The Wizard of Oz (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead (Reprise)

We Welcome You to the Munchkin Land

Come Out, Come Out...

We're Off to See the Wizard

If I Only Had the Nerve

Cyclone (Extended Version)

Follow the Yellow Brick Road / You're Off to See the Wizard

We Thank You Very Sweetly

As Coroner, I Must Aver

As Mayor of the Munchkin City

This is part 1 of a work that is a little over ten minutes long, so I'm splitting into two pieces so the SoundCloud algorithm works. Part 1 (heard here) is the explosion, Part 2 is the aftermath.  To hear the complete work without interruption:  https://soundcloud.com/steve-owens-989781522/dysphoria

Dysphoria concerns an experience common to many people who are neurodivergent and or have experienced trauma. It is both an outgrowth of my personal experience, and my experience as an educator working with students (and adults). When I was an administrator, I worked multiple times with the psychologist Dave Melnick of the Northeast Families Institute on matters of workforce development. In one consultation, Dave introduced me to the concept of "working upstream" with behaviors, understanding the trajectory of the individuals "interiority" so as to be able to identify where that person is in the cascade of inner events and tailor interventions.

In the community of autistic people, when this cascade flows into dysregulated behavior, we call it a "meltdown". The meltdown can be minor, or it can be life changing, resulting in loss of job, home, relationships, or even injury or incarceration. The interior experience proceeds in five steps, ending in visible behavioral dysregulation:

1) physiological deregulation (a feeling in the body that demands relief)
2) an impulse (to do something about it)
3) emotional dysregulation
4) cognitive dysregualtion
5) a behavior

Dysphoria does not follow this trajectory in a linear fashion. Each of these stages are entangled, and it's more a question of emphasis at any given moment.

"Shame and regret" is the universal aftermath....

Performed by the Truberry Duo, Trudy Chan and Rob Frankenberry, pianists.
steve.owens@vcfa.edu

Dysphoria Part 1: the explosion

Cyclone (Extended Version)

MGM Studio Orchestra

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