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posted at 08:28 pm on 08-07-2009
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My sister has Neurofibromatosis :(
posted at 08:28 pm on 08-07-2009
Damn. I was reading through my medical dictionaries "neuro" section, and I realised that my sister has neurofibromatosis. She has cafe a laut (think that's the name) spots, dyslexia, freckled armpits (don't ask how I know that :lol:), Lisch nodules, and a "lazy eye". My mother has a tonne of benign tumours, which I never had a name for, but they are obviously neurofibromatoma.
Given that my sister has a lazy eye, I imagine that a tumour on a Schwann cell or something is compressing the oculomotor nerve. I hope it doesn't paralyse her eyelid or anything, that would suck :(
I hope she'll be okay
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posted at 05:54 pm on 07-08-2009
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Apathy
posted at 05:54 pm on 07-08-2009
Apathy might seem like a strange concept to most people, so I'm going to try to explain how it feels to be apathetic. It's cold, for starters. A coldness independant of external influences. Even in situations where you know you should be happy you feel absolutely no different. There is no fear, happiness, anger, or sadness. Just a cold, endeering emptyness, the kind of feeling that could destroy you if you suffered it long enough. Several weeks ago me and my friends travelled abroad to a theme park. Even on the biggest rollercoaster, which a year ago I would have been terrified of, I had no reaction. My heart rate was normal, my muscles were relaxed, I had no adrenaline rush.
On the other extreme, today I got punched in the face by my friend (for acting like a dick, admittedly, I was having a psychotic day). No anger, or even heightened interest. I felt no pain. It's strange how a simple mindframe can block something so pure as pain.
There is one plus-side to all this, that I know I can march to my death bed unafraid. I know that no-matter what danger I'm faced with, I will be able to act in a fearless way. I've been praying (which, as an Atheist, says something), that I will be able to redeem myself through some final act of tremendous courage, saving someone from a fire.
Apathetic existence is the worst kind of torture; gradually chipping away at your psyche until you are nothing more than a body, a pulse, and a consciousness. If life is without consequence to me why bother being alive?
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posted at 06:27 pm on 07-04-2009
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About Me
posted at 06:27 pm on 07-04-2009
Read away, it's more interesting than my average rant.
About me. Usually, that's a pretty easy thing for people to elaborate on. They would write about their hometown, friends, and if they prefer "quasi-effeminate football player x" diving man-child football player y". But it’s not that simple for me. Sure, I could blab on all day about my physical features, my blue, shell-shocked eyes, brown hair, about my family, about my endless likes and dislikes, but frankly you still wouldn’t be a step closer to understanding what makes me tick, what makes me me. I could take the other path, and describe myself in psychological abstractions, as being an Aspergean with co-morbid schizotypy, alexithymia and cyclothymia, but such psychobabble just isn’t precise enough. It doesn’t explain my core beliefs, my morals, and the underlying causes of these conditions.
First, the conformist formalities. My name is Ryan. I have blue, shell-shocked eyes and brown hair. I like alternative rock music, blues, and frankly I the only thing I care less about that “is team a better than team b” is the latest season of Big Brother, or which celebrity slept with who.
I am a strange man. I suffer, in the truest sense of the word, from what psychologists would label “disorganised thought”. I’ve had a little too much time on my hands, and did a little too much thinking. I realised the inherent worthlessness and changeability of mental concepts such as love and hate, weird and normal, friend and foe. And then I lost my “internal compass”, which told me whether I should love or hate x or y, whether z is weird or a is my my friend. And it turns out that “internal compass” was a little thing known as emotion. I no longer feel love, or hate, happiness or sadness, or even fear. I’ve been in some situations considered “pant’s shitting” recently, and I had no strong reaction. No shallow breathing, no increased heart rates, flushed skin or adrenaline rush. Just coldness.
Without emotion, life is completely pointless, compared to the average person’s “kinda pointless” existence. Life is inherently as meaningful or pointless as you make it, but when you loose all concept of “meaning” then the only thing that separates you from being dead is a beating heart. All I have to loose is my consciousness. It’s a strange thing knowing that when your time comes to die you won’t feel fear, it’s simultaneously empowering and dehumanising (Of course, that last comment is a purely intellectual one)
I’m not dead yet though, as you might have guessed. But why not? If life is pointless and unpleasant at best, why am I still typing, and not shattering my monitor with my fist, grabbing a shard of glass and playing “carpel-tunnel surgeon”? Because the only thing more pointless than life is death, and frankly the pain might push me from being a “little browned-off” to “quite groggy”, and that wouldn’t be fun at all. While I can’t say that I feel hope, on an intellectual level I haven’t given it up. Statistically, most people get married, and have a perfectly happy life. In a study on the severely mentally ill in Vermont, Sixty-five percent of patients “recovered” to some degree. If I was a pessimist, I’d point out that 2-6 per 1000 people have Aspergers Sydrome, and 11 per thousand suffer from schizophrenia, so Pythagoras, God of all things mathematical (really) obviously has it out for me.
Still, if Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four taught me anything, it’s that the truth is a human concept, and as such it is as alterable and subjective as it needs to be. So I’m still hoping, on some level for something more that what I have now; emotion, relationships, maybe even a girlfriend. Yes, I’m unlikely to ever get these things, and maybe it’s a fool’s errant to try. But I’d rather fail and be bitter, than be bitter and fail.
But hope isn’t exactly the only thing keeping me alive. While I have lost touch with most mental concepts, my morality is strong. I see Suicide as immoral, it can tear families apart, devastate lives, and at the least bum out your friends. No matter how hard life gets, I cannot and will not defy my morals. The only thing I take pride in is my refusal to hurt others, and because of that I believe, somewhere deep down, I am a good person, in a bad, bad brain. Sometimes I think that the ego is superficial, because it's easy to conform, to do as others do, which often involves crushing the weak to succeed, but it takes true strength to break away and follow your morals. I accept that a large part of my illness is due to my morals.
Many years ago, I had a great, great friend who I treated like dirt. I was a child, and I was trying desperately to fit in. By making him feel bad it was as though I was protecting myself from him; a malformed kill-or-be-killed instinct. Years later, I realised what I had done, and I was horribly stricken with guilt, even though what I had done was socially acceptable. I became reclusive to avoid repeating the past, and now, years later I can say I am redeemed. I forgive myself. I have suffered a hundred times more than he did through this forced isolation, and while my personality has been permanently damaged I’m glad I took the hard road. I used to be ignorant of how socially inept I was, but paradoxically because of that I could have normal relationships with people, and if they didn’t like me I simply repressed that information. Now I know how bad I am at social interaction, and anxiety stops me from talking to people.
And lastly, I'd like to add that I can be very incoherent and shy person, so if you PM me don't be offended if I don't reply, I really don't know how to small talk a lot of the time. It really isn't anything personal.
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