I grew up with everything you ever heard and even more that you haven't about prophecy, numerology, and the gamut of anything weird and scary like UFO's, giants, angels running the governments, and, oddly enough, everything that's wrong with the medical and psychological sciences because they're out to brainwash you. I guess that's one way of looking at it, but I just shoot right back at him that EVERYONE is out to get my money, including Daystar, and then he shoots back how else would they spread the truth, and I cut in with I hope you aren't planting tomatoes yet since the weather is so nice (a joke between us, one year he planted 5 times before winter was done, but I've since discovered that a lot of people around here do that because Missouri is a real trickster), and he lets me know he's digging holes every single day getting ready for another hundred pine trees because the wildlife ate all the seedlings last year, which I point out is awfully nice of him considering how nutritious pine seedlings are, and I sit back and enjoy listening to him talk about critters he sees and who he talked to (argued with, explained something to, imposed upon) at Walmart or McDonald's.
My psychologist would be thrilled I've made it to this point. Especially with a stomach bug.
OH. Wow, this is so cool I hafta share right now. I'm reading (sorry, Dad) The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena by Diane Hennacy Powell, M.D., a *scientist* AND fellow aspie, and I'm super thrilled because my brain has been so weird growing up and she keeps hitting nails I've been thinking about for decades with my brain /robot obsession.
She goes indepth about how brains work, which areas do what, and it's really up to date with all the latest. One thing I've said for years is I can't handle talking on a phone. I have been blaming it on a lag in auditory processing in my aspie brain (which is true, I have a 'real time' issue in social interaction), but she was explaining right and left brain cultures based on how we use symbology in language and wrote "Some evidence for this theory comes from a study that showed that literate Greeks use the right ear and activate the left brain when listening to words. In contrast, illiterate Greeks use their left ear and activate their right brain more when listening to words." I've also run into other studies that show people are more creative (right brain) before they learn reading and spelling (left brain), which shifts dominance, which would indicate that people who aren't very good with grammar and spelling rules tend to be more artistic or creative. I personally suck at art in ways you guys can't even imagine, but I'm like a walking thesaurus, complete with language history over hundreds of years, so I'm super left brain.
Which apparently is at the root of my conundrum when I talk on the phone, so when I ran into that quote, I was elated that there is more evidence for why I'm so weird. I need to use my left ear for some reason, I prefer it even though it is confirmed a little deaf to higher tones and makes consonants disappear like crazy in my lagging auditory processing. When I switch to my right ear, (which actually tests out as hearing better) I can barely follow conversations at all. You'd think it would be the other way around if I'm right brain deficit and super left brain (aspie)- my right ear would be better for left brain language function. But my social function is what I need when I talk on the phone, and that social function is exactly what gets in the way for me with language, like my right and left brain can't seem to integrate the spoken word in real time convos very well because so much interaction for me is 'junk' that I don't do very well (I'd rather plug straight into the info I need, like R2D2).
Even when I use speaker phone so both ears hear everything I can suddenly become very lost and need to reiterate everything very slowly from the start, as if my brain dropped a pile of notes and has to sort them out one by one as it picks them back up, which I know is maddening for the person on the other end of the line, especially if we are trying to get some paperwork done. If I have to stop for them to explain stuff to me that they were trained to say but has nothing to do with the convo continuum, they may as well just explode the phones, because we aren't going anywhere for awhile. People hate me by the time we're done discussing forms of any kind because they can't conceive that they are the ones throwing me off track so badly (especially when I need what I feel is vague to be more defined). I actually have to interrupt them and tell them to stop talking because I have a cognitive deficit and I need them to go slow, and that just pisses people off right and left for some reason. If it gets bad enough I'll ask for managers, but I never complain about the people talking to me, I just start all over again until they hate me, too. By the time we're done, it's usually pretty obvious that 1- I know their companies and merchandise and fine print better than they do since they only know their phone bank material, and 2- I can use way fewer words with way more meaning that cuts right to the gist of everything we're talking about because I'm apparently not the one who is a robot, they are, and they can't wait till their shift is over so they can drink themselves senseless.
Why can't other people condense spoken language down to direct info sharing? On the other hand, other people would rather take shortcuts blogging about it, so I guess we're even. Well, except they might go on and on more hatefully about how their day sucked from my phone call.
Fortunately, it doesn't bother me that people hate me. My right brain emotional reactions sometimes take several days to catch up, and I rarely take them seriously, which is probably a good thing because I can metaphorically scorch a monitor like people burn paper, you stumble back clutching your face going "My eyes! My eyes!" while I mwahaha about your brain being scarred for life from my word construction. So yeah, it's a good thing I don't usually have right brain interaction on the phone. By the way, I don't think winning a monitor searing contest is a good thing, those of you out there who actually read the forum interaction that day. I am drawn to mock like I'm on the Satellite O' Love, but I've been practicing my self control skillz and I don't do that any more. That number may not look impressive as a snip, but it was a day the world stopped, a day no one talks about, a day erased from history.
Anyway, that quote was exciting to read yesterday. No wonder I keep trying so hard to use my left ear, almost like I'm trying to push the phone through my ear into my brain. My right brain is the talker, my left brain has the dictionary (to put it simply), and I've apparently developed a system of going in circles between the two in order to talk out loud to people.
A doctor mocked my mom years ago thinking I might be a little autistic, and back then being verbal meant I wasn't because there was no such thing as a little. Yes, I could say "hello" and "no" and "I want", but apparently the doctor couldn't see the disgust in my eyes when I looked back at him, little realizing how much I already understood at that tiny age, I still remember the whole event and how he treated my mom, even though I was only three.
So. Here we are. What a yappy person I am this morning. Feeling better, got coffee in me, going to a follow up appointment today after ALL my tests came back great (even the holter), which is something new for me, so that means I'm doing it right. I'm aspie and I'M DOING IT RIGHT. No one else 'saved' me. No one else 'fixed' me. I'm solving my own problems after years of people all around me telling me how to do everything.
All our aspie brains are getting together now on the internet. I hope you guys are ready for us to make the world a better place, because every aspie I run into seems to have the goal in mind. Truth, peace, beauty, love. Whoever wants to cure us needs to step back and ask what kind of revolution they're stopping if they do. Some of us are finding our ways out past our barriers, we're figuring stuff out, and now you know why every Walgreens in America looks the same. Ease, familiarity, and dependability go a long way with sales. Demand excellence, because we want to give it to you.
I'm laughing. You can't see me being silly in my brain.
Egads, look at the time, better run out the door. Someone needs to make me a really cute Snake Plissken vid with dance music or something, just for kicks. I mean, if you're bored and need something to do. My birthday is in October. Surprise me.
