Straight-up Christiany Blog Post

Because I am a Christian, every once in awhile I will post a straight up Christiany blog post. Today is one of those days. This one is on trusting God. I trust God because I believe He will catch me when no one else will. I trust Him because he has been my everything when I have nothing. I cry out to him when I am broken, when I am ecstatic, when the world is falling apart and when I am queen of the world. So I know some of you are asking "How do you trust so much in something you can't see? Your life must be perfect that you can have that level of faith(or maybe you call it naivete?)."

If you think my life is perfect, you should really think about the point of view of this blog. Life from the perspective of a woman with MENTAL DISABILITIES. This in itself indicates problems in my life. I am on Medi-Cal and just today I found out for the second time in 6 months I may very well lose my Medi-Cal for awhile. If anyone knows anything about bipolar medication, you realize this is a huge problem. For those of you who don't know, if I don't have medication I slowly descend into mood swings, depression and impulsivity. This. Is. Not. Good. My life has been filled with doctors, group homes and a behavioral modification program in Utah where the director was arrested for child abuse 4 times while I was there, and I being one of the abused. There were stupid choices, stupid things that happened to me not of my own accord, depression of the acutest kind where I cried myself to sleep every night for months because I was asking God where He was in all this. Several family deaths, the death of my best friend at the age of nine(I think), and just some overall weird situations. So WHY do I trust God!?

I could give you a Bible-ese answer with a bunch of verses and notations but for those of you who don't believe(and even those who do) that isn't going to make one bit of difference. Simply, I believe because I don't have any other choice. I am the poster child for a sucky life, but God, the One who loves me more than anyone, the One who cares when I fall and picks me back up, the One who put up with all of my weird obsessions as a child and all of my problems and all of the "Stupid Tax" that I paid over the years and all of the swear words that have come from my mouth and all of the depression and tears and heartache and screaming at Him because He was evil and my life sucks, THAT GOD STILL LOVES ME. If something bad happened in my life or even in the world(because I know people that ask about things like Katrina or 9/11) I know there is something to learn and do better from it. It is not condemnation on the world as some would lead you to believe. There is a lesson everywhere. Things have happened in my life, good and horrible, that turned into blessings that can only be explained by the One I call God. Whether you call it God, some form of higher power, spirit, or some other name, if something good or bad has happened to you that you can't explain and it ended up blessing you more than you thought it possibly could, that is God's love. Romans 8:38-39 tells us that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of the God of the universe. NOTHING and UNIVERSE are some very powerful, huge, big big big words that mean a lot if you really take the time to think about them. So here's my challenge to you. Whatever your circumstances in life, pick up a Bible somewhere or even steal one from a friend or family member because someone you know should have one. Then find that verse, Romans 8:38-39. Read it once or twice, then sit there for ten minutes and let your mind contemplate it, think about what has happened in your life and in the world around you, about what God can teach you and others through both your life and major world events, and see what happens when you let yourself start to believe in the love of the One who gave His Son for you. God bless your day :)

Self control and the "Stupid Tax"

Disclaimer: the "Stupid Tax" concept is borrowed from Mr. Dave Ramsey, it does not belong to me. Also again this may not apply to everyone with mental disabilities.

Self-control is one of the hardest things for a person with mental disabilities to learn. Because the wiring in our brains is messed up(see the picture below of Temple Grandin's brain [care of 60 Minutes]), self control doesn't always work right. We are loud, impulsive, and tend to make stupid choices that we may or may not regret later. We spend money we shouldn't, eat things that make us sick because "they taste good," and make other lame choices that affect us and sometimes others. So how do you as our guardian help us to understand the concept of self-control?

Dave Ramsey has this concept he likes to call the "Stupid Tax." Because Mr. Ramsey is a financial guru(I'm serious, look him up), this concept applies to money. But I believe it can be applied to any stupid choice. So here's how it works. Any time your child makes a choice that classifies under "stupid," there must be some sort of "tax," whether it is a long talk or the removal of a favorite item from their possession. Now I am NOT saying your child is stupid, in fact most kids with mental disabilities are very smart. I myself have a 147 IQ, but that doesn't mean I have not made stupid choices. Trust me, a LOT of my choices in life classify as stupid. But that doesn't make me stupid. However, lack of correction creates a stupid child. If you don't take the time to gently rebuke your child when they make a bad choice then you are enabling them to do it again. This createa a problem in children with disabilities because we are smart. We can figure out where we won't be rebuked and we will do it over and over, thus creating stupidity. When I was younger(and I am not proud of this), I figured out that by removing small amount of money at a time from my mother's wallet she would never notice. She didn't until I got cocky and started taking more. Then I paid a LARGE "Stupid Tax" because she found out. I ended up washing cars to pay her back over $300 because of my lack of self-control. The problem is, if we see we can get away with something we will push boundaries until we get caught. This isn't good and needs to be nipped in the bud early. If it isn't your child and possibly others could pay a big price for it.

So gently rebuke your children when they do something stupid and with a lack of self control. They may be mad at you then but it will make them better people later.

(In the picture, the neat and clean colored thing is a brain wire in a normal person, or NT. The one the hand is pointing to is Temple Grandin's brain wire, and is similar to all people with autism. Picture c/o 60 Minutes copyright 2011.)

"Why can't my child just KEEP THINGS CLEAN!?"

Okay, this is my room and it is a tornado zone(although my bed is a mattress on the floor[by my own choice], so that's why the picture is from a low point of view). So why am I showing you this? To explain the mindset behind mental disabilities and the seeming inability to keep ANYTHING clean. Be it dishes, clothes, or the ever-growing abyss known as the bedroom, I hope to explain why we just don't clean it. Disclaimer: this does NOT apply to all children and adults with disabilities, so if it is not your child then ignore me. If it IS your child you might want to listen up. Anyway, why can't we keep anything clean? There are several reasons. First, a person with any or all of the disabilities I have, be it Aspergers, Bipolar, or ADHD, gets distracted very easily and doesn't have a lot of patience. Let me give an example. When I do laundry it usually takes me about 3 hours to finish the cycles. By the time it's finished, I am so bored and impatient that I don't really want to take the time to put the clothes away. This escalates when I come back to it and realize that there is something I would rather be doing than putting clothes away. Impatience and distraction become laziness and I end up living out of a hamper for a week until I do laundry again. Which leads me to the next point. Eventually the mess gets so profound that I look at it and think "I have no idea what to do to clean this up!" This thinking escalates into "Oh, I'll never get this done," and I end up believing that this mess will never get cleaned up and I go off and do something else. Impatience and distraction lead to me psyching myself out to the point where I feel like I am not capable of cleaning my room. This being said, usually the mess is organized chaos. If I know the general area where an item is I am trying to find, I know I can find it. If I use the word organized chaos you as the parent or guardian should believe that I know what I'm doing. Difficult I know, but it is true.

There is however a glaring exception to this. It is called THE ONE ITEM. For me it is my keys. My keys will get lost, and it doesn't matter where I think they are, they are NEVER THERE. I end up tearing apart my room(which can still be done even in organized chaos), and still not finding them, I fly into an uncontrollable rage because I cannot find my *insert swear word here* keys!! Anyone who knows or lives with someone with mental disabilities knows that these rages exist, and that I am not exaggerating. What needs to happen is that you as the parent or guardian, or even the child is he or she is capable, needs to pick a place where THE ONE ITEM will exist when it is not the child's posession. My keys exist in a basket pinned high on my wall so they do not ever touch the floor because when they touch the floor it will be at least 2 hours before they are found again, and that is WITH a search party.

One other thing, if your child needs to clean their room for a special occasion, organize it for them. Give them steps to follow that are specific and straightforward, and if you are the creative type, make it a game! Award prizes, and even get involved. Don't do it for them, but help out showing them where the item should go and making it fun however you see fit. That way they will eventually begin to see that cleaning their room doesn't have to send them into total freakout mode or be totally dull :)

I hope this helps, and may God bless your day.

Experimental post

Hi just trying something from my smartphone...ignore this post.

Things to NEVER say to someone with a disability.

1. "Just get over it already!" When I started college, I fell deeply in love with one of my professors. Because I am a moral person and he was married, I internalized it and kept it to myself. The problem with this is, as I kept it inside the feelings grew, as did the guilt knowing that I had fallen for someone who according to Biblical standards was off limits. As I believe the Bible is true I knew that I was heading down a dangerous road that would be hard to return from. This was true, and it took me two years to get back to normal. The point of this is that about a year and a half into this was when it hit me the hardest. I spent a week mostly in bed crying and asking God why this was happening. My mom noticed because I would cry myself to sleep every night and it was LOUD. One morning she asked me what was going on and I explained what had been going on all this time. She asked me why I didn't just get over it and got up and walked away. At the time I thought this was heinous. WHY didn't she understand? But that is the point. She didn't understand because she was not in my head. This is what both sides, disabled and normal need to understand. We are not in the other's head and therefore cannot fully understand. However, just because each side doesn't understand doesn't mean said sides don't care. Granted, those with disabilities may care a little less, but we still care. It is just hard to understand when we don't feel what the other is feeling. Be sympathetic, and make sure the other side understands you do care even if you don't fully grasp what they're dealing with.

2. "Why can't you just act like a normal person for once!?" As much as this is tempting for a parent to yell sometimes (just ask my mother), the fact is that it is pointless and will only hurt someone with ANY disability. The simple fact is that we aren't normal and therefore cannot act as such. That being said, yelling at us, screeching, huffing and puffing, or other shows of impatience will not work, it will only make us mad and make us shut down. Once we shut down it is as though we are petulant children with our fingers in our ears screeching "NANANANANA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!"

3. "I told you so!" If you told us something would go wrong with a choice we choose to make, and it does, PLEASE do not use this phrase. Case in point, a friend of mine with Asperger's drives a small car with completely black tinted windows. I told him when I first met him he was going to get a ticket for it, or at least a warning. Three days ago he got pulled over and got a ticket for it. When he posted this on Facebook I immediately became an immature child thinking "I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I WAS RIGHT!!!!" After logging off Facebook for a good three hours in an effort to not post something stupid on his wall, I realized that posting this would only hurt him and would therefore just make him boiling mad. When we do something wrong and people insist on harping that it was wrong after we know said fact, it just makes us mad and sometimes mad enough to throw or break stuff. Please don't say "I told  you so," we know you told us so and we feel bad.

I will think of more later, but for now this is a good start.

Patience...the touchy topic.

Patience. This is a word that is used most often in my household in some form or concept. "Hold on a minute!" "Be patient!" "Can't you just wait!?" So why is it that it is so hard for someone with autism, Bipolar Disorder, or ADHD to wait? Simple. For 98% of us, patience is not a concept that we understand. We were not hardwired with the capability of being patient. Especially if ADHD is one of the disorders we have, learning to be patient is extremeley difficult because it requires learning something which we have no concept of what it is other than the knowledge in our heads that it is a concept. What this means is that we know in our minds what patience is, but we have no idea how to implement it because somewhere between knowledge and implementation there are wires crossed and messed up. So, if you tell me to have patience I know what you're talking about, I just don't know how to be patient. So how do you teach your children to be patient? Sadly this is not a situation where you can just throw the Bible at them. This increases knowledge, not the ability to implement. You can increase the knowledge all you want but if you don't increase the ability to implement YOU GET NOWHERE. First, you yourself must be patient. If my mother has told me a hundred times to wash my dishes but at any point she starts to nag, raise her voice, or any combination of the two, I shut off. This is something BIG that parents, friends, teachers, and random strangers walking down the street need to learn. If your voice, when instructing me(your disabled child) to do something(and it doesn't matter if you've said it once or a million times), varies in the slightest from "I am totally calm, cool and collected," I WILL pick up on it and if it ventures into the nagging or voice raising territory, I will SHUT DOWN and you might as well do the task yourself because I won't hear you. Either that or I will start yelling at you. You as the other must have patience, because if you don't I can promise you NO disabled child will ever learn. Second, be creative. Come up with creative ways to integrate knowledge and implementation together. This is also important, that we be able to connect the two because then we more fully understand it. Come up with a lesson, find a way to tie in a walk in the park, or a favorite game. Just know that whatever you do you will initially be met with resistance. Eventually it should get better if you are persistent and calm. Use everyday things, too. If your child demands something RIGHT NOW, explain to them why not right now and offer an alternative. If there is no alternative, you will be left with a screaming child and no patience. So I guess the lesson here is that you must have patience in order to teach me patience because I promise you it is easier for you to learn than me. God bless your day :)

Dealing with Government Entities and their Issues.

Recently, I had my Medi-Cal taken away because they determined I had "other insurance." What they wouldn't believe is that THEY told me to purchase dental insurance, and that the dental insurance I had purchased came up as an HMO. I don't even know what an HMO is but I know that it prevented any person from running my Medi-Cal. I couldn't get my meds, I couldn't see a doctor, I was in debt to a hospital I had recently visited, and I was in a car accident and couldn't get into the ER. I was frustrated, and had no idea what to do. Does this sound familiar to anyone? So what do you do when you have these kind of problems and need help NOW!? First, be calm. Not being calm does not help a single person, nor does it make the government entity want to work with you. Second, be PERSISTENT. Persistence is key because it shows them you are serious. Most of the time your caseworker(assuming you have one) DOES want to help you, they are just so overworked they barely have time. So keep calling. I called about 80 times during this month and left about 59 messages and sort of bordered on harrassment, but if your child needs meds or a doctor's visit, YOU NEED TO HARRASS THEM! They need to know that they are messing with your child's (and your) ability to LIVE, and that cannot happen. With disabled children, having insurance is good because it allows you to live. It is very rare that your child is able to cope without medicine if they've been on it long enough, and they should not have to. So, be persistent, and if you need to go higher than your caseworker, DO IT. Call the supervisor, call the state if you need to. It is important that you be able to provide for your child, and this is a crash course in learning how, I now have meds after 2 months of harrassing my caseworker, so be aware that while persistence is key, you also have to know that it will take time. Just be calm, trust God, and know that eventually everything will be okay.