Standing Around Being Defective 3

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: the unHoly, unfeminine intelligence that erupted from within me like a fountain, and the audacity I had to use it.

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.

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.

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. 
 

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.

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.  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. 

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.  

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.

Sensory Diversity, Brains, and Judeo-Christian Myth

Does the Autism Spectrum make any sense?

I want to spend some time on sensory sensitivities, because I believe that the myriad confusing symptoms that are considered to be diagnostic of Asperger's are the RESULT of a different sensory reception and processing scheme than is present in so-called normal people. The unusually broad array of behaviors and thought processes used to diagnose Asperger people is internally contradictory and inconsistent. Also, these symptoms are unequally distributed among individuals diagnosed as Asperger. A grab bag of 'suspicious' or unwanted behaviors is being used to diagnose an increasing array of new disorders without looking deeply into the origin of such disparate symptoms. Dozens of characteristics are  grouped as a spectrum more from convenience than evidence. The range of possible drivers of behavior is left unknown, and therefore facts that might untangle the mess and lead to a better understanding of developmental diversity in our species remain hidden.

An analogy: A panel of experts decides that having a pain in the neck is pretty much the same as having a headache, so neck pain is swept into a Headache Disorder spectrum. Regardless of how many, or which symptoms the individual may or may not exhibit along this spectrum, he or she is then told that the problem is a defective brain. There is no cure or treatment, but a person can be trained to act is if no pain exists. The CAUSE of the headache (or neck pain) is ignored. The pain might be traced to a brain tumor, allergies, or whiplash, but no differentiation is made.  

The sweeping conclusion that diverse humans can be categorically removed to a "disordered" space reflects a dominant religious attitude that a male god made man in His likeness, therefore there is only ONE God-given correct set of thoughts and behaviors acceptable in human beings. Note that the "disordered space" by definition includes females, and any person authorities designate.  Too many experts and scientists have this conceptual structure embedded in their work and don't even realize it, but cultural ideas taint their assumptions and therefore their conclusions. The insistence that Homo sapiens is the ultimate human, divinely inspired and separated from the animals by a towering barrier of supernatural origin, is only recently being challenged in anthropology and evolutionary science. The supposedly rock-solid line that was drawn by religious males over two millennia ago, which divides "sub-humans" from a self-designated Supreme Man has wrecked the lives of millions of human beings. 

Possible Asperger Sensitivity to Infrasound

Infrasound is sound waves below the normal range of human hearing. Infrasound is common in nature, but additionally the environment is flooded with manmade low and high frequency sound. You know those industrial strength subwoofers that cause some of us severe pain, anger, irritation, and the urge to run away? Those effects are real.

 

Natural sources of infrasound - many animals can detect these low frequency sounds; a few, such as elephants, can also generate infrasound. Humans can't HEAR these long wavelengths, but they do have effects on the human nervous system and organs.

"Oobleck" is the now famous non-Newtonian fluid composed of cornstarch and water. Shown here is the Oobleck "dance" produced by infrasound from a subwoofer. I'm not claiming that infrasound has the same effect on any part of the human body. I'm using the photo to show that infrasound, even though humans can't "hear" it, has a physical existence and is part of our environment, from both natural and manmade sources. 

For a look at non-Newtonian liquids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN2D5y-AxIY

Are Asperger's Individuals the Canaries of Toxic Human Environments?

The sensitivity of Asperger children and adults to specific sound frequencies, noise levels, chemicals, pollution and chaotic human activity is labeled a symptom of a defective brain. Really? Do dogs and cats run away at the sound of drills, saws and vacuum cleaners because their brains are defective? Do pets sneeze and hide when household cleaners are sprayed in the air because their brains are defective? Are cigarettes banned in many public places because toxic smoke is good for people? Do fish die off when fertilizer concentrations in rivers and lakes cause algal blooms that deplete oxygen in the water because fish are developmentally retarded? Do sea birds that consume plastic trash that blocks their digestive system die because they are stupid? Do turtles get caught in fishing nets and die because their brains don't 'get' human indifference to the survival of other species? Do wild animals flee humans because they just don't understand that cruelty is empathy in disguise?

Are Asperger people averse to social environments because their brain-sensory system is broken, or is it because we have more acute sensory perception, and toxic environments make us sick? 

"I don't want to live that way." - Krishnamurti

 

Nature requires that we support ourselves and our children, but nowhere can it be shown that the social version of 'being human' is correct or wise or healthy for any individual or family. The 'socially normal' have no scientific basis by which to dictate how we express our humanity. In fact, the social hierarchy creates misery by denying food, clean water and shelter for millions of people; by polluting the environment, stealing resources, and bringing plants and wildlife to extinction. The Pharaohs of today care nothing for humanity, the planet or its future. This exploitation and careless destruction of all that is worthwhile on this planet, goes against the Asperger core: life matters.  

Support for the Asperger Experience of Emotion as Pain

FROM:  Your Brain: Your Pharmacist. Brain prescribes opioids for rejection – and rewards social acceptance with opioids! Posted on November 20, 2013 by consummatenovice

For the last decade researchers have found that emotional pain experienced from social rejection activates the same region of the brain that physical pain activates – the pain center. (see previous post "The Science of Pain, Empathy and Emotion) 

Scientists believe that since mammals live in social groups that are crucial to survival, social rejection is akin to a physical threat to our brain. A recent paper by Hsu et al. from the University of Michigan, has now shown that the same opioid receptors located in the brain’s pain center activated in response to physical pain are also activated by emotional pain and that the more opioid response an individual releases, the more that person scores high on the trait “resiliency”.  The study also found that the brain rewards social acceptance with activation of opioid receptors located elsewhere in the brain.

The brain protects itself from feeling too much physical pain by dosing itself with endogenous opioids. It lets you feel pain so you know that whatever it is you are doing should stop, but then alleviates its own pain by activating opioid receptors located in the pain center of the brain. Presumably, this neat self-soothing mechanism exists so when we get hurt we don’t just lie down and cry. (My personal experience points to the failure of this quenching or dampening of pain; the result is panic and anxiety that will escalate to unbearable levels.)

 

Given the similarities in the experience of physical and emotional pain, scientists have hypothesized that emotional pain also results in opioid receptor activation. In this study, Hsu and Zubieta used a radiotracer specific for opioid receptors to visualize the release of endogenous opioids with PET imaging in response to stimuli.

Expectedly, rejected subjects felt more “sad and rejected” and less “happy and accepted,” while accepted subjects felt the opposite. Interestingly, subjects with high opioid activity rated themselves as lower in the “sad and rejected” scale. These findings suggest that individuals with a robust opioid response bounce back more quickly in the face social rejection. This data corroborates a study by Way et al. from 2009 which examined the differences in activation of the brain’s pain center in response to social rejection between people who have a normal opioid receptor gene and those who have a mutation in the receptor. The mutated receptor is thought to have greatly reduced function and carriers of this mutation have been shown to need greater amounts of opioids to treat physical pain (ex: post-surgical pain). Way and Eisenberg saw that carriers of the mutation had greater activation of the pain center than non-carriers.

These findings will hopefully lead to new therapies and interventions with individuals suffering from depression, social anxiety, and other psychological disorders.

Hsu, D. et al. Response of the μ-opioid system to social rejection and acceptance. Molecular psychiatry 18, 1211–7 (2013).