Sorry For the Gap

Trey Smith

I wrote a few days ago that I would try to keep Scott's posts coming and then there is this 3 day gap! Suffice it to say, that there has been a lot of turmoil in my life the last week or so. I had a fall and, on the some day, so did my 80 year old father. My fall wasn't that serious, but my dad broke his hip. It was surgically repaired this afternoon.

On top of that, there has been a lot of stress associated with my participation at the radio station. I remain on the Board of Directors of the station, but I am no longer part of the broadcast team.

A commenter on one of my recent posts noted that things seemed to be working out at the station and this proved that I was a malingerer, someone who could be working at a paying job. I didn't feel like getting into it at the time, but some aspects of the radio station weren't working out at all and it again has something to do -- I suppose -- with my deficit in the area of social skills. At some point, I may decide to share my perspective on this ongoing situation.

My Preoccupation with the NSA Revelations

Trey Smith

I've been writing an awful lot about the NSA revelations in the past few weeks. For me, this is the most important scandal in recent memory. It strikes at the heart of freedom and democracy. It certainly goes against the basic precepts of philosophical Taoism.

While I am concerned with how this recently confirmed information impacts the basic fabric of society, these revelations may hit me harder than most. As someone who suffers from Schizotypal Personality Disorder, I already battle a degree of delusions and paranoia anyway. Now that I've learned that most of my phone calls and online activity are being tracked and/or monitored, it's made me even more paranoid than usual!

Look at it this way. I naturally tend to be suspicious of people and their motives. I go through periods in which I feel I'm being watched. In the past, I've been able to have a rational conversation with myself and point out that it's probably not true; it's just one of my run-of-the-mill delusions.

Now, however, I realize it may not be a delusion after all. Maybe people genuinely are watching me!

While it still may be paranoid to think that someone somewhere is keeping tabs on my every move -- not that I do much of anything anymore -- we now know that there ARE people tasked with keeping an eye out for dissidents and, if you read my posts, it is abundantly clear that I AM a dissident! I am a very low-level (not widely read) dissident, but these days we can never know how low the threshold is.

Not that this paranoia will stop me from writing the sort of things I write, but I do know my anxiety levels have been much higher lately. I'm going to see my counselor this afternoon and you can be sure my renewed paranoia will be the focus of our discussion.

But it still begs the question: If most of us are being surveilled to one degree or another, is it really paranoia to know this is happening?

The "Doctor" Is In

Trey Smith

Most of the posts I pen concern philosophy and politics, but from time to time, I share with you my ongoing challenges from the variety of conditions I have been blessed with. I have written quite a bit about my trials and tribulations with Klinefelter's Syndrome, Asperger's Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Schizotypal Personality Disorder. There are two reasons for this, other than the fact I am basically an open person.

For starters, being autistic, I have hard time figuring out proper social boundaries. While the average bloke may have a good sense of knowing what is too much personal information, I tend to be clueless! So, rather than trying to unravel a knot that generally is lost on me anyway, I tend to lay it all out there. I suppose it's a good thing that I am disabled and don't work because, in this day and age where potential employers farm the internet for information about job applicants, I probably have shared enough personal information to scare any of them away! :D

There is another reason why I am so open. Many of the conditions I have are ones that people generally don't talk about, except in hushed tones. If an individual suspects or has learned that they have one or more of these maladies, it often engenders a lonely feeling. It leads to questions like, why me? How will I ever cope? How can I lead a "normal" life?

Because of my writings on these topics, it is not uncommon for me to receive emails from individuals who suspect or have recently been diagnosed with Klinefelter's Syndrome, Asperger's Syndrome, Fibromyalgia or Schizotypal Personality Disorder. While I most certainly am NOT a doctor, I can reach out to say it is not the end of the world. All of these conditions and syndromes are merely labels. They don't change the person you are; they merely define many of the challenges you face.

Since I have made it to 55 and I'm still going, it is a testament to the fact that a person's life doesn't end when you learn of your label[s]. This is not to say that my life has been a piece of cake -- it definitely has not -- but I somehow have been able to continue to muddle through. If I can do it, I see no reason why you can't either.

I Miss Her, But...

Trey Smith

When I was first diagnosed with Schizotypal Personality Disorder and Asperger's Syndrome, it answered a lot of my questions about the difficulties I had experienced mt whole life, particularly in trying to comprehend the social world. As I think is typical, my focus was on those negative differences between me and most people. I saw what comes natural to most folks and lamented that these same traits and characteristics do not come natural to me at all.

However, once I was able to wrap my head around these innate differences, I began to see that there are many positives as well. One of these positives is that, after a difficult transition period, I tend to adapt to whatever the new routine is. I certainly may not like the change and the potentiality of the change will cause me much anxiety, but once the change has occurred, I get on with it in fairly good order.

While there is no question that I miss my wife a lot, I am handling her absence and my lack of transportation better than I expected. In some ways, my usual routine hasn't really been altered THAT much. I don't go grocery shopping everyday and I have a lot more responsibilities around the house. Anything that needs to be accomplished must be undertaken by me because I can't seem to convince the dogs or the cat to help wash the dishes or fetch clothes out the dryer! ;-)

In this particular instance, being a natural introvert is very beneficial. Della and I talk several times by phone per day, but not interacting with others doesn't bother me. I think I'll be okay as long as I can avoid panic attacks (which often strike for no apparent reason). I'm still a tad bit nervous about how I might singularly handle a panic attack, but I won't know until one strikes.

Maybe after I encounter my first such attack, I'll pen a completely different post!

I Keep Deleting This Post

Trey Smith

Several days ago I penned a post. It was difficult to write -- actually, it was quite agonizing. When I was finished, I scheduled it to post the next day, but before it went live, I deleted it. I have written on the subject matter of that post several times since and yet I ended up deleting each one of them.

So, here I am again debating whether to post this or not.

Within two or three days of the shooting in Newtown, information started to come out that the shooter (Adam Lanza) had been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and a personality disorder. As it so happens, I have Asperger's Syndrome and Schizotypal Personality Disorder (which may or may not be the same type of disorder as the shooter -- IF he even had a personality disorder at all).  

Noting these potential similarities, it freaked me out big time.  It led me to ask myself a haunting question: Could I someday be an Adam Lanza?

After much soul searching, I am convinced that the answer is a resounding NO!  

I am a pacifist.  I loathe guns and I certainly don't own any.  I have a big heart and, in this venue, I continuously exhibit a tremendous reservoir of compassion for others.  I don't always express it well or in ways that other people understand, but there is a lot of love and goodness in me.

But there IS another side.  I hear voices and see things that aren't there.  I sometimes get very depressed for reasons I don't understand.  Often, when the hallucinations are quite numerous, I have a tendency to shut myself away from others and brood.  When I brood, I more readily notice a dark hole inside that, to be quite candid, scares the hell out of me.

Because of my weird brain chemistry, my internal life has been an ongoing pitched battle.  On the one side are (for a lack of a better word) my demons.  On the other side is my heart.  The latter always wins out -- with two exceptions in my youth that I have shared in this space before -- and this should provide me with a high degree of confidence that it will continue to win out.

For the most part, it does!  And yet, because I'm a very anxious lad, I sometimes worry about how the aging process -- dementia, for example -- might impact this situation.  I also worry that one day I might progress to full-blown schizophrenia since individuals with my disorder have a greater propensity to do so than the average person.

One of the chief reasons I keep deleting posts of this nature is that I do not want to add to the hysteria of some that people with Asperger's or personality disorders are ticking time bombs that could go off at any moment and, therefore, should be rounded up and locked away or worse.  The overwhelming majority of folks who have one or the other pose no danger to society whatsoever.  I'm not talking about anyone else here; this about me and me alone.

I am a very sensitive person.  When terrible things happen in the outside world, it messes me up.  My OCD kicks into full gear and I can't seem to stop myself from reading and watching all the various news reports for hours on end.  The more I read and watch, the more discombobulated I become.  I sit for hours -- often in a darkened room -- trying to wrap my head around what has occurred.  I cry and cry.  At times, I'm inconsolable.

This is why -- despite the sometimes dark thoughts that bubble up from the dark hole -- I am convinced that I will never be an Adam Lanza.   My tender heart is far more powerful than the misfiring wires in my brain.

A Star Is Born

Trey Smith

As I've discussed before, I suffer from social anxiety and, at those times when it is more pronounced, I have a strong tendency to close myself off from the outside world. One of the advantages of befriending Paul (the owner of our local mini mart) is that I often interact with his employees and this limited amount of social interaction helps me to refrain from being totally isolated.

One of his newer employees is a young woman who, it turns out, I share a lot in common with. She goes to the same mental health center I go to and a lot of the issues she works on with her counselor aren't that different from mine. The other night she shared with me one part of her condition that I had never heard of: She suffers from The Truman Show delusion.

The Truman Show delusion is a type of persecutory/grandiose delusion in which patients believe their lives are staged plays or reality television shows. The term was coined in 2008 by brothers Joel and Ian Gold, a psychiatrist and a neurophilosopher, respectively, after the 1998 film The Truman Show. It is not officially recognized and is not separately listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, but could be classified as a "Delusional Disorder, Persecutory Type". Truman Syndrome may be a related condition.

I certainly can identify with the feeling of being watched! Though I certainly don't view my life as staged, there are times I tend to get really paranoid in that I think everybody is watching me and it is during these times that I pull away from the world even more than usual.

For those of you who have never suffered from psychotic delusions, I realize this sounds very queer. In many ways, it might seem that a person who thinks their life is a reality show must really be stuck on themselves. In some cases, this might well be true, but this particular young woman definitely is not one of them! She struggles with self-esteem and self-confidence issues. So, for her, she has this unstated feeling that she is the star of a show that she doesn't want to be in!

But here's the kicker. She rationally realizes that she is not being filmed 24/7. She knows that no one truly is watching her, but this doesn't change the feeling that it indeed is true. This has led me to suspect that I may have met a kindred spirit; someone else who suffers from Schizotypal Personality Disorder.

It is not so dissimilar from my situation of experiencing visible and auditory hallucinations, but being able to discern that these hallucinations are just that.

Tortoise Dreams

Trey Smith

I rarely have nightmares or bad dreams. In fact, because of my weird sleep habits, I usually don't dream at all -- at least, I'm not aware of it. While bad dreams are few and far between for me, when I do have them, they often involve a tortoise. A dead tortoise. A dead tortoise that I hacked to death with an ax.

Sadly, the wanton slaughter of the tortoise is not a dream. It is an act I actually committed in my mid-teens. It was during the time I first started suffering from audio and visual hallucinations. The voice told me to kill the tortoise and I did what the voice told me to do.

I bludgeoned and hacked the tortoise like I was a crazed serial killer. After the frenzy released its hold on me, I was filled with remorse. I had senselessly ended the life of another being. I'm a pacifist, I screamed at myself. What in the hell is wrong with you?

To say the least, this episode scared the wits out of me. I was convinced I was going mad. I didn't tell a soul about the incident for a decade or so because I was so ashamed of my actions. When I did finally fess up, I conveniently left out the part about "the voice." That was part of the secret I shared with no one until the past year.

After that scary episode, I vowed that I would fight "the voice" in the future with everything I have. Though "the voice" continues to share its disquieting and, sometimes, violent messages, I am happy to report that I haven't killed or injured anyone else. I've broken a plate or two over the past 40 years or so, but even those incidents are few and far between.

Such is the life of a person with Schizotypal Personality Disorder (SPD).

I do worry sometimes about progressing to full-blown schizophrenia. People with SPD have a greater propensity to develop schizophrenia than the general population. If I were to get to the point in which I began to lose touch with reality, I might not have the strength or ability to keep "the voice" at bay.

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Trey Smith

From what I gather, one of the chief differences between Schizophrenia and Schizotypal Personality Disorder (SPD) has to do with a differentiation in the experience of hallucinations. The schizophrenic individual sees or hears things that aren't real and, no matter what evidence is presented to the contrary, they persist in holding onto the belief that the hallucination is, in fact, part of everyday reality.

For people like me with SPD, we often are able to understand that our hallucinations are not real and that no one else can see or hear them. While I suppose there is a definite benefit from being able to sort out the real from the unreal, this benefit often is lost on me, particularly during an hallucinogenic episode.

Two or three evenings ago (I don't remember which it was) I decided to drive down to the local mini mart to visit my friend, Paul. Along the way, at different points in the approximately 4 minute trip, I saw an individual standing on the side of the road. Each time I "saw" the individual it was the same one I had seen several blocks earlier.

That's not possible. The person I saw at the bottom of my hill could not be the same person I saw one block from the mini mart. No human I know of could move that fast. Of course, no one was standing next to the road at the bottom of my hill. The person was there one moment and then not there in the blink of an eye.

In other words, the individual I kept seeing along my route wasn't real. It was a repeated hallucination. When I was a younger man, these "sightings" used to trouble me greatly. What's wrong with me?, I'd ask myself. Am I going mad?

Having lived with this condition the entirety of my adult life (and much of my late childhood too), I don't get all freaked out like I used to. I rather methodically try to ascertain if what I see before me is real or not and, if I'm satisfied it's the latter, I just shake my head and keep moving.

What good does it do to get all freaked out? It is what it is and, like everything else in life, I simply have to accept it and deal with it as best I can.

Conversations

From time to time, I talk to my oldest friend, Greg. I've known him since I was 4 1/2 years old. We got in a lot of trouble together during our juvenile years. I considered his parents my second parents.

It seems that whenever we talk about the "good 'ol days" -- which hasn't happened for 2 or 3 years -- Greg brings up one occurrence that he remembers clear as a bell; one that convinced him that his buddy wasn't quite "normal."

I don't remember the particulars of this incident. I don't recall the where or when, but I vaguely acknowledge that it did happen.

Greg came around a corner to find me engaged in a full-blown conversation...with no one! I always passed it off as a case of me simply thinking out loud. Greg, however, always points out that most people don't adopt different voices and appear as different people when they merely are thinking out loud.

The truth of the matter is that Greg caught me talking out loud to the voices in my head. I often talk to them out loud, but I take great care not to do it around other people. Unfortunately, in this particular instance, I wasn't careful enough.

I was reminded of this episode not by my friend but by my brother, Sean. He remembered that I had revealed to him (years after the fact) that I had created a whole group of imaginary friends that I conversed with all throughout my youth. Well, that's what I told him. It was a lot easier to say that I had created the voices instead of the fact that they simply appeared one day. I also didn't bother to mention that I saw the people the voices came from.

These voices and images complicated my life as a child. On one level, I realized that what I heard and saw was not rational -- that they existed solely in my mind -- and yet they were real to me. They were my comrades in arms...except when they said disturbing things. Then they became phantoms.

And the truth that I only recently admitted is that these voices and images never went away. They have followed me throughout my life. At times, they are like my security blanket and, at other times, they scare me out of my wits.

Hard to Come By

As the unemployment rate -- whether one speaks of the "official" rate or the true figures -- remains far too high, there are more and more people out there who go to job interview after job interview and yet can't seem to land a job. No matter how strong a person is in their belief in themselves, when you get door upon door slammed in your face, it's hard not to take personally after a while. You start to look at yourself and ask, What's wrong with me?

While I no longer work due to disability, I certainly understand what today's job seekers are going through. Despite the fact my working days predominantly were during periods of low national unemployment, I had a devil of a time landing a job in my chosen field of social work.

After graduating from college in 1979 with a degree in sociology, it took me 6 months and 22 interviews at social services offices around the state of Arkansas before landing my first professional job. The next time around it took me nearly 9 months and 18 interviews before I secured a spot. After moving to Oregon about 20 years ago, I tried to secure a job in this field for 3 years and over 40 total interviews in 4 different states, yet I came up empty each time!

During each of these periods, no matter how hard I tried to keep up my spirits, I'd be lying if I told you that it didn't get me down. On reflection, however, I am no longer amazed that I was continually passed over. What amazes me now is that someone eventually hired me at all!!

You see, I am a decidedly odd duck. Though it has only been in the past 5 years that I have been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and Schizotypal Personality Disorder, the symptoms of each condition have long been prevalent in my life. The diagnoses themselves simply add a bit of definition to the odd quirks and personality features I have exhibited for decades.

For starters, I dress differently than most adults I know. As I've mentioned before, I where something akin to the official Trey uniform: hickory-striped overalls, loud socks, a long sleeved t-shirt and very colorful Converse high-tops. You will find me in my get-up at least 360 days per year.

When I went to job interviews, I had to chuck my usual attire and wear grown-up clothes. This always made me feel uncomfortable and I would spend inordinate amounts of time pulling and tugging at what I was wearing. My guess is that I looked and acted like a little kid who had been forced to dress up for some special occasion and couldn't wait to tear off their Sunday best to go play in the mud!

Because of my aversion to crowds, all of my interviews over the years were in small cities and towns in predominantly rural areas. (The very thought of working in a large city was suffocating to me.) One fact of small town or rural life is that these areas tend to me far more conservative than urban communities. And, of course, I am anything BUT conservative.

I can imagination that many of the folks conducting the interviews I attended looked across the table at this obviously uncomfortable bloke and thought to themselves, "This guy's a freaking radical! What is he even doing here?!" I now consider myself fortunate that I didn't land many of these jobs because it either wasn't or wouldn't have been a good marriage all around.

The third factor that I'm fairly sure doomed me in many an interview was the fact that I don't look people in the eye when I talk to them. When I am concentrating on what someone else is saying, I tend to look at the ground. When I talk, my eyes dance all over the place, but usually not directly toward the person I'm talking to. This trait tends to unnerve others and/or they think I am not giving them my undivided attention.

So, it is now quite understandable WHY I was continually not selected. For all my positive traits -- hard working, attention to detail, good writer, witty fellow, strong conviction in protecting those who can't protect themselves -- there was just something about me that made potential employers uneasy.

I can live with that. In fact, if I was in their shoes, I'm sure I wouldn't have hired me either!

Why Me, Lord?

It is not uncommon at all, when we are beset with hurdles or tragedies in our lives, to ask, "Why me?" I consider myself a bit fortunate because this singular question does not dog me. I am sure that when I was a wee lad I most likely posed the question a time or two, but I have not become mired in the unknowable answer.

The way I see it is that troubles and even anomalies are normal. They occur on a regular basis. For every animal or plant born, there are mutations and aspects that aren't in the range of generally acknowledged parameters. Consequently, my abnormalities are part of the normalities of life.

So, while I have escaped the self-pitying question of "Why Me?", there is a question that I do wonder about from time to time: "Why so damn many anomalies in one person?"

While the various medical and mental health professionals I regularly see are constantly trying to update their diagnoses of this odd human specimen (me), some of the labels attached seem to be more fluid than permanent.

Klinefelter's has been definitely established based on my karotype panel and blood tests. Osteoporosis has been clearly demonstrated via x-rays and MRIs.

Beyond that, the rest of my assorted maladies don't have definitive tests that indicate their presence yea or nay. Diagnoses are rendered due to a variety of tools: medical and family history, various types of imaging services, blood tests, cognitive tests, behavioral observations and I'm sure many tools and factors I'm not even aware of.

On the muscular-joint front, my current diagnosis is fibromyalgia. In the past, some of my doctors have had suspicions that I suffered from Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Mixed Connective Tissue Disease and/or at least two other conditions that I don't recall off hand. In my own ongoing research, I recently noted that a great deal of my physical symptoms match up well with Sjögren's Syndrome. I think I will mention this to my primary care physician at next week's appointment.

On the psychological front, my two current working diagnoses are Asperger's Syndrome (autism) and Schizotypal Personality Disorder. One or both are associated with the comorbid conditions of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder and a general Anxiety Disorder. In addition, as mentioned in my last post, I have a long-term problem with verbal paraphasia (which typically has an organic cause).

That's a helluva lot of stuff for one person to deal with!!! Several of these disorders and conditions intersect with the others and they tend to reinforce and exacerbate some of the chief symptoms. I often feel like a human being that has been placed in a blender and then poured out after several runs through the chopping and mixing cycles.

So, while I don't dwell on the "Why me?" question, I do frequently ask, "Why so many all at once?"

No one -- not Tao, God or the Great Spaghetti Monster -- seems to provide an adequate answer to the question.

Why Now?

This blog has been up and running for over 6 years and, in all that time, I haven't shared much about my diagnosis of Schizotypal Personality Disorder. So, it begs the question: Why now? I don't have a definitive answer for you. The best I can come up with is: Why not now?

I suppose a better answer I can offer is twofold. First, I've been feeling out-of-sorts lately. It is not that my symptomatology is any worse today than it was previously -- no big issues with voices or seeings things not there in the last few days -- I simply go through periods in which I feel more out of kilter than usual. It is hard to explain.

The second reason relates to much of the personal information I share in this space. I tell you about my maladies and experiences as a way of telling others who find themselves in similar circumstances that they are not alone. When a person suffers from autism or a form of schizophrenia, it can often seem as if no one else in the world could fathom what any specific individual is going through. You feel completely estranged from the world around you.

So, this blog, in part, represents my meager attempt to say, "You are not alone."

I also wanted to share some of information on one of the major differences between full-blown schizophrenia and Schizotypal Personality Disorder (SPD). In the former, a person can lose touch with reality and they are completely unaware of it. You can try to dissuade them from their delusions with facts or logic, but they cling to their delusions, nonetheless.

Like a schizophrenic, the person with SPD shares much of the same symptomatology. One of the big differences, however, is that you do NOT lose touch with reality. You understand that your delusions are, in fact, delusional, but they still bedevil you anyway. While I sometimes worry that I might be completely schizophrenic, I have yet to lose touch with the so-called "real world," so my SPD diagnosis most likely is on target.

I do wonder, however, if understanding that one's delusions ARE delusions is a recipe for Anxiety Disorder, a common comorbidity for SPD. I sometimes think it would be better if I simply could disappear into my own fantasy world.

Think about this for a second. The completely delusional person doesn't KNOW that they are delusional, so they don't need to go through the anxiety of trying to straddle two worlds. It is precisely BECAUSE I straddle these two worlds that anxiety is produced because these worlds tend to be at great odds.

Of course, the positive of understanding that my delusions are delusions is that I can write on this blog and, sometimes, even make a modicum of sense!! :-D

Canyon Calling

In relating about my "coming out" as a person who suffers from auditory and visual hallucinations (here and here) in earlier posts today, I mentioned how I had carried around this secret for a long, long time. I had inklings (since age 12 or 13) that something wasn't quite right about the way I perceived the world, but I become convinced that I had a "problem" when I was 18 years old. Here's the story.

My parents had been divorced for about 3 years and, during this time, I didn't have much of a relationship with my dad at all. This cessation of contact was by choice; I didn't want to have anything to do with him. As my dad worked to make some changes in his life, we gradually re-established contact. This led to a proposed trip to the American Southwest for my dad, brother and I.

In all honesty, I didn't want to participate in this outing, but my mom insisted that I go because -- despite the fact she had great animosity toward her ex -- she believed it was important for me NOT to cut my father out of my life. (Note: My mother was very wise and my dad & I have become very close over the years.) So, I reluctantly agreed to go.

By and large, it turned out to be an enjoyable trip. My brother and I got to see many natural wonders and elements of history: Carlsbad Caverns, the OK Corral, White Sands National Monument, Taos Pueblo, Barringer Meteorite Crater, and, of course, the Grand Canyon. We hiked in national forests and explored several Indian reservation. I also got to visit the campuses New Mexico State University and Northern Arizona University, two schools I thought I might be interested in transferring to.

While the trip itself was enjoyable, it caused me immeasurable amounts of stress, nonetheless. I was far removed from my usual element and many of the tourist sites were crawling with people. As I have detailed on this blog, routine orders my life and I am a very anti-social personality. So, I think it is easy to understand why I felt this internal tension.

It all came to a head on the first day we visited the Grand Canyon National Park. We were hiking down one of the trails on the south rim (side near Flagstaff). There were a lot signs that warned people to stay on the trails, lest they get to close to the edge and fall down into the canyon.

Of course, I paid little heed to the signs! I consistently left the trail to peer over the edge. At one point, I was in a very dangerous spot. My brother and dad were yelling at me to move back from the edge. I ignored them. At about the time it looked like I would fall into the canyon, my father reached out to grab me and pull me to safety.

"What in the hell were you doing?" my father screamed at me. I passed it off as mere teenage curiosity -- I wanted to get a closer look at the natural majesty. After a stern lecture and a harangue from dear 'ol dad, the rest of our stay at the Grand Canyon was uneventful.

What I didn't tell him then -- I only admitted the truth to him last week -- was that I was so close to the edge because I was getting ready to jump to my death. The reason I was prepared to commit suicide was because a voice kept whispering, "Jump. Jump. Jump."

I think I had heard voices before this juncture, but I had always passed them off as being tired or something. I couldn't pass this voice off. It was very clear and distinct. It was a lot like the voice in the movie Field of Dreams which wouldn't be filmed for another 15 or so years.

It was the kind of voice I couldn't argue with. Whatever it directed, I felt compelled to comply with. So, on that summer's day when it told me to jump, I was prepared to do just that. I really didn't understand WHY I was supposed to jump, I just knew I was supposed to. Were it not for my dad grabbing me, I'm fairly confident I wouldn't be penning this post right now.

As I've aged and matured, the voices have never left me, but I am now better equipped at drowning them out or resisting them. They often say some really disturbing stuff, but I've never physically harmed another person -- other than myself (nothing serious) -- because of them. I've broken a few things over the years, but that's about the worst of it.

Still, they plague me. Some days they almost seem to drive me certifiably crazy. I guess I am fortunate that I don't hear them every hour of every day. They come and they go. I can go for long periods -- like several months -- without hearing them, but they always return eventually. When they do return, they return with a vengeance, like I've been neglecting them.

I would really like it if they would leave me alone.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

So, what was it that led me to come out to my counselor that I suffer from visual and auditory hallucinations? A spider.

One night I was laying on my pallet on the floor (I don't sleep in a bed) reading. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a rather large spider in the middle of the wall-to-wall carpet of my bedroom. As our house is old -- originally built in 1900 -- it's not odd in the least to see a spider on the floor or climbing on a wall.

I put the book down to watch the spider. It stood there unmoving for several seconds and then started scampering toward me. It came right across the floor and scurried under my book that was resting on the corner of my pallet. While I try to have a live and let live philosophy most of the time, I certainly didn't want to wake up the next morning with several painful spider bites. So, I decided to lift up the book to smash the little critter.

However, when I lifted the book, there was no spider underneath. I jumped off the floor and quickly examined myself to see if the spider was on me. It wasn't. I pulled off my sheets and blankets. I moved all my pillows. I looked under my pallet. I basically tore my room apart looking for the spider.

Then and only then did it begin to dawn on me -- there was no spider at all. I was experiencing one of my many hallucinations!

Had I recently only had this one experience, I might have simply sluffed it off like I had so many times before. But it wasn't an isolated thing. The week before I had been visited by "the shadow."

All throughout my life, I've seen a particular shadow that follows me around. It almost always presents itself at times in which it can't be explained away. The previous week fell into this category.

You need to understand that my bedroom is on the second floor and my bedroom window faces out into the forest. At night, it's usually pitch black out there with the exception of a vapor light over our back deck. There is no way possible for the silhouette of a person to appear on the wall opposite the window. Yet, for all this knowledge, I often see the shadow of a person on that very wall.

It tends to move across the wall like the shadow of a person walking by the window. (As indicated above, the only person who could accomplish this feat would need to be about 12 feet tall!) On this occasion, the shadow moved across the wall and then stopped for a moment -- as if it was looking at me -- then proceeded to move the rest of the way before leaving through the wall that forms the corner.

These two episodes convinced me that the time had come to deal with this issue out in the open and so, at my next appointment with my counselor, I came out.

Coming Out

It's difficult to live with a secret. Some such secrets are born by the fact that the information may serve to embarrass us, others might treat us differently and/or society as a whole hasn't really come to grips with particular aspects of life. Some people hold their secrets close to the vest for their entire lives, only telling a few close confidantes or, in some cases, never breathing a word to a soul. Others, however, find the courage and "come out."

Last night I read of one such story, "‘My Teacher Is a Lesbian’: Coming Out at School" by Jody Sokolower. She discusses coming out to her middle school students.

Recently, I finally summonsed the courage to "come out" from under a secret I have harbored for nearly 40 years. Until I revealed it to my mental health counselor, I had never, ever as much as hinted about this issue to anyone, including my parents, brother or wife.

So, what is my secret? I hear voices and I not infrequently see things that aren't there.

The main reason I never mentioned this to anyone before AND I have had trouble even admitting it to myself is that auditory and visual hallucinations are signs of schizophrenia (among a few other possibilities). I always rationalized to myself that schizos are crazy people and I'm not crazy!

When I was originally diagnosed with Schizotypal Personality Disorder, I pooh-poohed the diagnosis. I assured Bill (my therapist) that I didn't truly meet the stated criteria, two of which are auditory and visual hallucinations. Even though my relationship with Bill is very open and frank, this was one bridge I wasn't ready to cross yet.

It ended up taking me nearly 2 years to come clean. I must admit that it is a relief that I no longer have to lug around this secret.

The first thing Bill said we needed to determine was if the hallucinations -- which are infrequent but recurrent -- could be explained organically. That's why last week I had an MRI and EEG. It is important to rule out the possibility of a brain tumor or some other biological explanation. I should get my results from these two tests by the middle of this week.

If the test results show nothing out of the ordinary, then we will proceed on the mental health track, including the possibility of working in conjunction with a psychiatrist.

In a later post today, I'll share some information on my visual hallucinations. I don't think I'm ready to write a post about the voices just yet. Suffice it to say, the voices are quite disturbing, though I have been relatively successful throughout my life at developing my own weird strategies to drown them out.

No Excuses

There is this woman I know -- more an acquaintance than a friend -- who is Bi-Polar. I know that she's Bi-Polar because she has a penchant for telling everyone about her condition. She feels the need to tell everyone constantly because she's not a very nice person. She is rather crude and crass. Whenever she offends or upsets someone else -- happens quite frequently -- she announces that the other person can't be upset with HER because, of course, she's Bi-Polar and Bi-Polar people can't help but be crude and crass.

Bullshit!

Bi-Polar Disorder is no excuse. She happens to be crude and crass because she chooses to be so. She has chosen to be self-centered and not give a damn about other people's feelings.

But this post isn't about her -- it's about me. I don't want anyone to think that because I'm beset with anxiety disorders, Asperger's, Klinefelter's and Schizotypal Personality Disorder that I think any of these conditions provide me with a ready excuse to be an ugly person. While each of my maladies provides its own challenges to navigating life, not a single one of them can cause me to be rude, mean-spirited or nasty to other people.

The way I see it is that I simply have to work harder at social interaction than the average bloke. Many aspects of social communications -- like body language and typical social assumptions -- don't come easily to me and, when I try to guess what is being conveyed, I tend to guess incorrectly. So, while I hope that those close to me take into account much of my social awkwardness and difficulties, I still believe that the onus falls squarely on me.

If I appear to others in a manner that is not consistent with my intent, then it is MY responsibility to figure out how to alter the appearance so that the real me shines through. It's a misnomer to think that having a personality disorder or a neurological condition grants a person the license to be brutish towards others.

It doesn't.

For All the World to See

The number one purpose of this blog is to discuss the world from the perspective of philosophical Taoism. Most of my posts center around this premise. However, the secondary purpose of this blog is to provide information, examples and awareness of things like Asperger's Syndrome and Schizotypal Personality Disorder. Often, when people are afflicted with conditions of this nature, they feel alone and as if no one else in the world could begin to understand where they are coming from. I have laid my life open for all the world to see as my way of saying, you are not alone.

There are many good and wonderful people (and some less so) who regularly read and comment on this blog. Many are well-intentioned, but when it comes to neurology and/or mental health issues, their comments show a deep lack of understanding and compassion. Going in, I knew that most people wouldn't understand because that's a typical bane for those of us who suffer from some type of autism and schizophrenia. Because we look normal, most folks consider us lazy, undisciplined, hypochondriacs, or living in la la land.

If I was writing about dealing with cancer or Parkinson's Disease, would people leave comments accusing me of self-diagnosis or that I was allowing my ego to cut me off from the infinite? If I was born blind or deaf, would people suggest that accepting these conditions for what they are meant that I was blocking my chance to be "healed"?

I'm thankful that my neurology isn't at the far extreme of the autism or schizophrenia spectrums. However, if some you leaving comments ran into someone with profound autism or schizophrenia, would you get in their face to tell them all they needed to do was to let go and be one with Tao, that they are allowing their ego to control them?

I would certainly hope not. If you did feel the need to address such an individual in this way, I would hope the person's guardian and/or the police would shoo you away. Your "sage words" would be of no help and many people would say you were demeaning or mocking the person.

Living with a form of autism and schizophrenia is not easy. There are many things the rest of you take for granted that don't come easily to me. There are some things that don't come to me at all. But I don't share this information because I'm looking sympathy -- it is what it is and I accept it for what it is -- I guess I was hoping for a wee bit of understanding.

But few of you seem willing to try to understand or your form of "understanding" is to castigate me for one reason or another. Well, I can't stop you and it won't stop me from writing about it. My great fear, however, is that you are providing ample evidence for those with a form of autism or schizophrenia who visit this blog to think that they are indeed alone and that no one will ever try to understand them for who they are.

And that's a real shame.

Obsession

In my last post, I talked a bit about obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in light of one of the passages from the Wen Tzu. I thought it might prove beneficial to discuss the aspects of this condition for those of you who don't have it and for those of you who may have it. but don't know it.

According to the Mayo Clinic,

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a type of anxiety disorder in which you have unreasonable thoughts and fears (obsessions) that lead you to engage in repetitive behaviors (compulsions). With obsessive-compulsive disorder, you may realize that your obsessions aren't reasonable, and you may try to ignore them or stop them. But that only increases your distress and anxiety. Ultimately, you feel driven to perform compulsive acts in an effort to ease your distress.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder often centers around themes, such as a fear of getting contaminated by germs. To ease your contamination fears, you may compulsively wash your hands until they're sore and chapped. Despite your efforts, the distressing thoughts of obsessive-compulsive disorder keep coming back. This leads to more ritualistic behavior — and a vicious cycle that's characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

I've been OCD almost my entire life. While I don't have an unreasonable fear of germs, I do have one for toxic or potentially toxic substances. Here I'm talking about anything from pesticides to my dogs' anti-flea drops to paint solvent to gasoline to prescription medicine. If I get any stuff of this nature on exposed skin or I even think there is a remote possibility of such, I go freak'n bonkers!

Whenever I have to take oral medications, I'm convinced that, whatever the known side effects are, I will have each and every one of them in spades!!

When I get into debates, I tend to break all known laws of civility and I always have to have the last word.

I'm excessively OCD when it comes to the way food that I will consume is prepared. As I wrote back in November 2008, I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Not just ANY PB & J, mind you, but particular brands and each sandwich MUST BE made the same way or I simply cannot eat it.

As a very intelligent and highly rational person, I KNOW these compulsions are irrational. I can dissect them from a socio-psychological perspective and I can often trace their histories back to specific events in my childhood. The problem though is that -- for all my ability to analyze them -- I am powerless to stop them!

To be certain, I try to push them out of my head when they arise, but, in a matter of seconds, they pop back in. I push them out again and right back they come. In time, no amount of pushing does any good and they consume me. When that happens, I must follow my rituals and patterns through to keep from going loony.

For example, when I get into email or blog debates, I read the responses I may disagree with over and over and over again. If I try to force myself to walk away from the computer, in a short amount of time though, I'm compelled to return. I become obsessed with responding point-by-point (which often drives people mad). As other people become irritated with me because I refuse to let things go, they tend to become snippy, short and curt. This only causes me to send back more point-by-point responses. As I think most people can easily recognize, this is a recipe for disaster or, at least, not being the most popular person on the block!!

While OCD is not explicitly linked to Asperger's Syndrome (AS) or Schizotypal Personality Disorder (SPD), both conditions tend to include comorbidity (concomitant but unrelated pathological or disease processes). In my case, along with being diagnosed with AS & SPD, I also deal with depression, OCD, and Social Anxiety Disorder.

To further illustrate my obsessive nature, I've been working on this one damn post for the better part of 2 hours! I keep tinkering with my sentences and changing a word here or there. Each time I think I'm done, I find something else that can be tweaked slightly. So, I read the whole thing one more time...only to find something else to change.

While you, dear reader, may only read this post one time, I've now read it 20 or 30 times. (Of course, since I just added these final two paragraphs, I now have to read it again. ARghhhhh!)

Facing Up

I'm a person with many phobias. I'm afraid of heights, enclosed spaces, small rodents, social situations and/or crowds, poisons (real and imagined), prescription drugs (I always imagine I'll suffer from all the side effects), feeling high and needles. These last two take on particular importance because I desperately need to go to the dentist!

My mouth has become a dentist's dream. I'm guessing one dentist could use the money from all the work I need to send one child through four years of college or to buy a yacht! I have more cavities than I can count, two broken teeth, two more that have already fallen out and I'm in need of a root canal for one of my lower molars.

I haven't been to a dentist for...gosh, I don't know how long it's been. One of the main reasons I haven't been is because of finances. It simply would cost too much. However, that's not the only reason. During those times over the past few years when we did have enough money to get some of the work done, I chose not to go because of my fears.

Years ago when I did have dental insurance, I had to be in abject agony before I could get up the nerve to make an appointment. I remember one time back in the 80s when I got up and walked out because I couldn't handle the idea of the Novocaine shot. My dentist was very easygoing and he didn't give me a lot of grief. I eventually made it back in to get a root canal or two and several crowns.

On another occasion, he suggested nitrous oxide to help calm my anxiety. Initially, I was up for the idea...that is until I started breathing it in! My head started to feel like it was swimming in clouds and that is a feeling I do not like at all. So, I knocked the cup off my face and told him to stick a needle in my mouth.

My best experience at a dentist appointment was the time they knocked me out with general anesthesia to pull two teeth. One minute I had an IV in my arm and the next I woke up with gauze in my mouth. Unfortunately, that type of procedure is fairly expensive and is not favored for filling cavities and the like because of potential complications due to the breathing tube. Darn.

But the time is growing short until I have to face this fear again. For all my various issues, I've developed an infection in one of my molars and it has become extremely temperature sensitive. My diet is suffering as I've had to switch to softer foods and, frankly, I try to avoid eating as much as possible.

So, sometime in the next week or two my anxiety level is going to shoot through the roof because, for health reasons, I can't put this off any longer. I just hope I can muddle through it.

Loonier Still

As I've reported in this space, I have applied for disability, both with state and federal agencies. I recently won one case on the state level (it means I qualify for Medicaid) after being seen by a psychologist at the behest of the state. I requested my file and received portions of it yesterday.

While we each have certain images about ourselves -- some that agree with the opinions of others and some that do not -- it's a rather interesting experience reading what several professionals think about you! It's even more interesting when the deciding diagnosis is NOT something you listed as the cause of your disability.

I expected that the rationale regarding the approval of my claim would center around my physical disabilities (fibromyalgia and Klinefelter's Syndrome) in combination with Asperger's Syndrome (AS). However, this turns out not to be the case at all! My physical issues basically were ignored and the psychological diagnosis was not AS; it is Schizotypal Personality Disorder (SPD).

I don't know about you, but, any diagnosis with the label "schizo" at the front, is rather alarming. Most people, me included, generally associate schizo with schizophrenia. It turns out though that, while SPD is in the same family as schizophrenia, it's definately not the same thing. Whew! That had me really worried.

In fact, after doing some web research tonight, I found that SPD and AS are very closely related and many of the symptoms overlap. In Europe, many mental health professionals believe these two conditions describe the same general malady; in the US, each is treated as distinct.

Here are the general symptoms of AS and SPD from the Mayo Clinic. I've placed a red X next to the symptoms that I seem to have.

Asperger's Syndrome

• Engaging in one-sided, long-winded conversations, without noticing if the listener is listening or trying to change the subject X
  
• Displaying unusual nonverbal communication, such as lack of eye contact, few facial expressions, or awkward body postures and gestures X
  
• Showing an intense obsession with one or two specific, narrow subjects, such as baseball statistics, train schedules, weather or snakes X
  
• Appearing not to understand, empathize with or be sensitive to others' feelings X
  
• Having a hard time "reading" other people or understanding humor X
  
• Speaking in a voice that is monotonous, rigid or unusually fast
• Moving clumsily, with poor coordination X
  
• Having an odd posture or a rigid gait X
  

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

• Incorrect interpretation of events, including feeling that external events have personal meaning
• Peculiar thinking, beliefs or behavior X
  
• Belief in special powers, such as telepathy
• Perceptual alterations, in some cases bodily illusions, including phantom pains or other distortions in the sense of touch X
  
• Idiosyncratic speech, such as loose or vague patterns of speaking or tendency to go off on tangents X
  
• Suspicious or paranoid ideas
• Flat emotions or inappropriate emotional responses
• Lack of close friends outside of the immediate family X
  
• Persistent and excessive social anxiety that doesn't abate with time X
  

So, looking at the scorecard, my score with AS is 7/8 and for SPD it's 5/9. To my untrained eye, AS seems more on target with some overlap with SPD.

But what do I know? I'm loony. :-)