Switched On: A Memoir of Brain Change and Emotional Awakening by John Elder Robison

Author:John Elder Robison
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780812996890
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-03-21T14:00:00+00:00

Perhaps something similar happened with TMS. Earlier life experience had shown that I might be particularly sensitive, and perhaps everyone else would have shared my experience had their dose been doubled or tripled. I also wasn’t sure how many participants would speak up, even if they had the hallucinations I’d experienced. Many people would be self-conscious or embarrassed, given the status of hallucinations in today’s world. The sixties and seventies were a very different time.

“What makes you think you are unusually sensitive?” That seemed a reasonable question for Alvaro to ask me when I raised that possibility. Luckily I had a better answer than a long-ago psychedelic drug experience. I told him about three recent occasions on which I’d been given prescriptions for psychiatric medication (for depression and anxiety—both of which are common in autistic people), and how each time I was overwhelmed by what the doctors described as “minimal starting doses.” With each medication, I ended up taking a fifth to a half the standard dose, and I discontinued those quickly because I felt they still affected me too much.

Lindsay wasn’t surprised at all. Several times she had remarked on how I sensed things that no one else commented on—like counting the multiple taps of a TMS burst, or describing the stirrings inside my head.

In recent years there’s been some research that validates my experience—we now know autistic people can have exceptional sensitivities, such as mine for sound. And other autistic people do seem extraordinarily responsive to psychiatric medications. But all I knew for sure then was that some guys could drink a twelve-pack of beer and not show any effect, whereas if I drank one can, I felt a buzz. That was one reason I stuck to iced tea for refreshment and stayed totally clear of illegal drugs—I’m too old to be getting high and flying my motorcycle to Mexico.

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