April 8: You Aughta Know This Week

This week: sleepless with attention-deficit and compassionate science communicator turns out to have autism.

This Week in ADHD

I got four hours of sleep two nights ago, and not because one of my children was sick. They slept through the night. No, I couldn’t sleep because of ADHD.

It was a clearcut case of hyperfocus. I decided to re-read my favorite book of all time, 11/22/1963, and got so into it, I failed to notice I wasn’t getting tired. Turns out I was totally overheated. I needed to take off my sweater. But I didn’t until I realized it hours after I needed to be fast asleep.

The book was still occupying my mind over the weekend, namely a particular plot point involving the main character placing bets on the outcome of sports events of which he already knows the outcome. In the book, he makes huge bets on the games and gets in some trouble as a result of it being obvious that he knew in advance. Over the weekend, I kept trying to figure out what I would have done were I in the place of the main character. It’s actually better than counting sheep in terms of putting one to sleep, which is what makes it silly that I didn’t realize it until after I was up half the night reading the book.

This Week in Autism

Hall of Fame in worst headlines: At 12, He Had a Viral Science Video. At 14, He Fears He Was Too Rude. Re: Anti-vaxxers:

“Think about it from their perspective,” he said. “There’s people who are like, ‘I would rather have my child die of X deadly disease and be contagious and put everyone else in danger than have my child get this condition that you were born with.’”

I found the story linked to above interesting for many reasons.

First, this clearly empathetic kid was so enraged by anti-vaxxers and their nonsense views on autism that he made a video ranting about what they got wrong.

Second, upon reflection, he felt he was too rude, at an incredibly young age showing remarkable maturity.

Third, he ends up being diagnosed with autism himself, disproving the other side of the trash science of autism, namely that autistic children are uncaring, aloof, and unconcerned with the feelings of others. Oh, and that they have no social skills.