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

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Are there other Aspie forum sites?

What other sites do people visit other than this one? To talk on message boards. Ones that are friendly and are NOT X-rated.

Some sites I have browser problems on. So I thought I'd ask if there are other good sites to check out.

I haven't found any I like. I don't like the psychobabble ones or the whiner ones. That knocks most of them out.

Sorry you've been through that. Surrounding you with good energy.

I subscribe to the newsgroup <alt.support.autism>, which is occasionally interesting, but somewhat of a "wade". Not as pretty as here. I've peeked at other stuff, but here just feels like "home". I've just come over with that "where's my slippers?" feeling. I can't remember when I last owned a pair of slippers!

Nana,

When it all gets too much, just take Ubby out on the lawn, lay down and watch the stars. Or watch the Elegant Universe with him. It helps me to project my thoughts away from all of this "earthly" stuff to decompress. Of course, you can always just get him a spinner and let him stare at it for awhile. Spinners are great!

Aside: Did any of you used to stare at the ice that would hang off the eves? Remember how the light would hit it and refract? I miss that, but not enough to move back up North.

Back to Ubby. Nanna did you know this about Stephen Hawking? "Stephen Hawking says he never was very coordinated. He had lousy handwriting when he was a kid, didn't care much for sports but he started having real physical problems, stumbling, clumsiness, while he was a graduate student at Cambridge." Of course in 1963 they found out he had ALS, but that start is very similar to most Aspies. Hawking just passed his physical to go into space! I just want to sit in his brain for a day. Imagine all the electrical activity!

Here's what Hawking says about his disease, Nanna. It's a good lesson for all of us, but very good for Ubby. It shows that nothing can really stop you from pursuing your life and obtaining your dreams.

HAWKING: I have ALS, a motor neuron disease. This is a condition in which the nerves controlling muscles die off but the sensory nerves continue as before. It is not supposed to affect intelligence but maybe I'm too far gone to notice. One form of ALS is linked to a defective gene, but most ALS seems to occur at random and its cause is not known.

KING: How has the disease affected your work?

HAWKING: Had I chosen almost any other career, my ALS would have ended it. But theoretical physics is all in the mind, so I was able to carry on. Obviously there are practical difficulties like handling books and papers, but I have found ways to deal with them. It is a lot easier now that everything is on computers. I can download physics papers on the Internet and don't need physical paper.

KING: Has the disease -- this is strange -- in any way been an aid to your work?

HAWKING: I can't say that my disability has helped my work but it has allowed me to concentrate on research without having to lecture or sit on boring committees.


That is the only thing Ubby must really learn. That we are different but it doesn't matter. Yes, we are bizarre. I was a completely bizarre child. But, it only matters to the NTs around us and that only affects us when they push their world too much onto us. We exist in our minds. I at least, don't feel very attached to this Earth. But the wonder that takes place in our minds cannot be matched or replaced by socializing. That is not where we get our good energy. We get that from inside our own heads.

Same. Your posts are always positive and funny, and I look forward to them. It amazes me when I think about what most people on this site have been through to get to where we are now. If "that which does not kill me makes me stronger" is true, we dinos are a formidable bunch of scarred-up comicbook superheros by now! My superhero costume has a question mark right in the middle of my facemask - I walk around with my super concentrated clueless stupidity powers saying "Eh? Wassat? Did I miss something? What?") My skull is a thick impenetrable titanium through which no knowledge can enter. My malfunctioning voice translator continually gets me into trouble though. When I'm trying to be helpful or nice my words come out as horrible insults somehow.

Welcome back Lau! Hope my computer did not curse yours! Mine still has no sound, but that doesn't matter. I'm not on my ADD meds, so I can't hear right now anyway.

Sorry so many people had a tough spot yesterday! But this morning the blackberry bushes are in bloom and its a new day. I love blackberry flower sprays. They are such simple white flowers, but boy are they beautiful!

Wait.

Are you saying there is to be no psychobabble OR whining on WP?

What am I going to talk about then?

I've been reading a lot about the brain lately in order to participate in a special study. A lot of new research has opened up areas unknown when I studied the neuroanatomy, neurotransmitters and brain physiology in the 70's and 80's.

to nannarob: the last portion of the brain to develop in a human is the front part of the brain, the forehead area which is called the prefrontal cortex. This part is what gives us our common sense and higher reasoning functions. I believe that the major role of parents is to "lend" their children their prefrontal cortex until the children develop prefrontal cortexes of their own. But this is the interesting part: they are just now seeing that the prefrontal cortex does not fully develop until the age of 23 to 27 years old. (Somewhat earlier in women, quite a bit later in men). I believe that Aspies don't fully develop their's until later still. I know in my case (seriously) that I did not really start becoming mature until age 35. At 40, looking back, I can honestly say that at that point I was definitely mature. But not before.

Until the prefrontal cortex is developed, you think you know everything, but you most definitely do not (as we at this age now know, looking back)! !!

But look at how many crucial decisions we make without fully developed prefrontal cortexes: marriage partners, career decisions, joining the military, etc. Sometimes you get lucky in these decisions, othertimes not. And at that time when we really most need the advice of people with fully developed prefrontal cortexes, who do young adults turn to for advice? Other young adults who lack prefrontal cortexes!! ! And they shun as stupid the advice they get from the older set. Until the prefrontal cortex is in place, you don't even know who you yourself are yet!! Until you know who you are, how can you know what type of career you would enjoy, who a good life partner would be, or even if you'd want one?

Without a prefrontal cortex, riding a motorcycle at 160 miles per hour without a helmet while drunk makes sense.

To PostPaleo: this brings me to you my friend. I tell you this not to depress you, but in the manner of explanation - maybe a way to forgive yourself the inability to shake your PTSD and hyper-vigilance: you can't. Its hardwired in your brain now. What you went through was occurring while your brain was still in formation. They have you join the military when? At age 18, when you cannot and do not have the ability to fully reason, question, refute or block things out, when your common sense and higher reasoning has not yet fully developed because those "nerve channels" are still being developed.

Couple that with this: how do you cement a memory in for a lifetime? Combine the event with adrenaline. Adrenaline cements in any memory not confused by a concomitant head injury. Ever been in a car accident? Remember how time seems to slo-o-o-o-o-o-o-w down, every second a minute, every detail remembered? That's adrenaline cementing in the memory. Think you had a little adrenaline flowing while in the military? Those memories Postie, sad to say, are yours forever.

They try to give rape victims the blood pressure medication propranolol (a beta blocker) shortly after the event to "fuzz up" that adrenaline etched memory. Not too sure that's a good idea. [Aside, if any of you take a beta blocker to lower your blood pressure, yes, it does mess up your memory formation].

Anyhoo, I tell you this in case you have been beating yourself up: "Why can't I just let this go? Why can't I just forget this? Why am I still hyper-vigilant?" This is the "why" to those questions.

Accepting this, maybe it will help you understand it a little more, and deal with it more effectively.

I use my hyper-vigilance as a game now. Oftentimes I pop awake at 1:00am. I slip into some clothes, and quietly go out into the woods (this is easy for me, as I live deep in the woods). I hike for a mile or so moving as quiet as possible listening to and observing everything - the clouds racing across the moon, the flying squirrels gliding. I walk to a cedar grove where the does and fawns are sleeping and watch them sleep. I move out about a mile further along to where the big older bucks travel as a group at night. If you approach quiet enough you can touch them. Their fur is soft but coarse. It's really cool Postie! Replace those old deer-related memories with new ones. No one else will be out at that time of night except me. And we are friends. I would never hurt you (Be kinda funny if we accidentally killed each other ).

Last edited by Chuck on 29 Apr 2007, 10:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

Whine about psychobabble!

For a while, I tried to exist at autistics.org (under my real name, even!), but for some reason, after about 3 days, their registration system suddenly lost track of me. Even when I tried the "lost your password" link, it denied I was a member! Don't know about other autistic/AS forums - I must confess, after stumbling across this place, I haven't really been looking that hard.

Browsers: I love my Firefox, which works so much more nimbly than that overbloated beast promulgated by Microsoft. I can install just those extensions I want to the browser, without being saddled with half a dozen I'll never use (why should I stick something in to improve the download of podcasts, when I wouldn't listen to a podcast at gunpoint?). OTOH, if for one reason or another you're stuck with IE, get the latest update. They've added the tabbing that has been a feature of Firefox right along, so you can open a second tab in the same window, point it at the same website, and be looking at whatever post(s) you're replying to. (The cutting-and-pasting thing is Windows standard, so any brwoser that'll let you open tabs will let you cut and paste between them.)

Postpaleo, I think we'd have been better off if that building hadn't been designed with A/C in mind. Even when we could open the windows, during the day, they were these tiny transom affairs, up at the very top of the wall, maybe a foot tall. The ventilation was negligible. At night, they had to be closed entirely. Now, add to that Texas summer heat, high humidity, and fifty young men, none of whom had showered that evening. (Our Training Instructor only permitted showers between PT and breakfast, in the morning. When we got post liberty, and I had nowhere to go on post, I learned the sheer blissful joy of a long, hot shower with no one hurrying you along, and without eleven other squadrons using up the hot water...) Things could get pretty funky, along about 3am or so. I don't think I got a solid night's sleep until I got my first assignment out of Basic - straight to SAC HQ in Omaha, but at least I only had to share the shower with three other guys!

In this society, a 12 year old girl knows all about them. She's not going to get a disease nor get hurt by one.

See, I fail to understand what she is protecting them from?

I don't have the impression that postie was acting like a dirty old man. He seems to be happily married!

ZanneMarie, I buy Wellness cat food on the internet. I don't have to deal with people in the pet store who are usually just untrained kids who are afraid of their managers.

Hawaii! Now that's an idea. I've always wanted to get up-close-and-personal with a HumuHumu.

Hey DeaconBlues, SeriousGirl. and ZanneMarie! Good to see you again. I'll be back after a bit - I've got to do some serious "weedeating" before it rains again!

Thanks DeaconBlues. I'm on a Mac, and I'm using the older Safari browser. I'm also on dial-up which makes it difficult to download anything.

I get very restless and need a lot to do. I need to be productive somehow, while online. The last site I WAS trying to work on my communication skills and failed miserably. Everything seems so easy for some NTs.

The nice thing about this place is that I haven't been picked on yet. Thinking back, I believe it's been about a year since I wasn't picked on every day by someone online. It's been a week.

I need to be doing something online. I like helping people, especially to find things. And I like interior design/decorating and doing people's rooms (in pictures and altering them in an application).

There's nothing like that to do here. I'm kind of purpose-oriented. I want to be talking about ideas, I guess. I don't have family to talk about, no neat old photos. I don't have anything to add to those conversations. Although...

Chuck:

The walk in the woods sounds wonderful. That's the kind of thing I would like to be doing too. I'll be moving sometime this year, and hope to get someplace that has that option of wilderness nearby. It doesn't need to be a huge area, just enough to give me a spot to wander to and from.

I've never seen flying squirrels. People want to travel to places. I want to see certain things. Like those bugs that light up at night. I think that would be incredible. And Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon. Maybe Niagra Falls? I want to see a Cardinal. It must be neat to have bright red birds around.

Are there people here that are into nature? More so than people things? Does anyone here hike or go for walks on nature trails? I used to like to do that before my back became the bane of my existence. I'm not a good swimmer, but I like being around the water. I like to see the sun on it. Or the moon. Lights reflecting.

I need a break. Nearly finished, I think, but the last bit of Bliss Ninny on the Flame Warriors site may me laugh too much. Grovel, grovel, Merle.

PS. Up to 17 tabs now (added Hendriks' math puzzles, Elegant Universe, YouTube Lexx - 02x03 - Lyekka, a WP PM, a WP search for the FW address, and FM itself. Hm. That means I closed one tab since last time. I re-used the Wikipedia tab for a couple of other things.

Back to FM...

Talk about whatever you want to talk about, that's what I do.

I need an interior designer and a bigger house! My house runneth over...

I hate weedeating - they always get stuck in my teeth...