Stress and Autism

Stress and Autism; you could say that’s not your topic if you consider your-self as a “normal” person (whatever normal is…). In the past, mankind found gold nuggets, answers, solutions and hope in so called unrelated areas like foreign cultures, religions, dreams, chaos, spirituality, absinthe, drugs, conversations and blogs. I invite you to dive into a 10 questions interview I recently did with a friend and come back with some interesting insights for you…

A sneak in:

2. When you hear/ read the word stress, what comes first into your mind?
A.: that’s a difficult one. lots of things happening at once, and all needing attention at the same time, maybe. (…)

3. How would you describe your relation to your brain, to your heart?
A: for me, my heart is what pumps blood. (…)

6. What do you do, when you feel stressed?
A: i’ll try to get rid of lesser priority tasks that make me stressed. (…)

10 Questions by CFR

1. How is the official ”žlabel“ you got for your autism form and since when was it ”žofficially“ diagnosed(at what age)?
A.: ok, first, autism is a spectrum. i wouldn’t say i *represent* autism, or am a typical case of it. i probably have a lot of other things that form me, like a personality.
CFR: did somebody/ a doctor gave you a “official label/ name”?
A.: i have been officially diagnosed with an autism spectrum condition at age 3. i’ve been said to have all sorts of autism on the spectrum, like asperger, HFA, and classic autism.

2. When you hear/ read the word stress, what comes first into your mind?
A.: that’s a difficult one. lots of things happening at once, and all needing attention at the same time, maybe. i’d say i’m less than average good at coping with this, which has everything to do with impaired working memory (an aspect of autism). bad multitasking.
CFR: do you think the human being is capable to do *real* multitasking at all?
A: depends on how you define it. i don’t know how it works, but all i know is humans are *said* to be able to multitask and the ability to do so goes with working memory. which makes perfect sense
CFR: does thinking about the “stress questions” makes you feel (a bit) stressed?
A: a bit. not the questions in themselves, but my fear for things being posted does

3. How would you describe your relation to your brain, to your heart?
A: for me, my heart is what pumps blood. i don’t see any part of my thinking or feeling to be my “heart” (as in, really it’s all in the brain). but my thinking is very much what’s in control for me. i’m a thinker. rational. Analyzing. i do have feelings, but they merely tell me what my goals are. they make me sad if something isn’t right or fair, and so on.
CFR: thank you for answering so “deep” – in a meaning of openness

4. When you look around these days in the world, in the news, the TV program ”“ what’s your impression?
A: i hate the world, really. it’s all evil, rotten, the bad guys in charge. religious intolerance and greed are rampant
CFR: do you see any light at “the end of the tunnel”?
A:regarding #4? no.
CFR: may I have your feedback/ impression of a quote/ saying, please. “It’s better to light up the smallest light, than to complain about the darkness.”
A: hm… yes i’m slow. i agree with this, but i still complain a lot too. Although raising awareness, which could be seen as complaining, is helpful too. But what i’m doing isn’t really raising awareness. I’m talking about media works like “age of stupid” here.
CFR: would you say, c-OM-plain-ing is a start for a change?
A: why did you separate the world with dashes?
CFR: I am a fan of numerology and “enigmas” which are directly in front of our eyes and so close to us, that we don’t notice them
A: can you explain how that answers my question?
CFR: complain – C: 3 letter in our alphabet – OM: the universal OM – plain: _______
A: ah. 🙂 Yes, if you look for sequences you’ll find them everywhere if you look enough. For example, everything is probably somewhere in pi, if written out at a certain base, and with a certain alphabet.

5. We talked about change recently. Do changes stress you ”“ if so ”“ how would you describe your feelings?
A: you asked about change. what kind of change? just arbitrary change? improvement?
CFR: change, of any kind
A: i think it sometimes is. I think, to fix a problem, someone has to acknowledge that there is a problem. But artistic changes aren’t caused by that, they’re caused by searching for something
CFR: true. a PRO-blem(they don’t call it an ANTI-blem)
A: heh. I’m not really into picking apart words like this. If you want to do so, and derive meanings from it, you have to follow the etymology of the words
CFR: thats what I try (most times)
A: i take words mostly for granted. i use them as tokens to convey meanings. For the meanings, i’ll consult a dictionary if i’m in doubt
CFR: I see, so is “searching for something” connected to “positive stress” for you? or not connected to any stress at all?
A: i meant in the artistic sense. as i lack this, i can’t answer it
CFR: ok
A: i know that my drive to create things comes from obsessive compulsiveness – i want to supply myself with things to help me help myself. and i’m typically better off if they’re self made

6. What do you do, when you feel stressed?
A: i’ll try to get rid of lesser priority tasks that make me stressed. Telling people who are contacting me all at once, which can make me stressed, that i’m slow, or busy
CFR: how do you set/ indicate your priorities?
A: depending on what i find more or less important, personally
CFR: theres the quote: “first things first” – how do you know what comes first?
A: there’s different kinds of tasks i may be busy with. People contacting me necessarily has a time critical aspect. At least briefly, until i tell them i’m busy. Then i may prioritize better over less good friends, or i may prioritize a chat i find insightful, over someone asking for help with his computer
CFR: I see. So you kinda evaluate the importance of content/ action *for* you and on the other hand what you think is critical in a linear timescale for “the other”. Something like this?
A: sort of, but “the other” may not have to be a human. so, time criticalness is still something for me. It may be a security problem that needs patching.
CFR: but a security patch – at the other end of the line – will affect/ touch a human being?
A: if i don’t patch it, the risk that my servers get compromised, for example, becomes bigger. So, it affects me
CFR: a human being 🙂
A: yes
CFR: cool 🙂
A: everything is *eventually* to serve some human being

7. In my theory stress is generated via inside- and outside pressure. How would you rate that in your case in percent, inside/ outside?
A: as for 7: i don’t understand or experience the theory so i can’t answer that
CFR: to my theory you can create “stress” from two sides: from inside your-self (thoughts, feelings, believes, hopes, angers, ”¦) and from outside: somebody stresses you, the world, your daily job, relations, traffic jams, etc
A: ultimately. stress is entirely inside someone
CFR: so 0% / 100% (out/in)
A: how you describe stress here, describes a different kind of stress than what i was mentioning earlier, it’s more like “long term stress” which can lead to burn out. No, i didn’t say 0%/ 100% per se, just that i can’t answer it well. but, its possible, yes.

8. Do you meditate?
A: no, i don’t meditate
CFR: did you ever try?
A: no
CFR: would you like to try *oneday*?
A: possibly. there’s spiritual aspects to meditation. i’m not spiritual. but there may be scientific reasons why it may be helpful to meditate.
CFR: maybe we can, if you like, explore this topic in a separate chat in the (near) future
A: ok:) i don’t say anything in advance but i may feel like it

9. Have you ever heard from the ”žeat right for your type“ book by Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo?
A: i haven’t heared of that book
CFR: may I drop you a URL to my blog? (also the comments are interesting already)
A: yes.
CFR: http://blog.chrisremspecher.de/377/zen/your-blood-type-drives-your-stress-type.html
A: it’s plausible.
CFR: so maybe you check it out the in the future
A: i’d google about the subject – More on the book, eating the right thing, etc.  I don’t like to read books. There’s theories that eating/digestion issues play a role in autism – like, an autistic would be sensitive to certain kinds of food, etc. But tbh i haven’t really gone into that either.

10. What would you like to tell/ share with the world?
A: i have nothing to say really

Thank you, A.!

ps. if you were wondering: A. wanted his name to be A. and he did agree 100%, that this interview is posted on my blog.