This week, I would like to talk (well, write) about how my Asperger’s affected me as a child and how it helped me become a musician. I’ve written before about how having Asperger’s always made me feel “different” and like I was an outsider or somehow broken, and how music was my bridge back to that missing sense of human connection. In a long blog post entitled WHY I PLAY MUSIC, I detail how I felt as a kid, how I got into music in the first place, how the song “Born to Run” changed my life and other takeaways from growing up with Asperger’s. It’s probably the most heartfelt and interesting thing I’ve written on this blog, so if you haven’t read it, it’s probably worth your time.
But, today, I want to focus on a different aspect of having Asperger’s, which, for those who don’t know, is on the autism spectrum towards the milder end. It used to be referred to as high-functioning autism, but they don’t really use that term, or even Asperger’s, much anymore. Another thing I will clarify right off the top is that I am only speaking to my own experiences. When they say autism is a spectrum, they fucking mean it. So, I don’t want people to think my experiences represent everyone who has Asperger’s, because just like all humans, we are all different.
The aspect of having Asperger’s I am focusing on in this blog post is my attention span. It’s well documented that people with autism or Asperger’s are more prone to having ADHD then the general population. In fact, I believe I’ve read that ADHD is the most common comorbidity with regards to autism spectrum disorder. But, the first thing I think really needs to be addressed is how often ADHD is mischaracterized. We typically only talk about ADHD in the way it most commonly presents in young boys, who are, not coincidentally, also the most diagnosed group. People tend to think of those 10 year old boys running around a classroom while the teacher does everything they can to calm them down before sending them to the nurse’s office so he can take his Adderall for the day. And yes, those kids do exist. I knew a lot of them growing up. But, mine presented in completely the opposite way: I was hyperfocused and could spend hour after hour researching dinosaurs in the library until they told me I had to go home. Often, the reason I would get in trouble wasn’t because I wasn’t doing my school work but because I had finished the week’s work on Tuesday so I would be bored and act out the rest of the week. I always thought it was funny that teachers thought it was a punishment to kick me out of the class I clearly didn’t want to be in. My work was done so I didn’t want to be there listening to them blather on anymore so kicking me out of class felt more like a reward for my hard work. Those poor teachers who had to deal with my shenanigans… But because of this, clearly I didn’t have ADHD (or ADD, as we called it at the time), right? Wrong. I probably had it worse than most of those other boys but no one knew because of our narrow view of it as a condition.
I read recently there has been a push to rename the condition to more accurately describe how it affects people. This is the new name they chose: “Variable Attention Stimulus Trait” or VAST. That is far more accurate and would help so many kids, and adults, get the help they need. Because, and I’m sure not alone here, that describes me to a T. Just last week, I was mixing some new songs when I suddenly realized it was 9 hours later and I hadn’t eaten anything that day. Or, there are days when I can’t even send out booking emails (which are like half copy-paste anyways) because I keep opening new tabs to look up some random thing that just popped into my head, and now I’ve got 14 tabs open, haven’t sent out 1 email yet and 4 or 5 hours have gone by. Yep, my ADHD is so fucked that sometimes I can get hyperfocused on my attention deficit. It’s fun…
Anyways, here’s part of the DSM 5’s signs to look for with regards to autism or Asperger’s:
Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g, strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interest).
Another website listed examples like if a kid collects bottle caps or rocks or memorizes baseball statistics or the Latin names of animals, things like that. I’d like to add one that I’ve personally seen more than any other one: dinosaurs. And again, everyone’s experience is different but I have seen an obsession with dinosaurs pop up in at least 5-6 kids who have autism or Asperger’s. In fact, I even remember dinosaurs being a reason I met and befriended a kid who we now know to also be on the spectrum. I’m not saying every kid that is obsessed with dinosaurs is on the spectrum but if a seven year old can name not only the name the dinosaur but also tell you their size, the region they inhabited, their population and the time period they were alive, then maybe think about looking into some of the other signs and symptoms of autism spectrum disorder with your doctor.
So, the attention span fluctuation is basically baked into just the Asperger’s part of my brain and then you add in the ADHD on top of it. In other words, I had a fucking shitload of attention to put towards something, and as a kid, sports were my “perseverative interests.” My whole childhood was consumed by sports. Baseball in the summer, football in the fall, basketball in the winter, short break and then back to baseball. I studied the backs of baseball and football cards and memorized statistics. I knew every player on every team of the three major sports (I do not and will never count soccer as a major sport. It is terrible game created by Satan himself to punish us. Soccer is so boring I’d rather watch a Senate subcommittee discuss infrastructure funding…). I watched Sportscenter in the morning and at night so as to never miss a highlight. The only video games I played were sports games like Madden, NBA 2K or NHL ‘94 (still the only hockey game I ever played). You get the picture.
So, when I tore my achilles in high school and wasn’t able to play sports anymore, that attention needed to go somewhere. Eventually, after some very unhelpful personality tests (which is kind of a funny story, you can read it HERE), my favorite teacher ever helped me land on music as the thing to take up an inordinate amount of my time and brainpower. Only one problem, I couldn’t play the guitar or sing a note to save my life. I had purchased a guitar a couple years earlier which was collecting dust in my closet; which, somewhat ironically, sat right next to my giant plastic bins full of baseball cards and sports memorabilia that I went through all the time. It’s almost like it knew its time would come but just had to wait until the sports stuff got shoved to the side. Or they sat next to each other because I had a tiny fucking closet. Either way.
I wanted to play music but it felt even more unattainable since I had tried and failed just a couple years earlier. The teacher said if I really wanted to be a musician then I would just do it. “But how?” I asked. “I can’t sing to save my life and the only instrument I can kinda play is the trombone. I wish I could play guitar…”
“Then figure it out. I thought you were a smart kid…”
I loved this. It hit on a few things in my personality, not all of which are Asperger’s related but are probably affected by it somehow. It hit on my ego, which has always been overinflated. I love being challenged and proving people wrong. In fact, I think that might be the thing that motivates me more than anything else. And I love doing things that are difficult and require a long process to achieve a goal. And because of that crazy Asperger’s/ADHD attention span I have, doing something like learning an instrument which requires long hours of practice and attention is just what I needed to suck up all those hours that previously went to sports.
My first attempt at learning the guitar had failed since it wasn’t my obsession. Now, with sports out of the way, guitar was definitely my obsession. If I wasn’t at school or reading Kurt Vonnegut novels (something else I was unnecessarily obsessed with, which ended with me eventually owning every book he’s ever written, some with multiple copies as I got the books in bulk via ebay back when you could actually get deals on ebay, like getting ten of his books from someone for like $15 plus shipping…), I was playing guitar. I felt bad for my mom, my sister and especially my brother, who I shared a room with. The hours they had to spend listening to me caterwaul and invent new chords and sounds by accident, aka keep fucking up the guitar, are too many to count. But, because of that boundless attention, I spent hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month and then finally…I could play the rhythm parts for two songs: “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and “The Jack” by AC/DC. Yep, that was my reward for all that hard work. I could play “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” which is probably the easiest song in the world to play and “The Jack,” which is about as basic as a 12-bar blues song in E can be. In other words, I still stunk. I figured this might be the universe telling me that music is just not for me. “Try something else, idiot,” it kept saying. I thought a lot about giving it up, again.
But, because of my inherent stubbornness and the fact that I love doing the same thing over and over (thanks Asperger’s! These are traits that are definitely attributable to you), I just kept going. It probably would’ve been helpful if I could’ve afforded lessons, but the only “lessons” I had were a chord sheet someone had printed out for me and a giant AC/DC guitar tab book that I got from the Sam Goody in the Beaver Dam (WI) mall. I studied them harder than anything school ever threw at me. After maybe a year or so, I finally could start doing things on the guitar that sounded like actual music. Since I still struggled to learn other people’s songs, I started writing my own, ones that I could actually play. This is a strategy I would employ the rest of my music career. It’s often easier for me to write a song rather than learn an existing one. I’m not a naturally talented musician or singer, so trying to emulate someone else and the things they do doesn’t come easily to me. To learn a cover, I have to spend hour after hour playing the same song over and over and over. I’m sure my wife fucking hates every cover I do since she’s heard them all so much. My cat, she doesn’t seem to actually care. She’ll just sleep on the bed while I practice, apparently unaffected by me and my noise making. It’s probably the biggest confidence boost you can get when a cat is like “you’re doing a good job and I don’t find this offensive at all. I’ll just chill hear while you play. Wake me up when it’s dinner time...”
I don’t know if it’s related to the Asperger’s or not, but my brain just doesn’t seem to retain information well when I try to learn covers. I can quote every word of The Big Lebowski, a two hour movie, but struggle to the remember words to a fucking four minute song I’ve heard a million times. My Asperger’s brain is just so weird when it comes to these things. But, it’s the same thing that happens when I try to learn how to play the piano. When I picked up a guitar, the chords and theory just made sense to me; I just had to wait for my stupid fingers to catch up to actually be able to play anything. But it is very different with the piano. My brain has just decided that no matter how hard I try pianos just won’t really make sense to me. Calculus, no problem, aced it. A piano, get the fuck out of here. I don’t get it.
But, that’s what started my journey into music and songwriting. Thousands upon thousands of hours that could no longer be devoted to sports and my Asperger’s-related attention span, stubbornness and love of routines, with a little bit of ego shaming that helped push me over the finish line. Without those things, I can pretty much guarantee that I would have given up a second time and would probably be a math or history teacher. Which, for as shitty as many of them get paid, it would still be a pay rise for me. Maybe I should have given up. Shit, is it too late to quit? I feel like it is at this point. My closet is packed floor to ceiling with guitars, amps, PA speakers and all the unsold vinyl records and CD’s which mock me daily. My poor wife only gets like three feet of space to hang her clothes. The rest is all this shit I’ve accumulated over the years to serve this musical lifestyle. There’s no choice but to continue on this path until the stress or the booze or a car crash kills me. It’s been a hell of a ride so far and we’ll see what the future holds…
Who am I kidding, I love this shit…
This is the actual book I learned from all those years ago. Shit, I’ve been playing guitar a long time, I should be fucking better than I am. I suck…