I had a rather awkward conversation with my mother last week; it was right before dinner, and she was hesitant to broach a "big" topic at such an inopportune moment, but I said it as ok. She asked me if I remembered how my ex-wife had, when we were married, declared that she thought I was ADHD? I said yes. Well, although we no longer believe that, ADHD is sometimes a common mis-diagnosis given to children with Asperger's syndrome, which is a milder version of autism. My mom being a retired teacher librarian, she had been exposed to AS kids in her school and a lot of their behaviors reminded her of my childhood and adolescent behavior. We sat and read the Wikipedia article on Asperger's syndrome, as well as the WebMD article. I sat back and thought about it and agreed it was at least a plausible hypothesis.
I next turned my attention to books, like this one:
Asperger's From the Inside Out: A Supportive and Practical Guide for Anyone with Asperger's Syndrome (Paperback)
~ Michael John Carley
# Paperback: 272 pages
# Publisher: Perigee Trade (April 1, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0399533974
# ISBN-13: 978-0399533976
It was available at the local branch of my county library system, so I walked over and checked it out and devoured it in only three days. I gave it to my mom & dad to read as well, while I next moved on to:
22 Things a Woman Must Know: If She Loves a Man With Asperger's Syndrome (Paperback)
~ Rudy Simone
# Paperback: 112 pages
# Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Pub; 1 edition (May 15, 2009)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1849058032
# ISBN-13: 978-1849058032
Although written by a woman, for women, I benefited from reading this, and it shed new light on the hows and whys of my first marriage failing as it did. Sure, my Ex had plenty of her own issues that she brought to the equation, but it's also clear neither I nor she understood some of the underlying AS behavior traits that were to be expected if I'm neurologically wired as an AS person.
When I think back to my early years, especially my first stint as a graduate student at Rice University, where I was the most erratic and least emotionally stable, the signs of AS are clearer. Ditto my year abroad in Germany, which, while an awesome experience, was often a profoundly lonely time, at least with respect to the other Americans in Tübingen, and the fact that though I made German friends, there was always an unspoken polite distance maintained. Such friendships could never be as close as with, say, my High School friends back home. We talked, we enjoyed each other's company, but there was a lack of emotional intimacy, a gulf I did not know how to bridge.
Foreign languages have long been an obsession of mine, and the appeal of The Foreign to an AS person is obvious. Foreign languages are like an embassy where we can obtain temporary asylum, since all foreigners are equally strange. In other words, nobody notices that you are weird in a foreign country, because in the eyes of natives, all foreigners are a little weird, both Neurotypicals and Asperger's people alike.
I also understand better what I found so appealing about the anime series Welcome to the NHK. The story centers around a twenty-two-year-old hikikomori ("recluse") who gets aid from a strange girl who seems to know a lot about him, despite never meeting him before. A common theme throughout the story deals with the hardships of life and how people must deal with them in their own way.
I found I could really relate to the main character Tatsuhiro Satō, especially his manic inner monologues. Granted, Tatsuhiro Satō is an extreme case, but it seems evident that the hikikomori phenomenon in Japan is a logical expression of autism and Asperger's in that society. Japanese society is especially dependent on proper etiquette, elaborate rules of social conduct and niceties...so much so that austistic Japanese naturally seek to flee open society and shut themselves away so as to not have to deal with such anxiety daily. Eccentricity is mildly tolerated in the West, even cherished in some circles, but far less so in Japan, where social conformity is key.
One autistic girl writing on the web whom I came across stated that the reason she loves Anime so much is because the characters' exaggerated facial expressions are much easier for her to read and understand. I definitely think she's on to something.
In the library workplace environment, I can see that I was under the apparently mistaken belief that Academic librarianship would be more like a university teaching job, where eccentricity is accepted or at least tolerated and sometimes cherished...you'd think AS and a cataloging job would be made for each other...people often regarded as intensely interested in a narrow subject--hm, sound familiar, my Cataloging brothers and sisters? But in fact Libraries tend to be more like 9-to-5 office jobs, especially in many Tech Services departments that literally are 9-to-5, and ruled by no-nonsense Acquisitions people who are strongly business-minded by necessity. These kinds of jobs can be perilous for AS people, since it requires navigating socially...i.e. the job is less important than how well you relate to others. This can be hard on catalogers on the spectrum, unless they have a senior cataloger in a managerial position who understands them, sympathizes with them, and defends them in the face of uncomprehending, unsympathetic superiors from an Acquisitions background. It can be hell on earth if you are the solo cataloger in your outfit and you're also on the spectrum.
I recall with acute embarrassment an argument I got into with a Reference colleague that made its way back to my boss and got me in hot water. We were discussing suspected anomalies in the OPAC's search results. My Reference colleague insisted something was wrong with the OPAC, using Keyword search. I reproduced her results and did not find them anomalous but rather the best you could expect using such and imprecise search method, and that even this crappy method yielded usable records that one could use to further refine the search. I tried to explain this to my Reference colleague, who snarled back defensively that she knew how to search, she was just giving an example of what students do...I advised her good, then teach it to them. I really did bend over backwards to be as polite and tactful as I can...I could have been a lot lot nastier, snarkier, etc, but I restrained myself. It didn't matter. She still blew her stack and ratted me out to my boss, who came down on her side against me, even though on the technical question at issue, I was absolutely right. That didn't matter, I was being "disrespectful" of a senior colleague, despite the fact that I was smarter and understood the operation of the OPAC better than she did. She claimed she was looking at an anomaly, and I knew better. I finally told my boss, if the catalog is yielding bizarre results, then let the Reference staff come up with the evidence for that, and really pursue it, in cooperation with Systems people who really understand the Database side of it, because I'm just not seeing what they claim to see. My main job is the integrity of the MARC records themselves, not how the OPAC retrieves them, etc, which is the proper purview of Systems, with input from Public Services. If I do my job with the integrity of the MARC data, and Systems keeps the database running properly, everything should come together fine. My boss kept insisting that I was responsible for things that just don't fall under the traditional understanding of what catalogers do and what they're responsible for. I spoke to other heads of cataloging who agreed with me, contra my boss. But because my boss was my boss--and not because she was right--I am out of a job and she is looking for a new Librarian I to impose her misguided will upon. Her ignorance as a librarian doesn't matter, she has the power, and that's all that mattered in the end.
I don't know if being diagnosed formally with AS would have afforded me any protection in my last job or not; Likely not, but I could have availed myself of the ADA and also the Employee Assistance Program more effectively. I could have demanded more forcefully to have my station moved to somewhere against the wall instead of the dead center of the room, for starters.
It's hard not to feel bitter having walked away from a corporate gig that played so well to my AS abilities and wandered into two separate library jobs that were both minefields with unseen social pitfalls. I was genuinely happy working for AIG, on three separate occasions. While for libraries, the initial joy quickly wore off. I found contentment in cataloging itself, buried in the work, but not all the other stuff a librarian has to do...most Catalog Librarians are as much managers and administrators as they are technical specialists...and increasingly more so on the managerial end and less so on the technical expertise end. I also enjoyed fielding the periodic reference question pertaining to library cataloging forwarded to me by Reference colleagues trying to help Library school students at TWU. I enjoyed talking to patrons one on one at length, much more so than I enjoyed talking to colleagues. I nearly always took my lunch alone...going off campus or to the student union. Most everyone else brought a lunch and ate and talked in the employee break room, while I almost never did. I guess I was hoping that as a Cataloger, my eccentricities and lone wolf mindset would be understood and accepted by other librarians, but I was horribly wrong. It all seemed to come back to bite me in the rear. I like other catalogers, but not others nearly as much.
I like catalogers whom I respect, who have professional opinions similar to mine.
I find many (though certainly not all) Reference people to be shallow and ditzy. They may be able to look things up in gifted ways, but they don't understand with much depth what they're looking at afterward.
I do think gender differences played a role in my professional downfall as well, if only insofar as women cement the bonds of their relationships through talk, and since I didn't talk much of my own volition but preferred to send written reports, my boss felt alienated from me, and I from her as well in reaction to her reaction.
AS explains some of it. So does my INTJ rating on Myers Briggs, while my boss was an
I'm trying to understand more about Asperger's syndrome without become obsessed about it, too...which would be pretty "meta". ;-)
The more I read, the more it rings true, and the more it seems I would probably benefit from a clinical diagnosis rather than a speculative self-diagnosis like I have right now.
I've also discovered that a fair number of my closest friends, all staunch atheists like me, are also on the autism spectrum, from fellow Aspies to high functioning Autism. I speculated jokingly if perhaps there's a link between AS and atheism, or if it is a case of Neurotypicals being more easily seduced by religion's emotional appeals than we are. One friend was genuinely terrified by an online exam that pointed her being far off the average and well into "high functioning autism" land. I tried to comfort her and encourage her to face this bravely, but right now she seems bent on a path of denial and preferring not to know. We tried to talk about our experiences with psychotherapy, but she had some rather misguided notions about what therapy entails, what it's capable of, etc. I said it was hard work, therapy, and if she wasn't willing to do said work, then her conclusion that it was a waste of time and money was correct. She said everything a therapist did she could do herself at home. I countered that a good therapist will call you on your bullshit, demolish your rationalizations and force you to be intellectually honest, and that it sometimes hurts, but it's healthier in the end. She remained unconvinced so far.
I understand her fear...she's a science educator--a very, very good one--but also in fear of her job with all the cuts to teaching jobs rolling around Texas these days.
She doesn't want a clinical diagnosis to be a hindrance to her or have it open her up to discrimination and harassment. Which I do understand. But if a science teacher urges students to seek the truth wherever the evidence takes you, isn't it a little hypocritical to not take your own advice when it comes to your mental health?
I think so. I'm trying to face my probable Asperger's syndrome without fear and without shame. I understand it makes finding gainful employment anywhere, not only libraries, difficult...but it's better to know than not know. Knowing, I can compensate. Indeed, on many levels I already have.
I'm still trying to reinvent myself as a Reference librarian, even if AS would seem to "naturally" predispose me to continue working in Cataloging. I think the Cataloging profession is losing its collective mind with RDA, and that FRBR is fatally flawed at a basic philosophical level. It's a good time to get out of the way of the wave(s) of stupid currently convulsing through the profession.
Well, more later perhaps. This is your crotchety cataloger, Aggie Librarian, signing off for now.
