Autism: Understanding What is Really Going on Inside the Child's Head

I have Autism. After searching countless forums and sites and library books, I have come to one conclusion, and that is, that the most asked question about AS is:"What is really going on inside that child's head?"This question, actually bothers me. Why? Well, how rude would it be if I walked up to you and demanded to know what was going on inside YOUR head? See? Doesn't sound so innocent when it's asked to a "normal" person does it. It's like a white person looking at a black person and saying: "Your skin is a different color than mine, so what goes on inside your head?" Can you see how utterly offensive this question would be if it was ask to anyone OTHER than an Aspie? And yet no one seems to see any problem with asking it, and not to the Aspie, mind you, but rather to so-called experts who "claim" to know what's going on inside the Aspie's head, because they studied Aspies! Why doesn't any one actually ask some one who has AS what's going on inside their head? Why ask people who DO NOT have it? How could some one without AS actually KNOW what is going on inside the head of anyone other than themselves?

Let me ask it this way: How long have you been married? Five years? Ten years? Twenty? You must know you spouse really well them right? Okay, so what are they thinking about right now? What's going on inside their head? You are such an expert on your spouse, so tell me, what are they thinking? You can't tell me. And you know why you can't tell me? Because you are NOT your spouse! You have no way of going inside their head and seeing what it is that goes on in there. So how do these doctors get off claiming to know what goes on inside the head of ANYONE, Aspie or otherwise?

End rant.

Okay, so what does go on inside an Aspie's head than? I don't know, what goes on inside your head? I think the problem here is that we are dealing with a very vague question. What goes on inside my head? Well, right now, I'm thinking about how my Ranchus have doubled in size in less than two months and with soon need a bigger tank, and wondering why they eat their eggs within a few hours after they lay them. I'm also wondering why evil men exist in this would and why they think they can get away with crimes and why the government allows them to get away with crimes if they are a priest.

I'm wishing it wasn't raining right now, because my house (a tarp over a woodpile) is not entirely waterproof after three years, and I'm also looking at these blueprints I drew up yesterday and wondering how I can fix the "tent" and how much longer it'll have to be my home. Which brings me to thinking about why I live under a tarp, and wondering why people thought it was okay to burn my house down because they didn't think that someone like me had any feelings to be hurt and thus wouldn't care that they destroyed my home and caused me to be homeless. Which lead me to thinking about how "normal" people treat people like me who have Asperger's and resulted in me building this lens about AS.

I'm also thinking that I am hungry, and that I'll probably cook some pasta and pickles after I get done writing this lens, but first I have to feed my 13 cats (whoops, 16, as of yesterday, 3 new strays showed up in the tent last night!). I'm disappointed that it is raining, because the roosters don't get to go outside when it's raining, and they love to help me tend the garden, they esp love digging up weeds, eating grubs, and eating the new shoots off of my long stem roses. On days like today when it is raining, all they cal do is wait in the barn for the rain to stop.

I'm missing my dog Buddy, who was my best friend for 13 years, but who just recently died, and I'm shocked that shelter dogs start at $495 and go into the thousands! I'm very upset that I can not find a way to come up with enough money to pay the shelter $495 for a buff Cocker Spaniel in Biddeford, who was taken away from her family because she attacked the baby. I got my Buddy 13 years ago, because he was a buff Cocker Spaniel who bit a baby. Buddy was different from other dogs, he was temperamental, nervous, skittish, and had a deep set fear of humans, thus he attacked every one that got near him, until the day he was handed to me with the words "Take him, no one can do anything with him, and you have a way with animals, I know you'll be able to handle him." Buddy, was like a dog version of me. Outcast, unloved, unwanted, misunderstood . . . all he needed was someone who understood him and was willing to put up with the fact that he just wasn't your normal average dog. And now this other dog has been in the paper and on web sites, the shelter is desperate to find her a home, but no one wants her because she is different from other dogs. It's like my Buddy all over again, and I'd take her in a second, but the shelter wants $495 dollars for her, and I just don't have it.

I'm also wondering what my brothers look like today, because they told me on FaceBook that they got haircuts last night, and since the fire 3 years ago, we don't live together any more, they live two towns away and I only get to see them a couple of times a week now, which makes me very sad and lonely because I have never lived by myself before and these past three years have been really hard, because I live alone now, and I'm not used to that. I've always had my family with me before.

Well, that's what's going on in my head right now. Is it any different from the things that go on in your head?

Copyright Info: The contents of this lens, are taken from the second draft of the book "For Fear of Little Men" by Wendy C. Allen, and reprinted here with permission.

This article was originally published in October 2008 under the title Living With Asperger's Syndrome is copyright to Wendy C. Allen and The Twighlight Manor Press, and is reprinted here with permission.