Is trog ok?

[tulamide]

Hi all! Thanks for asking after me, and sorry to worry anoyone - hope you are all safe and well!

Not got the virus. Lockdown changes + autism traits = temporary CPU (Cerebral Procssing Unit) overload. No big danger, happened many time before. Few communications to avoid BSOD (Brain Shutdown Or Discombobulate) while patching BIOS (Basic Intellect Operating Systems)

Normal servce back soon! Best wishes!

That's good to hear! I hope you get back up soon!

But I also have to grumble a bit that you didn't answer my email, as worried as I was!

[trogluddite]

But I also have to grumble a bit that you didn't answer my email, as wor

Ah, soorry, tula. Not done e-mail inbox for longtimes - more scary than forums, too many of it and a million subjet discussed = need to lie down with wobbly brain! Good to come here first - computer stuff easier understaning than people stuff! Started with forums where one message reach most people all torgether (even message like this one can be hours writing - need a break when words just makes funny shapes I dont know what they means!).

I make amends - spent times answer you interesting other post I found!

Best wishes.

@Spogg
Sorry not doing my mods jobs. Don't want to have accidents of deleting good stuff I read it wrong!

[tulamide]

But I also have to grumble a bit that you didn't answer my email, as wor

Ah, soorry, tula. Not done e-mail inbox for longtimes - more scary than forums, too many of it and a million subjet discussed = need to lie down with wobbly brain! Good to come here first - computer stuff easier understaning than people stuff! Started with forums where one message reach most people all torgether (even message like this one can be hours writing - need a break when words just makes funny shapes I dont know what they means!).

I make amends - spent times answer you interesting other post I found!

Best wishes.

@Spogg
Sorry not doing my mods jobs. Don't want to have accidents of deleting good stuff I read it wrong!

Thank you, Trog! Don't mind my sentence. Since I wrote it, I thought about it, and also spoke with Spogg, and we came to the same conclusion, that you just described. Everything's fine!

[Spogg]

@Spogg
Sorry not doing my mods jobs. Don't want to have accidents of deleting good stuff I read it wrong!

Don't be concerned for even a microsecond trog!

We all want you to get over whatever happened and be well again. And take your time; it takes as long as it takes.

Cheers

Spogg

[trogluddite]

Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone for expressing your concerns and looking out for me. And to apologise if my posts of the last few days haven't been up to my usual standard. I can't promise that there won't be any further strange grammar, spelling, and vocabulary, but things are improving with the help of my GP, friends, and the change in the weather (the incessant people-noise during the shut-downs has been aggravating my sensory hyper-sensitivity and insomnia really badly, and the rainy weather has quietened down the noisy buggers a bit!)

Best wishes to you all!

[pshannon]

Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone for expressing your concerns and looking out for me. And to apologise if my posts of the last few days haven't been up to my usual standard. I can't promise that there won't be any further strange grammar, spelling, and vocabulary, but things are improving with the help of my GP, friends, and the change in the weather (the incessant people-noise during the shut-downs has been aggravating my sensory hyper-sensitivity and insomnia really badly, and the rainy weather has quietened down the noisy buggers a bit!)

Best wishes to you all!

Trog,

I am truly glad you are good and never worry about the grammar. spelling etc. We are tech people and not grammar professors. Your contributions have always been helpful and good stuff. I was one of the worst in my English class and I do not judge on that compared to the actual content. Sometimes I have hit the submit button because I was in a hurry and later I read my post with an oh boy moment. My wife jokes with me on my English as a second language and binary is my first.

[trogluddite]

never worry about the grammar. spelling etc.

Honestly, that would be bliss! It's a funny old thing - the way autism expresses itself in me gives me both extremes. On the one hand, I fit what's called the "hyperlexic" form of autism - precociously early reading ability, massive obsession with words and language, and having to keep my innate grammar-nazi tendencies in check! (the scandinavian term "comma-f**ker" is much better, I think!) OTOH, when my brain burns out, I can sometimes look at a page of English, and it just looks like a load of pretty squiggles accompanied by a vague sense of "I'm supposed to understand these things, aren't I?".

Selective shut-downs can be so specific that I retain the muscle memory for typing what I'm thinking, but can't read what I just typed. Or everything might be fine except that I can't remember any words from the "periods of time" category. Other times, I have no idea that there is any such thing as words at all, or why it is that people make noises come out of their faces (though with certain people, I don't need to be shut-down for that to happen! haha). So anxiety about pressing "post" is just a regular occupational hazard for me - it's not unusual that a couple of paragraphs takes me a few hours to write due to the enormous amount of editing needed to satiate my perfectionist streak. My coding is the same - I spend as much time triple-checking that my formatting is all super-neatly aligned and renaming variables as I do actually getting any functions working!

[Spogg]

Once again I have to thank you so much trog for sharing the fascinating insights into your subjective experiences.

Your description reminds me very much of dreams I have when I’m supposed to read and write stuff, and I can’t do it, either on a keyboard, phone or even handwriting. In those dreams I start to think that I’ve had some sort of stroke or dementia, and it’s horrible.

I have no idea, but I wonder if some conditions are related to the dream creation software kicking in and bypassing the waking software. Just a theory…

Cheers

Spogg

[wlangfor@uoguelph.ca]

It's My chest beating that calls him back. He just needs to hear My chest beat and then He begins his innovations anew.

[trogluddite]

I have no idea, but I wonder if some conditions are related to the dream creation software kicking in and bypassing the waking software

That's pretty astute, I think. Long before my autism was diagnosed, I always used to explain it to myself as me having a brain where parts of it went to sleep independently of the rest - and so, in turn, I blamed it entirely on the sleep-deprivation caused by insomnia (that may even be a component of it - insomnia is so common for autistic people that it's hard to tell). Whenever I told this theory to anyone else, they usually just poo-pood it, so I learned to keep it to myself (as with many other weird or embarrassing things that I've since learned are autism-related).

In the case of your dreams, I would guess that it's really not so different to my experience. Your language circuits happen to be turned off for their nightly "servicing" at the moment of having that dream, so the dream isn't able to include any linguistic content - the reading/writing program of the "holodeck" is disabled, so to speak.The only difference is that my language circuits (or whatever it happens to be) are shutting down while I'm otherwise awake. Even that isn't unique to neurological conditions, though - most people will understand the experience of being completely "lost for words" following an extreme shock - it's just that in some conditions, the amount of sensory or emotional input required for the brain to go into "energy saving mode" is different. Even the common experience of struggling to find a word that's "on the tip of your tongue" is a very minor version of the same thing, I expect.

I start to think that I’ve had some sort of stroke or dementia, and it’s horrible.

I've read some interesting stuff about the intersection between autism and dementia. For quite a while, there have been anecdotal reports that autistic people seem to be protected against dementia (particularly Alzheimer's). There's no obvious organic pathology which would explain this, nor any genetic commonality that's known. The most obvious explanation is that autistic people are already accustomed to many of the effects of Alzheimers - i.e. the cognitive deficits are not as horrifying if they've been familiar since infancy, and we've already had a lifetime of devising and using coping strategies for them. It's been mooted that autistic people might even have a useful contribution to make towards counselling and support for folks with Alzheimer's and other kinds of dementia.