Or everyone else is just a really convincing robot

Here's the video I was waiting for. It would be interesting to see if an fMRI study of neurotypical adults compared to adults on the autism spectrum showed any difference in the rtpj region of the brain or if the magnetic redistribution of neurons showed any temporary changes in the responses those on the spectrum would give to empathy questions.

Windows to the Soul

When we discuss problems with in-laws or a partner's primary love language, we're talking about practical issues and how to successfully change our habits to address them. There's a topic I've been wanting to discuss that's in a completely different realm and I haven't known how to put it into words. Fr. Frank Pavone's recent blog post about eye contact unknowingly gets to the heart of my unresolved issue with my husband's Asperger's: it's in his eyes.

Eye Contact
Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director, Priests for Life

It’s a basic aspect of human relationships: make eye contact. When we fail to do so at the appropriate times, we fail to show interest in the other person. We may seem too distracted to care, or perhaps ashamed of something. Failure to make eye contact is failure to connect.
[...]
When you love a person, you want to look into his or her eyes, rather than loving from afar. You want to see the person’s face. Even the love of God is described this way. The Book of Revelation announces the ultimate destiny of the human family, the culmination of their salvation, in this way: “They shall see Him face to face” (Rev. 22:4)
[...]
The eyes teach us about the one who suffers, whether it be an animal or human victim. For a moment, we pierce the veil that separates our experience from theirs, and temporarily see and feel the world as they do.

OK, so my husband is literal in his speech.

OK, so he has trouble processing emotions.

OK, so he doesn't read between the lines.

These are all morally neutral differences between people which can be bridged with patience, knowledge, and perseverance. This is all in the realm of thoughts or feelings, but deeper than that is a longing in my soul they don't touch--a longing for my husband's salvation. My marriage is my vocation and my God-given work. It's the way I will learn and live and do to become the person I should be, and to help my husband and children do the same. We're not talking about my love language; we're talking about love itself.

My personality predisposes me to a certain set of sins. Gluttony isn't something I ever struggle with, but visit me on a particularly rough day and you'll most likely see me despairing, being slothful or vain, and I might be induced to unrighteous anger. Like every other faithful Catholic I know, I am constantly confessing the same struggles and failings. By willfully choosing to reorient myself and ask for His graces and forgiveness, I hope to eliminate these sins from my life and to bring my actions into accordance with God's will. Tears flow from my eyes as I long for better and more and know how short I've fallen of what I'm capable of achieving.

Baptism washes off those evils that were previously within us, whereas the sins committed after baptism are washed away by tears. The baptism received by us as children we have all defiled, but we cleanse it anew with our tears. If God in His love for the human race had not given us tears, those being saved would be few indeed and hard to find (St. John of the Ladder).

My husband's current inability to pierce this veil, to see and feel the world as others do, keeps him from knowing the pangs of love or the agony that comes from not living in accordance with it. I don't mean the giddy feeling of excitement, but the indescribable depths of emptying oneself for the sake of another that only composers and poets come close to conveying. It is out of this love that we were created and to it that we are called and in which my husband and I should be actively participating so that we can make it present for our children. It's the life and presence that can be seen in the eyes, the windows to the soul.

Matthew 6 (Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition)

21For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.
22The light of thy body is thy eye. If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome.
23But if thy eye be evil thy whole body shall be darksome. If then the light that is in thee, be darkness: the darkness itself how great shall it be!

Most of the time, my husband's eyes are dull and cast downward. I've read of some people with Asperger's feeling actual pain from looking others in the eye because of the emotional intensity of it. There is no question to them that it is an intimacy, a vulnerability, and a sharing of themselves with another in a profound and personal way and it is for that reason they avoid eye contact. My husband hasn't expressed or shown discomfort from looking in people's eyes, but he rarely ever does. It symbolizes to me my husband's disconnect from the divine reality within and around him. They exemplify a self-servitude that is irreconcilable with living within a relationship, with one's wife or one's Creator. I know that when his eyes are lifeless that he will not be a spiritual leader of our family, will not see himself as someone who has done specific things he shouldn't have thus creating room for him to grow, and will not love me in this deep and abiding way to which he is called. I know when I look in my husband's eyes if he desires salvation for himself or for us not with intellectual assent, but with his soul. The answer often scares me.

Where is my husband's treasure? Where is his heart? Where is the light in his eyes? When his eyes shine because he is acting out of that Christ-like self-emptying love, everything else in our life falls into place. That doesn't mean it all becomes a bed of roses! It means that our yoke is heavy but our burden is light and we're able to successfully address these other issues. When it happens, it is like Saul on the road to Tarsus who had been blinded, but upon turning to God regains his sight and the rest of his life as St. Paul fell into place. "And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was baptized... (Acts 9:18)" With that spiritual awakening, there is peace in our house. We have a harmony and an intimacy. It is as if we effortlessly float about, not even needing to take harsh plodding steps. Then with a snap it is gone. Thunk. We hit the floor and my husband walks away in a dull stupor, as if it were all a dream.

I don't think spiritual direction would, could, or should address those practical problems of in-laws or primary love languages, but it seems to me that there is a clear need for spiritual guidance that addresses the spiritual predispositions that having Asperger's inclines him to. For my husband, his sins are usually those of omission instead of commission. Those with obsessive-compulsive disorder or anxiety are likely to become scrupulous and need specific and different, often even contrary guidance than the mainstream receives, especially regarding their confessions. There are detailed guides for them available and special training for confessors for working with the scrupulous. I believe those with autism spectrum disorders require the same, including the need to place oneself under the guidance of a single spiritual director who is well-informed in how to address these needs.

I want to know that despite love languages and communication barriers and neurological wirings that my husband loves me. I want the peace that I get rare glimpses of to pervade our relationship and our home. I want to look in my husband's eyes and see God.

Ephesians 5
25Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it:
26That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the layer of water in the word of life:
27That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any; such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish.
28So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself.
29For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the church:
30Because we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
31For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh.
32This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the church.

An Apple a Day

While a person might be described as passionate, somber, or as a worry-wort, it isn't until those people become manic, depressed, or paranoid that those in the medical profession may ethically intervene. The debate is when a person has gone far enough outside the bounds of "normality" to necessitate medical intervention and who gets to decide that an individual has gone too far.

What is the goal of the medical profession's treatment, anyway? Is it to bring people into the range of normality or to completely eliminate the deviation? Should a person be left just a little bit cancerous? Just a little manic? Just a little depressed? Individuals with bipolar disorder are said to be more realistic and to have a better perspective on their emotions, to be more creative, better at setting goals and have greater motivation than the average person. Some of the world's finest artists are considered bipolar. There are streams of thought that doctors should only treat the depression side of bipolar disorder, should only treat the mania if the person is in physical danger from it, or should only treat the mania enough to bring it down to the hypomanic state and not to eliminate it. This is influenced by the requests of those in manic states who refuse to take their medicine and say they feel great and don't want to be brought back down. What is a doctor's obligation in this situation?

Derek Paravicini's blindness is said to be one of the contributing factors in his auditory abilities that make him a musical savant.

Stephen Wiltshire's memory for details that aid in his being an artistic savant might be partially explained by his autism.

If Derek's blindness and Stephen's autism were taken away, would their quality of life be benefited or harmed? If they would be harmed, would it be ethical to treat them for these conditions? Who decides?

With the proliferation of depression medication in the USA, people aren't feeling happier. Are the treatments helping? Is it ethical for doctors to prescribe a treatment that might work, even though it might exacerbate the problem and they don't really understand what's going on with the problem or how the treatment works to address it?

In the deaf community, no treatment was available and an identity of being deaf emerged. One had to accept that this was one's reality and would remain so. In combination with being unjustly connected with insanity or mental deficiencies, those who were deaf could not function within the larger community because the larger community rejected them. It was only through schools like Gaullaudet University that deaf students were empowered to become fully functioning members of society. There, they learned deaf culture among their other studies to learn to be proud of who they were and the great people through history who were deaf, who helped shape a community they could belong to with pride, and their own language--American Sign Language.

With the advent of cochlear implants, controversy arose. Was deafness something needing to be fixed? Was a parent denying a child his heritage if the child was removed from the deaf community by becoming a hearing person? Were those with cochlear implants traitors? Some high schools and colleges began removing ASL from their approved foreign language credits. In some circles, the treatment for deafness led to the deaf community being expected to fully integrate and not maintain a separate culture. Many (most?) in the deaf community did not and rejected any calls that expected them to do so. They said they didn't need or want to be fixed--there was nothing wrong with being deaf.

Following on its heels, autism diagnoses are on the rise. What is widely established as an incurable syndrome that must be accepted as one's reality is now being challenged with people like Jenny McCarthy claiming to have cured her son of autism through intensive therapy.


Did her son have autism? Was it caused by vaccines as she believes? Should she have tried to cure him of it? Are some or all forms of autism curable? Numerous treatment models, adaptations, diets, modified vaccination schedules, and other ways of trying to treat autism have arisen, but enough information isn't available yet for any consensus.

In the void, an autistic identity has developed for some in which they identify as being autistic, see it as a source of pride, identify with famous people in history who might have been autistic, and do not want to be treated for something they don't see as wrong. Which brings us back to the question of when a person has gone far enough outside the bounds of "normality" to necessitate medical intervention and who gets to decide that an individual has gone too far. When it comes to Asperger's and autism, what do you think?