Do you have a game plan for getting into a situation where Person Number Three has a decreased presence in your life? 'Cos I feel for ya, man…
I’m working with my tribe, who’s providing a therapist, psychiatrist and a case worker. The latter has already scouted out a prospective apartment (my folks’ loft is unfit for cold weather). The therapist has set me up with a disabilities network, for employment purposes (and other thing; it’s one of those things I’m not 100% on. I did reject group therapy, which I think is throuh them. I just don’t want to engage in a pity contest.)
The therapist is also looking to get me volunteer work to keep me preoccupied with other more productive ends. I have agreed to this. Can’t pressure me if I’m not getting paid, haha.
Though I really feel for the OP and his stepsis if they’re lacking the resources I have. This country’s attitude on mental health – and health in general – needs major, major readjusting. The Republican party is verily the party of undue influence.
PS. I’ve also had aspirations of making a video game or two myself, and have been subscribed to Game Marker’s Toolkit (among other similar channels) for years. I have also amassed second hand artbooks from public libraries to that end; coding books, too, if those had ever shown up.
I’m not sure if “lack of empathy” is the correct term but let me give you two examples:
In about 4th grade, her class of well-fed, generally healthy upper working class/lower middle class nearly all-white schoolmates watched a documentary about undernourished, parasite-infested, loincloth-wearing African children living in the dirt. At the end of the video, one of the adult presenters asked if they could see any differences between themselves and the children in the video. So she raised her hand and started listing the differences. The rest of the class reacted badly. She didn’t think the children in the video had less innate worth but when asked if she could see differences; Well, yes, she could. From that, she didn’t learn that there was something wrong with her, she learned that people ask bullshit questions and expect bullshit answers.
Another time, there was a nearly finished bottle of soda on the table. She drank what was left straight from the bottle. The adults reacted badly to which she responded that the point of that social rule was to avoid coming into contact with other people’s saliva and spreading disease and that since no one else was going to drink from the bottle after her, it was fine if she drank straight from it. She had an awareness of the raison d’être of that social rule and of its (lack of) relevance in that situation. Generally, adults and authority figures who told her that “you’re supposed to do this because you’re supposed to do this” resulted in her dismissing them as idiots.
Could you list some of them? Could be useful to her.
That all sounds pretty positive. Good luck to you with the game thing - independent projects are hard things to get started and keep on track
Well…they kind of were, weren’t they? I mean, it’s often useful to go along with the bullshit in order to get along, but that doesn’t mean it’s not bullshit.
Well, there’s Game Developer’s Conference. It runs the gamut of small indies and big names alike, from a wide range of topics vis-a-vis video games.
[game array] is like GMT, great content, but not a lot of it.
Matt Barton interviews a lot of renowned game makers
GameHut is a channel run by industry veteran Jon Burton who’s CEO of Traveller’s Tales (they make the Lego games). Focus is mostly on Sega Genesis programming, though, so I don’t know its usefulness.
Game critics of the nuts-and-bolts variety are a dime a dozen, but some of the stand-outs are: Matthewmatosis, Implant Games , tehsnakerer, and Novacanoo. Super Bunnyhop does excellent deconstructions, too, but he’s more focused on other aspects of the industry.
I can share more, but these seem to be the most pertinent. Hope it’s not too much, or too redundant.
The Geek Critique and Retropolis Zone are good too. (Couldn’t edit those in when I remembered them)
Why not go, and then leave if it becomes that? The vast majority of therapists will not allow it to happen.
CeltBro, is that you?!? LOL!
Seriously though, she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. OK. So far you haven’t given any examples that sound to me like there’s something wrong with this person. She’s just different. Is it possible that you/the family have developed a habit of pathologizing what are essentially healthy differences?
What is your hope for the outcome of this intervention? (little “i” not the formal type.) If it were successful, how would her life look different afterwards?
It really does sound like you’re describing someone with Asperger’s, or more likely a female with Asperger’s.
People who are diagnosed with Asperger’s or high-functioning autism sometimes learn social masking (usually before the diagnosis), by basically mimicking those around them, sometimes actually practising the traits they’re trying to mimic. It is possible to learn about metaphors and understand them, because they follow a pattern; new ones might be a problem. Jokes are also something you can learn to tell, and even learn to tell quite well.
I’m not sure about “seeking novelty and experimentation,” but there’s a big crossover between ADD/ADHD and autism. Lots of people are diagnosed with both.
FWIW I appreciate that you said “they appear to have low empathizing skills.” The word appear there is important. How much someone on the spectrum can empathise depends on many other factors; it’s appearing not to empathise, especially in person (due to body language and facial expressions), that is the diagnostic criterion.
Metaphors have never been a problem for her. She comes up with new ones all the time. She’s at least a notch better at it than most people even when speaking English which is her second language. Recently, she was telling me that anti-gay arguments are like broken glass; Many small, hard, sharp pieces but no coherent whole. She also said that the heads of homophobes are vermin-infested trashcans. I think that counts as metaphorical. Her linear thinking is above average but her lateral thinking is even more so.
Has she ever had a diagnosis of anything? Because the stuff you’ve described so far is bi-polar disorder rather than asperger’s or autism. I’m not an expert by any means and I’m only going on what you’ve said.
What?? OK, I can maybe see reading depression into the flat affect discussion. But where are you seeing a mania cycle in all this? What are you basing this on?
She seems to have significant up-cycles where she can achieve a lot and then suddenly she’s an unemployed, yet qualified MD who seems to still be happy.
I don’t know this woman, obviously, and I did say I wasn’t trying to diagnose anything. But I’ve known three people very well who were diagnosed with BPD after they qualified, two as doctors, one as a lawyer/barrister. It sounded familiar.
OP, you sound like you’re in love with her or something.
[Moderating]
Since this seems to be more about a specific person, it’ll probably work better in MPSIMS. Moving.
That would be fairly messed up. What makes you think that?