We are Family

[curt]

We don't need another / a new discussion to prove it.

It is as it is.

Let this "fred" (discussion thread) live under the theme .......

long live this family

brothers, sisters, brethern, dogs, cats and birds, ants and flees, water and air and gas and Clare and Jim and him and the window Simm (??) and you and me and he and she and we and them and us and puss (???) and fish and the dish (it's on) and paper and pen.

Yip.

[pan]

Just back from 10 days in Glacier National Park. Many beautiful day hikes. Nice to remember what is real and important in life.......speaking of which.....gotta tend to the garden.

[Cal]

I would love to see a real live glacier!

I'm just back from a long trip to civilization to see a psychiatrist ... Completely taken aback by the diagnosis - attention deficit disorder. I am an adult ADD. I didn't believe him a month ago when he first told me but I ordered some books on the subject and they made me feel as if the authors had followed me around and read my diaries. And there is no arguing with my miraculous response to the treatment he put me on. What a thing to find out at the ripe old age of 'almost 53'. I've very obviously (in retrospect) had it all my life. Suddenly some very mysterious aspects of my life make complete sense to me. Interesting thing he told me which has turned out to be true ... it's going to shake up my family and friendship relations and I'm going to find that a lot of people will deny there was anything wrong with me and prefer me broken. Have already had a total falling out with my mother after she heard that it was strongly genetic and I suspected that my one sister who has been unemployable for the last 15 years living off my mother had the same disorder. Wrong thing to say!! I got the message that no one else in the family is crazy like me and she's so happy I've at last found someone to talk to about it. I will not be phoning home for a very long time to come. It's suddenly appalling obvious who I did in fact inherit it from. One friend has already told me she totally distrusts psychiatry and would rather I stuck to homoeopathic drops. Do these people not 'get' that one is seriously dysfunctional and suffering when one attempts suicide three times in 24 hours. I do hope RBC is a safe place to express my total excitement at having the fog cleared and getting my mind and life back again. I actually think I am going to be able to complete my masters degree this year after 5 years of non-starting ... three weeks ago I didn't even think I could hold things together enough to keep my job.

[pan]

Happy to hear that you got a diagnosis that makes sense to you. Hopefully the treatment gets "dialed in" quickly.

I'm going to find that a lot of people will deny there was anything wrong with me and prefer me broken. There is so much truth in that sentence for most of us.....

[BO]

Congrats, Cal. You won't get any argument from me regarding some people's need for meds as well as talk therapy. I'm the son of a schizophrenic and narcissist. Both geniuses. Both totally incapable of being parents. At 59, I'm still having revelations and working through the baggage from a completely fucked childhood. It's a lifetime endeavor.

That said, glad your on the road to recovery. But do expect a set back now and again. Taking time out from a dysfunctional family is the first step. It can take many years before your immunity is solid enough to deal with them again. Glad you decided to stick around (the planet) for awhile longer.

Nice to have you back, Pan.

OK, just for fun...

[Cal]

Lol

[Mouse]

I was wondering what you were up to. Hmm. I would show you my label, but I can't quite reach. Just can't get round that far.

[waldopaper]

Pan! Sure glad the bearz didn't mess with ya. Cal- ya gotta do whatever it takes to feel better. "health issues." goes with the territory i guess. a nice cuppa. light breeze. good book. all is well.

[Mouse]

The light breeze makes all the difference.

There is tea here too. My dad's been in hospital getting a new knee for the last week or so but I've been asked not to ring the hospital. I must get my news from his wife's family. Now we're both long in the tooth and look like lizards it is easier to see how slow and wrong-footed we are.

It seems churlish, Cal, not to tell you how rude the clinical psychologist was behind my back. She sent her diagnosis to the doctor by mail. Not a word to me other than a blanket phrase they use, "severe and abiding difficulties". The doctor didn't even open the letter till nearly a year had passed, then sent it to me. Twas a shock, and I am not convinced. But that diagnosis and an old brain injury have protected me from the market place of late.

See, still can't reach the label. It's like a flag saying Mad Mad Mad, and I don't agree. I prefer to consider myself an adult with Aspergers syndrome (which is being removed from the book by the bastards).

I thought my old husband type person had ADD, his inner spring would toss him up and outwards at untoward moments.

I'm so glad that you're feeling better Cal. Very glad.

[Cal]

Mouse - labels are only worth taking any notice of if they are helpful ... when I told the psychiatrist that from the reading I was doing it was possible that I suffered from every personality disorder in the book he laughed and said that all those labels were actually just so much bullshit and the ordinary person was a composite of all of them in little bits. Only worth labelling if the world overwhelms your coping mechanisms ... which is what has been happening to me and which was very disturbing for me because if I can't earn my living to feed myself & the dogs nobody else is going to. Sensory overload started paralyzing me. The meds won't fix anything as in 'cure' it but it was so nice to wake up this morning and welcome the start of the day instead of starting to cry at the thought of having to get out of bed.
The diagnosis was also a shock to me ... ADD is the nice description of it ... Minimal brain dysfunction is the less friendly version of the label. Battled with that for a while and then accepted it because it made so much sense of my history ... I find I am sort of pleased with myself for surviving at all instead of beating myself up for the things I handled badly.
Is Aspergers being removed from the book? Where will all the Aspies go? One article I read on the internet actually put ADD & Aspergers together as slightly different variations on the same theme. Both respond to the same meds interestingly enough.

[pan]

My nephew went through all sorts of labels (including Asbergers) and sought treatment of all kinds up to and including electroshock "therapy". He finally started cooking for himself - stays away from simple sugars - and he has managed to control his depression/violent episodes without meds. I think his decision to accept the fact that he will never be "normal" (he is fucking brilliant - was reading Foucault and Derrida in high school) has helped immensely too. He went to Argentina to study tango, now he is teaching it to rich German tourists in Bali.

Bears in Glacier......didn't see any, heard many reports of them. Made lots of noise on the trail, which was rather annoying, but happy to have let them know that a human was in their space. Saw several mountain goats and big horn sheep though.

[pan]

A couple years ago I went through an exhaustive job search, was named the finalist and then was treated like crap and discarded by the folks at the top of the food chain - the big man in charge didn't even bother to meet me.

Waldo assured me that I had dodged a bullet. Turns out that I dodged quite a few beer bottles. The CEO they hired a few months before my interview is no longer there - don't know if she resigned on her own accord or they didn't renew her one year contract.

Have to admit that I have some sick satisfaction that their vision for turning their drive-by college town into a tourist destination is clearly not reaching fruition.

[waldopaper]

Tonight in a late-evening class, one particularly bright student responded... intelligent... direct and sassy... a real dream for me wots burnt out on nattering to a room full of inert billiard balls. After class, they apologized for "dominating the class."
"What ARE you talking about," sezzeye.
"They told us in orientation... not to dominate the class... but give everybody a chance to speak..."

Can you BELIEVE that shit? Let's encourage mediocrity.
"That's bullshit," I told them. "You were told that because the people running 'orientation' were taught to tell you that. You didn't 'dominate' the class. You made it interesting, challenging and fun. And I thank you... keep it up. Don't EVER let ANYBODY tell you to stifle your light."

Fucking wimps. Can't handle anybody in a classroom who's smarter than they are. Now some dim-fuks would say, "bu-duh... that's 'socialism' for you... that's 'political correctness,'" and my guess is...those dim shits would be the FIRST to get sideways about a "challenge" to their "authority." "Give everybody a chance to speak?" What a fucking joke. Most of them don't have anything to say. No WONDER you get a bunch of inert billiard-balls.

Why is it so hard to grasp that "socialism" isn't the same as "mediocrity?"