psychology

From another planet

~ Helen White ~ 7 Comments

How long have you felt like an alien landed on the wrong planet? Its something that needs be felt into if you are an Aspie, in order to fully respect yourself for just how long you have had to swim upstream against the flow; so you can appreciate the sheer tenacity and determination with which you try…and keep on trying….to fit in, speaking and receiving words and behaviours that don't compute and yet always having to step forwards to meet others far more readily than they ever come to meet you. It's a thankless task and now it's time to thank yourself. Bringing your Asperger's into the equation can even help you cope with some of your most triggering circumstances because now you have logic on your side (and you know how much we love logic). Here's my example...

Aspie women compelled to “fix things”

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

Asperger's can be challenging for any woman; and parenting a child with more typical needs than your own can place those challenges right under a microscope...but you both stand to gain such a lot, in the long run, as I am now discovering. Examining some classic Aspie traits in the light of motherhood...

Power time for introverts

~ Helen White ~ 4 Comments

Are you an introvert, a sensitive, have you come to equate this with being alone? Then let me tell you, this is your time...and I have a story to share, from my own introversion, that will explain just why this is about to become the best gift of your life...if you let it.

High-functioning autism and the creative, self-teaching maverick

~ Helen White ~ 4 Comments

The propensity to teach ourselves new skills and prefer to do things our own way from the outset is, I suspect, a trait of high-functioning autism. It makes us into mavericks, it sometimes increases what looks like our failure or non-completion rate and it frustrates the hell out of partners when we prefer to construct things "out of the box" without first consulting the instruction leaflet. However, it also makes us movers and shakers when it comes to making paradigm leaps...a much needed skillset at this point in time.

Are you on the autism spectrum?

~ Helen White ~ 2 Comments

I’m sharing these thoughts because I’ve been swept over by a sort of epiphany that I am on the autistic spectrum and I'm by far from the only one discovering this in my 50s! The more I delve, the more I (a) discover anecdotes that sound like myself now or as a child/young adult (people … Continue reading Are you on the autism spectrum?

Too much (not too little) going on

~ Helen White ~ 12 Comments

This is an add-on to an earlier post since I just came across “the intense world” theory proposed by of Henry Markram, director of the Brain Mind Center at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technologym, which seems highly relevant to it. In that previous post, entitled High-sensitivity, synesthesia...and hearing tones, seeing lights or other anomalous experiences, … Continue reading Too much (not too little) going on

Are you a high sensation seeker after all?

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

Being a High Sensation Seeking HSP is a package of being both highly sensitive yet kind of addicted to the buzz of a thrilling experience and novelty; a craving for being in a regularly high state of mental or physical arousal. If you've spent years being almost painfully sensitive or even unwell, perhaps with chronic fatigue, you may quickly brush this off as nonsense in your own case. Yet, as I discovered, it pays not to be so quick to dismiss this possible trait because finding out you have it (if in some less obvious or conventional ways than other people) could shed an enormous amount of light on your long-running health or other issues.

Who knows your pain

~ Helen White ~ 5 Comments

When we are in chronic pain, or even an episode of acute pain that seems to go on and on, who do we share that with, can we even expect to share and does it make it better or worse to convey to loved ones what we are going through? Yet, do we need that outlet of saying it like it is and not feeling so isolated in our experience and, if so, where do we get that from, without stirring up the pot to make ourselves feel all the more defeated from over-talking it. This conundrum is familiar territory to anyone who lives with pain, chronic illness, even the disillusionment of daily chronic fatigue. Sharing some home truths, perhaps some helpful perspectives, from my own experience of this highly emotive topic.

High-sensitivity, synesthesia…and hearing tones, seeing lights or other anomalous experiences

~ Helen White ~ 3 Comments

Some people, and I count myself among them, are prone to experiencing anomalous experiences; that is, experiences that lie outside the so-called "norm", from high-frequency "tones" ay and night to flashing "lights" and many more special effects. These count as some of the most disturbing and supposedly detrimental to quality of life of all experiences people are said to be encountering in their health today; alarming and even depressing them into states of hopelessness in many cases. Yet what if these sensations are not what they seem, via the rundamentory five-senses system we currently rely upon. What if, like the artist scrabbling for the right colour to express a brand new hue that seeks expression and having to draw on many pigments, textures, all kinds of materials mixed torgether just to get even close to an aproximation of this new "message" that is coming through, our bodies are forced to mix up all our sensory messages...yes, like synesthesia...to try and get through to us something that is just so very important...and its all for us to hear.