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."

Double AND nothing (you can do about it)

The testing process, Following the finding-a-doctor-and-money-and-insurance-and-someone-who-would-even attempt-to-diagnosis-a-30-year-old was lengthy, though shorter then the former.  This process as of now, has been at least a year, if not 14 months or longer, to get to this point, and that illustrates an incredible problem for those who are affected, isolating fundamental flaws in the architecture of modern health care and Autism diagnosis, but that is a different post altogether. 


Only a day ago, did i finally get the absolute last nail in the just barely proverbial coffin. 


Yesterday punctuated yet another round of psychological testing, intelligence testing, and various other paperwork looking for markers of my condition. I don't take anyone's word for anything, so i took it upon myself to seek out a differential diagnosis.  I had the best practices diagnostic manual for autism in it's most current iteration sent to my apt in it's entirety from the governing state body (Dept of mental health)  and it suggested a person of my age invalidates most convention testing, leaving the best course of action to be a comparative approach utilizing multiple doctors and diagnostic measurements. State medicaid doesn't exactly cover that manner of thing, but the loopholes allowed for me to achieve as close to it as i could hope for with such limited resources.

Doctor 1 was a psychologist with 20 years of experience and 3 autistic children herself. While i feared bias, i also recognized that she has more experience witnessing behaviors and symptoms then most anyone i'd ever heard of, so i valued her opinion.  She was the first to complete the process, and the one whom initially confirmed me as ASD (aspergers syndrome) 

I suppose before that there was the informal evaluation i had from the state to find out if i was eligible for state insurance under a disability diagnosis.. Which confirmed i was eligible for free insurance under disability status, but did not confirm to me personally, WHAT that status was, so that may actually be the FIRST, though it may be something else.... no idea what.

Doctor 2, was more methodical then the first, approaching it first as a clinical psychologist, with a  battery of tests, information taken from someone who knows me (rachel) self reporting, iq tests, mortality tests, attention tests, focus tests, motor skill tests, and on and on.  My iq tests came out higher then those they compared against (8th grade tests retrieved from old school records) my comparative test of self reporting (i filled out and same questions then filled out ABOUT me by rachel) were relatively similar in curve, however i reported all the effects on myself at 2 to 3 grades higher of intensity then rachel reported while observing me. That seems quite sensible. My experience being more immediate and visceral then a bystanders. 

I demonstrated some overlapping symptoms of ADHD (reported restlessness, both self reported, test indicated, and observed) however it is odd in how it manifests based on test data. It appears i have a great deal of physical restlessness (i am figdety and very often uncomfortable) but great visual attention (and ability to process data sets rapidly switching without being confused, with counter indicates ADD or ADHD (the doctor finds this fascinating.) While taking a test that measures attention via sound in concert with visual, my visual performance dominates by a margin of 70 visual 55 auditory, however isolated the scores are similar.  This indicates something i had often remarked, that i feel as if ALL my senses are set too high, and if multiple channels of strong stimulus try to force there way in, one input channel may narrow or shut altogether. A great deal of "panic attack" states (states of extreme pain of discomfort) often immediately manifest in situations where this is unavoidable. 

This may indicate that, far from ADHD as thought by doctors for my entire life, that rather then being "spacy" as the doctor said or having the problem of daydreaming of inability to focus, i am simply RIPPED away from a primary task if a powerful external stimulus hijacks my attention.  A very odd development indeed. I may have a future as a test subject. Which i suppose is the only future i could have imagined for myself years ago without scoffing. 

"Yep. That's more likely then me getting married or finding jesus. I'd believe it."

So doctor 2, ultimately ALSO diagnosed me as having Asperger's Syndrome, achieving my initial goal of double (possibly triple) verifying my condition to assure MYSELF first, that i was not attempting to make excuses for myself, and that rather, this is real, scientifically verifiable, and the truth of things in a way that i am isolated from as a variable. 

No bias. No mistake. No self. diagnosis. No bullshit. Goddammit i said it when i was a boisterous teenager and i'll say it now. 

"I am the truth." 

There is no need to revisit this question and add to my own cortisol and personal anxiety, i just need to go through the stages of grief and get to the end.  There is no way around this, or through it, it is, terminal, chronic, unavoidable.  All i can do is make peace with it, embrace my original, intuitive model of coping which is, to outlast, to endure, to be made of tougher stuff then everyone else so i can survive this uneven weight that i am forever saddled with. 

I am the truth. That is to say, i am myself. I am who i say i am. I am what i have always advertised myself to be. I have never lied about it. I have occasionally overstated myself, as dramatic lisence and the heart of a poet is want to do, but i am genuine. 

I am sincere. If that remains to be a thorn in the paw of the everyone i encounter in the world forever, then it must be. There is simply no other path for me. 

I should feel freed. one road completely erased. No more perilous fork to ponder. No more time to stand motionless, enrapturing the self in paralysis by analysis.  There is only one way to go now.  And it's just as i always suspected. Just as i'd FEARED.  Now it's just me, walking forward for all time, like the living dead. Imbued with strength of motion, but devoid of purpose, able to shamble on long after the head and heart are rotted through. 

Without a house to save for, without a future to hope for, without some feeble dream of a wife and children to sustain my present, 
without all the mooring that keep things such as us living.

The 2nd doctor remarked that some of tested revealed a sense of profound hopelessness, and suggested to screen for suicidal ideation.  BUT, she remarked "I just don't see that in you." 

The paper has no emotions, the human, does.  

Something inside me, both sad and petulant smiles.

The paper was right.

Expository Exhaustion

One of the biggest reoccurring problems in my life having to do with my disorder, is directly related to having to talk about it.

If your similar to  most any sort of person at all, chances are you have run into the problem of having to explain something to someone that just does not understand. I feel like it's a relatively ubiquitous experience. 

Most of the time, when it comes to social things ("You shouldn't say that.") That guy is me.  But all the other times, for ME, that guy/girl is YOU.

It happens to everyone. You try to explain your political position to someone who inquires, but they really only asked to be polite and wish you would shut up. You get dragged into a discussion about finances, or politics, or pop culture, or *sigh* RELIGION, and feel sweat beading and rolling down your forehead and that familiar warmth in your throat that reminds you of your growing exasperation. 

No manner of explanation seems to be good enough. Be it carefully thought out and rigorously fact checked, or emotional and profoundly felt, or hastily babbled out over too much caffeine in one of many government approved meth dens (starbucks) dotting the landscape.  

I hate the cliche' of it all. I HATE that the incredibly STUPID cliche' comes back around here and dominates.

"You just don't understand."

The statement is a non statement, a non sequitur. By itself, it means nothing. It is tendering your resignation to the futility of trying to codify the ineffable.   It is a face contorted by depth of emotion and words reaching it's finale via burst blood vessels in the temple and both eyes, achieving nothing, before the curtain falls, and the audience shuffles out, irretrievably vexed, and there is nothing either of you could have done to achieve a better result.

Imagine my side of this. Try to empathize with someone who has an obscenely heightened grasp of language, trying to explain WHY that does not mean i am a NORMAL person who is slightly smart with words and what it means to be on the autism spectrum to a person who has a one dimensional understanding  (or no understanding at all) of what autism means.

You would be welled served to walk away from that conversation 10 times out of 10.  It's valueless for both parties.  However social convention dictates i at least try, otherwise it is perceived that i am being some condescending holier then thou asshole, even if i already know the end result.  If you know nothing good can come of it, the logical course is to abstain from the conversation is it not?  I am trapped within illogical precepts that bind me up.

A lose-lose situation for me.  How can this be remedied?  How can i hope to make lemonade from this particular cart of lemons?  I have not yet come to a conclusion. Thus far it seems as though i have two equally unappealing choices:

Disengage utterly. Avoid interaction that leads me into having to have this conversation (lie) to achieve that end (which i am exceedingly bad at, almost completely unable to do) which leaves me feeling sad, lonely, hopeless,and burned out.

Ram my head into a brick wall. Which leads me to this end...  "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." -Albert Einstein  (note this quote is widely attributed to Einstein, but that is controversial) So. I can keep trying. As my perseverate nature tends to favor, knowing that there is no appreciable end in store for me.  If the numbers are right, then i am .1% and i cannot reasonable expect, as a scientifically minded man, to run into that in my daily travels. It is far more reasonable to assert that i will NEVER run into like minded people, ensuring my two equally unfavorable options remain as my only options. 

This is the difference between someone on the spectrum, and let's say just an antisocial personality.  I WANT friends. Honestly. I enjoy good conversation, it's one of my favorite things in the world. To be challenged, to be stimulated, to have an open and unfettered dialogue and peer into the minds of others.  I don't WANT to be alone, don't strive to be cooped up in my apt and have no friends (which at 31, i still have no lasting friends.) but my condition seems to impart some odd characteristics that disallow these kinds of relationships to form for me.  Of course i have tried my hand at faking, many, MANY times, but those relationships are unfulfilling and ultimately fail.  Eventually the real me coming beaming through the cracks in my expressionless mask and then it always comes back to "I don't like that guy.."   why?   "I don't know."

While having tried a dizzying variety of masks and techniques over my life, when the faking gambits work, they only allow me safe passage so long as i keep my mouth mostly shut.  When i'm honest, and i TRY to explain, well...  it gets old for me is all. The hope, the effort, the disappointing conclusion.  Being fired from every job, being dumped by every date.  All the while just reciting a memorized catalog of what you need to know about me before you know me. Exhausting. For others too, i'm quite certain. It's not as if i'm completely unaware after all this time. I know i have that effect on people.  The word they always used to describe me was "Intense." Which is to say, a catch-all for quite a few veiled negatives.  More accurately i surmise the words they meant were "Overbearing. Frighting. Intimidating. Condescending (i get that a lot), talks to much, asks too many questions, relentless."   To name a few. 

I don't mean to be, "intense." very little of personality is intentional. My mind is ME, there is no separating them. I AM my brain, and i don't believe otherwise. I don't  believe in free-will these days, i believe your conscious mind is a tiny pinhole of light poked into black shades over your eyes and the rest of what you do, want, say, feel, is already decided for you.  I could write 10 pages on the illusion of free-will, but that is another topic. My girlfriend said to me outright "Can you be a little less "You"?"   

The philosophical implications of that request are staggering! Well.. "If you consider the teaching of.,,,"  but seriously, I don't think i can.  I am 1, and i cannot subtract from that. I cannot compartmentalize or meter my personality. I can not be, 80% me or 45% me. I cannot even wrap my head around such a question.  She of course wanted me to be less "Intense" but alas, i am who i am, and i have already spent my entire life having to defend that, having to defend my brain, my personality, things i never had control over or asked for. I can't keep apologizing for what i had no hand in creating, and i'm not sure i can keep explaining.

I know that to stop, is to give up all hope. Admit defeat once and for all, and cut my losses from the human race. How much longer can i make it in this marathon before falling on my face and being dragged until it's finally over?

..........