Aspergers and Me
Einstein said I could believe everything a miracle or nothing a miracle. I had chosen “everything a miracle”, mostly because it was the bigger challenge in the world I witness here. My “everything” choice brought countless surprises, many inevitable and cataclysmic BOOMs to my insight . . . none more profound than this one . . .
Einstein said I could believe everything a miracle or nothing a miracle. I had chosen “everything a miracle”, mostly because it was the bigger challenge in the world I witness here. My “everything” choice brought countless surprises, many inevitable and cataclysmic BOOMs to my insight . . . none more profound than this one . . .
In December 2007, I was watching “Mozart and the Whale”, a movie about an Aspergers Support Group. Minutes into that movie I heard myself say, “She doesn’t have Aspergers; she’s like me.” I thought she was the Counselor until I didn't. I wish I had pictures of that illogicality registering real. It wasn’t defiance; I was not in denial. I was in shock. Dizzying pictures were streaming in as I rolled my eyes skyward questioning those who guard and guide
me.
Thirty years of missed diagnoses, ranging the gamut of the DSM, went screamin’ through my world. Seven years of my words flashed all around me, firing my mind into what became a light feeding frenzy. In the span of those wee seconds I jumped, nay, I leapt, from “Spiritual Teacher”, an Indigo wave, to Aspergers and the “Autism Spectrum.” That’s quite the leap. It’ll
take your breath away and so . . .
For months more I wrote, I recorded my forward march through the Kubler-Ross steps, the acceptance of “terminal diagnosis”. In my mind it was a terminal diagnosis. The thought that I fit the Autism Spectrum was for me a profoundly Shamanic death. Of course I knew I was not going to physically die. I also recognized that I’d spend more than a little time understanding why my death might be preferable. In truth, I had never considered, even as a remote possibility, my inability, much less my brain’s inability, to “process” anything. Understanding that likelihood made a macabre sort of sense of my life and that became my
understanding of regret.
The Aspergers diagnosis forced a different struggle with what I’ve known since I could know. I am different. The diagnosis showered me with pictures of my family trying to comprehend exactly what it means for them. The truth is I’m probably never going to be “neuro-typical”, never “like them”, it is just not going to happen, no matter how hard I try. Sanity found me in the echoes of my family and friends, laughing with me. They reminded me just how many times I’ve overheard myself being described, “She’s different.”
One more time I faced my own truth, I faced it in the “different” light of Aspergers. I literally had to rethink everything. And so I did. I reread, rethought, every word I had ever intended to publish. I had to read the words knowing I wouldn’t change a word. I had to read recognizing my words would prove the Aspergers diagnosis real for me and with me. That took me a minute which somehow has turned to years. Indeed, my words do prove that diagnosis real and I still wouldn’t change a word. I meant them then, I mean them now.
Whew.
Through all of those years, my perception of myself is and remains the same. You see . . . there was a man, an amazing man, whose diagnosis proved me real. He grinned at me in a world I thought only in my own reality, an imaginary world to everyone else. There he stood right there in front of me, the consummate teacher, laughing with me, “too slow”. I was fascinated, logically enthralled. He told me that I was Heyoka. He explained that I walk the Visionary Path and I walk it the way of the Muse. I can tell you all I didn’t just believe him; I witnessed us real.
There have been shining, electrifying, moments of insight in trying to understand the implications of my Aspergers diagnosis. Logically speaking, if the diagnosis is real for me, it is real with me. And so it is: “Heyoka”, as it was explained to me, is the “backwards” way. I think “backwards”. In the DSM they’ve labeled that Non-Neurotypical. My being on the “Visionary Path” is an accurate description, explanation, of “I’ve spent my life thinking in pictures.” And if you can trust anything, you can trust this, I write because I have to write, literally, calling or compulsion, mission or force, it’s what I do. It is the way of my muse.
me.
Thirty years of missed diagnoses, ranging the gamut of the DSM, went screamin’ through my world. Seven years of my words flashed all around me, firing my mind into what became a light feeding frenzy. In the span of those wee seconds I jumped, nay, I leapt, from “Spiritual Teacher”, an Indigo wave, to Aspergers and the “Autism Spectrum.” That’s quite the leap. It’ll
take your breath away and so . . .
For months more I wrote, I recorded my forward march through the Kubler-Ross steps, the acceptance of “terminal diagnosis”. In my mind it was a terminal diagnosis. The thought that I fit the Autism Spectrum was for me a profoundly Shamanic death. Of course I knew I was not going to physically die. I also recognized that I’d spend more than a little time understanding why my death might be preferable. In truth, I had never considered, even as a remote possibility, my inability, much less my brain’s inability, to “process” anything. Understanding that likelihood made a macabre sort of sense of my life and that became my
understanding of regret.
The Aspergers diagnosis forced a different struggle with what I’ve known since I could know. I am different. The diagnosis showered me with pictures of my family trying to comprehend exactly what it means for them. The truth is I’m probably never going to be “neuro-typical”, never “like them”, it is just not going to happen, no matter how hard I try. Sanity found me in the echoes of my family and friends, laughing with me. They reminded me just how many times I’ve overheard myself being described, “She’s different.”
One more time I faced my own truth, I faced it in the “different” light of Aspergers. I literally had to rethink everything. And so I did. I reread, rethought, every word I had ever intended to publish. I had to read the words knowing I wouldn’t change a word. I had to read recognizing my words would prove the Aspergers diagnosis real for me and with me. That took me a minute which somehow has turned to years. Indeed, my words do prove that diagnosis real and I still wouldn’t change a word. I meant them then, I mean them now.
Whew.
Through all of those years, my perception of myself is and remains the same. You see . . . there was a man, an amazing man, whose diagnosis proved me real. He grinned at me in a world I thought only in my own reality, an imaginary world to everyone else. There he stood right there in front of me, the consummate teacher, laughing with me, “too slow”. I was fascinated, logically enthralled. He told me that I was Heyoka. He explained that I walk the Visionary Path and I walk it the way of the Muse. I can tell you all I didn’t just believe him; I witnessed us real.
There have been shining, electrifying, moments of insight in trying to understand the implications of my Aspergers diagnosis. Logically speaking, if the diagnosis is real for me, it is real with me. And so it is: “Heyoka”, as it was explained to me, is the “backwards” way. I think “backwards”. In the DSM they’ve labeled that Non-Neurotypical. My being on the “Visionary Path” is an accurate description, explanation, of “I’ve spent my life thinking in pictures.” And if you can trust anything, you can trust this, I write because I have to write, literally, calling or compulsion, mission or force, it’s what I do. It is the way of my muse.
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