I suppose this is the most painful part of the detailed examination of the aspects of Asperger’s to write about because it isn’t flattering and it doesn’t exactly portray me in a good light as saying I’m bright and above average intelligence would do. However, in the interests of the honesty I’m about to discuss it has to be done if I am going to paint a realistic portrait of the Syndrome.
Those with comorbid conditions or who just happen to be what has been described as low functioning autistic may not be like this and if they are then it will be excused I hope and even laughed off and certainly more tolerated !!but for high functioning autistics bluntness and honesty and downright tactlessness are not seen as tolerable or endearing so why is this an oft’ repeated factor of relationships which brings them to ruin and stops them forming in the first place?
Firstly K told me about synaptic pruning.
This process carries on throughout children’s development. It causes huge upheaval in brain regions which develop very quickly and catch up with those already advanced or advancing. It’s responsible for the tantrums when your children get to the “terrible two’s” and then again in teenagers when to one-another you seem to be an alien species till you eventually reach friends as adults if you have provided a stable and loving upbringing and environment for your little ones.
In people with Asperger’s, so Professor Attwood told me, synaptic pruning happens later on and he had told K the same. The brain develops unevenly with academic prowess far in excess of emotional maturity especially in the high functioning. This is why there are the melt-downs and no other way is found to deal with and control emotions until very late on in life or until you finally realise why everyone has gone and you begin to figure out why.
The bluntness of children is socially acceptable
The bluntness of children is socially acceptable because it is realised that children are not yet developmentally advanced enough to be able to tailor their responses. I believe this is so their words don’t spear an adult through the heart like a dagger or like released ‘thought bees’ that don’t sting other people as they buzz into their consciousness via their ears. In bright adults this sort of honesty is like rubbing salt into a cut and is not appreciated because it hurts. Children are taught not to lie but learn to construct little white lies that skirt the truth or water it down like orange juice which would be horrible unless diluted until it may be a bit uncomfortable but palatable just the same. We serve up the real thing because of the literal interpretation of language as discussed elsewhere. “Mummy told me not to lie” so I don’t. I may at times be economical with the truth – Leaving out the nasty bits but not actually lying takes enormous social sophistication which I have tried to develop and do it when I have time to consider what I ought to do or when my faulty filters are working at their best but if I’ve had too much social contact (roughly more than a cupful) catch me when stressed or tired and I will forget. I cannot rely on my amygdalae for they can’t be trusted. Once more, all this is common to all but individual to each and everything is done and felt to an extreme of norm so an honest upright citizen is ultra honest and upright when they have Asperger’s. There are just no half measures.
K and I are further hampered by not seeing the looks
Looks of utter horror, disapproval and hurt on other people’s faces but both of us have learned that if there is this interminable silence following some remark of ours, that is not a good sign. The decision to “walk” is probably taken in that moment and the utter puzzlement as to why we haven’t had a visit from Mrs. Jones for ages passes us by. Since people don’t write back after each and every text or email or do make excuses when they don’t want to visit in the hope that after the twentieth one we will finally get the message instead of being so brutally honest:
“Quite frankly you are so rude and blunt that I don’t feel like getting my emotions lacerated to a pulp each time we meet that I don’t want to so I’ve ignored your messages, phone calls and emails since I didn’t want you to have hurt feelings but, there! You’ve asked for it so now you know”.
Oops! The sort of good news is that after putting the wrong social coins into the friendship fruit machine and coming up with lemons instead of cherries there does come a point where the realisation I have hurt someone by accident dawns on me after maybe a few hours.
Repairing the word damage
However, you can’t repair the damage done until you know there has been damage done. Sometimes I’ve imagined I have committed a faux pas when I haven’t but better to try damage limitation as soon as it’s suspected. Better still to be more solitary than other people but not totally so but not take on more than one can cope with. Once I realise I will text whomever has been affected and apologise and briefly say (probably better in an email and on the phone if one can establish contact)that I’m almost certain to have hurt them and if so I am really sorry but then not to go on too long about how mortified this has made me feel which it truly has but how this must have been for them. Also not to “talk at” them through nerves and anxiety in case they say something like:
“While I accept your bumbling apology, June, I’m afraid apologies are not going to cut it. Have a good life”.
That’s why it’s better to write, in the hope they won’t delete without reading. Sometimes I’ve had to say:
“Please don’t delete I’m trying to apologise”. Most people are magnanimous enough to accept this.
Nobody is perfect
Of course nobody is perfect and what about the people with stinky feet who are accepted even if the windows have to be opened in the depths of winter? What about the cadger who borrows but forgets to pay back or the woman with the pristine place who plumps up your seat cushions each time you visit the bathroom? Accidental rudeness isn’t an idiosyncrasy or a bodily problem which may afflict people who fastidiously wash their feet and change their socks. This is a mind problem and, yes, I can hear people saying that here’s another crank making up an excuse for unadulterated bad manners. It truly isn’t. I abhor bad manners in the form of not saying “please” or “thank you” and common sense, which isn’t, suggests that if knowing better (which I do) meant automatically doing better (which I do sometimes but not always) then I’d have done it by now. The same brightness that allowed me to learn this computer, live on my own, use the iPhone, travel to work on the London Underground and use an old typewriter on which there was no speech but just a ribbon and its qwerty keyboard, would have enabled me not to carry on hurting other people by accident.
Stop bumping into walls
Nobody would ever tell me to stop bumping into walls or learn to handwrite properly or know my colours but my mum and nan were forever on my case about being so tactless and counting to ten before I opened my mouth. I’m dependent on people at a much lower level of need than most people are or were at a much younger age than I ever was so as an intelligent person I know the value of making friends and influencing rather than alienating and losing people so that’s one reason I guess I prefer writing to socialising in person. It gives me time to think and to delete what I eventually work out is not appropriate to send, let’s them write back when they have time although this presents another problem borne of the conclusion that: “if you don’t right back now you’re being rude” but that’s a whole other discussion for another article.
Socialising is a mine field
Socialising is a mine field, full of linguistic booby traps and snares and I don’t do much of it partly because then I’d not have time to write but also for fear of hurting you and causing upset to myself because I have. We are essentially kind people who would do anything for anyone in need if we could help and when we can’t we wish we could – We being K and me. That’s the cruelty as well as the quirkiness inherent in Asperger’s – Not excuses but reasons for everything and everything has a reason and we have the choices as to whether to use our reasons as excuses, come out and explain ourselves as a way to combat misunderstanding or to hide away, saying nothing, learning nothing and progressing nowhere and guess what, folks? That is one of my hated “we all” and: “This applies to us all” observations.