Jul 12, 2016 | Asperger's Syndrome, Autobiographical
Published: The Good Men Project (July 12, 2016) Wouldn’t it be great if everyone had a handicapped parking space? Obviously this can’t happen – the whole point of handicapped spaces is that they provide the physically disabled with closer proximity to buildings than the physically abled – but an equivalent is possible when it comes to social interactions. To understand what I mean, though, it is...
Jun 17, 2016 | Arts and Entertainment, Asperger's Syndrome
Published: Salon (June 17, 2016) There is a Yiddish word, verklempt, that roughly translates as being choked up to the point of near-tears without actually crying. If you grew up with a learning disability or raised a child with one, there are plenty of scenes in Pixar’s “Finding Dory” which will have that effect on you… and considering that quality family films about learning disabled...
Jun 8, 2016 | Asperger's Syndrome, Autobiographical, Love and Dating
Published: Fusion (June 7, 2016) As someone with autism, I’ve often wondered if there’s anything I can do to make neurotypicals, the name for you folks in the non-autistic community, less unpredictable to myself. I pose this question not as an attack or criticism. It’s just that those of us with high-functioning autism—or Asperger’s Syndrome in my case—struggle every day with your seemingly...
Mar 24, 2016 | Asperger's Syndrome, Autobiographical, mic
Published: The Good Men Project (March 24, 2016) When my first article was picked up by Mic in February 2012, I thought that my dream of becoming a political columnist had finally started to come true. I wasn’t wrong, but I never anticipated one turn that my career was destined to take. Although I still love writing editorials on political and social issues, I also find that more and more often...
Mar 12, 2016 | Asperger's Syndrome, Autobiographical, mic
Published: The Good Men Project (March 12, 2016) Without question, pursuing a PhD in history was one of the best decisions of my life. Not only has it opened doors in my writing career - which, professionally speaking, is my one true love - but it has allowed me to interact with some of the most brilliant people I've ever met. The conversations that we have had both within and outside of the...
Feb 20, 2016 | Asperger's Syndrome, Autobiographical, mic
Published: The Good Men Project (February 20, 2016) I've been writing about living with Asperger's Syndrome for more than three years, and during that time I have received a curious response from many readers outside of the HFA (or high-functioning autism) community. Although many of them strongly identify with my descriptions of not understanding "the game" behind social interactions and...
Nov 26, 2015 | Asperger's Syndrome, Autobiographical, Bullying, Holiday Season
Published: The Good Men Project (November 26, 2015) On Thanksgiving Day 2015, I am thankful for the following. Growing up, it seemed like everyone rejected me as an oddball. If I didn't correctly read the thoughts and emotions people attempted to communicate through their facial expressions and body language, I was weird and rude. When I talked too much about subjects that the people around me...
Nov 12, 2015 | Arts and Entertainment, Asperger's Syndrome, Autobiographical, Mental Illness
Published: The Good Men Project (November 12, 2015) I recently discovered some lyrics from a Beatles song that resonated so strongly with me that I needed to include them here. Courtesy of "Eleanor Rigby": Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice In the church where a wedding has been Lives in a dream Waits at the window, wearing the face That she keeps in a jar by the door Who is it for? For a moment,...
Oct 2, 2015 | Asperger's Syndrome, Autobiographical, Bullying, Mental Illness
Published: Asperger's 101 (October 2, 2015) If you are a High Functioning Autistic (HFA), the odds are troublingly high that you also suffer from some form of depression. As someone who suffers from depression myself, I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about how to find happiness when you struggle with the burdens of having an autistic brain. One possibility for the prevalence of...
Jul 3, 2015 | Asperger's Syndrome, Autobiographical, General Advice, mic
Published: Asperger's 101 (July 3, 2015) As I explained in an editorial for Mic (which I wrote in December 2012, when Asperger’s Syndrome entered the national conversation after unconfirmed rumors circulated that Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, had been diagnosed with it): Experts have found that communication is only one-third verbal, with the two-thirds that are...