syndromes – Dreamyoga

Over the years I have encountered many reactive and defensive behaviours in my interactions with people, mostly men. It seems to me that I do not do the ritual arse sniffing in the way they expect. Nor do I play the laddish itchy back game with enough ego stroking. The worse reactions are from men around 40. By the time they get to 60 they are past most of the BS. I do not piss up the wall of the urinal in the correct manner, apparently.

Clearly, given that I am the only common factor in all this, I am THE problem.

Chris Packham has been doing a TV series on neurodiversity in which he gets people who are diagnosed with various syndromes to do a short film to portray their experiences to their nearest and dearest. Most of the “weirdos” seem interesting to me and fairly high functioning. They are not boring.

The gist is that many feel/felt stress trying to fit and comply with the harsh societal expectations.

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No matter how hard they tried they did not fit well and the “diagnoses” gave them a handy explanation for why. It brought relief and sense-making.

My own experience working with the diagnosed is that the worse thing “normal” people can express towards them is impatience and huff. If people are impatient, it causes fear and upset. It leads to internalisation and makes any attempt at expression far worse and more dreaded. Impatience could be said to be an enemy of neurodiverse inclusion. Impatience is the start of a far from virtuous circle.

“You should not be like that. It ought to be easy. Huff!!”

This is the foundation stone of cruelty directed at the different and the stick used to marginalise them. May be they/we are not the problem. Maybe it is the self-righteous and self-important “normal” people. These people who are highly impatient and immediacy fixated.

I know by experimental measurement that I am not neurotypical. I have measured my brain waves using a fast Fourier transform electroencephalograph. Mine differ in that there is way lower neuronal activity which I can also further silence.

It would be impossible to convey my state of mind in a film. Because “normal” people cannot handle neuro-silence and their internal dialogue would start to chatter. If you cannot be quiet mentally you simply cannot get it.

Felix, the stray cat, is unwell. We think we are in the palliative care regime. When I go to feed him and Gandalf, he gets under my feet and rubs himself against my legs. I have to pick him up gently with my foot and “throw” him out of the way. He thinks this is an ace game. Because of my arthritis I am not steady on my legs and stopping and starting is difficult. One day I may stand on him in a painful way.

There is no way that I can explain to Felix that if he is hungry the best thing to do is to get out of my way. Food would arrive quicker and with no less certainty.

It is very difficult to convey how and in what way one might differ. It has to be experienced personally to be fully grasped. All the rest is extrapolation or intellectualisation.

Upcoming I am going to be looking to have my hips surgically replaced. Already I am thinking about how I might behave so as not to get a strange reaction from the surgeon. I will not fit his mental models and there will be a disconnect. Yet I have need of surgery.

How much will I have to act and conceal and hide so as not to be THE problem?

How much will I have to reel myself in?

In my life time I have seen a marked proliferation in so-called mental health or developmental syndromes and those diagnosed therewith. They are quite trendy. Unsurprisingly the number of people qualified to make said diagnoses has also increased. There is a demand for diagnoses hence a growing supply of those qualified to diagnose. There is money in it, several grand per diagnosis.

Is this a real phenomenon or a market created one?

I heard the other day that some people were giving fluoxetine to pet dogs, FFS.

Anything which strays from the peer defined normal is at risk of being labelled a syndrome conferring fame upon the person who “discovered” it.

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We can lock up the weird and abnormal. Give ‘em loads of drugs and excuse them from the workplace in case they disturb the humdrum predictable mediocrity of petty power struggles and cock waving. Give them some unemployment benefits and teach them how to weave baskets and package wellness products that do not work but smell nice.

Is ADHD real or are people just bored fucking rigid with the way school is taught, controlled and examined?

Discuss…

I have tutored quite a few people diagnosed with ADHD, 1:1. I had no problem keeping their sharp attention for an hour or more. One just has to invent and teach better, to stimulate instead or bore.

I have a hypothesis. It says:

The apparent mental health crisis is simply tens of thousands of minds rejecting the way “normal” society is and the societal compulsion to conform therewith. It is not a mental health crisis rather an increasing failure of society.

It is not going to get better. There are no fairy godmothers.

The average, normal fearfully compliant people, don’t like this.

What percentage of people need to be treated for mental health “problems” until it is the so-called normal who are diagnosed as having a syndrome?

The human mundane-obligatory-compliance syndrome, FOMO for short. There are hordes who already suffer and can be diagnosed therewith. It is a social media pandemic.

There will come a time when those with so-called mental health problems are the majority. This will flip the entire notion of sanity, whether polite or otherwise.

I’ll wager that if I had to sit “A” level physics and chemistry as they are currently examined in the UK, I would not do well. I would get frustrated at the intransigence and tick box, mark by template mentality. I would not be happy having to adhere to verbatim parrot dogma.

I have an honours degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in chemical physics.

I would probably join the Royal Marines instead of going to university if I was 18 now. I would certainly not have written ~60 science based publications.

People don’t like to face reality; they tend to prefer increasing the number of exceptions and justifying new extensions to rules and theories. They tend to keep ideas and notions, long after their sell by and use by dates.

If it does not fit, make it a syndrome, a special case, an exception. Write several theses about why it errs or strays from the norm. Refer to multiple other authors who are doing the same things. Make a career out of it…

But whatever you do, you must not question the societal norms… that is heresy.

Tag: syndromes

Clearly, I Am the Problem – Neurodivergence

The Proliferation of Syndromes and Deterioration in Mental Health