A difficult life…

Below is the welcome page created while mom could understand what I wrote for her. Temple Grandin may be a recognized name in autism, but I lean into the idea that her life path was influenced by wealth and privilege. What if her parents had been poor and sick themselves? Maybe her story would be closer to mom’s story than the one we have come to associate with Ms. Grandin.

Welcome

Welcome to Los Artistas Visions. This site will be a work in progress. It is cognitive therapy for my mom, Alice Lorraine Hill, born January 15, 1935. It is also the story of our family. Alice’s story is a glimpse into neuro-divergence and the courage and resilience of a woman determined to challenge the status quo and champion the rights of the mentally ill and exploited.

For more on mom’s historical medical journey, please see the page Finding the Key on this website.

Alice Lorraine Hill was always driven to advocate for the mentally ill. It was a special interest of hers, that I, as a child immersed in it, never fully recognized as being non-typical.

“Mental illness was caused by a chemical imbalance.” That was mom’s mantra. Going through her writings I have found that Dr. Carl C. Pfeiffer of New Jersey seems to be the genesis of this belief. He is considered a founder of Orthomolecular Psychiatry. That interest in diet and nutrients, what is now called functional foods, shaped her life choices. It is of interest now so her values and preferences can be honored as her health deteriorates.

Mom has always referred to a determination by a researcher that schizophrenia was not in her dad’s family medical history. Mom enrolled in a study for the family medical records to be used for schizophrenia research. I now think Dr. Pfeiffer was involved in this study in some way. The records proved to be disqualified from the research because there were no medical history of diagnoses of schizophrenia. The medical records were not releasable to family per state law at that time, so mom never personally saw the records. She only had the letter of disqualification for the study as proof, which might yet be recovered in her personal records storage. All of her life, Mom sought to find the cause of the illness that her dad suffered with. By extension, she was seeking answers for herself and her own children.

Answers are only now becoming clearer. Autism and ADHD diagnosed in the youngest of my own grandchildren are giving me a lens through which the family history becomes understandable. Down that rabbit hole is the cluster of comorbidities that seem to have defined my mom’s life.

In some small way this website is meant to honor the lifelong beliefs and efforts of my mother.

Sincerely, Rainey Shiver, youngest child of Alice Lorraine Hill

“For every drug that benefits a patient, there is a natural substance that can achieve the same effect.”

— Pfeiffer’s Law

Thanks For Visiting