Co-morbidity and Culture Change Nov. 23, 2007 Reflection

Morbid. What a morbid word is morbid! Sounds morbid, looks morbid, yet the connotations are myriad for morbid.

Many of my short stories are morbid, or rather, have a morbid sense of humor. Now that, I believe, must be a True Oxymoron. Because I am literal and visual of mind, my word twistings have been labeled morbid.

So let's review morbid in Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus:
Morbid, adjective...aberrant, abnormal, brooding, dark, deadly, depressed, despondent, frightful, ghastly, grim, macabre, moody, unhealthy, unsound, unusual...

So if ONE morbid is so horrific, and the prefix CO- means either 'TWO' or 'alongside/with,' having CO-MORBID conditions must be really, really, really bad.

And now, for a brief message from the Digression Network...

In China's dynastic ages, as well as in Japan and other Asian Cultures, the royal physician's job--and his life--depended him keeping the royal family HEALTHY. With some emperors, when a royal scion or relative became ill, the physician had failed and his life was forfeit. In other words, the physician was not there to cure a condition AFTER it manifested, but his purpose was to PREVENT the appearance of disease.

And now for yet another episode of All My Digressions...

In early Christianity and throughout much of the Middle Ages mental and emotional aberrations were considered a Special Blessing from the Creator, and the entire village was charged with caring for the 'village idiots.' Not that this caring always had positive expression, but the teaching was for compassion and acceptance, not rejection.

And back to our Feature Presentation...

Co-Morbidity and the Autism Condition! Given the negative criteria and description of mental health conditions it amazes me that Asperger and Autism persons even reveal themselves in society! Have mercy on those neurodiverse beings who struggle, cope or manage several differences...they are TWICE as morbid...gloomy, frightful, abnormal, diseased and sullen! Gosh, maybe something needs to be addressed here.

Like Western medicine's pre-occupation with detailed lists of gruesome etiologies that depress the patient before any education of one's condition or conditions can illuminate the path to healing and recovery? Isn't focusing on extraordinary details an Aspergian diagnostic criteria?

Our fearless instructor (actually I don't know if he is fearless, but he stands in front of the class and that indicates something to me), along with more famous persons like Tony Attwood, Carol Gray, Stanley Greenspan, and some folks I know at the state university, are working hard to change themselves and their beliefs in order to look at Autism with NEW UNDERSTANDING.

But it is hard because the entire system is based on NORMAL, yet the historicity of culture is not taken into consideration, because what is normal in 2007, what is normal since the last Industrial Revolution in the 1890'2, is vastly different from many centuries of human development. The rise of the middle class mercantilism and the industrialization of Western Culture shifted the paradigm and technology—particularly technology as it affects local and global communications—has altered the way humans once thought of themselves. The Enlightenment (which didn't) and the “evolution” of Science as Solution firmly placed the person as a spiritual being—not on the back burner—but on a back shelf in a lower cabinet.

I think the metaphor fits.

The point is, that often the healing has to happen with the healer more than the patient. It's a fine line between helping someone adjust to life patterns. It is yet another to dwell on the dark side of distinctions, be those mental, emotional, or physical disparities.

In the Judeo-Christian ethic, there are virtues and vices. Humans engage in vices, and reverse the wounds of those choices by living within the virtues. Perhaps, if psychologists and physicians choose to look for pairs of Light...Co-Avidity?...to balance the co-morbidity diagnoses then neurodiversity will indeed experience a paradigm shift toward true healing, because the entire community will have healed.

Avid...ardent, devoted, eager, keen, passionate....

One hundred years ago blind and deaf persons had no rights, were institutionalized and misunderstood. Now there are copious writings and studies about the culture of blind and deaf persons.

Aspies and Auties are only behind the times. As we learn to communicate we will find one another, and while we may not exactly interact, we will “play” side-by-side and maybe the greater culture will change for the better because of this.