Stories

Anon

I only found out that my mother and I both had asperger's when I was 57 and she was dying. She did her best to look normal and feel superior all her life, glossing over major gaps in her mothering, etc. Most of my life, if I'd insisted on a diagnosis for myself, it would have been wrong. It is a great relief to finally have some perspective on the family history. I was in grade 9 by age 12, but flunked out with the general knowledge level of a college grad. I left home ASAP, and tried a few jobs. I found I could build anything. If it was something common, I was considered slow, but if it was unusual, I went the same speed and got it right the first time. After some time in an intentional community, I decided to make a contribution to sustainable technology. I got the engineering I needed at the library, and won a world championship with my 1st prototype. When I gave a talk on it to the local graduating engineers, I got applause, and didn't know that was most unusual. A few other times I've done some teaching which was quite well received, but I'm hopeless at promoting myself. Any decision involving people takes me a very long time, may involve silly and expensive errors, and ruins me for technical work, so I'm still hoping to find a good partner some day. Anon