Intelligent Kindness

I just posted this message on John Tesh’s Intelligent Kindness Network:

In my personal online narrative, I explore my life journey from when, as a child in the 1960s, I was diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia, placed on psychotropic medications, and, at 11-years old, given electroconvulsive therapy (shock treatments), to when, in 2007, I was diagnosed as an Asperger’s autistic. Rather than recount these events in this posting, I invite you to read the narrative or, if not, the considerably shorter, published version (PDF). In any event, I am not alone. Most Asperger’s autistics of around my age (53), those who were unfortunate enough to go through the psychiatric establishment of those years, underwent similar experiences.

While I had, off and on, consulted various psychologists and other counselors regarding my ongoing problems in establishing personal relationships, I had not seen a psychiatrist, per se, since I was a freshman in high school. That changed when, after my otherwise pleasant home experienced a cockroach infestation, I developed chronic insomnia, and my primary physician suggested I see a psychiatrist. This psychiatrist is the one who diagnosed me as an Asperger’s autistic. As I have told him many times, I am extraordinarily grateful to him. My life has, since then, taken a very different turn.