MSNBC: Twins with autism: Parents wonder, did it have to happen?
Posted in: Autism and Asperger | Comments (0)
Drew and Skyler Russert are 16-year-old identical twin brothers from Los Altos, Calif. who share the same blue eyes, straight hair and love for football.
Looking at them now, on the football field or in their high school classes, it would be hard to tell the boys were diagnosed with autism when they were nearly 4. Drew had a moderate form of the disorder, while Skyler’s case was severe.
Their parents, Peter Russert and Gaynelle Grover, were surprised by the diagnosis. The Russerts had no family history of autism, but they suspected a combination of environmental factors and genetics as a possible cause.
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PsychMag @ May 4, 2012
MSNBC: Where stress hides in your body
Posted in: Stress management | Comments (0)
Learn to wrestle out of fear’s grasp and regain control of your life
The best explanation of stress we’ve ever heard comes from Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., the author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.
“If you are a normal mammal,” he says, “stress is the 3 minutes of screaming terror on the savanna after which either it’s over with or you’re over with.”
If you’re a human mammal, however, stress comes from something more insidious than a toothy predator: anxiety triggered by the passive-aggressive boss, the 30-year mortgage, and the job of caring for children as well as the ill parent who believes General MacArthur wants him to lead a division into Pyongyang Province.
No wildebeest would understand these fears, but the perceived threats spark the same physiological survival responses that crocodile attacks do. Here’s where modern stress bites your body and how to fight back.
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PsychMag @ May 4, 2012
MSNBC: Worrying about worrying: What it’s like to grow up with OCD
Posted in: Anxiety disorders, Obsessive compulsive disorder | Comments (0)
In ‘Nowhere Near Normal,’ Traci Foust describes a childhood of ‘what-ifs’
When other young girls worried about boys and lip gloss, Traci Foust worried about worrying. She also worried about swallowing pencils and knives and whether she would inadvertently burn down her house, kill her family, be sent to an orphanage and then be murdered herself.
For nearly three decades, Foust has lived with a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
To help calm her fears, she pulled her hair, snapped her fingers after hearing the word “God,” made sure her collection of Catholic saint statues always faced north, and forced her cat to scratch her.
Read the complete article on worrying about worrying
PsychMag @ May 4, 2012
