As Nature Made Me: The Aspie Who Was Raised as a Neurotypical: Part II- Thoughtcrime

When Dr. Jack Kevorkian, an intellectual hero of mine, died on June 3, 2011, I stared at the computer screen and muttered, "Oh, no." I felt my heart racing. And the next day on the way to Manhattan to see a friend, I briefly had tears in my eyes thinking about it. But why? I had never even met the man. Immediately, I found myself thinking, "What's wrong with me? Why should this upset me?" But of course I understand why. This was because reading about Dr. Jack Kevorkian I learned that he was a unique person, more than the Dr. Death stereotype. He was a painter, a musician, a filmmaker, a historian, a philosopher, a linguist, and an overall fiercely independent and brilliant man.  I had never heard of anybody quite like him, and I had suspected that he had Asperger's Syndrome. My words here don't do him justice; one has to read his biography and watch the HBO documentary Kevorkian to really get it. I was upset because what it came down to was this: There will never be another.

Above you can see that I was justifying my feelings to myself. I felt I had to. It really shouldn't matter why I reacted the way I did to Dr. Kevorkian's death. It is the way I reacted, and I should have been able to own and embrace it. But my reflexive need-to-justify comes from years of unwitting conditioning from my parents. I thought that if they knew about my upset over Dr. Kevorkian's death, their reaction would be, "You have an unhealthy obsession with this." In fact, I had decided that if they did react that way I would tell them to get over it, that I'm an adult and this is who I am. Of course, now that they understand me better, they didn't bat an eye when I told them about my reaction to Dr. Kevorkian's death.

"As Nature Made Me: Part I" talked about the things that I did that my parents tried to fix. But what about the things that I thought? Yes, my thoughts were under scrutiny too. As you can see from the above anecdote, I was reflexively afraid of what amounts to being guilty of Thoughtcrime.

My parents' attempts to "fix" me didn't stop in telling me what to do and what not to do. My mother in particular pried into my thoughts with questions, comments, and judgments. I understand that she was trying to help me and just didn't know how. But it is still a frustrating memory that resonates to this day.

For example, when I was twelve there was a story in the news about conjoined twins that had been separated. I jokingly asked Dad, "What did they do? Take a knife and chop them down the middle?" Dad rolled his eyes and said, "Yes, Julie, exactly." Just as Dad was finishing his sentence, Mom shouted, "How could you find that funny? Why do you find these things funny?" Often, I was asked why I found a lot of different weird things funny. I had no answer and I couldn't think of a single one that would alleviate Mom's fears and concerns about me. It really hurt when Mom responded negatively to my gallows sense of humor, often by saying, "Get those odd thoughts out of your head!"

As a reaction to my absurdist sense of humor and oddball cartoon characters I created, Mom would often ask, "Why aren't you interested in 'nice' things, in 'beautiful' things?" or "Why can't you create a cartoon character like Belle from Beauty and the Beast?" To the first question, I had no answer. I wondered why there had to be one. And as for the second, SNORE.

There was also the Thoughtcrime about the movies and TV shows I got obsessed with. Mom would say: "Why do you talk about [insert movie here] all the time?" or "Why are you always thinking about that?" And this gem: "I don't want to talk about [insert set of characters here]. They are not people in my life!" I understand that it was probably tiresome for Mom to listen to me go on about the same thing over and over again, but I felt like I was being shut down, dismissed, and, most importantly, judged. I felt like I was committing Thoughtcrime. Today, it reminds me of how religions often chastise people for "impure thoughts".

Then there was the Thoughtcrime about thoughts I didn't have. I didn't have thoughts about the opposite sex at all until well into my teens. My parents thought I was gay and not ready to come out of the closet. Both of them (again, mostly Mom) grilled me about why I wasn't interested in dating, what thoughts I had about boys (sorry, none), and whether I had thoughts about girls (none there either). Telling them of my indifference was unsatisfactory. They just kept asking. In a way, it seemed that they didn't want an honest answer, but the "right" answer. To get them to leave me alone, I had to give them the answer that they wanted to hear. After all, any honest answer I gave was met with more questions.

Over the years I felt helpless to control my thoughts, my feelings, my obsessions, and my sense of humor. I often had intense internal monologues with myself, trying to justify as to why I was the way I was. I felt that I needed to justify these things, not just to my parents, but to myself. If I couldn't justify my thoughts, there was something fundamentally wrong with me. 

In the days before Asperger's Syndrome was widely recognized, there was a huge coming-out process for those on the spectrum. At around age fourteen I came out to my father about the intensity of my obsessions with movies and TV shows (they manifested as "butterflies in my stomach"). I trusted him with this information because I knew it wouldn't freak him out. We often had talks about these sorts of things when he drove me to school in the morning. When I asked Dad, "Why do I get these physiological reactions?" of course he didn't know the answer, but he did often respond with, "That's you", or "Because you're creative and you get excited about these things." 

Both of my parents are guilty to some extent of the accusations of "Thoughtcrime", but Dad was more laid back about my idiosyncrasies than Mom. Maybe mothers are just naturally grizzly bears, so to speak. Or maybe Dad's psychological profile, despite not having Asperger's Syndrome, is closer to mine than Mom's is. In any case, what a person with Asperger's needs is understanding about and acceptance for who they are. They don't need invasive questions, demands to stop thinking a certain way, and they certainly don't need to be fixed.

Coming Out

Whoa, it's been almost 6 months since my last blog post! Sorry about that! They will be more regular from now on, promise!

Today I want to talk about coming out of the closet, and I don't mean as gay: I'm not gay and there is already plenty published on that subject. No, instead I want to talk about coming out about the "thoughts" that I had growing up that I felt were somehow wrong; these thoughts were generally related to my obsessions. In fact, they were usually my obsessions themselves that I felt were wrong. My parents didn't openly question the obsessions I tended to have with movies and television shows until I hit adolescence, but long before that I was aware that such persistent and constant thoughts about one thing were not "normal."

For example, when I first saw Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II at age 9, I was hooked immediately. Obsessed. Couldn't get my mind off the movies. The day after seeing them, I just wanted to talk about them non-stop. But because I was so aware of how strong and unrelenting this desire was to intensely revisit these movies the day after seeing them-- and how odd such a desire was-- I barely spoke two words about them. 

As another example, when I first saw The Addams Family movie at age 11 I became obsessed with it, much in the same way I was with the BTTF movies. Uncle Fester was my favorite character (Doc Brown was my favorite in the BTTF movies; I think Christopher Lloyd's frenetic characters just appealed to me!). On a children's radio show that I was listening to, a girl who called in mentioned in passing that she did not like The Addams Family. (For those of you not familiar with the plot, please read this article in Wikipedia before continuing reading the blog entry). The girl stated that the Uncle Fester that was in the movie turned out to be an impostor. Instead of laughing it off, I obsessed over this for several months until my older cousin cleared it up for me. I think it bothered me because I felt that the "parallel universe" in which my obsessions lived was at least in my control, but this girl's statement threatened that control. The idea of my being that grossly wrong in my comprehension of the movie was unacceptable. 

My next obsession, from ages 12-14, was the Cold War comedy The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! I always greatly enjoyed the background music composed for the film, particularly the scene in which the Russians first come ashore. Of course, the soundtrack was not available. One day, when I was 13, I set up a tapedeck next to the television to record when scenes with the soundtrack came on. I did this one day when I was home alone. Why? Even though my parents wouldn't have given it a second thought, I thought it was weird that I wanted the music from a film so obscure to my generation. Let's not forget the fact that I knew that being obsessed with this movie was bizarre. Whenever I listened to the music, I did so on my Walkman so my parents wouldn't hear it and ask what it was. 

If I, as the person experiencing them, had a hard time accepting these weird thoughts as "normal," why in the world should I have confided in my parents about them? Eventually I did come out of the closet, but very slowly. At age 14, I began talking to my Dad a little about my obsession with The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!, but I didn't talk to him about recording the music. At age 16, I began speaking to my parents (usually through tears) about my obsessions in general and how "wrong" I felt they were. They tried to assure me that nothing was wrong but I knew that they were just trying to make me feel better. They had no idea what obsession meant, at least as I defined it.

When did I finally come out about my obsession over Uncle Fester's authenticity? At age 18, nearly SEVEN YEARS after the incident occurred. I was THAT embarrassed about it! Keep in mind how long seven years is when you were a kid. In tears, I confessed to my dad about how long this weird concern had, well, festered inside me and how I knew that it was "abnormal." My dad asked me, "Why didn't you just ask us if it was the real Uncle Fester or not?" Why? Let's put it this way: My parents were concerned about my obsessions in general. They-- especially my mother-- would have been freaked out had I asked them 3 months or so after seeing The Addams Family whether or not it was the real Uncle Fester. And I'm not being paranoid. Even as a kid, I was fully aware that they thought there was something psychologically wrong with me. Years later, Dad may have thought that my asking the question was a non-issue, but I guarantee in the context of my 11-year-old self he would have wondered why I needed to ask that question.

Well, that's coming out, Aspie style. I suspect these stories are more common than one would think. Anybody who has similar anecdotes, please tell them!

P.S. I have since obtained from eBay a tape of the soundtrack from The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! My parents are not only aware that I have it but that I also imported it into my computer so I can listen to it on my iPod.