There is no reality, there is only perception.
Think about Asperger’s Syndrome and High Functioning Autism, and what comes to mind? Pedantic people, difficult people, eccentric, lacking in the social graces, inflicting tsunamis of information about their favourite subject whether the listener want to hear or not, often isolated and living in their own little world. If you think that, you would often be right… but not always.
My name is Mark Pashley; I am happily married, have a good circle of friends and a good steady job history and I have Asperger’s. I am good socially and usually the only people who realise that I have Asperger’s are the ones that I tell. I do this on purpose, as I don’t like to be patronised, minimalised, pitied and shoved into a box that is made in another person’s reality.
People’s perception of what Asperger’s is governed by what they see, which forms their reality. Usually one experiences Asperger’s in the media, Sheldon out of the Big Bang Theory, a myriad of psychopaths and sociopaths out of the CSI and Law and Order franchises where we in the spectrum are a plot device and films such as Shine and Rain Man. Later they read up on the subject and this reinforces their perception about the reality of what Asperger’s is. Usually that reality is that those affected have a disability.
There is no reality, there is only perception.
So, how am I different? I dodged the disability bullet because I was brought up in a time where children who were different were not automatically medicated if they were different. I was brought up in a family who believed in me, but insisted that I act as part of the family, that I go to school with all of the crapiness associated with it. I knew I was different, and marked time until I was old enough to go out and look for a job.
What did I want my reality to be? I wanted a girlfriend, a social life and of course I wanted a job. I also slowly learned to tone down those aspects which drew people’s attention to me, while slowly honing my skills. I did not always succeed but slowly learned. One of the first things I had to learn was not to panic at my mistakes, and therefore learn from them.
By the time I received a diagnosis of Asperger’s some 15 years ago, I already had the skills that neurotypicals take for granted, therefore, I do not consider myself to have a disability. My reality was not about having a disability, because I never perceived myself to have one.
There is no reality, there is only perception.
If you are in the spectrum, or interrelate with someone affected by it; what is your reality and how do you perceive it?