Here’s the thing. Everyone has hobbies. the dangers of “we all” and “us all” will be discussed at greater length in a separate article but let’s just accept it’s true for now. Why is it then that people can’t cope with the special interests of those with Asperger’s? Once more we return to the extreme of norm and frequency with which these interests are followed, talked about, pursued and thought about. Many people who don’t have special interests to the degree we do maybe have a wider social circle, friends and a broader range of interests. Some work and have family to care for which could include elderly parents and children and they have worries which we have in abundance which sometimes seem to be the only common feature of our lives and those of those described as neurotypical. Many people with Asperger’s don’t have children and I suspect don’t always have jobs but if they do then employers would do well to employ them in their special interest field though I don’t quite see K, my Australian friend as a neuroscientist or a brain specialist but that’s because she’s blind as well which is the same reason I can’t be a nurse or couldn’t when I was of working age.
My nan gave me a doctor’s set when I was a little girl and my friend, K, has a plastic model brain so not scared mine will be removed when I go to see her in June and feel confident I’ll return with it. Why then, this endless talk about these special interests?
Interests are the real passions
The passions which reach beyond the realms of ordinary interests and our enthusiasm for them never wanes. Also they are safe subjects. We have learned that not talking about risky subjects like politics, religion, family relationships, work, the complexities of making, keeping and losing friends, bereavement, holidays and more besides means less chance of giving offence by accident. How can information regarding how many brain cells one is born with or how many bones we have, what the pancreas does, where the hyoid bone is or where the trapezius muscles are possibly give offence? We have learned that giving offence comes naturally to us but not learned well why this is, how to stop doing it or why people walk away happens so often and this is because we can’t equate our longing to share our information and to be kind and helpful and our desire to be sociable with other people’s longing to stop us ranting on about it all or get away from us as if we were bad smells or infectious diseases instead of human beings like the rest of Homo Sapiens.
There’s an irritating feature of autism
Which means that when theory can be learned like a parrot may learn things, that cannot always be put into practise. Also, in the case of blind autistics, language and words are all there are. There’s no bored face, no glazed over eyes, no yawning cavernous mouth unless the person is so rude as to yawn and make the loud accompanying sound and even when sight is present, “Aspies” are not much good at picking up the social cues. In other words we are not singing from the same hymn sheet as you are. We may think all is bright and beautiful when really it’s Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings.
Every week I vow that I will not talk to Lisa non-stop, will remember to ask how she is, how her kids and hubby are, even how the cat is and whether the car’s running like a dream or stalling for time. Every week I fail. I do remember to ask about J who is her best friend who has been poorly recently. That’s probably because she was ill with a medical problem that went beyond a cold or the flu. That stuck in my mind and I lost my best British Buddy seven years ago this June for the same reason. I’ve just about managed not to describe all the variants I know of, how it got its name, what the known causes are etc but at almost seventy that’s about as far as I have got. Lisa is used to me and can give as good as she gets so it isn’t a two-hour monologue and I do know things about her children. Since I love children I remember to ask about them so that’s okay but I once lost a potential friend who said to me she had a fear of pregnancy so I said to her: “The pill doesn’t always work, condoms break, the rhythm method doesn’t always work either and there can be troubles with the cap or coil so the only way is to abstain and then you’ll be sure you won’t get pregnant”. To me this was logical but to her it was both offensive and impractical so she dropped me like a stone and for decades I didn’t know why.
K is just as blunt and sometimes, because I’m older and have learned to some degree what people don’t like, I can say to her: “K you can’t say that”. Then I find that I may recount the story to Lisa and smile just the same since part of me finds it funny though I ought not to so the wrong response is given to the situation in question. The more nervous or worried we are, the more we talk about our favourite subjects. This also happens when we are happy. When K’s dad went in for a heart op not long ago, I received more brain information than normal. I understand this and find it interesting. It’s the only organ that has named itself and the boss man which we would be useless without and which means also we would be severely hampered when it fails to work properly and dead if it didn’t work at all. It’s been responsible for enabling us to find out how we think and feel, how we can navigate the oceans and the sky, how we can build homes and work places, vehicles for transportation and sadly, how we can kill and exterminate one-another and bring ourselves perilously close to ruining the planet by letting it overheat. Yes, our hearts are also amazing but the brain tells the heart to keep beating so I can see why my friend is fascinated by it. It’s made us autistic and you not so unless you, follower and reader also are.
In the case of many but not all
Most blind people with or without Asperger’s, mobility may be restricted and social lives narrower so therefore there are fewer topics we may know about. If we aren’t married we can’t talk about how much Hubby or wife got up our nose last night by leaving the loo seat up for the umpteenth time or how they didn’t fill the car with petrol or gas when they could see the tank was low. We can’t talk about yesterday’s TV if we don’t like what’s on there though my friend does tell me about talent shows from time to time. I no longer have a TV though I used to but I got sick of all the bed hopping and swearing in its content. I gave up the Soaps years ago and feel better for it and, no, I didn’t say soap so that’s not the reason people leg it. How the body works is a source of endless fascination to me. Like an opinion, everybody’s got one but unlike an opinion, while most like to show theirs off in the hope of getting off with another’s, they are singularly and collectively uninterested in how it works, where its parts are, what they do and what happens when they fail or stop working. This may mean a lax attitude to finding out why they may be diabetic now, have grown a bit too portly, can’t guzzle and guts as much as they used to and have to visit the bathroom more than they did when they were young.
Maybe it’s a problem with knowing they don’t want to know what the signs are that one day they won’t be here. As for true crime, Oh, no, John, no, John, no, John, no! I’ve learned that is out for the count. Yet people will go and read a crime novel but probably that’s because they can feel their fear in safety. I’m obsessed with how these awful people are caught, why they do what they do and I know that the “Jigsaw Man”, by Paul Britton sold a lot of copies and proved very popular but can I talk about it all to people? Not on your Nellie. I do tell K a little about it but don’t want to frighten her so don’t say too much but I remember the thrill I got when the Clinical Psychologist, Tini, said to me: “Tell me about true crime, June”. I gave her my biggest smile and Chox away! I hope I didn’t get carried away. I had the pleasure of knowing a support worker who had been a criminal psychologist or had a degree in it and when I told him and he came to see me to chat about autism, I felt like waylaying him for the day so I could chat about all these awful serial killers, poor people who are their victims, the amazing people who get to apprehend them and the circumstances that have led to them becoming the sort of people who can do these things in the first place. There are born psychopaths but not many. Most develop out of malfunctioning brain wiring where sex and violence have become fused because of highly dysfunctional upbringing and horrendous abuse. This is not an excuse for what they do but reasons.
In my view this means they should probably be incarcerated for life so that they create no more hapless victims. Also, my medical knowledge has saved three lives, my gran’s, a blind diabetic man and my own. Also my true crime obsession has kept me safe but I’m not complacent. I was one day walking along the road with my dog when a bloke opened his car door and asked me the time. I kept moving while I told him. He then called out: “Come over here a minute, love”. Had I done so I believe I’d have been dragged into the car, possibly raped or murdered and assaulted. I’d love to tell you loads more so I could keep you safe, too and will tell you that people getting into cars is described by crime experts as “going to the second spot”.
Conclusion
An “Aspie” with a special interest may have something worthwhile to teach you but I accept we can overdo it a bit but when you have reached your limit, just ask nicely if we can either let you talk by saying: “I’d love to tell you about little Susie who has learned to walk and talk recently”. I can’t promise I won’t revert to type but hope I won’t be so rude as to look uninterested or say so if I am but will try to listen patiently now I have twigged that this is part of making friends. Funny thing is, I know an “Aspie” guy whose interest is transport and oh! I get bored after knowing about leaky sumps, dodgy back ends, defective steering columns and expiring engines but does that mean I can transfer my boredom with his obsession to your boredom with mine? Well, to a point but not as much as you’d like so thank goodness for K as we cope with one-another well and for Lisa who just laughs and insists on making the coffee just in case I put something dodgy in it. Glad she can laugh with me about it. Just wait till she sees me making my phone cable into a noose!