Thursday, February 27, 2014

Aspergers Teens and Social Difficulties

by MARK HUTTEN, 
M.A. - Counseling  Psychologist



The primary aspect of Aspergers that characterizes it as autistic is the problem of human connectedness. The term most commonly used to describe this core weakness of human connection is “reciprocity.” This refers to the teen’s ability to engage other people in a way that makes others feel connected or not. In social conversation with a teen with Aspergers, eye contact is often poor, fleeting, or absent. Aspergers teens may not be able to read subtle gestures and facial changes or to interpret subtleties in language such as irony or sarcasm. They do not read or respond as most people do to small changes in body posture or to gestures. They seem either distant, stiff, or in other ways unconnected. 

Aspergers teens not only seem disconnected, but in some cases uninterested in being in relationships with others. They may generally have very little interest in the feelings, experiences, other human qualities, or possibilities of others and, hence, lack empathy. They do not seem to derive pleasure from engaging others, learning about them, talking with them, or sharing experiences. In the many cases where the symptoms are milder, the teenager may wish to connect with others, but simply does not know how. He may have feelings for others, but can’t seem to mobilize the demonstration of those feelings. 

At first, “neurotypical” (normal) teenagers in common social contexts (such as a school football game) may see peers with Aspergers as shy and retiring, quiet, stiff, or withdrawn. As the uninitiated begin to talk with Aspergers teens, it may appear that they seem to respond robotically. They have a monotonic voice that often comes across as reminiscent of the aforementioned geeks or nerds. The initial impression is that one is dealing with an eccentric. 

Aspergers teens seem to lack warmth to their more socially apt peers. There is a sense that the teen just isn’t there when he is interacting with you. He may not know what to do when someone has finished making a point. He may not know when to stop talking and may seem overly interested in his topic of conversation and not yours, unless you are equally fascinated with his areas of interest. 

All too frequently, however, teens with Aspergers seem not just alien and unconnected, but preoccupied with one or two subjects, which they will talk about endlessly. They may take offense easily over unrelated trifles or become upset when others do not share their enthusiasm for a given area of interest. There is a kind of immaturity or somewhat fixed developmental delay, in which the needs, interests, feelings, perspectives, and thoughts of others just aren’t real or important to them. Intervention in teaching about the lives of others is important here. 

In conversation with an Aspergers teen, you may find yourself doing most of the work in the exchange, asking most of the questions, and waiting for obvious follow-ups that don’t occur. His frequently robotic language and responses seem to suggest that others might as well be inanimate. It is not just a question of only lacking the ability to read social cues. There is an output problem, not knowing how to engage and maintain relationships with others, and most certainly an internal problem, in which social/emotional information is absent, confusing, undeveloped, and/or not valued. He may not have labels for feelings. 

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Does Your Child Suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder?

by CHRISTINE CADENA


YAHOO~ Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), once classified as Multiple Personality Disorder, described the psychological condition in which an individual possesses two or more identities, each uniquely different from the other. While one personality may appear to be dominant, any of the personalities can impose control over the DID sufferer.

What causes Dissociative Identity Disorder to develop? Research has shown that patients who develop DID generally do so in result to a traumatic experience which occurred over a very long and extended period of time. The associated trauma, whether physical or sexual, often results in the sufferer, before developing DID, to experience complications associated with depression and anxiety and may often complain about feeling as if they have left their own physical being.
In children, a diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder can take several years to confirm. For this reason, many children are not promptly diagnosed until they reach adolescence or even early adulthood.
So, how do you know if your child or adolescent is suffering from DID? A common trait among all individuals with Dissociative Identity Disorder is the appearance that they are essentially zoned out or not paying attention. Most often, in children or teenagers, the concept of time is lost. For many, there is confusion over mealtimes and day versus night. The reason for this lies in the ability of the individual to displace themselves from reality, resulting in a loss of hours or days.
For children developing DID, especially in response to trauma, there will be an overwhelming presence of depression and moodiness. This, like most trauma cases, is quite common. But, in addition to depression and moodiness in the child or teenager, parents may also notice the child is frequently losing objects or forgetting important issues. Psychologists believe this may be attributed to the fact that the child, or teenager, is essentially sharing their thoughts with other personality sets, resulting in confusion or memory loss.
As your child begins to verbalize emotions and issues of concern, do you notice he or she may be referring to themselves as a "we" or "us"? If so, this may be a clear sign the child, or teenager, is developing Dissociative Identity Disorder.
As with any psychological condition, especially those in response to traumatic events during childhood, it is important to secure the assistance of a psychiatric professional to ensure the condition is diagnosed and treated properly, and early, into adulthood. Without early intervention, the child may grow into an adult who begins to experience more complicating social issues and, ultimately, deteriorate the DID condition further.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Get Your Teeth Checked

by Paulina Pinsky
photo credit:visualpanic via photopin cc 

Columbia Spectator ~We were driving back from a family dinner at a posh Los Angeles restaurant, the kind whose clientele doesn’t dare to touch the breadbaskets. My mother could not stop blabbing about the owners of her gym, because that’s what you do when your daughter is home from her first year of college: “One time I went to dinner with them and they both ate steak and one order of French fries. But they still look amazing. But they split the fries...” I felt like I couldn’t even hear her. My ability to listen to my mother talk about her gym owners had disappeared when I had hit rock bottom four months prior and had put myself into therapy. Purging eight times in one day to cope with the emotional stress of being home during spring break had finally scared me enough to take action. And here I was again, stuck in a car with her. 
Without even thinking, the words erupted from my mouth.
“Well I’d rather have an over-eating disorder than an under-eating disorder.”
She said, “You don’t mean that,” to which I replied, “Yes I do. I’ve already had an under-eating one.”
Without missing a beat, she responded, “No, you haven’t.”
I paused, but before I knew it, the words were out of my mouth. “Yes, I have. I’ve been throwing up since the seventh grade.”
All of the air was sucked out of the space we both shared. This was not the way I wanted to tell her; this was not what I had planned. I had imagined a triumphant moment that involved eating a whole cake with my hands without breaking eye contact and saying, “YES, I HAVE BEEN A BULIMIC AND ANOREXIC FOR SEVEN YEARS. BUT NOW I AM BETTER. I AM EATING THIS CAKE BECAUSE I WANT IT AND I’M HUNGRY. AND GODDAMN IT TASTES GOOD.” But the words flew out of my mouth before I had a chance to take them back. The following moment was the longest and most painful silence of my life; I felt like my stomach was going to fall out and that I was going to projectile-vomit onto the windshield. After a silence that lasted far too long, she responded.
“Well, get your teeth checked.”
***
Two years later, I can say that for the first time in my entire life I have a functional relationship with my mother. Part of my recovery has been essentially creating a new relationship with her from scratch. Our bond has become stronger as a result of my letting her get to know a more genuine side of me. And as we get closer, I finally understand her reaction to the first time I opened up to her about my relationship with food. She needed me to be perfect, something that neither I nor anyone else can be.
My mother was not the only one demanding perfection from me. I was the pretty blonde girl who was a cheerleader and an ice skater. I got good grades, had a boyfriend, and was thin: I was living the life everyone had always told me I should want for myself. But I was suffering under the weight of “perfection” in a way that even I didn’t completely understand.
And how could I have understood it? My 13-year-long figure skating career fostered my eating disorder, which was normalized by the people around me. Both inside and outside the world of figure skating I was repeatedly praised for my “perfection.” Everyone constantly inquired about my thinness, asking how I did it and how they could emulate it. My hunger didn’t matter, I was told, because it was merely a means to an end. A friend’s mother told me that if I went to bed hungry, I would lose weight. And it was true. I began to realize that people liked me better thin. I had boyfriends who never failed to comment on how “amazing” and “beautiful” I looked; my friends and their mothers asked me what I ate and how I worked out. Thinness became my entire identity. Everyone needed me to be thin and, even worse, I needed myself to be thin.
I’m not the only woman who has suffered, though. Women are supposed to be small. As I watched my football-playing brothers stuff themselves with spaghetti carbonara, steak, and hot fudge sundaes, I would pick at my salad, as my mother did the same. It wasn’t just I who had been affected by society’s demands for my body. It was my mother and her mother before her.
As I started to let go of my mother’s mistakes, she started to let go of the idealized image she held of me. Only one month ago, I went shopping with her and she did not body-shame me by stewing in silent judgment when I needed a bigger size. That shopping trip is engraved as deeply in my mind as the infamous “teeth” moment. We laughed at the sweater that made me look like a butterfly-turned-cat lady. We zipped each other in and zipped each other out. The size of our bodies wasn’t the issue; the fit of the clothing was. In these two years, I’m not the only one who has grown—she has as well.
My grandmother lost all of her teeth when she was 20 years old. My mother has veneers because she didn’t like her smile. And me? I’m obsessive about my teeth. I brush them at least twice every day but, thanks to my genetics, I still get cavities. As with my teeth, when it comes to body image, I can’t expect a change overnight when the problem is not just mine but that of generations before me. Normalizing eating disorders reaches so much further than my nuclear family, where “diet and exercise” is our religion. We live in a society where an ideal of streamlined bodies occupies our every day. I’ve come to realize I can’t subject myself to that anymore. I am meant to have a butt, and “Czechoslovakian-baby-bearing” thighs (inherited from my great-grandmother Marie, according to my mother). That’s not to say that there aren’t women who are naturally thin and fit the ideal; no woman deserves criticism for her body. And no woman—neither I nor anyone else— can reverse generations upon generations of damage. We can, however, make our generation better than the one that came before it.
I am 21 years old and I still have all my teeth. But honestly, I’m a work in progress. Rather than punishing myself for the body I inhabit, I’m starting to care for it. It’s much easier, I’ve found, to like myself the way I am... and to make sure I brush my teeth every day.

Don't Conceal, Please Feel, Let It Show

by MORGAN HEGARTY


Huffington Post ~ If you aren't familiar with the popular hit Disney film, Frozen, not only have you missed out on a cinematic masterpiece, but you have not experienced the negative consequences that come with concealing your feelings.


Earlier this week on my personal blog, I admitted that I have been having a bit of a personality crisis. My usual chirpy demeanor has been overtaken by a bit of a funk, and I am on a quest to bring happy back!
The choice to share my current crisis with others was one I battled with for a bit. While the actual post was only written a day before I published it, the ongoing war between sharing my secret or not was one that I had been having for weeks. And it wasn't until I told myself that it was going to fine showing weakness that I actually put my feelings into words. Now, back to Frozen...
In the film, sisters Elsa and Anna are very close until Elsa's magical ice powers (Yeah, she produces ice from her hands. It's awesome.) causes Anna to be hurt and have magic removed from her brain permanently. Elsa, in an effort to keep her sister safe, is told to "Conceal, don't feel, don't let it show" when it comes to her magical powers, keeping her fears as her powers grew stronger to herself. And it isn't until she runs up to the North Mountain that she is actually able to be free about the things happening to her. Now, back to me...
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