Note the content: Sexual violence and suicide are discussed in this article.
How is it to be autistic and bipolar? How can we better support neurodivergent people who require significant support, such as drugs or hospital psychiatric care, especially when they are also at the university? We talked with Dr. Elliot Gavin Keenan, PhD student at AJ Drexel Autism Institute about his fresh book, Lumowinous mindwho discusses all these topics from Keenan’s personal perspective.
Autism guide (TPGA): Brilliant Mind is a thrilling collection of essays about being autistic, trans, bipolar and academic. Thank you for sharing it with us.
You often mention that you have always been a writer, that this is one of the ways in which you experience the world, that “you did not have power over your life, but you had power over the side.” How did you choose which elements of your life should be shared with us, since you probably have so many materials to choose from?
Elliot Gavin Keenan: Well, it’s actually my second memory. My first, entitled To be crazy (in reasonable places) He smoothly moved all the time and place, but I remained anchored in my experience as a bachelor student (especially my two years as an upperclassman) – like a painter, I wanted to capture the experience of a specific moment, but as a writer I had to provide context as a writer to understand this. I would like to think that I achieved it.
Lumowinous Mind is anchored in my experience at school for graduates, but by nature it includes a wider number of hope, dreams, failures, successes and everything else under the sun. What I wrote about were things that I really meant. Entertaining fact: I would say that about half of the book was appointed during hospital treatment at the UCLA-ReNick neuropsychiatric hospital. I wrote to exorciske my demons. The staff encouraged me. And because I was hospitalized somewhere between 15 and 20 times, I had a lot of time on my hands.
If you read both books, you may notice that there is some continuity between them. The character of Dr. Pinball, firstly. Not to mention Violet, although her name has changed.
TPGA: Neurodiverity is the most common related to autism, so I’m glad you argue that “most mental illness can be understood in the context of the diversity of neurodorization.” Can you talk about it about how we need to think about neurodiwezism is more wide-ranging?
Keenan: I understand that the original change of the phrase “Neurodivertysty” was covering at least from all developmental disabilities. Then, years later, he became associated mainly with autism (and sometimes also ADHD). However, I believe that it is very vital to be intended in relation to how we operate the neurodiciola variety, both as a phrase and as a basic concept. Personally, I want to raise all people with neurode development disabilities, and this will include bipolar, schizophrenia, Tourette, OCD and certainly many others. All these disorders start early, even if they do not reach their archetypal zenith until later – usually in teenagers or twenties.
But let’s talk a bit about schizophrenia, because I think this is one of the most stigmatized labels in psychiatry. Many before the appearance of positive symptoms (these would be such things as hallucinations and illusions) there are detectable differences in how newborn people who will react to schizophrenia to their world. Irony? Nowadays, many of them are badly diagnosed as children with autism!
Personally, I think we have to connect with each other if we want to see the change. Fight for autistic people. Fight for people with mental illness. We are on the same side and we have always been. I don’t really believe in a tough line that autism is not a mental illness.
TPGA: As a child you had an IEP (individualized education plan), and yet I say that “I could go to an even more challenging class if they have it. But I need accommodation. I just can’t write as brisk as everyone else.” Do you see any progress in research and scope in schools to support students’ possibilities and disability?
Keenan: I think there could be some progress. When I was newborn, “Exception” twice was nothing yet. I could qualify for this label. I was also discriminated against by some of my teachers who refused to operate my name or pronouns, and a couple who simply refused to teach because they did not want to undergo my accommodation in the AP class.
TPGA: At the university, you were in a gender neutral dormitory, in which “mental health problems seemed more a rule than an exception”, because “one of the few things that research knows about transgender people, is that we are facing psychiatric challenges at a pace, which significantly exceed the general population.” Due to the study of clinical psychology and psychopharmacology, you have become a “resident psychiatrist” Dorma. It was wonderful that you can lend a hand your peers combine specialist knowledge and experience. Do you think that this informal role added to your professional capabilities?
Keenan: Of course. My role in the dormitory helped me build confidence, and I could see how people with different diagnoses – a lot of everything you can imagine – they acted (or not) in a stringent university environment. I was able to lend a hand some people achieve their goals. For others, I looked at how their dreams escaped. The joint operate of the substance was the main factor that I observed in most people who abandoned. All these observations definitely prepared me for the next stage of my own education.
TPGA: You have been hospitalized many times for mental health reasons. Is your openness to this experience an effort to distigmatize the process for people like you who need significant support for mental health? Or an example of our medical and psychiatric support system in need of a better number of people with many neurodivegens? Or maybe both?
Keenan: As I said, I was hospitalized about 20 times. Several in Fresh York, most in California. I am definitely here for the distigmatization of hospital treatment and I wrote several articles about this on my blog, with more plans.
I think that more people would feel authorized to operate hospital psychiatric treatment if they knew what to expect – and this is double for autistic people. I think it’s a bit both. My last hospitalization confiscated my pikachu (comfortable object) without a real reason, because you can move him and you would feel that if there was something hidden in it. We must spread the awareness of such things.
On the other hand, UCLA allows wireless headphones and basic MP3 players. I saw that it was very helpful for patients from autistic.
TPGA: One of the most shocking episodes of your book is your close death from a lithium overdose, two days after your partner Violet had “hallucinations of my voice, saying that I raped her.” First of all, I am sorry that you happened to you and I am glad that you are still here. You write it later: “I take a few months to feel a specific way about what happened. I am surprised that I finally say that I am also glad that I am alive. It turns out that death is not accepted with such conviction, without taking care of something.” Can you explain more about this last sentence, about caring for being experiencing you?
Keenan: I think that my relationship with Violet was an vital motivator in my lithium overdose. But Violet and I had a kind of interpretation interaction, which was challenging to control. I cared and I still care, deeply with purple. However, within 24 hours before the overdose I moved in the way I regret. The same in itself became a motivator. Only later did I see that it was the wrong way to our problems.
Psychiatric drugs can be a key aspect of maintaining mental health, as you refer. You say that “there is a nuance – the confusion of inventive forces in the middle of when Dimmer on medicine. You should negotiate a careful balance.” How tough can it be to find this balance in your personal and professional experiences?
I saw some people take years. Some give up medicine and return to their creativity; Others give up creativity and continue taking medicine. I think most people have to find their own compromise. It helps to have a good psychiatrist who really listens. Don’t give up.
TPGA: Is there anything else in your book you want to discuss?
Keenan: If you read it, leave Review to Amazon!!
Elliot Gavin Keenan is an post -axle in the AJ Drexel Autism Institute, where she examines autism and mental illness from the perspective of experience, moving his insight into a stringent scientific methodology. He got a doctorate in human development and psychology from UCLE. Elliot is professionally diagnosed with autism, bipolar 1, ADHD, disposal, catatonia and perhaps a handful of other things. He lives with his beloved cat emotional support in an apartment in Manhattan at Upper East Side. He also writes books when he has time.