Blog Posts

Suffering

9/26/2025

Val's Take: Suffering is built into life. Helen Keller said that life was full of suffering but also full of the overcoming of it.

There are plenty of complicated problems previous generations didn't resolve, even as they did resolve some extremely difficult problems.

When we're talking about extreme physical and/or affective pain --- that pretty quickly becomes the issue. We wouldn't say --- why don't you go through major surgery without anesthesia and grow through your pain.

Additionally, something like Glutamate Excitotoxicity is associated with both chronic physical pain and affective, emotional pain.

Modulation of Glutamate for Chronic Pain Management (2022)

Doobie Brothers
Toulouse Street

When we're struggling, it can feel like Toulouse Street:

I'm walkin' in shadows, I cannot see
Faces, they smile when I fall or flee
Doors without windows all shuttered tight again

I just might pass this way again

Locked in a room down in New Orleans

Arthur Brooks
Don't Waste Suffering

HealthyGAmerGG on Relationships

9/24/2025

HealthyGamerGG
ADHD and Relationships

Val Take: This is Dr. K with YouTube's wildly popular HealthyGamerGG.

There is a lot here. One of the things that he suggests for addressing relationship issues is an OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST. I've made that suggestion myself with regard to employment issues and issues in general.

I think there is a HUGE MARKET for OCCUPATIONAL THERAPISTS and COACHES to address Executive Functioning Issues in NEURO-DIVERSITY. My observation is occupational therapists are in short supply, and coaches may be more accessible.

Talk therapy can have an important role in addressing Neuro-Diversity --- but we really need to get to pragmatic work-arounds and accommodations that occupational therapists and coaches will generally be better equipped to address.

"TOTALITY OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES"

"Totality of the Circumstances" is a legal concept.
Most Neuro-Diverse people need to address Neuro-Diversity in both their work and personal lives.
A recent study came out finding that couples have similar psychological disorders.
I think the same can be true for work as well.
BUT PEOPLE ARE NOT CLONES.
Part of this is recognizing that you need work-arounds and accommodations.
The other part is recognizing that others need work-arounds and accommodations.
I don't think Neuro-Diversity is that uncommon, especially when you look at what may cause it --- something like MATERNAL IMMUNE ACTIVATION.

Spouses tend to share psychiatric disorders,
massive study finds (Aug. 2025)

Analysis of almost 15 million people shows the trend increases with each decade, across cultures and generations.

Translational Love, Relationships & Neuro-Diversity Saturdday

Demand Avoidance and questioning psychological frameworks

9/12/2025

Val's Take: So I'm pairing Orion Kelly talking about Demand Avoidance with mental health advocate Steven Morgan --- on the questions we still have about Mental Health --- and how the person is not necessarily thinking the way we may assume.

I absolutely think Demand Avoidance is a thing having worked with a lot of attorneys and activists and dated Neuro-Diverse Men and having been married to one for over 20 years --- OMG I believe in Demand Avoidance.

Having said that, I can think of my own behavior that people may have thought was some kind of Demand Avoidance --- but actually involved:

Brain Energy issues,
Complex (Slower) Processing,
Emotional Regulation issues due to anxiety that were ramping up,
Etc.

Orion Kelly
Demand Avoidance

Steven Morgan
Soteria Vermont
People aren't always thinking what you think

Sensory processing differences across psychiatric Phenotypes ---- and Employment

8/24/2025

Val's Take/Conjecture

The "SPECIAL ABILITIES" of neuro-diverse people often involve differences in SENSORY PROCESSING.

In the Tech Sector, there's been recruitment of some neuro-diverse people who had extraordinary technical skills.

Just as not every neuro-diverse person is going to be able to win a fortune at the casinos

See Rain Man & Ricky Gervais
Not every neuro-diverse person is a technical genius, a musical virtuoso, or a gifted visual artist --- but some are.

TRY SMARTER, NOT HARDER

One of the defining characteristics of maternal immune activation is ANXIETY in "offspring."

That plays itself out in many different ways depending on sex, other biological factors, the environment, etc.

Additionally, for animals ----UNPREDICTABLE CHRONIC STRESS can be profoundly damaging.

For many neuro-diverse people, jobs are BURNING THEM OUT repeatedly.

They'll need to find a position better structured for them personally or create something themselves.

We ignore those SENSORY PROCESSING DIFFERENCES at our peril --- BUT

Most of us didn't know we had sensory processing differences, and
Neither did anyone else.

What we did know is that we had some STRENGTHS and we were much fuzzier on what our true weaknesses were ----

Although many of us did try to address those weaknesses --
generally by WORKING HARDER, NOT SMARTER
In a sea of half-understandings, this can be catastrophic.

Strength-based approach

Sensory Processing Difficulties in Psychiatric Disorders (2022)

*Researchers from The Netherlands

Highlights

Many individuals with psychiatric disorders report difficulties in sensory processing.

This meta-analysis examined sensory processing patterns in psychiatric conditions.

We detected a general pattern of sensory processing difficulties in psychopathology.

Sensory processing difficulties are considered to be a transdiagnostic phenotype.

Further research may improve long-term prognosis and treatment in psychiatry.

Employment is a critical mental health intervention (2020)

Strategies to Manage Mental Illness at Work (2020)

WHAT ARE MENTAL HEALTH CHALLENGES & WHY?

Executive Functioning
Including EMOTIONAL DYSREGULATION
As a result of MITOCHONDRIAL DYSFUNCTION, among other things.

19th Century Painters, Imaging Dragons and "I'm gonna say all the words inside my head"

Taylor Swift --- "Soon You'll get better"

8/22/2025

Val's Take: To me, this is a profoundly relatable song to many people in my life..

I want to talk about this in terms of Neuro-Developmental and Psychiatric Disorders and the FEAR and Challenges of Family Members.

I've been on both the giving end and receiving end of ---"you'll get better soon --- because you have to."

When that doesn't happen, or it doesn't happen in the way people want --- there's a lot of DENIAL-- that can be on the part of family members, the person, and professionals.

More and more, we're getting much more accurate appreciations of problems in brain energy, executive functioning, etc., better understandings and better treatments.

Taylor Swift
Soon You'll Get Better

For many people with Neuro-Developmental or Psychiatric Disorders, once a crisis is resolved, and maybe the person is "better" ---- there is often not an appreciation that there are on-going issues that are not well-addressed under older paradigms.

Neuro-Diversity and "Vice"

8/20/2025

Neuro-immunology as it relates to pain and emotional disorders

"Pain," Sensory Overload, Legal & Illegal Substances and Health Nuts who are not always living longer

Adhd, Autism, Sensory Neurons, Pain and an Intense World

Pain in ADHD & Autism

Miranda Lambert
Vice

Rob Thomas -- Humor & Honesty

8/19/2025

Val's Take: Rob Thomas threads a needle when addressing mental health issues with both humor and honesty. There's an optimism to Thomas' songs even if he's not smiling.

Rob Thomas
Hard to be Happy (2025)

with Matchbox Twenty
Unwell (2002)

Creativity, Energy dyregulations & Mental Health Struggles

8/2/2025

Val's Take/Conjecture: Frank James weighs in on having a high powered mind in a Toyota Corolla Body. That is how it can feel.

But Olympic Athletes and other Athletic Folks with mental health challenges illustrate that mental health issues are quite individual, and not limited to people who aren't exercising.

A good diet, exercise and socializing are good things --- and for many people, those things may be enough or close to enough to address their mental health struggles.

My concern is that for some people it's not enough --- and when it is not enough we are looking for a reason to blame the person.

Both James and Club Well, show that a BRAIN ENERGY understanding of Mental Health is going MAINSTREAM.

Those "BRAIN ENERGY DYSREGULATIONS" often involve dysregulations of the Brain's Immune Cells (MICROGLIA) and MITOCHONDRIAL DYSFUNCTION.

Dysregulation of MICROGLIA often occurred IN UTERO as a result of Maternal Immune Activation.

Orchid invokes legal notions of BURDEN OF PROOF. There are also MEDICAL and SOCIETAL IDEAS regarding who should bear the burden of neurodevelopmental, psychiatric and substance use struggles when we don't always have adequate treatments.

Frank James
Creativity and Mental Health Struggles

Club Well
Bipolar Energy --
The Engine Analogy

Are you Synapse Rich & Energy Poor?

Synapses & Energy

Sensory Processing, Synapses, Energy, the Immune System & Emotional Dysregulation

19th Century Painters & Imagine Dragons: "I'm Gonna Say All The Words Inside My Head"

Rain Man & Ricky Gervais

7/15/2025

Val's Take: Most neuro-diverse folks are not SAVANTS --- but many have "SPECIAL ABILITIES" that need to be developed and employed.

What's the CATCH 22: Those "SPECIAL ABILITIES" have complex relationships to "BRAIN ENERGY."

In the words of Ricky Gervais, we've gotta make it work for us.

Rain Man trailer (1988)

Ricky Gervais
Autism and Rain Man

Autism Youtuber Paul Micallef on accepting chronic illness and Research papers on mitochondrial dysfunction

7/11/2025

Autism from the Inside
Paul Micallef

The Productivity Paradox: Lessons from Being Sick in Bed for a Week!

Val's Take/Conjecture: "Poor little guy --- he's so tired and he doesn't know what he should do. BOO HOO." That can be our society's response.

When we see CATASTROPHIC issues in Mental Health --- we don't often associate those issues with FATIGUE because the person may be so EMOTIONALLY DYSREGULATED that fatigue is not the first thing that comes to mind.

Paul Micallef, along with other Neuro-Diverse YouTubers, has discussed the challenges of BURNOUTS, MELTDOWNS and FATIGUE.

For those who have "progressed" further down that NEURO-DEVELOPMENTAL--PSYCHIATRIC CONTINUUM --- ENERGY ISSUES are extremely complex.