Why Ben Carson might not be a liar

Ben Carson is getting called out today for fabricating details about his background. Specifically, the  topic of today is whether he was ever offered a full scholarship to West Point.   He has previously said that while a top ROTC high school student he met General Westmoreland, and was subsequently offered a full scholarship to West Point.

In response to inquiries, West Point has said that there is no record of his ever having applied, and that in any event that all candidates admitted to the school have their costs fully covered.  Essentially, there are no full scholarships because no one pays to attend West Point. Further, an offer of scholarship would never have been made by General Westmoreland regardless of any other fact.

Ben Carson, clearly, is incorrect in his telling of the event.  He was a top ROTC student, and it is probable that he met General Westmoreland in that capacity while attending an event.  However, none of Carson's claims about West Point are true.

So is he a liar? Maybe not.  I know people who have said similarly incorrect things because they misunderstood what was being said.  They misunderstood the context of the situation and wholeheartedly believed things that were simply not true.

The Oscar-nominated movie "Nebraska" is premised on this very type of thing.  The elderly man at the center of the story gets a letter in the mail about a sweepstakes.  He believes he has won a large sum of money, because the letter is written in such a way that it is easy to misunderstand, and he falls for it. No amount of explanation from others can dissuade him from what he knows to be true.

At the other end of the adult life span is my daughter, who is a smart young adult in many ways, but a very vulnerable girl when it comes to understanding some seemingly simple situations.  There have been many occasions where she believed something that was simply not true, because she was unable to put the comments in context.  For example, if she gets an "A" on a class assignment, she will report that she has an "A" average in the class and will likely get an "A" as her final grade.  And she will wholeheartedly believe this, even though she knows she has not turned in numerous other assignments on which she has zero's.  But because she hasn't seen the zero grades (because she didn't turn anything in that showed the grade) she simply doesn't factor them in.

There have also been situations like this one: She calls her doctor to ask about symptoms she describes over the phone.  The doctor says she'll have to go to the emergency room to get checked out.  My daughter then believes she has an emergency medical situation and is gravely ill and must get to the hospital as fast as possible - because the doctor said to go to the emergency room (since they can't diagnose over the phone).

I can easily imagine my daughter having a conversation with General Westmoreland in which she tells him she's the top ROTC student in her city.  He then responds by saying she should apply to West Point, she'd have an excellent chance of admission and by the way, all her costs would be covered if she went there.  I have no doubt at all that what she would say to me after that conversation is that the General offered her a full scholarship to go to West Point.

The point here is that Ben Carson might not actually be lying. He might believe a large portion of the things he says.  That does not make them any more true, however, and it is just as much of a concern that a potential president is unable to understand what is really going as it is that a potential president lies through his teeth.  Either way, Ben Carson is not fit to be president.

Change is.

Everyone lives change in their life. We come to consciousness knowing a way of life and living that we believe has always been.  We think that we can decide how we want to live and then go do that.  But things change.  Houses burn.  People die.  Illness happens.  Crime intrudes.  People who learn to accept each day and do the best the can with where they are are happiest.  People who learn to try and control things are angriest.

And those who live to manipulate others to their will cannot truly be called human.

Opinions.  You want 'em? I got 'em.

Sleep

New parents are famously sleep deprived. So much so that when the occasional news story comes out that some parent drove off with their baby still sitting in his basket on top of the car, people are appalled but not really surprised. So it is with some despair that I find myself chronically sleep deprived some 14 years after the birth of my last child.

My children, with all their various quirks, insomniac habits, and need for either constant supervision or complete and total personal care, have left me with permanent new parent syndrome.

The Clouds are Gathering

Daughter number one has been doing well for a few months, keeping her schedule and maintaining a normal approach to life. But I think she's slipping. I see the signs beginning to show their slippery little heads.

For borderline personality disorder, these are the signs I see lining up in her behavior:
phases of mild mania
erratic sleep pattern
failure to do parts of her mandated routine
increasing inattention (taking the night meds in morning, or vice versa, or forgetting to take meds at all)
drop in grades
inadequately doing the parts of her routine she is still doing
asking really dumb questions (is it okay to sleep with hair spray in my hair? is it okay to use this plate instead of the other plate for my hot dog?)

All of these signs are small, but they are gathering up and increasing and coupled with the fact that she has started to stand right in front of me and make faces again, just to literally get me to look at her, I figure this all means that she is cycling and will start inventing ailments again or manufacturing a crisis.

Let's count the days - although her dad and I now have better recognition skills and an arsenal of mental restraints to use to try and contain her through this. Let's hope we're good enough to keep everything under control this time.

It's a Big Theme

I thought that writing things down and thinking them through on this blog would be helpful to me and to others who have serious medical and psychiatric issues to contend with in their loved ones. What I find is that writing these things down is hard. Knowing what I want to say is hard sometimes, but more often, finding the time and energy is hard. The last year and the last six months in particular have been harder than any other period in my life, and the parade of serious issues - any one of which should have taken all my time and attention - has been non-stop and stunningly severe. So much so that I hestitate to even write them for fear that readers will believe that I am the family member with borderline personality disorder. When I sit back and review from an observers vantage point the list of things we have dealt with in this house I cannot trust that anyone will believe the truth of what is written. I physically don't have the time in the day to gve attention to all the needs, let alone write about all of them. We won't get into the emotional resources necessary to handle all this, because I ran out. I had to pick one issue to throw completely under the bus. Which left me with no enough for the rest, but at least there was a little for the rest.

So tomorrow I will begin to write in concrete words, not the vague psychic spillage that has been this post.

Can't We All Get Along, redux

It can be hard to get to know people that aren't like you. The reasons are many. Sometimes it's as simple as just not being around each other. Other times it's differences in communication methods, or fear, or nervousness, or pre-conceptions that make it difficult for us to hear what's really being communicated.

Blogger "Mama Be Good" has reached out to families with special needs kids and families with just plain special kids, and asked them to talk about talking to each other. It's wonderful and worthwhile stuff. Take a look.

Will Health Insurance Be Better?

I don't have health insurance.

I'd like to have some. I can afford to go to a doctor when I am sick but I'm really afraid to go unless I already know what my problem is. And I'm afraid to go for a regular check-up. Why? Because if it turns out I have a disease, then I'll never be able to get health insurance. Early treatment is critical for most serious illness, but once you have a diagnosis you're unable to get insurance if you didn't already have it. So, I have simply avoided doing anything that might reveal that I have a health condition. Stupid? Maybe, but not under the insurance system that we have had up until today.

A year ago I tried to get health insurance for myself and my husband. But he was turned down by every company I tried, because he has been diagnosed and treated for depression. He wasn't being treated at the time I was applying for insurance. He wasn't having a depressive episode. And when he has been in treatment, it hasn't been particularly expensive. But because of it, he was turned down for insurance by all the companies I could afford.

He could have gotten insurance through the high risk pool run by the state we live in. But that is basically a joke. Although it is available and they will take people with extremely high risk health conditions, the cost is astronomical, and we couldn't even begin to come up with a budget that would have allowed us to purchase it. Not unless we gave up electricity and all food but rice and beans.

Today the health insurance reform bill was signed. I don't know very much about how it will directly affect us yet, but I do know that my husband won't be turned down for coverage any more. I don't know what it will cost, or how well it will actually cover our needs. But at least we won't be afraid to go to the doctor anymore.