cory
Well-Known Member
So I’m going to start in a familiar place. My father. He was one of those extremely personable, very high social IQ people. I think he was the first to notice the differences in me. He used to say I was in my own world. He would play music in bands, was a grade school music teacher, and would play 1-2 hour long “shows” across town. Whenever he would play at the school for disabled children (I was also a child at this point) he would take me along. Not my other two siblings, but only me. He was a bit intimidated or lost maybe when I started displaying extremely high aptitude in school (I remember once he was taking a college algebra class at our community college and at 12 or 13 I had already taken most of the material and precocious little me offered to help). I picked up a musical instrument at age 14 and it came naturally to me. He did encourage and compliment me but the most memorable thing he said was that music can be used as therapy. That was when I started coming out of my shell so to speak.
Another memory that has been ingrained, and until recently I didn’t know why, was something that happened to me in middle school. I’m going to use only the initials of anyone I am speaking about. I went to our cities gifted program in middle school and the teachers noticed how I treat everyone the same. Unless someone is treating me badly I treat everyone with respect and as if they are the same age. (I speak to children, adolescents, and adults in the same way. Creed or color never mattered either). So there was this kid (MK) in my gifted classes with a physical disability. His arms never formed past the age of 3 or 4 maybe. He was very intelligent and able to thrive in the program. The teachers chose me to help MK get from class to class; he needed an extra 5 minutes just to physically make it to the next class. I tried to fit in with the “cool” kids at school and did so reasonably well. It had always been important for me to fit in; I thought maybe the act would actually help me “be” normal. So this once I was with 3 or 4 of the “cool” kids and they cracked a joke about MK. I don’t remember the joke (I was probably off in my own world) or even that it was directed at him, but I started laughing just to go with the crowd. MK didn’t seem hurt by the joke (he must have had incredibly thick skin) but he turned to me and with the most hurt look and tone of voice said “Not you too”. I was taken aback and didn’t fully understand it but knew it was important. I can still actually hear him saying that to me. I felt ashamed for the longest time but now I think MK was just trying to teach me a lesson.
Flash-forward to high school. Where I met JA. The only person in my life I am positive was also an Aspie. He was also the most brilliant person I have ever known. The couple of years I knew him affected me for years after he left us. He was very personable and extremely well liked by both teachers and students. He started communicating with me in different ways, Aspie ways as I would now call it. He mimicked me, in a joking way. I saw the same behavior in myself. He kind of pushed me into making choices that had ripple effects for the rest of my life. For example; it’s through my own experience and his that I’ve come up with a theory on how un-aware HFA/Aspies gain knowledge of self. We both had near-death experiences that preceded our self-awareness of Aspergers. He had a heart-transplant at 13 or 14. I had an unknown (at the time) neurological condition at 25-26. During this time I came to the realization that whatever it was might kill me. I think high-stress situations like these are necessary to undo the years or decades of socialization that tell us our differences are wrong and something to be stamped out instead of explored and embraced. After JA passed, my senior English teacher read his college entrance essay to the class. I copied the format of that essay to write my personal statement for entrance into grad school. To this day I believe it was that essay that got me accepted.
Another memory that has been ingrained, and until recently I didn’t know why, was something that happened to me in middle school. I’m going to use only the initials of anyone I am speaking about. I went to our cities gifted program in middle school and the teachers noticed how I treat everyone the same. Unless someone is treating me badly I treat everyone with respect and as if they are the same age. (I speak to children, adolescents, and adults in the same way. Creed or color never mattered either). So there was this kid (MK) in my gifted classes with a physical disability. His arms never formed past the age of 3 or 4 maybe. He was very intelligent and able to thrive in the program. The teachers chose me to help MK get from class to class; he needed an extra 5 minutes just to physically make it to the next class. I tried to fit in with the “cool” kids at school and did so reasonably well. It had always been important for me to fit in; I thought maybe the act would actually help me “be” normal. So this once I was with 3 or 4 of the “cool” kids and they cracked a joke about MK. I don’t remember the joke (I was probably off in my own world) or even that it was directed at him, but I started laughing just to go with the crowd. MK didn’t seem hurt by the joke (he must have had incredibly thick skin) but he turned to me and with the most hurt look and tone of voice said “Not you too”. I was taken aback and didn’t fully understand it but knew it was important. I can still actually hear him saying that to me. I felt ashamed for the longest time but now I think MK was just trying to teach me a lesson.
Flash-forward to high school. Where I met JA. The only person in my life I am positive was also an Aspie. He was also the most brilliant person I have ever known. The couple of years I knew him affected me for years after he left us. He was very personable and extremely well liked by both teachers and students. He started communicating with me in different ways, Aspie ways as I would now call it. He mimicked me, in a joking way. I saw the same behavior in myself. He kind of pushed me into making choices that had ripple effects for the rest of my life. For example; it’s through my own experience and his that I’ve come up with a theory on how un-aware HFA/Aspies gain knowledge of self. We both had near-death experiences that preceded our self-awareness of Aspergers. He had a heart-transplant at 13 or 14. I had an unknown (at the time) neurological condition at 25-26. During this time I came to the realization that whatever it was might kill me. I think high-stress situations like these are necessary to undo the years or decades of socialization that tell us our differences are wrong and something to be stamped out instead of explored and embraced. After JA passed, my senior English teacher read his college entrance essay to the class. I copied the format of that essay to write my personal statement for entrance into grad school. To this day I believe it was that essay that got me accepted.
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