Encouraging Health

Learning disabilities come in all shapes, sizes and degrees. In fact the diagnosis ADHD, which we hear bandied about in teachers’ lounges and conference rooms in our public schools is a new term, only coined with the last forty years. Doctors had observed and recorded the symptoms as early as 1902, but drugs for treating it were not in widespread use until the 1960s.

We do not know why some childre have a much harder time in the classroom than others do, or why we should see so much of this syndrome at the beginning of the Twenty-first Century. Does it have anything to do with the mercury that is used as a preservative in the childhood inoculations? The best we can officially say at this time is that we do not know. However, we do know that mercury is a well documented poisonous substance.

i have jsut got off the phone with a young woman who was telling me of the problems she had going to school in the early 1960s. the rules and regulations in the first grade, which all the children have difficulty conforming to on one level or another, were for her sheer torture. She could not sit still. If she looked out the window, she would forget that she was in a classroom. Many of us had problems with day-dreaming when we were children, but most of us knew where we were at the time. This woman did not. She failed at learning the rudiments of reading that year. When I asked if her mother tried to teach her at home, she said that she does not remember, and that large portions of her memory from that time are blank, as her mind was not processing information to be able to remember it.

She did say that if she had permitted the doctors to medicate her to the extent they would have liked, she would be dead from the side-effects of the antidepressants that had been prescribed for her. She became severely allergic to antidepressants almost as soon as she first started to take them.

When this woman was in her twenties, she was prescribed amphetamines to help her stay awake to her surroundings. These same drugs are often used to help people lose weight. This woman discovered that for her they had exactly the opposite effect. They did not help her with her mental problems, and when she stopped taking them, she gained a tremendous amount of weight, which she has not been able to lose since.

She described to me how difficult it can be to maintain the concentration necessary to do what, for most of us, are simple tasks, such as preparing a meal or reading a book. There have been many times when she has had to put special concentration into putting one foot in front of the other in order to walk where she wanted to go. Crossing a busy street has often been a dangerous project. She described how, if you are mildly dizzy, you can walk and run, but you don[’t feel secure doing those things. She feels dizzy that way all the time.

In 1964, when this lady was a little girl, she was diagnosed as being mentally retarded. She most definitely is not, in the usual sense of that word, as she is able to express herself intellingently and well. Later she was diagnosed with what is known as a Central Auditory Procesing Disorder, as she did not understand voice tones and conversations were impossible to maintain, as she was so easily distracted. When I asked her how this affected her emotionally, she said that when something is with you all your life, you don’t realize that things could be different.

Music therapy helped increase her ability to concentrate. What chiropractors call their Neurological Organization Technique helped, but it is not available where she is living at this time. She would like to tgry a program known as Durr Achievement that started in England and has successfully helped many people with problems similar to hers, but is not certain whether she will be able to get the funding for it. She would like to try, because even though she is forty-four years old, and has two college degreees, she has not been able to hold a job. Her explanation is that getting started in the morning and going to sleep at night are too hard. If most of us said that, it would sound as though we were making fun of ourselves, but for this lady, and many others like her, these things are very difficult.

She has never been married, and she has no children of her own. However, she does have a niece and nephew who live a few hundred miles away, whom she loves dearly and she is hoping that the family will move closer so that she can be with those children more often.

In generations past, people like this woman may have been known as eccentrics, and left to potter through life as best they could. Now, research is being done, Ways and methods to teach people with such disabilities how to function in this increasingly complex society of ours are being worked out. We still have much to learn about what keeps our nervous systoms working optimally, but we are making progress.

One of my neighbors is going through a very messy divorce. Sometimes, when I walk past their house I can hear the husband and wife argui9ng. The wife even came over to our house in tears one night, betgging us to shelter her, as her husband was on the rampage.

Thirty years ago, I experienced a similar situation. The police were not a sinclined then to help a woman in that sort of trouble as they are now. Some people wouls say they have gone too far in the opposite direction. Now, in many courts, all a woman has to say is that she is afraid her husband might beat her up. She does not even have to prove that he ever did. The judge will immediately give her a protective order. Conversely, it is next to impossible for a man to prove that he never will hurt his wife. it used to be that even if a man threatened to kill his wife, the judge would be likely to aver that he said this in the heat of argument, and did not really mean it.

Neither of these situations is right. But as parents with children, our first concern is to ensure that our sons and daughters never have to endure such devastating ends to their marriages. What do we need to teach them and what do we need to show them, so that they can recognize when a situation or relationship could be dangerous? And what do we need to teach them so they can get out of a bad situation, and not lose what they hold most dear?

Doctors and psychologists will say that the best candidates for a good marriage come from homes where the fathers and mothers made a practice of being kind to each other and treated each other with respect. The best teacher for a growing child is still the good examples his parents set for him.

And what do we do when we find that those relationships into which we have invested ourselves emotionally are dangerous? The best advice would be to control your emotions as much as possible until you are out of that relationship and away from the danger, and to get out as quickly as possible. This is far more easily said than done, especially when the victim is a woman who is economically dependent on her husband. And everything is more complicated when there are children involved. This is too often a time when one must battle their way through a maze of bureaucratic insults in order to try to make right what should never have gone wrong.

Family and friends too often back away at such times, forcing the husband or wife to work things through on their own, just at the time when both members of the couple needs friends the most.

If as the old African saying goes, we need a village to raise a child, as adults we still need that village to stay healthy. When caught in such untenable situations, we cannot let ourselves be afraid to reach out for help, nor should we be afraid to offer help and encourabgement when we see someone else caught that way.

It’s getting cold up here in the north. Leaves are turning their rich golds and yellows, and when the sun shines on them they glow as though the it were shining right through them. Birds are flocking, preparing to make their flight south. I can hear them raucously calling to each other every morning on my way to work. There’s a bite to the air, and inside it is almost chilly enough to turn on the heat.

We really don’t expect this to be a time of year for allergies to flare up. But, unfortunately for many of us, this can be a miserable time. Certain trees and plants have their special pollens that waft out as the leaves die. Even though we don’t see it, the air is often thick with them. Inside our homes we keep the windows closed more, permitting dust, mold and pet dander to collect and concentrate in our rooms.

Often, the best way to ease an allergy is to stay away from whatever it is that we have become sensitized to. But having to get rid of a beloved pet be like losing a member of the family. And having to stay inside all the time to avoid contact with allerges can be like a prison sentence. Occasionally, an allergist will prescribe a series of injections to desensitize the person to the allergens, and this treatment can be very successful.

Otherwise, there are medications for this problem. Each of them has its own set of side-effects, and each of us has our own tolerance level for them. Drowsiness, sometimes to the extent that it is difficult or even dangerous to operate heavy machinery is chief among them. The best thing to do is to work it out with your doctor as to which medication, or combination of medications would be best for you.

After that, it may be necessary to cordon off a room or two for your pet, if it is your pet that is causing the problem. In those rooms, the furniture should be upholstered in materials that can easily be kept clean, and the rugs should be removed from the floors, as it is very difficult to keep allergens from collecting in thick-napped rugs that are difficult to clean.

It has been proven that frewquent vacuum cleaning may well raise more dust than it settles, so investing in a vacuum cleaner that has milipore air-filters may be helpful. And, many people find that keeping a room air-purifier in their bedroom is very helpful towards getting a good night’s sleep, so they can wake up feeling refreshed.