Aspergers, or self-indulgent rambling
With all the current faddishness of assorted psychiatric disorders, and the vast number of people who proudly rattle off their diagnosis, I find myself reluctant to adress this, for fear of seeming self-important.
I was re-reading Oliver Sach's "An Anthropologist on Mars" this week, and in particular his interview with Temple Grandin, a brilliant animal behaviorist who specializes in the humane handling of livestock at slaughter plants, and who has Asperger's syndrome. As before, I was struck by a large number of similarities between her experiences and mine. Aware of this, I read with greater attention and noted each trait and characteristic that applied to me. There were rather a lot.
Today I actually went online and researched the syndrome in detail, and I'm more convinced than ever. It would explain so much about my difficulties relating to people, why I'm so blind to body languge cues, and why in social settings I frequently feel I'm observing the rituals of a species to which I do not belong.
This quiz, designed by an autism research center, was fairly convincing also:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html
Supposedly an average score is 16.5, but at least 80% of autistic/Asperger people score 32 or greater.
I scored 36.
Of course I'm not a medical professional; I don't know for sure. Maybe I'm just making excuses for my own deficiencies. Or maybe I can use this information to help me fit in better, regardless of where on the spectrum I fall.
I dunno....