Asperger's Syndrome
I have Asperger's Syndrome and so do certain other members of my family. It
gets a bad press and I find that rather annoying so can I explain?
It isn't debilitating. We do have a slight difficulty remembering that you
don't know what we know but it's the rest of you weirdos that don't say what
you mean and expect us to infer it by some magic that have the problem.
The classic Asperger gotcha is asking me "Did you leave the door open?", to
which I answer "Yes" because I did. Then you get all mad at me because you
expected me to understand it as "If you left the door open then go back and
close it". Naturally I would be quite happy to go and do this but say what you
mean for crying out loud. You can only get mad at me for no obvious reason so
many times before I have to resort to blanking you out. Blanking you out is not
social dysfunction, it is a perfectly valid, non-violent way to deal with
idiots.
I will admit we are not good at passing on information, because we tend to
assume you already know things and, because you know things we don't as well,
we tend to assume the rest of the world is smarter than we are. Finding out
this isn't true can be a pretty traumatic experience. Factual errors drive us
mad. Logical contradictions hurt physically but you will be hard put to upset
us provided you are consistent. We are never insulted by you being clear in
what you want while subtlety, implications and inferences are just looking to
create misunderstandings. Just tell me to go back and shut the door.
Please.
We do fall for the trick of not realising that somebody else doesn't know
something because they didn't quite see what we saw but it has to be pretty
contrived to become a problem. We also tend to be a bit trusting which has
caught me out very badly a few times, but in a civilised society, why do people
lie to me?
You supposedly 'normal' people are weird but we tolerate you. However people
who think I'm "shifty eyed" because I don't find their face very interesting
when they're talking to me are overreacting. This non-verbal communication lark
really annoys me. It's not as though people are in any way consistent. If you
say yes because it's true but try to send a non-verbal no because you don't
really like the idea today and I hear yes I'm not doing it to annoy you. It is
you that have the problem. I am not being 'literal', I am listening to you and
hearing what you tell me. Is that so wrong?
Don't confuse Asperger's with Autism which is what some people do. It is a
spectrum. Asperger's is in the middle with 'normal' at one end and Autism at
the other. 'Normal' over emphasises people and suspends the normal rules of
truth and clarity while Autism can make you miss the fact that a human being is
different from a tree so they are no more important and get missed. We just
don't use magic formulas to deal with people. Some people are so 'normal' they
become violent or burst into tears at every imagined slight. Nobody said
anything or even meant anything negative, they just non-verbaled it out of thin
air.
I think Aspergers makes for a better human being, but often it is the thing
that makes us far more vulnerable in society. If I tell the truth and you lie
then you can trick me. If you and your fellows use some secret code to hide
things from us you can catch us out. It may be a fun game to play on us but in
the end we begin to get the idea that we are being messed about because we're
not stupid. Most of us have tales of being bullied and, frankly, we put up with
things better than 'normals' but when one of us cracks and somebody finally
gets a well deserved busted nose they say "that's what you expect from somebody
with a syndrome". 'Normal' syndrome is far worse. You overdo the wrong things.
I have never managed to dislike a person with more than the disdain I reserve
for overcooked sprouts. We could never do vendetas, stalking or outright war.
However I don't believe my love for my wife, my children and my grandchildren
is any less than any other person ever.
The big blank spot in my childhood was spelling. I cannot spell and I suspect
it is related. My father, who understood me far better than anybody else other
than my wife, spent time with the various schools to protect me from their
usual "can't spell implies stupid" attitudes. Result? 10 O-levels, 6 A-levels
and the maths prize. Yes, I pulled 155 on the Mensa IQ
test. However I never understood people until I discovered serious fiction in
my thirties. That was what actually told me what was going on in all this
non-verbal stuff. We can learn non-verbal speak as if it were a foreign
language and, although I think my accent is poor, my vocabulary is limited and
I'm a bit slow, it works. We just don't have it built in.
by Nigel Hewitt