Friday, November 05, 2010

Asperger's: Blessing or Curse?

I've been forced to think about something recently that, honestly, I wish I hadn't. It's something I swore to myself I wouldn't think about once I was diagnosed and settled pretty comfortably into what IS in fact different about me, and what ISN'T WRONG WITH ME. But alas, things happen, and my mind starts racing. One of the things I freakin' hate about my Aspie brain. Problem is, the hate doesn't stop there.


When I started Aspie Supremacy, I had an idea in mind. Not, as many accused, of being Hitler to a band of Aspie Nazis who truly believe they're better than everyone else and want to obliterate the other side...just simply accentuating the POSITIVES of having AS, with a sense of humour. It isn't surprising to me that a few people, NTs and Aspies alike, didn't get the humour in my little joke....hell, I've been dealing with THAT conundrum my entire life...but I chose to continue on with the idea that while no, we might not be better overall than NTs, we do have some very unique gifts with which most people are not blessed. Don't get me wrong, I do stand by this, but unfortunately, I do have to admit sometimes that Asperger's is definitely a two-sided coin.


I started life as an Autistic savant. Not 'kind of' or 'like' an Autistic savant, but rather, an actual kid with no social skills or graces, little desire to interact with others, and a whole hell of a lot of unexplainable talents and proclivities. People neither knew or cared what was actually going on in my head at any given time, and focused on what they saw. I talked, but not the way they wanted, and not for interaction, but rather (and there's no way they could've possibly known this) to release what was stewing in my head. When I started reading out of the blue at the ridiculously early age of 18 months, I began immediately memorizing whole passages from books, and a little later, even whole books, and reciting them back at the most random times. Even at that point, there was too FUCKING much in my head, and I wanted to get it out.


I'm not entirely sure when the hypergraphia kicked in, but I know that it was already a huge 'problem' by the time I picked up piano (a few months after my third birthday). I wrote my thoughts and favourite words on walls, empty pages and margins in books, and even on myself. I banged away at the keys in a desperate attempt to release the music I retained even more easily than words. Some of it made some sense to other, but most of it confounded them. I wish I could've expressed then what I know now: I was dealing with overload. Everything I read, heard, saw, and felt...up to and including the SPELLINGS of words, which I'd often instinctively recite in my own version of 'normal' conversation....would....and still does.....immediately get lodged in my brain, and I just wanted to get it OUT. And I did so in the only way I knew how.


It comes as no surprise to anyone that I'm a 'genius'. I don't say this in an up-myself way, and I do hope no one takes it as such. I don't think it's all it's cracked up to be. I mean, I don't know what goes on in the heads of NT 'geniuses', perhaps it's something far more cohesive than anything my brain's ever concocted, but I have a hard time imagining that every high IQ person, even those with normally-wired brains, comes across as 'brilliant' for the same reasons I always did. Basically, I don't really think I'm all that smart. I just KNOW things, either because my brain was wired to know these things from day one, because I'm a glue-trap for information, or a little bit of both. When information approaches me, I absorb it very differently to the way others do, and what happens to it when it comes in is CERTAINLY different to what happens to it with other people....though I'll be damned if I know why.


If I were truly intelligent, I'd be a better problem solver. If I were truly a 'genius', I'd know what the FUCK to do with all this information and uselessness swirling around my brain. Being able to 'see' music as I hear it and remember pages and pages of needless text decades after I read it isn't worth a whole lot if I still have trouble reading clocks and still have mini-panic attacks at the sight of long division. Knowing the origins of nearly all the words in the English language isn't worth shit if at this late stage, I still don't always know when it's my turn to speak in a conversation.


I could go on about this for days, but in case you haven't noticed, this is gripe no1 about my Aspie brain. And it's one gigantic mother of a gripe. But now on to my next problem....the one I consider the biggest plague of all.

EXTERNAL STIMULI. This topic is what started my brain going last night on my current hatred of my Aspergers. Sure, over the years, I've done a bang up job of 'passing' for 'normal'....but there are some things you just CAN'T train yourself to do, no matter how 'brilliant' you're supposed to be....and dealing with others and the noise and chaos they create is one of them. No, I don't usually start howling like a police siren anymore when overtaken by my surroundings, but internally, I sure as hell do. I still detest being in public most of the time. This is a problem, because over the years I've realised that I'm one of the most social creatures ever spewed forth onto this planet. Being COMPLETELY unstimulated by people and animals makes me insane. But the way people sometimes go about stimulating me is more than I can take. A few things I still CAN NOT HANDLE....even to the point where sometimes, I can no longer control myself, and the internal reactions fly out of me before I even know what's happened:


* Arguing, fighting and anger. I literally CAN NOT DEAL with people yelling at me or taking a certain tone with me, but even when people argue around me, it starts sending me into a panic attack. This makes it nearly impossible for me to have an 'adult' argument with someone, and nearly impossible for me to mediate when two friends start to argue. I have become quite skilled over the years in running like hell in the other direction from arguments and fights that do not involve me, but ones that do....gah. I'm actually starting to get palpitations just thinking about it. Additionally, if people start to argue around me in a situation I can't escape (at work, in the hallway or directly outside the window of wherever I am at the time), I am immediately pushed into a twitchy, panicky mood that will nearly always affect my reactions to everything else for at least a few hours afterward.


* Being touched unexpectedly. This includes everything from hugs I don't expect, to being brushed against in the street or in a shop. I have desensitized myself to a lot of types of touch, and have even learnt to like some types....but when I don't expect it, my reactions are pretty over-the-top. This has started a few arguments, and in even more cases, has made people severely uncomfortable.


* Noise. Hostile noise is the worst, but in general, any sort of unwanted noise kind of makes my brain malfunction. I can't think properly when unwelcome noise arrives. Depending on my mood, my tolerance for it may be lower or higher, but across the board, no matter how I'm feeling, things that other people can ignore, I can not no matter how hard I try. And I do try.


Additionally, if noise breaks my concentration (this includes people interrupting me for whatever reason, since I do usually consider that nothing but unpleasant din), it will be a long time before I can get it back once the distraction ceases. Oftentimes, it doesn't come back, at least not that day, it doesn't.


There's a lot more I could bemoan about my differently-wired brain, but I'm going to finish this up with the last big issue that's been bothering me: not being able to properly express myself. As I said in the beginning of this essay, I have always had too much in my head, and no idea how to get it all out. At that point, I was referring to things I'd taken in from the outside, but had left out (because it's really the most frustrating internal issue of all) my own feelings about things. I didn't use to be able to express those at all, and don't get me wrong, I'm happy (and often shocked) that I've managed to get this far with it. But god....my ability to 'let it all out' is nowhere NEAR what seems to be second nature for neurotypicals. For most of my life, I had no fucking clue how I felt about anything. I couldn't differentiate between sadness, anger, and even happiness a lot of the time, and because these things were SO difficult to get out in ANY way, when they finally did surface, they all showed themselves in the form of screaming frustration. I've come a long way since then, and can at the very least identify the feelings I'm experiencing at any given time. And I can release them....sort of. But as is common with Aspies, I have no filters when it comes to expressing emotion. If I am upset with something, people know it, even if it's not 'acceptable'. If something makes me giddy, people know it. If I don't like someone, apparently I don't even have to say anything....it comes through in the way I LOOK at them. I don't ever want to return to being a bottled-up, stressed-out, wound-up ball of unexpressed feelings, but I often wonder if it is really worth the trouble in the long run being completely honest about expressing myself. Once I start letting my feelings go, I cannot omit anything. I cannot be dishonest. If I want to lie about how I feel, I have to simply remain silent. I don't want to do that, but lately, I've been thinking that perhaps, in certain situations, I should.


Speaking of too much going on in my head at once, that's pretty much what I'm experiencing right now. I'd like to go on for hours with more that frustrates me about having AS, and elaborate more on why I DO think I'm truly gifted to be engineered in such a way. But I figure this is plenty on which to base a conversation, and will continue on this topic later. Right now I'm going to kick myself back into positive mode, and start piecing together the 'It Gets Better' video I mentioned on Aspie Supremacy....really REALLY looking forward to the feedback on that. :)