And Along Came Rocco

Once upon a time, my wife Bianca would have never considered getting a dog. I would have considered getting one to be a companion to our future children. Those ideas all changed a couple years ago when Bianca's parents bought a dog. Their German Shepherd named Jumbo changed our hearts and minds. So, for the past couple years, Bianca and I had in the back of our minds the thought of one day owning a dog. This past June, I happened to be browsing the internet for puppies. I figured that we should get a Labrador Retriever because I heard that they were family-friendly. I happened to see on the American Kennel Club website that a breeder had puppies for sale. I was sitting at the computer looking at the listing, and I called to Bianca who was in the next room, "Do you want to get a dog?" The rest is history.

I decided to name our new puppy Rocco because it seemed like such an appropriate name for a male lab. It has a certain kind of oomph to it. Little did Bianca and I realize how Rocco would strengthen the bond between us and bring more stability to our frames of mind. While Rocco is a paramount source of stress relief for Bianca, he is also the avenue by which I can get out of my own head and show how capable I am of taking care of family responsibilities. Bianca says she never saw me happier than when I am spending time with Rocco. To tell you the truth, I never felt happier! In return, Rocco senses that as well.

It is no great surprise that animals have such a therapeutic effect on people. There are horse riding camps for disabled children. There are people who have their dogs and cats trained to be therapy companions and visit people in hospitals and nursing homes. There is even a type of psychotherapy called AAT, or animal-assisted therapy. Because of my own personal experiences, and seeing for myself the effect animals have on fellow audies, I cannot stress enough how vital having a pet is for ANYone.

I recently saw that there will soon be a study done that examines the unique connection between dogs and children with special needs. Being autistic, I am not quite sure why all the neurotypical people seem to think this “connection” is so unusual. It just IS. Bianca seems perplexed at how Rocco responds to me and at how I always seem to know what he is feeling and trying to say. While any observant person can figure out their pet’s nuances, Rocco and I seem to be able to communicate on a subtle, nonverbal level. It works pretty much the same way as the nonverbal communication, the emergence of intuitive insights, that occurs when I am caring for my patients. Feelings arise. Vibrations are sensed. No interpretations are required. This is why the appropriate responses, verbally and in actions, can be made. I don’t know how else to explain it.

This connection is not unique to me and Rocco. This is how it is for fellow audies too. Why? Because people with autism, and their pets, do not have the same judgments and subjectiveness as a neurotypical person would. Outcomes are based on synergy, not on egoism. Neurotypicals tend to react and respond to things from within their own biases. Autistic people, who tend to not get the social clues most the time, react and respond to things based on past experiences of what is and isn’t appropriate. But between the world of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders and the animal kingdom, there exists a rationale that cannot be defined or explained. Like I said previously, it just IS.

We never trained Rocco to ring a bell or bark by the door when he has to go to the bathroom. I can just see the look in his eyes. When I ask him if he has to go potty, either the deliberate blinking of the eyes or a bob of the head means “yes”. It never fails. When I am giving Rocco strict discipline, all I have to do is calmly tell him what isn’t correct without yelling “no”. It is much more effective. While these interactions may certainly exist between neurotypicals and their pets, there is something extra going on here, something on a deeper level. I should add here that Labrador Retrievers, by nature, are very smart. Because of Rocco's good nature, we plan on having him trained as a therapy dog. I can only guess that this same level of understanding would exist if Rocco was another breed or was another animal all together. My guess is that there would be. A fellow audie who owns several dogs says that this is the way it is for her and all her canine companions.

If you’ve ever read Dr. Temple Grandin’s works regarding how she can interpret animal behaviors, then you have seen a glimpse of what I am trying to describe. She can get into the animal’s head. Therefore, she can determine what the needs and the concerns of the animal are. In this way, she can come up with the best solutions. It’s what makes her a genius at what she does as an animal scientist and designer of ranches and slaughterhouses. I can never claim to be a “dog whisperer” or a master of beasts. I am just somebody, like my fellow audies, who pays attention to the subtleties in the air through which esoteric communication exists. For me, there is nothing to decipher, nothing to figure out; it just IS.

Compromising, & Other Things That Work

This article was written just for my fellow audies to read. As the sign on the treehouse reads, “No neurotypicals allowed.” However, you are invited to sit and watch from a distance, as you might learn something about the world we audies live in.

Compromising is a fact of life that anybody, audie or neurotypical, must deal with eventually in order to have a happy relationship. Whether it is a relationship between you and your parents, you and a coworker or boss, or you and a spouse, sometimes you just have to do what they ask in order for the team to accomplish its goals. Yes, we do like when things go the way we want them to, regardless of what other people think or feel. It’s not that we are selfish or obstinate, like the neurotypical world thinks we are. It is because of how very strictly we arrange the rules of our routines, the rules we live by. If you’ve read my post entitled “How I Pretend To Be (Somewhat) Normal,” you would see clearly how I sometimes just have to manipulate the rules in my head. When I give my autism seminars, I am always approached by a parent or caretaker about what to do about that loved one of theirs that doesn’t want to budge from their “bad” behaviors or ways of doing things. I guess it comes with age, but eventually you come to the realization that it is better to make the members of your team or family happy so that they can feel and know that you can contribute to this world. You just have to tweak the rules a bit.

So how does this happen? You know how you make rules in your head for every little thing? Your bathroom routine must proceed in a certain way. The way you start up your workplace for the day. The way you drive your car. The way you arrange your piles of papers. Everything follows a set of rules that only you can understand. Well, the key is this: In between each rule you have to insert a space. For example, as a rule I always shave right before I take my shower. Usually, I go right from shaving to taking my shower. Over the years, I’ve learned to insert a “space” between these two tasks, a space where interruptions and a change of plans is ALLOWED to happen. This lets me break away from the bathroom routine momentarily to do some yard work or feed my dog before going back to shower and continuing on with the routine as usual. This works so much better when your wife is adamant that the grass needs to be cut TODAY. Interruptions and change are inevitable. Compromising and doing this differently really are possible. Then you will receive lots of pats on the back for having been able to be more “flexible”. But you know, and so do I, that it was possible only because you were able to rearrange the rules!

I know that many of you have to take certain medications such as Prozac or Adderall. Anxiety and feeling that your mind is all over the place really take a lot out of you. Without these medications, it is hard to function, especially when you are expected to do so around a group of people. I know it’s not something you are proud of, but it’s also not something to be ashamed of either. Look at Temple Grandin. She has to take Prozac before she feels capable of being able to get in front of an audience to give one of her great speeches. But what if there was another way of doing things so that you don’t HAVE to take prescription medicines? In reality, there is. Even though you take only half the normal dose of those medicines because of how sensitive you are to changes, you may be just as responsive to the positive changes that the alternatives have to offer. I know this to be true firsthand. Although I’ve never taken prescription psychoactive medicines, I have taken herbal supplements instead. Did you know that 750 mg of St. John’s Wort is just as effective as 80 mg of Prozac, and has far less side effects? That’s what a study showed that was published in the November 1996 issue of the Journal of Natural Medicine. There are similar herbal alternatives to other types of medications as well, and it is up to you to try them.

But there is something that helped me far more than any herbal supplement. Well, actually a combination of things. First, you really need to go to a chiropractor and to visit him or her on a regular basis. If I go more than two weeks without seeing my chiropractor, my ability to communicate coherently, my concentration, and my hypersensitivities become worse. It is by having my nerve system free from interference, interference that happens when bones shift out of alignment and affect how nerves work, that everything in my body, including my brain’s ability to think, work better. In addition to this, I listen to my instincts, my own intuition. Many of my own successes in life are due to this. For many of us, this is not easy because we tend to doubt ourselves and become anxious very easily. What helped me to “tune in” more is practicing a formal type of meditation. By practicing meditation seriously, I can look past all the waves in the mind that make us feel “less than” and see what’s going on behind the scenes, so to speak. It’s a more insightful, “spiritual” if you will, way of looking at the big picture. These are ways in which I have helped myself to navigate the oftentimes confusing and exhausting neurotypical world. Even when reason and advice from neurotypicals seem to work against me, listening to my intuition ALWAYS produced the better outcomes.

Above all else, remember that everybody really DOES want the best for you. People aren’t out to “get” you. It may seem that way, more often than not. I know because I lived with this feeling for so many years. I had to see past this belief, and to see past my own feelings of inadequacy, before life really started handing me some great moments. There may be a troublemaker or two you encounter along the way. But on the whole, NOBODY is out to get you! There really is greatness within you and around you, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Sometimes you just have to sit there with pen and paper and start writing things down before you recognize them. Sometimes you just need to have a counselor or a mentor who points these things out for you. I myself see a very caring social worker who helps me to see things in a better light. It’s all a matter of perception, and we audies tend to feel like we are the bad guys in a good world; we are the cause of others’ misery. Everyone is indeed responsible for his or her own behavior, from the neurotypical who is a less-than-understanding crab to the person with an Autism Spectrum Disorder that points the finger at the fact that he is autistic when he makes a social blunder. If you want more insight into any of the topics I briefly discussed in this article, let’s get together and chat. All of these things that work that I mentioned here can certainly be topics in themselves for future articles and conversations. I’m an audie just like you, and I’m here to help!

Adverse Behaviors In Autism

Every time I teach my autism seminar, I have at least one parent approach me with questions regarding adverse behaviors in their child, wondering how to deal with them while frustration mounts. The answer is always the same: “Be understanding, and be very patient.” By “adverse” behaviors, I am not saying that the autistic child or adult is being purposefully bad. “Adverse” simply means that the behavior is not congruent with the neurotypical (normal) ways of doing things. Stimming, outbursts, lack of eye contact, “headbanging” routines, defiance, anxiety, hypersensitivity, and panic attacks are all examples of adverse behavior. I like to explain that adverse behaviors happen only when the autistic person is expected to act like a neurotypical. In other words, they’re just part of the daily life of a person with an Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Most autistic people will have only one or two adverse behaviors. I believe my two are hypersensitivity and “headbanging”. These behaviors are only made worse when people such as my dad, when I was a child, and now my wife try to correct them. It’s just not going to happen! Headbanging is not to be confused with stimming, and I will explain the difference later. Stimming is the repetitive flapping of hands, hitting oneself, rocking, making annoying sounds, and so on. Stimming was a very common behavior in me when I was a child. I would bang my head against the headboard of my crib and constantly want to go full-speed in a rocking chair or rocking horse. I would also sing, horribly, at the top of my lungs while rocking. Stimming was how I found comfort in the world since everything and everyone around me seemed so intimidating. During my late teens and early 20s, there was defiance. I had no motivation to follow any path, to make any friends, to get anywhere in life. This is what I call my period of “shutdown”. I knew I was different. I felt that nobody cared because nobody understood. So I just wanted out. Thank goodness for one or two adult friends, I never did self-destruct. But it was definitely a sad and lonely time.

One thing that seemed so unusual to many people was the fact that I felt right at home when in front of a crowd. Maybe it was because I had been playing the piano in recitals ever since I was four years old? Whatever the reason, I displayed practically no anxiety at all. I loved assignments in college where I had to prepare a presentation to give in front of the class. I felt right at home playing the role of “teacher”. On the contrary, though, I do experience some level of nervousness when giving instructions on performing a particular skill, such as CPR. I feel most comfortable when I am disseminating knowledge. Because anxiety is very common in people on the spectrum, it is usually dealt with by taking psychoactive medicines such as Prozac and Zoloft. Even though people on the spectrum need only half the typical dosage, I must, as a doctor of natural healing, blow the horn of advocacy for safer ways of dealing with anxiety such as herbal alternatives (such as St. John’s Wort), meditation, yoga, energy medicine, and chiropractic care (particularly upper cervical specific).

Hypersensitivity is also extremely common among people on the spectrum. Hypersensitivity doesn’t just mean being more affected by the things people say and do, oftentimes taking too many things personally or the wrong way. It also has to do with sensory input and how it is processed, such as the lighting and sounds in a room, the feel of certain textures, fragrances, etc. If there are too many hypersensitivities at one time, sensory overload occurs. For me, this would cause me to go into “shutdown” mode. When I was a trainee on the ambulance squad, I was definitely hypersensitive to all the activities going on around me during an emergency situation. Therefore, I would always shut down and freeze up as if I didn’t know what to do. I certainly did know what to do. I just couldn’t multitask until I forced myself to learn how. That’s what overload can do to an autistic person, usually causing them to either have a panic attack or an outburst. My hypersensitivities are much more pronounced and devastating when I am unrested or unbathed for a whole day. Lack of sleep can make me fidgety toward things that normally wouldn’t bother me, such as listening to music or the TV, or even having my wife hover around me. Also, I could never ever leave the house for the day unless I’ve had a shower first. Otherwise, I feel as though I have swamp scum covering me from head to toe, and even letting my wife touch my hair freaks me out. Normally, though, I handle sensory overload by turning things off, such as the radio, TV, lights, or by ignoring the (unintentional) aggressor. Unfortunately, though, when I was working in the busy hospital setting during my days as a Respiratory Therapist, this meant that I would shut off my pager without even realizing it if I was concentrating too much on another task, such as taking a patient’s vital signs.

As for the “headbanging” routines, I define these as any task that is repeated over and over again without any purpose or without any results. While stimming equals repetitive actions, “headbanging” means actual tasks. Since making social and business-related contact with people is perhaps my weakest area in life, I figured that I would certainly get somewhere as an entrepreneur if I write a great brochure and send it out by direct mail to prospective clients. In the eight-plus years I’ve been making brochures, mailing lists, spending hundreds of dollars on postage, rearranging my website, and making poor attempts at cold calling, I never received a single client through these efforts. This unproductive dead-end of doing the same thing over and over again with absolutely no results was THE final straw that caused Bianca and I to start drifting apart. It was my sincere wish to pursue marriage counseling that finally brought me to the discovery that I was autistic, thereby forming a strong loving bond between Bianca and me.

So, in the end, how are parents and caretakers supposed to deal with adverse behaviors? How does Bianca deal with mine? She just does. There is no “right” or “wrong” to correct. Adverse behaviors are just part of being autistic. Such mannerisms add color to the world, as they are part of the autistic person’s nature. It would certainly benefit the autistic person to receive counseling from a psychologist or a social worker. I myself see a social worker simply to have somebody to talk to who can help me see things from a neurotypical perspective in a nonjudgmental way while accepting myself, autism and all, as I am. As I stated earlier, adverse behaviors happen only when an autistic person is expected to act like a neurotypical. It is necessary for the parent and caretaker to take away this notion of changing the person with autism. The autistic person needs to be accepted as they are. They may never be exactly the person you want them to be. But they will certainly be comfortable being themselves.

Living By The Rules

There are different ways in which the autistic mind thinks and processes information. These different types are discussed in detail in the video "It Takes All Kinds of Minds" by Dr. Temple Grandin. No matter which kind of mind you are talking about, there is one thing that is common to all of them: all actions, reactions, and interactions are based on rules. Rules are made over time as things are categorized and differentiated. For example, Temple had to learn that not every piece of furniture that had four legs was a dining table. There are coffee tables, end tables, chair with four legs, flower stands, etc. As for me, living by the rules had to do more with how to do my job and interact with people rather than categorizing objects and animals. This led to a rather debilitating amount of cluelessness. This cluelessness could eventually be overcome only by observing results on the job and the reactions and feedback I would get from people. When the outcomes were negative, I'd think of how little my presence and my input was worth. When they were positive, I'd feel motivated to keep going.

A good example of how I learned something by forming rules was the job I had when I worked as a data trip record clerk for Penske Truck Leasing. One of my tasks was to enter paper reports that the drivers of the leased vehicles would fill out into the mainframe computer. On a daily basis, I would type between 150 and 300 reports, logging departure cities, destinations, mileages, fuel purchases, etc. To look at the piles and piles of reports left me feeling exhausted and disoriented before I even began. For the first few months I worked there, I was the slowest in a department of sixteen people. It wasn't because I didn't know how to type. I certainly could, and I knew computers well. I just moved very slowly, as I usually do before I develop a knack. Then one day I discovered something. As I was typing along, I could modify the way I typed to form certain musical patterns. I could form arpeggios when typing in the mileage column. I could bang out a quick tap-tap to enter in a state abbreviation. I would create similar genres for each column on the page. After forming these rules by which each bit of information could be easily and playfully typed, I went from being the slowest person in the department to the fastest! But it came with a price. The better I got at typing, the louder I hit the keys. Hearing the same mosaic banging over and over again all day long caused everyone around me to have headaches.

They say that one thing an autistic person cannot do is function in any job that requires a lot of distraction and multitasking. This is one reason why I am glad that I did not find out I was on the autism spectrum until I was in my late 40s, well after having become a successful ambulance attendant, fire police officer, and respiratory therapist. I would have surely been told that I could never accomplish any of these things because of how demanding they are had I been diagnosed early on. As a result, I pursued these interests and eventually learned how to excel at them, even moreso than many people of the people I worked with. I did it by forming procedural rules within my own head. It is one thing to practice and master being able to put a sling on somebody's broken arm in a classroom. It is a completely different situation when you are performing the same action when you also have three other victims of an accident to tend to, monitor their vital signs, take their health history, write a report, and then eventually regurgitate all this information to the emergency room staff. I could do all this only after months and months of making mistakes, eventually figuring out a set of rules that would "categorize" each action until they became second-nature. If a distraction would come along, as it always did, I would form a picture in my head of whatever task I was being pulled away from, thereby putting this task on "hold", so that I knew what I had to return to. For example, when assessing a patient with a collapsed lung, and then suddenly being asked to set up an IV elsewhere, I would envision myself with half a lung on one side in order to remind myself what task I had to go back to when I was finished.

Being prudent in social situations, though, took a lot more doing. There was no forming of rules. There was only figuring out what was acceptable and not acceptable by seeing the outcome, sometimes making enemies or losing “friends” along the way. In the book “Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships” by Dr. Temple Grandin and Sean Barron, rule #6 states “Not everyone who is nice to me is my friend.” Because I never had the ability to simply “fit in,” I had no idea what guys talk about or what is appropriate conversation and with whom. I found out the hard ways that it is not okay to assume that a woman is romantically interested in you simply because she talks nicely to you, even if she is married. I found out that it is not okay to repeat gossip in front of the gossip subject’s friends. I also found out that it is not okay to be mean-spirited when directing traffic as a fire police officer because the person you may be yelling at is an off-duty sheriff. It is also not okay to tell a young black female that you talk to all the time, and think that you know well, that she looks “yummy” in a photo shoot. That situation resulted in my losing the best part-time job I ever had. Because rules are people based, as rule #1 of the “Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships” states, and because you really never truly know somebody unless you have already broken an unwritten rule, living by the rules continues to be a major challenge. In that light, it is always safer for me to simply be silent and to be a loner. I have to know somebody very very well nowadays for me to even have a conversation about varying topics with them. I am far from being shy, although I have always been reserved.

The number one reason why forming any rules even happened is the fact that I had a mentor or somebody who gave me a chance. Without my boss Linda who always liked my demeanor at Penske Truck Leasing, I had job security. Because of Larry who was my ambulance driver and mentor with the former Governor Mifflin Area Ambulance Association in Shillington, PA, I learned how to be a darn good Emergency Medical Technician – one who eventually became a trainer of new EMTs for our squad. It is so very important for people on the autism spectrum to be in the company of people who believe in them. Once they have that, they can accomplish anything they set their minds to. Nobody should ever tell a person with some form of autism that they cannot accomplish their goals or fulfill their dreams. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I had accomplished feats and did tasks that people with autism are being told all the time that they cannot handle. I did it all by forming rules. What would have helped me even further was if I had somebody who taught me what the proper rules of social interactions are. Life would have been SO much easier for me! As for now, now that I know I am on the autism spectrum, I don’t worry so much about it. I know that there is a reason (but not an excuse) for the awkwardness.

How I Pretend To Be (Somewhat) Normal

I am a visual thinker. If I need to remember important information, I think of a picture with details drawn in. I am also somebody who, like perhaps all people on the autism spectrum, learns by making rules. These two brain functions are what carried me through much of life when it came to learning new tasks and becoming more flexible in my thinking. If I was expected to change the way I do something and then eventually did, people would say, "See, you CAN be flexible!" In reality, it's not that I was being "flexible" at all. Instead, I was forming a set of sub-rules to a main rule. In the book Unwritten Rules Of Social Relationships, rule #1 states, "Rules are not absolute. They are situation-based and people-based." By making a rule "situation-based," I can appear to be flexible and can therefore pretend to be somewhat normal in society. Thinking in pictures and forming sub-rules are also how I learned very complex tasks, tasks which would seem impossible to tackle for a person with an autism spectrum disorder.

In the book Developing Talents, Dr. Temple Grandin states that one of the most improbable jobs for visual thinkers is to work as a nurse in a busy hospital setting. There is too much sensory input coming at you from all angles, and the multitasking that is required would be unmanageable. Between 1984 and 1986, I was a student at the now-defunct St. Joseph Hospital School of Nursing. I never made it through the program because I was unable to handle being in such an environment. My mind could only focus on one task at a time, and it was very slow at doing that. Even though I was at the top of my class academically, the program administrators said that I needed to drop the program. Back then, I did not know that I was on the autism spectrum, and testing I had done at the local rehab hospital did not pinpoint anything specific. This was before the days of there being any form of protection or accommodation for people with disabilities. Six years later, though, I did become a respiratory therapist. The training itself was slower-paced and specific. Therefore, I was able to get through it. But once I was working in the busy hospital setting, I saw how very very challenging it really was. I didn't spent a great deal of time in that setting before going off to graduate school to become a chiropractor.

Where I DID spend a great deal of time was being an ambulance attendant. Ten good years of being with the same squad, working with the same mentor, was the ideal situation for me. It was where I became quite proficient at being able to handle extremely stressful situations which required multitasking to be able to get anything accomplished. Most people spend about three months being a trainee if they are just starting out on the ambulance squad. I spent at least three years as a trainee. Under normal circumstances, a person like me would have been let go of in a matter of weeks. But this was a volunteer organization, and my mentor Larry was somebody who worked with my mom and knew her very well. Besides, volunteers were always hard to come by. Little did I know that how I learned things was very different from the norm. Learning how to put a splint on a broken leg in a classroom didn't take much brains. But learning how to put a splint on a broken leg while your patient is lying in the middle of a busy highway covered in broken glass in the middle of a thunder storm while there were four other injured people to worry about is a whole different ball game. It took being subject to such situations over and over and over again to be able to form sub-rules for various situations before I was finally able to do such things on my own. A day eventually came when I could just pull out that file in my head and know what to do for what type of situation. Nothing was spontaneous. It all had to be learned, step by step.

Learning how to multitask was a whole experience in itself. How was it that I was eventually able to take a blood pressure while at the same time listening to the paramedic's assessment? This is where thinking in pictures was my best friend. Normally, such a bombardment of input would be handled by shutting everything out and focusing on just the task I was doing at the time. This is how I flunked myself out of nursing school and is also what I did in the hospital as a respiratory therapist. I knew that if I really wanted to be part of the ambulance service, being a great contributor to my community and saving lives, I better get learning! I eventually figured out that I could build my short-term memory by holding an image of what was being said in my mind long enough so that I could retrieve it when I was done with the task at hand, making that the next order of business. If there were more than one orders of business coming up, then each one would be a picture in my head, one right next to the other just like in a comic strip.

While making sub-rules and thinking in pictures were, and still are, my best friends in the work setting, starting up again in a whole new profession would not be possible. On the ambulance crew, I had three comfortable years to be able to go through all the processes and self-discoveries. This is certainly not something any employer has the time for. It is also why I am not currently looking for another career path. To reenter the world of pre-hospital emergency care is also not in the cards. Now that I know what chiropractic can do, and what medicine cannot do, I would be too tempted to educate people to these facts. I truly AM a chiropractor at heart, even if I’m not serving an abundance of patients at this time.

If there was a way to think in pictures and to form rules and sub-rules regarding successful marketing, I’d really have my hands full. This is an area that I still haven’t quite figured out yet, even after ten-and-a-half years of being in practice. Dr. Temple Grandin got to where she is today because she had a nice portfolio put together of all her successes. She did not get where she is because she had good people skills. She does not, and neither do I. While at first glance, people would never guess that I have autism, they would certainly come to know this over a period of time. My next step is to work on a portfolio that shows my accomplishments. Dr. Grandin, like me, developed her skills by having a mentor who believed in her and gave her a chance. The “real world” is not so giving or forgiving. I guess I will forever be in a state of struggle, whether being an entrepreneur or if working for somebody else.

There are other factors that affect my abilities, such as having a cognitive disorder and a circadian rhythm imbalance. The cognitive disorder affects my ability to process information and to remember things offhand. Learning new skills not only requires that I learn things my own way by forming rules. Constant repetition is also necessary. Usually when a person tells me something, such as a memorandum piece of information or their name, I will not remember it, even if I am attentive. I must hear the information a second time, or even a third. As for the circadian rhythm imbalance, ever since my senior year of high school I have had notable sleep disturbances. These disturbances have prevented me from being able to hold a daytime job. The record, though, goes to Penske Truck Leasing, who I worked for as a data entry and report editing clerk for 26 months, thanks to Benadryl and L-tryptophan. There is a reason why my chiropractic office hours begin at 2:00 in the afternoon and go well into the night. That’s what I am capable of. I mention this in my marketing efforts to let people know that it would suit them better to visit a doctor who they can see when their work day is done than to have to miss work during the day. I always find a way to make lemonade out of my batch of lemons.

Over the years, I have certainly been quite the spectacle. Kids on the playground at school would make fun of me. Adults in the workplace would make fun of me too. They knew that I was different, that I didn’t fit it. They knew that I did things in odd ways. Although I may have appeared as a recluse, I still got the job done, somehow. But for those jobs where I lasted only three weeks or less, it was apparent that I wasn’t able to cognize the skills that were required of me in a reasonable amount of time. Perhaps the most notable of these jobs was my short stint at Pearle Vision Center in January of 1988. Lots of lenses were destroyed as I tried to learn how to use the lens grinder. I would have finally “gotten it” if I had been given just a few more days. Whether we are talking about kids in school or adults in the work place, people do not like being around somebody who doesn’t “fit in”. It makes them uncomfortable to have to mesh with somebody like that. It makes them feel burdened as if they cannot be themselves. It brings out the worst in them. This is why schools and employers NEED to have mentors available for people on the autism spectrum. Mentors are truly angels in disguise. They are the ones who can let the individual on the autism spectrum know that they DO belong and that they are an important contributors in this world. The mentor is the one that the autistic person will remember and thank profusely when it comes time to give credit for their marvelous accomplishments. Despite the fact that the audie thinks and reasons very differently, the same goals can be reached, and perhaps with even greater insight. All they need is a chance.

The Early Years

Kids just go about being themselves. I was no exception. I was not “different” in my eyes. I was just doing the things that interested me very much. Suddenly I found myself being the talk of the adult world around me. Who is this genius who knows how to pronounce the difference parts of the brain, and also knows what they do? Why does he make up his own addition and subtraction problems just to keep himself amused? What kind of strangeness must be in this guy’s head to dress up as Sherlock Holmes in 90-degree weather? While adults were kept entertained, kids my own age were not. They were very mean and spiteful, calling me a nerd or a retard. Not all of them were like that, though. If you wanted to be my friend, the best way to do that was to play word games with me. Otherwise, I was not social with my peers.

Although in third grade I started to cognize that I was very different, it wasn’t until I was eleven years old and in fifth grade that it really hit me. As we entered adolescence, differences between me and the other kids became very obvious. I wasn’t into all the gossip and rough play. Conversations did not revolve around sports, sex, or building friendships. It was as if my eyes suddenly opened one day. That’s when the inferiority complexes started rolling in – feelings that would plague me well into my adult years.

Just before being diagnosed with PDD-NOS in 2008, I read the book “Unwritten Rules Of Social Relationships” by Dr. Temple Grandin and Sean Barron. While reading Sean’s story, I couldn’t believe how much his early years were almost identical to what I experienced. It was as if I were looking into a mirror. That’s when it really started clicking in my own mind that I may have been autistic all these years. I also thought that it would be nice if I WAS diagnosed with autism because then, for the first time in my life, I could finally put my finger on the reason why I was so different.

To add to all my social ineptness, I was constantly suffering from some sort of health problem. The fact that I was small for my age didn’t help matters. Constantly having ear infections and some reason to visit the medical doctor kept me isolated from other kids much of the time. I spent a lot of time in the care of my grandparents or my Aunt Doris and being examined by some doctor for some reason. At the age of 12, during a routine visit to an endocrinologist, I discovered that I had a leaking heart valve. I myself made the discovery before the doctor mentioned it. I even pointed it out to my parents before the endocrinologist called for the cardiologist. It wasn’t until I was 19 years old that the leak in my aortic valve became bad enough to require open heart surgery to fix. While my own health challenges were an influence in my decision to pursue a career in health care, other interests developed during my childhood that are still present today. While spending time at my Aunt Doris’s place, I would walk up the street to the public library where I would spend the day reading books on anatomy & physiology, astronomy, and paranormal phenomena. While it is obvious from my choice of profession that anatomy & physiology is my forte, these other areas are still topics of great intrigue.

On the first day of fourth grade, in September of 1971, I met a new lifelong friend who would be an integral part of my life in many ways. It was the new priest who just took over as pastor of the parish, Father Steve. I remember that the reason why I was excited to meet him was because he had such a calming and accepting energy about him. As Father Steve recalls, his first great memory of me happened on the day we met, when I recited The Lord’s Prayer in Greek. This was just another feat by which I captivated an adult audience. At this period of time, I was teaching myself how to speak Greek because I had neighbors who were from Greece. From that day on, Father Steve would be the main person I would share everything about myself with. He would be there during all those years I was going through my inferiority complexes. He was there with me in the hospital ICU when I first woke up after my open heart surgery. He would also be the person I’d visit on a regular basis when I needed somebody to talk to during my adult years. I last saw Father Steve one Monday morning in February of 2001, when he made a surprise visit to my apartment in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Because of his unconditional acceptance of others, I spent a great deal of time talking to him about anything and everything, even well after I stopped practicing Catholicism.

You might wonder what my parents must have thought as I was going through such difficulties. Among the myriad of doctors and health professionals they ever took me to, there was a child psychologist thrown in the mix. Back in those days, though, the only form of autism that existed was classical autism, where communication and logical action are lacking. Even when I saw a psychologist at the age of twenty-two for an evaluation for possible learning disabilities, autism never came into the picture. While my parents were extremely supportive and responsive to my physical needs, they were completely unaware of my emotional and social concerns. To them, I was an amazingly brilliant, precocious wonder. If I wasn’t following the rules of social conduct, I just needed more discipline to knock some “sense” into me. Needless to say, my relationship with my parents in my teen and young adult years were not always so pleasant. They were doing what they though was best, and they gave me what they thought I needed. But it wasn’t what I needed, and all that that discipline to knock more sense into me really did was frustrate me more and more. While I feel that I am very close to my parents to this day, I still do not mention all the things that are on my mind because of their limited understanding of how my mind really works. My mind works like an autistic mind, not as one that needs more sense knocked into it.

My stimming behaviors have not always been so disruptive. Most autistic people make strange repetitive motions or have undeniable behavioral mannerisms. This is not the case with me. As a child, I was completely addicted to anything that physically moved me, such as rocking chairs, a rocking horse, swings, etc. Throughout my teen years and well into my adult years, I would listen to music, sitting in a room with all the lights out, wearing out rocking chairs. I mostly listened, and still listen to, Elton John. I would daydream about being a hero with the fire department or being in the military. I would also daydream about being part of Elton John’s band, traveling with the band around the U.S. between concerts on motorcycles that could fly. This world of music, darkness, daydreaming, and rocking was so comforting.

An even more peculiar stimming behavior that I still indulge in is making lists. As a child, I made a list of every kind of car I could think of while drawing a picture of the front of the car next to the name. In high school, a circulating joke between three or four friends turned into my creating the fictitious, and now legendary, “Sugi’s Army”. My “recruitment” efforts netted over three hundred people, and I would always carry with me the list I typed up of all the army’s members and their ranks. Before the days of computer word programs, I became quite a good Scrabble player by reading through the Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary, making list after list of strange words. While working for Penske Truck Leasing in the late 80s, I made a list of every city and town in every state and cross-referenced the names to every state that has a city or town by that name. I compiled this list be ticking off town names, one by one, in both the Rand McNally Road Atlas and the AAA Road Atlas. But perhaps my most notorious list was the creation of “Pat’s Picture Book” – the entire National Scrabble Association’s Official Tournament Word List typed, word by word, into a WordPerfect document, and many of the obscure words then being linked to websites that describe those words. Over the course of the past eight years that I’ve lived in Minnesota, I’ve created several lists – lists of all school districts, colleges, hotels, funeral homes, attorneys, trucking companies, etc. in the state and beyond, all being establishments which I advertised my services to. Making lists is what keeps my mind occupied when nothing particularly inspirational is in it. Yet, it is the inspiration to reach a particular goal that propels me to take on such an exhaustive project.

So, as I stated, I was just being me, a kid doing his own thing, following his own interests. Then, when adolescence and the teen years came, along came the eye-opening reality that I was very different than my peers. I really REALLY didn’t fit in. Although there were a couple other kids I did do things with, there was no way I could possibly go out independently into the world to make new friends. It’s not that I was shy or afraid. I was not. I was just clueless as to how to go about initiating conversation. Even when I did finally get the gumption to start talking to other kids, my ignorance of the social rules was quite evident. I didn’t even talk like a “guy”. I talked like that nice kid who was treading lightly as he ventured out of an eggshell. Knowing I was so different was indeed painful. Thanks to the adults I could talk to, though, I never reached such a low as to consider self-destruction. There was always that inner spiritual awareness, yet to a small degree during the teen years, that kept me engaged in the world. But at the same time, the strong need to “fit in” eventually gave rise to some very inappropriate ties.

During my senior year of high school, I would go to parties and do things that I would have never considered doing before. My beer chugging habits became the talk of the school. Taking a few “hits” from a marijuana cigarette seemed cool. Although I never became part of the “in” crowd, I was being more socially daring and was therefore talked to more. Once while I was at a training exercise with the Fire & Rescue Explorers Post, we visited a local fire company. I decided that it would make me look more mature if I spent some time hanging out with a loudmouthed fireman and some of his friends. When I became a fireman, I tried to act like what I thought a “guy” should act like. Having a few too many beers at the local bar with some "friends" became a pastime. In the later 80s, the scene moved from bars to a biker bar with adult entertainment where a few firemen I knew frequented. These scenes were NOT regular events at all. They were occasional activities that I felt would improve my manliness. But in the end, all they did was obviate my awkwardness. These “fitting in” digressions lessened significantly when I left Pennsylvania in 1992 and stopped all together when my fortunate spiritual journey began.

Those who have known me since 1998 know the inner adventures I so diligently wrote about during the years since. Meeting an Indian guru in the summer of ‘98 changed the course of history forever. I briefly touched upon my spiritual experiences and revelations in past blog posts. You can get a good picture of where this path has taken me in such writings as “The Healing Power Of Qi: Lessons From Avatar”. There will be more to come like this in the near future.

What If Your Doctor Had Autism?

What if your doctor had autism? Would that be so hard to believe? I guess if your view of autism is seeing helpless children and adults who can’t speak and can’t care for themselves in any way, then it probably would be. The truth is that such a view of autism describes a limited number of people who have been diagnosed with classical autism, not the entire autism spectrum. The rest of the people with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are very much able take care of themselves and to be great contributors to society in many professional ways. Yes, I am a doctor, and yes, I have autism. So what is it that you should know and expect from a doctor who has autism? First and foremost is to know that the care you receive in such a doctor’s office is done with such empathy for your concerns and with such diligence at giving you the best care possible that you can be grateful for such an individual who can give you such outstanding attention. Secondly, you need to know that people with ASDs will almost always appear socially uneasy. That’s because they just are, and there is no “why” to explain this. It is something that you will need to look past in order to appreciate the gift that such a person brings into your life.

While many people with ASDs become great scientists, engineers, and computer programmers, those who choose professions where direct, and often personal, contact with people is required, such as being a doctor, do so for a very humanitarian reason. They are not doing what they do just because it was a good choice of profession; they are true healers. They knew from a time early on, perhaps due to having had their own health concerns, that they could make a difference for other people. As for me personally, I had many many health challenges throughout my life. Therefore, I can understand how serious your concerns are to you. I can ESPECIALLY understand the concerns of your loved one who you may be bringing to my office because they have an autism spectrum disorder. Also, it is necessary that you understand that a person with autism will express themselves differently. The social mannerisms of an autistic person may oftentimes be peculiar. This is not always evident to somebody who is not familiar with autistic people. Therefore, in jest, while listening to me speak, you can think of Dr. Gregory House on the TV show House in order to feel more at ease.

Personally, I feel that I can be more at ease when talking about health concerns. The reason is because I have been through so many of my own, and I turned out to be okay. Some of these concerns include having had open heart surgery, and I am also a stroke survivor. When I am talking to you about a condition or situation that worries you, and I know that it is something that I can help you with, then I will convey uplifting, hopeful vibes to you. My goal is to help you feel more comfortable with the care you are receiving, to instill hope, and to help you see that being positive-minded is the best healing power of all. By having appreciation for my good nature that I relay is key to seeing beyond serious “doctor-ness” which is usually expected and realizing that I am a real, down-to-earth person, one that really cares.

So, what is actually going through my autistic mind as I am caring for you? Do not be surprised if it sometimes seems that I am “zoning out”. This is actually how I go through the problem solving routine. I am searching through the “hard drive” in my brain, much like Dr. Temple Grandin, a world-renowned autistic scientist, does when she is trying to solve a problem. I have to think in pictures, to visualize what is going on in the body or in the mind, as the case may be, in order to derive the correct treatment, procedure, or piece of advice to give. This is not to be mistaken for cluelessness. It is just how many autistic minds work. Keep in mind that the answers and advice I come up with may be very different from what another doctor may have told you. One doctor’s response may be based on academia or past experience alone. Mine is ALSO based on the conceptualization of processes and outcomes. It is MORE insightful.

It may surprise you to learn that people with autism may be great contributors to society. It’s just that they are challenged because they do not interact, nor does their mind function, in the ways which are considered “norms” by society. They have to think and do things in alternative ways. Unfortunately, this oftentimes affects how one communicates as well. But once the autistic person finds the way in which he or she can communicate, whether it be through writing, drawing, speaking, or some other way, it is amazing what they can accomplish! Having an ASD does not doom most people who have them. It does give them obstacles they must maneuver around in order to be functional. They are, nonetheless, FUNCTIONAL. The stereotypes of autism being a taboo subject, a curse, or a life sentence need to be thrown out. The autistic child who disrupts the normal schedule of a classroom is not to be disciplined but is instead to be encouraged to think and do what he can in the ways that he can. Many thoughts and feelings about people with autism are actually shadows of Dark Age paradigms. This is NOT a medical condition that can be cured, and people with autism need not be institutionalized, shunned by society, or, worst of all, be made a pin cushion of by the medical establishment. One thing I often contemplate is whether or not there will ever be a cure for “neurotypical-ism”. Now THAT would be nice!

Audie Communication

It may be strange to see me writing another blog post so soon after the last one. I typically average three to four weeks between posts. I guess you can say that I made a self-discovery in the past day. If somebody asks me a question that deserves an answer, then I can come up with something to write about. Otherwise, my communication is pretty sparse. I recently started a fan page on Facebook, which as of the writing of this blog post has 109 fans. Thanks to Facebook Adwords, I am getting the word out about me and what I do as a Holistic Physician, minister, and educator. But the Adwords advertising campaign will not last very long because money is not a commodity for me right now. And, like for most audies, it never had been. Thanks to that most intriguing and baffling art form called “communication”, I, like many audies, have a terrible time making ends meet in this world.

There was once an essay written by Emily Perl Kingsley entitled “Welcome To Holland”. This writing has been adopted by many autism activist parents to describe their struggles with raising an autistic child. I recently told my wife that the neurotypical world really seems like Holland to the autistic person (the audie). She wondered how that translated. I explained that it is JUST as hard for an audie to figure out what the neurotypical (“normal”) world wants as it is for the neurotypical person to figure out how to relate to the audie. This is largely because of miscommunication and misinterpretation. Audies are very capable of communicating, but they do so in their own way. Communication is not always verbal, and when it is it is often misunderstood or done inappropriately (according to the rules of the neurotypical world, that is). What an audie is communicating, however, may make perfect sense to another audie. Figure that one out! Such is the nature of living in Holland.

Just as there are all types of audies ranging from the brilliant scientists to the totally incapacitated, there are also all levels of communication. Dr. Temple Grandin is an excellent example of an outstanding communicator, even though she has classical autism. As for me, my best form of communication is writing. This is true for most nonverbal audies, and also for those who are socially awkward with their verbalism. For nonverbal children, perhaps the best way to get them to communicate is to use picture cards. One of the followers of my Facebook fan page invented her own picture card system that helps her to communicate, quite effectively, with her autistic daughter. I have seen other such systems being used as well to help in communicating with the nonverbal audie.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that with the audie, communication has to develop and occur at its own pace and in its own way. It may never be the way the neurotypical wants it to be. Also, for the audie to learn his/her own way around Holland, I strongly urge him/her, and the neurotypical caretaker, to read the book “Unwritten Rules Of Social Relationships” by Dr. Temple Grandin and Sean Barron. Just by reading this book, the caretaker will FINALLY get a very good glimpse at what is going on in the audie’s mind. Also, the audie will learn what is expected of him/her by the neurotypical world in order to fit in, to some degree anyway.

One reason why audies, especially as children, may have tantrums or may become short-tempered is because they are TRYING their darnedest to communicate, in the way that they can, and are still often misunderstood. This is all the more reason for discovering proper communication abilities and channels early on in life. This trying and being misunderstood is still incredibly frustrating for me when I know that I didn’t exactly say what I wanted to say, and people thought I was actually meaning something completely different. Jobs have been lost because of this, and my current practice goes unbuilt for this same reason. Just because I have what some people call an “impressive” resume doesn’t mean I’ve been successful with making a living at it. I have not. Goodness knows what bridge I’d be living under if it wasn’t for the unhuman amount of patience that my wife has.

One thing that I strongly encourage, for communication building, is for the audie and their caregiver to become involved in their local chapter of the Autism Society of America. With attending their support groups and classes, each person can learn some very helpful techniques to help build and discover an effective line of communication. Not only that, but you will find that you are not alone in your plight, and you will have others that you can count on. I feel that the lack of proper communication between audie and caregiver/the neurotypical world is the most frustrating part of having an Autism Spectrum Disorder. If we all knew what the other meant and was expecting, the rest of it would be easy. How to communicate effectively is something that can only be found out by trial and error.

The Prediction

It was the summer of 1994. I had just moved into my new apartment in Smyrna, Georgia. I was about to begin my final quarter of undergraduate prerequisite studies. In just another three months I was to begin chiropractic school. I sat down to write a letter to an old friend of mine, a Catholic priest that I had known since I was nine years old. Father Stephen Halabura was a part of my growing years, and he and I spent a lot of time together. He was always my go-to person when I was feeling out of place around my peers during junior high school and high school. In the letter, I told him how excited I was about studying to become a chiropractor. Much to my own surprise, I had written to him, “Becoming a chiropractor is merely the next step toward my real calling in life.” I had no idea what the next step was. In that moment, I knew that there would be something beyond. I have been a chiropractor now for over ten years. I feel that by the end of 2010 I will finally discover what the real calling is.


Almost nine months after writing that letter, my struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome began. Three years after that, my most amazing Spiritual journey began. In April of 1998 I joined a meditation group hosted by one of my teachers. In July I learned Reiki, and in August I was introduced to my Guruji, Swami Chidvilasananda, more lovingly known as Gurumayi. On October 3, at about 8:00 PM, I received the gift of Shaktipat, the awakening of the Kundalini energy. That firmly grounded me in the knowledge and the experience of the entire universe, manifest and unmanifest, being God. This event, along with all the healing arts I have learned, are key to what my real calling will be. The pain and suffering I endured, and continue to endure of sorts, from my own health challenges are also key to whatever my real calling is. Something amazing lurks in the not-too-distant future.

This past weekend, my wife Bianca and I spent a weekend in Chicago at the Celebrate Your Life conference which is hosted by Mishka Productions. It was a life-enhancing event. It was good to be around so many people who held the Spiritual path in high esteem. Not since visiting the Siddha Yoga ashram in South Fallsburg, New York (which I last did in 2002) did I feel so fulfilled. Although there were many famous speakers there, the three that I got the most from were Caroline Myss, Neale Donald Walsh, and Deepak Chopra. What these three people had to say pretty much summed up what I have been experiencing on the spiritual path for the past twelve years. Caroline Myss said, “Imagine that…” and she went on to describe EXACTLY what I had experienced the moment I received Shaktipat in 1998. Neale Donald Walsh explained in a very practical way not only how we can have our own conversation with God but also the fact that everything that is IS God. And Deepak Chopra really reeled me in with a scientific look at how everything that appears to “exist” is actually a waveform, God’s Consciousness, or, as Swami Muktananda would say, a “Play Of Consciousness”. None of these things were new to me. It was all profound because everything I had contemplated, meditated on, and read about in the words of Muktananda during the past twelve years was re-divulged in a most awe-inspiring way.

So, what is the “next step”? What is my real calling? Many people over the years have said that my greatest strength is my gift of writing. My Reiki Master just reminded me of that again today. In a recent blog post, I wrote that I can only write well, if at all, when inspired, and that this doesn’t happen more than about once a month. I am feeling, though, that this past weekend put a charge into my motivation to write more. That’s a good thing. Professionally, things are being rearranged. Today is the day I will be closing my office in St. Louis Park, MN. It doesn’t mean that I will no longer practice as a chiropractor. Instead, I will see people in my own home and will focus even more on holistic practice. I am also working more on bringing my ministerial work to the forefront. I think that if I contemplate things long and hard enough, I could find a way to be an avid writer. Making a living at it would certainly be a challenge, just as everything else I ever tried had been. One nice note to make is that I’m being invited more to speak about living with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. I received three invites just in the past week! Only one of them will be a paid gig though, and it’s not even for sure that it will take place. Perhaps I can challenge myself a bit more and advertise again for The Wellness Interfaith Church and for doing health talks in my “new” home office setting? Yes, I have so much to say and so much to offer in the realm of healing. I don’t want to give myself false hope, as I’ve done so often, but I do feel that some positive changes are about to take place. The real calling, whatever it is, is near.

The Rocket Without An Engine

A couple months ago I met with the General Manager of Oak Ridge Convention Center in Chaska, Minnesota. I wrote a several-page proposal about how Dolce, Oak Ridge's parent company, could improve upon its facilities and services, catering to the health and wellness goals of both employees and clients, as part of its new branding vision. I guess I should tell you that I know all about it because I work there (here, the place where I am as I am writing this) part time as a night security guard. Mr. Carl Blanz, our General Manager, responded by saying to me, "You built a fantastic rocket ship. But now you just have to figure out how to get it off the ground." Well, being an audie I knew one thing intimately well: that this has always been, and continues to be, the story of my life! It's like a perfectly written book that never gets read because nobody ever heard of it. Well, it's not "like"; it IS. And so the headbanging routine continues.


My attention has now turned to a different project, another rocket without an engine. Back in December I designed a class for community education entitled "Living With An Autism Spectrum Disorder." I taught the class four times so far, once in Ellsworth, Wisconsin and three times in Hastings, Minnesota. The last class I taught was made up mostly of caregivers of adults with autism from a group home in Apple Valley, Minnesota. One of them said to me, "You should offer this as a continuing education class." That's all I needed to hear to set me on a new venture. I developed the class into a three-hour seminar, complete with PowerPoints and videos. Now I am self-promoting this seminar to every school and facility I can think of that might have anything even remotely to do with dealing with people with Autism Spectrum Disorders. But self-promoting is basically tiring and unproductive. Once again, I have created an amazing rocket ship with no way to get it off the ground.

My wife Bianca is so amazing -- to have seen me create so many rocket ships in the eight years that we've been married so far only to have them end up as scrap metal. She certainly knows better by now not to get hopes up and not to pay much attention to the hours I spend at the drawing board coming up with new ideas. But she's been riding this wave for only eight years. I've been riding it for forty-seven. I've never given up though, and I never intend to. I know that what I need is a collaborator -- not one who tells me what I should do differently, but one who knows how to attach engines to rocket ships and make them work. Finding such a person to work with is actually part of the headbanging routine. It just doesn't happen.

My headbanging routine began when I was a toddler. I LITERALLY used to bang my head into the headboard of my crib. With the crib sitting on a hardwood floor, it would wander around the room as I rocked back and forth, banging my head over and over again. I don't know if this particular behavior could be considered "stimming." I don't know what kind of stress I could have been under as a toddler! My parents would strap a pillow to the headboard so I didn't hurt myself. Nonetheless, I kept banging away. If my memory serves me well, I actually became upset when they put the pillow there because banging my head was so much more enjoyable when I had something very hard to hit against. Maybe this routine was a sign of things to come -- living a life full of creativeness that severely lacks implementation.

And so the art of building rockets without engines continues. Forty-seven years and counting.

The Brilliance Of Autism

What goes through your mind when you hear the word "autism"? For most people who are not autistic in any way, they probably think of somebody who will be "less than" in the worldly, pragmatic sense. But when an autistic person shows that they are creative or are able to contribute to society, the non-autistic person probably oohs and aahs that a "less than" creature was somehow able to show signs of a functioning intellect. Well, maybe I'm being somewhat sarcastic. But to those of us who ARE autistic, I say that it's time the non-autistic population, or the "neurotypicals" as we call them, realize one thing -- that it is usually we, the audies, who end up saving their butts with our brilliance.

We're usually the ones who are able to point out the obvious when others cannot see it. Where would this world be if not for the amazing contributions to it by Einstein, Mozart, Beethoven, Jane Austen, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Thomas Jefferson, Carl Jung, and Van Gogh, just to name a few? Or, in our lifetime, Bob Dylan and Bill Gates! I wonder if Bill Gates, as an unknown way back when, applied for a job and announced that he was autistic if he would have ever been hired anywhere. Probably not. But thanks to an organization called Think Beyond The Label, that may all change someday.

The word "autism" was first coined in 1912. The literal meaning of the word translates to read, "a state of being absorbed by one's self." What this really means, as I see it, is that autism is a state of being so awe-inspired by your own view of the world and not really knowing how to communicate it. Eventually we learn how to, though, much to the askew glances of the neurotypical world. Sometimes when we speak we say the "wrong", or socially inappropriate, things. But always when we speak, we say the truth. We can't help but to be oddly creative by the neurotypical's judgement, but we're just being ourselves by the audie's reality.

I am quite a fan of Temple Grandin. Not because she is an autistic person who can speak brilliantly, which is perhaps why neurotypicals enjoy her (as if they never expected someone with autism to be a great contributor to society). I like her because she tells it like it is. Well, telling it like it is is what makes us appear so off-color, really. We say what we want, we dress the way we want, we do what we want. We make our own rules. And we don't really care what society thinks because we KNOW we are brilliant. We are "absorbed by our own self". It's time that the neurotypical world realizes this and doesn't scold us for being ourselves. If you look past the label and see what we can do for the strange world around us, you'll shut up and listen, and you'll give us a CHANCE.

I got to where I am in life because of mentors, or "guardian angels" as I call them in my "Living With An Autism Spectrum Disorder" class that I teach. If not for a guy named Larry, I wouldn't have lasted more than three days on the ambulance crew that I volunteered with for ten years. Thanks to Larry taking me under his wing, I eventually became somebody who could take charge of the scene of a major emergency, and I became somebody who could train others. Every audie NEEDS a mentor. It's not that we are "disabled". We are not. Because of the way our brains process information, we need to learn, on our own accord, a different way of doing things. We need to repeat things over and over and over again until we get it right. And when we get it, we are not only good at it. We are brilliant! We exceed what the neurotypicals who are all doing the same thing can do. Why? Because our intuition allows us to see the elephant in the room when others can't. We find better ways. We become very efficient -- SELF-sufficient. We are "absorbed in our own self"; we are AUTISTIC.

It is understandable, though, why a neurotypical employer wouldn't want to bother hiring somebody with autism. Who wants to be around somebody who doesn't "fit in"? Who wants to feel like they are having to drag somebody when they need somebody who can magically jump right into the shark-infested waters? But really, who wants to hire somebody who's not afraid to tell them that they can do their job more efficiently than they can? It's a new science -- trying to figure out how to coexist with these creatures from another planet. Well, we are not from another planet. We have always been here, and our "problem", as you see it, is not going to go away. Deal with it.

So why does this condition exist in the first place? In all those years ago, we can truly say that some brilliant people were wired that way, as some are in this day and age. For some, especially in modern times, their condition may have been unfortunately induced by some toxic or allergic exposure or even a physical trauma. In any case, autism is what it is, and autistics are what they are -- people who can contribute to this world in amazing ways. If you are a person with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, or you have a child or loved one that is, get together with others that are by joining support groups. Don't navigate this world alone. There is definitely strength in numbers. Also, find a mentor. Every audie NEEDS one. For employers, stop thinking that audies are disabled. They are completely able!

Because I am a physician and somebody with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, I recently felt the need to expand my horizons in my quest to get the message out there. I am willing to travel anywhere in the 48 contiguous United States to teach my "Living With An Autism Spectrum Disorder" seminar or to speak to your company or special interest group. To see an actual syllabus of the three-hour course, which includes my bio, please click HERE (this file is in PDF format). I am always available to answer any of your questions through my Facebook page. I hope this entry has given you a better picture of what goes through the mind of an autistic person. If you hop on board, you'll find that exploring the mind of somebody with an Autism Spectrum Disorder is a fantastic journey!

Random Thoughts

As you can see, it has been a month and a half since my last blog post. I think I once revealed that the reason why I couldn't be a writer by profession is because I write only when I am deeply inspired to do so. But I challenged myself lately. I was recently appointed to the Executive Advisory Board of the American Association of Integrative Medicine. One of the requirements of being on the board is to write an article for the quarterly newsletter. That pretty much forces me to sit down and write, and what I write cannot be something I wrote and published beforehand. In fact, I've been awaiting the Spring issue of the newsletter so that I can use the article I wrote as my next blog post. The article is about my "three-tiered approach" to healing that is the method of operation I take in my private practice. Whenever it appears, I will post it here. But if you want a sneak peak, you can always check out my practice's website, which I updated since writing the article a month ago.

One thing I have been doing since I last wrote is making my own educational videos. They have been playing on community TV stations throughout the southwestern metro areas of Minneapolis. You can view them also on my practice's website. The manager of St. Louis Park community TV taught me how to film and edit my own productions. He was there looking over my shoulder for the first episode. The second episode was done entirely on my own, without any help. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks. I am thoroughly enjoying these news skills I am experimenting with! Now with my own miniDV camcorder and nonlinear editing programs, I think I'm getting pretty good at this. The first program is on carpal tunnel syndrome. The second is on birth trauma. I am not sure what the next episode will be about. Since April is autism awareness month, I am thinking I will make it about autism.

Since we're on the topic of autism, I am not sure if I ever mentioned the class that I put together entitled "Living With An Autism Spectrum Disorder". I've taught it in Ellsworth, Wisconsin and Hastings, Minnesota already. Other community education programs actually balked at the topic because it was too "controversial". Anyway, I feel that as both a health care provider and somebody with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, I could be educative for people who are caretakers of or known a person who is autistic. Using the book, "Unwritten Rules Of Social Relationships" co-authored by Dr. Temple Grandin and Sean Barron, both of whom are also on the autism spectrum, I share my own experiences, and I help people to get inside the head of the autistic person so that they can relate to and understand them better. It would be great if I could travel to anywhere in the U.S. teaching this class because it is so very beneficial for people to have this information. The only part of the class I have had  trouble from other people with is when I mention that vaccinations is one of the theoretical causes of autism. Although I do use the word "theoretical," I still get some pretty lame-brained heckling. But still, this is vital information that everyone that deals with the issue of Autism Spectrum Disorders needs to hear -- right from an audie!

This past week I met with the two directors of The Uteam4U, Inc., a consortium of experts that people can call upon to consult in various health and wellness areas. I was referred to them by the general manager of the place where I work part time after he heard that my goal, as a Holistic Physician, was to expand my expertise beyond the walls of my office. But when I saw that the directors were educational experts with autistics and people with cognitive disorders, the bulk of the conversation was about me and how I could possibly get ahead despite having these problems. Although this meeting ended on a very positive vibe, it has yet to bear any fruit. I don't count my chickens before they hatch. In fact, I don't count them at all anymore. In fact, in a conversation I had just tonight with a Minnesota native at the place where I work part time, I was told, "People in Minnesota say one thing and do another." Although I have lived in many different places and found this to be a universal truth, it is PARTICULARLY true in Minnesota.

On the subject of this blog, I once said that I would write more about health and wellness topics. It seems that almost all of my LinkedIn and Facebook contacts who are professionals like me, blogging is a staple, a weekly, if not daily, event. They always seem to have something to say and know every fact in every book. I can't say that I am so gifted. But I guess my new skill of producing my own TV shows will be the way I do my educating. Now I'll stop writing because if I continue I'll just be rambling.

Audie Ego

In his book "The Power Of Intention," Dr. Wayne Dyer mentions six characteristics of the ego. When a person can break themselves free of these six illusions that characterize the ego, they are a truly enlightened spiritual being. But such a task is not easy. Even the spiritual masters had to endure many years of spiritual practice through yoga and meditation to reach this level. This blog posting is not a discussion of these six characteristics. Instead, I am going to focus on just one: "You are what you do."

For an autistic person on a spiritual journey, "you are what you do" would probably be the absolute most difficult part of the ego to destroy. The reason for this is because an autistic person grew up in their own world where they could not figure out how to communicate and be part of the neurotypical world. Therefore, that gift that they bring to this world, whether it be a great talent, interest, hobby they excel at, or profession they encompass, becomes THE way that they can bridge the gap between the two worlds. They identify themselves so completely with what they do that they use that as a definition of themselves and their self worth. It is only natural to do so because they lack social interaction skills and normal learning skills to be able to see themselves as anything or anyone else in the world.

How many times do you hear somebody with Asperger's Syndrome talk about their favorite pastime or TV show or an interest in electronics -- incessantly. It really can be annoying, yes? But to them, this is the only way they know how to bridge the gap between their autistic ways of thinking and the "typical" world around them. They identify so intimately with what they do, and this identification may never be broken. As for me personally, ever since I was a kid I was interested in how the body works and in metaphysical topics. So truly did I stick to these interests that I became a holistic physician who practices healing arts that span the spectrum from mainstream medicine (with functional medicine testing) to etheric healing (which encompasses dealing with paranormal phenomena). But these interests do not stay within the walls of my healing center in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. I spend a great deal of time answering health related questions in two different online forums. Many times over the years, in social situations I would end up being a turnoff to people because I'd talk about my profession and my place in it. I indeed WAS what I DID.

I felt that I was what I did, like most audies, because I had to place myself somewhere in this world somehow. My way of breaking out of the autistic world was to tell the neurotypical world how I can be of service to them, and loudly so because I always "knew" that I was one of the best darn healers in this world because of my great insight and because I had the best darn teachers teaching me the best darn ways of doing things. I was BEST FRIENDS with this part of my ego -- knowing that I WAS what I DID. Unfortunately, announcing this to the world only alienated me further, when done so in socially inappropriate settings. Like other audies, I was just as boastful about my accomplishments because I had nothing and no one else to identify with; there was no measure for me to identify my place among the "normals".

In her book "Unwritten Rules Of Social Relationships," Dr. Temple Grandin explains that the autistic person needs  to develop an interest in something and excel in that interest because that is what will carry them through life. Developing other tools to relate, such as social and interpersonal skills, would be a constant struggle. Thus, it should be no surprise that an autistic person will use that one skill they embrace and are highly proficient at to navigate through their life in this foreign land of the typical world. One must understand this, and perhaps become a bit more tolerant, of an autistic person the next time they hear him talk about molecular physics for the 39,543rd time.

So how does an autistic person on the spiritual path break free from the illusory egotistic belief that they are what they do? For me to really be able to answer that fully would be like a cow trying to explain, and make excuses for, why she is a cow. I myself didn't start to see lights going off in my own mind until I started attending a support group for adults with autism at the Autism Society of Minnesota. Being among other audies, and finally being in a crowd I felt at home with, allowed me to see myself in an objective way. Also, early on in my days of practicing Siddha Yoga, I had profound visions during deep meditations in which I was not only being separated from the world around me by a profound force, but my etheric body was being separated from my physical body. It was a very important lesson to EXPERIENCE the fact that we are, in our pure essence, the Power of God in manifest form. So, there is no reason to be attached to an ego, which makes us have all these illusions of what we are NOT.

Over the past eleven years that I have been practicing Siddha Yoga, I wrote about my meditation experiences and lessons learned from them, which I am willing to share openly. I encourage every audie in this world to adhere to some sort of discipline that will focus on the Spiritual aspect of being. It will surely give you greater insight and strength to carry on in your difficult journey in this world. On that note, though, not all "meditational" paths are the same, so choose wisely. You will know which path is right for you because you will feel your audie ego melting away from the beginning.

Against All Odds

Just think -- an autistic person who suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is happily married, lives in a home he and is wife just bought, he runs his own wellness center, he is the pastor of a church, and he works on a security team at a famous theater. Doesn't that sound just downright ODD? Well, it certainly is indeed. None of these situations have panned out well. My wife is one tough and brave woman to stick things out. During the ten months of marital counseling we undertook together was when I was diagnosed with PDD-NOS. That gave me a second chance. It was also during those ten months that I got my job as a security guard. That also gave me a second chance. The wellness center has a whopping two clients, and the church has a whopping two congregants. Therefore, don't be fooled by the initial statement. The autism and the CFS HAVE indeed put me on the wrong side of the odds.

When I tell people that things are at ground zero, they give me all kinds of advice on how to advertise myself, talk to people, where I should go, who I should talk to, etc. What they don't realize is that I've been there and done that. I feel like Micky Mouse who wants to be considered for a promotion to archbishop of the diocese. The character just doesn't fit the picture, even though he may be fully qualified to be in the picture. If there was a way that people could stop seeing me as Micky Mouse and start seeing me as a figure worthy of the archbishop role (in this example), then we might have some luck here.

So, until I, like Dr. Temple Grandin, find that "guardian angel" who does the promoting for me, I am in "struggle" mode. The psychologist who diagnosed me with PDD-NOS, after having administered the WAIS-R test, said to me, "You must feel tired of banging your head against the wall all the time." I simply answered, "That's the story of my life." Autistics know what they want to accomplish. They just don't know how to get there. Even when they try, they don't succeed unless they have a guardian angel to open the right doors. Now I've had one or two over the years, which is why I am where I am today. One was a guy named Larry. After months of being on "trainee" status with the ambulance service, and being considered for termination, Larry took me under his wing. Months later, I was able to stand on my own two feet during emergency situations and was even able to instruct other trainees. That's the kind of guardian angel I need once again.

It would also pay to know where to find decent funding. I just saw a report today that the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits put out. It gave a dismal outlook for nonprofit organizations who will be seeking funding in the year to come. The current recession is really going to hurt a lot of people. But I'll just keep moving forward. That's the only direction I know how to go in anyway.

What Is An Audie?

If you are somebody that has autism, then you know that this is the word that is used to describe YOU. I just found out that I have something called PDD-NOS, which falls somewhere on the autism spectrum. How this finding came to be is a story in itself. And the fact that I have it is no great surprise. I always knew I was "different." I just didn't know why I had the problems that I had. Before even being diagnosed, I started reading the book "Unwritten Rules Of Social Relationships" by Dr. Temple Grandin and Sean Barron. What I was reading was MY OWN life story, particularly in Sean's case. That's when I knew that what I considered normal was actual NOT normal to the neurotypical person, that is somebody who does NOT have autism and fits the "norm." It is no wonder why those of us on the autism spectrum feel as though we are on the wrong planet, and the neurotypicals feel the same way about us.

Soooooo, how does somebody with autism become a doctor and a minister? Well, for most audies the book work is the easy part. It's with the practical work that they do miserably. And so it is with me too. Here I sit at my job as a security guard at a theater when I am a chiropractor and an ordained minister who is the pastor of a church. My chiropractic office and the church sit empty. They sit empty because I simply have no success with being able to advertise these things and to retain clients. Imagine how people come into the office expecting one thing and then end up being cared for by a doctor who they accuse of not being a "real" doctor, and then leave without paying. Yes, audies are indeed looked at very weirdly by the neurotypicals. We have it rough. But we have to make ends meet somehow.

Dr. Temple Grandin had it rough too. She is world renowned and is a college professor. But she wouldn't be where she is if she didn't have people who stood up for her and gave her chances in life, people who saw her true worth. Many employers wanted to fire her just for being "weird." Now that's something I can identify with very very well!

Anyway, my shift is ending, and it's time for me to head home to my wife and my home. Yes, I am married, and how my marriage survived is part of the audie journey. There is much more to come in this blog, and I look forward to communicating with those of you who read this.