the sticks. After 3rd grade, you walked or biked to school. Bullies reappeared in my life. These bullies did not chase me around the schoolyard. They walked right through me, refused to move when I walked by them, and generally acted as though I was not there—which, in a way, I was not.
For a while I had a horse named Perhaps, who brought me some solace, although he could never replace Alexis. We cleared out a dusty stall in one of the old barns on the estate for him. Since we lived in such a remote area, I could ride him up and down the road without any danger. I had Perhaps for a year and a half. The second winter, it was extremely cold and I could not ride. By then I was battling not only loneliness, but what would now be called depression and anorexia. My mother quietly gave Perhaps away to a local horse farm. As a teenager going through a tailspin, I had neither the maturity nor the energy to care for a horse.
It was when I stopped eating that my father finally took action. With no notice and against my will, I was admitted to the local hospital. I was terrified. For a week, my blood was drawn and tests were run to check for every conceivable affliction. All the doctors could find was an underactive metabolism, for which thyroid supplements were prescribed. I was also given a psychotropic medication—I believe it was Ritalin. However, it had no beneficial effects; it certainly did not make me less lonely. I told my mother that I did not believe I needed it, and she agreed. The prescription was not renewed. The thyroid supplements, on the other hand, did seem to work. My menses came back, and so did my appetite. This satisfied my dad.
The only thing that ever did me any good in high school was my participation in the movement opposing the Vietnam War. I have read that Aspies have a keen sense of social justice. I would like to say that this was what finally motivated me to stand up for myself. The truth was, I was spurred on by an intense identification with the innocent Vietnamese peasantry, who, through no wrongdoing, saw their huts burned, their villages strafed, and their kinfolk decimated. Wasn’t that similar to what had happened to me? While I was undergoing tests in the hospital, I pored over news magazines to ease the boredom, and the articles I read instilled in me a renewed sense of purpose. Shortly after my release, I began hiking a mile to the bus stop, taking the bus to Poughkeepsie, and holding candles against the wind, marching with signs to demand peace and volunteering for antiwar candidates. I wrote letters to the editor of the school newspaper and spoke up in class. Many of my teachers were likewise opposed to the war and looked upon me with favor. With their help, a political science club was organized, and at last I found classmates with whom I shared an interest. While I never made friends, as Alexis had been, I finally had people to talk to every now and then.
College Was a Disaster
If high school had been tough, college was an utter disaster. At first, I resisted the whole idea, but there did not seem to be a feasible alternative. I had very little guidance in choosing a career path. A large IBM headquarters had been built in a nearby town, and the people who worked there were paid a much higher salary than anyone else around. I never learned what it was the IBM folks did, but it was assumed that all the “bright” kids would try to get such a job, if not at IBM then in a similar firm. In preparation for such a position, one had to go to college. The entire prospect scared the living daylights out of me, but I was completely unaware that there were other options.
If a young Aspie came to me today and asked for advice, I would say, “Above all, choose a work environment in which you can thrive and be productive.” Not everyone is cut out for the corporate life. Would you be happier working on a ranch? In a zoo? Designing sets in a theater? Punching tickets on a train? As for me, it took many years—and many false starts—before I realized that work does not have to entail a windowless cubicle or a forbidding high-rise.
In the end, I selected Catholic University in Washington, DC. I selected it for no legitimate reason other than I thought it would be exciting to live in the nation’s capital.
It was a bad fit from the beginning. The student body was homogenous to the extreme—all white and middle- to upper-middle class, all perfectly attired and perfectly behaved. I found no diversity of thought, either. Somehow, it seemed I had chosen the only university in the l970s without its share of hippies, counter-culturalists, or freethinkers.
I Wanted to Be Social but Was Rebuffed
I wanted very much to be social. I tried very hard to make friends, but I was constantly rebuffed. I tried to establish relationships with young men, to no avail. Unable to find a warm welcome on campus, I spent a lot of my time in the downtown area, running wild in the streets and attempting to latch onto the radical groups who eventually rejected me, as well.
In truth, I was not an attractive person when I was in college. My parents, for all their poor nurturing skills, had at least provided me with some structure. They cooked my meals, did my laundry, saw to it that I went to bed at a reasonable hour, and got me off to school the next day, adequately dressed and groomed. Without their guidance, I did what was right in my own eyes. I bought an oversized khaki jacket from the army supply store and wore it day in and day out. What had begun as innocent idealism had devolved into full-blown anarchism. I was so full of resentment that I wanted to bring the world crashing down with me. I walked around campus muttering about the coming revolution and the “military industrial complex.” My hair was uncombed and uncut. Showers grew more and more infrequent. I plastered my dorm room with controversial posters.
The school administration attributed my weird behavior to drugs, which was a fair assumption. Illegal drugs were rampant on college campuses in those days, and it was known that students who abused drugs acted in strange ways. In truth, I never really took drugs, but the college officials searched my dorm room regularly anyway.
Things came to a head at the end of my third year, when rumors swirled around campus that I had attempted to do someone an injury. Although the rumors were completely false, no one came to my defense. I was subjected to a psychiatric examination. I must have passed the exam, because I was readmitted to the university. It was too late, however, to salvage my college career or my faith in humanity. I spent the next 2 years holed up in an off-campus apartment, gorging myself on my favorite foods and rarely attending classes.
Once I graduated, then I had a real problem—what was I supposed to do next? I was in my early 20s and had absolutely no clue as to how to live an adult life. If I had not been rescued, I do not know what would have become of me.
EMPLOYMENT
A Kind Aunt Helped Me Get My Life Together
My dad’s older sister, Aunt Rose, graciously took me in. She cleaned me up, gave me a bit of a polish, and provided me with some minimal social skills. I returned to the village in which I had lived as a child, and she taught me to bake bread and drive a car. It was far from easy. When I first went to live with her, I had the social graces of one of those jungle boys in the old movies, “Raised by Wolves.” I may as well have been.
Up until this time, I had never worked a day in my life. I hadn’t done any babysitting as a teenager, presumably because I had fallen to pieces and my parents wanted to keep me at home. In high school I did do some volunteer work for antiwar political candidates, but by the time I went to college, I really was in no condition to work.
Aunt Rose helped me look for work. She called up her friends and neighbors and lined up job interviews. She dragged me to career counselors. She found me temporary positions as a lunchroom monitor for the school district, an election registrar, a dog walker, and an office clerk. However, nothing really panned out long-term, so when my parents offered me the opportunity to go back to school, I jumped at it. Reading books and taking tests had never been a problem for me. I earned my master of arts degree, and then I went to law school. Aunt Rose inquired whether I would not be more comfortable with some “quirky, offbeat
