(This is the introduction to a longer essay.)
Acne, pubic hair, a therapist. Three things that:
- I first got in the sixth grade;
- Carry complicated social stigmas;
- Are, to one degree or another, still with me.
In 2002, when I was twelve, I, my acne, and my pubic hair ambled into a therapist’s office to seek treatment for whatever the hell was going on in my life. My parents, advised by teachers and mental health professionals at my school, arranged the first of the visits that would occur every other week, then weekly, over the next eight years. The psychologist’s name was Dr. Zoll, and he aided me in many ways during that time. But the biggest change he helped guide me through came after he diagnosed me with a disorder I’d never heard of — Asperger syndrome.
The important thing was not the diagnosis itself. My doctor only applied a name to the pattern of behavior that began before I learned how to spell it. I was an odd child, and people were concerned. My second-grade teacher was concerned that I always chose to spend recess pacing along the far corners of the schoolyard instead of playing kickball with the other kids. My middle-school guidance counselor was concerned that I had no friends and seemed uninterested in making any. My seventh-grade algebra teacher was concerned that I rarely smiled. But their concern, genuine as it was, only perplexed me. I was a loner. So what?
Seventh grade: that was when, several months into therapy, I received the diagnosis. I was reluctant to take it seriously, so I didn’t. I seemed normal enough to myself, perhaps; or maybe the funny-sounding name turned me off. Four years would pass before I fully accepted the label and its implications. My shrink tried to warn me, but I was slow in realizing that, yes, I had Asperger’s, and that it would inform my entire life.