This link might be better http://www.issd.org/...issociation.htm FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: DISSOCIATION AND DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS What is dissociation? What is depersonalization? What is derealization? What is dissociative amnesia? What are identity confusion and identity alteration? What is the cause of dissociation and dissociative disorders? How does affect dysregulation influence dissociation? How is dissociation different from hypnosis? What are the different types of dissociative disorders? What is the prevalence of dissociative disorders? What are treatments specific to the type of dissociative disorder? References (The stuff regarding animals was just a small subset of dissociative disorder links on that web site - unusual animal stuff)

Sounds like some sort of trauma and dissociation http://www.issd.org/...about-index.htm That society has some interesting links with surprising stories (but attention, some are quite gross and hideous), for example in this link https://scholarsbank....pdf?sequence=4 "Five cases of multiple personality disorder (MPD) are presented which include one or more animal alters of differing complexity. In some cases, the development of the animal alter could be traced to childhood traumata involving (1) being forced to act or live like an animal, (2) witnessing animal mutilation, (3) being forced to engage in or witness bestiality, or (4) experiencing the traumatic loss of or killing of an animal. Clinical clues to the animal alter phenomenon that emerge during therapy are (1) over-identification with an animal, (2) hearing animal calls, (3) excessive fears of animals, (4) excessive involvement with a pet, and (5) cruelty to animals. Therapeutic work with animal alters may be a helpful or necessary preliminary to retrieval of underlying memories about the torture or killing of animals or human beings, and can be essential to the integration of such memories and to self forgiveness." At any rate - be careful because working with people with these sort of problems could be dangerous.

How does an invisible man transform into invisible?

Patches? inspiring !

APNewsbreak: Panel says wild weather worsens http://news.yahoo.co...-084540799.html "WASHINGTON (AP) — Freakish weather disasters — from the sudden October snowstorm in the Northeast U.S. to the record floods in Thailand — are striking more often. And global warming is likely to spawn more similar weather extremes at a huge cost, says a draft summary of an international climate report obtained by The Associated Press. The final draft of the report from a panel of the world's top climate scientists paints a wild future for a world already weary of weather catastrophes costing billions of dollars. The report says costs will rise and perhaps some locations will become "increasingly marginal as places to live." The report from the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be issued in a few weeks, after a meeting in Uganda. It says there is at least a 2-in-3 probability that climate extremes have already worsened because of man-made greenhouse gases. This marks a change in climate science from focusing on subtle changes in daily average temperatures to concentrating on the harder-to-analyze freak events that grab headlines, cause economic damage and kill people. The most recent bizarre weather extreme, the pre-Halloween snowstorm, is typical of the damage climate scientists warn will occur — but it's not typical of the events they tie to global warming. "The extremes are a really noticeable aspect of climate change," said Jerry Meehl, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "I think people realize that the extremes are where we are going to see a lot of the impacts of climate change." The snow-bearing Nor'easter cannot be blamed on climate change and probably isn't the type of storm that will increase with global warming, four meteorologists and climate scientists said. They agree more study is needed. But experts on extreme storms have focused more closely on the increasing numbers of super-heavy rainstorms, not snow, NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said. The opposite kind of disaster — the drought in Texas and the Southwest U.S. — is also the type of event scientists are saying will happen more often as the world warms, said Schmidt and Meehl, who reviewed part of the climate panel report. No studies have specifically tied global warming to the drought, but it is consistent with computer models that indicate current climate trends will worsen existing droughts, Meehl said. Studies also have predicted more intense monsoons with climate change. Warmer air can hold more water and puts more energy into weather systems, changing the dynamics of storms and where and how they hit. Thailand is now coping with massive flooding from monsoonal rains that illustrate how climate is also interconnected with other manmade issues such as population and urban development, river management and sinking lands, Schmidt said. In fact, the report says that "for some climate extremes in many regions, the main driver for future increases in losses will be socioeconomic in nature" rather than greenhouse gases. There's an 80 percent chance that the killer Russian heat wave of 2010 wouldn't have happened without the added push of global warming, according to a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. So while in the past the climate change panel, formed by the United Nations and World Meteorological Organization, has discussed extreme events in snippets in its report, this time the scientists are putting them all together. The report, which needs approval by diplomats at the mid-November meeting, tries to measure the confidence scientists have in their assessment of climate extremes both future and past. Chris Field, one of the leaders of the climate change panel, said he and other authors won't comment because the report still is subject to change. The summary chapter of the report didn't detail which regions of the world might suffer extremes so severe as to leave them marginally habitable. The report does say scientists are "virtually certain" — 99 percent — that the world will have more extreme spells of heat and fewer of cold. Heat waves could peak as much as 5 degrees hotter by mid-century and even 9 degrees hotter by the end of the century. Weather Underground meteorology director Jeff Masters, who wasn't involved in the study, said in the United States from June to August this year, blistering heat set 2,703 daily high temperature records, compared with only 300 cold records during that period, making it the hottest summer in the U.S. since the Dust Bowl of 1936. By the end of the century, the intense, single-day, heavy rainstorms that now typically happen only once every 20 years are likely to happen about twice a decade, the report says. The report said hurricanes and other tropical cyclones — like 2005's Katrina — are likely to get stronger in wind speed, but won't increase in number and may actually decrease. Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel, who studies climate's effects on hurricanes, disagrees and believes more of these intense storms will occur. And global warming isn't the sole villain in future climate disasters, the climate report says. An even bigger problem will be the number of people — especially the poor — who live in harm's way. University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who wasn't among the authors, said the report was written to be "so bland" that it may not matter to world leaders. But Masters said the basics of the report seem to be proven true by what's happening every day. "In the U.S., this has been the weirdest weather year we've had for my 30 years, hands down. Certainly this October snowstorm fits in with it.""

Some amazing weather lately: http://www.accuweath...ss-the-nort.asp "New York City shattered an October snow record with highest snow totals elsewhere across the Northeast topping 2 feet. An unprecedented (for October) 2.9 inches of snow was measured in New York City's Central Park on Saturday. Since snowfall records began in 1869, Central Park has never received an inch of snow on any given October day. The last time that Central Park recorded measurable snow was on Oct. 21, 1952 when 0.5 of an inch fell. Prior to that, 0.8 of an inch fell on Oct. 30, 1925. La Guardia and JFK International airports both set October snow records as well with 1.7 and 1.5 inches, respectively. A very snowy scene in Sinking Spring, Pa., on Saturday afternoon. Photo submitted by AccuWeather.com Facebook Fan Francesco S. Other October Snow Records Smashed Hartford, Conn., was buried by 12.3 inches of snow, shattering the record for the most snow ever received on an October day. The previous record was 1.7 inches set on Oct. 10, 1979. An all-time snowfall record for any day in October was set in Worcester, Mass., with 11.4 inches of snow. The old record was 7.5 inches set on Oct. 10, 1979. Newark, N.J., set a daily snow record with 5.2 inches of snow on Saturday. This will also go down in the record book as the greatest snow on any given day during the month of October. Previously, Newark had not received an inch of snow in October. Daily Snowfall Records Set Concord, N.H., was blanketed by 13.6 inches of snow, breaking the old daily record of 0.2 of an inch set back in 1952. Albany, N.Y., set a daily snow record with 3.8 inches of snow. The previous record was 0.4 of an inch set back in 2000. Another daily snow record was set in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Saturday when 1.6 inches fell. The previous record was 0.6 of an inch from 2008. Philadelphia got 0.3 of an inch of snow, breaking the old record of a trace for the date set way back in 1902. Likewise, Wilmington, Del., had 0.3 of an inch, surpassing the trace the city got in 2002. The nation's capital got a dusting of snow that set a new record. The 0.6 of an inch that fell on Saturday was unprecedented. Previously, Washington, D.C., had never received snow on Oct. 29...."

... and/or do the Dalai Lama's recent strong comments http://english.ntdtv...dalai-lama.html indicate some sort of mental illness on his part?

During that same timeframe the "Bank of China said Wednesday its net profits totaled 96.30 billion yuan (15.17 billion U.S. dollars) in the first three quarters of this year, showing a 21.52 percent year-on-year rise" http://news.xinhuane...c_131214239.htm Is this just a coincidence, or are the Tibetans just increasingly mentally ill ?

... and yet again China police shoot Tibetans, nun burns to death "BEIJING (Reuters) - A Tibetan nun in China burned herself to death on Monday a day after police shot and wounded two Tibetan demonstrators, a group advocating Tibetan self-determination said, the latest protests against Chinese rule of the Himalayan region. The self-immolation and the protests would appear to signal that anger is growing in Aba prefecture, a mainly ethnic Tibetan part of the southwestern province of Sichuan that has been the center of defiance of Chinese control. Rights groups say the unrest could lead to a crackdown in Aba, which erupted in violence in March 2008 when Buddhist monks and other Tibetans loyal to the exiled Dalai Lama, their exiled religious leader, confronted police and troops. The condition and whereabouts of the two protesters who were shot and wounded, Dawa and Druklo, were not known, the London-based Free Tibet group said. The Foreign Ministry said it had not heard of the shootings by the police. "Some organizations with political motives have been spreading rumors and it's not the first time that (they have used) this practice of misleading the public," the office of the ministry's spokesman said in a statement. "We hope everyone treats such information with caution." On Monday, a 20-year-old nun, Tenzin Wangmo, set fire to herself outside a nunnery in the same region, the ninth self-immolation this year in Tibetan parts of China, Free Tibet said. The nun had called for religious freedom in Tibet and for the return of the Dalai Lama as she set herself alight, the Free Tibet group said. Her death comes seven months after a Tibetan Buddhist monk, Phuntsog, 21, from the restive Kirti monastery, burned himself to death. As a result, security forces detained about 300 monks for a month. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin last week criticized the Dalai Lama for not only failing to denounce the self-immolations but for playing them up and even asking people to "follow the example. He did not mention the Dalai Lama on Tuesday but said: "We believe that promoting and encouraging harm to life is immoral." Nine ethnic Tibetans, eight of them from Aba prefecture, have burned themselves since March to protest against religious controls by the Chinese government, which labels the Dalai Lama a violent separatist. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama denies the accusation and says he wants autonomy and not independence for Tibet. The state news agency Xinhua said, citing officials from Aba's religious affairs bureau, said exiles were being the self-immolation attempts. "(They) showed signs of having been instigated by a clique jockeying for power in the overseas Tibetan community under the Dalai Lama," the news agency said. Xinhua report quoted bureau head Song Tendargye as saying that the Tibetan community in Aba was "disgusted" that a former "living Buddha" of the Kirti monastery in Aba had led prayer services for those who had attempted self-immolation. Free Tibet Director Stephanie Brigden said in a statement late on Monday her group had "grave concerns that greater force may be deployed if protests spread." China has ruled Tibet with an iron fist since Communist troops marched in 1950. But it rejects the criticism of rights groups and exiled Tibetans, saying its rule has bought much needed development to a poor and backward region."

Remembering a friend's photo - taken by a couple of Chinese girls near the Duomo in Florence with a Polaroid Instant Camera. It was very small (nowadays a $90 camera takes business-card-sized photos) but what a nice gift from total strangers - and my friends thought they just wanted my friends to take a photo of them (the Chinese girls). The really nice aspect of these cameras is that the photo can be given away immediately as a present and the receivers can enjoy the excitement of watching it develop. Interesting that this type of technology hasn't gotten cheaper over time: a Polaroid One600 Classic Instant Camera, "Just like your original Polaroid camera" costs over $200 nowadays and the film costs over $1 a photo! -- -- but it cost only $19.95 in 1965 !

... and again: China hit by new Tibet monk self-immolation "The 17-year-old from Sichuan province's Kirti monastery, the scene of repeated protests, shouted slogans against the Chinese government as he tried to self-immolate, the US-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said. Citing Tibetans in exile with contacts in Aba town, where the incident occurred Monday, the activist group said the monk was immediately surrounded by security personnel who extinguished the flames, beat him and took him away. ... Barry Sautman, an associate professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who studies ethnic politics, said self-immolations in Tibetan regions had been a "rare" occurrence until recently. "I don't think that we knew of any examples until recently, at least no examples that occurred inside Tibet," he said, referring to wider Tibetan areas. "There was one example of a Tibetan exile who immolated himself some years back. At the time, the Dalai Lama condemned the self-immolation and said it contravened the Buddhist idea of the sanctity of life. "So it's rather unusual for Buddhist monks in Tibet who are presumably devoted to the Dalai Lama to take this path." Many Tibetans in China are angry about what they view as increasing domination by the country's majority Han ethnic group. China, however, says that Tibetan living standards have improved with billions in Chinese investment." _____ The Chinese probably think that the Tibetans should be happy because their living standards have improved "materially" - so what's their problem, and why all the uproar ? Your thoughts?

If this had happened before the sodomy laws were repealed (June 26, 2003, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all sodomy laws were unconstitutional in its historic Lawrence v. Texas decision, which also had an impact on the burgeoning same-sex marriage debate) this teen probably would not have been left alone with her attacker ... ... but with the way things are currently this type of an assault is no longer in the same type of "criminal" category as it once was - nowadays it is only considered "sexual misconduct" - which means that the boy faces less than a year in a juvenile detention center ... which means he'll probably only serve a few months, if that much. Which also explains why they risked keeping him in the same ward with her for two weeks after the incident: his crime was no "big deal" to anybody. And good luck with plans to sue the city - nowadays the boy's lawyer could argue that he was just trying to "love" her, to display a valid form of affection! In fact, nowadays one could argue that the girl is at fault for complaining as if she were "violated" and exaggerating the pain, the hurt, the anger, the sadness - is she truly justified in feeling such strong emotions or is she mentally ill? ... but as this confusing trend continues, what is happening to the mental/emotional health of our children - modern society - and the world?

The panic attacks of this 15 year old girl will probably last a lifetime Teen patient at psych ward was brutally sodomized, kept in same unit with attacker for weeks Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/04/25/2011-04-25_rage_over_psych_ward_sex_attack_on_teen.html#ixzz1Zc5aW7yy "The boy was arrested March 11 and charged with a criminal sex act. Still, for the next two weeks, the boy remained in the same ward with the girl, adding to her pain. Hearing her daughter whimper every day left Watson feeling shattered. "It took all the strength that I had to hold my composure," said Watson, who has filed a notice of claim and plans to sue the city for $20 million. "I didn't want her to see me break down and cry."" ______ ... So WHY doesn't she just take her daughter back home? "Watson said she doesn't want to remove her daughter from the facility because it will delay her placement in a state hospital for long-term treatment. Watson said her daughter, who loves to dance and play basketball, is still reeling. "Her smile used to brighten up a room," said Watson, inside the office of her lawyer, Martha Gold. "Now, I have to ask her to smile for me, and when she smiles, I can still see the pain, the hurt, the anger, the sadness."" No surprise there ...

Sounds like you might agree with Thomas Merton (Father Louis, a Roman Catholic monk who died in 1968) - upon hearing of 22-year-old Catholic Worker Roger LaPorte's self-immolation Merton wrote "What is happening? Is everybody nuts?" in his journal and sent a telegram to the Catholic Peace Fellowship withdraw his membership from that organization. After being reassured that the event was an aberration, that LaPorte was not a very stable person psychologically, and nothing that LaPorte had done derived from any spoken or unspoken policy of the Catholic Peace Fellowship movement Merton withdrew his resignation. Instead, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a letter to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with another point-of-view: "The self-burning of Vietnamese Buddhist monks in 1963 is somehow difficult for the Western Christian conscience to understand. The press spoke then of suicide, but in the essence, it is not. It is not even a protest. What the monks said in the letters they left before burning themselves aimed only at alarming, at moving the hearts of the oppressors, and at calling the attention of the world to the suffering endured then by the Vietnamese." The practice of "sati" (female self immolation) was approved by Hindu religions for hundreds of years, up until the 19th century. And according to this article "Suicide, in any form, is strictly prohibited in Islam. And there is a great reward for Muslims who bear tyrant rulers with patience and trust in God Almighty. However, burgeoning inflation and hopelessness due to lack of education or job opportunities in many parts of the region, are adding fuel to the flames of an increasingly combustible situation. ... Bouazizi is being touted as a martyr and his deeds an effective means to an end. What is most surprising is that all of the self-immolations have occurred in predominantly Muslim lands and many were by Muslims. ... Bouazizi’s deed lives on in the hearts and minds of people willing to sacrifice their very lives for the sake of change." So, seems like Christianity is somewhat unusual by promoting Christian martyrdom while severely prohibiting Christian suicide and self-immolation (by physical fire).

Did you make it completely clear to her by saying "Grandmother, I am your granddaughter, the daughter of your son" (with your dad standing next to you, or with a photo of him and you together)? Older people tend to recognize the people they see most often, and in most cases nowadays that's probably the nursery home worker(s). Did you visit her very often before the dementia set in? A good idea is to carry a picture of you and your grandmother together - or better yet, you and your father and your grandmother together (along with other photos of her with extended family) - in your purse at all times to show her - and others! - that you are members of a family that you keep close-at-hand, think about and cherish - even when you're not together. Don't give up hope, older people have "good days" and "bad days", and if her eyesight isn't failing she might recognize you next time. If you used to do something special for her, like rub her neck, touch her cheek, squeeze her hand, or pat her arm in a certain way, do that again and she might react differently to you than a worker who is more aloof and distant. You might want to bring along something she gave you in the past - a necklace, scarf, whatever - and remind her how grateful you are that she thought of you when she gave it to you ... whether or not she remembers her gift to you, the thought that you sincerely appreciate (and have always appreciated) it will bring a smile to her face. If you have no material gift from her to show, explain to her how knowing her has helped brighten your life -- I used to remind my granny how nice it was to hear her sing while she ironed and did laundry, how much we grandkids looked forward to the strawberry shortcake she'd bake us on our birthdays and how delicious they were, how much I loved to smell the iris flowers and daffodils that she planted as we walked along the driveway to her home ... gratefully remembering special moments together will surely set you apart from the workers as her granddaughter.