An interview with a highly succesful Aspergers Adult

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It was recommended to me that I post some sort of BIO as possible inspiration to NT's who have AS kids and also to AS people since I am considered to be highly succesful and also have AS.

Ironically, this podcast that I did last year has posted this week, so I will point to that to satisfy this request. I did not know I was ASD at the time of this interview, but if you listen, there are "hints" all over the place. (Like where I said that I do not feel any paticular need to follow social paradigms, how I found my life's calling in a "man's world" and the numerous references to being an introvert/private person)

This website wants to do a sequel about autism and have asked me to do another interview on that subject. I am not ready yet to do that but will make sure in the next few months that I set that up.

http://stories.makingmylife.com/2011/01 ... /#more-293

Please leave a comment if you listen on that webapge to show support. It is a fairly new site so would like to see some traffic there if possible.

Professional Football Player at age 46. That in itself, is an amazing accomplishment for a man or a woman. Great article and it will certainly be an inspiration to others.

Thank you. I have one more season and then am retiring.

Amazing

You have achieved so much in so many areas. You play sports, music, and have a successful career in computers.

Thank you for sharing your story.

Wonderful story.

Does your life feel as wonderful as it sounds?

do you think AS has changed your life or is it just part of it?

For some I think it is just different ability truly, not a disability. Doesn't everyone want to be able to pursue their passions and transcend their barriers?

You're neat!! !

Love it! My ears pricked up at the mention of you living on a horse ranch. How cool is that?!

Karla, I'm always inspired by your positive outlook and posts here on WP, and this one in particular.
Thanks for sharing a great interview!

I h ave great respect for your accomplishments, and am even awed by them, but to be honest hearing about someone who is so highly successful only makes me feel more like a loser. I'm someone who has some intelligence but nothing out of the ordinary, and some talent but not enough to make a career out of it. I also have CFS so I'm too exhausted to do much. I feel trapped. My AS is fairly mild, but at the same time I have no special qualities that offset the impairment, so I can't really learn from your experience.

That is really cool and interesting

Someday I'd like to know how autism affects you personally ( i.e., cognition), and how you compensate for the weaknesses to do what you do.

Wow this is incredible. I've been slacking on my work out routine today and after reading his I'm definitely pumped to pump some iron. Thank you for sharing your story, this'll definitely inspire a lot of us...

Thanks to all who responded. I will repsond more personally later. First a "blip" about how I felt as I listened to this for the first time as it addresses several of the comments above.

This interview was done LONG before I realized I had ASD or even before I know what Aspergers was. As I listened to this for the first time last night, I was nearly in tears for myself and for the realization/understanding of how profoundly Aspergers has affected my life. As the tape played I realized that I made at least 10 refrences to being scared (AKA anxiety) all the time in my life. I talked about how I had to pick up some artistic endeavor in order to change my literal and black/white ways because I get in trouble ALL THE TIME for that. I talk about being private or intraverted and not sharing things or talking about emotions. I talk severl times about being non-traditional. I talk about how I nearly destroyed my physical health by forgetting to eat and forgetting to take care of me.

The reason I cried was not because I am a failure but rather I now see how hard my life is. I know I will have to continue to always seek the peace and the balance in order to prevent depression, anxiety disorders, etc.... I cried because I felt sorry for myself. But then I realized that I am grateful that I now can seek intervention and counseling to help me continue to grow.

ALL these things that I mention are Aspergers issues working through me and all these things played a key part in who I am today and who I have become. Even without any sort of knowledge of Aspergers I figured out that I had to fix some things in order to stay sane and integrate. I play sports because as a youth I was always the slowest and clumsiest kid. Always picked last for teams. (The exception was football because I was fearless as I am hypo-sensitive and don't feel pain) I play guitar because I knew that never having listened to music ( at 40 years of age) or having any "art" in my home was a "weird" thing. I knew that by exercising different cortex in my brain I would fire nuerons and encourage new pathways. I was right. It wasn't easy but I was able to become a better balanced and more whole person through these therapies. Now I can experience new therapies and maybe levels of health.

It is interesting because as I meet more and more Aspergers people I realize that I am not just "mildly" affected by Aspers. I am actually pretty disabled in many areas. I am hypersensitive to audio more than most I have met and am more anxious in crowds. I am more unable to context switch and I miss around 20% of all conversations due to my literal translation issues. I see more and am distracted more.

My pyschologist knew I was Aspergers within about 10 minutes of the first session. I asked him to tell me what my "intake notes" say that lead him to that belief so quickly. He shared the following...

1. Absolute terror. He said it was the kind of terror seen in trapped animals and is very rare.
2. Complete lack of care about what people thought of me. He said that when he realized this about me that he knew he either had a physcopath or an Asperger case.
3. Gender neutrality and lack of care about being "female" in any typical way
4. Obvious stimming behavior - again without caring who sees it or correcting it
5. Audio and Visual hypersensory issues
6. Savant-like brillance shining through the odd behaviors. He said he tests at 145 IQ and I intimidated him pretty early on. We also talked in depth around how the Aspergers potentialy dampens or hides my real IQ and potential. For example, when I walked into his room and he told me to take the leather chair and I did not know which one he meant as he had 2 leather chairs. (one was a desk chair). I actually got irritated with him for not specifying.

He also arranged a 2 hour talk for me with his wife who is also pyschologist (PhdD and specializes in Autism/Aspergers and diagnisis of such. He shared with me that her remarks to him after the session was, "Wow, she is REALLY Aspergers." He and I have been hanging out for about 10 hours now and he says he is 1000% positive on the diagnosis and will defend it to anyone.

So it isn't as if my Aspergers isn't out there or not noticable. The question is why am I able to be so productive and function so well? That is a good question and may have to do with my other label "Gifted". I am not sure how that plays in this game or where one ends and the other begins. My intention is to figure this out over the next year and publish as much as I can to help others. I have some pretty elaborate adaptive strategies that I am starting to document.

Knowing what you know now about Aspergers do you think you would of accomplished the things that you have in life, if you had known about it and been diagnosed when you were 10 years old.

The reason I ask this, is as I look back at my life, I can see that many of my successes were fueled by the difficulties of Autism. I wonder if I knew about it when I was 10 years old, would I have seen a limit, more than the potential or necessity of overcoming adversity? Would I have been protected more than I was by my family and limited in someways by this? I always had the feeling that anything was possible no matter how grim the circumstances were.

Five foot four 125 pounds at age 46 playing professional football. Do you think you would of ended up in this place if you had the diagnosis at age 10?

I ended up as Athletic Director at a Military base. I don't think that would have happened if I got the diagnosis at age 10. I was the last one picked up on teams in school also. Not to say that my life would of turned out bad, but I think it would have been much different.

I can really relate to your statement "I had to fix somethings to stay sane and integrate". Reading your article it all seems so well planned, put together, and amazing that anyone could do all these things in 46 years. I can't imagine the effort and intensity that it took to do these things.

kfisherx, how long ago were you diagnosed with AS?

There may be more than giftedness at work there. I am definitely gifted as well and have a difficult time being productive and finding workable coping mechanisms that I can sustain over long periods of time. It may be comorbidities (ADHD, PTSD) on my part or some other thing. I am in no position to guess right now, without having more thorough analysis of my own (but I'll be seeing a therapist next week, so can explore that).

What happened to me, without a diagnosis, was trying to push my limits as far as I knew they should go. I could learn anything I set my mind to, and learn it fast, you know? Good grades in college were effortless until I hit a wall and couldn't keep the schoolwork up. I hit the same wall on jobs, or even doing freelance work.

Now knowing that I have limitations I didn't know about before, I think I am in a much better position to work out my future. I'm taking steps to ensure I can continue to take care of myself and not weigh myself down with responsibilities that I cannot keep. But my point is that being gifted in ways that society values didn't seem to help develop coping mechanisms that would enable me to achieve my goals.

Also: http://astridvanwoerkom.wordpress.com/2 ... nctioning/

Excellent interview.

Last edited by Verdandi on 23 Jan 2011, 1:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

Esther, it has only been about 10 weeks. I went to see a psychologist for the first time in my life due to grief. My Father passed away a few months ago and I started to get all these autisitc symptoms that were precluding my work. My boss sent me to see the shrink. He diagnosed me right away.



THIS is a great question and I cannot really say yet. I really haven't had time to digest/accept my diagnosis, so it is hard for me to ask the "what if" questions at this time. Right now I wish I was dx'd earlier so that I could get help earlier but it may well have 'caused me to not reach as hard. It is really, really hard to say...