I couldn’t fail to know I am blind.
That was not apparent at first, when I began to think things out though. I thought sight was some kind of acquired magic that I would learn to use and get possession of as I aged. Wrong!
This gloriously naive view of life was fine for a while. Everyone was older than I was. Parents, obviously, Nan, yes. So far so good. Then along came Paul, not Jones as in the song. Still so far so good. Then Paul, my brother of two-and-a-half years my junior “got the magic”. How was that even possible? I didn’t know. Eyes were just convenient recesses in which to poke fists and fingers. Gross isn’t it? Anyway when I found out the real reason, I was happy-ish.
At nursery there was this problem.
I would put up no argument but I didn’t like sitting in circle time, If I’m honest (which I am) I could hear the teacher wherever I was in the room so what was the point of me having to move to sit in a circle, when I was quite happy making lines out of the tacks used for elementary Braille learning. Why move? Circle time was a waste of time.
Then I grew older, as one does if life goes according to plan.
A chatterbox who could chat for the universe never mind Britain, I had a black mark for talking in class at primary school but then other things became apparent. I hated changes in routine and had trouble in the bowels department. This wasn’t helped by thinking it was not permissible to go in the school loo. Peeing was fine but only because I couldn’t hang on all day but the rest of it was disallowed or so I thought. Delicate sensitive souls won’t want me to elaborate.
Then there was this problem of never being able to tie bows, shoelaces or play a musical instrument two-handed with any degree of success. Now this is to flout the blind stereotype of the musical prodigy. I sure ain’t like Stevie or any of my friends. No Sir. I’m a keyboard catastrophe. When the right hand goes, the left stops. Skipping? Naah. Let’s forget that one. Jumping in the sack race I could manage, yet I could not spin like my best friend, Eileen could twirl around so fast she sounded like the hurricane of 1987. If you were not in Britain then you won’t remember it and thank your lucky stars for that. I was cowering under the bed clothes, as if a duvet would save me.
Years passed and eventually I got to go to college.
I am or was a good Catholic. I kept my legs together also my hands but not at the same time of course. Upper limbs were for praying, lower ones were in many cases for exploration by boys who wanted a Braille look. Naah. As a result there were a few births and all to unwed blind girls who didn’t keep their hands on their halfpennies. Guess that was because of decimalisation in 1971 and the loss of the farthing in 1961 or could there be another reason? They liked sex and snogging. Well, snogging isn’t too bad providing he has cleaned his teeth and I’ve eaten garlic too. Once we get to the high numbers on the “going all the way” scale I lie back and think: “How good it is to live on my own and have all this glorious solitude”
The years went by and I was told I am too blunt, too outspoken, too pedantic and precise and even rude. Actually I’ve also been told I’m very polite so go figure. I’d go out with my dogs and say eccentric things to shop assistants. They’d ask innocent but intrusive questions such as: “have you been blind all your life”? I’d say: “Not yet”. Yes, I nicked that one.
Then there are these obsessive interests. medical stuff and true crime. Should you want to know about Ted Bundy, Harold Shipman or the Boston Strangler, George, Joseph Smith who took to drowning his wives in the bath, I’m your woman.
Then there’s autism. A fascinating condition in which you can get a little boy to recite what to do when crossing the road, such as hand holding and looking right and left and then promptly runs out into the road. We all know about the film Rainman and those clever-clogs types who can recite entire books or at least memorise them or whole swathes of them. For me I just hated the texture of greens in my mouth (I still do, but I have to eat them) I hate most perfumes and the stink of lipstick on teacups as well as some foods mixed up with others and when my nan stuck the remainder of old bits of soap onto the new bars I’d go ballistic because I thought the old stuff should be totally used up first. Notes taken from a wallet have to be put in the back behind the others. It’s queuing I suppose. “Go on! Spend me”. “Wait your turn you little horrors”. They don’t have to wait long nowadays do they?
When I was very young, I loved old people better than my peers unless they had an incontinence problem which they couldn’t help. I adore children. Singing nursery rhymes with them and lots of hugs can’t be bettered but babies are like little time bombs. One never knows when they will be sick so I’m a bit reticent when it comes to them and it’s the same with Labradors though I had four guide dogs. One stupid noodle thought I had all of them at once. People really aren’t that bright now are they? Well, some of them definitely not.
I, on the other hand always knew I was a “junius”. That’s why I wrote to an eminent psychologist whose book I read, telling him of links I thought I’d discovered between blindness and autism. It was to do with being unable to look or being unwilling to even if one has sight.
The correspondence lasted many years.
He put me in touch with an Australian blind woman with Asperger’s Syndrome. I was elated as then I could find out all about her autism which was exactly what I wanted to do. I knew Australia has kangaroos and wallabies, galahs and echidnas so no need to ask about Australia, then. No doubt Dubbo is a lovely city and there’s the Sydney opera house and Melbourne and Queensland and the flying doctor service.
Oh yes. Did I tell you I have a vast collection of old radio plays and loved the flying doctor which was on our radio when I was young? No. I mean why ask K about Australian history when I can chat about her autism? Her brain fascinates me and the brain is her special interest. Being blunt and honest is her speciality, too so one day I had the surprise of my life when she said: “By the way. Doctor A says you have Asperger’s, too”.
I strutted around like some vain peacock parading my indignation for I was in high dudgeon I can tell you. Those poor people have funny ways don’t they? I mean! Me! Autistic! Never in a month of Sundays. I started to think about the times I’ve written to people telling them off for saying “different to”, “comprised of”, and how I applauded the man who went round correcting all the misplaced apostrophes he saw such as “a hand of banana’s”. Of course I’ve said: “ain’t” in this piece but that was deliberate. Anyway, I started reckoning up the similarities between K and me and yes, it is “me” because you would not say: “between I” in any circumstances. They are legion.
Then we met.
She was perseverating over a private matter regarding her aunt who had forbidden something when they were all out together, she, her aunt and friend visited me when they were vacationing in Europe. I sat like a goldfish with my mouth open as she did this in the same tone of voice and kept referring back to the incident all through the day. Also, I’d asked several friends and a professional who worked with me if they thought I have Asperger’s and they all said: “Yes. I was waiting for you to tell me”. The fact is that I didn’t know. I did not connect my hatred of parties and big social gatherings and various digestive problems, bluntness and the rest with anything but personality traits or blindness. I ignored the fact that some blind people love parties and gather in big groups and adore social gatherings of all sorts whereas my idea of a housewarming is to turn on the radiators. I mean, who in their right mind would buy or rent a flat or house and furnish and decorate it nicely, only to have a load of crisp dropping, cake crumb trampling, alcohol swilling sickos throwing up where they may and going to number ten on the let’s get physical under your bedclothes while you are trotting round smiling and chirping like Nan’s old budgie “Nice to see you, to see you nice”. That should be left to Brucie especially since, the moment they are all gone and you have to clear up, first thing you’ll say is: “Thank god for that! Doesn’t Mrs. Floppy Top look hideous in those shoes”? Then there’s all this “oh you shouldn’t have”, when you turn up with a bottle of fizzy water and try to make out you’ve come with expensive plonk and the label must have been switched. Next time you turn up with your little adorable self, only to find they moan afterwards as you were mean enough to turn up with empty hands until they swooped on the party grub when they and your chops were then full. Who’d go in for that when you can read about some creep pouncing on a poor unsuspecting and equally undeserving woman just going home from one of these insufferable do’s and how eventually, said creep was caught because of the minute speck of forensic evidence left behind? Much more my ‘ammer!
Well now, I was the grand old age of sixty-five when I sat, with my magnificent, greens loving, veggie cooking, fruit flaunting, support worker, with a clinical psychologist who told me after a long and separate phone call, lasting one hour and assessment lasting two so three hours in all that: “June, you are autistic”. Now then, artistic I can believe but autistic! Yes apparently and for all those people who think everyone wants a label these days well you try being a woman and getting a diagnosis! They are not handed out like sweets. I think I waited three years. I went through the gamut of emotions.
First I was ashamed which is totally inappropriate.
Then I was relieved because now I had reasons, not excuses, as to why I am as I am. I try very hard to be tactful and have to think about it and not lose my temper with stupid people and I have to work very hard to fit in but my harmless eccentricities I do not hide or excuse. They don’t hurt anyone and thankfully I have the happy knack of making people laugh. If I hurt someone it’s not deliberate and I am always mortified. I don’t suffer fools as the world seems full of them and technology seems to be making people more stupid. Having said that, I like to think I am kind and actually believe it’s our greatest quality and should be praised and not seen as weakness either in boys or girls.
I’m sick of being blind to some extent but that’s mainly because of lack of privacy as someone needs to help with very specific things including sorting some correspondence though this need has been diminished by Braille bank statements but I am proud to be autistic. This makes me quirky, and do silly things such as repeatedly asking my friend what that bird is in Australia, known by a different name in America. She must have said: “Galah” five times or more before she tumbled to the fact that I liked hearing her say it. There are acoustic enjoyment words which are lovely to hear people say. Don’t ask me why. Two of them are: “tumbled” and “galah”. I’m still trying to find out why this should be.
I do not see autism as a disorder, rather a difference.
We are all normal to ourselves. The high levels of anxiety are one drawback but, hey! One can’t have everything. I just wish my nan and my mum could have known the answer to: “You’re so bright. Why then do you keep putting your foot in it and coming out with such tactless and inappropriate remarks”? Not excuses, just reasons and I am glad I know what they are now and won’t die wondering.