Family issues: My dad

When I told my dad I had Asperger's Syndrome, I was terrified.  I had no idea how he'd respond to this news.  It was entirely conceivable that he'd dismiss it as something he didn't understand, which would segue into something he had a hostile reaction to.  This would segue into a hostile reaction to my own perceived gullibility for accepting the diagnosis and could have dissolved into a long, drawn out monologue which would only occasionally touch on the relevant issues, but would still contain the implicit opinion that I was gullible.  Or an idiot.  Or maybe even something else entirely.

Instead, he asked how it was going to be cured.  I told him it wasn't.  And this was accepted and filed away and never referred to again.  Months later, he and I were watching something on TV - a news article about a man who was some sort of piano prodigy.  The man sat at his piano and his studio audience called out suggestions for bits of music to play on the piano and he took their suggestions and played them.  Between suggestions, he sort of rocked a bit in his chair.

Suddenly, my dad said he thought the guy had autism.  We had both missed the beginning of the news item, so didn't know anything about this man.  We had no idea of the context of this story.  But I was surprised by his insight.  I knew nothing about the man on the TV, but had to immediately admit that some of the traits the man displayed were autistic traits.  Whether he had autism or Asperger's Syndrome or anything like that was pretty irrelevant, though.  What mattered to me in that moment, was that my dad had actually taken some steps towards finding out what I had meant when I had told him I had Asperger's.

It didn't matter how he'd taken those steps.  What's most likely is that he paid attention when someone at work discussed the condition.  It didn't even matter whether what he'd "learned" as a result of taking the steps was accurate or not.  It only mattered - to me - that he'd taken the steps at all.

My dad had an accident, when he worked in the forestry commission.  A tree fell on him.  It damaged his liver and this makes it hard for him to metabolise alcohol, which means he gets drunk very quickly.  And he's not a good drunk.  In fact, it would be more accurate to say that he can be a pretty mean drunk.  And since he can be pretty mean when he's sober, that's saying something.

About two hours ago, he had a can of Stella.  Since then, he's had two more cans and some brandy.  Now, I tend to watch what he's drinking and - if I'm joining him in a drink - take steps to make sure that I'm not left alone with him when he crosses the line between relatively sober and relatively drunk.

The thing is, there's different types of drunk and he can fit in every single one of them in a very short space of time.  Which means that I have to be aware of the kind that he's currently inhabiting at all stages of the process.  And if I see him edging into any of the "bad" areas, I have to start thinking about how to facilitate my departure.

I've had the same amount of alcohol as him, tonight.  Not because I absolutely had to, but because he took steps that made my refusal a bit awkward, so it was easier to just accept the drinks he offered.  And I feel stone cold sober.  He, on the other hand, has been slurring for the past hour.  I managed to escape to my room eventually, but only through the use of some very careful diplomacy and only at the risk of creating a "scene".   And diplomacy doesn't come naturally to me, so I've had to judge every step with the utmost care.

Tonight, we've spent a good while in the "chatty-but-bordering-on-aggressive-and-(if-I'm-extremely-unlucky)-downright-hostile" personality zone.  One of my least favourites and a particularly common one.

The danger areas kicked in before this, but a convenient starting point would be the news item about the asylum seekers in the boat that was destroyed just off Christmas Island.  He started ranting about "fucking refugees" and I let him rant for a while, because that was safest.  Occasionally, however, his rants would be punctuated by a characteristic stutter that I've come to despise in the last few months.

There will be an exceptionally bigoted statement, followed by a brief pause and then the word "Eh?"  Now, I don't know if this crosses the cultural barrier or not, so I'll explain - that staccato outburst is intended to invite some feedback.  And the only feedback that he desires is approval of his most recent statement.

When that happens, there are limited choices.  I can agree with whatever he said.  Or I can dispute it.  If I choose the latter option, I either have to back up my opinion (according to whatever rules he might arbitrarily impose) or I become trapped into an endless monologue on the subject where he backs up his own opinion.  For hours.  Aggressively.  With frequent changes of direction so that after about thirty minutes, I'm no longer even sure what his current stance is.

I can only make vaguely agreeable and non-confrontational noises before I encounter one of two potential outcomes.  One is that I become too disgusted with my weak stance and feel the need to defend my own opinion and the other is that he recognises my weak stance for exactly what it is.  A patronising and cowardly aversion to arguing with him.  And that can make him aggressive.

So I hit the point where I had to stand my ground.  I went to the toilet and when I came back, he actually rewound the TV to the point where the item started off.  He made comments about how terrible it was, but these comments were intercut with vaguely defined bits of bigotry that made it hard to tell exactly where his sympathies truly lay.  This is a very clever ploy, because it means that however I approach the subject, he can adjust his own stance and move into a contradictory approach automatically.  It would be convenient to say that this is a deliberate and calculated stance, but to be honest, it isn't.  It just means that his comments are ill-informed, ill-defined and based on sheer ignorance - they're shifting with every second.

Eventually, my tolerance ran out and - fuelled by the information that some of the asylum seekers came from Iran - I told him about a book I'd read called Persepolis.  I withheld certain details, because they would have automatically invited derision and dismissal - like the fact that the book was a graphic novel.  Instead, I concentrated on what was relevant.  That the woman who wrote the book (Marjane Satropi) had written about her own life in Iran.  That she was of a similar age to me.  That when I compared my experiences to hers at various points in the narrative, I could barely even conceive of what she'd gone through.  I told him she'd gone to Europe, encountered bigotry and hardship, lived for a while on the streets, returned to the stifling and restrictive lifestyle back in Iran and finally left Iran once more.  I told him about how her mother had made her promise to never return home.  I wanted to make that point clear to him.  Marjane's mother had solicited a promise from her daughter that she would never return.  To her home.

I followed that up with a statement that the people on that boat would never have put themselves in such a position unless they had something they were escaping from that was worth the risks and the hardship.

This is where it gets really frustrating.  This is where his stance starts to shift and change.  This is where he can adjust his perspective in the middle of a sentence.

He agreed with me.  He seemed to be briefly stirred by what I'd said about Marjane Satropi and he started to respond with a story he had heard from a friend of his.

The story kicked off with something vague about a plucky refugee who had fallen on hard times and gradually coalesced into a story about how his friend had encountered a woman sobbing.  His friend (called Alex Salmond, for some reason - he couldn't even make a name up) asked the woman what was wrong.  It turned out she was an asylum seeker and she was locked out of her flat.  If she couldn't get in, she would be deported on the spot.  Alex took her into his place and gave her somewhere to stay.

Now, at this point, the woman was still a plucky refugee and Alex, by default, had become "a nice guy".  This was the kind of tale that fitted the narrative he was currently weaving.  But it was round about then that he started to remember his actual stance about refugees and so the narrative had to change to accommodate this.  Which meant that the woman had to be redefined.

And so it turned out that Alex Salmond (Alex fucking Salmond - even then, I couldn't understand why there wasn't a sober part of his brain that recognised the name and cut in to stop him using it every five minutes) was repaid for his generosity by being brutally betrayed.  One day, someone turned up on his doorstep claiming to be the girl's brother.  Apparently, word had got out that his place was a "safe house" and that any refugee could turn up there and get shelter.  Also, the girl had found one of Alex Salmond's credit cards and used it to run up £30,000 of debt.

Now, in a rational conversation with anyone else, I could have picked a hundred holes in the story.

Where did this credit card come from?  How could so much debt be suddenly charged to it before anyone noticed anything wrong?  Was Alex Salmond definitely responsible for it, or could credit card fraud be proved?  Why would this woman put out his address as a "safe house" simply because she got offered some hospitality?  What did "safe house" even mean?  Who would be stupid or desperate enough to claim refuge at a place based on such flimsy evidence as the fact that a man had offered a safe place for a woman?

The problem is that every one of those holes could be filled by someone who is skilled enough at bluster.  Throw in a few half truths and enough confidence and the argument is overturned.  And don't forget that you're up against someone who will simply override any objection you might have with a fresh wave of bluster and a whole new story (complete with a fresh set of holes) to back up this change of direction.  And over the top of it all, there's this attitude - never fully stated, but always implied - that you're an arsehole for questioning him at all.

Seriously... about a year ago, I had the temerity to say something about electric cars and the conversation that resulted from that lasted for three hours and almost reduced me to tears of frustration.  I mean that literally, by the way.  And I know what "literally" genuinely means.

All I could do was wait out his monologue (and it was a monologue by this point) to run its course and then hope that I'd laid enough groundwork to help me retreat.  I'd become trapped by a full can of beer and a full glass of brandy.  The can had been opened and the brandy had been poured and both would have to be drunk before I could conceivably escape with the absolute minimum of debate.  So I listened to his stories and made it known (with a great deal of subtlety) that it was going to be bedtime for me, pretty soon.

And then, suddenly, he picked up the bottle of Hennessy that he hadn't opened yet.  He offered me a glass.  I turned it down.  He insisted.  I said I was tired and it was bedtime.  He pointed out that it was a freshly opened bottle.  I acknowledged that.  Did I really not want to try this freshly opened bottle?  And by the time we'd finished this bit of verbal sparring, I'd been manoeuvred to the point where continuing to turn it down would have made it apparent that I was deliberately rejecting his hospitality and generosity.  So I had my glass refreshed and was trapped for that bit longer.

I've been a real prick, though.  In that rant, I've spent a long time describing how much difficult it is living with my dad.  And it is difficult; I'm not going to withdraw any of that.  Everything I've said here is true.  But it's not fair to leave it at that.

I should point out that my dad is the hardest working man I've ever known.  That's not hyperbole - it's the literal, honest truth.  He's always been around, he's always grafted, he's always got up at 6AM and headed out to work on farms or on the roads, or do whatever had been necessary to bring in a wage and support his family.  I think it's how he defines himself.  "I work - that's what I do."  Something like that.  He is not a complicated man - but he has a complicated son.  And that's where the difficulties rise.

He doesn't understand me.  I confuse him.  And that's always been the case.  For most of my life, I've been scared of him and tried to take steps to make sure my time with him has been kept to an absolute minimum.  And he's recognised that and set out to counter it.  So if he wanted to do some work on a car, I had to help him.  It didn't matter that I had a sister who was more mechanically minded than me and more motivated to help him - that was my job and it was the mould that he felt I should fit.  And he tried to shape me to it.  And I responded to his efforts with fear and reluctance.

The thing is, I would withdraw.  I'd become sullen, resentful and... well, imagine most negative teenage characteristics and I probably embodied those from a very early age.  His response would be a simple one and based on his own childhood experiences - these negative characteristics needed to be knocked out of me.  In this case, I'm  not imposing any judgement on him; I'm simply acknowledging that there was a process of action and reaction going on that was very damaging all round.  In short - we damaged each other almost constantly, and it's only in the last year or so that I've started to recognise that.

And this instalment has become overwhelmingly negative.  And I don't like that.  It's really bothering me, in fact.  I can't delete it, because that's not right - to do so would be to deny things that really shouldn't be denied.  And to do so would make this narrative incomplete.  There would be a major hole that really defines my life in a very big way.  Nobody, after all, has had a bigger impact on me than my dad.  So how do I proceed with it?

The good thing is that the last year has provided an advancement in my relationship with him.  I hate to use the term "bonded", but there's been a very definite element of that going on.  In the last year, following the car accident, I've had to move back in with my parents and I've had to deal with the same things that I had so much trouble with when I was younger.  The difference has been my attitude and my way of responding to the personality conflicts.

My dad is not a complicated man - I mentioned that before.  So when adversity would make me withdraw, he would interpret my response as sulking.  This was a "bad attitude".  Therefore punishable.  Ironically, however, I now have a more complicated range of responses to draw on and I've managed to identify the ones that are most likely to defuse a dangerous situation.  I have jokes, quips and responses available.  OK, so there have been times when these responses have made a bad situation even worse (that's always the risk) but there have been a lot of times when they've disarmed him.  I've actually seen the look on his face where he has had to decide whether to see the funny side or not - and chosen to do so, because the alternative is simply too difficult.  It's not that I don't confuse him any more.  It's the fact that now he can avoid the confusion because the sarcasm gives him an alternative response.

We've also discovered some common ground.  Sadly, that ground is alcoholic in nature, and this means that I've become concerned about my own intake in recent months, but it's still cool to be able to share something.  Independently of each other, we have both discovered Leffe - a Belgian beer that is the best stuff you can possibly drink.  It's expensive, though - so not a common drink.  So when the occasional bottle comes out, it's met with extreme approval all round.  The Leffe glasses are produced, the beer is poured very carefully and it's a taste that we very definitely share.  Years from now - decades from now - Leffe is going to be connected with the most positive memories of my dad.

I have to write this next bit with some degree of surprise.  I have somehow - in that last paragraph - invested a fair degree of emotion and sentimentality in that drink.  I suddenly realised, in one moment, just how accurate the last line is and for a moment, I actually had to cope with a powerful emotional response.

Apart from Leffe, our taste in lagers and beers only vaguely coincide, and that's largely because I'm not too fussy about them.  So the next area where we really connect is with brandies and whiskies.  And that generally means the more expensive the better.  In this last year, there's been a huge amount of occasions where he's produced some bottle or another and poured me a glass.  It pleases him when I taste a good one and react with approval and then we'll "share a moment" and talk about how smooth it is.  And it amuses him when he produces a cheap one and he sees the reaction to that instead.

Incidentally, even he's aware of the Jekyll and Hyde response he can have to whisky - that's the worst of the lot with him - so although we touch on that occasionally, it tends to be brandy that we share.  And one year, about seven years back, I was in a shop just a couple of days before his birthday, trying to decide between two bottles of brandy that I wanted to buy for him.

I was very low on cash.  I could have opted for the one which would have left me with a little bit of pocket money, or I could have gone for the more expensive option.  My girlfriend at the time - Jenn - suggested that perhaps there wasn't that much difference in the quality, but I just didn't know.  I couldn't help thinking that there was a reason for the £10 price difference.  And in the end, I spent every penny on the better option.  When I gave it to him, he opened it right away and poured two glasses.  And it was smooth.  And I knew I'd made a good choice.

Nearly a year later, the following Hogmanay, I bought a bottle of the other stuff, tasted it and knew - without a doubt - that I'd made the right decision.  Fucking paintstripper.

Tactile issues and massage therapy

I studied massage therapy at James Watt College in Greenock for about 15 months, before quitting the course.  I've been to college three times before, and I've dropped out each time at around about the same point.  It's when there are too many changes to the course and I can't keep up with them, so I start dropping behind in some classes.  Then I skip those classes and fall further behind.  Then it gets to the point where I realise I won't catch up, so I quietly admit defeat and drop out.

I also had problems with the fact that while I wanted to learn Swedish massage and maybe aromatherapy, I wasn't really interested in most of the rest of the classes.  I understood the logic of anatomy & physiology, health & safety, the integumentary system, cardio-vascular system and all those other semi-medical classes, so I enjoyed those too.  But reflexology?  Messing around with peoples' feet because that MIGHT be having an effect on the other systems of their body?  I just wasn't interested.

I resented the fact that if I didn't pass every class, then I wouldn't pass the course.  And that included those I had no interest in, would never use again and would not benefit me in the slightest.

So I quit.  And a friend recommended that I study privately instead.  I tried to get funding, but failed, so paid for the course out of my unemployment benefit instead.  The course fees took up a huge chunk of my income, so I was reduced to living off beans on toast for nine months, while I concentrated solely on Swedish massage - a course that also covered all the physiological elements that were relevant.

I passed, because I understood what I needed to know at every step of the course.  One weekend per month over nine months, we concentrated on a specific system of the body, while still taking in the skeletal and muscular stuff and while still learning how to give a good massage.  At home, we knew what stuff to brush up on and we were encouraged to use friends and family as private case studies.  I had two posters on the wall by my PC - one showing the skeletal system and one showing the muscular system.  They were covered in post-it notes concentrating on about forty specific muscles and included (in anatomical terms) their origins, insertion points and actions.  I learned how to map out a broad and simplified version of the cardio-vascular system and would draw it out repeatedly until I could do it from memory alone.  What was very complicated at college, became a lot easier on this course.

After that, I went onto a different course and learned Acupressure Therapy.  This was a more specialised form of massage that was designed to be taken into the office environment.  The client could sit in a specially designed chair and the therapist could get to work on that person's neck, back and shoulders.  The client remained fully dressed and no oils were used.  For me - as a male therapist - this was perfect.  There was no major need for privacy, the massages were delivered right out in the open and the client didn't feel vulnerable.

I got a job at Glasgow airport, where I developed my technique, then moved on to work at a clinic in Glasgow.  I worked there for about three years.  The business was owned by Nicola - a friend of mine - and we worked incredibly hard there to try and develop it.  I routinely worked for a minimum of 60 hours every week.  There were days when I had to both open and close the place, so I'd get up in the morning, take more than an hour to travel to Glasgow, open the shutters, get inside, clean the place, get it open by 9AM, work all day, then close up at 8PM and return home.

Not every day was like that.  On other days, Nicola and I would travel in together, so I could sleep a bit later.  She often commented that she couldn't understand why I wasn't exhausted and at the time we put that down to the fact that I have a very high metabolism.  I still believe that was a strong element, but since I found out that I have Asperger's Syndrome, I also learned that this is one of the things that people with the condition tend to experience.  Being focused on the job and having distractions would mean that I wasn't always aware of how they were affecting my physically.  Just because I didn't FEEL tired didn't mean that I was as inexhaustible as I appeared to be.  In fact, when I would get home, I'd usually have time to get myself something to eat, watch TV for an hour and then practically collapse into bed.  And get up the following day to do the same thing again.

It seems that people on the autistic scale aren't always the best judges of how they're feeling.  OK... so I covered tiredness there, because it was directly applicable to me as a result of that job.  But I've also experienced times when I've sat down at my PC to write something, or work on a piece of art, or even just play a game - and them become so focused on what I'm doing that hours can go by without me really being aware of it.  I won't notice time passing, or the room getting colder and darker, or the fact that I'm getting hungry.  I couldn't even estimate the amount of times where I've sat back from the screen and actually felt like I'm just waking up - and then trying to remember when I last ate.  Usually the answer to that one would be that I HADN'T eaten that day.  And I'd suddenly realise that I was cold, hungry and thirsty.

Not tired, though.  This is complicated by that metabolism thing again, but I hardly ever get properly tired.  I seldom have proper sleep patterns and I hate going to bed.  It just seems like an incredible waste of time and I can always find something to distract me or some reason to delay the moment where I turn in.  Unless, of course, I'm working as a massage therapist for 60 hours a week.

One thing I love (and it happens rarely) is that feeling of sheer, physical and mental exhaustion that actually means that my bed is something to be welcomed.  That sensation where even just stripping off is an exertion that feels like a strain on overstretched physical resources.  And that sensation of sheer bliss as I drag the blankets over myself.  When I'm pushed to that level, then my bed becomes the most welcome and welcoming possible place.

Back to massage therapy, though - I seem to have drifted away from the subject.

I used to find it intriguing that I was the least tactile massage therapist I had ever met.  I've never been the kind of person to go about initiating physical contact.  It's not that I have a problem with it, like a lot of people on the autistic scale - it's more like I've never really been sure of the rules of physical contact, so I've never been sure how it would be perceived if I DID initiate it.  Handshakes have usually been fine, but even then I can get a bit over analytical.  In any given situation, I'll find myself thinking about whether offering my hand to someone is going to be an appropriate or welcome gesture.

So when I first started training as a massage therapist, I found myself thinking about this.  I had chosen a career option where I was going to HAVE to touch people.  It was a necessary and intrinsic part of this chosen vocation.  But... there were rules governing it.  It was sanctioned contact.  So perhaps I'd chosen this job as a means of receiving tactile contact as well as giving it.

At the airport - and then at the clinic - I had a lot of loyal clients who kept returning specifically for me.  It's a really good feeling to look up and see familiar faces coming back because they appreciated what I'd done to them on previous visits.

(Please note that the following anecdotes will - in no way - compromise any client confidentiality issues, because no names are going to be given and there will not be enough personal information that could result in anyone identifying them.)

I was just about to close the shutter on the clinic one day, when someone turned up and she looked so incredibly disappointed that she'd missed her opportunity for a massage, that I couldn't just turn her away.  I missed my train, but I still invited her in.  She was an intriguing person; she never spoke much and I never really felt like I could find anything in her back that particularly needed working on, but she clearly disagreed because she would turn up on an average of twice a week.  She was a very shy person and I suspect that she came back because there was a tactile element that she wasn't experiencing elsewhere.

At the airport, a girl came through on a business trip one day and had a massage.  Nothing particularly special about that, but she came back through the following day on her return journey and this time I found something wrong with her neck.  A big lump on the right hand side.  I knew it hadn't been there the day before, so I was immediately concerned.  I explored it nervously and came to the tentative conclusion that it was a rotated vertebrae.  After a moment I mentioned it to her and she instantly agreed.  It was the recurring consequence of an old horse riding accident and often presented itself when she slept in a strange bed.  And it always resulted in blinding headaches.  I didn't go pushing it back into place or anything stupid like that, but as I worked on the muscles round about it, they reasserted themselves and slowly drew it back into its proper position.  I was fascinated by this process - I was witnessing the body actually correcting itself with a bit of outside help.  I never saw her again, so I don't know if she managed to escape the headaches this time, but I like to think she did.

Another regular client at the airport used to enjoy telling me that he appreciated that I could pile on the pressure.  "These little girls," he said once.  "They don't know how to fuckin' do it."  I knew that was wrong, because the little therapist he was referring to could really pile on the pressure; she could practically cripple me.  But he was convinced that a tall, male therapist was automatically stronger so he wasn't going to be convinced.  One day, he came through and told me he'd paid £90 for a massage the previous day.  I was impressed and said that must have been a good massage.  "Well, to be fair," he said.  "It wasn't just a massage."

Again at the airport... a businessman came through and he was seriously angry.  He walked into the massage area and practically spluttered out his story of indignation.  The airport had messed up on a connecting flight and now he was going to have to wait twelve hours and still have to pay extra.  I really felt bad for him; I could empathise with the impotent rage he was clearly feeling.  I let him rant and after a minute or two, when he'd finished telling me the story, he aplogised "for taking it out on me".  I told him that I hadn't felt like he'd done that; he just needed a vent and it wasn't like I was feeling picked on because he wasn't holding me responsible in any way.  Then I gave him a massage.  When I had finished and he sat up, the transformation was incredible.  He was completely blissed out.  In that moment, I really loved my job.

I can't do massage therapy any more - not as a career.  I was in a car accident in early 2009 and was left with long-term whiplash.  Now I can probably work on more than one or two people in a short period, but if I do any more work than that, the whiplash flares up and I'm in a lot of pain all over again so I have to make sure I don't overdo it.

I still do it occasionally, but not in a professional capacity. To keep in practice, or because I know someone could benefit from it. And maybe one day I'll get past this whiplash and get back into it as a career option. Just... not for a good while, yet. 

Mouths

A few years ago, I read a lot of comics. One day, I recognised the work of a specific artist by the way he drew a mouth. The artist was Norm Breyfogle and I developed a liking for his artistic style after that. Then I noticed that I was recognising other artists by the way they drew mouths. Their artistic style could be very distinctive, but it was often the mouths that I noticed first.

A few years later, a friend commented that whenever she spoke to me, if I was concentrating hard, I would focus on her mouth rather than her eyes. She thought it was mildly disconcerting when she first noticed it. I hadn't even realised I did this until she pointed it out.

For a while, it was suggested that I might have some hearing difficulties I hadn't been aware of and that I was subconsciously lip-reading. I checked into this. No... no hearing problems at all, so that's not it.

Early this year, after I got my AS diagnosis, I was told that people on the autistic spectrum often focused specifically on mouths. We have sensory complications at times and so look for any edge we can get. So we watch mouths so as not to miss any nuances in communication.

All this has led me to be very aware of mouths. I have been aware of mouths for a long, long time and can identify specific times in my childhood where I recognised that mouths were different from those I was used to (people from different ethnic or social backgrounds) and was wary or cautious as a result. In art and photography, I focus straight in on them.

I spot the sensual potential in mouths. I spot the potential for cruelty in them. In fact, it's entirely possible that I look to mouths in the same way that other people look to eyes.

So... I might like your mouth a lot. But I might never notice the colour of your eyes. Please don't take it personally.

Confrontation

I'm not good at unexpected confrontation. If something happens unexpectedly and I find myself in a situation I wasn't prepared for, my immediate response is often one of detailed analysis - not reaction. I start to think about what provoked the situation, whether my interpretation of it is accurate, what my response should be... By the time I come up with a response that I think is the correct one, the moment has often passed and it's too late.

Recently, I was in Dusseldorf with my girlfriend, who was Cantonese. We were about to catch a train back to Frankfurt and were a bit early, so we went into a coffee shop. We were sitting at a table, when a young German couple came in and took a table slight to the rear and slightly to the left of us. The guy was behind me, but I could see the girl out of the corner of my eye.

They were talking, while Lucy and I were talking. I had no interest in their conversation. But then they guy said something that cut across our conversation. He didn't raise his voice too much, but it travelled very clearly. He said "Fucking Chinese."

Lucy stayed completely bland and completely serene - a characteristic that I often admired and sometimes found infuriating. She sipped her coffee. I looked at her and said "Was that directed at you?" She shrugged like it didn't matter.

I kept drinking my coffee and thought through the various options.

Should I take issue with the guy on her behalf? I hate doing that - it's offensive and patronising.

Should I stand up and deck the guy? Too caveman. Instantly dismissed.

Should I ignore it? Didn't like that one at all. Made me look like a pussy. Should stand up for my girlfriend. But that leads back to the first option.

This thought process was complicated by other factors I wasn't completely clear on. Was the remark a general part of a general conversation with his girlfriend that had no bearing on or connection to Lucy? What if I stood up and picked a fight and I was completely wrong?

Then the guy was holding his hand in the air and snapping his fingers to catch the attention of the lady at the till. Now, this is something I think is monumentally rude and offensive. Demanding someone's attention in such a way demonstrates that your impression of that person is that they're a minion - a servant who exists merely to do your bidding. It's exerting authority - and, by extension, superiority - over that person. So even if his previous comment had nothing to do with Lucy, he had confirmed himself as being a prick in my opinion.

The girl came over, took care of whatever the situation was and returned to the till. Lucy and I kept drinking our coffees, but the mood was soured for me. I hadn't taken any action at all and I didn't like the fact that I was starting to think of myself as a pussy for not standing up for my girlfriend in the face of a comment that may or may not even have been about her. Although, the chances were good that it was about her.

Then he said it again. And again, it cut across the conversation. And, having been said a second time, I was able to make a clear comparison between this tone and the tone of everything else he had said to his girlfriend. Muted, normal conversation, then occasionally this offensive comment. It was meant to be heard.

I swung round in my seat and looked over at the two of them. She looked up, met my eye and looked away immediately. She was clearly embarrassed and I felt sorry for her. I don't think she was comfortable with this arsehole's company.

He noticed her reaction and swung round in his seat to see what she was looking at. He tried to maintain eye contact, but I stared him down until he crumbled and turned away. After that, I turned back to Lucy. We finished our coffees and left.

Now - like a lot of AS characteristics, I'm not trying to claim that my responses were unique to my condition. There are a lot of NT people out there who would have had a similar crisis to me. They would not have known how to react, so by the time they came to a decision, the moment would have passed for them. But there are plenty more, who would have taken instant action. And in many cases, that action would have been violent or aggressive. The situation would probably have escalated. My action resulted in a standoff that I won, though. I don't claim it was the best action - or even the right one - but I do think that I won a very small victory against a bigoted arsehole.

After we left, it occurred to me - belatedly - that whenever he said "fucking Chinese", he was speaking English. So there was no doubt at all that the comment was directed towards us. He had spoken in a language that we understood, rather than in German. Funny how these things only occur much later.

Family values (Part One - Caroline)

My sister is here. At my parents' place. And it's driving me completely and totally mental. I'm trying to have some patience with her, considering the current situation, but there's only so many attacks a person can take. I've reached my limit and so I’ve withdrawn to the privacy of my room.

Yesterday, if I spoke at all, she'd respond with some witty put-down, then laugh long and hard just to demonstrate how successfully she'd put me down and how witty she had been in the process. At one point there somebody said something about my height. It was a sort of passing comment which was very accurate because I am definitely tall. Caroline’s devastating contribution to this conversation was "aye, ye long skinny shite!"

Now, I don't like any unnecessary use of exclamation marks, but in her case - due to the sheer volume of her comment - that one is necessary. Then that laugh that can only be described as a cackle. Fucking hell.

Now, the really frustrating element is that this doesn't qualify as banter, because if I have a response handy then her counter-response is even more shrill and filled with rage. The veneer of cameraderie quickly drops and I become "a cheeky bastard". It's not banter - it's an argument. I'm trying not to fall into this trap so much, but it's difficult because the only way of getting out of it is by being silent and the best outcome of that is a demonstration that I'm not up to the battle of wits. The worst outcome is opening myself up to becoming "a huffy bastard" instead.

I've never known how to respond to her. She's a fucking psycho. Seriously. There are times when I'm tempted to consider that to be a bit of an exaggeration, but then I look at the facts - this person bit a cop once. And I had to grow up with her. She has never cared how much trouble she brings down on her own head, so long as she can spread it around. Biting a cop is, I believe, more than enough evidence to back up that particular belief. Now, I'm confident that she wasn't overly discriminatory about where the trouble landed, but I'm sure always got a particular thrill whenever any of it specifically landed on me. Which makes her a fucking psycho with a grudge.
(I'm wondering about the wisdom of including this chapter in the book. It might get edited out later, but right now I’m going to treat it as a sort of therapy. This is getting the frustration out of my system.)

Now that I think about it, the final straw – the reason I retreated to my bedroom – is disappointingly trivial. When Caroline got in, she went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Now, one of our regular power struggles (and I consider myself to be just as petty as her on this one) revolves around the issue of making tea. On almost every visit she makes, there will be a request phrased along the lines of “Graham, go and make a cup of tea?” and I’ll have to decide my response. If I do as she requests, she’s effectively given me an order and I’ve complied. If I refuse, I’m being petty. Perhaps this power struggle is entirely in my head and the very fact that I have this internal dialogue going on at all could say more about me than it does about her. But it’s there. Every time.

She didn’t request that I make the tea, though. She wandered into the living room and sat down. The kettle finished boiling, but she had settled down by then. There was a brief exchange about it at one point, but nobody got up to finish the job. It was just generally understood that when someone wanted tea or coffee enough, that person would get up and make it – and then everyone else would get a cup if they wanted any. Nothing particularly controversial there.

Then I had to get up and do something. And when I had finished, I lingered for a while before I re-entered the living room, because I wanted to figure out what response I would have if I was asked to make tea. I decided I would be diplomatic and just do as I was requested, because it was the easiest option. And then I returned to the living room. There was, however, no such request, so I sat down without having to deal with that moral quandary. Issue ducked without any compromises – result.

I had returned near the end of an item on the news about Edinburgh’s canal, though. I had missed most of it, and I was intrigued. I’ve always wanted to own a canal boat, so I wanted to know more. I asked for a quick recap, and was told that the canal between Edinburgh and Falkirk had recently reopened. I wanted to know more, so I picked up my laptop, checked to see if there was anything on the internet about it and quickly found an article. I was most interested in the celebration that had been mentioned, so I wanted to find out when it was being held and where. I found a reference pretty quickly and, as a prelude to suggesting that it might be a good day out if anyone else wanted to come along, I mentioned that it was happening this weekend. And that was when Caroline waded in.

“They just told you about that on the news!”


Now, over the years, I think I’ve developed a bit of a Pavlovian response to that shrill voice and it irritated me right away. I reminded her that I had missed most of the news item, then remembered my earlier resolve to be diplomatic and tried to tone back the bitchy responses. This resolve lasted just long enough for Caroline to subside into a brief silence – lasting perhaps half a minute – before coming up with an answer. Then she put her hands up to her ears and said “That’s what you’ve got these for!” Seriously, it’s practically Wildean.

And that’s when I left the room. As I closed up my laptop and unplugged it, my mum told me I should stop being so touchy (a valid point), but I was on my way at that point. The decision had been made and I wasn’t turning back. As I climbed the stairs, I heard Caroline saying “He can dish it out but he can’t take it back!”

That got me thinking. I had to stop and consider whether she had a valid point with that statement. I felt that there was a big difference between my occasional offhand comment or bit of banter and her constant attacks. And… yeah… there definitely is a massive difference. I enjoy a bit of humour and a bit of witty debate. But Caroline is incapable of this. Instead, she has a potent mixture of volume, rage and energy. She’s really good at it. There aren’t many people (certainly not me) who can stand against it. In fact, I can’t think of anyone who can do it better, with the possible exception of my dad. I’m not sure who would win if there was ever a major conflict between the two of them and they both turned it on full force, because I haven’t witnessed that sort of thing in a long, long time. And even if I witnessed it again, I wouldn’t see the ultimate conclusion. Because I’d be taking cover. A long, long way away.

Not a democracy

I want to cover this, but I don’t want to go into any great detail. I might return to it at some point, but right now I just think I should set the scene so that I can point out some of the consequences, because they’re relevant. It’ll help you understand – if you need to – why certain circumstances have developed.

In February of 2009, I was in a car accident. Nicola and I were driving from Greenock to Glasgow, when her car stalled while we were on the motorway. We couldn’t get out of the lane we were in and so we coasted to a halt in the lane adjacent to the fast lane. We sat there for about seven minutes before we were hit from behind at around 70 mph. It’s not a long time but it’s long enough to realise that a collision is inevitable. And it’s long enough to come to terms with the fact that the chances of surviving it are slim.

We did survive, which was a fairly pleasant surprise. But there were consequences. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and some physical injuries. “Moderate to severe” whiplash, some fibrosis, calcification of the supraspinatus tendon and a rotator cuff tear. I had some counselling for the PTSD and some physiotherapy for the physical injuries, but neither treatment has completely been successful – the repercussions of this accident are likely to last for a good while yet.

In a very short period of time, I lost my flat in Greenock and became homeless, lost my job at the clinic in Glasgow when it closed down and had to deal with the repercussions of that accident. I moved back in with my parents to get some support and I’m still living there now. I’m finally ready to move back out again, so as soon as I get a new flat in Edinburgh, I’ll have my independence and privacy once again. That, however, will have to wait until either I can afford to put down a deposit or the council offer me a place. And since I want to get into the town centre, I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to have to wait.

I’ve lived in the schemes before. I had a flat in Peffermill when I was in my early twenties and I have fond memories of that place. I’ve also lived in Craigmillar, Niddrie and Gracemount. And those are all areas I could return to quite easily, if I was to compromise on the areas I was interested in. But I’m holding out for something better than that. In general, it’s the city centre. In particular, it’s the Grassmarket, the South Side, or the Cowgate.

Every week, the council publish a list of flats available and I take a look. I get to select three places from the list that I would like and if I hold more points than anyone else who has requested that particular place then I’ll get it. It’s a long process, because the places I’m holding out for are popular ones, so I’m relying on having more points and I’m only getting those through longevity – being on the list longer than my competitors. I’m not sure that it’s the most effective strategy.

I’ve considered sharing, but I’m not sure that’s the best move for me. I don’t like not having control of my environment. I like space to spread out and to stamp my own personality onto. Once I’m settled somewhere, I’d probably be happy to let other people come in and share with me, but only on my terms – and that’s not exactly the most compromising of attitudes. Not exactly conducive to a shared living space.

I described my ultimate fantasy to some friends, once and they liked the concept. I told them that if I had enough money, I’d buy a derelict farm or a similar property in the middle of nowhere. Some large, ramshackle, rambling place with a lot of space and a lot of character. It wouldn’t even matter if large chunks of the building weren’t completely suitable for habitation. So long as there was a room I could live comfortably in and a room I could cook in, then I could set about restoring the rest of it.

I said that people could come and stay. Hippies, artists, creative types who are attracted to this kind of environment. People who want to escape from the city and recharge themselves and contribute to the general atmosphere.

We got very creative with the concept and we all ran with it a bit, adding bits and pieces to the overall picture. There would be bean bags and couches and coal fires. There would be massive windows overlooking trees and a huge garden and wilderness. In the winter, the snow would make the fire cosy and the house would be a shelter from the storm. In the summer, there would be barbecues and laughter and friends and parties and drinking.

I decided there would be a yurt, because I’d seen one at the Wicker Man music festival a few years ago and thought it was amazing. I used to visit a place called Wiston Lodge, where I had seen longhouses and where I had once helped build a tepee, so I incorporated those into my fantasy home, too. There’d be vegetable gardens and treehouses and a bath outside that was fully plumbed in with hot water. Not a Jacuzzi – an actual bath. And there would be a constant “clothing optional” policy in place, so if anyone wanted to be naked, then that was also completely cool. Because – let’s face it – the person most likely to want to be naked was me.

And finally, one of my friends said “That sounds great. Like a big hippy commune where everybody gets a say in how things are run.” And at that point I realised that my vision was a little different from hers.

“Fuck, no!” I answered diplomatically. “It’s not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship. The place is mine.”

Can Igor do it?

I was in the middle of an argument with Nicola. I had fucked something up pretty badly and tempers were running high. I was feeling exceptionally guilty, because I knew my mistake had been costly. I was also feeling victimised and picked on. And very defensive.

Finally, I rounded on her and told her that in future, she needed to ask herself a question before trusting me with any responsibility. I told her she should say “can Igor do it?” If she decided that it was beyond Igor’s capabilities, then it was probably beyond mine, too.

Yeah. I know. But it wasn’t the first fight we’d had and I was starting to have some real problems coping with the conflicts. So… that was my response. It didn’t exactly reduce the tension.

Whale song, guided meditation and fucking pan pipes

The last time I dropped out of college, I was studying massage therapy. Initially, I had been doing OK but not brilliant. I had some issues with some of the classes, but I was coping. I didn’t like the fact that I was having to study for some subjects that were going to have no relevance to my own personal future career prospects, though. There was a reflexology class, for example. I knew that as soon as I finished the course, I was never going to voluntarily work on another person’s foot ever again – but I was still going to have to pass this particular module if I wanted to pass the course. That frustrated me. I could be perfect in every class that was relevant to me, but if I failed one that wasn’t I would fail the course.

I tolerated this, though. I had initially started the course, because I just wanted something to do, but I had become fascinated by it and really wanted to progress. I had two posters on my living room wall – one for muscular anatomy and one for skeletal anatomy – and I had post-it notes all round them. I was really getting into it. But while I was doing OK with some classes, I was falling behind on others. In short, I wasn’t doing OK at all.

More classes were introduced that I had no interest in. Suddenly, I needed to learn about skin types and how to make up face-masks out of fruit and muesli. Again, this was something I was never going to need to know and would never put into practice when I completed the course. In fact, I couldn’t (and still can’t) comprehend a time when knowing the best way to mash up a banana and slap it onto someone’s face would come in even remotely useful. I approached the head tutor and managed to drop that class in favour of remedial work in another one, but by then the rot was already setting in.

Then there were all the guided meditation sessions that some tutors set a lot of store by. Now, I know I’m not the only massage therapist out there who can’t be bothered with all that “happy place” stuff, but it’s fair to say that we’re in the minority. These guided meditation sessions simply seemed pointless, irritating and intrusive – and I found myself wondering why I was submitting to someone else’s voodoo nonsense when I could be learning something valuable instead. It felt patronising and offensive. Throw in a CD full of whale song, Buddhist chanting, harps, pan-pipes and somebody whoring up a grotesque parody of native -American culture and it becomes intolerable.

The final straw came about when one tutor described how to colour-code the names on some case-study forms with highlighter pens. Now, I’m not going to go into the specifics here, because I barely comprehended it the first time round and there’s no way I can replicate the details right now. But we were told how to do this by one tutor. I thought I got the basics and I figured I could work the rest out as it became relevant. Then, in a different class, it was explained to us again – in a different way – by a different tutor. And I started to have doubts about whether I understood it after all. In a different class again, one of the other students told the new tutor that she wasn’t sure she understood how this worked, so it was explained again. And again. And again. And I knew I was starting to have some real problems. Then we got back to the first tutor and someone asked what happened if we ran out of colours with our highlighter pens. We were told to take two different highlighter pens and start highlighting names in stripes of different colours. At that point, I quietly gave up.

I quit the course and then hit a bout of depression because I started wondering whether I was stupid, lazy or both. Perhaps neither of those. Perhaps I was just running from responsibility. Perhaps I just wanted the comfort of the dole queue.

The thing is… too many things changed at once and I couldn’t cope with that. I suddenly felt out of my depth and I’ve never handled that sort of thing well. This is one of the things I’ve since discovered is common to people on the autistic spectrum. I can handle changes better than a lot of people with the condition, but I still struggle – and when there are a lot of changes in a very short space of time, then they tend to overwhelm me.

Anyway, I had made a friend on the course. Nicola – the person I later worked with at the clinic in Glasgow – recommended I study privately instead. She gave me the contact details of a class in Glasgow. It was expensive, though… more than I could afford on a giro. So I tried to secure some funding. And failed.

I went to three separate sources for the money for this class, and was turned down by all of them. Eventually I got so frustrated, that I decided that whether I had funding or not, I would find a way to get through this course. So, for nine months, I forked out two thirds of my monthly giro, ate beans on toast and studied privately.

The course covered Swedish massage and nothing else. No reflexology, no face packs and no fucking highlighter pens. It was also made clear exactly what was being taught at every stage, so I always knew what I needed to know. There were constant tests and updates on muscular and skeletal anatomy and there were weekends devoted to the cardio-vascular system, the integumentary system, the digestive system. There was still – frustratingly – the occasional guided meditation session, but they were much rarer. I still didn’t like them, but I tolerated them.

I passed. And then I spent a further three months learning Seated Acupressure Therapy, and then I got a job at Glasgow airport. Then I started working with Nicola at the clinic in Glasgow. And I would probably still be there if it wasn’t for the car accident.

Feedback

I showed a preview copy of Part One of this book to a few people, looking for some general feedback. It wasn’t long before I started to receive it. And the point I would like to address comes from Lucy. She said:

Thanks for the writing you sent me. I've just finished reading it. So it is the Intro of a book you are writing? It is a book about yourself? A memoir? Or the book of understanding yourself? As I am reading it, I remember when you told me about all these. I told you that I had the impression that you are not suffering from it although you attach great importance to it. In fact, I am a bit curious to know: why couldn't you let the issue rest and you were so bothered by the facts/theory (not reading, short of empathy etc.)? what has changed since you got a diagnosis? I would rather see Autism as a unique trait instead of an illness.
Lucy is a Cantonese music and literature journalist, currently living in Beijing. I first met her via a website called Couchsurfing when she was staying in Edinburgh. Anyway, she raised a couple of points here that I felt would be worth exploring.

The main one is that I definitely agree with her that my condition is not an illness. It is also not a mental health issue – a fact that might surprise some people. It’s a neuro-developmental issue. Which means that my neurological system didn’t develop in the same way as a neurotypical person’s would. This affected things like memory, emotion and some of the higher cognitive functions. Personally, I don’t consider it to be a disability; it’s created problems over the years, but it’s also had some very positive effects. It’s really just made me a bit different from other people.

I had real difficulties as I was growing up. And a lot of those difficulties stemmed from the fact that nobody knew I had Asperger’s, so they didn’t know that certain allowances had to be made for me. I process information differently, I perceive the world in a different way and I respond to outside stimuli differently from other people. If this had been known, I suspect that my youth would have been radically different. I don’t know whether that means it would have been better, but it might have been easier. At least, there would have been more understanding.

All of this will be explored in more detail in later chapters.

So… I’m not treating the condition as a disability. In fact, I’m fascinated by it. And also – to be honest – there’s a part of me that feels seriously vindicated by the discovery of it. Because, despite the fact that I have an exceptionally high IQ, I’ve been to college three times and dropped out each time because there was just too much going on at once for me to cope with. I began to think of myself as an under-achiever and I didn’t like that thought. I felt that I should have progressed much further with my life, my career and my future prospects and couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t done so. Finding out I have Asperger’s Syndrome, however, has changed all that. Now I realise that I’ve been fighting to learn and progress within an educational establishment that wasn’t aware I had any stumbling blocks. I don’t consider my condition to be an illness or a disability. It’s just a different way of thinking. But it’s still fair to say that the difference has come at a cost. And part of the cost was three aborted attempts at going to college.

The unreliable narrator

I’m a great fan of the “unreliable narrator”. That’s the sort of story that’s told by someone who might have an impaired judgement, or who isn’t the most reliable of witnesses, or who might simply be a complete liar. Baron Munchausen would be the very definition of an unreliable narrator.

There’s also a kind of fiction where someone will ask five different people to describe what they’ve seen and all five people will give wildly differing stories, despite having been witnesses to the same event – not because they’re liars, but because they’ve had different impressions. Each one will tell the truth, but it’s the truth as they see it. The truth isn’t a fact. The truth can change.

It’s very possible that most people will consider me to be an unreliable narrator. This narrative is going to include a lot of anecdotal evidence and segues and footnotes, but they’re all going to be filtered through my perception of them. The accuracy may well turn out to be questionable. The other players in those events might dispute certain details. Some of the experiences I’m planning to describe are going to be high on emotional intensity and that’s also going to colour them. Some details are going to be excluded for the sake of brevity or simplicity, or just because I’ve forgotten them.

So… probably best to treat this book as a work of fiction that might occasionally include a few facts and become reliable.