Sheila's Posts

Love is proven not by how we treat our friends, but how we treat those who oppose us. — Matthew 5:46-47

God loves those who deserve to be judged, so if we’re loved by God (i.e., we know God’s love), we prove it by whether or not we judge others (i.e., find fault with them rather than being merciful). We’re not even to judge our own self. We are to evaluate ourself and leave all final judgments to be made by God.

It was an accident baking to happen…

Yesterday, I ‘accidentally’ left out one cup of flour when following a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. An alteration I normally engage in is to use half as much butter by replacing it with Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil. The end result to that batch of cookies looked something like this:

The second batch of chocolate chip cookies I baked turned out so yummy that there were none left over to photograph!¹ They differed from the above in that enough flour was included and the chips were chunks of chocolate rather than miniature kisses.

After having slept, an idea came to me in the morning on this first day of rifle deer hunting. It was to bake a basic yellow cake (with less sugar) and slice each half in half. The ‘super-soft accident’ cookies would make ideal fillings for the layers! The perfect frosting to cover this surprising cake is chocolate cream cheese coffee liquor flavored frosting!² I made sure I grabbed the camera quickly enough to get a shot of the cake before it’s all gone:

In my freezer, there is Rocky Road ice cream. That would compliment this sweet chipper perfectly …marshmallow swirled chocolate ice cream filled with chocolate covered peanuts! Happy Holidays — here we come!

¹Half a dozen males and a couple of females started devouring them; the rest of that batch was left as a gift for the couple who hosted me and my husband for a mushroom soup/cheese quiche dinner.

²The frosting is kept mild on the chocolate flavor by using a minimal amount of cocoa powder, which then gets mixed in with confectioners sugar, whipped cream cheese, some butter and coconut oil that’s moistened with coffee liquor!

If you think a question like, “Conscious of the preconcious or unconscious?” is obscure and confusing, imagine the chaos added by including the vague and commonly used term subconscious. You can’t have them all or else you’re stuck with the problem of deciding whether the subconscious refers to the preconscious, unconscious, or both.

We can safely throw out the use of subconscious and stick with the words conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. We’re fine with those terms when restricting them to the way the neurotypical brain works.

NTs are known for their multi-tasking (multi-tracking or polytropism, if you’d prefer) abilities. I shall now attempt to explain how complex things get when comparing how the conscious and unconscious are affected by the difference between the way a neuro-A-typical mind processes information versus a NT one.

So far, there is no disagreement by stating that the Asperger brain is not hard-wired to function the same way as a NT’s is. Aspies are ‘one channel at a time’ people; also referred to as: mono-tasking, mono-processing, or monotropism. To the neurotypical mind, that probably comes across as being a disorder that needs to be fixed. The only reason it would be perceived that way would be because it’s being filtered through the NT brain, along with NTs lacking the theory of mind to comprehend what it’s like living with an Asperger brain. An analogy would be looking at things through rose colored glasses (which is what the mental health profession does when believing it would be wonderful if Aspergers could be eliminated by using their treatment plans).

I believe only Aspies have the potential to comprehend how valuable an asset mono-processing can be. Most of us Aspies already know and admit that there is use in this world for multi-trackers (NTs). We realize the need society has for most of its citizens to be able to use their senses simultaneously. Unfortunately, few Aspies are aware of how vital it is for the world to have some mono-taskers scattered around.

NTs apparently are not able (or is it that they’re not willing?) to perceive what it means to have the different type of central coherence Aspies have. To them, it seems extreme because they always receive their sensory input (i.e., externally incoming data) all at once. That may sound good on the surface, but it’s doubtful their unconscious mind has as much information as a neuro-A-typical one does. How can such an extremely unheard of claim be considered? …because of noticing a peculiar pattern in the different way my mind works as compared to how a NT’s generally functions.

By no means am I saying that one way is superior over another, BUT, at the same time, I think I’ve reached my limit of what I can take from reading the biased and hypocritical statements that the medical profession continually publishes about Aspergers! Clearly, there is NO WAY the ‘experts’ will tolerate any concept that may suggest they’re wrong about Aspergers needing to be treated — that it’s not something a person has, but rather describes who one could be.

I feel like I’m in a catch-22 situation in regard to studying what’s being said about Aspergers. Reading what the ‘experts’ will present (and already have presented) to the public has me to know how increasingly more distorted others (who don’t know me like my immediate family does) may perceive (negatively judge) me (and other Aspies). Even though the medical profession has gone amuck over Aspergers (they want to eliminate the term Aspergers by referring to it as ‘high-functioning autism’ because ‘Aspergers’ is ‘too vague and confusing’ for them, but yet they admit genetic evidence points to Aspergers as not being a form of autism!), society foolishly accepts what’s said because they don’t know how to deal with what they can’t understand.

For those who don’t know what central coherence means, it is the ability to draw connections together from the ‘big picture’. Wendy Lawson claims (in Olga Bogdashina’s article Mono-Processing in Autism: Using one channel at a time) central coherence, “…can only occur with least effort, when one has access to the big picture via many different channels (polytropism).” She also says, “…in monotropism where all the attention is gathered into one place, there is an extreme¹ central coherence but of different type. ‘Monotropic central coherence’ excludes information from outside the attention channel.”

How is it possible for Wendy Lawson to know that monotropic central coherence totally excludes information from outside the attention channel? I understand its excluding information from outside the attention channel on a conscious level, but outside information can still seep in unawares at a lower level of consciousness. She (or anyone else for that matter) has no way to measure how much information is possibly stored in the preconscious (and especially the unconscious) mind of Aspies.

I gave an example of my mind including information from outside of my attention channel in my post That’s a new one for me… In it I mentioned an odd experience I had one night when typing a message on my computer to someone. While I was at this task, there were two viewers in the same room listening and watching something on the television. I had no way to block out the auditory input coming to my brain. Consciously my mind was busy producing the words to express my thoughts, but unconsciously (or was it preconsciously?) my brain was typing what I wasn’t consciously thinking. Instead of me seeing the text revealing what I was thinking, I noticed that I had typed word-for-word (without any mistakes) what was coming from the tv! There was no connection, between what my conscious thoughts contained versus what unconsciously seeped into my mind, to draw together for a ‘big picture’ (unless maybe the main point of this post is forming a ‘big picture’?) …but, I’m not done explaining yet.

A few years ago, while taking a particular Mensa IQ test, I noticed another odd occurrence. I had no clue how I was able to ‘fill in the blanks’ of every question in that test like I did. It was as if someone else was taking the test instead of me. I was dumbfounded over where I could possibly have gotten some of the information I came up with, especially since I know myself well enough to know that I could not have consciously acquired knowledge about the rules of certain sports like rugby, football, or cricket (I was never interested in competitive team sports)! The only explanation I can think of for how those answers could have surfaced to my conscious mind would be that monotropic central coherence does include information from outside the attention channel. A thing I noticed even more strange while answering those questions was that I had to ‘shut off’ my mind in order for the answers to ‘pop’ out. As soon as I allowed myself to ‘think’, my mind would go blank and not ‘give me’ the answer. Only when my conscious thoughts were turned off, did I get the answers to the questions.

If what I’m perceiving is true, then that would explain why I often feel like I’m seeing a ‘bigger picture’ than what it seems others are seeing. It could also be the reason why I’ve developed a habit of explaining myself as much as I do to those who want to know why my thoughts are usually radically different. Plus, monotropism can explain why there are some people (especially the artistic/creative/inventor types) historically known to isolate themselves (i.e., the eccentrics) from mainstream society and why those in the mainstream are usually unable to fathom the reason for their weird behavior.

There is no logic behind wanting to get rid of (Aspergers, for example) what mainstream society doesn’t understand (other than its possibly being too unnerving?). That’s like thinking you can get rid of the cause by getting rid of the visible effects without knowing what’s going on invisibly.

Just because most people can develop a ‘big picture’ by conscious attention to multiple channels does not mean that those who gather all their conscious attention into one place cannot develop an even ‘bigger picture’ if it is true that monotropic minds do (unconsciously and/or preconsciously) include information from outside of the attention channel.

My theory of polytropism is that it renders the mind incapable of unconsciously (or preconsciously?) storing what’s coming in from multiple channels, because it’s paying conscious attention to the incoming information. To lack the ability to control awareness (i.e., consciousness) of incoming sensory stimuli would result in making multi-tasking easier. It also explains why NTs would hear someone calling their name while they’re involved in a task.

An Aspie involved in a task typically hates to be disturbed and unconsciously (or preconsciously?) will not hear their name being called (at least as quickly as a NT might). Is it any wonder then that Aspies need their time to be left alone after being in an environment that bombards their senses? …so that they can ‘sort out’, ‘connect’, and ‘make sense out of’, the sensory dots which crept in from the multiple channels blaring simultaneously?

Computers freeze up from being overloaded by too much incoming data brought by multiple software running. Not not expect a meltdown from Aspies running on overload is no different.

¹Does extreme mean too much of an ability to draw connections together from the ‘big picture’?… that there is a limit decided by those with polytropic central coherence?

So much for my plans! I was about to dive into my new project I planned yesterday to improve my blog by redoing my tags. I knew the company hosting my site had not been confessing to me what they’ve been doing over the past few months that was affecting the speed at which my pages would load on my site. My choice was accept it or change to a different host. I was accepting the poor service fairly well¹ until I began working on my tags and got reminded of how frustrating the slowness is.

God said all things work for the good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose and that even includes my ‘mistakes’. I made a mistake which led me (by chance) to chatting with my friend at my hosting company. He confirmed my suspicions about the poor service being the company’s fault. However, he did give me good news. The slow speed issue is temporary and will be resolved by the end of this year.

What I don’t get from all this is why most people today foolishly refuse to be consistently honest and straightforward; plus, have no shame about lacking integrity?!?!

My web hosting company could have lost me as a long-time customer, if I wasn’t as patient as I am. If they would have told me before what my friend there told me this morning, I could respect that and work around the information.

I would have known for sure what was going on sooner or later. For me to find this out after I’ve unnecessarily wasted hours of time because of waiting for hundreds of pages to each load at a slow speed while editing their tags, would be upsetting to say the least! Now that I am no longer left in the dark and confidently know what’s going on, I can plan to resume editing tags next year. Then I will be doing it using time efficiently, since the pages will load a lot faster.

Why do businesses think it’s good for them to keep customers ignorant of what’s going on? It’s really not good when customers already have it figured out anyhow.

There is nothing shameful about saying, “We’ve been acquiring new accounts which consume more bandwidth than we planned for. Please be patient as we work to remedy this issue. It shall be resolved in two months.” Instead, what I got repeatedly told was, “Everything is fine at our end. It must be something with your internet connection.” I take the later as an insult and extremely rude!

Generally speaking, if Aspies ran a business, they wouldn’t play those kind of games with their customers. Aspies are more reliable because they are more straightforward than NTs. That’s a fact.

On the topic of deception, tech businesses aren’t the only ones — government schools employ and reward² these types too.

If you remember the teacher Wendy Portillo, you too may be interested in the video I stumbled across entitled Portillo Lied. It expresses what Alex Barton’s Mom had to say about Wendy’s arrogant, shameful, and totally unprofessional behavior.

¹For me to find out through experience how much better other hosting companies are didn’t seem worth it. This particular one I have is good in many other ways.

²The school district gave Wendy her tenure back. As I see it, the government is telling us, “Do as we say, not as we do.”

I will not accept the label of being a high-functioning autistic any more than I would being labeled as belonging in the male gender of the human race. It’s usually much easier to know the difference between a man and a woman than it is to know the difference between an autistic and an Aspie. Increasingly more people will probably deny there is a difference between auties and Aspies, especially since the Asperger label is planned for extinction. I can’t do anything about what other people choose to believe and other people can’t do anything about what I choose to believe. No one can please everyone all the time.

Whoever might call me an Aspie supremacist just because I choose to use the term Aspie (rather than high-functioning autistic for describing my neurological classification) would probably be upset with the term Aspiephobic. It’s unfortunate that there are some neurotypicals who don’t have enough empathy to realize what a hornet’s nest they’ve stirred up by introducing disrespectful terms to describe other human beings who deserve to be treated with equal dignity.

In case if my habit of using the lower-case a for autistics and upper-case A for Aspies may get misconstrued as being an indication of a supremacist attitude, I will explain why I do it. I think of Aspergers as being like a nationality and autism as being like hair, eye, or skin color. I’m entitled to my theories and have no desire to say more than what I already have on this matter.

I would like to bring back attention to a paragraph from the second online page of the New York Time’s article A Powerful Identity, a Vanishing Diagnosis by Claudia Willis (published last November 2nd), that seems to not get the full attention it deserves:

The proposed elimination of autism subtypes comes at the very moment when research suggests that the disorder may have scores of varieties. Investigators have already identified more than a dozen gene patterns associated with autism, but Dr. Lord, of Michigan, said the genetic markers “don’t seem to map at all into what people currently call Asperger’s or P.D.D.”

What puzzles me is, “How can something be a subtype of something else that’s unrelated genetically?” In spite of more than a dozen gene patterns associated with autism not seeming to map at all into what people currently call Asperger’s, the identity of Asperger’s will still be an autism subtype?

The only neuro-A-typical subtype I am is “The Logic Boy” under the Asperger Subtype. FamilyEducation.com will tell you that this often very bright child with a high IQ needs an adequate reason or else he won’t listen. He does not blindly accept rules others try to enforce on him, because he has his own reasons and explanations. If it doesn’t make sense, it is not logical or acceptable to this Aspie subtype.

I recently eliminated the use of pages about Aspergers on my blog. As I’ve said before, what I’ve written on those pages still exist; they simply don’t exist as pages anymore — they’ve been transformed into posts instead. I’m not even going to link them to this post. The main reason behind its diminished appearance is because of something I read in the devotional My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers for February 24th:

We have no right in Christian work to be guided by our affinities; this is one of the biggest tests of our relationship to Jesus Christ. The delight of sacrifice is that I lay down my life for my Friend, not fling it away, but deliberately lay my life out for Him and His interests in other people, not for a cause.

More than two years have passed since I began this blog. In hindsight, I progressively see when, where, and how I’ve been getting myself involved in fighting for a cause. That never would have happened if I wasn’t guided by my affinities. I can understand the passion behind what motivates such blogging, but will others be able to understand my dwindling enthusiasm for being involved as an advocate for anything other than the salvation of those who are lost?

Not being an advocate anymore for a worldly cause doesn’t mean that I will not include Aspergers anymore in my writing. If it were possible, in a way I’d prefer to go back to how life was before Aspergers was known about. I was still the same person and I could live my life without mentioning the word Aspergers. I can still go on with my ‘normal’ daily life without bringing it up again, but since I’ve let my ‘Aspie aspect out of the bag’ for the world to see, it makes little sense to shove the Aspie identity of me now back into that bag and act like there’s something offensive about it.

“Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” — Revelation 3:3  (King James Version)

For those who don’t know who the “I” is referring to in the above verse, it is Christ. When He comes, it’s to bring judgment upon the world before it’s completely destroyed. Even Kenneth Taylor knew judgment would follow Christ’s return. Otherwise he would not have paraphrased this verse (in the Living Bible) to include, “…Unless you do (i.e., repent and become saved), I will come suddenly upon you, unexpected as a thief, and punish you.”

To be more to the point, I will rephrase what God is saying in Revelation 3:3, “If you do not repent and become saved, you will not know when the time is near for Christ to return.” That does not mean those (in the past) who have not known anything about when Christ would return were not saved. What it means is that only God’s elect can know when the end is near. All others shall be horribly surprised by that event when it happens.

How can even children too young to understand know?

It’s not about understanding (although some will comprehend much). It’s about believing and faith.

Animals have intuitively known when a tsunami (or other natural disasters like an earthquake) was about to hit in time to flee to the mountains. God is able to do anything, but He will not do things for those who remain stubborn and rebellious.

God put temporary seals upon comprehending His word about end time events to prevent His elect from knowing when Christ would return, because it was not necessary information to have before it being close to the time of Christ’s return. That reserved information was foreordained to become unsealed at some point during our earth’s existence. His timing is always perfect.

This three part video documentary is about a 14 year old Aspie boy named Reuben Walsh. As good as it portrays an example of Aspergers, what should always be keep in mind is that there are other vital factors which affect the way Aspies differ from one another.

Reuben wants to remain true to his unique self, but without being so aliened from everyone else.

You may notice (like when he is clothes shopping in Part 3) that he appears to be a potentially good example of the type of person Kazimierz Dabrowski describes in his Theory of Positive Disintegration. If you’re not up to reading what Dabrowski’s theory is about and/or can’t understand it, it means Reuben could probably experience greater mental health than what most people could possibly ever know.¹

Reuben’s Crazy Life – Part 1

Reuben’s Crazy Life – Part 2

Reuben’s Crazy Life – Part 3

¹I wonder if David Weeks heard of Kazimierz Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration? Dr. Weeks, along with Jamie James, have done studies on eccentrics and (to my knowledge) have not mentioned Aspergers, but what is pointed out in an interview with Dr. Weeks is that eccentrics live longer, are happier and are odd.

Generally speaking, Aspies probably have the greatest potential for this if they avoid the ‘robotic, dehumanizing (and de-individualizing) role of the social environment’ and instead aim for a ‘higher autonomous and stable ideal self’. To achieve this at its highest level is to maximize one’s true personality.

I know from experience what trials and tribulations one must face to go that route, but I can’t image traveling it without Christ.

The choice is conform to the world or be transformed into God’s ideal you.

Postscript — Edits might be made on this post in the future, after I’m less sleep deprived, if improvements appear necessary. I can think of some things to expound upon in this set of videos, but rather than ‘mess up’ this post, I might create another post for those nuggets of information.