Muninn
Burnt out, over the hill autistic IT nerd and longtime SSC lurker
User ID: 3219
Muninn
1d ago
Okay, SMH, but still, you get a point for that one. On a serious note, I thank Odin that I'm not a stomach sleeper!
Muninn
1d ago
Yeah, that's a good counterargument for sure. When it comes to functional impairments, that's the terrifying thing about the higher functioning cluster-b types: they're so good at manipulating people that they don't have much trouble compensating for and otherwise masking their PD behaviors and largely passing as normies. According to Andy Herzfeld Jobs' ability was so good that even though Apple employees were aware of it, it was still effective in the moment and only after Steve left would it begin to wear off. He goes on to say that most employees would eventually give up and accept it as a force of nature, which is really the only thing you can do when even quitting is difficult.
PS: I've taken to sleeping with a cervical pillow to help out my neck, seems to have helped! Now if only I could get back into the habit of using my inversion table...
Muninn
1d ago
Sure thing. Quick tl;dr about chiropractors is that I had one and just found another one that was around $40 for an adjustment, so to go from moving gingerly because back pain to just a little soreness and full range of motion when I need it is worth that and then some for me when I need it.
WRT Steve Jobs in particular, for me it's all about the alternative medicine plus his patented Reality Distortion Field. We have heard the widespread stories about him being very difficult to work with/for, being mercurial, difficult, manipulative, deceptive, often angry, etc. Then there's the house he bought and left to rot because he despised it and the book Small Fry that his daughter wrote about how he was mostly terrible to her but sometimes wonderful as well. Weird diets, driving without license plates, etc. etc. To me, it definitely smells like Cluster B behavior and the liver cancer is a prime example of the kind of outrageous refusal to truck with reality that I've seen in the borderlines in my own life that puts me in the BPD camp with Steve as opposed to the NPD camp. There's a certain breed of entitled borderlines that at first blush look almost identical to narcissists unless and until they display their flat-out refusal to live in reality, although they may visit there and even room there for a while.
When we get to clinical criteria, I of course am not Scott, but I think Jobs would have to have been one of the highest functioning cluster Bs that we've seen in a long time if he was. Playing armchair therapist/psychiatrist anyway, I think he definitely met the criteria for intense anger, emotional instability, and splitting. Jobs having chronic feelings of emptiness is strongly supported by anecdotal data, eg crying when he got badge #2 at Apple, despair at not being named Time's man of the year in '82, etc. Impulsive behavior is a bit of a harder sell but it's definitely there, so yeah, that's 5 criteria, and I don't think it'd be completely shocking to dig up enough to support frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment and severe dissociation and perhaps paranoid ideation when under stress.
Muninn
1d ago
Hard agree, as you might imagine from my previous post, I have had a lot of exposure to alternative medicine in my life and while it's not all awful (I've had good success with chiropractic care specifically for back pain and posture issues, for example) it's almost all noise and no signal there. The example of Steve Jobs is particularly poignant there, why he wouldn't have taken the known successful treatment is beyond me except now that I'm typing that, I'm remembering that I occasionally saw some strong BPD Reality Distortion Field vibes from him on occasion (the whole you're holding your phone wrong bit is one of the most memorable ones) so the alternative medicine cancer cure could have easily been more of the same.
Muninn
2d ago
I mean, I don't know how smart I actually am or am not, but Odin dammit if I don't have a head full of awesome rationalizations and justifications for my own bullshit. Reminds me of that Feynman quote about how science is all about not being fooled and how the easiest person to fool is ourselves--definitely true of me!
Muninn
2d ago
Speaking as someone whose mother's go-to crazy for disease and illness was that magical eating would make all things better, I just want to second this skepticism. Diet and nutritional supplements did not cure my little brother's ADHD, diet and nutritional supplements did not cure my father's dementia and Alzheimer's, my own diet and (lack of) nutritional supplements did not cause my acute appendicitis when I had that, etc.
Muninn
4d ago
The levitating. The evil book reading. Them cream cookies he's always eating. He's a damn witch!
Muninn
4d ago
She didn't have school friends, due to bussing
This was my experience with bussing as well. That and going to a different Kindergarten and Elementary school every. Single. Year.
Muninn
5d ago
And I was wondering if I just missed the boats on pay toilets being outlawed-TIL!
Muninn
5d ago
there is, after all, no practical way to charge for them
These did actually exist in the before-fore time. I can distinctly remember a pay restroom in a convenience store in the middle of Bumfuck when I was a teenager. I forget if it was 50 or 75 cents but it was entirely self-service. The mechanism was similar to the old-school washers and dryers in laundromats, IE, a lever on the door latch with two or three quarter slots that one pushed inwards to operate the latch and allow one to use the restroom. Comparatively speaking, a 16 oz bottle of soda would have been $1.25-$1.50 at the time.
I mean, I work for Odin. Dude hung himself from Yggdrasil for nine days and nights, for $Diety's sake. I totally respect your search for wisdom, and I'm sure the Boss Man would approve in his own right, but me? I've got waaaaaaay too much personal experience to take to the materialist/atheist viewpoint, though I would point you towards Good Omens (the book, don't bother with the show, not because it's necessarily bad but because it doesn't really get into the metaphysical like the book does) or, if you're even more of a Pratchett man, Small Gods for your answers.
Muninn
7d ago
Imperial Wizard 4: The Southern Alliance by J. Parsons. The premise of the series is that an ancient wizard emerges from a long (I think over a millenium long) time in stasis to discover a greatly changed world that has forgotten his craft. I've found that I'm a sucker for "setting things right" types of novels and series, and this series is one of those. Thanks, Nathan Lowell!
Muninn
9d ago
Hmm, how about this?
A rip-roaring, meth fueled, adrenaline drenched thrill ride through dungeon after dungeon of sadistic insanity! You think you're over litRPG, that it's dumb, or maybe you never even heard of it? It doesn't matter! This series has it all! Start with a maladjusted simp, pair him with his soon-to-be-sapient ex-girlfriend's cat, then introduce them both to a sentient, sadistic dungeon AI with a foot fetish and let the games begin! It only gets better from there!
New achievement! Why aren’t you wearing pants? You entered the dungeon wearing no pants. Dude. Seriously?
Muninn
10d ago
Seconding, DCC was my gateway drug into litRPGs and pound for pound, it's still the most insane,angsty,lol-worthy series in this genre that I've read.
Goddammit Donut!
Muninn
16d ago
I was hospitalized a little while back at my own hospital and was the victim of a pretty severe and unacceptable/easily avoidable medical error. I don't think a non-doctor would have even noticed.
Would you mind saying more about the error in question? If not, I totally understand but you've nevertheless piqued my curiosity.
Muninn
29d ago
I'm autistic, and I can tell that it runs in my family. My family tree has a lot of intelligent but eccentric people who likes model trains and such and have a silly form of humor. I've also heard "Coffee just makes me fall asleep haha" at quite a lot of family gatherings. Every time I watched trivia channels like "Who wants to be a millionare?" with my grandfather he'd know basically all the answers. My family also had a lot of criminals, mentally ill people (manic depression for instance), and millionares, so it's definitely not just autism and ADHD.
But yeah, I can see the traits, even though most of my family aren't diagnosed. Diagnosing mental illness is more of a recent thing, at least where I'm from (which I'm not telling).
I don't know if autism is genetic, or if it's mostly caused by stress like you claim, and my family just happens to be high in neuroticism (which results in high rates of autism). I do think mental illness is on a raise though, as the modern society is less in tune with human nature. Couple this with the modern and much lower thresholds for diagnosis of mental disorders, and the effect is basically explained.
My story is similar, dad's side of the family is Scots-Irish and riddled with alcoholism and autism. My grandfather and one of my uncles are both maybes, and my dad and my other uncle are definitely autistic. I'm more than old enough to have slid through the US educational system without ever being caught, though I did get some attention from a teacher or two that was sure that something was wrong with me along with plenty of, "not living up to his potential," type report cards. Took the Aspie test BITD, laughed at the ridiculously high score that I got out of it, not even understanding that "neurodiversity" was essentially a code word but definitely identifying with not being a normie. Hell, I even made jokes about all of the autism in the family! When I was formally diagnosed a little less than three years ago I just laughed and laughed. There was yet another thing in my life that was hiding in plain sight all along!
I agree that the changing criteria for autism is the primary driver for the huge increase in diagnosis rates, and combining it with Asperger's in the DSM-V further exacerbates that. I'd also say that we have a decent set of criteria for diagnosing autism, which of course is still separate from whether or not it's being over-diagnosed in children. On the question of whether or not it's an illness in and of itself, I personally don't see it that way, though to be fair I've lived with it all my life without having any precise idea of what it was. Rather I see it as a large set of mental trade-offs where things like hyperfocus can be incredibly helpful in some circumstances and brutally crippling in others, to the extent that we can often resemble the "this is fine" meme, drinking coffee at our kitchen tables while our house is burning down around us.
Muninn
1mo ago
Yeah, she was institutionalized for that, I'm sure it saved her life. Sadly, she's still anorexic af, but she's managed a balance where she maintains a decent weight, so she's got that going for her.
Muninn
1mo ago
I am a man and I have extensive firsthand experience in this department. Me, I'm a simple vegetarian (which means I eat dairy and eggs) and only qualify for "disordered eating," which is to say that my eating habits are not even in the zip code of normal people but don't rise to the level of a full-blown eating disorder--autism, it's what's (not) for breakfast! My wife, on the other hand, has struggled with anorexia for most of her adult life and was 58 pounds at her lowest weight. There's no delicate way for me to say this, but the, "you don't want me to get fat, right," comment, her restrictive diet, and being underweight all combine to raise my suspicions that your girlfriend is anorexic. In fact, that's pretty much the diagnostic criteria for anorexia right there if we assume that the fear of becoming overweight is intense or otherwise exaggerated. If she is, there are other common signs that you've already noticed or will notice over time, things like being extremely self-conscious about her body, a negative self-image in general, hiding her body with loose clothing or layers, a general habit of withdrawing and isolating from friends and fun/enjoyable activities, fluid loading, especially with caffeinated beverages, noticeably low muscle mass on arms and legs, etc.
I actually came here to write about my own difficulties in my marriage due in major part to my wife's anorexia and I have been crying off and on as I write this because this shit is as serious as a heart attack and I want to find a way to convey this to you. Recovery is possible but it's a long and arduous road, requiring a good treatment team, a support network that unabashedly loves her and supports her unconditionally, and most importantly her own willingness to participate in treatment and sustained efforts to recover. Please feel free to respond/DM me if you want to talk more about this--I hope like hell that it isn't that bad, and I wish you well regardless.
Muninn
1mo ago
Edit: I thought I remembered the funding for EHRs coming from the ACA but fact checking myself I'm less sure.
Good fact check! EHR funding was a part of the ARRA, aka the Stimulus.
Muninn
1mo ago
Yeah, for the record, when it comes to mental illness in general, while I find the entire field fascinating, and I've been told that I could absolutely do clinical work if I actually wanted to do it badly enough to get the sheepskin, but it's more like I know a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two, since I've never been formally trained. As a Mottizen I would request that you please err on the side of mansplaining/docsplaining/etc in the future since it's hard for me to hit information overload. And I will shamelessly admit that I've become a sucker for any half-decent LitRPG stuff so the world of 12 Miles Below turned out to be quite the pleasant surprise.
Back to the topic at hand! I believe I have inadvertently muddied the waters there since the thrust of my original post was really a more off-the-cuff and less elegant version of your saying that it's not a high percentage of people but a certain population absolutely needs to avoid [drugs and alcohol], ie that for some folks drug and alcohol use can lead to psychotic symptoms while under the influence of the substance in question and perhaps dealing with those symptoms for some time afterwards. Our crisis department deals with the fallout from that often enough. I was not, in that reply, intending to delve into the much muddier question of whether or not drugs, and particularly psychedelics and hallucinogens, can cause psychosis all by themselves. Since you've already covered that ground, I'll just add to that particular question that my personal suspicion is that for some folks, their long-term drug use does contribute to periods of or even lasting psychosis, though I wouldn't go so far as to say that drug use alone was responsible for the psychosis. While this shows my age, my go-to association there is the story of Syd Barrett. He was definitely schizophrenic and I personally believe from the obvious and fairly common progression in his case that he would have been schizophrenic regardless of his drug use, but as Roger Waters put it, his enthusiasm for, and frequent use of LSD certainly didn't help. In the case of my particular anecdote I think it's there's a good chance that schizophrenia was brewing but the symptoms started subtle enough to be dismissed, but of course it's almost impossible to separate cause and effect out given that she was smoking dope regularly at that time as well. It certainly didn't help her any, either, and I think that if she were able to lay off of the Devil's Lettuce, she'd certainly be better off than she otherwise would be.
Muninn
1mo ago
So @Throwaway05 has answered this well and the point made about the cause vs. reveals debate is a good one with no clear, correct answer. For the anecdote in question, this gal had been a long-term recreational user and was well into middle age when she started exhibiting acute psychotic symptoms pretty much out of the blue. Fortysomething is pretty late in the game to develop schizophrenia, though it isn't unheard of, like 15-20% IIRC, and her case generally seemed to be more of the sudden onset variety that was slowly clearing after each episode until she used again. On the work front, again, I'd agree that we see folks that french fried when they should have pizzaed and as a result are having a bad time.
Muninn
1mo ago
Once Upon A Time, I read The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience, and one of the takeaways was that hallucinogens in particular did in fact permanently alter the brain's neural pathways and that also tracks with my own personal experiences, so I'd say your theory has merit. That said, on a meta level, I also wouldn't recommend that particular path to anyone, either, so there's that.
Muninn
1mo ago
Just because I have lots of experience in this department, I can understand your skepticism. However, drug and alcohol induced psychosis is absolutely a Thing, propaganda notwithstanding. My old roommate was recently dating a gal who reached the point of marijuana-induced psychosis during the course of their relationship, in fact. By the end of it she couldn't hold down a job and had been hospitalized a couple of times for her episodes, and IIRC her continued smoking despite all of that was a big factor in the break-up.
The White Knight Syndrome, which is an interesting read so far, even if it hasn't magically transformed me into someone other than Don Quixote...
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