prefrontal-bastard - Tumblr blog

[prefrontal-bastard]

Speaking just from my own experiences, the "aaaa" is what executive dysfunction feels like to me. It's like I keep submitting the request to do the thing, but the request is not processed for another 6 hours/days/months. So in the mean time, aaaa. (Fortunately I now have meds that resolve this, so it's not much of an issue anymore).

As for the "brain cannot think about it" problem, it could be lots of things. Only you and a health practitioner would be able to deduce what's going on there, but I can give you some avenues to look into based off of what I've experienced for myself.

One thing it could be is just garden-variety inattention—I cannot string two thoughts together when unmedicated, so my mind is prone to wandering instead of actually following through with anything I think about. This is not laziness though; it's my mind foraging for dopamine, and it's doing this because it doesn't have enough to sustain less-rewarding thought-connections. (Experiencing my mind wander like this is typically how I know my medication dose is too low.)

But another thing it could be is a pain-avoidance response. This has less to do with dopamine and more to do with the nervous system, and is additionally not a product of laziness.

Our nervous system is the part of our brain that runs through our entire body. It carries signals from our cranium to the rest of our body and back again, and it's how we make our bodies move and do all the things that we do with it. It's literally our wiring.

The nerve pathways are coated in what's called a myelin sheath. The sheath works very similar to the way the plastic coating around wires work: It protects the pathway and also keeps the electricity, the signals, from getting out.

Now, some of my pathways did not properly myelinate when I was a wee lad. This doesn't feel painful to me, per se, but it feels terrible to my nerves, which are small and feel this distinctly. They get shocked every time a signal goes down a leaky pathway, like rats in an electrified maze.

When I try to think about doing certain activities but can't, it's either because my nerves lack the bandwidth to carry it, or they are shutting down the thought themselves because the very idea is causing that electric shock feeling for them.

When I finally have to do the dreaded task, doing it makes me feel extremely icky. Icky, and like I'm inherently incompetent at doing whatever it is I'm doing.

It literally feels like I'm eroding...because I am. Pushing electricity down faulty circuits is going to cause the wires in it to erode. I know it's especially bad whenever I feel "fizzy" in my body instead of feeling my actual body.

I wouldn't be going into depth about how terrible this is, if it couldn't be fixed. It can, because the body is a Chad like that.

I'm currently doing a physical therapy that recalibrates and re-myelinates these circuits, called MNRI. It doesn't help with the dopamine problem I have, so I'm still on meds, but it's absolutely helping with all the sensory and physiological distresses I've experienced my whole life. Even if certain things are still difficult for me to do, I at least know why and can see that they are improving.

But again. This is not laziness.

Laziness is an action, not the absence of action. When people decide to be lazy, it's because they've decided to value "not caring" over "caring" in that moment—the action they've taken is to not care.

Someone put this in the tags and I think it's worth repeating: If it was laziness, you would be enjoying yourself.

And let me tell you...I've never once enjoyed sitting around accomplishing nothing because I was stuck in the electric maze. I would sooner eat live bees than wish this upon anyone.

“I’m not going to do the thing because I don’t view it as important.” ← Conscious decision made of your own free will.

“I want to do the thing because I view it as important, but trying to get myself to do the thing creates the same reaction as trying to put my hand on a hot stove would.” ← Executive dysfunction, a physical health problem that doesn’t answer to your own free will.

“Trying to get myself to do the thing creates the same reaction as trying to put my hand on a hot stove would. This must mean I don’t actually want to do the thing and I’m just tricking myself into thinking I do.” ← No, that’s still executive dysfunction, but you’re having brainworms about it.

[prefrontal-bastard]

one of the best academic paper titles

[prefrontal-bastard]

I remembered your post about commercialism and I wanted to ask some questions, if not for myself then for my brain that won’t stop thinking about them:

When you say that you struggle to connect with some people because “some people's entire sense of identity is based in media, content, products, or commercial lifestyles,” can you give a few examples of that scenario? I just want to make sure I understand.

This is from, admittedly, a slight fear and insecurity of mine, so sorry if this question is weird, but would participating in a group centered around an independent piece of media be considered an example of what you listed? I don’t call a few things my entire personality, but I am very enthusiastic about them. Plus, the majority of stuff I post about is just what I think people will like seeing, as well as specific milestones, but I have a entire life separate from my online presence.

I am asking these because I want to calm my inner conscience down, since it has a penchant for internalizing helpful information in a way that puts myself in a negative light.

Oh I can see how the phrasing I chose is stressful, and I’m sorry for not making it more clear in the OP.

So, the takeaway from that bit is not that “people who identify deeply with some sort of consumer media don’t have rich personalities.” People are complex by default, and what they like and bond over doesn’t degrade that at all.

Instead, I’m critical about the fact consumerism has invaded everywhere culture grows here in the US, to the point where many Americans view these as symbiotic concepts. Culture is a vector through which we shape our identity and bond with each other, but if that culture requires us to participate in consumerism to belong within it, it’s going to Pavlov us into associating self-identity with what it is we consume.

Some examples that come to mind: Back when I was in school, I remember people would use clothing brands as a way to demonstrate the clique or subculture they were a part of. People also grouped and socialized according which shows they watched, which bands they listened to, and what websites they went on for entertainment. (It honestly baffled me and frustrated kid-me, because my interests were in things like space, geology, folklore, and making up original stories.)

I don’t think it’s a bad thing for people to like media and to socialize around it, even if it’s the main thing you love and adore. After all, media is art. But there should be accessible options beyond this. Having consumerism this be the only thing where people can accessibly define themselves through, outside of their careers or religion, creates a situation where people aren’t sure how to own the contextualizing framework they use for their self-definition.

Plus, not knowing how to participate in a culture without consuming it creates a ton of problems.

[prefrontal-bastard]

Love how people view logic as the most matured form of human intelligence, as if combining logic with emotional intellect didn't unlock the Secret Third Thing.

[prefrontal-bastard]

sorry for the incovinience, but I read this, and as neurodivergent medical student I'm very curious. Do you have any resources or recommend (websites,books,etc) about neurodiversity from a neurology,psychiatry pov? (especially from a neurodivergent health professional or science expert) Because it so hard to found those (mainly bc the missinformation and ableism), most books in my college's library are not updated :(.

not to mention some doctors have said some wild ableist shit (and even some medical students) :(

I don't have much, but I have directions I can point you towards. (I need to update it, but any sources I do find generally go on my brain blog @prefrontal-bastard.)

First, I highly reccomend the Neuroclastic website for autistic perspectives. This website is by and for autistic folks and features a multitude of people with different expertise and backgrounds, including scientists. I imagine any pertinent developments in our understanding of neurodiversity would probably appear on that website.

I also know the AIR Network Model's website has scientific articles on trauma and dissociation, so I recommend looking into them too.

I'd also look into the MNRI PTSD Recovery Protocol by Svetlana Masgutova, Ph.D. I'm not sure if she's neurodivergent herself, but I would hardly be surprised if she is.

I recommend this because the studies behind her protocol reveal some extremely telling things about neurodiversity and its relationship with trauma. I have one of her books and it goes into the entire neuroscience and testing behind it, but unfortunately copyright laws means I can't, like...share the charts. This approach seems to be the direction the science is taking us on regarding neurodiversity though, so it might be the "in" you're looking for in terms of a non-ableist medical framework.

(The breakdown though, because this shit's fascinating:

Traumatic stressors can cause our nervous systems to blow like overloaded circuits. This causes our primitive reflexes [patterns of movements that reflect the core operating system of mindbody interface] to re-emerge, or to fail to integrate if the trauma was during babyhood.

Evidently, retaining 35% or more of the known reflex patterns produces the symptoms associated with things like sensory processing disorder, autism, ADHD, cerebral palsy, anxiety, or emotional dysregulation. It even contributes to depression and dyslexia.

Dysregulated reflexes can impact damn near anything: cognition, attention, coordination, disposition, emotional reactions, visual /auditory / spacial perception, pain perception and threshold, body growth, mood, and even the function of our digestive and immune systems.

From what I understand, certain primitive reflexes correlate with certain disorders. Apparently the Startle Reflex / Fear Paralysis Reflex and Moro Reflex are highly correlated with Autism diagnosis. Other reflexes potentially contribute to it since this is not a "rigid categories" thing, but those are the two her book is citing in particular here.

You can actually re-integrate these reflexes with exercises, which initially thought was fucking bogus until I tried it and suddenly could perceive and conceptualize things I didn't realize I couldn't before, as well as perceive parts of my body I didn't realize I couldn't perceive before [like my spine].

You can actually find integration exercises on youtube. It's an Occupational Therapy thing, but since it's new and emerging it's not something the average OT knows how to do yet, I'm afraid.

Also, important note: Some reflexes take longer to integrate, others don't. They might have to be integrated in a certain sequence depending on which ones are retained, but I'm not sure what all the sequences are.

Rule of thumb for anyone reading this: If the internal experience of "being you" sucks ass in any way, check your primitive reflexes. It ain't a curse and it ain't the devil, you might just need recalibrating.)

Hope this helps!

[prefrontal-bastard]

In your pinned post you mention considering different perspectives and also entertaining new ideas yet you turn off comments. Seems like you like to rant about your conclusions without entertaining different perspectives or ideas. Just an observation.

I forget exactly what my settings are for this blog, but it's likely that they're only turned on for those who've been following me for two weeks. It stops randos from dropping snark in the replies of posts and starting flame-wars with other users, which I've found typically happens when a post circulates enough.

Just because I invite different perspectives doesn't mean I invite drama.

People are always welcome to reblog my posts with their thoughts or drop them in my ask box.

[prefrontal-bastard]

I’ve edited the OP post to remove it. It was a misunderstanding on my part.

In case someone has told you otherwise: Science is not an ideology.

Science refers to the different fields of knowledge that emerge through using a particular model of discernment known as the scientific method.

Simply put, the scientific method is a formal process of doing experiments and seeing what happens. We fuck around, find out, and then fuck around some more based on what we found out. This lets us figure out what things are and how they work.

The drive behind science is curiosity. We have a natural desire to understand the phenomena around us and invent new things. It doesn't beget the need to believe in anything, just to observe things and see what happens when we mess with them.

Treating science as some kind of religious doctrine is how we get Scientism, which is prevelent in nu-atheism and is, most importantly, not science.

Scientism takes scientific content and dumps it into a Christian cognitive framework, treating scientific conclusions as doctrines to abide by rather than as an interpretations of gathered data.

This is where eugenics comes from.

[prefrontal-bastard]

I can sympathize with the fact you've had bad experiences—I've had them too. And I can sympathize with the fact medicine has been, is currently, and will probably always be, an imperfect system.

However, the presence of shitty doctors within medicine doesn't mean medicine is not a scientific field, nor that it isn't driven by curiosity. It's just like any field, in which it's also full of people who are shit at their job.

Now you're free to tell me I'm wrong all you'd like, but I'll go into this further if just for the sake of my followers...because if there's one thing I can't stand about this damn website, it's when people here insist something is inherently bad because it's inherently complicated.

I don't know where you live, but speaking as a USAmerican: The reason why medicine gets shitty here has everything to do with the kind of profiteering we allow in the United States regarding it, not the nature of the field. If you want to put the blame on something, blame the laws, policies, and venture capitalism that allow for shitty doctors and shitty practices to exist with impunity in the first place.

The difference of laws and policies between states means Healthcare quality actually varies VASTLY between states here. The difference between the patient-focused model of Minnesota healthcare and the business-focused model that is Florida healthcare is fucking laughable.

The truth of the matter is, medications only work as well as what doctors know how to prescribe, and doctors only know as much as what they were taught and continue to learn.

Additionally, a general practitioner is typically only that—a generalist. They know how to conduct annual checkups, treat colds and flues, and identify common rashes and symptoms. Most of them don't know how to treat things like depression, anxiety, mental issues, neurological issues, PTSD, joint issues, bone issues, nervous system issues, immune system issues, digestive issues, or any affliction of any nature that's persistent and chronic.

For those, you need to request that your doctor refer you to a specialist. That's also part of their job. And if they don't do that job, you have the right to request their denial be noted in your records.

And then, you find a new doctor, one who will refer you to a specialist.

Frankly, I would not be alive and thriving today if it wasn't for my doctors and medications. And the fact other people don't have the experience and opportunities that I do is, in my opinion, nothing short of a crime.

In case someone has told you otherwise: Science is not an ideology.

Science refers to the different fields of knowledge that emerge through using a particular model of discernment known as the scientific method.

Simply put, the scientific method is a formal process of doing experiments and seeing what happens. We fuck around, find out, and then fuck around some more based on what we found out. This lets us figure out what things are and how they work.

The drive behind science is curiosity. We have a natural desire to understand the phenomena around us and invent new things. It doesn't beget the need to believe in anything, just to observe things and see what happens when we mess with them.

Treating science as some kind of religious doctrine is how we get Scientism, which is prevelent in nu-atheism and is, most importantly, not science.

Scientism takes scientific content and dumps it into a Christian cognitive framework, treating scientific conclusions as doctrines to abide by rather than as an interpretations of gathered data.

This is where eugenics comes from.

[prefrontal-bastard]

I mean, I suppose it begs for me to examine my understanding of nu-atheism as well. I could be wrong.

But to clarify what Scientism is, it’s not really a religion proper. It’s an anthropological construct that describes a kind of phenomenon that emerges when people handle science like it's a doctrine.

Scientism is basically the view that science is the only legitimate model for deriving meaning from the world.

My folks were guilty of this. They were agnostic and never thought about religion, but that also had some kind of unchecked culturally-Catholic OS running in the background of their mentalities.

One of the major unchecked Catholic things they would do is use conclusions drawn in studies as directives for how to be proper and upstanding people.

For example: If a study came out that said “Science shows that a role is easier to play when you’re dressed for the part,” my parents would interpret that as “we should always dress our kids in nice things to encourage them to be nice people,” completely overlooking the fact that “nice” is relative and that this only works because the wearer finds meaning and value to the outfit they’re wearing.

My folks also had a very weird “sins of the father” scenario going where they’d blame all my allegedly undesirable behavior on my bio-dad’s “bad genetics.” It was not great and got dangerously close to eugenics territory at times.

I came across the word “scientism” when searching for something to describe how my parents thought, because as you can imagine, this stuff legitimately fucked with my head and I needed a point of reference to distingish it from science proper.

I’m very curious to know how it compares to nu-atheism though.

In case someone has told you otherwise: Science is not an ideology.

Science refers to the different fields of knowledge that emerge through using a particular model of discernment known as the scientific method.

Simply put, the scientific method is a formal process of doing experiments and seeing what happens. We fuck around, find out, and then fuck around some more based on what we found out. This lets us figure out what things are and how they work.

The drive behind science is curiosity. We have a natural desire to understand the phenomena around us and invent new things. It doesn't beget the need to believe in anything, just to observe things and see what happens when we mess with them.

Treating science as some kind of religious doctrine is how we get Scientism, which is prevelent in nu-atheism and is, most importantly, not science.

Scientism takes scientific content and dumps it into a Christian cognitive framework, treating scientific conclusions as doctrines to abide by rather than as an interpretations of gathered data.

This is where eugenics comes from.

[prefrontal-bastard]

Article for context

Baffled that kids are learning reading through this horseshit called the “cueing method,” like…

If you want to an entire population cognitively disadvantaged, this is how you fucking do it.

[prefrontal-bastard]

I’m all for implementing new methods of learning ONLY IF those methods prove to be quicker and more intuitive. The cueing method is objectively terrible because it doesn’t teach kids how letters sound but instead teaches them to use “context clues” (i.e. accompanying pictures) to deduce what a word is…and to just skip over the word if they can’t figure it out.

Like are you fucking kidding me.

Baffled that kids are learning reading through this horseshit called the “cueing method,” like…

If you want to an entire population cognitively disadvantaged, this is how you fucking do it.

[prefrontal-bastard]

Baffled that kids are learning reading through this horseshit called the “cueing method,” like…

If you want to an entire population cognitively disadvantaged, this is how you fucking do it.

[prefrontal-bastard]

You know, ever since doing this I've noticed a few things.

I actually laugh out loud when I see something funny online, rather than just laugh in my head.

I've been way more inclined to eat when I'm hungry, and have been far more aggressive about pursuing food when I'm hungry.

I have a sense of genuine self-conviction and a desire to defend myself even when faced with pushback, real or perceived.

This one's pretty nuanced, but before doing this exercise, I couldn't express "driving anger" when I felt it, only the kind that was "blinding anger."

These are really subtle changes but pretty significant. It also makes me wonder if problems with primal reflex integration is going to become more common. As babies we're supposed to move our bodies and interact with the world constantly. But society's ever in pursuance of getting people (no matter their age) to sit still and interact quietly with whatever's in front of them, and a toddler who sits in front of a tablet 8 hours a day is not going to get the movement they need to feel like they can thrive in, focus on, and engage with the world.

That's not great. We're primates, and we're the only primates who pretend we're not.

I've been doing exercises to help integrate primitive reflexes and one of them did something.

Like—???

I feel like I have a back now? And I didn't know I wasn't feeling that??

And also that pervasive feeling of embarrassment I have for being perceived in public is...SIGNIFICANTLY less pronounced???

I can stand up straight without it feeling weird?? I feel like I can participate in the world with relative ease????

...

I rubbed my back and pushed on it in certain ways and I guess that fucking patched my nervous system. I guess???

Sweet Jesus has occupational therapy come up with some fucking bangers.

[prefrontal-bastard]

In case someone has told you otherwise: Science is not an ideology.

Science refers to the different fields of knowledge that emerge through using a particular model of discernment known as the scientific method.

Simply put, the scientific method is a formal process of doing experiments and seeing what happens. We fuck around, find out, and then fuck around some more based on what we found out. This lets us figure out what things are and how they work.

The drive behind science is curiosity. We have a natural desire to understand the phenomena around us and invent new things. It doesn't beget the need to believe in anything, just to observe things and see what happens when we mess with them.

Treating science as some kind of religious doctrine is how we get Scientism, which is not science.

Scientism takes scientific content and dumps it into a Christian cognitive framework, treating scientific conclusions as doctrines to abide by rather than as an interpretations of gathered data.

This is where eugenics comes from.

[prefrontal-bastard]

I have no idea where I’d be right now if it weren’t for recent advances in medicine and psychology. I have medication that works and a therapist who knows what goes into restoring cognition and personal agency.

I may be broke financially, but my lived experience is getting richer every day.

[prefrontal-bastard]

please do not mistake a small group of people on the internet doing something stupid, or something that makes you mad trending with 100-1000 tweets, for an urgent and widespread social issue. it’ll make you mean, complacent, and easy to manipulate before you realize it