What Is Aspergers?

What Is Aspergers?

Something I get asked from time to time. It's difficult to answer verbally. I do try my best to give a good reply but often feel I never explain it well enough as there is so much to explain and recollection is a a big weakness of mine, so I thought I'd sit down this evening, take my time and think about how I would go about explaining it as concisely and clearly as I can in an attempt to write this, my very first blog.

So what is Aspergers? Basically it is a type of autism (a neurological condition where signals to the brain are affected by a difference in brain structure. Aspergers differs from low functioning autism in that it doesn't come with the profound learning difficulties, although there can be some learning difficulties (At 5 I had  speech therapy for a few years as my speech was very poor but I could read books before I started school. Also, I got put back a year when I changed school at 8 as they said I was struggling with my schoolwork but the school then put me back up after 3 months because I would bombard my new teacher with facts. (If in doubt just hit people with lots of boring trivia and they will get rid of you post-haste) and people with this type of autism usually have an average to above average IQ, but there are many similarities in both types of autism with sensory overload and also traits and behaviours.

Why is the autistic brain different? As you may be aware, the brain relies on intricate wiring to process and transmit information. (The human brain has thousands of synaptic connections formed from about 100 billion neurons) Through research it was discovered that in the autistic brain this wiring is faulty, which causes a misfiring in the communications between our brain cells. (It's not that we are short of wiring in the brain that affects this misfiring but too much wiring). What effects does this cause that's different from any other brain with the required wiring? People with Aspergers have trouble processing sensory stimuli. What this means is that we find it difficult to shut out all the different sounds, lights, smells, tastes and sensations to our skin like everyone else can as they can concentrate on what they want to hear, see etc. With people with Aspergers everything that goes on around us, our brains try to take in instantly and it can cause an information overload if there is too much sensory stimulation.

When that starts to happen adrenaline courses through the system and we experience that fight or flight scenario that your body produces when you feel threatened. It is anxiety which will lead to a full blown anxiety attack. As a child I would have many meltdowns, lashing out and hitting and kick walls, tables etc in frustration if I couldn't get away from a situation that made me feel uncomfortable. For instance, on my very first day at school I couldn't take in all the new voices and faces and all the hustle and bustle that went with excited children. My poor teacher (also just starting school, her first day in the job) was in tears trying to control me because I wanted out the class and she made the mistake of locking the door bringing on a major meltdown that lasted for hours. Her legs and arms were covered in bruises as she tried to stop me hurting myself as I went all Chuck Norris on that door trying to get out. Thankfully now I recognise when I'm feeling anxious, I know when to just get up and leave a situation. Plus I've taken medication for years to help with this. (I get the good drugs off the Doctor). So don't think of me as being rude if I ever get up in your company and walk out of somewhere where's there too much people and noise, you're not a boring bastard, honestly, I'm just trying to relieve the torture going on in my head. Occasionally when I have days where I am bombarded by stimulation wherever I go, and my day has no reprieve, I get to a point where my brain goes into a kind of fog where everything seems blurred, colourless, my reactions very slow as if time has slowed down for me alone and all the sounds bearing down on me merge together into one single white noise. I don't know if it's my mind protecting itself but it's a really horrible experience and I end up with some blinding headaches. 

What other effects does this spaghetti wiring have on the Asperger's mind? Poor memory skills. I can remember vast amounts of information on things that I really enjoy but forget what I or someone else is talking about in seconds. (Often I can forget what I intend to say when I'm in the middle of a sentence and playing some music on my phone and throwing out some heinous shapes won't even cover the most awkward silences that follow on from doing that. I know, I've tried). When making phone calls I very often write down like a little script what I intend to get across to the person I'm calling so that I don't forget some important details as I frequently do. I forget people's faces and names if I haven't seen them for a lengthy period of time but never the voices. I often forget to go to appointments, fill in forms in time, forget to pay bills on time which has caused me all sorts of financial hardship at times.

Another effect of Aspergers, a very big one that can make the difference between having an okay existence and living a life of terrible loneliness is your ability to communicate well and having any kind of rapport with people. Quite often with the noise etc, poor memory skills, poor concentration and finding it difficult being in new places and with people you're not used to, it is very easy for someone with Aspergers to withdraw themselves mentally from conversation. You go into your shell. It can also be difficult to interpret facial gestures or tone of voice so this can throw you. Then there's also the difficulty of understanding people's emotions when you don't even understand your own. Why is that person angry because I said that? A question I ask myself frequently as my dreams of becoming a diplomat disappear in a puff of smoke. Why is that person crying, laughing, shouting? It can be hard to work out for the Asperger mind.

Another thing that can prevent social interaction is trust. I think this affects many people who feel excluded in some way, not just people on the autistic spectrum. When you've been called a weirdo, or slow, or stupid, or anti-social or physically attacked because you don't fit in growing up, you lose your trust of people, you feel hated by everyone until someone manages to break through to you by showing you respect and kindness, taking their time to listen without judgment to what you have to say. I'm at my most sociable, talkative and open when I meet someone like that because they make me feel comfortable, and I was lucky enough to meet someone who I was with for 19 years who made me feel like that, she turned me from an angry, frustrated mess into a very placid and easy going man and I know if I hadn't met her, I wouldn't be here today. Just because we're not great talkers, seem awkward, maybe seem a bit shifty because we can't keep up with what you're saying or finding it difficult to look at you as you're talking, or we may have expressionless faces, doesn't mean we don't have all the same things going on in our heads that you have going on in yours, we do have emotions, feelings, want to have friends, want to be respected and loved and enjoy our life. All those things are just more difficult for us to obtain as we're hindered in a way.

I think I'll finish there. There are a lot more difficulties associated with Aspergers/Autism like poor balance, co-ordination, concentration, focus; also the obsessive side, need for routine and stims but I can maybe write about them in another blog if anyone is interested, this one is getting a bit long winded but hopefully it explains a bit about how Aspergers affects someone and how it interferes with social interaction. Hopefully. 🙏 (Please forgive me if any of it seems clumsy and difficult to understand).