Please Stand By

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I just finished watching a movie called "Please Stand By". It was starring one of my favorite actresses [Hannah] Dakota Fanning. In this film she portrayed a young Aspie woman living in a caring group home. The magic of this film was when she broke her shell and ventured off into the unknown alone. She had a vision; something that she grasped at and drove her. She held this vision very tightly in her arms. In the journey, almost everything that could go wrong did. But on the journey she was brave and endured to the end and found a small sliver of independence.

I’ll have to see this film. Thanks for the review.

Yes. Sounds interesting.

I can also recommend this film.

This is my favorite film with an autistic important character. Wendy is by far the most non stereotyped(Rain Man) autism representation on TV or in the movies I have seen. Besides the autism angle it is a fun film.

I would love to see that. We also love Dakota Fanning. I have loved her since I Am Sam. Her little sister Elle is also quite a good young actress.

I have some lousy memories of the phrase "Please Stand By" LOL

Remember when they used to do the "tests of the Emergency Broadcast System" back in the old days? It used to make a terrible, jolting sound, somewhat akin to 1970's car alarms (which one could hear for blocks).

The realistic portrayal of autism was excellent. The film, though had too many simply unbelievable plot points.

I'm going to watch the film----I just had an associative memory of the phrase "Please Stand By." Very autistic

YES!! !!

Remember: it is only a test

I was spinning this movie around in my head, trying to figure out why I liked this movie, and then it dawned on me that the movie contained at least three instances of what I referred to as "the Spock Anomaly".

What is the Spock Anomaly?

To put simplistically, it is the following steps:

Under great stress, you press the pause button.
Consider the array of potential solutions to the dilemma.
Pick the best one.
And then (most importantly) implement that best solution.

The reason why the Spock Anomaly is so important to Aspies is because it is one of ways an Aspie can avoid a panic attack.

When you hit the pause button, one undergoes a form of mild brain dissociation, similar to daydreaming. But in this case, one separates out the emotional portion of the brain from the analytical portion and then completely turns off the emotional side of the brain while simultaneously spinning up the analytical side. You become a version of Spock in Star Trek.

Normally the brain collapses under great distress from the "social" brain to the "flight or fight" brain to the core brain which produces a deep panic attack called "tonic immobility". But by using the Spock Anomaly, one breaks this destructive chain and stops a panic attack dead in its tracks.

Overall I liked the movie, although I wondered why the main character was living in a group home since she was able to do so much when she was motivated to. I enjoyed all of the Star Trek references - that show used to be one of my obsessions as a kid.

I haven't seen the movie yet but I know that I have moments when I can rule the world and do everything in it like Jack Bauer on steroids. But those moments are fewer and farther between and they were never consistent. For me, I might have a few days when I am really doing well and then that is followed by a month where I can barely do anything. And sometimes I can do well for a few months at a time if I am really on a roll but I will have to spend a few months recovering after that. So it is possible that the character had similar limitations which required her to have that kind of support even though she might not always appear that needy.

I think the condition you are referring to is called a Bipolar Disorder.

Bipolar Disorder, formally called Maniac Depressive Disorder (MAD), is a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression). When your mood shifts to mania or hypomania (less extreme than mania), you may feel euphoric, full of energy or unusually irritable. When you become depressed, you may feel sad or hopeless and lose interest or pleasure in most activities. These mood swings can affect sleep, energy, activity, judgment, behavior and the ability to think clearly.

Individuals can relive past traumatic events. The unused excess stress energy is stored within the muscles and nervous system. When the stored energy reaches the body’s capacity, it can trigger a massive uncontrolled release producing the mania or hypomania condition. And one of the reasons is that when you do these kinds of reliving or flashbacks, there's a tremendous release of adrenaline. There's also a release of endorphins, which is the brain's internal opiate system. In animals, these endorphins allow the prey to go into a state of shock-analgesia and not feel the pain of being torn apart. When people relive the trauma, they recreate a similar neurochemical system that occurred at the time of the original trauma, the release of adrenaline and endorphins. Now, adrenaline is addictive, it is like getting a speed high. And they get addicted not only to the adrenaline but to the endorphins; it's like having a drug cocktail of amphetamines and morphine. And after the stored stress energy is depleted, their body crashes into depressed state. The effects of coming down from a speed high are: feeling restless, irritable and anxious, aggression that may lead to violence, tension, radical mood swings, depression, paranoia, lethargy, and total exhaustion.

When I watched the movie, I did not get the impression that the character Wendy had bipolar. It just seemed like she had lived a life of constant meltdowns and was trying to learn to become normal.

They still do those! Maybe you no longer watch TV as much, or during the hours when they do the tests, which is usually late at night or in the afternoon, so that might be why you have not seen them. (I also have seen ones that are actual alerts, usually bad thunderstorms, and, once, a tornado alert.) You're right, that noise is awful!