So here's a thing.

Every now and then I come across something that makes me really think about my many and varied diagnoses and how I'm different from "the norm". Today, a throwaway comment about my comprehension was the "something".

I have a lot of reading to do for this course and its various modules. Some of that reading is fairly straightforward but some is fairly...not.

Whilst there is a push for us as artists to simplify how we refer to and define our work, the opposite is going on with the information we are given and the reading surrounding it.

For example: "My work engages the audience in a new way of encountering art in society...a mutual understanding, an interaction between people – similar to the dynamic image of the homeostat where all the parts of the network are equal and equally linked..." or "Dialogical work allows the conception of the artwork to consciously be mediated through the relationship between the artist, the audience, and the context."

Now, if you immediately create an image in your head of what that means, then great. If you kinda get the gist but think the author is a pretentious thesaurus-swallowing cockwomble, then you might well be right...and well done for deriving the gestalt. If you're like me... you know what the individual words mean. You know the context in which they are used. But that's where it stops. The quote makes no sense. What I have to do is to break this shit down, sentence by sentence, picking between the commas, and reducing what I find to the simplest possible denominator: synonyms I'm familiar with, picking apart the grammar to see what can be removed to make the sentence flow better. Once I've done that for every ounce of OTT writing, I am able to read through it and get the gist of what the author is putting out there.

And that's kinda expected for University level reading. What's not expected is that I have to do this every day with non-University level reading. I have to do it with what I hear, too, because that's how my brain works.

If what you say or what you have written is too long, too pretentious, too complicated or unfamiliar - it does not compute. I've learned over time to start paraphrasing in my head during conversations... it's one reason I sometimes struggle to keep up if the topic is particularly deep or unfamiliar. It's why I struggle to take in auditory input whilst writing. Why I struggle to think if the bloody TV is on. And I do exactly the same when I read. Think of it like a child who is just learning their words reading a sentence and having to spell out the word before being able to pronounce it... but scaled up - whole sentences, paragraphs. Conversations in real time.

Expectations from those around you that you'll keep up, because they are.

Do you know how much energy that takes? How much concentration? Do you know how difficult it is? Any idea at all how frustrating it is to forget the start of a conversation by the time you get to the end of it because the words got lost in the simplification process...? Or because more than one person was talking so your internal narrative gets scrambled because it doesn't know which words to condense? Or to have to re-read what you write from the start each time so it makes sense? And it is also - just for good measure - extremely upsetting to realise that you struggle with this shit even though you're a fairly smart cookie. Smart cookies should be capable of This, That, T'other. The other smart cookies certainly are.

Information might be "a lot to take in" for you. It's more than that for me, it's "a lot to take in" then "a lot to condense and translate" then "more to take in". Don't assume that because I'm doing well enough and getting the right answers that this is easy for me - quite the opposite. I have a great deal of stress and anxiety because of this. It generates tension headaches. It can precipitate a full-blown meltdown because of I-JUST-CAN'T-UNDERSTAND shit that other people understand just fine!


I mean, add that lot to a somewhat lacking social skill set and you get the "something" that happened today:

I thought I was being genuinely helpful by doing my "sentence re-comprehension" thing live and not just keeping it in my head, but in reality I was probably answering a rhetorical question and by providing an actual answer where none was expected I came off as being a know-it-all attempting to dumb things down for the peasants, and I was told in no uncertain terms (and in a certain tone, it has to be noted) after the lecture that it seemed like I had no issues with comprehension of the materials.

(And it was only in writing this epic rant that I realised the rhetorical question thing. Up until that point I just thought she was being a judgemental so-and-so who assumed I was lying or attention-seeking.)

So naturally, I'm revisiting every similar experience I can remember from Primary and Secondary school, University and College and feeling a bit shite that, only NOW am I seeing this for what it is. And I just wonder, if I'd known then that it was just that my brain works differently, would things have worked out differently? If other people then knew that I had Asperger's, would they have maybe not said or did what they did? There's always the possibility it could have been worse. Kids are cruel, after all. And cruel kids grow up to be assholes.

I guess all I can do going forward is to use this knowledge to make things easier for me, and try not to be pissed at people (including myself) if they don't remember I have Asperger's.

April is National Autism Month in the UK, April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day 2017. Don't be an asshole.