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 **** 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
