The Invisible Wall

In the Star Trek "multiverse", there's a material called "transparent aluminum". It's a metallic substance used as sheets to build things ... and it's as transparent as good-quality glass. Strength per  thickness of material a little above steel, weight far below, and of course ... transparent. So it's used for things like spaceship view-ports and "windows" and panoramic windows on space stations. Even (in ST-IV, "The Voyage Home") used to make an aquarium on a Klingon "Bird of Prey" starship to time-transport full-sized humpback whales to the future, in easily the funniest ST-Multiverse movie. (Look up "multiverse" if you need to ... )

I'm very familiar with the stuff ... "transparent aluminum", that is. It surrounds me. It's always there. It's that brain hard-wiring that I as an Aspy (Asperger's person) have that separates me forever from the ways "normals" (in physcho-speak, "Neuro-Typicals") think, speak, and react to others around them. Even, really, from most other Aspy's too. I "touch" (and therefore see) that wall so very clearly, having ALWAYS been on the outside of things. And over the last few years, having learned what (and a lot of why) those differences are, I even know the nature of the wall. And why it is permanent.

 Those on the other side don't see the wall at all. It's very transparency (from their side) convinces them that it doesn't, that it cannot exist. To them, it's not that there is a wall: I just don't behave as they expect, I say things they aren't expecting, or that are simply incomprehensible. The attitude and the belief on the other side of the wall is that there's no "real" differences between us, the problem is that I just don't behave like I "should". It's my ... fault? I need to just behave "more appropriately". I don't know how many times I've been told "We ALL have to learn how to behave ... you're no different, just watch and learn! You're plenty bright enough to do this ... everybody does!" The sometimes unspoken (but always present) thought is "unless you're a stupid insensitive dolt like you".

My most well-meaning friends and family have constantly told me the above, normally without rancor. And um ... others ... have told me the above with great malice aforethought. I appreciate the polite concerns expressed by friends, but in the end ... the communication is the same. But my brain is different, so the conclusion that so many "NT's" insist on, that I could learn to be like them, is fallacious. Not that it helps me at all ... going around telling people they are believing and acting on a fallacious premise is not the way to win friends and influence people. If there's a 'way out', I haven't found it yet. Neither attempting to correct the NT's appreciation of my differences nor simply allowing them to think ill of me has any positive effect. Except in rare instances.

So I remind myself that the ignorance here is not mine ... it's their's. Their hard-wiring "sees" things and inter-relates them in ways mine doesn't. In ways mine cannot. No matter how hard I try. I can work (and have) at understanding the many and constantly-varying patterns of NT  conversations. Theoretically. But lacking the hard-wiring to even notice so many of the small but vitally important signs they pass back and forth, I can't participate as an NT in a real-live conversation. I can't "pass".

But there's a lot more of them than of "us".  And really, most other Aspy's drive me nuts just the way we all do to NT's.  So it's their world, and it's "them" I want desperately to get along with. To be friends with. To communicate with. To have real, deep friends with, and to feel like somehow, someway, I belong in the wider world as a recognized, real, and valuable person.

But as an Aspy in an NT world, the best I can do is to try and be less "obvious", less "obnoxious", less "self-centered" ... less me. And as I cannot possible predict how different NT's are going to react to anything I say, the most assured way to be less Aspy is just to be quiet. To say very little. I fail at this all quite a bit of the time. And when I do, there's always the signs of failure ... the grimaces, the side-ways glances, the closed or rolled eyes, so many things that are so obvious even I can see them, that I've screwed up again. Ah yes, just hammered into The Wall again ... and it hurts every time.

Many of my Aspy/Spectrum peers are to a larger extent than I unaware of the reactions of NT peers. They may notice them, but aren't necessarily noticing it as constantly as I do. And John Elder Robison, Temple Grandin, and many others have said they wouldn't trade their special abilities for being an NT anyway ... they so love their gifts they'll take them and the pain of separation from the rest of humanity. My "gift" so relies on my being accepted by others to be of any use that the very unacceptability of my Aspy-ness seems to keep me from using my gift for anything but a child's toy.

The very "dry" professions where I perhaps could have found "usefulness" hold no emotional attraction for me. It's a very odd thing ... I'm too tightly-focused brainy-dweebish for the general population, and too emotional for the encyclopedic life. That's me alright ... and at times I laugh, at times I cry ... and I hug my one still-at-home kid or my wonderful (but sigh ... very NT wife) wife and we always just go on. It's what humans do, all of us ...