A riveting online chat with Pulitzer Prize winning (Aspie) author, editor, music critic, producer and professor Tim Page
Written by admin2 on October 31st, 2009Filed under: Themes, Auties & Aspies, Interviews, Books & Book Reviews
Tim Page, author of “Parallel Play: Growing Up with Undiagnosed Asperger’s” and a Pulitzer Prize winning music critic, was online at washingtonpost.com Tuesday, October 27 to take readers’ questions and to discuss the effects of Asperger’s syndrome on his life and coping mechanisms he uses to treat it.
The entire conversation was fascinating (and well worth the read), but in case you’re in a hurry…here are some excerpts from Tim’s responses that leapt off the page:
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So I’ve written this memoir of my childhood, called “Parallel Play,” and it touches on a lot of subjects, including Asperger’s Syndrome. I was diagnosed with this autistic spectrum disorder in 2000, just after I crashed and burned as an administrator at the Saint Louis Symphony. I had gotten rather cocky in the late 1990s and really thought I could handle a job that would involve working closely with hundreds of people every day …
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The diagnosis was helpful in a lot of ways—mostly in explaining some of the things that had proved difficult, sometimes even impossible, for most of my life.
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For me, at least, Asperger’s Syndrome was most debilitating during my youth. And yet there is no doubt that I am still affected by it today. I sometimes feel that I have spent my life in a state of parallel play (hence the title)—alongside but disconnected from most of my fellow human beings. And it gets lonely sometimes.
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I don’t actually know a great deal about Asperger’s Syndrome: I just happen to have it. For good psychological information, I would recommend Tony Attwood’s wonderful “The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome.”
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I also admire the radical new autism activists, such as Aspies for Freedom, who believe that autism and Asperger’s should be considered “differences” rather than afflictions. I have some mixed feelings about this—although I do think some of the things I ended up doing were enabled by my Asperger’s Syndrome, I still wouldn’t wish it on anybody, for I’ve felt pretty unhappy a lot of my life. Still, I love their punchy, radical spirit—and who knows? Perhaps the depression and anxiety that seem to accompany most cases of AS wouldn’t be there if we didn’t always feel so strange.
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Asperger’s is diagnosed about 10 times as often in men as in women, and there is much discussion about whether it is generally a male trait. My own guess is that the condition does indeed present differently, and that there are probably a much greater number of Aspie women than now recognized.
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Don’t expect “well-roundedness” from an Aspie: we’re just not built that way.
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There are some books about relationships with Asperger people. I think we bring some really good qualities to relationships—loyalty, honesty, real delight that somebody “gets” us. But there can be difficulties, and it probably wouldn’t hurt to read one of these books. Just realize that everybody is different. As one of the Web sites puts it: “When you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.”
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I am a great self-medicator—Valium prescription from the age of 15; anti-depressants; pills when I need to sleep. And yes, I love to drink—although never during the day, before a concert I was covering, or much in the way of anything more than wine or beer. I’m careful about this too—I never keep anything in the house if I’m living alone and I don’t like being “drunk.” Loss of control is one of my greatest horrors. But yes, I’ve been terribly anxious since I was a kid and it doesn’t seem to get better. And so I still self-medicate, to a fairly moderate degree. One thing I recommend is Transcendental Meditation, which I have been doing for 33 years and which has helped me greatly.
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When I read about Asperger’s, I felt that I had discovered my autobiography. One article even [mentioned] old records, black and white film, true crime, dates—I wondered if they had created a learning disorder just for me!
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I have a friend at a major research university who is positive that she is surrounded by Aspies—that they are the “norm” rather than the exception where she teaches. I often describe Asperger’s Syndrome as just “the absent-minded profesor times five.”
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Read the online chat in its entirety >>
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