Most of us have heard of the title Anthropologist on Mars, and I think the notion of the person with Asperger's syndrome as a sort of social scientist by necessity is quite valid. I would go further than anthropologist, though, and compare ourselves to theoretical physicists or cosmologists. Just as theoretical physicists and cosmologists must rely on quite indirect evidence to develop an understanding of, say, the origins of our universe or the composition of matter, we must rely on equally rare and minute hints to piece together a theory of our social environment. I have textbook knowledge that people form social networks and pursue goals through them, and this rote fact has enabled me to take a few glances at what appears to be a much more complicated social environment than I understand. I understand that many people who interact with me probably take me to be one of their kind: a fellow social agent who understands and uses their social constructs, heuristics, hierarchies, and rules; yet I cannot properly reciprocate because I am not aware of the quality of social interaction I have unwittingly entered into and so take it only for the literal words exchanged and the deeds, promises, and expectations explicitly named. After the fact, I can sometimes piece together a plausible scenario of what happened, the social implications of the interaction, but this helps me very little in the actual moment.
I find this lack of understanding leads to a social disconnect—alienation—that feeds on itself, a vicious cycle. The lack of social connection means I have not had the experiences necessary to interact with the naturalness and fluidity that even I would otherwise have the potential to develop. These sociological realities lead to deficits beyond the core neurological syndrome of Asperger's: specific social immaturity juxtaposed with a seeming ultra-maturity in other respects. I struggled against the shyness that many of us, even not temperamentally inclined (as I was very much extraverted in early childhood), develop and largely overcame it. This led to increased social interaction and repeated frustration. Frustration led to resentment, which eventually led me to see the multitude as uncaring, unwilling to give a stranger (and what was I but a perpetual stranger?) a break. The depression and alienation involved have a way of shattering the felt connection between cause and effect: One's actions seem to have no perceptible effect; thus the relation of cause to effect becomes behaviorally unconditioned. For one, your behavior becomes less constrained as you no longer sense a point. One eventually becomes desensitized to the depressingly gray hue of the world around oneself and becomes unaffected by the various events and quandaries that make up the passing of life. This apathy, this detachment from meaning, leads to an increasingly absurdist take on life as the constituents that give life a sense of meaning to most have been drained from your own, so you're left perceiving most directly what is tangential or irrelevant to most. This bizarre take on things does not provide much basis to relate to others with, so one becomes even more isolated. The social-relating neurons in the brain, the pleasure-experiencing circuits of the brain, remain understimulated and so atrophy. This leaves the affected individual with little wherewithal to establish the needed connection in the future. The only buoy against this is to find a passion.
30 Nov 2007, 11:06 pm
