This is a piece that I wrote for the inhouse newsletter at work, back in 2017. I work for a tech company, so some of the terms might not make sense.

Hi, I’m Asperger King and I’m a Senior Developer. Until a few years ago I had no idea what autism was. My views were based on films such as Rainman and Forrest Gump, and Moss from the IT Crowd. Socially awkward geeks with fantastic memories, strange hobbies, stilted speech, unable to hold down a job or a relationship; and if American, likely to go on a gun rampage at some point. Then along came Channel 4’s The Undateables, a rich source of comedy gold with regards Asperger’s Syndrome, which confirmed my views.

And then three years ago I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. How could this be? How could I have got to 41 without knowing? The only possible pointer is that I have an interest in weapons; I teach Air Cadets how to shoot. It was then that realised that my views were stereotypes portrayed by the media for entertainment value. Since receiving my diagnosis I’ve become an advocate for autism awareness, going into schools to give talks to teachers and parents about how it is possible to live a “normal” life on the spectrum as an adult. I asked the editor if an article could be run on autism because the tech industry has a high incidence of autistics working in it, yet the stereotypical views still prevail.

Autistic Development Disorder (ASD) is a neurological developmental disorder characterized by awkwardness in social interaction, communication difficulties, and preoccupation with very narrow interests. It is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how we perceive the world and interact with others. If you have autism, you have it for life – it is not an illness or disease and cannot be ‘cured’, and it’s not something that you suddenly get. Autistic brains are physically different to those of Neurotypicals (NTs). In tech terms I’m running on an ARM processor with a RISC instruction set, and you’re on x64 with CISC (or maybe it’s the other way around).

Autism is often described as a ‘spectrum disorder’ because the condition affects people in many different ways and to varying degrees. A favourite quote in the autism world is from Dr. Stephen Shore, “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism”. Asperger’s’ Syndrome is at the higher functioning end of the spectrum, meaning that we have above average intelligence, but still have the social awkwardness and communication difficulties. It’s mostly a hidden disability; you can’t tell that someone has the condition from their outward appearance, except maybe from a bad sense of dress!

Aspies have difficulties with three main areas. They are:

• Social Communication
  • We’re honest to the point of being brutal. I once told my partner that her silver coloured designer jumper made her look like a turkey at Christmas. Bad move.
  • We find it difficult to lie.
  • People mistakenly think we’re rude because we are blunt and to the point. No, we just don’t see the point in wasting time pussyfooting around a situation.
  • We focus on the words used, and often miss the context of a conversation or instruction, leading to misunderstandings and arguments. People think we’re pedantic, but we’re not; we’re precise. That can be problematic.
  • We don’t understand idioms. If you tell an autistic child it’s raining cats and dogs they may well expect to see cats falling past their window.
  • We don’t understand the point of small talk. If you greet me with “Hi, how are you” cross your fingers that I’m not in the mood to tell you about all of my ailments, just to teach you for making such pointless conversation.
  • We struggle with non-verbal communication; we often don’t pick up on body language, facial expressions, tones of voice, and conversely we tend to speak in monotone, and our body language doesn’t match what we are saying, making it difficult for others to understand us.
  • We struggle to make and keep eye contact, leading to distrust by others who think we are lying.
  • Abstract concepts and vagueness in conversation confuse us.

• Social Interaction
  • We tend to not enjoy being in large groups of Neurotypicals (NTs), because of the communication difficulties.
  • We might talk about ourselves and our special interests too much and often will not ask about the other person, appearing self centred and egotistical.
  • We’d rather concentrate on our own interests and work solo, rather than participate in group activities.
  • We tend to not seek comfort or help from others as we’re not understood.
  • Aspies often have a socially unacceptable sense of humour.

• Social Imagination
  • We may find it hard to predict the consequence of our actions on others.
  • Empathy doesn’t come naturally to us. We have to learn it, which
  • It can be hard to generalise, to see how a new situation is similar to something that we’ve already experienced and to adapt this prior knowledge.

Outside of this ‘Triad of Impairments’ there are a few other characteristics that we tend to have. We like routine and are resistant to change. We have problems with short term working memory, but have excellent long term memory. Many Aspies have intense and highly focused specialist, often unusual interests. We may also experience over or under sensitivity to sound, touch, tastes, smells, light, colours and temperature. Anxiety is also a major comorbid condition.

Autism is much more common than most people think. There are around 700,000 people in the UK living with autism – that’s around 1.1% of the population, which means that statistically there may be around 20 employees here who are on the spectrum, possibly more given the natural affinity the autistic mind has for software development. Only 16% of people on the spectrum have full-time jobs in the UK. Many people on the spectrum struggle with job interviews as they often find the sensory experience and social interactions in an interview challenging, but companies such as Microsoft, HP, SAP, Ford, Vodafone and PayPal are now actively recruiting people with ASD. They gave changed their recruitment processes as autistic people often do much better when they are able to demonstrate their skills over time and not in a high stress situation like an interview. Autistics typically have high attention to detail and an ability to concentrate on tasks, and our non-traditional way of thinking can provide innovative solutions to problems, which is why these employers are seeking neurodiversity within their workforces.

Prior to my diagnosis my job was far more difficult than it is now. The main difficulty that I have is with communication, and I was constantly being told that my emails or comments in jira were either too verbose, or too abrupt to the point of being rude. I think that people thought that I was being deliberately difficult, but I wasn’t. I was just not aware that people thought differently to me, and assumed that they would understand what I was saying. That I would be taken aside from time to time to discuss my communications caused a great deal of anxiety. I didn’t understand why it was wrong to state things as they were without diplomacy, especially when communicating with other teams.

I was also prone to misinterpreting jira issues, because I concentrated on the words not the context, and I’d end up asking what others probably thought were stupid questions in order to get clarity, and even then I’d sometimes still end up working on the wrong thing. That’s quite embarrassing, and demoralising, and again caused a great deal of anxiety. This anxiety led to a few very public meltdowns in the office. A meltdown looks to onlookers like a “temper-tantrum” when the reality is that your senses have become so overwhelmed that you just shutdown, rather noisily. Often a meltdown can see you banging your head against objects, which can be disturbing to observers. You have no control over it and the tipping point into the meltdown may be completely unrelated to the underlying anxiety. I can’t begin to explain how humiliating it is to meltdown in-front of your colleagues. You feel so ashamed that quitting your job seems like a good option.

I’m very resistant to change of routine. Something as simple as having a desk move causes me great anxiety, or having to work different hours. It sounds ridiculous, even to me, but it causes palpitations.

Since being diagnosed and disclosing to my colleagues things have been different. People make allowances for me now. They accept that when I ask a question, no matter how stupid it may seem, that I actually need to ask that question for my own understanding. Most of my communication is done face to face now to avoid the issues that I once had with emails. I’m consulted in advance about desk moves and changes in working hours. My colleagues and line management have been fantastic.

The one area that I still struggle with is in socialising. I still can’t make small talk at the coffee machine, and dread someone saying “good morning” to me. I would love to go to lunch or join in with the nights out that my team have, but the fear of having to talk about something other than work is truly debilitating. I have the same physiological response that I have when atop tall buildings. When walking in the local area I will cross the road to avoid having to walk with someone that I know, just in-case they attempt to strike up a conversation. It’s not rudeness, it’s a genuine fear. I just don’t know how to make small talk.

Having been open about my condition I’ve had quite a few people tell me that they think that they may have Aspergers. Seeking a diagnosis is a personal thing, but if you suspect that you may be on the spectrum and that a diagnosis would be a positive thing, I’d suggest that you search online for Autism Quotient Test as a starting point and seek a professional diagnosis through your GP if the test indicates that you may be.

I appreciate that all of the above seems to paint a bleak picture of Aspergers, but I’ve purposely focused on the challenges that it brings because those are the things that people tend to notice and judge on without appreciating why someone is as they are. My autism doesn’t define who I am, but it has shaped me, and I’d not want to be without it. Aspie’s are not broken, we’re just different. As I said at the beginning, we’re running a different instruction set on different hardware, that’s all, and to understand us you need to learn a new language. You’d not get too far trying to run a windows program on Linux, at least not without WINE, so you’re going to have to port your instructions that would work fine with Neurotypicals over to Aspie.

I’ll leave you with one final cheeky quote. “If the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool, you would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.” Dr. Temple Grandin