- So, if I had a dollar
for every time someone told me,
you don't look autistic,
I would have slightly more money
than I do right now.
Sorry, I really don't like to exaggerate.
Anyway, I'm aware that very,
very many people on the spectrum
have a serious issue with that phrase.
And find it, quite frankly, just offensive, to be told,
that you don't look autistic.
And I completely understand
where they're coming from with that.
But I'm not one of those people.
When someone tells me,
you don't look autistic,
I think, yes, correct,
that's exactly right.
I don't look autistic.
I only found out, myself,
that I have Asperger's at the age of 30, right?
So, clearly, if you could see it from the outside,
if it was obvious,
then I would have been diagnosed,
downloaded, diagnosed earlier than that.
So, thank you, Captain Obvious, you're a genius.
I don't look autistic.
In fact, that is exactly why I started blogging
in the first place, right?
This condition that I have,
this thing that's a little bit hard
to put your finger on,
that we call, Asperger's and Autism,
it's a difference that's on the inside,
not the outside.
Which means that if I didn't show you,
you would never know.
So, that's why I started this blog.
I'm gonna show you not only what Asperger's
looks like in real life,
on the outside.
But also give you inside
as to what's actually going on,
on the inside at the same time.
Because even when everything looks normal from the outside,
in terms of behavior and all of that kind of stuff.
Very, very often, there are some crazy,
weird and wonderful things
that are going on behind-the-scenes,
to manufacture that facade of normalcy, essentially.
So, when someone tells me,
you don't look autistic,
I think, Ah, thanks for that compliment.
I mean, I've spent my entire life
trying to figure out ways
to take this weird and wonderful,
wacky, crazy, autism-brain
and find a way to make it look normal in your eyes.
And fit-in with your society and build up this facade
that will be accepted by you.
And it's really nice to see that that's working
and I've done a really good job of that.
But you know what?
It would be really nice
if I didn't have to wear that mask
just to be accepted by you.
And if you could just put in a little bit of effort
into trying to see things from my perspective.
And understand that some things
that might be really easy for you,
are really a lot of work and a lot of energy for me.
And the only reason
I need to do them at all
is because of the society
that people like you have built.
And if I want to live
with people like you in this society
that I happen to live in,
I would have to do all of these things.
That would otherwise be unnecessary in my life.
So, if I could get a break from some of those things,
some of the time,
that would be really great for me.
My coping strategies are like preemptive strikes.
If I do it really well,
you'll never know that I had to do anything at all.
So, I'm hoping that by showing you
some of these elaborate coping strategies
that I've developed over the years,
to manufacture this mask that's socially acceptable.
I'm hoping you'll get some sense
of not only how I overcame these challenges,
but just that these challenges existed in the first place.
And to get a sense of the kind of things
that I have to find a way to deal with on a daily basis.
So, as you can probably guess,
life hasn't always been particularly been easy for me.
They call Asperger's, Wrong Planet Syndrome sometimes.
Which is, to reflect the feeling
that I'm just not like
any of the other people on this planet,
that I seem to have to deal with on a daily basis.
So, because of that,
I spend my entire life trying to figure out
these funny creatures we call humans, right?
And my special interests have been things like,
emotional intelligence and psychology and neuroscience.
Behavior, motivation, all of those kind of things.
Just to figure out how they work and how I work.
And how we can find a better way to be,
and get along together in this world.
So, the good news is that,
although I had to learn a lot of these things the hard way,
if you're on the spectrum or Asperger's,
or struggling with any of these kind of things,
there is hope.
You can improve things like
emotional intelligence and social awareness.
I learned things the hard way so that you don't have to.
So, anyway, I think, that will have to do for today.
I'm really excited to be going on this adventure with you.
Sharing some of the stuff that I've learned.
And my special interests around emotional intelligence
and coping strategies and things like that.
I have committed myself to making one video,
at least one video a week this year.
Which is gonna be really fun.
And I'm also going to be interviewing
other people on the spectrum as well.
So, if anyone is sick of hearing my voice,
I hope to vary that up a bit.
Because if there's one thing I've learned about Autism,
it's that, if you wanna understand autism spectrum,
you have to meet lots and lots and lots
of different people on the spectrum.
And then, only then,
you kind of start to get a sense
of what is this thing
that kind of binds us all together.
Because I'm really just one case study
of a person on the spectrum.
So, anyway, we might leave it there, for today.
In summary, evidently, my outside does not look autistic.
So, with that in mind,
let's take a look at Asperger's from the inside.
See you soon, bye.
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Okay, love you, bye-bye.