die well into her 90s, if at all. Because of my mother’s death, I needed the structure and the socialization that my job at Kykuit provided, and I acquired the social skills that were necessary to keep it. I discovered in myself abilities that had lain dormant all my life—abilities that few autistic people ever get a chance to develop: the self-Confidence to speak in public, to be articulate and to modulate my voice, to make witty comments that are amusing to everyone (and not just to myself), and to impart my knowledge in a way that holds a visitor’s interest and attention. Problems remain in abiding by the schedule and making it to the bus on time, but the other guides know I have this tendency, and they hurry me along.
When talking about career success, if you’re referring to fame and fortune, a fat paycheck, a position of power, or a world-shattering discovery, I have nothing to offer. However, what I am able to impart is a story about a low-paying, seasonal, offbeat job that has made me very happy, provided me with a touchstone through years of loss and personal tragedy, and given me an opportunity to develop many interpersonal and social skills that I never dreamed I could possess.
Mid-40s Subsistence Living
Although I have several advanced degrees, I have spent most of my adult life either unemployed or underemployed. By my mid-40s, I had learned to eke out a subsistence living by putting together a patchwork of part-time, low-paying jobs, all of which I was overqualified for. I understand this is a common pattern with Aspies. At the time, however, I had not received a formal diagnosis. To my mind—and the minds of others around me—I was simply a disappointment, a failure, and an underachiever—a “no-good, lazy bum” who did not try hard enough. As a child in the 1960s, I had been tagged as being “emotionally immature,” and that label stuck well into midlife. Then I saw an ad for tour guides at Kykuit. I’ve had this job for 10 years now, and it has quite literally saved my life during my darkest days.
Feeling of Empowerment from Diagnosis
Three years after losing my mother, my dad also passed away. Two years ago, I lost the elderly aunt who had rescued me when I was a totally dysfunctional person in my early 20s. She had given me a home for 30 years, and when she died, I was so paralyzed with depression and anxiety that I contemplated suicide. In the end, I sought therapy and received a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome with anxiety and depression. My diagnosis has given me a feeling of empowerment. Finally knowing what was “wrong” with me allowed me to embark on a belated but liberating journey of self-discovery. Through it all, my job as a tour guide at Kykuit has provided me with solace, purpose, and, at times, the only social life I had. It has also given me the chance to shine. Today, guests often compliment me—sometimes to management—on what a knowledgeable, funny, and articulate tour guide I am. Although few people in the neuto-rypical world would consider my story indicative of professional success, the personal level of success and fulfillment I have found is invaluable.
MY STORY
To look at me now, you might never know I have spent my life living in a world of strangers.
Until the summer I turned 13, I was a rather high-functioning child in the small riverside village of Croton-on-Hudson, New York. My mother was beautiful, intelligent, glamorous, and aloof. I adored her. She had difficulty displaying her emotions, but it was probably not her fault. Her own father, for whom I am named, was just like her—handsome, taciturn, and remote—a “refrigerator grandpa.” I adored him, too, but he never let me get close. My mother’s name was Jacqueline, like the First Lady, whom she did indeed look like. In fact, the resemblance was so strong that when Jackie Onassis died, I felt pangs of grief, although my own mom was alive and well at the time.
My Parents
My mother claimed that, as a child, her family had been wealthy and lived in a big house on a hill, with a maid. I discovered later this was indeed true. Grandpa Charlie had once been a big wheel in the local restaurant business and probably a former bootlegger, as well. By the time I was born, however, my grandparents were anything but rich. They operated a bar and grill two blocks from Sing Sing Prison in the neighboring village of Ossining. We called it “The Saloon,” but it was no honky-tonk—just an everyday bar and grill where the correctional officers hung out between shifts. Nevertheless, my mom always carried herself like a displaced aristocrat.
You would think that, given her obsession with lost wealth and status, she would have married “up,” but the opposite was true. She wed her childhood sweetheart, the eighth of ten children of an Italian stonemason, all as poor as could be.
My dad was the polar opposite of my mom: warm, loving, easygoing, and thoroughly neurotypical. At the age of 17, he had quit high school and gone off to fight with the marines in World War II. He almost drowned at Okinawa, but fortunately he survived to return to his hometown and marry his childhood sweetheart, whom, like me, he regarded with absolute awe. Despite his good nature, my dad had very few parenting skills. Perhaps he was so disappointed I was not the daughter he had expected and longed for that he kept me at bay. Perhaps, as I began to suspect many years later, the horrendous events he had seen at places like Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and Nagasaki never really left him.
A Tomboy Best Friend
That my parents were not the best nurturers in the world mattered little at first. I had two sets of grandparents and a plethora of aunts and uncles within a few miles’ radius to take up the slack. There were also plenty of other kids—our neighborhood was literally crawling with children my own age or near to it, as it was the height of the baby boom. I even had a best friend—golden-haired Alexis, who lived next door. She was a tomboy, like me, but she was built like a pixie. I spent a lot of time at her house, at the homes of other playmates, and out on the street in pickup games with the other kids. Sure, I was a bit of a misfit, but I was not lonely—at least, not then.
My mom knew I was different, but she believed I was different in the best of ways. She thought I was a near-genius. The evidence for this was not overwhelming, but I could read fairly well by the age of four, and shortly thereafter I came up with interesting but useless facts, such as the capital cities of every state, all the kings and queens of England, and the gods of Mount Olympus. My mother was certain she had a precocious little sage on her hands.
SCHOOL YEARS
Unkind Treatment by Teachers and Classmates
My troubles began when I started school, and I received unkind treatment by both teachers and classmates. I recall being sent to a speech therapist, but my teachers did not see me as being impaired—they viewed me as a gifted child with a behavioral problem, and they came down on me harshly. Such a bright child as myself should have known better than to misbehave so consistently. I did know better, and I misbehaved anyway. I did not mean to do so, and sometimes I didn’t even realize I had misbehaved until I found myself cooling my heels in the principal’s office. Especially in the early grades, the schoolwork did not engage me, which led to trouble. In my view, my mom had done me no favors by teaching me to read as a toddler. What was I supposed to do in the 1st grade, when the rest of the class struggled to learn the letters of the alphabet? What could I do but goof off, cut up, and act out to relieve my boredom? It was the practice of the time for scholastically advanced students to be allowed to skip a grade, but I was never permitted that option because I was “emotionally immature.”
The difficulties I had with other kids were even more worrisome. At least I knew what the teachers expected of me. Although I did have friends of my own, most of my classmates treated me like a misfit. Some of them were schoolyard bullies, who seem to have an unwavering instinct for targeting children who fall short of societal norms. They chased me down the street and tried to steal my books and throw them in the mud. Others mocked and made fun of me, and I was
