I have friends. I've never had a lot of friends, but the ones I have... the ones I actually refer to as "friends, rather than "mates" or "pals" or any of those terms that have a bit less consequence... are the people who have accepted that I'm different and come to terms with that. But still... I'm never going to really fit in. Not completely. Not wholeheartedly. Not 100%.
I came to terms with that a long time ago. I still feel a bit frustrated by it sometimes and since my diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome I've actually understood why I'm like that. But I definitely came to terms with it.
This video almost seems to illustrate it for me. I must have watched it a thousand times. In it, Suggs is out of step with everybody else - he doesn't completely fit in. He's isolated, disconnected, alienated. On the surface the video looks cheerful and happy - like everything Madness ever produced - but there's still that slightly sinister undercurrent going on.
OK, so let's acknowledge the reality first. The song seems to be about mental health issues and that's not what Asperger's is. It's a neuro-developmental issue. That just means that I think differently from you, process information in a different way from you and respond to things differently from you. So not mental health. But still... there are parallels.
Anyway, it looks like Suggs has been very successful, risen to great heights and then fallen pretty far. At one point he's in a classroom while people are shouting at him - there's information he just can't seem to take in. At another point he's wearing clothes that once were expensive, but now are rags. Repeatedly there's a prison motif - like he's done time at some point or (more likely) that he's been down on his luck and spent the occasional night inside.
But it's the scene with the umbrellas that resonates with me the strongest. At first he's completely co-ordinated, confident and happy. He's in time, he's got all the moves and everything's going fine. Later, though, he appears to be ignored by the others and he can't even catch an umbrella. He's confused and upset by this. I don't get the impression that he's deliberately being ostracised by them - more like he's invisible to them.
I know it's easy to read too much into stuff like that. To identify with a theme and crowbar the rest of it into place. But I do empathise with some of the details in this video quite strongly at times.
The thing is... as I said... I have friends and I'm aware of the differences I have. I'll always be on the outside to an extent, but I'm not so far outside that I can't connect with anyone at all. I just have to work at it a bit stronger than a lot of other people.
AS is not a bad condition. I like a lot of the things that go along with it and the friends that I've made are friends because of my AS - not despite it. They're attracted to the fact that I'm different, that I'm out of step and that I don't follow the usual rules. It just... it has its challenges as well. This is one of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment