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Be A Member! Get Involved! T* A* S* C* is always seeking volunteers to join the coalition in support of its mission and purpose. All that is required is a willingness to learn about and an ability to make an effort to support adults, especially more higher-functioning adults, with autism spectrum disorders, their families and friends. This can be done by giving moral and other support to the activities and efforts sponsored by T* A* S* C*. We are looking for higher-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorders, such as Asperger's Syndrome, who are interested in individual and collective self-advocacy.
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Members List:
Links to Other Sites About Autism & Asperger's Syndrome
Coord.:
Jarl Jackson
Members:
Other members names and information witheld for
Privacy 
ONLINE MESSAGE BOARD ARC-FLORIDA LIFE WITH PRINCIPLE
'On Being as "SWEET" AS-PIE'
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My name is Jarl K. Jackson. I am an adult with Asperger Syndrome. However, being on the autism spectrum does not define me – entirely. In fact, for most of my life, there was no such label – or diagnosis – applied to me. I was born, grew up, and spent most of my life in Virginia. Being a Virginian is, in my mind, a defining fact of my existence – my being. Yet, it would be harder to say why, than to say why being an Aspie does. I firmly believe that being a Virginian is more than being born and raised there, and to have lived there, but probably could not satisfactorily explain why for you or for me. At least being of (and in) Virginia is a part of some of my earliest memories. Being a person with Asperger – although I was – is not.
I did not receive my initial diagnosis – the first identification – of me as a person on the spectrum, until I was 33. By then, I had moved from Virginia to Florida and was in graduate school. However, I can almost not remember a time when it did seem clear to somebody, or when I did not present some sign (as seen, at least, with hindsight) of being different. I know that over time, myself, my parents, my teachers, my peers, came to know it, although the terms used to express or describe it did not seem to pertain to autism. They were anything from ‘emotionally disturbed’ to just plain ‘weird’. All I can say is that you would be too – either “weird” or “emotionally disturbed” - if you went through life, especially childhood and adolescence, with an unrecognized autism spectrum disorder. The world itself often seemed ‘weird,’ and was rather ‘emotionally disturbing’ at times.
In my early twenties, I was identified as having “learning disabilities,” what I think of now as being a revelation of the obvious in understatement. Aspects of my Asperger Syndrome condition (or component) express themselves in terms of difficulties in learning, retaining, and using information. I was in college at the time, a process or progress (through higher education, that is) that took about as much time as kindergarten through 12th grade. It also almost seems to have, ultimately, no more better equipped me for work and a career, judging by apparent lack of success in pursuing such in either my chosen field or any other profession since my final graduation with a masters degree.
That statement does not mean what it might seem to imply. Henry David Thoreau declared: “If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute?” I think that I am coming to realize, in more than one sense, the situation I was meant to have for my own, both in terms of life and work. I think that this column is itself part of a glimmering first light of that means, mode, and purpose.
In any case, like my Asperger “element” itself, the advanced degree and indeterminate work history do not, either alone or together, define me. In fact, what I want to do here in this column is not just talk about Asperger Syndrome, autism spectrum disorders, or the like, but life – things and relations in terms of them, but not of them exclusively. ‘It is all in the mix’ is how I like to think about it. Everything, together. Asperger Syndrome will always be there, but is not, and cannot be, ‘there’ alone. It is like being a Virginian, which neither ends when I leave that state, nor prevents me from doing so.
Currently, I am well and gain unemployed, especially in terms of the work which this article, in part, represents - which is just one among many other works-in-this-project that I have on-going. This fact has something to do with my Asperger Syndrome – or, rather, the Asperger has something to do with it. That much I know. I also know that it was – is - probably not everything that had something to do with my becoming - my being – unemployed. This fact goes back to the ‘weirdness’ that people, especially my peers, notice(d) about me: There is something there, even if you cannot put your finger on it.
Yet, there is more to it than that. As I realized back in high school, ‘it is not altogether, all me.’ I have heard it said that “attitude is the only real handicap.” However, it is not all my attitude (although that is an undeniable part of it, one way or the other), just as it is not all my Asperger Syndrome – my ‘aspie-ness.’ Awkwardness, discomfort, confusion, . . . and even fear have been a part of what my life has been, coming from both myself and others. This was and is part of my work history, my academic ‘career,’ and my life in general. Anger has also been a part of it, but please do not think that it is meant to be expressed here. After all, usually my most favored word to describe my feelings about things when they get difficult is ‘frustration,’ although both I and others have confused it for anger.
There it is again – confusion. And awkwardness, discomfort, . . . and frustration.I had a job interview, but as of this writing, will have to wait two weeks to hear anything about it, one way or the other. Whether or not I get that, or any other position I apply for, the same thing will always be true, wistfully. . . . .
. . Life goes on. . . .
'On Being as "SWEET" AS-PIE'
