The Art of Finding a Therapist

As always, names are changed-- in this case, abbreviations are used for my good therapists, and mischievous nicknames for some pretty bad therapists.

"Dr. L. would have some good advice for me on this," I often say to myself when I am having a difficult moment.

But then I remember that I am no longer working with Dr. L. 

An undisclosed medical condition forced Dr. L. into sudden retirement in June, and after six years of working with him-- the longest I have worked with any therapist-- I found myself having to find someone else.

I have been to several shrinks since age eleven. The past thirty years of on-and-off therapy have taught me some valuable lessons, not the least of which is that finding a good therapist is an art. In a sea of "just okay" and bad shrinks, I have had three terrific ones, including Dr. L. I started working with a new therapist, Dr. P., in June, but I'm considering looking for someone else if something doesn't click in the next couple months. She is nice and open-minded enough, and in the beginning I was feeling optimistic about her. However, I have since begun to feel that things aren't clicking as well as I hoped they would. For one thing, I am not convinced that she is intimately familiar with the nuances of autism, particularly in terms of what it generally looks like in cis women*. For another, I find that she often misses my point. Plus, she will often ask me a question right after I say something that contains the answer that she is looking for. For example, I might tell her that I have known somebody for twenty years, and two seconds later she will ask, "How long have you known this person?" It makes me feel like that she isn't listening, or at least isn't completely processing what I tell her, let alone appreciate where I'm coming from.

What was great about Dr. L. is that he knows what autism looks like, including in cis women*. Unlike an alarming number of the psychological community, he knows it is a varied, colorful, complex, and nuanced spectrum, well beyond the stereotype of train-spotting, hyperliteral, STEM-genius cis men. In fact, on the day that I first met him, he said that he knew after speaking to me for about a minute that I was neuroatypical-- he has that kind of radar for autism, picking up on more subtle, less stereotypical cases like mine. After talking to him for about ten minutes, he also commented, "What I am hearing is someone who has experienced a great deal of loss." These comments clearly reflected someone who is highly knowledgable about autism as well as someone who quickly picked up on a common denominator in the stories I related. 

Dr. L. was also good at validating my feelings while trying to help me sort through them. Sometimes I would tell him a story about a memory from my teenage years in the 1990s that had come back to haunt me, and I would say, "I feel like even among the autism community I have stories about traumatic interactions that are really unusual." He would tell me, "Believe me, this isn't anything I haven't heard before from an autistic person" and he would elaborate. You name the esoteric experience, he's heard about it at least once and often has some great insight into it. Sometimes, he would also ask me very disarming questions that would make me rethink my perspectives on certain issues. After getting to know me, it was also easier for him to contextualize any new information I gave him.

And finally-- and this is not a trivial issue-- Dr. L. laughed at my weird, gallows sense of humor. And that's important.

Aside from the importance of finding a therapist who understands your situation, it is important that this person is interested in little anecdotes about something fun you did over the weekend and appreciates your sense of humor. After all, if you're working with a therapist once a week, you are not going to have something "bad" to talk about every week-- sometimes not even for months at a time. Why should you? And being able to have everyday discussions with and laugh with your shrink is important. It helps them to see the whole person, and not just where things aren't working. Plus, it helps you feel more comfortable working with them. 

I have had only two therapists besides Dr. L. who I really clicked with. The first one was Dr. F., whom I saw during my senior year of high school. He was the second shrink I had been to, after my shrink that I saw in elementary school whom I have since dubbed Dr. Bonehead (more on him in a bit). After the first or second session together, he commented, "You're a very intense person." Just like Dr. L., he spotted a common denominator right away. The other one, Dr. G., was someone I saw in my late twenties when living in New York City. Like Dr. F. and Dr. L., she was able to appreciate where I was coming from and help me to understand my feelings. She helped me to come to terms with a painful personal loss of two friends who had recently ghosted me (this was in 2008, one of the worst years of my adult life).

Dr. P. doesn't seem to be fitting all of these requirements. She enjoys listening to my anecdotes and laughs at my jokes but, as I've said, I'm not convinced she fully appreciates just what autism is and can be, and I feel her listening skills leave something to be desired. I don't think she's a "bad" therapist, but she might not be a good fit. I have had some "just okay" therapists as well as some awful ones, and I want to share a few stories to help my readers understand just how clueless and even inappropriate (nothing sexual in my case; don't worry) they can be, and that there's nothing wrong with looking for someone else if the shrink you're seeing doesn't seem to be helping. To make things easier to follow (and more amusing), I have given each of these therapists a mischievous nickname:

Dr. Bonehead: My first therapist, whom I saw between 1992-1995, ages 11-14. Nobody knew what autism was in the '90s beyond the Rainman stereotype, so I wasn't diagnosed. Dr. Bonehead meant well, but he didn't understand me at all. He told me I overreacted to the chronic bullying I experienced, he analyzed things that had no deep meaning, and he often expressed shock at my gallows sense of humor. And he seemed to think a good "cure" for my social deficits was to sit two feet away from me on the couch instead of sitting on the other side of the room. Hey, "normal" people would feel a little uncomfortable, but since I wasn't "normal," I guess he thought the answer was to throw me in the proverbial deep end and hope I'd swim. Oh, and he once told me my hair was sexy. While I don't think he "meant" anything by it (he had three years in which he could have touched me, and he never did-- not even a harmless pat on the shoulder), it was still inappropriate and, sadly, reflective of the culture back then when it was considered okay for thirty-something-year-old men to "compliment" adolescent girls like that. Again, I don't think he was trying to do something inappropriate; I think he was just clueless-- in many ways.

Dr. Uh-Huh: I saw this guy in my late twenties, in Brooklyn, for a few months before I started seeing Dr. G. I would tell him stories and he would just go, "Uh huh. Uh huh." I would ask him for some insight, and he would just shrug. Brilliant guy.

The Drama Queen: I saw her in Boston for a few months in 2014. She was inordinately convinced that I was harboring a repressed memory, which is just absurd because my episodic memory is better than most people's (Dr. L. said he has only worked with one other person in 45 years with a memory like mine). I have no trouble remembering traumatic experiences either, so I don't know where she was getting this. She also insisted that certain things in my life-- such as some drama in my extended family, which only came up because she actually had me make her a detailed family tree for some reason-- had a significant effect on me when I knew damn well it didn't. The family drama involved relatives I barely knew, and while I felt bad for my parents, who were at the receiving end of it, it had very little to do with me. These kinds of assertions felt like gaslighting. Additionally, The Drama Queen was Jewish, and she started asking personal questions to ascertain if I was "really" Jewish (that is, was my mother "born" Jewish? Nope, she converted-- I could see the wheels turning in her head when I revealed that). This is not just inappropriate, but irrelevant. Oh, and when I told her I was going to see cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker at an event to promote his new book, she said, "Maybe we can go together." Uhhh, that's a hard "no." Psychologists aren't supposed to interact with their patients outside of a professional setting. 

The bottom line is that finding a good therapist is an art. It takes time, and sometimes you need to try several before you find one that clicks. There is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes they aren't a good fit, and sometimes they are just bad. And if you, like me, are a woman on the autism spectrum-- which sadly isn't very well-understood in much of the psychological community-- it can be like finding a needle in a haystack. My father said it best-- finding a good doctor of any kind, but particularly a therapist, is like trying to find a good mechanic. You can take your car to several mechanics who say, "I don't know what to tell you." And then one day you take it to someone else who takes one look and says, "Oh, I know what's going on."

Sometimes, you just need to keep looking when your therapist isn't working out. And there's nothing wrong with that.

*This is a very in-depth topic, and well beyond the scope of this blog post. But let's just say that even a lot of the psychological community remains ignorant of the different presentations of autism.

Ass-Backwards

I've been thinking lately about how how often society gets things ass-backwards.

Everyday people, such as parents, teachers, and peers come to conclusions about invisible differences and disabilities for ridiculous-- sometimes backwards-- reasons. That is, they mistake genetics for environment, or even effect for cause. Even psychologists and other experts have done it as well. 

Mistaking Genetics for Environment

In the earlier part of the 20th century, psychologists "blamed" autism on "refrigerator parents", particularly mothers. These mothers who were perceived as cold and distant were implicated in making their children cold and distant-- a description that is, of course, rooted in profound ignorance and narrow-mindedness of what is considered "normal." 

We now know that autism has a strong genetic component, and that whatever traits these kids might have are not the result of failing to bond with their parents. In fact, the bond between autistic kids and their parents might be strong. It's just that autistic parents tend to produce autistic kids-- because of genetics. And putting most or all of the blame of the mother is clearly rooted in sexism. Women in particular are expected to be what I call a "charismatic, eight-armed woman", happily tending to multiple people's needs. In my experience, people don't expect this of men. So if a woman is not acting like the social octopus that people expect, she might be more likely to be seen as "cold" and "distant"-- the mythological "refrigerator mother." Even if the father has the same traits, he might not be labeled as a "refrigerator parent."

Mistaking Effect for Cause

I also remember reading somewhere* about the infamous "distant fathers" and "overbearing mothers" of effeminate boys who grew up to be gay. Back when psychologists pathologized homosexuality, many believed that the father was not spending enough time with his son and the mother was spending too much time with him, thus making these boys more effeminate. There have been many cases of "distant fathers" and "overbearing mothers" in the cases of effeminate young boys who grew up to be gay (though I suspect this is less true today), but it is not the cause but the effect. If I remember what I read correctly, it seems that these fathers counted on raising a son with whom they'd bond over football or mechanics, but instead had a son who liked to play with dolls. In a world that puts strong emphasis on masculinity in boys and men, disappointed fathers didn't know how to bond with their son and ended up not spending much time with them. The mothers ended up essentially filling the role of both parents.

I have experience with the ass-backwards mistaking effect for cause in my own life. When I was growing up, I hardly watched anything that was animated until I saw the first two Back to the Future films at age nine. Even then, I still preferred watching animation and that is what I almost always settled on while flipping through the channels. Between my social difficulties and my problems comprehending some live-action movies and plays-- that is, to the point where sometimes I literally had no idea what the story was about-- my parents (especially my mother) blamed my preference for animation. They believed that I was not challenging my brain enough and so my comprehension of social situations and movies was underdeveloped.

They got it ass-backwards.

As it turns out, many people on the autism spectrum, as well as people with prosopagnosia-- kids and adults-- have a strong preference for animation. Why? Well, it's simple. You get more information about a character and his motivation when he is a brightly-colored individual who makes broad gestures and is easier to differentiate from others. This is especially critical when you, like me, are a prosopagnosiac in addition to being autistic and have a hard time learning new faces. To someone on the autism spectrum-- especially if that person has prosopagnosia-- characters in live-action movies might seem like faceless naked mole rats in drab clothing. Is it any wonder then that Back to the Future was what made me more open to watching live-action movies? Doc Brown, with his wild hair, brightly colored clothing, and broad gestures is much easier to read than many movie characters.

So the short answer is that my preference for animation was the result, rather than the cause, of my social problems and difficulties following certain movies. 

I think this type of ass-backwards reasoning is finally starting to change and is being seen for the nonsense that it is. Please keep this in mind when trying to understand your autistic kids-- or adult friends.

If anybody has a similar story about this type of ass-backwards reasoning, particularly as it relates to autism, let me know in the comments!

*I thought it was in Judith Rich Harris's The Nurture Assumption, but I can't seem to find the reference in the book. Maybe it was in something that Steven Pinker wrote. If anybody knows what I'm talking about, please leave a comment.

Autistic People Who Join Cults

I was recently listening to a podcast about the Heaven's Gate cult and its members' mass suicide. For anybody living under a rock or who wasn't yet born in 1997 when this was all over the news, Heaven's Gate was an offshoot of Christianity that taught its followers that the cult's leader, Marshall Applewhite, was the second coming of Jesus. They believed that in order to get to "the next level" (heaven, if you will), spaceships would come to Earth and pick up the followers for a trip to celestial paradise. But then when the comet Hale-Bopp was discovered, Marshall Applewhite came to the conclusion that the spaceship that was to escort his followers to paradise was trailing the comet. It would not land, and the only way to board the ship was to "leave one's vehicle"-- one's body. That is, commit suicide, so that one's soul will be sent to the ship.

On March 26, 1997, one of the surviving members anonymously called the police to report the mass suicide (he came forward later about his identity). The next morning, the story was all over the news. The Heaven's Gate website had so much traffic that morning that people often had to keep hitting "refresh" several times before the page would load.

I was sixteen years old when this story was in the news, and I was simply floored by it. How could anybody believe that committing suicide would send their souls to a spaceship trailing a comet? I remember that my dad commented that it's too easy to lead people down a path, that it's how Hitler was successful in getting people to buy into the Nazi ideology. Now that I'm older and have read a bit about evolutionary psychology, I have a better understanding why. There is no limit to what people will believe if a charismatic leader knows which buttons to push. Scientists, such as Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins, have hypothesized that this tendency to believe what your parents, tribal elders, or some other authority figure tell you helped our ancestors survive in the African Savannah, a setting that was rife with predators, disease, and rival tribes who would fight with you over resources. People who were skeptical of things like, "Don't swim there. You could be eaten by a crocodile" were less likely to survive and reproduce. And these people's brains didn't differentiate between the aforementioned sound advice and something absurd, such as, "If you don't sacrifice an animal for the gods, there will be a terrible famine."

Evolution, of course, did not account for the fact that by 1997, a huge portion of the world would be living in houses, have plenty of food at their fingertips, and not be in situations where there would be predatory animals that could eat them. In 1997 (and in 2019, of course) the human mind still carried baggage of its evolutionary history. This inexorable drive to believe the absurd claims of a charismatic alpha male and to cave into peer pressure was alive and well. It is one of those things that makes us unique as a social species.

That's why it shocked me when I recently found out that one of the members of Heaven's Gate was autistic (and to clarify, he had left the group itself before the mass suicide, but still maintained the beliefs. When he learned about the suicide, he killed himself so he could join his friends on the ship). Autistic people are less likely to follow leaders, to cave into peer pressure, to do the social dances that most of us take for granted. In fact, many of them will just see these dances as utterly absurd and ridiculous. What, then, would drive an autistic person to join Heaven's Gate?, I wondered. But after thinking about it for about five minutes, I realized that in a way it did make sense that some autistic people might join a cult. They're the exception, not the rule, of course, and they probably join for different reasons than their neurotypical peers. And when I generated my hypothesis as to why, it just saddened me.

I can't speak for the guy who joined Heaven's Gate, and in case his family is reading this, I don't want to upset them by speculating about the guy's environment (and I don't want to name him either, even though it is of course easy enough to Google). But in general I can see what might lead someone on the spectrum down this destructive path. I can see it from examples in my own life.

Think about it: You go through your entire life hearing the same damned mantra from well-meaning but tragically misguided family, teachers, and peers, "You don't know how to interact with people." "You don't get it." "You're inappropriate." "You make people uncomfortable." And so forth. You try hard to figure out the social rules, but they are not written in stone and are subject to change upon context. You deal with unbelievable anxiety. You are unintentionally gaslit by the same people, who tell you that you misinterpret friendly teasing as bullying (even though you know damn well that it's bullying), that someone who said something bitingly personal and nasty was "just frustrated and wasn't trying to be mean" (but you knew damn well that he was), and who even dismiss egregious behavior by friends as normal. Your life consists of internalized psychological warfare, and eventually don't trust your own perception in regard to the most mundane, everyday things. It's when I consider this that I realize that yes, of course, a cult might seem like it makes sense to someone in that position.

In cults-- or even some sects of mainstream religion, for that matter-- the rules of social interaction are highly regulated: Don't use certain words; eat this, not that; eat this meal at this time and say these words before the meal; don't interact in a particular way with the opposite sex until you're married; have children by this age; and so on. Or in the case of Heaven's Gate, sex is evil, so sterilization is recommended. Again, I don't want to speculate about the autistic member of Heaven's Gate in particular. But many of us on the spectrum are asexual on top of all the other crap that makes our lives difficult. Imagine, too, being told that your lack of (or relative lack of) interest in dating, sex, or both is wrong, unhealthy, a mental illness, etc. Even if people don't tell you these things, you might feel left out if everyone you know is running off to get married and have kids. Join this group, and you won't feel left out when you're the only person who isn't passionately screwing somebody. Not only will you not only not be expected to get laid, you'll be expected not to get laid.

The more I thought about the aforementioned as possible factors that would make an autistic person join a cult, the more sense it made. Although a vulnerable autistic person is in a much better situation if they're coming of age in 2019, in 1997 the Heaven's Gate member was living in what I call the Final Decade of the Dark Ages for autistic people, an era in which to most people "autistic" meant you didn't talk, and "Asperger's" was a virtually non-existent word. Not to mention, it was also an era in which an autistic person's eccentricities and difficulties were dismissed as "behavioral problems". I am sure that a lot of people are tempted to say, "Oh, you know what? Autistic people are just more gullible." Yeah, okay. Some of them are, about things like a kid trying to screw with you by sarcastically saying, "You're soooo cool!" (stuff like that never got past me, however; my radar was always finely-tuned to such things). But in terms of believing cult leaders? No. A lot of neurotypical people join cults, and let's not forget that many neurotypical people believe in some of the more absurd claims of mainstream religion, such as that a 600-year-old man built an ark that could fit two of every animal species on the planet. So no, please don't try the "autistic people are more gullible" crap to explain away why they might join a cult.

Thinking about these things made me angry, angry enough to put my fist through a wall. It's only been in the past decade really that mainstream society is starting to see the hurt they've inadvertently caused autistic people even when they meant to help them. It's only now that they're seeing the anxiety they cause when they try to make autistic people adapt to the neurotypical world, but never vice-versa. The story about the autistic Heaven's Gate member is really heartbreaking, but in hindsight it's not surprising.

How IQ Tests Hurt Kids with Asperger's Syndrome

Sometimes I really hate IQ tests. There is a good reason why kids typically are not allowed to see their results. A high score can go to their head, and a low score can make them feel like they've been given a life sentence. 

Before I continue, let me clarify something: I'm not one of those people who say that IQ tests are meaningless. They're not. Steven Pinker said it best in his book The Blank Slate:

People who say that IQ is meaningless will quickly invoke it when the discussion turns to executing a murderer with an IQ of 64, removing lead paint that lowers a child’s IQ by five points, or the presidential qualifications of George W. Bush.

If someone gets a high score on an IQ test, it is most likely accurate. You can't cheat on an IQ test and you can't fake your way through it. On the other hand, if you get a low score, the test might not be telling the entire story and can even be misleading. You know what happens: a child gets a low score on either the verbal or non-verbal sections of an IQ test (or both), their ass gets slapped with a label, and their parents told the kid has a learning disability. Good thing the kid doesn't overhear this conversation because, like I said, it can feel like a life-sentence. And it really can be tough for kids with Asperger's Syndrome because it is very common for them to score very high on the verbal portion but average or lower on the non-verbal portion (or vice-versa).

I first saw my IQ scores when I was in 5th grade (age 11). At the end of school one day, I was called to the principal's office where I was handed a thick envelope, which I was told to give to my parents. "Your parents are expecting this," said the principal. Oh, how extraordinarily naïve to think that you can give an 11-year-old kid a thick envelope to give to their parents and expect them not to intercept it. It's an especially naïve expectation if the kid knows that they're different and also knows that a lot of people, including their parents, think they're something wrong with them. And especially if the kid knows that their mother is planning on sending them to a psychologist. 

So, yes, of course I opened the envelope the minute I got home. It was a psychological evaluation from when I was in 2nd grade (age 8 years, 6 months), with an IQ test included. Reading the psychological evaluation-- which in retrospect described all the signs of the then-unheard-of Asperger's Syndrome-- was traumatic, but that's another blog post altogether. I saw the IQ scores-- my verbal was measured at 136, but it was my non-verbal of 102 that upset me. Hell, it wasn't even the number that upset me. It was declarations like this:

On an additional measure of visual motor functioning, Julie was asked to copy geometric designs. Again her weakness in the non-verbal area was evident; Julie scored from 6 months to 1 year behind her age mates.    

Okay, seriously? My visual motor skills were 6 months to a year behind my peers? I was drawing better than most of my peers. In fact, kids often came to me to ask me to draw things for them! Do you think someone with poor visual-motor skills could have drawn this at age 8 years 6 months?:

Yes, let's talk about my spatial reasoning abilities here. While it's true that I was behind in learning to tie my shoes and learning gross motor skills like learning to ride a bike (I didn't learn the former until age 7 and the latter until age 9), my visual motor skills were clearly superior in other ways. Look at this drawing. This isn't just a straight-up-and-down character that most kids that age draw. This character has one leg in front of the other, executing a pose that has some attitude in it. You can tell what he's trying to convey based on the hand on his hip, the wink in his eye, the crooked grin, and one leg in front of the other. I had a natural understanding at that age that drawings are the most effective when they give the illusion of being in 3 dimensions!

As for the shapes that I was asked to copy? I really don't know. Chances are I didn't care because I thought they were boring. I didn't know I was being tested, and it's possible I just wanted to get them out of the way.

Then the evaluation reiterated its declaration of my "poor motor skills":

Visual motor skills are 6 months to 1 year below age expectations, and Julie’s handwriting is poor.

This is poor? I think this handwriting sample from around that time is typical of most kids of that age:

So there I was, age 11, reading this evaluation that suggested that I didn't have age-appropriate motor skills, the very skills that are necessary for being able to draw. When my mother came home, I shoved the evaluation in her face and demanded answers. I think I said something like, "What's the meaning of this?" and my mother told me I wasn't supposed to be looking at it, that it was meant for the psychologist I was going to soon be seeing. Well, again, how naïve… My mother hadn't want me to see the IQ scores, of course, but the horse was out of the barn, and she knew that I was upset. So to make me feel better she showed me results of an IQ test that I had taken two years prior to that one, in which the results were higher: 143 for verbal, 136 full scale, and… I don't remember what non-verbal was. It was definitely higher than on the other test, I think 115 or so. Full scale is not calculated by averaging verbal and non-verbal together, so to know for sure I'd have to find the results of this test again.

Why such a vast difference in results for tests taken by the same person? Damned if I know. Perhaps I was having a bad day on the second test. In any case, I'm sorry that I ever found these results, but it's a moot point because I know eventually I would have started asking questions-- my brother always did better in school than me, especially in math and science-- and my parents would not have been able to keep the results hidden once I reached adulthood. While looking for the psychological evaluation again years later, at age 17, I accidentally found my brother's IQ scores; they had somehow gotten chucked into my folder. He'd kill me if I revealed what they were, but let's just say that suspicions I'd had about him were confirmed.  

At the time that I found those scores, it really didn't bother me. But sometimes things happen in my life that make my mind wander to the IQ scores: Right now I'm taking a JavaScript class in hopes of getting myself a career as a web developer. I am having a really tough time with this class and am even behind most of the other students. I keep thinking about my non-verbal IQ scores and often find myself wondering if it is indeed a life-sentence, the handwriting on the wall that I won't be able to learn this material, that I'm just not smart enough. It's so awful to feel that way, even if I know that it's not logical.

And yes, I know it's not logical. In fact, psychologist Tony Attwood even said that the gap between verbal and non-verbal scores tends to close somewhat as the kid gets older. 

My IQ test had also said:

Weaker areas are those involving the ability to learn new non-verbal information, and the ability to attend, concentrate, and plan ahead.

And in light of that declaration as well as Tony Attwood's comment about the closing of the verbal/non-verbal gap, let me just leave you with this schematic of a plane that I drew when I was 13:

And the final product:

"Why do You Keep Dredging this Stuff Up?"

I had a really hard time making friends when I was in high school. My only friends were the ones I went to Camp Negev with, except for my then-best friend, Melanie. But that was until I met Jenna. I met Jenna (not her real name) in the fall of 1997, age 17, at one of Melanie's parties. Jenna and I hit it off immediately. We quickly got into a discussion about the absurdity of enforced gender roles. I recall that she said, "If a guy came in here in a pretty dress my only reaction would be to ask him where he got it." We exchanged contact information. We called each other and chatted on the then-new AOL Instant Messenger all the time.

I couldn't see Jenna very much, however. She lived in Northeast Philadelphia and I lived about an hour away in the suburbs. I didn't have my driver's license (I didn't feel ready to drive yet) and neither did Jenna (I forget why she didn't). The friends she saw on a regular basis were the ones she went to school with and who could come to her house and pick her up. I only got to see her at parties or the occasional sleepover. It didn't help that her father was a control freak, just like Melanie's mother, albeit in a different way. Melanie's mother was a control freak in that she wouldn't let Melanie get combat boots because they were "too masculine" (my mother got me a pair for my 18th birthday!), told her she couldn't refer to a crazy person as a "nutcase" as it was "too sexual" (oddly enough, "nutball" was okay), and that she wouldn't let her date black people. Yes, you heard me correctly. Melanie's mother more or less groomed Melanie into becoming just like her. Today she is living with her husband, kids, and her parents in the small Northeast Philadelphia house that she grew up in. She also cut me off and didn't invite me to the wedding, and I'm sure her mother had a lot, if not everything, to do with that.

Jenna's father was different. He was an alcoholic who had a drug-addicted girlfriend. Jenna's parents were divorced, and she had to live with her father because he was paying the tuition for her private school. Jenna's father rarely let Jenna go anywhere or do anything. No, this was not a case of a concerned father trying to quash his daughter's teenage rebellion. This wasn't even a case of a father trying to guide his daughter. In fact, he didn't guide her at all, and Jenna wasn't rebelling any more than any other teenager. This was, I think, a case of a "do as I say, not as I do" mentality. Not that Jenna was drinking or doing drugs. She absolutely wasn't. Like me, she was completely anti-drugs, especially since she saw what alcoholism and drug abuse could do to people.

In early 1998, on one of the rare instances that Jenna was able to spend time with me, she spent the night at my house. We were up until 3:00 in the morning talking intensely about what I now know is called evolutionary psychology. That is, I had come to the conclusion that everything we do, directly or indirectly, is based upon the instinct to reproduce-- even if the person doesn't consciously want children. And as a teenager experiencing an existential crisis, I naively thought that this was a new, revolutionary theory. Someone should have gently guided me towards books like The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins and, of course On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. I frantically paced my room, wildly gesticulating, and saying things like, "This is obviously why there are enforced gender roles! This is why bullying happens! It's all based on the ultimate goal-- to reproduce!" I began to realize that this was why I was paying the price for being different and having a hard time making friends. How about The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris and (the not-yet published) The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker?

I then confided in Jenna one of the things that led me to thinking about this sort of thing-- the  previous summer on a group trip to Israel in which I had an obsessive crush on Chuck, one of my counselors. I was embarrassed about how I'd handled it. I muttered something about how the instinct to reproduce had overtaken me even though I hadn't tried to be anything more than friends with Chuck. If I remember correctly, this was the first time I'd ever told anybody that story. For months I had kept it under wraps as I came to the realization that I'd handled this crush badly by following Chuck everywhere. It was a huge confession for me: "I, Julie, am obsessive when I get crushes on people."  I told Jenna this embarrassing story because I knew I could. I knew she'd listen. I knew she'd understand. And she did. In many ways, Jenna understood me better than many people I knew, including my friends from camp. And even though Melanie was my "official" best friend, I knew deep down Jenna and I had a lot more in common. Both of us had intellectual sides, both of us questioned reality. And Jenna affirmed me in a way that many other people didn't.

I lost touch with Jenna about ten years ago. We didn't have a fallout; life just happened. I think she was still living with her asshole father in Philadelphia the last time I talked to her, either in 2004 or 2005, and wasn't able to leave the city, let alone to go to New York, where I was then living. We did occasionally talk online at the time, however. On and off over the years since she stopped coming onto AOL Instant Messenger I tried to find her. I eventually came to the conclusion that if she was on Facebook it was under a pseudonym. So I did some heavy searching (and believe me, it wasn't easy, but I have my ways) and tracked down her snail-mail address. She lives on the other side of the country (I'm not going to mention where, to further protect her privacy). I sent her a postcard with my contact information on it. I had no doubt that if she got the postcard she would contact me. I didn't think for a second that she would pull the same elitist stunt that Melanie did.

And I was right. Within minutes of getting the postcard, Jenna friend requested me on Facebook and texted me on my cell phone. It turned out she was using a different name, but not as a pseudonym. She actually is in the process of getting a legal name change, partially because she doesn't want her father to find her. Jenna told me that she's seeing a therapist about her father, and has been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It didn't surprise me in the slightest. What was also interesting is that Jenna had tried to find me a couple years ago on Facebook, but at the time I had my Facebook set so that nobody could look me up!

Reestablishing contact with Jenna brought back a few painful memories that involved my mother. This morning when my parents called me I mentioned that I had tracked down Jenna. Surprisingly, neither of them remembered who she was. I tried to remind them-- I'd met her through Melanie. That she was into bands like Pearl Jam. That she had wanted to play the guitar. Oh, and she had been interested in Wicca. And that's where the painful memory surfaced.

In the fall of 1998, after I'd known her for a year, Jenna was dabbling with Wicca. I had made the mistake of mentioning this to my mother, and while she was cooking breakfast. Mom slammed down the pan she was holding and said, "Well, then you'd better stay away from her!" Shocked and confused, I asked why. "Wicca is witchcraft!" Yes? And? Does anybody really believe in witches? I tried to deescalate the situation by joking, "Yeah, Jenna's going to cast a spell on me" and "Jenna's going to sell my soul to Satan." But that didn't work. Mom and I got into a huge fight. I remember trying harder than usual to stay calm but Mom kept cutting me off and telling me that I was wrong. Dad came in and diffused the situation. I think he was a little concerned, but I don't think he thought it was a huge deal like Mom did (and ultimately they didn't make me stay away from Jenna). Mom had also commented, "I hate to tell you, but Jenna lives on the fringe." And that really hurt. It really hurt because Mom had kept nagging me to find friends outside of camp, and when I did, she didn't approve of the one I had found, the one who really understood me. And I didn't think and still don't think Jenna lived "on the fringe". And actually, Dad had liked her. That meant a lot to me because Dad invariably saw right through the "friends" who ended up hurting and betraying me, long before they hurt and betrayed me. I recall that he had even commented that Melanie was a fair-weather friend (and it turns out he was right) but that Jenna was "genuine". I think Mom liked Jenna too, but for some reason she was wary of her from day one, and she often commented on it, not just during the Wicca episode. I also recall telling my parents about Jenna's father being a jerk and Mom kept thinking that Jenna's father was just trying to guide his daughter, quash teenage rebellion or something. She seemed skeptical when I told her about the kind of person her father was, including his alcoholism and his drug-addled girlfriend. It also hurt because when I had friends who didn't understand me and did hurt me, Mom often urged me to give them another chance.

I brought this up on the phone this morning. As I said, to my frustration, my parents don't remember Jenna, and Mom certainly doesn't remember the comments she made about her. But I mentioned the comments and Mom said, "You have to put yourself in my situation. You always seemed to be drawn to the bizarre and I was wary of everything." The word "bizarre" struck a chord with me, I guess because it sounds so loaded, so judgmental, so negative. Well, yeah, isn't it obvious that someone who's a little unusual would have more in common with someone else who's a little unusual? And Jenna was anything but bizarre. She had her head on straight, and she was very down to Earth. Dad said to me, "This was a long time ago. Why do you keep dredging these things up from so long ago and saying 'You did this to me' and 'You did that to me'?"

Why? Why do I bring these things up? Why indeed! Why is it that this past Christmas I brought up with my mother Melanie's little stunt where she cut me off and didn't invite me to the wedding and Sergio's little stunt where he ignored the package I sent him after telling me he looked forward to getting it? After all, both of these things happened in 2008, seven years ago. Why is it that I recently wrote a blog post about obsessive crushes that I had had almost two decades ago? And why did it take me about sixteen years to move past the way Mom continually screamed at me, at age 11, about the kinds of bizarre Addams Family cartoons I was drawing? And why did I bring up the way Mom talked about Jenna when I was a teenager?

Because I felt like I never got closure for these things. That's a large part of why I blog. It's the best way I can articulate and make people understand what it's like to be me. It's hard to get that across in a conversation. You have to write it out. You have to tell people and force them to read it. Mom didn't understand the obsessive crushes I went through because I didn't talk to her about them. "So much was kept from me", she said, after reading my latest blog post on the subject. I had kept these things from her because I knew they would freak her out. On the occasion when I did try to tell her, she just shut me down. It was a no-win situation. Now, here we are, almost two decades after this issue started, discussing the situation. It's long overdue. This is how I get closure. And I have to get closure. No matter how much time has passed since something emotionally painful has happened, I need to get closure in order to move past it. And I don't think this is nearly as uncommon as one would think-- sometimes people are in therapy trying to get closure on things that happened to them several decades ago. For me that closure involves confronting my parents with the way they inadvertently hurt me while thinking they were helping me. It involves informing them they were wrong about certain situations when I knew exactly what I was looking at. But sometimes I feel I can't even confront them about it as they just cut me off, saying, "We didn't know" or "We were trying to help" or "Kids don't come with instruction manuals." But the thing is, I really do need to talk about it. I wish they'd understand that.

And the other thing is that despite knowing logically that I was right about many of these things where my parents were wrong, I still find myself doubting my own perception, and a lot of it has to do with the intensity of the way Mom reacted to me over the years. When Dad was concerned about me, it was usually a discussion that ensued. With Mom, it was almost always a fight, with the implication being that I had no idea what I was talking about and she did because she was Older and Therefore Wiser and that I should just listen to her unquestioningly. Because of the intensity of the way Mom had reacted to me in the past, I found myself wondering what her reaction to my finding Jenna was going to be. And I found myself wondering if Mom had been right about Jenna while I had been wrong. Why, I wondered, did I still have the same perception of Jenna that I did seventeen-and-a-half years ago when we first met? Is this immaturity on my part? Naivety? My Asperger's blocking the correct view of reality?

Same deal with the other situations: I still feel the same way about how I handled my crush on Omri as I did seventeen years ago, that I handled it well until towards the end of the summer. I still don't think there was anything wrong with my sending a package to Sergio seven years ago. And I still think there was nothing wrong with me, twenty-three years ago, at age 11, drawing bizarre Addams Family cartoons as long as I didn't draw them in school (which I didn't). It's the idea that my perception on these issues hasn't changed much. Does that mean that I was right? Or does that mean I'm just some immature little twerp with Asperger's who "doesn't get it"? This is why I bring these things up. I admit that I do sound a bit confrontational and aggressive when I address these issues, and also sometimes like I'm making a joke out of it, but that's partially because finally being able to do so is awkward and new for me. It's awkward and new for me to finally be able to talk about these weighty issues with my parents after avoiding these subjects for decades, feeling that they were taboo on so many levels. It's been a few years since my parents really started "to get it" but a few years versus a few decades? Yes, it's still new. So yes, Dad, this is why I "keep dredging this stuff up". It's not fun for me, but I need some closure, and dredging these things up is how I'll get closure.

As for Jenna, I will say this: She and Melanie both came from controlling backgrounds, albeit controlling in different ways. The difference is that Jenna got out and Melanie didn't. What that tells me is that Jenna has a firmer sense of self than Melanie. And a neurotypical person having such a strong sense of self is a rare commodity these days. She should be commended for it.

Jenna is calling me in about an hour so we can finally talk on the phone for the first time in years. I still remember that long, intense conversation we had seventeen years ago until 3:00 AM. I have a feeling we're going to have a conversation of similar length and intensity. That's what good friends do.

Words, Words, Words

My last two posts were about old wounds that had been reopened recently. Writing them was pretty cathartic, but now that that's out of my system I'm going to write something a little less intense and a little more fun. It doesn't even have anything to do with Asperger's Syndrome. It's about words and the rhythm of words.

I really enjoy the rhythm of words, especially in songs but also in prose writing and even on... signs. Let's first look at some lines from a few songs and talk about why they work, rhythmically:

"Magic Dance" by David Bowie from the 1986 film Labyrinth:

This works nicely because of the change in the number of syllables between each line.

I saw my baby, (5)

Crying hard as babe could cry (7)
What could I do (4)
My baby's love had gone (6)
And left my baby blue (6)
Nobody knew (4)
What kind of magic spell to use (8)

Relatively consistent, right? 5 to 7 to 4 to 6... but then the next line also has 6 syllables. Repetition. And back to 4. But then all the way up to 8. Somehow, the 8th syllable in "What kind of magic spell to use"changes a mostly consistent rhythm, especially in the way David Bowie sings it. I like it. It makes the song more dynamic. Imagine if instead the last line was "What kind of spell to use" or "What magic spell to use". Both lines convey the same meaning, but not with as much punch. And it has nothing to do with "magic" being an adjective but rather the fact that it has two syllables. Same deal with "kind of".

Another example of changing rhythm:

"Patch! Natch" from the 1985 film Santa Claus: The Movie.

Okay, okay. I know. It's stupid. It's a stupid movie (though I loved it when I was little) and the song is even stupider. The lyrics are cheesy as hell (and I think they were supposed to be). So... why do I sheepishly admit to having this song on my iPod? Well, look at the first few lines:

Patch! Natch! Patch! Natch!
Someone new has come to town. (Patch! Natch!)
A magic clown with eyes of brown. (Patch! Natch!)
Planned to be another Santa
And to share ol' Santa's crown,
He'll turn Christmas upside down (Patch! Natch!)
He's got a brand-new candy,
As dandy as can be.
It's puce and juicy, as you see
He plans to make it free.

What is it about this song? It's the change of rhythm with "He's got a brand new candy." Each line in this stanza has 7-8 syllables (one line has 6), but "He's got a brand new candy" sounds drastically different. Why? The song is playing a little trick on you. "He's got a brand new candy" has 7 syllables, but the words "brand new candy" have even longer syllables, tricking your brain into thinking there are fewer syllables. It grabs your attention. The actually words don't matter. The song could easily go like this and have the same effect (the line that I like is italicized):

Poop! Poop! Poop! Poop!
Poopoo poo poo poo poo poo. (Poop! Poop!)
Poo poopoo poo poo poo poo poo. (Poop! Poop!)
Poo poo poo poopoopoo Poopoo
Poo poo poo poo Poopoo poo
Poo poo Poopoo poopoo poo (Poop! Poop!)
Poo poo poo poooo poooo poopoo
Poo poopoo poo poo poo
Poo poo poo poopoo, poo poo poo
Poo poo poo poo poo poo

It's all in the rhythm!

It's not just songs that have rhythmic effects. Just string a couple words together:

"July fifteenth." Just say it aloud. "July fifteenth." Don't you love the way that rolls off your tongue? Each word has two syllables, and each syllable is long. Even "April fifteenth" doesn't have the same ring to it.

When I lived in New York City, there were two subway stops that I passed whose names always struck a rhythm for me. Near where I used to live there was a subway stop labeled "22nd Avenue-Bay Parkway." Say that aloud. The syllables progress from very short ("Twenty-second") to very long ("Bay Parkway"). And "Avenue" is a word with two medium syllables. Now say it aloud again "Twenty-Second Avenue- Bay Parkway". The other subway stop that has almost the same effect is "34th Street- Penn Station". Say that aloud, too. See what I mean?

From the song "The Hanging Tree" from the 2014 film Mockingjay, Part 1:

Pay particular attention to this line:

Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be

This is a nice use of repetition. The word "strange" (and its modified form, "stranger") is used twice in one sentence. Normally you want to avoid this sort of thing in prose writing, or even in music, but it works here. I think the reason it works so well here is simply because the second instance of "strange" is a modified form. It's repetitious, but in a stylized-- not careless-- way.


Another beautiful example of repetition, from the 1983 song "Hold Me Now" by the Thompson Twins:

(Starting from 2:41)

So I'll sing you a new song.
Please don't cry anymore.
I'll even ask your forgiveness
But I don't know just what I'm asking it for.

Look at the last two lines and the creative use of repetition:

I'll even ask your forgiveness
But I don't know just what I'm asking it for.

I love this. "Ask" is modified into "asking" and "forgiveness" is shortened into "for", a completely different word. The repetition of these sounds give the lines more impact and emphasize the desperation  and sorrow that the singer feels at having broken up with his girlfriend. Would the line have as much impact if it were written like this?:

I'll even ask your forgiveness
But I don't know just why I'm asking it.

Even with one instance of repetition ("ask"), the line has considerably less impact.

And by the way, forget about what your teacher said about never ending a sentence with a preposition. Does this line captivate you?:

I'll even ask your forgiveness
But I don't know just for what I'm asking it.

Nope.


I also like when a song occasionally does the unexpected.

For example, in "Castle on a Cloud" from the 1985 Broadway show, Les Miserables:

Pay attention to this line:

"There is a room that's full of toys.
There are a hundred boys and girls."

You expected "There are a hundred girls and boys", right? Probably, since "boys" and "toys" rhyme. Well, that would have been boring. "There are a hundred boys and girls" works so much better since you don't expect it!


There's another slight deviation from the expected in "The Merry Old Land of Oz" from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion are getting cleaned up in preparation to see the Wizard. When the citizens of Oz sing to the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, they end each verse with "That's how we [insert action here] in the Merry old land of Oz." But when they sing to the Cowardly Lion, he sings the end of the verse himself, with "That certain air of savoir faire in the merry old land of Oz." You just expected another "That's how we... in the Merry old land of Oz", didn't you? The song wants to make sure you're paying attention!

Then there's allusion. I'm going to use another example from the Thompson Twins' 1983 song "Hold Me Now":

You say I'm a dreamer
We're two of a kind

You know damn well what that's alluding to. Whether or not the songwriters intended it, the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that line is:

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one

It is, of course, from John Lennon's song "Imagine". And what's interesting about this allusion is how something about the tone in the "You say I'm a dreamer; we're two of a kind" sounds a little more blunt. It's almost like that line is saying, "Yeah, I get it. I'm a dreamer. So are you." It's almost like the song is "self-aware" of what it's alluding to. And it works. Why? I couldn't tell you. It just does.

Finally, I want to end this blog post not with song lyrics or even subway signs but with a line from Steven Pinker. He wrote a book called The Sense of Style, about why different writing styles work and why writing rules are meant to be broken. I haven't read it yet but I have a feeling that the book likely addresses a lot of what I said here. So, at the risk of being divisive, let's look at a line from another Steven Pinker book (The Blank Slate) that nicely uses a rhythm of sorts:

“People who say that IQ is meaningless will quickly invoke it when the discussion turns to executing a murderer with an IQ of 64, removing lead paint that lowers a child’s IQ by five points, or the presidential qualifications of George W. Bush.”

Aside from the obvious jab at Dubya, the line does a few things:

1) It's a list. And it's a list of three. Somehow a list doesn't have as much impact unless it's a list of three things or more. Why? I don't know. We seem to be attracted to lists of three or more. Maybe it's the very basic counting system of "one, two, and many".

2) Change in parts of speech. The first two discussion points on the list begin with verbs ("executing", "removing"). The third one is a noun ("the presidential qualifications").

3. The term "IQ" is used in the first two discussion points but not in the third. Overall, what makes this work is the way the third discussion point is set apart from the first two. All three discussion points have 16 syllables (I didn't count "or"), and yet the third discussion point gives off the impression of having fewer. But it doesn't. The phrasing is enough to make the rhythm seem more different than it actually is.

Well, that's my little observation for today. I hope everybody enjoyed reading this. And if you write, have fun (jeez, it's supposed to be!).

Revenge Fantasies

Everybody has fantasies about getting revenge on people who have wronged them. Mine are mostly against the holier-than-thou neurotypical people who have wronged me in a passive-aggressive manner; the revenge fantasies are also passive-aggressive, against: Melanie, my ex-best friend who has shunned me; my most recent boss who told me I was "doing fine" and then fired me; people in Meetup groups who, instead of confronting me directly about issues they had with me, reported me to the organizer and got me kicked out; and many, many more. The revenge fantasy that continually comes to my mind is one that fights passive-aggression with, well, passive-aggression. I have nobody specific in mind for this story, but since I have to use pronouns I'm just going to use "she" for the person I'm getting revenge against, as most of the people who have been passive-aggressive to me have been women.The story goes like this:

I am visiting my parents in Pennsylvania, driving alone along one of the back roads in one of the more rural areas of Bucks County, returning from... oh, does it really matter? I just felt like going for a drive. Alone. Some me time. What I hadn't counted on was the snow. The weatherman on Channel 6 had said that the high was going to be fifty degrees and there might be some light rain, but right now it's twenty-eight and the snow is coming down in clumps, attacking my car on all sides. The heat is cranked up, the defogger is on the highest setting, and the windshield wipers are thump-thumping, trying desperately to attack the clumps before they obscure my view. It doesn't help that the sun has already set and that my high-beams barely penetrate the darkness. 

And then I see the flash, the reflection of a deer's eyes. A deer in the headlights. Caught. Just like in the metaphor. It's not going to move. 

"Shit!" I yank the wheel to a hard left.

But then the world spins around me. I jam on the breaks and hear their screeching protest against the relentless ice and snow. When the car finally stops and I get my bearings, I see that the car has done a complete one-eighty: I am facing backwards. Damn good thing that nobody else is on the road. And who would be in this weather? As soon as my heart stops racing and I confirm that the deer is gone, I maneuver the car back on to the right side of the road, again facing the correct way.

I haven't driven in a year because I've been living in Boston where one doesn't need a car, but I think I am doing well, considering that near miss. Since I never really learned to drive until just under two years ago, it's amazing that the driving skills I have learned are still there. Like riding a bike, as they say. I think about the neurological connections one has to make when learning a new skill and how those neurological connections just stay even if they have not been accessed for quite some time. I think about the time I learned the lanyard box stitch from a ten-year-old kid when  I was working at a summer day camp in 1999. I showed it to my father, who had learned the same stitch when he was nine or ten. Since he was then almost fifty years old, it had been a good forty years since he had done the box stitch. But when I handed him the lanyards I had been working on, he completed the next couple stitches. Once the lanyards were in his hands, he knew immediately what to do. Muscle memory? Or perhaps tapping into some unused but present neurological pathway, like accessing a file on a computer one hasn't used in a while? Both? As I wake up from my mental tangent, I make a note to buy more books by Sam Harris and Steven Pinker to see if the answers to my questions are there. Maybe I'll stop at the Doylestown Bookshop on the way back to my parents'. Mom will be doing the typical mother thing and worrying herself to death about me (I'm amazed my cell phone hasn't rung yet), but she'll live.

Yeah, that sounds good. A couple of nerdy books to read while wrapped up in a warm, down-filled quilt in front of a fire. The only thing that would make the night complete would be a dog curled up beside me, warm, fuzzy head in my lap. Like the last dog that my family had, a sweet and affectionate yellow Labrador Retriever. We got her when I was 12 and she was put to sleep in early 2008 at the age of 14 1/2. For a dog that size that is the equivalent to a person living into her early '90s. She was a great dog.

Whoops, there I go. Another mental tangent. They say that those with Asperger's can't multi-task. But here I am, driving and daydreaming at the same time. If people think that those with Asperger's can't multi-task, then they don't know me...

The robotic woman on the GPS tells me to make a right at the next stop sign. That will eventually lead me to route 611. I'll know how to get back to my parents' from there. As I turn, I notice a car at the side of the road. Its headlights aren't on. Hell, even its hazard lights aren't on. I can vaguely see that it is blue, but it's hard to tell in the darkness and with the snow blanketing it. Did somebody abandon their car here? I wonder. But then I see the silhouette of a head in the front seat. I slow down, realizing that the person's car's battery must have died. I have some jumper cables in the trunk. Last year Dad taught me how to jump-start a car. I don't remember how to do it, but I'm sure I can figure it out. If not, at least I can call Dad and he'll talk me through it. 

I stop the car, pull on my coat and gloves, and step out into the blanket of nighttime snow. How long has this person been waiting? I wonder, looking at the snow that has accumulated on the car. I look through the driver's side window. A woman's head is resting on the steering wheel, her hair obscuring her face. Christ, has she fallen asleep, waiting for help? Even though I can't see her face, there's something oddly familiar about her. I knock on the window. "Hey, do you need help?" I call.

The woman nearly hits her head on the roof as she turns to look at me. She opens the door, an ear-to-ear grin on her face. "Oh, thank God!" she says. "I've been waiting forever for someone to get here. I--"

Oh my God. Her. Her. What were the odds of me running into her? 

"Julie?" she says. "Is that you?"

"Um... Yeah," I say, jamming my hands into my coat pockets and kicking at a clump of snow with my left boot. "Wh- what are you doing here?"

"I was driving home from a friend's house. But I've been stuck here. My battery died."

I look at her and see the desperation in her eyes. She's hoping I'll forget what she did to me. People with Asperger's are said not to be able to interpret any social cues or read any body language. Bullshit. Asperger's is part of a spectrum. I know and understand a lot more than people think. In any case, she's counting on my not picking up on her hopes that I don't remember because she knows damn well that makes the difference of whether or not I will help her. Or she's at least counting on my being a nice, naive, compliant Aspie woman who doesn't know when she's been manipulated. Or maybe she's just counting on me being more forgiving than anyone can be expected to be. Well, I know damn well when I'm being manipulated and even I have my limits for forgiving. 

"Your battery died, did it?" I ask.

"Yeah," she says. "Oh, Julie, it's so good to see you. I haven't seen you in ages."

"Yes, I know," I say. Inside my right glove I can feel a hangnail. I just clipped my nails this morning, but I guess I missed a spot. I remove my hand from the glove, bite off the hangnail, and spit the remains into the snow.

"So, how long have you been out here?" I ask, slipping the glove back onto my hand. 

"Two hours, I think," she says. "It's horrible. The car battery is dead. I can't start my car and the heat won't work."

"Yeah, that's what happens when car batteries die," I say. I can feel a slight tug at my lips.

"I can't get home," she says, her wide eyes begging me to not remember. 

 "And?" I ask, feeling an even stronger tug at my lips. I scratch an itch on my left arm and flick away some snow that accumulated there. 

"I'm stuck here. I don't even know where I am."

I nod, my lips now ear-to-ear. I walk over to my car and lean against the driver's side door for a moment.

I then walk to the back of my car and open the trunk. She looks hopeful, but it's not jumper cables I'm getting. It's a scraper. In the five minutes that I've been out here the windshield and the back window have been completely covered with snow. I brush the snow off of my windshield. She still hasn't taken the hint. Funny, I thought that's how neurotypicals communicated: through hints, not direct confrontation.

"Julie?"

"Yes?" I stop for a moment to look at her again.

"What are you doing?" 

"Getting the snow off the windows so I'll be able see where I'm going."

She still says nothing. She is looking at me, her eyes radiating disbelief. I finish cleaning off my windshield and then begin working on the back window. When I am finished with that, I toss the scraper back into the trunk. I then open the front door of my car. She is still watching me. I put the key into the ignition, and the engine roars to life.

She knocks on the window. I roll it down.

"Julie? What are you doing?" she asks, looking at me through the window.

"Going back to my parents' house. I might pick up some books on the way home first."

"Aren't you going to help me?"

"It's really coming down out here. I don't have time."

She leans through the window. "But I'm stuck here."

I look at her. She is so desperate. She cannot imagine why I am doing this to her. But hey, it's not my problem. Besides, I'm sure she has a cell phone and if she uses her brain she'll figure out that she can call Triple A, I assure myself, just like she probably assured herself when she screwed me over that I would "forget about it" and "get over it."

"Well," I say at length. "I guess you're fucked."

She says nothing. I press the button to roll the window back up. She steps back, just barely avoiding getting clipped by the moving glass.

I put the heat back on, restart the defogger and the windshield wipers, and flip on the high beams. She steps out of the way, staring at me as I pull back into the street. Some music would be nice. I turn on the local oldies station. Oh, hell, yeah. They're having a Beatles marathon.

I plug the address of the bookstore into the GPS. I should be able to detour there before I go back to my parents'.

She steps out of the road, her back against her car. She continues to stare at me until I have driven far enough away that we can no longer see each other.

I feel something stirring in my belly, moving up towards my lungs until it emanates from my mouth like a desperate animal bursting out of a cage: A laugh. A laugh so powerful that moisture forms at the corners of my eyes. I try to stop so I can focus on the road, but the sound keeps desperately forcing itself out of my mouth and almost snapping my eye shut. Somehow, however, I manage to get myself to Route 611.

And I don't look back.