Are my social skills missing - or heldback?

[munty13]

In analysing my own behaviour as a child and young adult, I can see that a lack of social skills has led to rejection from my peers. This fear of rejection, and the pain of rejection, has then fed my anxious state. Repeated failure over many years meant that the anxiety turned into a bit of a monster.

 

Previously, I assumed that the lack of social skills came first, followed by rejection, followed by the fear of rejection. In this way, the anxiety is seen as being only the direct result of having poor social skills. Anxiety is a symptom which is glued on at the end of the assembly line, as it were. In trying to build an equation, I find that I am at a bit of a loss as to why I lack social skills in the first place.

 

Assuming all the parts of my brain are indeed here (even though throughout my life I've felt like large parts of it were missing) it would suggest that, for whatever reason, the brain does not utilise the parts of my brain responsible for the social niceties of life. Something is inhibiting the social part of my brain. There is some evidence that hormones have a direct impact on social skills. Do I have no social skills, because something is drowning out the social hormones?

 

In observing my social skills, I notice that they are limited by a lack of social imagination, making them rigid, repetitive, ritualistic, and compulsive. These are not the typical displays of a social animal, such as a chimpanzee, but more the displays of something far more cumbersome, such as a dinosaur. It appears that my social behaviours are more dominated by the reptilian brain, the oldest part of the brain. In other words, the reptilian brain is in someway dominating the part of my brain responsible for social imagination - the neo-cortex.

 

In looking for a mechanism powerful enough to over-ride the social part of my brain, one obvious culprit, a mechanism capable of over-riding every aspect of my being, is the fight-or flee response. Is it possible that something, somewhere, is producing the flight or flee response without me being consciously aware of it?

 

It is not so acute these days, but not so long ago, when meditating I noticed that a lot of my thoughts, angry thoughts, were derived from a pain centre in my solar plexus. From the meditations, I developed an awareness of the pain having been present, in various degrees, throughout my entire life. In my childhood however, it was notsomuch a pain, but a throbbing anxiety, like butterflies, or somesuch. Looking back, I realise just how difficult this made it for my mind to relax - what emanated from my solar plexus was instrumental in with-holding my mind's ability to relax. Nowadays, I find that to socialise (and the only persons I can comfortably do that with is my wife and kids), one needs to be INCREDIBLY relaxed. Up until very recently, I assumed that the emanations were only a product of my social anxiety, but now I wonder, is it possible that they were present beforehand? This would mean that my solar plexus was in someway responsible for inhibiting the social part of my brain.

 

According to Yogi teachings, the solar plexus is a being an important part of the nervous system, and a form, in one way or the other, of brain. Below, is an extract taken from Yogi Ramacharaka's book, "Science of Breath":

 

"The Yogi teachings go further than does Western science, in one important feature of the Nervous System. We allude to what Western science terms the "Solar Plexus," and which it considers as merely one of a series of certain matted nets of sympathetic nerves with their ganglia found in various parts of the body. Yogi science teaches that this Solar Plexus is really a most important part of the Nervous System, and that it is a form of brain, playing one of the principal parts in the human economy. Western science seems to be moving gradually towards a recognition of this fact which has been known to the Yogis of the East for centuries, and some recent Western writers have termed the Solar Plexus the "Abdominal Brain." The Solar Plexus is situated in the Epigastric region, just back of the "pit of the stomach" on either side of the spinal column. It is composed of white and gray brain matter, similar to that composing the other brains of man. It has control of the main internal organs of man, and plays a much more important part than is generally recognized."

 

The "abdominal brain" has been described by some, such as the respected physician Byron Robinson, M.D (born 1854; died March 23, 1910) as being the "centre of life itself"...

 

"In mammals there exist two brains of almost equal importance to the individual and race. One is the cranial brain, the instrument of volitions, of mental progress and physical protection. The other is the abdominal brain, the instrument of vascular and visceral function. It is the automatic, vegetative, the subconscious brain of physical existence. In the cranial brain resides the consciousness of right and wrong. Here is the seat of all progress, mental and moral ... However, in the abdomen there exists a brain of wonderful power maintaining eternal, restless vigilance over its viscera. It presides over organic life. It dominates the rhythmical function of viscera....The abdominal brain is a receiver, a reorganizer, an emitter of nerve forces. It has the power of a brain. It is a reflex center in health and disease....

 

The abdominal brain is not a mere agent of the [cerebral] brain and cord; it recieves and generates nerve forces itself; it presides over nutrition. It is the center of life itself. In it are repeated all the physiologic and pathologic manifestations of visceral function (rhythm, absorption, secretion, and nutrition). The abdominal brain can live without the cranial brain, which is demonstrated by living children being born without cerebrospinal axis. On the contrary the cranial brain can not live without the abdominal brain...." (Robinson, 1907, pp. 123 -126)

 

There's no doubt that the abdominal brain is awfully close to the adrenals, and the agents responsible for the fight-or-flee response. If, for whatever reason, the abdominal brain was creating stress, and anxiety, then there's a good chance it will affect digestion. The body digests food far better when it is relaxed. A large percentage of those on the autistic spectrum are thought to be affected by gastointestinal symptoms including diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, reflux, gaseousness and foul smelling stools.

 

In summary, is it possible that some sort of malfunction in the abdominal brain is the root cause of my AS? In that, it in some way, it has released hormones which have sabotaged the development of my neo-cortex, thereby leaving me stranded without social skills?

[munty13]

.Adrenal Fatigue Symptoms and Autism

 

Is there a relationship between adrenal fatigue symptoms and autism?

[genie]

This makes alot of sense to me. Remember the 'madness of King George'? A good deal of what you say I can relate to and I was only discussing this with my husband yesterday. I suffer from gastro conditions which I feel are linked to social phobia. I too must be relaxed and stress free in order to socialise. Even then, I can be left feeling drained and exhausted afterwards. Ineresting post. thanks.