Part 1 << You are here >>
Part 2
Part 3
Neo Spe
(A New Hope... in bastardised latin)
This has been written at the behest of one of the admins. I think he has a slight man crush on me, although he implied he is gay so maybe an actual crush. But I will take it. I mean the positive affirmation of interest.
The story will be broken down into three parts. Part I - 0 to 25. Part II 25 to 40. Part III The Future.
Right now, I am sitting here writing Part I, in a hotel room. I am a management consultant and am flown around my country and the world for work. I am developing a technology strategy this week for an Australian federal government department. Next week I am presenting to our largest telecommunications carrier with a strategy to transform the customer experience of their business operations by using their customer data in a new way.
My career has taken me to some of the Tech centres around the world, I have shaped the thinking about technology for some of the largest companies in my home country Australia, and even changed the global thinking for a few big american companies. No I didnt rock the world, not a super success story, but I've done stuff and have made a difference, and not in the bullshit NT emotional "I made a difference", as in the software works differently now, the finances are difference, there is less or more people working in different departments different. I made a real difference. An Aspie difference.
I am a father of two teenagers, one of whom is also diagnosed as Aspergers. I am also someone that was not expected to ever be able to hold a full time job, regarded as incapable of ever doing something that required working with other people and was diagnosed with aspergers at age 15 but never told until in my late 30's. Homeopathy and meditation was supposed to have fixed me before then, so why did I need to know?
The interest expressed was for me to talk about my life before children and then raising aspergers children as a parent with aspergers themself. What may make this a little interesting to you, poor reader suffering a massive wall of text is that I tend to not be shy of voicing opinions that while considered are almost always controversial. Get your popcorn ready. Shits about to get real.
I am the first son of a married doctor with 8 children before I was born and an escort or prostitute (I still dont understand the difference). My father made and lost fortunes multiple times, had a total off 11 children and as a doctor was terrible relating to patients but had such exacting focus, breadth of knowledge and ability to try new risky techniques many people to this day visit him in his end stage dimentia to still thank him for saving their life 40 years ago by doing high risk surgery he had only previously read about in a medical journal. "If I'm not dying, no offense but your dad is the last doctor I would want. If I am dying tell the other doctors to shutup and let your dad work". My mother runs a global christian cult preaching against evil and sin and receives a lot of donations from America. I'm sure she would thank you if she was reading this thread.
I have been diagnosed with 2 mental conditions, aspergers and bipolar. My bipolar is the real bipolar. I often describe it as "the Charlie Sheen Tigers Blood kind of bipolar". Having two conditions is quite rare. But as far as rare goes, this combination is common so Im not super special unique, just have complex issues to deal with. I am now medicated and quite stable, but I worked for nearly 20 years in corporate life as an unmedicated bipolar. You need to have insane mental discipline and a practiced ability at hiding bodies to do that. But more on that later.
I have been told by a friend who is a movie director that the perfect story arc to tell any tale is Star Wars. So we can start with Luke Skywalker.
In business we learn to talk about ourselves, our products, resumes, services, problems, projects also in stories.
For me this is fortunate. I was born under one name, but at the age of seven decided I was now named after Luke Skywalker. Teachers, parents, priests all at first thought I could be disciplined out of it and then waited out of it. Eventually in a parent teacher interview the strictist disciplinarian nun in the school (this was back when they could belt kids with canes and rulers) said to my parents that normally they would not even consider this, but he is so intent on being called this name that we may need to accept it.
Beyond being a quiet boy who did his own thing, had trouble with basics of interpersonal communication but still somehow also ended up leading groups of children to do things... but leading in a really odd way... this was the first sign he was a little more than just odd...
I used to think I was like Luke Skywalker. But it was not until later I realised I was actually to become the tragic short lived hero Darth Maul. I had spent my life pursuing an internal code of discipline and training. I could do things with my mind both as a result of my differences and enhanced by this training that those around me could not. Things came easy to me, but some basic things the damned Jedi free to walk around and be praised by people could just cut me down over. I learnt I was not a Jedi but a Sith in training, not because I wanted to be badass... quite the opposite in fact, but because I was a victim to a society on a progressive progrom of extermination, and the only way to survive would be to take control of the galaxy by any means necessary. Again, more on this later.
Social development followed the usual pattern for an aspergers. Looking in hindsight now that I know what that is. Life was anxiety. Solitude was heaven.
An interesting dynamic for me, which most aspergers wont get is the effect of the bipolar. They operate as counterweights. Aspergers makes me retreat and reflect. People cannot connect to me. Bipolar makes me "hold a knife in my teeth and leap across the gap between ships yelling arrgggh!! me matey's!!!". The dynamic is weird, and it does not at all balance out to be "normal". I found that in Christian youth groups I could achieve the right balance between reflective and silent for acceptance by the pastors, and seriously but subtly deranged bad boy for the christian girls to swoon and drag me off for a "walk" when on camps.
By 14 I had come down with a severe autoimmune disease. I remember the night like it was yesterday. Had gone to bed feeling like I had the flu. By early hours of the morning was burning with a fever lying on bathroom tiles for the coolness and feeling like I was going to die like I have never had since. People I have tried to describe it to just go yeah, you were really sick. It happens. Either way, it scarred me.
Teachers and at first parents thought I "needed a kick up the bum" when it stretched on for weeks. I was unable to do any sustained physical activity for the next eight years. I spent my adolescence in a near coma, with bursts of energy to have part of a life. This became normal to me however. I got to spend a lot of time on my own.
Because school was not working out for me, I wanted to do something. I found an ad in the paper for a job for a computer graphic artist. I patched together a portfolio and a ridiculously thin resume, but included such things as my school report on computer science (I was notoriously lazy but... brilliant.. at school) which had a very pointed comment on my making top of the year in exam results "he has achieved a fine result with a minimum of effort". To date my proudest performance review, with the feedback from my art teacher "your proposition that the macintosh computer will one day be regarded as a work of art shows you have failed to understand the concept of functional art this year" being a close second. Yes Miss no design artist ever looks to the Macintosh as a form of functional art. I totally missed that one.
In the end, I talked my way with no qualification no experience into being one of the very first computer graphic designers. I used Photoshop 1.0 and Adobe Illustrator 88. No not because I was a retro hipster, because this was the newest never before seen technology that just starting to change the publishing world.
It was the weird combination of aspergers showing I had more than enough tech focus and nerdiness, and the sheer balls of being on an unmedicated bipolar upswing. F-yeah I can be a graphic artist, I will buy the book right now and be a legend tomorrow. But the thing is with aspergers you can. I taught myself 6502 assembler programming this way. Bought the book. Studied it religiously. When I ran into something I couldnt understand keep reading to find where that knowledge was used to get more insight, then go back and read the book front to back AGAIN and then AGAIN. This is what it actually takes to be a nerd. Not be particularly brilliant but be able to sustain the hard slog of gaining knowledge when there is no feedback positive or negative at all.
Friends started to become important to me. By 15 had started suffering depression. I was alone. I knew I was weird, but that didnt concern me. People just treated me differently, and hell I sure had very different interests than they did, so maybe it was fair. But loneliness and constant dissapproval burrows into you. Suicide started to become a thought. I found being around friends that appreciated me helped. I didnt need friends because I was lonely or they were fun. I needed them to survive. And like a starving wolf, I hunted friendships down.
My aspergers made it hard to sustain friendships. I was damn boring and depression didnt exactly make me a blast a lot of the time. But finding other aspies... rare as they are recognised a friend in me and I in them. A group of aspies, a network suddenly becomes something that is interesting and attractive. I orchestrated a network of friends that ended up attracting a very broad range of people from many schools or groups. I was the centre. They only knew each other through me. They become loyal and this friendship group became our culture. To this day we all still talk and treasure this time that had a lasting impact on who we are, how we define ourselves. It became far bigger than me. Marriages happened from it. Children. But when it started I did it out of sheer desperation to stay alive.
By age 18 I had grown tired of the same patterns of spiritual and social interaction. I was not growing. I had learnt all I was going to here. I wanted more.
The christian pastors were just not... smart. Their IQ was obviously less than mine by a margin that age and experience did not compensate. The diocesesan catholic canon lawyer was smart. I wanted to talk to him more, but never did. The cool priest I chatted to, and while not super smart was very encouraging. He had to leave a few months later after coming out as gay.
My mother sent me to stay with a monk who was a hermit. I was there 4 weeks. We did not speak, but we chanted the psalms in latin 7 times a day and practiced contemplatio (meditation). Mind blown. This was awesome. He took me to a Benedictine Monastery - for nuns. There was young nuns here. Nuns you would consider interesting cool, dare I say hot chicks if you met them anywhere else. These women had such sense of purpose and identity. I wanted to be this.
In hindsight the strict rules systems and structure with physical, emotional and spiritual actualisation all linked to them was absolutely electric for my dear little aspy brain. I would become the most monky monk that had been seen for some time.
I began a journey of both spiritual and intellectual development. Joined a Benedictine Monastery that was founded by Spanish Monks. We practiced full monastic discipline. Silence. Obedience. Chastity. Chanting in latin 7 times a day. I can still chant the Salve Regina and of course Ave Maria but lots of people can do that one, not very special. Even now my brain is going.. Pater Noster.. qui es in caelis... but you have to learn to chant to really get it right and experience the beauty of it. Chanting later helped appreciate what could be done with Enterprise level Services Oriented Architecture. Small simple elegant processes intertwining makes something far grander and whole than a centrally designed system.
I left the monastery and religious life after 2 years. Ultimately I respected logic and by extension science as the supreme authority. The life of a monk in the benedictine tradition also respects logic and science. It is a very bookish and academic order, and predates the modern church so its culture is quite different to this modern faddish christianity that has only been codified for a thousand years.
I still felt spiritual. I had now developed intense ability to control my feelings. Hunger, cold, sex, pain (could kneel for hours and hours, fast for a week with ease and not look sexually at a naked woman in front of me... and yes this happened) even down to control of my most minute thoughts I could steer my brain. I was honest. Pure. Genuine. Naive. I knew I could not stay a monk because I wanted more to know more than that life could give. To this day I reflect on my monastic years as the happiest in my life. I miss them, I would be a crippled person (but with meditation super powers probably) if I stayed.
University. Used the learnings from getting a job by talking my way into it, "mum I want to go to Uni. How do I get in without any qualification and never having finished high school?".
Special consideration. Explain my medical conditions. Write an application letter outlining how much going to university would mean. The woman processing the papers remembers me as that good christian role model of a boy. Im in.
Back to ground zero with aspergers at uni. Young women wont look at me twice. I am the pinnacle of aspie nerdom. Whitest white boy, no style, no social skills, no interests in life, cant explain what ive been doing for the last few years. I'm lonely. Studying computers and its dead boring. I taught myself all this when i was 8 and in year three you learn what I taught myself at 14.
Student Politics. I started using my friendship survival strategy to build a new network of nerds. Find the other aspergers students. Talk about computer games. Warhammer. Sci fi. Two became three. Three became five. Five became 8. Eight young men, tightly managed, trustworthy and fiercly loyal we found out when the secretary of the young labor party for our campus bought us pints of guiness was a faction. And a faction means you can have power. Power means you can take control of finances. And all this means you dont need to go looking for a date, they will come looking for you.
Wha?
I became an executive director of the student representative council. Communications Director. I was probably the worst ever interpersonal communicator for that organisation, but I held the power and loyalty of a voting block. And then we made friends with the footballers who hated the hippies that were our political opponents. The world was ours.
The IT systems got an upgrade. Horse trading between the hippies and my block to fund different projects. They got some shitty protest and buses funded. "Why are you guys so obsessed with computers anyway? Don't you get no one is ever going to use this internet web you keep talking about?"
Sexual relationships were weird for me. I had had sex. When I was 15-17. In hindsight quite a lot. But I was always awkward and anxious. To this day I still cant believe someone wants to have sex with me. Again normal aspy stuff.
There was a girl. She invited me to her place. She had seen me being the centre of attention of all the student politics stuff and was in my computer class before I transfered over to law. I was wearing a brand new sweater made of Llama hair or something. It was really nice.
We made out. A lot. For like 4 hours. I flat out did not know how to read signals. Eventually she stood and looked at me incredulously "aren't you bored of just kissing?". I was confused. That didnt help. I lent her my sweater and left.
I saw her crying at university a few days later. She hadn't contacted me. She was wearing my sweater. She saw me, but it was like a thousand mile stare. The person I was walking with said that they heard she had been raped by her flat mate and was leaving. I didnt know how to deal with that. I of course did not try to get the sweater back. I was too anxious to go and talk to her. I think she wanted me to.
I wanted to not live at home so I could have sex a lot. Living out of home is expensive. With my new found ability to control people using things other than heartfelt appeal (i.e. using votes, finances and propoganda campaigns run by an unstoppable political machine of loyalist nerds) I realised I could get the money together to rent a big house for next to nothing by structuring a lease agreement for a share house. This sounds like a small thing. But for me it was massive. So many people were involved. Real Estate Agent, house owner, my other tenants. Then I had to maintain control. Who controls the money, what are the conditions for entering or leaving the house, what about food, bills, etc. etc. For an aspy this is not easy, and mostly because each part involves people having confidence in you and worse you having to explain to them how its going to work and why they need to follow the rules.
For me I found if I created 3D models of all the concepts and relationships in my head I could always see how one change could effect the others. The other important thing I learnt was how important trust is. One person can tear apart an awesome machine if they get inside. Eventully I became harsh immediately if someone displayed disloyalty to the house. It always fell down to me to get people to move out, and they would hate me - even though it was always at the rest of the houses request.
One day I woke up. 3rd year of university. I walked through the house and backyard as I did early every morning, about the time we used to do first prayers in the monastery. Saw the bench of computers, resting from a hard day and night of tie fighter, doom and command and conquer. The kitchen. Reasonably clean but full of impoverished student food. Noodles and the cheapest cuts of rancid meat. The futons on the floor. Bean bag. It was time to move on.
I packed then and there. I carried my clothes AND MY COMPUTER in one of those homeless people bags, heavier than I could lift or even carry five kilometres to the train station. I bought a ticket to Sydney and sat for about 3 hours on my bag waiting for the train. This was serious aspy bipolar shit right here. Extreme sudden motivation followed through with structured planning and inhuman patience with zero communication to anyone because I had no concept that may be necessary.
My (younger) brothers house. Hi. I thought I could stay on your floor. Im moving to Sydney.
"Do you have money?" "No" "Do you have a job?" "No. But I brought my computer I can fax my resume straight from it" (this was before email was used to send resumes around, even though people like me had email... serious business people didnt use email).
"Ok..."
Then get on a bus and travel to where my girlfriend that we never broke up even though she moved to Sydney to start her career was working in a bank brach. We hadn't spoken in some time.
Walk into bank branch. See her.
She totally freezes up.
No she hasnt been screwing anyone or anything like that. It was just that the least expected thing to happen to her that year just happened.
"Come back later". The Sydney years commence.
Getting a job was interesting. If you recall my little tale about being ill and calculate when I left the monastery you will know I am not well yet. I cannot conceive I can actually hold a job by being awake for 8 hours. But I need one to survive. I also have no qualifications. My experience is limited to studying computing and law for 3 years, playing A LOT of computer games, programming, and being a devious bastard at student politics and turning that into money through an outsourcing of IT to my own company.
I apply for paralegal jobs. Law is a prestigious career and even though I am not qualified I know enough to be of use in this area. The head paralegal at one of the most prestigious firms in Sydney decides she hates my reserved quiet personality, and despite all those hourse of playing DOOM i cant type 80wpm.
Despair.
WINDOWS NT ADMINS NEEDED WE WILL TAKE ANYONE IF YOU HAVE DONE AN ADMIN COURSE. 80K.
Hmm.... 30K to work for a bunch of stuck up lawyers or 80K if I do a 2 week course.
"Dad I need 2 grand to do a course"
"Do you really need it?"
"Yes."
"Ok." That was all the conversation I ever needed to get anything from him. He knew I always told the truth and always thought about it. He was also the same. I got a $14k Mac IIfx this way. I needed it to learn Renderman programming. I had no concept of money, but it was the best platform to learn Renderman or a Sun workstation which didnt play the games I liked.
I miss Dad, but mostly in the I hope I will have been as helpful to be missed as much kind of way. He told me what his father said to him when he had that exact conversation with Grandpa "Don't thank me. Make sure you do the same for someone else.". I never met Grandpa (my father is 50 years older than me) but I feel close.
So..... freshly minted windows NT admin fax out the resume.
First job Interview. CSIRO. This is like Australias top science research agency thing. Its as close as we get to working at NASA. Work here I thought should equal career PRESTIGE!. Its also a bitch to commute to, second only to IBMs campus in Sydney.
Walking around, being shown the place, being told why they think I would be a good fit I keep noticing the computers. They are old. My gaming rig I bought on my disability pension is better. And the network cables. They didnt have the money for proper Ethernet cards. They used converters for their serial ports. Thats some povo stuff right there. I was dirt poor. I mean one meal a day that wasnt 2 minute noodles living on my medical student brothers floor poor. But I had ethernet cards.
I get a call back the next day. For context - I'm running out of friends at the sharehouse my brother is in. "When is your weird freaky quiet brother leaving?". I have little money. No job prospects. But the call back from the CSIRO comes in. We would love for you to start immediately.
I say no. Aspy me goes through a routine of logical analysis. Opportunity cost of taking this job eliminates possibility of a better job being accepted. Additionally game theory of adverse selection, the job that most wants you is the job you should reject. So no.
"OH MY FUCKING GAWWWWDDDDD" from... well... everyone. I try to explain the economics theory and game theory. They particularly hate game theory (every one does even now).
Next day phone call. Recruitment agency. "Hello, we have your resume from when you sent it a few weeks ago. Our client IBM has looked at it. Are you available for an interview tomorrow?" "Hell yeah" "Ok, well if it goes well, you will start immediately so please be prepared."
The interview went like this - Sit in foyer, with receptionst smiling to me. Security door thing opens guy in suit steps out. He looks me up and down "alright, lets go". That was the interview. I was now working for IBM. My first job since age 15.
Asking later why on earth did I get the job, "oh the project manager he came from construction before he was in technology. He had a stack of thirty resumes. He saw you used to be in politics. He pointed at it and asked if you could do the job and we said any of them could.". Lesson learnt: getting involved in highly controversial things and disregarding advice to leave them out of your resume can pay off.
Lowest of the Low in IT. Lower than desktop support. I was doing software rollouts. This was at a time when centrally rolling out software was not common or really possible. 1mbs ethernet was blindingly fast! Who could use that? I mean ever?
This kind of work actually required direct human interaction with a lot of people, often for periods of time. This was my first experience ever of a corporate culture. I was horrifically bad at this part of the job. A secretary for an up and coming exec, who would later lead the company I was doing rollouts in VOWED to have me fired. All because she felt frustrated at the way I had explained how to use the new technology called Office 95. She was used to Windows 3.11 and had her life working well with it. Oh and it was her that explained "execs dont use email. I print the emails for them and give it them in this leather bound folder and then type up their comments that they write down"). This shit is just hilarious looking back at how retarded humans are. I firmly do not believe this is an age gap thing. My father at age 70 was riding the dot com boom while his friends told him he was a damn fool. This gap is far deeper than age or how you are educated. Anyway, there was a yawning chasm between this woman and I.
Drinks. I had read that staff who went drinking with colleagues were promoted faster and had more career opportunities. I had learnt to drink at university. Thank you again student politics, where everything is settled over beer (or complex things over stronger stuff and no I dont mean scotch). I found I could be acceptable as a friend to a range of people at work if I could drink. So I drank. And drank. ANd I became known throughout the office. I was the oddball, strange guy, but hes smart. Some of the girls flirted a bit with me. First moral questions I had ever had to face. Im living with a girl, these other girls know this, and they are flirting anyway.
I met a really tall guy at one of these work drinking sessions. I was controlling the pool cue. He says hi. I am drunk so have enough confidence to say hi back, what do you do. He explains he runs a team of mainframe programmers. I am drunk remember. "OH MY GAWD MAINFRAME! I HAVE NEVER PROGRAMMED A MAINFRAME! YOU MUST GIVE ME A JOB". He laughed at the drunk guy. He challenged me to pool. I was pretty good from uni and normally better the drunker I got (muscle memory) so had a level of confidence. SO I layed down the bet. Free drink if you win, if I win I get to interview for your team.
I won.
Interview, MFND Funds Management System development team. Pre-requisites Adabas/Natural, JCL, Cobol, DB2. I had none of these skills. I knew some COBOL but only because that was the only unit at university I ever failed. Our Lecturer was called John Roach. I founded the John Roach Meditation Society. Only at one of his lectures could the brain release itself so freely of all physical connection that the soul could wander truly unfettered. A lot of people fell asleep in his class. But the truth is, I was disinterested and when that happens I am terrible at doing things. Conversly I got a high distinction in Computer Security, lecturers opening statement first lecture: "You get the mark it says on the computer at the end of the semester". Motivation and some flexibility in how to get the result. These I have found are essential for my own success.
Anyway, interview.
Like all interviews, I have trouble connecting. I walk in, in a suit. I look good, look the part. After a few minutes they get serious doubts. I cant do small talk. I weirdly try to overcompensate for not looking them in the eye. I make innapropriate comments when trying to be engaging and funny.
"So you work in desktop support. What makes you think you can be a programmer?"
"I taught myself to program when I was 8"
"What have you programmed on?"
"Well I learnt first on an Apple II Europlus, I had 2 5 1/4 drives, I programed in Applesoft Basic, Pascal and 6502 assembler"
"Ok so tell me how to write something in Apple Basic"
"Well when I downloaded a bunch of ascii art porn from a bulletin bored I had to write my own printer driver to make the second hand dot matrix printer I had bought work after I wired the cables to the serial port." ramble ramble ramble "and then to get the ascii art to print rather than displaying it to the screen I just had to change it to PR#6 to route the character output to the printer"
He smiled.
Thanks we will call you back.
Aspergers wins again over people skills. I heard the discussion afterwards was along the lines of "damn hes weird" "yes but hes smart. I think he can do it"
I had now jumped from desktop support to the world of technology development. I had yet to learn that the word methodology existed, but I was about to.
Spiritually I was a monk living in sin, but I was still religious at this point. My brother as part of his medical science studies had been having lengthy discussions with me about the Homonculus Fallacy, how there is actually no such thing as a soul. My own research into AI and neural networks gave me a viewed that supported this. Most of the arguments FOR a soul were just scientifically retarded and based on a complete absence of understanding the way the brain worked. But I had not let go of the faith or belief, but I had stopped going to Mass and had stopped praying.
I start gaming big time. I take up the moniker GEEKBOY. This would be my online identity for the next 4 years. I research this internet thing. I start to connect with others through it. The way in which people like me can use it is very different to what most people can do. They seem limited in their imagination and how they can use it. And this is mostly with still text driven tools. Yes there are web pages, hell I used Netscape 1.0 and before that green screen terminals for internet. But for the humans it was about how it looked and felt. They just didnt have this ability to see and manipulate the world beyond that using tech.
I noticed a divide emerging from people in technology. The career was becoming popular - it was highly paid and relatively easy to get into. Increasingly people in technology were not nerds at all. The problem with this, is that yes the politics of funding something doesnt require nerds, but the actual technology part of technology does. I worked out if you ask someone if they play computer games, you know instantly which side of this devide they are on. This becomes important to me. I feel my career, my world is being taken over and colonised by aliens. My survival is at stake. I start to respond like I always have - network with like minded people, build into a group, start taking power. But I'm finding in the grown up world, its not that easy. You see the other side has people sort of like me too. Not the aspergers, but the other bits. But they also have more of them.
At this point I am 25 years old. I have done and experienced more than anyone thought the emotionally, socially and physicall crippled boy would, but this is just the start. The world has had its cruelties but they have been managed. With help, gained by creating non traditional friendships out of nothing but a recognition that we are aspies in this together and bonding over computer games, we built a new world together that helped each of us. All my aspie friends from this time now have six figure jobs and are married some even happily. We built a world for us at this the start of our careers and it lasted.
But I also am starting to think there is a war going on. One that no one told me I was in. I have recurring nightmares of soldiers machine gunning down everyone I know. I keep screaming at them "Its easy. Dodge the bullets like I do. Sneak by walking on your feet like this". They cant. I know they don't think like I do and my advice they cant understand. My girlfriend is trying to run to safety behind me when she is machine gunned down.
I dream maybe once a year. So it sticks. None of my friends understand my concern about a war. The biggest battles are behind them now. None of them come with me on the next steps. For that I would need new friends. Very different friends.
This is Part I.
No its not the seriously hard hitting part yet.
This is called context. Or a sucker punch. Depends on which school of boxing your from.
I will look at writing Part II in the next day or two, depending on how bad the downvoting is. Anyway, shuttup and post your crappy opinions to try and farm a few karma already.
