Capt SpaceBat

Your neurodiversity (Aspie) score: 165 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 55 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie (neurodiverse)

Earlier this year, like a bolt of something unpleasant from nowhere in particular, I get a new diagnosis: Asperger(’s) Syndrome! I spent some time in flat and complete denial: “I could not possibly have a typographically uncertain disorder; couldn’t they at least wait until the issue about the possessive had been decided?  It is not like presenting almost every aspect of the condition to some level a diagnosis makes.  What does this Doctor upon whom I have never clapped eyes until just now know about this sort of thing - and about me - anyway?  Genetic, schmenetic - phooey!  My mother’s paranoid schizophrenia started and ended with her, didn’t it?  All normal on the family tree since then - only healthy thriving branches….  It’s not like - well - it’s just like - well, maybe slightly possibly, given a very wide interpretation of words to mean whatever one wishes them to and an extremely uncharitable view of my actions and abreactions over the last 30-odd years, neurological, psychological and psychiatric investigations that a passing half-wit might come to such a misguided and deluded crack-pot conclusion …” About a decade ago, I could have been that passing half-wit - and probably still am not far off that description - as I had independently come to pretty much the same conclusion, albeit with only a $20 Doctorate in Divinity to guide me, rather than years of psychiatric forensic experience.  The items addressed to Revd Dr Sprinkle should have given the game away to the outside world, I thought, but no; only a smile to the postman’s face as he rang the doorbell to deliver some strange items requiring a signature to confirm delivery. Looking back, I shudder to think of what he would have made of my other nom de folie: Capt SpaceBat; that’s another matter, for another time, I suppose. “Anyway,” I thought, “what about my Mixed & Borderline Personality Disorders? What will I do without them? In addition, what about the Voices?  Where will they go and who will look after them?” Despondency reigned.  For a while. I read and re-read the diagnosis, red pen in hand; trying my hardest not to point out typographical errors in the 22 page tightly-typed and skewed (thanks to the miracle of a 14kbps fax machine) document.  As I argued against each point, word by word, line by line, paragraph by paragraph - you get the picture of late night indignant misery than was unfolding - my heart sank lower as I realised that I had been found out and that there was nothing that I could do about it.  Some of the flaws in my psychological make-up were there right from the start and couldn’t be put down to anything more sinister than damned back luck, rather than entirely due to the sinister machinations of others. Oh, sh1t! However, there, in the conclusion, amongst all the other frightening and new revelations were the comforting words “emotionally unstable personality disorder.”  What a relief.  Saved!

For now.