What does it mean to be human?
I've been carrying that question around since a weekend I spent sequestered at home reading and watching movies. I read a New Yorker article by Elizabeth Kolbert, Sleeping with the Enemy: What happened between the Neanderthals and us? I followed that with the 1982 movie Blade Runner. Both deal with the question of what makes us human in very different ways, and though we've been kicking the question around since the time of Socrates, we still haven't agreed on an answer. But in Kolbert's article and in Blade Runner, the question resonated with me as an Aspie.
In her article, Kolbert writes about the attempt of a paleogeneticist at the Leipzig Zoo, Svante Paabo, to sequence the Neanderthal genome. Paabo is halfway there. So far, he has discovered that the DNA of all non-African modern humans is one to four percent Neanderthal DNA. Kolbert gives a thumbnail portrait of Neanderthals. They had thick bones, "and probably [were] capable of beating modern humans to a pulp." Scoring on Neanderthal bones suggests that they practiced cannibalism. They also tended to their wounded and weak; skeletons of Neanderthals in their fifties bear evidence of broken bones healed over, and of arthritis. Kolbert then moves on to scientific matters. After she writes about mtDNA, nucleotides and their four bases, and enzymes, she gets into specific genes that appear in Neanderthals and modern humans. The genes CADPS2 and AUTS2 are associated with Asperger's and autism in modern humans, and they appear on the Neanderthal genome.
Cut to Blade Runner. Rick Deckard, a blade runner, is charged with hunting down artificial intelligence beings called replicants, and "retiring" (killing) them. They are model Nexus-6 replicants, and on sight they're indistinguishable from humans. They're also much stronger physically and more intelligent than humans. To prevent replicants from forming their own emotional responses over time, the manufacturer programmed them to have a four-year life span. The replicants know this. To detect replicants, Deckard must use a device called the Voigt-Kampff test, which measures reactions like pupillary response, and also emotional response when the subject is asked questions intended to evoke an emotional response. Replicants show a slightly delayed emotional response, which exposes them as replicants. The discovered replicants are shot on the spot. Aspies also can show slight delays in emotional response. In this fictional Blade Runner world, an Aspie would be deemed not human, and "retired."
Kolbert's article and Blade Runner raise the perplexing matter of what it means to be human in different ways. Kolbert reaches a conclusion. I gasped when I read her claim, "clearly [Neanderthals] were not human." The emphasis is Kolbert's, not mine. Blade Runner was inspired by the science fiction book by Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This author doesn't draw conclusions, but he shows us that the question of what makes us human isn't settled easily. When Deckard refers to replicants he has just gunned down as "it," that jolts the viewer. The replicants in the story have bolted from a colonized planet and come to Earth illegally to find the man who created them. Their goal: to plead with him to program a longer life into them. They have an intense human will to live. And two of the replicants, Pris and Roy, share a deep emotional bond. Philip K. Dick challenges our ideas about the limits of what we deem human.
I disagree with Kolbert. I see humanity as a spectrum, and though Neanderthals have been extinct for thirty thousand years, they're entitled to a place on the spectrum. And scientists have found evidence of other breeds of humans: most recent skeletons are of "hobbit people" dating to about seventeen thousand years ago, found in Indonesia in 2004; another hominid group that lived more than forty thousand years ago, the Denisovans, has been discovered in Siberia. "Modern New Guineans carry up to six percent Denisovan DNA," Kolbert writes. The remains of more kinds of humans likely will be found. We modern humans have shared the Earth with more distant cousins than we have realized. The human family is more expansive than we've realized, too. As for the cruelty inflicted on the replicants in Blade Runner, it rises to the level of crimes against humanity.
The criteria we've laid out as requirements for admission to the club of humans is as varied as the many kinds of hominids discovered. For instance, some argue that Neanderthals weren't human because they didn't adorn their cave walls with stunning paintings, as modern humans did; the creative impulse, they argue, must be present for a species to be deemed human. But I know modern humans lacking even an interest in art, much less an impulse to create art. Paabo notes that Neanderthals didn't venture across vast bodies of land in search of---well, no one knows exactly what modern humans hoped to find when they set sail. Neanderthals stayed put when they came upon a staggering obstacle, like an ocean. But again, plenty of modern humans fear the unknown. They live their entire lives in the communities where they were born. Does that make them less than human?
And about Asperger's and autism. We Aspies and autistics share two genes associated with Neanderthals. We could be the shadow of Neanderthals living among modern humans. That doesn't make us any less human. It puts us on a part of the human spectrum where we don't have a lot of present company. That makes us unique. And human.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Us vs. Them---Not.
I belong to a local Asperger's support group that meets in a Philadelphia suburb once a month. The administrator, Bob Hedin, sets a warm tone of support for anyone who shows up, be they on the spectrum or not. I hadn't yet been diagnosed when I contacted Bob and asked if I could attend. He assured me that a number of those attending didn't have a formal diagnosis, but they had their suspicions, as I did at the time. He encouraged me to join the group for support and information.
The group is a local chapter of GRASP, the Global and Regional Asperger's Syndrome Partnership, http://www.grasp.org/ The group offers support for parents, family and friends of Aspies as well as those of us on the autism spectrum, so non-Aspies are among our local chapter members. The group's goal is to offer support for those touched by autism or Asperger's, not just autistics and Aspies.
But the tenor can be different on some online Asperger's/autism forums. As with all online forums, participants can voice their pet peeves from behind a wall of anonymity. In autism/Asperger's forums, this offers a safety valve for Aspies struggling with social isolation, sensory issues, and job and relationship conflicts. They can seek advice or lash out in confidentiality and know that others are going through the same struggles.
Sometimes, though, an unhealthy group think sprouts in those forums. It's understandable in a group that goes through a lot of grief from the neuromajority, but we should try to steer Aspies away from it. Some comments in online forums go something like this: We Aspies are all sweetness and light, and those NTs are a blight.
It isn't so. We need to gently coax Aspies away from that mindset. I've got NTs in my life who value my different way of thinking and who want to show support. I've got NTs in my life I love. I cannot keep silent while I hear them slandered with bigotry, and it is bigotry. Replace "NTs" with an ethnic or racial group and utter a similar put-down, and you see the slur for what it is.
Focus on the content of a person's character. Please.
The group is a local chapter of GRASP, the Global and Regional Asperger's Syndrome Partnership, http://www.grasp.org/ The group offers support for parents, family and friends of Aspies as well as those of us on the autism spectrum, so non-Aspies are among our local chapter members. The group's goal is to offer support for those touched by autism or Asperger's, not just autistics and Aspies.
But the tenor can be different on some online Asperger's/autism forums. As with all online forums, participants can voice their pet peeves from behind a wall of anonymity. In autism/Asperger's forums, this offers a safety valve for Aspies struggling with social isolation, sensory issues, and job and relationship conflicts. They can seek advice or lash out in confidentiality and know that others are going through the same struggles.
Sometimes, though, an unhealthy group think sprouts in those forums. It's understandable in a group that goes through a lot of grief from the neuromajority, but we should try to steer Aspies away from it. Some comments in online forums go something like this: We Aspies are all sweetness and light, and those NTs are a blight.
It isn't so. We need to gently coax Aspies away from that mindset. I've got NTs in my life who value my different way of thinking and who want to show support. I've got NTs in my life I love. I cannot keep silent while I hear them slandered with bigotry, and it is bigotry. Replace "NTs" with an ethnic or racial group and utter a similar put-down, and you see the slur for what it is.
Focus on the content of a person's character. Please.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Who Wouldn't Melt Down?
Meltdowns are an issue in autism and Asperger's. They can be lava-flowing, frothing-at-the-mouth, prolonged, violent, destructive, and frightening to those witnessing them. Happily, mine don't come near the point where they could melt glass.
In children, meltdowns are distinct from temper tantrums. A child in the throes of a tantrum will occasionally look to see if they're getting the desired reaction from adults. They'll have enough control over their tantrum that they'll take care not to hurt themselves. A child throws a tantrum to achieve a specific goal, and once the goal is met, they calm down.
A meltdown in an autistic child is another matter entirely. It's a total loss of behavioral control, though it can be triggered because a specific desire isn't granted, but giving the child what they want doesn't end the meltdown. It has to wind down on its own. A child in the throes of a meltdown has no awareness of caring for her or his safety.
I've talked to adults with Asperger's who struggle to control meltdowns. Some have learned to recognize the signs of an impending meltdown, and they've learned to minimize them or to excuse themselves from company if they feel one coming on. We've talked about what triggers them, and for everyone the triggers are different.
When I visit online autism and Asperger's forums, people talk about meltdowns as if they're part of the genetic package of autism or Asperger's. I suspect that there is more to it. Stephen Borgman, a psychotherapist who treats children on the autism spectrum, writes that he sees three possible causes for meltdowns: sensory overload, social challenges, and long term stress.
I question the claim that meltdowns are a genetic trait of the autism spectrum. I say that because they don't beset just autistics and Aspies.
I had a maternal aunt, no longer living, who was born profoundly deaf. I learned about the deaf community by becoming acquainted with her deaf friends and by reading about deaf culture. I learned that deaf people are notorious for displaying blistering meltdowns. The reason for this could not be genetic because the causes of their deafness vary. They reach a meltdown point more quickly than the hearing do because going through life deaf in a world of hearing people is a hard life. To a much greater degree than Aspies do, they struggle to communicate with people who possess one critical sense they lack, and we the hearing make almost no effort to accommodate them. They're under constant and severe stress just to get through a day, just to navigate this world. It doesn't take as much in someone under that degree of strain for them to get pushed over the edge and to descend into a meltdown. A former colleague of mine once managed the concessions at a college for the deaf. She told me that repairs to vending machines far exceeded those of any other institution where she worked because of frequent student meltdowns. If a vending machine took their money and didn't dispense a product, students often vented their fury on the machine.
Dr. Borgman is right to cite causes other than genetics for meltdowns in autism. The stereotype many people have of Aspies as cold and unfeeling is deeply hurtful; to the contrary, our emotions are intense, as are our sensory reactions to the world around us. Sound, activity, sights, smells, touch--all of that registers with us more intensely than it does with NTs. I sometimes wish I could have an NT who doubts that take my brain for a test drive to see how much more intensely I feel everything around me and in me. We've also got the stress of social challenges to cope with. We have to deal with the people in our lives who take it out on us because they don't "get" us. This is every waking hour, unless we're alone. Any one person can endure only so much stress before they reach a breaking point. We reach ours more quickly and more intensely because our lives bring a lot of stress.
I don't have meltdowns often. My most recent meltdown was about a year ago. I'd gone to the Philadelphia Revenue Department to make a tax payment in person. After a long wait in the cashier's line, the cashier told me I couldn't pay my taxes with the form the tax office had sent me in the mail. I had to go to a separate line and get a bill printed out first. I did that, and then returned to the cashier's line. By now I'd spent over an hour trying to pay the tax and comply with the law. When I reached the till for the second time, the cashier looked at the bill and said she still wouldn't accept it because a part of the bill hadn't printed out properly. She told me to return to the other line and get a second bill printed out. My lava started to flow, and it wasn't pretty.
I've got a bag of tricks that keeps meltdowns in the deep freeze most of the time. Vigorous exercise, walking, keeping a journal, meditation, yoga, deep breathing, and giving myself permission to go off for some solitude when I need it, all help. Then too, so do the supportive people in my life who have my back. They may not always understand my inner life. But even if I don't have a ready, coherent answer for their gentle "What can I do to help?", they help me to keep my psychic temperature somewhere below simmer.
In children, meltdowns are distinct from temper tantrums. A child in the throes of a tantrum will occasionally look to see if they're getting the desired reaction from adults. They'll have enough control over their tantrum that they'll take care not to hurt themselves. A child throws a tantrum to achieve a specific goal, and once the goal is met, they calm down.
A meltdown in an autistic child is another matter entirely. It's a total loss of behavioral control, though it can be triggered because a specific desire isn't granted, but giving the child what they want doesn't end the meltdown. It has to wind down on its own. A child in the throes of a meltdown has no awareness of caring for her or his safety.
I've talked to adults with Asperger's who struggle to control meltdowns. Some have learned to recognize the signs of an impending meltdown, and they've learned to minimize them or to excuse themselves from company if they feel one coming on. We've talked about what triggers them, and for everyone the triggers are different.
When I visit online autism and Asperger's forums, people talk about meltdowns as if they're part of the genetic package of autism or Asperger's. I suspect that there is more to it. Stephen Borgman, a psychotherapist who treats children on the autism spectrum, writes that he sees three possible causes for meltdowns: sensory overload, social challenges, and long term stress.
I question the claim that meltdowns are a genetic trait of the autism spectrum. I say that because they don't beset just autistics and Aspies.
I had a maternal aunt, no longer living, who was born profoundly deaf. I learned about the deaf community by becoming acquainted with her deaf friends and by reading about deaf culture. I learned that deaf people are notorious for displaying blistering meltdowns. The reason for this could not be genetic because the causes of their deafness vary. They reach a meltdown point more quickly than the hearing do because going through life deaf in a world of hearing people is a hard life. To a much greater degree than Aspies do, they struggle to communicate with people who possess one critical sense they lack, and we the hearing make almost no effort to accommodate them. They're under constant and severe stress just to get through a day, just to navigate this world. It doesn't take as much in someone under that degree of strain for them to get pushed over the edge and to descend into a meltdown. A former colleague of mine once managed the concessions at a college for the deaf. She told me that repairs to vending machines far exceeded those of any other institution where she worked because of frequent student meltdowns. If a vending machine took their money and didn't dispense a product, students often vented their fury on the machine.
Dr. Borgman is right to cite causes other than genetics for meltdowns in autism. The stereotype many people have of Aspies as cold and unfeeling is deeply hurtful; to the contrary, our emotions are intense, as are our sensory reactions to the world around us. Sound, activity, sights, smells, touch--all of that registers with us more intensely than it does with NTs. I sometimes wish I could have an NT who doubts that take my brain for a test drive to see how much more intensely I feel everything around me and in me. We've also got the stress of social challenges to cope with. We have to deal with the people in our lives who take it out on us because they don't "get" us. This is every waking hour, unless we're alone. Any one person can endure only so much stress before they reach a breaking point. We reach ours more quickly and more intensely because our lives bring a lot of stress.
I don't have meltdowns often. My most recent meltdown was about a year ago. I'd gone to the Philadelphia Revenue Department to make a tax payment in person. After a long wait in the cashier's line, the cashier told me I couldn't pay my taxes with the form the tax office had sent me in the mail. I had to go to a separate line and get a bill printed out first. I did that, and then returned to the cashier's line. By now I'd spent over an hour trying to pay the tax and comply with the law. When I reached the till for the second time, the cashier looked at the bill and said she still wouldn't accept it because a part of the bill hadn't printed out properly. She told me to return to the other line and get a second bill printed out. My lava started to flow, and it wasn't pretty.
I've got a bag of tricks that keeps meltdowns in the deep freeze most of the time. Vigorous exercise, walking, keeping a journal, meditation, yoga, deep breathing, and giving myself permission to go off for some solitude when I need it, all help. Then too, so do the supportive people in my life who have my back. They may not always understand my inner life. But even if I don't have a ready, coherent answer for their gentle "What can I do to help?", they help me to keep my psychic temperature somewhere below simmer.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Neanderthals R Us?
Scientists are predicting that one day they will be able to clone Neanderthals, a different kind of human. As an Aspie, also a different kind of human, I shudder at the thought.
Arguments in favor of doing this are scarily absent of the possible consequences or of how inhumane and unethical this may be. To hear them, you'd think we're fit to wield such power.
I'm assuming for now that cloning Neanderthals is even possible. Pro-cloning arguments run the gamut, among them: We could discover treatments for genetic disorders and diseases; we could learn new problem-solving skills from the different thought processes of Neanderthals, whose brains were wired differently from ours; we could expand our gene pool by producing offspring with them, which could protect us from extinction; we could discover how close they were to our intellectual and moral capabilities; we should because we can. A frequent argument on comment threads goes like this: "It would be cool."
The pro-cloning supporters think only of what we'd gain from this Nobel Prize-winning parlor trick. That in itself is a strong argument against cloning. It reveals modern humanity's feeble capacity for taking into account the rights and feelings of those at our mercy, which strengthens the anti-cloning argument.
I'm thinking of the way we treat non-human earthlings. It isn't pretty. Dolphins are highly intelligent, social animals, but we feel entitled to keep them in our custody so that we can swim with them for our amusement. We have driven countless specie from their habitats and to the brink of extinction. When they're forced to share our habitats, we call them vermin and we kill them. We force them to perform in circuses. We buy exotic, endangered animals and keep them as pets, where the restrictions we must place on them for their, and our, safety rob them of the ability to live out their natures. We imprison them in zoos. The wealthy hunt them for sport, sometimes shooting at them from helicopters. We perform lab experiments on them, inflicting diseases on them to teach us how to cure disease in modern humans or to test for allergens in cosmetics and cologne. We've domesticated them for our companionship and amusement, and then we keep them in solitary confinement at home while we're at work, where they can't seek out the companionship they crave.
Our savagery toward our own kind can be worse. We single out humans with different skin color, religions, cultural traditions, ethnicity, and nationality for persecution. We buy, sell and own people in some parts of the world, often in the same places where we treat women as bad as, or worse than, domestic livestock. We bomb civilians, set up concentration camps, create man-made famines to starve populations, commit genocide, imprison people for their political beliefs, and show little compassion for the poor and weak among us. We're witnessing efforts to deal with the debt and deficit in the U.S. by retaining generous tax rollbacks for the wealthiest among us, and deepening hardship for the poor and suffering. We have a history of putting "freaks" on exhibit in carnivals and circuses. We have conducted experiments on people without their informed consent. In some parts of the world we run amok, ripping apart the planet. Do we behave like a people who would honor the rights of a people we've pulled from extinction?
As someone designated The Other by the neuromajority---"normal" humans---I quibble with plans to clone humans far more Other than me. At least I can withhold informed consent for experimentation. I have a voice. I can defend myself. A Neanderthal could not. I know first hand how it feels to be shunned and reviled, even deemed an oddity to be scrutinized. I feel a duty to go for bat for a people who have no voice. I'm a modern human. I'm an offbeat, eccentric human, and even my garden variety quirks arouse the wrath of the neuromajority at times. I can tell you from my first-hand clashes with today's humans that Neanderthals---a people of eons ago---haven't got the chance of, well, a Neanderthal in the 21st century of enjoying acceptance or equality with us. And lacking that acceptance, they'd be at our mercy. Finding yourself at the mercy of today's humans too often doesn't entail mercy.
Suppose the wannabe Frankenstein crowd pulls this off. We have a sorry history of plowing ahead with untried technology (think nuclear power) with no thought about unintended, long-term consequences to ourselves, to future generations, to Earth's non-humans, or to the environment.
Assume that Neanderthals wouldn't be able to read or write. Do we take a cue from Brave New World and breed them as the race consigned to perform our menial work? If they do, do we pay them a wage for their work, or do we just buy and own them? Do we keep them as family pets? Do we perform experiments on them? Do we make the rounds of Las Vegas and Atlantic City with them, making money off of having them perform at casinos? Will the rich own them as status symbols?
Assume they could learn to read and write and function much as we do. Assume they could live independently. Do they live among us? Do they marry modern humans and have children? Do we set up "Neanderthal Townships" and segregate them? How do we plan for the uncanny valley---the visceral hostility some humans show when faced with something not human as they know human, but showing human abilities? How do we protect Neanderthals from that? How do we resolve the matter of what it means to be human, when we can't seem to do that with our own species? Will Neanderthals have equal rights and responsibilities under the law? If a modern human murders a Neanderthal, does it carry the offense and penalty of murdering a human, or would it be a lesser charge? Do we answer to them why we brought them to life?
I have to return to two pro-cloning arguments. One is that we could learn from their different thought processes. As an Aspie, I have different thought processes. My brain functions differently. I can tell you how "neuromajority" modern humans too often have reacted to my different thought processes in the work place: They've ridiculed my unique take on a task, and sometimes they've driven me from jobs. Neanderthals "thinking differently" could expect much the same.
Pro-cloning scientists also argue that we could gain valuable knowledge about human conditions and diseases. They argue that any experiment is justified if it yields useful knowledge. I'm not calling anyone a Nazi. But the Nazis conducted horrific experiments on those imprisoned in their concentration camps. Was that justified in the name of gaining knowledge about the human condition? And that bit about Neanderthals hopefully saving us from extinction? We drove them into extinction, and now we feel entitled to bring them back to save us from extinction?
I feel a kinship with Neanderthals, even if they don't exist. Scientists have speculated that Asperger's is a step in human evolution. So were Neanderthals. Modern humans seem to suffer from an aversion to steps in human evolution. What are they so afraid of?
Consider. One to 4 percent of modern DNA is Neanderthal DNA. Their brains, though different from ours, were bigger. Artifacts left behind by Neanderthals reveal that they had language, they created art and jewelry, and they grasped symbolism. They cared for their elderly, sick and injured. Most likely they formed close bonds with each other. Every Neanderthal skull you see in a museum display belonged to someone's brother or daughter.
I can't help seeing irony here. We drove Neanderthals to extinction in prehistoric times, and now we're overrunning and trashing our planet to the point where we may drive ourselves into extinction. Just as we're doing that, we talk of re-creating the humans we killed off. I wonder if Neanderthals would appreciate that irony---we wiped them out so that we could bring them back just in time for them to watch us wipe ourselves out.
Arguments in favor of doing this are scarily absent of the possible consequences or of how inhumane and unethical this may be. To hear them, you'd think we're fit to wield such power.
I'm assuming for now that cloning Neanderthals is even possible. Pro-cloning arguments run the gamut, among them: We could discover treatments for genetic disorders and diseases; we could learn new problem-solving skills from the different thought processes of Neanderthals, whose brains were wired differently from ours; we could expand our gene pool by producing offspring with them, which could protect us from extinction; we could discover how close they were to our intellectual and moral capabilities; we should because we can. A frequent argument on comment threads goes like this: "It would be cool."
The pro-cloning supporters think only of what we'd gain from this Nobel Prize-winning parlor trick. That in itself is a strong argument against cloning. It reveals modern humanity's feeble capacity for taking into account the rights and feelings of those at our mercy, which strengthens the anti-cloning argument.
I'm thinking of the way we treat non-human earthlings. It isn't pretty. Dolphins are highly intelligent, social animals, but we feel entitled to keep them in our custody so that we can swim with them for our amusement. We have driven countless specie from their habitats and to the brink of extinction. When they're forced to share our habitats, we call them vermin and we kill them. We force them to perform in circuses. We buy exotic, endangered animals and keep them as pets, where the restrictions we must place on them for their, and our, safety rob them of the ability to live out their natures. We imprison them in zoos. The wealthy hunt them for sport, sometimes shooting at them from helicopters. We perform lab experiments on them, inflicting diseases on them to teach us how to cure disease in modern humans or to test for allergens in cosmetics and cologne. We've domesticated them for our companionship and amusement, and then we keep them in solitary confinement at home while we're at work, where they can't seek out the companionship they crave.
Our savagery toward our own kind can be worse. We single out humans with different skin color, religions, cultural traditions, ethnicity, and nationality for persecution. We buy, sell and own people in some parts of the world, often in the same places where we treat women as bad as, or worse than, domestic livestock. We bomb civilians, set up concentration camps, create man-made famines to starve populations, commit genocide, imprison people for their political beliefs, and show little compassion for the poor and weak among us. We're witnessing efforts to deal with the debt and deficit in the U.S. by retaining generous tax rollbacks for the wealthiest among us, and deepening hardship for the poor and suffering. We have a history of putting "freaks" on exhibit in carnivals and circuses. We have conducted experiments on people without their informed consent. In some parts of the world we run amok, ripping apart the planet. Do we behave like a people who would honor the rights of a people we've pulled from extinction?
As someone designated The Other by the neuromajority---"normal" humans---I quibble with plans to clone humans far more Other than me. At least I can withhold informed consent for experimentation. I have a voice. I can defend myself. A Neanderthal could not. I know first hand how it feels to be shunned and reviled, even deemed an oddity to be scrutinized. I feel a duty to go for bat for a people who have no voice. I'm a modern human. I'm an offbeat, eccentric human, and even my garden variety quirks arouse the wrath of the neuromajority at times. I can tell you from my first-hand clashes with today's humans that Neanderthals---a people of eons ago---haven't got the chance of, well, a Neanderthal in the 21st century of enjoying acceptance or equality with us. And lacking that acceptance, they'd be at our mercy. Finding yourself at the mercy of today's humans too often doesn't entail mercy.
Suppose the wannabe Frankenstein crowd pulls this off. We have a sorry history of plowing ahead with untried technology (think nuclear power) with no thought about unintended, long-term consequences to ourselves, to future generations, to Earth's non-humans, or to the environment.
Assume that Neanderthals wouldn't be able to read or write. Do we take a cue from Brave New World and breed them as the race consigned to perform our menial work? If they do, do we pay them a wage for their work, or do we just buy and own them? Do we keep them as family pets? Do we perform experiments on them? Do we make the rounds of Las Vegas and Atlantic City with them, making money off of having them perform at casinos? Will the rich own them as status symbols?
Assume they could learn to read and write and function much as we do. Assume they could live independently. Do they live among us? Do they marry modern humans and have children? Do we set up "Neanderthal Townships" and segregate them? How do we plan for the uncanny valley---the visceral hostility some humans show when faced with something not human as they know human, but showing human abilities? How do we protect Neanderthals from that? How do we resolve the matter of what it means to be human, when we can't seem to do that with our own species? Will Neanderthals have equal rights and responsibilities under the law? If a modern human murders a Neanderthal, does it carry the offense and penalty of murdering a human, or would it be a lesser charge? Do we answer to them why we brought them to life?
I have to return to two pro-cloning arguments. One is that we could learn from their different thought processes. As an Aspie, I have different thought processes. My brain functions differently. I can tell you how "neuromajority" modern humans too often have reacted to my different thought processes in the work place: They've ridiculed my unique take on a task, and sometimes they've driven me from jobs. Neanderthals "thinking differently" could expect much the same.
Pro-cloning scientists also argue that we could gain valuable knowledge about human conditions and diseases. They argue that any experiment is justified if it yields useful knowledge. I'm not calling anyone a Nazi. But the Nazis conducted horrific experiments on those imprisoned in their concentration camps. Was that justified in the name of gaining knowledge about the human condition? And that bit about Neanderthals hopefully saving us from extinction? We drove them into extinction, and now we feel entitled to bring them back to save us from extinction?
I feel a kinship with Neanderthals, even if they don't exist. Scientists have speculated that Asperger's is a step in human evolution. So were Neanderthals. Modern humans seem to suffer from an aversion to steps in human evolution. What are they so afraid of?
Consider. One to 4 percent of modern DNA is Neanderthal DNA. Their brains, though different from ours, were bigger. Artifacts left behind by Neanderthals reveal that they had language, they created art and jewelry, and they grasped symbolism. They cared for their elderly, sick and injured. Most likely they formed close bonds with each other. Every Neanderthal skull you see in a museum display belonged to someone's brother or daughter.
I can't help seeing irony here. We drove Neanderthals to extinction in prehistoric times, and now we're overrunning and trashing our planet to the point where we may drive ourselves into extinction. Just as we're doing that, we talk of re-creating the humans we killed off. I wonder if Neanderthals would appreciate that irony---we wiped them out so that we could bring them back just in time for them to watch us wipe ourselves out.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The Tale of the Brain Hiccup
I hope this tale helps our NT allies to bear with us, and possibly even nudge us along, when Aspies are struck with the snag that befalls me sometimes---and likely, other Aspies. I call it the brain hiccup.
It strikes me most often when my emotions are running high, but it can accost me at any time. My mind catches on some psychic detritus that I cannot name for the life of me, and it gets caught there. When it happens, words elude me. It's embarrassing as all get-out. A chat has been humming along just fine; suddenly it screeches to a halt. My companion makes a comment, and inwardly, I flail for a reply, in vain. I can see their baffled expression as they wonder why I went mute. They're waiting for me to respond. That makes me flail more frantically for a response, which in turn makes a response go further into hiding. I fumble for some lame comment to show that I'm not orbiting Jupiter. Sometimes a stammering fit strikes. Often, the conversation ends. I walk away hoping I didn't give offense, or give the impression that my companion offended me, causing them bruised feelings. If I'm lucky, my companion keeps talking. Eventually they say something that, inexplicably, frees me from whatever my brain is caught on, and I find my words again. I am not angry or upset when this happens. I'm stalled.
If this happens while you're speaking with an Aspie, please be patient. My lay explanation for this is that our brains don't process input in the same way that NT brains do. If you can keep on speaking in a non-demanding way, that might help. I know it helps me.
It strikes me most often when my emotions are running high, but it can accost me at any time. My mind catches on some psychic detritus that I cannot name for the life of me, and it gets caught there. When it happens, words elude me. It's embarrassing as all get-out. A chat has been humming along just fine; suddenly it screeches to a halt. My companion makes a comment, and inwardly, I flail for a reply, in vain. I can see their baffled expression as they wonder why I went mute. They're waiting for me to respond. That makes me flail more frantically for a response, which in turn makes a response go further into hiding. I fumble for some lame comment to show that I'm not orbiting Jupiter. Sometimes a stammering fit strikes. Often, the conversation ends. I walk away hoping I didn't give offense, or give the impression that my companion offended me, causing them bruised feelings. If I'm lucky, my companion keeps talking. Eventually they say something that, inexplicably, frees me from whatever my brain is caught on, and I find my words again. I am not angry or upset when this happens. I'm stalled.
If this happens while you're speaking with an Aspie, please be patient. My lay explanation for this is that our brains don't process input in the same way that NT brains do. If you can keep on speaking in a non-demanding way, that might help. I know it helps me.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Accepting Beats Deflecting
As a teenager, I baby-sat for a neighborhood couple. One clear, brittle January night, the husband walked me home. I commented that I could smell the cold.
"Oh, you can?"
In hindsight, I can hear the "wow, that's bizarre" tone in his voice.
"Yeah," I continued, oblivious, "It smells like shiny metal."
"Huh."
I hope I live to see the day when the "huh" is banished and replaced with "cool!" or the like. We on this far end of the human spectrum deserve better than the leaden "huh"---NT-speak for "I'm blaming you because I don't understand you."
I don't care where people dwell on the human spectrum. I care about their character. Their place on the human spectrum doesn't determine that, any more than their skin color or their ethnicity. People reveal their character through their actions. People who taunt, bully, ostracize, and otherwise deny acceptance to those they deem The Other, the different, show a lack of character. I accept people as they are unless they act to hurt other people, knowingly. I think less of un-accepting people.
Who are we of The Other breed hurting? What is our offense? Those are my questions when I'm coming away from a messy mix-up with some conventional, unremarkable petty tyrant who couldn't abide my asymmetry. How did I poison their world?
When I told my NT friends that I'd been diagnosed an Aspie, they asked me what they---NTs---could do to make my life less trying. Often, they added that we should accept people as they are. In asking what they could do, and in calling for acceptance, they did make my life a bit less trying. I know I'm among accepting friends. That goes a long way in offsetting the nerve-wracking skirmishes I face with lesser minds.
I get the "what" of these lesser minds. They don't accept we "off center" types. We arouse revulsion, aversion, and scorn in them. But for what it's worth, I want to hash out the "why." Why do they ostracize, bully, and harass us? I suspect that they feel threatened by us. It could go deeper than that, though. Their hostility toward us could also be a smoke screen.
Fearful people lash out at those they deem "different." I've been on the sharp end of their abuse all my life, so it's an effort for me to offer compassion for them, but I've learned to understand them to the degree that I know they vent their fear on me when I don't meet their expectations for conformity. But I chafe at the binary, NTs vs. Aspies approach we fall into so often. We've got a human spectrum of complexity and richness that we ought to try to understand. We can't do that unless we ask what motivates an NT to react, at times, with hatred toward Aspies.
I've got an amateur's guess. I have no background in mental health. But a possibility strikes me when I follow politics. I suspect that those who target Aspies so viciously borrow a tactic from closeted gay politicians, religious leaders, and activists who out-homophobic everyone within earshot of a microphone or a TV crew. Consider Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, Mark Foley, and Roy Ashburn, among others. Outspoken public homophobes, all were caught engaging in homosexual activity or alleged homosexual activity. My hunch is that their fire-breathing rantings of disgust at homosexuality were designed to deflect suspicion from their sexuality. They made a choice. They would succeed in the straight, sometimes gay bashing world by passing as straight.
I think of this sorry practice every time I read about another instance of cruelty toward anyone who is different---and let's be real, Aspies don't hold the patent on difference. The most vicious "NT" tyrants out there may not be so NT. They may be closeted "weird" and "off center" people who opt to succeed in a not-so-neuro-tolerant world by passing as normal, average, unremarkable, conforming, and typical---as the neuromajority defines all of that. They deflect suspicion from their own "weirdness" by targeting people who haven't got the hang of hiding it. No one suspects that they've got "weird" nuggets of their own hidden away.
That's as much charity as I can manage to conjure for conformists who are on the attack. Through my six decades of life they have mocked me (behind my back and to my face); ostracized me; bullied me; harassed me; set me up for humiliation; and driven me out of jobs, all gleefully. I don't think I've left anything out. I do find comfort in knowing that we who are The Other have NT allies. To answer their query, "What do Aspies need from us?" I say, expand your psychic skin to accommodate me---and us. But it looks like they're already doing that.
"Oh, you can?"
In hindsight, I can hear the "wow, that's bizarre" tone in his voice.
"Yeah," I continued, oblivious, "It smells like shiny metal."
"Huh."
I hope I live to see the day when the "huh" is banished and replaced with "cool!" or the like. We on this far end of the human spectrum deserve better than the leaden "huh"---NT-speak for "I'm blaming you because I don't understand you."
I don't care where people dwell on the human spectrum. I care about their character. Their place on the human spectrum doesn't determine that, any more than their skin color or their ethnicity. People reveal their character through their actions. People who taunt, bully, ostracize, and otherwise deny acceptance to those they deem The Other, the different, show a lack of character. I accept people as they are unless they act to hurt other people, knowingly. I think less of un-accepting people.
Who are we of The Other breed hurting? What is our offense? Those are my questions when I'm coming away from a messy mix-up with some conventional, unremarkable petty tyrant who couldn't abide my asymmetry. How did I poison their world?
When I told my NT friends that I'd been diagnosed an Aspie, they asked me what they---NTs---could do to make my life less trying. Often, they added that we should accept people as they are. In asking what they could do, and in calling for acceptance, they did make my life a bit less trying. I know I'm among accepting friends. That goes a long way in offsetting the nerve-wracking skirmishes I face with lesser minds.
I get the "what" of these lesser minds. They don't accept we "off center" types. We arouse revulsion, aversion, and scorn in them. But for what it's worth, I want to hash out the "why." Why do they ostracize, bully, and harass us? I suspect that they feel threatened by us. It could go deeper than that, though. Their hostility toward us could also be a smoke screen.
Fearful people lash out at those they deem "different." I've been on the sharp end of their abuse all my life, so it's an effort for me to offer compassion for them, but I've learned to understand them to the degree that I know they vent their fear on me when I don't meet their expectations for conformity. But I chafe at the binary, NTs vs. Aspies approach we fall into so often. We've got a human spectrum of complexity and richness that we ought to try to understand. We can't do that unless we ask what motivates an NT to react, at times, with hatred toward Aspies.
I've got an amateur's guess. I have no background in mental health. But a possibility strikes me when I follow politics. I suspect that those who target Aspies so viciously borrow a tactic from closeted gay politicians, religious leaders, and activists who out-homophobic everyone within earshot of a microphone or a TV crew. Consider Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, Mark Foley, and Roy Ashburn, among others. Outspoken public homophobes, all were caught engaging in homosexual activity or alleged homosexual activity. My hunch is that their fire-breathing rantings of disgust at homosexuality were designed to deflect suspicion from their sexuality. They made a choice. They would succeed in the straight, sometimes gay bashing world by passing as straight.
I think of this sorry practice every time I read about another instance of cruelty toward anyone who is different---and let's be real, Aspies don't hold the patent on difference. The most vicious "NT" tyrants out there may not be so NT. They may be closeted "weird" and "off center" people who opt to succeed in a not-so-neuro-tolerant world by passing as normal, average, unremarkable, conforming, and typical---as the neuromajority defines all of that. They deflect suspicion from their own "weirdness" by targeting people who haven't got the hang of hiding it. No one suspects that they've got "weird" nuggets of their own hidden away.
That's as much charity as I can manage to conjure for conformists who are on the attack. Through my six decades of life they have mocked me (behind my back and to my face); ostracized me; bullied me; harassed me; set me up for humiliation; and driven me out of jobs, all gleefully. I don't think I've left anything out. I do find comfort in knowing that we who are The Other have NT allies. To answer their query, "What do Aspies need from us?" I say, expand your psychic skin to accommodate me---and us. But it looks like they're already doing that.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
A Brief, Amateur Take on Asperger's
Full disclosure: I do not have a background in psychiatry, psychology, counseling, or social work. I have a well-established background in first-hand, lived experience with Asperger's. What follows is my treatment of Asperger's to the degree that it affects me, which isn't how it affects everyone on the spectrum. Mental health professionals reading this may have a quibble with what I have to say about Asperger's. If you do, quibble away.
A few words about words. Notice that I stop at "Asperger's." As it affects me, I quibble with---no, I bristle at---the words "disorder," "disease," and even "syndrome." I prefer to say I have "Asperger's Nature," or that I'm an Aspie. And I really like the word "neurodiversity." Asperger's has complicated life for me only so far as the neuromajority bristles at people like myself because we're different from them. We're different to the degree that since they're the majority and they wield the power to define, they define us as disordered---and some in the neuromajority suffer from the disorder of feeling threatened by those designated "The Other." No one can make me feel disordered without my consent. I deny that consent. I'm unique and special. Asperger's is not a label with a stigma attached to it. It's a name, and I own it.
Back to Asperger's. It is not mental illness. It is not a disease. The psychiatric community disagrees on how to classify it. Recently a panel of researchers moved to remove the classification of Asperger's from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and to include it in the heading of autism. As of 2013, those diagnosed with Asperger's will be designated high-functioning autistics. I call Asperger's as I have it a cognitive condition. I don't experience the world the way most people do. I process information and the world around me differently. I'm challenged with unspoken social rules and cues. I've become good at reading people---not infallible, but good---but when I was younger I was utterly clueless about facial expressions and body language. I have sensory issues. Even on overcast days I need sunglasses. At my train station, I can hear the train approaching the bend before anyone else. I cannot wear clothing made of certain fabrics, and I can't wear turtleneck tops. Jewelry begins to bother me after a while. When riding the subway I have to hold my ears (other passengers look at me like I've got a pacifier in my mouth). If I attend social events involving a lot of noise, movement, and flashing colors, I need a place where I can retreat for some quiet time. I'm gullible and I take things literally; I don't catch on readily to comments made jokingly. I have a very strong sense of justice. I couldn't multitask to save my life. I communicate with animals very well. I've got great attention to detail and focus is a strong point. I'm deeply loyal. Aspies get a bum rap for being cold and unfeeling. Quite the contrary. I feel emotions deeply, so much so that I feel overwhelmed and I shut down, which may make me seem unfeeling to others.
That's my offering---one Aspie's blog to the rest of you. It's written in hopes that some day we'll be accepted as people at one far end of the human spectrum, and not shunned as "The Other."
A few words about words. Notice that I stop at "Asperger's." As it affects me, I quibble with---no, I bristle at---the words "disorder," "disease," and even "syndrome." I prefer to say I have "Asperger's Nature," or that I'm an Aspie. And I really like the word "neurodiversity." Asperger's has complicated life for me only so far as the neuromajority bristles at people like myself because we're different from them. We're different to the degree that since they're the majority and they wield the power to define, they define us as disordered---and some in the neuromajority suffer from the disorder of feeling threatened by those designated "The Other." No one can make me feel disordered without my consent. I deny that consent. I'm unique and special. Asperger's is not a label with a stigma attached to it. It's a name, and I own it.
Back to Asperger's. It is not mental illness. It is not a disease. The psychiatric community disagrees on how to classify it. Recently a panel of researchers moved to remove the classification of Asperger's from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and to include it in the heading of autism. As of 2013, those diagnosed with Asperger's will be designated high-functioning autistics. I call Asperger's as I have it a cognitive condition. I don't experience the world the way most people do. I process information and the world around me differently. I'm challenged with unspoken social rules and cues. I've become good at reading people---not infallible, but good---but when I was younger I was utterly clueless about facial expressions and body language. I have sensory issues. Even on overcast days I need sunglasses. At my train station, I can hear the train approaching the bend before anyone else. I cannot wear clothing made of certain fabrics, and I can't wear turtleneck tops. Jewelry begins to bother me after a while. When riding the subway I have to hold my ears (other passengers look at me like I've got a pacifier in my mouth). If I attend social events involving a lot of noise, movement, and flashing colors, I need a place where I can retreat for some quiet time. I'm gullible and I take things literally; I don't catch on readily to comments made jokingly. I have a very strong sense of justice. I couldn't multitask to save my life. I communicate with animals very well. I've got great attention to detail and focus is a strong point. I'm deeply loyal. Aspies get a bum rap for being cold and unfeeling. Quite the contrary. I feel emotions deeply, so much so that I feel overwhelmed and I shut down, which may make me seem unfeeling to others.
That's my offering---one Aspie's blog to the rest of you. It's written in hopes that some day we'll be accepted as people at one far end of the human spectrum, and not shunned as "The Other."
Oops, Wrong Planet
I was diagnosed with Asperger’s—as an Aspie—in 2009, at 57.
This is my first attempt to make sense of this, and of my first half century of life.
The day of my diagnosis is a second birthday to me. That day, I learned what I didn’t know for the first half century of my life, namely, that my brain makes me a different breed of human.
The moment I heard the diagnosis, I felt an immense, palpable feeling of inner settling. I had an explanation for the life of head-butting with co-workers, love interests, neighbors, classmates, and family. I’d had to get along among a people whose language I didn’t speak, without a phrase book. But now my task is to use what I know to make my way with this alien people, and to fortify my sense of self.
My new self-knowledge does help, but it isn’t enough. I’m a living testament to the price many Aspies have paid for the lack of early intervention and sound parenting. I found myself in a world that didn’t welcome my kind, and I bargained for my survival by hammering who I was into oblivion. I need more than just the self-knowledge of this present-day Aspie; I need the self-knowledge of a girl and younger woman whose existence I’d long denied.
I grew up in a straight-jacketed family and community where an inquisitive, asymmetrical mind was frowned upon. That kind of belief system wasn’t kind to the adult neurotypicals (NTs) caught up in it, and it was soul-searing for an Asperger’s child, especially a girl. My parents’ hearts were in the right place. But they’d been raised with a parenting ethic that deemed nurturing and tenderness as coddling children, and as raising weak adults. They believed in tough, even harsh, love for growing strong adults. A child who chatted with pansies needed toughening.
I was indulged until I reached grade school, when it didn’t take me long to catch on to the message that Me wasn’t okay. The person I was wasn’t acceptable, was disordered, and it didn’t go kindly on me if adult NTs saw me being myself. I did too good of a job suffocating that little girl—so good that now, doing psychic CPR on her, I’m struggling to get her breathing again. Now I need her. I guess I always did, but I had to forego her presence to placate the NT world. I had to forget she existed, and I did her a huge injustice.
But I wasn’t placating the NT world. That was the trouble. Intolerant NTs were picking her up on their radar, and it took me five decades to catch on to this, during my diagnosis journey. I wasn’t hiding her from troublesome NTs. I was hiding her from myself.
Even as I write this, I feel myself struggling to make contact with my center, the essential part of myself where emotion, insight and deep thought dwell. As a survival tactic of decades, I’ve been smothering that center because the awareness it brought left me shaken. Now that I belong to social circles where Me is okay, even well regarded, it’s safe to bring that essence into the open, but when I do, she recoils. She stays out of reach.
That vital core eludes me, but memories are returning of episodes I hadn’t thought of in decades: When I was very small, my parents called me “the mynah bird” because often I sat inside alone, mimicking neighborhood children so skillfully that my mother, in another room, thought they were with me (mimicking skills are common in Aspies). In the fourth grade I used to stare out the window to escape the ruler-wielding nun and the mocking classmates I found so scary and toxic; the nun sent my parents a note that read, “Patricia is in her own little world,” which brought scathing wrath down on me. At 13 years old, during a jobs counseling workshop, when other girls in class told the guidance counselor of wanting to be teachers, nurses, and secretaries, I told her I wanted to go to Africa and emulate Joy Adamson by raising lions—and then I launched into a tutorial on lion hunting, mating and cub-rearing practices. In 8th grade aptitude tests I scored in the top two percentile, and then I flunked the 9th grade. A high school classmate who had invited me to her slumber party, knowing how gullible I was, squirted red food coloring onto the back of my skirt, exclaimed, "Oh, you've got a blood stain!", and after I’d run to the powder room, mortified, she gloated to the other girls that I didn’t have the sense enough to use a pad. I relieved stress in a clerical job by twirling a set of Greek worry beads in the air, which got me fired.
For most of my first fifty years, I wasn’t aware of the irregularities in my weave that were giving me away as an Aspie—the hand-flapping, the “off” facial expressions and speech cadence, the utter social cluelessness---and getting on the nerves of the viperous NTs I had to tangle with. But over the years—especially in the work place—I learned how to be a shape-shifter. It’s a companion skill to the psychic obliteration I’d mastered in childhood, which wasn’t enough to enable me to “pass” as an NT. And camouflaging my oddities in adulthood called for a craftier approach than it did in childhood. Once I caught on to the behavior that got me ridiculed, ostracized, and fired, I began to stifle it. I observed how NTs behaved and I learned to imitate them. My mimicking skills served me well here.
That isn’t to say it made life at work easier, though. For one thing, imitating NTs worked up to a point, but if I became stressed or fatigued, I slipped into Aspie mode. Once I was branded as “goofy” or “weird,” trouble ensued. And I don’t mean “shape-shifting” in the sense that a vapor or cloud shifts its shape. No, shape-shifting for an Aspie is akin to twisting your skeleton into a painful, unnatural position, and having to hold it all day. It’s exhausting. And being someone you are not carries a price, as I’ve learned; you have an ever harder time finding your way back to who you are. The authors of ancient mythology knew this: When returning to human form, werewolves become increasingly weak and debilitated.
My diagnosis has brought me a better fit for my psyche’s moving parts, but I’ve long since reached a healthy peace with my flawed “fit” with the NT world. I used to want to fit in, desperately. For a time, my life was a series of failed stabs at it. Now, the last thing I want is to fit in with the kinds of people who are fixated on conformity. That isn’t to say I don’t fit in anywhere. I do. I changed my social circles. I’ve settled in with people secure and intelligent enough not to feel threatened by quirky, offbeat me. And they’re far more interesting. I don’t know who might be an Aspie or an NT. It doesn’t matter. I'm in a safe place for beginning to gently coax my true center into joining me after all these decades, a safe place for both of us.
This is my first attempt to make sense of this, and of my first half century of life.
The day of my diagnosis is a second birthday to me. That day, I learned what I didn’t know for the first half century of my life, namely, that my brain makes me a different breed of human.
The moment I heard the diagnosis, I felt an immense, palpable feeling of inner settling. I had an explanation for the life of head-butting with co-workers, love interests, neighbors, classmates, and family. I’d had to get along among a people whose language I didn’t speak, without a phrase book. But now my task is to use what I know to make my way with this alien people, and to fortify my sense of self.
My new self-knowledge does help, but it isn’t enough. I’m a living testament to the price many Aspies have paid for the lack of early intervention and sound parenting. I found myself in a world that didn’t welcome my kind, and I bargained for my survival by hammering who I was into oblivion. I need more than just the self-knowledge of this present-day Aspie; I need the self-knowledge of a girl and younger woman whose existence I’d long denied.
I grew up in a straight-jacketed family and community where an inquisitive, asymmetrical mind was frowned upon. That kind of belief system wasn’t kind to the adult neurotypicals (NTs) caught up in it, and it was soul-searing for an Asperger’s child, especially a girl. My parents’ hearts were in the right place. But they’d been raised with a parenting ethic that deemed nurturing and tenderness as coddling children, and as raising weak adults. They believed in tough, even harsh, love for growing strong adults. A child who chatted with pansies needed toughening.
I was indulged until I reached grade school, when it didn’t take me long to catch on to the message that Me wasn’t okay. The person I was wasn’t acceptable, was disordered, and it didn’t go kindly on me if adult NTs saw me being myself. I did too good of a job suffocating that little girl—so good that now, doing psychic CPR on her, I’m struggling to get her breathing again. Now I need her. I guess I always did, but I had to forego her presence to placate the NT world. I had to forget she existed, and I did her a huge injustice.
But I wasn’t placating the NT world. That was the trouble. Intolerant NTs were picking her up on their radar, and it took me five decades to catch on to this, during my diagnosis journey. I wasn’t hiding her from troublesome NTs. I was hiding her from myself.
Even as I write this, I feel myself struggling to make contact with my center, the essential part of myself where emotion, insight and deep thought dwell. As a survival tactic of decades, I’ve been smothering that center because the awareness it brought left me shaken. Now that I belong to social circles where Me is okay, even well regarded, it’s safe to bring that essence into the open, but when I do, she recoils. She stays out of reach.
That vital core eludes me, but memories are returning of episodes I hadn’t thought of in decades: When I was very small, my parents called me “the mynah bird” because often I sat inside alone, mimicking neighborhood children so skillfully that my mother, in another room, thought they were with me (mimicking skills are common in Aspies). In the fourth grade I used to stare out the window to escape the ruler-wielding nun and the mocking classmates I found so scary and toxic; the nun sent my parents a note that read, “Patricia is in her own little world,” which brought scathing wrath down on me. At 13 years old, during a jobs counseling workshop, when other girls in class told the guidance counselor of wanting to be teachers, nurses, and secretaries, I told her I wanted to go to Africa and emulate Joy Adamson by raising lions—and then I launched into a tutorial on lion hunting, mating and cub-rearing practices. In 8th grade aptitude tests I scored in the top two percentile, and then I flunked the 9th grade. A high school classmate who had invited me to her slumber party, knowing how gullible I was, squirted red food coloring onto the back of my skirt, exclaimed, "Oh, you've got a blood stain!", and after I’d run to the powder room, mortified, she gloated to the other girls that I didn’t have the sense enough to use a pad. I relieved stress in a clerical job by twirling a set of Greek worry beads in the air, which got me fired.
For most of my first fifty years, I wasn’t aware of the irregularities in my weave that were giving me away as an Aspie—the hand-flapping, the “off” facial expressions and speech cadence, the utter social cluelessness---and getting on the nerves of the viperous NTs I had to tangle with. But over the years—especially in the work place—I learned how to be a shape-shifter. It’s a companion skill to the psychic obliteration I’d mastered in childhood, which wasn’t enough to enable me to “pass” as an NT. And camouflaging my oddities in adulthood called for a craftier approach than it did in childhood. Once I caught on to the behavior that got me ridiculed, ostracized, and fired, I began to stifle it. I observed how NTs behaved and I learned to imitate them. My mimicking skills served me well here.
That isn’t to say it made life at work easier, though. For one thing, imitating NTs worked up to a point, but if I became stressed or fatigued, I slipped into Aspie mode. Once I was branded as “goofy” or “weird,” trouble ensued. And I don’t mean “shape-shifting” in the sense that a vapor or cloud shifts its shape. No, shape-shifting for an Aspie is akin to twisting your skeleton into a painful, unnatural position, and having to hold it all day. It’s exhausting. And being someone you are not carries a price, as I’ve learned; you have an ever harder time finding your way back to who you are. The authors of ancient mythology knew this: When returning to human form, werewolves become increasingly weak and debilitated.
My diagnosis has brought me a better fit for my psyche’s moving parts, but I’ve long since reached a healthy peace with my flawed “fit” with the NT world. I used to want to fit in, desperately. For a time, my life was a series of failed stabs at it. Now, the last thing I want is to fit in with the kinds of people who are fixated on conformity. That isn’t to say I don’t fit in anywhere. I do. I changed my social circles. I’ve settled in with people secure and intelligent enough not to feel threatened by quirky, offbeat me. And they’re far more interesting. I don’t know who might be an Aspie or an NT. It doesn’t matter. I'm in a safe place for beginning to gently coax my true center into joining me after all these decades, a safe place for both of us.
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