TOM, Compassion, and Aspergers'

Housemate and I were talking the other day about this thing called compassion.  I have noticed within myself that it is very easy to claim to have compassion for people from a distance.  As far as the people around me, uh no.

The other day I was approached by someone for a ride to a small  get together with a few mutual acquaintances.  He said he hadn't seen me in awhile but that he remembered me.  He obviously knew me.  I swore [and still do] that "I never seen him before in my life."  [Face blindness, such a wonderful neurological quirk!].  We went there and hung out.  

Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that the man was kicking.  To put it bluntly, he excused himself several times so he could puke in the bathroom.  "He's kicking," everyone else said, "poor guy."  I was just annoyed that I could hear his barfing sounds from behind closed doors.  I was apprehensive that he would want me to take him back home early and [for once] I didn't want to leave. 

 

I made this.  It's copyleft.  Fuck CISPA and all the other weird shit like that.  Right-click to save to your computer.  No hot-linking plz.

Housemate nodded.  "Yep," he told me, "I don't have compassion.  Sometimes I think I am a little bit autistic or something."  

I looked at housemate.  "Dude, yeah you are totally Aspergian."

"Huh?"

"Duh.  The games.  The special study you made of board games ever since you were a child."

"Oh."  Then he asked me, "You were diagnosed as autistic when you were younger, right?"

"Autistic or retarded, depending upon whether you believe a loud-mouth cousin of mine or my dad."

We were silent for a few minutes.

At my uncle's wake [her father], cousin introduced me to a bunch of people I didn't know as, "This is my cousin sapphoq.  sapphoq was autistic when younger, but that was because of emotional reasons-- that is, the divorce of sapphoq's parents."

My dad's version of events ran like this, "We took you for testing.  The examiner told us to put you in an institution and forget about you.  You were retarded, she said.  I started yelling at her, 'My daughter is NOT retarded.  My daughter is bright.  I can see it in her eyes.'  And we left."

Having never seen the test results myself, I really can't say what was thought or why.  Do I have Aspergers or Broad Spectrum Autism?  I don't know.  I was a socially awkward child for sure.  The traits that can be construed by the layperson as being on the spectrum [I can't help it.  When I type the word "spectrum" I think of happy colorful rainbows] can be explained by various other ways of beings.  I perceive no personal benefit in consulting with an expert about this now.  I just don't care. 

"My dad did a lot of work with me when I was younger," I explained.  "So I learned some stuff about how to act around others.  Social situations were never easy for me as a child.  Even now, much of what I do-- when I can be bothered to do it-- is scripted." 

A bit more silence.

"I don't understand my co-workers," housemate admitted.  "They feel sorry for so-and-so.  I don't.  He acts so helpless I want to scream."  I knew who he was talking about.  Had known him for several years in fact before housemate did.  "Standard Operating Procedure for that one," I shrugged.

I started complaining.  "This whole compassion thing-- I'm tired of people expecting me to do their work for them is all.  I'm not a taxi cab.  This piece of shit masquerading as a car isn't painted yellow."

"I remember you going through this before several times."

"And several times before we met.  It's an old lesson that I just keep learning in deeper ways."

I'm not being paid to be anyone's social worker.   I'm sorry that bad shit happens to people.  It's easier for me to say that I have deep feelings for the suffering of others at a distance than when confronted with it on my turf. 

"That guy was kicking from heroin.  [Folks don't die from opiate withdrawals.  The local hospital won't take opiate addicts as a matter of policy.]  If he needed medical support, I would have called him an ambulance.  But don't frigging come into my space and expect sympathy when you should have just stayed home or something.  Sorry.  That's how I feel.  I hate people trying to leech onto me.  If allowing people to suck me dry and making sympathetic noises is compassion, then I'm better off without it."

We relate to the pain and suffering of other people from that place within ourselves that has also experienced pain and suffering.  I know that much.  Aspies and Auties have been accused of lacking a "Theory of Mind" by the professionals.  From what I gather as a plain ordinary person, TOM is the magical [fake?] ability to put oneself in the shoes of others and automatically know what they must be feeling.  I figure that this whole TOM is just another cover for maxed out co-dependency.  After awhile, "he's kicking, poor guy" gets old.  

Again:  We relate to the pain and suffering of other people from that place within ourselves that has also experienced pain and suffering.  Maybe I'm just more willing than the average Joe to admit that sometimes all this forced expression for concern can run out the door screaming "Enough already."  Or maybe it's the practical nature inside of me that dictates a refusal to wallow in my own suffering/misery/heartbreak/self-pity or in that of others.

I know what pain and suffering is.  I just don't have the energy or desire to gush about it.

"Thanks for listening.  I'll find you that on-line informal test on the net if you want."


Go here for an informal checklist of possible aspie-ness:
http://rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php

Your Aspie score: 146 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 63 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie.

N.B.:  Checklist is not validated.  It points to possibilities only.  If for some reason you desire an official diagnosis, then go to a professional who is familiar with what this stuff looks like in an adult.  Some folks like me are indifferent.  Some don't want to know for sure.  Some do.  If you are an adult, you get to examine the pros and cons of seeking a professional diagnosis.  And then you get to make your own decision about what to do.

There is a Google group that a buddy from Twitter has mentioned.  It is here at: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/aspietribe .

Here is also an Aspergers' group on Live Journal: http://asperger.livejournal.com/   

  

 
A really really cool film project here: http://autisticfilmproject.wix.com/website

And here is a caution: http://nymag.com/news/features/autism-spectrum-2012-11/  Some folks in the comment section have problems with the information in and/or the style of the article itself.  The basic premise i.m.o. is sound: bunches of folks who self-diagnose as Aspie and some folks who are professionally diagnosed as Aspie aren't.


Expecting a fancy conclusion or something? 

Neurotypical Sharks, Purple Cow Teeth, and Christmas

During an uncle's wake, a cousin with the aplomb of a blown tire announced to a small group of everyone there that I am autistic.  And my first internal reaction was along the lines of "What the fruck?"  At that point in my t.b.i. recovery I was still moving awkwardly and using a cane full-time.  I already felt like a dweeb, a non-typical swimming in a sea of neurotypical sharks-- there are some similarities between the first year of my post-head trauma being and what I imagine to be the experience of some folks who have been diagnosed with Asperger's.

 [Now that the Asperger's diagnosis in the new and upcoming D.S.M. has been removed, I perceive of a riot between the Asperger's Pride folks and the folks over at Autism Squeaks.  I suspect that now people will be even more able to ignore the reality of Aspies as well as the existence of auties that have grown up from the oh so cute autistic kid phase into adults who still have autism and perhaps aren't as tractable.  It's the whole three seconds after a period thing and two seconds after other punctuation thing that I was fortunately never exposed to.  That is to say,  I can understand why some diagnosed teens and adults rebel against that sort of thing.  Just as I understand why the conversation between most N.T.s appears to be stifling and superficial and boring.  But I digress.  My shrink who knows brain injury assures me that the reason why my multi-tasking skills are pretty close to non-existent is because I am highly distractible.  Seems I can't satisfy the stupid word fixer thingy no matter how I spell that word.  So carrying onward...]

I remember being tested as a preschooler.  I even remember where I was tested and recognized the building twenty years later when I went there for a different reason.  I remember my dad remarking once that I had been tested and that "they" had told him that I was retarded.  "She's bright," my dad had retorted disgustedly, "I can see it in her eyes." He left the office dragging me along to our next adventure.  In retrospect, I'm glad it worked out that way.  Her recommendation to institutionalize me fell on deaf ears.  My first words a year later was "Merry Christmas everyone" back in the days when the winter concert was still called a Christmas concert-- actually it was a small private school that I attended (I would have been lost in a big one)-- after the rest of the class had finished singing a Christmas song.  Whether the testing person had said "autistic" or "retarded" really does not matter to me now.  She could have said one or the other I suppose.  My dad always had told me "retarded."  Now my idiot cousin was telling the congregation around her at her father's wake that I was "autistic."  Whatever.  T'was an awkward and angry moment.

During this break right here, I present to you a YouTube video which I did not make-- haven't done that yet-- but which amused me:





Back?  Okay, well.  Sharing U-Tube videos is the blogger's easy way out I suppose.  Let me think about that for a micro-second.  Nope.  Don't care if it is.

I didn't say anything back to my cousin.  After all, her father's dead body was in the room right there.  Her mother was always outspoken to the point of social awkwardness for the folks around her.  That didn't seem to bother her any.  It wasn't terribly comfortable for the rest of us.  My aunt had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, but she showed amazing insight for her condition I've been told.  When she needed a med adjustment, she recognized this and would sign herself into the clinic for care.  She was not able to work but she had three kids (including the loudmouth that I have described to you), kept a clean and organized home (something which has totally escaped me since the t.b.i. but I was never real good at that before-- now it's worse), and had a husband (my dead uncle) who adored her.  I had figured that my aunt's super direct-ness was due to her neurological condition (uh, everything is neurology) but perhaps I was wrong.  Seems my idiotic cousin had the same trait in spades.

My dad was showing definite signs of cognitive decline back then.  The car accidents hadn't started up yet.  But he was in the condition that folks describe as "vague" that happens just a bit before someone is carted off to the doctors to find out that the something that is wrong is called dementia.  What kind of dementia is a bit of a conundrum at first and sometimes for years afterwards...ah, but I digress again.  He showed up for the wake shortly after that, towed along by his then third wife.  After less than a half hour, they left.  Another aunt said, "Oh, she keeps him from the family."  I'd known for awhile that she had done her best to keep him from me.  I hadn't known that anyone else had noticed it.  But then again, I had never asked or talked about it to any of them.

I went to see Dad today at the assisted living home.  One doc here has stubbornly insisted from the first time he seen him that Dad has Alzheimer's Disease.  The rest insist that it is indeed Lewey Body Dementia.  I hadn't seen any signs of the Alzheimer's myself until this summer when he was hesitant about stepping on a black mat at the diner.  But since then, his cognitive decline has also become more steady and noticeable.

Dad had been using toothpaste to hold up his dentures.  So I got him the right "glue."  I said to him, remember when you used to recite the Purple Cow rhyme to me?  His face lit up immediately.  "Yes!"  I recited the little rhyme to him.  "I never saw a purple cow.  I never hope to see one.  But I can tell you this right now.  I'd rather see than be one."  [Shel Silverstein I presume.  Many of the little ditties and songs my dad recited and sang to me as a child turn out to be from Shel].  "Well, the purple cow got big purple teeth," I told him.  "The tube for the glue is purple."  I could tell I had lost him at that point.  He was still chuckling over the rhyme.  At any rate, he smiled and put the denture glue in the proper place by his soaking cup.  I love my dad so much.

He kicks me out when he's had enough.  He will tell me that it's getting dark [I don't drive much at night anymore thanks to my t.b.i. induced photophobia and resultant problems with glare at night and every other time] or that my dog is getting cold in the car or that my husband wants me home or that he wants to get back to hanging with the crew.  That makes me smile.  Because I know he is enjoying having his own space and his own life separate from mine.  Today he was elected the president of the Resident Council.  Something that I figured was inevitable since his nickname is "the Mayor."  I left singing an altered rendition of an old song, "Happy Friday, Mr. President" and a promise to bring the Christmas cards on Monday for him to sign.  He wants to do this and so we do.

Now this whole Christmas thing.  I am an atheist.  If you wish me a "Merry Christmas" either because you celebrate it or because your employer tells you that is what you will say after waiting on me, that doesn't hurt my atheist sensibilities.  You aren't cursing at me or telling me to go to hell or endeavoring to take a swing at me or shooting me with your gun.  Folks who know me well and who choose to will wish me a "Happy Solstice".  One friend in recovery calls me every solstice and equinox to wish me a happy one.  I appreciate that but I am not on a campaign to get the whole world to say "Happy Holidays".  It seems almost dishonest to me.  For you to say, "Happy Holidays" if you celebrate Christmas.  People that I don't know well have started once again to say "Merry Christmas, I won't see you til after it" and hesitate.  "For crying out loud," I tell them, "It doesn't diminish me as a human being if you say 'Merry Christmas', that's fine."  If I sneeze and you say, "God bless you," I figure well you have the freedom to practice your religion or the freedom to carry on that tiny superstition that the soul leaves the body briefly when one sneezes.  Whatever.

The whole public school fiasco is a different ball of wax.  There's something called the Lemon Laws or possibly the Lemmon Laws-- not quite sure of the spelling there-- which is the legal reason why public schools are supposed to be kept secular and religious instruction left to the parents or guardians as it should be.  That too is a subject for another blog-- perhaps radical sapphoq-- if I ever get done with my investigation into the troubled teen industry.  

I've been devoting hours and hours every day to that one.  Every time I think I'm done with the first section, some more convoluted stuff surfaces.  I am both amazed and horrified.  And some more stuff surfaced tonight which I have to sign off and alert some folks to.  Now that I've zipped all over the place, I am signing off and heading out.  Ta ta folks.  Till next time.

sapphoq on life coming up for air.