I'll tell ya, life at this point doesn't have so much of the "screaming into a void" feeling as it did for a long time. Lo, this year (year-and-a-half, actually,) it's been since I got the results of my neuropsych battery really made a difference in that. And overall, their assessments of Asperger's and ADD are probably pretty much spot-on. But something still bothers me. Parkinson's Disease. I've read that it's not a genetic certainty that you will be affected by it, even if someone you love is. But the same reading also revealed that your risk is still somewhat higher for developing it (it is a developmental, onset kind of thing,) and just....God, feeling like you're dying. the following definition is from the Parkinson's Disease Foundation website.


Parkinson’s involves the malfunction and death of vital nerve cells in the brain, called neurons. Parkinson's primarily affects neurons in the an area of the brain called the substantia nigra. Some of these dying neurons produce dopamine, a chemical that sends messages to the part of the brain that controls movement and coordination. As PD progresses, the amount of dopamine produced in the brain decreases, leaving a person unable to control movement normally


Scary stuff. Although the correlation of all these things, ADD, Parkinson's etc.....Dopamine. What's Dopamine? Psychology Today can help us answer that.


Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine also helps regulate movement and emotional responses, and it enables us not only to see rewards, but to take action to move toward them. Dopamine deficiency results in Parkinson's Disease, and people with low dopamine activity may be more prone toaddiction. The presence of a certain kind of dopamine receptor is also associated with sensation-seeking. 


Dopamine transfer? (ADD) Dopamine deficiency? (Parkinson's,) Who the he*l knows. I'd love to just be able to tie all this up in a neat little bundle, take a pill a day that wasn't going to fu*k with one thing or another, and be done with it. Is it that easy? Surely you jest. I'm not. And don't call me Shirley. (Thank you, Robert Stack.) I could make a life out of this. I mean a real life, not just one where I'm muddling through from day-to-day. I probably should. I'd probably be dead before I got my Doctorate, but it would help mankind, I'll bet. It would help me.


And Asperger's? What do we not know about Asperger's that helps it retain it's position as being a giant pain in the a*s?! None of this can really be effectively remedied, a lot of it will have you either on anti-depos, or a good, strong anti-psychotic like Exelon. All of which seems to either miss the point, or be using an atom bomb to kill a fly. I think it's mostly that "degenerative" part of Parkinson's that just makes me squirm. Instead, I don't really know what to do. Fight it with every ounce of me, for God-only-knows what kind of payback, or just go with it.


Doing that with Asperger's means....well, frankly, I've made a living hiding myself behind a camera lens before. No real accolades, with the exception of a couple of "A's" in my photo-centered college classes, but that was doing pretty good for me, in college. And I've made a few bucks along the way as a photographer. I didn't please everyone. God knows I probably never will. But I managed not to get fired. What would it take? probably more of a support structure than I've really got at the moment. Definitely more money than I've got. But I've done it. And I can do it. I guess it's true what they say, though; never stop learning. Not 'till you *can't* learn anymore. That's the day that scares me.


And then, of course, I am continually asking myself, "does everybody have to fight this kind of crap?!" The trial-and-error, the self-discovery around every turn? Is it common? Doesn't feel like it. I'd swear some people's lives just fall into their lap, without a second thought on their part. The message of my own father? It can all be fleeting. And like I say, it's that never-knowing-when part that's just a raging bit*h.