DIOGENES - DIRECTOR'S CUT

In what, for want of a better expression, I’ll cringingly call The High-Functioning Autistic/Asperger Community we like to lay claim to famous personages. Beethoven? Aspergian. Newton? Einstein? Aspergian, Aspergian. Napoléon, Cleopatra, and so on. The fact that Hitler and the Emperor Tiberius also fit the profile is less widely acknowledged.

To my mind however, the best portrait ever drawn of high-functioning autism in operation is a fictional one: Sherlock Holmes and his brother Mycroft. Although writing while psychoanalysis was in its infancy and sixty-odd years before Hans Asperger first described the syndrome, I’ve often thought Conan-Doyle must have been drawing from personal experience. That strange, mannered, misanthropic creature hiding out in Baker Street until something captured his interest, whence no earthly consideration could divert him from his object, could have stepped from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (IV). Oh, and it runs in families – “art in the blood”, Holmes tells us in The Greek Interpreter, “is liable to take the strangest forms”.

Which brings us to Mycroft: even more hidebound and misanthropic, and possibly more brilliant, than his little brother. Mycroft lives like he’s on a rail. To find him you need look only at Whitehall, around the corner in his Pall Mall rooms, or across the road at the Diogenes Club, founded by Mycroft to accommodate “the most unsociable and un-clubbable men in town”. “The Diogenes Club”, Holmes relates, “is the queerest club in London, and Mycroft, one of the queerest men [different times, people, different times]. He’s always there from a quarter to five ‘till twenty to eight”.

Amongst the agglomeration of quirks, rituals and eccentricities that pass for a personality in your average Aspergian there is, more often than not, a remarkable gift or two hiding away. Given that the aforementioned eccentricities generally preclude squeezing into a “normal” occupation, the only shot we have at being either happy or useful is to discover and develop these gifts – as early as possible. These days the inborn titanic attention span is an asset. Sadly, it comes with an inability to take any notice whatsoever of that which doesn’t interest us: when we first met Sherlock he was capable of delivering a lecture on the subtle differences between two hundred and forty types of tobacco ash, but ignorant of the earth’s movement around the sun; the ash was more useful to him.

At least as important as the gift seems to be the environment in which it is developed – or not. Einstein didn’t speak for his first few years, but when it became apparent that his silence concealed an extraordinary, inquiring mind, his family moved mountains to ensure his unhindered maturation. We most of us know the Mozart story; Freud is another example. Newton, whose mother didn’t see the value of school beyond basic literacy, was fortunate in coming to the attention of a benefactor who not only gave him access to scientific books and equipment, but also argued the old girl around. Napoléon’s upbringing was harsh – sent to military school in a foreign country aged nine – but he found himself in a situation where he could exercise his Aspergian resentment of authority while still learning discipline, and his analytical and mathematical gifts were channelled into a productive arena; being the right man in the right place at the right historical moment helps too, of course.

What happens when the mix is wrong? Looked at without prejudice, Hitler showed early promise as an artist. Surviving works display considerable skill, though difficulty depicting life and movement suggest his talents lay elsewhere; an architect, perhaps? His father was brutal, but died before he could at least impart some discipline with the violence. His mother lived a little longer – just long enough to leave a bright, indulged teenager convinced that all he need do to succeed was turn up. Life had some shocks for Adolf, but history, again, intervened. Had the First World War not diverted him to the army, he might well have lived a quiet life as a Vienna street tramp. The post-war army noticed his oratorical gifts, and diverted him to politics. Here he was able to benefit from that strange personal charm which often goes hand in hand with social awkwardness in Asperger. Another Aspergian trait is taking roles very seriously: once it was suggested that he may be Germany’s saviour and Führer, he came to totally believe it.

So, maybe a manufactured psychopath (or Antisocial Personality, as opposed to a born or “pure” psychopath) is in some sense simply a failed Aspergian. At any rate, we can see why early diagnosis and intervention is important, as well as a nurturing, supportive – not coddling – environment.

Many believe that high-functioning autistics don’t feel empathy, and can’t experience emotions properly. Not true. Of the two types of empathy, cognitive and affective, we’re fine with one: I can’t instinctively read your emotions from your face (aside from the obvious, like smiling or crying), but I’m perfectly capable of understanding your feelings if you explain them, especially if I can relate them to an experience of my own; we use a different part of the brain, that’s all, like a computer rerouting to perform a task when it runs into trouble the usual way. As to emotions, we feel them all, easily and constantly, with no means of filtering them. This explains the rituals and habits, a means of imposing control, and the difficulty with eye-contact (although I learned long ago that if you look at people’s mouths, most won’t realise you’re not looking at their eyes).

Gifts are funny things. My intuition can be extraordinary: I’ll often flash on the personal traits of a new acquaintance at the first meeting, to be proved right later on; it’s not unusual in the first twenty minutes or so of a movie for me to blurt out the ending. I don’t know how this works – it’s Rain Man seeing a pile of matches on the ground and telling you at a glance how many there are. It doesn’t render me any more capable in interpersonal relations. Where Beethoven, Einstein, Sherlock and I intersect is that this gift is useful in my chosen field; each of these make mention of the intuitive flash. Newton and Einstein certainly made use of them: Einstein famously said that “imagination is more important than knowledge”. And remember Sherlock: “I’ve devised seven separate explanations, each of which would fit the facts”. The hard work comes later, when you have to make sure your intuition matches up with the real world.

I say “chosen field” and “gift”, but they’re both double edged. I’m a writer, a poet. I didn’t choose to be, I was born one. As a child my family thought I was an artist; but I liked writing stories. Even as a teenager who wanted to be Mike Patton or James Hetfield when I grew up, I wrestled with the question: “can rock stars publish serious literature?” Compulsive behaviour is a big part of this syndrome, and there’s no compulsive like a writer.

Most gifts come with their antithesis. As a poet, it’s useful having a brain wired up to see and think differently to the majority of people. However, I’m also wired up to be unaware that everybody else isn’t thinking the same thing as I am – this accounts for what is mistaken for arrogance in some Aspergians. So, even if I do think of something I think is remarkable, the next thought is usually “if I’ve thought of that, surely everyone else has, therefore why bother writing it?” Compulsivity can be a wonderful antidote.

I’m sure you’ve all thought of a lot of the things I write here, but I flatter myself that occasionally I light upon a different or arresting way of expressing them. I’ll keep doing my job if you keep doing yours and read the stuff. Let’s face it, I don’t have a choice.