table, and, of course, the placement of the door.
Dr. Marek spoke. It was hard to grasp what he said. I was too busy adjusting—to the new surroundings and new person, both at once, and to the feeling of being observed, as well. Where was Willie?
Willie would have sat there like a well-dressed, polished quiz-show contestant calmly seizing upon key words and elaborating upon them with the refined posture and tone of a respected colleague, a role refined largely in two years of psychotherapy. I was not so impressive but I was relatively whole. I had feelings intact even if they were painful.
Dr. Marek had some games and papers with him and wanted to do some tests. There’s no war here, I said silently in response to rising agitation. The book had already exposed everything that the war had protected and defended. The war was over.
Puzzles, strings of numbers, categorizing and matching things, finding patterns in things, and dictionary definitions of words. I was being given tests on the things I could do blindfolded. I didn’t mind too much.
Then came comprehension tests for novel-type stories and the arrangement of pictures that had no pattern to them. I knew these sort of tests all right. These were the sort that made you look like an idiot. These were the sort that made you feel stupid and angry at the people who gave them to you to do. I looked at this doctor. So you weren’t on my side after all, I said silently in response to the feeling of having been sold out. There are no sides, I corrected myself. There are no sides when there is no war.
“What do these things tell you?” I asked, finally having found the question. They were some sort of intelligence test, but instead of just showing an overall intelligence level, they showed which areas a person was intelligent in. It seemed I was exceptional in some areas and very backward in others. I was both genius and retarded.
The highs dragged the lows up, the lows dragged the highs down, and the final figures showed I was of average intelligence. Dr. Marek explained that extremes in ability in these particular areas were typical of autistic people.
I felt guinea-pigged. I also felt relieved. I could finally understand why I felt this way and had been treated sometimes like a genius and sometimes like an idiot; I was, in fact, both. It also threw new light on the creation of Willie. In the months to come, Dr. Marek would help me understand more and more bits of the puzzle. A million things came to mind.
February 1991
Dr. Theo Marek,
When you first gave me those ability tests, I didn’t really understand their significance outside the things they reflected. What they showed had little personal significance.
When I grasped what you told me the results meant, I was pleased with myself that I could understand this but I didn’t put it together with many other things. For example, when I asked you about wanting to do teaching and you replied that it was a bit unrealistic, I agreed with you deep down but I really didn’t understand why.
In my book I had an intuitive understanding that I was in some ways very old and in some very young…. I knew I was clever and also stupid and that I was stable and also mixed-up. What has begun to dawn on me now is how I can use this understanding to plan for a future where I will not feel torn apart by being asked too much or having no opportunities to express and help develop my less brilliant parts of me.
Whenever I had a job, I tried to run it and make it totally systematic. Whenever I had an intellectually demanding job, I kept falling into “holes” all the time. I now know these are holes in the consistency of my own abilities—on all levels.
I could never reconcile (nor could employers or friends) why I wanted to work as a cleaner or clerk when I had abilities that could be used in higher-skilled jobs, but now I understand that in order to hold it together my ultimate aim ought to be to find a comfortable place that
Dr. Marek spoke. It was hard to grasp what he said. I was too busy adjusting—to the new surroundings and new person, both at once, and to the feeling of being observed, as well. Where was Willie?
Willie would have sat there like a well-dressed, polished quiz-show contestant calmly seizing upon key words and elaborating upon them with the refined posture and tone of a respected colleague, a role refined largely in two years of psychotherapy. I was not so impressive but I was relatively whole. I had feelings intact even if they were painful.
Dr. Marek had some games and papers with him and wanted to do some tests. There’s no war here, I said silently in response to rising agitation. The book had already exposed everything that the war had protected and defended. The war was over.
Puzzles, strings of numbers, categorizing and matching things, finding patterns in things, and dictionary definitions of words. I was being given tests on the things I could do blindfolded. I didn’t mind too much.
Then came comprehension tests for novel-type stories and the arrangement of pictures that had no pattern to them. I knew these sort of tests all right. These were the sort that made you look like an idiot. These were the sort that made you feel stupid and angry at the people who gave them to you to do. I looked at this doctor. So you weren’t on my side after all, I said silently in response to the feeling of having been sold out. There are no sides, I corrected myself. There are no sides when there is no war.
“What do these things tell you?” I asked, finally having found the question. They were some sort of intelligence test, but instead of just showing an overall intelligence level, they showed which areas a person was intelligent in. It seemed I was exceptional in some areas and very backward in others. I was both genius and retarded.
The highs dragged the lows up, the lows dragged the highs down, and the final figures showed I was of average intelligence. Dr. Marek explained that extremes in ability in these particular areas were typical of autistic people.
I felt guinea-pigged. I also felt relieved. I could finally understand why I felt this way and had been treated sometimes like a genius and sometimes like an idiot; I was, in fact, both. It also threw new light on the creation of Willie. In the months to come, Dr. Marek would help me understand more and more bits of the puzzle. A million things came to mind.
February 1991
Dr. Theo Marek,
When you first gave me those ability tests, I didn’t really understand their significance outside the things they reflected. What they showed had little personal significance.
When I grasped what you told me the results meant, I was pleased with myself that I could understand this but I didn’t put it together with many other things. For example, when I asked you about wanting to do teaching and you replied that it was a bit unrealistic, I agreed with you deep down but I really didn’t understand why.
In my book I had an intuitive understanding that I was in some ways very old and in some very young…. I knew I was clever and also stupid and that I was stable and also mixed-up. What has begun to dawn on me now is how I can use this understanding to plan for a future where I will not feel torn apart by being asked too much or having no opportunities to express and help develop my less brilliant parts of me.
Whenever I had a job, I tried to run it and make it totally systematic. Whenever I had an intellectually demanding job, I kept falling into “holes” all the time. I now know these are holes in the consistency of my own abilities—on all levels.
I could never reconcile (nor could employers or friends) why I wanted to work as a cleaner or clerk when I had abilities that could be used in higher-skilled jobs, but now I understand that in order to hold it together my ultimate aim ought to be to find a comfortable place that
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