Disclosing Asperger's at Work

A reader sent in the following questions:

 If you've ever been in a work situation where your Aspie qualities affected your performance, did you disclose? Do people treat you differently when they know? What are the pros/cons of disclosing?

To be honest, the question of disclosing is a little moot for me. Initially, I wasn't planning to share it with anybody except, maybe, a very close friend at work. However, now it turns out that everybody knows about my supposedly anonymous blog and reads it. Which must mean that everybody knows about the Asperger's. On the positive side, the very fact of being an Aspie makes it impossible for me to perceive whether people treat me differently because of it or not. An inability to gauge people's non-verbal reactions is one of the characteristics of Asperger's. Unless somebody comes up to me and says, "Since I read in your blog that you have Asperger's, I treat you differently," I'm not going to have a clue. 

Of course, Asperger's affects my performance at work. It does so in both negative and positive ways. To give an example, service to the academic community that includes socializing with people I don't know and don't care about tires me a lot more than any other activity under the sun. Maybe I could use Asperger's to have my service requirement pared down to something more manageable. However, Asperger's also makes it much easier for me to do research, prepare classes, and grade. Obviously, I don't want everybody's grading to be dumped on me. This is why I don't do anything specific to bring Asperger's into the work context. 

I don't think there can be one hard and fast rule on whether to disclose or not. Work environments, bosses and colleagues differ greatly. I don't think that anybody has an obligation to mention it unless they really feel like it. If there are certain things we don't do very well because of Asperger's, there are many others that we do a lot better than anybody else. This, I believe, is an important thing to remember in the context of Asperger's, whether we are talking about the work environment or personal relationships.

Penumbra

I'm sitting in class right now, blogging, while my students are watching a movie I have seen many times before. I have dimmed the light to make the experience better for them, but, as for me, I just sit there suffering. Dimmed lighting makes me suffer on a physiological level. Thank God there are only 5 more minutes to go, or I will not be able to deal with the headache this is giving me. Of course, I love doing things for the students, but this is just too painful.

Does Jared Loughner, the Arizona Shooter, Have Asperger's?

If you are asking this question, you are a very unintelligent individual. What on Earth does it possibly matter? It's as relevant to the shooting as whether he had blue or brown eyes. I've received five e-mails already with people bugging me about this. Apparently, there is some Mommy of an autistic who is desperate for attention and who is screeching "Asperger's caused it" on several websites. See an example here.

It is true that people with Asperger's can become violent. It is also true that people who don't have Asperger's can become violent. I know that we are in the midst of "let's-blame-autism-on-everything-that-is-wring-with-the-world" wave, but there should be a limit. Asperger's doesn't cause people to shoot into crowds. Contrary to what you have heard, it isn't a disease, an epidmic, or the end of the world. It's a way of being that does not cause unrelieved misery for those who live it. And, once again, it doesn't make people shoot into crowds. I've lived with Asperger's for 34 years and am still to commit a violent act against anything other than the copy machine. Trying to "predict" that one will become a mass murderer on the basis of Asperger's makes about as much sense as basing your prediction on a person's height, weight, or hair color.

I understand that thinking is a difficult chore for many people and nobody wants to make the effort. But dismissing the shooting by attaching to it a label of "Asperger's", "learning disorder," "schizophrenia," or "Mommy issues" is a very stupid thing to do.

Asperger's: Daily Experiences

My recent post on autism has brought over 1,500 people to this blog and became one of the most popular posts I have ever written. This makes me very happy because, for the most part, people get their information about autism from TV shows and articles that depict it as laughable and pathetic on the one hand and tragic on the other hand. In fact, it is neither. Autism is a way of being that has its advantages and its drawbacks. Different people experience it in a multitude of ways and relate to it differently.

The kind of insensitivity to autism that I made fun of in my post is caused by the lack of reliable, anti-sensationalist information about the experiences of people with different forms of autism. This is why I want to share with my readers how I experience my autism on a daily basis and what it means to me. Also, I am hoping that other autistics will read this and decide whether some of my techniques might work for them.

 As I mentioned earlier, I have "good days" and "bad days." On bad days, it becomes more difficult to manage my autism, while on good days I make use of a variety of strategies that make it difficult for most people who know me to guess that I am in any way different. In this post, I will describe the techniques I use on my good days, of which today was one. I remind you that my form of Asperger's is pretty severe, which means that not everybody who has it needs to go through a similar routine.

Before I leave the house to go to work, I need to imagine my route several times and in a very detailed way. Even though I take the same bus to work several times a week, I can't just leave the house without going over this entire trip in my mind. If I do, I might end up pretty much anywhere in town, which happened before. So I repeat in my head several times the things I have to do to get to work: "To the bus stop, get in the bus, get out on campus, then to Starbucks, then to the library, then to my office, then to my first class on the first floor." I also have to check on my wallet, keys, cell phone and Kindle very often, otherwise I will definitely lose them. So every 15-20 minutes I go over my "wallet-keys-cell phone-Kindle" routine.

This morning, I had to call a doctor's office to make an appointment. I'd been putting off this phone call for weeks because talking on the phone to strangers is still one of my biggest challenges. I need to know exactly what they will ask me and what I will respond because otherwise I might get flustered and forget answers even to the simplest questions. Once, a person I was talking to asked me my name and for a horrible 30 seconds or so I had no idea what to say. So I faked a fit of coughing that allowed me to figure out what the answer was. This is why I'd been suffering from an ear-ache for weeks instead of calling a doctor. I wish such things started being handled over the Internet.

When I arrive at work, I know it's highly likely I will meet colleagues. It takes me a while to recognize even the people that I know very well and especially to remember their names. So every morning I prepare a couple of phrases that I can say as soon as I see a familiar face. This gives me time to get my bearings, realize who the person is and what they are called. Usually, the sentences I prepare have something to do with weather. Today, it was "Finally, this horrible heat is over." I keep repeating this sentence in my mind all the time I walk to my office and say it every time I meet someone I know.

Today, I had two committee meetings with people I had never met before. When I was younger, nothing terrified me more than having to meet a group of strangers for the first time. Nowadays, however, I manage such situations perfectly well if I have had a chance to prepare for them. I do little practice routines in my head of what I will say when I come in and what I will do if there is an unpleasant pause in the conversation. Of course, there is a huge problem of remembering the names. The first thing I do when somebody tells me their name is forget it completely. I've tried different things that would help me retain people's names but nothing has worked so far. I get so concentrated on saying what I need to say when meeting someone that everything else just escapes me completely. While I am in such meetings I have to make sure that I don't get distracted too much from what is being discussed and avoid making weird faces at people and giggling at inappropriate moments. That's doable but it requires effort. It's also very hard knowing when it's my turn to speak. People often think I'm rude because I interrupt them. It would be great if everybody finished their utterance by saying "That's it" or "I'm done." I often do that myself in case anybody else in the group has a similar difficulty.

All of my meetings today went very well. If you were to ask anybody who met me today whether they thought I had autism, I'm sure nobody would have the slightest idea. Of course, all these things made me so tired that when I went home I fell asleep immediately. Still, it's a small price to pay for the great benefits that autism brings to my life.

Many people who know me closely are incredulous when I tell them I have Asperger's. As you can see from the description of my day, I made a choice to make my autism as unnoticeable to others as I possibly can. If, however, you don't feel like doing all these things to prevent others from noticing, then you definitely shouldn't. There is no "correct" or "incorrect" way of being autistic. My way works for me but if you choose to relate to it differently, that's great too.

Questions and non-hateful comments are welcome.

Do People With Asperger's Have Emotions?

A great post from Izgad on whether people with Asperger's are devoid of emotions:

As with most Aspergers, I struggle against a public perception that we are simply rational automatons, robots without emotions. Anyone who has ever spent time with Aspergers knows that this is false. Asperger syndrome is not the lack of emotions; it is the inability to effectively display emotion in a manner understandable to others. In other words it is the "disability" of neurotypicals, who cannot understand our emotions to the same extent that we seem to be hopeless at deciphering theirs.

Read the rest of this informative and well-argued post here.

Repairing an Aspie Child

Recently, helicopter-type parents have found a new reason to feel sorry for themselves and victimize their children: autism. Television, newspapers and Internet journalists cater to their needs by offering endless advice on how to "deal" with their child's autism. Here, for example, you can read a very typical example of such an advice-filled article. Parents are told that there are many ways they can "repair" their broken children. They are told to drag their poor, miserable Aspie kids to all kinds of therapies, activities, sports teams, etc. As a 34-year-old Aspie, I almost had a panic attack while reading this litany of activities that any person with Asperger's sees as pure and undiluted torture.

The most shocking thing about such posts and articles is that they completely disregard the simple fact that autistic children are human beings in their own right. Nobody ever asks the question of whether these children actually suffer from their way of being. The parents are uncomfortable with an Aspie child. Ergo, the child must be miserable as well and in urgent need of repair. All the therapies aimed at socializing these children cater only to the needs of parents who want a "normal" child.

Why should we necessarily assume that if a child sits staring at the wall and rocking for hours, she isn't enjoying herself? I know I was. Why should we necessarily believe that if a child stays in his room for several days classifying the items in his herbarium, he can't be happy? I know I was. Why should we assume that if a person stays completely silent for two weeks they can't be having a blast? I know I did. The only people who are bothered by these manifestations of autism are parents who see their child as some kind of a project in need of being constantly perfected.

The best thing parents could do for a child with Asperger's is leave her or him in peace. Stop trying to improve their lives. Simply accept that they have a different vision of what constitutes an enjoyable existence. And who is to say that your vision of a good life is making you any happier than their vision makes them?

Asperger's on TV

I was watching Boston Legal last night and once again was shocked by how completely wrong, offensive, and irresponsible the portrayal of autistics is in mass media.

Even the kindest portrayal of people with Asperger's is concentrated on presenting us as some kind of eccentric geniuses who are smart but completely inept socially and as a result make everybody around them feel extremely uncomfortable.

On the one hand, ridiculizing autistics attracts viewers. Many people need the kind of entertainment that gets more and more extreme with every new episode, show, movie, etc. These people feel so benumbed by their sad daily existences that they need entertainment to tickle them into consciousness, albeit momentarily.

Another reason why we are portrayed as pathetic, unstable, and innately freaky is the pill-pushing agenda of pharmaceutical companies. In the episode of Boston Legal that I watched last night, it was suggested that there is medication for Asperger's and the character will "get better" as soon as he starts taking it. This, of course, is an egregious lie. Not only is there no "cure" for Asperger's, there can be none because it is not a disease.

Television shows are generally kinder towards female Aspies. Kinder, however, does not mean either truthful nor unwilling to generalize. Temperance Brennan, the main character of Bones, is portrayed as a lot more likebale and less "weird" that Boston Legal's "Hands" and Law & Order: CI's Wally Stevens. Still, every effort is made to highlight her almost unexistent personal life and innate "nerdiness."

Because of shows like these, it is often useless to try telling people that you have autism. "No, of course you don't!" they say in indignation. You are nothing like people with Asperger's that they show on television!" Well, my friends, do you know what the difference is between me and these characters? I'm real and they are not. They are fictional characters created for a specific purpose. Such shows might entertain you but they will never teach you anything useful or truthful about autism.

Answers to the Readers' Questions

As I promised, to celebrate my blog's anniversary, I will answer the questions my readers sent in to me. To my surprise, I have received a lot more question that I expected to get. So I will start answering them little by little because if I leave them all until April 1st, that day will not be a day of celebration as much as a day of backbreaking labor.

There is still time to send in your questions. Of course, I will only answer those questions that are formulated in a respectful, reasonable manner. Feel free to leave them in the comments section of this post, or send them by e-mail to clarissasblog@hotmail.com.

I can subdivide the questions into several groups.

I. Asperger's. Before I proceed to answer, I have to reiterate that Im no specialist on the issue. Asperger's manifests differently in different people. All I can offer is my own opinion on what is more or less likely to work.

Question: How do you break up with a boyfriend/girlfriend who has Asperger's? The main thing I would recommend is being direct. Many autistics have trouble deciphering non-verbal clues. If you wait for your partner to "get the message" from hints, your body language, and some non-verbal clues, this might not work. Try telling them directly and honestly what you want. Beating around the bush with the goal of not hurting your partner's feelings will ultimately result in being a lot more hurtful.

Question: How did you feel when you discovered you had Asperger's? The answer is: happy. Now that I know what it is and how it works, I don't have to beat myself up for being "weird." I feel completely entitled to be who I am and enjoy it. The need to apologize for it has disappeared. Also, it has been great to find people who have similar traits. And now I know where to look for them. :-)

Question: Is Asperger's a disability? I don't like these labels and don't find them useful. This way of being enables me to do many things other people can't and prevents me from doing some things other people can. If that's a disability, then pretty much any way of existence is.

Question: I think that for all your laudable attempts to put a positive spin on Asperger's, you are just trying to put on a brave face. As an autistic myself, I will be honest enough to confess that it is a crippling condition and I would definitely want to be cured. Not a question, just an observation. With the reader's permission, I will still respond to this statement. As I said, everybody manifests differently and everybody experiences autism differently. Since no "cure" exists (and in opinion never will), it makes sense to explore all sides of your way of being. Your negative perception of your autism might be due to the fact that you cannot do things that other people perceive as normal. Are you really "crippled" in your own eyes? Or are you looking at yourself and your existence through the eyes of some normative neurotypicality?

II. Blogging.

Question: Which are your favorite blogs? I have quite a few blogs in my blogroll but for the most part I just scan through their post titles without visiting them all that often. Here are the blogs that I do visit, comment on and read faithfully:

http://www.ktravula.com/ - This is a very well-written and fun blog by my colleague from Nigeria. It also has some really cool photos on a regular basis.

http://izgad.blogspot.com/ - This blog always has fascinating discussion on individual rights, reason, history, and Jewish identity.

http://www.michaelalanmiller.com/ - This blog always offers a very original (and sarcastic, which I love) take on all kinds of issues.

Question: I have been trying to discover some pattern to your blogging (just to know when the posts were more likely to appear) but no luck so far. Is there a pattern and what is it if yes. Have you tried taking the Aspie quiz, my friend? :-) Looking for patterns in everything makes you likely to be one of us. :-) I'm not sure there is a pattern. On weekdays, I tend to write in the mornings because I have a couple of hours between arriving at work and the time when I teach.

Asperger's Test

A reader Triin whose blog on Asperger's is located here has been kind enough to leave a link to the Aspie quiz which is a lot better than the short and unreliable Baron-Cohen test. It takes into account the neurology of Asperger's without getting too hung up on the qualities that are often attributed to Asperger's out of simple lack of knowledge about it.

I score 179 out 200, which is really not surprising to me.

Asperger's and Teaching

Often, people say: "Asperger's? But how can you possibly teach if you have it? It must be a torture!" They are wrong. Many people with Asperger's thrive as teachers. It's the unstructured, unscheduled and unplanned communications that are a struggle. If I can prepare for an encounter and especially if the roles are strictly defined (me - teacher, you - student), teaching offers a welcome release from some of the issues attendant on having Asperger's.

Except on bad days, of course. They don't happen often but they do happen. And when they do, many things become a lot more difficult. Speaking becomes kind of a challenge. Which is not a good thing for a huge lecture class. You start speaking and then you kind of blank out and stand there with your mouth wide open hoping that the words will come eventually. To make matters worse, today I scheduled an observer to come to my class. The colleague who came to observe is a very nice person, and even if he noticed my unexpected pauses I don't think he will mention them in a report. Still, it didn't make me happy to have observation coincide with one of the bad days.

As I wrote before, Asperger's has many positive sides and I would not be without it if you paid me for it. It's not all fun and games, however, and bad days prove that everything good comes at a price.

By the way, it took me almost an hour to write this short post because on bad days my vision also gets impaired and I keep hitting the wrong keys.

Not to worry, though. It usually goes away by the next day.

Asperger's and Reading

A fellow Aspie blogger Izgad just wrote a brilliant post on Asperger's and reading fiction. The Simon Baron Cohen quiz, the most widely accepted test for non-neurological manifestations of Asperger's, is based on the assumption that people with Asperger's dislike reading fiction. I'm not a huge fan of this particular quiz as it is, and Izgad's intelligent objections make the quiz's shortcomings even more evident.

This is what Izgad says on this matter, and it resonates very deeply with me:

I would argue that my interest in reading is not despite my Asperger syndrome, but is one of the ways that I manifest Asperger behavior. Obviously I take to books much easier than people. Books are much better friends than people; they are easier to decode and you can open and close them as it suits you. Books do not misunderstand you and try to hurt you. Fiction provides precisely the sort of "human" relationship that I can deal with. The motivations of characters are written in words that I can decipher, as opposed to facial expressions.

As many of the readers of this blog already know, I am a literary critic and a professor of literature. I read and analyze fiction for a living. I also have "Severe to Extremely Severe" form of Asperger's. These things are not only not mutually exclusive. In my case - and evidently in Izgad's, too - they are closely interrelated. My love of classifying and categorizing is a huge help in my work as a literary critic.

What annoys me in most articles and books on autism written by people who do not have it is that they concentrate on everything autistics cannot do. They forget that there are many things that we can do precisely because of our autism that people who don't have it cannot. I call many of the manifestations of my Asperger's "my superpowers" because that is exactly how I perceive them.

If Your Romantic Partner Has Asperger's

People often come to my blog with the following query: "What do I do if my boyfriend / girlfriend has Asperger's?" There are many books out there on the subject. Often, however, they describe somebody who is a total jerk and then blame that person's jerkdom on Asperger's. is a prime example of such an account.

In my opinion, life with an Aspie does not have to be constant martyrdom. We can actually make an ideal life partner for the right person. Remember that one of the central markers of Asperger's is developing an exclusive interest in something or somebody and pursuing it wholeheartedly. If that object of interest is you, your Aspie partner will be the most loyal and dedicated person you will ever meet. We are also not prone to lying about feelings and emotions. While many people often say "Yes, of course, I love you" without meaning it, an Aspie will, in most cases, only say it if it's absolutely true.

There are, of course, certain qualities that somebody who wants to be with an Aspie needs to have or develop. Here is what I have come up with but feel free to add your own in the comments:

1. Don't be inquisitive and curious. The best partner for us is the one who either doesn't  notice the little OCD things we do, or pretends not to notice them. Being interrogated about your routines is torture. It is often easier to end the relationship than to give up on the routines or constantly feel that you are judged for them.

2. Develop your own hobbies and pursuits that will take up a lot of your time. An Aspie is somebody who often has obsessive interests that occupy a lot of his or her time. If we are not allowed to pursue these interests or feel that somebody is encroaching on the time we dedicate to them, we tend to start feeling resentful towards that person. If you need somebody who will spend every free moment they have  paying attention to you, think twice about entering into a relationship with an Aspie.

3. Memory and caring are two different things. Retaining dates, names, phone numbers, etc. is often very difficult for us. So if your patner doesn't remember your mother's name five years into a relationship, it does not mean she doesn't care about you. It means that she finds it very difficult to retain names because her brain works this way.

4. Give them alone time. Being alone and doing things nobody knows about is often very important to us. Don't interrogate your Aspie partner. If she seems reluctant to tell you where she was, it doesn't mean she has been meeting her secret lovers. In all  probability, she was just doing her OCD things that she doesn't feel like discussing with anyone.

5. He does not forget your name, he just doesn't like to say it. Often, we find it extremely difficult to call people we are close to by their given name. I have never, for example, called my partner by his name. Not once. I try but somehow it just doesn't come out. This has nothing to do with how I feel about him, it's simply the way I am.

6. Prepare for destruction of pretty things. If you like good china and expensive carpets, either forget about it or look for a new partner. The neurological symptoms of Asperger's include clumsiness and a difficulty with maintaining balance. Everything will be broken, spilled, and destroyed. My best friend 'Mafalda' came up with a brilliant solution after I destroyed her new sofa: she bought me a sippy cup. Way to go, my friend!

7. Prepare to be embarrassed. Some of us come up with ways of dealing with social situations but some of us don't. It is probable that during social gatherings your partner will say something offensive to your friends, relatives, or colleagues, will wander off looking all distracted, or fail to respond when people talk to her. If these things bother you, think twice about making your partner attend such gatherings.

You can read more about Asperger's here and here.

Asperger's, Part II: The Negative Side

Of course, all of the great things listed in Part I of this post come with some negatives attached to them. Once again, everybody manifests in different ways, and mine are different from many other people's. Since I love classifying information, I have worked out 3 different areas where my characteristics manifest themselves: communicative, neurological, and emotional. So here they are.

1. Communicative: This is actually the part that I worked on long and hard and now I mostly have it figured out to the degree where many people see me as "extremely sociable," "cheerful," "bubbly," and even "the life of the party." I can be all of these things, although after I make the effort to be this way, I have to rest for a long time and spend a lot of time alone.

• I'm good at planned communications. When I have a scheduled meeting, I can prepare for them psychologically, and then it's mostly fine.
• I'm very good at communications that are hierarchical. When I am with my students, are roles are strictly defined, and there is no confusion about whose turn it is to speak or things like that.

• Unscheduled contacts, however, are very difficult for me. When I try to leave my house and hear that my neighbors are also going out, I hide and wait until they leave. I find it hard to have to respond when people stop me abruptly and ask something, or even greet me. 

      2. Neurological: This is the most challenging part for me because there isn't much that I can do to control it.

• I have good days and bad days. On bad days, I find it very hard to speak in any of my 3 languages. Sentences come out all garbled, and the words are somehow all wrong. If I have to teach on that day, I always give the students a writing assignment or make them talk among themselves. On bad days, I'm even more accidents prone than normally. I have to make an effort not to walk into things, drop them, trip, or fall. My vision gets a little blurry and my hearing worsens.
• I have a huge problem judging distances. So driving is out of the question.
• I find it very hard to keep my balance even when I'm walking (especially on bad days). So biking is also out of the question. 

      3. Emotional: According to the common myth about us, we are unemotional and detached. This is so completely and utterly untrue. I have lots of emotions. They are just a little different and I express them differently.

• I have trouble calling people by their first name, even in e-mails. I haven't called my boyfriend by his first name even once in our entire relationship (thankfully, he doesn't mind). I can't explain why this happens, it just does. I didn't even know that this was characteristic of Asperger's until very recently. My parents have always bugged me about this to no end. And now it turns out that this is just one of my symptoms.
• It takes me a lot longer than other people to get attached to human beings (as opposed to objects) and it takes me a lot shorter to get unattached. This is especially difficult for a woman with Asperger's. Everybody expects women to be emotional and when you are not demonstrative with your feelings, people think that it somehow detracts from your femininity. I've been told so many times that I act "just like a man." Which, of course, is very annoying.

P.S. I am very grateful for the great response I got from my readers and other bloggers about this series of posts. I will be continuing them because I have a lot more to say on the subject.

Asperger's, Part I: The Positive Side

It's difficult for me to write about this because when I try to talk to people about the way I am, I only get the kind of reactions that really annoy me. But I feel that the time has come for me to "come out" because I have spent so much time making heroic efforts to conceal this from everybody and I'm sick and tired of doing this. So the reasons why I want to write about this are:

1. it helps me to talk about it because I'm tired of self-imposed silence;
2. it might help other people who share the same characteristics;
3. it might help educate people who aren't like me to understand what Asperger's means. 

Once again, I do not consider Asperger's to be a disease. This is just a way of being. It has its limitations but if somebody offered me a magic pill that would "cure" it, I would run away from the "cure." This way of being makes me who I am and in many ways I really like it. I honestly would not want to be without it.

So I'm going to list the bad things and the good things about it. And, of course, Asperger's manifests in many different way, so my reality might be very different from somebody else's.

The great things about having Asperger's are:

• I have a talent for amassing, retaining, categorizing, and reproducing huge chunks of information. If you ask me about a book or a painting or a philosopher, I have a colored three-dimensional picture of the history of world literature, art, history and philosophy in my head that allows me to place this work of art or author in her philosophical, social, and historical context immediately. As a result, I never have to prepare for my classes. I can reproduce information about any of my subjects on the spur of the moment.
• I have an unbreakable concentration on my subject of interest. I can sit in a loud bar, with music blaring and people screaming at each other, or an airport, or a boring meeting, and work on my research. When I concentrate, it's like I go into a bubble that protects me from any extraneous noise. I actually worked out the ideas and the basic structure of my doctoral dissertation at a noisy bar.
• I have an area of interest that I pursue single-mindedly and with an obsessive dedication. I've been extremely lucky in being able to turn this interest into a well-paying job. Now, all of a sudden, all of the weird and freaky ways in which I pursue this interest have suddenly become respectable and people even want to imitate them. (I say weird and freaky on purpose, because I prefer to have power over these words, rather than allow them to have power over me.)
• I can be alone for long stretches of time and enjoy it profoundly. Once I spent two entire weeks with no human contact, and it was blissful. So I am not dependent on whether any one wants to spend time with me. 
• I have a very logical, analytical way of thinking about things. I also have a very original and unusual way of seeing things that is also very helpful in my profession.
  

P.S. Let me reiterate that it isn't easy for me to talk about this and I would really appreciate people holding their hatred in check and not posting hateful comments.

If You Have a Child with Asperger's

When I was a little girl, nobody knew the word Asperger's. My way of being was called "weird," "strange," "slow" and other equally nice things. Today, we are finally getting to understand that not everybody is neurotypical, that the variety of human difference is huge, and that, most importantly, it's ok.

Everybody on the spectrum is different. There is no single list of characteristics that would encompass all of us. Still, when I think about it, there is a whole range of things that people around me could have done when I was a child to make my existence easier. So if you have a child who might have Asperger's, these are the things you should consider:

1. First and foremost, it is not the end of the world, a tragedy, or a reason to feel miserable. It isn't a disease or "a public health crisis", as some ignoramuses claim. It's a way of being that is in no way worse or inferior to yours. I believe that in some ways it might actually be better. There is nothing in this condition to prevent your child from being happy. Of course, she will be happy on her own terms and within her own way of understanding happiness.
2. I understand the need that parents have to kiss and hug their child. Remember, however, that a child with Asperger's might feel a deep, visceral rejection for anybody's touch. This isn't personal, this isn't directed at you in any way. There are other ways to show affection. Why not show your child how much you love him by giving him the gift of life that is free from excessive touching?
3. If you find your child staring at the wall and rocking, don't panic and, most importantly, don't interrupt her. This is her coping mechanism and, once again, it is in no way worse or less acceptable than your coping mechanisms. You might cope through over-eating, chocolate, shopping, alcohol, medication. Your child copes in this way. And it should just be accepted.
4. These children desperately need their own space that will be respected and that will feel safe at all times. If you can't afford to give your child a separate room, you can mark off a corner of a room with screens, you can give him a box or a drawer where he can keep his things in the order that makes sense to him.
5. When I was little, the scariest thing I could hear was "Go play with other kids." I remember the feeling of wordless desperation and deep terror at this command. My parents made desperate efforts to make me more sociable. I understand that they were worried about me but their attempts to make me what I simply cannot be were very hurtful. Asperger's doesn't mean that your child will not be able to have a social life. She will if she chooses to. But it will be on her terms and in a way that will make her comfortable.
6. When I was 6, my music teacher told my mother that I was "cold and heartless," which made my mother cry for days. It also made me believe that something was profoundly wrong with me, when, in fact, something was wrong with this nasty teacher. In reality, our main difficulty lies not with having emotions but with expressing them in socially acceptable ways. Your child isn't cold or unemotional, he just doesn't express himself the way you do. And who is to say that your way is in any way better?
7. The word I heard a lot to describe me when I was a child was "slow." Please remember that Asperger's comes with a set of neurological peculiarities (poor balance and coordination, difficulties with judging distances, etc.) that may vary from one person to another. This in no way reflects upon your child's intellectual capacities. We often have very high IQs and some very special and valuable skills. The price we pay for that often entails having difficulties with things that come very easily to other people. When you think about it, what's more useful: being able to ride a bicycle and tie your shoelaces in less than 10 minutes, or knowing how to amass, absorb, classify, categorize and be able to reproduce instantly huge masses of complex information?
8. One of the central characteristics of our way of being is that we often develop an all-encompassing interest that we pursue single-mindedly and obsessively. When somebody interrupts our deep concentration on this interest, it feels physically painful. Just let her do whatever it is that interests her. One day this obsessive interest might even turn into a profession that will allow her to make a very good living (as happened in my case.)

Accepting somebody's right to be different from you, to experience the world and to define happiness in a completely different - and sometimes in exactly the opposite - way is the greatest manifestation of love there can possibly be.

Read more about this here and here.

P.S. I kindly request the haters to refrain from leaving comments. I never delete comments, except when they contain unsolicited advertisements. Here, however, I am willing to start deleting comments whose only goal is to promote hatred. Everybody else is welcome to leave comments about their experiences and suggestions.