Condensed Chaos

Appartment

Mon, 27 Dec 2004 13:48:25 GMT

I got my own appartment now, 2 rooms own kitchen bath and toilet.
Its newly renovated, everything in it is brand new.
This is great :)

Cheap quality beer

Sun, 26 Dec 2004 21:02:53 GMT

I just bought 23 75cl Cuvée de Noël from St Feuillein for a very cheap 71 US $
The normal price is 167 US $ so I am very happy about that buy. I bought them from my boss who has absolutely no understanding of beer. It is a really good christmas brew and also quite strong (9%).
Im very happy about this buy, now that my economy is good, from being terrible, I know what how i want to prioritize.

Also my life just turned in the absolutely right direction, first off my parents have finally accepted that I do have AS. It only took them 18 months. I cant say how much this means, the absence of the hugest amount of stress imaginable. I was afraid that I would break them before I would turn them around on this one. Im not sure my dad is absolutely stable on this subject, my family is very complex in a negative way.

Also I got a very very very great gift just before christmas. The danish state has acknowledged that I do have asperger and I have given the relevant monthly benefit for education that disabled can get. In total, after tax this amounts to a total income (including my parents giving me some money) of US $ 2000. They also grant me all the relevant extra specialist doctor examinations necessary to pinpoint my strong and weak points (neuro-psychiatrist full evaluation) to help me function at my best. I just cant describe how good it is to live in a country that takes good care of its weak members.
This means that I can now try and get a new appartment where I can live on my own without highly stressfull flatmates of any kind. I already have contact to a possible 2 room appartment in the very same building I live in now, newly renovated after the former owner either died or moved to an old-age home of some kind. If I get this appartment I just want to scream in happiness. Suddenly my life really looks like its turning to the better, If I get this appartment my monthly after-expenses money will be at 5 times what they where. If not I will still be at a relative cheap rent and they will be at around 7 times what they where. I can finally live a little again.

Next step

Tue, 07 Dec 2004 12:44:31 GMT

The next step is to go talk to my bachelor supervisor and get some kind of arrangement so I will not simply drift around doing nothing.

I also need to phone my cousin, hear how she is doing

I will do both tomorrow

Being a witness to a crime

Mon, 06 Dec 2004 21:14:15 GMT

Wednesday I have to go to court and do my duty as a good citizen.
2 guys where held up with a gun and forced to use their creditcards where i work, one guy being held outside, while the other one went inside to get cash. Me being the guy at the counter am the primary witness, that and our 100000000 cameras

Needless to say I quit my job, they dont pay me enough to work nights.

Peace of Mind

Tue, 16 Nov 2004 13:42:20 GMT

Today I quit my job with effect from the end of the year, its the first step to peace of mind
Next step is to inform my parents that unless they get a grip on reality and stop living in a world of illusion they will have to accept that I do not wish them involved in how I live my life.

Thu, 11 Nov 2004 15:29:35 GMT

Ok I need to start writing that email to my NT pet professional explaining my view on asperger
So this is my warming up to that
I need to explain to her my view on

Theory of Mind
Abstract thinking (and why this is not at all impossible in asperger)
Empathy
Inertia

When this is done I need to explain to her my ideas about the impact of longterm memory and the ability to imagine direct sensory information on the personality.

Then I need to explain to her that the best treatment for me is not to get me on anti-depressives because that is like treating a broken leg with morphine. That is a secondary treatment, that is only to be administered when the actual reason for the problem is dealt with. If you treat a broken leg with morphine the pain will go away, but the patient will not heal properly and be turned into a cripple. The same with depression, whats the point of taking mood altering pills if the very real reason that you are not ok with your situation is not changed.

Then I need to explain that my way of being is to understand with reason, getting an emotional handle on something is meaningless to me, I must understand instead. It seems most treatment is simply to try and convince people to be in a more pleasant emotional state, however my problem is not emotional. I need concrete help, not talk therapy. Its interesting to talk, but it does not do anything to the very real problems that I face in my everyday life.

Then I need to make her understand that inertia is NOT CAUSED BY DEPRESSION ALONE
That it is a real problem that will persist even when the depression is gone.
I do not consider myself depressed, in fact I'm absolutely sure that I'm not depressed. Its perfectly natural to not feel all superhappy when your relationship with your parents are on the fast lane down to hell. Its perfectly natural to not feel all superhappy when your present job has gotten you into contact with police 3 times in less than half a year, one time involving a gun at short range. Its perfectly normal not to be superhappy that one guy you are practically sharing an apartment with is broken from being in an ex-soldier and has threatened another person with a knife just outside your door (luckily I was at work at the time).
In her defense the last 2 has happened after my last talk with her, so she doesn't know, but I needed to rant a bit, made me feel better.
But really Inertia and depression can appear the same, but they are not the same. Inertia is lifelong, and has nothing to do with emotions. Depression has everything to do with emotions.

Explaining words

Mon, 08 Nov 2004 17:40:36 GMT

Theory of Mind
This is an idea that first surfaced in 1977 I think, and it basically is that we have a specialized system handling the way we understand other people. This specialized system is unconscious, and an analogue would be to describe the brains way of handling colors and presenting them to us through vision by saying that all seeing humans have a Theory of Color. This is the level of consciousness that it operates in, but this is often misunderstood because the word 'Theory' suggests it to be a conscious process.

Empathy
Empathy is the process that takes place when an emotion arises in a person purely by looking at the body language of another person. Again this is an unconscious process, and it is not voluntary.
The problem with many explanations of this process is that they tie it up with what caused the other person to be in the mood they are in, this is however not relevant for empathy. Eg an example is you see a child fall down and scrape his knees, and this causes you to feel his pain. This is not a good explanation, because empathy will make you feel his pain even if you are totally unaware why he got in the emotional state he is in. One could think that empathy arose because he fell, but this would be a mistaken assumption, the empathy is triggered purely by the bodylanguage and not by any other acts. Seeing him fall may well make the reaction stronger, but that is not what the word empathy refers to.
It is also important to stress that it is not a voluntary reaction, and thus cannot be learned.
Often this is used in day to day conversation to signify the ability to analyze and feel sorry for people based on conscious understanding of their emotions and situation in life, this is however NOT what the word means in the professional context of psychology

Abstract thinking
I would use the word to describe any thought that is not concrete, not directly related to physical facts or sense perceptions. Thoughts about thoughts would be abstract thinking, so would thoughts about mathematics that is not tied down to anything that can be imagined via sense-perception type imagination.

Empathy, Theory-of-Mind

Sun, 07 Nov 2004 19:36:08 GMT

I have asperger, and as a consequence I am trying to explain myself to different people. One of the truly annoying problems is that words may mean different things to different people. These 2 words or concepts in particular I find people use in a number of different meanings. Not only is this confusing, but in the case of discussing scientific issues like asperger it is impossible to talk meaningfully if all parties do not agree on the terminology.
The first step to get past this difficulty is to find out what the scientific definition of the words are, and how they are used by those not familiar with the specific professional uses.
The problem with these 2 words in particular is that many people are not willing to change their view of the world enough to give them meaning. The unconscious mind is something that is still shunned by most people, or directly disbelieved. Somehow it is unsettling to admit that both empathy and theory of mind are not choices one makes.
The word empathy in particular is so loaded with emotions that it is useless to try and explain it to anyone who is not a professional, and a competent one at that.
Both happen through entirely unconscious processing, in highly specialized parts of the brain. This is not something that can be learned, it is like trying to learn a blind man to see by describing vision to him. If you do not have eyes you will never see, you may be able to understand allot about colors, but seeing is not going to happen simply through intellectual teaching. The trick is to try and teach different cooping skills, that are usable in real life. A blind man need to learn how to navigate the streets in a safe manner, so he is not a prisoner of his home.

First Post

Sun, 07 Nov 2004 16:27:02 GMT

I want this livejournal to serve a purpose and not just to contain random ramblings. So let me try to make some kind of mission statement

1 : The goal of this project is to force me to put my thoughts into words
2 : Thereby forcing me to seek knowledge in a more systematic manner
3 : Thereby giving me a creative outlet and structuring my daily life
4 : Thereby defeating my inertia
5 : Thereby allowing me to live rather than simply be alive
6 : Thereby improving my quality of life