Introduction v1.0

This lecture is going to sound vain and mopey. I have no solution to that problem. However, this feature presentation is brought to you by somebody else's idea, so please, even if it means I'm vain and mopey, don't think it's something I want to present or make your problem.
In sixth grade I had an EEG, an electroencephalogram. That's where they stick electrical sensors to your head to produce a series of waves indicating in broad strokes where your brain is most active; rather than for a scientific purpose, it is for a diagnostic purpose. We were trying to find out, what is wrong with Mackie?
As usual, we found nothing wrong. I was a perfectly healthy child incapable of the trivial, simple act of humaning.
Despite the best efforts of my family, I spent easily ten straight years in public school, moving too often to keep lasting friendships, constantly persuaded by occasionally life-threatening levels of violence and neglect of the simple, certain truth that it was my fault. That something was fundamentally unacceptable about me, and that if I just tried harder I could be better, I could be equal.
My mother, of course, was undaunted. As Anne Shirley said, 'I'm glad she was satisfied with me, anyhow.' After a great deal of research, she found a list of diagnostic criteria which fit me perfectly.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version 4-R, defines Asperger's Syndrome's diagnostic criteria as follows:

(I) Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:

    (A) marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction
    (B) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
    (C) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interest or achievements with other people, (e.g.. by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people)
    (D) lack of social or emotional reciprocity

(II) Restricted repetitive & stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:

    (A) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus
    (B) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
    (C) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g. hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
    (D) persistent preoccupation with parts of objects


(III) The disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

(IV) There is no clinically significant general delay in language (E.G. single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years)

(V) There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self help skills, adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction) and curiosity about the environment in childhood.

(VI) Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Schizophrenia.

I have never found a way to adequately express how wondrous it was to have a name for my most egregious faults.

Comorbid with Asperger's Syndrome in many patients are obsessive-compulsive disorder, which in my case includes intrusive imagery of extreme violence, occasional dismemberment of myself in falls of great heights, and upsetting paraphilic images haunting the mind's eye; and depression, which is a complicated thing I don't feel like trying to describe. Dating back as far as my mother can remember, I've also had a rather extreme anxiety disorder, with occasional severe panic attacks without truly clear cause.

But let's take a moment to consider what makes me what I am other than a few sweeping disorders.
The idea of my own death doesn't bother me. Suffering scares me, but beyond death I assume there's nothing. When a person dies, I am sometimes very deeply hurt by the loss, but I am not unknown for saying, "well, at least -that's- over."
Suicidal people bring out a white knight in me, not a particularly high handed one I don't think, but somebody who gravitates toward that person and checks in, makes sure they're okay. When I get to know them better I might say, genuinely, "I wish you wouldn't hurt yourself. I like you, and I'd miss you." But it's not the first thing. These wishes to end it all don't come from a vacuum, they come from circumstances. Depressed people, on the whole, have reasons to feel as they do. I'm interested in addressing or alleviating those circumstances, but for the most part it's an exhausting fight for the other person, and they're already tired; sometimes it's best just to be an ear. An ear who knows, if one day that person is gone, at least his or her struggle is over. At least there's no more pain. But who admires them for pressing on anyway, if only for now.
Images of death and injury haunt me. I can't shake them. A real injury around me at least leaves me less helpless; I can try to remember my first aid training, I can seek help, I can have a nice, constructive and functional panic. I can be a shivering stone, ready to follow orders the moment they're given and continue until the situation has passed. Even an abstract notion of death, though, hurts me. "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

The act of humaning is exhausting, and I'm also really bad at it. I'm like a room full of rocking chairs, blind, moving about by accident, in a world of cats. I'm insensitive only in the most literal meaning: I don't sense. When I realize I've been hurting people, I sometimes fly into a blind panic, an unconstructive paralysis in which I feel helpless because my best intentions have paved a road to hell.

I rarely mind being wrong. Throughout my life I have most hated realizing I did not know I was wrong. Addressing this can cause me pain, but failing to address it is worse.

Some people with Asperger's Syndrome literally simply think in different ways from the norm. I can't know how y'all think; as an existentialist I believe that's functionally impossible. That's fine, your masks and personae are also parts of yourselves, as mine are of me. Allow me to illuminate my mask by saying I think in large chunks as often as not. It's probably a bit like mathematics, where you have an equation generated from a series of observations, and you are looking for the classic forms which best fit. Does it resemble a quadratic equation. Can it be simplified. Can you isolate the variable and find that it looks like something else you've seen. This often results in long screeds when a more neurotypical person might find a faster way to say it. Where another person says, "your input is valuable because it's good to have as many voices as possible," I think, "no man is an iland to himself intire, each is a part of the main," et cetera. This is partially because I try to boil down maxims. Hanlon's Razor: Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence. The Dunning-Kruger effect: The less I know about something, the less I know I don't know about it. Oversimplifications, but each actually represents a constellation of associations which I plug into other things. Bohemian art colonies, Maidan and Standing Rock all are linked in my mind with a William Gibson story called The Winter Market because of the common difficulties of temporary autonomous zones, though they decay in distinctly different ways. This can result in errant conclusions, but I also use it to raise questions for myself, and occasionally others, about common solutions and lines of further research.
Unfortunately, this also results in huge overexplanation. Following a conversation with me down a line of thought which leaps from fiction to fact to a line of poetry is exhausting to others, even with the same source material available. It is not that I'm well-read; that's an accident of circumstance. It's that I do not have organic thought processes, but rather I pirate what I can from the thought processes and experiences of others, trying to form a holistic picture of the world on a very conscious level. A world which, I might remind you, I grew up believing did not want me. In turn, I did not, and sometimes do not, want myself. But I am here, and I will look at myself for a time.
Regardless, these large, holistic chunks means I must sometimes compress large constellations of ideas. This can be mystifying if I do not overexplain, and identifying the one relevant element is not something I'm good at.
For comparison, Temple Grandin thinks in pictures.

You'll find I apologize a lot. This is because I am an oaf, and often hurt people; the idea that I should instead not apologize is galling to me. It would help nobody if I did not acknowledge and attempt to work on my faults. I do not have a solution to that problem. I can try to apologize less. I make no promises. It may result in a familiar cycle of apologizing for apologizing. Try not to feel bad if that occurs. It's me. It's my fault, my problem, and it shouldn't be made to hurt you.

If you do not like what I'm doing, give me orders. I joined to follow, not to lead. If you find that exhausting, perhaps we can find an alternative. I like rules, but other people sometimes find them confining.

Occasionally I am told I have been of use or have some kind of value. This can cause me headaches due to a basic conflict with my worldview. Whatever. It's something to work out with a counselor, and I'm between counselors at present. That ball's rolling, pay it no mind. It's called cognitive dissonance.
I'm insufficiently inured, however, to the awareness that my input isn't valuable; if it were because it's redundant, or overrepresented, that's one thing, but it's hard not to take it personally when, instead, it's because I'm the one who said it instead of someone else.

I have taken a great deal of your time. I was asked to make a presentation about me, an idea which is anathema for a variety of reasons, and brevity is not my strong suit.

If there are any questions, I ask for time, now or on another occasion, to field them. If there are no questions, I'll assume the best.