As I’ve said before Aspergers can’t be generalized. Everyone who has it displays different symptoms, and only on extremely rare cases do you find some who displays them all. I’ve found an article on wikipedia.org that does a fair job of describing this. But for those who are not at all familiar with the terms used to describe an autistic spectrum this post will be made as simple as it can get.
To the left you have an image of a plastic model of a human brain. How this chunk of neural network really works still boggles the minds of even our brightest scientist. But the basics are mapped pretty well at this point. It’s even considered common knowledge to know that the left side of the brain is responsible for logic skill and maths, while the right side of the brain is responsible for images and emotions.
And in 99 out 100 people the right side of the brain is the dominant part, you think in images and video, you feel what you felt back when you experienced what is now just a memory. Try to imagine a person for whom the reverse is true. Where logic dominates emotion, and memories aren’t relived in your mind, just simply remembered. Where images are replaced by words, a mind where the word “bed” does not give an image of a bed but only the word spelled out in your mind. This is my definition of Aspergers. And this is an image of my brain compared to yours.
Not a pretty sight, a haystack of criss-crossing neurons all going to places they’re not supposed to. And now imagine trying to use a brain like this to make sense of this world which is full of emotions and expressions coming from a dominant-right-brained world.
It’s no wonder Aspies often pick up acting as a way of life, a way of fitting in where we wouldn’t be accepted if we simply were ourselves. And it’s no wonder we sometimes get so exhausted from this that we shut ourselves off from the rest of the world for several days as we recharge. Our ability to interact emotionally seems limited only because we are unsure of how to display it physically. But we have emotions just like everyone else. And every time we’re picked on at school, denied a job, or discriminated because we’re logical instead of emotional, it hurts. And this is why most of us eventually give up and stop trying. Our uphill battles are most of the time more like climbing a mountain that’s been sanded smooth. I worked full time for 5 years without pay before I caved in, so I know from experience that this is true.
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