Category Archives: Music

Music, Sensory Integration

Figuring out sensory integration strategies as a working musician

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(This may sound like I’m plugging Henny’s book — I’m just excited about getting some answers as to why rote task-shifting can be hard for me at times. That said, if you want to support her work, by all means, do so.)

One of the things I’m working on in my creative process is how playing music (as a stim) can get intertwined with playing music (as a creative mode of production, as well as a way of making a living).

This isn’t always easy to unpack! There’s a range of different things feeding into this — alexithymia, sensory regulation, visual and auditory thinking, as well as stimming and music-making.

Further, I’m both a pianist and a composer. Both of those creative processes are very closely tied to all of the above, as well as requiring a fair amount of fluid context-shifting, from “right-brained thinking” to “left-brained thinking” and back again, or put another way: shifting from auditory processing (the internal “image” of the music) to visual processing (the score) to textual processing (letter names for the notes). I can do all of those things, but there’s times where the shift isn’t fast enough to fit within an active production schedule.

There’s tools and methodologies to work with this, as it turns out. Which is a huge relief! The usual focus is either on standard music skills-building ones (which isn’t enough, becase it doesn’t account for our neurologies), or interventions (which can be harmful).

That’s why Henny doesn’t take students who are enrolled in ABA programs anymore. Not only is it traumatizing them (and can result in PTSD), it overrides their ability to make independent decisions, as well as giving no means to cognitively process sight-reading and performance.

In other words, ABA is about “cure“, as well as denying agency, in a very direct way, with frequently disasterous consequences.

What Henny is teaching are tools: this is how you connect music in your head to notes on a page, to playing those notes. For myself, I already have a musical process, but there are areas where I’m rusty, and I have challenges in relation to very small task-based shifts in context. From the looks of things, I don’t need admistered tools, I need the tools themselves. Which I got from her book, and as I move forward, am working through and figuring out on my own.

ABA, Clinical things - meh, Conversion Therapy (Is Evil), Interests, Music, Queer/Trans, Writing

Autism, ABA and The Arts — Childhood Memories

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A mind-bendingly difficult thing from my past that i’m coming to terms with:

I might have been screened for and possibly diagnosed with autism back in grade school, or some sort of gifted + autistic, although that was before “doubly exceptional aspie” was a thing (early 1970s).

I went through the Very-Concerned-Teacher-to-shrink-to-non-staff-specialist gauntlet for a while. I definitely was being assessed for cross-gender behavior; pattern matching games and a “mind in the eyes” test was part of that.

That’s mostly sorted for me now, or sorted enough that I’m slowly moving from being floored by it to acceptance and integration of what happened.

What’s still too raw to talk about in much detail: realizing that writing and music was the communication vector that might have kept me from getting aggressively ABA’d or institutionalized in some way or another, right at the moment when modern “child autism” was starting to be acted upon (as in, ABAing autistic children). So, it’s a toss-up as to what would’ve happened, had I not lucked into writing and music as “ok, well, you’re ‘creative and sensitive'” as a result. Things went from “You’re a problem. *sounds alarm*” to “You’re innately talented, so of course you’re that way”, quickly, come fifth grade (homeroom teacher) and seventh grade, partially. I never was labeled as “gifted” within the school system, but writing and later, music was how I found my way to forms of support that were actually supportive, rather than more aggressive interventions, both informally and formally.

It also was a way to express myself creatively in a classroom setting, rather than *stacks small stones away from the other kids* or *runs into the closet, overwhelmed*. In other words, I was “learning how to behave”, so the early negative reinforcement machinations of ABA-like things wound themselves down. This unfortunately did *nothing* to stop students themselves from aggressing against me, but it did change the classroom dynamics, including the times where I was flunking out, in a class where I had tested beyond grade level or otherwise was capable of doing the work. The right-wing “take” on this is to attribute this to laziness, but…well, no, actually.

Same goes for my family — if my parents were presented with a diagnosis of autism, or as was starting to get phased out, schizophrenia as a clinical “who even knows” place-holder for autism (this all happened in the early 1970s), it’s very possible that my parents took one look at the school system and attempted to intervene on their own instead, because that was my family, back then. (This was before my father’s drinking, and the subsequent bullying and aggression kicked in.)

So when my active interest in spinning and stacking games shifted to reading the dictionary and their encyclopedia set, then once encouraged, to writing and music, it was tolerated, and accepted, both in my family and at school. “Narrowly escaping a worse fate” is my best guess and operative assumption, for now.

Autism, Film, Interests, Music, Perseverating, Pop music

Persevering in the Arts, Perseverating with the Arts, Ah Yes, The Persevering-Perseverating Arts

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I’m trained in writing and music, both via self-motivation and formally, but I have an active interest in film as well. I grew up watching classic comedies, Neil Simon and Costa-Gravas. I may not have got all the political references in the latter (I was in grade school, and they don’t teach about Greek politics or US counter-insurgencies in South America in the ever-conservative US school system, for some reason /sarcasm), but the feel of his films stuck with me. I’ve thought about becoming a filmmaker at various points in my life, have made short films, and at one point, had a screenplay in the beginnings of an option process; I know the industry moderately well. The times I’ve thought about designing games, one of my inspirations has been Peter Watkins. I have a whole list of Fassbinder films to go through. Film is not one of my primary disciplines (that would be writing and music), but it’s an active part of my creative process.

Even with all that, and professional training in two directly related disciplines, separating out “film theory” from “I just want to watch the first Avengers movie over and over, leave me alone”, or distinguishing my classical music and composition training from “I want to listen to the same Tune-Yards album over and over. Stop bugging me” can be hard at times. It’s a challenge to allow time and room for all of the above, rather than turning my perseverating over a given work into a negative, in artistic terms. “I’m not being disciplined, I need to stop.”

Usually what happens if I try this punitive approach, is that I’ll keep thinking about the work I’m perseverating over until I give in. Once I do so, I can feel the stress drop off of me. It can be frustrating to go through a creative process around what looks like a block, but in fact, is just “I just want to watch or listen to <thing> over and over again”. If that’s part of the artistic process (which it can be), I’ve learned (after many years) to let that be what it is. If not, not.

Alexithymia and catastrophizing can make this even more complicated. Like a lot of artists, my work is part of, and reflective of, my emotional process, and that can spill over into practical decision-making. “Do I want to start a band that has some elements in common with Tune-Yards because that’s where the songs are leading me to, is that because I’m perseverating, or is it because I have a fascination with drum machines and hand percussion, both? Do I need to drum more? Do I need to get better at programming drum machines? If I’m going to do this, how am I going to find musicians again? How are we going to organize ourselves? I hope it’s not like the other times where I tried to “lead” and wound up just making a mess of things. OK, I’m starting to feel like a huge ball of emotional twine here. I need to rest.”

So which is it? The answer is: yes. *All* of these things, they’re all valid, I’m just struggling with unentangling them. Meanwhile, the “arts professional” part of me is thinking: “Avengers, pop songs, whatever gets me through. Fuck, though, I’m not writing songs. I’m not practicing. I’m writing this blog, and I’m reading fiction, even though it’s a struggle at times, but that’s about it.” This may sound like i’m unfocused, but it’s more the opposite: I’m *very* focused, in multiple directions, constantly. From all of that, one primary focus emerges, most times, and that becomes the all-consuming focus, with all the rest of it being a sort of constellation surrounding it.

Or I just watch “Winter Soldier” again.

Further, something I’m working on will end on its own, and leave me creatively empty. A piece is completed and released, or I reach a creative plateau in my process. when that happens, sometimes i go on to the next piece after a break – but sometimes, an entire discipline or sub-discipline is dead to me. I’m grateful for it having gotten me to where I am, but done is done. Months or years later: it all comes flooding back, and that’s where I am at for a while.

Avengers. Pop songs. Even though I think Marvel’s storylines are jingoistic and simplistic, and I can’t stand how Disney is jamming viewer’s psyches into the equivalent of a press mould, young and old alike. Just like I’ve been playing “Nikki Nack” for weeks now, even though I think Merrill Garbus’ race politics are self-serving and very “White lady gets religion about racism 101, after years of living in Oakland, imagine that”. On a loop, over and over again. “I’m the real thing, real thing, real thing. *be boop, be boop* There will be always something you can lean your weight into. I will be always something you can rely on.”

I’m crying now. (No, you’re crying.)

It’s a complicated process. Not just complicated like “being a working artist can be complicated”, not just complicated like “being an adult autistic can be complicated”, it’s both of those things, and they’re in a sort of dance with each other. It requires a gentle hand – forcing things one way or the other, won’t work. (I’ve tried; I’ve gone through and applied several artistic self-books, from the most “baby steps” to the most “your creative discipline is all that matters, push everything out of your mind and body”, and come up with my own processes, over years. No matter what I do, both remain.) I’m autistic, I’m a working artist, I’m autistic and a working artist. Period.

Trusting the process can definitely help, but that’s not going to be of much assistance when the deadline looms or the dress rehearsal is about to happen, so to speak. I find that the demands of the creative workplace – which can be as much about labor as any other form of work, and work’s demands as well, from an editor’s or conductor’s perspective – sometimes are just on two different paths. nobody cares that I want to watch everything Fassbinder ever made. A deadline’s a deadline.

Aside: I shudder to think what it’s like for an autistic child or teen who doesn’t get the kinds of flexible support that I did, because without it, I would’ve been lost. I lucked into good teachers, who encouraged me to write, and supported me in that, as well as not being on me to “toughen up”. I also had several truly awful teachers, who did things like trying to force eye contact, or who literally assaulted me for not following some minor rule. It happens.

I hope the programs that are out there which provide a means to channel interests into a creative discipline (or any other discipline) are accounting for this, because there’s nothing more distracting than not knowing how to live with both impulses, creative and perseverating, when they sometimes compete with each other. (I also think that forcing 40 hours a week of aversion therapy on autistic youth is a form of torture, but that’s its own topic.)

I suspect the impulse here from allistic teachers and support staff will be to suppress one or the other, or just give up – don’t do either of those things! Allow space for both. Even as an adult, I’m pretty antsy, if not fighting being mildly combative, if I don’t allow space for both. Not having a proper outlet in both cases to just be myself would’ve wrecked me, I’m convinced.

Autism, Music, Poetry, Writing

Introduction, Part One

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Hey. I’m a blogger and I’m autistic. I self-dxed three months ago. (Fuck off if you don’t like it.) This is my personal blog around my coming out process as autistic, and what I’m discovering along the way.

Some things about me:

Writer, musician, performer, poet.

Trans, intersexed, woman-identified, demisexual, pansexual, queer, mixed race. (yay, comma salad!)

Anarchist, post-marxist, anti-imperialist, genius, billionaire, playgirl, philanthropist. (OK, I’m making some of that up. 😛 Lucy Parsons is my imaginary dream lover, though.)

I used to work in the computer industry as a tech writer, and I have the scars to prove it. Now, I’m semi-retired (I’m in my 50s), have worked in the arts and publishing full time since 2005, and have an MFA in writing. I’ve read and performed at spots throughout the country, have work published, have albums out, and so on. That’s not the focus of the blog (go here, here, or here for that), but it’s an integral part of who I am.

I’m also writing from the U.S. a year and a half into the Trump administration, so I’m watching my barely established rights as a trans woman getting taken away from us by some “legal coup” Handmaid’s Tale shitheads. El Hefe seems to thinks its hilarious to mock people with disabilities, specifically for lacking of normative physical traits. I mean, he got “elected” on this as a platform. Always festive, always a joy. I don’t feel personally attacked by all this, at all. Sarcasm! Take that, shrinks.

So, why autism? What gives you the right? Why self-dx? “Vere are your papers. Ve need your papers.” Give me a minute here, imaginary interlocutor, and I’ll explain.

I had a hunch that I was on the spectrum for a long time. I was up on the stories that were going around about autism being an “epidemic”, the profile pieces on aspies in the software industry, and sometimes, the arts as well. The software industry aspie stories in particular seemed sort of…male to me, but it all rang a bell, too. (I also had written off my childhood experiences that map to autism to “Well, I’m weird. Thankfully, I escaped mostly intact”. The parts that map to autism to this day were attributed to “Well, I’m weird and I’m still trying to escape, to be honest.”)

When coverage about autistic women started becoming more common, that was when I really started to wonder. I also had a sequence of very alexithymic and sensory overloaded experiences that got my attention. I started reading about highly sensitive people, which then led me to more in-depth reading about autism, and starting to watch videos about autism on YouTube. When I found the work of people such as Rudy Simone, Cynthia Kim and Steve Silberman (as well as the film Autism in Love), completed online tests, read the diagnostic criteria for autism (DSM IV and V), as well as lists of autistic traits that focused on women, I realized that this was where I fit.

It still blows me away that I made it to my mid-50s without putting two and two together, but there’s reasons for that. Nobody who would otherwise have been read as “high functioning” was getting diagnosed until the 1990s, women are still undiagnosed or misdiagnosed in high numbers, and there’s hardly any information for autistic POCs at all, save for some possible indicators that autistic POCs are being misdiagnosed as schizophrenic or bipolar. It’s also possible that I was diagnosed and not told about it – I definitely was evaluated as being a possible “feminine boy” in grade school (because trans girl, as I later figured out – this was in the early 1970s), and much of that process could map to a pre-diagnostic process for autism as well. For example, I did the pattern-matching test, and the “map faces to emotions” ones as well.

There’s a lot about my childhood that fits the diagnostic narrative. I started reading one day, when I was three. By kindergarten or first grade, I was reading at sixth grade level, because nothing beyond that was available in the library. My parents’ books mostly bored the crap out of me, save for the encyclopedia and dictionary, which I read all the time. I toe walked, until my mom hissed at me “do you want people to think you’re gay”. I stimmed, but was getting watched like a hawk, so (my guess) it went into finger tapping, toe tapping, leg shaking and pacing instead of those stims and hand flapping. I did love to spin, though. I’d get bored with a group sport, so I’d make up a new game on the spot, and start playing to the new rules, somewhere between second and third base. (Note to self: this upsets male children.) My emotions would flip on a switch. Kids would tease me, I’d cry and yell, then run off to hide in the closet. I had no idea how gender worked, on a social level. I did feel social affinity with other girls, but teachers would shut that down. (At one point, I was lab partners with another girl, and the teacher separated us, to both our objections.) I’d chase off a boy who was interested in a girl I liked, and barely knew. (“Can’t they see how I feel?”) The grade school bully used to hit me in the arm regularly, so one day I’d had enough, so I stood up and clocked him. I’d find biographies of Mao and Einstein tucked away in a corner of the school library stacks, and not understand why kids would try to drag them away from me. (Especially the Mao biography. Nixon was president.) I played alone. I made small walls out of pebbles. I loved spinning things. I’d hide in the drapes, at a wedding. My dad would try to teach me basic electronics (and was probably evaluating my intellectual response along the way – he wasn’t very hands-on with this sort of thing, typically), and it took me 45 minutes to figure out how to connect the switch to turn on the light, because I focused on the cardboard that he used as a makeshift breadboard and the components instead. (Probably as a result, I had an interest in cardboard for a while – “There’s entire stories on the back! The address points somewhere, and there’s people at those addresses. Who are they?” My parents talked me out of that as well.) Nobody was sure if I was very smart, intellectually challenged or both. I was flunking out of math. I tested several grade levels ahead – for math. My abacus was my best friend for a while.

This all was in the early to mid 1970s – there was no public discussion about autism, save for the occasional “how tragic” story. Asperger’s wasn’t part of the diagnostic criteria, and the assumption was that if weren’t completely mute and, at least in society’s eyes, had limited to effectively no executive function, you were just “eccentric” or “weird” or “savant-like” or in my case, “smart, or dumb, or who cares, let’s just say very, very weird.”

So, that’s a bit about my background and what led me to this point in my journey. Where I’m at, three months into my process, in the next post.