TbnbCUQdH2tMbyhJSufqyts9xc6mA4lkThGMg5Xsi8Hd7mhyphenhyphen3dzfx8rFtafV2oTVuOKXJBv6uq25f5HzbixKaeoALGxr_10FxWN9R37L_0fJKDC2c/s1600/good+girl.jpg" height="320" width="217" /></a></div>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I was an uncomfortable child. I didn’t like the
world much, and it didn’t like me. The world was confusing - disturbing,
jarring, and alarming. I was frightened most of the time and most everything
frightened me. Within my mind I was adventuresome and fearless, but people and
their invasive habits and their intrusive rules and demands, scared the shit out
of me. I didn’t know it, <em>I instincted it.</em>
They wanted to keep me from adventure, from thought, and from truth. I hid. I
still hide, because I was right. Social people confine and limit each other in
terrible ways. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Women are confident that the man they live with is a
nice guy and a good father. He’s just an average man, not a leader. Leaders
know how to bring out the killer in every man. That’s
why they are leaders. Men were a giant intellectual obstacle when I was a
child. In their estimation of how things work, I was an insatiable little
monster whose curiosity, hidden passion, obstinacy, questions, and rational
seeking would be fine…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">if only I had been born
a boy.</i> How I learned to hate that pejorative and final indictment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Unbelievably, it was adult women who were most often
the delivers of this life sentence of inferiority; women whose natural grace was replaced by restrictive clothing, rock hard hairstyles and icing-like make
up, until nothing original remained. It was the 1950s and rigid sex rules
demanded rigid bodies. Underwear was compiled in layers of girdles, brassieres,
slips and garter belts, and stockings with seams that must be straight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our mothers were Virgin priestesses who had
been ceremoniously demoted by marriage, shamed and gagged by the function of
their sex. I horrified my mother. I was not what she wanted in a child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My very existence challenged her acceptance of
marriage as a woman’s inevitable defeat. My lively mind was a reminder of a
dark female presence that she had murdered within herself. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The game unfolded: little girls were soon tamed. Female
society ground on like a glacier that rolled over and pulverized every female that
resisted its relentless power. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My father was a traitor to his gender. In matters of
the mind he never slighted me. He was a mechanical engineer with wide
interests, but his knowledge had one boundary, the artificial gulf between
the priestly triumvirate of science, technology, and mathematics, the intellectual activities that divided the real world from everything else. He had
an eidetic memory (he claimed) and rather than deflect my questions as
unladylike annoyances, he fed me information about astronomy, geology, physics,
chemistry, history, exploration and industry. He was not a creative person, but
populated his mind with wonderful facts and figures in order to keep the world
and his unhappy childhood at bay. He told me this, and let me know, without
providing details, that he had idolized his father, a strict man who had used
corporal punishment to toughen him up. </span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Inexplicably, he hated
his mother, whose sole flaw, as far as I could understand, was being a woman.
His sister was also an object of his rage. He refused to provide any cause for
his extreme feelings, and if my questions ventured to close to his wall of
secrecy, he would turn on me. The experience was like that of trying to retrieve
a bone from an ill-tempered dog that growls menacingly, curls its lip and
commits a warning bite. Warning given: warning taken. I had to set aside this
mystery concerning his female family members as a contradiction to the father I
knew. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-41076560948973328542014-04-28T07:47:00.000-07:002014-07-14T23:25:04.878-07:00Standing Around Being Defective 2 <span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My father was unhappy with social rules that he
simply couldn’t comprehend. He sympathized with my complaints about female
socialization and gave me a pass on conforming to what we both judged to be
ridiculous and humiliating demands placed on women. Once in awhile, at some
critical stage when my mother would insist that I dress up “like a lady” and
attend some social function, he would
sacrifice me to marital peace and order me to obey. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When I directly contradicted his strict
adherence to the triumvirate of science, technology and mathematics as the only
worthwhile human endeavors, he withdrew angrily. When I defended art, literature, foreign cultures and
music as areas of growing interest to me, I witnessed the rigid and
deranged male vision of superiority. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I was swiftly demoted from being an
equal and temporarily cast out as <em>one of them</em>, a category that included all
lesser beings: women, minorities, artists, musicians, writers - literally,
anyone who was not a white male engineer or scientist. It hurt terribly and
compounding his vile attitude was the equally legitimate observation that my
father was not an unkind man. His kneejerk hatred toward categories of lesser
humans did not play out in daily life. He was helpful to neighbors and to
strangers regardless of category, to the point of exasperating my mother with
his generosity. He was an unrepentant chit-chatter with any and all who came
his way. I never heard an unfriendly word in his conversations unless the topic
turned to politics. It was then that the conservative white male monster emerged
and we had to drag him out of the situation to avoid a confrontation. In the
1950s such unhinged political behavior was rejected as out-of-bounds, but today
it has become main stream political behavior spread by rabid and irrational media
‘news.’ </span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnRnCtF8pZ8NUF7_CTj1d2ydUokt-t-4-UtGOU8tBqRZQ-NIfOq7BDGpxjwHmQQMyNjnz0jalETmnQWpvOCMTz09hNHeAezWQqKKLKhzaOAy_C2xLqW25syf2-y7rgVPfjeUhU54LgCR9p/s1600/HP35_MarketingBrochure_1972_1000x738.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnRnCtF8pZ8NUF7_CTj1d2ydUokt-t-4-UtGOU8tBqRZQ-NIfOq7BDGpxjwHmQQMyNjnz0jalETmnQWpvOCMTz09hNHeAezWQqKKLKhzaOAy_C2xLqW25syf2-y7rgVPfjeUhU54LgCR9p/s1600/HP35_MarketingBrochure_1972_1000x738.jpg" height="139" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the highlights of my father's career in engineering <br />
was the monumental leap from slide rule to the HP 35. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I was stuck with a schizoid model: Everything human
was on the other side of the divide in my father’s male world. Female thoughts
and opinions simply didn’t matter, and worse, formed some kind of cosmic
threat to men. And yet, my father did not impose the standard “women are stupid,
emotional, and should never attempt to think” regime on me, but encouraged my heresy. I think he also grasped that any censure of my particular interests would be
fruitless. This conflict set me up for a lifelong interest in human behavior. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My
hidden analysis of the family proved that both my father and mother were
extreme cases of people who were locked into behavior they could neither
understand nor modify. It turned out to be not that simple. Although their
extremes were dysfunctional, each parent reflected common cultural beliefs promulgated
by a particularly unhealthy supernatural script, which had been enacted over and over with tragic success for two millennia. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When I look back to my childhood I see it ironically. The painful dysfunctional predicament in which I found myself provided material for a favorite type of Asperger challenge. <strong>What a mess! I bet I can figure it out. </strong>I'm still working on it.</span> </span></div>
gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-18674248397037473022014-04-27T13:38:00.000-07:002014-06-28T14:35:11.049-07:00Standing Around Being Defective 3<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My mother and I never were on good terms. She had
bought into the myth of female shame and inferiority (I acknowledge the extreme
social pressures on her to do so) and did her utmost to transfer that inferior
status to me. The gap was too great. There was no place for self-hatred in
either my intellectual or emotional life. Besides, my experiences with
rejection and bullying outside the family had less to do with my social
awkwardness than with a greater crime: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
unHoly, unfeminine intelligence that erupted from within me like a fountain, and
the audacity I had to use it. <o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As I moved out and into the world, I quickly
discovered that my mother’s negative view of females was not limited to her,
but was culturally pervasive. What I had hoped was an aberration, turned out to
be open and acceptable discrimination, especially in employment. Within the
1960s - 1970s work place, sexual predation and humiliation were status quo.
Accusations of inferior thinking ability, the supposed inability of females to learn skills other
than typing, and the intent of seducing males in the office (snaring a husband)
had to be born with stoicism or countered with vehement argument. These insults,
and the vast invented vocabulary of female biology, which was a legacy of Old
Testament misogyny, were counted as perfectly good and legal reasons for not
hiring women. The ubiquitous practice of gross underpayment of women employees was
a motive to hire ‘girls’ for inferior, servant-like work and was everywhere exploited.
Sadly, much of this inequality remains. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The disturbing ‘automatic’ attitude toward women
that I saw in my father was also present in many of the men I worked with, and
it seemed to drive the lives of the ones who were married. In addition to being
regarded as the Alien Invader in a man’s world, I was also cast as a Trusted Confidant,
a role I had learned to play for my father, and like him, men young and old
shared details about the wife they had committed to and with whom they had
children. Home was regarded as a jail. These men were boxed in between a real
wife, with whom they played The Husband and males at work with whom they played
the misunderstood and trapped victim of a powerful female conspiracy. In
essence, they complained about having no one at home with whom they could speak
openly and honestly, but didn’t connect this outcome to the practice of being dishonest
with their wives. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The use of drugs to 'treat' (mask) depression and anxiety in housewives (happy pills, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, and a lot of alcohol) has a long history. The mass application of drugs to individuals who are made ill by toxic social environments has expanded to outrageous levels. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Much of what I heard was shocking. When speaking to
their wives on the telephone, these adult men were pleasant, obedient, contrite,
and affectionate. When jousting with each other, the hated clichés came out and
were fired back and forth like weapons, as if denigrating one’s spouse was both
a competition and entertainment. What I heard in personal disclosures was both
sad and repugnant. Men seemed to cling to a little boy fantasy that they were
in fact James Bond, but somehow, through no fault of their own, found
themselves clinging to women who provided comfort, children, and a home life,
which is a normal and healthy state for an adult male, but a union in which
they could not fully participate nor enjoy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">On the rare occasion when one of The Wives made an
appearance at the office, warnings were given out to be on best behavior, as if
the ruling males were soldiers facing a surprise inspection. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wives naturally required a public display of
affection; if it was a peck on the cheek at departure, all was fine, but any
more intimacy than this was viewed as a public humiliation for the husband.
Some wives furtively examined the physical state of desks, objects on desks,
and stray papers as if they were at a crime scene investigation. I was
sometimes asked to go powder my nose for the duration of the visit, because I
was young and attractive and a prime suspect for shenanigans. These visits were
mostly extremely uncomfortable for everyone. I found all of this rather strange
and embarrassing but fascinating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My parent’s estrangement from each other had appeared
to be an extreme case, but the discovery that for many people the person to
whom one was intimately bound in marriage was also the person to whom one routinely
hid from and lied to shocked me. Where was all the love, love, love in
marriage? Fear of the opposite sex seemed to pollute relationships between men
and women, voluntary and messed up partnerships that were nevertheless publicly
declared to be happy. Women were classed us unequal and inferior at best, as
evil and treacherous whenever it suited men, but in their minds a woman had
incredible power. She could ruin a man by trapping him in marriage, and deny
him true fulfillment as a rogue male. Sex played a huge part in all this. Domestication
of the human male had turned out to be a terrible thing according to men. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">Unfortunately, the
theme of man as an unbalanced woman-hater, and woman as dirty inferior, as described
and prescribed in the Old Testament, has poisoned the relationship between
natural partners. In the real world it’s male and female, different and
complementary, co-conspirators in the survival of a species. We’ve gone the
wrong way, Baby. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678104252357921937.post-16235083574914933272014-04-26T09:13:00.000-07:002014-07-14T07:16:37.553-07:00Cultural Imposition on Intellectual Pursuits<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The modern arbitrary division between Art and Science was a childhood mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I read about men who during the Renaissance had created paintings, architecture, and sculpture, planned cities, invented weapons and battlefield strategies, uniting all these endeavors under the spell of a creative mind. There were priests who studied astronomy, painters who studied anatomy and chemistry, sculptors who studied the properties of stone and bronze and engineered monumental buildings. They were sought after by powerful families and institutions; the wider the range of their knowledge and skills, the more valuable their work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> It never occurred to me that as a female I must be excluded from participation in such activities. Intelligent pursuits simply aren't sex-determined, but culture does its best to thwart women's ambitions by imagining that the intellect is gender-bound, that is, what you are permitted to do with your brain is culturally imposed. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While looking at photographs of medieval architecture, a photo of Speyer Cathedral reminded me of the space shuttle on its launch pad - this impression is of course based on a particular view of the massive building. A supernatural thinker might claim that the similarity is proof that 'God' or some intelligent designer is at work, but both of these 'machines' were designed by humans working within the demands and limits of a universal physical system. Gravity, force, and mass must be balanced and environmental stresses accounted for. The deeper commonality between the massive 11th Century Romanesque cathedral (primarily a tomb for the Holy Roman Emperors, which has been damaged and rebuilt many times) and the Space Shuttle, is the will to obtain limitless technical power.</span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /><span style="color: black;">
To read my book,</span><span style="color: red;"> <em><span style="color: blue;">Top Males - Anger by Design,</span></em> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="color: black;">go to: </span><a href="http://ginarex-angerbydesign.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: black;">http://ginarex-angerbydesign.blogspot.com</span></a></span></span><br />
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gina rexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02753393008555233724noreply@blogger.com0