Generally I agree with Aaron Clarey, but on the subject of Autism he tends to go overboard in dismissing the prevalence of autistic spectrum disorders. While I agree that the diagnostic criteria got so broad that it took in many youth who were merely suffering from our man-hating education system, the DSM-5 Autistic Spectrum Disorder criteria are narrower and provide a more useful diagnosis. Although I went through the autistic transition at age 3, as that was back in the 1950s, I went decades without being diagnosed. So I didn't know I was different, and just assumed that most people were stupid, insane and barbaric. It wasn't until I was almost 50 that a leader in treating children for autism pre-diagnosed me. A few years later, I was formally diagnosed. With the knowledge that I was neuro-atypical, I set about to study neuro-typical people and to create little behavioral algorithms to help me bridge the gap and more or less fit in. But sometimes it just doesn't work, especially when dealing with narcissists. These people feel compelled to control others, to diminish them, to restrict their capabilities and to dis-able rather than enable them. I ran afoul of such a person the other day. She seems to have an aversion to computers and likes to force her subordinates to carry pieces of paper back and forth from her desk to theirs. The other day she ordered me to do the same. No working from electronic files, but transcribing from printed pieces of paper. As a result, tasks take at least twice as long as they should. I challenged her. In response, she pulled me into a room with a person of high authority. She spoke as though I refused to comply, which I did not, and I pointed this out. Twice. She did not acknowledge. I pointed out that she was dis-abling me, and reminded her that I'm autistic. (High functioning. Which reminds me, if you haven't read Aaron's book, The Curse of the High IQ, I recommend it.) I said my diagnosis is on file. She said it was not. I said it was. She denied it again. I have a copy, and after I came home I made a copy to show her. As it happened, The Accountant DVD from Netflix came that same day. Not knowing what it was really about, I watched it. Deep impact. From my earliest memories I have been surrounded on all sides and beset upon by barbarians. People whose IQs are as far removed from mine as chimpanzees are from theirs. They called me retard. My racist teachers told me to sit in the back and ask no questions, and then when my peers ganged together to chase me down with rocks and beat me up while the racist teachers looked the other way, I was the one who was punished if I defended myself. Psychologists talk about Fight or Flight, but they ignore the third F: freeze. Surrounded on all sides, beset upon by the barbarians and with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, at the deepest level I was conditioned to freeze. In committee meetings when bobble head barbarians shrieked at me, my instinct was to freeze and I struggled to respond. In arguments with women, in which women but not men for fear of being labeled sexist and abusive, are allowed to engage in verbal jousting and raise their voice, I struggle to respond. Just as I did, that day. Daily, I struggle not to despise these loathsome barbarians. I grit my teeth and swallow the contempt that threatens to consume me. I remind myself that, like chimpanzees, they don't know any better, that they are too dumb, too small and too dim to comprehend just how contemptible they are, and for this reason I should have compassion and, not forget, but forgive. And while with that I release the anxiety and frustration, when I watched The Accountant and saw a person like me, a fictional personification of who I could have been with a slightly different upbringing, and the metaphorical elimination of the barbarians, it was so cathartic that I wept. While a lot of guys, I'm sure, will enjoy this Ben Affleck flick as Ben's answer to Matt Damon's Jason Bourne movies, I'm certain that others like me, those on the autistic spectrum, will respond at a much deeper and very emotional level. It's not just an action flick. It's much more than that.
