Problem solving via LASER GONIOMETER

My writing tends to be organic, and comes it waves. My feelings, when i can grasp them are fleeting and too difficult to fully express in plain language.  I am, as we all are, trying to decipher the ineffable after all.  I never expected it to be easy.

I have years of writing under my belt, and that leaves me with endless pages filled with subverted angst and a paper trail of my efforts to try to understand the self, the neurotypical world. and my place in it.  The following is a journal entry about the feeling, the struggle, in a little bite size piece.  No. It never gets any easier. 

I've read a lot. Not in terms of easy to name drop recognizably great works, but of information in general.

Data. facts. Figures. Concepts. Theories. Hypothesis. Inquires. Conflicts. Debates. Fallacies. Phallus-es,  and all the varying methodologies and dogma's therein. 

And my head hurts. Sure. All of that information is straining inside this shell, pushing against an impermeable membrane, threatening to crack the casing and the matter inside pulsates and throbs.   I still always find myself going back for more.

More knowledge. More information. More truths and immutable facts about reality. I guess my brain decided a long time ago how i was to operate in this world, and i was absent that day.  MORE.  If i fill up the space, perhaps i will be able to construct a uniform understanding of all the hypocrisies, aspirations, objectives, inclinations and inspirations.

Nothing seems to satisfy/sedate/satiate this urge to know it all.  I think of it in my head, as a tremendous flat landscape, the floor clear acrylic with bits of information like a massive puzzle hidden under endless piles of earth.   I wander this endless land, with nothing but a broom and my tenacious obsession, uncovering numbers, letters, images and clues. Forever methodically sweeping away the dirt that obscures my understanding. The final picture.

I'm not happy with speculation.  It's fun to attempt, to imagine,  to employ creative problem solving to attempt to reason out the world, but without all the pieces, the thing never coalesces.  It is pressure, and carbon, and time, but never, a diamond.

I want to understand why we hate ourselves. Why we hurt others. Why most of what we say as a species, are lies. Why we belief in fairy tales, why we defer to our lizard brains so often. What consciousness is and how more people can obtain it. What is the self and can those born without awareness of it EVER have it revealed to them?

I want to chew you up and pulverize everything that you are. Crunch your bones and suck out all the marrow.  Lick the blood of your thoughts and use all that matter to feed strength to my exhausted arms. To keep sweeping. Keep swinging. Keep digging. Keep holding my brains in my head with my hands, and crawling ever closing to the black abyss of truth.

Maybe there, i can finally learn, why humans are the way they are. 

Digging in the dirt.

This is from a piece i wrote several months ago, and while reading back over it, i recognized it's placement made far more sense here, then in my general purpose journal.  It is written in a more informal style, without an audience in mind, providing a more intimate window into what it might sound like if you could hear someone talking to themselves, trying to convince themselves of something, or talk themselves out of something else.

More headlines, more information but nothing stirring. So much pap, so little substance.

It occurred to me today, another piece of the self awareness puzzle,  my general interest in shopping malls.  I've always tried to put it into words, and have managed to understand a bit, this strange effect of being around people but completely invisible amongst them. It has always provided an odd comfort, as if i can draw energy from them via proximity, but do so in stealth, without the burdensome interactions that invariably end with me alienating everyone i meet. There seems to be another factor as well however.  People on the spectrum are being studied intensely right now, trying to understand autism via brain maps is what i'm most interested in personally.  As i understand it, and as i often stated in my life and writing long before i had a diagnosis, i tended to describe myself as  "An alien that learned human speech" (temple grandin coined the phrase "I was like an anthropologist on mars.") Similar yes?  I also made multiple references to feeling as if i had "crosses wires"  and the only way i could envision handling my life was an act of controlled demolition. Going in and tearing out everything, laying it back down in the way i saw fit would be the only way i could see surviving in a life and body that made me intensely depressed, lonely and nearly suicidal on several occasions.    Turns out, as it's been said by some researchers in the field one of the oddities of Asperger's, is that  "If you think you have it, you probably do." People on the spectrum have been observed as "thinking in pictures." Which is something i'd said of myself before too. I specifically remember telling brady among a few others this when i was a teenager, when trying to describe how i write.  I think that other dimension that i enjoy so much about the biggest and most robust shopping malls is for that reason, it's an added dimension of stimulation.   I can derive great pleasure from looking at things in that context. From studying people, and exploring this urban museum.   Picking things up in stores, reading labels and figuring out what things are made of. Where the materials came from, how it was constructed, how it is used or the science behind an item's creation.  I never feel strongly compelled to purchase or acquire, and often just wander, looking at everything in every store, looking for the story, enjoying the stimulation far more then the acquisition of of the thing.  I keep learning. and by doing so, i keep myself interested in a world that feels so small to me.  So small as each increasing bit of knowledge explodes the earth, and exposes it's secrets, condenses it's truth.  

How odd. An illness that bestows some kind of inexplicable self awareness?  What the hell is that? How can that really be possible, be a "thing" that occurs in the natural world?  The mystical third eye has become manifest? A unique expression of the human genome.  That's how i try to think of myself now, trying to gradually lighten the weights in my backpack, admittedly i put them there myself. I could blame the eyes, the people, the weakness projected onto me, but ultimately i decided the hurt i felt was a defect in my manufacturing, and i needed to rectify this problem immediately. So, i did literally put lifting weights in my pack on my walks to school and college. I braced myself and focused my mind, putting up layers of iron, nickel, aluminum, like paint on a plywood, gradually hardening, thickening, growing more and more dense until i could carry their weaknesses.  Until my strength was overwhelming any attempts to put me down or injure me with words or fists.   I took what i felt was this huge flaw that i was in my mind, personally responsible for, and buried it under my uncontrollably perseverate behavior.  I didn't think of it as perseveration then, i thought if it as the Nietzchian WILL, as integrity, and the honor and stoutness of the samurai code was to be integrated into my sloppy, weak, undisciplined life.

Turns out it was just one of my of the side effects of asperger's syndrome. An uncompromising nature, a drive to DO what i say i will do and  BE as i say i am.  I still carry that forward to this day, i have no other choice, but knowing now, i wouldn't change that about myself anyhow.  I  stand head and shoulders above the arrows and insults of a vicious unhappy world. I may be unhappy too,  but i am strong and honest, and i will NOT reduce myself to be a part of a society that is cruel, entitled, egocentric,  and functionally blind.  I have not been able to blind that third eye even with the most self abusive and rigorous attempts in the past, and i'm through with trying.  I was hard and unswerving then, i did NOT hesitate, and i will embrace that self once more with knowing arms, wrapping up that phantom and pulling it back into my self where in belongs.

You will rise up to my level, i will not waste anymore of myself trying to reduce myself to yours.

I do not know if one can nourish a soul enough, to cultivate this kind of awareness in the self. I do not know if i am special, so special, that i cannot ever be a part of this world, but i was born with this. Gift, or, curse, it is equally both, and i cannot relate to what it must be like to have that barely-functional vision, two eyes that are just good enough.     Can self awareness be hammered into the soul, a spike that splits the brain stem, separates the many parts and forces new tissue to grow, new electric wires to sprout like saproling's stitching the now open mind back together?

I can't waste myself on that either. I tried, with so many people. I joked to myself, or tried to tell myself i was joking when i said "there are no friends for me.  I have to build one from scratch."  And god did i try.  But it was not to be.

One can not lie as a Man in a field of cows and expect to wake up in a field of Man.

I understand that now.  Part of me will always pull myself in that direction, for me, i can't characterize it in my head in any other way then "helping."  But help is relative i guess.   The Hagakure says:

"Offer advice, like a glass of water, to a man dying of thirst. "

but i had never been able to understand when people are lying to me all that well, and so much of what a person says to everyone, everywhere, everyday, is a lie.    When a person complaints at length about a specific topic, "I'm fat. I'm boring, i'm unhappy, i'm weak-willed, i shop to much."  Whatever it may be, i don't understand that they are in fact just talking to fill space, to make noise, to facilitate the passing of time.   It is illogical to me that when i would offer solutions to these problems, even with considerable education, intellect and tact, that i would draw such ire, such a fiery counterattack in response.

"At what point did we start fighting?" I would wonder to myself. I made mental notes, and noted this occurrence and how often it seems to repeat it's course, but i was powerless to change the way it played out. I just could not understand patently illogical behaviors and mannerisms, and to this day, i still can't.

So i am trying to not do that, to divest myself from caring about people, without becoming completely cold. I already sway between emotionally detached and unmitigated intensity when i am engaged on the topic that interests me, such is the nature of the syndrome. No stomach for small talk, no mind for unimportant ritual and pleasantries.  I never compliment someone to garner favor, i only do so if i really believe what i'm saying with complete conviction.   I'm not certain this is a hurdle i can overcome, another gate in my brain physically cut, a flopping wire removed from the circuit that connects everything else. Best to accept that i can't do everything perfectly, certainly not with the dexterity or agility of a neurotypical brain wired for social interaction.

Don't break your back again, loading the backpack up with weights or people, that didn't want your help to begin with.  Let them fall away and fade into the rear view, as so very many have in my life, and as more will surely follow.   It's a lonely life, a dedicated samurai, or cowboy, or enlightened mind in a world of indifference so sharp that to look at it will draw blood.

So don't blame them, but don't capitulate to them either  Don't let them BLAME YOU for their weaknesses that increase in weight the closer they stand to you, your gravity, one of the side effects of that metaphorical third eye, ebbs ever outwards, pumping out an energy that makes rain fall around you like gunfire.  That snaps the skinny bones and unguarded hearts of those that would approach carelessly.  Don't unsheathe your sword against anything but a worthy foe. Let your presence alone rattle the fault lines and break into pieces those who would stab you in the back.

There will always be envy. People who hate the birds for flaunting their ability to fly.   But birds don't concern themselves with those mournful creatures stuck down on the ground.  Neither disdain nor pride is conjured for the bird, they just live in a different world. 

How to give up (knowing when, or how, to throw in the towel)

This is not a tutorial.
It's a question.

At what point does toughness and rugged determination, cross over into delusional stubbornness and perseverence?

I don't have the answer to this, and being autistic, i don't know if ever will to a degree that makes me comfortable.   My very nature, like many others on the spectrum is interwoven with the tendency to perseverate. This word has a few different definitions so i'll clarify a bit.  One listed from wiki states: "the inability to switch ideas along with the social context, as evidenced by the repetition of words or gestures after they have ceased to be socially relevant or appropriate," ... Which is pretty good, but not an all inclusive explanation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseveration

More or less, what happens is we get stuck.  There is a point at which rational minded people would abandon a cause for one reason or another.

it could be simple disinterest, it could be that the platform has been abandoned and they are following the crowd (like from myspace to facebook ) It often times is because completing the intended action has become too difficult, and also could be that a person has made a reasoned observation that the amount of energy they would expend to complete it would be much greater then the end result (Sure i COULD repair that dvd player.. but a brand new one is 20 dollars at wal-mart.)

These options have never worked for me. It seems without fail, once i am commited to a task in the immediate sense, i am STUCK firmly to that task until it's completion, much to the detriment of my sleep schedule, any appointments i may have to keep, my hygiene, and even my ability to feed myself.  I have on many occasions, just forgotten to eat as a result of my level of involvement with whatever i engaged with, and it's not until i feel dizzy, or dehydrated , or deeply ILL that i notice.  Occasionally, i have someone remind me, and then i eat or drink before returning to to task, but if i'm alone..

Many examples exist in my own life where i have stayed awake for 3 days to fix something.  Usually this has to do with electronics. It could be building, stress testing, and repairing a computer, or last year, dismantling, rebuilding and repairing an X-box 360 that had stopped working by resoldering it and swapping a few parts.

The point is, while in some of these cases, the end result is great. I did fix the xbox and saved 300 bucks. I fixed a dvd player and saved 100 bucks. I fixed a computer and saved someone tons of  expense.  However the darker side of perseveration starts to drag into interaction with other people, and behaviors that can show potential co-morbidity with OCD.

Giving up on a task is hard enough, with someone who is built more then a little inflexible, but how do you decide when to give up on a person?  How do you DATE as an autistic and NOT just spend your relationships treating people like things to fix, never giving up because "you started it, and you have to finish it."

I know, externally, not intuitively, that people can not be dealt with in such a manner, and i know that at some point, you have to let go.  I feel as if i lack to insight to be able to accurately identify HOW and WHEN that should happen.   It tends to make me more black and white, and less forgiving when i try to create a system for myself.

3 Strikes and your out.  I know . What about extenuating circumstances? When if your partner is "going through something" and as a result is uncharacteristically mean towards you?  Should this allow for special considerations?

What if the infraction from another party was unintentional or "an accident." How many times do you allow for "Accidents" of this nature before disregarding this distinction?  I have always said something to the effect of: "I don't care if it's an accident. If you shot me and aimed at the guy behind me, i'm still shot. I'm not LESS shot because it was accidental."  

Who's wrong/right in that scenario?

If you honor all your agreements with a friend/relation and they repeatedly fail to honor theirs, how many "Chances" do you allow them before deciding to remove them entirely from your life?  Living up to one's word is very important to me. I am deeply honest, and rely on honesty to communicate with others in a world in which i experience a high degree of social blindness. I rely on my honest communication of my intent and feelings because i cannot reliably read the subtext and social ques of others as a communication mechanism.  When others fail to maintain honesty in actions AND in a words, the disconnect is deeply disconcerting for me, and i feel slighted, and disrespected when i am lied to.

You may justify it as a "Small Thing" ("I forgot to pick you up when i said i would. Come on, it's not that big a deal.") but i wouldn't agree to do something, and then "Forget." and THEN be nonchalant about it. If i make a commitment, i stick to it.

I'm still trying to learn, everyday, about how to have better interactions with others in a world that is full of invisible pits for me to stumble into that others see perfectly.

In the meantime, i'll keep asking questions, and carefully analyzing answers.  So i'm not being funny, or sarcastic, or rhetorical when i ask you,

"How do i know when to give up?"

The unbearable heaviness of being.

I had an odd lucid dream some days ago, and it was transcendently depressing. 

I've long experienced a profound frustration with other people.  That manifested in my mid teens as a palpable rage about the incompetence and idiocy of others, but grew to be a begrudgingly accepted truth as i grew older. 

It was embodied by a phrase i used to describe how i felt about the phenomena, 

"You can't fault a dog, for being a dog." 

I've read so much in my life between those age goalposts, and seen my initial feeling echoed out in the idea space by pained and tortured scientists, authors, artists and intellectuals throughout time.  Expressing a persistent melancholia about being so removed from others.  

The issue of autism acceptance can cut both ways you see, with you not wanting to accept me for my unique abilities being the most common manifestation, but also with me not able to connect to yours. Even though my desire to connect is sincerely genuine.

When you are truly gifted at something, be it language or science or art or music or even building a cement foundation, interaction with others attempting that same thing look positively oafish.  Co-mingling with them is irritating, there unfinished gangly attempts brushing up against the polished surfaces of your very skin. 

The bricklayer who is a true master see's idiots and imbeciles in his fellow bricklayers and takes no joy in it.  The initial swell of ego often pursued vociferously by others is long gone for these masters.  It's unwelcome replacement is this untenable disappointment that moves in to fill the void. 

You want to be surrounded by people of equal competence, not merely accepted but integrated with communication that flows in both directions.  However if you are superior at a given thing, that communication is always unidirectional.  You are always having to advise, correct, repair, and refurbish the efforts of the average people that comprise the majority of humanity. 

It is, in a word, unsatisfying. 

And this ANGST, this ineffable thing that i've detected in written works for so long that these masterful sorts express, is a result of an unfortunate conundrum they find themselves embroiled in.  

A good person can not HATE or DISDAIN a person of lesser ability simply on the grounds that he or she may be in one or many dimensions, inferior to him or herself.  

"You can't fault a dog for being a dog."

You can't fault a human for being, average. 

But this offers little to no comfort to the gifted, as now there is no grounds to expect or have hope for the average party to mysteriously metamorphosize into a gifted person.  Some abilities and gifts are inborn, genetically encoded, and no amount of push up's or reading of Proust will change that.

In my dream i was a father like figure, teaching someone how to ride a bike, with training wheels.  And while i am happy for the person i have taught, and this achievement is certainly worthwhile and significant  in their development, i and overwhelmed with sadness at the gulf that this reveals between us. 

"You can't fault a dog for being a dog."

And it wouldn't make me feel any better, if i could. 

I am "Gifted" this angst, this profound and deep sadness, and there seems to be nothing anybody can do about it. 

I wish to be with you. I wish to be like you. I wish to be inside, looking out at the grey drizzle.

And if wishes were horses,

beggars would ride. 

Neurotypicals and you.

SIGH.

I bet i'm more frustrated with you then you are with me. You have to deal with me once, i have to deal with you EVERYDAY AND FOREVER AND EVER.

Communication difficulties are the hallmark of an autistic person's life.  It doesn't matter where you fall on the spectrum, if you are on it at all, this problem is assured.

I often find myself sitting in the wake of various histrionic outbursts, pondering the thrashing, hostile neurotypical that has just stormed out.

Sometimes i myself become angry, as i saw nothing wrong or offensive with my response, but find myself being verbally assaulted with vulgarities seemingly out of blue, and i am a grown man. I will not be talked to in such a manner unless it is truly warranted.

I've tried to make sense of this for my lifetime, and it never, never makes sense to me.  Some suggestions for neurotypicals engaging in communicative efforts with those on the spectrum.

DO NOT ASK A QUESTION YOU DO NOT WANT ANSWERED
This is paramount.  If you are not ready for the full range of possible answers to a question, DO NOT ASK IT.  What the neurotypical mind is designed to do, anatomically speaking, is to be a predictive computer.  All of our TESTS for intelligence are based on prediction. What word comes next in this sequence? Which order do these images go in, and so on.

So i suspect i understand what is happening here.

You are asking a question, but predicting an answer.  If the response falls outside that range of predicted outcomes, it elicits hostility, or a general negative emotive response.  I cannot read your mind. I cannot read your face. I cannot read the hundreds of ques that other NT's can read that would allow me to know exactly the thing you want to hear in this instance.  You created a loaded situation for yourself, and me, so read the caps-locked-bolded part a few more times. I do not want to hurt your feelings, and i do not take kindly to being yelled at, over reacted too, or treated with great hostility when i do not understand the cause.  I am honest, i am different from NT's, this is true.  That does not mean i am LESS than, and i will not be ABUSED because you are incapable of hearing certain sequences of words.

SAY WHAT YOU MEAN

If you are the significant other of someone with ASD learn how to do this as soon as humanly possible.


If you come home after a long day at work, and start talking about something that is deeply frustrating for you, and you are VENTING and expressly DO NOT WANT ANY INPUT on the situation you are relaying, YOU MUST START WITH THAT FIRST.  If your stress about this day or said situation is profound, and my response, as covered in lesson one, is not what you predicted, or want to hear, you will likely become more agitated and now direct that stress and anger squarely at your partner, whom up until a moment ago, was a confidant, and is now, a punching bag that had nothing at all to do with your stress.

It is considered, i'd like to think universally, EVIL or at the very least, cruel, to hit a pet, or spank a child for it's actions when it cannot comprehend what is occurring.  I do not know at what point responding to a statement was grounds for full out verbal nuclear warfare, but had i known, i certainly would have avoided in it entirely.  I get no joy from oppressing or irritating others indiscriminately. I am pedantic by design as a result of my brain's biology,  not because of my desire to show off my  intelligence or make you feel stupid.

BE SPECIFIC

This is a continuation of lesson 2, but important. When you say, "I wanted you to support me."

I don't know what the fuck your talking about. Seriously. Even if  i've known you my entire goddamn life, that sentence means NOTHING to me.  It's far too vague, it forces me to make vast amounts of assumptions about what your precise desires are and am not comfortable doing that.  I will not undertake to do something i know i will FAIL at, just because you are incapable of more coherent language. I experienced this problem once in a very short job i held as a prep cook.  I would be given a list of materials and quantities required of me to prepare for the chef, but no notes regarding specifics.  To tell someone, "chop this up." Is woefully inadequate to me. Do you want to onions diced? Chopped? Quartered? Cut into strands?  I was NEW TO THE JOB, and in all situations dealing with people, i respond that same way. I will not prepare all the food under the assumption that perhaps, this is how you want it done, only to be browbeaten upon completion because you did not specific the thing you wanted because your inconsiderate or just a complete idiot.

Tell me how you want it done, and I will do it perfectly, comfortable that our communication was flawless, and that i did the job I was supposed to do, not the job I assumed that you wanted done.

Think about it. The whole fucking world runs like this.  I feel so excluded from virtually everything that it takes all of my will power to get out of bed day to day, and you could help me so much, by just thinking a BIT more about how you act, what your saying, and by being a little considerate.

DON'T FORGET

That i am on the spectrum.

That just leads into the whole mess repeating itself. You get angry at me for some perceived slight or lack of some vague feeling of support or politeness or social protocol that i did not enact....

and i am depressed and irritated that all the times i explained in great depth, THAT  I AM NOT LIKE YOUR FRIENDS,AND THAT MY BRAIN WORKS DIFFERENTLY THEN THE PEOPLE YOU WORK WITH, and yet your still getting angry at me for the way i think and the way i talk, even after spending countless hours carefully explaining how i work to you. I feel twice slighted,  for not being listened to, and then being yelled at.

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I still don't know if there is any practical way in which those on the spectrum and your average NT can interact in a fulfilling manner without these reactions eventually driving the autistic to live out life like a hermit in a cave due simply to be outnumbered by those that would be oppressive and close minded about different types of people.  I'm going to sit in my cave for ANOTHER 10 years, while i think about it.

This structure heaves and sags under it's own weight, and i have no course, but to patiently await it's fall. 

Autism Spectrum Disorder and co-morbidity

It's been a bit since i've posted but there is never a lack of things to talk about.

Today i'd like to talk about some of the co-morbid conditions that are commonly present with Autism spectrum disorders, including which affect me.

This is by no means an attempt at a complete list, it's actually fairly exhausting how many different things may be linked, but some do not have enough research yet to be formally included, such as:

Oppositional Defiance Disorder
I was observed very early in my educational life as being an odd duck, being evaluated as early as the first grade. It was recommended that i see a therapist, even at that age, but my mother, fearing the social stigma that accompanies mental illness (and perhaps in part, due to our poverty) did not agree with that accessment.  This diagnosis was given to me after several ADD/ADHD diagnosis have already been leveled towards me, but know that this particular co-morbid condition is rare, and tends to be reserved for those the research suggests are "lower functioning."

Bad handwriting? Check. Clumsy as all heck? Check. Inability to hit a softball lobbed underhanded in front of me? check.  Another co-morbid condition for those on the spectrum that is very common is called Dyspraxia, or Motor skills disorder.  My handwriting to this day is quite awful, but it seems we live in an age where that is of much less consequence now thanks to computers, smartphones, and email usage, but it was a huge stumbling block when i was a kid in school.  Many a paper was returned covered in red ink with words circled and question marks written by them. =-/   My inability to be very coordinated also made team sports, and all sports, quite rough for me, ensuring that i was always an awkward and below average performer in every one i tried.  And i DID try. I went out for baseball, but had trouble both catching AND hitting. I managed to get on the basketball team, but largely out of pity, and was barely every allowed to actual play at games (unless of course we were getting destroyed or ahead by an absurd number or the coach wanted a laugh.)  I did later develop respectable shooting skills in basketball, but could not "move" with the ball very well at all.. still can't.   A life of the mind is more in line with my abilities and i'm ok with that. I can play tactical games with uncanny proficiency and skill and that suits me just fine. =-D  It does contribute to the amount of bullying and teasing you get in school invariably however. Part of the package.

This is in part related to Sensory Processing Disorder, which is basically over or under sensitivity to a wide variety of stimuli.   There are many theories and studies being done regarding this, and many a person with ASD can readily identify with this particular disorder. I myself have heightened sense of hearing, sensitivity to light, and sense of smell, but an under sensitivity to pain in general.  This plays a big factor in a pretty common occurrence for many of us which is "sensory overload" or Overstimulation.  Sometime's the supermarket seems quiet and bearable, other times, it's packed with people, very LOUD machines are moving and beeping, people bump into you, and then your starting to have a meltdown in the store.   It's pretty easy for this to creep up on you before you fully realize it and then you've got a rough day ahead of yourself.  People likely won't understand and often will be judgmental and rude but if you have to just run the hell out of a place because your feeling overwhelmed, ignore the peanut gallery and get the heck out of there.

Depression/Bipolar/unipolar disorders.
All dreadfully common co-morbid conditions unfortunately.  The depression does TEND to be directly related to the communicative difficulties we all have on the spectrum (you'd be frustrated and depressive too if you couldn't relate to anyone) so thankfully this one tends to be something (at least in my opinion) i think can be best dealt with by having supportive people in your life and a network to make you feel wanted, and valid. I want to be independent, i WANT to have friends and a job and contribute as best i can, but fighting and uphill battle against a close minded and merciless world takes it's toll. I would always advocate talk therapy and the human element over medication first and foremost.  This is not enough in ALL CASES of course.

ADHD

Well this was what started me on my journey.  I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child, and this is a pretty common co morbid condition.  However, after being tried on several medications (including the classic, ritialin) They found no positive effects.  I lost weight as a result of the ritalin in particular, and as a very skinny child to begin with, they gave up on the drug route.  It turns out that it's a pretty common misdiagnosis, to mistake those on the spectrum who may have accelerated skills in certain areas, or mild savantism, as having a hyperactivity problem.  When in fact, they are just completing the standard educational material at a much faster rate then those around them, and as a result, incredibly bored and understimulated, resulting in "hyperactive" behavior.

There are a few others, with scant research to back them up... Like Bowel disorders, or Anxiety disorders (which are often just par for course under an ASD diagnosis)  But those are the one i personally have had experience with.    For every 100 people that read this, i'd like for there to be a few people that go "YES, that's exactly what i went through!" but if wishes were horses, right?

Hope this helps some of you out there trying to live full, diverse lives with ASD, and the few, the valuable, cool people who support someone who is affected for the right reasons, because they love them, and want to see a more tolerate, intelligent world.

Mild Savant-ism (why being smart and on the spectrum can be bad.)

Hello. Now that i have twice confirmed my condition i suppose it's time to get on with it.

Trying to find my place in the world has always been hard, and to this point, at 31, i've yet to feel like i have even gotten close.  This isn't to trivial a task for others either, as i believe it CAN be hard for everyone to a degree, but being on the spectrum presents a host of challenges that often times i simply CANNOT explain adequately enough to others. 

It's not uncommon for those with ASD to occasionally have a gift, or perhaps more than one. One of the odd little quirks of our differently-abled-ness is over-development in some parts of the brain yielding usual skill in one thing or another. This does not occur in all those affected, but when it does it is generally identified as a savant trait.  I believe the most common pop culture reference to this was in Rainman, wherein dustin hoffmans character demonstrated extremely unusual acumen with all things mathematical.  

Having had more iq tests, personality tests, and various ADHD tests, wasies, mullers, ravens, etc. then most any neurotypical person, i'd been told i had usually high iq scores, and a gift with language. 

I come from a poor family, grew up with a single mom largely on welfare. Had life threatening asthma and all the social perils that growing up with ASD provides. I did poorly in school, as most affected do, with the sole exceptions being creative writing, English and anything related to computers. (i was taking apart and repairing apple 2 computers in the 3rd grade.)  This is just to give you a little context. I never had special education or attention given to me, most of my schooling occurred before aspergers was even really diagnosed, and being poor and going to school in an impoverished area, there was no budget for me even if they had known.  The best they could do, was some of my teachers would spend some out of pocket money to buy me extra books to read, as i was flying through the material i was given. During RIF *reading is fundemental* events, teachers would allow me to pick more books then the other kids, and some teachers would give me THEIR picks as well, which was something i was truly excited for as a kid. I read all the mythology books i could, books about dinosaurs and all the differences in breeds of dogs. But my real skill came from how i seemed to effortlessly metabolize language.

I to this day, find myself using words i don't even remember learning.  Often times i will even look then up afterwards just to make sure they mean what i think they mean. Apart from one miss (The word, halcyonic)  I'm spot on.     

This has been an endless source of irritation for me, for the entirety of my life.

Some people have heard of kids with aspegers referred to as "Little professors" due to this abnormal verbosity, and i was no exception. My mother claims i started speaking at 9 months. When i, as an adult said "why didn't you think something was wrong with that if other children were not talking until 3 or older?" 

She said "I just thought you were smart!"  Smart, well, sort of, different, most assuredly. 

I starting writing in the 3rd grade, and even HAVE that first journal.  I have written ever since.  I wrote one of the hallmark things that all aspies seem to feel and have that proof from my youth. 

"I feel like an alien who learned human speech." 

Turns out, i was right decades before i would know why.  

Struggling with this reality, speaking a different language to everyone else, has done horrible things to my self esteem, my confidence, my ability to be proud of myself for who i am,  and i'm sure been plenty unpleasant for those whom i've dealt with as well. 

Everyone accusing me of being condescending all the damn time.  Macho guys telling me i "Talk like a faggot."  people staring at me after i spoke with an weird lifeless leer, dead eyed and baffled.   Imagine the oddity of being dropped in the middle of any foreign country with just english at your disposal, and you have a fair representation of what it feels like.  Now rarify that language, shrink the numbers to a fraction of 1% of the population at large, and THOSE are the people who can understand my native tongue, and whom i can understand. 

The tides may be turning, and we may have more supporters for ASD now then ever before, but they are still a fraction of the world, and still in most cases, sadly, cannot communicate well with us, even if they are genuine, and completely sincere. 

For everyone else, they think i'm a show-off or an arrogant asshole the second i open my mouth.  I'm a know-it-all, a smart-alex. OR, 

They think it's a gift. An amazing gift.  I've heard equally as many times, "You sound so SMART! I wish i could talk like that."  Therein lies the problem.  I DO sound smart.  I consider my ability a mild savantism. but if you had a person with math savantism or music savantism or could juggle anything in the room, or an eidetic memory, would you think that person was "OK"?  Normal? Perfectly able to do all the things that other NORMAL people do? 

Now what if that person had unexplainable eloquence and expressiveness through language? 

They assume i'm just a REALLY SMART normal person.  I should be able to do EVERYTHING they can. Hell, i should be able to do EVERYTHING BETTER!  "If your that smart, it must be easy right?" "Geez if your so smart i bet it would be easy to be rich!"

Ableism. Because of how i present, it's my constant companion.  But i haven't lived alone for more then a week in my entire life. I cannot drive a car. I get lost walking less then a mile from my home. I have been unable to maintain employment due to constant and inevitable social problems. Even though i completed 6 years of college and have degrees on my wall, i have never had the chance to get a job in the field of my education because i always fail the interview.  It takes me 50 interviews just to get a minimum wage job because everyone tells me i'm "overqualified." 

What a complimentary way to tell someone to fuck off.  

And when i get that job, it takes a week for everyone i work with to despise me.  I have difficulty doing so many of the things that neurotypicals take for granted, and yet it is likely i never qualify for any manner of disability due to my verbal savantism making me appear "Competent"  in a way that i cannot live up too.

So if no one wants me as i am, and no ones buys me faking as a neurotypical (when i used to try) what kind of life do i have to look forward too? 

Maybe when it comes to life, i'm just "Overqualified."