okay ad'ers. ask me anything (but be nice! :))

dreama said:
Have you ever tried using an opticon?
How do you manage in your course with Bipolar? (I'm curious as when I suffer mental health and physical problems when I was at uni I ended up dropping out)
In your social work course do you get to meet other deafblind people? Have you met anyone deafblind from birth. I mean who was severely affected?
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1. i learned how to use an opticon in 11th grade. i can still remember how strange it felt to feel the vibrations of each letter underneath my finger. it took me a little time to get used to, but with some practice, i was able to develop good speed and read the opticon at a pretty good clip.

2. going to class can be a real struggle for me sometimes (especially since my lectures are at least 2 hours long). i seem to have the most trouble when i'm manic because i have alot of difficulty concentrating, making decisions and can't sit still long enough to focus on what is being said in lecture. i'm also negatively affected by loud, sudden noises, large crowds and certain voices (depending on their pitch) which all make me manic. since i attend a school with over 30,000 students, it's not uncommon for me to feel overwhelmed. when i'm manic i often have difficulty with starting several projects at once, but never finishing any of them. this means that when i'm studying, i can switch from statistics to social work within the span of minutes without really accomplishing a thing (like i would if i sat down and studied one subject for 2 hours at a time). when i'm having a depressive episode, my mood is calm and i'm able to focus on parts of the lecture a little better because my mind isn't racing so much like it does when i'm manic. because of my schizoaffective disorder (which i also have in addition to bipolar), i have alot of problems with lack of motivation. i really have to force myself to study and attend class. i used to be the kind of student who *loved* going to school, but now it's more like a chore to me. i *love* to learn new things, but the effort it takes to ride the university bus (especially in inclimate weather) and walk around a campus that has a 6 block radius just seems like too much effort sometimes. as difficult as it is, i'm trying to hang in there because i only have 2 more classes to take before earning my bachelor's degree. it has been a long time coming and after everything i've been through to reach this point, it will be wonderful to be able to hold that degree in my hands after 20 years of changing majors and constantly adjusting to progressive hearing loss.

3. so far, i've never met another deafblind student in any of my social work classes, volunteer work or field placements. from what i understand, i'm the only deafblind student at my university campus.

when i attended my first aadb (american association of the deaf-blind) convention in 1996, i met a wonderful woman who was totally deafblind from birth and in a wheelchair. she communicated by using tactile sign (asl), the telebraille, fingerspelling and a communcation board (which had braille labels for each picture). one of the things that immediately struck me about this woman was that she never once complained about being unable to see, hear or walk. she had a lively spirit and a zest for life that was infectious. she loved to tell jokes and put others at ease. i learned a great deal from this woman and thought if she could function as a totally deafblind woman, so could i.
 
IndieVisible said:
I have no questions yet, but would like to just say this..

You are truly a amazing person! whether you know it or not, I'm sure you see the world and people in a unique way the rest of us can never understand.
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:ty: indievisible! :)
 
Buffalo said:
Do you remember anything while you were catatonic? Or you just blank out?
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intially, i was so confused that i didn't know where i was or what was happening around me. part of this was due to my manic state, auditory hallucinations, delusions and paranoia while part of it was because of all the meds they pumped into me. my tdoc told me i was evaluated by a pdoc upon my inpatient admission, but i don't have any recollection of that. the only thing i remember is sitting down on the floor in front of the dining room and later hearing the pdoc ask one of the nurses if i had been sitting there all night. i also remember one of the social workers asking me if they could take tigger outside to relieve her. everything else that happened between my sitting on the floor and the pdoc's conversation with the nurse is a complete blur. during that entire time i was experiencing auditory hallucinations, so the only thing i remember are the voices i heard. one of the nurses told me at the time of my discharge that i sat on the floor in a catatonic state for 17 hours and at one point, one of the nurses fed tigger, but i don't have any memory of that whatsoever. many of the things i remember about my hospital stay are blurred, but according to the pdoc, this isn't uncommon since people who have bipolar or schizophrenia who experience auditory hallucinations alternate between consciousness (i.e. knowing what is going on around them) and oblivion (i.e. confusion; being out of touch with reality) because hallucinations tend to wax and wane during the course of a manic or schizophrenic episode.
 
Buffalo said:
I understand that Braille in US has 6 dots to a cell while other languages have 8 dots to a cell. If you are reading English in 8-dots per cell braille, is it the top 6 or the bottom 6 of the 8-dots cell? I wonder what Chinese braille looks like since they have about 2000 characters. Do you know?
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the first 6 dots in english braille represent numbers, letters of the alphabet and punctuation.

english braille does have an 8 dot system. the 7th dot is used to represent a capital sign (i.e. a dot indicating that a letter is capitalized) while the 7th and 8th dots represent a blinking cursor on a braille display as well as numbers in the Nemeth Braille Code (system of braille characters which represent mathematical and scientific equations)

chinese braille looks similar to english braille in terms of the way letters, numbers and punctuation are formed. it also uses a 6 dot system, but does not have as many contractions as english braille does (english braille grade 2 has over 175 contractions and short form words).
 
typeingtornado19 said:
does carpel tunnel interfere with your signing?
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yes, my cts does have a negative effect on my signing. due to the weakness, numbness, tingling and burning i experience, it's difficult for me to manipulate my left hand the way i want since moving my fingers (except my pinky) causes pain. i also have trouble physically moving and twisting my wrist to make certain signs because this causes pain and i don't have the strength to move my wrist in a circular motion. i often wake up with stiffness in my fingers which impairs my ability to fingerspell. i have difficulty forming certain letters such as "m," "n," "s" and "t" because of the way the first four fingers are situated. i have alot of trouble making a fist which also may explain why i have difficulty fingerspelling certain letters of the alphabet. i'm slowly learning how to fingerspell with my right hand, but it feels strange to me and i have problems forming certain letters of the alphabet because they just don't feel right. my right hand isn't my dominant sign hand, so when i fingerspell or make certain signs, i'm not able to make them as easily as i could with my left had before i had problems with cts.
 
Do you think that Jiro needs to catch up with your post counts, si?
 
Hear Again said:
we shall.

i have a feeling he's going to have to lose quite a bit of sleep to catch up to me. :giggle:

<post count +1>
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i already slept for 6 hours. i'm fully refreshed. it's WAR time :mad2:
 
Jiro said:
i already slept for 6 hours. i'm fully refreshed. it's WAR time :mad2:
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let the war begin! i'm manic, so be warned. when i'm manic, my mind runs 100 miles an hour and my fingers fly on the keyboard like no one's business. :giggle:
 
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