Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian With Practical Advice for Aspergians, Misfits, Families & Teachers (2 page)

A few weeks later, I showed the film to a therapist friend, who dismissed Billy’s look with a pat explanation. “I’ve seen that before,” he said. “They call it furtive eye
movements. It’s common in people on the autism spectrum. It doesn’t mean anything.”

It doesn’t mean anything
. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. When it comes to human interactions, I can’t think of a single instance where that is true. Every expression and gesture means something. It’s sometimes hard to figure out what the meaning is, but it always exists.

I didn’t need any help figuring out what Billy was feeling. I have felt the same thing myself, too many times. He was wary, scanning the cafeteria continuously, watching for threats, just as I had done in high school. With a sense of certainty that’s rare in the world of psychology, I knew the therapist was wrong.

Realizing that I had insight into what Billy was feeling, insight that a professional therapist, whom I trusted, didn’t have, confirmed that I had to share my journey with others. Individuals are labeled “different,” “geeky,” “abnormal,” or even “Aspergian” or “autistic” at a young age. Among other things, these labels suggest that the people around them—their family, friends, teachers, and counselors—can’t relate to their actions and expressions.

That’s understandable, but it doesn’t mean that those actions aren’t motivated by legitimate feelings and desires, or that those of us who are different aren’t capable of achieving amazing things in our lifetime. There’s so much
talk about the disability of Asperger’s, so much focus on what kids who are different can’t do, that I thought it was time for a book about what they CAN do.

Thanks to my Asperger’s, I didn’t have much luck making friends as a kid. I always said or did the wrong thing. Grown-ups, especially teachers, didn’t know what to make of me. They knew I was smart, so they didn’t understand why I misbehaved and never fit in. I couldn’t do anything the way people told me to, which caused a ton of conflict. I had to find my own way.

If my teachers wouldn’t, or couldn’t, teach me, I figured, I’d have to teach myself. And that’s exactly what I did. I learned from watching people, from reading a lot, and from experimentation. I developed tricks to overcome my weaknesses and exploit my strengths. The skills I’ve learned along the way, and my techniques for acquiring them in the first place, became the basis of this book.

Despite a difficult childhood, I’ve achieved quite a few of the things regular people aspire to do, accomplishments that make me sound pretty normal. The thing is, because of my Asperger’s, my path to accomplishing those things ended up being a little different from the normal route; actually, it ended up a LOT different. But I still reached goals anyone, different or not, would be proud to achieve.

If you were recently diagnosed with Asperger’s, or you have a child with Asperger’s, or you work with Asperger children or just plain geeky kids in schools or elsewhere, this is the book for you. I wrote
Be Different
because the existing prescriptive works on Asperger’s were—to be
frank—mostly clinical and/or depressing. Not this one. I believe those of us with Asperger’s are here for a reason, and we have much to offer. This book will help you bring out those gifts.

My stories will focus on me, a guy with Asperger’s, but even if you don’t share my diagnosis, you may still relate to these tales. Millions of people with ADHD, ADD, or any form of autism, and even common geeks, share many of my traits. After all, everyone feels like an outsider some of the time.

I certainly hope reading my stories and learning about the ways I coped with problems and found my path entertain you while also giving some useful insights into dealing with your own quirks, or those of someone you care about.

A
sperger’s came into my life when I was forty years old. I’m a pretty levelheaded guy, but I was totally shocked by the diagnosis. “Yep,” the doctors said, “you were born this way.” I could not believe I had reached middle age without knowing such a hugely important thing about myself. I was amazed to learn that Asperger’s is a kind of autism, because I thought everyone with autism was disabled. I’d always envisioned myself as a loner, a geek, and a misfit, but I would never have described myself as disabled. To me, being disabled meant having no legs or being unable to talk. Yet autism, and so Asperger’s, was a disability—that’s what the books said. I’m still not sure I believe that.

The one shred of reassurance I got that first day was the knowledge that Asperger’s isn’t a terminal illness. “You’re
not getting sicker,” they told me, “and it won’t kill you. You’re actually not sick at all; you’re just different.”
Great
, I thought.
Very comforting
.

All of a sudden, the concept of “people like me” took on a whole new meaning. Moments before, I’d have described myself as a middle-aged white male. I was a successful business owner, a husband, and a father. Now I was a guy with Asperger’s. I was autistic. Everything else seemed secondary to that new facet of me.
This must be how it feels when you find you have cancer
, I thought. I was still the same guy I had been the day before. I didn’t feel sick. Yet somehow, in a matter of seconds, my diagnosis had come to dominate my self-image.

In the weeks that followed, I read everything I could about the diagnosis, and I began to relax. When I thought back on my life, Asperger’s explained so many things. School had been hard for me, and I’d done some pretty unusual stuff after dropping out. My new knowledge of Asperger’s brought those memories into focus, and I saw how the differences in my brain had shaped the course of my life in countless subtle ways. Yet I also realized that the success I enjoyed as an adult was real, and it wasn’t going away. In fact, as I moved forward with new knowledge and confidence, I started to see my life get better every day.

Later, with the benefit of this new knowledge, I studied my Aspergian son, now twenty-one years old, and thought about how he too used to struggle in school and in social settings. He was diagnosed when he was sixteen,
twenty-four years earlier than me. I look at him today, and I see how much he’s benefited from understanding how and why his brain is different from other folks’. In many ways, he’s the young man I could have been if only I had known what I had. I made it through life the hard way; he has the benefit of knowledge to rely on. That will make his path easier, and it can make yours easier, too.

Observed from the outside, Asperger’s is a series of quirks and behavioral aberrations. Aspergians are not physically disabled, though an observant person might pick us out of a crowd by our unusual gait or even by our expressions. Most Aspergians possess all the body parts and basic abilities for the full range of human functions. We’re also complete on the inside. When today’s brain scientists talk Asperger’s, there’s no mention of damage—just difference. Neurologists have not identified anything that’s missing or ruined in the Asperger brain. That’s a very important fact. We are not like the unfortunate people who’ve lost millions of neurons through strokes, drinking, lead poisoning, or accidental injury. Our brains are complete; it’s just the interconnections that are different.

All people with autism have some kind of communication impairment. “Traditional” autistic people have trouble understanding or speaking language. If you can’t talk, or understand others, you are indeed going to be disabled in our society. The degree of impairment can vary greatly, with some autistic people totally devoid of speech and others affected in less substantial ways.

Autistic people can also have impairment in the ability to read nonverbal signals from others. That’s the kind of autism I have; it’s what most people with Asperger’s are touched with. The stories in this book describe the ways in which I minimized the harm my communication impairment caused me, while finding the gifts it conferred.

Autism in its many forms is not a disease. It’s a way of being that comes from this nonstandard wiring in the brain. The latest science suggests we’re most likely born different, or else we become autistic early in infancy. We don’t develop Asperger’s as teenagers; life on the autism spectrum is the only life we’ve ever known. We will always be perplexed when we gaze at people who aren’t on the spectrum, and they will always struggle to understand our unconventional way of thinking.

Subtle brain differences often cause people like me to respond differently—strangely even—to common life situations. Most of us have a hard time with social situations; some of us feel downright crippled. We get frustrated because we’re so good at some things, while being completely inept at others. There’s just no balance. It’s a very difficult way to live, because our strengths seem to contrast so sharply with our weaknesses. “You read so well, and you’re so smart! I can’t believe you can’t do what I told you. You must be faking!” I heard that a lot as a kid.

Some people with autism are noticeably disabled. A person who can’t talk, for example, cries out for compassion. Those of us with Asperger’s are tougher to pick out.
The hardest thing about having Asperger’s is that we don’t look any different from anyone else on the outside. So why would anyone suspect that we are different on the inside? When I was a kid, no one had any knowledge of how my brain was wired, including me. Consequently, society wrote me off as defective along with millions of other “different” and “difficult” children. My strange behavior was described as “bad” instead of being seen for what it was—the innocent result of neurological difference.

Today most kids are diagnosed earlier than I was, but still, for many of us, knowledge of Asperger’s starts with some kind of failure. Most kids get diagnosed with Asperger’s after failing at some aspect of school, and their behavior has brought them to the attention of the little men in suits who give tests.

I may not have been tested in school, but the differences in me were still obvious. I could not make friends, I acted strange, and I flunked all my courses. Back then, people said I was just a bad kid, but today we see problems like mine as evidence of disability, and, as a society, we supply help, not punishment. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Today, many geeks, scientists, and other creative geniuses are said to have Asperger’s. But to some of us, the phrase “have Asperger’s” is misleading because it makes Asperger’s sound like a disease or an injury. You say, “I have a cold” or “I’ve got a broken leg.” Saying you “have” something implies that it’s temporary and undesirable.
Asperger’s isn’t like that. You’ve been Aspergian as long as you can remember, and you’ll be that way all your life. It’s a way of being, not a disease.

That’s why I say, “I am a person with Asperger’s.”

Many of us shorten this by saying we’re Aspergians, or Aspies. I think that’s more appropriate than saying, “We have Asperger’s.” There’s no right or wrong—you can say whatever you want, or say nothing at all. Whatever you choose, you’re in good company. Bill Gates is said to be Aspergian. Musician Glenn Gould is said to have been Aspergian, along with scientist Albert Einstein, actor Dan Aykroyd, writer Isaac Asimov, and movie director Alfred Hitchcock. As adults, none of those people would be described as disabled, but they were certainly eccentric and different.

If everyone with Asperger’s achieved a high level of success, no one would call it a disability. Unfortunately, those people are the exceptions, not the rule. Most Aspergians struggle with school, relationships, and jobs because their social skills are poor and they can’t seem to fit in. It’s all too easy to end up alone, alienated, and unemployed. That’s what life was like for me before I learned how to work with my differences, overcome them, and sometimes exploit them. As I have gotten older, I have come to appreciate how my differences
have turned out also to include gifts that have set me apart. One of my main goals in life today is to help young people avoid some of the traps I fell into. We should all be given a chance to succeed.

There’s a lot more to this story than simple disability.

S
ometimes people say, “I see myself in your stories, but I don’t have an Asperger diagnosis. Why is that?” Well, I have my theories.…

As we now know, Asperger’s is part of a broad spectrum of human behavior, with extremely disabled autistic people at one end and the teeming mass of undiagnosed humanity at the other. All of us fall somewhere on this imaginary behavioral continuum. In fact, it seems to me that there are really only three kinds of people in the world, each grouped on a different arc of the spectrum.

First are those of us with an autism or Asperger diagnosis. At a little over one percent of the population, we are the smallest group, but we are special and attract notice far beyond what our numbers would suggest. We’re the ones who are officially “on the autism spectrum,” and there is
tremendous variation among us. Some of us can’t function without assistance, while others are incredibly gifted. Taken together, we may not seem like we have a single thing in common, but we do—we share subtle structural differences in our brains that make us autistic.

I call the next group proto-Aspergians. These are people with plenty of Asperger quirks but not too many disabilities. They’re different and eccentric, but most of them blend into society a bit more smoothly than we full-blooded Aspergians do. There are quite a few proto-Aspergians out there—perhaps as much as five percent of the population. Lots of engineers, scientists, geeks, and common nerds are in this category—that is, unless they qualify for the Diagnosis to put them in the first group. Many are blessed with above-average intelligence, and most are pretty functional. Some people say the proto-Aspergians are the ones who were born with all the benefits of Asperger’s without any of the bad stuff. Perhaps that’s true.

Proto-Aspergians are also called geeks or nerds. Every school has a bunch—the people with lots of Asperger-like traits but not so many as to be labeled. Some proto-Aspergians have alternate diagnoses, like ADHD. Others are just eccentric. They populate the Math Club, the computer room, the Science Fiction Society, and other such places. As grown-ups, they can be found in technology companies, universities, online gaming groups, and even car-repair shops like mine. They are everywhere. Who knows—you may be one of them. I didn’t learn about
Asperger’s until I was forty years old, but I knew about geeks right from the beginning. Geeks have always been around.