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dustinhartley · 7 years ago

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The Sky Is Falling: A Memoir, 3rd Edition -- Free to Read ONLY ON MY TUMBLR! For a paperback copy, go to http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/dustindareawf

Book 1: The Sky Is Falling

Chapter 11

“Mom, I can’t breathe!” I exclaimed while gasping for air.

We were shopping in Maryville, Missouri, across the border and about an hour away from our home in the small town of Lenox, Iowa.

“Knock it off,” or, “You’re all right,” were the dismissals I got from my mother, who was in the backseat. Grandpa, driving, and Grandma were in the front seat, apparently becoming agitated as I frantically repeated that I could not breathe. Despite my mother’s assurances that I was OK, and her suspicions that I was just being a brat -- after all, I had been known to throw tantrums on family outings -- I did not feel like I was fine.

I was sure I was going to die. My throat felt tight and my head felt as if it were going to explode, popping off my shoulders like the zits I started getting at this age, about 11 or 12.

Then I felt my heart racing; it was beating rapidly and with great force, as if it might jump out of my chest at any time.

My mother told me to relax, but I insisted that I needed air.

She then suggested that I sit in the front seat; perhaps that would make me feel better. I took her advice, but not calmly. I lay on my belly in the front seat, facing the seat cushion, exclaiming, “I can’t believe this is happening to me! I wish this were a dream!”

It was no dream, but like a dream, my subjective experience may not have matched well with the objective reality.

The ride home was a long one, the distance expanded by my deep panic. My heart continued at a tachycardia rate, and my hands, feet, and head tingled from hyperventilation.

Finally, after the hectic, panic-stricken ride home, there we were: home, where I could relax. Except I couldn’t relax. I was hyperventilating less, but my heart was still beating rapidly and my head still felt funny.

I lay on the couch, trying to sleep, but to no avail.

I felt as though I needed to be up, doing something; not anything in particular, just moving, as I could not settle down.

My mother, assuming I had a headache, gave me a pain reliever and sent me to my room, where she suggested I keep the room dark as to not aggravate the headache.

She had adequate reasons to believe that I was suffering from and overreacting to a headache.

For one, I had had a long history of severe headaches, which I call migraines, whether that is the medically correct term for my particular headaches or not.

And I had been complaining that I my head felt weird, but this was different than the way it usually feels to have a headache; indeed, it was less achy and more just an uncomfortable feeling that wasn’t so much painful.

Furthermore, a day or two before the shopping trip, I had asked the principal, who was substituting for the fourth-grade study hall teacher. I interrupted my teasing of Dana E. to ask if I could go home early due to a headache.

Chapter 2

I don’t quite recall why I was teasing Dana, but it may have to do with a prior incident in which I rubbed her the wrong way, I don’t recall how, but she responded by saying, “You’re not funny,

Dustin.”

I rebutted with, “I never meant to be,” though that was more of a defensive statement than the truth. The truth is, I did think of myself as funny, and quite likely thought that whatever I had said to her was indeed funny, if only to myself.

Or it may have had something to do with my anger towards my classmates in general. The year before, I had felt close friendships with many of my classmates.

In fact, I organized a few performances for the class.

Following recesses, I sometimes asked our third-grade teacher, Mrs. Peterson, if we could perform a little something, which usually was a song that went something like, “We’re friends forever, la la la.”

But in the fourth grade, I felt distanced from my classmates. Once, I took my anger to such an extreme as to stab Amber M. in the back with a pencil in Mrs. Miller‘s English class. Mrs. Miller frequently stepped out of the room or dosed off (in which case there was a long tradition at Lenox Elementary of putting unsavory items, like paper clips and chalk, in her coffee.

I don’t know if she ever actually drank the coffee with the debris in it, but I have to think that she could not have been so oblivious.), so it may have been on one of those occasions.

I recall one of the teachers or faculty members expressing their concern over Amber M.’s well-being after the pencil stabbing with the exclamation,

“She might have lead poisoning!”

If one can get lead poisoning from graphite, I confess ignorance to such a fact.

The next day, in the very same study hall classroom where I had asked to be excused by the principal, the teacher asked, “What got into you Dustin? That’s not like you!”

I was at a loss for a response. It seemed as though there were things going on in my adolescent mind that I did not understand at the conscious level.

But “adolescent mind” may provide a lot of explanation. I was about a year older than most of my classmates (for reasons that I will explain as this writing progresses), and I began developing and a relatively young age anyways, so I had started experiencing puberty, shooting a head or so higher than my four-foot-something-tall classmates, among other change s.

For instance, I clearly recall the day that Jody R. commented, “Hey, guys, look, Dustin has a mustache!”

I was surprised that no one had noticed it earlier, because I had been sporting it for at least several weeks, and it was quite obvious to me when I looked in the mirror.

Jody R. and Amber M., coincidentally, also poked fun at me, with my long, gangling body, riding my bike that, having been purchased when I was in the second grade, was much too small for me. I took the teasing in good humor, as that is how it was delivered.

In hindsight, however, it’s easy to see why my very faint mustache might have gone undetected by others for a period of weeks. We must also not discount the hormonal changes that go along with the physical changes.

This was an age where my classmates began pairing off into social items, or “going out.”

How this frustrated me! Not only did no one seem interested in pairing up with me (not even a certain crush I had had since first grade; I guess my mustache didn’t strike any of the girls as dashing enough), but I found the whole idea ludicrous for a group of 10-year-olds.

“Where are you ‘going out’ to?,” I would deride them, knowing full well that the meaning of the term wasn’t meant to be taken so literally, yet still wanting to take it literally anyhow, perhaps because in a way it felt good to feed my anger.

“Are you going to pick up your date on your bike?” I’d ask, not realizing the irony that the future would reveal in that question.

Yes, I was an angry and conflicted kid. To no help in my interpersonal relationship with Dana E. was an incident that took place on the playground, involving her mother. Her mother, Tina, was the recess monitor and also employed in the “behavior disorder” (B.D.) classroom.

Incidentally, it was the kids from the B.D. program who were picking on me at recess on one snowy day.

I don’t discount the possibility that I instigated the incident, but I honestly remember being perfectly innocent, which seems perfectly plausible in consideration of the fact that, well, they were already labeled with behavior disorders.

I was standing on the play structure, featuring slides and tunnels, when one of the kids threw a snowball at me. The other kids picked up on the fun by throwing more snowballs at me.

Not only were these snowballs they were throwing at me, but they were the thick, compact, icy type.

It stung to be hit by one of those, in more ways than one. It hurt my pride and caused physical pain. So I retaliated by throwing the snowballs back at them.

As luck would have it, I was the one caught. This would be a recurring theme throughout my school years. Tina reprimanded me, further inciting my anger.

After recess, I approached Dana E. and vicariously, through Dana, insulted her mother. “Your mother is a bitch!” I yelled at Dana E., sending her into tears. It hurt to see her cry, but I felt justified in my backlash, as I did in the case of Amber M.

With only about 20 minutes remaining until school was dismissed for the day, the principal suggested that -- despite my complaint of a headache – I stay until the bell rang, so I returned to my seat, only to quickly return to the principal to again ask that I leave early.

My face felt weird.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I thought I was dying of carbon monoxide poisoning.

For some inexplicable reason, I was sure that the way my face felt at this time was exactly what it felt like when you were dying of carbon monoxide poisoning, let alone the fact that I had the very faintest, if any, knowledge of what carbon monoxide poisoning felt like, and despite the fact that of all the 20 or so people in the room, I seemed to be the only one suffering from it.

Perhaps at some level I knew this idea was a bit on the absurd side, as I complained of a headache, not carbon monoxide poisoning.

In any case, she excused me by not allowing me to go home, but rather to lie on a cot in the computer lab until the end of the school day.

***

I had picked up the carbon monoxide idea on TV somewhere.

Perhaps there was a story of a family who died in their sleep as, unbeknownst to them, their house filled up with fatal carbon monoxide gas.

Carbon monoxide was not the only strange idea I got from TV. Much stranger were the many time I thought I was spontaneously combusting. I had first heard of spontaneous human combustion on a TV show entitle Beyond Bizarre. The show had a creepy man with an eerie voice as the host, and he regaled stories of strange and mysterious happenings. One more than one occasion, I caught the episode on spontaneous human combustion.

It got this feeling as if it were destined to happen to me. Sometimes I was sure that I smelled smoke emanating from some part of my body.

The TV show regaled the story of a man whose combustion started at his foot, which he noticed when he was taking off his boots. I (at least) once thought the same phenomenon was happening to me.

It was a blustery winter day, the ground covered in a deep layer of snow.

I had been playing out in the cold when my grandparents picked me and my brother up for some reason.

We were probably going to Grandma’s to play, as we often did. My brother Mikey and I once sneaked into the backseat of her car and hid while she was chatting with Mom.

She was in for a surprise when we suddenly popped out of the backseat at her house!

Anyways, we were in the Ford Bronco that Grandma and Grandpa used to drive when I noticed something coming out of my boots.

Sure, it was a cold, winter day, deeming it unlikely, as if it weren’t already so unlikely in the first place, that of all days this would be the day when I’d find that I was randomly catching fire. But nonetheless, smoke appeared to be originating from my freezing feet!

I pointed it out to my little brother, who thought it was cool as he expressed more sense and reason than I by saying, “Look, Dustin’s feet are so cold there’s fog coming from his boots!”

Even when I was much younger, I had strange ideas about my health.

This could be attributed in part to my mental faculties being undeveloped, but they provide for a couple of curious anecdotes.

Once when I was about 5 or 6 or so, Mom and I were watching TV special on children who were dying of cancer. They were bald-headed from the chemotherapy, and I was a bit horrified by the images and stories. The narrator of the show mentioned how some of the children had brain cancer.

Disconcerted about what brain cancer was and how it could occur to such a young person, I posed a question to my mother: “Mom, what is brain cancer?”

Mom may be forgiven for her misleading answer. For the sake of simplicity -- after all, I was just a young child who was unlikely to properly understand a proper physiological explanation of brain cancer -- Mother replied somewhere along the lines of, “It’s a lump on your head.”

Or maybe she said “brain”, but I remember it as “head” (as if I knew the difference anyways).

So I felt my head with my fingers, trying to find any lumps, in the case that I might have such a horrible affliction as cancer. Feeling the structure of my skull become larger in the back, I became concerned.

Because the back of my head was bigger than the front, kind of like a lump, did this mean that I had brain cancer?

Chapter 4

After we returned from Maryville, and after I had taken a pain pill for the pain that wasn’t so much pain at all, and after I lain down in my dark room for a number of minutes, I still did not feel well, and I told my mother as much.

She must have been exasperated with my complaints, and she has always been one to take a person’s health complaints seriously, too seriously at time.

She once admitted me to the emergency room when I stayed home from school with a sore throat. The doctor in the ER seemed a little perplexed as to why I was there with a mere sore throat.

“Have you been vomiting?” He asked in his thick Indian accent.

I couldn’t understand him -- his accent was too thick and perhaps I didn’t even know what the word “vomit” meant -- so he ended up repeating the question a few times.

I finally understood with Mom’s translation, “Have you been throwing up?”

“No.”

“Well,” the doctor said in the absence of an affirmative to any questions pertaining to anything more serious, “This must be a pretty bad sore throat for you to come to the ER for it.”

Let’s just say that my mom caught hell for that. “I TOLD YOU I didn’t need to go!

You should only take me to the doctor when I really need to go, when I say I should go!”

These were some of the key lines in my tantrum, which also likely included flailing my arms and legs around while lying on the floor once we were home.

Mom wasn’t new to witnessing tantrums from me, nor was the rest of my family.

I had quite a reputation as a brat as a kid.

Okay, I STILL have that reputation.

One example of the trials of taking me out anywhere is my early movie outings. Mom reports that I often cried and threw tantrums at the movies, so my dad would have to take me outside and walk me around the block or wait in the car with me, labeling me a “little bastard” in the process.

When they left me at home and dad would hear a kid throwing a temper tantrum in the theater, he’d complaining, “I left my little bastard at home so he wouldn’t do this, now I have to listen yours throw one?!”

Perhaps his insults might be why I do no care much for him, in all honesty.

I never really did like my father much. He and my mother divorced around 1993.

The first time he came to pick me up for visitation, I ran away from him and threw dirt in his face. Needless to say, I ended up staying home that time.

I didn’t end up visiting him until he promised a trip to Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun in Kansas City. Unfortunately, I thought we were going a week earlier than we actually did, but I visited him thereafter until around the time I started having a lot of issues in school, in the fourth grade.

Another example of my tantrums would be the

Performing Arts carnival.

Lenox High School holds a carnival each year to raise money for the performing arts department.

Every year, I would throw a tantrum there, so one year, as I remember it at least, Mom, my brothers Andy and Mike, and my Grandparents told me they were going to the bank and would get me before they went to the actual carnival.

It turned out to be a ruse. They left me with Dad.

Upon returning home, Mom asked Dad where I was. Dad replied, “Hell if I know. I haven’t seen the little bastard in an hour.”

It turned out that I had gone hidden so I could poop my pants.

Allow me to share a bit more about my delayed success in being potty trained and before I return to the topic of being a brat. I did not learn to use the toilet until I was probably about 5.

I would go into the corner and poop my pants. There was an occasion where we were playing flashlight tag and I took a poop on the porch in front of all my brother’s friends!

I seem to recall my mother taking me to the doctor when it was clear I should have been potty trained by then. I thought we were there for Mom or Grandma, but to my surprise, the doctor put his finger in my rectum and took a stool sample, if my early memory is to be believed.

Have you ever tried having a joyful dinner that was interrupted by a kid with a temper problem?

If not, then you probably didn’t attend any Hartley family dinners with me, as a kid, present.

Try to picture it if you will.

Grandma and Grandpa Hartley (Yes, my brothers and I refer to them as “Grandma and Grandpa HARTLEY”, as to distinguish them from “Grandma and Grandpa REFER”) with their 10 children, all of them grown and balding, except for my Dad and the younger, Uncle Doug, who, with Down’s Syndrome, would be asking Aunt Debbie for more pop.

A brief aside about Doug.

I don’t know whether it was a matter of my Asperger’s or if it was just a kid misunderstanding an idiom, but when Dad jokingly said that Doug had his mental deficits because he was hit in the head with a brick, I took it literally. I thought a brick had literally fallen on his head to make him, um, special.

I didn’t ruin only dinners with the Hartley side; one incident with my maternal grandparents that wrenches my heart to think back on now was when my Grandpa had taken us, Grandma and us boys, out to eat at a spaghetti place. I ended up getting pissed off and, to quote Grandpa, “I was having a good dinner until someone little brat had to ruin it.”

I am inclined to blame some of my tantrums on psychological factors. Loud noises, like those you might encounter at a movie or a carnival, have, for as long as I can remember, startled me or made me anxious.

I’ve also always been sensitive to changes in lighting -- more sensitive than most people, I would presume. Fluorescent lights really bother me. When shopping, I sometimes thought that I was having a seizure because I would notice the bulbs flickering.

Consequential to my tantrums, my parents learned to hire a babysitter for whenever they went out. Then the babysitters probably learned

that the job wasn’t worth it. When I wasn’t annoying her to death, I was likely to be putting gum in the babysitter’s hair.

For more on my misbehaving, I turn to notes that my mother wrote in my baby book:

“Age 23 months: Dusty was really scared of Halloween masks.”

“We took Dustin to Pizza Hut in Creston at 14 months, and we had a super bad night. He had a fit and to top everything off, they brought us the wrong pizza, and anyway we ended up getting it to go.”

“At age 22 mos., Dusty and Andy were playing in their play room and jumping off their toy box. Anyway, Dusty decided to put his scooter on the toy box and ride off, and he ended up breaking his arm in 2 places. He didn’t complain much & went for a week with it broken -- We decided to have it checked. He wore a cast for 2 wks.

“The day before he had his cast off, he stepped on a hot piece of charcoal in our backyard and had 2nd degree burns on his left foot and had it bandaged for a week.”

Indeed, the influence an older brother has over his younger sibling was quite evident in the broken ulna and radius of my left arm as a toddler. Perhaps I reasoned that Andy knew a little about safety being four years my senior, but more likely than that, I wasn’t reasoning.

Perhaps I was just a little daredevil.

Either way, I took my tricycle over the edge of the toy box, breaking my arm in two places. That apparently didn’t teach me my lesson, for after Andy hopped over a hot charcoal remaining from a barbeque to feign walking over it, I took my chance at doing what he had seemingly done.

The result?

Second degree burns.

Gullible?

From the stories I’ve recounted so far, definitely yes.

Andy wasn’t all deceptive, even if he did trick me into thinking that an overexposed picture (making it appear to have flames in the foreground) of Grandpa‘s dog showed that Grandpa had set the dog‘s house on fire to kill her. In fact, we had a lot of fun as kids playing football, Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, baseball, and whatnot. Our backyard was dirt because we played so many sports that the grass wouldn’t grow.

Granted, my nose was occasionally on the receiving end of a blood-inducing fastball when I was the catcher in our baseball games, protected only with a baseball mitten that I apparently could have been better at using.

Andy’s best friend, Slade B., would often come over from his house across the street to join in

on the shenanigans. Unfortunately for him, I fancied punching him when I was a child. Slade B. went on to fight in Operation Iraqi Freedom, so I guess you could say I punched a veteran.

Slade, Andy, and I had some good time. We’d open up lemonade stands, play all sorts of games, climb trees, and do whatever to have fun.

Once, we made a makeshift boat out of a wagon.

We spent hours making that piece of crap.

When our work was complete, we walked out into the country to some fellow’s pond to try it out.

As soon as we got it in the water to test its buoyancy, the man saw us putting our unimpressive creation in his pond. “Get that damn thing out of my pond!” he shouted.

Our yard witnessed some epic neighborhood sporting events. The kids would come over for games of football, baseball, and even basketball

on the lawn that turned void of grass from all the action.

Let me not forget the toy truck demolition derbies. Anything from remote control cars to Hot Wheels to Tonka trucks was fair game.

Other toys we played with were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman, Power Rangers, and wrestlers. Once mom got me knockoff Power Rangers action figures from Dollar General.

Not knowing the difference, I exclaimed, “YES! OH YEAH! OH BOY!” When playing with the wrestling figures, I often accidentally had my figure attack Andy’s hand rather than his figure, inciting from him an angry, “My finger isn’t a wrestler!”

I don’t remember playing much with Mikey, 18 months my junior, a lot as a kid.

I don’t think I was ever too mean to him either, though there was the time I poured an ice cold malt on his head.

I don’t think that’s any worse than some of the things Andy did to me, and I think it’s normal of brothers to do such things to each other.

Berating him to the point of tears over tangling the strings of a puppet, however, that might have been a bit harsh.

In 1998, Grandma and Grandpa took Mikey and me to Minnesota on

vacation.

For our souvenirs, we chose these puppets we found at a novelty shop.

Mikey’s puppet strings wound up tangled badly. I tore into him, asking him how Grandpa would feel about it, having spent so much money on him just for him to ruin his puppet.

“Do you want me to stick my toe up your ass?!”

And maybe throwing plates and Andy deviated from the normal a little bit.

And I can’t say that I didn’t once tear up and throw away stuff from Mikey’s room when I was pissed off.

***

More from Mother:

“We went to Andy’s Kiddie Kollege graduation in May of ‘88. Dusty wouldn’t sit still and afterwards we out for pizza at Corning.”

Encouragingly, Mom reports that I was very good for Andy’s second preschool graduation.

Some may say that I was a hellion.

Perhaps I was, or perhaps I just knew what I liked and what

I didn’t like.

A couple things I didn’t like were parades and movies. Another was the robotic dogs at Adventure land (an amusement park in Altoona, Iowa, not to be confused with the one in New Jersey). Upon seeing these animatronic dogs that played music, I would head for the proverbial hills while wailing at the top of my lungs.

Oh, and that Santa Claus guy? You would be more likely to find me screaming at him than sitting on his lap. That’s what he gets for bringing me the wrong Batman for Christmas.

Chapter 5

On this occasion, with my head feeling funny, the tingling throughout my body, and my rapid

heart beat, it appeared that Mom actually did have a good reason to take me to the ER.

There, they hooked me up to an EKG to monitor my heart rate, which soon became the primary concern.

After an hour or so have running tachycardia, I was transferred to Children’s Hospital in Omaha. The ran a complete battery of tests, looking at all my organs, in an attempt to see what was wrong, but everything looked normal.

They attempted to do an MRI on me, but I became claustrophobic, and scurried out of the machine as quickly as I could, ripping the IV out of my arm in the process. A little while later, I successfully maintained my composure in the MRI. Turns out I didn’t have a brain tumor after all.

It appeared obvious that I had had some sort of anxiety or panic attack, but I still wasn’t clear what was wrong. I started worrying about my health more afterwards.

Every little muscle twitch made me anxious. My ribs felt sore one day, so I went to the doctor who told me I was fine.

I had missed a lot of school while in the hospital and had a lot of homework to make up. I didn’t have much of a problem with it, but the teachers and principal at school seemed to think I was overwhelmed by it all.

It all seemed to really deteriorate for me at school when my math and TAG teacher, Mrs. Nelson, got on my case for not writing down a math assignment that was written on the board.

I thought that it was a simple lapse of attention that could easily be forgiven, but she sent me to the principal’s office.

I would see the principal a lot over the next two years.

I had seemed to get along fairly well in my first few years of school.

My first memories of kindergarten should give you a picture of what kind of kid I was: introverted, shy, and socially withdrawn.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I believe it was at kindergarten orientation where the next year’s kindergarten class spent a day with the current kindergarten class.

I’m pretty sure that I didn’t know how to read at that time, but all I remember is keeping myself hidden behind a book the whole time while other children were coming in, smiling while they gleefully greeted the teacher.

Playing kickball was a big deal in kindergarten. All of my class loved playing that game together.

All except me, that is.

I would really have preferred not to participate in recess at all, let alone playing kickball with a bunch of snot-nosed rugrats who I didn’t know. I eventually, however, did join it. Mr. Lange, the teacher, commented on this during the parent-teacher conference that year.

Another comment from Mrs. Lange that stands out is her commendation of me for reading a story out loud to the class, despite my speech impediment. “Let’s all give Dustin a hand; it was very brave of him to read that to us despite his speech problem.”

I had my share of ear infections as a kid, which might account for some of my speech

problems.

I believe the issue was that I couldn’t hear exactly what people were saying, so I’d say things as I thought I heard them. Regardless, I was teased about it quite a bit in my preschool years, as I was the victim of taunting and mocking from other kids.

Andy was often my translator, as I understand older brothers sometimes are before their younger siblings can speak clearly. I suspect that having Andy as a translator was another factor in my delayed speech.

If he could understand me and I had him to talk for me, why did it matter how well I spoke?

Mom was another one who understood me.

She told me a story of when I was about four and someone from the AEA, as well as Mrs. Riley (whom I’d encounter later) was observing me.

I was crying and attempting to say a word that came out unintelligible.

The woman from the AEA was unsure of what I wanted, but Mom quickly deciphered that

I wanted my toy car.

Interestingly, the woman who observed me suspected I had Asperger’s syndrome, but the issue wasn’t pursued any further, due to her resignation.

Because of my speech impairments, I went to a special preschool, I guess for kids with handicaps like that. My grandma would drive me the 15 miles or so to the preschool every weekday. When I got there, speech coach worked with me to help me pronounce words. I continued seeing a speech coach through second grade.

The preschool even brought in for me some sort of foot therapist.

Apparently, they found something faulty with how I ran. So they got this podiatrist of some sort who told me to hip, skip, run, and do the hokey pokey.

Okay, maybe not the hokey pokey.

Anyways, I refused to cooperate (though one of the girls in the class volunteered to perform such calisthenics in my place). I guess I’ve always been the type to object to something I don’t like or feel comfortable doing.

I didn’t see anything wrong with how I ran, and my brother can vouch for the speed and endurance I had back then. In fact, I was getting on my mom’s nerves one time while she was at my uncle’s (her brother’s).

So she sarcastically told me to see how many times I could run around the house.

I suspect that I caught on to her sarcasm, but I took her up on it anyways.

I must have run around that house at least 30 times before some other kids told me to stop. “Dude, stop before you have a heart attack!” were his words.

Once, with Andy and Slade, I also ran around the 400-meter-track and the local high school numerous times until they told me to stop. I never did have anything done about my feet, and they never have really bothered me, though my girlfriend tells me that I walk with a limp or a gait.

Come to think of it, when I began misbehaving in elementary school, they suspected that I may have been acting that way because of a learning disability.

So one day, some sort of therapist called me out of the classroom to come to his office.

As I was walking down the hall to his office with him, he said, “Did you hurt your ankle? You’re limping a little.”

I hadn’t hurt my ankle, but thanks for noticing.

He took me into a room for the most ridiculous set of tests I’d ever encountered. He showed me a stop sign and asked, “What does this mean?”

“Just what it says, ‘stop‘.”

Same thing with a yield sign.

“What does it mean?”

“What it says on the sign.”

I was in no mood to cooperate.

Anyways, attending preschool really wasn’t so bad, except for the time one of the teachers accidentally pushed me out of the swing, causing me to hit my head on the ground, which was no big deal compared to when I hit myself in the head with a hammer or suffered a concussion from falling off a bunk bed. . . Or the time that one of the preschool aides was shot in the leg in some sort of drug skirmish.

When I heard on the radio that she’d been shot, I was so upset that I wouldn’t even eat my supper.

One of the only joys I got from kindergarten was being creative by writing stories and drawing pictures.

The teachers complimented me on my artwork, not only in kindergarten, but in subsequent grades.

One story I wrote that stands out in my mind is one about a woman who was set on fire.

I believe the school kept that one because I never got it back.

Another one that I remember is my summary of the scary movie “Friday the 13th: Jason Goes to Hell.”

Being in kindergarten, I couldn’t be expected to know how to spell everything, so I asked my teacher how to spell “hell.”

I remember her being appalled at a kindergartner asking how to spell such a word.

Perhaps that story and that movie have something to do with my fear of a burnt boy, wrapped up in bandages like a mummy, spying on me when I went to the bathroom.

I seemed to do well in my next few years of school, after kindergarten, if you ignore the little things like pissing my pants and getting into little physical altercations.

It’s been said that I didn’t follow the rules at school because I didn’t understand the reasons behind them. This may be true, but I certainly did follow a particular rule in first grade.

My teacher had a policy that a pupil couldn’t leave the classroom for the bathroom unless he had been given permission from the teacher.

To get permission from the teacher, he had to raise his hand.

This rule left me in quite a quandary when I had to urinate while the teacher had her back turned, helping another student, for a prolonged period of time. I was really quite patient as I sat there with my hand up, but sometimes when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go.

And when you can’t go to go, you sometimes go where you are, right there in your pants.

I also got into lots of little fights and altercations, just kids stuff, with my buddy Alex K.

We got our share of checkmarks next to our names on the chalk board. One of the punishments was standing on the line at recess.

Alex K. and I once broke a kid’s glasses during recess, among other things we were reproached and reprimanded for.

Alex K., Cruz R., and I had a club and hung out a lot after school in third grade, but I found social interactions exhausting -- I still

sometimes do -- so a lot of the times I would look for excuses to go home. Probably the most classic one was the time Cruz R. and I were eating peanuts and I bit into one that tasted really awful, causing me to vomit.

I said, “Oh, I feel really sick. See? I vomited after eating that peanut.“

Cruz saw right through that excuse, but I still excused myself from his house.

My fear of asteroids colliding with the earth actually may have its origins in a scenario involving Alex. Alex, Slade, Andy, and I were playing tag at Slade’s house one night when the sun was going down.

Andy somehow convinced me that it wasn’t the sun setting that I saw, but rather it was an asteroid on a collision course with the earth. I ran home scared, seeking shelter in my house, as if a house would protect me from such a cataclysmic event.

I wouldn’t say that I was being too absurdly gullible (even though I was), because this was at about the same time that the Hale-Bopp comet could be seen in the night sky. Hale-Bopp itself scared the daylights out of me.

Even without Alex, I got into my share of trouble.

I’ll never forget the time one of my classmates was goofing off, trying to take the food off my lunch tray.

I took offense to this gesture, so I grabbed his tray and poured the tray and its edible content over his head.

We were both sent to the principal’s office, which was nothing new to me, but he was bawling over it as he had never been there before. I was glad to initiate him.

Andy showed me one of his amateur wrestling holds when I was in the first grade, so I used it with a weak excuse on a poor chap at recess. He and a group of other kids were playing kickball when their ball happened upon me.

I took the ball and refused to give it back, prompting the Drew D. to implore that I return it. Instead, I slapped

on the cradle Andy had showed me until his face turned blue.

A lot of the time, I just skipped school because I didn’t feel like going on that particular day. Sometimes I had a legitimate excuse such as a migraine, which I inherited from Mom and Grandma. Other times I would fake a headache or just tell Grandma that I didn’t want to go if Mom was at work.

Grandma was always really good about letting me skip school to just hang out at her place where I could watch TV in the heat or air conditioning (depending on the weather, of course)and feed my face full of goodies. I must have missed about a fourth of the school year from my alleged ailments in grades 1-4.

The teachers seemed to like me enough to elect me to be in the talented and gifted program.

The 3rd grade was the point in my school career when I probably behaved myself the best.

Still, the at- risk coordinator would take me into her office for a chat every week.

Chapter 6

Alas, things at school really started going downhill in the 4th grade.

After returning to school from the panic attack that had put me in the hospital, I found myself frequenting the principal’s office.

I thought I had always gotten along well with Mrs. Nelson, but I felt as though I was being treated unfairly when she sent me to the principal’s office for the missed assignment.

I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal in the fourth grade anyways. But besides that, I was being told that I had changed.

And I had.

I felt as though I didn’t relate to my peers anymore, if I ever had at all.

It started as a degree of indifference towards them.

My friend Tyler S. called me up once at asked me to spend

the night with him. My excuse was I was playing wrestlers with my brother that night.

It’s not even that I didn’t enjoy the company of my friends, but it was difficult to interact with them. They way I felt naturally inclined to behave wasn’t quite as I was expected to behave, which took a lot of effort. Exerting that effort was tiresome.

Eventually, I suppose I just grew frustrated not only with the effort required to interact socially, but also with the changes that went along with our ages.

One time I was causing trouble with my classmates, my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Jackson, asked, “Why can’t you get along with your friends?”

I felt like she was being accusatory,so I came up with a weak defense.

“I do get along with my friends, but THESE PEOPLE are not my friends!”

I started feeling misunderstood and mistreated. Take P.E. for example. Try as I

might, I used to be unable to do many pushups. My gym teacher apparently wasn’t too understanding, as when I told him I could not complete the required number in my set of pushups, he told me to either finish them or take a detention. Was I in a Soviet boot camp?

If I can’t do something, I can’t do it, I thought.

It’s not that I didn’t want to do my pushups, though it may have appeared that way. I took the detention.

There was one instance where I ran home from school after spitting in a girl’s hair.

She’d playfully done it to me before -- albeit a year prior to me spitting on her -- so I was returning the favor.

The recess monitors took exception to the spitting incident. They chided me, “If you keep this up, you will wind up in the B.D. room.”

I took off running towards home while the recess monitors attempted to chase me down.

Unluckily for them, my fast-twitch muscles were working full-force.

I hung out in my room for a while, reading a wrestling magazine.

A few minutes later, I heard a knock at the door.

I looked out my bedroom window and saw a police officer, but I just ignored him until he went away.

I wonder if that made me a fugitive? Not quite? Didn’t think so.

I later found out that he had seen me peeking out at him.

I didn’t have any friends, so I resorted to talking to myself. The other kids seemed to find it odd.

“Why are you talking to yourself?

That’s weird.”

Maybe that’s part of the reason why I did it. Because they thought it was weird. They all seemed to think I was weird anyways, so why not embellish it?

I got the feeling that the school principal thought I was a drug user.

She would tell me stories of how her son was a druggie and she would question me about whether I used them.

After several sessions of this, I would space out and focus instead on her sign on her office wall that read, “You don’t have to fight to show how strong you are.”

***

Using the previous statements as a segue, allow me a personal discourse on drugs.

Despite doctors asking me every time I have an appointment if I use drugs, by which they mean illicit drugs, I do not. I don’t know if there’s some law stating that they have to ask that question or not, but it gets to be an annoying.

They’ll ask, “Do you use any drugs other than those prescribed to you?” If I’m in a foul mood, I’ll say with a hint of disdain, “Yes, I sometimes take Tylenol for headaches,” though I know perfectly well what they mean.

I have never tried any sort of street drug and have never had the desire to; I have even found myself sickened to a degree by people who do use street drugs.

Perhaps I am too morally conservative in this regard, but illicit drug use, in my opinion, is always drug abuse, though I see the fault in my reasoning.

In the case of marijuana, for example, the drug’s association with socially undesirable people seems to be one of the primary reasons for its illegality, while it is not more of a health risk than prescription drugs, many of which are recalled shortly after making it onto the market.

I have rarely even had an alcoholic beverage, and never a smoke, let alone street drugs. Lucky for me, only very rarely have I been offered an alcoholic beverage or a joint. I guess that’s one of the positives of being socially withdrawn; it reduces peer pressure.

In fact, the only times I was offered anything of the sort was when I had a girlfriend whom I should never have gotten involved with. I was in a poor psychological state (which I shall describe in greater detail later) and was looking for some sort of interpersonal support, and as a part of what I perceived as social bargaining, I had a couple of alcoholic beverages, but none prior, and none since.

To digress a bit, this particular girlfriend sent me a MySpace (the social networking site) message shortly after we finished high .She had been in my class in 3rd grade, but I didn’t know her beyond that.

To make a long story short, she told me that she had had a huge crush on me then and that I ignored her. I wanted a friend, and I felt guilty -- to the point of tears -- for having ignored her when we were younger.

At any rate, she had substance abuse issues that she put aside “for me”.

But when she told me she was going to resume drinking, I told her that I didn’t have to be her boyfriend if she was going to use alcohol. She told me that wasn’t fair; again, I felt guilty, so I agreed to drink with her. All I had was one beer and two wine coolers.

My lack of social networking was correlated with never being invited to parties, where are where kids do a lot of drinking and other less than venerable activities in a small town, such as the one I grew up in.

I would even go so far as to discourage anyone under the legal drinking age from drinking.

It’sa known fact that the reasoning parts of the brain continue to grow into a person’s 20s and that alcohol can inhibit this growth. There is a photo I saw on the internet comparing the scan of an adolescent non-drinker with that of an adolescent drinker. The difference in brain activity is staggering. Pun intended, even if it is a poor one.

All of this is not to say that I haven’t been high. It seems that the dose of Xanax that Dr. Windsor prescribed me was a little bit high, because I remember feeling exceptionally great, like I was floating around the playground and all things were possible at after-lunch recess, after my noon dosage. Admittedly, it was a great feeling. I even have a problem with people smoking in public, making me grateful for Iowa’s public smoking ban. Perhaps it’s part of having Asperger’s Syndrome, but I think it’s about people’s rights and health.

People can smoke all they want; they have that right.

But when it infringes on my rights and my health as a non- smoker, I take exception.

My mother knows this all too well from the times she’s taken to the smoking section of restaurants. I had even boycotted a certain restaurant because of its smoky atmosphere.

This has been a good segue into yet another example of my health concerns.

Some of the freakiest people in the world seem to be pot smokers.

I’ve seen congregations of real bottom- of-the-barrel fruitcakes come together to smoke cannabis.

There was a fellow who had a neck like a vulture, very crooked. Out of his crooked neck arose a strange fear within me.

I became afraid that my spine would become as crooked as his, so I did everything I did to keep my neck and back straight. I would retract my head for prolonged periods and lie flat on the floor.

This was just the beginnings of my neck concerns.

Starting sometime thereafter, I began a recurrent nightmare that I still have to this day. I dream that my head comes completely disconnected from my body.

I hold my head in my arm, cradled next to my torso, and something doesn’t seem quite right.

And then I notice that it’s because my head is no longer joined with my body, and I wake up in a panic.

***

My grades plummeted, not because I didn’t have the ability to do well, but because I wanted to prove

a point. I’m not sure what the point was, but I think it could be summarized as, “I’m pissed and I want someone to notice.”

The proverbial call for help.

Perhaps out of protest to Mrs. Nelson, I decided to get kicked out of the talented and gifted program.

I felt privileged to be in a group with such a title, and I think that’s part of the reason why I wanted to be kicked out: sometimes it feels good to hurt.

It was fun to intentionally get poor grades. Sometimes I would get an F and then hand it in with another student’s name written on the paper.

Meanwhile, I was being a complete jerk to other kids as well.

For instance, one of my classmate’s brothers told me to hurry up and finish my drink out of the water fountain. In his impatience, he started to “budge” me (forcibly cutting in line in elementary school vernacular), so I took his wrist and bent it backwards into a painful position.

Then I teased his sister, who was in my class, about it, devilishly sneering at her

Chapter 7

“Why aren’t you doing your fucking work at school?” was a question Dad angrily posed to me on one of the rare occasions where I visited him.

“I am doing it.”

“They sent me your work.

Didn’t you think I’d see it? What is this shit?” He asked as he revealed several sheets of paper filled with my intentionally incorrect answers.

Screw you, I thought to myself. I didn’t need him telling me what I was doing wrong.

I had enough people letting me know that already.

He may have just been being a parent, but I didn’t care.

I’ve felt like he’s always tried to make me feel like an idiot anyways. Whether or not it’s been his intention, he has. When in Omaha, he’d warn, “This isn’t Lenox. You’re not city smart.”

He would even correct me on how to properly close a car door; to this day, I am afraid of slamming car doors, so I usually close it so gently as to leave still ajar on the first attempt.

***

Around this time, about age 11, I started seeing a psychiatrist. I remember her being somewhat deceptive about it at first by leading me to believe that we were going shopping.

Instead, she lead me the steep, ominous stairs of an old building that must have been there since the late 1800s.

In the narrow hallway outside the psychiatrist’s office, the rancid scent of nicotine made it clear that the doctor whom I awaited in the raggedy chair was a smoker.

His office had a strange ambiance; dimly lit and clouded with cigar and cigarette smoke. Dr. Windsor was a white-haired, English (or Irish? Or Scottish?) fellow who practiced out an office in bad need of renovation. The British doctor would use terms like, “They must be putting cow shit in your shoes to make you grow, lad.”

He diagnosed me with some sort of anxiety disorder -- I think it was social anxiety -- and depression. I did have lots of crying spells and sleepless nights from the stresses of school.

Some of my crying spells were stemmed in guilt. I would feel like I had made some terrible mistake in the past for which there was no absolution, or that I was wrong for not fitting in socially. I was an emotional mess.

***

All of my antic at school, such as taking a classmate’s shoe off and throwing it across the room when he made me mad when we were working a math assignment together in fifth grade, were rewarded with me being put in the behavior disorder room.

I remember that recess monitor telling me, “You’d better get your act together, or else you’ll wind up in the B.D. room,” as if it were a bad thing. After that, perhaps because of my rebellious streak, I made it my goal to get into the self-contained B.D. classroom. A goal being set leads to a goal being achieved.

I have to say that the imaginations of the school staff helped my cause. Somehow, knocking books off my desk became “building forts around my desk” and drooling -- again, to add to the effect of my statement, which was essentially that I wasn’t happy -- became something like making a saliva moat around the desk, I guess. I suppose that made my desk the castle?

I couldn’t have been happier in the B.D. room. I got to learn at my own pace, free from the annoyance of the social butterflies that were my classmates.

I didn’t want any friends, and I didn’t want to see them being friendly with each other.

I was tired of playing a game that I couldn’t grasp the rules of, so this was great.

Plus, the teacher who worked with me, Mrs. Brokaw, was a great lady in her 70s who taught me

a lot and whom I enjoyed working with. I got good grades in there and even got a gift certificate to a local restaurant, the Tiger Den (so named, I suppose, because it was supposed to be a hot spot for the high schoolers to hang out, our school’s mascot being the Tigers) for having the most accelerated reader points in the school.

I no longer hung out with Cruz or Alex or Tyler, being in the B.D. pretty much furthered my isolation from the other classmates, but I loved escaping into my room to read as many books as I could that school year; I didn’t feel the need to be involved with the other kids when I had my books to read.

My first day in the B.D. room, the teacher told me, “What happens in here stays in here.”

I’m sorry, but I just can’t deny whoever may read this the visuals of some of what occurred in that classroom.

Where should I begin? How about the 9-year- old who would soil his pants on a daily basis? Okay, so I was 5 by the time I was potty trained.

Or how about the mentally-challenged kid?

Or maybe the one who stuttered endless, pointless stories to me?

I tried to be polite and patient with him most of the time, but there’s only so much you can listen to when someone takes 15 minutes just to tell you that he played a game on his Playstation game console. I would sometimes

find myself walking away from him in the middle of his rambling without warning him. I wouldn’t

doubt if he continued telling his story even when I, his audience, had abandoned him.

There was even a kid who swore he’d seen a living dinosaur on his block. By the way, his mother hired a hypnotist for this kid. I’m no expert on this sort of thing, but I think perhaps a psychiatrist might have been the better option.

No offense to any hypnotists who might by some off chance be reading this; actually, I’ve read some research that show that hypnotic therapy can be successful to some extent.

Word has it that the year I went to junior high, and thus exited the elementary B.D. room, there was some sort of drug deal involving flour.

The classroom always had the potential to be v violent, but the 300-pound enforcer of a woman

they had there seemed to keep things under control. You didn’t want that behemoth tackling your or putting you in a double chicken wing restraint.

Trust me, I’d been in it. This one kid in the behavior disorder class took something of mine, I can’t remember what it was, but to get back at

him, I took the watch off his wrist.

Having seen this, the large woman restrained me from behind.

The same kid whom I’d taken the watch from had a tendency to cuss and flip over tables.

My mom was shocked when she came into the classroom one day and it looked as though a tornado had gone through the room.

In cases like that, it was time for the class to watch a quiet Disney movie to calm things down.

Sometimes kids would bring in illegal weapons, such as brass knuckles.

How a child attains weapons like that is kind of mind boggling until you understand the environments they come from. From my understanding, most of them had abusive, drug-abusing, or crazy parents.

Or maybe a combination of all three. So it seems plausible that their parents would have weapons of self- defense, or possible offense, for protection from drug dealers or abusive partners or whatever the situation may be.

We had behavior sheets to take home to our parents. Basically, the teachers rated how well you behaved in five different dimensions on a scale of one through five.

If I got less than a perfect score, I made it clear that I would not be happy unless I got a four or a five on the sheet. So, at least according to the behavior sheets -- and compared to some of the other students -- I behaved quite well.

With good reports, we received “behavior bucks, with which we could buy cheap items like pencil toppers and glow sticks.

I used mine to buy several animal pencil toppers and created my own wrestling league by playing with them at recess. I attracted crowds of other student who watched me play with the pencil toppers and do commentary for the matches.

Chapter 8

I wasn’t sure where I was going to go for junior high school.

Bedford, a school district about 20 miles from Lenox, had a behavior disorder classroom that the teacher, Mr. Weed, had talked to me about joining, but I wasn’t too fond of that idea. As much as I liked being in the B.D. room

in elementary school, I wanted a fresh start in junior high.

That’s why I chose to attend the mainstream classes in Lenox, even if I was apprehensive about going to school at all because it meant I would have to shave! Strange as it may sound, that was one of my fears going into junior high.

The school year started off smoothly enough, discounting my attending the wrong classes at the wrong times on the first day. (I got two of classes switched, but I ended up in those sections for the rest of the school year.) I kept to myself mostly, not talking much and not wanting to socialize.

The way I saw it, I didn’t have to have friends if I didn’t want to. All I had to do was mind my own business.

One day, the lunch room monitor saw me sitting all alone. She said, “You’re required to sit with a buddy in this lunch room!” That rankled me.

If only others would have minded their business, too. But of course, there are jackasses in the world. One of them was aptly named Jack.

He was inclined to pick on a lot of kids, not just me. The first physical confrontation I had with him was when I was on my way outside to do archery for physical educations.

He had been antagonizing me mildly, so I

mocked his speech impediment.

Kind of hypocritical, I know.

He responded by shoving me in the back as he headed out to the football field for practice.

I wasn’t the type who takes kindly to that sort of thing, so I sunk in a side headlock, relinquishing only when his face had turned an odd shade of purple and after my P.E. teacher had told me to stop.

“Let ‘im go,” Mr. Westphal said in his characteristically calm manner.

I was rewarded with a “Good job!” from some other students who had had bad experiences with Jack.

One of them said to me the next day, “Did you see his face? It was turning purple! That was awesome man.”

Jack continued to do antagonize me with little things such as wiping his wet hand across my face, saying, “I hate when I piss on my hand,” and showing me his penis while asking me to have sex with him.

I just want to make myself clear on one thing; I have nothing against homosexual behavior, but such brash sexual confrontations, whether gay or straight, are inappropriate, and he was clearly trying to unsettle me.

It was the stick that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

The next time I saw him, I knocked him on his ass, which earned me an in-school suspension.

My next noteworthy confrontation occurred a little later on in the school year.

I was working on a music poster with a Hispanic kid named Rafael A.

I could tell the kid was screwing up the poster, but my attempts to assist him were me only with grunts.

When the teacher came around to check on us, she told me that I needed to help my partner.

I explained to her my attempts to help and the response that I got, but she did not accept my explanation for whatever reason.

I became frustrated with the communication failure, and because I wanted that poster to be of some considerable quality; my partner, with

English not being his native language, can be forgiven for making errors on the poster, but he should have included me, allowing me to do my role.

The situation escalated to the point that the teacher told me to see the principal. I wasn’t in the mood to see him over something so silly, especially when I felt I had been wronged, so I refused to leave the classroom. I told her that if she wanted me to go see him so bad, she could get the cops to drag me down there.

It seemed to me that the wrong person was being singled out here.

I think you might agree if you had seen how the poster turned out.

When the Motown Rag is written as “Ragtown Mo” and Louis Armstrong becomes “Loise Amstrung”, I think someone could have used my help.

Making matters worse were things at home. She and I were butting heads, perhaps due to my tangential thinking.

When one thing upsets me, I express my upset about many things, even things that have happened in the distant past. Mrs. Riley once remarked of me that I probably remember and dwell on “things that were said when he was in the womb.”

I would say things to my mom that -- at least in my mind -- seemed perfectly logical.

Then my mother would respond with comments such as, “You’re talking off the wall!”

On looking back, the truth is that I often was.

I once go frustrated to the point of demanding that she admit me into a mental hospital.

When she refused, I destroyed her flowers, which in hindsight was very wrong, but I felt a sense of desperation.

Additional to the home front were my night terrors.

Many nights, I would wake up in an altered state of consciousness stricken with the deepest fear that one could feel.

It was almost a guilty feeling. Usually, it would start with a strange dream that involved running too far; these night terrors – words can’t come nearly close enough to describing the horrible feeling, the dread and fear and guilt, that I felt on these nights.

An unfortunate victim of the circumstance was my classmate, Trent P.

Normally, having balls of paper flung at me would not have caused me to snap. I would say that my fuse is actually fairly long, but it had been burning shorter from all the crap I’d been putting up with from other students and school staff alike.

Trent P.’s fuse was probably getting rather short too, as I seem to remember picking on him a little bit. Before P.E. class, I would pin him in the wresting practice room.

So when those crumpled pieces of flicked paper made contact with my skin, I wasn’t in a good

mood. Poor Trent got poked in the eye and kicked in the gut over it.

I felt no remorse at the time as he went teary-eyed to the principal’s office.

I remember the principal asking me why I’d done it.

My response, through clenched teeth, was something along the lines of, “I just felt like it.”

It wasn’t that the wads of paper were physically hurting me. It wasn’t the physical pain; it was the emotional paint and the wounds to my pride.

The consequence?

I was awarded a vacation for the remainder of the school year. I got to work

on my assignments at home and then do whatever I wanted for the rest of the day. It would have been great if I could have continued through the

rest of school using the same method of working at home, but that was unrealistic.

The question became: What would I do for 8th grade?

Chapter 9

Mom and I opted for home schooling for 8th grade. It seemed like the logical option. Since I was staying home for school, I was actually at home on the computer when Mom informed me, “They just bombed the World Trade Center.”

I didn’t care too much at first, as I was aware of the previous bombing in the early 1990s and I thought it was just something minor. Only later when I turned on the news did I see that terrorists had hijacked planes and crashed them into the twin towers.

Anyways, the materials for the home-schooling weren’t quite up to par. For one, she chose to go through some type of religious organization for

the books, so I was being taught things such as, “The Earth rotates because God started it spinning

and keeps it spinning,” as science.

It was anything but science! Religious thinking like this allows for the lack of explanation that litters the mind. It may sound really nice to young children in Sunday school, but I don’t think it quite cuts it for high school science.

All of the subject matter seemed far too simplified.

I wasn’t content with it, even if it did mean not having to deal with other people.

After much deliberation with Mom and against our better judgment, I chose to attend the behavior disorder room in Bedford.

Sadly enough, I think I was learning more from the home-schooling that I could have possibly learned in the B.D. room in Bedford. If the teachers in that room were certified, licensed teachers, I’d might as well be licensed to perform brain surgery.

The English teacher spoke the most corrupt

English I’ve ever heard. She would say things like, “Y’all is gonna getsya some bad grades if ya ain’t good, does ya hear me?” I wish I were joking about this.

One assignment she gave was to write prefixes. So I did, only to have her contest the validity of my prefixes. She told me that pre-, inter-, and un- were not prefixes.

Right.

Additionally, the mathematics taught to us were elementary, to put it generously. I think I’d learned the same concepts in the 2nd grade.

Maybe I should have known the first day I

walked in there how little the B.D. program was cared for.

The term classroom loosely fit what was a former locker room with no windows.

To say the program was underfunded would be a fair judgment.

One problem with a classroom full of kids with behavior disorders is that most must of them are

in there because they’re bullies. And when you have a room full of bullies, bullying is bound to

happen.

I was like a gazelle thrown into a cage of lions. Just like the gazelle is bound to be eaten, I was bound to be picked on.

Unlike the B.D. room I was in in elementary school, there was no supervision and no control here in Bedford.

When I would be assaulted by another student, which happened multiple times, though nothing too serious, just a punch here or there, the teachers seemingly turned a blind eye. It seemed the only time they cared was when I retaliated. I don’t know if this was just my perception of it’s an accurate description of the reality.

I don’t see how the rules were supposed to be enforced without someone overseeing the classroom. It was kind of like letting the inmates run the asylum at times.

Somehow, I didn’t feel too comfortable after having attended the school for some time. Maybe it was the lack of order in the classroom. Maybe it was the repeated bomb threats the school received.

Nah, I’m pretty sure it was the lack of structure.

I took a couple of the regular, mainstream classes with the kids outside of the B.D. room.

One of them was an art class. I like art.

I like to create it and I like to view it.

But I absolutely despised art class.

As I stated before, the teachers in elementary school always praised my work, but in junior high, it was ridiculed and criticized.

Or at least that was my skewed perception of it.

I don’t take criticism well, and when I hear a comment that I

do not like, I tend to twist it in such a way as to cause me increased psychological stress, a strong kind of affect need.

When my I received constructive criticism, I view it as an insult instead.

None of the kids outside the B.D. room seemed to care much for me. Again, I wasn’t big on

socializing.

I assume part of the reason that I wasn’t taken kindly to was that I didn’t talk much, especially around these kids I’d never been to school with before and only saw for one or two class periods out of the day.

One day I came to blow with one of the “neurotypicals”. After the crap I felt I had put up with the previous year in Lenox and the bullying I’d already taken in 8th grade, I wasn’t in the state of mind to blow off this one kid when he said he was going to slap me.

The day before, he had hit me from behind.

I guess it looked cool in front of his friends?

I knew he played football, so when I sat across from him at lunch that day, I badmouthed athletes.

Part of it was my own angst about having been denied the opportunity to participate in AAU wrestling.

Mikey, my younger brother, wrestled, but my mother wouldn’t allow me to because of my poor

behavior in elementary school. I accused her of not being fair to me and not even giving me a sufficient reason as to why I wasn’t allowed to wrestle.

One day, I really gave her hell about it. Mikey and his friend were in the backseat. I became so upset, in part because I wasn’t getting a clear answer as to why I couldn’t wrestle, that I repeatedly punched Mikey’s friend in the backseat.

Sitting across from this kid in Bedford at lunch, I said, “Football players are pansies. They’re all losers.”

I saw his face turning red.

“What’s wrong? Your face is getting red,” I egged him on.

“That’s because you’re pissing me off,” he responded, practically fuming. He continued, “I’m going to slap that unibrow off your face!”

I wasn’t about to allow that, so I beat him to it by striking him across the face three times in rapid succession.

I claimed self-defense. I wasn’t only protecting my unibrow, I was also protecting my pride.

Mr. Weed and sort of counselor pulled me into the principal’s office for a talk.

It was clear that Mr. Weed was partial to the local.

One of the things that stand out in my mind is when he said of the 110-pounder with 10-inch biceps and a 30-inch chest, “He’s one of the strongest kids in the class! You’re lucky he didn’t fight back.”

“What do you think would have happened if he had?” I asked the disgruntled teacher.

“This isn’t about who can beat who up!” He shouted.

Talk about backtracking.

I don’t remember all that was said in that office, but Mr. Weed asked

me if I want to hit him, too.

What the hell? Was I supposed to say, “Yeah, I’ll knock your buck teeth out!”? I don’t think so.

It’s things like that, and things like the illiterate English teacher, that made it seem as if I were attending school in the boondocks.

I said, “If I’m this crazy, then maybe I need to be hospitalized! I’ve tried to get my mom to hospitalize me, but she won’t do it.”

The counselor said, “Those are the famous last words of a lot of kids.”

That was the last that was seen of me in Bedford Junior High School.

Chapter 10

A few days later, some officers walked into my house with a court order to take me to the Mercy Franklin Center, a mental facility in Des Moines.

As I read through the court papers, I couldn’t help but notice factual errors, such as where it said I “slapped another student with both hands”, when I was only my left hand in actuality.

I was greeted by a pretty woman there. She told me to take a shower and changed into some scrubs. Not knowing exactly what kind of operation they were running here, , I asked if I got to do it alone because I, for some reason, imagined the shower being like a YMCA locker room with a line of open showers.

“Well, I’m not getting in there with you,” she quipped.

I kind of liked the place. I didn’t understand why they thought I had the anger problem, but it was nice. Each patient got to choose what he wanted from breakfast, lunch, and dinner, plus two snacks a day.

Everyone also seemed nice and friendly.

However, I was sort of bothered by the lack of privacy with cameras monitoring every room except the bathroom, a room I often went to just so I could do pushups without anyone watching.

All the patients would gather to discuss their issues every day. Kids were there for various reasons: depression, drinking problems, attacking their siblings, and whatnot. When I told I was there for slapping a kid at school, I remember someone asking how that warranted a stay at the Mercy Franklin Center.

“Well, sometimes the other party can file charges, though that didn‘t happen this time,” the staff member replied. That probably didn’t happen because I would have filed countercharges.

The resident doctor was a giant of the man by the name of Dr. Cavalier.

His hand engulfed mine as I half-heartedly shook his hand without looking him in the eye, minding the least social etiquette I could. He seemed prejudice against loners, for he kept pushing the idea that I needed friends.

When I asked him, “Don’t I have the right to not have friends?” he seemed perplexed and denied me a clear answer.

“What?”

“Don’t I have the right to not have friends?” I repeated.

I don’t remember exactly what his answer was. I just remember that I didn’t find it sufficient.

You see, I never understood why a person was seemingly required to have buddies in the education system. Rather, even if I did understand, there was a part of me that didn’t

want to understand. But I thought that as an American I should have been entitled to attend school for the academics without being pressured to partake in meaningless small talk just because it’s what’s expected of youngsters. Admittedly, this may not have been a healthy attitude, but it was the one I held at the time.

After a few days of writing ways of dealing with my anger, doing psyche tests like the Thematic Apperception Test, and watching cheesy videos that told me to “shake it off,” I was prescribed new medications.

The explanation I received for being put on Risperdal was that it would help me think clearer and “help you make friends, even though you say you don’t want any.”

Not only did I come out with new medications, I also garnered a new diagnosis: Asperger’s Syndrome.

I wasn’t sure how they came up with that diagnosis so quickly, but it seemed to fit. For starters, I recognized that I was a bit physically clumsy; my mom likes to say I could trip over a rock that is across the street. And I most definitely had difficulty in social situations, with peers and parents alike. After all, that was the reason I was sent to the mental facility.

Limited interests?

You bet.

Some Aspies become fixated on physics or automobiles or something useful; I was fixated on professional wrestling for the longest time. I watched it constantly, subscribed to the magazines, visited the Web sites, read the books, and collected all the memorabilia. A therapist once angered with his misconception of wrestling.

There was an instance in 7th grade when one of

my female classmates broke a model of the ear in science class. She blamed it on me, when I clearly saw her break it.

I pleaded with the teacher that it was her, but he seemed convinced that I was the guilty party. In retaliation, I yanked the girl’s hair.

When I shared this instance with my counselor, he, knowing that I was a wrestling fan, suggested that perhaps wrestling shows gave me the idea that it’s OK to pull girls’ hair. What he failed to recognize, probably because he hadn’t watched much of it himself, was that when a male wrestler pulls a female’s hair on a wrestling show, the male is likely to be portrayed as the bad guy.

***

The doctor at Mercy Franklin changed my medication, so before I was sent home, they did an EKG to see if the prior medication had affected my heart rhythm. For some reason, I get anxious when someone listens to or records my heart beat. They hooked me up that that machine and it started beeping like crazy because my heart rate was running tachycardia, which made me more nervous.

“Poor guy,” the nurse said.

***

Since the court ordered me to be hospitalized at the Mercy Franklin Center, I had to have a court hearing in Bedford upon discharge. As luck would have it, that particular day happened to be job shadow day. One of the classmates -- one who had punched me, in fact -- was job shadowing someone at the courthouse. When he saw me at the courthouse, he asked, “Are you job shadowing the sheriff?” (The sheriff had driven me back from Des Moines and had even bought me a taco salad from Taco John’s.

(Being the sheriff of a small county, he also the B.D. teacher’s brother.)

“Yes, he is,” the sheriff answered for me.

After my brief stay at Mercy Franklin, I returned to school in Lenox to finish 8th grade. They set a new Individual Education Plan for me. I would have an aide, Mrs. Shields, follow me to and from every class.

I wouldn’t be in the halls when there were other students in them. They also set silly goals for me, such as improving social skills. I even had a personalized class to teach me social skills, to help with the Asperger‘s symptoms, I suppose.

As stated above, I started therapy around this time, but it didn’t last long. My therapist apparently had a drug relapse, or so I heard, but he appeared to be very limited in his aptitude anyways. I would think that someone with such an important job in helping people would make more of an effort to do a job he could be proud of.

You don’t pass Grade D beef off as prime rib, and you don’t sell prune juice labeled fine wine, and you don’t offer therapy that falls below acceptable. Okay, so the analogy is a little lopsided, but my point stands!

So clearly therapy didn’t work out for me, perhaps because as he said, “Therapy only works if you let it work.” And maybe if the therapist does a little bit more than just use aphorisms like “Your mother gave you the greatest gift of all: life.”

I don’t doubt that therapy can be useful under a quality therapist who is there to actually help his patient as opposed to one who is following his own agenda of talking out of his ass just to collect a paycheck.

Not saying that’s what this guy was doing. . .

***

So everybody seemed to be making a big fuss out of my not having friends. Admittedly, I would have liked to have had a friend, but I didn’t seem to have the social skills, plus I was being defiant. If they think I should have friends, I thought, then I definitely won’t make any attempts to have them; I will ostensibly avoid friendships!

I made that my battle cry throughout my teenage/high school years. No friends! No fun! No sex! No drugs!

Besides, I didn’t need any face-to-face human friends. I had Barry. My dog. And my online wrestling game.

Poor Barry, I didn’t give him the attention that he deserved. He would sit at my feet while I, in junior high school, ran my online wrestling

role-playing game.

For anyone who is not familiar with e-wrestling, I’m sorry, but you will just to have to find out about it in detail elsewhere.

In my e-wrestling league, which I created and titled the “Atypical Wresting Federation” to tell people that it was different (kind of like me) than the other leagues, I was the president of the league, Mr. Dustin Dare, the arrogant, unjust boss.

I worked on that Website for hours a day, redesigning it and learning HTML, recruiting new members, and writing the results to the matches. I even worked on it during school hours.

Rather than taking notes in Mr. Dukes’s class, I wrote the cards for my wrestling game.

At its peak, the site received over 3,000 hits a week.

Sadly, Barry died in 2004. I suspect he may have died of a panic attack, and my justification is this: He had bad separation anxiety. Whenever I would leave, he scratched on the door and whined.

He surely didn’t feel much better when we took him to the dog groomer.

On his final trip there, we had to leave him there for overnight because of Mom’s work schedule.

I think he may have gotten over excited and had a heart attack. When he came home, he wasn’t himself.

He hardly moved. He wouldn’t eat. Soon, my best friend was dead.

Chapter 11

It was somewhat frustrating to be treated different than the rest of the student body, to have to have someone follow me everywhere I went in the building. .

Sometimes I felt as if the school focused on the wrong objectives.

To me, it was a matter of keeping the kids from bullying me. That, in my view, was the root of all my problems in school. If no one bothered me, I wasn’t going to bother them.

For some reason, however, it seemed that the school was focused on getting me to engage in chit chat and being friendly.

Nonetheless, the new plan seemed to work fairly well for us over the next few years. Mrs. Shields is a really nice lady with whom I got along with well. She is still a very good friend whom I can confide in and who I hope to keep in

touch with indefinitely; she‘s been a huge support through high school and beyond.

For once, it seemed like I had someone on my side, someone who understood where I was coming from. There definitely wasn’t anymore bullying going on, whether it was because Mrs. Shields kept her eye on me all day or the other kids had matured.

Mrs. Shield and I developed a very strong rapport.

Sometimes I like to put people on, to act to see how they react. I will feign anger or exaggerate my Asperger’s symptoms for fun.

Mrs. Shields was keen at catching onto when I was doing so. She would give me a knowing look that said, “Come on now, Dustin.”

My favorite example of “putting on” someone was when I filled out my IEP for my junior or senior year.

One of the places on the forms had me list my strengths. Being a smart ass, I wrote things like, “I can say my ABCs, I can count to

10, I can tie my shoes, etc.” Mrs. Riley, the special education director, suspected that I was being a smartass, but I insisted that I was serious. I began acting as though I were very confused and angered and frustrated that she was not taking me seriously, that I really thought that was the correct way of filling out the form, and if it weren’t, then screw the whole thing.

I’d say everything was fine overall until my senior year, with the exception of a couple of incidents.

On my final day of school my junior year, I had lunch fees that were overdue, but I had no cash on me.

The secretary told me that she could not dismiss me until I had paid my dues in full. With Mom at work, I became angry and cursed at the secretary, telling I could leave any damn time I wanted, and the special coordinator and I had a couple of heated shouting matches.

At home, not everything was fine. Again, I

was having night terrors and nightmares.

I was having nightmares of my head becoming detached from my body, and I was waking up with a sense of intense fear, just as I had before, except this time the fear was accompanied by thoughts of death.

***

Perhaps it was anxiety about getting out of school, or maybe it was anger about how I’d been treated in the past, or maybe a little of both; I don’t know, but I felt on edge a lot that last year of school. They days seemed to drag on and I felt irritable, so I chose to graduate at mid-term.

One example of my frustrations is evident in one of my trips to the principal’s office in my senior year.

I didn't have a topic for my senior research paper picked out, so my English teacher got on my case about it. I used my share of vulgarities and profanities to show my disrespect and displeasure for her classroom procedures.

Anyway, she didn't want to suspend me, so I told her that I might have to hit somebody to get suspended since that worked for me in 7th grade, to which she replied that I was trying to make her mad and that it wouldn't work on this particular day. She’s good.

So I told her how I felt, "I think that you're just being an asshole about it." She ended up sending me to the principal's office where he, the principal, and I had a good, long talk that did little to change my stance.

It was like in 4th grade when Mrs. Nelson sent

me to the office for not having my math homework done; I didn’t see that the big deal was.

All that was accomplished was getting me to confess about killing an innocent spider.

Then came the time all of the kids in the special education program attended a session at the college called “That’s Life: 101”. It seemed all and well until we came to the dancing portion of the day.

We were supposed to do the salsa or tango or something, but I wasn’t really feeling that.

I actually have a lot of insecurities about my motor skills or my procedural knowledge. I don’t feel comfortable dancing, playing sports, or driving a car. That’s why I incorporated into my IEP the stipulation that I did not have to take

traditional P.E. classes. Instead, I Mrs. Shields and I played word games like Scrabble.

The instructor, seeing that I wasn’t moving to the music, got right in my personal space, stating that she wasn’t leaving until I started dancing. Wrong thing to do to me.

I felt my temper starting up. Before my temper could get the best of me, Mrs. Shields stepped in and took me for a walk around the building.

Yet another example was when a local radio station was at school on an anti-smoking campaign.

They had a large piece of paper up for the student body to write its messages to the tobacco companies. There were statements such as, “I hope you die!” on there, so I didn’t see anything wrong with writing, “Lying is wrong, you bastards!” or whatever it was I wrote.

However, the principal chose to tear off my, and only my, message from the paper. This angered me to the point of walking out of the school, which wasn’t the first time something had angered me to that point. I was primed to see a long-standing theme of injustice in the high school.

I also flat out skipped school a lot. “You need to get to school more often because I can’t teach to an empty seat,“ Mrs. Riley noted. She saw that this wasn’t working out too well, so we arranged it so that I only had to attend school a couple hours out of the day.

Sometimes it seemed as if graduation would never come.

I maintained good grades; that part was easy.

The hard part was just getting through

the day.

Finally came my last day of school.

I thought I’d be ecstatic about leaving, but when Mrs. Riley asked me how I felt on my last day, I can’t say I was overjoyed.

But it felt good knowing I had accomplished the seemingly impossible goal of graduation, with honors no less. It had been a long, hard road to get to, but I learned that if you keep pushing on while keeping your world protected, you will persevere.

My world, however, was secure yet. Indeed, it was about to crumble.

Chapter 12

Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, I am free at last. These are the words I thought as I paced through the park immediately after completing high school on December 23, 2005. But free I was not.

I may have been free from the burdens of high school, but I was still tethered to my psychological disturbances, which were growing worse by the week.

Or, if I am to think of myself as being free following my graduation from high school, it was an unguided freedom. I was lost. I didn’t know where to go or what to do.

Before I explain my psychological downward spiral, it I want to give you a feel for it by including a blog that I wrote on August 6, 2007. It captures my mental state very well.

*** Dear Blog;

I encountered a rough day today. I felt a degree of anxiety to start it off; a sense of helplessness, hopelessness, impending doom, and insignificance plagued me from nearly the moment I got out of bed.

A loud bang of thunder augmented this anxiety; my first thought was not that it was thundering; rather, I feared that some sort of object from space -- an asteroid, meteorite, comet, or other such body -- had crashed to Earth.

The epinephrine kicked in, increasing my heart rate and force.

This, in turn, begat even more anxiety, this time that I may have a heart attack or go into cardiac arrest.

I then flipped through the television channels in an attempt to take my mind off my fears and worries.

The result, however, opposed my intent. Instead of becoming calm, I stumbled upon a show on nanotechnology, which reminded me of the end of the movie Men in Black. Perhaps I exist on somegreater being’s nano-scale, I thought. Perhaps he would like to manipulate us. Maybe we’re part of a large-scale atom and that he would like to split us to create his own form of nuclear fission.

Other channels featured sports and entertainment shows, but those spawned within me fears that people are too engaged in entertaining to think about and prevent doomsday or to cure medical problems.

“Dirty Jobs” was also on. Mike Rowe gutted a fish and snapped his neck to behead him. It made me think that the chiropractor might have done something similar to me had I allowed him to do much neck manipulation. I know that he’s well- trained and educated in the field and that such a thought isn’t very plausible, but I still thought it.

That’s how most of my worries are; I know they’re either irrational, assaulting on reason, or practically useless, but I still think them and still I worry.

So I then turned to a humorous book. This book seemed to pacify me briefly, until my head felt

full or tight. It’s a feeling I first remember getting when I was about 10 years old, so I probably am not on the verge of having a stroke,

but it was uncomfortable nonetheless. Furthermore, my nose was congested and my throat sore (presumably from blisters I get in my throat), and

I felt as if my head were being tied off and that I couldn’t breathe. That’s possibly just because my airways were restricted by some sort of head cold, but in my mind, I linked it to my brain, spinal cord, and heart.

I complained to my mother about my symptoms (which also included some back pain and random, sharp pains through my extremities), as sometimes it’s nice just to have someone listen. She, however, wasn’t in much of a mood for listening. She’d done enough of that over the last year or so. She instead insisted that I take pills to ease my symptoms.

Since this happens about every hour of every day, she is getting a bit fed up with my complaints.

I don’t blame her. In fact, I feel a great deal of solicitude for her. Solicitude, however, is just another form of anxiety.

This anxiety was compounded by fears about chronemics. Maybe I’m wasting people’s time; maybe

they’re wasting mine. And what about the space-time continuum? Time travel?

Meanwhile, I told my mother that I would take my Toprol for my heart palpitations, as she strongly suggested. Actually, she about stuffed it down my throat herself.

But I didn’t actually take it.

I’ll just wait until I get a thorough examination of my heart on Wednesday (when my cardiologist appointment is scheduled for) to make sure that’s really what I should be taking. So I hid the pill upstairs.

With Mom unhappy with me, I felt horrible, because if I can’t have my mom happy with me, if she doesn’t feel that I’m a necessity, how will

anyone else? In the end, I need people to need me. The path to making people need me seems to start with an education, but what good is any education I can receive? The only universities I can get into are big universities with tens of thousands of students, so who will really care? How will that set me apart and above? Lots of people go to those schools, and they go into them with much better résumés than I have.

The storm ended a short while and the day transformed into a beautiful, sunny one. But a sunny day just means I fear a massive solar storm. We would be screwed if one of those wiped out our satellites. And the sun is the source of all the world’s energy, all its heat, heat that is trapped by greenhouse gases that have in in a record heat wave caused by global warming; global warming that makes me fear over-populations and the depletion of natural resources.

My wresting collection should have put me in a better mood, but it did on the contrary.

I noticed that all my action figures are made of petroleum- based plastic, and so I felt guilty with the gas prices being what they are. That’s not to mention how materialistic I felt, which in itself is not to mention how I haven’t worked for any of my material possessions.

I’ll need to get a job, right? I don’t want a job just to have a job, either. I don’t want an insignificant job just to say I have a job; I want to do something that contributes in a meaningful way.

I decided to take a shower.

First, however, I had a qualm of nausea; I vomited something that I hadn’t done in many months. But I did feel pretty good, as did the shower. I felt quite a bit better after that.

I even managed to walk a bit: I went to the post office to mail a couple of letters and also walked home from my grandparents’ amidst fears that parts of my body might suddenly go paralyzed or that I might have a stroke or something.

My heart palpitations continued throughout the afternoon and into the evening, as did a feeling of uneasiness, but I feel pretty good now.

***

My psychological state at the time of writing that blog was probably the lowest that it has ever been. How did I get to such a low point?

Picking up where I left off, I had just completed high school; stressful though it was, high school at least gave me something to do. Now, I had no direction.

My initial idea had been to go to college. I had applied to and been accepted to Drake University in Des Moines with a decent scholarship, but I did not know the logistics of going to college; nothing about financial aid, housing, or anything.

I did not help myself by avoiding phone calls from Drake representatives.

Maybe the truth is that I really didn’t want to go to college.

Maybe I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.

Plan B was to go directly into the workforce, but Plan B didn’t exactly pan out.

I applied at numerous locations for entry-level positions, but none of the employers so much as called me back about a job offer.

I was left with nothing to do. I was out of school, but I didn’t have a job. Having no occupation could make just about anyone depressed and anxious, especially someone with the mental history that I have.

Compounding the issue was that I did not have, and still do not have, and probably will never have, a driver’s license. I had a learner’s permit when I was 15, but it has since expired, serving only to get me minimal experience behind the wheel. The truth is, I’m scared to death by the thought of driving. I used to have nightmares about it. I don’t trust myself behind the wheel of a car on a highway, and I can see myself getting flustered at traffic lights.

So in the meantime, I decided to take distance education classes for a career diploma in Web design. I had actually had a controversial Web site in high school. I got tons of hits from various high school users in the tri-county area. Some people failed to understand that the site was a site for my Web character, Virgin Dustin, and took offense.

Out of respect, I removed the site.

I intentionally made the site border on reality and fiction, but it may have worked too well.

The distance education courses pacified me for a while, but I soon had fits of anger and frustration over my social status.

I was never going to be anybody and I wasn’t getting anywhere, I said; I was stagnant and I didn’t like it.

Unemployment was eating at me, devouring any sense of usefulness that I may have had. If I’m not contributing to society through employment, I thought, no one will need me and thus care for me; I will be neglected by everyone, left to die if something catastrophic were to happen; those who had proven to be most useful and helpful would be those who receive rations of food if a terrible famine came.

Fear of catastrophic events started to torment me.

Chapter 13

“Mom, I feel really dizzy,” I said to her as we took our seats on the steep balcony at Wells Fargo Arena for the WWE wrestling event.

“Me too,” she replied. She gets dizzy spells, which probably wasn’t helped by the height. I was having a fear of heights myself.

Grandma and Grandpa took me to the wrestling events at the old Veterans Auditorium or the new Qwest Center in Omaha every year.

They were something I looked forward to each year, making the days off the calendar from the time we got

tickets a month or two in advance. The shows were absolutely captivating, even better than on TV. I loved the atmosphere, except for the pyrotechnics that would send me jumping out of my seat, so startled was I. I loved the look of the large

arena filled with 10,000 fans.

But this time, I wasn’t enjoying myself so much for a few reasons. For one, I kept imagining myself either falling or jumping over the balcony, plummeting to my death. Suicidal or masochistic thoughts weren’t foreign to me. I’ve always had thoughts about stabbing my eyes out with a fork and ideas like that, but I think those thoughts are fairly common.

Another reason I wasn’t enjoying myself was that I had been growing less enthralled with the spectacle of wrestling as of late. The shows seemed to be becoming too violent, something that I was becoming abhorred to.

The biggest factor, however, came from my feeling of impending doom. Something cataclysmic was going to happen, the likelihood of which seemed increased simply because thousands of people were enjoying themselves in one setting.

This strange feeling -- that something horrible was going to happen whenever people were congregated -- was becoming too common. Earlier in this writing, I wrote of how I didn’t like the Performing Arts Booster carnival as a child.

More recently, I still didn’t like it. For the past two years when I’ve attended, I felt panicky, that I needed to get out, as I pictured a TV show regaling the events of the evening:

“It seemed like a good time. . . When disaster struck!”

While we were all having fun, we were oblivious to the next cosmic object that might be coming our way! We should be preparing for asteroids or comets or solar flares! Why didn’t anyone seem to care?!

My fear of asteroids or comets striking our planet has lingered for a long time.

I mentioned having this fear as a child earlier in the text. What really planted the fear in my head, however, was a TV show I had seen on the Discovery Channel

as a teenager.

***

With my anxiety becoming more intense and my depression deepening, I began question why I had to take medications at all. I still had no friends and I didn’t even feel good. Mom made it perfectly clear, however, that so long as I was living under her roof -- and with no job, that was just about the only option -- I would have to take my medications.

I clandestinely weaned myself off my Celexa while still taking the Risperdal as prescribed. I reasoned that if I were so depressed, then the Celexa must not be working as it should. I started by taking the full dosage every other day, then half the dosage every other day, and then half the dosage every third day, and then none at all.

Furthermore, I had changed psychiatrists multiple times since Dr. Windsor. I saw Dr. Egger for a while, but after being at the Mercy Franklin Center, I saw Dr. Corcoran, who was an associate of the main doctor at Mercy Franklin.

I really liked him; he gave me encouragement and always commented on how big my biceps were getting.

“Have you been lifting weights?”

“I little bit,” I’d abashedly respond. Unfortunately, Dr. Corcoran was involved in an automobile accident and had to terminate his practice, leaving me with no psychiatrist monitoring my medications.

***

At one point, I had a phobia of cars.

Not just of driving them, but of even riding in them.

I still have the phobia to this day, but not as bad as it was around 2006. Every car that went by on the highway was one I was afraid was going to crash head-on into the one I was riding in. I considered going to the community college in the nearby town of Creston, but that would mean I’d have to ride there with someone, and I was avoid being on the road anytime I could.

I still have anxiety on the road, but only on the interstate. Andy says, “Riding in a car like being on a roller coaster for you, isn’t it?” when I lean by body away from the truck in the next lane or tense up my body.

***

I trace my fear of lightning to the Discovery Channel as well. I watched a show on the dangers of lightning. I can strike from 20 miles away, they said, even on a clear, sunny day.

One guy was riding his bike on a clear day when ZAP! He was struck down my lightning.

The combined fears of asteroids, cars, and lightning basically made me a recluse. Walking was one of my coping strategies, but by the summer of 2007, I was afraid to even leave the house. I never knew when there would be a solar flare, or

if this might be the day the earth would be the victim of a cosmic impact, or if I might be struck by lightning.

Just as bad, my health became a major concern. My fears and anxieties were disproportionate to the risk.

Chapter 14

My history of health concerns dates back to an early age. I’ve already told of some of them. Other concerns I’ve had are worth mentioning.

When Tom Green aired a show on the removal of his cancerous testicular cancer, I was convinced I felt a lump on my testicle that might just be cancer. I was scared to death, standing there in the bathroom, holding my scrotum, feeling the structure of my balls. How embarrassing it would be to tell the doctor that something is wrong with my testicles! But I must tell someone, so I

waited eagerly for my mom to get home, when I would tell her. When at last she arrived, I decided against telling her out of embarrassment.

It turns that that I felt my epididymis.

I used to be fairly certain I had lung cancer.

When I was staying home from school with a cold in the first grade, I noticed that my left side, presumably my lung, hurt when I coughed. I still get that feeling, but now I see it as less benign than lung cancer. It’s still gone undiagnosed, anyways!

For your amusement, I share one of my earliest memories.

I was taking a bath and exploring my body.

I noticed different asymmetries and what I thought might be abnormalities. My conclusion was that I must have been a war hero in a previous life, and I was left with this less than perfect body as a result.

Throughout my high school years, I was concerned about my facial asymmetry.

Maybe others didn’t notice it as much as I did. “My nose is crooked!” I blurted out to my science class one day. A couple of my classmates looked at me and said, “It is?” as if they didn’t notice. I think I may have broken it during of those botched catches with my brother when I was a child.

It was (and is) more than just my nose, however. My whole face seems lopsided. I used to wish that I had a brace that I could put on my face and skull, tightening it every very days until my face took on the correct symmetry.

Since that wasn’t an option, my alternative was to sleep with the left side (the side that appeared to jut out too far to the left) of my face mashed up against a hard pillow, in hopes that eventually, the sutures would align more properly. . . Or something. I’m not quite sure how I expected that to help.

Around the time that I stopped taking my Celexa, I had chronic vomiting spells. I was eating crackers at Andy’s apartment one day while he was at work. I thought the crackers must have been bad, because I felt nauseated and vomited shortly thereafter.

The crackers apparently weren’t the culprit, as for about four months, from August 2006 through December of 2006, I threw up almost daily. I felt sick in general, not just my stomach.

I became very angry and displaced my anger onto my mother.

One night, I requested that she take me to the ER because in addition to my nausea, I felt stomach pain. I was certain I was on the brink of death. She told me to wait a couple days.

“What if I don’t have a couple days, Mom? !I’m about to die! I know, I know it!”

So she obliged, and we waited in the ER.

And waited.

Finally, a nurse saw me. When I told her of my symptoms, she rudely commented, “It sounds like you got a bad batch of meth.”

I was greatly offended.

The doctor then came in to do blood tests, and we were expected to wait for the results.

So we waited. And waited.

After much waiting, I decided that perhaps my death wasn’t so imminent after all and we left before the blood work came back.

I was also having severe heart palpitations around this time. At one point, I wore one of those 24-hour heart monitors.

One night in the winter of 2006, I was walking with Andy when I had a severe bout of palpitations. I thought I was going to die once more. Mikey has several heart arrhythmias, so to be safe, we went to the ER. More realistically, I once again demanded that Mom take me.

They hooked me up to an EKG (again). Everything seemed fine; I was simply having heart palpitations, but the blood tests showed my potassium was low, so the gave me a potassium supplement and sent me home.

I still wasn’t convinced that my heart was fine, however. I woke Mom up in the middle of many nights -- just about every night, actually – sure that I was about to have a heart attack. I

was so tuned into my heart, that I noticed every little change in rate or rhythm.

I couldn’t sleep at night because all I could focus on was every heart beat, wondering if it would be my last.

It didn’t help that I was afraid to take my medication, lest it might have a fatal side effect. So I was skipping doses.

I consulted with a cardiologist after that. On the way to the cardiologist, I told me that we’d better hurry because I was about to go into

cardiac arrest right there in the car. When I saw the doctor, they did another EKG and he looked

over my charts.

“What brought you here?” he inquired. I was at a loss for word. I stuttered something about how I just wanted to be sure my heart wasn’t about to give out on me.

“This is not a dangerous rhythm at all,” the doctor assured me.

Mom became very upset with me, as I would have, too, in her position.

She had to get to work at 5 a.m., but she was being kept up all night by her grown son, swearing that he’s about to die every night.

When I complained that something was wrong with my health, I was hysterical, causing extreme stress on both of us.

In addition to my heart, I developed a worry about my neck.

It had to be broken, I surmised.

I didn’t know how or why, but it had to be. I was sure of it. I thought that perhaps by trying to keep it so straight when I was younger, I had caused something to go wrong with it.

Or maybe it occurred when Andy and I were rough housing.

Why was I so sure something was wrong with it? Because I couldn’t move it, and if I did move it, it might kill me, so I’d best not even try. Plus, my neck was sore and I had weird tingling in my arms.

Could it have been caused by not having a computer chair for a while (no need to explain why there was no computer chair). Maybe, but that still meant something was wrong, probably something seriously wrong.

“It’s from Andy accidentally kicking me in the neck that one time, Mom. I know it!”

“Andy did not do this to you!” Mom fired back. At any rate, I wanted to go to a chiropractor.

He would take an X-ray and see what was wrong. So we set up an appointment.

On the form that asked what I was seeing him about, I wrote “Just a checkup.”

There was a diagram on the form, as well, asking where I had pain or tingling. I marked my left arm and my neck.

The doctor took the X-rays and then told me to lie down on the bench. He then proceeded to execute some manipulations on my back. Hey, wait a minute! I thought I was here just for a checkup!

After he cracked my back a couple times, I complained that my head didn’t feel right. “Lightheaded from being nervous, maybe?” he responded.

He was then prepared to execute a manipulation of my neck.

“I don’t know about this,” I said. The doctor put his hands on my head. “Ahh!“ I screamed, “My neck doesn’t feel right!“

“I haven’t done anything to it yet,“ he said. He then asked me if I would be more comfortable if he did it while I was sitting in the chair instead.

“Yeah, though I guess I don’t know what difference it would make.”

He did very gentle manipulations on my neck, because I was so nervous about it. Gentle as they may have been, they didn’t stop me from worrying that he may have accidentally caused some sort of further damage.

A couple days afterwards, I was looking in the mirror before taking a shower at Grandma‘s, where

I had been working out. I decided to move my head in the different directions the chiropractor had had me move it before he took the X-rays. I thought something popped, and the left side of my head tingled.

I ran home to Mom, declaring that I needed to go to the ER as soon as possible as I was dying. “I’m dying, oh Mom, why won’t you just listen me to me?! I’m dying, I’m serious. I know I am right now! Oh God!” I wailed, as she tried to talk some sense into me.

Several months later, after much complaining about my neck, which included an incident in college (more about college in the next chapter) where I called my grandparents -- using a phone in the administrative office as I don’t have a cell phone -- to come pick me up, I went to several doctor’s appointments, but they all just attempted to allay my worries, assuring me that I was fine.

I was still having recurring dreams that my head was falling off.

I finally took my worries to the hospital where I had a CAT scan on my neck. You might guess the result.

Negative any abnormalities in my neck.

Chapter 15

One day in late 2006, I exploded with anger. Ineeded a job, damn it!

I directed my anger towards Mom, who in turn suggested that I call Dad up and tell him about it.

“He’s your father, he can put up with you. He knows more about getting a job than me anyways. He could probably even let you work with him.”

As much as I dislike my dad, I called him up out of desperation. I told him that I didn’t have a job and that I needed help.

“Well, you don’t have any skills, so I can’t help you.” Thanks a lot, Dad. He seemed to be under the impression that I had my driver’s license, too, and when I revealed to him in that conversation that I didn’t have it, he seemed flustered.

He told me that someone needed to teach me how to drive.

I had begged and pleaded with Mom to teach me how to drive. She in turn said Dad should teach me.

I certainly didn’t want Dad teaching me; he wouldn’t be a very patient teacher, and I feel uncomfortable in his presence anyways.

Mom eventually said, “You can’t drive and you never will be able to, so you’d might as well face it.”

I was ambivalent towards that message. Outwardly, I reacted angrily, and I was angry.

I wish that I could drive, but I also knew that I really couldn’t, for reasons of anxiety if nothing else.

However, another thing came from that conversation.

“Whatever happened to going to college?” Dad asked.

That settled it. I was going to college. In the past, I didn’t want to go to college for a number of reasons. The fear of being on the road, not knowing the procedures involved, and I thought that, with my 24 on the ACT and my high school GPA of 3.211, I couldn’t get into a good college. By good, I mean prestigious, like Ivy League. For some reason, I thought that was the only way I was going to be able to stand out and be better than anyone else, which for some reason is what I

wanted more than anything. I wanted to be better than everyone around me in Lenox.

I did well at Southwestern Community College in Creston, graduating in three semesters and earning my place on the President’s list each semester. A lot of my anxieties followed me, however.

My first semester went fairly smoothly, thanks in part to my alprazolam PRN, although I did make one of my classmates cry. I have never worked well on group projects.

For my introductory sociology class, we paired off into small groups to do our work. One day when I was absent due to flu-like symptoms, my group mates decided to meet at the Creston Family Restaurant to discuss the big project for the semester. I wasn’t happy.

Mostly, my displeasure arose out of my arrogant thinking that I was far smarter than they were. They didn’t even understand the concepts, I said. I further thought that we should have met on campus, not at a restaurant.

I showed up late intentionally, as I was in a foul mood. I then listened to what they had to say.

They wanted to work in an egalitarian way, with everyone kind of doing the same thing at the same time. I thought there should be order and structure to the way we worked on the project. I gave them my opinions, which were received ungratefully. This pissed me off, so I stormed out of there and walked the mile to my brother’s apartment.

I sent my instructor the following e-mail:

Ross,

There seems to be issues between my small group and myself.

I was out of town for the weekend [I was at my brother‘s apartment in West Des Moines], away from the phone which my has the number to.

Rather than using the one communication utility provided to

all of SWCC’s students, e-mail, to contact me, the other group members decided amongst themselves to meet at Family Restaurant.

Since I received no communication from them, I was taken aback when I heard of the decision--three minutes before class was scheduled to begin. Had they decided to meet somewhere on campus (where we were all scheduled to be in the first place), I all would have been well as far as that part of it was concerned.

The group informed me of no infrastructure for the business/content incorporation portion of the exam. Nobody was relegated copywriter, another content suggestion, another editor, or whatever roles may be appropriate. When I offered my input and the suggestion that we have roles, they looked at me as if such a thought were ludicrous and flatly rejected my ideas. If the primary

objective is to create a cohesive unit (I believe that was one of the goals agreed upon on team day), then the group needs clearly defined roles. If the group can not agree upon them by itself, someone in a position of authority -- I.e. you -- perhaps should assign such roles for them, much like would be done in a company or corporation.

Not only that, but after I expressed reluctance in going to Family Restaurant, Zach and Andy vitiated my trust. They said, “You must go because we need your journal topics.” Once I

reviewed the test syllabus, I realized that I hadbeen misled. I don’t mind if they provide inaccuracies in their self-disclosures, but when it’s directly related to a graded project, it goes completely against creating trust to maximize efficiency [the teacher’s class motto].

There’s another problem that I didn’t think was going to be a problem.

To be fair, I admit that I perhaps should have looked through the workbook ahead of time to get a feel for what the exams would be like. However, the problem would still need to be worked out. After working with

my group for a few weeks, and especially after the first team day, I can’t help but get the overwhelming impression that my group’s collective and individual verbal intelligence are inadequate. To have to rely on them as part of my exam grade is unattractive to me due to my past experience in such situations.

I said in high school that it wouldn’t happen again, and I don’t intend on letting it happen again.I m ay be SOL on this particular test, but from what I understand -- I’ll have to do more digging.

***

I had issues with my introductory psychology instructor as well. (It's funny that I started off poorly in sociology and psychology, yet gut my undergraduate degrees in those majors.)

We just rubbed each other wrong, I think, and I didn’t like the way her classroom operated. I felt like I was in kindergarten again. I once had my hood up, and she told me to remove it. Granted, I was intentionally acted very weird in front of my classmates and the instructor, and I’m sure I crept some of them out.

On one occasion, I went to the front of the room to staple my paper together before handing it in. The stapler was out of staples. All I had to do was tell the instructor that it was out, but I decided to make a show of it instead, repeated hitting the stapler even though it was obvious I’d be unsuccessful.

She yelled at me to knock it off and go back to my seat.

The biggest problem I had with her was that we were expected to read the text before class, but once in class, her lecture would mirror the textbook almost word for word.

Rather than listening to her repeat the authors of the textbook, I brought my own book in.

She caught me reading a book on Wal-Mart and ordered that I

cease reading another book while in her class.

Again being rebellious and defiant, I asked to be excused to the restroom.

Instead, I went to the disability counselor and filled out an accommodation that said that I could read while in her class. My reason to support the accommodation was that it helped me feel more at ease and on task.

I returned to the introductory psychology class with the paper for the disabilities office. After class, the instructor said, “If you’re going to see the disabilities resource counselor, don’t tell me that you’re going to the restroom.”

I really did intend on going to the restroom before going to the disabilities office.

I tended to get very poor grades on my essays in that very same class. I wasn’t sure why. I had won the English award for my writing in high school, and I understood the material well. I thought I was writing excellent essays, certainly just as good or better as anyone else in the class was.

Fed up with getting such poor grades, I started writing my papers in a way as to anger the teacher; in some of the essays, I directly insulted her.

The next semester is when my anxiety really started to become an issue. This is the time when I stopped taking my medications and prescribed.

During the fall semester I had trouble concentrating because I feared the collapse of the universe or an asteroid striking while I was in class. The next semester -- spring semester, I became more concerned with my neck and my heart.

I couldn’t focus because I would be sitting in a class, perhaps American history, and rather than listening to the lecture, I was listening to each and every heart beat, or feeling my neck for any abnormalities, while at the same time fearing that I was about to become suddenly paralyzed.

I was no longer afraid to be on the road, as I had a year or two before, but I had to take the bus most days because I didn’t have anyone to give me a ride. My first semester, I had been riding with some family friends to class, who happened to have a penchant for speeding, which might have gone a long way in habituating me towards car rides!

The spring 2008 semester, I was riding the bus. Being in a rural area, the bus picked me up at home. However, it didn’t always seem to come at the same time every day.

One day when I missed it, I became enraged. I had a test scheduled for that day!

I supposed to graduate that semester,and now I was sure my plans were ruined!

It wasn’t just that I had missed the test, it was that I had to be reliant on the bus in the first place.

If only I could drive! If only I had a job, then I wouldn’t need school anyways!

In my anger, I stormed over to Grandma’s house to let off some steam. I called Dr. Egger on the phone and told his secretary that I needed to be hospitalized.

She disagreed and said they don’t do that anyways.

I was fuming.

I love animals and would never hurt one, but I power walked outside and screamed at Grandma’s cats to “Get the fuck out of my way!”

In the end, I started taking my medications and felt much better. My grades at mid-term had been dismal, somewhere around a 2.0 GPA; by the end of the semester, I had a 3.5 GPA. Soon enough, I was graduating with my associate’s degree.

I felt nervous on graduation day. First I had the same sort of feeling I had at the WWE event and at the PAB carnival, that since we were gathered together for a good time, something horrible would happen.

Then I became concerned about paralysis again. I thought I might become paralyzed as we lined up and walked down the hall.

But I didn’t die, neither by asteroid nor by my head falling off.

Chapter 16

As I write this in 2008, I am a junior at Iowa State University. Sure, it’s not the prestigious private school that I had wanted to attend, but it’s a good school, and I’m doing well here, though I’ve had a couple of incidents and issues. To demonstrate these instances and issues, I will share a couple recent blogs.

August 20, 2008.

“Is there a way I could resign today, or quit, or whatever?” I asked Nick, my trainer at Union Drive Marketplace.

Trainer is a bit of a misnomer, as he didn’t do much training per se.

What he did was more like giving me rapid-fire directions that boggled my mind.

I couldn’t process and comprehend everything that I was supposed to do.

There were too many people.

I felt uncomfortable.

I felt awkward, like I was being judged. Frozen.

I was supposed to refill and clean various dispensers and drink fountains.

Nick directed me to a manager who allowed me to quit. She told me that my classes would require me to do the same thing, and recommended I talk to my academic adviser.

I told Susan, my adviser, about what happened. I told her that classes would be difficult for me if I had to do anything. She recommended that I take one class at a time, but I didn’t understand why I should funk just one class; I’d rather do

all or nothing. She recommended that I see the disabilities office to get ahold of my doctors so I could document a learning disability, and then to talk to a counselor.

I talked to Steve at the disabilities office. I explained to him how I couldn’t comprehend physical, manual tasks. I asked him if I needed to get my doctor to document a learning disability or if my documented disorders would be enough; he said they would be enough.

Then he walked me upstairs to talk to a counselor, Cara Armstrong, Ph.D.

The manager at Union Drive actually just said that there were a lot of people in my classes. I didn’t completely understand the significance of the statement, so I decided that the implication was that I’d have to process physical tasks in front of a lot of people. I think I mostly wanted some drama.

Most of my classes will be small

since I have already fulfilled most of my general education requirements, and I don’t truly believe that I’ll be required to perform any tasks that closely resemble those at Union Drive; I expect it to be more of the same educational environment that I’ve experienced before.

I’ve acted this way before.

I think that I get a thrill out of the excitement that such situations evoke. I’ll see Dr. Armstrong again tomorrow.

I actually ended up seeing another counselor, Joyce Davidson, but the reason for seeing a counselor at all is owed a bit more explanation. As mentioned in the blog, I felt frozen and overwhelmed by the work-study job.

What I didn’t describe quite adequately was why; in a word, I felt anxious, but to add a bit more detail, I felt like everyone was watching and judging me.

I knew that they weren’t, but I felt they were, and that

I was about to mess up and would be just harshly for it. Boy, that kid sure as hell doesn’t know what he’s doing, I could hear them thinking. The same sort of thing Dad must think when I’m around him.

Take last Memorial Day, for instance.

We were fishing at Lake Icaria. The weather had been stormy, and I was hoping it would be again so I wouldn’t have to go on the trip with him at all. But the weather, though cloudy and a bit cold, wasn’t bad enough for us to cancel the fishing trip.

After a long day on the waters, he told me to take control of the motor on the boat and steer it to shore. I couldn’t.

I was put on the spot.

I felt like an idiot (maybe I am). When I got home, I cried to my mother about how Dad had once again made me (or influenced me) to feel like a complete fool (maybe that means I’m a bit of a baby, too).

This fear of negative judgment is one of the main reasons why I don’t drive. It’s also partly why I didn’t want to participate in P.E. classes. Perhaps reasons such as these are why I have at one point been diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder.

Another blog, this time this time just an excerpt featuring my displeasure with bicyclists.

September 20, 2008

People on bikes need to realize that the world does not operate for them alone. When they come

up behind me on the sidewalk, they should not ring their bells at me. It’s rude.

They need to hold their proverbial horses and exercise a modicum of patience.

Failing to do so may result in consequences similar to what that one foreign girl experienced about a week ago. She rode her bike up to me at a speed much faster than I can walk. She said, “Excuse me!” when he wheel was probably about a foot from my ass, so, out of deference to her, I stepped to my right.

Unfortunately for her, but to my amusement, she tried passing me on

the right. Consequently, I stopped into her bike, sending her crashing into the cement wall, causing her to fall off her bike and apparently scrape her knee.

I’m sorry (not really, it’s just a figure of speech), but she’s not the only one who has places to go. She could have, and very well should have, used her brakes to stop or slow down her bike; she can accelerate on her bike a lot faster than I can on my feet. If not that, then she could have at lest passed to my left, which from what I’ve observed, is common practice in the United States.

To be fair again, I probably should learn how to read traffic lights so I will cross the streets at the proper times, rather than racing cars and praying not to get hit. But the driving manual

did say that drivers are supposed to yield to pedestrians evens when the pedestrians should really yield to the drivers!

What I failed to mention in that blog was that I could learn to control my temper a little bit, such as when another bicyclist was passing me about a month or so ago.

The older, white-haired woman on the bike yelled out either “Right!” or “Bike!” as she zoomed up behind me, but I had my earphones in, so I could hardly hear her. She startled me as she booked it past me. I yelled out, “Hey, you asshole! That was really fucking rude!” As if yelling at old ladies isn’t rude.

And finally, one more blog that shows that despite my medication changes that have vastly improved my behavior and anxieties, I still have issues to deal with.

October 17, 2008.

Lub dub, lub dub, lub duuuuuuub, LUB!!!So my heart beats on a sleepless night, a condition known as pre-mature atrial contractions.

I don’t know what’s worse, being unable to sleep because of my mini seizures, as was the case last night. Being unable to sleep, whichever is the cause, is not entirely pleasant.

I don’t know if they’re necessarily mini seizures, or perhaps they’re Zoloft-induced “brain zaps”, or there is something wrong with my brain stem or spinal cord that continues to go undiagnosed.

Regardless, when I try sleeping, I feel an electrical jolt that starts at my head and rapidly travels throughout my body, often causing me to sit straight up just as I begin dreaming. Before I even get that close to sleeping, I feel weird sensations in my arms and head.

My head tingles, and my arms feel as if they’re being pricked, poked, or splattered with hot grease [I consulted with a doctor here at the health center at ISU, and in his opinion, I have a “pinched nerve“ in my shoulder].

Sometimes if I ignore it long enough and persist in my attempt to sleep, I am successful in such an attempt. Other time, however, I am afraid to even attempt to sleep.

I sometimes have premature ventricular contractions that make sleep difficult to attain, as is the case tonight. Apparently they are a manifestation of my anxiety, if you ask my doctors.

I sometimes suspect that they may be related to my “brain zaps” by way of some CNS connection, or perhaps having to do with my lopsided shoulder or asymmetric head. Speaking of which, I recently presented my lopsided shoulder

to a physician [the one who said I have a pinched nerve], but he did not seem the least bit concerned.

The doctors (physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists) tell me that I am overly concerned with my bodily functions and health, and that I am perfectly healthy in the physical sense,

dismissing my perceived health issues as some sort of hallucination resulting from excessive anxiety. Indeed, the report from my recent battery of psychological tests noted that I appear to have Asperger’s syndrome with sever anxiety, panic disorder, and marked symptoms of hypochondriasis

or somatoform disorder. [The MMPI was one of the tests done, along with an IQ test (my IQ is 125 for the curious).

The MMPI results indicated that my anxiety responses were so high that I may have been exaggerating, but Dr. Lelwica believed that it was just that severe.]

To relieve these symptoms, or to at least distract myself from them and thus pass the time in a more enjoyable manner, I took a long shower

tonight. I find that taking warm showers tends to calm me down and helps me sleep. But alas, my heart palpitations are persisting, though I feel like likely to die tonight.

Expressing this experience in a blog [and now in a book] might help in that respect.

Have you ever been sure that you were going to die?

I have been many times, sometimes sure that

I was going to die every day and night for uninterrupted months on end, and other time more sporadically feeling so, but I’m still alive. I fear sleeping, because I might be more vulnerable to death in my sleep.

But the trend seems to be that when I do manage to get some sleep, I also manage to wake up in good health.

Bearing this precedent in mind, I will soon crawl into the (air) bed and hope that the trend of surviving the night continues.

The trend of surviving the night has continued, even though my air bed has since been torn and consequentially deflated, relegating me to sleeping on the floor.

Still, by following Dr. Egger’s orders and taking some control over my mind, I feel as though I am doing much better.

I still have a long way to go, but I’ve come a long way from “dying” in the backseat of the car on the way home from Maryville.

Well perhaps not, as I have had several nights at my apartment at the university when I thought I was dying.

As such, I will finish this part of the story, but it continues soon!

there is nothing wrong in comparison with writing my own real stories. Why waste time, effort, and writing on imaginary characters when the world is full of real characters (or people at the least)? A real person’s thoughts and experiences, in my opinion, are far more intriguing than those of fanciful vampires, werewolves, warlocks, and other asinine products of the mind.

Besides, people like to nosily hear about the private things in others’ lives, right? (How else do you explain reality television and those internet shows where you can watch women poop? [Those shows are known as voyeurism in pervert parlance.])

Unfortunately, I don’t really like to read my work after I’ve written it. Since no one agreed to proofreading or editing

duties on my first book, it came out with

several embarrassing typos that I didn’t catch until I had overcome the shyness towards that book. I like to think that the typos were not terribly egregious, but I’ll admit it: let me loose on a word processor and the result is only marginally closer to Shakespeare than a monkey should be expected to produce.

In any event, it is here that I

acknowledge my lover, Nicole, for her casual work in helping me catch mistakes in this book while not criticizing me (I’m sensitive). She’s a casual editor but a passionate lover. I thank her also for allowing me to divulge parts of her life as well.

If nothing else, having written (admittedly somewhat lamely) at the end of The Sky Is Falling that I would continue the story, I am obliged to continue the

story! And so, whether egocentric, narcissistic, or not, by sharing with you events and thoughts that the ordinary man might keep private, I present to you the sequel.

Prologue To Book 2 Of The Sky Is Falling

An Ineligible Bachelor of Arts

If this part of what is now a single volume is to be considered a sequel to my previous book, then I must insert a transition from where the last book ended to where this one begins.

The first book followed my life with Asperger’s syndrome and anxiety disorders, and my related journeys and ordeals through the education system, up to my junior year in college. It appeared that my anxiety levels were lowered, though not completely

in check.

I was living “on my own” for the first time in my life. I put “on my own” in quotes for two reasons: because those words are, verbatim, the words others have used to describe my living arrangements, and because the truth of the words is a bit dubious. By dubious I mean that the words’ accuracy is in doubt because in one sense I was on my own, but in another I was about as dependent as I’d ever been.

I didn’t really have my own place; it was the university’s place that I was renting. I didn’t drive myself anywhere; I took the bus. I didn’t even have a job for much longer than a day. (But on the bright side, I didn’t have a job for much longer than a day.)

So I didn’t feel a sense of losing any independence when I tossed my deflated air

bed in the Dumpster, packed my bags, and

moved back into my mother’s place shortly after the book was written. I decided to take spring semester courses from home1 for numerous reasons. To name a few, Grandma was sick with complications from acromegaly and the resultant nerve damage. (Acromegaly is the product of excessive growth hormone caused by a tumor on the pituitary gland. An effect of increased growth hormone production is thickening bones, which put pressure on the nerves, causing nerve damage). My uncle had had a stroke on my birthday. And my mom was severely depressed and anxious.

I somehow felt I should be near my sickly family. I had an honest fear that my grandma would soon die. Though I’d been worried about her demise since she

initially became ill, it seems much more

1 For an overview of the town I call home, see the Appendix.

imminent now. (My mother and I consulted my psychiatrist about my worries about Grandma when she first became ill. I told the doctor that I was afraid that she would soon die. He said that was an understandable concern when a close family member was ill. I was also tormented by thoughts of my own death, but I kept that part from him.)

But above all, I was lonely, bored. .

. And I missed Nicole.

I first met Nicole through a mutual friend. She thought I was “hot,” but I think that’s because she thought I was a some sort of bad boy with the Mohawk I sported at that time. Plus I was actually in shape at that time before bitch tits replaced my pectorals. She was surprised to learn that I liked country music and was

a sensitive fellow.

She had been hospitalized (mental hospitals, to be clear) two or three times that fall semester as I was away at college. They diagnosed her with borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia (inherited from her dad, but I suspect that the borderline diagnosis is sufficient to account for her symptoms), and she was struggling with the stresses of her senior year of high school.

So I came back to Lenox to be near. Thanks to the wonders of the internet and distance education, I was able to remain a full-time student while taking classes from home. I arranged to have the high school counselor proctor my exams.

Meanwhile, I underwent a medication change that caused considerable drowsiness, so my studying was inhibited. Taking my

courses from a distance helped in that I

could sleep rather than attend lectures. All I had to do was load the lectures on my browser when I felt like it.

Because I had taken only one year of Spanish in high school (the high school Spanish teacher basically taught through a Spanish soap opera video series), I was required to take two semesters of a foreign language in college for my bachelor’s degree.

Latin was the only foreign language course being offered online that spring, so I registered.

But it was all Greek to me, and the drowsiness induced by my medications impeded my studying of the subject. As a consequence, the tests made me nervous, especially since the tests were proctored in a high school that was my equivalent to

hell.

Leading up to that spring semester, the devil visited me in my sleep. I had horrid nightmares of having my high school diploma revoked and being sent back to complete high school again.

And so it was that I was nervous as I

was about to take one of my Latin exams in the high school office area where I had cursed at the secretary my junior year and where I had had many conversations with the principal.

Then I noticed Nicole coming out of the nearby nurse’s station. She came over and, sobbing, hugged me.

She had cut herself and was being

hospitalized again.

Book 2 Of The Sky Is Falling:

Part 1

Summer 2009

[1]

Hobbies

Sometimes, when reflecting on myself as I was at a previous place in time, I wonder how I could have been so different; so stupid, or so misled, or so interested in something that provokes hardly the slightest passion or interest in me at present.

I suspect that the changes in my personality that I perceive in hindsight are, in large part, exaggerated with the passage of time, as memories are elastic entities, subject to change with age.

I am often turned off by memories that seem unrealistically clear or specific when I read memoirs. I find that I question the author’s honesty, the story’s authenticity.

While certainly some memories are etched into the mind with lasting lucidity

- as I found when writing my memoir, The Sky Is Falling, with some conversations, emotions, or events unmistakably vivid, it is more often beyond the normal mind’s (the mind of the savant excepted) capability to accurately, precisely match a distant, subjective memory with its corresponding event in the objective reality.

Lately has been an idle time for me. Summer classes ended some weeks ago, with fall classes still a few weeks away. I am pleased, for the most part, with how I have been occupying my abundance of free time, though sometimes I feel as though my life is stagnating when I have nothing terribly productive to do.

But other times, I recognize this free time as a luxury and on a day like today, as a chance to be productive out of my own devises, as in writing this here.

I have been occupying my time mostly through reading and engagement in cognitive reverie, though too little of my time has been spent on writing (until now). At one point, I might have said that my biceps were my best physical feature, but now I am more inclined to say that my mind is. Reading and the thoughts spurred by it, or whatever other stimuli, widen and deepen my awareness and understanding.

In short, I feel smarter, and by feeling smarter, I feel more human; a large cerebral cortex would be a terrible thing to waste.

My current intellectual interest was in contrast, perhaps starkly, with the hobbies of my teenage years. I think this has to do with my obsessive personality, one which switches obsessions every so often.

This brief excerpt from a blog I wrote in 2004 pretty much sums up my obsession with pro wrestling at the time:

I watched some more of the Mick Foley DVD. Mick Foley and Chris Benoit have taken up most of my day.

Mick Foley struck the nail on the head in his video when he said, "If you're watching this, you're probably a huge wrestling fan and you probably aren't dating much." Right on both counts.

Eh, I'd rather watch Mick Foley fall through tables and Chris Benoit chop the hell out of somebody than have a social life.

Early on, I loved the Ninja Turtles. Then Batman. Then the San Francisco 49ers football team. Then, for most of my young life, professional wrestling was at the forefront of my interests. I loved the characters and the theatrics.

Indeed, I always have thought that eccentric characters make the world a much more exciting place, if nothing else, and I find myself bored with lame people. Because of this, I have seen to it that I am a sort of character myself.

Recently, books have filled my several bookcases (and overfilled; I need more shelf space!) in my room2. It was not always this way; the shelves were previously occupied by my vast pro wrestling action figure collection. My grandparents are guilty of supporting this hobby. They bought me the plastic grapplers every weekend and for holidays and birthdays. Ebay and the Toys R Us and KB Toys clearance bins were great places to get cheap wrestling figures. See the Appendix for a letter I wrote about a rare book I chance find a whole heap of them for cheap.

I’ve always liked things old and cheap. I searched for the lowest priced wrestling figures and preferred the ones from the 1980s (when wrestling figures first hit the U.S. market). Having sold all my other figures, I have kept those older ones. Today, when I buy books, I scour used books stores and library discards.

Looking back just a few years, I question why I did not read nearly as much as I do now. After my high school years, I had only a handful of books. I did, however, subscribe to the wrestling magazines and did a fair amount of reading online.

I did have hobbies. As mentioned, I collected wrestling figures and the magazines. I would spend much time gazing at my action figure collection, viewing them not as mere toys, but works of art. My fascination with wrestling did not stop there. Obviously, I watched the TV shows. Religiously. I became frustrated--no, angry, if someone interrupted while I was watching the wrestling shows. I would go off the handle, spiraling into a full-force tantrum.

For a few of my teenage years, I was interesting in exercise and fitness. I read quite a bit on the topics of nutrition and bodybuilding. Around age five or six or so, I bought a pair of five-pound dumbbells at a yard sale.

I was always buying junk at yard sales, but the junk entertained. One example is that of the old baton and banged up marching band hat that I marched throughout the days in. I used the dumbbells to do the only exercise I - and I would imagine most kids of that age - was aware of, the bicep curl. When my older brother bought a weight bench when I was around 12, I expanded my still limited exercise repertoire to include, in addition to the biceps curls, bench press, hamstring curls, and leg extensions.

Luckily, it was not too much laterthat I finally attained an inkling of knowledge of human anatomy and physiology, recognizing excluding other exercises and thereby neglecting the other muscle groups was not entirely healthy.

When my knowledge increased through reading and information from my muscle- headed brothers a few years later, I was deeply into exercise and fitness. I was soon working out seriously and taking supplements.

My home gym started with my younger brother’s purchasing an impressive piece of equipment (which he soon neglected and essentially left in my possession) from Sam’s Club for Christmas. I extended the gym by purchasing various pieces, such as barbells, plates, and a large assortment of dumbbells.

We did not have room for all the equipment at my mother’s house, so my grandparents’ basement was transformed into what was dubbed Refer’s Gym. The gym has, unfortunately, been abandoned, due in large part to the basement’s tendency to flood. The weights have rusted and my belts and benches have become moldy.

Needless to say, the environment is no longer the best of places to work out, but at one time, Refer’s Gym was my

favorite place to be, my safe haven, and my sanctuary. Nothing compares to turning on some good country music and having an endorphin-inducing workout.

And nothing gets the endorphins in the system like working the legs or back heavily. I, however, took my leg and back workouts lightly most of the time; I had a fear of injuring my back on dead lifts or squats.

I think this fear was born out of the lower back pain I suffered as a child that did not cease until my mid-teens. But when Andy, my brother, was around, to avoid his teasing, I did the heavy lifts, and also when I wanted to put on some muscle mass more quickly.

Once while doing squats with around 330 pounds (about as much as I ever worked up to, and with admittedly limited range of motion), I heard a popping or some such sound in what I would guess was my C5 or T1, or somewhere around there, in my lower back or upper neck. I will haste over the background here and cover that part of it more thoroughly in my next passage (or chapter, should this turn into a book, as I hope it shall take such a form), but I became anxious that I had injured myself (though I felt fine). As I said above, there is more to the back story, which I hope to type about soon.

I certainly differ greatly than at the time I wrote the following piece in 2005:

On this section of my website, I will discuss my life philosophy. By philosophy, I mean a system of values by which I live. To any possible visitors of my site, you will probably not agree with my philosophy and you may deem me a "bad person" or a

"fucked up son of a bitch" or something else which carries a negative connotation to the general population. However, if I were to hear or read or otherwise learn of your philosophy, I would reciprocate the disagreement, but I would understand-- just as I hope you will understand of me-- that different people live different ways, and those (such as I) who differ from the norm have our right to live how we would like just as you have yours.

I've heard it from the school and others more times than I would have liked: "You need friends," "you need to have sex," "you need to have fun." These are exactly the things I stand against. Allow me to begin by first expressing myself on the friends topic.

Just so we're clear on the definition to which I am referring in this writing, a friend in this context is "a person whom one knows, likes, and trusts." (credit: dictionary.com). This is a difficult definition for anyone to match. Firstly, I must know a person for him or her to be my friend. But how well does anyone really know anyone? How many times have you heard on the news of the guy described by neighbors as a nice,

kind, polite, man who would never harm a soul brutally killing someone out of cold blood? Far too often. I believe it's a tough enough challenge to

simply know oneself to go through the trouble of getting to know another. Moreover, it is difficult to know people to any extent when you live a sheltered like as I do (I will cover the sheltered part later on.)

As for liking someone, it's difficult for me to like anyone due to their shitty personalities. Perhaps there is a cycle here, because one of the reasons that I may not like a person is due to him or her having friends, having sex, and having fun. Also, most people I've come across do not like me, making it difficult for me to like them.

Trusting someone was made difficult by the lies we are told in childhood. All too often children are lied to.

Fallacies such as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy take a big slice of a person's ability to trust another. If one cannot trust his own parents, how can he or she trust anyone else? Furthermore, Presidents who make fake wars on terror hurt the one's ability to trust. That's not all; lies are rampant in this society, even about little things such as saying you like a dress that really does not please your eye.

I stand firm against sex.

The most important reason that I do not like sex is that sex is responsible for all the world's problems. With no sex, there would be no people, and with no people, nobody would have any issues because nobody would exist. On a smaller scale, sex causes jealousy which fuels vengeance. Many horrible incidents have occurred as a result of a cheating husband or wife. My biggest reason for not having sex is that I echoed this same sentiment in an essay for my introductory psychology course a couple years later. I will include a copy of that essay in the Appendix. I simply do not need to. Why give a fish in a lake a glass of water?

And so it is down to fun. My view on fun is that fun drains time from a person's life. There's an old adage that goes, "Time flies when you're having fun." Instead, I prefer to be bored. This doesn't mean that I don't have any fun at all. I watch wrestling videos which are sources of enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure (aka fun). The kind of fun to which I refer is partying, drinking, smoking, and doing fun things of that sort.

I hope that now you have a better understanding of me and my ethics. Chances are that you think I'm a complete dumbass now, and that you probably didn't even finish reading

the page, which means you're not reading this, so why the hell am I typing it?

I now have much more faith in people, believe more in the art of socializing.

I am not quite so self-centered. Or maybe the better explanation is that I am less neurotic (though that’s certainly a questionable point). And as the chapter on Camping With Nicole will show, I no longer “stand firm against sex.”

One constant that stand out, though, is that I have always had one obsession or another. Often times, these obsessions lead to collecting some sort of items. This -- obsessive interests and collecting

-- is typical of Asperger’s syndrome.

Post script:

I mentioned to my brother Andy the other night that I don’t do much at all, but that Nicole (my girlfriend) and I had seen a movie that night. I have been seeing a lot of movies lately, I told him.

And I have. I never used to watch movies, not since I was addicted to Batman as a kid. As I used to explain, “There’s always a big problem that has to be overcome in the movie. It makes them too stressful to watch!” But now I quite like going out to movies.

This reminded Andy of when I first started liking music. I used to never listen to music and would get annoyed when Andy and Mike (my other brother) would play their CD players loudly. Sometimes the reason was that I was trying to read or draw or something of the sort. As I wrote in 2004:

I managed to get a little bit of Listen You Pencil Neck Geeks read with Mikey's music in the background. Screams of "F-CK YOU F-CK YOU WE'RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! F- CKING BITCH THE AIR RISES UP IN ME AND F-CK YOU!!!!!" and moaning of "I like it up my butt like that, baby, do me and lick my neck, my back, and my crack" aren't exactly my favorite kinds of music, and I have trouble reading with any noise at all. I need it almost absolutely silent to read. I need to be tested for ADD. [They were into some heavy music.]

Once, I charged at Andy, but my attack backfired as I wound up with a swollen lip and a brother who felt guilty.

At any rate, I now question how I lived without an MP3 player.

[2]

Dreams of Being Headless

Dreams are funny things. The mind seemingly lets loose whatever it may. Dreams don’t always make sense. Much of the time I cannot interpret my own dreams, even though they seemed to make perfect sense as I was dreaming them. At other times, however, the significance of my dreams comes into much plainer sight.

Allow me the latitude of outlining some dreams of mine which have recurred through my life. For a period during my adolescence when I was quite frustrated with happenings at school, I had frequent dreams of being cornered or attacked, often by school employees. The dreams were so horrible and paranoid, with everyone out to get me, that I began to recognize that such awful circumstances could not be truly happening.

So I developed the ability of lucid dreaming. I found that if I could realize that I was dreaming, I could then perform whatever feat I wanted to in the dream, or to change the dream in just about any way.

I began to fly away from the bad situations occurring in the dreams, or I would reverse the situation from my being the victim to being the aggressor. It was quite empowering. Since then, unfortunately, I seem to have lost the ability to lucidly dream.

But even when my lucid dreaming was at its strongest, I do not remember overcoming one particular obstacle in my dreams. A theme in my dreams, that continues to this day, is the inability to run against the wind. Try as I might, my dreaming self is stuck running in place. Sometimes there is no wind, but I just cannot run, though I would like very much to do so.

At other times, the same sort of dream manifests itself in a more violent form. I will be in a physical altercation - a fight

- but my punches and kicks will have no effect on my unfazed adversary. It leaves me with a feeling of the utmost weakness and impotence.

The dreams have more recently taken on an additional element. Rather than simply running against the wind, I will be caught up in a tornado as I struggle to make it home. I am often a mere block or so away from home when the wind captures me.

Clearly, these dreams reveal anxieties seated somewhere in my mind, at whatever depth. The most threatening of all my dreams, however, serves my hypochondria. In these dreams, my head becomes detached from my neck.

These dreams about my head and neck started quite a few years ago, though I cannot pinpoint exactly what age I was, so I will just estimate that they started in my early teens, though I recall somewhat similar dreams of my testicles being detachable from a very early age, perhaps five.

At any rate, I dream that my head severs from my body. In the earlier versions of these dreams, I didn’t think anything was unusual about it until later in the dreams, when suddenly I got a sickening feeling at my head being cradled in my arm. More recently, my reaction has been of being more quickly horrified.

I mention the “headless” dreams because they seem most certainly to be related to a conscious anxiety. I’ve always been worried about my neck to some extent. I mentioned more about this in The Sky Is Falling.

My neck anxieties became much worse shortly after I turned 20, so much so that the thought of injury to my neck became a phobia that occupied my thoughts for much of every day.

The anxieties about my neck extended to anxieties about my head; that my head was malleable and changing shape. I hesitate to type the following thought for public consumption, should I appear to have a thought disorder, but if I am to write about this topic, why not do so in full- disclosure?

That being said, there has been a time or two this year when I have looked in the mirror at myself and thought that my head did not look as though it belonged to me.

Of course, I knew that it was my head and it did look like me. It was kind of like Capgras syndrome or Cotard syndrome or some other sort of prosopagnosia. I have heard of people who see their parents as imitators and not their true parents, though they look identical. It was as if the same thing were happening to myself.

[3]

Camping With Nicole

I hate camping. I am not sure if I could tell you exactly why; maybe it’s because most of my camping experiences as a child were with my father, and I’ve never had a good relationship with him.

I could probably write a whole chapter by psychoanalyzing my relationship with daddy dearest, but if I do, it will not be this one.

Or maybe it’s because I don’t want to be stuck out in the elements with nothing but a tent for shelter.

I have enough fears of the weather anyways. This summer, spurred by my nightmares of severe weather, I’ve been on the lookout for tornadoes, sometimes seeing them begin in the innocent swirling of clouds.

My girlfriend, Nicole, and her family went camping a few weeks ago (as of this writing, in early August 2009). They knew I didn’t like to camp, but they were courteous enough to extend an invitation for me to go along anyways. I declined and opted instead to take care, in their absence, of their pets: a dog, Brandy; two cats, Max and Goober; and a fish.

Actually, there might have been two fish under my watch. I forgot to feed the fish on my first night of house sitting. When I went to feed the fish the next morning, I discovered one of them deceased, its fins having been eaten away at by the other.

I hope that I am not to blame for the fish’s death -- how hungry could the other have been from missing only one meal?

Death is something that we all must face at different points in our lives, and I did so in the case of Nicole’s fish’s demise, without regret or remorse, as I carried on with my house-sitting duties.

Brandy, the dog, and I had a grand time together, as we always do whenever I have the responsibility of looking after her when Nicole is gone. We played ball, napped, and went on several walks together. I’ve house-sat for Nicole on various occasions, and Brandy and I always go on more walks than she (Brandy) would normally enjoy, lest we grow bored without our beloved Nicole!

For this reason, Brandy tends to associate me with walks. Whenever I visit, Brandy jumps up and down and yelps at me to take her for a walk.

When Nicole doubted that I could teach Brandy, who is several years’ old, new tricks, one of the few I did successfully teach her was the “shaking hands” trick. Brandy now tries to get a walk out of me by shaking my hand, as will appease me into it.

She reminds me a lot of my now deceased dog, Barry. She’s not a cocker spaniel like him; rather, she is some sort of mix. Nicole claims she is part bull terrier and part cocker. Regardless, she bears a striking resemblance to Barry, at least to my eyes.

Barry and I went for a lot of summer walks in his six short years. Six years

seems an untimely death, even for a dog. I fear I may be at some fault for his apparent heart attack for having taken him on long walks in the summer heat. Or perhaps this is just the guilt people commonly put on themselves for the death of a loved one, albeit a pet.

Brandy and I were surprised by Nicole’s early return after just about a day. She had to bring her brother home so that he could make a doctor’s appointment, so she extended yet another invitation for me to come camping with them.

Since they were going to be gone for only the weekend and had already been gone a day, I would only have to spend one day camping with them. That didn’t sound too bad -- how much suffering could one day of camping impose upon me, even if I don’t like to camp? Besides, I might even find myself liking it.

It seems that things I dread are always worse in how I imagine they will be than how they actually end up.

I accepted the invite, and Brandy and I loaded into the car for our camping trip. If Brandy gets excited about walks, she gets just as, or even more, excited about car rides.

I find it fascinating how dogs can recognize words and show emotion responses to those words. “Bedtime” brings the Brandy into reluctant acquiescence; “bath” causes her to sink her head into submission; but “car ride” and “outside” or “walk” bring her into frantic excitement.

So it was for our trip to the campground, the dog being a ball of energy, all over the car. Nicole and I weren’t too pleased with her excitement. For one, it’s annoying to have a dog barking her high- pitched bark of excitement and to be clamoring all over you to look out different windows. Secondly, she has claws. Claws mean bad news for the interior of Nicole’s brand new car.

Nonetheless, we arrived safely at the campground, the only damage being a scratch on the inside of the passenger-side door. Once there, we found Nicole’s dad sleeping, then Nicole got to work on the laptop, typing up a research paper for her summer class.

She gets very passionate about her schoolwork, and somehow this led to an argument between the two of us. She threw something or another. I was sure her dad would wake up, but he didn’t stir.

Like I mentioned, I don’t like camping. It’s even worse when we’re not even doing “camping stuff,” but Nicole thought that the camping environment, with the birds chirping and the raccoons and the trees and the bugs and whatnot, would be conducive to her writing.

Eventually, we did do “camping stuff,” like grilling and starting a campfire, as well as fishing. Being the law-biding citizen that I am, I knew I had better buy a fishing license before fishing, so we went to the marina to obtain one.

The clerk there asked for my driver’s license. They always do that. I’ve been asked for my driver’s license at Sam’s Club, movie rental places, or anywhere else that photo identification is required.

I’m not a licensed driver, so this question bugs me. I didn’t think you had to be able to drive to fish, shop, or rent a movie! Luckily, they accepted my state ID, and I know that “driver’s license” is somehow shorthand for ID, even if I find it much easier and faster to say “ID” -- Two syllables versus four.

I’m not even completely comfortable using my state ID. The courthouse made a typo and spelled my first name without the ‘t’, so I am Dusin (as opposed to Dustin) Hartley on my ID. I might be a little too paranoid in fearing someone will think that I have a phony ID.

When I was getting my school ID, I thought I saw the Dusin typo replicated, so I quickly butted in, “Don’t forget about the ‘t’! They misspelled it at the courthouse!”

“I got it. I spelled it as you wrote on your application.”

I need not have worried!

Plus the top of my ID is bent from

having sat on it with it in my pocket.

At any rate, though our fishing expedition was unsuccessful, I began to enjoy the trip. Even Brandy got some excitement out of chasing a raccoon away from the campsite.

Nicole and I went on a late night hike through the wooded area, where we found several interesting bugs, unique to anything I’ve ever seen before. We also saw a cute tree mouse scurrying along the branches.

Grant me a brief correction of the preceding paragraph. Nicole and I were not “going on a hike.” We were going to perform sexual activities out in the wooded area.

To do this, we had to find both a flat spot for the blanket and a spot that would be out of sight of any of the other campers, particularly her dad and brother.

We didn’t get very far before the unusual bugs and the fear of being caught caused us both to reconsider and head back to camp.

Perhaps the most interesting of creatures we discovered was a spider with sorts of spikes on its hindquarters that resembled something found on Bowser from the Mario Bros. video games. Hence, Nicole dubbed it the “Bowser spider.” (I later learned that the scientific name of the “Bowser spider” is Micrathena gracilis.)

My enjoying the camping trip made me regret dreading it in the first place. I felt guilty because of this, and because of the bugs and other creatures. The animals, you see, made me see the trip for the scientific or artistic outing that it could have been.

I should have brought a sketch pad to draw the creatures. It would have brought out the naturalist in me. I’m sure, the naturalist, is in there somewhere; at the very least, I like reading about such old school biologists.

Regardless of my hesitations about going into the camping trip, and despite chickening out on sex in the woods, and in spite of the fears I felt all night about the bugs crawling into our private parts, or of getting parasites from swimming in the lake water, despite all this -- I felt glad on the way home; glad to be headed home and glad to have Nicole and Brandy (with her nose smudging the car window) in my life.

[4]

Obsessive Thoughts

As I write this, I am back at college. The fall semester has begun, and it seems that I have already made a new friend, though the semester has barely gotten underway.

I am not normally a gregarious person.

I am very much not friendly. However, it sometimes feels good to put on an amiable face, and sometimes I do just that. Especially around females.

For whatever reason, I don’t like to talk to guys. I find them offsetting in some way, perhaps by way of being intimidated by them.

Psychoanalysts might have a good time delving into my unconscious to discover the reason for this.

Regardless, most of my friends are females, as I find them easier to approach and to talk to. I initiated conversation with a young lady at the bus stop recently. I saw that she was wearing a Southwestern Community College t-shirt.

Having graduated from there myself, I had a very pleasant conversation with this young lady who shared my alma mater. I showed much interest in her and spoke in a generally amicable and sociable fashion, displaying social skills that I am supposed not to possess.

We engaged in small talk each time we met at the bus stop for the next several days, and she grew to see my face as a welcome sight, happily greeting me and asking how I was. But I can’t help but wonder what she thought after we got on the bus, for I started frantically checking my pockets to make sure everything -- cell phone, wallet, ID, keys -- were in place.

I must have looked like a freak, but a freak I have been lately, as some obsession and compulsions have arisen. I compulsively check my pockets, I can’t read if my shoes are on the wrong spot on the floor or if the PlayStation controllers are not put away, things have to be generally straight, etc.

The obsessive-compulsive symptoms aren’t new, really. They’ve just reappeared, even though my anxiety seems to be much better managed with my current medication.

When I was a child, I was afraid of God, especially so because I couldn’t help but curse him out in my head. Fearing God as I did, I was afraid to say curse words; even more, I was afraid to even think of curse words. While I managed to abstain from speaking any curse words aloud, I could not resist thinking them. Indeed, I thought them in an obsessive manner. It was as if trying not to think of cursing God made me do so more.

I also had to have “tactile symmetry”: When I would by chance touch the corner of a desk with my left wrist, for example, I would have to touch the same corner of the desk with my opposite wrist. If I didn't touch it quite right, I would have to repeat the exercise. I find myself doing this more often as of late.

The “symmetry” mentioned above contrasts, I suppose, with a certain asymmetrical obsession that I had. Namely, for a while (thankfully a very brief while) I took only left turns. Don’t ask, because I don’t have a satisfying answer.

When watching TV, I would make a strange consonant sound, a kind of guttural grunt if you will, to match every syllable spoken on screen. My older brother found this quite annoying and maybe a little amusing. Even today, if flipping from say channel 24 to channel 21, I will first flip down to channel 20 and then up to channel

21, as I have to go up one channel before I stop flipping.

Another stupid little thing I do that I have to make the last shot when shooting hoops before leaving. I used to have some sort of deal where I’d think to myself, “Ok, I must make this last shot or else I’ll die.” But I am such a bad shot that often I just gave up and hoped for the best. I’m still alive.

The TV lulls me to sleep on most nights. I must have a show on, preferably a boring movie, in order to sleep, as otherwise I have racing, bothersome thoughts that keep me awake, so the TV serves to distract me from those thoughts. Pity my girlfriend who must sleep alone in bed on those nights when I opt to sleep on the couch in front of the TV.

Part 2

Fall 2009

[5]

Test Anxiety

I had been feeling rather anxious on the day that I write this chapter, but half a milligram of alprazolam has since taken effect.

I must admit that I feel quite good right about now (though a bit hot; I thought the temperature was colder this morning, and perhaps it was,. But it could also have been that from being nervous, I was shivering and confused that shivering for being cold.).

I know that drugs are not the answer to all of life’s ills, but they do certainly often help, so thank goodness for alprazolam.

And congratulations to me for needing to take only .5 mg to 1 mg per day, as opposed to the 1.5 mg to 2 mg prescribed. I thank another drug, Lexapro, in part, for this, as my anxieties have been greatly diminished since I’ve started taking it.

It’s funny how different anti- depressants affect a person quite differently, though the drugs are supposed to do pretty much the same thing. Maybe the difference in target sits accounts for the differences in effect, but Zoloft made me too drowsy; Effexor, too energetic; Celexa worked quite well for a number of years, though with some drowsiness, but wore off after many years of service to my synapses; Cymbalta I was scared to take after a pharmacy technician told me that it would give me the same side effects as speedy Effexor; Zoloft and Celexa both gave me the dreaded and terribly discomforting “brain zaps.” But tell Goldilocks that Lexapro works just right.

Lexapro and alprazolam are very good substances, I firmly believe. It’s a shame, however, that sometimes drugs are abused, and when abused, kill. Such was the case with Michael Jackson.

The shock of his death has just recently worn off for me. I was never a huge fan of most of his music, but I was a fan of his incredible showmanship. More than anything, however, I saw him as a role model of sorts.

Not that I condone dangling babies from balconies or facial mutilation. Rather, I felt a tinge of his emotional anguish and admired his vision of love and peace for the world.

Furthermore, he was bullied by family and the media, somewhat analogous to the torment I endured throughout elementary and high school.

Why have I been nervous today? One might justifiably guess that it’s due to the car accident I was involved in two days ago.

No, it was not a glass-shattering, tire-squealing, gory, gruesome sort of affair. But there were squealing tires as the 77-year-old lady rear-ended my girlfriend’s car.

Nicole (my girlfriend?) and I (the passenger) were stopped at a red light in Nicole’s brand new car when the old lady, looking at directions to the auto body shop (of all places) wrecked into our beautiful G3. My head snapped back upon impact, which is not good in consideration of my history of hypochondria concerning my neck.

Surprisingly, I did not have a serious panic attack about a possible neck injury following the incident. Actually, my neck feels great. I credit the pills for preventing that panic attack.

The answer, it seems, is that my upcoming library orientation exam is the cause of my anxiety today. It’s a required, half-credit course over things I should already know. I need to score only

30 out of 50 multiple choice questions to pass.

If I fail, then I have serious, serious issues.

Post script:

I do not have the serious, serious issues that would have caused me to flunk the library test. I got 86% correct, well above the 60% needed.

I suppose the problem behind the nervousness was a fear of embarrassment, for it would have been incredibly

embarrassing, and my self-esteem would hit rock bottom, to have flunked such an easy test.

Sometimes our anxieties arise from a fear of losing part of our self-concepts; I saw myself as capable of easily passing this exam, but had I not, I would have viewed myself differently.

But now that class is behind me, and I shall never have to take it again!

***

As an additional post-script comment, let me state that I had gotten into my head idea that having been rear-ended had maybe snapped my neck back into place. I’m not too sure how seriously I actually took this thought, but I did entertain it.

My brother Andy complimented the range of motion that I presently have in my neck, so there has certainly been much improvement since the days when I was too fearful to even attempt to turn my head very far to either side.

Upon further consideration, however, I recall an episode a week or so before the accident that provides a more plausible and more satisfying explanation. I decided to walk to class on that particular morning, as I often do, and being the cautious being that I am, I took care to check for cars as I crossed the street. Turning my head to look to my right, I felt a stretch in the left part of my neck and around the left trapezium area.

A hot sensation followed the stretch, which elicited a degree of alarm in me, so over panicked can I become. I frantically dialed the number of my brother Mikey. No answer. I hurriedly called Andy. No answer. I tried my mother. Still no one answered.

I considered calling Nicole, but she is getting quite fed up with my worries over my health, and she was in class besides, so I decided to soldier on, and even tried calming myself with positive self-talk. “You’re OK, don’t overreact,” I told myself.

Still, I felt nervous, thinking that perhaps I had damaged a muscle in my neck or some injury of the sort. On my way to class, a girl smiled at me and said hello. From then on throughout the day, I my neck gave me no complaints.

I suppose a smile at the right moment can do quite a bit of good.

Additionally, we got a free rental car while the other is in for repairs. Unbeknownst to me, we were supposed to get a temporary parking permit for the rental to park at our apartment. Andy said they wouldn’t check for permits anyways, so we almost didn’t even get the permanent parking permit when we moved in.

We found out that we did need a temporary permit when Nicole, driving through the parking lot on our way to Wal- Mart, noticed a slip of paper under her windshield wiper. This slip of paper was, of course, a citation.

[6]

Hasty Judgment

I sometimes make hasty, inaccurate judgments. Blame my tempter, but I confess to misjudging one of my instructors in

this, my first semester of my senior year.

Fear not, my readers who may have read The Sky Is Falling; I do not have the senior year neurosis that plagued me my senior year of high school. No, I actually am enjoying school and life in general at this point.

Still, I sometimes err in judging others. I will use a piece I wrote immediately after the episode in question to relay this story of this chapter.

I am going to write this as briefly as I can, which may be reflected in the quality of this writing. But I want

to get it written without exhausting

myself with excruciating detail.

The case is as follows. In Phil

201 yesterday, we discussed Aquinas's Second Way to God argument. One of the conclusions contained therein was that there must be a final cause, based on premises including that all effects have causes.

I shared that I did not agree with this statement. Though I am by no means a scholar of physics, I explained, but it's said in quantum mechanics that not all effects have causes, which destroys Aquinas's argument.

My instructor disagreed, stating that to say that not all effects require causes is a contradiction. I wondered aloud how Aquinas could be so certain, and expect us to be so certain also, without his giving us evidence.

By suggesting that Aquinas should give us evidence, I meant that I was not convinced that things are as Aquinas says simply because Aquinas says so. I acknowledge that for our day-to-day lives, the model of all effects requiring causes is an excellent one. Indeed, it's probably the one model that works for things on the scale of what we deal with in ordinary life.

But Aquinas was not speaking of the mundane. He was speaking of the beginning of all things, about the very first cause, the final cause. What is a useful model for our daily lives on the scale of things we deal with is not necessarily -- and I am inclined to say is necessarily NOT -- a sufficient model for the origins of the universe.

But I failed to convince my instructor. I cannot blame him too much, because the human mind did not evolve to deal with problems on very large or very small scales.

Knowledge of the behavior of the subunits of protons and electrons would not have helped our ancestors to survive and reproduce; the behavior of things directly observable, such as a predator or a falling rock for instance, would have been infinitely more pertinent.

So I do not blame him entirely, but he is at fault for being narrow- minded and repudiating ideas that, when suggested to him, do not fit with his day-to-day reality.

As it turns out after having been in this class for several weeks thereafter, the philosophy professor is actually very intelligent and open-minded (as philosophers tend to be, come to think of it).

Additionally, I had no place making assertions about things I really know nothing about (i.e. quantum mechanics; I gather only the little bits of information that my feeble mind can grasp).

My biggest concern was that the teacher was going to try to convince us of God’s existence. Of course, that is by no means his true intention, but we atheists have to be on the defensive in this culture, especially considering the Christian leanings of a sociology instructor I had last year.

The criticism I copied above is indicative of a larger personality problem that I have. There was a time when I thought there was nothing wrong with me, that I had no personality defects. Any fault found in me was really a fault with the fault-finder; I was not the problem, other people were.

With age comes wisdom and humility, and now I have a more centered view of myself in relation to other people. But as my girlfriend pointed out to me last night, I have a (not entirely desirable or attractive) tendency to prejudge others.

Her reason for pointing this out to me concerns a minor incident at a McDonald’s in the local Wal-Mart. (Two corporate giants in one location, where the fat shoppers can feed their oversized selves with excessive calories after the exertive labor of shopping. Well, wouldn’t you know? I just harshly judged others for no good reason!).

I get into irritable moods anyways,and I couldn’t think of what exactly I should get in the groceries. I did manage to finish shopping, but I was left with a hankering for some fast food.

As I was eating my McChicken and small fries that I shelled out $2.14 to enjoy, Nicole decided that she wanted coffee.

She waited patiently in line behind a very rude customer who, along with other abrasive ways of socializing, demanded apple pies, though the server told him that they were out, this being about 8 or 9 PM.

Nicole and I exchanged looks that meant we both thought this guy was a jerk, but I mostly fixated my eyes on the guy’s wife who was sitting in a booth across from me. She looked rather overweight (but the same can be said of me at this time) and was playing with her ugly baby.

I quickly came to presume that she was one of those girls who had a child just to take pictures of to put on Facebook. I saw her as the type of girl, often with few material (or intellectual, for that matter) resources to speak of, who prefers to see the child as a play thing, a doll, an accessory, rather than a human life.

Then again, maybe I just misjudge those women.

[7]

Panic Relapse

Nicole is guilty. She is guilty of rewarding my bad behavior. I don’t know if I’m entirely at fault, because the bad behavior was a manifestation of my panic disorder; it being called a disorder, how can I to be blamed? On the other hand, I threw a fit, and what’s a rose by another name?

In a previous chapter I wrote about my bad dreams. I used to have dreams in which I’d run too far or something (the situation in the dream was never too clear, but the emotions were overwhelming). I would wake up with an overwhelming sense of dread, guilt, and that I had done something so horrible that I could not atone for it. In short, I felt panicked.

I would wake Mom up in hopes that she could help me feel better, though I couldn’t adequately explain my night terrors to her. The room seemed too big and I felt I’d gone “over the edge.” It was the most terrifying feeling, a feeling which my words cannot do justice to.

This same feeling of panic or terror returned a few nights ago. Though there was a quantitative difference, the feeling’s quality was very much the same.

I had been feeling hyper on that night. As Nicole was lying down on the couch to sleep early, I teased her by teasingly pulling the blanket off of her. She responded in a surprised voice that relayed anger or at the very least annoyance.

I suppose that was the impetus for triggering my feeling of guilt. One thing led to another, and I was soon in a full-fledged panic. I flipped out about my inability to drive and my bleak job prospects, and claimed that my penis was too small and that I could feel so little pleasure when wearing a condom that I was going to cut my penis off, and cried about how much better than I my brother was.

I suppose that several factors contributed to this panic attack. For one, as I mentioned on a previous page, I haven’t been taking my alprazolam as often as prescribed. I had been doing quite well without it, but perhaps it is now time to resume taking the prescribed dosage.

This has happened before when I have neglected to take it as often as prescribed. One day, Mom picked me up from college as I was spazzing out about my health. I was sure I was going to die.

Mother is good at reading me and my guilt.

She told me flatly, “I know you haven’t been taking your medication like you’re supposed to.” This is but one example.

My social psychology course has been stressing me. I am often tired at the time of day that the lecture is scheduled for, and to no help of my fatigue is that the lecturer is simultaneously boring and exhaustive to listen to. I am furthermore irritated by the tone of her voice.

Therefore, I have not attended any of the lectures leading up to the unit 2 test and have thus been stressed that my non- attendance may have a negative consequence on my test performance. This, needless to say, has raised my anxiety levels.

Furthermore, I have been stressed daily and chronically by my grandmother’s acromegaly (she has extensive nerve damage

from this pituitary disease that went misdiagnosed by doctors long after I had mentioned that she appeared to be suffering from it) and by my mother’s depression.

When I talk to my mother on the phone, she’s not the same woman I talked to a couple years ago. She doesn’t even have the energy to argue with me, which is one of our pastimes. Grandma isn’t herself anymore either, leaving me sometimes nostalgic for days such as I wrote about in

2004 and that I copy below:

As is tradition with my family, we went Christmas shopping right after Thanksgiving, this year on Saturday. We, the kids, get a bunch of money to spend on ourselves, so that's a good part of the shopping experience; however, it's very stressful to shop with my family. For one, Mom likes to eat AFTER we shop, making us wait 8 hours before we eat. Another thing is that I don't have the patience to wait for other people to look at what they want to look at.

So we loaded up the cars and headed up to the big city of Des Moines, got there with minimum

fighting (something's wrong here!), picked up Andy and his girlfriend, and then were off to Jordan Creek Town Center. After a little difficulty finding it, we finally arrived at the big ol' mall, the grandest shopping center in all the state of Iowa. My first stop was FYE where I picked up some wrestling DVDs. I bickered with Mom a little bit because the stress

was already getting to both of us, and

then my next stop was Barnes and Noble, where I picked up Ric Flair's book and Freddie Blassie's book. The guy at the checkout chatted a little bit about Ric Flair. Wooo!

Then we hopped in the cars and drove over to Best Buy where I found a couple more DVDs that I bought. I already had Blood Bath on VHS, but I NEEDED it on DVD because of the extra matches. I also checked out the digital camera but passed on those, which turned out to be a good thing.

Next we went to Merle Hay Mall. Andy, his girlfriend, and I went to

the food court and got a little bit of food from McDonald's, just enough to keep our hunger down a little. While waiting for our food. Andy’s girlfriend stuck a straw in my ear, which prompted Andy to stick one in my other ear, my nostrils, and two in my mouth. I saw a pretty girl, so I walked up to her and said, "Hey. I have a lot of straws. Do you like a guy with a lot of straws?" She said, "No," and then her mom or some other woman said, "Do you know him?" Some other lady said to Andy, "We have one like him in our family too. [I can't remember what she said here]. . . but he's normal." Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. I kept the straws in my pocket to hand out to whoever looked deserving to have something that was actually in my face.

We spotted a dude dancing outside of Aeropostale, and then I found a chick that should have a straw. I said to her, "Hey, would you like a straw? It will be worth a lot of money someday when I'm famous because it was actually in my face." The energetic gal declined. Andy couldn't help but wonder what they give their employees at Aeropostale to make them so energetic. Probably some type of ecstasy. Just kidding. It's not cool being accused of being on drugs. Mikey and I know. Haha.

On my way to the bathroom, I asked another girl if she wanted one of my someday-valuable-because-it's- been-in-my-face straws, and she said, "No. . ." like a snothead.

We looked around the mall a little while, and then it was off to Gordman's, my least favorite store of all time. There's just something about it that I hate, but I also found something about it that I love: cookies! Low-carb, high-protein cookies, 99 cent cookies! I think that we have Dr. Atkins to thank for this, so thank you, Dr. Atkins! May your carbohydrate-deprived body rest in peace. Andyway, (that's not a typo; it's supposed to say "andyway" [a pun, you know]) we wrote Jay Taylor's phone number on the chalkboard thing they sell, and I wrote my e-mail address on the other, but no one e-mailed me or added me to their MSN messenger contacts. It was probably just more snobs who saw it. So, I came out of Gordman's alive and happy thanks to

the cookie. (I gave the other one to Andy. Thank goodness he survived, as the package said the cookies had been made in a kitchen that also handles peanuts and milk, both of which he is allergic to.)

Finally it was time for a real meal at Old Country Buffet. It was a good meal. Not even Mikey's bare ass made me lose my appetite. We even managed to get Madison off Andy’s girlfriend’s tail. I only ate a plate of food before being full. After my meal, I went to the restroom to find feces in the toilet. You see, I always go to the toilets instead of the urinals, because I like my privacy when I piss. You take the risk of seeing shit whenever you do that.

Wal-Mart was the final stop. I got the Andre The Giant/Jake "The Snake" Roberts/Big John Studd 3-pack, and I ripped it open at home, even though it's limited to 10,000.

I had a full day of classes – minus the social psychology class, which as I said I’ve been skipping – the day after my

tantrum. I was eager to finish up a book I had been reading for a couple days, so I went into the closet where I’ve been storing the books on my reading list (I do not have a bookcase in the apartment) to retrieve the book.

Upon getting my book, I saw a book that I had desired ever since it came out almost three years previously. I marched into the living room where Nicole was studying, put my hands on my hips with a smile breaking through my feigned scowl, and demanded of Nicole why she had bought me the book.

“I wanted to make you feel better,” she replied sweetly.

So Nicole is guilty of potentially reinforcing my negative behavior.

[8]

Dog Fighting

The first snow of the season was expected yesterday. I should hardly say “of the season” as it’s still only early October, but the weather has been known to be erratic in Iowa.

Nicole and I, in the face of the forecasted snow showers, trekked by foot to the library on the university’s campus. She intended to find an article for an assignment, though I told her that she should retrieve an article from the library’s Web site instead, as that would make the browsing much easier and faster.

She insisted on going to the physical library, and I figured walking there would be a good bit of exercise which could then be rewarded with coffee or cappuccino at the library’s café. (Why do they allow coffee at bookstores and library’s? My mother once spilled a cup of coffee on a textbook I left in her car, and I certainly was not happy.)

Through the chill of the wind (we could have taken the bus, but my lack of patience would not permit waiting 20 minutes for the next bus), we made our way to the information-filled edifice.

As I suspected, browsing the innumerable periodicals contained therein proved to be overwhelming, and she ended up more swiftly locating an article through EBSCO.

This was followed by our browsing the general collection, which sets a bibliophile like me at awe. We commenced a competition of searching for the oldest book we could find. I followed behind Nicole up and down the book-lined aisles, so naturally she had the first look at most books and won the competition. She was the first to find some books from the 1850s and 1830s.

I scolded her for opening the cover of one of them too wide. “That book is old! Be gentle with it!”

That comment soon afterwards made a hypocrite of me. Nicole was attempting to pull a 19th century volume from the tightly- packed shelves. I told her that pulling the book from the top of the spine was the improper technique, and so I proceeded to demonstrate the proper way, which is to push the two adjacent books back and pull the targeted book out by the middle.

The books were so tightly crammed together, however, that I could push the two adjoining books back only so slightly and so ended up a bit roughly pulling on the spine of the antiquarian tome. I don’t think that I caused any actual damage, but I still felt guilty and awkwardly apologized to Nicole.

Having satisfactorily concluded our old-book searching game (discounting my guilt over the rough handling of the aforementioned book), we ordered two cappuccinos.

The price for the two brewed beverages was negligible at only about $5. But we had eaten Chinese the night before. And I had bought a couple used books the day before that. And I have a limited income and need to make sure I have enough money for summer classes so that I can graduate on schedule. And so a little purchase caused undo anxiety.

The anxiety induced by buying the cappuccinos was done no favors by Nicole’s suggestion that we move into another apartment.

The apartments we currently inhabit, owned by the university, do not allow pets. The consequence of this rule is that Nicole is not allowed to have her dog, Brandy.

Nicole adopted Brandy from a Humane

Society shelter a few years ago, though a few years are quite a few in so-called “dog years.”

As Nicole tells the story, her mom took her to find a pet. While all the other pups were barking and yelping for attention, Brandy was huddled and shaking in the corner.

The reader was introduced to Brandy in a previous chapter, and from that chapter he or she should have been made aware that I have a certain affinity for that dog. Nah, there is too much reservation in stating it that way; I love Brandy Dog. That’s on the one hand. . .

On the other hand, I am comfortable in this apartment, and I certainly do not like moving. I suspect the reader will agree that it’s a hassle. And no matter how much I love the dog, I have great difficulty finding love for her shedding and bodily excrements.

The rent and cable are another issue. The prices of both would be higher in the apartment Nicole wants to move into.

I should not fret over the price of two cappuccinos and a Chinese dinner, but an increase in rent might warrant the reticence.

So Nicole and I have been bickering over whether or not to move, but as of yet, it is not a case of “me or the dog.”

[9]

Thank You, Father

I am afraid that I may have been a little too harsh on my father in The Sky Is Falling. No, it’s only been about one second since I typed that statement, but I already retract it. I was honest and (pretty) fair in what I wrote about him. But what I’m trying to say is that I have to give credit where credit is due.

I’ve been having dreams about Dad. In these dreams, I am usually spending the night at his house. I refer to him as “Father” and “Dad”, but maybe “contributor of my Y chromosome” would be the best title for him. This is not meant as a defamatory remark; it simply seems more accurate in consideration of the nature of our relationship. Actually, I think I'm finally building a healthy relationship with him!

So, I dream that I spend the night at his house; sometimes we reconcile, sometimes we fight. Sometimes I get up the courage to tell him how I really feel. The dreams are like memories meshed with fantasy and fears.

Dad, when I asked him for assist me in finding a job a few years ago, was right in stating that I have no skills. This was shown when I couldn’t even perform at my work-study job, which I discussed in my previous book.

I am definitely slow to catch on; I didn’t learn to tie my shoes until I was about 8 or 9, and just recently did I learn to unhook a bra.

I have always been interested in relationships with females. I tend to get along with them much better than with males, whom I am quite reluctant to interact with, and when I do interact with them, I feel uncomfortable. Perhaps this has something to do with growing up with my mother’s being a single parent, but I find females much easier to engage in conversation, to turn to for support, and to interact with in general.

While it is certainly not unusual for males to be interested in females, girls have been my only friends since a very young age; and, no, I did not turn out homosexual, so my interest in females has extended to the romantic domain.

So it is no wonder that I am partial to my mother. After all, the court awarded her primary custody, so I grew up under her parenthood.

Since I have an aversion to men and an affinity towards women, I feel lucky to

have been raised solely by her.

But as evolution has adapted species to the environment and not vice versa, maybe I am like this because of how I was raised.

All this is not to say that my mother and I always have gotten along perfectly. No, consideration of Mom’s making us wait until after a long day of shopping to eat (as mentioned above) and as this letter (composed in 2006) to Dr. Phil show, our relationship quality has sometimes been quite to the contrary of perfect:

Dear Dr. Phil,

I have an issue with my mother. She is under the impression that I am constantly complaining or correcting her. I believe this is a fault of

hers, not mine. It seems that any

comment I make, no matter what the intended connotation, she interprets as a negative remark or criticism. Sometimes she even believes I'm complaining when I am not. For example, I may say that my toast is buttery. She doesn't take into consideration that I may like it that way before telling me to stop my complaining.

It seems to me that she may become so defensive because she's insecure, possibly because of her past relationship with my father (from whom she's divorced). My reason for

assuming this is her repetitive use of the remark, "If I wanted to hear this, I would have stayed married to your dad!" I've heard stories of how mean and insulting he could be. But I'm

just speculating that this could be

the reason, as I'm certainly no doctor.

We've had communication problems such as these for about as long as I can remember. In fact, they caused us a great deal of conflict when I was younger. The junior high years can be tough for anyone--with raging hormones and stress of school (and believe me, school caused me way more stress than was necessary)--but it's even more difficult when speaking with your mother is futile. I would say

something that--at least in my mind-- seemed perfectly logical. Then my mother would respond with comments such as, "You're talking off the wall!" I once got frustrated to the

point of destroying her flowers, which

I admit, in hindsight, was wrong. Perhaps making communication more difficult is my diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, though I sometimes secretly question the validity of such a diagnosis.

Dr. Phil, how do you suggest I resolve this situation?

Sincerely, Dustin Hartley

I never did get a response from Dr. Phil, much less make it onto his show. I didn’t need his unlicensed pop psychology anyways. I’ve been known to get angry with licensed social workers for their not being psychologists (I guess I have a social science bias), but a social worker is better than a quack pop doc.

Besides, Mom has taken me to plenty of real doctors, namely psychiatrists. Whether my need for these psychiatrists is her fault or not is an issue I will not pursue here except in the context of heredity. Mom and Dad probably passed on their genetic predispositions to mental issues to me.

Take my mother first of all. She’s always been of an anxious predisposition, even suffering from terrible shaking spells as a child. She more recently spiraled into a deep depression.

The circumstances surrounding the loss of the job she held for a decade are certainly major factors. To make a long story short, a local police officer started a rumor that my mother, a medication aide, was stealing medications from work. Mom’s coworkers and boss provided little support, and she became paranoid about losing her job. So she overreacted and quit.

And then there was that insane great- great-great (I don’t know how many greats there should be in there) uncle on her side of the family in the 1800s who was locked into a room by his family and fed by having food slid under the door.

She’s always had a tendency to become too worried about my health when I have a minor illness. I gave an example of this in The Sky Is Falling, that example being the time she took me to the ER for a sore throat. On the day of my writing this chapter and the day before, she has been calling me incessantly.

I made the mistake of telling her that I wasn’t feeling well. My throat is sore and broken out in blisters, and I’ve had a few body aches, mucus drainage, and a slight cough. My telling her about these symptoms has made her fear that I have the H1N1 “swine” flu.

I was planning on paying a visit to her in Lenox this weekend, but she will not let me come down in the case that I do have the swine flu, which she seems to think is incredibly deadly. I’ve heard that it’s no worse than the seasonal flu, but Mom is afraid of even getting the vaccination lest she somehow gets the flu from the shot.

I will pass the swine flu onto Mom, she says, and she will pass it onto Grandma, who will die of the flu because of her weakened immune system.

(In fairness to Mom, she did have one good reason to be concerned about whether I had the flu or not. We were both terribly sick in April, she with pneumonia, and I with the flu. I wound up receiving Nubain, Vistiral, and three liters of fluid in the Emergency Room. April. . . come to think of it, wasn’t this about the time people starting talking about swine flu?)

When I asked my mom if maybe my throat was sore because I performed cunnilingus on Nicole, she said that was ridiculous.

I’ve tried to make a doctor’s appointment to, if nothing else, making sure that it’s not something that will send my grandma to her grave, but there are no openings at the clinics around here. But I feel pretty much well now anyways.

My dad, for his part, has had serious anger issues; he and Mom have told me about various violent acts on his part.

I hardly ever see him anymore, but he’s really not so bad these days. When I was a kid, I hated to visit his house, and I shared in my other book about how I still feel uncomfortable in his presence.

Let me share an e-mail that I wrote to a friend in 2005 about a trip I took to Dad’s with Andy to show that I don’t always feel like utter crap after seeing him:

[Dear Friend]

I'll tell you about my little trip to my father's place this past Saturday.

I spent Friday night with Andy. We hit a few stores, and I got some early Christmas gifts, as I do every year. We watched Wrestlemania I that night, then the next morning took off for the old man's house.

I was looking forward to that BBQ chicken and beanie weenies, but first we had to do a little yard work. It was easy work, but it was past 2, and I only had leftover

noodles for breakfast that morning, so my stomach was telling me to fill it. But no! He hadn't even started yet,

so we played a pretty boring game called "Fact or Crap" to pass the time. I should have won this game, seeing as my brown eyes indicate that I'm full of crap, suggesting that I

wouldn't know my crap, but Andy picked up the victory. This was a very long game that we had to end early because it makes Monopoly look like a quick little game.

Anyways, the time rolled on by, and before long I could practically feel the amino acids from my muscles being consumed by my body for energy. Alas, it was time to eat! I filled my stomach with those savory

chicken drumsticks (I don't particularly enjoy eating the breasts or thighs), beans and wieners (makes me salivate to think about them), and onion pie (which I'm guessing you would not enjoy). I thought I had filled myself up quite well, but my daddy asked disbelievingly, "Are you full?" "Yes." "No kidding? You've lost your stomach."

Perhaps I have lost my stomach, or maybe he just thinks that I have because I used to--for some reason or another--think that I had to eat a lot to impress him, so I would just eat

and eat and eat there when I was a youngster. For example, one time he said we had to finish off these pizzas who ordered, but I was full. However, since he wanted them finished, I was going to finish the job, by God! Or

so I thought. I can't remember if I did finish up the pizza, but I do know that I made my best attempt,

continuing to eat past the point of my stomach's tolerance. As you might imagine, I vomited. . . on his carpet on the way to the bathroom.

I went off on a tangent there. To get back on track, Grandma Hartley also stopped by. I don't see her much, and I always feel kind of uncomfortable around her because I always feel like I should talk to her and be nice and whatnot, but I never really feel like opening up around her. I'm always like a clam in her presence, even though I want to be

amicable. In this instance, she asked me if I had a senior picture, and I told her no, assuming she meant one of those pictures where you have your picture taken in a cornfield

while wearing a straw hat, or holding a helmet next to a motorcycle, or decked out in school color in front of a Lenox pennant. I told her that I did have a school picture, but not a senior picture per se. However, I failed to inform her that Andy had a picture for her in his wallet. He, for his part, failed to remember to give her one.

Overall, it was a good experience, with my dad being in a good mood. I think that's because he doesn't see us much, so he was happy to see us and didn't want us to be deterred from coming back again. However, he didn't give me any birthday money! And that darn Andy forgot to give me the present he got me. I told him that he could just give it to me for Christmas.

So there you have it. In other news, I've been feeling really good lately. Call me an optimist, but it's just so great to be alive and well! I know all is not right in the world,

but I get in this sort of mood quite often, where I just feel so good about myself and life. . .

So there you do have it. Credit my father for cooking good food, and credit myself for still liking life after a visit with him. As I approach my college graduation, I realize that he deserves credit for more. If it were not for him cutting me down for having no skills, no driving ability, and not being in college at the time, I would never have gotten this far with my

education.

So with my graduation date getting ever closer, let me say, Thank you Dad.

***

I would like to take this opportunity to extol my mother and other women like her. She is a single mother of three boys. Even though she didn’t even graduate high school, she made sure we always had a roof over our heads, food on the table, and countless other comforts.

She did this by working menial, thankless jobs. There are doubtlessly other women like her who deserve to be commended for their hard work and warm hearts.

I was an especially difficult child for her because I have personality disorders. I am destitute of character, morally deficient, and socially incompetent. But still she has shown me love, and treated me, lowliest of beings as if I were worthy of human affection.

I suspect that it is tempting for the mother of children with psychological or mental disorders of whatever sort to blame themselves for their children’s personality flaws or other ineptitudes. It is an unwarranted, but very human, guilt.

They should not feel guilty, but rather be proud for doing what they can. In my mother’s case, she should be proud that she has treated me far better than anyone could have; such is the beauty maternal instinct, for I thank my mother for the modicum of goodness in my soul.

Mothers everywhere bring much good into the world, and for this they deserve highest praise.

Before closing this chapter, I should thank my father for one more thing. He seems to have what’s been called a “dash of autism.” If this is so, and if he contributed any genes that resulted in my being diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, then I thank him again.

[10]

The Bathroom Incident

This Philosophy instructor really is a bright fellow. His lectures are engaging and his voice captivating. He speaks with a nasal voice of a quality that I associate with grey-haired men with full beards

(which he is); it’s a voice that sometimes serves a sub vocal role when I am reading, a role that is normally reserved for intellectual-sounding British accents.

Engaging and captivating though his voice and lectures may be, they sometimes do lose their grip on my attention because the students in the course often ask redundant questions, questions that have already been answered previously during the class period.

It was during one of these instances when my mind wandered, I looked around the room, people-viewing as I often do (particularly at sporting events, when I watch the crowd more than the athletes), and I caught a glimpse of something that begged a second look.

It appeared that a girl down the row had slashes on her wrist. A second look confirmed that her wrist and forearm has indeed been cut.

I would like to say that I hate to speculate on how she got these cuts, but I actually speculate about things frequently. Considering only my sitting on the bus, I speculate that the filthy, toothless man who scrounges around for cans on campus is homeless and that he uses the cans to buy booze (or food, I suppose).

Maybe the Asian guy with the disfigured face (and what looks like some sort of proto third ear) suffered horrible abuses as a child, or maybe he was attacked by a vicious dog, or any number of other face-mangling possibilities.

I have no polite way of knowing exactly why these people are as they seem to be – I can’t very well just ask them, but some imaginative speculation goes a long way.

A cutter. That’s what I think about this girl in my philosophy class. She may have been in some sort of accident that caused these cuts, but the cuts were too parallel for that to be believed. So she’s a cutter, I conclude.

Sufferers of borderline personality disorder often cut themselves. Why? If you ask one of them, he or she will likely not provide you with a satisfying answer, but I suspect that the cutting serves to either: a way of distracting them from their anxieties; of reminding themselves of their bodily presence; of punishing themselves; or of getting attention.

I couldn’t help being reminded of someone I know, someone from whom I’ve had to wrest razors from (and who delivered vicious elbows aimed at my face for my

doing so); who would cut herself and, remorsefully, promise never to do so again only to betray her contrition by cutting her ankle instead of her wrist; who locked herself in the bathroom. . .

Let me tell you, dear reader, of the bathroom incident. A special someone had been getting under my skin in the winter of

2008-2009, not so much by what she was doing, but by her lack of doing anything besides sleeping and getting into trouble at school. But mostly sleeping and trying to get me to lie in bed with her all day. Depression personified.

I had stuff to do: homework, selling my action figure collection on eBay and packing and mailing them, taking walks, reading books -- the simple things.

Her drowsiness and depression were taking a toll on us both. She would often be too drowsy to sit through her classes and would either skip class or leave for home during the middle of school hours. She became deeply frustrated and, in her senior year, so close to graduating, she came close to dropping out.

I knew what she was going through to a

large extent. I was deeply frustrated my senior year of high school as well; I also had angrily left school before its dismissal; and I too had seriously considered dropping out. But I was glad to have stuck with it and received my diploma. I knew she would be glad, too, if she could trudge on until graduation.

But all came to a head one day. I knew that Nicole had been in a bad mood that week.

I think I might have even made a bad mood worse. She had come to me with her suicidal thoughts. I had heard it before, and had had enough of it for the time being, so she told me to leave her alone as she ran home.

Little did I know that “Leave me alone!” meant, “Chase after me!” Girls are hard to figure out at times.

The next morning, Nicole’s dad called to tell me that Nicole had locked herself in the bathroom and that he wanted my assistance in getting her to come out. At this point, I didn’t want any part in her antics; the stress and anxiety were too much, so I attempted to distance myself from the situation.

Besides, it seemed a bit childish to me, and I could only do so much to help, I thought, after having witnessed several similar episodes from her. I was at the end of my proverbial rope.

So I went into my bedroom to wall off

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my emotions and my world. I was trying to be cool while ignoring repeated calls from Nicole’s dad; he had been trying to tell me that he still needed my help getting her out, as the police had tried breaking the door open to get her out, but the only thing that broke was the lock.

I stayed up there until I heard a knock at the door. The school nurse stood there, relaying the message that Nicole would come out of the bathroom if I came over. Just so you know, the school nurse told me, the police and ambulance were there.

I really didn’t want to go, but I summoned enough gumption to go by the ambulance outside and bravely walk past the EMTs and the police chief as I approached the bathroom door.

I didn’t know what to say. I felt awkward. I got that old feeling of being judged, with all eyes on me, again.

I don’t remember what I did say, but whatever it was, was not immediately successful anyways. Eventually, I did successfully lure Nicole out of the bathroom.

We went into the living room to get some privacy from the police chief, EMTs, the school nurse, and the school counselor (who would also be my exam proctor for the spring semester). I reproached Nicole for barricading herself in the water closet and informed her that she would need to be hospitalized again.

“You won’t leave me for this, will you?” she asked between sobs and through her tears.

“Of course not.”

Thankfully, she had not cut herself in the bathroom, but she was sent to Mercy Franklin, the mental facility that I had been admitted to in junior high. Nicole reports that the place isn’t nearly as hospitable as I describe.

Naturally, I was in a celebratory mood when Nicole walked across the stage half a year later, in her cap and gown, to receive her diploma on graduation day. I credit Nicole herself, her new medications, and the support of people like the school nurse, for her turnaround.

As I write this, she is receiving remarkable grades in her freshman year of college, something that would not have been if she had dropped out of high school.

With good news sometimes comes bad news. The bad news is that Nicole’s dad has still not replaced the broken lock on the bathroom

[11]

Halloween 2009

It’s that time of year again. I met Nicole a little over two years ago (this being written in October 2009). She wanted a more serious relationship than I initially was comfortable with.

I am slow to warm up to strange people. Not strange in that she is weird or something along those lines, although she definitely is not normal, with all due respect to my beloved. No, I mean strange as in foreign to me, as in my having never been previously acquainted with her.

Slowly but surely, I did warm up to her, but in the meantime, I had been keeping some distance in our relationship, not letting it go beyond platonic friendship.

This distance, I strongly suspect, was stressful for her in her desire to advance the relationship to something more romantic. I suppose there is someone for everyone, no matter how unattractive I may be viewed by the vast majority of females I have encountered.

Whatever was so distressing her, her despair on the night prior to Halloween 2007 almost led to the cancellation of her much anticipated first of her annual Halloween parties. We had cleaned her garage and then decorated it frighteningly with fake cob webs, foam headstones, and plastic wall covers that featured ghoulish fiends. Various treats, pumpkin bars among them, were prepared. Invitations were distributed to friends and the play list selected. In short, we were ready to party.

But the night before the scheduled party, we had some sort of disagreement. I left her house late at night. When I got home, I lay on the couch in the computer room. Andy had left that couch, brought from his apartment, at Mom’s when he temporarily moved back home. After he left again, that couch became my bed. I slept there every night with music playing from nearby the computer.

I was lying down on said couch with music playing and MSN Messenger open on the computer after returning from Nicole’s that night.

BING! The tone of an MSN message woke me up just as I was drifting off to sleep. My brain waves were the alpha form, so I almost ignored the message. Suddenly I popped up, remembering the depressed mood that I had left Nicole in. I moved the foot or so from the couch to the computer chair.

The message was from Nicole. She was telling me that she had overdosed on one of her prescriptions because she didn’t want to live anymore.

I thought she was bluffing, vying for attention, so I ignored her and made myself comfortable on the couch again.

BING! BING! BING! More messages. This time she was urgently informing me that she was losing feeling in her limbs. This sounded serious, so I hurried over to check on her.

It appeared that she had indeed taken too many pills. She was passed out on the couch with an empty pill bottle beside her. I awake her dad who dialed 911. Needless

to say, she didn’t enjoy consuming the charcoal that she was given in the ambulance to make her regurgitate the medication.

About the same time last year, similar episodes ensued.

Flash forward to now, two years from that first Halloween party. We’re preparing for the third annual party. Despite this year’s pumpkin filling shortage, we gotten ours, so the pumpkin bars will again be served. The lights are still set up from last year. At least the Christmas lights were taken down.

We went to Haunted ISU, a mix of a fantasy game with historical lessons on deceased faculty and alumni at the university, last night.

The campus is kind of hard to navigate at night -- and I’m easily disorientated anyways -- so I got lost, going east rather than west looking for Morrill Hall, which I would easily find in daylight. Nicole blurted out to a passerby, “Where is Morrill Hall?”

This embarrassed me, in part because I was reoriented by that time. In my embarrassment, I reprimanded her by angrily telling her not to “blurt things out.” This developed into a full-fledged argument until we reached our destination. Still, her mood remained high and her demeanor optimistic.

The party is being held in Lenox. I sometimes get a bit cranky when we revisit Lenox, a pattern that has not gone unnoticed by Nicole. I have some good reasons.

Besides Mom’s depression and Lenox’s not being as quiet and peaceful as my apartment, I am sometimes encountered with a house full of toxic fumes.

The time before the last when we went

to Lenox, I walked through Mom’s door and was greeted with a strong stench. What did Mom clean with? I thought, as she uses heavy doses of household cleaners.

Then I noticed the smoke. I began to panic. I had missed Mom’s phone call on the way home, and I was not able to get hold of her when I called back.

Now I was greeted to a houseful of smoke. I called out for Mom but got no response. She might have died of smoke inhalation. As I was about to call 911, Mom emerged from upstairs.

Upon my asking why the house was smoky and smelly, she responded that her boyfriend had baked supper on a plastic

tray, which melted. When I talked to her boyfriend, he said that Mom had told him that my brother regularly made cookies on the plastic tray. Obviously, this was not the case, as the tray would have melted long ago.

I feared that the fumes would either damage my brain or my DNA. I had the same reaction to the vast quantity of moth balls that Mom had used to kill bats in the attack several years ago.

When my anxiety was at its peak, I went to the bathroom to find that the toilet did not flush. I had to reach into the back of the toilet to flush it, but there was toilet cleaner in the water there. I unthinkingly scratched my nose with the blue toilet cleaner on my fingers; I freaked out about having inhaled it.

But I cannot blame them too much for the melted plastic tray. I once got a similar result when I microwaved Easy Mac, absent the milk, in a plastic bowl. The noodles were charred and the bowl melted. The yellow, reeking smoke that billowed from the microwave proved that Easy Mac was not easy enough for me.

But I hope that Nicole’s optimism persists and that Mom’s house will be peaceful, quiet, and smoke-free.

The Halloween party should go off without a hitch. Then maybe the phrase “that time of year” used at the beginning of this chapter will take on a new

connotation.

Post Script:

Just two hitches. For one, Nicole and her dad went to get some additional party supplies after we got back to Lenox. I noticed that I hadn’t brought in my bag that contained my Halloween costume. So I called her cell phone to ask if it was in her car. She said it wasn’t, so she bought me a replacement mask. Apparently she didn’t look well enough as I later found the original costume in the backseat.

The other issue arose the day after Halloween. Mom was at work and Mike was on a road trip, so I was charged with dog sitting Mike’s toy fox terrier. He’s quite a rambunctious dog, we played and walked all throughout the day starting at about 6 am, and he did not tire until 3 pm. I even let him play with Brandy and eat Brandy’s food (Mom did not leave dog food on the counter like she said she would.)

I decided to make some lunch during my dog-sitting hours, so I put some chicken and fries in the oven.

A few minutes later, the rancid smell of melted plastic filled the kitchen and the living room. Mom had not gotten all of the plastic out of the oven! Probably owing much to my having forgotten my medication in the morning, I went berserk! I was sure melted plastic was a mutagen, and I was going to get cancer, so I’d might as well give up on everything, and didn’t Nicole (to whom I was yelling) care?!

I composed a note to Mom:

Mom,

Tried making lunch, but still plastic in oven. You need a new stove. I WILL NOT COME DOWN FOR THANKSGIVING if we eat anything from the oven!

Dustin

But then I calmed down and did a web search

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for ways to clean an oven of plastic. Someone advised scraping the plastic out with a paint scraper. So I did that and gave the dog the chicken I had baked in the plastic’s smoke. It did the trick.

I have a new mantra: For every

problem, a solution.

I left Mom a new note before leaving:

Mom,

Oven still had plastic in it, but I cleaned it.

Love, Dustin

And she and I were both glad.

[12]

Kids On The Bus

Oh, I feel stupid. I didn’t know I had to research the word “dilemma” to get a decent grade on my philosophy assignment. I suppose I should have known better since this was an assignment for a philosophy class, but I understood the word in the colloquial sense. Rather than thinking of a dilemma as being a tough choice between two unfavorable options, I thought of it as a problem in general.

The question I was assigned to answer was something like this: What is the dilemma that William James points out for determinism? Since the question was posed during our class’s free will discussion, I thought that I must relate the answer to free will; besides, we were instructed to put the answer in our own words. So although James clearly stated what the dilemma was, I worded it something like this: “We learn from James that the problem with determinism is that since everything is caused, it can be no other way. If it can be no other way, then there can be no free will.” I got a comment on the returned assignment that said, “A dilemma is not the same as a problem. I scored 1 out of 8.

I’m thinking that maybe I do not like this philosophy course.

Dislike the philosophy course as I may, philosophy can provide us with wise words. I was reminded of Malthus’s philosophical words on the exponential growth of populations a week or two ago when a horde of kids loaded the bus.

We adults were asked to relinquish our seats to the children. My seat was taken, so once all the kids were seated, I sat myself in the seat formerly occupied by the guy standing in front of me.

I sometimes talk of hating kids, but I don’t really hate them. We all exaggerate for dramatic or rhetorical effect now and then. No, I don’t hate children; I hate their parents. It’s not the children’s fault. But the parents! They should know better.

There is only room enough for so many of us, people of the earth. Though giving up my seat on the bus is no big deal, giving up my standard of living definitely is. Anybody with half a brain and who does not live under a rock knows the rule of limited resources, so I do not have to recite them here.

I trust that my readers have at least one cerebral hemisphere and proper housing, so they know, but apparently some of these

parents have a deficit in one of these areas. Why else would one woman have more than two children?

Trust my anecdotal evidence or research the real numbers, but the number of children needed for a stable population is being exceeded by too many women. One woman with four kids has twice as many as she should have. Admittedly, this is generally not a problem in Western, industrialized nations.

So yes, I become angry or agitated when I log onto social networking sites to see young ladies posing with their (not so) adorable offspring in apparent ignorance of the seriousness of having children. For one, they are human beings, not play things or accessories.

Furthermore, if we have too many of these “precious” little ones, they will use up resources that will eat up our way of life. I like to take relaxing baths, to eat delicious steaks, to go on road trips, and to do other activities that eat up energy and resources, but if the population keeps geometrically increasing, it will no longer be possible for us to enjoy these luxuries.

Am I wrong for being upset by too many people passing on too many of their genes to too many progeny, or am I right in thinking that everyone deserves a high standard of living?

I’ll answer that question myself; the question I just posed is an unfair one. The main issue is that I’m afraid Francis Galton may have been on to something--maybe the human species may evolve in a direction that may not be entirely desirable.

Yes, it would be nice for everyone to have access to abundant resources, but without enough young people, who’s going to produce and serve?

Then again, Americans leave the biggest “carbon footprints” and consume the largest proportion of the world’s resources than anyone else.

This chapter isn’t meant as a true analysis of birth rates or economics, but is here as an expression of one person’s concerns where an answer seems unclear.

[13]

Friday The 13th

Many great works of literature include allusions to other great works. What follows is this book’s allusion to that other masterful work of mine, The Sky Is Falling. On Friday, November 13th, Nicole needed a nap after returning from her classes, so she went to bed. I told her that I would go read in the living room. She asked me to come give her a hug first. I decided I would hug her and then sit in bed beside her to read. So I gave her a hug and then saw in the corner of the bed. I placed a pillow against the headboard and leaned back to get comfortable. I then heard the cracking of the wooden frame immediately before my corner of the bed crashed to the floor. This scene calls back memories of my airbed deflating in The Sky Is Falling.

Friday the 13th, a day steeped in superstition. And this year, my birthday. I don’t subscribe to superstitious beliefs, but I did have some bad luck on this day – the breaking of the bed frame being one example. I suppose it started with the loss, through the mail, of my birthday card.

Mom said she had sent me a birthday card that contained money that Tuesday, but as I wrote this on Tuesday the 17th (a week after the card was sent), I still have not received the card.

I have fathomed a couple of possible explanations, though Mom denies the validity of both. The reader must understand that Mom does not follow all the rules when mailing items. She sometimes mails letters addressed like this:

Andy

Des Moines, IA

As if the postal service requires no more information than the first name and city of destination. I also wonder if she might have sent cash in the card, though this does not seem like it would matter if the cash were concealed in the card, but she has had at least one envelope returned to her because it had a large bulge of quarters and nickels.

Since it was my birthday, I had to celebrate. Brother Andy couldn’t come until Sunday, but she made up for the delay by addressing a card to me, Brother Dustin.

The card contained $10 and he also gave me an Iowa State Cylcones sock cap. Since I don’t drink, I offered him the rest of the red wine that I had bought earlier in the day to drown the fruit flies that have infested my kitchen in, though he declined. I guess he’s more of a beer guy.

Besides the Iowa State hat that Becca and Andy gave me, I received a bike from Nicole, though I’m hesitant to ride it in the streets out of shyness towards those in cars. I’m afraid I will not properly follow the traffic laws.

Later on while I was having sex in the living room, I heard a pounding on the door. I was afraid that the sex might have been too loud for the neighbors, so I almost ignored the knocking, but I decided to look through the peep hole just in case. It was Brother Andy and his lady Becca returning with a cake they had baked me!

In the meantime, I had to celebrate otherwise. Nicole and I went to the Superstition Bash put on by the Iowa State Agnostic and Atheist Society.

The evening started off with a hilarious comedian/magician performing followed by several demonstrations of

superstitions. One activity was a homeopathic beer chugging contest. If we won, we got four-leaf clover seeds. The guy running the contest offered Nicole and I each a cup of homeopathic beer (also known as water). I was ready to chug, but he only touched cups with Nicole. This threw me off a bit, but I was still about to chug.

Just as the cup came to my face, the girl next to me started laughing. I thought that she was laughing at me, so I assumed that we were supposed to do the chugging one at a time, and thus I put my cup down.

Nicole won her genetically modified clover seeds, and I offered up my challenge to the guy running the contest. He said, “I thought we were doing it was a group, not one at a time.” I was deeply embarrassed by this, and remained anxious about it for the rest of the night, as I had once again made a fool out of myself in a social situation.

It didn’t occur to me until yesterday, when I saw a psychiatric nurse practitioner, that these thoughts (worrying about how I was viewed by others, thinking that the girl was laughing at me, my worries of being judged by dad and those at my work-study job) might be considered paranoia.

[14]

Medication (Quasi-) Experiment (-is)

As mentioned above, I recently saw a psychiatric nurse practitioner to get my medications refilled while at college. She opined that my current medications were the best for me. She advised me, however, to take the alprazolam only as a PRN, even though my doctor had prescribed it for four times every day. But my anxiety was much worse and panic attacks more frequent at the time it was prescribed in that manner.

It’s been nearly three weeks since that visit, and I feel just fine having not taken any alprazolam, not even one tablet, since then. I had been taking one a day, in the morning, because I was afraid of how I might fare throughout the rest of the day if I got off to a bad start. Apparently, I need not have worried.

She would like to see me continue with the Invega because of how moody I’ve reported being. It was prescribed to settle my mood swings, most importantly to quell my irritability and anger.

Participant(s)

Me. With myself as both sole participant and sole researcher, there is no way to make this a blind study.

Method

It seems to me that I had become more irritable after having taken my Invega, especially since I switched to taking it in the evening -- as opposed to the morning, as was usual for me -- to stave off drowsiness during the day.

So I decided on a little experiment of sorts. The plan was to take the Invega every other night (one day on, one day off)

For a more serious discussion of medications for Asperger syndrome, see the Appendix.

I would take it for a couple of weeks, and then reduce it to one day on, two days off for two or three more weeks, before finally discontinuing it altogether, and observing my moods along the way; all along, I would be observing my own behavior.

Admittedly, this sort of study, if it should be graced with such a term, is an impoverished one. It’s not exactly an experiment, as I’m the only participant; a within-subjects design with only one subject has its difficulties.

No, it’s more of a case study, observational study. Descriptive research is underrepresented in social science anymore, is it not? (Or is this more of a medical ‘experiment’ anyways?)

Descriptive research has its merits. It can give, for example, more detail and can be of a more personal or poignant nature (this is to say that you can see the people that would otherwise be numbers in more quantitative research).

I set out with two major concerns regarding this ‘study’. One was that of the effects on my health. What is the proper way to wean myself off a medication? Since the pill is an extended release capsule, I couldn’t cut it, and it is unlikely that a psychiatrist would want to see me taken off the drugs, so I suppose that this is the best method.

The other concern was that of expectancy effects. Will I report worse moods because I think, consciously or unconsciously, that the discontinuation of the meds should make me behave differently? Will I report more positive moods or behavior because I want to see that result?

Moodiness/irritability is operationally defined as whatever I decide is worth writing about.

Week 1

Week 1 has gone as I expected. On the days when I did take the Invega, I was easily agitated, as I have frequently been as of late. Nicole has really noticed this in many situations, as at the New Moon movie. I became quite irritated and jealous when the girls and women in the theater whistled, hooted, and hollered at the ‘hunky’ movie characters.

On the off days, on the other hand, I

have been noticeably less temperamental, feeling altogether more contented. Additionally, my normally tense muscles feel looser. (This may be mere coincidence, but I felt it was worth noting.)

All this is especially good news when one considers that I was in Lenox for Thanksgiving break. Holidays are a volatile time in my family. Tempers are usually flaring, but all went well this year, except for perhaps my uncle. “Hey, Dusty. What are you doing?” my late- arriving uncle greeted me as I sat on the couch with my plate of food.

“Not much, just eating,” I replied. “Real nice of you to start without me.

First you guys told me 6, then 6:30. Maybe I’ll just skip the whole thing, have a drink, and roll on out of here.”

Week 2

For week two, the plan had been modified. I decided to just completely cease taking the medication. But due to “brain zap” sorts of symptoms, the plan reverted to the original.

Nicole and I got into an argument (of which I shall spare the reader the details on day two of week two, but that is nothing new or unusual, so I don’t wish to confer too much anecdotal weight to the argument.

The next day, I did take an Invega for the following reason. I left class early because I was tired, attributable to getting too little sleep the night before, and because my eyes stung and my ears rumbled, two symptoms associated with my “brain zaps.”

I was furthermore anxious that I might suffer some sort of adverse neuromuscular withdrawal effects, it being in my nature to fear such things.

So I went home and took an Invega. I took another Invega three days later and there were no other incidents to note in week two.

Week 3

No major mood problems besides going ape-shit about my penis being too small. Things like that get to a guy, but I am average, so I need not worry. Nicole states, “You haven’t taken Invega for a while, have you? You’re doing really good.” Additionally, I seem to have fewer zits, possibly due to lower prolactin levels (the hormone has been known to be increased from the medication). Gynecomastia remains.

Week I-Lost-Track

I seem to be sleeping much better without the “internal restlessness” I had been feeling most nights. Still feeling great psychologically.

Discussion

I was first put on psychiatric medications at a very young age, around 10 or 11. Although many drugs are not approved for

children that age, they are prescribed anyways. Some would argue that psychiatrists over-prescribe medications; the energetic child has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the loner has some sort of pervasive developmental disorder, etc. In my case, at least, it appears that I am faring just as well without my medications.

It has only been a few weeks, however, and further observation will be required, especially in consideration of how sheltered my life is at this point.

Part 3

Winter 2009

[15]

What Do You Mean By That?

If paranoia is finding insidious, malicious, or otherwise offensive messages in innocent comments, then I’ve been experiencing some of that lately.

When Nicole and I first became intimate, I felt great anxiety whenever my developmental psychology teacher lectured on pregnancy. For several consecutive class periods, she stressed that women could become pregnant at any time if they were sexually active, that abstinence was the only way to prevent becoming infected with a baby.

A little more recently, I felt insulted when Nicole discouraged me from pummeling a used car salesman in the Wal- Mart parking lot. My brother Michael had been harassed by him, and I was with Michael one day as the used car salesman (a noble profession, I might add) stared at Mike from the checkout counter, as if he were to intimidate my brother by popping his eyes out of his pin head.

The pinhead checked out and Mike informed me that the owner of Microencephaly Kar Sales sometimes waited in the parking lot for him.

I told Nicole that I hoped he’d be out here after we had checked out. She expressed concern about a fight, which I took as an affront to my manhood. He had already left, anyways, which I suppose is good in that it saved me legal issues (not to mention student aid issues).

Now, Nicole’s hot passion for me seems to have cooled, leaving me feeling unattractive. I could list better examples than this, but I have a horrible memory for specific dialogues, I did not log any of them before my memory of them decayed, and they would make me look like a huge douche bag in any event.

But another thing I can mention is that dreams affect my waking impressions of Grandma and others too much. I have recurring dreams of Nicole being unfaithful to me, and the hurt and suspicion follow me for a few hours after waking.

I also have been having bad dreams about Grandma. Dreams are often too weird for words to do them justice, and that is the case with these dreams, but they are quite disturbing. These disturbing feelings associated with the dreams I find difficult to shake throughout the day.

Nicole

and I

do argue a lot. But

I’m

always

right.

Ask Nicole, she’ll tell

you

that’s

what I

think. We were arguing

the

other day over whether funding for NASA should instead be put towards environmental conservation.

I didn’t see why both could not be funded. (Actually, I’m pretty sure NASA is active in environmental matters. They use satellite imaging technology to monitor the atmospheric and oceanic health, for example.)

But I understand Nicole’s anxieties about the environment; I share those anxieties. Global warming, sustainable energy sources, pollution, top soil erosion, water contamination, overpopulation, and diminishing global resources: all of these are issues that should concern anyone who inhabits this planet.

Earlier today, we went shopping for Gatorade and cold/flu supplies at the grocery store because I have come down with some sort of bug. I should also mention that I can be very self-centered, so I kind of like being sick because Nicole babies me.

Anyways, I managed to embarrass myself at the store. For one, I accidentally blocked an old lady’s path through the aisle with my cart as I looked for scrubber heads. Then after sliding my debit card, I forgot to indicate whether I wanted any cash back. “Why do I always do stuff like that?” I asked Nicole in the parking lot. “I do that sort of thing, too. It’s no big deal,” she assured me.

We then, after the grocery store, went to McDonald’s. As we ate our burgers and shared our large chocolate shake (I needed the fast food to replenish all that I had vomited last night and this morning), Nicole fawned over a baby seated nearby.

As an apparently retarded McDonald’s

cleaning lady picked up trays at the next table, I asked Nicole if she had noticed the retards behind us in line at the grocery store. Nicole was taken aback by my use of the term “retard”.

“What should I call them?” I asked. “Imbeciles? Idiots?” (In the old psychological parlance, imbeciles and idiots are different levels of retardation, so I could not be sure of which classification they fit.)

“Why can’t you just ask if I saw those people behind us in line?” she wondered.

“Let me ask you this. Why did you ask me if I saw that baby? Why didn’t you just ask if I had seen that person? You seem offended that I would ask about the retards as if there were something wrong with them. The difference between me and you is that I accept and embrace people’s differences.”

Nicole merely rolled her eyes at me, which I think means that I won that argument.

[16]

And We Call It Love

Every romantic relationship has what could be called a “honeymoon” period. Your lover is the most perfect person in the world; she (or he) can do no wrong, you eat ice cream in the warm sunshine together, you walk along the beach hand-in-hand, there are little birdies on your shoulders and bunnies at your feet as you snuggle and kiss. Everything she does is cute and adorable.

But after a little while, maybe a few weeks -- maybe a few months, maybe a year or so -- however long it might take, a time comes when those cute, adorable idiosyncrasies became the most annoying, irritating things in the world. Nicole and I recently went through a period like that, one of those “rough times.”

To give but one example, for it would it tax my mind too much to find too many specific examples and to state the case generally is good enough, allow me to share with you the following anecdote. It was Christmastime of 2009.

One of the items on my Christmas wish list was a bookcase. My mother, however, seemed to have some difficulty distinguishing between bookcases and media storage towers. One day, she returned from shopping for gifts and had me take a bag upstairs to put in the room with the other gifts that hadn’t yet been wrapped. I was not peeking, but merely happened to notice a boxed media tower.

“Who is the media tower for?” I inquired to Mom, having a strong suspicion that she had mistakenly purchased the CD and DVD holder instead of the bookcase I had requested. I was correct, so she returned it to the store to get the bookcase.

The next day, she asked me to get the bookcase out of her car’s backseat for her.

It was another media tower. This time Nicole and I returned it. I was irritable on this particular day, perhaps because of Mom’s making the same mistake twice. I was also nervous about the procedures involved in returning an item to Wal-Mart.

I have rarely, if ever at all, returned an item, so I did not know exactly what I was supposed to do. I had a general idea, but I get nervous when I do not exactly know what actions to take or what

to expect.

But all went well enough as I returned the item and then looked for a bookcase to exchange it for. Unfortunately, no such bookcase was to be found in this particular Wal-Mart location, so I opted for the in- store credit.

Being the sociophobe that I am, I had Nicole do the return for me. I usually have her deal with my transactions in situations like this, like when I have her order my fast food. She orders and I give her money to pay, so it is like two transactions in one: one between me and Nicole and the other between us and the cashier.

So Nicole was getting the in-store credit card for me. The cashier at customer service asked for her driver’s license. Before I explain further, I should mention that before we left, Mom had warned me that they might ask for my driver’s license and that I should not be angered. And so the associate did ask for Nicole’s driver’s license, and I became incensed. I will not attempt to recite the exchange verbatim, but I gave the woman a verbal thrashing for asking for a driver’s license and not a photo ID in general.

This is a sensitive subject for me, because I do not have a driver’s license, but I do have a state ID. Why should you have to be able to drive to return an item at Wal-Mart? I was once at a video store, but I could not rent the movie because, according to the person working there, I had to have a driver’s license.

The point of this story is not that I got mad. I opened this chapter by saying that sometimes relationships turn sour, and this story concludes with Nicole becoming very upset, very angry, with me over how I handled the situation. I could have been much nicer, for I scared the poor girl working at customer service, Nicole told me through laser eyes.

She has a very scary look -- THE look -- which strikes fear into my soul when I see the wrath of hell through her eye balls. I didn’t think that I handled the situation wrong at all, which created even more conflict between us. I insisted that I was simply standing up for myself as a non-driver.

I suppose the biggest source of conflict between us has been jealousy over her past relationships. This is a side- effect of my loving her too much and being too possessive, I suppose. I crave her exclusivity and feel carnal jealousies, jealousies of the flesh that maybe one dayI will not have to feel when I download my brain to a computer and live without a body at all. But those days are far-ahead and probably only science fiction anyways. . .

But you have to look beyond those little annoyances and whatever conflicts you may have with the person you love. I am happy to report that I have greatly improved in settling our conflicts. I think I am finally learning to “put on the brakes” to stop myself from becoming angry by first considering how Nicole will feel and recognizing her point of view.

Yes, sometimes you have to love her despite irritations. It’s kind of like

with Mom’s new puppy, Colby.

Colby had his “love doll,” a large stuffed Easter bunny.

Mom works long days, so I was in charge of babysitting Colby most of winter break. Colby is a tiny but vivacious little toy fox terrier. And he’s a little butthole. Not only is he a little butthole, but his little butthole is very active, pooping on

the floor whenever my back is turned. If I take my eyes off him for one second, he rushes up the stairs and poops in his favorite room for so doing.

Mom wasn’t expecting a new dog, but Mikey needed to get rid of his dog, so Colby found a new home with her. Mom wasn’t able to obtain a little kennel on such short notice, so she improvised by cutting holes in a plastic tub and putting him in there when she was away.

I couldn’t let the poor puppy spend his day in that dark, lonely plastic tub, so even if I was busy, I let him roam the house. Picking up his excrement was the price I paid for my kindness.

Not only does he relieve his bowels in the house a lot, but he refuses to do it outside when there is snow on the ground. And there was much snow on the ground, so I would walk him with no success only to have him rush up the stairs to go poop as soon as I let him off the leash. And he chews things up. Simply put, he’s a bad puppy. But despite all this, I love him.

Being in Lenox again meant seeing Nicole’s dad. And here is another lesson in loving

-- OK, let’s say liking -- someone with whom you have disagreements. He’s radically conservative. I’m very politically liberal6. He’s a loyal, faithful Christian. I’m an avowed atheist.

Let me pause briefly right there. This all reminds me of a blog I posted. I am going to reproduce it here.

An Anglican priest recently condoned shoplifting. Mom’s dog, Colby, and I were taking a nap the other day with the TV on when I saw that CNN Headline News picked up the story.

6 Two letters that I recently wrote to Congresspersons are copied in the

Appendix.

160

They then asked people on the street for their opinions. Several of them said that shoplifting was wrong because the Bible says that you shall not steal. Here’s why I am confused. Christians are notorious for cherry- picking Bible codes and commands.

They justify their moral stances by referencing the Bible. Some of the biblical references are ever so weak intimations, and are in any case only

a sampling of what the Bible says. Leviticus is my favorite book for choosing items that most Christians would disagree with, but it’s certainly not the only one you can use.

When confronted with such items from God’s law, they balk and say, “Well, that’s the Old Testament. We go by the NEW Testament!”

Never minding that Jesus purportedly said that the laws of the Old Testament would be upheld, and that the New Testament was written as a continuation of the Old Testament

(with church leaders even going so far as to rearrange the order of the books of the Old Testament to make a more coherent story when they added the books of the New Testament).

It just so happens that the Ten Commandments, one of which those Christians on CNN used to defend their stance against shoplifting, happens to come from the Old Testament!

There’s an analogy to be drawn here to these people’s opinions on the Constitution. This year (2010), a judge ruled that the National Day of Prayer violates the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of this great nation. Anyone who is proud of this country’s founding principles -- set forth by that most extraordinary of human compositions, the United State Constitution -- should have viewed the ruling as a small victory. But there’s a certain demographic who disagree with the ruling.

I copy the 1st Amendment for my readers to save them the effort of reaching into their jeans for their pocket Constitutions:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the

freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (Emphasis added by me).

As some of the 10 Commandments are viewed, by these people as important while others are to be disregarded or at least minimized in importance, so too do some Amendments to the Constitution trump others; the 2nd Amendment (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”) wins over the 1st.

***

Back to Nicole’s dad. We disagree on just about everything: On the validity of

science, on the existence of God, and on politics. But we see past our differences to like and respect each other to the point where we went on a Christmas shopping trip together and visited his parents around the New Year. (His parents’ house had a stack of books by Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, and a Rush Limbaugh calendar.)

So there are lessons in my other relationships that can serve me in my relationship with Nicole. And we are applying those lessons and handling our conflicts with cooler heads. The result is that we now seem to be in our second honeymoon period, with birds chirping on our shoulders and rabbits at our feet as we cuddle and kiss.

(Now if we could just agree on whether to move and bring her dog in to live with us. One thing we do agree on, however, is that Colby will not be moving in with us.)

[17]

Worst Week Ever

Tuesday, February 2, 2010. I saw a counselor this morning at the student services building. The reason for seeing him is that last week was the worst week ever.

The week started off with bodily concerns and the same weird physical sensations that I have been getting on and off for some time now. I was worried about my health over the weekend and this worrying extended into Monday. One of my professors asked the class, “How’s everybody doing today?”

“Not very good,” I responded.

“Extra credit for honesty,” said he. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid of going paralyzed.”

Then my anxiety grew worse when Nicole was in an automobile accident just a few minutes after the professor had asked how everyone in the class was doing. She rolled her car after sliding on black ice. The car appeared to be totaled, though it turned out that it was reparable. As for Nicole herself, she was fine besides having to wear a neck brace for two weeks because of a possibly chipped cervical vertebra.

Needless to say, I was not in a good mood at around 8 AM on Wednesday when I had Psych 440 discussion and lab. We, as a class, went to the computer lab to work on our assignments that day, but I had already completed mine, not without difficulty. We used the SPSS stats program in the computer lab for the assignment. I printed all my

descriptive statistics and then worked on

the homework. The problem, however, was that I had misprinted my histograms by including the nominal variables, which gave me basically two distributions in one.

So I went back the next day to print it again. I was not aware that we had a limit on how much we could print for the semester, so I became anxious when it appeared that I would not have enough printing units to print all the assignments throughout the semester.

As it turns out, I can charge more printing units to my account if I use up all of them, but I didn’t know this at the same. At the time, I thought I would not complete all my assignments and would possibly flunk the course. And that would mean not graduating on time, and I have nothing going for me outside of college!

Before I go any further, I should note that I started taking Invega again last month at the advice of my psychiatrist, but I had not had it or my Lexapro for a couple days on Wednesday morning. It was too cold to go and pick it up at the pharmacy! But I suspect that this may have had something to do with the account that follows.

My anxiety turned to anger as I thought all was lost because of my limited printing units. So I flipped out, and I cursed out those nearby. I called Nicole to fume to her, when we returned to the classroom I was still angry about the situation. But I sat there minding my own business until the teacher looked at me and asked, “You have a question?” I thought she was looking at someone behind me, so I looked back to see who she was talking to.

“No, you!” she said. I looked back again.

“No, you!”

“Me?’ She was talking to me. “I don’t understand.” ‘You don’t understand what?”

“I don’t understand why you think I have a question. I didn’t raise my hand, did I?”

“You looked puzzled,” she said. “What the fuck?!” I yelled.

A little later on, a classmate volunteered to answer a question, the question being: Do tests measure anything other than one’s test-taking ability? She said something that approximates the following: “No, because, you know, like, the GRE. You, like, personality tests, like. Like GRE. Does that make any sense?”

“No, it doesn’t!” I replied rudely.

“I don’t think you said one coherent sentence.”

This seemed to upset the classmate greatly, but Latin was up next, so off I went. I was still upset at that point, so when I called upon to read and translate a Latin passage, I looked at the words and saw right through them to the blank paper they were printed on; I was not in the mental state to do this, so I dropped the book and exclaimed, “Just give me an F!”

Because of all this, I made an appointment to see the counselor after Latin class. When I finally saw him today, six days later, I no longer felt any of the negative emotions that were going through me on Wednesday of last week, so I am afraid I didn’t articulate my problems quite as I should have. Hopefully, the counseling center can still help. In any event, I just have to survive this semester and then it’s smooth sailing, as they say, to my degree from there.

. . . And A Pretty Bad Day

A couple weeks after the so-called worst week ever, I had a pretty bad day which brought to me flashbacks of Soc 101. In Soc

101, my first sociology class, I had a bad experience with a group project.

I never collaborate well with my classmates. I suppose this is a manifestation of my Asperger syndrome. But the group work is always disorganized with no clear leadership.

This time, the class was Soc 310, possibly my last sociology class, and the group project was worth 25% of the semester grade. All seemed to go well on our first meeting, and I thought we were set to go

and present our group’s lecture the following Tuesday as originally scheduled. The instructor had given us the option of presenting on Thursday instead, however, and my group mates decided to hold off until Thursday and scheduled another group meeting at the library on Wednesday.

I had been having a bad day already. It seemed as though I kept messing up throughout the day. In the Psych 440 discussion, I kept answering too many questions rather than letting my classmates answer. Then I completely fuddled a translation in Latin 102. Later on in the day, I asked a classmate I had had a previous course with if I could sit beside her since she was familiar. She said, “No, you are rather distracting during lectures.” In this class, I again answered too many questions.

I also experience an awkward moment when I answered a question about the liver and drug metabolism. After I answered, the instructor said, “Yes, but what does the liver do? It uses enzymes to metabolize drugs.”

I said, intending it to be under my breath, “Isn’t that what I just said?”

The instructor then said, “Which is what I think you were saying.”

I told him that I had meant to whisper what I had said so that he wouldn’t hear it. It turned out that he hadn’t heard me and that he wasn’t answering my mumbled question anyways.

So it was that I wasn’t in a good mood after all my classes when the Soc 310 group met. I apparently didn’t modulate my voice well enough and a student seated at another table found me to be too loud.

“Shut the fuck up!” He shouted at me.

I felt an adrenaline surge as I became angry and then anxious. My hands were shaking and tingling, my head light, and my heart palpitating.

I had a reason to be anxious. This kid who yelled at me to shut the fuck up was a tiny, youthful looking kid. I have documented my problems from junior high in my other book. This kid, though presumably a college student, looked as though he were one of those kids with whom I had conflict and was picked on by in junior high. Who knew what he was capable of?

I started blaming everything on the whole sociology group project. Why did we have to do this project? Why did we have to meet again? All of this wasn’t good for my autism! “I should just go jump out that window!” I declared. I called Mom up, and

we decided that I should just go and catch the bus.

A couple days later, I got a call from the Office of the Dean of Students expressing concern over my wellbeing. Someone apparently reported my window- diving declaration to the teacher who in turn reported to the office of the dean. I set up a meeting in the office where I explained that I didn’t mean that I literally wanted to jump out the window; rather, it was an expression of my angry, anxiety, and overwhelming emotion at the time.

After our discussion, he asked me if I had big plans for the weekend. I told him that I would do something with Nicole for Valentine’s Day, but that I was really looking forward to seeing the WWE in Des Moines on Monday.

I came to find out that he was a big wrestling fan. We talked about wrestling for nearly half an hour before I had to leave for class. I had similar discussion about wrestling with the orthopedic specialist, who was also a fan, when Nicole had her neck collar removed.

Nicole, by the way, simply had a neck sprain from her car accident.

[18]

Prayers of An Atheist

February 19, 2010. I had two hours between English and psychopharmacology today, so I got a burger and fries from the food court. I was kind of nervous about ordering from the food court because I was kind of uncertain as to how and where to pay.

I get like that. No matter where I eat, I want to be sure of the procedures for getting and paying for my food. It was really quite simple and should not have caused me any consternation.

So I paid and looked for an open seat in the commons. The closest one I found was across from a young lady reading a book.

“Hi.” She greeted me. “How’s your Friday?” She was nice, so I struck up a conversation with her.

“How can you read with all the noise in here?” I wondered aloud.

She said she was used to it. She asked me about my major and from this the conversation led to what she does. She works for a campus ministry.

I then revealed to her that I am an atheist. This led into a conversation on religion. She asked me what I thought of Christians, and what I tried to communicate to her was that Christians seem self- important and that religious thought hinders intellectual thought. By this I meant that reason takes a backseat to blind faith or belief.

I could go into all of the historical evils committed in the name of Christianity and other religions, but those have been well documented elsewhere. But one thing I want to state right here is that one of the most irritatingly obnoxious things about some Christians is that they deny science and reason for the sake of their religion. “Scientific explanations are just theories,” say the science-deniers, as though a theory is not the weighty, substantive thing that it is.

The thought seems to be that science is simply another religion, and that scientists are analogous to priests. You just have to have faith in what the experts report, just as we must have faith in what your priest tells you. I admit that we do have to trust experts in different fields of science, and to accept their conclusions if their science is solid; none of us has enough time to become an expert in every field, nor do we have enough time to replicate every experiment. But scientists publish their findings -- methods and all -- in peer reviewed academic journals.

Scientific theories and religious doctrines are just different ways of viewing the world, I’ve been told; science is an organized religion, one theist insisted. But religious doctrines have no predictive value; they are not systematically examined; they are simply believed. Scientific theories must withstand the scrutiny of methodological testing. A religious idea is sometimes strengthened by counterevidence; a scientific theory must be right every time, or else it should be replaced by a more accurate model.

“How do you know there are atoms? Have you ever seen one?” a theist asked me. No, I haven’t seen an atom, and I’m not even deeply knowledgeable about chemistry or physics7. But I do know that atomic theory makes very accurate predictions, that atomic theory has enough explanatory power for us to make plastics, to make nuclear weapons, to develop pharmaceuticals, and countless other achievements; just as cell theory and germ theory have had dramatic impacts on biology and medicine.

Good theories conform to what we observe of the world so consistently that it matters little whether someone has

7 I suppose that physicists study atoms more than chemists, but atomic theory is integral to both disciplines actually observed an atom with his own eyes.

Disbelievers of science, those people who claim that science brings us no closer to understanding the world around us, scoff at the haughtiness of scientists while simultaneously repeating the benefits of the modern world that scientific advancements have afforded them.

When I met the young woman from the ministry, she said that she had asked a small group of people at a table down the hall where the restroom was. Only later did she notice that the table had a sign that read: Ask an Atheist a Question. I was tempted to ask the atheists why people believe crazy things in spite of their better judgment.

Religious people really have no reason at all to believe in God besides having been told by their parents. There is no evidence for God, and a god that gives us no indication of his existence doesn’t seem like a god worthy of worship.

The believers, when they learn that you are an atheist, usually challenge you to prove that God does not exist. This seems a little bit backwards, as if the burden of proof should be on me for my lack of belief rather than them for their belief. Theists often openly acknowledge their lack of interest in the scientific method, but I really do urge them to take a lesson hypothesis testing.

But I suppose the simplest way to prove that God does not exist is to simply state that the concept of God is inconsistent with what we observe (or lack to observe); that is, God can be proven

non-existent by fulfilling none of the standards that the definition of concept of God requires.

For just one example, intercessory prayer has been studied and been shown to have no effect at all. If God answers prayers, then he answers prayers. But since we observe that no prayers are answered by God, then we can safely say that answering prayers is not a trait of God. The same can be said for any of his other alleged attributes. In a sentence, the God-worshipers, who so emphatically wish to force us to accept the hypotheses that would support the existence of God, consistently fail to reject the null hypotheses.

Believers, for their part, often have abundant evidence for God’s existence. Their evidence? Biblical verses. All that

is accomplished by cited the Bible as evidence for God is question begging. I even acknowledged to the girl from the ministry that I, on the few times that I have gone, actually liked going to church because I felt a sense of community there; it is likely that religiosity emerged for good social or biological (as an evolutionary byproduct) reasons, but these are matters that have been pursued elsewhere.

So much for the arguments for or against the existence of God. Such arguments are old, tireless, and tiresome, and I have nothing novel to contribute to this age old question, this question of whether or not there is a God, a question which in any case has already been answered to any reasonable person.

I want to, at this point, make it clear that I can relate to those who believe in God and to those who pray. I found myself praying just the other day.

February 28, 2010. I was lying down to try to take a nap, but my neck and back felt uncomfortable, so I got up to read. I was feeling kind of nervous anyways. As I read, I started to feel a little dizzy. I got up and for whatever reason I looked to my left. My neck and upper back popped and crackled. I felt sure that I had hurt myself, dislodging my vertebrae into my spinal cord. I was going to die, I thought, and I became even dizzier. My arms tingled and my legs felt weak. Soon my whole body was trembling, shivering.

I found myself praying, or at least dearly hoping, that I would be OK. What’s the difference between a prayer and a hope anyways? What’s more, I found myself asking, “Why me?” as if there were a higher power who consciously selected me for this terror, though I certainly knew better.

Nicole thought I was just getting too worked up, but I insisted upon her taking me to the emergency room. She seemed too damn slow about getting dressed to take me, but we got there while I was still alive. After I arrived, the nurses, and then the doctor, interviewed me. I told my story, and the doctor asked if I had a history of anxiety. I confessed that I did have such a history. She supplied me with oxygen and ordered an intramuscular shot of Ativan (lorazepam). The nurse stuck the needle into my hip and then left as we waited to see how I felt.

A little while later the nurse returned to the room and inquired as to how

I was feeling at that point. “I feel fine now,” I declared.

“No pain? No tingling?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s good,” she said, and by the tone of her voice I knew that she was expecting that response. The doctor returned and gave me some Benadryl for an itching sensation I had in my arms.

Meanwhile, Nicole began to cry with frustration. She hears me complain about my health almost every night, and it’s wearing on her. She became a bit grumpy with the doctor, and I chided her, but the doctor said she understood that it was frustrating.

My neck was X-rayed mostly in an attempt to quell my worries about my spine. I’ve visited doctors about my neck on countless occasions in the past few years and even had CAT scan a couple years ago. On all of these visits, I was told that no abnormalities were detected and that my vertebrae looked perfectly normal on the CAT scan.

The doctor reported, “Your spine looks beautiful on the X-ray.” After all the years of anxiety about my neck, dating back to the time I saw a man with a hunched back and crooked neck, to all the nightmares of my head falling off, to the weird thought distortions about injury to my neck, I will take this as the final confirmation that my neck is fine.

It was a stressful night for Nicole, so she needed some comfort food. That meant going to Wendy’s for fast food. I lost have some lapses in my memory at this point, a result of the combination of

lorazepam and Benadryl, but I remember stumbling and staggering alongside her as we entered the restaurant to get a burger and Asian chicken.

“Why did we go to the video store last night?” I asked Nicole the next day.

“We didn’t. We went to Wendy’s.”

Before I end this chapter, I want to add a few more thoughts, a personal narrative, really. Let me briefly summarize the ‘evolution’ of my religious views.

Up until about six years ago, I hadn’t read much of the New Testament, but at about the time, I started waking up at about 2 or 3 in the morning with panic attacks; I was sure I was going to die soon. I definitely did not want to die, so I took Pascal’s wager, said the Sinner’s

Prayer, and considered myself a Christian I didn’t start talking until I was about five and didn’t read until about eight, I suppose. But my grandma had a Bible on the shelf of one of her large clocks, and only a couple years after I started reading, I took the Bible from the shelf and started reading a bit. I only got through some of Genesis, but I remember being disheartened by the expulsion from Eden, and I cursed Adam and Eve; and I was horrified by the Noachian flood, but relieved when God promised to never flood the earth again (Gen. 8:21, 9:11). I was only a child, and everyone around me took God’s existence as an unquestionable truth, so I saw no reason to doubt the veracity of the Bible or God.

But since I now was a Christian, at least nominally or self-proclaimed, I thought I had better learn a thing or two about what exactly that meant. As I began to study the Bible more, and as my powers of reasoning matured, I couldn’t help but develop some skepticism, so I came to consider myself an agnostic; I didn’t really know enough to commit to any beliefs, I decided. With time and studying, my mind filled with enough knowledge that I could claim with confidence that I finally knew enough to be an atheist.

I can understand why some people want to believe. After all, I did at one point. I just couldn’t because religious belief was incompatible with my other thoughts and views acquired through studies that revealed to me that the God hypothesis fails logically and empirically, philosophically and scientifically. It doesn’t take the most erudite scholar of philosophy, biology, astronomy, physics, or even psychology to recognize that all these areas of knowledge has left no niche for God except for that of a fictional character, a concept of the imagination akin to unicorns or mermaids.

I must make a concession to the religiously oriented. There is some sort of parallel between belief in a god or gods and my anxiety. Both their beliefs and my anxieties are “misfiring” of outmoded – in this day and age – psychological mechanisms that were quite likely useful in a different age.

Post script:

A little while after I wrote this, I had a funny exchange on a social networking site

that I would like to share with you since this chapter dealt with religion a bit and because I found it humorous, and perhaps so shall the reader. One of my friends frequently changes her relationship status. After she had changed her relationship status for the umpteenth time in a very short period of time, I responded with, “Jesus f-ck.”

To which her dad replied that those were two words that do not need to go together, especially with Easter coming up. (This exchange took place the day before Easter). His comment prompted me to think of what I said in a different way, so I responded to his comment:

If you think about it, the words go together perfectly. Even though I used the expression as one of exasperation, it's really a beautiful play on words. Easter is tomorrow.

Easter is a celebration of the great myth of Jesus' resurrection (which some people seem to seriously take as a fact of history, which is really shameful for a species with such a swollen prefrontal cortex).

But the part that makes my choice of words so wonderful is that Easter actually has its origins as a celebration of spring and fertility (that's where those funny eggs come in!) "Jesus" and 'f-ck'. . . get it? Christianity and fertility....

By the way, it's kind of funny that Easter is now associated with Jesus, a Christian god, even though it's named after a pagan god.

Part Four

Spring & Summer

2010

[19]

The Importance of a Good Psychiatrist

A good, strong, and trusting relationship between a patient and doctor is essential for the proper treatment of mental illness. If a doctor (or nurse practitioner) is negligent in his or her care, or if he or she shows ineptitude, or if he or she displays little familiarity with the patient’s case, how can proper care be provided?

The above questions relate to my treatment by the nurse practitioner I had been seeing for the sake of convenience, her office being near the college. One week I’m definitely NOT bipolar, according to her, and the next I definitely am; even though she’s been provided with a thorough case history on one visit, the next visit she thinks she was the first to prescribe me the medication that I have been on for several years; and the rudeness of her receptionists should also be mentioned.

Dr. Egger, on the other hand, is very

well acquainted with my history and condition, and he has provided quality care since I started seeing him in my early teens. Though it is not as convenient to see Dr. Egger as it is to see someone nearer the college, it is worth it for the sake of my being comfortable and confident in the psychiatric treatment I receive. Spring break is the perfect time for an appointment because I am back in that corner of the state to visit my mother.

I usually do not look forward to psychiatrist appointments. All doctors make me nervous, none more so than dentists; I feel much better about psychiatrists than any other doctor, but still they make me anxious. But this time I am more eager to consult with the doctor in light of my recent anxiety and panic attacks, I have previously in this writing mentioned my health concerns and my trip to the emergency room. Another troubling issue has been the following. On a few occasions, I have looked into the mirror and thought that my brow ridge looked too large and thick, too protruding. This has thrown me into panic attacks each time as my face looks in these moments as thought I have acromegaly, the same condition which has so deteriorated my dear grandmother’s health.

Added to all this is a weird sensation that I get in my shoulders, neck, and back that makes it seem as if I am being strangled; this is the same feeling that precipitated my first panic attack at around age 11. This sensation of being strangled, or choked, or something of the

sort, would grip me not infrequently after that first emergency room visit at that young age; I would tug at my shirt collar, thinking perhaps its tightness was the cause of my unpleasant sense of a ligature constricting my throat.

I always have a lot that I plan to tell the psychiatrist before I get to the appointment, though I never do in fact discuss nearly as much with the doctor when I am actually seated across from him in his office. For psychiatrists these days make their meetings with patients short with no therapy, though the patient leaves with plenty of prescriptions.

Another reason I do not discuss much during the appointments is due to my pre- appointment cycle. The cycle goes like this: I am eager to see the doctor while feeling optimistic; the optimism fades and

I am then overtaken by a negative affect, my emotions a brewing storm, and at this point I think of plenty of issues -- those negative things that I am afflicted with and which are holding me back -- to discuss; then a calmness follows my emotional hurricane, so that by the time I meet with the psychiatrist, my list of complaints has shrunk.

On this visit to the psychiatrist, I explained to the doctor my dissatisfaction with the nurse practitioner. “We can take care of you here,” said he. I furthermore told him that she, the nurse practitioner, instructed me to take alprazolam as needed, but that I was taking it almost every night for it was the only way I could sleep in the face of my anxieties and health concerns, which are amplified at bedtime. I explained my health concerns, anxieties, and recent panic attacks, and the psychiatrist asked, “Are you taking the alprazolam only once a day?” He said that the alprazolam was too short-acting, and my anxiety too great, for me to be taking it only once a day. He switched me from alprazolam to diazepam, twice a day, because diazepam should help relieve the tension in my shoulders and neck.

I feel better about seeing Dr. Egger than I did about seeing the nurse practitioner for the reasons noted above and because he is a board certified doctor. Sometimes degrees and titles represent real differences in expertise.

My neck issues are definitely psychologically rooted. The CAT scan and x-rays are strong evidence for the lack of any physical basis for my symptoms (though, of course, all – or at least most -

psychological issues have some sort of physical, or structural, basis in the brain, as the psyche is based in the mind, and the mind is the function of the brain). Further evidence for a psychological basis to my neck “injury” is that merely thinking about damage to my neck, or to someone else’s, causes my head and neck to tingle, such as when I see someone crack his or her own neck, or when I see someone injured on television or video.

So clearly I have the metaphorical loose screw or two in the mechanics of my mind, but so does someone else, that someone else being a five-pound toy terrier/Chihuahua mix by the name of Colby. The reader was introduced to this ill- behaved dog earlier in this book. Colby is too territorial, too possessive, and too defensive of me and my mother, who he seems to identify as his masters. Allow me to defend this position with a few short anecdotes.

Colby has a “girlfriend”; this

“girlfriend is a teddy bear that he mounts and humps in mom’s guest room. I teased him by taking the teddy bear and thrusting my own hips into the stuff animal. Colby licked my hand. When Andy repeated this act, Colby snapped and growled at him.

On day, Colby snarled and surmounted a vicious attack on Nicole. We were baffled over his sudden aggression towards her. The cause was revealed when Nicole got up and Colby’s bone was found under the seat cushion where Nicole sat. He did not come to friendly terms with Nicole until our next visit.

Nicole and I brought Colby to Nicole’s to meet Brandy (Nicole’s dog). Colby made

a point of trying to mount Brandy, to which

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Brandy took exception and, being about 30 pounds heavier than Colby, made her unhappiness known to him, who nevertheless was undeterred in trying to mount the larger Brandy.

When putting Colby outdoors, I did not

fasten his collar correctly, and he escaped down the block to where the neighbor and her two young children were playing in the yard. I snatched my mother’s dastardly pooch as he approached the youngest of the two children with what I was afraid were ill intentions. As I was talking away with him in my arms, the grown neighbor asked to pet him. I warned that he bites strangers, and as she reached out to pet him, she found that I spoke the truth.

One thing that I intended and failed to speak to my psychiatrist about was my

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concern for what happens after college graduation. As my dad told me a couple years ago, I have no skills. I can’t even drive a car. I’m not good with my hand and I am not mechanically inclined. I submitted applications all over town and the next nearest town after I finished high school, but the jobs always went to someone else, often someone with even less education than a high school diploma. I don’t think employers are conspiring against me, but I am just stating the facts.

I made what could be construed as a mistake by choosing a liberal arts degree as opposed to a technical degree. A liberal arts degree trains you to think, but not to work.

The pious conservative-leaning folks

gripe about paying taxes to support people

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like me who receive welfare benefits from their tax dollars. These are the same people who nod their heads in the pews when the preacher speaks of the sin of avarice in a Christian church which claims to be a friend to the poor.

One concept people of this mindset seem to fail to grasp is that money circulates; a dollar you make today is not your dollar forever more. It’s funny how the economy works that way. Create an economic system that guarantees everyone a job with at least adequate income if you want everyone to work. Unfortunately, capitalism doesn’t usually work out that way. It’s a very slim minority that would prefer to receive meager welfare benefits; most people in this country would rather have a job, people want to be productive,

but that’s sadly just not possible for

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everyone. The working people grumbled about their crummy jobs while the unemployed look upon them enviously for their having a job at all. All the while, the elites look on from atop their heaps of money.

It appears, at least from my perspective, that the ideas of Herbert Spencer and his notion of “social Darwinism” survive to this day, while others take what I would suggest is a more humane approach to society and politics, and it is us who believe in social progress and in social welfare. The differences between these two types may have to do, at least in part and in at least some cases, with the environments the people who belong

to these types come from.

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[20] Dream Kissing

Nicole has been witness to a strange

nocturnal phenomenon. I suppose it is best called a sort of somnambulism. She’s been awoken on multiple occasions to my wide-eyed face hover over her, necking her, kissing her, getting kind of frisky.

I vaguely recall some of these

instances, but they are the vague memories of dream-like states; I suppose I had alpha brainwaves, because I had that weird between sleep-and-wake sort of feeling in those few moments

that I remember of my strange make-out

sessions in the middle of the night.

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Nicole has a particularly freaky account of my nighttime kissing. I’m not into bestiality, and I have no memory of this, but here is a disturbing episode in Nicole’s words:

I walked into the bedroom to go to bed. When I lay down, Dustin was over Brandy, kissing her. I pushed Dustin off of her and asked what he was doing, and he said that Brandy was buying books. I kept telling him that he told me that “Brandy was buying books” to see if he would wake up and realize he was sleep-talking. I asked him if he were awake and he kept saying he was, but

apparently he was still half

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asleep, because he still kept saying that Brandy was buying books.

For the record, I was not awake.

[21]

States of Mind and a New Home

Dear reader, it may come as no surprise to you that the way one perceives his world,

his environment, could very well be more

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important than his environment itself. I expect that you already have either an intuitive or at least intellectual understanding of this notion, but I put this statement to paper because changes in my brain chemistry are making it so that I understand this more profoundly than usual.

I know that in a sorrowful mood, everything is viewed negatively, and that in joyful mood, the same things are viewed positively. Neurotransmitters do their jobs well, as I am reminding for two reasons. For one, I have again stopped taking Invega. I was feeling much tension in my head, neck, shoulders, and back, and feared tardive dyskenesia and other possible long-term side effects. I really did not think the medication did my mood or behavior any favors anyways, but I had been

taking it for so long that it’s hard to

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tell how I would have behaved and felt had I never been on it. The second reason is that I am taking diazepam, which helps with both my anxiety and muscle tension.

I’ve noticed a few major psychological effects. Some of them I attribute to the diazepam, these being a more relaxed feeling, an ability to “see the big picture”, an easier time getting to sleep, and what I suppose is a general sense of well-being. My anxieties about my health are completely gone, as least as of the time my writing this (March 31, 2010).

Those effects mentioned in the above paragraph are all good, but I also have been feeling somewhat depressed and unmotivated. I can’t help but wonder if discontinuing Invega contributes to these feelings. Part of it might also be the

sedative effects of diazepam. All I can

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say for sure is that I feel a little bit different, as if my thoughts are somehow both more amorphous and yet, maybe paradoxically, more clear.

I’ll leave the topic of my medications, at least for the moment, to mention the resolution to an issue that has propped up earlier in this book. The reader might recall that Nicole and I were looking for a place for her dog. The search became more urgent as our current lease neared it expiration and Nicole’s dad indicated that he would much prefer that Nicole take her dog. We found a fair-sized, pet-friendly apartment for a good rate and have signed the lease.

Although I was generally opposed to the idea of moving Brandy, Nicole’s dog, in

with us, I do have a theory of mind despite

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any diagnosis of Asperger syndrome. I know that Nicole’s dog is important to her, just as I had a close bond with my deceased dog, Barry, and just as man in general has bonded with dog in general over the millennia. How could it be otherwise, when man and dog have coevolved since man domesticated dog (or did dog domesticate itself?) so many years ago? I just hope that Nicole knows that one dog is enough; no other pets, and definitely no babies, are in our near future.

I woke up today, April 1st, and checked my e-mail, as is my ritual. In my inbox I found a most distressing e-mail. I had sold my pro wrestling bobble heads over the internet. The bobble heads were among the last remnant of my pro wrestling

memorabilia collection from the time that I

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had an intense interest in that form of entertainment.

What was distressing and anxiety-

provoking was that the recipient informed me that when he opened his package, all but one of the bobble heads was broken. I was blamed for my poor packing, and this criticism is probably fully justified. I refunded his money, but I feel a high magnitude of anxiety over their breaking. It seems I make one mistake after another. I have a sense that I could do better, that I should do better, but still somehow I don’t. I sense that I have the potential to perform as a worthwhile person, but somehow I always seem to fail.

Another example comes from yesterday. I asked my English professor why we say “et cetera” with the ‘c’ pronounced like ‘s’

when ‘c’ does not make that sound, but

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rather the ‘k’ sound, in Latin. But when I tried to convey this question, I mistakenly asked why we use the soft ‘c’ when apparently it’s actually the hard ‘c’.

These are only two examples. I could write about many more of my mistakes, as they keep running through my mind all the time as of late.

***

It was three days before moving day, and

Nicole and I lay in bed.

“Well, are you going to get on me?” Nicole asked.

“No, I want you on top,” I replied.

We were both tired, and my toe was infected, but she won.

I was afraid the infected toe might be an

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impediment to our move. It had three days to heal, so I asked Nicole for a sewing needle. As she fetched the needle, I retrieved my camera, prepared to hold the broken battery compartment closed with my fingers once the blood and pus came, and prepared for the bloody pus that would hopefully ooze from my toe. Nicole returned to the room with the needle, and I went to work on drawing the pus out. The problem with her sewing needle, as it concerns penetrating the infected area, was that it’s sharp only at the tip.

After several pokes and much squeezing, the goriness -- the squirting of blood and pus – that I had hoped and tried for did ensue. I took a picture of my messy toe in hopes of sharing a picture of it in this book, but I must have released

my hold on the batteries before the picture

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could save. I suppose nobody probably wanted to see that picture anyways.

The important thing is that the toe

was healed up in plenty of time for moving, which was a blessing because only Nicole, her dad, and I did all the moving.

Moving day started out as a joyous day, so joyous that a neighbor caught me singing “You and Your Hand” by Pink. I hate when I sing in public only to find someone else is present.

The joy wore off later, however, and gave way to anxiety. I didn’t want to be tired for the move, so I didn’t take my diazepam in the morning, which turned out to be a good idea in one sense because I did most of the moving myself. I give Nicole credit for packing and doing some driving, and I give her dad credit for

driving the moving truck and helping with

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some of the furniture and for getting us connected to the Internet, but I did most of the lifting while he sat on Nicole’s computer playing a video game. When the computer desk was the last item remaining to be moved, he had to resign from the game, even if it took four requests from Nicole and me to get him off.

Let my gratitude for her dad’s help be

clear. We needed him to drive the truck, and I would not have been able to figure out what was wrong with our Internet connection.

The ISP was going to provide us with a modem, but I wanted my own, so I bought one at Wal-Mart. When I opened it and found it had only one hub, I returned it because I wanted both my computer and Nicole’s connected to the Internet.

So when I finished eating the pizza we

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ordered for nourishment after our long day of moving, I packed the modem and all the papers and the CD that came with it into the original box, pulled out the crumpled receipt (crumpled because I almost threw it away before I thought that I should keep it just in case), and we went to Wal-Mart. The associate chuckled when he opened the box, checking for all the contents, and found a sheet of Pizza Hut coupons in the box.

But why the anxiety? Well, the semester had ended, but my brother still had not returned to me the library books I had checked out for him. I worried that he had lost them, and when I talked to Mom about it, she was less than reassuring. Actually, she just stressed me more, but that was because she was stressed from

legal issues with my other brother.

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Rational thought goes out the window when my anxiety gets too great, and I feared that my brother had lost my library books and that, as a result, I would not be granted my degree. After the move, a storm started brewing. The new apartment is near a train track8. I heard a sound through the window that my rational thought went out, and the sound of the approaching train startled me out of my fear that a tornado might be headed our way.

Added to these two stressors was having to ride with Nicole’s dad in the moving truck. I’ve noted our ideological difference earlier.

8 Speaking of trains, spring 2010 was an eventful semester here as ISU. A student went missing and was found dead in a dairy barn; another died of bacterial meningitis; and a third was struck by a train. After news broke of the missing student, Mom cautioned me to be careful

and to not get abducted, but there was no need to worry, because I’m not the type who is targeted by abductors of male college students: tall, blond, drunk, and handsome. Regardless, it appears he wasn’t abducted, but died from some sort of drunken fall in a dairy barn. Another student was seriously injured when he fell into a ravine while walking. I think there’s a lesson in this footnote, a very simple one that’s been stressed before: Be cautious about your alcohol intake.

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“I saw some union workers at work,” he said of some construction workers who didn’t appear to be doing much work. Labor unions stifle work, he noted; its members don’t do much. I suppose we would be better off if we could go back to the days of unsafe working conditions and unfair wages.

But all is well that ends well, as the adage goes. The move was successful and Brandy Dog is now living with us, for which I am grateful, even if she did defecate in the backseat of Nicole’s car on the way from Lenox to Ames. “Moving is hard!” said my friend from Nepal, who I met at the bus stop last semester, in an accent you’d except from someone from that region, after he waved the maintenance man good-bye and

spotted me finishing up my move. We were

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both moving out of the university housing at the same time. He was right; moving is hard. I am doing it again no sooner than after Nicole earns her bachelor’s degree.

Post script:

In this chapter, I reported some changes in mood that I had been experiencing. One of the changes was a tendency to cry, to sleep too much, and to ruminate on my mistakes. I feared that I was rapidly descending into a major depression, but as I write this post script only about two weeks later, my mood is much improved. The buyer of the bobble heads even sent me a nice e-mail complimenting me on how I do business after he received his refund.

Here’s an example of my more sanguine attitude towards my mistakes. Walking

through Ross Hall to my English class, I

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saw who I thought was a classmate from another course. I smiled and waved to her, and she smiled and waved back. She had a build similar to my classmate’s, nearly identical glasses, similarly dark hair, and a facial resemblance to her, but somehow my autistic mind recognized that something wasn’t quite right.

“You’re not Ashley, are you?” I asked.

“No, but I get that a lot. I don’t even know who Ashley is, but people have told me I look like her.”

Normally, I would have been greatly

embarrassed at my misidentifying the student, but this time, I was actually amused by my error. Perhaps my improved mood is a consequence of nearing the end of the semester.

This post script may have had a much

different tone had I seen the large meteor

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– as I have recently overcome a fear of asteroids, meteors, and comets which could have been rekindled -- that lit up the sky over much of the Midwest (northern Iowa included; Ames was apparently too far south to view the shooting star) two nights ago.

Additionally, I spoke (or typed) too soon when I stated that there were no other pets in our near future. Nicole put the charm on to successfully persuade me to allow her to get two pet rats. One is very skittish, so we gave him a name that had a sound that would reflect his skittishness, Jimmy. The other rat is much more friendly, and as of late has grown quite heavy, weighing probably about twice as much as Jimmy, so we gave him a “softer” sounding name, Tommy. Part of Nicole’s argument for why

we should get pet rats was that we could do

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some sort of learning experiments with them. We got the rats, but she reneged on performing psychology on them. So they basically just poop all day long, though Nicole claims that they love her and that

she loves them back.

Tommy, the gregarious rat, greets Brandy.

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[22]

A Strange View of

Education

A view of the role of education has recently come to my attention, a view that I’ve never heard expressed in such the way it was conveyed to me, and a view which seems to me rather odd, if not absurd. I will not say who expressed this view; I just wish to give my commentary on it.

My explanation will be brief, as it

was brief when expressed to me. A college education, in the view of the one who told

me this, is not really about attending

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classes, reading book, and taking exams. He said that while some see college as an institution of accreditation and certification that hands out diplomas to recognize the completion of studies, the real reason for going to college is for the social interactions. The social interactions, he says, are the truly beneficial aspects of a college education.

I’m no Rousseau, and this text is no Emile, but I can’t help but think that someone has got the wrong idea. If I want social interactions, I have a park across the street from my house. I shop for groceries. I go out to eat. Nearly everyone, no matter their college enrollment or level of education, has to interact with other people. College doesn’t provide any more incentive or

opportunity for social interactions save

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for rowdy parties and football games.

I do concede, however, that certain social opportunities, such as drunken parties, a large congregation of like-aged individuals, and probably increased sexual opportunities, can serve as incentives for young people to attend college. But college is not meant to serve outside social functions; the social functions serve the college as auxiliaries, as fringe benefits, that can lure young people to school.

If it is true that our human brains

are stuck in the Pleistocene, then perhaps forcing young people to sit in their desks for hours while listening to lectures, and then to go home and read four or five books

500-pages in length in 16 week intervals for four years – all this could very well

serve a social function by “denaturing”

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young people. But that is what happens within the context of school, not the allegedly more ‘educational’ social interactions that are byproducts of the college setup.

Education can serve one of two

purposes. There’s career or technical training to equip students with the skills necessary to perform certain tasks. And there’s a more liberal arts education to exercise more abstract thinking. Developing strong social skills is good but falls outside the domain of education. All that is good is not education, and all that is education is not good, but let’s have education for education’s sake. Do you really think the retired 70-year-old woman who comes back to finish her degree is trying to learn how to navigate the social

world?

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I would rather my diploma certify that I completed the required coursework for a degree, rather than for it to certify that I have been provided with adequate opportunity to socialize as if the credits and courses were just props.

[23] College Graduate

Shortly before the end of the spring

semester, I perused the contents of a drawer on my entertainment center in my bedroom at Mom’s. In the drawer was a folder filled with miscellany. Besides a folded piece of construction paper that

served as a “guess who” game in 1st grade,

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on the cover of which I had described myself as: “I am cool. I am neat. I like football. Who am I?” (in hindsight, those clues might have been a little vague and even inaccurate), and a newspaper clipping from when the elementary school was evacuated a year or so later due to a fire in the janitor’s closet – among these items were mostly cards. One was a birthday card from an ex-girlfriend who said “Happy birthday! You deserve it.” She apparently didn’t know me too well at that point. A couple others were Christmas cards from the reverend of the Presbyterian Church in town.

The rest were congratulatory cards for

my high school graduation. They reminded me that I still haven’t sent thank you notes, but that’s forgiven after five

years, right?

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My attendances at Bible study must have made people think I was a Christian, because a few of them spoke of my work towards God’s glory.

It really was quite an accomplishment for me to complete high school. Neither of my parents had, and I considered dropping out many times, many of them during my final semester.

A few months ago, my elementary school principal said she was proud of me for continuing my education through college. I’m proud of myself as well, especially since she herself was a hurdle that I had to jump on my way through the public education system. (See the appendix for a transcript of a Facebook exchange that took place between she and I in late June 2010).

I get sentimental feelings from

looking through old cards and newspaper

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clippings, as well as from looking at old photographs. They take me back to other times in my life; I do not have illusions of the times having been better simply because they are now more distant, but some things were better, like Grandma’s health. I’ve mentioned her acromegaly previously in this volume, but her health took a sharp decline in the summer of 2010.

Nicole and I have visited Lenox a lot this summer. For the two weeks leading up to the end of the summer semester, Grandma had been in bed and confused every time I’d seen her. One day, she asked me, “Are they out there yet?”

“Is who out there?” I replied

quizzically.

“Lary and all them.”

“It’s 9:30 on a Tuesday, Grandma. Grandpa’s at work.”

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“I’ll have to call Andy then.” “What for?”

“A ride home.”

She’s gotten confused like this before, so I didn’t think too much of it. Besides, I had gotten over the flu just about a week or so before, in early July, and I knew of other who had contracted it this summer. Even though she was already in vulnerable health, she’d probably get over it before too long, I thought.

But she remained in bed for the better part of three weeks, and one night I got a call from my uncle, urging me to come from Ames to see her before she passed away. It appeared that she wouldn’t live through the week.

I stayed in Lenox for about a week and a half as she lay in bed, barely clinging

to life. She took occasional sips of

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water, tea, or soda, but she had been sick for so long by this point – about a month – that she, I thought, would not get enough hydration no matter how often she sipped on beverages. She refused to be taken to the hospital for an IV, so what were we to do?

But maybe my grandmother is immortal. She’d already suffered from the debilitating effects of nerve damage from acromegaly (and, by the way, having been bed-ridden for so long must have further weakened her nerves and atrophied her muscles), and she had endured a heart attack about a decade ago, and had colon polyps removed a few years before that. Plus, the oxycodone used to treat the nerve pain over the years has apparently caused some liver damage, as revealed by an ultrasound earlier in the year.

These breaths that I watched her take

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in the brief moments that I could stand to watch her in her pitiful, miserable state of health; these breaths would probably be her last. Grandma has a way of beating the odds. Maybe she should have been a gambler, because one day she was suddenly talking coherently and making jokes.

Shortly after that, she had her shoes on, ready to go home again. She alternately thought she was in jail or a nursing home. When she started eating a little bit again, I brought her a tomato. As I was in the kitchen to dice it for her and to get her some iced tea, I heard he say something, so I asked her to repeat it.

“I was just asking this guy if he

needed a ride home.”

There was no one else in her room, but she claimed to have talked to a woman in

the next bed the day before.

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I fed her a few dices of the tomato and had her sipped on the tea through a straw. “This tea is good. Where did you get it?” I got it from her fridge, but when Andy came later, she told him that I had brewed some really good tea.

She didn’t eat much of the tomato, but Colby had eaten her lower dentures when Mom mistakenly placed them within his reach after having cleaned them, so chewing had to have been difficult. As I fed her the tomato, she said, “One more bite and then let’s go home.”

The hallucinations continued: It was July, but she kept thinking it was Labor Day in September; Mom’s dog, Colby, was wearing pink socks; she asked Andy to get her one of the purses off the floor – “Even if they’re imaginary, just pretend to give

me one,” because she needed to give us

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money for some imaginary races and concert; my mother had been arrested, and on and on they went.

July was a stressful month. I had finished college and so was worried what to do next. My prospects of finding a job are bleak given my lack of skills and absence of experience, both of which gave me great distress when completing a resume for my business communications class in the spring. I shared these concerns with my psychiatrist to no response. So I continued expressing the concerns. With still no response, I finally posed them in question form, “What do you suggest?”

“What’s your question?” The doctor

said.

“Do you think I can get a job, and how?”

The gist of his response was that my

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brain was hardwired in such a way that it would be difficult for me to learn manual skills that require hand-eye coordination, and that I should continue to fill out applications. This sounded discouraging, and I was thus in a foul mood and left the building crying into a tissue.

Nicole had given Mom and me a ride to our appointments with the doctor, so the three of us sought to decide on a place to eat afterwards. We first tried Hy-Vee, but the Hy-Vee in Shenandoah looked like a squalid, filthy little place.

When I then suggested McDonald’s, my suggestion was met with a groaningly reluctant “sure” from the other two in the car. Since Nicole likes Subway, it was my next suggestion. I was still pretty upset, so I asked Mom to order my sandwich for me.

I told her to just get anything green for

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toppings, but she continually looked back at me to see what I wanted on the sandwich.

Nicole was the last through the line,

and she ordered us all drinks. The cashier handed her paper cups for the fountain. I didn’t want a fountain drink because they make me inexplicably nervous.

So I got a Coke Zero from the cooler. The cashier snapped her fingers at me, shouting, “Hey! Hey!” Gosh, this woman was rude!

She told me that the bottled drinks cost more, so I asked her how much more f- ing money she needed, tossing the cup over the counter to her (not at her, for I dare not throw such a harmful, fast moving projectile as a light, air-resistant paper cup at someone!), pulling out a wad of bills from my pocket.

“Just leave!” she said in an accent

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that I guess is from one of the former Soviet states. I refused to leave. “I am a paying customer, and you made us answer

50 f’ing questions before we even got a sandwich!”

“Leave or I’ll call the cops!” I told

her to please call them. “No, just leave!” I offered to call them myself, as I

reached for my phone (which turned out to

be in the car anyways), as Nicole practically tackled out the Subway door.

As soon as we got into the car, Nicole furiously shouted about how I needed serious help as the full-throttled the car back to the psychiatrist’s office. She stormed into the waiting room and caused such as scene that all the other patients evacuated the building.

I’m going to abridge the story at this

point, because many muddy words were slung

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and everybody’s emotions were worked up to the point of distorting memories of the scene. In short, the doctor sat with both me and Nicole as Nicole went on a diatribe about my alleged anger, which contradicted my report a few minutes earlier during my appointment about my anger and anxiety having been very low. At that point I really hadn’t experience much anxiety or anger since summer’s mid-term, this being a few days before Grandma’s condition seemed too grave.

The doctor told me that whatever I do,

I had to end the relationship with Nicole, and he urged Mom to clear out a room for me if she had to, just so long as I moved back in with her.

The icing on the proverbial cake was seeing my former elementary school

principal in the waiting room upon exiting

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the office! I interrogated her about her hostile remarks to me online, to which she feigned ignorance. “Was that someone else on your Facebook account?” I was not going to let her off that easy. At that point, she accused me of calling her names online. The appendix of this book has the transcript, so I will let the reader decide for him- or herself.

The receptionists must have gotten nervous about my encounter with the former principal, so they told me to leave or else they’d call the police. Again I thought that was a good idea. They said they’d rather not, so I called them myself.

It turned out that Nicole had called

the cops at the same time, the reason for which I don’t remember, and I don’t want to fan the flames by asking Nicole at this

point! Let’s just say the officer was a

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bit confused upon his arrival.

Oh, and Nicole left me and Mom waiting in the 112 degree heat index waiting on a ride from my little brother as she rode home in an air conditioned car. What a wonderful story, eh?

I would be remiss if I failed to mention the hassle over my SSI benefits. I had my periodic review of my eligibility in June. In July, I was notified that I had been overpaid by about $11,000 because I should not have received benefits for more than a year. There are a lot of rules and laws about this sort of stuff, but I was quite sure that I was right, so I requested reconsideration.

The reason why I had exceeded the resource limit was because I had kept a

portion of my student loans in my bank

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account, but my student loans should not have counted as resources. The reviewer’s supervisor then reviewed my claim and it turns out that I was right. I was pretty sure that I was right in the first place since I've discussed the "issue" with the SSA in the past, but I suspect that my cortisol levels skyrocketed anyways -- maybe that has something to do my catching the flu!

As I near the conclusion of this volume, I am still with Nicole, trying to keep the family together. You know, we have to do it for the dog! We’ve been doing well thus far, spending quality time by trying to capture a domestic black-and-white bunny that runs around with wild rabbits as if he were one of them. He doesn’t seem to know

that he doesn’t fit in, but some sort of

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predatory animal – a dog or cat, say – might notice and have himself an easy meal. Then again, he’s pretty fast for a domestic rabbit, his fluffiness notwithstanding. Nicole and I have not been able to catch at least.

But I will be ashamed when I again see the psychiatrist. The really good news is that I may have found a career: student. I’m returning to school for my BS in sociology this fall, and then I will set my sights on an interdisciplinary master’s degree in the social sciences.

[24]

Of Subs and Men

The previous chapter included an account of

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an incident at a Subway location. This chapter is going to be brief, but I want to make a few more comments on Subway. I want to comment on it for two reasons. The first reason is that I kind of hate Subway. Secondly, this is my book, so I can pretty much write whatever I want, especially since this chapter is imbedded deeply into the volume. You probably didn’t know that anything like this was going to be included when you purchased this book, so I can safely assume that this chapter is not deterring anyone from purchasing it. Thus, you already have it in your hands, making you a captive audience.

So here are my comments on Subway.

I’ve had some bad experiences there, at different locations. I already sufficiently detailed in the previous chapter why I

don’t have much affinity for the one in

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Shenandoah, so my next case example is a location on Lincoln Way in Ames. It’s conveniently located next to Good Will, a thrift shop where I frequently feed my habit of buying used books. Call me a hoarder, but I say I’m a collector. Either way, who can fault me for purchasing hard covers for $1.49 each and paperbacks for

$0.89 each?

Out of convenience and deference to Nicole’s appetite for subs, we’ve been to this location on several occasions. On one particular outing, the server laughed at me when I ordered my usual, the Seafood Sensation sandwich. I swear that’s what the menu calls it, but she giggled when I ordered it by its admittedly grand name.

She said that most people just say they want the crab sandwich. I felt

embarrassed but managed to retort that I

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thought the sandwich was truly sensational. Heck, that’s why I order it almost every time I “eat fresh.” She said teased me good-naturedly; nevertheless, I was mildly humiliated, with my eyes darting across the menu in an attempt to confirm my memory of having seen it advertised as Seafood Sensation.9

The more troubling instances were the ones described in the previous chapter and the one I will sketch in the following few words.

Only a few days after the melodrama in

Shenandoah on the day of my psychiatric appointment, Nicole and I went to another Subway location in Ames. It was connected to a gas station where we filled her car on our way out of town, so we stopped there

out of convenience.

9 www.subway.com confirms that it is called Seafood Sensation.

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I stilled harbored bitter feelings towards Subway so soon after the finger- snapping soda Nazi at the Subway, so I sent Nicole in there to order for both of us.

I was angered when, from the car, I looked through the window of the Subway store and saw a young man with his pants down past his butt, with only underwear covering his rear end and genitalia.

I’ve seen kids wear their pants low, but never have I seen one with them completely below the butt. He shouldn’t have been allowed to expose so much of his underwear in public (indecent exposure, anyone?), but that in itself didn’t bother me so much as his wearing his pants low in conjunction with his flirting with Nicole. Nicole says he was just being helpful, but I say he was flirting.

One of the helpful things he did was

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to get the attention of the servers, both of whom were back in the kitchen rather than at the sandwich bar (or whatever the proper term for that area where the sandwiches are assembled may be).

I was further frustrated by the

servers having not been ready to do what their job titles suggests they ought to: serve! Then, when Nicole returned to the car, she relayed what she thought was a funny conversation she had with the servers after they decided to actually do their jobs. She said they joked that the Seafood Sensation should be renamed the Crabby Patty. I didn’t think this was so funny.

For one, they were making fun of my

sandwich. That’s my own silliness. Their silliness was that while working and representing the Subway brand, they were

suggesting they use the trademark of the

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Sponge Bob Squarepants brand. Have they no respect for intellectual property rights?

I conclude with this statement: I’m

glad that Quiznos opened a location in Ames this summer.

[25] Deluge

Friday, August 13. 2010. Here I am, typing on Nicole’s netbook at Comfort Inn in Story City, about a 20 minute drive from Ames. Nicole and I are staying in this hotel because we missed clean water. Plus, we

wanted to relieve the tension in our

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muscles incurred from having been extremely stressed lately, and the hot tub in our hotel room is the perfect means for such relief. The story behind our stay deserves at least a few words, so those words will hereby be typed.

It’s been a rainy summer in central Iowa. Over the past month or so, we’ve noticed much standing water in our parking lot at the apartment complex. We joked that we were lucky to have an apartment with a lakeside view after the first few storms.

The latest storm birthed within our psyches a less grateful view of our “lakeside view.” The depth of water in our parking lot increased substantially following torrential rain on a stormy August night. The water encroached

perilously close to our door.

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When I took Brandy out on our morning walk, I passed by a neighbor and remarked, “I’m thinking that maybe they should fix this drainage problem.” “I’m thinking probably so,” said he.

He and I were not the only disgruntled

tenants. A couple hours later, when Brandy and I went for a second walk, several tenants were gathered around the flooded parking lot, staring -- glaring -- at the water, perhaps hoping to evaporate it with their laser vision of anger.

Why was the water so deep? The answer

depends upon who were to ask. The real estate group from whom we rent the unit had one of the manager outside taking pictures of the flooding on a previous occasion a week or so before the extremely high waters. I saw him when coming home from a

bike ride, my shoes and socks soaked from

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the water reaching up beyond my bike pedals.

“Is there a clogged drain or what?” I

inquired.

I got an affirmative answer, but the manager said that they couldn’t fix the clogged culvert because it was on Union Pacific Railroad’s property, and that Union Pacific would not cooperate.

With the increased flooding came increased worries. The city utility’s transformer, our power supply, was about

50% immersed in water. I shot off the

following e-mail to Union Pacific:

I live at James Place apartment complex (owned by Real Estate Service Group, Inc) in Ames, IA. A Union Pacific track runs near the parking lot. The parking lot has

flooded several times after rains this

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summer, but according to management, the parking lot cannot be properly drained because the railroad owns the land immediately beyond the parking lot.

We have about 1 foot of water, rusting the bikes on the racks and reaching to the rear bumpers of some cars. The water is perilously close to our front door.

My estimated one inch was very conservative. When people waded in the water, it reached nearly to their waists.

Several e-mails were exchanged between Union Pacific and RESGI; these e-mails also went to me, but because of federal confidentiality laws, I do not want to print the responses in this book. But I will sum it up like this: Union Pacific and RESGI charged each other with being

responsible for maintaining the drain pipe.

The law, in my view, makes it pretty clear that RESGI was actually responsible for the drain pipe, but they apparently didn’t go through the proper process of obtaining the permit, perhaps because they didn’t afford to abide by the railroad industry’s standards of working near the tracks.

Regardless of where the fault lay, all

the tenants were very frustrated. Nicole perhaps played the biggest part in resolving the issue. She made most of the phone calls to the City of Ames, Union Pacific, Real Estate Service Group, the Red Cross, and animal advocacy groups.

Others made calls as well. The City of Ames deserves tremendous praise for being very helpful and doing all they could. The animal groups were contacted

because the city had to disconnect our electricity so that we didn’t get electrocuted from the submerged transformer; thus, we had no air conditioning with a 106 degree F heat index.

Additionally, nearly everyone in the complex has at least one dog, so one can only imagine how much waste was in the water. There were young ladies wading and even dunking their heads in the water; I have to imagine that they might come to regret bathing in that cesspool. The day after the water had finally drained (I will get to how that came about in a moment), I found several round worms in the puddles remaining in the parking lot’s pot holes (damaged caused by the flooding.)

Our apartment’s transformer in several inches of standing water.

As I stated, Nicole made several phone calls. One of the calls was to a local news station. The station, WOI-TV 5 (an ABC affiliate) dispatched a reporter.

Nicole was interviewed on camera.

I didn’t witness the interview as it was being taped because I was consoling Brandy, who was distraught over the excitement in the complex. But when I

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watched the newscast at 10pm that night, Nicole looked brilliantly poised and pitifully helpless simultaneously. She did me proud, and she and the story presumably tugged at the heart strings of the viewing audience, because the next day, the men in yellow and orange vests were working on clearing the culvert.

One of our neighbors, who is a

minister, said on the day that our electricity was shut off and when the water was at its peak, that a peace came over her and that God had told her everything was going to be all right. “I believe in the power of prayer,” she said.

“I hope your right,” I, the atheist,

retorted, “or else we’re going to have to build an ark.”

The next day, the water drained within

three hours. It was the work of God!

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Come to think of it, it probably was not the work of God at all, because those men in bright vests and hard hats were not angels -- they were workers from Union Pacific! Union Pacific was cited as having said they found no problems with the drain pipe, but they must have suddenly found the problem, because they cleared a truckload of debris from the drainage system. The two or three feet of water drained quickly, leaving only those nasty roundworms.

Little did I know at the time, being preoccupied as I was with the flooding at my apartment, that the rest of Ames was fairing no better with many places fairing worse. A trailer park, for example, set in a low area of land, had standing water covering much of each trailer. The parking lot for Hilton Coliseum and Jack Trice

Stadium was converted to a sea, and the

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inside of the coliseum turned into a swimming pool. Several businesses were closed, as well as the university, because of the extensive flooding.

We had heard of the legend of the floods of 1993, but we were just little tykes back then, and we lived in other parts of the state, but now we are witnesses to the legendary floods of 2010. I’m a firm believer in the power of a strong community. A community doesn’t have

to be homogeneous.

Our apartment is far from it; we’re a thoroughly heterogeneous group, though we consequently have an autistic neighbor. He, however, is a different color on the rainbow that is the autism spectrum. He’s lower functioning in some ways, but higher functioning in other senses. He closes his

eyes completely when talking to someone,

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and he has a rather cluttered apartment, and presumably little education (though I am not certain about that), but he does have a job, albeit as a lowly (but admirable) crossing guard.

More impressively, he has a savant

memory, like a mnemonist. He rattled off all the phone numbers were needed as soon as the request had escaped our lips. Later in the night, when another storm was rolling through, he asked from where we originated. I said, “It’s a small town in the southwest corner of the state. You’ve probably never heard of it: Lenox.”

No, we don’t all have to be of one kind, but something must connect a group of people for them to be a community. In our case, it was our residency at a common apartment complex and the perils of the

flooding. Everybody helped each other out

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emotionally and materially; shared our concerns, those on the upper floors offered space in their apartments in the case that the water started trickling in on us poor folks on the bottom floor; we helped each other put valuables on higher ground; and we all put the pressure on officials from the city, the railroad, and the real estate agency, ultimately resulting in a resolution to our ordeal. That’s the power of a community.

“Their high school football team went to eight-man,” he accurately stated immediately after I told him the name of my hometown.

Ames’s water system had eight water

main breaks, resulting in contamination. So here we are at the Comfort Inn. Though

I told Nicole that we could move on if her

rats died when she was frantically trying

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to find a safe place for them in the case of internal flooding in our apartment, and despite my anxious and sleep-deprived ramblings and complaints that annoyed her to the point of punching me in the solar plexus, that bundle of nerves below the rib cage, and in spite of the immense pain that caused, and besides all the conflict that has arisen in recent months between Nicole and me, we have found a sort of rekindling of the embers of love, as they romantics among us like to describe such reconnecting of two lovers’ hearts via changed hormones and chemicals that draw them back together.

It’s love again here at the Comfort Inn.

And our hotel sex did not even break the bed on this unlucky day, Friday the 13th.

Helen Fisher’s book Why We Love provided a likely explanation for why this might be; that is, why an excitatory situation would draw two people together.

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suppose the curse from Friday, October 13th

has been broken.

[26]

10 Things I Learned

In College

In commemoration of my successful completion of a baccalaureate degree in psychology, I present you, the reader who is so dear to me for having made it through this many of my words, with a list of some of the most important things I learned about psychology in college.

1) If you are a black southerner and a psychologist approaches you about

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testing you for bad blood, run or be infected with syphilis.

2) Sea slugs eventually grow tired of retracting their gills if you poke and prod them often enough.

3) Your fellow human beings are willing to shock you to death if an authority figure directs them to do so.

4) Scaring the heck out of a baby in the presence of bunny rabbits can severely traumatize him, rendering him fearful of all things furry and fluffy.

5) You can learn a lot about the human mind by causing selective brain damage to rhesus monkeys (macaques),

observing the effects on the monkeys’

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behavior, and extrapolating to humans. (It’s a reasonable extrapolation; human and monkeys are both classified and primates, and did God not design the banana’s shape to fit both the hand of man and of monkey?)

6) Pigeons can be made to do funny dances for food if put in an inhumane-looking box.

7) If you’re in a group of idiots who agree on an answer that you know is surely incorrect, you’ll probably just agree with those idiots.

8) My asymmetrical facial features contribute to my ugliness, and my ugliness might make people think I’m

dumber than I really am.

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9) If you encounter someone in need of help but are surrounded by other people, you’ll probably not take action. All those other people standing around the hapless victim can help instead (except, in the absence of “good Samaritans,” they’ll be “diffusing the responsibility” as well).

10) People are poor intuitive statisticians. Likewise, many psychology students are poorly trained statisticians. Thank goodness for

SPSS.

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Appendix

Community Capitals of Lenox

Introduction

Lenox, Iowa, population approximately

1400 (American Fact Finder), has been my home all my life. Therefore, Lenox is by default the community which “has had the greatest influence” on my life. Ergo, Lenox will be profiled in this essay. I will base the profile off the capitals framework put forth by Flora and Flora (2008)11, who use the framework as a way of understanding a community based off of various types of investments.

Capitals

11 I highly recommend their book, Rural Communities: Legacy and

Change.

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Natural Capital

As with much of the rest of Iowa, Lenox has high-quality farmland, so it is not surprising that many people in the community are farmers. Over one-tenth of the town’s power is supplied by a wind turbine (“History of Lenox”). There are also several nearby lakes for fishing, water works, and recreation. Hunting is also popular in the Lenox area (“Recreation in Lenox”). I think Lenox ranks medium in this capital.

Cultural Capital

Lenox is a heavily agricultural community, which should give you some sense of its culture. There is also a fairly substantial Hispanic population (14.3% of the total population; City Data) so the cultural capital they present is not to be

dismissed. The Hispanic immigration has

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brought a mix of issues: Some see it as bringing economic benefits, while others note the stresses it puts on particular resources such as housing, work conditions, and schools, among others (Iowa State University Extension, pp. 5-8; “Immigration impact: Iowa”).

It should also be noted that of the five or so churches in town, all of them are some branch of Christianity (Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Mormon, and Christian), with nearly 60% of the town’s population belonging to a church (City Data). I suspect that a survey would find that much of the population that does not belong to a church would identify with one or other branch of Christianity. In these days of political correctness, Lenox can still get by with displaying a Nativity

scene in the public Highland Park every

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Christmas season without provoking any dissent.

Speaking of which, the town is

renowned for its annual “Bright Lights and Shining Hospitality”, whereby every street has a yard ornament theme (candy canes, Rudolf, bells, etc.) and the park is brightly lit with lights and other Christmas decorations.

Additionally, it might be informative to know that 60% of voters in Lenox voted Republican in the 2004 Presidential race (City Data). This, obviously, says something of Lenox’s political views, and by extension it potentially tells us something of Lenox’s cultural capital.

Human Capital

Flora & Flora (2008, p. 90) explain some of the benefits of a community having

an educated population. The percent of

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high school graduates in Lenox exceeds the average for the state, but the percent holding college or advanced degrees is much lower than the state average (City Data). The low rate of college graduates in Lenox is unfortunate because the nearby town of Creston has a community college and Lenox is located somewhat near several universities, including Northwest Missouri State to the south, Iowa State University to the north and Creighton to the west. Despite its shortcomings in educational attainment, Lenox seems to have an adequate number of teachers and healthcare workers to meet the population’s needs.

The discussion of Hispanic immigration

found elsewhere in this essay must also be considered here under “human capital”. The immigrants use their skills and willingness

to work to provide labor at the egg

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processing facility.

Social Capital

As mentioned above, much of the community is Christian, which may be conducive to social bonds. Football games, the annual rodeo, old-fashion fun night, and a pride in the high school further strengthen social bonds.

The town’s strong sense of pride in

its local high school can be seen on the signs at the edge of town. Upon entering Lenox, you see signs celebrating high school sports titles. The community is united every fall for the high school homecoming parade.

Lenox high school is not the only

organization that gets a parade in its celebration. The annual rodeo has been recognized with many accolades on the

circuit, and Lenox shows its pride in the

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rodeo by designating a week every July as “Rodeo Week”, complete with parade and old- fashion fun night (“About the Lenox Rodeo”).

The Hispanic population was mentioned under cultural capital. In this section, it should be pointed out that the Hispanics and the rest of the community remain socially separated (Iowa State University Extension, 2001, p. 4).

For its strong sense of community, Lenox ranks high in social capital.

Political Capital

Town lore has it that Lenox was named because a railroad brakeman warned of a “lean-ox”, or that an ox was leaning perilously near the depot (History of Lenox, 1972). It appears that the truth of the matter is that the town, originally

called Summit, was named for the daughter

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of the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad‘s vice president (History of Lenox, 1972; Dilts, 1975/1993). This is reflective of the enormous power the railroad barons held over the town in its early days.

The power of the railroad, and the railroad itself, has disappeared from town, and now much of the town’s political capital is concerned with school issues, but the larger issue is apparently immigration in Lenox and towns like it (Martyn, “Immigration and social issues, not Iraq, dominate among Iowa Republican voters”; Davey, “Immigration, and its politics, shake rural Iowa”; Iowa State University Extension, 2001, pp. 5-8). Again, White Christians’ political power cannot be underestimated, as evidenced by

the Christian idols in the park.

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In sum, the school system, immigration concerns, and concerns of White Christians dominate the political scene in Lenox. It should be noted that many families in the town are closely related. The Christensen family, for example, owns the sanitation business, works in local government, and is on the school board.

Financial Capital

Lenox has millions of dollars in debt with over $300,000 in interest (City Data), suggesting significant investment, with a large investment in the gas plant in the late 1960s (“History of Lenox”). The area allocated for the park was bought by the city in 1881 (History of Lenox, 1972). More recent investment was put into renovating the local golf course, a quarter-million dollar project (“Recreation

in Lenox”), renovations on the park, and a

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new elementary school. Over a million dollars a year is spent on city operations (City Data).

The cost of the town’s residents’ college expenses could also be considered financial capital. Additionally, many of Lenox’s residents own homes, though the value of these homes is much lower than the average for the nation, as is the median household income (American Fact Finder), though these facts are probably offset by Lenox’s low cost of living. The sad fact remains, however, that 14.2 percent of Lenox’s population lives in poverty (American Fact Finder).

Excitement swept through our small

town in the spring of 2009 when large portions of the motion picture The Crazies was filmed at Lenox High School, on Main

Street, and in the surrounding areas. The

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film pumped about $10 million into the Iowa economy (KCCI, 2010).

Built Capital

Lenox has a good road system, an elementary school and a high school, a few daycare centers, a recently renovated park with a swimming pool, a community center (the same building as the old train depot; the train has not come through town in decades), a library, two factories, two bars, a bowling alley, a gas station, and a few “ma and pa” businesses. Most of the town’s buildings are nearly as old as the town itself. Perhaps the buildings would be more even more closely related in age to the town itself if not for a disaster shortly after the town’s founding. An out- of-control fire destroyed nearly all of Lenox’s business buildings in 1884.

Michael Foods has arguably had the

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largest influence of any company in Lenox. Michael Foods is a rather large factory in town that replaced the much smaller Sheridan Egg. This substantial egg factory is discussed in more detail above under Cultural Capital.

Many of the town’s employment and recreation needs are met, and school buildings have always been important for the town. The first school was built in

1882, ten years after the town’s founding. This school was replaced by a new building in 1912. The elementary school remained in this location but the high school was moved to a new building in 1968 (History of Lenox, 1972). This high school building was augmented with a new addition that serves as the new elementary school.

Conclusion

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Lenox has its positives. It is a cliché, but Lenox is a town where everybody knows everybody else. It is a quiet town where everybody is friendly. Social bonds are strong. However, economic opportunities are scarce, buildings are aging, and entertainment options are limited. Immigration is a major issue, and a cultural divide is observed. Through examining all the issues addressed in this essay, one gains a better understanding of this rural community.

References

“About the Lenox Rodeo” (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2010 from Lenox Stock and Saddle Club Web-site: http://lenoxrodeo.tripod.com/id1.html. American Fact Finder. “Lenox city, Iowa –

Fact Sheet – American FactFinder”.

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Retrieved January 22, 2010, from U.S. Census Web-site: http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main

.html?_lang=en

City Data. “Lenox, Iowa (IA 50851) profile”. (n.d.). City-data.org. Retrieved January 16, 2010 from City Data Web-site: http://www.city- data.com/city/Lenox-Iowa.html.

Davey, Monica. December 13, 2007. Immigration, and its politics, shake rural Iowa. Retrieved January 24, 2010 from The New York Times Web-site:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/us/p olitics/13voices.html

Dilts, H.E. (1975/1993). From Ackley to

Zwingle. Ames, IA: Iowa State University

Press.

Flora, Cornelia B. & Flora, Jan L. (2008).

Rural Communities, 3rd ed. Boulder, CO:

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Westview Press.

“History of Lenox”. (n.d.). Lenoxia.com. Retrieved January 22, 2010 from Welcome to Lenox Web-site: http://lenoxia.com/historyoflenox.htm. History of Lenox. (1972). Lenox, IA: Published locally for the centennial celebration.

“Immigration impact: Iowa”. Retrieved

January 24, 2010 from the FAIR Web- site:http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer? pagename=research_researchefac.

Iowa State University Extension. June

2001. The impact of immigration on small- to middle-sized Iowa communities.

Retrieved January 24, 2010 from the Web:

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publicatio ns/PM1879.pdf.

KCCI. (2010, February 26). “Iowa-made

movies makes big-screen debut“. Retrieved

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February 28, 2010 from the KCCI Web-site http://www.kcci.com/entertainment/22649311/ detail.html

Martyn, Chase. December 18, 2007. “Immigration and social issues, not Iraq, dominate Iowa Republican voters”. Retrieved January 24, 2010 from the Iowa Independent Web-site:

http://iowaindependent.com/1658/immigr

ation-and-social-issues-not-iraq- dominateamong-iowa-republican-voters. “Recreation in Lenox”. (n.d.). Lenoxia.com. Retrieved January 22, 2010 from Welcome to Lenox Web-site: http://lenoxia.com/recreation.htm.

The following is a letter I wrote about a potentially valuable book that I found, but

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I honestly do not think the signature is authentic; I suspect it was printed on the first page of every copy as just part of the cover page; I found another such apparent signature at a rummage sale recently. I would have bought it had the book been nonfiction, but I have no interest in works of fiction.

A Letter To A Friend Written In My Excitement About a Rare and Valuable Book I Chanced Upon

April 15, 2010

Karen,

I am quite excited by a serendipitous find I made, and so I must tell you of it. One of the honor societies at ISU was having a

book sale with each hardcover priced at

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$1. I bought four books (as many is would fit in my book bag).

The first one that caught my eye was one titled History and Social Intelligence, a title that piqued my curiosity. It looked somewhat old, so I checked the publishing date and found it to be 1926. I have a special shelf for my older books, so I was happy to add it to my collection.

As happy as I initially was with my purchase, I still hadn't realized the true fortuitousness of my discovery until I got home and opened the cover to double check the date as to make sure it was a first edition and not a reprint. To my surprise, I noticed a signature that I had overlooked at first. The signature, however, did not

seem to be that of the author, Harry E.

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Barnes. Indeed, the signature was actually that of H.G. Wells!

It appears that any signature by H.G. Wells is worth at least $500, and signed books

are even more valuable, especially books

not even authored by Wells himself. A similar signed copy is being offered on Amazon for 2,333.33!

I just had to share with you my excitement over unknowingly finding such a rare book.

Vale (Latin for 'farewell')! Dustin

Upon further research, I have concluded

that the signature is printed on the title page of every copy of the book. I’ve seen other books of similar vintage with such

facsimile signatures. Thus, the book is

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not nearly as valuable as I had suspected.

The following two letters are to give you

an idea of my views on political and social issues.

Letter About Welfare Drug Tests

Senator Reynolds,

CNN's HLN is reporting that Iowa is among a number of state considering mandating drug tests for recipients of welfare programs, unemployment and food stamps in particular. The reason behind this seems to a concern that benefits are being used to support illicit drug habits.

It is reprehensible if beneficiaries of welfare programs abuse the system by using their benefits for illegal activities.

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However, I disagree with the proposal for mandatory drug testing for those recipients.

From studying the social sciences in college, I understand that drug abuse and low socioeconomic status are highly correlated. However, depriving those of low socioeconomic status of their benefits is not the answer; we should instead look at ways of rectifying the underlying social mechanisms that lead to some people's unfortunate circumstances.

Purchasing drugs is illegal and should be prosecuted according to the laws, but to require those receiving government benefits to undergo drug testing is to, as one of

the contributors on HLN put it, "punish the

many for the crimes of the few."

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I understand that tax payers do not want the revenues earned on their taxes to support illegal drug habits. I do not have statistics in hand, but I suspect that very few people receiving benefits have such illegal drug habits. For those who do, to take away their benefits seems likely to exacerbate their situation.

One of the ways to help relieve the ills of drug abuse and low income is to restructure the tax and social systems in ways that allow for a more equal distribution of wealth, as it has been documented that wealth disparities are ever increasing. Nobody in his or her right mind is advocating true socialism; there should be differences in the distribution of wealth

to some extent to foster incentive for

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industriousness, but the gaps should be narrowed.

Whoever engages in illegal activity should be punished, but not at the expense of the innocent people who, by factors largely out of their control, find themselves in troubled times.

These issues are of particular concern to me because much of the food I was fed as a child was paid for with food stamps because my single mother, despite working full- time, at times did not have sufficient income to feed her hungry boys; and because I am on SSI because of psychiatrist conditions.

I hope that you will consider my thought if discussion of mandatory drugs tests for

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people on welfare becomes serious. Thank you for your service as a senator.

Sincerely, Dustin Hartley

Letter About Health Care

Congressman King,

Though I have heavy doubts as to the effectiveness of doing so, I am writing you to ask that you vote for health care

reform.

In my view, one of the roles of government should be to provide for the welfare of its citizens. With millions of uninsured Americans, health care reform is urgently

needed.

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Those who can afford private insurance should be able to choose said private insurance, but options are needed for those unfortunate Americans who cannot afford insurance through private companies.

I definitely do not advocate making insurance decisions for people; they should have the right to choose which insurance option they prefer and can afford. Freedom of choice is an American right.

But one problem is that not everyone can

afford private insurance.

Society at large suffers when a large

number among us do not have adequate access to health care.

I hope that you will consider the plight of

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those Americans who find themselves in the unenviable position where they need government assistance for health insurance.

I thank you for your service in Congress. Sincerely,

Dustin Hartley

Exchange of Words With Principal The following is the Facebook thread (from June 27, 2010) that shows an exchange of words between myself and my elementary school principal. I use initials as to conceal the identities of everyone except for myself and the former principal, and I use their words in fair use. The first

lines, in bold, are the opening topic.

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SKL really wish people could keep their mouths shut!!! i find it rather ridiculous when 40 year olds run their mouths about things they don't even know.. obviously im trying to help him not get with someone else.. fml...

ill kill them

Yesterday at 5:22pm · Like

SKL

Doubt it

Yesterday at 5:22pm · Like

just keep doing what your doing [SKL]... The ppl who matter know whats really going on... And most importantly YOU know whats going on. Dont worry about anyone else.

Principal

Just love him, believe in him, continue to give him hope, and to #@$% with everything else...he is what is important...prayers your way still!

KHL

Yeah what [TG] and [Principal] said, those

who know you both know the commitment you have to one another. Everyone else needs to mind their own business. Oh the joys of living in Lenox:(

Principal

It happens in any town no matter how big or small. Lived with it here for years and years

Yesterday at 8:15pm · Like

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Dustin Hartley

Lots of people are talking about you? You must be special. Or might it be the case that you are flattering yourself? Nothing against you, it's just that people tend to be very egocentric.

13 hours ago · LikeUnlike ·

SKL

....Okay??? And why exactly would i be trying to flatter myself???

Dustin seriously...i would like to see u do what she is having to do

Principal

Ignore Dustin, he does not think the way normal people think and is not sensitive to others....too bad....

Dustin Hartley

It's true. Unlike most people, I think for myself. It's an amazing skill called critical thinking that the school system ostensibly sets as a goal to instill in its students, but which inept administrators (Lana once upon a time, for instance) too often tail to instill.

It's quite funny that [Principal’s first name] would suggest that I lack any sensitivity to others, for she made it abundantly clear to me that her theory of mind halted somewhere not much past the development of a young child. Freud would have called it "projection".

It's false and defaming for [Principal’s first name] to say that I am not sensitive

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to others, but it could be the case that she herself had an inept or unprofessional principal when, a (very) long time ago, she was a little girl.

That out of the way, I said nothing of you

*trying* to flatter yourself. But it takes no great stretch of the imagination to think of good sociobiological reasons why anyone, not you in particular, would be concerned over his or her own social

circumstances. Having been in Lenox quite a lot lately, I have found no evidence that you are the talk of the town.

2 hours ago · LikeUnlike ·

KHL

Wow way over my head, I would say Dustin, you and [SKL] don't "run" with the same people. She is going through alot at this time in her life, and there are rumors going around about her. [Principal] thank you for being a great person and thinking of [SKL] and her feelings.

2 hours ago · Like

Dustin Hartley

Sorry -- "fail to instill" not "tail to instill".

Principal

LOLOLOLOLOL.. this is precisely why I delete Dustin from my friends....HE IS SO BELOW ME THAT I WILL NEVER ENGAGE IN LOWERING MYSELF TO ACKNOWLEDGE HE EXISTS...And don't call me [by my first name] as that sounds to friendly and that is the least thing I ever would want to be with you....in the past or future! Good

Bye...type what the hell you want...nothing from me ever again...

Dustin Hartley

I know. You are so high above me as to have insinuated drug use when I was 10 years old, and to attribute a lack of sensitivity to me. Your response is typical of one who has no solid backing to her claims. You are free to make unsubstantiated claims to an extent (the limit being that imposed by law), but such claims, and arguably those who make them, are unworthy of being taken seriously.

“Motivation and Me” Essay for

Psych 101 in early 2007

"Why did you do that?" I've been asked this question time and time again by various people for various behaviors. It's a question that I sometimes avoid, as a simple answer sometimes alludes me. When a simple answer is clear, it's hardly really that simple. Nothing I or anyone else does really has a simple answer.

On the surface, any reason is simple. If one looks further through the parabolic microscope, however, the complexities of cause and effect become apparent, similar to how a skin cell may look simple enough before delving into the molecular, atomic, and subatomic layers. Nonetheless, I will try to offer a brief sketch of my motivation as outlined by the assignment.

Seeing as the chapter contains several pages devoted to sex, that my sexual identity is one of my defining characteristics, and that Ms. Burrell's directions state that the paper should be on "personal motivation, career/life goals, and motivation in this class," it seems wholly appropriate and fitting for me to include a paragraph or two on the topic of my sexuality.

The textbook [Psychology by Hockenbury

& Hockenbury] makes clear, heavy reference to heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality, but conspicuously missing is another important sexual orientation. The text makes light mention of the occurrence of some people having no sex partners in a year and of a lack of sexual desire, but the pages of my book are ultimately void of coverage of asexuality. Perhaps my instructor, Ms. Burrell, will view the words to follow as crossing the appropriateness line, but if she does, then I must disagree. The parameters in place for the assignment indicate that it's fitting, and the fact that the textbook's chapter has heavily devoted to sex, I see nothing wrong in what I'm about to say.

To go on a brief tangent, this could even be looked upon as a sort of case study. The mere writing of this

introduction to this particular aspect of my paper says something of my motivation. Writing these words and the words to follow are a product of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic is the pleasure I attain from evaluating myself, and extrinsic is sharing of myself and the resultant reactions that the said sharing draws from you. Written communication in itself aided by intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, as I feel intrinsically motivated by having time to think about what I say when I have time to think of the wording and organization I would most like to use, and I feel extrinsically motivated by others seeing the words in a more organized fashion, which in turn has the ability to make them more poignant.

With that said, my asexuality is, in a way, humanistic of me. Are the desires to

come into one's own and to better one's self not chief components of the humanistic perspective of motivation? Being asexual-- being abstinent and satisfied--is a way to fulfill both desires. As the text book states, nearly everyone has sex, many with multiple partners. Sexual activity, then, is commonplace and universal, which provides an (perhaps not so) easy outlet for setting myself apart. By being asexual, I set myself apart, and in a way, I see that as making me better, no matter how twisted my logic.

Drive theories state that actions are influenced by the need to satisfy unmet needs required for homeostasis to decrease the drive. In much the same way, inactions can also reduce needs. Abstaining from sex for a number of years, for example, reduces the desire to have sex. My observational

learning and semantic knowledge of the possible undesirable consequences of intercourse at a young age, as well as being socially inept in general, steered me away from being sexually active. It is very possible--even likely, one might say--that being on a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor took a toll on my libido, but going without for so long may have been the biggest contributor to my asexuality. The situation is analogous to a dieter's cravings for chocolate. At first, it would be very difficult for him to avoid a food which palatability provides such a great positive incentive value. But, if the dieter exerts the will power to resist temptation for an extended period, he will find that chocolate is no longer desirable. Moving on from the sexual side of things, let me touch on my motivation for this class. My instinctual shyness inhibits my participation when it comes to answering certain questions during class. When a test is placed in front of me, however, I feel positive sensations. Taking tests turns me on, fitting in with arousal theories. This arousal, perhaps, is caused by my anticipation of positive reinforcement in the form of grades. The grades serve as an incentive for attending class. The incentive for wanting good grades on tests, in turn, is provided by the greater incentive of passing the class, which is provided by the yet greater incentive of receiving a diploma. Receiving a diploma will aid me in my interpersonal engagement. Interpersonal engagement, it turns out, may be the biggest determinant in all my actions. No one will deny that people are social creatures. My interactions with

other people in some ways determine my looking-glass self. Furthermore, I judge myself relative to other people. Drive once again comes into play, though in less basic forms. These include the drive to succeed on society's terms, the drive to succeed on my terms, the drive to be unique, the drive to fit in somewhere, and numerous others. These are but a few of my many motivating factors, but this tersely sketches different reasons for my behavior.

Psychopharmacology of Asperger Syndrome

Abstract

There is a paucity of research on the medical treatment of Asperger syndrome. This paper uses an archival method to

examine some of the research that does exist. The focus is limited to three symptoms associated with Asperger syndrome: irritability/anger, anxiety, and depression. Research is presented in support of using certain medications to treat these symptoms.

Introduction

In my self-published memoir, The Sky Is Falling, I discussed the social issues, anxiety, irritability, and depression associated with my case of Asperger syndrome (Hartley, 2008). Temple Grandin similarly dealt with many of the same and related issues in Emergence (Grandin, 1986) and Thinking in Pictures (Grandin,

1995/2006). Carol Hagland (2010), writing in a down-to-earth tone, explains that anxiety, depression, and other such

problems are common in Asperger syndrome.

Indeed, various mental and psychological disorders are commonly co-morbid with Asperger’s (Hagland, 2010, pp. 31-42; Toth

& King, 2008).

These difficulties associated with Asperger’s are not just the sufferers’ being cantankerous or the result of bad parenting; Grandin (1995/2006) explains in Thinking In Pictures that Asperger syndrome and the related autistic spectrum disorders are neurological conditions with genetic bases (pp. 40-42). Later in the book, Grandin offers advice on medications used for treating autistic disorders (pp. 130-

135). Grandin is critical of the way these medications are prescribed (Thinking In Pictures, p. 130-131), but this essay aims at illustrating the positives of behavioral pharmacology for Asperger syndrome.

Hagland (2010) explains that in

addition to helping the sufferer gain access to resources that will help deal with Asperger’s, gaining a diagnosis is also helpful in applying a framework to its treatment (Hagland, 2010, pp. 24-29). Unfortunately, no clear medical framework currently exists for Asperger syndrome, and as a consequence, the disorder and its symptoms are treated as they would be in anyone else exhibiting the same symptoms (Toth & King, 2008).

With these thoughts in mind, this paper will examine the medical treatments of Asperger syndrome and its related conditions. The focus of the paper is on the pharmacological side of treatment, and so other forms of therapy will be largely ignored for purposes of this paper.

Anger and Irritability

People with Asperger syndrome often become angry, aggressive, or irritable. Hagland (2010, pp. 167-168) notes that this is often related to anxiety via adrenaline’s “flight-or-fight” mechanism. As will be discussed below, sufferers of Asperger’s are very prone to anxiety; this can also be manifested as anger or irritation.

Risperidone (Risperdal), and its updated form, paliperidone (Invega), are often used to treat people with Asperger’s. Antipsychotics such as risperidone and paliperidone affect the mesolimbic system, apparently by blocking dopamine and acting on certain serotonin receptors (McKim, 2007, pp. 288-289).

Some concerns with the use of risperidone (and paliperidone) are increased blood sugar and weight gain (Scott & Dhillon, 2008), as well as Parkinson-like symptoms, but if these reactions are watched for, the drugs seem to be very beneficial in the treatment of Asperger syndrome. In fact, one of the reasons risperidone is preferred over older antipsychotics is that it seems to be safer than the older drugs (Simeon, Milin, & Walker, 2002). That is, the various adverse motor side effects that are associated with the older antipsychotics (thioridazine [Mellaril], mentioned briefly below, for example) are much less of a concern with risperidone (Meyer & Quenzer,

2005, pp. 453-455).

Frazier et al. (2002) describe a case study of a child diagnosed with Asperger’s and bipolar disorder who presented aggressive and angry tendencies. His

parents took him in for further evaluation as his current regime of thioridazine (Mellaril, an antipsychotic) seemed ineffective. He was then put on risperidone, on which he seemed to greatly improve. I, myself, showed marked improvement after I was hospitalized as a teenager and put on risperidone. Isolated cases as these, however, only tell us so much, so we must look to more generalized and controlled research.

Scott and Dhillon (2008) looked at the effects of risperidone on autistic children presenting irritability. Their findings suggest a significant improvement over the control group. In further support of risperidone, their participants showed few negative side effects. An older study, from 2002, also found risperidone to be both effective and safe in youths (Simeon,

Milin, & Walker, 2002). One of the newer antidepressants is buspirone (Buspar) (McKim, 2007, p. 304). A retrospective study by Hollander and colleagues (2001) suggests that this drug may also be useful in treating irritability in Asperger’s.

Scott and Dhillon (2008) study was on children or adolescents diagnosed with autism. This paper is concerned with Asperger’s in particular, not autism in general; we furthermore are not limiting our focus to children. Fortunately, a 2004 study from by Alexander, Michael, and Gangadharan suggests that risperidone helps substantially in adults with Asperger’s. One shortcoming of their study, however, is that they used only three participants.

Anxiety

I describe the excessive anxiety induced by my work-study job in my memoir (Hartley, 2008). I was so extremely anxious that I was frozen, unable to think clearly, much less conduct the job. Anxiety like this is common in Asperger syndrome (Hagland, 2010, p. 157). Around seven percent of people with the syndrome have pathological anxiety (Frith, 1991, p.

170).

Although Grandin (1995/2006) cites Dr. Ratey of Harvard Medical School as advising using benzodiazapines only as a last resort (p. 135), sometimes a last resort is necessary with Asperger’s. A 2009 study by Mukaddes and Fateh found pathological anxiety in 54% of their participants with Asperger syndrome. Behavioral or cognitive therapies may be ineffective for those with Asperger’s (Hagland, 2010, pp. 162-164), and, as in my case, the anxieties may be so severe that medication is demanded. Therefore, pharmacological treatments may be necessary to treat anxiety in Asperger’s.

Benzodiazepines (alprazolam [Xanax], diazepam [Valium], et cetera) are often given to patients to relieve anxiety. The reason for this is that, unlike with barbiturates, overdoses of benzodiazepines are not fatal (McKim, 2007, p. 165). A major concern with benzodiazepines that should be noted is the risk of dependency. In this author’s view, those risks must be weighed against the various health risks associated with chronic anxiety, to which those with Asperger syndrome are not exempt (Hagland, 2010, p. 158).

Depression

Along with irritability and anxiety and depression is a major concern with Asperger syndrome. A substantial percentage of those with Asperger’s have co-morbid depression (Frith, 1991, p. 170); undiagnosed sufferers of Asperger’s not infrequently seek help for their depression only to find out they have Asperger’s (Hagland, 2010, p. 41).

Anti-depressants have been disappointing in treating people on the autism spectrum. For example, studies of citalopram (Celexa) (Arehart-Treiechel,

2009), an SSRI, and fluvoxamine (Luvox)

(Martin et al., 2003) found no benefits of the drugs in Asperger’s and related conditions. These studies, however, sought to reduce the occurrence of symptoms other than depression. This also does not exclude other anti-depressants, such as

buspirone, mentioned in the above section.

It is well established that antidepressants relieve depression (McKim,

2007, p. 308). One of the ways

antidepressants might work is by enlarging the hippocampus (Doidge, 2007, p. 241); this might also be why antidepressants are useful for treating anxiety (Rosack, 2003). That antidepressants, which increase serotonin levels, are effective in treating both anxiety and depression is almost paradoxical because anxiety patients often have too much serotonin in their brains (Hobson & Leonard, 2001, p. 156).

As noted already, anxiety and depression are often seen in Asperger syndrome. The fact that antidepressants can treat both anxiety and depression may mean that a patient with Asperger’s and co- morbid anxiety and depression – and it’s

not unusual for someone with Asperger Syndrome to have both anxiety and depression (Frith, 1991, p. 170) -- can be treated with just one drug. In addition to treating depression, anti-depressants could be used to treat anxiety, particularly social anxiety, which can be a significant issue in those with Asperger syndrome.

Anti-depressants are known to be effective in the general population (Meyer

& Quenzer, 2005, p. 394), and there does not appear to be any reason why anti- depressants should not work to treat depression that is co-morbid with Asperger syndrome. Grandin (2009, pp. 131-134) presents anecdotal evidence in support of anti-depressants in treating autism disorders. As with the antipsychotics and anti-anxiety medications mentioned above, the newer antidepressants have fewer

negative side effects than the older ones

(Meyer & Quezner, 2005, pp. 395-398).

Conclusion

It is important to bear in mind that Asperger’s cannot be cured. Because Asperger syndrome is a complex neurological disorder associated with a difference in brain structure (Hagland, 2010, pp. 18-19; Hardan et al., 2008; Frith, 1991, pp. 15-

16), Asperger’s can only be treated.

The three major issues that need to be treated in Asperger syndrome, at least in this author’s view, are irritability, anxiety, and depression. For irritability issues, antipsychotics may be used. These appear to be quite promising, at least in the short term. Many effective anti- depressants, which increase serotonin levels in the brain (McKim, 2007, p. 300)

are available. As for anxiety, benzodiazepines are available and do not have the serious side effects of older anxiety medications (McKim, 2007, p. 165).

Irritability seems to be a direct manifestation of Asperger’s, whereas anxiety and depression can be co-morbid disorders (Hagland, pp. 31-42; Toth & King,

2008). In the case of co-morbid symptoms, they should be treated as they would in the general population unless there is a good reason for an alternative treatment. These problems of irritability, anxiety, and depression can be serious, and are not uncommon in Asperger’s. Fortunately, effective treatment options are available.

References Alexander, R.T., Michael, D.M., & Gangadharan, S.K. (2004). The use of

risperidone in adults with Asperger

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syndrome. British Journal of Developmental

Disabilities, 50, 109-115

Arehart-Treichel, J. (2009, July 17). SSRI disappoints as treatment for common autism symptom. Psychiatric News, 44, 2-2.

Doidge, N. (2007). The brain that changes

itself. NY: Penguin Books.

Frazier, J. A., Doyle, R., Sufen, C., & Coyle, J.T. Treating a child with Asperger’s disorder and comorbid bipolar disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry,

159, 13-21.

Frith, U. (Ed). (1991). Autism and Asperger syndrome. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Grandin, T. (1986). Emergence. NY:

Warner Books.

Grandin, T. (1995/2006). Thinking in pictures. NY: Vintage.

Hagland, C. (2010). Getting to grips with

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Asperger syndrome. Philadelphia: Jessica

Kingsley Publishers.

Hardan, A., Girgis, R., Adams, J., Gilber, A., Melhem, N., Keshavan, M., & Minshew, N. (2008, February). Abnormal association between the thalamus and brain size in Asperger’s disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38, 390-394. Hartley, D. (2008). The sky is falling. Lenox, IA: Hartley Books.

Hobson, J.A. & Leonard, J.A. (2001). Out of its mind. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing.

Hollander, E., Dolgoff-Kaspar, R., Cartwright C., Rawitt, R., & Novotny, S. (2001, July). An open trial of divalproex sodium in autistic spectrum disorders. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 62, 530-

534.

Martin, A., Koenig, K., Anderson, G.M., &

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Scahill, L. (2003, February). Low-dose fluvoxamine treatment of children and adolescents with pervasive developmental disorders: a prospective, open label study. Journal of Developmental Disorders, 33, 77-

85.

McKim, W. (2007). Drugs and behavior, 6th

ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson. Meyer, J.S. & Quenzer, L.F. (2005). Psychopharmacology. Sunderland, MA: Sianuer Associates.

Mukaddes, N.M. & Fateh, R. (2009, April). High rates of psychiatric co-morbidity in individuals with Asperger’s disorder.

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Rosack, J. “Antidepressants may prevent hippocampus from shrinking”. Psychiatric News. Sept. 5, 2003. Retrieved March

1, 2010 from the Web:

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7/24.full

Scott, L.J. & Dhillon, S. (2008). Spotlight on risperidone in irritability associated with autistic disorder in children and adolescents. CNS Drugs, 22,

259-262.

Simeon, Milin, & Walker. (2002, February).

A retrospective chart review of risperidone use in treatment resistant children. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 26, 267-275

Toth, K. & King, B. H. (2008, August).

Asperger’s syndrome: Diagnosis and treatment. American Journal of Psychiatry,

165, 958-963.

Book 3 of The Sky Is Falling

The Rat Case

Chapter 1

This is my first bit of writing about what I call The Rat Case. In October 2010, I was arrested on a charge of animal abuse for throwing my roommate’s pet rat out the door. But before I get to into the details of the story, a few introductory remarks are in order.

In legal cases, sometimes the many factors that lead to an alleged crime are not taken into consideration. Other times, they are. You sometimes hear about mitigating or aggravating circumstances. Whether or not the court was interested in the factors that contributed to that eventful October night when I was arrested in Story County, Iowa, I don’t know; but I think that to understand what happened and why it happened, at least a few of those factors should be addressed.

Humans and their affairs are not simple matters. The social sciences are sometimes dubbed soft sciences. Why are they “soft”? Because a lot of variables have to be accounted for, making predictions difficult. The social sciences are the most difficult of sciences because human behaviors are much harder to predict and understand than the behaviors of simple entities, such as those studied in physics or chemistry.

In principle, one could start at the most elementary level of physics all the way up to the level of social interactions, but to do so would require immense computing power and make studies much too complicated. This story of The Rat Case is going to be complicated enough as it is just by considering the interactions of two people, plus a few other characters, and a rat or two. Please pardon me if I gloss over many of the details; I want to make this story as simple as possible, though not too simple. So I will aim to leave out many of the trivialities and instead focus mainly, though perhaps not exclusively, on the most important and salient incidents related to the case.

Another aim of mine is to avoid typecasting anyone as the “good guy” or the “bad guy.” Good guy vs. bad guy is the classic format for stories, but this isn’t just a story; it’s an explanation of real interactions between real people and one person’s pet.

Some of the events leading up to the animal abuse charges have been at least alluded to in other bits of writings that I have done, and my relationship -- and its deterioration -- with my roommate was documented in my book (buy it from Amazon, folks!). Some factors, however, went unmentioned in all those other writings, and I will touch on the ones that I deem most prominent.

I’m prone to anxiety. Anyone who knows me, knows that about me. The summer of 2010 saw my anxiety reach very high levels because of two major stressors. One was my grandmother’s decline in health, written about before. The other stressor came to my attention from a phone call.

My roommate, we’ll call her Mary, and I were taking a nap in my bed when her phone rang. It was a number that I did not recognized, but she answered, saying that she knew who it was. “You have a collect call from so-and-so county jail,” the automated voice said. Mary accepted the call, prompting me to question, Who the heck does she know from jail?!

It turns out that I knew that guy who was calling from jail. It was my brother, and he’d been there for two months or something like that. Nobody in my family had told me, but they had told Mary. They didn’t want me getting worked up about it, especially with it being my final semester of college.

It was very stressful for me to learn that my brother was in jail, and even more stressful to learn why he was in jail. I learned that he had some phony, trumped up charges against him. I won’t go into the details of his case, because this is about my case, and I don’t want to infringe upon his privacy more than is necessary to express to you, the reader, why it was so stressful. Suffice it to say, they were very serious charges. The good news, to skip ahead for just a moment, is that the court eventually dismissed his case because, in short, the case against him was extremely weak.

In the meantime, however, I was a nervous wreck about it. For example, I had a severe anxiety attack before one of my exams. I was constantly worried about participating in class too much that semester, offering too many questions and comments, but my bigger worry was that I were somehow responsible for my brother’s legal woes. I called up my psychiatrist right before the exam to express my concerns and anxieties to him. He assured me that I did nothing to cause my brother’s legal problems, and that I should take more of my anxiety medication.

Then there was the issue of what to do after college graduation and other stressors that were mentioned in , and thus do not need to be recapitulated here. I’ve also alluded to Mary’s having not been taking her psychotropic medications, which she admitted, a few days before she left me in her grandparents’ hometown, was the reason she had been improper behaviors.

She had hit me several times -- about half a dozen, I suppose -- from January 2010 through October. When the town flooded, we put all our stuff up in case the water encroached into our apartment. We were running out of high places to put our items, so we had to find a place for the rats. I didn’t think we needed to worry about the rats, which earned me a shot in the solar plexus, which knocked the wind out of me.

She came home from school angry every day, and woke up angry most mornings. And I was bugging her with my anxieties. And she was putting on a lot of weight, resembling her fat mom, her fat grandma, and her fat great grandma more and more every day, but she refused to watch her diet or exercise. These, and many other, tensions were building up over the months leading to the Rat Case.

Then there was the classic borderline personality trait of wanting me gone, or her wanting to leave, and then begging me to stay or saying that she can’t leave because she couldn’t bear life without me.

One night, I lay in bed as she ranted and raved about something or another. I heard medicine vials rattling, and she said, “I’m just going to kill myself with an overdose!”

“OK, just don’t take any of my pills,” I told her.

“Too late!”

It turned out that she just took feel-good pills, pills that wouldn’t have killed her, and she just went to sleep. I suppose that was well. After all of these altercations, whether she was going to leave, or if she yelled at me, or if she hit me, or was going to commit suicide, or whatever, there followed an apology.

I was ready to vacate the apartment as soon as possible, because sometimes enough becomes enough. So I had covertly applied to a graduate program out of state, and had contacted an autistic residential facility as a backup plan. If nothing else, I was going to move back in with Mom.

My pastor once noted that I always tell on myself; he’s right. One day, leaving Hy-Vee, I told Mary that I was going to move out soon. “What?! You’re supposed to live with me forever!” she exclaimed. I told her that clearly neither one of us was happy, which elicited from her expressions of contrition.

She pleaded with me to stay with her. During intercourse in late September, she said, “I want to have your baby!” That’s the sort of thing to say to make a guy go limp, but I finished up, though not in a good mood. This was followed by some absurd argument she tried making. It went something like this: “If you don’t want a baby with me now, then you never will.” So far, so good. “I guess I’ll have to just forget about having my own child, the one thing I’ve always wanted.” I asked why she would want a child; I didn’t see anything pragmatic about it. “If you don’t know, you’ll never understand.” Probably true. “Anyway, you’d probably not let our child do anything. You’d just keep him confined to his room and make him read books.” Sure, that’s why I do, but I didn’t see myself being the sort of father who would cloister a kid against his own will.

All of these sorts of factors were building up, and it was clear that something had to come to a head. In the next installment, I will write about having been stranded in Onawa, and the week it took me to get back to Ames. After that, the actual incidents of the night of the thrown rat will be discussed.

I have mentioned Mary’s violence, that she had punched me several times throughout the year, and followed each up with an apology. For the most part, I didn’t think much of it. I knew that she was emotionally unstable, but I didn’t think that she posed any real threat.

I also mentioned that my brother had gotten into legal trouble, that trouble stemming from an altercation with his girlfriend. Apparently taking a lead from my brother’s girlfriend, Mary once threatened to call the cops, though I was just listening to music on the computer. I must have said something to anger her earlier, but that’s the extent of it, so my retort was, “You can’t call the police when I haven’t done anything.”

Her response was, “You haven’t done anything, but I can make something up!” At that point, I got a bit more worried. I didn’t want to end up in the precarious position that my brother was in at that point.

Nor was I pleased about the pet rats. They’re easy to care for, I was assured on the day that Mary purchased them from the pet store. Maybe that’s true, but if it were true that rats are easy to care for, Mary apparently wasn’t up for that easy task. When rat feces isn’t consistently cleaned up in a 580 square foot apartment unit, then the odor is confined and thus intense.

As rodents, or gnawers, do, the rats chewed on anything within reach. Mostly they just chewed on their toys, which made an irritating sound. Once, I had placed a heartfelt note from an instructor too close to their cage, and so they shredded up this note (which I had intended to stash away with all my other sentimental notes and cards) to use as bedding.

It might also be mentioned that the rats defecated in the bathtub, because Mary insisted on bathing them in the bathtub rather than a plastic tote, as I had suggested, and rats apparently have poor bowel control. If this weren’t unsanitary, it at least was disgusting to take a bath in a tub where the rats had left their excremental pellets.

My hope is that I’ve made it clear enough that I was stressed, that Mary and I were at odds, and that I was displeased with her neglecting the rats. Not to mention that she neglected her dog, whom I fed, watered, and walked, and who slept with me rather than Mary. mary didn’t like that I decided to change her dog’s name from Brandy to Ginger; I didn’t like that she told one of the rats to “Say ‘hi’ to daddy!” I was daddy in this context. “I’m not that damn rat’s father!” I responded.

With all of this as background (and much that has been excluded in the interest of being concise), we were about to head to Onawa, quite some distance from our living quarters in Ames, to visit Mary’s grandparents for the weekend.

On the way there, Mary was frustrated because she had not declared a major yet. One of her instructors had suggested family services (formerly known as home economics) in case she did not get an advanced degree, because that way she would have a better undergraduate degree to fall back upon.

My view differed. She was also considering majoring in psychology, which I recommended, because if she wanted something to fall back on, it made more sense to me to have a degree in what was a much more legitimate science than home economics, and in what applies more broadly to human understanding, which I assumed would make one more marketable.

Aside from that, all seemed fine on the day (Friday) that we set out for and arrived in Onawa, until late Saturday night, when Mary returned from a game of bingo in a foul mood.

I don’t know what had irritated Mary that set her in a foul mood when she returned from bingo, but I probably aggravated when I awoke her regarding some health concerns I was having. I get anxious at night and seek reassurance that I’m not dying.

Whatever the case may be, she woke up early the next morning -- quite unusual for her! -- and, for no apparent reason that I could discern, threatened to leave me in Onawa with no way home. I told her that if she did leave me there, then I would kick her grandpa’s house in his own home. Her grandpa, then, called the police.

My phone having no charge, I went with the police to the station to use their phone to call for a ride home. It took three hours for my ride to arrive, but lucky for me, I had brought along some sociology articles to read; reading those articles and doing Hindu squats kept me occupied until my ride came.

I was enrolled at Iowa State University in Ames at the time, but my ride couldn’t take me to Ames. Instead, I went back home to Lenox. Having no driver’s license, I was stuck in Lenox, missing classes, until I could find a ride back to Ames. I contacted my professors, and most of them were very accommodating, though there was an exception; I’ll deal with her in another post.

I was rather bitter about the whole ordeal, but a good friend canceled the bitterness out with some sweetness: strawberry cake! My birthday was still nearly three weeks away, but since I was in town, and since it wasn’t clear if I would be home for my birthday, she brought me a home-baked cake. It was delicious, and even my dying grandmother had some, giving her some much needed caloric intake.

But sweet strawberry cake can only subdue bitter feelings for so long. Mary called and told me that her dad was up at the apartment. Her dad has a very bad case of schizophrenia, and does not clean his house, leaving cat feces, old food, and soda bottles scattered about his house. The last time I had visited, I vomited because I was that disgusted by his unsanitary living conditions.

One day Mom said, “I hate to think what they’re doing up there!” In my anxious, and perhaps even paranoid, state of mind, Mary’s new blind boyfriend (he is literally blind) had gotten semen on them; or perhaps her dad had spilled soda on the books; or maybe mary, out of malice of whatever you call her borderline personality disorder outbursts, had torn them apart; and maybe the rats were pooping on or around them, soiling or at least odorizing my books.

At the very least, the apartment was not being kept clean. Neither Mary or her dad seemed to have any sense of cleanliness. I was ready to get back there to see just how much damage had been done.

Chapter 2

When I finally got back to the apartment, I was relieved to see that my precious, beloved books had been left alone. Nothing had been done to them. As for the rest of the apartment, it was a mess! There were about 20 empty Mountain Dew cans and food left on the counter. Worse yet, there were rat droppings all over the floor.I was mad.

Remember when Britney Spears went crazy and buzzed her hair off? I did likewise, except I only shaved the top of my head, giving myself a male-pattern baldness look. I don’t know why I did it; all I can say is that I was out of my mind.

I got on the computer for a while, but then I wanted to watch TV as Mary started laundry. I asked her where the TV remote was. She told me that was my problem. Then the conversation (if it may be so called) became heated. Mary said, “You’re just a scared little man!” Maybe she was right, but I took her phone and called up her grandpa, whom I insulted as Mary wrested the phone out of my hand.

“You’re shaking! I told you that you were scared!” she taunted.

“I’m not scared,” I said, “I’m pissed off. The shaking is from sympathetic arousal!”

Mary went upstairs to do the laundry. As I said, I was already angry, but I became angrier as I looked over at the rat droppings on the floor. In a rage, I grabbed one of those smelly, squirmy rats and threw it out into the yard. About halfway into throwing the disgusting rodent, I almost halted; at first I was incredibly angry and did not care what damage I caused, but right before I sent him on his aerial journey, I felt a twinge of guilt, but the emotional pang was not enough to prevent me from throwing the rat, though, in hindsight, having not thrown the rat would have been preferable.

As Mary came down the stairs, I told her that she had better check on her rat because I had thrown it. I had just thrown him a short distance, and he came right back to the door, but Mary thought that he had run out into the brush near the apartment. She cried as she looked for her beloved pest (oops, I mean pet), and then she called 911.

“Yes, my boyfriend just threw my pet rat. He’s dangerous. Send someone now!”

A few minutes later, the police arrived at the apartment complex. I met them in the parking lot, but a female officer led me inside to talk. I told her that I’d need a place to stay that night. She assured me that I did have a place to stay for the night: jail.

The officer checked my eyes to see how dilated my pupils were, just in case I had taken illicit drugs, I suppose. I couldn’t remember what dilation or constriction of the pupils meant, so I asked her, “Do stimulants dilate your pupils?” I asked, as if to make conversation with an arresting officer.

She then frisked me. “Just to warn you,” I told her as her hands made their way toward my groin, “I have a small penis.”

“That’s not a problem,” she assured me.

She asked me, “Do you think that it’s normal to throw rats?”

I replied, “I don’t have any data on that, but I assume that it’s abnormal, though midget tossing is popular in some places.

Shortly after that exchange, I was led, in handcuffs, to the awaiting police car. On the way to the car, another cop asked, seeing that the top of my head was shaven, asked, “What kind of surgery did you have done on your head?”

When we got to the police station before transport to the county jail, the arresting female officer and I had a nice little chat, talking about college. She, too, had been a psychology major. Finally, she read me my Miranda rights. “You have the right to be silent.”

“But I don’t have the ability!” I retorted.

For a charge of animal abuse, the animal has to be “maimed, injured, or disfigured. “How do you know the rat was hurt?” I asked. “Was he hooked up to electrodes as he was thrown?”

“All that’s necessary for the charge is that the rat felt any pain at all.”

With that, I was again frisked, this time by another officer. He asked if I had anything in my shoes, a question that threw me for a loop for a second. Why would I be hiding anything in my shoes? Then off to the county jail I went.

Chapter 3

I had never been in jail before. Heck, I hadn’t even been in handcuffs before. Needless to say, I was quite nervous about having been arrested. The Ames police took me down the road to the county jail in Nevada, Iowa, where I was again frisked to make sure I didn’t have weapons, drugs, or other contraband on me.

The guys at booking got a kick out of my being arrested for animal abuse because I threw a rat.

“I bet you didn’t know that it was illegal to throw a rat, huh?” one of them said.

“No,” I responded, “but I’m not surprised.”

They further teased me. “Do you have any aliases? We have a warrant for a murderer who matches your description.”

“I hope you’re joking,” I said.

They were further amused by my keychain. The keychain had a miniature figurine of the wrestler Diamond Dallas Page (DDP).

“Hey, guys, check it out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone come in with a DDP keychain before!”

After being booked, I was sent into a holding cell. An Hispanic man graciously gave me one of his blankets. I think that he was only supposed to have one blanket anyway, but I thanked him.

“Have you been here before?” he asked. “Nope, it’s my first time in jail,” I responded. Just about a week before my arrest, my self-esteem was very low. I thought that I was just a bad guy with no redeeming qualities, but I thought, “At least I’ve never broken the law.”

He then asked me what I was in for. “You’re in here for throwing a rat?! That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard, man.” He went on to tell me about his charges. He had been stopped by the police for a traffic violation and was found to have some hard drugs on him. He also had illegal firearms on him. Being high off heroin or whatever drug it was, he attacked the police officer. He was facing hard time for very serious and violent crimes, yet I was in the same cell as him for throwing a filthy rat!

The jail cell was packed. All of the elevated “beds” were occupied, so I had to find a place on the floor to place my mattress. As I tried to sleep, to my right was an obese man whose pants were down low enough to expose about half his butt. What’s more, he smelled like shit. He snored loudly, and at one point his hand fell right in front of my face.

As the night wore on, more people were brought into the holding cell. They were mostly college students who had been arrested for alcohol-related offenses. “Fuck, I’m in jail!” one of them said right before passing out.

I managed to sleep surprisingly well in jail that night. The next morning, one of the jailers came around to test everyone’s blood-alcohol levels. I was the only one who blew 0.00.

They put me in shackles to see the judge, who released me on my own recognizance. My wallet, however, was not on me, and I had no way of calling anyone for a ride, nor was there anyone who could have given me a ride anyway, so I would have to walk in the cold of October, with no jacket, about 15 miles back to the apartment in Ames. Chapter 4

As I already stated, the morning I was released from jail was quite chilly, and I had no jacket. The reader must also understand that breakfast in jail is not much to eat. We each got a donut hole, a tiny box of cereal, and a tiny cup of grape juice. That being the case, I was cold and hungry on my way back to the apartment.

Immediately after my release from jail, I went about a block over to the Fareway supermarket, where I asked to use the phone. A young woman said that she’d have to OK it with the manager, and in the end, I was denied the opportunity to call someone for a ride.

Therefore, I had to walk down the highway for about 10 miles. One of my many phobias is a fear of heights, which was unfortunate because I had to walk over several bridges with narrow walkways. Looking down at the underpasses, I got a bit dizzy. Some of the underpasses had power lines and train tracks, and I could imagine taking an unpleasant fall.

About halfway to Ames, my fingers were just about too cold to move. And rather than getting closer to Ames, it seemed as though Ames was receding by two steps whenever I took one step.

I came to an impasse at the Interstate. With cars going about 80 miles per hour, and the vast number of cars, and the width of the Interstate, I knew that I couldn’t make it across.

I thought that I’d gotten lucky when I came upon a building a little ways outside of town that was holding some sort of function for Iowa State University. I entered the building and asked for some water. Then I asked some well-dressed people if there was a way I could get into Ames. I was mostly ignored or brushed aside.

Having no luck with the people at that building, I looked for a back road to take into Ames. I somehow found myself wandering down a dirt road in front of someone’s house. If I remember correctly, it appeared (for whatever reason) to be a hunter, and I got a bit paranoid about perhaps being shot for being on or close to his property. Seeing that this wasn’t a way around the impasse, I walked back to the building that was hosting whatever ISU event. I wandered and paced around, trying to figure out what to do. Soon enough, a young man took notice of me. He asked me if I needed a ride anywhere. I told him that yes, I would like a ride to my apartment in Ames. He seemed like a very nice guy. I was very grateful for his picking me up.

We had a nice conversation, except for the part about religion. I told me that he’s saved by Lord Jesus Christ, and asked if I was. “I’m not really into that sort of thing,” I said, and that young man did not bother me further with it. They say that religion sometimes leads people to do good things that they might not otherwise do. I don’t know about that, but if Christianity was that young man’s motivation for giving me a ride, then more power to him.

Chapter 5

By the time I returned to the apartment, I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was open up a can of Mt. Dew, chill out on the chaise longue, and then take a refreshing bubble bath.

Unfortunately, that’s not what awaited me as I entered the apartment.

Mary’s mother was there with her; they appeared to be moving Mary out. Her mom said, “You’re not supposed to be here!”

“Uhh, yes I am. It’s my apartment,” I retorted.

As I relaxed on the chaise longue, I saw Mary’s mother taking my computer headset and packing it up with Mary’s stuff. “Hey, that’s mine,” I told her.

“Too bad,” she said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean too bad,” she repeated.

So, I got up and reached out for the headset, but Mary’s mom withdrew her hands. Mary came up behind me and pepper sprayed me! I was blinded and choking and coughing on the pepper spray, which she sprayed very liberally right in my face. She sprayed so much of that pepper solution that she herself was choking on it.

Experiencing that she didn’t plan to stop spraying the pepper spray, I restrained her right arm (the arm she was using to hold the spray can) with a side arm bar.

“He’s going to break my arm, Mom!” she screamed. At that point, her mom kicked me in the back of the head. Opening my eyes for a brief moment in order to see her mom, I tripped her with a single-leg takedown into the chaise longue.

Mary dashed down the hallway outside the apartment to call for the police. Meanwhile, I kept her mom subdued by taking a pugilist stance.

With Mary in the hallway and her mother at bay, I went into the bathroom to take a shower until the police and medics arrived at the apartment. The cold water in the shower didn’t help me too much, but I tried to flush the pepper spray out of my eyes.

By the time that the police arrived, I was surprisingly calm. They were arresting me for domestic abuse. When I heard that, I told them the truth of what had just transpired.

“You’re going Paul Harvey on us, huh?” one of the cops said.

I didn’t quite get it, so I, like an idiot, asked, “Huh?”

“You’re giving us ‘the rest of the story,’ he clarified.

The medics took a look at me, and when I told them that I had taken a shower, they said that was probably the best thing to do.

With that, I was put into handcuffs and into the backseat of a police car. I still had some pepper spray on my eyebrow, which kept dripping into my sclera.

Through the rearview mirror in the police car (or maybe it was the camera, I don’t remember which), I looked at the reflection of my face: It was beet red. And it burned still. I asked if I could be released from the handcuffs to wipe my eyebrow, but that request was denied.

Chapter 6

Having been taken back to jail just about as soon as I got home, my hair was still shaved bald on top with longer hair in the back and on the sides. My cell mates thought that I had done it that way for Halloween (this being late October).

I told them about having been arrested for throwing a pet rat. Again, that reason for having been arrested was laughed about. This time, most of my cell mates were young men who had been arrested on alcohol-related offenses.

One guy was so drunk that it took quite an effort to get him to wake up for his breath test to detect how drunk he was. As soon as he was done, he did a face flop back onto the floor and into sleep. I don’t recall exactly what his blood-alcohol content was, but it was quite high!

As any grown man would do, I called my mom to see if she’d bail me out. And she did, so I was free. The problem was, however, that I had no place to stay, so I had to get a few things from the apartment to take back home to Mom’s with me.

But I needed a way to get to the ISU campus. I eventually came up with a plan to finish the semester. I would stay in Ankeny (near Des Moines) with him, and his girlfriend, who was also taking courses at Iowa State, would give me a ride to my classes.

Most of my professors were very kind to me, helping me work around the unfortunate situation. One professor, on the other hand, refused to grant me any leniency. I sent the following e-mail to her:

Dr. Maldonado,

Long story, but my roommate has a no contact order against me, which means that I have no place to stay in Ames and limited transportation. I beg that you please allow for an accommodation to these extraordinary circumstances. Perhaps I could come in during office hours some time to take the second exam and could write an essay that resembles the arguments that will be presented in the debate in place of the final? Anytime during the week of Nov. 8th would be best. Please consider this option -- my studies and academic record are very important to me.

Her refusal to work through the ordeal with me angered me, so I called up my mom and made, by handing her, Dr. Maldonado, the phone. Then I called the police and I explained the situation to them. The police had paramedics come and test my blood sugar level. It was normal, but they took me to the hospital.

When I got back to my brother’s from the hospital, I sent the following e-mail the the sociology department’s chair, Dr. Lasley:

Dr. Lasley,

I type this to convey an academic grievance in Soc 332 with Prof. Marta Maldonado. I was a victim of a vicious battering at my in-session address in late October, so I asked Maldonado to please work with me to make reasonable accommodations for the final exam.

The final exam was going to be in the form of a group panel, with four students to each group. Having not received any response from Maldonado, I corresponded with my classmates through e-mail and have been attending classes on Wednesdays and Fridays. I submitted several pieces of source material for the project, presumably beyond what any of the other classmates had found; I copy that e-mail below.

On Wednesday, December 1, I was ready to participate in the final exam with my classmates. However, they (the classmates) informed me that they had voted me out of the project, effectively voting away 1/3rd of my grade for that course. I appealed to Maldonado, but she concurred with the classmates.

I had been studying the materials for that class for 13 weeks and worked around serious personal issues (legal and health-related) to prepare for the final exam. Therefore, I find it wholly unfair that I should get a failing grade because I did not happen to be popular with my classmates.

I came to college to study and do archival research, not to have fun with friends and be popular with classmates. My grade should reflect my academic achievement in the coursework; it should not reflect my popularity with my classmates.

My other professors have been very accommodating in consideration of my legal and health problems, but Maldonado did not even take time to respond to my e-mails. Perhaps you, Dr. Lasley, could help me take an alternate final examination, be it oral, multiple choice, essay, or some other format.

I didn’t get an e-mail in response, so I paid Dr. Lasley’s office a visit. “Ahh, boy, I sure wish I could help ya out there,” or something like that, he said. Unfortunately, the professors can kick students out of their classes at their discretion. What?! That couldn’t be so, could it?

Well, apparently it could be so. Rather than taking an F, I tried to withdraw from the class. I went all the way up to the dean of the college. She told me that it was much too late to withdraw from the course.

Chapter 7

Meanwhile, I had to lawyer up. I was appointed a public defender, but my younger brother persuaded me to hire a private attorney. I really couldn’t afford to hire a private attorney, but I really didn’t want to go to prison either.

Since the animal abuse charge, for throwing the pet rat, carried a stiffer penalty than the domestic abuse charge, I was only going to retain the private lawyer for the animal abuse charge.

When I met the lawyer in his office, he first told me to get my elbows off his desk. Then he asked, “Why did you hire a fancy lawyer like me for the animal abuse charge instead of the domestic abuse charge?”

“Because,” I said, “the animal abuse charge is more serious.”

“No, the domestic abuse charge is more serious; you’re accused of beating up a woman!”

He would later be surprised to find out that I was right: The animal abuse charge was an aggravated misdemeanor with a possible sentence of two years in prison, whereas the domestic abuse charge was a serious misdemeanor that carries a possible sentence of one year in jail.

About this time, in the weeks following the incidents, I suspect that I had a mild, temporary case of post-traumatic stress disorder. I say this because I was having flashbacks of being beaten up by Mary and her mom again at bedtime. Then, when I finally got to sleep, I’d be woken up by nightmares of being left stranded again and of being beaten up.

The flashbacks were so disturbing that I took Benadryl with my anxiolytic, Valium, just to get to sleep.

On my first day back to classes, I was feeling very anxious, so I asked a classmate in my history of science course if she had any Benadryl. She did and gave me a tablet or two. I thanked her as I popped the tablets along with my Valium.

The next course was with one of my favorite professors. I went to talk to her in her office before class to get caught up on what I missed. She asked how I was doing, and I told her, “I’m heavily sedated.”

“Well, at least you’re here,” she said.

During the lecture, I raised my hand while that professor was finishing pontificating on some point or another. I raised my hand, surely with something enlightening to contribute to the class, but I was asked to hold my thought while she finished making hers.

“Yes, Mr. Hartley?” she asked.

I was so drowsy that I slurred my words as I said that I couldn’t remember what I was going to say.

Chapter 8

I’ve already described the day that I was “voted out” of Dr. Maldonado’s class. I was taken to the hospital and admitted to its behavior health unit.

Sometimes I get lost in my emotions and forget whether I really mean what I say. Take the day I was voted out of that course as an example. As I said, I called the police over, and the paramedics came as well. On a PowerPoint slide in psychopharmacology class was a stringed instrument. The professor said he didn’t know whether it was a guitar or not. I chimed in, “It’s a balalaika.” I didn’t really know that that was the correct instrument, but anyway, out of my anger and confusion, I started claiming that I had killed a classmate and several rats by wielding a balalaika.

I think the cops, paramedics, and later the psychiatric nurses thought that I was delusional or that I was hallucinating. I really am having difficulty trying to find the correct words to adequately describe what was going on in my head at that time.

The first person to greet me was an old woman. She said that she was expecting a call from John McCain and President Barack Obama. Meanwhile, she was “trying to figure out God.”

That old lady recruited another patient to help her figure out God. They somehow figured ancient Roman aqueducts into the equation. I pitched in that string theory might be the way to go in figuring out God.

The hospital I stayed at, Mary Greeley, is a nice hospital. They feed you well and, for the most part, the atmosphere is laid back, and I loved two of the nurses, both named Deb. I also really liked the psychiatrist there. He had heard that I wrote a book (The Sky Is Falling), and he expressed interest in it.

The hospital, nice as it was, also had a seclusion area. I was put into one of the seclusion rooms, which was just like a jail cell, on my first night in part so I could have my own room and in part because of the violent language (about the balalaika).

I liked the privacy (forgetting that there was a security camera in the corner of the room) of the seclusion area, so I kept sleeping there even after I was assigned a nice room with a comfortable bed.

Finally, one of the nurses noticed that I’d been sleeping in the secluded room, at which point I explained that I liked having a room to myself, so they gave me a single-bed room.

The only problem with the new room was that the bathroom was shared with the patient next door. That patient happened to be the old woman who was expecting a call from McCain and Obama and who was trying to figure out God. And boy, was she gassy, which I could hear from my adjoining room.

Chapter 9

The reader should be aware of a source of stress in my life at the time of the rat case. My brother got involved in a legal fiasco of his own. I won’t discuss the details, but it was a very serious charge, and he was undoubtedly innocent. Still, he spent quite a bit of time in jail until the whole thing came unraveled for the prosecution.

While he was still facing that charge, however, I felt sorry and worried for him. To make matters worse, Mary said that she thought that my brother was, in fact, guilty.

I felt like the whole legal system had become a cruel joke. My brother had been falsely accused, and now I was in trouble over having thrown a rat, despite the fact that I was the one left stranded many miles from home and that I threw the rat, a dirty rodent!, out of anger, an anger that was exacerbated by having found rat feces on the floor.

Out of frustration, I quite literally lost my mind and took my anger out on the people I love, on people who were on my side. Call it passive aggression if you will. At the same time that I was going through a hard time, I found out that I had more friends, or at least more people who cared about me, than I’d ever realized.

I threatened some of those people and destroyed with a snow shovel a Nativity scene that was set up at the local park. I have no excuse for my behavior, but I did what I did, even though I am ashamed of myself now.

I didn’t like the Nativity scene anyway. About it, I had written:

My hometown, Lenox, Iowa, prides itself on its "Bright Lights and Shining Hospitality" during the Christmas season. Visitors are warmly welcomed, and the public park is decorated with a grand display of Christmas lights and ornaments.

But amidst these bright lights, and beyond the shining hospitality, there is glaring unconstitutionality.

Prominently displayed in the public park, facing Illinois St., is a nativity scene. I tried to justify this glaring contempt for the Constitution to myself; I didn't want to believe that the good folks of Lenox -- here in the breadbasket of the United States, the Heartland! -- would disrespect the law of the land.

Despite the seemingly increasingly popular view that the U.S. was founded as a Christian theocracy, that view is blatantly false. Don't take it from me. Allow the words of the Treaty of Tripoli, to echo from the past: "The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine."

Also seemingly popular is the notion, expressed by Christine O'Donnell in a Delaware Senate debate this year, is that the Constitution says nothing about the separation of church and state. "That's in the first amendment?!!" Yes, it is: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." It was Thomas Jefferson, however, who is credited with describing the amendment as "erecting a wall between church and State."

James Madison, the writer of the Bill of Rights, himself clearly supported the erection of such a wall, and I quote him:

“Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions may establish, with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?"

I don't know if the founding fathers are confused with the likes of Lord Baltimore and William Penn, but a common misconception is that the U.S. was founded by Christians for Christians; the truth is that the U.S. was founded by secularists of various religious thoughts, some of them Christians, some atheists, and some deists. They were products of the Enlightenment, and even founders of pre-U.S. American colonies, the likes of Puritans, Quakers, and such, sought religious freedom. Henry VIII founded the Anglican Church to be the official religious institution in England, but the U.S. was founded as a nation with no official religion!

We have a good school in Lenox, and we also have a good people, so I was in denial as I looked at the nativity scene in the public park. There's a manger. So what? There are lots of structures like that, and mangers are not in themselves religious symbols. Wooden cut-outs of a man and a woman, eyes closed and their hands pressed together as if in prayer, kneel over a baby's crib. It's a bit odd that the man is wearing a tunic, I thought, but there's really nothing unusual about fawning over a baby, and it's cold outside: maybe the couple is innocently rubbing their hands to keep warm. Then my eyes shift to the shepherds at the scene. OK, so all of this seems a lot like the biblical description of Jesus' birth. Then I saw a magus. Wait, two magi. No, three magi!

I looked up to the top of the manger. Attached to the roof, as if hovering, is the unmistakable image, cut out of wood, of an angel. At that point, I knew that this was no innocent, secular display. See the gospels of Matthew and Luke.

Let me repeat: the park is a PUBLIC park. We have several churches in town at which to display such Christian idols, but a public park is not the place. You may protest: "But it's CHRIST-mas! Of course it's about Christianity!" Well, no. That's just an unfortunate etymological vestige of the holiday's origin. The holiday that originated as the Roman holiday of Saturnalia and was adopted by Christians as Christmas has long ago been secularized as a national holiday in the U.S., much as Halloween has also been secularized.

Angels, magi, praying parents, and the scene taken as a whole, however, have not been secularized; therefore, the city of Lenox cannot boast of its bright lights and shining hospitality without also recognizing its glaring unconstitutionality.

I was arrested and put in jail a couple times. I didn’t spend much time for those petty crimes, but those crimes sure got the police to look at me closely. From jail, I wrote:

Jan. 20, 2011 - “Why do you keep getting yourself into trouble?” the police and myself both ask of me. To the police, I give answers, though those answers vary and are somewhat inconsistent. The problem with the answers I give them is that I am throwing reasons at the emotions -- for the emotions are at the root of my misbehaviors -- rather than providing valid reasons.

What I need to do, if not in answering them, then in answering myself, is to understand my emotions. From whence do they come?

The truth is -- I know this in both my heart and in my intellect -- that I dearly miss a once-good friend. The tear are welling up as I write this; these tears are testimony to my loneliness. And I feel sorry for my mother, though I keep hurting her. My formerly good friend, referenced above, said that I was emotionally and/or verbally abusive. It pains me to admit it, but she may have been right. My mother disagreed with her, but Mother herself has said the same of me at other times.

I speculate that I once got a rush out of inflicting emotional harm on a loved one, and like an addict, have come back to the rush time and again. Do not misunderstand me; I do not enjoy hurting others. I injure myself just as much, if not more. I am sorry for all the wrongs I have done. I am not sorry because I am in jail. No, before I had any legal record at all, I had been kept up at night by regrets.

When I was about 11 years of age, I was placed in a behavioral disorder classroom. I didn’t think that I was that bad, but faculty and staff at Lenox Elementary School said that I “had changed” after I had been hospitalized for my first panic attack. About that time, I felt that I had ruined my life. I had an intense crying spell at my grandmother’s, telling her and Mother that I had ruined my life, though I was only 11. Perhaps it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, but time has thus far shown me to have been correct, as I sit here, at the age of 24, in stripes.

Mother has called me crazy, and she wanted me in a care facility right before I left my hometown for college, and she said my friend and I could “be loony together” at college, but I had no right -- morally or legally -- to scare her out of her own home today.

But I spend my days there, at that house, lonely and anxious. I have been seeking help, psychologically and vocationally, but receiving little. My desperate state of mind is probably all my fault anyway. Never mind that Mary, that once dear friend, left me at her grandpa’s; that her grandpa threatened violence against me; that her father left two dozen soda cans in my apartment in my absence; that I had been battered by Mary numerous times over the past year; that Mary left rat feces on the apartment floor; that she and her mother brutally battered me. Grown men learn to deal with things -- with “shit.”

Civilized men deal with issues peacefully. I do civilization a disgrace.

I have an inkling, this conviction you may even say, that may actually be little more than faith, that I have, or had, the potential to dominate my emotions. Come to think of it, I’ve done it before, but somehow I have lost my reign over my labile emotions.

I never really knew what it felt like to be past the point of rescue, to have crossed the Rubicon, if you will. The part of me that I like to think of as the “real” or “true” me -- as if such words mean anything at all! -- sees this monstrous, emotionally erratic me as utterly contemptible.

A demoralized creature, I really, at this point, just want someone to love me, someone who will gently kiss my brow, to hold on to, and to cuddle up with for a movie at 2am. I guess that I’ll just settle for dreaming of such things as I lie on the hard mat (barely a comfort over the cold concrete beneath) in the jail.

I had wanted attention and so made false and exaggerated claims about my badness. It was stupidness, foolishness, but that what I did, and I can hardly say that I knew any better at the moment.

Whatever the cause of my heinous acts against those whom I love, I like to think that I am young enough and smart enough to redeem myself. Even though I should have and probably did know better, I like to think of this as a learning experience, at the end of which is absolution, in whatever form it may come in.

I sometimes think that I’ve got it bad, that I’ve been cast a bad lot, but I really had it good living with Mother. I’ve never been a good guy, but the thoughts, more like flashbacks, of what Mary and her family did to me are too much to bear, but why did I take it out on loved ones? They supported me. They still do support me. My mother already had too much stress in her life before my antics.

I should never speak of violence. I know that I would never commit violent acts. I abhor violence. It is almost inexorably related to negative outcomes; rarely is violence constructive.

I would like to find a good psychologist to help me talk through my problems -- the “talking cure”, as it has been called. I really don’t think that I’m such a bad guy; I just have a bias to remember the hurtful things that have been said to me, about me. Or is this self-deception to save face?

I still regret what I said to my ex-girlfriend over four years ago. I regret even more any emotional pain I may have caused my most recent girlfriend. She said that she was sorry, that she hadn’t been taking her medications and that I really did treat her all right after all. Then she left me stranded in Onawa.

I hope I don’t get much time here in the county jail or put in the state prison. I think I just have to get my head on straight, though to do so is hard when the medications sometime have adverse side effects. But maybe, someday, the people I know will be proud of me.

One night, I was jogging, when a cop stopped me. I thought I had left my web cam in my bag that I carry various items in, so I sought out my bag. I didn’t find it in the house, so I suspected I had left it at the gym some hours before.

So, at 12:45 am, I jogged on the sidewalk to the gym. A police car stopped, the officer rolled down the window, shined one of those bright cop-car spotlights in my face, and asked me where I was going, what I was doing, and where I had come from. I explained that I was just going to the gym to see if my bag was there (the gym has 24-hour access).

After I had searched the gym, unsuccessfully, for my bag, I exited to see the same police car driving slowly by the gym. I shrugged my shoulders because I thought the cop might think it strange that I had gone to get my bag but had emerged from the building without the bag. He again stopped me and asked where I had been, what I was doing, and where was I going. I explained that perhaps I had not actually left the bag there, or perhaps the owner of the gym had set it aside, so I was then going home.

I’m glad that the police are vigilant. Lord knows we need it on the mean streets of Lenox, Iowa. But a 24-year-old jogging on the sidewalk doesn’t warrant such questioning, does he? Well, it’s been a stressful month, and when I get stressed, I become especially sensitive to sounds and lights, which is consistent with autism spectrum disorders. That bright spot light in my face caused no little unease for my nervous system.

It turned out that the bag was on my bed.

One morning, I had a nightmare about cops. Thankfully, I was awoken by a knocking at the door. . . a cop knocking at the door.

My heart skipped a beat or ten, as I asked what was going on. Perhaps I had been falsely accused of wielding a knife or some such silliness. It was a different type of silliness.

The chief asked if I had anything to do with some sort of vandalism or disturbance at the Methodist Church last night. He said my name had been brought up because I'd had -- I've already forgotten the exact words -- an exchange or difference of opinion with the minister there.

On another occasion, I took a picture of the sign out front of a Methodist church and mocked what was on it by posting a picture with a caption on Facebook. But I have not exchanged words with the minister, though I did send her a friend request after I incidentally saw her name at the bottom of the sign. She, it might be added, accepted the friend request, but she and I have yet to have any interaction of any kind, be it on Facebook or in person.

Whoever brought my name up surely does not understand what I stand for. Yes, I think that religion is silly. Yet I'm also not so sure that it's not a functional institution if used correctly.

Whether it is silly or functional or not, I disapprove of church property being damaged just as I disapprove of my neighbor's property being damaged, my property being damaged, my brother's property being damaged, or some random guy in Virginia's property being damaged.

I am an atheist, but that does not equate to wanting churches destroyed or vandalized or any injustice done to them. Property rights, in my view, should be respected, no matter the opinions, rituals, ideology, viewpoint, etc. of the property's owner.

This is a free country in that you have the right to do what you want to do so long as you do no clear harm to anyone else. I may not approve of religion, but I sure as hell (pardon the pun) am not going to infringe upon your right to practice religion. Even I occasionally go to church!

This shouldn't even be about religious or not religious, church or not a church. It's common decency. It's respecting people's right to do what they want to do even if you don't respect their reasons for wanting to do whatever it is they want to do.

The chief of police who came to my door added, "So you don't know anything about a wheelchair [or was it a wheelchair lift]....?" I didn't, but that part really disgusts me; if someone would suspect that I, who does what he can to support people with disabilities, would do something inhibitory to someone in a wheelchair, then you don't know me one bit.

I walk the streets a lot, and I will be keeping my ears and eyes open. If I see or hear anything suspicious, I will not hesitate to report it.

And if the person who suspected me happens to be reading this, then know that I am not angry with you. You were likely just trying to get to the bottom of the incident, and I can't expect everyone to know what I stand for or who I really am. But I am a bit offended that I would be suspected of actions that I hold in such contempt. Then again, maybe I deserve it for some of my previous transgressions and/or improprieties.

Chapter 10

In early spring 2011, I got into a (verbal) fight with my mother that led to my arrest. From jail I wrote:

It’s probably about 1 AM as I write this -- I can’t be certain because the TV, my only source of telling time, was turned off at 12 AM. I am suffering from “brain zaps.” For any reader who may not be familiar with the term “brain zaps”, brain zaps are a withdrawal symptom from SSRIs; they are not dangerous, but they are very uncomfortable, feeling something akin to having lightning bolts strike your brain.

I wonder if I somehow didn’t get my dose of Lexapro yesterday. Or maybe a migraine is coming on. I have been quite stressed, a trigger for migraines. I am, after all, writing this from jail.

My mother said that she didn’t want to press charges, but I have a copy of her original statement and saw the magistrate nearly a week ago (with these fluorescent lights on 24/7, the only environmental cues for time are the delivery of meals and the time shown on CNN), so charges have indeed been pressed.

She and I both have bad tempers, and she often presumed to know what I’m going to say, and further presumed that it would be negative or threatening, without actually listening to my words. So things tend to heat up between us, as they did last Saturday, when I was put in jail for assault. She said that I had threatened her -- I did no such thing, but I did throw a temper tantrum.

I sit alone all day at her house, in those times at which I am not incarcerated, with nothing to do but read and play with the dog. As much as I enjoy those activities, they can only be enjoyable for so many hours out of the day, and authors’ words and a pet present only so much company.

When Mom comes home from work, she’s the only one I have to talk to, but she’s not usually in the mood to talk about much. She is wracked with anxiety and major depression; as such, she tends to be either apathetic or seemingly on the verge of snapping. She has snapped before, threatening to beat my head with a 2x4 board when I sleep to catch me unawares. She’s punched and pinched me as well. She’s thumped her finger and remote controls against my head. She’s blamed me for “ruining” her life and has expressed regrets about having not aborted me when I was a fetus.

At one point, the abuse drove me out of the house, at which point I stayed with a friend for about a month because I felt unsafe and emotionally tormented by my mother.

She, Mom, has a way of making me out to be the bad guy. She does it in a way that is hard to describe in words -- she makes for a quite skilled practitioner of the nefarious school of psychology -- so I’ll just use one word: manipulation. When I was a child, she called me a “fucking liar” when I asked if her live-in boyfriend smoked pot, though in truth he did, often with large groups of friends in the living room.

A few years ago, she accused me of breaking her car. She said that she feared that I would kill my baby nephew. She, a mother of three, sometimes torments me by speaking of her two sons, as though I do not count as one of her sons. I have friends, former friends, and family who can attest to the psychological abuse.

Yet, it is I who sits in jail. I wonder if this is how the wicked witch felt when she said, “I’m melting! I’m melting! Oh, what a world!” I claim limited to no wickedness, but as for melting and brain zapping -- what is the difference?

At that time, I thought that I was being wronged by everyone else. Only later did I realize that I had done wrong to my mother.

What’s more, I developed an attitude that I summed up as, “If they want to make a criminal out of me, then I’ll act like a criminal! Considering my brother’s trumped up charges and the silliness of tossing a rat running through my head, I was, quite frankly, angry about the legal system.

Clinical or counseling psychologists sometimes speak of “catastrophizing.” What they mean is, in other words, blowing a situation out of proportion and expecting the worst. That kind of sums up how I felt -- because I had these charges against me, everything was ruined, I thought.

The first time I was incarcerated in the Taylor County jail, I was put into a cell of my own. I had a TV in there and paper and a pencil. Aside from those items and the shower, I had nothing to occupy my mind and my time.

The food, which was the same food given to residents at the nursing home, was bland and sometimes even repulsive. The cell was small and old, probably over 100 years old. It was not a pleasant place to be, though one comfort I had was being allowed to talk to a female jailer once in awhile. She was very sweet and understanding.

The second time I was in the Taylor County jail, I was put in a larger cell with cellmates, because the cell I was in previously was occupied by a female. I tried to sleep as much as I could. One of my cell mates was pretty cool. His name was Tad, but he prefered to be called TJ because, he said, other children used to mock him by calling him “tadpole.”

TJ told me that he couldn’t wait to get out of jail because he and his wife were expecting a baby. Some time after my release, I did a Google search and saw that they had had a miscarriage or stillbirth (I don’t quite remember which one it was).

March of 2011 is one month that I'll never forget for as long as I am fortunate enough to live. I was sitting in a jail cell in Bedford, IA, on an assault charge while, unbeknownst to me, one of the people most dear to me was being laid to rest just across town.

On March 19th, I lost my temper and brandished a baseball bat, asking my mother who should be my target. She felt threatened, and thus rushed out the door and filed a police report. About the time I had come down the stairs, I took my nightly dose of Valium.

About as soon as Mom left, the dog and I curled up in bed, ready to call it a night, when I heard a pounding at the door. There's only one breed of human that pounds in such a way: police. I roused my sedated self from my bed, the dog barking, and looked out the window to confirm what I had suspected: a cop car was in the drive-way.

"You're being arrested," spoke the cop. "For what?" I honestly did not know why I was being arrested. "For assault on your mother."

I cried on and off for the first three days of my stay in jail. I felt betrayed by Mom, who I thought was trying to help keep me out of legal trouble. I felt a failure, because I would surely fail my college courses. I felt panicky, because the plain, bolted walls of the jail cell are confining. And I felt remorseful, because I had thrown a temper tantrum that frightened my mother.

I also had a worry that I suppose doesn't make much sense. My grandma had been in poor health for the past several years due to complications from acromegaly, and she had recently taken a turn for the worse. She expressed to me embarrassment about her condition; she felt as though she were a burden on the family because she needed so much assistance with daily routines. "Grandma," I attempted to reassure her, "you've been here for us for countless years helping us; there's no shame in our helping you."

I worried that she would die while I was incarcerated. Why it would matter where I was when she ceased to live was probably a silly thing to ponder and fret over, but that's how I felt.

Grandma spoiled me. My mother, like many other single parents, often had trouble making ends meet, but I always had plenty of toys, clothes, or anything else a kid could want growing up because Grandma took pleasure in ours. She took us on family outings, and she and Grandpa took me to the annual pro wrestling events in Des Moines.

My school attendance record was less than exemplary. You can blame that on Grandma: she let me play hooky more than any truancy officer would have stood for. Then we'd go to her house where we would watch soap operas and daytime talk shows, or we'd on little shopping excursions.

There are so many things that I could say about Grandma, but what I'll miss most will probably be our conversations. She was incredibly witty, and she also my foremost confidante (even if she had a tendency to leak my secrets to Mom!). She always told me that I was her favorite grandchild; I have a suspicion that her other grandchildren were told the same.

March 19th: the night I was arrested, and the night that my wonderful grandmother, Judy Kay Refer, passed away -- a tragic coincidence overshadowed, fortunately, by the goodness she brought into this world.

Chapter 11

I was initially appointed a public defender, but my brother convinced me that I’d be better off with another lawyer, one who my brother had retained previously.

So, I went into his office, nervous as hell. He had a very brusque demeanor, and he wanted only short answers to his questions. I considered him rather rude. He didn’t want nuanced answers. Sounding stressed, he said, “Keep it short and simple.” How was I supposed to tell my side of the story with only terse answers?

I presented the lawyer with a printed page from my brother’s Facebook page. On his wall was an update from Mary, who said that the thrown rat was doing very well. That, I was sure, would play to my favor. I also supplied him with pictures of my bruises resulting from the beatdown Mary and her mother gave me the day I got home from jail. Again, I thought that was good evidence on my side.

Furthermore, I gave my attorney a copy of the report of my psychological testing, which showed that I had hypochondriasis. He should have made a bigger issue of that diagnosis in court, because from it could be extrapolated that I was afraid of catching something from the rats or their feces. As it was, when presenting the court with my psychological evaluation, my lawyer couldn’t even pronounce “hypochondriasis.”

During one conversation with my lawyer, he said, “I don’t usually do rat cases.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said.

He assured me that, anyway, he was 95% sure he could get the charges dropped. And I believed him for a little while.

Chapter 12

Do I have a moral obligation to treat rats well?

The legalities became rather protracted, which caused me much grief. I ended up spending about five months in jail for having thrown the rat out. Did the punishment fit the crime?

I’ve read quite a bit on moral philosophy, including the work of Marc Hauser, but I’m still conflicted. The animal I threw was a rat, a filthy rodent! Who cares?

Then again, rats are sentient creatures, even if their brains have not developed neocorteces or prefrontal lobes that match the intellectual organs of humans. How sentient are rats anyway?

Rather than being mitigating facts, it might be said that what I did to that rat was less morally acceptable for the rat’s lack of reasoning faculties; might it be that the rat was more scared or otherwise emotionally upset for how their brains function?

I feel like what I did was wrong, but not very wrong. Additionally, if I am obligated to not harm a rat, then doesn’t that rat have an obligation to not harm me, say, by dropping feces on my floor? The rat, by the way, was apparently not injured, as he came right back to the apartment door.

No, I don’t feel too guilty about having thrown the rat. If it had been a dog or a cat, I would find it nearly impossible to forgive myself. Am I making an arbitrary distinction between rats and dogs and cats, or is there a true qualitative difference there? Rats are pests; dogs are man’s best friend.

Perhaps I should have, if not empathy, at least a degree of sympathy, for the rat. After all, the rat and I are both mammals, and I can’t argue that the rat is not—at least to some degree—a sentient being.

Still, I felt no disquietude about the rat itself when I was locked up. I did, however, feel immense guilt and remorse for how the rat’s owner must have felt. And I felt bad for my mother who worried about me; no mother wants her son in jail. I was in such emotional turmoil that my mind raced with nearly every bad, immoral, or insidious act I’ve ever committed.

The reader might suggest that I felt unease with my emotions not because I regretted what I did; rather, the reader might suppose, I was remorseful because I had been caught. To an extent, that is true: I did not like being a jail cell, and that jail cell gave me a lot of quiet time for reflection.

The truth is that I felt authentic remorse, even feeling guilty about how I treated ex-girlfriends who want nothing to do with me anymore. I should not waste my feelings on them if they don’t care about me, right? But I could have been nicer to them when they were around, and breakups are never easy; I might have even given them emotional baggage that they must carry into their subsequent relationships. I definitely felt bad for them, not just for myself.

That said, my guilty, regret, etc., was, in a sense, selfish. It’s not that I felt bad just because I was in jail; I felt bad because I strongly believe that we all need to treat each other respectfully and help each other out when we can. I’ve failed to live up to my own ideology on that front, which hurts.

My feelings are selfish in that only I can experience my own emotions, but humans, as social animals, are gifted with strong theories of mind; therefore, I know that other people experience the same emotions that I do, and I know when social damage to a relationship, or even an individual, has been done.

Chapter 13

My legal situation led me to think more about the legal system. It really hit me that the accused should be presumed innocent and that the case against the defendant had better be airtight.

This inspired me to write about Casey Anthony, an essay which serves as this chapter. I certainly don't put my alleged crimes in the same level of seriousness as that of Casey Anthony, but her verdict was what mine should have been – based on evidence, or the lack thereof.

For the past three years, I had been casually catching updates on the “Tot Mom Case”, if I may borrow the term from Nancy Grace, from whose scowling face and persistently angrily intoned voice I had been getting my occasional consumption of coverage on the death of Caylee Anthony.

Since the trial started several weeks ago, I’ve been more than just a casual consumer of the case; I, like much of the rest of the country, became captivated by the trial. Starting approximately two weeks into the trial, I began asking people, but more often myself, “What is the prosecution doing?!”

Self-disclosure: I got caught up in the media’s vitriol before the trial began, and thus I was biased in believing, as I did believe, that Casey must have been guilty of murdering Caylee. Nancy Grace sure seemed caustic toward Casey! So why, I wondered -- and I wondered this even more as the trial progressed -- is the prosecution holding back? Why is the prosecution slinging weak evidence all over, when everyone seems sure that Casey is guilty?

Shame on me, ladies and gentlemen; as much as I try not to get caught up in media bias and (day I term it as such?) propaganda, I did get caught up in it. The defense asserted that the prosecution was trying to play to the jury’s emotions; likewise did the media play to the television audience’s emotions before the trial even began!

Upon seeing witness after witness, hearing testimony after testimony, I came to realize that the prosecution didn’t bring any convincing evidence to the courtroom because they didn’t have any to present! With the prosecution and the media making a pretense of having a solid case against Casey, both of them participating in a ruse, one phrase kept repeating in my head: Cui bono?

My tentative answers to that question of who benefits are as follows. The prosecution’s attorneys, had they succeeded in getting a conviction, would have benefited from having won what one TV analyst, in a bit of hyperbole, declared “the trial of the century!” Trial of the century or not (we still have about 89 years left for trials this century), this was, undoubtedly, a truly high-profile case. Win this case, and you, as an attorney, will be in high demand!

As for the media, Nancy Grace would have benefited because to persecute Casey is in her character. I don’t mean to imply that Nancy Grace, the person, is like that; she may or may not have that character in her personal life; but as a television character, she is a nasty, vile woman. Nor am I insulting Nancy Grace. It’s a great character to have as a TV character who is a former prosecutor who panders to the sort of audience which, judging by the phone calls taken on her show, she does indeed cater to.

I, thankfully, can say that the prosecution failed to deceive the jurors. The verdict came back ‘not guilty’ on the murder charges. Already, I have seen people wondering how the jury could have come back with a not guilty verdict. In consideration of how this case was tried, it should have been quite easy for the jury to come back with an acquittal.

Back to the media for a moment. Some attorney on some show, probably on HLN, indicated that she thought Casey was guilty of murder, and that the public at large seem to think that there must be video footage of the murder, when in fact most murder cases are circumstantial. My initial reaction was that she was insulting the viewers’ intelligence; of course we don’t expect video footage of alleged murders! Then I remembered the citizens on the streets and on the phones who didn’t seem to understand legal proceedings.

We don’t, and shouldn’t (in most cases), expect video footage of murders. What we do, should, and must expect, however, is evidence that leaves no reasonable doubt in the jurors minds. The difficulty that can arise is in finding twelve reasonable people off the streets to call to jury duty. In any event, defense attorney Jose Baez did a brilliant job in his closing arguments of demolishing the prosecution’s case, in the off-chance that the jurors did not catch the prosecutors’ self-destruction.

I will not go through everything that was said over the several weeks, and I will not re-examine every bit of evidence; you can find that elsewhere if you desire. If you read much of what I write, you probably know that I like to keep things simple, to remind people of what exactly the issues at hand are. At this point in this brief bit of writing, I want to just remind everyone of what a guilty verdict, especially in a murder trial, must have. Just its simple, basic elements.

Today’s forensic sciences are amazing, truly astonishing. If the prosecution had presented solid forensics, the verdict would have gone the other way. But they didn’t have solid forensics, or any other strong evidence. The words ‘evidence’, ‘theory’, and ‘science’ popped up a lot, and for good reason. Someone’s life was on the line in this death penalty case. It is both morally and legally wrong to execute someone on a hunch, without strong evidence that the accused did that which he or she is accused of doing. Another thing you may have noticed from me is that I attempt to put myself in other people’s proverbial shoes. Suppose you were sitting as an innocent defendant. It could happen. Ponder that one.

Let’s use this analogy, which might not be so much an analogy as what really happens in a trial. The analogy is hypothesis testing. Keep in mind that I do not mean to patronize or to sound condescending. In science, you take two hypotheses; one of these hypotheses will be called the null hypothesis, the other the alternative hypothesis. I’ll use a medical example.

Suppose we are trying to decide whether or not the anti-inflammatory properties of aspirin reduce the risk of heart attacks. The null hypothesis would be this: The anti-inflammatory properties of aspirin have no effects on heart attack risk. The alternative hypothesis would be this: The anti-inflammatory properties of aspirin do alter heart attack risk. The null hypothesis is taken to true until the alternative hypothesis is tested against it. Using statistics (a t-test in a simple experiment), we either reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis, not vice versa.

In the Casey Anthony trial, the null hypothesis would be that Casey did not murder Caylee. The burden of proof thus lies on the prosecution to demonstrate that the null hypothesis (Casey is not guilty) in order to reject it. This, in legal terms, is the notion of innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The jury, in this case, failed to reject the null hypothesis. And for that, I maintain hope in our justice system.

Closer to home (literally) is the following case.

A note has been creeping into my mind since I read it nearly a month ago. Being unpopular with the authors, the Lenox Police Department, I was hesitant to post my thoughts on the note. I should repeat part of that last sentence: I am speaking of posting my thoughts on the note, not on the police department or the individual who posted it. It's usually best to aim critiques at ideas rather than ad hominen.

I do have the Constitutional right to fairly speak (or write) my mind, to express a grievance, and this one, admittedly, may be a rather petty grievance (then again, maybe not); I might just be unjustifiably aghast at a simple typographical error. Whatever the case may be in this instance, I'm confident that an important message resides in my commentary on the note that's crept into my mind again today.

Posted on the department's Facebook page at 6:59pm on July 24th (I think the Facebook posts also appear in the Lenox Time Table newspaper, but I rarely read that paper), was this note:

“On July 22 at 1210 AM, Lenox Police were notified of a sexual assault. Investigation into the incident showed a 17 year old female from Danville Iowa was attending the Lenox Rodeo. She accompanied Kevin Michael Thompson, 21 of Carterville Missouri. To Casey’s General Store. After leaving Casey’s, they went to the Lenox Little League Field where the assault occurred. The victim was returned to the rodeo grounds and police were notified. Following investigation into the incident, an arrest warrant for Thompson was obtained on a charge of Sexual Abuse 3rd degree, a class C felony.. He was located and arrested near the school athletic field on July 23 at 10:00 PM. Thompson was transported to the Taylor County Jail where he was held without bond pending an appearance in front of a magistrate”

If you're now on this line, then you have presumably read the quote from the police. Did something sound a little -- I don't know -- off, not quite worded right, above? Here's what struck me. The police 'were notified of a sexual assault' at just after midnight on July 22. The note was posted just before 7pm on the 24th, fewer than three days later. The suspect was arrested at 10pm on the 23rd.

With your mind primed to that time line, re-read the note. That's some mighty fast investigative work, wouldn't you say?

A sexual assault wasn't alleged to have occurred. No, the police tell us that the assault did, in fact, take place: "After leaving Casey's, they went to the Lenox Little League Field where the assault occurred." Based off this reading, it appears that the case was closed in a very, very short amount of time. Kudos to the investigative and forensics units for coming to such a solid conclusion before the suspect even saw the magistrate!

Or maybe the case wasn't solved. Maybe the suspect was presumed guilty until proven innocent. Or, I reiterate, maybe I'm simply fretting over a mere typographical error.

Chapter 14

The court dragged the case out, so it was 10 months later that I was sentenced after I signed a plea deal. The charges were filed in late October of 2010, but then several months passed without my having heard from my lawyer or from the court.

I thought perhaps the charges had been dropped.

Then in August of 2011, I might with my lawyer and made a mistake: I signed a plea bargain.

The reason I signed the plea bargain was because my attorney said that a jury simply wouldn’t like me and would find me guilty, and I would spend two years in jail or prison, so it was best that I plead guilty and agree to serve 9 months of probation and 10 hours in jail.

Little did I know at the time that I deferred to my attorney’s recommendation to sign the plea bargain that defense attorneys do that not because a person is likely to be found guilty. Rather, defense lawyers want to make money, and it’s easier to make money if they can see more clients rather than spending more time on a case like mine; and, furthermore, defense attorneys have to deal with the same prosecutors and judges time and again, so they want to arrange deals with the prosecutors that are a sort of win-win: the defense lawyer’s client receives a penalty that is much less severe than the maximum, and the prosecution gets a quick and easy conviction.

The American governmental system is broken. It’s been said before, and it’s true. I’ve complained about the legislative branch and even more so about the executive branch. The judicial branch is also broken, I daresay corrupted. The prosecution (State) brought absolutely no evidence against me. None.

I’ve quoted Mark Twain on the problems with juries before, and I’m afraid that he’s right, for the most part. The truth of the matter means nothing to a jury moved by emotion and persuaded by rhetoric.

It’s funny that we even have a jury system. Yes, I understand that historical origins of a jury system in criminal cases, but that doesn’t moot the point that the jury system is outmoded and ineffective. When a person’s freedom, money, and (in some cases) life are on the line, then it seems that the courts should be absolutely sure that the person put on trial is guilty before convicting him or her.

I’ve written a few words suggesting that we instill a system of expert juries. Short of an expert jury, an educated jury may suffice. Intelligent, educated people should be able to evaluate evidence and decide whether the evidence is wholly convincing or requires further investigation.

If justice is to be served, then convictions must reflect the reality of events. The only way to truly convince intelligent people of reality is to present a strong, evidence-based, scientific argument.

I believe in government… in principle! Government is good; it provides vital, or at least comforting, services. But those services had ought to be for the people! The Constitution and its amendments, particularly the first 10, were written to protect civil liberties… in principle!

Therein lies the seat of my consternation. I get caught up in principles. I get caught up in ideals. Our Constitution is a very idealistic document, a document that inspires hope in human dignity!

Aside from the Constitution or any other legal document, I have always idealized people as being good. We are humans, and the word humane is derived from the word human, so I sometimes think that humans had ought to be humane.

And sometimes I make the silly, simplistic mistake of assuming that humans are humane, if not in all forms in discourse, then at least in formal discourse, particularly when the letter of the dictates that people are treated humanely.

Innocent people, wouldn’t you agree, are especially entitled to being treated humanely?

Yet, the emotional valence of the charges and my treatment and my feelings of being done wrong set off my temper tonight.

The legal system has been unfair to me, and it’s been unfair to many others. At its worse, innocent men (and, to a lesser extent, women) have been executed for murders that it was later discovered they did not commit. People have spent years in prison for no legitimate, valid reason.

Why? Because even though in principle, in an world of ideals, the system could work and authority figures could judge and prosecute, and even arrest, with a higher degree of discretion, human reality does not always match human ideals. Humans aren’t always humane; Homo sapiens is not always wise.

Chapter 15

I didn't really want to sign the plea deal, but my lawyer told me that he didn't want to go to trial with me; and , he said, the jury would be confused and would not like me, and then I would be sentence to time in prison.

Then I had to sign a piece of paper that said no threats or promises were made by my signing the plea deal.

When we went to court, my lawyer went over everything with me in advance. Since he knew everything that was going to be done and said in the courtroom that way, why did we have to go through the motions?

My lawyer explained what he and the judge would say, and then I was to say, “Your honor, I am very sorry for what I did.” I changed the wording a bit, but I told them a lie: that I was sorry.

Don't get me wrong – I had felt sorry on and off for what happened; it left me very conflicted on an emotional level.

But on that particular day, especially having seen and heard Mary on the stand, I was not sorry in the least.

I was sentenced to three years in jail with all but two days suspended, and to 18 months of probation.

I had only spent 38 hours in jail, so I had to return to jail for 10 hours because Iowa law says that anyone convicted of domestic abuse must spend at least 48 hours in jail.

I was glad that I only had to spend 10 hours in jail that time; I mean that I am glad that I didn't have to stay any longer, because there were some strange characters in there.

Come to think of it, there are always strange characters in jail, if my personal experiences are indicative of a real trend. TJ, who I met in the Taylor County jail, spoke about his smoking hot wife, something hard for me to believe because, well, let's just say that he wasn't the most attractive man I'd ever encountered. Everyone else in jail had a hot wife and a lot of money too.

During my second stay at the Taylor County jail, the time when I met TJ, I was court-ordered to the Mental Health Institute (MHI) in Mt. Pleasant.

At MHI were severely mentally impaired patients. They were retarded and violent. MHI, which is connected to a prison, seems like a prison in its own right. The beds are the uncomfortable pads given in jail. The walls and floor were barren concrete. It was all drab and dreary, words I also use for describing the Iowa Forensic Psychiatric Hospital.

We even had Bob Barker brand shampoo, bodywash, and whatnot. (Bob Barker brand is common in jails and prisons.) Mary Greeley, where I was hospitalized in December 2010 and September 2011 was much nicer, having a whirlpool tub, comfortable beds, and even pillows. .

Chapter 16

I felt betrayed by Mary and I felt let down by my lawyer, who I thought should have gotten me a better plea deal. He had said that, while he was 95% sure he could get the case dismissed, he made no promises.

More than anything else, I thuoght that the whole thing was ludicrous. The rat was healthy, Mary had left me stranded, and she and her mother beat me up. Wasn't I also a victim?

The thoughts expressed in the previous paragraph went through my head at my first probation meeting. I stepped outside to do hindu squats to ease my nerves while I waited.

At that time, I thought that I would not comlete the requirements for my second bachelor's degree because of all this bull crap.

Add to that the attorney fees, court fees, and the cost of enrolling in probation, and the result is more stress.

I went on a rant about the injustice of it all. I became so angry that I said, “You want me to be a criminal?!” Then I called the police and reported that I had punched the probation officer.

Though the police and the mental health providers (who the police called in) thuoght that I was havinga psychotic episode, I was really just extremely stressed, anxious, and angry.

The mental health providers and my mom signed got a court order to have me placed in a psychiatric hospital. While we waited for the paperwork to go through, I talked to Kyle, a young social worker. We somehow got onto the topic of glow-in-the-dark cats, which she looked up on her computer. (The cats glowed for studying genetic markers for Feline Immuno-deficiency Virus.

A deputy transported me to the behavioral unit of Mary Greeley Hospital in Ames, Iowa. There I met a funny middle-aged man, Jeff, who had admittedly fried his brain on drugs. (He was there to be trasnferred to a rehabilitation program.)

Also at the hospital was a cute young lady, just a few months older than me. Jeff and I teased her quite a bit, and we even joked around about her religion, Catholicism.

The three of us formed a little clique. We hoked around all the time, and the young lady, whose name was Ashley,, and I flirted with each other. We'd put our hands on each other when no nurses or patient care technicians were around.

She liked NASCAR, so I watched NASACAR with her. I liked pro wresting, so she watched wrestilng with me. It's great how wrestling and racing can draw people together.

Once in a while, nursing students would come onto the unit for clinicals. As it turned out, the nurse who was teaching the students ended the more serious activities so that we could all watch wrestling together!

Forgive this excursion, but Part of the behavioral unit's therapy is to have all the patients (rather, all the patients who are not knocked out with heavy sedatives) gather in the TV room for group discussions. Before the group sessions, each patient writes scores, on a scale of one to ten, their anxiety levels, energy levels, appetites, etc.

These sessions seemed utterly stupid to me. I did not see the therapeutic value in them. The rating sheets were hard to interpret; for example, for appetite, the question was, "Rate your appetite from 1-10, with 1 being the best." What the hell does it mean to have "the best" appetite? And what kind of scaling was it anyway? Were there equal intervals between each rating of 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, etc.? Or was it purely ranking, where 1 is the best, and 2 might be just slightly worse than 1, but 3 is way worse than 2 than 2 is than 1?

Aside from the confusing self-report scaling sheets, and many other grievances I had that I won't get into for purposes of this discussion, was how I was treated during the sessions, with one instance stuck vividly in my mind.

We were asked to share a good childhood memory. I was the first to volunteer a memory, and I told of the first time that my grandparents took me to see a live pro wrestling event. It was a WCW house show at the old Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines featuring Sting, Scott Hall, Lex Luger, and Goldberg, some of the biggest names in wrestling at that time.

I was glowing with nostalgia upon recalling that memory until the nurse, Deb, interjected with something like, "Why was that a good memory for you, Dustin? To me, all that stuff is phony." What?! Phony? That angered me to the point of shouting at and insulting others in the TV room for two reasons. More important of the two for the group session was that I didn't see how it matter whether wrestling was phony, or fake, for the purposes of group. I was asked to share a fond memory, which I did. I should not have been ridiculed for it, or if what she said wasn't ridicule, then whatever her comment was suppose to be.

More important for the purposes of this piece of writing, however, is that I'm not so sure that wrestling really is phony. Brace yourself: In a few hundred words, I'll attempt to explain why wrestling may or may not be phony (with a slant towards its NOT being phony). We're going to have to visit some facts, figures, and history for me to do so.

First, just what is professional wrestling? Vince McMahon coined the term "sports entertainment" as a synonym for pro wrestling, and it's really quite a clever and apt description of the sport that is also theatre.

In the first quarter if the 20th century, Carl Gustav Jung, protégé of Sigmund Freud and himself one of the most renowned psychoanalysts in the world, coined his own term, the "collective unconscious." Simply put, people universally recognize many of the same objects, symbols, and ideas across times and cultures. These objects, symbols, and ideas are archetypes.

Archetypes abound in pro wrestling. Wrestling is about good guys and bad guys. Wrestling is about winners and losers. Wrestling is about masculinity and femininity. Wrestling is about giants and midgets. Wrestling is dancing and fighting, loving and hating, and so many other things that are easy for people across the world to relate to.

Because wrestling abounds with archetypes that are recognized and understood around the world, wrestling is successful all across the globe. The WWE is broadcast in 145 countries and 30 different languages. The company stages over 300 live performances a year in the U.S. and all across the country. Professional wrestling made pay-per-view and has been a mainstay of TV since the medium's advent. Each year's Wrestlemania draws about 1 million pay-per-view buys, and 1987's Wrestlemania set in indoor attendance record with over 93,000 fans at the Pontiac Silverdome. The 1995 International Wrestling Peace Festival drew a crowd of 190,000 fans in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Maybe professional wrestling is phony, but it's only phony insofar as civilization is phony. Wrestling events and bouts are staged for entertainment purposes, but such is the case with any other form of sport or entertainment. Football matches do not occur spontaneously, and the TV cameras, stadiums, and advertisers aren't there for nothing. People watch because they are entertained by football. The same goes for ballet, dance, plays, baseball, bodybuilding, figure skating, soap operas, sit-coms, movies, roller derby, soccer, or whatever other form of sport or entertainment that you can name. These are all part of our culture.

However, I do have an explanation for why wrestling is considered phony but the NFL or Star Wars or Everybody Loves Raymond or The Young And The Restless or Major League Figure Skating is not.

For one, while all of the above forms of entertainment are part of culture, they don't quite reflect civilization as a whole like pro wrestling does. Wrestling represents more archetypes.

Also disconcerting to many is that wrestling is even more difficulty to classify as either sport or theatre than bodybuilding or figure skating. Championships are won in much the same way in all three: pro wrestling, bodybuilding, and figure skating. The performances are judged subjectively to choose winners.

Yet, bodybuilding and figure skating are still clearly sports. But wrestling is a lot more difficult to designate as sport or entertainment. We like dichotomies, but wrestling is a mix of both sport and theatre. That's why the term "sports entertainment" is so apt.

Exacerbating many people's consternation over wrestling's mixture of sports and theatre is its history, which I will highlight at lightning pace to make my point. (Does anyone else see irony in that wrestling is full of dichotomies -- good/bad, for example -- yet it doesn't fit our dichotomy of sport/not a sport?)

The truth is, professional wrestling was rather phony for much of its history. The WWE didn't admit that its bouts were worked (an industry term for predetermined outcomes) until the 1980s when it changed its official status to entertainment rather than sport to avoid costly regulations that applied to sports.

In the late 19th century, professional wrestling was mostly a carnival attraction, and at that time truly was fraudulent. Skilled wrestlers, called hookers, would tour the country to take on the local competition. To get the crowd's confidence up in its local tough guy, the wrestlers would plant challengers in the crowd and fake a difficult struggle. After a few rounds of the pro wrestler struggling with weak competition, the locals would bet heavily on their local tough guy. With a lot of money in the pot, the pro wrestler would apply a crippling hold (called a hook, hence the term "hooker") on the local favorite and collect the money. If that failed, a man behind the curtain would knock the local upside the head with a heavy club or bat to ensure that the pro won.

Wrestling did become a more organized sport around the turn of the century and featured shoot matches, that is, matches that were decided by authentic catch-as-catch can wrestling skill. In 1905, George Hackenschmidt, a wrestling with a bodybuilder's physique from Russia, became the recognized World Heavyweight Champion.

The top contender to challenge him for the worlds title was a product of my home state, Frank Gotch of Humboldt, Iowa. Gotch and Hackenschmidt met in the biggest match up to that point in wrestling's history. It was a match, however, that led many to consider wrestling "phony." Gotch won the bout and the World Heavyweight Championship to become the first American World champion, but Hackenschmidt cried foul.

Long before Hulk Hogan's overly tanned and oily body graced the squared circle, Frank Gotch had allegedly greased his body so that Hackenschmidt could not apply a hold.

A rematch was set up, which again broke box office records for wrestling. If the public wasn't questioning wrestling's legitimacy before Gotch oiled his body to win the title, the rematch no doubt did. The story goes that Gotch sent a confederate into Hackenschmidt's training camp, and the confederate broke Hackenschdmidt's leg before the contest. The huge crowd in Chicago was disappointed by a short match that Gotch easily won thanks to his insidious infiltration of his opponent's camp.

The public and fans were outraged, but the sport continued on. Shoots for the World Heavyweight Championship ended soon thereafter, however, with the 1920 out pitting Joe Stecher vs. Earl Caddock being the last legitimate catch-as-catch-can competition. Wrestling became more and more "worked" over the decades, especially as business slowed during the Great Depression and fans tired of the long, slow marathon matches. Matches were quickened, gimmicks such as tag teams, weapons, wrestling bears, cages, new moves such as the flying dropkick, outlandish characters, and countless other attractions were added to enhance excitement.

Still, wrestling presented itself as purely a sport for much of the 20th century. While many fans and other laypeople knew that wrestling matches had predetermined winners and was geared more heavily towards entertaining the audience than to find out who had the best technical, scientific wrestling skills, many others were still under the impression that wrestling was purely sport.

Wrestling no longer presents itself as just a sport. It's openly sports entertainment, but its history of presenting itself as purely sport still leaves people angry that it ever deceived them. But wrestling is a lot more fun if you can suspend disbelief, isn't it? And phony or not, that's what wrestling is all about: Having fun.

That aside, Ashley and I kissed – I have better luck picking up girls at the mental hospital than anywhere else. I also exchanged numbers with another girl, which I'll come back to in a while.

Chapter 17

In September 2011, I spent a day in jail for two probation violations and assault on a care taker.

I had recently signed the arraignment for the assault charge, and a great anxiety overcame me; an assault in a mental hospital would be my undoing, the act that sends me to prison!

Yesterday, the case was dismissed, which makes it safe for me to tell the tale of what happened. If this writing has no other value, it’s at the least mildly humorous. Come on! Mental hospitals are funny places.

Admittedly, my stay in the hospital is a bit hazy, perhaps because of the medications I was administered. However, I remember enough to tell of the not so vicious assault which I, the violent criminal, committed. Perhaps also making my memory fuzzy is that I was psychotic at the time.

Considering that my thoughts were distorted at the time, it’s hard to make sense or to explain my reasoning for throwing a tantrum, but it had something to do with a conspiracy to get me away from my books.

I was crazy, remember! So I demanded to see my attorney; I think I actually demanded that the nurses and/or technicians at the hospitals suddenly produce him; this may have even been in the evening.

For whatever reason(s), I became frustrated and knocked a clipboard or whiteboard or some object off the wall.

One of the technicians came uncomfortably close to me, and I demanded the retreat to some area of the nurse’s station to produce my attorney. He raised his right hand, at which point I warned him to drop it. Looking over my left shoulder, I saw several nurses and technicians, though I don’t remember how many, but I do recall that one of them was one named Deb, who I liked quite a bit.

I then – panicked -- turned around and struck the technician with the raised hand. The blow, in my opinion, was quite weak, the primary reason being that I could not put weight on my left leg, because I had injured my foot and my knee a day or two prior when stomping on imaginary rats.

Another patient had spoken to me about the “Thorazine shuffle.” He reported having made a commotion during a previous stay in the behavioral unit, prompting the nurses to inject him with Thorazine, which caused him to drools and shuffle his feet. Expecting the same treatment, I was immediately retrained with my back on the floor.

I vividly recall looking at my right arm, which was being outstretched and manipulated by what I remember as a male nurse, though in retrospect there were no male nurses on the unit. He or she told me, “Stop resisting!” though I remember resisting not at all; I was looking at my right in arm in anticipation of my Thorazine shot. ”Are you going to give me a shot?” I inquired to the nurse.

No shot was yet forthcoming. Instead, I was asked if I would like to walk or to be carried.

Being carried seemed more fun, and I was carried Superman-style into the seclusion room, where my arms and legs and fettered to a bed. My shoulder has issues anyway, and the positioning of my arms aggravated my left shoulder.

In any case, once on the bed, I was stripped naked and finally injected with a shot, though of Haldol (a different antipsychotic) rather than Thorazine.

Either out of learned helplessness or drug-induced drowsiness, I drifted off to sleep.

I awoke at one point to the one-on-one aide saying, “He’s been nothing but a gentleman to me.” I had apparently been awake at other times and exchanged words with the aide, but I don’t remember much of those exchanged. ”He’s like that, but then he becomes extremely psychotic,” a nurse of physician’s assistant responded.

At time of semi-wakefulness, etched into my memory again was Deb’s face, as she gave me one of the most pitying looks I’ve ever received, as if she were asking herself or me, “What has happened to this poor little man?”

My stay at the hospital lasted several more days. Upon discharge, I was escorted out of the unit by the police for the probation and assault warrants and spent a day in jail.

I thought that the punishment was too severe for the crimes committed. And I was angry about this. I felt like everyone in the correctional system had it out for me, that they were treating me unkindly and unfairly — I was getting a raw deal.

I was extremely frustrated my first few weeks in jail. Nobody likes to be in jail, and a lot of them probably wouldn’t admit to any wrongdoing, but I felt as though I wasn’t really a criminal and that I didn’t belong in jail.

I might have been right about that, but a few months in jail got me to thinking about it a different way. At first, I thought that it was all about me being mistreated. Upon reflection — and there’s lots of time for that in jail — I came to the realization that I could look at myself as a victim, or I could look at the larger picture.

The insight I got was that even if I were not guilty of the crimes, I was guilty of not conducting myself properly. I didn’t behave in a way that would get me good results in interacting with other people. They say it takes two to tango; sometimes it takes one and the generalized other to salsa.

Something else became all too real for me, what I called the “larger picture” a couple paragraphs above. Forgive me for sounding too much like Durkheim, but the laws, the jail, our roles we take on in our lives are social facts; i.e. we fill social roles that transcend individuals.

Amanda Bergeson: A Crazy Story

Amy, the social worker in the jail, sympathized with me, as I was very distraught about being locked up. To help me feel better, she took a piece of paper and wrote a few encouraging remarks, such as, “You won’t be here forever.”

I kept looking at that note whenever I felt too stressed. For whatever reason, I flipped the sheet of paper over to see what was on the other side. It was a list of names, one of which was Amanda Bergeson.

Amanda Bergeson was charged with first-degree theft, six counts of assault, criminal mischief, and eluding. She had stolen a car, and when the police chased her, she attempted to injure them with the stolen car.

One of the police officers, officer O’Brien, opened fire on the vehicle. A passenger in the car was shot once in the hand and once in the face. This was a day or two before she and I were to go on a date.

I met this woman at a psychiatric hospital, which, of all places, probably isn’t the best location to pick up women. This second woman was not charged with any crimes. All she did was unknowingly getting into a stolen vehicle to get a ride to the grocery store for evaporated milk.

O’Brien, I’ve heard, had been upset about having shot an innocent woman.

Wondering what ever happened to Ms. Bergeson, I Googled her; she accepted a plea deal and will spend 15 years in prison.

In the 8th grade, I got into a fight, which led to my being sent to a psychiatric hospital. At that point, I’d never had many friends, which I think is why I was diagnosed, at the hospital, with Asperger’s syndrome. I had disagreed with that diagnosis for quite a while. What’s more, my college classmates told me that they didn’t think the diagnosis was accurate.

For my first two years of college, I attended a community college that had a physical education (P.E.) requirement. I didn’t want to take P.E., so I asked my psychiatrist to write a note to get me excused from the requirement. I don’t remember if it was included with the note, or if I saw it somewhere else at around the same time, but my psychiatrist gave me a piece of paper with my diagnoses on it.

This psychiatrist was a different doctor than the one who diagnosed me with Asperger’s, but I thought that he still had me down as having Asperger’s. To my surprised, in addition to generalized anxiety and panic disorder and sans Asperger’s, the paper said that I had avoidant personality disorder.

To be honest, I had never heard of avoidant personality disorder before. When I looked it up, however, the diagnostic criteria struck me as right on the money. Simply put, avoidant personality disorder is just as it sounds: The patient avoids situations that could be embarrassing, in which he could be judged harshly, in which he could be criticized. Additionally, the patient has difficulty making friends because he worries what potential friends will think of him.

Above all else, I think that the reason I was diagnosed with Asperger’s was that I lacked interpersonal success. I’ve already said that I didn’t take P.E. in college; I also was excused from P.E. in high school because I made a strong case that I felt incredibly uncomfortable performing in athletics. What’s more, I got a work-study job in college, but I was frozen in fear of the hundreds of students there for breakfast on my first day (and only day) on the job; I felt that everyone was judging me, though I wasn’t paranoid enough to believe that they actually were judging me—I knew, intellectually, better than that.

Social impairments are a symptom of Asperger’s, but in my case, they are more fully and accurately explained by avoidant personality disorder.

As I said before, I was recently incarcerated for nearly five months. I plan to explain the how, why, and what for at some point, but for this story it suffices to say that about two months of my bondage was served in the Iowa Forensic Psychiatric Hospital. It’s a hospital in which an inmate is tested for legal competency.

I’ve had several psychiatric diagnoses throughout my life. I started going to a psychiatrist for panic and generalized anxiety. When I was about 15, I was hospitalized for slapping a kid in school. (He threatened to do the same to me, so I figured I’d beat him to it).

The hospital, called Mercy Franklin, agreed with the anxiety and depression diagnoses, but they added a third, Asperger’s syndrome. I never agreed with the diagnosis of Asperger’s. It just didn’t fit my symptoms. I was vindicated in my denial by a lot of people I’ve met. I’d say that I have Asperger’s, and they would tell me that I don’t act like I have the syndrome. I think that the main reason that I received that diagnosis was that I had no friends and didn’t really want any at that age.

The community college I attended required P.E. unless the student was a certain age, 23 or so, or if the student had a doctor’s excuse. My psychiatrist (a different one from the one I saw at age 11) wrote a note for me. The paperwork said that I had avoidant personality disorder. That was, in my view, the correct diagnosis, which accounts for why I never played sports or drive a car; though I know that people aren’t watching and judging me, I feel as though they are.

About a year or two later while I was in college, the university arranged for me to meet a clinical psychologist because I panicked at my work study job. Though the panic attack, in my view, resulted from having avoidant personality disorder, the psychologist diagnosed me with Asperger’s again, and with panic disorder and hypochondriasis (I agree with that last diagnosis).

Fast forward a couple years. I was seeing a therapist, and he suggested that I might have schizophrenia. I have no idea why, as I’ve never hallucinated or been too paranoid. The last September, Dr. Trahan at Mary Greeley hospital diagnosed me with “an atypical form of bipolar disorder.” I asked him about the schizophrenia suggestion. “Ha! Some of the weirder people on the unit have schizophrenia, not you,” he said. He also asked, “Whoever diagnosed you with Asperger’s?”

I got the same response at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital: “Somebody diagnosed you with Asperger’s. It doesn’t work for me,” said the psychiatrist.

“Remember that education doesn’t have to be practical; learning is its own reward.” Those words, or some close approximation thereof, are what I wrote at a friend’s high school graduation party, on a papered wall for inspirational and congratulatory quotes.

At least one person scratched his or her head upon reading my words, which didn’t exactly surprise me. No, I expected my statement, simple though it was, to jar someone’s view of education. To understand why, you must understand how the folks of Lenox, in general, think of education.

Here in this small town in the southwest corner of Iowa, most of us are employed in manufacturing and agriculture. Therefore, we (again, in general) think that education has to be applied to “moving dirt” in some way. Put another way, the liberal arts and abstract concepts aren’t highly esteemed in these parts.

To borrow a phrase that entitles one of the iconic and incomparable Richard Feynman’s books, I’m afraid that a lot of us are deprived of the “Pleasure of Finding Things Out.” Finding things out is not only useful for building tractors or tilling the land with a tractor, but it’s just plain pleasurable.

Richard Dawkins famously stated that there are infinitely more ways that wouldn’t be conducive to life than there are viable life forms. He’s undoubtedly right, and that statement can be taken further by stating that of that subset (i.e., the relatively few viable life forms) the subsubset of reflective, conscious, intelligent life forms is many magnitudes less likely. That is, we are very lucky to be so intelligently endowed!

Why then, not take a few moments to be contemplative? A thought experiment a day is good exercise.

That’s my opinion, so I was struck to hear a psychiatric nurse ask me recently (I’m eccentric not crazy, OK? Yes, I get put in mental hospitals rather frequently these days, but that’s beside the point!):

“You read all of these books in order to do what? What use are they?” She asked me that because I’d brought along some physics books and had been vociferous in voicing my concern that I wouldn’t read as much as I’d like to.

I confabulated some explanation in an attempt to say something that didn’t make me sound too crazy in front of this nurse who had earlier explained electroconvulsive therapy (shock therapy in popular parlance) nonchalantly. I failed to sound sane, apparently, because the nurse indicated that I clearly wasn’t thinking straight. But how was I to persuade her to my true sentiments? I read about physics and everything else under and beyond the sun because it’s pleasurable. Sure, reasons can be expounded for why it’s pleasurable, but whatever happened to valuing pleasurable activities for their own sake?

Joe or John?: Inattentional Blindness

If you’ve read by moi, you might have gotten the impression that I have some sort of facial recognition deficit. (If you haven’t read it, order it and proceed to read it pronto!)

Related to that apparent facial recognition deficit, here’s a little story, strange but true. Once upon a time, let’s say three days ago, I was with a few guys, where exactly doesn’t matter for purposes of the story. Let’s just say everyone was wearing bright orange.

One of the guys, we’ll call him Joe, was sitting with me. Then along came John, dressed in the same bright orange attire as Joe. Both were rail thin with cropped blonde hair, and neither one looked a day over 18.

Joe was sitting to my right as I began daydreaming. “Why are you looking at me like that?” asked a third stranger, whom we’ll call Jeff, I guess. That snapped me back to reality (or some close approximation thereof). I don’t know for how long I’d been in lala land, but Joe seemed to still be in the same position, but John had left.

Then back came John. Except it was Joe who came back. John was sitting to my right now, not Joe.

They had switched places, but they resembled each other closely enough and I paid little enough attention that I had assumed that it was still Joe sitting to my right.

I anticipate that this note will leave something to be desired in terms of fluency in its present form because it’s about 3:30 am, I am tired, and my thoughts need time to mature, but my blog is as good a medium as any to get a few ideas down, in however rough or sketchy form. (Then again, aren’t all my blogs like that?)

I feel a great degree of consternation about my country, particularly about its criminal justice system. It had ought to be one thing, but it is quite another.

In late October 2010, I was charged with animal abuse and serious domestic abuse. These charges were unfounded, a point that I plan to expound upon in the future. The court dragged the case out, so it was 10 months later that I was sentenced after I signed a plea deal.

In the absence of any evidence demonstrating that I had committed the alleged crimes, how were they to convict me if the case went to trial? Maybe they wouldn’t or couldn’t have, but I didn’t want to take a chance. I’ve quoted Mark Twain on the problems with juries before, and I’m afraid that he’s right, for the most part. The truth of the matter means nothing to a jury moved by emotion and persuaded by rhetoric.

I’ve written a few words suggesting that we instill a system of expert juries. Short of an expert jury, and educated jury may suffice. Intelligent, educated people should be able to evaluate evidence and decide whether the evidence is wholly convincing or requires further investigation. If justice is to be served, then convictions must reflect the reality of events.

The only way to truly convince intelligent people of reality is to present a strong, evidence-based, scientific argument.

Therein lies the seat of my consternation. I get caught up in principles. I get caught up in ideals. Our Constitution is a very idealistic document, a document that inspires hope in human dignity! Aside from the Constitution or any other legal document, I have always idealized people as being good. We are humans, and the word humane is derived from the word human, so I sometimes think that humans had ought to be humane.

The reality is that people don’t behave as they should (or as I think that they should). Not even me. I made a New Year’s resolution to be stoic or accepting of events as they happen, even if they are unfavorable for me. Yet, the emotional valence of the charges and my treatment and my feelings of being done wrong set off my temper tonight.

People have spent years in prison for no legitimate, valid reason.

Allow me to share another dream, or more accurately a nightmare. I normally wouldn’t write about a run-of-the-mill nightmare, but this one was especially poignant for some reason.

And I don’t think that there is any deep, psychoanalytic significance to my nightmare. I know that my dreams are just the results of my mind trying to make sense of random neuronal firings. When I go to sleep, cholinergic neurotransmitters replace the aminergic neurotransmitters, and my REM-on cells fire up to put me into a dream state.

However random and meaningless my dreams are, I think that they do reflect some part of my waking psychology. How else could I so easily relate my dreams to my conscious experiences? In real life, I am upset and anxious about having been jailed this year and about being placed on probation.

And I am obsessed with books, which I buy compulsively; sometimes I buy books that aren’t very good, and I feel guilty about that.

In my nightmare, I dreamed that I was with my older brother and had bought several mass market paperback books. Something about the covers frightened me. I expressed this fear to my brother the best I could, but even in my dream I knew that it didn’t quite make sense.

I tried to explain that the woman on the cover filled me with angst, which made more sense in the dream that it does when I reflect upon it now, but there was something about her that bothered me. Perhaps it was because she looked like Greta van Susteren, only uglier, and the white covers looked yellow from age. (My brother and I had recently discussed how Greta van Susteren of Fox News looks like a cartoon character.)

Then, in one of those transitions that seems smooth only while one is dreaming, both of my brothers, my mother, and I were all placed under arrest for some unexplained reason, though I seemed to know what the reason was when I was dreaming, even though it was never made explicitly clear. My older brother seemed to have the worst fate; he was potentially to be jailed for life, but his sentence wasn’t an ordinary one.

He was to be a jailer who never left the jail. The details of the dream don’t really matter. Like I said, dreams are mostly random and meaningless, but they do reflect some of my real worries and experiences. Even if my description wasn’t adequate to the task of describing why the dream was so troubling, it indeed was very frightening.

I woke up with my heart having severe palpitations (premature ventricular contractions) at nearly every beat. I thought that my heart was going to stop! So, I got up and walked around, and then I thought that my arm and leg felt like they weren’t under my control. Then I thought my face was drooping in the style of Greta van Susteren’s from her Bell’s palsy, and I feared that I was having a stroke.

When you sleep, your amygdala, the fear center of the brain, becomes especially active.

It seems that mine was active enough to send me in a full-blown panic attack! All is well that ends well: I took 1 mg of Klonopin to boost the effects of GABA (an inhibitory neurotransmitter) in my brain. I went back to sleep and all was well.

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