CNN article about life with Asperger's Syndrome

People often ask us what Asperger's Syndrome is and how it affects Gavin. This article gives the best description I've seen and describes Gavin to a T!


Asperger's: My life as an Earthbound alien

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Recently, at 48 years of age, I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. For most of my life, I knew that I was "other," not quite like everyone else. I searched for years for answers and found none, until an assignment at work required me to research autism. During that research, I found in the lives of other people with Asperger's threads of similarity that led to the diagnosis. Although having the diagnosis has been cathartic, it does not change the "otherness." It only confirms it.
When I talk to people about this aspect of myself, they always want to know what it means to be an "Aspie," as opposed to a "Neurotypical" (NT). Oh, dear, where to start . ...
The one thing people seem to know about Asperger's, if they know anything at all, is the geek factor. Bill Gates is rumored to be an Aspie. We tend to have specialized interests, and we will talk about them, ad infinitum, whether you are interested or not. Recognizing my tendency to soliloquize, I often choose silence, although perhaps not often enough. Due to our extensive vocabularies and uninflected manner of speaking, we are called "little professors," or arrogant.
WHAT IS ASPERGER'S?
Asperger's syndrome is a developmental disorder that is part of the autism spectrum. Signs and symptoms of Asperger's syndrome include:
Engaging in one-sided, long-winded conversations, without noticing if the listener is listening or trying to change the subject
Displaying unusual nonverbal communication, such as lack of eye contact, few facial expressions, or awkward body postures and gestures
Showing an intense obsession with one or two specific, narrow subjects, such as baseball statistics, train schedules, weather or snakes
Appearing not to understand, empathize with, or be sensitive to others' feelings
Having a hard time "reading" other people or understanding humor
Speaking in a voice that is monotonous, rigid or unusually fast
Moving clumsily, with poor coordination
Having an odd posture or a rigid gait
Source: MayoClinic.com
I don't quite understand small talk, and early in my adult life, solecisms were frequent. At meetings, I launch into business without the expected social acknowledgments. It's not that I don't care about people, I am just very focused on task. Do you have to rehearse greeting people to reinforce that you should do it? I do.
I am lucky to have a very dear friend who savors my eccentricities. She laughs, lovingly, about one particular evening at a restaurant. Before she could get seated, I asked her what she knew about the golden ratio and began to spew everything I know about it. I re-emphasize how lucky I am to have her as a friend, because this incident occurred long before I was diagnosed.
A misconception is that Aspies do not have a sense of humor. It is true that we can be very literal, so we often miss the humor in everyday banter, but we can and do enjoy even subtle humor. Our literal interpretations, however, can be problematic.
In first grade, whenever someone made a mess in the classroom, the teacher would ask a student to get the janitor. The student would come back with Mr. Jones (not really his name), who carried a broom and large folding dustpan. When I was asked to get the janitor, I looked all over the school and reported back to the teacher that I could not find it. After all, the person was Mr. Jones, so the janitor must be the object, right?
I lack the ability to see emotion in most facial expressions. I compensate for this deficiency by listening to the inflections in people's voices and using logic to determine emotional context. The words people choose, their movements, or even how quickly they exit a meeting can provide clues to emotion.
I also have intensified senses -- touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound -- so I am attuned to lights, noise, textures, and smells. In a "busy" environment, I will eventually go into sensory overload and my mind will go blank. When this happens, I have to "go away" mentally for a brief period to regain focus. When I "return," I have to piece together what occurred while I was "away." The additional mental processing I must do to function every day is fatiguing, and I don't handle "ad hoc" very well. Being asked to respond quickly in the midst of all this other processing is difficult, sometimes impossible.
I am so sensitive to touch that a tickle hurts me. This is the hardest concept for most people to understand. How can a tickle hurt? All I can tell you is that it does, so I avoid being touched except by those who have learned how to touch me.
Hugs are dispensed infrequently, but if I do hug someone, I resemble Frankenstein's monster, arms extended to control contact. When my dad (who I suspect is an Aspie, too) and I hug, we both have "the approach." We sometimes miss and have to re-approach a couple of times until a brief, awkward hug is achieved.
In school, other children noted my differences, and I was bullied (and tickled into fits of despair) for years. Already needing extended periods of time alone, my response was to become even more of a loner. Uh oh. When you are weird, you are a joke. When you are a loner, you frighten people. It's always the quiet ones. ...
I am married (wow!), and my brilliant husband is an absolute sweetheart. I don't know any other man who has the self-confidence to be pushed away (sometimes sharply), both physically and mentally, as often as he has been. He has been gentle and patient (and, yes, frequently emotionally depleted) as we both worked through my need for space, tendency to go so deep into my own world that the real world and everyone in it cease to exist, and sensitivity to touch during the 26 (soon to be 27) years of our marriage.
I live with anxiety, because the world can be overwhelming and people have expectations that I always, sooner or later, fail to meet. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have been told that I am rude, inaccessible or cold, yet I have never purposely tried to harm anyone, nor do I mean to be, well, mean.
I could tell you so much more, but instead let me share one last insight. Don't pity me or try to cure or change me. If you could live in my head for just one day, you might weep at how much beauty I perceive in the world with my exquisite senses. I would not trade one small bit of that beauty, as overwhelming and powerful as it can be, for "normalcy."

Too smart.....Part 2

So, at parent teacher conferences last week, Gavin's teacher told us that for a class project each student wrote and illustrated a book and then presented it to the class. I'm sure most of the kids had cute little stories about bunnies or kittens...... Gavin's was on the nervous system. The teachers all thought it was hilarious, so they were excited to tell us about it (Gavin also has quite a flair for public speaking, so I'm sure that made it even more entertaining). Then I told them the story about the Human Anatomy book and the sperm question, which they also thought was hilarious. He hasn't mentioned anything about sperm or reproductive organs in a couple of weeks, so I thought the crisis was averted. But, yesterday when I went to pick Gavin up from school his teacher pulled me aside laughing and told me that Gavin was telling them about his new Human Body book (he has a kids version he got for Christmas), but that it wasn't as good as his old one because it was missing the urinary and reproductive sections. I guess this is not an out of sight, out of mind situation. The damage may already be done. What was I thinking!

For the love of blogging...

I just want to say how much I LOVE that almost everyone has jumped on the blog bandwagon. It is such a fun way to keep up to date with family happenings. The kids and I love to read the posts, look at the pictures and check the comments. As a kid I never really had an opportunity to know my grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins. I am so grateful that my kids are growing up with such a wonderful extended family. We love you all so much and it is so nice to feel an everyday connection to you even if we can't see or talk to you very often.

Too smart for his own good

Over the last week or so Gavin has taken a real interest in the human body and how it works. It has been a lot of fun for me because it was an interest we share and I felt like I finally knew more about something than he did. He has a couple of children's books about the human body, but after basically memorizing those, he decided to start reading my college Human Anatomy textbook. He has posters of the different body systems hanging up all over the house, so I figured it couldn't hurt to let him flip through the textbook. So, last night at dinner he suddenly says "Mom, what are sperm?". I just about choked on my chicken and said "Where did you hear that?" He said "I was reading about the reproductive system in your anatomy book and I saw that word and I don't know what it means." I said "Well, that book is for adults and sperm is something you will learn about when you get older, but you don't need to know about it now" He said: "Mom, if I'm smart enough to read an adult book, don't you think I should know about sperm." I said "No, I don't" and quietly hid the textbook in the top of my closet. Hopefully we can put off the "Birds and the Bees" speech until at least first grade.