Asperger syndrome in adulthood

Abstract

It's only by logic and lack of emotions that I get through. Hiding feelings came after I became the victim. All emotions are a sign of weakness. I'm about as flexible as a thick bar of metal in a barrel of nitrogen … I shall turn out a mechanical, inflexible person who [sic] nobody likes, nobody loves and who everyone will be glad about when I'm in my grave. I'd only be concerned with money … It's a vicious circle. i. I get teased 2. I make myself miserable and cynical 3. I get teased again … The best school would be one where I spent my time working with machines – remove the human factor. If the people were very nice I could probably do very well. What I find difficult about learning, as well as the teasing, is that there's a massive great group of us and they're all unruly … I can break out of the vicious circle, but I can't take down the barriers. The clay has set – I've moulded my personality. The wall's there for good. I'm no good at changing. My flexibility was one of the first things I lost – lost completely. So wrote a twelve-year-old boy with Asperger syndrome to his mother to explain his quite unprecedented emotional distress when the family cat died.