Aspergers: A Real Life Human Being (Probably)
Imagine you’re an alien sent to earth to study and understand mankind. Everything would be new and foreign and exciting for an alien, wouldn’t it? The human experience is so unique and layered I doubt an alien would be able to complete a study in a timely manner. Well, low and behold I am that alien. Well not literally, I don’t have green skin and I’m certainly lacking in a flying saucer.
In my life I have always felt a sense of otherness that spawns from a cocktail of social anxiety and miscommunication. The average person understands how to be social, how to maintain eye contact, be touched, and communicate their wants and needs. Listed above are skills I did not have naturally wired into me; it was information I had to learn. Like most things that one may study, I did not immediately comprehend all the material that most just knew. I have been alive for 19 years, or 7,233 days and each day of that 7,233 posed a new challenge in being a human being. I can sound detached from my status as a person, I know that much but I’m not sure how else I’m supposed to be.
Sometimes I get lost in my head. A day dream, a memory, a thought or word on repeat... I cross my left ankle under my right knee and bounce the ball of my foot. Or I rock back and forth, sometimes softly and other times in quick secession to self sooth.
Aspergers is not a disease, it’s a condition and there’s no magical pill or prescription to make it go away. It’s a part of me and every day I do my best to manage it. Some days that means I lock myself away and take the day to recuperate. Social interaction can be especially exhausting in my case. I have to in a sense pump myself up to go out and about and be social, or do absolutely nothing for several days prior to an event that I know will drain me. Without the balance of solitude and socialization, feelings of isolation and otherness can bloom. For someone with Aspergers, loneliness isn’t a sporadic emotion; it’s a low hum that’s always present. It’s not a fear of missing out with ones peers so much as it is the complete lack of understanding on how to connect with other people.
In middle school I wore giant skull candy head phones to block out noise; everything was too loud. I was over stimulated, and had no outlet or escape. It started out with working lunch, which was a quiet room where if you didn’t do your homework, you went to. For whatever reason, despite my begging I was not allowed to go to working lunch if I did my homework despite needing to escape the scream fest that was the cafeteria. To make a very long story short; I nearly failed the 8th grade because I stopped doing homework so I could have a quiet lunch period.
To better illustrate how my brain works in a way that feels more tangible, say the brain is a hard drive. Each drive or brain is wired and built in the image of a blue print that varies from person to person, but still follows a basic outline to create an average. Consequently the machine behind my eyes is lacking in certain programming that can seem very basic to someone that has that program, like motor functions, speaking or learning. For example I couldn’t tie my shoes till I was in the fourth grade, but I was talking by ten months and reading by the age of two. Aspergers manifests in many different ways along a high and low spectrum, in my case I’m higher functioning with a strong inclination for language and literature.
The way I associate and learn about the world around me has always been complex. In high school I was able to begin understanding how important touch is in my life through art. One of the most uncomfortable situations I used to experience was touching another person, but over time I have learned the significance of touch in my life as it is the sense through which I can better understand the world. While working on my art portfolio, I explored the kinesthetic use of charcoal on paper. I created a self-portrait but I did so blind folded on the floor.
Being a very flexible person, I was able to lay my face in between my feet with my arms outstretched to draw what I felt. This was a turning point in my exploration as an artist and as a person because it opened my eyes to relating touch to and act that didn’t feel forced or uncomfortable. When the drawing was finished, I felt I’d drawn a more honest version of myself; simple composition drawn from outstretched hands, blind but trying to expresses what was there beyond the confines of line as well as positive and negative space. The values of the piece reflect my own because it embodies how I feel in my day to day.
The first sculpture piece I worked on as an independent project was named Play Time at Midnight. The piece was constructed on a long flat piece of wood with building blocks of varying shapes and sizes stacked along its borders. Inside the blocks sat a teddy bear, a rattle, and a dress; all of which were painted black like the rest of the pieces components. This piece involved my exploration of cause and effect; how there are points in your life in which things will happen regardless of what you do to protect yourself. There is method to the madness of being human and as a real life person my ongoing struggle is to understand what that method is.
As an artist I’ve had the opportunity to further grasp and experiment with my aesthetic as well as personifying my own philosophies. On this course of understanding I have observed seemingly perpetual attachment to self made limitations and restrictions. How society allows our comfort zones to divide and conquer us. In my works I focus on how a piece’s success is attributed not only to its physical construction, but to the feeling it invokes. I created my works to express how intention can be blurred by perception. How reality can be reconstructed and felt in the abstract. How depth and understanding is relative to experience. My purpose in pursuing art is to achieve a higher grade of understanding for not only myself but for those that view what I create.
