Although I managed to keep straight A’s during these semesters, it took so much work on my part that I was completely and utterly burned out. The course load and my growing responsibilities overcame me. I could not keep two thoughts in a row together in my mind.
Part of what made college so exhausting was my proneness to get lost in the details. One detail of a lesson, lecture, assignment, or test question would grab my focus and I would lose sight of the whole picture. If one word was wrong in a sentence or oddly placed, I was so consumed by that one small detail that I completely lost sight of what the text said, making me have to go back and re-read the entire thing.
I suspect that my autism bubbled up to the surface highlighting many of the core deficits that those with Asperger’s Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorders, and High-Functioning Autism share. I clearly had severe deficits with theory of mind, but college life made my weak central coherence and executive dysfunction noticeable.
Central coherence is the ability to focus on both details as well as wholes. People with autism appear to have a heightened focus on details rather than wholes, a cognitive style termed ‘weak central coherence’. Compounding the problem was my inability to complete tasks, stick with a plan, and work towards a long term goal. I struggled with the sequencing needed to complete the more complex tasks that working your way through college required—an example of executive dysfunction.
Executive function pertains to the way in which people monitor and control their thoughts and actions, which includes processes like working memory, planning, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control. Executive function is responsible for your skills and ability to set goals, plan, sequence, prioritize, organize, initiate, inhibit behavior, pace, shift, self-monitor, control emotions, and complete tasks.
When a person with autism is experiencing executive dysfunction, they experience impairment or deficits in the higher-order processes that enable them to plan, sequence, initiate, and sustain their behaviors towards some goal, incorporating feedback and making adjustments along the way. My constant failure to complete was evident in everything I tried to accomplish. It spilled over from my school life, to my personal life, and right into my adult working life.
I had tremendous difficulty trying to figure out what was wrong with me, why I could never seem to finish anything I started. Shifting activities was a challenge, and I was terrible at pacing myself. I had two speeds—full speed ahead, and stop; there was never anything in between—all or nothing.
My father thought my going to college was stupid; that I was wasting my time and his money only to learn nonsense. He said all I needed was street smarts, of which I had none, and college was not going to teach me that. Maybe he saw the dysfunction that I did not, or maybe he saw something that he could not describe. But maybe he could have described me as something other than—stupid.
Going to college was stupid; I was stupid; all my ideas, thoughts, and dreams were stupid, and something to be mocked, something to be laughed at—a joke. A joke that I did not think was funny.
Financial aid didn’t cover the additional tuition expenses that transferring to St. John’s University brought, so in addition to my aid, and loans, I needed my father to sign for a parent’s loan. He did for the first semester, whining and complaining about how it was a waste of time. But after that he refused and if I wanted to continue the finances were my problem.
He never repaid that parent loan, and a few years later the IRS confiscated his income tax refund to repay the debt. Would you believe my mother brought it up again—21 years later? Remarking how I wasted money on something I never finished.
Being a college drop-out, I was thrust into the adult working world. Surely, with my intelligence and bubbly smile I would be successful there.
Chapter Fifteen
Asperger’s and the Transition to Working Chaos
I wish I could say I found my niche; I found the place where I belonged; I found the place where I could be me, be productive, and be somebody. But the truth is, navigating the world of working adults proved more difficult than I could have ever imagined.
I’ve worked as a bank teller, cashier, waitress, bartender, lab assistant, undercover investigator, emergency medical technician, secretary, dance instructor, medical transcriptionist, correctional officer, and a writer. I have some experience in marketing, web design, graphics, bookkeeping, accounting, and tax preparation. I’ve started, and failed at, more businesses than most people will ever try in their lifetime, but I’ve mastered and finished nothing.
Young, energetic and ambitious should have counted for something, but it seemed like being at work sapped my energy. My friends and co-workers had the ability to work all day, and play through the night. They still managed to get up and get to work on time the next day. I had difficulty opening my eyes the next morning. By the time I made it home from a day of work, a day of interacting with the world around me, I was exhausted.
I don’t mean to say I was tired; we all get tired. I was utterly, drop on the floor, and cannot peel my eyelids open tired. Staying in touch with friends, making phone calls, and socializing was not even a thought in my mind. I barely managed to work a full day, go home to sleep, and get up the next morning. Being able to hyper-focus on a task, and learn very quickly, I was able to learn anything I needed to, anything I wanted to, making me very good at any job I took. At least I was good at it for a while—a very short while.
Within a few short weeks of beginning a job I was unable to maintain an appropriate schedule and arrived to work late on most days. As stress levels rose I became completely incapable of keeping two thoughts together in my head in a row, and usually wound up with a series of strange ailments. Panic and oftentimes dread began to emerge when mornings were approaching because I knew I needed to be up and at work in a few hours. My lifelong insomnia never allowed me to get more than a couple of hours of sleep in a row. As dawn approached the stress built; I should have been sleeping.
By the time I fell asleep it was almost time to wake, and then I couldn’t get out of bed. The days that I was up on time, I could not find my keys, my shoes, my purse, or my metro card. Even on the days that I would have been on time, something happened to put me running behind.
I was falling way behind in life while the rest of the world zoomed past me at a blinding speed, effortlessly, leaving me in the dust to choke on my own failures and guilt.
Being young without many responsibilities made it easy for me to hop from job to job much to the annoyance of those around me. For the most part, I didn’t mind because I was moving on, trying something new, starting over again. I began to gravitate to night jobs—bartending and waitressing. These jobs brought in the most money for me at the time, and negated the need to sleep at night and rise in the morning. Arriving on time at 8 p.m. was infinitely easier than 8 a.m., and more in tune with my insomnia.
Even the night jobs, however, did not last long. Those particular professions require incredible people skills, memory and dexterity. Bombarded by people requiring my social interaction interfered with my ability to perform basic tasks.
Bars are loud. Music blasts in the background, while dozens of people are calling for your attention at the same time hollering drink orders at you. You are expected to not only make the drinks, but remember who gets which drink.
My elbow hit the glasses. Everyone recognized the crash. I often was embarrassed by applause in the diner when that happened. The spilled drinks caused me to slip on my way to get a mop. There was no applause; laughter and cursing—yes, but at least there was no clapping.
Flustered, I tried to regain my composure and distribute the remainder of my orders. No one received the right drink on the first try. I could not remember who ordered what. I often had all the drinks done correctly but upon turning to face the customers it was like looking at group of strangers—ones that I did not just speak with two minutes earlier. By the time the drink confusion was sorted out, I didn’t remember who
I collected money from, or whose change was in my hand.
Suspecting I was giving away free drinks, I was let go—another job bites the dust. I was not giving away free drinks—I don’t think—well, at least not on purpose. I suspect that my fumbling did probably cause customers to take advantage of me and walk away with their drinks without paying. I truly had no way of knowing, which made me an easy mark.
I never questioned a customer who said they paid because I assumed that they were telling the truth. The idea that I was being lied to, or taken advantage of never crossed my mind. The owner didn’t understand how I could be so stupid. Either that or I was letting customers get away with their drinks intentionally.
My brain was atrophying; I could feel it. I wanted to do more with my life. I was too smart to spend all my time serving drinks. Realizing that there was no way I could go back to college, knowing already that I did not have the capacity to follow through and stick with something as long-term as a four-year college degree, I decided to become an Emergency Medical Technician or EMT.
The basic EMT course only lasts a couple of months, which was about my limit in terms of attention and dedication. I knew I could make it through a few months of training so I enrolled in the Training Institute for Medical Emergencies and Rescue. The course began in February, concluding with a state examination in June.
I love information, facts, knowledge. Class work was easy; I had absolutely no issues with academics. In fact, medical terminology felt like a natural second language, a language I learned quickly. I had difficulty with the practical exams and applications of emergency medical procedures but my academic scores boosted my self-confidence so I pressed forward. After completing the coursework, and passing the practical applications examinations, I sat for the state exam.
A couple of weeks later my test results were mailed to my home—97 out of 100! I should have been thrilled but I was disturbed. Three points—where did I lose three points? What questions did I answer incorrectly? Could those questions, my mistakes, my lack of knowledge in that area cost someone their life? This was no laughing matter. There was no cause to celebrate. What if I was in the field and made a critical mistake?
Those three points crippled my self-confidence, and made me question every decision I needed to make. Could this decision be the one thing I got wrong on the test?
Despite my rattled confidence, I truly wanted to do something worthwhile, to help people. It had not occurred to me that my five foot nothing stature would hinder my ability to get a paying job in the field. Or that the fact I weighed just over a hundred pounds soaking wet would cause employers to hire less intelligent, but larger men to hoist patients on stretchers in and out of homes. Unfortunately, this was a part of the job I had not considered. Who wants a small female who could not lift patients up and down the stairs of a five-story walk up in New York City as a partner?
I was dejected. I finally finished something. I completed the course, I received my state certification, but for what?
My need to do something important, to help people, and to make a difference in the world, led me to apply to work for a volunteer ambulance service. I loved it! I volunteered for overnight shifts, where we slept on cots until the sirens rang when a call came in. They had no problem allowing me to volunteer and placing me as the “third-man” on the crew. Two men were still needed to carry patients, but there was still plenty to do that didn’t’ involve lifting.
I had the often unique ability to stay calm in emergency situations, to remain un-rattled by the tragedy around me, and to drown people out because I had a job to do. I could put human interaction way in the back of my mind and focus on the task at hand.
What I thought was my strength—my calm face, was actually looked upon as something quite different—uncaring, unfeeling. My being seen as uncaring, without feelings for those around me, could not have been further from the truth. I was out there volunteering on an ambulance precisely because I do care. I loved being out there—helping, making a difference.
Shortly after I became an EMT, there was an accident in front of my house. I saw it; the old man flew through the air. He must not have been watching where he was going. He stepped out from between two parked cars into four lanes of traffic on 65th Street just off of the corner. He landed on 19th Avenue about thirty feet from where he started.
There was no thought, just training, and protocol. Being only a half a block away, I reached him just before he was gone—but only just. There was nothing I could do, but I knew protocol. I began CPR immediately, instructed bystanders to call 911, and continued compressions until help arrived.
The Fire Department was the first on the scene, as was usual being that they were only a couple of blocks away. Unfortunately they were used to responding to our street. I grew up watching too many people die on that corner. It was a terrible place for traffic accidents. One side of our block had a huge hill—from 63rd to 64th Streets; from that side of the hill you were able to see the traffic light on 65th Street. All too often drivers seeing a green light about to turn yellow, or red, would come flying over that hill and try to race through the light on the next block, darting across four lanes of traffic. Too often, they didn’t make it; something or someone got in their way.
After the ambulance arrived, the paramedics took over the chest compressions which I had continued while the firemen ventilated the man lying in the street. They slipped a back board under him, lifted him onto a stretcher, and into the ambulance. He was already gone, we all knew it, but it was not our job to make that determination. Our job was to provide cardio-pulmonary resuscitation until a doctor at the hospital takes over, or instructs us to stop.
The ambulance roared down the street; I watched it go before turning to head inside. I had forgotten that my boyfriend was even standing there. I was focused on my task. Inside I washed all the blood from my hands and arms. I hadn’t realized until then how much blood there had been. Then I headed to my room to “hang-out” as if nothing had happened.
I didn’t understand what the fuss was all about. When my father returned home from work he was worried about me. He thought I was locked up in my room distraught. He was concerned that a man had died, quite literally in my hands, and thought I would or should have been a mess. I looked at him like he had two heads, and that concerned him more than anything.
I was not cold, or uncaring. I had feelings—many of them. My father thought I would blame myself and be a wreck because I couldn’t save him. I desperately wanted to save him; that is why I ran to help, but in this instance I didn’t blame myself. It was cut and dried, it was not my fault, and I could only do my part. I was a trained professional.
I still remember the beautiful letters the old man’s widow and son wrote to me. They lived around the corner from our house; the man had stepped out into the street right in front of his home. The letters thanked me for trying to help him. The letters saddened me. I felt saddened by that family’s loss, but I did not feel what others thought I should, or react in the way they thought I should have.
Despite constantly being filled with a confusing and often contradicting array of emotions, my own internal turmoil, I was emotionally detached from other people—emotionally detached from most of the world around me. In certain situations that emotional detachment proved to be a gift.
I was a rigidly inconsistent worker. Of all the issues I can list, and the list is long, the single most destructive behavior to my early working life was my inability to be consistent-particularly my inability to be on-time. I have lost countless jobs for no other reason than I simply could not stay on someone else’s schedule. The more demanding the job, the people I needed to deal with, or the more sensory stimuli involved, the quicker my downward spiral of inconsistency began.
I’m a sprinter, not a marathon runner—of this much I am certain. I need to engage in activities where I take off running and get across the finish line fairly quickly. I have no stamina in the sense that long term goal
s, planning, and projects never come to fruition. They somehow get lost along the way, either pushed to the side by my countless detours, or I am left behind, lost in the rear view mirror while I examine the imperfection of the painted yellow lines on the road.
I could spend days at work being extraordinarily productive, weeks in fact, but those are one of my little inconsistencies. Productivity was generally followed closely by days of meandering through life getting lost in the tiniest of details. I didn’t waste my days away intentionally—time just meant very little, or should I say I had no perception of time. The days got away from me, hours passed, and I barely noticed.
Time has never been my friend. I suppose time is a friend to no one really. Now it is a huge source of stress. Where did the time go? I don’t have enough time in a day to get my work done. I’ve wasted my time relaxing when I could have been getting something done!
The jobs that “typical” women took on like that of a secretary, office receptionist, or telephone operator were a terrible fit for me. I wish I would have known before I painfully took on this type of work that I would have been better suited doing something vastly different.
My clumsy, often overloaded, self was terrible working in the service industry where the environment was loud, and fast paced, and required multiple customer interactions simultaneously. Although I did significantly better working as a bank teller, where I only had to deal with one customer at a time, working fairly independently, I still was unable to keep the schedule required. To make matters worse, being a stickler for the rules, I had no ability or tolerance for short-cuts; therefore, I did not make any friends, but did make many enemies amongst co-workers and supervisors alike.
Twirling Naked in the Streets and No One Noticed; Growing Up With Undiagnosed Autism Page 10