Late bloomers and Aspergers

Some of my friends and I were discussing an article I found about ‘essential life skills’ of today’s college students. It seems that many parents so coddle their kids that they have never learned essential things like basic housekeeping, cooking, car maintenance, financial smarts, and similar things. They are launching chicks that cannot fly, or- to be more concise: incompetent young adults. Parents: don’t coddle your kids. Let them screw up, let them fail, and let them learn how to cook a real meal from scratch. Please.

I have to give it to my own parents- they did a good job of teaching me how to cook, clean, maintain vehicles, do laundry and other chores, and learn from my mistakes. I do wish they’d taught me more about money- perhaps I would not have made the mistakes I did- but that’s in the past. I know about money now, and am reaping the results of my reading and applying pointers from those ‘automatic millionaire’ books a decade ago. (I am nowhere near being a millionaire, though.)

But I digress. One thing I did not get taught- and this was through no fault of my parents- was how to interact with other people.

It is clear to me now, in reading my journals and thinking about the mistakes I made and my perception of things both then and now- that I have Aspergers Syndrome. To look at me today, you would not be able to tell me from a nypical (John Elder Robinson’s word for neurotypical people) unless you know where and how to look. I’ve schooled my walk, my voice, my interactive ‘scripts’ with years of practice. I can pass for normal- for the most part.

But when I was younger, I had a giant blind-spot where other people were concerned. I ran rings around them intellectually, but was a total failure socially. To me, they all looked, sounded, and acted alike, and for most of my youth and early adulthood, it was like living on an alien planet, full of human-like people with bizarre habits and languages I could not understand. They asked me stupid questions. They always got in my way. They talked about boring things that made no sense to me- other people and what they were doing, mostly. They never wanted to talk about ideas- they didn’t care about science, technology, electronics, or other universes, or whether ‘psychics’ were real or fake. They liked things called ‘parties’, which, for me- were noisy, confusing, overwhelming things full of light, noise, and more noise. I avoided them like the plague. They also liked to have sex with anyone with a pulse, and I often found myself targeted by males using the most bizarre means to try to get me to do what?!? with them. I always refused- such things did not interest me. My female relatives, roommates and acquaintances tried to ‘girl me up’ to no avail- I hated all the trappings of femininity- the scratchy undergarments, the painful, unstable shoes, the bizarre clothing that exposed way too much of my skin, the sticky, stinky, goopy makeup, the icky hairspray… I was, and still am- comfortable in plain, modest, practical clothing and footwear with minimal makeup.

Because of my inability to ‘read’ people or pick up the context of interaction, I suffered through several major setbacks in my life and career in my twenties and very early thirties. It took a devastating setback, followed by nearly a decade of depression (and a second, financial near-crash) to get me to try to troubleshoot and solve what was ‘wrong’ with me.

And to be honest, I am still not sure that anything was actually wrong beyond an obvious failure to grasp what was obvious to ‘nypical’ people, but totally incomprehensible to me. Perhaps if some of the nuances of human social interaction had been explained and made obvious to me manually (psychological and sociological books with those subjects were not common back then), I might have fared better. I did do an in-depth study of human psychology and social interaction as these books started appearing in the popular press- and learned tons. And I also found a role-model who had a reasonable method of dealing with being on the ‘wrong planet’- Mr. Spock. And something else also happened- something that perhaps all these Aspergers ‘experts’ have not yet cottoned onto because they are nypical: My mind matured. Our (Aspie) brains mature more slowly- at least, they make connections at a slower pace, because they are so complex. Because of that, it took me another decade to ‘see’ all these previously hidden social interactions between people that nypical people see much earlier on. My whole life has been informed by this insight, and now I am much more successful at interacting with others. In this place, the so-called ‘experts’ are as blind to us as we are to their way of doing things.

Not to say that I like it, or am really good at it. Things (events and interactions) still fly around at speeds that are difficult to parse, because I rely on manually parsing things, which slows down my ability to contextualize events. While I know most of the patterns of interaction, I still have to find and recognize those patterns before I can peruse them. It’s easier to do, but I still have to do it.

I still have sensory and sensitivity issues, and in some ways, they are afflicting me more than ever. I have coping mechanisms- mostly through what I call ‘catch-and-release’ mental exercises that help me deal with them. But my whole stride can be thrown off by a stray annoying noise, an itchy tag, a smell, or something that I can’t batten down. I find myself getting annoyed to the point of rage sometimes- making me have to abruptly walk away from certain situations, which puzzles others. I’ve learned to accommodate my differences instead of fighting them, and for the most part, no one is the wiser. I still get more information from the edges than the center, and my intuitive leaps still totally confound my colleagues. But they delight my users, who tend to end up with a working computer after I leave.

I learned from my mistakes. I sometimes realize that their cumulative damage set me back 20 years, but I have recovered well. My ability to make those leaps of intuitive insight, read patterns, be steadfast and not panic when things melt down, create a plan and stick with it- have all paid off handsomely. I am no longer afraid of a blind misstep that will totally annihilate my life, home, and world. I’ve been there and done that- and know the warning signs. I am just glad that I did not have to deal with a family and children during those awful times- I was only responsible for myself.

On that front, I have chosen a solitary life with a supportive circle of friends over having a mate and children. Some of that reticence stems from horrific things that happened to me as a child and young adult- and to be honest, I am not sure that I could ever again deal with another person living in my house (guests are OK, from time to time). Too many bad things happened when I was forced to do so in my younger days, and I know I spent lots of money that I could have saved while serving to have a private place to live and decompress. But it was money well-spent.

I am a classic late-bloomer. I sincerely believe my better days are ahead of me. Physically, I am in better shape than I have ever been, and emotionally, financially and otherwise, I am doing relatively well, too. I am so used to privation and very conservative living that these ‘hard’ times are not impacting me as hard as they are with others. I am used to doing without, delaying gratification, putting back, and saving up. I’ve learned to make things last, and when I do buy things, I will pay a little extra for higher quality things because experience has demonstrated that I get a huge return of investment for my expenditure.

I am relatively content.

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