Because all this is true and should be made explicit

[catsidhe]

I was railing at my boss today for trying to make me read his mind. And I thought that it is not fair for me to simply present a link, without emphasising the parts which made me sit back and say to myself: “Yes, this.” So I shall pull out some particularly relevant sections from The Game of Breathing.

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This 'victimhood' stance may indeed be grounded to some degree in the reality of day to day living for us. We can be misunderstood. Many of us have lived peripherally, have experienced bullying in childhood and/or ostracism as we have matured and aged. As someone with Asperger's Syndrome, I often "say" or "do" or "behave" in ways that are a little odd for others to grasp, a little left field, or a little to blunt or outspoken or harsh. I do not have the typically normal "social skin" and whilst I have learned some social skills in therapy and can manage with the rudimentaries of social exchange to some extent, I can still fail abysmally - at nearly 50 - at the fundamentals of social communication.

If I get tired or cannot focus all my intellectual and cognitive energies on the social exchange taking place, or if I am in a noisy place or my sensory processing is compromised by too much stimuli or information that is firing at me too rapidly and from too many sources, I can slip up and make troublesome comments with very little understanding of their impact or their effect on others. I fall into the familiar aspie faux-pas! I can monologue. I can bail someone up and begin a diatribe on a topic at the forefront of my own mind, and yet it is completely at odds wit the other person and their current task or wishes. (And because of subtley impaired mindblindness, I cannot read this fact.) In essence, I may interrupt or speak about something, without understanding the standard social nuances that others take for granted and intuit as a carefree part of daily life. I might express an opinion - not out of malice - but out of a desperate attempt to try to understand why others or a particular other may behave in certain ways or do certain things in the to and fro of social dynamics. And the problem is, that often, these opinions, or these analyses or queries on my part are interpreted and perceived within the paradigm of usual and common intuitive social behaviour and language - the common standard unseen language - and are thus judged accordingly as inappropriate or troublesome utterances by a "difficult individual" who says and does things that by social standards are NOT OK.

We aspies mean no harm.

In fact, my experience of many - but not all - on the autism spectrum - is that we are intensely caring people who feel deeply saddened that this intensely caring aspect and good-hearted aspect of ourselves is often overshadowed by our rather distinctive and oft-perceived "unsavoury" social or verbal blunders.

As Professor Tony Attwood states: "Sadly, aspies are often judged MORALLY for their communication difficulties."

And yet to reiterate...mostly, we mean no harm.

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This is what I call the GREAT GULF - the invisible difference in social processing and sensing that separates Aspergers people from others. By adulthood many of us have learned to get by and to cope. We may "appear" able to contend with daily life, we "appear OK" and bit by bit, as people come to know us beyond the learned and adopted social scripts we privately rehearse (obsessively and with effort and great strain,) our social communication deficits become apparent. We make the "offensive remark," or we query something or someone in a blunt manner that is out of synch with the social norms. And this is the hard and painful part of our adult lives. We interrupt. We want attention when it is an inappropriate time. We misread the social dynamics and make the typical Aspergers faux-pas's again and again. We say something "wrong." We "hurt" unintentionally. And finally...we disrupt the social fabric.......

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But for some reason, SOME clinicians are still not grasping the fact we do have emotions, and some of us are even extreme 'empaths' who cannot filter out emotional input from others, suffering from "echoemotica." The emotional range and depths expressed by spectrum people is vast, and cannot be assumed under a blanket generalisation of "lacking empathy."

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She talks about this in the context of Female Aspies, but I think much of it's a common experience.

One of the most pressing difficulties for many of these women was the degree of ignorance and skepticism about the diagnosis from "friends," health professionals and colleagues. It is my view, such skepticism is born out of socio-cultural ignorance and a tendency for mainstream culture to shy away from disability and to perceive it ONLY in terms of physicality and obvious and tangible impairment. When the disability is invisible and subtle, and is sometimes coupled with intellectual prowess and/or achievement, a claim and diagnosis of "Asperger's Syndrome" can be refuted or denied by those who adhere - rather erroneously - to the archetypal equation of Asperger's Syndrome with RAIN MAN. Sad...but true.

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I was formally diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in 2009 by a Clinical Psychologist who specialises in Autism Spectrum Disorders. It was indeed a watershed moment in my life. After a year of reading up on autism, when a younger family member was diagnosed, I began to realise slowly and uncomfortably at first, that my pattern of abilities and difficulties, my traits and my way of living and being and behaving in the world undoubtedly matched in with a fairly classic presentation of Asperger's Syndrome. It was not an easy time. But what was so rich and rewarding was that I had a host of interior questions and puzzles about who and what I was, answered clearly and succinctly through an awareness and deeper understanding of what an Autism Spectrum Disorder actually IS.

But it's all relevant, and all good. Really.