Not fake news

[EverCurious]

Well... long story short I have a great many LGBT (aka liberal snowflakes) friends who have put a lot of so-called "emotional stress" on me the past few weeks. Unfortunately for me I have synesthesia (aka crossed senses, essentially my emotions are colors rather than feelings) as such I'm unable to "process" emotions in the same manner as typical folks which essentially has caused me to suffer from sensory overload. Basically, I can't shut down and therefore cannot sleep. I have slept a grand total of approximately 3 hours in the past week and a half. So I'm on an interesting cocktail of medications in an attempt to stave of insanity from sleep deprivation and downers in an attempt to stop the color wash and related cascade failure of sensory inputs. It's an all around good time... I've been having a continuous hella party in my head since the election

 

[GLASNOST]

Well... long story short I have a great many LGBT (aka liberal snowflakes) friends who have put a lot of so-called "emotional stress" on me the past few weeks. Unfortunately for me I have synesthesia (aka crossed senses, essentially my emotions are colors rather than feelings) as such I'm unable to "process" emotions in the same manner as typical folks which essentially has caused me to suffer from sensory overload. Basically, I can't shut down and therefore cannot sleep. I have slept a grand total of approximately 3 hours in the past week and a half. So I'm on an interesting cocktail of medications in an attempt to stave of insanity from sleep deprivation and downers in an attempt to stop the color wash and related cascade failure of sensory inputs. It's an all around good time... I've been having a continuous hella party in my head since the election

Even the boredom of USMB won't help put you to sleep? I had a string of intensive attacks of pnigerophobia 3 years ago. Against doctors advice I set my alarm to wake me every hour during the night to avoid the attacks. I've learned to deal with the pnigerophobia but now I still can't get a good “straight-through” sleep any longer. As I am retired I have plenty of opportunity of making up for lost time during the day but I still never feel really rested. The bottom line is that I have only a small experience of what you must be going through. I am assuming your problem started 3 weeks ago? Your body has to give in sooner or later, yes? I don't know your gender preference and I'm not going to ask. What I can say that is my experience with LGBT is that they can be rather high strung and ready for high drama at the drop of a hat. What does your doctor say about your environment? Drugs are OK but what about life style? And when did you first realize you had synesthesia? Are there any positive effects of it or are they all bad? One thing is for sure …. when you finally get a good sleep it's going to be a beauty!

 

[OldLady]

Fox is waging war against schools. I'd like to know why.

Schools are waging war against the US.

Not for much longer.

Goodbye dept of education and goodbye commie college *educators*. You're about to get fired. You'll have to find real work.

This isn't Turkey. Yet.

 

[EverCurious]

GLASNOST Waaagh questions! Wall-o-text warning - those disinterested feel free to ignore heh

Yea I've been "mostly" retired since I was about 25 and pretty much only work when I get bored (Invested all my earnings from JRHS and HS into computer tech) My metabolism is super-high (like despite having kids, being over 40, never exercising, and loving things like butter, I weigh the same as I was in HS) this also leads to my body being a bit nuts, I have zero circadian rhythm which living in Alaska likely doesn't help (24 daylight in the summer, and like 4-5 hours daylight in the winter extremes) I typically sleep 4-5 hours a day because I drop straight into deep REM - the doctors say it takes my brain 25 seconds to slip in and out (which apparently explains why I physically can't move for about 30 seconds when I first wake up) Anyway, it's not so much insomnia, but the color waves never stop which sets off other "impressions" - so like I get a color wash which sets off a sensation of touch, which sets off a noise, which sets off a sensation, which sets off... so on and so forth. Basically it's an eternal loop that has to be shut down by medication, so yay drugs. Then more drugs because the doctors for some reason think I can "sleep it off" or some stupid thing.

I honestly don't know exactly how long it's been because I'm retired, it's winter, and I have no circadian rhythm. As stupid as this sounds, my husband and kido are kind of responsible for reminding me to go to bed else I'll stay up for weeks (usually writing as I'm a bit of a novelist) they noticed it like a week and a half ago and made me visit my doc. I actually feel just fine, not really tired or anything, but then again the meds have knocked me on my ass a couple times (often times I can survive on a 15minute catnap) I think its just a matter of the sleep medications having to become x concentrated before I pass out -- kind of lame because "its iffy for me to be walking around" the doctor wanted me to be "escorted" to use the bathroom and stuff lol

Anyway, yea I've always had LGBT friends, Bi myself, so I know how... stressed they can get, it's just idk more dire this time around - folks I've been friends with for over a decade unfriending because I'm a Trump supporter... I swear they put something in the water because its not like these folks didn't /know/ I was voting Trump since he announced, in fact we've been going back and forth about him the whole campaign, but idk when he won some of them just snapped. Normally, as I don't really "feel" emotions, it would be little more than a curiosity, but I've actually had to have one of them arrested for making threats, to the point of showing up in my driveway... Which then started a war among the rest of my "minions" - basically I've got a mini-civil war going on. I suppose had I been really paying attention it's been building up for quite a while, but hindsight. In any event, I spend a lot of time individually consoling the 50 or so who are... most directly involved? or perhaps closest to me? something along those lines. (I suppose it might help to explain that I've been fighting for LGBT rights in Alaska for almost 30 years now. There was some idk "residual" tension over my refusal to speak out in support of transgender bathrooms in there as well.)

Honestly, I find it absolutely fascinating. I dabble in psychology with another group of MENSA friends and we've been quite busy discussing the situation and attempting to figure out whats up with them, which rather leads to a lack of desire to miss any of their intriguing drama battles. So my lack of sleep is a compound problem that essentially doesn't bother me so much, but the doc thinks is a big deal. So... drugs.

As I recall I was around idk 7 or 8 when they ultimately figured out my syn, docs up here were a bit behind and I was ADHD so for a while they kind of wrote off a lot of my syn symptoms as being... well insane lol I actually spent time in a padded room because they felt I was "dangerous" as I showed no "empathy toward others feelings" blah blah blah. Its actually kind of an interesting story how it was all figured out. So there is a myth with many Alaska Native tribes:

The ends of the land and sea are bounded by an immense abyss, over which a narrow and dangerous pathway leads to the heavenly regions. The sky is a great dome of hard material arched over the Earth. There is a hole in it through which the spirits pass to the true heavens. Only the spirits of those who have died a voluntary or violent death, and the Raven, have been over this pathway. The spirits who live there light torches to guide the feet of new arrivals. This is the light of the aurora. They can be seen there feasting and playing football with a walrus skull. The whistling crackling noise which sometimes accompanies the aurora is the voices of these spirits trying to communicate with the people of the Earth. They should always be answered in a whispering voice. Youths dance to the aurora. The heavenly spirits are called selamiut, "sky-dwellers," those who live in the sky.

Now I was actually born under an extremely vivid northern lights display and the native woman who delivered me decided I was a selamiut because of the intensity of the display that evening - I was actually the only baby born that night in the entire state - she labeled me a tegganeq (essentially an elder "reborn") apparently because of the way I looked at her. That was actually the first time I appeared on the front page of the paper heh (Note I am not Alaska Native, I am German/Norwegian, but that was apparently beside the point for her.) Anyway, my syn means that I can actually /hear/ the northern lights - they sing when I watch them - of course the Native's, including my doctor, took this as my strong connection to the sky-dwellers (the Selamiut) and considered it "normal" in so much as a "bridge between 'heaven' and earth" would be, and frankly my mother was a flower child who was thrilled with the idea of holistic natural medical stuff, so it wasn't until my childhood "doctor" passed away when I was 6 or so that a more... shall we say "modern" investigation of my "symptoms" was undertaken. My mother remarried when I was 5, Father was a general and thus I came under the charge of military doctors (who promptly discovered my lack of empathy and yada yada yada) and eventually it was "discovered" that I was syn, though I don't exactly recall when that was (as I said 7 or 8 as best I can remember. I actually do not remember a lot of my early childhood before that because I was constantly on various drugs to "keep me from killing anyone" lol) In any event, I then became a bit of a science project in the study of Syn, until HS when I basically told all the doctors to fuck off and leave me alone heh

Anyway, I suppose it depends on how one defines "good and bad." It is certainly interesting. I get reflections or echos for most things, like after I hear a sound I then "feel" it - so I'm musically inclined and enjoy listening to folks talk, by the same token there are folks whom I cannot speak to in public and I'm prone to random shivers ~cough~ there may or may not be a dirty joke here "I'm a very oral person." I touch things and there is a normal sensation, then an after effect of "sound" so I can in a sense "play music through movement" - a walking piano of sorts. By the same token, I can't "sneak" anywhere and it's /constantly/ "noisy" lol Emotions are a more "opaque" takeover, I don't have emotions like anything a "normal" person has, I have colors which I've over my years learned to "translate" into "verbal" emotions so that I can idk "fake" my way through "normal life." On the one hand, I don't get upset or angry or anything and I lack "natural" empathy in a way - my body reflects almost every symptom of "stress" but my brain said "oh it's gold" and that's kind of the end of it, it doesn't kick in "stress" reactions and such. So on the one hand, in emergency situations I don't get excited or panic, on the other hand I don't get that "sense of urgency" or whatever. I'd probably make a good cop if I had empathy, I'd make a good firefighter if I had a "sense of self-preservation," etc. so I'm kind of "limited" but yet also ideally suited for certain positions as well, not that it is particularly relative as I managed to do very well on the market and haven't needed to work at all. It was really hard on my first husband because I'm... cold in a lot of ways (I don't like being touched, I don't have a sense of idk emotional loyalty etc.) we ultimately divorced and honestly I never expected to be remarried after that. It was hard on my first son because he was "sensitive" but it wasn't hard on the other kids who were less "emotionally prone" My second husband, too, is less emotional so that works out well for us. I do have difficulty with "friends" because I lack that "emotional loyalty" thing and a lot of them sometimes feel like science projects because I am prone to prod them, but on the other hand they enjoy yapping my ear off and "trust" my "logical" advice more so than other friends. There's good and bad with everything I suppose.

Part of my... idk "therapy" was writing (and reading as well) the "exercise" was supposed to help me properly relate to "normal emotions" but I rather developed a "habit forming enjoyment" of it over the years. Now I write novels (I'm currently finishing up my third novel in a series that I'll be making into an anime.) This is a line I wrote some ages ago regarding my Syn (and writing), probably my favorite description: I play a soft melody of rainbows in black and white and attempt to gently pull you into my chaos heh

 

[MisterBeale]

Fox is waging war against schools. I'd like to know why.

Schools are waging war against the US.

Not for much longer.

Goodbye dept of education and goodbye commie college *educators*. You're about to get fired. You'll have to find real work.

This isn't Turkey. Yet.

Yet.

 

[MisterBeale]

GLASNOST Yeah I have Ad block plus, it hides the ads but I still can't do quote/reply and i have to use the BB Code Editor version if I want to make a comment at all ~shrug~

Try hitting the reply button instead of the "quote" button to reply with quote to a message, and try using Bluehell instead of Adblock. I found Ad block was not very effective and used up too many system resources.

Added to that, it is super easy to turn on and off.

 

[GLASNOST]

EverCurious
We also have long winter nights and long summer days, but I live further south than I used to. Way up north it's 24 hour darkness in the winter and 24 hour light during the summer. I suffer from sleep apnoea (which is probably what you also have) and I had to give up my driver's licence last year because of it I too drop off to sleep in a second, so says my wife.

These colour waves are an odd thing. I think everyone experiences the similarity between smells and tastes. Would you describe it as a sight-touch-sound correlation in a way the smell-taste thing works? Is it like wearing colour-tinted glasses or is only a sensation of colour without affecting sight? I get the impression that there is some connection with gender crossing. I'm heterosexual and I feel heterosexual. Difficult to explain, isn't it. I imagine if felt like I was (or should be) a woman, I'd experience a sort of confusion, or as most people describe when they first come up north with the day and night differences.

Are your doctors good? Do they give you a handle on the situation and provide you with plausible explanations and the courage to offer your own diagnosis? I've always felt that if a patient gets a good grip on the ailment that he/she can work through it better and find better solutions than doctors. After all, much of any ailment is (or can be) psychologically manipulated. Naturally one needs a very sound basis of understanding first. Do the doctors provide that understanding?

I believe you about the elections affecting you, particularly with your friends spinning it in every direction but the one you've chosen. But I wonder if you are the sort of person who needs external vindication? Does it affect you deeply if your view is not supported by others? Do you suffer terribly if you are unjustly accused of something? Is this maybe the department of your soul that's playing havoc with you, and everything else is being triggered because of it? Wouldn't it be great if you could discover the source! If it were simply a matter of your own self-confidence and your own convictions being “all that matters”.

I lived many years in the U.S. and I know the people there can be judgemental, based more on peer pressure than “truth”, if there is any truth to be had. I've often heard them saying things like “We like Cat Stevens” rather than “I like Cat Stevens”. And then there is the common American expression, “Everybody knows that ….. “. I remember when Donald Rumsfeld went to Germany to whip up support for the illegal invasion of Irak. He told Jascka Fischer “Even an idiot knows Saddam has WMD's!” Fischer wasn't convinced of that so he didn't send German troops to Irak, nor did he endorse the invasion at the UN. Anyway, it's the tactic I've seen over and over again.

You also say that you don't really “feel” emotions and that you don't like being touched. Are you talking about Aspergers? That would certainly explain a lot. There has to be a starting point from which you can work through and progress to an acceptable improvement. Perhaps even beyond that? I know where I'd start (if I were you) but I think that you can guess that already. Moving – Relocation …. not a simple thing for someone suffering autistic-related symptoms, if that's what it is.