Hi everybody my name is Rudy.
I have never had a proper diagnosis of my autism. Back when I was a child in the 60s and 70s nobody understood why I behaved the way I did, everything was blamed on the fact I was born deaf in my left ear. I would rock in my arm chair at home biting my hands unable to sit still, so my stepfather would give me a beating unless I stopped. Obviously this annoyed him. My mother was dying of Cancer so she never had the chance to intervene.
School wasn’t any better. I grew up in England in the 1970s; the teachers were pretty ignorant at the time. Once again my deaf ear was blamed for my wayward behaviour, ironically I was placed at the back of the class, a room consisting of forty children. I don’t know how the teachers that I could hear and learn anything from the back of the class.
I never spoke a word until I was 5-6 years old and couldn’t read until I was 11 years old.
One day whilst trying to draw the teacher’s attention from the back of the class, with my hand held high I suddenly screamed out across the room SHOW ME YOUR ETCHINGS. My teacher then said to the whole class, show me your etchings. The teacher and pupils realized what I had just done and together they all laughed, not realizing I had just shown signs of telepathy, one of many things my mind has displayed over the years.
I have all the classical signs of aspergers and have provided a list of 25 traits relating to my conditions. Two Doctors in Ireland have even given me the thumbs up that I have a high functional Autism, aspergers. Unfortunately I don’t trust the medical world or most other people in that profession and choose not to have a proper diagnosis done until they understand what they are doing. A blood test was supposed to be waiting in the wings, a test that tells if you have Autism or not. Personally I don’t believe a blood test will ever show any signs of autism. Autism has nothing to do with our blood, as usual they are barking up the wrong tree.
If you met me you would never know that I had Aspergers, unfortunately this is a dilemma for the so called experts. But worst than this for myself and the medical world is the fact my mind changes from one end of the spectrum to the other. At one end I’m highly functional and talk allot. At the other end my mind slows down and I’m left unable to express myself at all, I couldn’t even tell you my name, I turn severely autistic for up to 15 hours at the time. The only way my mind can function ok again is when I lay down for 6-7 hours on my own staring into the distance, with no company TV or music, I can’t even sleep, I just stare into the distance.
I’m a very private person, I have been married for two years to a lovely woman who suffers with depression, something I also live with from time to time along with anxiety, together we try to make sense of the world. Our relationship can be very intense at times, but we both hang on in there.
I have a list as long as your arm of things my mind has displayed over the years and still does, from out of body experiences, visions, and knowing the time on the hour. Knowing the time on the hour started when I was around 12 years old. When a clock in a room displays the time on the hour I’m drawn towards it, even the second hand will be on the hour. I might be in the middle of a conversation then suddenly stop to seek out the time, then see a clock that might be behind me suddenly change to 15.00 for example, a strange feat I know.
I have read that only 150 people in history have been able to tell the time like this. I’m told this makes me a savant. I don’t care if this makes me a savant or not. I care more about the other abilities my mind displays. I care about the fact my mind goes from one end of the spectrum to the other. I also care that ordinary people are trying to work out how our mind works to no prevail. Surely someone less ordinary will be the ones who will unlock what causes autism ,and how our mind really works...
01 Jul 2012, 12:56 am
