The Autistic Me

Sunday was my turn to visit the local hospital. After I fainted two or three times, my wife managed to get me to the local emergency room. It seems the flu was winning — I was seriously dehydrated. We took Muttley to the vet Wednesday, and the vet had a cold. Otherwise, I wasn't around many people. By Friday, I wasn't feeling so great but thought it was simply exhaustion. I went to local mall to walk and write. I grabbed a sandwich for lunch, started to walk a second loop around the mall, and started to feel weak. I drove home and took a nap. After my nap, my wife and I collected a half-pallet of bricks from next door. The construction manager generously said we could claim any of the left-overs from the various homesites and use the brick. Another homeowner has done the same, using the bricks to build a nice box around an air conditioner and decorative edging around a patio. I didn't finish collecting all the bricks, because I felt weak. Saturday was spent feeli...

Tonight my wife told me that she has been experiencing stress, worrying about my health from afar. I have been having some minor health issues for the last month or so. Experience has taught us that I am not good at recognizing how serious an issue is or is not. I did go to a "minute clinic" after a week of coughing, and was diagnosed with bronchitis. However, other health problems have continued and I am set to see a doctor next week. One of the serious issues facing families of adults with autism is how to help an autistic person recognize and deal with health related issues. Because I am always in physical pain and discomfort is a constant in my life, it is challenging for me to recognize when a pain is something important. I have severe back pain and was even in a back brace as a teenager. I also have other injuries dating back to birth which cause shoulder and hip pain. For as long as I can remember, I have had headaches and migraines. With my complicated physical si...

I've managed pretty well on my own for the last few months, with some complications, but last night was too much for any one person. For the third time, our basement area took on water. The first two were bad enough, but this was the result of a flash flood, with more than two inches of rain an hour. This morning, you can see the "water line" of debris around the lower level of the house, ranging from four to ten inches. It might be a bit deeper in other spots, but I wasn't going to measure with a ruler. I spent the entire night using a wet/dry shop vac to remove water from the semi-finished living area of the basement. That's where we have stored boxes of our belongings and large items — like a computer, an entertainment center, my CD/DVD collections, etc. Plus, it is where my books and writings are. My writings include my journals from fourth grade until now. Photo albums, yearbooks, and holiday decorations are all in the basement. Our important documents, a...

August and September have been challenging months, yet they also demonstrate that I can live independently — at least as independently as most other working adults. In the last few months, I've had to deal with more disruption to my schedule and life than I thought I could handle. My wife has visited twice and we talk most nights, but for the most part I've had to settle into the new house and job on my own. I couldn't have done what I have without her support, yet that support has been from a distance. Having to drive from Minnesota to Pennsylvania in a single day, right after a flight from Las Vegas to Minneapolis, was too much. I was exhausted and near my breaking point the first few days in Western PA. The movers arrived a few days later. I did my best to deal with the commotion and seemed to do okay, all things considered. My wife's first visit was accompanied by J.C. getting ill. Her second visit ended with her visiting him at the pet hospital. He died only a ...

Increasingly, I am aware of the "communities" to which I don't belong. An overused word in the humanities, "community" is more than a group of people with some minor similarities. A community has to have some manner of unified sense of purpose. I belong to several organizations without any desire to interact with other members or associates. I don't attend any regular meetings of any organization. When I attend conferences, I try to arrive close to when I am scheduled to speak and then depart as soon as possible. Bluntly, people often annoy me. People are cliquish. They want to be around people like themselves, which means I find myself outside most "communities" to which I am expected to relate. When my wife and I first moved, I tried to attend one social gathering of an organization -- but left before the event began. I couldn't tolerate the setting, which was a restaurant with a decidedly political decor. Maybe that doesn't matter to mos...