Pretending to be Normal

by Liane Holliday Willey

  For years and years, I tried to pretend my college years were as tremendous as they were supposed to have been. I culled my memories for great times and stories and found ways to elaborate a few isolated examples into what would then pass for a myriad of good times. At first I thought I was kidding myself doing this, faking my way again. But I’ve grown more objective these past few years, and in so doing, I think I’ve been able to see those years through better vision. The things that I recall with disdain still leave a bitter taste in my mouth, but lately I have begun to find some memories that reveal a softer side of humanity. Looking far over my shoulder, I can call to mind people who must have been interested in my friendship. I can see a boy I knew as if it was yesterday. I can hear conversations we had and interests we shared. But more important, I can remember his face and the expressions he made as we talked. Today if he looked at me like he did then, I believe I would have seen the kindness and gentleness that was his. I never did much with this boy when I had the chance. I missed his offer of friendship. I would not miss that offer if it was made today. His face would make sense to me today.

  I think back too, on a boy I dated during my last year in college when I was no doubt moving beyond the roughest parts of my young adult AS. He was the only close college friend I had. The only person who made his way through to me, no doubt after a long walk with patience that set him on a dogged determination to find out who I was. This friend found a way to meet me in my world, without making any demands that I meet him in his. Ironically, I do not even think he knew what he had done. To him I was a friend he liked to do things with, someone to share life with for a while. He never batted an eye when he saw I lived with two dogs and five cats, instead of a bunch of girls. He never expressed any concern over my weird habit of grilling people for way too much information. He always stood by me patiently when I freaked out from having had too much sensory stimulation. He never questioned me or criticized me, he just let me be. If only everyone could be that gracious — maybe then, we would not even need a definition for Asperger’s Syndrome.

  4

  A Slow Walk Home

  Will I know where to go if I find the way?

  Will anything change or will things always he the same?

  It doesn’t really matter to me if I am here or there

  or somewhere in between,

  so long as I know where I am going.

  When I hit my mid-twenties I was somewhere between the bright new college graduate and the slightly off-beat lady who talks to pigeons in the park. Truth is, I was both. By then I was fully aware that I would need to mask myself, as best I could, according to the set of circumstances that sat before me. I knew for instance, that I could not talk to myself during a job interview. I knew I would have to dress a certain way in order not to evoke long stares. I understood that it was inappropriate around certain circles to bring up the fact that my home was a zoo filled with dogs and cats. I was beginning to see life more objectively, to realize that though I did not see the purpose in most rules, or more important, the harm in my breaking so many of them, I needed to follow them as best I could. Occasionally I would find someone who would let me make things up as I went along but for the most part I knew people expected me to merge with them as inconspicuously as possible. By my twenties I knew these premises were true; trouble is, I still did not have the mechanisms to comply as often as I might have.

  Shortly after I completed my master’s degree, I moved from the relatively safe harbor of my college town to Houston, Texas; an overwhelming city by anyone’s standards. I had no plan when I moved there, no reason for being there, other than to be near my future husband — a plan that did little to prepare me for my life there. I think my new degree from college must have fortified me with flawed confidence leading me to think that if I could finish a post graduate degree, I could accomplish any goal I set my mind on, including living on my own in a rather foreign and engulfing environment. I remember thinking my degree would afford me a great deal of respect in the career market, though I had no idea which career I would ultimately pursue. I thought I would be welcomed by any number of professions, even those beyond my field of multi-media. I was more than naive. I was short sighted and still very vulnerable to the AS traits that kept me confused. Still, I was stronger than I ever had been, and so, not totally without reasonable odds for some kind of success. As it turned out, I was offered the first job I applied for, and though I did not know it at the time, it was probably the only job beyond freelance writing that would suit me well. Two weeks after I arrived in Houston, I accepted a job as an instructor at the University of Houston.

  I do not know if teaching at the college level appealed to me more because of the freedoms it gave me, or because it did not require me to make much of a change in the routines I had established as a college student. Everything about teaching college classes was as good as or better than, the best parts of attending them. I liked the structure of the courses, but also the spare time in between. I enjoyed the studying and the lecturing and the new knowledge I found each time I turned a page in my textbooks. And I most enjoyed the very casual and temporary teacher-to-student relationships. They were the perfect kinds of friendships for me.

  Everything about my job was darn near perfect, except for one crippling element — the school’s physical location. Unfortunately, the campus I worked on was located in a terribly busy and overcrowded urban area; a nightmare I had to contend with day in and day out. I was never able to find my way to school without first getting lost in some capacity, be it driving the wrong way down a one way street or missing my exits or following the wrong detours. To make matters worse, I drove a mini-station wagon that did not have an automatic transmission or air conditioning; in other words, a vehicle that did very little to comfort me in the hot and humid Houston weather. All these elements forced my sensory integration dysfunction into a high state of chaos. Without fail, I would arrive at the university sweating, sticky, anxious, dazed and confused. Luckily, my interest in teaching students and the college campus environment usually carried me beyond the brink, so that after my sensory systems defrosted, I completely loved my job. Until the day everything changed.

  In an attempt to avoid the tangled web of too many sensory overloads — the mass confusion and terrible noise that ride with traffic jams, the sticky weather, the worrying over getting to work on time — I decided to leave for the university at the crack of dawn. While this change in my routine helped me to avoid my most obvious paralyzing AS trait, it catapulted me directly into another AS trap. The trademark of AS. Social impairment.

  I loved being on campus by 6:3 in the morning. I relished the emptiness of the university, the linear hallways that broke from their straight lines into square rooms with neat rows of desks and chairs. I liked the order that stood in the buildings when students were not filling them with gab and shuffling feet and too many patterns and colors. I liked the stillness. I also liked the solitude. In the hushed university, I unwound from the drive and let my ears rest on nothing. I relaxed. I felt safe and in control, soothed by the knowledge that my sensory system would eventually settle in response to the silence. I did not realize that though my sensory system was no longer vulnerable to an assault, the rest of me was.

  I remember making my way to class one particular morning just as I always had, with my coffee raised for sipping, my paper under my arm waiting to help me pass the time, and my fat backpack laying its weight across my shoulders. With all my objects in tow, I felt balanced and grounded. Normally, I would have stayed that way — nice and balanced — until my students came in. But on this day, I had a visitor. I recall sitting at my desk reading the paper, when a man I had never seen before came into the room. I noted the early hour but gave little thought to why he might be on campus so soon before class was to begin. After all, I did the same thing. I noticed the man was older than most of the students and I remember thinking he was dressed differently than the college kids tended to dress. H
e was not wearing jeans or dressed as if he was looking for a date. He was dressed in ragged, mud-colored pants and a too worn flannel shirt that faded up and into his ashen, leathered face. Still, I was not particularly alarmed, only annoyed by the look of him. I can still hear the voice he used when he spoke to me. He spoke in a monotone, keeping cadence with the pace his feet kept as he slowly made his way to me. I had yet to stop and worry about his presence in my classroom. I was more curious, more intrigued by the effect he had on my quiet room, than I was by the possible effect he could have on my safety. He told me he had been in jail, that he had just been released. A tiny bell sounded in my thoughts to alarm my suspicions, but I barely heard it. I was simply too engrossed by his moldy appearance to make much of a decision about his possible motives.

  Ironically, though it was my AS that kept me from understanding this man was oddly misplaced at the best, and harmful at the worst, it was also my AS that helped me to realize I was in trouble. The tiny bell turned into a blaring alarm the moment he came within an arm’s length away from me. I am disturbed anytime anyone breaks my personal space rule, but in this case, I was mortified. Not scared as much as disgusted, though I might have been more frightened than anything else, if he had not smelled so offensively. Logically, I think I always knew he was not a student or just a friendly person who happened by. I am sure I knew he was not someone I needed to be around. But until he and his smell aggravated my personal space, I really did not depend much on my logic.

  The instant he violated my space, I backed up to move myself away from everything about his actions and his person that gagged me. Still he kept coming toward me, inch by inch, very slowly like a motion picture stopping at every frame. It never dawned on me to scream. It did not occur to me to run, though I never quit backing up. I do not think my feeble reactions were affected by a state of shock. I was conscious of the room, the stillness and the darkness outside and the fact that we were alone. I do not remember tasting fear the way I do when my children almost wander into a busy street or when I see a terrible accident almost happen. I think I was just unable to separate my sensible emotions from my sensory overload on that day; everything was too jumbled.

  Thankfully, miraculously, a male student I had never known to be early before, came into the class and quickly and confidently walked to my side so that he was wedged between the man and myself. For some reason, the student’s closeness to me did not offend me, but it did bother the man. In the blink of an eye, he disappeared out the door. When the man was gone from the room, I remember the student asking me if I was okay, if I needed anything, if the man had hurt me. I remember remaining very calm, almost wondering why he was so concerned, then I remembered the man’s smell, his violating my personal space. Then, I knew I should have been afraid. I knew I had made a terrible error in judgement. I knew I had just been very, very lucky.

  I took that experience with me like a student takes the knowledge he uses to pass an exam. I let it teach me a lesson about human behavior, one I was unable to know intrinsically. Never since then have I put myself in a position where I might be caught off guard. I still go many places alone, but never without looking for a quick exit, never without reminding myself that if someone does come too close I should scream, and never without telling myself there are people in the world who do mean to harm others. Lessons come hard sometimes, and sometimes, at a very high cost. The price I give to understand people is often more than I have to offer.

  The experience at the university pointed out to me just how little I understood about human behavior. Objectively, I was able to see how close my inability to judge a person’s motive properly had brought me to personal harm, but still I could not catagorize what made one person safe, another fun, another someone to build a relationship with or another someone to avoid. I did realize, by then, that there were some rules to friendships, some parameters that made them possible and sustaining, but I was still unclear as to what those rules and parameters were. To be perfectly honest, I remain confused.

  After I quit the university, I took a job as an elementary education teacher. I enjoyed every second with the children and every aspect of teaching, but I was awkward around the adults I worked with. When I was with a group I would rather naturally resort to my stage talents. Literally. I smiled, made witty remarks and told interesting stories, and when I ran out of stories to tell, I left as if I was walking off the stage. I tried my very hardest to be a gracious and kind co-worker, but I never got the hang of it. I still do not. For example, I can never tell how much time needs to pass before I buy someone I have recently met a little «Thinking of you» gift. What if on the very day we met, I see something I think the new friend would like? Should I get the gift then and save it for say, six weeks, and then give it? Or can I give it away that afternoon? Or am I wrong about the whole gift concept. Is it just something commercials promote and not something I am really supposed to act on? Do I really have to talk on the phone to anyone if I think the conversation is boring or a waste of my time? If there is a lapse in the conversation, am I supposed to hang up or tell a joke or just sit there? What if I like the person well enough, but I decide I cannot stand one of their behaviors or habits? Can I tell them right away or do I have to wait a while, and if so, how long and if not, what am I supposed to do to keep from focusing on their annoying habit? The questions are endless, and the concerns mountain high. This is why human relationships usually take me beyond my limits. They wear me out. They scatter my thoughts. They make me worry about what I have just said and what they have just said, and how or if that all fits together, and what they will say next and what I will say then, and do I owe them something or is it their turn to owe me, and why do the rules change depending on who the friend turns out to be and… well, the whole thing drives me to total distraction and anxiety.

  If I could have spent all my time and energies on my students, I think I might still be teaching. But of course, this could never have been. I had to interact with the administrators, counselors, parents and other teachers, no matter the discomfort. I never wanted to work on my teaching skills with my principal, relax with my co-workers in the teacher’s lounge or talk to parents about anything other than their children. I had to force myself to attend staff meetings, hating the thought that I was expected to be a team player. I had to make myself join the faculty choir only because I knew it was expected of me. I had to will myself to smile while parents kept me after class with stories of their day or their goals in life. Thankfully, when I had to, I could appear interested, intrigued and motivated by the discussions and people around me. All I had to do was fragment myself. One of me could nod, interject and produce monologues of creativity. The other me heard only my inner thoughts, felt only my irritation at the situation, understood only the need to escape. Neither of me was very good at listening to entire dialogues, but both were very good at hearing the first parts of sentences or even words, and then disregarding the other halves.

  It was not so much that people and their words and actions irritated or bored me; the effect was far more inclusive than that. People, particularly people I never saw or thought of unless they were sitting in front of me, unraveled me. They unhooked the calm in me and let loose too many thoughts, too many images, too many questions. My mind would melt amid the noise and the light and the voices and the asymmetrical patterns and the smells and the images, as I desperately tried to attach meaning to every word every person uttered. If I could not find a reason out of my meetings, and believe me I found many, I would allow my mind to settle on a few of my favorite obsessive rituals. I might have counted to ten over and over and over. I might have typed sentences in my mind, creating patterns as I did, so that my left hand would spell out the first two letters, then my right hand, then left, then right, until the sentence was spelled using a variety of symmetrical patterns. I might have ground my teeth to a rhythm playing in my mind.

  I can imagine that other people have all kinds of masking rituals they do to
pretend they are interested in the topic at hand, and so in that, I am probably not so very different from the norm. The difference comes, I think, at the point when closure comes. Speaking to others, I learned they quit their ritual the moment they want to, or the moment they need to. I go beyond that and continue my habits until their symmetrical pattern is complete or until the rhythm is over. I could not, and cannot, seem to easily shake my compulsive rituals from their hold on my thoughts. Not until they have completed their pattern. I try terribly hard not to fragment, particularly if I know I am going to be called on for much input or conversation. I know it is important to stay on task and work with others as well as I can. And for the most part, I can, at least on short projects. But back when I taught, I had to fight with myself to stay on track. I would try to keep my eyes very still, concentrating intently on people’s faces, but not their gestures. Gestures took on dialogues of their own, making it even harder for me to keep up with the conversation. I would take notes, hoping that if I wrote down everything that was said, I could later piece everything together like a puzzle. Or, I would completely take over the meeting, asserting my own thoughts and ideas, as if I were the self-appointed expert. But when all else failed, I used to rely on a «fitting in» trick that is nothing more than a sophisticated form of echolalia. Like a professional mimic I could catch someone else’s personality as easily as other people catch a cold. I did this by surveying the group of people I was with, then consciously identifying the person I was most taken in by. I would watch them intently, carefully marking their traits, until almost as easily as if I had turned on a light, I would turn their personality on in me. I can change my mannerisms and my voice and my thoughts until I am confident they match the person I wanted to echo. Of course, I knew what I was doing, and of course, I was somewhat embarrassed by it, but it worked to keep me connected and sometimes that was all that concerned me. It was simply more efficient for me to use the kinds of behaviors other people used, than it was for me to try and create some of my own.