#or at least both myself and my therapist hypothesize that i was

[pollenallergie]

ignore everything i said back in late may/early june. i was hypomanic and, consequently, unreasonably angry for most of that time. 👍👍👍

[ask-asexual-crystal-gems]

What's a common thread between ADHD and the asexuality spectrum? The answer might surprise you.

A while back, an ADHD user said in response to my question, “how did mindfulness exercises go?” a single word, “dissociation.”

It was only long after I had replied, that I had to remind myself that people think of dissociation as a scary thing.

I had to remind myself that a psychotherapist I once knew was pretty unorthodox, and gave me perspective on the matter that defused all the mysteriousness and internalized socialized discomfort surrounding it, which is ultimately rooted in both fear of the unknown or unfamiliar, and maybe a little bit of stigma, too.

Naturally, I do not talk about these sorts of things with general people IRL, so newly having a ‘conversation’ online about it did not jostle my awareness of others’ attitudes like it probably should have.

Things like anxiety and ADHD are, let’s say, more “ordinary” neurodivergences. (remember, the word applies to ALL mental illnesses, also, not just traits. Many don't consider most cases of ADHD an 'illness,' nor a lot of presentations of autism)

Those are more "ordinary." They don’t mash that “this is weird” button, so much as simply “this is very unpleasant.”

But dissociation can be the former, and not the latter.

Let me back up and explain that a bit.

People see dissociation as undesirable.

But why is it, you should ask.

Leave aside questions of physical safety. I’m just talking about sitting down somewhere, and there is no risk to you.

In the typical view, it’s not just another operation the brain can do, or an altered mind state, as we discussed it, rather, it is somehow considered a “bad” outcome.

When, ironically, for many forms of mind training, which we’ll put under the umbrella term “meditation” for simplicity’s sake, the end goal is a type of on-command dissociative state.

Whether you are internalizing your attention, externalizing your attention, or just trying to get that danged mind chatter to shut up for once and give you some peace, whichever way you are sliding along that scale, there is always the route open to you to pursue this ultimate peace.

So this person, who was trying out mindfulness?

Think, if you switched all the aircraft cockpit switches to check if everything was lighting up correctly. But instead of being an experienced pilot, you had no idea what would happen once you started testing everything out.

Accidentally withdrawing your physical senses, and seeming to distance your “self” from your body, which experienced practitioners do without batting an eye, (pun intended) would seem like a dysfunction rather than a built-in feature.

Quieting those areas of the brain dedicated to sense perception is quite a lovely experience, when you are educated on it, do it on purpose, and expect it.

Whereas anxiety is almost never a positive experience, unless it’s not really overwhelming or potent, and you’ve 'reframed' it such that it’s exciting, like any other adrenaline junkie bender.

The milder forms of dissociation, termed depersonalization or derealization, that seem to be quite common among asexual people, are also often considered as a negative thing, instead of just the current, value-neutral state of mind, which is trainable.

A much more common and even milder form happens when we sink into routine. Ever had a stretch of weeks on a job where you look back and you feel like you were sort of “automated”? Like you weren’t really present? You’re somehow a little surprised that that much time has passed?

That “time dilation,” accompanied also sometimes by a distorted sense of chronological sequence happens a lot with ADHD people, regardless of circumstances, but most everyone in the populace has experienced it at some point, barring perhaps the super privileged who have never been forced into a literally “mind numbing” job.

Maybe you’ve also experienced the sensation where you get into a car, perhaps when you’re on a familiar route you’ve driven a thousand times, or especially on long road trips, and you seem to zone out and lose time.

The brain is pretty good at conserving energy.

This is what she tells her patients, to calm their sympathetic nervous system. It circumvents that distress, that health-sapping stress response to this ultimately harmless “weird” experience, vastly improving their quality of life:

Dissociation is a continuum- many forms of it are common. Not some super strange thing corralled in a small corner of the sum total of human experience.

“Reframing” these things is essential to attaining incrementally improved mental health.

Clearing away all the internalized judgement, the feelings of wrongness, etc.

Just one more step out of the norm.

Just another neurodivergence.

It is conceptualized as unnerving when it happens suddenly and sharply, though, because it is so different from “ordinary” everyday experience.

The same way one person who hasn’t been around dogs much might react to a large dog barking with fear, and another person standing next to them having the exact same experience, trained and knowledgeable in recognizing true aggression versus excitement or mild warning, would not feel threatened.

Yes, having that particular toggle out of your grasp may be annoying and to those not given this perspective, frightening. (And if other personalities are involved, that gets much more complicated!!) But, consider. One of my mentors said calmly once, that she lost time for, say, 10 or 15 minutes while sitting down quite regularly, and felt very recharged and energized afterwards. It’s not exactly like sleep, because there’s not that head nodding and relaxation of muscles. Almost instantly gone, and instantly aware again, not that feathery transition as happens when drowsing or gradually falling asleep.

I hypothesize to her that this had probably started up because she’s involuntarily dropping into a deep delta or theta brainwave state for a bit, because that’s what she does in ‘brain entrainment’ recordings. (The frequencies are very good for relaxation when you're anxious and have a hard time unwinding yourself, others are good for focus during studying, and are therefore used by ADHD people) Unless she wants to pay some big lab to measure her neuron firing frequency though, there’s no way to tell for sure. The point is, that she directly benefits from this ‘taking a break’ from thinking. She is not bothered in the least by her mind occasionally saying, ‘you know what, I’m overwhelmed right now, gonna switch off for a bit.’ When someone gives their mind this permission to pause from its worries and senses, each the internal and external input, sometimes this is the outcome. It is not a problem to her whatsoever that this toggle occasionally moves of its own accord.

People are afraid of what they don’t understand.

But she understands it.

People are afraid of new experiences.

But to her, it’s old hat. On an MRI, each of the parts of the brain dedicated to the senses dim. Occipital lobe for sight, temporal lobe for hearing, etc.

If I were brushed up on the neuroanatomy of this process better, I could also name the parts dedicated to internal imput that would grow dimmer as she entered that state. Heck, they study this stuff so much, when interviewing meditation practitioners and testing for stuff like blood flow changes as their attention shifts, those images probably already exist.

Dissociation is not a mysterious thing.

It serves a purpose.

It’s your brain’s ‘energy saver’ mode.

Or in some cases, ‘recharge.’

So, to the person who argued that ADHD people should be cautious about using mindfulness? I must ask again, why?

Why would you forgo the benefits? Why would they tell others to do so??

Usually the main reasons dissociation causes problems, that aforementioned therapist says, is that people are overloaded to the point where it happens not when they’re relaxed, and can daydream or drift, but randomly when there’s too much pressure in their lives.

The fear response to it is just like any other overactive fear response or phobia- with time and therapeutic work, they are all resolvable.

/////////

#this post is NOT about dissociative identity disorder #only mentioned it in passing to separate it from the discussion

[avva-rm]

Woody Allen Speaks Out

By WOODY ALLEN     FEB. 7, 2014

Last Sunday, Nicholas Kristof wrote a column about Dylan Farrow, the adopted daughter of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. Mr. Allen has written the following response to the column and Dylan’s account.

TWENTY-ONE years ago, when I first heard Mia Farrow had accused me of child molestation, I found the idea so ludicrous I didn’t give it a second thought. We were involved in a terribly acrimonious breakup, with great enmity between us and a custody battle slowly gathering energy. The self-serving transparency of her malevolence seemed so obvious I didn’t even hire a lawyer to defend myself. It was my show business attorney who told me she was bringing the accusation to the police and I would need a criminal lawyer.

I naïvely thought the accusation would be dismissed out of hand because of course, I hadn’t molested Dylan and any rational person would see the ploy for what it was. Common sense would prevail. After all, I was a 56-year-old man who had never before (or after) been accused of child molestation. I had been going out with Mia for 12 years and never in that time did she ever suggest to me anything resembling misconduct. Now, suddenly, when I had driven up to her house in Connecticut one afternoon to visit the kids for a few hours, when I would be on my raging adversary’s home turf, with half a dozen people present, when I was in the blissful early stages of a happy new relationship with the woman I’d go on to marry — that I would pick this moment in time to embark on a career as a child molester should seem to the most skeptical mind highly unlikely. The sheer illogic of such a crazy scenario seemed to me dispositive.

Notwithstanding, Mia insisted that I had abused Dylan and took her immediately to a doctor to be examined. Dylan told the doctor she had not been molested. Mia then took Dylan out for ice cream, and when she came back with her the child had changed her story. The police began their investigation; a possible indictment hung in the balance. I very willingly took a lie-detector test and of course passed because I had nothing to hide. I asked Mia to take one and she wouldn’t. Last week a woman named Stacey Nelkin, whom I had dated many years ago, came forward to the press to tell them that when Mia and I first had our custody battle 21 years ago, Mia had wanted her to testify that she had been underage when I was dating her, despite the fact this was untrue. Stacey refused. I include this anecdote so we all know what kind of character we are dealing with here. One can imagine in learning this why she wouldn’t take a lie-detector test.

 Continue reading the main story

Meanwhile the Connecticut police turned for help to a special investigative unit they relied on in such cases, the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale-New Haven Hospital. This group of impartial, experienced men and women whom the district attorney looked to for guidance as to whether to prosecute, spent months doing a meticulous investigation, interviewing everyone concerned, and checking every piece of evidence. Finally they wrote their conclusion which I quote here: “It is our expert opinion that Dylan was not sexually abused by Mr. Allen. Further, we believe that Dylan’s statements on videotape and her statements to us during our evaluation do not refer to actual events that occurred to her on August 4th, 1992... In developing our opinion we considered three hypotheses to explain Dylan’s statements. First, that Dylan’s statements were true and that Mr. Allen had sexually abused her; second, that Dylan’s statements were not true but were made up by an emotionally vulnerable child who was caught up in a disturbed family and who was responding to the stresses in the family; and third, that Dylan was coached or influenced by her mother, Ms. Farrow. While we can conclude that Dylan was not sexually abused, we can not be definite about whether the second formulation by itself or the third formulation by itself is true. We believe that it is more likely that a combination of these two formulations best explains Dylan’s allegations of sexual abuse.”

Could it be any clearer? Mr. Allen did not abuse Dylan; most likely a vulnerable, stressed-out 7-year-old was coached by Mia Farrow. This conclusion disappointed a number of people. The district attorney was champing at the bit to prosecute a celebrity case, and Justice Elliott Wilk, the custody judge, wrote a very irresponsible opinion saying when it came to the molestation, “we will probably never know what occurred.”

But we did know because it had been determined and there was no equivocation about the fact that no abuse had taken place. Justice Wilk was quite rough on me and never approved of my relationship with Soon-Yi, Mia’s adopted daughter, who was then in her early 20s. He thought of me as an older man exploiting a much younger woman, which outraged Mia as improper despite the fact she had dated a much older Frank Sinatra when she was 19. In fairness to Justice Wilk, the public felt the same dismay over Soon-Yi and myself, but despite what it looked like our feelings were authentic and we’ve been happily married for 16 years with two great kids, both adopted. (Incidentally, coming on the heels of the media circus and false accusations, Soon-Yi and I were extra carefully scrutinized by both the adoption agency and adoption courts, and everyone blessed our adoptions.)

Mia took custody of the children and we went our separate ways.

I was heartbroken. Moses was angry with me. Ronan I didn’t know well because Mia would never let me get close to him from the moment he was born and Dylan, whom I adored and was very close to and about whom Mia called my sister in a rage and said, “He took my daughter, now I’ll take his.” I never saw her again nor was I able to speak with her no matter how hard I tried. I still loved her deeply, and felt guilty that by falling in love with Soon-Yi I had put her in the position of being used as a pawn for revenge. Soon-Yi and I made countless attempts to see Dylan but Mia blocked them all, spitefully knowing how much we both loved her but totally indifferent to the pain and damage she was causing the little girl merely to appease her own vindictiveness.

Here I quote Moses Farrow, 14 at the time: “My mother drummed it into me to hate my father for tearing apart the family and sexually molesting my sister.” Moses is now 36 years old and a family therapist by profession. “Of course Woody did not molest my sister,” he said. “She loved him and looked forward to seeing him when he would visit. She never hid from him until our mother succeeded in creating the atmosphere of fear and hate towards him.” Dylan was 7, Ronan 4, and this was, according to Moses, the steady narrative year after year.

I pause here for a quick word on the Ronan situation. Is he my son or, as Mia suggests, Frank Sinatra’s? Granted, he looks a lot like Frank with the blue eyes and facial features, but if so what does this say? That all during the custody hearing Mia lied under oath and falsely represented Ronan as our son? Even if he is not Frank’s, the possibility she raises that he could be, indicates she was secretly intimate with him during our years. Not to mention all the money I paid for child support. Was I supporting Frank’s son? Again, I want to call attention to the integrity and honesty of a person who conducts her life like that.

NOW it’s 21 years later and Dylan has come forward with the accusations that the Yale experts investigated and found false. Plus a few little added creative flourishes that seem to have magically appeared during our 21-year estrangement.

Not that I doubt Dylan hasn’t come to believe she’s been molested, but if from the age of 7 a vulnerable child is taught by a strong mother to hate her father because he is a monster who abused her, is it so inconceivable that after many years of this indoctrination the image of me Mia wanted to establish had taken root? Is it any wonder the experts at Yale had picked up the maternal coaching aspect 21 years ago? Even the venue where the fabricated molestation was supposed to have taken place was poorly chosen but interesting. Mia chose the attic of her country house, a place she should have realized I’d never go to because it is a tiny, cramped, enclosed spot where one can hardly stand up and I’m a major claustrophobe. The one or two times she asked me to come in there to look at something, I did, but quickly had to run out. Undoubtedly the attic idea came to her from the Dory Previn song, “With My Daddy in the Attic.” It was on the same record as the song Dory Previn had written about Mia’s betraying their friendship by insidiously stealing her husband, André, “Beware of Young Girls.” One must ask, did Dylan even write the letter or was it at least guided by her mother? Does the letter really benefit Dylan or does it simply advance her mother’s shabby agenda? That is to hurt me with a smear. There is even a lame attempt to do professional damage by trying to involve movie stars, which smells a lot more like Mia than Dylan. 

After all, if speaking out was really a necessity for Dylan, she had already spoken out months earlier in Vanity Fair. Here I quote Moses Farrow again: “Knowing that my mother often used us as pawns, I cannot trust anything that is said or written from anyone in the family.” Finally, does Mia herself really even believe I molested her daughter? Common sense must ask: Would a mother who thought her 7-year-old daughter was sexually abused by a molester (a pretty horrific crime), give consent for a film clip of her to be used to honor the molester at the Golden Globes?

Of course, I did not molest Dylan. I loved her and hope one day she will grasp how she has been cheated out of having a loving father and exploited by a mother more interested in her own festering anger than her daughter’s well-being. Being taught to hate your father and made to believe he molested you has already taken a psychological toll on this lovely young woman, and Soon-Yi and I are both hoping that one day she will understand who has really made her a victim and reconnect with us, as Moses has, in a loving, productive way. No one wants to discourage abuse victims from speaking out, but one must bear in mind that sometimes there are people who are falsely accused and that is also a terribly destructive thing. (This piece will be my final word on this entire matter and no one will be responding on my behalf to any further comments on it by any party. Enough people have been hurt.)