AS [autistic spectrum], like I’m going to get scientific herebutAS is split up into the Triad of Impairments which is communication, social interaction and theory of mind which used to be imagination but was changed because some AS kids are the most imaginative people you will ever meet so, yes, there is no lack of imagination there.

But theory of mind basically means that you know, you have difficulty seeing other people’s perspectives, seeing other people’s views and how they think. Social interactions is an obvious one, things like parties, you know big, like gatherings, and crowds as well, and communication is… kind of ties into that a little bit. Communication is like problems with being too literal. Like people misunderstand us a bit, but say if someone says, like a phrase like, ah I can’t think of yes, too many cooks spoil the, too many cooks spoil the broth and you know all these weird phases in the English language then if some say hasn’t heard them before then they can’t work out what they mean, or say if they have forgotten.But a lot of people misunderstand it, because you can still remember, so you might not know, you know might not understand what they mean, but you can still learn these different phrases and things. That is why I don’t really have trouble with that so much any more.
What because you learn them?
Yes, exactly. That is the thing. If you have a good memory then you can still learn some of these things and you know to not be so literal. It doesn’t mean that you can understand them, but yes, you can still take those in and then the next time someone says it say, then you will know what it means, so you will be able to understand that.

I find that hard to understand, laughing at someone or laughing with them. Because my dad, the way my dad laughs sometimes I think he’s laughing at me and that’s why I get nasty with him, because I think he’s taking the mickey. I’ve got to watch my language because I know what I’m like sometimes. So, and that’s why I get funny with him. I say, Are you taking the effing mick I usually say to him you know, because I do swear quite a bit because I think, because I think it’s just normal to swear, you know, because everyone does it. And I’ve picked it up off everybody else, and I think well, if everybody’s effin this, effin that, well I don’t do it as much as I used to but I thought to myself well if everyone’s doing it, that’s the normal thing to do. You know what I mean, it’s the 21st century isn’t it? And that’s what I think, that’s how I’m supposed to be you know. I think, because even girls do it, even girls swear you know.

Are saying, sometimes I don’t understand if somebody’s laughing at me or with me. Is there some support do you think could help you with this?

I don’t know really. But how can you tell if someone’s laughing at you or laughing with you, because, because when they laugh it sounds exactly the same doesn’t it? You know, because I think I say something, they just burst into laughter about it and I feel like, I think, to me I don’t think it’s funny. I tell him it’s not when I think he’s laughing at me because I’ve said something because, because to him it all sounds stupid or something. And that’s why I think you know, who the hell do you think you are?’ You know, and that’s why I get all gangstery on him, you know what I mean, as he calls it. You know, I say, Well, you’re disrespecting me, this, that and the otherrdquo; That’s when I get all funny with him. You know, I’d say he doesn’t do it as much. I think he tries not to laugh, laugh that much because he knows that, because he thinks that, because I always think that I’m being, because I think that he’s laughing at me when he knows that he’s not. So it’s quite, [laughs] quite confusing, seriously.

Are the staff helpful there where you live?

Yes, I may very rarely have the odd issue with them. Such as one staff member trying to joke with us and not admit he’s joking for a while, and it can get really annoying.

When you say he sort of jokes with you. What he’s joking but you don’t think..?

Yes, he’s joking. I can read between the lines and I can tell he’s joking but he doesn’t want to admit it. I think he’s just messing around in a way which makes me feel uncomfortable.

So he’s sort of winding you up you think?

it’s not like he does it all the time.

Does he know he’s doing it do you think?

Yes.

There is a police officer in[City] who is trained to deal with people who are autistic because we, it is not likely to happen to me, but it is quite likely to happen to somebody else. And it is to do with this question of interpretation, of interpreting things literally.

If you ask me, Do you hear voices Let me simplify that.If you said to me, Do you hear voices I would understand what you meant. What you meant is do you have auditory hallucinations?Do you hear voices? Well no. But in fact that is not true because the truth of the matter is yes, I hear voices, I hear voices all the time. I hear your voice, I hear the bus driver’s voice. I hear the woman next door’s voice.I hear voices all the time.And somebody with Asperger’s if asked do you hear voices, would truthfully answer, Yes I hear voice. Do you hear voices when there is no one there A truthful answer is yes. There are voices on the radio, on the television, I hear records. Yes, all the time I hear voices of people who are not there all the time. That is the truthful answer.

I know what they mean. What they mean is, do you have auditory hallucination to which the answer is n. But somebody, I could quite easily see how somebody with Asperger’s would answer yes and not only in that situation, in another situation, a police situation for example. You might easily answer yes to a police officer which will land you in serious difficulties. I am sure it has landed people into serious difficulties in the past but all you are doing is answering the question truthfully. But while you are answering one question, the police are obviously asking you a different question.

The diagnosis was all about being asked questions, which I have now got a diagnostic, there is a diagnostic questionnaire.

And there were two questions that stuck in my head, when the clinical psychologist asked me. One was, Do you have difficulty assessing good and bad faith in other people Hm. Every timeThat is exactly what I have done for years. I have done so for most of my life over a period, at work I have a great difficulty, not necessarily with the work, but with the people at work. If there were no people involved it would be fine. But [laughs] I can’t see when I am being set up or even exploited. It is not always, it is not apparent to me when I am just being exploited or I am being abused even, you know, verbally abused at work. It just confuses me because I can’t see why anybody would do that.

The last job I had I was working as a marketing manager for a graphic artist agency in[City].Quite a busy, busy office, busy agency and I was supposed to be marketing manager, which meant with other things developing productive and profitable relationships with customers, with suppliers and so on. Looking back on it, I put up with abuse and sheer nastiness from a manager for a long, long time, that nobody should have been expected to put up with. And I didn’t know how to cope with it.I just don’t know how to handle it, because to me it is simply counter productive. I was trying to do my job to the best of my ability and that was counter productive.

Now the other question I remember that I was asked at the assessment was, Do you often think you are doing the right and it turns out to be the wrong thing Absolutely, all the time and I have got mixedin my life I have worked for all sorts of odd characters. I think I am doing my best, what I am actually doing is walking into a trap or being set up for something. I am somehow vulnerable to it.I just can’t see it. And I won’t say it has put me off work for ever, but it is, it hasn’t encouraged me back to work because it is very, very difficult. I mean this is, over serious, quite serious issues, you know.

Well as I say I had this support worker, but I can’t say whether she was any good or not because we never really did anything. We just sat there and talked and you knowand she was paid about £15 an hour just for talking and then we talked mostly about other things, you know, so I can’t really say that she was any good because we didn’t do anything and I lost my confidence. But she ended up having to leave and then I had, I saw the man again and we were discussing me having another support worker and he said, he said, Well yourdquo;And they said the support worker came to see me to introduce me to her and she said that and he said that they would see me in about four weeks.

Well I am very literal and if somebody says four weeks I think they mean four weeks and I waited and waited and nothing happened and then I rang up after that and said I thought they were going to be starting in four weeks and the chap said, Well… it is going to be eight weeks I said, Well really you should say, you know, I thought you meant four weeks I said, You should have told meAnd he said, Well I didn’t know how literal you were Well I thought that was a bit of a strange thing to say, I thought well how literal can any body be. You either are literal orAnyway I just got distressed you know and I didn’t feel that they were accommodating me or listening to me so I ended that one.

Are you upset when you find out that they’re lying or not?

It depends what it’s about really. If it was about something major or something that I thought was major then they’d probably never get forgiven and like disowned for the rest of their lives. If it was something minor and there was a good reason for them to lie, then I can kind of accept it. I think I’m a lot more accepting now, because like being on my forum on the internet like, you hear like stories of parents, you know, not lying but stretching the truth to their kids, say like, I don’t know, I can’t think of an example and I think that’s made me more tolerant, because I can see sometimes lying can be beneficial. A bit like white lies, not like lie lies. I just wish I had the ability to do it myself.

So, yes, but that is probably the hard thing about having Asperger’s, you haven’t gotit is difficult making friends.

It is quite a mystery to me because it was good experience working in an office environment because you see how other people work, and how other people do it, and a girl came into our team, and she started just after me and before you knew it, she had got phone numbers of people and she was going out in the evening with people, friends that she had made at work. And I was like, How do you do thatBecause at the sight of other people, I know people who are donkeys years younger than me and they seem so grown up and I am just not really very grown up and I am often not very good at being grown up and I just feel little and everybody else is so big.

I just feel like a really tiny person in a huge big world and that sometimes it feels that it is just happening all over there somewhere and I am living in a bubble or living on the other side of a plate glass window to everybody else and that is something that a woman called Donna Williams described in one of her autobiographical books and she is a woman with autism. And reading a thing like that, it is yes, that is just what it is like, you know, people say things that I have said in a slightly different way. I said it is like living in a bubble. She said it is like living near the side of a thick plate glass. It is like being here, but not really being part of what is going on.

It is like you are just a spectator in this thing, you know, and it is kind of like really hard being alive sometimes and I go through when I wonder just how much long I have got left, you know, because I really don’t want all this pain in my life, living with pain, daily. And it, it gets tiring and I don’t want to keep hurting and I don’t want to hurt every day and I don’t want to struggle through things every day. I don’t want to have days where I can’t feel the rain on my face, or the wind in my hair because when I don’t notice things that I can pick up and touch and are real because everything just goes surreal and, and life just hurts, just hurts being alive. And that is quite hard and that is probably something that is in common with other people with autism too.

Conversations aren’t always organic. They are sort of still a little bit structured, but not as structured as they used to be. Yes. I mean when I was younger people used to have to say my name first before they got my attention and I would sort of get the gist that they were talking to me. So if they were talking in my general direction I would sort of half pay attention. Just be, well I guess I was sort of semi consciously making myself aware just in case someone was talking to me and I don’t realise it, you know, sort of, on a constant state of alert, you know, just in case someone isn’t sayingrdquo;Duncan, blah, blah, blah, blahAnd if, so I get really confused if someone says something and then says my name, and I haven’t paid attention, and they have stopped, you know, saying something, it is a bit like, whoa I missed that, sort of And then they have to repeat what they are saying and then I get frustrated and it is just like

And basically I have hardly talked to anybody that is here. I just kind of go in. Get my tools, go down the garden, get gardening, because I love gardening and it makes me feel you know, relaxed, and I love doing it. But nobody that is there knows me, you know, it is like they don’t even my name and I have been there for years and they are sort of like, Oh are you new And it is like, No. I have been here for years but you won’t know me, you know But, you know, say if, and there is usually a lot of young people about. They go out on tasks, doing you know conservational projects and things. But if I walk in, and they are all in there I have to walk back out again.If I got to get, you know, a cup of something in the canteen bit, and there is loads of people in there, I just head down, out the door, I can’t. I just can’t. It is like fear. It justI just can’t cope with it. My head just goescrazy and I have to get out of there. I don’t know if that is Asperger’s or that is social phobia or

And living with it is quite hard because there are some things I can do, but there are some things I can’t do. For instance, let’s say if this place blew up, okay I have got my parents, my parents can actually help me out, but if my parents weren’t around, and this place sort of like exploded, say of a gas leak or something, [laughs] this is just an example, my parents would think that I wouldn’t be able to cope with it, because, I mean, yes, okay, I can make phone calls, but it depends again on the situation, whether I would be able to make a phone call and say, Look I need some help here And not, and yes, I possibly could if I had to but do you know what I mean, I have got to have people around that will actually support me in a crisis. And this is just an example. But I know that it wouldn’t happen but you know what I mean [laughs].

What other things do you find difficult would you say?

I find difficult sort of like communication with people. Again it depends on the situation because if I sort of.. like I go down to a pub one night a, well not one night a week, but once a month to meet up with some friends and all the people that I go with have got Asperger’s. And fine, okay that is fine. But there are some people in the group that can’t even communicate or won’t even try to communicate with us. And okay, I can communicate, but there are times when they just sort of like, do things, unintentionally if you know what I mean. And it has sort of sometimes hurt people, because I have been hurt by people at that pub group. But I know that they don’t intentionally mean it. But then it would all depend on the situation that I am actually in because I know those people reasonably well I can get on with them, but let’s say if I go into another situation, into a job where I don’t know anyone at the beginning, until I have got to know them, do you know what I mean, until I have got to know them, I will find it very difficult

I do find it hard. In social situations, like obviously they’re talking to someone else, I must say like, when we on holiday and stuff, if they have a conversation with someone else and I feel like I’m being left out, so I butt in to join in the conversation, you know, what I mean. Or if they don’t, one thing that really gets on my wick is that if they don’t, if I say their name and they don’t answer me. Because [Grandma] used to get really hacked off with her when she never replied to me, and we had a go to her about it. I do it to everyone. But the thing, they keep saying to my, they keep saying that they aren’t ignoring me, it’s just that they’ve got, that they are finishing this conversation off. You know what I mean. But they don’t even say, you know, if you’re being called at the end of the day I think you should answer them. You know, you shouldn’t ignore them until You know what I mean, it’s rude isn’t it? If you think about it.

So if they’re in the middle of a conversation and you called, said one of their names

Yeah, for all they know it could have been an emergency couldn’t it. Like for example like if someone had a heart attack or something then you’ve got to butt in haven’t you and you’ve got to stop the conversation. it’s the same sort of thing though isn’t it at the end of the day? You still want to, want to speak to them. it’s just that I find it really, really disrespectful in a way and rude.

Yet people can’t understand that. You know, filling in a form for this that or the other, not turning up to an exam because you just freak out. Yet people can’t understand why didn’t you just go?Why didn’t you just do this?Or do that?It is completely incomprehensible to them that you can do lots of what they perceive to them is something, you know, difficult, you can’t do these simple tiny little things and it makes you feel like a complete and total idiot because you know you are not stupid, you know how trivial and how small these things are, and you can’t do them.

And its, I think, all sort of fairly soul destroying. You know I really do feel such a complete moron because you can’t do these sort of trivial, simple, every day things. Even sort of things as simple as you know, jumping on buses, trains. I remember from when I was commuting at various points, just getting off the train.Didn’t care what station it was, just saying no if I don’t get off the train I am going to hit somebody, because it is so busy, I just can’t cope with it. You know, other people, can understand, yes it is a crappy situation, nobody likes being on a commuter train when it is absolutely jammed packed, but you have got to go to work, so you just put up with it. They can’t sort of understand that no it is the I have got to get off it, and right now. Just have to.Can’t deal with trains when they are busy. To normal people that is nothing, I mean they just it is, I think sort of the lack of understanding more than anything else, because as I say, normal people just kind of deal with it, it is no big deal.

So I suppose that leads onto another thing where conversation topics are very difficult. Yes, that’s they are pretty difficult because I tend to kind of focus on, a lot of different things, but only one thing at a time. If my minds on something else then it’ll try and escape from wherever I am or what I’m doing at the moment, at that moment in time. But other people tend to be just in for the moment. They tend to just, you know, sit back, relax, catch up, drink a few brews and I can’t do that.

I just sit back there, and the moment something pops into my head that some, you know, did I forget to do this? Did I forget to do that? Then I do nothing but worry and try and calculate what would happen, the kind of the worst case scenario if I didn’t go and resolve that problem, post haste. So that part is quite difficult.

I’m supposed to talk about sociability. So sociability would mean to talk about I suppose alienation and distance. For some reasons there’s always been this massive inseparable barrier between me and everyone else. I don’t really know what this barrier is, but I don’t think it purely comes down to, a lack of social skills. Yes, it’s very difficult for me to talk to, most people. Conversations go very quickly. I have to, I often have to take a step back and think what I’ve got to say before I actually say it, by which the conversation’s usually moved on.

Very, very, particularly very quick and all the subtleties I suppose. I often always seem to get things wrong, I don’t know why. I can often, if I have time to think about something, I’ll know, I guess from experience, that some things are not appropriate to be said. But it’s instantaneous. You’re in a conversation and it’s rather quick and you’ve got to make a decision. Do you just say nothing and remain silent? In which case it dies out. Or do you quite simply commit yourself and say whatever’s on your mind? Which is a good possibility you already know in advance it’s socially inappropriate, but what’s the alternative? Just not saying anything at all? Very difficult.

But beyond that it’s, I guess it, I suppose, it very much relates to what I was talking about a moment ago. That, I find people often [laugh] I find people often very uninteresting. Some people are very interesting; I’ve got a number of friends who I perfectly enjoy the company of. But most people I just find incredibly banal and boring. Whereas your average person seems to be able to at least hold together a conversation with anyone.

And they seem to, I suppose what I’m saying is they seem to be able to gain some sort of social element from it. That they seem to when they have a conversation with someone they’re gaining the benefits of being sociable has a positive psychological effect on them in a way that it probably does a bit to a degree with an autistic person, but nowhere near enough, autistic people need much more than that, much, much more than that. At least I do anyway.

And so it’s, it’s another barrier and in many regards probably even greater then the levels, lack of sociability, lack of social skills. I suppose I can at least cope largely with social skills, but as much as a struggle. But it’s just simply, I don’t want to talk to most people. I suppose they’ve got their, their own minds full of all sorts of different things, and they don’t need to be so focused and absorbed, whereas for me, it’s just more, much more difficult, much more difficult to really care about anything to be honest. Hm.

Could you describe a social suicide situation?

Sort of awkward moments, like you say something stupid, and then realise you have said something stupid, and say something even more stupid, and or say something or do something awkward and then sort of combination of doing something awkward and saying something awkward and trying to make it funny and then making it even more awkward, making yourself look like a complete and utter idiot and then going all sort of red in the face and then hiding for days.

And it’s, I don’t know. I look back at some of the situations, and well most of the situations I sort of put myself into, you know, and I think, Why did I say that? What was I thinkingIt was just sort of like did I really say that?Oh god [little laugh] Sort of, that sort of reaction was usually the reaction that was, that I received back, after saying or doing something really stupid. And sort of, then of course I had, you know, weird sense of humour, me having a weird sense of humour, I often make the situation worse, quicker then I make it better.SoI don’t know, it justalthough looking back at situations like that doesn’t always help, you know, sort of right I am not going to say, this, this and this. You know, ten minutes later, right I have said all the things that I didn’t want to say, okay, awkward moment, good.

But I think it’s kind of… because Asperger’s for me is, I mean, I’ve, you know, I’ve got all the symptoms of it and everything. It’s very subtle, so people like, you know, if I, people don’t always see that I’ve got it. And that is very, very difficult having to tell people, you know, and people say, ‘Oh you seem very confident’ and I think well may be I look confident, but I’m not actually confident inside. It’s just like a show, because I often have to put on an act. It’s like having to act to script, to like, I think you just kind of learn how to socialise. It’s something that you can learn, but I think in many ways it’s a bit like learning a foreign language, because if you go to a foreign country and you’re learning a language, you can get really, really fluent, but it’s still not like your mother tongue so it’s still difficult.

Margaret: I think that is another thing I find very difficult to cope with. I don’t like being ignored. I find that very, very difficult. And Daniel does it a lot. But it upsets me more when it is the kids. If he is busy doing something, he is either on his computer or his guitar or he is writing a song or whatever and the kids want his attention, and they are asking him, and they are getting annoyed, and they are saying, Dadrdquo; asking him to do something or whatever.And they come out to me and say, He is not listening, he is ignoring meAnd I will send them back again and say, Well tell him he has to listenAnd then I get more upset than they are. It really, really, upsets me that he doesn’t take notice of them when they want attention. I mean I know kids can’t have it all ways and can’t have everything that they want

Daniel: But [name]has got the idea that if he comes up and punches me or something I will generally take notice
Margaret: ecause you shout at him. And tell him to go away.

Daniel: After a few minutes of him actually constantly punching me, I must admit, until I notice. But sometimes, you know, you can be concentrating on something and unless I am listening out for things and unless I am actually consciously thinking oh they are going to be calling me soon, like if I am in the garage I won’t hear them, sort of thing. So unless I am constantly listening out for something firm, I don’t hear it kind of thing. [noise]It is sort of I almost have to be everything consciously as well. It is like standing up and breathing, you know, things that everybody do automatically from the day they are born [laughs].It is like if I am talking sometimes I just won’t breath in sort of thing, so for a few minutes, and then get really out of breath and, you know.

So sometimes it can be a bit of a burden, because sometimes when I sort of talk to people, I have to draw a very fine line for letting them talk, you know, about their, the things they like before I start. Because I know that as soon as they ask me about something, and it’s something I’m really into, I’m just going to go chat about it forever basically and that may disrupt for them really. Disrupt the whole conversation because it’s like there’s just me there talking [laughs] about my interest. So yes, I have to draw a fine line.

So if you have a chat with friends is it always, you’re always conscious of it?

Yes, I’m always conscious of that little bit. I’ve always got that inkling, and you say, Oh go on talk about that And it’s like well n, I’ve got to sort of limit myself to it really. But I’ve just sort of just developed all this all over time really and just learnt about it. Maybe I’ve over complicated my social system or maybe I’ve understood it a bit more better. I don’t know.

Why do you think you might have over complicated it?

Well because [laughs] when I go and talk to people now, I immediately ask them a certain amount of questions and then from there on, after I’ve talked to that person and gone off elsewhere, I will then literally try and remember everything I talked to them about and remember everything they disliked in the conversation, everything they liked about the conversation and then I try next time improve on it. Yes, I know this really sounds really strange, but improve on my conversation from last time [laughs].

It might just be me or it might be something to do with autism. I don’t know. But yes, my social system’s quite complicated and sometimes I just won’t even bother trying to make a new friend because I know I have to go through all that process of you know, finding out everything about them. Yes, I know, scary [laughs].

So if you weren’t monitoring yourself do you think you’d start talking about something you’re interested in and then you won’t pay any attention to how they’re responding to you, you just talk?

Yes. Yes. Literally I just carry on. I mean sometimes I do open up about, you know, what I’m interested in and stuff and half the time we’re very clever who we choose as friends, because we choose people that are interested in exactly the same things as us. So it makes the conversation a little bit more easier. Because we can, sort of talk I don’t know, for hours about, I don’t know, a video game or something like that. Or a movie or a stupid toy or something like that. You know, we can go onso sometimes we’re a bit choosy in friends. We tend to choose people that are interested in the same thing as us. And sometimes this can be a problem, especially when we’re younger at school and stuff. For example if the teacher’s got us to, I don’t know, done like a little group activity or something, and may not necessarily want to be involved in that group activity because it’s with a toy that we don’t like. So just don’t bother with it.

Well you know, there is this tendency to, or contentedness if you like, you know, you to be happy on your own, you know, without, without a great deal of social intersocial interaction. And you know, while you as an individual may not have a great deal of problem with that, that is something that, somehow is seen to be unacceptable by wide society. You know, it’s something that other people findI mean I think, I mean just to give the example of working, you know, in an office situation. That somehow to be sociable with your colleagues is kind of expected and with modern management techniques in offices like so called team working, it almost undermines your ability to be considered to be working as part of a team if you’re not also socialising with people in the pub on a Friday lunchtime. That kind of thing and I’ve found it very difficult to sustain in jobs where this, this element of whether or not you’re socialising with people seems to come into it. That’s just one example.

Are you quite happy to sort of hang out on your own?

Yes, I’ve always preferred me own company. People irritate me.

In what ways do they irritate you?

Just everything they do; breathe, talk, get in your way in the middle of bloody ASDA, look at yer.

So how would you describe having Asperger’s Syndrome to somebody who didn’t know what it was?

it’s like being a normal person really; it’s just that you’re more interesting. You don’t get on as well with people. That’s basically how I’d describe it.

And on the other hand of course, which I’ve been looking for many years of feeling distant and alienated and not connecting and all that sort of thing, on the other hand, a sort of mental health check up where it’s often very difficult to function at all, quite simply. Depression and all that sort of stuff, and there’s a constant sort of, you know, what’s the word? Conflict between the two. And between functioning and having a normal life and spending the rest of my days in my room reading or whatever and not interacting with the outside world, which is certainly easier in some regards but ultimately leads to far worse places psychologically and also for my attempts to live a happy life. So yes, it depends. I’ve been optimistic in the past, but it’s not worked. I perhaps have at least a level of optimism here which is perhaps more well founded. We’ll see.

I am perfectly content put it that way to sit and read what interests me and forget there is anybody around. Myrtle says I sit there and I might as well be in a library where nobody is allowed to talk because I can sit and not say anything. Or that she will say something and it will just, you know bounce off, I won’t react to it. Or I think when we are talking that whatever she had to say she has finished and I will walk out not realising that there is a lot more that should be said. I am beginning to realise that but throughout my life up to now I hadn’t really thought of that. I’ve just felt, well I want to go and do this, so what.And I have had very little patience with say, people who haven’t had to s Myrtle says I have been extremely lucky in my vocation and able to absorb things easily, who haven’t got my knowledge or experience and education and I sort of feel well why should I bother with you.

So the difficulties are also related to the fact that if he objects to somebody saying something, at school he has learned to wait his turn. He puts his hand up and he waits his turn. When he was about 4, or 5 and [sister] starting speaking when he was about, well [sister] is four years younger than him. I would say to Joseph, “When you want to speak Joseph,” because he would always talk on top of people, even now, “When you want to speak Joseph, put your hand up.” And I realised I had gone really far with this, because one day in the back of the car, [sister] sat with her hand up because she wants to speak [laughs]. And they sit there, and in the house sometimes, they put their hand up when they want to speak and it is so funny, the training that you do.

So the challenges are, if I say, “Shh, not now,” he has to finish his sentence for as long as it lasts. He can’t just stop. There is no point in me getting into an argument with him on a logical basis because he will win every time. His intelligence far exceeds mine. His knowledge base far exceeds mine. And it is sometimes I just say, “Oh just shut up, please, just shut up. I am tired, just shut up.” And I close my eyes and I close down and then of course I get the rational argument, “Well that is no way to finish an argument, mummy.” You know, because then he re-quotes me and he says, “You have to talk about it.” I say, “Oh Joseph, not now.” [laughs] And he doesn’t get the body language and then he has to re-explain himself and he has to re-assert himself and I… I just walk away and he follows me [laughs]. So I go in the room and I close the door and he know that when the door is closed he has to knock on it and he can’t come in the room until I open the door and let him in so he is very, very good with the rules but he will sit outside the door and carry on telling me. He just doesn’t stop.

We were in the swimming pool last week and he wouldn’t get in the pool. Somebody had said, “Water is nice and hot,” and he wouldn’t go in. It took me quarter of an hour to get him close enough to the pool, because he is a big boy, so that his teacher could get him into the pool. But he just screamed, he thought… I said, “Do you really think I would throw you into a boiling hot pool, darling,” because it is full of other children who weren’t burning but of course he couldn’t make sense of that. When Tom was little we used to say, it’s raining cats and dogs and he was so worried about our cat. He kept saying, “Where is Bluey?” and I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand, “Where is Bluey?” Now I say it is raining heavily. I never did that again. Oh he was so scared. “It is raining heavily Tom.” And he was terrified and it took me ages to work out, that he thought, he kept saying, “The roof, the roof.” And he just thought the rain was going to break the roof and break the house. He was really scared.

I took him, he was into Power Rangers, so I bought him a Power Ranges outfit, no it wasn’t, it was one of those super hero ones, ones with all the different flying machines. Thunderbirds. I bought him a Thunderbirds outfit and he got it and he cried all the way round the shop, and screamed and screamed and screamed. “I am ready to leave you mummy.” And I didn’t understand. “Baby, it is only costume.” But it is little things like that. And you don’t, when you have just bought them something and they are wandering round the shops and they are screaming and people are staring at you because you bought them what they want, and you think what have I done? It is obviously trying to understand about literalism, about what was going on in his little head. He was just terrified.

And he hated loud noises, and he hated dogs, because I know [laughs] not this dog. He hated dogs because they are unpredictable. It is something about their heads, the way they move, their teeth, he was just terrified, absolutely terrified of dogs and we used to take him to the woods, and he wouldn’t go into the woods. We have got a lovely big wood near us and he wouldn’t go there. He thought the bears were in there because he had seen some programme somewhere on Tellytubbies I think when there was a scary bear with rolling eyes and he wouldn’t go into the woods in case the bears got him. It was just little things all the time, you couldn’t really take him anywhere. If you took him to the beach he thought the undertow or the crabs would drag him into the water and eat him. Or everything. He was terrified of everything.

But she gets very wound up about things, you know, and if we are going away, you know she gets so excited. You know she is sort of constantly saying, you know, Come on, you have got to go, got to go. You know and dashing around like a bull in a china shop. Everything goes flying everywhere and she winds everybody up and she takes everything very literally you know. If people say, you know, Well I can’t stay long, then she is constantly saying, You said you couldn’t stay long, didn’t you ought to be going? You are not supposed to still be here. You know, and she sort of gets you now, quite rude to people sometimes, you know.

And she is always I mean she is very friendly and she is quite a sort of character in the village, but she is always sort of rushing to help people with things, like you know, if she sees somebody carrying their shopping, she will grab it from them, you know sort of snatch it from them, not say, Can I help you? nicely. She will sort of grab and then she will spill everything [laughs] and you know things go wrong for her really. But she is a nice girl who is well meaning, but it just doesn’t come out right. You know.

So yesterday, he is fourteen now, he is taller than me, he is quite medium build. He is very, very intelligent. He has just got two A stars for his science GCSEs. He is still doing very well with his clarinet and piano. Yet the teacher asked him in the classroom something and he didn’t understand and he will have given what he thought was a witty reply and he said, “The teacher then said to me something about a basic level of politeness and I couldn’t understand what she said and I kept asking what she meant, but it didn’t make sense.” To him it wouldn’t have made logical sense and he remembers exactly what people say precisely. And if there is inconsistency between what they say and what they do, then he is confused. And he said, “I was so upset that I just burst into tears.” And when he cries it is a very physical thing for him. He can’t modulate his voice, neither does his crying get modulated and I said, “Well how did you calm down.” And he said, “Well the teacher said she would go and talk to the SENCO.” And that is probably what it is, the teacher probably stopped trying to explain and recognized that he had reached, that he had gone beyond his limit.

But one of the things you can never do with him is rationalise in an emotional way. It is very cut and dried and it is quite hard to have a conversation when you are trying to explain feelings and emotions and that can make people seem irrational because he just gets louder and louder with it, just doesn’t make sense. So apart from that he does surprising things. He is surprisingly considerate sometimes. He is surprisingly empathetic, which I am not quite sure whether it is learned or it is inherent. He is really, really kind to his sister and he can see if another person is involved, I would think it is a chain of behaviours and he will rush to help them.

Well I can give you an example. At Christmas time we were over at my brother’s house and my brother, my brother has kids as well, two daughters. And they had all been in his house, and they had all been playing tag and running around and while I wasn’t there apparently they had decided that there was to be no more running in the house. Well Arthur as I said doesn’t sit down. He doesn’t keep still and he paces a lot. And my brother has got a big dining room and then a door and the lounge. So there is quite a long area to pace. And Arthur goes up and down. And anyway, Arthur, we were in the lounge and Arthur and it really bugs my brother actually because that constant movement it can get too much and for my brother it gets too much. Anyway Arthur was running up and down it, because there is a like a little steps and he would run and jump. Okay. So my brother turned round to him and said… What did he say? He said, “Stop running, Arthur.” So Arthur went into slow motion. So my brother turned round and said, “Are you taking the mickey out of me?”

And you know, he really made it as if, Arthur had deliberately, was deliberately being obtuse and was trying to show my brother up in some way, you know, which is just bizarre for me, knowing Arthur. Yes, may be, yes, he didn’t listen. Yes, you know, he went into slow motion. I said to him, I said, so I turned round to my brother, I said, “[brother] you need to be… “ I said, “He is not trying to show you up. He is not taking the mickey out of you. You have got to be specific. Tell him to walk. Don’t tell him stop running, because he has stopped running. That is not running.” You know. “You have got to tell him to walk.” And then my brother in law jumped down me, “Oh so you are saying that Arthur is right, and [brother] is wrong and …” and this and that. And you know and it blew out into total thing… and then they were like, “Oh you should have waited and told [brother] later that you have got to be more specific.” And I said to Arthur. I said, “Arthur what were you …” He said, “Well I slowed down. And you just don’t want me to run, because it is not safe going fast. Well I wasn’t going fast.” [laugh]

And so she gets it any way fundamentally [laughs] because certain things she really ought to know; the fact that she has got to engage in eye contact and relationships with peers. Just go gently with them. Don’t sort of think that the first… you see there was only one girl about her same age as her on this course in [name of college]. And she came in one night and she was absolutely silent and she didn’t go upstairs. She didn’t do any work and I said, “Come on. What’s happening?” She said, “How do you know anything has happened?” So I said, “Well I have been your mother for 19 years,” I said, “I think I could sort of pick it out.” She said it is, “Nothing, it will go.” And she should know that I don’t give in.

So after 20 minutes she said, “Well.” I said, “It is [name of girl] or [name of girl], [name of girl] isn’t it?” So she said, “Yes,” she said, “How do you know?” I said… “Well,” she said, “Something and nothing.” I said, “It probably is something and nothing, Tiffany. It’s something that has upset you which she didn’t mean. And if she knew that you were upset, you know, she wouldn’t have done it.” So I said, then I get very defensive and sort of say, “How was she today?” She said, “Well…” It took about five days for it to get over but since they only see one another three times a week, it is not surprising. But she could have been having an off day and shed have said something like you know, I mean if you listen to Tiffany, I am the most horrible mother, I am always shouting, I never have a laugh, I never… So I know how she reacts to other people.

He is very much into music. But he is a very critical person, an unbelievable critic. If you are not singing well he will tell you. He is very blunt in company, he will, and once again that is probably the Asperger’s , but he doesn’t say it in any way in malice. It is just sort of a fact. You know, you are in a crowded train on the tube and he is “mum it smells”. You know. But then I like that. Part of me likes that, you know. And part of me worries because he is six years old and he looks like a little cherub. He has got blonde hair, blue eyes, and he can get away with it right now. And I am wondering for how much longer he is going to get away with this and we probably let him get away with, in company, all of us, because we take it, we don’t take it as it is embarrassing us. Do you know what I am saying? You can be in mixed company and somebody could be acting like a complete idiot whether they have a problem or not. And because we all take things very lightly in our family, you know if he is acting up we laugh, you know, and it seems to diffuse it and it also seems to sort of calm him down and we get on with our business. And if anybody is staring at us, we are just so what, you know who cares. And I would like to think that both my boys will grow up feeling that. You know to be themselves as the ultimate at the end of the day you know, and no worry about what other people think about you, you know, that is all we can ask of. But he is a fun boy. He is really fun.

It is like the time he had he had un-descended testicles, didn’t you? And he was going to school then and he had to have an operation after, worrying doctors to death, because of course in those days it was, oh because he has learning difficulties it is not worth, you know they wouldn’t consider them for operations or treatment or anything. So in the end they took him into hospital and I said, “Well…” I thought he would be embarrassed at school with all the boys in the class. What on earth would he tell them? So I said, “Howard, what did you tell them?” “Oh I told them I was going into the hospital and have an operation for un-descended testicle.” So it was me that was at fault, not Howard. Howard was OK, weren’t you lovely?

I, suppose, no the only one area about Asperger’s syndrome, I think there again that we didn’t cover was you know people think that you can’t have a relationship with people with autism, a bond, but you can. And it is there and there is things that you notice when they are really little, like when Arthur was little it is only like when you get the diagnosis then you start to think back and you read about and you think, oh, oh yes I remember that. And that you wouldn’t take like, I can remember with Arthur, because he was always really difficult to take shopping I would like drop him off with my sister and then I would go shopping on a Saturday morning and then I would come back to fetch him and he wouldn’t ever come running up, hello, so nice to see you, you know, or missed you mummy or you know he would kind of stay back and I always used to think maybe he was cross with me because I had left him, but when I actually think back I think he actually wasn’t sure, because with Asperger’s syndrome and the autism sometimes they have difficulty recognizing peoples faces and I think he just had to watch to see that it was me, because slowly then he would come up and start talking to me.

And interacting, not necessarily talking, but you know. And that and I never knew that that was a problem, and it was only when he went to the mainstream school he… about six months after he had been there, we would see kids from his class out of school and he wouldn’t recognize them. They would say, “Hello Arthur.” And he would go, “Now how do they know me?” And I would say, “Well that is Chloe from your class.” “Oh.” You know and those sort of things people don’t always tell you that those are things that you know, that … yes, facial recognition I think is quite a thing. And you don’t realise that and so it is kind of hard to explain that with strangers, you know, that they don’t recognize you because you are not wearing the same clothes or you are not in the same environment and but because of that it doesn’t mean that the child doesn’t like you, or doesn’t you know, bond with you or can’t, you know.

I mean my daughter, Nita, will say to me, “How are you mum?” She won’t actually want to know really how I am and she is not particularly interested but she knows that is something that I like her to ask me. Or if I fall over and hurt myself or cut my finger, she will say, “Oh I am sorry, mum” because she has learnt that is the response. She doesn’t particularly feel it I don’t think. Or even particularly care if I have cut myself. But these are the cues that she has learnt to pick up from society. So she is really learning by some kind of observation not by osmosis, like we sort of pick it up as we go through our lives. They don’t do that. That bit of the brain that is to do with understanding those kind of things that go on in society is very faulty.

And she has become very adept but not adept enough to fool people for long. She says to me that when she is out in neurotypical or normal company, after about two hours, may be three hours, she has become utterly exhausted and all her ploys and tricks and schemes that she has worked out start to fall by the wayside, because she doesn’t have the energy.

Her brain, the intellectual part of her brain that makes these decisions is having to work so fast. Faster than you or I can ever understand. Here is a situation, I have twenty solutions, twenty things I could say, which one should I choose? And she is going through those twenty solutions, those twenty answers at the speed of lightning and picks one. If she is tired she may pick the wrong response and so that is when things start to fall apart and that is when people start to think, hang on, something is not quite right here. I can’t quite put my finger on it. I don’t know what it is but, I feel uncomfortable in this person’s presence. They are not like me. That is what others will say to her and then they back away and once they have backed away, they never return because people have made up their minds about her, which is why she leads a lonely life.