Audio Integration Training
AIT
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First of all, go to www.georgianainstitute.org. Read it all, then you will know what this is all about.
The Georgiana Institute uses Dr Berard's AIT method. This is the system thet was used to recover Georgiana Stehli from her Autism, as demonstrated in the book Sound of a Miracle (see my review).
Tomatis Clinics invented their own method, which is apparently being used to scam people and cash in on the Autism Fad.
What is the difference between the Berard and the Tomatis methods? The following is an excerpt from The Conclusion of Improving the Auditory Functioning of Autistic Persons: A Comparison of the Berard Auditory Training Approach with the Tomatis Audio-Psycho-Phonology Approach by Bernard Rimland, Ph.D., Autism Research Institute, San Diego, and Stephen M. Edelson, Ph.D.
DISCUSSION AND COMMENT
We have some concerns about the Tomatis Approach which we would like to share. These concerns are heightened by the rather aggressive efforts by a number of Tomatis practitioners to recruit Autistic children as clients.
1. Irrelevance of Tomatis training.
The recovery of Georgiana Stehli and the improvement of a number of other Autistic persons appears to be a consequence of Berard's intentional reduction of the auditory sensitivity of these individuals. So far as we have been able to determine, nowhere in the writing of Tomatis does he address the central problem of reducing hyper-sensitive hearing. It thus seems as though proprietors of Tomatis Listening Centres are opportunistically marketing services that are irrelevant to the issue. The claim made by some Tomatis practitioners of an 80% to 85% improvement in Autistic patients has no empirical foundation.
2. Psychological emphasis of the Tomatis training.
We are disturbed by the fact that Tomatis Centres are billed as "Listening Centres" and heavily stress psychological-emotional factors. Autism is a brain disorder which has no demonstrated relationship to the mother's voice as heard by the fetus before birth. That is pure, unfounded, speculation [based on cackling mad-man Bettleheim's theory of "refrigerator mothers" causing Autism - in this case, even before birth! (the poor fetus heard the evil mother's voice prenatally and thus sub-consciously altered it's own hearing. Ofer Krysake!)]. This aspect of the Tomatis approach is repugnant. Blaming the mothers for causing harm to the child, albeit unintentional, is a concept which is dead and should be buried. We believe that Tomatis should state his current position on this point precisely, if he no longer blames the mother. In any case, it is a poor premise on which to base a therapy.
3. Duration and cost of Tomatis training.
As noted above, Tomatis experts have long claimed that Autism requires 150 to 200 hours of auditory training over a 6 to 12-month period. This is obviously very expensive, intrusive, and time-consuming. Now that the Berard approach is known to accomplish auditory training in 10 hours, over a 10-day period, a number of Tomatis practitioners now claim to be able to do the Tomatis method for Autistic children in 10 to 12 days, at 2 ½ to 3 hours per day. One must be suspicious of this sudden "discovery".
The present writers feel that the Tomatis organization is obliged to sponsor quality research, by independent research specialists, to evaluate the effectiveness of the "Audio-Psycho-Phonological" approach. Families are entitled to empirical data, not more theories and statements based on faith[, the cackling of mad-men, or the corruption of scam-artists].
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Chryssie's AIT Diary.
I was planning on getting my AIT from Annabel Stehli in New Orleans, but I could not afford the motels (a $40 motel in New Mexico costs $110 in New Orleans), so I went to Laurie Ross-Brennan & Associates in Albuquerque instead.
I was very disappointed I did not get to meet Annabel, but she and I did exchange several E-mails (see my review of her book Sound of a Miracle).
Dr Brennan's office had several fliers about Speech and Language Pathology. All of them made it clear I would benefit from some form of speech therapy.
I occasionally drool, bite my tongue, choke on my saliva (for I have no clue when to swallow when talking), gag on certain textures of food, have tremendous difficulty swallowing vitamin pills, occasionally drip food all over me when I eat, and mumble and slur my words.
I already planned to get such therapy, to start in the summer of 2013, because I was guessing thet it might help me. Now I know it will help me.
My AIT treatment cost $1,177. This low of price (it usually costs $1,500) was due in part to the fact I was paying cash, in full, in advance.
I introduced myself to Laurie with: I am Autistic, specifically Asperger's Syndrome. I definitely have CAPD. This manifests as me being hyper-sensitive to particular sound frequencies, specifically that of air hand-driers in public toilets. The sound of the air blowing on their hands triggers fight-or-flight. My hearing does not turn off when I go to sleep, and the sound in my dreams gets so loud it hurts and wakes me up - when I was 19 I had my first of 3 nervous breakdowns, due mainly to sleep-deprivation.
All my other senses are also inaccurate and erratic; particularly my visual processing. When I have an Autistic melt-down it is usually due to visual over-stimulation. I cannot remember what I see - I have to smell everything I look at to get a second sensory reference-point, otherwise I forget. I hate talking on the phone because I have to read lips in order to be sure of what I am hearing. I also do not like to be touched, and nearly faint at the smell of makeup, perfume, nail pollish, hairspray, etc. I have severe food allergies. I definitely prefer to be alone. All my senses are super-human, and this is not a gift!
Her only response was to say, "Wow."
-- Then I had my basic hearing test.
On the right side I had 6 super-human, 1 high normal, 1 normal, 1 low normal, and 1 low.
On the left side I had 6 super-human, 2 high normal, 1 low normal, and 2 low.
5 matched left and right.
The spacing between the highest and lowest was 30 dB.
The AIT consists of listening to assorted music through headphones. The training device fluctuates the EQing from mega-bass to mega-treble, but only at the frequencies I am not hyper-sensitive to. This trains the brain to recognize those frequencies thet are missing from the speakers, thus adjusting my audio processor to regulate them normally along with all the other frequencies.
The sessions are 30 minutes, wait 2 and a half hours, then have another 30 minute treatment, and you are done for the day.
The first 8 minutes of each session includes 4 Aut-erobics type of physical movements to help sync both sides of your brain (see my review of the documentary Aut-erobics).
Aut-erobics and this physical movement with AIT prove to me how much my obsessive drumming was an Autistic Stim, not just the product of a gifted composer with Obsessive Personality Disorder (frantically drumming myself into a trance and leaving my body).
The first treatment was not at all painful, but definitely irritating; it produced notable anxiety. But after the 3rd treatment I had adjusted to it; it was still irritating, but no longer anxiety-producing.
By the 4th treatment I started recalling all the sounds thet irritate me, all of them coincide with those frequencies I am now being trained to tolerate.
After the 4th treatment, I tried to go to a restaurant I had driven past twice before. I could not find it until the second pass.
Then I tried to drive back to my hotel, and took the wrong route twice. Once I got to the hotel I wandered around for 20 minutes unable to find my room.
I am not this Retarded; the AIT is (negatively) affecting my visual processing ability. Today, due to AIT, I can barely read road-signs, and have tremendous difficulty forming mental-image-pictures.
It is another example of my Donna Williams-like Synesthesia - the intermingling of my senses; i.e., as I was adjusting to my Irlen lenses, my audio hyper-sensitivity calmed down notably. As I am having my AIT, my visual processor is struggling to adjust, in fact it is freaking-out a bit - I hate it.
My visual processor was so confused, upon (finally!) making it back to my hotel room, I went dead-asleep for 2 hours - my brain was just so exhausted.
For the 5th treatment they turned up the volume about twice as loud. It was again uncomfortable and anxiety-producing to me. But I noticed thet my perception of what I am hearing in my right ear has started evening out.
Treatment 6: At this volume it is upsetting to me. I start to feel anxiety after 15 minutes. It was so stressful, I went back to the hotel and slept for 3 hours.
Treatment 7: The music I listen to is chosen by the manufacturer of the the AIT device. It is music thet supposedly has all the appropriate frequencies present all through every song. They also try to present a wide enough variety of genres so there will be at least a few songs everyone will like. Unfortunately that also makes it so there are at least a few songs everyone will hate. I complained about the music, and was told thet everyone complains - deal with it.
The next day I brought my own MP3 player and asked if I could do the training with music I actually like. They said I must use their music, for it was chosen specifically for AIT.
This is bullshit. There is nothing special about the music they use.
Today a fellow patient burned out. She could not stand it any longer and took off her headphones, nearly in tears. I suggest she needed to continue her Aut-erobics throughout the session, not just for the first 8 minutes.
Treatment 11: For the rest of this week the volume will be back to normal though 50% louder in my right ear. This is to force my left side to listen harder, thus catching up to the now relatively-normal right side.
-- Just before treatment 12 they re-tested my hearing.
Now on my right side, only 1 is super-human, 6 are high normal, 1 is normal, 2 are low normal, and 1 is low.
On my left side, 6 are still super-human, 3 are high normal, 1 is normal, 1 is low.
None matched left and right.
The difference between the highest and lowest is still 30 dB.
Tremendous improvement for my right side, but worse on the left.
Treatment 14 was boring for me; i.e., my audio processor adjusts so easily. I am no longer wincing in anxiety nor stumbling around blind.
Now I just feel annoyed by the music; kiddie music, such as children singing the ABC song. It is annoying because it is kiddie music, but it is even more annoying to me because it has words. As a Hyperlexic Aspie I cannot refrain from listening to the (inane) lyrics when I am supposed to be tracking the fluctuating sound frequencies. I also cannot read when the words are being spoken in my ear.
Treatment 15: The problem (for me) with this place is thet I have no one to talk to. After each session I need to talk for 15 minutes, or at least write in this diary. Being an Aspie, it is all about words for me. And these people work with Autistics specifically and thus should know I/we need to talk.
Another part of the problem is they run 2,500 people through this place every year. They are most emphatically not slopping the hogs here; but they are just too busy to sit and talk with every Hyperlexic Aspie who comes along.
They currently have 323 patients. 7 have Aspergers. Most of the others are referred to as "severely neurologically damaged" and have Downs Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, or severe Classic Autism.
The Downs kids specifically often have a hearing deficit, thus (like with Dr Berard himself) the AIT trains their processor to hear better. In the case of the Autistics, the AIT trains their processors to hear worse, toning down the hyper-sensitivity.
Last night I went to an Autism support-group meeting. No one showed up. I was very irritated by (typical) that. It makes me want to try to acquire a conversation partner when I get home, knowing it is futile to try to be friends with an Autistic, and infuriating to interact at all with a Normal.
My only respite is to go back to my hotel and watch re-runs of Big Bang Theory on TV every night ... thus laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Today I went to check on another Autism support-group. It was said to be at a school. So I went there to verify it, and they said there used to be such a meeting, but that was 2 years ago. Ofer Krysake.
I already knew organizing Autistics is like herding cats, but it is just irritating thet people post this support-group information on the Internet, and then do not bother to up-date it for 2 years (2 years!).
Occasionally I will read a book while sitting through my treatment, in this case Annabel Stehli's The Sound of Falling Snow. I so much want to read all of her books (and 100 others) and continue to publish my reviews. But I can only read 10 pages or so before it makes me so angry I have to stop. I am so sick of the fact all these books mention the utter ignorance, blatant corruption, and even outright evil of the medical profession. And even more infuriating is the appalling ignorance of the helpless moron parents who (because they honestly do not know any better) allow Dr Frankenstein Mengele to destroy their kids. I still have a lot of underlying anger about how at least half of my symptoms were induced by the ignorance, stupidity, or depraved indifference of adults who knew (or at least should have known) better.
I so much want to continue providing this service (of publishing book and movie reviews) to the community, but I am also sick of being angry all the time!
Most of these books and movies make me angry, or at least make me cry. Though I am still intellectually fascinated by the subject, I am emotionally burned out.
-- Treatment 19 - my last day here: They re-checked my hearing.
Now on my right side I have 3 super-human, 6 high normal, 1 normal, and 1 low.
On my left side I have 4 super-human, 6 high normal, 1 low normal.
7 balanced in both my left and right ears.
The difference between the highest and lowest is now 20 dB.
When I started, I only had 5 frequencies balanced, and a decibel difference of 30. Optimally, it should be 11 balanced, and a decibel difference of 15 or less; i.e., I am definitely not cured, but have had my auditory symptoms alleviated by about half. They expect my processor to continue to adjust on it's own for another year, even though today is my 20th and last treatment.
They will check with me every 3 months over this next year to see how I am progressing.
Stay tuned for my replies.
1 week later:
I feel relatively cheerful most of the time now; i.e., my ubiquitous bitterness was partly caused by my audio processor keeping me in a perpetual state of irritation. I stayed in my Aspie symptom of "Ruminates on bad experienced past for inordinate lengths of time" partly due to my hearing making everything sound irritating. Thus I could not help but perpetually think of irritating things; i.e., being negative and bitchy was never a character trait - it was a symptom of an Audio Processing Disorder, just as my Irlen lenses alleviated my rage-attacks and petrifying anxiety which were symptoms of a Visual Processing Disorder.
Touch and smell still produce both anxiety and irritation, and I still gag on vitamin pills.
2nd week:
I feel more emotionally calm because my hearing no longer irritates the hell into me, but I still get wound up and even feel hostile if I become visually overwhelmed. I have to struggle to actually see when I look - it all blurs together and is hard to keep track of. By "blur" I do not mean focus - I mean my visual processor's ability to distinguish 1 thing from another is very weak; what I look at does not register very well. By the end of my shift at work (visual multi-tasking) I feel angry and hostile. By the time I get home my brain is so exhausted I just want to sleep.
I feel like I will never be able to tolerate interacting with people; and/or, why would anyone want to tolerate interacting with me?
I will give it another 6 months, then I might have to get new Irlen lenses - it feels like they are not working any more, because the AIT is affecting my visual processing ability enough to make my current lenses obsolete. The world is not turning back into pastel, but my eyes do get tired and I start to get a headache after looking at too many things for too long of time; more importantly, the visual irritation triggers emotional responses, keeping me in a perpetual state of near Autistic melt-down.
I think I honestly understand Donna Williams (she can smell sound and taste color). Adjusting my hearing really screwed-up my visual processing because, like Donna, my audio and visual processors intermingle.
3rd week:
I walk differently now. Slower, and in a straighter line, with more solid steps. I do not know if this is due to an improvement in balance, or if I am simply no longer so distracted by sound thet I can now concentrate on physical movement.
Also, in this last week, the sound in my dreams has become vague. Though my dreams still have audio aspects, the sound is not very specific anymore.
This is both a relief and a disappointment. I am relieved thet the sound in my dreams no longer gets so loud it hurts and wakes me up, but I am disappointed thet my dreams no longer have complicated music in them I had never heard before (I am immensely proud of the fact I am a gifted composer literally writing music in my sleep without even trying - it is my only true gift).
I also no longer listen to music much. I used to need my MP3 player on most of the time, faintly in the back-ground, to keep an audio pattern going. Also when writing, I had my iTunes program on at all times; this helped me stay focused, regulating my Attention Deficit somewhat. Without that constant beat going for my mind to track, I was spacey and easily distracted - going into a rage at the slightest audio interruption (the Normals could not even hear).
Not only am I now forbidden to listen to anything on headphones, for it would re-program my Audio processor to interpret sound at the frequencies those speakers broadcast, but I no longer want to. My mind is more calm and disinterested - the point being thet ADHD stands for Attention Dialed to a Higher Dimension. Now thet I am no longer hearing so much louder than a Normal person, I no longer hear so many things thet attract/distract my attention, thus I can stay more focused without needing that constant beat in my head to help hold my focus.
4th week:
I still have CAPD, but it is definitely continuing to even out.
The main change over this last week has been to my taste in music. Songs thet stay the same all the way through are boring to me. I have always loved the "Attention Deficit compositions" of bands like Rush, Kansas, and King Crimson who's songs are overly (or to my ear, delightfully) mathematically over-complicated and stop-anapestic. This is because the composers of those complicated "math-rock" songs apparently have Attention Deficit themselves, thus they are the only composers who can hold my attention.
Anyway, 4 weeks after AIT, I am now annoyed by Rush, Kansas, and King Crimson, and prefer listening to Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and Aimee Mann.
This does not really make sense to me. I assume thet when my hearing was too loud I would be irritated by "excessive" compositions, and calmed by the soothing ones. Now after AIT, I hear 10 dB quieter and thus should be more tolerant of "excessive" music and even more bored by calming music. Instead it is the other way around. I cannot explain why - other than to say thet everything sounds different to me now, thus it is taking my processor a while to adjust, making it prefer to process the previously-boring-to-me compositions.
Another change is thet as my audio processor calms down, my visual processor is freaking out. Every day at work I have to take a break at 4:30 and hold my hands over my eyes, thus seeing pitch-black for 15 minutes, otherwise I become very angry and start to approach an Autistic melt-down; I feel intensely bitter, and want to lash out at people.
Also the ground is starting to look wobbly again. I almost lost my balance walking on a flat sidewalk yesterday.
Before AIT, my Irlen lenses were all I needed to protect my visual processor from that level of over-load.
4 weeks in, and I am already planning an Irlen up-date. Unfortunately, it is expected to take a year for my audio processor to fully adjust to the AIT. If I got new lenses now I would probably just have to replace them again in 6 months - at 850 bucks a pop, I will wait.
I do not know if I can tolerate the visual burn-out for another 11 months.
At this point I feel much empathy for Donna Williams. I was never half as bad as she is.
And she is not half as bad as Keli from the documentary A Mother's Courage. He cannot even walk down stairs! That poor child. Now thet I understand just how much my senses intermingle, it nearly brings me to tears to imagine what must be going on with that child's scrambled processors.
5th week:
It makes sense to me now. When I got my Irlen lenses, my hearing evened out a bit, because, like Donna, my Audio and Visual processors intermingle. Thus, when I got my AIT, my visual processor freaked-out. This also led to my taste in (or at least tolerance of) music to change.
I can see Ultra-violet light (the Normals cannot). This left my visual processor to wince in pain, and in trying to block out the Ultra-violet it also blocked out the other colors, resulting in me seeing in pastel. To hold my attention (deficit), visuals had to be very contrasting or I could barely notice them (e.g.: Mexican women with raven hair, black eyes, and brown skin were the only contrast I could see in my pastel world, thus I came to think of them as the only good-looking women; White women with blue eyes and blonde hair pastelled into nothing, thus I could not be bothered to notice them).
Now thet I have my Irlen lenses, I can look at subtle sights and actually have them register in my Visual processor without being so boring. And now thet I have gotten my AIT, I can hear more subtle sounds and have them register in my Audio processor without being so boring; e.g., I no longer think white women are invisible, and I am no longer bored out of my skull by simple music.
Cons: Like with my Irlen lenses, I went through a transition faze wherein I became very angry and had roaring meltdowns every day because my visual processor was freaking out while trying to adjust to the influence of my audio processor's intermingling with (and thus messing with!) it. Just this last week, I got so I could go a whole day without having an Autistic meltdown due to the visual over-stimulation provoked by the AIT. (See the book Sound of a Miracle, wherein Georgiana became furious when her hearing was fixed. Also see my Irlen Diary for the same story from another perspective).
Also, like I said above, I have learned to watch the clock and take a black-out break at 4:30 every day.
Week 6:
My job as a Security Guard currently has me posted at a grocery-store parking lot, wherein I drive around all day watching over the parked cars to assure they are not being broken in to, make sure no homeless parasites are harassing the customers, and to give occasional jump-starts. This allows me to listen to my MP3 player through my car stereo all day, which has a specific play-list I have chosen to calm me through-out the visually over-stimulating day (Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, etc). I have heard each of these songs a couple dozen times by now.
This last week a few of the songs sounded different. I hear details I never noticed before - mainly the noise before and after the song and the clonking of the piano pedals (you are not supposed to hear, but I can), etc.
Tori Amos has a song called Father Lucifer which has an interlude with 3 layers of her vocal. Each track is different notes with different words, all playing at the same time. All the previous times I heard that song, I processed it as a rhythmically complicated 3-note chord (like a chorus singing) rather than 3 individual melodies; i.e., I now hear them more as parts of things rather than the whole.
I am still a God compared to any other deaf moron musician. One of the reasons I quit the music business is because no other musician could hear what I was hearing. It was so exasperating, I just wanted to strangle them.
Last night I had wonderfully sensory dreams - the first since I got the AIT; i.e., it took 6 weeks before my processors adjusted to the treatment enough thet I could at last incorporate audio and visual back into my dreams.
When I got my Irlen lenses, it took a long time before I started dreaming in the new colors I could only then process. Since I got the AIT, my dreams have been extremely vague; now after 6 weeks they are at last vivid again. It just takes a while for my processors to learn how to interpret the new information (see my review of the movie Blink).
Week 7:
My dreams are back to normal - incredibly detailed, loud and colorful (but without painfully waking me up).
The main change is thet I feel so much more calm now, I am actually feeling bored and depressed. All my life I have been an obsessive workaholic, developing temporary Obsessive Personality Disorder, and even driving myself to a nervous-breakdown 3 times! It was absolutely necessary for me to frantically play drums for hours every day as a Stim, without which I would have had a meltdown. After I quit music, I would go for 10-mile walks every day as a Stim.
The GF/CF Diet alleviated 1/3 of my symptoms in 4 years. The Irlen lenses alleviated my symptoms by another 1/3 in 11 months. The AIT has alleviated the remaining symptoms by about 1/4 in a mere 7 weeks.
The clinic I got my AIT from said the changes should continue for another year. At this rate, by the end of 2013 I might be almost cured.
So my feelings of boredom and depression are apparently a good sign, for never before have I been this calm. I have always needed some Stim or another, even if it was just obsessively working, to keep me from winding up into a rage-attack. Now thet my hearing is 10 dB quieter, I do not know how to function without my former frantic desperation.
I am an expert at wincing, but I had to be 51 before I knew what boredom was. All my life I had Chronic Fatigue from the over-stimulation, but I was never actually bored - in fact I would pound my head and yell, "Shut up! Shut up! I want to go to sleep!", for my superior (and this is not a gift!) intellect would not calm down.
Boredom is the lack of stimulation. Having been in a perpetual state of over-stimulation, I never knew boredom before.
I always hated "typical" people who would drive around drunk at night smashing mailboxes, or go to parties which consist of morons roaring drunk in the presence of painfully loud music, none of them saying anything nor connecting in any way, other than to circle-jerk their camaraderie of Democratically dummied-down to the lowest common denominator majority-moron-rule (Typical Aspie sentiment about any social gathering).
Their boredom was caused by a lack of stimulation, apparently due to their sedentary life-styles, spending most of their free time drooling in front of a TV or video-game. They get so bored, their only recourse is recreational vandalism, blow-your-brains-out-loud parties and concerts, compulsive masturbation (symbolically or otherwise), or moshing. They actually pay someone to beat them up in a mosh-pit (!) or even pay a Dominatrix to whip them.
If I ever became that Normal I would kill myself. They are all so brain-dead - vandalism, audio self-abuse, porn addiction, and the homosexual S&M orgy of moshing is the best they can come up with when left to their own devices. Duuuh. And if they ever get laid, it is always drunk and brutal.
I hate the Normals. They should all be blessed with a touch of Autism, that way they might develop the ability to have brainwaves; i.e., I would not give up (the superiority of my) Autism for a million bucks.
I do however want to alleviate my symptoms to the point wherein I am no longer dependent on frantic Stimming to calm myself, without which I would have incapacitating melt-downs.
In the mean time, I am just having difficulty adjusting to the relative boredom of not being so over-stimulated.
Selective Listening is a symptom in all forms of Autism - the CAPD trait of being unable to block out certain sounds, while remaining oblivious to other sounds. If I am trying to listen to someone talk to me, and there is a fan in the background making (to me) an irritating noise, and I try to block it out, I am then concentrating on it, thus it becomes so much louder to me than the person talking, even though the fan is 1/4 the volume and farther away. If I focus on it at all, my processor hears that specific frequency and blocks out the others, including the talking person I am actually trying to hear. It is so irritating.
Since getting my AIT I do not have this problem as much. I am now more able to ignore background noise and stay more focused on the sound at hand.
Today my worst Autism symptoms are: my inability to remember a mental list of more than a few things (if I add something new to the list, a previous thing has to go), inability to multi-task (I Attention Deficit if I get too many focus-points at once, unable to sort out which 1 is the priority), Echolalia (repeating aloud to myself over and over whatever I said in the just-ended conversation), what I term "Absent-minded Professor Syndrome" (my mind is racing so far ahead of what I am doing physically thet I forget what I was doing physically), Prosopagnosia (horrible visual processing - I am usually in my head, putting my every thought and feeling into words and saying them to myself out-loud while my eyes do not seem to settle on anything specific - I think in words, definitely not pictures, this includes bad facial-recognition and inability to find my way around without a picture map), over-all horrible memory (I must write down everything, otherwise I forget - but once I write it down and read it a couple times, I remember it well; i.e., 3 days from now I will remember this paragraph specifically and re-write it in my head, only then to come back and physically re-write it here), and preference to be alone (flat-out aversion to interacting with irritating idiots, which to me is all people).
Since getting my AIT my over-stimulated irritation is notably alleviated, but all the others (inability to multi-task, Echolalia, Absent-minded Professor Syndrome, horrible memory, and preference to be alone) are about the same, and my Visual processing is worse! Due to it intermingling with my Audio processor, which is adjusting it's self right now, I "see" worse and get visually over-whelmed badly. Now at work I have to stop and close my eyes for 5 minutes every couple hours or so.
I wish I could be Donna Williams for a day. It would give me such an enlightening reference-point. From there I would like to be Keli for a day - that would be such a fantastic learning-curve; it would make my own case so simple to figure out and deal with.
Week 8:
The main thing thet has changed for me is thet I am now even more calm. I fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, dream all night, and sleep more hours over-all. All my life I have suffered extreme sleep-deprivation because my processor listens harder when I am asleep, rather than turning off like a Normal person's does. I would wake up infuriated 5 times a night, spend all day wanting to kill someone due to my perpetual verge-of-tears lack of sleep, stumble around in clinical depression, then have my mind racing loudly for hours in bed unable to fall asleep, then the sound in my dreams getting so loud it would hurt and wake me up. Only after AIT have I become able to fall asleep relatively quickly, stay asleep, and sleep longer without the slightest noise jolting me awake.
I still keep earplugs by my bed, and probably will have to for the rest of my life, but I only have to put them in if birds are chirping outside, or some-such.
When I go motorcycle adventure riding, camping in the wilderness for months at a time, thus sleeping in absolute silence, it is heaven for me. I could go to sleep when I was tired and wake up when I was done sleeping! But in this utter silence, my processor would get bored and make things up. I would hear deer walking around my tent, distant radios playing, and even car-doors slamming nearby; i.e., I would still be jolted awake by noise, in this case thet only existed in my head.
I have also been, my whole life long, very psychic. When I sleep in absolute silence my psychic receptor also "listens" harder, resulting in me reading the mind of anyone sleeping near me - I have their dreams (which is really annoying). I also read the mind of any animal thet is near by. Horses, Elk, Deer, Goats, and Cats are especially psychic (Cows and Dogs are dumb as dirt - at least to my psychic receptor).
I knew a very psychically-gifted "Natural Witch". She was in Santa Cruz California, I was in Reno Nevada. We communicated telepathically from that distance.
When I first got the AIT, my dreams became very vague, as my intermingling audio and visual processors struggled to adjust to/with each other. Now my dreams have again become relatively audio, but not painfully loud, and the visual detail has also become more intricate; i.e., it took these 8 weeks before my processors adjusted to the AIT to the extent thet I could again dream normally; though my dreams now are back to being occasionally so loud they make me wince, they do not actually hurt and wake me up.
I still get angry every day due to being over-stimulated, but I am no longer angry 90% of the time, as I had been in "my former life".
I beg you to go on the GF/CF Diet, take the Chelation vitamins, get Irlen lenses, and AIT. I am now nothing like the incapacitated Retard (panicky anxiety, flash-temper rage-attacks, and frantic desperation Stimming) I was a mere 5 years ago. I no longer need tantrum-like Stimming, now I take calming black-out breaks instead.
Week 9:
This week I turned down the volume on my cell-phone 1 notch, for it had become painfully loud to me.
Me having super-human Autistic hearing, because everything is too loud (at a very specific frequency), my processor tries to block it out, blocking everything else out too. Now thet I hear worse, my processor is no longer wincing, which thus allows me to actually hear better. The irony of that continues to fascinate me.
Also music continues to sound different. In fact I am now becoming bored with almost all music. I am aware thet I spent most of my life in the music business as my way of trying to control sound - in fact I eventually quit music (in part) because all musicians are deaf morons compared to me. Now thet my super-human hearing (which made me a genius as a recording engineer and record producer) is becoming more normal, I have at last begun to acquire the ability to tune things out. Before AIT, the slightest sound would grab my attention resulting in uncontrollable selective hearing. Now I am more able to ignore background noise.
I used to obsessively notice every detail, sort it meticulously, and become exasperated because other musicians could not hear what I was hearing. This also manifested as my fascination with what I refer to as "Communist Composition", wherein every track is the same volume and value as every other track. I was fascinated with, and even dependent on, controlling every nuance to maintain absolute equality of all sounds.
Above I mentioned Tori Amos's Father Lucifer as an example of "Communist Composition", wherein there are 3 different melodies with 3 different sets of lyrics all sung simultaneously. I love to audio-track things like that. Also hear the songs of Sleater-Kinney's, Hot Rock, and Burn, Don't Freeze; i.e., I can track 2 or even 3 conversations at once.
My hearing still does not turn off when I go to sleep.
My dreams have become amazing - very visually detailed now thet my intermingling Audio processor is no longer messing with my Visual processor as much.
Today I am notably more Normal symptoms-wise (no longer on the perpetual verge of an Autistic melt-down) than I was a mere week ago. I very highly recommend AIT.
Week 10:
Every week I continue to calm down more and more. This week I feel very exhausted and physically lacking ambition; i.e., now when I get tired, I get tired! I actually want to sleep now. Before AIT when I got tired I would become even more easily over-stimulated and thus need to frantically Stim myself to calm; "tired" would always lead to me wanting to attack people, anger energy driving me to frantic Stimming, and an "If you do not want to get hurt you had better stay out of my way!" type of wound-up state. Now I want to calmly fall asleep when I am exhausted. Now I can sleep myself to calm like a Normal person. And I sleep sounder and longer and dream amazingly all night.
I have always dreamed of driving cars and motorcycles, my body becoming the car, then the me/car becoming a big running cat. The driving and travel scenarios were always very complicated. I eventually had a desperate desire to do it physically, becoming an avid Motorcycle Adventure Rider.
In dreams (and in real life) your car represents your body image. I dream of driving cars almost every night now, and they are tremendously more specific vehicles. In the past, my dream's cars would be very vague, and morph constantly from 1 vehicle into another. My body would constantly morph from male to female, human to cat, cat to car, etc. Now my vehicles in my dreams are more specific, each apparently representing a more stable body-image, or at least physical space, for me, now thet I am more able to stay in my body and maintain my spacial location. (Also see what I said on my Autism Lectures page about what Chrysalis represents).
And the reason I am going on and on about my dreams is thet the AIT definitely is what is doing this. Now thet my processor is no longer wincing and fighting to block out everything, my ability to stay in my body and be that body is becoming more stable.
Aspie Bjork has mentioned in several interviews thet she sang as a child as her way of finding her spacial location; i.e., in her case (as with mine) her difficulty staying in her body was caused (at least in part) by her CAPD.
I know this is why I became a professional musician and inevitably a recording engineer/record producer. I had to have my own studio where I could have control of sound. (Hear Bjork's song Hyper Ballad, wherein she must get control of sound before she can tolerate interacting with people).
Another difference thet happened this week is thet I no longer fixate on drums as much. Near the end of the work-day I would get tired enough thet I would start to Attention Deficit, thus it was necessary for me to fixate on parts of things and obsessive pattern recognition (designing drum-sets and playing them in my mind) as my way of maintaining focus. This week I only needed to do that twice - the previous week I needed it every day. The Asperger need to have a Fixated Subject was (in my case) again (at least partly) caused by the hearing disorder.
Now thet my Audio Processing Disorder is waning, I can more readily stay in my body, have sex (at least with myself) without having to imagine being someone else's body, and no longer cling to a Fixated Subject. Nor do I ruminate on bad experience past for an inordinate length of time as much. I was surprised thet something which made me angry I could get over in 2 days, rather than staying angry about it for months like I used to (Of course a Normal person still would have gotten over it in an hour).
I also turned down my cell-phone another notch this week, for it was again too loud for me.
I also have become slightly less Echolalic.
Another thing thet surprises me is thet I continue to change enough to have something to write about as an up-date in this Diary every week. I had my treatment 10 weeks ago, but continue to adjust to it, notably, every week.
I most vigorously recommend AIT.
My perpetual anxiety and Autistic melt-down/rage-attacks were caused by light, alleviated with Irlen lenses; and my touch-aversion, vague sense of location, and need for fixated subjects were caused by sound, alleviated with AIT. It is amazing.
11th week:
This week the only thing I can tell you about is thet my prescription lenses are becoming obsolete.
The first week of AIT my visual processor freaked-out to the extent thet I had difficulty finding my room in the hotel. It took about 10 weeks for it to settle down. Now it is no longer freaking-out, but I am now beginning to have difficulty reading street signs - I do not mean my brain processing the information, I mean my eyes ability to clearly focus; i.e., in this last 2 weeks my prescription has changed - my regular prescription, not the Irlen prescription. I am not sure if this is because of the interference from my continually-adjusting Audio processor, or if I would have gone through this change anyway due to simply getting older; but at this point I am assuming the AIT is at least partly causing this as my Audio processor continues to adjust.
My cell-phone is again too loud - not loud enough to turn it down again, but definitely my hearing is continuing to change.
My location in my body has not changed this week, nor has my spacial location recognition; i.e., I am still notably Autistic in that respect - though as I said above, I am at least able to imagine staying in my body now.
2 weeks later; 13th week report:
It took 2 weeks this time before I could recognize any change; i.e., I think my Audio processor is at last settling into as much improvement as it is going to. My visual processing has returned to normal ... for me; i.e., I use my eyes probably about half as much as a Normal person does. During treatment I was stumbling around nearly blind, and it took until now for me to fully recover.
Hopefully by the end of 2013 I can get an update on my Irlen lenses. I look forward to what it will be like to see without my Audio Processor interfering.
Laurie Ross-Brennan and Associates send me a card every 3 months asking about my personal experience after AIT. These "checking on me" questionnaires are appreciated. I write back telling them to read this page.
2 weeks later; 15th week:
The relaxing calm, I have never felt before in my life, is now becoming lethargy. I have had to fight to calm myself all my life. Now thet my hearing is no longer winding me up, I feel so calm it is too calm. I have to force myself to go for a walk once in a while. I have become so soft and lazy - all I want to do is sit and sigh and feel disinterest. This is not good at all.
All my life my Aries trail-blazer personality intimidated people; especially in 100% Paranoid Schizophrenic population Oregon where my "Man on a mission" manner terrified them; and the typical Asperger problem of scaring away potential mates with my emotional intensity. Now I do not want to do anything but lay around. It is a fascinating transition period, but I do not know what to do with myself; once again demonstrating thet the things I thought were (negative Aries) personality traits were actually just symptoms of a disorder.
For 50 years I was obsessive about forever blazing a new trail; the phrase I coined was the bursting with self-confidence/obsessively-creative "The trick to life is to be forever on your quest for the alternate perspective!" - and I admit, the not so nice "Choke on my dust, you dumb hicks." Now I just want to sit still and cuddle a small child (or spoon a Faerie).
In the mean time, music continues to sound different, in fact this last few days it seems to be changing faster than ever; i.e., I thought I was settling in to an "as good as it is going to get" conclusion to the improvements. But am instead starting a new wave of improvement in my audio processing; last night a song I had heard 100 times before sounded so different I thought there was something wrong with my MP3-player (Note: I positively do not wear headphones - I was listening to it over the car stereo).
I still hear 10 dB louder than a normal person, so what I am hearing the Normals probably cannot hear.
All my life I have desperately needed Motorcycle Adventure Riding, obsessive drumming, and 10-mile walks every day as Stims to calm myself. Now all of those seem like they would take too much effort.
But at least I can hear relatively normal now - I can hear the noise on digital recordings the Normals cannot hear; I always could (resulting in me wanting to strangle all musicians because they could not hear what was so obvious to me), but now I find it fascinating rather than irritating. Also I can hear very low frequencies better.
The fact remains thet I now have no ambition what-so-ever. I hate this floppiness - this not give a damn lethargy. I am so bored with myself, I am starting to feel mildly depressed. It is so not me - or at least not the me (perpetual verge of an Autistic melt-down/flash-temper) I had to fight and struggle with to control for 50 years.
The only good thing about it is thet I seldom get angry anymore. I feel indifferent about pretty much everything.
On 1 hand it is the (bad) Autistic lack of empathy - "Die. I will not notice." On the other hand it is the (good), "Thank God. I am not wincing in pain any more!"
16th week:
I turned down my cell-phone another notch.
There is this song by Jill Cunniff called Future Call thet has a rubber duck type of squeak-toy in it. I have heard that song a dozen times, but only this week did that sound register as being an actual squeak-toy.
In my Irlen Diary I mentioned thet the arrows in the instrument cluster of my car which indicate the turn signals flashing finally registered as being green. I always knew they were green, but it never really registered as being a specific color until I got the Irlen Lenses. In Jill's song I always heard that squeaking sound (20 dB too loud), it just never really registered as being an actual rubber duck until 16 weeks after AIT.
There is a song by The B-52s called The World's Green Laughter which has birds chirping in it (as digital samples played on a keyboard at exact notes). Once again, I have heard that song a dozen times, and very precisely heard the notes those birds were hitting, but they had not really registered as being actual birds before.
An analogy for this is how I was as a CAPD child, wherein I could not understand the words being spoken, so I learned the emotional definition of the notes they hit while talking. This led me to compose music rather than speak words, and eventually evolved into me becoming fascinated with inventing new words thet had an emotional definition to me but were gibberish to anyone else (Neologisms). See Aspies Gary Numan, Bjork, and Anna Homler writing song-lyrics in emotionally expressive gibberish.
The squeak-toy and the birds chirping in those songs were emotionally expressive gibberish - I heard the notes very clearly, but they did not register as being specific instruments. The green arrows were flashing clearly, but did not register as being a specific color. People were talking but I could not understand the words, though I did understand the emotional definitions of the notes they hit.
Week 18:
I just noticed this week thet I no longer finger-flick. The flicking was a Stim to discharge stress. I no longer have the audio-induced stress.
I cut another Rush song from a play-list in my iTunes. I find their overly mathematically complicated compositions annoying now, rather than being the only thing thet could hold my attention (deficit) like it was before.
I can also hear low frequencies better - though it fluctuates. The music on my car stereo sounds tinny sometimes, then warm other times. I think it is because of light. In the sun my Visual processor is wincing, thus interfering through Synesthesia with my Audio processor and making me lose my ability to process bass. But in the dark, I hear the full warm bass better.
Week 20.
When driving, the road-noise was loud enough thet for me to listen to the car-stereo I had to put in ear-plugs and turn it up, for I was not able to block out the background noise (even though I drive a very quiet hybrid car). I usually had the stereo's volume at 25 with earplugs in - otherwise all sounds were the same volume and I could not prioritize which ones to process. Now I can keep the volume at 11 without earplugs in and hear it okay, my processor choosing the music over the road-noise.
Before AIT all sound was overwhelming, triggering Attention Deficit and keeping me in a perpetual state of irritation. I was so easily distracted, it was horrible - all sound was just irritating (inevitably pushing me into the recording studio where I could get control of it). I still hear every little thing, normal people would not notice, but it does not infuriate me anymore.
I also sleep a bit sounder now without having the slightest noise wake me up as often, and I continue to hear bass better and better.
Me being able to hear light and see sound is 1 of the worst symptoms of Autism I have. I never knew I had it before. The Irlen Lenses affected my audio processor, giving me the impression I had Synesthesia. But the AIT made it disturbingly obvious I have Synesthesia, not nearly as bad as Donna Williams but bad enough thet I can hardly process visuals at all sometimes, if sound is interfering.
This week I have become more able to form mental image pictures, while being worse at processing what I actually see; i.e., the traffic signal will turn green, and I will drive through having no memory if I actually saw the signal change or not. And I suddenly made 5 paintings, all of them very contrasting abstracts. These type of paintings I can visualize in my mind before painting them, but I have hardly any memory of what I actually saw with my eyes today.
Week 23:
Just this last few days I have started to be able to sleep all night, being woken up only 3 times by the slightest noise (as opposed to my former 6 times a night in a rage). I still have to put in ear-plugs sometime during the night, every night, but I do sleep sounder due to my hearing at last beginning to turn down slightly when I sleep. Hopefully in another couple months I will actually be able to sleep all night without interruption.
Week 24:
Fiona Apple has a song called Get Him Back which ends with tape hiss, vinyl crackle, and noise thet sounds somewhat like seagulls. I have heard that song a couple dozen times, but never heard those sounds at the end before; i.e., it still surprises me, now thet I hear 10 dB quieter I can actually hear better. It also surprises me thet 24 weeks after treatment, my audio processor is still adjusting.
This week I slept the night without having to put in ear-plugs for the first time in my life. I was still woken up repeatedly, but was able to fall back asleep right away, rather than my usual gnashing teeth mental anguish as my mind races madly in anger.
Week 25:
This week, in order to sleep, I only had to put in earplugs 3 times. This is a profound thing for me. See Rachel, from the TV show Alphas, wince at the sound of a fly walking on her window; i.e., 25 weeks after treatment my processor is still adjusting.
I so much want to go back for a new treatment every 6 months, in order to theoretically speed up the process. But they say it is not necessary. You only have to do it once.
Week 27:
I live 18 blocks away from the train-track. I have lived here for 5 years and have never before heard the train-horn from inside my house. This week I started hearing it. It still strikes me as absurd thet when my hearing was 20 dB super-human I heard worse due to my processor wincing and blocking things out.
Week 28:
The traffic signals are brighter and more vivid colors this week. This is not due to my Visual processor adjusting to the Irlen lenses (that was over with months ago). It is due to my Audio processor adjusting, relaxing enough to affect my Visual processor through Synesthesia; another wave of visual improvement caused by audio improvement.
The classic Aspie symptom of being enraged by any form of interruption has waned a bit. I am still irritated by interruption, but no longer infuriated.
This week I also started vaguely thinking about the concept of having a girlfriend. I gave up on that pointless teenage fantasy when I was 27. Now I am 52 and wondering if I could do that now. Now thet my senses have toned down so I think I could tolerate interacting with someone for brief periods. She would have to be Autistic, of course; I still want all Normals to flat-out go to hell. Now I want someone to share space with occasionally (no longer just self-analytical fantasy), as long as she was Autistic so we could agree to leave each other alone the other 90% of the time.
Week 30:
I now sleep most of the night with relatively few interruptions. Maybe 3 times a night I am awakened by the slightest noise no one else would notice - as opposed to the 6 times a night I suffered in rage for the previous 50 years.
The problem with this is thet, because I woke up so often, if I vaguely needed to pee I would get up and do so. Now I sleep sound enough thet I do not wake up until my bladder is about to burst. I hate it, waking up in pain, then taking 5 minutes to relax enough to allow my bladder to drain. It is just so annoying having a body!
So this is an unexpected side-effect of AIT. My body has to re-train my mind to notice things like this; i.e., the classic Autistic symptom of seldom being entirely in one's body is still lingering, at least as this need to re-train myself to feel the need to pee while I am (for the first time in my life) deeply asleep.
At least I am not the opposite extreme, accidentally peeing myself and not waking up to notice. Instead I hold it intensely, and do not realize I am doing it until my bladder is about to pop.
Week 31:
My ability to go back to sleep after being woken up by slight noise is getting better by the week. Before AIT, these noises would infuriate me and seem to go on forever, even when they were only 30 seconds in duration. Now they feel like the mere 30 seconds they actually are, after which I let it go and fall back asleep. This is a profound thing for me.
Also my Synesthesia is becoming quite bothersome; as my Audio processing improves, my Visual processing is getting worse. I really need to up-date my Irlen lenses soon, for in these last few days I become so exhausted by light and visual over-stimulation I almost want to cry. Cars with those blue headlights or street lights thet are that orangey-peach color hurt. I feel exhausted most of the time if I have to be out at night because the artificial light is just so hard for me to process.
Meanwhile, as mentioned above, sunlight is out-right blinding, me needing my Irlen lenses plus anti-glare filters and a baseball cap in order to go out in day-light (I have always been like this and probably always will be, with or without the Irlens), but just this last few weeks the lights at night have become almost as bad as the sun - it has been 2 years since I got my Irlens, so it is probably time for an up-date anyway, but I definitely think the AIT is a contributing factor in this.
Week 34:
This week I have finally become able to take a nap to calm myself from sensory overload. All my life I have had the Aries, Type O Blood, Autistic melt-down way of dealing with over-stimulation - necessitating perpetual frantic desperation Stimming to calm myself (playing drums for 2 hours in a frenzy, stopping to beat hell out of a large hanging rope with a riot-control baton, returning to frantic drumming for another 2 hours, then taking a 10 mile walk while voraciously reading, masturbating twice a day in a state of rage, uncontrollable roaring in the voice of God, taking scalding hot showers, and drinking gallons of water, because light and sound exist on planet Earth!).
Now thet the Irlen lenses and AIT are defending me from the over-stimulating input, I am only now able to sleep instead of Stim, unwind rather than vent, decompress rather than explode, fantasize of making love with a Faerie and having a small child to cuddle rather than the gnashing teeth "Kill them all!" attitude, driving a gutless hybrid with my pinkies extended rather than road-rage.
I see these morons roar by on their straight-pipe Harleys with their stereos blasting, no ear-plugs nor even a helmet, and all I can think of is how bad a case of tinnitis they are going to eventually have. While at the age of 52 I can still hear 10 dB louder than a normal person and can see ultra-violet light. My hyper-sensitivities have taught me how to protect myself; i.e., I do not know if it is ironic or not, but Autism has been a blessing in disguise - I will never abuse my body like these Harley fags do. I will never be a deaf old man with tinnitis.
And sex. The way the Normals have sex is repulsive; like Harley fags, they are so obviously under-stimulated, they need pain in order to get-off. I hate them. Autism makes me superior to those S&M perverts all Normals are compared to me. The typical Autistic "apparent disinterest in sex" is your fault, not mine - and at my age sexual frustration is no longer part of the Autism equation - thank God.
Again, I am not sure if that is ironic or not, but I do not want to be like the Normals - I just do not want to be incapacitated by Autism either.
Week 35:
I dreamed I was friends with the members of Rush, and they played in a living-room sized space made of cinder-blocks with shag carpet, a dozen people present, playing Rave! Rush playing Rave was an amazing dream (I love Rush. I hate Rave).
Last night I dreamed of an acoustic band (Nickle Creek type of material) playing in an old barn. In both of these dreams it was the acoustics of the rooms as much as the style of music being played thet the dream was about.
I used to dream music every night, and the music would get so loud it would hurt and wake me up. 35 weeks after AIT, I dream music again, but it is the subtle differences in the acoustics of the rooms I am hearing, and it all remained at a comfortable volume.
Week 36:
I started listening to Depeche Mode again. Most of their music is very newwavy and synthesizer oriented - lots of fat warm sounds. Not having heard them for 6 months, they sound different to me now, specifically the warmth of the synth bass. I hear bass better now.
Roxy Music has a song called Dance Away which starts with the sound of someone lighting a cigarette and taking a puff. Though I have heard that song 30+ times, I never heard the cigarette part before.
If you have Synesthesia, or even the slightest Audio Processing inconsistency, please get AIT.
Week 37:
This new girl at work just started, so I had never met her before. When I walked into the room, 10 feet behind her, she stopped, turned and looked right at me, and said, "Wow. You have a really calm vibe."
Having an Indigo Child type of psychic energy, people have always been able to readily feel my vibe. Before AIT, when I came into a room people would stop and ask what is wrong, then they would turn and look at me and say, "Oh. It is just Chryssie." I had an angry/tense/anxiety/verge-of-an-Autistic-meltdown type of wound-up vibe thet would freak them out.
I have struggled desperately to calm myself all my life. Now thet my Audio processing difficulties have waned, my 50 years of experience with calming myself has resulted in me having an overall calm vibe, notable to strangers 10 feet away.
She and I immediately talked (practically gushed) for 45 minutes. It included a lot of deep staring into each other's eyes and crushing on each other.
Did you ever think an Aspie would write a sentance like that? Neither did I - not until 37 weeks after AIT.
In my case, gaze-aversion had been caused in part by CAPD.
Week 40:
10 months after AIT I have settled in to as-good-as-it-is-going-to-get.
It took me 4 years to adjust to the GF/CF Diet, 11 months to adjust to Irlen lenses, and 10 months to adjust to AIT.
I used to have to take DHEA once a week to keep the over-stimulation from winding me up into a rage, and I had to take Melatonin 2 or 3 times a month to help me sleep, due to my hearing not turning off. Yesterday I took both for the first time in months, just to see what my reaction would be. I felt so sleepy and lethargic, it was very depressing; i.e., I no longer need those pills, for I am simply no longer wound up, and now my hearing (though it does not turn off completely) at least calms down enough for me to sleep relatively sound. I have not had to sleep with earplugs in for over a month now, for the first time in my life.
All my life I have felt a perpetual anger and anxiety from light, and more anxiety from sound. Both are gone now.
I am definitely not cured. I still have a bad Visual processing disorder, but not the daily rage-attacks formerly provoked by it; and I am still hypersensitive to specific sound frequencies, or anything loud, but it no longer induces a state of anxiety. The sound of the air hand-driers in public toilets still irritates me, but no longer triggers fight-or-flight.
And I have also only recently acquired actual patience; e.g., after writing something new on this page, I have to then click on the "publish" button, thus putting the new version onto the Internet. After I click on that button, it takes about 30 seconds before it actually gets published. That sort of waiting period used to infuriate me. I was already so perpetually on the verge of a meltdown, caused by light and sound, thet if I was asked to tolerate 1 more thing, even something as simple as having to be patient for 30 seconds, it was just asking too much and I would have a minor melt-down. Only now am I able to say to myself, "Okay, this is going to take a while", and I go off and do something else! Imagine that!
Before I got my Irlen lenses and AIT, I was so overwhelmed by sensory overload thet I would have to become fixated on, and even outright obsessed with, tiny details to help me maintain some stability. If I clicked on the "publish" button and it did not finish publishing RIGHT NOW I would practically lose it: "This stupid machine is not kissing my ass well enough!", and I would want to throw the damn computer through the wall. It took every ounce of strength to contain myself, for though I knew I was being unreasonable, I could not help it. I was always 1 second away from an outright rage-attack, while bursting into tears of despair, both at the same time - because I had senses thet work!
The fact I express my anger through arrogance is not the point; the point is I was forever on that razor's edge, always struggling in near panic to calm myself, calm myself, calm myself.
So the main change is my calmness. As mentioned above, I am now so calm people feel it as my vibe from across the room. It is an amazing transformation, me being at last allowed by my disorder to actually feel civil and relaxed.
I also now drive ridiculously slow and patient. I bought a Hybrid car which has 15 idiot-lights and 7 computer screens thet teach you how to drive it efficiently. After 5 weeks of this computer training, I finally got to the point wherein I could get 62 MPG. 62 MPG! I have to be extremely patient (and I admit, obsessive) with this car in order to squeeze out that kind of spectacular mileage, but the point is thet for the first time in my life I have the ability to be that patient.
I also have acquired 1 of those electro-shock massagers, with which I put sticky electrodes on me and it pulses in a mild electric shock to relax the muscles. Before AIT, my touch-aversion was such thet, though I loved the muscle massage, my skin could not stand the shock - it was panic-inducing. Now I feel irritation and anxiety for about 15 minutes, then I start to adjust to it, and by the time my 30 minutes is up I feel very relaxed. I absolutely love this device (LG Tech Elite).
Also, I have recently gone to a massage therapist, 7 times so far. Again, I used to love the muscle massage but not the skin touch. Today I can at least tolerate it.
The most profoundly panic-inducing thing for me is the cell-phone on vibrate. That specific sensation is almost terror-inducing. Today I put someone's phone in my pocket and called the number - I did not die!
The wince-inducing touch-aversion was caused in part by CAPD; i.e., the Synesthesia thet makes me able to see sound and hear light also affected my sense of touch.
I am not sure how much the Irlen lenses played into this, but I did notice I started liking to stroke my arms after I got the lenses. Only after I got the electro-shock massager did it occur to me to test my reaction to the vibrating phone. I wish I would have also tested it after Irlen but before AIT. But it was probably a combination of both thet reduced my touch-aversion to the extent thet the vibrating phone no longer bothers me at all.
I want to get an Irlen up-date, now thet the CAPD is no longer interfering with my Visual processing; and I really want to get Speech Therapy, for it is an eternal struggle for me to pronounce my words articulately (I talk like I have just chewed ice).
The above-mentioned crush gave me a hug the other day. I nearly went blind; i.e., I am so much like the Rachel character in Alphas, only able to process 1 sense at a time, but also needing to have 2 sensory reference-points in order to be sure of what any 1 sense is perceiving - this keeps me exhausted all the time.
My hands are hypersensitive (I do not like to shoot guns nor play congas, for the shock to my hands is unbearable. Meanwhile if a dog licks my palm I have a spontaneous full-body orgasm), thus when she hugged me I liked to run my hands up and down her back, petting her lightly, but did not feel her hugging me; i.e., I may always like to touch but not be touched. I could not smell her, feel her touch, nor hear anything specific (and forget even mentioning visual processing), but I really liked my hands on her.
Before adjusting to AIT I would have avoided touching anyone at all. I would not have pushed her away, but it would have been uncomfortable enough to produce some anxiety. As it was, it made all my senses turn down by half, due in part to her taking me by surprise (Will I ever understand why the Normals do the things they do?; i.e., I gave her my web-site address but she did not bother to read it, then the next time I see her she spontaneously gives me a hug - while I stand there like a deer in headlights wondering why she would do such a thing when there were no words involved).
I am still Rachel or a Faerie; but at least I am not in the Autistic perpetual state of near rage-attack/melt-down and petrifying anxiety like I used to be - thanks to AIT.
Also see my Autism Lecture #14 titled Seven Senses.
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The Georgiana Institute uses Dr Berard's AIT method. This is the system thet was used to recover Georgiana Stehli from her Autism, as demonstrated in the book Sound of a Miracle (see my review).
Tomatis Clinics invented their own method, which is apparently being used to scam people and cash in on the Autism Fad.
What is the difference between the Berard and the Tomatis methods? The following is an excerpt from The Conclusion of Improving the Auditory Functioning of Autistic Persons: A Comparison of the Berard Auditory Training Approach with the Tomatis Audio-Psycho-Phonology Approach by Bernard Rimland, Ph.D., Autism Research Institute, San Diego, and Stephen M. Edelson, Ph.D.
DISCUSSION AND COMMENT
We have some concerns about the Tomatis Approach which we would like to share. These concerns are heightened by the rather aggressive efforts by a number of Tomatis practitioners to recruit Autistic children as clients.
1. Irrelevance of Tomatis training.
The recovery of Georgiana Stehli and the improvement of a number of other Autistic persons appears to be a consequence of Berard's intentional reduction of the auditory sensitivity of these individuals. So far as we have been able to determine, nowhere in the writing of Tomatis does he address the central problem of reducing hyper-sensitive hearing. It thus seems as though proprietors of Tomatis Listening Centres are opportunistically marketing services that are irrelevant to the issue. The claim made by some Tomatis practitioners of an 80% to 85% improvement in Autistic patients has no empirical foundation.
2. Psychological emphasis of the Tomatis training.
We are disturbed by the fact that Tomatis Centres are billed as "Listening Centres" and heavily stress psychological-emotional factors. Autism is a brain disorder which has no demonstrated relationship to the mother's voice as heard by the fetus before birth. That is pure, unfounded, speculation [based on cackling mad-man Bettleheim's theory of "refrigerator mothers" causing Autism - in this case, even before birth! (the poor fetus heard the evil mother's voice prenatally and thus sub-consciously altered it's own hearing. Ofer Krysake!)]. This aspect of the Tomatis approach is repugnant. Blaming the mothers for causing harm to the child, albeit unintentional, is a concept which is dead and should be buried. We believe that Tomatis should state his current position on this point precisely, if he no longer blames the mother. In any case, it is a poor premise on which to base a therapy.
3. Duration and cost of Tomatis training.
As noted above, Tomatis experts have long claimed that Autism requires 150 to 200 hours of auditory training over a 6 to 12-month period. This is obviously very expensive, intrusive, and time-consuming. Now that the Berard approach is known to accomplish auditory training in 10 hours, over a 10-day period, a number of Tomatis practitioners now claim to be able to do the Tomatis method for Autistic children in 10 to 12 days, at 2 ½ to 3 hours per day. One must be suspicious of this sudden "discovery".
The present writers feel that the Tomatis organization is obliged to sponsor quality research, by independent research specialists, to evaluate the effectiveness of the "Audio-Psycho-Phonological" approach. Families are entitled to empirical data, not more theories and statements based on faith[, the cackling of mad-men, or the corruption of scam-artists].
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Chryssie's AIT Diary.
I was planning on getting my AIT from Annabel Stehli in New Orleans, but I could not afford the motels (a $40 motel in New Mexico costs $110 in New Orleans), so I went to Laurie Ross-Brennan & Associates in Albuquerque instead.
I was very disappointed I did not get to meet Annabel, but she and I did exchange several E-mails (see my review of her book Sound of a Miracle).
Dr Brennan's office had several fliers about Speech and Language Pathology. All of them made it clear I would benefit from some form of speech therapy.
I occasionally drool, bite my tongue, choke on my saliva (for I have no clue when to swallow when talking), gag on certain textures of food, have tremendous difficulty swallowing vitamin pills, occasionally drip food all over me when I eat, and mumble and slur my words.
I already planned to get such therapy, to start in the summer of 2013, because I was guessing thet it might help me. Now I know it will help me.
My AIT treatment cost $1,177. This low of price (it usually costs $1,500) was due in part to the fact I was paying cash, in full, in advance.
I introduced myself to Laurie with: I am Autistic, specifically Asperger's Syndrome. I definitely have CAPD. This manifests as me being hyper-sensitive to particular sound frequencies, specifically that of air hand-driers in public toilets. The sound of the air blowing on their hands triggers fight-or-flight. My hearing does not turn off when I go to sleep, and the sound in my dreams gets so loud it hurts and wakes me up - when I was 19 I had my first of 3 nervous breakdowns, due mainly to sleep-deprivation.
All my other senses are also inaccurate and erratic; particularly my visual processing. When I have an Autistic melt-down it is usually due to visual over-stimulation. I cannot remember what I see - I have to smell everything I look at to get a second sensory reference-point, otherwise I forget. I hate talking on the phone because I have to read lips in order to be sure of what I am hearing. I also do not like to be touched, and nearly faint at the smell of makeup, perfume, nail pollish, hairspray, etc. I have severe food allergies. I definitely prefer to be alone. All my senses are super-human, and this is not a gift!
Her only response was to say, "Wow."
-- Then I had my basic hearing test.
On the right side I had 6 super-human, 1 high normal, 1 normal, 1 low normal, and 1 low.
On the left side I had 6 super-human, 2 high normal, 1 low normal, and 2 low.
5 matched left and right.
The spacing between the highest and lowest was 30 dB.
The AIT consists of listening to assorted music through headphones. The training device fluctuates the EQing from mega-bass to mega-treble, but only at the frequencies I am not hyper-sensitive to. This trains the brain to recognize those frequencies thet are missing from the speakers, thus adjusting my audio processor to regulate them normally along with all the other frequencies.
The sessions are 30 minutes, wait 2 and a half hours, then have another 30 minute treatment, and you are done for the day.
The first 8 minutes of each session includes 4 Aut-erobics type of physical movements to help sync both sides of your brain (see my review of the documentary Aut-erobics).
Aut-erobics and this physical movement with AIT prove to me how much my obsessive drumming was an Autistic Stim, not just the product of a gifted composer with Obsessive Personality Disorder (frantically drumming myself into a trance and leaving my body).
The first treatment was not at all painful, but definitely irritating; it produced notable anxiety. But after the 3rd treatment I had adjusted to it; it was still irritating, but no longer anxiety-producing.
By the 4th treatment I started recalling all the sounds thet irritate me, all of them coincide with those frequencies I am now being trained to tolerate.
After the 4th treatment, I tried to go to a restaurant I had driven past twice before. I could not find it until the second pass.
Then I tried to drive back to my hotel, and took the wrong route twice. Once I got to the hotel I wandered around for 20 minutes unable to find my room.
I am not this Retarded; the AIT is (negatively) affecting my visual processing ability. Today, due to AIT, I can barely read road-signs, and have tremendous difficulty forming mental-image-pictures.
It is another example of my Donna Williams-like Synesthesia - the intermingling of my senses; i.e., as I was adjusting to my Irlen lenses, my audio hyper-sensitivity calmed down notably. As I am having my AIT, my visual processor is struggling to adjust, in fact it is freaking-out a bit - I hate it.
My visual processor was so confused, upon (finally!) making it back to my hotel room, I went dead-asleep for 2 hours - my brain was just so exhausted.
For the 5th treatment they turned up the volume about twice as loud. It was again uncomfortable and anxiety-producing to me. But I noticed thet my perception of what I am hearing in my right ear has started evening out.
Treatment 6: At this volume it is upsetting to me. I start to feel anxiety after 15 minutes. It was so stressful, I went back to the hotel and slept for 3 hours.
Treatment 7: The music I listen to is chosen by the manufacturer of the the AIT device. It is music thet supposedly has all the appropriate frequencies present all through every song. They also try to present a wide enough variety of genres so there will be at least a few songs everyone will like. Unfortunately that also makes it so there are at least a few songs everyone will hate. I complained about the music, and was told thet everyone complains - deal with it.
The next day I brought my own MP3 player and asked if I could do the training with music I actually like. They said I must use their music, for it was chosen specifically for AIT.
This is bullshit. There is nothing special about the music they use.
Today a fellow patient burned out. She could not stand it any longer and took off her headphones, nearly in tears. I suggest she needed to continue her Aut-erobics throughout the session, not just for the first 8 minutes.
Treatment 11: For the rest of this week the volume will be back to normal though 50% louder in my right ear. This is to force my left side to listen harder, thus catching up to the now relatively-normal right side.
-- Just before treatment 12 they re-tested my hearing.
Now on my right side, only 1 is super-human, 6 are high normal, 1 is normal, 2 are low normal, and 1 is low.
On my left side, 6 are still super-human, 3 are high normal, 1 is normal, 1 is low.
None matched left and right.
The difference between the highest and lowest is still 30 dB.
Tremendous improvement for my right side, but worse on the left.
Treatment 14 was boring for me; i.e., my audio processor adjusts so easily. I am no longer wincing in anxiety nor stumbling around blind.
Now I just feel annoyed by the music; kiddie music, such as children singing the ABC song. It is annoying because it is kiddie music, but it is even more annoying to me because it has words. As a Hyperlexic Aspie I cannot refrain from listening to the (inane) lyrics when I am supposed to be tracking the fluctuating sound frequencies. I also cannot read when the words are being spoken in my ear.
Treatment 15: The problem (for me) with this place is thet I have no one to talk to. After each session I need to talk for 15 minutes, or at least write in this diary. Being an Aspie, it is all about words for me. And these people work with Autistics specifically and thus should know I/we need to talk.
Another part of the problem is they run 2,500 people through this place every year. They are most emphatically not slopping the hogs here; but they are just too busy to sit and talk with every Hyperlexic Aspie who comes along.
They currently have 323 patients. 7 have Aspergers. Most of the others are referred to as "severely neurologically damaged" and have Downs Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, or severe Classic Autism.
The Downs kids specifically often have a hearing deficit, thus (like with Dr Berard himself) the AIT trains their processor to hear better. In the case of the Autistics, the AIT trains their processors to hear worse, toning down the hyper-sensitivity.
Last night I went to an Autism support-group meeting. No one showed up. I was very irritated by (typical) that. It makes me want to try to acquire a conversation partner when I get home, knowing it is futile to try to be friends with an Autistic, and infuriating to interact at all with a Normal.
My only respite is to go back to my hotel and watch re-runs of Big Bang Theory on TV every night ... thus laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Today I went to check on another Autism support-group. It was said to be at a school. So I went there to verify it, and they said there used to be such a meeting, but that was 2 years ago. Ofer Krysake.
I already knew organizing Autistics is like herding cats, but it is just irritating thet people post this support-group information on the Internet, and then do not bother to up-date it for 2 years (2 years!).
Occasionally I will read a book while sitting through my treatment, in this case Annabel Stehli's The Sound of Falling Snow. I so much want to read all of her books (and 100 others) and continue to publish my reviews. But I can only read 10 pages or so before it makes me so angry I have to stop. I am so sick of the fact all these books mention the utter ignorance, blatant corruption, and even outright evil of the medical profession. And even more infuriating is the appalling ignorance of the helpless moron parents who (because they honestly do not know any better) allow Dr Frankenstein Mengele to destroy their kids. I still have a lot of underlying anger about how at least half of my symptoms were induced by the ignorance, stupidity, or depraved indifference of adults who knew (or at least should have known) better.
I so much want to continue providing this service (of publishing book and movie reviews) to the community, but I am also sick of being angry all the time!
Most of these books and movies make me angry, or at least make me cry. Though I am still intellectually fascinated by the subject, I am emotionally burned out.
-- Treatment 19 - my last day here: They re-checked my hearing.
Now on my right side I have 3 super-human, 6 high normal, 1 normal, and 1 low.
On my left side I have 4 super-human, 6 high normal, 1 low normal.
7 balanced in both my left and right ears.
The difference between the highest and lowest is now 20 dB.
When I started, I only had 5 frequencies balanced, and a decibel difference of 30. Optimally, it should be 11 balanced, and a decibel difference of 15 or less; i.e., I am definitely not cured, but have had my auditory symptoms alleviated by about half. They expect my processor to continue to adjust on it's own for another year, even though today is my 20th and last treatment.
They will check with me every 3 months over this next year to see how I am progressing.
Stay tuned for my replies.
1 week later:
I feel relatively cheerful most of the time now; i.e., my ubiquitous bitterness was partly caused by my audio processor keeping me in a perpetual state of irritation. I stayed in my Aspie symptom of "Ruminates on bad experienced past for inordinate lengths of time" partly due to my hearing making everything sound irritating. Thus I could not help but perpetually think of irritating things; i.e., being negative and bitchy was never a character trait - it was a symptom of an Audio Processing Disorder, just as my Irlen lenses alleviated my rage-attacks and petrifying anxiety which were symptoms of a Visual Processing Disorder.
Touch and smell still produce both anxiety and irritation, and I still gag on vitamin pills.
2nd week:
I feel more emotionally calm because my hearing no longer irritates the hell into me, but I still get wound up and even feel hostile if I become visually overwhelmed. I have to struggle to actually see when I look - it all blurs together and is hard to keep track of. By "blur" I do not mean focus - I mean my visual processor's ability to distinguish 1 thing from another is very weak; what I look at does not register very well. By the end of my shift at work (visual multi-tasking) I feel angry and hostile. By the time I get home my brain is so exhausted I just want to sleep.
I feel like I will never be able to tolerate interacting with people; and/or, why would anyone want to tolerate interacting with me?
I will give it another 6 months, then I might have to get new Irlen lenses - it feels like they are not working any more, because the AIT is affecting my visual processing ability enough to make my current lenses obsolete. The world is not turning back into pastel, but my eyes do get tired and I start to get a headache after looking at too many things for too long of time; more importantly, the visual irritation triggers emotional responses, keeping me in a perpetual state of near Autistic melt-down.
I think I honestly understand Donna Williams (she can smell sound and taste color). Adjusting my hearing really screwed-up my visual processing because, like Donna, my audio and visual processors intermingle.
3rd week:
I walk differently now. Slower, and in a straighter line, with more solid steps. I do not know if this is due to an improvement in balance, or if I am simply no longer so distracted by sound thet I can now concentrate on physical movement.
Also, in this last week, the sound in my dreams has become vague. Though my dreams still have audio aspects, the sound is not very specific anymore.
This is both a relief and a disappointment. I am relieved thet the sound in my dreams no longer gets so loud it hurts and wakes me up, but I am disappointed thet my dreams no longer have complicated music in them I had never heard before (I am immensely proud of the fact I am a gifted composer literally writing music in my sleep without even trying - it is my only true gift).
I also no longer listen to music much. I used to need my MP3 player on most of the time, faintly in the back-ground, to keep an audio pattern going. Also when writing, I had my iTunes program on at all times; this helped me stay focused, regulating my Attention Deficit somewhat. Without that constant beat going for my mind to track, I was spacey and easily distracted - going into a rage at the slightest audio interruption (the Normals could not even hear).
Not only am I now forbidden to listen to anything on headphones, for it would re-program my Audio processor to interpret sound at the frequencies those speakers broadcast, but I no longer want to. My mind is more calm and disinterested - the point being thet ADHD stands for Attention Dialed to a Higher Dimension. Now thet I am no longer hearing so much louder than a Normal person, I no longer hear so many things thet attract/distract my attention, thus I can stay more focused without needing that constant beat in my head to help hold my focus.
4th week:
I still have CAPD, but it is definitely continuing to even out.
The main change over this last week has been to my taste in music. Songs thet stay the same all the way through are boring to me. I have always loved the "Attention Deficit compositions" of bands like Rush, Kansas, and King Crimson who's songs are overly (or to my ear, delightfully) mathematically over-complicated and stop-anapestic. This is because the composers of those complicated "math-rock" songs apparently have Attention Deficit themselves, thus they are the only composers who can hold my attention.
Anyway, 4 weeks after AIT, I am now annoyed by Rush, Kansas, and King Crimson, and prefer listening to Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and Aimee Mann.
This does not really make sense to me. I assume thet when my hearing was too loud I would be irritated by "excessive" compositions, and calmed by the soothing ones. Now after AIT, I hear 10 dB quieter and thus should be more tolerant of "excessive" music and even more bored by calming music. Instead it is the other way around. I cannot explain why - other than to say thet everything sounds different to me now, thus it is taking my processor a while to adjust, making it prefer to process the previously-boring-to-me compositions.
Another change is thet as my audio processor calms down, my visual processor is freaking out. Every day at work I have to take a break at 4:30 and hold my hands over my eyes, thus seeing pitch-black for 15 minutes, otherwise I become very angry and start to approach an Autistic melt-down; I feel intensely bitter, and want to lash out at people.
Also the ground is starting to look wobbly again. I almost lost my balance walking on a flat sidewalk yesterday.
Before AIT, my Irlen lenses were all I needed to protect my visual processor from that level of over-load.
4 weeks in, and I am already planning an Irlen up-date. Unfortunately, it is expected to take a year for my audio processor to fully adjust to the AIT. If I got new lenses now I would probably just have to replace them again in 6 months - at 850 bucks a pop, I will wait.
I do not know if I can tolerate the visual burn-out for another 11 months.
At this point I feel much empathy for Donna Williams. I was never half as bad as she is.
And she is not half as bad as Keli from the documentary A Mother's Courage. He cannot even walk down stairs! That poor child. Now thet I understand just how much my senses intermingle, it nearly brings me to tears to imagine what must be going on with that child's scrambled processors.
5th week:
It makes sense to me now. When I got my Irlen lenses, my hearing evened out a bit, because, like Donna, my Audio and Visual processors intermingle. Thus, when I got my AIT, my visual processor freaked-out. This also led to my taste in (or at least tolerance of) music to change.
I can see Ultra-violet light (the Normals cannot). This left my visual processor to wince in pain, and in trying to block out the Ultra-violet it also blocked out the other colors, resulting in me seeing in pastel. To hold my attention (deficit), visuals had to be very contrasting or I could barely notice them (e.g.: Mexican women with raven hair, black eyes, and brown skin were the only contrast I could see in my pastel world, thus I came to think of them as the only good-looking women; White women with blue eyes and blonde hair pastelled into nothing, thus I could not be bothered to notice them).
Now thet I have my Irlen lenses, I can look at subtle sights and actually have them register in my Visual processor without being so boring. And now thet I have gotten my AIT, I can hear more subtle sounds and have them register in my Audio processor without being so boring; e.g., I no longer think white women are invisible, and I am no longer bored out of my skull by simple music.
Cons: Like with my Irlen lenses, I went through a transition faze wherein I became very angry and had roaring meltdowns every day because my visual processor was freaking out while trying to adjust to the influence of my audio processor's intermingling with (and thus messing with!) it. Just this last week, I got so I could go a whole day without having an Autistic meltdown due to the visual over-stimulation provoked by the AIT. (See the book Sound of a Miracle, wherein Georgiana became furious when her hearing was fixed. Also see my Irlen Diary for the same story from another perspective).
Also, like I said above, I have learned to watch the clock and take a black-out break at 4:30 every day.
Week 6:
My job as a Security Guard currently has me posted at a grocery-store parking lot, wherein I drive around all day watching over the parked cars to assure they are not being broken in to, make sure no homeless parasites are harassing the customers, and to give occasional jump-starts. This allows me to listen to my MP3 player through my car stereo all day, which has a specific play-list I have chosen to calm me through-out the visually over-stimulating day (Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, etc). I have heard each of these songs a couple dozen times by now.
This last week a few of the songs sounded different. I hear details I never noticed before - mainly the noise before and after the song and the clonking of the piano pedals (you are not supposed to hear, but I can), etc.
Tori Amos has a song called Father Lucifer which has an interlude with 3 layers of her vocal. Each track is different notes with different words, all playing at the same time. All the previous times I heard that song, I processed it as a rhythmically complicated 3-note chord (like a chorus singing) rather than 3 individual melodies; i.e., I now hear them more as parts of things rather than the whole.
I am still a God compared to any other deaf moron musician. One of the reasons I quit the music business is because no other musician could hear what I was hearing. It was so exasperating, I just wanted to strangle them.
Last night I had wonderfully sensory dreams - the first since I got the AIT; i.e., it took 6 weeks before my processors adjusted to the treatment enough thet I could at last incorporate audio and visual back into my dreams.
When I got my Irlen lenses, it took a long time before I started dreaming in the new colors I could only then process. Since I got the AIT, my dreams have been extremely vague; now after 6 weeks they are at last vivid again. It just takes a while for my processors to learn how to interpret the new information (see my review of the movie Blink).
Week 7:
My dreams are back to normal - incredibly detailed, loud and colorful (but without painfully waking me up).
The main change is thet I feel so much more calm now, I am actually feeling bored and depressed. All my life I have been an obsessive workaholic, developing temporary Obsessive Personality Disorder, and even driving myself to a nervous-breakdown 3 times! It was absolutely necessary for me to frantically play drums for hours every day as a Stim, without which I would have had a meltdown. After I quit music, I would go for 10-mile walks every day as a Stim.
The GF/CF Diet alleviated 1/3 of my symptoms in 4 years. The Irlen lenses alleviated my symptoms by another 1/3 in 11 months. The AIT has alleviated the remaining symptoms by about 1/4 in a mere 7 weeks.
The clinic I got my AIT from said the changes should continue for another year. At this rate, by the end of 2013 I might be almost cured.
So my feelings of boredom and depression are apparently a good sign, for never before have I been this calm. I have always needed some Stim or another, even if it was just obsessively working, to keep me from winding up into a rage-attack. Now thet my hearing is 10 dB quieter, I do not know how to function without my former frantic desperation.
I am an expert at wincing, but I had to be 51 before I knew what boredom was. All my life I had Chronic Fatigue from the over-stimulation, but I was never actually bored - in fact I would pound my head and yell, "Shut up! Shut up! I want to go to sleep!", for my superior (and this is not a gift!) intellect would not calm down.
Boredom is the lack of stimulation. Having been in a perpetual state of over-stimulation, I never knew boredom before.
I always hated "typical" people who would drive around drunk at night smashing mailboxes, or go to parties which consist of morons roaring drunk in the presence of painfully loud music, none of them saying anything nor connecting in any way, other than to circle-jerk their camaraderie of Democratically dummied-down to the lowest common denominator majority-moron-rule (Typical Aspie sentiment about any social gathering).
Their boredom was caused by a lack of stimulation, apparently due to their sedentary life-styles, spending most of their free time drooling in front of a TV or video-game. They get so bored, their only recourse is recreational vandalism, blow-your-brains-out-loud parties and concerts, compulsive masturbation (symbolically or otherwise), or moshing. They actually pay someone to beat them up in a mosh-pit (!) or even pay a Dominatrix to whip them.
If I ever became that Normal I would kill myself. They are all so brain-dead - vandalism, audio self-abuse, porn addiction, and the homosexual S&M orgy of moshing is the best they can come up with when left to their own devices. Duuuh. And if they ever get laid, it is always drunk and brutal.
I hate the Normals. They should all be blessed with a touch of Autism, that way they might develop the ability to have brainwaves; i.e., I would not give up (the superiority of my) Autism for a million bucks.
I do however want to alleviate my symptoms to the point wherein I am no longer dependent on frantic Stimming to calm myself, without which I would have incapacitating melt-downs.
In the mean time, I am just having difficulty adjusting to the relative boredom of not being so over-stimulated.
Selective Listening is a symptom in all forms of Autism - the CAPD trait of being unable to block out certain sounds, while remaining oblivious to other sounds. If I am trying to listen to someone talk to me, and there is a fan in the background making (to me) an irritating noise, and I try to block it out, I am then concentrating on it, thus it becomes so much louder to me than the person talking, even though the fan is 1/4 the volume and farther away. If I focus on it at all, my processor hears that specific frequency and blocks out the others, including the talking person I am actually trying to hear. It is so irritating.
Since getting my AIT I do not have this problem as much. I am now more able to ignore background noise and stay more focused on the sound at hand.
Today my worst Autism symptoms are: my inability to remember a mental list of more than a few things (if I add something new to the list, a previous thing has to go), inability to multi-task (I Attention Deficit if I get too many focus-points at once, unable to sort out which 1 is the priority), Echolalia (repeating aloud to myself over and over whatever I said in the just-ended conversation), what I term "Absent-minded Professor Syndrome" (my mind is racing so far ahead of what I am doing physically thet I forget what I was doing physically), Prosopagnosia (horrible visual processing - I am usually in my head, putting my every thought and feeling into words and saying them to myself out-loud while my eyes do not seem to settle on anything specific - I think in words, definitely not pictures, this includes bad facial-recognition and inability to find my way around without a picture map), over-all horrible memory (I must write down everything, otherwise I forget - but once I write it down and read it a couple times, I remember it well; i.e., 3 days from now I will remember this paragraph specifically and re-write it in my head, only then to come back and physically re-write it here), and preference to be alone (flat-out aversion to interacting with irritating idiots, which to me is all people).
Since getting my AIT my over-stimulated irritation is notably alleviated, but all the others (inability to multi-task, Echolalia, Absent-minded Professor Syndrome, horrible memory, and preference to be alone) are about the same, and my Visual processing is worse! Due to it intermingling with my Audio processor, which is adjusting it's self right now, I "see" worse and get visually over-whelmed badly. Now at work I have to stop and close my eyes for 5 minutes every couple hours or so.
I wish I could be Donna Williams for a day. It would give me such an enlightening reference-point. From there I would like to be Keli for a day - that would be such a fantastic learning-curve; it would make my own case so simple to figure out and deal with.
Week 8:
The main thing thet has changed for me is thet I am now even more calm. I fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, dream all night, and sleep more hours over-all. All my life I have suffered extreme sleep-deprivation because my processor listens harder when I am asleep, rather than turning off like a Normal person's does. I would wake up infuriated 5 times a night, spend all day wanting to kill someone due to my perpetual verge-of-tears lack of sleep, stumble around in clinical depression, then have my mind racing loudly for hours in bed unable to fall asleep, then the sound in my dreams getting so loud it would hurt and wake me up. Only after AIT have I become able to fall asleep relatively quickly, stay asleep, and sleep longer without the slightest noise jolting me awake.
I still keep earplugs by my bed, and probably will have to for the rest of my life, but I only have to put them in if birds are chirping outside, or some-such.
When I go motorcycle adventure riding, camping in the wilderness for months at a time, thus sleeping in absolute silence, it is heaven for me. I could go to sleep when I was tired and wake up when I was done sleeping! But in this utter silence, my processor would get bored and make things up. I would hear deer walking around my tent, distant radios playing, and even car-doors slamming nearby; i.e., I would still be jolted awake by noise, in this case thet only existed in my head.
I have also been, my whole life long, very psychic. When I sleep in absolute silence my psychic receptor also "listens" harder, resulting in me reading the mind of anyone sleeping near me - I have their dreams (which is really annoying). I also read the mind of any animal thet is near by. Horses, Elk, Deer, Goats, and Cats are especially psychic (Cows and Dogs are dumb as dirt - at least to my psychic receptor).
I knew a very psychically-gifted "Natural Witch". She was in Santa Cruz California, I was in Reno Nevada. We communicated telepathically from that distance.
When I first got the AIT, my dreams became very vague, as my intermingling audio and visual processors struggled to adjust to/with each other. Now my dreams have again become relatively audio, but not painfully loud, and the visual detail has also become more intricate; i.e., it took these 8 weeks before my processors adjusted to the AIT to the extent thet I could again dream normally; though my dreams now are back to being occasionally so loud they make me wince, they do not actually hurt and wake me up.
I still get angry every day due to being over-stimulated, but I am no longer angry 90% of the time, as I had been in "my former life".
I beg you to go on the GF/CF Diet, take the Chelation vitamins, get Irlen lenses, and AIT. I am now nothing like the incapacitated Retard (panicky anxiety, flash-temper rage-attacks, and frantic desperation Stimming) I was a mere 5 years ago. I no longer need tantrum-like Stimming, now I take calming black-out breaks instead.
Week 9:
This week I turned down the volume on my cell-phone 1 notch, for it had become painfully loud to me.
Me having super-human Autistic hearing, because everything is too loud (at a very specific frequency), my processor tries to block it out, blocking everything else out too. Now thet I hear worse, my processor is no longer wincing, which thus allows me to actually hear better. The irony of that continues to fascinate me.
Also music continues to sound different. In fact I am now becoming bored with almost all music. I am aware thet I spent most of my life in the music business as my way of trying to control sound - in fact I eventually quit music (in part) because all musicians are deaf morons compared to me. Now thet my super-human hearing (which made me a genius as a recording engineer and record producer) is becoming more normal, I have at last begun to acquire the ability to tune things out. Before AIT, the slightest sound would grab my attention resulting in uncontrollable selective hearing. Now I am more able to ignore background noise.
I used to obsessively notice every detail, sort it meticulously, and become exasperated because other musicians could not hear what I was hearing. This also manifested as my fascination with what I refer to as "Communist Composition", wherein every track is the same volume and value as every other track. I was fascinated with, and even dependent on, controlling every nuance to maintain absolute equality of all sounds.
Above I mentioned Tori Amos's Father Lucifer as an example of "Communist Composition", wherein there are 3 different melodies with 3 different sets of lyrics all sung simultaneously. I love to audio-track things like that. Also hear the songs of Sleater-Kinney's, Hot Rock, and Burn, Don't Freeze; i.e., I can track 2 or even 3 conversations at once.
My hearing still does not turn off when I go to sleep.
My dreams have become amazing - very visually detailed now thet my intermingling Audio processor is no longer messing with my Visual processor as much.
Today I am notably more Normal symptoms-wise (no longer on the perpetual verge of an Autistic melt-down) than I was a mere week ago. I very highly recommend AIT.
Week 10:
Every week I continue to calm down more and more. This week I feel very exhausted and physically lacking ambition; i.e., now when I get tired, I get tired! I actually want to sleep now. Before AIT when I got tired I would become even more easily over-stimulated and thus need to frantically Stim myself to calm; "tired" would always lead to me wanting to attack people, anger energy driving me to frantic Stimming, and an "If you do not want to get hurt you had better stay out of my way!" type of wound-up state. Now I want to calmly fall asleep when I am exhausted. Now I can sleep myself to calm like a Normal person. And I sleep sounder and longer and dream amazingly all night.
I have always dreamed of driving cars and motorcycles, my body becoming the car, then the me/car becoming a big running cat. The driving and travel scenarios were always very complicated. I eventually had a desperate desire to do it physically, becoming an avid Motorcycle Adventure Rider.
In dreams (and in real life) your car represents your body image. I dream of driving cars almost every night now, and they are tremendously more specific vehicles. In the past, my dream's cars would be very vague, and morph constantly from 1 vehicle into another. My body would constantly morph from male to female, human to cat, cat to car, etc. Now my vehicles in my dreams are more specific, each apparently representing a more stable body-image, or at least physical space, for me, now thet I am more able to stay in my body and maintain my spacial location. (Also see what I said on my Autism Lectures page about what Chrysalis represents).
And the reason I am going on and on about my dreams is thet the AIT definitely is what is doing this. Now thet my processor is no longer wincing and fighting to block out everything, my ability to stay in my body and be that body is becoming more stable.
Aspie Bjork has mentioned in several interviews thet she sang as a child as her way of finding her spacial location; i.e., in her case (as with mine) her difficulty staying in her body was caused (at least in part) by her CAPD.
I know this is why I became a professional musician and inevitably a recording engineer/record producer. I had to have my own studio where I could have control of sound. (Hear Bjork's song Hyper Ballad, wherein she must get control of sound before she can tolerate interacting with people).
Another difference thet happened this week is thet I no longer fixate on drums as much. Near the end of the work-day I would get tired enough thet I would start to Attention Deficit, thus it was necessary for me to fixate on parts of things and obsessive pattern recognition (designing drum-sets and playing them in my mind) as my way of maintaining focus. This week I only needed to do that twice - the previous week I needed it every day. The Asperger need to have a Fixated Subject was (in my case) again (at least partly) caused by the hearing disorder.
Now thet my Audio Processing Disorder is waning, I can more readily stay in my body, have sex (at least with myself) without having to imagine being someone else's body, and no longer cling to a Fixated Subject. Nor do I ruminate on bad experience past for an inordinate length of time as much. I was surprised thet something which made me angry I could get over in 2 days, rather than staying angry about it for months like I used to (Of course a Normal person still would have gotten over it in an hour).
I also turned down my cell-phone another notch this week, for it was again too loud for me.
I also have become slightly less Echolalic.
Another thing thet surprises me is thet I continue to change enough to have something to write about as an up-date in this Diary every week. I had my treatment 10 weeks ago, but continue to adjust to it, notably, every week.
I most vigorously recommend AIT.
My perpetual anxiety and Autistic melt-down/rage-attacks were caused by light, alleviated with Irlen lenses; and my touch-aversion, vague sense of location, and need for fixated subjects were caused by sound, alleviated with AIT. It is amazing.
11th week:
This week the only thing I can tell you about is thet my prescription lenses are becoming obsolete.
The first week of AIT my visual processor freaked-out to the extent thet I had difficulty finding my room in the hotel. It took about 10 weeks for it to settle down. Now it is no longer freaking-out, but I am now beginning to have difficulty reading street signs - I do not mean my brain processing the information, I mean my eyes ability to clearly focus; i.e., in this last 2 weeks my prescription has changed - my regular prescription, not the Irlen prescription. I am not sure if this is because of the interference from my continually-adjusting Audio processor, or if I would have gone through this change anyway due to simply getting older; but at this point I am assuming the AIT is at least partly causing this as my Audio processor continues to adjust.
My cell-phone is again too loud - not loud enough to turn it down again, but definitely my hearing is continuing to change.
My location in my body has not changed this week, nor has my spacial location recognition; i.e., I am still notably Autistic in that respect - though as I said above, I am at least able to imagine staying in my body now.
2 weeks later; 13th week report:
It took 2 weeks this time before I could recognize any change; i.e., I think my Audio processor is at last settling into as much improvement as it is going to. My visual processing has returned to normal ... for me; i.e., I use my eyes probably about half as much as a Normal person does. During treatment I was stumbling around nearly blind, and it took until now for me to fully recover.
Hopefully by the end of 2013 I can get an update on my Irlen lenses. I look forward to what it will be like to see without my Audio Processor interfering.
Laurie Ross-Brennan and Associates send me a card every 3 months asking about my personal experience after AIT. These "checking on me" questionnaires are appreciated. I write back telling them to read this page.
2 weeks later; 15th week:
The relaxing calm, I have never felt before in my life, is now becoming lethargy. I have had to fight to calm myself all my life. Now thet my hearing is no longer winding me up, I feel so calm it is too calm. I have to force myself to go for a walk once in a while. I have become so soft and lazy - all I want to do is sit and sigh and feel disinterest. This is not good at all.
All my life my Aries trail-blazer personality intimidated people; especially in 100% Paranoid Schizophrenic population Oregon where my "Man on a mission" manner terrified them; and the typical Asperger problem of scaring away potential mates with my emotional intensity. Now I do not want to do anything but lay around. It is a fascinating transition period, but I do not know what to do with myself; once again demonstrating thet the things I thought were (negative Aries) personality traits were actually just symptoms of a disorder.
For 50 years I was obsessive about forever blazing a new trail; the phrase I coined was the bursting with self-confidence/obsessively-creative "The trick to life is to be forever on your quest for the alternate perspective!" - and I admit, the not so nice "Choke on my dust, you dumb hicks." Now I just want to sit still and cuddle a small child (or spoon a Faerie).
In the mean time, music continues to sound different, in fact this last few days it seems to be changing faster than ever; i.e., I thought I was settling in to an "as good as it is going to get" conclusion to the improvements. But am instead starting a new wave of improvement in my audio processing; last night a song I had heard 100 times before sounded so different I thought there was something wrong with my MP3-player (Note: I positively do not wear headphones - I was listening to it over the car stereo).
I still hear 10 dB louder than a normal person, so what I am hearing the Normals probably cannot hear.
All my life I have desperately needed Motorcycle Adventure Riding, obsessive drumming, and 10-mile walks every day as Stims to calm myself. Now all of those seem like they would take too much effort.
But at least I can hear relatively normal now - I can hear the noise on digital recordings the Normals cannot hear; I always could (resulting in me wanting to strangle all musicians because they could not hear what was so obvious to me), but now I find it fascinating rather than irritating. Also I can hear very low frequencies better.
The fact remains thet I now have no ambition what-so-ever. I hate this floppiness - this not give a damn lethargy. I am so bored with myself, I am starting to feel mildly depressed. It is so not me - or at least not the me (perpetual verge of an Autistic melt-down/flash-temper) I had to fight and struggle with to control for 50 years.
The only good thing about it is thet I seldom get angry anymore. I feel indifferent about pretty much everything.
On 1 hand it is the (bad) Autistic lack of empathy - "Die. I will not notice." On the other hand it is the (good), "Thank God. I am not wincing in pain any more!"
16th week:
I turned down my cell-phone another notch.
There is this song by Jill Cunniff called Future Call thet has a rubber duck type of squeak-toy in it. I have heard that song a dozen times, but only this week did that sound register as being an actual squeak-toy.
In my Irlen Diary I mentioned thet the arrows in the instrument cluster of my car which indicate the turn signals flashing finally registered as being green. I always knew they were green, but it never really registered as being a specific color until I got the Irlen Lenses. In Jill's song I always heard that squeaking sound (20 dB too loud), it just never really registered as being an actual rubber duck until 16 weeks after AIT.
There is a song by The B-52s called The World's Green Laughter which has birds chirping in it (as digital samples played on a keyboard at exact notes). Once again, I have heard that song a dozen times, and very precisely heard the notes those birds were hitting, but they had not really registered as being actual birds before.
An analogy for this is how I was as a CAPD child, wherein I could not understand the words being spoken, so I learned the emotional definition of the notes they hit while talking. This led me to compose music rather than speak words, and eventually evolved into me becoming fascinated with inventing new words thet had an emotional definition to me but were gibberish to anyone else (Neologisms). See Aspies Gary Numan, Bjork, and Anna Homler writing song-lyrics in emotionally expressive gibberish.
The squeak-toy and the birds chirping in those songs were emotionally expressive gibberish - I heard the notes very clearly, but they did not register as being specific instruments. The green arrows were flashing clearly, but did not register as being a specific color. People were talking but I could not understand the words, though I did understand the emotional definitions of the notes they hit.
Week 18:
I just noticed this week thet I no longer finger-flick. The flicking was a Stim to discharge stress. I no longer have the audio-induced stress.
I cut another Rush song from a play-list in my iTunes. I find their overly mathematically complicated compositions annoying now, rather than being the only thing thet could hold my attention (deficit) like it was before.
I can also hear low frequencies better - though it fluctuates. The music on my car stereo sounds tinny sometimes, then warm other times. I think it is because of light. In the sun my Visual processor is wincing, thus interfering through Synesthesia with my Audio processor and making me lose my ability to process bass. But in the dark, I hear the full warm bass better.
Week 20.
When driving, the road-noise was loud enough thet for me to listen to the car-stereo I had to put in ear-plugs and turn it up, for I was not able to block out the background noise (even though I drive a very quiet hybrid car). I usually had the stereo's volume at 25 with earplugs in - otherwise all sounds were the same volume and I could not prioritize which ones to process. Now I can keep the volume at 11 without earplugs in and hear it okay, my processor choosing the music over the road-noise.
Before AIT all sound was overwhelming, triggering Attention Deficit and keeping me in a perpetual state of irritation. I was so easily distracted, it was horrible - all sound was just irritating (inevitably pushing me into the recording studio where I could get control of it). I still hear every little thing, normal people would not notice, but it does not infuriate me anymore.
I also sleep a bit sounder now without having the slightest noise wake me up as often, and I continue to hear bass better and better.
Me being able to hear light and see sound is 1 of the worst symptoms of Autism I have. I never knew I had it before. The Irlen Lenses affected my audio processor, giving me the impression I had Synesthesia. But the AIT made it disturbingly obvious I have Synesthesia, not nearly as bad as Donna Williams but bad enough thet I can hardly process visuals at all sometimes, if sound is interfering.
This week I have become more able to form mental image pictures, while being worse at processing what I actually see; i.e., the traffic signal will turn green, and I will drive through having no memory if I actually saw the signal change or not. And I suddenly made 5 paintings, all of them very contrasting abstracts. These type of paintings I can visualize in my mind before painting them, but I have hardly any memory of what I actually saw with my eyes today.
Week 23:
Just this last few days I have started to be able to sleep all night, being woken up only 3 times by the slightest noise (as opposed to my former 6 times a night in a rage). I still have to put in ear-plugs sometime during the night, every night, but I do sleep sounder due to my hearing at last beginning to turn down slightly when I sleep. Hopefully in another couple months I will actually be able to sleep all night without interruption.
Week 24:
Fiona Apple has a song called Get Him Back which ends with tape hiss, vinyl crackle, and noise thet sounds somewhat like seagulls. I have heard that song a couple dozen times, but never heard those sounds at the end before; i.e., it still surprises me, now thet I hear 10 dB quieter I can actually hear better. It also surprises me thet 24 weeks after treatment, my audio processor is still adjusting.
This week I slept the night without having to put in ear-plugs for the first time in my life. I was still woken up repeatedly, but was able to fall back asleep right away, rather than my usual gnashing teeth mental anguish as my mind races madly in anger.
Week 25:
This week, in order to sleep, I only had to put in earplugs 3 times. This is a profound thing for me. See Rachel, from the TV show Alphas, wince at the sound of a fly walking on her window; i.e., 25 weeks after treatment my processor is still adjusting.
I so much want to go back for a new treatment every 6 months, in order to theoretically speed up the process. But they say it is not necessary. You only have to do it once.
Week 27:
I live 18 blocks away from the train-track. I have lived here for 5 years and have never before heard the train-horn from inside my house. This week I started hearing it. It still strikes me as absurd thet when my hearing was 20 dB super-human I heard worse due to my processor wincing and blocking things out.
Week 28:
The traffic signals are brighter and more vivid colors this week. This is not due to my Visual processor adjusting to the Irlen lenses (that was over with months ago). It is due to my Audio processor adjusting, relaxing enough to affect my Visual processor through Synesthesia; another wave of visual improvement caused by audio improvement.
The classic Aspie symptom of being enraged by any form of interruption has waned a bit. I am still irritated by interruption, but no longer infuriated.
This week I also started vaguely thinking about the concept of having a girlfriend. I gave up on that pointless teenage fantasy when I was 27. Now I am 52 and wondering if I could do that now. Now thet my senses have toned down so I think I could tolerate interacting with someone for brief periods. She would have to be Autistic, of course; I still want all Normals to flat-out go to hell. Now I want someone to share space with occasionally (no longer just self-analytical fantasy), as long as she was Autistic so we could agree to leave each other alone the other 90% of the time.
Week 30:
I now sleep most of the night with relatively few interruptions. Maybe 3 times a night I am awakened by the slightest noise no one else would notice - as opposed to the 6 times a night I suffered in rage for the previous 50 years.
The problem with this is thet, because I woke up so often, if I vaguely needed to pee I would get up and do so. Now I sleep sound enough thet I do not wake up until my bladder is about to burst. I hate it, waking up in pain, then taking 5 minutes to relax enough to allow my bladder to drain. It is just so annoying having a body!
So this is an unexpected side-effect of AIT. My body has to re-train my mind to notice things like this; i.e., the classic Autistic symptom of seldom being entirely in one's body is still lingering, at least as this need to re-train myself to feel the need to pee while I am (for the first time in my life) deeply asleep.
At least I am not the opposite extreme, accidentally peeing myself and not waking up to notice. Instead I hold it intensely, and do not realize I am doing it until my bladder is about to pop.
Week 31:
My ability to go back to sleep after being woken up by slight noise is getting better by the week. Before AIT, these noises would infuriate me and seem to go on forever, even when they were only 30 seconds in duration. Now they feel like the mere 30 seconds they actually are, after which I let it go and fall back asleep. This is a profound thing for me.
Also my Synesthesia is becoming quite bothersome; as my Audio processing improves, my Visual processing is getting worse. I really need to up-date my Irlen lenses soon, for in these last few days I become so exhausted by light and visual over-stimulation I almost want to cry. Cars with those blue headlights or street lights thet are that orangey-peach color hurt. I feel exhausted most of the time if I have to be out at night because the artificial light is just so hard for me to process.
Meanwhile, as mentioned above, sunlight is out-right blinding, me needing my Irlen lenses plus anti-glare filters and a baseball cap in order to go out in day-light (I have always been like this and probably always will be, with or without the Irlens), but just this last few weeks the lights at night have become almost as bad as the sun - it has been 2 years since I got my Irlens, so it is probably time for an up-date anyway, but I definitely think the AIT is a contributing factor in this.
Week 34:
This week I have finally become able to take a nap to calm myself from sensory overload. All my life I have had the Aries, Type O Blood, Autistic melt-down way of dealing with over-stimulation - necessitating perpetual frantic desperation Stimming to calm myself (playing drums for 2 hours in a frenzy, stopping to beat hell out of a large hanging rope with a riot-control baton, returning to frantic drumming for another 2 hours, then taking a 10 mile walk while voraciously reading, masturbating twice a day in a state of rage, uncontrollable roaring in the voice of God, taking scalding hot showers, and drinking gallons of water, because light and sound exist on planet Earth!).
Now thet the Irlen lenses and AIT are defending me from the over-stimulating input, I am only now able to sleep instead of Stim, unwind rather than vent, decompress rather than explode, fantasize of making love with a Faerie and having a small child to cuddle rather than the gnashing teeth "Kill them all!" attitude, driving a gutless hybrid with my pinkies extended rather than road-rage.
I see these morons roar by on their straight-pipe Harleys with their stereos blasting, no ear-plugs nor even a helmet, and all I can think of is how bad a case of tinnitis they are going to eventually have. While at the age of 52 I can still hear 10 dB louder than a normal person and can see ultra-violet light. My hyper-sensitivities have taught me how to protect myself; i.e., I do not know if it is ironic or not, but Autism has been a blessing in disguise - I will never abuse my body like these Harley fags do. I will never be a deaf old man with tinnitis.
And sex. The way the Normals have sex is repulsive; like Harley fags, they are so obviously under-stimulated, they need pain in order to get-off. I hate them. Autism makes me superior to those S&M perverts all Normals are compared to me. The typical Autistic "apparent disinterest in sex" is your fault, not mine - and at my age sexual frustration is no longer part of the Autism equation - thank God.
Again, I am not sure if that is ironic or not, but I do not want to be like the Normals - I just do not want to be incapacitated by Autism either.
Week 35:
I dreamed I was friends with the members of Rush, and they played in a living-room sized space made of cinder-blocks with shag carpet, a dozen people present, playing Rave! Rush playing Rave was an amazing dream (I love Rush. I hate Rave).
Last night I dreamed of an acoustic band (Nickle Creek type of material) playing in an old barn. In both of these dreams it was the acoustics of the rooms as much as the style of music being played thet the dream was about.
I used to dream music every night, and the music would get so loud it would hurt and wake me up. 35 weeks after AIT, I dream music again, but it is the subtle differences in the acoustics of the rooms I am hearing, and it all remained at a comfortable volume.
Week 36:
I started listening to Depeche Mode again. Most of their music is very newwavy and synthesizer oriented - lots of fat warm sounds. Not having heard them for 6 months, they sound different to me now, specifically the warmth of the synth bass. I hear bass better now.
Roxy Music has a song called Dance Away which starts with the sound of someone lighting a cigarette and taking a puff. Though I have heard that song 30+ times, I never heard the cigarette part before.
If you have Synesthesia, or even the slightest Audio Processing inconsistency, please get AIT.
Week 37:
This new girl at work just started, so I had never met her before. When I walked into the room, 10 feet behind her, she stopped, turned and looked right at me, and said, "Wow. You have a really calm vibe."
Having an Indigo Child type of psychic energy, people have always been able to readily feel my vibe. Before AIT, when I came into a room people would stop and ask what is wrong, then they would turn and look at me and say, "Oh. It is just Chryssie." I had an angry/tense/anxiety/verge-of-an-Autistic-meltdown type of wound-up vibe thet would freak them out.
I have struggled desperately to calm myself all my life. Now thet my Audio processing difficulties have waned, my 50 years of experience with calming myself has resulted in me having an overall calm vibe, notable to strangers 10 feet away.
She and I immediately talked (practically gushed) for 45 minutes. It included a lot of deep staring into each other's eyes and crushing on each other.
Did you ever think an Aspie would write a sentance like that? Neither did I - not until 37 weeks after AIT.
In my case, gaze-aversion had been caused in part by CAPD.
Week 40:
10 months after AIT I have settled in to as-good-as-it-is-going-to-get.
It took me 4 years to adjust to the GF/CF Diet, 11 months to adjust to Irlen lenses, and 10 months to adjust to AIT.
I used to have to take DHEA once a week to keep the over-stimulation from winding me up into a rage, and I had to take Melatonin 2 or 3 times a month to help me sleep, due to my hearing not turning off. Yesterday I took both for the first time in months, just to see what my reaction would be. I felt so sleepy and lethargic, it was very depressing; i.e., I no longer need those pills, for I am simply no longer wound up, and now my hearing (though it does not turn off completely) at least calms down enough for me to sleep relatively sound. I have not had to sleep with earplugs in for over a month now, for the first time in my life.
All my life I have felt a perpetual anger and anxiety from light, and more anxiety from sound. Both are gone now.
I am definitely not cured. I still have a bad Visual processing disorder, but not the daily rage-attacks formerly provoked by it; and I am still hypersensitive to specific sound frequencies, or anything loud, but it no longer induces a state of anxiety. The sound of the air hand-driers in public toilets still irritates me, but no longer triggers fight-or-flight.
And I have also only recently acquired actual patience; e.g., after writing something new on this page, I have to then click on the "publish" button, thus putting the new version onto the Internet. After I click on that button, it takes about 30 seconds before it actually gets published. That sort of waiting period used to infuriate me. I was already so perpetually on the verge of a meltdown, caused by light and sound, thet if I was asked to tolerate 1 more thing, even something as simple as having to be patient for 30 seconds, it was just asking too much and I would have a minor melt-down. Only now am I able to say to myself, "Okay, this is going to take a while", and I go off and do something else! Imagine that!
Before I got my Irlen lenses and AIT, I was so overwhelmed by sensory overload thet I would have to become fixated on, and even outright obsessed with, tiny details to help me maintain some stability. If I clicked on the "publish" button and it did not finish publishing RIGHT NOW I would practically lose it: "This stupid machine is not kissing my ass well enough!", and I would want to throw the damn computer through the wall. It took every ounce of strength to contain myself, for though I knew I was being unreasonable, I could not help it. I was always 1 second away from an outright rage-attack, while bursting into tears of despair, both at the same time - because I had senses thet work!
The fact I express my anger through arrogance is not the point; the point is I was forever on that razor's edge, always struggling in near panic to calm myself, calm myself, calm myself.
So the main change is my calmness. As mentioned above, I am now so calm people feel it as my vibe from across the room. It is an amazing transformation, me being at last allowed by my disorder to actually feel civil and relaxed.
I also now drive ridiculously slow and patient. I bought a Hybrid car which has 15 idiot-lights and 7 computer screens thet teach you how to drive it efficiently. After 5 weeks of this computer training, I finally got to the point wherein I could get 62 MPG. 62 MPG! I have to be extremely patient (and I admit, obsessive) with this car in order to squeeze out that kind of spectacular mileage, but the point is thet for the first time in my life I have the ability to be that patient.
I also have acquired 1 of those electro-shock massagers, with which I put sticky electrodes on me and it pulses in a mild electric shock to relax the muscles. Before AIT, my touch-aversion was such thet, though I loved the muscle massage, my skin could not stand the shock - it was panic-inducing. Now I feel irritation and anxiety for about 15 minutes, then I start to adjust to it, and by the time my 30 minutes is up I feel very relaxed. I absolutely love this device (LG Tech Elite).
Also, I have recently gone to a massage therapist, 7 times so far. Again, I used to love the muscle massage but not the skin touch. Today I can at least tolerate it.
The most profoundly panic-inducing thing for me is the cell-phone on vibrate. That specific sensation is almost terror-inducing. Today I put someone's phone in my pocket and called the number - I did not die!
The wince-inducing touch-aversion was caused in part by CAPD; i.e., the Synesthesia thet makes me able to see sound and hear light also affected my sense of touch.
I am not sure how much the Irlen lenses played into this, but I did notice I started liking to stroke my arms after I got the lenses. Only after I got the electro-shock massager did it occur to me to test my reaction to the vibrating phone. I wish I would have also tested it after Irlen but before AIT. But it was probably a combination of both thet reduced my touch-aversion to the extent thet the vibrating phone no longer bothers me at all.
I want to get an Irlen up-date, now thet the CAPD is no longer interfering with my Visual processing; and I really want to get Speech Therapy, for it is an eternal struggle for me to pronounce my words articulately (I talk like I have just chewed ice).
The above-mentioned crush gave me a hug the other day. I nearly went blind; i.e., I am so much like the Rachel character in Alphas, only able to process 1 sense at a time, but also needing to have 2 sensory reference-points in order to be sure of what any 1 sense is perceiving - this keeps me exhausted all the time.
My hands are hypersensitive (I do not like to shoot guns nor play congas, for the shock to my hands is unbearable. Meanwhile if a dog licks my palm I have a spontaneous full-body orgasm), thus when she hugged me I liked to run my hands up and down her back, petting her lightly, but did not feel her hugging me; i.e., I may always like to touch but not be touched. I could not smell her, feel her touch, nor hear anything specific (and forget even mentioning visual processing), but I really liked my hands on her.
Before adjusting to AIT I would have avoided touching anyone at all. I would not have pushed her away, but it would have been uncomfortable enough to produce some anxiety. As it was, it made all my senses turn down by half, due in part to her taking me by surprise (Will I ever understand why the Normals do the things they do?; i.e., I gave her my web-site address but she did not bother to read it, then the next time I see her she spontaneously gives me a hug - while I stand there like a deer in headlights wondering why she would do such a thing when there were no words involved).
I am still Rachel or a Faerie; but at least I am not in the Autistic perpetual state of near rage-attack/melt-down and petrifying anxiety like I used to be - thanks to AIT.
Also see my Autism Lecture #14 titled Seven Senses.
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