With hindsight and all the advances in neuroscience you might have already asked the question why wasn\u2019t this picked up when I was younger? Well, it was and it wasn\u2019t, in old fashioned parlance I could have been described as a \u2018problem child\u2019 and back then tragically the panacea for such ills was a jolly good hiding. Thank God we have moved on since then!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I realised very early on (around the age of five) that even though we are all different I certainly was more different than most and I certainly couldn\u2019t understand why everyone else didn\u2019t see the world like I did. I was well used to being described as odd, weird, peculiar etc. and there was one incident in my teenage years summed this up. We were in a physics lesson (with thankfully a great teacher) and he was explaining the meaning of the word \u2018anomaly\u2019 and it went something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teacher:<\/em><\/strong> An anomaly is something that is in a group but not part of it because it is different. Let me explain: Take Muxworthy here (pointing at me \u2013 as so many people had done). He is an anomaly.<\/em> This was just one of the many hints (that I took decades to pick up on \u2013 autistics don\u2019t do hints) that I was not like everyone else. For me as a long term Doctor Who fan that remains the high water mark of my time at school. Until I was diagnosed I was forever waiting for a proverbial policebox to materialise and the occupant tell me it was time for me to go back to my home planet. This is also a common feeling for autistics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In all those early years I tried to like things everyone else did, but found it a real struggle acting as if I was interested in things I had no interest in. That was until I gave my life to Christ when I was 21 which also gave me a better reason for not doing things my peers enjoyed, phew! What I now endeavoured to display was a life with God at the centre, but on the whole it was still a display. As I mentioned in part one this is called \u2018masking.\u2019 I still was missing the point of finding my true identity in Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The years passed, I got a job, got a mortgage and got married, although I was only the real me around a select few. It was only in 2011 onwards did I start getting further hints from people, one a fellow Christian who I worked with and had a lot of knowledge about neuro-diversity \u2013 he suspected something when I gave an exceptionally detailed talk at work about war memorials (I was working in an architects practice at the time). Even my wife Penny was dropping hints and all of them were bouncing off me like so many handfuls of dried peas off a Tiger Tank! <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was only when as a train driver I went into a bookshop at Waterloo Station for a browse and picked up a copy of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and started reading did it hit like a ton of bricks. In the first few pages I read word for word what my thought processes were like. I then decided to take an online test \u2013 the result was what I thought \u2013 autistic! I then made a doctor\u2019s appointment \u2013 I got terribly tongue tied and embarrassed when I sat with the doctor and tried to articulate what I thought was going on. I finally could hold it back no longer and blurted out \u2018I think I have Asperger\u2019s Syndrome.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reply was \u2018Yes, I thought so, you exhibit the classic traits. I trained in psychology.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was duly referred for a series of assessments and diagnosed in November 2016. The problem is (and this is not just in the UK) there is precious little support of late diagnosed autistics. In my case I was given a list of book to read at my leisure but as I\u2019d learnt to deal with it for 47yrs there shouldn\u2019t be any problems? This is not the case; in truth I am only now slowly discovering what makes me a child of God with autism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This slow learning process is and has over time made me look afresh at what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 about a body with many and I feel that we have a long way to go in embracing authentic Godly diversity in the church. People (not just those who are neuro-diverse) should not feel or be made to feel that they have little or nothing to contribute to God\u2019s work. For me personally I have had to push myself to do things I believe that God wants me to do (this blog being one of them and this part has been particularly difficult to write) and to keep going despite negative experiences and to dwell on those things that are positive, even to the point of writing a list of what I am and what I am not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n God still loves me just the same as everyone else, I don\u2019t have to pretend any longer with Him, when I feel battered and burnt out \u2013 He understands, when I just need that all too precious time alone to recharge away from everything, He knows because He did it on this earth. I don\u2019t have to put on the \u2018Being Holy\u2019 mask for church or be fluent in Christianese for the benefit of the wider family of God. I can be funny, I can be happy, I can be upset and angry. As one friend told me \u2018I am not much at best, but I am best when I am myself.\u2019 That was said to me well over twenty years ago and it has taken that long or more to travel from hearing to doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I have been the only one holding me back, that\u2019s what took me so long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Me thinking):<\/em><\/strong> \u2018Oh great here we go again, pick on Jason time!\u2019<\/em>
Teacher:<\/em><\/strong> Yes he is an anomaly. The only Timelord in a class of mere humans.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n