Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia is an eye opener even if you do not have a daughter who has been troubled with schizophrenic like psychosis, a worsening of initial autism.
It is not too far of a reach that I considered autism while reading about some of the presentations brought to light by the good doctor.
One of Dr. Sacks' examples highlights the experience of an eight year old boy named Michael. This boy had music playing in his head pretty constantly, and could not find peace from it. He would ask that someone turn the music off.
Reading about Dr. Sacks' Michael took me back to an instance when my own autistic daughter articulated that I needed to turn it off while motioning toward our truck radio -- even as it the truck radio was not playing. She was dealing with internal noise. She was eleven and had been experiencing a presentation that was schizophrenic like for about a year.
During that particular 2004 winter truck ride, my daughter had started having conflict within herself. She became more and more worked up and when her internal conflict became too much she began to scream incessantly. She then kicked with her feet and slammed with her hands, the dashboard of the truck. She started hitting and throwing items. I gave her time to come down from her episode by parking in a secluded spot nearby the high school from which I was picking up my son.
Hiding for a while was a good bet because the uninformed judging that people engage upon when this sort of thing happens is like a nail in the coffin for parents like me. Ones who are trying to see things through in very difficult situations.
Eventually my daughter came down enough to remorsefully cry and tell me she was sorry and to hold her arms out for a hug. She again made a request that I turn it off. If I only could turn off her auditory hallucinations...
As it was -- for survival sake -- I and the rest of my family had learned to at first accommodate ourselves with learning the content of her hallucinations. After the initial process of learning her hallucinations, in order to suppose what part of her real world paradigms they came from, we could talk through them with her. Eventually she understood in her own terms that she was dreaming. At least, that is what the hallucinatory process began to represent for her -- even as she was awake while they transpired.
As for the why of my daughter's hallucinations, I and my family were able to eventually identify the many associative triggers which fueled and caused the flow of many of them.
Overall, Dr. Sacks' book really supports the idea that there can be incidental and odd triggers from thought associations that in turn cause internal noise or hallucinatory events. Since this is found in typically functioning individuals -- it is logical to realize that it is happening for some within the autism spectrum.
*****
Valerie chronicled events with regard to her family's experiences surrounding autism that turned to schizophrenic like psychosis, over a sixteen year period. In Hello, Dr. Wells she offers a diverse sample of information via the inclusion of surveys, assessment reports, journal entries, medication evaluations, educational reports and medical reports. These are woven throughout a poignant and sometimes heart wrenching account. Hello, Dr. Wells is available on the web at no cost. Just Google it.
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