Gonna pick up where I left off yesterday re : my Asperger’s self-diagnosis.

First off, the list I came up with for yesterday’s blog entry :

1. I have had issues with shiny objects. 
2. I have had similar experiences with flashing lights.
3. Final one about light. Flickering light can hurt me.
4. Certain high frequences of sound make my whole nervous system go nuts.
5. High traditional IQ accompanied by low social IQ.
6. Mental tics and compulsions.
7. Unusual and/or inappropriate affect.
8. Early detached impericism and pursuit of truth via logical means.

I omitted the commentary on each list item. If you want them, please click here to go to the blog entry in question.

Not too long after posting that, I realized that I had miss the biggest piece of evidence of my Asperger’s of all : my difficulty in connecting with others.

And I am not talk abotu social awkwardness, although that is a huge factor. I am talking about the kind of deep emotional connection to others that makes one feel like they are a member of a tribe and part of what is going on in the world. Whether that feeling is a social, personal, or romantic one, whatever it is, I don’t have it.

In fact, I am not sure I ever had it. Maybe I had it before the rape, I don’t know. But since then, I have been isolated within myself on a damagingly deep level and it has done me immeasurable harm and cut my off from humanity.

It’s like the ending of that Star Trek : TOS episode Dagger of the Mind. Kirk is asked what it was like to be in the evil mind control machine and Kirk shudders and says it was like being alone. Completely, totally alone.

That’s what it is like to be me. More or less. Only without the soothing voice telling me what to do to make it all go away.

And it’s not just a matter of unintended isolation. I think back to times in my school life when people tried to befriend me. But I couldn’t ipen up. I couldn’t let them in. I could not give them what they wanted from me because my social transciver was broken.

Still is, in fact.

So I froze them out instead. Not on purpose. I was always trying to connect with people. I have desperately wanted to end my long stay in solitary confinement since Grade 1. I have tried to give people the signals they need many, many times but it has not worked. No connection was made.

Eventually I stop trying because trying and failing hurt too damned much.

I get that “black icicles stabbing my heart” feeling just thinking about it.

Now I hate to admit it, but my sky high IQ was probably a big part of that. It put me in a radically different mental space than my peers and so I found it hard to relate to them, and them to me.

I think I have also suffered due to having a bizarre emotional affect, which is something else that is a sign of Asperger’s.

Another clue to add to the file is my inborn ferocious need for autonomy and self-determination. I have never accepted authority except in intellectual matters.

And even then, I only accept that there are some who know things I do not. I do not accept that this means they are more likely to be right about matters of opinion in their field than I am.

After all, there is a lot of sloppy reasoning out there. I would have to be able to check theirs and confirm that it was sound.

As far as I can tell, I have always been like that. But why?

Because it’s not normal and it’s not healthy. I would have been better off being able to accept authority because through it I would have gotten the feeling of security and connection that I needed.

I think that the IQ thing played a big part there as well. Because the truth was that I was a lot smarter than most adults, teachers included.

That meant that I could not be intellectually dominated and therefore could not accept my teachers as authority figures. It also meant that I was quite difficult to deal with in that I did not operate like other children and I no doubt made some teachers feel threatened and/or humiliated.

So they did what people always do when they have a stimulus they can’t handle – they ignore it. Tune it out. Blot it out of their minds.

And by it, I of course mean me.

There were teachers who tried to help me. But never for very long because I was so unpredictable and uncontrollable. Just by being so bright and verbal, I am sure I innocently and unknowingly bit the hand that fed me many, many times with a sarcastic remark or a challenge of their authority or just asking a question they can’t answer.

And if you keep biting the hand that feeds you, people stop feeding you.

Hence my lifetime of emotional starvation.

For decades. I have thought that I could not possibly have Asperger’s because I had none of the major symptoms that I knew of. I had no problem understanding people and why they do what they do. I have, if anything, too much empathy. I haven’t developed the sort of safety mechanisms people with Asperger’s develop in order to cope with a world they do not understand, like retreating into abstract worlds that make sense to them like programming or train schedules. I didn’t mind being touched and I had no problem reflecting on my own motivations and understanding why I do what I do.

But that’s a conception of Asperger’s that begins two notches along the autism spectrum. As you have read, I have a whole lot of other, less major symptoms of the disorder, and I am forced to concluse that I have some form of it.

The question now is : what on Earth do I do with that information?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.