April 3, 2008

• being aspie

   

  Being aspie is all the rage in aspie circles.  Arguments over the puzzle ribbon, preferences for 'Aspergerian', two very solid camps at odds over whether Asperger's is preventable or curable and the fear of having unique personalities erased, destroyed...

  I had no clue what this was when I walked into a psychiatric office on campus in the late '80s and begged for help.  My mother had no clue what this was when she dragged me from doctor to doctor and my teachers begged her to take me to a psychiatrist and get some help.  I never got any help.  Ever.

  The buzz books coming out lately have such long holds at the library you almost can't get your hands on them.  Tony Atwood's stuff, Look Me in the Eye, Born on a Blue Day...  Many more books describing the typical freak show that we are to the 'normals'.  I can't get over the critics making such a big deal over the 'coming out' of aspies.

  And you know those statistics?  More boys than girls?  One in 300, or even 250?  Load of crap.  I'm betting 10-12% of the worldwide population, both sexes.

  I'm no savant, at least in mathematics.  I can't do tricks for you.  I can look people in the eye.  After a few decades you learn.  Adapt or die.  And I have a lot to say about passing for normal in this world.  I hope you guys can handle this.

  Before we get going, I'd like to introduce myself.  I'm a mom with grown kids.  I have a degree in sociology, minored in anthropology.  I can drive, hold jobs, get through holidays.  Or can I?  Am I faking it?  Heck, yeah.  You have no idea how hard this has been.  Am I as freaky as those other aspie people writing books?  Let's just say I'm going to be way more open, extremely more honest, and the depth of thought is going to scare some of you.

  I came to accept a long, long time ago that I'm a 'freak'.  When I was in high school in the late '70s, freaks, geeks, and nerds were beginning to take over and break out into the metal heads and computer wizards of the '80s.  We're all around you.  We're on a spectrum.  If we don't fit in, some of us create a new niche for others to flock to.  It's not hard for me to recognize one of my own.  What I don't get is how the 'normals' don't seem to get a clue about it until they read a book.  It's easier to criticize what they don't understand.

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  What is Asperger's Syndrome?  In case this is your first aspie experience, here's the short version.  They finally figured out somewhere near the mid-'90's that autism is a spectrum disorder.  Some autistics are verbal, some aren't.  Some autistics have savant skills, others don't.  Some autistics do amazing things, but for the most part, the rest of us fit into a typical Bell curve of our own style of normal.  Some aspies have pointed out that the sorts of characters we laugh at in sitcoms on television exhibit typical aspie behavior, and that perhaps this is the last big hurdle of prejudice we humans face.  I agree there's a hurdle, but since I like being who I am, I think aspies are the bomb.  If we stop mimicking them on television shows, this world is going to become pretty dull.

  I have seen a lot of descriptions for Asperger's.  I find them too generalized.  Aspies are too easily compartmentalized into a row of spectrum boxes.  Some doctors seem surprised to find that the less verbal aspies are just as capable of holding jobs as the more verbal ones.  This is not the sort of spectrum where you can plug in one or two variables of behavior and get a consistent label on the whole persona.  Brains are like that.  I'm sure Irish and Blacks and Jews and any group of people you can name hated the generalized labeling when they went through it, and I hate it, too.

  I think we're going to find that aspie is just another variation on the human brain pattern.  We are born this way.  This is not an illness with onset and progression.  Sure, we can be tough kids to raise.  We can be weird and make you think there is something horribly wrong with us.  But is there really?

  I wasn't one of the lucky ones.  I didn't have the kind and loving determination from my parents that Born on a Blue Day did.  I didn't get to see a psychiatrist like Look Me in the Eye did.  In fact, my mom was so upset that there was something wrong with me that she spent years trying to fix me herself.  I have no idea what it's like to have a mom love me for who I am.  I've never felt forgiven for not doing anything right and embarrassing her.  Dad worked two jobs and ran a farm.  I was lucky to get time with him doing chores, and the occasional chess game.

  I don't want this to be about me airing out my grievances.  But as I scoured the library for books on Asperger's so I could get some context, what I found was so lacking in anything I could personally relate to that I began to wonder how many of us might be looking for more.  The world seems to like reading about real life experiences.  I'm game.  I've been in a spotlight all my life, continually picked on and talked about, so I can't imagine me putting my own story out there being any harder than that.

  I learned about Asperger's Syndome in the fall of 2006 at the age of 45.  The shock and relief were incredible.  I have no idea if this will be helpful to the medical community or aspies and their families in general, but it feels so good to finally get this out, I'm going to do it anyway.

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  I also wrote this article about the nationwide freakout over early autism screening

  (Sorry, I think that's gone now.  Someone once used that for a research report, which was flattering.)

  • 7:19 pm
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