A diagnosis of Asperger's? Part Five

Talking to someone with Asperger's must be maddening at times, especially if they are having an off-day and their usual coping mechanisms are playing up.  You see, for high-functioning Aspies, it is often the case that their condition is pretty much invisible to the people around them as they have become so adept at reading situations and hiding their discomfort (all at a cost - it's exhausting as hell).  Occasionally, however, these long-developed mechanisms and techniques can suddenly fail.  Being ill with a bad cold, having a chronic headache, having to deal with just too much stimulus can all leave a person with Asperger's naked and vulnerable, and leave the people around them confused and upset.  But how do these strategies get learned in the first place?

I know for a fact that a great many people I know would be sceptical or even dismissive of any suggestion that I have a condition as pervasive and seemingly-obvious as Asperger's.  All my life I have managed it too well.  Asperger's often has little impact on a toddler, and language can often be learned at the usual rate.  In children it can manifest itself in meltdowns (outbursts where things get too intense and the individual struggles to maintain control) or in poor behaviour in school but just as likely it can lead to nothing more unusual than a quiet child with a few close friends who simply doesn't tolerate anything unusual, noisy or chaotic - in short, people with Asperger's can go their whole childhood and teen years without a diagnosis, all the while finding ways and means to offset the constant anxiety, social difficulties and emotional exhaustion.  Twenty or thirty years of practicing and refining these skills (still much more conscious and 'forced' than a neuro-typical's social behaviour) can make an Aspie blend in, disappear, until something happens to strip them of their armory.

This is how I think it panned out for me.  I reckon that for my whole childhood I just 'got on with things' and simply avoided anything that I knew would make me anxious or uncomfortable.  I think I assumed everyone was the same, that anxiety was a constant state of mind for all of us and that therefore I should just live my life.  I spoke only to people I wanted to speak with, and these were mostly people who shared an interest.  I am told I was often thought of as rude or even ignorant as I would refuse to respond to questions or small talk, even at the age of eight or more.  I certainly only ever wanted to be left with my solitary hobbies - anything dragging me from them (school, trips out, holidays) I actively despised.  School became tolerable only because I was good at it and everyone seemed pretty happy to leave me alone (a miracle that I am thankful for).  In fact an abiding memory of my GCSE years was a particularly cruel set of caricatures that one of the form's more artistic members had drawn up of the whole class.  Some were truly vicious and even alarming, but mine was simply a man standing by a fireplace, pipe in mouth, neutral expression.  Thank goodness for that, I say.

So I learned to get by and always had a small coterie of friends (most of whom I have lost contact with - I am dreadful at maintaining any but the closest of relationships).  I have no idea how I was viewed, or whether anyone thought I was 'different' in any way, but certainly all was as well as could be expected.  It was the much, much later triple whammy of becoming a father, being made a middle leader and suffering from depression that tore my defenses from me and left me trying to figure out what the strange being within this lost cocoon was, and how it worked: suddenly I found myself struggling with conversation, always deeply confused by missed implications or body language.  Teaching, which had been paradoxically quite a successful career path for me, given that I was so accustomed to acting and being hyper-aware of my interactions, was suddenly impossible.  I had time off.  I gradually recovered and learned more about ASD, leading to my situation right now.

My armory is being repaired and renewed these days, and I am increasingly like my old self, most of the time.  But it has been quite an experience and not one that I would care to re-live.  Asperger's does not have to be a curse at all; all told I am probably glad that I have likely grown up with it as it has given me so much to be thankful for, but it can spiral quite badly and an awareness of this for both Aspies and their loved ones is of great importance.