Upcoming DSM V

 Somewhere there is a group of mental health professionals creating DSM V.  We hear that some diagnoses are going to be revised extensively, in ways that are going to affect insurance and government benefits.

I imagine these effete intellectuals, ensconced in luxurious meeting rooms, discussing the scholarly correctness of obscure terminology in light of the most advanced research, people assured of high income by their esoteric expertise, imagining that the academic integrity of their writing is the highest goal they can strive for, fundamentally out of reach of the people whose lives their deliberations will affect, perhaps even devastate.

This is the wrong process.  Since the determinations that these people make will so dramatically affect benefits, potentially for millions of people, a more transparent process is needed, preferably involving open meetings and government oversight.

The classification of phenomena into categories is a pedantic endeavor that can never finish, because, fundamentally, natural phenomena are not clearly classifiable.  Categories can keep morphing indefinitely, often in response to relatively minor concerns, and may change back and forth, fairly arbitrarily.

If only academics are affected, there is no harm in so altering categories.   When millions of people are affected, the burden of trying to achieve pedantic perfection weighs too heavily on the public.  The academic process of classifying natural phenomena should not determine the nature of insurance and government benefits.

On the use of pseudonyms

I published my novels under a pseudonym.  I did this because I did not want my novels to come up on an Internet search by someone associated with my day job, which is in a completely different field.

More recently, I have taken on several pseudonyms on the Internet -- so that I look like several different people, at least to the casual observer.  Presumably a sophisticated observer could figure it out, but not someone just doing a simple Google search.

When I take on a new pseudonym, I feel free to say whatever I feel like with that pseudonym; however, in the context of social media, I soon make friends and enemies -- and then have a community of people surrounding me.  I start having the same concerns with respect to that community that I have with respect to  people in in my real name life -- worrying about my reputation, becoming more careful about what I say, feeling constrained.

After a while, the pseudonym becomes my name in some sense, and is less and less a pseudonym and more and more a representation of me.  Then I feel like I should make a new pseudonym.

The irony of this is that this pseudonym, the one I am posting with here, is the one I would most like to draw attention to, since I am trying to sell my novels -- and, yet, this one is the one that has attracted the least attention and remains without a community.

Strange.

My gluten & dairy free rationale

I am writing this essay at the request of http://glutenfreeworks.com/

I first learned of gluten & dairy free diets from other parents, after my son was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.  One man, in particular, was a doctor, who had his autistic daughter on this diet and found that it helped.  

My son, at that point, was 10 years old.  He was unwilling to go gluten and dairy free.  People with autistic spectrum disorders are not known for being cooperative.  

I decided to try it myself.  I was startled by the results.  I felt much calmer and clearer.  I came to realize that when I ate wheat and dairy I experienced rage, anxiety, and confusion.  I was embarrassed later to realize that there were incidents where I had been wrongfully rageful for no reason, due to what I was eating.

Later, I was myself diagnosed with mild Asperger's Syndrome.

I found, though, that I was not able to stay on the gluten and dairy free diet, because I was addicted to desserts and those foods tend contain gluten and dairy.  

I had to join Overeaters Anonymous to get off addictive, sweetened foods and snacking, in order to stay sane.  I also lost 50 lbs in the process.  

For anyone concerned with the Overeaters Anonymous tradition of anonymity, I should mention that Annalisse Mayer is a pseudonym that I used for writing my novels, not my real name.

I found, also, that when I eliminated gluten and dairy from my diet, I actually began eating a much greater variety of foods.  I believe that this variety is healthier than what I was eating before, just in general.

Sadly, my doctor friend was not able to keep his autistic daughter on the gluten and dairy free diet, because his ex-wife and the daughter's school would not cooperate.

I recently read an article about celiac at 

http://magazine.columbia.edu/features/winter-2009-10/against-grain?page=0,0

 This article explained that celiac symptoms do not have to be digestive.

My mother had celiac as a baby.  She was one of the first people saved from this illness, by being fed bananas instead of her usual diet.  Nevertheless, she resumed eating wheat as an older person.  She suffered from emotional issues all her life and, ultimately, dementia aggravated by emotional issues.  She was frequently agitated and hysterical -- and had severe insomnia.   In retrospect, I suspect that her life would have been much better quality if she had stayed off the gluten in later life, even though the digestive symptoms were much less severe.  She always had severe constipation and more frequent nausea than other people, but not the vomiting and diarrhea she experienced as a child, so she thought she was ok.  

I learned that, in families where one child has celiac, there is frequently another family member who is shorter in stature than other family members and has undiagnosed digestive/intestinal issues.  This matches my aunt exactly.  My mother  also said that my rages reminded her of her sister, my aunt.

I also learned that celiac can be a generation skipping disease.  My great grandmother died of what was then diagnosed as intestinal tuberculosis at age 28.  I have long suspected that that was in fact celiac.

I believe that I have sub-clinical celiac; but the symptoms I get from gluten are sufficiently severe, from an emotional and cognitive perspective, that I do not care to experiment with it in order to get an official diagnosis.

I have much clearer lactose intolerance than gluten intolerance.  I get severe intestinal pain from dairy.   Prior to going dairy free, though, I used to eat a lot of hard cheese, which did not have enough lactose to cause me intestinal pain.  Nevertheless, I believe that it was causing me emotional & cognitive issues, like the wheat.  I suspect that this was due to the casein (milk protein) in cheese.

To a lesser extent, I get intestinal pain from oats, so I believe I am also avenin intolerant.  I do not get the same bloating that I get from dairy, but I do get very bad pain -- and it is worse with oat bran than with plain oats.

Once I had an opportunity to speak with a woman who suffers from MSUD.  This is a congenital disease that causes intolerance of four amino acids.  I questioned her as what symptoms she got when she went off her low protein regimen.  She said that the first thing that would alert her that she had had too much of her critical amino acids were the very types of emotional and cognitive issues that I had noticed with gluten & dairy.  This also tended to confirm my intention to stay off wheat and dairy.

I still do sometimes have butter, as I believe it does not contain lactose or casein.

Republicans do *not* have family values

I do not see how Republicans get off saying that they have family values.

First, there was Ronald Reagan, our first divorced president -- and who was alienated from some of his children.  He ran against Walter Mondale, who was happily married to his first wife and had good relationships with all his kids.

Then, there was Steve McCain, who left his first wife, because a car accident had reduced her physical attractiveness.  What ever happened to "for better or for worse?"   Obama is still married to *his* first wife.

Now there's Newt Gingrich, who apparently believes in open marriage.

Hello?

This family values stuff is a bunch of hooey.  Republicans are hypocrites.

feral cats & dogs

Roger Ebert just tweeted a link to an article about America's 100 million feral cats and dogs.

According to this article, ironically, PETA apparently favors euthanizing these animals rather than sterilizing them.  They feel that a life on the street is "brutish and short," apparently also believing that life with humans is better.

This reminds me of a couple of things.

First, there was a trip I took in Richmond, VA to a plantation museum.  While we were touring, I noticed a book on one of the tables.  I asked the guide what the book was.  The guide told me what I found to be a fascinating tale.

The book had been written by one of the white women in the family after the civil war.  It was an apology for slavery.  Written in thick Black English, it purported to be the reminiscences of a former slave who longed for the past -- in other words, to be a slave again.  Apparently, this book sold rather well, several tens of thousands of copies, which was a lot for back then.

Now, I seriously doubt that the people buying that book were African American.  I cannot imagine that any self-respecting former slave would buy a nostalgic book, pretending to be written by a black person, but actually written by a white person, and claiming that slavery was wonderful.  I suspect that, like the author, they were white people, but white people who were fluent in Black English, because they had been raised by slaves.  

It strikes me as particularly ironic that this was probably one of the first, if not *the* first book written in Black English, and it is probably an important historical document in terms of what it says about the historical evolution of this dialect.

It also strikes me that these PETA people are a bit like the white woman who wrote the book.

The second thing I'm reminded of is a shaggy dog story.  It goes like this:

Once upon a time there was a wolf.  The wolf was starving to death in the forest.  It was winter, a hard winter at that, and game was scarce.

One day, in his wanderings, the wolf encountered a dog.  The dog was plump, sleek, and well cared for. The wolf asked the dog where he was finding food.

"Oh, my master feeds me," the dog replied.  "I love my master."

"Do you think your master would feed me as well?"  The wolf asked.

"Oh, I'm sure he would.  He's wonderful."

Then the wolf spied something and asked "What's that around your neck?"

The dog explained his collar.

The wolf turned around and went back into the forest and starved to death.

You know I've never had much sympathy or respect for PETA's point of view.  Their idea that death is preferable to life on the streets causes me to respect them even less.

Lowering my price

I asked my publisher to lower the price for electronic download of my books.  I hope that will help sales.

Fantasizing about celebrities

I have discovered that my fantasies about celebrities are susceptible to the same sort of dream analysis that I learned about when I had counseling from a Freudian.  For instance, if I fantasize that my favorite celebrity has a broken heart, it means that my subconscious is trying to draw attention to my own broken heart.

If anyone else is out there with this issue, I would love to chat with you -- not that anyone has ever commented on any of my blogs here.  Sigh.

I feel like I am speaking to the wind.