Experience

Last week, I publicly outed myself as a non-tenure-track academic diagnosed on the autism spectrum, ¹ hoping that doing so might help other struggling academics find solace knowing they are not alone. I was unprepared for the outpouring of private and public support. Friends, colleagues, and strangers thanked me for helping them feel a little less alone, which in turn helped me feel much less alone. Thank you all, deeply and sincerely.

In a similar spirit, for interested allies and struggling fellows, this post is about how my symptoms manifest in the academic world, and how I manage them. ²

Navigating the social world is tough—a fact that may surprise some of my friends and most of my colleagues. I do alright at conferences and in groups, when conversation is polite and skin-deep, but it requires careful concentration and a lot of smoke and mirrors. Inside, it feels like I’m translating from Turkish to Cantonese without knowing either language. Every time this is said, that is the appropriate reply, though I struggle to understand why. I just possess a translation book, and recite what is expected. Stimulus and response. This skill was only recently acquired.

Looking at the point between people’s eyes makes it appear as though I am making direct eye contact during conversations. Certain observations (“you look tired”) are apparently less well-received than others (“you look excited”), and I’ve mostly learned which are which.

After a long day keeping up this appearance, especially at conferences, I find a nice dark room and stay there. Sharing conference hotel rooms with fellow academics is never an option. Some strategies I figured out myself; others, like the eye contact trick, I built over extended discussions with an old girlfriend after she handed me a severely-highlighted copy of The Partner’s Guide to Asperger Syndrome.

ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder are highly co-morbid, and I have been diagnosed with either or both by several independent professionals in the last twenty years. Working is hard, and often takes at least twice as much time for me as it does for the peers with whom I have discussed this. When interested in something, I lose myself entirely in it for hours on end, but a single break in concentration will leave me scrambling. It may take hours or days to return to a task, if I do at all. My best work is done in marathon, and work that takes longer than a few days may never get finished, or may drop in quality precipitously. Keeping the internet disconnected and my phone off during regular periods every day, locked in my windowless office, helps keep distractions at bay. But, I have yet to discover a good strategy to manage long projects. A career in the book-driven humanities may have been a poor choice.

Paying bills on time, keeping schedules, and replying to emails are among the most stressful tasks in my life. When I don’t adequately handle all of these mundane tasks, it sets in motion a cycle of horror that paralyzes my ability to get anything done, until I eventually file for task bankruptcy and inevitably disappoint colleagues, friends, or creditors to whom action is owed. Poor time management and stress-cycles lead me to over-promise and under-deliver. On the bright side, I recently received help in strategies to improve that, and they work. Sometimes.

Friendships, surprisingly, are easy to maintain but difficult to nourish. My friends consider me trustworthy and willing to help (if not necessarily always dependable), but I lose track of friends or family who aren’t geographically close. Deeper emotional relationships are rare or, for swaths of my life, non-existent. I get no fits of anger or depression or elation or excitement. Indeed, my friends and family remark how impossible it is to see if I like a gift they’ve given me.

People occasionally describe my actions as offensive, rude, or short, and I get frustrated trying to understand exactly why what I’m doing fits into those categories. Apparently, early in grad school, I had a bit of a reputation for asking obnoxious questions in lectures. But I don’t like upsetting people, and actively (maybe successfully?) try to curb these traits when they are pointed out.

Thankfully, academic life allows me the freedom to lock myself in a room and focus on a task. Using work as a coping mechanism for social difficulties may be unhealthy, but hey, at least I found a career that rewards my peculiarities.

My life is pretty great. I have good friends, a loving family, and hobbies that challenge me. As long as I maintain the proper controlled environment, my fixations and obsessions are a perfect complement to an academic career, especially in a culture that (unfortunately) rewards workaholism. The same tenacity often compensates for difficulties in navigating romantic relationships, of which I’ve had a few incredibly fulfilling and valuable ones over my life thus-far.

Unfortunately, my experience on the autism spectrum is not shared by all academics. Some have enough difficulty managing the social world that they end up alienating colleagues who are on their tenure committees, to disastrous effect. From private conversations, it seems autistic women suffer more from this than men, as they are expected to perform more service work and to be more social. Supportive administrators can be vital in these situations, and autism-spectrum academics may want to negotiate accommodations for themselves as part of their hiring process.

Despite some frustrations, I have found my atypical way of interacting with the world to be a feature, not a bug. My atypicality presents as what used to be called Asperger Syndrome, and it is easier for me to interact with the world, and easier for the world to interact with me, than many other autistic individuals. That said, whether or not my friends and colleagues notice, I still struggle with many aspects common to those diagnosed on the autism spectrum: social-emotional difficulties, alexithymia, intensity of focus, hypersensitivity, system-oriented thinking, etc.

Relationships or friendships with someone on the spectrum can be tough, even with someone who doesn’t outwardly present common characteristics, like me. An old partner once vented her frustrations that she couldn’t turn to her friends for advice, because: “everyone just said Scott is so normal and I was thinking [no], he’s just very very good at passing [as socially aware].” Like many who grow up non-neurotypical, I learned a complex set of coping strategies to help me fit in and succeed in a neurotypical world. To concentrate on work, I create an office cave to shut out the world. I use a complicated set of journals, calendars, and apps to keep me on task and ensure I pay bills on time. To stay attentive, I sit at the front of a lecture hall—it even works, sometimes. Some ADHD symptoms are managed pharmacologically.

These strategies give me the 80% push I need to be a functioning member of society, to become someone who can sustain relationships, not get kicked out of his house for forgetting rent, and can almost finish a PhD. Almost. It’s not quite enough to prevent me from a dozen incompletes on my transcripts, but I make do. A host of unrealistically patient and caring friends, family, and colleagues helps. (If you’re someone to whom I still owe work, but am too scared to reply to because of how delinquent I am, thanks for understanding! waves and runs away). Caring allies help. A lot.

My life so far has been a series of successes and confusions. Not unlike anybody else’s life, I suppose. I occupy my own corner of weirdness, which is itself unique enough, but everyone has their own corner. I doubt my writing this will help anyone understand themselves any better, but hopefully it will help fellow academics feel a bit safer in their own weirdness. And if this essay helps our neurotypical colleagues be a bit more understanding of our struggles, and better-informed as allies, all the better.