Thanks for the advice and insight I really appreciate everyone’s input and I enjoy discussing AS with people who understand it, I rarely meet people who do.
Just to explain some things about me, I live in South Africa not the UK. I don’t think I’ve ever met more the 3 people who are aware of the fact that they have Aspergers and when I was diagnosed my parents were told I was autistic. The psychologists drew them a very bleak picture as to how life would pan out for me. With the sheer bloody mindedness of both my parents and myself I’m proud to say they couldn’t have been more wrong.
I have cerebral palsy, 27% brain damage has left me with significant problems with coordination, speech and muscle control. The muscles in my legs grew at a slower rate than my skeleton meaning I had trouble walking and have had to have operations to lengthen tendons to relieve pressure. I also had to endure physiotherapy on a daily basis, which was nothing short of torture. I now walk like someone who took up horse riding a few days ago and still has slightly stiff legs to show for it and do daily stretching exercises. Speech therapy (my mom is a qualified speech therapist) taught me to sound virtually normal except when I’m tired in which case I just avoid speaking since I begin to slur my words quite badly. I have muscle spasms some of which present themselves as fairly strong cold shivers which are not unpleasant. Other spasms attack my feet, hands, neck, shoulders and stomach muscles these are all very unpleasant. I lock up completely when excited or frightened, at the same time my face contorts making me look very odd. AS actually helps here since I’m not particularly emotional and therefore don’t have too much trouble avoiding getting excited, I do however play computer games alone in my room since they bring out the worst facial expressions.
I can pull off being almost normal and most people I meet have no idea that I have any afflictions at all. My entire life revolves around concentrating. I concentrate on walking normally, what I’m about to say and how I’m going to say it and hiding muscle tremors where possible. It’s become second nature for me to always pay attention to everything I’m doing.
A story I related to someone who pm’ed me is that a very good friend of mine is in a wheelchair after a hang gliding accident. He’s an electrical engineer and a very clever person but people seeing him in his chair speak to him as though he were a halfwit. I told my new employer about my cerebral palsy during the job interview and he went from leaning in towards me to suddenly sitting back in his chair as though it were contagious. I don’t mention AS since as you’ve all probably noticed, no one understands it particularly well. I did discuss it once with a manager at a previous job I was in and from that day forward I was passed up for every promotion I should have received. The CEO openly informed a new supervisor who asked about it that I had this “condition” which meant I couldn’t deal with a more senior position. I could have made an issue of it but with the South African Labour courts as they are it would take years and I’d be the one having to justify my position rather than the other way around. I’m not going to have that happen again, better not to tell anyone about AS and allow senior management to think my cerebral palsy is the cause of any slip that occurs.
12 Aug 2006, 8:42 pm
