I do things that are often used as evidence of insanity.
I speak aloud to myself in full voice, and even simulate
conversations with people not currently present.
It becomes like speaking to ghosts and I can get quite
lively. "Crazy." Yet, I am fully aware that it is unreal, even as I wonder if it is on some psychic level.
Stuck between the real and the unreal in the middle of the night, wandering an empty theatre.
Now, here's a thing, I never behave this way in the company of others. For the most part I am known as peculiar, intelligent, and logical. Basically sane, yet odd.
Furthermore, my strangeness creates few problems with independant living, I cause no disasters, make no more foolish moves than others.
I have been labled, however, after many years of stress, strain and related illnesses I have found a starting place to explore. It is Asperger's Disorder.
What is disorder? To be out of order?
If you put a Northern European in tropic desert without protection he dies of sunburn. Natives of that desert would call that a disorder. He lacked the pigmentation to live. Yet those same natives in his climate would sicken from lack of Vitamin D as their higher picmentation would block too much of the weak northern sun.
If you find the right environment for a creature, then that creature is not disordered.
The social environment in which you live relates to climatic environments in terms of survival of the fittest. Humans being Social animals, they must be able to be social in order to thrive. So take a person who's physically healthy and mentally acute, as I am. I lack social skills. In a human social environment I am disabled, I have a disorder. However, it is not so in just any human social environment. It is only in the highly decietful and competitive environments where people are jockeying for status. Sadly this IS the norm.
There is a right environment. Here and there are enclaves of people who don't talk in code or preformed expectations. When you take a typical high function autistic and place them in such a group, their abilities come forward and their disabilities fade.
Diversity in a species increases it's overal fitness to survive. With diversity it has more options to evolve, mutate, adapt to a changing environment. Over the centuries humans have learned to adapt their environment to themselves instead of adapting to it. Why then is it so hard for us to adapt environments to suit the people who don't suit what currently is established? Well because that is asking the majority to make an effort on the part of a nimority without having any assurance that this effort will see fruit. There really aren't that many humans who are altruistic. If there were, we wouldn't need constand admonishments to unselfishness coming at us from religions and moral guidance writings throughout history. For those who are so motivated to “help the weak” there are a plethora of places in which they can put their effort. Unfortunately the excellent physical condition and infuriating conversational manners of your average adult with Asperger's Disorder make them unattractive candidates on the charity list. We fall through the cracks.
What's needed now is not action, so much as change of attitude. Consider your more severely disabled autistic child. These pretty little children are dealing with sensory overload and mental confusion brought on by an incompatible environment. I propose that were the right environment available, many of them would become able to function fully. This will mean physical changes and also social changes. much of these needs are already well documented. Unfortunately it is a lot more work to make a specialized environment for a few people to spend their entire lives, than if some miracle pill can be found or some method of forcing the child to acquire the adaptations required. Many children therefor find themselves being treated as defective and inferior without ever having their true needs addressed to allow them to prove otherwise.
We can only shelter and avoid so much, and there are many people who cannot adjust nor accept the adjustment. These also have the right to be who they are. It is not your opinions which matter most, but your actions.