I am 35 years old. I am married with four children. My second child has severe autism. Through that diagnosis I have learned that my father had Autism and that I have Aspergers.
I feel normal to me and everyone else seems to lack the capacity to focus on complex concepts and to be overly dependent and anchored to their inflexible intuitive hardwiring. As a child I thought that the adults I knew were just not very smart and that the other children would mature into something more like me.
I have been with my beautiful wife for 12 years now. She is the one who revealed my condition to me four months ago. She has done a great deal of research on autism for our son and says that I have very clear indications.
My most favored perspective on autism is that I lack the sensitivity to detail in intuitive cues, that most people have. I can try to consciously read these cues but I am unable to reciprocate the depth and detail of emotional cues myself and trying to exhaust me. I try to overcome this by explicitly vocalization but normal peoples efforts to do the same exhausts them. Neither of these strategies work very well and people find it difficult to trust and relax with me.
This dichotomy is most revealed in the conflicts I have with others. I give them verbal cues without the corresponding intuitive cues they are looking for. This causes what I see as a graduated and appropriate escalation to be me exploding without warning into an intensity that frightens them. I then just as quickly and frighteningly return to a non-agitated state because I do not give the normal intuitive cues they need for that transition. It is so upsetting that they do not want deal with me. This failure makes me inclined not to engage in direct conflict. My next strategy is to Socraticaly cause people to self contradict. This makes others think that I am setting traps and playing word games. My last resort is to reshape the disagreement into a non-communication based competition that I completely crush them in. The usual response is to see me as arrogant and cruel.
I feel that I have a great deal to share. If anyone is interested please suggest a direction or question.
