I felt a bit nauseous today while writing about my experiences with Asperger’s because it was emotionally upsetting to me to think about it. I was emotionally upset while remembering the horrendous abuse I had suffered at the hands of my female peers in high school, and I threw up briefly while recalling my horrendous experiences with job interviews in my senior year of college and in my first post-college job. I was reliving a number of very painful and traumatic experiences, and as the memories continued to flood me my body began to rebel against the experiences. I wanted to continue writing, but I realized it was making me too upset, and so I decided to stop writing for now.
I wish I didn’t have Asperger’s because there is nothing good about having Asperger’s. When you have Asperger’s, you can’t read social cues. And so when you are in a social situation, the experience is terrifying. You have the inner sense that all this social activity is taking place around you, and yet you know that you can’t interpret it. Since most people say what they don’t mean and never say what they actually mean, you feel confused and anxious.
When someone says X to me, I know that they probably don’t mean X. But the question is: What the hell do they mean? They might mean the opposite of X, as people often say the exact opposite of what they actually mean, particularly when they are feeling uncomfortable. They might mean P, they might mean Q, they might mean Y, they might mean Z, and who knows, they might mean A, B, or C also. Trying to guess what they mean is so incredibly frustrating because you basically can never even tell if your interpretation of their words is the correct one.
I also realize there are different degrees of Asperger’s. For instance, I was speaking to a mother of a 12 year old son with Asperger’s. She told me that her son was so frightened of social situations that he was afraid to even go to a restaurant or a store, and he refused to leave the house except to go to school or if his mother basically forced him to leave the house. In addition, his mother was frustrated because she didn’t know how to teach him proper hygiene.
I am too frightened of social situations to be able to work in an office. In addition, I am severely frightened of dating in part because I can’t read social cues and in part because I have come from a severely emotionally abusive family and so the thought of dating and marriage is simply far too terrifying for me to even contemplate.
However, I have no problem going to the store, the movies, a restaurant, or a book store. I don’t have a problem driving or pumping gas or maintaining my personal hygiene. So my Asperger’s does not, thankfully, interfere with my capacity to complete the basic tasks of daily living.
In some ways I wish I had been diagnosed earlier with Asperger’s because then I would have known that I could not work in an office. A diagnosis in middle school or high school would have helped me understand in advance why I cannot function in an office setting. I would have planned my career based on this critical understanding, so I would have chosen to develop a skill that would enable me to make a living without working in an office. Most of all, I would have been spared the endless agony and unnecessary suffering that I was forced to endure in the office environment for 11 years without even knowing what was wrong.
But I am deeply troubled by the way that some Asperger’s experts are offering social skills training to young people with Asperger’s. I strongly believe that social skills are basically innate and cannot be learned easily, if at all. I think it is frankly wrong to subject young people with Asperger’s to the torture and torment of social skills training. Why? Because you are forcing them to study a subject that they can never properly learn and that is the cause of their almost continual anxiety.
In addition, the ugly reality is that the vast majority of employers will not even consider hiring a person with Asperger’s, let alone allow them to succeed in a corporate setting. They will struggle on endless interviews and find it nearly impossible to find a job. Once they are finally hired, they will be summarily fired by the employer within weeks. Because the bottom line is that in the office setting, the most critical prerequisite is having social skills. If you have weak or non-existent social skills, employers will find your presence in their environment so unsettling that they won’t even bother to find out what other skills you might have to offer.
In an office setting, having Asperger’s is a deadly and toxic combination because no matter what intellectual skills you bring to the table, employers will regard you as useless and dangerous due to your lack of social skills. As soon as employers figure out that you cannot read social cues, they will make your life a living hell in a calculated attempt to induce you to quit your job. If that doesn’t work, they will simply fire you.
No comments:
Post a Comment