Character insight, theory of mind

One of the researchers on ASDs I had read said something about social skills, communication, and theory of mind having a swiss-cheese quality for aspies. Here are a couple of exchanges over the last day or so that I think might illustrate this. I post this because it was helpful to me to read accounts like this when I was first trying to figure out what was going on with Rosie's AS diagnosis.

Yesterday, I was reading The Princess Bride to Rosie. It was a section about the character of Prince Humperdinck; how he loved to hunt and kill things, and how he called his sweet, loving stepmother "E.S." for "Evil Stepmother" because the only stepmothers he knew were the evil ones in fairy tales.

"Huh." said Rose about the stepmother. "He sees her through, he calls her E.S. because he can only... he can see her through his..."

"Experience?" I said.

"Yes," said Rosie.

"Wouldn't his experience tell him that she was really nice?" I asked.

"No, no, not experience then, I mean... he only sees her through himself. He judges her by his own evil."

I was a bit speechless.

"What?" she asked. "You have the expression on your face of being surprised because I said something unexpected."

"Well," I said slowly, "that's an... um... unusually sophisticated insight into his character."

She made the noise that ends up being written "Pshaw!" and said "He's just an evil man, that's all. Come on, keep reading!"

For nine, that's a pretty damn complex analysis. So yeah, I was surprised.

Today, though, she had a meltdown in her writing class because she had not understood the teacher's expectations or instructions, and had been unable to realize that she could or should ask for clarification and help. I was massaging her back to relax her while she told me about it. "Can you scratch my shoulder?" she asked. I skritched at it. "Scratch where it itches!" she exclaimed.

I paused. "Rosie," I said.

"Mm?"

"Rosie, how do I know where it itches? How do I know that?"

She turned her face to me, a complete blank of puzzlement.

"Rosie, I don't know where it itches, because I'm not you. I don't know unless you tell me."

"Oh!" she said in a slightly embarassed tone. "Right. I forgot."

Which tells me that while she usually does remember that another person has a different perspective - and usually I see this play out in very insightful ways - it is definitely something that she has to work to remember.

I do recall that Rosie's older sister did not think this way, but I wish I could remember my own thinking at this age. Or read other examples like this of kids both NT and AS.

IEP Redux!

We received a phone call half an hour ago from Rosie's old school - it seems that since we're homeschooling through a county program ("technically" still public school) that the district requires an IEP every year. Wow. It was like my head exploded and flew around the room. My tension level just about hit the 36,000 foot mark, like a thermometer stretched up to clear the Himalayas. After spending the last half hour raging at everything that provides the remotest sense of tension or unpleasantness in my life, I think I've brought myself back down to a hover... oh, say about ten thousand feet maybe.

Gosh, it would be great to take a stack of cream pies to the IEP and pitch one into the face of every district clown that's going to show up.

Got Through the Holidays!

Well! The usual blend for Christmas - stressful, happy, peaceful, contentious. No great miseries and a good amount of fun, so I call it successful. Hopefully I'll find a day to take down the decorations this week!

Today was the kicker, though - I had a panic attack on the freeway, the first one I'd had in a while. I had commuted long distances daily on crowded freeways for several years, a few years ago, and after a while I just could not cope. In my disbelief over this "weakness" I continued commuting until I manifested all kinds of physical and psychological symptoms, and really have not ever gotten over this. I gather that this was just about literally my neuroreceptors burning out from the stress hormones. It took this period in my life to recognize that the tendency to anxiety issues on both sides of my family actually applied to me, too. I've avoided freeway driving since, especially into the city.

But this panic attack today caught me by surprise. I'd driven into the city twice last week as well as yesterday, and I was fine, though it was a little tiring. Today, I started to notice a stressed state of mind before I left - mostly manifesting as anger leaking out onto available issues, but I could tell that it was related to the anticipation of driving. While driving I had a short burst of despair/depression that I was able to connect to the freeway trigger, but it was brief. I was just telling myself a few minutes after that, that because I could observe these things, I should be OK as long as I didn't drive this distance more than two days a week, when the traffic started to slow and close in, and that's when I just completely lost my hat and freaked right the hell out. Wow.

I got home in fits and starts and a long stop in a bookstore. I took a 'nice cup of tea' there because I know that black tea reduces the cortisol levels in the bloodstream. Got home eventually, but was still feeling pretty clenched up (could not swallow!) until I downed that old standby, the .25 mg of xanax. I have extraordinarily conflicted feelings about the xanax. On one hand, it has been a godsend the last couple of years once I got over my initial reluctance to take anything, because I have not found relaxation techniques I have used in the past to be at all effective. It would have helped me through the Bad Commuting period of my life if I had been willing, though it also might have prolonged it. But I hate - hate! HATE! the idea that I go running for a chemical remedy, even in tiny controlled doses. I'm not even sure it's the chemical I object to - because it does stop the cycle of stress damage; in that sense it's not much different than taking a 'nice cup of tea.' (More effective though!) It's the idea that I am, in any sense whatsoever, dependent on a "drug" to control my state of mind. (Though xanax is addictive, I'm not worried about that kind of dependency. I've hoarded forty .5 mg pills over the last year and a half without making much of a dent in them; physical dependency is clearly not a problem I have.) Maybe I'm making too big a deal, but OK, let me just register my opinion on this thing: I don't like it, damn it.