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more autism musings
Nov. 28th, 2004 10:48 amIn my anatomy class we went over the nervous system, which I found to be really interesting because my nervous system is different than your nervous system (so there *thibits*). One of the things that we talked about was something called the sympathetic nervous system. It's the thingy that causes the flight or fight responses. Things like your heart speeding up, pupils dialating, mouth going dry things like that. Basically something happens to set it off, you see something that your mind deterimes as "danger" and it gets set off.
The thing is, I don't do that. I see something that should set off the "danger" signal and then the sympathetic nervous system and I kinda stare at it curiously. It's the classic autistic kid staring at the on-coming train sign. And we aren't scared stiff, we're more like, "Oh, gee there's a train coming straight at me. How intersting. It seems to be honking a lot. That really hurts my ears, I wish it would stop. I wonder if it'll stop. (etc)" There's none of the "OHMIGAWD A TRAIN IS COMING I HAVE TO GET OUTOFTHEWAYORELSEI'MGOINGTODIE!!!!!!11!!!!1!!"
What I would like to know is why doesn't our sympathetic nervous system get set off at the sign of "danger"? What is it that stops us? Is there a missing connection or does it get rerouted to a different place? Or what? I don't know, but I would like to know.
The thing is, I don't do that. I see something that should set off the "danger" signal and then the sympathetic nervous system and I kinda stare at it curiously. It's the classic autistic kid staring at the on-coming train sign. And we aren't scared stiff, we're more like, "Oh, gee there's a train coming straight at me. How intersting. It seems to be honking a lot. That really hurts my ears, I wish it would stop. I wonder if it'll stop. (etc)" There's none of the "OHMIGAWD A TRAIN IS COMING I HAVE TO GET OUTOFTHEWAYORELSEI'MGOINGTODIE!!!!!!11!!!!1!!"
What I would like to know is why doesn't our sympathetic nervous system get set off at the sign of "danger"? What is it that stops us? Is there a missing connection or does it get rerouted to a different place? Or what? I don't know, but I would like to know.
