The Dino-Aspie Cafe (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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American censorship is still alive and well. Unf#+king real, in way to many forms.

Actually any publisher can do whatever they want once you sell it. They took out the last chapter for marketing purposes and Burgess didn't like it. The last chapter has Alex running into his hold droogie Dim years later (I'm pretty sure it was Dim but I'll check when I get home). He's married and has children and is an ordinary person. He basically says he outgrew all of that and implies it was just a normal teenage boy phase. It wasn't satisfying to me. I like the American version better and most people do. Burgess also considered that the least of his works and was upset that it was the work with the most recognition.

The movie ended the way the American version of the book ended. "I was cured all right." I would love to buy a billboard, put it outside that curebie mom's house (from Autism Speaks) and put it up there so she would have to look at it every day. Put Alex's picture with it for her added horror.

Now it's time for the sweet, sweet sound of the old Ludwig Van.

LOL This reminds me that I once created a character who was a heart transplant surgeon called Viola Rens. She would channel Alex in surgery and call everyone on her team droogie or "Oh my brother." LOL She was a great character.

Sorry about the picture... it's the best I could come up with, to get the "feel" fairly accurate. I wanted to make it "thinner", almost to non-existence, but that wouldn't have worked too well on a computer screen. The lump itself is absolutely locked to the retina, so move the eye and it moves totally with it.

I have had the negative scotoma, on one occasion, when it was the entire lower half of my vision that did not exist, just missing my fovea. Occasionally even that has gone. I suppose the sensation is then pretty close to someone who has been blind from birth - I don't necessarily "notice" that I can't see. I.e. I might be reading, and just get vaguely frustrated that the next sentence isn't "happening" - then it dawns on me that I'm not "getting" the sentence, because I can't see it! A few minutes go by, and all is back to normal.

OTOH floaters do just that. They are either the general crud on the conjuctiva (when they stay positioned as per your head (I had a tiny ball of solder imbedded there for a month or so... that was... interesting?), or they can be dead cells floating about between the conjunctiva and the sclera, I guess, so they'd track partly with the head and partly with the eyeball.

[aside] Merriam-Webster and OED don't think there's any difference between "imbed" and "embed". Odd that. I've always thought of "embed" as meaning statically totally enclosed by some surrounding material, versus "imbed" meaning only partially and more dynamically. I.e. a cake might have sultanas "embeded" in it. You "imbed" a knife in someone you don't care for a great deal.
[/aside]

However, mostly floaters are general gunk floating about in the humours - normally the vitreous humour.

I've had one of those wandering about in the bottom right (so dangling down physically from the top left, inside) of my right eye's visual field for a few days... and all this talk seems to have frightened it away.

Generally, they get slowly re-absorbed. While there, they usually stay pretty much in the same position, but not exactly "rigidly".

Floaters certainly don't, like scotoma, appear, stay constant for 5 minutes, then vanish totally.

To those that look for computer upgrades. I'm in love with NewEgg.com. Excellent prices, fast service and the reviews written on products are by customers that don't hold back, If there is a problem, they say there is, if it's good they say it is. I have yet to find an online buying service that comes close. If something is a little high price wise, track it, they run sales on things, often and I really mean often.

My doctor described floaters differently. Migraine floaters are round or oblong spots moving across the field of vision. I get those the day before as well.

The gunk or dead cell effect is called a floater by Opthamologists, but they can be permanent, as are mine. Weirdly enough, mine have the same color as my iris so they are dark spots and I can always see them. I went in to the Opthamologist and he told me what they were. I wanted him to cut them out because they were making me dizzy. He told me, "Quit trying to look at them. In a few days you won't notice them anymore." They are still there, but I only notice them if I try to look at them.

Yup, exceedingly good maners with a dash of humor makes for the urbane aspie. Alas, I believe it a lost art.

Appropos of nothing, I was talking with my daughter's psychiatrist earlier and every time I made a hand gesture she look startled as if I wasn't supposed to. I felt like a bug under a microscope.

Do you guys make hand gestures? My mother was Italian and we talk with our hands! Sheesh.

I've always had it and I tend to look at people's mouths when they talk. Eye-to-tooth contact. I think I sometimes classify people by their tooth structure as the most prominent feature of their faces.

You actually get valium? The docs here are Prozac pushers. I can buy a similar drug to valium called Soma in Mexico. It is not a controlled substance here and you don't need a prescription there, but it is in the same family as valium. It is basically prescribed here as a muscle relaxer.

Eye floaters? Had them since I was a lad. So relieved to find out that they were 'real'. An opthomologist was looking inside my eye, and exclaimed about all the floaters I had!! Glad to know you see them too, doc ! ! When I'm tired, they swim into my vision more than usual. As for the scatoma(sp) thingie, I know a chap who would get those right before a migraine. He would see first a dot that blocked his vision, then the flashing would begin, then a scene like what you posted Lau. Then he'd be bedridden with a migraine. After a number of years they went away. Hasn't had one since. Funny the tricks our brains play on us. Like they have their own twisted sense of humor, eh?

I do, but then I lived in Italy for two years. I will say this, I tend to knock things down when I talk with my hands because my peripheral vision is so bad. I'm also clumsy.

I gesture a lot. But not around strangers. I clasp my hands together, sometimes behind my back so they can't see mr wringing them ! ! Odd that the doc seemed startled when you gestured(??! !) Maybe she's used to people being veddy polite and keeping their hands in their lap when speaking. (Like the gentlemen and ladies we're supposed to be ! !)

I think she was interested in me as an adult with AS. She may have been expecting me not to use gestures. I started speaking in a very pedantic way to give her something to scibble about.

(chuckling, reading doc's pad)
Mother DX'd AS.
Very demonstrative gestures.
Typical AS pedantic speech pattern.
Obssessive regards child's health.
Possibly needs antidepressants.
Overly excitable.
Misuses medical terminology.
DX, Very AS.

I had a funny day yesterday. I had a meeting with a couple of guys from the mental heath team. I spent about an hour, talking at them. I noticed that I was having a definite "hand gestures" day. My arms and hands were off "doing their own thing". A couple of times I vaguely wondered who was pulling the strings.

Interesting. I couldn't recall if there was a genuinely separate "migraine floater". I had a look on Wikipedia, which didn't mention such a thing. I thought I read in the Sacks book that "floater" was only used for the physiological case. I know there are lots of variations on what is seen in the migraine aura, certainly including various patterns the move across the field of view, but I didn't think they got the term "floater" applied to them. Then I Googled... and now I'm confused, and I think I'll just have an early night.

LOL. Actually, I think my gestures are probably somewhat on the large side. Maybe she thought I was flapping?

Oh, man, I was heading for a meltdown, but managed to get a friend to help me calm down. Sometimes, just having someone in my house breaks up my freaking out, and slows my spiraling into a tornado by making me have to reorient.

I had too much to do this week, but I was able to stop, say what is going to kill me and what isn't, what's the most important, and what's not, and even though I feel like a semitruck has been driving over me all week, I made it, and am actually kind of proud of myself. The last time I went through this, I got into it with my youngest niece, which was horrifying as she didn't deserve that. This time, cool. I was able to say to people a little of what was going on, and they knew something was up.

Does anyone ever get into these states, and just don't know what the hell is causing it? I know I'm busy, and have some pretty stressful things going on, but it seems the "upset" isn't easily identifiable--am I mad, scared, anxious...the anxious is usually my first choice, as it fits with the busy, busy, busy.

As for long term psych meds, Krex, I think you may be right. I wonder if some drugs are like shock therapy, and mess with memory and sensations. I was on a plethora of drugs, but the worst was Effexor. I was on 325 mg, and was hallucinating. I ended up getting weaned off of it over the most miserable three weeks of my life. Of course, I may be attributing effects to drugs that's just my brain losing synapses through regular aging.

Why am I watching Rachael Ray? Egads.

And Robyn, if UbbyUbbyUbby and Aussieboy want to peek in and it's all right with everyone else, they can. I think we have a pretty inoffensive thread, and when we do get gross, it's usually on the sub-eight year old level (Chinese fart rag?)(hehee).

Is it all right with y'all if Smelena and Robyn think it's okay for the kids, or any parents and their kids, to peek in on the Dino-Aspie Cafe?

I really thing there's something to how the brain is processing things, and how we as Aspies perceive things. I often find patterns in textures, like linen or wall treatments, tiles, or leaves. And I have heard radio frequencies too. It's so odd. Yeah, why don't those idiot researchers do research on adult, and I mean ADULT, Aspies, and find out how we've made it, or not made it. For crying out loud--we come with more experience, and a wide variety of coping mechanisms. Or is it because we'll call into question the stupid ideas some of these people have about Asperger's and autism in general? Or is it because we don't exist? I keep seeing these things on CSpan as I'm futilely cruising the channels and seeing actors from the West Wing and Law and Order spewing the Autism Speaks party line about how awful these things are.

For once, I wish researchers would look at the parents. I am very much in the don't blame everything on the parents, but there are patterns to some of these things. I see a lot of "woe is me," and it doesn't necessarily have to be so. So many things are becoming pathologized, and pills are becoming rote answer instead of useful coping skills and acceptance of people's differences.

My sister finally went against doctor's advice, and took her son off of his ADD meds. He is doing fine, and miracle of miracles, he is sleeping. His grades have come up. Now I question her motives (thinking ADD isn't a real condition), but I pretty much told her he does not have ADD. I have worked with ADD kids. He is not. And he is doing well. I think he is a bit Aspie though.

I am so glad I have this place to come to. People talk about the things I've thought about, but no-one understood when I was talked about those things.

And yeah. My phrase for Ubbyubbyubby's "my brain is my best friend" (what a great answer!), but that I have a full circus going on in my head with a freak show on the side.

Thanks, youse guys.

Metta, Rjaye

Yeah, I call them "big upsets." I feel a very generalized anxiety and I can't pin it down to one cause. Anything making you feel bad about yourself?