I talk about how, when, where, and why I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. I did not seek out a diagnosis but life has a way of showing me, like everyone, if we pay attention, what we most need to know and just when the time is right too. When the student is ready the teacher indeed appears.

I ponder and discuss the paradoxical reality of the inherent dilemma within my  Asperger's Experience that is the reality of social impairment and profound social disconnectedness juxtaposed to what is, at times, a desire for social connectedness that produces the experience and awareness of its lack and leads me to hit what I call my Asperger wall.

What is it that those of us with Asperger's Syndrome, especially who were diagnosed as adults most struggle with? What is it that we most find painful? How is it that so much of our experience has come to be shaped by our conceptualization of it in polarized ways? How can we actually benefit from grasping and living by a philosophical paradoxical way of conceptualizing our inner-most dilemma-driven conundrums when it comes to the Asperger reality of what is often a want or desire to socialize coupled with the social impairment of Asperger's? Can we? Isn't this social impairment, that in most cases leads to a profound social disconnectedness, the foundation of what leaves us with an equally strong aversion to this very social connectedness? In my Asperger Experience I have come to identify this dilemma of the desire for and aversion to socialization by likening it to reaching for a forbidden fruit that moves just a little higher up each and every time I try to grasp it. The central painful reality within my Asperger Experience is my acute awareness of the lack that exists in my experience because try as I might that forbidden fruit remains just out of my reach no matter what I try to do to change the reality of the social impairment that exists.

How can we come to an acceptance and understanding of the reality of the paradox of social impairment, social disconnectedness, wanting socialization to whatever degree that is often matched by an equal amount of aversion and to the reality of the pain of the lack of it all? Can we accept this? I have come to understand the need and nature of accepting the paradoxes of Asperger's Syndrome that are not changeable.

There is such an inherent freedom in living outside the Neuro-Typical box. There is lots to celebrate about being an aspie and being different. It's all about coping with the heaviness of the reality of that freedom.

"Inside My Asperger Experience (audio program) is an enlightening, educational, and inspirational first-hand account of a woman diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at the age of 40 and her process and struggle to understand, accept, and thrive regardless.."

© A.J. Mahari