Intellectually Disabled Student Wins College Dorm Lawsuit

I just found out that a student with intellectual disabilities won a lawsuit to live on campus. Micah Fialka-Feldman, who is in a special program for students with intellectual disabilities at his college, was not permitted to live on campus, allegedly because he is not a full-time student, but it is quite possible that some ableism is involved here, too, since quite likely it’s the way the program is set up that makes it part-time. Because he doesn’w want to have to travel for two hours from his parents anymore, and because he wants to participate in all that campus life has to offer, he sued to have the university allow him to move into a dorm room. He apparently won the case, and is hoping to move in on Sunday, although the college can still appeal the case.

As a person living in a country where inclusion of the disabled in mainstream education lags miles behind the situation in the U.S., and as a person with a lot of intellectual ability privilege, I find it somewhat hard to imagine that colleges would accept students with intellectual disabilities at all. Where I live, a few vocational colleges cooperate with care agencies to create certification programs or employment training programs, which have some aim of helping people with intellectual disabilities be more employable. Unfortunately, however, we are not nearly there yet: most such cooperations help students earn a certificate at the lowest level possible, that will not make them employable at all. By 2010, disability benefits will be changed, and they’re marketed as giving disabled people more opportunities for education and employment. The premise is that every person under age 27 must either work or go to school, unless they’re absolutely unsuitable, and your disability status will only be assessed at age 27 (rather than 18, as it is now). Unfortunately, with no radical changes to the educational and employment systems, that would truly make them inclusive to people with disabilities, this change of legislation will likely only lead to people being cut off from disability and shoved onto welfare.

Anyway, in the Dutch system, some student housing associations discriminate those in vocational college in favor of university students. That way, students with disabilities, if they want to live in student housing, are at increased risk of facing discrimination. Same for part-time students (there is a hell of a lot of discrimination of part-time students anyway). That way, it is quite likely that students in special programs, at a disadvantage when applying for student housing. Again, we do not know if ableism is involved here. If you are a full-time university student with disabilities, disability services will likely help you find suitable student housing sooner than the nondisabled students (that’s how I got an apartment as a freshman, while all other freshmen have to be content with just a a tiny bedroom or, if they’re unlucky, no housing at all). Then again, in certain situations, ableism is quite apparent. For example, there is a huge waiting list for student housing, so many students rent a room privately, in which case usually the other students in the house, will get to vote on who gets in – something which, quite likely, leads to disability discrimination. Even if you live with student housing, if you end up in a dorm room, it is quite possible that your housemates could discriminate against you, and this may lead to problems keeping your housing.

I think it is a good thing that Fialka-Feldman won his case. Living two hours away from school would, in the Netherlands, most likely entitle you to be put high on the housing list for transportation reasons. I think that even with the discrimination against part-time students and vocational college students, this should’ve enabled a student to get housing, unless disability discrimination were thrown in. In that case, I hope the recent change to our anti-disability-discrimination legislation would help these people access housing.

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College Experiences for Students with Mental Illness

Abby Jean writes on FWD/Forward about her experiences in college as a person with mental illness. In particular, she describes how class privilege made it possible for her to stay in college despite attempts from ableist university employees to get her out. Class discrimination is quite prevalent in the U.S. system as a whole. For example, Abby Jean could not have accessed quality mental health services if her parents hadn’t had the money to pay for a private psychiatrist and therapist. On the contrary, in the Netherlands, mental healthcare is covered in the basic health insurance package every resident is required to have. We do have university counseling departments here, too, but if you have serious mental health issues or need a formal diagnosis, I recommend that you get a referral to a mental health agency through your family doctor instead of going there. University counselors can’t make official diagnoses, don’t have time for or expertise in psychotherapy (other than some preventive therapies), and they most certainly cannot prescribe drugs (hint: Abby Jean’s counselor should be really glad she hadn’t graduated yet or she’d have lost her license!).

When Abby Jean was hospitalized, the university wanted to kick her off campus after her discharge. In my situation, the university may’ve not wanted to get me back there (I am not sure, since I didn’t want to go back myself), but they weren’t responsible for my housing. The student counselor has some influence there, in that she asked the housing association to allow me to stay in my home for the remainder of the year (2008, I don’t know why I haven’t been kicked out yet). Now I may’ve been in a different situation had I not had my own apartment. In a dorm, after all, fellow students would’ve been upset by my behavior far earlier than they did now. On the other hand, like Abby Jean says: what about the people who binge drink and then pass out on the stairs?

Abby Jean’s point that non-academic accommodations are not widespread in the university system, is interesting. In fact, in the Netherlands, if you disrupt a few university classes or even if you are acting up outside of class, even if it’s due to a documented disability, you will pretty likely be kicked out. I almost had to quit a week into university because of a few meltdowns on college grounds, outside of class, because “a university is not a therapy center”, as the student counselor said. And it wasn’t that I requested any accommodations or really asked for any help in cases of meltdown, but that other students who saw me melting down (or even if they saw me just being lost) would request someone from the student services or my volunteer student buddy from the autism program to intervene. There seems to be an unwritten rule that, as a person with disabilities, you are responsible for other people’s reactions to you.

I am not sure about the details of Dutch disability discrimination legislation. I know that it applies to colleges and universities, but I’d not be surprised if it is okay to discriminate on grounds not obviously related to curriculum access – and besides, the university can pretty easily refuse to make instructional materials accessible with the argument that “every other blind student we know has a relative do this for them”.

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Adult Autism Outcomes Vary Considerably, Study Finds

A recent study examined adult outcomes on education, vocation, independence, friendships and intimate relaitonships, for people with autism spectrum disorders. Comparisons were made between adults diagnosed with ASD in childhood and those diagnosed in adulthood, and between people with and without comorbid intellectual disability. It was found, not surprisingly to me, that the presence of intellectual disability was a significant predictor for poor functioning. This is, however, not supportive of different forms of autism, but rather, of the fact that multiple disabilities interact and complicate a person’s situation, usually leading to poorer outcomes as compared to people with either disability alone. I’d have liked to have seen an analysis of the outcomes of people with and without comorbid mental illness, too, but I assume there is a reason this wasn’t done.

With regard to comparisons between people diagnosed in childhood to those diagnosed in adulthood, there was no difference in functioning when people were assessed prior to age 25. In other words, for autistics under age 25, there is no reason to assume they must function better or worse if they’re diagnosed after age 18, than those diagnosed in youth. For those who were over 25 at the time of assessment, there was a difference in functioning between those diagnosed in childhood and those diagnosed in adulthood, but this difference may be explained by the fact that those diagnosed in adulthood were on average about ten years older than the childhood-diagnosed group at the time of assessment. Therefore, they had approximately an extra decade to “catch up” in functioning. It is quite possible that the childhood-diagnosed group would function at an equivalent level if they’d been of the same age to the group diagnosed in adulthood.

The authors, lastly, emphasize the extreme variability in functioning found particularly within the group without intellectual disability. Note, however, that this was the vast majority, so I don’t think there is any reason to conclude yet that those with intellectual disabilities are uniform in functioning; their subgroup size may’ve been too small to be able to judge that. The attainment of intimate relationships was the goal least likely to be achieved, but even on this domain, there were people who achieved appropriate functioning. With regard to the other domains, there was huge variability, from people living in isolation on disability benefits to a successful university professor. It is unclear what factors actually influence these outcome variables: the authors say that few people studied had ever received targeted interventions (ABA, etc.), but a generally supportive school and home environments did contribute to better adult outcomes.

Reference

Marriage S, Wolverton A, and Marriage K (2009), Autism Spectrum Disorder Grown Up: A Chart Review of Adult Functioning. J Can Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry, 18(4):322-328.

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The World of Employability vs. the World of Institutionalization

I talked with my sister on the phone for two hours a few days ago, and was frustrated when we hung up. The factual reason was that she kept making suggestions that were totally off-base about what might and might not work in improving my situation on the ward. She knows very little about autism, and what she knows, she got from chick mags. Trying to educate her is pretty difficult, since you don’t explain the nuances of autism symptoms and treatments (one topic we discussed was whether meds would help me re the meltdowns) in a phone conversation. Mind you, she was well-meaning, and the fact that we conversed for two hours, indicates that we get along quite well. I don’t intend this post as a sister-bashing rant, anyway.

What I do want to write about, is the totally different expeirences that I have from my sister, but also my boyfriend and everyone else outside of the institution I know. Most people I know offline outside of the hospital, are of college age like me. Everyone who falls within that age group, actually attends college. Now I attend some Open University courses – I just signed up to take a neuropsychology exam -, but it is not with the purpose anyone I know has with being in college, ie. pursuing a career.

My sister talks about her difficulties at university quite frequently. She is a biology major, but not sure if she will continue in this field, since she is very behind in her studies. She talks about possibly switching to history. She asks me about college programs that suit her interest, where she would know what she’ll become, because these might be more motivating to her, but then she tells me that she can’t go to a lower level college because that wouldn’t be “normal” for her. She asks me whether she can ever get into research if she by now is so behind – even if she eventually catches up, people will wonder why she took three years to earn her foundation (first-year certificate). She is concerned that future employers won’t hire her because she never had a part-time job while in college. I tell her that volunteering as treasurer for the Dutch Youth Association for the Study of Nature (plus a dozen other positions at the local or work group level) is relevant experience, but really, I have no clue. Maybe my well-meaning advice sounds as off-base to her as hers is to me, but at least she is the one starting the conversation.

I have the same experiences with other college-attending people I know, as well as on forums like Wrong Planet: I still post on the school and college board sometimes, and even occasionally on the work and finding a job board, but I realize that my experiences are likely irrelevant. Not only did they take place several years ago, but I also can’t be sure whether anything I share may just be related to something I don’t have in common with the person I’m conversing with.

For example, my sister worries about never getting a job and having to be financially dependent on her boyfriend when they’ll live together someday. I won’t likely get into any financial trouble, whether I ever get a job or not: I’m on disability and, unless the law changes again (but the change scheduled for 2010, will not apply to current disability recipients unless they themsleves choose so – the new law is marketed as giving people better opportunities for work), it’s unlikely that I will ever be forced to get a job if my current situation doesn’t improve significantly. On the other hand, I worry sometimes that my current situation will spiral down into a life of total unproductivity, not even solely with regard to paid employment, but also with regard to education and community service. There is no doubt that environmental groups will want my sister as a volunteer, even if she weren’t qualified for a paid job. Of course, I am not saying that the worry about getting a paid job, isn’t important – it is a reality that, without a paid job, my college-age relatives will be financially dependent on others -, but it’s just, well, different.

Another thing is, all my college-age relatives are busy planning out the rest of their lives. They worry that they, in their first year of college, don’t know what they want to do for a profession. I never thought about this even when I was in college: all I thought abotu, was how to get myself through the first year at Saxion, and through the first six teeks at Radboud. At this point, employment isn’t on my mind really, and actually, neither is college: when people ask me where I want to be in so many years, I usually reply: “Out of the institution.” I do still have some college dreams, but they are so vague that they never make it into anything remotely like a future plan.

Now I do still discuss college and employment with people. It’s a lot more interesting than my day activities. When someone asks whether I have a day program, I obligatorily sum up my weekly activities: movement therapy, domestic meeting and singing on Monday, a meeting with the social worker and yoga on Tuesday, movement therapy and orientation & mobility on Wednesday, nothing on Thursday or Friday (but I often go places with my boyfriend on Fridays), and mostly a biweekly meeting with the psychologist not on a fixed time. You ask whether I see any results or what goal these treatments have? No clue, and I’d have to look in my treatment plan for the official gibberish. If you can’t discuss something “normal” about my life like the city I last visited with my boyfriend (the topic I usually start phone conversations off with), discuss your college or employment issues, please. The fact that you are in college, doesn’t alienate me by definition – unless you tell me that my comments are clueless, theoretical and outdated, but no-one tells me so. The fact that I’m in an institution, does.

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College Updates and Phonetics Frustration

Slept really badly last night. This is not necessarily medication-related, though it might be. Risperdal was meant to help me sleep, but it never really did and I didn’t notice an increase in insomnia the last time I lowered my dosage. Furthermore, I slept really poorly the night before Monday, too, so it may be school-related.

Worried about school a lot last night. I’m now only taking two classes instead of five, because taking the full load was overwhelming me. However, one of these classes, phonetics, is next to impossible to follow, because I don’t have the book yet, we can’t get the professor’s notes, and I can’t get the phonetic alphabet to work with my computer. I tried to E-mail my instructor, but he doesn’t respond.

School is really not what I’d expected it to be. My other class, language and communication, is very boring. It’s all language analysis, basically. Phonetics is a cool class, but next to impossible to follow. Further, everything outsdide of class is really hard. I freak out after class almost universally, because I can’t orient in the big building and I don’t know my classmates yet. Hell, was it ever easier when I still went to Saxion. Saxion was hard, but not as hard as Radboud is.

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College and Autism Update and Musings about Having a Dual Disability

Went to university today for another meeting for autistic students and their buddies. This time, it was meant to get started the process of the buddy system. I had to fill out a checklist of things I might have problems with, so Andrea (who is my buddy) can see what I need help with. I also gave her my contact info and Gerda’s and Marion’s info, so she can get in touch with either of them. We then made an appointment for next week Wednesday at 4:00 PM. Andrea will come to my place, cause we need to do Blackboard and I can’t access a computer at university cause lack of a screenreader. Man, university is really where blindness and autism get to interact and it’s hard to tell which issue is from which disability. Like, I had trouble at freshman intro cause I didn’t know the way around, but the main situation in which Andrea needed to support me, was when I freaked out. This does prove that one cannot see one’s disabilities separately, and this is a major reason why I’ve always hated the idea of a “primary” disability. In most places, blindness is my “primary” disability, because it’s the one most easily conceptualized, even when autism is the reason I need most support. I’ve seen blindness taken apart, before my autism diagnosis, and this was a problem, but Andrea is now helping me with some things the other buddies don’t need to help someone with, cause they don’t face this problem cause they’re sighted. I’m not either blind cause that is what everyone will see or autistic cause that is why I’m in the buddy system. I’m both and I have many more qualities, each of which may influence my college education for the better or for the worse.

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Some Updates on University and Living in Nijmegen

This past week was quite difficult despite the fact that everyone’s been trying their best to help me get through it. On Monday, I had my first day of freshman introduction, which at first went quite well but then it turned out I’d bought the wrong book for one course, so I freaked out at university. Same on Thursday after another book turned out to be the wrong edition. Now the freshman intro organizer says I ruined the nice atmosphere at intro. She doesn’t mean it as a personal attack, and I don’t take it as such, but since I know how stupid I behave, it does make me feel pessimistic. If I freak out my first two days at university, how will I do the rest of the year?

I don’t remember much about Tuesday. One of my new support workers, Adrie – the same person who came to Malden on Sunday -, came to my home to help with grocery shopping and picking up my meds at the pharmacy. Then the occupational therapist came and we tried the route to the shopping centre. Arda suspects that the reason I do so poorly on O&M these days is cause the occupational therapist focuses a little too much on instruction and lets me figure out the route somewhat too little on my own. I can sort of see where she’s coming from, but I also know that on several occasions, I wasn’t able to concentrate cause of stress. This was also what happened today, cause I’d felt confused after meeting up with Arda. She came for fun, but it really wasn’t much fun cause I freaked out before she came. I felt so nervous about the talk she’d had with Gerda and Marion, my new main support worker. As it turned out, it wasn’t that bad after all, but I felt really freaked out about it this morning.

Evenings are still difficult. Freaked out extremely yesterday, where I self-injured by banging my head – something I rarely do anymore. I got really worried about this, but it seems most other people see it as a bigger problem that I went outside crying after this happened. Well, that is a problem, too. Gerda says I should’ve called her, which I eventually did but not until someone had reminded me to call someone. I do need to find a way of reminding myself of healthy coping mechanisms like calling someone before I self-injure, run off or use other unhealthy coping strategies. Arda suggested I write a reminder and put it in my computer. I’m not sure if this works, but I’ll try.

Tomorrow and on Sunday, I will be having dinner and evenign coffee in the living facility in Malden, so that’s a good thing. Gerda is looking if she can get funding for me to sleep over at that place more often. She’s also looking into getting me in touch with other people. I worked out a list of things to do with Adrie this afternoon, which she will be discussing with Marion. I hope things will be working out a little.

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College and Autism Informational Meeting

Yesterday, I went to university for an informational meeting about going to college with an autism spectrum disorder. At first, a person from an autism agency talked about what problems students with autism might face, from a kind of medicalized, theoretical point of view. Even so, it was an interesting talk. After this, a woman from an autistic self-advocacy organization talked about this organization. It was interesting, but there was a little too much emphasis on how autistics should arrange their own stuff. In my opinion, taking responsibility for your own life is not the same as doing most things for yourself. Also, she talked about how the organization is for high-functioning autistic adults. Why just high-functioning people, who are, supposedly, capable of standing up for ourselves? Whether you should have the ability to self-advocate, doesn’t depend on your intelligence.

Then, two autistics and a parent of autistic adults talked about what college was like for them or their children. I don’t remember everything the people said, and I didn’t like the emphasis the parent placed on the importantce of parents. Not because I don’t think parents can help a college student succeed, but because my own parents don’t give a flying flip about disability issues other than things striclty blindness-related.

After this, we got some information abotu services for autistic students at my university. We have a sort of buddy system starting this year, where each autistic student who wants so can get another student (mostly from psychology and special education) to be their buddy. I met one of them yesterday, who helped me through today, as I navigated the first day of freshman introduction.

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Confused Rambligns on the Communication Skills Exam and My Situation

Yesterday, I failed my communication skills final. Not cause I’d done it badly, but cause I’d not done it at all, cause I went to the wrong classroom and, once I got to the right one, I was late so Dannie had left. Freaked out cause I was confused and this only made it worse, cause Dannie interpreted it as rudeness when really it wasn’t meant as such. Eventually, Elma came round and asked if there was any way to solve this problem and Dannie proposed I go for the retake tomorrow (Wednesday). It will be at 10:30. Stupid thing is I’d scheduled a family doctor’s appointment (cause of recurrent nosebleeds, one more issue I’m afraid will be more difficult to explain than it seems and that hence will go on my hypochondria record) at 9:30. Rescheduled it to next week. But on Monday, still being confused, I had to go to the train. Really, we would have gone out for dinner but I decided against this cause I was really too tired and confused and I didn’t feel comfortable sitting on the dinner table with Dannie when we’d just had this problem. Hope classmates and/or Dannie don’t interpret it as yet more rudeness. Arda says she would’ve done the same thing in my circumstances, but well, whatever.

Today I had a really confusing discussion with Arda. Yesterday as well. Stupid thing is about arrangements for living in Nijmegen. Really, I do want to go to freaking Radboud and that means I need to live in Nijmegen so find housing there, but it’s really all still so unclear and one thing I don’t want is that it will go like everything’s been going forever now. The freaking communication skills thing only made that worse, cause I realize it really was a small thing that caused this trouble and it’s something that happens at the most accommodating schools because someone just forgets to mention something. Like, Dannie genuinely thought I could tell which of the two classrooms would be the preparation room in which I would’ve needed to show up (we have 30 minutes preparation time before doing the exam discussion) and which was the exam taking room cause one door’s sign said “exam taking” and the other said “exam preparation”, but I only saw the “exam taking” sign (oh well, someone else read it) and thought this was a universal sign asking for silence wherever exams are taking place, so didn’t think that perhaps this was the wrong room and the other one had “exam preparation” on its door. However, even if you realize this, you might just forget and an “it’s your responsibility” statement is pretty quickly made by instructors when one of their students gets in trouble even if they don’t mean it literally – perhaps Dannie did think she’d told me about the different door signs (cause she did E-mail me about them for tomorrow). But the point is, even though Saxion is not the most accommodating school I could imagine (and Radboud so far seems at least somewhat better), it really isn’t about accommodations anymore. It’s about bad behavior once again. Elma called training home yesterday saying to Christa (a new staff folk) that I had these problems every week. What did she mean? She was talking about how I had to go to the train but couldn’t find my way. Well, I don’t have that problem each week. She must’ve meant behavioral difficulty. Arda asked me if she knows I’m autistic. Well, duh, of course not. Neither does Dannie. Besides, what would’ve changed if they did, besides them telling me I really can’t be in this program cause it’s too socially demanding (which I could’ve told you ages ago)? It’s only one more quarter (if I pass communication skills tomorrow), so maybe they won’t tell me to quit cause they know I will be quitting soon anyway, but what relevance does the freaking fact that I’m on the spectrum have for my current education? The only thing I could’ve hoped it’d do is to lessen the negative stereotype I created about the blind, but I think I must conclude from my cognitive social psychology book, that stereotypes don’t change like that. The freaking label, further, doesn’t make my behavior any more acceptable. If you knew in advance, like the folks from Radboud, maybe you could tailor possible accommodations to that knowledge so that I might have fewer situations in which I’d freak out, but we’re past that with Saxion. So it’s all about excuses anyway. Who wants an excuse? Elma not, I might hope.

The housing issue got kind of strange this afternoon, cause it is all so unclear and it all so confuses me. I don’t understand the whole thing and all Arda says is that she hopes it will work out. Well, duh! I got to hope so, too. But it’s April and no-one really knows what September will be like. All Arda says is that she doesn’t have expectations of me. Bad thing, after fifteen months of training, but she seems to mean that she doesn’t expect magical improvement from me within the next several months. Well, how, then, does she see me? Yesterday as well as today, she got into vague statements about how I needed to accept needing help and the impact the stupid label would have (never mind that she told me she could write a final report on me a month before I was labeled and I contend I didn’t change cause of labels) and how she couldn’t guarantee anything but she was trying her best, etc. I’m not doubting any of this, but it’s already April and all I’m getting is that Arda doesn’t expect anything of me but knows I’d likely be happiest while at university. It’s the same my mother says, and I agree to that latter statement (I do have expectations of myself and think this is in fact healthy), but my mother and Arda differ wildly on how they realistically see me – at least, I hope they do, cause I hate my mother’s view. I don’t understand Arda’s perspective and it makes me feel like: hell, if you said you could do a final report on me (and maybe only you needed the freaking label to justify my needs) by February, why do you remain so vague? I have decision-making power in certain areas, in that I can decide to go to university (or not, as Arda stressed this afternoon) and choose my major and even eventually was involved in the picking of the most suitable SSHN housing, but “realism” is not the answering of a whole lot of either/or questions. Whether I’m going to clean my kitchen cupboards on my own, is one decision to be made, I agree, but it is going to take me years to answer all of these either/or questions and I probably won’t answer most consciously cause their answers are supposed to be inherent in the biggger picture of my situation created by other more or less consciously made answers. Now I have a situation that is supposed to be “realistic”, yet that I don’t understand cause I don’t see the forest for the trees. Besides, I seem to have completely different abilities depending on circumstances. Arda found that a really interesting comment, but I just find it confusing, because I cannot conform to either image.

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Studying Updates and Thoughts on a Discussion with Sigrid about Mental Health

Planned next week’s studying with help from first Ellen and later Arda. Got it done quite nicely until I freaked out at my psychology project and the orientation to Saxion’s programmes and career psychology assignments. Elma had suggested on Monday that I ask Koos to allow me to hand in psychology later (has to be January 29), but I decided against that cause the reason I haven’t yet finished it is purely about not having started it on time – particularly, having debated far too long about which topic to choose (eventually chose mild intellectual impairment). The orientation to Saxion’s programmes thing is stupid, cause I did finish all that I can finish already, but firstly I have far too little content (only three pages and it has to be 10-15, but I can really only think of nonsense to add) and secondly, we will be getting the last workshop (or really not a workshop at all, some stupid info market) on January 29 and it has to be handed in February 2. That’s a problem to everyone. Eventually, I did send Elma an E-mail asking her to help me contact the career psychology instructor to ask her to delay my having to hand in the project. The reason is that I only finished scanning the reader one or two weeks ago. In fact, I thought I’d scanned all of it two weeks ago, because the same reader is used for cognitive social psychology and we don’t have that now, but when scanning that part of the reader, I still found career psychology stuff last week. As a consequence, I didn’t fully understand the assignment till last week. And that combined with the fact that I missed the first class (in which assignments are usually explained somewhat) and the fact that instructors always say “Look in your reader” when I ask them about assignments, made it only possible to start the project last week. By the way, the reader says something different about the assignment than what I remember the instructor saying, but I’ll just stick with the reader. I did start the assignment, but it requires 150 pages of reading. While I’d started that long before starting the assignment, I have to reread most of it for use in the assignment. Partly, of course, this is a planning problem: I didn’t have either the book or the reader on time, but I could’ve started doing other projects. Could have. I’ll certainly plan much more strictly for the third quarter. Now really do hope the instructor – who is pretty strict, but okay – will allow me to hand it in a few weeks later. I, by the way, do hope I can still do communication psychology on February 5.

My sister was here yesterday. First, we went to a play by my sister’s classmates, but I have no idea what it was about and can’t remember most of it. Really didn’t understand a thing. Then, we went to my house and had some drink. Sigrid started asking me about mental health. She asked what that folk had said on Tuesday and I gave some noninformative answer about the Friday appointment. Then, she insisted I explain why I am actually in mental health. Well, you know how difficult that is anyway, and I didn’t particularly feel like it, either. That’s cause I know Sigrid doesn’t like mental health professionals and also sort of believes I really don’t have a problem. At first, I just told her to read my journal, but I’m not sure if I want her to, cause my ideas of my situation and what’s come of it differ in some fundamental ways from the idea Sigrid eventually made up for herself. She started assuming I was going to mental health cause of not being able to chit-chat and got to tell me that neither can my father. Whaha! I think my chit-chatting abilities are better than what my sister thinks they are and I don’t need help for the fact that I don’t like chit-chat. Then she went on making more assumptions about “communication” and “social skills” but essentially meaning my lack of friends. Well, of course I don’t like that state, but it’s not something that significantly troubles me (not anymore, at least). Sigrid kept being convinced that the problem was about friends for quite a long while, so I had to tell her at least three or four times that it wasn’t. Meanwhile, she said that not having friends and not being able to chit-chat run in the family, as if that were a reason not to care if I did think it was a problem. Severe mental illness runs in families, too. But the worst of it all was that Sigrid went on from this paradigm assuming I had no place where I could truly be myself (well, you’re right there, but the reason is not about being or feeling too good) and telling me why Mum believes everything will be much better once I’m at university. Her logic seems to be as follows: everyone needs at least one person who is truly, genuinely interested in them and with whom they can be completely themselves. Now of course I’m super special, being extremely intelligent and having hugely unique interests and all. She means politics and philosophy, not calendar calculation or any of my other truly odd interests (the current one is job offers in healthcare). Now cause of being so special, I need people of the same specialness to associate with. That means people “of my level”. That’s not Sigrid, even though she’s going to be at university next year, too. It’s not anyone at high school, even though most people in my level high school go to university. I wonder how everyone is suddenly going to gain those damned IQ points or whatever determines “level” by transferring from high school to university, but well. Never mind that my IQ is not extreme even though it’s high and my interests are not unique. And besides, I’m not doing okay in places where my mother assumes these spcial people are, like the Socialist Party. I guess that imaginary Dr. Jansen I wrote about a view weeks ago should do a case study on my mother, too, and her disorder should be called Narcissistic Personality Disorder by proxy.

The whole thing, according to Sigrid, had something to do with adapting to other people. According to Sigrid, I couldn’t or didn’t want to adapt to others. Well, if anything, I can’t, cause I don’t have the slightest idea what she meant. In this context, she liked the question from Tuesday whether I could imagine how other people feel. This is weird, cause earlier in the discussion, she vigorously stated that I have absolutely no problem with that cause I can for example tell that when someone cries, they’re sad. But well, I couldn’t adapt, or at least wouldn’t. Sigrid assumed I didn’t want to cause I felt I was wasting my time – or she felt that way, at least – dealing with people whom I had to adapt to. Hmm, maybe it would be easier that way, cause it meant not desiring to be around or associate with people I have to adapt to. Sometimes, in my current state, I wish I were that aloof. But I eventually got it through to Sigrid that I did want to adapt. As you can see, she still believed the whole thing was about informal communication or friends. Still, she didn’t abandon the adapting paradigm as she got convinced it wasn’t about informal communication but about behaviour and communication in a more functional sense. I told her about the January 3 agreement and we got into a discussion of what impact being kicked out would have. I informed her that I would still have time to find a place to live, cause I won’t be kicked out right away. She asked me whether I thought I could live without assistance. I made a slip, cause I honestly told her that I don’t – something I shouldn’t say to Sigrid. She said that was a reason why being kicked out would have major impact: not so much cause I really wouldn’t survive without assistance (we both agree that I won’t starve or the like), but cause, according to Sigrid, my lack of motivation after being kicked out would lower my level of functioning so significantly that I wouldn’t be able to keep up. Hmmm, who was it again telling me that I should just go to Nijmegen by September, 2006, while I believed I couldn’t? As for being told to leave: I cannot predict the future and I hope I won’t have to, but I’ve been known for holding on when I really have to. Besides, that was not what we were talking about: freaking out to the point of almost being kicked out, is a problem no matter what being kicked out is going to imply.

Then Sigrid got to ask about those “fights” with the staff. At first, she assumed it had to do with her old idea about adapting, too, in that I freaked out cause people were belittling me or something. Hell, no. Meanwhile, she tried to explain several times what she meant by adapting to others and why she thought I had a problem with that, but I didn’t (and still don’t) understand her and repeatedly told her so. I apparently screamed to her, too, but she didn’t consider that significant – she just told me I did. Her first paradigm was that I felt misunderstood. Well, yeah, sometimes, but that’s not about the other person. She should’ve known this by now, if she was thinking a little meta-communicatively, cause she didn’t consider her not understanding my explanations and my consequently getting frustrated, to be her problem (and neither did I). So she concluded that I couldn’t explain things. That became a new paradigm, but this time I at least see it happen in reality. And I didn’t understand. Well, I said so several times on Tuesday. My sister calls it “miscommunication” and therefore getting into “fights” and concluded that, if I didn’t understand the adapting thing, that was a fine thing to say, too. I did, and can I please make up my own ideas? She had a problem with Renee having been present at the admission interview, but later didn’t anymore, as I told her I agreed with what Renee had said. And now she didn’t even disagree with my using other people’s paradigms to explain my situation, if I couldn’t explain it myself. She meant her adapting thing. Well, I do sometimes use paradigms made up by others, like the clarity thing, but only those that I do understand.

Now I do wonder what she told Mum about the mental health thing, cause it seemed that she was in fact sent by Mum to interrogate me. I don’t want her to tell anything, cause that increases the likelihood of false expectations and ungrounded opinions. The thing is, I would’ve wanted her to know the thing if I knew she’d stand with me when I made the decision. Like, of course she didn’t agree with the thing when it was still supposedly Renee’s decision, but I hoped she would support me after the admisssion interview. She didn’t. She still doesn’t. She’s only “interested”. Hell, I just want her to be *really* interested, if she can’t support me, but all I get is obligatory curiosity. By the way, Sigrid eventually supported my decision to go to mental health, but that support was based on her views of why I’m there. I guess she’s going to drop her support next Friday (depending on the outcome of that discussion) or even when she gets to read the January 16 entry.

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