Perception

We all live in the same physical world. But it is always assumed that we have the same perceptions of that physical world. We all see the books on the shelf, we all hear the intercom. We do there are cases where that isn't the case, like blindness or deafness. But what if some people really do perceive the world differently without falling in those cases. Synthesia is the only one I have heard until recently. The weird thing is that I fall into this group.

I have been trying for years to be able to hold a "normal" conversation. Basically, to do small talk. I started off with a strange language problem. I was considered to have normal speech. However, I monologued. I would read a book, to the point I would memorize it. Reading is my special interest. I am obsessed with it and will do it any time I can, including eating. So close memorization is possible. When asked a question like "what do you like to do" I would say "I just read about hurricanes and.... basically spill out the entire book. This was considered cute and a sign of being smart. Meanwhile, I was frantically trying to figure out what to say. I just said what I had just been reading.

I could do request, say I wanted something but could not answer how are you. I hated the question, what did do in school today. Was I supposed to say I went to math, english , then science, the lunch, then P.E. But she my parents knew my schedule. Why were they asking?

This sort of thing didn't make talking easy. But I could read well. And both are verbal. So I shouldn't be having problems. But I found speech hard.

Then came my first class in a foreign language. I realized that people were supposed to hold two-way conversations. I started to memorize the rules. How are you? Fine. Where do you live? I live here. That was the typical lines both in english and the foreign language.

But I still couldn't figure out when I was supposed to let the other person talk their turn. Unless they said verbally my turn.

I just recently figured out why. It was a dozy. When I would be talking, I couldn't see. The more intense the conversation, the more likely my vision would go. Sometimes I could still see, but not with details. So the subtle non-verbal cues went over my head.

I read a book talking about an unusual perceptual problem. It was called visual agnosia. The person's vision was fine but they couldn't "see" an object. They couldn't recognize it despite the fact they should have been. There was two forms. One was where the person couldn't percieve it correctly. If asked to draw what they saw, the object didn't look like the actual object. The other type was when they could percieve it correctly, but couldn't identify it. They could draw it corectly, but they couldn't name it. They could draw, say the carrot, but did NOT know what it was.

This explained a lot. I had a habit of not "seeing" something. I would look directly at a brightly colored vehicle and then asked the owner where the vehicle was. There would be bananas in the shopping cart. I would look at it and still ask "did we buy bananas.

I also can't drive because of this. I would see, say a pedestrian, and not recognize what it was. I also have a slow processing speed. This made driving a nerve wrecking experience. I had to finally quit.

This is not good thing in the United Stated. Everybody is expected to drive unless impaired. And even then. There are plenty of stories of the person who flunks the vision test, but still won't give up driving. The person who's reaction time is much slower, but still keeps on.

But I didn't know what was wrong. I couldn't describe it. I found out about agnosia after I quit driving. Before then, the only answer was fear. That was the only reason people around me had. Vision good, hearing good, young so reaction time is good, all is good to go. The solution they come up with was I need to drive more. My fear was unchanged. I couldn't stand to drive and would beg for rides. Then I got called a coward and lazy. So I was a bad person.

Finally, the fear was too much and I quit. Now I have a reason for it. So it shouldn't still feel upset. But I still do. I still feel bad for saying I can't drive. Everybody does it. I know I should ignore that thought, but it is hard.

The other bad thing I felt about was the reason I had agnosia. Agnoisa is caused by damage to the brain
usually very specific areas. I have no history of brain damage not even a minor head injury. After my diagnosis of being on the autism sprectrum, this offered a clue. Autism had sensory issues. I had a lot of those sensory issues. There was brain changes. My language issues were pretty common. In fact, it was an actual symptom used to diagnose. But I was excited about the brain differences.

This offered a reason for why I was having a symptom of brain damage. Maybe my brain was using those visual areas for something else. But at least, I can now say, my brain is different. I really do percieve the world differently.

Continuations

I was told my experience didn't count since I was not truly blind. I never said I was completely blind but that didn't count. He repeated the same comment and I stormed off in a rage. Yes, I know that was not grownup but I was frustrated.

I got angry because when I asked the people in my class how many of them had asked a blind person if they had a "good" life, the answer was none. In most cases, the didn't even know anybody with a disability. In other cases, they had a casual acquaintance with a person with a disability and had man an assumption that everybody thought that.

I haven't done any polls but I don't think that people in that class were unusual. I have been in other classes where similar subjects were brought up, and the same answers were given. I can't understand how somebody can say people in group X have miserable lives without even ASKING them. I also can't understand how people can say they're so compassionate in understanding the misery of their lives, yet don't have the empathy to ask if that was true. It is such a basic misunderstanding.

I hope that most people don't think like some of my classmates but sadly, I think they do. In every case, where a disabled child was killed by a parent I heard of, the article was written where all the sympathy was for the parent. It went how miserable the child, how hard it was for the parent (what the hell), how people must understand how hard it was. If a "normal" child was killed by a parent, the parent was seen as murderous scum.

The only difference is the presence of a disability. Have one, and your life is presumed to be so terrible that being murdered is considered  a good thing. I don't understand how having good intentions led to terrible acts. If the results of love and hate are the same, is it really love? When people proclaim compassion, should that get them a pass?

 <a href="http://tinyurl.com/BADD2014">Blogging Against Disablism Day</a>

Reactions to Blindness

The first time I realized that ableism was widespread was in a class in college. I knew people had made ableist comments but I just thought it was the person themselves. This experience told me it was widespread.

A movie had come out. In it, some people just went blind. It was either a major percentage like 1 in 2 or everybody. I don't remember the exact details. The teacher asked what we would do if that happened in reality. Everybody in the class said they would kill themselves. My thought, which I said, was I was going to learn Braille. Also, I didn't know the term but the people who helped blind people deal with things, like learnging how to navigate, I said that they would be in extreme demand. From the way my classmates reacted, I thought I had made a huge social blunder. They just kept asking why and then I asked them why.

It got worse. I said that maybe they were depressed. That was my experience, in that I would get suicidal over things like loosing a one-day job. I realize now that was not a good thing. But calling them all depressed was wrong. They were furious that I had implied that they were mentally ill. I pointed out that depression was fairly common. It didn't help. The teacher finally turned the topic to something else.

For a long time, I was puzzled by this exchange. I could not understand why so many people who were not depressed, were extremely mad to be thought so, would just think of killing themselves. I knew that becoming blind very quickly would be hard. It certainly was a severe change from a lot of things they knew. But to hear that everybody else in the class, some thirty people would all say that was beyond my understanding. It did not help that I am concrete and literal. Since they didn't say why, I couldn't grasp why.

It was years later that I did understand. One person, who will go unnamed since I don't want them to know I am talking about them, said bluntly, that people who had lost a sense (like blind or deaf people) could never lead happy, fulfilling lives. I was stunned. This explained a lot. I realized that a lot of people had this assumption. I tried to explain to the person that this was wrong. The person said I had no idea what I was talking about since I wasn't blind or deaf.

I told the person that I when I was younger, I had much worse vision. For a time, I couldn't see the big E of the eye chart without glasses. One day, my glasses broke at an amusement park. I could see color, light, and movement. Everything was a blur, I couldn't really see distinct outlines unless I was very close to the object. The group I was with were surprised to see how bad it was. I didn't want to go home. The end result, was that I had my hand on one of the group member's shoulder or arm at all times. The entire time I was wishing I had some blindness mobility lessons. I thought that at leas then, I could go off on my own. At that time, I thought, wrongly, that I would go blind, or at least, severe vision impairment. This idea was not traumatic to me. For me, I saw it as as consequence of getting older. As people get older, they start having grey in their hair. I thought that as I grew older, my vision grew worse. That was simply how the world worked. I told this to him.

To be continued.

First Post

And this is my first post. This will be about my thoughts, mostly about things pertaining to my diagnosis. I was diagnosed about two years ago with a whole list of mental illness. That wasn't unusual especially anxiety and depression which was mine along with depersonalization disorder and PTSD. I was surprised to find out that a lot of people with mental illness had more then one diagnosis. There was also one shocker in the list that was obvious to the therapist. That one was Asperger's syndrome. Then my second therapist said she thought I might fit high fuctioning autism better. Either way, it was a shock.

I have spent the past two years thinking about my diagnosis and how it affects me. So this blog will be the recipient of my thoughts on mental illness and disability. For that is what I am in certain respects.

My  first brush with disability was with vision. I had myopia since I was little. I had to wear glasses since I was 2 or 3. Each year, my glasses got thicker and thicker and my vision grew worse. Eventually, I couldn't see the big E without glasses. At that point, I had LASIK and my vision is better.

Before it, though is a change. Before, I had thought my vision would get worse to the point I would be blind. I was a teenager at the time and I didn't knew a lot about myopia. I did know that I had thicker glasses and therefor, worse vision then anybody I knew. The kids at school mad that very clear. I was never told that I was disabled and would not be considered disabled but I thought I would become disabled. My thoughts at the time about disability was colored by that fact. I suppose they still are compared to other people.

Later, in college, I liked genetics and read about it. That led me to reading about eugenics and ableism. Ableism is prejudice against disabled people. What was strange was that I would have encounters with ableism but I had no word for what was going on. I was just left to think about it. It wasn't until my diagnosis that I really got reading about the topic. So this blog will be the repository of my thoughts on ableism, disability, and mental illness.