1970s PRIVATE LIFE
0228 Aspergers or Manic Depressive
If you ask other people about me, some might say that I was awkward, if not strange at times. More still might say I was overbearing. Certainly I can sometimes be insensitive in my relations with others. Even so, I am sure they would never dream that it might be more than that. I don't even know myself whether it is more than that.
However, examining myself in more detail, I think I might be subject to a trace of Aspergers, or something like it. My main symptoms revolve around not being able to fully relate to other people. On other hand, I think in my case it is very minor trait, since I can still observe – in minute detail - what other people's emotions are. You can't be top selling salesmen unless you are able to do that. Certainly, though, I have few real friends, at least male friends; although that may have been just as much due to force of circumstance – working all hours and moving around the country to match the needs of my career. I get on well with women, perhaps because of my gender instability, and I also get on with strong managers. But weak managers simply can't handle me, and generally fear me, because I am such a powerful personality (who, at best, they see as a loose cannon!).
On the other hand, I have fairly low self image. You can argue that I married Pat because she was a mother figure, though probably that problem disappeared long ago. I suspect Miles in going away with Julie, the woman who seduced him at the age of 15, was behaving in pretty much the same way.
I also am an exotic mix of introvert and extrovert. I am pretty sure that, deep down, I am an introvert. I originally wanted to be a scientist, and my scientific way of approaching work problems probably indicates a lot about my approach to life. I certainly am able to stand back and view issues dispassionately. That is a good thing from the work point of view, but it's a terrible thing for my relationships with my managers and peers. They want me to join them and to commit 100% to their concerns.
At the same time I have performed as a very successful extrovert, though I suspect this is an act. As I have said already, I was a very successful salesman -- and that is supposed to indelibly imprint you as an extrovert. But I was successful because I managed to use my introverted skills to subvert the salesmen's stereotype.
I have always had such problems, and they got in the way of my relationships with my bosses and often with Pat. Accordingly, in the mid-60s I spent two years in psychoanalysis. This was fascinating, since it gave me an incredible insight into who I was and what I was. The qualification for psychoanalysts is that they must have been through psychoanalysis themselves! I still didn't, unfortunately, build up my ability to get on with my managers. I like to reason that this was because of my integrity. I just wouldn't live with the changes to my personality demanded, and there is probably some truth in that, but at least it did let me self-analyse my problems; as I am doing here!
Later on when I had my breakdown, at the end of my career, my psychologist took me through the process of cognitive therapy. The essence of this was that, having decided my main problems, she spent the time with me very successfully rebuilding my ego -- trying to rebuild my self-image. Unfortunately at the time the OU was just as desperately undermining my self-image; so the process was not successful as it might have been.
What was never diagnosed, but I suspect might have been present in part, was a touch of the manic depressive. Sarah has certainly suffered from this. On the other hand, my own symptoms have always been controllable – except that is when I suffered from my final breakdown and even then the diagnosis was, I think correctly, attributable to other factors; especially to overwork. However, what some see as almost uncontrollable enthusiasm – and others see as a domineering search for power – actually has many of the aspects of the manic phase of this condition. But then many other ‘change agents’ have also been driven in this way! There is a fine line between genius and madness, and fortunately I never quite crossed this.
hits