Personal Stories, Part 2

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Sometimes I feel like my brain is a supercharged computer running on an operating system from a parallel universe where the software is powered by caffeinated squirrels and the hardware is made of spaghetti. My thoughts zip around like rogue apps, crashing into each other with all the grace of a three-legged giraffe. Every once in a while, I get a pop-up reminding me to reboot my social skills or defragment my attention span, but, hey, at least my inner algorithm knows how to randomly generate an impressive array of tangents!

Hyperfocus: When Your Brain Decides to Be a Superhero

The challenge is when you forget to eat or sleep because you’re too engrossed in alphabetizing of your collection of vinyl records by artist, then album order. But hey, at least you’ll be the most knowledgeable person at trivia night (but only as long as they ask you a question about a topic you know).

My Experience: Several years ago, a friend who knew I had an interest in the buildings described in the Old Testament, asked me to present a conference workshop about the Tabernacle and the Temple of Solomon. I admit I was skeptical because very few ideas that interest me seem to spark the same level of interest in others, including members of my own family. But I accepted the commission and presented the workshop to a rather surprising level of curious participants. Several months after that conference, I was still digging into the details of the Tabernacle in particular when it was suggested that I write a book about it. At first, I dodged the suggestion because I didn't want to add more "textual noise" to the subject, but when several additional people whose opinion I valued made the same suggestion, I buckled down and wrote it. It's highly detailed and very pedantic, but if you're curious, the book is available online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Routine: The Comfort of Predictable Patterns

For many of us, routines are like a warm, cozy blanket. Deviations from our set routines can be as jarring as discovering your favorite TV show has been canceled. Imagine your daily schedule as a well-rehearsed symphony, and any disruption is like a missed note in a crucial solo. It’s not that we don’t like surprises; it’s just that some surprises are more like “why is there a penguin in my living room?” The upside? When things go according to plan, life feels as smooth as butter on toast. When they don’t, well, let’s just say we’re adaptable and resourceful, like a cat trying to figure out how to get on a high shelf.

My Experience: It had never occurred to any of us in my family that we might have varying forms of autism. Growing up, I was usually just "that weird kid". I discovered relatively early that making personal lists of the things I needed to accomplish throughout the day (or within other various time scales) contributed greatly to my success in completion of those tasks. While I was serving in the Corps, one civilian friend described me as "regimented", which made sense given my job at the time. But she pointed out that it wasn't just about my career, it was about almost everything I did. I still perform routines. For instance, even after the recent pandemic, most of the people in my company still work from home rather than commute into the very nice office that the CEO had contracted to have built just before the pandemic hit. I still go into that office almost every day even though there are only a few of us that do. That's part of my routine: I can't really work well from home because there are more distractions there than at the office, one of which is the sultry siren sounds of PlayStation quietly calling name.

Literal Interpretations: The World Through a Different Lens

Autistic brains often take things quite literally. When someone says, “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse,” we might start contemplating the logistics of consuming an entire equine meal. Metaphors are like cryptic codes that need decoding, and we might need a bit of extra time to figure out that “breaking the ice” doesn’t actually involve a sledgehammer.

But this literal thinking also means we approach problems with refreshing clarity. While others might get bogged down by ambiguity, we often see things in black and white, which can be surprisingly effective in a world full of gray areas.

My Experience: My wife has taken to calling them "Darren-isms." These are experiences where I am clearly not thinking about things in the same way she is. For instance, some years ago while the youngest two kids were still in school, we needed to go to a bookstore to get a novel that my daughter required for one of her classes. While we were there, we passed a display of books containing classic and historic literature. Among the selections presented were novels I had read multiple times, like "Dracula", "Frankenstein", and "Huckleberry Finn", as well as selections from Shakespeare and Dante. Stuck in the middle of the historic literature selections like "The Federalist Papers" and commentaries on "The Collected Works of Benjamin Franklin" was a thin copy of Paine's "Common Sense". Taking a copy of it, I started tapping the spine of the book on my forehead trying to remember if I already had a copy of it stashed in my own library. When my wife asked me what I was doing, I told her, "I'm trying to remember if I have 'Common Sense'." Her reply was an ear-to-ear grin while saying aloud, "Well, not so far." It confused me because I knew she hadn't looked at most of the books in my personal library, and so wouldn't know if I had a copy of it or not. It took me a few moments to realize what I had said was not what she had heard.

Navigating life with autism can be like living in a world that’s always slightly out of tune, but it’s also incredibly vibrant and full of its own unique melodies. So, the next time you encounter someone who’s a bit different, remember that we’re all part of a grand, diverse orchestra, each contributing our own distinct notes to the symphony of life.

Other Articles in This Series:

• Describing the Autistic Experience [Article Link]
• The Aliens Living Among Us [Article Link]
• Personal Stories, Part 1 [Article Link]
• Why Did I Do This? [Article Link]