What is Autism Spectrum Condition?  I

Part one of two on ASC.

Autism Spectrum Condition is a neurobiological disorder on the autism spectrum that sometimes makes it difficult for a person to connect with others, and to communicate and interact with others.   

Some information.   

Autism affects individuals in different ways, but general symptoms include impairments in speech or communication skills that are usually recognizable from an early age. 

The disorder can affect the individual’s motor skills as well, and those affected are usually less likely to make eye contact and may have a fixation on specific parts of objects. 

Individuals with autism sometimes lack interests in developing relationships with their peers, and can sometimes lack the desire to engage in make-believe play.   

I speak well and speak fluently and have been known to use some great jaw-cracking words with a flourish. I never had a problem here. I could be quiet in class at school, at least when it came to school work. I was a bit awkward when it came to the tasks I was set, very childish, with a wandering mind and a genius for not paying attention. I was chatty in class, too. In fact, I would be frequently ticked off for talking during lessons and would often be made to stand facing the wall. It didn’t worry me too much. I have been known to talk to walls. I made friends, too, with humans as well as inanimate objects. The only thing here that fits me 100% here is the lack of desire to engage in make-believe play. In public, anyway. I could never perform roles in the company of others. I didn’t just lack the desire to engage in make-believe play, I positively hated and detested it, and with a passion. I had to be dragged under protest into doing it. I remember one school play in junior school vividly. As I happily played football on the yard, Miss Coulshed the teacher leaned through the class window and called me over. She advanced the bold opinion that I would ‘make a good priest,’ and proceeded to cast me in the role in the class play for the school assembly. The rehearsals involved little but me resisting and protesting and continually getting my lines wrong. At one point, the various members of the class joined in a chorus to deliver the correct lines to me as I got them wrong yet again. I didn’t perform well under pressure and I freeze when being observed. I rounded on the class and launched some choice insults in their direction.  'Clever dicks!' I shouted at them, which caused the girls to giggle. I made for a most unusual priest, that’s for sure. One thing I had to do was baptise a baby. Thankfully it wasn’t a real one, but a doll. As it was handed over to me on the big day, I decided to make my objections plain before the entire school assembly. I grabbed the doll aggressively by the ankle, mumbled and muttered a few oaths, with an irreligiosity that was palpable, and threw it back violently at the poor girl who had handed it to me. She caught it with all the dexterity of a world-class rugby half-back. I’m for it now, I thought; I’ll get the strap for this for sure, and I really don’t care. It was protest and rebellion on my part. I didn’t want to do it and had made my objections loud and clear. No one listened. So I made my very public protest. The sad fact is that no-one noticed. That says something about plays at school assembly. All that fuss and upset was over nothing. The kids are not watching and the teachers are watching the kids in case they wake up and start to play up in their boredom.  

That was primary school. The very same feeling was with me at the age of twenty nine when I was doing an accredited masters course at the University of Keele. In one group session, we had to enact some human resources management scenario. Apart from the fact that I found the scenario utterly boring and unimportant, the thought of acting a role absolutely terrified me. I saw it as something to endure. I didn’t see how anything could be learned by play acting. I had no conception of role play. I simply couldn't put myself in the shoes of others. I had no idea what any of the characters in this role play would say. I had zero interest in seeing things as others saw things; I knew nothing and so had nothing to say. Playing a role involves putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. I had no idea about others. I only know myself and I can only be myself. That’s good enough, seeing as I encompass multiplicities. I hated make-believe. I still do. I find play-acting dishonest and insincere. I distrust guises and masks and suspect the motives of people who can so easily wear them. I see how it means that a person can empathize with another and put themselves in the shoes of another. I see it as inauthentic, the ability to assume counterfeit identities, be everything and nothing, not be true yourself. I refused point blank to engage in role-play. I can’t do it, I freeze, I refuse. Artist Samuel Palmer described William Blake as ‘a man without a mask.’ I would be happy to have that description applied to me.  

How is Asperger’s syndrome different from classical autism? 

Asperger’s syndrome is considered to be a milder form of classic autism. This is more where I am. Those with autism do not attempt to create relationships, it is claimed; I do. Those with Asperger’s syndrome make the attempt at interaction with others. The problem is that they have difficulty doing it well, and have trouble understanding conventional social rules. Once more, that’s me. Although I have to add that many people I meet would be surprised to hear that, because I can talk very freely and openly with them, certainly in one-to-one situations. It’s when there is more than one person that the difficulties grow for me, and with exponential force. 

The language and communication skills of those with Asperger’s syndrome are not as severely affected as those with classic autism. Indeed, I read, those with Asperger’s usually have a good handle on language skills without a speech delay. I am very fluid and fluent, with a large vocabulary of long and complicated words. If I have a tendency to stutter when beginning a sentence, it comes from needing to choose from a mass of information that is ready to pour forth from my tongue. It’s really in communication where the problems come. And even here many would not notice. They may even be immensely impressed by what I say. What they don’t realize is that what I say is but a tiny fraction of what I am able to say and often intended to say. I have so much to say that I have to work hard to say it, and feel so frustrated with all that is left unsaid.    

“I have enormous difficulty letting things go, which makes it very easy for frustration and anger to build up. It’s one of the reasons why it’s so important for me to get answers, explanations, and solutions for things.” 

- AlisRowe 

I have a very good and a very long memory. I remember every slight and every injury I have suffered. I harbour grudges. I have had to make a joke of my tendencies here, in an attempt to disarm what could be seen to be a very nasty and worrying character trait. I frequently tell the story of a rugby match at school, when I made a final bid for the first team pool. I made an heroic tackle on the opposition prop forward, who had just demolished our forward line single-handedly and was now proceeding to make light work of the backs. I rushed forward and dove to my right, hitting him so hard that he came crashing face down into the ground. I thought that would impress the coach. Not a bit of it! As the opposition went in for a try at the opposite corner, the coach shouted: “where’s the full back gone?” I was the full-back, and was being blamed for the try. “He ruined me,” I say dolefully about the coach, as I repeat this story over and again.

I remember very many other such incidents in my life. I replay them in my head. And if the chance came to settle scores, I very possibly would, and in certain cases I definitely would. The people who robbed and threatened my dad in his house last year are people I could see boiled in their own fat. I  said that at the time and was told to calm down and wait. I have calmed down and I have taken time to ponder. And I still feel that way. These people are mugging society and the limp liberalism of the virtue signallers is keeping them from harm. When I read stories of crime and robbery, of the elderly and the vulnerable being threatened by violence and beaten, I remember the details and don’t let them go, and I have very bad thoughts. I hold grudges and have a taste for vengeance. I never act on any of it. It’s just my powerful memory and sensitive nature. And behind the anger is a sadness that the world is not as it ought to be. I think that anger righteous and proper. To remove that anger, to suppress it in warm words of general human goodness, serves to suffocate proper human emotion and makes us all prey in a sterile environment.   

I’m going through the weight of words on Asperger’s Syndrome in an attempt to place myself in this strange landscape. Long before my condition had finally been diagnosed, I already knew that I had AS (whether we understand this as Asperger's or Autism Spectrum Condition). I am a person who sees the world from strange angles. I am like everybody else, only a little different. Those little differences are many. I am me. And it’s impossible for anyone to get any more different than that.   

People hear AS and think disability. So I would stress that with AS comes some remarkable abilities.   

I am reading that people with AS people may have the a number of strengths. Here is a series of definitions which spell out AS. I’ll comment on the extent to which these categories fit my character and experience.   

Good memory 

I have a formidable memory. I have friends who say that I remember everything going back decades. I believe this observation may partly be based on an illusion. I remember such strange and quirky details that when I recount them, people are surprised by my knowledge of the small and insignificant. That makes them think that I remember everything. If I can remember things of such  minute importance, they presume that I would remember everything else. Possibly not. I have an eye for the unusual, however unimportant in the wider scale of things.  

That said, I do have a powerful long-term memory. I remember small details from the past very vividly, as if they are still alive. I took to history easily. I was average at school, passing only in subjects I didn’t have to work too hard at: French and English. I had a facility for languages and could remember words easily, and History, I could remember details and dates easily. It was just a case of fitting the story and explanations around the framework that was already in my head.   

Focus 

I can focus for lengthy periods at a time, hours a day, day after day, for months. In fact, I’ve done this for years.

Detail oriented 

I am trained in history, facts are my trade. But I came to history naturally. I am detail oriented by nature and not just by training. But I had the training, too. I notice little things, but I love the big picture. In theory, in the abstract. In real life, I tend to get absorbed in details and lose sight of the wider world. I can let time slip by.

Good humour 

I have a great sense of humour, and humour is my first port of call. I’m quick to laugh and quick to quip. Always the joke. Humour is my default setting. I have a real facility for amusing, entertaining, and irritating others. If you didn’t laugh with this condition, then you would most certainly be crying.   

Honest 

That would be for others to judge. Rather than sing my own praises, I’ll just say Iam not smart and subtle enough to be dishonest and have ulterior motives. In fact, it is more accurate to say that I cannot act and cannot wear a mask. What you see is what you get. I can’t fake it. So I am honest simply by nature rather than by an acquired moral virtue. I may make lots of mistakes, but they are honest mistakes which were well-intended. I find it impossible to lie. That inability to deceive others, to engage in social nuance and trickery, is a classic AS trait. It makes those with AS vulnerable to the deceit of others.   

Desire to connect 

My entire work is concerned with the disconnection that is the source of our ills, and with identifying what is required for the work of reconnection. The important thing to say is that the desire to connect is frequently frustrated by being at cross-purposes with people. And by a tendency to withdraw, become absorbed in special interests / work, and keep encounters with others at the bare minimum.

Fair and just 

I argue for justice. I think fairness is a vague concept and involves us unending arguments. I seek accord and harmony, and that comes from justice. You see, when I talk about philosophy, I am really talking about myself. The personal is philosophical, and vice versa. There are those who think that the character of the philosopher has no implication with respect to the work of the philosopher. In my case, the two are connected. I think notions of independence here are untenable. Iris Murdoch stated that with respect to any philosopher it is a good question to ask what is he or she afraid of. Spinoza learned Latin just so that he could render his arguments as impersonal and logical as possible, short of mathematics. He sought to render his personal character invisible by such an approach. That yearning for objectivity, impersonality, and uncertainty revealed his character.    

People with Aspergers Syndrome might: 

Avoid eye contact.  

I avoid eye contact. I look away all the time, I look right and I look left, and I look away in the distance. Anywhere but in the eye. Eye contact is conscious recognition of being in the presence of a living person, a person with his or her own autonomy and agency, a 'yes' or a 'no' which incites, engages, challenges, demands a response. Even worse, eye contact is confirmation that you have been seen and are in someone’s sights and, even worse than that, in their thoughts. You are being weighed and judged. Demands are being made of you. You can no longer hide with eye contact, but must respond. The eye elicits a response. The eye is the most possessive organ of the body. Someone who puts you in their sights is claiming you for something or other they have in mind. And the eye of the other demands a response from you. There is no hiding place from the eye. The eyesreveal. The eye is naked reality, an interpenetration, an engagement; the tell-tale eye will give you away, reveal a truth you would rather not know or have the world know.     

You don’t have to make eye contact to hear and understand what people are saying. I read a lot, I learn by words. I pay attention to words. I therefore find it much easier to listen and process auditory information alone, without having to process visual information at the same time. I find it hard to keep switching between the two. It’s not so much that I can’t do it than I quickly become overwhelmed by information overload.    

Eye contact strikes me as a challenge or an invitation: put up or shut up. Sometimes it is right to ‘put up.’ Eye contact is intimate, and sometimes, rarely, intimacy is the right thing. That’s the ‘put up’ time. When there is no basis for intimacy, I find eye contact worrying in its implications; it is tiring, demanding, and stressful. It’s a demand for a deeper engagement that folk like me can well do without. So I tend to avoid it until it becomes really important.   

I don’t like to make eye contact. Eyes bother me. It’s easy enough to say eyes are connected to people, and I have problems with interaction. I find eye contact troubling. I tend not to do it when I am talking to people. I realize when I am looking away too much and so make a point of looking directly at them. Maybe too much. I’ve learned to make eye contact, then look away, then look back. In truth, I look just past the eyes, and then look away. I flit back and forth. I do it consciously. I think the whole thing through.    

I find photographs of faces with eyes staring directly at the camera unnerving. Eyes are a demand for contact and for response. You can feign deafness in order to ignore the spoken word. But you cannot avoid the eyes. Eyes are impossible to evade and ignore. Eyes mean that people have seen you, and that people know that you have seen them. I can’t practice my usual selective deafness and amnesia with eyes. There’s no hiding place with eyes. You cannot pretend you have missed something that you want to miss. You’ve been seen. People know you are in. And they can make you respond to their calls.   

Speak in an unusual way or have an odd tone of voice 

This can be a screen or a defence, a way of talking to others if you cannot avoid them, but without actually engaging with them. It is a way of keeping the other person out or of putting them off your trail. Or, if I am interested, I may embellish a tale with an extravagant manner or turn of phrase.   

Have trouble understanding others’ feelings or their own  

You would have to ask other people about this one. I think I am very clear in what I say and that others’ fail to understand, either my meanings or feelings. But maybe I find other people tiring and, on account of their failure to understand me, I don’t even want to take the trouble to consider their feelings. I don’t actually think that is true of me at all, by the way. I think I am very sensitive to others. If anything, I am oversensitive, worrying about what people may think and how they may interpret things. But this may merely indicate that I am thinking about myself and how others may see me, rather than truly thinking of others. That said, I will state openly that I have been far more sinned against here than sinned, having had to listen to people endlessly expounding their theories of absolutely everything of no concern to me whatsoever and telling their stories of their ever so uninteresting lives whilst I sit and listen, resisting the temptation to cut them short, for all of their self-importance in encroaching on my time and boring me rigid. In return, I speed a line or two out before they set off again.    

Then again, if it is true that I don’t understand others’ feelings, then I would hardly have any conscious recollection of it. I do know from others’ reactions that they have felt me somewhat brusque, even rude. They may be right. I wouldn’t know. I only know things from my own point of view.   

Talk only about themselves and their interests  

I talk about myself and my interests all the time. If I didn't talk about myself and my interessts, I wouldn't talk. And I repeat myself time and again. When you live in a world of your own, positioned at some strange angle to the wider world, then you have nothing and no-one to talk about other than yourself and your own world. Because when you are on you own, you are on your own, and there is no other world.   

Be clumsy or awkward 

I consider myself fairly agile. I am very graceful and can hop across rocks in the river. It’s when people are watching, when I am under pressure to deliver, and when I see the role I have to play in social interaction, that everything I can do on my own suddenly becomes … awkward and clumsy.    

My football career was a nightmare. I would practice on my own, and developed a wide range of skills. I had excellent ball control and could do amazing things… when on playing on my own and living out my fantasies. As soon as I took to the football field with others, though, I would become over-anxious and try too hard.And in trying too hard I would become clumsy, trip on the ball or over my feet, and lose possession. So instead of being the skilful player I knew myself to be in private, I would become clumsy. My football persona became totally inverted between the private and public worlds. I was a proper footballer in private; in public I became a hard worker, forever chasing and tackling opponents, hacking the ball away, a clogger: but never actually playing football with all the style, grace, and elan I knew I could, as I did on my own. I can be clumsy and awkward verbally too. Always the over-thinking, always the anxiety, always the awareness of being watched and judged, always the worry over meeting expectations.   

Speech and language peculiarities 

You can’t get more peculiar than philosophy. I once gave a talk on Hegel, and one guy started to bang his head on the table as I spoke of ‘the progress of reason to consciousness of freedom.’ As he banged his head he said ‘this guy cracks me up.’ I don’t know if he meant me or Hegel. I think it may be my tendency to slip jaw-cracking words and concepts into conversations that people may find odd.    

Non-verbal communication problems - 

Have a hard time understanding body language 

I am hopeless at lip-reading and understanding signs, and I have missed body language so obvious that I can’t bring myself to recall it. Let’s just say sexual signals so obvious that only a particular type of person would have topause, think, and ponder what it all means.   

That said, I can sometimes understand body language, and may just choose to ignore messages I don’t want by pretending not to understand. I focus on my obsessionsand can ignore what the other person is doing, blank it out, or just plain missit. It depends. But I do miss or misunderstand cues from others. But I have learned to be selective in the things I understand, too. If I don’t want to know, I will pretend not to be able to understand.   

Difficulty in social relationships 

Let’s start with lack of relationships and take it from there; to the many who may be surprised by this, I will simply say you will not notice problems in the sporadic and short encounters we have. A reiterated situation over time wouldshow the problems. I meet people and talk with people, I just don’t go any further and deepen the connections at the level of ongoing relationships.   

People with AS might: 

Want to be alone 

In company, the point soon comes when I look forward to going home and resting andrecuperating in my room. I like to withdraw and recuperate. And outside observers would conclude from this that I want to be alone. Actually, no, it depends. People with AS may want to be with others and tend to withdraw only as a result of failures in communication. To seek connection with others only to meet with misunderstanding is dispiriting and can cause people with AS to stand back. That remoteness is not an ideal choice. it is a safety measure protecting against further harm and hurt. 

Have a hard time making friends 

I have never had any trouble at all talking to people: so why do I have very few friends? In the structured environment which was school, I always had friends, even if many of them were misfits and cast-offs like me, or simply kids who had no option but to sit next to me. But there were always at least three or four people around who were genuine friends, people you would see out of hours.

Seem nervous in large social groups 

There is no ‘seem’ about it.   

Tend to be in their own world 

That’s not so much a tendency on my part as an incontrovertible fact. I have created a world of my own. So what? 'A World of Our Own' is a super Elvis song.

Want to be alone or might want to interact but don’t know how 

I want to interact, but don’t quite know how to do it, make awkward approaches, get discouraged, and then retreat to being alone again. In fact, my attempts to approach others went from being clumsy to being awkward to being shy. I'm afraid I was utterly impossible for girls. The fact that they were talking to me should have told me that they were interested in being swept off their feet. I tended to wait for them to show their hand. Girls don't like to expose their desires for fear of reaction. Ditto. It goes both ways. The number of pretty girls I let slip out of my hands doesn't bear thinking about. Social occasions generally are not good for me. I hate loud noise and, let’s be honest, many social occasions are accompanied by loud music. I can’t cope with that. And I don’t see the appeal in getting close to people in order to shout down their ears. I refuse to believe I am alone in this. But I fear that people won’t read me, and I despair of ever reading people. So I withdraw.   

Have trouble understanding the intentions of others 

All I can add here is a story from the local park when I was a teenager. A couple of local girl friends saw me kicking my football around and came over to, well, frankly, as now seems clear, seduce me. That was pretty much normal activity in the park in certain places after a certain hour. And the plainest of plain facts is that they were being very seductive indeed. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t notice – I did think their behaviour a little out of the ordinary for them – but that I didn’t quite understand the nature of its oddness, or understood that it probably meant deviating from the usual patterns of behaviour, and so didn’t respond. They referred rather sarcastically to ‘boys’ who played football, with the word ‘boys’ being pronounced in the most exaggerated of ways. It was a challenge of sorts, accompanied by invitations into all manner of manly activities. Both girls were a year or more younger than me, but evidently much more grown up emotionally. I carried on playing football, taking them to have been skitting the greatest game in the world. I didn’t understand their antipathy for the beautiful game was motivated by interests in other kinds of physical activities. I didn’t bother to challenge them, let alone take the challenge they offered on. I just ignored them and they sloped away, puzzled, defeated, and somewhat crestfallen. I think they thought themselves irresistibly attractive. And, to be fair, they were very nice girls. My incomprehension offered a blow to their self-image.   

I have many other such stories. I shall keep them back for when I publish my full account, for which I shall exact a very high fee. My story is worth it. There is plenty in my past that is simply painful to recall, the thwarted dreams and missed opportunities. Probably the saddest tale of all comes from night school in 1984. I used to sit next to an incredibly  attractive youngwoman. She was the spitting image of the Jane Asher of the 1960s, only with shorter, more wavy hair. She had a very nice personality and found me most amusing, which always helps. She sat next to me during class. She accompanied me at break, too. And we talked together in the car park after class as she waited for her dad to pick her up. He would flash his head lights and I would rush away as if I had been caught out having some terrible designs on his daughter. She would laugh at my stories and ask about my future plans. And I was happy enough just to be with her, before going off to university, never to see her again. It never once occurred to me to ask her out. It never once occurred to me that her interest in my plans was to discern if I envisaged any place for her in my future. I was a complete and utter idiot here, taking her questions to concern academia and university. I had had the holy grail of education sunk into my head by being in the constant company for whom university and degrees were the be-all and end-all. So I spoke about all my big plans about university, which would have made it seem to her that I thought nothing of her at all. If only she knew. The truth was precisely the opposite. I would have happily ditched university to be with her. A few months later, I met one of the mature students who had been on the course with us. She asked me how I had done. I was all excited telling her that I had scored the top grade of “A.” She then asked me how S had done. I told her I had never seen her since the end of the course. The woman immediately looked puzzled. “Oh,” she said, “we all thought you two were an item.” Even then, I completely missed the significance of what she was saying here, and went back to crowing about my grade “A” distinction. Exams, grades, education may well have blighted my life. All those questions S asked about my future plans may well not have been motivated by an interest on her part in my educational well-being. She had no interest in university at all. She was studying to go further in the job she already had. She was staying in St Helens. Was I going to university or was there something - or someone - inclining me to stay? That was what she wanted to know, it is now clear. I went, but wasn't away for too long. I came back within the year, but all connections with those I had left behind had now been lost. I didn’t miss that we were close, though, close enough to be an item. One evening, S sat opposite me in class for some reason, complained of the cold, and had some handsome Lothario cloak her in his big coat. I glowered for the rest of the evening. I suspect she noticed. She was back sitting next to me the week after. For once, I had abandoned my impassive, non-committal face and showed my true feelings. Was this a deliberate attempt by her to incite jealousy on my part, to get me to show what I truly felt for once? Do girls engage in such devious practices? Yes. For once I showed my feelings. But I never acted on them. It’s like the game of Pontoon. I can rest content on 14 rather than risk losing it all for the possible 21, no matter how probable that 21 may be. I had 14 for a year, and to me it seemed so much like a 21 that I preferred not to gamble and risk losing her for the time I had her. Looking back, I now realize that I was happy to settle for something which was much less than what was possible, enjoying her company for the year that it lasted, rather than being bold and brave and trying for a higher number. It was possible. To all others, it was obvious that we could have been ‘an item.’ In fact, they all thought that we already were. I missed it, for fear of losing her for the time I had her.

Having told that story I may as well tell the story of how I came to meet S and become so close to her in the first place. Such closeness is not, after all, my normal state with miscellaneous others. It was pure happy accident. It could only have been an accident. I would never have been bold enough to approach her in the first place. The tale reveals a number of typical AS traits. I met S through her friend P. P had been a student on my history course at De La Salle/West Park (the first year that girls had been allowed in, which was a stroke of luck). When we ran into each other at college, she expressed her surprise. ‘You failed?’ she asked incredulously. She knew that I was good at history. I hadn’t failed, I said, I just wanted to do history again. P found that desire for repetition even more baffling. Already I was repeating things I was good at, preferring to stay at the same level rather than attempting to move on and break new ground. We chatted for ten minutes or so when a friend of hers turned up. This was S. I remember the moment vividly, as she approached us on my left. In all honesty, I couldn't believe the situation, which involved me in the corridor talking to not one but two pretty young ladies. I had to shake my head. I thought I was dreaming. P asked S what she was doing here, and she said Social and Economic History. Hey! P smiled and said that that was the course I was on. And with that we were introduced. I nearly passed out. I assured her that I had already checked the room number. And with that we left together for the class. I couldn’t believe it. I had got myself a girl! OK, I was only accompanying her on the way to class to do a course we had in common but, gee, this was like having a girlfriend for me. We stood and waited alone outside the locked classroom for five minutes or so, until S started to think there was something wrong. There was nobody else around for starters, which is never a good sign. She charged off to investigate the board with courses and classrooms on, with me trailing behind hanging on to her skirt. Sure enough, I had made a mistake and got the days mixed up with nights. It's an easy enough mistake to make. If you're an idiot. Night school was new to me. As first impressions go, this was my usual cack-handed error strewn introduction designed to have anyone running a mile, not least someone who already had a job as a secretary. She was a very organised and level-headed girl, no nonsense, all business. But S sat next to me all the same, and found my drawing of the Queen logo on my folder most amusing. Remarkably, she seemed understanding of my eccentricities. And so began a year of unfolding, but ultimately missed, opportunities. Be fair. I hadn’t sat next to a girl in class, or anywhere for that matter, since seven years previously. It was something of a leap for me to even be talking to one. I found it all a heady experience. It took me a few weeks to recover from the feeling that the world was speeding into another orbit. How does that Frankie Valli song go again? Except that it was me who couldn’t see.    

Body language, feelings, what other people are thinking, how they convey what they want, can all be a complete mystery to me. In defence, all I can say is that I learned early in life not to expect too much from others. Life doesn’t ever get that good, does it? Actually, it probably does, but I had learned not to expect too much by way of good times. I don’t presume the best that could happen, I tend to presume the usual non-event. Whilst it’s not good to presume the worst, it does have the merit of being pleasantly surprising when things turn out to not be as bad as you may have imagined. Not that you can recognize opportunities for good times when they come along. Miscommunication and disconnection have the tendency to reinforce each other over time.  

Have narrow sometimes obsessive interests  

I pursue narrow interests, and do so with an extreme intensity, developed at such great lengths, that they appear vast and expansive. I don’t just feel the need to do something well, I feel the need to become an expert and cover a subject at length and in depth, and to the nth degree. I always feel inadequate if I don’t master the entire field. Living alone, you need to occupy your time with a hobby or an interest. It’s just that in being an obsessive, you can tend to turn an interest into an entire world. I think my interest in things could possibly be described as obsessive. I created an Elvis web site as a hobby and a recreation, a break away from my written work. In less than six months I filled it with more than 300,000 words. There are now 750,000 words on that site. I did the same with the Blog page on my Being and Place site. I set up that site to promote and explain my written work on Academia and elsewhere. In time, I have come to write over 2,000,000 words on the blog. A written exchange with someone soon turns into at least 1,000 words with me. It can go much higher than that. A friend who knew my love of songs told me that I could create YouTube lists of my own. I now have over a hundred of them, with thousands of songs collected. I could go on about my obsessive behaviour.   

Seem nervous in large groups 

There is no ‘seem’ about this, I am nervous in company, small or large, even with family and friends. I may be so still and quiet in large groups that no one would notice my nervousness. What they don’t realize is that I am concentrating hard to look normal and neutral so as not draw attention to myself. The nervousness is masked and unseen, but it is there. 

Have strong and unusual sensory reactions 

Sensitive to loud noises 

I hate noises of any kind, apart from nature’s noises, my own noises, and noises I can control. All human-made noises are loud to hear; they are noises I don’t want to hear. I hate sounds that are unfamiliar. I wear earplugs and use headphones all the time, both together. Aurally, I live in a world that is walled off from the outside world. I like familiar sounds. Anything outside of the familiar is loud and has the capacity to reduce me to a wreck.  

I wear earplugs. I wear headphones. I wear them both together. I like to shut out noise or control noise. I expose myself to my own familiar noise. I wear earplugs within headphones. The sound of people shouting outside, of workmen banging, of neighbours being alive and moving, anything indicating the presence and proximity of people, can reduce me to a shaking wreck. I have an extreme reaction to sound and vision.   

Have a hard time making friends  

This is difficult for me to assess. I speak so very easily to people that no-one would imagine that I could find it difficult to make friends. I have a very friendly manner. But I always keep a certain distance. I don’t follow friendly contact up. And I also have a tendency to keep away should people ever show signs of wanting to get close. I feel trapped by any greater commitment, as if something of my world is under threat of being occupied by way of encroachment on my time and space. People may then take any reticence on my part as rejection or just plain disinterest and stay away. I can certainly make potential friends easily. But how do you keep friends? I think most people do this at work. The problem is that if you have tended to work alone, as I have, then you won’t meet people to make friends in the first place.    

I have got on with the people I have met over the years. But there have been occasions when people have felt me to be more than a little remote. I remember a course at night school, when I sat on my own at break instead of joining the rest of the group. It was truly embarrassing. One woman called me over saying ‘we don’t smell.’ Instead of taking up the warm invite and joining the group, I waved her away, to which she took umbrage and said ‘well maybe you do.’ I have no idea why I didn’t join them. As I sat there I invented a scenario in which I was waiting for someone in the car park outside, even raised my hand up to the window as if waving to this mysterious someone outside before leaving. I returned to class a few minutes late, ready to tell a story that I had been waiting for someone. No-one was the slightest bit interested. I joined them in a week later and became part of the group. I joined them because someone I knew on the course was back after missing a week and joined the group naturally. I also remember a very nice young woman at the table at break asking me what I was doing later, only for me to blush bright red and for her to withdraw, more out of her feeling incredibly awkward at making me feel awkward. Nice girl. Just my usual difficulties with people. Seriously. I shall say no more about this mystery girl whose interest in me now seems most transparent. Can somebody please invent a clock that can turn back time?  

I lost touch with my old school friends. I never bothered to keep my university friends either and never saw any of them again. I did make friends, though. I was never actually unable to make friends. I just never bothered to keep them. I think you are supposed to ring them, meet them, go places with them, take an interest, do things with them, that kind of thing. So my reading leads me to believe. After that, I have colleagues and associates, people I come into contact with. I don’t keep them either. Job done, business transacted, I move on. I know a few people on social media. I meet the odd few. As for the rest, we are on friendly terms at a safe distance; the greater the distance the friendlier we are. I think that space around me is the key point here. There was always a distance, even with friends. I would always go away, return to my world.   

Advanced vocabulary: 

I don’t just have an advanced vocabulary, I have an extensive one. I write an awful lot. I have been told, frequently, in various ways, that I write too many words and too many long words. Which hacks me off incredibly and brings me neatly to the next attribute.   

Sensitive to criticism: 

I remember that many years ago I was told that I write too many words and too many long words for the letters I wrote to the press to be published. I am not just sensitive to criticism, I find it deeply wounding. And I remember all criticism. I take criticism as a personal insult. A lot of it has been. The person who called me ‘a pretensious little fraud’ should note that I have along memory and harbour a grudge. He peddles in the shallow end of philosophy, the kind of stuff you learn at school. Basic. It sounds clever, on account of it being philosophy. But it is very easy. Go further than the dullards.   

When I say that I take criticism to be an insult of my intelligence, you will have to understand what that means. It strikes at the very core of my very being. Because my intellectual achievements are my personal validation. Welcome to my life and my world. I have built a world of exceptional works around me, and it gives me this identity as a philosopher and a writer. Strike at that, and I have nothing left, I am back to being the dumb stupid kid at school. With no life other than that.   

Particular topic obsession: 

I have certain topics and certain favourite themes within those topics, and I will repeat and repeat and repeat. I call it the prophetic voice in an age that is deaf to fact and value. Which is to say I have developed a covering rationale for my acceptable faults. I like to talk about my favourite things. I labour the same points. In life, too, if something disturbs me, I will return to it. I have an obsessive personality. In my head, I think I am resolving every last issue that any question may provoke. I like things to be clarified, tidied up, and put to bed. And then I wake it up and do it all again. I must have been insufferable company over the years, terrorising and intimidating those who shared space with me and had no option but to listen. This is a horrible memory to have. 

Endless talking: 

I don’t say much in strange company. But if do get to know people, and succeed in getting their confidence, I will talk incessently, leaving people struggling to get a word in or get away. I have made it clear that I take people leaving the room as I talk as a personal insult. I demand that people be my audience. I am, of course, talking about my mother and father here in the main. No one else would suffer such treatment. My endless talking takes the form of endless writing. I am involved in an infinite conversation. With whom, I don’t know. Myself, God, persons like me. So long as they don’t talk back too much, like at all. I approach the world in my writing voice.   

Rigid: 

I am unbending and uncompromising when I think I am right. And I am usually right, I think. I think deeply, I think endlessly, and I think I am right. If ever I thought that I wasn't right, I woudl find out why and change my mind, and become rigid in my rightness again. I may be at a strange angle to the universe, but it is a right angle and I don’t budge. That can be a menace if you turn out to be wrong. But it is that stubborness that has kept me alive in a world that has frequently moved in contrary directions to me. A solitary tree, if it grows at all, grows tall and strong. I am a tree. In fact, I really am a plant. See my results on the Belbin’s team role inventory. I came out as a Plant. A tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, which supports lots of sprouting branches and leaves. A hardy perennial. Or hardly.    

Gifted: 

That’ll be me, then. See my results on the Belbin’s team roles – genius, intellect, imagination. I have been called a genius more than a few times. The woman who was the tutor in marketing at the Chamber of Commerce where I studied business called me a genius too. She thought I was sure to make a million out of my writings. I have never seen whatever it is I do as genius. It’s just something I do. I can do no other. That’s the original meaning of genius, referring to the special quality we all have. I’ll go with that. Outsiders can see it as a gift. I’m not a genius, I have genius. We all do. Finding it difficult to fit in, I have had a lot of time to spend on my own and have used it to develop, via obsessive interests, the qualities that I do have. I have had more time and space than others have allowed themselves. I have used that distance from the social world well. I have read a lot and absorbed a lot. I developed a capacity for speed reading. I spent a few years reading at the speed of a page a minute, underlining as I went. I have a good memory. Then I write a lot, thinking all the time I write. I dialogue with words and thinkers as I write. I then issue what I have written. And people then call me a genius. I don’t see it. And I don’t like to be asked questions about anything I write. My ideas are so good that I don’t like for them to be criticised. And I think I write so clearly that I don’t like to be questioned or called upon to clarify. I think people should just read my work in order for them to understand. I am easily upset by people who don’t accept this.   

Easily distressed 

See above. I become very upset very easily when asked questions about the things I write about, the things I know about. With every piece of information that is sent my way, my head expands immediately into a library, and then I am overcome with panic as I search for the required information.

Remiss  

To be remiss is to lack care or attention to duty; to be negligent, inattentive. I do go away or switch off when I can’t cope. I do invisibilize the things and people I find awkward or inconvenient, anything that stands in the way of my current plans/obsessions. That character trait of mine is there in the Belbin’s team roles results, referring to a tendency for not listening to others and ignoring their input. In fact, as soon as I find my theme or interest, I stop attending to anything or anyone else. I have a genius for invisibilizing the world. I have a great facility for enclosing things and people in brackets.   

Socially challenged 

People worry me, as I probably worry them. I could write my life story as one long series of misunderstandings as a result of misadventures in social interaction. I worry that people will get me wrong. I approach people anticipating the occurrence of misunderstanding, which no doubt puzzles them and brings on the very misunderstanding I had anticipated. I probably have annoyed or irritated many people or upset them over the years. I can guarantee that for the most part there was never any malice on my part. It worries me to think that people may think that there may have been. People have annoyed and irritated me. Immensely. And quite often with malice. Most often not. Just plain incomprehension.   

I can get anxiety from all kinds of things. From the demands of people and interaction, certainly. But the mere prospect of meeting people and doing something other than my usual routine is enough to make me anxious. Anxiety can strike me fromanywhere. The revival of bad memories of past events can do it. Anything cantrigger it. You get that way that you are forever afraid of saying and doingthe wrong thing, you just despair of ever getting through to anyone. I worryway too much, I have been told. I am one of life’s worriers. I don’t worry that I am a bad person, though, because I’m pretty sure I am not. If I have done bad things then they are down to errors and character flaws on my part, not bad character. Things that have turned out badly are not to be attributed to ill-intent on my part, just the frustrations of having to deal with the impairments of an unknown conditions. Things go wrong, continually, you don't know why, and hence go in search of demons. I do worry that others might think me a bad person. I do worry that others will piece the odd facts of my life together to draw entirely the wrong conclusions. In my head, I feel the need to vindicate myself before accusations that have never even been levelled, but which I know could possibly be launched against me. I am my own judge and jury. And I can be a hanging judge. I tend not to be. I tend always to find myself incredibly not guilty of most of the charges. Some of them, though, possibly require a new jury.  I live in anticipation of criticism and attack. I presume that people will tend to think the worst of me, given the apparent absence of evidence for the best. That kind of thing can seriously damage your confidence. Survival is an achievement.

Strange thoughts.  

As you can see, strange thoughts can run a mock through my mind. There’s a coherence to them, though. They are seldom chaotic and random. In fact, I dislike chaotic and random, I can’t make sense of them and can’t make them cohere. I like things to make sense and to cohere within a pattern or a plan. Anything outside of that I find troubling. If I don’t get stressed with the chaotic and random, I get bored with them. And then I start to make strange connections and form strange pictures, with the result that the chaotic and random becomes all joined up and start to exhibit order.  

So no wonder that people may struggle to follow and understand me. How could they, seeing as they don’t see the things I see and don't think the way I think.   

Repetitive routines or rituals 

I have to have order, stability, routine, I like the familiar and unchanging. I insist on such things. If they are not available, then I create them myself and impose them on the world. Routine, regularity, and ritual are essential to me. These are the three R’s that root me and enable me to focus my myriad thoughts. I should add repetition to that list of essentials, too. I like the same things to be done the same way at the same time. I like order. In fact, I don’t just like order, I cling to it. I like the familiar. I do the same things the same way every day. In between my reading and writing I have these fixed stable points: I have coffee and porridge in the morning, dinner at 1-30pm with a drink of tea, exercise bike at 3-15pm, a drink of coffee at 4pm, weights at 5pm, tea at 5-30pm with a drink of tea, back to work at 7pm, a drink of coffee at 9pm, maybe some weights at 9-30pm (I can alternate with 5pm, demonstrating the extent of my flexibility), back down for a little relaxation after a day reading and writing at 1pm with a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich. I always have some cereal before going to bed.

I don’t like change; in fact, I loathe and fear change. Any and all change is major change for me. I don’t like the unknown. I stick to the same things. I watch the same films and watch the old TV shows. I revisit these things like old friends. I have watched favourite films like Amelie dozens of times, older films forty or fifty times certainly. Too much that is new disappoints, annoys, and bores me. I don't fall for hype and don't follow trends. I worry a lot about the future and find it hard to organize my life when my routine changes.    

Have rituals that they refuse to change, such as a very rigid bedroom routine 

The mind boggles. I have a set routine to the day, and I don’t deal well with change and spontaneity; I like to have a pattern to adhere to, a certainty to fall back on. I don't quite understand what a 'bedroom routine' is. I go to bed the same way, but I guess most people do, a wash, the brushing of the teeth, a little reading. I can sleep with books all over my bed. I also have the same way of going to sleep, starting off on my back before turning to my said, pushing the top sheet over my face, forming a little hole for my mouth to enable breathing. It always worried my mother until she realized that I had perfected the technique of combining concealment and breathing.

Have difficulty in planning and coping with change 

I loathe change and resist change. I see change as a loss of self, the loss of things I know, things I can cope with, the things that enable me to be. I have difficulty making any kind of change.   

Behaviours: 

Speak fluently but will continue on about a particular subject. I can talk about myself endlessly. Any my latest writing project. Liverpool football club, football, Elvis Presley, Queen, any issue or interest or controversy that catches my eye, always relating it back to a prior interest. I am most eloquent and indefatigable talking about Francoise Hardy. I don’t so much continue on as continue on and on. I have read a lot, have a formidable memory, a creative imagination, and hence have plenty to say. How long have you got? You mean you have something to say, too?

Like to learn facts and figures 

I took to history like a duck takes to water.

Have narrow, unsociable, and unusual hobbies 

Elvis, a fanaticism I share with millions. I have probably taken my interest a little further than most. I collect records and books on him, have written a book of my own on him, have created a website on him, listen to him endlessly. Heck, I even watch his films over and again and find them enjoyable. But I don't think any of that is too unusual. Intense and extreme, maybe, but it's not unusual. Millions of other Elvis fans have done it. I have the same 'completist' and obsessive tendencies with respect to my favourite rock band Queen and favourite female singer Francoise Hardy. Francoise Hardy, I would argue, is the real invitation to obsession, given the fact that she must be one of the most photographed women in history. There are only so many years available to you in your lifetime. I get obsessive about the football, too, writing lists of games and trophies, teams and players, ranking performances, compiling tables. 

But these things are fairly common. At the same time there were games that I played that could only be played alone, according to rules that only I would know. In effect, I invented computer football games without the computer, playing them with my fingers. The same with other sports. I would arrange toy soldiers in a mass and then move each of them forwards one pace at a time as if in a long distance race, having them go round and round a track for the best part of an hour. 'You make up your own games,' my mother commented with a smile. All these games were powered by my inner and imaginal motive force. She noticed my 'unusual' activities, driven by rules and ends known only by me.

May have some obsessive behaviours 

I have an obsessive personality, things I enjoy, things I am concerned about I return to time and again, things that I enjoy doing I do over and again. And then there is the insistence on the same things just to establish a feeling of safety and security. Even the smallest things have to remain the same, have to be done, have to be in place.

Difficulties understanding sarcasm and idioms 

I really don’t get satire and cynicism and never did. I can be very pompous and po-faced in criticizing them. I suffered a lot of sarcasm at my expense at school; the clever kids were good at it, and the fact I didn’t understand their abuse amused them all the more. On balance, I would rather be me than them. They strike me as being in possession of an inner malice that I am entirely innocent of. I don't feel at a loss. I've never understood why putting others down could be a source of pleasure.

Difficulties reading facial expressions 

I really think I am good at this, certainly in a one-to-one relation. I would need others to judge. I suspect that I lose the ability to read faces the more people there are in a situation. I suspect that I may refuse to read facial expressions for fear of having to acknowledge and acton their implications. I am also sure that my belief that I don't have too much of a problem here is based on an illusion. I have a few close contacts and come to know such people well. I am therefore confident in looking them in the face. I don't look at most people, I glance. And there is a real possibility here that I miss their changing expressions. I know that I have been accused of ignoring people and missing their moods with respect to my words and actions. I can get on a roll when I am speaking, especially when I am speaking about my interests / obsessions (which is all I tend to talk about).

Have unique imaginations 

I have a very powerful imagination. I hesitate to give examples. People tend not to have much by way of an imagination. Most people will post common and garden memes quoting John Lennon “imagine no religion.” “Imagine” is the last thing such people are capable of doing. I have to bite my tongue in such instances, lest I tell people what I truly think and lose what few connections with others I have. But I find such behaviour on the part of others insufferably unimaginative. But I will hold back on giving details here, keeping them for my published book, being worthy of a handsome fee. Using text and image I have created wild and wonderful worlds.

Take longer for learning how to share and behave properly 

I don’t know. I was never badly behaved, and I never really had much to share. I tend to look  after what I have. It's no wonder that I became a hoarder. Plus there is the fact that I would play unusual games with my possessions, creating vast imaginal worlds with them, investing them with character and meaning. I live in a world characterised by animism in which objects acquire an existential significance. So I have always liked to keep my things as anyone would act to protect their family. Which is to admit that I was incredibly possessive. I never liked to share. I liked to keep hold of my possessions. I see it as being protective rather than possessive - these things are living beings in my world. I remember when a school friend was leaving the area for good, going away never to be seen again. My mother thought it would be nice to make a gift of my wonderful native Indian figures my granny had brought back from Canada. I was mortified! I mean, I was sad that Sean was leaving, but did my wonderful Indian figures have to leave with him!! The truth is that these figures were not even among my most favourite things and were in fact somewhat marginal in my imaginal world. But you get used to things being around. It's like a family. You may have good and bad or just different members, but you love and protect them all as your own. I am inclined to keep tight hold of my things, even and maybe especially the broken and deficient. I am frugal. I was always tight, frankly. But possessions were few and I loved and looked after the things I was given. The truth is, I invested them with meaning and character and made them parts of my animated world.  

Anger tantrums 

I can be volatile. But I don't think the words 'anger' and 'tantrum' are helpful here. I think these words describe what an explosion looks like to those observing. But these are not tantrums and are are not the product of anger. It’s frustration. People frequently misunderstand me, and when they press a point, it makes me very angry indeed. I will explode, I will thump tables, I will turn tables over with people still sat there if they persist in not learning. I haven't done this often, I should add. What people don't realize - for the reason that they simply can't see it - is that an explosion comes at the end of a very, very long period of bottling up your pain and frustration. You are really are a martyr to the cack-handed incomprehension of others and when you finally explode you are accused of 'anger tantrums.' You need to add this to the frustrations of dealing with disconnection, the need for the familiar, the fear of change. Anything that upsets my routine and expectations here can have me throwing a tantrum. Eventually rather than immediately. I will sound angry, I am sure, but I have never, quite, threatened or harmed anyone; it’s more sadness than anger. Having said that, I must admit to being reactive and expressing my sharp disapproval of the slightest modification in the order of things. People won't see the problem but will be inclined to tread on egg shells as a result.

Difficulties viewing others' perspectives 

I can view them, clearly and quickly, and when I discover that they are not inaccord with mine, I ignore them. If pressed, I will openly reject them without feeling the need to give reasons. I rule by executive decision. If people ask for reasons, I will very tetchily and contemptuously say why I consider their views to be complete and utter rubbish; and if they continue to press their views, I will disagree vehemently with them, with loud voice and going purple in face. This may be accompanied by lots of arm waving and table banging. If I am feeling reasonable, if people disagree with me, I will occasionally engage with them for five or ten minutes, let them say what they mean, before we both agree that I am right.   

Games: 

Games, especially onlight computer games that let you escape from reality, are favourites. I'm not great on computers. I suspect that had I been good on computers I could have easily become absorbed in the world of gaming. I topped the all-time top scorers lists on a number of the Mindjolt games when they could be found on the internet. I play football games, poker, Othello (Reversi), Checkers (draughts), Mastermind. Heck, I have even found online chess games I can win, which is a first. When I was young I would collect boxes of soldiers and organise them as football teams, give the teams and players names, and play football matches with marbles. I would have league tables and keep records, organize club finances, give rewards for victories, run a transfer system … It was a very real world with real figures. And it lasted until I was a fair age. I hesitate to say how long. It was always a sad occasion when some clumsy oaf would tread on one of the soldiers and snap their bases, thus ending their football career. Some could be crushed beyond all repair. I also remember the times when my mother took it upon herself to make gifts to others of my soldiers. It always felt like a bereavement and I remember those lost to this day with real sorrow. This is not just about games, but life and friendship. 

I like my own games, solitary games that I play on my own or against the computer. Real people are not the same. Either they don't remotely have the required imaginal power or they are just plain too good as to make game-playing fun for me. 

Escape, exit and entry.  

Escapism is essential to me. It is vital, in the sense that escape enables me to live. I can’t live in the world of others. I find ordinary life to be social cage. I often fail to understand the world around me, and can be baffled by the way people think. I am not in a world of my own. I enter the real world that exists outside of my world and I know how to behave in it. I was brought up well. I have never once fallen foul of rules and protocol, never been in trouble with the police, never reported for my behaviour. For all of my desire to play Elvis with the volume turned up to 11, I never have (except when wearing headphones). But I enter the social world as an outsider and I like to exit any time I need to. I protect myself by building a world around me. So I live a life of continuous entry and exit, I go back and forth between worlds, always returning to my own world of stable meanings.

Rejection is hard to take.  

When you are on your own, rejection from society and from others is hard to take. Rejection is  more than a refusal in a particular instance, it is confirmation of a life of cruel isolation. I struggle badly with job interviews. I have lost count of how many job interviews I have had, dozens for libraries alone. I have failed to land jobs that I was more than qualified to do on paper. I see now why recruitment panels passed me over for others. I have no doubt that I could not have coped with those jobs dealing with the public. But my constant failure to land a job made it look as though I am lazy and workshy, which made me even more defensive and unconfident. I am anything but lazy and workshy. If anything, I work far too hard and far too much. But the fact that I have been turned down time and again makes me feel deficient, useless, unfit for any purpose and makes it look to the rest of society as though I actually am all of those things.    

And then there is rejection in personal relationships. I have never suffered it too much for the simple reason I never risk inviting it. I am trying hard not to ponder at length those occasions when I have been in touch with attractive ladies and preferred to imagine what might have been for the rest of my life rather than risk their rejection. 

It would be interesting to perform some calculations here. It would be an exercise in abstraction, mind, entirely lacking in concrete examples. Happily, I have never suffered crushing rejection at the hands of a favourite female. Unhappily, my 100% record is entirely down to the fact that rather than risk such rejection I contented myself with friendly relations and silent worship at a distance. But I have a theory. 'You have a lot of theories,' a friend once said to me, sceptically. If you want to meet people then never eat and drink alone. Find where people are and make yourself useful. Do things for people and a significant percentage of them with respond positively and do things for you. More bluntly, just risk something of yourself with prospective significant others, and a good percentage of them will reciprocate. It all depends on how much rejection you can take. And here's the problem: people with AS can't spread their net wide, can't engage broad numbers of people, and can't take rejection, even if it is only a small percentage of their dealings with others. For fear of rejection I let the pretty girls slip out of my hands, and they probably went away thinking that I had rebuffed them. It's little details like this that prevent me from writing my life with AS as a triumph over adversity. If I have survived, so far, then the losses have been many and have been great as well as small.

I have masked and managed my Autism Spectrum Condition so well over theyears that few people would guess that I have it. Not that the masking has been conscious. It has been more a case of finding ways around my deficiencies, concealing the things I struggle with, giving the appearance of being in command and control. For all that I loathe acting and say that I can't do it, I have given the appearance of knowing what I am doing so well that people have tended to see me as someone who is 'winning at life.' That has made it all the harder for me when I have approached others for help? Why does he need help? He's smart and capable, the nerve of him! Of course, given limited social relationships, very few people have had the chance to know me closely enough over any period of time to be able to judge my character. People would certainly think me to be odd and eccentric, maybe also insensitive, callous, even, given how quickly I can cut off and cut people out (for reasons of self-preservation under severe stress, which they don’t see), self-important (I’ll concede this one), awkward (certainly), malicious even (I’ve never been malicious). I’ve managed to survive decades of this before being brought to diagnosis. Given that I may be a severe AS case in certain areas, that is a truly remarkable achievement at masking. It also indicates an immense process of internalisation, entailing the carrying of a huge mental and physical weight throughout my lifetime. 

I have and have had plenty of obsessions. They don't get out of hand. I never mistake fantasy for reality. Life can never get that good. Get the right obsession, and you can change the world. Or entertain it. I went into philosophy. Talk about reinforcing self-exile! That said, if I was to reveal to former tutors and teachers and fellow students that I have AS, I doubt that many or any of them would be remotely surprised. I would imagine that more than a few would regret not having intervened on their part, knowing the ways in which I was palpably struggling in certain areas (communication and interaction).

I’m a little hard to understand … I do feel that there are many occasions on which people don’t understand what I am saying. I think I say it clearly, and don’t understand why they don’t understand. I am a nuanced thinker. I dialogue with myself through others as I write, and people have to make the effort to unravel things. It doesn't help that I write an awful lot, wearing people down as they read. I am a full-on experience, not for the faint of heart.

I might seem bossy or controlling…  

I like people to get the point, accept the point, and not challenge. I write alot to hammer any potential opposition into the ground. If people respond in kind I just ignore (if I don’t give a very angry response). I don't like wasting time when I know I am right. In a sense, I behave as if I am still in research, where I could argue with fellow researchers who, although they might disagree, would disagree at a very high level, on topic, and add new materials and insights in the process. I seem bossy and controlling with people who are still down in the foothills or just not seeing the point.

I might overreact or not react at all…  

It's a life of extremes. I can swing from one pole to the other. I am very even-tempered: the extremes balance each other out. I overreact all the time, and then switch off in an attempt to control my passions. I become unresponsive. If I didn't ignore the people and views not worth wasting breath on, I would be cutting them to shreds. It’s all extremes with me. 

Might seem talkative or dominate the conversation. 

If I know the person or persons well, I can tend to use them as an audience. I try hard to listen. I make a little effort at it, anyway. It can quickly tire and bore me. People tend to talk about things I neither know nor care about. 'Really? That's interesting ..' then off they go for another ten to fifteen minutes whilst I sleep with my eyes open. I said years and years ago, long before I knew about AS,  that I tend to relate people as if they were books. I objectify others just as I subjectify inanimate objects. To avoid reducing people to the status of 'things,' I can tend to remain quiet and not talk at all. People like talking about themselves in any case, so just smile and nod every now and then and keep them carrying on.

Having issued such a lengthy denial I will now have to admit to talking endlessly over others and dominating certain groups at certain times. I did it within the family group, close family anyway, and was told time and again that I never let others speak. I would also react violently if people 'interrupted,' that is, spoke, as is normal in a conversation. I would hog 85% of the time to myself and object violently on the odd occasion someone dared to speak, calling it 'endless interruption.' It was the same at university. In certain tutorials I found a way of turning a question into an opportunity for delivering a paper. I could talk for fifteen minutes and more. I think on some occasions I went on for twenty five minutes. The tutors on such occasions seemed happy to humour me - I was always well prepared and on point - and to run the clock down. 

Might have a hard time playing with peers.  

I enjoyed playing with others. I didn't enjoy never being able to play as well as others. I’m not very good at games in which you have to play a role or follow rules or take turns. I don’t really understand instructions. I still get tetchy with board games. I loved football, I just wasn't very good at that either. This is where my strong imaginal reality showed its worth. Whilst to others I was a disaster on the field of play, in my head I was the greatest footballer that the world has ever seen. And I always felt that I would prove it with the next move or the next game the next day ... I went on for years with this mentality. But, true enough, I struggled and did receive contemptuous abuse for my efforts. It didn't deter me from playing, though, at least the games I enjoyed. 

I might seem like I’m driven by a motor and like I’ll never stop. 

‘I am a machine.’ Back in the 1990s when I was working on my PhD, I distinctly remember sitting at my computer typing for hours and hours on end, day after day, and being proud of my productivity and endurance. I remember telling myself, ‘I am a machine and I am indestructable.’ All those years sat in front of a computer earned me diabetes. But I produced over twenty million words over those years and am still here.  

When I did the reading, I was as sure as it is possible to be without a professional diagnosis that I had AS. I read the descriptions in depth and they fitted me. I’m happy to help you understand. Just ask. I may not answer though. I don’t like to be questioned. And I fear being misunderstood. As usual. I expect to be misunderstood. So I go unheard, unheeded, and unread. And it makes me sad. To have spent a lifetime crying into the dark. It's no wonder that I believe in God. If God wasn't listening, then no-one else will be. It's God or bust. Those who insist on reality need to consider how  utterly bleak, pointless, and meaningless it all may be, for the winners and the losers, the strong no less than the weak. I've seen that reality and know it to be worthless. 

Going for jobs I would never have got. Training on courses and passing exams that have been no use for me, and never would have been. Earning teaching certificates when I positively hate classrooms. Being considered workshy by the local job centre, when I have to work one hundred times harder than most people to do the most basic of things, let alone anything else. I can so understand what Tony Attwood says: ‘You don’t suffer from Asperger Syndrome, you suffer from other people.’ (Tony Attwood). And I have indeed suffered. One day, I may write about it.   

People don’t understand how what is a very enjoyable social event to them and most people can be terrifying and exhausting to you; nor do people understand how such events can leave you completely drained of energy the day after; nor do people understand how it can take days, weeks, even months to recover mentally and emotionally from some events.   

I have a different way of thinking; it may be considered defective in some ways. But I know it to be powerful. I can see things others can’t. I’m ahead in some things, behind in others. It is all just different ways of knowing and being. Are some better than others? I'll stick with different and enjoin people to appreciate the differences. 

People have no idea how hard I have had to work to get to where I am. They may ask, contemptuously, ‘where are you?’ I’m on the margins of society, socially unsuccessful, a misfit. Which isn't the place to be at all. But I’ll bet I can analyze the society they are all so well-adjusted to much better than they can. And I’ll bet that I know them better than they do, too. And I am certain that I know them better than they do me, much better in fact. And, for emphasis, I’ll repeat – I’ve worked damned hard to get to where I am:   

“When the anger is intense, the person with Asperger’s may be in a ‘blind rage’ and unable to see the signals indicating that it would be appropriate to stop. Feelings of anger can also be in response to situations where we would expect other emotions. I have noted that sadness may be expressed as anger.”    

- TonyAttwood   

Tony Attwood nails it here. My anger and rage is always incited by an injustice, a misunderstanding that makes me appear bad or malicious, a disappointment that makes me think people have let me down and that I really am all alone in the world. At root, it is all an expression of a profound, desolate, sadness.   

I’m not a particularly good people person. In a crowded room or a party, I’ll be the one sat hoping to remain unnoticed, not knowing what people are talking about, having nothing relevant to say, counting the hours down to escape. I will frequently look at the doors, when I am not looking at my watch. I’ve always been more comfortable around books. I have a tendency to talk to people as if I were a book and they were the reader, except that I do all the reading for them. I’m kind of married to books.   

Here is the important distinction which those who are quick to offer advice on living in the ‘real world’ need to consider:   

“A person with autism lives in his own world while a person with Asperger’s lives in our world, in a way of his own choosing.”   

I'm not sure about this. I have been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Condition and not Asperger's. I do live in my own world, but it is not a fantasy world. I know there is a reality outside of the one I have created for myself. Although there are things in the social world I struggle with and either can't do or won't attempt, I have never fallen foul of social rules and protocol. Quite a great number of people don't know how to behave and can be a nuisance to others. That has never been me. But the truth is that I don't actually live much in the social world. The work I have been done has tended to be under my own initiative and control. I have never been married. I have never been an 'organisation man.' I can shop and use public transport and ... not much else. As my boss at PC World told me after observing my work style, 'you pretty much do your own thing, don't you.' I didn't work at PC World for long. 

When it comes to role play, I can’t do it. I could never imagine walking a mile in anyone's shoes. When I have tried, I have quickly returned to seeing the world as I normally see it, just from a slightly different angle. Which is quite original in being a variation on the same theme. Let's call it 'enigma variations.' You can try role play walking a mile in my shoes if you have the nerve. You won't have the first idea where to start and your 'variations' will be much less rich and diverse than mine. It’ll be a good act, I don’t doubt. We live in a performative culture and it impresses more than enough people. I so so much of cultural life as false and fake. I tend not to take people by their self-image. I have learned that the crotchety and cantankerous can be some of the kindest people you could know, doing far more for others than those making a show of their care and compassion ever do. I have thought that since being a child and didn't need to wait for the present day to learn that lesson. How people fall for the acts of the virtue signallers is beyond me, other than the truism that words are cheap and agreement costs nothing by way of effort, commitment, and resources. I don’t act, I’ve never been an actor. I have learned to curtail my blunt speaking and exercise diplomacy or, failing that, maintain my silence. And I know that you can’t even begin to imagine an hour thinking in my head. I’ve walked a million miles and more in my life, thoughts accompanying me as companions every step of the way. You couldn’t live a day thinking the thoughts that are in my head. In fact, you couldn’t even think the thoughts in the first place, not even sitting down.   

“AS means I don’t interact properly in certain social situations.” 

(GaryNuman)   

Thisis simply true.

“I see people with Asperger’s syndrome as a bright thread in the rich tapestry of life.” 

(TonyAttwood)   

This is simply true. A tapestry of dreams. The only thing I would add is that comments such as this lie at the cheery end of the scale and so are likely to attract the approval of those who like reassurance and happy endings. People with AS are not here to cheer people up; they have it tough.   

My headmaster at primary school told my parents I was ‘vague.’ I very probably did come across as precisely that  - with people I sensed did not care and did not have my interests at heart, and in situations I couldn't cope with. My poor power-packed brain was very quickly bored with the slow plod through things I cared nothing for. I always knew the headmaster really didn’t know anything about me at all, other than I didn’t play by the rules everyone else did. I was wary of him. We never exchanged any warm words in all the time I was at that school. He thought me stupid, and didn’t see that I was bored. He didn't see that I was anything at all, in fact. I did find out years later from a friend whose mother was in charge of literacy at the school that I had the highest reading age of the year, despite being considered somewhat below average in the school reports. That should have somebody something.    

I can see clearly now the source of a lifetime’s struggle and suffering. My first reaction was one of relief, then one of worry as to what people may think, followed by a little excitement as I started to read up on this strange condition. I'm really odd! For real!

So that’s my life: my craving for order and stability forever colliding with the chance and chaos of life. No wonder that in my philosophical work I pit the eternal principles of the transcendent realm against the accidentalism of the world around us.   

Either my AS is a very mild form, seeing as I made it to my fifties before it was suggested to me by others. Or I have been very good at hiding. Or I have just been so incredibly remote from others for an incredibly long time. I suspect the latter. I had not been seen by a doctor since the school leaving medical in 1981. 2014 was my return. One problem led to a diagnosis of diabetes. I thought I had it under control. It took a heart attack for me to return throughout 2017. Stress causes a physical reaction, so I raise the issue, and the doctor sees it, and find myself on the road to diagnosis. I have been told more than a few times now, twice by doctors, that this was a most unusual route to diagnosis.   

There are traits associated with this condition, at the high functioning end of the autism spectrum that can definitely be construed as gifts or abilities. I can do things most people can’t even dream of doing.   

I may appear rude or cold. I like the word 'imperious,' as in Dante's Empire as a loving authority. I can only ask people to be patient and understand why I may well be right (more often than not). Because I am trying, in more ways than one. I try hard and I try the patience of people. ‘Could do better,’ my school reports would say. I have spent a lifetime not only trying to do better, but eventually ending up doing better. In academic qualifications I have now far outstripped my old teachers. But of me it can still be written 'could do better.' This is me. And I think I’ve done quite well. I also think that, as the song has it, 'the best is yet to come.'

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. (John Elder Robison)   

I strongly recommend that students with autism get involved in special interest clubs in some of the areas they naturally excel at. Being with people who share your interests makes socialising easier. (Temple Grandin)   

I think I should form a Francoise Hardy glee club. What a genial idea. Come to think of it, I am a member of the International Francoise Hardy Fan Club, where people share stories, songs, articles,  prize possessions, and photos about the ethereal one. I'm a member of a few Elvis clubs too. And Liverpool football club. I did used to participate on a number of politics and philosophy pages but, frankly, these places and the people on there bore me rigid. I see little but infernal repetition. My interest in joining a club is pure pleasure and not impure piety.

I was diagnosed with ASC in September 2021. When I started to research the condition having been prompted by my doctor in 2019 I felt it safe to conclude that I was somewhere on the higher-functioning end of the autism spectrum. That is now the official verdict. Autism Spectrum Condition is a neurobiological disorder. Officially and legally, the condition counts as a disability, which is important because that means that it comes with certain rights and obligations. I can do some things very well, and some things very badly or not at all. People with AS exhibit serious deficiences in social and communication skills. On paper, this doesn’t seem as though it could possibly apply to me. I was a high achiever in the academic world. What people don’t see, however, is how great an effort I had to make for that achievement. Frankly, my efforts have been inhuman. I struggled at school and was frequently referred to as stupid. My headmaster at primary school described me as ‘vague’ to my parents. This reaction from teachers continued. No one picked up on the implications. At some point I learned how to compensate for deficiencies in social and communication skills. I developed a ferocious memory. Or, more likely, I learned that I had a powerful memory and started to put it to good use. I could memorize a text and repeat it. I started with short texts, like The Jabberwocky, and then extended it to numerous pages of history notes and such like. That’s not the same thing as social interaction and communication, of course, bus was what I put in place of it. And I did it so well as to overcome my lack of skills in these areas. At first, I would simply regurgitate, meaning that I could demonstrate knowledge but not necessarily understanding, and not an original and critical view of my own. But as I continued to put huge chunks of text in my memory bank, I learned that I could draw on my assets and use them in new and original ways as I thought and wrote. My grades rocketed. I was no longer simply repeating information, I was processing and interpreting it and turning it to critical use.

A good memory is not the same thing as high intelligence. The IQs of AS people are considered to range from normal to very superior. I was once average, but that was when I didn't know what I was doing and didn't work hard. Once I knew what I was doing and applied myself my results soared. It took a lot of sheer hard work, grit, and determination to become a high achiever, but these things were applied at least as much to the social protocols than the materials and subject matter. High intelligence, I hold, has nothing to do with hardwork. Hard work brings out something you already have, and can make you a perfect mediocrity as well as a genius. I don’t know if I count as very superior. In some things, possibly, certainly. I do know that I am expert on Kant, an incredibly difficult philosopher, and that he is just one of my many subject areas. I tend to think that high intelligence is less important than the abiliity to focus and concentrate. When it comes to closing the real world out and shutting others out, I am a world-class genius. The best footballers are the ones who always seem to have time and space. I have always been able to find the time and space for my interests and obsessions. In those conditions, a modicum of intelligence can come to appear to be high intelligence.   

AS people – I read - desire to fit in socially and would love to have friends, but find it incredibly difficult to reach out and make effective social connections. I find that having made the immense effort to reach out, then having made contact, it is the working out what comes next that is much too high a mountain to climb. The mountain just seems always to keep getting steeper the higher you seem to climb. It seems easier to stop climbing and just withdraw back to base camp. You get so used to being alone that you simply can’t envisage actually being with other people. So you get used to gazing at the peak from a distance away. People, you find, have depths and heights too. You make initial contact thinking it is job done, only to find that you are being called upon to dive even deeper and climb even higher. There seems to be no end to the unknown and the other.   

The sound and vision of normal life can send me into sensory overload. I often feel like I am being flooded by all kinds of information. And I soon start to feel like I am going to explode. It’s like listening to music or to a song. You enjoy it at first. Then more notes and words get added on top, then more, then more and so on unless there is no longer any music only a cacophony. At that point, the slightest anything can have me errupting in rage.   

It’s not anger and it doesn’t turn into a violence towards others. Or at least it never has to this point, which is a long time in history. It’s more the expression of a sadness and a frustration that has nowhere to go. I go away if I can, getting privately teary-eyed at yet another collapse in the company of uncomprehending others.   

One of my favourite Elvis songs, from a short list of about four hundred, is Walk a Mile in My Shoes. It was written by Joe South:   

‘before you abuse, criticize, and accuse / Walk a mile in my shoes.’   

That phrase ‘walk a mile in my shoes’ crops up a lot in accounts from AS folk. I don't quite know why, seeing as such walking may be well-nigh impossible to do. But I wouldn't argue that point forcefully since it leads in the direction of the dead-end of irreducible identity making mutual comprehension and communication impossible. That way is just another nowhere to avoid.

I know the abuse, the accusations, and the criticisms. I have felt myself to have been wrongly maligned in the past, having my motivations, which have been basically pleas for help and support, being taken to be malicious and ill-intentioned. Not so. Being honest and truthful with respect to reality doesn't necessarily make you popular. I have felt it all to be deeply hurtful. But to ask someone to walk a mile in your shoes is merely a call to ask them to be quiet, because the fact is that there is no way that they could ever put those shoes on and truly know. They can never see what I see, hear what I hear, feel what I feel, know what I know. And I hate saying that because I know the impossible game it draws people into playing. It begins by someone demanding that the other person must understanding him or her, 'understand' as in accept without question that person's self-image, and ends by that someone stating that the other person can never understand them when they refuse to comply. Understanding is conditional on acceptance. This is not communication at all, it is a zero-sum game played between irreducible identities and it is a dead-end. 

But the fact remains ...

Each AS person is unique, which means that each AS person’s experience is unique. We can’t spend our lives constantly swapping shoes. That comes with the implication that there are always going to be problems of communication; for uniqueness at that level implies the sheer incommunicability of AS experience and a collapse of reality into a world in solipsism holds all the trump cards. Rather than go in that direction, it is wiser to understand shoe swapping as a call to suspend judgment and make the effort to see the world as others see it.

Safety, security, and satisfaction are things I crave but find impossible to obtain in the social world. I nearly wrote in the past tense there, as in 'have found impossible,' but kept in the present tense for the simple reason that the problems remain. Once more, I have to emphasise that I am not writing a story which is a series of triumphs over adversity. The struggle against adverse circumstances is ongoing. If there is a happy ending, I haven't had a glimpse of it yet. If anything, things have been getting worse in recent years, with the incredibly delicate holding operation I have attempted over the decades now beginning to slide in all directions. 

I have to try so hard to do the simplest of things. The world seems so incredibly complex and intimidating to me. But I have kept picking myself up and returning to have a go at it all the same. I find a way of working round my ‘difficulties.’ I remember my old school friend laughing in praise at my ability to "get all the right results by all the wrong means." That was in 1984. I somehow always managed to get where I should have been, but always by a somewhat circuitous route. I may not succeed in ‘normal’ ways but I have succeeded in certain things nonetheless, and have developed certain special qualities and talents in the process. I don’t know if those things are brilliant or amount to genius. They are certainly different, and maybe not the most efficient means to get from A to B. But they enable me to do things that are outside of the ordinary, and maybe above, seeing a few of the Cs, Ds and other letters along the way. I think this is where the notion of AS as a ‘superpower’ creeps in. I don’t care for that idea. ASD is a disorder, some say a disability. It doesn’t make a person better or worse than another, just unique and different, and in need of help and understanding. But that roundabout way of succeeding I developed became increasingly difficult to maintain after school and university. Life is far more complicated than passing exams and earning certificates.   

“The one thing we’ve noticed time and again is that autistic people see details that escape the rest of us.” 

Professor Uta Frith   

People tend not to appreciate it when I draw attention to ‘details’ that they have missed. They often think my observations irrelevant or just plain wrong. They are out of the ordinary. I can feel the judgment in the eyes of the people who weigh me up. I have seen the incomprehension, even the disdain, in the eyes of people. It's no wonder that I avoid eyes. I have found eyes to be not merely strange, but judgemental, reproachful, and contemptuous. I continue to find that there is something incredibly intimate in the act of looking into someone’s eyes. Unless you know that person in some intimate way, it feels like a violation and an invasion to me. I see eye contant as bold, rude, even, depending on how well you know the other person (and I never know people toowell). I see it as an intrusion, a challenge, and maybe something quite sexual. It’s an interpenetration of souls. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can be the highest form of human relation. But that should be reserved for very special others who are no longer others, and not for everyone.   

Feeling this way, I have learned to see without the need to look.   

There are eyes out there that I don’t want to look into and certainly don’t want to have looking back into me in return. I don’t want to confront the invitation into reality that exists in that gaze. I don’t want the scrutiny that comes with recognition.There are people out there that I don’t want to meet. I act like they aren’t there; I don’t see them, therefore they don’t exist. I know that if I was to make eye contact, I would be letting others in. I am trying to remember the name of that bird which believes that when it closes its eyes it has become invisible. Close your eyes and reality doesn't exist. I remember my cardiac nurse accused me of being an ostritch. I am a world class ostritch.

But there’s the paradox of this condition: you simply can’t know who to let in and who to keep out before the engagement of the eyes. It’s no wonder that AS folk end up isolated and alone, because you are effectively refusing contact with anything and everyone outside of your own world. And there’s the other paradox: the people who are most likely to like you will take the hint and shy away, and the people you will be inclined to consider loud and aggressive, the very people you would want to avoid, will be the ones who will force their way in, causing you to seek retreat and escape even more.    

Why are people so intrigued as to push past your defences and force their way in? To ask questions of me that they never ask of themselves, because they presume the truth that people like me beg. ‘Why do you keep asking so many questions?’ I was once asked. For all of my tendencies to retreat and hide, I could never help standing out. Not really fitting in anywhere, my attempts to engage and join with others were always different and distinctive in some way. I noticed things, anomalies, about routine, mundane, normal, and unquestioned things that others took for granted. It’s just the way things are, it’s the way things are done. Why? I would flag certain things up, point them out, and bring the pecularities of reality to the awareness of those who consider themselves to live in the real world.    

So my attempts to join in and take part always seem to involve me flagging up why the things others consider to be normal are actually more than a little odd. By trying to blend in, then, I end up sticking out all the more. Which doesn’t make me want to change much. Retreat and withdraw, yes. But not change. If I really did fit in, I would become indistinct not only to others, but also to myself. I’d exchange my small but boundless world for the limitations of the big world, and become one of the crowd.    

I don’t say it makes me better or superior, and I certainly don’t scorn the tastes and activities of ‘the crowd.’ The very opposite in fact. I love the football, have supported Liverpool football club for decades. I used to have a season ticket and never missed a game for years. I loved being one of the crowd. I joined with 750,000 Liverpool fans welcoming the team back with the European Cup in 2019. I am an Elvis fanatic, too. Frankly, I am an Elvis obsessive. Billions of Elvis fans can’t be wrong, and I am one of those billions. I am one of the scorned and ridiculed masses. In fact, I scorn the snobbery that puts Elvis and pop music down. He was a great, great singer and his songs have made my life infinitely better, as they have done for millions of other people. I am a populist to that extent.   

I don’t make a cult of difference and otherness. I am not avant garde in any way, I don’t separate from others by choice, and I don’t make any claims of superiority on account of being different. By the same token, I don’t have any feelings of inferiority or disability, either. If I was like everybody else then I wouldn’t be me. If I didn’t hide in my own little but boundless world, I wouldn’t be so conspicuous as a result of my little eccentricities, oddities, proclivities, foibles, quirks, idiosyncrasies and peculiarities. I have many of them, too. I like the word ‘peculiar.’ If you have ever seen the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, you  will recall the scene in which the word is repeated in the most amusing of ways during a group therapy session. ‘Peculiar', members of the group would repeat, skitting the man who used the word in his tale about himself. I would re-enact this scene over and again with people who also loved the film. ‘Peculiar.’ It probably made me seem peculiar, but no more than the others who laughed with me. If I became less peculiar in order to fit in, then you wouldn’t see me. In fitting in, you lose the added value that makes you what you are: peculiar.   

"Never has a man who has bent himself been able to make others straight." (Mencius).

I'll not straighten myself out, either, in an attempt to bend or bend to others.