Auties, The Final Frontier

If I cannot travel in a space rocket, then googling and blogging is the next best thing. I am amazed. When I was liberated from my desperate search for normalcy with the diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome 13 years ago, I was ecstatic because nothing else in the medical paradigm answered all my questions and pain. Most of my early research was in medical libraries and I had friends, not practioners, in the medical world who helped me locate information and statistics.

Now -- WOW! There is so much information, research, data, and opinions..and opinions...and diatribes and system dumps and ouches and then some more information...all happily launched and ensconced orbiting merrily in cyberspace. Can any site or cite be trusted within this morass of electrical leaping about? Can books be interpreted and utilized with confidence?

This is a fair and serious question. Here I sit in a small cottage in a small town in a small state with my large family reading about autism online and on paper (why is one a compound word and one not?) for my course work. So I check out the required reading. Interesting videography cuing and auditory cuing concepts to learn social skills. Yep. I could use some of that.

Then I began tabbing through links and find all this STUFF that includes some marvelous insights and tender communications and then there are those who Whine. But especialy sad are the testimonies from so many of my compatriots about the teasing and denigrating that they have lived through. Some of the saddest are statements like "Asperger's is the new fad, there's no such thing. It's just an excuse for self indulgence, laziness, and rudeness."

My favorites...."I don't believe someone so smart can be so stupid." And the ubiquitous...."You are too intelligent-you scare me."

Perhaps that very fear, so capitalized upon by dictators over history, is why we are teased. But there is good news, there are good people studying and exploring, without prejudice, and searching for a new paradigm.

People ask, parents and researchers ask "Why is Autism happening?" and they think the answer lies in medicine, toxins, allergens, genetics. It does not. The right question is "Why is Autism happening?" and the answer is BECAUSE WE ARE NEEDED. The answer lies in seredipity, not science. There will aways be those who are indefinably yet undefinably different. The gift that we are is to help others Trust, Love, and percieve Beauty. That is why Autism happens.

My joy at never having someone suggest bipolar, multiple personality dissing order, obsessive compulsive dissing order or narcissism is boundless. However, judgements are yet rampant, like PRESUMING I am arrogant or rude or self-absorbed and foolish. One of my concerns, not a diatribe, is that the"helping professions" have been trying to guess at what is inside the thoughts and hearts of people who speak a different language, live in a differently scaffolded reality. The language in my heart and mind follows a star, not a textbook. I am not lonely, but I like solitude. I am not rude, I prefer honesty. BUT I am learning diplomacy. Others collect objects. My objects are words and ideas, my gift synthesis.

Specialization in industry and science, history, and art, is acceptable practice. There are few generalists in technoculture. Autism stretches those limits and boundaries, and the answers to relating to this world are cross-disciplinary. The Occupational Therapists, the Speech and Language Therapists, the psychologists who put aside their doctrine to look beyond, the writers and artists and poets, the computer programmers who allow this chaos called the Internet to flourish so we can "talk" across all cultures, all countries, and the loving educators who yearn to perceive the person within, philosophers and anthropologists...and many more...this nexxus of communication is where the genuine progress wll be developed.

I get frustrated reading the experts and what they think is going on inside. Yes, my face always looks serious or sad. No, that is not my emotions. Yes, I use 'big words.' No, I am not trying to make you look stupid. Yes, I have too much talent or too many words or too much need. No, I am not talented enough to make relationships work; I have not enough words to heal each hurt; my needs are the same as everyone, read Maslow...or Kierkegaard...or Pascal...or Scripture. I am not broken although I feel that way. I do not LOOK autistic (should I start drooling?), tell me what autistic looks like.

Auties are the ultimate specialists. Talk with me.

Oh, and being a specialist of special interests and using vague non-descriptive nouns like STUFF and THINGEE is not a contradictory affect but fun, an indication of a mind exploring more fascinating meanderings...well, I can be optimistic!

Reading the interpretations, the guesses that are wanna-be answers, I think they are painful. I am willing to dialogue and share. Be not afraid. (You and me.) I only bite on Tuesdays, in Belgium.

And if you whine about the pain of being autistic, or the pain of living with someone wthin the spectrum, be not surprised if I offer you some cheese and crackers...Anyone for brie, Carr's peppercorn whole wheat crackers, and cabernet sauvignon?