Category Archives: Mental Health

Mental Health

(In)Dependent

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A/N: This post is raw and more of a collection of thoughts than a coherent whole. I’m posting here as a signpost to myself. It’s definitely intended to be a comprehensive commentary on the subject of independence and disability. 

 I. Theory, Background, Questions and Concepts

What is the relationship between being dependent and being independent? Certainly not the opposites that we assume at first glance.

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There are common themes that you’ll encounter if you read enough autism parenting-related blogs and comments:

“My child is severely autistic and will never be able to live on their own.”

“My child is going to depend on me for the rest of their lives. They’ll never have the skills to live independently.”

The assumption that dependent and independent are opposing states is implicit in these types of statements. A person who lives on their own is considered independent by default; a person who needs the support of others to conduct their daily life is dependent. Little acknowledgement is given to the gray areas of reality.

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Consider this scenario:

My elderly neighbor lives alone.

Based on this statement, you’d assume he’s independent, right?

How about this scenario:

My elderly neighbor, who lives alone, is in poor health. He has daily visits from Meals on Wheels and a health aide. A maid service comes every other week to clean his house, a lawn service keeps up his yard, and various neighbors drop by daily to bring in his newspaper and check on him.

Is he still independent? Dependent? Something else we’ve failed to consider?

Oh, wait, I know what many of you will say . . . we’re all interdependent. This is true. Few of us make our own clothes or grow our own food or generate our own electricity. Even those of us who are able to cut the grass or clean the house might hire someone who can do a better job of it.

Does that mean some of us are more interdependent than others? That independence and dependence are fictional extremes where no one actually lives?  Continue reading (In)Dependent →

Communication, Mental Health, Strategies

Mindfulness in Miniature

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This is my first attempt at writing a post using voice recognition software. For the past week I’ve been “training” Dragon Naturally Speaking. Or maybe Dragon has been training me.

You would think that voice-recognition software would be as simple as speaking (although that statement in itself may be an oxymoron for many of us). But the software is sophisticated enough that there’s a fairly steep learning curve–both in learning the commands and in learning to “write” by speaking. So far, I’ve primarily been using it for work tasks, which are straightforward and often scripted in nature.

Curiously, I’m finding that voice-recognition software makes the writing process both faster and slower. Faster, because my typing and in particular my ability to spell is hampering my writing considerably. Slower, because before dictating each sentence I have to pause and compose the words in my mind in a way that is very different from typing.

There’s always been something about typing that has felt like a direct connection between my brain and the words. Now, something is short-circuiting that connection. I’ve reached a tipping point where the effort to put the words into speech in order to create text is less than the effort required to type those same words. And this new process–both the relative ease and the slowness of it–has me thinking a lot about things like mindfulness and intentionality.  Continue reading Mindfulness in Miniature →

Mental Health

At the Intersection of Autism and OCD

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This morning I got my triathlon race number: 336. My first thought was, “yes, okay, good” because 336 is a pleasing number. If I’d gotten 337, I would have had the opposite reaction. 337 is not a pleasing number at all. I don’t even like typing it.

What’s good about 336?

3 + 3 = 6

6 / 2 = 3

3 + 3 + 6 = 12 which is divisible by 3 and 6, also; the digits in 12 added together = 3

337, on the other hand, is a prime number. Some people love prime numbers, I know. I’m not one of them. I find primes frustrating rather than interesting because I can’t do anything with them.

The strength of my reaction to seeing 336 printed beside my name surprised me a bit. I’m still getting used to this latest eruption of OCD traits and how relieving or unpleasant they can make otherwise meaningless everyday occurrences feel.  Continue reading At the Intersection of Autism and OCD →