Autism Spectrum Discourse (ASD)

I’ve been exploring the possibility that I am on the autism spectrum. It’s something that came out of the blue, in a discussion with a close friend about her break-up, and the trouble her boyfriend had in relating to her on a human level. His lack of empathy, in particular. We fancifully speculated that the Jewish relation to autism is marked because of circumcision. And that, later, led me down the rabbit-hole of investigation to see if there was any truth to it.

Turns out there is a paper or two claiming a relation. But there are many opponents of those studies. Yet in all my investigations I came to find more and more signs that I may well be on the spectrum myself. While I had investigated previously, I think I had dismissed the likelihood because I am clearly not a low-functioning autistic person. I’ve never had the need to be cared for or have somebody handle some of my basic life functions. That said, I have struggled with many things.

The most crucial grounds for believing I may be on the spectrum is that in my teens and 20s, especially, I undertook massive self-directed study into how to become more social. I was a an uber-nerd pre-puberty, with computer programming, astronomy, and music composition my prime interests. I wouldn’t read fiction, seeing it as a waste of valuable time that could be spent learning about ‘the world’.

Later, turning to graduate studies, it was cultural studies and especially semiotics that captured my imagination. Through these fields I believed, with great excitement, that I had discovered a vast and valuable key that could unlock the mysteries of the social world. I literally believed I now had tools to access the ‘hidden codes’ that govern the world of meaning – and thus of the social. Structuralism appears ready-made for autistics, as it is an advanced intellectual way of processing what for many people is learned intuitively: the norms of the social-emotional.

And I distinctly modelled myself on individuals who were at ease, and successful, in the social world. This has helped me a great deal. To most people I apparently seem very at ease myself in the social world. Even the world of small-talk and around the more elusive codes of social interaction. I may even have developed a certain charm.

Yet all is not as it seems, perhaps. And underneath, the cost of this is that often I don’t really know how I feel or what I really think about something. I may show great empathy, but how much of this is authentic, and how much is an act because I believe, more intellectually than affectively, that the other person is owed empathy. I do it not spontaneously, but because to not do it would challenge my own self-belief as a socially successful person.

I will write more about this at a later point. Suffice to say, I am ‘dialectically’ interpreting my possible relationship to autism. That is, while I have become utterly convinced that I am an adult with high-functioning autism or what used to be known as Asperger’s, I am continually subjecting that interpretation to scrutiny.

The trickiest part about the interpretation or diagnosis is that it is a spectrum, and not exactly a linear spectrum either. There are no signature symptoms unique to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A diagnosis, according to Tony Attwood, is approached by identifying a significant number of symptoms from a wide range. And while it may be genetic, with around 50% of direct family members being affected, not all family members have the same symptoms. They might have very different diagnostic profiles, yet it makes sense. Diagnosing an individual is a family-resemblance (of symptoms) and also involves a family-resemblance cross-checking with other members of that individual’s family. So it’s clear how easy it could be to make a premature diagnosis. Just as it’s clear how easy it might be to miss a diagnosis (as Tony Attwood did with his own son).

Upon becoming convinced I am on the spectrum, I became energised profoundly. It made just so much sense. But also, it relieved me of a lot of self-imposed guilt. It showed me that my failings are not moral, but neurological. In discursive terms, I was developing a new discourse of self-identity that offered a new subject position.

This is always going to be an affectively intense process. Stepping into the ASD discourse energises me because it offers a new explanation/understanding of who I am, where I’ve come from, and where I’m going. It articulates my identity, my subject-position, in a new way. Especially compared to the former way. So, it stops seeing me as lazy and weak-willed and hedonistic, and re-articulates my challenges as medical rather than moral. It offers hope. It comes with a new objet z (a new blocking element) which is the disorder itself (as well as my ignorance of my affliction). In turn, it offers a new objet a (the captivating object of desire blocked by the objet z).  [These terms are adopted from French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan].

Here, then, is an account of my normal discourse of self-identity, and then the emergent Asperger's discourse:

Discourse 1 

I am a talented genius, underachiever due to drug and alcohol use. I have discovered exciting discourse theories and my analyses can help propel progressive movements. I will be successful, but I am saddled by guilt for underachieving. Success is defined as recognition, international travel, transcendence, social esteem and sexual/romantic fulfilment. There is – or has been – a puritanical vision of a healthy, sober me. The vision is oriented around a ‘return’ to the blessed, pure, innocent young kid I was. Everything would change if I could only give up the weekend binges. Which I simultaneously will - it's inevitable - but cannot. This narrative structure is classic objet a: you'll inevitably return to the primordial fullness but cannot.

The primary affects here are guilt but also a manic thrill when feeling confident. It's not avoidance that sends me to the bottle. It's celebration. It's my brimming confidence that I am indeed on the path to realising my vision.

The fantasy at the heart of the discourse is that the world will be changed entirely by my contribution. I may have been placed here by God. My life is necessary.

The ontological ground of this discourse is personal, spiritual journey.

Discourse 2 

I am talented, but it is an Asperger’s talent. That is, a talent for non-social and the unambiguous. My sense of contribution and talent has been an arrogance and fantasy based way of coping with my ASD way of feeling different, not fitting in, not being recognised in the way I should be. Drugs have been a way of making socialising easier, managing anxiety, and are a symptom of ASD. They do hold me back, but they are not my primary blocker. They are a response to my primary blocker, the objet z of this discourse: the cognitive and emotional traits associated with ASD. My objet a in this discourse is not just achieving career success (now that I've worked out what's been holding me back), but full health and a vibrant social life too. I need to incorporate my ASD self with my modelled self, and find a fruitful blend.

Primary affects in Discourse 2 are stabilisation and renewed hope.

The fantasy of this discourse is one of total reconciliation, but especially reconciliation of identity, self-recognition. Total vision. Total identity. No more vague or slippery sense of who I am. The Asperger's knowledge, combined with my existing self-understanding, produces total self-enlightenment.

The ontological ground of this discourse is neuroscience and psychology: it it the very material brain (my brain, an Asperger's brain) that undergirds these assertions.

The issue is: this isn't simply the choosing of a new identity, like one might choose a new outfit. One does not simply step into it; one invests deeply in it. It is cathexis. It is, as Laclau and Mouffe contend, a decision in an undecidable space. There is no reason why the new subjectivity is the right one, but the affective investment is more driven by the failure of the present subjectivity. The present self-discourse is no longer functional - either epistemologically or normatively. It either doesn't explain the present or programatise the future in a way that allows affective circuits to flow through the body in a functional way.

The affective drive towards the new identification is a drive away from the unsatisfactory old identification. In my case, that is due to the frustration I've had not being able to break the cycle of addiction, and the growing signs that this is profoundly holding back my career.

Can this new identity, and the strategies and practices that flow from it prove productive?

I hope so. More to come....