When the Driving Force meets the Energy Crisis

Of all the differences I could list between the experiential worlds of  people with Asperger's and those without, the most important one, I think, has to do with energy.

By energy, I mean the whole gamut of subjects which begin with expenditure and end with refuelling. (Or stopping...)  The energy draw required for everyday life (in an Aspie's existence) is enormous.  When your understanding of the world is arrived at through cognitive means, energy becomes an important consideration.  To try to describe this in terms that can be appreciated by an NT is not difficult: Just imagine thinking about everything you do, down to the smallest decision.  Every decision preceded by conscious thought, deliberation and then followed by a in-depth analysis of of the results...  Exhausting, no?  And how do you 'refuel'?  Think about the way people talk about re-charging their batteries... Relaxing with friends, going out for a drink to a nice bar, having a massage for instance. For many Aspies, 'recharging' can only happen in the absence of people and noise and touch, so finding opportunities can be difficult.   But this is not the main issue...

The problem arises when you consider that NTs can have tremendous difficulty in grasping the level of energy required by an Aspie for normal functioning in a social world, and the scale of its impact on the person doing it.  (Aspies can have similar trouble grasping that much of the slow, careful decision making they rely on every day, is done intuitively and without much conscious thought by NTs.)  Without this appreciation of the facts, our struggle is invisible at best; misinterpreted at worst.  Add to this the unpredictability of the social world and I would hope most would start to see just how 'different' and difficult our experience is.

So why aren't we all burnt-out husks by the age of twenty?

Since my diagnosis (when I was 43) I have met and got to know a number of people on the spectrum, and I quickly became aware that many of those people (myself included) have enormous capacity, drive and motivation.  This did not appear to change, even when if the person had withdrawn; unable to engage with the world: Their passions and interests were pursued with the same enthusiasm and energy - just from within their bedrooms.  We keep going, and as a result, we are capable of amazing feats of concentration and perseverance.  In TA, we might call this the 'Try Harder'  driver.  (When someone has been told that they are at fault for the majority of their life, the response is often to try harder, out of guilt, to gain acceptance or prove others wrong...) A few of my closer friends admit this ultimately self-destructive dynamic, but to expend energy on drive and enthusiasm when so much is taken up with merely navigating the everyday is unsustainable.  Something must, and usually does, give.

It is unfortunate then, that another 'driver' often accompanies that of 'Try Harder', and that's 'Don't Fail'.  People who find themselves in this dynamic simply can't win, often spiraling into crisis after crisis.  Of course this isn't limited to Aspies, however, our capacity and drive works against us - helping us reach new depths of despair.  It can be very difficult indeed to extricate ourselves from these defensive strategies when we live in such a chaotic social world where it can seem impossible to make sense of anything with all the contradictions:  "Do this accurately, but don't spend too long", "Tell the truth/Don't be rude"), "This is the priority/This is the priority/You should know the priority", "collaborate with colleagues/compete with colleagues", "Socialise/have fun".  So where should we expend our precious energy?  All too often, the answer is: 'on surviving', and even the most intelligent of us can, on occasion, convince ourselves that the effort isn't worth the reward.

Too few teachers and employers are aware of this, and the lack of understanding leads to more unnecessary pressure being piled on top.  As an educator, I do understand the frustration:  "Why, when this student is so capable, are they making so little effort?" The answer, of course, is that they are making a huge effort, simply to get through the day. If they have little energy left then, to decipher vague and contradictory expectations, we should not be surprised.  Few understand that it is even more frustrating for the student (who knows their own potential) having constant obstacles placed in their path.  It is in no way an even playing field.

It would be particularly cruel then, if we were to not only fail to understand these difficulties, but also to criticise those with great, and recognised potential, for failing to 'excel'.  Sadly, this is the overwhelming experience of many of the people I have met over the years, who identify as Aspies (myself included). Such intelligence, capacity and drive is essential in our fast moving technological world, and they should be accommodated and valued for the assets they are.  These people are the real movers and shakers, not the 'celebrities', the 'politicians' and 'corporate sharks'.  It is society's obsession with these things that has us swimming in a sea of plastic, teetering on the brink of climate catastrophe and making nationally important decisions based on nothing more than the mindless rhetoric of social media.

Time to listen to reason, I think.

Climate change protesters state the seemingly obvious...to the seemingly oblivious

Navigating the Event Horizon

Our lives are full of cycles:   We learn, we teach, we become wiser.  We gain confidence, we take risks, we learn moderation. Some cycles are repeated again and again as we age. We trust, we are disappointed or betrayed, we make better choices about who we confide in, or we don't.  These cycles of trial and error are the mechanism by which we learn to navigate our world, but when you remove the 'why' from these experiences, our ability to learn from them is compromised. If you don't recognise that your trust has been abused, rejected or betrayed, or do not understand the reason why, how do you make a better decision next time?  How do you protect yourself?

One particular cycle (trying and failing to get the outcome I desired, and blundering into exactly the same issue next time I tried) was interrupted when I got my diagnosis 7 years ago:  I learned about Asperger's and that lent me the understanding I needed to begin to extricate myself from the cycle.  I nearly fell back in when, after copious research, I realised that there were no apparent solutions to how Asperger's affected my life.  I had simply added one more step in my cycle:  Try and fail, but fully appreciate the impact on myself, and others before blundering into it once again.  I still didn't know why, and even if I did, I did not have the language, skills or support to try to improve things.

But I wasn't ready to admit defeat.  I decided to embrace the positives.  I decided to use my experiences to illuminate the little-understood world of Asperger's. - to provoke discussion and highlight issues.  I had some success, which allowed me to take the next step...  And when the invitation came, I accepted and I learned about a possible solution - a way to claim back a portion of my life that I had never realised was lost.  I began to co-present The Different Engine's Aspie TA workshops. I made new friends and eventually, the illumination spread to those around me, letting everyone see me more clearly, and I, them. I am no expert in Transactional Analysis - I have a basic vocabulary, but is is enough to enable dialogue, and consequently, understanding.

But life with Asperger's is rarely so straightforward....

One of the most painful aspects of living with Asperger's, is the way that huge, hulking misunderstandings can still come barreling out of left-field to knock you senseless and make you question your entire world view from the tiniest details to the broadest foundation.

Everyone suffers unexpected setbacks at sometime in their lives, no matter how they try to insulate themselves from disaster.  I myself have spent a lifetime, unsuccessfully trying to find ways to avoid getting hurt.  Enhanced understanding cannot cover every eventuality, and certainly cannot stop the dreadful emotional impact of misunderstandings when they happen.  So you explain yourself, people understand, you feel more relaxed and accepted, you take a chance and trust more.  In neurotypical people, there are numerous buffers (tests, if you like) that ensure that the risk is manageable; trust growing incrementally, allowing only the most worthy and compatible into the inner circle of genuine and mutual intimacy, where lasting harm could be done. This is not the case with Asperger's.

Asperger's not only means you are without the vast majority of these 'buffers', (meaning you are likely to risk far too much in one go), but also that you are likely to be unaware that this is happening until it is too late (leaving you totally unprepared for the disaster when it descends and utterly defenceless in its wake).

When I have encountered such disasters in the past, I have always responded to the appalling emotional and psychological pain they inflict by removing myself from everything and everyone involved immediately and permanently.  An over-reaction?  It may seem that way to a neurotypical, but I have a pitifully limited defense.  It is rare for me to trust, and rarer still that I relax in another's company.  So when it turns out that, in my enthusiasm to celebrate some of those rare relationships, I have unwittingly caused harm to them, my world falls apart.

 I suppose it is a nod to progress that I have not acted immediately on this occasion, despite the impact of this particular disaster being as painful as any I have encountered.  I need to know if this can be resolved, if my world view can survive, and whether I can live with that resolution, should it materialise. Running away and hiding from the pain is as attractive as it's ever been, but I will see this through. I need to know if it is possible to build mend bridges instead of burning them.  Sometimes, it seems, the only thing you can do when trust has let you down, is to trust that things will get better, and I'll emerge from this black hole.

If Hawking radiation can do it... maybe I can too.