What if I didn’t have AS?

Aspie Life

Over the past few years I have been pondering on what life would have been like for me had I not had AS. One thing that springs to mind is a programme I watched recently on the History Channel, entitled “Britain’s Real Monarch”, first aired on Channel 4 in 2004. The reason I am mentioning this, I will explain towards the end of the page. “Britain’s Real Monarch” is a historical documentary presented by Tony Robinson, and was based on a claim that an English king from the 15th Century, namely King Edward IV, was illegitimate. In the last several years, good evidence came to light to substantiate this claim, and if that is true, it means every king and queen who ruled Britain since, should not, by rights have sat on the throne. The documentary then goes through the evidence to substantiate the claim that King Edward IV was a bastard, then moving on to the case for invalidating the claim to the throne, of every subsequent monarch that sat on the throne, before tracing the family trees down through the centuries, to establish the alternative monarch.

There are some things that would definitely have been different, had I not had AS. Things that immediately spring to mind include social skills, social know-how and communication skills, which I am attempting to address, but would have come naturally to me but for AS. I would also like to think that I would have had more success with the opposite gender, so I have myself convinced that I would not be single. In school, I certainly would not have been in special education, but in mainstream education right from the start. I would have been more involved in the activities with the other students. And I certainly would not have had so much difficulty in stringing thoughts into spoken words.

Then there are other things that I see as being probably different. In school, my strongest subjects included mathematics, and science subjects, while my weakest subjects included English, and History. I would like to think that not having AS would have given me more of a chance of topping the class in some of my weaker subjects, although I see a double-edged sword here. Not having AS would probably have reduced my chances of topping the class in mathematics and other science subjects, but I would like to think that having AS would have had no effect on my performance in the subjects in which I majored.

The fact that I was the only one in my class that suffered fainting attacks led me to believe that AS had something to do with squeamishness. I welcome any discussion to support or refute this claim. I still tend to be squeamish, for example, when I am watching a programme on TV, which contains scenes of surgery for example, I tend to either look away, or change channels.

There are many things that I would like to think would still have been the same, regardless of whether or not I have AS. One thing that would immediately spring to mind is the fact that I did not get involved in illegal drugs, for example, heroin, cocaine, or ecstasy. This was probably due to the fact that these drugs, to my mind, did not really spread out all over the country while I was in school, that the scourge of drugs was largely confined to Dublin. Also, there was an opinion, for lack of a better word, instilled in me that those people dealing drugs, pushing drugs on the young, should be given long prison sentences.

Many other ways I could list, in which I didn’t throw my life away as others did, including getting involved in shoplifting, joyriding, underage drinking, vandalism, to name but a few anti-social activities. I would like to think that this would also not have been any different.

And now, you are asking why did I mention the documentary of “Britain’s Real Monarch”. If you watch this documentary, near the end of it, after establishing the alternative incumbent monarch, Tony Robinson ponders on what the world today would have been like had the rules of inheritance been rigidly adhered to and enforced, had it been copped on in the middle of the 15th Century that King Edward IV was illegitimate and consequently not allowed onto the throne. It was shortly after watching this, I began to realise some parallels between this story, and my situation, especially had I not had AS, which reinforces one fact:

History is delicate. It’s accidental.