The second video is live! :)

Laina Eartharcher

Howdy everybody!  I did indeed make–and upload!–the second video tonight!  😁

This one is somewhat longer than the first one.  In it, I tell my story of discovering that I’m on the Asperger’s/autism spectrum, for those who may not yet be familiar with it.  It’s another sort-of-introductory video, since I’m new at this and probably will be for a while, and thus it might take me a bit to figure out what I’m doing ;).  I’m still experimenting a little (OK–a lot!), getting used to seeing myself in the computer monitor, recording, and whatnot.  This YouTube channel is indeed my first foray into doing anything with photography/video.  All I’ve known up until now is writing.  🙂

In this experiment, I decided to use our somewhat-newer and less-heavily-used 17-inch laptop.  This might do away with some of the freezing/jerkiness that plagued my first video.  My partner has adjusted the video output to be slightly warmer than the default setting, and although the lighting looks a bit dimmer, it may be better-balanced (I hope!).

I also decided to utilize notes only during the very first parts of this video, as opposed to relying on them much more heavily like I did in the first video.

This video went a bit longer, clocking in at 10 minutes and 20-some seconds, and it amazes me how fast time goes!  And it’s still nothing fancy, just me babbling about my self-discovery experience and what made me first begin to suspect that I’m on the spectrum.

Oh, and my hair is worn loose for this one, too 😉

I hope y’all enjoy! ❤

I had a lot of fun doing this one, too, and once I get past the introductory phase (which will likely be soon!), I’ll delve into some more significant topics!  Hopefully less than almost a full two weeks later, too 😉

***

(Image Credit: Matthew Armstrong)

❤

❤

❤

Published by Laina Eartharcher

Feet on the ground, eyes toward the sky.

55 Comments

    1. Thank you so much, Gary! I wrote so much on here in 2016 (lol 😉), but didn’t optimize it very well yet (didn’t know better), so almost everyone on here found this blog sometime in 2017, when I had long buried that story under an endless mountain of posts lol. So, I thought it’d be a good idea to go a little retro. I might do that several times just to make sure everybody feels on the same page 💚💙💜. Thank you so much for your encouragement! 😁👍🏼❤️

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  2. It doesn’t help to remind people, as you say, new people join in all the time and it would be a bit unrealistic to expect everyone to start reading from the beginning.

    Well done on a very nicely done video.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. Well done, honey. Very well presented, coherent, understandable, supported by your own story. I think people with similar hardships can well identify. Two thumbs up (I’d give you more if I had).
    Hugs hugs hugs and see you soon.
    P.S. I love your loose hair.
    P.S. 2 You’re one damn hot woman.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. Great story! I especially love the idea that you detected the autism theme by studying the titles of the articles in your collection.

    Also, I too was diagnosed a year ago — Nov. 2016!

    For whatever it may be worth, after receiving my diagnosis (which surprised me because prior to it I had been sure that I had some version of Bipolar Disorder) I came across Baron-Cohen et al’s AQ test and have taken it several times since. The first time I took it I scored 26, but then I took a closer look at how the questions were scored and tried reinterpreting them and answering them to get the highest score I could get without actually lying and I still only scored 32. I think I’ve also gotten scores like 29, 30. I’ve never scored lower than 26, nor higher than 32.

    But I always balk at the qualifier “mild” because whatever is wrong with me has always had a most unmild influence on my life, which can be quite fairly characterized as a long sequence of relationship failures, job failures, and financial failures.

    My middling score on the AQ along with the fact that I have almost none of the striking sensory issues that are common to many autists — the only exceptions I’m aware of are direct eye contact, which I find very weird and distracting, and my long and demanding list of sexual turnoffs, which for me utterly disqualifies all men and virtually all women as potential mates — haunts me and makes me wonder if maybe I’m not really autistic at all.

    In order to cope with these kinds of doubts I started using the qualifier autistickish, and eventually it dawned on me that this is actually just a more colloquial way of saying spectrum.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Oh wow 😘😘. Never fear, dear one, I know a lot of autistic peeps who scored exactly like you on that test 💗💗. The test is indeed biased; a high score will detect pretty much every “case”, but a middle score might not detect everyone; there are some non-stereotypical autists who slip through undetected because of this test bias. (I’m just very stereotypical lol – my scores have ranged from 43-48 lol 😂). I would reckon that you’re definitely on the spectrum, although I’m not a professional in this area 💚💙

      I love the meaning of your WP name! 🤗😍💘💘

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Thank you for pointing all of that out, Laina. Is it weird that I feel reassured that maybe I really “am” autistic after all? Not just “autistickish”, but the “real” thing — autistic — like it’s cool and a wonderful thing to be and not at all something to fear or worry about, as it is for so many who cannot qualify their own idiosyncratic manifestations as “mild” or “high functioning”?

        There’s a weird irony here for me. Even if my diagnosis eventually turns out to have been some sort of mistake, even if, say, the Cambridge group were to scrutinize me and my life and do brain scans on me and genetic analysis and declare officially “sorry, bro, your original diagnosis was totally wrong, you’re really not even ‘autistickish’, so please stop telling people you are, and while you’re at it, please issue a public retraction of all the times you did say it, delete that ridiculous ‘blog’, and apologize to all of the real autists for trying to mooch off of the world’s limited supplies of autism sympathy (what can I say, I have nightmares), even in that worse case scenario the most it would mean for me is that it was my diagnosis that was wrong. I’d still have all the same evidence that led to that diagnosis, and it would still just be sitting there demanding a diagnosis, like it was before I got diagnosed. I’d still have the same life history, the same track record of interpersonal problems, the same addiction to routines, my irrational obsessions, my “thought furnace”, the eye-contact issues, the sex thing, the anxiety, my compulsive urges to sheepdog everyone when they don’t follow the rules, my tendency to go on and on and on talking (or writing) about some topic as though my listeners (or readers) found what I have to say as utterly fascinating as I did, and of course I still would have — as I have had my whole life — the sense that I was just somehow different from everyone around me, that I just didn’t belong with them, that I was maybe just a guest, or maybe not even really human! And then I’d have found just one more place I didn’t fit in, one more group I didn’t belong to. Perfect, I’m not autistic either.

        And I would ask them (the Cambridge group) the same question I put to my diagnostician last year when, after spending a full day testing me and interviewing me, she broke the news to me that she really didn’t see me as having Bipolar Disorder.

        “Ok,” I asked her, “then what is wrong with me?”

        In any case, until that happens, until someone comes up with a better diagnosis (suggestions welcome), I have to go with the best one I have found so far, which is ASD. And in the meantime I’ll soothe my doubts by remembering that the word spectrum was added for a reason.

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

        1. “Is it weird that I feel reassured that maybe I really “am” autistic after all? Not just “autistickish”, but the “real” thing — autistic — like it’s cool and a wonderful thing to be and not at all something to fear or worry about, as it is for so many who cannot qualify their own idiosyncratic manifestations as “mild” or “high functioning”?

          Not weird at all, my lovely! 🙂 🙂 I had *many* of the same sentiments!! “Could it be???”, “for real??”, “omg could this explain some of what I’ve been experiencing??” Nope…it didn’t explain some of what I’d been experiencing; it explained ALL that I was experiencing 😉 ❤

          And it IS a cool and wonderful thing to be! There are some really awesome people among us! (There are some really awesome NTs, too, of course!) It's definitely not something to fear or worry about. Sure, we have our challenges. Sure, we may have individual needs that are different from that of average folks. But yeah, there's room for us all ❤

          And it's absolutely a spectrum 🙂 🙂 I've heard some bloggers express that there's more variety ON the spectrum than off lol 😉 (I'm not sure that non-spectrum peeps are all carbon-copies of each other though! lol 😉 But I can understand what those writers were getting at.)

          Tania Marshall talks about "female phenotypes" of the autism spectrum that actually score fairly NT-range on the aspergers/autism quotient (AQ) quiz.

          When Wired magazine ran a story about the AQ, the body of research at the time of publication had indicated that the average NT score was 16.x (16-point-something). So yeah, you're more than likely in AS territory 🙂 I say that also because of your style of writing and thinking; it rings "more AS" to me 🙂 ❤

          Keep being your awesome self, dear one! ❤

          Liked by 2 people

          Reply

  12. Dear Laina, thank you for sharing your journey of self-discovery and the relief that came with the awareness of your diagnosis. I particularly like how you refer to Aspergers and Autism as a spectrum rather than a disorder. I think it more accurately reflects the condition. I also have a lot of respect on how you approached your journey, by reviewing Medical Journals, that are more evidence based and then taking the quiz spontaneously so that you didn’t bias your responses. Looking forward to learning more about your journey which I do hope is liberating for you. Peace, Harlon

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Thank you so much, Harlon dear! I really appreciate your encouraging words 🤗💞💞. You’re the bomb! 💜. Yes, it was very, very liberating 😁👍🏼💟. I’ll probably record more soon, and then schedule it to post visibly, for the near future (so that I don’t bombard people lol) 😉💓. Your support is an amazing thing that I treasure 😘💖💖

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  13. Very interesting. I’m not sure if I’ve written about my non-diagnosis on my blog or if you would have read it if I had. I don’t have time to write it all now, but way back in 2005 I was sent for an assessment and again about 2007. This was because my depression was (still is) so treatment-resistant, so there was suspicion I had something else underlying it. The outcome of both assessments was that I have a lot of the symptoms of Asperger’s, but not in the right categories to meet a diagnosis. On the other hand, I scored 37 on the test you mentioned and the psychiatrist I saw the longest and my current therapist (who I’ve been seeing since early 2011) both think that I’m probably on the spectrum, even if only at a subdiagnostic level.

    I’ve never really worked out where that leaves me. I don’t have a bit of paper that says I’m autistic, so I can’t claim support at work and I’m not sure I would if I could. My family agree that I might be on the spectrum and are supportive. I try to tell myself that I don’t need a diagnosis, that I know how I behave. But sometimes I want to be sure or to have something so that I can say to myself, “It’s OK that I’m not comfortable doing XYZ, it’s because I have Asperger’s” (although I don’t say “It’s OK that I’m not comfortable doing XYZ, it’s because I have depression”, if anything the reverse, I beat myself up about it!).

    I do wonder if the diagnostic criteria have been refined in the last ten years since I was assessed. I think they were still using DSM-IV when I was assessed. I feel that when I see the official criteria websites, I don’t really meet them, but when I read how you and other Aspies write about your lives, then I often think that’s exactly like me. It’s quite confusing sometimes.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Eeeek! No I hadn’t seen them yet! 😳. (My WP app is becoming increasingly misbehaved, and it crashes when I try to advance through my Reader 🙄). So sorry luv, but now I’ve gone and read them and, well, I’ll leave my thoughts over there. (Sneak preview: wow!! Love!!) 👏🏼❤️❤️

      Like

      Reply

  17. Reblogged this on Creative Writing Reblogged and commented:
    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 ::) 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 ::) 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 ::) 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 ::) 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 ::) 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 ::) 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  20. Hi, just watched you’re second vid. It’s really good Laina, both the content and the workings of it, (can’t think of the words I want). It’s great to know more about how you came to seek diagnosis. I scored quite high on that test but I was extremely stressed and ill at the time.
    From now on ASD now refers to Autism Spectrum Difference!!
    💜 💙. 💚. 💟. 💖 💛. ❤

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  21. I love it when you go, “you know, this looks kind of suspicious” if feels like a great comic touch. You are so good at this. It is a pleasure to watch/listen to you. I can’t believe you do it all in one go. How many takes do you do?

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Wow thank you so much, dear friend! 🤗🤗. Hehe this one I did in one take (lol 😉). The first video took 3 takes (I posted the third, knowing it wasn’t going to get any better than that lol 😂). But this one just sorta slid out, for better or worse; I’m really happy that it was for the better! Your words are extremely reassuring to me 😘💓💓. It was really fun 😁. I’m so happy you enjoyed! Thank you so very much for watching and sharing your encouraging feedback! I really appreciate that 💚💙💚

      Like

      Reply

Leave a reply to Laina Eartharcher Cancel reply