Tag Archives: autism/aspie

How Anxiety affects us and How to Cope!

I received a request for this post from one of my readers who had emailed me. Anxiety is one of the biggest factors which can impair any Autistic person from functioning with the rest of society. A lot of times anxiety can lead to meltdowns, tantrums, aggression, sensory/emotional overload, or even shutdown depending on where the root of the anxiety originally started. Anxiety overwhelms us differently. Some people feel more overwhelmed by the anxiety than others or some people just know how to cope better with the anxiety.

There are 2 factors to anxiety: nervous feelings that can control/prevent a person from functioning which can lead to depression. It affects us, Autistic people differently than every one else.

In order to function better in society, Autistic people (whether diagnosed with Autistic disorder, PDD-NOS, or Asperger’s Syndrome) need to learn the best way to cope in order to function with the rest of the world. I am learning how to meditate in order to control my anxiety. However a lot of times I find when spinning around (especially when I was younger), closing my door to my room to rub my body against the carpet (especially when I was younger), clapping my hands incessantly, walking outside to hug trees, and/or vocalizing my thoughts mostly in the shower as I feel the warm water beating on my body help me with anxiety.

A lot of times when I vocalize my thoughts, many people have felt I am talking to them so they answer me. However, I am just sorting through my thoughts on ideas or issues I am having in my life. Although in recent years, I am slowly learning to quiet my mind in a meditative state. I started reading books on meditation and learning by myself to have my own mantra (to be able to focus one thing). A lot of times I revert back to my natural ways of coping with anxiety because it’s easier to use up the energy of the anxiety. This only removes the anxiety temporarily without focusing on confronting what I need to deal with.

Meditation has been my inner strength in times of anxiety these days. I find meditation soothes my body as I breathe deep and slowly. I also find that meditation allows me to observe more. Though, through my entire life I noticed I would observe the world differently by seeing the way the shadows from trees, animals, and other things in my environment like the sun affect us. Now meditation often changes my observations by allowing me to observe my whole environment including other people.

I feel if many other Autistic people regardless of where they fall on the autism spectrum can learn to focus their breathing and thoughts on one thing through meditation, they will be able to start coping with anxiety a lot better. Meditation is a great resource, but can’t help every one not even the so-called Neurotypical people. For instance, some Autistic people are in self-stimulation (stimming) mode many times throughout the day, that their brains won’t function in a calm way unless they are doing their special interest. However every one must try to do meditation anyway to see if it works too.

One time I met a person last year who clearly had autistic disorder with intellectual disability and he clearly couldn’t function without being drawn to YouTube. The parents send him to a camp a few hours away where they live so he can live at that camp all year long. I brought the parents and the son to the Apple store to look at the Ipad for their son. I feel the Ipad would help their son only if therapists can help their son use it to engage with the rest of society.

Is it that important for every one to engage in society? What if some people just want to be with the rest of nature? I have noticed some Autistic people don’t want to engage with other people. Is this because the anxiety overwhelms them so much that no body taught them how to cope with it? It’s easier to cope with the anxiety than to leave yourself isolated and lonely.

Loneliness is not only an Human problem, it’s a non-Human problem as well. Many dogs, cats, and other animals get lonely even rodents. Have you noticed plants can get lonely? In fact, have you ever thought all five kingdoms of the many organisms of life can become lonely. The point is any one who is a part of the animal kingdom needs to cope with anxiety in order to function with the rest of the animal kingdom.

Some people who can’t function with other people, need to just realize who they are to function with every one else to feel connected to another Human being. Some people can only function with other people because they are afraid of other animals. It’s very important to cope with the anxiety to function with all positive life forms. That’s where meditation and non-judgmental thoughts help out. For example, when a fly lands on your arm for a just a moment, its there for just a moment to interact with you. We not only need to accept Neurodiversity, we need to accept Biodiversity to be able to cope with the anxiety of being around others.

The best way to cope with anxiety is accepting to connect with others. By doing so, we need to accept who we are and know what works best for us. For me, I am learning to meditate to calm my mind. Give it try yourself! If you can’t cope with the anxiety doing that try to listen to positive song tunes in your head like “I Believe I can Fly” by R.Kelly or hold a small rock in your hand or use a cloth tissue to hold on to. In the end, you can get through it if you believe.

I hope this helped everyone understand how to cope with anxiety.

posting more soon,


OUT, J

World Autism Awareness Day (Acceptance)!!

 

 

Autism Awareness Day spawns out Acceptance! With the awareness of people’s difference should enable us to have acquiescence. Every person deserves their right for acceptance in to this world. This feeling that brings up those thoughts are from our early learning experiences of judging, categorizing & labeling individuals who do not fall into what we believe is acceptable because our grasp of someone being different then us causes an innate perception that they should not be accepted to what society says is the ‘norm’. This sort of categorization and discrimination has been going on for thousands of years. So when is it going to STOP!

Being and feeling different is a part of Human nature. The more we change our perception of society’s citizens, the more there will be a stop in rebellion and confrontation. Ultimately, the peace we all want will finally emerge.

On this Autism Awareness (I mean Acceptance) day, I hope people find a way to accept people for what its worth. Hopefully by doing so, this will help every one to be able to work together.

A Moment of Silence

Remembering George Hodgins and other victims of disabled person’s abuse

There has been much sadness over the tragic passing of George Hodgins a few weeks ago. He was murdered by his own mother. This tragic passing has created a soar of sympathy for the many autistic people murdered by their own caretakers and family members. Many people have come together with the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network by creating a day of mourning on this very day March 30, 2012.

It is very sad to hear about a disabled person who tragically died without living a fulfilled life because everybody needs to have a chance to live their life the way they want it to be. No body can take the dignity away and cut a person’s life short just because someone seems different. Life continues to move on yet we need to remember those people who couldn’t live their life the way it could have been because their lives were cut short. We need to continue work hard so that one day we don’t just think of what good we could do for ourselves, but what we can do to help a person who has a disability.

People become disabled every day, some acquired from childhood while others become disabled from life experiences or health issues. Whatever way it is, we live our own life feeling positive and trying the best we can. When you take a look at an Autistic person’s life such as George Hodgins, he had many issues being Autistic, but he needed the support from his family to accomplish his dreams. Sometimes it just takes love to feel comforted with everything you do and feel supported by people who care about you. Love builds between people only when there is enough patience to hold on and support the person you care about.

People may not believe what love can do or they may not have enough patience for the person they have to care about, however people have to learn to feel other people’s pain without walking away feeling like they can’t do anything. Part of loving someone is having empathy and part of growing is to love others. Otherwise you learn to develop negative feelings toward people.

Today its time to think about not only the tragic deaths of disabled folks from their caretakers/family members who murdered them (like in the case of George Hodgins), but also we need to all start giving more love toward each other. Being different is not a specific trait, its just being Human. If you are having trouble to love and care for any one, then start today!

There are many Vigils around today on this day of Mourning, so I hope you come to one of the vigils to remember those autistic and disabled victims who have died tragically remembering what your human spirit was made for. If you can’t make it to one of the Vigils today, I hope you devote a moment of your time today to reflect on your human spirit to give to people with disabilities what you have given yourself.

~~~A moment of silence~~~

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

Dalai Lama

In addition, the documentary, Bully has started its limited engagement in theaters across the nation. Not only should we think about the disabled victims who were killed by caretakers/family members, but we should also think about the disabled victims of bullies who tragically passed on too.

 

OUT, J

Part I of the First ASAN Symposium

The 3 part blogging edition of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s symposium: Scientific research, Education/Employment/Inclusion in the community, and Pre-natal testing issues. I am not a trained scientist, but this is what I brought out of this meeting.

Here is Part I:

An interesting slogan that came up during the symposium:

Admit how little we know, Admit how much of our knowledge is invented/shorthand/tentative

What I learned about ETHICS from the symposium:

Equity and Excellence
Tender care
High expectations and presumed competence
Inclusion (separate is not equal)
Community
Self-advocacy and pride

This past weekend I attended the 1st symposium by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. The symposium was held at Harvard Law School and the topics that were presented were the The Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Autism Research. The ASAN President Ari Ne’eman led the conference with other Autistic Adults and many participants involved with Autism research from universities, the federal government, and the United Kingdom.

It explored many issues of why scientific researchers are not fully capturing the quality of life all Autistic people need. Science is an exceptional useful methodology. It helps make discoveries about who we are for the greater truth of our existence. The symposium brought together why Autistic rights and Autism research should be building a participatory framework. Funds should be built on quality of life than prevention and cure. It is hopeful that this new dialogue will bring every one in the Autistic community as a whole so that we are united in our common goals.

The following statements are paraphrases of what some of the speakers spoke about at the symposium: Some challenges to Autism research is when scientific elitism and the fear of engagement (the unknown) become problematic. One of the main issues is how elitism and bias are hindrance to helping Autistic people have better quality of life. “Bias is bad science and bad practices” [From my understanding the discussion was about scientific bias, assuming a theory was true or false without evidence]. The indifference of scientists is shown when they act as if they know better. However, this is not necessarily true. There is no prescribed way that we engage in our research and we all need to learn from one another. There are a lack of structural mechanisms and there is a need to resolve conflicts. We need to resolve these issues through representation and self-advocacy in the Autistic community. For instance, the symposium participants feel the problem with the DSM is the committee is trying to do 2 things at once: using a tool to determine Who is Autistic? And, using a tool to see What people are doing about that?

The participants at the symposium suggested a need to switch from describing how Autism is a deficit to neutral language. This change will give others an understanding that Autism is just a natural human development in our existence. Learning more about this, researchers need to observe every one more rather than continue the prejudices some of these researchers have already in their minds causing continued decision bias. The symposium stressed we need to all understand policy and law not being the highest standard of our thinking in strengthening our social relationships. Ultimately this will give us all a path in the right direction toward making objective decisions.

In my next 2 posts, I will further detail the ideas and plans the symposium participants talked about.

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Parts 2 and 3 coming very soon,

OUT, J

Autistics Speaking Day: How to find your voice!

“Autistics Speaking Day” (ASDay)… What does it mean? Well, it means a few things: 1. Speak up when you feel uncomfortable about what is being said to you, 2. Let your voice be heard when someone is arguing with you, 3. Speak up so your thoughts & ideas are presented, 4. Speak up with confidence so your voice will be acknowledged, 5. Speak up because you are a very important person. These are just a few reasons to speak up to tell other people, “Hey I have rights too, y’know.” and “I am not a shmuck or schmo” or “I am here and no body will push me around.”

I thought I would tell the story of a man who once stepped all over me like I was dirt and mud on the ground, but I’d rather not rehash the negative. Instead I have to move forward in my quest to have my voice heard & I want others to be able to do the same.

Finding a dream we want, finding our way to be who we are, or finding who we ‘Aut’ to be can be a difficult process in our lives. “Autistics Speaking Day” is a start to allow and give us a format to be heard. Although the individuals who are high profile in the autism community have the privilege of large numbers of people to hear their voices. That does not diminish or silence our voices.

Being your own self-advocate and asserting your rights is not a natural ability for any one. You must be willing to learn to do it right. It’s important to speak your mind, however, you must listen to what the response is. Maybe there is a misunderstanding why the person had those thoughts, they may have made assumptions they should not have made. The good point is most people are willing to learn or at least that is my hope.

Think about it for awhile on your own using your intuition about how you will speak up in any situation. Its easy, first sit back, relax, and meditate for about 15 minutes or so. Clear the rest of your emotions and thoughts out. Now think how you can approach that person who does not treat you with respect and dignity. How would you be able to get your message to be heard by that person? It is not by lowering yourself to their level, cursing, or shouting. It is with well thought out words, calmly, and with poise explaining to them how hurtful they can be at times to you.

When we speak up to someone who disgusts us, we have to think about what we really need to say to them to get them to understand we’re not going to take it. The most important thing before you you speak up to this individual is to try and find an outlet to get rid of all those angry and hurt feelings that are festering inside. If you are unable to get rid of the negative feelings, you will continue to have those feelings which will become worse inside and you will feel ready to explode at any moment.

“Autistics Speaking Day” is really about being heard, but also about listening to how we speak to other people as well. It is a daily learning experience about becoming a self-advocate and the more we advocate for ourselves the more effectively we will be heard. In return, we will also learn how to listen to our counterparts who are learning from us. The more successful we become in speaking up, the more confident and comfortable we will be in society. Speaking/Listening is the first step in setting and accepting boundaries.

Do what you love, do what you can, speak your mind, and LISTEN!!

posting more soon, but for now Happy Autistics Speaking Day!!

OUT, J