What's Wrong with You? What's Right with You?
Posted on March 14, 2014 by Daniel Brown, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
What might appear to others as a personal liability can instead be a source of strength.
It seems like everyone has a condition these days. And everyone is a self-therapist.
I meet people constantly who are ADD, ADHD, Bi-Polar, afflicted with Aspergers or mildly autistic. For years, the only condition I could boast was being lactose intolerant and that wasn’t as sexy as the others. I felt left out at parties when people discussed their medications or pontificated on how their conditions had changed their lives, all statements delivered with much entitlement and drama. For a few, it gave them an excuse to be self-centered although they never saw it that way.
Recently, I discovered that I might have been autistic for the first 20 years of my life.
This is not invention. According to family lore, I didn’t talk until I was 4 although that could be explained by having others in my family who did my talking for me. I had jaundice as an preemie infant, studies of which link to autistic behavior. When I was 7, I was obsessed with calendars, unaware of a type of creature called a “Calendar Savant”, a nice way of saying a brilliant, but crazy person. I never knew this hobby was linked to autism. I just thought dates and numbers were cool. I preferred to play alone, inventing complex games that made sense only to myself.
Having a Freudian psychologist for a father didn’t help much. He was always testing and inspecting me for defects so I learned at an early age to hide myself from him. This resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy of being so guarded and withdrawn that I could be seen as autistic by others. Being unable to communicate added to my isolation. Drug use in college rendered me too incoherent to voice basic needs.
You just can’t win.
I was told by a wise friend that I would break out of this condition not through therapy or drugs but when I got so sick of it, I would demand a change. That’s not quite the way it happened, but free myself I did. It was a long slow process, helped by loving friends, determination and the desire to grow into a conscious, happy human being.
Nowadays, I am fortunate to have myriad circles of friends, a long-term stable marriage, successful careers and a respected standing in my community. I find I gravitate towards the oddballs, those who might not be readily understood by others. I am particularly sensitive to quiet children especially when they are expected to speak by their anxious parents. “Leave them alone”, I think to myself, “They have their own methods for finding their way. Silence is not a liability, but a gift”.
Looking back over my life, I’ve concluded that if a “condition” teaches us kindness and compassion for others, perhaps it was worth it after all.
