Asperger's Disorder
Alter S. Reiss
From the DSM-IV; 299.80 Asperger's Disorder:
"The essential features of Asperger's Disorder are severe and
sustained impairment in social interation and the developement of
restricted repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, and activities . .
. no clinically significant delays in language . . . cognitive development
or in the developement of of age appropriate self-help skills, adaptive
behavior . . . and curriosity about the environment in childhood. The
diagnosis is not given if the criteria are met for any other Pervasive
Developmental Disorder or for Schizophrenia."
"Asperger's Disorder is sometimes observed in association with
general medical conditions . . . Various nonspecific neurological symptoms
or signs may be noted. Motor milestones may be delayed, and motor
clumsiness is often observed."
". . . it appears to be more common in males."
"Asperger's Disorder appears to have a somewhat later onset than
Autistic Disorder, or at least to be recognized somethat later. Motor
delays and motor clumsiness may be noted in preschool. Difficulties in
social interaction may become somewhat more apparent in the context of
school. It is during this time that particular idiosyncratic or
circumscribed interests (e.g., a fascination with train schedules) may
appear or be recognized as such. As adults, individuals with the
condition may have problems with empathy, and modulation of social
interaction. This disorder apparently follows a continuous course and, in
the vast majority of cases, the duration is lifelong."
"Diagnostic criteria for 299.80 Asperger's Disorder
A. Qualitative impairment in social interaciton, as manifested by
at least two of the following:
(1) marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors
such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to
regulate social interaction
(2) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to to
developmental level
(3) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests,
or achievements with other people (e.g., a lack of showing, bringing, or
pointing out objects of interest to other people)
(4) lack of social or emotional reciprocity
B. Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior,
interests, and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:
(1) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and
restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or
focus.
(2) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfuncitonal
routines or rituals
(3) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g., hand or
finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
(4) persistant preoccupation with parts of objects
C. The disturbance causes clinically significant impairment in
social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
D. There is no clinically significant general delay in language
(e.g., single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age
3 years).
E. There is no clincally significant delay in cognitive
development or in the development of age appropriate self-help skills,
adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction), and curiosity about
the environment in childhood.
F. Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive
Developmental Disorder or Shizophrenia."
--
Alter S. Reiss -------------------- http://www.geocities.com/Area51/2129
"There will be more art, history, and literature tomorrow."
-- An announcement at the NYPL Webster Branch library book sale
Mary Kay Kare
"Alter S. Reiss" <asr...@ymail.yu.edu> wrote:
> From the DSM-IV; 299.80 Asperger's Disorder:
Oh, migod. Not only does he have it, so do I.
Thanks. I think.
MK
--
Mary Kay Kare
Science Fiction Fandom: where people contradict you just to be polite.
Jo Walton
ka...@sirius.com "Mary Kay Kare" writes:
> In article <Pine.A41.4.05.990709...@acis.mc.yu.edu>,
> "Alter S. Reiss" <asr...@ymail.yu.edu> wrote:
>
> > From the DSM-IV; 299.80 Asperger's Disorder:
> Oh, migod. Not only does he have it, so do I.
No, what you have is Psychiatric Grad Student Syndrome (PGSS), whereby you
think you have the symptoms of every psychiatric problem you read about.
David Owen-Cruise doesn't have it either.
HTH.
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Interstichia; Poetry; RASFW FAQ; etc.
John Foyster
>
> In article <kare-09079...@ppp-asok06--064.sirius.net>
> ka...@sirius.com "Mary Kay Kare" writes:
>
> > In article <Pine.A41.4.05.990709...@acis.mc.yu.edu>,
> > "Alter S. Reiss" <asr...@ymail.yu.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > From the DSM-IV; 299.80 Asperger's Disorder:
> > Oh, migod. Not only does he have it, so do I.
>
> No, what you have is Psychiatric Grad Student Syndrome (PGSS), whereby you
> think you have the symptoms of every psychiatric problem you read about.
>
> David Owen-Cruise doesn't have it either.
>
> HTH.
I agree. In forty years in fandom I haven't seen anyone with anything
like Asperger's Disorder - though I've seen close up someone who has. It
would be very difficult for such a person to get into fandom at all.
John Foyster
Adelaide, South Australia
Rachael Lininger
Mary Kay Kare <ka...@sirius.com> wrote:
>In article <Pine.A41.4.05.990709...@acis.mc.yu.edu>,
>"Alter S. Reiss" <asr...@ymail.yu.edu> wrote:
>
>> From the DSM-IV; 299.80 Asperger's Disorder:
>
>Oh, migod. Not only does he have it, so do I.
>
It helps, when reading the DSM-IV, to consider it a particular sort of
narrative with particular conventions. What the words mean is not what the
words say in English, but what members of their profession know they say.
It takes a lot of work to get to the point that you understand the DSM-IV,
because it really _isn't_ what we mean by things in English. By that
standard, we'd all have many many many mental problems, rather than the
comparatively few real illnesses that are actually there.
I haven't met someone with Asperger's, but I watched psych people do the
Diagnosis Dance (whereing they plead with the gods to Show Them a Sign,
sacrificing MMPIs and inkblots left and right) far too many times to
really think you do. A lot of fans will fit the _words_ of that
diagnosis--but diagnosis isn't just words, it's knowing what they mean to
shrinks. I'd be awfully surprised if you were outside (or even close to
the edge) of statistical norms.
Which isn't to say that it's not a useful starting point for figuring out
people, just that I think it's dangerous to consider a layman's reading of
the DSM-IV diagnostic, because the words look familiar but they're really
not. (This can also make it difficult talking to the psychs, because
sometimes they forget to translate between jargons--I had a particularly
bad one convinced I was hallucinating, when I really just had a vivid and
obsessive imagination. His questions didn't mean what I thought they
meant, so I answered him wrong. He was incompetent, and did a lot of
damage, too.)
That includes mine, too, which should serve as disclaimer for this whole
post.
Rachael
--
Rachael Lininger | "The opposite of _less_ is _more._
lininger@ | What's better? Which one are you for?"
chem.wisc.edu | --Richard Wilbur
David Langford
>In article <kare-09079...@ppp-asok06--064.sirius.net>
> ka...@sirius.com "Mary Kay Kare" writes:
>
>> In article <Pine.A41.4.05.990709...@acis.mc.yu.edu>,
>> "Alter S. Reiss" <asr...@ymail.yu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> > From the DSM-IV; 299.80 Asperger's Disorder:
>> Oh, migod. Not only does he have it, so do I.
>
>No, what you have is Psychiatric Grad Student Syndrome (PGSS), whereby you
>think you have the symptoms of every psychiatric problem you read about.
ObLit: "I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the
only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee."
Dave
--
David Langford
ans...@cix.co.uk | http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/
Morgan Gallagher
>In article <Pine.A41.4.05.990709...@acis.mc.yu.edu>,
>"Alter S. Reiss" <asr...@ymail.yu.edu> wrote:
>
>> From the DSM-IV; 299.80 Asperger's Disorder:
>Oh, migod. Not only does he have it, so do I.
>
Nah, you don't. We have kids in school and have done training on how
to cope with them. when I heard the list, I thought, 'My God, I've got
' but I was reading a list of clinical observations and applying them to
my foibles. True , when it's standing in front of you, attached to a
person, is very noticeable and is not how your average fan is.
It is quite a sad and isolating condition, and the people inflicted with
it have a noticeable degree of something wrong with them. And when it
says 'difficult in relationships' it means talking to someone for twenty
minutes and getting no response from them. This is borderline autism
remember.
I'm not suggesting everyone is the same, of course, just that those with
the condition that I've worked with, are noticeable in this way. Few
fans I know would suggest to me, although I could point out more than
five if I really thought about it.
--
Morgan
To reject one's own experience is to arrest one's own development. To deny
one's own experience is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no
less than a denial of the soul.
Oscar Wilde
Beth Friedman
>On Sat, 10 Jul 99 08:54:38 GMT, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton) wrote:
>ObLit: "I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the
>only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee."
Heh. I really need to read the rest of that some day. I've seen the movie,
and read _To Say Nothing of the Dog," but my roommate moved out, taking her
copy of the book with her.
The phenomenon is also know as Med Student's Disease.
--
Beth Friedman
b...@wavefront.com
Johan Anglemark
<mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Mary Kay Kare <ka...@sirius.com> writes:
> >"Alter S. Reiss" <asr...@ymail.yu.edu> wrote:
> >
> >> From the DSM-IV; 299.80 Asperger's Disorder:
> >Oh, migod. Not only does he have it, so do I.
> >
> >Thanks. I think.
>
>
> Nah, you don't. We have kids in school and have done training on how
> to cope with them. when I heard the list, I thought, 'My God, I've got
> ' but I was reading a list of clinical observations and applying them to
> my foibles. True , when it's standing in front of you, attached to a
> person, is very noticeable and is not how your average fan is.
A teenager with Asperger's attended a con in Stockholm a few years ago,
and was quickly shunned by everyone except the most understanding and
patient people. He was a pest, and would never have succeeded in making
any friends in fandom. Sure, everyone felt sad for him, but nobody
could stand him. I have met you MKK, and you are not close to having
Asperger's.
-j
--
Johan Anglemark www.bahnhof.se/~anglemar
1999 Swedish National SF con sfweb.dang.se/1999.html
Bernard Peek
<b...@wavefront.com> writes
Black's Syndrome over here, after Black's medical dictionary.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com
Bernard Peek
Anglemark <johan.a...@bahnhof.se> writes
Perhaps there's an issue of definitions here. To a psychiatrist
"Asberger's Syndrome" is a collection of symptoms that appear together
*and* severely impair an individual's ability to survive in society. To
a layman it may not need that second qualifying phrase.
We could bend the definitions even further by splitting Asberger's
Syndrome from Asberger's Disease. Unfortunately we don't really have all
of the words we need to describe both the lay-terms and the terms of art
of psychiatry. (As I understand it, a syndrome is a collection of
symptoms which often occur together. They become a disease when the
underlying cause is discovered.)
Fans, on average, show some behavioural tendencies which, in more
extreme form, might be labelled as Asberger's Syndrome by a
psychiatrist.
Every group of people that interacts as much as fandom will develop
behaviour patterns that separate its members from non-members. Some of
those behaviours may even be considered a qualification for membership.
I doubt that there's any behaviour pattern that doesn't have a parallel
in psychiatry, if taken to excess.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com
Lydia Nickerson
>In article <kare-09079...@ppp-asok06--064.sirius.net>
> ka...@sirius.com "Mary Kay Kare" writes:
>> In article <Pine.A41.4.05.990709...@acis.mc.yu.edu>,
>> "Alter S. Reiss" <asr...@ymail.yu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> > From the DSM-IV; 299.80 Asperger's Disorder:
>> Oh, migod. Not only does he have it, so do I.
>No, what you have is Psychiatric Grad Student Syndrome (PGSS), whereby you
>think you have the symptoms of every psychiatric problem you read about.
>David Owen-Cruise doesn't have it either.
>HTH.
I am forcibly reminded of the first chapter of _Three Men in a Boat_.
--
----
Lydia Nickerson ly...@ddb.com
Ulrika O'Brien
> ObLit: "I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the
> only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee."
To say nothing of the dog.
--Ulrika
David Owen-Cruise
>In article <kare-09079...@ppp-asok06--064.sirius.net>
> ka...@sirius.com "Mary Kay Kare" writes:
>
>> In article <Pine.A41.4.05.990709...@acis.mc.yu.edu>,
>> "Alter S. Reiss" <asr...@ymail.yu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> > From the DSM-IV; 299.80 Asperger's Disorder:
>> Oh, migod. Not only does he have it, so do I.
>
>No, what you have is Psychiatric Grad Student Syndrome (PGSS), whereby you
>think you have the symptoms of every psychiatric problem you read about.
>
>David Owen-Cruise doesn't have it either.
>
that I speak Oncology better than Psychology, so I may have missed some of the
nuances.
I don't have a sinus infection either, and that's been of rather more import
to me of late than Aspberger's.
--
David Owen-Cruise
"It's just one of the many really neat things about living on
a planet with an atmosphere."
Jo Walton
P Nielsen Hayden
>Fans, on average, show some behavioural tendencies which, in more
>extreme form, might be labelled as Asberger's Syndrome by a
>psychiatrist.
I think this is exactly right. I also think the general pile-on to Mary
Kay, for an observation that hardly merited the elaborate superiority
dances demonstrated, was a bit unpleasant.
My thinking on these kinds of issues, to no one's surprise, is much
affected by Teresa having narcolepsy. Now, the thing about "narcolepsy" is
that, like most neurological disorders, it is less a real "thing" (like,
say, measles) than a loose collection of symptoms which we have decided--
beyond a certain level of severity and when found in conjunction with
enough of each other--shall be reified as a real thing. In fact most of
the symptoms associated with severe narcolepsy (excessive daytime
sleepiness, cataplexy, apnea, sleep paralysis) are experienced at one point
or another by "normal" people, and there are almost certainly millions of
people who regularly experience one or more of these symptoms at levels
below those that the medical profession arbitrary chooses to pathologize as
"real" narcolepsy.
I suspect much the same is true of at least some of the characteristics of
autism and Asperger's. I don't believe Asperger's is caused by infection
with Asperger quanta. I think lots of tendencies which we recognize as
pathologies beyond a certain point are simply, in their milder form,
quirks--sometimes somewhat limiting quirks. I think that observations like
Mary Kay's, in which we recognize our own quirks in the descriptions of
officially-certified pathologies, are interesting and thoughtful, and ought
not be slapped down as "medical student's disease." Quite the contrary, I
think observations like Mary Kay's go a long way toward reminding, or at
least _ought_ to go a long way toward reminding, us of what we have in
common with people at the extremes of the human condition; that they aren't
aliens from the planet Disablia.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Avram Grumer
<p...@panix.com> wrote:
> Bernard Peek <Ber...@shrdlu.com> wrote in <eeOkIBA6...@shrdlu.com>:
>
> >Fans, on average, show some behavioural tendencies which,
> >in more extreme form, might be labelled as Asberger's
> >Syndrome by a psychiatrist.
>
> I think this is exactly right. I also think the general
> pile-on to Mary Kay, for an observation that hardly merited
> the elaborate superiority dances demonstrated, was a bit
> unpleasant.
>
> My thinking on these kinds of issues, to no one's surprise,
> is much affected by Teresa having narcolepsy. Now, the
> thing about "narcolepsy" is that, like most neurological
> disorders, it is less a real "thing" (like, say, measles)
> than a loose collection of symptoms which we have decided--
> beyond a certain level of severity and when found in
> conjunction with enough of each other--shall be reified as a
> real thing.
There are days when I feel like that.
> ...I suspect much the same is true of at least some of the
> characteristics of autism and Asperger's. I don't believe
> Asperger's is caused by infection with Asperger quanta. I
> think lots of tendencies which we recognize as pathologies
> beyond a certain point are simply, in their milder form,
> quirks--sometimes somewhat limiting quirks. I think that
> observations like Mary Kay's, in which we recognize our own
> quirks in the descriptions of officially-certified
> pathologies, are interesting and thoughtful, and ought not
> be slapped down as "medical student's disease." Quite the
> contrary, I think observations like Mary Kay's go a long way
> toward reminding, or at least _ought_ to go a long way
> toward reminding, us of what we have in common with people
> at the extremes of the human condition; that they aren't
> aliens from the planet Disablia.
I once read that one view of the traditional seven vices is that they were
all virtues exaggerated. A similar view has it that many psychological
pathologies are everyday behaviors exaggerated, or deprived of some
counterbalancing internal influence. It might be true that for any common
psychological type there will be some corresponding exaggerated form which
is pathologized, and Asberger's Syndrome is ours.
--
Avram Grumer | Any sufficiently advanced
Home: av...@bigfoot.com | technology is indistinguishable
http://www.bigfoot.com/~avram/ | from an error message.
Loren MacGregor
Mitch Wagner wrote:
>
> In article <8E01AF7...@news.panix.com>, P Nielsen Hayden
> (p...@panix.com) said:
>
> > Bernard Peek <Ber...@shrdlu.com> wrote in <eeOkIBA6...@shrdlu.com>:
> >
> > >Fans, on average, show some behavioural tendencies which, in more
> > >extreme form, might be labelled as Asberger's Syndrome by a
> > >psychiatrist.
> >
> > I think this is exactly right. I also think the general pile-on to Mary
> > Kay, for an observation that hardly merited the elaborate superiority
> > dances demonstrated, was a bit unpleasant.
> >
> > My thinking on these kinds of issues, to no one's surprise, is
> > much affected by Teresa having narcolepsy. Now, the thing about
> > "narcolepsy" is that, like most neurological disorders, it is less
> > a real "thing" (like, say, measles) than a loose collection of
> > symptoms which we have decided--beyond a certain level of severity
> > and when found in conjunction with enough of each other--shall be
> > reified as a real thing. In fact most of the symptoms associated
> > with severe narcolepsy (excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy,
> > apnea, sleep paralysis) are experienced at one point or another by
> > "normal" people, and there are almost certainly millions of people
> > who regularly experience one or more of these symptoms at levels
> > below those that the medical profession arbitrary chooses to
> > pathologize as "real" narcolepsy.
>
> Isn't the same thing true of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
I see that Patrick has followed up on your post, but let me say
that, as someone who experienced a year's worth of what was
diagnosed as "chronic fatigue syndrome," I got so immensely tired of
well-meaning advice like, "you're just tired," "you're probably
depressed," and "You wouldn't get so worked up about this whole
thing if you'd just get hold of yourself," I wanted to throttle the
next person who said anything of the kind -- and the next, and the
next. Since many of them were doctors who were ostensibly treating
me, I thought this would prove to be a bad idea in the long run.
-Every- symptom I had -- and some I still have, left over from that
period of my life -- is regularly experienced by those "normal"
people Patrick mentions above. I still have sleep apnea, and I am
fortunately in the position of being able to switch doctors in the
near future, because my current doctor (a) does not believe I have
sleep apnea, and (b) has never bothered to find out that I was
diagnosed with it in clinical trials at one of the Kaiser
hospitals. (His actual comment, when I tried to relay to him
information Lauryn had written down for me: "Every wife thinks her
husband has sleep apnea. It's the new 'in' thing. She probably
read about it in 'Cosmo' and decided you had it.") There's a (c)
also -- -if- I have sleep apnea, it's because I'm fat; if I just
lost weight, I wouldn't have any health concerns. (Recent studies,
by the way, seem to suggest that sleep apnea -causes- weight gain,
rather than the reverse, but that's a separate issue.
It is incredibly easy to dismiss serious medical or psycholocial
problems when the vast majority of people have -some- things very
much like -some- of the conditions of the more serious problem. You
mentioned depression, and drew a good line between "I'm depressed"
and clinical depression. (We had a discussion of this on RASFF some
months back.) But when the "condition" lops over into that nebulous
area of "serious problem," those who find themselves faced with that
"serious problem" may perhaps be forgiven if they want to reply to a
comment like "Get hold of yourself" with a cheerful, dry, "Do you
want the knife inserted edge first and ripped upward, or should I
insert it on the horizontal flat and simply twist?"
End of rant. Obviously I'm not at my best tonight, and I hasten to
conclude by saying none of this is aimed at you.
-- LJM
Mitch Wagner
> Bernard Peek <Ber...@shrdlu.com> wrote in <eeOkIBA6...@shrdlu.com>:
>
> >Fans, on average, show some behavioural tendencies which, in more
> >extreme form, might be labelled as Asberger's Syndrome by a
> >psychiatrist.
>
> I think this is exactly right. I also think the general pile-on to Mary
> Kay, for an observation that hardly merited the elaborate superiority
> dances demonstrated, was a bit unpleasant.
>
> My thinking on these kinds of issues, to no one's surprise, is much
> affected by Teresa having narcolepsy. Now, the thing about "narcolepsy" is
> that, like most neurological disorders, it is less a real "thing" (like,
> say, measles) than a loose collection of symptoms which we have decided--
> beyond a certain level of severity and when found in conjunction with
> enough of each other--shall be reified as a real thing. In fact most of
> the symptoms associated with severe narcolepsy (excessive daytime
> sleepiness, cataplexy, apnea, sleep paralysis) are experienced at one point
> or another by "normal" people, and there are almost certainly millions of
> people who regularly experience one or more of these symptoms at levels
> below those that the medical profession arbitrary chooses to pathologize as
> "real" narcolepsy.
Isn't the same thing true of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
>
> I suspect much the same is true of at least some of the characteristics of
> autism and Asperger's. I don't believe Asperger's is caused by infection
> with Asperger quanta. I think lots of tendencies which we recognize as
> pathologies beyond a certain point are simply, in their milder form,
> quirks--sometimes somewhat limiting quirks. ...
Haven't mental health workers started using the phrase "shadow
syndrome," for just that phenomenon?
I picked up on this because I have a tendency to be somewhat gloomy. I
went through a bout with true depression for a couple of years, but that
was a long time ago, and now I just have a tendency to be down
sometimes, probably more often than is appropriate, and downright
despairing if I run at too much of a sleep deficit for too long.
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
P Nielsen Hayden
<MPG.11f4330c891aa802989a42@localhost>:
>In article <8E01AF7...@news.panix.com>, P Nielsen Hayden
>(p...@panix.com) said:
>> I think lots of tendencies which we recognize as
>> pathologies beyond a certain point are simply, in their milder form,
>> quirks--sometimes somewhat limiting quirks. ...
>
>Haven't mental health workers started using the phrase "shadow
>syndrome," for just that phenomenon?
Have they? Useful, if so.
Dorothy J Heydt
Mitch Wagner <thri...@sff.net> wrote:
>In article <8E01AF7...@news.panix.com>, P Nielsen Hayden
>(p...@panix.com) said:
>> ....Now, the thing about "narcolepsy" is
>> that, like most neurological disorders, it is less a real "thing" (like,
>> say, measles) than a loose collection of symptoms which we have decided--
>> beyond a certain level of severity and when found in conjunction with
>> enough of each other--shall be reified as a real thing.
>Isn't the same thing true of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
Yes, I was thinking of it as I read the previous post. CFS tails
behind narcolepsy in that the latter (as Patrick says) actually
has some criteria by which it can be officially defined. You get
enough of the approved symptoms together, you get a diagnosis.
CFS (which at this stage I don't know if I have or I haven't) is
still trying to get there, with a symptom list that is attempting
to be more coherent than "feels like crap all the time".
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Mitch Wagner
(churn...@worldnet.att.net) said:
> End of rant. Obviously I'm not at my best tonight, and I hasten to
> conclude by saying none of this is aimed at you.
Thanks. Just for the record, I'm not someone who dismisses Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome as being just tiredness and depression.
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
Jo Walton
p...@panix.com "P Nielsen Hayden" writes:
> My thinking on these kinds of issues, to no one's surprise, is much
> say, measles) than a loose collection of symptoms which we have decided--
> beyond a certain level of severity and when found in conjunction with
> the symptoms associated with severe narcolepsy (excessive daytime
> sleepiness, cataplexy, apnea, sleep paralysis) are experienced at one point
> or another by "normal" people, and there are almost certainly millions of
> people who regularly experience one or more of these symptoms at levels
> below those that the medical profession arbitrary chooses to pathologize as
> "real" narcolepsy.
>
> autism and Asperger's. I don't believe Asperger's is caused by infection
> Mary Kay's, in which we recognize our own quirks in the descriptions of
> officially-certified pathologies, are interesting and thoughtful, and ought
> not be slapped down as "medical student's disease." Quite the contrary, I
> think observations like Mary Kay's go a long way toward reminding, or at
> least _ought_ to go a long way toward reminding, us of what we have in
> common with people at the extremes of the human condition; that they aren't
> aliens from the planet Disablia.
While this last bit is true, I don't think it's helpful for people to
say "I have X" when they don't. In the thread about clinical depression,
a large number of people jumped on DavE Romm for saying basically that
he'd been a bit sad now and then and managed to pull himself together.
They felt assaulted by the comparison. I've met Mary Kay, and I've met
someone with Asperger's, and I'm also quite good friends with someone
who could be described as quite a long way down the road towards that
clinical description but is still functional - and there's no sensible
comparison. The pain of a stubbed toe does give empathy and understanding
by analogy to the pain of a compound fracture, but they're not the same
thing. If Mary Kay had said "that gives me an insight into how I feel
which is like a much milder form of that condition" I'd not have blinked,
but saying "I have it too" when there may be people reading who do is
like me saying to Loren I "have" block because I get stuck for a whole
week now and then or to Marilee that I am disabled.
P Nielsen Hayden
<931861...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>:
>While this last bit is true, I don't think it's helpful for people to
>say "I have X" when they don't. In the thread about clinical depression,
>a large number of people jumped on DavE Romm for saying basically that
>he'd been a bit sad now and then and managed to pull himself together.
>They felt assaulted by the comparison. I've met Mary Kay, and I've met
>someone with Asperger's, and I'm also quite good friends with someone
>who could be described as quite a long way down the road towards that
>clinical description but is still functional - and there's no sensible
>comparison. The pain of a stubbed toe does give empathy and understanding
>by analogy to the pain of a compound fracture, but they're not the same
>thing. If Mary Kay had said "that gives me an insight into how I feel
>which is like a much milder form of that condition" I'd not have blinked,
>but saying "I have it too" when there may be people reading who do is
>like me saying to Loren I "have" block because I get stuck for a whole
>week now and then or to Marilee that I am disabled.
Bingo. I take your point. You are right.
David Owen-Cruise
[snip]
> There's a (c)
>also -- -if- I have sleep apnea, it's because I'm fat; if I just
>lost weight, I wouldn't have any health concerns. (Recent studies,
You may refer them to me, described at the sleep clinic as 30 years younger
and 30 pounds lighter than most of their patients. They also said I had mild
to moderate apnea, which made me wonder how folks firmly in the moderate or
severe ranges cope at all.
>by the way, seem to suggest that sleep apnea -causes- weight gain,
>rather than the reverse, but that's a separate issue.
>
Have you got cites? This is not idle curiosity on my part.
[snip]
>
>End of rant. Obviously I'm not at my best tonight, and I hasten to
>conclude by saying none of this is aimed at you.
>
Oh, and regarding point b), both my ENT and the sleep clinic said they're
seeing more and more cases of apnea being dragged in by the spouse. It's
affecting the common wisdom regarding age and weight.
Marty Helgesen
<SNIP>
>It helps, when reading the DSM-IV, to consider it a particular sort of
>narrative with particular conventions. What the words mean is not what the
>words say in English, but what members of their profession know they say.
>It takes a lot of work to get to the point that you understand the DSM-IV,
>because it really _isn't_ what we mean by things in English. By that
>standard, we'd all have many many many mental problems, rather than the
>comparatively few real illnesses that are actually there.
main and recurring argument is that religious believers are insane.
She quotes a passage from the DSM-III which, as I recall, includes a
mention of belief in imaginary beings, and says, in effect, "-There.
That proves it.-" I repeatedly pointed out that psychiatrists,
psychologists, and others who are trained and professionally quali-
fied to apply the DSM do not generally agree with her interpretation
of it, and that many psychiatrists, psychologists, etc. are them-
selves believers in God. Every time I said that she replied with
total silence, which did not prevent her from repeating the claim a
little while later. Lack of time has forced me to stop reading that
forum, but she's probably still there and still making the same
argument.
Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular have their own
technical terms and terms of art that confuse people who do not take
the trouble to find out what they mean in Church usage. An obvious
example is "papal infallibility" which many non-Catholics think means
a claim that the Pope cannot sin or is a perfect man. There are many
other examples, some of which have appeared in this very newsgroup.
-------
Marty Helgesen
Bitnet: mnhcc@cunyvm Internet: mn...@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Support the Emergency Committee to Defend the Third Amendment!
Help outlaw spam. For further information see http://www.cauce.org/
Loren MacGregor
Mitch Wagner wrote:
>
> In article <378AAE10...@worldnet.att.net>, Loren MacGregor
> (churn...@worldnet.att.net) said:
>
> > End of rant. Obviously I'm not at my best tonight, and I hasten to
> > conclude by saying none of this is aimed at you.
>
> Thanks. Just for the record, I'm not someone who dismisses Chronic
> Fatigue Syndrome as being just tiredness and depression.
I figured that. I have that rant about once a year these days, and
it is at times better to have it at someone who -doesn't- dismiss
CHF.
It is of passing interest to me that the best year of my life -- the
year in which I sold a book to *T*e*r*r*y* *C*a*r*r* -- was followed
by the worst year in my life, a year in which I couldn't work,
couldn't think, eventually had to sell everything I owned to
survive, and was left with a crippling debt that is only know
beginning to go away. Somewhere in my mind, I realized recently,
I'd formed the conclusion that if I wrote another book, I'd go
through a year like that again. It seems to be causing me some
problems.
-- LJM
Loren MacGregor
David Owen-Cruise wrote:
>
> In article <378AAE10...@worldnet.att.net>, churn...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
> [snip]
> > There's a (c)
> >also -- -if- I have sleep apnea, it's because I'm fat; if I just
> >lost weight, I wouldn't have any health concerns. (Recent studies,
>
> You may refer them to me, described at the sleep clinic as 30 years younger
> and 30 pounds lighter than most of their patients. They also said I had mild
> to moderate apnea, which made me wonder how folks firmly in the moderate or
> severe ranges cope at all.
>
> >by the way, seem to suggest that sleep apnea -causes- weight gain,
> >rather than the reverse, but that's a separate issue.
> >
> Have you got cites? This is not idle curiosity on my part.
My wife mentioned them to me; we are close friends with a couple
whose husband has one of the PAP devices, and Rose mentioned the
article to Lauryn, but I didn't track it at the time. I'll go back
and get the information and the cite.
-- LJM
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
>In article <MPG.11f4330c891aa802989a42@localhost>,
>Mitch Wagner <thri...@sff.net> wrote:
>>In article <8E01AF7...@news.panix.com>, P Nielsen Hayden
>>(p...@panix.com) said:
>
>>> ....Now, the thing about "narcolepsy" is
>>> that, like most neurological disorders, it is less a real "thing" (like,
>>> say, measles) than a loose collection of symptoms which we have decided--
>>> beyond a certain level of severity and when found in conjunction with
>>> enough of each other--shall be reified as a real thing.
>
>>Isn't the same thing true of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
>
>Yes, I was thinking of it as I read the previous post. CFS tails
>behind narcolepsy in that the latter (as Patrick says) actually
>has some criteria by which it can be officially defined. You get
>enough of the approved symptoms together, you get a diagnosis.
>CFS (which at this stage I don't know if I have or I haven't) is
>still trying to get there, with a symptom list that is attempting
>to be more coherent than "feels like crap all the time".
I always thought fibromyalgia was like that, but the doctor gave me a
little booklet that shows the places she pushed on me, and apparently
it's diagnosed by having 11 or more of those places hurt.
--
Marilee J. Layman Co-Leader, The Other*Worlds*Cafe
relm...@aol.com A Science Fiction Discussion Group
Web site: http://www.webmoose.com/owc/
AOL keyword: BOOKs > Chats & Message > SF Forum > The Other*Worlds*Cafe
David Owen-Cruise
>David Owen-Cruise wrote:
>>
>> In article <378AAE10...@worldnet.att.net>, churn...@worldnet.att.net
>> >by the way, seem to suggest that sleep apnea -causes- weight gain,
>> >rather than the reverse, but that's a separate issue.
>> >
>> Have you got cites? This is not idle curiosity on my part.
>
>My wife mentioned them to me; we are close friends with a couple
>whose husband has one of the PAP devices, and Rose mentioned the
>article to Lauryn, but I didn't track it at the time. I'll go back
>and get the information and the cite.
>
dead, well rested fingers.
Mitch Wagner
(churn...@worldnet.att.net) said:
Oh, dear. Sounds awful. Glad to hear things are better now, though.
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
Lydia Nickerson
>I see that Patrick has followed up on your post, but let me say
>that, as someone who experienced a year's worth of what was
>diagnosed as "chronic fatigue syndrome," I got so immensely tired of
>well-meaning advice like, "you're just tired," "you're probably
>depressed," and "You wouldn't get so worked up about this whole
>thing if you'd just get hold of yourself," I wanted to throttle the
>next person who said anything of the kind -- and the next, and the
>next. Since many of them were doctors who were ostensibly treating
>me, I thought this would prove to be a bad idea in the long run.
If you change your mind about it being a bad idea, I'm there with you.
I'll bring the garrotte. My personal peeve at the moment are the people
who lecture me on taking anti-depressants on the grounds that they are
unnatural and could do unknown harm. The _known_ harm of being depressed
is ignored, or handwaved away with St. John's Wort. Um, thank you, no.
The advantage, the only advantage to St. John's Wort that I know is that
it's cheaper. It's less well studied, it has fewer clinical trials, the
chemical action isn't as well understood as even an SSRI, and is not
necessarily safer. Answers to the question, " Why should I switch," are
pretty consistently, "Because it's more natural." Uh-huh. So is
belladonna, which is likely to look like a real fine idea if St. John's
Wort doesn't work as advertised. Then there are the people who try to
rescue me from the sway of my tharapist, who of course is reinforcing my
depression so as to be able to continue to collect her fee... Bah.
Dorothy J Heydt
Lydia Nickerson <ly...@gw.ddb.com> wrote:
>....My personal peeve at the moment are the people
>who lecture me on taking anti-depressants on the grounds that they are
>unnatural and could do unknown harm.....
Contrariwise, I got so irritated with somebody who said *I*
should take antidepressants for CFSoid symptoms, that she no
longer speaks to me.
Trouble with CFS is, it's a catch-all. Anything with the
same approximate collection of symptoms (which is what as
"syndrome" is anyway) is dumped there unless it can be proven to
be caused by something else, known and maybe treatable. Some
fraction of CFSoid people turn out to be clinically depressed,
and anti-depressants help them. If they help you, go for it.
Dan Goodman
>
>>I see that Patrick has followed up on your post, but let me say
>>that, as someone who experienced a year's worth of what was
>>diagnosed as "chronic fatigue syndrome," I got so immensely tired of
>>well-meaning advice like, "you're just tired," "you're probably
>>depressed," and "You wouldn't get so worked up about this whole
>>thing if you'd just get hold of yourself," I wanted to throttle the
>>next person who said anything of the kind -- and the next, and the
>>next. Since many of them were doctors who were ostensibly treating
>>me, I thought this would prove to be a bad idea in the long run.
>
>If you change your mind about it being a bad idea, I'm there with you.
>who lecture me on taking anti-depressants on the grounds that they are
>is ignored, or handwaved away with St. John's Wort. Um, thank you, no.
>The advantage, the only advantage to St. John's Wort that I know is that
>it's cheaper. It's less well studied, it has fewer clinical trials, the
>chemical action isn't as well understood as even an SSRI, and is not
>necessarily safer. Answers to the question, " Why should I switch," are
>pretty consistently, "Because it's more natural." Uh-huh. So is
>belladonna, which is likely to look like a real fine idea if St. John's
>Wort doesn't work as advertised. Then there are the people who try to
>rescue me from the sway of my tharapist, who of course is reinforcing my
>depression so as to be able to continue to collect her fee... Bah.
I've seen poison ivy listed as an ingredient in a "natural" medication --
only in homeopathic dosage, though.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
Loren MacGregor
Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
> Trouble with CFS is, it's a catch-all. Anything with the
> same approximate collection of symptoms (which is what as
> "syndrome" is anyway) is dumped there unless it can be proven to
> be caused by something else, known and maybe treatable. Some
> fraction of CFSoid people turn out to be clinically depressed,
> and anti-depressants help them. If they help you, go for it.
I do remember fairly clearly the day one of several doctors I was
seeing said, "There's nothing wrong with you. You're just
depressed." My words were pretty much exactly the following. "Yes,
doctor. I'm sleeping 20+ hours a day and I'm stupid the rest of the
time. I can't work, I've gone through all of my savings, I've sold
everything that wasn't nailed down. I cannot afford to pay my rent,
I don't have the money to pay food, and, doctor, I don't have the
money to pay your bill. Of -course- I'm depressed!"
I was still broke, but I felt momentarily -very- good.
-- LJM
Loren MacGregor
Belladonna, as atropine, is a fairly good drug for what it does.
There are a number of things which it is -not- good for. And I've
been told that "atropine" is bad because it is a drug, but
"belladonna" is good because it's natural.
Personally, I get all my information about natural drugs from
Brother Caedfal.
-- LJM
Loren MacGregor
David Owen-Cruise wrote:
>
> In article <378B56A9...@worldnet.att.net>, churn...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
> >My wife mentioned them to me; we are close friends with a couple
> >whose husband has one of the PAP devices, and Rose mentioned the
> >article to Lauryn, but I didn't track it at the time. I'll go back
> >and get the information and the cite.
> >
> Thank ye. They'll take my CPAP machine away when they pry it from my
> cold, dead, well rested fingers.
I haven't found the cite yet, but I'm still looking. I am told the
article was in the Register-Guard (local Oregon paper), but if so,
there was no reference in the headline. I'll call them directly
tomorrow, and then start hunting further afield.
-- LJM
Dorothy J Heydt
Loren MacGregor <lmacg...@cadix.com> wrote:
>
>I do remember fairly clearly the day one of several doctors I was
>seeing said, "There's nothing wrong with you. You're just
>depressed." My words were pretty much exactly the following. "Yes,
>doctor. I'm sleeping 20+ hours a day and I'm stupid the rest of the
>time. I can't work, I've gone through all of my savings, I've sold
>everything that wasn't nailed down. I cannot afford to pay my rent,
>I don't have the money to pay food, and, doctor, I don't have the
>money to pay your bill. Of -course- I'm depressed!"
>
>I was still broke, but I felt momentarily -very- good.
As you have just demonstrated, there's a difference between
clinical depression, when you "know not why you are so sad," and
situational depression, when you have something to be depressed
*about*.
mike weber
Wed, 14 Jul 1999 16:16:47 -0700,
:
>
>
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>
>> Trouble with CFS is, it's a catch-all. Anything with the
>> same approximate collection of symptoms (which is what as
>> "syndrome" is anyway) is dumped there unless it can be proven to
>> be caused by something else, known and maybe treatable. Some
>> fraction of CFSoid people turn out to be clinically depressed,
>> and anti-depressants help them. If they help you, go for it.
>
>seeing said, "There's nothing wrong with you. You're just
>depressed." My words were pretty much exactly the following. "Yes,
>doctor. I'm sleeping 20+ hours a day and I'm stupid the rest of the
>time. I can't work, I've gone through all of my savings, I've sold
>everything that wasn't nailed down. I cannot afford to pay my rent,
>I don't have the money to pay food, and, doctor, I don't have the
>money to pay your bill. Of -course- I'm depressed!"
>
>I was still broke, but I felt momentarily -very- good.
>
treating.
--
=============================================================
"They put manure in his well and they made him talk to lawyers!"
-- Cat Ballou
mike weber -- kras...@mindspring.com
Dorothy J Heydt
mike weber <kras...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>OTOH, "depressed" is something we can at least make a good stab at
>treating.
If it's clinical depression, yes. If your life is a mess and
you're depressed about that, no.
Loren MacGregor
Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
> In article <378d7ab7...@news.mindspring.com>,
> mike weber <kras...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >>
> >OTOH, "depressed" is something we can at least make a good stab at
> >treating.
>
> If it's clinical depression, yes. If your life is a mess and
> you're depressed about that, no.
We clearly agree on the varieties of depression.
-- LJM
David Owen-Cruise
I could probably turn the information up through the U here if I'd bother to
stir myself.
Lydia Nickerson
>In article <lydy.93...@gw.ddb.com>,
>Lydia Nickerson <ly...@gw.ddb.com> wrote:
>>....My personal peeve at the moment are the people
>>who lecture me on taking anti-depressants on the grounds that they are
>>unnatural and could do unknown harm.....
>Contrariwise, I got so irritated with somebody who said *I*
>should take antidepressants for CFSoid symptoms, that she no
>longer speaks to me.
Don't blame you in the least. I'll beat them up, too, if you like.
There's this amazing arrogance in people who presume to make judgments
upon your brain chemistry without intimate knowledge and medical
expertise.
>Trouble with CFS is, it's a catch-all. Anything with the
>same approximate collection of symptoms (which is what as
>"syndrome" is anyway) is dumped there unless it can be proven to
>be caused by something else, known and maybe treatable. Some
>fraction of CFSoid people turn out to be clinically depressed,
>and anti-depressants help them. If they help you, go for it.
Remind me not to come down with a syndrome. Sounds like a much greater
nuisance than a disease.
Lydia Nickerson
>In article <378D1A5F...@cadix.com>,
>Loren MacGregor <lmacg...@cadix.com> wrote:
>>
>>I do remember fairly clearly the day one of several doctors I was
>>seeing said, "There's nothing wrong with you. You're just
>>depressed." My words were pretty much exactly the following. "Yes,
>>doctor. I'm sleeping 20+ hours a day and I'm stupid the rest of the
>>time. I can't work, I've gone through all of my savings, I've sold
>>everything that wasn't nailed down. I cannot afford to pay my rent,
>>I don't have the money to pay food, and, doctor, I don't have the
>>money to pay your bill. Of -course- I'm depressed!"
>>
>>I was still broke, but I felt momentarily -very- good.
>As you have just demonstrated, there's a difference between
>clinical depression, when you "know not why you are so sad," and
>situational depression, when you have something to be depressed
>*about*.
They are both treatable, too. And if you treat a situational depression
early, you have less of a chance of having the patient develop chronic
depression. At least, one of the current theories is that if a person is
depressed for a long period of time, that causes changes to the brain
chemistry that result in chronic depression.
Stupid, _stupid_ doctor. How'd you break free, Loren?
Rachael Lininger
It works pretty well with kids, at least.
Good thing cognitive therapy can go both ways.
Rachael
--
Rachael Lininger | "The opposite of _less_ is _more._
lininger@ | What's better? Which one are you for?"
chem.wisc.edu | --Richard Wilbur
Loren MacGregor
Lydia Nickerson wrote:
>
> Stupid, _stupid_ doctor. How'd you break free, Loren?
I didn't, really, and I still haven't gotten the treatment I'd
wish. (It may happen now; we have much better insurance starting
next month, and this covers Sacred Heart, which in addition to other
things is a pretty good research hospital.) But I got to the point
where I realized I -had- to go to work or starve, and I began taking
temp jobs hoping people wouldn't notice how stupid I was. This is
likely to sound arrogant, but I went to work knowing I was
functioning at a quarter or less of my real ability ... and found
that I was still working harder and smarter than most of the other
temps and permanent staff. This was ... um ... disconcerting.
At each job I told them I would have to take frequent breaks, and
that I would have to leave for coffee and fresh air on a regular
basis, but I hoped that I would be able to produce the amount of
work they wanted in the time available. Each time I said that I'd
understand perfectly if, after a week, they chose to replace me with
another temp.
A one-week temp job at the Bank of America lasted from October 1989
to September 1996, and would have continued had I chosen to transfer
to the new bank in St. Paul. I am still amazed at my luck.
-- LJM
Loren MacGregor
David Owen-Cruise wrote:
>
> In article <378D71DE...@worldnet.att.net>, churn...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
> >David Owen-Cruise wrote:
> >> In article <378B56A9...@worldnet.att.net>, churn...@worldnet.att.net
> > wrote:
> >> >I'll go back
> >> >and get the information and the cite.
> >> >
> >> Thank ye. They'll take my CPAP machine away when they pry it from my
> >> cold, dead, well rested fingers.
> >
> >I haven't found the cite yet, but I'm still looking. I am told the
> >article was in the Register-Guard (local Oregon paper), but if so,
> >there was no reference in the headline. I'll call them directly
> >tomorrow, and then start hunting further afield.
> >
> Oh my. I appreciate the effort, but don't knock yourself out on my account.
> I could probably turn the information up through the U here if I'd bother to
> stir myself.
As you may recall, I mentioned at one point that -I- have sleep
apnea as well. I am not noticeably an altruist. :)
-- LJM
David Owen-Cruise
>David Owen-Cruise wrote:
>> Oh my. I appreciate the effort, but don't knock yourself out on my account.
>> I could probably turn the information up through the U here if I'd bother to
>> stir myself.
>
>As you may recall, I mentioned at one point that -I- have sleep
>apnea as well. I am not noticeably an altruist. :)
>
information you had. I'll be perfectly happy to let you dig if you want.
Lydia Nickerson
>In article <378d7ab7...@news.mindspring.com>,
>mike weber <kras...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>
>>OTOH, "depressed" is something we can at least make a good stab at
>>treating.
>If it's clinical depression, yes. If your life is a mess and
>you're depressed about that, no.
There are a lot of cases where chemical treatment and therapy will help
with a situational depression, especially if the talk therapy is focused
on getting you out of the intolerable situation. The drugs, if they work
-- and they don't always-- will give the person more energy to deal with
the situation.
Janice Gelb
>In article <378E28AE...@cadix.com>, lmacg...@cadix.com wrote:
>>David Owen-Cruise wrote:
>>> Oh my. I appreciate the effort, but don't knock yourself out on my account.
>>> I could probably turn the information up through the U here if I'd bother to
>>> stir myself.
>>
>>As you may recall, I mentioned at one point that -I- have sleep
>>apnea as well. I am not noticeably an altruist. :)
>>
>Fine. I had the impression you might be satisfied with the level of
>information you had. I'll be perfectly happy to let you dig if you want.
>
I found a description of a June 1998 study here:
http://www.apneanet.org/apss98_weightgain.htm
*******************************************************************
Janice Gelb | The only connection Sun has with
janic...@eng.sun.com | this message is the return address.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8018/index.html
"Editor: Someone whose job requires the knowledge that `carpe diem'
is not the fish of the day."
Mitch Wagner
(lmacg...@cadix.com) said:
> At each job I told them I would have to take frequent breaks, and
> that I would have to leave for coffee and fresh air on a regular
> basis, but I hoped that I would be able to produce the amount of
> work they wanted in the time available. Each time I said that I'd
> understand perfectly if, after a week, they chose to replace me with
> another temp.
>
> A one-week temp job at the Bank of America lasted from October 1989
> to September 1996, and would have continued had I chosen to transfer
> to the new bank in St. Paul. I am still amazed at my luck.
Sounds like a little bit of luck, a little bit of common sense.
I know someone who has chronic health conditions including Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome and who does contracting work, always informing clients
of her situation and her inability to make certain committments to
deadlines and the number of hours that she can put in - commitments
which other people consider routine.
I am amazed how some of her clients STILL get pissed off at her, saying
she's slacking off. I respond, "But you explained to them right up-front
what was going on! They had a choice then whether to hire you! Why hire
you and then complain that they got what they were told what they were
getting?"
Those are rhetorical questons, by the way. I know the answer: because
some people are idiots.
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
Dorothy J Heydt
>
>There are a lot of cases where chemical treatment and therapy will help
>with a situational depression, especially if the talk therapy is focused
>on getting you out of the intolerable situation.
Once upon a time I was in the middle of the most depressing
situation I can think of: sitting at home in suburbia with two
toddlers. I was at the beating-the-head-against-the-wall stage.
My husband mentioned this to a friend, who mentioned it to
another friend, who called me up and said in one breath,
"Dorothy, this is Ellen Hodghead, why don't you get on BART and
come to my place and your kids can play with Ray-Ray's toys while
we find you a day-care center so you can get a job."
Which she did, and what's more she kept my kids at her place all
weekend so I could unwind. The job, when I got it, just about paid
for the day care. Name me a pill that would have done that.
Mrs. Hodghead is now in Heaven, where I've no doubt she is
keeping busy.
David Owen-Cruise
>I found a description of a June 1998 study here:
>
>http://www.apneanet.org/apss98_weightgain.htm
>
apnea, it looks like I'm just eating too much and not getting enough exercise.
<sigh>
Thanks.
Alter S. Reiss
> Mitch Wagner <thri...@sff.net> wrote:
> >In article <8E01AF7...@news.panix.com>, P Nielsen Hayden
> >(p...@panix.com) said:
>
> >> ....Now, the thing about "narcolepsy" is
> >> that, like most neurological disorders, it is less a real "thing" (like,
> >> say, measles) than a loose collection of symptoms which we have decided--
> >> beyond a certain level of severity and when found in conjunction with
> >> enough of each other--shall be reified as a real thing.
>
> >Isn't the same thing true of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
>
> Yes, I was thinking of it as I read the previous post. CFS tails
> behind narcolepsy in that the latter (as Patrick says) actually
> has some criteria by which it can be officially defined. You get
> enough of the approved symptoms together, you get a diagnosis.
> CFS (which at this stage I don't know if I have or I haven't) is
> still trying to get there, with a symptom list that is attempting
> to be more coherent than "feels like crap all the time".
In general, syndromes for which "any five of these ten symptoms"
type things define the disease, rather than indicate a need for testing
aren't going to have the same sort of sharp lines that, well,
appendicitis will have. (As an interesting sort of sidelight to this
thread, a local family is looking for a tutor to help a kid with
Asperger's disorder, and I'm seriously considering trying to get that
position.)
--
Alter S. Reiss -------------------- http://www.geocities.com/Area51/2129
"There will be more art, history, and literature tomorrow."
-- An announcement at the NYPL Webster Branch library book sale
Kevin J. Maroney
>Which she did, and what's more she kept my kids at her place all
>weekend so I could unwind. The job, when I got it, just about paid
>for the day care. Name me a pill that would have done that.
Cyanide.
Kevin Maroney | kmar...@crossover.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor
The New York Review of Science Fiction
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html
Lydia Nickerson
>Once upon a time I was in the middle of the most depressing
>situation I can think of: sitting at home in suburbia with two
>toddlers. I was at the beating-the-head-against-the-wall stage.
>My husband mentioned this to a friend, who mentioned it to
>another friend, who called me up and said in one breath,
>"Dorothy, this is Ellen Hodghead, why don't you get on BART and
>come to my place and your kids can play with Ray-Ray's toys while
>we find you a day-care center so you can get a job."
>Which she did, and what's more she kept my kids at her place all
>weekend so I could unwind. The job, when I got it, just about paid
>for the day care. Name me a pill that would have done that.
>Mrs. Hodghead is now in Heaven, where I've no doubt she is
>keeping busy.
Very cool. Situation depression is best dealt with by dealing with the
situation, which is why treating it as if it were chronic depression is
usually a bad idea. Sometimes, the chemicals will help someone build up
enough confidence and energy to address the situation. I didn't mean to
say, though, that every situational depression should be medicated. I think
that's a tool, one that should perhaps be used a little more often, but it
sure isn't the first line of defense, either.
I'd guess that Mrs. Hodghead has organized the angels to do something more
useful than sing praises all day long. Maybe they're doing day care. She
sounds like a wonderful person, and I'm glad you knew her.
mike weber
15 Jul 1999 14:07:10 GMT,
>In article <378d7ab7...@news.mindspring.com>,
>mike weber <kras...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>
>>OTOH, "depressed" is something we can at least make a good stab at
>>treating.
>
>If it's clinical depression, yes. If your life is a mess and
>
well be applicable also)), i tend to flash on clinical rather than
environmentally-induced...
--
"Life's a game where they're bound to beat you, and time's a
trick they can turn to cheat you -- and we only waste it
anyway, that's the hell of it..." -- Paul Williams
<mike weber> kras...@mindspring.com>
Ambitious Incomplete web site: http://weberworld.virtualave.net
Kathy Routliffe
P Nielsen Hayden wrote:
>
> Bernard Peek <Ber...@shrdlu.com> wrote in <eeOkIBA6...@shrdlu.com>:
>
> >Fans, on average, show some behavioural tendencies which, in more
> >extreme form, might be labelled as Asberger's Syndrome by a
> >psychiatrist.
>
> I think this is exactly right. I also think the general pile-on to Mary
> Kay, for an observation that hardly merited the elaborate superiority
> dances demonstrated, was a bit unpleasant.
>
> My thinking on these kinds of issues, to no one's surprise, is much
> affected by Teresa having narcolepsy. Now, the thing about "narcolepsy" is
> that, like most neurological disorders, it is less a real "thing" (like,
> say, measles) than a loose collection of symptoms which we have decided--
> beyond a certain level of severity and when found in conjunction with
> enough of each other--shall be reified as a real thing. In fact most of
> the symptoms associated with severe narcolepsy (excessive daytime
> sleepiness, cataplexy, apnea, sleep paralysis) are experienced at one point
> or another by "normal" people, and there are almost certainly millions of
> people who regularly experience one or more of these symptoms at levels
> below those that the medical profession arbitrary chooses to pathologize as
> "real" narcolepsy.
>
> I suspect much the same is true of at least some of the characteristics of
> autism and Asperger's. I don't believe Asperger's is caused by infection
> with Asperger quanta. I think lots of tendencies which we recognize as
> pathologies beyond a certain point are simply, in their milder form,
> quirks--sometimes somewhat limiting quirks. I think that observations like
> Mary Kay's, in which we recognize our own quirks in the descriptions of
> officially-certified pathologies, are interesting and thoughtful, and ought
> not be slapped down as "medical student's disease." Quite the contrary, I
> think observations like Mary Kay's go a long way toward reminding, or at
> least _ought_ to go a long way toward reminding, us of what we have in
> common with people at the extremes of the human condition; that they aren't
> aliens from the planet Disablia.
Absofuckinglutely.
--
Kathy
"Right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant."
-- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Kathy Routliffe
Loren MacGregor wrote:
>
> Mitch Wagner wrote:
> >
> > In article <8E01AF7...@news.panix.com>, P Nielsen Hayden
> > (p...@panix.com) said:
> >
> > > Bernard Peek <Ber...@shrdlu.com> wrote in <eeOkIBA6...@shrdlu.com>:
> > >
> > > >Fans, on average, show some behavioural tendencies which, in more
> > > >extreme form, might be labelled as Asberger's Syndrome by a
> > > >psychiatrist.
> > >
> > > I think this is exactly right. I also think the general pile-on to Mary
> > > Kay, for an observation that hardly merited the elaborate superiority
> > > dances demonstrated, was a bit unpleasant.
> > >
(snip)
> > Isn't the same thing true of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
>
> I see that Patrick has followed up on your post, but let me say
> that, as someone who experienced a year's worth of what was
> diagnosed as "chronic fatigue syndrome," I got so immensely tired of
> well-meaning advice like, "you're just tired," "you're probably
> depressed," and "You wouldn't get so worked up about this whole
> thing if you'd just get hold of yourself," I wanted to throttle the
> next person who said anything of the kind -- and the next, and the
> next. Since many of them were doctors who were ostensibly treating
> me, I thought this would prove to be a bad idea in the long run.
>
> -Every- symptom I had -- and some I still have, left over from that
> period of my life -- is regularly experienced by those "normal"
> people Patrick mentions above.
(snip)
> It is incredibly easy to dismiss serious medical or psycholocial
> problems when the vast majority of people have -some- things very
> much like -some- of the conditions of the more serious problem. You
> mentioned depression, and drew a good line between "I'm depressed"
> and clinical depression. (We had a discussion of this on RASFF some
> months back.) But when the "condition" lops over into that nebulous
> area of "serious problem," those who find themselves faced with that
> "serious problem" may perhaps be forgiven if they want to reply to a
> comment like "Get hold of yourself" with a cheerful, dry, "Do you
> want the knife inserted edge first and ripped upward, or should I
> insert it on the horizontal flat and simply twist?"
Hurrah!!!!! Me too, me too!!!
Without going into the whole awful story, my family and I have had
several months of fun in which it has been necessary for us to do the
medical work for our shrinks -- digging deep into websville,
cross-referencing, watching each other and taking notes, etc. etc. -- so
that we could, in essence, diagnose some problems we have.
One shrink has been remarkably good, and has, in essence, applauded what
we've done. I wish there were more like him. He works as a team member,
is thoughtful, tells us when he thinks we've got it wrong and suggests
other routes to take; in short, acts as a professional with training,
uses that training, but understands it's someone *else's* head he's
dealing with.
The second and, unfortunately, main shrink has been defensive, petty (he
likes to "not be there" when we need to get meds re-upped) and passive
aggressive.
Not that *he's* willing to do any work in figuring out our problems,
mind. He took our word for it in each and every case. Luckily, after one
false start on our part, we appear to have hit the nail(s) on our heads,
so his willingness to let us do *his* job hasn't blown up in his or our
faces.
But he has obviously wanted to have his cake and eat it as well: tell us
what to do, play Dr. God, and not do anything himself. He has been badly
frightened by the two of us -- and we have gone in as a team at least
three times on each other's appointments -- and he's taking it out on
us. We can't leave and find someone else (our HMO *used* to be pretty
good before it was bought out by for-profit bean counters. No more...)
so we deal with him. But if I could sit him down over a beer and a hot
fire pit....
>
> End of rant. Obviously I'm not at my best tonight, and I hasten to
> conclude by saying none of this is aimed at you.
>
> -- LJM
Kathy Routliffe
Jo Walton wrote:
>
> In article <8E01AF7...@news.panix.com>
> p...@panix.com "P Nielsen Hayden" writes:
>
> > My thinking on these kinds of issues, to no one's surprise, is much
> > affected by Teresa having narcolepsy. Now, the thing about "narcolepsy" is
> > that, like most neurological disorders, it is less a real "thing" (like,
> > say, measles) than a loose collection of symptoms which we have decided--
> > beyond a certain level of severity and when found in conjunction with
> > enough of each other--shall be reified as a real thing.
(snip)
> > Quite the contrary, I
> > think observations like Mary Kay's go a long way toward reminding, or at
> > least _ought_ to go a long way toward reminding, us of what we have in
> > common with people at the extremes of the human condition; that they aren't
> > aliens from the planet Disablia.
>
> While this last bit is true, I don't think it's helpful for people to
> say "I have X" when they don't.
(snip)
> I've met Mary Kay, and I've met
> someone with Asperger's, and I'm also quite good friends with someone
> who could be described as quite a long way down the road towards that
> clinical description but is still functional - and there's no sensible
> comparison. The pain of a stubbed toe does give empathy and understanding
> by analogy to the pain of a compound fracture, but they're not the same
> thing. If Mary Kay had said "that gives me an insight into how I feel
> which is like a much milder form of that condition" I'd not have blinked,
> but saying "I have it too" when there may be people reading who do is
> like me saying to Loren I "have" block because I get stuck for a whole
> week now and then or to Marilee that I am disabled.
An MSW I've dealt with said that a consensus is gradually emerging among
mental health researchers and other specialists, that many disorders
such as bi-polar disorders and autism, operate on a spectrum. People can
experience symptoms in a range that can be mild, moderate or disabling
to some degree. With that in mind, there *can* be sensible comparisons.
One just has to remember that there *is* a difference from suffering a
little and suffering a lot.
That being said, I agree hat it's not helpful for people to say without
some care that they have "X" if there's not some sort of proof.
Vicki Rosenzweig
<lmacg...@cadix.com> wrote:
>I got to the point
>where I realized I -had- to go to work or starve, and I began taking
>temp jobs hoping people wouldn't notice how stupid I was. This is
>likely to sound arrogant, but I went to work knowing I was
>functioning at a quarter or less of my real ability ... and found
>that I was still working harder and smarter than most of the other
>temps and permanent staff. This was ... um ... disconcerting.
I suspect that many people, and in particular many people
doing temp work, aren't working at anywhere near their full
ability either. The difference may have been, at least in
part, that you were uncertain about how the minimum needs of
the job matched your then-reduced abilities: people who've
been functioning at a consistent level, doing the same kind
of work for a while, probably know what they can get away with.
And whether they'll be rewarded, or de facto punished, for
doing more than the minimum. (De facto punishment is things
like being handed significant extra responsibility but not
more interesting work or higher pay.)
An acquaintance of mine recently said that her current job
is, in effect, to be an organic paperweight. Officially,
she's a secretary. Her boss doesn't need a secretary--for
whatever reason, said boss does her own filing. But her boss
has a position high enough in the company that, as a matter
of status and corporate politicking, she has to have a
secretary. So this woman I know is, by her own estimation,
doing about four hours of real work _per month_--in a full-time
job--because the important thing isn't that she do anything,
just that she be in the office, be visibly the secretary to
the Important Person. (She's planning on leaving at the end
of the summer, having been offered a teaching position at a
salary that, while lower, is enough to live on.)
--
Vicki Rosenzweig | v...@interport.net
r.a.sf.f faq at http://www.users.interport.net/~vr/rassef-faq.html
"I get by with a little help from my friends." -- Lennon/McCartney
Kathy Routliffe
Loren MacGregor wrote:
>
(snip)
>
> Belladonna, as atropine, is a fairly good drug for what it does.
> There are a number of things which it is -not- good for. And I've
> been told that "atropine" is bad because it is a drug, but
> "belladonna" is good because it's natural.
>
> Personally, I get all my information about natural drugs from
> Brother Caedfal.
Heh.
Mary Kay Kare
> Bernard Peek <Ber...@shrdlu.com> wrote in <eeOkIBA6...@shrdlu.com>:
>
> >Fans, on average, show some behavioural tendencies which, in more
> >extreme form, might be labelled as Asberger's Syndrome by a
> >psychiatrist.
>
> I think this is exactly right. I also think the general pile-on to Mary
> Kay, for an observation that hardly merited the elaborate superiority
> dances demonstrated, was a bit unpleasant.
Hmmm. Well, my first reaction was, "I'm glad I was out of town and I
missed it." But my horribly overdeveloped sense of curiosity will
undoubtedly get the better of me and I'll go look the postings up on
Dejawhatever.
>
> My thinking on these kinds of issues, to no one's surprise, is much
> affected by Teresa having narcolepsy. Now, the thing about "narcolepsy" is
> that, like most neurological disorders, it is less a real "thing" (like,
> say, measles) than a loose collection of symptoms which we have decided--
> beyond a certain level of severity and when found in conjunction with
> enough of each other--shall be reified as a real thing. In fact most of
> the symptoms associated with severe narcolepsy (excessive daytime
> sleepiness, cataplexy, apnea, sleep paralysis) are experienced at one point
> or another by "normal" people, and there are almost certainly millions of
> people who regularly experience one or more of these symptoms at levels
> below those that the medical profession arbitrary chooses to pathologize as
> "real" narcolepsy.
As mine is colored by having had serious depressive episodes all my life
and finding out, somewhere around age 40, that I wasn't crazy or
maladapted or whatever, I had screwed up brain chemistry.
>
> I suspect much the same is true of at least some of the characteristics of
> autism and Asperger's. I don't believe Asperger's is caused by infection
> with Asperger quanta. I think lots of tendencies which we recognize as
> pathologies beyond a certain point are simply, in their milder form,
> quirks--sometimes somewhat limiting quirks. I think that observations like
> Mary Kay's, in which we recognize our own quirks in the descriptions of
> officially-certified pathologies, are interesting and thoughtful, and ought
> not be slapped down as "medical student's disease." Quite the contrary, I
> think observations like Mary Kay's go a long way toward reminding, or at
> least _ought_ to go a long way toward reminding, us of what we have in
> common with people at the extremes of the human condition; that they aren't
> aliens from the planet Disablia.
I thank you kindly for your calm and thoughtful comments. One of the
reasons I talk widely and openly about my seritonin problem is to help
people realize that they aren't alone and that there is help. After all,
somebody did it for *me*.
MK
--
Mary Kay Kare
Science Fiction Fandom: where people contradict you just to be polite.
Mary Kay Kare
churn...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> >
> > In article <378d7ab7...@news.mindspring.com>,
> > mike weber <kras...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >OTOH, "depressed" is something we can at least make a good stab at
> > >treating.
> >
> > If it's clinical depression, yes. If your life is a mess and
> > you're depressed about that, no.
>
> We clearly agree on the varieties of depression.
>
It can, however, be hideously difficult to make that determination. If
you've been depressed a long time you've probably managed to mess up your
life pretty well. I certainly did. And since all those therapists kept
hunting so hard for reasons I was depressed, I managed to find a lot of
them.
Loren MacGregor
Mary Kay Kare wrote:
>
> In article <378DF4CA...@worldnet.att.net>,
> churn...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
>
> > Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > >
> > > In article <378d7ab7...@news.mindspring.com>,
> > > mike weber <kras...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >OTOH, "depressed" is something we can at least make a good stab at
> > > >treating.
> > >
> > > If it's clinical depression, yes. If your life is a mess and
> > > you're depressed about that, no.
> >
> > We clearly agree on the varieties of depression.
> >
> It can, however, be hideously difficult to make that determination. If
> you've been depressed a long time you've probably managed to mess up your
> life pretty well. I certainly did. And since all those therapists kept
> hunting so hard for reasons I was depressed, I managed to find a lot of
> them.
Oh, certainly. When you have -any- sort of major problem in your
life -- physical, mental, chemical, whatever -- there is no
-question- that it will bring on non-clinical depressive signs, and
that some of this can and do easily mask true clinical depression,
which makes the whole circus more -fun-. Look, I grabbed the brass
ring! Damn. I didn't want a brass ring in the first place, and I
think I hurt my hand.
-- LJM
mike weber
Jul 1999 19:40:37 -0700,
:
>In article <8E01AF7...@news.panix.com>, P Nielsen Hayden
><p...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> Bernard Peek <Ber...@shrdlu.com> wrote in <eeOkIBA6...@shrdlu.com>:
>>
>> >Fans, on average, show some behavioural tendencies which, in more
>> >extreme form, might be labelled as Asberger's Syndrome by a
>> >psychiatrist.
>>
>> I think this is exactly right. I also think the general pile-on to Mary
>> Kay, for an observation that hardly merited the elaborate superiority
>> dances demonstrated, was a bit unpleasant.
>
>Hmmm. Well, my first reaction was, "I'm glad I was out of town and I
>missed it." But my horribly overdeveloped sense of curiosity will
>undoubtedly get the better of me and I'll go look the postings up on
>Dejawhatever.
>>
Well, actually, i dodn't notice any particular "general pile-on to
Mary Kay" -- just a bunch of people more or less relevantly discussing
"Med Student Syndrome" and its ramifications and just how the
specifics of language in DSM differ from the same language as used
inconversaation/by laymen...
--
"If you take in a starving dog from the street and feed him
and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the
principal difference between a dog and a man." Mark Twain
Doug Wickstrom
Kare) excited the ether to say:
>Science Fiction Fandom: where people contradict you just to be polite.
Science Fiction Fandom: where people _correct_ you just to be
polite.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing. 'Twas
mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that filches
from me my good name, robs me of that which not enriches him, and
makes me poor indeed." --William Shakespeare, "Othello"
Mary Kay Kare
> On Sat, 17 Jul 1999 19:50:11 -0700, ka...@sirius.com (Mary Kay
> Kare) excited the ether to say:
>
> >Science Fiction Fandom: where people contradict you just to be polite.
>
> Science Fiction Fandom: where people _correct_ you just to be
> polite.
>
LOL! Giggle. Snicker.
MK
--
Mary Kay Kare
Science Fiction Fandom: where people contradict you just to be polite.
Loren MacGregor
Doug Wickstrom wrote:
>
> On Sat, 17 Jul 1999 19:50:11 -0700, ka...@sirius.com (Mary Kay
> Kare) excited the ether to say:
>
> >Science Fiction Fandom: where people contradict you just to be polite.
>
> Science Fiction Fandom: where people _correct_ you just to be
> polite.
That was -remarkably- impolite, Doug.
-- LJM
(There. Does that get me my RASFF No-Prize?)
Berni Phillips
>
> One of the
> reasons I talk widely and openly about my seritonin problem is to help
> people realize that they aren't alone and that there is help. After all,
> somebody did it for *me*.
This is true, for how do you know what normal is to the rest of the
world if your "abnormality" is normal to you?
Before I had glasses, I didn't realize that other people could see
individual leaves on trees.
Before my sleep apnea diagnosis, I thought I had narcolepsy. The
excessive daytime sleepiness and falling asleep constantly were new. I
could not recall *ever* sleeping continuously more than an hour or two
at night, so that was "normal" for me. And I had no idea I was only
really sleeping for a few minutes at a time before waking up -- I
thought I was just a light sleeper. It wasn't until I was hooked up to
a machine that I found out how little I was truly sleeping at night and
how frequently I stopped breathing. The way I slept seems to be the same
as since childhood, so who knows how long I was suffering from sleep
apnea before I was diagnosed? I'm just glad I found out before I had a
heart attack or car accident, which is how all too many people discover
it.
Berni Phillips
Ailsa N.T. Murphy
> >mike weber <kras...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>OTOH, "depressed" is something we can at least make a good stab at
> >>treating.
>
> >If it's clinical depression, yes. If your life is a mess and
> >you're depressed about that, no.
>
> with a situational depression, especially if the talk therapy is focused
> -- and they don't always-- will give the person more energy to deal with
> the situation.
Worked for me. Clinical depression I don't have, but when my life is a
mess, I am often likely to get depressed and inert about it. Last time
it got really bad, I had insurance, so I saw some professionals and did
Prozac for a while, and suddenly everything didn't seem so huge there
was no point even trying, and in fact I fixed a few of my problems
without even thinking about it beforehand. (Although once the deeds
were done, I sat and blinked with my jaw dropped about how easy it had
been and I was getting all upset over _that_???)
Zoloft, however, isn't any better than sugar pills for my brain
chemistry. The others I haven't tried. But I've sat & watched myself
through enough long cycles that when next I have insurance, I am going
to make sure I am seeing a counsellor on a regular basis even when I
don't think I necessarily need it _now_. I seem to make the same error
feeling good as when deeply depressed. Now isn't forever; things will
be different later.
Seems like rather a lot of the female regular posters here have or have
had problems with depression and the need for medication for same. I
wonder why that is.
-Ailsa
--
One knows his subjects cold but can't heat up Ailsa N.T. Murphy
an audience. The other promises the global an...@world.std.com
vision thing as soon as he gets his geography Contents under pressure
down. -Maureen Dowd Some settling may occur
Ailsa N.T. Murphy
>
> On Thu, 15 Jul 1999 11:35:36 -0700, Loren MacGregor
> <lmacg...@cadix.com> wrote:
>
> >I got to the point
> >where I realized I -had- to go to work or starve, and I began taking
> >temp jobs hoping people wouldn't notice how stupid I was. This is
> >likely to sound arrogant, but I went to work knowing I was
> >functioning at a quarter or less of my real ability ... and found
> >that I was still working harder and smarter than most of the other
> >temps and permanent staff. This was ... um ... disconcerting.
>
> I suspect that many people, and in particular many people
> doing temp work, aren't working at anywhere near their full
> ability either.
Agreed. One of the lovely things about temping is, if you're feeling
depressed and stupid, you can go out and do _something_ and get paid for
it, and get reinforcement that you're doing something and getting at
least part of it right. I think a lot of the temp force is people who
are feeling depressed after having lost a job, or are feeling nervous
about seeking another fulltime job (as well as the people who _are_
jobhunting, but want some money coming in). Problem is, you can't be so
depressed that you're incapable of showing up to places if you're
expected. Doesn't help agoraphobic depressives much either.
Ailsa N.T. Murphy
> I picked up on this because I have a tendency to be somewhat gloomy. I
> went through a bout with true depression for a couple of years, but that
> was a long time ago, and now I just have a tendency to be down
> sometimes, probably more often than is appropriate, and downright
> despairing if I run at too much of a sleep deficit for too long.
>
Isn't that normal, and the reason why it's good not to get too badly
sleep deprived?
Janice Gelb
<lmacg...@cadix.com> wrote:
>
>I got to the point
>where I realized I -had- to go to work or starve, and I began taking
>temp jobs hoping people wouldn't notice how stupid I was. This is
>likely to sound arrogant, but I went to work knowing I was
>functioning at a quarter or less of my real ability ... and found
>that I was still working harder and smarter than most of the other
>temps and permanent staff. This was ... um ... disconcerting.
>
I did temps for about a year and a half when I first
moved to Atlanta. I had a wonderful job for about 9
months for the State Nutrition Education unit -- I
was first called to the job because after having a
different temp for about a week, they had just
discovered that because their memo stationery
had at the top M E M O R A N D U M, the temp had
been filing all members under M...
Once they saw how much more work I was able to get
done in less time than any previous temp they'd had,
the nice ladies in the office let me go out on job
interviews without counting it off my time card!
*****************************************************************
Janice Gelb | The only connection Sun has with
janic...@eng.sun.com | this message is the return address.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8018/index.html
"These are my opinions. If they were the Biblical truth, your
bushes would be burning" -- Randy Lander
Dorothy J Heydt
Ailsa N.T. Murphy <an...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
>Seems like rather a lot of the female regular posters here have or have
>had problems with depression and the need for medication for same. I
>wonder why that is.
Possibly because various other people, with and without MDs, have
suggested once too often that all their problems can be cured by
pills?
Ailsa N.T. Murphy
>
> In article <37934C...@world.std.com>,
> Ailsa N.T. Murphy <an...@world.std.com> wrote:
> >
> >Seems like rather a lot of the female regular posters here have or have
> >had problems with depression and the need for medication for same. I
> >wonder why that is.
>
> Possibly because various other people, with and without MDs, have
> suggested once too often that all their problems can be cured by
> pills?
>
than the average woman (assuming we know what an average woman is).
Maybe fans in general are a bit messed up, and being female on top of it
(with all the lovely pressure to be "properly female" added) only makes
it worse.
Janice Gelb
>
>I did temps for about a year and a half when I first
>moved to Atlanta. I had a wonderful job for about 9
>months for the State Nutrition Education unit -- I
>was first called to the job because after having a
>different temp for about a week, they had just
>discovered that because their memo stationery
>had at the top M E M O R A N D U M, the temp had
>been filing all members under M...
>
*sigh* That should, have course, have read "memos"
not "members"
Mary Kay Kare
> Seems like rather a lot of the female regular posters here have or have
> had problems with depression and the need for medication for same. I
> wonder why that is.
>
Well, as a different data point, my husband also takes SSRIs. There could
be lots of reasons for the prevalence among females. For one thing, we're
more likely to seek help for emotional difficulties. My father has the
seritonin deficiency but refuses to take the medication. I hear the same
things coming from him as came out of my mouth when I was depressed, so
I'm pretty sure. (His father was the same way.) Also I think there *is*
some kind of hormonal connection. One side benefit of beginning to take
SSRIs was that my fairly severe PMS stopped completely. Physical and
emotional symptoms. Some people take Prozac just for PMS.
MK
--
Mary Kay Kare
Science Fiction Fandom: where people contradict you just to be polite.
Mary Kay Kare
wrote:
> In article <37934C...@world.std.com>,
> Ailsa N.T. Murphy <an...@world.std.com> wrote:
> >
> >Seems like rather a lot of the female regular posters here have or have
> >had problems with depression and the need for medication for same. I
> >wonder why that is.
>
> Possibly because various other people, with and without MDs, have
> suggested once too often that all their problems can be cured by
> pills?
>
I'm kind of shocked and appalled by this response. Are you suggesting
we're drugging ourselves into happiness without dealing with the problem?
Or what. Once before I started taking SSRIs I had a doctor suggest I take
a tri-cyclic; it didn't work and we quit. Mostly doctors, therapists, my
family, and society in general spent a lot of time and energy trying to
find out what emotional thing was wrong with me that I was depressed.
NOne. I have a brain chemistry problem that's all. Would you say this
about a diabetic who needed insulin?
Mitch Wagner
>Mitch Wagner wrote:
>
>> I picked up on this because I have a tendency to be somewhat gloomy. I
>> went through a bout with true depression for a couple of years, but that
>> was a long time ago, and now I just have a tendency to be down
>> sometimes, probably more often than is appropriate, and downright
>> despairing if I run at too much of a sleep deficit for too long.
>>
>Isn't that normal, and the reason why it's good not to get too badly
>sleep deprived?
>
True, but I seem to require a bit more sleep than most people - six to eight
hours
per night, plus at least one 10-12 hour night on weekends to get fully
caught up.
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
Ailsa N.T. Murphy
I think. I imagine we all know a person or two whom everyone
acknowleges has severe problems with depression, et al, but with whom
the said same everyones are quite exasperated, for instance.
People oughtn't to be in the business of judging other people, but they
are anyway rather a lot of the time. The most reasonable judgement,
imho, is the question of "Does this person's behavior adversely affect
me enough that I do not wish to be around this person?" or "Do I enjoy
this person's company enough to overlook or work around their more
problematic aspects?" and not to work on coming up with diagnoses like
"lazy" "unmotivated" "clinically depressed" "bipolar" "nymphomaniac"
"irresponsible" etc. unless one is a trained professional working with
the person.
But then this position leaves out the possibility that one might try to
help rather than minding one's own business. If one tries to help, one
has to have an idea what the problem is, and to have an idea what the
problem is, one has to make at least a few judgments, or at least so it
seems to me.
Say Yolanda is extremely witty and a great listener, who can cap any pun
made in her presence and the patience to listen endlessly to her
friends' tales of woe, but she's chronically unable to show up for
anything on time, and doubly so if it's important, and sometimes drops
out of society for a week or two at a time.
Or Genady, who's a great writer, keeps up tons of correspondence both in
email and in print, but stammers and has nothing to say in person and
works as a night operator at some big company so he'll be alone with his
internet connection, word processing program, and printer, and by
preference never spends any time in the presence of other human beings
if he can help it.
If these two are our friends, do we helpfully try to diagnose them, do
we roll our eyes when they go into counselling and maybe try
psychoactive drugs to help them with their problems? What if Genady
starts getting into arguments with everyone online on in print, or
Yolanda starts just plain not showing up for things entirely?
I don't think there are any easy answers, and what seems the right thing
to do to one person is bound to seem utterly wrong to another.
Ailsa N.T. Murphy
>
> In article <379350...@world.std.com>, Ailsa N.T. Murphy wrote:
> >Mitch Wagner wrote:
> >
> >> despairing if I run at too much of a sleep deficit for too long.
> >>
> >Isn't that normal, and the reason why it's good not to get too badly
> >sleep deprived?
>
> True, but I seem to require a bit more sleep than most people - six to eight
> hours
> per night, plus at least one 10-12 hour night on weekends to get fully
> caught up.
>
I need, or else I get really morose, melancholy, despairing, etc.
Mitch Wagner
>Mitch Wagner wrote:
>>
>> In article <379350...@world.std.com>, Ailsa N.T. Murphy wrote:
>> >Mitch Wagner wrote:
>> >
>> >> [...] and downright
>> >> despairing if I run at too much of a sleep deficit for too long.
>> >>
>> >Isn't that normal, and the reason why it's good not to get too badly
>> >sleep deprived?
>>
>> True, but I seem to require a bit more sleep than most people - six to eight
>> hours
>> per night, plus at least one 10-12 hour night on weekends to get fully
>> caught up.
>>
>OK, then we have similiar brain chemistry then, cos that's exactly what
>I need, or else I get really morose, melancholy, despairing, etc.
The other thing that seems odd about my brain chemistry is that other
people seem to be able to go weeks and weeks and weeks at a sleep
deficit while suffering only mild ill effects, whereas if I go even
three or four days at a sleep deficit, I go into a really black funk.
I have friends who need only about 3-5 hours of sleep per night, and
boy do I envy them. One of them is a novelist, and a very self-
disciplined one at that - he does his writing while everybody
else is asleep, and has almost a full day to devote to leisure
activity.
Rachael Lininger
Mary Kay Kare <ka...@sirius.com> wrote:
>Well, as a different data point, my husband also takes SSRIs. There could
>be lots of reasons for the prevalence among females. For one thing, we're
>more likely to seek help for emotional difficulties. My father has the
>seritonin deficiency but refuses to take the medication. I hear the same
>things coming from him as came out of my mouth when I was depressed, so
>I'm pretty sure. (His father was the same way.) Also I think there *is*
>some kind of hormonal connection. One side benefit of beginning to take
>SSRIs was that my fairly severe PMS stopped completely. Physical and
>emotional symptoms. Some people take Prozac just for PMS.
Heh. Oral contraceptives can do wonders for depression, too. (They can
also cause it, just as Prozac can cause those rilly fun psychotic
episodes, which is why medication ought to be monitored.)
I remember a brief note in someplace really unreliable, like _Time,_
saying that women with low cholesterol (<160) were more likely to have
depression; there was no indication of whether it was thought to be a
cause, an effect, or whether anything could or should be done about it.
Has anyone seen the actual research for this? I thought it sounded neat.
Rachael
--
Rachael Lininger | "The opposite of _less_ is _more._
lininger@ | What's better? Which one are you for?"
chem.wisc.edu | --Richard Wilbur
Loren MacGregor
"Ailsa N.T. Murphy" wrote:
>
> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> >
> > In article <37934C...@world.std.com>,
> > Ailsa N.T. Murphy <an...@world.std.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >Seems like rather a lot of the female regular posters here have or have
> > >had problems with depression and the need for medication for same. I
> > >wonder why that is.
> >
> > Possibly because various other people, with and without MDs, have
> > suggested once too often that all their problems can be cured by
> > pills?
> >
> I was wondering if female fans are more likely to be seriously depressed
> than the average woman (assuming we know what an average woman is).
> Maybe fans in general are a bit messed up, and being female on top of it
> (with all the lovely pressure to be "properly female" added) only makes
> it worse.
And I'm wondering why you're thinking about "a lot of the female
regular posters" here when it has seemed to me that there have been
about as many men as women posting on this thread, at least as
regards depression.
-- LJM
David G. Bell
ka...@sirius.com "Mary Kay Kare" writes:
> In article <FF4MH...@kithrup.com>, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
> wrote:
>
> > In article <37934C...@world.std.com>,
> > Ailsa N.T. Murphy <an...@world.std.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >Seems like rather a lot of the female regular posters here have or have
> > >had problems with depression and the need for medication for same. I
> > >wonder why that is.
> >
> > Possibly because various other people, with and without MDs, have
> > suggested once too often that all their problems can be cured by
> > pills?
> >
> I'm kind of shocked and appalled by this response. Are you suggesting
> we're drugging ourselves into happiness without dealing with the problem?
> Or what. Once before I started taking SSRIs I had a doctor suggest I take
> a tri-cyclic; it didn't work and we quit. Mostly doctors, therapists, my
> family, and society in general spent a lot of time and energy trying to
> find out what emotional thing was wrong with me that I was depressed.
> NOne. I have a brain chemistry problem that's all. Would you say this
> about a diabetic who needed insulin?
Since getting blood sugar out of balance can mess up your brain
chemistry....
Combine insulin injections with the War of Drugs, and you can imagine
some very nervous diabetics over in the USA.
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
Ailsa N.T. Murphy
>
> "Ailsa N.T. Murphy" wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > In article <37934C...@world.std.com>,
> > > Ailsa N.T. Murphy <an...@world.std.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >Seems like rather a lot of the female regular posters here have or have
> > > >had problems with depression and the need for medication for same. I
> > > >wonder why that is.
> > >
> > > Possibly because various other people, with and without MDs, have
> > > suggested once too often that all their problems can be cured by
> > > pills?
> > >
> > than the average woman (assuming we know what an average woman is).
> > Maybe fans in general are a bit messed up, and being female on top of it
> > (with all the lovely pressure to be "properly female" added) only makes
> > it worse.
>
> And I'm wondering why you're thinking about "a lot of the female
> regular posters" here when it has seemed to me that there have been
> about as many men as women posting on this thread, at least as
> regards depression.
>
over time. I've run across a number of conversational threads over the
past however long it is I've been here which were various female posters
comparing notes on the effects of the various psychoactive drugs they're
taking. I don't know enough about drugs to know if _all_ of these were
antidepressants, but still.
Mary Kay Kare
> In article <kare-19079...@ppp-asok03--147.sirius.net>,
> Mary Kay Kare <ka...@sirius.com> wrote:
>
> >Well, as a different data point, my husband also takes SSRIs. There could
> >be lots of reasons for the prevalence among females. For one thing, we're
> >more likely to seek help for emotional difficulties. My father has the
> >seritonin deficiency but refuses to take the medication. I hear the same
> >things coming from him as came out of my mouth when I was depressed, so
> >I'm pretty sure. (His father was the same way.) Also I think there *is*
> >some kind of hormonal connection. One side benefit of beginning to take
> >SSRIs was that my fairly severe PMS stopped completely. Physical and
> >emotional symptoms. Some people take Prozac just for PMS.
>
> Heh. Oral contraceptives can do wonders for depression, too. (They can
> also cause it, just as Prozac can cause those rilly fun psychotic
> episodes, which is why medication ought to be monitored.)
>
> I remember a brief note in someplace really unreliable, like _Time,_
> saying that women with low cholesterol (<160) were more likely to have
> depression; there was no indication of whether it was thought to be a
> cause, an effect, or whether anything could or should be done about it.
> Has anyone seen the actual research for this? I thought it sounded neat.
I haven't seen it, but that wouldn't surprise me. Fat, usually body fat,
but maybe cholesterol too who knows, is important in the regulation of
women's menstrual cycles. Women with very low body fat, marathon runners
for example, have no, or irregular periods; and since something in a
woman's cyle seems to affect/be affected by seritonins, I wouldn't be
surprised at a correlation.
P Nielsen Hayden
>In article <37934C...@world.std.com>,
>Ailsa N.T. Murphy <an...@world.std.com> wrote:
>>
>>Seems like rather a lot of the female regular posters here have or have
>>had problems with depression and the need for medication for same. I
>>wonder why that is.
>
>Possibly because various other people, with and without MDs, have
>suggested once too often that all their problems can be cured by
>pills?
Quite the contrary. I think that, far from being super-suggestible, fans
as a class are hardheadly resistant -- resistant to the notion that they
should be unhappy all their lives merely in order to live up to someone
else's notion that there's something inauthentic about happiness that comes
from taking the right pill.
I think there are people getting the wrong pills, and fads in diagnosis,
and overmedication; all of these are varieties of predictable human folly,
here at the dawn of real understanding of the material basis of
consciousness. What I don't buy is the notion that the follies discredit
the overall enterprise; that there's something metaphyically wrong with
manipulating the matter of which we are made in order to be happier. I
think a lot of fans feel the same way.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Loren MacGregor
"Ailsa N.T. Murphy" wrote:
>
> Loren MacGregor wrote:
> >
> > "Ailsa N.T. Murphy" wrote:
> > >
> > > Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > > >
> > > > In article <37934C...@world.std.com>,
> > > > Ailsa N.T. Murphy <an...@world.std.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >Seems like rather a lot of the female regular posters here have or have
> > > > >had problems with depression and the need for medication for same. I
> > > > >wonder why that is.
> > > >
> > > > Possibly because various other people, with and without MDs, have
> > > > suggested once too often that all their problems can be cured by
> > > > pills?
> > > >
> > > I was wondering if female fans are more likely to be seriously depressed
> > > than the average woman (assuming we know what an average woman is).
> > > Maybe fans in general are a bit messed up, and being female on top of it
> > > (with all the lovely pressure to be "properly female" added) only makes
> > > it worse.
> >
> > And I'm wondering why you're thinking about "a lot of the female
> > regular posters" here when it has seemed to me that there have been
> > about as many men as women posting on this thread, at least as
> > regards depression.
> >
> I wasn't referring to this thread, per se, but impressions picked up
> over time. I've run across a number of conversational threads over the
> past however long it is I've been here which were various female posters
> comparing notes on the effects of the various psychoactive drugs they're
> taking. I don't know enough about drugs to know if _all_ of these were
> antidepressants, but still.
I'm leaving all the attributions and comments because what I was
-trying- to say is that there are -people- here comparing
psychoactive drugs. I haven't seen this limited to, or even
primarily involving, women. I think there is a -perception- that
more women than men take or seek out psychoactive drugs, but I don't
see that perception holding true here to any overwhelming degree.
-- LJM
Bernard Peek
<mwa...@world.std.com> writes
>
>I have friends who need only about 3-5 hours of sleep per night, and
>boy do I envy them. One of them is a novelist, and a very self-
>disciplined one at that - he does his writing while everybody
>else is asleep, and has almost a full day to devote to leisure
>activity.
This can change. I work with someone who has been surviving on 1-2 hours
a night since he was a teenager. It's not enough now and he's starting
to have some real problems.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com
Rachael Lininger
This was by no means "too low" cholesterol; the paragraph reported that
levels less than 160 (is it mg/dL? whatever units) were correlated. I
remember it because that's the level reported as "desirable" by the med
lab that did my blood chemistry, back when I was having really bad
troubles with sleep. Mine was lower, and my weight is pretty normal (by
which I mean, mildly overweight by insurance company standards, but screw
them).
Anyway, I thought it was interesting that "desirable" levels of
cholesterol might have more risks than are generally reported.
Nancy Lebovitz
Ailsa N.T. Murphy <an...@world.std.com> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>
>> In article <37934C...@world.std.com>,
>> Ailsa N.T. Murphy <an...@world.std.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >Seems like rather a lot of the female regular posters here have or have
>> >had problems with depression and the need for medication for same. I
>> >wonder why that is.
>>
>> Possibly because various other people, with and without MDs, have
>> suggested once too often that all their problems can be cured by
>> pills?
>>
>I was wondering if female fans are more likely to be seriously depressed
>than the average woman (assuming we know what an average woman is).
>Maybe fans in general are a bit messed up, and being female on top of it
>(with all the lovely pressure to be "properly female" added) only makes
>it worse.
>
men, and a more recent theory that male depression is underdiagnosed,
both because men are less likely to look for help with it, and because
male depression is more likely to manifest as anger and violence rather
than inertia and sadness.
I'd been seeing so many people talk about depression here that I was
beginning to wonder if it correlated with spending a lot of time
on newsgroups. (No smiley.)
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com
Calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
Richard
> > I suspect much the same is true of at least some of the characteristics of
> > autism and Asperger's. I don't believe Asperger's is caused by infection
> > with Asperger quanta. I think lots of tendencies which we recognize as
> > pathologies beyond a certain point are simply, in their milder form,
> > quirks--sometimes somewhat limiting quirks. ...
>
> Haven't mental health workers started using the phrase "shadow
> syndrome," for just that phenomenon?
Yes. In fact, there's a book with approximately that title that you can
probably find at Amazon.
However, something I've observed in other forums where this has come up
is that non-medical people -- including people identifying as having
these syndromes -- define them as pathological. "Normal" gets narrowly
defined to be one endpoint of the spectrum, with the rest of the
spectrum seen as a medical condition to be treated. Instead of being a
bridge between normal and the clearly pathological, the concept is just
used to enlarge the part of the map classified as abnormal.
People seem to find it difficult to deal with continua. They always
want to draw lines to chop them up into separate things, and think that
unless they do that, and unless those lines have some sort of real
existence, they would have to regard everything in the continuum as all
the same. Maybe we are so mentally constituted that we have to draw
lines in order to think about things, but in practice, where one draws
those lines, and why, end up being political issues.
-- Richard Kennaway
Loren MacGregor
I wave my hands here. I used to do quite well on 3 - 4 hours of
sleep, and in fact for many years held two full time jobs. Now I
have trouble with one; I'm sitting here at 8:30 a.m., trying to
force myself to waketitude so I can go in to work and more or less
function.
-- LJM
Rob Hansen
>What I don't buy is the notion that the follies discredit
>the overall enterprise; that there's something metaphyically wrong with
>manipulating the matter of which we are made in order to be happier. I
>think a lot of fans feel the same way.
Yep. In my own case, the reason I've never gotten into drugs and am
resistant to doing so is because I *like* my default condition -
reasonably happy, non-depressive - and have never wanted to anything
that might, inadvertantly or otherwise, reset that default. It's too
precious for me to want to risk losing it, particularly having seen
the problems experienced by others who don't have this default
setting. I have no problem with others using drugs to alter their
mental state, however, nor have I ever had.
--
Rob Hansen
================================================
My Home Page: http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/rob/
Feminists Against Censorship:
http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/FAC/
Randolph Fritz
>
>I'd been seeing so many people talk about depression here that I was
>beginning to wonder if it correlated with spending a lot of time
>on newsgroups. (No smiley.)
>
In fact, there is at least one study indicating exactly that...it also
correlates with spend a lot of time alone, reading...
R.
--
"So sit us down, buy us a drink,
Tell us a good story,
Sing us a song we know to be true.
I don't give a damn
That I never will be worthy,
Fear is the only enemy that I still know"--NMA
Bernard Peek
<na...@unix3.netaxs.com> writes
>
>I'd been seeing so many people talk about depression here that I was
>beginning to wonder if it correlated with spending a lot of time
>on newsgroups. (No smiley.)
>
Or with being in fandom. I recall a conversation in the pub when someone
asked for a show of hands from anyone who had received psychiatric
treatment. Of the 11 randomly selected fans only one had never seen a
shrink.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com
Nancy Lebovitz
Though there might be a couple of other factors to confuse matters.
Fans are probably more likely to be able to afford therapy than people
in general are, and perhaps more likely to believe that problems can
be solved.
David Langford
wrote:
>On 19 Jul 1999 23:22:44 GMT, P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>>What I don't buy is the notion that the follies discredit
>>the overall enterprise; that there's something metaphyically wrong with
>>manipulating the matter of which we are made in order to be happier. I
>>think a lot of fans feel the same way.
>
>Yep. In my own case, the reason I've never gotten into drugs and am
>resistant to doing so is because I *like* my default condition -
>reasonably happy, non-depressive - and have never wanted to anything
>that might, inadvertantly or otherwise, reset that default. It's too
>precious for me to want to risk losing it, particularly having seen
>the problems experienced by others who don't have this default
>setting. I have no problem with others using drugs to alter their
>mental state, however, nor have I ever had.
This is the alternate-world Rob Hansen who never ever touched that
mind-altering drug known as beer? Well, yes, as a sort of vague personal
default I feel exactly the same about nebulous generic "drugs", while of
course decades of experience and the approval of family, society and fandom
have made it very clear that good ol' alcohol is OK.
I suppose it's the devil you know. I know with some precision what beer
does to me, and am enough of a coward not to want to calibrate myself (like
Kim Kinnison priming himself to infiltrate the zwilniks) against unknowns
that I might get locked up for trying.
Caffeine, of course, is not a drug but a necessary food group. Trust me.
Dave
--
David Langford
ans...@cix.co.uk | http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/
Jeff Youngstrom
>I'd been seeing so many people talk about depression here that I was
>beginning to wonder if it correlated with spending a lot of time
>on newsgroups. (No smiley.)
ouch. I resemble that remark. Reading usenet is easy.
Everything else is hard. Maybe I should go back on the
drugs...
Another datapoint here on the male side of the depression
equation, though I only started doing something about it
after my wife started doing something about hers. And I
think I'm also one of those who just has munged brain
chemistry (though it's not like the world doesn't offer
enough reasons to be depressed). I've been off the meds
for a year and a half now and have been okay, but my wife
just recently went back on, I may not be far behind.
Whenever I think about our medical system, I'm struck by
how hit or miss it seems to be. (Look at the whole
overweight thing for example. From my reading it's
becomming clear that there's a large portion of the
population that gains weight on what the medical community
seems to think is a "balanced" diet. And yet all we hear
is the one-size-fits-all stuff from the medical community.
Clearly one size doesn't fit all, and yet nobody seems
capable of actually studying the variations to come up with
a classification system that explains all the observable
data. What's up with that?) Here we are on the verge of
that new digit that points up that the future is now, and
healthcare, while evincing a lot of cool SFnal things
(transplants, whatever), still doesn't seem to have even
the beginning of a clue about how to help me (with my
particular set of idiosyncrasies, genetic and otherwise)
have a better life.
jeffy near Seattle where, inexplicably, the sun is shining.
p.s. This is my first posting to rasff, though I've been
lurking for a while (which is my basic in-person social
interaction style too, so I'm in character) and been an
occasional poster to rasfw for years. I haven't been
involved in organized fandom, but I'm an avid SF reader and
have really enjoyed hanging out with y'all for the last few
weeks. I'll just wander back to my corner now. Sorry for
introducing myself with a rant.
--
Jeff Youngstrom http://www.wolfenet.com/~jeffy/
"It's a joyless existence, being smushed." - Larry Wall