How does a neuroscientist only discover at age 45 that she is on the autism spectrum?
Easy - but that's not the point.
The point is that suddenly, life made SO much more sense...

My brain on the brain

I thought I was just weird, but it turns out there is a pattern to my weirdness that is shared with plenty of other people - about 2% of the population, depending on how this particular kind of weirdness is defined. Because a neuroatypical neuroscientist is a twice unusual combination, I thought I should start sharing my particular views on life on the spectrum.

THIS SITE IS IN CONSTRUCTION. Once it's done, each section header below will take you to several pieces on the fundamental concepts and the everyday neuroscience of that particular ability. I tell my stories just to illustrate the typical and atypical functions of the brain - and because some will recognize themselves, or their friends or family, or maybe just consider a different viewpoint when they see this happen to someone. Please feel free to share your own stories and leave comments in the box below!

Pattern finding

Can we start with what I'm awesome at, please? Getting the pattern in the whole picture. Finding the odd one out. Data tables. Correlation patterns. I thought everyone looked at graphs the way I do. Understanding that they don't is a game changer.

Music

The ultimate pleasurable pattern to my brain. The patterns that make out melody and rhythm stand out to my ears (chords not so much). The downside? Words go by unnoticed.

Attention

I excel at keeping my focus: I'm ridiculously good at blocking distractions. The downside? I miss the beginning of sentences when people start talking to me, but there is an easy fix: please say my name and grab my attention before you start talking.

Language

Oh, forming words is not the problem. I speak five languages, and started early. The problem is finding the words to communicate emotions under stress. The paralysis is frustrating and angering.

Stimming

There's always music playing in my brain, and you'll often find my foot tapping to the beat. I guess as stimming goes, this is a pretty quiet form.

Spatial (un)awareness

It comes with the excessive attention to the inside, I think - I don't notice much around me that is not relevant to the task at hand. I would be the worst spy ever. I stopped riding my bike to work when I realized I was a danger to myself. But ask me to park a car, and I'll squeeze flawlessly into the tiniest spot.

Manipulative skills

He thinks that when he does this, she'll think that he'll think... yeah, you lost me at what she thinks or doesn't think. Two-party relations are fine, three are a mental workout. Political dramas? Only with the pause button and neurotypical help on the side.

Let me see you talk

I don't like phone calls. I'll do them for work, but if you'd like to talk, let me see your face so I can have more cues to piece together what you say and what you mean to say.

Inadvertent rudeness

To me it was a simple comment that meant exactly what was said, a statement of fact. But to others, it was insulting. Oh the things people do in their minds when they infer your intentions...

Social skills, or lack thereof

I'm at a loss at what to do in parties, so I'll be happy to make myself useful. Or else, take me along with you and I'll be happy to join the conversation. I just have a hard time starting it.

Being bullied

Why are Aspies the delight of bullies? I think it's a combination of the cluelessness at the hurtful intent (which just invites further attempts) and the entertainment value of our inability to get back at taunts, verbal jabs and other insults.

Anxiety

I once was proud of my coping skills. Then age and an international move happened. Life was never the same.

Panic attacks

Everyone's are a bit different. My whole body hurts, the headache is unbearable, the nausea is the telltale sign.

Being held

Thank goodness for cuddling, hand-holding, body-hugging undershirts, weighted blankets, and gigantic dogs.

Mental visualization

The problem is not fiction - I love literary fiction books on human relations. The problem is following long descriptions that require mental visualization.

Special interests

All it takes is getting us started. Some will tell you everything you never wanted to know about cars or airplanes. I will tell you about brains - and before that, my things were gemology, escalators, cement trucks, and Agatha Christie novels. And grilling my mom on how things worked.

Oh science...

Data are data, and science is all about writing exactly what you mean, so anything data-related - collecting, analysis, writing, reading - is a safe haven to me.

Facial recognition

It can be really embarrassing: if I've met you just once, chances are I won't remember your face or recognize you when we meet again. Some would argue it's for lack of looking people in the eye, which I doubt that is my case. But it looks like face processing is really atypical in our brains.

Empathy

Turns out this is not at all a problem, unlike what people usually think. The problem is gaining insight on what is going on with people when they don't tell me. I'm a great listener, and very good at taking people's perspectives. I am just incapable of noticing if they meant anything other than exactly what was said.

Literally

I forget that words can mean different things depending on context and intention, and chances are there is a huge difference between what you think you said and what I heard you say. Yeah. Also, between what I said and what you think I said. No, this is not that stuff that happens to everybody. 

It's all facts

What makes me a very good listener? I hear your stories as facts, and I'm learning from them. I won't judge you because I'm genuinely interested in your perspective. I just want to understand why you did what you did.

You can't insult me

That's virtually impossible. To insult me, I'd have to register that you meant harm... and if you did say something untrue out of spite, I'll just think that you're an idiot - end of story ;)

Was that sarcasm?

Like Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory, I often need the signs to realize it was sarcasm. Unless the tone of your voice makes it really clear that you meant the opposite of what you said.

Sensory hypersensitivity

I used to think it came with the migraines, but maybe it is the other way around: the migraines come with the excessive sensory sensitivity. Stripes and moving lights give me nausea. I can't read or eat in the sun. I own nothing orange or bright yellow, no plaid, stripes, or polka-dot. And some clothes are just unbearably prickly.

Gluten intolerance

Oh yeah, I'll go there. Part of the picture or just a coincidence, actually gluten-based or due to something else for which gluten is an excellent proxy, I can't eat bread, cereal, cookies and pasta, or drink beer or whisky. It won't kill me if I do, but the result is neither pretty nor pleasant.

I have dysfunctional days

Whether purely by chance or due to menstrual hormonal variations, tiredness, or something else I have yet to understand, there are days when I'm turned to the inside. On those days, most clothing feels prickly and uncomfortable, so I'll change four times until something feels right on my skin; the world is too bright; and I have a lot of difficulty parsing speech sounds into comprehensible words. I'm still operational, but everything requires extra effort - especially staying tuned to the external world. Those days, I live inside my own head. You will still reach me. Just have a little patience, please.

Asperger or Autism Spectrum?

Hans Asperger did us a major service by raising awareness to atypical functioning, but some favor erasing his name for his dubious coexistence with the Nazi in Austria. However, calling all atypicals autistics risks mixing apples and oranges and muddling important issues. Maybe we need a new name.

I'm not a sociopath, thank you

As a specialist put brilliantly in a talk I attended: autistics can't tell what others are thinking, but they care very much; sociopaths can tell just fine, but they couldn't care less. I would modify that, though. The problem is not understanding what others think or do or feel or say, but rather their intentions: what they MEANT by what they said or did.

"You don't look like an Aspie..."

Yeah, I get that a lot. I take it as a compliment to my powers of exerting self-control, thanks to a LOT of learning the hard way over four decades in my skin. But it's exhausting, which is why being in the company of other Aspies, or neurotypicals who get it and do mean what they say, is sooooo relaaaaaxing...

"Nah, you're not an Aspie. I know what that's like."

No you don't. While there definitely is a pattern when one is on the autism spectrum, it still is a spectrum of strengths and weaknesses, which is why it takes a skilled, experienced expert with access to systematic, objective tools to make the diagnosis. Also, by the time we are adults on the spectrum, we have learned to fit (or "mask", a term I don't like). Think being thrown into a court of foreign royalty where there are highly convoluted, arbitrary rules of etiquette that allow you to fit. Some are born knowing them; we learn to live by them, and it takes years of effort. Getting it right is very hard as a kid, but it becomes easier over time. Did I mention how exhausting that is?

Oh the liberating joy of being diagnosed!

My then-husband accused me of seeking a diagnosis. Some hear it and say, "sorry about your diagnosis". Others... congratulate me. Truth is, finding out that I was officially on the spectrum was probably the most liberating experience of my life - right up there with two much-needed divorces :) All of a sudden, I wasn't just randomly weird: there was a well-known pattern to how I function - my quirks, weaknesses, and strengths -, a pattern that I share with a very significant number of individuals. And now I can embrace it, rather than try to whitewash it. I'm not less, nor more. Just different.

twitter: @AspieNscientist

You ask who I am...

And that is a fair question. But I'll just ask back: does it matter? You shouldn't believe anything here based solely on my credentials, anyway, and whenever possible, I'll give you links to the original research, so you can decide for yourself. I'm happy with just making you think.