Half-assperger's Syndrome

 I have always realized that I’m not quite like everyone else.  When I was young I thought of myself as a “deep thinker” and was sometimes told that I was being “too serious” for my age.  I have never had the feeling that I fit into any particular group so I tended to pursue my own interests and ignore the world around me.  I studied astronomy as a child, photography as a young teen, and guitar/song-writing as an older teen.  Unlike a more typical child though, my interests did not lead me into an appropriate social circle.  For example, I never took a music or photography class.  I never joined a camera club or tried to form a band.  The number of songs that I have composed is actually greater than the number of people who ever heard me play one of them.  As strange as it may sound, I crave being around people but I can’t handle being the center of attention.  I would occasionally fiddle around with my guitar in front of someone that I was completely comfortable with but nothing would throw me into more of a panic than when someone at a party would announce that I was "really good on the guitar" or something to that effect and ask me to play.  When everyone turned to look at me I would feel like I was going to faint and I would stammer trying to excuse myself in some self-depreciating way.  "Oh...I really don't play much...I can't..."  The embarrassment was excruciating for me and I know I must have embarrassed the person who had asked me to play.  In my day they would call this kind of situation a "buzz-kill."  Now that I recognize how this condition relates to the social anxiety that plagues people with AS, I finally have a name for it: Half-assperger's Syndrome.  In so many ways I could teach myself anything that I became interested in but something that I could not explain would prevent me from progressing past a certain point. 

 My Halfassperger’s was not always a result of social anxiety though.  When I was young and there was no recognition of Asperger's in the school system, I was often told that I didn't try hard enough.  Many times this comment was directed at my hand-writing skills.  Throughout my school years I believe that I was penalized by about one letter grade for being sloppy.  I learned from an early age no matter how hard I tried, I would disappoint my teacher.  One year in elementary school my teacher asked me privately if I had "some physical handicap" that kept me from being able to write neatly.  I told him that I didn't think so.  He said that if I wasn't handicapped then I would have to practice writing during recess until I got better.  I agonized over having to remain at my little desk when the other kids got to go outside.  I think he eventually realized that I was doing the best I could because he allowed me to return to the playground after a few days. 

As a freshman in high school I had a wonderful biology teacher named Mrs. Jarrett.  She required us to take notes "like a real scientist does" as she went through the textbook and used an overhead projector to illustrate the concepts that we were learning.  Our notes counted for 50% of our grade while our quizzes and tests counted for the other 50%.  I enjoyed her class and I learned a lot but I barely passed.  Each grading period she would point out that I had made an A or a B on all of the pop-quizzes and on my test but that my notebook was sloppy and that I had hardly taken any notes.  She explained that accurate and legible notes were important in science because we all build upon each other’s observations to solve difficult questions about our world.  She seemed hurt to tell me that she had to give me an F for that part of my grade.  Mrs. Jarrett was so frustrated with me because she really wanted to give me a better grade.  She implored me to just write down what she talked about during class and use better handwriting so that she could actually read what I had written.  "What is so hard about that?" she asked me, so I explained: "When I try to write about what you are saying I have to look down at my paper.  When I look up at you again I don't know what you just said and I miss what you are showing on the projector.  I have found that if I look at the pictures and listen to every word that you say, I can understand everything and make a good grade on the test."  I went on in my know-it-all way by saying, "I think that it is more important for me to learn the lesson than to write more notes and miss half of what you are saying."  That explanation made perfect sense to me and I thought it should make perfect sense to Mrs. Jarrett too.  Unfortunately it did not.  Either my Half-assperger's or my half-assed attitude left me with a D+ for both semesters and a D+ for the year. 

I knew that my poor grade did not accurately reflect my understanding of biology or my true intelligence in general.  Two years later I was sitting in study hall while a girl beside me was filling out a practice final exam for her advanced biology class.  I noticed that she had answered a few of the questions wrong and I couldn't resist correcting her and explaining to her what the teacher would be looking for in her answers.  She glanced over at me suspiciously, referred back to her textbook, thanked me, and then wanted to know how I knew the answers to her exam.  I told her of my disappointing experience with Ms. Jarrett and her emphasis on note-taking in first year biology class.  The girl commented that notes were not a part of her grade and suggested that I should take the class.  So I signed up for advanced biology the following year.  I assumed that it would be an easy class for me to pass.  I was in for a rude awakening though.  Because of that D as a freshman I wasn't allowed to take advanced biology during my senior year.  I ended up taking physics instead (and passed that class with an A) but I ended up with a cynical view of how the educational system “graded” me.