Published on 12, July, 2020
Looking back over my childhood and considering various experiences within my wider family, I can trace not only what I believe to be the "path of autism" but also a fair amount of poverty, to varying degrees.
Now I'm not suggesting that there's a straightforward link between autism and poverty - certainly I can see many positives to my neurodivergent mind which have enabled me to make a fair living over the years - but the patterns do seem intertwined. I can see lots of issues with anxiety, depression and addiction too but increasingly I suspect these might be related to undiagnosed (and therefore unsupported) autism. The patterns seem to involve difficulties in the workplace (choosing and staying in jobs), education (especially higher education where independence and social factors seems to become increasingly important), accessing healthcare and applying for benefits (a stressful process in itself).
During my teenage years in particular, we went through a lot of poverty and our living conditions were quite poor, to the extent that we didn't dare invite people round and our social isolation became ever worse. Dad did what work he could, but was trapped in a low paying job and neither of my parents had much knowledge of the benefits system (I was quite shocked recently when my now elderly mother said that we probably could have claimed something to help).
And going back a generation, my grandmother's house was something of a disaster. No housework ever done, not much with which to do it, no repairs carried out, not much washing, a LOT of hoarding, alcohol consumption and gambling. It was like that with my uncles too, although they were very intelligent people and obviously quite talented in many ways.
Is this all necessarily to do with autism? Probably not. But I'm suspicious. Especially now that my sons are having major difficulties making their way in the world and a lot of our money seems to go on false starts in education and work. There's some good stuff in there too no doubt, but I'm worried.
Any thoughts?
I realised I was very different to everyone else at around the age of 12. I spend a lot of time measuring and comparing people and creating data banks of behaviours - so I deduced that extroverts do better than introverts.
I deliberately created a false personality of confident 'super-extrovert'.
I had spotted that extroverts are just accepted and rarely need to give reasons or explanations for their actions because people just accept that they are 'unusual'.
I learned a few guitar chords and how to cheat on keyboards enough to look brilliantly competent and formed a school band - did a few gigs, got well known. That seemed to open lots of doors because my personality became bigger than the hidden real me. My fake extrovert out-going personality sparkles at interviews
My eidetic memory meant I could appear to be better than reality. I crave data so I will volunteer for anything for the experience. I have no limits or boundaries or inhibitions. More data = more knowledge & more experiences so my personality got even bigger.
My personality and experience got me into good jobs and my memory made me look briliant.- I bacame the 'go to' person for solutions to everyone's problems.
I think my experience shows that you can get a lot further with a fake confident personalty than tons of qualifications.
Ah, I wonder whether me creating my false personality a little later in life has been a factor? My persona was created a bit later on, after leaving university and really struggling, so it's been like a very late graft that never really took. Certainly moving away from accountancy felt as though I was lopping off a very weak and rotten top growth, leaving the much stronger but sadly stunted me underneath.
I did always know I was somehow different but I'm not sure it was a fully conscious realisation before then. Leastways, I did cover up my real self in a sort of automatic way, but I couldn't manage to fake extroversion until my late twenties.
You're probably right - I spotted very early that it was easier to graft a fake personality while everyone else is still a child and hadn't deveolped their own personalities yet.
It probably makes me sound very cynical and calculating as I set out to manipulate the opinions of those around me - but I saw it as a self-defence mechanism..