Personal Experiences I Live In a Small Gray Box A personal account about Asperger Syndrome By Colin Freeman

Hi, my name is Colin; I go to a social meeting for people who have Asperger's Syndrome. Asperger's Syndrome is part of the autistic spectrum; people with Asperger's have problems in communication, socialisation and imagination. No I'm not crazy or retarded, neither does having an autistic spectrum disorder mean that I act in a stereotypical way like you might have seen in people with low functioning autism.

In fact, the only difference between low and high functioning autism is IQ! That's it. The triad of impairments and traits in low and high functioning autism are the same, just on a different level, this is why it is also called "An autistic spectrum disorder" because the condition is not an all or nothing condition, but runs through a continuum, from low functioning autism (classic autism) to high functioning autism (Asperger Syndrome).

We all have a love of learning something, weather it is from books or learning from experimenting, many of us have an average or above average intelligence, and a particular special interest in a subject in which we excel at. Special interests may be things like cars, trains, computers and especially books. Some interests may seem very odd to many people, I have many interests that may seem strange, from cars and car parts, to tower cranes, lifts and elevators. It would take me far too long to explain what it is about these things I like; some times it can be the shape of an object or just how it works.

There are many positives and negatives to having Asperger's. The down side is that I don't like going out or socializing and feel very anxious when I'm in groups or with others I don't know. I like to think that I don't have any problems in communication, but many have commented that I sometimes loose track of conversation and jump from one subject to another, or start talking about my favourite interest without knowing, sometimes at great length.

I have been told that I seem to have problems in starting and ending conversations, especially on the phone, when people are trying to end the call to go off and do something, I don't take their hints and carry on with my special interest.

Sometimes, I may misread or misinterpret a situation and get confused about what was exactly meant by a comment or a set of instructions. Usually a very good guess would solve this problem for me. But if that fails, I find that if the confusion occurs with someone you know, it is usually better to ask the person to rephrase the sentence or question.

However, nobody ever felt good about admitting ignorance, and there is no difference with people with Asperger's syndrome, if anything it feels as if you are highlighting any problems in communication skills, and this takes a lot of confidence out of communicating with others.

I may use the phrase, "You say that in a way I don't understand." or "you use that word in a way I don't understand." Or something like that.

say this to denote I understood what was said, but misunderstood the way it was inferred. I like to think it is a nice way of asking someone who you don't know to rephrase the question or statement, with out having to feel stupid or awkward.

Actually this is quite common for people to misinterpret a situation because there are many ambiguous words in the English language. To overcome this people without A.S. use body language to regulate social communication and interpret what was exactly implied, but as some people with Aspergers have problems in reading body language, confusion often arises.

Not only is this embarrassing but also it could cause a lot of problems and misunderstandings, and getting your point across to rectifying the misunderstanding only seems to make things worse.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the social cues that come from body language that most people take for granted are not recognized by people with A.S. and so end up feeling very confused. It's like reading a letter instead of using a telephone, with a telephone you here tones in the callers voice that indicate whether someone is angry with you or laughing with you.

However, I have learnt to understand others by using my own form of psychology and can usually avoid such problems; however, this does not mean that this does not happen.

Sometimes, if I'm not concentrating on the conversation or I get distracted, I can end up starting a conversation on one point and end on another, or take some ones annoyance as a friendly jest, or the other way round.

One of the many good things about going to a group for people who have A.S. is that we not only start talking and sharing information about each others special subjects (something I am quite interested in anyway) but we will identify connections with each other through experiences or how to over come problems.

For example I know I "think in pictures", what this means is that to stop my self from being distracted from what I am saying I imagine a group of pictures rather like a "story board", each is a picture of what I am saying and can join one subject on to the next. How ever, many people including my self can be very distracted by extraneous sounds, lights or other little stimuli you might take for granted.

This has the effect of knocking out one or more of those storyboard pictures and can make some people quite literally speechless. It's like working from a script and dropping your script on the floor, all the pages of you script become mixed up and scrambled, and trying to collect your thoughts can feel rather like picking up and sorting out all those pages of your script, so this may make what I say sound very disjointed.

Some people, like my self, don't like a room full of talking people. I find it hard to filter out the background conversations and concentrate on the one I'm supposed to be listening to. I have always noticed this, even as far back at school and at college, so I always found it very hard (if not near impossible) to concentrate on class subjects.

It can sound a bit like listening to a MW (Medium Wave) radio station but the signal is mixed in with a foreign station, and every so often you lose track of (for example) the news on one station only to suddenly get Spanish flamenco.

I think that visual thinking (thinking in pictures) works for people who have A.S. (and incidentally people who are dyslexic) because it is a form of memory aide. I have even heard people recommend this as a technique to help improve memory.

Visual thinking can also be used not only in holding a conversation, but also in helping you to listen to someone who is talking to you in a room full of sounds, lights and other distractions. By making a storyboard in your mind of what someone has said, you can keep a record of major parts of a conversation, so if you do get distracted, you can always refer back to the storyboard to help fill in the missing part and will allow you to make a plausible guess as to what to say in response.

However, on the positive side of having A.S. is that I have many (sometimes-unusual) interests. One of my many particular interests is psychology, I love studying other people, and this has helped me to recognise what people really mean when they are talking and sometimes what people are thinking, even though I can't see their body language; quite literally as I am also partly blind so I miss out on a lot of body language anyway.

I also listen to talk based radio stations. I find it more enjoyable then music stations because of the interesting debates and discussions. I think this has help me to be more communicative as I have noticed I tend to copy certain formats and styles of communication and conversations from different presenters.

This is quite common and is known as echolalia, echoing the sound, styles or even memorizing whole quotations with great accuracy, sometimes to the point of impersonation. This is not meant to be rudeness, it is a way of learning new conversational techniques.

It is because some people with A.S. also have no sense of how to use body language, echolalia can even go as far as copying someone else's posture. This may result in whole visual and audio copying to try and compensate, or could be that they may of seen these actions, and carried them out because it seamed to be the right thing to do.

However this does not always work, and may even look odd. It is a bit like knowing a foreign language, but not knowing the grammar.

I also love making music. I can create any genre, how ever I don't seem to be able to copy exactly what I hear, no matter how hard I try, I tend to get distracted from what I am listening to and end up playing an anagram of the original. But I am not bothered by this because it means I can create music in the style of Bach or Beethoven and no one would ever guess I was making it up.

It is a bit like the echolalia I was talking about, only I seam to do it with music as well. I will listen to the music I want to copy, memorize important key parts of the music, rather like the storyboards I was talking about, but in this case using the shape of the music and the shapes of my fingers that I would need to use, and if I forget any part, I will create a plausible replacement.

I believe that the A.S. traits I have, have helped me to play in the way I do. If I did not have these traits, I don't think I would play in quite the same way, or not even at all. So despite the problems in socializing I still would rather be me with all my A.S. traits and eccentricities, after all if we were all the same, nothing new would ever be created because we would all think alike.

Going to a social meeting like Asperger East Anglia also gives people the chance of meeting others with A.S. and learn communication and socialisation skills in a friendly and understanding atmosphere, there is no pressure in attending or taking part in the activities, it is the getting out and meeting people that is the important part.

As I have mentioned before, I don't like going out or meeting other people, however I have been going to Asperger East Anglia since 19th of September 2002; and I have only missed one session. I actually look forward to going. I still feel uneasy and anxious at first, however when I get there and start meeting friends I have met before I start to feel more at ease.
It is a nice feeling to (for once) be my self and not feel that people are thinking of me as weird or odd in some way, and that I'm not being judged by what I say or do. So we all except each other as we are, so socializing becomes easier; well for me anyway.

This does not mean that I now like meeting people any more then I use to, I just find it easier to socialize with people with A.S. then I do with other people. How ever, I do go out more. I would wander around the city with a camera, take pictures of the city, and take them home as if to say, "I went out to day, and this is where I went and who I met".

Some times, we would have communication skills games, this is not as bad as it sounds and actually, it is quite a laugh. Although you might at first think of such groups as being austere and very formal, a bit like an A.A. meeting (Aspergers Anonymous), "Hello my mane is Colin and I have Asperger's syndrome."

Asperger East Anglia Social Group does exactly what it's name says, a social group, but not just for people with A.S. but also for others with PDD (Pervasive Developmental Disorders), it's a chance to meet other people and the chance to socialise, make friends and a just to be your self with out feeling out of place. Usually there is an explosion of spontaneous, eccentric humour.

However, it can be a great place to share information, swap books (another favourite interest) as well as discuss issues such as how to deal with a communicative or social problem through role-play.

Many people who have known me for a long time have said I have changed for the better and become more accepting of my differences. So although Asperger East Anglia and the social group does not clame to cure Asperger syndrome (and some would say that they would rather not as they see it as being part of their personality), Asperger East Anglia helps in providing help and support in making friends, providing advice in getting jobs and training.

As a result I've become more proud of my personality and not ashamed of being different, or as others would see me as being odd. Because if I am odd then those who say this are also odd for being narrow minded.