At this point in our lives, we can pretty much guess whether someone gets it about the level of assistance we actually need based on whether they comment on us being “so intelligent.” As soon as the comments about our “intelligence” start, that’s pretty much a sure guarantee that someone has missed the point and assumed that “intelligence” is this great compensating factor in our life, and that we just need a little help with a few things. Which is not true, especially when it comes to academic things. But we’ve fooled (unintentionally) a lot of professionals this way, who got sufficiently caught up in being impressed with our “intelligence” or “good memory” or whatever that they yanked the rug out from under us in terms of support. (For instance, when we discuss the need for a very structured academic environment, assuming that we can create all the structure ourselves if we “feel supported,” which I suppose goes back to the whole “validating feelings” business again. And being asked to create that structure by ourselves is one of the fastest ways to get a lot of us on the floor flapping our hands.)

Not all that different from me, for instance, in terms of the level of assistance she needs, but has a much harder time getting people to believe her. Typical people tend to expect me to need a certain level of assistance (and even possibly suspect me of not writing my speeches) if someone else is giving my speech for me while I’m lying on the ground watching my hands flutter, but they don’t tend to expect the same of an autistic person who’s clearly an excellent public speaker by conventional standards.

It was interesting to watch Ros Blackburn present the other day, never mind my distrust of what she was going to say, because she was very fluent and verbal giving the sort of “performance” one would expect of an accomplished “raconteur” underneath that I know she is very different. I on the other hand will give less emotional appeal, and be more intellectual. I will (like I do in my DVD) just read my text and will most likely face sideways on to the audience so I can turn toward them occasionally but mostly keep my eye on my text and the screen to be sure the slides come up.

(That would, sort of, explain the lack of attention span, the sort of flitting between various things with barely any sense of logic, the random emotions out of nowhere, the density of everything right now including my dreams when I do sleep, etc.)

She also told me that I get afraid of people — all people — at times like this and that I don’t really differentiate, so that was why I was afraid to contact her even though she’d said she’d help out with this stuff.

She also told me this happens a lot and that there’s a pattern to it but I never see it while I’m in it, and then afterwards I can’t remember it. That’s a little disturbing.

My cat is worried about me. She’s been sitting on me a lot and giving me that worried mother cat (and “what a stupid kitten I have”) look. She does this when I crash. I think she thinks I should know how to avoid it by now.

More bits of me are coming online, but life in general is still confusing. I’ve got bits of knowledge and stuff coming out of nowhere but not seemingly attached to anything. It’s quite disorienting.

And Larry — that does sound bad, at least I wasn’t in a particularly hostile environment. I’ve done stuff like this in hostile or partially-hostile environments and it’s definitely worse.

And with nobody around to assist, even worse. I’m glad Kathleen was willing to do stuff, was constantly worried she would stop being willing or able to help out with stuff. Glad she figured out how to grab my arm even at the end, that was way beyond my expectations.

I am not really looking forward to some aspects of it, that is the social time between presentations and afterward where all the “networking” goes on.

And who is there to sort me out if things go wrong? No-one. I have informed them I am autistic and the only thing I have to look forward to is a laptop for loan. People to understand I don’t know where I am or what I should be doing, to sort me out if there is any difficulty with getting food, I can forget it. Is it any wonder I am already stressing about it.

I don’t know whether this is a peculiarly Larry thing but even when I have written timetables it doesn’t seem to help me know what is next as they never seem to be that comprehensible to me, thre is always some information missing or changes to schedule. As for how one is supposed to know where rooms are, that is never clear. I could go on forever about this and I would do it all diffrently if it were down to me.

And for me, anywhere unfamiliar is always going to be a problem. Even outdoors is a problem compared to my apartment or my friend’s apartment down the hall. Today I have to go to the headache clinic and it’s going to be really interesting to see what happens, in a twisted sense of interesting.

I also went through a semi-“crashed” period that lasted several months a few years ago, and during that time my outward appearance and speech were probably more normal-seeming than ever, which was completely and utterly bizarre considering I didn’t even know my toothbrush was a toothbrush during that time until I started using it.

Not trying to make this all about me or anything. Just going, “Wow, I have a really good idea of what she means, and I empathize”.