A Male Mind

 

 

Hardcore research mode has led me to an interesting idea. Now once again people this is just for entertainment purposes and I'm not any kind of authority on anything so don't take my word for it.

 

So I'm hunting for information on ASD and ADHD-CT in girls and not having much luck on getting any kind of stats and I'm scrolling through my google finds when this EMB theory comes up and it mentions PCOS as a potential cause for autism/ ADHD?

 

Hold up, I have PCOS, (poly cystic ovarian syndrome), but I thought the mysterious "they" had determined that autism genetic code was passed down from the father? I thought I was off the hook for this.  Well anyways EMB turned out to stand for extreme male brain caused by an overabundance of testosterone in the womb?

Ok my hormone levels are whacky that could've happened.

 

Yup so we all know male and female brains are different, Mars vs Venus etc. What I took from what I was reading is that Simon Baron-Cohen theorizes that male brains are better at systemizing, finding patterns, mathematics etc while female brains are better at empathizing recognizing social and emotional changes, cues and causes. Most brains can do both men leaning more to the S systemizing type and women lean more to the female E empathizing type etc. but when you get to the extreme S type you lose the E type skills and that this explains autism and ADHD diagnoses being attached to boys over girls statistically speaking.

 

 ( disclaimer again do your own research, I was reading this http://personal.lse.ac.uk/kanazawa/pdfs/JTB2005a.pdf )

 

Anyways this got me to thinking about double standards of behavior for boys and girls and how much my Tigerlily stands alone as having both predominately male disorders. & I remembered that when Tiger was starting school etc how I told her educators to think of her as a little boy. To try to school their responses and reprimands by always thinking if a little boy did this, would I say anything?

 

I'm very annoyed by gender stereotyping, I want equality for my daughter in all things and I do my best to ensure that she understands that men and women are equal. So this new diagnosis has brought this up again for me and with the Womens' March and the United State Of Women campaign and all the conversations Tiger and I have been having about equality between the sexes, equal rights etc.

 I just thought the concept of her having an extreme male brain in a female body was interesting. I wonder if this extreme male brain would affect her sexuality? Will she go into a predominately male field of work as an adult etc.

 

Again just interesting to me and thought I'd share it.

 

The High Functioning Life , another day means another theory.

 

 

HFL Mama

Hardcore Mode

I live in Canada so like it or not weather has an  impact on my life. On January 4th 2017, the weather caused lots of road closures, it was basically a blizzard so we missed our specialist appointment. I did actually try to go,  but chickened out when I reached the highway and couldn't see the intersection lights.

So calls were made and eventually our specialist called us back. She was having a rough day being the only person who made it into her office. Anyways there are laws about disclosing medical information and she was unable to give the results of our latest evaluation on the phone, or schedule another appointment within the next 5 months (sigh*), so the decision was made to mail our results to us.

Three weeks later I'm holding a medical report that states not only does my Tiger have ASD, she's also ADHD-CT. ( CT stands for combined type and I'll write a post on my interpretation of that confusion later.)
 Awesome meme!

In all honesty this wasn't a surprise to me. In fact after my initial pity party where I allow myself to whine, b*tch and moan about the unfairness of it all. I'll admit that it doesn't really impact anything in a bad way. As Daddybear says" she's still our Tigerlily, she hasn't changed".

So we've doubled up on our diagnoses and we have more information to work with and another report  to slide across the table when some unfortunate administrator starts waiving red tape in my direction. What I need to do now, is further educate myself on ADHD-CT, dual diagnosis, next steps etc.
So far the recommendations  are eerily similar to what came with her ASD with the exception of medication being suggested.

M...m....mmm...medication?!?! That is just ...... Ok I'm about to launch into a whole debate lets also leave that for another post but I will say Daddybear has strong opinions on this.

So far now that's all I've got to say, I'm going to switch over to hardcore research mode and read a whole lot more on the subjects that have been raised by this new diagnosis.

The High Functioning Life, Hardcore is an accurate description some days.

HFL Mama

High Functioning Holiday Hell

Don't you just love the holidays?

 I do,  I love snow, eggnog and all the baking! I usually go through about 10 pounds of butter during December. I'm a stress baker, need I say more?

The fact of the matter is, that when I envisioned having children, I dreamed of Happy Christmas Mornings, cute school concerts and caroling around the neighbourhood. I dreamed of Holiday vacations to visit relatives far away, skiing, sledding and skating all day. Drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows and lots of happy noise.

Right now the above are not happening, and that's OK.
Tiger only went to school one day the week leading up to winter break and that's cool too.

The thing about holidays is that they are a break in our routine. I love that break, anticipating, planning, decorating, BAKING. I love the holidays,
It's fun for me,

I don't have autism.

My daughter is completely torn in two over the holidays. This is high functioning hell. She understands the holiday is coming, she anticipates the extra fun stuff we are going to be doing. She loves to decorate and lick the beaters, but as the holidays get closer routines get disrupted and then she can't cope.

Our amazing friends and family come to visit us, because Tiger and long car rides don't mix and we still have problems. 

She's fine they say, don't worry about it, it's ok.
It's ok for them and its ok for me, we can adjust and cope with her behaviours.

What about Tigerlily?

What hell it must be for a child to long for something that comes with so many challenges?

I watch her trying to decide if it will be worth the amount of effort she's going to have to put in & it breaks my heart that she usually decides against trying and it hurts more knowing that I agree with her decision. I'm willing to go, heck I offer up the activities and outings in the first place knowing that its going to be a struggle. I still want to try... as long as she wants to, because
when things go right, her joy is a sight to behold.

The High Functioning Life, sometimes its hell getting to Joyeux Noel.