autism disovered in old age

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The fact that you obey the mysterous ends of life doesnt interfere with enjoyment, it might even help to know that, eating, loving, caring for children you just are in the great stream. I suspect that even most religions, with distortions and complications, say nothing else than this.

Who is Arthur anyway?

Arthur is a character in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The point of the story in the signature ***SPOILERS***








is that he's just found out that the Earth was run, commisioned and paid for by mice. Yes, mice. We're apparently part of their comuter program in the story. Anyway, the person who told him this is a relatively old man, whose name is Slartibartfast. Ridiculous, I know. Arthur's reaction is covered in my signature. As an interesting sidenote to this conversation, Slartibartfast also says this (I've mentioned this elsewhere, and I'm not sure if you've read it or not): "I reckon the chances of finding out what's really going on are so extremely remote that I say just hang the sense of it and keep yourself busy. I'd rather be happy than right anyday." Arthur replies "And are you?" and Slartibartfast answers "Uh, no." and laughs "That's where it all falls down of course."




***END SPOILERS***
I get a bit argumentative (is that a word? I mean I feel like arguing) when religions just state that life should be 100% positive, with all the Anger is a Sin, as well as Greed, Lust and all that jargon. Everyone needs to be anrgry at some point in life, it's natural and to be expected. So is lust. And I mean that in the way that you must desire SOMETHING out of life, otherwise you'll be sitting there doing nothing.

This has been a nice conversation for me. I feel like the young whippersnapper meeting the extremely wise man.

Pleiades high in the eastern sky
Orion soon will rise above the Bitterroots
Old stone and older stars
Soon I will sleep
I will not see Orion rise tonight

So I must wear the clothes of the wise fellow. I know a lot of bookish things and this is the only contribute I can give. As a matter of fact I would like to lie down on a sandy beach at the just temperature, sunshine, a little breeze, with some people around, not too many, not hostile, but also not too intrusive, or intrusive in the right way, like you can be with a cat you like but who doesnt like to be encroached upon. This might seem easy to obtain, but it isnt at the moment. I also would like to be inside a tiefen wald (deep forest, Kafka bookish reminiscence) and smell the scents of the soil, of moss, ferns. Has happened, can happen again. We are "urban hermits" for now.
***
"Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed ridiculous-
Almost at times, the Fool."

T.S. Eliot, "Love song of J.Alfred Prufrok"

***

Could'nt resist to quote two authors I like, but, going back to religions, I know Christianity has been ferocious with pleasure, has messed things up a lot for believers of the West. Hinduism, as far as I know, is much gentler with the forces of life. And then there have been many "primitive" religions, for which fertility, with its connections, was a foremost value. Taoism also was fascinating and full of wisdom and tolerance.

Last edited by paolo on 26 Sep 2006, 2:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My veiw on religion is that I don't exactly beleive in any of it, and yet I don't exactly dis-beleive it, either. In other words, what I mean to say is that if it exists, it exists, and if it doesn't, it doesn't. Same goes for me and aliens. While I find it unlikley that they'd come along here anytime soon, I'd love to get the opputunity to chat with them:

"What do you think of Rock music?"
"It's pretty good, pretty good."
"I don't like some of the stuff Greenday does, though."
"Really? I think it's quite good."
"I'd say it's rubbish!"
"Not as rubbish as anything 50 Cent's done!"
"So true. Amen to that!"

That'd just make my day!

I recieved a formal Dx last week, i am in my late 30's.

I found out about aspergers last year and knew it was me once I heard the details. I have maybe 3 friends, only one that I talk to on the phone or visit with any regularity. He told me he was autistic, and that was a wake up call, as we are so alike. So, i did research & found out I likely had AS. I took the online AS test and scored close to perfect.

It was a relief because all my life I have been studying other people and trying to do what they do so that I will fit in and not be a freak. I got the kind of AS where I want people to like me, but can't seem to avoid alienating everyone I meet.

I now know why as a kid I had no friends and wandered around alone staring at the trees, why I never could remember to comb my hair no matter what was going or, etc. etc.

Best thing that ever happened to me. Having something and not knowing you are up the creek. Once you know what it is you can look at it and learn from it. Finding out I had AS is likely the only reason my girlfriend of 7 years and I are still together. She was ready to throw me out because I kept insulting her, being mean, not caring etc. Turns out its not that I am a jerk, but that I can't communicate well. I ws so relieved to find out I wasn't an a-hole, I have had so many people tell me I am, but inside my head I have always had good thoughts.

That is the most painful thing about AS. On the inside I am pretty much a kid, and one that wants everyone to like me. On its way out that gets skewed and I end up with people mad at me. Nothing worse than people hating you or avoiding you for something you meant as a warm and caring gesture...

take care,

Jester

Wow Jester, your post has nearly freaked me out!
What you have written is so ME that I could have done the exact same words from my own experience. The only difference is that I was in my late 50's when I found out about my AS.
Best of luck with your new life....

I make some attempt to see the so called symptoms from the inside of our (my) experience. As a rule (Rainman) and even by specialists and in books about autism they are seen or described from the outside.

Ritualism is widespread: many people adhere to some ritualism. Habitual way of doing things is reassuring. Even the great scientist Konrad Lorenz admitted that he felt uneasy when he changed the road to go to work, even if the new itinerary was more rational. But for AS, ritualisms may be absorbing and paralyzing. I have many myself. Some are innocuous, like listening to rock music at dinner, and jazz at supper (the reverse would disturb me much) or make two or three solitaries as soon as I wake up, then having a few minutes look at the news, before starting some attempt to read or do some writing or studying. Ritualisms help feel the environment homish and allays anxiety.

Loneliness: hard to bear but intrinsic to the condition. When you can’t stand anymore your living in Mars, you call someone on the phone. It used to be a “friend”, he or she thinks to be “somehow” your friend, but has no idea of whom you are. So after a little small talk you cut and remain with a sense of frustration.

The lack of fluidity in communication makes relationship impossible. You know well that all you say to the other is substantially a lie. If you say that you have stumbled in the street, this may be true, but is never what you really meant to say, so it is a lie. Moreover you have to keep care of your bubble, the bubble which is the unique environment in which you can survive. This keeps you wary and brings you to want to “be in control” when you relate and maintain communication. And you are not really interested in other people’s life. You cannot talk too much about yourself (some do that: their illnesses and other problems). But the real strategy is to talk on a piece of your overspecialized matter of interest.

Vulnerability: indifference equals hostility, hostility means your annihilation.

You seem to have a grim way about these things. Is that the case with most everything?

Thank you for the kind words

I had many of the same goosebump type experiences. I read a book, title was "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time".

This book is told from an aspergers/autistic person's point of view. It is written as if a teenager with HFA or AS has decided to write a book about his recent experiences and the mystery of a murdered dog he hopes to solve.

So many of the things he did it was like reading something I had written. The thing that floored me the most was how he reacted to a betrayal by someone he trusted. After that happened he couldn't be near the person, got agitated if he saw them, couldn't speak to them etc. This had happened to me not 3 months before and I had no idea why I couldn't get over this person being so mean to me. Reading that really sent chills down my spine, that is for sure.

anyway, it is a good book. It seemed to me he was perhaps more HFA than Aspergers, but a lot is the same and I really don't know the difference. Good read either way.

take care,

Jester

I read the book too. I'm only 16, and it felt like I was reading the life of a 13 year old.

The ironic thing is that as soon as I had finished it, a class with most of my friends in it had to read it as a book study, with all that 'read between and beyond the lines' stuff. So they now know as well!

Before the holidays started I lent the book to a friend of mine so she could read it. I'll know her opinion in a week or so! I'm gonna keep the book quite close, as I KNOW it's quite important (yet I've only read it once ).

That describes me to a tee as well. Just discovering this at 38 and my social situation is very similar.

What we call normal people have some sort of success in current enterprises of society. We will never have success in this kind of enterprises. The logic of our system is cooperation in futile and most of the time destructive enterprises. Even private life, intimate life is subordinated or, one way or the other, under the shadow of generalized destruction. Have a look at the jumble of freeways around our great cities, traffic jams, smog. What the hell are all these people doing? They are, literaly, fabricating hell. It’s not a joke: marketing, public relations, advertising, policing all these senseless activities are hell.
We may care for children, for sick or old people, and even this with effort and never really communicating with them because, while they are temporarily exonerated from active duty, they are all prepared to enter or to return to the general mad business. So we live in different universes, like the infirmary in war. Or else our unease is so serious that we are lodged ourselves inside the infirmaries as patients.

I think there should be a narrow road we can take, with lucidity and determination. Can we make it?
I think we should at least try. It is the only form of optimism I can have.

For whom is ready to read some bleak, but very good portrait of our situation, I want to signal three books perceptive and revelatory:
Yates, Revolutionary Road
Ishiguro, Never Let Me go
Coetzee, Slow Man

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