A few weeks ago, Nancy and I had lunch with Sue and Greg.
That’s no big deal, I suppose, except for the fact that they live in Ottawa and were traveling fourteen hours to Indianapolis and stopping for lunch.
In the course of lunch, I asked them what they knew about autism. After the odd look, I explained that I was trying to learn about autism for Autism Awareness month. They answered what they knew and then said, “You need to talk with Mike.”Sue introduced us. And I’m very grateful she did.
This is my “5 questions” interview with Sue and Greg’s friend Mike:
1. When you describe yourself, are you someone who is ____ or someone who has ______? Or is that a distinction that matters?
I describe myself as someone who “has Asperger’s”, and I think the distinction is very important. When I was first diagnosed, I became very depressed. I had always felt apart from the rest of the world, as if I was stranded in a different culture and though I couldn’t understand what was really going on, my only choice was to smile and try to fake it as best I could. Being diagnosed seemed like a sentence of sorts. “Don’t bother trying. You’ll be this way forever, anyway.”
I talked to a friend of mine about it, and he pointed out that while Asperger’s most certainly accounts fro some of my personality quirks, so do my parents, my interests, and even my friends. Saying ‘I am Autistic’ rather than ‘I have Autism’ implies that Autism is the whole of myself, the only thing worth knowing about me. I have far more to offer someone than a condition.
2. Susan said that you were diagnosed as an adult. Does having a diagnosis feel like it created a barrier “Oh, you have ____.” or that it provided an open door “Finally, I understand what’s going on.”
A little of both. Being diagnosed explained much of the problems I’ve had my entire life. My awkwardness, my tendency to forget about people if I don’t see them regularly, and the like. It was a bit of a load off at the time. Most people’s first reaction to someone who does these things isn’t “He must be Autistic”. It’s usually more along the lines of “He’s a jerk”. Being diagnosed helped people, myself included, realize that it’s not always in my hands. That said, I still have it, and it’s a struggle everyday to fit in. I oftentimes have to mentally plan social situations to a level Batman would be proud of, and it can be exhausting.
3. Do you ever wish that you had known sooner? How would that have made your life different?
I wish that every day. It would have definitely helped with many relationships, especially with girlfriends. That, and jobs. Turning the crazy level of focus I can muster in different directions than what I tended to focus on could have really helped in my early years.
4. Do you want to be an expert on Asperger’s or do you want to be an expert on you living your life doing lots of things, with Asperger’s being one of the things that is part of your life?
I want to be an expert on lots of things. I want to be fluent in another language. I want to know everything there is to know about quantum mechanics. I want to get a black belt in a martial art. I could really care less about the ins and outs of Asperger’s. Knowing more about the condition doesn’t help me deal with it any more than being an oncologist helps you deal with having cancer. Knowing that this is a condition, something that must be accepted and worked around, rather than something that can just be ‘trained’ out of me, is all the information that I really need. The rest is just knowing what I have to do to mitigate my problems. My wife is more into the different aspects of Autism, mainly in hopes of finding a cure. I’ll stick with just being an expert on living my life.
5. As you look at other people living their lives, thinking themselves normal, complaining about not accomplishing anything, sitting watching TV all the time, is Asperger’s in any way an asset for you? (A very odd question, I know.)
Asperger’s can be a tremendous asset at times. I like to think of it as being ‘min-maxed’. For those who have never played a RPG, let me explain: Say, you’re designing a car. You have to take several factors into account, including comfort, speed, traction, and reliability. You can balance those things, or you can build the worlds fastest car. It might not be as comfortable, or a tight in the turns, but it’s the fastest thing on four wheels. Normal street driving is out of the question, but that car can be very effective in a drag race. That’s how I’m built. I may not be the life of a party, but if you need something figured out, I can fix it faster than most in my position can. I can muster a level of focus most can’t. Don’t get me wrong. I’m rarely happy that I have this condition. It’s just that, thankfully, it can be rather useful in certain situations.
Thank you, Mike.
I went to lunch with a friend last week. We met in a small town diner. We talked for two and a half hours, which means that at some point we went from lunch to afternoon break.
Some people are picky eaters. They search a perfectly good bowl of taco meat for any trace of green peppers, for example. Any parent would be appalled by such behavior, right?
I talked with her husband who had been sick a couple years ago. She finally talked him into going to the doctor. He had a problem which was much worse than expected. He was okay, but it took treatment.
I started the most challenging job of my life on April 1. It wasn’t the best job of my life. In fact, it taught me much about areas of weakness in my life. I haven’t resolved all of those areas, but I am, on average, less driven by career, more aware of the need for followthrough, more aware of my inability to make institutions change by sheer force of will or by weaseling. So maybe, like “take this medicine, it’s good for you”, it was one of the best jobs for my life.
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Levite Chronicles 