A couple days ago, I finally either got up the courage or hit rock bottom – I’m really not sure which – and composed and sent an email requesting a meeting at which we could discuss possible accommodations and modifications that might help me with the everyday paperwork and housekeeping tasks of being a teacher. Even though I know that I have my job next year, I am still aware of the very thin margin between how well I am taking care of my “professional responsibilities” and not being considered professional or responsible enough.
I put ADD, ASD, and EFD on my disclosure. I know that there is probably not an actual written diagnosis for the ASD in my records at my shrink’s office or in my therapist’s session notes. I guess I should get that written down, but in our conversations, my therapist has taken a really practical approach to the fact that my ADD/AHD diagnosis is enough for ADA documentation and apparently, getting an ASD diagnosis in Arkansas is ridiculously difficult – you have to have an md, a shrink, and a speech path all agree in order to be “officially” diagnosed autistic. I don’t know if that covers the whole spectrum or is just for those who are severely developmentally disabled and will therefore be entitled to services through the state.
As a 42 year old who CAN maintain competitive employment (even if it is with some difficulty), I’m not going to be entitled to any services. So, it does seem like a potential waste of time and money just to have a few letters written in my records.
Then again . . .
There are so many things about me that are not explained by “typical” ADD/ADHD traits, but are laid out in shocking accuracy on the simplest of Adult ASD trait lists for Women. My time management and organization issues can be attributed – obviously – to the ADD. Some of my social and sensory things can be, too, depending on who you ask.
But ADD doesn’t explain –
The eternal and yet unanswered question – what does everybody else know that I don’t?
It’s that sense of “otherness” that convinces me that there are more dimensions to my “Non-Neurotypical” brain than are addressed with ADD treatment and therapy. Any description of that by ASD women who have managed to put that feeling of being a stranger in a land everyone else knows into words feels like I’ve found one of the puzzle pieces I thought was missing from the box.
From the inimitable Samantha Craft –
“What most individuals decide subconsciously, on a type of automatic mode, I do not. The way I process life can be compared to the sensation one feels when they concentrate on their eyes blinking. When focusing on the eyes closing, we are distracted by an automatic action that would normally not be a distraction. Blinking doesn’t involve thoughts. The way I process is similar to the sensation of paying attention to the blink of one’s eyes: I am pulled into the blinking of my own thoughts.”
There is nothing in the world like starting to feel kind of funny and realizing that, while you were utterly absorbed in something else, you literally forgot to breathe. Or having someone you love have to unfold each finger from the fist you’ve made for so long that you can’t unclench it yourself and you can’t use the other hand because it’s fold up, too.
And no educational colleague has ever been able to adequately explain to me what they have done brain-wise to remember to take roll every period or make themselves write lesson plans or grade papers.
What they say is: I JUST DO IT.
This makes no sense to me. One of the most common questions my mother used to ask me was: WHY CAN’T YOU JUST SEE WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE AND DO IT?
I never did have an answer for that questions. There is, quite literally, no single behavior that I can point to that I just do out of habit. Everything is a conscious decision – eating, bathing, answering the phone, unclenching my jaw, taking medicine for a headache I’ve been fighting for 8 hours . . .
Nike will never hire me as a spokesperson.
More “found” pieces later . . .
Mastering the Pieces 