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As more time passes away from the church, the more I do not want to go back.

I did go back, yesterday, and I heard hypocritical preaching.  That made me mad. 

I am tired of the same old stereotypical stuff I am seeing coming out of these so called "Godly" people.  They yell at me and treat me with incredible disrepect, and they think it is okay.  They tell me that since I am "not right with God" (which is their own opinion, because they are not me and have no idea what my relationship with God is.  That is intensely personal...for all of us), my thoughts on a Godly topic mean nothing and they don't want to hear them.  They preach one thing while doing the opposite of what they are preaching.

They get upset at the way the world views Christians, yet at the same time, they are blissfully unaware that they are perpetuating their own stereotype! 

I left Columbus because I was tired of being yelled at and treated like I was nine years old.  Now people who have even less of a right to yell at me are doing it here.

The Buddhist way of life is growing more appealing to me.  I like that it is not so much a religion as it is a "practice", and I like the calmness of the meditation. 

Charismatic Christianity has lost its appeal for me.  It is time to move on.

As I write this, it is night.  Halloween.  I hate this holiday.  I hate it and everything it stands for.  Yet at the same time, I cannot deny the delicious irony of posting what I am about to on Halloween. Somehow, it seems....appropriate.

This will no doubt be the longest blog I have ever written.  I want to recount for you some stories (true stories) of my near decade among the charismatic Christians.  I also want to tell you why I am leaving them, and the church, behind.  

It hasn't all been bad, but I want to start with the bad so I can end on the good.

First, of course, is the rampant hypocrisy.  At times, even this has been a good thing, though.  Sometimes we do things and we are not aware that we are doing them until we see how awful it is when someone else does it.  The hypocrisy of the charismatics has made me a better person.  

But it hasn't always been easy to deal with.  People who claim to be Godly and who behave anyway except.  I understand how very difficult it is to be Godly.  So, except in the extreme cases (and I will get to one later), I am able to overlook it.  We are human.  We make mistakes.  We forgive and move on.  Accepted.

Next is the language and the one trick pony minds some of these people have.  Let us suppose we have attended a church service on a regular Sunday morning, as I was likely to do.  Let us suppose further that the service has just ended.  In making conversation, I might go up to someone and ask them what they have planned for the afternoon.

Oh, I don't know.  I am just going to see what the Lord has planned for me.

This, in itself, may not be bad, but when everything you say has to do with "the Lord", it does get a bit tiresome for those hearing it.  The irony in this is (as I am sure most of you know), the ones who constantly talk about the Lord are the ones who are most likely to be the hypocrites.  (Perhaps this is because they give themselves more opportunity?)

Let's move on to healing.  This is a big one.  The charismatics believe very much in the power of God to miraculously heal.  Some even claim they have seen it. Some even claim they were the ones praying for the healing when they saw it happen.  It is convenient, however, that in most cases (certainly not all cases, but most cases), this healing happened somewhere in the world other than the USA.  How can Joe Average verify such a thing?

I have a friend, Ginger, she had some trauma at birth (there were complications) and as a result of this, she has a touch of the palsy.  She is unable to walk or to even straighten out her legs.  I have watched with burning anticipation as the best of the best have laid hands on her and prayed over her.  Nothing could please me more than to see Ginger walk.  Not only would it be good for her to walk, but it would also be a testimony to all who witnessed her walking.  (I can guarantee you it would make me rethink a few things...)  However, even with all the prayer Ginger has received, even with all the different people who have prayed for her, as many times as they have, Ginger still is not walking.

But to some, this does not matter.  They claim she is healed anyway.  In this I will have to ask them forgiveness, because I certainly do not see any signs of healing in Ginger's legs.  When I see her pick up her mat and walk, I will say, "God has healed her!"  I will shout it from the mountaintops!  Until then, I just have a problem with believing she is healed.

I once had someone pray for me in the Vista Foods parking lot here in Bedford.  He laid his hands on my shoulders and he prayed for healing from the autism and fibro.  It was a very good prayer.  Very heartfelt and sincere.

But...

After he was done praying, he took his hands off of me, opened his eyes and told me I was healed.  I did explain to him at this point that I did not feel any different.  He told me that did not matter.  He had prayed for me and I was healed.  

Excuse me....it does matter.  The whole point in praying for Ginger is so she can walk again.  She ain't walking. The whole point in praying for me is so I don't feel the pain.  I am still feeling it.  If nothing has changed, how can healing have taken place?  The answer, they say, is simple.   The reason Ginger and I have not noticed it yet, is....(wait for it....wait for it...) it will happen in the Lord's timing!

If I am so bold as to ask when that timing will be, I am told it is up to the Lord Himself, and that it may not happen until I get to Heaven.

Seems to me if I am in Heaven, the healing would have taken place anyway at that point, whether I was prayed for or not!  Or do they mean to say there is indeed pain in Heaven?  Because that is not what my Bible says!  

But wait, there is more!  The Lord's timing may not be the only reason one is not healed.  The other reason is because the person being prayed for lacks the faith to be healed.  In other words, someone prays for me, nothing happens, and guess what it is my own fault!  ARGH!!!

Recently we had someone in India who was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  Things looked very bad for him, indeed!  But a group of "Liberating Partners" prayed for him and he kept them informed by e-mail.  Since I am on the list, I received the updates.  Of course I watched this one with baited breath.  He has the respect of so many people around here (including myself) as a man of God, and I wanted to see how this one turned out.

He was healed.

No trace of cancer left.  He was, however, in the hospital for a prolonged period of time, so one has to ask whether or not it was the prayer or the radiation and chemo that healed him.  I truly wish I knew!

I am not going to sit here and say God doesn't heal. Certainly there have been scientific studies on the effectiveness of prayer, and I am aware of them.  I am also aware of cases where people have indeed healed overnight from incurable conditions.  The fact that God (or something) heals is not in dispute here.

What I am disputing is the claim made by many charismatics that prayer guarantees healing.  Is it Ginger's fault she is not walking?  Do they think she enjoys crawling all over the floor?  HELLO?  Some people need to get a clue.  

I have read many books on healing.  I have read many articles (and even written one or two) on healing.  The only book that I have read on healing that makes any sense to me at all is this one.  If you are interested in a sensible look at spiritual healing, this is the book to read.  

I don't mind people praying for me.  But I don't like them insisting immediately after that I am healed.  I also don't like them blaming me personally if I am not!  

During my time with the church, many of the members experienced computer problems.  I know my way around computers and I fixed more of them than I can count.  I did this for the congregation because we were family.  I asked for nothing in return, and most times that is what I received.  But still I was willing and happy to do it for them.

For a time, I also ran the sound board.  All those buttons and knobs and sliders and switches were just one big delightful toy to play with.  And I played with it well.  I have been called the best sound person the church has ever had.  I do think there may have been one better than me, but Carrie has been gone for some time now.

I edited the church newsletter for a while, and you can see those issues by clicking here.

So what happened?  

What happened was someone who thought he knew more about running sound than I did started stepping on my toes.  He was an elder, and what he says goes, whether it is right or not.  And it wasn't.

I went to the leadership of the house about this, they agreed with me, and they said they would talk to him. But still it continued.

I went to the leadership again and explained the problem was still happening.  They told me they would fix it.  

They didn't.

Over and over and over again this occurred.

Now, at this point in the story I have to confess my own transgressions.  But please understand that before this happened, I had gone through the proper and appropriate channels time and time and time and time again.  I was told I was right, I was told the problem would be resolved, and I was lied to each of the many times I was told.

Sooooo...myself and the other person in the sound booth got to be a bit frustrated.  Certainly you can see how this would happen under such circumstances. Since we were not getting any relief from our frustrations from the leadership of the church (despite being told over and over that we would), we decided to relieve our frustrations ourselves.  What we ended up doing was writing e-mails to each other that were....shall we say...unflattering toward the individual in question.

In retrospect, I see now that what we did was wrong.  Just because the leadership was behaving inappropriately did not give me personally any excuse or right to do so.  I regret my actions, I feel remorse over them, and the next time I see this person, I intend to apologize profusely for those actions.

The leadership discovered what Doug and I were doing. Well, when that happened we were ripped seven ways from Sunday and the elders decided to call a special meeting to discuss the issues.  I was okay with this because I wanted this resolved.  I was willing to admit my error and to move on.

But that is not what happened at this meeting.

There were five elders at this meeting.  Along with Doug and myself, and the worship leader, who was also having problems with said individual.

The pastor wanted to open with prayer, as to be expected.  No problem.  But after the prayer, one of the five elders began yelling.  I mean this in the literal sense.  He raised his voice and he yelled at us.  If any of you reading this can point me to the verse in the Bible that says it is appropriate or even that it is okay for an elder of the church to raise his voice to members of the congregation, I would be much obliged.

What is worse, the yelling continued.  Doug and I spoke only in a normal tone of voice during the entire meeting, a fact that I will always and forever be proud of.  He and I admitted we were wrong, and we tried to explain our frustrations.  We were told (again, by yelling) that the person we were frustrated at was a an elder, a "mighty man of God" and we were basically told (by way of yelling) that he was quite incapable of ever doing anything wrong, and how dare we say he could have made a mistake!

The entire meeting (and I do mean the entire meeting!) we were both yelled at.  Doug and I went in there willing to discuss the issues (even the ones where we were at fault) like mature and responsible grown men. But before we had a chance to do this, one of the elders yelled at us, and the other four just sat there and let him do it.

If that elder thinks we heard a damn word he said,  he is in for a disappointment.  He was so loud that we couldn't hear him!  The only thing that happened at that meeting was Doug and I losing our respect for five men.  It is gone.  Completely, totally, utterly gone.  I deeply respected all five of them.  Now I no longer do.  

It is interesting to note here that I have heard back from one of the five elders.  He has expressed his regrets to me and says that meeting should have gone differently than it did.  That is one out of five.  The other four (including the one that yelled) have yet to say anything to me about it.  They have shown me no remorse whatsoever.  They seem to feel the behavior of the elders during that meeting was completely appropriate.  Now you tell me who in their right mind would go back to a church who did that to them? 

No one!

The elders lied to me, then they tried to make it look like it was my fault they did and they did this by raising their voice in an incredibly disrespectful way.  Yes, what I did was also disrespectful, but unlike four of the five elders, I am at least aware that it was disrespectful, and I deeply regret having done it!

The elders, on the other hand, could give a rat's ass.

(Do I sound angry?  I wonder why. ...?)  

And so begins the blog of a spiritual journey.

I have left the church behind.  I no longer want anything to do with it.  I am not renouncing Christianity.  I did consider this, but the bottom line here is that just because God's representatives are idiots, that does not make God Himself an idiot.  If indeed I stand before Him at some point, as the Bible says, it will be a heart repentant over my part in this incident.  I would not want to be one of the four remaining unrepentant elders.  Because they were representing Him, and you do not do justice to the Lord by screaming in anger at others.  

Having said that, I am instead doing something I believe God would approve of.  I am asking questions. Or, to be more specific, I am asking one question.

What is Spiritual truth? (And where can I  find it?)

Many of the charismatics think they know.  Jesus, after all, is the way, the truth, and the life.  And no one can come to the Father but through Him.

They may be convinced of that, but I ain't.  Not anymore.  If it is the truth, I will come back to it. Because my search itself will be truthful and honest.  I do know of two people personally who set out to disprove God.  In the process they only ended up proving it to themselves and becoming Christians.  I am hopeful, in some ways, the same will happen to me.  

But even if it does, I will not be one of the judgmental charismatics who think they are so much more special than the rest of us.  I will not be another Aunt Esther, walking around with a Bible under my arm, telling people they are going to hell.  Regardless of my own spiritual beliefs, I have respect for the beliefs of others.  I feel there is room for many religions in this world.  I am not going to try to sort it all out by forking over tracts on a street corner.  At the end of the day, God, if in fact there is a God, will do that Himself.  This is as it should be.

My time with the charismatics has changed me.  I am sure in many ways of which I am not even aware.  But I am aware of some of them.  For instance, I am able to spot one now with absolute certainty.  When I see someone walking down the street, or even being interviewed on the news, I know if they are Charismatic or not.  

Another thing it has done is convinced me, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that there is indeed a spiritual world beyond our own.  I may not have been witness to any miraculous healings, but over the past nine years I have had a few wild rides of a spiritual nature that has made it clear to me there is more going on with us than meets the eye.

The time has come for me to get to know Thomas better and to know what he believes.  That is what this blog is about.  The wondrous journey into the inner realm of self.

Stay tuned...

In doing a bit of research into the Todd Bentley affair (which I am the first to admit is none of my business, but read on), I have come to see that I am seriously questioning the spiritual beliefs I have had for the past eight years.

During this time, I was with Lion of Judah Ministries, here in Bedford, VA. They are literally right across the street from me, which is one reason I moved to this new location.

Lion of Judah was unlike any place I had ever been before. This was the kindest and closest knit community I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of. For the first time in all of my forty some years, I had found a place where I felt safe.

But all good things must come to an end. And it wasn't that long ago that politics reared its ugly head and literally destroyed something incredibly beautiful.

And in the process, I was personally deeply hurt due to the unwilling part I had in the fall of Lion of Judah. Though I would like to go into detail regarding exactly what happened, and how (including a written confession of my part in it), I cannot do this as it would break a promise to a friend. This I am not willing to do.

Bentley was head of the Lakeland, Florida revival. Lion of Judah was somewhat involved in this revival (though I personally was not. I was invited to Florida but I turned it down. Looking back on it now, I feel...?), which is why I was investigating it. These "evangelical nutcases" I have loved hanging out with have taught me a fundamental and charismatic view of Christianity.

Yet what happened with Bentley, not to mention what happened with Lion of Judah, blows everything they have taught me all to hell. Looking at this from a charismatic point of view, how is it possible that so many people could be flocking to his church if he is involved in an affair? Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, yet this is exactly what he was doing. And, somehow in the midst of this, God was rewarding him as He has rewarded few others!

How can this be?

Meanwhile, closer to home, I was one of two people who took the fall for five leaders who were unwilling to do so. My part in the fall of Lion of Judah was minor compared to others, but, unlike others, I am very much aware that what I did was wrong. Unlike others, I have deep remorse over my part in the church crumbling. Taking the fall was not something I wanted to do, it was not something that was planned, but because of the position I held in the church at the time, I was handy. They used that. This isn't to say that I am completely blameless, but it is to say that others who did far more wrong than I did walked away scott free. If there was blame to be placed (and there was), they should have placed it correctly and they did not. They placed it on me instead. All of it.

"They took the load off Fanny, and they put the load right on me..."

More than once through the years, the pastor has spoken of people who had left their churches because the leadership of the church hurt them. Now I have a very clear understanding of why they left.

One thing the church taught me is how we need to depend on God because depending on anyone else is setting yourself up. People are fallible. God is not. Even God's people make mistakes. Todd Bentley is a case in point.

Yet it is so difficult sometimes to separate the two. It seems to me that God chose, for whatever reason, to be reflected in His people. In my life and in my many travels, I have run into many, many people who claim to be Christian, who claim to be Godly.

Yet so very, very few of them actually are. It wasn't until the mid eighties that I finally found someone who truly lived righteously. The princess forever changed the way I looked at God and Christianity. Up till then I hated Him. I hated Him because I had been hurt so many times. I had been locked away, rejected, scorned. Everyone who told me they were a Christian turned around and hurt me. Yet here, finally, was someone who loved as Christ Himself loved. Completely, totally, and unconditionally.

Back in Columbus, I searched for a place where they were all like her. I was unable to find it. But I found it here in the Blue Ridge Mountains. For eight years this place was literally a paradise.

Now I am not sure what it is.

Those eight years were valid, I am sure of it. The leadership was mature and Godly and did right by the congregation as precious few other churches ever did or ever will. But something changed. I have an idea what, but unless I am told (fat chance), I will never be completely sure.

Whatever it was, it slowly crept into the church. It took many months, but eventually Jericho fell.

Just earlier today I was alone in the church, something I have not been for a while. I used to feel as if the walls themselves were hugging me when I was there, yet today I felt it was just another building.

I have been reading various books on meditation and spirituality. Not Christian specific spirituality. I can't bring myself to read anything like that anymore. I am thankful that one does not need to be "born again" to be spiritual. I do believe there is a "spirit realm" beyond our own somewhere. I think maybe I have had some oddball experiences with it. But I don't know anymore if I believe in angels and demons, God and the devil.

When I was at the church earlier today, I had the thought that maybe I should set the spirituality books aside for a time and read up on forgiveness.

If I am to find the answers I seek, I think maybe I will need to start there.

I saw there was an upgrade to the blog software and it crashed the blog. I was using a custom skin (which I miss, I really don't like this one at all) and I had to fix that. And here we are.

I have a few things to write about, and I will get to those. Just wanted you all to know I haven't gone anywhere.

Hi, Mom. I love yew. :)

I have written a few more articles for publication in the Autism Expert Report. See below:

When Applied to Behavior: A brief commentary on ABA.

Who Was That Masked Man? What do Autism and Superheroes have in common?

I'm Dreaming of a Quiet Christmas: Some ideas to make Christmas easier for your child.

If you are not subscribed to the report, you can still read these articles at my autism support site by clicking the link below:

http://www.neurointegrity.com

I was recently invited to be a contributing author for the new monthly magazine, the Autism Expert Report. I had no idea that anyone anywhere still considered me an expert in the field of autism.

So far I have submitted two articles and I have a third due on the 18th of this month. The two topics I really want to tackle are the Neurodiversity movement and also the self diagnosed. You sure can believe I have things a-plenty to say about both!

But those will have to wait until the magazine gets a following.

In the meantime I have written about my own introduction to autism and also an article on leprosy and the pain of autism.

I'll post the topics of other articles as they are written.

Today I graduated from the Partners class. It was a lot of pomp and circumstance and I really was not that comfortable with it.

We lined up in two lines and they played the graduation music as we filed into the room. Guests and family members clapped and applauded as we filed in to sit on specific chairs that had our names on them. (Somehow it seemed somewhat disprespectful to my own self to sit down on my own name...)

So then they called us up, one by one, and gave us the certificate and then we had to move to the side of the room to be "pinned." I guess you are not an official Partner until you are pinned. That's okay, I like the pin. :)

Then after they called everyone and we had all been pinned, there was a standing ovation. Then, thankfully, the pomp and circumstance was over and it was time to have a little fun. We had a little reception after the ceremony.

So now I am a "Partner"...

There were thirty people at the beginning, only 21 graduated.

Part of me is glad it is over. Part of me is going to miss the classes and the learning.

It was a good experience. :)

Where to begin? *Blink*

It is no secret that I am blessed beyond measure with something most people do not have, which is: FREE TIME. I have been wanting to put that to good use for a while now.

Sooo....

As some of you may know, I have recently been doing research (as in: lots of research, as in: many hours a day research) into the areas of brainwave entrainment and guided imagery. Separate, I believe they would both be a good therapy for autism. However, if there was a way to combine them together (which our current 21st century technology nicely provides, and at a minimal cost!), it could possibly be even better.

One of the many things I have read is that one half hour of your brain in the “theta” state (3 to 8 hz) can be equal to four hours of sleep. Thus, theoretically, if you could place your brain in that state for one half hour or more, then you would need up to four hours less sleep a night.

You would literally have what everyone says they need, which is “more hours in the day.”

So last night, I decided to give this a try. The results were far from what I expected.

A couple of years ago, I purchased a Proteus. Of course right after I got it, I started writing programs for it, one of which is available on my site in the download section. (For those worried, the program has been tested. It is safe to use, and even effective.) But at the end of the day, I found the programming language to be very weak and bare bones. There were things I wanted to do with the Proteus that just didn’t seem possible. I was discouraged by this and set the Proteus aside for a while.

Recently while cleaning house, I came upon it again and began to wonder if there was something out there that would do what I wanted. I searched the net and found this programming language ... which is Proteus compatible.

Despite the high price, I immediately purchased it and started playing around. This came with several program samples that had been testing using an EEG, and a few of those programs put you into Theta for a while.

The downside to using this is you need to interface a CD player directly into the Proteus. This is awkward and cumbersome at best, and means there are three wires to get tangled up, and believe me, they do get tangled!

The upside is this program does everything I want, and so much more, and the possibilities are pretty much endless. Even better, the Proteus is just an option. All you really need is a regular CD player for these programs to work.

So I found a 50 minute program that was Deep Theta, and I hooked everything up, started the program, and relaxed to let it to its thing.

What I didn’t know (and this was purely a matter of inexperience, I am sure) was the PoS $12.00 Wal-Mart brand CD player was not able to keep up with the complex programming embedded on the CD. I had to stop the program before it was finished, 36 minutes into the 50 minute program.

This left my brain in a state of complete disarray. It was like part of it was lagging two or three steps behind. Every time I moved or had a thought, I had to wait while a part of my brain caught up to the other part and the rest of me.

I was in a situation where I was literally out of sync with my own self!

I am now convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that brainwave entrainment is absolutely real, and possibly just a tad dangerous if you don't know what you are doing.

First rule of entrainment: If you start a program, be sure you can see it it through to the bitter end!

The more I research, the more I experiment, the more I learn, the more I do know what I am doing. Practice makes perfect!

When I woke up this morning (and a heck of a time I had getting to sleep!), the problem was still there, though it wasn’t quite as bad. I reasoned that if I wanted to be “back to normal” again (or normal for me, anyway), I was going to have to run the program again, and this time see it through to the end.

Since I had to go to Wal-Mart anyway, I purchased a higher end Sony Walkman CD player while I was there. The first thing I did when I got home was put some batteries in it and wire it up to the Proteus.

This time there were no problems.

When it was over, my head was back to normal. And I felt like I had just woken up, even though I was never asleep! It remains to be seen if I sleep less tonight.

Meanwhile I have been reading some amazing stories related to guided imagery. I had no idea this concept actually had some science behind it. People are being healed of cancer and chronic pain, just by the power of their own mind. (It was the chronic pain aspect that got me interested in this. I am forever searching for a way to deal with my own constant pain. And, being ever the advocate, the autism side is never far from my mind...)

So naturally I got to wondering; what would happen if we made a CD that first placed the brain into the “alpha” state (say … around 14 hz?) then gently brought the volume down on that entrainment to where you could still hear it, but just barely, then over top of this, read a guided imagery script, followed at the end by gently ramping the volume up on the entrainment, taking it to the appropriate place in line with the imagery?

That’s powerful stuff. I don’t think it has ever been done before.

It seems too obvious for no one to have done it by now. I am afraid that I will find some reason why it won’t work and then my bubble will be burst.

Bummer.

But so far I am enjoying the journey and if nothing else, I am getting quite the education.

I have some ideas guided imagery wise for autism therapy I would like to explore. Hopefully I will be able to find people to test some scripts for me along these lines.

By the way...something I have noticed that I find very interesting...

True and clinical guided imagery falls exactly in line with Biblical Scripture. :)

Anyone who may be interested in these technologies, separate or combined, is welcome to join my personal online autism support group, Neurointegrity. This is where I will be doing and posting most of my work with both guided imagery and brainwave entrainment.

More on this later…

When I was on my way home to Columbus for Christmas recently, I brought along some of JoAnn McFatter's CDs that she sent me. I had been feeling a bit guilty that I had not heard them all and what better opportunity to listen than when I am driving for eight hours?

So one that I listened to was Cloud by Day. Here I heard my new favorite JoAnn song. Track 8, Take Me Away. I talked to JoAnn about it later and she told me it was spontaneous. Prophetic worship. One only need hear the transition from track 8 to track 9 to know this is true. ("Surround me......Like a marshmallow.......")

I have a great admiration for my friend JoAnn because she works without a net.

When I wrote Soon Will Come the Light, I was working the same way. I just sat down and wrote. I didn't think, I didn't outline, I had no idea where the book was going or where it would end.

I wrote for the sake of the writing.

I sang for the sake of the song.

It worked.

But then the book was published and all at once I am professional writer. I felt like I had to write like a professional writer. So one thing I did was to start using Storyview 2.0, which gave me a net.

The problem is now that I have a net, I can't write.

This is evident to anyone who's read Light on the Horizon, which was written with an outline.

I have had an idea for a book for a couple of years now that I have been wanting to write. I have tried and tried and tried again to outline it, but it isn't working. I can see the plot in my head, I know how it evolves, but when I try to outline it, I get nowhere.

Yet this is what professional writers do. They outline before they write. But it isn't working for me.

So I am going back to writing to writing without a net.

Stay tuned...

I still have not gone through all the records (there are a lot of them), but still a few things have become very clear to me, the main thing (so far) being the fact that my parents had absolutely nothing to do with how long I was in the hospital.

That was entirely my fault and my responsibility.

Up until recently I had thought that it was something they would have to live with. But now I see that it is something *I* will have to live with.

My mother told me once that she does not recall the hospital ever saying they thought it would be a three week stay. I very clearly remember hearing that...somewhere?

Looking over these records, it seems as though that would have been correct. I get the feeling, reading these, that maybe that was what they had planned, but I was there for so much longer because I was not exactly cooperating with them.

What I see first and foremost in those records is someone who had some serious trust issues. However obvious this was (or wasn't) to the staff, they never really addressed it. Not that I can remember, anyway. They seemed more content to let me ride and wait it out.

It was a looooooooooonnnnnnnnng wait. :(

Another thing that got my attention was my parents account of my history. There is a year and a half between my two older brothers, and a year and a half between myself and my younger sister. Yet there is a longer space between the two sets of children.

I have always wondered about that?

Now I know. :(

There was an "incident" between the births of the second and third child. I can't say anymore than that because I do (of course) need to protect my mother, unless she decides to post a comment about what that incident was.

But it does leave me with one question...

How long after said incident was I conceived, and is it possible that it had something to do with me turning out the way that I did?

Statistics say it should have been Charlie (or even Jim) who had the autism, not me. That doesn't mean it wouldn't have been me anyway, but still I have to wonder?

In the past I have accused my mother of not wanting me. Now I can't do that anymore because I was, to quote the records, "the most wanted of all."

It would take a lot to convince me this is true, but what I have read is pretty doggone good evidence in her favor.

Sorry, Mom.

By the way, Mother (I know you are reading this), in the spirit of fixing this broken relationship, I offer you these records. You and Dad are both welcome to read them. If you would like to see them, let me know and I will send them to you.

If you think you don't need to read them because you already know what they say, you are definitely wrong about that. There are quite a few surprises in them. Some of them are even good surprises.

You'll need a magnifier to read some of them....so have that handy.

Now I have to forgive myself for creating a situation where I had to stay for so long.

I just wish I knew how to do that...?

The good news for my parents is if they were feeling guilty about that, they don't need to anymore. They had nothing to do with how long I was there.

So they can let that go. :)

Since almost the day I moved here to Bedford, my friend Vicki has been after me to "forgive my parents for what they did to me" all those years ago. The "what they did" is an open book (literally), but it wasn't until two years ago on a trip home to Columbus that I realized maybe Vicki was right, and that I haven't yet forgiven them. I thought I had? But maybe not?

I realized, as I was driving home to Bedford after saying a few words at the Brigadier's funeral, that in order for me to truly forgive my parents, I had to know what really happened, what really went on during those three years.

But as the hospital had long since closed down, I figured all records of that time had long since been destroyed.

One day I called anyway, just to find out, and I was told the records were indeed still intact, and that if I wanted them (all 393 pages), all I would have to do to get them would be to shell out exactly $648.26 in processing fees.

It had to be the hardest and toughest decision I have ever made in all of my 42 years.

After actually paying them that much money, and waiting....waiting....waiting, finally my old hospital records came in the mail today.

So far I have looked only at the final year, the year in the day program. There are three easily seen recurring themes:

1. An autistic child who constantly sabotaged any and all efforts to help him, because at the time he wasn't able to trust anyone.

2. Parents who had no clue and a mother who had more than a few issues of her own that needed to be worked out.

3. A team of professionals who clearly did not know what to do to help this family that desperately needed help.

It never occurred to me that some of what was (and no doubt still is) going on in my family was/is due to my mother's relationship with her own mother, as well as my parents dealing with the emotional aftermath of a separate prodigal son. (I get the feeling as I read these records that the staff were never able to quite figure out what that last one was all about...?)

As I read about that person I was twenty some years ago, it was so clear to me what was going on in my head at the time. I don't know if that clarity came by reading the records or if it came by memory of those days, or a combination of both? In all of that final year, there was only one indication, even just one sentence, that gave any indication at all that any of the staff understood me at the time. And certainly, even if they did, they did not at any time give me what it was equally obvious I needed.

Within a few months after I was discharged (apparently for violating a probation, though I do not recall that being the case?), a single girl was able to do more for me in twelve weeks than all these "professionals" were able to do in three years.

The difference between them was Gwendolyn worked her butt off to prove to me I could trust her. No one in the hospital thought that was important enough to do.

Still, I did enjoy reading their thoughts on my relationships with Sharon and Mandy (not to mention the sheer tragedy of Mary Ellen, but we won't go there. Read the book if you are curious). I read about how they couldn't figure out why I was so interested in the comic book super heroes, and I wondered as I read that why they couldn't understand that I was so into that was simply because I could relate to wearing a mask.

But the most interesting parts of those records for me by far were the pages (and many there were, too!) of documents of my parents private therapy sessions. This is obviously information I was never meant to have and things were said and done that I was obviously never meant to know about, though I am not sure it matters almost thirty years after the fact.

As for whether these pages were worth what I paid for them, I would have to say, even though I haven't read even half of them yet, that they are very much worth it because I understand my mother so much better now than I did even a few hours ago.

It was like someone handed me forbidden knowledge. Everything my mother did not (and does not) want me to know about her was there in black and white. I am feeling like maybe I actually know who she is.

I can say the same now also about my father, though to a somewhat lesser degree. There were precious few surprises about him, but it was fun to locate what little there was, scattered about here and there for me to find.

The remaining pages will be much more difficult to read. They have faded with time and they are written in some very bad handwriting. I don't know if I will ever be able to decipher them. I hope I can, though, because I sure did pay enough to get these... And of course I am dying to know they say?

The records written by the psychologist are separate, and I will have to order those later, if I ever do at all. What I have now are records from the staff and social workers.

Some of you may have noticed I set up a section in the gallery for these documents. I don't know if I can post them without revealing stuff about myself and my parents that is best left private.

Maybe I can type in a few quotes here and there in this blog for your amusement and education.

More on this later...

My father has not been doing well. :( Neither has my friend, the Brigadier's wife. So I was thinking about maybe making a surprise trip to Columbus. I wanted to walk into the house on Christmas and surprise my folks. That was the plan, anyway. But as we all know, the best laid plans of mice and men...

So first I had to find a car.

Mine seems to have died of old age after 227,000 miles. That's okay because as I have told people, 227,000 is a good run for a car.

But it left me without a way to get to Ohio. So I made an announcement at the church, asking for a car to take to Columbus. They did come through for me this time.

Thank you, Glen and Yaura.

So now I had a 1995 Mercury Sable to drive to Columbus. I was about half way there, in Kenova, WV, when I went to unlock the door and the key snapped in half right in the lock!

That was the end of the trip. :(

I had no key to get into the car, much less to start it. To make matters worse, I was pretty much stranded a few hundred miles from home in either direction.

Never have I felt so screwed!

I spent over eight hours at that gasoline place trying to figure what to do? I had to pay someone $70.00 to tow my car for about 30 feet on Christmas Eve.

NOT fun.

I was eventually rescued by some friends in Columbus who braved the elements on Christmas Eve to come and fetch me and bring me back to Ohio. While I certainly appreciate the sacrifice (thanks, guys), that also left me without a car, and here I was responsible for another guy's car, and I had to leave it in WV and I had no idea what would happen?

Oh, cruel fate! How you mock me!

Meanwhile, I had been talking to Jennifer. For 17 years I had known this cute girl and had no idea how she felt about me? What took her so damn long to say anything?

She says it is because I am the guy and I am supposed to make the first move. Probably right, but she was so cute that I thought she would want nothing to do with me.

Tired of waiting, she finally said something.

So now I had a third reason to go to Columbus.

I did two of the things I wanted to do. I saw the Brigadier's wife and I surprised my parents on Christmas. I even gave my dad a nice Christmas present.

That only leaves Jennifer, who is currently sitting to my left and watching me write this. So of course I have to be careful what I say. :)

(Insert her laugh here...)

An extra key was overnighted to me and I received it Thursday, two days after Christmas. So Jenn's incredibly oddball family, in two cars (???), took me back to WV to retrieve the vehicle, which, in a wondrous Christmas miracle, seems none the worse for wear.

(Right about now my mother must be cringing at that run on sentence.)

Now that Christmas is over, it is time to explore a relationship, something I have not had much good fortune with in my life as the three rings given back to me will attest to. I still have all of them. Each one is different and each one is beautiful, both of those things are just like the girls who wore them for a time.

I wasn't sure what to think or how I would feel after 17 years but doggone it, I think I like her.

She is still very pretty.

(Insert her "Thank you. You're so sweet" here...)

So far, we have made truffles, and snuggled, and shopped, and snuggled and did I by chance forget to mention that we snuggled?

She is an expert truffleswoman.

And, if I may say so, not a bad snuggler.

She works doing customer service for a mail order pharmacy. I have to feel bad for her, in a way, because of her long commute to work. She works a whoppin' three feet from her bed. The gas prices must be horrendous for her with all that driving to get to work and back.

She has talked about moving to Bedford to be with me, which would definitely convince me she is serious. Of course, if she is able to bring her job with her (a possibility), she may even be the highest paid person in Bedford.

And the best part is she will be my Jennifer. :)

This has been a Christmas to remember.

This experiment is suspended until further notice.

Due to unforeseen bloody side effects.

As some of you know, I have been deeply researching TENS and Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation for a few years now. Yes, I admit it is a bit of an obsession with me, I am quite fascinated by the idea of using electricity to manage pain.

Sometime last year I had the idea to try this out on my unruly bladder. As it is with many with autism, I find urination to be most painful. And there really isn't much you can do about it. I mean, it isn't like you can just not pee.

I've tried that. Just ask my mother.

But I have always been a bit nervous of feeding electrical current into the bladder. I know others have done this, some even with success, but to my knowledge no one with autism has ever tried.

And so it is that I document this experiment because it may prove beneficial to someone (or many someones) down the road.

The problem I had with this was the possibility that the current might contract the bladder. I won't go into measured capacity here in public, let's just say I did fear there was a chance for quite a mess to happen at any time, at any place. So I kind of stayed away from it.

Meanwhile I continued to explore the use of TENS for autistic sensory integration dysfunction and also for fibromyalgia. Results of this are for another blog or if you are interested you can email me.

Last week there was an incident, which again I won't go into out here in public, that changed my mind and made me decide it was time to give this a try. And I figured it would probably be okay as long as I stayed home in case anything happened.

So I started doing my research. I looked at programming parameters, asymmetrical bi-phasic wave forms, I read up on the bladder, and tried to find the programming that would best suit the job.

(See, TENS works by creating a "gate" to control pain. A very mild electrical current goes between two electrodes (attached to the skin) and the pain signals between those two points are blocked. They stop at the point of the current. So you are still in pain, you just are not aware of it because the pain signals, though they are still there, are not reaching the brain. They are "gated." This is why TENS is often referred to as "a non-drug alternative to pain management". TENS is legally available only by prescription here in the States. We are the only place in the entire world where this is true. All other countries you can go to a pharmacy and buy one off the shelf. One reason for the prescription here may be in the programming. Programming a TENS is both very easy and very difficult. You must know what you are doing or you could do some damage. Fortunately after a few years of playing with these, I do know what I am doing. I asked the doctor for one and he did not feel my pain was bad enough. So I got mine, all four of them, by cheating.)

The challenge here was to block the pain signals while allowing the two other signals to get through. In other words, for this to work, the signal that you need to go needs to reach the brain, and the signal to actually go itself needs to reach the bladder.

For most people, this wouldn't be a problem. But as sensitive as people with autism are, it might be.

What I came up with was to use a particular TENS, this one being the TENS 6000. What I did (very dry technical information to follow) was use the MRW (Modulated Rate/Width) mode. This modulates between the programmed Rate and the programmed Width every 0.5 seconds, going between 50 and 100 percent alternating of the Rate and Width. I programmed the Rate at 80 and the Width at 60. I took the two electrodes (pads) from channel one and placed them on each side just above the hairline. (No, don't bother to try to picture it...) Channel two I put on each side of the spine on the lower back.

I put the pads on around 6:00pm or so and drank around 32oz of water. By 8:30pm I still had absolutely no urge at all to go. I began to wonder if maybe I had made a mistake in the programming?

So I went into the bathroom and turned off the TENS and tried to go.

Nothing.

Maybe I was dehydrated? I turned the TENS back on and left the bathroom.

At 9:00pm I started drinking another 32oz of water. Even this alone would be my complete eight glasses of water for the day.

By 9:30pm I had all 64oz of water and still no urge to go.

10:30pm I finally felt a small urge to go and I went into the bathroom but needed to turn the gadget off before I was able to actually urinate. The good news is it didn't hurt at all as much as usual.

So I'd say it was both a success and a failure. I may just need to tweak the settings or place the pads somewhere else. I'll work on that tomorrow. I'd like to be able to do this without turning the TENS on and off. I also want a better response from the bladder when it is time to go.

Keep in mind that all of this still doesn't mean this experiment will work. Using a TENS is awkward even in the best of circumstances. Placing the pads where they are is even more so. So even if this works, it still may not be a solution to the problem.

Also it is necessary to understand that just because I find parameters that work for me, that doesn't necessarily mean they will work for someone else.

Thus ends my first day.

(NOTE: By request, I must make mention that the Donna mentioned in the blog below is NOT my friend Donna who I met long ago and is a very good advocate for people with autism. This is a different Donna.)

----------------------------

I was just recently BANNED from the forums on the IC-Network. This is all due to a misunderstanding on the part of the moderator. I am writing this because I am innocent of what she accuses me of. I feel I have a right to tell my side of the story and I am doing so.

Apparently there is a rule that no advertising is allowed in the forums. This is okay with me, I understand it. But they are taking the rule to an almost autistic extreme by banning me.

I put a link to my site in my signature. It was decided this was advertising. I disagree. They said (Well, SHE said) that since the site sold the book, I was advertising and I was in violation of policy.

What she doesn't seem to understand is that the book sales are just one very small part of the site. The site, contrary to what she believes, is not about book sales. It is a site about Thomas. The site is www.thomasamckean.com, it is NOT www.soonwillcomethelight.com but she doesn't see this. I did stop and think about which domain I wanted before I registered it. I decided to go with www.thomasamckean.com because there is more to me than a book I happened to write.

When I went into that forum, I had no intention of trying to get people to buy the book. I do wish Donna would tell me how she feels I think a group of people with IC would even be interested in it? The book has absolutely nothing at all to do with IC!

She thinks my site is all about the book. It isn't. It is all about ME. She thinks the only reason I joined the IC-Network as to promote the book. It wasn't. If I wanted to promote the book, Donna, I would have gone to one (or more) of the many autism forums out on the net. She thinks I wanted to sell the book because I put a link to my site in my signature.

There are so many others at the IC-Network who have links to personal sites on their signatures, yet they are not banned. I am being singled out simply because I just so happen to have a book on the market.

What Donna is doing to me is unfair and unjustified. If she doesn't want links to sites in signatures, it should apply to everyone. It applies to me ONLY because of the work I do. It is prejudiced and it is WRONG.

The great irony in this is that when I receive my advocacy certification in May (Partners in Policymaking, no less), the "work I do" that she has banned me for may one day improve the lives of those with IC, including Donna herself. If Donna doesn't believe this, she can look at my history of advocacy. It speaks for itself.

So now, because of a misunderstanding and an unwillingness to see the truth on the part of the moderator, I have the word BANNED under my name on the IC-Network. That bothers me a bit. I did nothing wrong and I did nothing to deserve this.

I have tried to work this out with her and she has decided she will not listen to reason. Therefore I really have no choice but to post my side of this story here on my blog where I cannot be banned.

I really wish I did not have to post this, but Donna has left me no choice.

I'm sorry it has to be this way, Donna. I wish we could have worked it out. I could have (and would have) done much for those with IC. But if this unjustified banning is the way you want to treat me, I really am not so sure I care about IC anymore.

And with my track record, that not caring is your loss. You need all the help you can get. You had it. You lost it.

Well done.

As we draw near the end of another Thanksgiving, I am pondering the many things I have to be thankful for.

• I AM THANKFUL for the fact that I am not as depressed as I have been the past month or so.
• I AM THANKFUL for what health I have.
• I AM THANKFUL for the food in my belly, the clothes on my back and the roof over my head.
• I AM THANKFUL for the money that comes my way that allows me to live a comfortable life.
• I AM THANKFUL for the awesome beauty of the Blue Ridge that is right outside my door.
• I AM THANKFUL for my friend Christina, currently taking a break. :-)
• I AM THANKFUL for this nice computer so I can blog.
• I AM THANKFUL for all the friendship and love and hugs from my Friend Vicki.
• I AM THANKFUL for all my other friends who make my life worth living.
• I AM THANKFUL for the spiritual community and family I have in the Blue Ridge.
• I AM THANKFUL for my mother and my father and brothers and sister.
• I AM THANKFUL for my cat, Reiki (RAY-kee), who plays with me and keeps me warm at night.
• I AM THANKFUL for my big queen size bed that I can get comfy and sleep well on.
• I AM THANKFUL for my car running well after 227,000 miles.
• I AM THANKFUL for my motorbike that takes me into the beautiful mountains.

• I AM THANKFUL for a loving God who answers prayer and loves His people.

From here:

http://hatingautism.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-do-you-stop-autistic-self-biting.html
--------------------------------------------

« I'm nearing the end of my rope with Autism. My family has put up with my son biting himself and screaming almost every day for over three years now. I asked in countless places if anyone can tell me why these kids bite themselves and how to stop it. Nobody seems to have an answer.

I've endured countless well-meaning people who have told me to give him some rubber thing to chew on. These people have no idea how intense this problem is. This biting is not some behavioral problem. My son appears to be in great pain of some sort. The problem is that he still can't talk and has never given any indication what might be bothering him to cause this biting.

The biting disrupts our entire lives since none of the aides who come in to help with Sam can be left alone with him. He can overpower any woman and can easily hurt them in one of his rages. It makes going to work impossible sometimes. It makes helping our other kids with things impossible at times. IT has destroyed countless dinners and has ruined almost every day of our lives.

I've had about all I can take. No God damn doctor has been able to offer any opinion about why this occurs and none has been the slightest help in finding a way to stop this. No combination of drugs has been any help. Keeping him off all drugs has been useless. Chelation has had no effect one way or the other. During some long breaks in chelating, the biting never changed. The screaming never got better or worse.

I'm done talking about anything to do with autism until I can solve this biting. If I can't find a way to stop it very soon, my son will be going away to an institution.

I'm begging for someone to tell me how to stop the biting and screaming. I just can't take it any more. »

----------------------------------------------------
Sooooooooo many thoughts on this one. I don't even know where to begin?

First we must consider the source. This is from the controversial Hating Autism blog, from the guy who has been saying his son has been making great progress through chelation. There is talk on the net that he is lying somewhere. Either in the progress or in the biting.

Let's set that aside for now.

I would next want to say how bloody proud I am of the people who have responded and left comments for him. Many of the people he has trashed in his blog have come to his rescue in this. There is a possibility (small though it may be) that the post itself could begin a badly needed healing process within the entire autism community.

Let me digress a bit here to a similar topic.

I have recently been having my own similar problems with biting. The "teething instinct" has been kind of getting away from me lately and sometimes it just drives me nuts. More than one person has been bitten when they have hugged me this past week, though it was nothing I wanted or intended to do, it just happened. The bites and the teething are usually gentle, but one person (my friend Danielle) told me I left marks on her shoulder. :(

In the past, parents have come to me and asked about this. They say their child is nibbling on everything. This can be dangerous. Consider power cords if nothing else. Parents want to know how to stop it.

I tell them they are looking at this the wrong way. This is not something they want to stop, they just want to redirect it a bit.

What is happening is the wiring of those particular individuals creates a sensory dysfunction that finds comfort in the teething. Why do people chew gum? Why do people nibble on pencils? The neurological effects of oral stimulation are well documented.

Oral stimulation calms the oral, tactile, auditory and proprioceptive senses all at the same time. That's in a person with normal sensory processing. Now imagine you can take that effect and magnify it a few times. That's what is happening in some cases with autism.

There is also the endorphin release, which I suspect is also probably increased by the autism. At least in the kids (and adults) that are always chewing on things. Everyone with autism gets something different in the package. Some will be effected by this, others won't. You roll the dice with autism and take the hand you are dealt.

I have a few teethers and teething rings (including one which is my favorite) and I can get completely lost in them. The teething draws you in, so there is nothing else except for yourself and the teether.

All that was, all that is, all that will ever be is just you and the teether.

It is like a drug, only it is within your own self.

With the constant sensory bombardment these kids receive, they are looking for a way to calm down. Some of them have it in the chewing and gnawing and teething. My personal opinion is this should be allowed in certain circumstances and places. It is calming and it is healing. What you must do is find an acceptable thing for the child to be gnawing on.

But this may not be easy. There is a standard "tubing" that is used by occupational therapists for this type of sensory dysfunction. I have tried it and it doesn't work for me. I had to go through a lot of teethers before I found something that did.

I still have most of them in the closet, sitting in a box.

Add to this the fact that I am 41 years old. Most of the teething rings out there are designed for someone much younger. So how to find an age appropriate teether? They are out there, they are just hard to find. Maybe one reason I had problems finding what would work for me was because I limited my search to things that looked a bit less juvenile.

The chewing, the biting, and the teething are all typical sensory processing anomolies in autism. But I don't think that's what is going on in the quote above.

It is hard to say exactly what is happening. I have seen this in my travels many times and yes it is as heartbreaking as he claims. You want to stop it, you want to stop the pain, but you can't because you don't know where the pain is and you don't know where to look.

(I know that my own biting is coming from a sensory processing disorder. And I also know that I am currently and involuntarily biting my friends and other people and objects because the recent changes in weather have brought my fibro out of remission and the pain and the multiple seizures from the autism (brought on by the fibro) are hurting me deeply. And I am hopeful that once the weather decides what it wants to do (instead of bouncing around like it has been) that things will again be as they were before the autumn came. The need is primitive and instinctive and right now it is stronger than I am. I will rejoice the day that changes back again. I won't deny that I love the teething. It is a very good feeling. Sometimes it is even better than a good feeling. But I do not like biting my friends! I want my control back!)

The difference between myself and the child above is that I am not biting my own self. To my knowledge I have never done this. (I hear my mother in Columbus has been reading this blog, she can leave a comment if this is not true. Then again, do I really want to know?)

What is happening with the child above goes way beyond just sensory processing. This is more of a self injurious behavior. There are a few different causes and theories about this.

One theory is similar to my own biting problems in that the self injury is a release of endorphins, creating a pleasurable feeling. I don't really buy into this theory because certainly the child must realize (at some point, maybe not right away) that biting yourself is not necessary for the endorphin release. You can bite other, far less painful things and get the same, if not a better effect.

There is a theory that the biting can be caused by seizure activity. For this to be the case, though, the child must usually be in puberty. (That's where seizures start in autism, and where they started for me.) My understanding is this particular child has not reached puberty yet. Still, you can't rule out the seizures altogether.

Another typical reason for self injurious behavior is pain. Usually from an inner ear infection or a migraine headache. But this kind of behavior usually involves head banging.

However, gastrointestinal problems could lead to a biting behavior. The biting would release beta-endorphins which would block the gastrointentinal pain.

Or the child could be gating the pain in another area of his body. By creating pain in one area of the body, you can reduce the pain in another area. (True enough, though I don't recommend you try this at home.)

Or, of course, it could simply be the result of frustration from an inability to communicate, since we know the child is non verbal.

The list goes on and on. I do kind of wish the original poster had more information in his blog. What, exactly, is the child biting? When does it seem to happen the most? Does it begin gradually and get worse as he goes on, or is it just a sudden out of the blue attack at random times? Has this problem gotten worse as the weather changed (as it has with me) or is it constant through the year?

In the past, I have been blessed that I have figured out what is going on. Granted, it is rare that I can, and I usually have to be there to witness it personally, but sometimes I do get it right.

I do have some advice for him, though I am hesitant to give it to him because, if you check his comments, you will see he has been overloaded with advice already. Mine is different from theirs, but with something like this, who knows which of us is right?

He will read this, and if he wants my advice he can comment me and I will give it to him. Elsewise I don't want to add to his advice overload.

Meanwhile all I can do is say my thoughts and prayers are with him. Despite the current problems between the biomedical and anti-cure factions of autism, no one on either side wants to see this kind of thing happen.

If he ever finds the cause, I would be most interested in hearing what it is. It may help me (and others) in future advocacy.

If any of you have any ideas what may be causing this child to bite and to scream, please leave a comment and let me know. Now, if you'll excuse me, I also have my own biting problems to work on...

Since it seems some of you out there are following along with this pathetic depressive state and wondering what will happen next (?), I thought I would post the latest for you.

Today I decided that sitting around the house and/or sleeping was getting me nowhere, so I decided to see a doctor.

It is unfortunate that the one who was there was one I had only seen once or twice? I told her I was depressed and I was on three drugs already and I didn't want to be a pharmacy.

I think she got a bit angry at me for that? She said, "Well, what do you expect me to do for you, then?"

And I said, "Well, can't you like say some magic wrods or wave a wand at me or something and just make it all go away all at once?"

She wasn't amused.

But she did offer me free drugs. She gave me a whole month of Effexor XR to take and told me to come back in a month. I told her if they were samples that I would be willing to take them for 30 days to see what happened.

Then, just as she was sending me on my way, I told her also that the pain meds for the fibro had not been working since the weather changed and she quickly wrote me a prescription for double the dose I am taking. That means I go from 900mg a day to 1,800 mg a day. Quite a difference!

I have mixed feelings about this. I don't like that I am pumping more prescription pain drugs into me, but at the same time I have to realize that if I am not feeling pain I am not so likely to be depressed. And even if I am taking twice as much, still they are not (yet) narcotic (hopefully they never will be) and that's a good thing, too.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that she told me since I am depressed, I need to see a counselor. She gave me a card of someone and told me to call her.

I looked at the card and realized I'd rather just talk to Vicki. (Vicki has had training and experience in counseling, just as I have. Too bad I can't just counsel myself?) I'll have to ask her about that when she gets home from Maine next Wednesday.

Meanwhile, viva la' pill popping, I guess.

I really, really hate taking medications, but this doesn't mean I have to do this forever......I hope.

I am still feeling a bit down these days. Yesterday I ordered this book...

http://www.amazon.com/Seasonal-Affective-Disorder-Dummies-Fitness/dp/0470139994/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5/102-0128282-7995346?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194408961&sr=8-5

...I got the ebook version online and began reading it right away last night.

So far I have read the first two chapters. Of course the book says to "talk to" someone because that may help. But yesterday I tried that already with someone here in Bedford and she went all charasmatic on me. Following the nutty charasmatic "name it/claim it" doctrine, she told me I just needed to claim my happiness. *Sigh*

Vicki is out of town, doggone it. Now there's a woman with common sense. Where is she when you need her?

I was pondering seeing a pain management person, assuming of course I could find one around here? But I don't want to be one of those people who pops 17 different prescriptions a day. There must be a better answer than drugs. I've had quite enough of this fibro.

I also pondered buying something like this...

http://www.amazon.com/Apollo-Health-GoLite-Spectrum-Therapy/dp/B000C1946S/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/102-0128282-7995346?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1194464440&sr=8-2

...but if you read the reviews, you will see maybe that isn't a very good idea.

Anyway, that's where I am these days. I have class next week and homework to do for it, but I find I am not feeling very motivated to get it done.

Life sucks. Then ya die.

I am feeling really down lately. I did a benefit concert about a week ago and I have not felt good since.

I have rarely left the house (except to see my friend Vicki a couple of times) because I am feeling very agoraphobic. I am running out of groceries but I just have no desire to get out of the house.

Parents of kids with autism are loving this because I am spending my days posting on internet autism forums (something they have wanted me to do for years) but I don't know how much it is helping them? I hope it is at least some.

What is happening is the barometric pressure is messing with the autism and fibro and it is making me feel miserable. No energy, no motivation, very depressed. I am aware of what it is, yet there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it. I am trying to work my way past it, but that isn't working.

There is a part of me that is feeling guilty because I feel like I should be more productive. But I just don't have the energy or the motivation to do anything. I have been sleeping eight hours a day but now I find when I wake up I have been sleeping for 11 hours! Crying a lot for no reason, too. And don't even get me started on the fibro pain. Unbearable sometimes.

This happens to me every year around this time. (I hate this time of year!) I know that I will eventually get over it, but it will be a rough road to the end.

Bummer.

Sometimes I do not like being Thomas.

Last night I finally did the benefit concert. NOW is quite my most favorite part, the part where it is over! :) Below are some pictures and comments from last night for your viewing and reading pleasure.

This is the sign that people saw (and that I saw) when we all first walked into the church. I can see why they want to raise money of this is the best they can do? :)

This is Didi sitting at the $$$ table. We raised $345.00 for the Central VA Autism Action Group last night. Also, I made $138.00 in book and CD sales. I gave Didi $30.00 of it for the cause. There was a nice lady there who told me her son had just been diagnosed with Asperger's in March. I told Didi to give her a discount on the book and CDs. I am just nice that way.

Sign for coffee and desserts. There was a lot of food donated by the church, but I don't recall seeing anyone actually eat any of it? I have heard from two people that the food was well received and people went back for seconds.

This is me, I am not sure at what point in the concert? The first thought I had when I saw this picture was, "I need a new pair of jeans!" I am guessing the transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator may have added to the bad fit, but if you think I am doing two hours of music without getting wired to one of those beasties, you can just think again. Note the wires in disarray all over the floor. Funds are needed, indeed! There were a lot of music stands set up but I only used mine once. I have always felt it is best to know the material already going into these things.