Hello,
In my first comprehensive blog post for a while, I write to go through some of the worlds and scenarios experienced on a daily basis and how the contribution of Asperger Syndrome fuels the their appearance, management and operation. This post is indeed a precursor to the more detailed section on university life that forms part of my book, Asperger and Me. I hope you read this section with interest and take an understanding from it. Please get in touch through the ‘Contact page’.
Living through the world of Aspergers in Higher Education
As I commence fourth year studies, I reminisce about the way in which AS is presented to fellow students. Plenty has been asked in the past three years in Sheffield as to how I essentially view items in life compared to other students and it is more under preoccupation now that this is not always communicated in the best way. I realised towards the end of third year that I had become rather bitter about communicating with some people and came across stern, stubborn and without empathy, and for this I apologise. To you I hope this post will help you in the understanding and that I, and other people in similar situations sometimes have little self awareness on expression and presentation to other people. Some of your inquisitiveness to ask more inquisitively, and not patronisingly about AS has most definately been a good standpoint as despite the environmental difficulties imposed on the wider field of disability, I appreciate it can be very difficult to ask someone of the parameters of their condition.
General Context to Specific Interest Areas
Asperger Syndrome is more commonly associated with undertaking more intense specific interests and having remarkable attention to detail. For me, this has extended over the years to most forms of transport, geography including buildings. Most of the transportation agenda waned by the time I was fourteen, resulting in a less compulsive desire to memorise train timetables, or indeed be enthralled by a comparatively banal regional service to my local town. Equally, by fourteen there was less of a preoccupation to visit East Midlands Airport to view that same Sunday afternoon arrival from Jersey. But the specifics of going to that venue to see that particular vehicle transferred in other ways and today the specific interests have taken a different turn.
In recent years the transportation agenda has been mostly exclusive to cars – I’m in incessent petrolhead – the sort that does not know how to change anything mechanically but reminisces about certain specifics of cars. I was well known for example of ordering car brochures, reading them once and never again, only to read off the equipment specifications and where they were built. I also am a strong proponent of British Cars (despite the lack of nowadays) and have such a belated following to MG Rover vehicles. I source these specifics down to a routined way of thinking and understanding that comes with my AS diagnosis. I stand out in this regard for being so rigid. For example, no other car other than an MG Rover product was considered when buying a motor. Even with them going bankrupt 5 years ago and the vehicles getting ever old the aim at some point is to stick with idiosyncratic opinion and conform to the pipe and slippers beige leather/walnut dashboard environment that is so nice to sit in!
Where Town Planning as a ‘Specific Interest Area’ arised from…
A second specific interest has been in geography, maps and buildings, commencing a long time ago. Back in 1997 at the age of 8, when everyone else at the kids club was away on the playstation or getting sucked into some other technology, I was sat at the table producing large A0, A1 and A2 maps based on the AA mapbook system or intricately laid out place with every individual building, road, road sign, tree, gate, and so on created on the paper. The specifics within the maps in particular were churches, cathedrals, railways, airports and brands, reflecting major interests of the time and things I saw out of the window on random car trips to town. Towns and cities were based on real places but often with a change of name , and I am pleased to say some of these maps still exist – place names included “Teeds”, “Tollbridge”, “Halifax”, “Harborough” and so on. Halifax even had the National Railway Museum, miraculously moved from York.
The overarching interest in geography has extended from this initial base point of maps right way through the educational stages. I would not have been so rigid and focused, more so than most other students, to be able to say at age 12 that I wanted to do Town Planning at University. ….
And so thats what I went for….
I took a route towards Higher Education to serve my specific interest of the built environment, but also because it is the only option for full town planning chartership. This suits the no-nonsense approach that many might associate me with, cutting to the chase and not allowing for much wish wash on the ways that you can achieve something.
Delaying aspirations and support methods that brought them back
Through secondary education I had to delay those aspirations at times, as these stages brought toil and trouble through bullying, crushing of ones specific interest and commitment into a culture of sameness, being sheeps and lemmings, a ‘me-too’ attitude, among the other pupils that is. The methods of support in place for my AS stemmed from a long winded but successful process to obtain a Special Educational Needs Statement, and these support methods helped lift those aspirations out of the hole in the ground and keep them alive. For example, it supported ways for me to manage a special interest so that it would not detrimentally affect social relations with other people, as it had done previously by boring others to sleep or accentuating teasing. It also helped identify where my additional skills were, as previously these were unbeknown to me including articulation of handwriting and speaking in front of audiences. The characteristic of AS to have difficult self perception was very rife at this stage for me and partly overcoming this can be sourced to educational support methods.
Importance of Routine in the daily life at University and other Commitments
On the most part, despite the odd difficult piece of work or annoyance that I am only in for a few hours a week, I have thoroughly enjoyed town planning as a degree and have bolstered it with as many other commitments as can be enjoyed to my interests within the routine. Living with AS is all about routine, schedule, time commitment and dilligence. I deliberately work on a schedule of making my university week comparable to a full time working week, including getting on with the work in some ways, shapes and forms and even deliberately checking over and working on things to the day before the deadline. I assign a programme of work right from starting an assignment right until the end but often hand in items early to give knowledge that I have that leeway. By comparison, iff you leave things until the last minute there is no chance for a leeway. It is something that I thrive on and being on an ordinary University schedule makes me feel extremely lost, at times lazy and generally uneducated about the wider world. That does not mean I think that fellow students are like this, its just that I cannot suit myself to a slower pace of routine. Despite the packed schedule I hope to convey a dilligence to always be there for people in some capacity. This is part of the compassionate nature that is often forgotten in AS, to try and broaden out to everyone, sometimes manifested out of earlier social problems. I certainly believe that after having no one and establishing better social communication principles that I lead a better life with acquaintances. Cliques are something that depresses me but constitute as everyday life for some. But I did find that in a give or take scenario where we are supposed to look out for each other, my busy schedule was perceived to be ‘Chris is not bothering anymore’. Far from it, I just am a strong convenor/rigid to the give and take principles of social communication. I contact you, you then contact me. Not seen me for a while? Come and visit.This all seems dreadfully authoritarian but in reality if not present there would be plenty of chaotic scenes. Without some rule abidance and schedule I am hardly anything and that is being frank. The anxiety of working without this would be to the scale that I could not go to university. So it has to stay. What I and other people with AS ask kindly without arrogance is that others work around the schedule where possible.
Social Communication
This is the most reported characteristic of having AS and involves the ‘brick wall’ that most of us with the condition experience when concerning interaction with other people. I started off in primary school by not speaking to others, instead communicating through hitting people and sealing off parts of the room for my own use. I also assigned my own table and own computer printed table sign for example. Social communication was limited to specific interest areas, although there was no interaction as this would involve physically taking my toy trains or interrupting my path on the pretend runway for east midlands airport that I was planning to take off from. Both were no go areas. Extend 10 years after this into secondary education and the fundamentals of this still existed but basic communication was still there. But the era is compounded by neglect and isolation and is not favoured in the viewpoints of many people with AS. The time was compounded by an ignorance to realise that ‘difference’ is a virtue sometimes and that not everybody has to be the same.
How has University benefitted me and possibly others with AS?
For me, further and higher education was the getaway from the above thought process. Both were far more inclusive environments to the sociologies of difference and despite lots of work to improve services for disabled people, they allow you to be yourself more. At University there is an ability among others to respect my interests, which in turn improves my ability to respect theirs – another skill added. The closed bubble of University suits me because I can move away from aspects of social life that present anxieties and crucially specify ones that I feel comfortable with. University is beneficial for people with AS including me as it bolsters the leadership skills that enhance group situations that were often so difficult for many of us in previous education, and can still be troublesome. The problem for many people with AS is actually getting to University due to hurdles earlier on. I for example was one of less than 10 students on the spectrum at my whole University upon arrival in 2007/8. Now there are more but we are still talking less than 20. That is a grave concern and I share the plight of going through those difficulties. Many people with AS are incredibly intelligent at what they want to achieve and be interested in and they are often witheld from getting this far.
Additionally, gaining confidence of AS prior to going to University established another specific interest area around the research of autistic spectrum conditions and helping other people with a disability. This has now extended to the representation work that is familiar on this blog and is something I am fascinated and proud to work with. It represents a point where I am happy to have changed to the extent that I have the capacity to help other people out.
What remains a daily difficulty through having AS?
I am going to focus on the most specific of these issues, and they are:
- Taking conversation literally and struggling to adapt to change
- Sensory difficulties
- Trying to water down what I feel comfortable with.
1. The biggest ongoing problem for me with AS is taking conversation literally and struggling to adapt to change. This causes considerable anxiety and often over comparatively small items to other people. This is why there is so much rhetoric on others presenting a different sensory environment to people with AS so that it is more legible and less full of hurdles.
For example, the worst questions ever posed to me or indeed anyone with AS could be on the lines of the following:
- “Chris, could you put the paper there please?”
- “Chris, would you like to meet in the morning, lunchtime or afternoon?”
- “Oh we’ll see how we feel in the morning and I’ll text you as to when we want to meet up”
- During a meeting, after bringing all paperwork, through being efficient “we have got full copies for you to take away ….”
- “Did you have a good weekend Chris?”
These questions are of no use to someone with AS, they do not include many specifics, to incentivise the social communication that can sometimes be difficult with us. It is not that we are weak, or challenged in any way, we just require bolstering to kickstart initial conversation.
But ask me more rigidised questions, and the answers are far more legible.
- “Shall we say 2.30pm Chris?”
- “The weather was good this weekend wasn’t it Chris, did you go out on Sunday afternoon too?”
- “Chris, please can you put the Guardian on the table?”
- Email before meeting “Copies provided for the meeting attendees”
2. I have acute difficulty with noise, to the extent of kicking up much fuss over fire alarm faults in first year that caused psychological problems and wearing earplugs at most nightclub venues. Without the support of peers this can turn into a very difficult and anxious situation and people with AS, no matter whether acquainted or close to others, need to be recognised that they want reassurance in these situations. Walking off in a nightclub and leaving someone and their AS to deal with it is not comprehendable. Equally, the sensory difficulties are often comparable to the mindblock experienced in exams, you literally freeze and it can often extend as far as a panic attack.
3. The final point is raised in my conclusion, but there have been times in education where I am on undue pressure to cut back my ‘differences’ to fit in. I say that the way of being slightly bitter in third year at times was a way of fighting this back. I conclude by raising the following comment that I have often raised in presentations about AS to academics, students and professionals:
“Taking the negative issues out of the equation it is simply an absolute delight to recall past aspects of being a standalone figure in the class, the home, the street and other environments. Turn back the clock and I could not envisage any pride of having a behavioural problem, but now I find lots of the characteristics that define me as positive, not the generic person on the street as positive. A particular comfort zone is having old fashioned ways, itself manifested out of my AS. Here there is no chance of me retreating from the armchair, cup of tea in hand and the box set of Keeping Up Appearances being put to full use, in exchange of a hip life of being Mr ‘me-too’, watching the latest hit reality television nonsense and buying out any product with the letter i at the beginning. I am simply not like the latter, and instead prefer to blend idiosyncrasy with a slight hint of modern. I’ve only just got used to the idea of keeping up with fashions and at least consider myself as aware of cars and the music scene, house and chill out in particular which are certainly not backward. But that is crucially me and my ways in my world when appropriate that is surely something to treasure when there is so much pressure these days to be monotonous, and what the media or your peers insinuate you should be like.”
Thanks for looking,
Chris
Chrisadvisor 