Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian With Practical Advice for Aspergians, Misfits, Families & Teachers (16 page)

When I was little, I had no way of knowing that I was more sensitive than other people. It would have amazed me to hear that something that was downright painful for me could go totally unnoticed by someone else. But
that’s the way it was. And when the grown-ups didn’t notice what was bothering me, they tended to look at me like I was nuts, because I was getting uncomfortable and acting strange.

“He’s a very sensitive little boy” was how my mother defended me. “He needs to toughen up” was my father’s unsympathetic answer. And you know what? That’s exactly what I did. I grew up to install sound systems and strobe lights in dance clubs and play rock and roll with some of the loudest bands on the planet. How did I go from extreme sensitivity to that level of tolerance?

At a young age, I was fortunate to stumble upon special interests that captivated me and put my unique sensitivities to use in productive ways, opening a path out of disability. If all my brainpower was aimed at figuring out how a guitar amplifer or a Getrag
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gearbox worked, those annoying thoughts and itchy tags could not get a word in edgewise. Without that Aspergian focus, and my aptitude for machines and electronics, my mind might well have been captured by all those stray sensory inputs that tormented me as a kid, and who knows where I might have ended up?

I wasn’t always able to explain clearly how I managed to control my sensory overload. It wasn’t until later in life that I was able to articulate the secret to my success.

I remember working on the sound crew at an Iron Butterfly concert shortly after the band got together for the second time. I was eighteen years old. We were playing in a big nightclub, not an arena. The place was packed, the ceiling was low, and the air was full of cigarette smoke. There was a projector throwing psychedelic images on the wall behind the stage, and the noise was blasting through the speakers. It was just the sort of place that could overwhelm anyone’s senses.

When I recall those 1970s concerts, what I remember most are the patterns: the thumping melody of the bass, the dance of the VU meters on the amplifers, the smells of the hot vacuum tubes. I’ve never forgotten the silhouettes the spotlights cut through the smoke as I looked forward into the lights from behind the stage. The lights would hit the musicians’ faces, and from where I stood, their hair would light up as if their heads had burst into flames.

What I don’t remember is ever being troubled by the noise at those shows. When I learned about autism and about how many people, like me, have big issues with noises, I began to wonder,
How did I get away with that?

The answer hit me last year, out of the blue, at a fund-raising event for football star Doug Flutie’s autism foundation.

Every winter, Doug organizes a bowling tournament to raise money for his foundation. His Flutie Bowls (as
they are called) are always a good time, with catered food, music, and interesting people.

That year’s bowl was held at a place called Jillian’s in Boston. Jillian’s is an old New England factory building that’s been turned into an upscale bowling alley they call Lucky Strike Lanes. Doug gets so many people at his events that the crowd spills over onto the lower floors of Jillian’s. But most of the action stays on the top floor, at Lucky Strike. That’s where I was.

Up there, the bouncers string a velvet rope around the lanes to make a sort of VIP area. It quickly fills up with sponsors and sports figures who come to support Doug’s foundation. When the night gets going, the VIP area is the only part of the establishment that isn’t packed shoulder to shoulder. It’s the equivalent of the backstage area at a sold-out rock concert. Fortunately, the foundation folks had given me a pass so I could escape to its relative calm and tranquillity.

I was very uncomfortable at first because I couldn’t make sense of anything around me. Everywhere I looked there were people jostling, shoving, and shouting. There was no calm space in the alley. The whole room was packed with glittering socialites, hulking sports figures, and professional and amateur paparazzi snapping pictures. It was total sensory overload. You didn’t have to be autistic to be freaked out in a madhouse like that.

Still, a fellow has to eat. I decided to wade into the crowd in search of food, which was visible above the sea of people, far across the room. I turned sideways, shoulder
forward, and entered the crowd. The closer I got, the better the food smelled, which was good because the crush of people was almost enough to send me running for the exit. But I persevered, and eventually I reached the food tables. (Doug must be a well-respected figure in the Boston food service community, because the assortment of donated edibles was truly remarkable.)

A few minutes later, fortified by crab cakes, chocolate-covered strawberries, scallops, pizza slices, and small sweet pastries, I waded back past the velvet rope and made my way by the two burly bouncers to the VIP section.

There were supposedly many sports superstars in attendance, so I decided to see if I could pick them out. The crowd contained Patriots, Red Sox, and Celtics, but they all looked like regular people to me. I couldn’t identify any of the pros in the group.

Failing in that effort, I looked out from the relative serenity of the VIP section. I decided to count girls to ascertain the male-to-female ratio of the crowd. What I found—sixteen girls for every ten guys—gave us males good odds that night. I counted another group of thirty people, just to be sure, and the ratio remained the same.

Then someone told me that I was expected to participate in the bowling competition. Turning my mind to the game at hand for a while, I discovered I wasn’t half bad and actually scored a few strikes.

Having searched for sports figures, counted girls, and tried bowling, I was running out of things to do, so I decided to wander to the food again. As soon as I left the
safety of the velvet rope, my anxiety returned. Feeling it, I started thinking I should slink out the door and head for home, but Doug saw me and said, “Wait a few minutes. My band is going to play soon.”

I milled around, anxious and fidgety, looking for some distraction. Luckily, Doug’s band chose that moment to start playing. I immediately walked to the rear of the bandstand and began listening. I focused on one instrument at a time, as I used to do back in my music-production days. After a moment I realized my anxiety had vanished. The beat of the music gave my mind something to lock on to. With that focus, I ceased to perseverate and worry.

Just then, I had a flash of insight. At Doug’s event, of all places, I found the answer to why, at concerts, my sensory overload didn’t kick in.

When Doug’s band was playing I focused on different instruments one by one, as I had done years ago. It takes quite a bit of concentration to follow a single instrument, but I can do it.

People tell me that’s an unusual ability, to be able to switch from one instrument to another at will, but those
same people seem perfectly at ease in crowds or noisy places that freak me out, so perhaps it’s a trade of one trait for the other. Maybe it’s another Asperger job skill, one I share with every good music producer or orchestra conductor. A good many of them have Asperger’s, too.

Other people on the spectrum may be different, but for me, the answer to handling crowds, noise, or flashing lights seems to be focus. If my mind is locked onto a target, it’s as if all the distractions vanish. If I lose the target—whether it’s a person I am tracking for a photo or a musician I am tracking for the sound—the sensory input overwhelms me. When I’m locked on, nothing bothers me. I learned that skill unconsciously when I was young, but now that I’m aware of it, I am able to adjust some of my life circumstances to make things go even more smoothly.

That’s why I never attend concerts where I’m not working. In the audience I am constrained, and I have nothing to do, so I freak out, just as I was starting to do at the Flutie Bowl. I don’t enjoy it, even today. For the same reason, I can’t be alone in a crowded bar. If I have someone to focus on or a book to read, I can ignore the bedlam around me. Take that away, though, and I will be out the door and down the road in two minutes flat. Now that I understand what’s happening, I am able to arrange things to avoid situations like that, and if people wonder why I don’t do certain things, I have a good answer.

It seems like my “focus strategy” applies to sensory overloads of all sorts. Earlier, I talked about how I used
concentration and focus to overcome touch sensitivity. So focus helps me with touch, noise, and probably a whole host of other issues. That may be because I have a greater-than-normal power of concentration, something that’s pretty common in Aspergians. For me, it’s key to managing sensory overload. It’s funny, because I developed the ability long ago, before I had any knowledge of autism or the underlying issues.

I
have always loved being in the woods. One of my favorite activities involves putting on my backpack and walking five or ten miles along forest trails here in western Massachusetts. I’ve walked many sections of the Appalachian Trail and Vermont’s Green Mountain trails, and I hope to cover even more this coming season. I probably feel more at peace in the woods than anywhere else.

Walking in the woods is calming and tranquil. I listen to the birds and the bears, and the wind in the trees. Squirrels and snakes flit through the brush. Deer graze and hawks dive-bomb unsuspecting rodents. There’s nothing quite like the rush of a mountain stream, tumbling through a gorge or down a ravine. I love the fresh mountain air, the textures, and the smells. And best of all—it’s good for me. Walking is great
exercise, especially when you carry a thirty-pound backpack.

Some people look to nature for the sound of silence, but the woods where I roam are seldom truly quiet for more than a moment. Those moments—when they come—are magical. But when the woods go quiet for long seconds and you feel an unseen presence … watch out! It usually means some big predator is moving into the area, slow and quiet. Stealthy and hungry. Ready for action. That’s the time to remember that humans are not always the top of the food chain, especially when you get far into the wild.

But I didn’t start out in the wild. I started in some kinder, gentler woods behind my parents’ home in Hadley, Massachusetts, just minutes from the busy UMass campus.

We moved to Hadley when I was eight, and I immediately headed for the hills. I never looked back. I can still remember how it felt to climb the high cliffs on Mount Holyoke, which towered above our house, less than a quarter mile away. The fear I felt when I got lost up there one dark night is still sharp and clear, but the memory of fun is even clearer. The neighbors’ kids and I would hunt for amethyst crystals in the loose rock on the hillsides, and we imagined ourselves collecting priceless gemstones.

Yet some people hear about my love of the outdoors and they look at me like I’m crazy. My brother is a good example. “There are things out there that use trees for back scratchers, John Elder. I shine my flashlight into the
woods at night and eyes reflect back at me. From eight feet off the ground!” Needless to say, my brother does not venture out to find the real answer—that those eyes belong to squirrels whose eyes glow as they sit on low-hanging tree branches.

What else can I do but feed his fears by agreeing? “Those are pine demons,” I say with a serious expression. “Fierce fighters.” Nothing more needs to be said. He remains in his house with windows closed and doors locked. I live next door, but I haven’t even seen him in six months. Meanwhile, squirrels remain the unsung heroes of the rodent world.

My brother and I are opposites in many ways. He sees vicious predators at the border of his suburban lawn. I see even worse in the alleyways of Chicago and Houston. In a sense, both of us are right. It’s just a matter of where one is comfortable, and what you choose to fear, if anything.

I’m certainly aware of the dangers that lurk in the countryside, but I don’t dwell on them or let them hold me back. I grew up around the woods as a kid, both at my parents’ home in Massachusetts and at my grandparents’ farm in Georgia. When I was a teenager, I even left home and lived outside for a while, becoming a feral child. So I’ve had a lot of experience being in the country. All that time, I was aware of possible dangers, but I never felt threatened. And my confidence was justified, because nothing ever ate me.

It’s true there are dangerous things in the woods, and nature can be harsh and unforgiving. But there’s also great
beauty and a sense of freedom. For me, the joys far outweigh the threats. My time outdoors has taught me to appreciate the natural environment around me, and now it’s almost second nature to read the signals of the outdoor world. I’m aware of changing weather, conditions underfoot, and wildlife around me. I sense all those things without really thinking, in the same way nypicals read the people around them at a party.

I can tell the call of a coyote from that of a bobcat, and I know the feel of the changing air pressure just before the storm. I may be blind to the unspoken signals of other humans, but I read the messages of the natural world with a clarity few nypicals can muster.

I’m comfortable because the signals of the natural world are logical and unemotional. They don’t try to trick or deceive me. In some cases animals can be tricky, but their motivations are far simpler than those of most humans, and they are seldom nasty or mean, at least to me. I’ve pondered why it is that I have succeeded at learning to read the natural
world, while I am still largely oblivious to the social cues of people. I think it comes down to simplicity, predictability, and logic. The natural world has all those things; people don’t.

That’s why, as hard as I’ve tried, I’ve never been truly comfortable at parties with groups of strangers. Yet I am completely comfortable walking up a strange hillside, even when the weather has changed and darkness falls. I’ve always felt secure and confident in the woods—two things I never feel at a party.