Letters of My Life: D goes for Dysmelia

Just a random dysmelia hand.

I was going to have my D for Dreams, but as I have completely own blog for my dreams, I decided to have the D for Dysmelia.

Dysmelia is a rare congenital disorder referring to the limbs. I have it, and it often gains attention by new people I meet. The thing that people notice first is the fact I don't have left arm at all. About 20-30% people pay also attention to the fact that I don't have an elbow. Making it impossible for me to bend my arm from the parts that require the elbow moving. But extremely rare people notice that I have malformations also in my fingers. My thumb has one muscle less than typical people. Obviously it doesn't show outside unless you're a professional of the subject. Also the bones of my little finger and ring finger are connected much earlier than normally they would, making it impossible for me to move my ring finger without my little finger moving too, and vice versa.

There are many forms of dysmelia. It can be missing a limb, like in my case. It could be any other limb too, or parts of limbs. Another form is malformation of limbs, which can show in even more variety. Like I described my elbow and fingers. The third form is polymelia, "too many limbs". Which I don't have. Could be useful, though.

The person with dysmelia has these things since (s)he's born. Every year 60-80 children in Finland are born with dysmelia. It's caused by something going wrong during the pregnancy. Therefore somebody losing a limb because of an accident doesn't have dysmelia. That's completely another thing though it'd look outside the same.

So, what can cause a woman to have a child with dysmelia? One thing is that it can be caused by inheritance of abnormal genes. Dysmelia can also be caused by use of teratogenic drugs like alcohol or many medicines during pregnancy. Environmental chemicals and ionizing radiation are known to cause dysmelia as well as infections and metabolic imbalance during pregnancy. In my case the doctors have told that the most probable reason I got dysmelia is that my mom had an overdosis of the vitamin A. She used to eat lots of liver, because back then doctors didn't know the risks and therefore didn't warn about it. Nowadays pregnant women are told to avoid eating liver during pregnancy.

Dysmelia has many different levels of severity. Those effect to the fact how much special needs the child (and adult) has. It could be anything from only one malfunction of a toe to missing all the legs and hands. However, dysmelia itself effects only to the physical body and doesn't effect to any mental attributes like intelligence. Of course, if the mother has for example been influenced by radiation, it's possible for the child to have dysmelia and some other syndrome that effects the mental attributes. But it's not a rule.

When I was born in 1986, the old fashioned doctors told my mother that I would never even learn to walk. Though I had perfectly normal legs. Back those times people with dysmelia alike to mine would have been just institutionalized. My mother as a nurse of course didn't see any logic in the doctor's claim, and raised me as I was a normal child who just had to learn new ways of making certain things. And I'm extremely happy, because I grew up to be just as independent as those who didn't have dysmelia. Nowadays I don't even remember it unless somebody makes a comment of it.

And in the end I want to tell something to the parents of a dysmelia child: never underestimate the physical capability of your child. Instead courage him to learn to do things by himself. There are always ways, they just needs to be found. For example, I shave my armpit with my toes. Yes, exactly. Pretty cool, and I bet almost nobody with two arms could do that. ;)  Worst thing you can do to your child is to make him identify himself as a handicap. Always search for the positive sides and your child will grow up as an independent self-confident person.

The Main Ingredients on a Path of Inner Growth

[This writing is connected to my latest post C is for Consciousness.]

The main ingredients you need on every path of inner growth:

1. Have patience towards yourself. No inner change happens in one night. Most of them take years. Also have patience towards those around you who might find your inner change too slow and don't understand that those things won't happen at the same second you decide you want to change. Decision is only the first step, and actually the easiest one. But nobody else can decide your rhythm but yourself. Rush can even ruin it all.
2. Be honest to yourself. Even with the things you didn't want or like to admit about yourself. Nobody said it was supposed to be easy or fun. It never is. Until the good result comes - and it's always worth the struggle!
3. Love yourself. Most of personal problems come from some sort of hole in self esteem, which comes from inability to sincerely love yourself. And we talk about the caring kind of love that a mother would feel towards her child, or a best friend towards her best friend. Not "oh I'm so pretty with my red hair"-superficial love.
4. Accept failure. There comes times when you take many steps backwards. But the failure is permanent only if you give up. Accept the steps backward, breathe, eat an ice cream, and continue again towards your goal.

Letters of My Life: C is for Consciousness

Consciousness. The word which can be understood in so many ways. To me the most important meaning for this word is consciousness about what's going on in my own mind. However, without excluding any other meanings of Consciousness, whether it was spiritual, social, rational, or any other.

Consciousness of my own mind has played an extremely important role in my life. Most of that hasn't been nice. Actually at worst it can be even haunting and horrible to become conscious about certain things of yourself, especially the darkest sides. (Yes, everybody without exceptions has them, it's all about being aware of them.) As I used to go to therapy for years and though the few first years were horrible (yet extremely self-educating), I became kinda addicted to keep myself conscious about all the things that goes inside my mind - liked them or not.

To give you an example: When I started to realize in the start of my relationship with Chris that I was an extremely (unhealthy) jealous person, it was really hard for me to accept. Who'd want to admit something like "I'm sickly jealous person who makes my girlfriend feel bad and untrustworthy - and I must stop, instead of putting pressure on her"? Denying it was an easy and more pleasant way at starting. But as I became more and more "the jealous girlfriend monster", I realized our relationship was at stake if I didn't figure out what's the thing causing my jealousy and work hard to change it.

It was extremely difficult for me to deal with it especially because my greatest vice is Pride. It's not easy for me to admit I'm wrong even if it was obvious that I was. However, my personal Pride was less important  than my love for Chris. So I kicked my ass. Hard. I found out that behind of my jealousy there was my great lack of trust towards all people in general, therefore including Chris. And the lack of trust towards other people was actually deeply connected with my lack of trusting to myself.

Well, it's a long story about how I managed it, but it took about a year of active conscious self-searching and concrete practice when I was finally free. Yes, I use the word free because only after I sincerely stopped feeling jealous, I realized how much I had wasted energy on pessimistic and passive-aggressive way of thinking. The quality of my life got way better, and the happiness has increased x10.

Though I won't spend hours writing about how I did it, I can tell that in the end all the things I learned can be crystallized in these sentences: "I have no rational reasons to doubt her loyalty. And if she'd still end up cheating me, it'd be her loss, as it'd just reveal me that I was too good for her. Then, I'd only be free to continue searching for someone much better."

It takes a lot to learn to really believe in sentences like that, if you used to be a person who didn't trust really anyone. Knowing that isn't enough, but you honestly have to believe in it too. Otherwise it could at worst become only a tool you use to blackmail your partners, and inside you'd be just as dark, anxious and insecure as always before.

Sometimes we still talk with Chris about how I used to be, and we've both been so happy about my change. It's difficult to believe that I really used to be like that. Like it was someone else. Sometimes I even feel a little bit weird about the fact that nowadays I feel no jealousy at all. Like. Never. Swear it through my own life. Always remember: the fact is, that in the end the greatest thing that drives a lover to cheat is the lack of trust by their other half. Being jealous is like pushing your loved one away.

That was only one example of the hundreds times when my will of being self-conscious has helped me. Such succesfull experiences when repeated, make you easily kinda addicted for consciousness. It's a long lasting drug-alike euphoric feeling, when you finally beat the monster that was haunting you for years - or even your whole life - until that beautiful day when you realize that you're free.

My TOP 8 favorite tv-series

Family Guy

Oh, what shameless sense of humor they have! And I love it from the bottom of my dirty mind! Though I’m a great hater of poop-humor, even I can forgive those moments because I absolutely love the black and inappropriate humor this series is filled with. Not to mention the astonishing character gallery.

Friends

Friends is a classic, and not without a good reason. The series works in all ways: relatable and funny characters, and simple but working stories. Simple can easily become boring, but in the case of Friends it definitely isn’t. In my opinion, the greatest sparkle in this series is Phoebe. She can be all: crazy, lovable, freaky and silly all at the same time, and I find her to be the most relatable character of Friends. Every free spirit can find a small phoebe in them.

The Simpsons

Simpsons, the stereotypical US family, which has entertained audience with witty and sometimes even very dark humor since the series started. Though I don’t like too much the first two seasons (I think they were overly careful with the humor back then), this is one of the greatest cartoons I think exists. And it seems to get better season by season.

Criminal Minds

The 2nd best serial killer series imo is Criminal Minds. The stories they have are exciting, though not always too scary. This is definitely a series for people who want to watch something intelligent. Criminal Minds have some great wisdom hidden in there, and it’s always a pleasure to find it. They may lack a little bit in the depth of some of the main characters, though few are definitely interesting ones. But the main interests in this series are the stories that are never dull.

Modern Family

This is a series that I believe is impossible for anyone not to relate to. All the characters are so different, but in some way embody the most common stereotypes of modern families. They were definitely not afraid of using stereotypes in ironic way – I’m sure some people find it insulting, but those who don’t have such a stick in their asses can find great amusement from the talented way they use stereotypes without being too predictable.

Modern Family just continues making you laugh, although some episodes are funnier than others. The relationships with the family members are strong with their own conflicts, and  the conflicts between family members indeed is the thing that makes this series just so easy to relate to. When we watch this with my wife, we often laugh and comment “That’s just like you/me!”

True Blood

This imho is a very underestimated tv-series. I remember the first two episodes I saw weren’t that interesting, but I still continued watching it. And whoooom! When we overcome some of the boring drama between Sookie and Bill, the series becomes extremely interesting.

The main issue of this series is the fact that the main character Sookie is extremely boring, while 90% of the other character gallery is very interesting with huge variety. Probably the screenwriters have noticed this, as the longer the series continues, the less we see Sookie and start concentrating on the more interesting characters.

The greatest part of this series is that during seasons it just becomes better and better. Like we know, it’s extremely unusual with tv-series. What at first used to seem like a Romeo and Juliet –story between a vampire and a human, becomes a series with lots of unpredictable suspense and even horror. The character variety increases and it soon stops being a pure vampire series.

However, a person who dislikes fantasy or/and is shy about seeing any kind of sexuality in tv will probably never understand the brutal beauty of True Blood.

Wire in the Blood

Where to start? This series is Genius!! Definitely not a typical tv-series. This is a serial killer series for all lovers of psychology and psychiatry. These about 1,5hours long episodes don’t have a single moment of boredom. Actually, if you take your eyes and ears off the tv for a minute, you’ll most probably drop out from the extremely intensive and suspense story. Wire in the Blood has the kind of psychological depth I’ve never seen in any other series, and therefore it also asks more from the audience than most series.

Game of Thrones

I remember the day my wife told me that I must watch Game of Thrones. I was suspicious, but did it basically because I had to see what she was so excited about. After the first 30 minutes, I was totally hooked and couldn’t wait for the next episode.

I haven’t read the books, and probably won’t. So I’ll talk about the series only.

What attracts me the most in Game of Thrones, is the variety of well-made characters and great casting. Almost all of them have their virtues and vices, and often the vice becomes greater than the virtue, which makes the characters extremely interesting. Their lives are led by their vices, though they have the idea of being in control of themselves.

Not only the characters are excellently deep in this series, but also there seems to be a perfect amount and tempo with the conflicts, and little by little most of them reveal their true selves, which mostly aren’t too graceful. But still most of them are easy to relate to as even their vices have an understandable background story.

This series doesn’t have even a minute of dullness, as the audience is dragged deeper and deeper in the story all the way. And during the breaks between the episodes you can notice some withdrawal symptoms as you can’t stop thinking what will happen next.

This is my mischievous kittie Jamie.

How come cats always seem to know all the places you least want them to go in, and the things you least want them to do?

Night makes people to do crazy stuff. In my case, it's this weird piece of art.
[ Btw, it's me in the picture. ;) ]

Peek into My Postcard Album

I collect postcards. Earlier I kept them in a box, but now I made an album for the very favorites of them. Here's few photos of it. :)

Cover

Theme: Graphic

Theme: Graphic

Theme: Fantasy/Painting

Theme: Sandy Skoglund

Theme: Beautiful Weird

Theme: Beautiful weird

Theme: Paganism

Theme: Gender Humor

Theme: Asian style (still need more of these on the other page)

Theme: Graffiti

Theme: Photography

I might post more later. :)

Seven Things Extroverts Should Know About Introverts (and Vice Versa)

Picture from WikiCommons

I was planning to write about this subject, until I found Sophia Dembling's article at Psychology Today. She has succeeded to write shortly what I was trying to write too complicated way. So, I'll share this with you. :)

----Sophia Dembling's article----

OK, lets make this easy. This is a clip-and-save blog post, designed to be shared and perhaps open discussion where necessary.


Please feel free to add your own suggestions.

Seven things extroverts should know about their introverted friends:

1) We don’t need alone time because we don’t like you. We need alone time because we need alone time. Don’t take it personally.

2) We aren’t judging anyone when we sit quietly. We're just sitting quietly, probably enjoying watching extroverts in action.

3) If we say we’re having fun, we’re having fun, even though it might not look that way to you.


4) If we leave early, it’s not because we’re party poopers. We’re just pooped. Socializing takes a lot out of us.

5) If you want to hear what we have to say, give us time to say it. We don’t fight to be heard over other people. We just clam up.

6) We’re not lonely, we’re choosy. And we’re loyal to friends who don’t try to make us over into extroverts.

7) Anything but the telephone.

Picture from WikiCommons

Seven things introverts should know about their extroverted friends:

1) Extroverts don’t understand introversion unless someone explains it.

2) Extroverts who try to get you to loosen up usually aren’t doing it to annoy you. They mean well.

3) Extroverts produce a lot of words but quantity does not preclude quality. There's often plenty of good stuff in there for those with the patience to listen.

4) Extroverts can teach us plenty about glad-handing and small talking. These are useful skills, whether or not you enjoy them.

5) Extroverts can’t read your mind and they’re not big on catching hints. Say what you want.

6) At parties, think of extroverted friends as a glider tow plane. They pull you in and get you started, but eventually you have to sail on your own.

7) Extroverts come in all different styles, just like introverts. Keep a lookout for extroverts with a quiet side, who make dandy friends.

---

My book, The Introvert's Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy World, is available for pre-order on Amazon. It will be released December 4, just in time for party/festive/family-togetherness season. You know you need it.

Please join me on Facebook and visit my other blog, Better Living Through Pithy Quotes.

----Sophia Dembling's article ends----

Tip of the Day #1: Wrapping a gift

The life of gift wrapping paper is basically this: buy it from shop, wrap a gift with it, then give it to someone who will throw it to a trash can as soon as the gift has been opened. And no matter how pretty paper you buy, I bet that 99% of people don't even pay attention on it, they're too busy to see their gift. Not a recycling-friendly way of giving a gift.

If you like to be creative and not wasting your money for the gift paper from shop, here's a way for you to wrap a gift and make sure that the person who you give the gift will also notice the wrapping paper before he /she throws it away.

Newspaper. Yes, you read right, newspaper. But who would want to give a gift wrapped with an ugly newspaper? Here's the point.

What you need is either paint or color pens. Not everybody necessarily has paint at their home, but I'm sure almost everybody has colorful pens and newspaper that you want to get rid of. Only thing more you need is imagination or/and sense of humor. The newspaper is your canvas to create an unique wrapping paper that shows the other person that you really thought of her/him. Just remember to decorate the newspaper the way that reminds about the personality of the gift receiver. And the cool thing you can also do is to use the content of the actual newspaper in creative and humorous ways.

You don't really need to know how to draw or paint. The most important thing is that you know the person you give the thing. They don't really care about your artistic talent, but the thing that matters to them is that you did all this effort just for them.

This definitely will make the gift receiver to notice it in a positive way - using newspaper as your canvas is a very unexpected thing for most of people and therefore it will gain attention. Not to mention that it's personalized for the person. And thanks to the attention, it's more worth it than buying a traditional and boring paper from shop that nobody pays attention on.

I've done this few times, and every time it has gained extremely positive and surprisingly long lasting attention. Next time I do this, I'll take a photo and add it on this post. :)

This made me laugh so much. <3