Category: Uncategorized

Cults: Pasadena—You Can Hide Things in Them There Hills

Los Ángeles is known as the City of Angels. Pasadena is known as the City of Roses. Before LA became the epicenter of institutional cultism, it was born in a little town in the hills of a valley occupied by wealthy people, orange groves and roses.

Hence, the Rose Bowl. Also the home of Jackie Robinson, former Black Panthers and one of the first Manson followers. It’s a quiet, yet strange place. Which is why the show Strange Angel, is a good introduction to how Pasadena was developed. Staples like JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and CalTech are included to show the through-line between money, ideas and actual science. The show itself is a genre-confused take on the mysterious Jack Parsons, a blue collar worker who dreams up rocket science. He also likes drugs and the occult. Sex magik is included, but it’s all shenanigans and it’s only the 1930s.

Then, a young man, or grifter, named Lafayette Ronald Hubbard came along. He was also into science, fiction, the occult and narcissism. L. Ron Hubbard married Parsons second wife and began his Scientology journey. One that has borrowed over and over from the past. Ecclesiastes said “there’s nothing new under the sun” and boy was that one book in the Bible right. These men sought power where they felt it lacking in their own sense of self. They used this knowledge of shame to manipulate friends into followers and free people into automatons.

What fascinates me is that this is the story of the town adjacent to where I grew up. The place you refer to because people have never heard of the town from which you come. The Gamble House. The Norton-Simon Museum. The Huntington Library. All names of the wealthy that influenced Pasadena’s growth. Proctor and Gamble is a huge company and have always circulated stories about one of their founders being in a cult. I have always said my Dad worked for the devil…partly true.

It’s a wonder that we still see these intersections of science fiction, men in power, sexual abuse dressed as choice and freedom; even magic. But none of these people manifested magic. Unless you count going to space and adding to carbon emissions like there’s no tomorrow. Unless the Hydrogen Bomb was, like, a cute idea. That hiding within or decimating a community could buy you time to reach that next stepping stone.

If they’re not running from the law, it’s the IRS. Scammers. Point blank. I marvel at their ability to network and fundraise. It’s like these start-ups that aren’t going anywhere but the “face” of the potential brand/product is enticing and, again, mysterious. Mystery is a genre in literature. In reality, these are called secrets and lies.

And then there’s the freeway that burrowed through the hills, to connect Pasadena to Downtown Los Angeles and the upheaval of an entire community to make way for Dodger Stadium.

Batter Up!

Neurodivergent Dora and the Lost City of Gold

I have struggled for the last six months with the thought of writing specifically about my own Neurodivergency. I’ve read so many other peoples articles and tweets about being an autistic youth, being an autistic teacher and being a parent of an autistic child. Learning about self diagnosis and its validity has been immensely important. Not only because it supports what I have learned and understand about myself, but it also clarifies that we’ve always been self diagnosing before seeing a doctor, especially if there are symptoms. It seems, that at my age, there is no point in seeking diagnosis for particular issues.

Autism is seen as a childhood disability. I wonder why the autistic community has to demand that there is a through-line from childhood, adolescence to adulthood that offers support. Unless there is some huge severity identified that prevents “normal” living, the idea is that you outgrow this behavior. When in fact, if you are able to work and live in society well enough, you may have simply learned how to mask the disability.

So that’s what I’ve done my whole life. Masked things. My parents and I probably employed behavior modification around the same time. There are many situations that I think about that children shouldn’t experience whether they’re rich or poor, adored or neglected. The ones that I’m going to discuss are my own. Like being disciplined as a child and being made to sit and face the corner of a wall and if I turned around I got smacked. Or discovering the seeds of my OCD when I was sent to my room without the ability to watch TV or talk on the phone. I spent hours organizing my clothes or desk. Once it became two in the morning, the only thing left to do was vacuum, so I did that the old-fashioned way, with my hands. Or after my grandfather died and I started to realize that I could no longer focus on what people were saying because my mind was too full or too empty. This is the secret behavior I would take into high school

In high school I thought this was me just being a go-getter. Not high functioning in an autism spectrum kind of way, but having to compete and outperform so that I’d have my parents respect and get into college. By the end of high school, I had something that resembled an ulcer and I was sick 13 times my senior year. I kept a tally. It’s true.

While an autistic student may be able to use fidget gadgets and noise reducing headsets, I was told I was unprofessional when I put in my headphones to refocus my mind away from the chaos.

While an autistic student is able to create an IEP, I receive no special supports or extended time. To be an adult is to not need special supports or more time. To be an autistic adult, even if you had an IEP in school as a child, is to still have to mask, blend in, or be called out.

In my current position as an educator, I have found many things to be reactive to given that I’m neurodivergent. I do my best to be a model of controlled behavior but that doesn’t work because the people witnessing your behavior are biased regardless. When I can’t control what’s going on in my environment my behavior may reflect that.

I saw this very clearly a year and a half ago when a college student came to visit our school to do their teaching hours. These are hours that their university asks them to fulfill by finding different teachers they can observe. This young man fit the stereotypical traits of someone with autism and I don’t think it was a secret. But it was something that nobody spoke about sincerely. They were mostly irritated by how high pitched his voice was. That he would repeat stories because a new person appeared in the room. The response to this young man was to avoid him. This frightens me because he fits every other power descriptor necessary to have a nice life with your basic rights; white cis heterosexual male.

I have been called odd, weird, strange, difficult, different, alien (even Star child) since I can remember. Those words describe me and they describe someone who may be autistic. And yet if I sat down with anyone who knew me 20 years ago, or more, they would look at me funny. They would not believe me. And in that moment I would find myself a liar, again questioning my mind and my behavior.

Or they would require an education I can’t quite give them since I’m learning about these things myself. I defined myself by markers of success such as degrees and jobs. There are many other layers that I acknowledge but those are the most important in our society. At least for normative recognition. And so I am concerned for the young person who has to become an adult in a world that is not the shape of water.

I am thinking about the adult that wants so much more for themselves and knew or did not know why they couldn’t achieve it. See or did not see the obstacles constructed actively in front of them as they approached.

Talk Therapy: What I Haven’t Learned and Other Drugs

I know several people who see therapists. These are the things they have shared on social media about what they’ve learned. Many times you’ll see this as Therapy Tip #1,352.

Do you want to be in a relationship or do you just want to be loved obsessively by someone else?

Okay

Expectations lead to unattainable outcomes.

Sure

Racism and other bias based structures lead to stress. What are you doing for self-care?

Wearing a mask? All kinds.

It was definitely your parents fault but what are you gonna do about it now?

Who’s paying for this?

Now by no means do I disrespect the entirety of the profession of Psychology or anyone who requires therapies of any kind. But these are things that I have learned through other avenues. So they sound very common and practical. Things that take practice and repetition. This is a profession where people are paid specifically to listen to us and possibly be able to interpret and diagnose. This can take months and even years to get right. I feel the same degree of comfort in the fact on the underside of a Snapple bottle cap.

Here’s what my psych says:

Sometimes you just have to get up and bang your head against the wall and go in to work.

Or

There’s an old vaudeville joke that says if you wake up and read the obituary and you don’t see your name…eat breakfast and go about your day.

But we don’t do talk therapy. We sometimes talk while I wait for my prescription.