Famous People with Asperger Syndrome or Similar Autistic Traits

Mlle Lermontova said:

I adore Claude. He's an obsessive, geeky intellectual, hopeless with relationships, kind to orphans, but given to self-destructive melt-downs, self-harming (to the point he's having bouts of delirium from probable septicaemia for much of the later part of the book), cassock-ripping, and precipitating horrific tragedy... And I want to rescue him, tuck him up with a mug of hot milk and give him "the talk about girls" he should have had years ago. ("If you want to chat up a girl you find attractive, getting your hideously deformed adopted child to abduct her off the street isn't the best way of attracting her attention. And you could do better than that airhead dancer!")

Well... apart from the 'geeky intellectual' bit, he sounds very much like me!  Truly.  Chat up a girl I find attractive?  Are you kidding?  I've never understood that one!  I think I'd stop short of abduction, though...

Sometimes, I feel almost mystified that I've become this person that I am - with a degree, and a body of fiction and poetry, some of which has won prizes.  I don't know where it's all come from.  I was hopeless at school - probably because it was simply the wrong place for me.  I couldn't concentrate.  I couldn't learn.  I couldn't get on with anyone - teachers or fellows.  I failed the 11-plus, and my parents were told I'd always struggle.  At the comprehensive I went to, I was bottom of the year in my third year - in the CSE stream.    When I left school, I started work as a farm labourer.  All I wanted to do was write, but I had no idea how I would ever get there.  I didn't really start to read until I was 26.  And then I went to university.  And then... I seemed to become this entirely different person.  It was as if something opened up in my head.  In work terms, I've always been what might be termed a 'low-achiever'... but then, I can't think of a job that I've ever want to 'achieve' in.  Writing is all I want to do.  High-achievers in that field are rare birds indeed.

In a summarising statement, my diagnosis says 'The problems noted have interfered with the patient's life by causing depression, social isolation, difficulties at school and work, and an inability to attain life goals.'  It could be a standardised, cut-and-paste piece... but it's all perfectly true and accurate.  Having said that, 'life goals' sounds prescriptive.  'Life goals' in whose concept?  My 'life goals' may not be anyone else's at all.  

It sounds like an odd thing to say, maybe - but I quite often feel 'lost' in my life.  Like I don't fit in with where I am or what I do.  Like I can sense the existence of someplace else that's where I'm supposed to be - but I don't know how to get there.

Interestingly, the person I find most intimidating in an intellectual sense is a fellow Aspie at work.  He could easily be one of Hans Asperger's archetypal 'little professors'.  I've almost stopped speaking to him because I always feel like everything I say is being analysed for inconsistencies and flaws.  When I'm confronted by a person like that, I generally end up uttering inanities, anyway.

Again, though... I get by. I try to keep optimistic, though it doesn't get any easier.  I keep striving to find that place.

Mlle Lermontova said:

I adore Claude. He's an obsessive, geeky intellectual, hopeless with relationships, kind to orphans, but given to self-destructive melt-downs, self-harming (to the point he's having bouts of delirium from probable septicaemia for much of the later part of the book), cassock-ripping, and precipitating horrific tragedy... And I want to rescue him, tuck him up with a mug of hot milk and give him "the talk about girls" he should have had years ago. ("If you want to chat up a girl you find attractive, getting your hideously deformed adopted child to abduct her off the street isn't the best way of attracting her attention. And you could do better than that airhead dancer!")

Well... apart from the 'geeky intellectual' bit, he sounds very much like me!  Truly.  Chat up a girl I find attractive?  Are you kidding?  I've never understood that one!  I think I'd stop short of abduction, though...

Sometimes, I feel almost mystified that I've become this person that I am - with a degree, and a body of fiction and poetry, some of which has won prizes.  I don't know where it's all come from.  I was hopeless at school - probably because it was simply the wrong place for me.  I couldn't concentrate.  I couldn't learn.  I couldn't get on with anyone - teachers or fellows.  I failed the 11-plus, and my parents were told I'd always struggle.  At the comprehensive I went to, I was bottom of the year in my third year - in the CSE stream.    When I left school, I started work as a farm labourer.  All I wanted to do was write, but I had no idea how I would ever get there.  I didn't really start to read until I was 26.  And then I went to university.  And then... I seemed to become this entirely different person.  It was as if something opened up in my head.  In work terms, I've always been what might be termed a 'low-achiever'... but then, I can't think of a job that I've ever want to 'achieve' in.  Writing is all I want to do.  High-achievers in that field are rare birds indeed.

In a summarising statement, my diagnosis says 'The problems noted have interfered with the patient's life by causing depression, social isolation, difficulties at school and work, and an inability to attain life goals.'  It could be a standardised, cut-and-paste piece... but it's all perfectly true and accurate.  Having said that, 'life goals' sounds prescriptive.  'Life goals' in whose concept?  My 'life goals' may not be anyone else's at all.  

It sounds like an odd thing to say, maybe - but I quite often feel 'lost' in my life.  Like I don't fit in with where I am or what I do.  Like I can sense the existence of someplace else that's where I'm supposed to be - but I don't know how to get there.

Interestingly, the person I find most intimidating in an intellectual sense is a fellow Aspie at work.  He could easily be one of Hans Asperger's archetypal 'little professors'.  I've almost stopped speaking to him because I always feel like everything I say is being analysed for inconsistencies and flaws.  When I'm confronted by a person like that, I generally end up uttering inanities, anyway.

Again, though... I get by. I try to keep optimistic, though it doesn't get any easier.  I keep striving to find that place.